#WHICH WILL DIRECTLY IMPACT THE LANGUAGE WE SPEAK

[talizorah]

not gonna lie it’s hard to be like “yay artists standing up for themselves” when you see artists fighting against machine learning and artifical intelligence but you’re a translator who has been fighting (and losing) countless battles of artifical intelligence taking over your specific field of work while no one gives a shit

[strechanadi]

An interview with Heloïse Bourdon and Mathieu Ganio on all things Mayerling.

[slugtranslation-hypmic]

I Think Hypmic's Portrayal of Gender Roles is Kinda Refreshing: An Essay A.K.A. I'm Procrastinating on a Weekend Deadline :)

Hypmic's talking points on gender are hamfisted, corny, and melodramatic. "Maybe...we shouldn't have a wage gap," is not the hottest of takes. However, like most things in Hypmic, the writers have a lot more to say about gender and gender roles in the framing of the story itself that's much more nuanced. And honestly? It's kinda refreshing.

It's also something that went way over my head when I first became a Hypmic fan. Sure, I read manga and played Japanese video games--usually translated into English first--but I didn't have enough exposure to hundreds or thousands of pieces of untranslated Japanese media. I'm going to guess that most Hypmic fans don't either, which is totally fine and normal. We all exist within our respective cultural communities wherein we're bombarded with messages constantly telling us how to act, think, and speak. We tend to absorb these messages on subconscious levels and reflect them in the art we create and stories we tell, either by reinforcing them or challenging them. Thus, our stories don't exist in a vacuum, and divorcing stories from their cultural backgrounds can suggest the artist is the original thinker of a larger concept or hide their specific point of criticism. That is, if I wrote a story about a man who chooses to not catch fish, drink beer, and drive a Dodge Ram pick-up truck, we should be aware that I'm not the person who conceptualized the stereotype of dudes who catch fish, drink beer, and drive pick-ups. I wouldn't deserve the credit for dreaming up that exact image, and at the same time, it would be incorrect to read that as me targeting those three things randomly. The choice to not drive a Dodge Ram pick-up is not a commentary on Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. It's a stand-in for the notion of masculinity.

Thing is, we're hit with messages about masculinity, femininity, and other gender-related concepts on a daily basis. No matter where you live or what language you speak, every person on Earth is inundated with messages saying, "This is what you are, and consequently, this is how you should act." Our relation to these messages is complicated, and this complexity is compounded by different cultural communities preaching different messages in their stories, marketing, and human interactions. For instance, the US's massive global cultural influence means that those outside the US can still easily recognize what I mean by catching fish, drinking beer, and driving enormous American pick-up trucks. But the location and cultural differences may add or subtract nuances. A person living in, say, Munich is unlikely to have Dodge pick-ups advertised to them the way a person in rural Texas would. Our fictional Munich person does not feel the same social pressures to buy a Dodge and represent their masculinity with a Dodge the way our imaginary Texan would. In turn, the Munich person likely sees a Dodge with an element of absurdity--who the hell needs such a big truck in a European city?--and foreign Americanness. The Texan wouldn't have that concern--why worry about navigating your enormous truck down narrow streets when you live in the countryside?--and sees Americanness as their local default, thus removing any element of foreignness.

That is to say, gendered messages aimed at people (especially women) who live in Japan don't affect me the same way as they impact those who do live in Japan. Like, it's not my dog in the fight, and there are plenty of people who are directly affected who write their own stories and commentaries on gender roles in Japan. Japanese women don't need a random guy in the US to stand up and say, "Damn, your gender roles are fucked!" 1) They already know. 2) They're already saying it. So I come at this from an angle of someone who already has deep, primary frustration with the gendered messaging in my culture and secondary frustrations when similar messages appear in other cultures. I don't have a bone to pick with Japanese media in particular. Plain and simple, reading and working on hundreds of pieces of Japanese media is what I do for a living. It's in my face constantly, and as a result, I am also perpetually bombarded by messages about gender roles in Japanese media.

It's not a hot take to say that Japanese media, like the media of every single other culture around the globe, has a lot to say about gender. There's a lot of slotting people into boxes and telling people what to do. It's chafing, as we see all across history in art produced in reaction to gender roles. In the past couple of decades, global shifts in gender roles have caused media to shift the messages they're pushing, but it's not controversial to say that Japan has lagged behind other countries like the US.

Many, many stories push arbitrary notions of how to be a girl or how to be a boy that don't necessarily come from the author themselves. The authors probably aren't even fully conscious that they're making these choices. If an author writes a story about a library and makes every female character a romance fan and every male character an action fan, it's likely a reflection of endless messaging that says action is for boys, romance is for girls. In turn, this story becomes yet another reinforcing message. If no fictional girls like action, and no fictional boys like romance, it becomes alienating for real girls and boys who don't follow these same rules. These rules are everywhere and have so much to say about gender that it's hard to know where to begin. Girls must like cute things. Boys can't like sweet food. Women must not express sexual desire. Men can't be shy. On and on and on.

Which is why, when there's a relative lack of this in Hypmic, it's kind of a breath of fresh air.

Wrong Ways to Be a Man

Actually, Hypmic does have a few moments where characters claim there are certain things men or women should do, but the writing always frames these messages as incorrect.

Take Samatoki, for instance. After Kuukou and Sasara leave MCD, Samatoki tells Ichirou, "Men shouldn't cry when they lose their friends. Men should only cry when they lose a family member."

(TDD chapter 10)

This line usually appears via Ichirou's perspective. In the stage play, it's told during a song Ichirou narrates, and as shown above in panel 3, the manga frames the line from the angle at which Ichirou sees it. In such moments, the audience is meant to read this as a cool line from a strong mentor figure to Ichirou. That's how Ichirou sees it, and he's a seventeen-year-old with too much on his shoulders who idolizes Samatoki. He is incapable of seeing how much pain Samatoki struggles with.

However, when the manga focuses on more intimate moments of Samatoki's life, we see that Samatoki does struggle quite a lot.

(BB/MTC+ chapter 6)

This isn't a cool, attractive figure meant to be idolized. While Samatoki's cigarette usage and aggressiveness are often framed as sexy or enticing, the juxtaposition with dirty laundry, overflowing ashtrays, and empty bottles make him a sympathetic and struggling figure. Therefore, we should understand that his notion that men don't cry is flawed. It's a means to distract himself from emotions he doesn't want to feel.

Later, as Samatoki begins to process his emotions and open up to his teammates, the unhealthy coping mechanisms recede. Samatoki is more confident, mature, and happier as a result of being more emotionally vulnerable.

We see a similar transformation with Kuukou. As a teen, Kuukou is reluctant to accept help or truly let anyone in. In a conversation with Hitoya, he says (and I am still completely unable to take this seriously), "A man's got to wipe his own ass."

(DH/BAT chapter 4)

However, over the course of his character arc, Kuukou learns that he cannot exist as a good leader or individual without the teamwork of his newfound "family." Only rejecting this classical and toxic notion of masculinity brings Kuukou joy.

In fact, most of the first-line characters have very similar arcs. At the start of the story, Ichirou is insistent on doing everything himself. He has to learn to be able to rely on other people (Kuukou, Samatoki, Ichirou and Jirou) to be happier and unlock his true strength. See below, his final attack and Ability use in the 2nd DRB, which is only possible when his brothers figuratively and literally support him through it.

(BB/MTC+ chapter 25)

Sasara struggles with emotional honesty and trust in favor of using humor to gloss over discomfort. It takes multiple heart-to-hearts with Roshou before he can let humor take a backseat and say how he really feels. Ramuda has difficulty trusting other people and being honest with his emotions when faced with stressful scenarios. Only through Fling Posse is he able to open up and ask for help instead of driving people away when the problems are too big for him to face alone. Jakurai struggles to connect with other people, work through and acknowledge his complicated feelings, and not place himself on a pedestal. Through Matenrou, Jakurai is able to ask for help, be more open, and ultimately be less hard on himself.

The second- and third-line characters follow similar arcs, and this repetition creates a core message for Hypmic: Trust and rely other people. Be open with your feelings. There's a wrong way to be a man, and that's to hurt yourself and other people.

Right Ways to Be a Man...Are Infinite!

But with that being said, there is a surprising lack of commentary on how else to be a man. Hypmic as a whole doesn't do much to constrain the male characters in terms of gender roles.

Sure, some characters do fit into more traditionally masculine roles--Ichirou, Samatoki, Riou, etc. The messaging makes it clear that it isn't wrong to play into masculinity provided it doesn't become toxic. (See above.)

Even then, however, these especially masculine characters are associated with less masculine traits that are either portrayed positively or not portrayed as a joke. Riou is an avid cook, but the joke is never that he wears an apron and knows his way around an outdoor kitchen (tee-hee, men don't cook!). It's that he cooks with horrifying ingredients. Samatoki is a fashionista, but the joke is framed as a counterpart to Ichirou's nerdiness.

(DoD chapter 1)

Here, it's funny that neither of them can shut up (the ペラペラ/blah blah SFX, the long bubbles filled with lots of text that's cut to indicate they kept going for longer), but the object of their attention--a model toy and a pair of jeans--are treated in the same neutral light. It's very common for stories to touch on, even defensively, the social taboo of men being into clothes. Hypmic doesn't even acknowledge that such a taboo could exist.

This is subtle but extraordinarily effective in giving characters the same consideration and weight. The more feminine characters are always treated just as sincerely (or, if there's a joke to be made, irreverently) as the more masculine characters. Take Ramuda, for instance. In Japanese media, a love of sweets is often characterized as feminine and will often be remarked upon, even in LGBT+ media, as atypical for men. Again, there's zero acknowledgement of such a thing in Hypmic. Whenever other characters talk about Ramuda's food intake, it's always framed as a concern about the lack of nutrition.

(FP/M chapter 11... I don't have the source lying around on my computer, so here's the old-ass scanlation lol)

It's also given the exact same weight as anyone else's junk food habits. Here, MCD goes out for burgers (a neutral to masculine-coded food due to the meat and high calorie count) while Ramuda opts to try a sugary Starbucks-esque drink. The parallelism in the comic's framing suggests that the two objects are functionally the same, and there is no comment that a sugary drink is feminine and therefore "inappropriate" for Ramuda. There's also no indication that MCD's preferences are in any way better. They simply happen to be the characters' personal preferences. The punchline is two groups splitting up, only to awkwardly run into each other again moments later.

(DoD volume 4 bonus comic)

Similarly, Ramuda's interest in clothes or fashion is never treated negatively--in fact, the discussions of clothes as a means to find identity and happiness make it a positive!

In ARB cards and promotional materials, Ramuda sometimes wears dresses. It's, again, portrayed in parallel to other characters wearing more masculine clothes and is never commented on as something "unusual." It's just who Ramuda is.

Hifumi is another interesting case. Like Ramuda, his playful personality often doesn't as stereotypically masculine. (To be clear, I read much of this as "gender neutral with a strong emphasis on youth" versus "feminine" in a way that I'm not sure has a good US equivalent...metrosexual/yuppie men's fashion, maybe? In the sense that it's a youth subculture that defies some masculine gender roles but is still focused mainly on men. I wish I was more well-versed in Japanese men's fashion and could give an exact term, but I'm what I'm thinking of is definitely an established thing--young, trendy dudes whose styles focus on poppiness vs. the rugged manly man or "idk, I'm just some guy" subcultures. It's a thing that pisses off old Japanese conservative men in the same fashion as people getting up in arms about "the gayz!!!1!" and their androgynous clothing lol.) Their personalities are often the butt of jokes, but only in the same way that Dice or Doppo are--that is, that they're exaggerated and over the top. There's no commentary on masculinity or lack thereof.

There are also moments when Hifumi, Gentarou, or other characters play feminine characters in roleplay moments, which is usually (but not always) not the sole joke. The audience is supposed to find it funny, but the humor is almost always centered on the absurdity of the scene as a whole. For instance, in a moment where Hifumi and Doppo are pretending to be two drunk karaoke-goers, the humor comes from the composite set-up of Hifumi's hair twirl, Doppo's untucked shirt and tie, Doppo and Hifumi's exaggeratedly flirtatious poses, the spotlights and sparkles, and the same font as used on classic karaoke machines.

(FP/M+ September 2022 oneshot)

Hifumi and Doppo do not perform traditional gender roles in their homelife, and while it's easy to see and often commented on in the English-speaking fanbase when it comes to Hifumi, I find it just as prevalent on Doppo. It's true that Hifumi is taking a feminine role by doing the majority of the household's cooking and cleaning, but if we were to assume Doppo has the masculine role in the household, he would have the breadwinner duty. However, he isn't the main source of income for their household, and he's just as unassertive in finding a (female) romantic partner as Hifumi is. Japanese men are bombarded with media messages stressing the importance of taking an active role in career and romance. That Doppo does not would, in many stories, make him the butt of a joke for not living up to masculine gender roles. But he isn't; instead, Hypmic portrays him as a sympathetic character. It's tough, Hypmic says, for people to get good jobs and maintain friendships/relationships as an adult.

Similarly, it's noteworthy that Hifumi's self-appointed term "Gigolo" is consistently portrayed as a good thing in Hypmic. The meaning of the English term aside, the Japanese word ジゴロ (jigoro) is almost always used as an insult for a man who is financially dependent on one or multiple women. In the strictest sense of the term, Hifumi is a jigoro in that his income derives from his female clients. However, there is never any shame associated with that, and as a whole, Hifumi's career as a host is shown to be a positive thing. I can't express enough how rare that is in any sort of semi-serious media. Certainly, Hypmic acknowledges that his job requires too much drinking (Doppo's verse in Hoodstar), but the overall portrayal is overwhelmingly positive. Hifumi and his coworkers are never treated as uneducated, boorish, or pathetic for "failing" to find other work that does not require flirting with and entertaining women. (This is partially due to the overlapping judgment with sex work.)

All the various harmless preferences and personality traits of the male characters are treated equally with no judgement over what's masculine or non-masculine. Within the broader context of Japanese media, this absence of judgment stands out and reinforces one of Hypmic's core themes: Differences make us better, not worse. In the end, Hypmic suggests, there's no one right way to be a man.

Right Ways to Be a Woman...Are Just as Infinite!

But what about women? This series is, after all, marketed mainly towards women, and while female audience members can no doubt extrapolate the lessons learned from the male characters, it's worth taking a look at the female characters too.

The female characters do receive much less screen time than the men and are not the focus in the series; I'd argue that's less an issue of overt sexism and more that they fall out of focus in the story the writers want to tell. (There's a broader discussion to be had about inherent sexism in the writers' focus which goes hand-in-hand with rap industries across the globe favoring men and rap being an example of exaggerated masculinity, but that's a topic for another day.)

Even so, the framing of the female characters is interesting in a couple key respects. The individual character arcs and motivations of the main female characters are, in my opinion, some of the weakest parts of Hypmic--many times, Otome and Ichijiku do things because the plot demands them to, making them look incompetent or needlessly cruel for characters we're supposed to sympathize with. Nemu's story seems to be handled with more care and takes an interesting twist, wherein she openly acknowledges that she's disenfranchised as a woman in modern Japan but rejects the notion that she needs to find strength on either Ichirou or Samatoki's (male) terms. By choosing to be strong in "her own way" (whatever that means...it's not well-defined), the authors are using Nemu to reject the notion that strength and power are inherently masculine.

What I find to be far more interesting is the character design for the Chuuouku women, both in what is said and what is not said.

To begin with, the characters and their portrayals run the gambit from highly sexualized to completely non-sexual. Some characters (especially Ichijku and Honobono) have conventionally attractive, curvy body types and are often drawn in ways that highlight their bodies.

(FP/M+ chapter 4)

(FP/M+ chapter 14)

In some cases, especially Honobono's, the enticing nature of the illustrations is framed as the character's choice; in the above, her words indicate that she wants to seduce the off-screen listeners. The images included above are largely representative of these characters' raps, regardless of illustrator.

But on the flip side, other characters with large breasts or hips are never drawn in a sexual fashion. By way of comparison, here are two shots of Nemu rapping.

(BB/MTC+ chapter 12)

Even in shots with dynamic poses, no attention is drawn to Nemu's figure in any sort of provocative sense. Nemu touches her chest, drawing the reader's eye there, but the artist does not emphasize the size of her chest--they're allowing a chest touch to be no more than an emphasis of the self. At the same time, Nemu's body isn't downplayed. We can see in panel 2 on page 2 that Nemu has a small waist and wider hips, but once again, she isn't being sexualized. The action lines draw the reader's eye to Samatoki and thus put the action first and foremost. This creates the idea that not only can characters portray themselves sexually, but they can just as easily choose not to.

We see similar with Otome, who does not wear any sort of revealing clothing and is never shown in a sexual fashion. However, Hypmic doesn't equate revealing clothing to sexual portrayals either! While I wouldn't call Tsumabira's outfit revealing, she does have more visible cleavage than most Chuuouku figures. However, her bare chest is never sexualized like Ichijiku's.

(BB/MTC+ chapter 4)

Compare the non-emphasis on the chest and the power stance to any of the many shots of Ichijuku where her breasts are front and center in the camera. Speaking of power stance, Tsumabira remains confident in her power stance without being sexy--that is, no stepping on the camera and showing her whole leg.

Which isn't to say that Tsumabira is a sexless character. She's drawn visibly turned on by the male characters in such a way that is cartoonish but not, in turn, overly sexual. Were this supposed to be titillating to the reader, I would have expected to see a larger close-up on her face and tongue. However, the artist (who is no stranger to focusing on tongues!) devotes the majority of the panel to Tsumabira's body language (which, again, doesn't absurdly exaggerate any of her proportions or focus on her chest) and covers part of the mouth with text bubbles. Tsumabira is drawn as engaging in sexual behavior without being sexualized for reader entertainment.

(FP/M+ chapter 4)

The juxtaposition of such different views with little to no judgement attached to any of them suggests that it's perfectly okay to want to be sexy or not, to wear revealing clothing or not, to be involved in sexual situations without being the object of sexual interest, or to simply exist with an attractive body type without sex ever coming into the equation. Just as some characters choose to tie bodies to sexiness, some don't whatsoever--and either is perfectly fine!

The former idea ("I can choose to be sexy") may not sound especially revolutionary to US audiences, where sexuality is thrust upon women willingly or otherwise, but I find it fascinating because it lets the main characters embrace this idea without associated slut shaming. So much of Japanese media insists that women should be sexy but are also wrong for wanting to indulge in their own sexuality. Therefore, having characters who run virtually every iteration of take on the topic (I want to engage in sexuality and be sexualized, I want to engage in sexuality without being sexualized, I don't want to engage in either) with multiple body types (ie, Tsumabira isn't automatically not sexualized because she has a smaller chest; Nemu isn't automatically sexualized because she has a bigger chest) and no judgement involved feels like another breath of fresh air to me.

As a whole, I find the diversity of the Chuuouku uniforms and character appearances quite interesting. They're undeniably all feminine and relatively militaristic, but different characters wear entirely different wardrobes. Skirts vs pants, blouses vs dresses, high heels vs boots... Since every character has her own take on the common theme, it once again feeds into the idea that each character is her own individual and perfectly valid for defining femininity in her own way.

Haircuts, too, range from longer and more feminine hairstyles to pixie cut-esque looks.

(BB/MTC+ chapter 16)

Again, nothing of the framing suggests this short-haired woman is in any way different from her longer-haired counterparts on the edges of this screenshot.

Finally, while most Chuuouku women are conventionally attractive, I find it extremely compelling that Haebaru is a stereotype of an unattractive Japanese woman. To be extremely clear, I do not think these stereotypes should have weight, but the combination of chubby and/or muscular build, freckles, rounded nose, and non-glossy hair is often used as a visual shorthand for unattractive or otherwise undesirable women.

Sure, it's not fantastic that Haebaru is a scheming, two-bit villain. However, so is virtually every other female character in the series, and in particular, Haebaru is (the conventionally attractive) Tsumabira's counterpart. Both are treated with the same respect or lack thereof, suggesting that one's appearance has nothing to do with your ability to be a no-good baddie. Ha ha ha.

It would be lovely if the female characters were fleshed out further and given intelligent choices and diversity outside of the realms of physical appearance. However, I do think the writers' choices are limited by virtue of all women automatically being antagonistic side characters (which, again, is another discussion altogether). What the writers can and have accomplished is further reinforcing a celebration of differences. Just as there's no one right way to be a man, there's an infinite number of ways to be a scheming snake of a woman HAHA.

Intersection with LGBT+ Topics

Unfortunately, this is a very binary look at gender and gender roles, which, while largely representative of the current state of Japanese media, can be disappointing.

Hypmic appears to want to steer shy of LGBT+ topics as a whole, which is a bit of a shame. In a story so focused on gender and acceptance of diversity, it seems the natural next step to explore the notion of those who experiences don't align with a strict gender binary. Such stories are growing in popularity in Japanese media but have yet to be anywhere near the mainstream acceptance in US media (which is still in a fledgling stage at best). I would imagine Hypmic's writers are unable or unwilling to take a definite stance on these topics in the work due to fears of financial or career backlash. If nothing else, the sexuality of the main characters needs to remain in a limbo in order to have plausible deniability for both self-shipping and shipping with other characters. (Some deniability may be more plausible than others.)

The few instances in which Hypmic does wander into this territory are usually clumsy. I am no fan of the handful of scenes where male/male attraction is supposed to be funny purely by virtue of being male/male.

The inclusion of Urumi, the one minor character explicitly LGBT+, is not stellar either. I am hesitant to apply any definite label to her, as the real-life people her stereotype portrays self-identify as everything from trans women to cis men--or refuse to use these English labels at all! Still, we know from her profession (proprietor of a bar heavily implied to be a gay bar by the neighborhood it's in), appearance (poofy permed hair, exaggerated make-up), and demeanor (feminine speech style, a bit flirtatious) that she's AMAB and choosing to present herself in a feminine fashion. By writing Jirou to ask, "Aren't you a man?" in an exasperated fashion, the writers have put her gender presentation in a boke role--suggesting she's over-the-top, exaggerated, comedic. It's not great. I completely understand why readers find it offensive (and it is) even while I don't think the writers intended it that way. Ultimately, it would have been great to see other explicitly LGBT+ characters portrayed without the joking angle.

With that said, I'm not entirely unhappy with her character. She is a stereotype, but the authors have chosen to take only the visual elements of the stereotype and leave the rest on the cutting room floor. In other works of fiction, characters like Urumi are often hypersexual to the point of being in-universe creepy, especially towards underage boys. Other times, characters like her may be eccentric or off-putting in other ways. However, that's not at all the case here. Urumi seems to play a helpful big sister/aunt role in Jirou's life, and he's clearly comfortable enough with her to spend the night at her bar.

(BB/MTC+ chapter 17. "Sorry, but can I shack up here again tonight?" "Of course you can.")

While she seems to engage in some sort of a bohemian lifestyle, as evidenced by the alcohol and smoking, it isn't anything outside of what many of the other characters do. Additionally, while she isn't drawn in a flattering fashion in scenes where she's playing up her persona (which is par for the course with any character in this series, regardless of gender), there are plenty of neutral shots of her being serious. Finally, the art is never outright rude--that is, she isn't drawn exaggeratedly masculine or flamboyantly...snakey? I don't know how to describe this to anyone who's lucky enough to have never seen this--clearly LGBT+ AMAB characters drawn with noodly limbs and huge, overblown lips winding around male characters.

Maybe because I see so much worse continuing to be produced in this day and age, I feel like Hypmic could have done a much, much worse job with this character. She overall plays a positive role and is treated with much the same care as other side characters. It's unfortunate, then, that the writers have chosen to make her gender presentation the subject of a joke.

In other frustrations, I heavily dislike the unnecessary gender divide in background characters. All punks and other background baddies are male, whereas all adoring fans are female. (But Rhyme Anima has done an interesting job of subverting this!) The vast majority of other background figures fall into strict gender roles, which is likewise disappointing. It appears that diversity may be an accepted trait for none but a lucky few that form the main Hypmic cast.

All in all, I don't think Hypmic's portrayal of gender roles is groundbreaking, nor do I think it's fair to suggest that all Japanese pop culture plays into strict gender roles. There are certainly many Japanese works, popular or otherwise, with much more interesting things to say about gender. However, when compared to the vast majority of the titles that cross my desk on a regular basis, I notice and appreciate the level of care put in to Hypmic's commentary on gender roles. The work consistently reinforces the notion that it's okay to be your own individual, no matter how that plays into your gender, and I find that freeing. That's a message we could all do to hear more often, regardless of culture and language.

TL;DR: Oh no, my rapidly approaching deadline. :)

[wellsbering]

i've been going through prismatic-bell's blog to try to piece together exactly what happened to make xir think that reporting someone to the FBI for terrorism with zero evidence was a logical course of action, and i came across something i felt like i just had to pick apart here. i thought about responding to the post directly, but i don't want my notifications to get overrun by zionists (i mean, that'll probably happen anyways, but...fingers crossed)

if you don't wanna read this whole long thing where i explain why this specific gofundme is indeed trustworthy, at least share & donate to muhammad's campaign here

first, what kind of fucking racist brain worms do you have to have to see an arab man asking for help and think that it's "threatening"?

what, exactly, is threatening about this screenshot? saying the honest truth, that being unable to afford medical care for a serious injury could make an amputation necessary??? asking someone to share a link on other social media to increase reach??? using ALL CAPS, LIKE A LOT OF PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET DO FOR EMPHASIS?? please explain it to me.

and then, of course, we have Zionist of the Year prismatic-bell's response.

most of these grammatical inconsistencies that prismatic-bell seems to think of as damning proof (mixing up 1st & 3rd-person pronouns, mixing up "hand" and "arm") are probably not things that someone who doesn't speak english would catch. tell me, tumblr: which of these do you think are "he" and "his", and which do you think are "i" and "me"?

if you're unfamiliar with the arabic writing system, you have zero clues to go on, right?

some of the people sending these asks are copying & pasting english text they see other people using to ask for donations (this is what led to that other scam controversy with bassel). learning a new language is fucking hard. trying to proofread their own messages in not just a foreign language, but a foreign ALPHABET, is not a good use of their time when they're in a warzone and desperately trying to ask anyone they can for help. also to elaborate on the hand/arm thing, it's not that fucking hard to find his gofundme, which contains photos of his actual x-rays.

you can see the shrapnel in his arm. reverse image search only brings up 5 results, 4 of which are tumblr posts linking to this gofundme, and one of which is the gofundme itself.

the bullet is in his arm. as you may imagine, having a bullet strike and break your arm is going to impact your ability to use your fucking hand. muhammad has nerve damage as a result of this injury. so yes, surgery is necessary. you can't really fix nerve damage with a simple round of antibiotics.

"ALSO also also: has nobody in Gaza heard of antibiotics? Why are we going straight for surgery?" is so fucking patronizing. yes, everyone in gaza has heard of antibiotics. unfortunately, antibiotics don't randomly spawn in hospitals like a fucking video game, they need to be TRANSPORTED there, which impossible to do when israel is blocking nearly all humanitarian aid from entering the gaza strip. this is why there are so many amputations being performed in gaza right now. they are running out - or in some locations, have already completely run out - of basic medical supplies.

also, by reading the gofundme description, the "rebuild" vs "evacuate" bit becomes clear: his family needs to rebuild their home, and he has to leave gaza to get adequate medical care. in other words, he has to leave a dangerous place that is being bombed to get to somewhere safe where he can receive medical treatment. if only there was a word for that. perhaps one that starts in evac- and ends in -uate. if only!

regarding the emojis: personally, i don't use a ton of emojis in my writing. but again, considering the aforementioned language barrier, is it surprising to see a lot of emojis? those are at least something that make sense in every language. they also serve to break up a big wall of text that people might otherwise scroll by. i have adhd, so sometimes if a long post is broken up with an occasional ❗ then my eyes will be drawn to that, and i will actually read that sentence and get put back on track.

i don't think i need to get into the "outed as a scammer" bit, since that's been thoroughly debunked. even blogs dedicated to identifying scams on tumblr, like kyra45, consider el-shab-hussein and 90-ghost's vetting process to be reliable and share their lists of vetted fundraisers.

and finally: "People can be bought. Accounts can be hacked. Maybe they used to be honest. They’re not now." this wording seems to imply that all blogs dedicated to palestinian gofundmes are dishonest? it's just as ridiculous to say "every single ask you get is a scam" as it is to say "every single ask you receive is legitimate". a blanket statement like this only serves to continue to undermine the legitimacy of the many REAL GAZANS who are asking for help to rebuild their lives.

i hope this clears some things up if anyone was confused about the legitimacy of some of these asks. the long and short of it is, it's not that hard to just look up a person's blog and see if a trusted person, who actually knows what they're doing (unlike prismatic-bell), has verified the legitimacy of their campagin or not. to be honest, i think that automatically assuming every ask related to gaza is a scam says something about the way you view palestinians. and it's not pretty.

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

US government (<essentially) requesting public comments on conditions that co-occur (happen together) with autism.

specifically, 7 questions, ask about physical & mental health & other (learning & communication & intellectual & developmental disorders) conditions, what more research need, how services for these can be better, how COVID infection & world changes from COVID impact (good/bad). each question can say 1500 words.

open january 3, 2024 to february 14, 2024.

all response be part of public record - so please do not say thing not comfortable with government or other people like researchers see, not say anything confidential or personally identifiable.

.

now.

although this apply to all autism in US, not just high support / etc., but:

to higher support needs & levels 2/3 & semi- & nonverbal nonspeaking & severely autistics, their caregivers, & allies, of united states

(to higher support needs & higher levels & semi- & nonverbal nonspeaking autistics, their caregivers, & allies, of united states)

ask for public comments like this, inherent more inaccessible to autistics with high support needs & level 2/3 & w more severity, whatever language we feel most comfortable with. this called research sampling bias.

independent & many times even with support… not all of us can / know how to use internet, or know internet exist. not all of us can read complex government language. not all of us have functional communication to able respond. not all us have writing easily be understood. for those who can any/all of this, often very difficult.

so what happen is many us we need caregivers & other people respond with us for us. not all of us have caregivers or caregivers who can. not all of us know this call to response exist. and. our voice get drowned out because governmental people don’t realize this research sampling bias, don’t realize the method they do survey inherent leave out some of most marginalized autistics. so they going take results from lower support & level 1 n maybe 2 autistics, then think it speak for all autistics. (kind of already able see this, how they forget mention genetic & chromosomal conditions, like rett williams down syndrome, which more likely affect higher support & more severe & level 3 autistics)

we need have our voice represented in response, as much as possible. and. we need make sure they know about this research sampling bias.

so, am directly calling those of us who can. to fill out. those who caregiver, to fill out with us for us. but also those ally: to not forget about us when fill out.

higher support needs & level 2/3 & semi- & nonverbal autistics & with more severe autism in US:

if you can, fill out with your experiences in most authentic way possible & most comfortable. include with AAC, with “grammatically incorrect” sentences, with short sentences, etc.

or, show caregiver or someone trust, to fill out with you for you.

remember what you say can be seen by government people & researcher & others for long time, so make sure don’t say anything that can make people know it’s you & don’t say thing don’t want other people know. but do know your name won’t be tied to this.

spread word & tell caregiver & friends to spread word too

caregivers to us in US:

help us fill this out - with us for us. your experience your joy your labor is part of autism experience, but also remember this is about us. please balance two & give us dignity & autonomy.

remember this become part of public record. so again don’t say personally identifiable things & confidential things. think about what we would not want other people know.

spread word!

allies to us in US:

if you autistic yourself, of course fill out with your experiences, but also:

when fill out, please do remember explicitly say and emphasize how this inherent inaccessible to us, that you won’t hear from many of us because we can’t, that whatever result will skew to those lower support & more independent & level 1 n maybe 2.

(it not say you have be autistic to fill this out, it call for public response after all, but if you not autistic & not closely associate with autism like family like research like service provider, do think about what you say & why you say)

spread word :D especially about part about high support needs / etc

those not in US:

sorry😢but do spread word if can/want

.

do NOT argue about severity & functioning labels & levels & support needs language on this. use these because know people use them call themselves - respect them. if you don’t call self that or not even target of these language am not talking about you.

.

all 7 questions under cut, can also see them on website

1. What are the most significant challenges caused by co-occurring physical health conditions in autistic people? (Examples of co-occurring physical health conditions: gastrointestinal disorders, sleep disturbances, epilepsy, sensory and motor challenges)

2. What are the most significant challenges caused by co-occurring mental health conditions in autistic people? (Examples of mental health co-occurring conditions: depression, anxiety, aggressive or self-injurious behavior, suicidality)

3. What are the most significant challenges caused by other conditions that co-occur with autism, such as learning disabilities, developmental disabilities, intellectual disabilities, and communication disabilities?

4. What additional research is needed to help address co-occurring conditions for autistic people?

5. What could be improved in autism services and supports to help address co-occurring conditions for autistic people? (Examples: Equitable access to and accessibility of services, insurance coverage, service systems issues, patient-provider interactions)

6. What lasting impact has COVID–19 infection and illness had on co-occurring physical and/or mental health conditions for autistic people?

7. What lasting positive or negative impacts have societal changes due to the COVID–19 pandemic had on physical or mental health for autistic people? (Examples of societal changes: disruptions in services, increased remote work and school, increased use of telehealth, reduced in-person social interactions and obligations)

[robtopus]

Narrators come in many shapes and sizes, and while I'm not going to overload this post with academic language going back to the 60s, I feel like focusing only on the binary between "3rd person" and "1st person" is almost actively harmful.

When writing, and reading, we can look for/at the following things:

1) How close/far is this narrator (to the action, to the characters, to the setting)?

2) Is the narration static or does it change? It usually does; in what ways does it change? It does not have to be "from 3rd to 1st" person - maybe the narration got closer in some respect; maybe time was sped up and now slows down again; maybe there is a jump from the narrated present to the narrated past which impacts language?

3) When there is a first person, I've noticed a lot of readers and writers tend to jump immediately to someone narrating their own story, which is an edge-/sub-case. There's a lot of ways for the narrator to become a character in their own right even when they're not telling their own story. HPL's narrators, for example, will tell the experiences of others, summarizing reports, re-telling anecdotes and sometimes directly allowing these others to speak while still being reported.

4) Is the narrator reliable? We may think of 3rd person as inherently more reliable, but that is obviously false -- the narrator of a crime novel obviously knows Whodunnit, but they're not telling us. They may even deliberately pull the wool over our eyes in a way that 1st person would be unable to achieve (read John Le Carré, The Spy who came in From the Cold for a masterclass in this).

5) No, the narrator is not the author. So even if the narrator makes grand, sweeping statements ("Each unhappy family is unhappy in their own way"), this is first and foremost telling us ABOUT THE NARRATOR and the story they are about to tell, NOT about what Tolstoy may or may not think about family.

These are just a few quick and easy things to look out for. You don't need a degree for these, or an intimate familiarity with millenia of fiction writing and storytelling, and maybe you're doing some of those already consciously or unconsciously -- and if not, give it a try! As a reader, it's fun; as a writer, it adds depth and complexity without being overly intrusive or even noticeable; and treating your narrator, no matter how omniscient-3rd person they may be, as a character with a voice can help your style, as well. And maybe when you're stuck, try to ask yourself not what you want to tell, but how you want to tell it.

Who knows, maybe that is how you can cut through the Gordian Knot.

[kestalsblog]

Thoughts on "Loser, Baby" Song

From what I’ve seen, viewers are extremely divided on the impact of the song “Loser, Baby” in the fourth episode of Hazbin Hotel. I’ve decided to share my own thoughts on the sequence below. Warning that this is a long post, and if you are triggered and upset by the song and/or episode, I encourage you not to read. I understand and respect any individual analysis, and if you were hurt by the song in any way, you are 100% valid. Others who feel differently are also valid. All I ask for is that same respect.

I don’t believe the only people qualified to speak on media are those who can relate to it, but I feel, given the conversation surrounding the episode, I should briefly mention my own background, so people don’t assume I am trying to speak on behalf of other survivors here. As a preface, I was in a severely abusive long-term relationship, so I can understand multiple perspectives here.

First, since Husk is a gambler, it’s safe to read the song as an extended metaphor for gambling too, in which case “loser” takes on the literal meaning– someone who has lost the game. Husk reminds Angel that many of us are dealt the shitty hand in life, and that the best way to get through the game is simply to go together. That’s probably the simplest positive analysis, but I think it's important to keep in mind throughout the whole song so that we don't read "loser" only as "failure" or "scum of society."

The most understandable criticism, though, is that the piece is blaming victims by attacking them and trivializing their experiences. I’m the most on the side of this argument at the words “whiny bitch,” which feel like an odd choice considering Husk has been nudging Angel to open up throughout the entire episode. It’s not my favorite line, but I can handle it only if we read the song as Husk actually singing to himself and calling himself these names as a means for Angel to see that he feels the same.

I do have some fondness for the song’s language as it continues, though. Excuse me for referencing my own personal experience here, but it’s relevant to my understanding.

Eventually in my healing journey, I realized writing and speaking affirmations to myself like “you’ll get better soon!” and “time heals everything!” were making me feel worse and frustrated. I felt like I was just waiting around for this magical deadline when I would “improve” or “recover,” and when that didn’t happen, I felt terrible about myself because I felt like a failure on top of damaged goods. I was letting myself down.

I reached a cathartic moment one day when I admitted to myself, “Maybe things are never going to get better, and I am always going to feel ruined by this.” Confessing this possibility allowed me to realize that, despite the fact that I am a “loser” in that I lost time, innocence, my old sense of security, and my carefree nature from before, I can still experience meaningful and even joyful moments in this new, altered condition.

At one point in the sequence, lots of flashing signs point terrible, degrading names at Husk and Angel. I can see why this might be upsetting to some viewers who are adamant that the characters do NOT represent those labels, but there is an obvious alternate reading that these are just the names both have assigned themselves over the years. By putting them bright and on display, they can face their self-hatred directly and reclaim their honest selves. (Let me pause here to say it's also crucial to remember Husk is not directly calling Angel any of these names). The solo lights then disappear and are replaced first with the soft blue raindrops moment where Husk shields Angel with the umbrella, and finally with the single LOSER where they both can dance together.

Most importantly, the lyrics gesture toward surprisingly affirmative by the song’s conclusion: “Eat shit together, things will turn out differently / It’s time to lose your self-loathing / Excuse yourself, let hope in, baby / Play your card, be who you are.”

Husk isn’t disregarding the possibility of hope, even in the gutter for the losers. In fact, he directly welcomes the possibility that the game can change with company, and self-hatred won’t be beneficial toward supporting that change. Even if we are dealt the losing hand, he reminds us the game is still worth playing. He reminds Angel again and again that it's okay to be who he is. And now "loser" assumes a new connotation - losing the negativity, the hatred, the things that are holding them back.

Significantly, after this point, no more self-negatives are even spoken, not even "loser" again because Husk and Angel are interrupted before the crucial word “me” when they sing that final line “loser just like—” Any connection to the self now has been effectively erased, reminding us that Angel and Husk may have made poor choices, may have been given crappy cards, but they are not losers in the sense that they are not less of people.

Last, it’s important to remember that the song is not meant to speak for everyone. It can't. If we’re going to be strict about it, it’s not for any survivors except Angel, and as we can see by his shifting mood, it certainly helps him feel better in the moment. The whole episode has been about Husk trying to encourage him to “break down his walls” and stop feigning the super inflated ego act he typically puts on, so, in one way, it becomes a “let’s get Angel past the self-loathing that’s preventing him from being his real self so we can move on to something more genuine and happier together" tactic.

I know it’s hard to separate our lived experiences from media. Judging from the disparity in opinions I’ve read from survivors on the song, I’d say it’s been therapeutic for just as many as it’s been damaging.

Before I conclude, it's worth mentioning I also have my own critiques of the song. I mentioned one with the word “whiny.” Another potential issue is the difference between Angel and Husk’s problems. I’m not trying to minimize gambling addictions by any means, but I know many of us feel that Husk’s loss of a cushy social position because of gambling pales against the extreme bodily violence Angel faces. I think it would be odd for Husk not to attempt to comfort Angel in some way, and trying to relate is one of the most common ways of doing so, but I admit that the discrepancy in their situations bugged me throughout the number. Husk reminds Angel he's "not unique" in his problems, which is important for survivors to remember (to know they are not alone), but it might mean a little more coming from someone on a similar playing field. The one redemptive thing I can say here though is that both characters sold their souls to someone with a tyrannical hold over them, and even though we know Alastor isn’t abusing Husk in the same way Val hurts Angel, we have yet to see the connotations of his power within that specific dynamic.

When push comes to shove, the song overall works for me, and I admit I felt seen while watching/listening, which isn't even something I really care about in media, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless. If you felt otherwise, I am sorry, and I encourage you to do your best to separate yourself from the media you consume and remember that every story, every song, is written by flawed people for flawed people. I mean it as fondly as possible, but we're all just losers "living in the same shit sandwich." Nothing will ever perfectly represent or encompass your own experience and healing. Analyze art respectfully for what it is, what it isn't, and what it can be.

What else can you do?

[amethystina]

"Han fattas mig."

One of the compliments I often get on my writing is just that — my writing. My word choices, my sentence structure, my imagery, my rhythm, my originality, etc. Now, I never thought I'd reach a point where I’d become that good at the craft itself, especially not in a language that's not even my native tongue. Partly because of imposter syndrome but also because I'm usually such a perfectionist that I never thought I’d dare to write something that doesn't strictly and stiltedly follow the rules.

Sentence fragments? Words used in unusual contexts? Odd or highly specific imagery? No can do!

Except, clearly, I can. I should, even.

And I want to share one of the monumental pieces of writing that made me realise that. And it’s not even a whole work. It's just one sentence, really:

"Han fattas mig."

Now, that probably looks a bit weird to those of you who don't understand Swedish, so let me explain.

That's a quote from the children's book Ronja the Robber's Daughter written by the famous Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. It was published back in 1981 and while I didn't actually read the book as a kid, I DID watch the Swedish live-action movie many times. But, even then, it took until my adult years to fully grasp the utter and heart-breaking brilliance of that quote.

For some context, the book/movie is about Ronja who, surprise surprise, is the young daughter of a robber chief. That quote is said by her father, Mattis, when one of the old robbers of their clan suddenly dies. Now, this old robber, Skalle-Per (uh... I guess the translation would be Bald Pete?), is clearly a father figure for Mattis. A wise old man who, while gloriously snarky, is also incredibly nurturing and emotionally mature. Which stands in stark contrast to Mattis who is the somewhat traditionally dominant, macho man. He HAS to be, on account of being the chief for a clan of rough and tough robbers. They, in many ways, complete each other, where Skalle-Per is kind, thoughtful, and sensible while Mattis is brash, violent, and impulsive.

Now, predictably, when Skalle-Per dies, Mattis throws a full-on tantrum. The kind that shows just how inexperienced he is with dealing with emotions without Skalle-Per to help him work through them. And, since the whole problem is that Skalle-Per is now dead? Mattis has absolutely no idea what to do.

He starts pacing back and forth, crying, flailing his arms, and yelling things like: "He's always been here! He's always existed, and now he doesn't!" And no amount of calming words from his wife soothes him and, eventually, he says that line:

"Han fattas mig."

And there is no direct translation I can give you that fully conveys the amount of raw, almost childlike, grief in that one sentence. This sentence was the one that made me realise that following the rules doesn't matter because, strictly speaking, this one doesn't. The words used are unusual to the point where they're even a little odd at first glance but, once you look deeper, also so incredibly impactful.

The rough translation would probably be "I miss him" but, as said, that doesn't convey the sheer desperation that those words do in Swedish. First of all, it throws the words around, completely changing the focus and weight of the sentence. "Han" is "he" and "mig" is "I." So saying "I miss him" reverses the order where the emphasis SHOULD be put on "him" but the main subject of the sentence now becomes "I" (i.e. less about the loss and more about how "I" am feeling). In “Han fattas mig” the “he” is the most important part.

Second, you have the word "fattas" which, yes, directly translated means "missing." But not the kind of missing that we Swedes normally use for grief. We have another word for that called "saknar." If you miss someone who has died, you'd say: "Jag saknar honom." Which is basically the same as the English “I miss him.” The word "fattas" is for a completely different context — a much more mundane one, with almost no emotional stakes. It's what we use when a piece is missing or something is lacking a required component. Kind of like you would say: "This stew is missing something" when it doesn't taste the way you want it to. But it can also mean "lost" as in "there's one puzzle piece missing."

So when Mattis says those words, he doesn't say "I miss him." He's saying: "He is a part of me and he is now missing," and "he is a part of me and I lost him," and "he is a part of me and now there is a hole where he used to be."

He is saying: "I will never be complete again."

Because "fattas" is also the word we use when something is missing and the thing won't be complete until you add it/return it/get it back. And, in this case, since the man in question is dead, you know Mattis will never get that chance. He will never be whole again. Which, sure, is a rather terrifying take on grief, but also not an untrue one. Grief will lessen over time, but the loss will still be there.

And this isn't me doing some sort of complex linguistic analysis — I don't have to. Because it's all there. It's so simple yet so effective. And yet, somehow, no one had really thought to use the word "fattas" to describe grief before. Because it's just a simple and mundane word we use for entirely different things, not big, painful emotions, right? Except Astrid Lindgren did. And while she no doubt did so to make it easier for children to grasp the concept — since most kids can relate to the feeling of losing something in the context of "fattas," which is much more direct and real than the elusive emotion of "saknar" — it also changes how an adult can view grief and loss.

Not even "I lost him" can fully encompass the absolute BRUTALITY of the grief found in the sentence "Han fattas mig."

And that is why I give fewer and fewer fucks about the rules. Now, obviously, I doubt I'll ever come up with something as brilliant as this sentence (it honestly rocks me to my core sometimes) BUT it's worth trying. It's worth being creative and experiment with the words you know and in what order you place them. Just maybe, you'll end up with something really cool. That's not to say you should ignore any and all rules, but it's okay to play around. It's okay to do the unexpected.

I think it's important to remember that. Writing is creative. We write to express things — to find ways to describe and explain complex emotions, grand adventures, and sweeping love stories. It connect us and gives us a way to share our experiences, thoughts, and feelings. And, sometimes, the set boundaries won't be enough. Sometimes, we might just need someone to look at how we describe grief and go: "I can make it simpler and, at the same time, so much more painful."

And it doesn't always have to be complex. It doesn't have to be difficult words and purple prose. Sometimes, all you need is three words so easy that a child can understand them and, somehow, you will describe a sense of loss so deep and so fundamental to that character that you KNOW that they will never be the same ever again.

So experiment. Be bold. And, above all else, have fun.

And, one final heart-wrenching fact to wrap this all up: The actor who played Skalle-Per — Allan Edwall — was in almost ALL of the movies/shows based on Astrid Lindgren's books. He played different roles, of course, but he was a staple — synonymous with her works. And, when the actor died back in 1997, Astrid Lindgren was asked how she was handling the loss and her reply was the same as Mattis’s:

"Han fattas mig."

[wild-karrde]

Part 1: The Antagonist

Series Master List | Next Part

A/N: ALRIGHT. SO. I REWROTE THE FIRST PART OF THIS SERIES. I HOPE YOU LIKE IT. As always, THANK YOU TO THE OUTSTANDING @teletraan-meets-jarvis FOR BETA READING THIS FOR ME!

Pairing: Gregor x f!Reader (nicknamed Bolts)

Rating: E 18+ MINORS BEGONE

Warnings: language, fingering, voyeurism, PiV sex, oral sex, impact play/spanking, Fives cameo

Word Count: 6.5k words

The bass of the music in 79s is damn near deafening as you step inside the bar, almost immediately spotting the magenta and grey paint of the 28th Combat Wing’s armor in their favored booth against the wall. What stands out more was the yellow hatch-marked commando armor sitting amongst them. Your teeth immediately find the inside of your cheek, gnawing away to ease your annoyance.

Fucking Gregor. Dammit. 

You’ve been looking forward to this all week, but of course that fucking commando is here. Maker alive, he’s infuriating, but you aren’t about to let him ruin your night out. You have to cash out on all of the booze Chuckles owes you at some point, and he’s so rarely planetside, your opportunities are limited. 

But why did it have to be the night that asshole is also around? 

You’re not sure what exactly about Gregor gets under your skin. Maybe it’s his cocky smirk or his stupid hair or that ridiculous giggle that sounds like an inebriated fathier whinnying. Or maybe it’s the way he seems entirely unbothered by you. No matter what it is, Gregor’s got you figured and loves to dig his finger into that sore spot whenever he gets the chance. He’s already spotted you from across the room, raising an eyebrow as you start heading in his direction. 

Not tonight, asshole. 

You square your shoulders, swaying your hips a bit more than necessary. None of them have ever seen you out of your mechanic’s jumpsuit, and you’d picked your favorite (and only) dress for the occasion. It’s a simple, strappy black number, short, but not too short, shimmery, and easy enough to get into and out of should the need arise. After all, you deserve a little bit of attention. And maybe a good lay. If you can find one.

Gregor says nothing as he sips his beer, but his eyes never leave you, raking from your toes to your eyebrows as you nudge Chuckles and slide into the booth next to him. 

“I’m sorry, I’m saving this seat for some greasy mechanic I owe a few drinks to,” Chuckles teases, slipping his arm over the back of the booth behind you. 

“Oh, my apologies. Mind if I keep it warm until she gets here?” you joke back, playfully ruffling his mohawk, which is currently a deep purple color. 

Crater rolls his eyes while Stones leans over, whispering that you look very nice, making you duck your head bashfully. Chuck flags down a waiter droid. 

“What’ll it be, Bolts?” he asks, invoking the nickname he’d given you.”Just don’t break my non-existent bank account.” 

“I’ll have a whiskey, please,” you request. Gregor raises an eyebrow again. 

You feel annoyance tighten your chest. “What?” you ask sharply. 

“Here we go,” mumbles Guin under his breath.

Gregor shrugs. “Just didn’t peg you for the whiskey type.” 

“Oh, do enlighten me as to what type you thought I’d be, Captain.”

“Alright, alright, your seat’s not even warm yet,” Chuck mutters. He leans closer, speaking directly into your ear. “What is your damage with him?” 

You sniff delicately, as if Chuckles has somehow misread the constant bickering between Gregor and you. “Nothin’. I just asked a question.” 

Chuck rolls his eyes before sliding the whiskey in front of you. “Just drink this so you’ve got less of a stick up your ass.” 

You glare at him, but accept the drink anyway, enjoying the slight burn in your throat and the warmth that settles into your belly. 

It doesn’t take too many whiskeys before you feel yourself start to relax, some of the tension leaving your shoulders. You laugh at Chuckles’s terrible jokes, chat with Crater about the last bolo ball game, and even get Sticks to come out of his shell a bit, convincing him to regale you with the stories behind Chuckles’s most ridiculous injuries. The entire time, you notice Gregor’s stealing glances at you, and your confidence grows. 

Let the bastard look.

You lean forward to take another sip of whatever drink Chuckles has ordered for you now. You let your cleavage rest on the table as your tongue wraps around the straw, pulling it between your lips. You glance up in time to see Gregor watching you over the rim of his glass. His eyes are on your breasts, but they quickly flick up to meet your gaze. You roll your eyes at his obvious leering, leaning back into the crook of Chuckles’s shoulder. The pilot seems somewhat surprised, but doesn’t move to pull away. Gregor says nothing, but something in his eyes seems to flare for a moment. 

You’re imagining things. 

As the evening progresses, Crater graciously excuses himself to head back to the barracks and catch up on some reports. As soon as their commanding officer disappears towards the bar to settle his tab, tongues loosen, and suddenly the conversation turns to romantic encounters. Unfortunately, the boys haven’t spent enough time planetside to rack up anything too salacious, so it isn’t long before you become the target of the conversation. 

“C’mon, Bolts. What’s been your wildest night?” 

“A lady never kisses and tells.”

“Who said anything about kissing?” 

“And since when are you a lady?” You elbow Chuck for that comment, shooting him a glare with no real heat behind it.

“Oh, come on. There has to have been something that you’d consider memorable.” 

You shrug. “Not lately.” 

“No game or nothing worth writing home about?”

“You guys sure are nosey.” 

“We’ve got to live vicariously through you, Bolts.”

You laugh, growing bolder as the liquor in your stomach warms you. “There was a guy a few weeks back. He did his best, and it was probably better sex than I’d had in a while, but that’s not saying much with the losing streak I’ve had going. Thinking of giving up and just going with the battery-powered lovers from here on out. At least then I get to finish.” 

Stones groans in despair for your lackluster love life and Chuckles cackles loudly. “You sure do know how to pick ‘em, Bolts.” 

You shrug. “It’s been a struggle.”

“Maybe you’re just looking in the wrong places.” 

Gregor had been quiet for the last little while, but that comment from him draws your attention. And your ire.

“And what would you know about making a woman cum, Captain?” you sneer. 

He grins cheekily. “Plenty.” 

“I bet you couldn’t make a woman orgasm if your life depended on it,” you bite back. 

Chuckles huffs in annoyance next to you. Gregor swirls the whiskey he’s switched to in the light, watching the legs of the liquid trail down the side of the glass. 

“I’ll take that bet.” 

It’s the first time he’s ever really openly antagonized you, and something about the way he’s looking at you sets your blood boiling and a very different sort of blaze licking up your spine. Your eyes lock onto one another, and for reasons you can’t explain, you feel heat pool between your legs. You adjust in the booth, and while the others are guffawing about something else Chuckles said to lighten the mood, Gregor notes the way your thighs rub together. He smirks, and you scowl back as your annoyance battles for control with the sudden tingle that ripples through your nerves. After another few minutes, you excuse yourself, unsure of where you’re heading.

Just need to get away from him for a minute. 

Your feet carry you towards the back of the bar where it’s darker. You pass plenty of bodies pressed together, panting, sweating, and moaning in the dim lighting. Suddenly, you feel a hand in the small of your back, pressing you towards one unoccupied corner that’s far from any prying eyes. You whirl to find Gregor smirking down at you. 

“I-I was looking for the ‘freshers,” you sputter. 

“Now love, I don’t think that’s true at all,” he responds. “I think you were looking for trouble.” 

You regain your bearings, scoffing at him as he backs you into the corner. You feel the heat grow between your legs, and you hate how your panties are sticking to you as he pins you against the wall, one arm braced next to your head as he leans closer, smirking. You can smell his sweat and his drink and his skin, and a sudden shiver rips through you. You jut your chin out defiantly.

“What do you want, Gregor?” you snap. 

“Same thing as you.”

“And what’s that?”

He chuckles before leaning even closer to you, his voice rasping in your ear. “To make you cum.” 

You snort indignantly, but your legs are trembling underneath you.

“The question is,” he continues. “How best to make that happen? Are you one of those lovers that wants to be taken roughly, with me buried deep in that sopping cunt of yours while I hold a hand over your mouth to keep you quiet? Or do you need me to build you up more slowly, take my time until you fall apart?” His fingers trail up your thigh, slipping under the fabric of your dress before digging into your skin slightly. He presses forward, slotting a knee between your legs, and your breathing quickens. His eyes are watching you as his fingers find the hem of your panties on your hip, and he twists the string of delicate lace around his knuckle. 

“Now this feels like something you were hoping someone would take off of you tonight. That the case, love?” 

You swallow hard. 

“You want me to take these off of you?” 

“No.” 

He pulls his hand away immediately, clearly thinking he’s misread things, but you lock your fingers around his wrist. His eyes find yours in the darkness, the question in them apparent.

“I want you to make me cum with them on.” 

His trademark smirk reappears, his fingers slipping back under your dress, drifting between your legs to press your clit through the thin fabric. He’s more sure of himself now, more certain you want this, and as much as you hate it, you absolutely fucking do. 

“All worked up just from thinking about me? You’re practically soaked,” he murmurs. 

“You talk a lot,” you mutter. 

He chuckles against your ear. “I think you like when I talk.” His fingers find the hem of your panties between your legs, and you feel him push the lacy fabric aside, tracing through your dripping folds. “I think you like hearing all the ways that I think about fucking you, and trust me, I’ve thought about it a lot.” His first finger finds its way inside you, and you gasp, hitching one leg over his hip as your hands fly to his shoulders to find purchase. Gregor’s watching you as your lips part, your head thunking back against the wall as he slips a second finger inside you. 

“That’s it, love. Let go for me. Let me take care of you.” 

“I really don’t like you,” you try to snarl, but it comes out more of a whine. 

He chuckles. “I think you want to dislike me, but that’s becoming more difficult.” 

Your reply dies on your tongue, replaced by a gasp. His fingers are so thick and deliciously calloused. When they finally find that spongy place inside you, you dig your teeth into your lower lip to stifle a moan. He crowds you further against the wall, bearing down on that place inside you. “None of that now. Let me hear you.” 

“Fuck you.” 

“I might let you if you’re nicer,” he teases.

You dig your nails into the back of his neck, and he gasps lightly before he nudges the strap of your dress aside with his nose and bites down on the flesh of your shoulder. You groan out his name. 

“Gregor.” 

“That’s right. You like this, don’t you? Being back here where anyone could see you falling apart on my fingers.”

You suddenly become aware of just how exposed you are, and in spite of yourself, it thrills you. Glancing back over at the table, you see the boys are all still seated and chattering away, completely oblivious as to what’s going on. You’re mostly glad they’re not paying attention. 

Mostly. 

Gregor notes where your gaze has drifted. “You want them to watch, hm? I could call the others over. Have them see you finally get what you deserve.” You whimper, clenching around his fingers as he slips a third one in. “Oh, you liked that, didn’t you? You’re filthy, love. Maybe another time. Right now, I want you all to myself.” 

You’re practically riding his palm right now, the man you’ve hated for months, but Maker above, you’re not about to stop. There’s something so deliciously obscene about how you never could have predicted this moment, and yet, here you were, fueled by need and anger and something else you can’t quite place. The music is faint enough back in this corner that you can hear the obscene wet noises coming from between your legs. You’re both sweating, foreheads pressed together, panting in each other’s faces. 

“Gregor, I’m close.” It might be the first time you’ve said his name without a snarl tacked onto the last syllable.

“I know you are, love. Be good for me and soak my hand, yeah?” 

You glare at him with heated eyes, mustering your last bit of defiance. “Make me.” 

He sucks at the place just below your ear. “With pleasure.” With that, he presses against your clit with his thumb, circling slowly with just the perfect amount of pressure. Your mind goes fuzzy, teetering on the brink as he buries his face in your neck, panting against your sweaty skin. Your eyes rove the bar around you once more as Gregor’s thumb presses more firmly against the bundle of nerves between your legs. No one near you is paying any attention to you, mostly focused on their own partners, but a pair of piercing brown eyes draw your attention, and you lock gazes with Crater from across the bar. 

He must have gotten sidetracked or decided to have one more drink away from his men as he closed out his tab, but either way, there he is, seemingly watching you ride Gregor’s fingers. His expression doesn’t change as your eyes find his. He brings his glass to his lips, his gaze unwavering as he surveys you. You’re not even absolutely certain he’s looking at you in this dimly lit mass of bodies, but you think he is, and that’s enough to send you flying towards the edge of your orgasm. You cum hard, your vision whiting out as you topple over the precipice. Gregor presses his mouth to yours, swallowing your scream, and you bite down on his bottom lip as you ride out your high. When the aftershocks have finally subsided, you slump against the wall as Gregor pulls his hand from between your legs. He holds you up, resting his chin on your shoulder as he pants against your skin. 

Glancing back at the bar, you note Crater’s gone. If he was even actually there in the first place. 

“I… still don’t like you,” you mutter between gulps of air.  

He chuckles. “Keep telling yourself that, love.”

When your breathing finally steadies and your legs become usable again, he stands back, watching you as you straighten your clothes. You try to recompose yourself, smoothing your hair, and he grins. You roll your eyes at him, and he chuckles, leaning down to whisper in your ear. 

“Looks like I won that bet.” He kisses you on the cheek, which infuriatingly makes your face flush with heat. You glare at him as he turns to leave, but you grab his arm again. In spite of months of derision and grumbled comments, you want more. 

And you want it now.

His expression is puzzled, and you relish in it as you step closer to grip his rock-hard length on the outside of his pants, making him gasp. You whisper directly into his ear, ensuring only he’ll hear. 

“Wait five minutes and then follow me outside. I’ll have a cab waiting.” 

“What for?” 

You kiss him, running your tongue over the inside of his lip before patting his cheek, enjoying the way he groans and the surprised look on his face. 

“Double or nothing. But this time you can't use your hands.”

With that, you turn on your heel, heading back towards the table. Your fingers wander nervously over the fabric of your dress, ensuring there’s no wrinkle or strap out of place that would give away what happened in that dark corner. You pull your hair over one shoulder, hoping it covers the stinging mark where Gregor’s teeth found purchase against your skin. Chuckles glances up as you get closer, his eyes seemingly taking in everything you’d hoped to hide, but his expression doesn’t change. Heat rises in your cheeks, and you try to meet his gaze with a level stare of your own. 

“Everything alright, Bolts?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking I’ll head out. Got a long one tomorrow.” 

“Want me to walk you home?”

“No. I mean, I’m good. But thank you. Don’t want to be a bother.” 

Chuck nods. 

“We all good here then? Don’t need me to settle up anything?” you ask.

Chuckles grins. “All good, but we’re even now, right?”

You smirk. “You wish, bud. You owe me at least two more nights like this before I’d call us even.” 

The pilot rolls his eyes, but you wink before making your way back through the crowd and out the front door of the bar. 

The night air is chilly, or at least it makes you shiver as the breeze hits your sweaty skin. You wrap your arms around yourself, eyeing the area where taxis usually could be flagged down. There’s a large crowd gathered, and apparently, it’s a slow night with the cabs. You shift your weight on your feet nervously, weighing your options. You’d rather not stand in a crowd with Gregor. Your cunt throbs between your legs, still slick from the orgasm the commando wrenched from you, and still craving more. There’s a moment of sharp clarity where you realize what just occurred, what you’ve propositioned. You pause to consider it. 

Yes, you’ve always disliked Gregor for whatever imagined slights you’ve clung to, but you’ve just allowed him to pleasure you better than any lovers in recent memory, perhaps ever. And he followed through on his promise, and has seemingly agreed to do it again, wrenching another orgasm from you. If he was actually a sleamo, you’d have never let him touch you, and now, your mind really tries to pinpoint what it is about him that’s always pissed you off. He’s good looking, and he knows it, and he’s always been able to read you, seemingly finding the most annoying places to press into. Well, until he found a very different sort of place to press against tonight, one that made your legs tremble and your nerves flare with electricity. You still can’t quite put your finger on what it is about him that makes you angry, but you’re definitely certain about the reasons you want him to fuck you now.

It was unexpected, impulsive, almost taboo, and that made it more thrilling. And him being so eager to pull another orgasm from you? Well, that’s new. Even with your shared history, you’ve never met a man so focused on you, and deep down, you like the attention. Even if it is Gregor.

You turn back towards the club, and see the lanky commando just exiting. As much as you’d love to take him back to your apartment and fuck in a real bed, something about it seems too intimate, even with your revelations. In your mind, it’s almost some sort of concession, admitting that you’ve enjoyed him enough to be vulnerable, to allow him into your space. And that’s not something you’re ready for, at least not yet. You just want a release. Well, more than the one he’s already given you, and you’re not feeling patient enough to wait for a cab. You lock eyes with him, jerking your head towards one of the alleys. 

He seems to take your cue, following behind you as you stride in between the two buildings, picking your way around a few couples that seemed to have the same idea. You’re pretty sure one of them is that ARC with the tattoo on his temple from the 501st, but it’s hard to tell with the way he’s bent over the woman he’s fucking against the wall. As you walk past, she moans out “Fives,” and confirms your suspicions. A sharp thrill of anticipation snakes through you. 

Gregor might fuck you like that in a minute. 

You think he might grab your hand to lead you through the alley, but he allows you to lead, hovering just half a step behind you without touching you. And that almost seems to make the space between you fizzle with anticipation. As soon as you get far enough past the other pairs to give yourselves a semblance of privacy, you finally feel warm hands snake around your waist. Gregor spins you, pinning you against the wall. You hiss as the cool bricks scrape against your bare shoulder blades, but it’s more from surprise than anything else. 

“What do you want, love?” Gregor asks, hands already wandering your body. The lighting out here is only a little better than inside 79s, but the shadows work in his favor, sharpening his features and somehow making his eyes more piercing. 

Karking hells, he’s hot.

“I want you to fuck me hard against this wall until I cum as many times as I need to,” you gasp, arching into his touch as he squeezes your breast over your dress. 

The corner of his mouth lifts into a triumphant smirk, one that would normally make you snarl at him, but he’s already got you unraveling. “Yeah? I think I can do that. Just gotta help me get ready.” He guides your hand between his legs, and you feel his cock through his pants again. He’s softened a little in the last few minutes since you’d separated, and while you could probably get him hard again just by stroking him, you want to turn the tables and get him back on his heels a bit. 

You want to wipe that smirk off of his stupidly handsome face. You want him to whimper for you.

Pushing him away from you, you squat down, carefully balancing on your toes, and start working to free his cock from his pants. Luckily, he’d opted to not wear any armor above his knees tonight, and it only takes a moment to fish out your prize. He’s long, and so thick and warm in your grasp. You feel your mouth watering already at the prospect of what you’re about to do.

“Oh, Maker, Bolts. Is that what you want?” he asks, and you feel his cock twitch against your palm. 

You say nothing, glaring up at him before you slip him past your lips. You groan as you taste him, tracing his shaft and flicking at the head of his cock with your tongue. Gregor’s mouth falls open slightly, and he gives you exactly what you’d hoped for, a whine high in his throat. You take him deeper, relishing in the way he stretches your jaw, even as his head brushes the back of your throat. With watering eyes, you drag your tongue along the bottom of him, pulling back enough to wrap your fingers around his length, twisting as you take him again. Gregor hisses out a curse between clenched teeth, and you hum, smirking around your mouthful. The commando stares down at you, clinging to what’s left of his composure. 

“Now love, I thought the rule was no hands?” he scolds breathlessly, reaching down to grab both of your wrists. He pins them against the wall with one of his massive hands, stepping closer and thrusting gently into your mouth. Your head rests against the wall, and all you can do is open your jaw wider to accommodate him as he presses even closer. He keeps your hands pinned against the wall, interlacing his fingers with yours. “Squeeze if it’s too much, but I’m not going to go easy. Not with the way you’ve run that mouth at me.” He’s teasing, and you raise an eyebrow, grazing him with your teeth. He reaches down, gripping your jaw firmly. 

“Oh, I’m going to enjoy this,” he grits out darkly, and you shiver at how the hoarse, lighthearted rasp of his voice has turned to a deep gravel that promises to ruin you. Without further preamble, Gregor snaps his hips into you until you choke. He watches you for a moment, and when you don’t squeeze his hand, he starts fucking your mouth without abandon. You focus on breathing through your nose as he drives his cock into your throat, running your tongue along the bottom of his shaft, trying to find the place that’ll make him come undone. Tears stream from your eyes, surely ruining your makeup, and rivulets of saliva slide over your lips, dribbling down your chin and neck. Gregor’s too far gone to note your efforts with your tongue, swearing under his breath as he uses you. 

And as much as you dislike him, you love this.

Even if you’ll never admit it. 

You can feel your pulse between your legs, and your pussy is begging for some sort of stimulation. You flex your wrists experimentally to see if you’ll be allowed one hand to touch yourself with, but Gregor tightens his grip. 

“That greedy little cunt is going to have to wait,” he rasps, glancing down at your pleading eyes with the smuggest expression imaginable. “I’m going to get my credits worth out of your mouth first.” With that, he pushes to the back of your throat, burying your nose in the dark curls at his base, and he holds you there. Your vision blurs with tears, and he’s cut off your air, but fuck you love it. 

You feel his thumb trace your hand, reminding you that you can squeeze anytime to have him release you, but tapping out at this point would mean letting him win, and you’re not about to do that. 

After what feels like an eternity, he pulls out of your mouth, and you gasp for air as a thick string of spit connects the two of you. You gasp and choke as you try to catch your breath, but Gregor is already pulling you to your feet, spinning you to face the wall and pushing your dress up and your panties to the side. Your knees protest as pins and needles snake down your calves where the blood flow was cut off in your squatting position, but you don’t have time to complain as Gregor kicks your feet apart, lining himself up with your entrance. 

“You ready to cum on my cock, love?” 

Your voice feels rough as you reply. “We’ll see if you can make me.” 

Gregor pulls the strap of your dress off your shoulder, freeing your breast, which he immediately grabs, pinching your nipple. In spite of yourself, your head falls back against his shoulder as you try to press the tender flesh into his palm. He squeezes roughly as he takes your earlobe in his teeth, chuckling. 

“Oh, I’ll make sure you can still feel me all day tomorrow. And that you’ll be back for more.”

The snarled retort is on the tip of your tongue when he sheathes himself fully in you in one stroke, and it’s strangled by the high-pitched gasp that rips out of you. Gregor crowds you against the wall, practically lifting you up on your toes with every thrust. You’re going to be sore tomorrow, you’re certain of that with how he’s stretching you out, carving out his place inside of you with every snap of his hips. Your breasts press against the cool, rough brick, and normally, you’d complain that it was uncomfortable, but Gregor’s cock hits a place inside you that makes you cry out loudly, and the pleasure overshadows the pain. 

“Shhh, love,” Gregor coos in your ear. “Gonna attract an audience. Unless that’s what you want?”

“Thought y-you liked hearing me,” you gasp.

“Inside was louder. Out here, everyone can hear you mewling.”

You place your palms against the wall, digging your teeth into your lip to try and keep your moans locked inside you. Gregor shifts his grip on your hips, reaching up to splay his massive palm against your breast, his other hand trailing between your legs. You regain enough brainpower to swat it away. 

“No hands,” you snarl.

He huffs a laugh, redoubling his efforts. “Fine then. We’ll be here longer, so you’ll really have to stay quiet.” He purposefully bottoms out, and you moan before you can stop yourself. “You’re so loud, Bolts,” he teases, bearing down on the place inside of you that’s making your legs tremble beneath you. “I suppose I can help with that.” 

His hand slides over your mouth, and you think he’s just going to muffle your screams, but instead, he slides three fingers into your mouth, pressing down on your tongue. You whine, and he chuckles, driving into you. You want to make a comment about how loud his hips are slapping against your ass, how the wet sounds of your cunt are echoing down the alley, how Gregor’s panting and grunting in your ear, and you certainly would if the pads of his fingers weren’t pressing against your tongue. You realize those are the same fingers that touched you earlier, that found the place his cock has now discovered, and you can still taste traces of your orgasm on his callouses. He hooks the corner of your lip, pulling the corner of your mouth down enough to allow a trail of saliva to slither over his knuckles. 

“Sloppy little thing,” he mutters, and you moan. The brick scratches against your chest and palms as he pushes you harder against the wall, using it to pin you in place as he takes you roughly. You feel eyes on you, and turning your head as much as you can manage, you find the gaze of the woman that Fives is fucking. The ARC trooper is on his knees now, his face hidden under her skirt, one of her legs draped over his pauldron. The woman’s braced against the wall, her sharp purple eyes watching you with interest as her fingers snake through Fives’s curls. It’s hard for you to tell in the dark, but you’re almost certain Fives is stroking himself as he lavishes her cunt with attention, his arm moving in a repetitive motion as he groans quietly. The woman winks at you, her tongue darting out to moisten her lips before Fives pulls a moan from her.

“Knew you’d like an audience,” Gregor rasps. “Now, let’s give them a show.” His hand leaves your breast, disappearing for a moment before he brings it down in a stinging slap across your ass. Your eyes roll back into your head as the pain courses through your veins, blossoming to pleasure under Gregor’s warm palm. He lands another blow to your other cheek, and this time, you can’t help but scream around his digits. Your cunt spasms around his cock, and you know you’re close, so close. 

“Your pussy’s going to choke me, love,” Gregor moans. “Better finish you off before you milk me dry.” 

“T-tfhh eeee,” you mumble around his fingers. 

You know he’s grinning behind you. 

“What was that?” 

You bite his finger gently, and he yanks his hand loose, spanking you again. 

“Touch m-me,” you demand once you regain your breath. 

“Now, you said no hands was the rule. And I intend to comply.” 

“I know what the fuck I said,” you snap. 

He readjusts, and somehow, he hits the perfect place. Your eyes cross and you think your legs might give out. You moan, your forehead resting against the brick as you try to not move, hoping he’ll strike the same place again. 

“Ask nicely,” Gregor whispers mockingly. 

Your resolve and animosity crumbles to ash as he strokes the same place inside you again.

“Please,” you beg. “I’m so close. Please, please, pleasepleasepleaseplease.”

“Oh, I love hearing you beg like that,” Gregor groans. You expect him to tease you more, dangling you over the edge as you whine and thrash helplessly, but he relents, slipping his hand between your legs and easily finding your clit, which he presses against with the perfect amount of pressure. 

“Say ‘thank you, Gregor,’ and I’ll let you cum.” 

Fuck, you despise this man. He’s embedded himself under your skin for no discernible reason, and yet, you’ve let him touch you and pleasure you and fuck you, and there’s no way you’re going to be able to scrub this night from your mind. You’re going to want this again, no matter how much you push against it, and knowing that Gregor’s a willing participant, even if you’re ready to scream every curse you can think of at him right now, well, that makes it even easier to allow it to happen again. 

If he’ll just let you finish. 

He slows the roll of his hips, and you groan in frustration. Your desperation is clouding your mind at this point, and as you feel the finish line of your orgasm slipping away, you become frantic. He’s dangled you long enough, and after months and months of not having anything but your toys to sate you, you’ll allow yourself this small humiliation in order to get what you want. 

“Please. Please, let me cum. I’ll say anything you want.” 

He snickers, snapping his hips again, and you’re immediately back on the edge, tingling with anticipation as your entire body thrums with pleasure. You hate how easily he’s got you figured, how quickly he shoves you back to the precipice, and how smug he’s going to be about it. 

You’ll be mad later. Right now, you can’t be bothered to care.

He leans closer, and you know what he’s waiting for. 

 “Thank you for fucking me like this, Gregor.” 

His fingers press harder against your clit just as the tip of his cock slams into the spot no one else has ever come close to reaching. You claw at the wall in front of you as your vision whites out once more, and you feel him pull out of you, expending ropes of his seed across the curves of your ass. 

He doesn’t let you fall, his hands flying to your waist and his weight pinning you in place against the wall as your knees threaten to crumble underneath you. His hold is much gentler than it was a moment ago, and he rests his chin on your shoulder as he recovers. 

“That was fun,” he pants, and you can practically hear his mouth curling into a grin, but somehow, it’s not as smug as you thought it’d be. “We should do it again some time.”

“Not if you’re going to make a mess of me before sending me home,” you mutter, glancing around for something to wipe the quickly-cooling spend off of you. 

“Allow me.” 

You feel fabric wipe across your ass, and turning, you see Gregor tucking the soiled edge of his shirt back into his pants along with his cock. He shrugs when you raise an eyebrow. 

“I imagine that wouldn’t be very comfortable in the cab home.”

“You imagine correctly.”

You stand there staring at one another for a moment awkwardly in the now-empty alley, Fives and his companion having finished their encounter and disappeared. This entire thing was unexpected to say the least, and neither of you know what comes next. You break into nervous laughter, straightening your panties and dress. 

“I like your smile. Don’t get to see it very often.” 

In spite of yourself, heat flushes across your face. You reach up to fix your hair, and a warm hand cups your cheek. You lock eyes with Gregor, and he’s staring at you so gently you almost forget how much you dislike him. 

Almost.

“Don’t you even think of kissing me.” 

“We already kissed.”

He has a point, but of course you won’t give any more ground. “I’d hardly call that a kiss.” 

He huffs a laugh. “Fair enough.” He reaches out, brushing some of your hair back into place. It’s surprising, and fuck, your treacherous heart clenches just a bit at the tenderness of the gesture. It’s not because you’ve suddenly developed feelings for him, but you can’t remember the last time someone touched you like that, so gentle and warm.  

It hasn’t been that long. And you’re not that desperate for affection. Just for a good fuck. 

And this was a good fuck.

You survey him for another moment as he rubs the back of his neck. “I won’t tell anyone if that’s what you’re worried about,” he offers. 

“Do I look worried?”

“You look uneasy.” He smirks. “Although maybe it’s because the man you loathe made you cum. Twice.” 

You cross your arms over your chest, rolling your eyes. Gregor steps closer, straightening the strap on your dress. “I meant what I said. I’d do it again. If you’d like.” 

His brown eyes lock onto yours, and you consider it. Your shoulders do feel like they’ve dropped away from your ears, some of the tension you’ve been carrying for as long as you can remember seemingly vanished. And you feel like your fuse isn’t as short. Even the steady thrum of annoyance that you’ve felt tearing through you since the moment you laid eyes on Gregor seems to have abated slightly. 

No one would suspect it since we hate each other. No expectations. Just sex. Really good sex. 

I could use really good sex.

“I suppose I could tolerate you doing that when you’re planetside,” you concede. “But no one else finds out. And this is just sex.”

“Just sex,” he agrees, extending his hand to seal the deal. “Shake on it?”

“You’re an idiot,” you grumble, stepping past him, leaving his hand hanging in the air. He catches your waist from behind, pulling you back against him. 

“Don’t forget this idiot that knows how your pussy feels wrapped around his cock. Now, are you going to give me your comm?” 

“Fuck off. You know where to find me when you get back,” you mutter, ignoring the way your thighs are clenching together again at his words. 

Get it the fuck together. 

“True. Since you never leave that garage,” he snickers. Before you can protest, he pecks a kiss to your temple and gently pushes you forward by your ass, squeezing the curve of it a little. You stumble a bit, shooting him a glare over your shoulder. 

“Get home safe, Bolts,” he says quietly. In spite of everything, he’s being sincere. And that’s nice.

You pause. “Yeah. You too.” 

His smirk fades and his gaze softens at your words, but he quickly slips his default expression back into place. Raising an eyebrow, he gives you a two-fingered salute, and you roll your eyes again before walking off to find a cab.

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[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I have a really hard time on Tumblr sometimes and I have this issue with a lot of people and places so it's hardly tumblr specific, but it's also really hard to describe/convey to others. Let me try to scaffold it out

I spent my entire childhood being called an anxious person, and being forced to keep my anxiety internal, and this is overall really bad for me

The one useful tool I was ever given for BOTH reducing externally visible distress AND total distress is to pair anxious/distressing and "strengths based" thoughts. Whenever I say or think something related to distress, I take a moment to reframe the thought into a pair of thoughts - one non-judgemental observation of the need speaking through my distress/how I might meet it, and one non-judgemental acknowledgement of my feelings. It's energy intensive, and it takes a while to learn how to do it in a way that is clarifying rather than erasive. But it genuinely always makes me feel like I have a better handle on things, like I'm less inclined to spiral or end up with a disrupted mood or function, and also now consistently get **the opposite** commentary about being a very positive person who's good at conveying and opening up that positivity for others (at least in my professional life)

There are some people who take my doing this as an invitation to argue with me about why, actually, the distressing stuff IS VALID AND RIGHT AS A FRAMEWORK rather than understanding why I might be shifting away from it. You'd think this would happen most when I talk to other people and "reframe" something they've said, but actually this happens the most often after I have just finished expressing my own thoughts about a thing and someone seems to decide that "framed in a functional way" is equivalent to "hasn't thought enough about the problem areas" and start going off about all the "bad" or "hard" or whatever parts of a thing.

I cannot argue BACK with these people when they do this, because arguing back is dragging me back into a headspace that directly contributes to my suicidality, however side-stepping the issue by CONTINUING to insist on framing things the way I do often leads to them REPEATING their points in different ways in an attempt to "convince" me or "correct my misunderstanding" and I kinda have to be like. Not a misunderstanding. I know what you said and am simply not sharing that space with you. Why is it so uncomfortable for you that we are on different pages about this thing that you feel the need to force me into a distressing place for me rather than move on now that we've both shared our thoughts on the matter?

I can only spend so much of my time around a person rigidly reinforcing my own protective cognitions before I just. I can't talk to them anymore. I need to leave and do other things in other spaces with people who can talk to me about things from the same strengths-based perspective for a while

A lot of people use this to accuse me of spending time in echo chambers because they LITERALLY CANNOT FATHOM a space in which one can be critical of a thing without explicitly being "negative" about it, and assume that if everyone in a space is coming from a strengths based perspective that they're all uncritical fans or at least don't criticise in that space. This is just an objectively untrue assumption and I actually vastly prefer the constructive criticism of things within those strengths-based spaces

You can't ask people to stop doing this, or make them believe (if they don't already) the impact this might be having on your mental health, and if you try, people take it VERY personally and will start being MORE "negative" about EVERYTHING they say without even realizing it (saying "positive" things about one thing directly by "pulling down" something else, using satirical praise language like "fuck you" or "i can't stand it I'm going to die" or etc to refer to things they are happy with/enjoying/liking/etc, pivoting off your "positives" with immediate "negatives", etc) which makes the dynamic more intensive to cope with for me. Even when I try to convey this stuff to someone or point out examples, it quickly worsens the issue to the point that it's literally better for me to stop doing so and go back to quietly exiting when I'm overwhelmed.

A lot of people, when all this is discussed for them, will say something to the effect of "this is how I enjoy things I love!" And I get that. I do. But why? Why is the only way you are able to enjoy a thing by putting it or something else down? If it were ONE OF THE WAYS you enjoyed things, I'd 100% get that, and have no issue with it! I do wish that it was more common for groups of people to just enjoy things "unironically" tho, because it's a space I have a much easier time existing comfortably in, and those spaces being hard to find and maintain is part of why I struggle to socialize much. It's hard for me (literally, in terms of asking more effort of me, and emotionally in terms of the impact it has on my mood) to be around people whose only access to enjoyment is to insult, belittle, or point out the problems in something. It makes me sad not to spend as much time as I'd like to with people I like because of this incompatibility, and it makes me frustrated that I have never found a way of sharing with others what is happening in this dynamic in a way that has any concrete impact on the outcome. I have sort of learned to just NOT share it with others and instead do all the heavy listing of navigating the issue on other people's behalf and taking breaks when I can no longer do that so that I can keep relationships or spaces or conversations that are important to me.

Tumblr is, to put it mildly, almost nothing but this dynamic. So despite being a system I am most suited to in terms of posting options, conversation topics, access formats, etc, Tumblr is a space I feel best taking regular breaks from.

Tumblr is far from the epitome of this in my life. But it's a space where I see the most. I want to say etiquette? Social "respect" indicators? Built around this kind of behavior/framework. Like. Tumblr is a space of differing social contexts, but a lot of the connected ones across subcultures on the platform are informed by this framework because it is non-ideological and so gets conveyed as a more universalizably etiquette system I think. So there's a lot of like. Expectations of how you interact with others here that default this framework (for very functional reasons I think lol, i just don't know that it was done on purpose rather than sort of stumbled into?) are really normalized in a way that is especially risky for me given how much work I have to put into resisting this framework on a personal level

I often feel very lonely, because I have found a degree of distance that gets built into my dynamics with people. Throughout my life, there have been people who put me up on a pedastal, and people who set me far below them in capacity and cannot fathom my functionality, and of course people who manage both at once in different areas. But it's been hard to build and maintain relationships where I trust I am seen specifically as a peer and where this anxiety/complaint oriented framework is not one of the dominant cultural forces in play socially.

There are gaps in all this still in my brain, but. I dunno, I get tired sometimes. I wish I had a space in my life where I felt fully seen and where I could just sort of sit and build something up with someone for a while.

[bandofchimeras]

gender theory

this is not an invitation for any more bad faith discourse but after some reflection (and please know I am speaking in generalizations there are always exceptions)

the main reason i wanted language for "transandrophobia" is because of the oddly hostile, shitty, assumptive behavior people project out since post transition.

i've felt misogyny and this is not misogyny.

i got a nice reminder of what being percieved as woman was like the other day because i chose to go out in drag.

people asking where the organizer of the event was, then literally talking over me or acting like i didn't exist, ignoring requests. makeup & a feminine outfit, magical juice that makes your voice inaudible unless you yell. bullshit. Also, misogyny is serious, misogyny can lead to death and violence, transmisogyny multiplies that risk. I don't want that downplayed. trans men can experience misogyny in a way that de-genders us, or misdirected transmisogyny. but there's this other thing.

and it does impact you: being randomly treated like a threat, having bad intent assumed, putting up with hostility for no apparent reason, being expected to put up with put-downs and mean spirited jokes, having trauma projected onto you, being perceived as and told your body is gross, undesirable, being perceived as a creep, or weird and perverted for being or wanting to be pregnant, being assumed unsafe for kids or "sus" because of perceived masculinity.

this is not MISOGYNY. AND GET THIS! these are things trans women experience too /for being perceived or misgendered as masculine or male/ so hear me out:

what if there were a word that could encompass the transphobic demonization of masculinity that is experienced across the artificial trans binary divide? (because intersex people who do not identify as trans exist and can experience this) because both trans men and women also do experience particular flavors of misogyny if outed/clocked. but I really, really really really really need to dig into this:

n, that part of the reason white trans men don't get targeted for as much violence as white trans women is that often we get de-gendered into the category of "woman" which equals "harmless" while trans women are denied that category, and assigned into "male" which equals "dangerous" in TERF ideology but once passable as male, also occupy this territory and experience disgust, vitriol, and abuse. What i am trying badly to articulate is actually that trans people serves AS SCAPEGOATS FOR CIS MEN. PERIOD. like if you see masculinity in a trans person you can punish them for it on a level which people don't feel impunity to do to cis men. trans men can try to retain protection by identifying as women, which trans women are not afforded. so the privilege is not aligned with whom is seen as most woman-like and targeted by misogyny, but with whom can escape being the sacrificial lamb for the violence cis men are not being held accountable for. so this is all because cis men are an (invisibly) protected class - but also the first victims of other cis men, as boys. bell hooks dives into this in The Will to Change. TERF ideology is extremely slippery. it is actually patriarchal to play this "women are the ultimate victims" card even if you're doing so as an attempt to validate trans women. Being perceived as a woman and experiencing misogyny for that is different than the experience of being punished for perceived gender divergence, for violating the holy category of manhood. BUT YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO CALL IT THAT. Patriarchal men refuse first and foremost, to acknowledge they are /protected/ as a class, but this refusal, to equal the playing field, is invisible and creates a culture of intense abuse in the ranks of that class. Its not directly analogous but its like white people refusing to acknowledge they have white supremacist notions and live in a system that protects them, meanwhile tolerating and covering up extreme abuse within that system to ourselves because of this completely baseless assumption that the protection is meaningful.

Men are only protected so long as they play the game, and they get more chances to fuck up. But its more comfortable within patriarchy to treat women as the sacred protected class. To paint women as victims, plagued by eternal suffering. To do so obfuscates both the perpetrator of the violence - we don't have a problem with battered women, we actually have a problem with abusive men, who are equal human beings who can and should be held to task for acts of abuse. So women can appear to fight patriarchy all while continuing it by not perceiving the cisheteronormative, colonial gender binary as a tool of control. Flipping the script logically, that if women are inherently victims, men are inherently abusers. And then this gets weaponized against men of color, used to aggress trans women, and attempt to pass on the patriarchy-perpetuating victim complex to white trans men by getting us to see ourselves as wronged women. Not gonna lie, that got me for awhile. I am someone who was wronged by men (and women) due to misogynist perceptions. I am also someone who has experienced far more alienation, social pain, aggression, and psychological abuse since I began being perceived as a man. And not just from men. No, men actually, have started being much nicer to me comparatively, when I pass until I violate some presuppostion of how men are supposed to act (until becoming fag in their eyes or trannyboy hole or whatever, some are respectful but I do my best not to out myself to men for safety reasons). maybe nicer is not the word, they are kinda mean to eachother, but they treat me for awhile like I'm in on the joke. Of course, I'm not, don't know the material, and am usually hypervigiliant the entire time. no, what sucks is the loss of women's community, exclusion from it, if you really buy into manhood and try to integrate into Dudes World (or gay cis men's world even tbh), its like being alone and sent out to these people you've been taught your whole life are dangerous, and losing your support because now you are dangerous (even if you haven't yet assimilated into toxic masculinity). and then on top of that, people with beef against men, suddenly have a perfect practice target for accountability, punishment, etc. You start enjoying your masculinity and women come out of the woodwork to shit on men and maleness and masculinity and its not the worst thing ever to happen, but its difficult emotion terrain. Especially when they then revoke your right to speak about actual misogyny you did or do experience... Trans men get abused to fuck, y'all, especially Black trans men in America, and trans men have the highest suicide rate among identity divides in trans people. I genuinely hate the co-optation of transsexuality with cissexual gender non-conformity (like being cissexual and using they/them pronouns) because then trans men start getting thrown in with "theyfabs" WHO I MAY ADD, are the "acceptable targets" for people's gripes with women. Non-binary people perceived as male it seems experienced the same kind of things trans men who develop "male" traits like beer bellies, chin clefts, yada yada you know the body parts used to caricature trans women as well, do. I.e. get treated shitty within the community as a proxy for people's issues with men. Do you see? Because of cis men's protected status, masculinity in the trans community can make you the scapegoat. Like when people on here were on one accusing gender non-conforming cis butches of male privilege. Because its easier to hold Frankie accountable and process your daddy trauma on her psyche, than it is to go fight your actual fucking dad or get your rapist a guilty verdict. Its easier to mock the fuck out of trans men than it is to confront how abusive cis society is to trans people and how impossible it is to hold cis men or women accountable. Trans women can certainly recount how they get held responsible for everyone's mommy issues and problems with women, in the community.

One more caveat: I also don't know if I have been conflating my experiences being autistic, with being perceived as a trans man, as a lot of hostility I face confuses me and even my friends and may be due to flat affect, or missing social cues, or something. But it gets compounded with masculinity, instead of being an awkward girl, I am now a "creep" for awkward behavior. I actively intervene at bars sometimes when clearly autistic or DD men are missing social cues, making people uncomfortable, and everyone is being cruel about it, and go talk to them. Because they deserve to know how to interact safely & pro-socially if they want to, not just made into a scapegoat for conventionally attractive allistic cis men whom, we know, have a fucking vice grip on our psyches. I want some avenue of respect that isn't participating in toxic patriarchal culture (losing game), or becoming a lapdog who will beat itself up on command. What I've settled on is taking Mr. Rogers and LeVar Burton as models of masculinity internally while also toughening and hardening up externally to deal with shit, and keeping my emotions to myself in real life (which is why they come out all over the place online), but honestly....I'm a needy, hyper, silly fagboy inside. I hate feeling like the only avenue to become expressive is through femininity that gives me dysphoria sometimes, because people react so weirdly to seeing a tough lookin dude with gay wrists, prancing around. But I'm really fighting it now, tapping back into that spiritual philosophical gender fluidity that is the inherent being of my nature - being queer shouldn't be about sexuality or even gender so much as the right to be who the fuck you are, full stop, whole human being in all complex dimensions, and asserting the right to that for everyone. So idk maybe transandrophobia isn't it, but we need to have better discussions about power dynamics that aren't "woman good man bad" for the love of christ. That's something I wanted to articulated, and now I've stayed up all night doing so. Gnight!

[noahschnappinfs]

I’ve been feeling conflicted. I know Noah doesn’t seem “evil” like most people believe but I can’t seem to forget that Instagram post and the “stickers” video from last year. I know he might have changed and learned from his mistake but people make you feel guilty by saying you don’t care about Palestinian lives if you don’t hate Noah. I fully support their freedom but I don’t believe sending hate or death threats to him is going to help them.

thank you so much for reaching out and telling me how you feel about noah. i think having proper conversations is important to understand everybody’s pov so I’m very glad i got this message.

now let’s do a little recap of what happened last year and as always i’ll try to give all the facts and be as honest as possible.

first, we got a statement after oct 7th which was prompted by noah, as a jewish man, feeling like he had to speak up against multiple jewish people being killed. to me, that’s totally an understandable reaction from him specially given that he had loved ones directly impacted by it. if we pay attention to the complete text instead of picking up fractions of his statement apart to twist them and make him seem as this evil genocide supporter, the main message was always noah wanting peace for everybody and not wanting people dying. afterwards, this statement caused backlash because the existence of israel in itself is controversial but what i want you to take away from his original statement is that he wants peace and seeing people dying is what provoked this really emotional reaction out of him.

next, let’s talk about the stickers situation. here’s some background: the tour guides he met in his previous trip israel were in town so they met up and visited a israeli restaurant in new york. contrary to what people online say, noah and these people didn’t make the stickers and weren’t giving them away on their own. in summary, a girl, the one standing with the stickers in the video, in the restaurant approached them and gave them the stickers. then, as seen in the video, the other people with noah were recording themselves with the stickers and you can see that noah didn’t even touch them and wasn’t doing anything other than also record what was happening, then he stopped and didn’t do anything else.

i have to agree that the stickers were in bad taste with everything going on and i understand certain level of backlash if we are missing the context and take the video as face value. i’d prefer it didn’t happen but to me the reaction was totally overblown with people wishing him to die over stickers that he didn’t make nor touch after watching a few seconds long video. we have a bit more of context now because in a private conversation (it being private means i’m not going to post it but i read it at the time so i have a bit more understanding of the situation now) that was later posted online with somebody who talked to him after it happened. there he explained what exactly happened that day, that he didn’t agree with the language in the stickers and he had nothing to do with them. he also wrote a statement he wanted to post explaining his thoughts which again are basically that he doesn’t agree with any violence and supports a peaceful solution to the war but his team told him to try to let it blow over and not say anything else about the topic.

then, we get to early this year with the video statement that he posted on tiktok. after months of noah and his loved ones being harassed online and even people wishing unspeakable things to happen to him, he decided to post another statement in order to explain himself and his actual point of view. to put it in plain words, he once again established that he wants a peaceful solution and that the death of innocent people shouldn’t happen. he also explained he’s had conversations with people to try to understand more deeply what is doing on.

after that, he basically left social media for a few months and had a low profile for a while which is totally understandable considering how unbearable the hate towards him online is. to this day, people don’t want to believe him but to be honest, his message has always been consistent with not wanting innocent people dying. more recently, he posted on letterbox a review on a movie called munich and again, he highlighted how bad war is and how he prays that the violence stops, he also highlighted the innocent israelis and palestinians that have died in the ongoing war. his review was a totally understandable message advocating for peace but he deleted it the next day because i guess he doesn’t want to revisit this topic ever again, it’s not like people will believe him anyway.

i think we can all agree that we all want a peaceful solution and would like the deaths to stop as soon as possible, that’s exactly how noah feels, he’s not this evil mastermind that people portray online. i appreciate you for saying that noah getting hated on doesn’t solve anything because let’s be for real, noah could drop dead tomorrow and the violence would be still happening. at this point it’s just people online being cruel and enjoying playing mean girls online, people who truly advocate for palestine should be doing way more meaning work than hating on a teenager. i also hope you can take this info and make your own decisions, i don’t think following the mob is the right thing and i can assure you liking noah doesn’t mean you hate palestinians

[unhonestlymirror]

Today's menu is: a vatņik soup

What an interesting three-of-a-kind. Let's look at it closer:

The first photo: a russian artist with an interesting nickname. If you transcribe it on russian Cyrillic and then go back to English, it turns out to be "moscow police." Let me remind you that moscow police is not only participating in killing, raping and torturing Ukrainians, Belaruthians, Qazaqs, Crimean Tatars, and other people who are not "Great Arian Russian", but are also the same people who kill and torture average russians, whom Americans care so much for, as well. Just like in the teract in Krokus City Hall. The moscow police is the organisation that works directly for putin and kremlin. It's like being a German artist during WW2 and having a nickname Schutzstaffel. Although I doubt people in hetalia even know what this word means because they are not interested in studying history, after all.

The more I am here, the more I believe such a kind of artist is just paid by russia to draw this bullshit. And people who share this - yeah, it's about 50-100 of them, but they are all the same faces, every time. Seems like there's an organised community that brings confusion to other people and spreads disgraceful and dangerous ideas about my long-suffering people and land. That's a thing I wish Tumblr staff paid closer attention to. I would not be surprised if the artists who promote russia here actually work for KGB (officially FSB, but it's just the renamed CSS).

"The house which Ivan built" - impressive, very nice. Now, let's see the news from my country:

"Kharkiv, April 4th, a young firefighter cries at the scene of the attack, where russians cynically killed his father, a 52-year-old rescuer, a few minutes ago. On this hellish night, immediately after the first explosions, the father and son and their colleagues immediately left for the place of impact.

Vladyslav and Volodymyr worked next to each other, literally a few houses away from each other. When a powerful explosion rang out, the son immediately understood that it had most likely flown to where his father was."

And these are the remains of a missile. In russian Cyrillic, it is written "for Krokus City Hall". A teract there was organised by.... moscow police! And some ISIS and Hamas representatives, whom moscow police carefully helped to leave the crime scene.

Second art - also russian artist (who could have thought!). They call Belarus (and, apparently, Ukraine... or maybe even all former soviet union states) "Russia's family". Belarus is holding a book "1000 and 1 reason to love the brother". Laughing out loud. Belarus never was russia's sibling, and moreover, it never loved russia. Belarus hates russia more than Lithuanians and Ukrainians hate it altogether. They just can't say it outloud. Yet.

You know? Such kind of art makes Belaruthians feel unsafe. That's why there are so many russians drawing our land and claiming we are their siblings who love them. Belaruthians just avoid anything that makes them feel unsafe. Too many Belaruthians were killed already. Belaruthians and their families are being persecuted all over the world for speaking Belaruthian language, for wearing white-red-white stuff, for making art in Belaruthian language. We feel in danger - and this website, especially this fandom with the tag of our own fucking country, doesn't help us feel safer.

Russians murdered about 60%, if not more, of all the people of Belarus, including Litvaks, especially Litvaks, just during the soviet union. Nowadays, russia doesn't want Belarus to exist either - thus, the russian artists like the fairytale about Belarus loving and wanting to unite with russia.

One day, prorussian propaganda will be condemned the same way we condemn nazis. One day, this becomes true.

Third art - the artist is... no, not russian. Chinese! What a poor dude, I feel nothing but pity, really. "Ivan is terrified" - good! :D Finally, some nice fucking art. /sarcasm. This dude is doing a great job in presenting their country as a country of uneducated idiots. The tendency is concerning.

I wish all the prorussian artists in hetalia "to taste their own medicine". To have nightmares for years. To be scared for your loved ones every single day. To lose hair, weight, and teeth. To not feel safe ANYWHERE. To see your close ones falling into depression and be able to do nothing about it. To lose your home. Your pets. Your plants. Your plans. Your friends. Especially I want this for Hidekaz Himaruya.

[mariacallous]

On Monday, the leadership of the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists held a members-only webinar to discuss the contract the union tentatively agreed upon last week with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. If ratified, the contract will officially end the longest labor strike in the guild’s history.

For many in the industry, artificial intelligence was one of the strike's most contentious, fear-inducing components. Over the weekend, SAG released details of its agreed AI terms, an expansive set of protections that require consent and compensation for all actors, regardless of status. With this agreement, SAG has gone substantially further than the Directors Guild of America or the Writers Guild of America, who preceded the group in coming to terms with the AMPTP. This isn’t to say that SAG succeeded where the other unions failed but that actors face more of an immediate, existential threat from machine-learning advances and other computer-generated technologies.

The SAG deal is similar to the DGA and WGA deals in that it demands protections for any instance where machine-learning tools are used to manipulate or exploit their work. All three unions have claimed their AI agreements are "historic" and "protective," but whether one agrees with that or not, these deals function as important guideposts. AI doesn't just posit a threat to writers and actors—it has ramifications for workers in all fields, creative or otherwise.

For those looking to Hollywood's labor struggles as a blueprint for how to deal with AI in their own disputes, it's important that these deals have the right protections, so I understand those who have questioned them or pushed them to be more stringent. I’m among them. But there is a point at which we are pushing for things that cannot be accomplished in this round of negotiations and may not need to be pushed for at all.

To better understand what the public generally calls AI and its perceived threat, I spent months during the strike meeting with many of the leading engineers and tech experts in machine-learning and legal scholars in both Big Tech and copyright law.

The essence of what I learned confirmed three key points: The first is that the gravest threats are not what we hear most spoken about in the news—most of the people whom machine-learning tools will negatively impact aren’t the privileged but low- and working-class laborers and marginalized and minority groups, due to the inherent biases within the technology. The second point is that the studios are as threatened by the rise and unregulated power of Big Tech as the creative workforce, something I wrote about in detail earlier in the strike here and that WIRED’s Angela Watercutter astutely expanded upon here.

Both lead to the third point, which speaks most directly to the AI deals: No ironclad legal language exists to fully protect artists (or anyone) from exploitation involving machine-learning tools.

When we hear artists talk about fighting AI on legal grounds, they’re either suing for copyright infringement or requiring tech companies to cease inputting creative works into their AI models. Neither of these approaches are effective in the current climate. Copyright law is designed to protect intellectual property holders, not creative individuals, and the majority of these infringement lawsuits are unlikely to succeed or, if they do, are unlikely to lead to enforceable new laws. This became evident when the Authors Guild failed in its copyright lawsuit against Google in 2015; and it faces similar challenges with its new suit, as outlined here.

The demand to control the ability of AI to train on artists' work betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of how these models and the companies behind them function, as we can’t possibly prevent who scrapes what in an age where everything is already ingested online. It also relies on trusting tech companies to police themselves and not ingest works they have been told not to, knowing it’s nearly impossible to prove otherwise.

Tech entities like OpenAI are black boxes that offer little to no disclosure about how their datasets work, as are all the major Big Tech players. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight for greater transparency and reform copyright protections. However, that’s a long and uncertain game and requires government entities like the US Federal Trade Commission to be willing to battle the deep-pocketed lobbyists preventing meaningful legislation against their Big Tech bosses. There will be progress eventually, but certainly not in time for this labor crisis that has hurt so many.

The absence of enforceable laws that would shackle Big Tech doesn’t make these deals a toothless compromise—far from it. There is great value in a labor force firmly demanding its terms be codified in a contract. The studios can find loopholes around some of that language if they choose, as they have in the past, but they will then be in breach of their agreed contract and will face publicly shaming lawsuits by influential and beloved artists and the potential of another lengthy and costly strike.

What is historic in these Hollywood deals is the clear statement of what the creative workforce will and won't tolerate from the corporations. Standing in solidarity behind that statement carries tremendous weight, even if it isn't fully enforceable. It sends a message to other industry unions, several of which are facing upcoming contract negotiations, and to all labor movements, that workers will not tolerate being exploited and replaced by the rapid advance of Big Tech. And it should not be lost on the AMPTP that it may soon find itself making similar demands for its own survival to the Big Tech companies, who are perfectly poised to circumvent or devour the legacy studios.

Over the weekend, there were calls for SAG members to reject the contract based on its AI stipulations. I'll be voting to ratify, as I did for the DGA and WGA agreements—not because the terms are perfect or ironclad but because the deal is meaningful and effective. And there are no practical and immediate solutions that aren’t currently addressed. It’s time to get back to work.

This is not a fight that ends with the current strike; it’s early days in the Tech Era, with both painful disruption and significant benefits to come. The SAG deal, in combination with the DGA and WGA deals, is a momentous early blow in labor’s fight for a fair and equitable place in the new world.

[kipandkandicore]

alright, so we feel like we need to respond to @eeveecraft ‘s post that they made using the document we’ve compiled.

looks like they’ve blocked this syscourse blog… but not our main. so we cannot reblog their post with our thoughts, but we can still see it (and therefore are going to respond to it). we don't think it's block evasion to respond in this way… (though if it is, let us know and we'll rewrite this response on our main blog which isn't blocked).

we don’t like to vague or to talk about a post without reblogging it directly, but we don’t see another way for us to respond properly, so here we go.

we are anticipating this will be quite long... so we're preemptively putting this under a cut.

here’s a link to the original post so you can read it for yourselves and come to your own conclusions!!

and here is a link to our document compiling thoughts on tulpamancy language by those affected. it is so important to center voices of marginalized groups in discussions that impact them!!

but after witnessing an announcement by Plural Nest that they’re switching to parogenic terminology because they’ve been convinced by sysmeds that tulpa = appropriation while literally “sourcing” things from minors, singlets, non-Tibetans, and yes, of course, sysmeds is just so goddamn frustrating that I’m going to write this post. I will be referring to this Google Doc Plural Nest themselves linked in their announcement that contains a motley of blogs and accounts by various people:

it's weird to us that at the very beginning of this post the author claims that the poc voices we've included should be disregarded because they are "minors, singlets, non-tibetans, and sysmeds."

first of all: do minors and singlets not get to have a say on their culture? do they not get to speak out when they notice cultural appropriation that is causing them harm? additionally, is this not an issue that concerns buddhists, and specifically asian buddhists? as we understand it, the term "tulpa" has direct ties to vajrayana buddhist practices. we believe that a buddhist does not have to be specifically tibetan in order to understand this language and to feel affected by western cultural appropriation.

also: how does this person define "sysmed?" because many of the individuals linked in the document are not system medicalists, nor do many of them disbelieve that the western practice of tulpamancy exists. as far as we know, this has always been an issue of adjusting language to respect people of color. not attacking the practice itself.

last, it's interesting that they linked the doc (which includes our tumblr information) but didn't feel it was necessary to @ us, either on this blog or on our main. huh.

now onto their prefaces:

Something that has always bothered me about this “discourse” is that the people who go on and on and on about how they’re protecting minorities and stopping actual harmful, real appropriation by attacking the Tulpamancy community never: Go after actual harmful depictions of tulpa that actively profit off of sensationalizing the paranormal version of the word and deliberately linking it to Tibetan Buddhism (Supernatural, Mandela Catalogue, Slenderman, etc). Uplift the voices of actual Tibetan Buddhists, even ones who disagree with them (which there ARE Tibetan Buddhists who are 100% okay with tulpa as a term, not just the Tibetan Buddhist AMA). Explain how us using tulpa to describe our systemmates is actively harming Tibetan Buddhists. They just say it’s harmful without providing any real examples of harm besides the word annoying them.

why put "discourse" in quotes? are we having a conversation? or are you trying to make it look like these discussions are one sided?

we're a white system. however, we are doing what we can to learn about racism, and are trying to become an active antiracist in our spaces. a big part of unlearning racism is learning how and when to pipe down and listen to the voices of people of color, especially when they're speaking out about something that harms them.

we're not the ones insisting that tulpa language is harmful with no basis for these claims. we are doing what we can to uplift marginalized voices who have said as much. centering poc voices in issues that they feel concern them is an important part of having less racist discussions in our spaces. idk if we’d say we're "protecting minorities" here... rather, we're attempting to make sure the voices of these minorities are heard, acknowledged, and taken seriously. and eeveecraft has done the first two in their post, but not the last.

1) we are personally unfamiliar with supernatural (watched a few seasons years ago and haven't touched it since), mandela catelogue, or slenderman. in fact, we haven't really seen tulpamancy acknowledged in public spaces and fictional works at all. that doesn't mean that we condone the racism within these works!!! we just can't speak on them as of yet because we haven't consumed that content. we certainly would like to, so we can understand what this author is saying about tulpamancy portrayals in media. but we feel like sensationalized instances of tulpamancy in popular media is not the only way this language has been harmful. people online using tulpamancy language have proven to be racist and unwilling to listen to marginalized groups. and since we're more involved with the system community than with the supernatural, mandela catelogue, or slenderman communities... we haven't spoken about it. because we are not a part of those spaces, and are still pretty uneducated about them specifically and how they have portrayed tulpamancy.

this doesn't mean we'll never get around to it! we'd love to help shed light on the racism of tulpamancy in popular media, and we hopefully will one day soon! but that doesn't negate the fact that advocates for tulpamancy language online are being incredibly racist...

2) again, we think that asian buddhists have the right to be upset about this, whether or not they're specifically tibetan. what's more, multiple people with testimonies in the document are actually, specifically tibetan! we'll be interested to see eeveecraft's sources of tibetan buddhists who are pro-tulpa language... maybe they'll be referenced later in the post? (edit side note: they referenced one person they know personally, one tumblr user, and one twitter user, whose thread we could not access for some reason. we added the testimony of the tumblr user to our document, though!)

3) we have explained it. language appropriation is real. it has genuinely harmful effects. our words don't exist in a vacuum. cultural appropriation is not some nebulous thing that never causes real harm to those who experience it!! i mean seriously... is that really what this author believes? we'll include some links to cultural appropriation and specifically how it affects buddhists and/or people of tibet:

x x x

we've said this before, but we will choose to believe the marginalized groups who say that this language directly affects and harms them, rather than those who claim otherwise without the ability to back up those claims with articles, resources, or testimonies from those minorities.

how are these not examples of real harm?

the testimony from the tumblr user referenced in eeveecraft’s post did speak favorably of tulpamancy as a practice, but didn’t say much if anything about tulpamancy terminology, which is what we have been trying to learn more about and discuss.

The intention of these people never was to protect vulnerable minorities, it was to deliberately blacklist a word a community has used for over a decade and a word that is literally being used in academic studies. If we as a community dropped tulpa, cold-turkey, 100%, we would lose access to so much of our history and access to scientific studies that the community NEEDS to be more accepted by the general public.

we vehemently disagree! our intentions are to uplift the voices of vulnerable minorities who have genuine, understandable concerns about tulpamancy language. we don't believe that if this language was changed that community members would lose access to their history and scientific studies.

language changes all the time. researchers have to adjust their language accordingly all the time. there are tons of words that used to be used in research, but aren't any longer because it was discovered that those words were bigoted or culturally appropriated. this literally happens quite regularly in academic spaces, as far as we're aware (examples: multiple personality disorder -> dissociative identity disorder, transvestite -> transgender, etc!)

we have a separate post we're actually working on that refutes these claims made by eeveecraft. we'd call this sort of thinking fearmongering: the action of intentionally trying to make people afraid of something when this is not necessary or reasonable, within system spaces. eeveecraft's post is actually rife with fearmongering, and there is a huge issue with fearmongering in pro tulpa discussion.

after this, eeveecraft links to a tibetan buddhist who was open on reddit about the practice of western tulpamancy and how it relates (or doesn’t relate!) to the buddhist practice. from what we can tell, the author of the post believes that western tulpamancy and buddhist tulpamancy are similar in the name alone, and that’s it.

our issue with this is… if they share a name but are not the same practice at all… why wouldn’t the tulpa community want to change their language? if the language was shifted, there wouldn’t be all this confusion and arguing about a western practice with an appropriated tibetan name.

it’s true though that this is a post concerning tulpa language made by a tibetan buddhist, so we’ll be adding their testimony to our doc. it was never our goal or intention to cherry-pick testimonies - we genuinely weren’t aware of dharmayokeyodasampa’s post!

eeveecraft’s next large section discusses the differences between modern and paranormal tulpamancy, how one is harmful while the other isn’t, and how the two terms should not be conflated.

but they fail to mention how common and likely it is for people to conflate two different terms that have the exact same name. how is the average person supposed to know that when the community talks about tulpamancy they’re referring to modern tulpamancy and not paranormal tulpamancy?

it’s especially bizarre that they claim alexandra david-neel’s tulpamancy definition is the one that is harmful. don’t get us wrong, we completely agree! but that line of thinking doesn’t align with that of other pro tulpas discussing tulpamancy. many tulpamancers are huge supporters of adn and still today claim that she was not racist and did not commit cultural appropriation through her “fact or fiction” tales in magic and mystery in tibet.

like, this is incredibly common. for as long as we’ve been in system spaces and have been trying to learn about tulpamancy (which has been more than a year at this point) we have never seen a single person try to separate sensationalized media portrayals of tulpamancy (aka “paranormal tulpamancy”) from the western practice (aka “modern tulpamancy”) that eeveecraft talks about. if other tulpamancers were also trying to make this distinction… wouldn’t it be more regularly included in discussion? we think it’s a huge and important distinction, if it really exists as one. but we’ve never seen anyone talking about it.

this also leads us to wonder… if people within the tulpa community themselves are having to make distinctions between two different types of tulpamancy - one of which is perfectly fine and normal while the other is racist cultural appropriation… wouldn’t practitioners of modern tulpamancy want to change their terminology as a way to distance themselves from the real racists?

they later write:

Also, important that another blog reblogged that post [our post with the doc, we believe] and mentioned that they’ve spoken to actual Tibetans on Facebook and how none of them think tulpa is harmful specifically because it’s so far-removed from Tibetan Buddhism. Like, they’re cool with it as long as the community doesn’t try and link it to Tibetan Buddhism, which is literally what the community does and has been doing for YEARS.

the most glaring issue we have with this is… if the term was coined by a white explorer appropriating tibetan culture in the 20th century (which it was…), and if other tulpamancers will readily admit that tulpamancy language has close ties to tibetan buddhism (which they do… and it does…) why the huge push from pro-tulpas to distance themselves from their own language and their own language’s history?

this post both claims and denies that tulpamancy language is connected to buddhism. other tulpamancers will readily admit that tulpamancy as a term was created by alexandra david-neel, an explorer which bastardized the terms “sprul pa” and “tulku” in order to write a best-selling book and make money.

it’s weird that those who are pro tulpa language recognize these facts while simultaneously trying to brush them off and sweep them under the rug.

the community is trying to link tulpamancy to tibetan buddhism by maintaining their culturally appropriative language. tulpamancy language directly ties this western practice to vajrayana buddhism and the asians who practice it. we don’t understand the willingness to acknowledge and deny this fact at the same time? maybe we’re misunderstanding this part of the post, but it seems incredibly bizarre to us.

the next section explains that asian poc should have no say over what is and isn’t cultural appropriation of tibetan buddhism. and at first, this does seem like an important point to make! the author explained how chinese individuals should have no say over what is or isn’t japanese cultural appropriation as an example.

but this point still sits weirdly with us. what about diaspora tibetans - those who are culturally tibetan but live outside of their homeland? what about those who are buddhist and who have concerns over their religion and how aspects of it are being taken, bastardized, and promoted without permission or adequate education? as white people, why do we get to decide who has more of a stake in these discussions than the buddhist people of color expressing their worries and concerns? do white non-buddhist voices matter more than asian buddhists regarding this topic?

we really don’t think so.

next:

All it [tulpamancy terminology discourse] does is segregate the community and draw unnecessary lines, which is exactly what sysmeds want because it’s ways easier to harass and kill smaller communities that way or turn them against each other until they eat each other alive. And they won’t just stop with tulpa terminology, they’re just using tulpa because they found a convenient scapegoat to attack it. Sysmeds literally find ANY excuse to demonize or take away a word from the endogenic community, it’s no different here.

To further prove this point, sysmeds literally tried to say “system hopping” is a term appropriated from RAMCOA survivors, which was completely false. They are not afraid to pull the appropriation card on any word they can, tulpa isn’t the only instance of it.

again, many of the people who are bringing up these concerns aren’t even sysmeds. many of them actively support the practice of tulpamancy and endogenic plurality in general. this 100% has to do with racism in the community and unlearning racial biases. the goals of this discussion are not to destroy the tulpa community.

we genuinely don’t see what system hopping has to do with this. because again, the people making these points against tulpamancy terminology are mostly not sysmeds at all.

and if eeveecraft themself can admit that there are two different kinds of tulpamancy - one good (modern), one bad (paranormal), why in the world wouldn’t those who practice the “good” tulpamancy want to change their language in order to be respectful to people of color while further removing themselves from the “paranormal tulpamancers?”

they then say that many people who are against tulpamancy terminology don’t even know what it is. and that may be true for some systems, but certainly not all! we are against tulpamancy terminology and we understand completely what the practice is. our wife has created a thoughtform (which she achieved using tulpamancy guides and engaging with the tulpa community). she has been an active member of this community for quite some time, and changed her labels recently after learning about the dubious roots of the terminology.

just because willogenic (one of the proposed terms to replace tulpamancy) as a label does not cover the whole scope of tulpa experiences, doesn’t mean there are no other terms that have been suggested.

parogenic exists. paro/paromancy exists. thoughtform exists. and if none of these words truly would work as a suitable replacement, we fully believe in the community’s capability to come together and select a new, less racist term. we have complete faith that the tulpa community can achieve this.

it’s also worth noting that many of the proposed replacement terms were created by and for the plural community. we fully believe that if there is no term which perfectly fits the definition, we can change the definition of the term!! so paro could mean any headmate created in the way tulpas are created. the community made these terms, and the community can change them if they need to!!

it’s a shame to see eeveecraft does not share that same faith in their community.

next, they talk about how discussing tulpamancy terminology actually causes harm:

Let’s start with me. On multiple occasions, I have had multiple anons harass my inbox, calling me racist, calling me slurs, and even sexually harassing me in the comments of one of my posts specifically because of this issue. In fact, several sysmeds tried raiding our Discord server alongside harassing us on Tumblr because of what Amanitasys’s post started, and this has also happened to @cambriancrew, @sophieinwonderland, and more because we happen to be blogs that intersect both communities.

we have never, nor will we ever, support doxxing, targeted harassment, suicide baiting, or any other horrible thing that can come out of people being vicious and self-centered online. of course, we can see why folks may call eeveecraft racist, because they are promoting incredibly racist ideas.

the user cambriancrew has been a loud, ableist voice in discourse spaces for years.

the user sophieinwonderland is a proud racist, and is a promoter of zoophilia and other outrageously harmful ideas like transx. we’ve written on this before.

it makes sense that people want to call out and address these issues when they see them. while we do not condone harassment, it’s not fair to call those who are voicing understandable concerns “harassers.” it’s not fair to lump these people in with actual online bullies who cause serious, long-lasting harm.

further, they talk about how anti-tulpamancy terminology discussion harms the plural community by dividing it.

The relationship between the Tulpamancy and broader Plurality community was already tenuous, and for most of the Tulpamancy community’s history, it has stayed isolated from other Plurality circles. It was only within the past few years that the communities started to intermingle, but this drama can ruin that.

Because as someone who HAS been in the community for over half a decade, I can tell you that the majority of the Tulpamancy community thinks this drama is stupid and aren’t going to change terminology for multiple reasons. Now, do NOT take this as the community going, “Tulpa is a completely unproblematic word!” when the community has debated the term’s usage for YEARS. Nobody is saying the word is perfect, but it’s what the community has used for over a decade now and every attempt to change the word has failed. And honestly, as someone who’s reviewed the vast majority of Tulpamancy guides in existence, I likely know better than anyone else that if tulpa was blacklisted like some people want, the community would lose so much history and resources, it’s not even funny.

it's interesting to see the author here claiming that those within the tulpamancy community think this drama is stupid and aren't ever going to change the terminology. especially when multiple times in the post, eeveecraft admits that there are issues with the terminology that tulpamanvers will readily admit, and that those who are "paranormal tulpamancers" are somehow completely distinct from and unrelated to "modern tulpamancers."

we recently created a post on reddit's r/tulpas, hoping to share our document compiling asian buddhist voices on the matter. we wrote about our experience here - basically, our post was removed less than 5 minutes after being posted, despite complying with the subreddit's own rules and guidelines.

it leads us to wonder... how many other posts like ours have been taken down by the moderators without a second glance? how many other pro-tulpa, anti-tulpa terminology folks have tried to speak out on this issue among their peers, only to be immediately dogpiled, shut down, and have their posts removed? how can good-faith discussion happen in these spaces when the community leaders are so quick to remove content, and those seeking answers and discussion are dismissed as bad actors?

we think that those with concerns (either from within the tulpa community or from asian, buddhist spaces) absolutely have the right to air their grievances. and by ignoring, deflecting, and brushing off these voices, those who are pro-tulpa terminology are not doing anything to help, participate in, or even put an end to this discussion. instead, they are perpetually putting it off, and allowing a wound within the community to fester and get worse over time as resentment builds.

to us, this poses a more significant threat to the tulpamancy community and the plural community overall than any real attempt to discuss the issues of racism and cultural appropriation regarding tulpa language.

eeveecraft then claims that changing tulpamancy terminology will cause others to lose access to the wealth of resources created by tulpamancers over the years.

If we completely dropped the word, the ability of new people to look up and find these guides becomes FAR more difficult. “Tulpa” is a unique and consistent word and makes it easy to look into the community, which in turn helps people discover resources that can help them on their tulpa creation journey.

their responses to the anticipated "just change the resources" argument are as follows (paraphrased)

there are tons of guides, resources and research articles already published using tulpamancy language. and tulpas need these to remain the same in order for tulpamancy to spread in the public sphere

the majority of people who wrote resources are no longer in the community and may not consent to their resources being adjusted

they personally are critical of and found flaws with other tulpamancy replacement terms

there aren't as many resources being created now as there used to be

we've seen a lot of these claims before, and are actually working on a separate post that refutes many of them. but basically:

we believe sites like tulpanomicon, tulpa.io, and tulpa.info could include information as banners and on their front pages that express community concerns and explain that they are making the shift. sites can also be set up so they redirect to others. so, say, if the terminology changed to "paro/paromancy," the sites "tulpa.info" could redirect to "paro.info." the community could rally together to rewrite many resources that exist, while creating new ones. this wouldn't be an instantaneous shift, but it certainly could be achieved over time.

for those who aren't in the community or don't want their resources changed... they can be left alone. if the host sites (reddit, tulpanomicon, tulpa.io, tulpa.info, etc) included disclaimers on their websites about the language shifts, it wouldn't be that big of a deal for many guides and resources to be left untouched

if the community were to come together and choose, say, paromancy as a replacement for tulpamancy, the definition of this term could probably be adjusted to accommodate for tulpas who were created naturally or spontaneously. with such a huge language shift, it makes sense that some adjustments need to be made in order for everyone to be represented. additionally, we see no issue with "thoughtform" being both an umbrella term and meaning something specific based on the context. there are many, many umbrella terms which function this way!

honestly the shift of language might bring with it a resurgence of interest in the community. especially if people are vocal about the change and why the community has decided to commit to this shift! we genuinely think that this could bring so much good press to the community and help it regain popularity.

after this, they speak about how those pushing for a change in tulpa terminology remind them of sysmeds, and that they have to be doubly careful about which spaces they interact with because those which claim to be "inclusive" may be phasing out language that they believe is racist, ultimately excluding those who use tulpa language and cutting them off from the plural community.

we don't think this has to happen. we think this makes a lot of assumptions and assumes the worst about these communities, and fails to recognize or acknowledge the genuine concerns people have.

we run a positivity blog for systems, plurals, and multiples of all sorts. right now, we're nearing 2k followers. on that blog, we are very clear in our stance that we are pro tulpa, anti tulpa terminology. we will never turn away a tulpamancer from our blog simply for the words they choose to use to identify themselves. we will be vocal about lifting up marginalized voices, we will be honest about our concerns, and we personally will not be using or advocating for tulpamancy language on that blog. but we certainly have not and will not cut off tulpamancers from that space.

we don't see why this can't be the case in more places. it is not our goal to divide the plural community from the tulpa community. rather, we think this shift could bring us together as we join to make a long overdue shift away from culturally appropriative language. we fully believe this could make the community stronger as a result.

So, in the Tulpamancy community’s perspective, we either: A.) Give up our most used word and people lose access to so much history and resources, and create a huge divide in our already fragmented community. Or: B.) Stick to our guns, but be excommunicated and villainized by the broader Plurality community.

we aren't a fan of the false dichotomy here. we think there is a secret third option, which is:

c. band together with the plural community to address this issue, choose a new term, commit to change, and adjust the resources we can while uplifting the voices of those who have been so often silenced along the way. this change could bring the community together and also shed positive light on the community in public spaces, bringing us together and strengthening both communities as a result.

personally, we like this option a lot more!

in their next section, eeveecraft writes:

So, what are people trying to attack so hard and blacklist from plural spaces? What are people fighting so hard against to conform to their standards, or be labeled as racist? What Tulpamancy is, for a lot of people, is a means to living a better life. I cannot tell you how many stories I have read of tulpas stopping their hosts from taking their own lives, how creating a tulpa has hugely improved the mental health of others, or how tulpas encourage their hosts to socialize and take care of the body, or how just making a tulpa connects you to a community with the mutual interest in self-improvement and self-love, and so, so much more. Tulpamancy improves people’s lives, and Tulpamancy techniques are not exclusive to us.

we absolutely agree that the practice of tulpamancy can be immensely beneficial, beautiful, and positively life-changing. we ourselves have seen our wife's mental health and outlook on life drastically change for the better through fostering connection and building a relationship with her thoughtform, nevetien. nev has improved our wife's quality of life so much, and the community they've found online and with each other truly is something special.

we love this for her. we want them to be able to grow and flourish in the future together, and we feel so lucky to be able to help them nurture each other and witness their strength and joy as they grow closer together as a team.

this does not negate the valid concerns over tulpamancy language by buddhist poc. it is possible to support the practice of tulpamancy while rejecting the racist roots of the language. and shifting away from tulpa language does not mean abandoning those with thoughtforms, willomates, paros, or whatever term is chosen in the future.

finally, the conclusion:

“Tulpa” as a term, at best, is murky. Nobody is arguing that David-Neel was a saint. She wasn’t, and she’s dead and buried. Tulpa isn’t her word anymore. People in the Tulpamancy community are just fed up with outsiders trying to dictate how their community should be run. We know the term has issues, we know its history is not all sunshine and rainbows. We do not need outsiders barging in and stating the obvious and acting like they know more than we do about our own community and history. And look, I know some people who believe tulpa is appropriative have good intentions and just want to be non-offensive, but people take advantage of that. Sysmeds took advantage of people wanting to do right and weaponized people into being their mouthpieces under the guise of, “We just want to be racially-sensitive.” But instead of actually protecting minorities, all it did was harm another minority while ignoring groups who are taking advantage of the word, and using it for clout and profit. That is exactly why I started this LONG essay with why this whole thing is a bad-faith argument.

it is weird to us that eeveecraft is willing to acknowledge issues with alexandra david-neel, while deflecting issues that arise from the terminology coined by her. she may be dead, but the cultural appropriation she committed is still alive and well today, and will be for as long as tulpamancy terminology remains in use.

we understand the frustrations with not wanting the community's path to be dictated by outsiders. however, this language does affect many outsiders (i.e. asian buddhists and practitioners of vajrayana buddhism). it also does seem like there may be many people within the tulpa community who are uncomfortable with this language and want to shift away, but their voices are buried or silenced by others within the community.

you can't say "some people who believe tulpa is appropriative have good intentions," then follow that with "sysmeds will take advantage of that and weaponize others while claiming to be racially-sensitive." that attempts to negate and cast aside the real concerns of those who have issues with this language and want their voices to be acknowledged and included in the conversation. in this way, eeveecraft, you weaponize the voices of anyone worried about the racism of this terminology, by lumping them in with sysmeds so that you can ignore their valid concerns.

we are not attempting to ignore groups who are taking tulpamancy terminology and using it for clout and profit. we genuinely will take some time to learn about tulpamancy in popular media (specifically aforementioned supernatural, the mandela catalogue, and slenderman) in order to speak up against the use of culturally appropriative language. we just felt the need to address the problems in our own home (tumblr, and the plural community here) before stepping outside our front door. we can't be expected to properly or accurately discuss issues that we were never made aware of, because we just hadn't been exposed to it before.

we did not make that document in bad faith. we have never argued against tulpamancy in bad faith. we are not a sysmed, and in fact are vehemently pro-tulpa and accepting of systems of all origins. however, as we learn more about racism and struggle to call it out and come to terms with its existence within our own communities, we can no longer continue to support tulpamancy language in good faith.

we know this was incredibly, incredibly long. if you've stuck with us this far, thank you so much for reading. we are not an expert on tulpamancy, though we have been involved in the community for a while. we're no expert on race, cultural appropriation, buddhism, or anything that we've talked about today, really. we're just a system who truly cherishes the plural community, trying to confront our own internalized biases and sharing how we feel about this response to our document.

thank you for your time. take care.

[rosy-avenger]

Yo. Tell us more of your Knives Out visual language takes.

Or don't. I'm not your dad.

(Unless your dad asks you really specific questions about cinematography, in which case, uh yo, we're out of milk)

Anon I wish I could make gifs because just talking about it doesn't have the same impact. Alas.

I particularly appreciated the shots that communicated Marta's economic status as compared to the Thrombeys. My initial post was about Meg's iPhone, but that wasn't the only example. Others:

-Marta drives a semi-crappy Hyundai, in contrast to the cars the Thrombeys drive (especially Ransom's vintage BMW)

-the shot of Marta's phone with its cracked screen, and later her beat-up sneakers

Then aside from the effective communication about Marta not being wealthy, there were some other good cinematography moments:

-the halo of knives being visible behind all of the family members during their interviews, but it's always off-center with nobody standing directly in front of it, until near the end when first Benoit, then Marta, sit so their heads are right in the center (the hole in the center of the... knife... donut?)

-during Richard's interview, he says something about Marta really being part of the family, and the audio of that line is played over a clip of Richard sitting in the living room and gesturing Marta forward like he's welcoming her into the family conversation; but later when we see the full context of that scene, he's actually calling her forward so he can use her as a prop in his political discussion. The movie is a mystery story with a lot of confusion about the circumstances of Harlan's death; this type of callback shot is a really effective way of showing that the Thrombeys can and do misrepresent their experiences to make themselves look better. It's a reminder to the audience not to take anything at face value.

-really fast blink-and-you'll-miss-it thing: the OS on Harlan's laptop is Windows XP or something similarly way out of date. Very typical for an older person who got used to one OS and never wants to update to a newer one.

-an obvious one: when Marta is giving Harlan the medications, the camera pans sideways and the sheathed knife on its stand moves into frame in the foreground, passing over Harlan's throat.

-when Marta and Benoit are talking on the patio and the outdoor light shines from over Benoit's shoulder (visual metaphor for the illumination of the truth?)

-I saw a thing about how Ransom's clothes are expensive but worn, like he doesn't take care of them; but while watching the movie I interpreted it as that he's cosplaying being poor like some wealthy people do.

-with a couple of brief exceptions, every time we see the portrait of Harlan, it's in the background over Marta's shoulder or Marta is the one looking at it. I interpreted this as showing that while the family focuses on what they can get (or rather, what they stand to lose) out of Harlan's death, Marta is the only one who loved him as a friend and genuinely misses him.

BONUS! Not a cinematography thing, but an imdb-trivia type thing that inexplicably is not on the imdb trivia page: in the sequence of reading Harlan's will, all the reading of the will is done by Frank Oz's character. However, he keeps having to be prompted by a woman attorney who never speaks herself, and none of the other characters interact with her. To put it another way, Frank Oz plays a character who lacks agency and needs to be directed by a character who no one else acknowledges. One might call him a puppet.