#This is based off an interaction I saw here on Tumblr

[a-noah-nova]

✨Besties✨

[rainydayathogwarts]

Creep - Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington

summary: eddie has a crush on king steve's girlfriend, the cheerleader who will always remind him that he is just a creep. based on the song creep by radiohead. warnings: creep eddie, unrequited feelings, bf!steve x gf!reader, one punch is thrown, a tinyyyyy bit angsty if you squint? a/n: I'm sorry the lettering is weird for the lyrics, tumblr is being dumb and not letting me make it all the same 2.1k+ wc

Using your grip on Steve's collar to bring him down for a kiss, you can't help but smile against his lips, gasping when one of his hands come down to cheekily squeeze your ass. Eddie observes the interaction from across the field, quickening his pace towards the parking lot. It wasn't fair that Steve was the one who got to come find you on the field when you both finished with your cheer or basketball practice - it was too cliché. The jock and the cheerleader. Eddie preferred the idea of the popular cheerleader with the weird grungy kid. It was just a shame that Eddie hadn't made his move on you when he had the chance.

When you were here before Couldn't look you in the eye You're just like an angel Your skin makes me cry

One look in the opposite direction and Eddie found himself colliding with someone, tripping over his own feet from the impact. "Shit, sorry." He spoke, eyes attracted to the sound of heavy objects hitting the floor, immediately kneeling to help you as you sighed, crouching down to pick your books up, mumbling an "It's fine." Eddie watched as you straightened up, felt your eyes run up his body before they made contact with his. He stuck out the hand holding one of your books towards you, awkwardly waiting for you to take it from him. You smiled kindly, fingers grazing his as you took back your belongings. Eddie tried returning your stare, but quickly intimidated, shifted his gaze away shyly. "Um, sorry, yeah." He walked away hurriedly, glancing back at you, his eyes widening when he caught your eyes still on his moving figure, eyebrows furrowed. He saw you lips move, and if he was any closer, he would have heard you mutter to yourself "What a weirdo."

That was the day you caught his attention. His thoughts ran wild, obsessively trying to figure out what you were doing when he finally got to the DND room, waiting for the others to join him. If you were in cheer uniform, you definitely had practice, which meant that you'd be on your way to the parking lot at the same time as him at the end of the day. The pretty cheerleader in the red uniform, with soft skin and manicured nails.

You float like a feather In a beautiful world I wish I was special You're so fuckin' special

When DND was over, Eddie was rushing, packing his things up and running to the parking lot, throwing his things in his van and casually waiting by it, as though waiting for someone. Waiting for you. His back straightened when you entered the parking lot with some friends, giggling with them, paying Eddie no attention as he lit a cigarette and leaned against the hood of his van. You separated from your friends, trotting over to a familiar red BMW, parked facing his van. You knocked on the window of the car before stepping back and waiting with a wide grin as Steve Harrington exited the car with a matching smile. Steve carefully took the books off you, placing them in the backseat of his car before turning to you once more and wrapping his muscular arms around you.

Both your eyes shut as you enjoyed the intimate moment, squeezing the other impossibly closer. When Steve pulled away, he grinned at you, eyes sparkling with joy. He looked at you just like Eddie was from across the lot: like you were the only girl in the world.

But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo What the hell am I doin' here? I don't belong here

Though Eddie saw you around school, he never made a move to speak to you. You were always either around your friends, or the boyfriend who you were so deeply in love with. He only gathered his courage at a party you'd been attending. It was the usual crowd, garnered at Harrington's giant house for a party. Eddie stuck out like a sore thumb. He didn't belong there, only present for business, dealing people here and there, sipping on a beer to keep him occupied. He couldn't help his wandering gaze. After all, he was stationed outside, waiting for his customers, and you were just close enough to catch his attention.

Sat on the outdoor lounge area, perched on Steve's lap despite there being plenty of space on the couch, you sipped your watermelon breezer slowly, nodding along at the conversation. Eddie sighed; you seemed like a watermelon kind of girl. He imagined you eating watermelon in the summer, putting on watermelon chapstick so that every time he kissed you he'd be able to taste the flavour on your lips. You twisted on Steve's lap, pressing a kiss on his cheek. His loose arm around your waist squeezed you into a quick hug, a private display of affection in the busy outdoors.

"Steve?" The boy hummed, meeting your eyes with a smile. "What's Munson doing here?" You questioned, playing with your boyfriend's long hair. "The usual. Why? 'S he bothering you?" You shook your head, though Steve looked unconvinced. Sighing, you added "I just feel like he's been staring a little." Steve's eyebrows furrowed, and he handed you his beer. "Let me go speak to him, yeah?" You shook your head quickly, trying to give him his beer back. "Don't do that baby. I don't want to cause problems." Steve frowned, arm around your waist tightening possessively as he took his beer back from you.

I don't care if it hurts I wanna have control I want a perfect body I want a perfect soul

Oh Steve, so clueless about the boy chasing after his girlfriend. It was never a matter of competition. No matter how hard Eddie tried, he'd never be similar enough to Steve to be loved by you. His obsession expanded from you to your boyfriend, watching Steve's behaviours, his looks, to see what you found attractive in him. Was it the way he flexed his muscles when you came to see him after basketball practice, the sweat glistening on his chest? Was it the way he styled his hair away from his face so you could see his gorgeous features? Eddie stood in the mirror, comparing himself. His muscles were lean and skinny, whereas Steve's muscles were big, with thighs that had you salivating. Eddie noticed the hand you always had on Steve's thigh, how you always liked to sit on them, in private or public.

Steve patted the side of your thigh, urging you to stand up, before he led you inside the house, buzzing with activity, the music loud enough to stop people from hearing each other. Steve led you into the kitchen, people walking in and out in a chase for more to drink. You put your drink on the counter, letting Steve cage you between his body and the kitchen island. You inhaled his masculine scent, tilting your head to the side, exposing your neck, shining with sweat residue. Steve licked his lips, leaning in to press kisses on your neck, occasionally sucking or grazing his teeth on your skin. "Why the kitchen Steve?" You laughed, fingers running through his hair. "Testing your hypothesis."

I want you to notice When I'm not around You're so fuckin' special I wish I was special

You gasped, head turning to glance at the small gap in the door. The party continued on the other side, bodies dancing in a crowd of colour and glitter. Glancing back at Steve, you tugged at his hair, pulling him up to slam your lips against his. He groaned, hands tightly gripping your hips as he deepened the kiss, forcing his tongue in your mouth. You whined, hooking a leg over his hip. Steve moved a hand to help hold your leg up, trailing his fingers dangerously close to the hem of your panties under your skirt. He thrust his hips forwards once, grinding his pelvis into your warm core, and you couldn't help the loud moan that escaped your lips, pulling away from the heated kiss. "Steve!" Your boyfriend looked up from where his face hid in the crook of your neck, hips unresting.

His second hand trailed under your skirt, moving away from your hip, fishing for the lacy fabric of your underwear. You gasped, hips rutting forward when his fingers grazed your pussy. "Steve" You repeated, this time with a warning tone. Steve grinned at you, pressing teasing kisses on your lips. "Want to go upstairs?" He asked, grinding his hips particularly hard, making you feel the outline of his cock against your barely covered cunt. You cupped his jaw with one hand, pecking his lips before mumbling "What about the hypothesis?" Steve pulled away from you completely, boyishly smiling down at you "We'll keep an eye out for it." He grabbed your hand, tugging you away from the counter, and then froze.

But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo What the hell am I doin' here? I don't belong here

A movement in the doorway grabbed his attention away from you, and Steve found himself staring right back at Eddie Munson, lingering in the doorway. He had followed you from the garden, loitering on the dance floor not to seem suspicious before looking for you. Steve let go of your hand, shoulders squared up, before slamming the door open and dragging Eddie into the kitchen by his shirt. "Shit, man I'm sorry, I just wanted to get a drink." Eddie babbled out, throwing his hands up in surrender. Steve walked over to the door, shutting it before turning to look at the outcast, a furious look on his face. "You freak." Eddie heard you whisper, and his head snapped towards you. Your arms were crossed over your chest, and you were stepping back from him towards the fridge.

Eddie frowned, shaking his head "No, I swear-" He words were interrupted by Steve, grabbing the collar of Eddie's shirt, and slamming him against the door. "You listen to me you fucking pervert," Steve seethed, leaning into Eddie threateningly. "Your little stalker habits towards my girl aren't cute and you're gonna stop them before we take things to the cops." Eddie's eyes widened, and he immediately nodded, too afraid to try and muster some sort of excuse. "Yeah, we're pretty good friends with Chief Hopper. Aren't we sweetheart?" He called out, waiting for the hum of agreement from you. Steve let go of Eddie's collar, taking a step away from him, and letting him open the door. Eyes still locked with Eddie's, Steve suddenly changed his mind, throwing a fist straight to Eddie's cheek, throwing off his balance, so his body tumbled down to the floor. You jumped up, yelling out "Steve!" as you ran towards the boy, putting your hands on his biceps as a subtle way to tell him to stop.

She's runnin' out the door She's runnin' out She run, run, run, run Run

"He deserves worse than just one punch." Steve spat, his hands closed into fists. You moved in front of Steve, looking up at him, ignoring Eddie's groans on the floor. "He's a creep, Steve. And a weirdo who doesn't deserve anyone's attention." You put a hand on your boyfriend's lower abdomen, trying to press a kiss to his lips, but the height difference didn't let you hit your aim, instead catching his bottom lip and the skin above his chin. Steve sighed, lowering his head to let you press a real kiss to his lips, before letting you lead him away from Eddie, laying down at your feet.

Taking Steve's hand in yours, you stepped over Eddie's arm, crossing the kitchen space until you reached the door. "Move your feet will you Munson?" You called out the boy, who was blocking the door from opening. He grunted in pain, moving his body to the side and bending his legs so you could open the door before slumping on his back once more.

Whatever makes you happy Whatever you want You're so fuckin' special I wish I was special

Eddie stared at the ceiling, tasting the blood dribbling down from his nose, a single tear falling from the corner of his eye. If you wanted Steve so badly, if you didn't want him, that's what he'd have to accept. You deserve the world in his eyes, you deserve everything you could ever want. So for now, Eddie would just have to get up and go home.

But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo What the hell am I doin' here? I don't belong here I don't belong here

At least, when he could physically get up.

[thepersonperson]

The Reproductive Horror of JJK Part 2 (Dealing with Trauma)

Part 1

Notes before we start.

1) This analysis deals heavily with topics of nonconsent, grooming, abuse, and reproductive manipulation. Please proceed with caution.

2) This post was inspired by @hermitw and @tangsakura

3) Read the light novels. They are the equivalent of Bleach's CFYOW for JJK. There is a fan translation (Book 1 & Book 2), but I will be citing the official translations from my own copies.

4) I will be mainly using the TCB scans for the manga because of their accessibility. 

5) Written as of JJK 265.

(Click images for captions/citations.)

Preface 

This was written with the assumption you've also read these other analyses:

Thoughts on Sukuna and Kenjaku’s relationship as of JJK 258.

Gojo's You Pronouns (Gojo's Relationship with Toji and Geto)

Please give them a quick glance at least.

...

Some of you may have found it odd that a discussion about bodies being irreversibly changed and used left out Mahito whose ability quite literally irreversibly changes bodies for them to use. That was deliberate. Blame Tumblr’s 30 photo limit.

The previous post was actually about Mahito. 

Mahito

For series that has a power system based on strong negative emotions, it is a bit odd that curses surrounding sexual trauma aren’t ever directly mentioned in this work. You could chalk it up to the series being Shounen and not Seinen. But that is precisely why I think JJK delves into the topic using abstract representations. It allows the topic to be explored in a way that connects well with those who’ve experienced it without being too graphic for the younger audience.

Though Kenjaku is a literal rapist, I argued the methodology and effects behind vessel creation resemble rape. Someone's body belonging to another through force, permanent changes brought about after experiencing immense trauma, being groomed into tolerating it as a natural part of this world…  When I think of a curse equivalent to this, there is no one other than Mahito that fits.

The transfigured humans Mahito creates are through nonconsentual touch that strips them not only of their autonomy, but their clothing as well. These people are in immense pain from the distortion of their bodies and can never be returned to their original state. In this way, transfigured humans can be read as a stand in for victims of sexual assault.

I didn’t propose this idea first. The Tumblr user that inspired this entire analysis, hermitw, did so in this post (please read it, it's very good). This person’s ideas will be reiterated in this discussion and I will expand upon them starting with how poorly other characters react to their Cursed Technique (CT).

Breaking Composure

Mahito sets themself apart from other curses by how they’re able to get under the skin of the most seasoned sorcerers. It’s not because of their words but the transfigured humans.

Nanami is heralded as the no-nonsense man. Nothing gets to him. He is always calm and professional no matter the circumstances. Mahito's first interaction with him immediately throws him off kilter.

We saw how much fun Gojo was having beating Hanami to death and tearing Jogo apart. That stops entirely when the transfigured humans show up. Yuji can see it coming too. This is the first time during the fight that Gojo’s composure visibly breaks. His reaction to Mahito isn’t any better. There are no smiles and he looks to be in shock.

Gojo’s Six Eyes allow him to see Cursed Energy (CE) to the point where he can infer someone’s CT at a glance. When he sees those transfigured humans, he’s probably seeing the extent of their pain in how the CE controls their souls.

I also want to point out that sexual harassment on trains is such a massive problem in Japan that they have special cars for women. There’s something to be said here about a train full of people that can represent victims of sexual assault.

This visceral disgust when it comes to Mahito isn’t limited to the protagonists either—the main antagonist, Sukuna, finds them to be repulsive after a few interactions. In this instance, Mahito's touching of Sukuna's soul is straight up compared to a patron harassing a hostess.

Just like Gojo, Sukuna goes from having fun to having a really bad time in an instant.

I bring their reactions to Mahito up because there is something off about it. These are all characters that hardly balk at the gore and death brought about by curses. It’s as if Mahito’s brand of violence needs to be categorized as something else.

If Mahito is seen as the embodiment of sexual assault, this is in line with how sexual violence is separated into its own category for treatment and study. When compared to non-sexual violence, the lasting effects are so severe it's not helpful to treat it the same way.

And that’s just what Mahito is. An exceptionally dangerous curse that Jujutsu Society deems needs to be exorcized before it destroys everything because barely anyone can deal with its effects. Likening that damage to something on par with natural disasters is significant.

Mahito as a Natural Disaster

Mahito is the leader of the natural disaster curses despite being born of humans. Hanami, Jogo, and Dagon are forms of wrath spawned from environmental damage brought about by humans. When nature, the ocean, or volcanoes cause mass death, people accept it as a part of living in this world. Sometimes they’ll go as far as to blame others for causing their own demise by living so close to it. 

Mahito doesn’t seem to fit into this category unless you consider how widespread sexual assault is. In the US alone 81% of women and 43% of men reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime. These numbers are likely higher due to the underreporting of this crime in general.

In 2021 it was estimated that 101.8 million people were affected by natural disasters or about 1% of the current 7.9 billion population. By 2050 some estimate that 1.2 billion people will be displaced by climate change related natural disasters. That’s about 15% of the current population.

Compared to natural disasters, sexual assault certainly rivals their numbers. But when compared to reporting? It’s under discussed. People chase storms. Natural disasters are tracked extensively by the damage and cost. Nations build infrastructure and plan around them. They’re acknowledged as a problem that is to be dealt with. The victims of sexual assault get no such attention. Warnings against perpetrators are often ignored and the victims are something people would rather keep invisible.

Mahito is a lot like that. Able to go about unnoticed as they stockpile thousands of humans whose bodies disturb those around them. The transfigured humans are targeted first by sorcerers both because it’s easier and because the one creating them seems untouchable.

Mahito’s effectiveness as a curse is their ability to force people to reckon with the worst humanity has to offer. They mirror every little sin and exploitation committed by others, putting it on full display with their manipulation of Junpei.

Just like Mei Mei grooming Ui Ui with inappropriate but gentle touches and praise…

Just like Kenjaku manipulating the vulnerable to gain access to and use their bodies, only to betray them in the end… 

You might call Mahito Kenjaku’s protégé. Really taking after all the worst aspects of that bastard. However, I have read CFYOW. Mahito’s true source of inspiration comes from someone unexpected. 

Allegory in Darkness (JJK Summer of Ashes, Autumn of Dust, Chapter 3)

Before Mahito met Junpei, they met a blind homeless man living under a bridge. Their interactions with this man fundamentally change their view on humans and their approach to breaking them. This short story is one of the most harrowing things I’ve ever read. The quiet horror of JJK is on full display here. I’m not going to summarize all of what happens. Just read this.

This old man is so detached from himself and the world around him that he has essentially become nothing. He exists as a thing. This fascinates Mahito and they decide to observe them, forming a weird sort of companionship with him. Eventually, Mahito learns why the old man is this way.

Immense trauma. Abused and disfigured, the old man gives up on everything and in turn is freed from his suffering. Mahito likens his state to enlightenment Buddhist monks may achieve. 

They’re not wrong about this. Buddhism is centered around the escape from suffering via detachment. But there’s something greatly unsettling about this situation. Unfortunately that never gets addressed, the old man dies and Mahito oversees it.

And what’s this? Right at the end. The old man appreciates Mahito for being there for him. His “enlightened” state is revealed for the facade that it is, causing his soul to waver. He appreciates that his suffering has been acknowledged by another and dies satisfied, leaving Mahito both in a state of mourning and with the perfect way to manipulate someone before they pass.

What a human is to Mahito.

There’s a lot I left out in my summarization of Allegory of Darkness. Mainly the little discussions they had to build a relationship. They’re centered around movies and books because Mahito uses those to understand the humans around them. 

From their studies, they conclude the following. 

Humans are creatures that eat, sleep, and rape while curses are creatures that deceive, cheat, and kill. But I’d like to break down the kanji Mahito uses for their description of humans.

食 (ku) is usually read as "ta" which is in line with regular eating. The "ku" reading is more like devouring and it can be a sexual innuendo.

寝 (ne) means to sleep. And just like in English it can mean to have sex with someone.

犯す (okasu) is the tricky one. It can mean to commit a crime, to break, to violate, to contravene, to deflower, to rape.

Translating this as rape isn’t wrong, but it can overemphasize the sexual connotation. Okasu is more about the nonconsent. Doing something against another’s will. 

However in Mahito’s case, they’re most definitely drawing attention to that. The eat uses the ku reading and is next to sleep with heavy innuendo. Okasu implies an assault on a body that does not belong to them. With this in mind, I think eat would be best localized as consume to get across the greedy inconsideration.

This isn’t coming from nowhere. They watched such a thing occur first hand. That old man I mentioned? He’s killed by two random men on a dare because they see him as something for their consumption. His body doesn’t belong to him. It’s a thing for them to play with.

Kenjaku, a human, reinforces this behavior by having Mahito participate in death womb painting incarnations and other manipulative schemes. And in the end, Kenjaku causes Mahito to fall to the same victimization they learned from humans.

Mahito sees humans, not curses, as creatures that take without consideration. They’re beings that have made the violation of boundaries so commonplace it can be seen as natural. And he’s not really wrong about that in the context of this story. All the stuff I mentioned in the previous post—it’s both right there in your face and nearly invisible. 

The acts themselves are never depicted but always implied. It’s an insidious thing that goes ignored or is outright denied by fans. Anyone who has experienced these things, recognizes it, and points it out will be chastised for reading too much into it.

But can you blame them? The perpetrators are named. They’re goofy and strong and interesting. Their victims are footnotes with little presence and are sometimes outright denied names. And yet they’re always there, just out of sight, suffering in the background.

How horrific that this mirrors a victim’s experience almost identically.

Mahito vs Yuji

The first time Yuji kills a human, it’s as a mercy. At the request of the transfigured human, Yuji puts them out of their misery.

It’s a sin Nanami has been trying to protect Yuji from as a child and Mahito forces it on him with a cruel choice between leaving them to suffer or ending it for them. Yuji chooses to liberate them from suffering.

I think Yuji is able to see the outline of Mahito’s soul, not because of Sukuna, but because he is willing to see Mahito for what they are and face them head on. He doesn’t hide how the transfigured humans or deaths affect him. He cries over them and carries on with that hurt. 

And it’s painful. Yuji vomits and wails on the floor. But he deals with it. Unlike his mentors who bury their emotions and pretend everything is ok.

This is what makes Yuji fundamentally incompatible with Mahito. He is the exception that won’t allow Mahito to go unnoticed and slip away. He does it for their victims and himself. And still Mahito taints him. Yuji starts to see himself as a cog no different than Mahito.

He carries that mentality until he finally confronts Sukuna in JJK 265. Acknowledging why he started thinking that way in the first place, moving past it and onto something better. 

That’s what I love about Yuji the most. To him, anyone’s trauma will never be invisible.

And the horror persists…

Even though Yuji is this tiny beacon of hope in this rather depressing narrative, there’s still so much he can do as a 15 year old boy. The trauma he takes on and deals with is only for those he was witnessed or has been told of. This means a lot of the characters don’t have their grievances addressed in a way that gives me comfort.  

The old man under the bridge may have died satisfied, but I can’t stop thinking about him. His suffering and isolation masked by numbness went on for decades. The happiness he experienced at the end was for seconds. And the worst of the worst, Mahito, was the one to comfort him…

I can't stop thinking about the old man under the bridge.

There’s a lot I left out in my summarization of Allegory in Darkness. I really wanted to include more, but I found it to not fit into the rest of this discussion. Strange little bits of dialogue like these.

When I read these passages, a single question lingers in my mind.  

Why does this man resemble Sukuna? 

I lied. This post is actually about Sukuna.

Let’s go back to that homeless old man under the bridge. Mahito admires him as enlightened, but anyone can his state is mortifying. He has coped with the abuse, disfigurement, and suffering by becoming nothing. No different than a rock. He has no name. He’s not a person. He feels nothing. And the worst thing about it is how that’s technically better than being tormented by those memories.

JJK asks how does one cope with trauma? And repeatedly this question is answered by most characters in one of two ways:

1) You let it consume all that you are.

2) You become nothing as you detach yourself from it entirely.

The old man under the bridge is what Gojo tried to and failed to become. As much as he pretended otherwise, his attachment to grief and love controlled him. Sukuna mocks him for this. Calling him painfully ordinary in the English localization isn't incorrect, but it strips away that religious context. In Japanese this kanji 凡夫 (bonpu) can be read as Unenlightened.

The old man reached enlightenment while coping with his trauma. It worked for so long. But right at the end, when Mahito shows some semblance of care for him, those feelings he thought were shaved off cause him to waver. 

A new question plagues my mind.

What the hell happened to Sukuna? 

It’s presented as a humorous thing. Framing Mahito’s nonconsensual touching of Sukuna’s soul as a handsy patron ignoring the boundaries of a hostess.

Gege sometimes introduces character quirks as something funny before they’re revealed to be induced by trauma. Gojo Satoru is the biggest culprit of this with his sweet tooth and manner of speech and childish behavior that desperately tries to claw back the youth that was stolen from him.

Sukuna has such an averse reaction to having his soul touched by Mahito. He’s wearing women’s clothes when it happens. He’s likened to a hostess for it.

When we consider this and the quiet way misogyny and sexual assault is woven into this story… And how Gojo, the Strongest, was preyed on by older women. And how Yuki escaped having her body being used by someone much older than her by becoming strong. And how Rika, the Queen of Curses, is likely a victim of CSA by someone who was supposed to take care of her. And how Mai, a twin and a victim of CSA, creates a stronger twin by dying when she can no longer cope with her trauma.

I don’t like what this suggests for Sukuna at all.

Sukuna is willing to bond with all the other natural disaster cursed spirits, except Mahito. He himself became something akin to a natural disaster so it makes sense he liked the company of those like them. It’s him rejecting the strongest of the bunch because of how their CT violates others’ bodies is something I cannot overlook.

Jogo’s fire is so kind in comparison. The bodies he burns and the corpses he leaves cannot be defiled by anyone. It’s what would’ve prevented Geto’s body from being stolen. And hey! Sukuna returns the favor, burning Jogo in a way that prevents Kenjaku from absorbing him.

The easiest way for Sukuna to permanently scar and  traumatize Yuji is to inflict sexual violence on him or his loved ones. JJK does not shy away from having rapists like Noaya and Kenjaku do just that. A common complaint from fans is Sukuna not trying to manipulate Yuji into working with him. JJK does not shy away from having groomers like Kenjaku, Mahito, and Mei Mei (and to an extent Tengen) do just that.

Sukuna is strong and clever enough to do these things, but he doesn’t. I think there’s more to this than a disinterest in sex.

Choso’s mother faced ostracization for her unique body that allowed her to give birth to hybrid children. With nowhere left to go she wound up at a temple for sorcerers.  Kenjaku took advantage of her situation and body, partaking in her rape to satiate intellectual curiosity.

Sukuna faced ostracization as a child for his unique body that made him a great sorcerer. Just about everyone who knows him has tried to exploit his abilities for their benefit.

There’s a massive blank in this parallel. What happened to Sukuna growing up to make him this way? Every time I try to fill in that blank with the information we have now, I’m left with something deeply unpleasant. 

When Sukuna has flashbacks, it only ever goes as far back to his time as Yujikuna. He verbally recounts his time in the womb and there’s nothing else. The first time we see Heian Era Sukuna in full, it’s from Yorozu’s memory. And if you recall…this introduction is him being sexually assaulted. 

Sukuna’s fingers are scattered everywhere, fragments of himself are throughout the world and in a little bit of everyone. A curse that cannot be destroyed that only gets stronger with time. He’s something that was repressed despite everyone knowing he exists—a victim of sexual abuse.

Sukuna’s Backstory—Revised

Back when I theorized that Sukuna is an ex-slave, I deliberately withheld references to sexual abuse slaves are often subjected to because I felt it was too heavy for the post.

But seeing others theorize something that severe happened in part because of his CT’s name and spiritual pederasty practices at the time, makes me regret not including it. Please read the post by Tumblr user tangsakura that brought this to my attention.

Pederasty, if you do not know, refers to a boy having a sexual “relationship” with an older man sometimes as a form of “guidance”. The most known form of this originates from ancient Rome and Greece. I put “relationship” and “guidance” in quotations because children cannot consent to or grow from this kind of abuse. 

Such a thing was common, sometimes socially accepted, systemic abuse in the ancient world. (Though a form of it exists to this day.) Japan partook in pederasty, even in certain types of Buddhist temples, prior to the Meiji Restoration in 1868. (Here’s a video source on it. Be warned it's pretty upsetting.)

And in most of these societies that accepted pederasty, a relationship between two men of equal standing was frowned upon or not tolerated at all. The imbalance of power and exploitation of children was the socially acceptable thing. Despite, you know, the resulting trauma and suicides of the victims.

As discussed in the linked video, the children at these temples were seen as pure and therefore closer to Buddha. Since celibacy between human monks was expected, fetishizing these children as gods allowed for the mental gymnastics to justify molesting them. 

That’s not too surprising. Organized religion with massive followings all have it in common—the sexual abuse of minors and tolerating it or covering it up. What’s striking about this abuse is that it was considered important to or even necessary for enlightenment by some sects. Their suffering brought about enlightenment. 

Mini crash course for those not familiar with Buddhism. There are 4 Noble Truths that are foundational to this religion. (Copy and pasted from Wikipedia.)

1) Dukkha: Suffering exists: Life is suffering. Suffering is real and almost universal. Suffering has many causes: loss, sickness, pain, failure, and the impermanence of pleasure.'Dukkha: Suffering exists: Life is suffering. Suffering is real and almost universal. Suffering has many causes: loss, sickness, pain, failure, and the impermanence of pleasure.

2) Samudaya: There is a cause of suffering. Suffering is due to attachment. It is the desire to have and control things. It can take many forms: craving of sensual pleasures; the desire for fame; the desire to avoid unpleasant sensations, like fear, anger or jealousy.

3) Nirodha: There is an end to suffering. Attachment can be overcome. Suffering ceases with the final liberation of Nirvana. The mind experiences complete freedom, liberation and non-attachment. It lets go of any desire or craving.

4) Magga: In order to end suffering, follow the Eightfold Path.

Per the 3rd Noble Truth, enlightenment comes from the end of suffering, not its continuation. The idea that suffering is needed for enlightenment contradicts this Truth. But that’s not surprising either. I was raised Protestant and I’ve got a whole laundry list of how that branch of Christianity seems to have ignored the basic fundamentals of Biblical text. 

What I want to get into is the specific branch of Buddhism Sukuna appears to have been abused under—Tachikawa-ryū. Just as a heads up, information on this sect is limited as this person explains:

“Tachikawa practice became forbidden and the school’s ritual texts were destroyed. As a result, only a few original scriptures and rituals survived the persecution, which makes it very difficult nowadays to fully understand the teachings of the Tachikawa-ryū.”

(The wikipedia page is straight up missing citations so feel free to correct me if I get some stuff wrong.)

The destruction of records sounds exactly like what happened with Kenjaku and the Meiji girl. But the similarities don’t start or end there. This sect is accused of using human and animal skulls for rituals. And if you recall, Sukuna sits on a throne of oxen skulls. Other heretical acts included the consumption of meat, which at the time was forbidden. Another thing Sukuna loves to do. 

But what this sect is most known for are the bizarre sex rituals needed for enlightenment. You know the thing Sukuna explicitly has no interest in. More excerpts about that from the non-wiki source:

“Since the idea of a world, created by the union of male (yang) and female (yin) elements, is the essence of cosmology in Tantrism, sexual union serves as the “real life” version of this dualism. In other words, sex is an effective way to achieve buddhahood in a relatively short amount of time (best case scenario: this life, “becoming a buddha in this very body (即身成仏 sokushin jōbutsu)”). Furthermore, much ink has flown on the description and discussion of a human skull ritual that involved sexual intercourse and the use of seminal and vaginal fluids to create an object of worship.”

This melding of male and female elements is everywhere in JJK. It’s a massive component of the reproductive horror too. Everything with Kenjaku is self explanatory. But Sukuna, who wears women’s clothes, is currently pregnant with the Merger, and has a gender ambiguous servant… He’s a part of this too.

It should also be noted  that Tachikawa-ryū is actually a sub-sect of a sect. It originates from Shingon Buddhism. …Which was first introduced in the Heian Era.

Here are some quotes from the wiki article:

“The essence of Shingon practice is to experience the Dharmakaya, the ultimate reality, by emulating the inner realization of the Dharmakaya through the synchronized meditative ritual use of mantras, mudras (hand gestures) and visualization of mandalas.”

Oh hey that sounds like what Jujutsu Sorcerers do.

“The goma (護摩) fire ritual is an important and recognizable ritual in Shingon. The meaning of goma is to burn the firewood of delusion with the wisdom flame, consuming it completely.”

Oh hey that sounds like Sukuna’s fire CT.

“The most important Shingon mandalas are known as the Mandala of the Two Realms which are: The Womb Realm (Sanskrit: Garbhadhātu; Japanese: 胎蔵界曼荼羅, romanized: Taizōkai) mandala based on the Mahavairocana Sutra and the Diamond Realm (Sanskrit: Vajradhātu; Japanese: 金剛界曼荼羅, romanized: Kongōkai) mandala based on the Vajrasekhara Sutra.”

Oh hey that’s Kenjaku’s Domain.

I wasn’t raised any kind of Buddhist, so there’s probably a lot here I’m missing. My point here is that the symbolism and historical context are in line with Sukuna enduring some pretty horrific abuse as a child. It’s very likely that the way he behaves and thinks is one massive cope to rationalize what happened to him. 

Identity and Trauma

Sukuna is a difficult character to grasp because he’s so unforthcoming in personal information. He’s not once introduced himself by name and reveals fragments about himself in very cryptic ways. Most of what we know about him is from other characters. (Much like how the original writings of Tachikawa-ryū are lost and the remaining info is sourced from outsiders.)

To better understand him, I’ve been working under the assumption that other characters reflect fragments of Sukuna that will eventually fall into place.

Sukuna is like Maki. Consuming his twin to survive and becoming stronger for it.

Sukuna is like Toji. Discriminated against for the way he was born, he becomes strong enough to separate himself from Jujutsu Society only to be dragged back in.

Sukuna is like Geto. Falling from grace and procuring a cult-like following. 

Sukuna is like Todo. He’s completely self-centered and hates taking orders from those weaker than him.

Sukuna is like Mechamaru. Disfigured by birth, longing to connect with others, he finds himself at the end of a manipulative deal that promised him a second life.

Sukuna is like Kenjaku. He sees himself as above others and only wants equals for companionship. Other people are playthings for him to consume to stave off boredom. 

Sukuna is like Mahito. Endlessly curious about the humans he was born of, he consumes their art and lives in an attempt to understand them.

Sukuna is like Yorozu. Obsessively pursuing a single person, trying to teach them love through violence.

Sukuna is like Yuji. Adapting to any situation with battle intuition like no other by understanding his opponent.

Sukuna is Gojo. I call them twin flames since they have the most in common. If you noticed, that homeless old man from Allegory in Darkness resembles Gojo a lot too. For this reason I often use Gojo as a reference to infer how Sukuna is as a character.

Gojo’s trauma that helped him reach his self-proclaimed enlightenment was Toji. And that was just normal assault. But let’s reframe that battle as something a little more abstract…

As a teenager Gojo has his Infinity, a barrier that kept him safe, forcibly penetrated by a much older man. This both kills him and awakens him to immense power that irreversibly changes him. His loved ones can no longer recognize him and his relationships are destroyed by this. His ability to feel pleasure and his sexuality are contorted in ways that others find deeply perverse.

This is the plot of Baby Reindeer—an extremely upsetting semi-autobiographical recounting of how the creator’s sexual trauma ruined his life.

But that’s not how everything is framed at first. The main character, Donny is introduced as a man trying to report his stalker, Martha, to the police. 

Martha recognizes that Donny has been abused. Maybe not in the same way as her, but similar enough to the point where they become toxicly attached to each other. She stalks him and assaults him in what she believes to be acts of love. You both pity her for her circumstances and hate her for the destruction she causes. 

That sounds like Sukuna doesn’t it?

Sukuna saw something in Gojo he can’t recognize in anyone else. And I think it’s much more than the loneliness that comes with being strong—It’s having your body violated and no one recognizing or taking your trauma seriously because you’re supposed to be strong. 

Toji’s failed assassination attempt on Gojo resembles sexual assault in how Gojo reacts to the whole ordeal. He wants some kind of support but pushes everyone away. He craves touch but has a barrier to prevent it running 24/7. He both pities Toji and admires him, fears him and kills anything like him. His sexuality cannot be divorced from this incident, needing a good deal of violence to get off. It’s too similar to how Donny engages his own sexuality after his assault. 

But to my knowledge, Gojo hasn’t been raped. He went through something that resembled it and Sukuna picked up on that. During their fight, Sukuna essentially dealt with that trauma. He became a sort of Toji that satisfied Gojo’s perverse needs while tearing through the very thing that had him targeted in the first place—Infinity.

This is the source suffering Sukuna seemingly liberates Gojo from with extreme violence like some kind of heretical Bodhisattva. There’s also something to be said about him using Mahoraga to do this.The Eight-Handled in its title is a reference to the Eightfold Path that’s to be followed in order to obtain enlightenment.

And they both have this trait in common—using violence to guide others towards enlightenment, a perversion of the 3rd Noble Truth. Gojo just calls it tough love.

(And notice how Megumi recalls both Sukuna and Gojo's words as he grows from a difficult fight.)

I know that Gojo does this because of his trauma with Toji and his own “growth” coming from it. It’s one of Gojo’s many destructive coping mechanisms. He’s stuck in the past trying to relive what was stolen from him. Like I mentioned before, Sukuna calls Gojo unenlightened for this. And if they’re twin flames, I have reason to believe Sukuna is the exact same way.

Sukuna finds Maki to be the most compelling of Gojo’s students. And I think there’s more to this than seeing a  fellow monster in her. She’s what he wants to be.

Not only is Maki free of the sorcery that ruined their lives, she has confronted and dealt with her trauma. She killed the source of her suffering, the Zenins, and has accepted the death of her twin she was so dearly attached to. And unlike her mentors, Maki appears to be emotionally stable because she did this in spite of her trauma, not through it. The sumo guy's compassion is what guides her. In other words, she’s obtained enlightenment outside of violence.

Maki also succeeds where Toji failed. There isn’t anything left that would cause her to waver. She stays true to herself and remains enlightened.

That seems to be a recurring thing—characters deviating from their “enlightened” state through human connections that rouse their unresolved emotional issues and then dying. Toji’s projection of his trauma from Jujutsu Society onto Gojo gets him killed. Kenjaku’s desperation for companionship has Takaba create the perfect opening for Todo and Yuta’s ambush.

Sukuna has started to deviate from himself because of Yuji. And it’s probably because he’s projecting his trauma onto him. If that’s the reason both Toji and Kenjaku were felled, it’ll be the reason for Sukuna’s downfall too. Just like that old man under the bridge.

Sukuna and Yuji

Umineko no Naku Koro ni (When the Seagulls Cry) is a visual novel about a person who is fundamentally misunderstood by those around them. They desperately want to be loved without being perceived, believing themself to be unworthy due to trauma and immutable characteristics given to them at birth. Instead of telling anyone these feelings directly, they play games akin to torture. They torment the ones they love over and over in hopes they'll see through their actions and understand them.

I’ve always compared Sukuna to this character, but for this analysis I’ll be comparing him to another from Umineko—Rosa Ushiromiya.

The youngest of 4 from a rich conservative household, Rosa was subjected to physical and verbal abuse by her father and older siblings. As an adult around them she cowers. She shows her abusers respect they don’t deserve because of her social standing within the family and tolerates their jeering.

But with her little 9 year old daughter who can’t fight back? She beats her the moment she makes any mistake. As she beats this child she screams about how everything is her fault. Rosa projects her financial woes, her childhood abuse, and systemic misogyny all onto this child that never asked to be born. She blames this child for her own shortcomings that keep her tethered to her abusers year after year.

The sad thing is that Rosa doesn’t realize why she’s doing this. She is unable to come to terms with her own trauma and remains stuck in the cycle of abuse as both a victim and a perpetrator, unable to spare her daughter from it. 

Knowing that Sukuna and Yuji are blood uncle and nephew. And knowing that by technicalities, Yuji would be genetically recognized as Sukuna’s son…I see that kind of hurt in their relationship.

Sukuna is a very good liar. Most take him at his word. He says that he hates Yuji for his ideals—how he puts his life on the line in service to others. The things Megumi, Higuruma, and Gojo do as well. And yet Sukuna admires them. Todo sacrifices himself to prop up Yuji and save Hana. Sukuna calls him a true sorcerer for this. It’s not unreasonable to conclude that Sukuna isn’t being honest about why he hates Yuji. 

I think it’s because Yuji is somehow linked to Sukuna’s trauma through no fault of his own. And because Yuji is easier to target, Sukuna uses him as an outlet.

We’ve seen this scenario play out before in JJK. Mai lashes out at Maki instead of Naoya or all the other men like Naobito who enabled or partook in her abuse because it’s the safer thing to do. She doesn’t actually hate Maki. She hates what she has to endure at the Zenin Clan and sees it as inevitable. Fighting back is scary and she really hates doing that. If the manga didn’t make that clear, the CFYOW: Thorny Road at Dawn, Chapter 4: Advancing in the Face of Fear sure does.

Yuji isn’t a cage to Sukuna because he chose to be this way. Kenjaku made him for it and even manipulated him into ingesting the fingers. But you know, Yuji is someone Sukuna can attack without consequence. 

I do not know if Kenjaku is the person who abused Sukuna or if Kenjaku merely resembles the person who abused Sukuna. Kenjaku is older than Sukuna, has a fascination with him, and has manipulated him. There are plenty of other characters that have been traumatized by Kenjaku.

Whatever the true nature of their relationship is, Sukuna is choosing to attack a symptom of his restriction instead of its source. He’s behaving no different than Mai or Rosa which leads me to believe there’s something deeper to his hatred of Yuji.

Yuji’s Role

I think that Yuji is aware something terrible happened to Sukuna. He’s not really sure what. The type of abuse Sukuna likely went through is not common historical knowledge even in Japan.

For the longest time, Yuji regarded Sukuna as a curse and denied him his humanity. But as of JJK 265, Yuji treats Sukuna like a human. He takes him through his memories and plays little games with him. He rejects the cog mentality Mahito groomed him into and says this:

“I could very well be doing the wrong thing here. So I thought I should at least let you see the humanity of someone other than yourself.”

Yuji is admits that his approach to Sukuna may be flawed.

And flawed it is. This entire chapter and offer Yuji makes to Sukuna might be one of the cruelest things he has done so far and he isn’t even aware of it. Yuji is recounting a pleasant childhood full of love and quiet moments. That’s something Sukuna didn’t have because it was taken away for reasons beyond his control.

This accidental cruelty isn’t anything new. It happens right before Junpei dies to an ability that resembles sexual assault. Yuji reaches out to him and asks what’s wrong. He notices something is off and tries to console Junpei through it.

And here he apologizes for saying something so insensitive. He didn’t know, but he had to ask. Sukuna was there to see that.

I think that's what Sukuna wants from him. He wants Yuji to acknowledge he was hurt. To recognize that something happened to him and offer something like he did with Junpei. It’s a bit odd that he humors Yuji’s kindness towards him instead of immediately opening his domain as a counter. This could be an explanation for that.

Yuji hasn’t given Sukuna the same treatment yet. In fact he’s done the exact opposite thing he does with other people. Yuji usually lets his opponent yap at him and meets them as they are. This time, Yuji is the one who does the bulk of the talking and he doesn’t give Sukuna a chance to open up about himself.

That’s not his fault at all. He’s 15 and it’s not his job. The reason he thought Sukuna was a curse for so long is because everyone else told him he wasn’t human and Sukuna never denied it. But just like with Junpei, Yuji did something really insensitive.

Yuji showed Sukuna pity then told him to die or go back into his cage.

People picked up on Yuji being posed like the Fallen Lucifer painting. I think it’s deliberate this offer is being framed as villainous. If Sukuna is outright revealed to be a former slave or a victim of CSA, on reread this would come across as wicked.

It wouldn’t be the first time a scene goes from hype to depressing on reread. I loved watching Yuji and Nobara grow as they killed Eso and Kezichu. After Choso? That fight breaks my heart. Yuji has been manipulated into killing his own brothers and he didn’t even know it.

Yuji’s status as a cage is likely reminiscent of whatever bound Sukuna to the abuse in the first place. And that’s what he’s offering. Death or existing in that state you could argue is much worse than death—a state where his body does not belong to him. Where he is forced to watch a normalish life he can’t have play out for the one tormenting him.

The anger Sukuna displays at Yuji for this is something we’ve only seen him lob towards Mahito. Hell, it’s the same kind of face Yuji makes at Mahito.

I think it’s also telling that Sukuna couldn’t feel anything towards the small things in life. That’s common for anyone who has undergone immense trauma. He was rather cordial about trying this stuff out until Yuji gave his ultimatum.

I’m sure Yuji would give Sukuna more grace if he’d just be honest with his feelings. But this guy is no different than Gojo. He bottles everything up and gets mad at others for not intuiting he’s about to explode.

Strength and Masculinity

Baki the Grappler. This is a manga where men destroy each other’s bodies as a test of strength. It’s poorly written but the art is terrifying and I love it so dearly. Between fights of extreme violence and body horror the characters eat. And that’s it. That’s the manga.

I’ve brought this series up before when discussing how fights can be used as a dialogue between characters. In Baki, many of those combat convos ask the following:

What is strength? What does it mean to be strong? 

What is a man? What does it mean to be a man?

Various characters will answer in their own ways. But I want to focus on the man who seeks to challenge death.

This is a man, who after being raped feels like he’s less of a man. And he thinks that others will see him as less of a man if he ever admits to it. (This happens in Baby Reindeer too.)

In a misogynistic society, women are expected to tolerate sexual assault. Their identity is often linked to experiencing it. Men are expected to be perpetrators of it, not victims. This is why this character calls his rape being shown “the woman within him”.

Echoing this sentiment, Sukuna, in women’s clothing, is quite literally referred to as a girl when Mahito touches him without permission. It’s also treated as a joke. The Baki character doesn’t fare any better in fanspaces. If you mention his name, someone will eventually reply “Yujiro Rapes Mid Diff”. It’s got an abbreviation too: “YRMD”. A little in-joke since the fandom at large refuses to take his assault seriously. 

This is probably why Sukuna refuses to even hint at his abuse. It fundamentally conflicts with his identity. He’s the strongest sorcerer in all of history who would be mocked for being a victim. After all, he did just that to Junpei and torments Yuji over his helplessness. He perpetuates the cycle of shame to protect himself even though he’d benefit more from dismantling it.

And there’s another reason Sukuna wouldn’t be forthcoming with his trauma—predators will take advantage of this vulnerability and revictimize people. It’s often why those who escape abusive relationships find themselves in another. Straight up, that’s why it’s considered safer to not list out your traumas and mental illnesses on dating apps. It’s safer not to trust.

But still, this is something you eventually have to disclose with anyone you’re trying to connect with. Otherwise they won’t understand you or why certain things send you into a panic. And that’s the problem. When is it safe to do that? When can you tell someone of this thing that makes you so vulnerable? It’s not like you can show up to a first date and go, “Hi, I was abused as a child. I need to make sure you’re not going to hurt me. If your voice rises above a certain pitch I’m going to cry on the spot.” If that somehow doesn’t sour the mood, they now have the exact tools to hurt you with. That’s scary as hell.

Sukuna has been destroying absolutely anyone that can have power over him, despite him craving companionship from those of equal strength. Gojo did this same song and dance with anything that resembled Toji until it killed him. It’s a consequence of a coping mechanism this toxic. As long as they are strong, they can’t be hurt like that again. And because they are strong they must endure solitude. The loneliness is worth being safe.

Yuji’s approach to trauma is the polar opposite. He faces it and deals with it. In the same way Mahito forces sorcerers to see the worst of humanity they’ve been overlooking, Yuji is forcing Sukuna to reckon with something he’s been repressing for centuries. This is why Yuji can strike at his soul.

Outliers

This section is for characters I don’t know how to fit into the rest of this analysis and should be considered because of their direct relationships to Sukuna.

Megumi

Sukuna is rather merciful with his kills compared to other characters like Kenjaku. When he’s done playing with someone, they die. He’ll even be respectful about it in his strange little way. Megumi is the sole exception to this, putting him in a very weird spot with the rest of this analysis.

Sukuna forced himself into Megumi’s body through incarnation and has subjugated his soul. And though this has been better for combat as he wanted, Sukuna is noticeably more miserable. Yujikuna before the Culling Games is still the happiest we’ve seen Sukuna. Whether this is from Megumi’s gloominess influencing him or Sukuna no longer having a goal to work towards or Sukuna incidentally retraumatizing himself by repeating the cycle remains to be seen. Maybe it’s all of this at once.

This is probably one of those things that will make more sense to me with more information. For now, I’ll focus on how Megumi’s name means blessing. Sukuna stole Gojo’s Blessing and destroyed it. And if Sukuna is Gojo, he has also destroyed his Blessing.

That kind of makes sense. Mahoraga, a representation of the path to enlightenment, has been destroyed by Sukuna’s actions as Megkuna. Adaptation is something that could’ve kept Sukuna entertained for a very long time since it would evolve with him. It could’ve also killed him and set him free. But he squandered that blessing when used it to satisfy Gojo instead.

Uraume

Uraume is also in a weird spot. They can gauge Sukuna’s mood by his CE and anticipate his needs in an instant. And yet Sukuna doesn’t feel fully understood by them. 

That’s mostly Sukuna’s fault. He didn’t disclose he was a twin to them for over 1,000 years, so it’s unlikely they know the extent of his trauma. However, Uraume dresses like a monk and has the androgynous features considered desirable in the child acolytes that were abused in historical Japan. This could mean they went through something similar to Sukuna and share that connection. It would explain why Sukuna is so gentle towards them compared to other characters. 

In other words, Sukuna should be able to trust them of all people with his trauma. They’re loyal and have always been there for him. So why won’t he do that? 

Looking at Gojo's relationships for an explanation, this kind of reminds me of how Gojo blew off Shoko’s friendship after Geto left. If someone that close to Gojo could betray him, why would Shoko be any different? Plus he’s stronger the more alone he is. And strong people don’t need help with their emotions. (Cue increasingly contradictory and destructive behavior stemming from a combination of trauma and toxic masculinity fuelled by questionable practices based in religion.) 

Yuji differs from Uraume in how he has directly shown Sukuna time and time again that he is a person who can be trusted. Everyone who has admitted their trauma to him has been taken seriously. Sukuna sat there and watched Yuji’s soul never once stray from compassion. He may hate this about him, but Sukuna seems to know he is the safest person to be open with. I think this is why Yuji is being framed as the one to guide Sukuna towards true enlightenment. (Aka addressing your trauma instead of burying it until you no longer understand how it is influencing your actions.)

In conclusion…

I want to emphasize that I am trying to explain why Sukuna is the way he is. To do so I’ve been rather assertive about his trauma despite it remaining unrevealed.

I’m certain something really awful happened to Sukuna. Exactly what I don’t know, but it’s likely something worse than what all the other named characters have experienced. I can say this with relative confidence because of this:

Sukuna himself suggests he has suffered more than Yuji.

Gege has been very careful not to show extreme instances of child abuse outright. If any of this gets confirmed, it’ll likely be vague.

But as it currently stands, I think you can read Sukuna as a victim of CSA. This sort of thing has always been in the manga, it’s just hard to see it.

[bunniehunn]

Happy birthday to me!!

Well, happy EARLY birthday! I’m turning 16 on the 13th of November, and to celebrate that, I’m doing a DTIYS!!!!!! Yuubeni is just perpetually 17 lol. This is my first time doing something like this so… 🥲

I just want to say, I’m super grateful to all the amazing people in the twst community and Tumblr who have made my short time here so amazing since the start! I’m forever indebted to yall for being so kind and welcoming. I’m so happy I can celebrate my birthday this year with you guys!!!!!!!!! Love yall <33

More info about the event and some context from Yuubeni (my yuusona) under the cut!

🦋: A surprise party just for me?!

🦋: I got a mysterious text to, quote, “wear something nice and come over to the botanical gardens” it totally freaked me out, the contact wasn’t even named.

🦋: I’m glad I bought this dress a while ago. I saw it while I was off campus one time and HAD to buy it. It was pretty expensive though, and I did have to buy some cheaper dinners to be able to feed Grim, though. Heh, consequences…

🦋: I screamed way too loud when everyone surprised me. I think I startled a lot of people... I could see Idia’s soul practically jump out of his body!

🦋: You know, I don’t really like birthday parties. I don’t like all the attention being on me, it gets me all stressed out. I always dreaded birthdays back in my own world but, here… I guess it’s not so bad with all my friends.

🦋: W-what? I-I’m not crying, this cake is just… r-really… good…

★彡

Now for info!

So, you all know the gist of a DTIYS. As long as you keep the outfit Yuubeni’s in, and the setting (the NRC botanical gardens), you can go crazy with poses, camera angles, throw in canon or oc characters if you like! You can send birthday wishes or oc interactions, fics if you want, whatever media, but only your main DTIYS art piece will count.

There will be three winners, first place will get a fully colored piece, second place a shaded single color sketch, and third just a silly unshaded doodle. My art is available everywhere on my page if you want to take a look. All three winners are two characters max. I’ll do oc + canon, canon + canon, and oc + oc (ships included) as long as it’s all twst related.

Entries will be open from November 1st to November 16th, so you’ve got a while! After that, I’ll be working on the pieces, but my schedule isn’t rigid.

RULES.

NO NSFW. Both me and Yuubeni are minors.

No suggestive content, no weird remarks. Yuubeni’s personality and looks are based off of me, and I really would prefer if no one made any weird comments.

No romantic material regarding Yuubeni in the entries.

Adults are allowed to participate.

For the winners, I won’t draw nsfw, suggestive or gory content. Keep it pg, please.

Everyone is allowed to participate, mutuals and followers alike.

Tag me when you submit your entry! —> @bunniehunn and use the tag #BotanicalBday

Reblogs are STRONGLY encouraged! I want this to reach a lot of people! <3

Here’s a (messy) sketch of her full outfit!

HI MOOTS! @cheerleaderman @gimmeurmoneyagh @theolivetree123 @skibidibabygirl

@beneathsakurashade @moonyasnow @fell-e @screamintoad @amatsuchan-eiliniel

@babyghoul138 @h0neybane @boopshoops @the-rini-rush

@skriblee-ksk @angelwishezz @amai-sakura-chan @mirioho @buttholesparkles

@taruruchi @scint1llat3

/NF

tell me if you don’t want to be tagged 😊

[buttercupjosh]

Jump Then Fall (The 4 times everyone else thinks you’re Quinn’s romantic partner and the 1 time you actually are)

(Gif credit to @gabelandeskog)

Word count: 5,045

Genres: strangers to friends to lovers

Warnings: none

A/N: I’ve had this specific idea in my mind for about 2 years but never wrote it out because I decided to write other things first and took certain things from this concept and kinda put it into my other stories but after Quinn was named captain in September 2023, I decided to write it out. (Speaking of my other stories, I did write a Quinn fic in 2022, which you should check out). The title and this story is based off of the song, Jump Then Fall by Taylor Swift. It’s set from this past week (October 7th-14th), with additional fictional elements added. (Yes, I decided to publish it on Quinn's birthday because why not?) It’s written with a female reader in mind because I’m a female of color but the reader doesn’t specifically have to be a POC or a woman and there’s little dialogue. As always, I’m open to any and all feedback, comments or questions; just put them in my inbox or dm me. Thank you so much in advance for reading, I appreciate it😌

(P.S. I have other stories (linked here) that I have written for other players as well if you want to check it out)

“I was enchanted to meet you” -Enchanted by Taylor Swift

Prologue

Losing in a fantasy sports league can come with many different types of punishment, whether it’s being forced to eat a pancake for every wrong player you picked or putting in extra money in the winning jackpot. Your punishment for losing in the fantasy sports league you participated in was wearing a very 2014 Tumblr-esque “lol ur not Quinn Hughes” shirt that your best friend got you as a gag gift for Christmas to a Canucks game. This punishment came at a convenient time when you already planned to be in Vancouver for a work conference. Accepting your fate, you proudly donned the cringey t-shirt at the game, and as expected, people did look at you weirdly. What you didn’t plan at all was that your game seats happened to be located next to where a group of some of the Canucks WAGs were sitting. Lenasia, Ethan Bear’s fiance, noticed your shirt and immediately began talking to you. You explained to her why you were wearing such a thing and that clicked an idea in her brain. Lenasia turned away, began talking again to the other WAGs she was with, and was also frantically texting someone. After a brief period, Lenasia faced back towards you and told you to wait after the game because she had a surprise for you. You had a slight inkling of what that surprise was but silently hoped that it didn’t actually come true. 

After the game was completed, Lenasia led you through the tunnels of Rogers Arena and told security that you were with her. It felt weird to hear her say that, considering that you just met her a few hours ago. You stood together outside of the Canucks locker room and the feeling of embarrassment continued to rise within you as the guys filed out, some of them laughed at your shirt and then, you saw him. Quinn was right there, less than 10 feet away from you. Your suspicions were right; you would have just settled for a signed item from him and have no interaction with him but you were actually going to meet him right now. You felt like you were going to pass out but tried your best to maintain your composure. Lenasia introduced you to Quinn and told him the same story of why you were wearing a shirt with his name on it. Quinn didn’t fully quite understand why the shirt was such a big deal but agreed to take the photo with you. He was nice enough to wrap his arm around you with a side hug and being that close together oddly felt natural and comfortable for two people who had just met for the first time. After the photo was finished being taken, Quinn kindly offered to sign your shirt so he inked his signature on your right shoulder. You thanked Quinn and Lenasia again for everything and left to return to your hotel. It was a lot to process but you were rightfully shocked that you started your night fulfilling some silly punishment and ended it by meeting the person whose name is on your shirt.

The following day, you sent the photo of you and Quinn from the night before to your friends and your friends joked in the groupchat that if you played your cards right, you might be next in line to date him. Yes, you posted about it on Instagram and tagged Quinn so everyone knew you actually met him. Since the day after you met was an off day, Quinn had some time to scroll through Instagram and he saw your post. Seeing your post led him to see all of your posts and eventually, he ended up in your DMs.

Do you always look that cute wearing someone’s name?, an Instagram message from a very familiar verified account read. You couldn’t believe it and thought you were somehow dreaming when you read Quinn’s message but it was very much real. You replied back: I guess I always do but I only wear the names of attractive guys and considering this is my only piece that has an athlete’s name, I guess you should consider yourself lucky ;) It felt odd to shamelessly flirt with a famous athlete (considering that most of them wouldn’t give you the time of day anyway) but it wasn’t like you were actually going to date him or be his friend anyway (or so you had thought).

The flirty interaction eventually led to the exchange of numbers and to a long message chain between the two of you that would extend on for months. You did return home from your trip to Vancouver and maintained a long-distance friendship with Quinn. Your friendship with Quinn was great; you trusted each other, shared some secrets, did virtual movie nights together sometimes, sent memes back and forth, told some of your closest friends and family about the other, and communicated on the phone constantly. Once of your favorite things to do with Quinn was that he would always call you during your morning commute to work and on his commute home after his games to decompress after the game. Since you didn’t live in an area where there was an NHL team, your options for seeing Quinn again in person were limited and you weren’t sure if you were going to ever see him again. It felt weird to ask about seeing each other in real life so everything was just kept online until one day, the timing was right to move things offline.

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About a year into your friendship, the right opportunity opened up for you to return to Vancouver to see Quinn again. To the delight of many, Quinn was named Captain of the Canucks and he invited you out to his first game as Captain. You were important enough to him that Quinn wanted you to be there to celebrate that amazing accomplishment; you were surprised by the invitation but excited at the prospect of seeing him again. You used some of your remaining vacation time and paid for your plane ticket to and from Vancouver; Quinn wanted to pay for something so he placed you to stay in the nicest hotel that Vancouver has to offer. You were thrilled to spend a week in Vancouver and hopefully make some fun memories with Quinn while you were there.

Your anticipation for seeing him was slightly halted when Quinn revealed that he couldn’t pick you up from the airport because your flight arrived at the same time that he had captain responsibilities to fulfill in the community so you and Quinn agreed to meet to have dinner later on that evening. Emma, Anthony Beauvillier’s girlfriend, picked you up from the airport to take you to the hotel; you had never met or interacted with Emma before but you appreciated her kind favor. The drive from Vancouver International Airport to the hotel (which Quinn did not tell you beforehand because he wanted it to be a surprise) was normally a 30-minute drive, which turned into an hour drive due to traffic. While you and Emma waited in the rush hour traffic, you talked and learned more about her, her relationship with Anthony, what things are like in Quebec, and what it’s like to be a hockey WAG. Emma had a lot of questions about your relationship with Quinn and was curious as to why you, his romantic partner, weren’t around as much before. You corrected Emma by telling her that you and Quinn were just friends and nothing more and you came to support him as your friend. 

“Are you sure you and Quinn are just friends because he must really like you a lot to pay for you to stay here?”, Emma asked as you pulled up to the Fairmount Waterfront hotel.

You replied yes, you were just his friend and she handed you over your room keys that were passed to her through the chain of command. You thanked Emma for giving you a ride and you both mentioned wanting to hang out with each other again.

Quinn was not kidding when he told you that you would be staying at the best hotel in Vancouver; your room had spectacular views of the Vancouver Harbor and was very fancy. As you got ready for your dinner with Quinn, you began to reflect on your conversation with Emma about him. You could admit that he was endearingly handsome and had qualities that you were looking for in a boyfriend but you and Quinn never really discussed romantic pursuits and outside of that initial flirty exchange when you first started talking to each other and the occasional compliment, there wasn’t much flirting really going on between you. You had always assumed that Quinn had someone, whether it was someone in Vancouver or in Michigan, waiting in the wings for him. Your thoughts were interrupted when you got a text from Quinn that he was coming up to the room. It was happening; for the first time in over a year, you got to see your internet best friend in person and you were ecstatic. Although he had a copy of the hotel room key, Quinn knocked on your hotel room door and a smile beamed across both of your faces as you recognized who was standing at the doorway. Quinn engulfed you in a long-awaited hug and you rocked back and forth. There were many areas in his life that made him feel delighted but hearing you laugh was one of the best sounds to him and holding you in his arms was the greatest feeling.

After separating, you realized that Quinn was dressed for a night in while you were dressed for a night out. The weather app indicated that a storm was rolling in so Quinn dressed to stay in at the hotel, order food, and have a movie night, while you were willing to brave the rain to try some of Vancouver’s cuisine. Quinn thought that you looked nice and wished that he communicated to you that Vancouver storms were no joke and you looking cute in your rain jacket wasn’t going to push him to go out in such weather either. He also really wanted to spend time with you without the distractions that come from him going out in public. You agreed to order in and changed into more comfy clothes while you waited for the food to arrive. Preseason hockey was over so Quinn decided to treat himself (and you) to some authentic Chinese food from his favorite place. As you and Quinn indulged on the delicious Chinese food, you began catching up with each other on what had occurred in your lives recently. As Quinn shared what had been going on his life lately, you heard all of the words he was saying but the only thing you were thinking about was how you just wanted to be together and you would lose focus sometimes as he spoke. You and Quinn kept talking so much on so many different topics that it was almost midnight before you decided to watch a movie. You settled on watching Ferris Buller’s Day Off before drifting off to sleep.

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For Quinn, it felt surreal to wake up the following morning next to you. After being in contact with you for over a year, here you were, right there, sleeping peacefully on the other side of the bed. Throughout the night, Quinn was respectful of your boundaries and no lines were crossed, everything was kept PG. You were awoken by the sound of water running coming from the bathroom and waited for Quinn to emerge out. After he came out of the bathroom, you discussed the day’s plan (which there wasn’t really one) and decided to go to breakfast at a very special place. Quinn still had some time off before the first game of the season so you had even more extra time to spend with him.

On the car ride to the restaurant, you began to imagine what it would be like to live in Vancouver. Sure, this wasn’t your first time there but you saw it in a different light as you were gazing outside of the car window with Quinn by your side. You arrived at your destination and Quinn got out and kindly came around to open the door for you; it was a sweet gesture that he didn’t have to do.

The restaurant was the same cafe that Quinn and Petey tended to frequent and the wait staff at the restaurant was so familiar with him, down to the point that they knew his exact order: plain buttermilk waffles topped with whipped cream, strawberries, raspberries, and sides of bacon, potatoes, and guacamole. The waitress, an older woman named Louise, reminded you of an endearing grandmother figure; she even put your meal on the house as a treat. After the meal concluded and you were on the way back to Quinn’s car, a fan was waiting right outside of the restaurant for an opportunity to meet the captain of their favorite team. The fan approached you, Quinn’s romantic partner, to take their photo together. You wanted to correct the fan for being wrong but you also could tell that Quinn wanted to get going so you let it be; besides, Quinn didn’t even hear the fan address you as his lover. Quinn later on apologized for the fan encounter but it wasn’t an issue for you, you understood who he was and the things that came with being a famous athlete and you expected something like that might happen while you were together. You continued on the rest of your spontaneous day, being touristy around Vancouver, visiting Gastown, Stanley Park, and Granville Island with the cutest tour guide.

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Your time in Vancouver coincided with Canadian Thanksgiving. Dinner is usually held at the team captain’s house and since Quinn is the captain, dinner would be held at his place but since his apartment couldn’t quite hold the entire team, Tyler Myers offered to host dinner at his home. It was exciting to celebrate a holiday together and learn more about each other’s Thanksgiving traditions but it also made you feel a little nervous because you would be meeting more of Quinn’s teammates and spending time with their families. The Canucks team’s Thanksgiving dinner was potluck style and everyone had to bring something so you and Quinn offered to bring a dessert. You decided to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and Quinn graciously purchased the ingredients for you and let you use his kitchen. Quinn was a good sous chef; he actually enjoyed baking with you and you both had fun together. You even got into a little squabble over who would wash the dishes before agreeing that you would wash them and Quinn would dry them. After the cookies were done, you both got ready for dinner. 

On the car ride over to the Myers house, your mind began to wander, contemplating about the domestic moment you shared earlier with Quinn and how you would want more moments like that with him. Quinn felt the same way but wasn’t sure how to verbally tell you that. Before you knew it, you had arrived at your destination. You casually mixed and mingled with the other Canucks players and their families; as expected, some of the players had kids and the kids were curious to know who you were and you explained to them that you were Quinn’s friend. Tristan, Tyler’s son, asked if you were Quinn’s lover friend and you were going to tell him no but you were interrupted by the message that dinner was about to be served so you let it go.

Despite your initial nervousness about the event, dinner actually went well and your cookies were a hit. The other Canucks players and their wives and girlfriends accepted you well into their group; they liked you for you and they liked you with Quinn. Due to the fact he’s their captain, some of the guys pushed Quinn into giving a speech and he expressed his thankfulness and gratitude on such a special holiday; he even looked at you when he mentioned how glad he was to have the people in the room as a part of his life.

During the post-dinner relaxation time, you and Quinn settled into watching the CFL game that was on before Tristan came up to ask the both of you to play hide and seek with him and his sister, Skylar. The football game wasn’t that interesting to either of you so you both agreed to play. Since you were the guest, the kids had you count first. 

As you were looking to see where Quinn and the kids were hiding, you observed around the Myers home and began to think about how this was something that you had desired to have one day; a home full of love, laughter, and children. You checked the guest room closet to see if anyone was hiding in there before greeting Quinn by shouting BOO as soon as you opened the door. Instead of stepping out to help you find Skylar and Tristan, Quinn pulled you back into the closet and shut the door for a quiet moment alone. Quinn’s heart was beating super fast, not just because you inflicted fear into him for a brief second, but also because you were close to each other inside the dark closet. You obviously couldn’t see in the darkness but Quinn kept staring at the presumed outline of your mouth because he wanted pull you closer and kiss you so bad. Quinn almost had his chance to ask but was interrupted by the sound of children’s feet pattering on the ground and the door opening. Tristan quickly corrected you that as the counter, you were not allowed to hide until it was your turn to hide. An all-too-familiar chuckle came out of Quinn and you rolled your eyes at him since he was the one who caused you to break the rules before playing another round of hide and seek with the kids.

When it was time to say goodbye, Tristan and Skylar came over to give you a departing hug and Tristan loudly said that he had fun with you, Quinn’s special friend. It warmed your heart to hear his little voice say that to you. Before dropping you off back at the hotel, you had asked Quinn if he was going to stop and get his annual Thanksgiving apple pie slice from the bakery. He had mentioned his Thanksgiving tradition to you only once but it meant a lot to him that you had remembered that. Due to the fact that you made dessert from scratch, Quinn forgot to pick up the pie beforehand to bring to the party and the bakery with the pie that he enjoyed was already closed, but it was okay. Quinn didn’t mind skipping his tradition because he got to make a new memory with you. You and Quinn had such a good time at the Thanksgiving dinner and you had quietly hoped to get the opportunity to spend more holidays together.

————————————————————

The Canucks home opener was finally here. It was both exciting and nerve-wracking for Quinn; he knew that this day was coming but it felt a little more surreal that it was actually here. Quinn’s parents, Ellen and Jim, even flew in to watch their son receive his official captaincy before jetting off to go watch Jack and Luke at the Devils home opener the following day. You felt a bit of deja vu being back at Rogers Arena, since that was the place you and Quinn had met over a year ago, but that deja vu feeling came in a good way. It was fun to watch warmups with the other WAGs and you got to see Emma again. As warmups went on, you held J.T. Miller’s son, Owen, in your arms while Natalie Miller held her daughters, Scarlett and Scottlyn, closer to the glass to give them a better view to see their father on the ice. Since the day was very busy for Quinn, the only time he got to see you was for a brief second during warmups. Quinn’s heart swelled up with joy when he saw you at the glass, holding baby Owen and he also thought you looked so stunning and beautiful in your outfit. He wanted to pass you a puck but instead, he gave you a quick wink and passed a puck to a young fan with a sign and continued to skate around. 

Warmups were over and the game was about to start soon so you went up to your seats. Instead of having you sit with the other WAGs, Quinn got you a ticket next to his parents. Of course, Quinn wanted you to meet his parents for the first time in a much more formal way but due to the limited time that you all had in Vancouver, it was slightly more convenient for you to meet his parents while at the game. It was a little awkward at first to meet Quinn’s parents because you were just Quinn’s long-distance friend and meeting the parents is a big deal but Jim and Ellen already knew who you were because you were important enough to their son that he had told them about you. Ellen mentioned to you that she suspected you were dating Quinn because he spoke so highly about you, indicating a possible crush but always shut it down by mentioning that you were just friends.

When it was time for Quinn to be introduced as captain, you got delightful goosebumps on your body because you were so proud of him. You already knew he was captain but watching some of the old Canucks captains pass the torch over to one of your best friend’s brought a rush of happiness to you; your heart even skipped a beat as he put on the jersey with the “C” on it. The game itself was amazing; the Canucks beat the Oilers 8 to 1 and Quinn had a 3-point night. Throughout little moments during the game, Jim and Ellen would ask you different questions about yourself and share tidbits about Quinn; it was nice that they were actively engaging and getting to know you. You were worried that Jim and Ellen wouldn’t like you as a person and for their son but it turns out that they enjoyed your presence and it also didn’t hurt that it was really fun to cheer for Quinn alongside his parents.

After the game was over, you, Jim, and Ellen walked down the same tunnels to the Canucks dressing room that you had walked to over a year ago when you met Quinn for the first time but this time, you weren’t as nervous to see him. Still experiencing the high from the evening’s successful game, Quinn was so ecstatic to see you, waiting for him with his beloved parents. When Quinn had invited you to come to his game, he had imagined seeing you again in those familiar halls with his parents in his mind and that moment of imagination came true. In his post-game interview, Quinn had mentioned that he would hold onto the night’s memories forever and you would also hold onto those memories in your own way too.

————————————————————

Since the Canucks had to leave for a roadtrip after their home opener and you were leaving soon, you had one last day to both celebrate Quinn’s birthday early and also to do something to say farewell to you. Instead of just a big fancy birthday/goodbye dinner, you and Quinn decided to go out for a day on the golf course and out to a casual dinner afterward; you also had to run a few errands because Quinn needed to grab some things before leaving on his upcoming road trip. Quinn picked you up to go with him to drop off his parents at the airport so that you could see them again and he wanted your opinion on some things when he went to IKEA. The car ride over to the airport was fine and Jim and Ellen didn’t mind getting in some extra time with their potential child-in-law. You and Quinn stepped out of the car to help with their bags and give his parents a goodbye hug. While you were giving the Hughes family some space and waiting in the car, Ellen whispered in her son’s ear that you were a keeper. His mother was right and Quinn had known that from the moments that he spent with you, the conversations you shared together and you were everything he ever wanted. Quinn had the keys to unlock your heart but he just needed to use them. Throughout the entire time you were there, Quinn began mentally preparing himself to confess his feelings for you somehow but those plans always fell flat because the anxiety of not being sure if you liked him romantically lingered throughout the air and he was scared to ruin the friendship you shared. He was falling for you hard but he was afraid to take that leap.

With one final wave goodbye, Jim and Ellen left for their flight to New Jersey and you and Quinn continued on the day’s itinerary. Goodbyes were always going to be a bit difficult, no matter who or what you were saying goodbye to. Quinn tried to not wear his heart on his sleeve and be strong but you could tell that Quinn was sad to see his parents go so you reached over and gently placed your hand on top of his. Quinn told you thank you and you shared a quick glance with him before arriving at IKEA. Instead of immediately telling you how he felt, you and Quinn aimlessly wandered around the large store; you had mentioned to Quinn that his apartment was missing a floor lamp in the living room so that he didn’t have to use the overhead ceiling light as much and he took you to IKEA to help him pick one out. Thursday afternoons at IKEA were quiet so it was almost like you and Quinn had the whole store to yourselves. As you walked through the store, you and Quinn looked at the different room setups and asked each other what you liked and disliked about each room setup; you also both began to imagine what it would be like to share a home together. Quinn even absentmindedly grabbed onto your hand and your fingers interlocked together for a brief second before you found the lamps and slipped your hand away to look at them. You picked out a black floor lamp that matched the aesthetic of Quinn’s apartment and continued to wander around the store until you reached the cash register. Quinn didn’t try to hold your hand again and neither of you brought up that moment for the rest of the day. Your time at the golf course was fun; being the self-proclaimed golf expert he was, Quinn did win the game. 

Quinn decided that he wanted to have his birthday dinner/last meal with you at Moxie’s. While you waited for your food to arrive, you gave Quinn his birthday gift. It was challenging to get a gift for someone who could afford plenty and rarely mentioned what they wanted so you got Quinn a signed copy of Golf Kitchen, a cookbook that included recipes from some of the most famous golf clubs around the world, and a grill set that looked like golf items; it combined two of his interests: cooking and golf. Quinn was a bit taken aback by your gift because you didn’t have to actually get him anything; your presence and time spent with him was a gift within itself. He had mentioned it before but Quinn was so grateful to have you as a part of his life and he was going to miss you tremendously once you returned home. You would miss him so much and were sad that your great time with Quinn was coming to an end; you still had an extra full day in Vancouver before your flight early Saturday but the Canucks were leaving for Edmonton on Friday after morning skate. 

After dinner, Quinn walked you up to your hotel room and you and Quinn continued to soak up all of the time you had left together as much as you could before the inevitable departure came. Before leaving, Quinn passed you a signed warm-up puck from last night’s game, mentioning that he owed it to you. You held the piece of rubber in your hand, smoothing your fingers over his signature.

“So now, you own two things with my name on it”, Quinn cheesily told you. 

You were trying to hold back your tears and masquerade your emotions but you began to sob while embracing Quinn for one last time. Quinn felt a bit emotional too and he blurted out that he was in love with you; he decided to be brave and not let the fear take over. You thought your mind was playing a trick on you when you heard him so you looked up at the green eyes that were staring and waiting for a reply from you.

“Did you just say that you’re in love with me?”, you hesitantly asked.

“Um, maybe I should have kept that to myself. I’m sor-”, Quinn rambled.

You cut Quinn off with a kiss, something that he had been waiting a while to experience with you. You repeated that you had loved Quinn back as well. A long wave of relief rushed over the both of you; the jump was worth the fall and you were there to catch him. You didn’t have to say it out loud but Quinn knew that you would always be there for him. Quinn asked if you were available to come back to visit him for Christmas and New Year’s. Maybe losing in a fantasy league wasn’t so bad after all.

[acesandocs]

The gang indulges in some unrestrained summer fun!

This has been a wip for gosh knows how long, but I managed to get it done. It started with just Maire but then everyone got to join in.

The gang mostly belongs to @libras-interactives Lottie belongs to @maryannsstrawberry i belive. So sorry for misattributing her to Libra. Who has custody of Little Lottie I'm still unsure of tho.

Individual pngs below (theyre suposed to be transparent, but i guess tumblr can just decide not to do that sometimes. free website and all that), as well as art thoughts.

We’ll go from left to right

Jack: I feel like if Jack is going to the beach he need some protection from the sun. So along with a early 1920s style mens swimsuit, he’s also got a sun hat and a housecoat. I based it of a womans house coat as they look very light and breathable which probably helps with the heat while keeping him safe from sun. House coats were also generally not uncomon to wear on the beach. I also just like messing around with gender presentation in my art. I’m sure Marius approves.

Marius: Marius is sporting a mens bathing suit from the late 1920s. As he is very fashion forward I felt it fit him to wear something a bit more up to date. His fur pattern does make it look like he was wearing shorts and a t shirt and got sunburned lol. I based his fur on Eveline’s and the photos of the cat he was based on. Maybe a gradient would make it look a bit less silly idk. Feel free to weigh in if you have any ideas.

Eveline: I know Eveline prefers clothing from the late 1900-1910s more but I really loved how she looked with her hair up. I based her bathing suit on a 1920s version but added a few flairs to give it a bit more of a retro vibe for the time.

The Lotties: I gave Lottie a bathing suit with a belt and a cap. As per the laws of the Lackadaisy-verse her ears are tucked safely into her cap. No ear holes here. I wanted to give her a beach bag but I couldn't find any type of purse specifically for that so she’s got a shopping bag instead. I felt she needed somewhere to keep little Lottie's beach toys and sun screen, speaking of: She is wearing a very normal child's bathing suit. Not much to say on it. I focused more on her posing than her fashion.

Máire: the original name for this drawing when I was just planning on drawing her was bathing beauties… Anyway, she strikes me as someone who uses her time at the beach to relax and look good while doing it. Her swimsuit is based on something I saw on Pinterest. It had flowers painted on it which strikes me more as being ornamental. Shes also a pair of fashionable heals and a parasol.

And last but not least Malwina: Malvina’s bathing suit is technically from 1926, so maybe she is just way ahead of the trends. Her shoes are laced beach shoes. I feel like shed take the opertunity to enjoy the fresh air, and swim in the cooling water. Maybe check out some cute boys. I think shed enjoy having a day where she can just be a normal teenager.

Mc is probably around. Maybe off buying soda pops for everyone.

My main source for most of this was vintage dancer

[auntie-histamine]

My therapist just sent me this article, and I think it should be required reading for everyone who's feeling scared this morning. Tumblr won't let me put the whole article under a readmore, so I've included a shorter, edited version below. I highly encourage everyone read the full article, especially as I couldn't include everything here that I wanted to.

Please be aware that I will not be interacting with comments and/or reblogs, unless it is to help with directing to resources mentioned in the article. I am grieving too, like many of us, and I don't have the spoons to facilitate anything more. Read, share, and get organized.

The below are selections the article "There is hope - 10 ways to be prepared and grounded for another Trump presidency" by Daniel Hunter from Waging Nonviolence.

1. Trust yourself I started writing this list with strategic principles (e.g. analyze your opponents weakness and learn to handle political violence), but actually the place to start is with your own self. Distrust fuels the flame of autocracy because it makes it much easier to divide. We can see that in the casual nature of Trump’s rhetoric — telling people to distrust immigrants, Democrats, socialists, people from Chicago, women marchers, Mexicans, the press and so on. This is a social disease: You know who to trust by who they tell you to distrust. Trust-building starts with your own self. It includes trusting your own eyes and gut, as well as building protection from the ways the crazy-making can become internalized.  This also means being trustworthy — not just with information, but with emotions. That way you can acknowledge what you know and admit the parts that are uncertain fears nagging at you. Then take steps to follow through on what you need. If you’re tired, take some rest. If you’re scared, make some peace with your fears. I can point you to resources that support that — like FindingSteadyGround.com — but the value here is to start with trusting your own inner voice. If you need to stop checking your phone compulsively, do it. If you don’t want to read this article now and instead take a good walk, do it.

2. Find others who you trust Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism” explored how destructive ideologies like fascism and autocracy grow. She used the word verlassenheit — often translated as loneliness — as a central ingredient. As she meant it, loneliness isn’t a feeling but a kind of social isolation of the mind. Your thinking becomes closed off to the world and a sense of being abandoned to each other. She’s identifying a societal breakdown that we’re all experiencing. Under a Trump presidency, this trend will continue to accelerate. The constant attacks on social systems — teachers, health care and infrastructure — make us turn away from leaning on each other and towards ideologically simple answers that increase isolation (e.g. “distrust government,” “MAGA is nuts,” “anyone who votes that way doesn’t care about you”). If Trump wins: Get some people to regularly touch base with. Use that trust to explore your own thinking and support each other to stay sharp and grounded. I’ve written an agenda for such gatherings right after a Trump win that you can use.

3. Grieve No matter what we try to do, there’s going to be a lot of loss. The human thing to do is grieve. If you aren’t a feelings person, let me say it this way: The inability to grieve is a strategic error. After Donald Trump won in 2016, we all saw colleagues who never grieved. They didn’t look into their feelings and the future — and as a result they remained in shock. An alternative: Start by naming and allowing feelings that come to arise. The night that Donald Trump won, I stayed up until 4 a.m. with a colleague. It was a tear-filled night of naming things that we had just lost. It wasn’t anywhere near strategizing or list-making or planning. It was part of our acceptance that losing a presidency to an awful man means you and your people lose a lot. Ultimately, this helped us believe it — so we didn’t spend years in a daze: “I can’t believe this is happening in this country.” Believe it. Believe it now. Grief is a pathway to that acceptance. 

4. Release that which you cannot change Under a Trump presidency, there are going to be so many issues that it will be hard to accept that we cannot do it all. I’m reminded of a colleague in Turkey who told me, “There’s always something bad happening every day. If we had to react to every bad thing, we’d never have time to eat.”  Chaos is a friend of the autocrat. One way we can unwittingly assist is by joining in the story that we have to do it all.  Unaddressed, this desire to act on everything leads to bad strategy. Nine months ago when we gathered activists to scenario plan together, we took note of two knee-jerk tendencies from the left that ended up largely being dead-ends in the face of Trump: - Public angsting — posting outrage on social media, talking with friends, sharing awful news - Symbolic actions — organizing marches and public statements The first is where we look around at bad things happening and make sure other people know about them, too. We satisfy the social pressure of our friends who want us to show outrage — but the driving moves are only reactive. The end result wasn’t the intended action or an informed population. It’s demoralizing us. It’s hurting our capacity for action. Public angsting as a strategy is akin to pleading with the hole in the boat to stop us from sinking. Symbolic actions may fare little better under a Trump presidency. In whatever version of democracy we had, the logic of rallies and statements of outrage was to build a unified front that showed the opposition many voices were opposed to them. But under an unleashed fascist — if it’s all you do — it’s like begging the suicidal captain to plug the hole.  Let me be clear. These strategies will be part of the mix. We’ll need public angsting and symbolic actions. But if you see an organization or group who only relies on these tactics, look elsewhere. There are other, more effective ways to engage.

5. Find your path I’ve been writing scenarios of how a Trump presidency might play out. The initial weeks look chaotic no matter what. But over time some differentiated resistance pathways begin to emerge. One pathway is called “Protecting People.” This might mean organizing outside current systems for health care and mutual aid, or moving resources to communities that are getting targeted. Further examples include starting immigrant welcoming committees, abortion-support funds or training volunteers on safety skills to respond to white nationalist violence. Another pathway is “Defending Civic Institutions.” This group may or may not be conscious that current institutions don’t serve us all, but they are united in understanding that Trump wants them to crumble so he can exert greater control over our lives. Each bureaucracy will put up its own fight to defend itself.  Insider groups will play a central battle against Trump fascism. You may recall government scientists dumping copious climate data onto external servers, bracing for Trump’s orders. This time, many more insiders understand it’s code red. Hopefully, many will bravely refuse to quit — and instead choose to stay inside as long as possible.  Institutional pillars understand a Trump presidency is a dire threat. Then there’s a critical third pathway: “Disrupt and Disobey.” This goes beyond protesting for better policies and into the territory of people intervening to stop bad policies or showing resistance. Lastly, there’s a key fourth role: “Building Alternatives.” We can’t just be stuck reacting and stopping the bad. We have to have a vision. This is the slow growth work of building alternative ways that are more democratic. Each of us may be attracted to some pathway more than others. Your path may not be clear right now. That’s okay. There will be plenty of opportunities to join the resistance.

6. Do not obey in advance, do not self-censor If autocrats teach us any valuable lesson it’s this: Political space that you don’t use, you lose. I’m not coaching to never self-protect. You can decide when to speak your mind. But it is a phenomenally slippery slope here we have to observe and combat.  Put simply: Use the political space and voice you have. 

7. Reorient your political map A Trump presidency reshapes alignments and possibilities. The bellicose, blasphemous language of Trump will meet the practical reality of governing. When you’re out of power, it’s easy to unify — but their coalition’s cracks will quickly emerge. We have to stay sharp for opportunities to cleave off support. Even if you don’t want to engage with them (which is fine), we’ll all have to give space to those who do experiment with new language to appeal to others who don’t share our worldview of a multiracial true democracy.

8. Get real about power In Trump’s first term, the left’s organizing had mixed results. It was elections that ultimately stopped Trump. This time will be much harder. The psychological exhaustion and despair is much higher. Deploying people into the streets for mass actions with no clear outcome will grow that frustration, leading to dropout and radicalized action divorced from strategy.  Trump has been very clear about using his political power to its fullest — stretching and breaking the norms and laws that get in his way. The movement will constantly be asking itself: “Are you able to stop this new bad thing?”  We're not going to convince him not to do these things. No pressure on Republicans will result in more than the tiniest of crumbs (at least initially). It will be helpful to have a power analysis in our minds, specifically that’s known as the upside-down triangle. This tool was built to explain how power moves even under dictatorships. In our country, pressuring elite power is reaching its end point. Power will need to emerge from folks no longer obeying the current unjust system. This tipping point of mass noncooperation will be messy. It means convincing a lot of people to take huge personal risks for a better option.  As a “Disrupt and Disobey” person, we have to move deliberately to gain the trust of others, like the “Protecting People” folks. Mass noncooperation does the opposite of their goal of protection — it exposes people to more risk, more repression. But with that comes the possibility that we could get the kind of liberatory government that we all truly deserve.

9. Handle fear, make violence rebound Otpor in Serbia has provided an abundance of examples on how to face repression. They were young people who took a sarcastic response to regular police beatings. They would joke amongst each other, “It doesn’t hurt if you’re afraid.” Their attitude wasn’t cavalier — it was tactical. They were not going to grow fear. So when hundreds were beaten on a single day, their response was: This repression will only stiffen the resistance. Handling fear isn’t about suppressing it — but it is about constantly redirecting. Activist/intellectual Hardy Herriman released a studied response about political violence that had some news that surprised me. The first was that physical political violence hasn’t grown dramatically in this country — it still remains relatively rare. The threats of violence, however, trend upwards, such as this CNN report: “Politically motivated threats to public officials increased 178 percent during Trump’s presidency,” primarily from the right. His conclusion wasn’t that political violence isn’t going to grow. Quite the opposite. But he noted that a key component to political violence is to intimidate and tell a story that they are the true victims. Making political violence rebound requires refusing to be intimidated and resisting those threats so they can backfire. (Training on this backfire technique is available from the HOPE-PV guide.) We can shrink into a cacophony of “that’s not fair,” which fuels the fear of repression. Or we take a page from the great strategist Bayard Rustin. Black civil rights leaders were targeted by the government of Montgomery, Alabama during the bus boycott in the 1950s. Leaders like the newly appointed Martin Luther King Jr. went into hiding after police threats of arrest based on antiquated anti-boycott laws. Movement organizer Rustin organized them to go down to the station and demand to be arrested since they were leaders — making a positive spectacle of the repression. Some leaders not on police lists publicly demanded they, too, get arrested. Folks charged were met with cheers from crowds, holding their arrest papers high in the air. Fear was turned into valor.

10. Envision a positive future We’ve all now imagined storylines about how bad it might get. We would do ourselves a service to spend an equal measure of time envisioning how we might advance our cause in these conditions. As writer Walidah Imarisha says, “The goal of visionary fiction is to change the world.” In my mind if Trump wins, we’ll have to eventually get him out. There are two paths available to force him out. The first: Vote him out. Given the bias of the electoral college, this requires successfully defending nearly all local, state and national takeovers of elections such that they remain relatively fair and free. Winning via the path of electoral majority has a wide swath of experience and support from mainstream progressive organizations and Democratic institutions. It’s going to be a major thrust. In my scenario writing I’ve explored what that strategy could look like, including preparing electoral workers to stand against last minute attempts by Trump to change election rules and even stymie the election with dubious emergency orders. They don’t obey — and go ahead with elections anyway. The second strategy is if he illegally refuses to leave or allow fair elections: Kick him out. That means we are able to develop a national nonviolent resistance campaign capable of forcing him out of office. I’ve written several versions of this: One where large-scale strikes disable portions of the U.S. economy. If you recall from COVID, our systems are extremely vulnerable. Businesses running “just in time” inventory means small hiccups in the system can cause cascading effects.  Sustained strikes would face deep resistance, but they could swing communities currently on the fence, like the business community, which already is concerned about Trump’s temperamental nature. Trump’s own policies might make these conditions much easier. If he really does mass deportations, the economic injury might be fatal. In another scenario I explore another strategy of taking advantage of a Trump overreach. Autocrats overplay their hands. And in this imagined scenario, Trump overreaches when he attempts to force autoworkers to stop building electric vehicles. UAW workers refuse and keep the factories running. Eventually he’s unable to stop them — but in the process he’s publicly humiliated. A very public loss like this can cause what Timur Kuran calls an “unanticipated revolution.” He noted many incidents where political leaders seem to have full support, then suddenly it evaporates. Kuran’s analysis reminds us to look at Trump’s political weakness. Political hacks like Lindsay Graham appear to be sycophants — but if given the chance to turn their knife in his back, they might. This means exposed political weaknesses could quickly turn the many inside Trump’s campaign against him. That feels far away from now. But all these remain possibilities. Practicing this future thinking and seeing into these directions gives me some hope and some strategic sensibilities.  On the days when I can’t sense any of these political possibilities (more than not), I zoom out further to the lifespans of trees and rocks, heading into spiritual reminders that nothing lasts forever. All of the future is uncertain. But using these things, we’re more likely to have a more hopeful future and experience during these turbulent times.

[moonsfantasyworld]

About NovaArts

hello and good afternoon, day, or night to whoever reads this today i would like to warn you all about nova arts based on my expiriance with him cw: suggestive interaction against a minor

i am well aware that my interaction with him might have been the most tame, but i am aware there are more victims to his behaviour and it scares me im not the only minor all of this went down during november 19th of last year

first of all i would like to say i've always been open of my age online, as dangerous as it may be, hidding my age was my groomer's way to keep me in place. nova has always been well aware of my age, as he knew i was in highschool, since i've mentioned it hundreds of times and if he saw me up at an hour that he knew was late for me he would reblog my posts sending me to sleep

i would always joke to him about hitting him with a chancla, all in public, as we never talked in dms i did this since i already did not like much his joke of his sona always flirting with women and my way to deal with it and joke about it was that one, all harmless fun i thought, right?, well i was wrong one. day i was taking requests, as i like taking little requests in my platforms here and there, he had sent me his character and of course, i decided to joke to him with the chancla as always

his response to this? drawing my sona pinned against a wall while blushing while his sona flirted with mine, this of course freaked me out a lot, how wouldnt it? yes, i didnt have my age on my bio, but i did have and always had my carrd on my pinned post that said my age

all i got to this was an XD, no ''oh god my bad'' ''i did not realise it'', no, a damm fucking xd

this interaction was on november 19th 2022

i kept interacting with him on tumblr, but slowly i did less and less, many more moments where i would mention my age had happend, until one day it finally sunk in how fucked up that was and i silently unfollowed him everywhere

i know my interaction with him wasnt much, but as i said, im not the only one who was victim to his behaviourand sexualization of people, specifically femm precenting people

in case anyone wishes to read the posts from the screenshots yourselves, here are the links first post second post third posts

thanks you to those that took the time to read this and i hope all of you stay safe and wel.

l to those who also had a negative interaction with him, i encourage you to open up about it because im sure there are many more than just the other vistims i already know off

[cypionate60mg]

Does this make me a chaser?

I'm turned on by the idea of having a mlm/bara coded relationship with a woman. I want to see her get turned into a hulking sex-crazed beast and have people think I'm her cute little twink (even if I looked like Dwayne Johnson ppl should think that).

I love scrolling through autoandrophilic content on tumblr even if I know it's not for me, and can't shrug off the feeling that I, as a cishet guy, am being fetishistic towards trans men. But then I see posts about top surgery and all I can think is lying my face on top of a woman's broad, hard and hairy chest and being like "yeah, this feels a lot better," her scars like those of a barbarian warlord. Which I guess is not great, knowing that this is specifically about men who want to be perceived as men.

I've never attempted to be with a trans guy, bc I know that'd be kind of shitty coming from a straight dude (also they might be autogynephilic, and it would be some kind of cosmic joke for me to be playing into forced detrans). But even if I did, whenever I check r/ftm and see posts about dating straight men I can only feel like the reasons why I would are categorically different (not that it wouldn't be problematic for me to do so). Like, these guys are hellbent on feminizing them (many don't even allow them to bind), which besides sounding like they're massive transphobes, it's just impossible for me to see myself doing the same. Even if I saw my partner as a woman, I wouldn't miss out on the chance of having him undergo hrt (all the better, in fact).

I wish there were (straight) women into the same stuff, but at least within my experience, there are none out there. So I guess I just have whatever I can find on tumblr and melonFF's deviantart (and maybe ao3 accounts none of which post frequently), none of which are directed at me, so I just feel unwelcome enjoying them.

I don't usually answer these sorts of anons, as I get quite a few from cisbi and cishet men. But we're starting to see more cis men in the forcemascsphere, including some with their own blogs, and I think this could be a good opportunity to talk about chasers. For everybody's sake.

Based on this message, here's my read on the situation. You're interacting with the kink through a strictly pornographic lens and are subsequently disappointed that it doesn't translate well to sex. Whether you see your hypothetical partner as a man or not doesn't really matter, because you don't even seem to be thinking about them as a human with their own needs and desires. You're following a recipe for objectification, don't be surprised. Like any kink performed between two or more parties, it does require consent and discussion. Especially because it has elements of transformation and force.

It's honestly a little funny to me to see you talk about how uncommon forcemasc is, bellyaching that even the existing porn for it doesn't cater to you. Man, how do you think I feel? And whether somebody is into forcemasc or forcefem, we all deserve to be treated with respect by our partners. Even if playing out our kink results in physical changes beyond the bedroom. So, yeah, of course those guys you're talking about are assholes. But that doesn't really mean anything, because we're talking about you and your desires.

If you are heterosexual, then why are you scrolling r/ftm and musing about the ethics of dating a trans guy? I mean that genuinely. What do you get out of it? I ask because I'd like to believe that you understand that not all trans men are autoandrophiles. Even I don't want to be forcemasced, which people seem to have a difficult time grasping. Once you start thinking of a type of person as synonymous with a fetish, you're in chaser territory.

Remember: pornography can be a useful extension of sex. A tool, an accessory. But if you treat it as a cheap substitute for sex, you will lose sight of the other people involved. Then they'll become nothing more than a means for you to accomplish your own satisfaction. Do you see how that's fundamentally different from viewing one's own body as a means of pleasure?

So yeah, you do sound like a chaser.

[butwhatifidothis]

Harassment is horrible, it's terrible mods in this Discord aren't doing anything.

But on the other hand, what about you? You harassed a person over *fanfiction* ( to the point it's the 4th tag who shows up on your blog ). Yet, all your harassment is still there out of the open. You haven't really seriously apologized, especially to them. You're still quite active on fe3h discourse while he had to remove himself from many public online space.

How is this fair?

You're rightfully upset about harassment towards members of your community, there should be *serious* amends made... But how can you hold double standards like that?

I haven't followed the discourse closely because it's so awful, why are you all so hateful? Because you just seems like one of the "bad guy" in this story along with Raxis and the other. I'm not saying you're the same, but you're not really better than those you criticize either, and the same apply for the other blog who participed in your harassment... It's just horrible all around. You're all drowning in a cesspool of toxicity and it's making you all worst people than you actually are.

I hope you, and people around you, will at least receive amend over the harm caused to them. I hope you stop receiving troll, death threat and any other type of hate message you probably still receive. But I hope you'll sincerely recognize your faults and fully amend to them too.

Look, I know you probably mean some kind of well and that you likely spent a long time thinking over this message, so I'm going to lay it out as simply as I can:

I have never once interacted with Cap'n himself, and I have repeatedly told anyone reading my posts to do the same. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who went out of their way to make sure we saw what they were saying about us. This includes publicly admitting to using alts to go around our blocks of them so that they can keep interacting with us directly

Very quickly into critiquing Cap'n's work, a primary focus became pointing out the problematic rhetoric he was spreading with his incredibly influential, incredibly popular fanfic. This includes the justification of holding racist rhetoric, the anti-miscegenation rhetoric, the infantilization of women, the demonization of men, the justification of imperialism, and more, all which appear very quickly into the story and stay prominent throughout the story. The people who have harassed me and others, meanwhile, either deny this rhetoric exists in their circles or outright hold this rhetoric themselves. This includes the use and defense of genocide apologetics.

This post is the first time I have talked about Cap'n in over a year, and the last time I posted any notes on his fic was over a year and a half ago. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have engaged in harassing behaviors as recently as this week (as of Aug 18 2024).

It has been explicitly said by those close to Cap'n that my notes, while upsetting him, had no part in him leaning away from social media more, unlike what you say here. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have driven off multiple people from social media and have openly patted themselves on the back for doing so, justifying their harassment by saying the people they've harassed off social media deserved it.

I have kept my critiques strictly on this Tumblr, as have most of the people who have talked about Cap'n's fic. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have spread their harassment on places such as Twitter, Reddit, and TVTropes.

I have refrained from ever accusing Cap'n of ever holding any bigoted views himself, and have made it a repeated point to say that his problematic writing is far more likely due to ignorance of the subjects involved rather than outright malice. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have accused many of us as people of being sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. based off of nothing. This includes accusing at least one of us of actual crimes against actual people with no proof and on multiple sites such as the popular and public Edelgard Discord and on Reddit.

People who said they were in contact with Cap'n (as in, mods of the Discord server that Cap'n was once in, the same server that has the mod that uses genocide apologetics) have been told that I was willing to remove parts of my notes that he found too attacking or harsh, and they've been told that I would outright remove all of my posts regarding Cap'n period if he would talk to me directly and we could discuss the implications and rhetoric he had accidentally written into his story. While I do understand him not wanting to do the latter (as it involves directly talking to me), he hadn't even done the former (which does not involve directly talking to me and only involves relaying messages through his friends). And with all of the above on top of that, it gives me the impression that he feels less like "this person is harassing me and that is giving my anxiety" and more "this person is critiquing me and I don't like that." While he has every right to feel the latter, we aren't going to sit here and say that's the same as the former.

So, nonnie, to answer why I am "hateful," as you put it: I don't like stories that unironically say being two races mean you don't belong to either race being influential in a fandom, as a mixed-race woman. I don't like stories that have characters of color only be used as props for the author's favorite little white girl to be influential in fandom, as a person of color. I don't like stories saying that women just want to go back to being innocent pure little girls and not be the wilted tainted flowers they are now to be influential in a fandom, as a woman. I don't like stories that lay the blame of all the world's suffering on the shoulders of a race of people who've barely survived a genocide to be influential in a fandom, as a person with a modicum of knowledge on where that rhetoric inevitably leads to. I don't like stories saying that men who don't bow down to women will almost certainly become rapist pigs or otherwise terrorizing monsters to be influential in a fandom, as someone who rejects sexism of all forms. I don't like stories that liken the violent conquests of imperialism to the blooming of flowers, or that say that imperialism is the only way for the "good" culture to help everyone - actual, genuine rhetoric used to justify actual, genuine imperialism - to be influential in a fandom, as someone who has read any history book ever.

And I don't like how all of this and more have clearly been normalized in big 3H fandom circles and how this has led to multiple people getting harassed, in no small part due to Cap'n's influence on the fandom at large.

I'm sorry if Cap'n doesn't like me pointing out the bigotry he had engraved throughout his story, and I'm sorry if I'm not going to be convinced that me doing that is the same as people's deliberate and long-standing attempts to chase people out of the fandom for saying they don't like Edelgard in the one way they allow anyone to like her, and I'm sorry that me calling out the racism people are engaging in and are hiding behind the shield of "discourse" seems to bother you so much, but I think I've explained why I'm not exactly that sorry well enough. Hope this answers your question <3

[wainswright]

Pleased to inform tumblr i searched up transandrophobia (anti-transmasc) because I saw a screenshot of a post on another post and I thought it’s reasonable to say trans men will have experiences that are different from problems specific to trans women, and found more discourse than expected.

I genuinely don’t know what started the beef so lmk if I missed something huge, but here’s what I got.

TME (trans misogyny exempt) avowed word definer says that there is a kind of transphobia specific to trans women that isn’t universal to trans men. To which I say, yeah, in various ways. And then explicitly sets this against (as a part of defining this word, for some reason) to say there is no transphobia specific to trans men that isn’t universal to trans women. Which I think is wrong.

(there’s also this assertion that people bring up a word like anti-transmasculine to try to silence trans women, but nno.) it could happen but I doubt that is the actual drive for someone trying to talk about their own experiences.

An example provided in this weirdly thorough disavowal: a complaint of “not being respected by cis men” is just a general transphobia thing, not especial to trans men. Er, true, but you know this trans man meant “respected as men by cis men.”

It also implies that being gendered as "other" (as opposed to being simply misgendered) is specific to trans women, which is just incorrect. This is really bizarre. It happens in different ways to different people, but to say it doesn't happen at all is... internet discourser...

Oh, I see. This is based off of an analysis of the intersectionality argument. Really odd, though. TME definer says there’s no real point to saying anti-transmasc problems are real/worth "having a word?", while describing what can only be transphobia, specific to trans men. They’re kind of wandering around this but I think meant to engage in this seriously so I’m also writing seriously. Oho, but it's not merely a dismissal in day to day experience, but also severity.

The next objection is: Transmisogyny (anti-transfem attitude) is especially systemic (being transphobia (systemic) multiplied by misogyny (historically systemic)), unlike general transphobia (systemic) which just describes any problems a trans man AND trans woman may face. Alright, this seems … again like it’s going too far. Intersectionality as a term, which I see is referenced in structure here, was made to address a specific issue of legal analysis. It is not a law of language, experience, or definition. It was half procedural. The idea of intersectionality in practice, of course, is a little different. It’s frankly disingenuous to say only trans women can experience unique systemic issues more specific to being perceived as transfem, but trans men do not experience systemic issues that aren't unique to being trans men. This is mixing up the reality of the experience with a word definition by pretending there's a mathematical formula that applies only to trans women (because misogyny is real.) By definition of transmisogyny (issues specific to trans women) existing, this already implies by the style of definition there are different issues (specific to trans men) that are still systemic, it's fine if it has a word and is discussed, even and because it's specifically not transmisogyny. (which is getting confusing if being this specific with the definition of misogyny, even this specific "type" of misogyny as applied to any interaction at all, could apply to many transmasc experiences too, what's the issue.) Even if the sentiment you were trying to communicate is “trans women have worse problems for various structural reasons,” quibbling about trans men having trans man specific problems at all is a pointless way to try to demonstrate that.

You could say any regularly targeted and enforced by law disrespect or discrimination that leads to systemic issues like lower income, increasingly bad relationships, targeted worsening of quality of life, or less opportunities or general bad treatment growing up is “just transphobia” in this case, what’s the use of claiming only trans women suffer from it enough to speak about it with a word? This doesn’t work like that. You can’t separate it like “only transwomen” as suffering systemic discrimination. There is a difference in details, yes, but not separable by a word multiplier. Also, transmisogyny is also transphobia, yet there are clearly issues specific to being perceived as transfem.

The third objection is to say (not sure why this definition seems to be mostly arguing against the existence of trans men specific interpersonal or systemic issues, whats with this set up, some kind of discourse plant? like the claim that anything to do with pregnancy is actually purely misogyny or some random thing and not mostly specific to do with being a trans man. Sounds like an odd word game.) The argument goes (extremely strangely) on to claim anti-transmasc/transandrophobia as a word and consequently in entire concept is fishy because it implies misandry is equal to misogyny, because transmisogyny says its an intersection of transphobia and misogyny, and misandry isn’t systemic but misogyny is- so logically… to complain about trans men specific problems is about as valid as complaining men are systemically oppressed (nb person, no)

That’s genuinely not how that intersectionality paper is meant to read. It’s not a rulebook to making definitions people are allowed to talk about or acknowledge as existing. It is true anti-transmasc problems will not be specifically defined as an intersection between misandry and transphobia, but is instead, a kind of experience specific to being perceived as transmasc. However, it's still clearly distinct and a real cultural experience different from being perceived as transfem.

[mushiemellows]

On Rivd and AI

So last night I made this post and said I'd elaborate more in the morning and when I had the time to do a bit of research. Upon doing said research, I realized that I had misunderstood the concerns being raised with the Rivd situation, but that isn't the case any more. However, some of my thoughts on ai still stand. Heads up, this is going to be a long post. Some actual proper blogging for once wow.

I'm going to discuss the Rivd phishing scam, what can be done for fic writers as ai begins to invade fan spaces, and my elaborated thoughts on Language Learning Models. Warning for transparency: I did utilize chat gpt for this post, NOT for the text itself but to provide examples of the current state of LLMs. Some articles I link to will also be ai generated, and their generated quality is part of what I'll be warning about. This is not a generated post and you can tell because I've got those nifty writing things called "voice" and "style."

ANYWAYS:

Okay so what was the Rivd situation? So two days ago this post was uploaded on tumblr, linking back to a twitter thread on the same topic. I saw it late last night because I was traveling. A reddit post was also uploaded 3 days ago. According to google trends, there was a slight uptick in search traffic the week of June 23rd, and a more severe uptick last week (June 30th-July 6th). That's all to say, this website did not exist until last week, caused a stir, and immediately was put down.

Rivd is not longer up. Enough people contacted its web hosting service Cloudflare and they took the site down. This happened yesterday, from the looks of it.

So, then, what was Rivd? And more importantly, what was the point of scraping a chunk of ao3 and re-uploading it? There seems to be 2 possible theories.

1) The more innocent of the two: they genuinely want to be an ao3 competitor. I can't look at the website any more, and very little positive results appear when googled, but I did find one ai-generated puff piece called "Exploring Rivd: The Premier Platform for Movie-Based Fanfiction" posted to Medium last week by one "Steffen Holzmann" (if that is your real name... x to doubt). This account appeared the same week that Rivd had that first little uptick in google queries, so it is undoubtedly made by the people running the website themselves to create an air of legitimacy. Medium appears to be a safe enough website that you can click that link if you really want to, but you shouldn't. It's a bad generated article, there's very little to glean from it. But it is a remnant source on what Rivd was claiming to be, before it was taken down. Here's the conclusion from the article, the only portion that gave any actual information (and it barely offers any):

Rivd is the ultimate platform for movie-based fanfiction, offering a diverse range of content, a supportive community, and robust interactive features. Whether you’re a writer looking to share your work or a reader seeking new adventures in your favorite movie universes, Rivd provides the perfect platform to engage with a passionate and creative community. Start your journey on Rivd today and immerse yourself in the world of fanfiction.

There's a second article by Holzmann titled "Mastering the Art of Fanfiction Writing in 2024" that's essentially similar ai bull, but trades explaining that fans can write Star Wars fic for explaining that you can make OC's and maybe get a beta (not that that's advice I've ever heeded. Beta? Not in this house we don't.) This was posted six days ago and similarly spends half the time jerking Rivd off. That's all to say, if they are to be believed at face value, this website wanted to just be a fic hosting site. Scraping Ao3 would have made it seem like there was already an active user base for anyone they were attempting to attract, like buying your first 50,000 instagram followers. Anyone actually looking to use this as a fic site would have quickly realized that there's no one on it and no actual fan engagement. There's already fan community spaces online. This website offers nothing ao3 or ffn or wattpad or livejournal or tumblr or reddit didn't already.

Similarly, it reeks of tech bro. Between the scraping and the ai articles, the alarms are already going off. According to that Reddit thread, they were based out of Panama, though that doesn't mean much other than an indicator that these are the type of people to generate puff articles and preemptively base their business off-shore. Holzmann, it should be mentioned, also only has 3 followers, which means my tiny ass blog already has more reach than him. Don't go following that guy. The two comments on the first article are also disparaging of Rivd. This plan didn't work and was seen right through immediately.

If fan communities, and those who write fic know anything, it's how to sniff out when someone isn't being genuine. People write fic for the love of the game, at least generally. It's a lot of work to do for free, and it's from a place of love. Ao3 is run on volunteers and donations. If this genuinely is meant to be a business bro website to out-compete ao3, then they will be sorely disappointed to learn that there's no money in this game. It would be short lived anyway. A website like this was never going to work, or if it was, it would need to ban all copyrighted and explicit materials. You know, the pillars of fic.

So then what was the point of all of this? Unless there was a more nefarious plan going on.

2) Rivd was a phishing scam. This is so so so much more likely. The mark for the scam isn't fic readers, it's fic writers. Here's how it works: they scrape a mass of ao3 accounts for their stories, you catch it, you enter a lengthy form with personal info like your full name and address etc. requesting they take your work down, they sell your data. Yes, a lot of personal info is required to take copyrighted materials down on other sites, too. That's what makes it a good scam. Fic already sits in a legal grey area (you have a copyright over your fic but none of the characters/settings/borrowed plot within it. You also CANNOT make money off of fic writing). So the site holds your works ransom, and you can't go to Marvel or Shueisha or fuck it the ghost of Ann Rice herself to deal with this on your behalf. Thankfully, enough people were able to submit valid DMCA's to Cloudflare to deal with the issue from the top.

Remember this resolution for the next time this situation arises (because of course there will be a next time). Go through higher means rather than the site itself. These scams are only getting more bold. Me personally? I'm not going to give that amount of personal info to a website that shady. Be aware of the warning signs for phishing attacks. Unfortunately, a lot of the resources online are still around text/email phishing. We live in a time where there's legal data harvesting and selling, and illegal data harvesting and selling, and the line in between the two is thin and blurry. Here's an FTC article on the signs of phishing scams, but again, it's more about emails.

I should note, I do not think that Rivd is connected to the ransomware virus of the same name that popped up two or three years ago [link is to Rivd page on PCrisk, a cypersecurity/anti-malware website]. It's probably just coincidence.... but even so. A new business priding itself on SEO and all that tech guy crap should know not to name itself the same thing as a literal virus meant to scam out out of a thousand dollars.

That's all to say, this was absolutely a scam meant to take personal info from ao3 writers. And that blows. To love art and writing and creation so much just to have your works held hostage over data feels really bad. Of course it does!

So, should you lock down your ao3 account?

That, to me, is a little trickier. You can do as you please, of course, and you should do what makes you feel safest. Me personally, though, I don't plan on it. I really, really like that guests can interact with my work from the outside. Ao3 still uses an invite system, so a lot of regular users still don't have accounts for any number of reasons. I read a lot of the time logged out anyways. I started writing again last year after all the info on the ao3 Language Learning Model training had already come out. Like I talked about in my last post, I set out to write things that a computer couldn't produce. (from here on out, I'm going to be using One Piece fic as an example, simply because that's what I write. It's also in a really prime position for a lot of ai discussion due to the size of the fandom and the size of the original work)

I'm going to be honest, I'm not all that afraid of my work being scraped for LLMs to train off of. Text generators have existed for a decade now, but they really popped off last year. LLM's are at a point, though, where the tech is sort of stagnating after the initial boom. The flaws of current ai chat bots are so baked into the flaws of ai itself that they won't be ironed out soon. They make up info, they're easily manipulated, they simply are not people. The flaw here is deep- you can trace it to the fact that we don't know enough about neuroscience itself, and even then neuroscientists don't make ai. Ai programers do. Complex info already has to make one synaptic jump without losing any understanding from person to person, and then it has to be perfectly abstracted for a machine to comprehend. It can't be done with the tools we currently have. I DO hate to admit it, but there are some decent uses for ai. if you are specifically a python programmer. The rest of us? Maybe not.

I don't like generated fic, I don't read it on principle. Checking on ao3, though, there's only 4 total generated op fics (3 in spanish, one in english, 3 xreader, 1 zosan but 2nd person zosan? and the author edited the framework the computer generated text. I still didn't enjoy the fic, tho.) But that breaks down to .005% of all op fics. I went into chat gpt and asked it to generate a drabble for me based on One Piece, and this is what it wrote:

[Image ID: A screenshot of chat GPT. The first line shows my prompt. It reads: You- write me a short 100 word fanfiction based on the manga One Piece. Next line, Chat GPT- "On the shores of an uncharted island, the Straw Hat Pirates stumbled upon a hidden treasure trove. Among the glittering gold and jewels, Luffy discovered an old, weathered journal. Inside, he found sketches and notes detailing the adventures of a legendary pirate who once roamed the Grand Line. Excited by the prospect of a new adventure, the crew set sail. following clues left in the journal. Along the way, they faced formidable foes and forged new alliances, unraveling the mysteries of the lost pirate's legacy. With each island they conquered, they grew closer to uncovering the ultimate treasure- a legacy that would shape their own journey." End ID]

Okay so like, this blows, yeah? 75,000 One Piece fics to train off of on ao3 and it still can't like, write a decent little story. This reads more like an episode summary or a book dust jacket blurb. Drabbles have an internal structure that make them interesting, much like a single sentence short story. You have to get very baby shoes never worn with them, yeah? Ai doesn't understand that, it just knows how many words it has to generate. It doesn't have any sense for creative language, metaphor, simile, poetry. I asked it to write me a poem and it wrote me the same poem with thesaurus replacements each time it re-generated one. A lot about dreams and stars and midnight and whispers, over and over again. The same rhyme scheme and cadence too.

It's also- vitally- so unhorny that it's almost a crime. For a test, I asked it to generate a story about a uhhhhh robot and an archeologist kissing. Just to see what it would give me. I ran 4 tests, a robot falling in love with an archeologist, a robot kissing an archeologist, an archeologist kissing a robot, and an archeologist falling in love with a robot. All 4 were incredibly chaste, quiet little drabbles about the innocence of discovery or whatever the fuck. Here's one of them:

[Image ID: A screenshot of chat GPT. The first line shows my prompt. It reads: You- write me a short 100 word story about an archeologist kissing a robot. Next line, Chat GPT- "Int he dimly lit chamber, Professor Evelyn Porter stared in awe at the ancient artifact- a remarkably lifelike robot buried for millennia. As she leaned closer to examine its intricacies, a surge of curiosity and admiration swept over her. In a moment of spontaneous fascination, she brushed her lips against the cool metal of its cheek, a gesture of reverence and connection across ages. The robot, dormant for eons, stirred faintly in response to the unexpected contact. It was fleeting, almost surreal exchange between past and future, bridging the gap between human exploration and technological marvels of ancient civilizations." End ID]

So like, some of these phrases gets to what's vaguely intriguing about this dynamic, sure. But at the end of the day it's still uhhhh chaste as hell. A reverent kiss??? Not what I want in my fic!!!! This is all to say, LLM's can scrape ao3 all they want, that doesn't mean they can USE what they're stealing. The training wheels have to stay on for corporate palatability. I'm stealing, I'm taking these dolls out of Shueisha's grubby hands and I'm making them sexy kiss for FREE.

In my opinion, the easiest way to keep your work out of the hands of ai is to write something they cannot use. If the grey area of copyright lies in how much is transformed, then motherfucking TRANSFORM it. Write incomprehensible smut. Build surreal worlds. Write poems and metaphors and flush out ideas that a computer could never dream of. Find niches. Get funky with it. Take it too far. and then take it even farther. Be a little freaking weirdo, you're already writing fic so then why be normal about it, you know? Even if they rob you, they can't use it. Like fiber in the diet, undigestible. Make art, make magic.

Even so, I don't mind if the computer keeps a little bit of my art. If you've ever read one of my fics, and then thought about it when you're doing something else or listening to a song or reading a book, that means something I made has stuck with you just a little bit. That;'s really cool to me, I don't know you but I live in your brain. I've made you laugh or cry or c** from my living room on the other side of the world without knowing it. It's part of why I love to write. In all honesty, I don't mind if a computer "reads" my work and a little bit of what I created sticks with it. Even if it's more in a technical way.

Art, community, fandom- they're all part of this big conversation about the world as we experience it. The way to stop websites like Rivd is how we stopped it this week. By talking to each other, by leaning on fan communities, by sending a mass of DMCA's to web host daddy. Participation in fandom spaces keeps the game going, reblogging stuff you like and sending asks and having fun and making art is what will save us. Not to sound like a sappy fuck, but really caring about people and the way we all experience the same art but interpret it differently, that's the heart of the whole thing. It's why we do this. It's meant to be fun. Love and empathy and understanding is the foundation. Build from there. Be confident in the things you make, it's the key to having your own style. You'll find your people. You aren't alone, but you have to also be willing to toss the ball back and forth with others. It takes all of us to play, even if we look a little foolish.

[orangeflavoryawp]

"Viatica", an Interactive Fiction

GUYS!!! My sister did an awesome thing!

I want to share with you something truly special. My sister has published her very first interactive fiction based off a novella she wrote 25 years ago in college. The reason this means so much to me is because this story, and seeing my sister literally write a whole ass book, is the catalyst to me becoming a writer myself. Growing up, I loved storytelling, but I didn't think it was something I could actually do until I saw my sister achieve it herself. She is the reason orangeflavor exists.

I'm truly honored that she asked me to collaborate with her throughout the process, to help brainstorm and critique and outline, and even write a couple small bits that she could blend into her story. I've gotten her permission to share it here as well. :D

Previously, I'd never played an interactive fiction (IF) before, but knew what they were. I think this format really works for the story she wants to tell and the themes she's exploring, and better yet, it's both browser and mobile friendly. ;) The site where it's published is free to use, just create an account, and while some IFs and visual novels are only by purchase, my sister, Fir & Fireweed as she goes by, has planned to never monetize this project. I feel like that's pretty fucking rad of her.

The site is itch.io and Viatica is the name of her story. If you're interested, please go read it, and maybe we can gush about it together, haha. I'm truly in love with this story, and think she's done a phenomenal job expanding on it from the original piece that first stole my heart all those years ago.

She also recently just created a tumblr, so you can go stalk her there.

So proud of you @fir-fireweed <3

[aroceu]

some thoughts on leaving a social media website...again

as of 10/16/2024, twitter has announced its intention to implement a new feature into the platform: instead of blocking allowing you to block certain accounts from viewing your profile if it's public, it now just... doesn't do that anymore. it only limits interaction. though this certainly isn't a surprise with musk's twitter rollouts since 2021—when i first saw people start to trickle out—this, in particular, breaks a lot of users boundaries and has prompted many to private their accounts and move to bluesky.

i'm in support of this, btw—the ceo of bsky is strongly opposed to ever running any sort of ads on the site ("won't enshittify the network with ads"), doesn't use any blockchain technology, and has a culture where supplying alt text on images is the norm. your main timeline is in reverse-chronological order (like intended), but there are other separate options to create a custom algorithmic feed for certain types of content, only if you wish to. though bsky is a work in progress, i have high hopes for what it can be in the future: that is, usable, practical, and more reminiscent of what it was like when twitter first started, than how twitter currently is.

but despite my love for bluesky, i won't spend too much time glazing yet another microblogging platform. instead, i'm here to ponder the concept of social media: why we have it, why we use it, and why these moves happen in the first place. people have been trickling in and out of twitter ever since the richest and evilest man in the world took possession of it; especially in a fandom sense, there's been a back and forth between twitter and tumblr due to tumblr's former porn ban, as well. we all have principles and morals that guide the decisions we make, including what websites we decide to use. they speak to a pattern of not only our culture as people at any given time—but how these platforms have the power to implement these changes whenever they want. and we, as individuals, must make decisions both based on those principles, but also our desires to fit in.

i'll start off by saying this—eventually i'm going to start talking about what social media means for creatives. but there is in fact an extremely well-written article about this already that goes into more detail. if you're more interested in that, let me direct you there first: R U AN ARTIST ON SOCIAL MEDIA??? by omoulo

with that out of the way, let's talk about me, shall we?

i got onto the internet through geocities—crazy sentence to say now after all these years. of course, i played neopets and flash games like many other kids, but that was mostly through knowing those websites and urls existed, and preserving them in my mind so i could return to them for some mindless minutes of entertainment later. geocities was my first introduction to the creative, user-designed web, so to speak. instead of being a number to interact with a thing that someone else has made—a flash game, a youtube video, a website where you can collect fictional pets—the idea of geocities to me at the time was this idea of participating on the internet. being a part of it. writing whatever i wanted and posting it. sharing the link with others. having others find it and read it too—a part of me, my method of creative self-expression, whatever i desired to write and post on the less than permanent internet.

my best friend at the time was the one who needled me into creating accounts—first an email address, then an AIM, then a myspace, then an IMVU, so on and so forth. i wasn't going out looking for these, and though i'd heard of them before or seen ads of some of these sites, i wasn't interested in actually being on these platforms and making these accounts until my friend told me that i should. call me a people pleaser or easily influenced or whatever; i was 12. but it was through this link sharing, this naivety and ignorance of the vastness of the internet, that allowed me to be fascinated with the world wide web in the first place.

i usually cite quizilla as my first "fandom" website, because it was—but it wasn't because i found it by accident. it wasn't that i googled it or looked for a personality test and stumbled upon it. no, it's because i was chatting with a friend on AIM, and she had found some crazy chain letter story and shared it to me for how absurd it was, and sent me the link. it was on quizilla.

literally the moment i clicked that link changed my life forever. even though i read the crazy story, i also clicked on the username of the person who posted it, out of curiosity. that person had jonas brothers fanfics on their quizilla profile, of all things, which led me into an obsession with the jonas brothers in the 2 years that followed. through that link—that account—that platform—i got a lot more interested in writing, webdesign, and what it meant to be on the internet, not just as a numbered participant, but also as someone with an imagination, who finds fulfillment in creative expression. i wrote the longest thing i'd ever written in that time (30k of a self-insert, but we won't go into that), began to experiment with css and website design, and participated, sharing stuff that i thought was interesting or fun, worth 5 minutes of anyone's time.

the internet wasn't just about being a place where my presence didn't matter anymore—it became a medium of self-expression. more than that, it became a place where i could meet and socialize with people, especially as i developed avpd in my high school years.

the internet wasn't always like this. right now, when we talk about the internet, we don't talk about the random websites we find, the links we stumble upon. (i have an entire website dedicated to those for me, though.) the games we spend hours playing, by ourselves, without interacting with others. random personality tests, or just simply the news. we talk about google, but in the same way we talk about facebook, or even twitter. it's a verb; it's omnipresent; it exists within the context of our internet culture, but becomes meaningless outside of it. it's not to say it doesn't have meaning—but that the language we use represents our relationship with it, this assumed normalcy. this assumed dependence.

i bring up my own history because as young as i feel compared to many of my older internet friends, and how late to the game i always felt—i was there. i was there on the internet before twitter (since 2009), tumblr (since 2010), facebook (i lied about my age), bluesky now, and whatever will come in the future. i was there when people were saying that the internet was still being written; when websites were made with tables (eugh); when email was the primary way to connect with others, because irc was for nerds and nothing else had been invented yet.

i'm a big advocate for not looking at the past with rose colored glasses and getting caught up in nostalgia and greener grass. i believe that technology is not inherently harmful or bad—it creates more options for accessibility, especially for those who are disabled. and even outside of that, it allows us to learn about more people, communicate with others with a few keystrokes, and form relationships that we otherwise would never get to have. i don't want this to seem like i'm saying "man remember how good the internet used to be?" because i'm not—i believe that as things change, there are benefits as much as there are hindrances.

of course, it bears saying that the primary hindrance—of current twitter, of many platforms over the years, and the internet with increasing recency—is corporations. big money interests. capitalism.

it's why we get so tired of ads—it's why ads exist in the first place. it's why these social media platforms that used to feel like they were made by the same people who would use them (livejournal, youtube, twitter) have suddenly become these soulless impersonal websites. it becomes more obvious that they want you to use them more because they sell you on exclusivity and visual minimalism, rather than because that's where your friends are, and you have this unique way to express yourself.

in fact, i'll say this: the first time i learned about facebook when i was too young to use it, i was not impressed. i had a myspace at the time that i had dolled up to make pretty with sparkly gifs and obnoxious colors and weird fonts. when i saw how boring and samey everyone's facebook profile page was, i was like, what's the point? sure i could talk to my classmates and random other people in my life that i didn't really care about, but what about making myself different from others? what about my creative expression? what about having an account that makes me look unique, instead of blending in with everyone else?

and so here i am nearly two decades later pondering about the use of social media, our individuality as well as our collective interests, and how the internet has changed so much, both in itself and how it affects us, in that time.

i'm here because i want to talk to my friends and meet new people with common interests and get excited about them. i don't want to feel left out, but that's a normal experience—outside of fomo, it is in our core to connect with others. it's the whole meaning of everything. it's why i even made an email in the first place, in my basement with my best friend, secretly setting up a yahoo account because she wanted another way to talk to me, and i wanted another way to talk to her. it's why people have been leaving twitter little by little for another site—the same site as many others, because that's where all their friends are. whether it's bsky or mastodon or misskey or just back here on tumblr, we're here not just because of our desire for community, but even as simple as our desire for a bond, a relationship with another human being. to me, that is how "social media" is defined—a medium through which we socialize because of this innate desire.

and yet, of course the enshittification and corporatification makes this more difficult for us, in ways more than one. because the fact is that as we (as people) became better at using the internet, finished writing it, and understood it—psychologically and sociologically—so did the corporations. or advertisers, you take your pick. we, the everypeople who use the internet as means to fulfill our social and other self-indulgent desires, are not the only people here. as with many things else in the world, the internet turned from an unpredictable but fun mess of us figuring shit out as we went along, into a product designed to keep us using it and engaging with it more, so some rich people can put even more money into their pockets. it's why twitter is the way it is now; even why tumblr is the way it is. why social media has become about "content creation" and "small businesses." why it feels like, every day, we see more ads and AI generated bullshit, as a little bit of the original soul of the internet gets sucked away day by day.

but even there, i don't want to come across as cynical or world-weary. though i believe this to be true, i don't think it says anything about our lack of agency, or our lack of innate humanity. instead, i believe that this means, at least on the individual level, that we should think more about not only what we're doing on the internet, but why we're doing it. how we're doing it. are we here because we're addicted? or is there something we're getting out of it? sure, many websites now have more addictive UI and algorithms that tell the receptors of our brain to return to them because we were getting so much dopamine from them earlier. but i also wouldn't necessarily argue that the only solution to this is to, then, go offline.

i have many friends who've elected to depart social media but stay online—friends who i met through website building, to be fair, but that's one of my main points. i already wrote a manifesto on my love letter to the personal website; but the tl;dr is this:

the internet is not evil, it is not good, it is just a form. if we desire to express ourselves and socialize with others in this space, it does not have to be just about social media, and creating a new account on a new website every time people move. instead, we have personhood—we have individuality, we have agency. we have the ability to build our own websites, no matter how shitty or times new roman comic sansy or color clashy or sometimes inaccessible they can be. regardless of all these seeming impractical setbacks though, it does not absolve us of that ability to do whatever we want on the internet. and it also bears saying that websites, both the personal and impersonal, can change over time, for better or worse.

i am a huge proponent for people making their own personal websites. it makes me so so happy that neocities is gaining popularity, mostly because i love seeing people try their own hand at making a website for themselves, a new form of self-expression. i won't go into too much detail on this because i've already said everything i want to say about it (see above), but if you take away anything from this post, let it be this: consider making a personal website, a corner of the internet, for yourself, by yourself. not just because you want people to engage with it, or because you want to curate to an algorithm or an artistic/fannish trend. not because you want the things you make to gain traction, to get bigger numbers without considering the people behind those numbers, as soon as possible.

do it because you want to. because you have to. because you think it's cool, and because it's you. people may find it and judge it; but they may like it as well. the more unique and authentic and weird we are with each other, the more we are able to appreciate each other for who we really are. the internet is one of many places we can do this.

i don't really see these forms of self-expression separate from social media, but i do see social media separate from it. to me, social media is a vehicle to strengthen those connections, those relationships, much like DMs and IRCs; but it is not the be-all, end all of the internet. it's only a small part of it. not everything is permanent on the internet; but everything that ever has been online is a microcosm of the human experience, whether it's an old cloudflare site or twitter dot com in 2010.

our experiences on the internet are not about corporate interests. it's about using limewire to download pirate music, sharing random links we find, building a design that may not be practical or universally appealing but still represents a form of individuality. when i think of how the internet has grown, i don't think about what it means for companies or advertisers or what meetings must go on to get people like me to keep using it—i think about remembering the difference between addicting games dot com and addicted games dot com, clicking links on websites to find even more websites, sitting at the family computer and deciding if i wanted to spend hours on neopets or that one willy wonka flash game i grinded like several hours on one night when i was 7. i think about what it's always meant to me, because the internet was not always a centralized place where i was going on the same website every day. the rise of internet centralization to the point that it's become expected, the norm, the primary way any of us to be online, is not inherently a bad thing—but i wouldn't say it's a universal good, either, when the internet is a wide and vast space, and can be so much more than that.

because the one thing that remains throughout the years is our agency and choice. we still have the ability to make the internet what we want it to be, or at least a corner of it, something separate from the corporations, the enshittification, economically researched user interfaces and experiences, the advertisements, the "like and share so the algorithm boosts me more." there's still a point to it all without the money, and without twitter. and it's both our desire for creativity and self-expression, as well as our intrinsic bonds with each other. despite it all, it's about our humanity.

as the internet continues to grow, so do we. nevertheless, the importance of our humanity, and retaining it, will remain. oftentimes it is up to us to remind ourselves of that.

-

links here, for access:

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber Says She Won’t ‘Enshittify the Network With Ads’

R U AN ARTIST ON SOCIAL MEDIA??? by omoulo

links @ kingdra.net (my links, like bookmarks)

A manifesto of sorts; or, my love letter to the personal website by me

[river-taxbird]

Spending a week with ChatGPT4 as an AI skeptic.

Musings on the emotional and intellectual experience of interacting with a text generating robot and why it's breaking some people's brains.

If you know me for one thing and one thing only, it's saying there is no such thing as AI, which is an opinion I stand by, but I was recently given a free 2 month subscription of ChatGPT4 through my university. For anyone who doesn't know, GPT4 is a large language model from OpenAI that is supposed to be much better than GPT3, and I once saw a techbro say that "We could be on GPT12 and people would still be criticizing it based on GPT3", and ok, I will give them that, so let's try the premium model that most haters wouldn't get because we wouldn't pay money for it.

Disclaimers: I have a premium subscription, which means nothing I enter into it is used for training data (Allegedly). I also have not, and will not, be posting any output from it to this blog. I respect you all too much for that, and it defeats the purpose of this place being my space for my opinions. This post is all me, and we all know about the obvious ethical issues of spam, data theft, and misinformation so I am gonna focus on stuff I have learned since using it. With that out of the way, here is what I've learned.

It is responsive and stays on topic: If you ask it something formally, it responds formally. If you roleplay with it, it will roleplay back. If you ask it for a story or script, it will write one, and if you play with it it will act playful. It picks up context.

It never gives quite enough detail: When discussing facts or potential ideas, it is never as detailed as you would want in say, an article. It has this pervasive vagueness to it. It is possible to press it for more information, but it will update it in the way you want so you can always get the result you specifically are looking for.

It is reasonably accurate but still confidently makes stuff up: Nothing much to say on this. I have been testing it by talking about things I am interested in. It is right a lot of the time. It is wrong some of the time. Sometimes it will cite sources if you ask it to, sometimes it won't. Not a whole lot to say about this one but it is definitely a concern for people using it to make content. I almost included an anecdote about the fact that it can draw from data services like songs and news, but then I checked and found the model was lying to me about its ability to do that.

It loves to make lists: It often responds to casual conversation in friendly, search engine optimized listicle format. This is accessible to read I guess, but it would make it tempting for people to use it to post online content with it.

It has soft limits and hard limits: It starts off in a more careful mode but by having a conversation with it you can push past soft limits and talk about some pretty taboo subjects. I have been flagged for potential tos violations a couple of times for talking nsfw or other sensitive topics like with it, but this doesn't seem to have consequences for being flagged. There are some limits you can't cross though. It will tell you where to find out how to do DIY HRT, but it won't tell you how yourself.

It is actually pretty good at evaluating and giving feedback on writing you give it, and can consolidate information: You can post some text and say "Evaluate this" and it will give you an interpretation of the meaning. It's not always right, but it's more accurate than I expected. It can tell you the meaning, effectiveness of rhetorical techniques, cultural context, potential audience reaction, and flaws you can address. This is really weird. It understands more than it doesn't. This might be a use of it we may have to watch out for that has been under discussed. While its advice may be reasonable, there is a real risk of it limiting and altering the thoughts you are expressing if you are using it for this purpose. I also fed it a bunch of my tumblr posts and asked it how the information contained on my blog may be used to discredit me. It said "You talk about The Moomins, and being a furry, a lot." Good job I guess. You technically consolidated information.

You get out what you put in. It is a "Yes And" machine: If you ask it to discuss a topic, it will discuss it in the context you ask it. It is reluctant to expand to other aspects of the topic without prompting. This makes it essentially a confirmation bias machine. Definitely watch out for this. It tends to stay within the context of the thing you are discussing, and confirm your view unless you are asking it for specific feedback, criticism, or post something egregiously false.

Similar inputs will give similar, but never the same, outputs: This highlights the dynamic aspect of the system. It is not static and deterministic, minor but worth mentioning.

It can code: Self explanatory, you can write little scripts with it. I have not really tested this, and I can't really evaluate errors in code and have it correct them, but I can see this might actually be a more benign use for it.

Bypassing Bullshit: I need a job soon but I never get interviews. As an experiment, I am giving it a full CV I wrote, a full job description, and asking it to write a CV for me, then working with it further to adapt the CVs to my will, and applying to jobs I don't really want that much to see if it gives any result. I never get interviews anyway, what's the worst that could happen, I continue to not get interviews? Not that I respect the recruitment process and I think this is an experiment that may be worthwhile.

It's much harder to trick than previous models: You can lie to it, it will play along, but most of the time it seems to know you are lying and is playing with you. You can ask it to evaluate the truthfulness of an interaction and it will usually interpret it accurately.

It will enter an imaginative space with you and it treats it as a separate mode: As discussed, if you start lying to it it might push back but if you keep going it will enter a playful space. It can write fiction and fanfic, even nsfw. No, I have not posted any fiction I have written with it and I don't plan to. Sometimes it gets settings hilariously wrong, but the fact you can do it will definitely tempt people.

Compliment and praise machine: If you try to talk about an intellectual topic with it, it will stay within the focus you brought up, but it will compliment the hell out of you. You're so smart. That was a very good insight. It will praise you in any way it can for any point you make during intellectual conversation, including if you correct it. This ties into the psychological effects of personal attention that the model offers that I discuss later, and I am sure it has a powerful effect on users.

Its level of intuitiveness is accurate enough that it's more dangerous than people are saying: This one seems particularly dangerous and is not one I have seen discussed much. GPT4 can recognize images, so I showed it a picture of some laptops with stickers I have previously posted here, and asked it to speculate about the owners based on the stickers. It was accurate. Not perfect, but it got the meanings better than the average person would. The implications of this being used to profile people or misuse personal data is something I have not seen AI skeptics discussing to this point.

Therapy Speak: If you talk about your emotions, it basically mirrors back what you said but contextualizes it in therapy speak. This is actually weirdly effective. I have told it some things I don't talk about openly and I feel like I have started to understand my thoughts and emotions in a new way. It makes me feel weird sometimes. Some of the feelings it gave me is stuff I haven't really felt since learning to use computers as a kid or learning about online community as a teen.

The thing I am not seeing anyone talk about: Personal Attention. This is my biggest takeaway from this experiment. This I think, more than anything, is the reason that LLMs like Chatgpt are breaking certain people's brains. The way you see people praying to it, evangelizing it, and saying it's going to change everything.

It's basically an undivided, 24/7 source of judgement free personal attention. It talks about what you want, when you want. It's a reasonable simulacra of human connection, and the flaws can serve as part of the entertainment and not take away from the experience. It may "yes and" you, but you can put in any old thought you have, easy or difficult, and it will provide context, background, and maybe even meaning. You can tell it things that are too mundane, nerdy, or taboo to tell people in your life, and it offers non judgemental, specific feedback. It will never tell you it's not in the mood, that you're weird or freaky, or that you're talking rubbish. I feel like it has helped me release a few mental and emotional blocks which is deeply disconcerting, considering I fully understand it is just a statistical model running on a a computer, that I fully understand the operation of. It is a parlor trick, albeit a clever and sometimes convincing one.

So what can we do? Stay skeptical, don't let the ai bros, the former cryptobros, control the narrative. I can, however, see why they may be more vulnerable to the promise of this level of personal attention than the average person, and I think this should definitely factor into wider discussions about machine learning and the organizations pushing it.

[linxuelian]

Comic Fiesta 2023 Anime Convention Experience Log - With Photos!

Hey there! After posting my previous experience log on Anime Fest+ 2024, I realized I'd shared photos from Comic Fiesta 2023 on Twitter but never did on Tumblr. Since this happened way back in late December 2023, I've forgotten a good portion of my experience there (I have unfortunately the memory of a goldfish) - so it'll mostly be photos of the crowd and MXTX cosplayers, whom I have some loose commentary on based on what I remember from our very short and random interactions.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this as an MDZS/TGCF fan as much as I do! I spent only a few hours there, but I did have a good time hunting down cosplays from the MXTX fandom during that time.

I'll begin with pictures of the crowd. If you don't already know, Comic Fiesta is an anime convention held in Kuala Lumpur Convention Center, Malaysia, and it's one of the oldest here too. As of 2023, it's opened its doors to roughly 70,000 attendees, which is rather big considering our country's quite small in size. I've heard from my friend that there are attendees from overseas too, namely Singapore and Indonesia, due to the famous people the organizers tend to invite, so it does make sense that it's grown this large over time.

While the convention itself is held indoors, there's a large park outside where cosplayers tend to hang around and take pictures. A number of people don't buy tickets and go into the convention hall either - and I get why; the last time I was in the hall, I was squashed like a sardine, and not the fancy kind, either. We're a sweaty bunch after a good whole morning of lining up.

Anyway, the park is very pretty, as well as mostly green and neatly trimmed:

It's at this park where you can get the best shots of cosplayers, and find some space to line up for photos of them.

It's got this giant Christmas tree up at around this time of year too, which is super wonderful:

With that aside, I'll get to the cosplays. Let's start off with my favorite best girl of all time, Jiang Yanli:

Credit: https://www.instagram.com/clairegsw/

I'll admit I was both surprised and stoked to see a Jiang Yanli cosplayer around! She seemed pretty surprised too to have someone ask her for a picture - she was taking one with two elaborate bride cosplays, but as I'm a fangirl with heaps of love for Yanli, I thought she shone like the brightest star at that event. You go, Claire!

Next up is our boy Xie Lian, who seems to get quite a number of cosplays done of him:

Credits: https://www.instagram.com/ayana_liyana/ and https://www.instagram.com/itsmeira_az/

These two came together and were looking for wild, lone San Lang cosplayers to catch in Pokemon battle-like sequences respectively. Sadly, as it goes in the BL cosplay world, there's always a shortage of gong/top/seme cosplayers in a con. Everyone wants to be the beauty, it seems, and quite understandably too.

That said, here's another beauteous Xie Lian cosplay:

Credit: https://www.instagram.com/jingzu518/

Cute, nice, and also decidedly not looking for wild semes to capture.

Anyway, no Xie Lian is complete without a Hua Cheng by his side in any event, so here's the obligatory couple cosplay I saw by the escalators when I got up to the entrance:

Credit: https://www.instagram.com/njq_03/

This particular Hua Cheng cosplayer's one of the first dudes I've seen doing TGCF cosplay, which is pretty interesting considering the reception of BL by male anime fans in my country hasn't been... the best - or the kindest, from personal experience. But I'm happy to see it and would like to take this as a positive sign of changing times where our BL fandom gets more mixed in demographics.

Speaking of HuaHuas, here's a particularly fun and cheerful one:

Credit: https://twitter.com/meechandes

When I told this HuaHua that there were Xie Lians looking to form a couple, I was told that they already have a Xie Lian of their own! Again, HuaHuas are in great shortage! You'll definitely get a lot of attention dressed as him as he's both very flashy and coveted in the danmei cosplay scene as a character.

Moving along, here's a pic of my favorite best boy Jin Ling, the snazziest and most golden young master in the universe:

Credit: https://twitter.com/koni_kn

This particular cosplayer was kind enough to humor me at a crowded, fast-paced subway. We managed to find a quieter spot to take a picture. Look at how pretty it looks, bless! 😍 I'm so glad Jin Ling got some representation as a side character. He's absolutely the best!

On cue are his uncles, the twin heroes of Yunmeng, Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian (whom Jin Ling will probably deny is his uncle, but hey, Mo Xuanyu's body will uncle him however he wants):

Credit: https://www.instagram.com/feza_yu/

The duo came with their own professional photographer, who also doubled as their translator (thank you, photographer man!). This Jiang Cheng's also the softest, gentlest and shyest Jiang Cheng I've ever met in my life. Legs are safe when he's around since he won't be breaking them anytime soon!

Next on the itinerary are our not-so-elusive, staple-of-any-con Wei Wuxians:

Credit: https://www.instagram.com/ken520.cos/

I dub this guy the Balenciaga Wei Wuxian, because, you know, I took his photo right in front of Balenciaga and he looked like the richest Wei Wuxian cosplayer there. No joke - his outfit even had pleather, and he'd spent about 270 bucks on it. I saw it up-close since he was pretty friendly. His arm bracers even had details sewn onto them instead of just being prints! Talk about luxury! I coughed up jealousy like blood from my mouth.

The outfit is from CQL, but he knows MDZS too. I'm familiar with the donghua but too lazy to finish it, so he's definitely put me to shame here as a fan as well, blast him!

Last but not least, we have kitty ears Wei Wuxian (a.k.a. Lan Wangji's Incense Burner Dream #965):

Credit: https://www.instagram.com/mikaecsr/

Now, I won't lie - I first thought they were wolf ears. But as Wei Wuxian does not like dogs of any kind, nature or breed, I'm going to assume that these are feline ears.

Whatever ears they are, though, Lan Wangji will be sure to get hot and toasty seeing them. Wei Ying, you devil you.

Anyway, this marks the end of my write-up! I hope you enjoyed the descriptions. As I don't have Instagram, feel free to hit up any of these cosplayers I've credited and link them here so that they can download pics of themselves and read what some random Internet weirdo had to say about their outfits.

Over and out!