#I'm still thinking about it and asking more people their opinions

[sillygoofyqueer]

I know that this is going to get weird but bear with me. Also this isn't meant to be as horny as it might seem.

I think that PIDW Logic™️ would give the middle finger to the whole point of bird demons having genders in the first place and make all bird demons lay unfertilised eggs about once a month, unless they get fertilised while still in the bird demon of course.

Crowyuan would be no different even if he's the heavenly demon variety.

I think Binghe would be jealous of Crowyuan's eggs.

I think Bingge might cook them if Xin Mo got to him.

Oh Binghe would be SO normal if he could naturally have children with Crowyuan.

And imagine how shocked and kind of horrified one of his followers/Binghe/the peak lords/the disciples would be if they were to find (one of) his nests with AN EGG in it. There isn't a baby in it or anything but STILL.

The crow family knows what's up but they still get a little surprise every time because SY doesn't bloody tell them when it's That Time Of The Month: Bird Demon Edition.

I am so so sorry the mpreg part of my brain leaked a bit into the Crowyuan part of my brain.

Henlo, Anon! Thank you for the ask, I very much appreciate it. I need to preface this with the fact that I read this ask, thought "huh, this doesn't feel very horny to me!" and then showed it to one of my mutuals as a sort of second opinion if you will, and they just said 'damn, egg layer Yuan' and that sort of put it in perspective for me. Despite that, I still don't think it's very horny, so either I'm just desensitised to it all, or this isn't horny! ANYWAY, if you want mpreg, we can literally have mpreg. Crowyuan now has mpreg. I don't know if there's a secret group of people who have been praying for this moment, but if there is, you can now rest. Put down the blackmail plans. We're going to look at Original Crowyuan, then Crowyuan on Cang Qiong but with the mpreg lens because that's FUN. (Also jiuyuan) ((To that one irl friend, my bestie booboo bear, you do NOT fucking see this. You never did. Dear GOD, YOU FUCKING DIDN'T.)) Original Crowyuan usually has his unfertilised eggs in his crow home, surprising his family at first but then they learn how to track his...'cycle' if you will, so they aren't caught off guard if there's a random egg in his nest. However, when he starts spending more time at Bingge's castle, it's a constant fucken wrestling match over eating the unfertilised eggs. It's like Crowyuan being like "DROP IT!! DROP THAT EGG!" and Bingge is holding it above his head and being like "I'M GOING TO MAKE SCRAMBLED EGGS AND NOBODY CAN STOP ME!! IT'S A WASTE!" However, I like to think that Bingge is also like "this egg could be fertilised. This could be my child. But noooo, it's devoid of a baby, so I'm going to fucking eat this." Dude I forgot the tag for the Crowyuan that's just chilling on Cang Qiong, but he's obviously just hanging around Cang Qiong and making nests on most of the peaks, so he does just have unfertilised eggs lying around. I imagine that Shen Jiu is the first to find out because (as stated in a previous post, I think) he's got disciples/a record on every single nest on Cang Qiong, so he sees this fucking egg just...lying around in one of the nests and is like "Oh. My God." and then like well what the fuck would he do with this? His pretty crow demon is going to be a mother! He must not let any of the bastard peak lords learn about this, 'lest they try and 'take responsibility' and step up to be a father to his demon's children, so HE must do it first. (When Crowyuan learns of this, he feels so bad because Shen Jiu is so determined about it, so he has to like...actually have a child! Cue mpreg.)

[pancakeke]

hiiiii can I get a court of public opinion to comment on an argument/my current drama issue? long ass post under the cut

I put numbered questions in bullets under screenshots + explanations. you don't gotta respond to all 12 questions but if you could reply with a number and a corresponding answer I'd really appreciate the outside perspective.

background: my friend and I are both autistic. yesterday he used the term "migrant labor" in a way that I interpreted to refer to an individual. my running gag is to call him a capitalist and accuse him of exploiting people at any opportunity cause he's openly a communist and it's funny to mess with him. he makes jokes back to me and neither of us have ever had issue with this. so i said he loves to exploit migrant workers. his response to insist that I didn't understand the concept of the term "migrant". after accusing me of being wrong a lot and a lot of me trying to figure out what he was talking about, he finally explained that he was talking about "migrant labor" as an economic system, even though I was talking about "migrant workers" as individuals. like I even used a different term so i really don't understand his pivot. but I digress.

before he actually explained what he meant by arguing about the term "migrant labor", my repeated questions about what he was trying to correct led to this:

context: he is canadian and I'm american. we frequently joke about how we spell words differently, but also throughout this conversation he brought up different laws, so I didn't know if he put "labor" in quotes as a joke to discredit the source for being american under the reasoning of "fuck what america thinks about any topic" or he was indicating that the link was american and that meant its information wouldn't apply to canadian laws/definitions that he may have been trying to reference.

I requested clarification for this and other things he said but did not receive explanations. he claims the message in the screenshot provided a sufficient answer.

this is the link i sent him on discord. it is very relevant to this post.

Question 1: do the options I came up seem reasonable or do they seem like wild guesses?

Question 2: you think it's possible that both of my assumptions could be wrong?

Question 3: does his response of the word "labor" in quotes bring to mind an obvious explanation that I didn't consider or mention here?

I again said that I didn't know what he meant and asked for more detail.

he has still not explained what he meant by responding "labor" in quotes and insists that it was a sufficient response that provided necessary context for me to understand what he meant by it. now he is focused on telling me that the encyclopedia britannica is an american publication.

Question 4: is it clear that I was aware the encyclopedia britannica is american before he repeated this information?

Question 5: using your own personal knowledge of the encyclopedia britannica and considering the words making up that URL I shared, do you understand why he repeated this information?

Question 6: given the screenshots so far, do you have any reason to believe that an explanation of the nationality of the encyclopedia britannica provides the remaining context needed to clarify what he meant in the first screenshot when he replied "labor" in quotes?

Question 7: understanding that he was actually making this statement to provide additional context to his previous statement, do you believe it was reasonable for me to follow what he was doing here?

note: my messages time stamped 1:00 is related to the information I had been given before he sent that screenshot. it's not a response to the screenshot.

ultimately this was the whole issue: he refused to believe that my link was credible because it used the american english spelling of "labor" rather than the british english spelling which is "labour". he felt that pointing out the spelling was enough information and context for me to draw the same conclusion.

going back to that link I initially sent: ultimately he made an incorrect assumption from the text of the url. i do not know why the url uses american english, but the actual encyclopedia britannica page only uses the british english spelling "labour" (except when citing book titles that use the american english form). despite being fully capable of viewing the page, he refused to click the link on principle and based this entire argument on the basis that his assumption was correct.

Question 8: do you believe he provided adequate explanation before sharing the the wiki?

Question 9: would you say it's an easy to start with the information "the encyclopedia britannica is an american publication" and conclude that "it is published using british english, not american english"?

Question 10: would you consider it a "direct explanation" that he sent the screenshot without saying anything about it in text form?

Question 11: were you personally able to come to the conclusion he expected me to understand using only the first screenshot in this post?

Question 12: was it reasonable for him to insist he knew the contents of the encyclopedia britannica web page based only on its url?

this is not the first time this friend has done something like this to argue despite quoting "Socratic method" all the fucking time.

Bonus Question: how well would you say my friend employed methods of socratic debate in these screenshots?

[bogkeep]

full disclosure i'm both deeply curious and more than a little apprehensive of the How Do You Think Fandom Would Misinterpret You ask meme because of. well some stuff i went through. that completely warped how i thought people might see me.

i spent a very long time in the "uwu soft bean" pigeonhole and i've always tried to be generally friendly and approachable online, while at the same time trying to reject getting placed on a pedestal - a fool's errand, i understand. then the Bad Mindfucky Event happens, and suddenly there's a group of people who absolutely hate my guts and paint me as this kind of deeply villanous and suspicious character only playing nice to trick people into joining my cult, and presumably spend a lot of time making up stories about all the horrible, twisted schemes i get up to. it was like i had an evil clone out there somewhere, causing mayhem.

so you can probably imagine, that after all the effort i put into being a pleasant internet presence, couching my opinions and staying out of public dramas to the best of my abilities, i *still* get characterized as a Terrible Bad Person Who Was Secretly Shitty This Entire Time, i get super disillusioned and bitter and have a lot less trust & patience with my fellow online denizens. like, in retrospect, out of the trauma haze, the group of people hating my guts is so much smaller than i imagined, and a whole lot less power than it felt like. it's a couple bitter individuals who didn't like that i was an actual person with feelings and boundaries and not their pet artist or whatever.

but for all that, ever since then, i feel like i've been far more dour in how i interact with people. in addition to that, i'm just older now, i am much less inclined to being The Kid, The Innocent, The Sweet Summer Child *SURELY* i am no longer UwU Smol Bean? SURELY i give off different vibes now!

more fool me. smol bean is forever.

[emanation-aura]

do you have any more genshin meta rants? i love the ones that you have

awh, thank you anon! I do have a few to pick from (apart from whining about regional specialties or boss mats every so often), but they might be, ah... less popular due to involving significantly more fandom wank. So I'll do a few of these, and if people have questions/expansions feel free to reblog to send asks about them!

Long post under the read more, but in short:

Arlecchino's evil deeds were retconned/given to Crucabena to make her more marketable

Dottore is being set up as the 'evilness scapegoat' for a majority of relevant characters

Genshin is putting down more loose threads than it can tie up

1 - Arlecchino's evil deeds were retconned/given to Crucabena to make her more marketable

Obviously this sounds very combative right out the gate, so let me justify this by citing my arguments.

The mere existence of Crucabena seems to be the perfect scapegoat for historical crimes we learn that have been done to and perpetuated by orphans of House of the Hearth. We've known since Version 2.4 that the title of the Knave changed hands and that the evils of most of the WQs involving the House (Lyudochka, Trofin) are a result of either the previous Knave or Dottore, and crucially, not current Arlecchino. You can argue that just means Arlecchino is a better person than the two of them, but the thing is that Arlecchino isn't significantly different from Crucabena— apart from not running the literal Hunger Games. Arlecchino also says this:

"I hope you understand, the difference between Crucabena and myself lies in our formulation of the rules, not our policy for enforcing them. Upholding the rules without question is a trait we both share, because that is how a household should be run."

My original opinion on this topic was that Genshin did a face-heel turn on the evils of the House to make Arlecchino marketable. But then I remembered the previous Knave stuff was foreshadowed, so I think my actual opinion now is that Genshin has been setting up for a non-evil Arlecchino far in advance by attributing the evils of her organisation to literally anyone but her, even though she also perpetuates them.

This is also why I feel like the memory-wipe during Arlecchino's SQ was a cop-out. Yes, it thematically made sense so I can't entirely begrudge it, but still; Arlecchino thematically considering a loss of memory to mean "death" technically meets the condition where her "policy for enforcing rules" is the same as Crucabena's (also death), but it seems altered in a specific way to make Arlecchino's actions seem more merciful and less menacing than was previously implied. While I liked Ignis Purgatorius Chapter Act I, it did come across as softening Arlecchino's character even though she gets a hulking nightmare-fuel bossfight. I'm happy to hear arguments to the opposite, though.

(And I don't hate Arlecchino; I just think she could have had more opportunities to be morally unpalatable and force the player to think more about her deeds and actions.)

2 - Dottore is being set up as the 'evilness scapegoat' for a majority of relevant characters

Tangent to the above, Dottore has had a hand in almost every semi-'villainous' character's backstory. Dottore (as Escher) practically set up Kabukimono's entire tragic backstory. Even the young child who dies of (implied) Tatarigami, since the sabotage of the Mikage Furnace released Tatarigami everywhere.

Crucially, Dottore/Escher is never mentioned in Scaramouche's backstory pre-3.3. Even though he was a pivotal character who brought pioneering new technology (which was secretly meant to destroy the Mikage Furnace) and an outsider to boot (recall that Kabukimono's outsider status also made him an intrigue to the people of Tatarasuna). The Rather Aged Notes, which tell the story of Tatarasuna from the perspective of the people there at the time, do not mention Escher at all or even hint at his existence. I can't say for certain, but it seems as if he was inserted there as well to provide a clear villain and scapegoat for the Tatarasuna plotline (originally, it seemed like Mikoshi Nagamasa, who slew Katsuragi with his prized claymore the Daitarara Nagamasa [now known as the craftable weapon Katsuragikiri Nagamasa], was just a little fucked in the head, but they even changed the perspective on that to make it an act of willing sacrifice, making the only clear villain Dottore once again.)

Likewise with Arlecchino and Crucabena, Dottore is mentioned as cooperating with Crucabena to siphon off failed children (which, frankly, seems like evilness overkill). Trofin Snezhevich's Aranara quest is also on Dottore's orders. The Eremites (Farrokhzadan and Desert group, which tried to deal with the Tanit) are also under his orders. It seems like every evil thing the Fatui does is tied up in Dottore's dirty fingers.

Which, okay, Dottore is evil, we've seen that many times now. Would it kill the devs to give us Fatui who act on their own malicious impulses rather than tying their stories back to Dottore? Even Crucabena, whom I believe was set up as a moral scapegoat for Arlecchino, suffers a little from her evilness deriving from cooperation with Dottore. It's getting slightly concerning to the point where most of the morally unscrupulous things done by the Fatui are mostly Dottore's fault, and makes me worried about the future Fatui plotline.

3 - Genshin is putting down more loose threads than it can tie up

Disclaimer: while I share this opinion, this was first brought to my attention by a friend of mine.

I think we all know by now that we're closer to the end of Genshin Impact than the beginning. We've completed our travels in six out of the seven nations, and things have been advancing, we've been learning more about the nature of the world and its people...

And yet. There are still many things left unresolved, to the point where it's becoming genuinely concerning whether Genshin can tie them up in time. To name a few topics:

(takes a deep breath) Our sibling, the Sea of Flowers, the Sinners of Khaenri'ah and the true nature of the Cataclysm, the Fatui's plans, what are the moons really? (gasp for breath to break the text block), who are the remaining Descenders, is the Heavenly Principles the Primordial One, why was Natlan specifically more destroyed by the War of Vengeance than the rest of Teyvat, (inhale), the entire implied existence of the All-Devouring Narwhal and "other worlds", Teyvat's cosmology, what's going on with all the Celestial Nails (we know the individual purposes of most of them, but as a grander plan, why?), Project Stuzha, Mini-Durin and Wanderer, the Hexenzirkel, Varka's expedition, the fucking Pyro Gnosis and whether it will end up with the Tsaritsa, also, THE SUSTAINER OF HEAVENLY PRINCIPLES HASN'T EVEN BEEN HINTED AT SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME...

Now, some of the threads left unknown will be solved. We know this, because they're part of the main story. The trouble is, does Genshin have time to solve everything in a satisfactory way? One thing that stuck out to me about Natlan is that it seemed to want to speedrun major, major aspects of lore (moons, seelies/Yohualtehcutin, dragons/Saurians, Abyss) that had previously been only slowly drip-fed. It seems, to me at least, that the devs are rushing; also compare the relative lore-competence of characters in Natlan (Citlali and Mavuika knowing about Descenders) versus elsewhere (such as Nahida, god of wisdom, who only found out about Descenders by trawling Irminsul and reading Fatui records).

There's also some threads that may never get answered. That's fine, in my opinion; it would be boring if they solved everything. But there's also the threat that truly important plot threads, ones that have massive implications for Teyvat as a whole, may never get solved in this case, and that would be a massive missed opportunity.

Like, Hu Tao got the reveal of her father and grandfather's demise (plus an entire new sect of Liyue lore about Tao Du) 4 years after she released. There are other characters with outstanding mysteries about their existence (Bennett, Neuvillette, Childe to some extent, the true nature of the Raiden twins, if Hu Tao could get lore about her parents why can't Thoma's father, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances, get resolved too?, Focalors as a concept and her connection to Remuria/Erinnyes, etc...) and whether there is time to solve all of them is questionable at this point.

We're approaching 6.0, which may or may not be Snezhnaya, and then whatever the 'end-game' looks like. I don't think Genshin will end that soon, but the fact that the end-game is approaching and we aren't even close to being able to piece together crucial pieces of lore for it is a little concerning. My most personal gripe is the Sustainer, since it's been 4 years since we've last seen her mentioned. Like, we don't need to know who she is or anything, but at least a mention or hint towards the nature of her existence would be nice? Otherwise, whenever she re-emerges, the story is going to have a lot of exposition dumping to do.

(Also the Traveler's character stories haven't been touched since Mondstadt, wtf? but that's another rant. If I make this post any longer my fingers are going to cramp, so I'll leave it here for now. If anyone has anything to add/object I'd love to hear your thoughts!)

[maxdibert]

I wished lily wasn't the reason for Severus' loyalty. The revelation of his love for her (platonically or romantically) was truly important. You have the incident that kickstarted the prophecy. Severus' switch to the order. Voldemort giving Lily a chance to choose. Severus playing an important role in the second wizarding war. All because of a friendship of two people from spinner's end.

JKR should have developed it more. I understand that she went for the twist, but when the thrill of the discovery is gone there are so many questions that are unanswered.

first, I do not like Lily as a friend. She forgives the marauders for the years of bullying, see her 'best friend' being hanged upside down and threatened to have his genitals exposed. Who the fuck does that ? Also when Harry asked if his mother knew that James still bullying Severus in the seventh year, remus answered with "she did not know too much." so she knew something...

I do not like Lily as a sister, why did she not let James know that vernon probably doesn't know anything about the wizarding world before they went on dinner. I mean wth is Petunia supposed to say to Vernon ? "Oh yeah my sister is a witch and she went to this magical school". Not the best way to make a men fall in love with you. Is Petunia even allowed to tell Vernon all of this under the secrecy law? (I'm aware that restaurant scene is not canon, but that's what I thought when I read it on the website).

I don't like the way she uses her other friends opinion of Severus and their friendship, who clearly don't like Severus, as an argument to why Severus should stop hanging out with his Slytherin friends. Why are your friends even discussing Severus?

Also, I don't like the way she idolize Albus Dumbledore. Severus' got bullied for years, and Dumbledore did nothing. Severus was nearly killed by a werewolf and Dumbledore made Severus swear to never talk about it. What did he do, he made James head boy. Yeah if that happened to me and this man was the leader of the order, I might have asked for the death eater sign up too. Ridiculous.

By making his love for her so pure and selfless, it makes me wonder why he loves her so much. We know nothing, and the things we know just make me go "bruh really.... her ? .... she would not spare a thought for you if your funeral was announced in the papers".

Listen I was never part of the cool kids, so perhaps I don't understand her. But then again, for a Gryffindor, she really is a social coward.

It makes everything so bloody tragic. I sometimes wonder if I'd wished Severus stayed a death eater in the story but then one with guilt because he started caring about the professors and children through the years of working there.

It was honestly funny to read all of this because it feels like listening to myself when I was 16 or 17. I mean, even before I was a fan of Severus—because that came with time—I had a pretty neutral opinion of the character. I didn’t dislike him because I understood his motivations, but I wasn’t particularly a fan either. And if I wasn’t a fan, it was precisely because of everything you’re talking about.

A lot of people say Severus was an obsessive incel who spent 24/7 thinking about Lily, but I never saw it that way—I just thought he was an idiot. I thought, Wow, what an absolute moron. Like, did he really sacrifice his entire life for a woman who was actually kind of a piece of shit? Did he really give up everything to protect the son of his bully and the woman who married said bully? Could you be a bigger loser? No, seriously, could you be more pathetic? Because that woman not only let him be bullied for years, she almost smiled at his bully while he was publicly stripping him. She practically blamed him for her lack of popularity because she was seen with him, and somehow, he was supposed to be grateful. She gaslit him when he tried to tell her about what his abusers were doing to him. She literally told him he should be grateful to one of his abusers. Like, this woman was a piece of shit who was just looking to climb the social ladder. She loved being Gryffindor’s golden girl, just like she was the golden girl back home, and she hated that she had a weird, ugly, nerdy friend with questionable associations who tainted her image. On top of that, she loved having Gryffindor’s rich, pureblood king fawning over her because it was yet another symbol of status—but, of course, she had to play hard to get because good girls always resist bad boys.

That’s how I saw Lily Evans (and honestly, how I still see her), and it seemed absurd to me that Severus would have given so much for her when, honestly, I would have told her to fuck off. Like, if I were Severus, I would’ve dropped her the first time she gaslit me about my abusers. But if for some reason I had still stuck around after that, the moment I saw her almost smiling at my main abuser while he was stripping me in public, I would’ve beaten her so hard she’d have lost all her teeth.

That was my mindset when I was younger, before I learned a lot of things. Back then, I didn’t know what toxic friendships were or how easy it was to fall into them. I had no idea what codependency was, nor did I understand what an attachment figure was. At the time, I grasped some of these concepts vaguely, but over the years, I not only understood them more deeply but also experienced them—both personally and through people around me.

As I got older, I realized that the fact that Severus came from a home where he felt terribly unsafe, and that Lily represented his first safe place as a child, played a huge role in his cognitive development and psyche. In some way, he was always going to be grateful to her for probably being the only good thing in his childhood. And those childhood attachments are some of the strongest and hardest to break because they’re so deeply ingrained in a person. On top of that, Lily was his friend for years, during key developmental stages, and he probably didn’t see all of her flaws—he had her idealized. He grew up in a house where violence was the norm, and his classmates at Hogwarts also treated violence as normal. Lily was different, so he simply wasn’t capable of recognizing problematic behaviors that anyone with a healthy upbringing and healthy role models would have seen immediately. Because he didn’t have those things.

We’re not talking about a character who had examples of healthy behavior, affection, or attachments—we’re talking about someone who had the opposite. So, of course, he wasn’t capable of seeing anything bad in Lily. To him, she was the good in his environment. She was his moral compass, a kind of lighthouse to guide him when he wanted to know if he was heading in the right direction. It’s even possible that he never blamed her for marrying James, and instead, just thought it was normal that she gave in—because she was so good that she could see the good in even horrible people like James. Or maybe he believed James had somehow deceived her.

Severus’s attachment to Lily is kind of like a child who idolizes their mother and is completely unable to see her flaws—even when she acts like a complete asshole—because she’s their mother. And if she does something bad, well, it’s probably the fault of the people around her, not her. That’s exactly how Severus saw Lily.

When I understood all of this, I felt like I finally understood the character and his motivations better. I think it’s important to look at it not from our perspective as outsiders forming opinions, but from his perspective as someone inside the situation—someone who was emotionally dependent on her and either didn’t see the truth or didn’t want to see it.

Over the years, I’ve toned down my discourse about Lily, but my opinion of her hasn’t changed all that much from when I was a teenager. The only difference is that now I rationalize it better. But I still think she was a self-centered social climber. The only thing that’s changed is that before, I just thought she was a shallow, frivolous person—now I give her a little more credit and think her behavior was based on an inferiority complex stemming from her working-class background and her Muggle heritage.

But that doesn’t change the core of the issue. And honestly? I think she and James Potter were a perfect match—two absolute assholes who deserved each other. In fact, I’ve never been bothered by Jily because I’ve always thought they belonged together. Equally insufferable.

[whinsical-ash]

Too much liquid courage (Simon "Ghost" Riley x Reader)

Summary: Sometimes great ideas happen when you drink, sadly this is not one of those times.

Gif not mine

I wasn’t one for drinking but every once in a while I get dragged along with my fellow medics. I watch boredly as they all drink their fill and catch about the latest dumb stunt a recruit did that forced them to see a medic. My eyes kept drifting back to the old piano that was tucked into a corner of the room. A few people have messed with the piano keys in the few hours I’ve been here but no ones really played a song.

It hasn’t been too long since I last played and I’ve drank enough not to care about the audience, not a lot of people here anyway. Some familiar faces, others not so familiar.

���I’ll be back,” I mumbled as I moved out of the chair with drink in hand. I slip between tables as I make my way to the piano, not paying the people around me much attention. I sat down with my drink, already half drank and half forgotten. I ran my fingers against the old keys, paint was almost completely chipped off for more than a few of the keys.

I hummed in surprise as I realized the piano was actually tuned, a smile graced my lips. It seems like this idea was meant to be.

I close my eyes as I think of what to play before a familiar face pops into my head, a huff of laughter escapes my lips as the masked face makes me think of a familiar song. I hadn’t seen him or anyone that might be close to the man so chances were no one would report back to the man, so I was in the clear to have a little fun.

It would be better with a few other instruments but it still be fun to play.

My fingers dance across the keys as a large grin forms on my face.

“I'm getting hickeys from my bed bugs

I'm getting busy with a bad perfume

I'm sticking kisses to a pen drug

I'm making friction with a sad vacuum”

I wasn’t too loud as I sang along with the piano but I heard some of the conversations trickle to a stop as people's attention shifted towards me.

“… I'm getting jiggy with a rifle

I'll pull the trigger with my eyes closed

Hoping to hit you somewhere vital

And when I miss, you come and kiss me with a smile

… I'm having sex with a ghost, 'cause he knows I'm alone

He's a freak in the sheets, play it cool”

I wasn’t one to usually change the pronouns in a song but this time I figure it would be too fun not to. I’m sure my coworkers' minds were already thinking of the Lieutenant even if I use She/her pronouns.

“I'm sleeping with a

Sex with a ghost, 'cause he knows I'm alone

He's a freak in the sheets, play it cool

I'm sleeping with a ghoul”

I sway my body as I start to sing a little louder as I get lost in playing and imagining what Lieutenant Simon Riley aka Ghost, would look like if someone tried to serenade him with this specific song.

There were other songs that I thought fit the man better but this was a fun one that made me think of the man I was crushing on. It wasn’t surprising when you pull back a few layers of the man, anyone would fall for him if they gave the man a chance to snatch their heart away. His laugh was something music should be jealous of. His humor was dark but that just made the puns better in my opinion.

I kept my eyes closed as I imagined Ghost leaning against the piano, not a sound from the man. Just his eyes running up and down as he watches me play. Maybe he’ll grow tired of standing and sit next to me, his body touching mine. Would he watch my hands play the keys or would his eyes be focused on my mouth? Would he ask for another song once I finished? In this fantasy that was slowly taking shape in my mind, he would lead me out the bare and show me what it would be like to have Sex with Simon instead of Sex with a Ghost.

“… I'm having sex with a ghost, 'cause he knows I'm alone

He's a freak in the sheets, play it cool

I'm sleeping with a

Sex with a ghost, 'cause she knows I'm alone

He's a freak in the sheets, play it cool

I'm sleeping with a ghoul”

I play the last few notes before opening my eyes to look at the keys, wondering what to play next or if I was done with the night. I play a few random notes. I know that sounds pleasant but it was just something to keep my hands busy as I ponder what to do next. I glance up only to freeze as my eyes settle on a table on the opposite side of the room. 

“Fuck,” I sighed out as I recognized the group. Two of them were clearly messing with the mask man whose eyes were locked on you. 

I quickly looked down and pretended I hadn’t seen him and started to play a song to avoid any chance of one of the four men coming over and starting a conversation. 

When in doubt Piano man is the way to go for a distraction.

It's nine o'clock on a Saturday

The regular crowd shuffles in

There's an old man sittin' next to me

Makin' love to his tonic and gin

He says, "Son, can you play me a memory?

I'm not really sure how it goes

But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete

When I wore a younger man's clothes

 I belted out the lyrics to the familiar song trying to act drunker than I was to explain away the first song as something silly that didn’t mean anything at all. I skillfully play the keys as I figure out my escape plan.

 As soon as I finished the song I stood up and took a stumble steep into a deep bow as some people clapped before making sure to stumble in a way that suggested drunkenness to me but subtle enough to be real. I make my way to the bar to pay my tab.

“It’s already been taken care of, the mask fellow over there.” The bartender gestures behind me but I don’t turn to look.

I give him a too large smile before hurrying into the night and hope there is no trouble waiting for me in the morning. 

“If all else fails, I can fake my death.” Is the last thing to fall from my lips as I collapse into my bed dreading what is to come from my drunk courage.

[factual-fantasy]

If you did commissions, would you also want people to not use those as backgrounds and profiles, or would you feel differently since someone might ask you to draw their oc? Asking for reference if you did do them!

Ngl this question has been on my mind a lot these pat few days.

With how things are going in my life, I have been considering opening up commissions more and more. But also I just dread trying to get into the nitty gritty of it all.. 😔 So I thought "okay, What is the simplest way I can possibly do this?"

The idea I had was, someone would pay me 5 bucks up front and say "draw sonic eating a burger" within an hour I whip up the sonic doodle and post it to my blog. Done. Transaction over. Onto the next commission.

But then I thought about people using those commissions as pfps and backgrounds. Which to be totally honest I wouldn't like people using my art as that. But if they paid for me to draw it, am I even allowed to tell them not to use it like that?

I asked some people in my personal life about it and got a lot of "I don't know" "Your art isn't worth 5 bucks! Charge them 20!" "You should have them pay half upfront and then pay the other half after" "I think they should be allowed to do whatever they want with the drawing because they paid you to draw it. Especially if its their OC"

In my attempt to find a simpler solution I just ended up with different questions. You can always count on me to make things unnecessarily complicated 💀

So all in all my answer is no. I wouldn't be comfortable with people using my art as pfps or backgrounds no matter what. But I have no idea how that would effect my commissions or if I cant/shouldn't do them because of this boundary. 😔

[necrotic-nephilim]

for the recent ask game, i’m really curious about your take on 7 + 8 :P

for the choose violence ask game!

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how the fandom acts about them?

i'll be so honest: Jason Todd. i know there's a lot of argument of "who has the worst fans" and i think that question is flawed and impossible to answer, but i will say Jason fans irked me so deeply. because i read mostly 90s era Batfam, i admittedly didn't have a lot of exposure to Jason for a while, expect for his New-52 runs i'd read years ago. and since i never liked him based on those runs, i could not understand *what* his fans liked about him, or where they got some of their headcanons/ideas from. i've never been more baffled. it ranges from "oh i don't agree but you do you, i guess?" to "what character are you talking about i am BAFFLED". and it soured me on Jason for so long that i actually hate read *most* of his pre-Flashpoint appearances just to understand what on earth people liked about him. and now i can say, i love him dearly, but i can also say, i still don't know what character his fans are talking about sometimes. and i hate the fanon version of Jason who feels almost, Deadpool-ified? with this self-aware slapstick humor but a sad soft interior but also sassy and will kill a man it's just. it feels very hollow to me and it has made me almost tempted to block his character tag more than once over the years bc sometimes certain takes make it difficult to even like him. i just have to tune it out or yell about it for hours.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

i'm going to get particularly saucy with this one: that Dick Grayson has Eldest Daughter Syndrome. or more generally, that he was parentified. not a single ounce of Dick's backstory indicates him as being parentified. to be parentified you have to be a child taking care of other children either emotionally or physically because your parents are not fulfilling that role. and Dick was *never* a child at the time that another child was under Bruce's care. he has been an adult for the entirety he has known every other Batkid. and even then, the *only* one he was something you could akin to being a parent figure to was Damian, and Dick *chose* that. Dick was a grown-ass man in his late 20s who had the facilities and capacity to make the decision to be Damian's primary caretaker. he's never been parental toward any of the other Batkids, nor has Bruce ever forced upon him the role of having to raise them. did Bruce do a sort of questionable job with Dick? yeah. but i would argue Bruce did the best job with Dick of all the Batkids, and even if he was shitty with Dick, he couldn't parentify Dick bc there was no one for Dick to be parenting. and Dick wasn't parenting Bruce either. they just had a normal relationship of loving and caring for each other.

as for Eldest Daughter Syndrome i just.. i Do Not Like calling any male character "female coded" or "female rage coded" or "eldest daughter coded" because they're *not*. especially not in *this* medium. these are male characters, created by men, written by men 90% of the time, and written to be *male power fantasies*. nothing about Dick or Jason or any Batboy is female-coded bc they exist to be badass men. just because they show emotion and have complex relationships with Bruce doesn't make them suddenly women. Dick shows his anger in a very destructive, stereotypically "masculine" way. even if we strip it of gender, Dick doesn't exhibit most traits of Eldest Daughter Syndrome. he easily makes relationships with people his age, he has no issues telling Bruce no, he did not have caretaking responsibilities forced onto him by Bruce, he's not even really hyperindependent. Dick has a support system outside of the Bats, the fandom just ignores it. does Dick force caretaking responsibilities onto himself sometimes? can he be an overachiever? absolutely. but these are internal complexes that just come with making a character a superhero, it's a complex they all have. if i have to hear one more fan call him Eldest Daughter Syndrome-core or say he's a victim of parentification, i think I'll explode a little bit.

[krems-chair]

Oh cool you're a gamer? Normally I'd claim such a chill and nebulous label for myself, but thanks to a helpful anon I now know instead that the proper term is "piece of shit"

[anastacialy]

y'know, i keep making a habit of swinging my bat at hornets nests, but i have to say i'm getting so, so tired of people complaining about shows not making perfect sense when they aren't even close to done. we're four episodes into this season of doctor who. we're four episodes into this season of bridgerton. and yet in both fandoms i keep seeing people whine that such and such didn't make sense or it wasn't explained all the way and by god you guys i think maybe explanations might come later in the season. this is something most viewers will recognize as being called a 'plot.'

[mad-hunts]

✧

send me a ✧ and i’ll bold all that apply to your muse! (with italics as a 'sometimes' option because i'm a rule-breaker and things may depend on the situation).

i would kill you. ✧ i would physically hurt you. ✧ i would attack you unprovoked. ✧ i would manipulate you. ✧ i dislike you. ✧ you annoy me. ✧ you scare me. ✧ you intimidate me. ✧ i hope i intimidate you. ✧ i pity you. ✧ you disgust me. ✧ i hate you. ✧ i’m indifferent toward you. ✧ i’d like to get to know you better. ✧   i’d like to spend more time with you. ✧ i’d like to be friends with you. ✧  i’m unsure what to think of you. ✧ i’m unsure how I feel about you. ✧ you are my friend. ✧ you are my best friend. ✧ you are my mentor. ✧ i look up to you. ✧ i respect you. ✧ you are my hero. ✧ you inspire me. ✧ you are my enemy. ✧ you make me happy. ✧ i want to protect you. ✧ i would fight by your side. ✧ i consider you an equal. ✧ i think you are beneath me. ✧ i think you are above me. ✧ i would lie for you. ✧ i would lie to you. ✧ i would sleep with you. ✧ i would sleep by your side. ✧ i would hug you. ✧ i would kiss you. ✧ you are family to me. ✧ i would die for you. ✧ i would kill for you. ✧ i would trust you with my life. ✧ i would trust you with my most precious belonging. ✧ i would trust you with a secret. ✧ i would trust you with my biggest / darkest secret. ✧ i love you (platonically). ✧ i love you (romantically).

[cathodic-clairvoyant]

You are actually the only person I have seen say anything that makes sense regarding HDWR recently, thank you for your good takes. I love this manga, but it really feels like I’m not reading the same story as most people sometimes

I for the record think that there is a lot (in fact i'd say majority) of interesting discussion about hdwr, even now, (just the other day in the main tag i saw a post that i liked talking about tamaki as a character & her and miwa's relationship and despite the subreddit having a lot of silly posts lately i think a couple months ago around ch. 113's release there were a lot of good comments about MiwaSae and both of their development throughout the story and I think even now there's good discussion about ch. 119 and miwa and tamaki burried in the silly stuff) and in some sense like i feel like the current wave with ch. 119 was always going to happen, it's a very emotionally charged topic that we're seeing how much it hurt a character people tend to like so like i understand being upset by it and having strong opinions about it.

That all being said, the kind of discussion that tends to surround the story of "sae was unfair/toxic to miwa" "tamaki has always been manipulative" "yuria is unfair to sae" are baffling to me because I feel like to get anything out of this story- to not instantly just be frustrated with it- you have to interact with it a little bit on its terms and I think part of that is acknowledging that these characters are more complex than the simple one word "abusive/toxic/manipulative/innocent" labelling and have complex emotions and imperfect reasoning that cause them to make mistakes, be cruel to each other, and do the wrong things. This doesn't excuse the characters' actions but that's not what the story is interested in doing anyway.

And like, I don't think the story is for everyone, I don't think everyone has to want to interact with the story on those terms; which is why while i personally don't agree with the kind of people who say "i had to stop reading when miwa and sae broke up bc it was too sad/too frustrating" and the like, I can at least understand it as just the story has goals that reader doesn't want to engage with, which is completely understandable. Where it confuses me is getting so far through the story and still not choosing to interact with the story on its terms. What are you getting out of this story then??? Does viewing sae as toxic enhance the story for you? Is it a useful way in looking at the narrative?

Especially since I feel like tamifull has attempted to make these characters realistic almost to invite us the reader to examine both ourselves and our relationships as we read. Is How Do We Relationship a useful tool to to analyze yourself or your own relationships with if you flatten the characters into good and bad? Is that a lens you'd want to view your own relationships with? I don't think so. I feel like the only things it could lead to is "i wouldn't make that mistake because I'm not toxic." "i wouldn't find myself in this situation because me and my partner aren't like them." So like. What benefit does viewing these characters in this way give you? You clearly seem to agree with/like the goals of the story if you're still here 100+ chapters later so like. What are you getting out of this?

I dunno. Like i said, I do think there's still a lot of good discussion about hdwr. That's why I still lurk the subreddit and read posts in the main tag. It's just this specific genre of discussion i can't understand especially when it happens with like more recent chapters

[amandabe11man]

don't tell anyone but I skipped work today because I knew we might've been forced to raise NATO-flags along the city wall and I'm not gonna fucking participate in that shit 🤭

[moonlit-orchid]

good evening to everyone except a certain few fucking anons

[emometalhead]

.

[sschmendrick]

I kinda miss hanging out with old people. All my friends used to be old people.

But the older I grow, and the more I'm expected to behave well like a normal adult, the harder I find it to keep those links. I'm lost between trying to stick to a script I don't know the words of to have a proper normal and interesting relationship for them, and allowing myself to screw up a little, be boring, be interested in stuff they aren't, having opinions they don't agree with (for silly stuff like music, though yk me), not be cool. Cause the latter stresses me out. Cause I see no reason for people to want to be friends with me if not that.