#I could write a whole ass paragraph on how they communicate their differences of the past few weeks through touch and body language alone

[21teapot]

Vi top this, Caitlyn bottom that, how about both switch?? I see Caitlyn attempt to take the lead multiple times during that scene, but she let Vi diliberately give instead. Heck, if anything I would have thought Caitlyn would be the one giving to Vi, considering she is probably far more experienced.

[strawbrrycuteblog]

hiii. I’m sorry if I made you upset with what I said. that was not my intentions at all. I feel like you shouldn’t delete you account but just start fresh. for example maybe changing your username or creating a new theme and getting rid of posts. I know you may not wanna do this but it’s just a suggestion, and if you do that I could try get Aria to unblock you <3

also your messages wouldn’t work so I’ll just send this on here x

No it’s okay if anything it made me realize what I was doing wasn’t something enhypen would approve of and I cried cause like yeah but I’ll do a different layout and change the posts and think of a different name and I’d be so so so thankful if you could try and get aria to unblock me cause I truly meant no harm and I’m so sad that I disappointed her like it’s not even funny 😭 that whole night I thought about it and cried thinking of how shitty a person I was for writing things like that about him. I know if he found these he’d be uncomfy and they’d probs beat my ass for sexualizing their baby puma :( so therefore I won’t be writing smut for Niki, maybe even not for other members since it’s just all in all makes me uncomfortable to do so. I had fun writing them because it started to get to a point where people enjoyed what I wrote but definitely not for the right reasons. I love the tumblr community (mostly) and to have my account only be warned by other is truly a nightmare, that’s not what I wanted for this account and that’s not what I want people to see me as. My replies to y’all sharing y’all’s open opinions was a bitch move and unlike what I posted I was being a bitch and not that bitch. I can explain this better not that it’s a proper time and I’m not having a whole questionnaire about my existence and I appreciate you being kind to me despite every thing I’ve written down, especially for sending in that paragraph! Because if you hadn’t I probably would have just kept posting worse and worse things about him. I had a thought about posting audios for him and other members since they seem to get a lot of notes but a part of me was like “no this isn’t good like who’s gonna be proud of you for this?” No one. My friend would find me disgusting and so would everyone else and obviously enhypen, after reading your last send I answered and scrolled around my phone, then I went on insta and saw they posted and I wanted to like it but I was so embarrassed because I knew they’d hate me for this. I knew I was doing something wrong yet I still did it and I fell horrible. It makes me want to throw up scream and cry. I looked at jays photos and thought of how Niki’s parents told him to protect Niki and cried cause I knew he’d be so icked about my account and instead of being happy he’d probably pull out a yellow card if he saw me. I crossed a line I regret breaking and hope for forgiveness from everyone but if not that’s totally fine! I understand how y’all would be so upset to send death threats and to send me things about being a creep and all. I wouldn’t wanna write child porn or ever post about it yet I clearly have. I’m so sorry and I’ll own up to my mistakes and be more mature about this from now own, and thank you so much….also is it possible to unblock someone? Cause I’m pretty sure I blocked @rikiluvli I hope I got that right I kinda forgot. And a few other account that I’d prefer to unblock!

[calumhoodgoss]

um. I sat here for like half an hour writing up a big rant trying to get my point across about like, how weird it is that stans need a release of physical merch and multiple, ongoing social media posts to know a celeb has themselves on the correct side of history, but it was four paragraphs long and I don't wanna ruffle feathers too much. I'm glad I'm not famous because nothing you could ever do is enough these days, truly

there are a million ways to support humans dealing with any multiple crisises right now; I so desperately need the loud, online, keyboard warrior activists to take their high horses outside and into their communties, instead of waiting for someone else to do it (including but not limited to gaza or 5sos/FOF)

write the post!!!! i wanna hear it! plus, sometimes feathers deserve to be ruffled

i totally agree that there is no right way to do activism and we certainly dont have a whole picture of their lives and efforts. for all we know they could be doing so much theyre not advertising. i also agree that no one has an obligation to share those things publicly, especially when you consider their online presence is their job. i dont think the same pressure to speak out is placed on business men and women, ceo's, etc. to speak out in their workplace - many of these people have a surprisingly large reach/business community. so if we dont expect normal people to talk about activism in professional environments, why are we putting a double standard on celebs?

I WILL SAY THOUGH, its different with 5sos particularly because they have made activism part of their brand. they made friends of friends for the Russia/Ukraine conflict and were VERY vocal about that. they publicly fund raised, they made merch, the whole nine yards. so that leaves fans asking, why not do the same for Palastine? what makes Palastine any less important? Why do they suddenly not care? its different when the celebrity has set the precedent themselves.

their half assed promise to bring friends of friends back also just rubs salt in the wound imo. ashs tweet with its feigned sense of urgency like they 'didnt know' the Palastine conflict was happening until that moment? get so for real. it sets a tone that they care about activism but just dont give a fuxk about Palastine - not a pretty picture

would love to hear your opinion on this though!

[scampfire]

Idk if my answers will contribute to anything, but this questionnaire seems fun so let's go

1. How do you identify?

I identify with the labels aromantic, alloaro, demisexual, greyplatonic/aplspec

2. How do you feel about the following

Romance: repulsed

Touching: I don't like body contact in general, but that's my autism, it has nothing to do with me being aspec

Hugging: that's okay as long as I'm asked first

Kissing: not in the face/ on the lips. Everything else is okay (except my chest. Trans guy struggle)

Sex: great I think. Ask me again when I'm not a virgin anymore

Love: I kinda relate to loveless people. I don't feel love for anyone, not romantic or platonic or queer platonic or anything else. But I love the whole world and nature and my fandoms and everything so much that I don't label myself as loveless.

Queer platonic relationships: awesome concept. But I dislike that (some) aro people now seem to have replaced romantic relationships with queer platonic relationships in an amatonormative way. That they praise qprs so much and think every aro needs one or wants one. Just recycled amatonormativty

A significant other: don't need one. It's fine when other people find joy in it, just not for me

One night stands: valid as heck. Nothing wrong with them. I fight everyone who says otherwise

Porn (video): my demi ass doesn't like naked people I don't know, so not for me. But I'm not against them, consume them if you want, or not when it's not your thing. You can do whatever you want forever

Smut (written): smut is awesome. It's not easy to write good smut, but when you have the required skill you're basically a god

Dates/Dating: I don't date. And I don't understand the difference between dating and just hanging out. Someone explain to me please

3. What is one thing most people misunderstand about your identity?

I don't talk about my identities that often. But you can't look at my labels and know what's going on inside me, so I guess that could confuse people. Like, I'm aplspec but still want a friend with benefits. Technically I'm demi, but I still find people attractive after a few hours of knowing them, so I consider myself also alloaro. I'm aromantic but Love shipping. So I'm more complex than you'd think I guess

4. Have you encountered aphobia in your life?

I'd say no, but I encountered amatonormativity so much. Every person I'm out to supports me, but the amatonormative brain rot is real. So a person can support me, but still say it's valid that another person destroyed our plan to meet because she'll meet her girlfriend and romantic relationships are more important than platonic relationships. Why does relationship hierarchy even exist anymore

5. Anything else you'd like to add on the topic?

No hate against aces, but I'm tired that they overshadow every other aspec identity. It sucks that the aro tag is unusable when you don't want to consume ace content. It sucks that books about the queer community have whole paragraphs or even pages about being ace, but aros just get a few sentences. And it's often explained in detail that aces don't have to be aro, but we aros just get something like "oh and sometimes aros aren't ace" and then nothing's mentioned about alloaros ever again. Aces and aroaces are totally valid, and they deserve their communities and own spaces, but I just want a space for aros to exist without having to think or talk about asexuality. A space that's purely focused about being aromantic, and nothing else. I'm not even angry anymore, just so tired

The Aspec Questionaire

Aspec is such a vast category and one some folks (especially allo folks) tend to treat like a monolith. So I thought it’d be good to do a little questionnaire to demonstrate.

(Skip anything you don’t want to answer.)

1. How do you identify?

2. How do you feel about the following, one word answers are fine if you want:

- - Romance

- - Touching

- - Hugging

- - Kissing

- - Sex

- - Love

- - Queer Platonic Relationships

- - A Significant Other

- - One Night Stands

- - Porn (Video)

- - Smut (Written)

- - Dates/Dating

3. What is the thing you think most people misunderstand about your identity?

4. Have you encountered aphobia in your life?

5. Anything else you’d like to add on the topic?

[inky-thoughts]

How to Organize a Zine 101 #15

I’ve been putting this specific topic off since forever because ever since I thought about writing about it, I figured I should make a quick and sweet InDesign tutorial for it.

Alas, four whole ass years have passed, I came to the conclusion that I might never do such a thing and thus I’ll try to explain this the best I can in the simple format of a blog post (or several). Let’s talk

Designing your Zine Pt. 1: Software Picks

So, I don’t know if you know but I have a bachelor’s degree in Communication Design. Therefore I will be more thorough than I’m going to be on book-keeping and other stuff surrounding zines that I do not have a degree in.

First of all, I’d generally advise you to have an actual designer on your mod team, or outsource this portion to a designer/design student who focusses on layout and typography. Despite popular belief, only because you can draw well, it doesn’t mean that you’ll be a good designer, and vice versa. There are people who are good at both (like me, if I may say so myself), but it’s not the rule. So yes, that’s a thing.

But now, what if you don’t have someone to take over this part and you need to do it yourself? Or you are a designer but just never worked in print before?

Things I will stress is, get yourself a program specifically for designing layouts.

The most widely known/used one is InDesign from Adobe, the most recent version is available through their Creative Cloud subscription (which is ridiculously expensive but guess who is Booboo the Fool and pays for it because it’s industry standard) - students can get it for 50% off though, if you register with your uni email and stuff. Same goes for faculty members if I remember correctly.

There are also old Adobe Creative Suites available (try looking for CS6, that’s the latest before the CC came into the game), which also include old InDesign versions. Maybe you can get your hand at those. I’m not telling you to pirate software, absolutely not, how could I, ABSOLUTELY *DON’T* LOOK FOR PIRATED ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE 6 for your zine endeavours.

Another, much cheaper, option that also can open idml files from InDesign is Affinity Publisher, part of Affinity’s roster of design and photo software. I tried the demo and I think it works just fine, especially if you are not familiar with InDesign anyway. If you are used to InDesign, though, it needs quite some adjustments because it’s close but different, so get acquainted with the program.

If you have the EX version of Clip Studio Paint, you technically could also make your zine within that software, however, I would only recommend it if you have no text to work with, and to my knowledge you can also not really incorporate a design grid. For purely illustrated zines, though, it can work.

I’m sure there are more softwares out there, but I can’t really say anything about them, how they might work or anything like that. One thing though: for the love of everything that’s dear to you, please DO NOT use Microsoft Word or the OpenOffice/LibreOffice equivalent. They are not supposed to do what you need to do to design an actual quality zine. Here’s a quick checklist that you really should keep in mind while searching for a proper software.

Things your layout software definitely should have:

CMYK and RGB mode (CMYK for printed zines, RGB for digital zines)

the option to add bleed to your pages (printing)

option to export as printable and interactive PDFs

option to see and export your file as spreads and single pages

automatic pagnation options

grids. design grids will be your bread and butter

text fields that you can push around on the page

MASTER PAGES/SPREADS

paragraph styles

option to add more than 2 pages to a spread (printing)

option to change page sizing for a single page (printing)

page borders to avoid cutting away from important features like text

hyperlinks and text/page anchors (digital)

major formatting customisation for text, especially with finetuning for leading and kerning

layers (akin to Photoshop layers, mostly to make your life easier)

Now, this isn’t the be-all, end-all, but this is the very baseline you need to do your zine’s design and layout. In future parts I will deal with each individual discipline like text formatting, images, design base rules and other shenanigans. Those I will cover with the Adobe CC simply because that’s the tools I use on the daily, but I’ll try to keep them as general as I can so you can apply them to your personal choice of software.

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Masterpost

[mercurytrinemoon]

Me debunking astrology generalizations and misconceptions or smth idk...

Squares and oppositions aren't pure evil. 

I can't believe I have to say this because I thought ya'll have learnt the characteristics of every aspect but here we are. Nothing in astrology is black and white. And I saw some ridiculous statements (not necessary here on tumblr) that said things like "if your Venus squares someone's ascendant then you don't find that person attractive AT ALL". Or "Mars square Mercury people can't speak politely and have an annoying voice". Like????? First of all, that's ridiculous. Second of all, square in not "everything bad" just like trine is not "everything amazing". Squares bring tension, which leads to motivation, they’re stimulating; sometimes excitement or charisma; sometimes they can make you overdo things. I'm not saying they're oh-so-marvelous because the challenges are still there, but they're not as bad as people paint them to be. Squares happen between two signs that are in the same modality so they have a bunch of things in common. Besides, some of them (Sagi-Pisces and Gemini-Virgo) are ruled by the same planet so there's a special type of chemistry between those (especially when applied to synastry). Oppositions work in two ways, planets either meet in the middle - opposite signs usually complete each other and fuel each other up. And worse case scenario? Natally this means being pulled in two different directions; synastry-wise, you can completely miss each other like two passing cars - so there may be some misunderstandings but I don't think that's the end of the world... And, as per usual, may be mitigated by other positive aspects.

This is me debunking other people's attempts at debunking Sun sign compatibility. 

Sun IS very important but when people ask about compatibility and go with Suns... and then someone tries to be a smartass and debunk the "compatible-incompatible" and does the same thing without even realizing it. Like, "oh I actually see a lot of Aries and Pisces having amazing relationships because *insert someting that is a total stretch and refers to their Sun sign traits*"... But you seem to forget that they're neighbouring signs... which means they probably have personal planets in those neighbouring signs... which means they're compatible not because of some made-up stuff that you're trying to come up with but because their other planets are compatible with each other. But you're still feeding into the Sun sign compatibility talk. (So like, what I'm trying to also say, yes, the entire synastry chart comes into play; Also, side note, everyone can get along on some level if they’re mature enough).

Planet in a sign is NOT the same as planet in the house. 

There may be some overlaps in some of the sign-houses associations (like in the overall energy; like for example, it sort of makes sense that 3rd, 7th and 11th are referred to as “air houses” because they’re the most social) but in NO WAY there are similarities between planet house position and the "ruling" sign. That association started a few decades ago and some would say that NOT linking houses with signs is a purely traditional approach. But there’s plenty of professional modern astrologers with 20/30/40-year experience who still differentiate between sign/house position... because they know (and have learnt along the way) that there’s a huge difference.

I'll give you 3 quick examples: Gemini planets and 3rd house planets both may put emphasis on communication, mental stimulation and gathering data. But Geminis are often scattered in their approach, they may be easily distracted, may be indecisive, may be jack of all trades and talkative jokesters. They actually hate routines and dullness. "Spice it up" is probably a Gemini's philosophy. Now 3rd house planets may indicate you actually LIKE doing things on the regular - like running errands every other day in the mornings or going to that one specific coffee shop to pick up a snack. You may actually work in logistics or as a postman (especially if your chart ruler or MC ruler is in the 3rd). Planets in the 3rd talk about your siblings, neighbours or school experiences - like having Venus in the 3rd may point to positive experiences within those areas - something Gemini Venus has nothing in common.

Venus in the 9th can study at an art/beauty or fashion school (or even teach there if the MC is involved); can be very attached to spiritual and religious matters; can also find love in a foreign land. But imagine it being in Taurus - rather shy, needing those stable values to feel secure, being an exceptionally great student at that art school thanks to its domicile. Venus in Sagittarius on the other hand, likes adventure, things being shaken up from time to time, lightheartedness and exploration. But what if we flip the scenario and that Sag Venus is in the 2nd house. This can denote earing money through travelling and looking for ways to expand but in a financial matters.

Continuing with the Venus examples, having Venus in Aries is completely different than Venus in the 1st. What do people usually say about Venus in the 1st? That it makes the native charming, lovely, well-put together, with great manners, maybe beautiful, graceful, maybe a bit shallow. When in Aries? None of these characteristics fit, on top of that, it's in its detriment. Our poor gal Venus is uncomfortable and confused in Aries. She's like, "conquer? Swords? Selfishness? Obnoxiousness? Sparring? You're telling me to fight people? What am I doing here???" 

And I'll leave you here with that cause those examples weren’t that quick lol and in fact, I could give you a 100 of those. Besides, this actually inspired a 3-page rant that I've already posted not so long ago that you can read HERE.

There's no such thing as "more accurate" astrology. 

Both western and vedic are valid. Both can show you the same things. JUST KEEP THEM SEPARATE AND DON'T MIX THEM WITH EACH OTHER. And don't say things like "sidereal shows your soul" - omg I saw this statement soooo many times, who the hell even came up with this?! Actually, if anything, it's the modern western approach that "psychologized" (yea I just made up a word, you mad?) astrology while Jyotish still sticks to the very real "here and now", sometimes fatalistic predictions of how exactly your life is going to roll out... But hey, reach for hellenistic methods and they can tell you the same things, just with different tools. So no, they do not show different things, it's just their language is different.

If you say you don't identify with your chart then you're just reading it wrong.

This partially connects to the last one in some ways... Switching to a different astrology or different charts is not a solution. Learn how to read your natal. If you say it doesn’t describe you, I can guarantee you that you haven’t studied it properly. (Now this hasn't turned into a rant yet but I may actually do a whole-ass post on this because if I start elaborating on it now I'll end up with another 3-page essay).

Learn how and when to generalize. Also learn how to take generalizations. 

I understand that you have to pick up on every single thing separately in order to put everything together. It's like learning a new language: first you need to learn individual words and then you need to know the proper grammar to create a full sentence. This is 100% understandable and necessary, but it's important to take the entire thing into consideration. And this goes for all branches of astrology, but I guess it's especially annoying with synastry. This, again, comes down to the very black and white approach. You know, like when you see those long paragraphs where people elaborate on all the intricacies of Venus-Pluto aspects or whatever as if that one thing was determining the entire relationship between two people. (Side note, no shade but some of ya'll should start writing fiction or poetry cause the amount of fluffy speech and waffle that I see floating around here on tumblr is insane sometimes). Why are you wording everything as a make it or break it type of situation? And on the receiving end - learn how to take *properly phrased* generalizations constructively. Example: it IS a rule that Aries is a competitive one, maybe you're not one of them (for many reasons) but don't make a fuss about someone saying this. It IS a basic rule that energies of the same sign in two people are going to get along (well that depends on the planets involved but I digress), if that, for some other reasons, doesn't apply to you, don't go yelling that it's bullcrap because you hate people of the same sign. You know? Like, learn the difference.

DON'T SCARE PEOPLE WITH ASTROLOGY.

I had a mini-rant on this one a while ago, but I think this deserves a constant reminder (and refers to the last point), I don't want to see any more posts that would say things like "xxx house placements will bring you suffering" or "stay away from people with planets in your xxx house" or, even worse, making a (completely untrue btw) prediction based on one single thing like "someone with so-and-so aspect is going to harm you". And you're so casual about it??? You know there are sensitive people in the world. Learn some ethics. Learn some counseling skills. Don't be ignorant. Don't throw these random stuff at people just like that. And learn some actual astrology cause most of these aren't even closely describing that particual aspect. LIKE WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

Ok now I'm pissed again.

Studying astrology and believing in free will doesn’t go well together.

It's not just psychological and spiritual. It's useful to know that western astrology made it like that because there were still people threatening astrologers for using it as a divination tool. So they moved away from the predictive/deterministic aspect of it. Now, I'm not here to change anyone's beliefs cause that's a very personal thing that everyone should develop on their own. But once you start diving deeper into astrology you'd notice that there's a heavy emphasis on fatedness and things being predetermined. That includes both the good and the bad stuff and you should learn to accept that. And with the bad things specifically, let's not excuse it with some "oh that was an opportunity for growth". Like yea, maybe, occasionally??? But just acknowledge that sometimes things happen not because there was a deeper meaning in them... but because you have a Pluto-Mars conjunction in the 6th that makes an applying square to your chart ruler and you were going through a profection year where Mars was your time lord and it transited that chart ruler while making a conjunction with Neptune so you were attacked by a baby crocodile while swimming and it bit off your toe and you got a nasty infection and that’s it (I just made that up btw, I don't actually know anyone who was attacted by a crocodile). So like, sometimes shit just happens and there's nothing psychological about it. Also, I bet your free will didn't want to be attacked by that croc.

[hopefulobjectmiracle]

A quick analysis of the puppy scene in 3x15, because my OTP is perfect.

This is honestly just a whole lot of gushing and flailing, tbh. Because Kurt and Blaine and their relationship are wonderful and I love them so, so much. So much so that I can write paragraphs on a scene that is barely one minute long. 

This somehow ended up being much longer than I intended, oops. Hope you enjoy it :)

We start off this scene with Blaine alone at his locker, presumably putting away his belongings from his last class, and you can still see Kurt’s ‘Gay-diddy-gay-gay-gay’ class council election poster on the inside of Blaine’s locker, even months after Kurt lost the election. But Blaine still keeps it up, because he loves Kurt, and if he had it his way, Kurt would win everything. Awww. He appears to be deep in thought, and when Kurt hides behind Blaine’s locker, speaking in the world’s most adorably terrible British accent, it startles Blaine for a second.

And man, does that make me sad. This is a kid that has been bullied, undoubtedly shoved into lockers and pushed here and there just like Kurt was. He hears an unfamiliar voice and immediately flinches back in fear, expecting the worst. 

But it isn’t the worst - it’s the best. Because it’s Kurt, the person Blaine loves more than anything, hiding behind the locker, and it’s Kurt speaking in that cute-ass accent holding a stuffed puppy in front of his face. 

(Side note - I once read that Chris Colfer improvised the dialogue and accent of this scene, as well as coming up with the name for the puppy, which totally checks out since Chris is a huge Anglophile.)

And as soon as Blaine recognizes his boyfriend, his face breaks out into the sunniest smile, and he does his signature “Kurt-made-me-laugh” move, the blushy head-duck (see here for reference). 

Kurt also looks similarly delighted to see Blaine, because Blaine is lovely and Kurt loves him so, so much, and because he’s also excited to show Blaine the gift he got him and help Blaine out with his problems. Kurt really loves Blaine, y’all. He looks so damn proud of the stuffed animal he got for him and equally proud of his own ability to make Blaine laugh with his clever puns. 

Kurt goes on to explain that Finn won the stuffed puppy while out at the amusement park for Senior Skip Day, along with thirteen others for Rachel, and as soon as he says this, Blaine nods along as if to say - oh, of course, that Rachel - because Blaine is considerate as hell and knows his friends very well. And in honest-to-god Kurt fashion, bb stole the puppy from his brother, because Kurt is the definition of Be Gay, Do Crime, and he also recognizes that Rachel does not need 14 different stuffed animals. 

He pouts a little right then, telling Blaine that he wanted to give it to him so that Blaine would have something, since Kurt wasn’t able to convince Blaine to go with them on the field trip. I wonder how that conversation went. 

Also, pouty Kurt is fucking adorable. Protect him at all costs.

Blaine is melancholy again, telling Kurt that he would have just brought the mood down for the group. And when Blaine says this? Kurt stops beating around the bush and gets straight to the point. 

Sweetly stroking the stuffed puppy, Kurt tells Blaine that he understands him. That he gets that family problems are hard, because they’re hard for him too. He uses himself as an example to try and get his point across to Blaine more effectively, and mentions that he and Finn disagree on nearly everything, but at the end of the day, they love one another and are always there for one another despite their differences. 

I’m also getting so many brotherly Furt feelings from Kurt referring to Finn as “the big lug” and talking about how much he loves him. Ugh. I also cry at the line where Kurt tells Blaine that he only has one brother and shouldn’t give up on that, given what happens to Finn. I wish we’d gotten more of that relationship in canon before Cory’s untimely passing, because they clearly had so much love for one another, both on-screen and off.

Anyway, Kurt sees the love he has with his brother and wants Blaine to be able to experience the same thing, because he loves Blaine so, so much and he thinks that Blaine deserves everything great in this world. He also brings back the cute-ass accent, and upon seeing Blaine look upset, bumps Margaret Thatcher Dog against Blaine’s cheek to get him to smile again - which Blaine absolutely does; his face is bright and sunny again because of Kurt’s silliness. Awww. 

Kurt tells Blaine never to give up, and Blaine indignantly responds that Cooper is the one who is leaving for a big audition. Kurt pauses, and tells Blaine that Cooper hasn’t actually left him yet. He says that Cooper is waiting in the auditorium, hoping that Blaine will come and talk to him and make things right. This line very strongly implies that Kurt and Cooper coordinated this, and that Kurt made an effort of talking to Cooper to try and arrange a meeting with Blaine - because in a matter of mere days, Kurt was able to glean how important their relationship was to Blaine and wanted to do everything he could to fix it. Give him all the boyfriend awards, folks.

I’m kidding. Please don’t start the Better Boyfriend Olympics again, lol.

Blaine huffs out that talking doesn’t actually work with Cooper, and that he’s tried it to no avail. And Kurt just nods knowingly, as if he was aware that Blaine would say that. And though it isn’t explicitly mentioned, I bet he did know. He then goes on to say that perhaps talking isn’t the best answer for Blaine. Maybe there’s something else, a better method of communicating his feelings that would work more for Blaine. 

Okay. You know what this reminds me of? Flash back a year, to Silly Love Songs. This is (perhaps unintentionally) a direct callback to 2x12. Back when Blaine was still crushing on someone who is not Kurt, he said this to the Warblers about his idea to serenade Jeremiah. 

Blaine (2011): I'm not really good at talking about my feelings. I'm much better at singing them.

And here are Kurt’s words, from more than a year later. 

Kurt (2012): Maybe talking is not the answer. Maybe you need to show him how you really feel in the best, most honest way you know how. 

Can I just stop right here and squeal a little bit? Because Kurt knows his boyfriend so, so well. He remembers the things that Blaine tells him, even things from over a year ago. He holds onto this key piece of information about Blaine, because Blaine is important to him and the things he tells Kurt are worth remembering. And here, in this scene, he puts his memory to good use to try and remind Blaine of his most effective and heartfelt form of communication so that he can help Blaine mend fences with his brother. 

GIVE HIM THE BOYFRIEND AWARDS, FOLKS!

Kurt is so, supportive of Blaine and just wants the best for him, and it just boggles my mind when people claim that Kurt didn’t love Blaine as much as Blaine loved him, because from even short simple scenes like this one, anyone can tell that it isn’t true. 

After listening to Kurt, Blaine stops, and for the first time, genuinely considers it. Prior to this, all of Cooper’s attempts at talking couldn’t get through to him. Blaine still felt the jealousy and resentment from all those years growing up. But after hearing Kurt’s advice, he puts that aside and realizes that some things, like family, are more important, and so he makes that decision to go see his brother and try and express his feelings in a different way. 

Blaine turns to go meet Cooper, and Kurt watches him go, looking so damn proud of his boyfriend and so, so hopeful...

Y’all know what happens next. Blaine and Cooper, a pair of brothers, sing a breakup song. Yet somehow, it works. Singing manages to communicate all of those emotions that were suppressed before, and opens the doors for real conversation between the two of them. They do successfully patch things up, with Cooper finally recognizing Blaine’s talent and Blaine trying to support Cooper in future endeavors. They are on a path to a close relationship, which is all both of them had ever really wanted in the first place. 

And if not for Kurt’s advice, this may not have happened. Y’all heard that right - Kurt Hummel helped Blaine patch things up with a member of his family because he knew how important it was to Blaine, and he knew how badly Blaine wanted this even if Blaine didn’t let it show. From all the bits and pieces of information we’ve gathered over the years about Blaine’s family, they don’t appear to be all that close, which is why it’s even more important for Blaine that he is able to reconcile with his brother.

(For more of my thoughts on Blaine’s family, feel free to check out this analysis of mine. Yeah, this is a shameless self promo. Deal with it.)

So...what was the point of this analysis? I’m not quite sure. I suppose I just had a lot of feelings about Blaine, Klaine, family, and the way that Kurt shows love. Like I’ve said millions of times, just because Kurt is more subtle in the way that he shows love to Blaine, doesn’t mean that it’s any less powerful. Scenes like this, in which he handpicks Blaine’s own words and uses them to push Blaine towards something he was too afraid to admit he really wanted? Kurt helping reconcile Blaine with his family? This is Klaine at its best, and scenes like this are why I will always, always ship this couple. 

Kurt and Blaine are incredible, y’all. 

Peace. 

[wispforever]

if youre still doing the character thing, how about spirit or marie?

I sure am. How about Spirit And Marie? Both wonderful characters. I’ll do Marie first, then Spirit. Thanks for the excuse to infodump, really. You people are too kind.

Marie Mjolnir

My first impression of Marie was the same impression I get of most female characters in anime. It’s either “why do their clothes have to look like that” or “oh god here comes the obligatory sexist heteronormative romance”. For Marie, it was more of the second. They mention in the same episode she’s introduced that Stein is her “first love”, which told me that if she had a large place in the plot, her assigned male counterpart around which to orbit would be him. Though I’ve never read the Soul Eater manga, I believe they do end up getting together there (I could be wrong). Whatever the case, I was relieved that Marie’s and Stein’s relationship (though heavily implied to be romantic, at least on Marie’s side) was left open to interpretation in the anime. I’m just very sick of cool badass female characters like Marie being reduced to the man they pine after. So, I guess my first impression of Marie and my impression of her now are largely the same. While I appreciate the moments we get to see her strengths and ability to operate on her own, I do think that her character really suffers because of the whole sexist “oh gosh all I want is to find a husband and retire” “oh my I have to take care of Stein” like okay, I had enough at the cat girl smothering Soul with her humungo-tits. I had enough at sexualizing underage girls and women in general. I had enough at making sexual harassment a punchline. That being said, when we push all of the shitty writing to the side, I admire Marie for her strength and how she interacts with the children, Crona in particular. Which leads me to my favorite moment(s).

The relationship Crona and Marie have interests me the most, since I’m really drawn to the parallels between Marie and Medusa. As parental figures (and as characters), they’re about as different as you can get. As Crona’s mother, Medusa is obviously abusive. Along with being negligent, she abuses Crona mentally, emotionally, and physically. In general, Medusa is a person who doesn’t appear to value interpersonal relationships, putting it nicely. She instead is more focused on her own interests, often to the detriment of those around her. Crona is Medusa’s only immediate family (besides Arachne who she is estranged from), and so they suffer the most from her refusal to show even a shred of human decency or warmth. They suffer especially because they are her child, meaning they’re stuck with her essentially, and repetivie abuse between family members like a mother and child often becomes complex because of the necessity of having a parental figure in your life to support you as you grow up. Medusa teaches Crona that their boundaries don’t matter and that they are only good as long as they are useful and do as they’re told. This is what makes Marie’s influence on Crona so cool to watch. Marie is caring by nature, loving and nurturing by nature. Her very wavelegnth is healing. She is kind and does what’s right reflexively. Marie is the exact embodiment of what Crona always needed but what, even upon being rescued by the academy, still felt so foreign to them: unconditional love. Crona struggles to understand why the other kids helped them, why Maka felt the inclination to stop their battle and save Crona instead by trying to understand them, why the kids are still so kind to them even after everything. They do not understand that love is not a bargaining chip. It isn’t leverage in an argument. It’s not a tool for emotional manipulation. Love is caring for the people close to you, just because. Love for the sake of love. The other kids and teachers at the academy are the ones who are able to pull Crona out of all Medusa’s lies, and Marie is a Huge part of that. Even though I have greivances with this being the largest part of her character and what that implies for female characters in general, it doesn’t stop being so beautiful to me that she could help Crona heal in this way. Marie = best mom for the win

Most of the story ideas I have for Marie involve her relationship with Crona or Stein. Say, this covers my unpopular opinion too. I don’t like Stein and Marie as a couple, but I really enjoy writing them as friends, because even though I don’t really jive with them being together romantically, I think their dynamic is an interesting one to explore because they Are so different.

Getting into that a little bit more, I’d like to start by saying I don’t care if other people like Stein and Marie being a couple. That’s great doods, keep doing you. The fanart’s adorable, the meta’s fantastic. Whoever you are, SteinMarie shippers, ffs keep kicking ASS. This is just my preference and opinion. Zero shade in this house. That said, because of my frustrations about Marie’s character I discussed in the first paragraph, I don’t like the idea of her and Stein being together romantically. It’s really a classic sexist trope: the troubled man and his sweet nurse. I’m also just fed up in general with the hetero-nonsense, so there. However, they are both wonderful characters that I enjoy very much seperately. Also, I think it’s worth mentioning that I’ve only seen the anime, so I can’t speak for the manga as far as their relationship or Marie’s character in general.

Oh shit I accidentally already talked about this one lmao [see the second paragraph]

One headcanon I like to think about when I’m writing Marie is that she likes women (in addition to men or not) and she struggles with comphet. Just something interesting I like to think about. It’s really fun for me to take characters who have been written as pining or had 10 million failed relationships and be like “say what if they can’t find a husband cuz really what they really need is a wife”. I’ll talk about that more with Spirit inevitably.

Spirit Albarn

My first impression of Spirit, obviously him being a cheater, really came with a lot of distaste. I come from a family that was torn apart by infidelity, among other things, so it really rubs me the wrong way. However, his saving grace for me was that he genuinely loves his daughter. It appears that, whether it’s played for laughs or not, he just can’t find fulfillment in his romantic relationships. The reason is left up to the veiwers. Spirit, ultimately, is not just a shitty person, which is how most cheaters are protrayed in media. “Well, they cheated because they don’t care if they hurt people”, “they cheated because they are shit and that’s it”. That’s a fine explanation if you plan to do nothing with whatever character you’re describing, but Spirit is relatively recurring and is shown to be neither mean-spirited or emotionally unintelligent. It bothers me that his cheating and routine sexist behaviour isn’t taken seriously enough to be a subject that Soul Eater tackles and deals with. But that’s fine. I’ll just do it myself. At any rate, I still feel that same way about Spirit’s character, but I find it intriguing that he seems to genuinely want to become a better father and is actually a pretty good dad when it comes to his interactions with Maka. If Soul Eater had been brave enough to develop him more, maybe delve into the reasoning behind his impulsive romantic affairs, I think Spirit as a character could have been done more justice. It seems to me that he could be suffering from some of that wonderful compulsory heterosexuality that I mentioned before, then becoming confused when the woman he claims to love leaves him feeling empty. Rattling my gay little cage

When I think of my favorite moments with Spirit, I think of his moments with Maka, but I’m gonna hold off on that until I get to favorite relationship(s). In reference to what I talked about in the first paragraph, one moment I find really interesting when I’m thinking about my interpretation of Spirit’s character is the scene where he and Maka are on the roof talking. Maka asks Spirit why he cheated on her mother if he did, in fact, love her. He doesn’t appear to know the answer, and he doesn’t really understand how to effectively communicate that, though he was shitty husband, what he really wants now is to try and be a better dad. We hear his inner monologue, and he says something like “I love you [Maka] and your mama. That’s the truth. That’s the truth. That’s the truth.” Every time he says “its the truth” it sounds more like he’s forcing it. This is actually something that is SO strange to me. Even if I didn’t project a queer narrative on to the characters I love, I would look at this and be like “huh that is a Weird thing to say in that specific way”. Why does he say it like that? Why does he have to say it more than once? He’s only talking to HIMSELF. It isn’t like he’s trying to convince Maka. Why does he have to convince himself?? Could it possibly be because he’s reached a conclusion about his romantic/sexual orientation that he’s been trying to swallow his Entire Life??? makes ya wonder, doesn’t it, queers?

Just like I said when I talked about Stein, most of the stories I have in mind with Spirit center around that sweet gayness. But also, I like to think of ways Spirit could come to terms with his sexuality, how it might have affected him when he was young, his relationship with all these women, with his wife. I love to think about him being a dad at 18 and trying his best, but how much responsibility that must have been. Lots of great ideas when it comes to Spirit.

Um? unpopular opinion would be all the standard like I said with Stein lmao. “Oh no!” scream the heteros, “that they/them on tumblr is making Soul Eater queer we canst not allow that in our church!!!111!” But besides that, maybe even the fact that I think he’s redeemable?? Idk most everyone I’ve met thinks Spirit is funny at least and just calls him a dumbass and a slut (affectionate). Doesn’t mean anybody thinks cheating on your wife 56 times is okay so. I like this fandom, it’s chill here. My favorite is when I see my art tagged like “aw the stupid man and his crazy bf” like YOU ARE RIGHT

My favorite relationship when it comes to Spirit (besides Stein cuz if I start talking about them again I’ll never finish this ask) is the one he has with Maka. If you can call it a relationship lol. I guess I just find Spirit’s approach to Maka as a parent really refreshing. Not that the parents in other shows don’t love their kids or whatever, it’s just that the loving parent always seems to be paired with some other trope that makes their character hard to approach. especially in anime. Like the perfect mother who dies in the first episode, and we spend the rest of the show mourning her. Or the father whose love is somehow everlasting even though he’s never home. It’s really the fact that Spirit is even THERE that I love. He knows what Maka is up to. He talks about her. He’s invested in her life, and he loves her. All he wants is to spend time with her, and though he’s sad when she turns him down, he doesn’t push her. god dammit I just like a dad who actually loves his kids without all the usual strings attached like. oh my kids are a huge pain in my ass, but I love them in spite of it. oh i’m a man so can’t relate to my children in a meaningful way but i try. Get the fuck outta here with that shit. I want all the dads to get so happy when their daughters wanna hang with them that they throw up like Spirit. Give me the guy who loves his daughter so naturally, whose daughter is such a huge part of his life, that it doesn’t even occur to him stop trying even if she literally wants to murder him. That’s Spirit. jfc

To end with a cute little headcanon, I really love to think that when Spirit gets older and starts losing the color in his hair, instead of getting white or grey, his hair turns a pale pink color cuz he’s such an aggressive redhead. Wouldn’t that just be adorable? late 30′s, early 40′s, Spirit starts getting little pink streaks in his hair and then bam. Little pink old man Spirit XD

There ya have it. Thanks for the ask, and feel free to send more.

[mojoflower]

WHY is fanfiction not the appropriate venue for your political or social battle?

We can all agree, I posit, that there are changes that need to be made in the world (racism, for example;  patriarchal inequalities;  rape culture;  capitalism;  plug in your personal cause here).

We can all ALSO agree, I think, that the way culture, media, etc. portray things influences a consumer on an unconscious level.

We can agree that, in real life, certain things are clearly bad:  abuse of others, non-consensual sex, systemic inequality, I can go on….

So.  Let me feel my way through this.  I, personally, feel like fanfiction (specifically on AO3, since that’s where I encounter it) is NOT an appropriate battleground for enforcing cultural change by:

Leaving comments about how someone’s work is (in your, the commenter’s, opinion) wrong, damaging, unfair, insensitive, etc.

Telling the writer they should change this or that.

Telling the writer they must add or delete tags.

Broadcasting your opinion of the writer’s egregiousness outside AO3 (twitter, for example, or here on tumblr).

Organizing a campaign of harassment against the author if they don’t change to suit your personal requirements.

First of all:

 Be the change you want to see.

Fanfiction, unlike any other media out there, is INDIVIDUAL.  It is one work, from one single person – voluntary and unpaid.  You yourself are one single person.  You can have as much influence as this writer.  Write the works you want to read, instead of demanding that the writer change to suit you.  This is how romance novels changed from non-con, non-condom-wearing, shudderingly unequal stories in the 70s and 80s to where they are now, for example.  New people started writing stories, and eventually established authors started changing, too (or dwindled away).

Remember that you know nothing about the author.

You don’t know their culture, their skin color, their age, their gender.  You don’t know their socioeconomic status or how much free time they have.  You don’t know their current mental or physical conditions.  You don’t know any of the things going on in their life.  AND.  You are not entitled to know these things.  When you lash out at an author for not doing research, for not editing, for… anything at all… you cannot assume that they’re not fourteen, not suicidal, not a native speaker, not disabled such that writing a single paragraph is a tremendous effort.  You don’t know they’re not in an abusive situation, or economic peril.  You do not have the right to tell them to change.  Whether you are asking them to change text, tone, tagging, ships, plot, you name it.  Anything.

Dead Dove:  Do Not Eat.

Don’t like, don’t read.  These are simple concepts, and the tagging system on AO3 helps you to avoid many triggers.  Simple common sense, once you're into a story that’s raising your hackles, will warn you away from the rest.  If you say, ‘no, this person can’t write that, it’s contributing to pain in the Real World’ then you are functioning as a censor.  I mean, at its most basic level, a censor is someone who strikes out passages in books or other media because it’s… immoral/bad/etc.  The problem is that morality is incredibly tailored to the group you’re in, and also incredibly fluid, shifting over time.  So… why do YOU get to be the censor and not the author?  What makes YOU the final word?  Seriously, think about it.

Fanfiction writers are the most vulnerable group you could target.

Which makes them easy prey, and possibly makes them the juiciest and most satisfying targets.  Address your anger to Hollywood or Simon & Schuster or Congress – and your voice will doubtless get lost in the shuffle.  Address it to an author on AO3 and you can deliver your blow personally, one on one, and witness the damage.  There is no professional buffer between your resentment and their reaction.

Who are fanfiction writers?  Overwhelmingly women, overwhelmingly queer, often very young and inexperienced.  Wow.  What a rewarding group to start slapping around.  You wouldn't be the only one to think so.  Seriously.  Aim your anger at someone who is STRONGER than you.  Not someone who is (likely) weaker than you.  You’re kicking a kitten, while a lion lounges behind you.

Censoring someone’s thoughts is bad.

People should be allowed to THINK.  And they can think whatever they want.  Whether and where and how it should be expressed is another matter.  AO3 is a safe place for whatever weird-ass thoughts you have.  It is expressly written into their mission statement.  AO3 was SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED so that authors could have a place for their dead dove fics.

So.  Why is [your pet cause] okay on AO3 and not on a script in Hollywood?

AO3 requires membership before you can post anything, so it’s arguably private.  AO3 provides tools for readers to avoid works they might find triggering.  AO3 profits no one.  Follow the money, and there are your true culprits.  Not a housewife from Hoebokken.

Fanfiction writers make no money.  When they write, they are not lawmakers, filmmakers, teachers or preachers.  This is not their job.  They do not have a responsibility to the community, because they are vested with no power and no paycheck.  Please move your battlefield to one of these other venues.  Your fight will be harder, but it will also do a lot more good than traumatizing some naive  kid away from writing forever.

Fanfiction comprises an individual’s personal thoughts and personal works, written for their own enjoyment, shared only through AO3 to (presumably) like-minded readers.  Fanfics are a person’s fantasies and daydreams.  They might be an author’s therapeutic exercise.  Or someone trying to explore something new, whether it be cultures, ideas, sexualities or kinks.  Humans need a place where they can be wrong and make mistakes.  Think about that, I implore you.  If you are constantly pointing out someone’s errors, you may eventually either silence them forever, or instill in them permanent resentment.  This does not further your cause.

You have your personal cause.

I’ve seen a lot of them.  Incest is bad, you’re not allowed to write about it.  Pedophilia is bad, you’re not allowed to write about it.  Abusive relationships are bad, you’re not allowed to write about them.  Racism is bad, you’re not allowed to write about it.  Genderswap is transphobic, you’re not allowed to write about it.  A/B/O romanticizes damaging gender inequalities.  There are many.  If every single one of you got to stamp out your personal crusade, then fic would be scant on the ground and many people wouldn’t try to create anymore.  It’s stifling to creativity and terrifying to an author that they might slip up and be called out.  No one, as far as I know, likes to think of their fanfiction as something that will be turned in for a grade.

Your standards are your own.

What are the precise parameters of an abusive relationship?  Transphobia?  Racism?  Pedophilia?  Fetishism?  Where does dub-con become non-con?  No one is the mouthpiece for the whole world.  You are only the mouthpiece for yourself.

If you think to yourself that it’s not okay to tell someone they can’t write about, say, a gay relationship, but it IS okay to tell them they can’t write about a certain ship or dynamic (for Reasons), then maybe you should step back and check yourself and your entitlement to someone else’s endeavor.

In conclusion:

I’m not saying that racism doesn’t exist in fanfiction.  Or creepy sexual abuse, or glorification of harmful dynamics.  It certainly does.  I’m not trying to play semantics with you.

But when you see these things, when they bother you... back right out.

That’s it.  Just back out, ignore it and find a different fic.  (Or better yet, write your own!)  Shower the fics you approve of with love and comments about why you think they’re great.  Give them kudos and bookmarks and shout-outs on your blog.  Eventually, if your opinion is popular, authors who thought otherwise will realize that readership is looking for something different.  They’ll change or they won’t, but the body of work will change over time, and THAT is what you’re looking to accomplish.  Not to stamp out fanfiction altogether.

[daydreamreality]

Thinking about actor availability, and how that affects my perception of Jess and how strongly I feel about shipping Literati.

Really thought this would only be a few paragraphs going over the points where Jess could have disappeared never to be seen again, but it turned into a freaking essay so LONG POST warning if you decide to click ahead. 

If the last we saw of Jess was hanging up the phone in the season 3 finale: "Well, it was fun ride while it lasted. That's about how I thought this would end." Still have a lot empathy for this kid and wish him well, but you screwed with Rory's heart like I knew would happen. Was that intentional? No. But he was so immature, out of control with his emotions, zero communication skills, not trusting in others...the list of reasons why he wasn't ready for a serious relationship, even if the feelings were serious, goes on. There was no way Rory wasn't going to end up as collateral damage in his personal breakdown that I could feel was going to happen. And this is the thought I had as a teenager with no dating experience watching this show for the first time. Did I want to date him? Hell no! I could see that trainwreck from a mile away. Rory was naïve to put her heart in his trust but that's part of her good qualities - she's sees the best in people and champions for them. I could go on a tangent about why exactly Jess was such an important character to me when I first watched the show (and probably why he stuck around unconsciously until I decided on a whim to rewatch GG in lockdown) but...I don't know, maybe some other time.

In the context of the entire show, I would look back at the relationship as my favorite one to watch of Rory's in the series (The build-up! The connection! Their deep belief in and respect for each other! The angst!) and Jess being a really fun character to root for (and yell at) but endgame? It was a short lived but important relationship. It’s fun to think about what ifs and how circumstances could have changed to make it work, but we can move on.

The ill-fated spin-off: I have no idea what this show would have been about except focusing on Jess and Jimmy and I’m not about to theorize. I still like Jess at this point so it would probably make me like him more since we’re getting a deeper dive into his character, but in regard to shipping him with Rory, this opinion would not change unless he all of sudden showed some great maturity. But I doubt this show would have even gotten a whole season so that probably wouldn’t happen. And then he’s living in California…this is too much, moving on.

If the last we see of Jess is in season 4: About the same feeling as above. Life, as expected, has not been treating Jess well. At all. His jadedness and hostility is at an all-time high when he shows up to get his car. Do I see the reasons informing his behavior and have empathy (once again, for a KID)? Yes, but he's also being a jerk. "The years don't seem to have hardened you." Well this year sure has!

I love the "I love you" scene but too little too late, buddy. That's probably why I love it, it's all a bit hopeless. Just keep shoveling the angst at me. I do like fics where this scene is reimagined with Rory running after him to give him a piece of her mind or Jess finding some other words to say (I really feel like he had more to say there but got overwhelmed), and coming to a tentative reconciliation: exchanging numbers, "don't fall off the face of the earth," but getting back together? No. You hurt her and you're feeling the consequences. Rory is not obligated or responsible to reciprocate those feelings, nor is she in a place to do that right now. 

But season 4 does cement that Luke and Jess's relationship is one of my favorites in the entire show. There's probably a whole other post in me regarding that so I'll keep it brief. Because of his respect for Luke, Jess makes tentative steps towards maturing in interpersonal relationships. He shows some vulnerability and honesty with a veil of sarcasm and awkwardness because, well, it's JESS.

But then of course this all goes to hell when applied to Rory. Sometimes I like to think how this dorm scene would have gone down if Rory stepped back for a second and went, "Hold on. You're not making any sense, chill out," and they could have talked a bit and had a similar reconciliation like I said above because I really think that’s all he was going for - to talk to her, apologize, and make an attempt at reciprocation like he did with Luke. But getting back together here? Canonically, he hasn't made enough progress. He set aside his personal feelings to be in his mother's wedding and used the knowledge from the self-help book to apologize to Luke, but I don't think the book's message has sunk in all the way yet and he’s still got a massive chip on his shoulder preventing him from making a good life for himself. Getting rejected by Rory here is an important moment and I really like it. It's fun to think about the AU if Rory had said yes (hello road trip!), but it's very in-character for her to not be able to handle Jess's crisis and just shouting "NO, make it stop." This is one of my proudest of Rory moments: Protect your heart girl, he ain't ready. The seeds have been planted that Jess will continue to grow and I wish him well on his journey. Endgame material? Nah. Goodbye forever, take care my friend...

Even though this scene doesn't feel like closure at all, I really thought this was the end of Jess Mariano. So imagine my surprise when -

SEASON 6: HE'S BACK. Coming out of the shadows, [literally] it's Jess Marianoooo *air horns* *confetti* *jazz hands* *Jess rolls his eyes at the fanfare*

Alright, that's out of my system. But for real that's what my mind did at this point. For context, the way I watched this show for the first time was getting the DVDs from the library while a couple of seasons were still on the air; when a new season was available to borrow, I would rewatch all the seasons up to the current point so my memories and favorite parts of the show are seasons 1-4. Because I was not bingeing the show all the way through, seeing Jess here seemingly so different didn’t feel out of place. A shock, yes! A happy surprise. But nothing about him seemed OOC. A year had gone by, we’d seen some signs of maturity in him, and getting rejected by Rory was a big kick in the ass for him to start making bigger changes in his life. I really cannot emphasize how satisfying and sensical his positive character development felt to me. 

The slight maturity we see in season 4 in its full potential. Jess is still Jess: guarded, self-deprecating, and a bit prickly but he shows a sense of calm and feeling more comfortable in his skin. This is really satisfying to see as someone who always "knew" there was a kind and capable heart underneath the exterior just like Rory did, and that tough guy, must protect myself at all costs posturing has melted away. But that side of him isn't gone, it's not like the writing did a complete 180 on his character. I love this. He's just...more at peace with himself but he's not a different person, and he's found something to direct his focus and intellect on. He's made his peace with Luke, and now he has something of worth to show Rory to try to mend that hurt as well.

Yes, it would have been nice to see how and why he decided to write a book and work in publishing but this course of events is not out of left field, nor is Jess enough of a main character at this point for scenes like this to be necessary to the show unless they were tied to Luke and showing another side of him. Jess has shown in the past that he has a good work ethic if he feels it is worth it. The problem wasn't him being lazy, just poor decision making and focusing on RIGHT NOW, "I need to get out of Stars Hollow and live my life," and not considering the consequences of his actions. Which as an immature kid whose life had told him he can only depend on himself...not out of the ordinary. The dude’s life passion is literature and has probably read every book he can get his hands on, it’s not crazy that he had his own story in him. 

Here is where Literati becomes endgame material for me. Prior to the revival it was always my feeling that post-series they would reconnect while Rory was on the campaign or afterwards. It would be low drama (except for Lorelai criticism), slowly gaining trust in each other again, and eventually starting a committed relationship within a year or two of being friends with sexual tension (lol). They made their adolescent mistakes, hurt each other, but learned from it and started over on infinitely better footing.

The match just makes sense to me at this point for many reasons; I don't feel like I need to list them all out because you can go to any pro-Literati post and I'll probably agree with the majority of the points. The biggest issue they had was timing: “Right heart, wrong time.” I like especially how they even out each other's more extreme personality traits. For example, Rory learning from Jess to consider her own feelings instead of sacrificing herself for others, and Jess considering others before himself all the time. Or professionally, I can see Jess encouraging her to step away from her ultra-organized, “everything has to be just so” ways when it benefits her to seize an opportunity right now, don’t worry about the details, you got this. Maybe Jess has another book in him, but his self-deprecation and disorganization prevent him from getting it done but Rory helps him be more objective and focused. There’s this…synergistic energy I feel with the two of them: they’re great by themselves, but form something better together.

Judging from Rory's reactions towards him in this season, I don't think it's OOC for her to have romantic feelings for him again. She's extremely proud of his accomplishments and not unhappy to see him (not holding a grudge). They fall back into their comfortable dynamic even if it makes them both a bit nervous. Now some could argue that this means that Rory only wants to be friends with him but...when have Jess and Rory ever been just friends? If "Another Year in the Life" comes out (I've got serious doubts but would love to be proved wrong) and Rory rejects him or he's not even a part of it, fine! But I just don't see anything in canon that says explicitly she'll never feel romantic towards him again.

Now the kiss...there's a lot of ways to read that scene. Do I think Jess was in the right to assume "everything is fixed" as a go ahead? No. But that's part of why he is such an engaging character: he's impulsive and acts in accordance to his feelings, and yes, this gets himself and others in trouble. 

Do I think Rory purposefully went to the open house to "use" Jess to get back at Logan? No. I think she genuinely wanted to support him, and Logan being out of town meant she wouldn't have to explain why it was important for her to go. I see the kiss paralleling the one in 2x22 but instead of Rory not being able to hold her feelings in any longer, Jess initiates. The way I see it is she was unaware she still had lingering feelings towards him (not out of nowhere, I mean their relationship has "unfinished business" written all over it) and that scared the crap out of her, just like at the end of season 2. So she runs away to the "safe space" that is being with Logan. Because she's in love with Logan, she has a sense of obligation towards him, and Rory has shown many times that she does not react well to change and highly emotional situations.

Is this scene a deal breaker for a future relationship between them? I don't think so. Jess says that he isn't sorry she came, which I take as "I'll never be sorry to see you no matter the context." Yes, this hurt him and made him pretty mad, but I don't think he's holding a grudge against her for this; even in the moment he's more concerned that someone cheated on her and her safety getting to her car. He sets a boundary that he doesn't deserve his feelings to be pushed around like this and Rory agrees. Not that I condone this sort of tit-for-tat hurting of each other (which I don't think Rory was going for in the first place) but it's almost like...that cycle is now broken. The whole scene is so open ended, it doesn't feel like a "good bye forever" to Jess.

"But Rory is so in love with Logan!" I don't know about you, but that "I'm in love with him despite all the bad he's done..." sounds so defeated and sad. It's almost like she's resigned herself to being in love with Logan. The first time I watched this, I thought this was foreshadowing that the relationship was on its last legs. To keep them together, Logan almost dies so Rory will bury her hurt out of guilt for holding a grudge against him. She is completely entitled to feeling hurt by Logan's actions, and I hate that she feels like she has to do this. But it happened, moving on.

"But Rory is a cheater!" When I think about Rory's characteristics, "cheater" doesn't make the list. She feels entitled to the men that she's loved and this isn’t super great behavior, but I don't view her as inherently unfaithful or okay with cheating. I give her leeway on the season 2 Jess kiss because she was a teenager with a lot of conflicting emotions and everything around her was pushing her to stay with Dean. The season 4 Dean debacle...she was still very young and naïve. I put most of the blame on Dean for manipulating her; I say most because if Rory really wanted to be with him, she should have been more sure of the status of his marriage, but I repeat: he manipulated her and she was very young and naïve. I dare to say she has been conditioned to view Dean as nothing but safe and trustworthy so why wouldn't she believe him... Season 4 was all about her being out of sorts when away from the Stars Hollow bubble and trying to reclaim some normalcy. Narratively, I see why this makes sense and I don't think the intention was to say “Rory is okay with cheating,” but to show very explicitly that Rory isn't perfect. This show goes to extremes, at this point I kind of just accept it and don't jump to "this person/character is terrible!" Certain characteristics and behaviors I have less patience for (mild) or will make me lose all respect for a character (extreme - honestly very few GG characters fall into this category for me); you may feel differently and that's fine. When other plot points in this series are much more bizarre and OOC, while this turn of events makes me uncomfortable and angry, at least it makes sense to me.

The 6x18 kiss I've already said that I don't think Rory had premeditated intent to cheat on Logan judging from the fact that Jess initiated it; yes, she went with it nor was it a complete surprise, I get this. The "I couldn't even cheat on him..." line I think is an outburst of guilt and regret, not her saying she had a plan in mind. Maybe I'm being too soft on her, I don't know...she did stay there late but maybe she just got lost in the book while waiting to say bye. We've seen her not know how to deal with conflicting emotions and change to her status quo, and attempt to distract herself when life isn't panning out the way she wants and not think about the consequences in the moment, so I don't find this scene OOC or intentionally cruel. The revival...I don’t think I can even go there right now because it would just be me screaming incoherently about how much I hate "full circle" and how bizarre the entire thing was. Maybe something of value would eventually come out with a lot of editing. XD

This isn’t to say I’m 100% on Rory’s side all the time. Pretty much every character in this show has at some point made me smile, made me laugh (generally with them, but some characters it’s more like at), made me want to give them a hug, made me roll my eyes, and made me want to throw something at them. That’s why I love it so much! Even if the drama is turned up to 1000, I still get the sense that these characters are human. My favs end up on my “will protect at all costs” and “shit” lists throughout the series, no one is immune. Except Lane. She really is the best person in this entire show. #JusticeForLaneKim

If ASP had written season 7: (Remember there being some sort of theme to this post? Only two episodes in s6, but Jess sure does make an impact.) I bet Jess would show up at some point. MV is loyal to the creators and not the show, if it was important for Jess to be there I’m sure his shooting schedule would have been accounted for. Storyline would have been similar to the revival because AYITL is ASPs season she didn’t get to do without considering how time passing affects the characters (I’M STILL SALTY) except Rory is at Yale and I think the book was a new idea. Shipping as endgame doesn’t change, and I bet there wouldn’t be a nice little Literati ending because we’ve got to end it the same way, right? I don't even need them to be together at the end because Rory has greater plans to focus on, but just a moment! One moment is all I asked for... I don’t know if this makes me mad because I felt like the narrative had been pushing us along this path for so long even if actual "endgame" was going to be offscreen or if I kind of like just having it in my imagination. Little bit of column A, little bit of column B. In any case, it could have been cool to see Jess present for the birth of his half-sister and giving Luke some support. 

Like I said, I'm not touching AYITL right now. The whole starting point of this was, "huh, if MV never came back to the show, how would I feel about Jess and Literati?" And he was in it so it doesn't really fit into this even though we've gone on a meandering journey as pieces of discourse that have never sat right with me but didn't quite know how to express that disagreement until now popped in my mind. So there you go. If you’ve made it to end, claps to you, what a champ.

At the end of the day, Literati is the ship that makes me feel the most things, it's kind of just a gut thing. This really isn't any sort of argument just an outpouring of love for the show and these characters. I don't know how well that's communicated, but hey, I try. I’ve got a lot of nostalgia for the pairing and I always viewed Jess as being Rory’s, and only Rory’s, choice.

[phoebehalliwell]

hi! first off i love your next gen fic and i'm OBSESSED with it! i was wondering if you could talk more about wyatt, chris, and melinda as characters and their relationships with each other? thanks!!

aaaa tysm! & i’d love to talk about wyatt chris & melinda bc i feel like that’s one of the most hmm what am i trying to say here it’s like we know chris and then we mostly know wyatt and we can infer how they interact together but then we know nothing about melinda in canon and how this third puzzle piece fits in to the rest of the equation and just sorta what they’re all like i also really like writing wyatt chris and melinda just bc they’re sorta like the most spread out i think they’re sorta the most “normal” pair of siblings like they’re scattered across northern california doing their own thing and they only interact with each other mostly a normal sibling amount as opposed to the cupitches who all live together and attend high school together and do basically everything together and the mitchell clan which has a psychic link between the twins and also henry and tam still live at home so like i feel like with wyatt chris melinda there’s sort of the most room for like. a subtler sibling relationship. like you don’t need to know all the details and the ins and outs the way you would with like phoebe’s kids because while phoebe’s kids are very much like a power of three wyatt chris and melinda are more of just three of their own people like if they discover some villain odds are they’ll do it themselves or with their own little team as opposed to about any other member of the family who, if they find evil, will almost immediately drag their siblings in. i also think wyatt chris and melinda is the sibling dynamic most rooted in like my own personal experiences bc like. idk it just is.

but let’s talk! so i’ve talked before about w/c/m and magic and wyatt & melinda’s relationships with piper and i think that’s just sorta a good jumping off point on how i view these characters bc like i know we know chris the most but it’s also p obvious that he’s the black sheep of the family so his personality doesn’t really work as a baseline for a child of piper and leo so instead i used my little noggin to think like hmm what do we know about piper and leo and what can we infer about how they raised their kids and we know that like they’re domestic like they’re such softies they’re such saps so like family dinners? big thing. i think that they would always make a conscious effort to like eat dinner together as a family every night, but then during that era when piper was just opening her restaurant (which by the way: let’s talk. formal? casual? california cuisine? italian? white glove? three dollar signs on google? do u need a reservation? What Is The Vibe. also the name halliwells. thots? i think that’s only a good restaurant name if it’s a hella kicked back place i think if it’s trying to be formal the name should be different feel free 2 share ur opinions.) like she’s working through y’know dinner bc that’s how restaurants work so she couldn’t really be home for family dinners so family breakfasts sorta became the new thing and since piper was always like bone tired the next morning it would be leo trying to make breakfast and then wyatt and chris would try to take up the mantle and then finally melinda when she was old enough and she was like the only one who was actually really good at it. i also think holidays are really big for the halliwells namely thanksgiving i have a personal headcanon that piper hosts this really big thanksgiving feast at magic school bc y'know it's like her family's p ingrained into magic school as a whole already it's implied in canon that leo teaches there i personally headcanon one of paige's jobs as finding witches and registering them at magic school, and helping with accommodations like there are dorms at magic school and all that especially bc uh the rate of orphan students is really much higher there than the average so like they really wanna make everyone there feel like family so like piper preps all this food at her restaurant and melinda helps with the cooking and wyatt gets really in to like decorating the main hall and all that chris not so much and he'll like grumble but he still tags along and helps out bc it's just like. fun to spend time with his family and all that thanksgiving is like arguably bigger than christmas in the halliwell household so basically what im getting at is there's this string communal bond there's this solid feeling of love and family that just definitely permeates thier lives like wyatt chris and melinda definitely have that sibling bind that gives them a strong power of three

but now that i've given two thicc paragraphs of preamble now ig it's time to actually talk about the sibling dynamic chris is the middle child which usually implies the role of the peacekeeper but we all know chris and we all know that's not happening he's definitely the most surly if anyone's playing the role of peacekeeper it's gonna be the empath i.e. melinda but like even then she's not so much about uhh keeping the peace as she is resolving the issue y'know i think outside of the home she seems like a really passive person someone who doesn't like making waves or creating unnecessary conflict but inside the home like she's grown up with these two assholes her entire life if someone's being a dick she's gonna tell it to their face she knows her brothers and as an empath she knows when it's time to you know just treat someone kindly and support them and she knows when it's time to go howsabout u pull ur head out of ur own ass and understand that there are bigger things at play here than just u moping around. i think that without melinda chris and wyatt would have just a lot more strained of a relationship due to well y'know everything but melinda doesn't let that shit slide and will set wyatt straight just as much as she does chris bc again she's an empath and she's very whitelighter-y she gets what needs to be said and without her i think something p unhealthy would grow in the space between wyatt and chris bc they’re just so different. like wyatt has immense power and like doesn’t care about he doesn’t really like Want it whereas chris would fuckin love not to be second place he’d love not to be viewed as the weak one and without a middleman like melinda i think the two would just have like. a really fucked up relationship. that and like melinda’s like an empath so you really don’t get to say whatever it doesn’t matter and leave an argument bc melinda’s already got a reading on you she can tell just how much you do care and she will try to resolve this on ur behalf w/o u there so if u want to prevent the misconstruing of words or the revealing of something too personal u gotta stay and u gotta work things out til there’s no bad blood.

i don’t think either one pair is closer than the others i think each sibling goes to another for very specific things like how you wouldn’t go to chris for advice on how to ask out ur crush just like you wouldn’t go to melinda for advice on how to sneak into the underworld w/o dad knowing i think the three of them all really have a symbiotic relationship where there’s not just one who falls behind or slips through the cracks. that being said, unlike with any other pairs of siblings (t/k/h and p/p/p) i don’t think any of their social circles overlap. like melinda’s friends and wyatt’s friends and chris’s friends are all three circles that do not touch. and i think that it honestly sorta helps their sibling dynamic bc it’s very much siblings in small doses; i think if they had constant exposure to one another their dynamic would not be what it is. oh also i think when they all hang out together their idiot quotient goes up like 250% like individually they’re all like small and detail oriented and what not and for some reason when they all hang out together they’re just fuckin stoopid

[skyaches-aa]

@heartsaked​

20-24 for the mun asks !

20. Is there someone you admire on here?

Oh that’s easy , @fearstouch​ / @eldritchrising​ is the first person that comes to mind. Jab has been at this rp game for so long and manages to continue to write the most incredible plots and characters. Have you seen their worldbuilding ? Even in AUs or fandoms with very little actual lore , they can do so freaking much. I’m always in awe.

21. What is it you prefer: angst, fluff, or smut? Why?

Kind of no preference ? Like , explicit smut is something I rarely do , but I can talk about spicy content between ship partners for ages. I’m always ready for soft content but I can just as easily start on a really painful train of thought. I’m just happy to have writing partners I can throw anything at.

22. If you could recommend at least five blogs to your followers, who would they be?

I already talked about Jab , so time to gush about my other friends :

@starkhvn​ / @giltskin​ / @chantlight​ and all her other blogs. Holly is incredible , fantastic , show stopping , that whole meme about being amazing. The other half of our shared braincells , not only is she an amazing writer , but a fantastic friend. I love Holly with my whole ass heart.

@boyancient​ Jan oh my god if you want amazing , extensively thought out characters and plots and verses ? Look right here. I am BEYOND excited every time I get the luxury of seeing multiple paragraphs of thoughts on discord , and tbh just talking to her is great.

@mtchstck​ Alex 🔥 has such vast amounts of talent I once had a dream about Livvy specifically and it was great. That’s how you know they have a good character. I am very happy to have found them.

@sniperwithasmoke / @fightknife / @mirafirstmate​ Alex 🔪 I stumbled across her because Jab made me not be a big baby and talk to her and I am so glad I did. Everything she does makes me smile , yes even ruining me emotionally.

@odinsn​ / @qvvill​ / @unnwin​ Banana is an absolute treasure okay. Not only is her writing incredible , with such fantastic takes on canon characters , but she always manages to make my day with any message she sends , including the random nonsensical ones. Especially those let’s be real.

23. What’s the one thing you dislike about the roleplaying community on Tumblr?

*looks at the anon from last night* For real though , the way people take this hobby as something serious is tiring. No one is required to write with anyone else , this is all for us to have fun and make friends.

24. Where do you draw your inspiration from?

Often times muses I write will assign a sort of central theme. For example , I talk a lot about Diana and her representation of grey morality. Rachel has a focus on identity and finding one. Caleb and Delilah have similar themes of revenge in the Wild West but with different motives. It’s getting to the core of character and knowing what remains their driving force as a creative entity in my head.

[spongebob-connoisseur]

(Sorry for the spamming with my opinions but hhhh) I just couldn’t stop thinking about this whole ‘spongeboomer’ stuff.

As that disgusting event happened on the SB cosplayer post, which weren’t the sb-boomers, more like plain stupids, there were other issue that triggered me when I read comments on the official IG account. For Thanksgiving, they posted an artwork made by one of their storyboard artist, which imo opinion was a really creative way to show how the families will mostly spend that holiday. However the very ‘clever’ “fans” could only say that the new design of the characters were bad and they miss the old ones.... I’m sure the admins facepalmed as much as I did, and they had to write a comment stating it had been a personal artwork, aka a fanart of the storyboard artist, not any kind of official art. This triggered me, because I’m also an artist and even in the team who works on the show have different artstyles, and they just tried to show it. This is how spongeboomers understand art and animation, why are we surprised they don’t like the change of the animation style?

It saddens me they go that far they harrass the crew, invading their personal life. The fact they did that with poor Hillenburg for the reason of ‘saving the show’ just makes my heart broken: he was probably sick enough in those times, yet they didn’t leave him alone. Now that he unfortunately passed away, they feel even more free to continue talking shit about the show and blaming on the members: the writers (the old and new ones) and the animators mostly - who work hard on each and every frame to keep the show going. I can see the VA cast enjoys doing that too, they are so enthusiastic about it, watching the interviews uplifts me. One of those BTS/interview kind where they talked about the SB’s big birthday blowout, Lawrence, who was a co-writer of that episode, said he couldn’t wait for everyone to see that episode - which melted my heart yet break it because those annoying ‘fans’ will continue to bring it down, telling how this series turned into piece of crap. I just soo soo agree with everything you said in the recent posts/answers!

In the end, they tend to forget what’s the show really is about, what Hillenburg’s aim was with that. We just can’t have this kind of community of a cartoon which highlight love, accept and optimisim. So sorry for this long ass paragraph😅

Hey its okay! I enjoy reading these anyways and they're always fun to answer!

But yeah I fully agree with everything you said. While the SB cosplay was just because of racists (and as of lately instagram seems to have a growing racism problem as of late)

Stuff that goes on with the SB insta and some self proclaimed "true SB fans" is concerning and the things they do are just awful. They are ready to praise the show when they post a clip from a classic episode and so quick to tear it down when they show a clip from a modern episode.

And they really do the worst when someone has the guts to disagree or share their opinion.

This isn't very different compared to what they do on twitter anyways. I think thats the worst since they spam p0rn in the replies to every single post for months. And like I said before, keep bugging the writers about their personal lives.

Hillenburg worked on the show the best he could even while sick! That's what makes me upset sometimes. He really wanted to work on the show for as long as his health would allow him and he really did his best but these spongeboomers expecting him to be some sort of messiah to return the show to season 2-3 carbon copies and reject anything that doesn't fit that ideal in their heads. They don't really want his creative input on the show. They just want a recreation of their nostalgia.

They nitpick everything and don't even see the irony in their behavior and they're so selfish.

That storyboard artist who got their art featured sounds so so sweet. They took time out of their free time to make that and they have the audacity to nitpick it and whine?? Like jeez spongebob's art style is the most inconsistent. Literally episode to episode has different styles especially in the classic seasons, not to mention like you said, storyboard artists have different ways of drawing things. Its a bit of individuality which adds a nice touch. Honestly these people deserve the same hate they give others to really understand what kind of damage they are causing.

Spongeboomers really don't understand the process of animation. I've noticed this a lot with the very toxic parts of cartoon critical people. Who really don't understand animation or anyway how it works and act like they know more than people who spent years at this craft refining it. Of course you are free to critique things but there's a difference between critiquing and talking out of your ass.

(Also I find it funny how they complain about how the new SB movie is a ripoff of Have You Seen This Snail? When HILLENBURG literally pitched this idea since the very beginning. Gary getting kidnapped/lost and Spongebob going to go save him is in pretty much every draft of the film that we've seen so far. even the alien cats one!)

I feel bad for all the people who worked so hard holding this show together. It wasn't just Hillenburg. There was a bunch of brilliant creative minds. Shows is a large group effort. It takes a lot of time and energy to create a single episode. They were having fun and eagar to share their work. They don't deserve the treatment they get. (Also drop the interview for SBs big birthday blowout 👀 👀 it sounds adorable)

I just wish they would get more support than hate. They get hate for every small step they take. I just want them to know how appreciated their work is and to enjoy and critique these things respectfully.

Sometimes you need to take a step back and accept this is just a fun silly innocent show and should be treated as such.

I really don't mind this at all! It was an interesting read! Sorry about the late reply but I really did enjoy reading and replying! Its fun!

[en-theheights]

@superbatson I viewed your profile, and it says that you’re 21, so I’m guessing you have some common knowledge right? Sit back and let me (17) prove to you (21) why EVERONE knew about his conviction.

Here’s what you commented under my post about B*n: it's possible that this guy works/has worked for everyone on this list. or he's a family friend and all of the people you mentioned are unaware of the charges made against him. if they know and they choose to ignore them or believe him, that's one thing. but we don't know what they know and you can't just write all these people off with that crucial piece of information missing. ask them about it, if you must. try and see what they know. but you can't just bash them for being friends with a guy that they may not know is a potential p*d*ophile, sorry, *convicted p*d*ophile.

1. As a celebrity, you should ALWAYS be aware of who you are associated with, because that can come back to bite you in the ass.

Everyone that I listed are GROWN ADULTS, and you don’t think they have a clue about his conviction? Either they are all idiots or choose to continue to be his friend. Let me list to you the ages of each person in May of 2016 and in July of 2018:

Matt Cornett: 2016: 17 , 2018: 19

Brec Bassinger: 2016: 17 , 2018: 19

Mason Dye: 2016: 21 , 2028: 23

Peyton Meyer: 2016: 17 , 2018: 19

Paris Berelc: 2016: 17 , 2018: 19

Anthony Turpel: 2016: 16 , 2018: 18

Sadie Stanley: 2016: 14 , 2018: 16

The ONLY person on this list that might’ve not known about his conviction is Sadie since she was the youngest when it happened. If 17 year olds and a 21 year old had no idea that any of that happened, then they’re dense or weren’t friends with him at the time, but I’ll show you that they were friends with him around the time of his arrest and his disbarment.

This is a photo of Nolan Gould ( Modern Family) and two other guys in a photo dated around May 1, 2016:

As you can see, Brec liked the photo, in which she would’ve been 17.

Here’s another photo of Karan Brar (Jessie), Sophie Reynolds ( Gamer’s Guide to Pretty Much Everything) Nolan, Matt and some other people around the time of May 7th, 2016:

If you need anymore proof that these people were his friends around the dates of May 2016, then literally just looked it up on his Instagram page, @//benladams and scroll down to May of 2016. You’ll see that Paris, Brec, and Matt are the main people that like and comment on his page. You can start at May 2016 and keep going up cause it doesn’t stop there.

Now let me show you how I know they stayed friends with a convicted p*d*phile. Karan Brar, Sophie Reynolds, and Nolan Gould are no longer following him, but matt and Brec are. Let me say it again, Karan, Sophie and Nolan STOPPED associating themselves with him after his ARREST in May. So either those three are the only ones with common sense, or Brec and Matt chose to do differently.

Let’s continue on to July of 2018, around his disbarment and trial.

I didn’t even realize this photo until you commented, so for that I thank you. Look at this DISGUSTING post and tell me if you still feel the same way:

Are you wondering why they are saying goodbye to him? Cause they threw him a going away party before his trial. Yes, you read that right, they threw him a whole ass party before he had to leave for his trial. If you look at the guy in the green jacket and blue shirt in the middle of this photo, it’s Antony Turpel, but he wasn’t tagged in the picture. Need some more proof that this photo is what I’m saying it is? Then you can visit @wutbju page and search “Benjamin Lawson Adams” and they speak more about his situation. Here is what wutjbu said regarding that post:

“The infamous Benjamin Lawson Adams has a party tonight as all his allies gathered to “say goodbye.” Yes, these people partied Ben’s way to prison.”

As you can see, not only was Anthony Turpel there, but as well as Brec, Paris, Dylan, Jack Griffo, Matt, and other weird ass people. They had all common knowledge of his arrest and trial. Period.

I’ll give a brief paragraph about what B*n’s trial was for: at the time of his arrest he was working for the MGM company, but they fired him after his accusations came out. B*n tried suing the company after he had said they didn’t have enough proof to fire him. Obviously he lost, and had to pay the company 277,000 dollars. The court had said his claims were “frivolous” and he didn’t have any proof that he didn’t r*pe the 14 year old boy. He then had another trial for violating the penal code ( you know, the one where it says don’t have s*x with minors) and because of that his license was taken away, and he was disbarred, as well as sentenced to a year in prison which he had got out 5 months early for “good behavior”. Honestly, they gave it to him in the easiest way they could. Once again @wutbju has more in detail information about his trial. Or you can literally search up, “Benjamin Lawson Adams” on Tumblr and his trial will pop up.

But for your sake, let’s say that no one I listed had a clue that he was a p*d*phile. Okay. So they have no clue. But if you search his name on Google, his trial, his accusations and his arrest are the ONLY thing that pop up. Yeah, I doubt they had no clue either. I could also care less if they use to work with him or were a family friend of his. If someone I knew closest was a convicted p*d*phile, I would shut down all ways of communications with them so I wouldn’t have to ever be associated.

“you can't just write all these people off with that crucial piece of information missing. ask them about it, if you must. try and see what they know. but you can't just bash them for being friends with a guy that they may not know is a potential p*d*ophile, sorry, *convicted p*d*ophile.”

There is a lot wrong with this. First off, I never spoke badly about ANY of the people in my last post. All I said was that they need not to be associated with this man. And I stand by that. They did nothing wrong. All of those people are as decent of a human being as I know them to be. BUT, they are associated with a convicted p*d*phile and it’s VERY wrong. I would never write a post and not have done research before then. I had and always had had the crucial piece of information. Also, these are celebrities, how would I ever be able to communicate with them??? And he’s not a potential p*d*phile, he is a p*d*phile. He had s*x with a 14 year old boy when he was 30. I don’t want to see any excuses about it.

I hope I educated you on this matter. We live in a world now a days where there is no way you can’t know or knowledge yourself on anything. And I hope this shows you that if you want to come at people, make sure you have the correct information or you’ll just look foolish.

I hope you have a good rest of the day!

[vierafication]

Last night around 4 am, I reblogged a certain post about "villainous rp" and added my own two cents to what had been discussed within it- mostly just venting about behavior I'd seen in the past. I didn't think much of it until I saw the next day it had been reblogged, and reblogged again, and again, by some folks who seemed pretty unhappy about what I'd said. I was told I needed to get a life, that I clearly can't separate IC and OOC, that maybe I shouldn't be writing at all. That hurt. I was irritated, then, feeling like I'd had words shoved in my mouth, like I was being purposefully misinterpreted. I typed up a clarification post explaining my previous points and pressed send, but it was seemingly ignored.

I talked with @damankjol about it later. He's the best, if you didn't know. And he rp's villains! I don't think he's a sociopath! He's very empathic and honest and understanding and cool, and he helped me realize that people weren't just angry at me, they were genuinely hurt by what I'd written. I went back and reread what I posted, as well as the responses, with a more critical eye. And... yeah. What I typed up wasn't clean, organized, or coordinated. I was venting and the tone that came off was irritated and rude. While not my intention, what I wrote sounded pretty fucking disrespectful and downright mean. And, frankly, my intentions don't matter, anyway, since I wasn't able to convey them properly. I just put some angry bullshit up on tumblr way too late at night, and I didn't expect anybody to even look at it, let alone reblog it- but I should have. Tumblr is a public platform and I should have approached my post the same way I'd approach any other one during the normal hours of the day. Thinking critically is always key, but audience is too- a vent post is a vent post, but I should have thought before I vented about a topic other people were sensitive to, and properly indicate specifics instead of vague generalizations. So, yes, I really wanted to apologize to anyone who that post hurt. I’m genuinely sorry. I should not have generalized like that. It wasn't even my intention in the first place. I was disrespectful and now that I think about it, incredibly hypocritical to boot. So yeah. I really am sorry. I respect @damankjol and @miqojak a lot as writers, and it would never be my intention to tear them down. Or anybody else, for that matter- rp only works when you rp with others, after all.

Once again, I'm sorry, and I hope you won't hate me for eternity or anything. Storytime and critical analysis under the cut.

One of my first, and worst, experiences in the ffxiv rp community was a good couple years ago. I was describing my character to a “friend,” and that character happened to be Lionnet Blodoint, my Ishgardian chirurgeon. Lionnet was not a good person by a long shot, to begin with, and from his time serving during the Dragonsong War, he’d developed quite a bit of PTSD relating to any and all things draconic. He hated dragons. He didn’t even like Au Ra. “Wow,” said the so-called friend at the time. “Your character is a nazi.”

“What? No!” I exclaimed. I tried to explain that he was NOT a nazi, he was just a traditionalist Ishgardian who hated dragons because they had been, at one point in time, absolutely hell-bent on destroying his home and everything he knew. I thought it was a pretty reasonable character trait to hate, or at least fear, dragons after serving in the Dragonsong War. The core of how I’d planned to develop him would be overcoming or at least coming to terms with his trauma, and no longer seeing it in every dragon or Au Ra he met. “No,” they said. “Your character is terribly written. They’re awful and nobody would ever want to rp with them. They’re boring because they’re so full of negative traits. They’re racist and thus, a nazi. And you are just as bad, because you’re defending them! You’re a nazi too!”

So yeah, they are NOT my friend anymore. But that whole convo really stuck with me, and I was afraid to bring out Lio afterwards- it took me another year before I actually began to use him in rp. And he turned out wonderful! His story became one of my favorite rp character stories of all time, and he had great relationship development and a happy ending. He’s still around, canonically, but I have a different main toon now.

So it shocks me that what that person told me about Lio is more or less the same as what I wrote in that post. I’m honestly dumbfounded at how I could just casually type that up and post it, when it draws so many parallels to the way I was bullied back then. So yeah. Huge hypocrisy right there. I swore to never act like that. And to an extent, I suppose I have. But that post I made was pretty fucking close- just directed at a vaguely generalized audience instead of a singular person and character. Maybe that’s actually worse. And I am sorry. I guess because it wasn’t directed at anyone but the void (even the op’s url doesn’t exist anymore), I just didn’t think about it. Which sounds like a lame-ass excuse, but... it’s true. I just wasn’t thinking. I was just venting. It’s really fucking with me that I could’ve hurt somebody so much completely unintentionally, to be honest.

So, what did I say- or, to be more clear, what was I attempting to say? What was my intention, and what wasn’t? I’m going to go over that now, more for my benefit than anyone else’s. Please note that I am not trying to make excuses or shove any blame elsewhere. I am just trying to clarify what I meant and address the issues that made my post so negative, for my own sake.

To begin, I’m gonna link this post by @lilac-memorials. It goes into detail about the trouble with “villain” discourse, and addresses a number of issues from a much more unbiased standpoint, far more eloquently than I could. Also, it seems to reference (the worse) parts of my posts at some points, or maybe I’m just paranoid. Regardless, it’s a much better post than the trainwreck that was the original one, and I agree with every bit of it. It also addresses the difference between a “villain” and an “antagonist,” which is something I attempted to go into but failed miserably.

Anyhoo. My post began with this paragraph:

Seriously. I do not trust anyone who refers to themselves as a “villain” rper. A character can take an antagonistic role in another character’s story arc, that’s fine, that works. It goes back to the “everyone is the hero of their own story” sorta thing. But playing a villain, only as a villain… what’s the point in that? It’s just someone roleplaying as an evil asshole that expects to be treated as stronger than other characters, expects to be feared. It reads like some twisted power fantasy. It doesn’t sound fun and it sure isn’t fun for the people rping with you. Like dude, calm down.

To begin with, yes, I am indeed a little distrustful of people who label their characters first and foremost as villains, before anything else. I am more suspicious of engaging in rp with them than I am with other types of characters, because I have seen some pretty crappy villains out and about and I just don’t wanna deal with that. Next, I go on to try to draw the line between a villain and an antagonist, and how I am much less suspicious of “antagonistic” characters than straight-up “villain” characters. “But playing a villain, only as a villain... what’s the point in that?” I ask. Very rudely. Insinuating that their is no point whatsoever in playing a villain. Which I didn’t intend to. But honestly, I don’t know how else that would’ve translated- I don’t know what I was thinking. I go on to describe this “villain” as somebody who is an evil asshole with a power fantasy, and how it ruins fun for anybody. Which can be read very easily as saying “all villains are like this.” No, they are not! I was describing the bad type of villain rper. The rper who “plays a villain, only as a villain,” and not as a character. Do you get what I mean now? The controlling, toxic, power-hungry rper that plays a villain as an outlet to be further controlling, toxic, and power-hungry, moreso than they ever could in reality. We all know that type of person exists. We’ve met them, somewhere. Sometimes they aren’t playing the villain at all, anyway. They’re playing the hero, or somebody else entirely. But here, I am just venting about that type of person. They are what my post is about. The key line should’ve been “playing a villain, only as a villain,” but it was shoved into a passive-aggressive question addressing self-worth instead of a proper sentence describing the difference between a well-written villain and a badly-written villain. And thus the post begins as if it had been rudely addressed to all villain rpers everywhere, labeling them as the evil asshole with a power fantasy, instead.

Next is: Anyway hot take but maybe the reason people kept trying to “redeem” and “change” OP’s character is because their character is boring af!

Yeahhhh, that one’s just mean. And, given the first paragraph, easily able to seen as an attack saying that if you are a villain rper, your character is boring af. They’re not! The op’s post is a little much, to be honest, and I guess I thought I was feeling spicy at 4 am. Now I think I must’ve just been being mean. Aurelia explains what’s wrong with the initial post here, though, instead of trying and failing to poke fun at it in that special pseudo-mean tumblr way like I did.

Lastly, Like, honestly! Play a character as a foil to another, play to fucked up ideas about morality, play an antagonist arc to a protagonist character, play a character who makes bad decisions. But don’t play a “villain.” Don’t play a character whose core personality traits are simply being cruel/evil. Don’t play a character whose sole focus is to kill npcs, be scary, and lord over other players’ characters. Don’t play a character who never develops or changes, and doesn’t facilitate change in other characters. Just don’t be an asshole edgelord. Don’t be flat and one dimensional. Don’t use rp to live out your fucked up power fantasy. Get therapy instead.

Honestly, I think this is the most clear part of my entire post, and also the worst, at the end there. I just am listing off behaviors that this figurative “bad villain rper” exhibits, and what offsets them. Play a villain that’s complex, had depth, nuance! I’m saying don’t play the “villain,” and then listing off what this specific hypothetical villain is. The opposite of deep and nuanced. The “bad villain rper” type the whole post is a vent about.

Then comes the dreaded “ Don’t use rp to live out your fucked up power fantasy. Get therapy instead. “ The villainous power fantasy. No, I do not think everyone who rp’s villains is like this. Yes, I believe there are people like this, who are INCREDIBLY few and far between, and if they solely use rp as an outlet to harass others both ICly and OOCly, that is bad! And maybe they should get help! And even, then, that was only half-serious! But therapy is a serious subject and I should have known better, and done better. Did all of that come off as intended? Hell no! Instead, it was the final nail in the coffin.

So! That’s what I was trying to say. Badly-written villains are a pain. If I had written up a post like I am now, with this long-ass thing, actually trying to be eloquent and clear. Not 4 am word vomit. This 4 am word vomit instead has gotten me to be read and interpreted as:

-being completely unable to separate character and player to the point where i think every villain’s player is a Real Life Bad Person and/or needs mental help

-saying all villains are boring because they’re not heroes, and thus are incapable of being complex and nuanced

-saying people who play dark/antagonistic characters are, in general, living out their fucked up power fantasy through them

-thinking that villainous characters are incredibly boring and just plain terrible

No! None of that is what I think! Absolutely none! I’m not going to go in and refute each of those claims, because, like I said, I’m not trying to make excuses here. But I WILL end this thing with what I do think of villainous characters and their players:

They’re fucking great, okay? A good story is made a gazillion times better by having a good villain in it, be the story a book, a movie, or an rp scenario. Well-written villain rpers are a TREASURE, and need to be appreciated! It is often harder to find rp with antagonistic toons, to begin with, and their players may find themselves getting shit on more often than others, which should absolutely not be the case. Characters that are complex and deep and nuanced are great no matter what their alignment is.

There ARE some pretty shitty villain rpers out there, too. And, in my own personal experience, they tend to be much more obnoxious than shitty hero rpers. A badly written hero will ruin a villain’s rp. A badly written villain may well try to ruin everybody around them’s rp.

Badly written villains suck. They’re the worst. And they make things worse for those that dedicate a lot of time and effort to crafting complex and cleverly written, compelling villains! Badly written villains are something I can and will complain about, just as well-written villains are something that I can and will praise. But I’ll try not to complain or vent on this platform anymore, to start.

And I do NOT blend IC and OOC. That’s the rper’s taboo! I will critique others who do it, though, which ironically is what I was sort of trying to do- complain about those specific villain players who do that. But anyway. If you’ve read this far, good for you! This has been way too long.

And. Please. If I do say or do something that hurts you in the future, regardless of what type of post it is, talk to me! Tell me what’s up! Thank you!

[brattydoctorcrane]

Light Yagami is a Fucking Moron: An Analysis of Light Yagami’s Actions and Their Consequences According to Current Psychological Research

Let me begin by saying that this is going to be long, and I’m going to be writing this more in the style of a lecture as opposed to a straight through scientific paper. I enjoy humor and don’t want to completely bore you with heavy talk, so I will have moments that are biased, sarcastic, and intended for entertainment. The research itself, however, does not have my same biases and will be condemning Light for not actually researching what the hell he was doing, at least in the United States. On top of all of this, please feel free to message me if you want one of the articles/books, and I will do my best to get you a copy! With that being said, let’s jump on in.

DISCLAIMER: This is all based on the United States. I’m not here to argue, I just like talking about psych and law and DN. This is purely for fun and it’s meant to be a little silly. I am not writing this to be a scientific paper by any means. If you’d like me to expand on anything, feel free to ask me! Thank you!

Light is hailed all through out Death Note as being this extremely intelligent, well thought out person. We’re told he is smart, cool, and charming, but what if I were to say he’s actually not these things? Well, maybe he’s charming, but that’s for another discussion. When he picks up the notebook, he seems somewhat altruistic in saying he will kill criminals to deter other criminals to make the world safer. Except there’s a problem. A big one.

The death penalty… Doesn’t conclusively deter crime (Nagin et. al, 2012).

Currently, within the psychological community, there is large debate as to the effectiveness of the death penalty and whether it is therefore even useful. Some studies say yes, some say no, and some say that they have no idea. Nagin et. al breaks down the issues and problems inherent in many of the studies and why we can’t conclusively say anything. Not only is it extremely difficult to extract out variables (do noncapital punishments deter crime? What about home factors? Social supports?), but many studies only look at specific geographic areas (Nagin et. al, 2012). This is based on the research of approximately the last thirty years! Thirty! And yet, we can’t say one way or the other whether it actually affects the amount of crime committed.

So, 0 for Light, 1 for research.

But at least he’s killing criminals, right? Er. Sure. I suppose, as a whole, he kills many more criminals. Unfortunately, though, I would say he’s probably killing many more innocents than he cares to believe. The conservative estimate from the Innocence Project is that it’s 1% of the US Prison Population. Now, I think it’s fair to use the US here, since given how involved the US is in Death Note, and our high as hell incarceration rate, Light likely kills many US criminals. Within the US, however, 1% of our prison population means 20,000 people, and this is the conservative estimate (Innocence Project, 2011)! Fucking conservative! This means Light likely killed many more innocents than he truly believed, especially considering how he didn’t, y’know, have the circumstances surrounding arrests, confessions, etc. He would have no way of determining for himself if he truly believed someone deserved punishment or not, and I just don’t see that as moral or altruistic myself.

To dive a little further in on this point and why I harp on it, it’s very important to consider evidence. I’ll talk about confessions in a minute, when I also talk about Misa (you can see where that one’s going), but let’s hone in on evidence. For specifically sexual assault charges, which we know Light abhors, DNA exoneration makes up 63% of all their exonerations (Gross et. al, 2012). Hell, DNA makes up 37% of all exonerations, and we cannot ignore that half of all exonerees are black (Gross et. al, 2012). Eyewitnesses are also nowhere near as reliable as we like to believe, and can be influenced in several ways (Loftus, 2019). (Please note the Loftus paper is a summation of findings from many studies of hers and others. I highly recommend reading her research as it’s so important to the law.) Light has no way of knowing why and how the criminal was convicted. At all. So, he just doesn’t bother. The type of evidence and amount of evidence is so important to a crime, as well as the criminal’s race, since there have been and will continue to be cases that are decided based on shoestring amounts of it.

Light, my man. You’re 0 for 2.

After this declaration of altruism, he then tries to evade capture. Which, I don’t know about y’all, but that doesn’t exactly scream altruism (though by this point he also wants to be GOD so, grain of salt I suppose). However, what Light doesn’t realize as he does supremely convoluted things to avoid other supremely convoluted things is that… Dude. They wouldn’t fucking. Accept any of the evidence they would supposedly have against you. Illegally obtained video of the house is just that. ILLEGAL. It’d be inadmissible in court (at least, of course, in the United States). If L can show me his fucking warrant, then we’ll talk, but otherwise that’s inadmissible evidence. As well as Misa’s potential confession.

Oh, Misa. You have such scary tendencies towards stalking behaviors. But at least your confession would’ve been entirely inadmissible.

Let’s talk about torture and coerced confessions!

First let me define a coerced confession for everyone, just to be on the same page (though y’all probably know what it is). A coerced confession is a confession that was made against one’s free will or involuntarily. To be honest, I Googled the definition, because I needed something short and succinct. This means that a coerced confession isn’t always through obvious brute force, and in fact means so long as it wasn’t voluntary in any way, shape, or form, the confession is useless. The legal definition of torture (again, also Googled for something succinct) is “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession.” Thank you, Association for the Prevention of Torture. For obvious reasons, both torture and coerced confessions are very much illegal.

Whew, lets break up this huge paragraph. Torture, on top of being illegal, also doesn’t yield accurate information from the person being tortured (Costanzo et. al, 2009). “The goal was to appease the torturer, not to reveal the truth,” Costanzo et. al writes (2009). Sure, some truthful information is revealed, but as a whole it is ineffective. I think it’s safe to say Misa was tortured (that straight jacket and not giving her water for several days gave it away), so immediately I would question the accuracy of anything she says. Especially as she offers to do whatever Mr. Stalker wants if she can just leave.

Her confession, had she confessed, would’ve been very blatantly coerced, too. Interestingly enough, L is actually using a less effective method of interrogation than he could be. L appears to use what is called an accusatorial method of interrogation. Accusatorial methods are based on control, psychological manipulation, and the primary goal is confession (Meissner et. al, 2014). Sound familiar? What he should have been using is an information-gathering method. Information-gathering methods are based on establishing rapport, using direct and positive confrontation, and the primary goal is elicitation (Meissner et. al, 2014). The information-gathering method is shown to be nearly as good at eliciting a confession, but it does not elicit as many false confessions as the accusatorial method (Meissner et. al, 2014).

So, Misa here is being tortured, and then even if you say she wasn’t, then she’s clearly being coerced. If you somehow still say she wasn’t coerced, then L’s use of the accusatorial method still makes me say double check her confession. So really, that confession is fucked. Light didn’t have to go through the entire thing of confinement, when his ass was in the clear all along.

Light is now 0 for 3, and L is 0 for 1.

Considering I’ve already got Light at 0 for 3, I’m going to lay off him a little. He makes so many of these same mistakes over, and over, and over again throughout the entire manga, even pulling more people into it (hi, Takada and Mikami, who would’ve also been coerced confessions). I’ll go more into detail about the second half later, but for now I’ll pause, and ask what should Light have done instead? What should he have done that would’ve been more effective? What about L and Misa?

The answer is, of course, not whatever the fuck he did do.

I suppose I should start with a caveat. The DN Universe may be fundamentally different than our own outside of shinigamis and such. Perhaps these are admissible confessions in the DN world, maybe killing people did deter crime (as is stated at one point, actually), and maybe L’s interrogation methods aren’t highly questionable. Who knows. This is a fictional world after all.

But if we assume the DN Universe is like our own and isn’t a hellscape, then I would’ve recommended a few things. Personally, I think Light should’ve focused more on supports for criminals instead. Unfortunately, a large part of the research is focused more on if something deters crime rather than how, especially given the issues in trying to even determine what variables are at play. But it feels personally more humanitarian to offer supports, and I feel as if that would be of more help than a death penalty that views itself above the law.

Secondly, Light needed to at the very goddamn least have seen the evidence himself. He prides himself so much on being so smart an yet… He’s so dumb, y’all. He relied on others’ judgements when he should’ve only relied on his own. This way, he stays on top of who in the fuck he’s actually killing, why he’s actually killing them, and if they were innocent (in his view) or not. It’s just almost common sense.

Finally, Light should’ve just let it play out. Seriously. He needed to just sit on his ass and watch as L made himself out to be unfit and coercive. Because L is not fit for his job and needs to be removed from it. Torture is disallowed by even the fucking Geneva Conventions, L. The argument would be that Light wanted to maintain his status with the others though, too, but I think that L being declared unfit would’ve solved that. You can’t trust a single fucking thing coming out of L’s mouth, period. Especially not when he’s so aggressive and horrific to his suspects.

And so, with the evidence stacked before us I have to say… Light Yagami is a moron. He should’ve done some research (I know I cite things that would’ve been post Kira, but these debates have been going on for years, y’all) before he did his Kira thing.

Below I’m putting my references for the articles/books, but not in APA format and in the order they appear. That would take a bit of time, and I’m doing this for free and on my own time. If you want more information on them, you can message me. Thanks!

Daniel S. Nagin and John V. Peppers, Deterrence and the Death Penalty. 2012. They’re actually the editors, just an FYI, and this book is available online!

Innocence Project (link) in 2011!

Samuel R. Gross and Michael Shaffer, Exonerations in the United States. 2012. This one is also available online at the Social Science Research Network!

Elizabeth Loftus, Eyewitness Testimony. 2019. (link)

Christian A. Meissner and many others, Accusatorial and information-gathering interrogation methods and their effects on true and false confessions: a meta-analytic review. 2014.

Mark A. Costanzo and Ellen Gerrity, The Effects and Effectiveness of Using Torture as an Interrogation Device: Using Research to Inform the Policy Debate. 2009.