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savoytrufflephd · 11 months ago

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The questions of Laurent’s being and behavior…

I have been informed, via @thickenmyblood’s asks (since mine were apparently not set to accept anonymous asks – which I have now changed) that my opinion about HIUH Laurent’s character is incorrect. I have been informed that he’s abusive.

My PhD isn’t in English (though it is in the humanities), but my wife was an English major and she has often told me that interpretations aren’t right or wrong, but they are stronger or weaker in the sense that they are supported by the text.

So, let’s go…

First things first. Let me be clear about the following:

The question of whether or not Laurent is abusive in this piece of fanfiction has no bearing whatsoever on whether any person you know in real life is abusive.

Similarly, any arguments that Laurent can change or that Laurent deserves a second chance have no bearing whatsoever on whether any person you know in real life can change or deserves a second chance.

Neither HIUH nor any fic should be taken as a life advice manual. Just because there are therapists in this fic does not mean that @thickenmyblood is a mental health professional or your therapist.

I am also not a therapist, nor am I trying to give you life advice when I speak of my enjoyment of HIUH.

But if I were to give you life advice, it would be this: If a piece of fanfiction makes you so angry that you feel the need to send abusive anonymous comments to the author and/or ask that author to pass on your comment “correcting” the opinion of a reader writing about that story, you should probably stop reading that fic. It is clearly not good for you. Metaphorically speaking, you are in an abusive relationship with that fic and you should end it. Write the story off and move on.

Okay, that said, the question of whether Laurent is abusive in HIUH is probably more of a series of questions:

Has HIUH Laurent engaged in abusive behaviors?

If so, do those abusive behaviors necessarily indicate that he is and will always be an abuser?

If not, what evidence do we have that HIUH Laurent can and will stop engaging in abusive behaviors?

If HIUH Laurent stops engaging in abusive behaviors, what reasons, if any, does HIUH Damen have to return to the relationship despite past abuse?

BONUS:

A. Is an HIUH Laurent who harms Damen through abusive behavior mischaracterized relative to the canon source material?

B. Is an HIUH Damen who chooses to be with Laurent despite past abuse mischaracterized relative to the canon source material?

1. Has Laurent engaged in abusive behaviors?

Yes. Although we are limited by a potentially unreliable narrator (Damen), who does not believe Laurent is abusive, we are clearly and intentionally both told and shown in the text that Laurent has engaged in abusive behavior. We are told when Neo explains as much to a skeptical Damen:

“Then you must know I’m only trying to get a feeling on how educated you are on the subject of abuse between romantic partners.” “But why ? I just told you Laurent and I never—” “Do you know what emotional abuse looks like, Damen?” “Yes.” “Give me a definition.” It’s hot in the room, all of the sudden. “It’s… making someone. Feel bad.” “It’s consistent and repeated humiliation,” Neo says. “Gaslighting. Manipulation. Verbal abuse can sometimes overlap with this. Have you ever experienced this while in your relationship with Laurent?” “We weren’t abusive.” “Did you insult each other?” “No,” Damen says. It was so long ago, it was a lifetime back. He can’t remember. “It’s—not like that. Humiliation? We never—” “You’ve said that sometimes Laurent made you feel as though the things you were feeling were inadequate.” You’re being a fucking idiot, Laurent had said about the pink sweatshirt. “What if he was right?” “It’s never right to invalidate your partner’s feelings.” “We weren’t abusive.” “Damen,” Neo says, the soft caress before a blow. “What if we think about it from—” “There’s nothing to think about. I’m telling you, it wasn’t like that. How the fuck did you get to that conclusion? Because I complained about us arguing?” Neo ruffles his notes. “Contempt. Shame. Hurt. That’s what abusers thrive on. There’s quite a lot of those things in here.” “Laurent’s not an abuser,” Damen snaps. “Maybe not, but he grew up with one, didn’t he? These are learned traits.” Damen folds forward as though to vomit. That’s—He’s made a mistake. They argued, they yelled, they said things they didn’t mean, but they never hit each other or threw cutlery at each other’s heads. They went to bed angry, and Damen slept on the couch, and there would be rolling eyes and huffs and annoyance in the following days, but that’s not—Laurent is not— You’re sweet, Damen had said, hand to Laurent’s cheek. A sweetheart. He remembers meaning it, remembers Laurent not liking it. He also remembers Laurent’s sweetness, scarcer in the end and cloying in the beginning. Breakfast in bed, letting Damen pick what show to watch, giving up half his trail mix bag because he knew Damen liked the dried fruit pieces most. You’ll do great, you always do great. A protein shake prepped and ready to go, peace and quiet the nights before important court days. But also bigger things, biggest things. There was—and sharing a bed, and curling up under Damen to read, and letting Damen carry Nicaise up the stairs, and holding his hand under the table as firm functions, and kissing just to kiss, just because, just— He’s explained Laurent wrong.

And we are shown in the moments when Damen and Laurent talk and Damen expects a belittling response from Laurent:

“There are,” Laurent starts, stops. Starts again, “I didn’t.” He has both elbows on the table, which he used to despise. Tables are for cutlery and food, not limbs. Something about the way he rubs at the skin under his eyes makes Damen’s stomach cower as if expecting a blow. “Agnes recommended it months before you—came back. It wasn’t my idea.”

“I met him?” For once, Laurent doesn’t mock him for his question. “It was at that school play I couldn’t go to. The one Nicaise got that huge part in.”

“I want to know when the twenty-four hours are up,” Damen says, loudly, too loudly, “so we can go to the police station and report him missing. For fuck’s sake, Laurent, will you stop ? He could be seriously hurt, and you’re sitting here, berating me about the way I phrased a question. Do you even give a shit about him? Do you even—” He cuts himself off when he sees Laurent’s expression. Like he did last time with Nicaise, Damen braces himself for what’s to come, goes over the list of things Laurent can hurl at him, tries to minimize the inevitable damage. The comment will be about Nikandros, about his soft childhood in Ios, about the time he tried to discipline Nicaise by himself and ended up covered in vomit. Nothing happens. There’s only Laurent, turning his face to the side so Damen can’t stare at it any longer. In the silence of the car, Laurent’s breathing shakes.

“Is his name really Dog?” Laurent says, sitting down next to Damen. Between them, the two cups of coffee and the small pile of croissants both steam. “I didn’t believe Nicaise when he told me.” “I,” Damen starts, lie ready on his tongue, and stops. It’s very meta. “I’m not good with names.” Laurent picks up his coffee instead of agreeing with Damen. Instead of mocking. The space between their bodies is comfortable enough—they’re not touching, not even their knees or thighs. They’re not looking at each other either, not with the entire park stretching green and busy in front of them.

2. If so, do those abusive behaviors necessarily indicate that he is and will always be an abuser?

I take this to be one of the major points of contention on the part of the angry readers. As you can probably guess, I don’t think the text suggests that Laurent in inherently abusive. Besides the stuff coming in my answer to question 3, we have several reasons to believe that Laurent’s abusive behavior is the product of particular circumstances rather than a generalized personality dysfunction.

We know, and Neo just reminded us above, that abusive behaviors are learned behaviors. We know Laurent was abused in multiple ways before he was able to leave his uncle’s house. We know that he is still very young and that it has not been that long since his uncle’s trial. We know he has not been comfortable talking to Damen about his abuse, which gives us reason to believe he still experiences a great deal of shame. That shame is hinted at here:

“He respects you,” Laurent says before Damen has made up his mind about the yelling. “He looks at you and sees a standard to meet. Normalcy. It’s hard to disappoint people you respect. Especially people like you.” “Like me.” “You do things your way. Everyone else does them wrong.” “That’s,” Damen starts. The absolute inaccuracy of the phrase leaves him hanging. “What the fuck?” Laurent ignores him. “He doesn’t respect me, and he also knows I have no room to judge. It’s different. We’re—it’s just different.”

We also know that Laurent is specifically and intentionally not abusive toward Nicaise. We have seen that he has been absorbing a ton of anger, vilification, derision, denigration from Nicaise almost entirely without complaint and without lashing out at Nicaise in return. In fact, after the breaking of the paperweight, when Laurent feels that he might not be able to avoid reacting in a way he will regret, he calls Damen to safely remove Nicaise from the situation. Having taken the lock off Nicaise’s door for reasons many parents would no doubt consider justified, he realizes it was a mistake:

Damen doesn’t look down at the twisted little bolts on the floor. “Actually, you should watch this part in case you ever want to dismantle it again.” “I won’t.” Damen rubs his sleeve over a weird spot on the knob. “You’re betting a lot on Nicaise’s hypothetical good behavior.” “It was dumb, taking the lock away as punishment. I…” Laurent’s thumb glides over the edge of the glass. It traces a full circle before stopping and going white, digging in. His jaw twitches like he’s munching on something. “Privacy shouldn’t be a reward.” “Wasn’t this about safety? He locked himself in, wouldn’t come out or reply when you called…” Laurent’s reply is slow to come. After a while, Damen stops expecting it to come at all. He goes back to testing the lock—twice, waiting for that click sound—opens the door, closes it, and rattles the knob a bit. Just to be sure. “My uncle made it about safety too,” Laurent says. “Locks on doors were for adults. Not children.” The lonely ice cube in his glass floats around aimlessly, not quite touching its confines. “The first to go were the bedroom locks. What if there’s a fire and you can’t get out? What if someone breaks in through the window and—well.” Laurent smiles, small and ugly. “That kind of thing. You know.”

He ensures that Nicaise sees a therapist, meets with that therapist regularly, and follows professional advice about putting Nicaise on medication.

Laurent also maintains a strong friendship with Ancel, whose judgment the text has taught us to trust, through Damen’s evolving relationship with him. Laurent is capable of non-abusive, non-superficial relationships.

3. If not, what evidence do we have that HIUH Laurent can and will stop engaging in abusive behaviors?

From the moment we see Laurent interact with Damen in the present of this story, he is trying to treat Damen better. Not because he thinks he can get back together with Damen, but because he realizes he needs to make a relationship with Damen possible for Nicaise. We have already seen above that most of the time when Damen expects Laurent’s ridicule in this story, he does not actually receive it. In very stressful conversations, when Laurent does lash out, he now tends to pull back or even to acknowledge and apologize:

Coffee. Damen takes two long sips, trying to rinse the bad taste out of his mouth. They’ve had arguments in public before, probably louder than this one. For some reason, the thought isn’t as comforting as Damen would have once found it. They broke up to be better than they were together, didn’t they? They should be better. Except this doesn’t feel better. Or different. Laurent says, “That was out of line.” Now, cooled off, Damen feels clammy. Wobbly. He knows Laurent is right, and yet the thought of sitting through a reprimand makes him want to melt away. “It was.” “I—apologize.” Damen looks up from his coffee to Laurent’s profile. He’s facing the wrong way, Damen thinks stupidly, because the window is to their left. “You apologize.” Half a question. “Go ahead,” Laurent says. “Rub it in.” Damen doesn’t want to. Nausea is curling around him, closing in. “I was out of line too, so.”

And we know now that Laurent has thought through some of his past behaviors toward Damen:

“I was angry at you,” Laurent says, “all the time. Sometimes it was justified, but when it wasn’t I just—I found ways to justify it. That wasn’t fair. Of me.” Damen’s palm is numb around the glass. “Why were you angry?” “Nicaise.” “Justified,” Damen says. “And the rest of it?” Laurent is facing him again. “Paschal says I have a tendency to expect the worst from everyone. Especially you. You’d make comments, and I’d think you were being cruel instead of…” “Instead of what? Ignorant?” Laurent doesn’t reply. “That makes no sense,” Damen says. “We never argued about me being fucking sadistic. We argued about you acting like some things were obvious and I was simply too much of an idiot to get them.” “I never thought you were an idiot.” “You said it often enough.” “I’m—sorry,” Laurent says. “It doesn’t change anything, but—even if you had been the biggest idiot in the world, you didn’t deserve…” A blinking spree follows. “I’m sorry.”

We know that Laurent is still in therapy, and we know that he has been talking about his relationship with Damen there because Paschal has suggested couples counseling for them. And Laurent has invited Damen to do that couples counseling, showing that he wants them to build a better foundation for their relationship going forward.

4. If HIUH Laurent stops engaging in abusive behaviors, what reasons, if any, does HIUH Damen have to return to the relationship despite past abuse?

Damen is deeply in love with Laurent. At the beginning of the story, he is in denial about this fact, but the uncontrollable flow of his thoughts still shows us how much he feels the loss of their relationship. Once he and Laurent are speaking again, seeing improvements in their communication, and experiencing moments of comfort and fun in their interactions – and once Laurent has broken up with Maxime – Damen admits to himself that he wants to be back together. Neo, as usual, prompts the self-recognition:

“I’m asking you to think about what life might look like in two years,” Neo says, “for you and Laurent. Time does not only pass for you, Damen.” A smile, crinkling the corners of Neo’s eyes. “That’d be ideal, wouldn’t it?” Two years. Damen sits with the question for a while, looking at it, prodding it. In two years, Nicaise will have gone away to college. Maybe Laurent will move, relocate, start over somewhere closer to Vask. He’ll post about his new life on Instagram, or details of it will make it to Damen as second-hand gossip. They could still be friends, over text or the phone or fucking letters, Damen thinks, yet there’s something bitter in the back of his throat, filling up his mouth like vomit. Maybe Laurent will date again. Probably. Most likely. And Damen— When he looks up from the armrest, Neo is looking straight back. Damen can’t say it. Earlier today, as he typed his last email of the day at the office, he kept drafting a plan for today’s session. He’d explain his argument with Laurent, then the party at Ancel’s, then the way he keeps looking at Laurent in all the wrong lights, in all the wrong ways, and still finds himself wanting to kiss him. Neo would make a disapproving face, maybe, but it would be easy to brush off; anyone that doesn’t know Laurent would find it hard to understand how easy it is to want to kiss him. Except that isn’t all Damen wants. What Damen wants isn’t a settling of the score, a cleaning of the slate. He doesn’t want to do it once for old times’ sake, or twice out of gluttony. He doesn’t want to make any long-distance phone calls, write any letters, see any pictures on Instagram of Laurent and someone that isn’t him. He doesn’t want things to stay like this, in this careful antiseptic stage. He doesn’t want them to be friends. “It’s not what I want,” Damen says, at last. Neo leans back into his chair. He rolls his wrist once. “You think it’s what I should want, right? Letting go and all.” “I wouldn’t say that,” Neo says. “Should and shouldn’t are very loaded words. It also doesn’t matter what I think you should or shouldn’t do, in general. What is it that you want, since we’ve already established what it is that you don’t?” Don’t make me say it out loud. “I want,” Damen starts, and stops. The words look so stupid, jumbled inside his head. I want him back, like Laurent is a toy someone took away and won’t return. Like Damen is a child, begging. Don’t make me say it. Seconds trickle by, piling into a minute. Then two. “Do you want to be in a relationship with Laurent again?” “I thought I already was,” Damen says. “A friendship is a kind of relationship. You said that.” Neo closes his eyes, keeps them like that for a while. “I did, yes. Let me rephrase that—do you want to be in a romantic relationship with Laurent? Again?” There is no loophole this time, no two-meaning word Damen can latch onto. The truth sits heavy in him, not on his chest but somewhere deeper, inside a little crevice between some (probably important) organs. Saying no would be lying, saying yes would be diminishing. “I want things to be good,” Damen says. “That’s all.”

And in chapter 19, Damen is brutally honest with himself about how, even after everything, he still wants Laurent:

“You meet new people,” Neo says. “You go on dates, make new friends, find new interests. Despite what you might think right now, Laurent isn’t your only option. Dare I say, Laurent might not even be your best option.” The room is dark, darker than it was when the phone call started, but Damen’s eyes hurt like he’s been staring at a ball of light for too long. Everything hurts in a strange, modest way. A throb here, faint. An ache there, heatless. “I don’t want other options,” Damen says. “Well.” “How fucked up is that?” “Pretty fucked up,” Neo says. It makes Damen stop blinking. “Luckily, you’re already doing therapy. It’s only bound to get less complicated from here on. Or more, depending on how you look at it.” “I don’t even wanna look at it, to be honest.” “Then don’t. Take time off, let things cool down, think about what’s been said… No one is asking you to choose right this second.” It’s not that anyone is asking. It’s that it feels like he’s already made his choice.

“You didn’t tell me,” Damen says before he can think not to. “Tell you what?” “How bad it was.” Laurent’s thumb traces the t in team. It’s a bit crooked, even from Damen’s perspective. “It was pretty bad,” he says, slowly, “before you came back. Things were better once he started seeing you again.” “You call that better?” “Yes,” Laurent says. I would have come back, Damen thinks, if you’d told me. Except it’s not true; he would have come back for much less. He’s here now, sitting across from Laurent in this mediocre coffee shop, talking things out, making an effort, thinking of reaching out to finally, finally, hold Laurent’s hand. It’s strange, looking at Laurent and knowing he’s the only other person on earth that feels the same way he does. Where else would Damen go? Who else would he talk to? No one will ever get it, not the way Laurent does. And Laurent knows it. He must, or else he would not be sitting here either. There is only this, Damen thinks. At least for him, there will only ever be this.

So there is that. Damen is hopelessly devoted to Laurent. But that doesn’t make getting back together with him a good decision. Love would not be a good reason to return to an abusive relationship.

Another NOT good reason would be Damen believing the fact that he made mistakes cancels out Laurent’s harmful behavior. The text makes that explicitly clear through Neo:

Neo’s pen hops; a period appears at the end of a sentence. “Apologies can be hard to navigate. It’s sort of like… You’ve wronged me, and you know that you’ve wronged me, and now you’re apologizing for it while expecting me to forgive you. It’s quite a lot to put on a person.” “There are degrees to wrong,” Damen says. His chair feels smaller, like it’s locking him in instead of holding him up. The armrests keep getting in the way of his elbows. “And it’s not like I didn’t have stuff I had to apologize for too. I don’t get why you’re trying to make this seem like a bad thing.” “I’m not.” “Then why—” “Do you think you deserved an apology from Laurent?” Damen leans back and back and back, until his shoulder blades find something solid. Did he deserve…? He’d wanted one, once. In Nikandros’s guest room, with only beige and white and terracotta everything around him, he’d had staring matches with his own phone. He’d thought Laurent might call, at the very beginning. Apologizing. Begging. But Laurent never did. “Yeah,” Damen says. Neo’s head begins to tilt. “You don’t sound too sure about that.” “I am sure.” “All right,” Neo says. “Why do you deserve an apology?” “I told you already. He treated me like I was an idiot.” “How?” “How—what?” “How exactly did he treat you like you were an idiot? What were his actions towards you?” “I,” Damen starts, but something in Neo’s face makes him pause. “He’d say things when we argued.” “Such as?” “That I was an asshole.” Neo nods. “And how did you feel when you heard him say that? Did you feel like it was fair?” “I felt like he was an asshole,” Damen says. “Sometimes.” “Whereas now you feel like he was right?” He was right about Nicaise. And maybe about Ancel, too. “I don’t know what you want me to say.” “I don’t want you to say anything,” Neo says. “I’m just trying to get you to think about things from a different perspective. Laurent apologized, which is an important—not to say crucial—step in rebuilding any kind of relationship. But it seems to me that you’re holding onto this newly found belief that because you acted a certain way, because you made mistakes, you somehow deserved the way he treated you throughout the last stages of your relationship.” “That’s not what I think,” Damen says. “All right. Then you think you deserved the apology because the way he treated you was wrong.” “Yes. But…” “But…?” Damen’s face feels hot, the heat lodged right over his molars. “Doesn’t it kind of cancel out? Like, we both fucked up.” “Those are two different issues,” Neo says. “So no, they don’t cancel out. What he did to you and what you did to him are obviously connected, but someone doing something wrong or bad is not an excuse to do the wrong or bad thing back to them.” Neo gives his pen a tap. “Or it does, I suppose. It depends on your belief system. But you don’t strike me as an ‘eye for an eye’ fan.” I don’t want any eyes, Damen thinks.

I interpret the failed second try (or second strike) of Damen and Laurent’s relationship to have been somewhat based on the “cancel out” reasoning from above. The “cancel out” and move past approach did not work because they failed to address the many insecurities, communication failures, and problematic patterns that plagued the first time around. A discussion with Neo (again) makes this clear. Damen hasn’t yet learned to listen to what Laurent is saying without letting his insecurities and anger get in the way:

But Damen isn’t in Laurent’s position. You’ll never get it, Laurent had said about Nicaise. Maybe it’s true. “I get why he did it. I’ve been thinking, and it’s not—I get it. Nicaise being embarrassed, wanting Laurent in the room because he was the least angry of—” “I don’t think that’s why,” Neo says. “Or at least, that’s not what you’ve just told me Laurent said about the whole thing.” “What?” “Laurent talked extensively about roles. Did you notice that?” “No.” “He presents himself as the scapegoat for Nicaise’s anger, while you’re the one Nicaise admires and wants to impress.” Tap, tap, tap. Damen imagines Neo’s fingers flying across the keyboard. “It seems to me Nicaise wasn’t concerned about the different intensity levels of your—as in, yours and Laurent’s—anger. He knew you were both angry.” “Laurent was better at handling it.” “Was he?” “I couldn’t stop thinking about the guy,” Damen says. Guys, his brain supplies, helpful as ever. “I still can’t. Even now, I know it’s not—that’s not important. I was yelling at Nicaise. I wasn’t listening.” “And that’s why Nicaise didn’t want you to go with him to the clinic?” Damen closes his eyes. He needs to repaint his ceiling, do something about the lack of texture there. “Laurent said something about abandonment,” Neo tries. A nudge. “You’ve mentioned Nicaise doesn’t do well with change, that he’s got a tendency to latch onto routines and people. Do you think it might be possible that he was trying to preserve the relationship he has with you?” “By keeping me out of a medical examination room.” “Yes.” “That’s what Laurent said.” “Well,” Neo says. “It sounds plausible.”

Damen wanted magically for them to be over their past:

“Right,” Damen says. “You don’t do should and shouldn’t. I forgot.” “Are you upset?” Are you angry with me? “I don’t know,” Damen says. “We were supposed to be past this, and now it’s out there and I can’t—we can’t—” “How were you supposed to be past this, if this had never been discussed before today?” “You said it’s impossible to discuss everything.”

So, I don’t think it’s a strong interpretation of the text to say that @thickenmyblood is trying to present Damen in an unfairly negative light in order to excuse Laurent’s much worse behavior and thereby make it okay for them to get back together. Cancelling out isn’t what the HEA of the story is set up to be about.

That said – and given the fact that Damen is still in love with Laurent – what GOOD reasons might Damen have to try the relationship again?

For one, he is beginning to understand better what the fights with Laurent about Nicaise were about. Moreover, they have now explicitly acknowledged that they are co-parenting Nicaise and Laurent has expressed a clear commitment to them parenting Nicaise as a team.

For another, Damen has a much improved understanding of the role of therapy and the complexities of mental health. He has a long ways to go on this front, but I don’t think we’ll see him dismissing or belittling Laurent’s mental health needs. Moreover, Damen has ways of addressing his own mental health needs and talking things through with a person who doesn’t share his triggers and emotional investments around Laurent.

For a third, he has made a commitment to working through their issues in therapy and has concluded that he trusts Laurent to try just as hard as he will to repair and strengthen their relationship.

Crucially, Damen has also learned to stand up for himself when he feels Laurent is implying that he is incapable of understanding things. This means he can point it out and Laurent can recognize when he is retreating into a defensive, harmful pattern. This also allows Damen to indicate that something isn’t obvious to him and to ask Laurent to explain it kindly and clearly. I think that is the only way they can reconcile their very different life histories and relationships to social normativity.

ONCE AGAIN, believing this about HIUH Damen relative to HIUH Laurent does not mean that I believe this is something all (or even very many) real life people who were previously in unhealthy relationships should aim for or could achieve.

Which brings us to our bonus questions:

A. Is an HIUH Laurent who harms Damen through abusive behavior mischaracterized relative to the canon source material?

No, in fact, this is not a mischaracterization. Laurent abused Damen in canon. He took him as a slave. He sought Damen’s public humiliation. He had Damen whipped to an extent that would have killed most other people. He placed Damen in a situation that (for almost any other person) would have resulted in a violent public rape. He also forced Damen to engage in public and non-consensual oral sex. Later, when he understood Damen more emotionally and was feeling insecure or threatened, he lied about his feelings and motivations out of shame and self-hatred and with the aim of hurting Damen enough to drive him away.

B. Is an HIUH Damen who chooses to be with Laurent despite past abuse mischaracterized relative to the canon source material?

Damen fell in love with Laurent after all that abuse because he came to understand its source and because he saw other sides of Laurent that were caring and honorable and expressed a commitment to achieving justice, even if not by fully honest means. He came to understand Laurent as a survivor, even before he became aware of what exactly Laurent had survived. He stuck with Laurent through all of Laurent’s attempts to push him away and fought for what should have been an impossible relationship. And throughout this process, he learned about his own naivete and to question key elements of his upbringing, like the quest for war glory and the belief that “perfect treatment” justified slavery.

Captive Prince is a seductive and enthralling trilogy. And we willingly suspend any disbelief about whether Laurent’s trauma can truly be overcome simply by Damen’s noble nature and magical healing cock.

Why not do the same for HIUH? (Or, you know, just stop reading it.)

Although I do think Maca may owe us some healing cock. Just sayin’.

#captive prince #captive prince fanfic #hiuh #damen x laurent #thickenmyblood #hand in unlovable hand #neither my wife nor child reads this fic and i suck at fandom these days but i need to talk about this masterwork #clearly when you are just about to finish your academic book you experience a sudden need to analyze the fuck out of other things

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donnabenevientosimpingzone · 10 months ago

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Professor Benevientos notes cuz I spent way too much time thinking about this AU

Donna

- sticks mostly with @shortstrawberry’s AU which originally inspired this

- Botanist and Toxicologist professor, teaches both undergrads and grads

- Still a doll maker that does it as a hobby, takes commissions at her own leisure online for extra cash

- In charge of the greenhouses, she designs the labs in there too

- She’s also conducting her own research in there for her PhD

- Is usually very on-top of students, she’ll reach out to students she notices not doing well in the class and do her best to assist in their success

- Surprisingly prefers teaching toxicology, but that’s mostly because she gets to work with Claudia for those lessons

- Workaholic, she’ll drown herself in grading papers or reading research papers and needs constant reminders to eat

- Most students are intimidated by her lol

Claudia

- Trauma surgeon and a licensed family doctor, she works these during weekends and holidays

- She teaches Anatomy and Physiology, as well as Biochemistry every other year

- Also an instructor in the organic chemistry labs if she can fit it in her schedule

- In charge of the cadaver labs

- Mostly teaches undergrads

- A pretty laid back professor, she definitely has the belief of “you’re paying for this, you’re choosing to be here, and you choose to do well or not”

- That doesn’t mean she’s an unfair professor. She is constantly reworking and reorganizing lessons and exams to make them as fair and educational as they can be

- Tells the best stories if class finishes early. She has the most students that remember her and bond with her out of the sisters

- Sews in her free time, loves making outfits when she can find the time

- Loves bothering the fuck out of her younger sister in staff rooms and meetings (Donna secretly loves it)

Bernadette

- Psychology and Neurology professor, works as a licensed therapist

- Helps with Donna in the greenhouses

- Mostly teaches grad students

- In charge of the Anatomy and Physiology labs

- Has a fair approach with students, she’ll reach out to those who are struggling but doesn’t pursue them

- Use to be on the board but has stepped down since then to make more time for her family

- She will take runs on campus between classes, sometimes Claudia joins her

- The heaviest tea drinker between the sisters, almost always seen with a bottle or flask

- Donna often weaves flowers into her hair and she’s not taking them out for the rest of the day, she’ll rather spread dirt and petals and insects around campus than throw out a flower her baby sis gave her

Angie

- human in this one! Claudia’s daughter

- She’s studying music at the campus, hoping to make it big like movie scores or video game soundtracks

- The building the classes she takes are close enough to the buildings her mom and aunties teach in so she often stops by to visit them

- Definitely privileged- she gets access to back offices and free stuff- especially when Donna is around

- Knows the guitar from her mom, got taught the piano by Bernadette, and both her and Donna learned the violin together. She’s self teaching herself the drums.

- Knows the loopholes around campus rules and abuses the shit out of them

- If there’s a new rule that’s added to campus, it’s because of her

- Doesn’t dorm, she lives with her family- it’s free food, rent, transport, and she doesn’t have to do chores most of the time- why wouldn’t she? (The real reason is that she loves them too much to leave but you won’t hear it from her)

- But she does have a group of friends who are all musicians and all dorm together so when she’s not home she’s with them

#resident evil village #resident evil #donna beneviento #bernadette beneviento #claudia beneviento #professor au #professor donna #angie the doll #angie beneviento #headcannons

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iamafanofcartoons · 11 months ago

Text

Psychogator gives us "The Waiting Room" with Ruby Rose, Claire Redfield, Heavy, and Hellboy.

Somewhere in an omni-dimensional realm: The Merchant's Inventory...

(Claire Redfield finds herself in the bright room, where she sees the other three characters sitting on their seats. They seem to be waiting for the same thing she is. She just sits on her seat, taking a magazine and tries to read...though she can't help but feel curious)

Claire: *To Ruby* So...what are you supposed to be? Some kind of Red Riding Hood?

Ruby: Huh? Oh, my name's Ruby. I'm kind of a monster hunter.

Claire: And you...? Red Guy?

Hellboy: "Red Guy"? Really?

C: You some kind of demon? Who I guess also hunts demons?

H: That's kind of leaving out important details, but...yeah. That's the gist of it.

C: And the other guy's some of mercenary.

Heavy: I am Heavy Weapons Guy. I was commissioned to Red Team.

C: And none of you are weirded out by this?

R: Mmm...Nope.

Heavy: Niet.

Hellboy: Trust me. I've found weirder things in weirder worlds than this.

C: Okay, then...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Claire: So, how did you guys hear about this place?

Hellboy: I was recommended to it by a friend of mine, and I was pretty much okay going into any place that can cook up a good new firearm for me. No questions asked.

Heavy: My Soldier friend brought here one day.

R: A Blacksmith Lady give me a ticket for a dimensional-traveling gig. I told them I just wanted to see cool weapons instead of just being around people. That's what's school's for.

Heavy: Da. School is good, Tiny Sniper. Where do you go?

R: Ever heard of Beacon Academy?

Heavy: I do not. This is good school?

R: *sigh* It's the BEST. You can learn how to fight monsters, how to work as a team, but the only bad thing is learning about history and stuff.

Heavy: Learning is good. I went to Soviet College of Mines, Farms, and Science. I have PHD on Russian Literature.

Claire: Do you...use that in your line of work?

Heavy: More than you think. *Turns to Hellboy* Hell-Man, what is your favorite enemy to kill in war?

Hellboy: I don't know about "war", but...I think my favorite enemy is probably giants. Either normal giants or gods, it's all the same to me. It makes things a lot more challenging.

Heavy: Killing giant robots is good thing, but to kill Spy is glorious thing! Brings glory to team! What about you, Little Rose? You are killing type.

Ruby: MY favorite enemy? I-I don't know. Beowolves, Ursas, Nevermores, Geists...It's like choosing what my favorite kind of cookie is!

Heavy: Hahaha! I like you, Tiny Sniper!

Claire: I got a few enemies I've come across. A few lickers and an asshole tyrant are kind of a breath of fresh air after swarms of zombies.

Heavy: Do Lickers disguise as best friend and stab you in the back?

Claire: Well, no, but...I have lost a few good friends to worse...

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Ruby: *Turns to Heavy* Why do you call me "Tiny Sniper"?

Heavy: You are tiny and Sniper, no? You wear red, fitting for RED Team. Your gun hits like Machina. You earn this by being futuristic killer. You should try out for RED Team.

Ruby: I guess that could be fun. I mean, If I'm only there to kill monsters and robots and not...you know, people.

Heavy: Da. This is good for you. I suggest helping us against Gray Manns' robots and Merasmus' undead. You will kill many of them before dying, I think.

Ruby: I hope it doesn't come to that. Yang will get pretty worried if I do.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Hellboy: So, Redfield, what heat do you usually carry?

Claire: Anything I can get my hands on, really. Shotguns, grenade launchers, miniguns, secret weapons with infinite ammo. That sort of stuff. Usually, though, I rely on a good handgun or two, like my brother's Samurai Edge. What about you? You seem to carry a lot in that coat.

Hellboy: Well, it's your usual monster-killing stuff. Brimstone Grenades, Valisia's Gift, Agrippa's charms, but most of the time, I often rely on my Good Samaritan. I'm not a good shot, but it uses really big bullets.

Ruby: What rounds do you even use for them to be that big? That sounds like something that my Crescent Rose uses.

Hellboy: I usually use custom-made 22 millimeter Whoppers. Made them, myself. Holy water, clove leaf, silver shavings, white oak...the works.

Heavy: Hmph. Not much to be of use for Sasha.

Hellboy: Yeah? What rounds do you use?

Heavy: BIG.

Claire: Are we talking .300 Weatherby Mag?

Heavy: Bigger.

Ruby: .50 Cal?

Heavy: Bigger than .50 Cal. They are handmade, custom-tooled cartridges with classified diameter.

Hellboy: Geez. Why's that?

Heavy: So enemy cannot use ammunition...but Sasha can chew through THEIRS.

Ruby: That sounds...SO. COOL! Love

Heavy: *nods* I think so.

--------------------------------------------------

Hellboy: *To Ruby* So, Ruby, what's this "Crescent Rose" of yours? Some kind of a gun?

Ruby: Oh, my sweetheart is more than just a gun. It's a customizable, high-impact sniper rifle that's also a mechanical scythe. It pretty much uses .50 Cal bullets built with Dust.

Hellboy: *cocks a brow, unimpressed* Dust.

Ruby: Fire Dust, Ice Dust, Electric Dust...I can use Gravity Dust to launch myself like a missile. And if there's one thing you need to know about me, it's that I'm not slow.

Claire: You just "launch" yourself with your gun? That sounds...dangerously irresponsible.

Heavy: I know of this. Soldier does this with rocket launcher all the time.

Ruby: Yeah, but I usually have a semblance, or "superpower", to use speed. I usually do this to outpace monsters WAY bigger than me! I move around like a blur!

Hellboy: So, your world has weapons that are also guns, bullets that use magic, and you fight monsters bigger and deadlier than you.

Ruby: Yeah! Killing monsters is the coolest thing to do in the world! *Realizes it's Hellboy* Oh. Um...I hope I didn't offend you.

Hellboy: Offend me? *He smirks, genuinely excited* You just made my winter!

www.deviantart.com/psychogator/art/The-Waiting-Room-997558423

#claire redfield #resident evil #hellboy #dark horse comics #team fortress 2 #heavy tf2 #tf2 heavy #rwby #psychogator #rwby fanart #ruby rose #rwby ruby #rwby ruby rose

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thatdisasterauthor · 3 months ago

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Hi! I read your wonderful blog post on your favorite part of disaster research, and the make a plan to learn what you'll need to know when something unplanned for happens part really resonated. Like, that's me! That's why I want to plan for everything! That's how my brain works, and I've never been able to find the words for it before.

I'm not planning with the expectation that things will go to plan, or the desire to cling to a plan, I'm planning with the expectation that things will not go to plan. We will all be blindsided by something, probably multiple somethings, probably at suboptimal times, and I want to know where my knowledge and preparation gaps are ahead of time, so that when that happens I'll be ready to go. And it's all playful and fictionalized and really very fun. Thanks for the words for it!

So uh, about that 2 year degree program. Do you have any posts with more about your experience with it? Or how it's been finding/choosing the phd program(s)?

Thank you! I'm glad you found the post helpful.

So, the two year program I'm in is the Wildland Fire Management program at Colorado Mesa University. It is wildland fire specific and aimed and training people to work in various capacities in wildland fire. Doesn't have to mean actual firefighting, though! There's lots of non-front line jobs in wildland fire.

In addition to this program, though, I also did the Emergency Management certificate the college offers. It's three courses, and I believe you can do it without doing a larger degree. All three courses are taught by Dr. Eliot Jennings, who was the emergency manager for Galveston, Texas. He's easily the best professor I've ever had.

The college also has two "Maverick Milestone" courses related to Emergency Management. Technically, these are for people pursuing four year degrees, but you can apply to take them even if you're not doing a four year degree, you just have to talk to Jennings. One course is "Disasters in Film" that studies disaster movies. The other is "Disaster Disciplines" which talks about how emergency management relates to other stuff like law, regular police, teaching, etc..

The PhD program I'm looking at is at a different college. There are actually only a small handful of Emergency Management specific(ish) PhDs in the U.S., so there's not a ton of choice. But I'm really excited about the one I'm applying to! I'll post more about it as things progress.

#Emergency Management

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malachitemischief101 · 5 months ago

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Hi um, I’m seeing mu celeb sp soon and he’s very very famlus and many people want him (he’s in a big group) and no matter how much I affirm and cancel my doubts and negative thoughts I cannot feel like he’s already mine, I feel very anxious and that I’m gonna fuck everything up,

What do you think?

(I saw your post about celeb sps and thought I would ask you❤️)

Hey darling, first off, congrats on going to see him! It sounds super exciting 💕 let's see.

Starting off, as I said previously, being famous is part of his job, nothing wrong with it, proud of him! Using my example: If I like this girl, let's say 'Ana' (Im not good w coming up w names mb 😭) and she's a doctor. Would I ask 'Can I manifest Ana? she's a doctor.' NO I WOULND'T. Because whichever impressive things she's done as a doctor (earning a big paycheck, having a PhD, Saving lives, fucking create a new medicine) IT'S JUST PART OF HER JOB, all it means, is that she's doing a good job at it.

"famlus and many people want him (he’s in a big group)" That's okay! remember, this is YOUR reality, not theirs, you control what happens, not them. You're the operant power, the one who chooses.

Actually an excercise (cr: hyler, I think?) Deep breaths

1...

Inhale

2...

Exhale

3...

You're the operant power of your reality, you control what happens, okay?<3

And remember, it's okay to feel anxious, but let me tell you something, intrusive thoughts, or doubts don't manifest!

Because they're not your DOMINANT thoughts. They're thoughts that come and pass, remember to do your best not to dwell on them though!! You don't neccesarily have to believe 'he's already mine¿, but rather affirm it.

-> Your mind tells you he's not yours? affirm that he is. -> A newspaper says gossip about him being interested in somone? yea thats you

-> you think he's not yours? yes he is! even if you don't believe it, say you do. And of course when something's going to happen soon I use affirmations as a safety net, so like, maybe you could do an affirming challenge of 1 week, or 3 days (depending on when you're going to see him.) Or maybe even the 10k challenge! (Also if you'd like to read my reminder about methods, read my other post: https://www.tumblr.com/malachitemischief101/754828769555087360/a-more-organized-less-angry-version-of-this-i) But remember:

-time does not determine when your desires arrive, you do.

-You're the operant power of your reality / god(ess) of your reality

-You're affirming to remind yourself!!

Sending much love! and try and do something to cope if you feel like you're really really anxious becaue remmeber, loa is supposed to be comfortable.!!!<3 apologies if this is too long sweetheart!! Success stories to motivate you (none mine!!!):

#talking with anon #Apologies if this is long ong #I got excited and rambled a bit...#loa blog #loa tumblr #loa #challenges are a good idea #good luck anon #!!! <3 #celebrity sp #specific person #anon ask

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hindahoney · 2 years ago

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Hey - this is kind of an odd question, but I was wondering if you had any recommendations for books or articles to read to learn more about Judaism for someone who’s kind of Jewish (but not really)?

My mum is Jewish, but stopped practicing when she was a teenager, and I was brought up atheist - my dad’s family are Protestant. I basically don’t know anything about Judaism, which feels particularly weird because I know loads about Christianity, just through osmosis. And I’ve never met a whole branch of my family who are apparently very orthodox and live really near us in London. Anyway, I’d like to learn more, and don’t really know how to start? Or if I should start?

Thank you for your question. First of all, if your mother is Jewish, you are Jewish. You're not "kind of Jewish," you're not "Jew-ish." You're fully Jewish, and every movement of Judaism recognizes you as such.

Second, there are endless amazing resources for people in situations like yours. I wish I could say that it was more rare to have descendants of people who assimilated wanting to reconnect, but sadly it's not. I've known some people have found resources for converts to be helpful in reconnecting, so those are mixed in with my list as well.

MyJewishLearning is a great resource for really anything Jewish. I've found their articles to be pretty diverse in terms of approach, and they give perspectives of different movements on each topic.

Jewish101 Playlist - This is great not just for beginners, but for people familiar with Judaism already. They are talks given by one of my favorite Rabbis, Rabbi Mark Golub, about everything from how Jews view G-d, our relationship & struggles with Him, how sex is treated in Judaism, to Jewish holiday traditions & the meaning behind them.

Jewish Learning Institute - This entire channel is beneficial for learning about really any topic. They have a more frum perspective, but I think that learning the core observant values is really important when deciding which ones speak to you. It's also important for Jews to understand their more observant siblings, as many people don't and that ignorance leads to observant Jews being marginalized by their own family. By having that baseline understanding of the reasons behind why Jews do what they do, so that you can decide for yourself it that matters or can fit in your life. The video I've attached is about the survival of the Jewish people, a brilliant and moving speech given by Rabbi Y.Y Jacobson. I think this speech is sure to give every Jew a sense of pride and connection to their fellow Jew, which is vital when forming a Jewish identity. We're a tribe for a reason.

TY Channel Henry Abramson - Not a Rabbi but many people mistake him for one because he's highly educated (PhD). He gives very educational lectures on all sorts of Jewish topics, usually Jewish history. Peppers in some humor too, so he's entertaining to watch.

Unpacked - Gives crash-course type videos (entertaining, some animation, higher budget, etc) on issues that Jews face today, conversations Jews are having in the community, and Jewish history.

My Jewish Mommy life - Jewish vlogger who makes videos on the basics of Judaism, shabbat, holidays, etc. A good resource for anyone just entering the fold. Comes from a more reform background but does a decent job of explaining different perspectives.

Books

The Torah (Hebrew-English, also has Spanish, French, Portuguese. There are tons of versions online)

The Jewish Book of Why - This book is essentially a compilation of a million different questions commonly asked about Jews/Judaism and the answers given range in the interpretation of various movements.

Choosing A Jewish Life - Kind of a how-to guide in terms of choosing a Rabbi, synagogue, overview of basic Jewish concepts & movements, choosing a Hebrew name for yourself (You can give yourself one if you don't have one!!), and how to discuss with your family your decision to be Jewish, or more observant.

Jewish Literacy - ABSOLUTELY MY FAVORITE JEWISH RESOURCE. Can be read like a novel or an encyclopedia (like for referencing certain topics). I read through this completely and it is an amazing compilation of every topic from important Biblical stories and their Jewish interpretation, Jewish history from its creation to modern times, IP conflict, major Jewish historical figures, modern Jewish thought on certain topics. Genuinely, if you want to know something about Jewish tradition and practice, it's probably in this book.

To Be a Jew - Halachot (Jewish laws) around observance in daily life, their oigins, and why we do them. Guide for major and minor holidays, major life events, and an explanation of rationale for modern Jewish life.

Living a Jewish Life - Another why-to and how-to guide for Judaism in your daily life.

Helpful Apps:

Shabbat Times (Self-explanatory, you put in your city and it tells you what time Shabbat starts)

Jewish Chronicle/Jooish News - News around the world for what's happening to and by Jews

TorahAnytime - Like Youtube but for Jewish learning

Daily Jewish Prayers - Invaluable resource that explains when which prayers are said, provides it in transliteration, English, and Hebrew

CalJ - Jewish calendar. Great for knowing what the Hebrew date is and when/what times Jewish holidays start.

JVL (Jewish Virtual Library) - a bunch of Jewish books

Jewish accounts to follow:

Here's a very short and incomplete list of Jewish accounts I recommend following, because they post about Judaism a lot and give a good idea of what every-day Jews think about a wide range of things. They are really invaluable resources when it comes to learning from real Jews and I trust their judgment:

@shretl

@tikkunolamorgtfo (has been around forever, literally amazing)

@adoratato

@jewish-kermit

@spacelazarwolf

@magnetothemagnificent

@laineystein

@gonnauseanomdeplume

@hiddurmitzvah

@girlactionfigure

@rimonoroni

@anonymousdandelion

@starlightomatic

@unbidden-yidden

#jumblr #jewblr #judaism #jewish convert #jewish conversion #jewish culture #jew by choice #frumblr #jewish history #jewish resources #jewish stuff #jew stuff

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rifki16 · 8 months ago

Text

Love is Better the Second Time Around Episode 5

Photo Credit : Love is Better the Second Time Around Promotional Twitter Account | https://x.com/koi_nido/status/1775007525647372784?s=46

Love is Better the Second Time Around Episode 5

POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNING: Homophobia and Disownment. I’m not going that deep into the topics which include homophobic and depictions of being disowned, however, I’m just trying to be cautious.

Love is Better the Second Time Around Episode 5 is OUT! Let’s get into the short review right away. SPOILERS DUH.

As expected, of course, the couple broke up even though Haru just admitted that he liked Takashi – as well as agreeing to “go out” with him. I want to talk about four topics from this episode.

First theme: Disownment in Japan

I mean, as it turns out, being disowned in Japan is not only caused by homophobia. I think this has been depicted many times in several Japanese TV medias which I have encountered – I think, in general, not achieving the family’s expectations of you will make you really isolated from the family. However, HUGE DISCLAIMER, this subtopic is not going to talk about whether it is more likely to be disowned in Japan compared to other countries nor is it going to delve into the psyche of Japanese families, as well as their internal dynamics, and why they choose to disown instead of choosing other methods in showing their dissatisfaction or repulsiveness towards their kin. This subtopic will focus exclusively on being disowned in Japan by your family because you have been outed as a cis-gay man through the lens of two Japanese BL works: Love is Better the Second Time Around episode 5, Tokyo in April is… episode… I guess the whole series.

To clarify, I’m talking about the act of disownment of a child or an adult by their family, so it’s not about a baby, newly born or not, being abandoned by their mother because of a myriad of reasons. It’s quite hard for me to find a credible source on the internet about the practice of disownment in Japan, be it the reasons, or mechanism. I found this article about how, in the classical times of Japan, disownment is a form of remedy due to your crimes against your “ancestors” (https://www.japanesewiki.com/history/Fukyo.html).

I also found anecdotes that many Japanese families would disown their offspring because they marry “Internationally”- as the film Life: Love on the Line puts it. The anecdotes are very old, it’s from 2007 (https://ask.metafilter.com/83832/How-does-disownership-of-a-child-work-in-Japan

Setting all of those aside, let us dig deep as to what happened in the two series. In Love is Better the Second Time Around, Takashi was outed by, who turned out to be, a distant relative of his. The rumor got spread around. He got disowned. He needed to change his surname from Hoshizawa to Iwanaga. I don’t know how he got his PhD in economics, I assume in Japan, only PhD graduates can be a lecturer. Maybe his new adopted family paid for the tuition fee until his doctorate degree, or maybe he got scholarship all the way up to his PhD studies.

In Tokyo in April is…, Ren was saved by Kazuma from being groomed sexually, not the over-the-internet-incredibly-flirtatious-chat grooming. He was forced to be outed in the hospital to describe what He and Kazuma were doing in the love hotel. Kazuma’s mum slapped and told Ren never to meet Kazuma again. Ren was forced to go to a HS in France, not allowed to inherit the hospital of his grandfather. In the manga, his dad was forced to resign from the hospital, in the live-action series, it was not mentioned about his dad’s status after the rumor of his son’s gay sex act was spread around. He needed to change his surname. He finished his HS and his degree, I think, in France. Then he went back to Japan with his new identity and all.

Now, before going to the analysis. Two things that I have observed to stand out very clearly: 1. The disowned son is still given a future, 2. The disowned son needs to change their surname as he is no longer a member of the family. I still don’t know how Takashi got his degrees, financially, but he still could get those degrees and become a respected economics lecturer. In Tokyo in April is…’s finale, Ren said to his sexual-assault-covering boss that he was grateful to him because he “could repay his family’s tuition” because of the job, which means that his disowning family still paid his tuition in France, just as a loan tho.

It's very unique for me to see this representation, because in many western medias, the disowned son becomes unhoused, a fear which still terrifies me today, and his future really becomes uncertain. In terms of name, I don’t really recall disowned gay men in any western media works to have changed their surname or name completely. I understand that many trans- or non-binary individuals or gender fluid people to have done this, be that they get disowned or not. Let me say before we get deeper into my two cents of this subtopic. I’m not saying that disowned gay sons in Japan have it “easier” compared to other disowned gay sons around the world just because that they are not immediately unhoused in these two BL works. I don’t know the statistics, and I really don’t think we should compare our sufferings amongst us gay men.

A). However, does Japan’s own attitude to the idea of a “state” contribute to these representations? I mean, in western media works, the disowned gay son is completely cut-off because said son is not a member of the family and thus not merited the PRIVATE wealth and comfort of the family. Western idea of ownership, state, and cold-war era propaganda of the “nuclear family” really contribute as to why the representation of disowned gay sons in their media become understandable. But in Japanese, it’s very new for me. Or is it a mere fear of criminal prosecution if the family doesn’t provide means for the future of the disowned gay son? I don’t know.

B). Your family name holds a special place in Japan. I know that it also carries a huge weight in many parts of the world, even here in Indonesia - where most plebian families don’t have a surname - your surname holds such an importance too. In most western media works which I have consumed, the disowned gay son, doesn’t really change his name. He just gets own with his own life, as his surname is the last of his concern. I think this connects well with the first observation I made – in most western media works, the disowned gay son is too focused on surviving, that he doesn’t give a fig about what he is called. If we see it in practical terms, let’s say a disowned gay son is moving from somewhere in the deep south of the states, and he moves to somewhere in New York, new England or somewhere in the west coast, his new start will not really check his name on some federal database, his new semi-blue-collar employer will not check his family background. Unless that he has a criminal record, he is free to use his old name or a new one, his family will not be disadvantaged at all because neither his new life nor his family is connected.

Take these observations with huge grains of salt, as I did not revisit many western media works as a reference, and I have not, and did not, included all Japanese BL works which have this trope, such as Umibe no étranger. I completely forgot as to what happened to the disowned gay son, in that anime film, before coming back to his hometown.

Second theme: Foreigners and Japanese

The second theme I’d like to talk about is Japanese relationship with foreigners. The relationship in a sense of how Japanese see foreigners against/for their patrimony. I will not write a lot about this subtopic because it touches complex topics like Japanese nationalism and the Japanese idea of race – topics which I don’t know much about. To talk about this subtopic, I want to discuss two works, Love is Better the Second Time Around episode 5 and Life: Love on the Line (director’s cut film).

Let’s revisit the chatroom/blog discussion website from 2007 (https://ask.metafilter.com/83832/How-does-disownership-of-a-child-work-in-Japan

). One of the posters said that when, I presumed his personal pronouns are he/hem/his, his Japanese wife married her non-Japanese husband, she got disowned. But then, when her sister got divorced, she was “seen better than her sister”. Setting aside the perception of divorced or spinsterish people, isn’t it crazy that based on that one anecdote, his wife’s family disowned their own daughter just because she married a non-Japanese person. Again, I don’t know the statistics hence I don’t know the prevalence of this behavior. I don’t even know whether the poster of the story on the website was telling the truth or not, however this anecdote is a great jumping point in understanding what happened in the two works I want to present.

In Life: Love on the Line, Ito, the bitch who actually kissed Nishi first, asked to break up with Nishi because he wanted to have “a normal family”. Hold up, I need to vent about Ito, WHAT A BITCH, you really don’t appreciate what you got bro. JESUS, I really cannot contain my anger to Ito. Venting side note over. Ito eventually got a divorce with his wife because he still loves Nishi. And, when he went back to his family’s house to announce his divorce, it turns out his sister is marrying a south Asian person, I forgot whether it was Indian or any other ethnicity. His mother became mad and pointed to his sister that she needed to be more like Ito because he has a normal life and family. His mum’s statement prompted him to stand up and said that he’s getting a divorce, and he has been in love with Nishi all this time and adding “compared to International love, it’s pretty normal right?”, or something to that effect.

In Love is Better the Second Time Around, we don’t really see the family dynamics as to why Takashi is called back to his family, besides the fact that because his sister is marrying a non-Japanese person, he needs to be the one that bears the responsibility of continuing his family’s business. I have not read the manga so I don’t know how Takashi family views their daughter’s “international marriage” compared to their estranged son.

Side note, it seems that Takashi is going to decline the offer to continue the family business because he’s gay… huh? I mean in Restart After Come back Home, Mitsuomi still can continue the family business even though that he’s gay. Well, he has not come out yet. Side note to the power of two, Isn’t it weird that a salaryman can just continue his father’s, long established, carpenter business? Like huh?

I really need to understand more about Japanese view on foreigners marrying their own. I mean, it’s a pretty extreme stance to say that, even a heterosexual, “international marriage” is considered a strange, or deviation from a normal one. Is it just because of the practical matter that the non-Japanese person cannot continue the family business? Is it because that the non-Japanese person hard to assimilate to the Japanese culture?

Side note again, does this mean that BL works with protagonists that used to live in the west like Tokyo in April is… and Senpai, This can’t be Love, to name two, also have “full” Japanese parents, just that they used to live abroad…?

Third theme: Haru mental leap

I think Haru in episode 4 and 5 are very different, “bigly”. We just saw Haru getting comfortable in episode 4 of getting in bed and accepting Takashi as his lover – boyfriend. I think in this episode, Haru became braver in his mannerism as well as drawing the line with Takashi. Yes, I will be having sex with you as lovers, yes, I will be calling you my lover, even in front of my own enemy, but I will not be moving into your place, yet. I think because we have seen how Takashi disappointed, or as it turns out, was smeared to look like he disappointed Haru, Haru’s walls were already up, so it’s not easy I guess for him to draw lines.

Someone on Twitter actually translated the conversation Haru and Takashi on LINE. In the chat, Takashi actually congratulated Haru on being the Deputy Editor, and Haru’s response was just like “okay”. Like wtf. This is another trope that I don’t like in Japanese BL works. I think the biggest offender of this trope is Minato’s Laundromat. It’s the trope of “Oh yes we’re now boyfriends, but I’m gonna act too cool to care about it”. Like what…? I mean Hiro’s mannerisms on digital products, E-Mail and social media are so different with his real-life behaviors, to the people that he knows. Why does he still use his journalist face even with Kyosuke?

Fourth theme: Blackmail – Japan’s most loved trope?

Before talking about this subtopic, let me first take my celebratory dance. I’M SO RELIEVED THAT MY BRAIN ITCH IS NOT WRONG OMG. Haru didn’t overhear some sob in the hall that Takashi bet against him. It was, presumably, Kyosuke that took a picture of a young, I think, Haru, and wrote in the email that Takashi was betting against his appearance in the train station.

What is it with BL and blackmail trope? I mean I know that it’s not uncommon for closeted gay guys to be threatened by blackmail about his sexual orientation, but I already see this plot line used in Help I’m Being Harassed by the Sexiest Man of the Year and The End of the World with You. I think The End of the World with You is such a unique one in using this plot line as the perpetrator of the blackmail is also the one who did the gay sex act with the blackmail victim lol.

Side note: I guess in the finale, Haru is bringing up the fact that Takashi is carrying all the burden by himself – gosh this trope again, I’ve seen it in Tokyo in April is…, let’s see how they execute it next week.

linguistic corner!!!!

I can’t believe how many times “aishiteru” was said in this episode. It seems like the show runners saw my blog post about the Japanese disinclination in using the word “aishiteru” and prefer to use the word “sukida”, made script changes and reshot a lot of scenes – I know it’s the conspiracy and narcissism talking in my head haha. I am genuinely surprised as to how many “aishiteru” was said in the episode, is it because that Takashi loves Hiro that much that he said that? I mean in this episode Takashi actually said it not while they were having sex.

I think this may be true as it is actually a point of rift between the two. I think it was since episode 3? That Hiro has always mentioned that their love intensity is different, is it that he feels that Takashi doesn’t love him enough? That’s why he was sort of lingering with the idea that Takashi still sees him as “an outsider”. Side note: while I’m writing this subtopic, I Love by Official Higedandism is playing HAHAH. The way that Takashi kept secret some of his familial stuff, read the previous subtopic about “carrying the burden all by himself”, I think, made Hiro easier to ask for a break, or rather that he was asking for a break up, but got a break.

Side note: this is the first time that I see when gays break up in a Japanese BL work that his place becomes a mess like in western media works, I mean all I see in other works is the guy failed a class (The End of the World with You), the guy continues his life but still missing his ex (Life: Love on the Line, Although I Love You, and You?, Mr Sahara and Toki-Kun, My Beautiful Man, Pornographer).

All in all, I can’t wait, albeit dread, for the finale next week !

#japan bl #gay #linguistics #japanese language #love is better the second time around #koi wo suru nara nidome ga joto #bl live action #bl series

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dr-futbol-blog · 6 months ago

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The Storm/The Eye, Pt. 2

They start prepping for the coming storm.

Sheppard continues to have perfect trust in McKay. Again note that he's masking it in flippancy; when ever he talks about McKay to other people (and he seems to do that a lot; when you have a crush on someone you naturally want to mention them by name all the time because you are thinking about them all the time, but you try to be smooth about it like it's no big deal), he's downplaying it, he gives off the impression that he both cares for and regards McKay as less than he actually does. He tells Weir: "You know McKay'll come up with something. He's just setting himself up to be a hero."

I discussed McKay's brand of heroism and Sheppard's view of McKay as a hero previously in connection with Hide and Seek (S01E03). Sheppard does actually view McKay as a Big Damn Hero, and while here, talking with Elizabeth, he's making it sound like he's ribbing on McKay and his big ego, he does actually honestly believe those two things: that McKay will save them, and that he is a hero.

The episode lampshades this later:

McKay is frustrated by the fact that everyone seems to be placing finding the solution to the problem squarely on his shoulders which is a lot of pressure to put on one person, no matter how brilliant they may be. He attempts to communicate this, and makes a reference to Superman.

Sheppard is a comic book geek. I mean, we actually see him reading comics in his room multiple times. He, of course, just has to comment on that. He flippantly questions McKay's comment and his tone of voice, again, indicates that he thinks McKay is about as far from Superman as one can be. This sentiment echoes around the room:

The thing is, not only does Sheppard not think that McKay is not a hero, McKay is very much a hero to him. He's just not Superman.

Later on, in Irresponsible (S03E13), an episode that hearkens back to this particular episode as this is where Kolya is introduced and that is where he is killed, the topic of heroes again comes up. Sheppard -- not McKay -- brings up the fact that McKay's hero is Batman:

Like, he brings this up completely unprompted, just throwing out another fact that he just happens to know about McKay. So clearly they've had a conversation about the superheroes of the DCEU at some point (and we do see them discuss Batman in particular a bunch of times). They have a lot of discussions about their shared geeky interests, so that tracks.

So. Sheppard isn't saying that McKay is not a hero here, he's saying that choosing Superman to describe him makes no sense. If he was a DCEU superhero, he'd be Batman. But Sheppard actually thinks that he's more like Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four from Marvel Comics.

Yes, in First Strike (S03E20) Sheppard describes himself as Mr. Fantastic but that is a classic case of projection. Nothing about him is Mr. Fantastic. He even says that McKay is not really like the Human Torch as Teyla complains that she's not invisible (it's actually Sheppard, the person who discovered the cloaking technology of the jumpers and is able to cloak a whole ass city, that is the Invisible Woman).

Mr. Fantastic is a scientist who holds multiple PhDs and frequently uses his mind to save the day, so even if McKay hadn't literally been wearing a Mr. Fantastic T-shirt (in the SG-1 episode Moebius), he would still resemble the character much better than Sheppard ever could. Also, they are having this discussion, initiated by Sheppard, during the bombardment of Atlantis so clearly "situations of certain doom" are exactly the kinds of times that Sheppard wants to debate comic book characters.

So, he's not saying McKay is not a hero, he's wanting to debate comic books because a Batman vs. Superman discussion would be a whole lot less stressful than what they're actually facing right then. He also very obviously noticed that McKay was upset when he first walked in the room, so the intent was probably to cheer him up and lighten the mood by playful teasing. And everyone else's reactions, including Rodney himself who takes offense at this because he has terrible self-esteem, just shows us how differently Sheppard views McKay from everyone else. This very thing is also lampshaded in the episode:

Granted, Zelenka does seem to be on the receiving end of a lot of the more charming sides of McKay's personality, deep down he does have a lot of respect for his colleague and is just airing out some frustration here. But this is not at all true of McKay, even if he actually agrees here that he can be a pretty horrible person.

He is not always like this. With Sheppard, in the past several episodes, we've seen him both want to and try to be a better man.

And it is not that Sheppard doesn't also see this side of him. Even by this episode, we've seen Sheppard hurt by things McKay has said multiple times, even if he didn't really mean it or do it on purpose. Sheppard just accepts the bad with the good.

Ever since Hide and Seek Sheppard has been observing McKay with such a keen eye that he has a pretty good idea of what he's like. It's just that... by this time, he's in love. With the guy that he fully believes should use his brain, not his brawn, to save the day.

Continued in Pt. 3

#stargate atlantis #sga #sga meta #john sheppard #sheppard is bi #rodney mckay #rodney is gay #ep. the storm #ep. the eye #genii #ep. hide and seek #ep. irresponsible #ep. first strike

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zipstidbits · 7 months ago

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hi zip! 👋 i'm just really curious about how you got into astrophysics 👀 and what careers interest you in that field if you don't mind sharing ☺️ i just think it's so cool, but like, in the way of someone who knows absolutely nothing about astrophysics except that it's probably really hard and also rockets 😛🚀 have a lovely day! 💞

hi zesty!!!!! thanks so much for asking, i don't mind sharing at all :))))

how i got into astrophysics:

both my parents are second-generation americans so education/college was always The Big Goal growing up. this translated to my parents really emphasizing math and science skills and i got really interested in science this way. (the post-cold war american cultural emphasis on science as a whole probably contributed to this as well, lmao.)

i ended up momentarily ditching the science dream because i started struggling with math in middle school. i can do it, but my adhd means i struggle to hold numbers in my head (do mental math) and sometimes i can be slow/need to write things out more than others/make silly mistakes/and then get bogged down by imposter syndrome. this was like 10+ years ago so i had zero diagnoses and minimal support so i hopped onto the anti-math train.

i never stopped liking science though. i want to know everything and imo, science contains the answers to everything and is how we'll learn all that is unknown right now. once i hit high school and science class started having a shit ton more math i started to view math differently. it became the whole 'the enemy (math) of my enemy (the unknown) is my friend' thing. thankfully, math, when applied to physics concepts, makes more sense than when in a pure math class, so this became a very doable arrangement.

i also started consuming a lot more pop-science/science in the news around this time. neil degrasse tyson, the one astrophysics class i took in high school, and my dad who played a lot of star trek and pbs space videos on youtube to bond with me opened my mind to the most beautiful thing ever (space). i just think it's the coolest thing ever and the unknowns are so cool and i want to know what's going on up there so bad!!!!

this (and some spite*) led me to apply to college for a BS in physics. doing just physics and not astrophysics was sort of a safety net because i thought i'd really like particle physics too but it turns out quantum mechanics is evil and fucked up so i chose to stick with astrophysics as my concentration, lmao.

*i felt like a lot of my peers in high school assumed i couldn't do this because i wasn't naturally good at math/physics and i took a little more time and effort (i spent a lot of early mornings and afternoons in help sessions, lmao) and a part of me wanted to prove them wrong.

then, this past fall/winter, i applied for a bunch of astrophysics phd programs because i've thankfully got a BS degree and i've made my mind up on what i want to do in life (study/learn about space). i got rejected from 7 out of the 8 schools i applied to which was terrible in the moment but great now because i didn't really have to choose what program to accept, lmaoooooooooooo.

careers that interest me:

i very much enjoy teaching (i was a teaching assistant this year) and i would really like to continue it. i could probably do that in most research jobs by mentoring others in a lab/research setting but also being a professor sounds really cool and appealing to me since i could do research and traditional teaching, lmao.

i'm kind of willing to give most astrophysics research jobs a try, i think? the only line i'd really draw is i don't want to work anywhere near the american military-industrial complex for moral reasons

thank you again for asking zesty!!!! sorry for rambling so much and i hope you have a lovely day as well!!! <33333

#first of all seeing you in my inbox brought me so much joy :))))) <33333 #secondly i am so sorry this is so long/if this is more than you were expecting #i feel like my answer is a little complicated and summing it up as 'space is cool!' would be too much of a lie?#i unexpectedly ended up with a lot to say lmao #zip answers #zzzzzestforlife

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freyito · 1 year ago

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mortal kombat band au… id love to hear everything about it 👀 any solo acts or duos?

sophy raGHhHGGhhg you're my HEROOOO ASKJDGAKJSD ahem. there's a lot. we'll start with the bigger bands and stuff like that and make our way down. some of this is serious some of this is a joke that stuck i prooooomise you its good.

Liu Kang is like. god of music protector of earthrealm. it's mainly stationed in mk1 but oh oh i'll get to past timelines. The Mortal Kombat tournament is still a thing but it's like more about serving cunt then hits yknowwww.

Biggest by far is the Earthrealm Players. I have no idea what to call em. But it's Raiden, who's the vocalist, Kung Lao on bass, Kenshi on drums, and Johnny on guitar. They're a metal band, something kinda like Avenged Sevenfold. They were kinda a shitty garage band but they had fun regardless, Kung Lao was on guitar at the time. Johnny showed up to one of their gigs in a dive and like instantly fell in love and pretty much wormed his way in there. He chose music over acting this time. (unrelated i guess but he has a PhD in astrophysics instead of quantum physics) Johnny gatekeeps the band hardcore cause they're dead set on gaining traction organically.

Kung Lao and Kenshi let their anger lead their music, so they are very aggressive with what they do. Kung Lao specifically is afraid of his name fading to history and refuses to let that happen. He's a little more like forward with his anger, and he kinda abuses the hell out of his bass strings. Has to restring it like after every hardcore jam sesh and gig. Also, because of this, he tends to break his skin a lot and gets blood all over his bass. and bandmates. Kenshi channels all his pent-up anger into his drums cause he was still a Yakuza in this timeline. HE'S actually 3 mil in the hole cause he dropped it on drumsticks. Who restored his sight. Yes, the drumsticks are Sento. But a lot of his performances are kinda dramatic but in the good way, he's often seen kinda looking like he's gonna cry?? but with his eyes gouged out (i mean mileena took EVERYTHING, he doesnt have any tear glads or ducts) he can't cry. Sento also IS their practical effects.... These two specifically I can see doing something like (Anesthesia)-- Pulling Teeth by Metallica.

Raiden grew up with music, and it's been something that's been in his family for quite a while (ahem ahem old timeline raiden was the god of voice too ahem). He sings to mourn those he's lost and remember those he's known, those he will meet, and so on. He's got a voice that can CARRY. All angelic and soft and sweet, but also he can 100% hit a reaaaaaaaal sexy death growl. Johnny initially started playing out of spite because music (and acting) was shunned by his father. And it was the one thing he found a lot of comfort within, something that kinda shoved his depression to the side. Helped distract him. Slowly that became the sole reason he played. He'll definitely like do some sensual things with his guitar too. He's the kinda guy who plays into the fans, and the band has to be like "eyes up here" (AND THEN THEY KISS).

THE LIN KUEI BROS. Forgive me. Are a boyband. Very popular DUUUUH. They end up breaking up cause of conflict of interest. Bi-Han starts a solo career, and Tomas and Kuai Liang start a duo. Guess who's more popular lmfao.

HAVIK AND REIKO HAVE A DEATHMETAL BAND AND I GET IT'S SOOO CLEAR but hear me out hear me out. Havik and Rain also had a like black metal band together called. ahem. "The Flood". Rain lost interest in music and they split up. Havik found his way back to Reiko and they got EVEN BETTER. Havik on vocals of course. He's got an insane growl. And Reiko handles like everything else. They just kinda record stuff and play it during the show depending on what Reiko chooses to play during.

Ashrah and Reptile also have a duo band. To be honest I really see them making stuff like Crane Wives, some real nice sorta adventurous music with their hearts poured into it. Both of them specifically write about their struggles and both actually sing! They don't play live a lot and really just drop their music and like. walk away for several years. But each time it's a beautiful experience. Baraka has actually collabed with them a few times. But he himself walked away from music cause of his affliction, he was shunned by the audience really. THEY HAVE ALL ALSO COLLABED WITH RAIDEN, KUNG LAO, JOHNNY, AND KENSHI. A LOT OF TIMES ACTUALLY. HEAR ME OUT.

Milleena and Tanya oh my GOOOOODS. Girl rock. Like soft, but grungy stuff. Together. A mix of post-rock and soft rock, and it's allllll love songs. And ALL OF THEM ARE ABOUT EACHOTHER. It's all sappy and sweet and all self-indulgent and they do it for eachother.

Li Mei and Sindel also had a little duo back in the day but most of the music faded into obscurity. They broke up after the death of Jerrod, and Sindel continued to create music in memory of him. Li Mei kinda fell off as well, but trust me when I say she SHREDS.

Now. Okay. Stay with me here. please. oh my god please. Kitana. Is a vocaloid producer. She has beautiful vocals. But she was introduced to Vocaloid by Mileena as a kid and it never left her bones. She's like the Giga of the universe. She makes fun upbeat songs and OH ARE THEY BAAAAAANGERS.

It only gets goofier here please HAHAH. okay so basically. Shang Tsung is like Lady Gaga. but like evil a little. LIKE YOU CAN SEE THE VISION. He's sassy. He's a boyloser. He SLAYS. He and Quan Chi have collabed a little but Shang Tsung's a sensation. He's got over-the-top flashy performances, he's killin it on stage. He puts his ASS into his music.

Shao is the Frank Sinatra of Outworld. Guys. Okay. Hear me out please. Give him so water and he's got a voice that's gold. I refuse to elaborate any further.

Nitara's like the Taylor Swift of Vaternia.... singin her world back to life or something guys I dont know. Lowkey struggled with Nitara a lot when I wrote this out OUASGDHASG

BEFORE Baraka was pushed out of music, he was a country artists. DOES IT NOT FIT!?!?!? That's right. IT DOES. He's probably got a single out there that's all about Tarkat LMFAOOO

Lowkey I actually cannot see Quan Chi doing anything aside from riding off of Shang Tsung's career like the leech of a boyfriend he is.... he probably only drops music online and it's like so severely edited it's quite sad (i am a quan chi hater)

and finally. a little bonus. Fujin is like one of those artists that you don't know like at all. Like there's this one song that's a banger BUT YOU CAN'T FIND IT ANYWHERE... like the most mysterious song on the internet. That's Fujin's. But you don't know or something...

anyways. oh. it's in my head. was the au an excuse to emo everyone??? no. (lie)

#freyposting #mortal kombat #mortal kombat 1 #mortal kombat au #mk

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indigovigilance · 1 year ago

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How to Write Good Omens Meta

Someone left something in my ask box that intrigued me:

My Ask is for insight into the theory of clues and how S2 clues move and build S3. Is there a meta on this? (If not, would you consider it at some point?)

Well, I did consider it, and here’s my first shot at answering this really good question. It's more about the art of writing than of clue analysis, but I may do a second piece in this series, if it feels necessary. Anyway, here we go:

read on Ao3

Learn Something New

People want to read meta to learn something that they didn’t know before. This probably means you will have to learn something that you didn’t know before. Some meta-analysts arrive pre-loaded with a rich background in costuming, tarot, biblical canon, and the wide array of cultural references that appear in the show. We also seem to have a fair number of psychologists (formally trained or otherwise) representing. I (and others: see Chekhov's Contract by @ineffablyruined) happen to have a background in law and so I was able to make a unique contribution via my piece Sovereignty, Citizenship, and the Bookshop. But for other topics, I have to self-educate.

In my personal opinion, the work on direct canon analysis (that is, watching the show and reporting what you see) has largely been done and I don’t think there will be many more breakthroughs until some people go away and come back with a freshly informed perspective. Personally, I’m waiting for someone to go learn everything there is to know about S.W. Erdnase and tell us what they found, because that is a very specific reference that I haven’t seen fleshed out yet (link it in the reblogs if it already exists!).

Don’t Be Afraid of Outside Sources

For example, quite a few times I’ve gone away to read outside source material before writing a new meta. Good examples are: Honolulu Roast, The Lament of the Metatron, and The Hornet in the Beehive. These are topics where I had no particular advantage over anyone else, I just had a question and decided to keep digging until I had something that looked like an answer.

On choosing a topic: in each of these cases I began with an in-show piece of information that seemed both unambiguous in its directness and yet unexplained. Why is there a mysteriously appearing sign in the coffeeshop that says Honolulu Roast? Who is the Metatron? Why is there so much attention drawn to bees when Crowley goes up to Heaven? If I start with a solid question and then follow an investigative pathway, usually beginning with the Bible given the nature of this show but not always, I’ll usually find something.

There are also some Clues that we’re basically told to investigate. The books on the shelves. The movie playing in the background in The Resurrectionist Pub. These are unambiguous breadcrumbs but they’re a lot of labor. I’m not going to read all those books and watch all those movies. So pick one (1) and go read it, or watch it, and then tell us what you found, so I can read your 1,500 word piece to learn what I need to know about it.

Sometimes you get enough information for a meta just by hanging around long enough and absorbing information. That’s how I put together my pieces on Terry Pratchett’s Death and Crowley’s Dream. The trick in this case is to be able to synthesize it, and for that, the very best way to learn how to do that is read other people’s meta.

Specializing

The asker asked the most important question of all: what’s the balance between trying to manage all the Clues or ignoring them entirely? Well, think of it this way (I’m borrowing an XKCD comic for brevity):

The takeaway here is, when you get a PhD, you become a hyperfocused expert in a very narrow topic and you’re relying on lots and lots and lots of other PhD students becoming highly specialized experts in other topics so that together you are expanding the diameter of human knowledge.

We (meta-analysts) are all getting PhDs in Good Omens, one way or another. Some people are doing their theses in color theory. I am doing mine on the concept of memory and identity permanence (though frequently dabbling in law). Yet others have flung themselves body and soul into the topic of Crowley’s gender and God bless them. Heck, there’s a team of people on Discord who are on any given day ripping the Bentley down to its studs and building it back up again. Feel free to explore while you seek out your passionate topic but don’t feel the need to tackle all of them. You’ll find the one that you fit best in.

You do not have to solve the S3 plot puzzle by yourself. You have to find two pieces, put them together, and then go find a buddy that also has two pieces and see if your pair of pairs makes a quartet. Literally. That’s what we’re doing here guys. It’s a team effort or nothing at all.

Organize your ideas into digestible segments

Great, so you learned something new, you have a tantalizing hypothesis, and you’re ready to write! But what does a good meta look like?

Your abstract (which I recommend you write last) will go at the top, followed by evidence in a logically progressive order that finally culminates in your conclusion. If you’ve ever written a five paragraph essay, you have these tools in your toolbox. And yes, sometimes you will even need to rebut counterarguments (“but Neil said” is the bane of my existence) just like your teacher taught you. But it shouldn’t be formatted like a five-paragraph essay. This is not an 8.5”x11” sheet of paper with 1” margins: this is Tumblr.

Walls of text are great and all but reading handicaps come in all flavors and I for one benefit greatly from having section headers that help me navigate a meta. I’m much less likely to read it if all I have to find my place by is paragraph breaks.

Section headers should tell me what the next paragraph or two are about, and if I read just the section headers, I should have a pretty good idea of what evidence you’re pulling from where and what conclusion you’re going to support with that evidence.

Here’s my opinion on gifs: if I need to see Michael Sheen’s micro-expressions to really understand your point, include it. If I just need a reminder of where we are in the story, or what a costume looks like, a still is fine and less distracting. For a lot of things, though, images are unnecessary. You’ll find the right balance but don’t overburden your written work with images. I think there are quite a few people who only read my work on Ao3 because they simply don’t like the Tumblr, image-centric format.

Have a main takeaway

What does all your evidence point to? It may feel like stating the obvious, but state it anyway. Put a little ribbon on top of this gift you have given to the fandom. Label it. Tell them exactly what your conclusion is from all this information you gathered.

…but don’t feel a need to draw a firm conclusion

In my meta Continuity Errors, I conclude that Crowley stops time in order to move something that was hidden in the bookshop out of the bookshop. I do not speculate on what exactly that something is that he moved. I don’t need to. By leading others down this path, I am tapping the collective resources of the hive mind to think about what exactly was hidden with the bookshop’s protection. They may have some information I don’t because they’ve been looking other places. Not having a hypothesis for this shouldn’t (and didn’t) stop me from publishing my work.

Go back to the top and write your intro/abstract

Have you written your main takeaway? Did you support it with evidence? Good. Now take that and write a 20-30 word elevator pitch that you’re going to put at the top of the meta so that people know what it’s about before they commit to 1,000-2,000 words of being led down the garden path. I have a bad habit of burying the lead, and I’m trying to break it. For a moment people were worrying about putting big revelations below the cut so that we’re not interfering with Neil, but I don’t think Neil has ever seen my work and I doubt he ever will, and at this time my opinion is that playing “hide the lead” is more of a hindrance to the fandom than helpful to protecting the integrity of the IP. So be bold. Tell people exactly where you’re going with this and a short roadmap of how you’re going to get there. You don’t necessarily have to “give away the goods” but the theme should be obvious. An okay-ish example of an abstract is the intro to my first meta. My abstract for Continuity Errors is decidedly more tongue-in-cheek. You'll find your own style.

Cite and Tag

If you read someone’s post and it gave you a great idea, cite them as inspo! It’s a feel-good moment for them and it ties the fandom together. If you’re relying on your own prior work or someone else’s work to support a point, link the piece and tag the author. You will probably want to start copying links to metas that you like into a doc or spreadsheet to make this easier. Check out mine to get an idea of how you could organize a spreadsheet, or check out this doc to see an alternative approach to meta database management.

Speaking of which: @cobragardens, @aprilodite, @drconstellation, @vidavalor, and @irispurpurea, your work appears in this... whatever exactly this is idk.

Recruit a Mentor/beta

Various Tumblrites have published comments or posts that they are willing to beta other people’s work. Reach out to those people before you need them and ask if, whenever you’ve written your next piece, if they wouldn’t mind taking a look at it? Have an upfront discussion about turnaround time. Most of us work, and have other obligations, so it’s unlikely we can look at a thing the minute you send it to us, even if we’re active on Tumblr at that moment. Some people have set days off that they know they’ll have time to curl up with a cup of tea and read the first draft of your meta; you may find that having a weekly schedule with someone pushes you to produce and improve at a pace you wouldn’t achieve under your own steam. Writing is a skill; you get better by practicing and getting constructive feedback.

Anyways, I hope someone finds this helpful: maybe meta-analysis seems like an intimidating thing to get into, but it shouldn’t be! This is a welcoming community with room for all shapes, sizes and flavors of contributions. If you have any follow-up questions about this piece, please feel free to drop them in my ask box!

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #ineffable fandom #writing #on writing #meta on meta

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gemsofgreece · 2 years ago

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This is something brilliant I found on quora. Aside from the band-orchestra comparison that I have no opinion on as I should know many, many languages to dare tackle that, and which is a parallel that could perhaps only be justified coming from a man passionate enough to get a PhD in Greek literature and ethics, Mr Bošković is actually on point in what he says.

Typical western academia gets wet over Ancient Greek and typically scorns Modern Greek without a proper explanation, to the point of just referring to one form of the language: Greek, and calling it dead. In their minds, there can only be one form of Greek, the ancient one, and it is dead for good. Modern Greek doesn’t belong with their academic and lingual concerns.

But Bošković, who has obviously studied a greater span of the Greek language than the average stuck-up classicist, puts it so well and in such a short and simple text that I could never do it. I always thought Modern Greek is more flexible than Ancient Greek but I couldn’t explain why well. Here it is then: what many don’t realise is that Modern Greek operates in a very liberal fashion. It takes elements from large lingual pools. It has the Ancient Greek pool all to itself, to take elements at will. It can choose between very archaic, Koine / biblical / medieval or folk neo-linguistic elements or fuse them all together, technically without restrictions. The historical contact to Latin, Italian, Turkish, Slavic, Arabic and Albanian populations gives it access to the Romantic, Anatolian, oriental and non-Greek Balkan pools. Modern Greek has a very good ability to bend foreign elements enough to make them adjust to the Greek core of the language, instead of adjusting to them (ie all foreign loanwords are bent to follow Greek grammatic rules of inflection and their vocalisations usually change enough so that they are entered smoothly in the language). The local idiomatic element is also significant in every region and is particularly alluring in prose and verse (hence my recent comment that I prefer modern - but NOT contemporary - Greek prose).

That doesn’t mean that I don’t love Ancient Greek prose and verse. But here is the crucial nuance: the ancients and medieval people did their best to write in the highest form of the language they could master. When we read an ancient text, we witness the earnest efforts of the ancient poets and writers to be glorified through their writing.

Modern speech is unfortunately deteriorating* and we can’t compare the potential of the two ages of the language. Contemporary writers aren’t putting an effort to write in the highest lingual form they can master. On the contrary, they strive to be relevant and, in fact, as non-challenging as possible, so that they will cater to a wide, mainstream audience. And because everyone can write nowadays - it is not an activity saved for the wisest or most educated - there is a load of mediocre lingual usage inside which a specimen of high lingual form can be viewed as eccentric, pretentious and eventually undesirable.

Because of this, Modern Greek cannot utilise all its tools anymore (as well as many other languages to their own degree, of course). Reading the Iliad in its original has been fantastic so far and I was wondering why we can’t write like this anymore but now I am realising that there is nothing to prevent us from doing it from a technical aspect. There are no dead words in Greek. There are words which have become rarely used enough that some people would consider you a weirdo for using them and others would themselves refuse to learn, convinced there is no use in taking an extra step. Words that are recorded in texts, words whose meaning we know, can’t be dead, even if they are rarely used. It’s the obsession of the average person to follow the mainstream trend that threatens a word more than anything else. Another fact is that Greeks of different ages fluctuate between different forms of grammar, unsure whether a more archaic or more modern inflection is appropriate. The truth is that there is no wrong way, however Greek linguists lately try to wipe out older, more archaic forms in exchange for newer, simpler ones. The intent is always to become as approachable, as unchallenging as possible. There is no de facto death of older types of usage as long as they are recorded and we know how they work and some of us use them still - it’s literally a few linguists trying to give Modern Greek a distinct, simpler identity by ignoring the language’s most crucial characteristic: its flexibility.

Νεφεληγερέτης Ζεύς is a common characterisation of Zeus in the Iliad (Nepheliyerétis Zeús - Zeus the Cloud-gatherer) . There is no real reason to prevent someone from using this phrase intact nowadays, as both roots of the first word do exist in modern Greek. And even if someone was too self-conscious about writing so ambitiously, they could do with a more modern or folkish version like νεφελοστοιβάχτης or συννεφοστοιβάχτης or νεφομαζωχτής or νεφ��λαθροιστής (ie nephelostiváchtis, sinephostiváchtis, nephomazochtís, nephelathrist��s). Would they though? No, they wouldn’t. Why take the extra step?

My point is, Modern Greek is an overlooked, extremely potent language and we do exactly nothing with or about it.

*Whoever is quick to argue that a language never deteriorates because it always morphs into a reflection of its respective nation / society and its needs should either stop fooling themselves or immediately get alarmed by the current state of the respective society at question.

#languages #greek #greek language #lingual stuff #linguistics #opinion #rant #langblr

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dat-town · 2 months ago

Text

dilemma of love

Characters: Yonghee & female reader

Setting & genre: college au, academic rivals to lovers

Summary: The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a well known game theory concept applied widely but you haven’t seen it applied for love. You might be the first one to try.

Warnings: academic pressure and stress, MC cries at one point, narrative-heavy and a bit cringe ending. i tried to be as realistic with mathematics stuff as i could but it’s been a while since i took advanced math and it shows. good thing is, at least this way it's more understandable (hopefully)

Words: 2.9k

Author’s note: @restlessmaknae it was supposed to be posted 2 weeks ago (which would have made it funnier considering your Taiwanese story) but life happened, anyways <3

The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a well known game theory concept applied widely in economics, politics, even sports.

It goes like this: there are two criminals captured by the police that offer each of them a deal to either stay silent or testify against the other in order to lessen their own punishment. The criminals have to decide between these two choices but the outcome also depends on what the other does. If both of them stay silent, each of them gets a year of prison time. If they both testify, they get two. If only one of them testifies, he can walk away free while the other is sentenced for three years.

You were in high school when you first heard about this concept and it left you flabbergasted that the best response is to testify and betray the partner in crime because the consequences of choosing to stay silent would have potentially worse payoff. In game theory it’s called a strictly dominant strategy which means that both parties should choose to follow this strategy for their own interest. It’s the only Nash equilibrium in this hypothetical game because if only one of the criminals changes their strategies and the other doesn’t, they would be at disadvantage. Funny, isn’t it? Mutually staying silent would be overall the best choice (or at least the Pareto efficient one in the language of economics) but since it’s not rational for one’s selfish interests, it’s very unlikely to happen.

That said, you have a Prisoner’s Dilemma on your own too and his name is Kim Yonghee.

Yonghee became the bane of your existence during college orientation four years ago.

Not many people majored in Applied Mathematics, your year only had thirty or so freshmen, most of them guys as expected, yet everybody was floored by this one guy who apparently managed to score the highest CSAT score among all. It didn’t matter that you had the exact same score, not when you weren’t like him: charming with his small smile and pretty features, his voice so honeyed you feared cavities. No wonder he easily became the professors’ favorite too and the most seeked out tutor with his gentle explanations and quiet diligence. No matter what you did, you couldn’t catch up to him. You were always only the second best and you hated that satisfied little smirk in the corner of Yonghee’s mouth whenever he managed to best you time and time again in every debate or when he could solve complex problems quicker than you.

You thought (desperately hoped) that you would get rid of him once you graduate but of course he was one of the twelve people who carried on with masters studies and once again, he was a competition. This time, however, you had no plans on backing out, he couldn’t take everything that you wanted. Not when you planned to apply for the PhD program under the care of Professor Ryu who only took one doctorate student per year, so you had to be the best. You had to ace competitions and write publications on top of your classwork to stand out. Basically you just needed to beat Kim Yonghee.

He made it harder than expected though and not for the reason you would have thought so.

It all started when you were pulling all-nighters to do an assignment for extra credit but you were struggling to find ways to prove a theorem. You had already gone through the most common ways to prove something in mathematics including proving the opposite but to no avail. You came to the point that it might not be provable at all but Professor Ryu had never done you so dirty, so you refused to give up and search it up on Naver whether it’s one of those theorems. Especially because you heard that Yonghee had already handed in his paper.

But then what was he doing at the library around midnight if not to just bother you?

“You should get some sleep. I saw you almost fall asleep three times under a minute,” he said and if you didn’t know any better you would have thought it was concern lacing his words.

“Don’t tell me what to do. I need to finish this,” you muttered, not even looking at him as you tried to blink the tiredness out of your eyes.

“Want some pointers?” Yonghee asked, lingering around your table gingerly and that made you look up at him with a frown. He stood there in his knitted sweater, his hair soft-looking and fluffy, eyes kind and not at all tired despite the late hour.

“Don’t you dare!” You snapped because there is nothing more humiliating than getting help from the enemy.

The boy raised his hands in a defensive manner and turned to leave but before he actually took any step further, he put down a plastic cup of tea on your table, then he left before you could have questioned his intentions. You stared at the cup dumbfounded, realizing that it was not only still hot but your favorite brand and wondered how Yonghee knew that but then again you also knew that he was walking around with a ridiculous amount of iced americanos because you had seen it enough times during the last four years. It shouldn’t have made you feel special.

Ever since then you started to notice small things like that. Like the way Yonghee looks up every time you step into a classroom but looks away swiftly whenever your eyes meet. That he is the only one who has his full attention on you when you are in front of class explaining a solution, not even the professor is looking so closely. Or the way he randomly drops science papers in front of you with open for publication news. You used to think all of it is just to mock you, to prove his superiority once again but suddenly you aren’t so sure.

Especially not after that mental breakdown you had after your latest, most well-crafted article was rejected. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, you had been rejected by papers before but the feedback for this called your deduction and reasoning technique mediocre and that was the last drop in the glass before it spilled because that day was already shitty with your stomach hurting after something spoiled in your lunch and your landlord’s notification about raising the rent next semester. No matter how much you willed yourself not to not show it, the indifferent mask came crumbling down the moment you left the study room and re-read the rejection email.

That was how Yonghee found you, sobbing in the corridor more out of frustration than anything else. Of course he couldn’t just ignore you and walk away, no, he had the nerve to walk up to you and hesitate over touching your shoulder or patting your back but in the end he opted for keeping his hands to himself, hiding them in his jeans pockets.

“Uhm… do you need anything?” He asked, strained, almost too gently. You hated how sincere he sounded.

“Leave me alone,” you muttered, short-tempered through your silent tears. Your voice turned desperate though. “Please.”

You could tell Yonghee stalled and you wanted to snap at him once more for making you feel so small, so humiliated. But then he quietly passed you a pack of tissues and said:

“Allergy season is a real pain in the ass, isn’t it?” He asked as if you didn’t know he was smarter than to make such a mistake. It was nowhere near allergy season after all and you wanted to laugh at how ridiculous it was, that he gave you a chance to pretend that it was just allergies acting up and not you breaking down over a rejection letter.

You took a tissue gingerly, soaking your tears, patting your wet cheeks until there was only raw skin there and puffy, red eyes. Yonghee wasn’t looking at you though, he wasn’t making fun of you. He was with his back to you, his broad shoulders blocking you from the corridor’s view. His sudden and unexpected care made you feel conflicted and you suddenly weren’t even sure how to react. You decided to go with acting normal, like you would have done with any other person even if it wasn’t normal with you two.

“Thanks,” you mumbled after poking his shoulder, signaling him that he could turn around.

Yonghee nodded and there was worry in his eyes as he looked over at you.

“Do you… want to talk about it?” He asked tentatively as if he expected harsh words in response which, you had to admit, was a reasonable fear. But you were too sensitive and exhausted to pick another useless argument.

“Just a publication rejection. No big deal,” you shrugged, forcing yourself to be as nonchalant as you wished to feel inside.

“Oh, the Korean Mathematics Gazette?”

“Yeah,” you sighed and glanced at Yonghee sharply. “You don’t have to tell me, I’m sure they loved yours,” you muttered bitterly.

“Actually, they called my writing too prosy for a science paper and said that the topic I chose was unoriginal,” the boy snorted, which honestly stunned you because you never expected him to be someone who failed. Ever. He had always seemed so annoyingly perfect and yet, he took it so easily, as if he was used to it. You couldn’t help your surprise.

“Wow, really?”

“I guess they really hate the idea of publishing something from master’s students. I heard doctorate students get more chances,” Yonghee shrugged, unbothered, and even though you also heard the rumors, you still wanted to try out knowing that it would have had a big accomplishment in your personal statement for the PhD programme.

“If somebody, I thought you would break that stigma,” you admitted because even if you hated to admit it, statistically speaking Yonghee was the best out of your year. It shouldn’t have but the fact that even he wasn’t good enough for the Gazette made you feel better. Or well, not exactly the fact itself but that he told you about it. He could have stayed quiet and you wouldn’t have known.

“Come on, I’m not that good,” Yonghee shook his head and at times like this you couldn’t decide whether he was such a good actor to pretend or he was really that humble.

“You’re still better than anyone in our year,” you argued because that much you could admit. He really was the best which is both annoying and motivating. Annoying even more when he started to protest as if he didn’t know he was the best. You rolled your eyes at him. “Don’t act like you don’t enjoy whenever you can rub it in that you’re better than me.”

Your accusation seemed to push Yonghee into defensive mode.

“I just think you look cute when you’re annoyed,” he blurted out and you whipped your head to look at him so quick you might pull a few joints in your neck.

“What?”

“Nothing,” the guy cleared his throat, scratching the back of his neck shyly, redness coloring his skin. It was an unexpectedly cute look on him. “If it helps, it actually motivates me a lot to know that if I slipped up even just a little, you would beat my ass without hesitation,”

Oh. So he didn’t think that you were easy competition, he did think you were competition to begin with. It gave you more satisfaction than what you would have admitted.

The ringing of your phone broke the moment though but those last few words and the look in Yonghee’s eyes haunted you long after. It made you question everything you once thought of as axioms.

Numbers just make sense to you. You like how rational mathematics is, how unswayed and consistent. It has an explanation for everything. For Yonghee, however, it’s fun, he has told you before and you couldn’t get it. What’s so fun about it? Seeing you struggle over problems he can solve with closed eyes? He says he gets a boost of adrenaline whenever he can solve a problem, that it’s rewarding and this way you can understand the spark in his eyes when he gets to the solution first during classes.

You have no idea when exactly your annoyance turned into lowkey fondness and when you started looking forward to seeing him. At first after that conversation in the corridor, you were in denial, like no way you cared about him of all people, like jeez, you were better than falling for just his pretty face and sweet words… but then you had to realize that there was no point in lying to yourself. Not when prolonged eye contact made your skin feel heated and sent your heart into arrhythmia.

So yeah, numbers make sense to you but feelings don’t.

To confess or not, that’s your dilemma now.

Rationally, based on everything you learned about game theory strategies, you know that you shouldn’t say anything due to the possibility of getting rejected. This way the worst thing that could happen is that even though your feelings are mutual you never know because both of you stay silent. But you wouldn’t get humiliated either which is definitely something you would like to avoid. You have to see Yonghee almost every day because you share pretty much all your classes, so it would be terribly uncomfortable afterwards.

Yet, despite all rationality, all of your mathematical knowledge, knowing fully well that it would go against the advised strategy, you can’t help but wonder about the what ifs. What if you confessed? What if he felt the same?

It’s hard not to wonder when you catch Yonghee looking at you with something other than his usual amused smile or judging frown (or what you thought of as it at least). There’s something awed and fond in his eyes nowadays. It makes you hope foolishly, think that maybe he does feel the same. That maybe he also had a change of heart regarding you.

It happens in the most unexpected yet most you way.

Sometime during the semester you started to exchange brain-teasers, puzzles, mathematical equations with Yonghee, expecting the other to solve them. They got progressively harder and thus, more fun. That’s why you were very taken aback when you received the simple task to solve 128 times the square root of e to the power of 980. Other than the fact that e490 was a huge number, especially multiplied with 128, it wasn't difficult to solve, so you were quizzed, trying to figure out where the catch was.

It’s actually your artist roommate who figures it out faster. She looks over your shoulder to see what you are working so hard on and chuckles.

“That’s cute,” she says and your eyes widen, staring up at Yeojin who claims to hate mathematics with a burning passion.

“You know what’s this?” You stare at her and her mischievous smile.

“Oh yeah and you should definitely take a step back and think outside of the box.”

You are seriously starting to lose sleep over it, especially because Yonghee looks more and more nervous whenever you meet and you don’t tell him your answer. It’s driving you crazy what it could be, so eventually you do something you swore not to do, not when it comes to Kim Yonghee: give up.

“I’m done. I have no idea what this is supposed to be,” you throw your open notebook in front of the guy in the library, startling him in the middle of writing a paper or something. You don’t care. If you have to go one more minute without knowing what he wanted with this newest task you will seriously lose it.

“Oh,” Yonghee looks up at you with a sad, kicked puppy look and you seriously don’t get it. Shouldn’t he be happy, over the moon that you can’t present him with an adequate answer? “Are you uhm… sure? Like you aren’t just trying to be nice?”

What? What does this have to do with you being kind or not?

“I seriously don’t know what you’re talking about. Is this some kind of joke? Or like I missed a major update in the world of algebra?” You question, frustrated, and your classmate lets out a little (endearingly) awkward chuckle before he pulls your notebook in front of him writing down the equation he assigned to you.

“No, it’s… it’s just cringe but in my defense, it was Hyunsuk’s idea,” Yonghee says, clearing his throat as he slides the paper back to you. You stare down at the damned numbers, ready to snicker when the boy covers the top half of his writing with another paper and suddenly a whole different meaning is presented to you. It takes you aback and you look at Yonghee, waiting for him to laugh, to call it a joke but he doesn’t, he just stares back at you with big doe eyes, hopeful and your heart trembles in your chest.

“It is cringe, but…” you agree once you finally find your voice, trailing off. Gosh, you can’t believe you’re doing this. You take the paper back and grab a pen to write i < 3u * 2.

Really, it’s so you: confessing using a mathematical formula. No matter how cliché it is because it doesn’t matter, not when Yonghee’s rewarding smile is brighter than the Sun.

It’s proven then: that sometimes it’s worth going against the dominant strategy because in the dilemma of love, taking risks might lead to happiness you never knew.

#stories #cix x reader #cix fluff #yonghee x reader #yonghee fluff

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