#INSTEAD OF MAKING ASSUMPTIONS??? way

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

I am incredibly serious right now when I beg you all, please, and if you have Twitter or Tiktok or whatever to please spread the word: click on an author's profile on Ao3.

You want to know if an author has written more? Want to know if they're still writing? Want to see more from them? Want to know if they've written a trope or kink or sex scenario you enjoy?

Click on their name. And look at their profile.

I cannot tell you how many times in the last six months someone has read a new or newer fic of mine and said they (a new reader who has read nothing else I've done) "can't wait to see what you do next!" I've written 50+ fics and over a million words already.

"I don't know if you're still writing..." click on my profile. I am. I literally wrote a 128k+ fic for that ship last month.

"Would you ever do X?" "Please do Y!" I already did. Click on my name and look at my works.

Archive of our Own is a library. It's an archive. Not social media. It is your responsibility to fight back against the laziness that corporate algorithms have trained into you.

Click my author name. Just click it. Just click it.

Before you demand more, or ask if a writer will do XYZ, or wonder if the author still writing, or anything - click on their profile. Click on the author's profile.

I'm not trying to be mean or condescending or anything like that. I'm just exhausted. It's disheartening and frustrating to repeat myself ad nauseam, because someone couldn't take thirty seconds to do the tiniest bit of work to see if I've written lately, if I've written more for their ship, or scan my works to see if I've written what they're asking for. Please. Please. I'm begging.

Click the author's name, and explore before you ask.

[inkskinned]

he says i hate everyone except you and that is addictive and that is kind of romantic and beautiful because you're young and you're kind of a sarcastic asshole too and you don't like bad boys, per say, but you don't really like good ones either. and you like that you were the exception, it felt like winning.

except life is not a romance book, and he was kind of being honest. he doesn't learn to be nice to your friends. he only tolerates your family. you have to beg him to come with you to birthday parties, he complains the whole time. you want to go on a date but - people are often there, wherever you're going. he's just so angry. about everything, is the thing. in the romance book, doesn't he eventually soften? can't you teach him, through your own sense of whimsy and comfort?

at first - you know introverts often need smaller friend groups, and honestly, you're fine staying at home too. you like the small, tidy life you occupy. you're not going to punish him for his personality type.

except: he really does hate everyone but you. which means he doesn't get along with his therapist. which means he has no one to talk to except for you. which means you take care of him constantly, since he otherwise has no one. which means you sometimes have to apologize for him. which means he keeps you home from seeing your friends because he hates them. you're the single exception.

about a decade from this experience, you'll type into google: how to know if a relationship is codependent.

he wraps an arm around you. i hate everyone except you. these days, you're learning what he's actually confessing is i have very little practice being kind.

[beetlethebug]

okay so did anyone else go into fields of mistria thinking that march was a he/him butch lesbian and valen was a gay man or is my reading comprehension just on the floor??

[the-mononoke-facade]

Alright, so there's been some talk about whether Shusu is actually a different medicine vendor from Ri Kusu (show Kusu), and at first that was my assumption (or my preference since I found the characterization in the book went all in on the detached, stoic side of things than any of the other things that make Kusu an interesting character). But the more I think about it, the more I'm like "is he though?"

And my wondering about it comes from two places, first being that the theme of disentangling harmful attachments is what the book is named after, and the other is the descriptions of the taima sword both sheathed and released, as well as the descriptions of Hyper/Shingi thoughout the book

(spoilers for Shu, since I've seen more people asking about it lately, as well as including suppositions based on recent lore drops and some minor spoilers for Karakasa based on trailers and the like)

Starting with the descriptions of the sword and Hyper, despite the sword being depicted on the cover being a now seemingly defunct design from older promotional material for Karakasa, the sword is described in the first story, Kama Itachi, as having the kinds of colored stones that are characteristic of the Ri taima sword when sheathed.

When released, it's described in multiple stories with some variation of being "an enormous, glimmering blade," which is also what we've seen throughout the show for the Ri sword. The Shingi of Shu is described with gold, serpentine patterns snaking all along his exposed skin (also tanned but given Shingi also has darker skin, that specific detail might just go with being a spirit of the sword), Kama Itachi mentions gold brocade (it's unclear from what I was ever able to translate of it if it was referring to the robe or the markings, so take that with a grain of salt), Toutetsu mentions the kumadori markings on Kusu's face becoming more elaborate from how they started (compared, again, to Kon Shingi and Kusu where their respective face markings don't seem to have a whole lot in common except maybe the eyebrow area), and then Tamamo no Mae outlines the crimson eyes and silver hair. All of that sounds an awful lot like Hyper and the Ri taima sword (and you know, I kinda figured Fuguruma Youbi would have a better description to pull on as well given how like half a page was Tamenaga just contemplating Kusu's beauty and like, me too man, me too, but ah well)

Could it be a matter of these characteristics being in line with how swords associated with any of the hexagrams with fire as a component seem to show up? It's definitely not impossible, and I certainly don't know enough about how I Ching works to make any certain statements on that, but if I were to speculate on a little bit I noticed poking around a hexagram lookup table, with the hexagrams that are composed of two different elements, it seems to be less about one element being dominant over the other so much as two elements meeting in a certain arrangement to create a new result (and even with two hexagrams composed of the same elements, which of the two elements is on top of the hexagram can drastically change the meaning). So then if each permutation creates a unique end result, wouldn't it also follow that the respective swords would all be pretty unique from each other? How would you even determine that "yes, this is the trigram element this sword is associated with"? By the top of the hexagram? The bottom? The yin/yang alignment of the sword? To my mind, it makes more sense for all the swords (and therefore the spirits attached to them) to be unique to their own hexagram (again, not an expert by any means, I'm open to other takes on how that could work, this is just my working idea of how it works)

So if the swords ARE all meant to be unique, then it's a safe assumption that the sword in Shu is the Ri sword. Does that necessarily mean it's the same medicine vendor wielding the sword? Not necessarily, we don't have any information on what happens to a sword should a medicine vendor fall trying to slay a mononoke; does it disappear? Does the sword spirit die alongside that medicine vendor (especially if it happens after the sword's been released)? And what happens to a medicine vendor if a particular sword doesn't need to be in play at that particular moment, given that it seems from the lore drop that the number of swords in play can go up or down? Does he disappear? Does he get stripped of the qualities that made him a medicine vendor and continue living on as a human? Some kind of unaffiliated ayakashi waiting in reserve for when the sword needs to come back into play? Enter the collective unconscious? Is it possible for this sword to show up the same as it is for a different wielder? All of that is the realm of theories and headcanons for now, but it's not impossible that it's a different hand wielding the same sword (and if it's a different entity, is it a reincarnation of the same soul or is a new one selected?)

With my second sticking point being the theming of letting go of harmful attachments that is the book's namesake, which is a common theme that also runs throughout the arcs of the show (Tamaki and the cat being stuck to haunt the Sakai manor without having gotten any justice for the atrocities commited by the family, the zashiki warashi letting go of being ripped away from the women they chose to be their mothers in this life as well as Shino's letting go of the exercise in futility that would have been using her body and sacrificing the baby she already has to try to right that wrong, Genkei's fixation on his guilt over Oyou's sacrifice, Ochou's futile attempts to meet her mother's selfish expectations, the todaiji feeding the greed and obsession of the suitors and its own obsession with being desired, Ishikawa's drive and tenacity to find the truth persisting even after her death)

From that angle, the various stories in Shu are pretty much in line with that theme as well: Tokuemon's deep-seated grudge against his abusive father, especially when that abuse was suffered in service to an ancient obsession of his family for riches and honors; Hori Mondo's obsession with his late master and the honor that should be able to be assumed with the ruling samurai class which is disproven by his master's successor, who himself is obsessed with proving himself capable of filling his father's massive shoes, Ishiuemon's obsession with increasing his own power at the expense of Zen, who becomes obsessed with becoming Ishiuemon's wife even as she was nothing more to him than a pawn; Kei's attachment to the notion that she's owed something going right for her after a life that's been filled with hardships, Hagino's obsession with her husband's all-but-confirmed infidelity even at the cost of her daughter, Takaharu's not being able to keep it in his pants for the sake of the family he already has, Koharu's obsession with gaining her mother's affection; Shunsui's obsession with being a popular author and narrator and tainting Ofumi with that obsession when he betrays her trust to help get her love letters over to a more accomplished author that Shunsui both reveres and is jealous of; Jinjirou's obsession with getting his family's sacrifice properly honored when everyone around him seems keen to shrug it off; Tadayoshi's obsession with getting his daughter Kaede safe behind the walls of the Ooku and Kaede's drive to meet his expectations even as they bear down on her

I had mused a while ago that the feminist theming, in contrast, seems to be missing, putting more focus on the woes of the men in the story often at the expense of the women around them, but in hindsight I almost wonder if that's actually the point (and I think I'll find a more solid answer to this in Oni, from what I've gleaned so far, so this might be another "put a pin in it" thought as well...but that pin's going to be in for a very long time at the pace I'm going through this book lol). Another common thread with Shu is the letting go of how things used to be with a lot of the expectations chaining these characters coming from the Sengoku era, which just don't work going into the "peaceful" Edo era. While women's rights prior to Edo weren't exactly robust, they were stripped down over the course of the Edo era.

It could be taken, then, that this comparatively larger focus on men at the expense of the women around them is another reflection of moving into and accepting Edo-era paradigms, and also giving a peek into the unintended (or maybe "unintended") consequences of putting safety and control over freedom. From that angle, a medicine vendor meant to embody not just a woman's desire but also what a woman wants to be would also then become gradually less considered over time (and while he never had the kind of involvement in Shu that he does in the show, there is a general trend over the course of the stories of his engagement falling off a little more with each story). Ending the book with Nuppera-hofu, with Kaede losing her face as her father lost sight of why he was fighting so hard to get her into the Ooku ("she'll be safe there and won't disappear like my wife and eldest daughter did"), where it's not even clear which sister is the one being sent to the Ooku by the end of the story but what does that matter when the goal of getting to the Ooku was achieved, then leads in very nicely to Karakasa, where so many women have lost their individuality in service to "the greater good" until it hits a tipping point, the karakasa becomes active and starts upending everything that the Ooku was built on, and possibly even projecting that outward to reflect what's happening in the rest of the country as well

So then to bring it back to whether Shu Kusu is Ri Kusu or not, if being more passive, or more "feminine" starts to fall in line with the increase of systemic oppression women face in this new era, then in order to reclaim some of his own power and agency, Kusu would need to start to be more active, not a spectator but an actor, and then that leads into Ayakashi Bakeneko, where he's at his most emotive, his most active, and pushing the hardest to be in control of the situation, before gradually over the course of the show relinquishing more control to start to shift back into more of a passive spectator role as women start to chafe under the abuses they're suffering in this restrictive period and fighting to get some of their power back, having the second Bakeneko arc happening somewhere in the 1920s (still obviously a lot of problems, both the old deep-rooted ones and the new ones coming from the reactionaries that don't care much for these seeds of more equality between men and women starting to grow, Moriya being the poster boy for that group and their trying to act like they're the victims in all this while they start running out of justifications for "putting women in their place"), but with more power being reclaimed, he then wouldn't need to be quite as active or "masculine" to be able to have the power or influence needed to get the truths from the humans he needs to perform his duty, so then the differences in characterization could be reflective of what is needed for the era in question. It could also be a matter of the Ri sword and the need to cut away attachments becoming less and less necessary over this general period of human emotion, to where the sword is taken out of play by the end of Shu and the wielder of Ri we see in the show is either a new medicine vendor, or the same one but with a mandatory vacation thrown in there to discombobulate him on how human emotion sphere looks by the time he gets back

Anyway, that's a lot of rambling to say there's a case for it being at least the same sword if not also the same medicine vendor as the show, and it's a matter of the framing and themes of Shu not doing any favors to him for highlighting the things that make him a cool character

[oceanwithouthermoon]

i think its weird that i have to make this disclaimer but the internet is crazy so wtvr,, anyway,,

if i say i dont like something, that doesnt mean "that thing is bad and nobody should post it.."

i swear literally every time i even mention that i dislike something, people will go "wow does that mean u fucking hate me cuz i post that thing? ur a fucking stupid bitch and all ur opinions r wrong" LIKE ?? er.. no. just because i say i dont like certain characterizations of certain characters (the saiki k fandom is CRAZY about this cuz i can state an opinion on literally any character and a group of people will still go 'well only we're allowed to post our opinions about them because we're always right!1!1!'), or certain ship tropes (mentioned my hatred of toxic yaoi maybe once or twice on here months ago and people STILL get mad at me as if i said toxic yaoi lovers r evil or something), or certain ships, or WHATEVER, does not mean that i HATE the people who are posting them or that i think they shouldnt post them at all, NO, im just posting about my personal tastes on my personal blog and it would be extremely weird and hypocritical if i decided that i was the ONLY person that was allowed to do that,,

i think the only reason people assume that is because there are a lot of other people on here who ARE like that, and a lot of people toe the line between posting that they dont like something and posting that they think everyone who likes that thing is stupid, annoying, and wrong,, so i guess all i can say is, sorry for whatever made you make these assumptions but they arent true about me so plz leave me alone ʘ‿ʘ ur doing the same thing to me that ur accusing me of but i didnt do it in the first place so ur just actively being a dick for no reason

[pumpkinrootbeer]

The point was not that snow was always evil!!! The point is not that horribleness is simply ingrained into some of us from the jump or that certain people are born evil. It's also not joker style we're all one bad day from being a dictator coryo just had a rough summer vacation, of course, but the messaging here isn't one of inherently villainy. the lines where coriolanus worries over tigris having a vulnerability that invites abuse, or sejanus stealing his rightful spot while still being backwards enough to call his mother ma, or it being undignified to eat with Lucy grey are not there to show us that bigots are just born bigots whatcha gonna do! but to highlight the very harmful thinking that is so ingrained into him and all of his classmates because that's the culture they're raised under. Think how hate is born and fostered.

in the same breath that Suzanne shows us how he bends over backwards to justify his own abhorrent actions, she shows us he had every opportunity not to. He is one of the few people in the captiol who understands what living in poverty is like, Tigris is an incredibly kind and sympathetic person who actively corrects his harmful thinking, he's the only student who is close with Sejanus— a boy from the districts who is nothing but kind to him. From the jump, he had every opportunity to deconstruct his thinking. Then he meets and falls in love with a girl from the districts, he is actively put in danger and harmed by the capitol, he watches as the systems of oppression push someone he cares about- at least to some degree- to attempt suicide, he sees first hand what life is like in the districts.

And still, even with every possible chance, he makes the concious effort to keep his worldview intact. He actively rejects growth, not because he's just inately a horrible person but because changing would acknowledge that what he wants, what he feels he's been owed his entire life, is a cruel thing to desire. being a bad person, doing bad things, takes work. It takes effort to hurt people, and it's effort he willingly puts in because it can solely benefit him. Being a kind person takes work too but he can never bring himself to put in the same effort because it doesn't bring the same self serving benefits that being cruel and manipulative does.

The point is that snow had choices and every time he chose what put him closer to power. The point is we all have choices and yes it takes work to be kind and good consistently but it also takes work to hurt people. Snow just as easily could have been a kind person instead of a cruel one but it wouldn't have given him the control and power he craved.

[mrsducky]

.

so I guess I'm unemployed now because my coworker and bosses husband, also my dads best friend who we've known for decades, the same man who's youngest daughter is almost the same age as me, decided to be a despicable gross loser and leave me a love letter on Thanksgiving in which he called me his "soulmate" because we shared music together and I drove in his stupid car twice

[akkivee]

i’m so bothered by the fact that i still don’t understand bad ass temple’s role in the story like am i stupid or is their role just literary parallels 😭 ??? i feel like it’s the first one

lmao no it’s the second one 😭😭😭 bat’s gotten this far based on vibes and maybes (and some relationship drama here and there lol) but kr hasn’t told us what’s their relevance in the plot yet

hopefully this’ll be the track that shows why they’re here tho 🤞😬🤞

[averlym]

"careful, or i'll quote that"

[antisocialxconstruct]

urrrghfhf excuse the vent for a moment but there's really something so uniquely frustrating about being clocked and misgendered by someone who has only ever known you with your chosen pronouns, like... I don't know. It tells me that in their head they're still thinking of me with the """normal""" pronouns they think fit with how I look or sound or dress, and the pronouns I actually want them to use are still being viewed as like. an exception they're being asked to make for me. I guess it shouldn't be so surprising but it's still an unpleasant reminder that outside a narrow demographic most people just simply haven't and probably won't ever seriously unpack their internalized assumptions about gender. Even in fucking Seattle of all places :///

[cringefaecompilation]

Hi same anon from the ask about Taliesin’s characters… yes I didn’t intend to shift focus from the subject of being shitty about Robbie’s presence as a Native man in the cast at large. I just… cannot understand how anyone could see the improvised unfolding of these stories and conclude that Taliesin could possibly have been slighted in either circumstance.

Boiling Dorian’s character down to how he can support someone else (read: particularly a white male cast member and a character who is for all intents and purposes perceived in campaign as a white man) is ridiculous all on its own and it should be called out when people in the minority are turned reductive by fandom discourse.

yeah, yeah, exactly! that's what annoys me about how people treat him!

and it sucks when you have people who go out of their way to act like it's somehow robbie's fault for dorian fans being racist and insist his character is Actually Just Boring or doesn't apply to the themes told by the story so it's okay to ignore him!

i want to know everything about the silken squall! tell me what his life is like and what he wants to be, don't just make him Will of the Air Ashari... 2! or shove him off to the sidelines because you dislike a ship he's in.

[dyingbuck]

My head is filled with thoughts of Eliza RDR II, and what could have been.

If you don't know, originally, allegedly, Eliza – Arthur's dead baby's mother in canon – was supposed to be alive and part of the gang during the game (a model for her, a few dialogues, and mission marker were found in the files), and Roger Clark (Arthur’s actor) confirmed that Isaac was supposed to die during the first chapter when the gang arrive in Colter.

So, I can't stop thinking about what she could have been – who was she ? Would she have still been a waitress the gang had picked up earlier and ended up sleeping with Arthur ? Or would she have joined the gang after getting pregnant ? What would have been the context of her and Arthur sleeping together ? Would she have been a rebound for Mary, just a one night stand, something more ? Were they still planning to make her nineteen ? It would have made the fact that Arthur, thirty-six, had slept with her iffy.

ELZ1's mission marker show she would have been a bit farther away from Colter, Abigail seems to the be one starting the mission by asking Arthur to go look for Eliza. She likely ran off after her baby's death – maybe to kill herself from exposure the same way Isaac died. I don't know if Arthur’s voiceline of "Well, there's easier way." is related to the first bit of dialogue but if it is, it sound almost dismissive and callous like I take it as him saying there's easier way to kill yourself. But maybe I'm just misunderstanding the tone. Or I'm assuming too much.

But the tone make me think Arthur could have been similarly dismissive of her as John is with Abigail. I mean, he wasn't a stellar dad by canon already.

Arthur's voiceline "You look at me like the devil himself" could either imply she resented Arthur – maybe blaming him for having slept with her or maybe she joined the gang specifically after getting pregnant so she blame him and the gang for her baby's death – or it's just Arthur antagonizing people as usual.

The fact she appears in 1907 (ELZ5 and the voicelines) means she would have survived the gang (good for her!). John not recognizing her make me think either she changed physically, or she was maybe newer to the gang before the downfall so John doesn't have that clear memory of her.

I know she was very likely not that developed, cut quite early if we take Roger Clark's words into account, but it doesn't stop the few bit and pieces we can find being so interesting. Cut content always fascinate me, even if we can never be sure if we're just making too many assumptions or if we're right.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Hrmm... put together a roommates quiz finally after years of thinking it would be an interesting idea lol.. Though obviously not meant to be taken super seriously, I just like thinking about this aspect of personality compatibility. Like yeah, maybe you could get along with someone just chatting with them, but living together is such a different thing. .. curiouse...

[irl]

yea

[designernishiki]

as much as a i understand and respect ace kiryu truthers, i really feel like kiryu is the type to really take the idea to heart that sex is something vulnerable and meaningful and thus reserved for someone completely trusted and special to him– someone who feels right. after years and years he’s still never legitimately voluntarily slept with someone, always tries to turn women away or is at least apathetic when they try to get physical with him, never feels that deep and specific bond with a woman– nothing compared to some of his bonds with other men throughout his life. and maybe, hopefully, one day it’ll hit him that there’s a pretty big, glaring reason why no women have ever felt “right” to him.

[toestalucia]

i know ive talked about this a lot on akira but idk how much ive brought it up here ?! the struggles of talking about all my muses across all my blogs (will not change). but ive been thinking about it again, because akira 1) talks more than gran does 2) is more likely to actually speak up about their/your feelings. not to say gran wont address it, but theyll either be very short about it or show it through actions. motivational speeches is reserved for moments when its expected of them (captain stuff in main story, shieldsworn, etc) <-guy who actually does not like being the center of attention

there are times when they get better at it, depending on situation & ppl involved (vyrn&lyria has special rights, even tho there are times when they dont get to know either (no rain no rainbow....)), as the grandcypher & things theyve been through has them learning to rely on others a lot more. in general theyre rly thankful to have lyria around at most times cuz of how easily she feels for others (as someone who gained the life back in her eyes thanks to katalina!), cuz while theyre very often of the same feelings as her, shes a lot quicker at voicing it.

not very related but, gran, as someone who does know how to fight, is instead a lot quicker at stepping in front of others. ofc akira isnt, theyre Normal (even tho theyre always shown doing exactly that anyway if the situation calls for it/the time they ignore a death threat towards them in order to relay important information), but im mentioning it cuz i think a loooooooot about the times theyve jumped off islands/cliffs just to save ppl (alliah, at least 2 times in grimnirs fate eps alone, bnha..........). also constantly think about the yurius event when yurius goes to sacrifice himself and captain & albert are just wtfffff get OUT of there COME BACK HERE and refusing to leave him. caims 5* uncap........ i truly do think a lot about that moment in paradoxroid where no one goes after owen and akira decides to do it themself likeeee.......and akira who stood in front of owens body to protect him from a unicorn,,,,,,(gesture vaugely) something about the things the varied experience about the things they have in common