#I cannot even articulate why that bothers me but it’s been a Thing for years w/ white ppl who call themselves shit like trash goblins or

[starlooove]

Read one or two fics where they give Duke a personality treat Damian like a human being and stop sucking Tim’s dick for 5 seconds and everything else feels like forcing urself to eat normal food after tasting the fruits of the fae

[sereinlikessleep]

Little rant about Grusha because I had time

So uh listen to my ramblings I had nothing better to do and I’m bad at articulating my points and thoughts 😭 ok cool? Cool

Rant about Grusha because I have nothing better to do. So like I’ve been noticing a lot of people are dissatisfied with Grusha’s injury and it’s been bothering me a tad because the main reason is that it isn’t lining up with their head canons or the severity isn’t enough. That’s fine feel that way but people are treating it like Grusha’s being dramatic and while I agree the little shite can be dramatic at times with all of his ice puns he’s not wrong. As someone who has a former athletic background and has dabbled in snowboarding a bit and has multiple people around me who do snowboarding on the regular I feel qualified to give my 2 cents on the topic. So based on the anime Grusha has a leg injury and as someone who has and has a family with a loooooong history of knee injuries it isn’t a small thing. When your sport requires balance the knees are crucial, while I sustained a minor knee injury for pushing myself too hard in running I have family and friends who had to go through literal years of physical therapy and muscle training and they still can’t achieve the same results they had before and after injury. And that’s why this injury is so big for Grusha, it’s been well established that this man is a perfectionist and cares about results more than anything else. (IE why he quit snowboarding and failed Liko) I also don’t think people understand how fast snowboarding is, a turn that Grusha took at the speed he was going (average snow boarders go 30-40 mph since Grusha was at a pro comp we can assume he was going at least 50-65 mph) and the fact that it was his leg got hurt likely meant he fell feet first or landed on his knees which makes the likelihood that he broke his leg even higher. A close friend of mine was snowboarding and tripped while she was doing it and she’s not pro, she was doing it casually but she landed so hard that she cracked her helmet into 2 pieces and would’ve died if she wasn’t wearing it. Lesson take away is that snowboarding is dangerous and Grusha is very lucky he only ended up with the injury he has now. 

Now comes the hard part after a sports injury, physical therapy. A broken leg is going to require months of physical therapy at the least and knowing Grusha and how closely his identity as a snowboarder was this was probably hell for him and when he was finally cleared to go back he can’t get the same results he used to get. I’ve seen this happen, someone can’t get the results they used to and because you’re just trapped in this cycle of going from the best to only mediocre and you can only go as far as mediocre. For someone who was once considered the 2nd best snowboarder in the world this has to hurt. I didn’t mention it but even after physical therapy you still have to be careful because now you’re more at risk of re-injuring that part of your body. My cousin used to be good at basketball but she had a knee injury and had to quit because she couldn’t keep up and she was always close of injuring her knee again. For someone who likely did snowboarding almost 24/7 much of Grusha’s identity was intertwined with the sport not being able to return to his glory days is world shattering. Now he has to find something else to do, and pokemon battling was that next thing, he obviously threw himself into it with the same and possibly more effort than snowboarding because this is the one thing he has left and cannot let it go. So forgive him if he sounds dramatic or his injury wasn’t as sever as you expected it to be just know that Grusha is a perfectionist who values results more than anything else, snowboarding is dangerous, injuries suck and can last long times and be career ending. Thank you for coming to my ted talk :3

[stuff-from-the-void-matron]

Laurel Wreaths & Animal Teeth (19)

(c!technoblade x fem!reader) (?who knows at this point..)

(*SCREAMING UNTIL MY VOICE IS GONE* hahahaha i'm finally done with this devil forsaken chapter! I literally cannot articulate HOW hard this chapter was, for who knows what reason! I don't know why but this chapter was a struggle. like some trial a fucking greek god would give me to make me stronger or whatever. but.. I did it finally. PLEASE reblog and comment so I can feel like the pain I went through was worth it y'all 😭🥺👉👈)

—————

Bored.

That’s been his general state of things for about.. I don’t know, maybe 5 months? At least since he’d finished taking part in that last pvp tournament on the championship battle server. But the battle season has finished and he’s not found anything new to hold his attention. 

And Phil was busy working on a new build that's taken up his attention. And Techno would help but he knows Phil wants to do it himself, the man is so picky about his builds so Techno just leaves him be. Usually by now someone would have got in contact to hire him for his war faring services. Some kingdom or warring faction, looking for someone well versed in battle and strategy to help them turn the tides. But-

A yellow feather fluttering into his field of vision followed by the sound of flapping wings made the red eyed hybrid look up to see an incoming parrot holding a rolled up letter tied to its leg.

“Well, speak of the devil or whatever,” Techno said in his usual monotone drawl as the parrot landed on his shoulder.

It held its leg out and he took the offered scroll before reaching into his inventory to grab some seeds to feed it. Then once it was happily munching away he unrolled the letter, wondering which server it could be from. Probably some new upstart one inhabited by a bunch of idiots with conflicting opinions who don’t realize they can just go separate directions and end it. That was usually how it went. People were all the same. They find out their opinions don’t match up, they bicker over it, they fight, someone invariably gets killed, they wage war, and then rinse and repeat. 

But as he read the letter he realized it wasn’t from just anybody. It was from Wilbur, Philza’s kid. Jeez, he hasn’t seen him in what feels like one hundred years. 

Huh, when was the last time he’d seen the bespectacled boy? He actually can’t recall. He thinks back, far back, scouring his memory for instances with Wilbur. He remembers his round glasses, his warm yellow sweater, and his love for anything music. Techno recalls how Wilbur had always detested battle, fighting, anything like that. Hell, he hadn’t even liked wearing armor, even when it was for his own good. Which Techno thought was both foolish and endearing. He himself was always suited to battle, falling into it like how a bird takes to the skies. But he’d always seen Wilbur as so far removed from being suitable for violence. 

All the younger man had ever said he wanted to do was sing, play music, and write. He truly had the heart of a poet, that was for sure. Getting him to learn some basic defense so he could travel to the nearby villages on his own without being a sitting duck had been similar to pulling teeth for Philza, his son always treating the lessons like a chore. But he and Phil had managed to teach him enough self defense so he could be safe out on his own, at least from the mobs. And once that was handled then Philza didn’t feel so worried leaving his boy home alone, meaning he and Techno could go traveling again.

And Wilbur hadn’t been bothered by this either, seeming to enjoy having some time to himself when his father and Techno were out. They always came home to Wilbur playing his guitar either outside in the yard, enjoying the sun, or inside by the fire to stay cozy. He’d been perfectly content. 

And then one day they came home and Wilbur hadn’t been alone like he’d always been before. He’d had some kid with him, a little boy who actually bore a strong resemblance to Philza, what with his blond hair and blue eyes. That had been more than a shock, he’ll admit. Walking in and seeing Wilbur with some random kid they’d never seen before, just sitting on the floor in front of the couch like it was no big deal.

Yeah, that had been Tommy, and according to Wilbur he’d found him eating out of the trash in the village so he’d brought him home. Of course. When Philza asked where Tommy’s parents were, the kid had wrinkled his nose and said they were probably at home. That had turned into them grilling the kid, trying to figure out where their house was so Wilbur could return him. 

But Tommy had kicked up a huge fuss, shouting about how he left on his own and he was never going back. From how he’d described it, his parents hadn’t been the best. Not even close actually, they’d sounded like shit to be honest. I mean if your toddler is willing to up and leave with zero intention of going back to you, like 100% willing to eat out of the trash instead of staying with you then yeah you’re probably a shit tier parent.

Wilbur had begged Philza to let Tommy stay with them. He had nowhere else to go and leaving him out on the street seemed messed up and he was so little, it’s not like he’d take up much space anyways. Yeah, Wilbur admitted the kid kinda ate a lot but no more than he guessed all kids ate… But they had a huge garden and some cows so it wasn’t a huge deal, right? 

Techno had been against it, they’d JUST started getting back to traveling again since Wilbur was old enough and capable enough to look after himself now. He’d argued that they didn’t need another little gremlin running around touching their stuff. He’d been eyeing the little blond boy as he stared openly at Techno’s own enchanted sword that was strapped to his belt. He’d tucked it into his inventory to keep it away from the kid and his no doubt grimy little fingers. 

But Philza had always been such a sap when it came to Wilbur and his ‘sad boy eyes’. So he’d ended up folding like a house of cards pretty quick, though he’d warned Wilbur that the kid, Tommy, was his responsibility. Philza wasn’t going to start looking after him when he’d not had any hand in taking him in. So Tommy’s well being was now solely in Wilbur’s hands. 

Phil had actually been really serious at that part, asking Wilbur if he knew what he was getting into? Because Phil knew how hard it was to care for a child, it was exhausting and sometimes thankless, and you can’t just stop whenever you want because someone defenseless now relies on you.

Wilbur hadn’t been dissuaded though, and pulled the shorter boy close in a half hug, saying he’d be the best big brother ever! Nevermind the child had started gnawing on the arm Wilbur had around him.. Techno couldn’t help but roll his eyes back then and even now as he remembered that promise. But Wilbur seemed happy at least, and neither Phil nor Techno would have to take care of the kid so it hadn’t been so bad. And later when they were alone Phil shared that he was actually glad that Wilbur wouldn’t be alone at home anymore. He’d felt bad leaving his boy all alone, even though he could defend himself. 

Techno assured him that Wilbur was a big boy now, practically an adult himself. So he didn’t need Phil worrying about him so much. Phil had laughed and said that was true but he couldn’t stop worrying, it was a parent thing. You never truly stop worrying about your kid. Techno figured that made sense but still told Phil that that was one of the reasons why he wasn’t having kids, too much stress. Techno’s a busy guy, he can’t be losing sleep over some helpless nerds. That had gotten Phil to laugh, which had been Techno’s goal. So, goal accomplished. 

Things had been good after that. At least that’s how Techno remembered them to be. Him and Phil would travel and explore to their heart’s content, coming back to the house every now and again to take a break and check up on the brunet and blond. The kid grew like a weed, looking taller and taller with each visit. Him and Wilbur growing closer in height as well as their bond, soon acting like true brothers. 

Wilbur had been so happy, and Techno remembers the last time he’d seen him. Him and Phil returned home for another short time between tournaments. They’d walked up to the forest surrounded property they’d called home to see Wil lounging against the porch, guitar in hand with Tommy chasing around a bee, trying to catch it.

They looked so peaceful. And Techno thought that’d never change.

..But reading his letter now made Techno’s stomach sink a bit. 

Wilbur was asking for his help. His professional help.. Looks like he’d joined a server not too long ago and started his own nation; L’manberg. Technoblade couldn’t help but close his eyes in annoyance while pinching the bridge of his nose at hearing that. Nothing good ever came from governments, if he’d said that once he’s said it a million times. To the point where if he were a cartoon character from the 80’s then it’d be his damn catchphrase. But people just keep making and joining governments, even Wilbur it seemed.. 

And from the tone of the letter it looked like Wilbur was in big trouble. 

Techno scrubbed his hand down his face, his snout scrunching as he turned the letter over in his mind a few times before sighing and taking out his ender chest. With some mild annoyance he decided to help Wilbur out with his war. Better than sitting around being bored out of his mind at any rate. So he composed a letter back to the brunet, letting him know his services wouldn’t be cheap just because they knew each other, but he’d gladly help him turn the tides. Once that letter was done he handed it over to the parrot, watching it fly off back to Wilbur.

Then on a whim he decided to compose another letter, this time to Phil, letting him know what his son was up to. But knowing the winged man, he’d probably just find the whole thing amusing. 

“Well.. I better get packed while I wait for Wilbur’s reply,” Techno said before heading back to his house.

-0-

You carried Azo in your arms as the four of you walked back to L’manburg from the nether portal. Internally you were still seething at Wilbur, you knew what he’d done, to a child of all people. You knew Wilbur, deeper and more intimately than he would ever be comfortable with. But you’d held out hope he’d never sink so low as to harm a child.. You’d really clung to the sliver of hope, despite everything you’d seen him do in the lore streams..

But now you knew with a sad certainty how low he was willing to go for what he wanted. And you wanted nothing more than to sink your teeth into his throat and rend his esophagus from its place in his neck before crushing his skull between your palms. Your jaws ached with the fervent desire to cause the vile bastard as much pain physically as he’d caused you and your children mentally and emotionally. 

Though instead of succumbing to those feral desires you instead took a long measured breath in through your nose before letting it out through your mouth, just trying to calm your white hot rage since you needed to focus on the three kids you had with you and not the dead man walking over in fuckin Pogtopia~

You all got to your house and you mentally focused on how too small it was for your family now. Tommy and Tubbo already had their own rooms at your place despite each having their own homes elsewhere. You noticed they usually stayed here at night to sleep, which you were fine with. You preferred it actually, knowing they were safe in bed at night under your roof. But with Azo staying here full time you’d need to make her her own bedroom. 

Planning that out calmed your rage thankfully. Turned the magma level heat into a soft manageable simmer. Looking down at the little piglin in your arms made you feel so much better. Things weren’t perfect, no, but you’re just so glad she’s okay. You almost lost her and the thought makes your heart feel like it was being tugged out of your chest. But she’s okay. Things are okay. 

You remind yourself of this as you carry your baby through the threshold of your, and now her, home. You breathe and stop at the kitchen, telling the three it’s around lunch time and you’d make them some food. Both boys cheered and sat at the table, while you sat Azo on your hip with one arm while using the other to grab some stuff out of the ice box you kept around to hold food for the two teens. 

Azo watched you pull things out with curiosity, not sure what any of them were. Which sent a pang of sadness through you because you know you’ve let her try most of these before but she clearly didn’t remember it. Though you cheered yourself up with the knowledge that she could just try them all over again, rediscover her favorites and least favorites. You still remember the way her little snout had wrinkled up in distaste when she’d first tried a slice of lemon. That had been hilarious and you’d wished you had some way to record it to keep the memory forever, but oh well. 

“Mum, can you make us some of that fruit flower tea?” Tubbo asked from his spot at the table.

You smiled and said sure, and reached into the cabinet for the jar of tea you’d made for them not too long ago. You figured a warm meal and warm tea would be better for Azo right now since introducing her to cold stuff in the Overworld, which was already colder than the Nether, would be too much too soon. You noticed with a frown that she already seemed to be chilly. So while the tea was steeping you went over to the couch and grabbed the wool throw off the back and wrapped it snugly around her shoulders. She snorted happily at the sudden barrier from the chill this new world seemed to have.

“We’re gonna have to get you some new clothes, kiddo. Some that keep you warmer than your current ones do,” You said as you went to put some meat skewers onto the smoker and some potatoes in the furnace to bake.

You hummed and swayed your hips back and forth slowly as you watched the food cook. Then the tea was ready and you took Azo to the table and pulled a couple books from your inventory before sitting them on the chair, then you set her on top of them so she could reach the tabletop. She snuggled into the blanket around her while you went to fix the tea.

After giving each kid a cup you finished up the food and sat with them so they could eat. You idly listened as Tubbo and Tommy both talked to Azo, telling her all about L’manberg and their friends, and how they were going to show her around soon maybe.

You just let yourself zone out, taking comfort in your kids all being safe in one place right now.

-0-

Quackity had thought over what he and Reader had discussed the day they started rebuilding the White House. She said he had to make a decision since Schlatt had basically bailed on L’manberg. And she’d also said he’d deserved better than how Schlatt treated him. He’d honestly not wanted to think about that. Because thinking about her words made him throw his entire relationship into question. Did he deserve better than Schlatt? He wasn’t sure how to answer that. If he did then why did he deserve better? 

He didn’t want to start dumping on Schlatt, because they’d honestly had so many good times together. Great ones. They’d vibed so well while dating, Quackity can’t count how many times the ram had made him laugh his ass off. Just them two hanging out, sharing some drinks, spending nights out on the town in other SMPs, it was some of the best times of Quackity’s life. Even now, thinking about those times brought a smile (and soft flush) to the duck hybrids face. I mean Schlatt was charismatic, funny, and knew how to make his knees feel like jelly. Plus he had a few other good qualities he didn’t want to focus on too much in public..

But his smile faded away as those sweet memories made way for the not so sweet ones. Things had been great, yeah, but only when Schlatt wasn’t in a bad mood. Now that Quackity actually thinks about it there was always the worry of Schlatt’s good mood evaporating looming over their relationship. If he wasn’t happy then his bad mood sucked the good atmosphere right out of the room. It could be suffocating. The first few times it happened he’d try to give the ram hybrid some space, figuring he’d get over it. But that usually led to arguments, Schlatt asking if Quackity planned to leave any time things weren’t going perfect. That’d made him feel like shit, so he’d started doing all he could to keep the good vibes going.

Quackity isn’t sure when he’d gotten used to it but soon things fell into a rhythm of things being super great and awesome followed by something pissing on Schlatt’s good mood, then him being an asshole, Quackity doing everything he could think of to cheer him up, and then everything repeating in that cycle. It could feel exhausting at times but he just supposed that was just how relationships were supposed to be. But after what Reader said.. he was starting to question if that was right or not. He’d been so conflicted that he’d broken down and asked Karl for advice for a ‘friend of his’ who was having relationship issues.

He’d lied and said it was for a girl he was friends with on another server who was having issues with her girlfriend. Karl had listened to his edited version of events and told Quackity his friend was in a not very good relationship and she should break up with her girlfriend before things got even worse. That had just made his stomach sink further but he played it cool and thanked Karl for hearing him out, and he’d talk to his friend later and tell her what he thought she should do. Karl gave him a sweet smile and wrapped his arm around the dark haired male in a side hug before replying,

“Don’t worry, man. That’s what friends are for. Tell your friend if she needs any help leaving then she can come to us, we’ll help her out of there no problem.”

Quackity couldn’t help the smile hearing this gave him and said he’d let her know.

That’d been hours before and he knew he needed to message Reader and tell her where he stood. It wasn’t good to leave things ambiguous with her, not regarding his allegiance to L’manberg.. She’d messaged him earlier that morning, asking if he was doing alright. He hadn’t replied, wanting to talk to someone else about what he was thinking first. But he knew he couldn’t leave her on read for much longer. 

But just as he was getting ready to open his communicator.. it chimed.

He sighed, thinking it was Reader. But when he checked it his throat closed up.

‘Schlatt whispers to you: can we talk?’

Quackity gulped, trying to dislodge the lump in his throat as he read and reread the message at least 7 times. Curses ran through his head as he sat up on his couch, still staring down at the device on his wrist. He tore his eyes away, harshly scrubbing his hand down his face, just trying to calm his racing heart as he tried to focus on one thought at a time. Okay, okay, okay- he needed to relax, just- He jumped when his communicator chimed again. And when he looked back down at it anxiously he paused..

‘Schlatt whispers to you: please babe, come on

‘Schlatt whispers to you: i miss you

The duck hybrid stared down at the screen hard, biting his lip enough to draw a drop of blood as he did. Then with shaky hands he started forming a reply…

—————

@lady-bee-fechin @kacchasu @putridjoy @lunawritesstories @galaxypankitty3030 @paradigmax @zachariethememerie @killmewithafanfic @trinity-1002107 @hufflepuff-demigod @truthdaze @exorcisms-with-elmo @redbloodtea @heythereimhaylz @olyink @jackalopedoodles @nikkineeky @artsimatsu @reverse-iak @corpiet @beepa99 @anxiousnarwhale @bananaaddictmilkshake @realitycanbeajerk @lostandsouciant @thegeekisheere @sparkling-gayyy @woman-soot @xxtwizztedxx @fall3n-vo1d @coolleviauchihadreamerlove @jaciahbabes @lucian-kinnder @deadroses2021 @victory-is-here @where-thesundoesntshine @itsberrydreemurstuff

[divinekangaroo]

As I've plugged along through DAII microexploring Kirkwall (and meeting all Hawke's 'year of servitude' colleagues/connections that they very clearly fostered carefully), and listening to the Layers in Leandra, Carver etc, what strikes me is that it's less a Peaky-DAII fusion-AU verse that compels me, but rather a DAII verse which applies some of that very striking Peaky lens, particularly to the crime-rise of Hawke, the class dynamic, the family dynamic, to the conscious articulation of those barriers and the nature of passing through. (Not forgetting the Veil/Fade becomes another passing-through.) The over-the-desk 'they will never let us [back] in' that Leandra struggles so viciously to swallow. The guilt for the precipitating event that she carries, sees, in Hawke's 'so like your father' face. Yes, cascades, environmental conditions, class/sociological conditions, all that contributions to choice limitations etc etc etc but Leandra *never* had to leave: she chose, she is not to blame, but she was the precipitator. Orsino's 'they should have killed us at birth'/why do they even bother letting us live - cannot help but wonder if on the dark nights Hawke ever sat and stared at their sleeping mother and thought some unthinkable things.

Because I've been letting the kidlet choose the dialogue, he's not being consistent about one kind of Hawke, either, so I'm hearing things that I don't necessarily remember from the first batch of playing those years ago. What strikes me is that any version of mage!Hawke is unspeakably pragmatic about their position in society. Gamlan is pragmatic. Carver is pragmatic (if angry). But Leandra is fascinatingly not and so fascinatingly unselfaware compared to the self-awareness imbued in her children.

Anyway: the anger in Hawke. I want the anger in Hawke and I want it in a manner I have yet to find in any DAII fanfic. I want a Hawke where rage demons bow and fawn, lapping at their feet. I want Hawke standing in the stairs of their regained Amell mansion staring at Anders mouthing off about blood magic or something and just losing their fucking shit. I want Hawke viciously and repetitively using blood magic because they've realised it distances the Fade: blood magic kills the dreams; the dreams are nightmares irrespective of literal or subconscious demons; blood magic is a better/worse high than lyrium with more lasting effects.

[cin-cant-donate-blood]

A thing that has had me unreasonably bothered for more than a year now is seeing, in fairly quick succession, several people claim that post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of dystopia. Every time I am reminded of this it rubs me the wrong way.

For a while I had a hard time articulating a reason why. They are both concerned with undesirable societies, right? Well, my original objection was the fact that post-apocalyptic stories tend to not really feature "society" at all. Is a non-society a kind of undesirable society?

That might seem like a petty complaint, and I thought so too, so the next justification for my dislike of this labeling that I came up with was that dystopian fiction tends to be explicitly political or at least social, while post-apocalyptic fiction even at its best tends to only feature politics as an undertone: the reason the nukes were launched is usually frivolous or unwholesome, and the origin of the Zombie virus is often an evil corporation, but while this is of course not apolitical, it's backstory rather than the point of the narrative.

However, this objection also falls apart. A Clockwork Orange is often cited as dystopian, despite the government and big-picture politics hardly being present at all for most of the story. On the other end of the spectrum, as much as I despise Divergent, it is definitely dystopian fiction, and I'm struggling to think of any real political statement it made at all.

I had a new idea today though, which is why I'm rambling about this thing here and now. I think the fundamental difference is what the audience experiences and expects, going into a dystopian story versus a post-apocalyptic one.

Dystopian stories are satire. They take evils in the world, inflate them ludicrously, and then use this to make a point. All that is missing from traditional satire is the laughter. Orwell inflated the tendencies in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany that disgusted him, Burgess inflated criminality, social alienation, generational divides, and at the very end made a rather Foucaultian point about rehabilitative justice. Even the author of Divergent, whose name I forgot and cannot really be bothered to google, made a clumsy point about society trying to fit people into pre-defined roles.

Post-apocalyptic fiction does not tend to have that edge of exaggeration in it. Sure, zombies are not realistic, but plagues are, and the other classic, nuclear winter, is very realistic. More damningly though -- and here's the real point I've been getting to the entire time -- there's usually a perverse undertone of wish fulfillment in post-apocalyptic stories. Maybe not all of them, but the great wave of post-apocalyptic fiction that peaked circa 2014 was almost always driven by a strong undertone of escapism.

The fantasy of Fallout is not dying horribly from cancer to teach the player about the evils of war. The point is to give the player a place where things are simple. This is true for a lot of zombie survival media too: while the zombies are scary, the audience loves to dream about getting to what's real. The zombie movie protagonist who goes from a depressed loser working at an office to someone who finally finds his true element when civilization collapses is not a sympathetic victim, but a hero.

In that sense, The Walking Dead has a lot more in common with Stardew Valley than it does with Nineteen Eighty-Four. It makes a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction the diametrical opposite of dystopian fiction.

[arcxnumvitae]

GET TO KNOW THE MUN

NAME : Kris

PRONOUNS : She/her

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION : Tumblr IMs and Discord. My Discord I’m only comfortable giving out if we’ve already established a bit of a rapport so I generally like to wait a little regarding ooc chatting before offering or giving it to someone.

MOST ACTIVE MUSE : It can change but lately it’s almost always a dragon and second is a fae. I think a lot of that is because they’re part of groups with dynamics with other muses of mine that I can also have fun with incorporating. Even if it’s just them chatting or talking about recent events. Haha, I really like connected stuff so it’s a surprise I don’t have more connected muses.

EXPERIENCE / HOW MANY YEARS : A side blog for about a month before I took the plunge and made this one! Leeeetttt’s seeeeeee, like 2015? I was a senior in high school and I’ve been here suffering ever since!

BEST EXPERIENCE : Absolutely absolutely the worlds and friendships I’ve made here. Some of my favorite years here were getting to create so much with @thewolfisawake​ and a friend who’s unfortunately no longer online. Kirei and I have been friends basically since I started and oh man, the love explosion I could go on about. Eight years this year! My rotten soldier, my sweet cheese, my good-time gal, she’s been with me through the best and worst days of my life and I cannot ever begin to truly articulate how much our friendship means to me.

Getting a little less sappy, even though our third friend is no longer around, I’ve felt so honored to have still been able to make connections here and getting to create new worlds, new plots, and new friendships with people. It got a bit disheartening for a while because I wasn’t writing as much because it felt like all I could find were people who frankly didn’t bother giving me the time of day because I was someone new and someone they didn’t already ship with. It was hard to get interactions or write with new people. So this past little while has been an absolute blast.

RP PET PEEVE : Oh my gosh I feel like I go on about this so much that it’s going to get annoying but it’s always my most consistent number 1 issue over the years. Shipping. Smut. Only caring about ships. Only caring about smut. Heck, only caring about solely your muse in a ship or only caring about writing smut for our ships. Dropping even attempting to interact with a muse of mine like a hot potato just because you realize the possibility for romance isn’t happening or because I didn’t immediately jump onto the ship bandwagon with them. I swear I’m not anti-ship because I also really like writing romance and I think writing smut can be fun! I just hate when it seems like that’s the only thing someone cares about when writing with me.

I guess it’s like...you create this fully fleshed out muse with hopes, dreams, aspirations, story hooks, and relations to other muses but none of that gets touched because you’re only used as fodder to write out “And (my muse) kisses (your muse) before having wild and raunchy sex with them” over and over again. I feel like it comes as no surprise if you’ve followed me for even a short amount of time that I really enjoy creating plots and events and things like that with our muses. It’s just how I prefer to do things. I’m also here to, like, write with people, not write out romantic scenarios for people, if that makes sense.

So if it’s obvious, and it always feels like it’s pretty obvious to me, when what we want out of something isn’t matching-- and worse, my muse is being treated like a glorified sex doll? Yeahhh. It’s why I wrote that big dramatic rule update/PSA post a minute back when I was going through some spring cleaning (also talking about my #2 pet peeve-- mutuals I can’t get to write with me)  and-- I’m glad I did? I was right, I would not have wanted to deal with that with how stressed I am now and I’ve been enjoying using Tumblr and writing out muse mess as a breather. So, pat on the back to past me I guess?

Kind of stealing Marshy’s sentiments (who I’m also stealing this meme from too, hi) I’m a big fan of ships but I’ll never insta-ship, and depending on the muse, I genuinely mean it when I say that it may take time to get there, but I think the journey is part of the fun anyways. Anyways, I rambled again! Sorry!

PLOTS OR MEMES : I’m fine with both! I always tend to automatically resort to memes or fun dash things rather than long-form plotted threads when I’m super busy or tired, which is why I haven’t touched a tracked thread is a hot second ahahaha.... But I like both! 

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES : *SpongeBob out of breath meme* How long are we talking? I can do long, it just depends on the muse, my energy, and if I have enough to work with. Longer threads may take me a while to get to since they require more attention and focus, but it all just depends!

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSES : Some yes and some absolutely not and thank goodness for that. I feel like most of my muses differ from me more often than not, and the only ones I may share similarities to are the introverts like Veritas, Raven, Aur, etc. Veritas, being my first ever muse, has more pieces of me than anyone else, but really that’s more like some of her personality beats and awkwardness than anything else and I still think she’s still a lot cooler than me personality-wise anyways!

Tagged by: @sansloii​

Tagging: Anyone! Just say I tagged you

[jasperjv]

I am constantly bothered by and daily thinking about the fact that I was born. I hate big commitments, and this was the biggest commitment of all, which I did not consent to. I keep trying to tell myself that my consciousness was inevitable. If "I" weren't a human today, I would have been someone or something else, born at some other time, statistically likely already dead. I just have to play my turn fairly in the game of life.

I just have to begrudgingly drag this body and mind around. I don't even know what I'm here for. I'm not going to change anything that matters. All I'll ever get to be is this single fraction of a speck in the infinite cosmos, stuck in my one perspective for a short time, with the only thing left to do being to soothe myself, just trying to find pleasures day to day. I constantly think about the fact that I'm going to die. It's stressful and upsets my stomach just existing like this.

Do we all live to be happy? We all have goals that make us happy for any number of reasons when we achieve them. I've heard people who rescue other animals say that they all deserve happy and loved. That seems to be the very base thing, even if some fucking people try to disagree with me, as if we humans are somehow above that by virtue of absolutely nothing tangible. The universe springs to life to experience its own wonders, laugh for a little while, then this wave we each are falls back down into this proverbial ocean.

I don't know why this isn't enough for me. I don't feel like any of my life fucking matters. I don't matter.

8 billion people. I don't think the human mind was even meant to reach these numbers in population. 8 billion, with a B. We conceptualize value based on supply, and I can't help but apply that to me. One thousand millions, times eight. And yet it's still my responsibility to find out why I should stay here and not just skip to the ending instead of always worrying about when it will come for me, and wondering why I even care, what I need to do with my life in order to stop caring. A billion, eight times. Maybe I just need to try to be somebody. I have potential, and that just means I'm worthless.

It's not my fault that I'm only one in 8 billion. None of this is my fucking fault. And I wish I never came here. I even judge people who have babies now. I kind of hate them. Someone else died to make room for a few of them. The western world is in a population crisis because capitalism demands infinite growth. The population is still growing. It always is. But it's still not enough. It's never enough.

Nothing is ever enough. It's too much. I cannot stress enough, I cannot articulate how much too much it is. I don't want more TV shows. I don't want new movies and books. I cannot put into words how much I do not want more of anything. I wish things could stay exactly as they are for a few years. I'm not excited. I'm tired.

And I don't know what to do.

[ionlyhavetwoeyes]

I'm just letting this out bc it's been bothering me all day and I think I just need to get it out.

(Tw for transphobia and a short mention of suicidal ideation (non explicit))

(Let me know if any other tags/warnings need to be added im really bad about know which ones are there)

Today at work, within an hour of clocking In I get a customer that approaches me. I work in the clothes section of my store, at the moment I was just putting away clothes people didn't want.

The first thing this person says to me is "just so you know, you don't pass. At all."

Context: I am trans masculine. I specifically identify a genderfaun (a subtype of genderfluid) but most the time I just say I'm nonbinary. My work allows us to have pins on our uniform, and while I typically have many, I currently only have two pronoun pins by my name badge. One he/him, one They/them.

I'm thrown off by this statement because I have no idea what the hell they're talking about. I haven't had a stranger approach me about this ever. I notice them glance down at my pins and it clicks. I respond with I know (I'm mostly pretty medical intervention, only on birth control to stop my periods)

They ask me what the point is.

I then proceed, a tad excited because I dont have many people to talk about it with, to say I actually have top surgery next month and will start T soon after that.

My excitement shatters immediately as they tell me that doesn't change anything. That it won't change my waist, or hips, or how slim my shoulders are.

I try explaining that T can actually help with that. I've done alot of research on it. I used to be on the fence about it, that's why it's taken so long for me to start it. They disagree with me, telling me it cannot change the above mentioned.

I am getting uncomfortable. I am uncomfortable with this person looking at my body in such a way that they can identify that. I am weakly holding back from explaining I actually have quite broad shoulders. I weakly shrug in response as I look around for someone to help me. No one is around.

They continue to go on about how they know people who have gotten surgery and/or hormones and it hasn't helped anything. That they think it's just an identity crisis. That it hurts to see tomboys like them butchering themselfs to no avail. That we're trying to be cis men, an ideal that is impossible to achieve.

I am panicking. I am shaking and holding back tears. While they are not acting aggressive, they are talking firmly as if there is no room in their opinion. I'm glancing around the area, clocking every item near by that could potentially harm or even kill me. It is a worrying number. I am wondering how I'm going to be able to get away from this person.

I try explaining that I am not comparing myself to cis men. I am only comparing who I was 5 years ago. I'm much happier now. I do not mention I'm actually nonbinary because I feel this would not help the situation at all.

They paused for a moment, considering that, and then arguing again. My hearing started ringing so I'm not quite sure what all they said after that. I eventually tell them I can understand where they're coming from before finally being able to escape. I quickly put the small amount of returns I had back at the fitting room before going to the farthest area away in my department.

I end up finding one of my friends and working with them for a moment. They're much more upset about it than I am. I'm just grateful I wasn't harmed and trying to stop shaking.

I probably was not as articulate as I could have been. The majority of the time I was legitimately worried I was about to be hatecrimed and no one was around to help me. I wish I was able to explain that being called she/her or a girl actively put me in a depressive episode, borderline suicidal. That being called any other pronouns, being refused to as sir, fill me with such a high that I'm smiling for the next half hour.

That the point of it is being happy with myself.

I could see where they were coming from. That it must be hard to see people you grew up with and thought you connected to change. People you thought were the same as you are not.

But they didnt know me. They didn't know I grew up a tomboy, always missing something. They didn't know that i constantly changed my name as a child. That when I was 12, I prayed to God every night to take my chest away. That I would sit on my bed with a mini knife trying to get myself to do it on my own.

They don't know what I've gone through. And they had no right to try and tell me I'm not really trans. I already know my surgery is going to make me infinitely happier. That starting T will give me a confidence boost I've been waiting for. I already know this and it hasn't even happened yet. I don't need to prove to some else I'm trans enough, or why I'm even trying when I look very fem still. I've long given up on trying to impress people.

I can usually do articulate conversations on these topics, but im usually talking with people I know where I can gauge reactions and know when to stop. I've never had to do this with a stranger where I wasn't sure if they would attack me for disagreeing or not.

I'm debating on telling my managers. They can't do anything about it now, I'm not good at remembering people and the cameras aren't always good, expcially since we were between racks. I just hope they didn't get on any of my other trans coworkers. Most of them are younger than me.

This was a bit long, and might not even be cohesive. Thank you for reading this far if you have. I hope you all stay safe and stay alert in your lives <3

[bluntz420x]

Is your birth year an odd or even number? Odd.

Which one of your friends is the most outgoing? hmm, probably the younger ones, lol.

Have you eaten any of your favourite foods today? i just woke up like an hour ago, so no, i havent eaten anything yet today.

When did you last find yourself in an awkward situation? if i paid attention to stuff like that, probably more often than i think.

What did you have for lunch yesterday? i think all i had was a bagel, before dinner.

In school, which subject(s) do/did you find the most difficult? applied maths, like statistics.

Who was the last person you Facebook messaged? What’s his/her star sign? wow LOL, i have no idea. i joined facebook like 15 years ago.

Who did you last say “thank you” to? Why? probably kyle. he ran in the house two times to get stuff i forgot.

Name a band you like, that starts with the same letter as your surname. nothing is jumping out to me.

When was the last time you ignored, or went against, someone’s advice? ha, i think this is another one of those things where, if i paid attention, id know the answer.

What happened? lol see above, who knows.

How many different towns/cities have you lived in? ive never lived outside of the greater metropolitan area of the immediate city near me.

Who is the 10th contact in your phone? What’s his/her favourite food? LOL thats someone in my neighborhood. i dont know them personally at all.

When was the last time you felt your heart racing? last night.

Have you ever had a kinky dream about a celebrity? OF COURSE DUH lol.

How old were your parents when they met? when they met, i believe my mom was around 25 and my dad was around 30. could have been maybe 2 years before that, tops. they didnt date long before getting pregnant with my older brother.

When was the last time you had Nutella? a few months ago. i binged it and got tired of it.

Who is your favourite character in “The Simpsons”? lisa, hands down.

How about “The Big Bang Theory”? i dont like that show. its never been that funny to me.

What are your parents’ middle names? this is a security question if ive ever seen it, lol.

Who is the 2nd contact in your phone? What colour are his/her eyes? i just saw him the other night and i have no idea, LOL. dude is high af whenever we hang out so XD

Name someone with a sexy sounding voice. my husband.

What genre(s) of music did you listen to 10 years ago? same stuff really. ive had eclectic taste my entire life.

Are your eyes the same colour as your sibling’s? yes, just different shades. my brother has the lightest eyes, my sister is the darkest, and that leaves me in the middle lol.

How many pets do you have? Would you like any more? i have 3 cats and 1 dog. i definitely want more, when we move into a larger space with a yard. i think max cats in a house will be 4 probably, max dogs will be 2.

Do you prefer still or sparkling drinks? still. i cannot stand carbonation.

Is there a song you can’t stop listening to atm? not really. i love reggae lately.

What colour are the eyes of the person you have feelings for? my husbands eyes are blue.

Is there a song that you’re fed up of hearing? no lol.

Did you have a strange or interesting dream last night? i cant remember my dream from last night. i think it was all right. i didnt wake up uneasy lol.

Has anyone ever told you that they loved you, and you couldn’t say it back? hm, if yes, it happened so long ago i cant remember lol, sorry.

Name 3 things that are in your refrigerator atm. milk, creamer, butter.

If your Facebook status doesn’t get any likes/comments, does it bother you? no. if i post, i post because i want to, not because im looking for attention.

Which friend do you confide in most? kyle mostly, then lizzy second.

What does your 6th text message say? pfft who knows, modern texting isnt like that.

What was your most recent reason for smiling? :) probably kyle lol. its usually kyle.

Do you struggle to articulate your thoughts and feelings? not really. i have worked very hard to get decent at that.

Have you ever watched a Sons of Anarchy? nope.

Do you want to see The Woman In Black? i would, i guess. i like daniel radcliffe. it just looked too scary at the time.

Has a random guy ever asked you for your phone number? i dont think so.

Has a guy ever pulled over to ask for your number or call you hot? LOL no, the opposite actually, ive been heckled.

How attracted are you to the last person that kissed you? quite!

Name something that you are doing tonight. putting off actual work lol.

Are you a jealous person? uh, i mean i have the capacity to be jealous, but i dont think id be described as a jealous person.

Do you like February? not really. its the shortest month of the year, but because its at the end of winter, it feels like the longest month of the year.

Where have you lived throughout your life? just around the current area.

Have you ever known a white supremacist? probably. im pretty outspoken tho so i doubt a supremacist of any variety would tell me that they are.

What were you doing an hour ago? ugh, sitting in this same spot at my desk, feeling less lost i suppose lol.

In regards to who do you think ‘what if?’? Link XD "what if he was real" no other what ifs anymore.

Do you like the smell of a barbecue? fuck yes.

Do you get excited when you find Sanrio products at Wal-Mart? no.

Are you 420 friendly? absolutely!

Do you own a Champion’s sport bra? champions? like champion brand? no.

Do you watch Justified? nope.

How many cups of tea of coffee do you have in a day? 1-2. i drink half caff usually though.

Do you own a varsity jacket? no.

Dolce Vita or Jeffrey Campbell? who?

Ryan Gosling or Channing Tatum? oof… ryan gosling. hes more my type.

Has anyone ever called you apathetic or unemotional? LOL yes, both. a therapist before, actually.

Would you rather someone you loved passionately hate you or be indifferent to you? hate me! then i have a goal to make the feeling mutual.

Have you read Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre? no, but i want to.

I bet you miss somebody right now? duh!

What are you planning on doing after this? work. snooze.

How much money do you spend in a month on clothes or accessories? barely anything. i dont like shopping like that anymore.

What was the last clothing item you wore that doesn’t belong to you? i wear kyles shirts and pants sometimes, but his stuff is my stuff LOL, so… good question.

Do you watch Jersey Shore? no.

Do you have a thing with someone? yes, my husband.

Do you have any bruises on either of your legs? i found a mystery bruise on sunday, but that happens lol.

Who was the last person to touch your stomach? kyle.

Something tragic just happened. Does your facial expression show it? most likely. im not good at hiding stuff, at least to people who know my face well enough. to those that dont, i tend to show RBF apparently.

Who is the cleverest (crafty) person you know? i really dont know. i dont like crafts, or craft people lol, so i cant think of anyone in my life like that rn.

Do you think people who know a lot of facts are really smart? no. i think most folks know enough facts to be impressive.

Welcome! And you are? your mom.

When you buy/recieve new clothes, do you instantly wear them or wash first? wash!

Do you hate using public restrooms? idk about hate. its necessary sometimes.

What’s the weirdest item you’ve seen for sale on Ebay? pft i saw a meme of a walking stick that was a bull's penis, iirc.

Do you check to make sure there’s TP before using the restroom? ha! i wish.

Do you drunk dial/text? i used to, as if it was a pastime.

Why are mall Santas always portrayed as drunken, depressed old men? search me.

Have you ever built a massive snow fort? i dont think so?

What household chore do you loathe? i dislike dishes, theyre usually gross because the boy doesnt rinse his dishes properly before putting them in the sink.

Are parents to blame for what their kids do on the Internet? nope! only if the parents allow unrestricted access to their children, then yes. its like kicking your kid outside in the general public to fend for themselves. what do you think theyre gonna do? children are mischievous by nature, dude.

Would you care to meet Tom, the creator of MySpace? not really. i dont care lol.

Have you ever looked at a person and thought they looked like an animal? omg yes! i love telling my loved ones what kind of animals other people look like sometimes lol.

Do you use acronyms to remember things? yes.

Do you take pills like Tylenol for the littlest aches and pains? no. i dont like increasing tolerance to pain meds needlessly.

What would you do for a Klondike bar? i wouldnt.

Don’t you think Crocs are ugly? yes, i do think they are ugly. and disgusting. if i see someone wearning crocks period, i know their feet are rank as fuck. i dont care if youre wearing socks, those are fucking PLASTIC shoes.

When was the last time you went rollerskating? a couple years ago.

What trend do you hate right now? i never like trends.

Do you really follow trends, or just wear what you like? i wear what i want to wear.

How many times do you think you go out to eat each month? too many times! too much fast food!

Do you call people “dude” a lot? yeah lol, i call everyone dude.

Who was your favorite Ninja Turtle? mikie was my favorite growing up because hes so food focused and funny. anymore, donatello, because purple is dope and hes the smarest guy.

Horror flicks make you: laugh, scream, or squirm? all of the above!

If you could become a doctor, what would you specialize in? psychology.

What’s the cutest thing a little kid has ever said to/in front of you? thats a good question. kids say the darnest things.

At what age do you plan on moving out? i moved out over 10 years ago lol.

Did any characters from TV shows scare you as a kid? Which one(s)? yes. the crypt keeper from tales from the crypt namely. the ventriloquist doll from peewee's playhouse.

What’s the saddest thing you’ve heard on the news recently? the news is always sad lol.

Do you believe that acupuncture works? i think that if someone believes it works and they get it done and they feel better after, it worked. like most things, i think faith is required.

Have you ever been hypnotised? nope, but id like to try.

If you got expelled from school, would you continue your education? LOL sure.

How long does it take before you trust a person? good question. im hard of trusting these days.

Do you ever wish you had Jedi powers? duh lol. i wish i had anything superhuman.

Will we ever get to see Jack’s face (guy from Jack-in-Box commercials)? i dont care.

Would you kick it with Jay and Silent Bob? YES DUH.

Say…would you like a chocolate covered pretzel? sure.

Would a wax museum scare you or amuse you? SCARE. even pictures of wax figures creep me out.

What’s the first food you can smell when you enter the mall? its been a long time lol, i doubt i know anymore.

Have you ever made a time capsule? What did you put in it? i never have.

What would you do if your mom or dad read your diary/journal/blog? this has happened before lol. they took me to the hospital and i got held for 2 nights, mandatory for any check in, even tho the doctor told me that night that i was fine. idiot parents lol. dont read your kid's shit and NOT talk to them later. what the fuck.

Do you turn the music up when a good song comes on? DUH.

Do you know anyone with a lisp? probably.

Do you hate going to the doctor? no.

Why did the dish run away with the spoon? Why not the fork or knife? i dont care.

What is the worst hurt you’ve ever experienced? good question. in recent memory, when i was under so much stress and trauma that my body locked up and i had to go to physical therapy at the ripe age of 32 because my back made me cry almost daily.

Do you wish time went faster or slower? slower dude.

Do you write thank-you notes? for what? lol. i dont throw parties, i dont hold milestone events, none of that.

If you were to break a Guinness Record, which one would you try and beat? im just not interested. never have been.

Are you distracted by shiny objects? i mean, probably, i am an animal. but not for long.

What’s the coolest item in your room? HA! cool. probably my bed.

Are you grateful for what you have? i practice gratitude every day. im lucky it comes naturally.

Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar? who cares.

Are you scared of clowns? uh, they make me uncomfortable, but idk if im scared…

Are you accident-prone? isnt everyone? nah, not more than anyoneelse.

As a kid, what was your favorite activity on the playground? shoot, just kicking it with the homies.

Are huge muscles gross or sexy? not my thing.

Have you ever fished and caught something weird? never fished in my life.

Your final thoughts…? ugh, why didnt more time pass?

[quidam-sirenae]

Here it is fuckers. Got 100%.

I lost Hope in a box in the desert.

Cliche, isn’t it? I put her away, kept her around, held her close to my bosom and then shoved her in my closet to forget about until I needed her again.

What they don’t tell you is that Hope is made of ashes.

Think about it, Hope-silt only makes sense. Whenever a wish burns, Hope is lost, and then found again, sifting through the ashes of fire to find the silver bits.

Then when you find her, she sits heavy in your hand and laughs, and it sounds like wedding bells, but you know what she’s made of.

Hope is a crematorium.

I’ve been collecting Hope for years, hoarding her and saving her for a rainy day, and now I’ve gone and lost her. Good luck, me. When I need her most she’s haphazardly shoved in the back of a closet, covered in countless other bits of detritus.

“Where did Hope go?” I ask, but I won’t get an answer. She cannot speak. She isn’t meant to, not next to her sisters, Love and Faith. But I digress.

I have been bemoaning the loss of Hope, not even articulating the situation behind throwing Hope into my dusty closet, the reasoning behind needing her back.

Let’s move backwards.

I woke up this morning to a hand in my hair and sand on my sheets. The sand is nothing new, but the devil carding through my hair is.

I jolt upwards. “Why are you here?” I ask. I don’t ask who this devil is because he’s a devil. I broke bread with him, and then I lost him to promises of wealth and stupid ideas of grandeur.

A devil I loved, once.

And one that loves me still, because he stares at me with a look that can only be described as despair. “We were best friends? Remember?”

I do, but I don’t want to admit that to him.

“You’re a devil,” I point out.

“What does that matter? I loved you.”

I look at him pointedly. “If only you’d said love, in the present tense.”

He stares at me. I know exactly why he said what he did, loved rather than love. Somehow, the present is too personal.

“I love you,” he says. “Happy?”

“Not a bit.”

“No. No, I didn’t think so.” He smiles at me, a crooked thing filled with sharp teeth and promises of mischief. “Today’s the killing day.”

I want to deny it, pretend like I have no idea what he means, but I’d be Peter on the day the Lord died, so I don’t bother. “Today is the killing day,” I agree, and I see red flames light themselves in my devil’s eyes.

Quieter, I speak to him again.

“Will I go to hell?”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“I don’t want to suffer.”

I don’t appreciate being treated like I’m stupid, and the devil knows it, but he likes to get a rise out of me. It’s what devils do, after all.

“What do you think all this is, then?”

I know the answer he wants, and I don’t want to give it, so I pick something a bit more real.

“Repentance,” I say. “That’s what this is. Repentance for when I become a devil.”

“When,” He repeats. “I don’t want this for you, either.”

“And yet you give it.”

“We all die,” he says, the red in his eyes growing deeper as the sun rises.

“But do we all have to be Devils?” Like you, is unspoken. Do we all have to be devils like you?

The devil doesn’t answer me. He knows I love him and he knows I’m scared and most of all, he knows I’m wondering if loving a devil is grounds for becoming one. So instead, he just talks. It’s rough and grating like it always is, uncomfortable truths only spoken because it’s a devil that speaks.

“I died once by your sword and once again in your arms,” he says.

I flinch, because it’s true.

He continues. “Is dying once grounds for becoming a devil? Is dying to someone you love grounds for becoming a devil?”

This is where I hear his unspoken question, one that I won’t-or can’t- answer. Why did I become like this, and does it make me, too, evil?

I would rather embrace the killing day than answer.

So I pull out my sword, one made of death and blood and all the wicked things that crawl in the earth, a sword that was once used for good and now is used as a weapon of human destruction. “It’s the killing day,” I say.

My devil smiles like a wild beast. “It is.”

I lost Hope. Not right now, but this is when I shoved her so deeply inside that closet that she wasn’t visible anymore. This is the beginning of the end.

Really, when you’re fighting back to back with a devil, that’s when you should get an inkling.

The thought that you aren’t a good person,

Or at least,

Aren’t the protagonist.

I didn’t, though, I kept fighting with my devil, my devil, the one I was halfway in love with, and I kept thinking I was the protagonist.

Even on the killing day, I thought I was right.

Not that the things I was doing were right,

I wasn’t that far gone,

Not dripping blood and scarred head to toe like my devil, grinning like a monster and treating himself like the messiah,

No, I just thought that the good and the bad balanced out.

I thought it was a scale,

I could do this much bad because I’d done that much good, and then I would go to heaven,

Although to tell you the truth,

I’m not even sure I wanted to be there once I got a taste of blood and a touch of the other side.

I lost Hope on the killing day,

Whirling around in circles with a devil protecting me,

I lost Hope because I did something evil and I didn’t think I could be redeemed.

I lost Hope on the top of a cliff in the desert, hanging off the edge for a life I didn’t quite think I wanted to keep but I owed it anyway.

Devils make deals, it’s what they do.

I made a deal with my life and it felt like the devil got the short end of the stick, right up until we were standing at the edge of that cliff and I was looking for Hope and I couldn’t, for the life of me, find her.

Devils don’t just make deals,

They’re the master of bargains with fate and I don’t own a fiddle.

So I did what I’m good at.

I made myself thoroughly into a part of the story, bad enough that I was the villain and good enough that I was the winner.

“I love you,” I tell the devil,

I tell the devil on the killing day after rust splatters his teeth and reveals what was always behind the salesman smile,

Blood for hire.

That gets his attention.

“I love you,” I say again, and he’s all ears because the good are the bad and there’s really no good in this world at all.

“You said it to me,” I explain, “When you appeared and made me break bread and share wine with you and now we’re back, on the top of a hill with sand on my clothes and no way out, and I love you.”

I breathe. The air is parched and dusty. “I always have, only when enough goods cancel out a bad, you can’t say that.”

He just stares.

I think, for a moment, that maybe he doesn’t love me back, this was all a sick fever dream and there was no devil to love me, only my own soul in purgatory and the burning sun on my nose bridge.

“I’m a devil,” he parrots, same thing I said to him from our last conversation.

“What does that matter?”

Did I make a devil cry? I would feel bad about that, especially this devil, crying at this time, in this place, where tears are the only moisture we are afforded.

“It matters,” he says, “Because I’m bad and you’re good and there’s really nothing else to it.”

A lot of my narrative is built around guilt. I know this, because just like you can keep Hope in a box, greedily hoard her, you can keep guilt as a servant, turn the perpetually weeping face to the lilacs and say, make something beautiful.

I think I built my narrative around guilt and there’s no way out.

A lot of my narrative is built around kind of always knowing I wasn’t going to go to heaven, like reading the bible and thinking about it in an abstract way, and deciding when you’re seven years old that God probably doesn’t want you up there and you’ve never been good at playing strings,

But you’re good at playing with fire so you’re useful, just not to God.

A lot of my narrative is built around beautiful things withering, a lot of my story is just me realizing that I’m wrong.

“I don’t think I was ever good,” I say carefully, “and you aren’t exactly bad.”

“Yes I am,” says the devil. “Why else did I come to you and make this sand run wet and red?”

“Because,” I say, “I also think you’re trying to become what everybody told you that you were supposed to be.”

He looks up at me again. I’m not taller than him, but he’s sitting down so he ends up looking up at me, but it doesn’t feel like a power exchange. It just feels like old friends. Which, I suppose, we are. He just wasn’t a devil, back when I knew him.

“I think,” I say, oddly self conscious, though it’s just me and the devil and a final conversation I never thought we’d ever be able to have, “that a bad person wouldn’t come to me looking for love. I think that a devil without humanity wouldn’t open a deal with the fact that he loved me. I think a devil that saw me sleeping, utterly defenseless, would have more reason to rip out my throat than to caress my hair.” I pause. “But those are just ideas.”

“I think,” says the devil, low and quiet like an animal about to strike, “That devil is just another word for businessman.”

I didn’t expect that, but I try to pretend like I did. “Maybe,” I say, but it doesn’t convince him.

“As a devil,” he says, “I want your heart and I didn’t have to bargain for it. You gave it to me, free of charge. Does that make you a good or a bad person, giving your soul willingly to a devil?”

Okay, I don’t have an answer to that.

I’ve had a conversation with God on the side of the road and now my own personal shoulder-devil has come to chastise me, and I don’t know if I’m good or bad, but both of them seem intent on making me figure it out.

“I don’t know,” I finally say. “I care for people. More than anything, I care for people. Does it matter if that person is a devil?”

“Devils aren’t meant to be loved.”

I dig my feet further into the sand. “Maybe we forget you’re a devil. Maybe we live at the top of this hill in this desert together and we carve out softness from the sandstorms. Maybe this all turns out okay.”

“Maybe no matter how hard we try to change the story, we still end up in a tragedy.”

“Maybe,” I say.

The devil lowers his throat. “Kill me,” he says.

“Why?”

“Because I’m a devil and because you still don’t know if you’re a good person.”

“This…” I falter. “This won’t make me any more sure of it, either way.”

I used to love that smile. I used to love the sharp fairy grin and I loved the wide smile of a dealmaker and I loved the smile of the man I gave my soul to before he died and became, well… this. Now, all I feel is anger. Anger and despair. “It gives you a conundrum to ponder,” he says, still smiling.

“No. I won’t,” I say. ‘I won’t kill you, not without a fight. Because if loving bad is good and if being good is dependent on actions rather than nature, I want to have a fair fight on the killing day, in the desert, to play at honor.”.

I hold my breath, waiting for him to rebuke me, or tell me that there’s only one way left and that’s an execution. I wait for him to tell me that he’s already dead and killing a devil doesn’t do anything at all.

Instead, he unsheathes his sword and sighs heavily.

A devil that is horribly, utterly, tired of this world, and has no way around it.

The fight is over as quickly as it began, as a devil- my devil, a blue-blooded demon is lifeless on the ground and I-

I realize for perhaps the first time, that this was a devil.

A devil on the cusp of being human,

A devil that tried his best to change both of our natures,

A devil nonetheless and a man that fought like one.

I stare at his body for one long moment, the blood already congealed in his clothing and evaporating in the sun.

I turn around.

I resolve myself that the last thing I see will not be the corpse of my friend-not-friend,

A devil who wasn’t all that good at playing his part.

I throw myself off that sandy cliff, staring at the sky to erase the memory of a friend slain by my own blade from my mind.

It works, if only for the moment, and the moment is all I need.

Because I’m not a good person.

Because I don’t know if he is.

Because somewhere in this mess of flesh and blood and bone I realized that this world is small and it is short and it is fickle and I have no idea what I am if I am not fighting somebody.

When my body falls, off that cliff in the desert, underneath the body of the devil I always loved, blood soaks into the soil like a prayer,

Red blood becomes green forests,

I build an oasis out of my body

And there are vultures on my skin that find me a blessing,

Vultures and devils.

I had to write poetry about my belief in god for a religion class. Since I don’t believe in god I wrote about third life for fifty pages. My professor thinks that the red life is a metaphor for satan.

[bengiyo]

My Only 12% Ep 5 Stray Thoughts

Y'all, I am shaking with emotion and we haven't even started.

Last week I was screaming that it was vital that Eiw finish Love of Siam, and here we are with him sneaking down to watch it. This was also my gay experience in my teens. I watched so many shows and movies at almost muted with captions turned on.

What do we need to do to get this film remastered? Someone call the folks at Criterion Collection. If we can do this for Ghost Dog (one of my favorite films) we can do this for Love of Siam. I need to organize a viewing.

Okay, but I am super nervous about the focus of Eiw's viewing being Tong's mother convincing Mew to end their romance.

Seriously, what do these parts even mean to BL fans who haven't seen the film? It matters so much to me that New is referencing this film.

Oh fuck I keep forgetting that Prem is in this and it surprises me every time. Where's that gif from the office?

I keep seeing a lot of electrical retrofit in Thai dramas that involves using insulated pipes outside of the walls. It's definitely cost efficient, but there's your rehabber commentary for the week.

Hey that was a nice transition from one room to the other.

We have so much footage of Santa sleeping.

Damn, Santa is pretty. I get why Wabi Sabi signed him when he was 17.

I am enjoying Prem as an older brother.

I've been in genre too long. I can't remember Peak's character's name. It is fun to see him play with Earth. Neither really look like teens to me anymore though.

Oreo!!!! I know there's going to be something off about your character, but I'm glad to see you.

Very glad Cake learned keyboarding skills at his school. He does pick up skills, despite never doing his own homework.

I feel bad for these street vendors on busy streets. How much car exhaust have they inhaled? How much has ended up on food people have consumed?

Oh, Sand, you gonna order ice cream when you know you don't have no money?? I was prepared to frown at you, but I am still disappointed. And cab fare??

It's kinda fascinating that no one seems bothered that Eiw and Cake are as close as they are, but are all concerned that Eiw is clearly creating distance.

I know Earth is a good crier, but goddamn I just want his characters to triumph just ONCE.

I'm a big brother and one of the oldest cousins. I wish I'd had a big sister when I was struggling with figuring out who I was. The amount of internalized homophobia coming out of Eiw is making me feel heavy.

"Sis, if it's not wrong, then why [is] everyone in that movie...[un]happy?" Baby boy, that was what we've been asking for 15 years. The answer is that we needed straight girls to feel sad to move the needle. That we also had to be sad is the burden we carry for the young people behind us. You hurt, and it matters. Know that it was not for naught.

I am sobbing. This is a lot.

I hope there are more sisters out there like Hom.

I cannot properly articulate the depths of loneliness I felt in the aftermath of H. Katrina as I came of age as a queer person, nor would I want to on a reaction post like this. However, I hope many of you who are watching along and reading this are only curious and a bit confused. I hope you don't fully grasp how Eiw feels. I hope things were good enough for you that this wound doesn't linger.

Cake saw that something was wrong with Eiw. What will he do next? Of course he waits on Eiw's room to cuddle.

Aww, Cake, I love him asking direct questions.

Growing up is hard. These boys are going to break me.

It's so adorable that Eiw is protective of his big sister.

Oh lord this boy done put a bunch of Hom's pictures on the wall. I am NOT finding this cute.

Sand better not harm Eiw and prove Cake's worries correct.

Cake is on the phone with Rin in Eiw's bed. Frustrating.

Oh don't cliffhanger on a Now Kiss Moment that Cake doesn't even recognize.

Oh good it looks like we might resolve Sand next week.

[impostoradult]

Media Market Research (and why its undermining all the things you love)

Trying to understand what is dysfunctional about Hollywood is an epic task, and the answers are like the stars – arguably infinite. Hollywood is dysfunctional for literally more reasons than I could count.

But market research plays a fairly heavy role in its dysfunction (IMO) and the time has finally come for me to add my professional two cents about this issue. (This rant of mine has been building for a while, FYI. Hence why it is so...comprehensive. There is a tl;dr section towards the bottom, if you want the high level summary)

*** For the last 4+ years I’ve worked in the field of market research, almost exclusively with major media makers like Warner Bros., NBCU, AMC/BBCA, Viacom, FOX (before Disney acquired them), A+E, etc. (this past year I quit the job where I was doing this work for a variety of reasons, many of which will become clear as you keep reading, but I am still listed as a consultant on the company website):   https://www.kresnickaresearch.com/who/ (Rachel)

And just for comparison, here is a Halloween selfie I took 4 years ago and posted on my blog, so you can see I am who I say I am. 

I know a fair amount about how market research on major media franchises is conducted and how it influences production, and a lot of these choices can also be at least somewhat tied back to the massive flaws in the market research industry and its impact. *** First, at the highest level, you need to understand market research in general is not well-conducted much of the time. Even the people doing a reasonably good job at it are VERY limited in doing it well because of financial constraints (clients don’t want to spend more than they have to), time constraints (clients want everything done as fast as humanely possible) and just the inherent problems within the industry that are decades old and difficult to fix. For example, all market research ‘screens’ participants to make sure they qualify to participate (whether it is a mass survey, a focus group, a one-on-one interview, etc.). So, we screen people based on demographics like race, gender, age, household income, to get representative samples. But people are also screened based on their consumption habits. You don’t want to bring someone into a focus group about reality TV if they don’t watch reality TV. They aren’t going to have anything useful to say. 

However, a lot of the people who participate in market research have made a ‘side-gig’ out of it and they know how to finesse the process. Basically, they’ve learned how to lie to get into studies that they aren’t a good match for because most market research is paid, and they want the money. So, a lot of TV and film market research is being done on people who don’t actually (or at least don’t regularly) watch those shows or movies or whatever but have learned how to lie well enough in these screening processes to make it through. And because of the aforementioned time and money issue, clients don’t want to spend the time or money to actually find GOOD participants. They just accept that as an inevitable part of the market research process and decide not to let it bother them too much. So, a fair number of the people representing YOU as a media consumer are people who may not be watching Supernatural (for example) at all or who watch a rerun occasionally on TNT but haven’t been watching consistently or with ANY amount of investment whatsoever. You can see why that creates very skewed data. But that’s just the tip of the skewed iceberg. *** Second, media market research is conducted in line with the norms of market research more broadly, and this is a huge problem because media is a very atypical product. How people engage with media is far more complex and in depth than how they engage with a pair of jeans, a car, or a coffee maker. There are only so many things that matter to people when it comes to liking or not liking a coffee maker, for example. Is it easy/intuitive to use? How much space does it take it on my counter? How expensive is it? Does it brew the coffee well? Maybe does it match my décor/kitchen aesthetic? Can I make my preferred brand of coffee in it? The things you as a consumer are going to care about when it comes to a coffee maker are limited, fairly easy to anticipate in advance, and also easy to interpret (usually). How people mentally and emotionally approach MEDIA? Whole other universe of thing. Infinitely more complex. And yet it is studied (more or less) as if it is also a coffee maker. This is one of the many reasons I decided to leave the media market research field despite my desire to have some ability to positively influence the process. As so often seems to be the case, I fought the law and the law won. I could never make the other people I worked with in the industry understand that the questions they were asking were not all that useful a lot of the time and they weren’t getting to the heart of the matter. They were just following industry standards because they didn’t know any better and none of them want to admit they don’t REALLY know what they’re doing. Which leads me to point 3. *** Most of the people doing this research don’t have any expertise in media or storytelling specifically. They are typically trained as social scientists in the fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology, or math/statistics. And many of them do not have any kind of specialization or education in media/storytelling beyond the English classes they took in high school and the one Media Studies course they took as an elective in college. Most of them have a very unsophisticated understanding of narrative structure, thematics, tropes, subtext, etc. They mainly think in terms of genres at the VERY broadest level. Also, not infrequently, they don’t watch or have much knowledge of the shows they are supposed to be doing research on, beyond what they’ve read on IMDb or Wikipedia or what is generally common knowledge. Unless they by chance happen to watch the shows themselves (which often they don’t) they often know very little about the shows they are crafting these questions about. Again, partly because they think it is like the coffee maker, and you don’t need to understand it in any depth to research it. (I know this must sound insane to you as avid media consumers, but that is the general attitude among those who do market research) There is such a lack of sophistication in how people in the business side of the industry understand media and storytelling. Most of them are either MBAs or social scientists and their training has not prepared them to examine fictional works with the kind of depth that people in the Humanities (who are specifically trained to study texts) have. Somehow, despite the fact that the Humanities is all about understanding texts, that is the one discipline they make almost no use of in the business side of Hollywood. And boy howdy does it show. *** Point 4 – average consumers CANNOT ARTICULATE WHY THEY LIKE THINGS. Particularly media things. I know this sounds condescending, but it is my honest observation. It is unbelievably hard to get people to have enough self-awareness to explain why they actually like things, especially things as mentally and emotionally complex as media. What typically happens when you ask people why they like a TV show or movie, for example? They will tell you what they most NOTICE about the TV show or movie, or what is distinctive to them about it (which may or may not have anything to do with what they actually LIKE about it). They will say things like “I like the genre”, “I think it’s funny”, “The car chases are exciting”, “I want to see the detective solve the puzzle.” Sometimes you can get them to talk about what they find relatable about it, if you push them a little. But often they leave it at either the level of literal identity (young black woman), basic personality traits (she’s a social butterfly and so am I) or situations they’ve personally experienced (I relate to this story of a man losing his father to cancer because I lost a close family member to cancer). But the vast, vast, vast majority of them can’t go to the deeper level of: a) Why X representation of a young black woman feels accurate/authentic/relatable and Y representation doesn’t b) Why it matters to me that X,Y,Z aspects of my personality, identity, experience get reflected in media whereas I don’t really care about seeing A,B,C aspects of my personality, identity, or experience reflected in media c) How and why they are relating to characters when they can’t see the literal connection between their identity/experience and the character’s identity/experience. (For example, many people have argued that women often relate to Dean Winchester because a lot of his struggles and past negative experiences are more stereotypical of women – being forced to raise a younger sibling on behalf of an actual parent, being seen and treated as beautiful/sexually desirable but vacuous/unintelligent, his body being treated as an instrument for a more powerful group to quite literally possess, etc. Part of the reason Supernatural has always been such a mystery/problem for the CW and Warner Bros is they could never crack the code at this level. Never.) Part of the reason they can’t crack these codes is average people CANNOT give you that kind of feedback in a survey or a focus group, or even an in-depth interview (much of the time). They just don’t have the self-awareness or the vocabulary to get it at that level. Let alone asking them to articulate why Game of Thrones is compelling to them in an era where wealth disparity is creating a ruling class that is fundamentally incompetent at maintaining a just/functional society, which is especially concerning at this particular moment, given the existential threat we face due to climate change. And the truth is, that IS part of what people – even average people – are responding to in Game of Thrones. But what they’ll tell you when you do market research on it is: they like the dragons, they like the violence, they relate to Tyrion Lannister being a smart mouth, maybe they’ll say they like the moral ambiguity of many of the conflicts (if they are more sophisticated than average). But the ‘Dean Winchester is heavily female coded despite his veneer of ultra-masculinity’ or the ‘Game of Thrones is a prescient metaphor for the current political dynamics and fissures of modern western society’ is the level you ACTUALLY need to get to. And most market research can’t get you that because the people ASKING the questions don’t know what to ask to get to this level, and most of the respondents couldn’t give you the answers even IF you were asking them the right questions (which usually you are not) And I’m not saying average people are dumb because they can’t do this. But it requires practice, it requires giving the matter a great deal of in-depth thought, and most people just don’t care enough about it to do that while taking a market research survey. (I know this is going to feel counter-intuitive to people on Tumblr. But you have to remember, you are NOT average media consumers. You are highly atypical media consumers who have far more self-awareness and a much more sophisticated engagement with media than the average person watching TV. If you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t be here talking about it in the first place) Point 4.1 – People also lie/misrepresent their own experiences to market researchers because they want to maintain certain self-narratives. You have no idea how many people would get disqualified from our surveys for saying they watched less than 5 hours of TV a week. And sure, that might actually be true for a few of them. But if you watch TV with any regularity at all (which most people in modern America do) you probably watch more than 5 hours a week. The problem is, people think it makes them sound lazy to say they watch 15-20 hours a week, even though that’s about 2-3 hours a day (which actually isn’t THAT high). People lie and misrepresent their behaviors, thoughts and feelings because it can be socially uncomfortable to admit you do what you actually do or feel how you actually feel, even in the context of an anonymous survey, let alone a focus group or a one-on-one interview. People want to make themselves look good to THEMSELVES and to the researchers asking them questions. But that makes the market research data on media (and lots of other things) very questionable. For example, one finding we saw more than once in the surveys I was involved in conducting was people would radically downplay how much the romance elements of a story mattered to them, even large portions of female respondents. When we would ask people in surveys what parts of the story they were most invested in, romances ALWAYS came out among the lowest ranked elements. And yet, any passing familiarity with fandom would tell you that finding is just WRONG. It’s wrong. People are just flat out lying about how much that matters to them because of the negative connotations we have around being invested in romance. And never mind the issue of erotic/sexual content. (I don’t mean sexual identity here, I mean sexy content). The only people who will occasionally cop to wanting the erotic fan service is young men (and even they are hesitant to do so in market research) and women frequently REFUSE to admit that stuff in market research, or they radically downplay how much it matters to them and in what ways. There is still so much stigma towards women expressing sexuality in that way. Not to mention, you have to fight tooth and nail to even include question about erotic/sexual content because oftentimes the clients don’t even want to go there at all, partly because it is awkward for everyone involved to sit around crafting market research questions to interrogate what makes people hot and bothered. That’s socially awkward for the researchers doing the research and the businesspeople who have to sit in rooms and listen to presentations about why more women find Spock sexier than Kirk. (Which was a real thing that happened with the original Star Trek, and the network couldn’t figure out why) Aside from people not have enough deeper level self-awareness to get at what they really like about media content, they also will lie or misrepresent certain things to you because they are trying to maintain certain self-narratives and are socially performing that version of themselves to researchers. *** Point 5 – Qualitative data is way more useful for understanding people’s relationships to media. However, quantitative data is way more valued and relied upon both due to larger market research industry standards and because quantitative data is just seen as harder/more factual than qualitative data. A lot of media market research involves gathering both qualitative and quantitative data and reporting jointly on both. (Sometimes you only do one or the other, depending on your objectives, but doing both is considered ‘standard’ and higher quality). However, quantitative data is heavily prioritized in reporting and when there is a conflict between what they see in qualitative versus quantitative data, the quant data is usually relied upon to be the more accurate of the two. This is understandable to an extent, because quantitative surveys usually involve responses from a couple thousand participants, whereas qualitative data involves typically a few dozen participants at most, depending on whether you did focus groups, individual interviews, or ‘diaries’/ethnography. The larger sample is considered more reliable and more reflective of ‘the audience’ as a whole. However, quantitative surveys usually have the flattest, least nuanced data, and they can only ever reflect what questions and choices people in the survey were given. In something like focus groups or individual interviews or ethnographies, you still structure what you ask people, but they can go “off script.” They can say things you never anticipated (as a researcher) and can explain themselves and their answers with more depth. In a survey, participants can only “say” what they survey lets them say based on the questions and question responses that are pre-baked for them. And as I’ve already explained, a lot of times these quantitative surveys are written by people with no expertise in media, fiction, or textual analysis, and so they often are asking very basic, not very useful questions. In sum, the data that is the most relied upon is the least informative, least nuanced data. It is also the MOST likely to reflect the responses of people who don’t actually qualify for the research but have become good at scamming the system to make extra money. With qualitative research, they are usually a little more careful screening people (poorly qualified participants still make it through, but not as often as with mass surveys, where I suspect a good 35% of participants, at least, probably do not actually qualify for the research and are just working the system). 

Most commonly, when market research gets reported to business decision-makers, it highlights the quantitative data, and uses the qualitative data to simply ‘color in’ the quantitative data. Give it a face, so to speak. Qualitative data is usually supplemental to quant data and used more to make the reports ‘fun’ and ‘warm’ because graphs and charts and stats by themselves are boring to look at in a meeting. (I’m not making this up, I can’t tell you how many times I was told to make adjustments on how things were reported on because they didn’t want to bore people in the meeting). (Sub-point – it is also worth noting that you can’t report on anything that doesn’t fit easily on a power point slide and isn’t easily digestible to any random person who might pick it up and read it. The amount of times I was told to simplify points and dumb things down so it could be made ‘digestible’ for a business audience, I can’t even tell you. It was soul crushing and another reason I stopped doing this job full time. I had to make things VERY dumb for these business audiences, which often meant losing a lot of the point I was actually trying to make) Point 5.1 – Because of the way that representative sampling works, quantitative data can be very misleading, particularly in understanding audience/fandom sentiments about media. As I’m sure most of you know, sampling is typically designed to be representative of the population, broadly speaking. So, unless a media company is specifically out to understand LGBTQ consumers or Hispanic/Latinx consumers, it will typically sample using census data as a template and represent populations that way. Roughly 50/50 male/female. Roughly even numbers in different age brackets, roughly representative samplings of the racial make-up of the country, etc. (FYI, they do often include a non-binary option in the gender category these days, but it usually ends up being like 5 people out of 2000, which is not enough of a sample to get statistical significance for them as a distinct group)   There is a good reason to do this, even when a show or movie has a disproportionately female audience, or young audience. Because they need enough sample in all of the “breaks” (gender, race, age, household income, etc.) to be able to make statistically sound statements about each subgroup. If you only have 35 African American people in your sample of 1000, you can’t make any statistically sound statements about that African American cohort. The sample is just too small. So, they force minimums/quotas in a lot of the samples, to ensure they can make statistically sound statements about all the subgroups they care about. They use ratings data to understand what their audience make up actually is. (Which also has major failings, but I’ll leave that alone for the minute) With market research, they are not usually looking to proportionately represent their audience, or their fandom; they are looking to have data they can break in the ways they want to break it and still have statistically significant subgroups represented. But that means that when you report on the data as a whole sample – which you often do – it can be very skewed towards groups who don’t make up as large a portion of the show’s actual audience, or even if they do, they don’t tend to be the most invested, loyal, active fans. Men get weighted equally to women, even when women make up 65% of the audience, and 80% of the active fandom. Granted, they DO break the data by gender, and race, and age, etc. and if there are major differences in how women versus men respond, or younger people versus older people, they want to know that...sometimes. But here’s where things get complex. So, if you are doing a sample of Supernatural viewers. And you do the standard (US census-based) sampling on a group of 2000 respondents (a pretty normal sample size in market research). ~1000 are going to be female. But with something they call “interlocking quotas” the female sample is going to be representative of the other groupings to a degree. So, the female sample will have roughly equal numbers of all the age brackets (13-17, 18-24, 25-34, etc.). And it will have roughly 10% non-heterosexual respondents, and so on. They do this to ensure that these breaks aren’t too conflated with each other. (For example, if your female sample is mostly younger and your male sample is mostly older, how do you know whether it is the gender or the age that is creating differences in their responses? You don’t. So, you have to make sure that all the individual breaks (gender, race, age) have a good mix of the other breaks within them, so groups aren’t getting conflated) But what that means is, Supernatural, whose core fandom is (at a conservative guess) 65% younger, queer, women, gets represented in a lot of statistical market research sampling as maybe 50-100 people, in a 2000-person survey. 50-100 people can barely move the needle on anything in a 2000-person survey. Furthermore, usually in the analysis of data like this, you don’t go beyond looking at 2 breaks simultaneously. So you may look at young female respondents as a group, or high income male respondents, or older white respondents, but you rarely do more than 2 breaks combined. And the reason for that is, by the time you get down to 3 breaks or more (young, Hispanic, women) you usually don’t have enough sample to make statistically significant claims. (It also just takes longer to do those analyses and as I explained in the beginning, they are always rushing this stuff). To do several breaks at a time you’d have to get MUCH larger samples, and that’s too expensive for them. And again, I want to stress, this type of sampling isn’t intended to sinisterly erase anyone. Kind of the opposite. It is intended to make sure most groups have enough representation in the data that you can make sound claims about them on the subgroup level. The problem is that it can create a very skewed sense of their overall audience sentiment when they take the data at ‘face value’ so to speak, and don’t weight segments based on viewership proportion, or fandom engagement, etc. Point 5.2 – Which leads me to my next point, which is that fandom activity that doesn’t have a dollar amount attached to it doesn’t make you a ‘valuable’ segment in their minds. One of the breaks they ALWAYS ask for in data like this is high income people, and people who spend a lot of MONEY on their media consumption. And they do prioritize those people’s responses and data quite a bit.   And guess what – young women aren’t usually high-income earners, and although some of them are high spenders on media, high spending on media and media related merch skews toward higher income people just because they HAVE more disposable income. Older white men are usually the highest income earners (absolutely no surprise) and they are more likely in a lot of cases to report spending a lot on the media they care about. Having expendable income makes you more important in the eyes of people doing market research than if you’ve spent every day for the last 10 years blogging excessively about Supernatural. They don’t (really) care about how much you care. They care about how much money you can generate for them. And given that young audiences don’t watch TV live anymore, and they give all their (minimal) expendable income to Netflix and Hulu, you with your Supernatural blog and your 101 essays about Destiel is all but meaningless to many of them (from a business standpoint) Now, some of them kind of understand that online fandom matters to the degree that fandom spreads. Fandom creates fandom. But if the fandom you are helping to create is other young, queer women with minimal income who only watch Supernatural via Netflix, well, that’s of very limited value to them as well. I don’t want to suggest they don’t care about you at ALL. Nor do I want to suggest that the “they” we are talking about is even a cohesive “they.” Different people in the industry have different approaches to thinking about fandom, consumer engagement and strategy, market research and how it ought to be understood/used, and so on. They aren’t a monolith. BUT, they are, at the end of the day, a business trying to make money. And they are never going to place the value of your blogging ahead of the concrete income you can generate for them. (Also, highly related to my point about people lying, men are more likely to SAY they have higher incomes than they do, because it’s an ego thing for them. And women are more likely to downplay how much money they spend on ‘frivolous’ things like fandom because of the social judgement involved. Some of the money gender disparity you see in media market research is real, but some of it is being generated by the gender norms people are falsely enacting in market research– men being breadwinners, women wanting to avoid the stereotype of being frivolous with money) *** In sum/tl;dr: Point 1 – Market research in general is not well conducted because of a variety of constraints including time, money, and the historical norms of how the industry operates (e.g., there being a large subsection of almost professionalized respondents who know how to game the system for the financial incentives) Point 2 – Media is a highly atypical kind of product being studied more or less as if it were equivalent to a coffeemaker or a pair of jeans. Point 3 – Most of the people studying media consumption in the market research field have no expertise or background in media, film, narrative, storytelling, etc. They are primarily people who were trained as social scientists and statisticians, and they aren’t well equipped to research media properties and people’s deeper emotional attachment and meaning-making processes related to media properties. Point 4(etc.) – Average consumers typically don’t have enough self-awareness or the vocabulary to explain the deep, underlying reasons they like pieces of media. Furthermore, when participating in market research, people lie and misrepresent their thoughts, behaviors, and emotional responses for a variety of reasons including social awkwardness and preserving certain self-narratives like “I’m above caring about dumb, low-brow things like romance.” Point 5 (etc.) – Quantitative data is treated as way more meaningful, valuable, and ‘accurate’ than qualitative data, and this is a particular problem with media market research because of how varied and complex people’s reactions to media can be. Also, the nature of statistical sampling, and how it is done, can massively misrepresent audience sentiments toward media and fail to apprehend deeper fandom sentiments and dynamics. There is also a strong bias towards the responses of high income/high spending segments, which tend to be older and male and white. Side but important point – Research reports are written to be as entertaining and digestible as possible, which sounds nice in theory, but in practice it often means you lose much of the substance you are trying to communicate for the sake of not boring people or making them feel stupid/out of their depth. (Because god forbid you make some high-level corporate suit feel stupid) *** What can be done about this? Well, the most primary thing I would recommend is for you to participate in market research, particularly if you are American (there’s a lot of American bias in researching these properties, even when they have large international fanbases). However, some international market research is done and I recommend looking into local resources for participation, where ever you are. If you are American, there are now several market research apps you can download to your smart phone and participate in paid market research through (typically paid via PayPal). Things like dscout and Surveys On the Go. And I know there are more. You should also look into becoming panelists for focus groups, particularly if you live near a large metropolitan area (another bias in market research). Just Google it and you should be able to figure it out fairly easily. Again, it is PAID, and your perspective will carry a lot more weight when it is communicated via a focus group or a dscout project, versus when it is shouted on Twitter. However, that’s merely a Band-Aid on the bigger issue, which I consider to be the fact that businesspeople think the Humanities is garbage, even when they make their living off it. There is virtually no respect for the expertise of fictional textual analysis, or how it could help Hollywood make better content. And I don’t know what the fix is for that. I spent 4 years of my life trying to get these people to understand what the Humanities has to offer them, and I got shouted down and dismissed so many times I stopped banging my head against that wall. I gave up. They don’t listen, mostly because conceding to the value of deep-reading textual analysis as a way to make better content would threaten the whole system of how they do business. And I mean that literally. So many people’s jobs, from the market researchers to the corporate strategists to the marketing departments to the writers/creatives to the C-level executives, would have to radically shift both their thinking and their modes of business operation and the inertia of ‘that’s the way it’s always been done’ is JUST SO POWERFUL. I have no earthly idea how to stop that train, let alone shift it to an entirely different track. BTW, if you want the deeper level of analysis of why I can’t stop rewatching Moneyball now that it’s been added to Netflix, the above paragraph should give you a good hint

[asweetprologue]

me lámh le do lámh - Part II

First | Next | Masterpost

He went straight to Vizima to find Triss, once he’d made his way out of Kaedwen. It wasn’t directly on the way to Oxenfurt, but it was close enough that he didn’t feel he was making an unreasonable digression. Though he was nervous about locating his bard, he needed to know what this Ida person could tell him.

Triss was as welcoming as always, greeting him with a brief press of cheeks and a light embrace. Yennefer had told her of Geralt’s mission, but she was unable to assist him on the first day, busy with treating several commoners who had come down with a sickness. Nothing of a magical nature, but it did detain her for much of the day after Geralt’s arrival. He busied himself in the city, restocking on potion ingredients that he’d run low on over the long winter, dropping his armor off to be reinforced, and picking up a slim cloth bracelet for Jaskier. It was a soft blue color, with silver beads spaced evenly over the surface, and Geralt thought it would please him.

Gods. He was in trouble.

That evening he dined with Triss in her quarters, despite the fact that it was wildly inappropriate. Geralt asked after it, and Triss laughed dismissively.

“That is a delightful sentiment, but no one is questioning my dalliances,” she said with a grin. “They’re too afraid I’ll turn them into toads if they irritate me. And besides, half the Continent believes that you’re courting Yennefer because of the bard’s silly songs, and the other half thinks you’re courting the bard.”

Ah. “Well,” Geralt said, articulately.

Triss smirked at him over her wine. It was exceptionally good, a vintage from Toussaint that was nearly as old as Geralt. Triss’ quarters were fairly large, befitting a court mage, but decorated in a way that made them seem almost cozy. She favored muted colors that turned rich in the light of the candles scattered around the room. There were dozens of tables and shelves crowded with books, herbs and knick knacks that made the space feel distinctly lived in. It was a stark contrast to Yennefer’s lodgings, which were always immaculate and finely organized. The clutter was a refreshing change of pace. “Yennefer told me that you’re trying to make the bard immortal,” Triss said. One of her eyebrows rose, and Geralt wasn’t sure if the look she gave him was impressed or judgemental.

“Not necessarily,” Geralt said defensively. “Just not so, uh.”

“Excessively mortal?”

He hummed. Triss sighed.

“I don’t know of anything to lengthen a human lifespan to that of a witcher’s,” she said. “But the elves have been dealing in things relating to life force for longer than there have been human mages on the Continent. If anyone has any knowledge of what you’re after, it will be the Aen Saevherne.”

Geralt nodded. “Yennefer told me to ask after a woman named Ida. A sage?”

Triss set her goblet down, looking grave. “Ida Emean. An old acquaintance of mine. Perhaps one of the last elven sages alive, though they’re so secretive it’s difficult to tell. She works occasionally with the Brotherhood, when their goals align. But you need to know, Geralt, even if she has an answer for you, this kind of magic comes with a price. Always.”

“I’m willing to pay it,” Geralt said. “Jaskier, he’s—”

Triss interrupted him with a gentle smile, brushing her fingers over the back of his hand on the table. “I know what he is to you. I want to help. I just want you to be careful.” Geralt wondered when he’d become this transparent to, apparently, half the Continent and every one of his close friends. The sorceresses were probably gossiping behind his back.

“How will you contact her?” Geralt asked, pushing through his embarrassment. He wished saving Jaskier’s fragile human life didn’t involve so many conversations about his unrequited love.

“Megascope,” Triss said, rising. “We’ll need to do it soon, when the moon rises. It will make the connection stronger; I’m not sure where she is.”

Geralt followed her into a room off of the main sitting area, a small space that was almost entirely dominated by Triss’ megascope. He’d seen its like numerous times at Kaer Morhen, where Yennefer had set her own up in the highest tower still standing. The large crystal disks swam with a cool blue light as Triss waved her hand through the air. Three brass arms rose up to hold them at shoulder level, facing inwards to form a triangle. The soft light filled the dark space, throwing Triss’ face into sharp relief before Geralt snapped a finger to light the candles in the room.

Triss stepped up in front of the negative space between the stands, uttering a few words in Elder that Geralt wasn’t familiar with. After a moment the light began to shimmer and twist around itself, slowly solidifying into a human form.

The figure was indistinct, as they usually were in megascope projections, but Geralt could tell that the woman was beautiful. Used to dealing with elves in the south, whose genes had been diluted with human blood over so many centuries, Geralt was taken aback by the sharpness of her features. Her neck was long and elegant, and her hair fell in sheets around her alien features. He was reminded suddenly of his encounter with the elves of the Blue Mountains so many years ago, the inhuman angle of Filavandrel’s cheekbones.

The smoky figure turned towards Triss first, her head dropping in a brief nod. “Triss Merigold. Keidmil.” Ida said in greeting.

Triss nodded in return, her curls bouncing with the motion. “Keidmil, Ida. I apologize for summoning you with so little warning. I have done so as a favor to a friend.” At this Ida’s eyes, empty orbs of swirling blue light in the megascope, fell on Geralt.

“Vatgern,” she said, with the tone of someone who has just discovered something fascinating but slightly repulsive on the bottom of their shoe. “You have friends in high places, wed. What business does a witcher have with me?” Her accent made the words almost musical.

Geralt’s nod of acknowledgement was more of a bow. He wasn’t normally one to show deference to those with power, but this time his heart was pounding in his ears as he leaned forward. If Ida wouldn’t help him, he would be back to square one before he’d even really begun. “Keidmil, Aen Saevherne,” he said as demurely as he could, which probably still came out sounding like gravel. “I was told by Yennefer of Vengerberg that you might have some knowledge on extending human lifespans.”

Ida’s head tilted a tic to the side, clearly intrigued. “Witchers already live near as long as any half-elf on the Continent,” she replied. “There is no spell that could give you the lifespan of a true Aen Seidhe.”

“It isn’t for myself,” Geralt said quickly. “It’s for a human. Someone I… care deeply about.” He ignored the way his face flamed at this admission, no matter how clear it was that Triss obviously knew about his infatuation. He’d barely admitted it aloud to himself, let alone anyone else.

Ida hummed, the sound vibrating through the megascope. “This has precedent. But the spell you seek does not come without cost.”

“Tell me,” Geralt said firmly.

“There has always been conflict between humankind and the Aes Seidhe. Our peoples have crossed gweld an gleidyf many times over the millennia. But there were always times when there was peace, coexistence. In the early days, before the blood of men diluted our own, the Aes Seidhe could live through half a dozen human lifetimes or more. It was taboo to form relationships with humans, and many did not bother. But there were, of course, exceptions.

“It is unclear where the ritual comes from, but the tales say that one of the Aen Saevherne fell in love with a human woman, who then fell gravely ill as she entered her twilight years. The sage, terrified of losing her, bound her lifeforce to his own, effectively extending her life at the cost of some of his own longevity. Over the years the ritual was refined by others. It has fallen out of practice, in this age; many of the Aes Seidhe’s bloodlines are so diluted that they live for no longer than twice a human lifetime. But the ritual remains.”

Geralt swallowed. “Can you explain it to me?”

“I can,” Ida said, her chin raising slightly. “But I do not need to tell you, vatgern, that all such magic comes with consequences. You cannot create those years from nothing; they must be drawn from somewhere. And you will be binding yourself to this human. I cannot say how this ritual will impact someone who is not of elvish blood.”

He could feel Triss turning worried eyes on him. She too knew the price that magic could demand. “Will Ja—the human, could he be harmed?” Geralt asked.

Ida’s head shook back and forth, her hair swaying. “You assume the responsibility of the ritual,” she said. “Is this human worth so much to you?”

“Yes,” Geralt said instantly, surprised by his own lack of hesitation. “Anything.”

Ida looked at him for a moment, as if judging his truthfulness. “Very well,” she finally said. “I will give you the words, but the ritual requires additional pieces. Gaes carraigh, an oathstone, for the vow; ghealachlíon, night’s linseed, for the binding; and ionad, a place of great power or great personal meaning. Once these elements are combined, you bind your hands with the moonflax over the oathstone and speak the incantation. It is straightforward, but your pronunciation and your intent must be exact. Me lámh le do lámh, me cáerme le do cáerme.”

“Me lámh le do lámh, me cáerme le do cáerme,” Geralt repeated. The words were easy, close enough to their modern counterparts that he was certain it would be nearly identical in southern Elder. It was almost too easy, romantic in its simplicity. Ida nodded, satisfied. “And that’s all?” Geralt asked, breathless.

“That is all. There need be no officiant, no further ceremony. You will be bound by Chaos herself.”

“Officiant?” Geralt blinked, confused. “Why would we need an officiant?”

“I have been told that human marriages tend to involve quite a few witnesses,” Ida said, sounding amused. “Ours are a bit more personal.”

“Wait. This is a marriage ritual?” Geralt felt his heart starting to sink down into his stomach.

“I thought that much was obvious,” Ida replied. “Now, if that is all you require, I have my own business to attend to.”

“Me grasha, Ida, for taking the time,” Triss piped up again. “If you ever need a favor in return…”

“I will keep that in mind,” Ida said. “Va feil.”

“Va feil,” Triss replied, and the megascoped dimmed and cast the room back into darkness.

Geralt stood in utter stillness for a moment, blinking into the dark. “Fuck,” he burst out. “I have to marry him?”

Triss just laughed.

*

Triss, luckily, knew the locations of most of the components Ida had mentioned, though the last location would be up to Geralt to determine. The first of these, the oathstone, was used frequently enough in larger elven settlements before their people were displaced. She had recommended the ruins of Ban Aine as a likely findspot, and it was situated not too far from Oxenfurt. That was to be his first real stop, to collect Jaskier and convince him of Geralt’s plan.

Hopefully without revealing too much about the exact nature of the ritual, which still made Geralt sweat when he thought about it for too long.

He couldn’t help but think of it with a strange mix of giddiness and dread, churning together in a nauseating concoction. Marriage wasn’t something that witchers got to do, ever. Their lives were transient and drawn out, and often ended in violence. Even if any of them had the time to court lovers, it wasn’t the type of life that one would wish on someone they cared for. It could only end one of two ways: the witcher outlived their paramour, or their love was left to grieve them after they were gutted by some beast or strung up by an angry mob.

Even when Geralt had been infatuated with Yennefer he hadn’t truly considered anything like marriage. He had imagined a kind of loose commitment, maybe, but he had always known somewhere deep in his own mind that Yennefer would never stand to be tied down to anyone for long. He had been desperate enough for her love that he’d been willing to settle for anything she could give him.

He had never dared to hope for more, no matter how he might want it. Still, once he had come to understand his own feelings towards Jaskier, he had been unable to stop himself from thinking about it at times. He wondered what things might change between them, if they tied themselves together. Things might stay much the same; Jaskier would come to Kaer Morhen most years, and journey with Geralt when he could throughout the rest of the year. He would bring trinkets and books and stories for Ciri, and teach her how to be human, and trade quips with Yennefer and the other wolves when they all gathered. He would still help Geralt clean up after a hunt, help him stitch his skin back together and wash away the grime and curl up at his side when night came. But maybe he would also let Geralt wake him by pressing his lips to Jaskier’s eyelids like he had so often yearned to do. Maybe he would reach out and hold Geralt’s hand as they walked through a new town; maybe he would close the distance kept between them when they lay in tiny rented beds.

Maybe he could be Geralt’s, and no one else’s.

He was successful, most of the time, in keeping these kinds of thoughts at bay. It did a witcher no good to dwell on what could not be.

Now it would be, if only technically, and only if Geralt could convince Jaskier to perform the ritual without giving away its origins. He considered telling Jaskier the full truth of it, of course. It was probable that Jaskier wouldn’t even care. In his mind, they were only friends; it would be easy enough to set aside the implications of the ritual in favor of practicality. It would be ridiculous to turn down the chance at potentially doubling his own lifespan just because hundreds of years ago an ancient ritual was used for romantic unions.

But every time Geralt thought of telling Jaskier, and of hearing him dismiss Geralt’s concerns, he felt something black and dreadful crawl up his throat. Jaskier would think it was silly, the idea that he could ever be married to a witcher. He would laugh, with that sly grin he always got when they were sharing a joke between them—isn’t that funny, the look would say, the idea of you and me.

No. If he said nothing, Jaskier would never have to know, and what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Geralt would never hold him to any sort of bond that the ritual created between them; he would be happy knowing that Jaskier wouldn’t be taken from him by time and old age, at least not yet.

And at least he would have something of Jaskier for himself, even if he’d had to steal it.

[simonalkenmayer]

Hello Simon, I hope you are doing well. I wanted to ask you something since I consider you the most wisest and experienced person, and probably you already felt this way and did something productive about it. You have lived a very long time so maybe you know how to deal with those feelings. I'm 30, I'm trans, I have a good life (better than most like me at least), I have people who loves me, I have good health, I have 2 friends and a girlfriend, I have a future. And yet... I still feel like I'm desperate for finding a reason to kill myself. I think I'm not loving enough to the ones that loves me, I know I'm not good enough to actually be a good person, I'm tired of pretending I'm a good person, I'm not. I feel trapped, angry, I wish I could just give me a moment to explode, but I can't, whenever I let my true feelings out even just a little, I destroy too much, I hurt too much. I tried antidepressants, sleep all day, being complacent... nothing works. I love my family, my gf and friends... but everytime I just want to say goodbye and... die I guess, idk, I don't want to die, I wish I could just take out all my feelings and thoughts and connect intensely with whatever pure energy out there. It's been years since I don't enjoy anything authentically. I think I'm just grumpy, angry and just a toxic person in general. I care, I really do care about my fam,gf and friends but why I can't just be the perfect person they deserve? Sorry for bothering with all of this, I thought that maybe you felt like this at some point... and I know you discipline yourself to be kind and good so you might know more about this, when you just feel like you don't want to be good and just want to destroy everything for whatever reason. What you do, Simon, what you do to keep going? To have honest good feelings? I wish I could be as collected and patient as you, I wish I could have your strength, but I'm just a human and I wish to learn how to be more human from you. If you can, you don't have to if you don't want of course, but could you share some tips of how to overcome those feelings and keep going?(Sorry if my English is weird, it's not my first language, hope you still can understand)

Let me first say, I am not wise, unless it be to know that I know not much at all and am always learning. I am not a therapist. I speak only as an objective observer and as a friend, if you choose to call me that.

My friend, it sounds to me as if your mental health isn’t actually being managed effectively. It may be time to seek out other help or new medicines. Your problem may not yet even be accurately identified. I know that when the machine is not functioning correctly, however, it can be difficult to use it to analyze, so allow me to give you some rational things to hold onto.

If you were a “bad person”, you wouldn’t care what happens to anyone. You’d just be that person, without apology. When you say you want to let go and just be “bad” what I hear you saying is that you have feelings and stressors you don’t know how to express constructively. And that’s alright. That’s normal. We all have that. Even me. For you it may be even more complicated, and that is why you need to trust that logic and seek the right help.

Bad and good are not real. But destruction and construction are. I have done many destructive things in my own miseries, before I realized this. It took me a long time to recognize that when I did these things I never felt an better and nothing ever actually changed for the better. And so now, even when I am feeling huge things I cannot articulate, I try to do something constructive with them. That’s a phrase we hear often these days, but understand me when I say, I do not mean “productive” as in “be of use or you’re without purpose”. I mean what will help you grow? What is that thing? You can draw boundaries, and tell people that you need space. You can say you need a moment to cope. You can spend time researching and looking not just for coping mechanisms, but for things to learn about yourself. Turn fear and worry into actions, and let those actions build something, however big or small—a relationship, an understanding, an identity.

The truth of the matter is, death comes fast enough. You do not need to speed it up. You are here for now, and you have this time, not merely to exist and suffer at the hands of the universe, but to determine how you see things, how you think. You have a right to be who you are, and maybe that person needs to do things differently. When you are dead, you end as you were. There’s no peace, because you cease to be. You don’t get to look back and say “thank god it’s over”.

You need help, and that’s alright! That’s normal. I encourage you to seek it out wherever it lives. Don’t let people tell you who to be. Be who you are and teach that person to always learn and grow and construct who they are. The rest of the world be damned. Their ideas do not define you. And if they aren’t helping you, then don’t waste time on them.

[rebrandedbard]

Hello can you write 36 ?? Love your fics. Thanks xx

You got it, nonny! For you, another Post Mountain reunion! We got one in Posada, now let’s see how it might play out in Oxenfurt! It’s the scenario that never dies, full of delicious angst, confusion, and confessions. I do so love a reunion.

WC: 1177

36. “I wish I could hate you.”

The Wonder of You

Geralt has never been good with feelings. But Jaskier seems to feel infinitely, and he seems to always know just what he’s feeling. So Geralt finds him at Oxenfurt to get some closure on the subject of what this mystery is that he feels towards Jaskier.

-

Years of travelling, of Jaskier’s constant presence, all his noise and his bother and his feelings. His endless feelings. He never shut up about them, always acted on them, and to Geralt’s mind, Jaskier seemed to be the most feeling person he’d ever met. There was an intensity about him unmatched by any other. It was foreign to Geralt, and something which he did not know whether he found intolerable or worthy of envy.

Perhaps the worst of it was that Jaskier knew everything he felt. He was a poet, able to define the unquantifiable. It was his job to understand the immaterial and make it material for others to see and understand. And Geralt … he did not.

Geralt knew anger, frustration, and fear. He knew more nuanced things as annoyance. He knew relief. And hatred. Hatred he was very familiar with, though he’d been taught externally from the start. Best of all, he was acquainted with confusion. He’d been confused and questioning things all his life long. Since Jaskier came along, the confusion had only grown.

Why, he asked himself, did this man not fear him? Why did he insist on travelling at his side, singing songs, caring for him? There were never answers, only more questions. Why did he never shut up? Why did he insist on following Geralt headlong into danger? And … why was Geralt so concerned if he did?

The journey down the mountain was the longest, darkest, most difficult he’d ever taken. It did not seem to end when he took to the Path once more. The shadow of the mountain chased after him, clawing at his heels, growing wearier a burden as time went on.

And just as before, when he found Jaskier again, his every feeling erupted, begging the bard to make sense of all that he held inside, to teach him what it meant. Define it. Tell me what this is. Tell me what to do with it. In the end, he was no closer to understanding than he’d ever been. He stood before Jaskier, head in his hands, gripping his skull as if it would burst and let the words all come tumbling out in a maddening rush.

“I wish I could hate you,” Geralt hissed. ��I wish I could fear you. I wish I felt some way towards you that I can understand!”

And he did fear him. He feared something of him: his scorn, his retribution, or worse still, his indifference. He hated Jaskier’s ease and his philandering. He hated his leaving. He was angry and confused in turn when he imagined these horrors, or brooded upon his faults. There was no reason for it that he understood. It had naught to do with him, but still, he did. And he wished he could only understand why. Always with Jaskier the chorus of why, why, why!

Geralt clenched his fists, staring down at his feet as he spoke. “I don’t understand it and I doubt I ever will. It exhausts me to no end. Every time I see you I’m filled with it—this need for understanding. It brings me to silence, as if you, knowing it, have stolen the word from me. And when you sing, I think I might catch the word I need and steal it back. I can feel it somewhere inside of me, but I don’t know how to call it forth, give it a name.”

Jaskier sat in his chair in silence, Geralt’s words ringing through the empty classroom. His eyes were bright, though he looked startled. The book he kept pressed to his chest began to slip and he made no move to catch it, allowing it to fall into his lap. Geralt had caught him by surprise when he entered, had simply started talking at him, wagging a finger in his face as if he’d caught him following behind on a hunt after being told in no uncertain terms to stay put. It was oddly articulate, bordering on poetic, and Jaskier had a tingling sense of clarity as he listened, bombarded by Geralt’s sudden onslaught of speech. But it was based on a false hope, he was certain.

And here Geralt was, leaning across the table, his hands braced on top. He was reaching, afraid to touch. Jaskier looked down at Geralt’s hands. Slowly, he set his book aside and sat up straighter. He plucked Geralt’s hands from the tabletop, putting them together between his own.

“Geralt,” he said. “I cannot put words in your mouth. Whatever answers you seek, you must discover for yourself. I don’t want to be another source of your frustration. I never wanted to be anything of that nature from the start, and I cannot take the blame again.” He began to pull his hands away once more, and as he did, he turned his head, looking through the window to the distant mountains beyond. The memory was a festering wound, never healed. And here, Geralt had opened it anew, storming his way into his classroom to unload on him another tirade.

But Geralt took his hands, clasping them firmly, a silent plead. “Please, Jaskier,” he whispered. “Frustrate me,”

Jaskier frowned, looking at their joined hands. He looked up at Geralt, saw a strange desperation in his eyes. “I don’t understand,” he said. “If I can’t give you an answer, what else could you want of me? I don’t even understand what it is you’ve come here for.”

“All I know is this: I would rather go the rest of my life without the answer, continuing to ask what it is that I feel when I look at you, just so long as you are there to make me wonder.”

The minutes stretched on between them in silence. Outside, the world was cold. It would be winter soon, and the sky was grey with anticipation. Someday soon, it would snow. Even so, the light broke through the clouds, timid and warm.

Jaskier looked up as the light fell through the tall windows. Gently, he turned up his palm. He chuckled quietly. Perhaps tomorrow would be sunny. Perhaps it would hail. There was no telling what the world had in store for them in this strange in-between.

“Geralt?” he said at last.

Geralt found his breath again as Jaskier met his eye. He squeezed his hands slightly, an acknowledgement and a comfort. Then, Jaskier smiled, and he asked a question of his own.

“Would you like to stay for the winter?”

And Geralt closed his eyes with a relieved sigh. He nodded, and Jaskier stole back one hand, gesturing for him to sit. They sat together awhile in silence and Jaskier handed him a book to read while he finished his work. The sun disappeared behind the clouds once more, but there was a warmth to the room still.

“You’re important to me,” Geralt said, turning the page.

Jaskier hummed as he scribbled something in his notes. “Define how.”

And Geralt smiled wryly in return. “That’s what I’m trying to do,” he replied.

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

(pt 1) i really enjoy all your atla analyses & you've done a great job breaking down the usual arguments re how eip shows that kataang shouldn't have happened. i'm curious about your take on one specific argument that i just saw today, in an analysis of the show by a zker that was otherwise quite good and respectful (i know you've already talked about eip a lot, so no problem if you don't feel like rehashing). the premise: aang didn't just pressure katara in eip, he threatened her.

(pt 2) they point to when katara joins aang & asks if he’s alright: “aang: no, i’m not! i hate this play! katara: i know it’s upsetting, but it sounds like you’re overreacting. aang: overreacting? if i hadn’t blocked my chakra, i’d probably be in the avatar state right now!” the suggestion is he’s threatening her when he says ‘i’d probably be in the avatar state right now’ to describe his anger. i think this take exaggerates and oversimplifies it, but interested in your thoughts on it.

Hello my friend!! It is true I am Old inside and don’t like rehashing dhdlksjslks BUT your comments on my posts are always incredibly kind and insightful so I am more than willing to do a bit of rehashing for you 🥰 Besides! I’ve seen this general take before a few times and it’s always irked me for the exact reason you point out - it simultaneously exaggerates and oversimplifies the situation (and honestly that’s an impressive duality since it’s seemingly contradictory, so hats off to them lmaooo) - and now is as good a time as any to address it. So, for starters, let’s go ahead and get the excerpt they love to focus on so much:

Cut to Aang standing alone on a balcony. Katara enters and walks up to him.

Katara: Are you all right?

Aang: [Angered.] No, I’m not! I hate this play! [Yanks his hat off and throws it on the ground.]

Katara: I know it’s upsetting, but it sounds like you’re overreacting.

Aang: Overreacting? If I hadn’t blocked my chakra, I’d probably be in the Avatar State right now!

Here’s the thing about so-called analyses of this excerpt: in a manner extremely convenient to the poster, they never seek to contextualize this moment. (I mean, to do so would deplatform their entire “argument” - perhaps that’s why they avoid performing a full analysis?) So let’s avoid that pitfall from the start.

Firstly, below are some links to related posts; I’m going to do my best to summarize the most relevant parts, but for anyone who desires greater detail, I gotchu 😤

This post explains why EIP (the play, lol) is imperialist propaganda and is intended to belittle the entire Gaang.

This post explains how Aang never acted “entitled” to Katara’s affections, particularly in regard to EIP.

This post breaks down the infamous EIP kiss like Snopes Fact Checker, covering common misconceptions, important perspectives to consider, etc.

Alright. With that out the way, it’s time for some context.

Aang and Katara have this conversation on the balcony after watching 95% of “The Boy in the Iceberg,” a play chock-full of Fire Nation propaganda that demeans the entire Gaang in order to prop up the Fire Nation as superior (hence why the play ends with Ozai’s victory). Here is my general breakdown of Aang and Katara’s treatment in particular from a previous post:

- katara, an indigenous woman, is highly sexualized and portrayed as overly dramatic and tearful, because the fire nation objectifies women not of their own people and views them as less intelligent and less emotionally stable

- aang, the avatar, the sole survivor of the fire nation’s genocide of the air nomads who is incredibly in-touch with his spirituality and femininity, is portrayed as an overly-airy and immature woman. the fire nation portrays him with a female actor to demean him (like, that’s classic imperialistic propagandist tactics) and furthermore writing his character as a childish airhead reinforces the fire nation sentiment that the air nomads were weak, foolish people who did not deserve to exist in their world

In other words, these kids have just watched almost an entire play that preys upon their insecurities and depicts them using racist and sexist stereotypes about their respective nations. It is completely understandable that tensions might run a little high and that their interactions would not be as balanced as usual (Katara and Aang have a great track record of communicating well with each other, as it happens!).

So we have to keep that in mind when examining the aforementioned excerpt. But there are other factors to consider, too! Namely: they are kids. Children. Teens. Aang is 12, Katara is 14.

If we want to be scientific, a person’s brain doesn’t finish developing until they are 25, lmao, and the preteen/teen years are when the prefrontal cortex that controls “rationality,” “judgement,” “forethought,” etc. is still developing. This doesn’t mean Aang and Katara are irrational and make poor decisions 24/7 (obviously not), but it does mean that in an intense, highly emotional situation, like after watching a play that intentionally demeans them and depicts them as inferior, they are more likely to overreact, more likely to be emotional, and more likely to make mistakes. Like, I’m serious, lol. “Teens process information with the amygdala.” That’s part of the brain that helps control emotions! It’s why teens sometimes struggle to articulate what we’re thinking, especially in situations that require instinct/impulse and quick decisions, because we’re really feeling whenever we make those choices. Acting more on emotion. Our brains simply haven’t finished developing the decision-making parts, lmao.

In sum: Aang and Katara are both kids, not adults, and should be interpreted as such. This doesn’t negate their intelligence, because they are both incredibly smart and Aang is arguably the wisest of the Gaang, but they are human. Young humans. They have emotions, and we should not be so cruel as to assume they’d never act on them.

So taking that all together, we can now acknowledge the high stress Aang and Katara are under, understand why they might be upset (*cough* imperialist propaganda is hurtful *cough*), and examine how their youth might play into their emotional reactions. And funny thing - all analyses that come to the conclusion of Aang “threatening” Katara here do not usually bother with this context. I can’t imagine why!

And you know what, let’s add one more piece of context: Sokka states that Aang left the theater “like, ten minutes ago,” which is what cues Katara to go look for him on the balcony. The reason I mention this line is because to me, it suggests Aang knew he was more worked up than usual! He chose to separate himself from his friends so he could process his frustration! He did not take his anger at the play out on them; instead, he purposefully took time and space to be alone.

With that in mind, I don’t understand at all how Aang’s Avatar state quote could be interpreted as a threat? Canonly, Aang is someone who was aware enough of his frustration to separate himself from the others - yet the logical next step is him threatening Katara as a result? He knew his intense emotions were because of the play (which he says himself), so the logical conclusion is that he then pinned the fault on Katara? What?? Sorry, that interpretation has no textual basis, lmao. But I digress!

Aang tells Katara, “If I hadn’t blocked my chakra, I’d probably be in the Avatar State right now!” As you said, this is the line people point to in an attempt to justify their (baseless) conclusion that Aang is “threatening” Katara. So let’s bring in the two key pieces of context: imperialist propaganda and age. Given that Aang is 12, and given that Aang has just watched almost a full play that demeans him and everything his people stood for (and let’s not forget it also mocks his and Katara’s love for each other)…

His reaction is understandable. An exaggeration and needlessly dramatic, but understandable. He feels vulnerable and insecure and Aang is human. He is human and flawed and he overreacts here and I love that A:TLA shows how even our heroes, even people who are truly good at heart and in soul, can get overly upset (especially given the aforementioned circumstances!). Would Aang actually be in the Avatar state at that moment, had it been possible? Of course not! He’s young and he’s hurt and as such he says something dramatic to convey his anxieties and frustrations. The line is not meant to be taken literally, and seeing people do so despite all the factors that should be taken into consideration when analyzing it… Cue a long, tired sigh from me and so many other A:TLA fans.

And to be honest? I cannot fathom how people watch this episode and come to the conclusion that Aang is “threatening” Katara. To me, this episode - besides being a recap episode - is one that humanizes our cast even further. Aang snaps at Katara, kisses her when he shouldn’t (which the story appropriately treats as wrong). Katara pushes down her true feelings and retreats into herself, afraid to start a relationship with the boy she loves because she’s already lost him once before and can’t bear to do so again. Zuko further confronts the hurt he’s enacted upon others, especially upon Iroh. Toph practices being vulnerable and accepting vulnerability from others by conversing with Zuko. Sokka witnesses how others have erased his contributions and labelled him as nothing more than the token nonbender in the group. Even Suki learns that she is not the only person who holds a place in Sokka’s heart and that she can never replace what he has lost.

To watch this episode where our heroes must come to terms with how the Fire Nation deems them inherently inferior, with how they have more fights to overcome in the future with the Fire Nation than a single war, and to come to the conclusion that… that what, Aang is abusive? A monster? Irredeemable? That he would threaten his best friend, someone he loves in every way?

Wow. That says more than enough about the viewer, doesn’t it?