#I like the nuance here. is the gender ‘dead’ or is the *gender* dead? you’ll never know

[iamthemaestro]

my gender is dead on a battlefield in 1778

[butchladymaria]

not sure if you’re referring to my analysis essay, but at the risk of nudging into “make your own post” territory i do want to address your points here just for fun! this got long, so under the cut it goes —

Firstly, I do agree with the interpretation that he wouldn’t dress Doll in hunting attire. The thing is, there’s a vast ocean of nuance between “dressing doll in hunting clothes” and “dressing doll in hyperfeminine gender conforming clothes”, and Maria’s taste isn’t as mysterious as many make it out to be if you look closer at her attire. Maria’s homeland of Cainhurst allowed its citizens to be knights regardless of gender, but gave visually distinct uniforms for men and women. As you can see below, despite of the fact that she could have modeled her attire on either a masculine or feminine outfit, Maria’s hunting clothes far more closely resemble the masculine knight’s set.

I can’t speak for everyone, but when I point out how Gerhman feminizes Maria through Doll, it doesn’t really have anything to do with hunting attire vs civilian attire. I’m talking about how Maria’s garb shows that she was gender nonconforming by her own cultural standards, yet Gerhman omitted that in making Doll. Regardless of his presumed motivations, it’s inaccurate to just ignore that completely. In any case — just because we only see her hunting attire in-game, why should we assume that her masculine taste in fashion was solely the result of the hunt? I don’t think most folks imagine that other characters who dress masculine such as Gascoigne would be dolled up in a dress if not for the hunt (although it’s a great concept lol, good for him if true). It’s also not as if masculine civilian clothing doesn’t exist — plenty of corpses wear button-up shirts, waistcoats, and coats that fit the bill.

I don’t know how much canonical basis there is to prove that Gerhman “did love/care for Maria because of who she was and not what she looked like”, as in all my research there was nothing which points to that decisively one way or another. If that’s your headcanon, that’s totally cool! However, I will say this: people, especially parental/guardian figures as Gerhman was, as far as we know, to Maria, can care about a deceased loved one and still erase their GNC identities after death — and for a whole host of reasons. The specifics are a very complex issue for another day, but suffice it to say that those things aren’t mutually exclusive. The existence and memory of gnc people is complicated by a society that doesn’t want their memories preserved accurately — just look at any lgbt+ historical figure for that one.

On your point of mourning dolls — if you do look them up, you’ll actually find that they were only made for very small children, usually infants or toddlers at the oldest, and Maria was obviously well out of that age range. What’s more, other forms of mourning art were used for adults. post-mortem photography, hair art, etc were all common (and its actually a super interesting rabbit hole to go down, highly recommend). If you’re still going to claim that Doll was made as a mourning doll, it implies that Gerhman saw Maria as his daughter (which is decently in line with canon), but it also brings a whole lot of somewhat unsavory baggage along with it. To summarize: the mourning doll represents the culmination of the Victorian obsession with the inherent innocence of white children, and their emphasis on those children as paragons of untainted purity. I highly recommend you check out Eternal Innocence: the Victorian Cult of the Dead Child if you’re interested in learning more — you’ll see what I mean about that baggage being unsavory.

Either way, it directly implies that Gerhman was trying to make Maria in effigy as pure, innocent, and untainted. Maybe that’s okay on paper when it’s a baby we’re talking about, but Maria was a grown adult. Unlike an infant, she did have thoughts and opinions. It also puts the attire he chose for her in even more unflattering light — possibly implying he saw her gender nonconformity as impurity to be expunged…? Rather historically accurate, if nothing else. It gets even more uncomfortable when you consider that purity was heavily connected with obedience, dependence, and lack of personhood in this time period. The obsession with preserving purity seem in mourning dolls was the same variety that argued women did not belong in politics or the workplace lest they become “tainted” by the outside world (and protest being considered the wards and property of their husbands the same way children were of their fathers, among many other things). In other words, the infantilization of women was a key part of Victorian era misogyny that equated their “purity” to that of children — which must be preserved at any cost, even after death. Making a mourning doll of Maria would have been out of place even in Victorian times, but it only gets worse if you do follow that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion in the historical context mourning dolls come from.

To conclude, my larger point that I develop more in the essay is that it’s a bit of a lapse in logic to point to the historical existence of, for example, mourning dolls while overlooking the historical context of possession when it came to women and children that contributed immensely to their existence in the first place, and the deep prejudice that existed against GNC people at that time period as well. It isn’t accurate or logical to take a cultural and historical artifact like mourning dolls and completely remove the complex web of contextual meanings they were bound up in. I’m 100% in favor of acknowledging the historical influences of the Victorian Era on Bloodborne — in fact, I think it’s crucial to a complete understanding — but that’s a lot more complex than face-value comparisons. More broadly, I think we do Bloodborne a disservice by ignoring that broader historical context and womanhood, especially given how the themes of the game focuses on women, motherhood, and childbirth.

I saw this post the other day that I can't seem to refind, but it mentioned that when Gehrman created the doll, he makes her in the image of Maria but strips her of a lot of her non-gender conforming appearance. But if you think about it for a while, it makes a lot of sense why Gehrman wouldn't put the Doll in a hunter outfit. Because Maria being a hunter is what led to her experiencing the awful Fishing Hamlet, and eventually dying. Gehrman probably regrets ever teaching her, or letting her come along on that mission. It's also worth mentioning that he did love/care for Maria because of who she was and not what she looked like. When the Moon Presence brought the Doll to life, it didn't act or think like Maria because the Moon Presence can't just take her out of the Nightmare (or doesn't want to, but trying to analyse the actions of Great Ones will give you a headache). Also the whole Mourning Doll thing. Seriously, just look them up.

TLDR: Gehrman was a Personality man.

[writingwithcolor]

Assigning race to a character that dies in preventable accident

@mindfulwrath said:

I'm plotting a story wherein a remote space station has decided to become independent after one of their crewmates died in a preventable accident (due to mismanagement by the corporation that owns the station). I'm struggling with what the race of this particular crewmember should be (if it should be specified at all). On the one hand, a white martyr feels overdone; on the other hand, making the death of a person of color the inciting incident feels exploitative. The A-plot is intended to be more lighthearted, with the station crew collaborating to keep their independence plan a secret from management, while the B-plot focuses on honoring the life of the lost crewmember. Is there a way to write this setup sensitively, or do I need to go back to the drawing board? Are there issues with the setup that I haven't noticed? Thank you all for maintaining this excellent resource and continuing to answer questions!

Here’s some things to ask yourself as a writer: Why is this plot point compelling as a part of your setting? Why does writing this feel different to you with a white person versus a person of color? Reference this post Tragedy exploitation and do-NOTs as a non-OwnVoices writer, and examine your narrative in relation to the mentioned points, especially activist/rebellion narratives and escape narratives. Is your story going to be PoC-centric otherwise beyond this character if you choose to make them a person of color?

I’ll give you some starting points to consider in the narrative, much of which you’d need to think about whether or not the character is white.

1. Plot focus

How heavily is the B-plot going to focus on the accident and the tragedy for the character? How heavily will it focus on the other crew members' perspectives? Why is this incident specifically the inciting plot point as opposed to general abuses of the crew by the corporation or something that causes damage which they cannot get the resources for? How prominent will the death itself be as a part of the narrative? Is death absolutely necessary to give this narrative dimension?

Whether it’s mentioned as happening beforehand or within the narrative structure and whether it happens on- or off-screen all matter in this scenario. Placing extreme emphasis on the tragedy and how much pain it causes to the other characters can get fridgey very quickly. Based on what you sent us, I’m fairly sure you want to avoid that, so I’d tie in some of the lightheartedness of the main plot and talk about what the character meant to the crew beyond their death. Also, is the character who dies an integral part of the crew or are they isolated? Going too far one way or another can get you into martyr/fridging territory very easily.

2. Character background

If the character is white, can you get around the common tropes of a white martyr? Is the setting diverse enough to where this character could die/get injured without the scenario feeling like white martyrdom? This will heavily depend on how you design your crew for the scenario, and relies on informed choices about the make-up of the crew. It also depends on how the conflict ties into race and racism, and intersectional issues such as gender, religion, and sexuality. You don’t have to fixate on racism if it’s not one of the main themes, but in order to avoid exploitation, fridging, and martyring marginalized characters, you need to consider it in context.

If the character is a person of color, are they the only person of color on the crew? Are they one of a limited number within a predominantly white institution? This is where you want to be really careful of fridging/martyrdom. I would suggest having people from a variety of backgrounds within your crew, and at least a few other people coming from a similar background to the dead character in order to avoid isolating the character ethnically.

In terms of a character of color’s individual background, is there a specific group you’re looking into that the dead character would be a part of? Person of color is an enormous category, and you’ll need to get more specific to really consider the effects on any particular group that you choose. This is where tragedy exploitation can get very overt--tread carefully.

3. Nuance

If you really want to write this sensitively, the dead character can’t just be a symbol; they need to be a person. If you make them compelling and nuanced as a character in the minds both readers and other characters, give them dimension beyond ‘character being mourned’, establish diversity with purpose in your setting, and do some research into groups and customs that you can respectfully include, I think you can avoid the common pitfalls.

One final thing to consider is, again, whether you actually feel comfortable writing about this concept with a person of color. You need to evaluate your motivations as a writer for this plot point and consider whether you are ready to write this scenario.

~ Abhaya

[passionate-reply]

This week on Great Albums: a Great Album that your average rock critic would actually agree with me about! Find out how Kate Bush got her groove back with her fifth LP, Hounds of Love, and whether she ever came down from that hill. Full transcript below the break!

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Ever since I first conceived the idea of Great Albums, I’ve always intended it to reflect nothing other than my own personal “canon”--not necessarily a list of albums that were influential, successful, or acclaimed by anybody’s standards but my own. But in this installment, I’m making a somewhat uncharacteristic move, and diving into an album that really doesn’t need me to advocate for it: Hounds of Love, by Kate Bush, often considered Bush’s greatest masterpiece--if not one of the greatest albums of all time.

Released in 1985, Hounds of Love was Bush’s fifth studio LP. Her career had started off surprisingly strong in 1977, with the release of her debut single “Wuthering Heights,” written when Bush was only 19 years old. With a high-concept theme, based around the titular novel by Emily Brontë, it would set the template for much of Bush’s subsequent career: irreverently eccentric, high-concept art-pop with the intensely personal passion of a singular singer-songwriter. But just how much patience for that sort of thing does the general public have, beyond letting the occasional “Wuthering Heights” through as a sort of novelty hit? Bush’s subsequent work in the early 1980s met with inconsistent reception, with her fourth LP, 1982’s The Dreaming, marking a particularly low point. The first album that Bush produced all by herself, The Dreaming took even more radical creative liberties, pushing her sound into increasingly experimental territory.

Music: “Get Out Of My House”

Following the fairly cold reception of The Dreaming, Bush took several years to produce her next album, but it would prove to be the one that redeemed her career, and arguably turned her into a bigger star than ever before. Hounds of Love managed to stay true to the core principles of the Bush aesthetic: moody and introspective, full of rich and complex narratives, as well as musical risk-taking. But it honed and refined that sound into something that was also remarkably pop.

Music: “Running Up That Hill”

“Running Up That Hill” was one of the biggest hits of Bush’s career, and arguably dethroned even “Wuthering Heights” as her signature song. I think the secret to its success is its ability to balance Bush’s experimental impulses with an intuitive, deep-felt emotional quality that makes her best work resonant in an accessible way. On paper, “Running Up That Hill” is as high-concept as anything else in Bush’s catalogue--a song about making a deal with God to swap sexes with your lover, and feel what life is like in another body? But at the same time, the song has an ability to “work” even if you don’t know all of that. Who hasn’t longed for a way to bargain with supernatural forces, for a chance at the impossible? There’s a certain applicability to its themes, which I think is a chief reason why it’s inspired so many covers and reimaginings over the years. But even when one listens to the original, the stately washes of digital synthesiser and the powerful conviction that propels Bush’s vocals make it easy to sympathize with. It feels grounded and physical, rooted in the most carnal aspect of the human body. Positioned as the opening track of the album, “Running Up That Hill” feels like an obvious lead single--in the best way possible. But it’s worth noting that not everything on the album is quite so radio-friendly.

Music: “Cloudbusting”

Perhaps one of Bush’s most compelling narratives, “Cloudbusting” is also, ostensibly, fairly high-concept, portraying a heavily fictionalized episode from the life of Wilhelm Reich. A controversial figure both in life and legacy, Reich is best remembered for his work in psychology, heavily influenced by the spectre of Sigmund Freud. But “Cloudbusting” focuses on his later-life fascination with the physical sciences, and his belief that a mystical energy called “orgone” was responsible for both human emotional woes as well as disturbances in the Earth’s atmosphere. Reich attempted to develop a machine that could manipulate this energy, and hence achieve the longtime dream of technological weather control, but there’s no evidence his “cloudbuster” really worked, or that there’s any such thing as “orgone.” But Bush’s “Cloudbusting,” and its accompanying music video, portray Reich as a tragic hero, silenced by government authorities who sought to destroy what they couldn’t understand, conflating his work with cloudbusters with his censure by the FDA for his questionable medical devices.

The song was inspired chiefly by the memoirs of Wilhelm Reich’s son, Peter, with Bush explicitly portraying Peter’s naive childhood perspective on his father, and that does allow for some substantial nuance here...but at some point we have to ask ourselves what responsibility an artist has to the truth. “Cloudbusting” is the musical equivalent of a film that’s “based on a true story,” and I see no reason why music can’t be just as capable of spreading misinformation as the Oscar-bait biopics of Hollywood. Just how accurate, or how beautiful, does a work of art need to be, for us to allow a bit of playing loose with the facts for the sake of a great story?

Setting aside these quandaries presented by its subject matter, “Cloudbusting” undoubtedly delivers musically. Across its sprawling runtime, it develops and earns a sense of grandeur, building from its infectious percussion and cresting with Bush’s fragile, but assertive prayer: “I just know that something good is going to happen.” If you listen closely to the percussion tracks on the album, you’ll notice that there’s no cymbal or high-hat utilized anywhere, which helps give the album its particular hazy, meandering ambiance.

That effect is perhaps even more pronounced on the second side of the album. Hounds of Love is divided quite sharply into two sides. The first side, also sub-titled Hounds of Love, opens with “Running Up That Hill,” and finishes with “Cloudbusting,” which serves as something of a bridge between the two, combining a singable hook and a pop-like verse-chorus structure with a taste for more visionary narrative. While the first side is home to all four of the album’s singles, the second side, sub-titled The Ninth Wave, strays much further away from the standard expectations of pop.

Music: “Under Ice”

Going by the tracklisting, there are seven tracks that make up *The Ninth Wave,* though their smooth transitions and willful defiance of verse/chorus structure create a seamless oratorio or song cycle feel, not unlike many of the great “album sides” of the prog tradition. The Ninth Wave also departs from the feel of the first side in its instrumentation. While the Hounds of Love side has its fair share of exotic instruments, such as a balalaika on “Running Up That Hill” and a didgeridoo on “Cloudbusting,” The Ninth Wave is more richly baroque, with elements like that jarring violin on “Under Ice.” As it progresses, the breadth of timbres increases, climaxing in the Celtic-inspired “Jig of Life.”

Music: “Jig of Life”

The explosion of folkish, backward-looking sounds of “Jig of Life” and “Hello World,” with their fiddles, whistles, and full choir, represent its protagonist’s return to the realm of the living, after the trauma represented by earlier tracks like “Under Ice.” The abstract, though affecting, narrative presented by The Ninth Wave seems to be a tale of death and rebirth, with a narrator who drowns themselves, only to be reborn--whether literally revived from a failed suicide attempt, or metaphysically reincarnated after a passage through the realm of the dead.

Much more has been written about the themes of *The Ninth Wave* than I’m getting into here, but suffice it to say that many people consider it the relative highlight of the album. But I think it’s worth questioning that a little bit, and taking the time to look at Hounds of Love a bit more holistically. Just because the first side is a bit less overtly experimental doesn’t mean it doesn’t have just as much to offer, artistically, or that it isn’t a part of what makes this album truly great. At the end of the day, I think we can probably agree that far fewer people would have ever heard The Ninth Wave if it weren’t for those more accessible singles on side one, moving copies of the record and adding to Bush’s widespread acclaim. Without “Running Up That Hill,” Hounds of Love might have gone down in history as a fairly niche cult classic like The Dreaming, instead of the era-defining album that it got to become.

On the cover of Hounds of Love, we see an image of Bush reclining and embracing two dogs--who were, in fact, her own pets. The image’s saturation in purplish pink and Bush’s perhaps sultry expression combine to create an impression of traditional femininity, which resonates with the album’s themes of gender and sensuality. Framed in by large white borders, we might read the composition of the cover as evocative of a personal locket or memento, a sort of furtive glimpse into Bush’s more private or intimate essence, fitting for the introspective and emotional focus of much of the music. This “framing” is perhaps also evocative of the idea of the domestic sphere of life--and hence, again, of femininity.

While the title track of the album portrays the “hounds of love” as figures of menace, who are said to “chase” after its narrator, the submissive and comfortable-looking canines portrayed in the cover art seem like a foil to that idea. In the history of European art, dogs are often used as symbols of fidelity, particularly in the context of romance. Titian’s Venus of Urbino, painted in the 1530s, is often considered the progenitor of the Western “nude” as an archetype. Alongside the titular goddess, paragon of eroticism and the feminine, the painter has also included a lapdog, peacefully dozing beside her. It’s tempting to see the composition of the cover of Hounds of Love as doing something similar, invoking confident sensuality alongside a symbol of faithfulness to portray the essence of idealized love.

After the release of Hounds of Love, Bush would once again take several years to produce her next LP, 1989’s The Sensual World. More closely related to The Ninth Wave than the A-side of Hounds of Love, it was nonetheless another commercial and mainstream success for the artist.

Music: “The Sensual World”

From the mid-90s to the mid-00s, Bush took an extended hiatus from music, focusing instead on her family and her personal life. Despite uncertainty surrounding the future of her career, she would eventually return to the public spotlight in the 21st Century, and remains active, if somewhat intermittently, to the present day. At this point, it’s safe to say that Bush has a fairly enviable position, having lived long enough to become a cultural institution, and able to bask in the cult following her unmistakable and distinctive work has earned her. For as much as I’ve praised the more commercial side of Hounds of Love in this piece, I still believe in the power of the truly unfettered creative soul, and I’m still happy for Bush that she’s achieved that kind of freedom.

My favourite track from either side of Hounds of Love would have to be “The Big Sky.” In the context of the album, it stands out for its rousing, triumphant crescendo of energy--a marked difference from the languid, introspective sensibility that dominates most of the material. And it manages that without bringing the cymbals back, either! Thematically, its emphasis on weather and the sky prefigures that of “Cloudbusting,” perhaps providing a more hopeful and naive vision of what weather can do, which resists being “clouded” by political drama. That’s all I have for today--as always, thank you all for listening!

Music: “The Big Sky”

[thanksjro]

Dark Cybertron Chapter 1: Welcome to Comic Event Hell

You know what readers love? When the stories they’ve gotten invested in over the course of a couple years get interrupted for some pseudo-crossover bullshit.

And you know what writers love? When the story they’ve been crafting over the course of a couple years get interrupted for some pseudo-crossover bullshit.

Did I say love?

Because I didn’t mean it.

“Dark Cybertron” was penned by John Barber and James Roberts, with collaboration with comic writer and artist Phil Jimenez, and was published from early November, 2013 to late March, 2014. Atilio Rojo, James Raiz, and Livio Ramondelli did the art, each responsible for scenes in specific locations, with Robert Gill filling in as needed. Alex Milne, Andrew Griffith, and Brendan Cahill would also contribute pencils to the first issue and the back half of the series. It was a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the franchise, and the second birthday of Phase Two... which went on for over four months, but never mind that!

Both "Dark Cybertron” and its preliminary materials were made to go alongside the Transformers: Generations toy-line, each issue being included as a toy pack-in with whatever character was being featured… or, at least, that was the plan. Sometimes it didn’t work out. Regardless, this storyline was created to sell toys directly, as opposed to the MTMTE/RID series being made to sell toys more through the power of suggestion. It’s a small distinction, but important, because it will help explain any lack of soul one may perceive while they read “Dark Cybertron”.

“But Hannz!” you cry out, reaching to grab me by the throat and shake me like a rag doll, because to you I’m merely a faceless voice on the internet. “Surely by calling this specific storyline soulless, you’re completely ignoring the very nature of this franchise that you’re almost uncomfortably invested in!”

To which I’ll say this: look, I’m pretty realistic about where my giant space robots came from; Transformers as a franchise would not exist the way it does without Ronald Reagan introducing the Free Market to literal children and fucking up how we interact with media for the rest of time. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and that rings especially true when I’ve got a Spinister on my bookshelf staring me down as I write this, that was likely made out of plastics which either involved blood oil or unethical labor practices, if not both.

However!

The choices of a company to have their comic license holders to cook up an entire plot that derails what they’ve already got planned out for toy tie-in comics is a completely different animal than what IDW had had going on up to this point. Phase Two had been about exploring different ideas that hadn’t been able to be explored during the war, and seeing what happens when you take away a third of the logline for Transformers G1 as a whole. Being a part of a brand of toys was almost inconsequential to how the stories were being told; even the Spotlights, which were also toy tie-in comics, had plenty of charm to them, if only because there weren’t quite as many constraints placed on the writers, and they were stand-alone issues.

Of course, being tie-in comics isn’t the only reason that “Dark Cybertron” is a bit of a slog, considering everything IDW itself was trying to get done within this storyline, but we’ll cover the publishing company’s/Simon Furman’s/Transformers’ tumultuous relationship with the concept of gender identity and expression later on, when it becomes relevant to the story proper. This point also ties into the interesting origin of Windblade, who we’ll meet in a few issues, and what happens when you let your fanbase have a taste of power and forget that people might like to see themselves represented in the media they consume.

“Dark Cybertron” is what ended up making me stop reading MTMTE the first time I tried it in 2015. A big part of it was because it forced the reader to need so much information from RID and even events prior to Phase Two, it wasn’t very fun to try to parse what was going on, on top of the writing beginning to flag because of obvious constraints to what Barber and Roberts could actually do, both within their deadlines and the rules put in place by their higher ups for the event.

 “Dark Cybertron” is the result of the sort of executive meddling that kills reader enjoyment by requiring writers to cram their two worlds together as quickly as possible, without the option to go for nuance because there simply isn’t time. The reason we have four separate artists for the front half of this story is because Milne and Griffith didn’t have time to draw both their current workload and “Dark Cybertron” at the same time... but sales probably went up due to the nature of how the story was published, so I’m sure they didn’t really see a problem with it.

That’s a general “they”, not a Milne and Griffith “they”.

In short, we’ve got license contract obligations, fan-poll obligations, and gender stuff fighting for space within the next 12 issues, which will be published in the span of roughly four months. Things are probably going to be a little bloated and sloppy.

Regardless of any of these points, this is what we’ve got. It’s not like it’s all bad- “Dark Cybertron” has the benefit of being written by two people who had been working closely before it had even been conceptualized. Barber was the senior editor for MTMTE, and IDW as a whole until he left in 2016. It also isn’t a proper crossover- y’know, where two completely separate titles get mashed together for a bit. MTMTE and RID exist in the same universe, just have their own things going on, so a decent amount of things still carry over without you needing to have read every single thing in both. The writing, while not quite up to par with pieces that had more creative freedom and breathing room between scenes, is still recognizable as being Barber and Roberts’. Their voices are still here, they’re just strained under the weight of everything that has to be said inside of 12 issues.

With all THAT out of the way, let’s dive in to Dark Dawn: Dark Cybertron Chapter 1.

We get a quick rundown of the most basic information you’ll need for this entire story to make sense, as we reintroduce the fact that Shockwave is an ecoterrorist with more agendas than a daily planner factory on meth, and also that he grows magic crystals. I don’t care what he says, the Ores are fucking space-magic. If you don’t want to read through all of RID for everything else, please see Robots in Disguise (2012), #1-22- A Recap, For Reference Purposes.  We also get a quick rundown of the Lost Lighters’ deal, as Swerve potentially has a meta-episode.

Be careful what you fucking wish for, bucko.

Our story proper starts with a flashback to the shittiest road trip Cyclonus ever went on, as the Ark 1 finds itself at the edge of a mysterious portal. This is likely why he wasn’t super thrilled when the portal to Luna 1 showed up- portals are probably a touchy subject for him.

Jhiaxus doesn’t know what this portal is- surely this means that science has failed us, and it’s time to call in the religious crowd to try and suss out what’s going on here.

It’s moments like this that make me wonder what exactly happened in the Dead Universe that made Cyclonus’ cheek meat just pack up and leave.

Now, we know that Cyclonus is correct here, because we as readers have more knowledge than the characters at this point, but Jhiaxus tries to write off this theory as hogwash, because he is a man of rationality and science. This is a slight removal from his character in the present, whose most notable traits seem to be a lack of ethics and screaming.

Everyone here seems to be slightly different from their current iterations, actually; Galvatron doesn’t say a word as he steps between Jhiaxus and Cyclonus, only using his body to communicate that the scientist might want to back off. Cyclonus himself is certainly the wordiest we’ve ever seen him to be, droning on through his actual thought process before he comes to a conclusion on what exactly they’ve found. Compare this to the Cyclonus of today, who only deigns to grace everyone with his voice if they outright threaten him, have something he wants, or are Tailgate. If he were to ever pull this verbal meandering on board the Lost Light, people would probably assume he’s having a stroke.

Nova Prime- you remember him, don’t you?- gives not a fuck about the Dead Universe, only what it means for him personally. And what it means for him is more locations to subjugate, because he is cartoonishly evil. His character is the least removed from his present-day iteration out of everyone. He tells the crew they’ll be getting a little closer, only for the portal to do the work for them, by way of dark energy tentacles.

Wow, the pilot for the Ark 1 really is just straight-up named Butt, isn’t he? And what the fuck is that face you’re making, Cyclonus? Are you- oh my god, are you emoting? Oh my god, he’s emoting.

As the Ark 1 is pulled to its doom, Jhiaxus makes a quick phone call to Shockwave to tell him he’s his favorite, and to keep up the good work.

In the present, Shockwave reflects on just how friggin’ long this whole ordeal has taken. Fortunately, Waspinator and the Titan are almost here, and he can hardly wait.

Not, uh, that he’s got emotions or anything. It’s been established that he doesn’t have those anymore. Is impatience an emotion? Does that count?

Shockwave seems like he’d be really frustrating to write for.

Anyway, the Titan shows up, the Ore inside him and the Ore in the underground Crystal City combine, and the Titan starts screaming because everything hurts. Shockwave’s about as thrilled as he can be about the situation, given his lack of emotions.

Above Crystal City, we finally get back to that nonsense about the early sunrise, as someone- maybe Starscream, given the color of the narration box- waxes poetic on the planet of Cybertron, wartorn and wild in its rebirth, ruled by paranoia that has nothing to bounce off of, and so creates its own walls.

Then we get a detailed shot of Rattrap’s mug, and the moment is broken.

Rattrap’s character is a lot of fun in everything he gets tossed into, but you’re a goddamn liar if you think he’s pretty to look at. You are lying to yourself, and I won’t apologize for saying it.

Starscream walks out of his room in his hot new body, feeling fine and ready to take on the world. We’ll check in on him later in the day to see how that positive mentality is working out for him.

So, the sun hasn’t moved, and it’s way too early for the sun to even be up right now. That’s weird. Because I guess he didn’t know how the sun works, Starscream’s only just realized that this is perhaps a problem. He does some computer work and realizes that this is indeed a very bad thing, and asks that Rattrap call the Autobots. Not the ones who fucked off into the wilderness, the other ones. The gay, space ones.

Up in space, Orion Pax and his pals have found themselves in dire straits, the collapsing Gorlam Prime sucking their ship back down as the Death Ore consumes everything.

That’s not how engines work! And I think it really says something about the “Prelude” issues that I completely forgot why Wheelie was down an arm for a solid five seconds.

It turns out that Orion was the narrator the entire time, which I should have known- since when is the once and future Optimus Prime not the primary voice in any media he appears in?

It’s looking rough for the fellas, but luckily we’ve got to get the plot rolling, so the Lost Light VZZZZTs into existence and picks up the Skyroller to place it gently into its belly.

Orion isn’t exactly jazzed about the fact that Rodimus didn’t listen to what he told him, not even bothering to thank the guy for saving his life. I say y’all keep going on your Thunderclash Quest and leave this ungrateful loser behind. No space yachting for you, Orion.

The rest of the Pax Posse enter the Lost Light proper, and Hardhead reveals that he nearly joined the Quest, before he saw who all would be coming with, while Garnak has a tearful reunion with Rodimus. The fact that he’s calling him Sir- which I don’t recall him doing in Transformers (2009), at least not in a way that seems reminiscent of an unfortunate Antebellum Period Romance- feels rather weird, but I’m glad someone’s fucking happy to see Rodimus at least. Ultra Magnus asks Orion if he’ll be assuming command of the vessel, as Rodimus tries not to look horrified by the thought alone, but fortunately Orion’s not going to pull his “I’m Optimus Prime and I Can Do What I Want” Card just yet.

Smash cut to the bridge, as Rodimus tries to make himself sound competent, when Starscream calls. Orion doesn’t like that Starscream has their number, Perceptor almost reveals the fact that this ship technically doesn’t belong to a faction, likely due to being purchased after the war, and Cyclonus gets brought in for his professional opinion.

As it turns out, that early sunrise isn’t a sunrise at all, but a portal to the Dead Universe. This is a problem, because the Dead Universe really sucks, and you don’t want to go there, especially if you enjoy being alive. Orion seems more concerned about the fact that Starscream is ruling the planet, and Bumblebee is nowhere to be found.

Speaking of Bumblebee, he and all his camp buddies are psyching themselves up for a confrontation.

Swoop, please, this is hardly the time for crudeness.

The Dinobots, sick of Bumblebee’s dithering about, decide they’re going to fight the fucking sun and gear up. Prowl, though generally disliking their brand of problem-solving, does share his begrudging respect of their can-do attitude.

Their can-do attitude over fighting the fucking sun.

Then an earthquake happens and the ground rips open to reveal that Titan that Waspinator showed up with.

Shockwave takes over the narration at this point, and we get artsy, as we see events that haven’t transpired yet over musings on the nature of... time? Maybe? It would be in line with Roberts’ go-to topics, but honestly the whole thing’s kind of vague so I couldn’t give you a solid answer. Shockwave gets awfully introspective for a guy who shouldn’t care, I know that much. The point is, he is inevitable and is super good at logic and science.

Also, Nova Prime and Galvatron are back, which is cool, I guess. Not sure where Galvatron had gotten to exactly after the events of “Chaos”, but he’s back now, so it doesn’t matter too terribly much. Shockwave serves them, which we’ll probably get an explanation for at some point.

God, you can practically taste the desperation to pin all these plot points together before the entire thing implodes on itself.

[dogbearinggifts]

I wonder how many people who treat stringent content moderation and cancel culture as civilization’s first, last, and only line of defense against a world of widespread misogyny and racism understand how many of their favorite bits of entertainment would be unacceptable by today’s standards. 

And no, I’m not talking about books written in 1884, when Mark Twain could drop the n-word more often than a hyperactive squirrel with paws coated in butter would drop an acorn and have no one bat an eye. I’m not talking about movies released in 1961, when a white actor could play a racist caricature of a Japanese landlord to widespread praise from critics. I’m talking about 2006. 

That year, Markus Zusak gave us The Book Thief, an eerily beautiful coming-of-age book set in Nazi Germany whose virtues would be drowned out by the flood of trigger warnings modern gatekeepers would attach to it. Opening with the death of Liesel’s brother (tw:death, tw:child death, tw:parental abandonment) it includes a loud, abrasive foster mother (tw:abuse, tw:child abuse, tw:verbal abuse, tw:mental abuse) who is portrayed as a headstrong protector of her family (tw:abuse apologism) and the Jew they hide in their basement (tw:white saviorism), as well as a meek foster father who kowtows to his wife’s ways (tw:domestic abuse) and teaches Liesel to roll cigarettes (tw:smoking). It’s narrated by Death (are there even enough trigger warnings for that?) who, rather than condemn characters who have embraced Hitler and Nazism, points to the bitterness, grief, and misinformation catalyzing their fervor (tw:Nazi apologism). 

For those of you readying a barrage of rebuttals to that summary, scrolling down to the comments to tell me that I stripped the book of any nuance—that’s the whole point. The Book Thief is a very nuanced story that conveys its message in shades of grey. Few characters are wholly good or wholly evil. Death is a neutral figure, condemning the horrors of war while pitying those who fight it no matter their side, portraying the nightmarish consequences of hatred while showing the reader how it is born. But since when has nuance ever mattered to someone riding high on a wave of righteous anger? 

Moving on, 2006 was also the year My Chemical Romance released The Black Parade, which sees Death (tw tw tw) telling the story of The Patient, a man whose life was filled with war, depression, political unrest, PTSD, religious guilt, self-loathing, broken relationships, and near-constant suicidal ideation—a life that ends in his thirties from heart complications due to a long, painful, emotionally draining battle with cancer. Millions of depressed kids, teens, and adults have found catharsis in the album’s raw, honest lyrics, but those same lyrics would earn the band a #CancelMCR hashtag today. To wit: 

Another contusion, my funeral jag/Here’s my resignation, I’ll serve it in drag: Mocking drag queens and men who crossdress. Using a very real expression of gender identity for shock value. Blatantly transphobic. 

Juliet loves the beast and the lust it commands/So drop the dagger and lather the blood on your hands Romeo: Toxic relationship. Probably violently abusive. #DumpThePatient, lady, and #MCRStopRomanticizingAbuse. 

Wouldn’t it be grand to take a pistol by the hand?/And wouldn’t it be great if we were dead?: Oh my fucking god, they’re romanticizing suicide now? How was this album even allowed to be made? Who let this happen and how soon can we #cancel them? 

If you’ve heard the album, you know none of the above interpretations are remotely true. You’ve probably shaken your head at the Daily Mail’s infamous claim that My Chem promoted self-harm and suicide, but the sad truth is that if The Black Parade were released in today’s climate, that claim would probably be taken up by the very people who now consider themselves fans. The raw honesty that resonated with so many could easily be taken as a stamp of approval on the very suicides its songs have prevented. The anti-suicide anthem, “Famous Last Words,” could be ignored or twisted into a mockery of those who condemn suicide, and the darkly wholesome “Welcome to the Black Parade” music video would likely be taken as enticement toward teens who want to end their lives: “Look at all the cool things you’ll get to see once you’re dead and gone!” 

Again, anyone who is even a casual fan of The Black Parade knows this is a deliberately malicious misreading of the material. My Chem’s music has been gratefully embraced by LGBTQ+ kids looking for a place to belong, and the band members have been outspoken in their support. They’ve been quoted, on multiple occasions, speaking out against suicide and self-harm. We know Parade is not pro-anything except pro-keep on living. But we know this because we gave the band a chance to tell us. We assumed good intent when we listened to their music, and so their intended message came across without interference. Were Parade released today, in the era of AED (Assume the worst, Exaggerate the damage, and Demand outsized retribution), the resulting furor (and refusal to hear their objections to the rampant misinterpretations) could very well have forced My Chem to vanish into obscurity. 

And look. I’m not against content moderation wholesale. I actually think it’s done some good in the world of entertainment. Podcast hosts and book reviewers who warn audience members about triggering content allow them to avoid that content before they suffer an anxiety attack. As a librarian, I have personally and enthusiastically recommended Does the Dog Die?, a website (doesthedogdie.com) that tracks hundreds of anxiety triggers in media, to colleagues who work with kids so they can allow their students to request a different book or movie if the assigned one would cause undue distress. Trigger warnings can prevent anxiety attacks. Content moderation allows audiences to make informed choices. 

But some things are toxic in high amounts, and when it comes to content moderation, we’ve long since passed that mark. 

When trigger warnings are used not as honest labels of content, but as a means to frighten people away from material they might otherwise enjoy, trigger warnings become toxic. 

When self-appointed content moderators tell others what interpretations they should take from a piece of entertainment, rather than allowing them to come to their own conclusions, content moderation becomes toxic. 

When artists are afraid to produce their most honest work for fear their honesty will be twisted into something dark and ugly, the world of fandom becomes toxic. 

Content moderation is not bad in itself. It can actually be a valuable tool for sufferers of anxiety, PTSD, and other disorders. But when it goes hand in glove with cancel culture, it becomes a monster, keeping audiences from discovering something they might otherwise enjoy by twisting the content into something it’s not. 

By all means, tag your triggers. Warn about your content. But don’t tell your followers to expect something horrible that isn’t even there. 

[soyosauce]

Cyberpunk 2077: Is This To Be An Empathy Test?

Cyberpunk 2077 is an adaptation and extrapolation of the popular tabletop pen-and-paper role-playing game Cyberpunk, originally published in 1988. The video game uses an extrapolation of the setting and Interlock system, translated to video game format.

When I finished the game, credits rolled. And rolled. And rolled. More than 15 minutes went by.

Now, days later, as I reflect on more than 70 hours of playtime, Cyberpunk 2077 feels like many people have had their hands in the pie. Its strengths and weaknesses stem from its massive ambition, marketing, and promises.

Different Experiences

I played CP2077 on a Ryzen 7 3700x with 32 gigs of RAM and an RX 2700 GPU. I was able to get around 35 FPS at 1440p without noticeable drops (except when looking in mirrors), and I played on ultra-settings without ray tracing on. I began playing it with the rest of the PC consumers with the day 1 patch.

As a crafted experience, I can say that it is the most impressive looking game I've ever played, and my playthrough seems to be a fortunate one, with maybe a handful of glitches or bugs across the entire 70 hours. None of which were remotely game-breaking. I was never unable to progress in the story. I never had a crash. The most annoying thing I experienced was sometimes crosshairs from a gun would continue to stay onscreen after it was holstered.

I mention this because I think a major component of why I come away with a positive experience is because my computer could deliver the intended experience. And Cyberpunk 2077 is unrivaled in its execution of a funneled narrative. Characters and environments have never felt more genuine and cinematic.

The sound design is some of the best I've heard, and it's perfect in every aspect of the game. From the sound of a throaty exhaust to the scraping of metal-tipped hands against hardwood, the sound is superb and adds to the immersion.

 The World

With a setting as old as Cyberpunk, there will be consumers who are familiar with the setting and have a grasp on the worldbuilding. For the uninitiated, however—of which, I think most customers will be—the aesthetic and gameplay elements the marketing team used in advertisements will be the primary hook. The game doesn’t go out of its way to communicate that it is anything more than that, either.

What was most compelling about Night City was the meticulous detail and care devs clearly put into every nook and cranny of the city. Distinct and disparate, no part of it feels reused or like its filler. It is the most gorgeous and well-realized environment I've encountered in a video game.

Yet the gangs, fixers, and side jobs located within it feel one dimensional when viewed from a macro, worldbuilding perspective.

Typical fixer missions are varied enough and have different small bits of story, but usually just elucidating that specific mission and its characters. You’ll find little bits of lore some of the time, which augment the siloed stories, but often don’t give a wider context to help situate the faction you’re interacting with.

The gangs seem to have a central theme, but I never learned why they were actually there from a worldbuilding perspective, beyond the fact that the game wants you to be looting and shooting.

Culturally, the gang elements are too often a pastiche and don’t feel real. They have scripted lines that are often dehumanizing and feel unrealistic. Some of them don't even make any sense. They'll find a dead body and start yelling for you to come out, "cunt", or some other misogynistic pejorative. How do they know it's a woman? Making them all say and act that way feels so cheap, encouraging you to take them out because they're demonstrably “bad” people. And it doesn’t matter what kind of mission it is. Context doesn’t matter.

With the bits of lore you’ll find all over the place (often repeated), it feels like a missed opportunity to not humanize and characterize the gang identities as a whole; even if you are spending most of your time mowing them down, at least you’d come to understand why the city is the way it is and what its general makeup is better than just knowing which gang claims which area of the city.

The world feels overly concerned with aesthetics that the player never gets context for, so it feels like a caricature used for aesthetic purposes only.

For instance, Arasaka, the megacorporation controlling/running Night City, has a highly traditional, tyrannical, Japanese businessman who has had his life extended with cybernetics. He’s over one hundred years old and controls Arasaka with an iron fist. The inference on my part is that locations in Night City with heavy Asian aesthetics are there because of this megacorp’s influence. But it still feels strange because, in other lore given, the city has been run by other corporations not that long ago and had other cultural influences asserted. So why is Little China, Japantown, and Kabuki a weird pastiche and the only place that seems to assert its cultural influence on the city? When you enter other areas, they don’t look like they’re trying to recreate foreign cultures. Is it because of the Arasaka influence? Possibly, but I never found any lore that explained it. Visually, this aesthetic dominated my playthrough.

The result is a siloed microworld that feels like it might be there simply to justify some of the predominantly Asian gangs, who seem to be basically just cyberized yakuza and come up fairly often in fixer missions. The main story also springboards off some of these locations, so the game really wants this look to make an impression on the player.

When you explore in-depth, all of the interactable, consumable portions of the city have a faux quality because you can only look at them. Sometimes you can buy food from a couple of vendors and clothes, but everything exists solely to be interacted with in a hyper-specific way, rather than extrapolated from a perspective divorced from what would be merely aesthetically interesting and actually realistic enough to let V feel like a character that is a part of this world.

You can sleep with and date a few different people, depending on your gender presentation, but the relationship's extent beyond that varies. There are some texts between characters, but you don't get to, say, go home and do anything with them. Their interactions with you in person are the same as though you had phoned them.

You can talk to people on the sidewalk, but they have a regurgitated one-liner and then go back to what they're doing. You can't go up to a gang member and talk to them because once they see you, they’ll attack you if you get too close.

The only things that feel genuinely next level are the prescriptive story elements. And that's okay! It just doesn't jive with the level of detail or how much you think you'll be able to interact with things when you first see them. Marketing makes it seem like the world at large may be something you can interact with, but those all end up being the curated narratives.

Because the worldbuilding framework is from a first-wave cyberpunk perspective, unfortunately, pitfalls like techno-orientalism are prevalent.

The themes around the commodification of those things that make us human, from our body, faith, and art, are all interesting themes present in the genre—but here they are skewed toward fetishizing minorities and subcultures, just as first-wave cyberpunk texts tended to do.

V is ostensibly a cyberpunk and it follows that they would be a part of the same subgroup as the minorities who are underrepresented and lacking nuance in the CP2077 world, but V is actually traversing the story with their only integration into a subculture being that they’re a mercenary. With few exceptions, they all seem to not really share punk values, either. Some take jobs from corps (you certainly can if you want), some don’t like the corps but aren’t particularly anti-establishment or pro direct action. Most just seem to hang out at a bar. You don’t hear about what they do on the news or in the world. You don’t get jobs from fixers that are ideologically aligned with being punk. And you don’t integrate with any other subcultures when out of the main narratives.

The exploitation of people and the world's general themes and sensibilities still feel firmly rooted in the late 80s, early 90s. It is not aware enough to fully realize an actual subculture or even the dynamics of criminal elements in the city, so it frames the story from a mainstream perspective for mass appeal.

The problem is that, with so many people consuming the game, this becomes the default that those consumers will adopt. It has a responsibility precisely because it is so popular and will become a part of the general intellect. Rather than be progressive with its themes and push mainstream depiction of cyberpunk to something in line with what can be found in literature today, it is regressive.

Ultimately, the worldbuilding is the most disappointing aspect of Cyberpunk 2077. The main narratives, however, are a different story.

 Story

Arguably, the most important thing for a role-playing game experience is the story. In 2077, you play V, a mercenary on the edges of society trying to make it big in Night City. In classic cyberpunk genre fashion, a chance at a big score drops into your relatively inexperienced hands, and you seize it. A heist is planned; it doesn't go as planned—and Johnny Silverhand, a long-dead anarchist and misogynistic jerk—basically a proto-typical embodiment of 70’s rock ethos—ends up in your head. He has his own agenda, and V can either go along, get along, or make their own decisions about what to do next. For the most part.

The story beats are as meticulously crafted as corners of Night City. The character animations are the most advanced I’ve ever seen—: they’ll smoke a cigarette for a portion of the conversation, stub it out, then get up and pace nervously while delivering their lines. Their emotions will be written on their face and flow naturally. They'll touch items or other people in the scene. They look and act like real people and sound like it too.

There’s a 4-part storyline with a trans character in which you just won’t ever learn their story unless you talk with them and earn their trust. You can go through the whole narrative and help them out (or not), and never learn much about them. But if you spend the time and ask questions, you'll always get something from these storylines, even if they initially seem to be just another gig on the map.

Because the game's worldbuilding, including in-game ads, is blind to its own defaultism, stories like this are absolutely vital. I wish there were more of them and I hope the free DLC forthcoming are things like this.

2077 is populated with genuine, human moments. They communicate why you should care about the city and the people you encounter. And most importantly: these moments define V as much as the main storyline.

Whether intentional or purely a byproduct of how each facet of the game was developed, these stories augment the play experience a tremendous amount.

What I remember most is finding out if Johnny can, and will, actually change or if he's just trying to manipulate me, discovering how my decisions alter the way he interacts with me, and going down a rabbit-hole, sex trafficking narrative that initially feels a bit too archetypical, only to have it morph into a multi-part story that rooted V's narrative in an emotional and impactful way.

These are the stories that you can actually, meaningfully change. And because I did them all before the main storyline, they all felt like they meshed well with my V’s overall story.

Of course, you could do the main story right away and then go back and do these side stories. I think the experience would be quite different because of the knowledge and relationship you have with Johnny at the end of the main story experience, though.

The main storyline has multiple endings; I've experienced four of them, and they all deliver fairly well on expectations. These endings do not consider anything that isn’t a main or side job, which is labeled as such in your log. Your relationships with the main characters do change the endings slightly, but they don't change the overall outcomes for V and Johnny. This made the game's main attraction for me the fleshed-out side narratives and a few other mysterious side jobs that crop up without a fixer giving them to you.

These other stories were more enjoyable because I felt like I really mattered and could actually mess them up. The main storyline is only preoccupied with whether or not you did X and, if so, you can see the Y ending. It felt like it had lower stakes.

 Conclusion

I do feel like 2077 is a new way to consume an immersive role-playing video game experience. It's unfortunate and unfair to many people that multiple promises the game makes cannot be fulfilled unless they can experience it on a particular platform (with a fairly sizeable amount of money in the investment). A decent computer to play it on is the best way, and it’s expensive if you want to max out absolutely everything. Next-generation consoles aren't even optimized for it yet. Last generation consoles are struggling. Crashes, bugs, poor textures, and framerates.

What is Cyberpunk 2077 when it can’t replicate the ideal delivery for its desired experience?

So much of what made the experience singular and noteworthy for me comes down to how life-like and human the people I came to care about the most in the game looked and acted. Take that veneer away, and the cracks in the façade appear.

Doing most of the side content before the main jobs gave my V a meta-narrative: they were a ruthless killer that would do pretty much whatever a fixer asked of them. Those were the expectations set by the world outside of the story. But then V morphs into a person confronting that life, questions who they want to be, and what it takes to thrive in Night City when you hit the main narratives. That’s why I had a positive experience. And that’s why I’ll return to the city and do things differently.

Ironically, Cyberpunk 2077's overall game experience relies on technology to build empathy between the player and the main cast. Yet, the world outside of the main narrative denies that same empathy to the denizens and factions it populates Night City with. If the platform you’re playing on can’t effectively utilize the demanding Red Engine developed for Cyberpunk 2077, the most likely outcome is an experience devoid of the only substantive thing it has to offer.

[whirlybirbs]

✶  ---  THE DESERVED SWEETNESS.  

summary: bucky picks up coffee for you both one morning. pairing: post-endgame!bucky x gender neutral reader, est. relationship rating: t for some fluff + kisses + bucky’s mental health a/n: it’s about time i wrote tooth rotting fluff for buck about coffee, huh?

He doesn’t like tea. Coffee, though, is good.

It has to be black. Maybe one sugar if he’s feeling uncharacteristically optimistic about life -- maybe if he’s not drowning at the bottom of Panic Bay, chained to a cinderblock of guilt by the swells of past-life haunts; maybe if he feels deserving of something sweet for once.

It’s not often, but today is one of those days.

He likes his coffee hot -- hot enough to scald his tongue and remind himself he’s alive.

He read about a condition on the internet once -- Cotard's syndrome, where you think you’re dead or rotting or not real. He found the idea of a putrefying soul to be awfully symbolic; that’s how he felt all those years ago, braindead and better off dead. He was a walking tool, pumped full of hatred and benzodiazepines and worthlessness and amphetamines. He was nothing but a rage filled corpse on a choke chain with nothing to live for but the peaceful sleep of a deep freeze.

... Coffee.

The barista is staring.

Bucky Barnes blinks, clearing his throat as he muscles his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans and speaks slowly.

“Uh, a large hot coffee, one sugar,” his focus darts to the menu, dark eyes narrowing as his face twitches into one of concentration as he recalls your order from memory, “And, uh, a small iced salted caramel mocha, almond milk, no whip.”

The two coffee orders couldn’t be more different -- he figures that’s poetic, too, like the whole corpse-soul thing, but more romantic. A lot more romantic. He shakes his head and pays, pulling a pained, tight-lipped smile as he lingers by the pick-up counter.

You’re a lot like your drink order. Sweet and full of nuances. You’re familiar to him, like the words of the order, and the times he’s heard it roll right off your tongue like a laugh stick with him.

You’re patient -- though that doesn’t necessarily reflect in a coffee order, but it does in the way you always make sure he has room to breathe during the morning rush at the cafe, the way never fret when you hold his metal hand, the way you ask if you he wants to step out for fresh air when the small space gets too small. You don’t look at him different when he takes you up on the offer, you don’t pity him like some wounded stray, when he needs space.

You just greet him with a smile as sweet as a salted caramel mocha, offering his coffee and a kind touch of the hand.

It was a madhouse in there.

You validate his anxieties and treat him like he’s human, and after years of feeling anything but, he drinks it like up like he’s got a caffeine addiction.

(He does have one. You do, too. Hence his eight o’clock coffee run while you’re still in bed two blocks down from the cafe, tangled in the sheets. He knows you’ll need it as much as him in an hour.)

"Two coffees for... uh, Becky?”

If you were here, you’d be in stitches.

Bucky, with a casual nod to the barista, gathers the drinks and heads out the door -- into the fray of the modern world.

He’s gotten better at living in it, really, but it is hard to not be on ice and passive in this life. Steve gets it -- but Steve’s not Bucky and Bucky’s not Steve and they’re both super-soldiers out of time but they’re different.

Steve isn’t skittish. Bucky is.

Habit had him feeling like he was always two beats from up and running -- even as a full-time Avenger.

You changed that.

He turns up the steps of your building, taking two of them at a time. He juggles with the coffee in the lobby, punching the button for the fifth floor with his elbow. The routine of this moment is something he’s used to -- but, with having been gone these last two weeks on a mission with Sam... He missed it.

He missed you.

You wake to three soft raps of metal knuckles on your apartment door.

You sit straight up, bed-head hair like a halo as confusion pours off you -- that sound is one you know well, one you cherish, one that has you feeling like one of Pavlov’s dogs. You spring up, falling on the way to the sound as you scramble with excitement.

You pull the door open so fast, Bucky feels the air move.

Your face is glowing with a pure sort of happiness that makes him regret ever hating himself. It clears out the soul-rot, burns out the wallowing self-pity. Your smile is a panacea for every ailment in the book, starting with his emptiness.

Your eyes bounce across him. His smile is sweet, like the small salted caramel mocha in his hands.

“You’re... You’re back...?”

Bucky supplies a sheepish chuckle. You’re a mess, hair wild and t-shirt hiked over your hips. There’s a dark ring of slept-in mascara under your eyes, one sock missing from your feet.

“Yeah. I was gonna call, but --”

"You know I like surprises.”

It rushes out in an awed breath.

Bucky nods.

“A-And coffee?”

“The barista called me Becky,” he mutters, “So I hope it’s worth it.”

His face is coy as you let him in, closing the door and following him to the counter with the sweetest smile in the world. He places the drinks down and shrugs off his jacket.

Time stops when he turns around and you catch him in an excited, thankful kiss -- he feels whole again, like he’s seeing the sun after a week of rain. Bucky can’t help but laugh, lips curving upwards as you snake your arms around his neck and mimic his smile; his hands scale your ribs, happily finding the curves there.

He lifts you, then, easily, and props you up on the counter.

“Did y’ miss me?” he asks in a rush of confidence, moving between your legs and drumming his fingers on the counter. His blue eyes are warmer than usual, lacking their usual echoes of nightmarish memories. This morning, they’re like a clear summer sky.

You drop your head back as you laugh -- it’s like thunder on a summer evening. Your fingers pass along his jaw, scaling the stubble there and winding into the stray strands that have escaped his bun. 

“Yeah,” you mumble, swinging your legs, “I did.”

The touch is reverent.

He moves at the same time you so, pulling away to take a long sip of your respective coffees.

Bucky watches with a smile playing at his lips, eyes drinking in the action like he’s trying to memorize it. It’s sugary sweet, like the coffee.

When you kiss him again, you taste like a salted caramel mocha.

He doesn’t mind in the slightest.

[richukisbb]

Hc of dad!Chris rn please. Its soft boi hours and a bitch is in her Chris feels again

I had this drafted and then deleted it and it was long so I was bummed I lost all the material

Anyways

Dad!Chris Let’s Go

“What do you mean pregnant? How did that even happen?”

“You want a play by play or something?”

“Oooh no, I see.”

Chris would be in shock but naturally be so happy

He’s a supportive dad, especially with having younger siblings, he knows how to take on that father role

He goes to all your doctor appointments and tries to convince the guys to take a year break at least?? Like just so he can really be here for the pregnancy

But of course, there’s the few concerts and festivals that have to be held

He wants to miss the concerts and the signings and the promo stuff

But you don’t allow it Bc our boys are CNCO not CUTO (damn that was supposed to be cuatro) ✊🏼

So you promise to FaceTime him during any appointments he misses and whenever he’s free

He calls frequently like “what I miss?”

And you’ll show him your belly but it’s still flat because you’re only three months in...

“The size of a peach or something ?? I don’t know Chris.”

When he is around during appointments, he’s more excited about the visits than you are.

he’ll start listing off baby names

“What about Christopher Velez Jr.?”

“Uuuuh no...”

“How about after the boys?”

“Noooo”

Then the doctor is like “wanna know the sex of your baby?”

“Bet it’s a boy.” You state

“I think girl.” Chris smiles and rubs your belly.

“Wait... can you write it down actually?” You ask. “We can find out with our families. Put it in a cake or something.”

Chris nods and then y’all plan the sickest baby showerrrrrrrrrrr

It’s decked out in the pinks and blues. Cute baby themed things. And you wanted it to be intimate but with how large your families and chosen families are, it was a huge ordeal. (disclaimer: okay I know that baby showers are super traditional and confining to two things when gender is a spectrum but that’s why this is a sex reveal and even then I know there’s a whole other nuance with that. Yes. Yes. I get it. But let me live because I think Chris would love to have something like this and this is my HC soooo we’re rolling with it)

Richard and I show up and Richard would dead ass get your baby Versace onesies. I’d be like “I told him the baby’s gonna just spit up on it anyway but he didn’t care.” (Also insetting myself into this HC because I wanna be there too 🥺)

I slipped Goodnight Moon into the giftbag. You’re having a cultured and stylish baby thanks to the Camachos.

YA WELCOME ✊🏼

Joel gets y’all this multifunctional changing table, that can also weigh your baby. Buys them also only Nike gear

Erick’s gift includes a bunch of stuffed animals and this sick mini Escalade but wtf baby can’t fit in it yet??

But Erick is like “one day they will!!”

Zabdiel pitches in for the crib because he knows sleep is important.

So you and Chris are holding two balloons that are filled with colored confetti and on three you POP them

Cheers fill the air

💕💙💕💙💕💙💕💙💕💙💕💙💕💙

Pinks and blues flutter throughout the air

You’re both super confused

We all are

“Que??” Chris says.

So you check the letter the doctor stuffed the reveal in and it said “congratulations on twins. A boy and a girl”

“We’re having twins!!!”

Chris is crying at this point

So are richard and Erick

Alright let’s fast forward because I digress a little bit

The twins are the best thing in chris’ life, along with you

I feel like he’d get along great with kids because he’s got a child like essence and loves to laugh at life

Definitely posted on IG story your son falling down because your daughter pushed him

You call him out on it

And he’s just “he got up!! He’s okay!”

He’s super supportive of all their goals

One day your son wants to play futbol but the next wants to bake?

Chris buys both your sons’ cleats and a confetti cake mix

Your daughter has band practice on one end of town but gymnastics on the other? He’s driving there no question.

Chris is super attentive and there when you or the kids need him. No doubt.

And now I need a Dad!Chris. He’d make a great father. I think they all would 💕❣️❣️❣️

[the-entity-down-the-street]

Flutterby, Butterfly

Hey everyone, I’m back! I took a break from tumblr for a while, and while I might post less from now on, I figured now was the time to come back. Today I have something a little different. A story I wrote about coming to terms with my gender identity! It’s framed as me having a conversation with my own soul. It’s my hope that someone who has had similar experiences might find comfort in reading it. However, trigger warning, because there is a very honest discussion about my experiences with dysphoria and body problems in general. It’s a bit graphic and anatomical. I’ll put the story under the cut so you can skip it if you prefer. For everyone else, enjoy! 

We met somewhere dark. Not dark in the physical sense. Light filtered in through the bedroom window like any normal day. Pale sunshine like pastel prison bars shone through the blinds. I’d been here for weeks. Or months. Who knew anymore?

My friends, save one, had left me for their own homes. Not that I blamed them. This was a dead town without the university’s typical buzzing student body. The lifeblood had been supped dry. Of course, it wasn’t very exciting anywhere else either. We were suffering in the world’s most mundane and boring catastrophe. Locked away in our homes, quietly terrified, numbed in our isolation. This was where we met.

I had been cleaning the gunk off my soul. What else was there to do? After peeling away the rot of old habit, scrubbing away the mold of toxic friendships, and pulling at parasitic thoughts, I thought the work was done.

And yet.

Something was off. Beneath the grime was someone I didn’t want to recognize.

“Hello again,” they said. “Are you done hiding from me?”

“You’re a side-effect,” I told them. My body issues were the last bit of junk to tackle. I thought I’d settled them as I got healthier, but isolation and recent weight gain had done me no favors.  “Once I’m back in shape, you’ll go away.”

They sauntered over to the bed and plopped down. Fresh, clean, and naked, they moved like someone who had never known restriction. “Is that so?”

“Of course. I just want to be thin.”

“And flat,” they said, gesturing to their chest. I envied their beauty. Lithe, fit, and androgynous.

I crossed my arms. “Insecurity isn’t an identity. I’ve always hated my boobs.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know. They’re flabby. Gross. They don’t fit on me.”

“Would you be happier if they were perkier?”

“I mean—”

They sat up. “Or do you push them out of the way when you look in the mirror, even when you’re skinny?”

My mouth pressed into a hard line. What could I say? Countless timed I found myself squeezing them into my armpits, squishing them against my ribs, blocking them out with my hands. I measured the beauty of my naked body by how I looked without them. Even chubby I’d push them out of the way to feel better about myself. We both knew what they were trying to tell me.

“I’d like to be flat-chested. Big deal,” I said, at last. “Body preference isn’t an identity. I’m still a girl.”

“Is that why you fantasize about having a hysterectomy?”

“Hey, nobody likes their period. It’s messy. It hurts. I get bloated.”

“You get womanly,” they said.

“Ugh, don’t say it like that. That’s just weird.”

They shot me a smirk, like I’d proven their point. “Disgusting, isn’t it? You’re so uncomfortable you barely want to put your clothes on.”

I turned on my heel away from them. “Pads feel like diapers.”

“And tampons are so much worse,” they added. I agreed. That cotton between my legs made me too aware of my own body for comfort. “Remember when you were on the ring? And you could skip your period? Felt natural, didn’t it?”

“Until I got bloated and lost my sex drive.”

“Yeah, that sucked. It was like being hacked from the inside. No wonder you avoided hormonal birth control for so long.”

I had. I even tore up my womb with that copper torture device to avoid it. Part of me hoped it would perforate my walls so the doctors would have to perform a hysterectomy. That didn’t help my case, I realized.

“No, it doesn’t,” they agreed. “Getting your tubes tied was the right choice.”

The right choice. That was one way of putting it. Everyone knew I was staunchly childfree, and I was solidifying that staunchness with a snip. I told myself the two months of euphoria after was just a sense of personal accomplishment. Of freedom. Of finally having bodily autonomy.

I always got a little rush from changing my body. Haircuts, dye, new piercings, tattoos, whatever little modification I could afford to make my body feel like mine. Yet nothing compared to what that surgery did for me. It wasn’t a rush. It was an awakening. It was…

“You. You disconnected from womanhood,” they explained, moving their fingers in a snipping motion. “That’s why it felt so good. Nothing hits like gender euphoria, baby.”

“But I like girly things. Make-up. Jewelry. Pretty dresses.”

“Never said you didn’t. Style isn’t an identity.”

Oh. I faced them, defeated. “Then what is my identity? Where is it?”

They stood up and approached me. Sea green eyes saw straight into me. Because they were mine. “You’re looking at it. Where am I?”

“Inside me.”

“Exactly,” I told myself. “I’m not part of your garbage. I’m not an issue. What am I?”

“…You’re my soul.” The moment I said it, I knew it was true. I couldn’t pull or scrub or peel them away. We were the same, yet not. The disconnect between us was slight, deep only as breast tissue and muscle mass, but it was the root of most of my body issues. It was the unease of unbalance. I wasn’t myself yet.

“There you go.”

“But what does that make me? What am I, if not a woman?”

They smiled at me. A sweet, knowing smile. “If you want an honest answer, you’re the purple that falls between the pinks and blues of the world. The shade varies on the hour of course. Sometimes fuchsia, sometimes lavender, sometimes wine, but purple all the same.”

“I was asking for a label,” I said, flatly.

They shrugged. “Take a word and use it. What do you want it for? Others or yourself?’

I thought on that. The answer was both. I wanted to explain myself to others, and I wanted to define myself for myself. Androgynous felt right, but then again, so did genderfluid. Nonbinary was broad, but I kind of liked that. It was an umbrella to cover everything else. All these words were synonyms that described, to different degrees, the nuances of my soul.

“Then use all three,” they suggested. “You’re a writer. Since when do writers use just one word to describe something? Especially something so complex as a person? This gives you wiggle room when explaining it to people. If they don’t understand one, maybe they’ll understand another.”

“Yeah, I don’t think my mom knows what the fuck nonbinary means.”

“But she knows what androgynous is. She knows what feminine and masculine mean. You’ll tell her you’re the balance between them. That’s where you’re happiest,” they explained. “But in the end, no matter what label you pick, they’re all true. You know who you are.”

I did. We did. They did.

Yet I felt my world crumbling. I was sitting alone, naked as my soul, staring in the mirror at someone I wasn’t. The people who knew me didn’t know me anymore. I was an alien in my own life.

I had a sudden burning need to erase my old self completely. I wanted the person I saw inside to be who everyone else always knew, to project them onto their memories. More than anything I wanted my real body. This one had an awkward fit, like I was wearing something from several years ago, and I was squirming in it. It felt… off.

“This feels backwards,” I said. “I’m growing backwards. I’m not growing into myself. I’m cutting myself away. It’s uncomfortable.”

“Has it been comfortable cutting off old friends you’ve outgrown? Has it been comfortable to confront the toxic habits you’ve clung to?”

“No.”

“But it’s been for the best?”

“Yes.”

“Then there you go,” they said. “Sometimes metamorphosis feels like going backwards. Remember when you were little, and you called butterflies flutterbies? That’s you. Right now, you’re the flutterby. You’re dissolving in your cocoon. Do you think that’s comfortable for the butterfly?”

“No.”

“But it’s for the best?” They phrased it like a question, but I knew it wasn’t.

“…Yes.”

“Then let yourself dissolve.”

I sighed. “But then what? Who will I be without my old self?”

They smiled again. “With time, the butterfly.”

[safflowerseason]

(Part 3) 4) also, re: season 7 so far, and keep in mind I’m two episodes in, I don’t even recognise Dan, and to a lesser extent Amy, anymore. I don’t even feel I’m watching Veep anymore, not as it was set out for the first four seasons. Is Mandel known to be the devil or something? What in the frack was this vision of the characters meant to be - ‘evolved’? Or does he just hate them? 5) I hated what he did to the Selina and Amy relationship too. Does Mandel hate women? Is this a known thing?

These are all questions that we’ve been batting around on here since the finale aired in May (which is when I got on Tumblr, incidentally, because I had to take my Veep feelings somewhere.) To a certain degree, there’s never going to be a solid, black-and-white answer to any of them, really. You can read everything David Mandel ever said in public about his vision for Veep, you can close-read what the actors say on press tours…but it’s just not the same as being in the room. And certainly, it’s worth pointing out that all shows evolve, and they gain and lose fans through those changes. No show ends the exactly the same as when it started (although…some shows manage this evolution better than others.) 

So, now that I’ve gotten my neutral disclaimer out of the way, I can get on with the fun ranting. 

4) Dan is absolutely unrecognizable in S7 from how he appears even at the end of S6, barring little flashes here and there. While Amy’s general arc holds together slightly better than Dan’s, she still suffers from some major out of character moments in 7.02, as we all were just discussing recently. (Dan’s arc just makes no sense.) 7.02 is just rough on all counts. Unless you’re an avid Selina/Tom shipper in which case you probably got something out of it. 

Also—and this is a general pet peeve of mine, as a California native—the episode is supposd to take place in Colorado and yet was so clearly filmed in Southern California (they posted a ton of pictures from the ranch where they filmed). Like, there are parts of California that resemble Colorado, but you have to go a little further than Malibu to get there. (I have the same beef with Parks and Rec. It’s so obviously not Indiana.) 

Mostly, what it all boils down to is bad writing. I don’t care if Mandel thought Dan and Amy would never work as a couple. That’s fine. That’s a legitimate opinion. Run your show the way you want, dude. What I do care about is bad writing. It is bad writing when in 7.01, Amy seems intent on having the baby without Dan, and then in 7.02, suddenly Amy wants to pitch Dan a white-picket fences vision of domestic stability that neither of them have ever been particularly interested in. Sex-Psychopath Dan is bad writing because it completely contradicts everything we know about the character even taking S6 into consideration. The Dan we see in S7 would have slept with Leigh Patterson in S4 just because she was young and there and he is apparently a sex-addict, hahahaha, when of course S4 Dan would never be caught dead in the sexual proximity of a nineteen year old he theoretically works with. And yes, of course, characters can change. But you have to show that change, which they do not. 

As for whether Mandel is the devil, (lol)…I think he was just very intent on doing the version of the show he saw in his head, and did not feel very obligated to try and replicate the show that Armando Iannucci had built. He had a completely different sensibility as an artist. I wrote a longer post somewhere on my blog about the differences in their approaches, if you’re interested, but ultimately I think what happened is that two very different universes got mashed together. Mandel didn’t hate the characters…he just thought they were all monsters and that was the point.

Also, two things happened the show couldn’t get away from, for obvious reasons: Trump was elected and the show was on an extended hiatus for 2017 and most of 2018 due to JLD’s cancer diagnosis. In the interim, all of America watched the government begin to melt in real time on Twitter. As a result, David Mandel rebooted the original ending for the show, in order to better capture this new moment in American politics (how effectively he did so is obviously up for debate.) The creative team and the cast were all fairly open about how dramatically Trumpian politics shaped their approach to the final season. So basically Trump is the short-answer reason to why a ton of plot threads get dropped between S6 and S7. I am 99% percent sure that the original plan was for Amy to have the baby before the hiatus and the resulting reboot. (Although at the same time, I do not think Dan and Amy would have gotten a very satisfying ending under Mandel. He also posted some pre-reboot snippets of the original outline for the finale, which have hinted that quite a few things did not change…for example, it seems that BKD was always doomed to be a one-episode plot device designed to get everyone back on Selina’s team, which is stupid.)

5) As for Mandel’s writing of female characters, I feel more comfortable speaking definitively here because in this case, it doesn’t matter what they were thinking in the room, but how it came across on the page and on the screen. Mandel obviously would say he doesn’t hate women, but he’s seems like one of those “liberal” white guys who has a lot of sh*t to work through regarding his own assumptions about women and femininity. He turned Selina into this misogynistic sociopath who abuses every woman in her sight with extremely gendered language, and he consistently punished Amy the character explicitly for not being hot enough or quiet enough or acquiescent enough for a woman. Like, the show always made fun of Mike for being dumb. It did not always make fun of Amy for being ugly and old. Moreover, Mandel/the show basically implies that Amy is a failure as a woman because she’s not maternal and also old and ugly, so she never got to be a mother and she never got to be with the man she truly loved. (sorry, Bill.) (Um, also, the audience has eyes? Anna Chlumsky is neither old nor ugly.)

I find it plausible that Amy and Selina’s relationship deteriorates over time…there is a subtle professional Dan/Amy/Selina triangle at work in S1-S4, and as Amy gets older and starts to figure out what she really wants from her life (and if Dan were the one she was trying to figure it out with), I don’t think Iannucci-Selina would react very well to it. (She would never be as openly abusive as S7 Selina, but I can’t imagine she’d be thrilled if Amy got pregnant just in time for her reelection campaign.) The show also makes it clear that Selina has an extremely complicated relationship with women and feminism, not to mention the fact that Amy herself is not particularly confident in her own body. 

However…there were lots of ways to explore those complex character fault-lines without Selina abusing Amy constantly. She tries to sell her to Leon! Part of it is a complete lack of nuance and part of it is just plain old sexism. 

Veep and the sexism of its later years has also been a pretty big discussion topic within the Veep Tumblr community, and you’ll definitely find posts on it if you poke around more closely (my blog, and also @thebookofmaev has written a lot about it as well.) 

[patheticphallacy]

This is going to be a really difficult introduction to my wrap up.

Unfortunately, on September 18th my dad passed away. He was only 50 years old. I won’t go into details because of how personal it is, but he was in hospital a majority of the month before he passed. I’ve taken a year suspension from University for the time being.

It has been a really difficult time for myself and my family. I’ve turned a lot to books and blogging to offer a way to occupy my mind which is why so many things still seem to be coming out, but I cannot say that this will hold up after the funeral.

As I schedule so many posts, a lot of what came out this month has been written since around mid August and I did not find the time to stop the University posts before they were released. I won’t be deleting them.

I hope you’ll all understand.

THINGS I’VE READ

    An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestley– My sister gave me her copy she used for her GCSE’s. Such a great play with revelation after revelation, left me on the edge of my seat. While I knew the core plot twist, I didn’t predict that ending. 

Mob Psycho 100 Volume 1 by One– This was kind of meh. It’s one of my best friend’s favourites, so I’ll carry it on eventually, but I don’t really feel the urge to pick volume two up just yet. I will say I like how the anime tackles the same events in a different order to save major revelations for backstory– that was really interesting to pick up on. 

I Call Upon Thee by Ania Ahlborn– I really didn’t like this! Lacklustre and very cliched, feel like it doesn’t really offer anything other than annoying ending and characters who go through absolutely no development at all. 

Kissing Tolstoy by Penny Reid– An OK romance that actually has discussions surrounding reading and books that don’t feel forced. I found this easy to read even though I’ve never read any Russian Lit, and I actually want to read it more now. Like that it discusses age gaps and issues of the power dynamic too. 

    Seven Tears at High Tide by C.B. Lee– Finally finished this one, and it only took me 3 months. A very cute and heartwarming story about a boy who makes a wish and falls in love with a Selkie. Does get ridiculous at the end, I must say, but I was happy with the payoff. 

The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O’Neill– Katie O’Neill creates such amazing narratives that have wonderful messages about society and being true to yourself and your wishes, pursuing something that you love and encouraging others to do the same. 

Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin– How can I ever trust a single man or old person after this book? Tell me. 

Please Undo This Hurt by Seth Dickinson– Don’t really rate this short story. It bored me and I hated the main characters, not even in a good way. Just perpetuates the ‘I can save you from your mental illness’ narrative that is dull and overdone by this point. 

    My Hero Academia Volume 20 by Kohei Horikoshi– Gentle Criminal and La Brava was so boring, the School Festival arc was fabulous, and Endeavor finally got his ass kicked! Yay! 

Aphrodite Made Me Do It by Trista Mateer– I have a review of this coming out soon for National Poetry Day in the UK, but if you don’t want to wait, I have a review here!

The Quiet Boy by Nick Antosca– I read this after watching the trailer for Antlers, and I thought it was pretty neat! Very thrilling, although I’m bothered by changes being made in the film that I feel could detract from having Julia as one of the main characters in the film. 

I Am Not Your Final Girl by Claire C. Holland– A collection of poetry centring around fictional women from horror films, exploring their empowerment and agency in a genre and a wider culture and society that seems willing to beat them down until they break. 

Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink– I have a review of this linked later this post! Full of body horror and emotional trauma, this is a really solid read great for fans of the podcast and Welcome to Night Vale. 

    In the Shadow of Spindrift House by Mira Grant– I love this terrible cover! Keep an eye out for my review of this, it’s coming out soon. 

The World’s Greatest First Love Volume 1 by Shungiku Nakamura– The publishing elements and the main character were GREAT, but there is prevalent sexual assault in this that is never addressed and is incredibly insensitive in its treatment, so I don’t recommend this manga. 

Dead Voices by Katherine Arden– I didn’t enjoy this one as much as Small Spaces, but it’s still really freaky and a great middle grade read. I love that Coco gets her own POV in this, too, and that it doesn’t take stereotypical routes with some of its plotlines. 

No One Is Too Small To Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg– This is a collection of speeches Greta Thunberg has made addressing climate change, as well as her own position as an advocate for the cause. Moving and a must read, in my opinion. It’s only £3 in Waterstones at the moment for anyone who wants to pick it up!

    Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury– A fascinating collection of essays written by Bradbury about his writing process and some of the more popular works he’s published. I honestly felt really inspired and motivated after reading this, I highly recommend it especially for creative writers, but just be warned it is very oriented around the white male experience.

Heartstopper Volume 2 by Alice Oseman– I adore Heartstopper and I love this second volume. Great progression in the relationship between Nick and Charlie, and we’re getting to see more outside of their relationship and into their friendships and family dynamics, too. I still love Tori Spring!

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle– Finally got a hold of the MASSIVE audiobook where Stephen Fry narrates all the Holmes stories, and it honestly made the experience so much more enjoyable. I think Doyle’s skill lies more in shorter fiction than longer fiction, I think there’s less opportunity for… not useless, per se, just unneeded waffling. 

Giant Days Volume 9 and 10 by John Allison– These two volumes take place around the tailend of the girl’s second years and follows their accommodation location, the progression (and breakdown) of relationships, and them finally making it to third year intact. I honestly can’t believe there’s only three or four volumes left in this series, its been a constant companion for me since 2016 when I first started and I really don’t want to let it go. 

  No Touching At All and Even So, I Will Love You Tenderly by Kou Yoneda– Of the ‘older’ manga I’ve read that focus on the relationships between two men, these two are definitely in the ‘recommend’ pile. Other than the beautiful names for the volumes and the artwork being really pretty, I really enjoyed the developing relationships and the conversations had about workplace homophobia and ostracization in Japan, although that wasn’t the main focus. They do include some questionable attitudes towards identification of sexuality– two characters in both volumes are probably bisexual or on that spectrum, but are referred to as straight more than once for liking women and only the man they enter the relationship with. It’s complicated, but nothing in either volumes ever feels targeted or hateful, just lacking education on the nuances of sexuality. 

Articles

I found this article about Friends great as it breaks down issues I’ve had with the show for years. I don’t have a lot of attachment to it, honestly, I mostly just put it on in the background, but I think I’ll stop now. I’ve always found the handling of gender and sexuality damaging in Friends, as well as the overwhelming fatphobia.

I really enjoyed looking through this list The Guardian did of the 100 best books of the 21st century. I don’t know why, I’m just a big fan of lists!

Before reading this article, I can honestly tell you I knew nothing about Susan Sontag beyond her name. It’s deconstructing her queerness and how her aversion to accepting her own sexuality ultimately ruled a lot of the work she produced in her life.

God, this article was fascinating. I can’t even tell you what it’s about, really, other than that it’s an interview with Christeene, a punk drag artist who is just really cool, honestly. There are some buttholes for anyone who… wants to avoid butts? Or reading this at work?

There was a massive conversation in August that carried into September regarding the rise in men adopting pseudonyms to get their thriller novels published. This Atlantic article particularly captured the issues I have with men who do this, who are almost trying to fool an audience of women who trust women writers to not approach the suffering of women through a misogynistic lens, as is so common in modern society.

An older article by The New Inquiry, Coming out of the Coffin offers an insight into the fraught relationship between Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde. A really interesting read, I’m just sad I discovered it 7 years after its release!

THINGS I WATCHED

I don’t do music sections on these wrap ups anymore, so I’ll put this here: the GRAACE cover of ‘Complicated’ by Avril Lavigne completely transforms the song and adds such an amazing depth to it

I decided to binge watch Fleabag and it’s most definitely the best decision I’ve made all year. Fleabag follows the titular woman as she navigates her life as a thirty year old woman whose entire life is in flux, and has been since the death of her mother. There’s a lot I could say about this show, honestly. What really stood out to me was how much I could relate specifically to the emotions Fleabag and her older sister Claire feel in relation to each other, and their grief. Seeing them still come back together even after such a significant loss, their dependency, really gives me strength to get through what I’m experiencing at the moment, so Fleabag has been something I can relate to and look at as hope for a future where I can begin to wrap my head around the terrible things going on around me.

THINGS I POSTED

August Wrap Up

TTT: Books Outside My Comfort Zone

50 Bookish Questions Tag

Music I Enjoyed This Summer

Connie’s Personal 101 Guide For Personal Survival of University

Bookshelf Tour Part 3: TBR & More Manga/Comics

Book Review: I Call Upon Thee by Ania Ahlborn

TTT: Books on my Fall TBR

Book Review: Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink

Bookshelf Tour Part 4: CDs&DVDs

If you liked this post, consider buying me a coffee? Ko-Fi. 

Goodreads|Twitter|Instagram|Letterboxd

September Wrap Up This is going to be a really difficult introduction to my wrap up. Unfortunately, on September 18th my dad passed away.

[vmheadquarters]

Twelve years ago today, UPN (RIP!) premiered a cult-classic neo-noir about murder, class warfare, sexual assault, and forbidden love. It was quippy and campy and smart as hell—and it just happened to center on a pint-sized blonde who looked like a cheerleader but thought like Sherlock Holmes. The show was Veronica Mars, and even if the last decade has muddled its legacy with a much-hyped but ultimately disappointing fan-funded follow-up film and, of course, the extremely meh third season, the high school years remain an unparalleled success. Veronica Mars seasons one and two were better than anything that had come before, far surpassed its competition in quality, and set a high bar for future shows that has only barely been met by a few episodes of television here and there. So give my regards to Friday Night Lights (a family show, not a teen show) and Degrassi (please), but Veronica Mars is the best teen show of all time*. 

1. Nuanced Class Conflict

Gossip Girl and The OC did it well, but Veronica Mars did it better. Even though Neptune, CA, is technically fictional, it's as real a place as has ever been portrayed on television. Its particular problems and reputation informed everything from law enforcement (the question of whether or not to incorporate the town into a city and make the sheriff's office into a police department) to the biker gangs riding through on their way up and down the PCH. The levels of privilege/lack thereof were so nuanced and specific. Other shows divide people into the Haves and the Have Nots; on Veronica Mars, everyone has something a little different. At the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder is Weevil, whose background is not only impoverished but criminal; the only community he can "afford" is a gang (though his crew isn't all bad—you'll find nary a broad stroke or generalization in the world of Veronica Mars). In the center of things are Veronica and Keith, who lived comfortably when Keith was sheriff, but have buckled their belts since he became a private eye. On the one hand, they own a small business! On the other, they live in a pretty crap apartment complex and have nowhere near enough saved to send Veronica to college. Then there's the nouveau-riche Echolls', who have all the glamorous trappings of wealth (cars, booze, mansion) and pretty much none of the cultural capital. At the top of the heap are the Kanes; while the Echolls' have enough money to "get away" with murder, the Kanes have enough money to get away with it, cover it up, frame someone else for it, and get the sheriff fired for looking into it. Money problems are basically the least-juicy of TV plots, but by using wealth disparity as a way to develop the characters, essentially building it into the DNA of the show, Veronica Mars created a TV universe just as interesting and complicated as that of Friday Night Lights or Parks and Recreation.

2. Lianne Mars

A girl with a missing mom is a fairy tale trope as old as time, rooted in a deification-of-the-female version of misogyny that I don't have time to get into right now. Suffice it to say, a dead or absentee mother is usually a sign of lazy writing. It's a way to reduce the character count and set a heroine adrift while, not coincidentally, making it so the (usually male) writer doesn't have to think of what a grown woman would think or talk or act like. At first, this is the fate of Veronica's mother, Lianne Mars. She was just conveniently...gone, another casualty of the fallout from the Lilly Kane murder investigation. Her absence lets Veronica be angsty and ill-supervised even as Keith Mars entered the canon of Bestest TV Dads of All Time (which he is! Love Keith forever and ever). But then she came back, with baggage, and the trope was, if not redeemed, at least put to good use. Lianne is an alcoholic who couldn't deal with the disappointing turns life took, and she finally cracked when her husband ran directly into conflict with her lost love Jake Kane, for whom she still pined. Even when she decides she wants to be a mom again, she can't quit being an alcoholic. And as heartbreaking as it is to watch Veronica play the parent, it's also a moment of growth. Veronica realizes—or rather, decides—that she isn't doomed to repeat her mother's mistakes. She is a stronger, better person than Lianne. A person big enough to love her flawed mother, even strong enough to forgive her. In the third episode, Veronica says, "The hero is the one that stays, and the villain is the one that splits." By the end of the series, Veronica has learned what true villainy looks like, and it ain't her mom. Showrunners, take note: This is how you do a realistic redemption story.

3. The Guest Stars and Bit Players

The casting department at Veronica Mars did flawless work. Obviously, the core cast is great, but the semi-regulars and guests are also amazing. There's an entire season devoted to Steve fucking Guttenberg. Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin play the negaverse versions of themselves. Ryan Hansen and Ken Marino do their Ryan Hansen/Ken Marino Shtick, and why shouldn't they? Max Greenfield (a.k.a. Schmidt on New Girl) and Tessa Thompson (from Dear White People and Creed) both had recurring roles long before they were famous, and even Tina Majorino (Mac) and Michael Muhney (Lamb), who didn't really "break out" in a major way after the show, are perfect in their roles. The second (SECOND) IMDb credit for one Jessica Chastain is an episode of Veronica Mars, and of course, Leighton Meester appears in two episodes. Yes, there are other teen shows that feature young actors who went on to bigger, better things, but I maintain that Veronica Mars is notable for encouraging real actors to do real work.

4. The Mysteries Were Smart AF

The show trusted its audience to keep up and pay attention. Maybe even a little too much. In the era before binge-watching and old episodes being able on demand, Veronica Mars suffered from the same issue that plagues the first few seasons of The X Files: Viewers who weren't "caught up" on the season-long mystery arc found it difficult to get into. VM had low ratings throughout its run, and when it used the shift from high school to college to introduce shorter, quicker mysteries, well, we all know how season three went. But looking back, it's clear that the show was ahead of its time, telling smart, twist-y weekly stories while teasing out a longer mystery that deeply impacted the main characters' lives. (Can't you just imagine how they'd advertise the show now? Moody teaser trailers with the tag line "Who Killed Lilly Kane?" and fansites and podcasts devoted to all the clues and hints and easter eggs from every episode?) There are other teen mystery/crime-fighter shows, sure, but they tend to put their characters in immediate peril, which makes the audience ask, "What's going to happen?" Instead, Veronica Mars is an intellectual exercise, evidence and theory based, and the question becomes, "What has already happened, and what does it mean?" That's the kind of meaty writing that inspires, if not legions of fans, a loyal audience to sing its praises. Veronica Mars was so smart it was niche. I'm not making a case for VM as overlooked prestige television, but then again I totally am. WHY didn't it win any Emmys?

5. They Didn't Explain Every Little Thing

See: above "trusting the audience smartness" factor. They didn't explain why sleeping with a "consenting" teenager is still wrong, or why Logan and Veronica went from adversaries to lovers in the space of like, a week, or why money equals power. They got that the audience got it. So, the exact opposite of a show like, say, Secret Life of the American Teenager. There were episodes that touched on privilege and entitlement and infidelity and the abuse of power by law enforcement, but it was subtle and real instead of, you know...Degrassi.

6. The Humor

It wasn't dark and humorous, it was darkly humorous and humorously dark. (Think combining the creepy weirdness of Twin Peaks with the banter of Moonlighting.) Logan's poignant answering machine messages, Veronica's epic takedowns, even Lamb got to be withering and snarky while he systematically fucked over the whole town.The humor kept us invested even when stories dipped into sentimental, Dawson's Creek-esque territory and deflected the romance-y moments that might have turned it into a mystery-style Felicity. Veronica's and Logan's jokes, in particular, also serve a psychological purpose: mask their pain at any cost. Unlike in Gilmore Girls, where every character speaks like a hyper-intelligent stand-up comic and not at all like a teenager or real human being, Veronica and the residents of Neptune make comments that feel true to their characters and relevant to their circumstances. If you watched any episode of Scream Queens and thought, "I guess they're trying to imitate...Scream? Heathers? Clueless? With the smart/bitchy blondes and the snappy comebacks and the eye rolls?" I understand. But actually, they were trying (and failing. Hard.) to do Veronica Mars. Smart sassy cute mean heart of gold flirty clever repartee? Yeah, that's Veronica Mars, and Ryan Murphy, bless his soul, is not Rob Thomas.

7. The Rape Plot(s)

From the very first episode when, in a flashback, golden-haired, white dress-clad Veronica walks, almost in a stupor (have you ever seen a more "perfect" victim?) into the sheriff's office to tell Lamb that she was raped—because she is a good girl and good girls go to the authorities—only to have him, basically, shrug it off, rape and sexual assault were core themes of the show, central to its purpose and story engine. Creator Rob Thomas initially envisioned the story as a YA novel with a male protagonist, and changing the lead's gender to female is arguably the best and most important decision he ever made. Veronica's sexuality is everything. How she flirts her way out of scrapes, plays innocent when it can help her, distrusts it when she's attracted to the "wrong" person, is allowed to enjoy it with Logan and, of course, how her virginity was taken from her one night she can't quite remember. The show takes Veronica's rape seriously as not just a plot point or easy motivation, but as a defining part of her character. She cleans obsessively and looks over her shoulder. She's sensitive to the potential aggressors—and victims—at her school. She knows that her rapist was someone she knew, and she has to live with that mystery every day. But it's complicated. That night she can't remember might have been semi-consensual, but then we learn, no it wasn't. Yes, there's a story about a false rape accusation (against Adam Scott!), but the truth only makes the situation murkier. And in an unfortunately rare move, Veronica Mars also depicts the aftermath of the sexual abuse of boys, including an exploration of how the stigma against male assault survivors re-traumatizes them. (The third season is, in my opinion, a missed opportunity to tackle the campus rape epidemic. By blaming the rapes on a psychological experiment gone awry, the show unfortunately ignores the fact that toxic masculinity isn't a role-playing aberration but a pervasive national issue. But its heart is in the right place, if not its logic.)

8. Veronica

Choker-wearing, dog-owning, private-detectiving blonde badass Veronica Mars. She's most often compared to Buffy, that other crime-fighting cutie with a ragtag army of friends and a ne'er do well love interest, and the comparison is apt. Both possess skills their peers do not and use those skills to solve problems both thrust upon them and sought. But the difference is that in the space that Buffy uses to explore the supernatural, Veronica Mars plays with loyalty and ethics. Is it wrong to snitch on your friends? Is a rumor evidence? Can you break the law to serve a higher good? These are issues Buffy doesn't wrestle with; it's pretty much a given that evil vampires are worth defeating (yes, there are definitely instances when Buffy is tested because she's fallen for a vamp or one of her friends is possessed or whatever, but that's not like, the thing of the show). And while so many other "outsider/observer/new kid" teen show protagonists (Ryan, Dan, Dawson, Lindsay Weir) long to get "in," Veronica's been there. She's been popular, and (a little) wealthy. She's not exploring a new world, she's re-learning her old one. In that she has more in common with Angela Chase, but way less whiny. You watch My So-Called Life and think, I'm totally Angela. You watch VMand think, I wish I were Veronica. When people talk about the strong but vulnerable but smart but flawed but cool but real but beautiful but relatable but empowered but conflicted but modern but iconic but a good role model but not unattainable with a job not defined by that job "interesting" female characters on television, a few names tend to come up again and again: Carrie, Murphy, Ally, Roseanne, Olivia, Dana. To that (very white!) pantheon I humbly submit: Veronica.

*....except for Freaks and Geeks.

[burningthegallows]

i have a lot of reasons to fucking hate jk*, first and foremost of which is her rampant absolutely bullshit misogyny and transphobia.

but the one that always pisses me off, the one that really gets me, is the gd epilogue. that fucking piece of bargain-bin status quo rubbish, that maintaining the patriarchy bit of faff—in a fucking kids’ book, get the fuck outta here with that noise. no novel with an anticipated audience of half a billion, aimed at children, should end with the 16/17 yos getting married and churning out 2.3 babies named after dead people. 

the epilogue is some patriarchal bullshit that she scraped off the bottom of her shoes one day and thought, in the true spirit of Diogenes, ‘behold, a moral.’  

but the most annoying thing about the epilogue — the thing that always, always irks me off — is that i get it. that was the scene that she wrote first. it was that scene that she was writing to over the period of a decade (shit did it really only take her a decade; why does it feel like the wait between books 4&5 was at least that long?). who hasn't accidentally sat down and written the entire structure of a novel (that you’ll never finish), just to get to one astonishingly perfect, visually extant scene from your head onto the page.

(is this still common knowledge btw? im so hot and cold with hp fandom these days; it will always be my favorite sandbox, but it’s very different today than it was when I was cutting my teeth.

*leans back in rocking chair* back in my day, jk* defended her epilogue (which, btw, was also largely understood as a deliberate attempt to undermine fanfic authors with the 19 year gap; she had a virulent relationship with fandom authors) by saying that it’s the first scene that ever came to her, fully formed, and inspired her to write the book. 

nonsense. if it is true, which i hope it isn't, let's just all be grateful to the editors who pulled her manuscript out of the trash, dusted it off, and cleaned up that spare bit of carbon. if it’s not, lets just keep on keeping on: knowing and loving the characters she gave us, who would also fucking hate her bullshit. aaaanyway...).

i wouldn't want to change it either. 

but then again, i’ve never led an audience of millions down a path where the moral is: “if you allow things to needlessly repeat, the nazis will come back. prejudice and bigotry are parts of contemporary society, and should be fought against. TO A POINT. but not to a point where the status quo should be disrupted.” 

At the end of the day, her moral was nazis = bad* *except in circumstances where defeating the nazis might disrupt the heteronormative, cis-gendered lifestyle of the GD WIZARDING WORLD.

A morally bankrupt woman wants to write adult books, but can't, so tries children's. She starts a series with her bad guys as the nazis and then spends a decade backtracking, nail biting, justifying, waffling, in an attempt to introduce nuance. we don't want nuance with the nazis. nuanced nazis are still nazis. 

[shaniahnoel]

Buttercup pt 3/?

A/N: And here we start to see something a little deeper between Sweet Pea and Sophia

Word Count: 2136 (sorry not sorry)

Warnings: Gang violence.. maybe swearing, but I don’t think so.

As always, feedback is welcome!

Part One / Part Two |Part Four

Before students had even started to file in that following Monday, Rachel and Sophia were meeting with Principal Simmons at South Side High. The man was clearly confused as to why somebody with such high standing at the nearby prep school would come to the South Side. Even so, he couldn’t deny that having someone like her in the mix might give the school some more notable achievements. If she makes it, he thought to himself.

Several conference calls and faxes later, the transfer was approved. It was not quite second period and so Principal Simmons offered her the opportunity to begin classes that same day. Rachel looked hesitant, but Sophia smiled.

“No time like the present, Principal Simmons.”

And there was surely no place like South Side High. The school was invariably split three ways: Serpents; Ghoulies; and Sheep, those with no affiliation. Even so, Sophia found herself in a gray area between Serpent and Sheep. Toni had taken to Sophia rather quickly, and a few other Serpents were mildly interested in the new girl, but she wasn’t a Serpent. So, for the last two weeks, she sat alone at lunch observing the masses. To protect her, Fangs and Toni stayed distant at school—it’d have been an unnecessary target for the Ghoulies. Even so she couldn’t help but notice random Serpents trailing behind her, standing at corners while she was at her locker, and she guessed that they were watching her, for Fangs.

Today though she had no escort shadowing her. However, she did have a desperate need to use a bathroom. Still learning the layout of the school, she raced into the nearest one completely missing the Ghost scratched under the label. She stopped dead in her tracks, all need to go passing quickly as she took in the sight before her: two Ghoulie girls stood in the corner of the bathroom. One held the arms of a pink haired girl behind her back, while the other held a knife near her throat.

“Toni!,” Sophia cried, racing forward. The Ghoulie holding the knife turned, raising the knife towards Sophia.  She raised her left arm to deflect the swing, landing her right hand squarely on the girl’s jaw. The other released Toni’s arms and moved to aid her companion. Sophia swooped, effectively flipping the girl over and onto her friend. She grabbed Toni’s arm and pulled her from the bathroom. When they were safely into Serpent halls, Toni brought them to a stop.

“Wher—what—how?” Toni tried to formulate a sensical question about what exactly Sophia had just done.

“Um, well, all Pageants have an athletic or sporty portion to them. My mom got behind my fighting lessons when she realized that it gave me a competitive edge to be ‘breaking gender norms.’ I’ve, uh, I’ve never actually used them in real life though. That was horrifying.”

“You saved me, Soph.”

“I’m glad I was there. What the hell was that?”

“Two Ghoulies, trying to send a message. They found a moment where none of you were around and shoved me in. Then she drew that knife.”

Toni’s hand rose to her throat, rubbing where the knife had pressed. Sophia touched her arm as tears welled in her eyes. She was a strong Serpent and she never shied from a fight, but it was clear she’d never come this close to death and there had been no Serpents to rely on then. The bell rang, startling the pair.

“You think you can handle some lunch? Walking tacos are your favorite.”

Toni nodded weakly and together they entered the cafeteria. The Serpents looked up in surprise to see them walking together, arms around the other’s waist. Sophia turned to depart to her usual loner table, but Toni grabbed her wrist. The eyes around the table widened and Sweet Pea stood to protest as she led her over to sit with them, but South Side Toni was back with a vengeance.

“Shut it, Sweet Pea. She sits here now.”

Everyone looked everywhere but at the stare down between P and Toni. There was a vein in Sweet Pea’s neck going as he weighed exactly how much he was going to let her have it. Before that bomb could go off, however, the Ghoulie girls walked in. A bruise was already forming on the one’s jaw and based on shallow cut up the other’s arm, she’d hit the knife in her landing. Toni straightened her shoulders, ready to meet them, but they looked past her.

“You’ll regret the day you crossed me.” She pierced Sophia with her gaze.

Fear flooded through her body as Sophia realized the weight of what she’d done. A panic attack was brewing, but then she felt Toni’s hand lightly on her wrist and though she couldn’t see it, she knew Fangs had stood up behind her. Even Sweet Pea had turned, his hatred towards Ghoulies outweighing all else. It was enough to push down the panic, and she reflexively spoke.

“That was a hook, not a cross. When you learn the difference, I might be concerned. Might.”

The Ghoulies didn’t expect that response. Every Serpent looked surprised—with Fangs especially concerned. Heck, Sophia herself hadn’t seen that one coming. They walked away, first backwards and glaring but turning away swiftly to go to their group. It was no secret who normally won in a straight-out fight. Sweet Pea watched them for a moment, before giving some hidden signal. All the Serpents stood and headed out of the building into the fenced in courtyard. There he had Toni explain all that had happened.

“You just jumped at a girl with a knife?”

“Northside.”

Sophia was so lost in between reality and panic that she hadn’t realized Sweet Pea was addressing her, until Toni spoke.

“What?”

“You saw a Ghoulie holding a knife to Toni, and you just ran at her?” He asked again, searching her face. Even he didn’t know what he was looking for. Sophia nodded weakly.

“What the hell, Soph!” Fangs voice came out, sounding terrified. “You coulda been killed.”

She turned to her cousin who looked as worried as he sounded.

“Yeah, I wasn’t really thinking about that. I just didn’t want Toni to get hurt.”

She turned to her friend who smiled and hugged her.

“Thank you, Soph.”

Fangs turned to Toni in surprise as Sophia also realized that Toni had referred to her by name twice. So far, only Fangs would call her Soph while the rest referred to her as New Girl or Northsider. Toni had been somewhere in between with her affectionate “Northside.” The significance was not lost on her and she squeezed her friend a little tighter.

“Alright, we’re going to convene at the Whyte Wyrm tonight to figure out what to do about this. I think that’s enough education for one day,” proclaimed Sweet Pea. It wasn’t a command and, yet every Serpent dispersed, some choosing to simply go out through a gap in the fencing. Sophia made to follow Fangs and Toni who were headed to his car, but a hand caught her wrist. She met Sweet Pea’s eyes with a question in hers. Fangs and Toni lingered uncertainly.

“I’ll give you a ride.” The nuance was strange, a command he wanted to make an offer but didn’t know how. Sophia considered refusing, but had no real reason to do so. That is until she saw exactly what Sweet Pea was riding.

“I’ve never been on a motorcycle before,” she exclaimed, hating the nervous edge in her voice.

“There’s a shock,” he rolled his eyes. “You’ll be fine, take the helmet.”

He swung his leg over the machine and started it up. The resounding growl startled Sophia, causing her to fumble even more over the strap. Sweet Pea turned to her expectantly and his lips twitched as he saw he predicament. He dismounted and came to her side.

“Here.” Taking a step closer, he pushed her hair back behind her shoulders, leaving goosebumps but clearing the straps. In less than second his sure hands had clasped the strap firmly. Their eyes met and for the first time she felt her heart give an unfamiliar beat. His hands lingered at her throat, but in a flash the moment was gone. He turned and remounted. Out of excuses, she threw her leg over the bike and made a vain attempt to sit comfortably.

“Unless you wanna eat pavement, you’re gonna need to sit closer and hold on.”

Begrudgingly, Sophia scooted forward and put her hands loosely around his waist. It took only to the end of the parking lot for her to grip him more tightly. The wind whipped her face as they flew down the road and she buried her face into his broad back. She didn’t want to know how many stops signs they simply flew through, but by the time they reached their destination, her face had begun to stick to the leather. Sweet Pea waited for her to move before turning off the bike. They were at one of the parks near her house. It was a sad sight, decorated with spray paint and only one working swing to boast of. Sweet Pea gestured for her to take it while he dumped himself on the ground in front of her.

They said nothing for a few minutes. Sophia studied the Serpent who lay sprawled out before her; he was leaned back onto his elbows, his fingers playing with a blade of grass. He glanced up, peeking through his hair, unwilling to hold her gaze. Still staring at that blade of grass, he spoke softly.

“Not many people would go to bat for a Serpent. ‘Specially not a Northsider. What you did for Toni…I don’t know what we would have done if…” He trailed off then, his voice constricted with emotion.

This was a side to Sweet Pea she hadn’t seen before. She’d seen angry, she’d seen sarcasm, even saw a few genuine smiles, but never had she seen Sweet Pea look vulnerable. The Serpents were family to him, family he cared deeply about. She looked down at the gentle giant before her, a tender smile on her face. When he glanced up, he couldn’t make sense of the expression nor the strange sensation it created in his chest. He’d never noticed how bright her eyes were.

“I mighta misjudged you, Northside. You’re different than I thought.”

“You mean you didn’t peg me as a woman with a death wish? This is why it’s called women’s intuition.”

“Well you’re definitely as annoying as I thought you were, so you can credit me that at least.”

“Boy, I am just getting started,” she chuckled and Sweet Pea joined in with his own deep laugh. After their laughter subsided, Sophia paused to reflect on it all. She was grateful that he opened up to her and was happy that she could restore the smile to his face this time, but she didn’t know what it meant for her and the Serpents. The silence stretched on, but it wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable. A steady vibration from her pocket roused them both.

“Shoot, Fang probably talked to Rachel.”

“He wouldn’t dare.”

“Regardless, I need to get home… C’mon,” she added when he didn’t budge. “You’ve gotta be a gentleman and take me.”

She held out a hand to help him which he rolled his eyes at before accepting. Unfortunately, she wasn’t quite braced when he pulled and so instead of him coming up, Sophia fell. Reflexively he reached to brace her, and they ended up in a tangle of limbs with Sophia’s face in his chest and one of his hands on her waist.

“You are definitely less graceful than I thought a Northside Girl would be.”

“Oh shut up,” Sophia readjusted herself as she spoke in order to look up into his eyes, purposefully resting an elbow in his ribs as she did so. “If you weren’t such an oaf, I coulda lifted you.”

“Me? I’m the one having my kidney squished at the moment.”

It was a joking comment, he laughed when he said it, and it wasn’t supposed to hurt. Yet there was the familiar sting. The smile faded from her eyes and got up and dusted herself off. Sweet Pea followed suit, trying to understand what prompted the sudden shift. When she started to walk away, he grabbed her wrist again.

“I thought I was taking you home?” He asked, the uncertainty apparent.

“I’m not a fan of motorcycles.” She avoided any eye contact.

“Then I guess I’ll walk you.” He stuck his arm out for her to hold, a hopeful smile on his face.

Sophia accepted the peace offering, wondering what it’d be like to be vulnerable with Sweet Pea, too.  

A/N: Obviously I don’t own any of the Riverdale characters, but Sophia and her relationship with our beloved Sweet Pea are my personal creation as well as the plot lines herein. There may be some basis on events currently happening in Riverdale, but not necessarily.

[uncreative-queer]

I’m sitting next to a bag of chips and a pile of homework and i’m not touching it until I get this off my chest.

Listen, I know that feminism is all about supporting women’s right to do what they want with their life. clothes, makeup, career choice, music taste, sex life, all that shit is our choice- and I wouldn’t change it! that’s absolutely how it should be! but there is literally no nuanced support of women’s choices on this site. At first, it was about supporting girls who didn’t line up with the patriarchy, but tha slowly began to manifest itself as an attack on girls who did, so we began supporting them too and where are we now?

Girls hearing “clothes have no gender!” in one ear and that their disdain for traditionally feminine clothing like dresses is just internalized misogny in the other. Girls who dislike makeup because of the weight it carries- social backlash for choosing not to wear it, sometimes even a past of being bullied and/or ostracized- being outright laughed at by girls who do wear makeup and praise themselves as “revolutionary” for choosing to do what they’re expected while crushing fellow girls under their heels.  Music taste is its own nightmare, and sex. there is no knowing if you’ll get “support girls whether they have sex or not!”or “lol we get it Janice you’re a virgin who’s bitter at girls who have sex” on this website.(Body positivity in general has me fucked up, but that’s for another rant of it’s own.)

So here’s the thing: everything i listed up there? Makeup? Dresses? Pop culture music? All the sex you want? I’ll support that until i’m dead. Because as i said before, that is our damn choice, and anyone who wants to take that away can fight.

BUT!

If you celebrate your “reclaiming” of dresses and makeup while shitting on girls who don’t like one or either of those things, I can’t stand with that shit.

If you gladly listen to Justin Beiber or whoever the hell else is called popular and refuse to be called basic but won’t hesitate to tell teenage girls listening to MCR that they’re “cringey” and to kill themselves, I don’t stand with that shit.

If you scream “my body my choice!” at the top of your lungs but view girls who don’t like sex- ace or not- as conservative puppets, i don’t like you and I don’t stand with that shit.

Jesus. You can support girls who are considered “basic” by society and have had their feminism attacked for it without utterly stepping on girls who aren’t traditionally feminine at all and have had their womanhood attacked for it.

Thanks.