#I say as someone who is still technically a teen but I digress

[philharmonica]

replacements on a m*rvel soundtrack,, i truly must start gatekeeping

[shutupineedtothink]

Revised Trial theory post Ep. 5

GodDAMN it yall.

This show just won't stop the twists and turns, so my brain's not stopping either.

I got another one for ya. Still going with my maiden, mother, crone framework, slightly revised.

Spoilers and potential spoilers below the cut!

So shout out to the Previewed boys for their YouTube reaction to this ep and getting my gears turning when Adam said, oh, they didn't change the aspect ratio for this trial. 👀👀👀 Meaning it’s not a real Trial. Man doesn't know what he got me into.

Okay here's the deal, I think this is a "false" trial created by the Seven to punish Agatha. That's what they want, right? It accounts for a lot of the stuff we saw in the trial not quite matching the previous trials, and where we left things as well. If this was a real Trial, and we’re going with the Road wants to help these women overcome their trauma, (as happened with Jen and Alice), then Agatha definitely didn’t get a true trial. There was no opportunity for her to overcome anything here, just pain and trauma. Her getting out of the trial depended completely on the mercy of others, not anything in her control, unlike the previous trials.

Narratively, it also means that Agatha, our main, gets essentially TWO trials to flesh out her character and backstory more. Probably one to address her OG coven and her mom, as we saw in ep 5, and one to address what happened with Nicky and Rio.

Here’s the breakdown:

We start the ep running away from the Seven. Everything through the broom chase is “real.” Then right before they get into the house, everyone flies through the bees/bugs Seven member, led by Agatha. This is when the false trial starts/everyone is trapped in an illusion designed to punish Agatha, created by the Seven. They all run into the house but the Seven don’t follow, because they’ve trapped them.

The house to me reads as probably a version of the one Agatha grew up in with her mom, covered in an 80s disguise. Why would the Seven match the 80s theme? Because it’s fun, don’t read into it too much. We move along.

Once everyone starts looking around, Agatha suddenly looks scared, and like she recognizes the space. Like it’s haunting her.

When Rio laughs and says it’s Agatha’s trial, and clocks the Blood moon, it’s not because of what Lilia explains after. She laughs because she knows they’re in a trap created by the Seven, as indicated by the Blood moon (so they are still on the Road technically, typically the trials have transported us “off” the road somehow), and possibly she recognizes the house as well. The Seven would trap Agatha in a version of her own childhood home, a home they all probably knew well, and Rio would find that funny. I think we have to remember that Rio always knows the truth of what’s going on. She knows the truth about Agatha, the truth about Teen, she even knows the Seven are coming before Lilia says anything. If she’s not omniscient she’s damn close to it.

(Side note here: it also bugged me that we didn’t have a scene at the door to the house like with the other trials, where they clock the moon phase and the element of the trial. I waved it off initially since they were running to get there and we didn’t have time, but now I think it’s another sign that points to a false trial. We need to see that door for it to be a true Trial.)

Lilia says her thing about the Blood moon, and Rio, basically as a joke, she’s pretending to be like a radio announcer when she says “And who better than someone who’s put so many in the grave.” She KNOWS. She’s referring to Agatha killing the Salem coven, and moderating this false trial like it’s a fucking tennis match between Agatha and the Seven. Also she’s taunting Agatha to confront this aspect of herself, that she believes she’s an evil monster just like the Seven do. But I digress.

We do the Mrs. Hart gag because let Kathryn Hahn cook! I thought that impression was pretty good too girl.

Now here’s where we get into it for real. They do the ouija for real, and the first thing it spells is DEATH. As I mentioned in my “we’re still in the trial” post, once they call upon death, and Rio laughs, everything after that is her game as well. It’s a trap from the Seven, but they’ve acknowledged that she’s in on the joke, and maybe even kind of on their side a bit. She wants to punish Agatha too, in some ways, and she’s definitely playing both sides. But that isn’t going to last. By the way, there is a .2 second shot where Agatha reproachfully glances at Rio before she laughs, just so you know that.

Okay so the Seven want to punish Agatha, we get the possession, some of the funniest delivery I’ve ever heard from Aubrey Plaza with the “woah! what’s she doin, where’s she goin” like it still makes me laugh, and Evanora appears. At first I thought Rio made this happen on some level, even though she hates ghosts, to literally make Agatha confront her past. But now I think this was a pull from the Seven, and this is the first time Rio is really not on board with how events are unfolding seeing as she yells, “yeah well her mother can’t have her,” and “NO, NO WAY” with her whole goddamn chest. I love it so much.

Anyway, we get what Evanora says to Agatha, and Rio’s dismayed reaction. She’s done with the fun now and pissed at everyone involved. Jen wants to leave Agatha behind, Teen doesn’t, Agatha gets possessed again, Alice tries to save her, Agatha steals her power and kills her, cut off just before Teen yells Nicholas Scratch and we hear the gut wrenching, mama, stop! Now this is interesting, because I think Nicholas’s spirit was NOT part of the Seven’s plan. He scurried through and tried to help his mom, but she was too far gone already. Eh, or maybe it was another move to torture Agatha, because it definitely works. And she still kills Alice.

Ok, Alice dead, Teen mad, Agatha runs away because the Seven’s torture is hella working. She’s wrecked, and her new coven hates her, when not one episode ago they seemed to be genuinely bonding. Rio stares after her in disappointment, because Agatha’s not fighting back. She’s not defending herself. She’s just accepting what she’s always seen as her fate (and what the Seven believe about her too): she’s evil.

Now we’re “back” on the Road. The color grading is SO off, again meaning not the real Road, we’re still trapped in the Seven’s spell. Agatha tries use her newly gained powers, and they just poof into dust. She’s still powerless, so she killed Alice for nothing. More punishment.

Teen comes out and goes after her. She’s vulnerable with him, tells him a huge Truth about her that she can’t control her power, and he denies her. Punishment again. You’re so much like your mother. Her evil persona comes out to defend her and emotionally attack Teen, and yet this one statement is also possibly the ultimate punishment: that boy isn’t hers, and she knows for sure because he said Nicky’s name, otherwise the sigil would have prevented it. Which means he’s the son of her sort-of arch nemesis, who trapped her in a hex for three years and still called herself a hero. (Until she wasn’t, obviously.) No shade on Wanda from me, but it’s what Agatha thinks. Mostly though, I think she’s just gutted that he isn’t Nicky.

Then the ultimate ultimate punishment. Teen, her not-son turned enemy’s son, attacks her, using her own coven to try to kill her (AGAIN) by throwing her in the mud.

Now… Teen killing Lilia and Jen… I’m not sure if that’s still part of the Seven’s trap. Has his power, even the illusion of his power, rapidly spun this out of control? Or did they want to kill Lilia and Jen too? Idk. It’s up in the air, for now.

And of course, during all of this, Rio is nowhere to be found. Maybe she’s dealing with the ghost… or maybe she ejected herself from the illusion already to go after the Seven. 👀 Remember, she knows what’s going on the whole time. Maybe after Alice’s death, and Agatha running away, she was finally like ok, playtime’s over, time to go knock some heads. 🤷‍♀️ I’d love to fucking see it. Can you imagine that as an opening scene? I want to see her WRECK them.

Where does this leave us at the top of ep 6? Well, if Rio has broken out of the illusion already, maybe we can assume that Agatha and then Lilia and Jen being thrown into the mud is actually Rio getting them out too. The Earth is her domain. So was that her getting them out of the Seven’s illusion, and they’ll emerge on the real road? Is Alice really dead? Will they have to save Teen/Billy?

However it happens, let’s say they all get out of the trap, deal with the Seven (so they’re off the playing field now and we don’t have to worry about them coming back), and progress to the next trial, which is Agatha’s REAL trial that has to do with what happened to Nicky. Again, the Mother phase in maiden mother crone.

In conclusion, it’s a twofer. Oh yes.

Penny for your thoughts in comments!

(My money is on: Rio wrecks house with the Seven. Alice is still dead but we’re gonna get her back in Agatha’s real trial. When Teen/Billy comes to, he freaks out about what he did in the illusion, but Agatha reassures him that it wasn’t real, and he’s not evil, supporting him in the way her mother never supported her. It was all to punish her, it wasn’t really him. Don’t let anyone else make you the villain. Only you can decide who you are. — nice parallel there to Wanda’s big line from WV “I don’t need you to tell me, who I am.” Also, subtle dig at Multiverse of Madness. You know, something like that. Please, Jac?)

[fugamalefica]

Nooo! You just broke my heart, dearest, I just found out that you don’t see Christian Coulson as Tom Riddle. I admit that he looks less and less like him as the years go by (I won’t judge him based on looks because I personally think the man is HOT but that might just be me lmao), but now I have to ask what you think about favourite fancast Tom Hughes. He was clearly cast by the fandom with CC in mind but I think I’ve grasped your taste in men and he’s not it haha

I personally really like him as Tom (I REALLY like him from an aesthetical point of view, again to each their taste, but I think we can agree he’s an objectively handsome man). I think he has that coldness, that air of fake politeness, clean-shaven face that Tom Riddle had, plus those delicious evil vibes. CC is FAR less threatening, while Tom Hughes has an aura about him that matches young Tom’s. The calculating stare, the smooth way he moves his body, the poker face. He’s far too cold to play Voldemort but I digress…

Also, the British vibes. He embodies that upper-class British ideal of what a handsome man is that Tom Sn would have fit perfectly, with the high cheekbones and full lips.

Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Aw, I didn't mean to cause heartbreak. If it makes you feel better, I did see him as Tom initially but the fact that he became more and more incompatible with him the more I got into Voldemort's backstory paired with all the Tomione and Tomary shippers being obsessed with him completely ruined him for me.

And your assessment of my taste in men is so accurate because Tom Hughes is indeed not my type as far as attractiveness goes despite, as you say, being objectively handsome haha. But as far as aura goes? He is very, very fitting and much more so than CC. I can completely understand why people like him as Tom Riddle because he has the looks of Christian Coulson AND the right aura that would make a good Tom Riddle unlike CC. He can look threatening but also charming enough to manipulate people without invoking any suspicion. My reasons for not liking him are indeed purely based on aesthetics.

As for how I myself picture Tom Riddle, it varies between young Ralph Fiennes especially in this picture and a likeness of young Alain Delon. Ralph is perfect and also the hottest man alive but he can look too threatening sometimes which would make it difficult for people to trust him easily, and when he doesn't look like this, I find it difficult to see Tom in him. He is beyond perfect and ideal for how he would be with his followers though and as he was when he got older.

Delon has softer and more classic looks, perfect to charm and manipulate but he isn't someone I would actually imagine as Tom beyond some inspiration, honestly. Not only can he look too soft occasionally, but I also hate him as a person which isn't something I want interfering with my vision of Tom. I know it shouldn't have any effect because technically Tom is still completely himself no matter who I imagine him to be essentially a lookalike of lol, but still.

I think something between Delon and Ralph here would be how I picture Tom in his teens and early twenties.

Still, the worst part is that none of these men have dark brown eyes.

[mercurytrinemoon]

Some thoughts on pairings of queens and kings of the same tarot suit

(now it takes a while for me to get to my point but bear with me)

I was doing some spying on my ex friend that got engaged in 2020 during Venus retrograde in Gemini, because I do often think about how she's doing but also my asrology-absorbed brain wants to know how her engagement is doing with that rx Venus glooming over (especially that she's one of the few real-life friends of mine that I have an exact birth time of).

Now, I first drew 3 cards from a classic card deck and asked my mom to interpret that (because I can't read those) and she said cards are blatantly pointing out to a wedding but... with a friend figure, not a romantic figure. So I grabbed my tarot deck to further investigate.

So I was shuffling the cards and what popped up was 4 of wands sandwitched between the queen of pentacles and the king of pentacles. Now that's nice, I love when that happens. A coincidence? I think NOT.

And I was pondering on court card pairings and how I once saw someone having a full on rant on how some pairings suck (wands in particular, which I found a bit annoying). I think often they'll just show people's astrological correspondence, especially if two people match in their Sun sign's element... Or if two people come up as the same suit, that's what they have in common and this is where they match.

Now my ex friend is an Aries Sun with a ton of airy influence. But she came up as the queen of pentacles. I said to my mom "look how she's squeezing and caressing her little pentacle": she was always someone who had a lack mentality, even when she was earning money as a teen or early 20-something while not having to pay for rent or bills cause she was living with her parents (meaning all that money she could spent on whatever she wanted, yet still she was walking around saying how poor she is).

So how I actually associate each suit (aka finally getting to the point)

The guy came up as the king of pentacles. No idea what sign he is, technically I don't even know he exists... but that aside. There's a possibility he works at a bank but I say this just because I know someone who saw a similar-looking man at a bank. But I digress. What's important here is that with classic cards he came up as a friend, a provider, someone who takes care of the other person/is a helping hand. This helped me a ton in understanding the king of pentacles in that equasion: he is a provider and all that stuff but what the earth suit is about is simplicity, the day-to-day life. If a person or a couple comes up as pentacle court card(s), they're simple people (and earth signs are usually simple, grounded people as well). They're in a relationship probably because it's convenient. And let's be honest, most couples are like that, not a lot of people even believe in a true soulmate-level love and romantic fairy tales, most just settle for what they have and stick to it because it's good enough... kind of like if it ain't broke, don't fix it, meaning they don't search for the perfect one; they don't question the relationship they're in.

I'm not saying all pentacle couples are together out of convenience, but there is an element of commiting just because that's what you feel like is expected from you. It's about giving stability and working on maintaining that. I guess this can also be a couple where both people are focused on earning money... or who do business together but I feel like that could be a bit of a wands territory, since you're creating something (and wands are about a spark and creation).

The more emotionally-driven pair would be the cups suit. Now I never had a couple straight up coming up as a cups courts but what I've seen a few times was the queen of cups representing someone who guards the other person in a spiritual/emotional way. Kinda like the unseen force that is protecting the other; possibly someone who is connected to the other in the 5D, who's your guardian angel so to speak or simply someone who cares deeply for you and their energy is always present with you. The king of cups I had come up as a person developing mature feelings (paired with ace of cups to be clear). So, obviously because the water element is about emotions, a cup couple will be more emotionally tied together, for good or bad. They just feel each other and are connected through intuition. It's about providing the emotional support but that stems from the deep connection, not because of society's pressure or a sense of duty like the pentacles suit.

The sword couple can be a tricky one cause swords people are known to be more cold and calculated. But as air there can also be a bit of a social tone to them and that can be fun sometimes. I'm saying this just because I had that couple come up in questions regarding how two people are seen in public. So this can be sociable and witty. Like two intellectuals who get into a friendly banter or a heated debate. Or two activists focused on their ideas. There's a mental chemistry there connecting a pair of the queen and king of swords. It's like two friends who end up in a romantic relationship type of situation. The downfall is, there may be an emotional distance.

Now my favorite (obviously) is the wands couple. Mainly because I often come up as the queen of wands (again, probably because I have a lot of Sagittarius and fire in my chart) and, as I always say, the king of wands is the king of my heart, even if some would think it's nonsense to think a wands couple is a good couple because fire burns out quickly. But you can keep the fire glowing, and if you do... there's some magical stuff going on. I see it as the fun couple, similarly to swords they can be a sociable pair, full of creative ideas but also full of passion for each other, which the air suit lacks. They're bold in expressing that as well. Talking about astrological correspondences, I always say fire signs can be as emotional as water signs because they feel everything deep in their bones. Fire signs can be just as emotionally devoted. Constantly evolving and adapting to the other person is what keeps the passion alive and fire people like movement, that's their fuel. So if two people are on the same page, coming up as the queen and king of wands, with the passion they have for one another, you bet that won't be boring. It's the willingness to do things together, to experience things together, not just building a stable home and fitting the norm. Also it's just literally hot. You can say what you want but I'm sure you're gonna admit at least that.

Also, something worth pointing out, in the RW deck the wands suit is the only one where, if you're lucky enough, you can have queen of wands and king of wands directly looking at each other (if the queen is on the left from the king). I think that might be significant.

I'm looking at each suit through the lense of astrology so you could as well apply that to couples who share the same element in their charts but that doesn't have to be the case with everyone (my Aries ex friend being an example). Also obviously I'm talking about the healthy manifestation of each suit. If you use reversals or look at the surrounding cards to get the feel of where and in what way each energy is directed, you can determine if two people really get along. Pentacles can be too stuck in their ways or materialistic, cups can be overly emotional and dramatic, swords can be harsh, cold or argumentative and wands can be too temperamental and shallow.

[doodle-dog-diary]

Saltober DAY NINE: Hobby

Original post here

Technically this is a hobby that is my own but yeah couldn't think of anything else to write about

(Warning: please do not talk to me about Yarichin Bitch Club. Do not play the YBC opening song anywhere near me. I WILL rip your throat out in a very unsexy way.)

Psst.

Come closer. Closer. Yes, that's it. I have a secret to tell you (tbh it's not so much a secret as just something I don't usually go around telling people, but I digress)

I read yaoi.

No, I didn't just go through a phase when I was like 13, I read yaoi as in, I'm still doing it now. Present tense and all. NO NO PUT DOWN THAT PITCHFORK I CAN EXPLAIN

I think I must have started when I was 13, maybe 14? When a self-proclaimed-fujoshi friend of mine introduced me to it. (I feel like back then every female friend I had was either already familiar with yaoi, or into yaoi. I don't know why, it feels like yaoi was like, an integral part of the Teenage Girl Experience)

I then discovered the amazing world of free manga reader sites, and no one could stop me from then on (except maybe almost getting caught once, but still). In those early days I started out only reading yaoi that was recommended on rec lists, in an effort to filter out the icky weird toxic bullshit (It didn't always work. Remember that opinions are subjective, and sometimes someone's memories of a thing may be tinted with nostalgia). I then learnt how to judge books by their cover with some degree of success (you can tell which works are more recent based on the art style. More recent stuff is less likely to have problematic elements, like abuse and rape being portrayed as romantic)

Ok, I know how this sounds, before you say something like, "but Doodle! That sounds like a lot of trouble! Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just, you know, read something from another genre?" I will say that yaoi, just like literally every other genre of fiction in existence, adheres to Sturgeon's law (90% of everything is crap), so it's not like I have significantly higher chances of finding something that is not crap with any other genre. I would know, every time I went to the library and picked out a YA novel (the sort geared towards teen girls) 9 times out of 10 it would be the same old "boring brunnette protagonist who insists that she's ugly even though she's not has two angsty hot dudes chasing after her, everyone looks like a model, also magic and werewolves" bullshit. So yeah, I'd rather take my chances with yaoi, because…

…Second, I…like pretty boys. YES I KNOW I'M AROACE THAT DON'T MEAN I'M BLIND,…also I'm a degenerate weeb, I just like looking at pretty anime boys, what can I say

Third, I've adapted. I've learnt to embrace that So Bad It's Basically Psychological Horror Yaoi lifestyle. I mean, if you can't escape it, you might as well just embrace it, you know?

Listen, man, reading bad yaoi may be an acquired taste but is an EXPERIENCE. Especially yaoi from like, Ye Olden Days. Those are a whole different level of fucked up. I could pick some random yaoi that looks pretty old, and the title would always be something that's really cute and cheesy, like, "doki doki first kiss" or something like that, and the mc experiences violent sexual assault within the very first chapter, without fail, every single time. That shit really fucks you up, man.

Also, I LOVE how yaoi mangaka will go, "you know what would be real fucked up?" and then go and draw a whole ass comic about shit that's fucked up. But potray it in a sexy way.

(Seriously. I just read one where it's like a collection of short stories, and in one there's a guy who's a literal pedophile. Like seriously. His friend asks him "what kind of girls are you into" and he deadass stares at a group of elementary school kids and says "you wouldn't get it" like no joke for real goddamn. Same guy goes and molests his little twink classmate not two pages later. The whole thing is portrayed as a cutesy high school romance)

Before I end this, word of advice, it's something I learned from my yaoi rec list days, some people will say shit like, "oh, go give Junjou Romantica a try…go read Sekaiichi Hatsukoi…trust me it's good…really the most wholesome romance story in yaoi history…" THOSE PEOPLE ARE LYING. DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM. I WATCHED JUNJOU ROMANTICA WHEN I WAS MAYBE 14 AND IT SCARRED ME FOR LIFE. SERIOUSLY DO NOT DO IT I AM 100% SERIOUS I AM NOT FUCKING AROUND JUST DON'T DO IT

[blissfulalchemist]

and general + love for chance/faith THANK YOUUUUU

Thank you for inquiring about these two Ash!

GENERAL

Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go?

Faith was the first one to make the move of kissing Chance which then led to these two having a physical relationship that quickly developed into more emotional given both their shared history and the time they had spent together during the events of the Holy War. It was a waiting game for those two as Chance was unsure of starting the relationship and Faith got tired of waiting and just went for it.

Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like?

They never really had much of a first date, I mean kind of hard to during a time where you’re supposed to be hating the person. I digress though and while there are many things that they both say count as their first date but the one they both agree on is after Chance rejects joining the cult the second time and the two of them have mostly made up from their fight over Faith keeping their shared past from him. Chance invites her over to give a very old gift, a fishing rod that was to be a “Welcome to your new home” gift for Faith had Chance’s father not passed, and he teaches her how to fish. (I do plan on rewriting/reworking the original piece for that one soon to fit better in canon because I love it so much) It was just this very sweet moment that just felt almost normal to the two of them, like they had stumbled across one another like the Christmas Hallmark movies.

What was their first kiss like?

Their first kiss was under the Bridge of Tears after Chance tried to stop a small gun fight at the outreach center. Faith had come by looking for the members to bring them to be laid to rest and asked him to help board up the center as at the time it was really the only thing she had, that was hers and hers alone, left of Mary who was “dead”. Chance was debating if he should just go for the kiss and Faith took advantage and just pushed him against the rock face kissing him. He pushed her away to process a quick moment before kissing her again and proceeding to have sex under the bridge. You can read it in full here if you’d like

Were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)?

They were each other’s first friends if you want to go that far back, but they weren’t really either’s first for anything. Both had done a lot of things prior that make it hard to really answer. I guess Faith was Chance’s first love but he never got to act on it given that by the time he came back to Hope County as a teen she was gone. 

What’s their height difference? Age difference?

There is a 5′ height difference between the two with Chance being 5′10″ and Faith being 5′5″. Their age difference is only a year with Chance being 25 cir. 2018 and Faith being 24 cir. 2018.

What’s their relationship with each other’s families?

Okay during the events after the arrest well its less than stellar. Chance is hated by the Seed brothers, with John being the most vocal about it (Sorry he just really wanted someone more capable to take Joseph down). Chance doesn’t have family in the typical sense during this time but they wouldn’t be very happy about the Seeds and would have been their rivals. The rest of Hope County becomes Chance’s family and we all know their opinion on the Seeds.

Okay given their shared childhood I will say that Faith/Rachel was well loved by Chance’s father and grandfather to the point that Ray was working on getting custody rights of Rachel to be in effect once he returned from his last and final research project. This is despite the friendship that Ray and Rachel’s father had as Ray was not down and never was down with the eventual treatment of his daughter and maintained the friendship solely to keep an eye on Rachel best he cold manage with his life at the time.  

Who takes the lead in social situations?

This is pretty even as both are sociable. Chance is someone that likes to be part of the life of the party if not the life of the party. Faith has her way of charming people and can navigate her way around social situations and structures. So really context helps but both are willing to take the lead in social situations.

Who gets jealous easier?

I might have to give this one to Chance by the slightest margin because Chance is quicker to anger and a little more impulsive than Faith. It’s not a blinding rage but he will for sure start yelling at the person trying to hit on Faith or depending on close its seeming might throw a warning punch (RIP to Wes’ face in that one prompt long time ago)

Who whispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear?

Faith, she’s much more inclined. Chance is weird in the sense that he’s very loud and out there and can joke about sex and things like that but he’s also very conservative about it given some of that silent generation values run a bit deep. If the two were to have been part of the cult she’d be whispering things in his ear during the sermons on occasion relishing in the blush it would give him. 

LOVE

Who said “I love you” first?

Okay to the actual words that Chance says are “I think I love you” giving this right to him. Granted he was drunk at the time and doesn’t remember saying it but he in the technical sense said it first. If you were to ask him though he would say that it was Faith with him confirming the reciprocation right after her so it was basically a tie. 

What are their primary love languages?

The one they both share and becomes one more for Chance is touch. Being able to feel Faith know she’s there means she’s not going to be gone the next moment. Even after the Hebane is freed he still fears permanent effects of the Bliss. The other one is acts of service, these two it is important for them both to feel seen and cared for and the best way to do that is through those little acts like Faith leaving water and pain pills next to him when she finds him on a bender. Or Chance giving her his coat and shoes to protect her from the cold. Just these little things that one wouldn’t really think of all the time just mean a lot to these two. 

Who uses cheesy pick-up lines?

Chance 100%. His dad was prone to cheesy jokes and puns and well that got passed on to Chance so yeah Faith is constantly hiding her face in embarrassment. The most hated is “Do you have 11 Protons? Because you are Sodium fine.” even I admit that is just....sigh my boy ladies and gentleman. 

How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA?

A lot. They don’t get to a point of like banging in front of people but they need to know the other is still there so there is near constant hand holding, the kissing happens a lot, and well sometimes there are makeout sessions that start and well then yeah privacy is needed after that.

Who initiates kisses?

Pretty 50/50 on this but I give this one to Faith more so, as surprisingly Chance is more shy around Faith. He’s a mess I’m sorry.

Who’s the big and little spoon?

Chance is the big spoon most often while Faith is the little spoon. 

What are their favorite things to do together?

Spending time outdoors, watching movies and shows together, and studying on their own terms once everything is all said and done. They both do enjoy the occasional party but they both have to be careful with who they party with.

Who’s better at comforting the other?

This honestly boils down what it is that the other needs comforting from. Both are very good at doing it but there are times where one can seem better at it than the other.

Who’s more protective?

By small margin this goes to Chance. Even after her “death” Chance tries to get access to her body to hold a proper burial. He is just very outward with his protectiveness and it becomes more intense after she’s switched sides having faked her death. Faith does what she can to protect Chance while still in the cult and after but there’s only so much she can do and hates being the damsel a lot of times but she is fierce and lord help anyone that actually managed to kill Chance.

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection?

Both would prefer the physical affection more than anything. The Bliss and their past has had an effect on them both to the point that they fear the other being gone in an instant. 

What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise?

So two songs that fit with them the first being “Evil Angel” by Breaking Benjamin and the other being “American Money” by Borns. These two as a pair works wonders as it shows both sides of their relationship pre switch for Faith. You have the darker aspects of the Bliss and the more dependency/hold it has on Chance. While the other is more to the lighter side of it all, the love that was never acted on all those years ago, this magical quality that just makes it feel unreal. Just overall these two songs work well as a pair and fit them and their relationship very well.  

What kind of nicknames do they call each other?

Chance doesn’t like nicknames, at all, but Faith gets exception because well its Faith and its been his nickname since he was a kid practically. She calls him White Knight and Sailor Scout, the former being a part of the games they used to play in the woods and the latter as they got older as a way to tease him for his love for the anime. Chance calls her Princess which she doesn’t particularly like but its one of those names that he’s called her since she was a child so there’s no going back.

Who remembers the little things?

Faith. Chance also inherited the head in the clouds/gets too focused on things to really remember things from Ray. It’s endearing as Chance is better at managing it than his father.

[utilitycaster]

The follow-up: Guest Character classes

For this I’ve included the following:

Critical Role: anyone listed as a guest on the Character Stats page for either The Mighty Nein or Vox Machina, which includes Travis and Liam’s characters for the post-C1 Vox Machina one-shots. I did not cover D&D one-shots not on that page (eg: Song of the Lorelei, Adventures of the Darrington Brigade), which is a whole other thing but which I may do.

TAZ: The Hogsbottom Three, The Adventure Zone: (K)nights, including Lin Manuel Miranda’s guest character as well as Griffin, Justin, and Clint’s characters; and the MaxFunCon East Live show with Brad Bradson (Stuart Wellington)

Dimension 20: Hargis and Ficus from the live-in-front-of-an-audience shows

Rusty Quill Gaming: Edward and Tjelvar from Bertie’s Sidequest

Relics and Rarities: each of the guests (one per episode)

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First place, with 6: Fighters! Makes sense - they’re fun to play, they tend to kick ass, and they’re not too hard for beginners. Also Critical Role has the lion’s share of the guests, and they’ve never had a traditional fighter class as a main cast PC, just Percy. Two dwarfs (Thorbir, Keg) and two goliaths (Shale, Hargis), one human (Bertrand Bell, yes there are two human fighters named Bertrand in actual play media alone), and one half-elf (Derrig).

Tied for second place, with 5: Rogues and bards! Rogues are also a very popular class for similar reasons as fighters. There are three arcane tricksters here, which I’d say makes a lot of sense because when someone says “I want to do magic but also I want to be a rogue” you can be like “have I got the class for you”, but two of the three arcane tricksters were played by experienced players so I think people just think they’re neat. Also: two gnomes and two half-elves and one half-orc. As for bards...I think they share a rogue’s versatility so they can fit well with any party, and also they are fun to play, and also if you’re Lin Manuel Miranda you are obviously going to play a bard. Two orcs, weirdly enough, and two humans, and one dragonborn; I think they’re all lore but I don’t know.

Tied for third, with 4: Druid and Paladin! Apparently people like druids and bards way more than I thought they did. Also, these are both good classes to play as a guest character; no one will object to extra healing; druids are difficult but you only have to do it for a short while so it’s a fun way to try out a tough but very cool class; and paladins can be weird as a starting class because again, they don’t take their oath until 3rd level but if you drop in it’s all good. Of the druids we have two very different firbolgs (gentle but fierce Nila and teen stoner Ficus) and two very different other people (sweet but way too lawful good aasimar Reani, hilariously snobby elf Lucian Buttwatcher). Of the paladins, three are humans (two are wonderful supportive presences in Kerrek and Zora, one is Edward the Himbo, and one is Arkhan, a dragonborn who makes some...questionable choices. We also get one of our two multiclassed guests here - Arkhan is a base class of paladin but has levels in barbarian as well.

Tied for fourth, with 3: Cleric, warlock, and wizard. Full disclosure: I really want to see Shakaste again for so many reasons, including lore drops (also because I’m pretty sure he either worships Melora or Kord which would have great implications for the party) and the fact that he’s amazing and Khary Payton is a great actor, but also because I want to see Matt Mercer deal with a party that has 3 whole clerics (his first appearance was pre-Caduceus, and his second was while Jester was still captured, so we’ve never seen all three in action). But I digress. All the clerics are from Critical Role and all are amazing; two are humans (Shakaste and Kashaw) and one is an elf (Lieve’tel) and they all have different domains because there are so many cool cleric domains. I cannot wait to play a cleric. Warlocks: we’ve got Zahra, Tom Collins, and Sam Hain, two of whom are tieflings, one of whom is a half-elf, and at least two of whom are warlocks of The Great Old One which I think is very cool and Lovecraftian (in the cosmic and weird way, not the racism way). And wizards: a human, a tiefling, and a dragonborn, all from CR campaign 1, all with different specialties.

Tied for fifth, with 2: Sorcerer and ranger. Not much in the way of commonalities for any of these other than both sorcerers are draconic ancestry; also Tanzer Silverview is technically a ranger but iirc he uses almost no ranger skills ever, which is hilarious to me.

Tied for sixth, with 1 each: Barbarian, monk, and other (bloodhunter). We get our second multiclass here, with Lionel, Bardbarian and probably a secret duck.

And finally: no one wants to be a guest artificer. Which is fair, as artificer only recently got properly finalized.

[itwasnobodysbuiness]

Yesterday a rapist died

I found out last night that a rapist was killed. He was not murdered but died in a motorcycle accident. I was 19 at the time I encountered this individual. I was in my first year of college living on campus about 45 min away from my hometown. This meant I had way too much access to my old friends and life and often tried to merge my old world into my new; which never seemed to go over well. One of these nights I got the grand idea to throw a little hotel party for my new friends from school and old ones from back home. It was a night I was very excited for; having both of my worlds collide and let loose a little. No one had space for the get together that weekend so we decided to rent a room. I was working and making ok money for a college kid; I had always worked a lot as a teenager being the kid of a single parent. I had the funds to front the cost of a small party but being only 19 at the time I was not old enough to sign for the room or purchase alcohol. I reached out to one of my old friends and current boyfriend from back home and they dropped the name of a local guy; let’s call him Tom from around town a few years older. If I invite him and he can bring a friend he’d be glad to purchase the room and liquor in his own name for a small cut and free booze. I didn’t think twice about this as this was kind of the norm for teens trying to party when they are not quite old enough to party. The Party was going well and everyone seemed to be having a great time getting a little too loaded and letting off some steam. My boyfriend at the time was working early the next morning and only stayed a short while. He knew I was with people who all cared about me so leaving me there was nothing for him to have concern for. My boyfriend at the time was very caring and always good to me. Unfortunately at this time in our relationship I was also seeing my ex high school boyfriend. This ex had broken my heart and in my young mind messing with his feelings somehow made me feel like I'd gained some of the power I’d lost when he crushed my heart. A very unhealthy and unfair healing process to all involved. I digress.

It was late in the evening and my college friends left first. Others trickled out and the only few left in the room were myself and my friend who’d struck out that night and … Tom who’d purchased the alcohol for me along with a friend of his unknown to me. I’d made several remarks about how it was ‘time to go’ and ‘call it a night’....how I ‘ had to get to sleep’ , but Tom and his friend didn’t seem to want to leave. He made remarks about the room being technically in his name, and that he would leave soon. My friend with me had passed out cold in one of the double beds and I'd planned to sleep on the other bed. I had definitely had too much to drink and became sick. I now know this was why Tom and his friend decided to hang back when the party had ended. I had completely blacked out for some time. I came to on the floor of the hotel bathroom with the room spinning. This is a situation plenty of kids in college experience. I was feeling grateful for the cold floor on my hot skin. I remember feeling someone holding me tenderly and I felt comforted. The hair was being brushed out of my face and this person pulled me into their chest and cradled me. I felt comforted, not afraid for this brief moment. It took a moment for me to realize my boyfriend was not with me and had gone home hours before. This person I had awoken to was Tom. I do not remember much of this night but I remember Tom’s voice in my ear. I remember the feeling of his chest warm and firm against my back. I remember his hands on my body, all over my body. I remember his mouth on my neck, and the whispers…..Tom liked to talk even if I couldn’t talk back. Like watching a movie if yourself it all moves in slow motion. I remember feeling fear, panic, and then an eerily calm feeling that I had to be strong. I had to find the strength to say or do something to get Tom to leave. 

I have zero memory of the following events. My friends from home met at the home of another local guy close to our age to cap off their night. The girlfriend of this guy inquired about Tom and asked if he'd left with the rest of them. When she’d found out I was basically alone in the room with Tom she encouraged my friends to return to the hotel as she’d heard Tom was found alone in the room of a young girl passed out at another party just weeks before. Someone woke my boyfriend at the time and this girlfriend led the charge of people who would attempt to come to my rescue. The group later told me when they returned to the hotel, both my vehicle and Tom’s were still outside of the room. They said they banged on the door and yelled my name and asked Tom to open the door. When they received no response they attempted to contact hotel management to open the door but they refused and asked the group to leave. 

I have no memory of my attempted rescue. I remember it being hard to speak but using every ounce of my ability to stay lucid to remind Tom that it would be bad for him to hurt me. That my friends and boyfriend would come for me, and that he would regret touching me. Tom's low whisper was angry and cold. I remember him whispering how ‘ MY boyfriend had left me there alone’ how I was ‘ ungrateful’ and ‘asking for it all night’ . ‘ No one would believe me’ and ‘think I'd actually slept with my friend who was passed out in the other bed’. I remember wanting to call out for help but being worried Tom may hurt my friend; afterall there were two of Tom. 

I don't remember what spooked Tom but I remember hearing the door open and close and him pacing back and forth outside the bathroom and all of a sudden being out of sight. I remember breathing deep and walking to the second bed while my friend was still out cold in the first one unaware of what had transpired as well. The rest is black; a dead space in time that I lost. When I woke I was in the bed with my friend and my pants were undone. I knew I didn't belong there. 

I got out of the bed and went to the bathroom to clean up and remember feeling better than I deserved to after drinking so much. My phone had been powered off some time the night before and when I powered it on there were a ton of messages from my friends. I knew my Ex would be arriving soon to pick up our friend and would make a pass at me. I knew this was coming. I knew something was not right. I decided to pretend I was invincible….to fake it till I made it. I was strong, and I was going to pretend the previous night never happened. Afterall I didn't really know what happened. It wasn't until my ex arrived and had his hands on me that I knew; I knew my body didn't feel incontrol. I knew my body felt dirty and unsafe. I told him I did not feel well and pulled away. I never explained the night before to him. I felt like this was punishment for how poorly I'd treated my boyfriend who was never anything but magically sweet to me. Though the following hours to come would test this. 

I began returning calls and headed to the home of the girlfriend who started my search party with my best friend at the time. My boyfriend was not returning my calls at this time and I was trying to put the pieces of the night together. The girlfriend immediately knew something was not right and informed me of their rescue mission the precious night. I found out the hotel had threatened to call the police after they beat on the door of the room a second time. I found out when they returned later Tom’s car was gone, and heard the story of the victim before me. I said I only remember bits and pieces but they just did not fit together. 

My boyfriend finally returned my call. He asked me if I’d slept with Tom, and said he didn't understand why I wouldn't have answered the door for him or my friends. I tried to explain what I did know; and what I didn't know. I wasn’t sure if anyone other than the girlfriend actually believed me. I felt so alone, and so ashamed. The events that transpired after are not important. This situation set in motion a spiral of trouble for several of those I love as well as myself. I have friends for life because of this moment, but I learned I had to forgive myself for this moment in time as well. I thought I had. I felt over the hotel and Tom after all that transpired. It  was not a trigger to talk about it in later years if ever the ‘ me too’ stories came up. It was not until I saw a social media post with Tom’s face that I realized this even is a part of my past; a part of what shapes me as a person. ‘R.I.P.  Tom’ was the title of the post. Tom passed away after living to become a middle aged adult man. Tom had moved away and was never brought up after all of the events following the hotel unraveled. I still remember being helpless on the floor of that hotel room. I remember trying to talk Tom down while he mocked me. I remember Tom. It does not matter if everyone believed me. What matters is that I didn't keep your secrets. I was cared about. I was not perfect but I did not deserve that. No one does. ‘R.I.P. Tom’; looks like you will be missed. I know I am not the only one who felt like a helpless girl; even as a grown woman all over again that day Tom passed. I don't wish anything for Tom; I don't wish peace or forgiveness… I wish nothing for Tom. I wish peace for those who hurt because someone else feels entitled to their bodies. I wish peace for those who struggle to forgive themselves because none of us are perfect. That's what I wish. 

[a-polite-melody]

Truscum are always “honestly asking in good faith” why someone would transition without dysphoria.

Why the scare quotes?

Because while that’s what they say they’re doing, and what they’re portraying that they’re doing on the surface, what they’re actually doing is more insidious than that.

First of all, on any other posts made by truscum, where they’re trying to “educate” people, they say that their stance can be summarized just by, “you need dysphoria to be trans.” Anything else they say is built upon that assumption. And yes. That’s true.

And so, while asking why someone would want to transition if they aren’t dysphoric may seem like a harmless question and an opportunity to educate, it’s actually a trap.

Usually, as seen by how they move forward on those posts, they’re asking this question in lieu of asking how someone can be trans without dysphoria. They’re associating transness with transition, which is assimilationist bullshit that trans people have fought against for ages.

They’re perpetuating the societally held cisnormative believe that being cisgender is the default and trans people suffer because they’re “born with the wrong body” or “have a different brain sex than their body’s sex” or whatever the hell else nonesense cis people try to explain transness with (while coincidentally ignoring the extreme amounts of variation within even just cis people who share agabs’ primary sex characteristics, secondary sex characteristics, gonad structure, hormone levels, chromosomal make-up, etc. that demonstrate that the binary sexes aren’t two distinct categories, but a spectrum of different traits, and so “male brains and female brains” being in the wrong “female bodies and male bodies” is a gross oversimplification, as all sex-essentialist views are).

Basically, it’s a very reductionist stance that truscum/transmeds have taken by way of equating transness with transition with dysphoria (ie. clinicially significant levels of distress).

So, to answer their actual question of: “How can someone be trans without having dysphoria?” while also going over the answer to their ““good faith”” question’s answer as well.

Being trans is defined as “a person whose sex/gender assigned to them at birth differs from their actual gender.” If someone, when they were born, had a doctor exclaim about them, “it’s a girl!!” and then the person themself later, once they’ve started learning more about themself as a growing, developing person, says, “actually I think I’m a [insert-other-gender-descriptor-here],” then they’re trans.

No part of that requires dysphoria. And you aren’t entitled to know if they experienced it or not in realizing they’re trans.

That isn’t to say that dysphoria isn’t a very common way trans people realize that they’re trans, and that it’s not a common thing many trans people deal with. It just isn’t (and doesn’t have to be) a universal experience for every trans person. Every person is different. Every trans person is different. Your experience of having dysphoria may not accurately describe other trans people’s experiences, just like my experience of having had only euphoria may not accurately describe other trans people’s experiences.

I, personally, have fluctuating dysphoria. It took me multiple months after realizing that I’m trans to actually identify that feeling as dysphoria because it did fluctuate so much (and still does), while my gender euphoria stayed constant and very strong. And no, I’m not saying that to say, “take it from a real dysphoric trans,” I’m saying that for a long while, even after I’d realized I was trans, I didn’t actually have dysphoria. I still go through long spells of not having dysphoria.

I knew I wasn’t a woman. It never felt wrong to be called a woman, but saying that I’m not a woman feels more right. Which is why I want to socially transition to being nonbinary, and have in online spaces and offline safe spaces. Even before I experienced dysphoria, even when I haven’t experienced dysphoria in a long while, I still am nonbinary and want to be referred to as such. Same deal can happen with body parts. While I’ve basically resigned myself to not have gender affirming surgeries because I don’t need even more surgeries on top of the likely many I’ll have in the future because of chronic illness and disability... I should have a penis. I was born without one. I’m not dysphoric about what I have. I even kinda like what I’ve got going on down there when it’s not throwing a tantrum at me about one thing or another. But I also have. Basically a phantom penis. It’s there, even if it’s not physically there. I’m not dysphoric, but if it were viable for me to have that kind of intensive surgery paying out of pocket (because for me it’s not necessary, even though I want it), I totally would. There’s physical transition without dysphoria, and notice how it doesn’t steal resources considering even with universal healthcare where I live, non-necessary procedures usually can’t be covered, and also get pushed down to the very bottom of waiting lists in favour of people who have serious need of those surgeries within a shorter timeline so that the resource of time actually ends up getting taken from those of us who might get an improved quality of life, but don’t technically need the surgeries because we’re not dysphoric and often will end up with our lives on pause for years so that people who need it sooner can only have their lives paused for a few months. Just saying. (Resource stealing arguments have never made sense to me, especially now that I’m in the medical system for other non-“necessary” crap related to the disability/chronic conditions and keep getting sidelined and nothing is moving forward because I’m not imminently dying, so it’s fine, I guess. But I digress...)

My experience of transness has had so little dysphoria that the majority of what I’d consider to be that transness has nothing to do with dysphoria. Dysphoria has almost no role in my identity or my being trans.

It’s at about this point that I’m expecting comments like, “But you are dysphoric. It doesn’t matter that it’s rare, all that matters is that you’re dysphoric!”

And that misses the point entirely. I’m not looking for validation for myself. I’m not looking for edgy teens who think bullying people is fun and cool if you’re an oppressed person doing it to tell me that actually, I’m a “twue vawid twans uwuwuwu!!!”

I’m saying that propping dysphoria up as the one single thing that makes a person trans is reductionist and has assimilationist roots. It’s intrusive and a violation to require knowledge of someone’s medical conditions (which dysphoria is, transness is not).

Take trans people at our words. We know us best. And you being trans doesn’t make you the expert on each and every one of us. Instead of trying to prove if someone’s a cishet faker, take them at face value.

And, you know... just. Use their behaviour to gage if they should be asked to leave or not. I’ve been hurt waaaay more often and way more seriously by gatekeepers in LGBT+ spaces than people in queer spaces who are “““transtrending”””. I’d rather outsiders see people having harmless fun exploring their identities and thinking trans people are a joke than them seeing people infighting and making what is meant to be a safe and welcoming space for people figuring out gender stuff into a place of bullying and harassment and think trans people are a joke.

Because, in the end, people saying they’re stargender will never hurt trans people as much as someone probing into their medical history, assuming things about them based on parts of their appearance which they can’t hide about themself (like big hips, breasts that can’t be made flat or can’t be bound at all, etc.) that make them “present female” (whatever the hell that means), especially if that trans person has been trying to love all of their body anyway as part of self care, and as such triggering dysphoria in a whole bunch of trans people in doing so.

[aestherians]

My response to this video is gonna be ridiculously long, so hit J if you want to skip it

“Fictinkin is Terrible” Bad grammar. Should either be ‘fictionkin are terrible’ or 'fictionkinity is terrible’. But I digress.

“I actually used to be fictionkin” It’s generally agreed that if you’re 'kin, that’s what you are. It’s an inherent trait, like a hair color, and you can’t just quit it (though you can realize you never were 'kin in the first place or you can stop associating with the community or you can refuse to use any of the labels). A better wording would probably be “I used to think I was fictionkin.” This is just nitpicking, honestly, as it doesn’t change the experiences you’ve had with the community.

“[The otherkin community consists] of people who believe they are the spirit of a species besides human, born into the wrong body.” Not exactly wrong, not exactly right. This describes a lot of otherkin but by far not all. I believe my soul is partially that of a bison but I don’t believe I should’ve been born in the body of a bison. I also feel like I’m a gnoll (you know,, those fuckers from D&D) on a psychological level, which I chalk up to a lot of weird things in my late childhood/early teens, such as roleplaying werewolves and imprinting on the art of DarkNatasha. It’s not play-pretend, it’s just a… character trait, I guess you could say. Like being Pagan or being really into knitting. A large portion of otherkin believe it’s a purely psychological phenomenon or that the cause is a mix of spiritual and psychological stuff. Likewise, a lot of otherkin don’t feel like they’re born into the wrong body. It’s very subjective how each individual describes their otherkinity.

“It’s origins are mainly from tumblr” Not really… The current otherkin community has its roots in the elven communities from the 1970s (namely the Elf Queen’s Daughters and the Silver Elves). The EQD have letters dating back to 1973 detailing their nonhuman identities and can trace the origins of their organization back to the late 1960s. The word 'otherkin’ was coined by Torin in a mailing list (hosted by R’ykandar Korra’ti) in 1990. This is around the same time that the therian community appeared (seperately from the elvenkind/otherkin community) in the newsgroup Alt.Horror.WereWolves. For more information, check out “Otherkin Timeline - The Recent History of Elfin, Fae,and Animal People” By O. Scribner.

“Nowadays, the otherkin community has actually been pretty dead recently…” Again, not really… If anything, there are more otherkin actively discussing their identities and connecting with each other now than ever before. The community is just isolated to private chats and servers (mainly on Discord) and heavily moderated forums like WereList, Therian-Guide, and Fictionkin Dot Com.

“…and in its place has arisen something far worse: This is the fictionkin community.” Though some of the elves of the EQD and the Silver Elves would technically be classified as fictionkin today (as they identified as canon characters from Tolkien’s Middle-earth), the fictionkin community as we know it dates back to circa 2001. In other words, it’s not a replacement for the otherkin community specific to tumblr, and it is probably older than a lot of the people watching this video. For more info, check out “A History Of The Fictionkin Community” by House of Chimeras.

“Otherkin actually has [sic] some basis in spiritual beliefs like reincarnation and spirit animals” Otherkinity has nothing to do with having a spirit animal and an otherkin have nothing to do with spirit animals. If someone isn’t first nations they shouldn’t even touch that term. I understand where the confusion comes from, though. When you’re just getting to know your animal guide/spirit guide you think about them a lot, and when you think about something a lot you’re bound to experience things that are reminiscent of otherkin experiences, such as dreaming that you are the animal or taking on the mindset of the animal. The author Lupa used to think she was a wolf therian but a couple of years down the line recognized that she’d mistaken her spirit guide for a theriotype. You can read about it in her article “Letting Go of Therianthropy For Good.”

“Fictionkin, however, these people lack any actual reasoning behind why they think they’re a fictional character. They’ll often run around in circles, trying to come up with explanations for it, usually quoting the multiverse theory.” Archetypal connection, dissociation, energetic resonance, imprinting, mental fabrication, psychic connection, differently shaped soul parts, soul shattering, spiritual links, trauma, a coping mechanism turned into an involuntary identity, astral shapeshifting, neurodivergence, developmental issues in one of the critical periods of identity formation… Need I go on? There are plenty of things (both spiritual and psychological) that could explain why some people are fictionkin.

“At least the otherkin community tries to explain their logic with actual spiritual and religious beliefs.” What’s the difference between an “actual spiritual belief” and what fictionkin believe in? Hopefully you’re aware that all religious and spiritual beliefs were created by people. Superheroes are the modern day Greek gods, and fictionkinity isn’t really different from Alexander the Great believing he was a demigod. At least I don’t see the difference, except in the number of people that believe it (and I think we can all agree that the number of subscribers a belief has does not determine how real it is, otherwise we’d all have to accept the Abrahamic god as real and atheists would be seen as delusional).

“But the fictionkin community preaches a theory with no actual evidence behind it like it’s fucking fact.” And what exactly is the evidence behind non-fictionkin beliefs about the cause of 'kinity…?

“How do you actually determine that you are these characters?” I’m not fictionkin, so I can’t speak for them, but I identify as a bison and a gnoll because I experience a lot of things that fit into either narrative more comfortably than it does a human narrative. Body dysphoria, homesickness after places I’ve never been, impulses/urges, supernumerary phantom limbs, periods where my mindset feels less human and more animal, and flashing images of being my kintypes. Am I literally a nonhuman creature in a human body? Who the fuck knows. But it feels good to me to put those experiences in that narrative.

“It’s really concerning that these people would base their entire identities around something so vague.” Assuming someone’s kintype is their entire identity because you only know them from their 'kin blog is like assuming Drea Renee’s entire identity is 'knitter’ because she runs a big knitting blog. It doesn’t really fly. I’m otherkin, sure, but I’m also an animal science student, an aspiring amateur entomologist, a collector of old books, a fantasy fan, a cat lover, a scourer of thrift stores, and I could go on. Old books isn’t my entire identity. Insects aren’t my entire identity. Otherkinity isn’t my entire identity. I understand the assumption as you only see most 'kin on their blog devoted to otherkinity, but trust me, they will 9 times out of 10 have a private main blog where they post about all the other stuff that interests them.

“Let’s assume these memories are real. Don’t you think it would be possible to have memories of a character you aren’t even familiar with?” Plenty of people do, actually! They usually only find out when their source comes out, though. A somewhat famous example is Ebony who identified as a thestral a few years before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released. You can read about this in their essay “Fangs, Flesh and Flight” on House of Chimeras’ Livejournal. I myself have had several 'memories’ (I’m reluctant to call them that for personal reasons) of being an elderly woman in various situations. I’ve looked everywhere for something that matches those images, but I’ve pretty much resigned myself to it just being a 'normal’ past life.

“They pretty much make their self-indulgent canon” As a canon-divergent gnoll, I am Offended™. Nah, but honestly, canons and people’s relationships with them are weird (and I have a gut feeling that non-'kin would call our experiences fake whether we adhere to canon or not). Some people swear up and down that Shiro from Voltron still loves his ex, others claim the opposite. And neither of them are wrong since it’s all about the media consumer’s own perception of what they’re shown. Then there are people like me who just go off whatever gut feeling they have, so whatever kind of gnoll I identify as doesn’t show up in any tabletop canon that I’m aware of. I technically identified as a gnoll before I knew what a gnoll was and on my blog there are plenty of posts where I list my traits, asking if someone knows a creature matching them. In the end a kind Anon pointed me towards gnolls.

“According to these people you don’t even have to have memories to be kin. Actually, there’s no real determining factors for how to be kin and nothing is stopping you from being kin with every single fictional character that you like. As a matter of fact, people who are only kin with one or two characters are the minority.” You don’t need memories to be 'kin as there are many other factors that could cause you to feel nonhuman/like a fictional character. I’ve already gone over this in “How do you actually determine that you are these characters?”. What stops you from having a billion characters as your kintype at once is the simple fact that only a smaller number can really be significant enough parts of your personality to constitute kintypes. There’s no set upper limit, but somwhere around 5 is usually where you should start to get really skeptical. The people who have a list of 100 supposed kintypes have just really misunderstood what other-/fictionkinity is and need to be gently corrected. I hate to sound like I’m yelling ‘no true scotsman’ but among genuine otherkin, you’ll rarely find someone with more than 10 kintypes. Past lives, sure, but not kintypes.

“…delusions of being fictional characters.” 'Kinity is not a delusion. Please don’t downplay mental health issues by comparing them to a subculture. The DSM-IV classifies a delusion as “A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture (e.g., it is not an article of religious faith). When a false belief involves a value judgment, it is regarded as a delusion only when the judgment is so extreme as to defy credibility.” Otherkinity is an identity, not a belief, and it is in identity that makes no claims about the external world (with the exception of a select few elves and fae in the 80s/90s who claimed to be genetically otherkin). The beliefs surrounding otherkinity, however, can be delusional in rare cases like physical shifting. But in almost all cases the beliefs would fall into the culture/subculture category like religions do.

"And as they always say, anyone can become kin! You don’t even need to take it seriously.” The people who say that are going against the +40 years of established knowledge about the community and the otherkin experience. They’re wrong. You can not 'become 'kin’, only realize you were 'kin your whole life. You can, however, choose to become a copinglinker, which I believe a lot of the kids on tumblr actually are. If you chose your kintype, if you can drop a kintype all willy-nilly, or if you’re “kin to cope,” you’re a copinglinker, not otherkin. It’s a matter of misinformation and a lack of resources (and of kids refusing to listen when more knowledgeable people correct them).

“Eventually you’re gonna have to grow out of this.” Why? I’m happy the way I am (and functional, if that’s what you’re worried about). I’ve got friends, hobbies, and goals. I recently quit my job to focus on my studies, but up until then, I had no problems keeping it. I go to college. I go to parties. I’m going to Pride in a few hours. I’m not exactly secret about being otherkin, and all the people who’ve found out or who’ve been told that I am, have just shrugged and accepted it. If it doesn’t interfere with my day-to-day, there’s no reason to 'outgrow it’. For the record, I know plenty of people in their 30s and 40s (even a few upwards of 70) who lead completely normal lives and happen to be other-/fictionkin.

[julianwolski]

Issue #1 - Why should you watch Yuri!!! on ICE?

With a premise that involves figure skating, something quite rare in anime, one would expect this series to bring competition to the front seat for the ride, or butcher everything about the sport along the way--but one would be wrong on both counts. I am the first to admit that Yuri!!! on ICE does batter the audience with a lot of technical information, but most of the time it’s used as a way to further the plot and develop the characters, which for me was fascinating to follow.

The main focus of the series is Yuri Katsuki. As Yuri says himself, he is one of a dime-a-dozen top Japanese skaters, who after failing in one of the biggest competitions of his career doesn’t know what to with his life. For all the talent Yuri has, it seems like he got stuck and stopped improving.

With shame dragging him down, Yuri makes his escape to Japan, trying to hide away from the world. He hopes this will be the perfect moment for him to look inwards and decide whether he wants to continue skating or wallow in misery for the rest of his life.

Talk about fanboy!

From the get to go, it’s clear that Yuri loves skating, but this love is presented through a different perspective. It’s not only by the words he says that we can see this emotion. Instead, the story is peppered with little moments that help the viewer understand how this feeling came to be and how it grew over time.

It all started when Yuri saw Victor Nikiforov, a then teen skater from Russia, a few years older than Yuri himself. Instantly he became a fan of the way Victor moved across the ice, and that early infatuation eventually evolved into admiration. Through the years these feelings shaped who Yuri is and helped him nurture his love for skating.

Even now, Victor still is Yuri’s idol. He is someone Yuri looks up to, and someone whose level of excellence Yuri always aimed to reach--if not technically, artistically.

He never managed to do that, though. Yuri has talent, but it feels like he doesn’t know how to harness it and direct his efforts the right way. Also, Yuri himself has trouble believing he has what it takes to get close to Victor.

That’s one of the reasons why when these two meet close and personal, after a surprising turn of events, the world shifts on its axis.  

Victor leaves Russia for Japan. Together, they share the same ice, something they only did in competition before, but never at an intimate level. For all the laughs that their first interactions will get out of you, slowly these two start to find common ground in the rink, and it’s not a surprise the way they get close to one another.

NIPPLE!

On their orbit, however, we have a bunch of other characters that make their mark on the story. One of them is Yuri Plisetski, the rival of our main character.

Yurio, as the series baptizes him early on, wants Victor’s attention to himself after a promise made to him. However, even as a young kid that is a genius on the ice, Yurio is completely inexperienced in life outside of it, and it shows.

Inadvertently he follows Victor to Japan and tries to get the man to come back with him, albeit with no success. In the end both Yuris battle for Victor in a way that doesn’t seem unlike two knights unsheathing swords for a princess.

Besides that, their interesting dynamic offers the audience two very different viewpoints of the skating world: one from the eyes of someone that has been at it for years but hasn’t reached yet the pinnacle of success, and the other from someone that is a threat to all the established players in the game.

If anything, we should have gotten an entire episode of this party!

These three are central to the story, but there’s a lot more skaters, friends, and family that manage to steal the scene. We get to know Yuri’s close family and appreciate how much they root for him. There are the friends Yuri left behind in his hometown when he was young, the other competitors in the skating world, many of them who are also friends with Yuri, the coaches, and fans; a lot of colorful faces that bring a worldly charm to the show.

And now, I couldn’t very well forget about Makkachin, Victor’s dog. He begs to be adopted by anyone that starts watching the show. With his cute, fun, and carefree nature, there’s a special place for him between Yuri and Victor--and in the hearts of everyone that gets into the show too.

Do I need to say anything?

I’m sure many people gave props to the series for being an important piece of media depicting a gay relationship, especially for its country of origin and the mainstream attention it got, and I’m not here to dispute that. What I would like to call attention to, is the fact that there was a lot of thought put into this series, especially when it comes to how it was written.

The way these characters act, being their actions right or wrong, seems natural but also idealistic at times.  The same with the way various of the relationships that bloom, and even how the characters themselves evolve throughout the show. Some may seem stereotyped or impossible to take seriously, but most of the characters and situations have a side that can resonate with the audience.

There’s a little bit of everything for everyone, that’s for sure.

Another thing that also impressed me was the absence of those big coming out moments. I’m not against them, mind you, but it is such a visceral part of our queer identities that when it doesn’t exist in a universe, or when it doesn't receive the same amount of attention, you start to wonder why it is the way it is in our own society. What we get to experience is the way the bond between Yuri and Victor gets stronger and thrives based on simple and pure moments.

And though, some might say it’s not realistic, the show does carry a level of realism within its core, especially in the figure skating front. In fact, people from the skating community criticized the believability of the talent of some skaters in the series arguing that they were doing impossible feats, only to have a real skater surpass whatever impossible feat they thought the series was based on. The name of the guy who did it is Nathan Chen, if anyone is wondering.

But I digress. This is supposed to be fiction, after all. Although silly at times, Yuri!!! on ICE has a lot of poignancy in the way it addresses some complex issues the characters have to go through.  

When it was airing I remember waiting for each episode eagerly. I’m sure now you’re going to smile and laugh and cry if you watch, and most likely want more of it by the end, which is good because there’s still a movie in the works.

With only twelve episodes, Yuri!!! on Ice is short, and if you fall for it, you’ll think it ends too soon. So, yeah, I think you should give it a try.

P.S.: The series has an incredible soundtrack! Not only it gives life to the characters but it also adds a lot to the experience of watching. You’re going to be singing some of the songs in no time, I guarantee!

[kidolegend]

FFXV and Disabilities

All right, heavy post, but I feel like I need to say something about it in the wake of Episode Prompto. I want to give some serious creds to the FFXV writers for their depictions of various mental and physical abilities, so trigger warnings for depression, self-harm, allusions to eating disorders, and physical trauma that results in drastic lifestyle changes (loss of vision, specifically).

Spoilers for both the end of the game and Episode Prompto, so if you’re not past these, come back later.

Tagging.... Uh pretty much everyone in the Discord lmao there’s too many of you

First off, the most obvious one: Ignis and his blindness. It took a lot of guts for the game developers to realistically depict a character who has lost his eyesight (well, as realistically as a fantasy world can). They easily could have made Ignis into some super character who had an amazing ability to fight blind or perhaps even had Noctis heal him with some special Lucian power, but they did not. Of course, he does regain his fighting ability, but for a person who trained their entire life in combat, ten years is a long enough span of time to adjust to a handicap of that nature. The poignant way they show Ignis struggling to follow along or even outright falling or hitting a friend was ballsy and could have gotten a lot of negative flak from the gaming community, but the game devs handled it in such a tactful way that it could be appreciated and accepted.

 I’ve heard complaints about the Cartanica mines being ‘slow’ and ‘a pain to deal with’, but that’s where the realism lies--adjusting to a physical handicap takes time, not only for those afflicted but the people closest to them as well. Noctis, Gladio, and Prompto had to learn alongside Ignis--they had to find the fine line between helping Ignis and coddling him--and make their mistakes crossing that line as well. Ignis also had to swallow his pride and while he never verbally acknowledged it, he had to learn to accept help and deal with the fact that his duty to the crown had been compromised. Once the boys were past these hurdles, they were able to adapt to the changes and work accordingly.

Next, I'll talk about Noctis. The Lucian Prince had so much to deal with his whole life and his mannerisms and outlook on life strongly resembles a person who has severe chronic depression. Even as a child growing up, Noctis isolated himself from others. He easily could have reached out in school, as many people gave him attention but he chose to reject most attempts to socialize with the other children. Perhaps this was due to him being highly aware of his position as Prince, but I digress. 

In Brotherhood, Noctis lives on his own with Ignis regularly stopping by to check on him. Iggy enters Noct's apartment to find it in shambles, and while it might be normal for students living on their own to get a little disorganized and cluttered (moreso for a prince who was probably used to being cleaned up after), Noctis' mess is on a whole different level--a level that can really only be reached by someone who is too overwhelmed and exhausted with life to even take care of their basic necessities. Ignis takes it upon himself to clean up after the Prince and (judging on how Noctis predictably looks for his comics when he walks in) does so on a regular basis.

Noct is highly aware of his responsibilities is constantly tormented by the knowledge that his father will one day (and in the not-so-distant future at that) die and he will have to take on the very physically taxing duty of protecting the people with his life force. He lives knowing that there will be no long, happy life, no growing to old age or enjoying seeing his children or grandchildren grow up. He's so aware of his own mortality and it takes a toll on his emotional health; Noctis isn't just some lazy millennial who can't clean up after himself--he is an extremely depressed person who struggles to get up in the morning to tackle that hurdle we call life.

What really sticks out to me is the way the other characters handle Noct’s depression. They don’t tell him to ‘be more positive’ or ‘look on the bright side’--they generally accept his attitude and are understanding. They don’t try and change Noctis or deny the fact that he is an incredibly depressed individual but they also don’t baby Noctis or treat him like he’s an invalid. They support Noctis in their own ways--whether it’s Ignis quietly cleaning up in the background, Prompto keeping spirits up but also giving the prince space, or Gladio’s tough love that kicks Noctis into gear when he needs that extra push--and keep him functioning.

Last but definitely not least, Prompto. Prompto is such a deep and emotional character and his episode truly broke down his psyche layer by layer and grasped at the root of all his insecurities. I would say that in the course of his episode he had the most character development of any of the FFXV characters--Noctis included. The way Square Enix represented his depression, anxiety, and his dangerous tendencies towards self harm were painful to watch, not because they were bad but because they were oh-so-real.

A lot of people disliked the fact that they made Prompto overweight as a child. Some complaints I’ve seen relate to body-shaming/fat-shaming, and insensitivity towards those who are uncomfortable with their appearance. While these concerns are valid, I feel that the FFXV developers chose to have an overweight young Prompto in order to physically represent his emotional baggage.

I feel that Prompto is a person with mid-to-high-functioning anxiety and tendencies towards depression. ‘High-functioning’ means that although a person has a specific disorder or disorder they are generally able to live on their own and participate in society as an adult (i.e. keep a stable job, do chores, go out, etc). Since people like this are normally able to live their lives, it becomes difficult to place these emotional disorders, let alone portray them in media. After all, they still go to work and school and don’t “look” like the stereotypical anxious/depressed person.

I believe the game developers chose to make Prompto overweight as a child to physically represent his anxiety. It’s not uncommon for people who have generalized anxiety or similar disorders to experience difficulties with their diets--some people will have trouble eating and will lose weight and some will ‘stress-eat’ and gain weight. Combine that with the fact that Prompto’s ‘parents’ were not actively present and the fact that he felt alienated from the start (as a resident from the opposing country) and it becomes very understandable why his living habits (i.e. eating fast food daily, not interacting with other kids or people) were at lower standards.

Prompto’s change in appearance from his youth to his teen years was a symbolic representation of Prompto attempting to change his lifestyle and improve it for the better. While it’s apparent he still has quite a lot of baggage going into the roadtrip, his main anxiety and depression was controlled (well, technically suppressed) to the point where it was hardly visible and  was represented as such--basically, he had gained control of his (emotional and physical) weight. He still has insecurities about losing the only friends he’s ever made, but he feels included when he fights and travels alongside them.

In Episode Prompto, that all goes straight out the window. Noctis--the only person who truly chose him as a companion--attacks him and brings Prompto’s worst nightmare to life. He’s shoved off the train with the belief that Noctis no longer wanted anything to do with him, tapping into the long-repressed fear of losing the people close to him. His childhood self appears in his mind--again, as the physical representation of his emotional distress--and he struggles to cope with both that and the knowledge that not only was he a citizen of Niflheim, but he was an experiment with the sole purpose of bringing his best friend’s country to its knees. The anxiety breaks through his carefully-crafted facade and doubles as he (literally) meets his maker, drowning him in doubt, hate, worthlessness, failure, and self-loathing.

Prompto’s emotions come to a head when he reaches the campsite and the player is given the choice: burn his wrist or give up. The wording is so specific here: it’s not ‘burn his wrist’ and ‘put the fucking flaming stick down’, or ‘don’t do it’.

It’s ‘give up’.

Whether Prompto self-harms is up to the player, but the emotion behind the whole gesture is the same regardless of choice: Prompto no longer has the will to continue. It had taken Aranea literally dragging him to his feet to even get him out of the research facility, and at that point he was only moving out of obligation to the woman--if left to his own devices he probably would not have made it out of the compound alive. Prompto had no intention of reuniting with his friend--he had resigned himself completely and was ready to ‘give up’ on life.

Seeing that represented in such a visceral way was so difficult for me, but it was also so important. It showed that these types of experiences are real, that people with emotional disorders can be driven to actions that result in bodily harm. And what really hit home and stuck with me was Aranea’s reaction to Prompto burning his wrist. She didn’t tell him it was wrong, she didn’t yell or cry or think he was crazy.

Aranea said “did you really think that was going to work?” She told him (albeit indirectly) that there were other ways to go about dealing with his emotions. She acknowledged that he had made that decision and didn’t put him down for ‘being overdramatic’, but rather she stayed and patched him up. She helped heal him and once he had recovered she expressed her opinions on his despondent perspective (even if it did get a little aggressive).

I feel that the FFXV developers depicted these physical and emotional handicaps in a tactful and beautiful way. While some people think Gladio and Aranea were too tough on Noctis and Prompto (respectively), as a person who has dealt with depression and physical disabilities from a young age, I can safely say sometimes I needed a kick in the pants to get me going. The developers depicted not only various disabilities but also the ways in which different people responded to those with the disabilities. Seeing those kinds of support and the validation was really important to me and was not something I had ever seen in a major video game franchise.

All in all, I have to give my applause to the writers of FFXV for their handling of such sensitive topics. I believe it was done very tactfully but was also very realistically--and realism was one of the biggest selling points of the game--and was happy to see that representation in something so widespread.

Please feel free to leave comments or perhaps counterpoints--after all these are my personal interpretations and views based on my experiences, and I’d like to see if there are other perspectives I hadn’t considered.

[andawaywego]

cyrano’s got nothin’ on me

by andawaywego

[or: Jason asks Kim out and Trini is too good a friend for this crap]

… Jason asks Kim out on a Thursday. Trini’s not sure why it’s important that it’s a Thursday, only that it is. Thursdays suck. Not quite the week, not quite the weekend. She supposes, also–along those same lines–that she’s not even really sure why it’s important at all . Because it isn’t.

Or…shouldn’t be.

Jason can ask out whoever he wants. He could ask out Alpha-5 for all Trini cares. And it’s not like she has a monopoly on Kim’s time anyway, even if they usually do spend their Friday nights babysitting Trini’s brothers together. Even if her going on a date with Jason would take that away from her.

That tiny shred of a regular schedule.

They’re in the pit when it happens and Trini is delicately putting a bandage over a particularly bad scrape on Kim’s shoulder. She’s being a good friend. Because that’s what friends do. Friends press antiseptic wipes into cuts and wipe away blood and sometimes even press their fingers to their lips and then press those fingers into the Mickey Mouse band-aid. It’s not weird.

It’s completely normal.

“How bad is it?” Kim is asking, her voice that soft timbre that definitely doesn’t make Trini’s knees shake a little from where she’s kneeling on them.

That would be crazy.

“You’re fine, you big baby,” she jokes, trying to get rid of some of the tension of the moment–that unnecessary weight that is always added so immediately whenever her and Kim’s skin meets.

Kim laughs, this light sound that hardly even sounds like her.

It’s a nice moment–Kim sitting on a rock, Trini kneeling beside her, fingers keen and careful as she presses the adhesive sides of the band-aid down. And then Jason comes shuffling over with his hands wringing out some gross sweat towel like he’s nervous and his eyes are downcast, which is definitely weird because–

Well, because he’s Jason. He exudes confidence and this boyish, who-fucking-cares swagger most days that she’s slightly envious of, if only because he can get away with it, as a boy, without being called a bitch .

But she digresses.

“Hey, Kimberly, can I, um…talk to you for a second?”

It’s not an unusual request, if only because he’s been known to pull each of them aside for the occasional heart-to-heart just to ensure that they’re all on the same side. Usually, they are.

This is not one of those times.

From the side of Kim’s face Trini is on, she can see her eyebrows lower down in confusion. She can see that biting frown twisting on her lips, and Trini, in turn, frowns in mere response.

It’s bizarre.

“Yeah, sure,” Kim says. “What’s up?”

The moment Trini realizes it’s weird is the moment Jason glances at her, as though waiting for her to duck out or excuse herself, which–

She doesn’t have to, okay? Kim is probably the only female friend she’s ever had. She has a right to bear witness.

Make sure Jason doesn’t say anything stupid.

Like, You really sucked at training today.

Or, Those jeans don’t look great on you.

Or–

“I was, um…sort of wondering if you maybe wanted to go on a date tomorrow…with me.”

Yeah, something like that.

Kim is silent for a really long time, her mouth just sort of hanging open as she weighs her options, no doubt. Trini knows the feeling. And it’s weird that Jason would even ask, but it’s not necessarily surprising.

It’s practically set in stone. Two kids, fallen from grace, who used to run in the same social circles. If things were different and Jason hadn’t gotten almost expelled for that cow prank and Kim hadn’t nearly been taken to court over the Amanda thing, they probably would have ended up here either way.

Still, there’s the group dynamic to think of and Trini is half-expecting Kim to just blurt out the word, No, and then hightail it out of there, leaving Trini to slink out awkwardly from underneath Jason’s heavy, disappointed gaze.

There’s the group dynamic and the fact that this could sincerely screw that up.

Trini imagines all of this going through Kim’s head and more and then Kim says, “Um…” but instead of delivering some devastating blow to Jason’s ego, she says, “Sure.”

Sure .

The word sends a pang through Trini’s head, the beginnings of a headache. She frowns, bites her lip and presses the band-aid too hard onto Kim’s shoulder, making her yelp out in pain.

“Jesus, Trin! Be careful.”

When she looks up, Jason is frowning at her. Perhaps over the fact that she’s just (accidentally) hurt Kim, but it doesn’t appear to be the look of someone who’s just asked out Kimberly Hart and gotten a positive response. Trini would be jumping for–

For nothing.

Because she’d never ask out Kim because she’s not that girl. She’s not the kind of girl who develops feelings for her straight best friend. Her first best friend.

Jason smiles. “Great. I…I’ll text you, okay?”

Kim bobs her head. “Yeah, great,” she says and then Jason leaves. He joins Zack and Billy by the ship and they leave together.

It’s quiet for a couple of minutes–just the sound of Trini breathing too harshly for someone who’s literally just kneeling there–and then Kim clears her throat.

“Are you okay?” she asks, like it’s supposed to mean something different. Something deeper.

Trini nods. “Yep. Fine.”

She pulls herself up and grabs her things and it isn’t until she’s soaking wet and running home that she realizes she just stormed off like a character from some stupid teen drama. She stormed off for no damn reason.

Because she doesn’t have a reason, she thinks as she sinks heavily, wet, onto her bed and feels the soak of the sheets beneath the seat of her jeans.

At least, not one she’s willing to consider.

.

It only gets worse.

Or, weirder, actually, because Trini has absolutely no opinion of Kim going on a date with Jason, so how could it possible get worse?

Answer: it can’t. It can’t get anything because Trini doesn’t care.

“Morning,” Jason greets from beside her locker as she approaches that next morning and she frowns at him. It’s too early for his perky smile, the way his blue eyes shift in the flourescent lights.

She grunts and tugs her locker open, shoves some of Kim’s books aside so she can get her things.

“Was your night okay?”

She has to hand it to him, he’s genuinely trying. He may not be the elected leader she would have voted for as President Power Ranger, but he tries to make sure they’re all on the same page. Even when he’s asking one of them out.

“If you’re looking for Kim, she doesn’t come get books till after third, so you can come back later.”

Jason frowns–this pretty thing that turns down his lips like some Teen Beat poster. “I wanted to talk to you, actually,” he says and Trini ignores him, grabs her books and slams the locker closed. “I have a favor to ask.”

She feels sluggish, weighted down like she’s just been pushed off a cliff and into an unexpected bed of water waiting below. “What kind of favor?”

And the sheepish look Jason gives her is answer enough.

.

Okay, so it shouldn’t piss her off. There’s no reason for it.

Teen comedies should have taught her that she should do anything for her best friend, even help the guy she’s dating date her. Especially that.

Of course, in a teen movie, she’d probably fall in love with Jason at the end and Kim wouldn’t be a very good person so the audience wouldn’t feel bad that she’s left all alone, but…

Yeah, no. That’s not gonna happen.

“You’re gonna what ?” Zack asks at lunch, halting mid-throw with a tater tot in his hand. The face he’s making is torn between amusement and sincere pity, so Trini looks away–squints until she can just barely see the pile of tater tots he’s been making in the football field down below the bleachers.

“You’re making a mess,” she admonishes, trying to change the subject, but Zack is never so easily swayed.

He frowns and drops his arm. “I’m sorry,” he starts, “but it sounded like you just said you’re helping Jason get ready for his date tonight.”

She looks away, finding something interesting to pick at on the knee of her jeans.

“His date with Kim.”

She frowns.

“The same Kim you’re in love with.”

Except–

“I’m not in love with Kim,” she snarls and Zack nearly looks afraid for a second before a smug look replaces it.

“Mhm,” he hums and looks away. He chucks the tater tot from before and it lands in the same pile in the middle of the fifty yard line.

“I’m not.”

He nods. “I heard you.”

“Yeah, but you don’t seem like you believe me.”

He chucks another one and then turns to meet her eyes. “That’s because I don’t.”

And, well.

She doesn’t owe any sort of explanation to him anyway.

.

“So,” Kim starts at the end of the day, standing by Trini’s locker and Trini can’t even look at her, can’t bring herself to do it.

Keeps hearing, the Kim you’re in love with, over and over in her head. Zack’s stupid voice.

Stupid words.

Stupid Zack, always making things more complicated.

“Yeah?” Trini prods, because it’s rude to ignore someone you’re not technically mad at. It’s rude to ignore your best friend at all.

“I, um…Have fun with your brothers tonight, I guess.”

That’s when Trini remembers that she’ll be babysitting alone for the first time since before Rita–since before meeting Kim. She’ll have to deal with Diego and Alex not wanting to do their homework on her own and Kim won’t be there after bedtime to watch cooking shows in the dark living room with.

Which is fine.

Because Trini isn’t needy. She doesn’t need to spend every single Friday with Kim like some standing date.

Date.

“Right,” she says and tugs the last of her books out. “Have fun on your date .”

If she spits that last word–if she slams their shared locker door a little too hard–she doesn’t mean to. And it doesn’t mean anything when she’s scared to look back at Kim as she leaves, scared to see her reaction.

.

At home, she tries to smother herself with a pillow only to be interrupted by a phone call.

“Hey,” Jason says when she answers. He sounds anxious and Trini closes her eyes against her growing migraine. “Could you…I don’t know what to wear. Could you maybe come over and help me?”

Like she’s some sort of dating-Kimberly-Hart expert. Like she’s a dating expert at all .

The clock on her phone says 3:47. The date isn’t until 7:00 .

Trini sighs. “Be there in five minutes.”

.

Jason answers the door like he’s just run a marathon. He looks sickly, his blue eyes darting around nervously as his hand clasps around her wrist and drags her inside and down the hall to his bedroom.

“Sorry,” he says, once the door is closed. “My mom knows I’m…” He trails off. “And if she sees you, she may think you’re who I’m taking to dinner.”

Trini nods. She gets it.

Mrs. Scott is almost as overbearing as her own mother–something that her and Jason had only just begun to bond over before this whole date fiasco started. Now, she’s–

Now she’s fine. Because this is fine.

Jason is her friend and Kim is her friend and this is totally fine .

“So…You’re taking Kim to dinner then?”

Her curiosity gets the best of her, bubbling up in her chest and her stomach and making her feel antsy. She taps her foot against his bedroom floor and takes a seat on his messy bed, pushing a couple of dirty t-shirts onto the floor to make room for herself.

Does curiosity always feel so nauseating?

Jason crosses his arms over his chest and looks towards his open closet, his messy dresser drawers, all of them pulled out and torn apart. “Yeah,” he says. “That, um…that pizza place over on Maple?”

She nods. Her brother ate seven slices of pepperoni there last month and upchucked on checkered table cloth. Good times.

Of course, she doesn’t tell Jason that because he looks nervous enough already without hearing about her kid brother puking everywhere in the same restaurant where he’s about to take Kimberly Hart on a date.

“You good?” she asks. “You look sick.”

And he does.

Jason nods and uncrosses his arms to wipe his palms on his jeans. “Yeah, I’m good, I’m just…”

But even he doesn’t seem to know what he really is, and the subject is promptly dropped.

“Okay.”

She pulls herself to her feet and edges around him to his closet and pushes around at a couple of flannels he has hung up inside it. “What were you thinking, clothes-wise?” she asks, because all the shirts look pretty much the same, most of them checkered blue and red.

Jason shrugs and he doesn’t seem to know what he’s allowed to do with his hands, because he keeps moving them around–stuffing them in his pockets, running his fingers through his hair, rubbing his face with his palms.

“Dude, are you sure you’re okay?” she asks. “Because, like…You look like you’re gonna ralph”

“I just…” He looks away and then crosses the room to sit in her recently vacated spot on his bed. “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do or say tonight. I just feel like…This should be easy, right? If it’s meant to be?“

Trini knows that feeling–feels it pretty much every time she’s left alone with Kim, but it had been the most poignant that first afternoon alone, before they’d defeated Rita. She’d made a fool of herself going out for coffee with the other girl–hadn’t known whether she should hold the door open for her and ended up slamming it shut on Kim’s face. She hadn’t known whether or not she’d been meant to pay for her own half or not and ended up accidentally making Kim pay for the whole thing and then–

It hadn’t been pretty, but she’d like to think it’s gotten simpler since then.

Still not perfect by any means, but definitely not the disaster of that first afternoon.

“Hey, Kim is easy, okay?” Trini says, but it’s a lie and it comes out sounding like some sort of comment about something else entirely. She blushes and Jason gives her an odd look at her phrasing. “What I mean is–” She starts, clearing her throat. “–is that she’s not gonna, like, judge you or anything. She has like endless chances for us weirdos.”

Jason smiles in relief at her words. “Don’t lump me in with you,” he jokes and Trini smiles, the mood suddenly a good deal lighter than it had been mere moments before.

“Just open the door for her. Hold her chair out. Ask her questions, I guess. She doesn’t like to talk about herself unless you make her, but it makes her feel better to do it, so…And she might try to steal your food, but just let her because she makes this really cute face when she thinks she’s gotten away with it.”

Jason is looking at her weird again, his eyes narrowed and Trini looks away, back at his closet.

“How about this one?” she asks, pulling out a button-down shirt that looks exactly like the others.

But Jason seems pleased. He smiles and takes it and makes Trini turn around as he changes.

It isn’t until 6:00 when she’s making sure his hair looks decent that Trini realizes what she’s helping him prepare for.

“Thanks,” he says on his way out, his keys jingling faintly in his hand as he makes his way to his recently-repaired truck.

Trini nods and swallows around the lump in her throat, wonders vaguely if she might be getting sick. Other than the faint, persistent nausea, though, she feels completely fine.

“Have fun on your date,” she says and the words sound wrong coming out of her mouth, leave her tongue feeling heavy.

Jason nods and smiles as he backs down the driveway.

Trini almost follows him. She even starts to–heading down those familiar back roads to Kim’s house–but she stops herself before she gets too far and pulls over on the side of the road.

“What the fuck is happening?” she whispers, head against the steering wheel.

Jason’s tail lights disappear up ahead and it’s only once they’ve completely disappeared that Trini turns around and drives herself home.

.

Her parents leave at eight for their weekly scheduled date night and her brothers’ long division homework does little to distract her. Trini feels sick–like she’s trapped in some sort of funhouse mirror, stretching and pulling and shrinking again until her insides are a jumbled, sick mess.

Zack texts her once around nine with a stupid meme she doesn’t fully understand and Billy sends a picture of his cat about twenty minutes later with a message that just says, You feel off. Maxwell wanted to say hi. Call me if you need me! :)

The offer’s nice and all, but all it does is remind her of why she feels off. And why she doesn’t want to think about why she feels off.

Twenty minutes after she puts the boys to bed–when she’s flopped back on the couch trying to take some sort of enjoyment in the way Gordon Ramsay is yelling on screen–the doorbell rings.

She contemplates just leaving it. Her dad forgets his keys sometimes and hates pulling out the hide-a-key rock they have by the front stoop because “the neighbors might catch on”, but being forced to out his secret is punishment enough for forgetting them again .

But then it rings again. More insistently. Loud enough to wake Diego and Alex.

She pulls herself to her feet and grumbles all the way to the front door, unlocking it and ripping it open. “Mom, you gotta start making sure he grabs his keys before you guys–” she starts, and then promptly cuts herself off.

Jason is standing on her porch with the shirt she picked out for him tugged up around his elbows. He’s kicking at the wooden steps and shifting his weight and he says, “Hey,” when she sees that it’s him.

That damn lump in her throat is back. “What do you want?” she asks, meaning it to sound harsh, but comes out insecure and a little wobbly.

“I, um…” He shuffles just the tiniest bit closer and his posture very nearly has her pitying him.

“How’d it go?”

The question is out of her mouth before she can even stop herself. Jason’s head tilts up as her words hit him and she gets the answer from the way his eyes drop.

This time, it’s her that tugs him into the house.

.

They’ve got maybe twenty minutes before her parents get back. Thirty, at the most, but that’s only if her mom decided dessert was worth it for the night and she usually doesn’t, citing that “room for dessert” means you did not have enough to eat at dinner.

Trini rolls her eyes at the thought and realizes too late that Jason must think it’s directed at him.

Which, it is. But only a little.

She doesn’t want to talk about that.

“What went wrong?” she asks and Jason shrugs, tosses his hands up in the air.

“I don’t know!” he says. “It was just…it was weird. I thought maybe…”

He doesn’t have to finish. He’d thought that it wouldn’t be weird, that the stars would finally align because, based on every group dynamic ever made, Fred and Daphne always end up together.

But that metaphor pretty much sucks. Mostly because she’s pretty sure that makes her Scooby.

Jason is too big for her couch. He looks humongous and out of place, but he presses his face to his knees at an awkward angle, and she’s pitying him before she realizes why. Disgust twists in her chest a second later, because a tiny thrill of pride had shot through her when she’d realized the date hadn’t gone well, and what kind of friend does that make her?

“Wanna be specific or am I gonna have to prod the rest of it out of you?”

She pokes his ribs, making him squirm, and then he finally pulls himself upright.

“We didn’t have anything to talk about,” he tells her. “We just sat there for, like, twenty minutes in silence. It was weird! And…I tried to hold her hand on the way into the restaurant and she just…I don’t know.”

Trini’s not sure if that’s meant to convey that Kim had pulled away or that she’d been superbly and shockingly terrible at holding hands in the first place. She’d go with the latter, if only for the comedy of the thought, but she knows it’s not true.

Because she’s held Kim’s hand exactly three times–once after Kim had confessed everything that happened with Amanda two months ago; once on the couch just two weeks ago; and the other just earlier on in the week when they’d been patrolling through the streets for anything strange.

Kim’s hands are warm without being sweaty, soft without being clammy. Her grip isn’t too firm.

It’s not like Trini has held a hundred different hands in her life, but she’s pretty sure Kim’s would be at the top of her list even if she had .

“It just felt wrong,” Jason admits. “And then we talked and I just…I realized why . Or…I don’t know.”

Trini’s head spins. She has so many questions, she’s not sure where to even begin

“Maybe you went about it the wrong way,” Trini tries. She really wants to be supportive because Jason is her teammate and her friend and she wants Kim to be happy. And if Jason can make her happy, then she’s gonna damn well do her best to make sure he does . “She’s…Kim is sorta hard to pin down. It took me a while to get her, but she’s…I don’t know. You’ll get there.”

Jason is quiet for a long time, just kind of slumped over with his face pressed into his hand, his elbow braced on his thigh. Trini isn’t sure what she’s supposed to say and Gordon Ramsay is saying, “You’re a fucking lunatic!” on screen, so she watches him storm out of whatever restaurant he’s trying to fix and waits for the silence to be broken.

But the moment it is, she wishes it hadn’t been. Because Jason says, “You’re a good friend, Trini. You really care about her,” in this super insistent way she doesn’t know what to say to.

“I mean, she’s my friend, so I–” she starts, but Jason’s eyes really should be illegal.

They’re too blue, too easy to turn into watery messes that you can’t turn down.

She sighs. “Yeah, I do,” she says, and it’s at least enough to get him out of her house before her parents get home.

.

did you guys miss me?

The message comes through while Trini is lying in bed an hour or so later, just kinda staring up at the exposed wood of her ceiling, that messy dent she hasn’t quite gotten around to patching up yet.

Her phone blinds her eyes and she doesn’t know how to say no because the answer is yes.

The boys did, she sends back and it’s read immediately, making Trini’s heart flutter.

Somewhere across town, Kim is lying in bed with her phone open waiting for Trini to text her.

just the boys?

Trini sighs. Yep, she types, then, how was your date with our dear captain? even though she already knows the answer.

It goes unanswered, but read, for probably about two full minutes before Kim finally texts back.

fine, it says, and then, i gotta sleep. see you tomorrow.

Kim, it seems, isn’t anymore willing to talk about what happened, and Trini shouldn’t, but she’s relieved for a moment before the disgust sinks in.

She really is the worst.

I’ll help you, she texts Jason a minute or two later and the response she gets is immediate.

.

“You seem better,” Billy chirps happily when she swings into detention the next morning.

He’s already at his desk with some homework pulled out, hands folded neatly on his lap, and his smile is impossible to ignore.

“I’m fine, Billy,” she tells him. It’s not necessarily a lie, just a marginal bending of the truth.

He nods. “Okay. Well…Maxwell says hi.” He smirks at his own cleverness and Trini smiles.

“Cool,” she says. “Tell him I said hi back.”

And then she’s in her corner of the room, burying her face in her English homework and ignoring the way Kim’s look burns into her face when she climbs down the steps a minute or two later.

Jason comes slinking down just before Mr. Narvy and he throws a note at Trini’s head as soon as roll call is finished.

what’s the plan? it reads, in scratchy mostly illegible letters.

Trini sighs and glances at the back of his head and then across the room where Kim is sitting, her head lowered over her homework. She’s bouncing her leg like she sometimes does when she’s taking a test in Biology. It’s a movement that Trini has become more than a little familiar with since the beginning of the school year–since before they officially met–and it makes her smile a little distantly.

She scribbles down her plan as quickly as she can manage and chucks it at his head, then pulls out another piece of paper, writing out A wild Jason appears! at the top of it in as close to Jason’s handwriting as she can manage.

It hits the back of Jason’s head with a painful looking thump. He whips around to glare at her in confusion and she just mouths, “Throw it to Kim,” with a particular harsh jut of her head towards the girl in question.

So he throws it to Kim.

It lands on her desk and she immediately stops bouncing her leg, head twisting around to look at Trini, as if the note had come from her, which…it had . But she catches Jason smiling at her instead.

Trini watches the exchange out of the corner of her eye and then the note is being discreetly tossed her way by Jason a second later.

All it says is, hey .

Which, for Kim, is wildly solemn.

Jason is watching her and Trini’s heart is pounding in her ears. The fact that it’s not her own name she’s writing down doesn’t make her feel any better.

Jason uses ASK TO A MOVIE TONIGHT.

Her hands tremble as she waits, which is stupid of course because it’s not like she’s asking Kim out (even if she is ).

Technicalities.

Kim is smiling. Trini can see that cute (what?) little curve of her lips from where she’s sitting. It must be a big smile.

She’s pretty sure she’s having a heart attack.

The answer she gets a minute later is, sounds good!

She should feel proud, maybe. Because she just asked out a pretty girl, because the pretty girl said yes, even though the way she went about it was possibly the dorkiest, quasi-lamest thing she could have done.

It’s not clear what expression she expects from Jason when she sends the note chain back to him with she likes dramas–bring tissues scribbled on the front, but mild disappointment certainly isn’t it.

.

At least training is cancelled.

A silver lining perhaps, but Kim flakes out after detention and Trini isn’t sure what she’s supposed to do now that she’s gotten Jason another date, so she goes to the mine anyway.

Zack is already there, swinging his legs over the edge of the cliff.

“You look pissed,” he says as she slumps down into the dirt beside him. “How’s the whole Cyrano de Bergerac thing working for you?”

She frowns, momentarily confused and Zack shrugs.

“What?” he asks. “I read.”

.

Jason calls her a couple of hours later, freaking out about movie times and choices.

“I don’t know, dude,” she says and resists the urge to chuck her phone into a rock.

Zack chuckles humorlessly from his spot on top of the train car. She flips him off.

“It’s like you’ve never dated a girl before,” she says, and it really is.

Not that she has either–not that she has much experience–but she’s been to the movies with Kim. She’s sat beside her in a mostly-dark room with one bucket of popcorn between them and felt the exact same nervousness that’s probably jumping in Jason’s throat right now.

Mostly, she just hates knowing that her and Jason have that much in common, so when he says, “You’re right. It’ll be fine,” a minute later, it’s satisfaction she feels when the line clicks dead.

.

He doesn’t show up on her doorstep that night, which she takes as a good sign.

For him.

Around ten, he texts her the thumbs up emoji. She doesn’t want to think about what that means.

.

“How are things with Jason?”

Trini asks it out of obligation, out of some masochistic tendency that she relies on like bad limp. She doesn’t want to know. Or, rather, 90% of her doesn’t want to know. It’s that rogue 10% that would much rather her be left a crying mess on the floor with her hard-to-process feelings.

Except they’re not so hard.

“Good,” Kim says and she’s cradling her paper coffee cup in her hands and exhaling bright, white curling air that spreads upwards, chilled and freezing microscopically.

Trini nods and presses her coffee further between her knees, bundling into her coat and trying to ignore the cold metal of the park bench beneath her legs.

It’s quiet. Trini lets the unspoken reasoning behind her brief, unimportant interrogation settle into the space between them, which doesn’t say much because there’s not much space. Kim’s arm is pressed up against her own and Trini wants to move and doesn’t in equal, confusing parts.

“Are you…” She’s not certain how she wants to ask that. Mostly because she’s only had a couple of days to come to terms with where this has been heading since she met Kim on that stupid cliff two months ago.

Her dumb, teenage heart got away from her and now she can’t so much as look at Kim without imagining Jason kissing her. The thought makes her sick. The thought of Kim with anyone (else) has made her sick for a while now, but she’s only just now begun to understand the reasoning behind it.

“Yeah?” Kim prods and she’s looking at her now.

Trini meets her eyes, but barely–refuses to get lost in the darkness of their color, that beautiful shadow around Kim’s pupils that spins her out of control every time.

Trini tries to hide the severity of the moment by taking a sip of her coffee, wincing at the bitterness, but relishing in its warmth. She’s not sure who’s idea it was to sit in the park in the middle of November, but she’s fairly certain that her nose is never going to be warm ever again.

“Are you going to go out again?” she asks, once the scalding coffee has slipped down her throat.

Kim looks away. “I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe. If he asks.”

Quiet again.

And then Kim bumps Trini’s shoulder with her own. “The beanie actually makes more sense in the winter,” she jokes and the image of Jason pressing his hands into the graceful convex of Kim’s waist makes her swallow a little more thickly than usual.

.

Billy brings her some cookies that night, the kind you can find at every other grocery store. The somewhat chalky, sprinkled kind that mostly just taste like processed sugar and food dye.

It’s a nice thought and Trini eats three of them on the couch while Billy sits beside her and reads.

“Is this because Jason and Kimberly are dating now?” he asks and Trini doesn’t think there’s any point in answering because that’s all this has ever been about.

She likes Billy and his gentle voice, the way he’s always trying to perk everyone up, no matter what the circumstance. She especially likes how good he is at it.

“You should talk to Kimberly,” he says a little later and she’s got her head on his shoulder, feeling the way he moves as he chews one of those cookies. “Nothing else is gonna help.”

And of course he’s right. He’s Billy. And Billy is never wrong.

.

But the timing doesn’t seem right. She doubts that it ever really will.

Kim comes over that night–just hefts herself through Trini’s window like she sometimes does on nights when it’s late and she gets antsy, or when she can’t sleep and knows that Trini will be awake. It’s late and Trini is lying in her bed with the lamp off and the thing is, she’s so used to this at this point that she doesn’t even jump when she hears the window creak open.

(even though the first time it had happened, it had been enough to send her into some sort of Rita-induced PTSD flashback that had taken Kim twenty minutes to talk her down from)

“Sorry,” Kim mumbles, when she knocks a stack of drawings off of Trini’s desk and Trini jumps up to help her gather them.

“What are you doing here?” Trini asks, kneeling on the floor with Kim and pushing papers together like some sort of movie-script meet-cute.

Kim smiles at her sheepishly, her eyes dark in the shadows. “I wanted to see you,” she says and the words thump hotly through Trini’s veins even though the meaning is probably different than what she hears.

What she feels.

“Okay, weirdo,” she mutters, half-joking and then Kim is lying on the covers beside her in her bed.

They’re silent for a long time, Trini’s lip trembling as she tries to figure out the best way to out herself. To say, I want you to date me, not Jason . Without scaring Kim away.

But her confidence unfolds under Kim’s gaze and the feeling leaves her empty as fear creeps up her spine.

And then Kim reaches out and grabs her hand, squeezing her fingers gently. “What’s wrong with you?” she asks. “You’ve been weird lately.”

Trini doesn’t have a good answer for that, not one that has zero chance of sending Kim running into the night. She shrugs. “I’m okay.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

Trini sighs, hating the way she feels dizzy and wired at the same time from the mere offer.

“No,” she says. “I’m good.”

Kim doesn’t buy it. She rolls her eyes and then stares Trini down so intensely that Trini has to pull her hand free in order to lessen the severity of the moment.

It’s a teen movie scene, but Trini isn’t the protagonist and by all laws of 90’s rom-coms, Kim should be in Jason’s room right now, sharing this moment with him and not the best friend that is probably in love with her. Maybe.

Because the protagonist should kiss the love interest here. It should be that great moment before the low point, when everything is going okay and then something happens. Something humiliating or just enough that it breaks them apart, that everything is bleak for about ten minutes of screen time before the grand romantic gesture–the running through the streets, the song on the jukebox, the big banner declaring their love.

Trini hates that sort of thing because big moments like that only happen after something awful.

It feels more like a misguided apology than an actual revelation.

For a second, she’s certain that Kim is looking at her lips–that they’re both leaning forward and that she’s moments away from what might be the greatest kiss of her life But–

Nothing happens. Either she pulls away or Kim does or all of it was imaginary in the first place.

“You can talk to me, you know,” Kim tells her, voice soft and careful as it blows through the air between them. “About anything.”

The prospect of it is meaningful, but Trini is fairly certain it would fall apart in practice.

What straight girl would be okay with their best female friend harboring some pretty intense feelings for them?

She has a lot of faith in Kim–this girl lying in bed with her in the dark, who crawled up the side of her house in the middle of the night to ask if she’s okay–but trust can only do so much.

.

It’s not two days later when Jason comes to her again.

“Okay,” he says, in the middle of the cafeteria, waiting for Trini to figure out if she wants strawberry or chocolate milk. Mostly, she’s trying not to look at him. The milk doesn’t matter. “So the movie thing was great, but we’ve gotta talk tonight. And…we’re okay around you guys, but alone? I don’t know. That’s what was so bad the first time.”

“I can’t help you talk, Jason,” she tells him.

She picks chocolate because she doesn’t want to look at anything pink right now.

“I can help you ask her out, I can tell you what kind of movies she likes, I can tell you that nine times out of ten, she’ll greet you by saying, ‘Wazz poppin’, but I can’t talk for you.”

Billy is sitting at the table and she loves him, she really does.

(hell, she loves all of them, and maybe that’s what’s screwing her over)

But he must hear that last part, because he smiles as they take their seats. “Actually,” he says, “you might be able to.”

.

“Can you guys tell me what the plan is again? Cause I’m pretty sure it’s stupid, but I want to be really sure, y’know?”

Trini glances over at Zack, sitting on Jason’s bed with this stupid smug look on his face.

She likes him sometimes, but not when he insists on being solely expository.

“So, I’ve got Jason hooked up with a couple microphones and this hidden chest harness for my GoPro and Trini is gonna monitor his date with Kimberly to make sure nothing awkward happens.”

“So…Would you call this a double date?” Zack asks, still smirking. “Or…I guess, a tricycle, maybe?”

Billy looks at him, confused, and then goes back to strapping the harness over Jason’s undershirt, where it’ll be hidden by his button-down and tie.

“Thanks for doing this again, Trini,” Jason says, beaming. “I…I just want tonight to go well. Third date and all.”

“Right.” She swallows around the bile in her throat. “Well, you know me. Resident Kim expert. Here to help.”

Her head is starting to pound and Kim isn’t supposed to arrive for another twenty minutes. There’s something to standing in this room with three boys, preparing one of them for a date with the girl she likes.

Maybe loves.

Or…Whatever.

Doesn’t matter.

Because Kim is her friend . Her best friend and she’s worked for it, so fucking hard for the past two months. She learned how to handle Kim on her own–learned her quirks and her habits–and she didn’t just ask her out on a date in an attempt to wing it and then beg someone else for help.

She doesn’t care, of course. Because if Jason makes Kim happy, then so be it.

She can be supportive.

Witness her being supportive. She feels her eyelid twitch.

Maybe she could fake food poisoning and guilt Kim into taking care of her like she did when she had a cold last month. Kim could make her that cheddar chicken noodle soup again and they watch bad reality TV in Trini’s bedroom and–

That sounds a lot like a date.

Maybe Jason should fake food poisoning.

“How do I look?” Jason asks, turning a little so they can see.

The camera is hidden well behind his tie, but Trini is skeptical on how they’ll even be able to see . Billy looks proud. He claps his hands together.

“Good,” she manages.

The doorbell rings and Jason waves her off to answer it so he can make sure his hair looks alright.

Kim looks beautiful and Trini immediately stops wondering why Jason wanted her to meet him here instead of him picking her up. Stops caring. Because Kim is wearing a skirt and Trini’s seen her legs before, of course, but it’s different like this somehow, in the low light of the cold evening.

She’s shivering too.

“Hi,” Trini says and Kim pushes her way inside.

“Hey,” she says in the foyer, the door still open a little. “Why are you here?”

Her tone is a little more uneven than usual, the inquisition raising up at the end and Trini frowns, trying to think of a good reason.

“Oh, well…being supportive,” she lies. “Zack and Billy are here too.”

Kim nods. “Is Jason ready?”

She seems tense, for some reason. Her shoulders are hiked up higher than usual and her tone is biting now, a little annoyed. Trini has no idea why.

“I think so.”

Silence descends and Trini sniffs, trying to break it, if only for a moment.

It hardly works.

“You look…wow,” she says and Kim brightens a little, her shoulders drooping.

Trini reminds herself that she shouldn’t hurt like this, because she’s doing this for Kim (and for the dizzying rush she gets every time Kim smiles at her now, but she’s trying not to factor that in right now).

“Thanks,” Kim says and her voice is low, hardly a whisper. “So do you.”

Her eyes drop down to inspect Trini’s outfit like she’s never seen it before, even though it’s the same thing she wore to school earlier. The moment is nearly too much. If Kim weren’t dressed and ready for a date with someone else, it would be overwhelming for a lot of reasons.

In any case, Jason comes in a second later and greets Kim with a boyish smile that makes Trini shrink into the corner soundlessly.

“You look great,” he says and Kim smiles–different than the one she’d sent Trini for her similar comment.

“Thank you,” she responds and then they’re out the door, Kimberly sending a little wave as they back out of the driveway and head towards town.

Trini watches them through the window and the moment is so stiff and unyielding for a second that she doesn’t even know what to do.

And then Billy says, “We should probably get ready, huh?” and the moment is broken.

Thankfully.

.

At least it’s not the pizza place again.

Granted, it’s still Italian food, but that’s pretty much the only kind of restaurants Angel Grove has anymore, as if Rita’s gold monster had had a vendetta against fast food chains or something.

She snorts at the thought of Jason taking Kimberly Hart on a third date to McDonald’s.

“What’s so funny, pip squeak?” Zack asks from the cramped back of her car. His knees are practically in his chest and Trini rolls her eyes at him.

“Nothing,” she says.

Billy has his laptop out and is hooking it up to the camera on Jason’s chest, to the microphone in the pocket of his shirt. “Do you need to be alone?” Billy asks her and she gives him a confused look. “When you woo her? That can get pretty personal.”

Her face flushes and Zack cackles in the back, slapping the seat with the flat of his hand for effect. “I’m not wooing her, Billy,” she says. “I’m just here if Jason needs to phone a friend.”

Billy shrugs and goes back to fiddling with his computer. “If you say so.”

Jason’s truck is in the parking lot of the restaurant, just three down from where Trini is parked. They can see through the windows, but not much further than the front entrance. Jason had held the door open for Kim as they’d gone in and she imagines them holding hands on the table top.

Her stomach twists.

“–sea this time of year,” comes Jason’s voice, suddenly, through the speakers of Billy’s computer.

Trini whips her head around to look and is immediately faced with the somewhat blurry image of Kim across a table. She has her elbow leaned on the tabletop, her chin rested prettily in her palm. Trini sucks in a breath and holds it.

“Yeah, that’s true,” she drawls, sounding bored. “Weather is funky like that.”

Trini smirks at her vocabulary and ignores the look Zack is giving her.

The silence between the two is palpable, even through a damn computer screen. It’s actually a little painful to witness and Trini starts to rethink her entire life leading up to this moment.

“This is not going well,” Billy cuts in as they watch their friends order their food and then return to sitting in silence.

Trini can’t look away from Kim, at the bored, taut expression on her face. The way she keeps looking to her left, where she assumes a window is sitting. She must be eager to leave and Trini feels bad, immediately, for the thrill this realization sends through her.

Suddenly, there’s a loud thump in the speakers and Billy glances at her.

“I think that’s your cue,” he says.

And, it is.

“I don’t think even you can fix this, Trin,” Zack says and she reaches back a hand to shove him just as Billy passes her the speaker they have attached to the tiny earpiece Jason is wearing.

“Hey, Jase,” she says into it and the image of Kim on the screen jostle, as though he’s been started. She rolls her eyes. “It’s me, weirdo. Act natural, or she’s gonna know something is up. Don’t just sit there, weirdo. This is awful. Ask how her day was.”

On the screen, she can see Kim move as Jason clears his throat. “So,” he starts, “how was your day?”

The smile she sends is blinding. “It was okay,” she says. “Coulda been worse. I could have been pushed off a cliff.”

Trini frowns at the reference, at the way it ignites her chest. It doesn’t make sense for to be bringing that up. Not unless Jason knows about their first meeting.

But he doesn’t.

Because he stays silent and then she says, “How was yours?”

“Okay,” he returns.

Silence again. Trini runs a hand through her hair.

“Jesus, dude,” she says into the speaker. “You’ve talked to humans before, right?”

He doesn’t answer, of course, because he can’t, but she hopes the point got across regardless.

“Ask about her interests, okay? Ask what her favorite movie is,” she suggests. “She’s gonna say Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but it’s really ClueTell her you like that movie if she does that, okay? She’ll probably do her Tim Curry impression. It’s cute. You won’t have to pretend to laugh.”

Jason is quiet for a second and then he follows orders.

Now, it’s not just Zack who’s staring at her. It’s Billy, too. And she knows why.

This is ridiculous and super masochistic, but she’s in too deep already. If she can’t have Kim, the least she can do is make sure that whoever does appreciates the right things.

True to form, Kim says Breakfast at Tiffany’s but brightens up the moment Jason mentions Clue. Her laugh is brilliant–this bright, white thing in Trini’s chest–when it comes through Billy’s laptop.

The conversation doesn’t last long enough to make the following silence less unbearable. Trini’s starting to think it’s always going to be back to square one.

Fortunately, their food arrives and that buys her some time.

Not much, but some.

“Dogs or cats?” Jason asks a couple minutes into their meal, as per Trini’s instructions and Kim cites back the answer Trini had already prepared him for verbatim.

For a moment, Trini is able to imagine that it’s her sitting across from Kim at that table, that they’re on their third date and there isn’t any weird tension. That things are perfect and Kim is smiling at her and Zack’s stupid, knowing looks are nowhere near her.

“Just fucking talk about something, man,” Trini says a little later, because she’s getting frustrated beyond reason, now.

It’s almost like Jason is trying to bomb this.

“This is nice,” Jason says. “I’m glad you decided to try this again. I know the first date was…weird.”

And–

There they go.

That doesn’t sound nearly as stilted as the rest of the conversations did.

Kim is nodding and running her fingers through the ends of her hair. Trini can hardly breathe at the sight. “Me too,” she says.

The silence is basically square one. Kim and Jason’s super weird reset button that gets pressed every thirty seconds.

“Can I ask, though,” Kim says and Billy glances over at her. Trini frowns at him, looks back at the screen. “What do you want this to be?”

Jason must wiggle or something because the camera jostles a little too violently and then slants to the side.

Zack tugs the speaker from Trini’s hand and says, “Yo, dude, you fucked the camera up,” into it.

Jason must hear, too, because he says, “I…Can you give me a second? My phone is buzzing.”

It definitely isn’t, and the frown Kim gives him is a good indicator that she knows it, but Jason gets up from the table anyway and Trini watches (sideways) as he pushes his way through the dining room and out the side door. When she looks up through the windshield, he’s there, barreling towards her car in shaky, frightened movements that almost seem over exaggerated.

She rolls the window down and Billy gets out of the car to adjust the camera.

“It’s like you want her to figure out I’m out here feeding you lines,” Trini tells him and Jason gives her this weird look she can’t interpret.

She doesn’t have the mental capacity for it right then.

“How am I supposed to answer that question?” he asks, sounding panicked.

Trini sighs. “You don’t know what you want from this?” she asks and Zack peeks his head around the chair, pressing his temple into hers, but she doesn’t push him away. “Why did you even ask her out, then?”

That, somehow, seems like a harder question for him. His eyes widen in alarm.

“Okay…” She sighs again and pushes her forehead to the steering wheel for a moment, thinking over her options. “Go back in,” she says. “Go in there and I’ll…I’ll help you, okay?”

Jason nods and Billy finishes fixing the camera.

“Thank you,” he half-whispers, and then he books it back inside.

“Sorry about that,” they hear over the laptop.

Kim smiles placidly. “Sure. Everything okay?”

Jason doesn’t respond, which must mean he nodded or something. “To answer your question,” he starts a second later, and Billy pushes the speaker into her hand again. Zack pulls his head away and then looks out the window.

Trini closes her eyes.

“To answer your question,” she repeats, buying him time like he’s thinking because she’s thinking. She’s lining up all her reasons in a row.

Because she shouldn’t have signed up for this. This stupid, pathetic third-wheel living where it’s almost like she’s on a date with Kim if she squints her eyes and tilts her head.

She’s not . Jason is.

Jason is on his third date with Kim, to be specific.

And that hurts more than she’ll ever be able to compromise.

She doesn’t know why he wants to date Kim, that’s part of the problem. But she has her own reasons. And she’ll never tell them to Kim, never say them out loud in any way that means anything. But maybe this is enough for now.

“I wanna be with you, Kim. I…I wasn’t sure for the longest time. I thought…I thought if I told myself enough times over that what I felt for you wasn’t real, then it couldn’t hurt me. You couldn’t hurt me, but…”

She trails off, and she’s not certain, but she doesn’t think she can hear Jason repeating her. She looks to Billy for help, but he doesn’t seem perturbed by it, which must mean nothing is wrong.

So she presses on.

“I think I’m the only person I can’t lie to. Not really. And I think you’re a close second,” she says. “I wanna be with you. Only you. For as long as you’ll have me. Because…because when I met you, it wasn’t anything special. Not that first time. But every time since then has been something else. You are something else. And I–”

Her voice cracks and her hands are shaking. Zack is breathing down her neck like he wants to reach out and comfort her, but doesn’t know enough to.

“I wanna go on a hundred bad dates with you. A thousand good ones. You’re worth every moment. Even the bad ones.” She takes a shaky breath and she can hear Jason on the other end.

She can hear him say, “This is what I was trying to tell you,” which is a good enough ending for what she’d been trying to say.

When she looks up at the screen, Kim is staring at what she assumes must be Jason’s head–that spot right above the actual camera–and her eyes are watering a little. If it’s something she can see through the pixelation, she gathers it must be a pretty emotional response.

“Yeah,” she says. “That’s enough for me.”

And then her eyes finally lock onto the camera. The same camera that’s supposed to be hidden, that she’s not supposed to know about.

“Where is she?” she asks and Trini’s heart beats out a confused, panicked tempo in her ears.

“What?” she asks, no one in particular.

“Outside,” Jason says. “She’s right outside.”

“Can she hear me?”

Trini whips her head over to look at Billy, who is staring at her expectantly. To look back at Zack who is also watching, also waiting.

Kim is looking into the camera at her and her mouth is opening like she’s going to say something–like she’s going to finish off whatever cruel joke this is.

She could hear her?

So, Trini does what she always does–that fun thing she’s never been fully proud of.

She opens her car door, gets out, and runs all the way home.

.

By the time she gets home, she can’t feel her legs, which she’d be worried about, but she can’t even wrap her mind around anything other than the memory of Kim’s voice saying, can she hear me, can she hear me, can she hear me. Her front porch light is off and her parents are upstairs no doubt, her brothers in bed already.

Trini doesn’t want to go inside. Can’t even bring herself to it.

She slumps down on the porch and closes her eyes, grits her teeth, tries to focus.

Kim had heard her say all of that. Jason had somehow turned whatever radio connection that had into some sort of grand public humiliation event. She’d guess, based on Zack and Billy’s looks that they’d known, too. That they’d known it was coming.

Jason must have figured out her feelings for Kim and decided to teach her a lesson. It was only a matter of time.

Her hands tremble.

“Trini!”

And Kim–always Kim–is running down the street after.

That grand romantic gesture she never wanted, because it means the other person messed up. Because it means things are far from perfect.

Trini stands up, fists balled at her side, and wills herself not to cry. “What do you want?” she snarls. “Come to get a good laugh?”

Kim steps back from where she’s stopped in front of her and it’s unfair that Trini aches for her to come back immediately, to be closer. “I’m not here to laugh at you, Trini,” she says, but it’s not convincing.

“Oh, sure.”

She turns on her heel, intent on going inside to hide away from all of this. To possibly stop being a person forever.

Sorry to inform you that Trini’s existence has been cancelled altogether. Thank you for your understanding .

“Trini!” Kim says and Trini is drawn to her. Always. She stops walking halfway up the porch steps, but she doesn’t turn around. Not yet. “Why did you run?”

“Why do you think , Kim?”

She can practically see the cogs moving in Kim’s head, the way she starts to put things together. Still, it takes her a minute.

“Jason meant well, I think! He…I didn’t know what he was doing. I thought he just–”

She cuts herself off and then laughs, a little self-deprecating and Trini finally turns.

“What are you talking about?” she asks, eyebrows drawn together in confusion.

“I’m…” Kim looks beautiful in the streetlight, in the harsh light of the moon above them–dark hair haloed somehow. Trini scoffs and crosses her arms. “I…Did you mean all that stuff? The stuff you said?”

“No,” Trini says immediately. “I was just helping Jason.”

Kim quirks an eyebrow and takes one solid step forward. “You didn’t mean any of it?”

Trini shrugs and looks away. The trees in her yard are far more interesting.

“Jason…I told him, that first date when things got all weird, that I thought I knew the reason why it felt wrong…And he offered to talk to me about it just so I could…I don’t know, process I guess. I think I only said yes to him out of expectation. I think he only asked me out of expectation. We…We’re better as friends. We’d be a dating disaster.”

Trini wants to say that she’s pretty sure her and Kim are already off to a worse start.

“And I know why now,” Kim continues. “Because…Because I want all that stuff with you, too. Every part of it. You’re…You’re the one I want to be with, Trini. If you’ll have me.” When Trini doesn’t answer, she barrels on with defenses, with excuses. “I guess…It’s super fucked up, but Jason was trying to help, I think. I told him that I didn’t think you had a clue about this… thing… between us, and I think he wanted to help you realize it’s there, too.”

She smiles and Trini fights the urge to return it.

The whole thing is fucked up. And sure, Jason and her might have meant well by it–Zack and Billy, too, no doubt because they’d absolutely had to have been a part of this–but…

Kim takes another step forward and the toe of her shoe bumps into the bottom of the steps. “I didn’t know what he was doing until he came back in and…and he told me to listen and…Trini, I would never–”

“I know you wouldn’t,” Trini snaps, cutting her off. She knows how that sentence was going to end. “I’m gonna kick his ass. We don’t live in an episode of Friends. I thought…I thought I was never going to get a chance with you.”

Her fists are still clenched and she’s shaking and she can’t even really process her anger because she’s feeling too many things, holding them all in.

“You could have just talked to me about this. You didn’t need to go to a guy you just fucking went on a date with.”

“That’s bullshit, Trini!” Kim fires back, angry. “You…I thought you were either being a bitch about it or were just super naive. I thought it was obvious what was happening between us and you just…refused to acknowledge it. What was I supposed to think? I didn’t want to lose you!”

The words are harsh in the cool night air and Trini is certain right then that her and Kim might break each other apart a hundred times over before they ever start to fix each other back up.

“No more secrets between us if we’re going to do this, okay? I…I come to you and you come to me and that’s how it’s gotta work.”

Trini’s mind sticks to the if we’re gonna do this part, playing on an endless loop as she stands there.

“From now on, we talk to each other. Deal?” Kim says this with some degree of feeling Trini has never felt for herself.

She shakes her head. “Deal.”

They’re silent for a moment, but a different silence than that awkwardness during her and Jason’s not-date.

“Cards on the table–did you mean all of that? About wanting everything?” Kim asks. “Even the bad moments?”

Trini stares at her in disbelief for a moment and then smiles, tiny and afraid. She takes a step down, closer, hovering just by Kim and murmurs, “Of course I do, you idiot,” and Kim leans up, closer to Trini’s face, closer and closer until she’s all Trini can see and feel and know.

And her lips brush against Trini’s cheek, then jaw.

Trini’s arms come uncrossed and then her hands are on Kim’s shoulders, fingers tightened in her jacket and Kim presses those lips to her jaw one more time as Trini tugs her up, whispering, “Trini,” so quietly it nearly gets lost as Trini finally kisses her and lets her grip loosen.

.

Zack’s, “Where’s my thank you?” gets him a punch in the gut right there in the middle of the hallway the next day at school. Billy gets a half-glare (because it’s impossible to be mad at him) and Jason gets the cold shoulder for half the day and a couple of well-timed, vulgar hand gestures when she catches him throwing his puppy dog eyes her way.

Kim gets three kisses before lunch and a couple of admonishing comments whenever Trini passes one of the boys in the hallway.

“Punish me, too,” Kim says. “I’m just as bad.”

She means it seriously, but too much time around Zack twists the comment in Trini’s head and she wiggles her eyebrows until Kim kisses her again, right against their shared locker.

At lunch that day, Jason slides a note over that just says, A wild apology appears! Jason uses SORRY I FUCKED UP.

She rolls her eyes at him, but it’s hard to stay mad when he so desperately needs a haircut–when the ends of his bangs are starting to curl by his eyes.

A couple minutes later, she steals his pre-packaged cookie and Kim is holding her hand under the table, so when he says, “It’s super effective!” she lets it slide.

It’s not ineffective .

.

She doesn’t really forgive Jason.

Tells him as such that next day at training and then sidesteps a putty so that he gets his ass handed to him on a silver platter.

“Yeah, I um…” he says later, with a bloody nose and one hand messing through his hair. “I guess I deserve that, huh? That was…really…”

Bad , Trini wants to finish.

Later, though, it’s hard to remember why she was ever angry in the first place when Kim has her pressed into her bedroom door once they get to her house, before it’s even fully closed. By that point Jason is nowhere even close to her thoughts.

(nothing regarding him really is, actually)

.

Still, though, it’s basically the worst way they could have ever gotten together.

One of them, anyway. But Trini figures it had to happen sometime.

And at least it didn’t start on a Thursday.

…

[sportsanimebreakdown]

Breakdown: Initial D

Okay a lot of new fans of the genre will find this a weird one. Not because of the cars (which are aMAZing) or the character designs (which are not) but because the series -along with its ridiculous eurobeat soundtrack- is practically legendary. The memes make themselves. But even the memes are done with good humor because, to be optimistic, I’d say that the fans are very whole-heartedly enthusiastic. (In a pessimistic way, I’d say that the story reinforces a lot of ideas of gender roles and the fantasy of an effortless traditional masculinity and its dual, serving femininity.)

But I digress. Let’s get into the breakdown. 

SPOILER FREE ZONE

Initial D: manga 1995-2013 by Shuichi Shigeno, 5 season of episodes alongside at least 4 movies and three OVAs, it’s a big one.

Tropes: Undiscovered Genius, Unbeatable Hero, Technical Sport, Cardboard Women, Teaming Up With Rival

Not-Your-Wikipedia-Summary: Fujiwara Takumi is a kid who’s been doing the deliveries for his dad’s tofu company (illegally) since middle school. Flying through the mountain pass in the wee hours of the morning, he’s developed, unbeknownst to him (though known to his ex-racer father), a killer instinct and technique for mountain pass racing (touge racing). When he trips into the racing scene by defeating one bigshot after another, it leaves everyone watching shook. He’s in for the long haul now, whether he likes it or not.

TL;DR Review: First off, I’d say if you want to get into this series, watch the three “Mugen” (Legendary) movies that have just recently been made because they go back and cover the battles and key plot points of the first few seasons of the series. Why would you do this instead of watching the actual seasons? Because they look like this-

It’s pretty bad. And you haven’t even heard the earworm beats they put this to. Just youtube it, dudes. 

It gets better as the seasons go on, and I have to admit that there’s a certain “it’s so bad it’s good” quality about the first season, but yeah if you’re used to the quality of modern anime, definitely watch the movies. 

That said, the story holds up well. Maybe it’s because ‘undiscovered genius’ is a catnip trope of mine, but I think it’s still a lot of fun. Unlike a lot of other sports in the genre, racing is a one-man sport so it’s much closer, pacing and story-wise, to something like Hajime no Ippo rather than a team-based story like Haikyuu or Slam Dunk. But, unlike in boxing, Takumi can team up with his rivals, as he does in the later seasons when he joins an expeditionary team. 

The female characters, as I’ll get into later, are terribly written. This is one of those series where I skip all the parts where there’s a female onscreen, because they’re so problematic (emotionally weak, bad drivers, two-dimensional, only there to be a sexual/romantic target for a male character) that I’d rather skip them then cringe through them. Like ewoks in Star Wars, I’d rather just pretend they don’t exist than have that shit shoved in my face.

So yeah. Fun story, great races, it’s a classic. Like the Great British Baking Show, it’ll get you seriously into shit that you may never have thought you’d get into.

I’d like to think that’s the first time Initial D has been compared to the GBBO on the internet, and I want some credit for that, thank you.

PS: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how huge an impact this series has had on the street-racing and rally-racing scene, by the way. I’ve only heard about the tip of the iceberg, but this series has gotten a shitton of people interested in drift racing and the AE86, Takumi’s car model. Drifting is a thing in large part due to this series. Which I FUCKING LOVE cuz it shows the power of comics. 

Objective Score: 6/10 and all of those points are for how awesome the races are. The character development exists insofar as each character has a trope that they represent and stick to, but it’s really just the backdrop for a whole lot of car nerddom and awesome racing.

Personal Score: 8/10 Excepting the ewoks, it will and always will be one of my favs. It helped get me into driving and cars in my teens and earned a spot in one of my top ten by that merit alone.

 SPOILER ZONE

Full Thoughts: OKAY. I’ve loved this series for so long that it’s hard to feel that glow again, but I thought that since I’d gone back to watch it again (in between drawing pages and needing a break for the goddamn stress injury in my drawing hand) I might as well do a breakdown.

First off, can we give HUGE PROPS to Shuichi-sensei who somehow manages to make weird-shaped boxes zipping around corners LOOK DYNAMIC? Like how the fuck did he do that srsly

...haha for a moment there you thought I hadn’t actually analyzed it yet. Well joke’s on you cuz oF COURSE I HAVE. It’s actually not super complicated: Japanese sound effects, being one or two-characters long, means that they can be used more easily as visual onomatopoeia for the texture of the sound it’s conveying. He uses that a lot. Then there’s the motion lines and an ability to draw any fucking car from any angle and BOOM there you have it. 

But on the flip side, his characters look like this so.... win some, lose some. 

 In regards to the issues with the women I discussed earlier... well. I can count on one hand with a pinky still left over how many actual female characters who last more than a wink-and-a-nod there are. There’s so few, I can tell you exactly who they are: first is the highschool popular girl who has a crush on Takumi for some strange reason we never discover (and who has Drama because she had a sugar daddy for a long time). Then there are the two-women-who-count-as-one-driver (???) driving team who take on Takumi early on. One of them has Relationship Drama with Takumi’s friend, and the other (an intimidatingly Mature Woman) starts crushing on/hitting on Takumi, providing us with the typical madonna/whore dynamic with Takumi’s crush that Japanese media seems to require even more than American. AND THEN we have the shit cherry on the shit cake, a female driver in the later season who’s actually talented (heyhey!) but OH WAIT she has insta-crush for Keisuke, Takumi’s rival and team partner, and she is now Emotionally Compromised for racing and.... also a total stalker and weirdo and if I hear her say ‘Darling’ one more time to a man who has no interest in her, I’m gonna report her to some sort of HR.  EDIT: OH WAIT I forgot there’s two chicks who exist to be relationship bait for Takumi’s loser friend. One of them lasts like 3 whole episodes.

And that’s it! In probably the only sport where it’s impossible to have any kind of gender-based advantage or separation (such as in school sports, where there are girls’ teams and boys’ teams) there are only FOUR WOMEN in the entire series, and of those women only two of them actually drive. 

It’s frustrating how common this is, and how it goes by so unquestioned. I mean, it wouldn’t be hyperbole to say that this series changed the sport it’s about. It popularized drifting, probably got a lot of young men traffic tickets, and got me into buying a junker to tear apart with my dad while he pointed at all the parts and taught me what they did. 

What else could it have done? What seriously badass female drivers would we have if the author had just not let his misogyny get in the way? “But that’s what the racing is like, man!” someone in the back yells. To which I reply: Shuichi is a STORYTELLER. If he’s big in the racing scene and looks around and says “huh not many women here” it should be in his creative best interest to ask “well what if there were?” Storytellers are here to envision what the world could be, not to enforce the prejudiced systems that are already in place. If he can imagine a 17-year-old kid being able to beat a gazillion 30-somethings at drift racing with no formal driving education, then he can damn well imagine a talented driver with tits who doesn’t exist solely for the sake of sexual interest. 

But as they say... if you want something done, you gotta get it the fuck done yourself. 

[bigskydreaming]

So since a lot of people have been asking lately as we got closer to the end of Teen Wolf, I’m gonna go ahead and finally update Lighting Crashes this week even though I’m not quuuuuuuite done with the fic. But whatever, it’s been forever.

Anyway, just to answer a couple other questions people have been asking about whether the direction the show took has changed where I was taking the fic.....not really. I mean, I’ve incorporated stuff from the last couple seasons into it, but the fic is AU so its not like I consider myself to be reliant on following the later seasons canon. Specifically though, people have asked if the fic is going to reflect the show pairing Scott with Malia and Jackson being gay and with Ethan.

The answer to the first is hell no, the answer to the second....not really?

Like first off, the fic is Scira. It doesn’t work as anything but Scira. Like I’ve mentioned before, it’s a few hundred thousand words of writing at this point, lmfao. I’m not rewriting that shit just because the show didn’t know how to appreciate Kira. Plus there’s the fact that while I love Malia, Scott/Malia just doesn’t work for me at all. So nope. It’s Scott and Kira from start to finish. (As the show should have finished BUT I DIGRESS ahem. Where was I.)

As for the second....I’ve mentioned in the past that my plans for the fic included Malia and Jackson eventually hooking up. However, what I actually have posted doesn’t include any of that yet, obviously, so I could actually revamp things and have Jackson end up with a guy in the fic - not Ethan, because Danny/Ethan is one of the core pairings as well, and I started the fic with the firm intention of there being at least ONE long fic in TW fandom that treated the show’s first gay pairing as being as deserving of in depth exploration and plot relevance as fandom loves to give certain other mlm ships starring white faves. So there was no chance I was going to pair Ethan with Jackson.

I did however consider not pairing Jackson and Malia after all, and pairing him with someone else, when they first announced months ago that Jackson would be out in the final season of TW. Ultimately however, I decided not to, and to keep it as it was. I had specific reasons for this.

First is, the show (nor Davis outside of the show) never said that Jackson was gay. Much like with Brett, in fact, they went out of their way to do that obnoxious little ‘imply with a vague look and joke’ thing that’s meant to suggest that Jackson and Brett were bisexual, without ever actually using the word bisexual or engaging in any kind of actual bisexual representation. Which you know, is a BIG pet peeve of mine.

I’m a big believer in letting actual canon representation stand. If they had ever actually explicitly stated that Jackson is gay, that his relationship with Lydia was due to denial, not fully understanding himself yet, etc, then I would make him gay in my fics, all of them, no matter how much rewriting that took. Making a character who isn’t part of a marginalized group (like a presumed-straight character or a white character) marginalized in fanfic is one thing, a thing I’m all for. Making a character who IS part of a marginalized group part of another, different marginalized group is another thing entirely, something I’m NOT all for, because it takes canon representation away from a group that doesn’t have rep to spare just to prop up another group and that never leads anywhere good.

It’s like with Bobby Drake, from the X-Men comics. I’ve spoken before about how he’s one of my all time fave characters, how I headcanoned him as bi for decades, and how much I HATED the story where Bendis wrote him coming out as ‘full gay, definitely not bi’ because of how clumsy it was, and how shitty it is for a straight writer who clearly doesn’t give much of a fuck about actual representation to engage in obnoxious, harmful behavior like bi erasure and biphobia in the process of OKAY SORRY GETTING OFF TRACK AGAIN.

Point is. I loathe the actual story in which Bobby comes out in the comics, but that doesn’t mean I hate him being gay, nor does it mean I’m willing to write or headcanon him as bi anymore despite the fact that before Bendis’ shitty story, I would have sworn up and down he was perfect for bi representation and none of that material actually changed just because Bendis wrote a story that disagreed with my reading of it. What did change however is that Bobby is no longer a presumed-straight character I can headcanon as bi without taking away representation from another marginalized group. Now Bobby is canon representation for gay men, and that’s not something I’m interested in fucking with, even if I dislike the reasons Bendis had for making him part of that marginalized group instead of representation for my own personal marginalization, a bisexual man. So I don’t write or headcanon Bobby as anythig but gay now, and never will.

That isn’t the case though with Jackson. He’s in canon in a relationship with another guy, but has not explicitly self-identified as gay, the way Danny has. Call it a loophole if you want, but its a loophole I’m perfectly comfortable driving a truck through while making a case for another canon bi character (even if I wouldn’t call him bi representation, because representation requires The Powers That Be actually have a character identify as and thus REPRESENT a certain group).

And since yeah, a bi guy in fiction, much like a bi guy in reality, can in fact be in a relationship with a woman, Jackson will be with Malia in Lightning Crashes. Fandom is pretty shitty about remembering that little detail, and Teen Wolf fandom in particular is NOTORIOUS about that shit. For years now I, and other bi members of fandom, have had to put up with shippers loudly campaigning for certain characters to be bi in order to be LGBTQ+ representation, only to then make it crystal clear that while they say bi, they really only want that character with another man, and like....that is so fucking irritating, I swear to god. Like, if you want a certain character to be gay, for whatever reason? That’s FINE. Go ahead. Headcanon that. Petition for that. It’s FINE. But if you headcanon and petition for that character to be bi and then lose your fucking shit if anyone suggests pairing that character then with anyone other than another (white) man......like...that’s not fine? Fuck you? Don’t fucking use a call to arms for more representation for me and my marginalized identity when really all you want is more ammo for your fave white guys to get it on in canon, you fetishistic fuckers?

Not saying that this is true of everyone who’s made a case for characters on the show to be bi, just that this has happened a lot in this fandom, and it’s been bugging the crap out of me for years. The irony is....even if Jackson or other characters on the show were specifically labeled as bi in canon, I would not want them then hooking up with a girl IN CANON. Sounds hypocritical, but its really just a matter of having different expectations of source material and of transformative fandom material. Let’s be real, the rare RARE times we see bisexual guys in mainstream media, their bisexuality is mentioned but rarely seen, because it’s a way to ‘score points’ with progressive audiences without actually committing to content likely to ‘offend’ other audience members. Fanfic has the potential for more. In this particular case, with Lightning Crashes, I’m comfortable writing Jackson as bi and with Malia, because the fic ALSO includes Danny/Ethan, Lucas/Corey and Brett/Mason, all in prominent roles. In addition, Brett is written as bi as well, so I’ve made a point to write Jackson as aware he is probably bi himself, just more comfortable with Malia for now, because I was never writing them as endgame anyway, more just two fucked up teenagers turning to each other for comfort and not looking for any more than that from it.

The truth is, I’ve always headcanoned and written Jackson as bi to begin with (and there’s a few other stories I hope to post over the rest of the year, one shots and other things where Jackson’s with various guys) - so point is, ultimately, this didn’t change all that much for me. At least not as far as my interpretation of the character and how I write him goes. I just had to decide where I fell in regards to calling him representation, and how to treat that. At the end of the day, this is what I decided. I don’t think what we saw in canon refutes my interpretation of him as bi, and so I’m okay with writing him with a girl in this particular fic, so long as I make clear that he is at the very least bi-curious, and still a teenager exploring himself and his own sexuality - which I was already doing anyway.

It’s cool if you disagree, this isn’t a clear cut matter and just one more reason to be annoyed with Davis and not give him post-mortem brownie points for doing the bare minimum when it comes to representation on this show. Being deliberately vague in regards to identities that marginalized groups are hungry to see represented isn’t a cute nudge-nudge wink-wink kind of a deal, it’s just content creators having no balls, and I definitely see his vague ‘well, technically we never said whether Jackson (or Brett) is gay or bi’ responses in recent interviews as more of the latter.

Anyway, those are my musings, muse on them as you will.

[gamer2002]

On recent Milo controversy

Recently, a video with cuts from one year stream went viral, and with it followed accusations of Milo supporting pedophilia. I’m going to post the stream, transcript of its fragment in question and 2 links to Milo’s defense.

Here’s the stream

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azC1nm85btY

Here is a transcript:

PaulsEgo: The whole consent thing, for me, is, it’s not this black and white thing that people try and paint it. Are there some 13-year-olds out there capable of giving informed consent to have sex with an adult? Probably. But I was also a 13-year-old. I hung around with 13-year-old guys, you know, when I was 13, and there were some of them that still thought girls were f*cking icky at 13. Like not many, but like, they were just coming out of that phase. I don’t know that I was ready at 13 to get f*cked in the *ss by a 28-year-old black drag queen is what I’m saying. So, you can’t, the reason these age of consent laws exist is because we have to set some kind of a barometer here.

Yiannopoulos: I completely understand…

PaulsEgo: We’ve got to pick an age and go, okay, look, this is the age where we can reasonably be assured you’re an adult, you can give informed consent, you understand the risks of pregnancy, all that bullsh*t.

Yiannopoulos: Of course, of course, and I think the law is probably about right, that’s probably roughly the right age, I think it’s probably about okay, but there are certainly people who are capable of giving consent at a younger age, I certainly consider myself to be one of them. People who are sexually active younger. I think it particularly happens in the gay world, by the way. And in many cases, actually, those relationships with older men — this is one of the reasons I hate the left, this sort of stupid, one-size-fits-all policing of culture, this sort of, this arbitrary —

Ben: You know, Milo —

T.J.: Let him talk.

Ben: Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I was just —

Yiannopoulos: This arbitrary — I’m just gonna — I’ll be quick. This arbitary and oppressive idea of consent which totally destroys, you know, the understanding that many of us have of the complexities and subtleties and complicated nature of many relationships. You know, people are messy and complex, and actually, in the homosexual world particularly, some of those relationships between younger boys and older men, those kind of coming-of-age relationships, the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are, and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable — a sort of a rock for when they can’t talk to their parents. Some of those relationships are some of the most —

Unknown: It sounds like priest molestation to me.

Ben: It sounds like Catholic priest molestation to me.

Yiannopoulos: And you know what? I am grateful for Father Michael. I wouldn’t give nearly such good head if it wasn’t for him.

Ben: Oh, my God. Oh, my God, I can’t handle it.

Unknown: What is wrong with you, Ben? Come on?

PaulsEgo: It’s funny because Ben gave me some homework on you, Milo, he gave a few videos to watch to brush up on my Miloisms, and one of the things you said in one of these clips was that transgenderism is the new, you know, frontier of, you know, rights, my wording is bad here, but, um, you know, it’s the new frontier of social progress and the next thing in line is gonna be pedophilia – and yet, here you are talking about how, look, you know, some of these kids that get diddled by these priests, I mean, it’s a good thing for them! They’re getting this love! Now they are also getting a d*ck —

Yiannopoulos: You’re misunderstanding what pedophilia means. Pedophilia is not a sexual attraction to someone 13 years old who is sexually mature.

PaulsEgo: OK, febephilia [hebephilia] or whatever.

Yiannopoulos: Pedophilia is attraction to children who have not reached puberty. Pedophilia is attraction to people who don’t have functioning sex organs yet, who have not gone through puberty, who are too young to be able to understand the way their bodies —

Unknown: Ann Coulter.

Yiannopoulos: That is not what we’re talking about.

T.J.: Ann Coulter.

PaulsEgo: Sure, granted.

Yiannopoulos: You don’t understand what pedophilia is if you think that I’m defending it, ’cause I’m certainly not.

PaulsEgo: No, no, no. I’m not saying you’re defending it, I’m saying you’re walking the borderline.

Yiannopoulos: No it’s not. You said I was defending it, and you’re wrong.

PaulsEgo: OK, OK, fine. I retract my statement, Milo. I retract my statement. I shan’t slander you further. But you are advocating for cross-generational relationships here, can we be honest about that?

Yiannopoulos: Yeah, I don’t mind saying, I don’t mind admitting that, and I think particularly in the gay world – and outside, the Catholic Church, if that’s where some of you want to go with this – I think in the gay world, some of the most important, enriching and incredibly, you know, life-affirming, important, shaping relationships very often between younger boys and older men, they can be hugely positive experiences for those young boys, they can even save those young boys from desolation, from suicide, from drug addiction, all those things, provided they’re consensual. Provided they’re consensual.

Here are Milo’s FB post that are his take on it:

https://www.facebook.com/myiannopoulos/posts/851263248344905

https://www.facebook.com/myiannopoulos/videos/851905428280687/

That’s the reporting part. I’ve gave you the video in questions and Milo’s own defense, so you could make up your own mind. Here is my Q&A take, based on various reaction I saw. I’m hiding it under a link, since that’s my solely personal opinion.

Did Milo advocate pedophilia?

Unfavorable interpretation of his words can be that he believes young boys of 13 having sex with older men can be ok in some cases. However, he does state agreement with consent age laws. Besides that, he made a crude joke about being molested as a teen (a news for me).

How about his defense?

He says he has a right to joke about being himself molested. And I believe he does, as he specifically mocks only his own (supposed) situation. He also says that by “young boys” he meant young people past age of consent. Given that, his support of cross-generational relationship applies to situations like when partners are, for example, 17 (UK age of consent is 16) and 29. He claims that is his example of his own relationship with an older man (so in line of UK age of consent), which he meant. Unfortunately, the only age mentioned, though not explicitly stated by Milo as the one he would approve within a relationship, is 13.

If we follow the court rule of reasonable doubt, there is a lack of strong enough evidence to disprove Milo’s defense of himself. He could wrongly say things at a late night.

Is this same like with Sarah Nyberg?

No. Sarah called herself a pedophile, stated she wanted relationship with her ~10 years old cousin and claimed this was her joking. Milo said a thing that can be interpreted as a support of relationships with pre-age of consent teens, and stated he meant post-age of consent young people (though he still claimed on the steam that there exist exceptions to the age of content, but it’s unclear which country’s country age of content he meant).

Besides, I myself explicitly refused to call Sarah a pedophile until it is proven in courts. I hold same standard for Milo.

Is this same like with Alison Rapp?

No. Alison Rapp made an archived statement that indicates her being against imprisoning people for child porn and denying idea that consensual sexuality before 18 can be dangerous. Milo supported age of consent laws, saying that most of times they get it right, and argued that some pre age of consent teens can be an exception (without explicitly stating how young he meant). Highly debatable, but far cry from calls for decriminalizing child porn. As for Rapp’s comment on sexuality before 18, more US states have constant at age 16 than 18. But there is a context of her supporting people with child pornography. 

Is this same like pro-pedo Salon pieces?

Possibly alike, but definitely no on technicality. Putting aside what was dug about their author, Salon’s first piece was about a plight of having pedo urges and not giving in. Putting aside if it wasn’t intended to cause outrage on the right with its title, as an asking for sympathy opinion it has some similarity with Milo’s statement on young gays needing guidance of older gays. However, Milo rejects it being about pedophilia, he claims his example is 17-29 relationship. And he didn’t make an opinion piece for publication, he was having a random dispute in middle of a night stream.

So what is it, then?

In my opinion? A fragment from a single one year stream, where Milo said some dumb shit in a way that could be used against him. There’s no evidence suggesting him being a pedophile. The evidence doesn’t prove him advocating revoking consent age laws. He claims existence of exceptions to the consent age, which is a claim that an caught on the act pedo would make, but as long he acknowledges the consent age laws, he is just digressing in a middle of an almost 3 hours stream. It’s unclear which age he meant. The support of cross-generations relationship doesn’t have to mean him advocating relationship of adults with 13 years olds (but that they talk only about 13 years olds make it very understandable conclusion), and he denies it does, claiming he thought about his 17-29 relationship with an older man (again, UK consent age is 16, most of states 17-16). He made a crude joke (holy shit, Milo makes a crude joke) about being molested, but that was on his own expense.

Does Milo has as a right to complaint over such attack? Isn’t it how he does them himself?

When Milo written about Sarah, he and Breitbard made six requests for comment. Apparently, the video hit him suddenly without warning. As far I know, Milo does hold a standard of requesting for comment people he writes about. He has a right to complaint about not being allowed to defend himself or prepare himself for the video, since, even as a sensationalist, he grants such things himself.

So what, then?

I’ve written what happened and stated my honest thoughts. Milo fans can defend him, I always stated that everyone has a right to be defended and defend others (I did it also during the Sarah’s scandal). Because of the video, Milo is deplatformed from CPAC and, given the timing, I don’t doubt that his opponents on the right are responsible for this. CPAC has a right to deplatform him because of his comments and other things he says. However, the way Milo was attacked (no ability to defend himself first, edited out portion from the vid about him supporting age of  consent laws) was pretty scummy and intended solely to cause outrage that is blown out of proportion (again, sole fragment of a single near 3 hours stream from year ago - were you fucking sleeping all that time?).

The truth is that Milo always was the “I want to win” type, and he got attacked by bigger “I want to win” types. But putting aside if it was or wasn’t worse than his own tactics, I’m disappointed in those who were against his mentality (which I didn’t approve myself and thus I didn’t share it) and yet celebrate what happened, with disregard if there wasn’t anything wrong here. This is proving him right, that winning over the opponent is all that matters.

And of course, those who sticked with Sarah, Rapp or Salon, but now attack Milo, are hypocrites who defended worse than you can even argue he did. Same with anybody from Guardian, that published an opinion piece arguing to let women statutory rape boys.

And if Milo wants (and he states he wants) to defend himself on shows of journalists that attacked him, I say he should be allowed to do so.

It is a fuck up for him, from before he expected to become this big. But he can say this isn’t what his opponents want it to be. And it can be a worse hit than he would make.