#Because sometimes the way other characters/the dude in question answer them defines them. As people.

[heliomanteia]

I love this game actually

[mysterycitrus]

hi! i' m really loving persephone but i was a little confused about how you're writing jason (and roy). i read through the author's note but i havent read a tonne of earlier comics yet so i just wanted to ask about your characterisation of him? its really different from other fic ibe read

hello! firstly, thank u for the question. i included that chunky list of comics at the beginning of persephone cause i knew how i was writing some of the characters (SPECIFICALLY jason and roy lmao) would be pretty different from popular mainstream interpretations of them. even if most people can acknowledge rhato 2011 was a bad comic these days, it's still (unfortunately) a foundational comic for a lot of jason fans.

the long answer is jason is a very popular character, but because he hasn't had an actual good comic since 2005 a lot has to be filled in to make him a "consistant" character. if u actually analyse any of his modern comics with knowledge of other characters, u would probably notice that: a) 99% of his relationships are stolen from dick grayson wholesale, with no development, b) 99% of what makes him popular was stolen wholesale from characters like selina kyle, helena bertinelli, and stephanie brown, and c) that everything politically interesting about his concept has been watered down to like... a sometimes angry dude who doesn't even use guns anymore.

roy is a separate issue - i truly dont believe most people who identify as royandjason fans have read anything preboot about roy, cause otherwise they'd understand that he would not do any of the things he does in rhato, and he definately wouldn't be besties with his best friends thirteen year old brother.

jason as he exists in fan spaces is a guy who is devoid of nuance, and is basically a reskinned 90s dick grayson stand in. that's not interesting to me. his original conception - the fact that he's from park row, he struggles with violence, he was a fundamentally kind person who isn't anymore because of things outside his control..... that's someone who could engage with batman's legacy in a cool way! a guy with his own moral values who does terrible things but still believes in the inherent value of his personal crusade! when i was writing him, it was important that yes, he can be quippy and fun, but he's also a person who's done a lot of fucked up things, and people aren't going to just roll over and think he's the coolest guy ever cause the writer treats him like a self insert.

the short answer is that im a roy harper fan and i haven't known peace since 2011.

[fishklok]

Hopefully my question makes sense, but how are you able to draw people/characters with distinct facial features and still make them attractive?? I feel like even when I do give my characters different eye shapes or noses shapes they still look the same, like I want my characters to be look different from each other and still look hot haha.

Hi anon, I hope I can help you out with this, but please keep in mind that I'm a self taught artist and I have no real character design training.

I think Metalocalypse is actually a good way to practice drawing unique features, because the show rarely repeats facial features on different characters, but the art style is simple enough that it's easy to recreate.

Regardless of your style, if you get the lines representing Nathan's high cheekbones, the nasolabial folds, the bridge of his nose, and the brow crease, his face will be recognizable

Giving characters unique specific features is an important step, but I think equally important is to think about what overall shapes you're going to keep in mind while drawing said character.

I've used this example before, but on paper Magnus and Skwisgaar have rather similar features

By which I mean they're both tall skinny dudes with long hair, gaunt faces, large noses, prominent cheekbones. But when you see them next to each other, you start to notice the differences between their designs that go beyond individual features. To the point where if you slapped Magnus' hair + goatee onto Skwisgaar, it would look very odd (I'm not going to recreate that, don't worry).

The difference that stands out to me the most is while they're both rather angular characters, Skwisgaar's overall design is much softer than Magnus'. His face is made up of more sloping lines that are rarely broken up. So when I go to draw Skwisgaar, I go into the drawing ready to draw a bunch of softer angles, while with Magnus I might as well get the ruler out.

Here are some basic sketches which are basically just me slapping the character's features down onto the page

Usually at this stage I erase my guidelines as I go, but I kept them there for the sake of this example. I don't draw the eyes in great detail because I find it easy to get too focused on things like iris size or pupil placement (and also I don't draw the expression at this stage), which can distract me from getting down the overall feel/rhythm/vibe of the character. It's like building a house. You gotta set the foundation before you start painting the windowsills.

Also use irl references.

It doesn't have to be exact. but sometimes it can be easy to lose your sense of reality when you've been staring at cartoons for so long. I'll usually rely on irl references for proportions or anatomical details, while for the individual features I'll reference the source material.

This really isn't a tutorial, I'm sorry. It's more me trying to put words to what goes through my head whenever I draw a character.

For something actionable, I'd say look at random mtl characters and try to identify the key shapes/features that make up their design. What was the first feature you noticed about them? If you were going to draw them, what kind of motions would you make with your hand? Also try doing silhouette practice, then move on to drawing the characters with no hair or other definable features.

I used mtl as an example because like I said before, the show's character design is great to study from. But the exercises I described can be used with actual people too. Sometimes I like to use the website This Person Does Not Exist to generate faces to practice identifying certain features. It's a good muscle to train.

This response went all over the place, I'm really sorry. I hope that in this ramble there are at least a few nuggets of useful information.

Also the attractiveness thing I cannot speak on lmao. Attractiveness is very subjective and I think my answer is...everything I learned about art came from those How to Draw Manga books.

[hakasims]

The Most Important Review of Every Single Marwan Kenzari Film

If you’ve seen this one about Luca, you know the drill.

Now, Marwan’s brand is a little less defined than Luca’s but I managed to find similar tropes in a lot of his films. Also, rather than copy myself and give you a redundant Marwanmeter, I decided instead to recommend which Luca character best pairs with each Marwan character for your crossover pleasure. Let’s see if we ship the same things! Some of them are crack. You’re welcome.

(all gifs again by the awesomely amazing @weardes​ who did not ask to be my gif factory but life’s a bitch)

Het zusje van Katia (2008)

Will you miss him if you blink? Kinda. They talk about him a lot but his actual screen time is like 43.7 seconds. Also can I just say... he’s supposed to be from Italy?? The boy says literally one (1) Italian word, and you’ll never guess what it is. (Obviously, it’s “bella” like there’s a chance he could’ve said anything else.)

Is he hot? Painfully hot.

Is he naked? There’s this one scene where he’s wearing the sluttiest pair of speedos I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

Does his hair look great? Actually, yes. Perfect hair, perfect beard, he looks amazing.

Does he fuck? Yes, a lot - off screen, including an M/M/F threesome he presumably, probably, most definitely initiated.

Best paired with? From what I’ve gathered, this hoe ain’t loyal, so the best course of action is to find him a Luca that would benefit from a one night stand with no strings attached and wouldn’t fall in love with him. The obvious choice here is Valerio from Slam - Tutto per una ragazza. They meet, they fuck, then Giac makes his 4-hour drive back to Pisa, and they don’t see each other again until the next time he’s in Rome. Everybody’s happy, especially the two sluts in question.

De laatste dagen van Emma Blank (2009)

Will you miss him if you blink? Yes, absolutely.

Is he hot? Very.

Is he naked? Almost constantly.

Does his hair look great? He’s got those cute short curls, he looks so good.

Does he fuck? That’s literally why he’s there: to fuck and to die.

Best paired with? Man, I wish I had something to work with here. The only thing we know about him besides his sexual prowess is his affinity for white suits and toy helicopters. And as far as I know, those might be the exact things Fabrizio from Nina finds hot in guys. So like, why not?

Loft (2010)

Will you miss him if you blink? He’s the fifth most important character.

Is he hot? Yeah, sure.

Is he naked? There’s a scene where he’s wearing underwear and a tank top but it somehow makes him look like a kindergartener.

Does his hair look great? It looks quite nice.

Does he fuck? Yes, though I wish he didn’t.

Best paired with? Tom is a very violent person and a drug addict. He does messed up stuff to his sexual partners I’d rather he didn’t do to any of Luca’s characters. Feel free to use him for your sadistic fantasies or as a villain or whatever.

Rabat (2011)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, he’s one of the three leads.

Is he hot? Oh yes! And cute!

Is he naked? He’s at the beach wearing nothing but boxer shorts.

Does his hair look great? He’s got this extreme undercut thing that would look ridiculous on anyone less pretty, so like no, he doesn’t have great hair, but also like it’s Marwan, you know what I mean?

Does he fuck? Before he embarks on a road trip with his friends, he has an offscreen threesome with two girls he picked up at a wedding. Slut.

Best paired with? Gabriele from Waves. They’re both sweet guys who could meet in some Tunisian port and decide to sail the Mediterranean Sea together.

Black Out (2012)

Will you miss him if you blink? Not unless your blinking is very deliberate.

Is he hot? Not really. He’s a dirty cop with a shitty moustache and oral fixation.

Is he naked? No, but I wish he was: his clothes are awful. Marwan is 29 in this movie and he looks 50!

Does his hair look great? Nope. They took Marwan’s usual short hair and made it not work somehow.

Does he fuck? No.

Best paired with? The one thing Luca’s characters all have in common is that none of them come off as bootlickers. All of them are either too soft for such a relationship or wouldn’t waste their spit on a cop.

Wolf (2013)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, he’s the protagonist.

Is he hot? *gestures wildly at the gif*

Is he naked? He’s got quite a few shirtless scenes.

Does his hair look great? It’s nothing special but suits his character well.

Does he fuck? Oh yes.

Best paired with? Hear me out. I know that some people ship him with Fabio, but in my opinion that pair, while hot, doesn’t work. Here’s my pitch: Cesare from Non essere cattivo. The drug connection is still there, but in this case Majid’s problem-solving skills won’t fall on deaf ears. Cesare needs a daddy, ok? Majid can be a daddy when he needs to, especially when he has a soft boyfriend to care for. And Majid needs soft, not psycho.

Hartenstraat (2014)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, he’s the protagonist once again.

Is he hot? Painfully.

Is he naked? There’s that iconic scene where he’s wearing nothing but black boxer briefs and boots while carrying a tray...

Does his hair look great? He’s got Joe-like curls and looks like what every male romantic lead should aspire to look like and then cry because they all fail.

Does he fuck? There’s one very unfortunate sex scene played for laughs. I’m pretty sure he’ll need therapy afterwards. I certainly do.

Best paired with? Paolo from Il padre d’Italia. Paolo deserves the best boyfriend, and who’s better than Daan, an extremely hot man who cooks? They both have daughters, so they can talk about that, I guess, and Paolo can finally have a family. Honestly, this is so wholesome I just made myself cry.

Lucia de B. (2014)

Will you miss him if you blink? For sure.

Is he hot? He’s a cop. Again. But he looks good.

Is he naked? Fully dressed, but man are his clothes ugly. Is that a cop thing?

Does his hair look great? He has slightly longer curls, which is fine and the best thing about this character.

Does he fuck? ACAB. (I know this doesn’t answer the question, I just wanted to make it clear.)

Best paired with? See my bootlicker comment from earlier. While Detective *checks notes* Ron Leeflang isn’t explicitly corrupt, he’s obviously a dick, so the best I can do here is recommend any Luca character that has ever been in trouble with the law for any fics about power imbalance you want to write but aren’t comfortable with a nice Marwan playing the villain.

Bloedlink (2014)

Will you miss him if you blink? Oh no, he’s there the entire time.

Is he hot? In a weird way, yes.

Is he naked? So, so, so naked. Like, leave nothing to the imagination naked.

Does his hair look great? I’d say that little rat tail is the exact opposite of great.

Does he fuck? Probably more than is good for him. I should also add that he’s canonically queer in this.

Best paired with? Rico is a pathetic loser in need of someone who’s got his life together and has a lot of experience dealing with fuckups. Enter Loris from Il mondo fino in fondo. He has a stable job and a savior complex, and with his little bro gaying it up in Chile and not needing him anymore, all he wants right now is someone to fix. I should be a fucking matchmaker in real life, for real.

Pak van mijn hart (2014)

Will you miss him if you blink? Undoubtedly.

Is he hot? No. The whole point of his character is to be the lesser choice compared to a guy who looks like a completely ordinary bland white dude...

Is he naked? ...so of course he isn’t naked! What, are they gonna take this poor woman, show her Marwan Kenzari’s post-Wolf body and expect her to choose her deeply mediocre ex? Please! They’re gonna dress him in the dorkiest clothes possible...

Does his hair look great? ...and make him wear the most awful wig that was clearly run over by a truck.

Does he fuck? No. As you can observe, they tried really hard to make him unfuckable, but honestly, he seems like a perfectly nice guy.

Best paired with? You know what? Mattia from La solitudine dei numeri primi is in desperate need of some sweetness and normalcy. I’m sure Richard will treat him with kindness and respect.

Collide (2016)

Will you miss him if you blink? He’s the fifth most important character. Out of five.

Is he hot? Very hot.

Is he naked? Not for a second! What’s up with American movies where people aren’t just casually walking around naked without any plot necessity???

Does his hair look great? His curls are so cute you guys! Look at them!

Does he fuck? Not explicitly.

Best paired with? Fabio from Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot. Again, the drug connection is there, but Matthias is soft enough not to butt heads with Fabio and, by the end of the movie, rich enough to satisfy his cravings for good living and fame. Also look at how good their color coordination is with those dark wine red clothes! Sometimes planets just align, okay?

Ben-Hur (2016)

Will you miss him if you blink? Yes, especially if you aren’t watching the background.

Is he hot? Your usual Marwan hot.

Is he naked? No.

Does his hair look great? His typical short curls with a twist. I think the forehead area is supposed to invoke the Caesar cut? I don’t know. It looks fine when not hidden under that dumb helmet.

Does he fuck? No.

Best paired with? A better script and a much better director. (Seriously, what is this blocking?)

The Promise (2016)

Will you miss him if you blink? He’s there a decent amount in the first half of the movie and then almost completely disappears in the second half.

Is he hot? Very much, yes.

Is he naked? Unfortunately, no.

Does his hair look great? He’s got short curls again, but this time they’re fashionably styled, it’s magnificent.

Does he fuck? Oh yeah! And there’s no way he isn’t bi or pan in this. No way.

Best paired with? Roberta from L’ultimo terrestre. Listen, Emre Ogan may be a slut but he’s a gentleman, okay? He’d treat Roberta right and he’s got daddy’s cash to spare on hundreds of gorgeous white dresses for her.

The Mummy (2017)

Will you miss him if you blink? He’s there, but barely.

Is he hot? Dangerously hot.

Is he naked? Not once! Instead we get a naked Tom Cruise literally no one asked for.

Does his hair look great? It’s your basic professional short hairdo.

Does he fuck? No.

Best paired with? Malik is a member of an organization tracking and destroying various monsters and historical artefacts related to them. Guido from Tutti i santi giorni speaks four languages, including Latin, and is a literature and ancient history nerd which makes him a valuable asset. Malik can fight and protect; Guido is bumbling and in need of saving. Guys, this writes itself.

What Happened to Monday (2017)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, especially not in the third act.

Is he hot? He’s okay.

Is he naked? Very naked.

Does his hair look great? They shouldn’t have greased his curls back. He looks like another victim of Fabio Cannizzaro’s stylist. Also I wish he’d either shaved or finished growing out that beard.

Does he fuck? He fucks and he fucks good. He’ll go down on you, he’ll deflower you slowly and gently, he’ll choke you if you want him to, he’ll spoon you all night, he’ll give you emotional support, he’ll murder people for you - he’s down for whatever.

Best paired with? There’s one Luca character who needs a lot of sex and even more emotional support. Alright, most of them do, but I’m thinking of Ettore from Lasciate andare. He needs it, okay? Good dicking, good spooning, a good ear, a fine piece of ass to cry into - you get the gist. Most importantly: someone who’d love him for who he is and with whom he could relax and be himself. (Also, I see you, people comparing him to Fabio. Shame on you for sleeping on this soft boy and judging him based on his appearance.)

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Will you miss him if you blink? He’s kinda always present, being very French.

Is he hot? Very hot.

Is he naked? No, but I’m willing to forgive that because he looks so good in his conductor uniform.

Does his hair look great? He never takes off his hat.

Does he fuck? No.

Best paired with? Mickey Miranda. They’re both murderers morally dubious characters who would look hot together. What else do you need? (Again, I see you, people who want Pierre for Roberta because he’s a “nice guy”, and I know for a fact you didn’t watch the movie. Spoilers, I guess.)

The Angel (2018)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, he’s the protagonist.

Is he hot? Oh yes.

Is he naked? Not once, but you won’t regret it because he’s wearing excellently stylish 1970s clothes.

Does his hair look great? It looks fantastic. The sideburns (not yet seen here) are a good touch.

Does he fuck? He can definitely get it, but he’s loyal to his wife.

Best paired with? As the most aesthetically coherent and fashionably hot pair in this post, Ashraf and Primo are a no-brainer. Can you imagine Primo calling him “Angel” in different contexts? When he’s being intimidating, not realizing how palpable the sexual tension between them is, and later not even hiding his arousal? Sometimes things just work because they’re hot. That’s all, folks.

Aladdin (2019)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, he’s the main villain.

Is he hot? It’s not like he went viral for being the “hot Jafar” or anything.

Is he naked? No! Fucking thanks a lot, Disney.

Does his hair look great? He has a buzz cut under that turban but he looks good in the turban, so that’s something.

Does he fuck? It’s a Disney movie, so he doesn’t fuck - explicitly or otherwise - but he still comes off as a thirsty bitch.

Best paired with? Jafar ends the movie as a genie who’s obligated to grant his master three wishes but is enough of a petty bitch to exploit the hell out of the “gray area” and screw them over Wishmaster style. My unconventional pair for him is Lui from Ricordi? So many scenarios with distorted memories and magic-induced mindfuck. So many possibilities for awesome and messed up crossover gifsets! Don’t say I never give you guys anything.

Instinct (2019)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, he’s very prominent.

Is he hot? I hate myself for finding him hot but I do.

Is he naked? He’s playing basketball shirtless in one scene, shaking his sweaty boobs everywhere.

Does his hair look great? His weird mohawk-like thing is honestly terrible, but if anything can make it work, it’s Marwan’s bone structure.

Does he fuck? Um, I’m pleading the Fifth on this one for the sake of good taste.

Best paired with? Prison. A very lonely, Luca-less prison.

The Old Guard (2020)

Will you miss him if you blink? No, unless blinking in your case means sleeping through the gloriousness that is the first ever canonically gay couple in an American action film.

Is he hot? Painfully.

Is he naked? Shirtless in one scene.

Does his hair look great? Soft curls courtesy of Luca Marinelli’s tireless lobbying.

Does he fuck? Not on screen, but you can just tell by the way he looks at his husband and reads impromptu poetry right to his face. And everybody knows nothing kindles the fires of passion quite like murdering homophobes together.

Best paired with? If you have to ask, you’re clearly reading this by mistake. In which case, kudos for finishing such a long and confusing post, now go watch The Old Guard and cry at the beauty that is The Immortal Marriage.

[komatsunana]

Why hachi is selfish ? I never understood why they call her selfish ?

So, I am sorry I didn't answer this for so long. I swear it's because I just feel so passionate about it that I wanted to give this a proper think and answer. And then I took so long that I feel like I might as well answer it now, lol.

"Why do people think Hachi is selfish?" is the more accurate question here. Because Hachi as a person is not someone that I think anyone should call Hachi as a person. Her selflessness is one of her core defining traits, because she always has other people's best interests at heart. This over course doesn't mean that Hachi doesn't do anything selfish ever. But in the same way I'd say that Takumi is an abusive horrible person, he can be sweet sometimes too. But that sweetness that comes out during domestic moments isn't something I'd call one of his core-defining traits during the main part of the series. Hachi is a human being and, yes, occasionally selfish but she is not a selfish person if that makes sense. She never wants her own desires to come at the cost of other's happiness, but it happens just like it happens to all of us.

I'd like to link you to @mediocreauthor's post listing just SOME of the highlights of Hachi's selfless acts before I dive in, and it is by no means a comprehensive list of everything Hachi does for other characters.  Bare all this in mind as I talk about some of the "selfish" acts Hachi commits through the story, some of which I do agree are selfish but some that I disagree with.

First, her relationship with Shoji... Despite Shoji's claims he was the only selfish one in this relationship. I can only remember 1 time she was actually selfish with him and honestly it compounds with another reason that I want to come back to in a minute.

But Hachi was absolutely not selfish during her relationship with Shoji. She did a very sweet thing and cleaned his apartment for him her first day in Tokyo! And then he gets mad at her. Honestly who even expects someone to come in on a late-night train to get up in the morning and job & apartment hunt??? Like let a bitch REST and she doesn't even just be lazy but cleans up for him??

Instead, Shoji is an asshole and while he does end up apologizing, he does make it clear that he wants Hachi to be independent and get her own job and place. So she does! No complaints! Well apart from Shoji's complaints because the moment she gets 707, he's like... "what nooo, why don't we live together?" Like pick what you want here dude.

Anyway, Hachi is independent and gets herself a separate friend group in Tokyo (while inviting Shoji to hang with them too, which he declines...) which Shoji hates. They have relationship issues because Shoji is just so goddamn hot and cold to her that Hachi has no idea how to give Shoji what he wants because he never wants what she's trying to give him at any certain moment outside sex. It's 100% on Shoji for his infidelity and anyone who tries to place even a sliver of blame on Hachi for that is incorrect.

Second, though is a pattern of Hachi's, particularly in the first arc of the series, that I agree IS selfish. And that's her financial irresponsibility and constantly asking for bail outs of her friends (Shoji once, occasionally Nana about rent, and most often Junko). That's all on her and it really isn't fair of her to expect the people around her to always want to help her out especially when she busts out into tears immediately and says they are being mean for refusing.

It’s definitely part of the early 20 experience and I do sympathize but... I also sympathize with the people around her.  She’s spending frivolously on clothing and reducing her paycheck and that is on her.  It’s hard to say if this is a problem she ever grows out of, because when she starts living with Takumi she gains access to his money and he’s got bank enough that spending on what she wants.

Third, and the example I hear most often is everything that happens with Nobu.  So, let’s break it down.

Her breaking up with Takumi and immediately getting together with Nobu was selfish.  She was in a weak and vulnerable place, after a breakup, and Nobu probably should have refused her when she wanted to initiate their relationship immediately.  But also, he tried to refuse twice to which she persisted and did puppy dog eyes.  He shouldn’t have taken her up on it, but she shouldn’t have offered.

Later, when Nobu finds out about her pregnancy... that’s a whole mess.  Do I think it was the right decision for Hachi to decide to marry Takumi and raise her child as his without speaking to Nobu about it?  Of course not.  But this came from her own feelings of guilt, shame, and assumption that the baby was biologically Takumi’s. 

 It wasn’t really just about Takumi being more financially more secure, but that Nobu (and Nana tbh) was financially insecure and at the start of his career.  And why should she burden Nobu with a child she does not think is his biologically?  It was a decision that negatively impacted Nobu, even though she made the choice for his benefit.  Imo, this isn’t a case of “selfish” but more,, Hachi made a choice that negatively impacted someone that people are more sympathetic to in that situation.  Understandable! I think it was the wrong choice too, but the choice came from a selfless place for Nobu’s wellbeing and future.

And then that last moment between Nobu and Hachi, where he accused her of playing with his feelings for refusing to kiss him... Do I even need to say?  She was the only person thinking about Nobu’s GIRLFRIEND Asami’s feelings in that room.  It was selfish of him to say that.

Fourth, and my final point for this post because I’ve already run dry on my memory of examples other people think were selfish actions by Hachi (lol)... And I’ll keep this short because it actually is a post I’ve long had drafted and teased...  And it’s something I haven’t seen anyone else express without placing all blame on Hachi for it. Imo, Hachi is pretty selfish in her relationship with Jun.  By no means is Jun a good friend to Hachi all the time, especially when it comes to Shoji...  But Hachi will just show up in the middle of the night at Jun’s door crying and needing her help with something. And Jun is stern and scolding but she always helps even if it’s not the way Hachi wants help.

Hachi is a foul-weather friend to Junko by which I mean Hachi really only hits Jun up when Hachi’s life is in disarray and she needs help.  We never see much reciprocity of Hachi helping or supporting Jun out in any capacity outside of maybe going to Jun’s art gallery... for a date with Nobu. 

While I don’t think friendship is a transaction where Hachi owes Jun emotional labor in exchange for the emotional labor that she asks from Jun... Hachi does at least Jun the respect to say, “hey, can I vent to you?” at the very least.  And she owes her a thank you for it because... I think a lot of people on tumblr don’t get that while friendship is about being there and supporting each other, a friend is not a therapist.  It is absolutely taxing to have someone come to you in need of emotional support at the drop of a hat.

Honestly, I think Jun placing part of the blame of Shoji’s infidelity is a reflection of Hachi’s selfishness with Junko herself and not Hachi with Shoji.  Because Jun really only gets to see the worst of Hachi, because when Hachi’s at her worst is when Hachi comes a calling.  Jun is an outlier to all of Hachi’s relationships where Hachi tries to put them first and take care of them.  With Jun and really only Jun do we see Hachi only take without out much give back.

Soooooo that’s all I got rn.  So, yes Hachi has been selfish sometimes.  Like people do at certain times in their life.  But at the end of the day... Hachi isn’t a selfish person.  She is a very selfless person who has the desire to be spoiled.

[roll-da-credits]

Scenario: Putting Make-Up on Nekoma Boys

Characters: Kozume Kenma, Lev Haiba, Alisa Haiba cause I love her sm omfg

A/n: This was HEAVILY inspired by my desire to look feminine the way guys are just because of a tiktok video. Small warning (?) I literally do not know how to describe doing Lev’s make up, because it just looks so fucking complicated. (also can you imagine how pretty timeskip Lev would look with that makeup look??? Just god, chef’s kiss dude).  Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy my first scenario thing.

Inspo; Kenma’s, Lev’s, Alisa’s

🖤❤️🖤

Kozume Kenma

You knew putting on make-up on your boyfriend wasn’t going to be that difficult. He’s used to sitting on a chair hours on end, being unbothered by anything around him. Getting him to agree to doing it was the difficult part. This mission all started when you as Kenma’s lover got tagged repeatedly in a video where a girl was begging you to do make up on him, to complete the femboy look. Since he already wore a skirt for a tiktok trend once.

After much planning and looking for the perfect time you finally convinced him to put it as a reward for a charity stream he was doing. If the donations got to 100k he would let you put on make up on him.

“I still think this is a bad idea.” He chuckled setting up his stream. You, who was laying on his bed watching him mischievously grinned, “Why not??? 100K is a lot of money, I doubt people would donate that much.”

Oh how wrong you were. Within the first hour the donation already double that number and Kenma could only glare at you for convincing him to do it. You burst in laughter when he looked at you desperately wanting the stream to be over already. “Fine, just don’t put a full face on me.” 

You laughed and introduced yourself to the stream before going to put on his make up. You had decided to do a tiktok look where the guys are feminine the way boys are. By defining his cheekbones, giving him slightly bushier brows, deepening his eyes, and finally a bit of eyeliner. His stream went wild.

Everyone, excluding him, seems to be enjoying the entire process and the end result. His fans even begun donating more and requesting other make up looks to you.

“Babe look, someone want me to use bold colors on you. Can I do it?”

“No.”

You laughed every time he would immediately say no at your request, but you didn’t miss the slight blush that crept to his face every single time. You had a slight hunch that he actually enjoyed being dolled up. A mental reminder made it’s way to your mind to ask him after the stream if he wanted to do it more often. 

You were almost 100% sure he’d say yes. 

“Right take it off.” You ignored him and went back to your position in the background. “Y/n I swear.”

“What you don’t think I did a good job?” You decided to teased him much further. He groaned and turned his chair to face you. “I love you, I really do, but please take it off.”

Giggling, you strode to him and gave him a light peck on his forehead. 

“You look incredible, anyways, don’t you have games to play on your stream? Just take it off after.”

You walked back to the bed with a smug grin feeling like you’d won, until, “200k and I’m forcing them to go against me in any game 1v1. It’ll be funny watching them rage and get embarrassed at how bad they are. ” 

The donation bar was at 190K.

Lev Haiba

Lev was very used to using make up, not full on full faced make up but more of a touch up. He was a model after all. But his make up looks were always to make his already beautiful natural face shine even more. It was never editorial or over the top and you desperately wanted to change that.

“Babe?” You called him when he got home after working. He hummed in reply. “Would you let me put on make up on you?”

Immediately, he jumped over to your side with the biggest smile in his face, he looked like a energetic puppy. “So, yes?” You looked at him with an amused grin. In which he replied to your question nodding enthusiastically. 

Because he came home earlier than he usually do, you decided to do the make up on him right at that moment. That and because he followed you around like a lost puppy for 5 minutes straight whilst you were doing other chores, very expectant about the pretty make up you were going to put on him.

You decided to pick a bright blue eyeshadow that would not only match his dark navy suit he was wearing for a photoshoot, but also his beautiful eyes. After hours of working you were pleasantly surprised that Lev stayed still. Or at least still enough for you to work without a mess. 

He still talked here and there. Not to mention how he would sometimes look at you dead in the eyes with the most love stricken gaze. It flustered you, yet you were determined to finish the look. 

Once you were finally finished, you brought the mirror close to him and he exploded with joy. “Baby you did incredible!!! How did you do this?!?!” he didn’t stop complimenting you or admiring your work, even as you were setting up some lighting for some photos. Because even you had thought it looked too amazing to not be photographed. 

After taking some pics which was easier due to his modelling skills, you had to physically drag him to the bathroom to wash all of it off. He complained and whined to you but you still forced him to clean it, afraid he would get acne if he kept it overnight.

The next day at work though, you got a message from Lev. 

‘CONGRATS!!! You’re my new make up artist now, I won’t take no for an answer  😁’

You spammed him repeatedly asking him what he meant by that but he just left you on read.

Alisa Haiba

You already knew your girlfriend, Alisa Haiba, was a rather hopeless romantic. But you’d never expected it would’ve placed you, her lover, in this kind of situation. Currently you were in front of an already dressed Alisa ready for her shoot and you were expected to put on make up on her. 

“Love, this is too much pressure.” You looked at the array of make up tools Alisa had set up for you in a nervous wreck.

“I know you’re good at make up!! I just wanted to show your skills off to my team!” She smiled rather expectantly at you. 

With eyes like an excited kitten ready to play you couldn’t refuse. 

See it all started when you were experimenting with your own make up. Trying to do random editorial looks and so on. What you didn’t account for was your peeping girlfriend in the door frame watching your every move with sparkles in her eyes.

Her mind raced with the possibilities of the both of you working together in a set, her as your model. To her it seemed like a dream come true and a way to satisfy her imaginative mind when it came to romance. Though, you being in the situation right now, you couldn’t help but feel anxious at the eager gazes of everyone in the room. 

From the make up artists working on the other models, to the photographer. Everyone was waiting for you to make the first move, they wanted to see what Alisa’s chatter was about when she recommended you for a high end brand modeling job.

“Remind me what the theme was again?” You gulped nervously as you started racking your brain for ideas. “Angelic.” She answered.

Finally exhaling the breath you’ve been holding, you picked up a brush and began to work on her eyes. You had seen her looks in all of her modeling gigs, they used a lot of light blue to contrast with her beautiful platinum hair and bright blue eyes. So, you wanted to do something different.

Something that would most likely impress the people around you and hopefully not bring down Alisa’s reputation for recommending you. 

After you were done, you held your breath once more and stepped aside to let Alisa look at the mirror. Shockingly she squealed and jumped to crush you in a hug.

“It’s so pretty!!!” That exact moment you could feel the tension in the entire room drop immediately. 

Everyone was rather impressed by your skills and especially Alisa who begged you to be her MUA for the rest of her career. Which you declined with a wry smile, you didn’t think you could handle the crushing pressure that the stares of everyone in the room would bring every single time. 

[battlinghurricanes]

LITYERSES HEADCANONS!!!!!!!

I saw some other headcanon posts for him, so I felt inspired to throw my own ideas out there! I think some of my headcanons are pretty different from the ones a lot of people have of him, but I always like reading other people’s ideas so hopefully people will like this too!

(also theres a lot, this is long *cough* my bad)

- After the incident in The Lost Hero, after Midas dies, Lityerses is homeless. His father’s mansion is destroyed and it’s not like he has anyone to turn to.

- They mention in The Lost Hero that the Hunters of Artemis came across Midas and Lityerses earlier. When they did, Lityerses heard in passing about Camp Half-Blood. It’s the only place meant for demigods that he has even the slightest knowledge on, so he sets his sights on making it there.

- It takes eight grim months to reach New York. It’s half a miracle, slowly taking busses, hitchhiking, and sometimes just walking to the next city. Monsters attack him the entire way and he adds plenty of new scars to his collection.

- There’s no reliable way for him to get money. He gets much, much better at using his powers as a son of Demeter. He uses it to grow fruits, vegetables, and any sort of edible plant so he can at least have food of some kind.

- He goes to New York City because he doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t even know if the Hunters were talking about the city or the state but he figures he has to start somewhere. Unfortunately, the Triumvirate notices his presence before anyone from Camp Half-Blood does.

- He follows some demigods to Nero, who sent them to collect him. He offers a position working for the Triumvirate in exchange for food, lodging, and other basic support. Lityerses is tired and he wants to sleep in a bed and have proper meals he doesn’t have to worry about acquiring.

- He accepts, not caring if what the Triumvirate is doing is shitty or not. Nero sends him to Indianapolis to work for Commodus.

- Apollo’s decision to give him another chance was very affecting. Especially coming from ancient times when the stories of the gods on earth were far more real and immediate, he knows very well how the gods could treat mortals as simply disposable.

- He had never questioned his belief that any mortal who got wrapped up in business with a god suffered a horrible fate because of it, whether the god intended it or not.

- But then Apollo saved his life and defended him at the Waystation and told him he trusted him and Lityerses’s mind keeps drifting back to him over and over and over.

- His mind wants to reconcile what Apollo did for him with what he knows about the gods. He can’t, and that makes him feel a great many things that he can’t pin down. Apollo decided to care about him when he had no reason to, and he doesn’t know what that means for him.

- He feels a twinge of gratitude whenever he steps into the sunlight and pulse of anxiety whenever he wonders if he’s okay on his quest.

- He thinks about Meg, his little sister, and hopes they’re keeping each other safe.

- Lityerses can occasionally seem really dull, indifferent, or unresponsive because he gives super minimal reactions to things sometimes, but that’s really not the case.

- Being in the modern world for him is sort of like a slight, but near constant sensory overload. Sometimes, his brain is too busy processing other stuff to fully load up an emotional response. He’ll react to something in his mind but he won’t express it outwardly at all.

- Leo, running up: Wanna help me strap a firework to a crossbow bolt and try to shoot it into the office building across the street to see if it’ll blow up in there?!!!!!     Lityerses, with a completely flat voice and blank expression: I think that’s a very bad idea.

- It’s definitely not all the time, but it does happen.

- (Me? Projecting sensory issues onto every character I like? It’s more likely than you think.)

- He has a very “go with the flow” attitude, to the point of being a character flaw sometimes. It can make him easy to manipulate.

- (Commodus: hey lityerses go put this barbed wire and war helmets and metal teeth on these ostriches     Liyerses, in his head: uhuh uhuh uhuh uhuh yeah cool got it i hope i still have some fingers left tomorrow)

- He’s working on it though. He’s working on it.

- One side effect of this is that whenever Leo makes some pop culture or meme reference, Lityerses will just nod and agree. It takes Leo forever to realise that he was just lying going along with it.

- *mid conversation*  Lityerses: I’d go get some food, but I don’t have any money     Leo: dude, you’re literally just the 69 cents vine, not enough for chicken nuggets     Lityerses: oh, for sure     Calypso, overhearing: wait, you understood that??     Lityerses: no, I’ve never understood a single word that’s left leo’s mouth       Leo: what?!!!! but you said you understood my reference to that dril tweet the other day, right?!      Lityerses: yeah, of course      Calypso: what’s a dril tweet??      Lityerses: I don’t know.       Leo: YOU TRAITOR

- Another side effect: he’s a complete pushover for Georgie.

- At one point, when some of the Waystation crew are walking out in the city, she complains that she’s tired and wants to be carried. When her moms gently refuse, she immediately goes over to Lityerses and holds her arms out and says that she’s tired. He doesn’t even stop walking, he just swoops her up and puts her on his shoulder right away.

- Hemithia and Jo glare at him but he just avoids eye contact. “She’s already up there, too much effort to put her down now.”

- He was in the Fields of Punishment in the Underworld and wow was it incredibly traumatizing.

- His memories of death are sickeningly agonizing, but they also usually feel distant and unreal. Sometimes, though, they’ll worm their way into his dreams with horrific clarity. He’ll wake up in a cold sweat, hyperventilating, with full body tremors he can’t control.

- One morning after waking up like that, while sitting on the floor regaining his composure, Hemithea comes in to see why he wasn’t up yet. He pulls himself together in due time. He doesn’t answer any of her questions.

- He never talks about it, but he’s truly terrified of dying. He never was before, but now that he knows what’s waiting for him...

- It doesn’t help that he knows that, no matter how careful he is or how well he defends himself, he could die at any moment if Thanatos decides to bring him back to the Underworld.

- It weighs on the back of his mind that, at least on a technical level, he has no right to be alive. Sometimes he can’t help but think that the things he does now don’t matter in the end, because there’s no reason he would get a second judgement when he does eventually return to the Underworld.

- He does his best to shut that down and remind himself that trying to do the right thing helps the people around him, no matter what happens after his death, but the thought exists and it is painful.

- He really never voices these fears because he feels like all he can really do is try not to think about it, and when he does, he tries to forget as soon as he can. It’s a burden he shoulders as quietly as he can.

- He isn’t used to owning a lot of material possessions, both from how he lived in ancient times and then from being homeless for a while. He’s only ever described wearing that Cornhuskers shirt because it’s the only one he owned for a while.

- Not long after joining the Waystation, the first time he was going out somewhere them, Jo snapped that it just made him look stupid, trying to look tough by going without a coat when it was so cold outside. Earnestly confused and defensive, he tells her that he just doesn’t own one.

- After that, she insists on filling his wardrobe until he has enough clothes.

- (Speaking of the Cornhuskers shirt, he just picked it out on a whim, sort of thinking of Demeter (They grow corn here like we used to grow wheat, right?) and sort of just thinking it looked cool. Olujime once tried to talk to him about how some college teams were doing and Lityerses just goes “What’s football?”)

- He doesn’t really get modern fashion trends. Leo offers to catch him up, but he declines very quickly.

- In ancient times, dyes and patterns available for clothes were much more limited and much more expensive. He’s fascinated by all the colors and prints people can wear just all the time now. Lityerses wears a lot of bright colors because he thinks they’re cool and fun. He likes red, blue, and purple the most but he’ll wear a lot of stuff.

- Along with not really following any trends, he also hasn’t picked up on a lot of unspoken gender connotations that come with modern clothing.

- When the Waystation are first trying to get him some clothes, he picks out a pink jacket and Leo snorts at him like “You’re going for pink?” Lityerses just stares at him like “Yeah. It’s just pink.” Leo sort of realizes and goes, “Oh, it’s just, you know...” to Calypso. But Calypso is also just staring blankly and says, “No I don’t. I don’t get it. Is there something about pink?” And Leo notices Hemithea glaring daggers at him and he laughs nervously and goes, “Nevermind, it was a stupid joke anyway.”

- Hemithia: Leave the ancient demigod and ex-titan blissfully unaware of our complex, modern gender stereotypes.    Leo, sweating: gotcha.

- He pretty much just wears what he finds comfortable. Generally it’s just t-shirts with jeans or basketball shorts.

- Lityerses is a super clingy sleeper and will reflexively grab on to anything within arms reach while he’s asleep. (He’s a big spoon by nature.)

- Leo discovers this and now, whenever Lityerses falls asleep on one of the couches, he’ll entertain himself by slowly pushing a pillow up to him until he inevitably grabs it and pulls it against his chest.

- No one gets those pillows back until Lityerses wakes up.

- He’s very buff. His muscles aren’t super defined, nothing at all like a bodybuilder, no six pack abs or anything. But he’s built. Thick arms.

- He’s very limber and flexible too. He has great balance, which lets him move as fast as he does in combat. He’s quite physically fit in general.

- He’ll never admit it, but he ended up getting attached to the highlights in his hair he got when Apollo revealed his godly form. He thought they were fun and different and he sort of missed it when his hair grew out.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Fly By Night

Black people don't care about Superman but making him Black in the next series of films, isn't going to solve that the problem. It's his upbringing, the cultural touchstones which define him. Clark Kent is intrinsically White. He looks White, definitely, but he was raised in Kansas, too. That's a Heartland State, places notorious for their aggressive intolerance and laughably disproportionate ethnic breakdown. Eighty-four percent of the people who live there are White and, while that's a stark cry from, say, Idaho's Ninety percent, only five percent of the populace is Black. How the f*ck can Clark BE full-on Black; ethnically, mentally, and culturally, when he's surrounded by so much White?

The short answer is that he can't. He doesn't have those values or experiences. How can he? He'd be part of five percent in two million. What is that? One hundred thousand, spread out across an entire state? I mean, at that point, he's more Kansas than he is Black so what does "fighting for truth, justice, in the American way" mean to someone from Kansas? A State as Red as a baboon's ass? A State where Trump won fifty-seven percent of the vote in both 2016 and 2020? A State that seems to support the same people that refuse to accept Joe Biden won that race, even after several recounts on their terms, several court cases lost to their judges, and a whole ass attempt to overthrow the government because they didn't like all those L's piling up? Never mind the question of raising a demigod with those incredibly problematic "values", how can a Black person come up in that level of racial animosity, cultural alienation, and abject disdain based solely on how he looks, possibly be all of America's Superman?

At the end of the day, JJabarams wanting to make Clark a Black man in this next run of films, is just a tone deaf, performative, dog whistle for all the little Blue Checkmark, fake woke, twatter asshole to fellate themselves over. I don't know a single Black person who is gassed that Clark will look like us. Dude basically represents everything wrong with America, to us. Clark is an out-of-touch White guy, born with unheard of power he didn't earn, imbued with a f*cked up savior complex, raised on a steady supply of zealous Patriotic ideals which borders on straight up Nationalism, in the cultural vacuum of Smallville, Kansas. Turning him Black without fixing that origin is tantamount to throwing Blackface on some White actor to play T'Challa instead of casting Chadwick Boseman. Imagine how THAT should would have gone over with the Blacks. Exactly.

You can't separate Clark from his cultural identity as the Whitest motherf*cker not from this Earth. You can't. It literally defines his entire worldview. Clark's Whiteness is intrinsic to who he is as a person. However, there are alternatives to that which ring truer to a Black Superman, to the Black experience, one of which has a dope ass backstory. Val-Zod, son of THAT Zod, took up the mantle of Superman in nu52 Earth-2. That version of the character could work because his race is intrinsic to his character on both sides; The Kryptonian and the Earthling. He is vague enough of a character to play around with content wise but recognizable enough for literally everyone to not lose their sh*t over Blackfacing Clark. Another lesser known option, the one i would personally pass on, is Kalel of Earth-23. He's a blank slate because no one remembers anything about the dude. Calvin Ellis' last appearance was in 2009 so, you know, have at it, i guess? Both of these options are much better than forcing a White Kent into a Black Peg.

I'm not usually one to be so uppity about bent characters, be they gender or race. They're just another take on an established fandom and i think that's great, as long as that alteration is respected and adapted into the character properly. Superficial sh*t like turning all of the ginger characters into Black people, just because they're going to be onscreen in some form or another, is f*cking ridiculous to me. Sometimes it doesn't work out all that well, like Iris West in the DCEU. Kiersey Clemons had, like, a minute of screentime in The Snyder Cut so why the f*ck was she even in there? I get you need to establish her as part of The Flash's lore but wait for his actual film if that's all we're going to see of her. Other times, it works very well, like with Mary-Jane and Zendaya. That case was a little more tricky as, at the time Homecoming was in development, Marvel didn't have the rights to the Mary-Jane character so they had no choice but to create Michelle. She's a brand new character who fills the role of MJ but in a completely unique, standalone, fashion. I adore that chick. She and Pete have this adorkable energy together, chemistry attributed to Zendaya and Holland. Ms. Coleman really sells MJ as a proper “MJ” and that's because her MJ is her own “MJ”. And, while we're on the topic of Spider-Man, Miles Morales is exactly how you racebend an established character with any hope of success.

Mile Morales is the blue print you need to follow in order to make your ridiculous reach at altering such an established persona, in such a drastic way. Miles is, from top to bottom, Black as f*ck. Every ounce of that character resonates with the culture. Early on in hi genesis, it was a little iffy but, as the character has grown, his swagger and identity has become much clearer. It's more defined and rings truer to what we, as Black people, see in the world. Hell, his movie, Into the Spider-Verse, is arguably the best Spider-Flick ever made and it is properly Black as f*ck. From the swagger, the cultural language, the music, the animation style, the tagging; All of it is too Black for words and the country ate that sh*t up. I saw SO much of US in that film and it really lent itself to giving comic Miles the boost necessary to really come into his own. Not to slight his Puerto Rican heritage at all, you get a bit of that, too, but, for all intents and purposes, society at large sees Miles as Black and Spider-Verse leans into that, heavy. Because Miles has no choice but to so as well. Pete had a lot more going for him growing up in Queens thank Clark's halcyon experience in f*cking Kansas, so he was already accepted in the community. You don't do the numbers Spider-Flicks consistently do at the box office without them Black dollars, but Miles was whole ass embraced by the culture. No one is mad at kid now that he is finally himself in the suit. He's not a legacy, he is a Spider-Man. That's how you do it. That's how you make racebending such an intrinsic character to the American zeitgeist, work. You don't dress Michael B. Jordan up as Clark and tell me he's my Superman. That's a lie and everyone is going to see through it. Everyone already has. You don't need x-ray vision for that.

[missfay49]

Who is Orange?

Disclaimer: Please enjoy?  Accept?  Beware?  This… Thing that started out as character analysis and turned into a deranged fanfic, because I experienced a literal revelation mid-way through free writing.  I did not clean this up much because I’m still reeling from the theory implications myself.  I cursed a lot.

~

What does Orange Side represent?

What do we know?

Orange is a “Dark Side”, defined as being one of the Sides hidden from C!Thomas.

The other Hidden Sides were Janus, Remus, and Virgil.

All the Hidden Sides were hidden due to a key aspect of their character that C!Thomas had to first acknowledge and then accept.  Virgil required C!Thomas to acknowledge that he had heightened anxiety and accept that anxiety isn’t inherently wrong, just a different form of information that can be processed.  Remus required C!Thomas to acknowledge that he had intrusive thoughts and accept that those thoughts don’t make him evil; they’re just thoughts.  Janus required C!Thomas to acknowledge that he was capable of lying and accept that acting “selfishly” sometimes isn’t just okay, but actually critically important to managing stress.

 What are the common themes here?  

Confronting the reality about ourselves instead of pretending some traits don’t exist.

Understanding ourselves to be more complex than ‘good’ and ‘evil’.

Addressing mental health.  

Orange Side is still hidden, but we can expect him to be something C!Thomas doesn’t want to (or isn’t ready to) acknowledge.  Something that would be difficult to accept about oneself.  All Hidden Sides fall under the jurisdiction of Janus, so let’s take another look at him.

In “Can Lying Be Good?” we get a lot of information about what Janus’ purpose is:

Roman: It you really don’t want to know something, he… can keep our mouths shut.

Logan: You don’t want to believe it.  That’s where his power comes from.  Things that you want to believe.  Things that you wish were true.  And things that you wish weren’t.

Deceit: What you don’t know can’t hurt you.

This all means that Orange Side is something that would cause C!Thomas distress to learn and something he subconsciously wishes weren’t true.  This is not new information to most of you: the spin-off interpretations of Apathy and Pride are widely popular fandom theories, traits that are typically viewed as negative in large doses.

But the Hidden Sides being seen as something negative isn’t their only defining characteristic.  They typically involve an aspect a mental health, involve societal expectations, and... what is it...

Janus is the umbrella over all the other Hidden Sides, sheltering and obscuring them from view. He is the gatekeeper in a very literal sense.  What is he gatekeeping?  

What is it?  What is it what is it, why?  What does he do?  What seems bad but isn’t?  What can he do?  What issue is actually useful?  What’s useful what’s useful WHATS USEFUL WHATS USEFUL?!  WHY DOES IT HAVE TO USEFUL?

shitshitSHITSHISTHISTSTs

I KEPT ASKING MYSELF, WHAT’S USEFUL?  WHAT TRAIT COULD IT BE THAT APPEARS BAD, BUT ISN’T BAD, IS ACTUALLY USEFUL.  ANIEXTY WAS OKAY BECAUSE HE WAS JUST LOOKING OUT FOR US.  LYING WAS OKAY BECAUSE HE JUST WANTED TO PUT C!THOMAS FIRST.  INTRUSIVE CREATIVITY WAS OKAY BECAUSE DARK IDEAS OPEN UP NEW PATHS.

But the whole GODDAMN POINT is ACCEPTANCE!  

You don’t HAVE to be useful to be accepted.  You – yuo just BE.  YOU BE!

PEOPLE don’t have to prove their Usefulness to you before you can treat them with respect.  Our WORTH does not depend on what we PRODUCE. YE GODS, THE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE I JUST BROKE-

~~~

C!Thomas comes back from his self-care stay-cation.  He’s ready to start production, he is rested and refreshed.  BUT JUST LIKE EVERY PREVIOUS DILEMMA, it isn’t Good enough, Original enough, Fast enough.  He’s done everything right, why is it still wrong?  He’s accepted his anxiety, he’s accepted that things aren’t just black and white, he’s Accepted That It’s OKAY to have Dark Thoughts, he Has ACCEPTED SELF_CARE.  Why Isn’t IT ENOUGH?!

“Fuck it.”  

C!Thomas spins in his chair, looking at a man that looks just like him, but not quite.

“What?”

“Fuck it.  Fuck them.”

“You sound like Remus,” Thomas jokes.  He’s lying, of course.  He’s nervous. The Side looks like a normal guy, but something about him is unsettling.  The unidentified Side just presses his lips together, unimpressed.

“Um, ef w-who, exactly?” Thomas asks, but part of him already knows.

“All of them.  Every person who isn’t you.  Every person who expects something from you.”

“Now, you sound like Janus.” Thomas looks back at the computer screen, but the Side’s retort has him spinning around again.  

“Janus is a short-sighted pseudo-rebellious minion of a capitalistic society, just like the rest of them.”

“Uh, excuse me?!”

“Isn’t it obvious? They’re all obsessed with Success. Whether they want to play by the rules, or manipulate them, or break them, whether it’s making money or pumping out good deeds, they’re still just trying to make you be successful within the framework of a system that prioritizes production over a human life.”

Thomas just stares for a moment before he can find his voice.

“Who are you?”

“Dude, seriously?”  He waves his hands, palms up and presenting himself.  “I’m Achilleus.  I’m your motivation.”

~~~

Take a deep breath and follow me down the research black hole, where every topic I looked up was more and more terrifyingly appropriate: 

Freedom

noun

the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.

Self-Determination

noun

the process by which a person controls their own life.

Autonomy

noun

(in Kantian moral philosophy) the capacity of an agent to act in accordance with objective morality rather than under the influence of desires.

Autonomic Nervous System (because i believe each Hidden Side is closer to the subconscious)

noun

the part of the nervous system responsible for control of the bodily functions not consciously directed, such as breathing, the heartbeat, and digestive processes.

Inherent Value

“inherent value in the case of animal ethics can be described as the value an animal possesses in its own right, as an end-in-itself” – Animal Rights – Inherent Value, by Saahil Papar

Intrinsic Value

“Intrinsic value has traditionally been thought to lie at the heart of ethics. Philosophers use a number of terms to refer to such value. The intrinsic value of something is said to be the value that that thing has “in itself,” or “for its own sake,” or “as such,” or “in its own right.”” – Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Value, by Michael J. Zimmerman and Ben Bradley

“Finally, his sense of respect for the intrinsic value of entities, including the non-sentient, is the Kantian notion of the inherent value of all Being.  This is based on the notion that a universe without moral evaluators (e.g. humans) would still be morally valuable, and there is no reason not to regard Being as inherently morally good.” – Technology and the Trajectory of Myth, by David Grant, Lyria Bennett Moses

Motivation

“Another way to conceptualize motivation is through Self-Determination Theory … which is concerned with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.  Intrinsic motivation happens when someone does something for its inherent satisfaction.” – Second Language Acquisition Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching, by Steven Brown, Jenifer Larson-Hall

Capitalism

“The flowery language of the United States Declaration of Independence would have you believe that human life has an inherent value, one that includes inalienable rights such as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But in America, a major indicator of value is actually placed on being a productive member of society, which typically means working a job that creates monetary revenue (especially if the end result is accumulated wealth and suffering was inherently involved in the process).” – The Diminished Value of Human Life in a Capitalistic Society, by Seren Sensei

Religion

“At the heart of the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism lay the insurmountable chasm between God’s sovereign election versus human self-determination.” – Sovereignty vs. Self-determination: Two Versions of Ephesians 1:3-14, by Reformed Theology

Mythology

“In Classical Greece, Achilles was widely admired as a paragon of male excellence and virtue. Later, during the height of the Roman Empire, his name became synonymous with uncontrollable rage and barbarism… He chooses kleos (glory) over life itself, and he owes his heroic identity to this kleos. He achieves the major goal of the hero: to have his identity put permanently on record through kleos…

“But is this really an accurate characterization of Achilles' pivotal decision? Is he really driven to sacrifice his life by an obsessive quest for honor and glory? One scene in the Iliad suggests the answer to both questions is no.

“When Achilles leaves the battlefield after his dispute with Agamemnon, the Trojans gain the upper hand on the Greeks. Desperate to convince their best warrior to return, Agamemnon sends an envoy of Achilles' closest friends to his tent to persuade him to reconsider his decision. During this scene, Achilles calmly informs his friends that he is no longer interested in giving up his life for the sake of heroic ideals. His exact words are below:

“The same honor waits for the coward and the brave. They both go down to Death, the fighter who shirks, the one who works to exhaustion (IX 386-388)…

“Not only does Achilles reject the envoy's offers of material reward, but he rejects the entire premise that glory is worth a man's life.” – making sense of a hero’s motivation, by Patrick Garvey

Achilles (/əˈkɪliːz/ ə-KIL-eez) or Achilleus (Ancient Greek: Ἀχιλλεύς, [a.kʰilˈleu̯s])

Achilles realizes his own inherent self-worth, thereby freeing himself from the expectations of others; societal or otherwise.  Only once we are free can we find the balance between our own needs and the needs of others in a way that breeds neither anger nor resentment in either.

~~~

But that’s... that’s just... a theory.   Huh.

[tildehummingbird]

Spoiler about Catherine and the Soul Riding

(I posted this over at sso forums, so if you see a thread like this there, it's me hehe)

So, I've done the Catherine Quests and I've completed them and as a lot of other people, I was mad. 

I mean, I had so many questions: If Aideen is in everyone, and destiny doesn't matter, then what's the need for Soul Riders, if anyone can do it? Destiny and being the "chosen one" is the whole entire concept of this game, and changing the route NOW, or at ALL doesn't make any sense, and they're probably gonna lose a lot of players that are interested in lore because this doesn't make any sense. Then what's even the need for a 5th rider? What's even the need for this game at all, if a 5th rider isn't needed then just follow the storyline in Starshine Legacy and don't add the 5th rider. If anyone can do it and if Aideen is in everyone, then explain why we're the only ones in this whole entire generation that can handle all powers at once, why can't any of the other riders in Jorvik? Why was Elizabeth so surprised that we could in fact use all powers? What was the need for the beginning cutscene? It literally told us "In times of despair, a sisterhood of Soul Riders will ride forth to protect the island from the evil that seeks to rip the world apart. It is foretold that a sisterhood led by a heroic and fearless girl will appear on horseback to bring hope and light back to those who believe that all is lost... Are you that girl?" I don't know dude, it doesn't even matter if I am because apparently anyone can be that girl, so who cares if I am? Then why were we able to literally fly on our horse? Why would Fripp be so adamant about our protection to the point of where he put his own life on the line, just so we could be protected? The message of "anyone can be a hero" is great, however that's not the point of this story and it never has been.

All these questions and no answers, so I thought we could theorize a bit so that, together, we could try to understand a bit more about this and understand what even happened, what it means and where it is going.

I was checking the star stable tag on Tumblr, and I saw a post by @sso-emberwood that pointed out a lot about Catherine: She didn't even want to be Aideen at all, all she wanted was a normal life with Thomas and her baby, to be free from this prophecy and these duties. Not only that, but The Keepers of Aideen aren't exactly the most telling bunch, so she would know as much as we do: nothing. She wasn't a fan of the prophecy thing, she wasn't a fan of being the only one who's special and different, and she rejected the whole idea, so it would make sense as to why she'd project that onto us, too. Not only that, we saw that she lost her horse, and therefore "half a soul", as Linda described it so maybe she really doesn't get it anymore.

Either that, or maybe we perceived what she said wrong. I went back to check on what she said, so I'll write it here: "We needn't wait for Aideen's return. The goddess is reborn with every horse and rider who open their hearts and form a true bond. Aideen's gift is love. She's been with us all along. In me. In you. At least that is what I believe."

So, to start off, I think that last part is very important. That's what she belives - referring back to what we know is fact: she didn't like the prophecy, and she wanted to define her own destiny and not be controlled by it - so it would make sense for her and her character that she'd have these beliefs. To her, all you need is Aideen's love because Aideen's gift lives in everyone. Now, it is true that Aideen's Gift lives in everyone because Aideen's gift IS for everyone in the island of Jorvik, and I even have Rhiannon dialogue to prove that the Keepers of Aideen agree on this too. This bit of text is from one of the Soul Riding quests, where Rhiannon takes us to South Hoof:

"Have you ever noticed there's something different to the nature of Jorvik? The grass is greener, the birdsong sweeter. But most importantly, the horses are happy and free. They have all this land to roam, and we Jorvegians share this land with them. This connects us to horses on a deeper level. The other Druids put so much focus on the Soul Riders, Guardian Horses, Aideen herself....but they forget to see the magic that's right before their eyes. The magic of Aideen's gift." At this point, you're given two choices: either "I already know that." or "That's what they all say." Regardless, she'll say "Is that so? You've probably heard folk talk about it as if it's some kind of friendship between horse and human. But it's so much more than that. It's what pulled me to travel up North to care for magical horses. It's what makes Nix so special to me. It's even why I'm a Wild Whisperer...On Jorvik, our deep bond with horses is magical. You've been training exceptionally well. During this time, the bond you have developed with [horse name] has flurished. But you haven't just strengthened the bond between both of you. You've connected to the nature of Jorvik on a deeper level, and with that have honed a magical link to all the horses in this island. Close your eyes, and listen to the sound around us. Can you feel how everything is connected?", yet again you can choose between "Yes, it's magical." and "Uh...no." she'll say "You clearly have an affinity for this. I'm impressed. Sometimes, if you focus clearly, you may notice a spark of something powerful. That's the presence of a wild horse. It's one of the ways we Wild Wardens sense they're nearby and ensure their safety. So now you know. Aideen's Gift ties us to all the horses on Jorvik, and it is something to treasure. You can use this knowledge to improve your riding skills. Pay close attention to your horse, and the horses around you, and you will find harmony. This is what I wanted to share with you weeks ago, but I thought you weren't ready to understand. However, I was wrong. Your dedication to Soul Riding has proven just how much you care for the horses on this island. I'm proud of you, [player name]. Thank you for helping protect the horses on Jorvik."

Aideen's Gift is what makes you have such a good connection with horses and it is what makes Jorvik's people and horses special - however, that's certainly not enough to lead Soul Riders into battle. Love isn't enough to defeat Garnok - you need to be chosen for it and destiny DOES matter, no one else has any power in any circle, only the people who are born specifically to have it. However, Catherine is right, but I'm not exactly sure that she understands that that's not why we are unique and that's not what makes us fit for battle instead of literally anyone else - we're unique and the reason as to why we're the only ones who should be able to go into battle is because we don't just have Aideen's Gift like everyone else - we are Aideen. Catherine is Aideen too, we are her and she is us. Cause all of the reeincarnations of Aideen are the same thing, different body. Us and the Soul Riders don't just have Aideen's Gift, we were reincarnated to be her and the soul riders were reincarnated to be what they are today.  Catherine very visibly rejected and left behind her duties and gave up being a soul rider after she lost her horse - she completely rejected even looking for a reeincarnation of it like we did with Anne - but when she did, we were born, because Catherine gave up which meant that another reeincarnation was needed, because it needs to be Aideen herself, not just someone who has the gift - she kept the gift, but she no longer had what it takes to be that girl, and didn't want to either, so someone who did was born.

And again, the Druids make it very clear that their mission, and their end goal is he rebirth of Aideen. A couple of days ago I got a lore book from the Soul Riding missions called "Druids and Horses: A Partnership" that said this: "Aideen's Gift enables druids to continue to protect Jorvik, feel spiritually closer to the land, and ultimately fulfill their mythical goal of the rebirth of Aideen" and  "[...] a network of spiritual people whose sole mission is to protect Jorvik through ensuring the return of the goddess Aideen." 

Which means they acknowledge that they're waiting for a specific someone to be born, so that that specific someone can lead the sisterhood into battle, when the final battle comes, which means that they acknowledge that it can't just be anyone. Waiting for someone special is the whole point of the Keepers of Aideen - they are literally called Keepers of Aideen, no Aideen reborn, no Keepers of Aideen.

Also, in the mission "Strenght in Numbers" with Rhiannon in the Soul Riding, she said that what made her leave Jorvik was that she saw a hooded figure in the forest, and it felt like it was draining the life out of her and her horse, so she left because she was afraid, but she came back upon Elizabeth's request for help, and she when she saw how much closer the Keepers of Aideen were, she decided to stay, but after she says she says: "What really opened my eyes was you, [player name]. Your dedication, skill, and sheer talent has given me faith in Aideen's Light that I haven't felt for a while." Everyone has something like this to tell us, I think there's a reason for that. One of the most important ones so far was for example, when Darko was able to enter the Stone Ring, threatening to destroy the keystone, and Fripp says: "I would sooner destroy the keystone than let you take [player name]. She is more important than you imagine..."

The reason as to why I choose to share the Rhiannon one is because it is recent, just like Catherine's memories which means the story and the objective remains the same, with the only difference that we know Catherine's perspective and why she failed and why the sisterhood fell apart, which will be important in the future, because if you don't remember, the dark riders are trying to recruit Nihili (previously known as Elise) who is the 4th Dark Rider. So far, we've only seen her horse but what we do know about her is that she has the ability to cause discord within the Dark Riders, but I'd imagine she'd have influence on us, as well, and that's why she'd probably be recruited. The Dark Riders know that the previous sisterhood failed due to discord and fights within the group, so it wouldn't be surprising that they'd try to make that happen yet again.

Apart from all of this, I simply don't think Catherine knows enough about this whole thing to be the one to reveal it to us, and I also think the "big reveal" was anticlimatic and not well done, at least in my eyes, because *assuming* this is the route they're going with...eh? What? Why was it so...dry?

Also, if you go back to the very first news post on Catherine's diary, it says "This chapter of the Soul Rider story arc is a standalone quest and is not mandatory to complete in order to play future quests with the Soul Riders." and if they were to add SUCH an important reveal then it wouldn't be a something you could choose not to do, it would be a mandatory, integral part of the story -  this seems like very important information, right? If we don't do this quest, and just move on then in the world and in a story sense, MC wouldn't know that there's technically no Aideen to look for. It doesn't make sense if this is really what they're going to do...Unless it's not and this is just Catherine's opinions on the matter.

Overall, I'm just not a believer yet - I still think this is just Catherine's thoughts. As @sso-emberwood said, the only one who could actually tell us anything for sure is Fripp. He knows way more than everyone in the Keepers of Aideen. But he's sick still, and has been since 2017 the poor guy. I don't think we should assume anything yet, and I certainly don't think the game has changed directions. If it did, I'll be honest with yall - my interest would not be the same and I think it would be that way for a lot people as well and I think that's fair. You can't just come in and suddenly change the route of something that has been hinted at and is supposed to be the point of the game, it just doesn't make any sense. If so, then there's no need for this game or for a 5th rider.

[brisfanfictions]

Chapter One [Andy Biersack]

Andy was sat in the corner, nodding his head along to the song that was playing over the loud speakers. The music was loud, the house was crowded with people, and the lights were off; the only illumination coming from the strobe lights. Andy had a beer in one hand, and his other was being used to help explain the story he was telling to his group of friends.

Halfway through telling his story his eyes glanced up, catching the door just as it opened, just in time to see you walk through the door with a scowl on your face and your best friend by your side.

Rosalie Ashlen Watson, or Rose as her friends and family call her, was at a college party. Only being 19 years old, she had been dragged to the party by her best friend and college roommate, Lillian or Lily. She wasn't a party fan. Especially when she had heard from her best friend that Andy Black, a famous musician from the band called Black Veil Brides and his own album "The Shadow Side." Her friend was a fan, but she just didn't really like him. He just didn't really sit well with her.

She walked through the doors, scowling in disdain at being there. She would rather have been at home, reading a book or just drawing in a notebook. When she glanced over into a room, she spotted Andy and shot him an angry, hateful glare. Without another glance, though, she headed to the opposite side of the house while her friend went to grab a couple wine coolers for her and herself.

Andy's eyes stayed on Rose for longer than he intended as he tried to understand why she glared at him so hatefully. He wasn't used to people glaring at him, but rather looking at him in what could only be described as admiration. His voice slowly trailed off, ending his story halfway through. "I'll be back" he muttered under his breath to his friends as he pushed himself up from his chair.

He got up easily, making his way through the crowd carefully. The beer in his cup sloshing around as people pushed back against him. He rolled his eyes slightly as he stepped out into the foyer where she had just been standing. He took a sip from his cup as he continued moving in the direction she went. Andy was dying to know why she seemed to hate him.

Rose didn't know that he had been staring much longer than he should have. She wasn't in a relationship with anybody. However, she preferred to avoid everybody. Despite her being polite and sweet to others, she just absolutely hated Andy with a burning fire in her soul.

Once she found a peaceful place to hang around without anybody near her, she pulled out her phone to randomly scroll through her social media platforms. Then she started to play her dating simulation games. Just to keep herself occupied. She hated Andy because he was a No Good Bad Boy type of guy. She was more into the sweet, kind and loving men that would treat her with so much adoration and dedication to their relationship. To her, she saw him as a cheater that played with girls' hearts for fun and just to toy with their emotions.

Andy made his way through the people, occasionally stopping to talk to someone who grabbed his arm. He took another sip from his cup, smiling as he finally spotted her sitting in a chair against one of the back walls. He chuckled softly seeing the scowl etched into her face as she did something on her phone.

He kept the grip on his cup tight as he pushed through a group of people, stopping a mere five feet in front of the girl. He carefully set his cup down on the table in front of her, pulling a chair over, sitting on it backwards, his arms resting on the back of the chair. "Hello there gorgeous. I'm Andy, and you are?" he asked smoothly, picking his cup up off the table.

Sometimes she loved her games. However, her scowl was of concentration since she was playing a highly and very important game. That was called "Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links," which is her absolute favorite game. Among all her dating sim apps. It was highly addictive and nice.

She heard somebody approaching, looking up from her phone and bangs for a second. Once she saw that it was Andy, she went back to her game. Finding it more important than talking to him. Yet, he just didn't take the hint that she didn't want to talk to him. "I'm not interested," she remarked. She wasn't going to offer this guy her name because she didn't trust him as far as she could throw him.

His look of amusement turned into one of shock as he heard her say she wasn't interested. He wasn't used to being turned down that quickly, let alone being turned down at all. "I sort of got that from the glare you sent me earlier, beautiful" he said, regaining his composure quickly. "But, I'm here to ask you why" 

He went silent, watching her carefully as he ran his fingers through his hair again, leaning up slightly to try and see what she was doing. "Are you playing Yu-Gi-Oh!?" he asked curiously, taking another sip from his cup, his eyes never leaving her.

"Because you're egotistical and think that every girl will come crawling to you on their hands and knees just to bend to your will," she smoothly answered him. Still not glancing in his direction again. "You are a player and don't care about whose hearts you break. Only looking for the next 'play thing' or a new panty to add to your 'collection.'"

She didn't know what he did. Nor did she care. After he asked the question about her game, she looked up and shot him a cold hearted glare. "So what?" She questioned him. "Seto is hotter than you. He maybe egotistical and cold, but at least he isn't tossing girls aside when he's done with them. And he is kind underneath his mask. The proof is the way he treats his brother, Mokuba." After she was done her mini rant, a clear sign that she is utterly in love with a fictional character, she went back to her game. Since she was playing as Seto Kaiba and he was at level 16, doing her best to level him up towards 20.

"You think I'm an egotistical player?" he asked, shock once again filling his features and now voice. "And exactly how did you come to that conclusion?" he asked curiously as his eyes scanned over her looking for answers.

He never saw himself as a player, or as the egotistical type, given a few moments in his life that he regretted, but he tried not to let those few moments define him. After her sudden outburst, he sat back in his chair slightly, being careful not to fall as he was taken back. "You never know, if you got to know me you might find that Seto and I have a lot more in common than you seem to believe" he replied, drinking the rest of what was in his cup before setting it down on the table easily. "But I can understand when I'm not wanted" he said, only partially lying as he stood up, getting ready to go find himself another beer.

She rolled her eyes as she turned back towards her own game. Her eyes shone with much love and adoration for the male, fictional character. "I know you are," she answered him. "Being a musician isn't all its cracked up to be, huh?"

She still kept her eyes on her phone. "You drinking the alcohol really isn't helping your case a bunch either, 'dude.' You have black hair, which you dyed when you were in that stupid band. The only thing you have in common with him is the eye color, but Seto's is darker and more concealed. While yours is just after getting the next 'fuck' or drink. Ain't that right? Seto wouldn't drink to get drunk. He'd be too responsible for his baby brother to do stuff like that."

Andy looked down at her, arching one of his eyebrows as he listened to her list off what he could only assume were the reasons why she didn't like him. "I honestly would not trade being a musician for the world." he said, changing his mind about going and getting a beer, and sitting back down in front of her. 

He ran a hand through his dyed hair, rolling his eyes slightly at her words. "I don't drink to get drunk anymore, although I used to, I don't anymore." He said truthfully. "And, contrary to what you may believe, I didn't come to this party to 'fuck' anyone, nor did I come over here to try and 'fuck' you." he said simply.

"I wouldn't want a musician anyhow," she said, scoffing. "I'd want a lawyer or a doctor. Somebody with a practical job. Or even a CEO of his own business would do. Mostly because musicians only get paid with how much a person listens to their song. And your fan base is only followed you as a single artist because of your looks or that you were a part of Black Veil Brides."

"I wouldn't let you touch for it to lead to that." And she meant it, too. "I don't trust the drinks at any party. Since a creep could have laced the alcohol with a roofie. Besides, you could be drunk enough to 'fuck' a fan, huh?"

Andy sighed softly, shaking his head. "Music is a practical job. Granted some get a better deal than others do as far as money goes, but for the most of us we all have the same end goal." he said, pinching the bridge of his nose gently, "We all want to make those who listen to our music feel like they're not alone. We give our fans a means to escape reality, and be happy, and if that's not practical enough for you then I don't know what else to say."

He took a breath, trying to keep himself calm as he spoke again, "But it's good that you don't trust drinks at parties. Better safe than sorry." he said softly. "And I'm no where near being drunk, but if I wanted to 'fuck' a fan, I wouldn't need to be drunk to do it.”

"Its not a nine to five job that is good for family," she countered what he was saying. Despite her tone, she was enjoying this little debate. Even though she can sense that he was angry. "Musicians take up more time than that. Since they move around for tours and their schedules are always off. Private tours and flights. And what would a child think if their mother or father is always off doing their own thing? They'll think that the parents are fighting and running off to do whatever."

She snorted in a bored way, rolling her eyes. "Says you. Some people prefer to be drunk to fuck. As some drunks call it, its liquid courage. Anyways, I'm sure that my friend would like you to be her first. She's the fan. Not me. I don't listen to Scream-O music. I'm a pop fan."

He rolled his eyes once more, "No, it's not a nine to five, but that doesn't diminish the practicality or importance of the job." he spoke seriously. "And as far as children go, its not the easiest thing in the world but you raise them up to know what is happening and why their parents are doing the things that they do. Sometimes you bring them along, and you always make time to come back home for them. It becomes complicated yes, but it is possible to do. Trust me, I know people who make it happen." 

He chuckled softly, "I don't need liquid courage, and like I said before, I'm not here to get drunk and 'fuck' someone random. I'm not a complete asshole."

She finally cracked a smile. She hid her smile behind her hand. She believed that it is possible to do, but the nine to five job is actually pretty boring to her. Her dream job is to be an author. It is like being a musician, but the difference is that it takes time to become popular. "Would you want to have kids someday?" She asked him. "I think having kids is a great thing. Especially when you're pregnant. Great life experiences, too."

She giggled when she heard what he said. "Tabloids and magazines would like to tell you otherwise. I don't listen to those. I listen to my heart. I always have."

"I think one day I might like to have kids, definitely. But just not right now obviously." he said with a small laugh. "I don't get to experience the pregnancy thing obviously" he joked, "I do think of it a lot though, the having kids thing, not the being pregnant thing" he laughed softly.

He ran a hand through his hair again, smiling softly. "Trust me I know all about the tabloids and magazines, I can't change that though. They write what gets them reads whether its true or not" he said with a shrug.

"I read somewhere that childbirth is like breaking all your bones at once times two," she said in thought. "I'm glad that modern medicine can save women now than what they could have a hundred years ago. More women died from child birth than anything else back in the 18th to 19th century." Then she smiled more when she heard that from him. "Being pregnant isn't a walk in the park, but I hear its rewarding when you can actually feel the baby kick and punch in the womb. I wouldn't know since I'm a virgin and never been pregnant before."

She watched him run his hand through his hair yet again. "Did you ever experience a fan going to the press to say that the baby she had was your child? Like what Justin Bieber and Michael Jackson experienced?" It was a curious thing to her. Why those kinds of hardcore fans get pregnant, have their child and it looks like their favorite celebrity to go around and say that its their illegitimate child. Without any proof.

"If that is the case I'm glad I will never have to experience the hell of childbirth then. I mean, granted it seems pretty great afterwards because you have your cute little bundle of joy, but I don't even like spraining my ankle, let alone breaking bones" he said with a laugh. "But I've always heard that pain is beauty, and beauty is pain. So I'm sure that also applies to the childbirth situation, does it not?" he asked seriously.

He mentally smiled, loving the fact that someone was having a semi decent conversation with him instead of trying to get something out of him like sex or money for once. "Actually yes, this one time I had a woman try and say her one year old son was mine, the only flaw with her story is at the time she would have had to conceive the child, I wasn't even in the country to have been the one to get her pregnant." he said, shaking his head slightly at the memory.

"I wouldn't know that beauty is pain or pain is beauty because I don't really do much to myself," she said with a shrug. "I put so much junk in my body, it is surprising that I haven't gotten diabetes or anything. I've always had a high metabolism. And walking around campus also keeps me fit as a horse. But, to your question, I'm sure that childbirth is in that 'beauty is pain' category. After all, during the pregnancy and a woman hits a certain month, they're 'glowing,' so to speak."

She laughed when she heard that story, smiling brightly after she was done with a good three to five minute laugh. Her lungs and face hurt from smiling and laughing. Then she lightly shoved him as she continued to speak to him. "Are you sure she didn't buy a concert ticket and flown out to one of your shows? It is possible she did that. Much like in Justin Bieber's case. A woman had claimed to have met him on tour, but he never did. He even agreed to a paternity test, which came back negative."

======

Previously {AT THE START}

Next

[pocmuzings]

Hey G! I was hoping you or your followers could help me out! I'm going to write a canonically Mexican character and I've of course done my research on how to write mexican characters respectfully (and will continue to do so throughout because you can never learn too much or be above improving!) BUT I have a slight dilemma. One shouldn't be stereotyping, as a general rule, but this dude has a speech pattern of adding words like "hermano" and "ese" in all media to a point (1/3)

( cont’d )  where it doesn't sound like him when he doesn't (that's even how they once noticed he was under other's control) even when written by latinos, and I was wondering if I should refrain from that to show respect or if I should keep it since it is such a big part of his way to express himself? Like I'd hate to offend anyone, and normally when I write latino muses I don't write with such a speech pattern because it is a stereotype . BUT at the same time, I don't want to be disrespectful towards this characters origin and history by erasing a key trait of his speech pattern, as he is a native spanish speaker and since his character actually has been quite important for diverse rep in comics, y'know?? I'm hoping a lot of your latino/mexican followers can weigh in! & Maybe you could too in a more general sense? Like, if it was an indian muse, would you rec changing speech pattern or not? Thank you!!

hello and im so so sorry this is late ! i hope you already may have found an answer ? this is a really hard question for me to answer because i am not latinx and i do not want to speak for any of them , so of course i will open this up for any and all latinx people in the community to respond and put in their 2 cents if they want to !! 

going off what you ask at the end there , if it was an indian character you were playing and canonically in comics / media they spoke a certain way  . . i wouldn’t MIND if a person who is not indian , and playing this character , imitated that speech pattern they presented . so long as its sticking to just the words they say in the comics , and not then trying to add in your own google translated words or whatever .  i think i wouldn’t mind seeing some hindi / tamil / urdu  written and spoken by characters and people in the rpc who don’t actually speak that language , but at the same time i REALLY would not want somebody to overdo it . for e.g , if you wrote an indian character who spoke hindi and you notice , canonically , they say ‘ beta ‘ a lot , or ‘ haa / han ‘ a lot . because , to me , thats important to the character and i wouldnt want to erase that english isn’t their first language etc etc . but also , sometimes it is painfully obvious when somebody doesn’t understand how bilingual / multilingual people speak , and they’ll overdo it with how many times they’ll start having their character say those words . i don’t know if i’m making much sense . basically , it’s hard for me to reply because on one hand : the speech pattern is important and defines a character , especially if they’re canonically written one way , but on the other hand , you need to be careful with how you write this because  i know MANY latinx writers in the community who literally hate / cringe at anybody writing spanish sometimes , because its so obvious that they’re just using google translate , or throwing the words anywhere . so their experience is going to be ABSOLUTELY different from my own , and therefore , my above answer is probably pretty useless ! so . i don’t know for sure , because it definitely differs for them , then it would for me if i saw a character speaking hindi ( because i never do so i’d mainly just be Excited and maybe a little Nitpicky ). 

anyways . . if anybody else wants to help me and this anon out , feel free to jump in ! 

[hisokas-long-toenails]

HELLO✨✨ I hope this finds you well! If you’re doing requests atm, I wanted to ask: how would Hisoka, Illumi, Chrollo and Paristan react to their crush or interest trying to woo them first? Like the whole wine and dine thing, odd attempts at flirting or something? However you would woo them lmao is this a weird ask?!?! 😩 Please don’t answer if you don’t want to!! Thank you 💗🌚 I absolutely adore everything you’ve written 👀👌🏼

Sorry this took forever, I’ve been trying to hit the gym after work again.  Aaaah, thank you so much. And thank you for including my beloved rat man. I assume you mean like “they already sort of like you, but how would one even TRY to woo them first in that context” First of all, as much as I love all of these characters, I feel so bad for you if any of these dudes had a crush on you. I don’t know what you did in life to deserve this misery but here we go. Hisoka: You know, there’s the obvious, “hey, wanna fight” but honestly he might/will probably end up killing you if that’s how you flirt. Then again, wanting to date Hisoka is basically admitting to having a death wish, in which case good job! You did it! But to like, date him date him? That’s tough. It’d probably have to involve inviting him to join you on some mission or adventure thats dangerous and promises a good time. Maybe it’ll involve a strong individual for him to fight, but we know it doesn’t have to. He did play a game of high stakes dodgeball just for the hell of it because he was bored and had time to kill. And you know what? He’d love being pursued. He might make it hard for you for the hell of it, but he doesn’t seem to have a lot of people on his side for very obvious reasons, and having a crush who just pops in sometimes with a “hey, wanna fuck some shit up? But like, romantically. As a date” would be a welcome presence to him. Illumi WILL 3rd wheel, and you WILL have to deal with/enjoy it because you’re in a triad now. You don’t have a say in it. It’s what Hisoka would want. Illumi:  Okay, so Illumi is odd, right? If he had a crush on you I feel like he’d just… show up and be around when he was free. He probably wouldn’t even know why he was doing it. I’m not sure he’d initially even realize you were trying to woo him regardless of how you were doing it, if we’re being honest. I don’t think he really has an idea of what love or affection look like, hence the tendency to sort of loiter around you when not busy instead of flirting with you or trying to date. Because of this, I actually feel like you’d have to make the first move. This is all on you unless his parents were trying to arrange it. So, you’d ask him to dinner. He’d think it was just dinner. You’d ask him to go kill or fight someone. He’d think it was just work. You’d flirt and try to make physical contact with him to make your intentions clear and he’d wonder why you kept touching his arm (and get mad if you’re accidentally tickling him). You’d probably have to literally say “hey, I want you to help me train so that we know I’m a suitable romantic partner for you” and then I think he’d get it, and immediate start your torture training because he’s been meaning to tell you that your pain tolerance isn’t enough. I don’t think there’d be a true romancing stage to dating him, just a work partner or a romantic partner.  He’d be elated, though, but have that same expressionless face that you’ll have to live with. Maybe you’ll get a very brief smile and I’m so sorry if you do because he’s terrifying when he expresses emotions on his face with those big dead empty ass eyes. Sometimes Hisoka will be there but probably less than Illumi would be there in the opposite situation. Hell, Hisoka might play a big part in helping you two get together. Who knows Illumi better? 

Chrollo: You know, I actually think he’d be the easiest to try to woo. He’s clearly got some identity issues and sort of uses others to find and define himself. If he was already finding himself infatuated with you, you just have to try to give him a sense of purpose or help him question life. He’d probably like and understand the romantic intent behind dinner and a movie. He’d enjoying normal dating stuff way more than any of the others, even if I think his way of flirting back would be very different and probably involve a lot of weird stolen shit he likes. It’s as if he’s a crow or a magpie or something. But the way to actually flirt with him? Just talk about philosophy. It doesn’t even have to be that deep. Do you remember being a teen or young adult and desperately wanting to figure yourself, filling the void you felt with objects, and massively consuming ANYTHING about the meaning of life in an attempt to finding yourself.  (no? Just me?) Well, that’s just his permanent state. The troupe gives him a lot of purpose but that’s still something he needs to constantly feed off of. You can throw out some quote about life from a book you’re reading (because being well read is sort of a requirement to get into his heart romantically, I think) and he’ll just fucking swoon. Read a YA novel, because I doubt those are on his “to read” list, and say some John Green ass shit about being alive and in love and he’s instantly going to be putty because that’s so far out of the realm of what he reads in literature. And yeah, he’d love the attention. 

Pariston: Only partially related, but I sort of have this HC that Pariston could actually become (at least temporarily) infatuated with someone if they kept catching him off guard with self deprecating humor and actually enjoyed being roasted. Like, You’d get a backhanded compliment from him so you meet the insult with a laugh and saying something worse about yourself all while seeming completely unphased. I’m sure most hunters have some sort of ego and the lack of one might be a surprising and fun change. ANYWAY. I’m not sure Pariston would actually let someone pursue him. You might think that you’re going to wine and dine him, but he’s just pretending to play along. Dude has some control issues, to the point where even when he doesn’t care about something he’s going to mess with shit to see if he can. Add that into him actually kind of caring for you? Yikes. He’d like nice things, but if you tried to take him to a 5 star restaurant that he isn’t feeling that night, something bad will happen and you’ll end up where he wants to go. If he doesn’t like your attempt at a classy or sexy outfit that outfit will get ruined. He’d probably turn the whole thing around to look like prince charming by getting you something twice as nice, but he’ll probably also hold it over your head that he did so. He’d probably love the fact that someone was trying, though. Which obviously means he’d also be trying extra hard to make the whole thing bad, but quite frankly that’s just what you’re signing up for. You’d probably have to catch on to him and start playing his game to keep him interested, or at the very least react in ways he enjoys, or be interesting for other reasons than your ability to manipulate situations. If you somehow managed to get him on a date to some kinda cheesy themed restaurant (think rainforest cafe) he’ll be impressed and infuriated. He’d be plotting how to ruin the rest of your week, which would conveniently require him to spend all of his time with you and him giving you a lot of attention. You know, for a punishment.  

[blakemetothemoon]

Love in a Laundromat - SaifahZon, T, Ch. 1/4

Summary: Zon's favorite place is a laundromat. That is until a certain tall, handsome stranger steals Zon's washer and seems hellbent on making Zon miserable.

Notes: Breaking out of writing angst for my novel by writing SaifahZon cause I love them. Please let me know if you see anything weird! also hopefully they’re in character lololol The rating for this might go to M but we’ll seeeeee!

Read below or on ao3!

The 24-hour laundromat is as quiet as always. It’s why Zon always goes at 11:30 on Thursday nights. No other customers waiting for their laundry. No other machines rattling loudly because they’re past due for tune-ups. The store isn’t in the worst neighborhood but it’s not particularly fancy either. It’s close enough to campus he doesn’t need to walk far from his apartment but far enough away he doubts he’ll run into anyone he might recognize.

This laundromat is, in a way, Zon’s special place to hide away, like a treehouse or special spot in the woods no one else knows about. It’s hard to explain since plenty of other people know the store was there, obviously, yet it still feels like his. It’s his washer and dryer, second from the end. His bench to sit on, notebook in his lap as he scribbles words for the next chapter of his novel. His space where he can have his headphones on and no one will tap him on the shoulder to talk to him or ask him what he’s listening to.  His roommates were loud. His job at the coffee shop means interacting with customers for hours. Classes involved answering questions and speeches. This laundromat offers him the kind of “me” time he rarely gets otherwise.

This night is just like every other Thursday. Headphones over his ears, playing a soft, “poetic lyrics” song by an indie artist he just discovered, Zon walks into the empty laundromat. He balances his basket full of dirty clothes and detergent against one hip. With his free hand, he gives the attendant a small wave, then makes his way back to his machines.

And freezes.

Zon furrows his brow and glances around, eyes quickly scanning the store. There aren’t any other customers around.

So, why then, is his washer currently occupied with clothes that aren’t his, swirling around with bubbles that didn’t come from his bottle of detergent? And why is his dryer saying in neon green numbers that forty minutes remain on the current load?

What. The. Fuck. Who’s done this? Who slid in here before 11:30 PM and snagged away the machines Zon knows by heart how to operate. Like how sometimes the dial on the dryer needs to be tilted slightly to the left or it won’t stay on? Why would anyone decide to use this one? Both the first and the last are available, this makes no sense!

Suddenly, a hand grabs his shoulder, and Zon does what any normal human being would do: he screeches and jumps away.

Zon watches in wide-eyed horror as his basket flies free from his hands, lingering in the air with underwear, shorts, and t-shirts. Then it hits the ground with an echoing slam and absolutely no clothes left in it. The bottle of detergent lands heavy back into the basket but, thank god, it doesn’t break and spill.

Zon grabs at his chest, trying to calm his rapidly beating heart. Immediately, annoyance meets with the shock and he raises his head, prepared to glare at whoever the hell had done this.

But the words die in his throat. Because the person who’d tapped him was, uh, hot. Like, swoon-worthy handsome. And tall. Very tall. His skin was smooth and his brown eyes glistened. His hair fell across his forehead in an elegant way, defining his features. His fitted t-shirt displays lean yet defined biceps, and a long, slender neck. In one hand, he’s holding a large iced coffee, barely empty, and in the other, he’s holding—

“Nice sweater.” 

The guy is grinning at Zon’s cat sweater. The one his sister gave him for Christmas three years ago. It’s complete with cat ears on the hood and a tail at the bottom. And while it’s the most comfortable sweater in the world and his favorite to write in, seeing someone incredibly attractive smirking at it is fucking embarrassing.

It’s the taller man’s turn to jump, nearly spilling his coffee when Zon yanks the sweater from his hands.

“Don’t make fun of me!”

“What? It’s cute.” When Zon narrows his eyes, the guy shrugs but still doesn’t apologize. He bends down to help Zon gather his clothes. “Here, let me help you.”

“It’s fine,” Zon says and flinches at the unnecessary harshness. Once all his clothes are picked up, he grabs his basket and stands. “Good luck with your laundry.”

The words earn Zon a curious tilt of the head and another smirk. It keeps Zon’s attention on those very nice lips for too long and sends butterflies fluttering in his stomach. Zon quickly makes his way to the opposite end of washers, putting as much space between them as possible.

It works perfectly until after Zon’s started his first load and settled himself onto the bench like he always does. The guy sits down at the other end of the bench. Zon makes a point of adjusting his headphones, a warning not to bother him. Out of the corner of Zon’s eye, he can see the guy shake his head and chuckle.

Beneath Zon’s headphones, his ears burn red.

*

The next Thursday Zon walks into the laundromat.

And, again, the power button on his washer is blinking green. A soft whirl hums. The timer says twenty minutes remaining.

Zon huffs, annoyed.

“Hey!”

Zon turns and nearly chokes on his own spit.

It’s the same guy from last week. In one hand is another iced coffee and the other is in the pocket of his shorts He’s wearing a tank top this time and his hair is slightly matted to his forehead like he just came from working out and what the hell, he still looked hot.

However, hot or not, Zon has priorities.

Zon has never been great at hiding how he feels so he knows every ounce of frustration is playing out on his face. Jaw working, he demands, “Why are you using this machine?”

But the guy just raises an eyebrow, unaffected, maybe even slightly amused.

“Do you own this place?” he asks.

Zon blushes, but powers on. “No, but I always use this one. Always.”

The guy hums and steps closer. Zon tenses up at the sudden lack of space. Why is this guy suddenly pressing their shoulders together? And what the hell, how could someone be so tall? Zon feels like a hamster next to a giraffe. The taller man squints, purposely putting on a show of searching the washer and dryer. Their faces are close enough for Zon to smell the scent of coffee and some sort of woodsy cologne, and sweat. Something in Zon’s lower half tightens and he forces himself to ignore it.

“I don’t see your name on it?”

“That’s—!” Zon starts to reply but he’s so annoyed he can’t find words. The guy is definitely less attractive because Zon kind of hates him now. Except the jerk isn’t moving away and now Zon is getting lost in those deep brown eyes— “What the hell, are you three?”

A deep, disbelieving laugh bursts from the guy’s lips. He straightens, finally moving out of Zon’s personal bubble. “Are you serious? Dude, you’re the one acting like a kid just because you have to use a different machine.” He jabs a thumb over his stupidly high shoulder. “There’s, like, fifteen other ones to use. And laundromat decorum says first come first serve, so...”

Nostrils flaring, Zon’s hands tighten on his basket as he searches for more words to explain what he is trying to say. But the threat to his routine has the words in his head tumbling together into nothing but white noise.

“Fine!” Zon finally snaps at the guy for the second time in a week. He feels considerably less guilty this time around. 

Without another word, Zon storms by the guy, ignoring the amused chuckle. Like he did the week before Zon heads for the first machine. The washer’s door protests the force he opens it with. Zon knows aggressively shoving his clothes into the machine only proves the asshole’s point, but he’s too pissed to care.

Then Zon yanks on his headphones and pretends he’s alone.

[tacitcantos]

Why 2019′s Twilight Zone is Boring

Though 70 years old at this point, the original 1950 Rod Sterling Twilight Zone is still one of the creepiest and smartest works of speculative and weird fiction ever committed to TV. It’s a series that poses strange questions and offers even stranger answers, a series that’s moody and atmospheric and thought provoking, a dark parable that’s gone on to inspire other works of weird fiction.

It’s no wonder then that there have been so many attempts throughout the years to revive it: a movie in 1983, a series in 1985, and another series in 2002. Each has been greeted with varying levels of critical success, but none have been as culturally impactful as the original.

The 2019 remake... won’t be breaking that tradition.

Don’t get me wrong, the new Twilight Zone has a distressing amount of quality and talent involved. The cast is solid throughout, and the only reason certain episodes work at all is the powerful performances of the actors involved. There’s also a nice push for racial diversity in the cast, and sometimes in the themes of a few of the episodes like Replay and The Traveler.

The visuals of each of the ten episodes are gorgeous and moody, and the music wonderful and atmospheric and reminiscent of the discordant jangles and strings of the late and great 2013 Hannibal tv show. It’s a lot of quality to be draped on a fundamentally flawed structure.

To understand the fundamental flaw in the new series, we have to go back to the original Rod Sterling Twilight Zone. And the thing that has to be understood about the original series is that it’s not science fiction despite looking like it on the surface.

Science Fiction

Though there are dozens of definitions of science fiction, at its core one of the key aspects of science fiction is that it introduces a technology or technologies we don’t have in the modern day, and it explores and maps out the impact and implications they’d have on individuals and society.

For example, I, Robot by Isaac Asimov is interested in the implications of what sentient artificial intelligence means for our understanding of personhood, how an AI would define and think about itself, and how society would go about trying to control it, leading to the three laws of robotics for which the book is most famous.

This definition of science fiction is also why something like Star Wars, at its heart, is not science fiction despite having a lot of the trappings of it. It has a lot of technologies that don’t exist in the modern day, but it’s not interested in the impact of them. It has lightsabers because they’re cool, not because it wants to speculate about how they would change warfare.

Even the implications of the force, the speculative aspect of its universe that’s most critical to the story, isn’t really explored. How does the force change the universe? You get mystical samurai cops, and that’s about it. Nothing about the force is actually key to the functioning of the star wars universe. You could take it out and the movies would be a lot less fun, but the universe wouldn’t really be changed. This isn’t to disparage Star Wars: I love Star Wars, but despite its trappings it’s fantasy, and to say it’s science fiction just isn't accurate.

Parable

Much like Star Wars, despite its trappings The Twilight Zone isn’t science fiction. But it’s not fantasy either. The Twilight Zone is a much older and simpler form of story. It’s a parable. Each episode is a self contained story of right and wrong, with the strange or impossible element there to hammer home a message, not be explored.

All three of these genres we’ve talked about, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and parable, have strengths and weaknesses unique to them. One of the strengths of a parable is its clarity. There’s right and wrong, and not a lot else to be said. Almost by necessity, parables have to be streamlined and simple in structure. In a parable there’s a message or lesson and the story is really just a vehicle to illustrate it.

The parable of the boy who cried wolf doesn’t go into the emotional underpinnings of why a boy would consistently sound a false alarm over and over again, because it’s not important. Did he have an abusive childhood? Was it a metaphor for trying to escape abuse and the unwillingness of society to listen? Is the wolf symbolically his abuser? The parable doesn’t care and it isn’t important to the point it’s trying to make; don’t sound false alarms or no one will pay attention to you when the threat is real.

Simplicity of Structure

The original 1950’s Twilight Zone understood that simplicity of structure was key to a successful parable: each episode was a half hour in length; just long enough for setup, twist, and falling action. You can tell this simple structure was key to the Twilight Zone’s success because most of what people remember about any given Twilight Zone episode is the ending.

And while having such a simple structure might seem restrictive, I’d argue that not only is it the most effective way of telling a parable, but that there’s a lot of freedom in structure, that the simplicity of the structure allowed Rod Sterling and the other writers to grapple with issues other shows on TV couldn’t at the time, and allowed the episodes to breath in the grace notes.

And exhibit A in my argument is the new Twilight Zone.

Where the original Twilight Zone was a half hour, the 2019 incarnation is twice that length at an hour. And while I’m sure the writers and producers thought that was a great chance to expand and tell a more complete and complicated story than the original show, what it actually does is put the episodes in an uncomfortable limbo. They’re too long to be able to embrace the simplicity of the original show, that structure of setup twist and falling action, and too short to really be able to explore the core concept and theme of each episode. There’s a reason most movies aren’t an hour long, and that’s because it’s simply not a conducive length for telling a good story. With each episode of the New Twilight Zone I found myself bored around the thirty minute mark, impatient for the twist out of curiosity but not really invested in the characters or plot.

Not All Men

Episode 7, Not All Men, is a good example of the problems the extended run time of the new Twilight Zone can cause. The core concept is that there’s a meteor that falls and causes all men in the area to become violent. This is sort of a dumb concept to begin with, but not completely doomed. The main character even goes through some growth. She starts the episode unassertive and meek in the face of the patriarchal hierarchy of the company she works at and ends it standing up for herself against male harassment:

This isn’t an inherently bad arc, but it’s execution is pitiful, without enough weight for we the audience to become invested in. We never get any real indication of why the character starts the way she does, what her life experience has been to shape her into who she is, and there’s no sacrifice or growth involved in her change.

If the episode was longer it could’ve delved into that material, made the main character a fully realized and three dimensional person that we could’ve become invested in and root for, but as the episode stands she and her growth are more perfunctory than anything else. She’s meek, she runs from agro dudes for a bit, then stands up for herself.

The twist of the episode also isn’t worth waiting a whole hour for. At the climax of the episode it’s revealed that while the meteor makes men more violent, it’s not an overriding urge: the episode implies that the affected men didn’t resist simply because they wanted an excuse to inflict violence. But, because the twist comes so late, its not really given enough time to breathe and be explored in a meaningful way.

Simple Messages

This ties into another fundamental problem with the 2019 series, which is that it isn’t anywhere near as smart as it thinks it is. Often the idea or message at the heart of an episode is borderline offensive in how simple it is. By trying to avoid destiny you create it? Paranoia is bad? You should care about the suffering of others? Mind boggling. Truly.

They’re not bad messages, but they’re simple. And the television audience of 2019 isn’t the audience of 1959: the modern audience is more schooled and experienced with scifi and weird fiction. We’re not shocked or provoked into thought anymore just by the introduction of a weird element like your car coming to life and stalking you. It’s not enough.

This isn’t to say audiences of 1959 were dumb, but the discourse around scifi and weird fiction for even the casual tv watcher of today is a lot more complex than it was back then. We’re not in the 101 level anymore, more like the 103 level: we’ve seen the initial introduction of most ideas, seen them explored and challenged and subverted, and are now bored by those first two levels of discussion.

This is why the core message of an episode like Point of Origin, in which refugees from another world are rounded up and placed in concentration camps, falls flat. The episode follows a woman who’s privileged life is stripped from her when a government agency identifies her as an unwitting refugee from another dimension, and imprisons her in a concentration camp.

The episode’s message isn’t subtle: you should care about the suffering as others, you should treat immigrants as people: and that even before her fall from grace the woman should’ve cared more about the fate of her immigrant housekeeper and illegal immigrants broadly.

It’s not a bad message, and it’s one that a mind boggling amount of people nowadays somehow still don’t understand, but from a fictive perspective it’s too simple and trite to spark interest and engagement or make the audience think.

Preach Fatigue

And it’s also a message we’ve heard several thousand times. The way we consume information nowadays is different from when the original Twilight Zone first aired; the discourse around topics like immigration or gender nowadays is in many ways saturated and as an audience we suffer from a type of preach fatigue where we’ve been told so many times the given side of a given topic is bad or good that we’ve sort of stopped listening.

This wasn’t as much of an issue in 1960, and it especially wasn’t an issue with the Twilight Zone. Back then scifi and weird fiction wasn’t considered a mode of serious social commentary in the tv arena, which meant The Twilight Zone could lure audiences in for a fun and spooky time, their cognitive defenses lowered, and then sucker punch them with something deeper than what they expected.

That advantage of bypassing and audiences preach defenses is completely lost in 2019’s Twilight Zone. We all know that science fiction can effectively tackle big issues, and we know the deal with The Twilight Zone specifically: that it’s going to have a twist in the last act that makes us question our complicity in some social issue. Our preach fatigue hackles are already raised.

In 1960 the Twilight Zone was adding a new element to the discussion, but now, the social topics it was concerned with are are so heavily examined that to do truly do a comparable job, it needed to be way, way more clever than Point of Origin’s premise of "imagine its aliens instead of Mexicans". To be as effective as the original, 2019’s Twilight Zone really needed to tackle issues that are less clear cut than men having a choice in their violent behavior or whether illegal immigrants deserve basic human rights, issues that are less overtly preachy because they’re less discussed.

For example, Point of Origin actually has the kernel of a complex and interesting idea in it, it just doesn’t do anything in it. In the episode as it is now the main character’s fall from grace serves largely as a kind of gotcha moment of the irony in how the tables have turned, but in a better version of the episode her arc could be used to explore the idea that social lines are largely arbitrary and fickle, and that whether you’re part of a group or not can change on a whim.

It’s an idea that’s worth examining the facets of, the causes and effects of how and why and where social lines are erected, and one that’s more complex than Point of Origin’s trite message about how you should treat immigrants like people. There’s more material there for an audience to chew on and engage with, and one that’s less preachy and more thought provoking.

Metaphor and Censorship

Another element that made the Twilight Zone successful and relevant in 1959 but doesn’t really apply today, is the issue of censorship. In 1959 what could be portrayed on screen, and which topics could be explored was far less permissive than it is today.

There’s an interview with Rod Sterling right before The Twilight Zone first aired where he talks about being tired of clashing with sponsors and executives over what content and social issues his screenplays could include. One example he brings up comes from a teleplay on the Nuremberg trials in which the company American Gas insisted on an edit:

“In it as you recall, mention was made of gas chambers. And the line was deleted, cut off the soundtrack. And it mattered little to these guys that the gas involved in concentration camps was cynanide which bore no resemblance physical or otherwise to the gas used in stoves. They cut the line.”

“Because the sponsor was-”

“They did not want that awful association made between what was the horror and misery of Nazi Germany with the nice chrome, wonderfully antiseciptically clean beautiful kitchen appliance that they were selling.”

But just as with the point about the lack of complexity in it’s themes, the new Twilight Zone exists in a different era than the original. We’re at a point in television and fiction where creators don’t have to bow as much to advertisers or censors and can actually just say what they mean. Point of Origin doesn’t need to veil it’s message about immigrants and their demonization in scifi terms; it could just tell a story about real world immigrants and refugees. This doesn’t mean it has to be bereft of weird elements, those still have a valid role to play, but it does mean it can address the issues it’s about head on and directly, and I’d argue there’s value in that kind of clarity.

Some people will make an argument that veiling issues in scifi metaphors lowers an audience member’s kneejerk defenses and lets them look at an issue stripped of their preconceptions and prejudices. And there’s certainly a tradition of creators using weird fiction to try and accomplish that.

Rod Sterling himself spoke about it in several interviews throughout his career, though he seems to have been somewhat split on the utility of using scifi metaphors. At one point he said about audiences:

“You may have to tell them a story of prejudice in parable form in which they may step aside as third persons and cluck how awful we treat our minority groups but at least they know that it’s an evil, and they will recognize it as such. And by osmosis or some incredible process will somewhere along the line, be faced with a situation in which they too may have to exorcise a prejudice and be conscious of it as an evil.”

“Now on Twilight Zone for example, we made a comment on prejudice, on conformity, on intolerance, on censorship, but it’s easy to do it when you’re talking about Buck Rogers isn’t allowed to write his memoirs in the way he wants to write them so he puts on his backpack, his rocket pack, and he zooms over to the publisher. And they applaud and laugh and think how interesting. Now it may well be that the inner message never gets through, but I think peripherally it does get through.”

But in that same interview Sterling also emphasizes the need for clarity, immediacy, and hitting the audience where they live when discussing social issues:

“I think the- the purpose, the point of a dramatic show that’s used as a vehicle of social criticism is to involve an audience, to show them wherein their guilt lies, or at least indeed their association.

This latter point is the one I think is more valid. I’d argue that veiling real world social issues through weird fiction metaphors to make audiences think is a nice sentiment, it’s not a particularly effective technique, and often the metaphor simply goes over people’s heads.

How many red-hatted build-a-wall-enthusiasts watched Point of Origin and thought to themselves after; “yeah, you know what, immigrants aren’t so bad and we shouldn’t round them up into concentration camps.” I’d argue none. It’s far, far too easy for an audience member to simply think that sure, in this case what happened was unfair, but this real world case is different for x y and z reasons, no matter how insignificant those x y z differences are to the core situation.

Fundamentally, people are simply very, very good at ignoring and minimizing information that destabilizes their world view, and it’s relatively simple to do it with fiction. And none of the new Twilight Zone episodes are pointed enough to break through that cognitive barrier.

Get Out (Or In...?)

What’s ironic, is that for all that Jordan Peele shows up in the new Twilight Zone, his own movie Get Out is a far more effective blueprint of what the Twilight Zone should be, and a good contrast to it. To begin with, the scifi concept at the heart of it, that there’s an enclave of rich white people stealing black people’s bodies for themselves, is a manifestation of a complex and nuanced form of racism that often isn’t acknowledged or discussed.

Racism is generally thought of as a simple dislike or belief in the inferiority of another race, and while that’s accurate as far as it goes, racism can also fetishize or simply allow for superior traits in the othered racial group while still denying the people themselves their agency and basic humanity. It’s a form of racism that was one of the bedrocks of slavery, that as an institution it perfectly paired black bodily strength with white intellect, and you can see a modern expression of it in how until recenly most quarterbacks are white while the offensive line black, the black members serving as the muscle to the quarterbacks mind.

The racism at the center of Get Out is a far more complex and nuanced than Point of Origin’s message about treating immigrants like people. It complicates most people’s understanding of racism as the simple belief that races that aren’t their own are inferior, and makes us question our complicity and assumptions: as much as we don’t think other races our worse than our own, are we as careful about how we assume parts of them may be better while still not valuing their core humanity?

At 144 minutes, Get Out also not only has enough time to explore this idea, but also to breathe and build to its twist and flesh out its main character. Unlike Not All Men’s main character, Get Out’s main character is a real and multifaceted person with weight and history, and goes through a coherent character arc. We never get a concrete reason for why Not All Men’s main character starts the episode meek, which makes her blurry and poorly defined: by contrast, we’re shown Get Out’s main character was traumatized by what he feels was his complicity in his mother’s death, which gives his eventual overcoming of it real emotional heft.

The alternate ending of Get Out even threads his emotional growth through the themes of racism: despite having his body imprisoned, the main character is mentally free, an inverse of the fate he would’ve suffered at the hands of the Armitage family. Here’s director Jordan Peele explaining the scene:

“He beat the dragon, but more importantly for Chris when he says ‘I beat it’ he’s talking about his inner demon. And that was the moment he went back for Georgina after hitting her in the car, he defeated his personal demon of when he didn’t go and get his mother. So in a way he made the only decision that would free his soul. And even though he’s in prison like many black men are unjustly in, his soul is free.”

Get Out also has the advantage of being in a genre that, just like the original Twilight Zone, isn’t oversaturated with serious political commentary. While there are smart and socially intelligent horror movies out there, many people still think of them as dumb fun, and thus Get Out can effectively draw you in with the promise of cheap thrill before sucker punching you with depth and message.

Get Out has clear cut right and wrong, it’s not like we don’t know who to root for and who is evil, but these three elements together, a complex theme, a real character, and low expectations, save Get Out from the preach fatigue I talked about before and from which the 2019 Twilight Zone suffers so heavily.

Ultimately, 2019’s Twilight Zone feels like an outdated show, stiff and limited and slow. Worse, it’s boring, which is really the greatest sin. It’s stuck in an uncomfortable limbo both in terms of era and length; it’s mired in the past trying to emulate a tv show that’s sixty years old at this point while also upending its structure and replacing it with one that’s incompatible with what it’s trying to imitate.

[doctorwhos]

Hello! I just read your post on the thing around Crowley’s nose (i’m jewish) and I have to thank you because I always felt uncomfortable about it but never had the words to explain why Anyways, you said something in the post about the decision to cast DT as crowley and I was curious about your thoughts on that?

thank you for the kind words love !! i made the post because i was feeling uncomfortable and unsettled by how some people were drawing crowley, but it took me a while to finally figure out why ! when i did, i had decided to write the post ! i’ve been putting off answering this question for a while, since ive also had other people send me asks with the same thing. but ive finally decided to do so (for a second time, bc i lost my original answer from a power flicker at home).

i probably could have worded what i said better in my post, but i didnt, so now its time for me to explain what i meant by saying that david tennants casting decision was antisemitic. im going to preface this by saying i dont think the casting director OR gaiman came into the decision for antisemitic reasons, nor do i think david was cast ‘just because of his nose,’ as some people have been claiming i said. i just think it was an unfortunate side effect to the decision. gaiman said that david was picked bc of his unique silhouette for the church scene, but that doesnt change the impact it has. im also going to touch a bit on his character design in the show, because this is my post and i can do what i want. 

gaiman said that crowley was based off of him (though this might just be tumblr lip service, since i cant seem to find any source saying this, so feel free to correct me if im wrong). so, my initial thought would be that gaiman wouldve and shouldve cast a jewish actor for the role. he was raised jewish, and is jewish, even if he doesnt actively identify with the faith, and if crowley is based off of him, why wouldnt he pick a jewish actor to play him? we all know he didn’t, because he picked david. david isnt jewish in any capacity, just really really scottish. but, he looks like he could be jewish. im pretty sure i have an uncle that looks uncannily similar to david, and im 100 percent jewish, which isnt much, but is something i just think is funny.

if i remember correctly, gaiman has also claimed that he wrote crowley in response to an antisemitic scene he observed in a play. two defining explanations for who crowley was as a character before he had ANY kind of character traits were that he was based off of gaiman, and he was written as a response to antisemitism. this screams pretty jewish to me, but again, a goyish man was cast to play crowley.

why would it be antisemitic for this to be the casting decision for our resident snake man? im glad you asked, my fellow jew in arms, cause i have many things to say and no word limit.

we were all first introduced to david in mainstream media from doctor who, where he had a very different look compared to crowley. now, both the tenth doctor and crowley are very different characters, but there is something they both have in common. theres a persona that is settled deep within both of them that they dont like anyone to see, sans a single person (rose and aziraphale respectively). the time lord victorious versus the nice demon, obviously there are other similarities, and david has played characters that aesthetically are much more similar to crowley than the doctor was. there was that one movie about lesbians where he played that goth hipster dude, among others. but, fanart for david for these two characters are so drastically different its sometimes shocking to remember that they are played by the same actor.

david reminds me of my uncle who loves to wear the locust mask at a passover sedar because he thinks its the funniest one. david has the same nose as my grandfather. crowley uses yiddish in teh show. has was cast out of heaven for questioning G-d and the infallible plan, which are two very jew-y reasons to be kicked out of heaven. hes the serpent of eden, which is supposed to be the first real icon of evil -- as well as something a lot of christians will attribute to judaism. 

crowley is almost undeniably jewish, but he is also littered with antisemitic features. as i said in my original post, a lot of the features that really define crowley, when combined, points towardsA a very antisemitic caricature. crowley in the book is described as having dark hair, which most fans interpreted as red. gaiman and the costume designer decided on red hair for crowley, as well as making it curly when its long. both of these decisions are deliberate alterations from the book description. one could argue that gaiman would have the best idea of what crowley looks like because he and prachett wrote the book together, but they also purposefully left the descriptions to a bare minimum. 

it was the combination of (antisemitic) character design decisions with david tennants jew-passing goyishe look, that i feel the casting decision was unintentionally antisemitic. no one intended for it to be that way, but to have a non-jew play a character that is so visibly interpreted to be jewish, its insulting. especially when you add multiple layers of antisemitic character design on top of it. 

id be glad to further elaborate, but i feel like this post has gotten long enough, and is a little obnoxious. everyone is free to reblog this post, as well as my original one, goyim especially. if youre not jewish, do not make a negative comment. come talk to me, and we can see why you refuse to acknowledge antisemitism.