#I was trying to get a lot of the fun stuff in there as subtext

[starsintheskyandtheeye]

Respect for the Dead

By Lois Lane and Clark Kent

1,436 words

By now most of the world has been shaken by the news.

Ghosts are real! And ghosts are in danger! The original publication written by Lois Lane can be found here but we are not here to follow that well trodden avenue of discussion.

Here at the Daily Planet we have elected to focus on speaking to the ghosts themselves, rather than debate their existence alongside our fellow papers. During the hunt for the new source of Kryptonite that sparked this discovery Lois Lane made contact with one Danny Phantom. Originally he chose to anonymous but since the outpouring of support from much of the world he has since chosen to come forward publicly.

Given that the ghostly teenager is operating as a hero similar to our own Superman much of his personal history could not be shared. What was safe to share however was very different from what this reporting team had been expecting.

We had gone in prepared to hear the story of what caused a ghost that looks like a schoolboy to lead a life of ghostly vigilantism.

What we got was sweetly sarcastic individual giving us amusing anecdotes of his start as a hero, descriptions of the stranger habits he's gained since his death, and many many tips on how to politely interact with a ghost. At our confusion (who knew there were so many different types of ghost!) Phantom went on to explain and correct several common misconceptions about ghosts. So without further ado; here are the highlights of that discussion.

We begin with what was given to us as the number one rule of human/ghost etiquette. Never ask the individual, be they glowing werewolf, ghostly lunch-lady, or undead rock star, about the circumstances of their death.

It seems simple does it not? A matter of everyday politeness, and yet that is the number one reason for communication breakdowns between ectoplasmic entities and still living humans. Fortunately for the health of the interview this reporting team did not make that mistake. Phantom did not explain the nature of the offense but did not need to. It was clear that the, until then, friendly conversation would have ended abruptly if we had gone any farther down that path.

What we were encouraged (and warned) to talk to a ghost about was their obsession. As Phantom explained, "It's what drives a ghost, why we are still here, or why we formed at all."

When asked about his own obsession Phantom laughed a bit and said, "I'm a bit young for a ghost, so I don't really have one yet, I bounce around a lot. My doctor, he's a yeti, says it's normal for me though! The options are all over the place though. I know one ghost that haunts the high school to prevent bullying, a really nice guy. Another just wants to have her music heard by the world. Unfortunately her music brainwashes people to love her so we aren't super close. Or another that is all about granting wishes, but not in a singing blue genie way, in a fairy tale way, it's a mess whenever she gets over here."

That seems to be a common theme in ghostly/human interaction. Ghosts largely mean no harm but the pursuit of their own obsessions can have devastating effects on any that stand between them and their goal. Something to keep in mind if you're ordering pizza when the Box Ghost is at large.

Hoping it wouldn't cross into the realm of ghostly faux pas we went on to ask how old Phantom is. Once again Phantom seemed somewhat awkward although no more than what seemed to be his baseline when talking to (self claimed) famous reporters, saying only, "Time works differently in the realms. It can be really weird sometimes, you'll be talking to someone that looks like a toddler only to learn that they were last in a human world during the 1400s or something."

As Phantom continued to share however, the everlasting aspect seemed to be the least interesting part of the Infinite Realms, or the Ghost Zone as the Doctors Fenton, previously mentioned as ghostly experts here, call the place where the vast majority of ghosts dwell.

Ghostly yetis practicing medicine, while certainly not the least of the inhabitants were just the start. Phantom went on to share with us a sampling of the being he has encountered in his travels, medieval women moonlighting as temperamental dragons, the very concept of time, a warden of any ghosts that cross his path, and of course the ubiquitous creepy toddler so often featured on the silver screen.

According to Phantom up until extremely recently (whether by ghostly or human terms we were unable to determine) the Infinite Realms was closed off from our own home except for the occasional haunting. Which was explained to us by the telling of what was, to Phantom, a very funny joke about pop culture influencing ghost culture as people died and brought it over with them. From this we can glean several things. That the realms of the living and the dead have never been so far apart as it would have seemed to the living. That the near future will hold many changes as major religions, governments, and the common people hear what the dead have to say as they weigh in on what respect for the dead really means. And that while many things do translate, ghostly humor is not one of them.

Although of course that may be that, despite his real age being possibly many times our own - combined, Phantom is still eternally a teenager. And a teenagers jokes are often incomprehensible to any who do not share that state.

When asked about the sudden ghostly interest in our own living Earth Phantom had this to say, "Lots of ghosts want to go to the lands of the living. Especially anyone that used to be alive themselves. And anyone that didn't is curious what the fuss is about. Earth is so different from the ghost zone but it's still where a lot of us came from. If someone gets a chance to hop through the portal they'll go, to see how things have changed, or to keep things from changing, or just to stretch their obsessions. Really it's a chance to go home, just for a little while," he said, reminding us that for all they look like aliens ghosts are just as human as you or I.

With a few caveats.

The portal Phantom spoke of is an invention by the Doctors Fenton, Ectobiologists. Up until recently Jack and Maddie Fenton had been the worlds foremost ghostly experts, building a portal to the "Ghost Zone" in order to study what up until recently had been considered to be a non-sentient classification of emotional ectoplasmic imprintation.

We spoke to the researchers after our interview with Phantom, at his request. Despite the recent evidence come to light the couple remain the foremost (living) human scientists in the field. When asked about the setback to their work they had this to say, "We were devastated of course. To learn that we won't be able to study spooks -" Jack Fenton broke off there, at an extremely well executed elbow jab from Maddie Fenton who then said. "We got an extreme tunnel vision, a hazard of obsessive science. We were told we were wrong about the existence of ghosts for so long that we forgot to check that we were correct about their nature. We look forward to pivoting to ghostly anthropology and human/ghost interaction technology."

Ultimately we did not learn any groundbreaking secrets, but then if a ghost willing to go on record ( a written record at least, our recorded transcript of the conversation was near unusable due to static) you sit down and listen. We can never anticipate what a reader will take from an article but if we could make a suggestion? In this reporting teams opinion, the balance of ghost and human realms is not unlike the inversion of a mirror. We are reflections of one another. Opposite, yes, and dangerous to one another for it, but ultimately we are all the same. After all what is a ghost but emotion and ectoplasm (according to current science)? And for all that we try to rise above it, what is a human but emotion and flesh?

Fin.

Coming Soon!

Keep an eye out for top ten tips on ghostly interaction and interviews with the Justice League on diplomatic efforts with GHOSTLY ROYALTY!!

[criscura]

I want to get to the good part of this blastvoid thing I'm writing but i do NOT want to write the part before it and I'm procrastinating so fucking hard

Like i know what i want and it'll be satisfying but it's like the reverse of eating beef jerky, where this is the tough gross part you just need to swallow before getting to the fucking SPPIUCCE

[sicklyseraphnsuch]

Simon is sad.

Ice King is a joke.

Winter King is a threat.

So, I kinda love how much further we explore into the differences between Simon and Ice King and all the parts in between.

With the Crown, Simon's personality gets injected with boundless, reckless, thoughtless confidence - which appears to have its roots in Evergreen or specifically, Gunter's perception of Evergreen.

However, Simon also infused the Crown's influence with his weird quirks, his desperation for love, and his immeasurable grief.

In a different post, I wrote that the root of the Crown's curse latched onto Simon's love, which in its own way is his grief as well. These powerful emotions were decentralized so that even if Ice King couldn't quite understand the source of them, he felt them hard. And moreover, these emotions clouded his capacity to function.

So aaaaaall that infinite confidence tempered and sabotaged by Simon's sorrow, making Ice King into a joke. Oh, sure he's manipulative liar like the way he lied to Finn when he was trapped in the spirit world. But he's quite incompetent.

His intentions aren't any less selfish or destructive but he's just So Bad at the follow through. Absolutely dysfunctional. That makes him easier to laugh at even when he's doing stuff like slapping tape on PB's mouth as she's sleeping because he "breaks up with her" in the next minute.

Winter King wouldn't need tape. That's the difference. Winter King is frightening because he can in fact follow through on all of his selfish and destructive impulses. When he lies, he can get away with it because he's a *good liar*. He's charming without being sad. He's confident without being annoying.

Winter King has Evergreen's strengths and Simon's charisma and wields it with deadly intent because he also lacks Simon's conscience and Simon's fixation on love and connection - true love and connection that isn't something he made in a lab. The fact that Winter King can be satisfied with hollow dolls that resemble his loved ones is TELLING.

Winter King and Ice King are fundamentally separated by their levels of lucidity and competence. And that's pretty much it. Even Winter King's memories remain frosted over and nothing like the original Simon Petrikov's

Which leads me to the original Simon Petrikov. I truly enjoyed the way Simon is differentiated from Ice King and Winter King simply by showing his compassion - which both lacked. Simon immediately plead for Bubblegum's life whereas Winter King was like Nope.

That was so good. Just emphasizing how the Simon and Ice King aren't a 1 to 1 reflection or transformation. Or in other words, that Ice King is not entirely Simon and Simon isn't entirely Ice King.

Also the subtext of Simon secretly resenting Winter King, being unsure if he wanted to be just like this weirdo who just goes around calling himself radical. This chuunibyou motherfucker. He really wants to be that? Really?

But again! Simon's vindication at learning that the Crown can't be fought! Because also fighting is such hardwork and he spent a thousand or so years trying to do it, failing to do it. The way he almost whined at the Winter King, "but it's just so hard to fight the Crown", and he's just so tired. He's just too sad.

In the same way that Fionna wanted an easy, fun, no consequences adventure - Simon wants an easy, quiet, no consequences solution to all his depression. Simon doesn't want to be happy because happiness takes hardwork. All the shit that the Winter (Willpower) King was shilling? That's a lot of elbow grease.

Simon just wants to opt out of existence. Let the Crown take the wheel. He's done driving.

But therein lies... his curse. Winter King is euphoric because it came at the cost of the compassion that defines Simon Petrikov. Love and compassion is at the root of Simon's sorrow, but it's also the thing that keeps him here. Because Simon simply can't *not* help someone - even Fionna who has been a straight up dick to him this whole time.

Simon thinks that there's a "right way" to be cursed because he's holding onto the belief that he could stop existing and not hurt or harm anyone by choosing to do so. And this will keep him on the search. This will keep him as himself for another sad and hurting day, until he can find a way to run - flee without hurting anyone.

Spoiler: It's impossible.

[sleepymccoy]

Okay so something happened in the trekdom (is that a term anyone has ever used)

I think spirk got canonised?? Or something?? And I assume that as my certified Trekkie Mutual you feel some kinda way about this. you’re a Spones shipper but still how we doing?

I'm sure someone's used trekdom! It makes sense as a word regardless

I appreciate the Trekkie certification lol

Yeah dude, look. Most of the fandom is big into spirk so like people enjoying that romance is par for the course! I got nothing against spirk, it's just a bit of a boring dynamic so I don't really spend time on it. Too healthy for my tastes. Spones is way more juicy, it's got the tension and the sort of different world views that you see in good omens, so it's fun!

To be clear tho, spirk is as canon as it's ever been. Strong subtext, but in the way that a homophobe could watch it and say well they're just good friends. Nothing has changed in that sense, it's just another bit of footage doing more of the same. It's less gay than a lot of the original series, but it's new and shiny so on a surface level i get the excitement

Shatner, who plays Kirk, has done this as a non canon short film. It's apparently considered as canon as the novels? Which is like, not much. Most people don't engage. I haven't really looked into that, im not gonna watch it cos it kind of pisses me off

The thing that really fucks my goat about it is that the guy who plays Spock died a while ago, and didn't get along with the guy who plays Kirk. But the guy who plays Kirk has funded and produced and managed this whole thing to be about his character and his importance, regardless of the wishes of the original Spock actor. Including literally doing someone up in prosthetics to look more like Nimoy. Not just Spock generally, but specifically Nimoy's Spock. Nimoy was involved in star trek films in his late life, and he didn't choose to do this when he was alive. Only after his death has Shatner forced this to happen

That's what's leaving a really bad taste in my mouth. And I feel like people are either not accepting Nimoy's death and are happy to see him puppeted by someone he disliked, which makes me pity them. I work in aged care so I know I'm more comfortable with death than the average, but like. This is a bit fucking dark, no? It's maudlin, let him rest in peace for fucks sake.

That, or they don't mind the manipulation of his image if it tickles their ship, which makes me dislike them. And I don't think I'll really get over that any time soon, it's so disrespectful. And those are both negative feelings, so I'm kind of generally not pleased about my dash rn

I'm trying to take an angle of being about McCoy cos he doesn't feature in the short and that feels wrong. Spock-centric stuff is feeling a little tainted right now, but I'm sure that'll pass. Fanart is different to this kind of image stealing, but it's still weird for me rn. And as much as I love Kirk, I can't remove him from Shatner and his megalomania right now. I hope that'll pass, but I don't think Shatner's gonna stop here so. Hm.

Besides I like McCoy and he's not complicated by all this so I'm just continuing to play in my little sandbox

It's a weird time for trekdom. There's a bit of a rift, and not down shipping lines. I'm seeing a lot of posts working through their complicated feeling around the disrespect inherent in stealing Nimoy's face for Shatner. And I'm seeing other people celebrate the disrespect cos their ship held hands and that makes it worth it.

I'm hoping people overwhelmingly calm down a bit in a week, get a bit embarassed about how pleased they were over something so gross, and it just sort of goes away. Then we can all go back to having a go at Shatner for his constant sexism and homophobia

At least it's not fucking AI tho!

[comicaurora]

Earth's Mightiest Heroes is just such a goldmine in the Marvel adaptations; especially if you like Hulk as much as I do it's such an ideal interpretation and strikes the ideal balance between the ambiguity between him being a hero or a monster (he can't be TOO straightforwardly heroic or he loses a lot of what makes him compelling, but Hulk shouldn't be malevolent or mindless and MUST be a hero in some way) that I don't think has been properly captured since Planet Hulk or Immortal Hulk. Maybe Thor Ragnarok if you look at the subtext around him.

One thing I consider is that EMH specifically seems to take the earliest characterizations of the Marvel heroes, without being too influenced by the MCU (which if I recall was only just starting out then, enough to influence things but not so much that it completely dominated the characterization) and reinvents this earlier characterizations, making something rather new and unique to this series, so you get things such as Wasp (who is one of the most liked takes on the character here) and as noted, Hulk. Much like the Devil Hulk alter from Immortal Hulk, in this series his characterization here reads as a reinterpretation of his initial characterization as a smarter and unpredictable entity driven by his resentfulness.

Hulk is done so well! I feel like part of why season 2's writing suffers overall is that they had to put him on a shelf for the entire Secret Invasion plot.

What I also like about it is how Banner is incorporated into the story. Bruce Banner is a lot more unconditionally heroic than The Hulk, and that's shown right from the jump when he essentially makes a heroic sacrifice by agreeing to let The Hulk stay transformed indefinitely in exchange for him helping the others fight Graviton. Hell, when Hulk gets briefly mind controlled by the Enchantress, the person we see doing the standard Heroic Willpower Fighting From The Inside stuff is Banner. Banner's appearances are a rare treat after the opener, because he's characterized perfectly - brilliant, businesslike since he's always on a clock, and completely up to speed on everything the others have been up to. And it's also kind of fun how the other Avengers are always quite protective of Banner on the rare occasions he gets forced out mid-fight.

And I like how it's clear that Hulk and Banner communicate more than we get to see. There's Banner knowing exactly how to stop the Gamma World plot even though he hasn't had Using The Body Privileges in weeks, and later there's a cute moment where Tony is trying to analyze some mysterious energy and Hulk just immediately IDs it while noshing on a turkey leg. Banner isn't useless or mired in angst, and Hulk isn't dumb. It really feels like they've long since stopped trying to fight each other and have accepted that they're on the same side, and that's a nice change for Hulk storylines!

Also Hulk's friendships with Wasp and Hawkeye are just. Absolute highlights. The dynamics are so good.

[fairuzfan]

Your post about how many people are unknowingly falling for & spreading propaganda... yeah. I typed up a whole spiel of a comment on one of your posts the other day that I ended up deciding not to not actually post because it felt like detailing, but seriously. The amount of well meaning, genuinely anti-zionist people ignorantly sharing zionists' posts because they just don't pick up on the leading undertones is honestly more terrifying than than the amount of actual zionists in some ways.

I'm someone who was born into a doomsday cult, and seeing all these people falling for the exact same blatant (or so i thought lol) recruitment/manipulation tactics I've seen used by them my entire life has absolutely fucking terrifying. These are people who are actively trying to combat zionism, but I guess the general public is so uneducated about propaganda/cult tactics that what immediately reads as blatantly manipulative, misleading bullshit to me just doesn't even register as strange to most people. Not to be repetitive, but seriously: fucking terrifying.

There's so much focus on the way people/groups who want to manipulate you will use language of fear, but in this case especially, people need to realize they will almost always appeal to your compassion before they appeal to your fear.

It's all peace and love and happiness because that's what gets people in the door. You preach (or post) the mushy, happy, fun stuff that makes people feel good to draw them in, and you slowly start peppering in the ideas you actually want to lead them to believe later on once you've got them wanting to believe you.

This also has this added effect of helping the group or person's image. Even the people who you don't manage to draw in will have the impression of you as someone who runs their mouth 24/7 about how you're full of love and want the best for everyone, which is especially useful for when you inevitably want to frame yourself as the victim to demonize the people who will inevitably oppose you. If your first and only exposure to a person is seeing them calling for world peace and universal love, you are much more likely to be inclined to believe they (and by extension their cause) are the sympathetic, loving, peaceful good guys being unjustly targeted.

Sorry for rambling, but like... really. It won't always be something nefarious, of course--the vast majority of the the time, it won't be--but I think we would all be in a much better situation if people took it as a general rule of thumb that you should always be a little suspicious of overly vague talk about peace and love.

You're EXACTLY right. I really appreciate this message, because you put to words a lot of my inherent analysis of arguments and ideas. I like grew up with this rhetoric so it's easy to spot for me, but the way that people speak about "peace" as the overall goal when they're zionist is so blatant to me because there is no material change in the scenario they propose but rather a calmness where Palestinians are ignored.

And picking up on subtext of a lot of messages is something you have to have a muscle for kinda because of how subtle it is. The frightening part is, you're right, that the indoctrination part of zionism is the most harmful part because you appeal to their pathos — their fear, their sense of safety, etc — and you go on down the rabbit hole and slowly start being radicalized and pro-zionism or you might not even be pro-zionism 100% but enjoy... soft zionism as a mutual of mine put it once (if you read this and want to be tagged, lmk). Which soft zionism is the MAIN opinion in many liberal circles btw, its not an uncommon opinion.

I even remember once sharing a post by a zionist because i saw them talk about esims but when i went on their blog a few days later because something rubbed me the wrong way, I noticed their pinned and I was like "oh dam I gotta delete that other post" like that's how often this happens.

Idk, I try to combat this by putting sources or approaching from a standpoint of logical arguments rather than identity-based politics (although, sometimes i think there are some things that people who are a certain identity can be the only true experts on) so that I try to encourage actual engagement with ideas and walking them through thought processes rather than "I'm palestinian so just trust me."

Like even with my one fact checking list, idk if I succeeded but I wanted to emphasize that there are multiple factors you should consider when confronting ANY sort of information and should not blindly trust things. News sources have regularly burned or ignored Palestinians so I know a lot of us are really sensitive to these things, but I don't know! I hope people can engage with ideas more than just surface level thinking in general because it helps everyone when you actually interact with the point of view the other person is providing rather than just blindly trusting/distrusting people.

[shadysubject06]

Hii hii!! Not sure if your asks are open per se? But I’ll shoot something over anyways! Don’t feel pressured to respond ^^ (these are gonna be relating to your fnaf:sb au!!!)

Firstly, what inspired you to give the DCA a frozen half mask? I honestly find it to be SUCH a cool design choice and I wanna know your design process! :D

Secondly (DCA related again </3), what’s your interpretation on Eclipse within your universe? Do they exist? Are they a third entity, a combination of Sun and Moon, a security program with no learning AI, or perhaps something else entirely? I’d love to hear your thoughts! (Personally I interpret them as a combination/security program :0!)

Lastly (yes… once more… DCA related…), do you have any fun facts about Sun, Moon, and Chica’s friendship that you’ve been itching to share? Or haven’t gotten the chance to touch on yet? This AU honestly made me grow really attached to the idea of the DCA and Glam Chica being friends! It’s so so SO sweet!

That’s it for now!! Thank you so much for making your AU btw!! It’s been awesome to binge <3

GOLLY HI!!! Sorry, I didn't see this till now! I'm so glad you're enjoying my stuff, thank you!!! I don't have a name for this "AU" since it kinda started as just this series of snippets of the DCA and Chica being besties and then it started bleeding into all the feelings I had about SB's corporate horror subtext and all of the assumptions I'd had about the direction they would take the story after Help Wanted, and now it's kind of a….retelling-slash-one off comics story. If you or anybody else has name ideas for this on-going saga I'd love to hear them so that I could put it all in a dedicated tag! Now that I've got that ramble out of the way I'll answer your questions! (I lied I'm gonna ramble more cuz I'm really good at it ksfdlnlksdfnlksndf)

1) I have a tendency to redesign characters a bit when I make fan art because trying to stay on model to the original design makes my art come out a bit stiff. I'd seen a lot of fan art for the DCA where they had their whole mouth move, but with the way their faces have a "moon" side, it made me think of a Phantom of the Opera mask. Then I heard that in the Pizzaplex books they were apparently a theater robot that was repurposed for the daycare, so I just decided to lean into it! I've been playing with the idea of making the eye holes on Sun and Moon's mask different to mimic the tragedy/comedy masks!

2) Ooooh the security program is an interesting idea!!! So, I don't know how actual programming stuff works. And since I believe that the robots in FNAF have been sentient since Sister Location, meaning that they've been advancing robo sentience in-universe further for years, I tend to play around with the sentience and the programming fighting with each other at times. When it comes to what I think Eclipse is…. I'm actually gonna put that under a spoiler because it's something I've been teasing at and I can't keep story secrets to save my life, so you can look at that answer ~ at your own risk oooOOOooooOOOooo ~ Now. To answer the third point and give you that Eclipse spoiler. I need to add it in a reblog. Because I was writing out this whole thing....and I wrote so much that I hit the text limit. Which I have never done before. Which also freaked Tumblr out and it wouldn't let me post this no matter how much I erased. So please give me just a few minutes and I'll get you the rest of the answer FDLKSNLSFKDNSLFKN

[canmom]

reading Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt. it's interesting. clearly part of the post-Topside wave of trans lit, with the same 'plugged in to twitter' energy, but way more British about it. which means most of the allusions are very transparent to me. it's a combo of... hardcore kink driven romance as the main arc, in a near-future setting in which TERFism goes further to the point of outright bombings, and a scifi element with alien brain parasites that it's gradually building towards.

compellingly written, I'll give it that for sure - I lay down to read for a bit and before I knew it I'd read like a third of the book. the main character's disaffected, traumatised air is well observed, and the kink doesn't hold back.

I think my reservation with it so far is that it feels a little too much like a polemic blog post about the way things are going. the MC Frankie is a trans woman with a pregnancy kink who survived a bombing at a GIC and now works in social media moderation - it's all stuff that is blatantly Relevant To The Argument, as it were. it's tricky to criticise it for that because it's like, what you're saying is that it's tightly constructed and thematically consistent and that's bad somehow? but I think I've come to feel that I like fiction to bring me something a little new and unfamiliar.

the chapter I most enjoyed so far was actually a more metaphorical, abstract interlude, in which resistance to fascism is cast as becoming 'one mass of queer flesh, which now grabbed and clawed...'; 'faces locked in kisses until they became one face. the cops would try to pull at this mass, but to no avail'. very 'faggots and their friends between revolutions' stuff.

the chapters which are presented directly as social media posts and articles are also sharply observed. i think a lot of fiction in which the internet features heavily suffers from not understanding the internet very well (Hosoda's Belle for example), but for example the chapter 'Curious Cat' where an anonymous person (blatantly Vanya) is sending messages asking for help with a parasite, and getting rebuffed or misunderstood, and the chapter where Frankie relates a murder of an instagram model by a stalker who posts about it to a reddit community devoted to her, read as very real.

a lot of the story is about responding to a terrifying political situation in sexual terms - a flashback chapter depicting Frankie having sex with some terf's pretentious brother ("with each thrust from him, she thought to herself, I am a traitor, I am a traitor to the cause"), or the preface which jokes about how in another world the author would be writing 'cool horror stories about vampires raping werewolves, ones with no subtext at all'. I prevaricate a little on whether this is a compelling examination of a theme that I do find interesting (the mysterious origins of sexual desire) or just edgy for its own sake.

this is an odd novel for me in some ways because while on one level, this is about people who I could very easily be a single degree of separation from were they real, it's also about a facet of life that is still quite alien to me and in many ways I only know about second hand. I've never been to a kink club (that wasn't in an MMO anyway lol), I'm way too much of a nerdy autist shut-in to know what it's like to be someone who would feel put out if she hadn't had sex in a week. so even before the parasite stuff, it's hard to know how much of Frankie and Vanya's stuff is real, and how much is fantasy. is this really how things go between people? it sounds kinda fun, but unlocking the door this far has already taken years.

when I've read books about the crazy lives that American trans girls supposedly live and interesting sex they're apparently having, they've been at a certain remove, the other side of the Atlantic. and this book feels sort of similar, even though I know it's set right on my doorstep. idk, I've never been good at this.

anyway I don't think I want to write fantasy novels so directly about The Discourse of the day, but it's probably good that someone is. that said, it's hard to parse like... ok, it's titled brainwyrms, and 'brain worms' is a common way of describing an obsessive, cultish idea you receive from the internet.

and like if you look at the newspapers, or twitter trans discourse, you certainly could believe that this country is on a rapid slide to putting us in camps. however, my day to day life has been... it's not without hostility, but the average street harasser isn't doing it because of a Guardian or even Mail article. this country has a subculture of deranged weirdos who hate our guts, and a political class who will happily stoke culture war shit to score points, but most normies I've met don't care one way or another that I'm trans - they might mention a family member or friend they know who's also trans. the day to day conflicts are over way more prosaic shit, the landlord vs tenant forever war, or how the kitchen should be cleaned. which of these windows is more informative of the 'overall' state of affairs? not that a more violent terf cult is a bad premise to write a novel around, but a sense of impending doom is a pretty powerful mechanism to keep you scrolling, right?

like in 20, 40 years - will the terfs really be bombing the Tavistock and banning transness, as Rumfitt imagines in her near-future setting preface? or will they go the way of those newspapers in Thatcher's time who smeared the gay movement, just as they smear us today? of passing political obsessions like 'new atheism'? I don't know the half-life of cult shit.

anyway, time to read the rest of the novel, and see how it handles this brew that it's concocted.

[simmingsamantha]

Monster High Legacy (TS4)

A while ago, I posted a Sims 3 challenge based on Mattel’s Monster High doll collection. Now, I’ve tweaked the challenge to fit the Sims 4! It’s an eight-generation legacy challenge, with each generation based upon one of the core dolls in the collection, alongside two bonus generations based on my personal favorite dolls lol. Each generation in the challenge is assigned a specific color scheme but you do not have to follow it if you don’t want to! You also do not need to make the sims look like the dolls in question. At the end of the day, this challenge is simply for fun and to play through aspects of the game I personally haven’t before. You will need a variety of expansion and game packs which are highlighted in parentheses. 

Tag: #mhlc or “@” me! 

SEND ME TO THE RULES

For those who want an example of the rules, the first generation preview is below:

Generation 1: Frankie Stein

“Frankie, a recently created frankenmonster, is still navigating their way through the world as they try to understand who they are and what they want to be. With a curious mind, lack of social norms, and understanding of sarcasm, deception, and subtext…Frankie has a lot of knowledge since their brain is filled with the best and brightest minds in monster history, making them one of the smartest students in school…Despite that intellectual mind, Frankie can be naive and a little distracted, but they still remain the most optimistic member of the Boo Crew and tries not to worry about everything too much.” - Monster High Wiki, G3 Frankie Stein Description 

Traits: Outgoing, Clumsy, Maker 

Career: Freelance Crafter or Engineer  

Aspiration: Master Maker and/or Lord/Lady of the Knits 

Colors: Black and White

Goals:

You want to learn everything about this new world you can - get at least six skills to level five 

Max at least three of the following: robotics (Discover University), knitting (Nifty Knitting) or cross-stitch (Cottage Living), fabrication (Eco Lifestyle) and/or cooking skills

Make a Cleaner Bot, a Party Bot, a Gardener Bot, a Fixer Bot and a Servo (Discover University)

Have an active social life 

Have at least four Good Friends and a Best Friend

Never turn down an invite from your friends 

Visit each type of Festival at least once (City Living)

Have a dog (Cats and Dogs) and a pet rodent (My First Pet Stuff)

Complete the elements and crystal collections 

Roll a d4 dice to determine how many children you’ll adopt (ONLY adoption is allowed)

[licncourt]

God I know it’s annoying to be one of those people who rains on people’s party by preferring original works instead of adaptations but the way book fans have kind of been pushed out of the fandom sucks lol Like I totally understand why people love the show and that it naturally has a huge fan base due to its wide reaching platform, it’s just I’ve noticed a good portion seem to dismiss book fans as small minded, as if you can’t be fans of both. Specifically with Louis of course. It just sucks that Lestat is seemingly embraced by fandom at large in both book&show form while bookLouis is basically nullified. Which is why your blog is such a joy to browse through as a Louis girl! Because I thought we were all on the same page that these are all horrible and terrible beings? lol And honestly both book&showLouis are so different yet so similar in ways that I find fascinating as they are both interesting characters with their own complexities. Anyway thanks for this blog and all your shared thoughts it’s much appreciated.

ps. I kind of miss the dynamic between L&L in fic where it was a bit more of a blurred line of push and pull. No one pulls off Ice Queen quite like Louis and I personally love fic where he’s the one who has Lestat crying and eating his heart out lol

I don't like to talk about the show/show fandom a ton on my blog these days because I don't want to invite any drama but I do agree with you for sure. I find it frustrating, like there's an infinite amount of space for everyone as long as you're nice, book fan, show fan, or both. It's definitely the only fandom I've observed with so much vitriol for the source material from a huge chunk of the extended fanbase..? A lot of the really intense hatred for even the IWTV book feels like the weird moral purity discourse that shows up in other fandoms and it just feel so out of place for something as inherently dark and morally ambiguous as VC/AMC IWTV. They're just dark in different ways (and many of the same).

The Louis stuff probably bothers me the most. I've made jokes before about people needing to hate him in the right way if they're going to hate him, but it's not really a joke tbh. If people don't want to engage with book Louis because they're uncomfortable with the plantation/slave owner aspect or they find his hypocrisy annoying or his personality too dour and unpleasant and not fun, I totally get it, he's an acquired taste!

My frustration is that a large group of people who hate book Louis as show fans commonly state that he's boring or has no personality or that he was a nothing character made into something interesting by the show and I hate that take SO much.

His character is more subtle and understated than Lestat or Armand, but incredibly rich and layered and he absolutely comes to life in the subtext in way that's really magical. I think show Louis is a fantastic character, but he's also intended to be easier to digest because it's a show on AMC designed for mass consumption and modern tastes.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but by comparison book Louis takes a little more effort to understand and absorb and evokes way more complex emotions in the reader. If that's not someone's thing and they just want to have fun, that's totally fine (I feel that way about other media sometimes), but I'm always bothered by people who feel that way speaking badly about the book/his character without giving it an honest try. I don't know how anyone could say that this character written as a mirror image by a grieving mother in a toxic relationship who has just lost her child and her faith while battling alcoholism and grappling with her relationship to death, sex, gender, and cycles of violence could be considered one dimensional.

It feels disingenuous to paint him as a lazily written stock narrator and spread that analysis across social media so that other people go in with preconceived notions and hate on it blindly.

[hamofjustice]

nemona's sync pair story in pokemon masters ex can be viewed anytime as soon as you recruit her, and in just a couple minutes of dialogue we scarlet/violet story analyzers get some great subtext-made-text and new subtext:

confirmation of one instance of nemona working herself really hard for the sake of others and seeing anything less as a display of her own weakness and letting them down (even if the others are her pokemon in this case). it's something that i thought always seemed likely to be a theme with her if we knew more about her, with stuff like her mostly un-commented-on arm brace / compression glove and perfectly clean room nearly devoid of personality outside of her meticulous schedule and displays of her achievements, and what that implied about her relationship with her family, teachers, and idol

recontextualization of why she wears sporty athletic wear and runs around everywhere, even though she's a straight-A nerd who has to take a break every 50 feet when she initially takes you to school and is still winded enough to be worthy of comment from arven by the time you're running around in area zero

the fact that penny, the otaku shut-in, did not get called out like this means either she performed exactly as arven expected her to based on how she looked, or that nemona was doing the worst out of all of the group and might actually have some kind of chronic condition / disability like some fans theorize. nemona's stamina now being revealed to be a long standing insecurity of hers despite shrugging it off with a joke in area zero implies the latter to me

if she shrugged off a long standing insecurity with a joke, that could potentially say a lot about any other things she didn't want to make a big deal about that fans are a little suspicious of, like saying her parents were "hands-off in a good way" with her while her sister got all the attention, which i definitely think was an deflective understatement or simply not realizing there's a problem

and if her low stamina and "bad throwing" are in fact due to some kind of condition and mostly out of her control, that also makes her calling herself weak that much more tragically unfair to herself. someone hug this kid please

i trust these folks to write a compelling nemona if they were given the chance to, not just a fun and cute one. they get it.

her 15 minute storyline from her debut event is mostly just good fun with her meeting a bunch of people and almost winning a big tournament with her new friends hilda and bede. it also, however, touches upon how sad she is that people mostly get jealous of her rather than feel inspired by her (which she actually comes up with a motivational speech to try and combat this time, with hilda's help). it even has her tell blue and bede that florian/juliana back home is "a precious treasure" to her, which made me melt into boiling taffy.

now i'm looking forward to whatever else they come up with when nemona's more plot-driving friends arrive. despite how cheesy and hit-or-miss pokemon masters tends to be, they're treating scarlet/violet with respect so far. it's canon to me. i kinda need that right now when we're not sure what the friend trio are gonna get in the DLC of the actual game.

[to-my-emil]

luca's 2024 letter

so i did a whole analysis/explanation/infodump about luca's newest letter on my discord server and. figured i may as well post it here! theres a lot of fun tasty things in here and some confirmation of things that have been implied in previous letters which is fun to look at. please keep in mind i dont have the entirety of every character and manor game's lore memorized so while i did double check some things i mightve missed some stuff. anyway its all below the cut since its Long have fun :)

(also feel free to chime in with any thoughts/feelings/opinions/ideas!)

so theres three sections to this letter! im gonna go section by section, but some parts of the last section are mentioned earlier so uh. sorry if you havent read it yet (id recommend u do read it first)

so part 1 is pretty fun. luca is confirmed to have survived game 10 (which also features tracy, charles, and bonbon though we dont currently know who the fourth survivor participant is) And its implied that hes the only survivor of the game (according to the "fleeting victory" thats the assumption at least). his traits w being able to connect the ciphers is also officially tied into the lore here; there are in fact wires running underneath each arena (or at the very least whichever arena lucas game was in which we dont know yet iirc) so its canon that he can do what he does in matches and its not something that the detective incorrectly deduced lorewise (idk if any of the survivor abilities are Actually incorrect deductions/not actually things that theyre doing (like for example priestess's portals, etc that seem more far-fetched) but since we know hes done other things incorrectly (like "prisoner" and "psychologist" titles being in quotes/technically wrong) i figure he mightve gotten some of those wrong too). luca is also Super Fucked Up w an unusuable left arm (and his previous injuries which we know includes at Least severe brain trauma but likely physical trauma too considering his time in prison + the leg braces) so uhhhhhhhhhhh. my money is NOT on him for the next game.

which is the fun next thing to talk about: baron deross is making him do another game!! this confirms whats implied in emmas 2022 letter (she writes "I've won the previous round, for now" which implies a second round if not more), and probably means that helena and galatea would also go through another round even though its not confirmed yet. so far we dont have a record of what happens in any second manor game for a player who has won (as far as i remember); usually what happens is entire groups are eliminated before the game and the only survivor goes on to the next round to try again by default rather than having won the game (like murro and luchino). so far luca's second game is the only one we have ANY info about for a survivor whos won their first game; we know that alva is in it and its heavily implied ann is in it (we'll get to this later) so we'll likely find out what happens once we get either of their experiment letters. its also interesting that the baron seems to reveal more information about the experiments to luca after luca won his game, but its hard to know whether thats because luca is also a scientist or if he reveals that to everyone who wins. my guess is maybe the former bc u Know luca would have questions and theres also no mention of baron deross saying anything like that in emmas, galateas, or helenas letters.

on to section 2!!! (there was a slur against disabled people in the last line of this section so. thats whats blocked out)

OKAY SO. definitely confirmed that hes in a second manor game, its not even subtext its just right there. assuming the "mechanisms" refer to the same mechanisms that are running under the arena and connecting the cipher machines my guess is that this is what he used to shock other participants?? rather than just being to conduct electricity through himself like he does in the game?? idk thats just spaghetti at the wall its not clear here how he actually got shocked and why. it Is clear that he passed the fuck out at some point or another/his memory issues have gotten worse and the wiki points to that guy in his dream being hermann, so that's. interesting. theres an implication here that luca and hermann used to be closer, but once luca started w physics hermann went mmmm time to stop being a father. which. checks out knowing hermann. whats even more interesting is that luca calls hermanns ideas "ludicrous fantasies" that are neither idealistic nor realistic, because like luca you went and did THE EXACT SAME THING. BRO HE WORKED ON PERPETUAL MOTION. YOURE WORKING ON PERPETUAL MOTION. IM SORRY YOU CANT CLOWN ON UR DAD FOR RUINING HIS LIFE OVER PERPETUAL MOTION WHEN U DID LITERALLY THE EXACT SAME THING

anyway.

i do wonder if this is meant to imply that hermann was in fact actually working on a More ridiculous version of perpetual motion or if luca is just biased as hell against hermann. im banking on the latter there is no way in hell that luca is a reliable narrator considering all his memory issues + his general tendency to outright grab people hes mad at by the throat (<- fun fact we see this at least twice once in alvas backstory video and again in gattos backstory video. luca is the same across all timelines). also implications that hermann became an alcoholic. im guessing as a kid luca was told it was medicine and he hasnt put the pieces together?? or its ironic. idk could be either with him. i highly doubt its actually medicine. ALTHOUGH. theres an alternate explanation here; when luca says "swallow them down" i initially thought he was referring to hiding his "final feelings", since sometimes swallowing down feelings is a phrase used for that kind of thing. but potentially this could be implying that hermann had luca take some kind of medicine potentially to get rid of those feelings in some way?? personally i think its the former because we already know hermann was wasting his life and money so becoming an alcoholic would be an easy answer, but this is probably just because i dont have any answers if it were the latter. something to think about

now the third part, which gives us info about the next manor game!

so first the "gaunt old man" is (according to the wiki which i agree with in this case) mad eyes, which makes sense because mad eyes was involved in game 8/9 right before this and game 10 was filled with inventors + bonbon so it only makes sense he was there. no idea where he went though. whats more fun is that luca is now In The Fucking basement Walls where mad eyes used to be bc luca doesnt trust the rest of the participants. considering the "abnormal eyes" and that alva is here we know for sure that this is those related to the eye of darkness cult, which means ann is also definitely there. whats even more interesting is that this implies the existence of at least one more member of the eye of darkness cult whos going to be in this game; luca says "new participants" and "these people", and considering how specific the letters usually are with other things i would guess hed say "those two" if it were only ann and alva (of course its possible that theyre the only two have arrived at the writing of this journal, but considering he refers to a ritual coming up soon my money is on all the participants being of the cat cult except luca). luca makes a good note that this new game is likely the opposite of the previous and more focused on religion/spirituality which checks out w the participants, but DAMN hes an asshole about their writing style LMAO. sorry luca not everyone can have the same notes u do

the "brother in faith" guy here is alva, and i personally believe that he can in fact believe see through walls just bc thats funny as hell. just kidding its likely because luca is not as subtle he thinks he is because alva Literally Knows Him. other people might not be able to know hes there but like. that guys also a scientist. hed be able to figure out that theres someone in the walls AND he does in fact know luca. its difficult to tell bc of lucas memory issues but this probably also implies that alva looks very different from how he did in life (i doubt its as tall/etc as in his hunter form since thats what they all see when drugged not what he Actually looks like but im sure theres some stuff like his shorter hair/grayish skin/etc that carries across). i for one am fucking thrilled that theyre in a game together bc oh my god this is a time bomb and im just waiting to watch it explode (again).

as for the last line about a ritual... teehee. im very excited for whatever this is going to be and its killing me that this is the Only Information we have on it so far. likely we're going to have to wait for more alva and ann letters on this one, as well as whoever the third eye of darkness cult member is going to be, but i have no doubt that we'll have some more info eventually. if i had to take a guess its going to heavily affect how game 10-2/11 turns out; i highly doubt any ritual goes on without a sacrifice, and, well... theres only one guy here whos not already part of the cult. things are not looking great for lucas future.

[eddiediazismyhusband]

Unpopular opinion but this is also why I dislike so much behind the scenes content. (This kind of stuff not necessarily shots of the cast like we've gotten recently.) Because we usually get NO context for any of it. But we WANT to know the context without waiting for episodes months from now. So we spec about ~what it could mean~ and I feel like we as fans are more creative and meaningful than the writers (or give them too much credit sometimes.) Leading to all these ideas about this or that from pics/vids only to, like you said, end up disappointed or even angry by the end reality.

Spec can be fun and I'm not saying people shouldn't do it. But sometimes people take it too seriously or grasp onto these hopes/ideas that they or others come up with. And it only results in disappointment. (I feel like a lot of gay Eddie spec falls in this category right now)

i agree, the sheer amount of bts content posted by the crew drives me a little crazy… like i know it’s fun for them and they want to cause chaos bc that’s all stuff that brings in intrigue, but it’s stressful as fuck when you have one singular shot of a camera on a location as the only context and zero other information and people start acting like the first plausible theory is gospel truth.

i remember so much bts content from even s7 that either never even ended up in the show, or only ended up being in one shot yet was the cause of an insane amount of speculation (for example the fucking warehouse fire from the finale— people were convinced it was the 118 burning down and that someone was gonna end the season presumed dead and then it ended up only being used in a bit plot that had no actual narrative impact other than prolonging a black man’s pain but i digress)

i absolutely agree with you about the eddie thing too— it’s one thing for a bunch of queer people on the internet to see a mustache and go “omg it’s a freddie mercury reference” but no one is thinking about how wide of an audience this show reaches… most of the GA aren’t going to think about freddie mercury when they see that mustache on screen (hell, i don’t even think of freddie mercury when i see it) they’re just gonna see a macho man in a mustache which is the prevailing stereotype in a lot of places; not queer subtext. we are giving these writers too much credit when they’ve only ever put in surface level effort on queer characters by saying they’re trying to subtly tell us that this means queer eddie when this has just as much of a chance of eddie falling back onto toxic masculinity, or it just being a really bad stylistic choice (that we know they’re capable of making)

it’s okay if you want to participate in spec.

spec is fun but some people don’t want to participate in it and that’s okay.

they don’t deserve to have their valid concerns ripped apart and spat on just because you decided for everyone that the mustache obviously means he’s going to be gay when that’s very likely not the case. (im thinking of one popular blog in particular that has been doing this lately)

overall… im sitting out of s8 until something actually good happens. i’ve lost faith and trust in the writers and no amount of official 911 instagram videos are going to convince me otherwise especially after how hard we were clowned by abc in s7. they’ve proven that they only care about baiting us and until they actually go through with their own set ups within the narrative rather than backtracking at the last second, i will continue not to trust them with these characters.

[imeanwhynotbruv]

Tuk & Spider

(Mowglie spider au)

First of all, I’m back!!!! Sorry for being away but I had stuff going on and now it’s done✨✨ also now I have a bunch of free time so expect updates again!!

Anyway, I think Tuk would definitely take to Spider very quickly because at first his is kind of just like a baby, very animalistic and doesn’t understand or care about what other ppl think / what’s expect of his age.

This means that, unlike her siblings, Spider doesn’t think she’s a baby and doesn’t want to hang out with her. Like Spiders not stupid, but because of his upbringing he’s not on the emotion level he should be, which means he relates more the Tuks childish attitude to things.

Tuk is also definitely one of Spiders favourite if not favourite, because she’s very straightforward in the way only a child can be and he really appreciates that (the poor baby defiantly has a hard time getting sarcasm social cues and subtext 😂😭)

Also like in he bites (the little short) Tuk is definitely willing to weaponise Spider😂 like she looks like an Angel but is totally mischievous and at the begging spider doesn’t even get what there doing is misbehaving.

Spider does warm up the the other sullys quickly, but even after he’s gotten used to things I think he’ll still see Tuk as a fav, maybe like a little Thanator cub that he wants to protect.

Spider defo likes to be around Tuk a lot

He likes her stories because they’re simple and more fun

He spend more time with her because it’s easier than trying to figure out what older ppl really mean

Her lessons are also easier for him because they’re generally childish

She doesn’t force him to try and use his words when he’s frustrated because she’s just content to do all the talking

He’s defiantly over protective and will stand like a threatening guard dog behind her even if he’s standing up to a navi adult (but don’t get me wrong he’s a sweet heart)

He definitely enjoys when she falls asleep on him bc it’s like when he was sleeping with the animals

Spider defiantly introduces her to all his animal friends even when it gives the rest of the sullys a heart attack

Eywa thinks it’s adorable

There will be more but I thought you might like this❤️ Asks are welcome and I hope you enjoyed

(Sorry again for being MIA😅)

[anistarrose]

Sometimes when I see people talking about extracanonical confirmations of queer rep, I feel like the phrase "Word of God" gets a little overused — specifically, I think it gets used as a synonym for extracanonical confirmations in general, or sometimes, in a way that obscures how even true Word of God can cover several different things.

And like, that's genuinely not a huge deal, it's not a grave or serious issue — but extracanonical reveals are very much a spectrum. And to me, that incomplete spectrum (in an order that's deliberate, but malleable depending on the circumstances), is something like:

Confirmed in the primary source material (i.e., not actually extracanonical, so included only for comparison).

Confirmed in official secondary canon material. (Example: a spinoff, or a companion book that expands the universe of a show). It's official content, but may not be seen by many of the more casual fans.

Confirmed in an adaptation. Official content, but more likely to have a different writing team, may exist in a different canon, and have a very different audience than the original.

Confirmed in (usually unofficial) tertiary canon, which the creators made for fun or as a gift to the fans, but with actual production value and storytelling put into it. (Example: voice actors perform a script, or creators put together a website for an ARG/other lore). Almost universally seen by fewer people than official secondary canon, itself seen by fewer people than primary canon, but still a genuine piece of the storytelling.

Confirmed by a creator in official commentary, which is promoted/packaged alongside the source material. (Example: official commentary tracks on a DVD set, or a Q&A podcast episode in the same feed as the source material podcast.) Not just any fan will dig into it, but it's right there for anyone interested enough to look.

Similar to the above, exept the commentary isn't packaged alongside the source material. (Example: the creator of a show has a podcast, but it doesn't air alongside the TV show, because... like, that just doesn't really happen.) Can and will escape the notice of casual fans, and yet, completely entry-level stuff for most hardcore fans.

Confirmed by a creator in some official, widely accessible interview.

And... confirmed by a creator in some random, ephemeral post on social media.

Obviously, these all have wiggle room depending on the format of the media, how self-published or "indie" it is, and how much the distinction between official and unofficial really matters. It's also an incomplete list — limited to either things I've personally seen, or things really similar to what I've personally seen. But I would argue, Cases 5 through 8 are Word of God, but Cases 2 through 4 really aren't.

Why? Because they're not just the creator telling you something out of universe. Cases 2 through 4 have some storytelling and production value around them, albeit to varying degrees. And lot of unofficial tertiary canon (Case 4), whether queer or not, has been a particular love letter to fans, in just my personal experience. That doesn't mean I prefer my queer characters to only come out under those circumstances — but compared to the creator just tweeting it or whatever? It's not even a contest. It's hardly even the same conversation.

And of course, this isn't the only axis for analyzing extracanonical queer confirmation — there's quality of execution, there's whether it's confirming subtext from the primary canon, there's how heavy or weak that subtext was, and there's whether trying to fit it into primary canon would've resulted in censorship (the mantle under which I include cancellation).

I've also glossed over Word of God versus Word of St. Paul, which can contextually make a difference to many people. But I just feel like we can have more nuanced conversations — about where representation has made progress, versus where it still has shortcomings — if we expand our mental picture of extracanonical reveals beyond just Word of God.

Have we made progress from "creator tweets a character is gay just to look progressive," to "character is implied to be gay in the source material, and confirmed in secondary canon (where there's less censorship) as soon as the creator gets a chance?" Is there still a problem with asexual and aromantic characters being extra likely to get extracanonical reveals, even in series that are queer-positive overall, but are we at least working our way up the extracanonical sliding scale?

Those questions are easier to answer when we note that not all extracanonical confirmations are created equal. And just personally, I do feel better about a lot of queer representation when I look at it this way — not because I think we should settle where we're at right now, but because it seems widely understood that we won't settle for random twitter replies anymore. And that's genuinely encouraging.

[blainehasregrets]

Wardrobe Symbolism in Duets

I’ve been wanting to talk about the symbolism behind this sweater for forever, and I had almost thought about posting this on the glee Reddit but…I don’t think this kind of thing would be welcome there idk lol so I decided to finally start a blog to talk about glee so I can make my stupidly long essays in peace.

Anyways here’s an overly long Kurt Hummel character analysis!

This sweater is one of my favorites clothing choices in the show, and I think it gives us a lot of insight into Kurt’s character.

Quick disclaimer:

I know it’s just a tv show and it’s not that deep, in fact I truly believe glee is a show with absolutely 0 subtext and what you see is what you get. I think I’m pretty good at separating what the show intended vs what I actually feel, and I try to point out what’s actually canon and what’s not. I also know very well that Glee often underestimated the seriousness of the topics they talked about and they almost never actually planned stuff ahead, so none of this was actually meant to be that serious in the show. Not just that, but the understanding of consent has changed over the years as well, and that reflects in media of its time. However! I find it fun to analyze everything anyway. This is literally just for fun!

Okay now…

Duets, in my opinion, is one of the most defining episodes for Kurt’s character, in conjunction with Wheels and Theatricality. This episode contains some pretty important moments for him.

For one, he gets called out for his previous behavior regarding the Finn situation in season 1.

We learn just how lonely he feels, and how his biggest wish is to be able to live and experience romance just like anyone else.

He overcomes said loneliness by owning it and doing a duet on his own that celebrates both masculinity and femininity.

He gains a friend in Rachel.

He also learns 2 lessons that have a big impact on his character. While the obvious “don’t hit on straight boys” is an objectively good one that Kurt will take to heart as he never does so again, there is an underlying message of “your problems are not anyone else’s” that will, going forward, also have a negative effect on Kurt, and most notably why he struggles with his relationship with Blaine.

To fully understand Duets and Kurt’s character, and the affect this subplot will have on his future character development, you have to understand that:

Kurt’s crush on Finn was gone in Home, and in Theatricality he was completely over Finn. His frustration towards Finn in that episode stems from being misunderstood, and the miscommunication between them because Finn didn’t know that Kurt's crush was gone. So he already has had experiences having his motives misconstrued

You can’t just pay attention to what only Finn and Burt were saying in Duets, like I think a lot of people do. Rachel’s words to him at the end of this episode, “I can’t imagine what it would be like to have feelings you can’t act on for fear of being humiliated, ridiculed, or worse”, are just as important to understanding the effect this will have on Kurt. The situation is more than just “Kurt was wrong for wanting to sing with Sam”.

However, this isn’t solely about dissecting Duets as whole, so I’ll move on!

Obviously on the surface, this handprint sweater, in this specific episode and this specific scene, represents his lack of boundaries towards Finn in season 1, the assumption that he’ll act the same with Sam, and the reality that, no matter how innocent his intentions might be with Sam, they will automatically be misconstrued as sexual or predatory because of his sexuality. (It really is vital that people understand Rachel’s speech at the end of the episode. This episode isn’t solely about Sam’s consent being ignored by Kurt, because Sam explicitly agrees to sing with Kurt, but it’s also about other people’s reactions if they found out a guy was singing with Kurt, fair or not. Like Finn said, they live in “their” world).

Finn tells Kurt he doesn’t know when no means no. Hence the blue sweater depicting two messy handprints on his chest.

But while that’s the obvious reason it’s used in this scene, there’s something else that’s prevalent with Kurt’s character that will become a major plot point in just two episodes. An issue Kurt will face again and again throughout the show: a disrespect towards his own consent/boundaries, and the lack of agency he feels over his life and body, which affects how he sees himself and interacts with others. It’s foreshadowing for the upcoming arc where Karofsky crosses the line and kisses him. The hands are, after all, ultimately on him.

From episode 1, our very first introduction to Kurt is him being thrown into a dumpster by a group of boys and ignored by Will. With a distant, tense relationship with his father, a dead mother, and no friends, Kurt’s main form of contact with other people is the physical bullying he receives. To the point where Finn’s apathy towards him was seen as flirting by Kurt, because that was the nicest a person would be to him. While Finn was a bystander to most of the bullying Kurt received, even actively participating in some of it, Kurt still developed a crush on him.

I believe this all contributed to him having a muddied view of boundaries (thinking it’s okay to set their parents up), his own self worth, and aids in his need for control (which he usually exercised over his dad as that’s the only person he can truly influence, and what he attempted in Home with Finn, but that blew up in his face in the very same episode. Kurt might want to try to control people, but he’s not very good at it!) because he feels as if he has so little of it over his own life.

Another early example of feeling a loss of control: he had no say in how he was able to come out to most people. He was able to do it with Mercedes and his dad on his own terms, two clearly monumental and emotional moments for him, but everyone else automatically assumed he was gay. In Preggers, he still tells Finn he's not gay. In this sense, his choice was taken away, because people had already decided for him that he was gay. And with that loss of choice, came harassment.

Of course, in season 1, Kurt never just took the bullying meekly nor was he particularly scared of his bullies. He usually had a snide comment to make as a defense/coping mechanism. But he did mostly accept it passively because he knew there was really no way he could stop it himself or get help, as people like Mr. Schue would walk by, oblivious. Kurt eventually gives up in season 2, and in turn begins to believe he’s not worthy of being helped and that he needs to deal with his issues on his own, something we already see him feel in Wheels when he decides to keep his dad from knowing the true extent of the harassment he faces to protect him. Duets further cements this for him, as Finn and Burt tell Kurt if he sings with Sam, he’ll be dragging Sam into the bullying he faces, and that’s not fair to Sam, even if Sam had agreed to sing with him. It’s not about the fact that Kurt gets bullied, because it’s treated as an almost inevitable fact of life, it’s that he shouldn’t get others involved. So Kurt decides to dissolve the partnership. You can compare how Kurt in Theatricality is still able to (curtly) ask Finn to tell Azimio and Karofsky to at least leave his clothes alone if they’re going to bully him (not even to stop the bullying, but just to leave his clothes out of it), vs Furt where he’s uncomfortable with the club trying to defend him because it’s not their problem.

Things continue to escalate in season 2. Karofsky forcibly kisses Kurt in Never Been Kissed (and even tries to kiss him again before Kurt pushes him away), and along with the bullying, which still included seemingly daily physical assault as Dave full body slams into Kurt constantly, it ramps up to covert sexual harassment (The wink in The Substitute, the finger on his chest in Furt, along with trying to spin the situation as if Kurt kissed and liked him, essentially trying to victim blame him). This is when we see Kurt go from being passively annoyed/tired of it to being legitimately afraid. Because of the kiss, Karofsky's previous and current targeted harassment towards Kurt takes on a whole new meaning, too. It’s troubling to know that someone who has shown over and over again that they have the capability of being violent towards you also doesn’t respect your consent, and Karofsky stealing the cake topper symbolizes Kurt’s greater fear of what Karofsky is capable of.

(Also I’m fully aware there are giant, glaring differences between how Finn and Karofsky had treated Kurt, so the situations are truly not compatible, but I do find it interesting that, at a certain point, Kurt had been hoping for the "bully secretly in love with him" stereotype to be true, but the actual reality of it was so much scarier than he imagined. Again, not comparable situations at all as Finn's main selling point to Kurt was that he was nice, but I do think Kurt's crush on him showed that he could be someone willing to overlook some abuse. I feel like the implications of Kurt’s crush on Finn and what it said about himself and his experience as a lonely gay teen is often lost because people would rather make it a black and white situation.)

Yet, after the kiss happens, Kurt is more concerned with not outing Karofsky. While he does get to express his sadness over his first kiss being with Karofsky for a scene with Blaine, the scene prior is not a confrontation meant to tell Karofsky he doesn’t know when no means no, or anything about what Kurt feels, it’s Kurt (through Blaine) extending an olive branch to Karofsky and telling Karofsky that he’s not alone and he can talk to them. When Karofsky asks him in The Substitute if he’s told anyone else, Kurt says he knows how hard it is for him so he won’t tell anyone. Kurt, despite everything, ultimately puts Karofsky first, even before Karofsky threatens him over it.

This is for 3 possible reasons. The purely canon one is that he didn’t want to out Karofsky. The show spells it out for you, that’s Kurt’s main motivation to keep Karofsky’s secret safe with him. And, of course, it’s an important one. It could be dangerous for Dave if he’s outed, Kurt knows that better than anyone, and that was Glee’s main moral of that arc: it’s not okay to out people. (until it sorta is later...ugh I hate debates over Santana's outing simply because even regardless of the fact that it was a horrible thing to happen to her, regardless of anyone's personal feelings on Santana, the show had already set the precedent that no matter how "mean" someone is, it is not okay to out them!)

But based on past experiences Kurt has had, I think there are 2 possible other subtextual motivations behind his refusal to tell anyone outside of Blaine:

He knows he wouldn’t be helped. And he wasn’t, which only furthered his belief that telling people about his problems is useless.

He feels he would be blamed for his own assault. He’d already been blamed for his own bullying multiple times (Theatricality, Duets, Wheels, though that was him shouldering the responsibility himself without anyone else's input), and he knows people take issue with him interacting with other guys. Possibly in his eyes it could be likely, especially as Karofsky had already tried to say Kurt had kissed him, that the situation could turn around on him and he could be the one blamed for trying to kiss Karofsky.

And so, Kurt keeps it in.

As the show goes on he’s “stalked” (using this term rather loosely, however I do think it would be natural if Kurt had been extra creeped out by the fact that Karofsky, who now goes to a different school had been visiting him everyday as a "secret admirer") and confessed to by Karofsky in Heart, pressured into sex in The First Time and then yelled at for saying no (to be clear here since this is a sensitive topic: Regardless of what you feel about Blaine’s intentions in the first part of this scene, I feel like it should be easy to admit his reaction to Kurt rejecting him was still objectively guilt trippy/mean/wrong. And that’s even without the added context of the Sebastian/school play of it all which really...adds some very troubling layers to an already rather messy situation), Sexy Santa ties him up when he doesn’t want to roleplay in Previously Unaired Christmas (I’m also aware this is an AU, not meant to be canon, but it’s interesting to me that even in an AU, Kurt’s consent being disrespected is a recurring theme), and Walter is deceitful about his age when he and Kurt talked online in The Hurt Locker Part 1.

Other example of a non-romantic/sexual moments when his boundaries are pushed would be Grilled Cheesus, where he asks the club not to pray for his dad and he’s ignored, even by the adults in his life like Will and Emma, because they think they know what’s best for him. In the end, he relents and says he should have just let them pray and sings a religious song with them anyway. Even his own wedding with Blaine wasn’t exactly “his choice” (but of course, we know it was something that he ultimately wanted in the end anyway.)

Now, I have to recognize: canonically, none of this actually affects Kurt in a way that’s super explicitly obvious. He never outright says “wow I felt very disrespected by this thing that happened. I think I'm going to have communication issues from now on.” lol. When Blaine gets upset that Kurt didn’t want to have sex in TFT, it’s seen as no big deal by Kurt or the narrative. He even says it was worse when Blaine made out with Rachel. And it’s not hard to understand why it’s framed that way. The show itself already has a questionable view of consent (ex: Puck/Quinn) so, to the writers, the overall narrative, and Kurt, it’s no bigger argument than any other. It’s not meant to be that serious. This stuff, as it seems, doesn’t phase him as much as you might think it would, as he is willing to having sex with Blaine literally the next day, and he’s able to move on without problem. And, if you want to believe that none of this affected Kurt because that is somewhat textually factual, you can! It’s right there in canon. In fact, even as someone who absolutely despises TFT, I still think it’s a bittt disingenuous to overblow the effect this has on Kurt by acting as if this forever traumatized him when it feels like the show went out of its way to be like “no, actually it was fine!!” (And I plan to make a post about my full thoughts on TFT eventually.)

However, while I do believe Glee is not a subtext heavy show, I still think you can still make inferences based on what the text presents us. Subtextually, it’s possible to draw the conclusion that Kurt’s nonchalance is because Kurt had already been conditioned to believe he didn’t deserve better treatment (in Duets his bullying is basically seen as a given), had no faith he’d be helped even if he did tell anyone else, and had the belief that he brought this stuff on himself because he’s the one who doesn’t know when no means no. Things like being "stalked", catfished, and yelled at for not wanting to have sex when he already felt uncomfortable and disrespected didn’t register to him as something that maybe he should feel more upset about. Instead, his focus is usually on what the other person might feel. He seeks out and apologizes to Blaine (and this is done for a very specific reason in TFT, to reassure the audience that having sex was 100% Kurt’s choice, but I’ll save that for a post dedicate to that episode lol while I understand their intentions, I still think it ends up painting the situation in a bad light). He blames himself for not picking up Karofsky’s calls. He continues to date Walter.

And I think it’s possible to see how much brushing off these instances affected him later in the show. Because he feels his problem's are not anyone else's, he has a lack of communication skills that ended up causing a rift between him and Blaine when they moved to New York (telling Blaine they need to talk more, then saying they talk too much in Tested), an intense need for control (being upset when Blaine moved a desk in New New York), as well as, how he mentions in Loser Like Me, that he learned in therapy that he doesn’t like himself so he felt he was undeserving of love, and so when Blaine showed him intimacy, he felt like there was something wrong with Blaine too. Kurt was conditioned to believe he had to be alone (Burt’s speech to him in Duets) and so, he ended up internalizing it and was unable to cope when Blaine did anything but leave him alone.

And I would like to add another disclaimer: this analysis isn't actually meant to perpetually woobify Kurt (do people still use that word? am I showing my age?). What I love most about Kurt is how strong he is. He can handle soo much, in fact I think "Kurt had a victim complex" is a huge misconception about his character, because I feel he often tried to brush aside his bigger problems, which is my point here. But I also believe there's also no shame in being a victim. Kurt, and by extension any person, is not lesser than because they had bad things happen to them. Kurt was still able to be strong and kind, and personally I think that’s why I find his character so interesting. Despite all the bad, Kurt continued on. And I just love that character development isn't always just "This character became a better person", sometimes it's a character internalizing lessons that actually negatively affect them! I feel like so many of the issues Kurt continued to have later on in the show stemmed from Duets.

TLDR:

The hands on his sweater represent an occurring theme in Kurt's story where his boundaries were disrespected, and how in turn that had funneled into unhealthy mindset that negatively affected his view of boundaries, himself and his relationship with Blaine.

And, I have a lot less to say about this but, Sam’s Captain America shirt he wears before he gets slushied was also used as symbolism, but I think this is more known? He was being “heroic” by sticking to his values and not letting Finn talk him out of dueting with Kurt, but it also represents the fact that now that he’s in the glee club, he’s a target for harassment. It’s interesting to me that he gets slushied before he even duets with Kurt, though, proving that it isn't Kurt's sole responsibility to keep Sam from being harassed, because being in the club is already enough of a reason. I also have a working theory that in Glee, red symbolizes individuality and blue symbolizes team work and Kurt's sweater being blue means he's putting the team above himself as Finn had told him...but I'm not sure how much I fully believe it. I need to stop being lazy and write an essay about the general color symbolism in glee, and the color grading over the seasons because I am actually so passionate about it lol