#[which is also why a single post can take me several hours to write]

[cocklessboy]

The biggest male privilege I have so far encountered is going to the doctor.

I lived as a woman for 35 years. I have a lifetime of chronic health issues including chronic pain, chronic fatigue, respiratory issues, and neurodivergence (autistic + ADHD). There's so much wrong with my body and brain that I have never dared to make a single list of it to show a doctor because I was so sure I would be sent directly to a psychologist specializing in hypochondria (sorry, "anxiety") without getting a single test done.

And I was right. Anytime I ever tried to bring up even one of my health issues, every doctor's initial reaction was, at best, to look at me with doubt. A raised eyebrow. A seemingly casual, offhand question about whether I'd ever been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Even female doctors!

We're not talking about super rare symptoms here either. Joint pain. Chronic joint pain since I was about 19 years old. Back pain. Trouble breathing. Allergy-like reactions to things that aren't typically allergens. Headaches. Brain fog. Severe insomnia. Sensitivity to cold and heat.

There's a lot more going on than that, but those were the things I thought I might be able to at least get some acknowledgement of. Some tests, at least. But 90% of the time I was told to go home, rest, take a few days off work, take some benzos (which they'd throw at me without hesitation), just chill out a bit, you'll be fine. Anxiety can cause all kinds of odd symptoms.

Anyone female-presenting reading this is surely nodding along. Yup, that's just how doctors are.

Except...

I started transitioning about 2.5 years ago. At this point I have a beard, male pattern baldness, a deep voice, and a flat chest. All of my doctors know that I'm trans because I still haven't managed to get all the paperwork legally changed, but when they look at me, even if they knew me as female at first, they see a man.

I knew men didn't face the same hurdles when it came to health care, but I had no idea it was this different.

The last time I saw my GP (a man, fairly young, 30s or so), I mentioned chronic pain, and he was concerned to see that it wasn't represented in my file. Previous doctors hadn't even bothered to write it down. He pushed his next appointment back to spend nearly an hour with me going through my entire body while I described every type of chronic pain I had, how long I'd had it, what causes I was aware of. He asked me if I had any theories as to why I had so much pain and looked at me with concerned expectation, hoping I might have a starting point for him. He immediately drew up referrals for pain specialists (a profession I didn't even know existed till that moment) and physical therapy. He said depending on how it goes, he may need to help me get on some degree of disability assistance from the government, since I obviously shouldn't be trying to work full-time under these circumstances.

Never a glimmer of doubt in his eye. Never did he so much as mention the word "anxiety".

There's also my psychiatrist. He diagnosed me with ADHD last year (meeting me as a man from the start, though he knew I was trans). He never doubted my symptoms or medical history. He also took my pain and sleep issues seriously from the start and has been trying to help me find medications to help both those things while I go through the long process of seeing other specialists. I've had bad reactions to almost everything I've tried, because that's what always happens. Sometimes it seems like I'm allergic to the whole world.

And then, just a few days ago, the most shocking thing happened. I'd been wondering for a while if I might have a mast cell condition like MCAS, having read a lot of informative posts by @thebibliosphere which sounded a little too relatable. Another friend suggested it might explain some of my problems, so I decided to mention it to the psychiatrist, fully prepared to laugh it off. Yeah, a friend thinks I might have it, I'm not convinced though.

His response? That's an interesting theory. It would be difficult to test for especially in this country, but that's no reason not to try treatments and see if they are helpful. He adjusted his medication recommendations immediately based on this suggestion. He's researching an elimination diet to diagnose my food sensitivities.

I casually mentioned MCAS, something routinely dismissed by doctors with female patients, and he instantly took the possibility seriously.

That's it. I've reached peak male privilege. There is nothing else that could happen that could be more insane than that.

I literally keep having to hold myself back from apologizing or hedging or trying to frame my theories as someone else's idea lest I be dismissed as a hypochondriac. I told the doctor I'd like to make a big list of every health issue I have, diagnosed and undiagnosed, every theory I've been given or come up with myself, and every medication I've tried and my reactions to it - something I've never done because I knew for a fact no doctor would take me seriously if they saw such a list all at once. He said it was a good idea and could be very helpful.

Female-presenting people are of course not going to be surprised by any of this, but in my experience, male-presenting people often are. When you've never had a doctor scoff at you, laugh at you, literally say "I won't consider that possibility until you've been cleared by a psychologist" for the most mundane of health problems, it might be hard to imagine just how demoralizing it is. How scary it becomes going to the doctor. How you can internalize the idea that you're just imagining things, making a big deal out of nothing.

Now that I'm visibly a man, all of my doctors are suddenly very concerned about the fact that I've been simply living like this for nearly four decades with no help. And I know how many women will have to go their whole lives never getting that help simply because of sexism in the medical field.

If you know a doctor, show them this story. Even if they are female. Even if they consider themselves leftists and feminists and allies. Ask them to really, truly, deep down, consider whether they really treat their male and female patients the same. Suggest that the next time they hear a valid complaint from a male patient, imagine they were a woman and consider whether you'd take it seriously. The next time they hear a frivolous-sounding complaint from a female patient, imagine they were a man and consider whether it would sound more credible.

It's hard to unlearn these biases. But it simply has to be done. I've lived both sides of this issue. And every doctor insists they treat their male and female patients the same. But some of the doctors astonished that I didn't get better care in the past are the same doctors who dismissed me before.

I'm glad I'm getting the care I need, even if it is several decades late. And I'm angry that it took so long. And I'm furious that most female-presenting people will never have this chance.

[luckymousey]

Defending Trey Clover, an essay

I just fucking saw a post shit-talking about Trey and I'm so fucking angry that instead of shit-talking them back in my mind I'm going to write an essay about how I see Trey and why he's not a bad character.

I haven’t seen his dream, so there might be some mistakes here, and yes, there might be some slight spoilers for those who haven't seen his dream like me

⚠️English is not my first language⚠️

Trey Clover

We all know who he’s.

He’s like the older brother/mother of Heartslabyul.

The one who takes care of the young ones.

The one who tries to blend in with the crowd.

And also one of the most misunderstood and hated characters in all the fandom.

Like, all the hate directed to him is just because of the fact that he didn’t do anything to help Riddle when his mom caught them eating tarts.

All the haters don’t understand one single thing.

Trey was a kid.

He was just a kid, he didn’t know the real consequences of Riddle sneaking out, he just wanted to have some fun, like any child wants to, he had no real power against Mrs. Rosehearts, even if he shouted, even if he fought for Riddle, it would’ve been of no use, even more, I’m sure Riddle would have been punished in a worse way if Trey stood up for him, AND, his family and him had to endure a five hours yelling of Mrs. Rosehearts; Trey was behind his parents, looking how the tears flooded down his friend’s cheek, how Riddle’s mother was shouting and how his parents were being yelled at by something that wasn’t even bad, god damnit, he was severely affected by everything that happened that day.

They even mention in his dream (I read this as a spoiler, I’m not sure) that his family laugh at what happened that day, but I don't think it's a: “it wasn’t bad at all, just a slight, small scare” laughing, but a “I can’t cry about it, so I can only laugh” laughing (like, everytime the teacher hands out our exams, a lot of my classmates say this)

And Riddle’s mom is someone pretty famous.

Trey once said that they were curious about the kid who lived in the biggest house in the neighborhood, so that means she’s also pretty rich.

In other words, she is powerful.

(Power means the money and fame, but it has another meaning, which I’ll be talking about later)

There was nothing a family of bakers could do at that moment, even if they were kind of famous, much less a 10 year old kid.

And think about how he felt when he realized Riddle wouldn’t be leaving his house for a long time.

Think about how he felt when he received his NRC admission letter (or whatever the crow sends them), thinking about how he probably won’t be seeing Riddle, no matter how much he hoped for it, now that he was going to study somewhere else.

Think about how excited he was about Riddle’s admission in his same school only to be greeted by the reflection of the woman who shouted for 5 hours straight, in his parents’ bakery, some years ago.

Trey wasn’t and isn’t a bad friend, he was a ten year old child and in the Heartslabyul Arc he was an eighteen year old who was still traumatized, no matter how he tried to hide it, he’s not fine, he’s not ok, he’s not alright. He’s not as extremely traumatized as Riddle, who suffered years of abuse from his mom first hand, but he’s still bothered by what happened.

Unlike a lot of people say, Trey did not encourage Riddle to become a tyrant, he did not try to mold him into one, and he did not accept Riddle’s new way of being.

He just didn’t know what to do.

As I said before, he was excited to see Riddle again, he really was, Cater said Trey couldn’t stop talking about Riddle to everyone, so the fact that Riddle had a 360º change (a change that resembled him a lot like his mother), kind of scared him, because that Riddle wasn’t his friend, he wasn’t the Riddle he meet when they were kids, he wasn’t the Riddle who laughed, played and spent his time with.

We could say Trey was paralyzed for one whole year and some months because he was still trying to find a way to digest all the new information he received.

It would be something similar to living but not living at the same time.

He was studying, baking cake as always, taking care of his peers, you know, being his usual self; but deep inside, he was processing everything, he was trying to understand Riddle.

Honestly, I even imagine Trey broke down into tears, in front of his family, when he went back home for the winter holidays in his second year.

I am sure he was affected by how much Riddle changed in all the time they didn’t see each other.

Now, even if he was paralyzed, why couldn’t he try to stop Riddle?

Because Riddle became just like his mom, if someone said something he didn’t like, he would get beheaded, and that only makes Trey think back of Riddle’s mom, because it’s the same situation.

He had no power against him.

And yes, yes, he can overwrite Riddle’s UM, but…would that change Riddle?

Of course not.

And that's what I was referring to when I said he had no power against his mother, it’s not only about magic, money and fame, but also the fact that neither of the two Rosehearts would change their way of thinking so easily, they would be constantly: “I’m right and that’s final” (Riddle’s way of thinking was more like: “my mother is always right, so if she says it’s like this, then it’s like this”)

Because of that, Trey started thinking: ”I can’t change him, so the only thing I can do to not make anyone suffer anymore is to try to please and calm him down”

There was no way Trey would’ve been able to stop Riddle with that thought in mind, so Trey in reality is not a ‘bad’ or an ‘useless’ character, he is the type of person who needed a little push to realize that it was better to try than not trying at all. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So, yeah, this is my essay, nothing more, and I hope that those haters finally understand Trey’s whole design and purpose in the history

(Also, a lot of people also say that his dream is dumb and everything, and, again, I’ve not seen his dream, it has not been translated and I sadly don’t have the game, but I know that he’s the type of person who likes to bake sweets and offers them to comfort people, so in reality, I don’t think his dream is dumb, I think that is the way he sees people can be happy, you know, like: “here, it won’t immediately solve your problems, but I’m sure one slice won’t hurt” type of thought (like what happened in one of Vil’s cards, I think it was Vil’s), he just wants to be in a place where everyone can be happy one way or another, and that ended up in them being turned into meatballs, because he believes that sweets always sweeten life (yes, I made pun on that))

[bizarrelittlemew]

Hello - just for the record, I do not know the person you’ve tagged in your post. I’ve not seen their blog. I found the gif on an image search. It’s also incredibly easy to create a gif from a video clip. So I don’t know how you expected me to know that one individual owned this particular gif. It would have been so much more helpful if you’d have just told me about it directly and given me their name instead of creating this passive aggressive, condescending post at my expense. A total stranger whose experiences and motivations you do not know. I only finished the show two days ago, and wanted to share my thoughts about it. That was all.

if it’s so easy, you should’ve made your own 🙃

OR if you absolutely needed a gif to "share your thoughts," you could’ve used tumblr’s Add GIF function. it’s right there.

listen, i was actually trying to be nice because i could see you were new, so i wanted to inform about fandom etiquette. i also gave you a link to a post explaining very gently why and how to credit gifmakers. but if you’re going to be rude and disrespectful in my inbox about it, i won't sugarcoat it anymore.

i did a reverse image source and found the post where the gif was from very quickly. i even linked it to you and you still put “google image” as a source?! (i see now that you've changed it to actually say their username but it was not like that this morning). you need to understand that the fact that you "do not know them" or "haven't seen their posts" (i linked the post to you in my reblog btw) does not change the fact that you posted something they made and the appropriate thing is to give them credit. i literally did the work of finding the source for you. proper credit is a username and/or a link to the original post, not where you "found it." the fact that a gif shows up in a google image search doesn’t erase the actual source or make it less shitty to reupload without credit.

i don’t tell people to credit gifmakers as a judgement of their character, so i don’t give one single fuck about motivations or excuses. i ASSUME people don’t know how much work goes into editing the kind of gif you stole because there is this culture of treating gifs like they just appear out of thin air instead of being created by A PERSON, usually a fellow fan. all i’m looking for is “thanks, i’ve added the credit!” and not this kind of bullshit because your feelings were hurt by being gently called out. i went into this thinking “oh they probably just don’t know how much work goes into it” but when you double down instead of accepting the help, you lose the benefit of the doubt.

you are also talking to a stranger btw, one who has put time and effort (for YEARS) into creating gifs. the type of gifs you see here in gifsets on tumblr are fanworks. there is a difference between plopping a video clip into an online gif converter and spending hours in photoshop making pretty gifsets to share with other fans. shitting on the people who make them is gonna make them stop sharing and creating, and make fandom worse for everyone. no one likes seeing their fanworks stolen, no matter if it’s fanart, fanfic, video edits, or yes, gifs. but if you’d actually read the post i linked you, you’d already know the feelings a lot of tumblr gifmakers share around this and wouldn’t have sent me this ask

i have several reasons for adding the source in a reblog to the post instead of writing privately. first, it attaches the actual source to the post, which is the main point for me. second, private messages can easily be ignored. third, i have had people ask me about fandom etiquette before and thus take this kind of thing as an opportunity to bring attention to the importance of giving proper credit (and i got a very lovely ask thanking me for it too, so this does help). although MOST often, i just let it go because it’s not worth the energy when people react like you do

i’d advice you to open your mind a little and listen when people tell you that you could do a small thing to make fandom less shitty instead of immediately taking it as a personal attack, because i genuinely wrote it assuming you just didn’t know and i wanted to inform you before you stepped on someone’s toes. but now you’ve stomped all over mine so here you go, we’re skipping straight past passive aggression to just aggression ✌️

[sitp-recs]

Hey do you have any Drarry fic recs which basically have Draco completely changing in 8th year/after the war, like he's dyed his hair and has tattoos and just has become more friendly and changed and Harry basically loses his mind? Kinda tired of the grovelling Draco or animosity fics atp.. Thanks :)

Hi anon! Omg yes, love me confused Harry losing his mind over a changed, hotter and confident Draco. This trope always delivers even when Draco doesn’t go through major physical changes (I love it when he gets extra though 🤌🏼). I have a few recs but they’re all post-Hogwarts, I hope they still work for you!

Enjoy the Silence by @shealwaysreads (M, 3.4k)

Draco stops speaking, gets some tattoos, and discovers that Harry’s happy to be quiet with him.

Under Your Skin by p1013 (E, 4k)

He initials another section and flips the page. Being a junior Auror is a lot more grunt work than he expected, and the paperwork isn't even the worst of it. He's also managed to catch intake duty. It's getting close to 2 AM, there hasn't been a single arrest brought in tonight, and he's still got another six hours before his shift is over. Rubbing a hand over his face, he prays for something, anything, to make the interminable evening better.

The Study of Change by p1013 (M, 4.3k)

Harry's going to hell. He's going to hell immediately. Even with all of the good he's done in his life, he's never going to overcome the impure thoughts racing through his head at the sight of Draco Malfoy looking like an academic wet dream in a room full of barely legal adults.

Starstruck by phrynne (E, 4.5k)

Yeah, Malfoy has pink hair. Or sort of. Half of his hair is shaved short and dyed an aggressive pink. The other half is still white-blond, a strand falling over his right eye, only the left side of his face visible at all times. He turns it slightly and spots me beyond the moving bodies. He doesn’t stop dancing, a smile plays on his lips. This time I don’t look away like I used to when all this began.

Sex on Legs in Six-Inch Heels by @tessacrowley (E, 9.6k)

Draco Malfoy is a brilliant freelance cursebreaker and the only one who can help the Department of Magical Law Enforcement with a very dangerous case, but more importantly, he's wearing six-inch heels, and Harry cannot handle it, he really just can't.

Dream by the Fire by GallifreyisBurning (M, 11k)

When Draco Malfoy resurfaces in England after eight years abroad—tattooed, pierced, and wanting to take over a corner of Harry's coffee shop to work on a writing project—Harry can't help but be intrigued. Where has he been? What is he working on? Why here? And why does he have to look so stupidly hot with all those tattoos?

Cold Like Fire by QueenofThyme (M, 12k)

Head Auror Harry Potter had no problem with mandatory consent training for his team. He’d actually been looking forward to it, that is, until he discovered who the teacher was. Now, he had no idea how he was going to get through the training without throwing a hex at Draco Malfoy. Or a punch.

In the Shape of Things to Come by @academicdisasterfic (E, 15k)

Existential angst and chronic boredom are plaguing Harry Potter in his cushy post-war life. However, a chance encounter with a tattooed, pierced, disgruntled Draco Malfoy in the middle of Muggle Camden seems to spark something in Harry again—and he never could stay away from Malfoy.

We Might Be Too Old for a Bildungsroman by @wellhalesbells (T, 21k)

Harry finds something he’s been looking for since the war’s end. Admittedly, the packaging’s a bit odder than he expected.

Ink (My Skin With Your Name) by Kandakicksass (M, 22k)

Several years after the war, an ostracized Draco Malfoy covers himself in tattoos, becomes best friends with a muggle, and debates abandoning magical society entirely to work in a tattoo shop. All in all, he's having a hell of a time trying to figure out who he is and what he wants to do with his life. The last thing he needs is to run into Harry Potter, who seems intent on becoming his friend, even if he has to get a lot of ink to do it.

All Bets Are Off by dualwieldteacup (M, 31k)

Harry Potter's latest security assignment brings him to Las Vegas for the International Wizarding Casino World Series. At a magic underwater hotel, he is tasked with guarding the legendary and mysterious gambler known as Snake Eyes. The stakes are high when both Galleons and emotions are involved. Not to mention peacock pool floats, secret pizza, and most importantly of all, second chances.

[wintrwinchestr]

checking in/where i've been

some personal rambling and life updates below the cut

so um hi. it hasn't really been that long since i've posted any drawing or writing but it feels that way to me. and i've been thinking for the past couple of days about making a post like this so here i am doing it now. i just thought i'd give a little explanation for where i've been and where i'm at.

i don't know if anyone noticed but i did turn my ask box off last month. after i posted my christmas joel drawing i got a handful of rude and accusatory anons about him in my inbox. i didn't respond or draw any attention to it but i still decided to turn off anon asks and then turn off my asks altogether so i could have some peace of mind. i also realized that turning off my asks would stop the "do you plan on continuing __?" and "when do you plan on posting more __?" type of questions, which also has given me more peace of mind lately. i appreciate that anyone has any interest or enthusiasm for my writing at all, but i just haven't had the answers to those questions lately.

my job has been chaotic for basically the entire two+ years i've had it, but it's been especially hard honestly kind of going all the way back to late last summer/early fall. drawing and writing used to be my escape from it at the end of the day, but lately my 9-5:30 has been more like 9-7:30/8:00, and i think i've worked every weekend of 2025 so far. i plan on working this weekend too. so needless to say, my job kind of sucks the soul out of me, and it's been worse than usual in recent months. every day i would go to work looking forward to at least being able to draw or write a little bit when i got home, and then that would end up never happening because i would get back home too late and have to go to bed before i knew it so i could do it all again the next day. there have been nights when i just broke down sobbing because of this job and truly felt like i was losing my mind. so i just decided i would take a break from creating for a while, because at least i wouldn't have to be disappointed and crying every night that i was too tired or didn't have enough time to continue doing the things that bring me joy.

"why don't you just quit or find another job?" you might ask. i was applying to jobs for a little while without hearing anything back, and then... i got promoted last week. so... maybe it's selfish and capitalist of me to say, but i think i'm just going to try and ride it out for at least a few more months while my new paycheck hits my account and not try to hit the road the second they actually give me the promotion i've been hoping to get for the past several months. sure, i hate staying at the office 2/2.5 hours past when i'm supposed to leave every night, and i haven't had a single work-free weekend in recent memory, but at least it's a little more worth it now. i'll deal with the stress and panic and crying as it comes.

i was also pretty addicted to tik tok until it got banned for all of about 19 hours, and i decided to take the opportunity to break my addiction and delete it from my phone altogether. i've decided to pick up reading books again, something i knew i should probably be doing but haven't really for the past couple of years, and i've been really enjoying it. even when i come home at the end of a long day and just don't have it in me to create anything, i can at least find half an hour to read a little bit instead of being sad and scrolling on my phone, and that's been helping me feel a little better.

so i guess what i'm trying to say with all this is that i don't know when i'll have a drawing to share again. i don't know when i'll be able to continue either of the series that you all have given me so much support on. i'm thinking about them almost every day, but... their stories will have to wait until my life is a little more stable. and i don't know when that will be. i'm more or less taking a break and allowing myself to not feel guilty about that.

i'm just trying to take everything one day at a time and keep as much of my sanity intact as possible. thanks for reading if you made it this far. i will leave you with one of the quotes that's been keeping me going recently.

"'Cause I didn't feel like there was kind of any moment past that moment. But there was, there was"

[yakutarts]

Sylphiel

My first Sylphiel fanart! Really wanted to draw him for a while now, and oh boy did it take me long to finish this. The total time I took drawing this piece was almost 8 hours scattered across several days.

More below the cut!

You might have noticed that Syl looks a lot different from his official design by Jakei, and that’s because I took the liberty to draw my own interpretation of this character (aka headcanons)!

Sylphiel, up to the time that I’m writing this post, has only been drawn in black and white, sketches/doodles and comic pages, with no separate ref sheet or a page dedicated to showing his features (he hasn’t had a single line of dialog yet). So I decided to make his hair a mix of black with white highlights.

For the eyes, black iris with white, cross shaped (or + shaped) pupils, I think this kind of eyes are the prettiest.

Clothing I didn’t change much, extended his hood to cover his shoulders and added a star on the tip of the hood, matching the tail (that I gave him), added more details to his shirt, in which still is sleeveless, pants are pretty much the same. Added a piece of glass to his belt for more diverse detail.

Made the wings more realistic and added a tail with has a star in the tip.

Also since I don’t really like monster designs that resemble humans too much, I also decided to give Syl some spots throughout his body! It’s a pettern that resembles a baby deer coat. Why baby deer especially? No real reason behind it, I just thought it looked cool and cute.

On more thing, I didn’t draw his feet here, but I do imagine him having hoove-like feet, not full blown horse hooves but something similar seen in Imps from Helluva Boss/Hasbin Hotel!

Gonna make some predictions about his personality:

I imagine him to be bold in nature and sassy when the opportunity comes up. But he also can be incredibly gentle when things get serious, teasing but caring. A little bit of a troublemaker and unorganized, but independent on most aspects. He’s also visibly an extrovert and confident but say the right words and he’ll get embarrassed and start stumbling on his words, although he’s quick to make a comeback. When he’s sad or really emotional, he tries to hide or do breathing exercises to try to recompose as quickly as possible, since he doesn’t like crying in front of others he thinks it’s cringe. More specifically, he thinks it’s cringe for him to cry in front of others, it’s fine when other monsters do it.

Sylphiel belongs to @jakei95

———————————————

This drawing was posted way earlier on my Patreon and my Ko-fi. Along with a 20 minute process video, WIPs, a PDF and a Procreate file with all the layers, a unglazed, unwatermarked, full HD version and extra doodles!

Ko-fi is purely SFW while Patreon will contain adult content.

[sinful-karateka]

I'll bite and talk about something that doesn't get enough spotlight in general, which are Demetri's and Eli's family life. So obviously several fic authors have their own twists and flavors to this, but if I may sell you something for a sec.

So far into the series, what we've got are these facts:

Demetri's Mom is the only family member to be mentioned in the show.

Eli's parents were mentioned a couple of times.

That should be enough context to deduce two things:

Demetri could be an only child to a single mother, and;

Eli's parents involve themselves in the stuff that he does — including karate, who knows — though they tend to be tone deaf with his actual needs.

There's strong evidence to why the boys act the way they act (brain functions notwithstanding, but this isn't the post for that), which is why I think these deductions make sense. How their hypothetical upbringing is part and parcel to how characters behave in this series. Of course societal influence comes in second because obviously you've got a show that encourages learning karate as defense against bullies, but this show is also about generational chains and traumas! So why wouldn't their home life inform the way it informs the LaRusso's, Lawrence's, and Nichols'? But I digress.

In the span of the entire series, I've held onto this headcanon that Demetri's neuroticism and ability to anticipate his actions carefully stem from a household that needs these systems in place, much more for someone who likes to be on top of things. Since he's just a student, the only authoritative figure who can make executive decisions... is his mom. Add to the fact that she may be a working mom, so when Demetri tells Daniel about certain restrictions in learning karate, what could have made her decide to just write a letter instead vs. taking the time out to go with his son herself? I know I know it's narrative writing but like do you seeeee where I'm at here

Eli's family life is by far gave us early indications of his dynamic with his mother — but not so a father — in earlier seasons. It's possible that his mom is a stay-at-home one, but if I were to push the bounds of this box even further, I'd even speculate that she's retired early if it meant that Eli's dad is the one making most of the living. Like of course they'd get mad at Hawk for getting a tattoo at his age, I think any parent would! But the way he tells Aisha to exclude him from her stories tells us that there's not a lot that his parents know about the life he lives as Hawk. At this point we all know the kind of effort it takes to successfully carry it out because he has to go home every night. It's either he a) puts in a lot of effort into concealing this identity once he gets home, or b) his parents are rarely ever home, which again, feeds into another assumption that maybe Mrs. Moskowitz works certain hours.

All we know is they're never around a whole lot for these boys, which is sad! and also again, very Indicative of their classification as awkward nerds pre- and early karate. When I read along certain fics that consider and include how the rest of their characters besides the found families they've formed, it gives much more depth and potency to writing them, their flaws, and how they think.

For all we know, Mrs. Alexopoulos could be a lesbian making fun of her son for not slinging pussy like she does being rizzless unlike her, but don't let me explain that when we have @demetriandelibinaryboyfriends!

[batsplat]

your sampras/agassi post was life changing... my god

(said post) thank you!! I'm really pleased by the pick up that post has gotten - I don't post much about tennis on here, but it always has and always will be my number one sport and this rivalry is one that's very dear to my heart. incidentally, I got a similar ask prompting a write up of the henin/clijsters rivalry, so when I find the time I'll talk about them in similar depth too. now there's a rivalry that definitely deserves more attention that it gets

but speaking of agassi/sampras, while I have you here... there's one particular match from 1994 I only very briefly alluded to that does also speak rather nicely to the themes of that rivalry. it's the final of key biscayne (aka miami), played at a time when sampras is the dominant world number one and agassi is still on just the single slam. the reason why this match is so notable is that it could very easily not have happened. sampras was struggling with health issues at that point of his career - and before the match was scheduled to start, agassi came upon him lying prone on the locker room floor with severe stomach pain

sampras was not ready to start the match at the scheduled start time. by rights, it should have been agassi's win via walkover. the tournament directors requested that agassi agree to a delay of the match - it's particularly awkward to have to cancel a final, after all, with thousands of spectators present to see the big match (x)

On March 20, when Agassi entered the locker room before the final, he witnessed a very unusual scene: Sampras was lying on the ground, suffering from a stomach ache. There was no way Sampras could be ready to start the final on time, which would make Agassi the Miami champion. However, the world No 1 thought he would be able to play if Agassi agreed to delay the final by an hour. Agassi agreed. “It’s not about winning the tournament; it’s about taking pride in what you do,” Agassi explained later, according to The New York Times. “If I couldn’t beat Pete healthy, I didn’t deserve to win the tournament.”

delaying it by A WHOLE HOUR is just objectively extremely generous from agassi - though of course the expectation was that sampras surely wouldn't be particularly competitive anyway. sampras got an IV drip that managed to at least get him back on his feet and ready to take to the court. so at last, after all the fuss and delay, they manage to get the match started. here's agassi in his autobiography describing the delay:

After dispatching Becker, I’m in the final. My opponent? Pete. As always, Pete. The match is slated for national TV. Brad and I are both keyed up as we walk into the locker room, only to find Pete lying on the ground. A doctor and a trainer are leaning over him. The tournament director hovers in the background. Pete brings his knees up to his chest and groans. Food poisoning, the doctor says. Brad whispers to me, Guess you just won Key Biscayne. The director takes Brad and me aside and asks if we’d be willing to give Pete time to recover. I feel Brad stiffen. I know what he wants me to say. But I tell the director, Give Pete all the time he needs. The director sighs and puts his hand on my arm. Thank you, he says. We’ve got fourteen thousand people out there. Plus the network. Brad and I lounge around the locker room, flipping channels on the TV, making phone calls. I dial Brooke, who’s auditioning for Grease on Broadway. Otherwise, she’d be here. Brad shoots me an evil glare. Relax, I tell him, Pete probably won’t get better. The doctor gives Pete an IV, then props him on his feet. Pete wobbles, a newborn colt. He’ll never make it. The tournament director comes to us. Pete’s ready, he says. Fucking A, Brad says. So are we. Should be a short night, I tell Brad.

now, I reckon by now you should be able to guess where this is going. you can find the full match on youtube (samprasfan1987 one of the absolute goats of historical tennis match youtube), though unfortunately only with german commentary. here's three minute highlights with truly horrendous quality:

and I'd recommend it as a match to experience in its entirety. it's........ it's not the best match you'll ever see. it's not the best match those two have played. it's certainly a match those two have played. but, y'know, the thing about tennis is that sometimes it just isn't the best matches that are the most compelling... sometimes it's the matches where both players are fighting their demons. sometimes it's compelling to watch the demons win

because of course sampras can't do the decent thing and just roll over and die. he just HAS to come out swinging, clearly rattling agassi with how he can actually somehow play proper tennis in his condition. this match is such a fun little case study of what an absolute bitch it is to play a physically diminished opponent. the spectators, the commentator, you the viewer, and agassi himself - everyone knows that agassi SHOULD be winning this match. of course he should!! sampras was lying on the FLOOR an hour ago, he's had to IV his way back to his feet, agassi is giving him the "newborn colt" descriptors. and this kind of set-up does run the risk of making you feel like it's a lose-lose situation. if you win, you only won because your opponent was off your game. if you lose, then you're a fucking moron who couldn't even put away the weakest version of your rival

and it's clearly affecting agassi, who plays poorly at the start of the match. he quickly goes down 2-5*, double break to sampras, not finding his rhythm and reeling off a litany of cheap errors as sampras ticks up his games with typical metronomic efficiency. agassi might be making sampras' life easier, but sampras certainly isn't playing like a man who'd lain stricken with agony a short while earlier. then, however, agassi rallies - finds his game, loosens up, probably because he was already down on the scoreboard. the worst case scenario was already happening. the momentum switches quickly and it looks like sampras might be ailing physically after all. agassi still isn't playing his best - but he takes it to sampras, cleans up the error count a little and takes five consecutive games to win the first set 7-5. which, well. a physically healthy sampras generally does not get broken three service games in a row. not with his serve

so going into the second set, it looks like... well, maybe sampras had only about half an hour of decent tennis in him. now he's run out of steam, it's basically game over, right? agassi can cruise home to take the match and the title - probably shouldn't have let the first set get so spooky, but all's well that ends well. spectators got their show, agassi doesn't fall apart against a guy who might keel over any minute

except... except. first set to agassi, and the pressure's once again on him... once again, he's the guy who's supposed to be winning. sampras is down, might be out - he has no reason not to swing freely in a match he probably should be losing. and unfortunately for agassi, there's no guarantee sampras might not recover again physically somewhat after all. energy levels can wax and wane - if you're trying to manage some kind of physical issue, you might be struggling for a while before suddenly clicking back into gear again. agassi has the momentum, sampras has nothing to lose

you know what happens next. sampras gets better and better. agassi gives up a cheap break early in the second - by the third, sampras does manage to find a strong level. it's basically one way traffic. sampras takes the victory. agassi takes another blow

or, as the washington post would put it in a true all timer sports headline:

lovely

here is sampras' description of that episode:

Meanwhile, in a development I kept secret from everyone, I was battling physical problems of my own, although they were paltry compared to Tim’s. For more than a year, I had been struggling with bouts of nausea and an inability, at times, to keep food or even water down. The situation started sometime in 1993, and was so aggravated by the spring of 1994 that I was unable to make the start time for the final of the important Key Biscayne tournament, in which I was to play Andre Agassi. In a gesture I still appreciate, Andre agreed to postpone the scheduled 1 P.M. start of the final for an hour, while I took an intravenous glucose drip. I had been throwing up all morning, which I blamed on the pasta dinner I’d had the night before. The IV did the job, rehydrating me, and I went on to win the final in three sets. At the time, I wanted to believe that the episodes were somehow related to dehydration.

and his immediate post-match comments:

“I woke up at 7 feeling nauseated, heaving and gagging; I didn’t think I’d be able to go out and play,” Sampras added. “But I feel a lot better now. As the match wore on, the adrenaline started kicking in and I started to think I could win when the chips are down. That sort of showed me I’ve got guts.”

guts that were nearly spilling out of him at one point, one might note

and on agassi's side:

“Once he got in front, he started serving big, and that was it,” Agassi commented. “Part of me was saying there was no way he could stay out there for three sets…. I was wrong.” During the trophy ceremony, tournament founder Butch Bucholz thanked Agassi for his sportsmanship, and the runner-up received a standing ovation from the crowd. 

I'm sure agassi felt better getting a standing ovation for having been made a fool of

and that's the problem, isn't it, hinted at by agassi's own line - playing a diminished opponent forces you to think far far more than you should be. it increases the stakes. it makes you feel like you should be winning. it saps at your concentration. it requires you to resist feeling any sympathy or even pity for your opponent when they're struggling. it makes you wonder if you should be taking advantage of your opponent's condition, make them move around the court more, prolong the points, change your style of play to better suit the situation. it makes you wary of celebrating too much, partly out of respect and partly out of a sense of dignity, messes with your motivation levels. makes you think too much about how people are reacting to the match when you should be focusing on how you're playing it. it makes you try and peer into the future - wondering when their level might drop off, if you just need to hold out until their legs give way... all these extra considerations, eating away at your concentration and mental strength. on the flip side, it can make everything easier for the struggling player: they know they only have limited options to pull off the win, they know they probably shouldn't be winning, so they can opt for simplicity over turmoil

it's a universal dynamic in tennis, happens to the best of us - but this specific scenario does also feel like it just happens to be perfect for this specific rivalry. as always, pete; as always, denying andre. sampras, who could swing freely and fight as hard as he dared and show his guts and emerge victorious. agassi, plagued by doubts, second guessing himself as he lets his inevitable rival inevitably snatch away another victory. from right under his nose. after having been lying prone on the locker room floor in front of agassi's own eyes

as ever, of course, agassi himself puts it best:

But Pete does it again. He sends his evil twin onto the court. This is not the Pete who was curled in a ball on the locker-room floor. This is not the Pete who was getting an IV and wobbling in circles. This Pete is in the prime of life, serving at warp speed, barely breaking a sweat. He’s playing his best tennis, unbeatable, and he jumps out to a 5–1 lead. Now I’m angry. I feel as if I found a wounded bird, brought it home, and nursed it back to health, only to have it try to peck my eyes out. I fight back and win the set. Surely I’ve withstood the only attack Pete can mount. He can’t possibly have anything left. But in the second set he’s even better. And in the third he’s a freak. He wins the best-of-three match. I burst into the locker room. Brad is waiting for me, seething. He says again that if he’d been in my place, he’d have forced Pete to forfeit. He’d have demanded that the director fork over the winner’s check. That’s not me, I tell Brad. I don’t want to win like that. Besides, if I can’t beat a guy who’s poisoned, lying on the ground, I don’t deserve it. Brad abruptly stops talking. His eyes get big. He nods. He can’t argue with that. He respects my principles, he says, even though he doesn’t agree. We walk out of the stadium together like Bogart and Claude Rains at the end of Casablanca. The beginning of a beautiful friendship. A vital new member of the team.

such an impressive act of sportsmanship. so completely unrewarded. god, I LOVE the wounded bird trying to peck agassi's eyes out description. can you IMAGINE how annoying that must be if you're agassi? what a thorn in your side this one guy must be? what does it TAKE to put this bloke away? doesn't even have the decency to lose when he's needing an IV drip to take to the court. always, always, ALWAYS catching agassi by surprise. in their first slam final when agassi should've been the favourite, in that 2001 uso quarterfinal when agassi was in far better form, in their last ever slam final and match... even here, when sampras should have been a shell of himself. somehow sampras finds something, somehow he has an evil doppelgaenger to send out in his stead. no wonder he kept scrambling agassi's brain. what a nightmare to deal with

[mrhaitch]

Hello Mr. Haitch, how are you ? I reckon that since you're an author married to an another wonderful author, you may be familiar with the self-doubt and overall bleh feeling that comes with writing and not really finding pleasure or purpose in it anymore. My question is : how do you deal with that ? I don't see myself as a writer but I still try to nurture this hobby, it's just been hard when everything I write ends up feeling flat at best, unreadable at worst. I don't really have writer pals or readers who give me feedback and I was a bit sad to realise that even when sharing my writing on online spaces where there are no stakes, it still feels like a race to notes and interactions. How can I keep pushing past this ? How do I improve when no one gives me feedback ?

I'm doing well, thank you anon.

Yes this is all familiar to me, and it's something I'm presently overcoming myself (I think it's been over two years since I managed to complete something).

I think there's a few different things here to address so I'll take them each in turn.

Motivation - Loss of motivation is inevitable. All love affairs have peaks and troughs, creative ones doubly so. Accepting that what you're feeling now will pass in time can help, but it's not a cure. When I feel like a failure I try to remember something Neil Gaiman talked about a few years back: writing is a lot like trying to get to the top of a mountain, with every word being a single step closer or another foot surmounted. If you find there's a time you can't write, you're not going backwards, you're just standing in place. Sometimes you have to in order to catch your breath. Forgive yourself for taking a breather - and try to figure out why you need it.

Writing in isolation - This has been my own experience, to tell the truth. I hold a Masters degree in Creative Writing and sat through many hours of workshops, but even then it still felt like I was writing alone - that somehow the conversations that took place in those groups were competitive and unconstructive; everyone eyeing each other, asking 'do you like me? do you like my work? is this okay?'. Writing can be lonely, especially with that first draft where you're writing with the door closed, just figuring out the story one line at a time. You can experience several lifetimes in the space of an hour and occasionally emerge from your writing place, puffy faced and wild-eyed, feeling like you have to tell someone what you just witnessed, but find people give you a quizzical look and fail to understand. Working with others, sharing with others, especially people who do understand can be a wonderful balm for such extended (and sometimes necessary) solitude - but it can have it's own problems. Sometimes you internalise the expectations and tastes of others in such a way that proves more of a hindrance then a help. Which brings me to-

Writing for a social media profile - I've done this myself some times and fell into the same trap you describe: second guessing my work for the sake of a theoretical audience, interpreting a lack of engagement as a sign of my own failures or short-comings as a writer. Even when I published for the first time, and then again for a second, I have only met one person who read my work and it was only because they were published in the same anthology. The relationship between artist and audience is difficult, fraught might be a better word, and one that deserves its own post. Sometimes the audience feels they're owed something by the artist, sometimes the artist senses that expectation and subjects their work to censure to adapt it to what they think the audience wants from them. In the end you've got a work that satisfies no one. Social media can help you find an audience - but it's also a medium built around habit, dependency, and engagement. It's not a true reflection of your worth, but rather how closely what you produce as an artist best fits that platforms algorithms and business models. And, here I'm flirting with arrogance a bit, you should never really concern yourself with what everyone might think.

As for advice, here's the best I've got: find whatever it is that brings you to the page and keeps you there. If trying to satisfy the expectations of others isn't helping, then focus on what you want. How would you tell this story, if you were the only person to ever read it? How would you excite yourself, challenge yourself, enlighten yourself?

Beyond that I'd suggest reading a lot and reading widely. Feed the creative compost heap that dwells in the darker, mustier corners of your mind, and see what weird and wonderful things take root.

And if you want something to prime the engine, watch this short interview with Ray Bradbury towards the end of his life. It always cheers me up:

[eliotquillon]

BOOKS: 16, 3, 5

16. What is the most overhyped book you read this year?

nobody get mad at me. but buddha of suburbia by hanif kureishi. don’t get me wrong i LIKED this book!!! i love edgy literary fiction (coming out as a moshfegh enjoyer) and i love gross borderline TMI details and i love a messy protagonist and i love a clean writing style. this ticked all of those boxes and it’s a good coming of age story and i get why it was and still is popular. but did it blow me away? no. the edition i read had a foreword by zadie smith that basically acted as if it was god’s gift to literary fiction and idk maybe that skewed my expectations but it just wasn’t! a solid 4 star train read but it did not change my life and i was kind of expecting it to (especially because kureishi wrote the screenplay for my beautiful laundrette which is one of my favourite films EVER).

3. What were your top 5 books of the year?

AGHH this is tricky.

maybe this is cheating because i had to read it for my dissertation but a single man by christopher isherwood had me crying in public. again, more literary fiction, and as with most of isherwood’s work it hasn’t exactly aged gracefully in places, but it is just so…raw. i can take or leave isherwood’s attempts at humour but what he IS very very good at is portraying grief, especially in the stream of consciousness format. even when it isn’t the explicit focus of a passage or a chapter it’s always in the room and it just absolutely gutted me. honestly this book had the effect on me that everyone said i was supposed to get from mrs dalloway. i don’t think isherwood is a better writer than woolf overall but IN THIS ONE RESPECT…isherwood wins.

this one is top 5 not in terms of quality but in terms of ‘made my inner 13 year old very happy’: the sunshine court by nora sakavic. look okay when i was 13 i read the all for the game trilogy for the first time and it changed my brain chemistry forever. i may be an adult with an english degree now but when i found out there was gonna be a spin-off sequel you bet your ass i dropped everything i was doing to devour this book in one day. i would like everyone here to know that i was on the jeremy/jean ship train years before it was cool and i have the jerejean fanfic with thousands of kudos that was written and posted in 2017 to PROVE IT. i don’t have anything coherent to say about this book other than ‘objectively it was badly written but subjectively i had to lie down on the floor for several hours after reading it’ and that’s my truth. i would not wish this book series on my worst enemy. but nevertheless.

i also really liked manhunt by gretchen felker-martin. i’m not usually a horror/zombie apocalypse person BUT this is a very different take on it—i think i will do a very bad job of describing it so please look it up, it’s an ownvoices novel written by a trans woman. i was not a super big fan of the ending but everything up until that was very, very good—i normally hate gore but the body horror descriptions were super compelling and i think the plot works really really well as an allegory for transmisogyny.

rounding out the list: this year i finally got around to reading maus by art spiegelman and yeah. it just really is that good. by far the best graphic novel i have ever read and honestly the best non-fiction book i’ve read in a while. and finally: american sonnets for my past and future assassin by terrance hayes!! i was set sonnet from hip logic for a supervision essay (all fourteen lines are ‘we sliced the watermelon into smiles’) and it got me a) very into sonnets and b) very into hayes’ work in general. highly highly recommend. i am not a ‘poetry person’ for the most part (bold take for an english major, i know) but this collection slaps. really made me rethink everything i knew about poetry.

5. What genre did you read the most of?

yeah there is a clear winner here and for better or for worse it Is literary fiction. i did not used to be a lit fiction person at all and then the summer before i turned 19 i got really annoying and really into ottessa moshfegh and now look at me . specifically i read a lot of modernism this year because my dissertation supervisor specialises in it and i am, once again, writing an isherwood diss lmao. and i also read a hell of a lot of short stories if we’re counting those as a separate subgenre (which i don’t, i class it as a form, but i know some people do). my teenage self would be so disappointed in me. i do have such a soft spot for genre fiction, specifically fantasy, and i DO still read a lot of it but i just lean more towards literary fiction now and that’s okay!!!

[kaija-rayne-author]

I'm doing a series of reviews as I play Dragon Age Veilguard. One or two posts a day, whenever I can play.

This is installment one.

Can't remember if I mentioned that a lovely person gave me a copy of DAV. And I'm so very grateful I can play close to release. So I can do an unbiased review series.

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I'm on media blackout while I play this, so I'm only getting second-hand info on how awful it is right now in the DA Fandom. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Though, every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you bozos ever played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

I'm seven hours in. (2 in CC so 5 playtime.)

Spoilers for DAV. Dragon Age Veilguard

Also, this is all my off the cuff writing. I haven't the time, energy, or desire to edit them.

Five hours in... I can confidently say welp, it's a game. It is indeed a video game.

I don't hate it? Most of it? Can't say I love it, either.

Background and environment folks did a fantastic job. And I was pretty sure they would. That part feels like Dragon Age. Except for the floaty spaceship thing in Minrathous. Intentionally not saying what it's supposed to be, because they do tell you.

Baddy design is as bad as I feared. If not actually worse.

I totally called it on several points, which gods escaped, for one. The fact that those 'demons' were gonna give me a headache, too. And the whole Solas Varric sitch.

CC is pretty good. Nothing ground breaking, but people should be able to make a character they like? You can make a good redhead.

I like the new codex design. I still preferred DAO for that one. Aaaannnnd I've already caught a couple editing errors in the text.

Extremely thrilled that my non-binary ass can be non-binary.

Yes, you can actually make a (slightly) pudgy character.

That is still not Solas. And you can't try to tell me I'll probably like him once I see him in game, anymore. I don't. He does still move the same, so they got that right. Still has the subtle humour, too, which, since Weekes wrote him, makes sense.

They were right, the characters do look better in game.

AND THAT IS STILL NOT A FUCKING DARKSPAWN.

My youngest kid just glanced at my screen and did a double take with a 'Ma? Why are you playing Fortnite?'

From the mouths of babes. He's right in that Fortnite player age bracket, FWIW. And no, he has no interest in playing Dragon Age. No matter how much they made some of it look like Fortnite.

Not feeling any of the romanceables, yet. But I've only met Neve, Lace, and Bellara. Alas my poor bisexual heart. None of the women do it for me. That may change, it's still very early as per in-game events.

I'm going to stick with it to see if it'll actually catch me up. Because it sadly has not, yet. By an hour in on my first playthrough of DAO, I was head over heels for Alistair. By 1 hour into Awakening, Anders had me. By hour 3 in DA2? Anders and Isabela both had me. By seven hours into DAI? I was very much in love with Solas, though I was playing a guy because I wanted to Romance Dorian first. (Still really loved Dorian.) But yeah, that bloody elf had me first, and I think it was at the first damned scene with him in it. Which is roughly an hour or so in?

I'm intensely curious about the story, and it's why I was so desperate to play it. So unless it somehow utterly offends me, (worse than those not-fucking-darkspawn and what-the-actual-fuck-are-those-demons already have) I'll finish it. Unless I lose interest. It's at least worth playing so far. I don't feel like I wasted the seven hours.

Fighting is reasonably easy to adjust to. And it'll be more fun when I get the hang of it. (For me, I usually don't have a lot of trouble picking up new fighting systems in games.)

Oh, and it took Astarion BG3 half an hour. 🤣

Please no spoilers if anyone responds. As I said, only seven hours in.

In case you're interested, here's my predictions piece.

And here's the second part in my ongoing review as I play series.

[fancy-feast-official]

instead of doing anything normal (like taking ibuprofen for my headache) i just spent the past four hours of my life writing an essay on why manfred von karma is abusive. kind of proud of it ngl.

also i tagged all quotes from the original post i'm talking about to their actual [user].tumblr.com site which has really bright colors fyi. i'll link the tumblr.com/[user] site at the end of the essay if bright colors don't work for you. also if ppl start sending me hate i'm just gonna block them.

In a Tumblr post by Wendy/Jessie Rose Rocket (referred to from here on as Wendy) on their interpretation of Manfred von Karma (MvK) in the Ace Attorney series, they argue that there is little canon evidence that MvK could have ever abused his children.[1] This however, is not the case, as there are various examples which they cite themselves that include traits of emotional abuse, including a hyper-controlling nature, manipulation, and invalidation of the victim’s feelings.

Before I get into the various examples given in the original post which indicate emotional abuse, I will say that I am not going to attack the more personal aspects of this argument, nor do I wish to attack any people who believe that MvK is not an abuser. I only want to look at the facts of his characterization and dissect the argument itself. Ignoring or overwriting the signs of emotional abuse in fictional characters can pose some threat to real people – if they’ll excuse emotional manipulation in fiction, they may be willing to excuse when they themselves are emotionally manipulated. I also think that it is misleading for Wendy to state that they are alright with abuse victims writing MvK as an abuser, before spending several hundred words explaining why they don’t think that MvK is an abuser, and that Ace Attorney fans are wrong in interpreting him that way.

Also, I will mention that both my own essay and the original post are triggered somewhat by the Filter Bubble Effect,[2] where content filtering and selection leads to a person only seeing one opinion or viewpoint. Wendy mentions that, while they see differing viewpoints on MvK on Tumblr, Twitter, and AO3, they do not see interpretations of him as abusive on other sites. I personally disagree with this statement as entirely factual, as before this post was made I had never seen interpretations of MvK as anything other than abusive. There is likely a split between these two interpretations, and I’m not willing to hazard a guess as to percentages in each camp.

With all that said, Wendy also mentions that both Miles Edgeworth (Edgeworth) and Franziska von Karma (Franziska) are “incredibly queer & nd coded.”[3] This is somewhat untrue. Both Edgeworth and Franziska are written as stuffy, calculating, and believing themselves to be entirely logical. While these are considered traits of neurodivergency, it is stated within the canon of the games that these traits have been trained in them by MvK. There’s an argument to be made on nurture versus nature (especially in the case of Edgeworth), but for the purposes of my argument I am going to say that this is more due to their upbringings than anything else.

While Edgeworth is somewhat queer-coded, it is only really present as a joke (Implications that Edgeworth isn’t aware that women find him attractive[4]), or because of his relationship with Phoenix Wright.[5] Franziska is not queer coded, though she is written as somewhat masculine compared to other female characters. This characterization is more a result of her being a female version of MvK and Edgeworth, and less to do with any alleged queerness.

The first piece of evidence which Wendy gives, under the context that it is “the one single piece of evidence that team fanfred brings to the table,”[6] are three lines from  Ace Attorney Investigations, both in the fourth case. The first is a conversation between Franziska and  MvK,

Franziska: Papa! You’ll come and watch my courtroom debut next, won’t you?

Manfred: Hmm… I’ll consider it.[7]

This conversation is rather innocuous, though it shows that MvK can be dismissive of his children at times. The more damning line is the second one which Wendy includes, where MvK says to Edgeworth, “A worthless person like you has no right to claim such a thing as perfection!”[8] This is one of many examples of MvK expecting nothing but perfection from both of his children. An expectation of perfection leads to Franziska and Edgeworth doubting themselves, and feeling worthless.[9] MvK places high importance on perfection, leading to his care for his children being conditional, reliant on their ability to be perfect.[10] Among other things, instilling self-doubt and worthlessness, and making acceptance or care conditional are signs that someone is being emotionally abusive.[11]

MvK is shown in various media to have a constant need for perfection and control of everything around him. in Ace Attorney Investigations, he manipulates aspects of cases so that he is guaranteed to win,[12] something he also does in “Turnabout Goodbyes.” It is completely reasonable that, when his own protégé does not display this inhuman perfection, he would be upset and lash out, as he does in the above example. Wendy notes that the word used in the original exchange, 半人前, does not translate to “worthless,” but instead to “an amateur / someone without experience.”[13] This, of course, is much more accurate to the context of their situation, but stating that the translation must have been made in bad faith is besides the point. There is no reason that MvK should be putting such high expectations for perfection on someone who, in real life, would not even have finished college yet. While it does not hold much weight as evidence for my own argument, it holds very little weight for their argument as well. However, it is important to cover this exchange, as they believe it is the only evidence a so-called “Fanfred” might be able to find indicating an abusive characterization.

Wendy continues on by listing the many ways in the anime that MvK is shown to be a good father. While they can be seen as evidence that he is not abusive, abusers can be nice to their victims, for a myriad of reasons. This can be done for any number of reasons, including: Bolstering the abusers image to the victim or outsiders, or to convince themselves they are a good person; As a manipulation tactic; And because the abuser is in the recovery phase of the abuse cycle.[14] I am going to focus on the former of these two reasons, as they are more likely in the von Karma situation. 

The most striking of the initial examples from the anime is Edgeworth’s statement that “he considers [MvK] the only person who was there for him after his father died.”[15] While this can seem like a positive thing, it is important to note that MvK very clearly isolated Edgeworth from his friends by moving him out of his house, away from his friends (who are not provided with any information as to why he’s gone). Social isolation is a tactic of abuse, used to tether a victim to their abuser so that they are more reliant on them.[16] The next examples of MvK complying with Franziska’s demands in an effort to make Edgeworth smile after he first moves in with them could be an example of him wanting to cheer Edgeworth up after the death of his father (who, I will remind you, was killed by MvK). However, this could have underlying motives, where MvK wants Edgeworth to open up to him, so that he might have more control over him. By killing Gregory Edgeworth, and raising his son to be as ruthless as himself, MvK takes care of the “curse” that he believes the Edgeworths to be.[17]

In the anime, MvK reacts rather calmly to Edgeworth’s first ever defeat during “Turnabout Samurai.” Wendy states that he seems “perplexed,” but is not in any way “cruel and unusual” what he says during that conversation.[18] Taken out of the context of MvK’s behavior, this is plausible. However, over the 15 years that he raised Edgeworth, he emphasized perfection over all else. Edgeworth’s reaction to losing is so negative because of MvK’s influences on his ideas of self-worth. In the conversation, MvK also advises Edgeworth to not have feelings, invalidating any feelings that Edgeworth might have about the cases he works on, feelings which can be necessary in determining the truth.

I agree with Wendy that MvK is, as they put it “a despicable fucking human being.”[19] In “Turnabout Goodbyes” alone, he:

Commits aggravated assault, including assault against a minor

Steals and tampers with evidence

Engages in conspiracy to commit murder, and is shown to have committed murder himself

Frames two people for murders that he was involved in

Due to his propensity for physical violence, it is no stretch to assume that he is physically violent with his own family members.[20] Even if he is not physically abusive, it has been shown time and time again that he emotionally abuses his children, and even despite that they look up to him. It is not uncommon for an abuse victim to love or care for their abuser. This can lead to blaming oneself for the abuse, and normalizing the abuse that is happening.[21] The reactions that Wendy wants to see in fics are plausible reactions for abusive victims to have when their abuser dies. It is possible for someone to understand they are being abused and yet still love the person doing the abusing.

Now, the lead poisoning business. Yes, it is possible for someone to get lead posioning from a bullet wound.[22] This is a plausible excuse for MvK’s behavior in later years, however, his tendency towards manipulation and hyper-control are present in “The Inherited Turnabout,” before he’s shot.[23] While lead poisoning does cause irritability, it also causes memory difficulties,[24] something that would hinder MvK’s ability to write his detailed plan for payback which he sends to Yanni Yogi.[25] This removes any plausible deniability for MvK in the murder of Robert Hammond – he very clearly knew what he was doing, and knew the consequences, which is why he tried to frame Edgeworth and Yogi. In a real court of law, he would be competent to stand trial for his crimes.

In conclusion, while he is not explicitly shown to physically abuse his children, Manfred von Karma canonically emotionally abuses his children, forcing them to adhere to his strict sense of perfection and morality. When both Franziska and Edgeworth fail to live up to his impossible standards, they doubt their own abilities and self-worth. Excusing this behavior in any person could lead to people not realizing that they’re being abused, and therefore having more difficulty getting out of abusive situations. It’s alright to like MvK as a character, but deliberately overlooking his abusive tendencies is to overlook a major part of his character, and his relationship with Edgeworth and Franziska.

"I'm Going to Change Your Mind About Manfred Von Karma"

[chayscribbles]

chayscribbles’ monthly writing update ☆ april and may 2023

i didn't do one last month so we get a double feature today!

☆ STATISTICS.

words written: 6 214 in april; 9 425 in may

projects worked on: once again only wrote for Andromeda Rogue but did a lot of plotting and planning for The Gemini Heist

proudest accomplishment: i've resisted chucking everything i've ever written into a shredder

books read in both april and may: A Rival Most Vial be @ashen-crest; Planetfall by Emma Newman, and Rogue Protocol (Murderbot Diaries #3) by Martha Wells

☆ GENERAL COMMENTS.

i went super hard in the beginning of april, burned out majorly for several weeks, then went hard again in the last 2 or so weeks. april ended in the middle of my burnout so that's why i didn't have an update last month. it just didn't seem worth it.

i'm also trying to make a soft return to writeblr! it's not working.

more specific wip-related comments + featured excerpt below.

☆ COMMENTS: ANDROMEDA ROGUE (draft 2)

this might be a stretch but the 2 year (2 year?????!?!?!!) anniversary of me finishing the first draft of AR1 is coming up on June 13th... so wouldn't it be grand if i finished the second draft by then? a guy can dream.

right now this draft is sitting at nearly 73K, which means i've almost reached the wc of draft one. and i still have a few more chapters to go!

unfortunately i've also left all the Hard Parts up until now becuase i love to make myself suffer!!!! pray for me y'all.

☆ COMMENTS: THE GEMINI HEIST (planning, i guess?)

well the good news is that i actually have the skeleton of an outline! i have 7 acts and a vague idea of what happens in each of them!

the bad news is i can't seem to get myself to actually write any of it! all i've been doing is anything EXCEPT writing. backstory developing, worldbuilding, creating menial lore... but not a single word added to my draft. when will my suffering end.

i did post a fun drawing + worldbuilding thing tho, if you missed it!

☆ FEATURED EXCERPT.

i'm pretty sure i posted this excerpt from AR already a loooong time ago... but it's gotten a small upgrade ever since. you see, back when i first wrote it, i didn't know how long the gang's trip would take. but then i developed a standardized formula to calculate travel time and just happened to end up with the funniest possible result... which lead to this.

Valyan, meanwhile, plopped themself into the co-pilot’s chair. 

“How long have you been able to do that?” they asked, eyes sparkling. “Why don’t your powers look like the Hepplings' from the Order of the Vine? Is it just the healing thing you can do, or can you do other things? Like use the plants as a lasso, or—”

“Look, kid,” Finneas interrupted, “here’s the deal. If you leave me alone for a few hours, I’ll answer every question you have about my… powers. Okay?”

Valyan narrowed their eyes. “How many hours is ‘a few’?”

“Um… seventy?”

“Nice try. That’s about how long it’ll take us to get back to Sayntagnesia. And it’s actually sixty-nine hours.” They grinned. “Nice.”

Of course that would be the one fact they’d remember. “You got me. How about six?”

“Deal.”

☆ TAGLISTS. let me know if you want to be added/removed to any of them.

general taglist:

@nicola-write @dgwriteblr @the-orangeauthor @onomatopiya @quilloftheclouds @ashen-crest @writeblrfantasy @celestepens @stardustspiral @pepperdee @extra-magichours @avi-why @lefttigerobservation@chazzawrites @bardolatrycore @innocentlymacabre

andromeda trilogy taglist:

@bebewrites @nicola-writes @dgwriteblr @the-orangeauthor @onomatopiya @akindofmagictoo @quilloftheclouds @nora-theteawriter @ashen-crest @corpsepng @writeblrfantasy @chaylattes @toboldlywrite @celestepens @stardustspiral @pepperdee @cheerfulmelancholies @extra-magichours @writeouswriter @cilly-the-writer @lefttigerobservation @rose-bookblood @drowsy-quill @chazzawrites @cynic-and-chief @enchanted-lightning-aes @aesa @outpost51

gemini heist taglist:

@florraisons @akindofmagictoo @cream-and-tea @nicola-writes @memento-morri-writes @antique-symbolism @rose-bookblood @afoolandathief @pepperdee @avi-why @zonnemaagd @chazzawrites @analogued @enchanted-lightning-aes @innocentlymacabre @kahvilahuhut @celestepens @cilly-the-writer @extra-magichours @onomatopiya @outpost51

[buzzybee26]

Thor Pirate Software's coverage of the Stop Killing Games Initiative has been deeply frustrating to me because one of the main points he's been getting on their ass about is being vague, but there are several times that he has been incredibly vague about the information he's used to draw the conclusions he's presented and where he got that information from.

The example of this that I'm going to use is in his first video when he talks about The Crew.*1 There's a bit where he claims that the game was always marketed as online only, and the only source he cites for this is legitimately "everything I've found online." I'm not saying this is false, but I have so little information on why he thinks the game was only ever marketed as online only that I can't say it's true with 100% confidence, especially with the knowledge that the crew had a story campaign that could be played entirely in single player*2. Not a perfect comparison, but the majority of Splatoon 1's marketing, at least from trailers, was based around its multiplayer (I'm not about to do the same thing I'm criticizing him for after getting on his ass about that, I do have some self awareness), and yet you can still play its single player campaign after the servers are dead. And I'm not saying the single player mode was ignored in the marketing, like I say it's not a perfect comparison to the claim he's making, but the vast majority of the marketing for this game was showing its multiplayer gameplay and features. This being the case, the vast majority of my playtime with that game as well as the rest of the series has been single player. Just because a game is marketed based on its multiplayer content, that doesn't mean people won't only play it for its single player content or that the single player content can't be a major selling point and he didn't go through any effort to show that this wasn't the case for The Crew. Show some trailers, a screenshot of the game's storefront page from when it was being sold, anything more specific that "Everything I've found."

And if we want to talk about being vague, how about deleting 2 weeks worth of stream content, including all the VODs in which he talked about the initiative. I would say deleting multiple hours of your coverage of a topic is not the best way to keep the specific details of your argument in tact. I simply refuse to believe that he managed to fit all of his opinions and takes about the initiative into 23 minutes and 9 seconds and I'm not going to hunt for clips on tiktok, youtube or twitter just for the sake of understanding the perspective of someone who doesn't know I exist. If he wanted his perspective to be understood, he would consistently show clearly and specifically what information he uses to come to his conclusions and where he got that information from.

I have a lot more thoughts, but I am wayy too tired to get them down now so I'll cut this off here. TLDR: put the bare minimum effort to show where you're getting your information from, jesus christ.

*1 There used to be a bit where I said The Crew's Wikipedia page was the only source he used for information about the game. This is false, he also used cites Steam's active player count tracker to show that the game had a large drop in players when The Crew 2 came out. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about and I wish he was more consistent about showing information like this. He also shows the release dates of the sequels that the Crew received, but I don't count this showing sources for information about The Crew 1 and I forgot about him showing the player tracker when I was writing this initially

*2 I realised I did the thing here, This Steam discussion post and this Reddit post contain people discussing the single player campaign, which is how I know about it. Cite your fucking sources, me. Also, The Crew's Steam Page lists the ability to "fly solo" as a key feature of the game, as well as boasting a 30 hour+ story campaign in the Content section. Most of it is focused on multiplayer, but to say the game was only marketed as online only isn't even true.

[stereax]

NICOJACK. every interraction they had. why are they so gay omg. they totally deserve one!! if you wanna ofc

oh my god I just got a cold sweat at the idea of cataloguing every single time those two have fucking BREATHED around each other. (because that's what you're asking me to write! a literal three year primer report of 15000 words of Why These Two Are Obsessed With Each Other.) I should probably do this at some point, honestly, but I'm not feeling up to it that much right now, and I don't really have the time at the moment to trawl through Tumblr, Twitter, and Discord and catalogue and source everything, because that requires extensive computer hours that I'm not really allowed stateside. I do want to, don't get me wrong, but maybe in a week or three when I can sit down for a whole day and dedicate myself to banging it out.

...that and also when this current mental haze clears up. not doing too great right now - I've been in a bit of a tailspin since (honestly) last like, October or November, and it got really bad last semester (spring '23) to the point where I'm genuinely surprised I made it out in one piece. now that I'm back in America, a lot of burdens have been lifted off me, but there are a lot of new burdens in their places, not least of which is the fact that I can't really dictate my own schedule any longer and I'm kind of running on the whims of my parents, which, once again, makes a prolonged effort like a ship primer tough. a lot of my stereanalyses are written and posted between 12-4 am for this reason - when my parents are asleep, I can type on my phone and write posts that way. (for the sideblog, I usually write posts for that in tiny spurts during the day and then schedule it for the midnight releases.)

I bill myself as generally a more analytic Tumblr presence because that's what I love to do - crunch numbers, offer statistics, and dissect things such as cap situations, salaries, line deployments, prospect development, and so on and so forth. that's the type of thing I can write a 2 AM stereanalysis on, hit post, and not feel like I've missed anything.

I do, however, adore my narratives as well. I have at least half a dozen fiction pieces and projects in varying stages of completeness and I keep building more ideas for myself without actually taking (or finding) the time to write them out. that... also stresses me out tbh, because I love to write and share that writing, but I suffer severely when I can't knock it all out in one sitting. that's why I made the sideblog in the first place - to motivate myself to write, and to write in a sustained manner. that's why I generally write my stereanalyses in one long take at night, when I can't be interrupted and my train of thought can see my ideas through.

ah, beans, and now I've written too much personal griping on a lighthearted ask. my apologies, truly. I don't want to overload this blog with my personal problems hahaha.

tl;dr not right now but I do want to do this so drop into my inbox again in a few weeks and I'll work on it then? :')

[hypnotransform]

Custom rates

Someone asked earlier today about my rates, so I thought I'd do a general post on that. What are your prices? Morphed caps are $10 per Short stories are $0.04 per word There is also the 2.89% PayPal fee, which depends on the total amount. But if it's under $100, the fee is generally under $2. I can always give you the exact amount in advance if requested. Have your rates increased? Not since my original run in 2019! Do you have a minimum word count or caps number? No. I've done morph sets with 10 images ($100), and I've done just a single image ($10). I've written 1,000-word stories, and 6,000-word ones. It depends on what you're looking for and what your budget is. If I have a big idea but can't afford it, can I split into multiple parts? Sure! I have two clients who are doing that right now, in fact. One had a short story idea that would take about 7,500-8,500 words, but he didn't have the budget for it, so we split it into three parts, and he's commissioning them as he's able. What's involved in the morphed caps? Sometimes, the client has images in mind, but they often don't. Finding the right ones usually takes me several hours. Then I'm writing the script, doing the morphing, doing the Photoshop lettering, proofreading, adjusting... $10 actually comes out to MAYBE a dollar an hour for me. Usually less. It's not easy money. I take your work very seriously. What do you offer that's unique? The vast majority of my commissions are people wanting themselves or someone they know changed. Sometimes they want celebrities, and I'm happy to do that...but a lot of the time, it's real people. For this reason, my custom work (with the exception of the occasional celebrity morph, and that's only if the client suggests I should make it public) is NEVER released to anyone other than the client. Unless it's part of a series that we're working on and I need it to refer back to, *I* don't even keep it. Why? I've been around for a decade as hypnotransform, and as duckboy43 even before that. In that time, I've built a reputation in this community I'm quite proud of. That's why the people who hire me very often rehire me. I have three consistent clients right now - two of them ordered several times from me back in 2019 and have also done so in 2024-2025, and the third has ordered from me 11 times since December.

ANYTHING you send me - including any real-world info on you or anyone else - is safe while I have it, and deleted as soon as your work is done. People know I've been around forever, that I can be trusted, and that I'd never survive in this community if I couldn't be. There are some bad apples here. I've seen them over the years. A lot of you have as well. You know what that looks like.

Can I see an example of your work? As I said, MOST of the time, I can't do that because the client requests it remains private. However, I DID have a 2-cap morph set in January that the client said I could make public. It's about the streamer InvaderVie turning into a bimbo, and you can see it here.

So...that's what I do. Sometimes, I get non-fetish work, and that has to take priority (I'm disabled and poor, so I have to take what work I can get). If I DO have that work, your commission could take a bit...possibly a week or two. If I don't - and I currently don't - it could take a few days. Sometimes if I have nothing else going on and my health is cooperating, I can start a morph set at dawn and have it finished by late evening. It all depends. But I'm generally pretty good at updating too. I'm happy to answer any questions you have! You can message me here or email hypnotransform@gmail.com! - HT