#I want to post more stuff but I feel like there's only so much I can post before this gets excessive

[thankskenpenders]

Thoughts on two specific areas of the writing in Sonic X Shadow Generations

The best new 3D Sonic game in over a decade (or even two, depending on who you ask) dropped late last year. And I didn't write anything about it! Sometimes life happens. Well, I've finally sat down to finish Shadow Generations, and by now everyone has already been singing its praises for three months. This is the rare instance where the entire Sonic fandom, and even mainstream reviewers, are in agreement on something. The level design is the best it's been in a long, long time and the cool factor is off the charts, embracing Sonic's peak cringe era in an incredibly confident way. It's great. If you're even reading this post, you probably don't need me to tell you that. So I won't!

No, what I'm really interested in here is the writing. Because this is me we're talking about. But I actually don't want to talk about the main narrative of Shadow Generations, which is really solid little story about Black Doom trying to mold Shadow into his perfect soldier. No, I'd like to zero in on two other aspects of the writing here: the revisions made to Sonic Generations, and Gerald Robotnik's unlockable journal.

The updated Sonic Generations script

The new package mostly presents Sonic Generations how you remember it. There are some tweaks, but it's not a major overhaul. Graphically, I don't think the game has been touched much, if at all. I certainly can't notice any difference without a side-by-side comparison, despite playing it on a PS5. The most notable update is that the game's script has been rewritten by Ian Flynn.

Naturally, this caught my attention. Generations always had a nothingburger story, so with Ian rewriting Pontac and Graff's lame dialogue there was nowhere to go but up. (I don't like to pin the blame for those games' stories entirely on them, as a ton of it was dictated to them by Sonic Team, but, well, I don't think they're very good dialogue writers.) But it's less a complete rewrite and more like Ian was brought on as a script doctor for some minor touch ups here and there. Many lines of dialogue are completely identical to how they were originally written in 2011, and many others only have slight wording changes. Ian was clearly not allowed to request additional scenes or extend the ones that already existed. He has to match the original beat for beat so that they can reuse 99% of the cutscene animations. Don't expect it to be a whole new experience compared to the original.

Still, I think the new script is an improvement, albeit a minor one. Various things have been tweaked to maintain characterization consistency. Cream calls Sonic "Mr. Sonic" instead of just "Sonic." Instead of calling Sonic "buddy," Rouge uses the pet name "Blue," like she tends to do in things like the IDW comics. Espio doesn't have to remind you in the dialogue that he's a ninja, and he no longer has a line making it sound like he has some kind of soul reading power. I also like that Modern Sonic now actually has responses to what his friends say when he rescues them, rather than being silent like Classic Sonic. They won't blow you away, but they make Sonic feel a little more engaged with everything.

In general, the altered dialogue just seems tighter to me, and some of the more childish or trite wording of Pontac and Graff's script has been altered. Here, let's actually make a direct comparison, just because this stuff is interesting to me as a writer. Here's a couple lines from after the Egg Dragoon fight late in the game, in the original script:

Modern Eggman: Ooooh... I can't believe this! I was supposed to beat you this time. Modern Sonic: Aw, I'm sorry! I didn't get that memo. I beat you every time! [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat this guy every time. It's like it's our job or something!

This is a simple exchange. Eggman is mad that he lost. Sonic is unflappably confident because he always beats Eggman, and he explains this to his younger self. But the wording here isn't particularly good. Eggman's simple and direct wording makes him come off like a little kid who's mad because his older brother beat him at Mario Kart, rather than a mad scientist who just had his plans foiled. It's making light of the situation.

And I've never liked Sonic saying "It's like it's our job or something!" That doesn't feel like a thing Sonic would say, it feels like a thing an outside observer would say about Sonic. This is a frequent problem with so-called "MCU dialogue," where quips meant to echo the commentary of a casual, somewhat disinterested audience are inserted into the story itself so that the writers can be like "See? We get it. We're genre-savvy, too!" It also just reminds me of bad Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric lines like "Rings! It's like they're made for me!"

And then here's Ian's rewrite:

Modern Eggman: I recalibrated everything! This was supposed to be my time! Modern Sonic: Oh, please, keep dreamin', Egg-head. I beat you every time. [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat him every time. Our score card's flawless.

Eggman's still mad about his defeat, but the line "I recalibrated everything!" makes it more specific. He put all this work into the engineering side of his latest scheme and got tunnel vision, thinking if he got his creations just right there'd be no way he could lose. "This was supposed to be my time!" also turns it into a time travel pun, which is a bonus. He's still pitching a fit over losing, but it feels more like Eggman pitching a fit, rather than sounding childish.

And then instead of saying that beating Eggman is "like his job or something," Sonic says he's got a flawless score card against Eggman. He doesn't take Eggman seriously as a threat—at least, not to his face. He acts like it's all a game. But he conveys this in a way that feels truer to the character, rather than feeling like the words of a real world observer poking fun at the tropes of the Sonic series.

Is this amazing, A+ dialogue that blows me away? No. Again, it's not a completely different scene from the one we already had. Ian had to fit the beats of what was already there. He couldn't go all out and write an all new story confirming his longstanding headcanon that the Time Eater is a remnant of Solaris or whatever. But the wording here makes the existing story land a little better and feel truer to the characters in subtle ways.

But to me, the main change is that the Sonics and Tailses seem to have a more solid understanding of what's going on with the timeline and the Time Eater, compared to how idiotic they sometimes seemed in the original game. Which is good! No more standing outside Green Hill and wondering why it seems so familiar. Thank god. As part of this, yes, there are a few more references to past games in the dialogue, like Sonic briefly being confused about the fact that they're time traveling without the Time Stones, or South Island and Westside Island being acknowledged as the normal locations of Green Hill and Chemical Plant. Yes, ha ha, insert joke about how Ian loves references here. Look, it's Sonic fucking Generations. It's a game built entirely out of nostalgic references. Just own it! And, again, in this instance Sonic and Tails come off as less stupid when they make it clear that they do, in fact, remember their adventures from presumably less than a year ago in-universe.

Eggman, too, seems to have a better understanding of the powers he's toying with. Where in the original vesion his focus was simply on going back in time to undo his previous defeats and he seemed kind of oblivious to how much the Time Eater was actually fucking up the universe, here Eggman says he wants to use the Time Eater to give himself complete control over the entire timeline. Eggman also makes way fewer references to his own failures and shortcomings. Of course he won't admit that Sonic has defeated him time and time again. To him, he's never truly lost—Sonic just keeps delaying the inevitable total victory for the Eggman Empire.

So, yes. The new Sonic Generations script is better. It won't blow anyone away, but it's better than it was. It's been elevated from "kinda lame" to "fine." No, if you really wanna see Ian flex his ability to breathe new life into old Sonic stories, look no further than...

Gerald Robotnik's Journal

Hoo boy.

The story of what happened aboard the ARK has always been... a bit confusing, to say the least. Fans with encyclopedic knowledge of the script for every route of Shadow '05 may disagree, but it's the truth. We've had all the pieces to understand the story for a long time now, but that info was given to us out of order by a pair of unreliable narrators—Gerald, who became a vengeful lunatic shortly before his death, and Shadow, who was subjected to multiple rounds of amnesia and altered memories. Some of the ambiguity left by Sonic Adventure 2 was cleared up in Shadow '05, but that game also retconned in a bunch of new elements to Shadow's backstory (aliens!) that lead to further confusion. Not to mention the fact that that game had multiple routes and only revealed the truth about Shadow if you sat on the ultimate final boss battle for WAY longer than the fight would normally last. Or the fact that Sonic X made its own tweaks in its telling of the story. Or the fact that none of these things ever had the best English translations. I can't blame anyone who hasn't played those games in two decades for not remembering the truth about these characters and getting some details mixed up.

What we needed was something to piece together all of the info we have into one coherent backstory, told in chronological order. And thanks to Shadow Generations, we have that, in the form of an official journal tying together what we knew from Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow '05, and Sonic Battle into the tragic tale of Gerald's rise and fall.

Ian Flynn was the perfect man for the job here as the guy who started his career by tidying up the mess that was the first 159 issues if Archie Sonic. This is what he excels at: taking disparate bits of weird Sonic lore from multiple different sources, boiling them down to their most interesting elements, and connecting it together in a way that will make the audience see the dramatic potential he's always known was there. Rather than feeling like a cynical exercise in franchise building, going back and explaining things that never needed explaining so that people can add more bullet points to the wiki, he puts a new spin on things that retroactively enriches those past stories. The story here means something to the characters involved and gives us a better understanding of them as people, rather than as plot devices to motivate Shadow.

(And, of course, Ian didn't do this journal alone. He wrote the story, but I also have to give a huge shout out to Evan Stanley, who made the final product. All of her handwritten journal entries, sketches, and "photos" included throughout. The physical damage done to the journal over the course of 50 tumultuous years, passing from Gerald to Eggman to a certain special someone at GUN. The way Gerald's handwriting gets less and less legible as his mental state declines. So much love was put into what could have been a mere text dump in a menu, and it really elevates it to the next level. Congrats on officially getting hired by Sega, Evan, you've sure as hell earned it!)

The main idea the journal conveys is that Gerald was under a lot of pressure from a lot of different parties—GUN, the President, his colleagues aboard the ARK, Black Doom, even his own family—and boy did it get to him. The known incidents aboard the ARK mentioned in previous games are put together here to form a story where everything slowly spirals out of control as Gerald keeps compromising his morals to further his research, thinking he'll eventually find some way out of all this because he's a genius. I won't recap that whole story here (if you haven't already played the game and read the journal entries, I would highly recommend at least reading it on the Sonic wiki), but I'd like to highlight my favorite elements of the story, as Ian tells it here.

1) The Eclipse Cannon

Here's something that never quite made sense in Sonic Adventure 2: why does the ARK have a laser that can blow up the Earth built into it? It was supposed to be a peaceful research colony. Sure, Gerald went crazy and swore revenge on the Earth, but, like... when did he have an opportunity to go back up to the ARK and modify it? Did he have someone else do it? How? The ARK was raided by GUN and shut down! And then they arrested him, held him in prison for an unclear period of time, and executed him by firing squad when he was no longer useful! It doesn't add up. Shadow 'the Hedgehog '05 would give its own answer by introducing the Black Arms and saying that the Eclipse Cannon was always supposed to be a secret trump card against the Black Comet. But, like... we know that's kind of a bullshit answer, right? You don't need enough power to blow up a whole planet just to destroy a comet.

Well, the new journal retains what we already knew, but it paints a much more complete picture.

See, long before Gerald ever made a Faustian bargain with Black Doom, he had already made one with an even greater evil: the military. GUN gave Gerald much of the funding for the ARK, Gerald's personal utopian research station in space, but it didn't take long for GUN to start pressuring him to design them weapons. Gerald tried to get GUN off his back by personally contacting the President of the United Federation, and the President gave him an alternative: how about, instead, you just use your genius brain to figure out the secret to immortality for us, so our soldiers can be immortal? Gerald was initially sickened by the notion and found it completely absurd, like chasing a shadow... but given no other option, the sarcastically named Project Shadow soon began in earnest. (Maria would later put a more positive spin on the name after Shadow's awakening, pointing out that a Shadow can show us the direction of the light, like she says in the game itself.)

Of course, this search for the ultimate life form didn't go very well, and without any results on that front GUN kept hounding him for weapons. Gerald would throw them a bone here and there to get them off his back. His research on Chaos resulted in the Artifical Chaos prototypes, which he worried would be used for warfare but could at least theoretically be used for search and rescue missions in floods, in his mind. But that wasn't enough. So he gave them Chaos Drives to power their mechs. And that still wasn't enough. He's got Emerl. He'll give them Emerl. They're not impressed by Emerl. They'll shut the whole ARK down if Gerald doesn't give them something big.

Fine! GUN wants something big? Gerald builds a huge fucking laser cannon into the ARK. However, as a middle finger to GUN, Gerald makes it so powerful that it would destroy the Earth if it was ever fired at any target on its surface. In other words, GUN now has their ultimate weapon of mass destruction, fulfilling his contract, but they can never actually use it. Oh, the delicious irony. (And also Shadow will blow up the Black Comet with it in 50 years yada yada yada.) Is this perhaps extremely shortsighted and naive of Gerald, to believe that such a weapon would never actually be used just because of the risk? Of course. But hey, that's Gerald for you. And I love this as an answer.

(Also, this, uh, kinda echoes something from real life! Remember the bit in Oppenheimer where he says all nuclear war will become unthinkable, and Edward Teller responds "until somebody builds a bigger bomb"? Yeah, Teller went on to conceptualize a superweapon codenamed Project Sundial that would have been able to kill all life on the planet, as the ultimate deterrent for war. This was never made for obvious reasons, but hey, there's a basis for this sort of thinking outside of heightened sci-fi! There's a whole Kurzgesagt video about this if you're interested.)

2) The Biolizard

The Biolizard is, of course, brought up as the initial failed prototype of the ultimate life form, from before Gerald met Black Doom. We don't really learn all that much about it that we didn't already know, but I just love the way it's framed in the story.

As you can see above, we actually get to see a picture of Maria holding up the cute little salamander that would end up mutating into the Biolizard through Gerald's experiments. (Researchers want to figure out how to replicate salamanders' regenerative abilities for humans in real life, too, so this was a natural starting point for the project.) And then, after it grows to a monstrous size and goes out of control, Gerald has to lock it away in an unused sector of the ARK. He needs to keep the poor thing alive for his research into harnessing Chaos Energy, building life support systems directly into it, but he doesn't have the heart to tell Maria what happened. So it just becomes this first dark secret weighing on his conscience. The Biolizard becomes Gerald's Tell-Tale Heart beating beneath the floorboards of the ARK. I love that.

3) Lost Impact was the breaking point for the ARK

Remember the level Lost Impact in Shadow '05? The flashback level on the hero path where Shadow is running around fighting Artificial Chaos enemies on the ARK 50 years ago? Yeah, that wasn't just a random incident. That was important, as we now know due to its placement on the timeline.

See, Emerl's rampage aboard the ARK that was chronicled in Sonic Battle and Dark Beginnings set off a domino effect. Emerl riled up the Artificial Chaos, causing Gerald to lose control of them. They became violent, and so Shadow had to stop them, as depicted in Lost Impact. The thing is, that incident sent an SOS signal to GUN telling them that shit was going down on the ARK. Gerald didsn't fully understand the trouble he was in and assumed that he'd simply be reprimanded by the higher ups, or maybe face legal action. But, well... the next time he heard from GUN, armed troopers were raiding the ARK.

So Lost Impact was the straw that broke the camel's back. I just really like that detail.

4) Maria

And, of course, there's Maria herself. Maria has often been more of a symbol than a character, this perfect embodiment of everything that's good and pure in this world who gets killed to motivate Shadow and Gerald's revenge plots. But I really like the wrinkles this journal adds to her and Gerald's story, and their relationship. This is the most fleshed out they've ever felt.

For one, the journal leans into the idea of Maria's intellectual potential. The rest of the Robotnik family is all geniuses, after all, and she was proving to be a really bright kid. She excelled in her studies on the ARK, and she even helped design Shadow's jet skates and inhibitor rings. When Maria died, the world didn't just lose a symbolic personification of purity. She genuinely could have been a hugely influential scientist who did so much good for the world. That's what Gerald wanted for her. But we'll never know, because GUN killed her.

Speaking of her family, their presence isn't just mentioned for the sake of fleshing out the Robotnik family tree. It's mentioned that as Gerald struggled to find a cure for Maria's illness through his genetic research, he faced mounting pressure from his family. They didn't want Maria to be up on the ARK forever. They wanted Gerald to hurry up and find a damn cure, or otherwise just send her back home to Earth so she could be with her family again. She'd been up on the ARK for so long that Gerald's coworkers started thinking that she had been born up there. Eventually she gains a baby sister on Earth who she's never met. A rift forms between Gerald's two sons, and he's unable to really deal with it because he's so consumed by his work. There's this sense that the family is falling apart, and that everyone is dreading the possibility that Gerald will never find a cure and that Maria will just spend her final years up in space and die far away from her family, because Gerald just couldn't let go. If that happens, it'll break the whole family. But he can't stop now. So he just keeps working. Curing Maria is the only way to win his family back, in his eyes. It can't all be for nothing.

But my favorite detail regarding Maria is this one paragraph:

Maria is growing into a lovely young woman. It breaks my heart that someone as bright and energetic as her is diminished by disease. There are no visible effects, and I've caught my fellow researchers muttering to each other, doubting her illness. It is infuriating. I find all my reason and restraint vanishes when she's slighted.

This is SUCH a great addition to the story! It's always been true that Maria doesn't really seem all that ill, just looking at her in cutscenes. With this one little comment, Ian flips that issue on its head and turns it into a story about invisible disability. She doesn't act like she's in chronic pain, so she must not be, everyone thinks. And this really, really gets to Gerald, as does the pressure from his family. He's dedicating his whole LIFE to saving her, and they think she's faking it?! It's such a small addition, never referenced elsewhere in the journal, but it adds so much flavor to the story, as does the implied family drama. It grounds Gerald and Maria and makes them feel more like real human beings, rather than being pure archetypes. It's just enough info to let my imagination run wild filling in the blanks.

You also get the feeling that Maria being such a walking ray of sunshine was the only real source of joy Gerald had left in his life before Shadow was awakened, and the only thing keeping him from snapping under pressure sooner. All this stuff just keeps piling on, everything's spiraling out of control, but at least Maria is keeping her chin up, right? It makes so much sense that losing her would make him go off the deep end when it's framed like this.

It's just... man, I never thought I'd care so much about Gerald and Maria. But that's the Ian Flynn touch. After years of less than stellar Sonic writing that seemed to be embarrassed of itself, I'm so happy to have new games coming out that fully embrace the history of the series like this, making its world feel so rich and real instead of just serving as an excuse for a string of platforming levels. I don't even like Shadow '05, but I'll be damned if Ian and the rest of Sonic Team didn't make something amazing by "yes, and"-ing Shadow's cringe past here. Sonic has truly reached levels of "we're so back" never thought possible.

[nightingale-prompts]

-okay okay I learned my lesson. No more making up media for posts. (I will probably forget and do it again)

-Next movie night-

Movie:What are you sorry for this time, Melody? Being born? Being sick all the damn time? Existing? It's not like you had a choice in any of it. No one wanted you around to begin with.

Damian:*biting the inside of his cheek* who let Drake pick the movie?

Movie:If you're dying, Melody, just do everyone a favor and hurry it up. Don't drag this out any longer. No one wants to watch you waste away in that bed. I'll get your fucking medicine. But this is the last goddamn time I'm saving your miserable ass, understand?

Bruce: *looking at the ceiling so he doesn't tear up of course* He can't mean that.

Movie:I love you. I know you hate me. I know you'd be happy if I was gone. But you're all I have in this world so I can't help but love you. You're my only family. If you weren't here I'd be dead.

Dick: *Has been crying the entire movie* noooo....please. She loves so much and he just-ghuaaa *sniff*

Movie:I'm not your family, Melody. I'm just the poor sap who got stuck with the job of keeping you alive. Don't mistake my grudging obligation for love.

Jason:*understands this too well and it hurts so much* fuck, I hate this so much.

Movie:I had gotten it from the medical school, I told her that I needed the heart monitor for research. That was a damn lie. I didn't know why I had done it, only that I couldn't bear the thought of her dying alone, unnoticed, unremembered. Or maybe I just wanted to know the moment when she finally dies and the exact moment I'd be free. That's so fucked up. I'm actually waiting for my sister to die...for my sake!

Cassandra: *walkes out of the room after feeling an emotion*

Movie:Last time we went to the hospital the doctor told me it wasn't long before her heart gave out. Even if an eligible donor could be found we wouldn't be able to afford the surgery. It would take a miracle for her to survive. Let's face it...there aren't enough miracles to go around... I'm just a kid! Why is it my job to do all this! I don't want to watch her die! I don't want this damn responsibility!

Barbara: *bearly holding it together and has been silently tearing up*

Movie:Goodbye, Melody. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you. I'm sorry I couldn't be the brother you deserved. I'm sorry I hated you for so long. Maybe in the next life, Melody, we can be a real family. But for now, it's time for you to let go and be free of all this pain.

Stephanie: *sobbing* Duke, why aren't you crying?

Duke:*absolutely destroyed and going to breakdown later* I cry on the inside.

-Later-

Tim:*eyes red from crying* I think tye movie had the opposite effect. They aren't mad anymore but now they won't leave me or the rest of the family alone. Even Damian is being nicer.

Danny: Sooo...is the date still on the table?

(Ha, you thought I'd stop making stuff up?! Jokes on you!)

Tim: I've come to you in a time of great need. I need Dick and Bruce to get off my back.

Danny: I see and what's it worth to you?

Tim: A date.

Danny: Deal! Show them this movie. Got it from a neighboring universe.

Tim: What's it about?

Danny: A little girl who has a chronic illness and is slowly dying while her neglectful parents abandon her to be raised by her older brother who is bearly older than her. He hates and resents her but she never hates him because she relies on him to survive and feels like that's love enough. She is treated like a burden by her parentified brother who takes care of her until she dies in her sleep after telling him that she will always love him. It's the perfect movie to fill your family with guilt and I use it on Jazz all the time. It will make you want to curl up into a ball and cry though.

Tim: That's evil. I'll take it.

[touchme-teezme]

Why Me?

PAIRINGS | collegeboy!yeosang x fab!reader

TAGS | plot with some porn, kissing, fingering, unprotected sex, angsty & high tension dialogues bcs reader and yeosang are in situationship & figuring it out, reader is a player and avoidant, yeosang gets attached too easily. oopsie.

RATING | NSFW 21+ (Minors pls DNI/if it makes you uncomfortable don’t read thx)

SUMMARY | Yeosang realized he had feelings for you at the worst possible moment—now he’s spiralling and needs an outlet. Lucky for you, you’re here. Unlucky for you, it comes with a cost.

AUTHOR’S NOTE | oK this was plot heavy. lowkey in my feelings when i wrote it and i didn’t rlly want smut to be the focal point of all the stories — especially if i didn’t think it fit the members. so we’re trying something new out with yeo’s part. i hope you like it! guess which member is next hehe enjoy freaks (complimentary). if you catch any mistakes, no you didn’t. i proofread with vibes not scrutiny.

💌 click here to see my Love Interrupted series masterlist [ot8] — check out the other parts!

inspired by pink matter & bad religion by frank ocean

(frank come home pls i can’t do this anymore.)

Yeosang wasn’t the nosy type—he liked to think he was above that.

Normally, he’d get himself to stop missing you by scrolling through your posts or replaying your story highlights like a perfectly chill (totally not obsessed) person. But today curiosity dragged him into the abyss that was your tagged photos.

And that’s where he saw it. Them.

The two others you were seeing on the side. He’d heard rumours but didn’t believe them until he saw Lee Chan’s hands on your ass as you were hugging him or a selfie where you were a little too close to Choi Yeonjun.

Even he never had a photo with you where your cheeks were squished against each others.

“Relax,” Wooyoung had told him that night he confided in his friend, “It’s normal. They’re probably just on her roster. You guys aren’t exclusive anyway.”

Now, every time he lay flat on his back, staring at a ceiling, his mind went into the same place:

How did you meet them? How long have you been seeing them? Do they know what you like? Or worse—did you touch them the same way you’re touching him right now?

And seriously, how the fuck did you and Yeonjun even meet?

“Yeosang, i’m talking to you.”

“Huh?” His head jerked up at the sound of your voice, only to find you staring up at him from between his legs, mouth hovering just shy of the fabric of his underwear.

His pants were bunched at his ankles, and he was sprawled out with his knees hanging off the bed—one hand casually tucked under his head.

The angle was doing the most to show off how much gym time he and San had clearly been clocking lately.

“I asked if I can—“

“Uh… Y-Yeah, yeah go ahead.”

You sighed, rising from your knees to gracefully mount his body. Straddling him with elegance, you leaned down, your face inches from his clearly preoccupied gaze.

Speaking of gazes, his eyes were your favourite. Your knuckles grazed his birthmark, then you casually swept his hair back.

"What's going on?"

He reacted instantly, closing his eyes and inhaling sharply as he leaned in. You felt his hands glide down your spine, past the hooks of your bra. He shook his head, "Nothing. I'm fine."

"Something’s definitely going on because I was about to suck you off and you haven’t looked at me once.”

Yeosang gently placed his hand on the back of your head and flipped you over, landing you on your side.

He then adjusted himself, kicking off his jeans with a nonchalant flick of his ankle. Scooting closer to your flushed face, his silence was starting to make you a tad more nervous than usual.

“Is everything okay?” You shifted closer to his body.

“I wanted to ask you something, and I need you to be honest.”

“Oh. Sure.” Your eyebrows rose. “But maybe we save the serious talk for after, you know, the fun stuff?” You started trailing your fingers along the faint ridges of his abs.

He grabbed your hand, intertwining your fingers with his as he stared down at your joined hands. “Do you…” He trailed off, recalibrating mid-sentence. “How long are we going to keep having fun?”

“Well,” you said, blinking like it was the most obvious answer in the world, “A few rounds, a few hours—though if you do that thing I like, I might have to keep you here a bit longer.”

You leaned in for a kiss, slow and deliberate, your lips skimming his bottom lip. His hand slipped to your ass like muscle memory, but instead of diving in, his brain just had to keep working.

“No, not this,” he mumbled between kisses before pulling away with all the self-control and focus in the world. “I mean… this—as in, us. How much longer are we going to keep this going?”

“Oh.” You paused, your eyes darted between his face and the diminishing gap between your bodies. “I don’t know… as long as we want to?”

His jaw tightened, his expression unreadable.

“Do you not want to anymore?” You asked.

“It’s not that,” he sighed. “I’m starting my internship next semester. I just… I needed to know if I have a reason to turn down that offer in Busan.”

His words hung in the air, and for a moment, all you could hear was the faint hum of the city beyond your creaked window.

“Well,” you said. “I told you…if you want to, you should.”

“So you think I should go?”

“I think you should do whatever makes you happiest.”

“And what if what I want doesn’t make you happy?”

You swallowed the lump in your throat and forced a shrug. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“But it does. It matters to me.” His voice dipped, tinged with frustration, though his gaze softened into something you hadn’t seen before.

“So… what do you want me to say?” you asked.

“I don’t know,” His voice cracked just enough to make your chest tighten. “That you want me to stay. That this is something important to hold on to or that…” He gestured vaguely to himself, as if it physically pained him. “…that I’m not just someone you fuck when everyone else is busy.”

Oh.

You sighed, sitting up to rake your fingers through your hair while pulling your knees to your chest.

Maybe it was one of the guys you’d been seeing who ran his mouth. Word gets around campus pretty easily when you have mutual friends. It’s also not like you were deliberately hiding it, but you somehow still felt a little ashamed for him to find out.

Yeosang, on the other hand, looked like he’d rather dissolve into thin air. Maybe insecurity had sucker-punched him or he was catching feelings and scared you’d bolt the moment he brought it up.

“I don’t know why I said that,” he muttered, voice soft and far away. “I’m sorry I brought it up.” He shifted to sit next to you, his posture mirroring yours.

“It’s fine,” You tried to sound reassuring, but the weight of his question hung in the air.

You glanced at him, and damn his side profile wasn’t helping you think straight. “So, what is it? You don’t want me seeing anyone else?”

His sharp inhale said it all. “I can’t tell you what to do, but just so you know, I’m not seeing anyone else,” his voice was rough, like he was trying to swallow the words before they came out. “I don’t even want anyone else. I don’t know how you do it, how you can… be with anyone else.”

Yeosang turned to look at you, his eyes searching yours. “I just… I want to know if it could ever be… just me.”

He’d meant it when he swore off relationships — especially after what happened to San, he believed that was more than enough to convince him that relationships weren’t worth it.

But the more he saw you, the more his wishes began to crack. The more he wanted it to be only him you came back to.

“What am I to you?” he asked finally, the question breaking the silence.

You swallowed, searching for words that felt like truth but wouldn’t cut too deep. “You’re…” The answer wavered, unsure even as it left your lips. “You’re someone I care about. A lot.”

You placed a hand on his shoulder and leaned in to kiss him, trying to drown out the conversation in the only way you knew how.

His fingers gripped your hips tightly, grounding you against him, and you felt a flicker of guilt at the way you were avoiding his question but it melted away when you felt his tongue slip in.

When you pulled back, he was breathless and flushed, his chest heaving as if he’d just surfaced from underwater. His hands stayed firmly on your love handles, and his forehead leaned against yours.

“For fuck’s sake…” he muttered, the frustration thick in his voice. He shook his head, running a hand through his hair like that would somehow untangle the mess in his brain. “Why me?”

“Yeosang?”

He realised right then and there, there was no changing your mind.

He snapped back to reality, his grip tightening as his hands slid down to your thighs. In one smooth move, you were on your back and he was settling himself right on top of you.

Yeosang settled between your thighs. He rocked his hips, grinding himself against you, seeking friction and relief as your lips wouldn’t leave his alone.

You cupped the side of his face, looking up at him between breaks of the kiss to slide a gentle slow finger into his mouth for him to suck as he held your stare.

Your other hand pushed away the curtain of hair falling from his face, admiring his bare beauty in your touch.

You liked how he reacted to your touches, how at a single command he kneels, he’d do anything for you if you’d ask — maybe that’s what scared you in return but you’d never tell him that.

You both eventually fell on your sides, not a single word besides the usual moans and gasps of “yes”, “like that”, and yeosang’s personal favourite: “i need you right now.”

Before you knew it, your back faced him and you were both entirely undressed.

He held you tight, pressing his face into the sweet spot where your neck met your shoulder. His lips trailed kisses there as his hands explored your familiar curves. Your hips ground back against him, rubbing your ass over his erection.

His fingers danced across your stomach before slipping lower. You groaned, feeling his fingers open to a ‘V’ to graze the sides of your entrance with light strokes.

His focus on you was primal and hungry as he started circling the your folds in a distinct pattern. He sunk two fingers deep inside your slick clenching heat, earning a breathy whine that was turning him on relentlessly. Your breath was hot against his ear as you watched him work, your inner muscles clenching greedily.

Yeosang knew your body the best out of the others. He always paid attention to your physical reactions to what you really like and what hurt you. After a while, he got the hang of it pretty damn quick.

Between the gentle caresses and firmer strokes, he was driving you higher, teasing you mercilessly—and yet, he hadn’t even gone all the way. But holding out much longer wasn’t an option; the things you were saying were wrecking his focus, leaving his restraint hanging by a thread.

You’re the only one I want.

You make me feel so good.

I want you so bad.

Don’t get him wrong, the sex was great — but even with you naked in his arms, swearing he was the one you wanted, he didn’t feel it. Because desiring him wasn’t the same as making him yours—and you never would.

You held his face behind you, anchoring your hand on the nape of his neck as he pounded into you with his hard throbbing cock into you at an angle that was blurring your vision.

He was eagerly grabbing a handful of your breast, teasing your nipple between his fingers as he sucked onto your neck, whining against your skin.

He pushed your knee higher. Gripping your side like he was holding on for dear life, he thrust into you with the determination, only to pull out slowly, and savouring the moment.

The increasing pace turned your moans into a symphony of pleasure, loud enough to give the neighbors an unsolicited introduction to Yeosang’s name. They might not have seen him, but they sure knew who he was now.

The sound of skin meeting skin, punctuated by the occasional slap of his hand against your ass made you grin.

“Fuck! Yeosang!” You exclaimed.

“I know baby, I know,” he replied, his voice a low, reassuring rumble that sent shivers down your spine.

His focus unwavering. It was as if he had a singular mission: to bring you to the peak of pleasure and join you there.

He eventually sent you over the edge. You bit down on your lip as he showered you with open-mouthed kisses on one side of your face.

“Shit… Yeosang, that was— you felt so fucking good.” You barely caught your breath.

You held his face over your shoulder and he smiled back, feeling your thumb stroke the side of his face before coming in for a rewarding kiss.

Yeosang had it all—looks, charm, the perfect height for you, and you always had a soft spot for the shy types. Sure, his borderline obsession with video games wasn’t exactly your favorite thing, but hey, at least it wasn’t destructive.

Still, no matter how great he was, Yeosang realised the truth you’d never admit: a relationship wasn’t exactly your thing.

Still, his visit to your neighbourhood didn’t end on that note.

After a few rounds of small talk and a necessary bathroom breaks, you were back to your usual routine — with a few new surprises.

It included him kneeling before your parted legs as you sat on the edge of the bed, watching him savour, and lick up your core. It wasn't long before your leg found its way over his shoulder, trembling and quivering as you held onto the back of his head.

Then came the moment when he held your wrists behind your back, taking you from behind. Fucking. Hell. The spanking returned, accompanied by a string of praises in that low voice of his and it turned you on more than anything else he’d ever tried.

You were so caught up in the bliss and pleasure of the moment, reveling in how he truly outdid himself tonight, that you missed two things:

Yeosang had whispered "I love you" at the peak of his final climax.

And this was going to be the last time.

Yeosang was so haunted by the painful realization that if he ever walked away, you wouldn't miss him.

After all, there were plenty of others ready to take his place by your side, as if he were just another face in the crowd.

He knew you were never going to change your mind, even when he was the one on the line.

By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, you were fast asleep. Yeosang watched the steady rise and fall of your bare back, the room quiet except for your soft breathing. The faint jingle of his belt buckle broke the stillness as he slipped into his jeans.

He caught sight of himself in your full-length mirror in the corner, you sound asleep behind him, and all he felt was emptiness. The faint marks on his neck and chest—your handiwork—didn’t even draw the usual smirk.

He slipped his shirt back on and crept out of your place, the same way he’d done countless times before.

Standing on the corner of your street, he pulled out his phone and fired off an email accepting the position. One press of “send”, he raised his arm, hailing a taxi without a second glance back.

A yellow coloured taxi pulled up just as he tucked the phone back into his pocket. He climbed in, saying the name of his street and sinking into his seat, completely worn out.

The driver nodded without saying much from the rearview mirror where a string of beads with a tassel hung. The car pulled away from that street.

He stole another glance at Yeosang, whose watery eyes and faraway stare made it seem like the weight of the world was crushing his shoulders.

“You okay, kid?”

“Yeah,” Yeosang muttered, leaning against the glass. “Just got a lot on my mind.”

His phone buzzed in his jeans pocket, and his gaze dropped to the screen—Wooyoung’s name lighting up, accompanied by that dumb photo he’d set as his own contact picture.

He’d hoped that by the sixth missed call—during the time Yeosang had your arms pinned behind your back—Wooyoung would finally give it a rest.

But if there was one thing everyone knew about Wooyoung, it was that his commitment to annoying his friends was unmatched.

“Fucking finally, where are you?” Wooyoung’s voice came through, loud and chaotic, with the telltale background noise of a busy restaurant.

“Home,” Yeosang lied, voice barely above a mumble and cleared his throat. “Why?”

“Perfect, so you’re close. Everyone’s already here—your roommate, Hwa, the usual. San and Mingi bailed though. Typical. Anyway, you promised you’d show up tonight, so—“

“Yeah, yeah,” Yeosang cut him off, not in the mood for one of Wooyoung’s endless rambles.

Wooyoung, sharp as ever, caught the attitude immediately. “Don’t be a dick. We’ll just see you at the club if you’re gonna take forever.”

“Yeah, sure. Bye.” Yeosang ended the call before Wooyoung could get another word in. He didn’t even flinch when he heard Wooyoung start to curse—cutting him off mid-sentence was the point.

The driver glanced at him as they pulled to a stop at a red light, an eyebrow quirking in silent judgment. “A lot going on, huh?”

Yeosang’s eyes stayed fixed on the city lights, streaking and blurring as they sped past. “You have no idea.”

The driver shrugged, settling back into his seat. “Well, it’s a long drive to where you’re headed. I’ve got time.”

[glitter-stained]

I know some people argue that robin!Jason and Dick were never close post-crisis pre n52 because they only interacted a couple of times in canon and I understand that due to Dick living away when they first met they wouldn't be as close as the relationship Dick has with some of his other siblings, but I would also wish we would take in account that for all three of Jason's years, we have like 30 issues of Jason's run. That's exceedingly small. We have batman #416, we have that one moment in teen titans (i forgot the issue) of jason working with the team, and i think the ski trip we found out later about was included in the same canon*. (also, i do feel like even if you didn't know/like eachother before going on a ski trip together by the end of the ski trip this will have changed, and the picture definitely felt like they were getting along even though Jason's face in the picture was comically weird.) I'm not sure if there were other interactions shown or mentioned, but hey, 2-3/30ish isn't a bad score at all! If we're going 3/30, that's a whole tenth of Jason's robin era.

(And I'm talking about their relationship from Dick's pov since it's the one in question here but it's clear to me in Jason's run, even post-crisis, that Dick is often on his mind and important in his life (with a certain inferiority complex the little siblings of very cool people know well) with stuff like I think Batman #410 or Jason is Legends.)

And even more importantly, 30ish is extremely short for three damn years. That's ten issues per year! Do we assume that Jason was sitting on a shelf for the whole time he's not working with batman in the comics? Do we assume batman was sitting on a shelf twiddling his thumbs all that time during those three years he appears, either? It's perfectly logical to make the assumption that Bruce and Jason were still going out as goddamn Batman and Robin even when it's not shown on screen and having a relationship and interacting together even when it's not seen. In fact it's the most reasonable and logical assumption even. It's obvious Jason and Bruce's interactions extend past what was shown on screen so why wouldn't Dick and Jason? We know from Dick's relationship to his death that Dick cared about Jason. We know how much his death impacted him. Regardless of the (now retconned) terrible mess that was their relationship after Jason came back, they had a relationship, and it was good, and how deep it went is up to interpretation but it doesn't cheapen or lessen any of Dick's relationship with his other siblings to acknowledge that (like, seriously, even though some of them might view it as such in the story, dick's love isn't a prize that can only go to the one blorbo to win the competition. Personally I don't see Robin Jason being his favourite, and that's fine. Probably since, as I only have one sibling to be weird about, this is one aspect of Dick and Jason's relationship that I don't project onto them.)

There's a difference between saying "those are the only canon interactions between Dick and Robin!Jason that we know of" and saying "those are the only interactions that happened between Jason and Dick when Jason was Robin", especially if the next sentence is going to be something like "read a comic". I want to insist that I'm not saying that they have to have been super close. All I'm saying is I don't see, with the knowledge I personally have of canon and the retcons I choose to disregard (because of terrible writing), why considering that they were close wouldn't be canon compliant.

Leeway, nuance and up to interpretation stuff are fun and should matter for evaluating the level of canon compliance of your own headcanons, and I think it's especially important when trying to police other people's interpretation of canon: are you certain their interpretation is fanon and you're correcting it with the right canon, or is it a case of two headcanons clashing in the blank space between comic pages?

I just found it strange to never see it taken in account in the sometimes pretty emphatic takes I saw on the debate around their relationship, so those are my two cents on the matter. All this to say, [theatre joke in coming], when it comes to Dick and Jaybin, we could all stand to be more chill.

* btw i'm excluding dixon's nightwing year one from this conversation because I hate how it manages to shit on every one of the characters i've seen him write in it so violently and also fuck dixon, my jason comes from post-crisis not that crappy weirdo retcon.

[thebreakfastgenie]

#honestly it might help some of you to read bigoted ramblings#because so many of you waste a lot of time anxious and arguing about beliefs that these people don’t even have#if you’re going to be anxious anyway you might as well know what they’re actually saying @femalegothic

Yeah I originally included that qualification because of the timing of when I made this post, I didn't want people to assume I was validating the conservatives having meltdowns because people they hate didn't want to talk to them. But I think you're right.

Obviously there's a limit to it, there's a point at which it becomes unhealthy, and that point is different for everyone. But I have been worried for a while about the culture on tumblr that creates a belief that seeing even one bigoted post will trigger an intense meltdown in a marginalized person. I think the "I am actually shaking" and cry-typing posts of yesteryear were so popular because tumblr gave people the idea that that's how they were supposed to react. I think there's also an element of tumblr only being able to take bigotry seriously if it does a certain amount of tangible "harm," which on tumblr looks like provoking an extreme distress reaction in an individual. Bigotry does do harm, including to physical health, but it's generally cumulative exposure that does it. Most people are not going to fall apart if they see one bigoted post, and anyone who is needs to get help coping with it because it's an unfortunate part of the world we live in.

So in some ways you have to pretend this stuff just doesn't exist, except not really, because you still have to care about social justice. So you're supposed to feel righteous anger at theoretical bigots, without ever engaging on any level with the real ones.

These twin expectations create this paralyzing environment of fear. People are scared of things that are not actually happening. People are making up guys to be mad at and, I think more harmfully, afraid of. It's not pretending to be oppressed, a lot of these people face real oppression, they're just guessing at what that oppression looks like. There's absolutely no good in that! And sometimes the real bigotry is just so stupid that it's actually not as bad as what your anxious brain can conjure up. Sometimes it just takes the sting out of it to see what absurd things grown adults actually believe.

And of course it's a cliche, but if you want to do something about it you have to know what you're fighting. It's a lot easier to combat bigotry if you know what people are actually saying and what they actually believe. Even if you're not going to convince the bigots, you need to know what arguments they're using to try to radicalize regular people so you can counter them.

So yeah it would do a lot of you some good to read the bigoted ramblings a little bit I was just trying to put forth the most basic possible baby step of readings things you disagree with because I wasn't sure how much tumblr could handle, lol.

I really think a lot of you need to read things you disagree with more. Not bigoted ramblings but just opinions you don't agree with. So many people on tumblr are terrified of seeing a take they don't like about their favorite show, let alone anything serious. I think it comes from a lack of confidence and security in your own opinions and that leaves you vulnerable to manipulation. Reading an opinion you don't agree with should help you articulate your own opinion and why you believe what you do, which strengthens your position.

[seastarblue]

new year, new me, new intro! as always this is subject to change as time goes on <3

all ids in alt ~ ✶⋆.˚✶⋆.˚✶⋆.˚

Nice to meet you! You can call me Sea, or Seastar, or whatever really I don’t mind too much!

-> About Me:

She / Her

18

AroAce

Black and Muslim (feel free to ask about either ^^)

Somewhat neurodivergent but I don’t know what exactly …

My favorite colors are red, yellow, and blue! Classics.

Favorite food is really anything my mom makes ��

I try to be funny sometimes and idk if it works but I’m doing it anyways

I’d like to use more tone indicators (like /pos, /gen, etc) and to ID more images here ! sometimes I forget…

✶⋆.˚✶⋆.˚✶⋆.˚

Anyways. Onto…

-> what I do and post about:

I’m a writer (or I try to be), artist (again: try to be), and a professional Silly Lil Guy 😌. I’d like to be a pharmacist soon, I’m planning on going to college for that !

This is my only blog, and here I post a plethora of Things, including but not limited to:

My original writing / doodles (more on those later)

My cool mooties and their characters

I wanna start writing prompts and such! For others to get ideas from!

This isn’t quite a whump blog per se but I do like whump and I do post about it occasionally so!

Yeah that’s basically it I’m ngl

✶⋆.˚✶⋆.˚✶⋆.˚

I’ve got a pretty decent tagging system if I do say so myself ^^ so a quick guide to that here:

#sea speaks! - for when I have random stuff to say! not always about writing stuff though

#sea draws - self explanatory

#sea’s asks - self explanatory

#sea’s games - for now, its tag games I’ve participated in! hopefully I’ll start making my own games soon…

#sea’s moots - for things that my (Aweseomesauce) mutuals have done

#osea: character name - for posts about specific ocs (or oseas >:D)

#o(sea’s) - for posts relating to a whole bunch of characters!

#sea’s story 1-3 - posts relating to WIPs of mine! more on those… in a bit

✶⋆.˚✶⋆.˚✶⋆.˚

-> Important Links:

I have two tag lists! This one is for writing and this one is for tag games! Dm me if you want on either ^^

here’s my master list for prompts! hopefully I’ll fill it up soon ^^

✶⋆.˚✶⋆.˚✶⋆.˚

✶⋆.˚✶⋆.˚✶⋆.˚

now onto…

-> My Original Works:

All art that’s done by me is under the tag #sea draws (I’m SO bad at tagging sometimes tho so expect some stragglers)

I’ve got a grand total of …*checks notes* three main writing WIPs, and two tiny little ones I haven’t fleshed out at all!

more about them under the cut:

-> Ardenia WIPs:

(Psst, the following all come from one specific world, of my own creation! In order, it’d be the unnamed one, Interwoven, then TGS, then AGGTRG!)

Interwoven - lovingly tagged as #sea’s story 1 status: hiatus as I figure out more Plot — outlining Genre: Fantasy Themes: family, friendship, grief, loyalty, power, justice, belonging

Kaiden Evania is a cursed bounty hunter focused on very few things: paying off her brother’s tuition, keeping her little family safe, and enacting bloody vengeance on them. Bounty hunting isn’t a ‘proper’ job, however, and eventually Kaiden is imprisoned on charges of murdering a Guard.

She’s—begrudgingly—accepted her fate, and awaits trial, when a mysterious offer comes right to her cell door, promising everything she wants and more. Despite her skepticism, she takes it.

And with that, she and eight others are thrust into a kingdom-wide web of death, lies, brutality, and spirits.

———

A Golem’s Guide to Regaining Goodness - lovingly tagged as #sea’s story 2 status: brainstorming and shitposting Genre: Post Apocalyptic Fantasy Themes: Identity, belonging, morality, family

A former war golem, Arbor, and his young dragon companion Fiamma, travel the now war torn continent of Ardenia. Join them as they meet new people, explore the realm, and search for the answer to a single question: “What makes someone good?”

———

The Guiding Star - lovingly tagged as #sea’s story 3 status: brainstorming only because I don’t have enough Plot to shitpost Genre: Steampunk Pirate Fantasy Themes: (idk yet)

Zenith, of the Guiding Star, is no different than other pirates. They’ve lied, stole, and killed others, all in the name of fame and riches. They and their tiny crew of three others are unassuming, small fish compared to the gargantuan crews that share their skies.

When the Goddess Andromeda’s stars start falling from the sky, the Guiding Star’s crew are the first to pounce on the opportunity for power beyond their widest imaginations. Little do they know, they are not alone in this hunt. There are others, pirates and kingdoms alike, who will stop at nothing to collect all the stars and use them for their own gain. (will fill this out more later)

———

[Title Pending.] Status: just an idea Genre: Fantasy (structured like a field guide) Themes: (idk yet)

A field guide of Ardenia, written a long time ago.

———

and now the WIP that isn’t a part of Ardenia:

[Title Also Pending]

Either way, it’s a whump story surrounding a healer and a crownchain knight, both of which are trapped in a fighting ring against their will!

It’s set in the Crownchain universe, which was created by @whumpdreaming and I HIGHLY recommend their content ok peak whump right there!

✶⋆.˚✶⋆.˚✶⋆.˚

Now that the yapping’s outta the way… I’d like to take a moment and say…

to all my lovely lovely moots and followers: I love yall sm <3

stay funky, and have a wonderful day!

[pigeonstab]

(Slides you a coupon for 1 free post about characters)

I am asking politely to hear your Nightmare thoughts, if you don't mind sharing (If you still don't wanna you can ignore this, no pressure c: )

Arghhh ty v .v

Honestly I feel like there's so much to do about like- y'know we see Nightmare as a very confident character but I feel like he keeps a lot to himself. Like we've talked about what he keeps from his gang and stuff, mostly his history with Dream and Something I find really fun actually is when the team doesn't even know that Dream and Nightmare are brothers at first. Like they know the boss has beef™ with this guy but he's not gonna tell them anything more so they just accept it and don't really question it, even if they did they probably wouldn't get much out of Nightmare. I really like the idea of like, they're fighting the stars and Dream's calls Nightmare 'brother' and the gang's just like "BROTHER???". And AGRHHH I just love how fucking lost Nightmare is. He acts so composed but he's really not. He has his reasons against Dream, and he's really mad at him but he just can't help but long for his childhood. Cause it feels like nothing has been right since then. Even if as a kid it wasn't that nice Dream was always by his side and that was the only real connection and happiness he had. And just, I feel like he misses Dream a lot more than he ever lets on. Nightmare doesn't want to seem weak, because he's been weak once and he was hurt so badly for it. He never wants to hurt like that again and so he shuts things out.

He's just a huge control freak I think.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

I've been reading your posts for awhile now and I genuinely enjoy reading your takes especially with Harry's characterization. so I've been wondering what are your thoughts on the lupin family? especially with teddy? although I still kinda dislike his parents' relationship i still think he's an interesting character and i wished people talked about him more outside of shipping. What would his relationship with harry be growing up? Also Lyall's death was never really confirmed, only hope's was so do you think he and Andromeda raised teddy instead of harry? It still feels odd that remus chose a 17 year old to be his son's godfather surely there were other suitable candidates than a literal teenager.

Thank you so much 💕

So, this is like entirely in my headcanon space since I did not watch/read Cursed Child and I'm not planning to. I don't consider any of the post-book material canon at all except the Quidditch World Cup in 2014, which I accept since it's fun and doesn't go out of its way to ruin established characters. I enjoyed reading it more than the epilogue, so that's something.

That being said, I often prefer to ignore many aspects of the epilogue and the World Cup article when headcanoning post-books events. I also don't engage much with next-gen stuff since I'm more interested in Harry's generation, but I do have some thoughts about Teddy.

With all this out of the way, let's talk about the Lupins.

So, I like Remadora, I think they're alright for the little we see of them. Tonks just deserves so much better than Lupin in my mind. I mean, he wanted to leave her, after he got her pregnant, for his own sense of inadequacy, guilt, and allergy to taking responsibility. Harry was so justified in ripping Remus a new one.

Now, I mentioned here, how I think Remus didn't make Harry Teddy's godfather because he thought Harry was ready (though Harry is more mature and responsible at 17 than Remus is at 37, so...), but as a way to promise Harry that he isn't going to push him, or Tonks, or anyone who loves him away anymore. It was Remus trying to apologize in a weird way that didn't really land. Especially since he goes and dies right after. (can you tell Remus is my least favorite marauder?)

Now, I find it really hard to imagine Remus as a father for Teddy had he lived. Like, I can see Tonks being a cool mom and her and Teddy matching hair colors when walking together and messing with people (and I think she could become more responsible had she lived longer). Remus is a harder one for me to envision as a parent. I mean, I think he'd be relieved that Teddy wasn't born a werewolf, but whenever he'd look at Teddy and Nymphadora, I think Remus couldn't help but feel sorry for himself and like he doesn't deserve them. While making Harry Teddy's godfather was meant to be a sort of promise, I can't see Remus fixing his habits so quickly. I mean, he'd try. But I can also see him, trying to up and leave a few times only to be talked out of it by various characters.

I think his behavior is going to put a lot of stress on Tonks too. Like, While I think they do love each other, I don't know how well their relationship would work in the long run if Remus doesn't bother to work on himself and get his fucking act together.

But in the books they both died, so Teddy is spared the mess his parents' relationship likely would've been and is instead stuck with a different mess of being an orphan with a 17-year-old caretaker. (This kid cannot win. Maybe because both his parents were kinda irresponsible and didn't quite get a grasp on adulthood when he was born)

So, post-DH, Remus and Tonks are dead, Ted Tonks is dead and we are left with a grieving Andromeda who lost all her family (again), a grieving Harry who just keeps losing people, and a newly orphaned barely a-year-old Teddy Lupin.

I think Teddy is an interesting mirror to baby Harry and Neville in a way. His parents died/couldn't take care of him because of Voldemort/his followers and he was left with only a godfather/grandmother. Teddy got both and his godfather isn't in Azkaban, so he has it a little better.

I like to imagine Harry makes sure to be super involved with Teddy's childhood, but I can't imagine a 17-year-old (almost 18) Harry post-war and maybe going back to Hogwarts for 8th year (depends on headcanon) being in a state to take care of a baby full time. I like to think Andy helps out in that first year a lot. I think Andy needs someone, some family to get her through loss. And I think Harry could enjoy Andy's company too. I'm sure she has plenty of stories about a young Sirius, and maybe even a young James, and in my headcanon, Andy somewhat adopts Harry as an extra son too.

Which means she ends up seeing way more Weasleys than she ever expected to. I think the Weasleys, who just lost Fred would understand a lot. I mean, both Andy and Molly lost a child and other family. I want Andromeda be more involved with all of them post-canon. That's my wish.

So Harry is Teddy's official guardian, but he spends loads of time with his grandma and the Weasleys growing up probably. Like, I don't mind him and Victoire being together, though I wouldn't necessarily have been my preferred choice, but I don't really care. They're probably childhood besties because they grew up together.

As for Teddy's relationship with Harry, I think Harry would end up treating him more like a much younger brother than a son. I mean, when Teddy would be 10, Harry would just be 27. Don't get me wrong, Harry could, technically, be his dad, but I think their dynamic is going to be different than that of Harry with his own children. Just because of how young and traumatized Harry is when he gets Teddy.

So, I think their relationship would have its tense points, but they'd also love each other. Like, you know Harry would do his best. He'd be super protective over Teddy, Andy would be, too. Like, no one messes with this kid.

But I also kinda want Teddy making a: "you're not my dad" joke/comment when Harry tries to send him to his room or something and Harry doesn't know if he wants to laugh or cry the first time it happens. But I think it would become a recurring joke Harry laughs from.

I think the first years would be the roughest. Everyone's grieving and trying to settle back into a semblance of normal life. Harry never really had a "normal life" he's gonna have no idea what to do with himself and I think Teddy could be a purpose he dedicates himself to. I think these two and Andy could all help each other figure their lives out. But as Teddy grows older and things settle down, it becomes easier.

While I think Harry and Teddy would end up really close, it's not going to be exactly the same relationship Harry and Sirius had. Teddy is going to have a happy childhood, Harry and Andy wouldn't let it be any other way, so he won't have the same grief and trauma Harry did as a child. Like, their dynamic would be less desperate, I think. Like, Harry wouldn't need to stay in a cave and eat rats for Teddy, their situation would be way chiller. Like, I think Harry would be constantly confused about how Teddy ended up being such a cool kid/teen because he doesn't think he could've raised him like that and he would joke about it with Teddy who'd be all sarcastic like: "Obviously, I raised myself here,"

Like, I imagine Teddy with his mother's punk fashion sense and goofiness (the goofiness I believe was 100% shared by Ted Tonks), Remus' voice and constant self-doubt, Andromeda's posture (he sits with his back perfectly straight, okay, Andy didn't let him slouch by the table), and Harry's sarcasm. He's like this mix of them and still his own person.

I think Teddy is likely to go through quite a lot of personal phases to try and figure out his own identity and how he portrays himself. Becouse everyone treats him as the godson of the famed boy who lived, but his dead parents were the last Metamorphmagus and a Werewolf. And he is very close to his grandma, who is a disowned daughter of House Black. Like, this is a kid rip for angst about who he is and who people see him as and him being a Metamorphmagus really leans into it.

Like, a young Teddy making sure to look like Harry in public because he's proud of the connection. Or Teddy mimicking Remus or Tonks' appearance from photos when he thinks about them and misses them or wants to remind strangers who his parents actually are becouse they seem to forget. Like, that could be super fun.

I think Harry's kids would really like Teddy. He's like a cool older cousin/brother who lives with them. Like, I can see them really looking up to him and Teddy would complain to Harry about being followed around by a 3-year-old that won't leave him alone and Harry would just find the whole thing amusing.

(I can also see a post-war Andromeda getting back in touch with Narcissa, so you could involve the Malfoys too if you felt like it. Though I feel like Teddy would just, not like Lucius much)

(Also also, I think Lyall is dead. I feel like if he was alive we would know, yk?)

[leliwardens]

ah...thank you kindly for sharing all of this.

@exhausted-archivist hi this is its own post now

what do you mean cut rescue mission.

[aleeyenn]

TALK POST FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FOREVER!!! hi guys!!!

art has been So hard for the past few months… like way harder than ever… the only art i do is for school at this point :[ i barely even doodle!!! it makes me really sad……. i think a lot of it has to do with my mental state. keeping it reaaall i’m currently in one of the worst emotional points in my life and have been for a while but Ugh!.. it’s gonna be okay in the end… aside from that i think it’s also art class that’s made it all so hard …

for those who don’t know, i’ve been in special art schools since 6th grade, like, schools you have to audition to be in… it’s been great!!! i love(d) meeting likeminded people and being able to relate to each other in a bunch of different ways!! i’ve made SO many friends and so many good memories!!! i’m now in my senior year of high school, half way through… it’s the final stretch for realsies! and i’m reflecting on how the art programs have made me feel about art….

there are SO many benefits that came with the programs minus meeting new people… my art wouldn’t be at the point it is at now without the lessons and expertise and critiques i’ve received from my teachers. i’m grateful i was even accepted into those classes in the first place!!!!!

the main gripe i have with everything tho is how CRAZY it kills your creative flow and enjoyment for art in general… i don’t necessarily blame my teachers, they’re just doing what they’re taught! but i feel like what they’re teaching is wrong in lots of ways…

they put mindsets on students that just… don’t make sense? “art block isn’t real! just draw!” art block isnt just not being able to draw… “every piece you make should be better than your last!” you shouldn’t have to constantly try to one-up yourself!

it’s just all these standards left and right that you have to meet to “be successful” and for your art to be “good”. all of my art classmates and even from the grades below me agree that it’s certainly not the best!!! i can see why everything is the way it is, it’s for improvement and building skill, but i think it’s more damaging than helpful…

i’m SO nitpicky about my art. it’s hard for me to feel proud of things anymore because there’s Always something wrong with what i’m doing… and the way you have to compare yourself and your creations to other people as a grade to begin with is UGH! it’s just teaching students to be SO hard on themselves when art is literally just creating something!!!

the way your art looks shouldn’t determine your value, success, or even worth. art should be FUN!!! it’s a visual extension of yourself. it’s meant to be created with any intention in mind… it’s a reflection of YOU. it’s YOUR unique touch… it shouldn’t have to fit in any criteria!!! you should do what makes you happy!!!

art school can be a blessing but also such a buzzkill… i enjoyed it a lot but it also broke a part of me and it’s really unfortunate… i hope one day i will be able to reverse all those mindsets and relearn my love for drawing. i miss it so so so much…

my lesson to you guys is to not stop… do what makes YOU happy. don’t do things just to look good to others, try to impress YOURSELF. or don’t! just create! because your art is YOU. treat it nicely and don’t ever lose it!!! you can do ANYTHING! you can MAKE anything! if you really think about it, everything’s possible!!!

i think i would word everything better if i was on a stage with a microphone… i think i missed a lot of points too but i hope you all can get the gist of my perspective…

all i know is that i’m not going to be doing any professional art stuff in the future… it suits me better as a hobby!!! i want to be a nurse instead!

no more art school ranting… despite my poor mental health right now, things haven’t been all that bad!!! i hang out with my friends a lot and that’s made everything so much better! i love my friends!!! i love playing games with them and talking with them and going places with them SOOO MUCH!i also have a super amazing partner now too!!!!! they’re the best partner i could ever ask for!!! fun fact, over summer they watched bfdi to get closer with me when we went back to school ISNT THAT SO SWEET AAHHH also our nails are currently painted fireafy colors!!! we are matching!!! so cute… i appreciate them indulging me whenever they can HEHEHEHEEE

anyways i think i’m done talking now…. i’ve said my piece! i haven’t been active for a while So this is catch up time!!! ok bye!!! do something that makes you happy today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or tonight!!!!!!!! or afternoon!!!!!!!!!!

[katerinaaqu]

Hello! Been a frequenter on your page and I am I’m love with your work. I have a few questions, and I’m hoping you can re-wire the truth of Greek Mythology for me. (Cause some people…..you know) 1. Have Diomedes and Odysseus met before the Trojan War? If they didn’t, did they have general knowledge of the other at least? 2. I’ve heard that Odysseus wasn’t as physically intimidating as the others, (Agamemnon, Diomedes, etc) Is that true? Because sites and docs make Odysseus seem like he is a tiny, little man who likes to ONLY think in his tent and has everyone else do his heavylifting. Does he at least have some military experience? If you had to assign a body type for him, what actor, influencer, or singer would you say, “yeah that’s him.” 3. I know that Odysseus is, at least, in the morally gray side of the universe. Does he have his moments of “honor”, or certain people’s versions of “morally correct?” Does he have moments of selflessness, bravery, or integrity?

And some silly little questions. Since Odysseus is your favorite character, If he walked into a therapists office/physical examination/got analyzed by a classification system, when he walked out, what mental evaluation would have been made. Ex. PTSD, BPD, etc. (I searched on doctor google, and they said maybe he would be on the spectrum of ASPD.) If Odysseus was alive today, would he still be a schemer, liar, etc. Would it be tamed down? Not looking for the mental gymnastics as much?

I adore your stuff, keep on doing you. I hope to see more.

You are a frequenter to my page and you are asking me on how I feel on people drawing Odysseus as a tiny figure or whether I believe Odysseus is brave?! THE HORROR! Just kidding I am a yapper and I love analyzing that! So here we go every point at the time.

As always viewer's discretion is advised because my yapping will be non-stop!!!! XD

I remember answering that question in the past to someone else who was wondering of it. If we follow sources like Apollodorous for example, Diomedes was one of the suitors of Helen's and he was also bound under the Oath of Tyndareus. I suspect that was why Apollodorous wanted to explain as to why Diomedes was in the war to begin with. So under this version, Odysseus and Diomedes met for the first time in Sparta while both courted Helen. However I do side up more with other sources that do not include him because arguably Diomedes is the youngest or one of the youngest kings around and he would be very young to be courting Helen at that time (Even archaic paintings more often whatnot have him beard-less so that means he was in his 20s, maximum early 30s in the war when Iliad takes place, aka the final years so that means he joined when he was somewhere between 18-20 years of age). That also fits since some readings of the War of the Epigonoi in which Diomedes took part in, happened around 5 years before Troy when Diomedes was 14). As per readings Helen's courting happened 10 to 20 (as per Apollodorous extended narrative which again do not find me agreeable for! Hehe) years before Troy. Diomedes would literally be a child at that time. So I think it is more logical assumption to believe they met for the first time in Aulis at the gathering of the fleet. As for whether they knew each other by narrations, possibly. Judging on how the kings spoke to Diomedes about his father Tydeus, means that they had knowledge of him and his war with the other Seven against Thebes so yes I believe they have heard of each other but I do not think they actually met before Aulis. They are a generation apart after all!

Gosh...yeah I see it all the time and honestly I am soooo tired of it (I mean sure art is art and everyone is free to draw what they want but honestly I don't think I have ever seen something more inaccurate than people draw Odysseus like a tiny skinny guy and man ONLY STAYS IN HIS TENT?! Lol the dude was lifting the entire Trojan War if not the Epic Cycle on his back! XD I even made this post a while back:

Odysseus? Really? The guy that stood his ground against behemoth Ajax in their wrestling in the funeral games of Patroclus? (Sure when Ajax managed to take the upper hand for one second, Odysseus cheated and kicked him behind the knee but then they were wrestling again and literally neither of the two could come on top). Or Odysseus that basically made Irus, the beggar and all the suitors back off in wonder when he showed his body during his match against Irus (of whose jaw he broke with just ONE punch)? The guy whose back and thighs were so thoroughly described in the Odyssey that it became ridiculous!? Hahaha right!

Arguably his first description happens in the Iliad, which I am citing in this analysis of mine in the past:

Odysseus is described usually short or average to short of structure and then Homer proceeds to explain to us how he is wider in the shoulder and the chest than Agamemnon who was a head taller than him. He is described that he looks like a ram, as I mentioned to my analysis; an animal sturdy, proud and strong. Odysseus has arguably one of the best physiques out heroes despite his age (which makes one wonder how he was in his peak at the age of 30 or something)

As for whether he sat in his tent all day I think that if there is even one person who said that he hasn't read a single thing on Homer. Odysseus was always in the center of all action of the war. Yes, he does refrain from rushing in battle (In the Iliad for example he kept his troops away from action till it was their right moment to arrive or that he placed himself as almost for last to fight with Hector because yeah he wasn't in the mood on dying that day!) but he was always fighting to the front lines, he was always inserting himself in the events that were happening. He was taking part in secret missions such as the one we see in the Iliad (Diomedes and himself going to counter-spy the enemy field or in the Odyssey how he literally sneaks in Troy, which is linked to the Palladium of Athena heist story).

As I mention to that humorous post of mine; Odysseus literally does almost everything in the war; he was ambassador, he was settling things between kings when they had conflicts, he was fighting first line when he had to (but knew when to refrain from it to assure his safety and the safety of his men, thus suffering the bare minimum losses at war), he kept everyone together when he had to, he captured Helenus and extracted the prophecy from him, he went to get the Palladium himself, he came up with the Horse idea and he was one of the first inside the horse etc. Even in the Odyssey; he conquered Ismarus, he killed the suitors himself, he was ready to fight gods and monsters for his men etc. I think the sources speak on themselves.

Yes he does have military experience. For starters the slaves in his palace are called δμωαί which means "slave acquired at war" so most likely he did some of it himself. Two he has the bow that was given to him as a gift for offering assistance to Messina (although the exact length or nature of it is not mentioned in the Odyssey) and Penelope informs us that Odysseus faced the Taphian pirates before (when she mentions the incident of Antinous's father arriving to the palace chased after and begged Odysseus to save his life). Odysseus definitely has military experience (possibly his military successes made him also king while his father was alive, potentially Laertes recognized his son's talent and retired) but it seems that his military experience was not of a large or extended scale (for example like Diomedes) or of conquering nature (like Agamemnon or Diomedes, the first expanded the influence of his kingdom and the latter conquered Thebes, took control of Argos and regained control of his grandfather's lands for him) but they seem rather of domestic nature, such as the mutiny of the Taphians, an area close to his kingdom or offering assistance to a fellow king without getting too much into detail.

Hmm hard to say that I can find some straight out similarity to Odysseus that is a very good question.

I think though so far the greatest resemblance I could find was Christos Tsagas who played Odysseus in Iphigenia movie in 1977 whom I am mentioning here:

And here:

That was literally my moment of

3. Actually I have referred to the matter in another answer of mine:

As I mentioned to that ask of mine, I think the characterization of "morally gray" for Odysseus at least as far as Homer is concerned is not doing him full justice. Odysseus has no problem recognize right from wrong nor does he make bad decisions without thinking even if he knows is not morally correct. Yes, he oftentimes is ready to cheat (see for example the match of Ajax) and he is capable of twisting his words on certain things but he doesn't seem to be the type of person that consistently breaks the law for the loves of it (now his version on certain post-homeric sources such as the plays of Euripides who was consistently writing Odysseus negatively, or Conon, who is the oldest known version to my knowledge of the story in which he tries to backstab Diomedes) I do not see much to characterize him as such. Perhaps the alleged murder of Palamedes would be one (even if we do not know what the contribution of Odysseus was in the Epic Cycle for sure given how we only know Epic Cyle moments from scholiasts and later sources, but as I said I find it way too complicated matter to characterize him straight out as "morally gray" in general much less for Homer

However I absolutely understand what you mean.

Once again I get disappointed when people always assume that Odysseus is like the dude that would step on you to save his ass and laugh in the night about it when we have literally the lengths to which he went in the ENTIRE Odyssey which I analyze here:

Or how he went to save Diomedes in Rhapsody 11 in Iliad! He literally rushed to his assistance and gave him his chariot and stayed behind to cover his retreat. Odysseus also is named the most pious to the gods and the best when it comes to sacrifices by Zeus himself. He protects his men by literally sacrificing his own body when he was forced to accept Circe's bed and mind you he was ready to face her WITHOUT knowing how to beat her spell. Hermes just happened to be on his way. Odysseus didn't know that he would have help. He literally went towards the unknown, with just his sword at hand, to face an immortal witch without knowing what to do because he cared for his men and he was planning his way through. He was ready to fight Skylla. He also tried to test the suitors so all of them wouldn't need to die. He also scolds his wetnurse for wishing to cry out of joy upon seeing the results of the slaughter.

Even in post-homeric sources we know from Pausanias that Odysseus gave Penelope a choice whether she wanted to marry him or return to her father. So he respected her decision. In Sophocles's "Ajax" he feels sympathy for Ajax's condition and he insists upon giving him a proper burial when all other kings turned their backs on him. He also protects the body of Achilles alongside Ajax before that etc.

I think people saying Odysseus has no honor or integrity or that he is totally immoral or that he is not brave or has no selflessness simply haven't read enough of Odysseus. The entirety of the Odyssey was him trying to save what he can from his crew and placing himself in harm's way for them and protecting them with all he had.

~~~~~~~~

Hmm that is an interesting question. Quite frankly I do not think it is fair to always find disorders or syndromes to the Greek heroes and such because just because someone has certain behavioral patterns doesn't necessarily mean they need to be diagnosed just like with everyday people after all. What is more certain behavioral patterns in Greek mythology can be partially "ignored" in one way given how the ancient Greek sources also speak of pre-determined events and such so the agency of the heroes is rather blurry subject but that being said here we go.

I absolutely wouldn't say that Odysseus belongs to the Antisocial Personality Disorder spectrum. Especially when Homer is concerned. I mean as per DSM-5 ASPD in order to be diagnosed we have:

A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest. (Odysseus doesn't conform to social norms? Who is the one in charge for sacrifices? Who respects the gods to the level of not wishing to offer assistance to people at war because they break the rules Odysseus who desires to honor the customs of Xenia to the extreme? The only "social norm" he doesn't seem to be dealing with is the direct "heroic" battle and he prefers to use wits to do his bidding. Is that outside the ideal social role? Yes. Was he though encouraged or helped by Athena? The goddess that literally dictates some basic social norms? Also yes. Him not being conformed in one specific pattern is not necessarily sign of disorder otherwise everyone's uniqueness is considered a symptom XD As for the things he steals or takes I remind you the actions were encouraged by Athena or placed up by the circumstances or dictated by prophecies and ironically most of the actions happen in harsh warfare. I doubt anyone would be judged if they stole information from an enemy base to help your side. In fact Odysseus resents the idea of stealing from the cave of Polyphemus and run even if his men want to)

Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure. ("for personal profit or pleasure" is the key here. When does Odysseus lie and use aliases? When he needs to protect himself or when he needs to protect others for example with the suitors or Polyphemus. I mean who would go in a room full of men who wanna murder you, over 100 of them, and you would say "hey what's up! It is I!" or in Polyphemus? Who wouldn't lie or hide? In other cases when Odysseus hides his identity or lies about it is when he is not certain he is safe. He doesn't lie just to deceive others and get himself gain something that belongs to others -unless we count some versions created in future sources-. His aliases are usually created for some reason and let's be honest in the situations he was in, most of us would have done the same. Even in Philoctetes where he basically says that he would be a chameleon and slither himself in every situation when the situation calls for it, is also an interesting thing to imagine that we often do so as well don't we? We try to form ourselves up to a situation if we need to.)

Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead. (Impulsivity in certain cases is done by everyone. You do take impulsive decisions or do something out of impulse. In order for this to be pathologic one needs to be doing it consistently. Odysseus arguably always plans ahead. He literally planned the whole "I am nobody" trick so that just in case Polyphemus had allies with him the fake name would confuse them, which actually happpened. He also arguably created allies to both Tyndareus and himself with the Oath of Tyndareus. The fact that he didn't calculate Menelaus would use the oath to get Helen back 10 years later I am not sure if it actually counts as "inability to plan ahead". Also miscalculations to a plan can still happen for example not calculate the true magnitude of of the taking of Troy but again I doubt if that counts again as "failiure to plan ahead". Quite frankly his scheme to take Troy was a perfect success. The fact that several of his schemes turn boomerang against him might as well be seen through the spectrum of fate as well. As for certain impulsive things that he does aka reveling his name to Polyphemus one can say who wouldn't have done so if you think the extreme anxious situation that he was under; days and days of psychological torment and extreme anxiety with barely any sleep or proper food and such? Who wouldn't lose control?)

Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults. (Aggressiveness is definitely part of his persona in more ways than one. But of course that is part of multiple psychological conditions including Anxiety and Depression and of course Odysseus even in Iliad was already a 10 year war veteran which again is behavior often seen in those who have been through warfare)

Reckless disregard for safety of self or others. (Regardless of safety? Odysseus? Who is always keeping his men out of harm's way or advises them to do so? At war he gets in battle when it is the best moment for him and his men, in the Odyssey he repeatedly warns them against certain decisions etc. The fact that more often whatnot Odysseus thinks of death or has some reckless or impulsive decision is again not done consistently and we see that we have moments like that in our everyday life as well)

Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations. (Consistent irresponsibility for the man that was basically looked upon every time something bad happened to fix it? The man that always advised others to make good decisions? The man that seems the very definition of "one pays his depts" guy? I would say not. He often speaks on his emotions and mind you the fact that he managed to sustain provisions on Helios's islands and feed 40 men for an elongated amount of time while famish lasted I would say he knows how to manage his economics and such! Hahaha!)

Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another (He bawls his eyes out of remorse in the island of Phaeakes not once but TWICE when he hears a man singing about Troy. Odysseus is not void of emotion or of the essence of right or wrong and he definitely shows remorse for his actions or he knows when he has to admit it for example he knows the act of murder of the suitors was arguably wrong and yet necessary as per Athena's advise as well but again as far as Homer is concerned)

Of course bear in mind that I am no psychologist or psychiatrist so these are my interpretation as someone who is enthusiastic on psychology.

As I said above I think people making Odysseus's lies as something that consists his whole persona as if he has nothing else to offer is wrong in the first place because if one thinks the conditions he lived in he was always on his guard and worried. So even if one speaks on the lies being too many, they are not necessarily a product of ASPD. Lying is also part of others like PTSD or Depression given how many people lie out of fear or worry over something.

That being said if in modern age Odysseus was a survivor of a terrible tragedy and a war veteran on top of that then absolutely he would act on a similar basis as well as others

So instead of that I think one thing I would "diagnose" Odysseus with, again based on the homeric poems mainly would be

PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)

For PTSD as per DSM-5:

A. Exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence in one (or more) of the following ways:

Directly experiencing the traumatic event(s). (Ι mean...no need to elaborate here now do we?)

Witnessing, in person, the event(s) as it occurred to others. (This speaks on its own. He has experienced both trauma at war by being hurt or chased after or under stress or he was raped and used lost and almost died multiple times or witnessed people die around him such as his fellow kings -Ajax- or his comrades)

Learning that the traumatic event(s) occurred to a close family member or close friend. In cases of actual or threatened death of a family member or friend, the event(s) must have been violent or accidental. (He literally met his mother in the underworld who told him she died of sorrow while waiting of him, he saw his comrade Elpenor and he found out he died, he heard that his wife was struggling and that his father lost his mind among others)

Experiencing repeated or extreme exposure to aversive details of the traumatic event(s) (e.g., first responders collecting human remains: police officers repeatedly exposed to details of child abuse). (This part is tricky because as far as the Odyssey is concerned we do not know how often Odysseus was experiencing dreams or flashbacks of what happened although arguably he was always remembering it, for example when he was mistreated by the suitors he was reminding himself to endure because he had endured worse before and he remembers Polyphemus so we can assume he definitely had some close calls with his past and dreams before or at least that he constantly thinks of them)

So as per the B section of DSM we do have the factor of reoccurring memories or dreams. As I said as far as Odyssey is concerned we do not have much on the stimuli through dreams however if I may draw the attention to one of the factors:

Recurrent Involuntary and intrusive distressing memories of the traumatic event(s) (Odysseus cries his eyes out once a heroic song about Troy begins to play. His memory of the war sneaks in to the point that he blows his anonymity and not only that his memory is stimulated enough to say his story and explain himself to the presented members)

As per the C part of it:

C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the traumatic event(s), beginning after the traumatic event(s) occurred, as evidenced by one or both of the following:

Avoidance of or efforts to avoid distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings about or closely associated with the traumatic event(s). (Odysseus doesn't want to reveal his identity again. When he is taken in by Nausicaa he hides who he is. He doesn't speak on himself. He avoids the subject altogether. He knows he has little to no possibility to get the help he needs without honoring the part of Xenia law that involves himself to reveal who he is and yet he is not ready to speak up)

Avoidance of or efforts to avoid external reminders (people, places, conversations, activities, objects, situations) that arouse distressing memories, thoughts, or feelings about or closely associated with the traumatic event(s). (Odysseus refuses to take part to athletic activities in Scheria. He doesn't want to blow his cover but also potentially he knows that this brings him memories from the funerary games of the army. He also knows he will always go in full force at what he does so participating would blow his cover and potentially make him reveal who he is, something he avoids)

D. Negative alterations in cognitions and mood associated with the traumatic event(s), beginning or worsening after the traumatic event(s) occurred, as evidenced by two (or more) of the following:

Inability to remember an important aspect of the traumatic event(s) (typically due to dissociative amnesia and not to other factors such as head injury, alcohol, or drugs). (This one doesn't apply here because Odysseus has a very sharp memory. He explains everything in detail. We also do not see him in Homer abusing alcohol or anything else -and I mean it IS an ancient text after all Homer was no psychologist)

Persistent and exaggerated negative beliefs or expectations about oneself, others, or the world (e.g., “I am bad,” “No one can be trusted,” ‘The world is completely dangerous,” “My whole nervous system is permanently ruined”). (Odysseus often talks with regret about his decisions during his narration but he also expresses rage many times over on the events that took place. He also calls his comrades "mindless" many times over especially on events that marked his trip's outcome such as the sack of Aeolus or the cows of Helios. Of course that is only natural in one essence so it doesn't necessarily need to be a symptom but I am throwing that to the table)

Persistent, distorted cognitions about the cause or consequences of the traumatic event(s) that lead the individual to blame himself/herself or others. (Once more even though Odysseus doesn't specifically speak on cause and effect apart from the mentions we get in the Odyssey but he does seem to try and figure the root of the problem. He is also speaking negatively on himself or speaking on shameful moments of his trip also certain things like Imsarus he just mentions them. He doesn't even get to elaborate those but moments such as Charybdis or Skylla etc were thoroughly described! Or the shipwreck)

Persistent negative emotional state (e.g., fear, horror, anger, guilt, or shame). (Once again explanation not needed; ashamed to be washed by maidens, fear that he might be trapped again, angry and irritated, feeling guilt. All the emotions in the Odyssey are here)

Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities. (He is not interested in showing his potential to the Phaeakes or speak of his name or heritage even when he heard the song for the first time so he might have clues that they are positively thinking towards him)

Feelings of detachment or estrangement from others. (He is a stranger, a beggar. He sits in the corner. Most of the time he is silent. He is the oddity in the room. He doesn't become the center of attention till his emotions betray him and he has to speak to the Phaeakes on who he is)

Persistent inability to experience positive emotions (e.g., inability to experience happiness, satisfaction, or loving feelings). (He is crying for seven years at the beach longing for his home. He is rarely ever pictured laughing. His feelings of distrust and anger continue and expand even to his wetnurse whom he feels he has to threaten in order to be on the safe side. He feels betrayed by the gods even as he calls out to Athena and reminds her that she didn't help him when he needed her the most)

E. Marked alterations in arousal and reactivity associated with the traumatic event(s), be ginning or worsening after the traumatic event(s) occurred, as evidenced by two (or more) of the following:

Irritable behavior and angry outbursts (with little or no provocation) typically expressed as verbal or physical aggression toward people or objects. (Odysseus definitely shows irritable behavior through and through to the Iliad when he beats up Thersites to make an example out of him or when he loses control when Eurylochus hurts his ego by calling out to him for being enchanted by Circe and he basically brings up a painful memory; the Cyclops incident. Odysseus cannot take this and he is ready to literally slay his brother-in-law on the spot and he is stopped by the others)

Reckless or self-destructive behavior. (HERE is where I would put some of that recklessness we see in the Odyssey; Odysseus wishing to rescue his men no matter what; he is ready to fight a goddess with little to no plan to save the little he has left of men after his loss by the Laestrigonians, he is ready to fight Skylla for them, he provokes the suitors to see who is rotten and who is not.)

Hypervigilance. (No explanation needed here! Odysseus constantly sees enemies and reasons to distrust people. He doesn't allow his men near the sack of winds, he remains awake even to do it all by himself. He saw danger to the bay of Laestrygonians and tied his ship outside the bay -and he was proven right-, despite the fact he was in friendly company, he hides himself from the Phaeakes and he constantly tests or measures people, even his wetnurse needs to be threatened in his mind, even the loyal slave Eumeus needs to wait a bit before fully trusted to be placed within the scheme he was planning. Even when the Phaeakes were proven true to him and brought him home, when he woke up and he didn't recognize his own country, his first thought was that the Phaeakes tricked him.)

Exaggerated startle response. (He literally grabs his wetnurse by the throat when she is ready to shout. He is even threatening on top of that to make sure that she will not speak up despite his orders)

Problems with concentration. (This doesn't seem to apply here since Odysseus is hyper focused most of the time either when he tells his story or when he is planning the murder of the suitors)

Sleep disturbance (e.g., difficulty falling or staying asleep or restless sleep). (This one again is tricky since we have no clue but at the moments we see Odysseus sleeping for example during his return, we see him sleep peacefully. We do not see much on nightmares he might or might not have. Perhaps he has some but the thought of his homeland puts him at peace)

Suicidal thoughts are also common and Odysseus thought about ending his own life many times over in the Odyssey; from the moment the sack of winds was opened and he saw his home away once more till the moment he was at Calypso's isle and he was thinking of death daily.

The dude even had a syndrome named after him known as "Ulysses Syndrome" or migrant syndrome of chronic and multiple stress Basically it involves chronic stress especially for people who spent years in anxiety while moving from one place to another (to put it very roughly)

Okay please psychologists and psychiatrists do not come and have my head for this I am only doing this for fictional characters and not for real people, I am just enthusiast of psychology and not an actual psychologist so yeah...guys be gentle with me! XD

But yeah I think this whole thing on "Odysseus is a liar" as if that is his reason of existence or that he is like a pathological liar or that he doesn't have any sort of moral code I feel like it misses the whole point of the homeric hero (although some examples of post-homeric and roman sources might fit that better)

Hope this answers some of your questions dear Anon and sorry this was sooooooo long! Yeah I am normal about that guy! XD

[ender1821]

re: shinyduo/gempearl being so not normal about each other after life series. other anon was so right why are they freaky.

pearl is definitely just as at fault imo. gem’s excellent at innuendos and tone of voice (“your red skin is my favorite~”) but pearl’s yes and filter falls apart in front of gem. the pickles a prime example, and the ren stream disaster wedding of course. she’s also very genuine and i love that for her. but that results in crazy lines like the “love you gem. always will. even if you dont want me, ill still be there.” TO STREAM WHEN GEM WASNT EVEN THERE.

and i need to mention the latest stream. Pearl “I only get asked if im gay when you’re in the picture” and how they both have to take a minute of silence to process that flejelejwkej. whose fault is that pearl? whose fault ?? to her credit she seems genuinely confused by the extent of her actions. the most damning evidence for her straightness i fear. rip gem though, she seems to be having fun anyway.

theyre both professionals and follow up in that stream with how the fandom will always play around with them as characters etc etc. good communication, very healthy, good for them. but this post is about why they graduated from shenanigans and innuendos to 2 hours of fanservice and it doesn’t even feel intentional half the time.

as for next life series, i would be shocked if they didn’t keep up this befuddling yuri bit. theyve mentioned seeing all the tierlist maker dream team posts and pearl had to ask her chat “OTHER than gem, who should I team with” so theyre well aware demand is there. theyre fantastic as enemies and well aware of that, but they could get some scarian level drama by teaming together, and i dont say that lightly. since pearl keeps stalling pvp on hermitcraft, theyre never getting that 1v1 without cosmic intervention or a declaration of love 😭

rambling now. love to hear your thoughts xoxo

yippee i love anon rambles!!! im glad we’re all unwell

im NOT gonna go on another rant about the life series alliance situation because as i’ve just demonstrated yesterday i can literally rant. for hours. and we don’t need that lmao. at this point whether or not they team up in the next one SOMETHING will happen. i have that much faith in them. they’re bound to run into each other and do something and that’s the shiny duo connection speaking god bless

like the other anon said, i do think they can work with just about any dynamic and it’ll be insanity-inducing either way. one of my favourite things about them just as a pairing (in any context, platonic, romantic, etc.) is just the way they will drift towards one another, to be linked in a way that’s indescribable, to always carry a piece of each other with themselves wherever they wander because the influence they’ve had on the other is irrefutable— and okay yeah they’re getting way too freaky about it get out of my fan fiction-esque rant. what are you doing here. why are you like this. what. like there’s something going on when what they’re getting up to creeps more and more into being what i usually read in fics. i. hello???

i really, really want to give them the benefit of the doubt. okay. listen. for every mention of feet and poking at pearl’s straightness, there’s a chat message behind it that warranted it, i’m sure. this isn’t the post to be getting into how fans are with cc boundaries and how we’re STILL bad at figuring our tags out, but i feel like this discussion eventually HAS to touch on the fact that it’s been made clear that they don’t want to see shipping stuff, and bringing it up in chat crosses that boundary just as well. i think they’ve handled it well in acknowledging that they’re aware it’s for their characters, drawing clear lines between what they’re comfortable with and what they’re not, etc. i think just the muddled lines from people continuously bringing stuff from a fandom space up to a cc contributes a lot to why we got. whatever happened on that wednesday stream. honestly, from these instances on stream i think it’s been shown that they just find this stuff amusing, and good for them, y’know? still doesn’t mean we should be regularly poking them about ships and. well. i dunno. literally bringing it up in chat?

but still. BUT STILL. god the ways they “yes, and” each other just keep getting worse. stuff like the pickles and the wedding (and the SL ep 4 ender dragon fight! still one of the most baffling “yes, and”s i’ve ever seen from them, i swear to god) were almost completely just them. that was just them. there’s no blaming chat for gem saying “wait, i don’t have a beard” right after pearl rejects ren for having a beard, and CERTAINLY NOBODY ELSE TO BLAME when pearl takes that and literally proposes to her. that was all them. and why. girl. huh??? i do believe, at least to some extent, that pearl is oblivious to the implications of what she does/says. but that only goes so far. sorry man i can only give so much benefit of the doubt for like 2-3 streams of 2 hour fan service. good lord

i was texting a friend who isn’t into mcyt about this whole. thing. and the way i described it was: imagine being a gempearl shipper, and you’re enjoying life, driving this train with fanfics and fanart and everything’s all good… and then for some reason gem and pearl jump on the train, hijack the conductor seat and starts directing the train elsewhere. nearing the end of that stream i was questioning my life and screaming for a way off this train. that’s how it felt to me. of course i’m exaggerating but like. genuinely how did we get here

[earlycuntsets]

tech reviews from ray toro on mychemicalromance.com 2009

"Jailbreak your shit.

Bob, I feel your iPhone pain. Ever since my iPhone threw itself into the toilet, it hasn't been the same. Missed calls, no service, crap battery life, the list of muck-ups goes on.

I've been wanting to go to the Apple store to try and exchange my suicidal phone, but knew i'd be greeted by the same smugness and uppity attitude you dealt with. Every time I step foot in that store, I feel like they're doing me a favor selling me their plain aluminum products and their white earbuds. I think I bought a pair of earbuds, and inside the package was an extra pair of them crap buds.

Angry at the lack of basic functions on the iPhone, and wanted to stick it back to the man, so I did the only thing a sane man would do...I jailbroke the thing.

For those who don't know what this is, basically you're "freeing" your phone from Jobs' shackles. Now I can copy and paste, personalize the theme on my phone, record movies, answer texts without constantly having to switch programs, search my emails, run programs in the background, send pictures in texts, quickly change settings without going through a million menus, play NES games, save Youtube videos, the list goes on. The crowning jewel is when I used my cell connection on the phone to download an e-book before a flight.

This shit is fun, and now I feel the iPhone lives up to it's pricetag. Do a search for quickpwn to get started, install winterboard, backgrounder, pdanet, sbssettings, and whatever else catches your eye. Most of all, enjoy your new found freedom."

"Ray's favorite iPhone apps

Whether you're a Blackberry man or iPhone (wo)man, you gotta admit the App store is pretty rad. I've been using the iPhone for a good while now, and have come to rely on a few apps that make my daily life easier, keep me busy while driving (yeah I know its illegal, sue me), and suck up any remaining free time I might have left in a day. Here's a short list of stuff you should check out if you're so inclined...

1. Pocketmoney ($9.99) Not only does the app's icon make me think of delicious pork bacon, it also helps to keep your money straight. You can set up checking and savings account, and keep a running ledger of your spending so you don't have any more of those all-too familiar, embarrassing moments where you're trying to buy a bag of cheetos and a Quik but don't have any loot left on your card. Yeah, I know what you're probably thinking right now. "I have a perfectly good paper register the bank gave me when I signed up for my checking account, and that shit cost me $0.00." To that I say, "But your register doesn't have a sick ass pig icon!"

2. NetNewsWire (The world is going to end soon FREE as fuck!) This program is great! You know when you're having an important conversation with your wife about what you're making for dinner that week, and she's trying to write out a shopping list, and all you can think about is the latest post on Gizmodo detailing what GHZ the new intel iCore7 processor tops out at after overclocking with Nitroglycerin? Yeah, that happens to me too...Well now instead of just thinking about it, you can take out your iPhone in mid-conversation, pissing off your wife in the process, and read all the latest RSS feeds that you can stand. It even works for our site too! Huzzah!

3. Super Monkey Ball (I paid $9.99 for this??? I'm a sucker) Ok, I bought this because it was the #1 app for weeks straight. It had to be good right??? RIGHT? Well its not. I mean it has good graphics, but the controls suck. They really, really suck. Driving your dad's Nova after ingesting 10 beers at the college kegger, trying to balance a tall glass of Sunny D on your head while headbanging to Stone Cold Crazy is exponentially easier than controlling this mess. After maybe 5 tries playing the game proper, I decided it'd be much more fun to send Baby and Gongon repeatedly and utterly to their death. I hate this game. But it sure is a great time waster...

And there you have it. Three essential iPhone apps! Have fun, be safe, and Happy Thanksgiving!"

02/25/2009 12:39pm mychemicalromance.com 2009

[genericpuff]

Hello! Do you have any videos of your coloring process? I know you posted a video of your Hades and Persephone cover art, but I can't find it 😭 I'm struggling with a lineless LO redrew right now, and you're the LO guy in my mind, so I figured it'd be best to ask you. Thanks for the LO brushes, they're hella useful.

So I'm not 100% certain where that speedpaint is either, BUT here's one for an older illustration mixing Rekindled with Neon Genesis Evangelion if you want !

Aside from that, I'm not doing much for video stuff as of right now, BUT I do stream roughly once a week over on my Twitch! And that's honestly one of the best ways to watch my process because you get to actually see it happen in real-time in the software rather than sped up as a recording outside of it :>

I also have some older Twitch VOD's backed up to my Patreon which only costs $5 to unlock, I'll be backing up a bunch more this week.

I do plan to actually try and put together some like, actual in-depth videos going into the process, but unfortunately what I wanna do has to wait a couple months because my current living situation just wouldn't be ideal for proper video recording (thankfully that's changing soon though, hopefully by April at the latest). In the meantime, I hope the VOD's and upcoming Twitch streams at least help you out a little, and if you ever pop into the stream while it's live, feel free to say hello and ask questions about what I'm doing! I'm always happy to talk shop ;3

[hey-hey-j]

uhhhh preview because if I don't post something productive I'm going to explode

One elevator ride and short walk later, Floyd finds himself sitting on the floor inside Rhonda, back pressed against the sofa as he sifts through one of the boxes John Dory has dug out of storage.

(Sometimes, on days like this, he just feels…. better sitting upright against a solid surface)

He’s smiling amusedly to himself as he does so, fascinated by the contents of the box. It’s mostly old promotional photos of the band, the four—and, after a certain point, the five of them all lined up and posing in their matching vests….

“I can’t believe you held on to so much of this stuff.” He looks up to where John Dory is currently trying to wrestle yet another box out of his closet, perched precariously on tip-toe as he tries to figure out the best way to maneuver it off the top shelf.

“Yup! Figured some of it might be valuable some day.” His words come out strained, a little distant since he’s clearly more focused on his task. He has both arms up over his head, trying to somehow grasp them around the box he wants to bring down, and—whoops, he just slipped.

Floyd lets out a strained little gasp of alarm as he watches John Dory’s body hit the floor, then tenses when the giant box falls down after him and for a moment it looks like John Dory’s about to be crushed under its weight but no, whew, the box just narrowly misses his brother and lands with a muffled WHUMP on the floor just inches away from him. Rhonda’s concerned warble rumbles in from outside, John turns his head on the floor to stare at the murderous box with eyes gone wide, teeth grit, and when he catches Floyd’s equally wide-eyed gaze he morphs that grimace into an awkward smile and a nervous “Heh….”

John Dory gingerly sits himself up, one hand going to his lower back and the other reaching up to readjust his goggles. “Well, probably a little less so now….”

Floyd’s eyes flit from John’s strained smile to the box that almost just killed him, then briefly back down to the photos and posters in his own box. He only notices now that his hands are clenched tight on the cardboard edges. He loosens them.

“You…. you don’t really mean that.” Eyes drifting back up to John Dory, now lifting himself off the ground with a small hiss and one hand still pressed firmly to his tailbone. Floyd squints. “Do you?”

John looks up from silently cussing out his back to meet Floyd’s gaze, his own eyes going soft at the worried tension still clear in his little brother’s shoulders. His ears dip down a little, a quiet sigh escaping him before he speaks again.

“And…. maybe there’s sentimental reasons too, I guess.” A soft little smile.

Floyd surprises himself—he actually smiles back.

Both of them turning back to their respective boxes. John Dory is in the process of digging a knife out of his jacket when Floyd asks, “Where did you even get all of this, anyway? You just bring it with you?”

He misses John’s nod because he’s gazing down at a new photo, a paparazzi shot of Bruce on one of his “dates” with a fan. They had clearly been caught off guard, the smile on Bruce’s face looking strained and hasty, one hand held firmly in the fangirl’s grasp as she absolutely cheeses at the camera, like she’d been over the moon to have been caught going out with BroZone’s heartthrob.

The smile that had formed on Floyd’s face dips.

“Some of the posters and stuff I already had in my bag when I took it with me.” John Dory explains as he runs the knife through the packing tape sealing his box. The sharp zzzzzrt! makes Floyd’s ears twinge. He hastily lowers the photo back into the box (turned over so he doesn’t have to look at it anymore). For some reason that small motion is enough to send a slight jolt running up Floyd’s arm and he hisses quietly to himself as he clutches that hand in the other, thumb massaging at the offending palm.

John’s still talking, oblivious, more focused on rummaging through the box like he’s looking for something in particular. “Other stuff I picked up back at the tree, and a lot of other things I just kinda found on the road.” He looks back up briefly to shoot a proud smile at Floyd. “You wouldn’t believe the kind of reach we had back in the day!”

That squeezy feeling in Floyd’s stomach again. Oh, I can believe it, he thinks, unconsciously gripping his hand tighter. He doesn’t look up to return the smile, gaze pointed vaguely downwards but not really looking at anything in particular, but it’s as his gaze is starting to go fuzzy that something John said dings in his mind, snapping him back to reality.

“Wait—you went back?”

It’s like a switch has been flipped: suddenly John Dory is tensing up, frozen half-crouched inside the box. His ears give a single quick twitch, a single quick swear slipping past his clenched teeth and coming out as a hissy whisper.

“Shit.”

Goodbye forever.

The memory echoes faintly in Floyd’s ears. His pulse is picking up, he can feel it in the ever-tightening clench of his hands.

“John.”

John doesn’t turn around.

“....John, did you go back to the Troll Tree?”

[willyoubemycherryy]

Quick chat.

I hate being the fun police but here goes.

While I do love that so many of you lovelies are enjoying my fics and writing, I have to address some of the things that are being commented/reblogged under my posts.

We’re all here for a silly goofy time but there’s boundaries. Respectfully, all the people telling me in great detail all the ways they fucked themselves to my fics, all the people asking me to roleplay certain stuff with them, need to stop. It’s weird. Having sexual reactions towards my writing is fine but don’t involve me because I’m not some sexual object.

Commenting the regular stuff like “I had a reaction”, “both lips smiled”, “ugh right there”, “great now I’m pregnant”, “I could kiss you”, “raw next question”, or anything like that is FINE (if we’re moots you can say whatever you want I love you) because it makes me smile because i love hearing your feedback and I also find it funny but all that other shit gotta go.

Now onto the problem with my ask box.

Stop spamming and flooding it begging me to drop more parts of anything. There’s so many that I can’t even get to all my previous asks. It’s genuinely harassment at this point and it’s annoying. My salesman series and Clark series are pretty liked on my page and even though I put the Clark fic out only two days ago, the spam asks are already starting.

I’d love to update everything but I won’t if I feel like I’m being swarmed or harassed.

Again, sorry to ruin the fun but it’s getting to be a bit much.