#also the implication of those as ‘politics’ like fuck off. there’s a difference between like. economical viewpoints

[romijuli]

No offense but I think some of my family members need to grow a fucking spine

[absolutebl]

Hi!

As I have been watching Century of Love and Sunset x Vibes I started to wonder why DaouOffroad and MosBank don't use Hia. I know it's not a must and it absolutely depends on the person but it just got me thinking.

My question is if you could name some couples and/or series (I know of ZeeNeunew and BounPrem) where Hia is used.

I enjoyed reading your blog btw and I hope you have a good day/night!

Hia is only used on those who (are male) and have (or who's character's have) Chinese ancestry.

I don't really consume content rgr the actor's off screen (as branded pairs) BTS but in my experience in Thailand, hia is by invitation only IRL. It's comparatively rare to hear in use around and about. Even for promo I've only really heard ZeeNunew use it. I can't remember if BounPrem do. It's been so long...

You asked specifically about:

MosBank

So Bank is the elder and he's Thai/French/American, no Chinese ancestry that I know of. So I don't see how hia would come into play for them. I don't even know how they manage phi/nong, since couples who mostly portray age flipped age dynamics usually come to some kind of complex negotiation around pronouns when branding in public.

In Big Dragon I am assuming Mos's character had Chinese ancestry but they were age mates so... no hia.

IRL I have no idea on Mos's heritage, but like I said, he's the younger one so hia isn't an option. And if they were to get fuzzy with their pronouns like OhmFluke do, I suspect they would only fuck around with Phi. Hia's a bit more... untouchable? I guess that's how I'd put it.

I talk all about this kind of negotiation here (including ZeeNunew):

DaouOffroad

Okay this is a lot more complicated because these two belonged to a survivor show boy group together LAZ1 (Daou won 1st) before they started doing BLs as a pair.

Daou is Thai and of Teochew Chinese descent. He's also older so technically Offroad could indeed call him hia. But hia is kinda household intimate and a little more complicated than Phi.

Do they use it on circuit? I don't know. But my feeling is Daou would have to make it explicitly welcome, including to any publicity team (model, sponsor, actor, singer). It might even need to be discussed under that context with a whole team (including Offraod's people) because of the greater implications when balanced against a music career and family dynamics.

If I were them I'd settle on phi and avoid the whole messy business.

As for in the show, Century of Love?

Daou's character is A LOT older and def has Chinese ancestry. Offroad's character is calling him phi out the gate (cheeky).

I would expect (and be grumpy if it doesn't happen) this pair to have a linguistic negotiation at some point. We shall see if hia comes into play but rao/ter or something even more old fashioned is more likely. Hia could happen, but it just doesn't feel right for these characters.

More on Thai pronoun use in BL:

In general, like gu/mueng, hia is something you mostly only hear in Thai on screens. But for entirely different reasons.

Hope that helps.

I should add, a foreigner should never use hia unless it's explicitly offered. It's an honorific, but that still would be quite rude. ALSO if you use the wrong tone, it's a VERY bad word.

[a-treatise-on-velociraptors]

OK. Fuck it. More complaining about Tears of the Kingdom. Massive spoilers this time.

TL;DR: Zelda's dragon plan was bad, placing all their eggs in one basket when preparing for Link to fight Ganondorf shouldn't have worked from a Watsonian standpoint and is annoying as hell from a Doylist one, and while not necessarily undoing her development from BotW, Zelda's sacrifice here sets her up for this circumstantial sisyphean cycle of constantly giving up her own agency and personhood for Link.

The dragon plan itself--turning into an immortal being to guard the master sword until her own time--isn't the part of the plan that wouldn't have worked. It's everything else, not just from a story standpoint but from an in-universe, logistical standpoint. Thousands and thousands of years are a long fucking time, even in a fantasy world where the political and cultural landscape seems to be in a bit more stasis. Despite the fact that Hyrule literally has manifest destiny (which is a lot of, uh, thematic implication that's never really been addressed and that I'm not really gonna go into here), to anticipate that the specific set of events leading to the Sages' assistance of Link would transpire exactly the way they needed to is fucking preposterous. Yeah, you could say that it's a bit of a paradox--all of the pieces were already in place for Link and the Sages to fight ol' Ganny, and Zelda was simply retroactively setting them in motion for the future--but that's also stupid, because it would require the Light Dragon and sky islands to have always been there! And they appeared after the initial encounter with Ganondorf, which not only doesn't make sense as a time travel narrative at all, but also implies that before the Upheaval the sequence of events was still wibbly wobbly enough that shit could have gone down very, very differently! It's like the conundrum of how to indicate to future civilizations that certain areas contain radioactive waste--the this place is not a place of honor shpiel, et cetera. How do you leave the ancient all-powerful artifacts that your sages need in order to enact a plan thousands of years in the making, in places that no one will mess with over the millennia between you and them?

Conveniently drop those structures into place--ancient texts describing them and all--right before the second part of the plan goes off, I guess.

And from a narrative standpoint, I think "Thousands of years of meticulous preparation have gone into this One Fucking Super Special Uberguy of Prophecy Foretold getting to defeat the Big Bad. It is foretold that this Super Special Swordsman will be the Only One who can defeat the Big Bad, so we're all going to put our eggs in the Main Character basket in the hopes he actually will" is just. Dumb. it's just dumb. I was going to add the caveat that 'oh well previous zelda games had the reincarnation cycle' but that was a new edition with Skyward Sword. The reincarnation plotline wasn't a thing until the year of our lord 2011, the game that directly preceded Botw/Totk and was by the same director hmmmmm. Before that we had games like Wind Waker, where Link is just Some Kid who gets wrapped up in Hyrule's ancient dusty business while trying to save his sister. Or Twilight Princess, where Link is just Some Guy who gets wrapped up in Hyrule's current dusty business while trying to save the people from his town. Hell, even Ocarina of Time, where Link is the most predestined to be part of Hyrule's dusty business out of all the 3d Zeldas pre-SkSw, is immediately followed by Majora's Mask, where Link only gets wrapped up in Termina's dusty business because he's trying to find his friend. In all of those, Link feels like a generally normal guy who's blessed with strength because of his courage. Even in BotW, Link is just a guy who was Zelda's chosen knight. He nearly died for her, and when he awoke again 100 years later with no memory of who he was, he still rose to the occasion to stop the calamity he had failed to defeat.

In TotK? Link's the Kirito of Hyrule. He's the Special Guy everyone needs to swear fealty to. He's the Special Destined Chosen One. Their last line of defense will be Link.

As for Zelda's narrative sisyphean torture, it just puts a bitter taste in my mouth that after spending so much time giving herself in her entirety to protecting Hyrule, she has to turn around and do it again in a way that she believes is eternal and irreversible.

In BotW, Zelda activates her sealing magic as a personal last-ditch effort to save Link's life. She loves him (I will go to bat for Botw/TotK Zelink still) and she doesn't want to see him die for her and that's enough to finally activate her power. It's a good narrative beat, I liked it--despite my desire for Zelda to have some agency in the narrative that isn't just in direct support of Link, I'm a sucker for some good ol' "powers emerging in defense of a loved one" trope. It's good shit.

But in TotK, Zelda's only purpose is twofold: 1. To be Link's hype man. To set up the aforementioned Dumbshit Kirito Main Character Plan. To set the idiot ball rolling and hope it makes it to the right spot at the end of this cosmic plinko game. 2. To give herself--her mind, her body, her spirit, herself in her entirety--in order to repair the Master Sword and get it back to Link. "Link! Protect them all!" and "Link! You must find me!" are some of what she thinks are her final words. As far as she's come to know and expect by this point, the only purpose she serves now and forever is to pave the way for Link to do his part.

In the moment, meeting TotK where it is as far as her character goes, this development isn't necessarily bad. It's tragic, yes, but from a purely Watsonian perspective it's not the worst solution to her problem, and is the only one presented to her. But from a Doylist perspective it sucks ass. It's the wet fart of storytelling. So many of us have been begging Nintendo for years and years to give us more of Zelda as a character, give us more of her as someone with her own agency and drive within the plot (no, Sheik doesn't count, Sheik is awesome but still narratively only exists in service to Link), but TotK slid so far backward in that regard. Puts a bitter taste in my mouth. (Spirit Tracks had a better Zelda, and she spends most of that game trying to get her own corporeal form back from the BBEGs.)

[rosethreeart]

Accusing someone of pedophilia over drawings of teenagers is harmful and cruel. There is a difference between disliking someone and wanting to keep your distance and just lying. Thought crimes aren't real, drawings are not conscious beings and have no human rights. Porn and kink have been coping methods humans have used for all of our history and accusing people - most often than not survivors - of something as horrible as pedophilia based on what they get off to in the safety of fiction brings more harm to REAL PEOPLE than any drawing of an underage fake boy ever could. Hopefully one day you'll be able to see how stupid it is to treat drawings with more respect and humanity than real people.

Anon I dare you right now to go and tell your loved ones or employers you think it’s okay for people to get off to child porn. Go ahead. I’m waiting. :)

pedophilia isn’t a kink it’s a federal and moral crime :)

Also I’m not lying. neon has drawn copious amounts of art where England is underaged, extremely infantilized, and groomed by older and more mature looking men like his brother.

“ Thought crimes aren’t real “ only applies to people who experience things like intrusive thoughts, and as someone who HAS those i find your use of that as an excuse extremely vile. Intrusive thoughts are NOT things you want to engage with OR get off to, and if you do, there’s a bigger issue at hand here. Don’t use an actual mental issue to defend pedophilia. How Disgusting and (quite frankly) ableist of you .

If you think that art has no moral or political implications I BEG you to developed some media literacy skills and to learn how political cartoons and caracteres of people, especially people of color, can lead to bigotry, violence, and even death to / murder / genocide of those groups.

When people say that drawing art of underage characters doing “risqué” things/poses, it’s out of concern for real human people not the characters being drawn dumbass. Seeing art of this type of thing as a minor can make it seem like adults viewing you in romantic or sexual manners is normal, because you’ve been exposed to seeing it romanticized so often. This type of thing DOES do harm to people, and I say this as someone who WAS exposed to this type of normalization (especially in fandom spaces) as a really young teen.

I understand that people can use this thing as a coping skill but A) it’s an extremely harmful one (and you can’t tell me that those don’t exist) B) doesn’t excuse any damage or harm they can cause to people who get exposed to it C) doesn’t prevent them from becoming like the people who harmed them. I also beg you and anyone else who thinks that “coping” is an excuse to post child porn to question why someone who went through something so horrible would Ever want to post those things in places where people, who are just like their abusers/assaulters, can easily access and get off to that crap.

Also how DARE you assume that I am saying this out of distaste for this person rather than actual concern I have for actual people and victims.

“Fiction doesn’t affect reality” my fucking ass.

I hope your ignorance and refusal to see or understand this doesn’t bring harm to someone you know or love.

[myragewillendworlds]

Ok I was trying to be understanding and nice but you're just a goofy ass. I'm not even non binary. I'm a man. Dipshit. The person who provided sources or whatever wasn't me. You say you hate identity politics and shit but you expect everyone of one belief to be nb or for nb ppl to all share one belief. Humans are fucking humans. You think nothing sets us apart from other animals? Nothing? I don't think we should have gender at all, it's just a way to navigate a world where you don't fucking fit in the roles ARTIFICIALLY CONSTRUCTED FOR YOU. Gender is fake. God you think you're some kind of intellectual asking for a biological basis for everything. You literally are tip toeing on eugenicist talking points ie bioessentialism and act like you're some kind of genius by constantly asking for a biological basis for everything. I followed you for years because I thought you were a rational human being who can actually be reasoned with but now i see you're just another internet loser jacking off your superiority complex

The amount of times I have had people tell me how long they followed me for, or how much they enjoyed my blog, up until I touch on something they strongly disagree with, and bam, out comes the anger. How does someone who followed me for years act surprised about my stance on gender/transsexualism? Or did "can actually be reasoned with" just mean "can be made to change their mind to my ideas"?

Of course I expect the term "non-binary" to have one consistent definition. Otherwise, it doesn't mean anything. Is it a biological concept? Is it a purely sociological one? Why was it made up in the first place, if its basis is unclear? You may not be non-binary yourself then – doesn't really change anything about what I'd answered at all, the point of which, as per usual with debates over anonymous asks, gets ignored.

You're turning this into a dumb semantic argument about what the word "gender" means. I believe it was coined to refer to a biological concept, you think it represents the whole of gendered roles and expectations. At the end of the day, I don't really care what it's called, so long as these two concepts are understood to be separate things. And there is a lot of scientific evidence to support the former concept, i.e. that there are some biological differences to be found between males and females on a neurological level. Is that… really such a crazy concept to some people? When there exist differences between males and females in so many other physical ways?

As for oppression as a consequence of these differences: there are so many things that could be (and sadly have been) misused to discriminate against women, or any other group. Males are, on average, also larger and physically stronger than females. Could also be misused to justify sexism. But are you going to deny those biological facts in an attempt to fight that? It's not going to be any less true, and it's a weird stance to me – it insinuates to me that you too might believe that such a difference existing is a reason to oppress a group, and that's why it has to be denied. I don't fear research finding potential differences between males and females; it's not going to change that they deserve equal rights. And countries with equal rights aren't suddenly going to start installing misogynistic laws left and right because of brain sex research, so I don't understand this paranoid point of view. If you understand that a woman being shorter and physically less strong than others doesn't decrease her value as a human being, then you can apply the same concept to other differences, such as neurological ones. And after all, you're the one that seems to be assuming that these differences hold negative implications about women; in reality, they mostly seem present in brain areas involved in the brain-body connection, or what is understood to be the whole of elements that make us consider ourselves a male or a female. None of this is about inherent intelligence or capabilities. Unless you mean to argue that there is nothing neurological that makes us feel male or female either, but then we've crossed into the territory of "transsexual people's sense of gender identity is made up." I'm not following you down there.

TL;DR: These aren't my opinions. These are the views of researchers with a lot more experience and relevant education than either you or I. Enough supporting evidence for The Endocrine Society, a global community of scientists focused on hormone science & health, to put out a statement saying that gender identity has a biological basis [summary] [full source]. So, why on earth should anyone listen to your random, baseless opinion that actively goes against the incredible amount of research they base their professional view on?

Also, maybe next time grow the balls to say these things off anonymous. I've grown so tired of anonymous cowardice.

[saturdaysky]

hello! i hope you don't mind a message, but i am just excited to see someone else who liked AMCE and would love to know if you have recs for books that are similar, because i've been thinking about it for like a month straight since i finished reading it and would love something else to occupy my brain the way that it did. no pressure to answer ofc, just happy to share good vibes over a book :)

I do not mind it at all! <3

I do have some books that scratched a similar itch as A Memory Called Empire! I looooved the thoughtful focus on culture and language and identity within an intricate setting, so these recs follow that pattern somewhat.

Under a cut because this got kind of long.

The Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie

Liked the exploration of culture, identity, and imperialism in AMCE? You will probably like these books, since they also grapple with those themes. Also present is the exploration of personhood, who has it, and who does not -- because our main character is a person who used to be a starship. Or well, sort of. Wikipedia has a decent blurb:

The novel follows Breq—who is both the sole survivor of a starship destroyed by treachery, and the vessel of that ship's artificial consciousness—as she seeks revenge against the ruler of her civilization.

These books are honestly some of my favorite books ever. They combine a really thoughtful and deliberate focus on all the stuff mentioned above, fascinating plots and world-building, and characters who absolutely made me Feel Things. Highly recommended if you like, say, emotionally closed-off and damaged characters learning to care and be cared for while also skillfully navigating an intricate web of power to pursue their goals and reckon with the harm they've caused. But with bonus smart thoughts about robots.

The Foreigner series by C.J. Cherryh

I haven't fully made my way through this series, but it's rewarding every time I sit down to read another book. The books follow Bren Cameron, diplomat to an alien court, as he negotiates the intricate web of politics and intrigue involved in making sure the crash-landed colony ship he represents doesn't get obliterated or obliterate anyone else, despite humans making some monumental fuck-ups in the recent past.

And when you live and work and eat among one people, how much do you really belong to the people you came from? Of course, neither side really trusts someone who straddles both worlds, and to cap it off, the atevi people he lives among are different from humans in a fundamental way: they have no word for friend or love because those are alien concepts to the atevi. They do not feel such things. Instead, they live by an intricate web of obligation and favors. Trust is something a little more practical and a lot more deadly, for the atevi.

But these are not heartless novels -- part of the joy is watching the main characters grow meaningful relationships, even though the form is fraught and strange and never quite means the same thing to the people on either side.

If you like slow and thorough explanations of culture where meeting with your friend's grandmother is a potentially perilous activity (because the tea might be poisoned, because she might take you on a hunting trip you won't come back from, because she's a formidable political power and might be trying to assassinate your friend, because your friend might know all of this and have sent you anyway, also your friend is the king) these are books you might like.

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

If you like deep dives of culture, language, identity, and loyalty within the deadly intrigue of a fantasy court, I hiiiiighly recommend this book. The book follows Maia, the youngest and least-favored heir to the throne who gets unexpectedly crowned when everyone else in line dies and must quickly learn to survive the cutthroat politics. But Maia isn't cutthroat by nature; he is kind and must negotiate how to keep that kindness in the face of pressures that would be easy to solve with cruelty, as well as people keen to take advantage of what they think of as a weakness.

This book'll hit you with a lot of fantasy language at first (it's a focus of the book), but if you stick with it you'll be fine. You're learning all this intricate court language at the same time as our protag; he too is a little out of his depth at the start.

Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein

I dearly want to go back and read these -- it's been a few years, but they absolutely sucked me in. The books follow Rowan, a steerswoman, as she tracks down the mystery of a strange and incongruous gemstone. In-universe steerswomen are basically traveling scientists and naturalists who have taken an oath of truth.

The books start out in what seems like your fairly typical Standard Fantasy Setting with wizards and dragons, but as Rowan learns more about the strange gem, it's clear that this Standard Fantasy Setting is...not as it seems. There are three things that I loved about these books: the sense of wonder and discovery as our fantasy scientist protag reasons through problems and begins to discover she lives in a sci fi world, the interesting relationship between the main characters, and the excitement you as a reader have when YOU realize exactly what mysterious object Rowan is describing and what the implications of that are for the setting.

The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin

Riveting series -- brutal and beautiful. Straddles the line in some respects between sci fi and fantasy. Follows characters who live on a far, far-future Earth plagued by catastrophic climate events called "Seasons" that last generations. There are some people born who have power drawn from the earth; these people are alternately hated and ruthlessly trained to hone their powers to attempt to prevent another Season. (This sort of sounds like the setup to a YA coming-of-age novel, but it is really really not.)

The world and fantastical aspects are fascinating (cyclical post apocalyptic societies! geology magic!), and the books themselves explore family bonds, racism in both a personal and systemic sense, and broken systems and the wounds they leave upon the people within them even as those people wound others. The series is not a light read, but it is a good one.

Literally anything by Ursula K. Leguin

All of her work could be recommended if you liked AMCE. Her writing spans fantasy and science fiction, and includes thoughtful and moving explorations of some similar ideas: culture and cultural exchange, gender, different societal setups, you name it.

If you're looking for a good novel, The Left Hand of Darkness is a classic for a reason. If you'd like a sample platter of interesting short stories, The Birthday of the World and Other Stories is wonderful.

[ajaxwrites]

GENSHIN IMPACT FANFIC REC LIST II

(previous: part i)

Seaglass by Aevas

There was more to the contract than a gnosis and test of Liyue. It seemed like a simple deal five hundred years ago: so long as Morax never had a soulmate, the Tsaritsa would never harm Liyue and she would not get his gnosis. But the moment he gained a soulmate, all that belonged to him was forfeit. He thought the deal left Liyue safe—he'd lived thousands of years without a soulmate. The Tsaritsa would be dead and gone by the time she'd have a chance to collect.

Five hundred years later, Childe appears in Liyue, Zhongli gains a soulmate mark, and everything falls apart.

(The obligatory soulmate AU, featuring a Zhongli with PTSD, an oblivious Childe, and demon-worshipping cultists.)

Ships: Zhongli/Childe

Notes: I CANNOT BELIEVE I SLEPT ON THIS FIC FOR SO LONG. Read it and I mean it! I admitted initially steered clear of this fic because I wasn’t comforted with a soulmate tartali fic pre-Osial but this fic is actually post-Ostial *facepalm* The writing is phenomenal and Aevas does some beautiful worldbuilding that you typically don’t see in Genshin Impact fics. I love the dynamic between Childe and Zhongli here and the angst is real. The author writes the two as very human characters who makes mistakes, etc. and notably Zhongli struggles with the concept of Childe as his soulmate (who understandably is upset by the rejection when he realizes). They get better though. Also very plotty. A+ writing.

it's a hard rock life for us by reptilianraven

“Ah, no need to worry about that,” Azhdaha waves a dismissive hand. “There is no real Kun Jun. He’s dead.”

A leaf blows past and plaps onto Aether’s face.

“You killed him???” Paimon screeches.

“No,” Azhdaha scrunches his eyebrows. “He was dead when I found him.”

“And you just decided to wear his corpse?” Aether says, leaf still on his face.

He shrugs. “It was free real estate.”

“Azhdaha...” Morax says, sounding vaguely pained.

-

Or the one where Historia Antiqua Chapter II: No Mere Stone goes a little bit different and Azhdaha gets more time.

He ultimately uses that time to bully Morax into confronting his immortal neuroses, to make Aether and Paimon suffer, and to figure out how to get that ginger boy Morax has his eye on to make a move already.

Ships: Zhongli/Childe, Past Azhdaha/Zhongli

Notes: Very lighthearted, humor-filled fic. Love how Azhdaha is so flippant. Interactions with Zhongli and Childe are pure gold.

if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes by moonlight_mist

Childe has a Weapon problem- specifically, that he can't keep one.

He's too reckless, too wild, and too keen on pushing his Weapon partners past their limits. He's just about ready to give up when he meets Zhongli, a Weapon who just might be the solution- so long as Childe can manage to keep his dick in his pants.

Ships: Zhongli/Childe

Notes: This is a Soul Eater AU with some college/university AU vibes (?) but you don’t really need to know much about the anime. It’s a cute AU and I love the premise. Light angst but otherwise, it’s a pretty semi-plotty fic. Easter egg Kaeya and Diluc though.

To Kill A God by IlluminanceinTales

In Snezhnaya, they call them sansis—lost souls that have no guidance but themselves. It’s an apt description, given that most of the time, wannabe-Archons have to go through dozens of tests with nothing as their reference, relying solely on their wit and strength and hoping it would be enough. At least, until they survive the end of the whole game—and they might not have to undergo a painful reincarnation which feels like a hundred bones being stitched together again.

On his seventh game, Childe Tartaglia reincarnates this time in the body of a young man.

Damn, he thinks, looking down at his thin body, his slightly calloused fingers. This won’t be good when facing the other Hydro Decisions.

In a world where an Archon's position is not chosen but fought for in games, Childe Tartaglia is a Hydro Decision who's poised to become the next Hydro Archon. Of course, that's only if he survives his seventh reincarnation. All would be so much easier if it weren't for a certain Geo Archon interfering with every possible chance he gets.

Ships: Zhongli/Childe

Notes: Think Hunger Games meet Political Intrigue meet Genshin Impact. Love the premise and world building that’s done. Features overprotective Zhongli and lots of Childe whump. Has one or two supplementary OCs that aren’t really important outside of plot device reasons. Warning for character death tho lmao.

Three's a Family by IlluminanceinTales

Childe finds a kid that looks just like him.

Of course Zhongli wants to keep him.

Or: How a harbinger and an archon accidentally become fathers. The kid is their wingman

Ships: Childe/Zhongli (?)

Notes: Your everyday cute AF kid fic. Fluffy as hell and super cute. Zhongli and Childe get domestic pretty quickly. Xiao gets dubbed a grandfather and begrudgingly plays along. Super wholesome.

in pitch dark i go walking in your landscape by snowbrigade

He glanced down at him, at the silvery scars peeking out from beneath his robe, and at his eyes, properly now. They were the bright blue of high quality noctilucous jade, but he could see it, an underlying darkness.

Zhongli wondered what his eyes betrayed about himself. --

Rex Lapis is dead. Zhongli, formerly known as triad leader Rex Lapis, is a detective investigating his own "death." Childe, also known as Tartaglia of the Fatui mafia, is undercover as an escort looking to kill Rex Lapis- until someone beats him to it, and he wants to know who. Goals intersecting, they form a partnership of ulterior motives.

Ships: Zhongli/Childe

Notes: There’s like one scene that skews NSFW but otherwise surprisingly not explicit. Really fun AU. Like how the author addresses Childe’s reaction to being stuck with the undercover escort stuff and how the dynamic between the two develops. Pretty plotty so far.

Phantom Lines by iskendaris

“It’s a measure of one’s self, Mr Zhongli.” Childe says. “Maybe you don’t understand it since you work as a consultant, but as an ambassador from the Tsaritsa, as one who fights in her name— this is how I learn to know the measure of myself.” “I understand,” Zhongli says thoughtfully. “It is a warrior’s way, to test one’s strength against the incomparable. To find where one falls short. To find where one has risen to the challenge.”

In which Childe has insomnia, vandalizes public property and runs into a mysterious funeral consultant on his first night in Liyue.

Ships: Zhongli/Childe

Notes: THE FEELS. I can only describe this as the fic where Zhongli pays Best Boyfriend Ever only to FUCK UP big time (via Gnosis deception). Poor, poor Childe. Look, he gave the boy feelings and then broke him. You can really feel Childe fall in love in this love. He also does mental swooning a lot lmao. 

adventitious by Anonymous

It's said the Ley Lines remember all things that happen in this world, from the surface down to the deepest depths... But in the hidden corners where the Gods' gaze does not fall, there are those who dream of dreaming.

There's a dormant bud where Kaeya's eye once was. One day, it will bloom. (Never forget: memory is untrustworthy.)

Ships: Diluc/Kaeya

Notes: I don’t even know where to start. This is very headcanony and lore-focused. Very much concentrated on Khaenri'ah. The implications of this story is grotesque to say the least (according to this fic, Visions are the literal eyes of the people of Khaenri'ah). Warnings for eye and body horror.

Without Those Dark Memories by StrangeDiamond

Diluc awakens in Stormterror’s Lair with no memories of the past five years. Kaeya is on the trail of a rogue alchemist, with a habit of testing his chemicals on unwilling human subjects. Now, in addition to capturing the criminal, Kaeya has to shake him down for an antidote . . . and deal with an amnesiac Diluc who acts exactly like he did before their brotherhood fell apart. (Standalone Fic.)

Ships: Diluc/Kaeya

Notes: This is sort of a classic amnesia fic. I particularly really liked the way that Kaeya was written in this. I feel like the author did a really good job nailing his character and they have a way of capturing the subtle things.

Through the warmth, through the cold by strikedawn

“It’s you!” Paimon shouted with a twirl in mid-air.

“…Excuse me?"

They were drunk. Were they drunk? Was he drunk? Because Kaeya had the feeling his guests had been talking to him for a while now, but none of their words had made any sense whatsoever.

That was, until Venti stepped firmly in front of Kaeya’s desk and set his hands on the top, the better to lean over towards Kaeya and say: “For the end of the Windblume festival, Sir Kaeya Alberich, we’re going to auction a date with you.”

Ships: Diluc/Kaeya

Notes: Shortword, Kaeya gets auctioned off. Diluc makes impulsive (but good) decisions and scores himself a Date but displays an inability to do Date Planning. Venti deserves a pat on the back. Very sweet.

Hide and Seek by Kiri_Kaitou_Clover

Childe did not expect regaining his memories would bring him such frustration.

He makes the best of the situation by messing with one amber eyed consultant in anyway he can.

A reincarnated storm god wades through life in Liyue, all while screaming about one dragon god's incompetency at being human.

Ships: Zhongli/Childe

Notes: Features Childe as Osial’s very exasperated reincarnation, who gets the joy of discovering that his rival/enemy Morax is not only an idiot but also broke AF. He still falls in love anyway. Contains this golden line: 

"Did... did that complete blockhead really use my money in order to get me a gift that basically says that he is proposing to me?!"

(Osial was screaming. When had the other god become like this?! Had he always been like this?!)

Getting that Bread by tzitzimeme

Concubine AU where Zhongli is Emperor, Xiao is an assassin sent to kill him while disguised as a woman in his imperial harem, and the only reason he doesn't actually do it is because he pities Zhongli for being so catastrophically stupid (also Xiao falls in love).

Ships: Zhongli/Xiao

Notes: Like Xiao says, Zhongli is an idiot. Fluff and humor filled. Xiao spends a good 95% of this exasperated by Zhongli’s bullshit. 

prayers for a boy by Recluse

The only way to reconciliation is fierce combat!

Hm... Come to think of it, there will be a lot of interesting news to be heard the next time we gather for drinks. Filling in the blanks.

Ships: N/A

Notes: I...don’t really know where to begin with this? It’s exactly what the summary implies...but more? I was tempted to describe this as the fic where Zhongli puts his foot in his mouth but...that’s not exactly write? I feel like this was more of a character study. It explores the aftermath of the Osial Incident and how Zhongli and Childe reconnect. Platonically...though I guess it can be read romantically. 

one kind of longing, two places of sorrow by lady_peony

Zhongli's hands rest behind his back, both gloved hands clasping one another. His fingers tighten around one another for the merest moment, before he relaxes his grip.

"There is a tradition in Liyue," Zhongli says, his back still to Childe standing behind him, "of inviting out a companion to a last meal before a farewell."

A pause.

"A tradition?" Childe echoes.

"Yes."

"With a companion?"

"Yes."

Ships: Zhongli/Childe

Notes: The fic where neither of the two communicate about jackshit but go on a quiet, sad not-date before Childe leaves for Snezhnaya. Childe pulls (? on accident or on purpose, I can not tell) the equivalent of leaving the jacket in the car post-date to get date to call for the second date. Also, the author has a gift for like...writing angst...without writing angst? Like the whole fic is like brimming with everything that the characters aren’t saying but the thoughts aren’t necessarily written out BUT YOU KNOW THOSE DUMBFUCKS ARE JUST LIKE. BRIMMING WITH FEELS? 

The People of Liyue by queer_occurrences

But Zhongli whispers, his low voice rooted in the back of Childe’s mind. “Changsun, the merchant, who is never too Mora-enthralled to turn away a needy child. There’s Tiantian—she will allow anyone to join the Adventurer’s Guild—she knows what it is to be desperate.”

Childe ducks away from them and hurries out over the bridge. It’s a warm, sunny day, the kind he would have complained about, whining about his delicate Snezhnayan skin. “It’ll burn, or worse, freckle. Would you still like me if I was freckled?”

Then Zhongli would say, “The people of Liyue will remember your sacrifice.” And he would wrinkle his nose.

Or: after it all goes down, Childe takes a walk.

Ships: Zhongli/Childe

Notes: The author has a way with perfectly balancing angst with humor in a way that makes you cackle. There’s a lot of feels in this one. Zhongli tries communicating--Childe runs away a lot. There’s a lot of love for Liyue in this one.

cold blooded, warm blooded, hearts all the same by reptilianraven

Teyvat Petting Zoo @tyvtpettingzoo

Well would you look at that! Zhongli, our resident spinytail iguana, has gotten quite cozy with Childe, our new (and very feisty) ginger ferret! Aren’t they adorable all cuddled together like this? 😍😍😍

[Attached image shows a brown spinytail iguana curled up against a ginger ferret. The iguana’s head is nuzzled under the snout of the ferret.]

-

At the Teyvat Petting Zoo, Zhongli and Childe fall in love.

Ships: Zhongli/Childe

Notes: ...I promise I’m not weird. This is just super cute. Cross-species love affair? Childe the ferret is very besotted. The internet is confused and the zoo keepers are just done.

a geo archon's guide to the modern era by Erina

“Morax,” Xiao says after Zhongli finishes his retelling of the incident. “He thinks you’re a weirdo.”

“No, don’t say that,” Barbatos snickers. “You’ll give him hope that this is salvageable.” He lowers his voice. “Morax, he thinks you’re a boomer.”

(In which Zhongli hibernates for centuries and wakes up in the modern world)

Ships: Zhongli/Childe

Notes: This took me, I shit you not, FIVE SEPARATE ATTEMPTS to read. Not because it was bad but BECAUSE THE SECOND HAND EMBARRASSMENT WAS REAL. Like, omg, just reading about Zhongli’s introduction to modernity made me want to dig a hole and die. Super funny though. Do not read in public or you will look like a lunatic. Has a...parallel (?) fic in the same series called  buy two get one archon free where Zhongli gets reversed isekai’d into an anime convention.

time flies like an arrow by Erina

He’s tired, tired of the unbreakable loop of watching his loved ones pass on, tired of getting attached only for the connection to be violently ripped away from him. He wonders if the real victors during the Archon War were those who perished, who died long before their godhood turned into a curse that chained them to the land that they were fighting for.

But that is not a problem for Childe to worry about. That is Zhongli’s burden to bear, delivered to him in a pretty package years ago in the form of a gnosis.

His very first contract.

(Zhongli and Childe, across many lifetimes)

Ships: Zhongli/Childe

Notes: This is a quiet fic. It’s this kind of slice-of-life fic colored by this overpowering sense of love and loss as Zhongli remains immortal and Childe dies and lives and dies and lives for hundreds of lifetimes, but always finds his way back to his geo archon. It’s so lovely but also unbearably sad.

Tartaglia’s Favorite Professor by GreyLiliy

The famed hitman Tartaglia of the Fatui Syndicate spends his days as the charming college student Childe. The two lives remain as separate as possible in order to maintain a flawless cover to keep the authorities off his back and to better serve the Tsaritsa.

However, new intel about a rival syndicate intersects his two lives in a way he could never have predicted.

Ships: Zhongli/Childe

Notes: Mafia AU meet College AU. Childe is somehow both a horny AF college student and murderous hitman. Zhongli gives off major DILF vibes. GreyLily somehow makes this work while also avoiding cringe. Highly recommended!

like a handprint on my heart by fallingintodivinity

“Strictly off-the-record,” Jean says, with a small smile, “I’m really happy to see you and Captain Kaeya getting along again, Master Diluc.”

“We’re not – we’re not getting along,” Diluc tells her, indignant. “We’re working together. Unwillingly, I might add.”

“Yes – oh, yes, of course.”

Diluc stares at Jean suspiciously. “Are you laughing at me?”

Jean clears her throat primly. “I would never.”

Ships: Diluc/Kaeya

Notes: Super, super cute! Sort of reads like a first date fic except genshin impact style? Writing style is very refreshing!

[lynkhart]

MAJOR spoilers for the C2 finale of Critical Role so read at your own risk of you haven’t caught up!

I have so many feelings regarding Caleb and Essek’s intertwining character arcs I needed to explore, so strap in folks, you’re in for a bit of a ride! (But seriously though, this is like 4000 words long, I basically wrote an essay 😂)

At the start of the campaign, Caleb Widogast was dripping in guilt and self loathing and refused to believe he could ever absolve himself of his sins. Essek Thelyss was a cold, aloof individual who betrayed his people for selfish goals, and their differing yet mirrored narratives have been an absolute delight to watch unfold.

In the beginning Caleb truly hated himself. He shot down any attempt at a compliment, described himself as a ‘disgusting person’, outright rejected the idea that he was worthy of love, and never let the blame shift from him for what he’d done. When Beauregard and Veth/Nott pointed out that he was coerced and manipulated into killing his parents, he reacts in an incredibly visceral way, and I’ve seen several comments likening it to a victim of child abuse who was groomed into believing they were as responsible as their abuser, and I think that’s exactly how it was meant to be read. He doesn’t see himself as a victim, only a murderer, and punishes himself for it every day. We see this in the way he presents himself, dirty and unkempt because in his mind he doesn’t deserve to feel good about himself in any way. Other than Nott/Veth and Beau to a certain degree, he purposefully isolates himself from the rest of the group and it’s a long time until he feels relaxed enough in their company to drop his defences a little.

(Speaking from a purely meta point of view, Liam did an absolutely phenomenal job of showing this through body language and I’d love to see someone do a compilation video of it. He starts off very hunched and guarded, leaning his body away from the closest person to him and avoiding eye contact and physical touch; but by the end stands tall and sure of himself.)

Early on there were a few moments where he had the option to do some pretty dark shit, and I’m sure there’s a possible timeline where he gave into his desire for revenge and really lost his way, but I’m glad he stuck it out and worked through his trauma in the way he did. His PTSD and disassociation when casting with fire was tragic, but over time he was able to work through it thanks to the constant love and support of his friends who kept him from going off at the deep end.

Molly’s death was the catalyst for change in a lot of the party, and Caleb is no exception. On the verge of leaving the group prior to his death, the grief they shared, combined with their frantic attempt to rescue the other half of their party put things in perspective and gradually he learned how to be a person again, to care.

Altering time to save his family had been Caleb’s only goal in life, and so when Essek and by extension, dunamancy was introduced, you could see his eyes light up at the possibilities.

A huge turning point for him is aligned so closely with Essek’s redemption arc which feels quite apt I think. When Essek confesses to his crimes, Caleb delivers a beautifully iconic piece of dialogue where he acknowledges their similarities and how much he himself has changed as a person since meeting the Mighty Nein. (Source - CR wiki)

‘You listen to me. I know what you are talking about. I know. And the difference between you and I is thinner than a razor. I know what it means to have other people complicate your desires and wishes. And I was like you. Was. I know what a fool I have been for years. You didn't account for us. Good. That is life. Shit hits you sideways in life and no one is prepared. No one is ready. These people changed me. These people can change you. You were not born with venom in your veins. You learned it. You learned it. You have a rare opportunity here, Thelyss. One chance to save yourself, and we are offering it.’

This is not the same Caleb we met back in the Nestled Nook inn way back in the first episode. While not yet fulfilled or entirely convinced of his own worth, he knows he’s on the right path. That alone is progress enough, but that he uses his own experiences to help another escape those same chains of guilt says such a lot for his development. When he tells Essek that his ‘venom’ was learned, he’s also talking about himself and his own history of being manipulated and gaslit, with the implication being that it can be un-learned just as efficiently.

Caleb Widogast is selfish no more, or at the very least, doesn’t let his goals undermine anyone else’s anymore. Contrary to what he himself might still think, he is in no way a bad person. He loves fiercely and cannot abide seeing those he cares about in pain.

Early game Essek is what Caleb could have been if he’d rejected his friends and focused solely on his own selfish goal to undo his mistakes. Both are impassive at first and see the Mighty Nein as means to an end...until they get to know them and then their fate is sealed. The Power of Friendship wins once again!

At the beginning Caleb said he wanted to ‘bend reality to my will’ (sic) and in the end he does just that, though not in the way he originally intended. Destroying the T-Dock, and by extension the one thing he’d been building towards from the start, the chance to go back and change time, for me personally was the absolute peak of his journey. I rewatched the scene where Caleb revealed the truth about his parents death today, and it was really jarring to see just how far he’d come since then. It made me oddly proud actually.

I always felt like his plan to save his parents was the one thing holding him back from truly accepting their deaths, which is why the final scene of him in the cemetery with the letters for them hit so hard. He never truly gave up hope that they’d be reunited, but ultimately he realised he was merely postponing the inevitable and never allowing himself to live his own life. While time travel shenanigans would have been incredibly interesting to explore in game, choosing to let the past lie and not go back for them finally allows him to grieve and move on, and perhaps most importantly of all, to forgive himself at last.

I know some people were annoyed by Caleb’s decision in the finale to spend the rest of his life teaching rather than continuing to adventure, but I see it as the natural conclusion to his whole arc and his own personal victory.

He looked Trent Ikithon in the eyes, a man who he’d spent years wanting to kill and run from in equal measure, stripped him of his power and his voice (and ultimately his ability to harm anyone else) and finally spared his life so he had to live with the indignity of his defeat for the rest of his miserable existence. You couldn’t have asked for a more damning rejection of everything he’d been brainwashed into believing as a child. His dismissal of Trent’s position in the Assembly played into that as well. He never really wanted power for the sake of it; he had no desire for politics, he just wanted his family back, and while he didn’t get the one he started with, he made a new one for himself in the end.

As Caduceus once very wisely said:

‘Pain doesn’t make people; it's love that makes people. The pain is inconsequential; it's love that saves them.’

Caleb gets to break the cycle of abuse and teach a new generation of mages the way he should have been, with kindness and respect, and I’m pretty sure he’d have introduced a handsome drow as a guest lecturer from time to time. 😉

Speaking of...

Essek described himself as selfish and as a coward, forever putting his own wants and desires first, yet over the course of his journey with the Nein we see his priorities change drastically.

Having friends gives him people to care about, something he’s never had before, and it changes his outlook on life completely. For me, the first time we really see this is when he joins them for dinner in the Xorhaus and stops levitating. It’s a subtle thing, but meaningful. He explains that it had become an expectation of him, a quirk he’s known for, and so to feel comfortable enough around the Nein to drop that pretence is quite bold I think.

Much later, when he chooses to destroy the mini beacon they discover in Aeor in order to give everyone a long rest before the final confrontation with Lucian, he’s essentially giving up everything he betrayed his people for, just to keep his friends safe. The existence and context of that single artefact could have had an earthshattering impact on the Dynasty’s entire culture, forcing them to reevaluate their entire belief system and attitude to the Luxon, something he’d wanted from the start, something he helped start a war for, but he offered it up as a sacrifice without a second thought.

I’d say that’s a pretty big morality shift, and I’m super interested to see if Matt reveals if his alignment changed in the post campaign Q&A. I have a feeling he set him up as a potential BBEG but the party was like ‘no, you can’t have him, he’s ours now’ and that was the end of that. 😂

I think it says so much about the other characters too, that they befriended this person they barely knew, and when he was revealed to have done such terrible things, their first reaction was to give him comfort and an opportunity to atone. Jester held his hand while he confessed, and afterwards, while they didn’t immediately forgive him, they saw the good in him and wanted him to be better, which ultimately feels like what the entire campaign was about, leaving places (and people) better than they found them. It’s obvious that he’s never really had many friends before and has therefore never had the opportunity to be emotionally open with anyone, so seeing him gradually warm up to the Nein and allow himself to soften around them was really lovely to watch.

(Obviously, from a realistic moral perspective, he still fucked up big time. He’s still a godsdamned war criminal and really should have been put on trial for what he did, but I think from a narrative and personal point of view, his redemption arc was far more satisfying, so I’m glad it happened the way it did. (And not to derail but the rest of the gang have done some pretty horrific stuff as well, though perhaps not quite on the same scale)

He has a few moments towards the end that I absolutely love because they show that beneath the guilt and anguish, there’s an incredibly sweet and sensitive soul in there, just wanting acceptance. His dry jokes which often don’t quite hit, (the ‘I will punish the bakery’ line is such an under-appreciated one 😂) his simple joy at learning to garden in the Blooming Grove, and realising that he’d never been asked what his favourite food was before was actually kind of heartbreaking, because it highlighted how lonely his life must have been until that time. There was a moment pretty early on I think when he cast disguise on the party and Jester asked if he could cast it again to change the look of her outfit a bit and while he seemed to find it amusing, he refused, not wanting to waste a spell on such a frivolous request. Cut to their time in Aeor where he burns a fly spell just so he and Caleb can flirtatiously swoop around each other for a couple of minutes, all the while trying to beat Lucian to the city.

His breakdown when Molly’s resurrection failed really cemented to me how much he’d grown as a character. He never met Molly, his only knowledge of him was secondhand, through the eyes of his friends, but seeing it fail just broke him because he knew how much it hurt them to go through it all over again.

His comment to Caleb about not admitting defeat and wishing he could do more did get me wondering at the time if he was going to try and do something crazy, perhaps sacrificing himself via the Temporal Dock to make amends or somehow forcing another reroll, but I’m glad he didn’t. The conversation following that with Fjord was one of my favourites- he shows him acceptance and belief in his potential for the future, something he’s lacked for a long time, and when Caleb bluntly affirms afterwards that he is indeed an official member of the Mighty Nein, it’s the start of the rest of his life, and something he’s exceptionally grateful for.

It all leads to that final moment in Aeor with Caleb, when, presented with the opportunity to alter time and undo everything, he chooses to accept his decisions and carry the weight of his sins for the rest of his long life. That’s...huge.

He’s essentially choosing to live the rest of his existence as a fugitive, forever on the run, with no guaranteed peace or safety. He chooses to spend his life making up for his deeds, rather than looking for an easy way out.

I think that may have had a big impact on why Caleb ultimately made the same decision, as if Essek had been up for altering his timeline I think he’d have struggled to resist it himself. The conversation they had earlier in Aeor about their priorities and resisting temptation really comes to mind as well.

Now, to the relationship.

It was subtle, and not as ‘in your face’ obvious as the other characters, but I’ve been watching and hoping for a long time and I must say, it feels good to be vindicated.

(And if you have any doubt, both Matt and Liam confirmed on Twitter that their post finale relationship was 100% romantic)

I’d been hoping that Shadowgast would be a canon endgame relationship for a while, so the finale, and the aforementioned T-Dock scene in particular had me quite literally shaking with emotion as I watched live. Here you have two men, both damaged and guilt-stricken in their own ways, who find in each other a kindred spirit and a path to redemption.

They’re both very guarded and closed off people, but Essek in particular has a definite shift in the last arc of the campaign especially when it came to his interactions with Caleb. At the start he was quite aloof and stoic, though charming, and they had an instant connection through their shared love of the arcane, (anyone who couldn’t see them making heart eyes at each other when Essek was describing the different types of magic he could teach Caleb was clearly blind) but by the end he was incredibly open to showing his vulnerabilities and that takes a lot, especially for someone whose primary focus was to stay in control of every aspect of his life. The ‘Caleb, I’m scared’ moment during the Trent fight in particular made my heart ache.

No, we didn’t get a dramatic declaration of love or a cinematic mid-battle kiss, but I’d argue that their relationship was just as, if not more intimate than any of the other main characters were. They understood each other in a way the others didn’t, their shared guilt, feelings of inadequacy and their obsession with magic forged a deep connection from the get-go. Neither of them are big fans of PDA I think, though Caleb is tactile as hell (forehead touches and kisses, oh man, I’m so weak for those 😩👌) and some of their most iconic moments have them putting themselves in harm’s way to protect the other. Essek shaking off his forced guilt trip immediately after the now infamous forehead touch in ep140 was beautifully poetic, as was using his fortune’s favour to pull Caleb out of the rubble moments before. Caleb trying to include him in his Sphere of Invulnerability in the finale and Essek staying close to him the whole fight despite being obviously terrified of Trent was the icing on the cake. It’s clear that they care for each other a great deal; whether by the finale they’d consider it love is up for debate, but we know that’s eventually where it ended up and honestly, I love that. I deeply appreciated the fact Matt and Liam both emphasised that they took their time with their relationship, letting each other heal in their own way before they took the next step. All too often in media, and real life too sadly, a romantic relationship is seen as some kind of quick fix, and that a lover will somehow complete you or make all your problems vanish. They knew this wasn’t the case here, and that made it all the better.

While I would have *loved* to have seen them together as a couple right to the very end, the change in their relationship felt right, if bittersweet. I doubt they ever stopped loving each other, and if anything, choosing to shift to a deep and lifelong friendship over a romance that would cause them both so much pain is one of the kindest things you could do for someone you love. After all, friendship isn’t a downgrade, just another way of experiencing that same love, and it wasn’t as though they broke up and never saw each other again, it was pretty strongly implied that they remained a major feature in each other’s lives, they just changed their label slightly. Caleb would hate to have forced Essek to watch him wither away, and although his eventual passing would hurt Essek regardless, incompatible lifespans being what they are, having a period of time to adjust to it, to give them a buffer between the inevitable heartbreak was actually really sweet.

Their romance was no accident, they knew going in that it had a time limit, that it wasn’t going to be forever for one of them, and the fact they did it anyway says so much. They began their adventure wholeheartedly believing that they were both, in their own way incapable of love, only to later find it with each other. Whether their relationship lasted for a couple of years or multiple decades is irrelevant, what matters is that while it did they had a happy and fulfilled life together.

I know some folk wanted Caleb to use the transmogrification spell on himself so he could live on with Essek as another elf, or make him human instead, but that would have been way out of character for both I think. If they could have backwards engineered one of the rejuvenation stations in Aeor and used it to extend Caleb’s life by a hundred years or so, so he’d have a similar lifespan to Veth, now, I could have seen him possibly doing that, so he could spend more time with his best friend too, but nothing further I think. He longed to be reunited with his parents too much to postpone death unnaturally like that.

That both Caleb and Essek ultimately chose to live with their mistakes and make peace with themselves was incredibly cathartic, and I couldn’t imagine it playing out any better.

The fact Matt has explicitly stated Essek is Demi too means so much to me personally because the latter is a label I’ve been identifying with a lot recently, and it’s so rare for aspec relationships to get any representation! It has honestly given me a lot to think about over the last few days, and I really appreciate it.

To conclude, here’s a bit of shameless self promotion. I wrote this after watching the finale and honestly feel like it sums up my feelings on the nature of their relationship pretty well.

‘A casual hand on a shoulder, a waist, a wrist; a gentle kiss placed on a forehead is common between them now, an intimacy born of trust and mutual affection. Over time it grows, like a fire born of seasoned timber; gradual and steady, no spluttering kindling that flares and sparks, but a slow burn, one which lasts.

Their love is embroidered into every aspect of their lives together. Acts of service, of comfort, of understanding.

Sometimes a kiss leads to more than a kiss, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way they are content.‘

So yeah, I love these two wizard boys so very much and I couldn’t be happier with the conclusion of their stories. ❤️

[ranboo5]

whats 'the clip' and knifetrick?

Augh. Under the cut for shipping discourse and p/dophilia ment (nothing graphic or specific). Gets long bc I discuss my thoughts on DSMP shipping in general. You are setting me up fr anon

Some quick vocab -

intimacy here is used to refer to. Well. Any kind of intimacy between characters, of any sort, as an umbrella term /r, /p, and /qp here are used as shorteners to denote "romantic," "platonic," and "queerplatonic," both as adjectives And as verbs ("to /r" = "to portray romantically") shipping here is used to refer to any focused examination of intimacy between characters

And some clarity that Should follow from the essay next but may not - """anti-antis"""" and RPF writers delete forever

The Clip is from one of if not the? most recent Discord stage(s) Mr Live has done (which I missed when it was live RIP) wherein he issues a hard ban on shipping him ("do not ship me, in any way, with anyone!") which would less influence c!beeduo (which has been portrayed/stated to be romantic AND nonromantic both conflictingly for a while until being confirmed unconfirmed several months ago, that being the last was heard) without its direct invocation if he hadn't also cited for the reason as being underage ("'Cause, one, it's straight up pedophilia") which is! a) immediately applicable to At Least his DSMP character, Partially and b) while not Strictly True (should b obvious that portraying a relationship within the bounds of what it is in canon and in a nonsexual way is not That, and /r-ing c!beeduo etc was possible to do Appropriately again by remaining w/in the bounds of canon) is Clearly Indicative of the fact that baggage-wise it IS associated with people being fucking creeps

This Really complicates things bc like okay the apparent solution is "lol just don't /r it" but it's really like. A Worse issue than that bc like.

Okay the reason shipping in terms of fictional characters is a Different Bar is bc it's an examination of Intimacy and certain lines exist in certain dynamics of intimacy that Isn't Shown (which is the whole Within The Bounds Of Canon thing) which is important in a medium like DSMP because of the smaller gap + more personal relationship b/w character and streamer. Examining intimacy beyond th bounds of the consent that has been established in that regard is Weird at best and Violating And Creepy more often and, As Mentioned In Ranb's Stage, Literally Evil at worst

Which is why writing abt like. QPR or platonically intimate Techno and Philza (characters) is smth that is fine because that's smth that has been shown and repeatedly stated onscreen; it's in the bounds of canon n thus within th bounds of what the streamers've consented 2 be done with their characters. But writing T3chza making out or whatever is fucked up because it's smth that's beyond those consent barriers

And the thing is right

Slapping a /p on T3chza makeout doesn't. Make it less violating

Like what you CALL romantic is not the measure or whether it's past those barriers yk? And if it's indistinguishable, if it's in extrapolative territory that is Past The Bounds, it Does Not Matter how much you /p it EVEN IF IT IS TECHNICALLY PLATONIC y feel? Like at the end of the day placing a moratorium on some/all forms of shipping is placing a moratorium on certain examinings of intimacy

And okay 2 go back to Mr Live and his character. What it implies taken in context w/ older portrayals of c!beeduo and said by invoking smth that both evokes Really fucked up baggage (that does unfortunately exist btw I'm sorry if you didn't know that but People Really Do B Fucked Up Abt Beeduo) AND applies to his character is a revocation of consent to examining deep intimacies:tm: with his character, which is gonna apply regardless of the nature of that intimacy (even if nonromantic)

Like I don't /r c!beeduo myself, do not, never have, but I talk to people who have and have consumed content where they r background /r; I also don't think it matters. Like I don't Actively /r it and I don't Actively Not /r it because imho w/ the intimacy regarding c!beeduo that is plot relevant and character important whether that intimacy is /p /qp or /r doesn't really matter. I don't consider myself Less of a c!beeduo shipper than someone who /rs them because that would be dumb as hell and while none of the content I've made* is Intrinsically or Intentionally /r it certainly can be read tht way as much as it can be read /qp or /p. It's be dumb and hypocritical of me to like, dunk on ppl for /r-ing c!beeduo when I'm also invested in these two and my tonetags r not gonna suddenly Delete the picking apart I've done of the dynamic @ hand

Which Has Been. Within Bounds Of Canon. It's been what's been shown (sometimes to my great distress. There is a reason that the :canon_beeduo: emote looks the way it does) Directly Onscreen and in general keeping with the tone n intensity/directions of what they've Done With The Characters

HOWEVER

As mentioned up there. Revocation of consent

It makes. Full sense 2 me that Mr Live wants to place a moratorium or fullon ban on shipping his characters perhaps where he wouldn't have before because of the Unfortunately Very Extant trends of people being Fucking Weird about shipping his characters AND of using them as a Thinly Veiled Excuse to ship HIM, which. I should not have to explain why shipping real people is fucking abhorrent

THIS creates a problem which is a. Bit of a vacuum in interacting with what is a facet of c!Ranboo's arc, decision making, and character. Like you CAN have c!Ranboo w/o cbeeduo but you Can't Really have his plotline without examining c!beeduo. And as I mentioned earlier: even if your examination of c!beeduo is fully platonic, the significance of it To the plotline means that any examination of it and its relevance to the plotline and characters IS gonna be an examination of intimacy, which. Regardless of it's platonic, Is Still Shipping

Unless some HARD retconning happens it leaves this like. Hole in an aspect of c!Ranboo's arc and decisionmaking and it's very. Uncertain? God. Fucking months ago I was already kind of :huh. Does he know what the fuck he's doing: irt c!beeduo and desperately wishing for things to be cleared up and now it's only That Much Stronger

NOW. KNIFETRICK, FINALLY

Knifetrick (or, as it’s actually listed, Bishop’s Knife Trick) is a fic about "Ran and Jackie from The Pit TFTSMP" in a "canon-typical ambiguously romantic relationship." As you can tell from the scare quotes, especially if you've seen me vague, both of these are, to put it politely, Doubtful. I've read the fic; I will not be sharing my opinions because that would be neither productive nor responsible (I will just say I can't recommend it and leave it at that) but I WILL say the following that Is relevant to the conversation:

Ran's and Jackie's characterizations respectively have very little to do with characterizations from The Pit, and bear a dollar-store-version resemblance to tropes and personality motifs found in ESPECIALLY fanon c!beeduo, especially later in the fic. I would not go so far as to say they are Intentionally Literally Ranboo and Tubbo but they are transparent expies and were clearly written at LEAST unintentionally w/ c!beeduo in mind (esp since. Ran and Jackie barely interacted in The Pit), and for a readerbase that, as far as I can tell, is HUGELY dominated by /r c!beeduo shippers. Like. Sorry. This is off-brand c!beeduo.

The dynamic between the two is pretty unambiguously romantic, also; despite what the fic's white knights claim, romantic tropes and implications/motifs/imagery from at LEAST chapter two, and is very much explicitly romantic by the most recent chapter.

FROM CH1:

"And now, with raised eyebrows and a pursed lip, the newly named General Jackie observes Ran in such a way that makes the enderman’s skin crawl. Ran reminds himself that this kid, as short and harmless as he may look, is trained to kill. [...] Jackie narrows his eyes and tilts his head a little, as if he’s trying to read in between every one of Ran’s imperfect scales."

FROM CH2:

"It makes Ran’s skin itch with discomfort. [...] 'That actually doesn’t explain much of anything at all,' complains Jackie, and he pops a few croutons into his mouth with one hand. 'Tell me what you’re thinking, pretty-boy.'

"Ran feels his face flush, no doubt mildly glowing green.

"Yes, that was the other thing. The unnecessary compliments to his physical appearance.

"They don’t happen very often, and don’t seem to have very much meaning or intention behind them— Jackie often speaks like an unthinking kid— but when they do happen… they’re embarrassing. [...] It’s annoying how the rug is pulled out from under his feet in these moments when he’s 'embarrassed'. Like the conversation see-saw has temporarily shifted weight in the general’s favor."

I am not going to include excerpts from Chapter 6 because it's just the entire chapter.

I WILL SAY, HOWEVER, STEPPING ON THIS SCORPION BEFORE IT STINGS: they are not written in an RPFy manner and I don't think there's any grounds, including Vibes, of accusing Knifetrick of being like. Closet truthing or whatever. Also, while I think there's certainly Some Weirdness ESPECIALLY around the reaction, the romance itself is Not written in any way I'd call weird or problematic pre-clip; it's nothing inappropriate or like Weirdly Fetishy or whatever. Knifetrick is not #problematic or anything and I don't have beef with like the concept of liking it intrinsically; if I thought it was like. Abhorrent I wouldn't be sharing excerpts lmao dhjfnhdsbvdnfjh. Hence: if anyone uses this post or anyth like it to send harassment or bad faith ANYTHING to anyone involved with Knifetrick I will hunt you down in the fucking night even if it WAS #problematic that'd be the LITERAL OPPOSITE of productive and as it stands it's Literally Not. Essentially: Knifetrick is a (questionably-written /mean) fic using Ran and Jackie from The Pit as a vessel for a large chunk of the dynamics and headcanons of fanon /r c!beeduo in particular

And again, I would not call it problematic in any way (aside from the disingenuity of the insistence that it's TOTALLY UNRELATED TO BEEDUO and TOOOTALLY WASN'T INTENDED TO BE ROMANTIC GUYS like own your shit please)... IF it weren't for the advent of The Clip, which is calling in2 question the Entirety of the problem of /r-ing any variant of c!beeduo or any of Ranboo's characters at all

I really do not have an answer for this tbh. I genuinely wanna hear from the streamer on this more specifically because I like,,, I got no clue where 2 go from here? Do I just consider an arc retconned? Was it an issue of speaking abt a troubling subject kneejerk wise and I'm reading too much in2 it?

I just. I dunno

Tl;dr (AT LONG LAST)

- The Clip is a clip of a Discord stage where Ranboo (streamer) loudly explicitly decried shipping in a way that implicitly applies to characters he plays - This would be all well and good but is rendered complicated by the plot relevance of c!beeduo, which does not stop being shipping if it's /p'd due to it still necessarily being an examination of a particular intimacy in a way that is in canon hard to distinguish the /p, /qp, or /r nature of - Bishop's Knife Trick is an AO3 fic centered around using TFTSMP characters as /r c!beeduo expies which is not a bad thing in and of itself unless it also is covered under this moratorium - Things remain unclear until and unless we get clearer word from streamer, but considering Mr Live seems to be allergic to clarifying anything abt c!beeduo this is doubtful

*very little if any of the content I personally have made 4 c!beeduo has been posted publicly, for related reasons. You May have seen it if you're in servers w/ me, depending on Which Ones

[wikiangela-fanfics]

"How long will you stay?" - Sambucky

Part 3 to "You should smile more"

This took a looong while to write lmao

And it turned into a fucking long fic too hahaha (8k words, wow)

Idk, I actually like this one 😊

and again, thank you SO SO SO much to @tasteslikestrawbebbies for beta-reading ♥♥♥ really wouldn't be able to post it without you haha

Ao3

Part 1, Part 2

Enjoy ♥

***

Soon, they went out and Sam was relieved to not be alone with Bucky.. He still wanted him as close as possible, and he might have been walking way too close to him, their shoulders brushing. He desperately wanted to kiss Bucky, too. He really felt like he was getting addicted to those lips after just three kisses. He needed it. Fortunately, they were around people, so he was able to stop himself. He wasn’t that far gone yet.

They took a stroll around the neighbourhood, and went to the docks, meeting people everywhere. Bucky turned on his charm and everyone seemed to take to him. It seemed so natural, but at the same time it was bizarre. Sam was amazed. He’s known Bucky for a few years now, and he would never imagine him being so… charismatic. He knew stories about young Sergeant Barnes, from before he became the Winter Soldier, he heard how Bucky used to be. But to actually see it, it was odd. But also really nice, to get to see and know this side of him. He looked so… at peace. Sam has never seen him like that before he came to visit. It seemed that his little town might just be the place for Bucky to settle in. Sam found that he would really like that.

So yeah, people were nice, as Sam had told Bucky they were, and no one cared about his past or his metal arm. All that mattered was that Bucky was polite and friendly, and so fucking charming. Sam couldn’t stop staring at him, and he was pretty sure there was a soft smile on his face, and he wouldn’t be surprised if his eyes turned into freaking hearts. And people were smiling at him as if they could see it, which, yeah, he didn’t even bother trying to hide it.

Other than introducing Bucky to the people they were meeting, he took Bucky all around the town. He showed him all the places he used to hang out at, all the places that had some history and stories Sam could tell Bucky… and Bucky seemed to really enjoy listening to him. Of course he wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t tease Sam the whole time, but Sam had a nice time with him.

With that and everyone stopping them for a short conversation, which sometimes lasted so long Sam had to make up excuses for why they really had to go, it was already early afternoon when they were on their way back. They were walking, because nothing was actually that far, and it’s not like they were in a hurry. Sam actually really enjoyed just being in Bucky’s company.

“So how do you like the town?” Sam asked, glancing over at Bucky. And again he was struck by how gorgeous that man was. His hair was a bit messy from the wind, he was looking ahead, so Sam could only see his side profile, the sun illuminating it, making his perfect face look even better, somehow. His expression was calm and almost blissful.

“It’s great.” Bucky smiled, looking briefly at Sam. “I really like it here.” he added almost shyly. Which was a new look on him. “The town is beautiful, the people are nice… and spending time with you isn’t the worst.” his voice was quieter now, as if he didn’t really want to admit that. Sam chuckled and purposefully bumped his shoulder into Bucky’s.

“Thanks. You’re not a horrible company either.” he responded, earning a beautiful grin from Bucky. And then he tripped and almost fell, which made him realize that he’s been staring at Bucky non-stop for the past couple of minutes. He cleared his throat, averting his gaze and looking back at the road ahead. He hoped Bucky didn’t see him almost tripping, but he wasn’t looking at him anymore so he wouldn’t know what his expression was. “So you like it here.” Sam repeated Bucky’s words. Buck hummed in confirmation. “Then, uh, how long do you think you’ll stay?” he dared a small sideways glance at him.

“I promised-” Bucky started, but Sam interrupted him.

“No, I know, I know. I just mean.” he sighed, cursing himself for starting the topic. “Let’s say I wouldn’t want you to go. Wouldn’t tell you to leave.” because he’d never do that. He wanted Bucky around as long as possible. “How long do you think you’d wanna stay?” he was looking at his feet now. He didn’t see Bucky, who was quiet, so he was worried about what the answer might be. And then he had a ridiculous thought - what if Bucky didn’t want to be there at all and came just because he promised? Which was just insane, he had just told Sam he liked to be there.

“As long as you want me here.” Bucky replied finally. Sam looked at him again. Bucky seemed and sounded confident in his words. He was still looking ahead, but there was a fond smile on his lips. “However long that might be.” he turned his head and their eyes met. Sam couldn’t contain the wide, happy smile that he felt tugging at his lips. Bucky’s smile widened as well in response. He reached out and squeezed Sam’s hand for a second before letting go and looking ahead again. They fell into a comfortable silence.

It was what Bucky said before. The same words. But Sam knew they had different implications here. Despite there being just two sentences, there was much more said between them at that moment. Sam believed he understood Bucky perfectly, and if not, well, then he was an idiot with way too high hopes. But from what he got out of it, he knew that Bucky wanted to stay. He wanted to be there, maybe permanently. In this town, in Sam’s life. He was happy here, that much Sam could see just by looking at Buck. And if Sam never told him to go, he would just stay. Forever. And Sam was down with that. He would love that. He wanted Bucky around for the rest of his life… and that thought was scary. And it led to: oh my God, I think I love him. Which was even scarier. They kissed three times, they were going on a date, Bucky was making jokes and innuendos about them having sex, and yet Sam still wasn’t sure where they stood. Because nothing with Bucky was easy, and it never would be. But he was alright with that. They needed to talk, but they would get to that. Maybe by then Sam would stop freaking out about the fact that he’s in love with James Bucky Barnes, the guy he had sworn he didn’t wanna see after the whole thing with Karli and the Flag Smashers was over. Separate long vacations. Yeah, right. Now he never wanted them to be apart again. How that happened, he had no idea, but here they were.

He looked at Bucky again and smiled. He didn’t need to know how it happened, even if it was the most insane thing that could’ve happened to him, and that includes all the robots and aliens they fought, and even being snapped out of existence for five years. All he needed was Bucky, and he was sure now that he would always be there.

“Gotta find something to do, though.” Bucky broke the silence after a while. “Can’t go around the town and do nothing every day.”

“We have time to figure it out.” Sam said without thinking.

"We, huh?" Bucky smirked, glancing at Sam. When their eyes met, his smirk turned into a wide grin. We could be understood as yeah, me too, can’t save the world every day, but he did not mean it in that way, not entirely. He meant me too, but also, we’ll figure it out together because you’re staying with me and I love you. And he knew Bucky got that, maybe without that last part, that was just… it was like once he thought about it and realized it, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was repeating in his head and he felt like a giddy, lovesick teenager. He got it bad.

“Shut up.” Sam rolled his eyes, shoving Bucky lightly. He couldn’t help but grin back. His hand itched to grab Bucky’s, but he didn’t think they were there yet. So he kept his hands to himself, changing the topic and conversing with Bucky for the rest of the way.

***

They ended up going to the docks again and hanging out with some people there, and helping with some stuff. Bucky even ended up lending a hand with moving some heavy things. While Sam watched with a huge grin on his face, because Bucky was beautiful, and when he was in a t-shirt, showing off his strength, picking up such weights easily as if it was nothing… that was doing it for Sam.

And he knew he was being really obvious, as he was getting knowing looks and smirks from people around him, who have known him forever, but he didn’t care. He meant it when he said that those people were always welcoming and accepting. It was his favorite place in the world. And it just got even better, with Bucky staying for an indefinite period of time. He just couldn’t help smiling at the thought. And it was on his mind a lot.

“You’re really gone on that boy, huh?” said Mrs. Harris, one of his neighbors, who was sitting next to him at the moment. There was a fond smile on her face. “You’ve been swooning over him since he came here the first time.” she observed, obviously having seen them together before, probably when they were working on the boat.

Sam just blushed and rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t stop smiling. Then he chuckled lightly. “Yeah, I think I am.” he said with a sigh. If Bucky’s super hearing could pick it up from where he was, Sam didn’t care. He would be glad, actually, because that meant he didn’t have to say it to Bucky’s face, at least for now.

They talked some more, then Bucky joined them, and they just sat there for a while, chatting and hearing all the neighbors tell Bucky stories about the town. But then it got late. And they had a date.

“C’mon, old man.” he said, clapping Bucky on the leg, as he was getting up. Bucky just looked at him in confusion. “We have a thing, remember?”

“Right.” a wide smile showed up on his face. “Well, we gotta go. It was nice talking to you all.” Bucky said, as he also got up, smiling charmingly at their company.

As they were walking back, Sam could feel Bucky staring at him. He wasn’t gonna comment on that this time, remembering how he was the one staring at Bucky before, which he obviously had to notice.

“What?” he asked finally, as they were getting close to the house. Sam wanted to get cleaned up after the day and maybe look kinda nice, even if they were just going to the local bar for drinks and something to eat.

“You sure you wanna go on a date with me?” Bucky asked, a bit shyly. Sam looked at him with a frown. “Tonight?”

“Why wouldn’t I? You don’t wanna go? ‘Cause we don’t have to.” he added quickly, not wanting to seem pushy. Though, to be fair, Bucky did agree. Making inappropriate jokes that made Sam’s brain stop working while he was at it.

“Of course I wanna.” Bucky rolled his eyes. “I just mean, we spent the whole day together. I would get it if you were fed up with me.” he chuckled.

“I’m always fed up with you.” was Sam’s automatic response. “I just… you might be the most annoying person I’ve ever met, and yet I still wanna hang out with you.” he shrugged. Bucky just hummed in acknowledgment. “But we can just stay at home and watch a movie or something. If you want.” he added, thinking that maybe Bucky just didn’t wanna go out, since he clearly stated that he did want to go on a date. Which still sounded ridiculous. Sam and Bucky going on a date. Insane. But then again, so was them kissing and Sam being in love with Bucky.

“Sam.” he didn’t have to look to know that Bucky rolled his eyes. “I wanna do whatever you wanna do.” that was interesting, because Bucky explicitly said that they’re not gonna do what Sam wants to do tonight, not on the first date or whatever. But Sam wasn’t about to say that, he didn’t want to seem desperate. Although he had a feeling Bucky might know what he was thinking anyway. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything either, but there was a smirk on his face, when Sam glanced at him.

“Then we’re gonna go for a drink.” Sam decided. He was surprised to find that he was actually looking forward to that. To have some sense of normalcy after all he’s been through the last couple of years. Of course by normalcy he meant going out for drinks with a person he was attracted to and had feelings for. That person being Bucky was still a huge shock, but who was he to question it? The heart wants what it wants. And his traitorous heart apparently wanted Bucky.

“Okay.” Bucky said, bumping his shoulder into Sam’s. While doing that, the back of his hand touched Sam’s and he has never wanted to hold someone’s hand more. But before he could make up his mind on whether to go for it, they got to the house and Bucky went to take a shower after the day of walking everywhere and then helping out at the docks.

***

Around an hour later they were at the bar. They ordered their drinks and food and… they were sitting there in silence, opposite each other. But it wasn’t weird or uncomfortable, it never was between them. And before Sam realized it, they were having a staring contest, initiated by Bucky, who had an amused smirk on his face. Like always, Sam could not win with the master of staring, especially when the waitress brought them the drinks and snapped him out of it. He shook his head, chuckling.

“You’re impossible.” he said, but couldn’t contain a small, fond smile. Bucky just shrugged and took a sip of his drink. “Can I ask you a question?” he added, just to start any kind of conversation. And he was kind of genuinely curious.

“I think that’s usually what people do on dates. You know, talk.” Bucky answered, his voice low and quiet, but Sam heard him perfectly.

“Yeah, I know.” Sam rolled his eyes. “I was just wondering. If I hadn’t kissed you first…” he saw Bucky’s cheeks get pink and it was truly a sight to see. “Would you ever make a move?” he smiled smugly, as Bucky looked at the drink in his hands and licked his lips before answering. Oh wow, those lips. Suddenly Sam regretted going out because all he wanted to do was grab Bucky’s beautiful face and smash their lips together.

“If I was sure you felt the same way, yeah, probably.” Bucky shrugged, looking to the side now, his face red. It was so amazing how embarrassed he could get talking about feelings.

“So you like me?” that was a stupid question and Bucky’s look and raised eyebrow told him as much. But he asked anyway.

“You think if I didn’t, I’d still be here with you? On a date? Or that I would kiss you? Or, you know, want to stay here?”

“Yeah, okay, I know, dumb question.” Sam chuckled, taking a sip of his drink. “You know, a few weeks ago I never could’ve imagined we’d end up here.”

“No one could’ve.” Buck said. “I never thought that I’d even ever-” he cut himself off and chuckled nervously. “Nevermind.” he kept looking at the table.

“Buck.” Sam felt bold and took Bucky’s hand that was on the table. He didn’t give a fuck if people saw it, everyone in the town already knew he was in love with Bucky. And if it got out and the media found out… well, he also didn’t give a fuck. Not at the moment. He thought he knew what Bucky wanted to say, but he couldn’t be sure, so he just gave him a questioning look.

“It’s fine, I don’t wanna ruin the mood or whatever.” Bucky said, but didn’t pull his hand away.

“Okay, let’s change the subject then. But just so you know, you can talk to me about anything.” he added and Bucky just squeezed his hand and smiled. “Imma repeat myself again, but damn, your smile is gorgeous.” Sam added with a goddamn involuntary sigh, already feeling embarrassed at saying that. He should really get a grip, but Bucky’s smile was just doing things to him. At the sight, his pulse was quickening and his heart was doing backflips, and his lips were automatically forming into a smile too.

“If I knew all I had to do was smile to get you like this, I’d have done this ages ago.” Bucky laughed, relaxing again.

“Really?” Sam’s eyebrow raised. Bucky blushed again.

“I mean, I always knew you were, um, hot.” his face was now red, and it was at the same time beautiful and satisfyingly funny. “I didn’t like you very much, but, you know.” he shrugged. Sam was grinning now. “Oh, shut up.”

“I’m not saying anything.” he laughed. But he had to tease him a little bit. “Aw, you’ve had a crush on me for ages. That’s adorable, Bucky.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You basically did.” Sam argued with a teasing smile.

“I didn’t use the word crush. Because that’s not true.”

“Do you even know what having a crush means?” Sam questioned.

“Yes, I know what it means.” Bucky’s tone sounded almost offended that Sam would even imply that he wasn’t up to date with all the slang and what-not. He knew that Bucky was behind on a lot of things, which was really understandable, of course, but still it was very amusing. “I can use the Internet. And I talk to people.”

“Really? You talk to people?” Sam’s eyes widened in mock-shock. “Who? You hang out with people young enough to know shit like that? Wow, and here I thought you only talked to me, or some old men. You know, closer to your old, old age.”

“And you say that I'm annoying.” Bucky rolled his eyes, probably already knowing that Sam was not gonna let that go. Although, truth be told, Bucky had some things he could tease Sam about, too. “But you gotta admit, despite my ‘old, old age’, I still got it.” he smirked. “I mean, I have you practically throwing yourself at me.”

“So your memory’s back now?” he decided to not acknowledge the comment about throwing himself at Bucky. It was kinda true, anyway, there was no arguing, and that fact just made him blush.

“Yeah, thanks to you. Forgot already? Maybe your memory needs some refreshing, too.” he felt Bucky’s foot bumping into his, almost like a kick, but lighter.

“Maybe it does.” Sam automatically licked his lips, earning a huge, smug grin from Bucky. His gaze focused on Bucky’s lips. “Yeah, that might just be the case.” he added a little distractedly, not able to stop staring, making Bucky’s smile widen. And there was another nudge to his foot under the table, which snapped him out of his daze. “Sergeant Barnes, are you trying to play footsie with me right now?” he asked with equal amounts of amusement and amazement.

“Oh, am I?” Bucky asked faux innocently, looking Sam straight in the eyes, as their feet were now basically tangled together. It was new and different, and completely unexpected, but not unenjoyable, especially seeing that amazing smile on Bucky’s face. “I’m pretty sure I just moved my foot, and you started assuming shit.” Bucky added, his tone teasing, while one of his legs basically wrapped itself around Sam’s calf. A thought crossed his mind that they were at the bar and the lack of any kind of tablecloth was making their legs visible to anyone who looked in their direction. At least it was dark. But honestly, he didn’t really care. He couldn’t, when all he could focus on was Bucky and his smirk and that mischievous glint in his eyes, and the fact that he was touching him. Sam’s skin felt like it was on fire, and Bucky looked like he was having the time of his life.

“You’re impossible.” Sam repeated with a soft laugh. Bucky just winked at him and took a sip of his drink. And the way Sam’s insides fluttered at the wink... He was just so gone on Bucky it was ridiculous. He was just glad they could still act normally, joke and tease each other, without any awkwardness, despite the very obvious tension in the air.

The rest of the evening remained in the same light, happy tone, they talked all the time, about a lot of different things, obviously adding some teasing, like they always do, and some flirting, too. They had some more to drink, which caused Sam to get quite tipsy, while Bucky seemed stone-cold sober. The damn super soldier metabolism. Sam didn’t really think about that when suggesting to get a drink.

So now here they were, walking back home, Sam constantly bumping into Bucky every couple of steps, which the old man found really amusing. To be honest, Sam figured that if he had two or three drinks more, he would be tripping over his feet. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. Otherwise he would die from embarrassment. Well, he still might, because apparently tipsy Sam talked without any filters.

“So are you staying because you like it here or because I’m here?” Sam asked at some point and if he was sober he would freak out. Or, he wouldn’t let the words out of his mouth, because that was just… completely unnecessary. Additionally, he wrapped his hands around Bucky’s arm and basically clung to him, which he didn’t even realize at first. He was both too tipsy, and too comfortable with Bucky. Maybe the last part was a good thing, since they were trying to build something here, but he was aware that a big part of their whole relationship was teasing and making fun of each other, so he knew that he would probably be reminded of his clinginess at some point.

"What do you think?" Bucky answered, turning his head to look at Sam with amusement and a smirk.

“I think you just wanna be where I am.” he said, more sure and confident than he was about anything else. “And if I went back to DC, you’d go with me.”

“Do you wanna go back?”

“I mean, I’ll have to, eventually.” Sam shrugged with one arm. He was vaguely aware that he was really leaning on Bucky at that point, but he didn’t seem to mind. After all, he was super strong, so that probably wasn’t even fazing him. It occurred to him that Bucky must’ve been pretty comfortable with him too, if he didn’t mind him invading his personal space that much. “It’s better to be close if the people need Captain America.” he said with exaggerated pride. He knew it would be hard, and his doubts were still there, but he could do it. He had to. Plus, he wasn’t alone, he’d have Bucky with him, hopefully. “I have a place there. I’d probably get a job.” he added. He’d been thinking about it, and it made sense. He couldn’t just stay in Louisiana forever, as much as he’d like that. And he needed to make a living somehow. But that all was stuff to think about when he wasn’t intoxicated. Right now, it was Bucky who had all his focus. “So, you know, this is more like vacation. Which we deserved. And then we’re gonna go back to DC. Or Brooklyn, if you prefer that, that’s good enough for me.” He talked too much. He was tipsy and he kept talking and he was a bit afraid he would freak Bucky out with all his planning for the future. They were on one date, for God’s sake. He needed to chill. But then again, he was a bit drunk, so he didn’t care all that much at the moment.

“We, huh?” Bucky chuckled. “That’s presumptuous.”

“C’mon, like you’re not gonna follow me anywhere I go.” Sam rolled his eyes. He really felt super confident right now. That could end with him saying even more embarrassing things, but he’d leave freaking out for the morning.

“You might have a point.” Bucky somehow freed his arm from Sam’s grasp and put it around his arms, bringing him as close as he could while still walking. “If you want me, I’ll go wherever you want.” Sam felt a kiss on his forehead. Oh, so Bucky was gonna be sappy now? Well, maybe he figured since Sam was drunk, he would get away with saying shit like that without teasing later.

“Aw, that’s adorable.” Sam ginned. “Never would’ve guessed that you can be so cute.”

“I’m not cute, shut up.” Sam didn’t need to look at Bucky to know that he rolled his eyes, but his tone of voice was light and amused.

“You shut up.” he shoved Bucky lightly. “I had a nice time.” he added suddenly, changing the topic completely. “Tonight. With you.”

“Me too, Sam. Like I said earlier, you’re not the worst company. Or the worst date.” Buck responded, laughing when Sam elbowed him, with what was supposed to be his full strength, but clearly didn’t work. And just like that, they were back to bantering the rest of the way.

***

They barely stepped inside the house when Sam pulled Bucky in for a long, enthusiastic kiss. Honestly Sam thought about those lips the whole evening, and he just wanted to keep kissing Bucky for as long as he could. Which wasn’t very long apparently, because Bucky pulled away way too soon.

“It’s late. You should get some sleep.” he said and went towards the living room, leaving Sam in the hallway, a little confused. It wasn’t that late. And they could stay up, it wasn’t like they had work in the morning or anything. Wow, he realized that he really just wanted to stay up and make out with Bucky. Well, not only make out, but nothing more was going to happen, so he’d settle for kissing.

“What are you doing?” Sam asked as he followed the other man into the room.

“Going to sleep. What does it look like I’m doing?” Bucky glanced at Sam before reaching for the folded blanket.

“You don’t have to sleep on the couch, you know?” Sam said, leaning on the doorway, probably emboldened a bit by the alcohol. “Plenty of room in my bed.” Bucky looked back at him, a suggestive smirk forming on his face. “Don’t even- I mean sleep. Just sleep.” Sam hurried to add before Bucky could make a comment and remind him that it’s not happening. “Get that fucking smirk off your face before I change my mind.” that got a small chuckle out of Bucky.

“You sure?” he looked kinda nervous as he put the blanket down and turned fully towards Sam.

“Yes, I’m sure. Don't make it weird.” Sam rolled his eyes, walking over to Bucky, grabbing his hand, and leading him to his room. Before that, Bucky managed to grab his bag from the couch.

Once they changed and settled in bed, Sam basically laid on top of Bucky’s chest, their faces close.

“Uh, hi?” Bucky said with a confused smile.

“Hi.” Sam answered, grinning like an idiot, before capturing Bucky’s lips in his again.

Bucky immediately reciprocated, putting his metal hand on Sam’s back, and his flesh one on the back of his head. Sam put one of his hands on Bucky’s cheek, while the other he used to prop himself up. Feeling Bucky’s strong body underneath him was incredible and a bit frustrating, because he just wanted him even closer. His head was swimming, probably from the alcohol, but he chose to believe that at least part of it was because of Bucky’s kisses. It was getting more and more heated, with tongues and teeth, and Sam’s hand started to travel from Bucky’s face to his arms and chest… and that’s when Bucky broke the kiss with a groan. Sam was vaguely aware of making a disappointed sound too, as he chased after his lips.

“So that is why you wanted me in your bed.” Bucky said, licking his lips as he looked up at Sam. “Are you trying to get in my pants, Wilson?” he raised his brow.

“Maybe.” Sam smirked, going in for another kiss, but Bucky leaned away, as far as he could with Sam still on top of him. “Buck.” he basically whined, though he’d never admit that. He just wanted to keep kissing him, goddammit.

“Sam, you gotta go to sleep. You’re drunk and tired, and it’s late. There will be plenty of time for this later.” he said, his hands trailing up and down Sam’s sides. It felt nice.

“Fine.” Sam murmured, then rolled off Bucky, but cuddled up to him immediately. “But can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Were you serious? About, y’know, the first date thing?” he felt like he was drifting off already, as soon as he laid his head down on Bucky’s flesh shoulder. Well, Bucky was right, he was really tired, apparently.

“In this case, yes.” he answered.

“Care to elaborate?” Sam asked, not feeling satisfied with the answer. What the hell did that even mean?

“I mean, if we were, I don’t know, in my apartment or something, and not in the same house as your sister and nephews, and if you weren’t drunk… who knows how the night would end.” there was a hint of teasing in his voice.

“So. When we’re alone and sober…” Sam trailed off. “Okay. That can be arranged.” at that Bucky laughed, maybe a little too loud, which made Sam shush him.

“Wow, you’re unbelievable.” he kept chuckling. “Calm down, we’ve only gone on one date.”

“Hopefully there will be more.” Sam was basically half-asleep at that point, but still awake enough to keep the conversation going.

“Yeah.” Bucky kissed the top of his head. “Goodnight.”

“Night, Buck.”

***

When he woke up, Bucky was wrapped around him, still sleeping soundly and calmly. It seemed like he didn’t have nightmares that night, and Sam was really happy for him. Bucky actually confided in him that it happened more rarely when he was here. That was good. He still had a long way to go, but that was progress. Sam turned so that he was facing Bucky, and smiled widely, running his fingers through his hair. He could wake up like that every day.

But then he was reminded of the alcohol he consumed the previous night, because he really needed to take a leak. He didn’t wanna wake Bucky, so he carefully tried to slip out of his embrace. He mostly succeeded, with the other man startling just twice, either not waking up somehow, or just choosing to stay in bed and not acknowledge the world just yet. In any case, Sam was free to go to the bathroom.

When he was done, he planned to just go back to bed, but he saw his sister in the kitchen, and smelled the delicious coffee she was drinking.

“Hi.” he greeted her, going straight for the coffee pot.

“Morning.” Sarah grinned, leaning against the counter, as Sam reached for the mug and poured himself some of the coffee. “How was your date?” she asked, her tone clearly teasing.

“It was great. Could’ve ended a bit better, but well, besides that, it was awesome.” he shrugged, leaning against the counter opposite Sarah. He had no idea why he was saying this, it would make more sense if Bucky was there and he could tease him about it, but nevermind. He just woke up and was before his coffee.

“Oh, so it was a date? You just said that you were going out.” Sarah was clearly a bit surprised, but also amused. He did say that when he saw her briefly before going out, because why would she need to know more? But he also didn’t feel the need to hide anything, especially from his sister.

“Yeah, Bucky and I went on a date.” he rolled his eyes, but couldn’t contain a smile. It sounded ridiculous and unreal, but it happened. He was on a date with Bucky, and then they slept in one bed. Crazy. “So would you stop flirting with him?” he added, just a little bit annoyed.

“Excuse me? He’s the one flirting with me” she laughed.

“You’re encouraging him, though. And he’s just being a little shit, he’s not flirting.” well, Sam wasn’t really sure about that, but he was gonna put a stop to it anyway. Again, he was not jealous. Just a bit irritated.

“Oh, I get it, he’s trying to rile you up, huh?” Sarah was grinning now. “But I know that, Sam.” she gave him an exasperated look. “I’ve known that he had eyes only for you since I met him. And you’ve been pretty obvious, too.” she took a sip of her coffee.

“No, I wasn’t. That’s bullshit.” he said, sounding offended. Even though it was more than probable for Sarah to see right through him. She knew him really well, after all.

“Sam. It’s enough that you look at him and you get this dreamy look on your face, and you can’t stop smiling. You’re so smitten.” she chuckled. Sam couldn’t argue with that. “I’m happy that you two worked it out, though.” she added, more seriously now. “But if he breaks your heart, I will kill him.”

“I don’t doubt that.” he laughed. “He won’t, but thanks, I appreciate it.” Sam felt silly thinking that, because they just started dating, but he genuinely believed that this is something that’s gonna last. He believed that Bucky wouldn’t leave him, or break his heart or whatever. In Sam’s mind, there was literally no chance for that. Which was ridiculous. Their relationship was new and fresh, and what if something like that did happen? But then again, he’s known Bucky for much longer, they’ve been through a lot together, and they developed some kind of friendship that seemed to naturally evolve into something more. Suffice it to say, he wasn’t worried. But he didn’t need to think about that now. He should really just take it one day at a time before freaking Bucky out or something.

They were silent for a moment, just sipping their coffees, before Sarah spoke up again.

“I see that Bucky didn’t sleep on the couch.” Sam just hummed to let her know he was listening, as her statement didn’t require an answer. “But you said that the date could’ve been better. So what went wrong?” she asked, seeming half curious, half amused.

“Apparently, Bucky’s a damn gentleman.” he grumbled into his mug, earning a loud laugh from Sarah.

Just then the object of their conversation walked into the kitchen, and Sam’s lips immediately formed into a wide grin.

“Mornin’.” Bucky greeted them, a soft smile appearing on his face too, upon looking at Sam.

“Hey, Buck. How’d you sleep?” Sam asked.

“Surprisingly well.” he answered, his smile widening. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Nothing.” Sam answered, at the same time as Sarah said:

“You.”

Sam gave her a death stare, while Bucky chuckled, his cheeks reddening. Before he could say anything, though, Sam asked: “Coffee?” already reaching for another mug.

Bucky looked amused, but it seemed that he let it go for now, accepting the coffee from Sam.

Soon after that, the boys came down for breakfast, which Sam had started on in the meantime.

Later, as they all sat at the table, eating breakfast and talking, Sam took a minute to just look at the rest of them. Bucky fit in so perfectly, everyone loved having him around. And he was so good with the boys, who were really excited whenever they got to spend time with him. As Sam was looking at Bucky intently listening to some story AJ was telling, while Cass tried to interject, and Sarah tried not to laugh but at the same time keep some sort of peace at the table, he knew that this was as close to perfection as it could get. This was his place and his family. He wouldn’t exchange it for anything. And as his gaze met Bucky’s, he was filled with so much affection and love, he felt as if his heart was about to jump out of his chest, and over to Bucky, probably. They smiled at each other and he knew that this, here, was the happiest he’s ever been.

***

It was about a week later when Bucky asked him out again. It was an agonizingly long week for Sam, with Bucky now sleeping in his bed, and them still not going further than some heated make-out sessions. Sam was pretty sure he was going to lose his mind if they kept this up. He loved just having Bucky around, and he loved that despite them getting romantically involved, their whole dynamic barely changed. But he was getting frustrated. So when Bucky suggested a second date, Sam eagerly agreed.

He couldn’t have expected what Bucky planned, though.

He found himself on his boat, just before sunset, a blanket spread on the deck, with a couple of pillows, and a picnic basket with some food and a bottle of wine. Sam was amazed.

“What the-” he cut off, looking from the prepared picnic to Bucky, and back at the boat. “I- uh, I had no idea you could be so, um, romantic.”

“Yeah, well.” Bucky rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “I wanted to do something nice. And maybe spend some time alone.” he shrugged, his cheeks reddening. “And the boat is fixed up now, so… I gotta admit tho, Sarah really helped with the food. It’s not much, but-” he shrugged again.

“It’s amazing.” Sam smiled, bringing Bucky closer and leaving a soft kiss on his lips. It wasn’t that late and there were still some people at the docks, but he didn’t really give a fuck. He wanted to kiss Bucky, and that’s what he was gonna do, no matter what others might say. Or what might get leaked to the press. He would worry about that later.

“Okay, let’s just get going, before the sun goes down. I’ve been told that sunsets are romantic or some shit.�� Bucky’s whole face was red now, and he clearly tried to downplay his emotions and the fact that maybe he also thought that sunsets are romantic and wanted to look at one with Sam. It was adorable, and Sam just wanted to stay in that moment forever.

“Yeah, okay.” he just said, still grinning from ear to ear.

Soon enough, Bucky steered the boat out on the water, quite far from the docks, while Sam made comments about how he’d better not drown his family’s boat and since when could he steer a boat, anyway.

The sun was quite low when they both finally sat down on the blanket. Bucky poured them wine, because of course the guy brough fucking wine glasses on deck, and they just sat there, enjoying the snacks prepared by Sarah, and looking at the beautiful sunset. At some point Sam glanced at Bucky though, and he couldn’t look away. Bucky was so gorgeous, and in that moment it was even more accentuated by the relaxed look on his face and the light from the setting sun. He was more beautiful than the sunset. And Sam just… Sarah was right, he was smitten. He was so gone, there was no turning back.

“You’re staring.” Bucky said, his gaze still on the horizon, taking a sip of the wine.

“I like the view.” Sam responded, enjoying how Bucky’s cheeks immediately got pink again. “Besides, you’re always staring. I think I’m entitled to stare a bit too.”

“Sure.” Bucky chuckled, glancing at Sam. Then he leaned in to kiss him. This kiss was short, chaste and sweet, and it was just perfect for that moment.

Sam loved kissing Bucky. They managed to kiss quite a lot in the short time since they’ve started doing that, but still every time they did, he felt the same excitement as if he was kissing him for the first time. And that reminded him of how nervous and panicked he was, which seemed silly now, that he could just lean in at any moment, and it would most likely be reciprocated.

And he loved this whole date, it was so simple and peaceful, and it was just them. Bucky really seemed to know what Sam wanted, or maybe he just wanted the same things, but either way, it was nice. It was wonderful. And so surprising, Sam never would’ve thought Bucky could come up with something like this. Although… did he, really?

“So, this date.” Sam leaned back on his hands, looking at Bucky curiously. “You thought of it yourself or did Sarah help you with that, too?” he kept his tone jocular, to make sure Bucky knew that he wasn’t serious. He loved it anyway, no matter where the idea came from.

“I came up with it.” Buck admitted, looking away. He seemed kinda shy, which only made Sam smile fondly. “I just thought you might like it.” he grumbled.

“I love it, Buck.”

“Good.” he looked at Sam, giving him one of his most charming smiles. “For once you’re not gonna complain.”

“I never complain.”

“Whatever you wanna tell yourself.” Bucky rolled his eyes and Sam kicked his leg lightly.

“You’re lucky I like to spend time with you, ‘cause usually you’re annoying the shit outta me.” Sam laughed.

“I am lucky.” Bucky’s voice was quieter and softer this time. Sam was amazed at how they could go from teasing and joking to serious conversation and right back. It was crazy, but then again, so were they.

“You’re gonna be all sappy the whole date?” he asked because it was stronger than him. Honestly, he wouldn’t really mind that.

“I dunno. But if you have a problem with that, you can always leave and go home.” he gestured vaguely towards the docks, which were pretty far away now.

“We’re on a boat, Buck.” Sam rolled his eyes, but he knew Bucky and he knew what he was gonna say next. So he was just humoring him now.

“Can’t you swim?” he smirked.

Sam chuckled despite himself. It wasn’t even funny, and he predicted that was what was gonna come out of Bucky’s mouth. And he still couldn’t help a laugh. His feelings and infatuation with Bucky were progressing, way too quickly for his liking.

A while later, they found themselves laying down on the blanket and pillows, looking up at the dark sky and the stars. It was a beautiful, clear night, and the stars were almost as captivating as Bucky, but not quite, which is why Sam kept glancing at him once in a while. A couple of times he caught Bucky looking at him, too, which made him feel all giddy.

They were also talking and finishing the one and only bottle of wine that Bucky brought.

Then at some point Sam propped himself up to take a sip of his last glass, and never laid back down, instead leaning in and kissing Bucky. Soon enough, they were full-on making out, pressed against each other. When Sam felt Bucky’s hands roam over his body, one even landing on his ass, this time he pulled away, albeit reluctantly. Bucky groaned in disappointment, moving his kisses to Sam’s neck.

“Sam, what the hell?” he asked, his voice muffled by Sam’s skin.

“Uh, I really don’t want you to stop. But I have a question.” Sam said, panting a bit already. Bucky sighed with exasperation and pulled back to look at Sam and raised his eyebrow. “If I remember correctly, last time it was not being alone in the house and the alcohol. So I just need to know if you changed your mind or if you’re just being a tease right now.” he said that more seriously than he felt, but he wanted to know how he should approach the situation.

“That’s why there was only one bottle of wine, Sam.” the exasperation was still in Buck’s voice. “Enough to get you a small buzz, without getting drunk. And I figured wine would’ve been romantic or something.” he mumbled the last bit, reluctantly letting it slip. “And it’s not a first date.” he added louder, with a smirk on his face.

“Okay.” Sam licked his lips and took a deep breath. “So we agree what’s happening here, right? We’re gonna do the nasty?” he wiggled his eyebrows.

“Just say have sex like a normal person.” Bucky rolled his eyes, capturing his lips in a passionate kiss again.

And finally, freaking finally, Bucky didn’t pull away when Sam’s hands slipped under his shirt. Even better, Bucky took it off and Sam could admire him in his full glory. He actually took a second to stop kissing and just look, because damn. He moved so now he was straddling his lap, and trailed his hands over Bucky’s chest and then down his arms, feeling the difference in the textures, and Bucky seemed a little bit nervous for a second, before Sam smiled and brought both his hands up to leave a kiss on each of them. He had no idea why but the metal arm was definitely doing it for him. Soon, that arm wrapped around his hips and brought him even closer to Bucky, if that was possible, and they kissed like that for what felt simultaneously long and too short. He briefly thought that it was so great that it was summer and the night was warm, but that thought disappeared as soon as Bucky flipped them over so that Sam was on his back, feeling the hard boards underneath, and Bucky started trailing kisses down his now bare chest. And he got lower and lower and lower… and Sam was losing his mind, this time in a good way. That was about to be the best night he’s had in a long while.

***

Later, laying on the pillows and the blanket that they were half wrapped up in, Sam felt blissful. Once again he couldn’t take his eyes off of the man beside him. He just… Bucky was the best thing that could’ve happened to him. He has grown so much over the past couple months, and Sam couldn’t have been more proud. He was an amazing person, with a big heart and this whole grumpy facade that hid a real softie. Sam loved their conversations and even, or especially, the bickering and teasing. He secretly loved Bucky’s sense of humor, too, even if it sucked and he was rarely funny. Plus, he was just gorgeous and Sam wanted to keep looking at him forever.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Bucky asked, his flesh hand tracing small patterns on Sam’s arm.

“Nothing.” he smiled, leaving a soft kiss on Bucky’s lips. It wasn’t really nothing. But he felt like it was too soon to say. Even if he was more sure of it than anything.

He was undoubtedly, completely, utterly in love.

Bucky raised his eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Just flashed him that gorgeous, soft smile, and Sam just melted, going in for another kiss, he just couldn’t resist. He hadn’t felt happier in years.

Yeah, he really loved Bucky.

THE END

[indigosprite]

In another ask, you shared your thoughts on why you didn’t like 6996 etc. do you think 2795 share the same problem? I think while Tsuna and Kyoko doesn’t seem as weird as 6996 on the surface upon further speculation and reading works where Kyoko becomes this bamf vongola tenth wife who does anything for Tsuna, it sort of treads the same vibe as Chrome and Mukuro in some way. Idk I just want to hear your thoughts on maybe 2795 and maybe 2786 as well.

Hi hi

Had to search these because I literally did not have any ships for this show until I rewatched it and just merged my favorite characters into one pair that happened to be a ship. I  forget the others exist...With that being said, take this with a grain of salt because I honestly don’t even think about these ships a lot, forget they even exist. How KHR was written will always make the the very idea of Tsuna with any of the female characters feel weird or odd unless you’ve managed to read or create enough Fanon that changes your characterization of the original dynamic. I don’t think they share the same problem but maybe a similar one ? Tsuna and any female character compared to Mukuro and Chrome is very different in my opinion. (funnily enough it’s also because Mukuro isn’t a misogynist shsjsjsj) 6996 could work, they actually have a relationship that’s very personal to both parties and unlike 2795 they’re both aware of it and have a distinct unique connection with each other that consists of shared interests trust and mutual respect. it’s just odd to think about because chrome looks up to Mukuro and the power imbalance feels weird, he’s literally keeping her alive. (Which I know is disgustingly sweet I find it very heartwarming. )

2795 is this one sided crush with zero redeeming qualities. There was nothing remotely romantic or intriguing happening between Tsuna and Kyoko the entire series. If we took out Tsuna’s inner thoughts we honestly would’ve thought she was just this nice girl he knows from school. If we took out Tsuna’s thoughts in general and left it up to the fandom pulling this ship out of their butts it would honestly be 1000% cuter. All their interactions read like

“this girl is so lovely I really like her and she’s talking to me that’s amazing”

“Thanks for the pencil. Do your best on the test okay?”

I’m not swooning over the most lackluster interactions on the planet because he is over romanticizing it. Even the reason why he likes her is not that interesting or convincing. Which I mean I get it he’s only 14 he’s not thinking about all the small stuff like emotional support or validation or like not wanting to be alone etc. It’s still just you’re pretty let’s be happy all the time while you hold my hand forever. He deserves that he’s literally a kid. but even when i was younger i didn’t see it between them ever. On top of their interactions being boring they never give us things that make you go “oh wait she might actually like him hmmm” . they could have tried a little harder to make it a little more romantic? sometimes they show us Kyoko in a pink background hands clasped surrounded by hearts and I forget she’s supposed to be viewed in that light. I forget we’re supposed to actually consider her liking him too but what are we supposed to think Kyoko is looking for in a guy that makes Tsuna a possibility when she doesn't exist past eating cake and worrying about her brother and Tsuna. I think it’s also fair to note that they never imply that Tsuna actually thinks about her beyond his image of her but we see how caring he is with his friends to the point where he can point out their flaws and work through them anyways and accept them. Tsuna realizing Yamamoto was not himself during the Guardians trial is a perfect example of this, it establishes the relationship they built with one another. another example is Tsuna acknowledging that Gokudera is overwhelming and short tempered but he wouldn’t trade the guy for anyone because he is loyal and a good friend.  he cares for Kyoko as a person in general but he never reaches that depth when it comes to her. he doesn’t have to either because it’s just a crush, how you manage to take that through the next ten years of his life I honestly don’t know. 

TL;DR : My ONLY problem with 2795 is the fact that there is nothing to work off of but the implication that Tsuna likes this girl and that’s why they are endgame. she matters very little, just a figurehead of his normalcy. she’s written just as badly in fics, can I blame you? no you were probably like 14 writing them. do a lot of people still do this ? yeah so i’m just not interested until the fanon has changed her character for everyone. 

I know I sound super hypocritical because “Sprite what the fuck does 6918 have that’s soooo intriguing they actually canonically hate each other how is that any better.” the answer: Mukuro and Hibari have a more established relationship with mutual feelings than those two, even better they’re actually really strong feelings (of pure hatred). Bonus, despite being aloof both characters also have fully developed personalities and Opinions/Behaviors that we can mold however we please. they actually have a relationship to play around with that's what makes it fun and lets you have those “actually they’re pretty similar in this aspect” because you know shit about both of them individually. 

Now for 2786,,, as i sit here and think about it Haru and Tsuna make so much more sense for all the reasons him and kyoko don’t . 

Kyoko and Haru were already made solely to be Tsuna’s love interests (specifically Kyoko) , but then it went on to be something they didn’t even bother hiding when they reduced their characters and their interests to looking after kids and repeatedly worrying over Tsuna. The reason I don’t find it appealing is because there really wasn’t any dynamic there at all. This boy liked this girl and that’s literally all it was. She has no depth , and despite being written for him nothing about Kyoko screams you’re perfect for this kid. Nothing says, You’re compatible, You have common interests, you two can rely on each other. She was pretty and nice and polite and that’s all they shared along with half the cast. With Haru they went the completely opposite direction, this girl likes him and is upfront about it. she's not a better candidate just because she's not the typical pretty girl whos quiet and polite and caring,(She’s not the better written female character either, this is reborn. they all lose here.) she’s the better candidate because we actually have a personality to compare to Tuna's. she was purposely given this big personality because he was never going to be in love with her because she’s like all the other intruding figures of his life. Again we have this one sided crush, know he doesn’t like her at all but you can actually see where they do go right and wrong. she’s a complete person. 

Haru can handle a little wild in her life, she was the first one to know he would be a mafia boss and it didn’t phase her at all. Tsuna might need that later in life.

In the future when Tsuna finds her crying she tells him not to think her feelings have anything to do with him, completely different dynamic from kyoko whos emotions are always directly related to male characters and what they are doing. 

Haru and her cosplays are so perfectly absurd and she does not care how weird he finds them, she has this big embarrassing trait to her that Tsuna comically responds to but just grows to overlook and accept.  

she actually talks to Tsuna quite a lot and helps him out whenever she can, because he doesn't like her she's allowed to actually exist in his world and he sees her fully because of it. It makes sense to see his significant other who will be involved in the mafia as an asset who he wants to protect and not just...something he needs to protect bc they honestly don't want this.

she interviews the entire cast of the show because haru just fits there, in a yamamoto like way, she can just handle it. 

Tsuna and Haru could have been perfect friends or a couple. they had the grounds for it. it’s just not what he wanted but I can totally see them working out for each other later in life. they make so much sense! i’ll have to think about them more sometime soon. 

Hope I answered you questions, this got long.

[c-is-for-circinate]

So I was just chatting with @yfere​ about the sociological implications of a whole society based around consecution, and I mentioned that I had a ton of thoughts about how it messes with child-rearing, and I wanted to gather them in their own post.

Like, to start with, just imagine the regular citizens of Rosohna, or Asarius, or Bazzoxan, or any other city in Xhorhas, having children.  All the un-consecuted regular citizens, living nearer or farther from the center of the town where the Important People live and die and are born and reborn.  What must that be like?

(And--are the Beacons only in Rosohna?  I had it in the back of my head that they were spread out in important cities, to catch anybody who dies, just in case.  How does it change things if they are?  If they aren’t?)  

You live your life, and you know, you’re not ancient and undying like the members of the Dens, you’re not powerful enough to earn consecution--you’ll get this one life, and that will have to be enough for you, but you’ll have a family and maybe a little bit of a legacy and that’ll help, too.  What the hell is it like to have a child, knowing that maybe they’ll grow up to be like you, and maybe they’ll grow up and turn out to be somebody else entirely?

Do some families deliberately try to get pregnant or give birth nearer to where the beacons are kept?  If your child grows up to be a consecuted soul, part of one of the dens--maybe they’ll remember you fondly, maybe they’ll take care of you, maybe they’ll love you enough that they’ll sponsor you for consecution as well.  Do some families deliberately try to get as far away from the beacons as possible?  If your child grows up to be a consecuted soul, maybe they’ll abandon you in the dirt, maybe they won’t care at all any more, maybe they won’t ever really be your child, maybe they just won’t.  I’m so sure that in some corners of non-consecuted society it’s a fairytale, like marrying rich, something that parents want for their kids and something that 14-year-olds giggle and daydream about at slumber parties, I hope that’ll be me.  I’m so sure that in some corners it’s a horror story, one day you turn around and your child is Different, and then they’re not your child any more.  (And yes--that is a horror story that people use in our world, and it’s bullshit and nasty and damaging in every way.  It’s still bullshit in Exandria.  It’s always bullshit, but it’s so easy for that story to go so, so bad.)

There has to be so much hope and fear involved in having kids, in Rosohna.  And that’s for the average citizens.

And then, more and beyond: imagine you’re a member of one of the Dens.  You’re hundreds of years old, or a thousand years old, or this is your first life but you’ve found your consecution and you know you’re set for as long as you need to be.  You have a baby.  And you look at this brand new infant, here in your arms, and you know for sure that there are two possibilities:

This child is already somebody else.  They’ve lived at least one life before, maybe many, maybe dozens.  In a short handful of years, they’re going to remember who they really are.  Until then, they’ll be a child, and they’ll need you and tug at your hems and love you, and then one day they’ll remember who else they are and they’ll stop. Maybe, possibly, they’ll be a member of your den, and you’ll discover that you were always family all along.  You’ll stay close as adults, bound in friendship by your experience of raising them when they were helpless and small, and remember it fondly centuries from now when you both look different yet again. Maybe, and probably more likely by the numbers, they’ll be a member of another den.  They’ll reach an age when they realize they already have a family, and leave you cordially to go find the place they already belong.  That could be useful, if you do it right: if you raise them with the appropriate amounts of tenderness, and they care for you even as an adult, that could be useful leverage with a political rival when they reclaim their place.  Still, that puts you in the same vulnerable position, if you get too close.  Best to be careful. Maybe this child you’re raising will turn out to be an enemy you’ve had for centuries.  Maybe they’re an old friend, maybe they’ve been your parent before long ago.  Maybe this child turns out to have the soul that used to belong to your one-time lover--you can’t tell me, in a thousand years of reincarnation, that’s never come up at least once.  There are probably horror stories.  No matter what, though, this kid isn’t really yours, if they’re already a consecuted soul.  Not really.

Or: this child has never lived before, ever.  They are a new soul fresh to this world.  They have no den.  They are full of possibility. It is possible that someday, they will prove themselves and be consecuted into your den, to really be your family forevermore.  It could take centuries, of course, if they’re not an impossibly talented prodigy, and how many kids are lucky enough to be that?  By the time your child is consecuted you may well be on your next life anyway.  You might not even know them when you see them again, both of you two or three bodies down the line.  And you’ll be members of the same den, and you’ll remember this childhood, and you’ll be family, but--not quite the same way. It’s possible that someday they’ll prove themselves and be consecuted into another den.  After all, if consecution sometimes takes centuries to earn, who knows what could happen?  Maybe that’s unlikely, in the social system; maybe new souls tend to stick around the dens they’re born near, but it has to be a possibility.  Nobody is really part of a den until they’re officially consecuted into it, that’s been established.  You can’t be born into a family unless you were there before. Or maybe your child won’t ever be consecuted at all.  We-the-viewers don’t really know the rates at which children born to the members of dens become consecuted themselves, but it doesn’t seem to be a sure thing.  Consecution has to be earned.  How many kids are born and raised by members of dens, and live out their lives, and that’s it?  What’s it like to be a parent looking at your newborn child and knowing, they may very well just be a short blip in your very very long existence?  They could die while you’re off being a teenager of another sex or species on the other side of the city, and you’ll never even know.

Neither of these situations is really conducive towards building a strong bond between parent and child.  Hell, there’s every possibility that at least one of your parents (from this life, or last life, or the life before) is wandering around younger than you right now, maybe in your den or maybe in another one entirely.  The entire den system is set up to say: your Den is your true family, the family of your immortal soul.  Your current physical body and its family doesn’t matter.  It can’t matter.  Not really.

And that has to be such a fucked-up way to grow up for a kid.  Your parents love you (maybe), but they have a whole life and family that’s just theirs.  They promise that when you grow up, you’ll remember your own true family and go off to be with them instead.  They say that if you don’t have a true family yet, maybe in time you can find one and prove yourself.  They say this is how life is supposed to be.  And always, always, they’re being careful, because what if you’re not who they think you are?  What if you’re an enemy?  What if, what if, what if?

I started this train of thought when I was pondering Essek, of course, because he starts to make a lot of sense when you consider, well, all of this in terms of his childhood.  (Is it less damaging, growing up with parents in a Den who always keep you at arms’ length, if you reach a certain age and actually do regain those memories of being truly loved by somebody else somewhere else who’ll take you back now in their stead?)  The thing is the whole system has so many implications across the board.

It seems like, in the Dynasty, you have to be nice to kids, because you never know who they’ll grow up to have been.  And yet also, in the Dynasty, you can’t ever actually get really close to kids, either, because not even they know who they actually are.

Man, what a screwed up way to live.

[thevividgreenmoss]

The more I see from Mark Fisher the more fruitless his writing seems in terms of actual implications for theoretical/practical future movement of any anti-capitalist politics...like for all his talk of the impotent paralyzed state of a left unable to escape or meaningfully able to learn from its past, beset by circular patterns of discourse and movement it's tied itself up in as a result of cultural fixations/conflicts and stifling insular academic and/or online intellectual developments that are often completely detached from the actual political sphere, unable to formulate an actionable political programme that can genuinely confront power, have no relevance to the social base of a potential anti-capitalist movement, etc, like for all the talk of that shit his own critiques of those things tend to essentialize them as inextricable, even inevitable features of capitalism itself and as a result cultural or intellectual trends that are not intrinsic to but symptomatic of a system based on this particular mode of production, and that develop as a result of the interplay between societal elements existing within and formed by that system in a given time and place, are posited instead as defining features of that system (for example the insistence that regurgitation of past cultural forms must be seen as inevitable features or tendencies of capitalism - and that that alleged fact has some fundamental explanatory power - rather than being seen as trends that have come to prominence, and cyclically have become prominent before as well, due to the ebbs and flows of accumulation of intellectual property & consolidation of productive/investment capital etc and that at times have given way to or existed alongside dominant cultural/artistic movements outside of that retrofetishistic lane. Which like even when that was the case capitalism was still bad...like the problem is not encapsulated by the culture's perceived failure to find the next jungle music, nor would it be solved or meaningfully altered were the next jungle music to be found). And in that process you're bestowing an undue sense of significance upon and giving a completely misplaced centrality to things that you're purporting to be criticizing on the grounds that they distract from and are unproductive when it comes to dealing with the pressing core issues by which we're actually faced, while completely failing to incorporate the breadth of actual political & economic shifts, movements, conflicts, etc both against and in favor of the expansion of capital within your analysis in the same way that the individuals/organizations/institutions that you started out critiquing are guilty of. And that related failure to genuinely consider political reality as it exists outside of certain insular left spaces & discourses as well as the left spaces & discourses being used as the basis for the critique being advanced largely neglects anything that might be going on outside of metropolitan centers within advanced western states (and even then it seems mostly confined to the anglosphere) that might complicate or even outright contradict the narratives being advanced, which idk may also contribute to the tendency to grossly generalize and even essentialize specific aspects of society or culture that have taken shape in the first-world as being endemic to capitalism itself as it exists and must exist everywhere at all times...and even if that's being done based on the view one sometimes sees that as capitalism advances then the societal condition of the global south will come to resemble that of the current north then it's still bullshit because while of course that does and will still continue to happen in some respects, there's no broad convergence of that sort in sight at all and given increased pauperization already in motion as a result of ongoing economic trends and mass migrations as a result of accelerating climate change the future of LA or Berlin might look more like the present in Rio de Janeiro or Mumbai than vice versa...idk like there are genuinely interesting discussions of music and evocative (though by no means novel on the level or either tone or content) descriptions of a certain kind of prevalent malaise and ennui peppered throughout Fisher's work but his analyses of the way those things reflect and/or are produced by capitalism itself either fall off the mark or, again, aren't advancing any ideas that haven't long been circulating either in the marxist critical tradition or in any others that have in differing ways been in some form of dialogue with or have to some degree been influenced by it (even those that either explicitly/self-consciously or not find themselves in opposition to marxism, poststructuralism being probably the most obvious/notorious example) right down to the concept of capitalist realism itself, which as elaborated by Fisher offers nothing that isn't present in the diverse and even divergent analyses & conceptual frameworks surrounding ideology, consciousness, hegemony, the ~real~, etc that were already there in the work of everyone from Marx himself to Lukacs to Gramsci to Althusser, Baudrillard, Jameson, Eagleton or numerous other notable figures even just within the western intellectual realm. Like the only distinguishing feature of Fisher's capitalist realism is his contention that in the aftermath of the USSR's collapse, not only has the social reality generated by capital successfully naturalized itself in various pervasive ways as it has been doing for the past five hundred years, but now there's been a crucial turn in that since 1991 there's been an additionally ingrained negation of our ability to conceive of or pursue alternatives to neoliberal capitalism on a collective level, which allegedly wasn't there before...which like I'm sorry but that's a ridiculous fucking claim to make especially in light of the fact that shortly before his death Fisher said that the movements behind/supporting the rise of Jeremy Corbyn to labour party leadership & the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign represented breaks in and the beginning of the end of the era of capitalist realism, which like. If that's the standard then how does the latin american pink tide of the late 90s-late 00s, which involved much larger popular movements that were much more firmly rooted in and directed by the working classes and peasantry and that pursued much more radical goals and even in the face of counter-revolutionary forces that have been ascendant in recent years still succeeded in attaining significant tangible gains for themselves, especially when compared to the negligible results that revived new deal democratic or midcentury labour agendas have had so far in the US & UK, like how did that shit not contradict capitalist realism well beforehand...or the fact that in Cuba the first post-Soviet decade entailed a renewal of genuine socialist energy & societal transformation of a kind not seen since the first 10-15 years immediately following the revolution, or on the other end of things, the clerical authoritarianism that existed in iran already at the time, or the terrifying rate at which the genuinely fascist RSS consolidated popular support and came to have an increasing hold over the various institutions governing Indian society, especially since the early 90s, until at this point there's no significant challenge to their power within the second most populous country in the world...like all those things seem to be much greater refutations from so-called capitalist realism to the point that the concept seems to have no meaning or utility at all...like whether intentionally or not,  Fisher's ~acid communism~ basically leads to the same endpoint, perhaps with different aesthetic trappings, as FALC bullshit, where residents of the first world are freed of the labor and alienation of the past by a super expanded version of the welfare states created by postwar european social democracies and can both go to raves and consume as often as we want. The problem wasn't the violent abstraction of commodified life, the value form, whatever it was that we couldn't pursue and indulge in the thrills and pleasures that per my mans Lyotard & Nick Land are undeniably present in capitalist consumer society except now we can, thanks to those beefed up fully automated welfare states, those indulgences are no longer simultaneously a source of malaise and depression as they previously were when the free market barred the masses from partaking of them with the freedom and reckless abandon that are necessary in order to give us that truly liberated libidinal fulfillment. What the effects of the magically automated extraction of the natural resources necessary to maintain that steady flow of goods and resources to the fully automated luxury acid communists might be on the environment, how that might impact the people that live in the places where extractive industries tend to be based, how they might fit into this acid FALC utopia, whether they'd be forced into ever more menial forms or labor building or providing upkeep for the robots that replaced their former fellow proletarians in the first world, whether their labor might itself be the supposedly 'automated' part of fully automated luxury communism, whether they might legally be recategorized as robots so as to prevent that seeming contradiction from shaking things up, no need to trouble ourselves with that

[there-must-be-a-lock]

Business As Usual

Criminal Minds Rockstar AU! 

Word Count: ~3890

Warnings: Implications of offscreen shenanigans, Reid and JJ being devious little shits, but nothing too wild. 

A/N: Why does this exist? Fuck if I know! Was it a fucking blast to write? Fuck yes it was! The headcanon popped into my brain fully-formed while I was driving home from work one day, @stunudo​ and @rockhoochie​ encouraged me, and here I am. This will, at some point, be tied into the SPN rockstar au that I’ve been dicking around with, but for now it’s just the BAU doing their thing! 

Business As Usual

Talking Family and Feminism With Rock’s Hottest New Band

-

There are already fans lining up outside Terminal 5 when I arrive in the afternoon. It’s the first time Business As Usual will be playing in New York since the release of their sophomore album, Wheels Up, which has become the runaway surprise hit of the summer, largely thanks to the success of the first single, “Revelations.” They’ve gone from critically praised indie darlings to the brink of mainstream stardom, seemingly overnight. 

Band manager David Rossi, for one, isn’t surprised at the sudden attention. 

Rossi is an industry vet with almost four decades of experience under his belt. He’d been retired for a couple years when a friend dragged him out to see B.A.U. playing in a dive bar. He says that within two songs, he knew “the kids,” as he calls them, would be huge. By the end of the show, he was ready to come out of retirement if they’d let him manage them. 

With attention comes scrutiny, and for most bands, the rumors would be flying already. However, B.A.U. definitely isn’t most bands; there are no whispers of groupies, crazy parties, or other rockstar antics here. When you meet them face to face, that reputation makes perfect sense. They’re quiet and quirky, and they seem like five of the unlikeliest rock stars in modern music. 

-

“Very nice to meet you, Paul,” Rossi says, turning on the charm. This one’s gonna be a piece of cake. “Now. Before we get any further, just a couple things.” 

He gives the reporter his best fuck with my kids and I will fuck you up look and makes sure the guy looks suitably intimidated before he continues. 

“First, don’t believe half of what comes out of Penelope’s mouth, at least not until you confirm with somebody else. She likes to see what ridiculous things journalists will print.” This is, obviously, a lie, but they’ve found it’s the best way to deal with Penelope’s inability to keep anything private. “Trust me. You listen to her, you’ll end up with egg on your face.” 

“No problem,” Paul says obediently. 

“Second, you do not mention Reid’s stalker. Is that clear?” 

Paul nods, but Rossi waits for a moment, until he starts wilting slightly under the stare.

“I understand,” he says, nodding emphatically, and Rossi gives him a clap on the shoulder and a big smile. 

“Wonderful. Other than that, we’re an open book. Come in, they’re just getting ready for soundcheck. Let’s get you something to drink.” 

-

Officially, the band is made up of Emily Prentiss (vocals), Derek Morgan (guitar), Jennifer “JJ” Jareau (bass), Spencer Reid (keys), and Aaron Hotchner (drums). At first glance, they don’t look like they have anything in common; most bands tend to dress in a similar style and come from similar musical backgrounds, but these five couldn’t be more different. Reid, for example, was a classical piano prodigy who graduated from Berklee at the age of seventeen, and has a tendency to dress like an absentminded professor, while Prentiss, with her Siouxsie Sioux eyeliner, dropped out of prep school to tour with a riot-girl band. 

Producer and sound tech Penelope Garcia is the unofficial sixth member of the band, and they all credit her with melding their various eclectic songwriting styles into one distinctive, experimental sound. 

Garcia is an anomaly in a male-dominated field, possibly even more so than Prentiss and Jareau, but instead of trying to blend in or prove that she’s tough enough to fit in with the rest of the crew, she makes a point to stand out. During sound check, she’s wearing a wildly colorful dress and pink heels, which match the pink streaks in her hair and her thick pink-framed glasses. When I ask whether she deals with sexism in the music industry, she just laughs. 

 “Of course there are jerks,” she says, shrugging. “There are always going to be jerks. But I know I’m good at what I do, and my band knows I’m good at what I do, and that’s what matters.” 

“And the other women? Do they get heckled or catcalled a lot?” 

“The only person who’s allowed to objectify my band is me,” Garcia says cheerfully, and then makes a face. “Kidding! I would never.”  

-

“Nicely done on that solo, hot stuff, you play that guitar almost as well as you fill out those jeans,” Penelope says into the dead mic. It goes directly to the band’s in-ear monitors, so nobody else can hear. Derek laughs and the rest of the band roll their eyes.

When they set up the extra mics and the band-to-booth-only channel, this was not what they had in mind (as Rossi keeps reminding her) but… it’s so much fun. She hasn’t made Derek crack up mid-show yet, but she’ll get there. 

“One of these days you’re gonna use the wrong channel and the entire house is gonna hear you,” JJ says into her own second mic, but she’s grinning too. 

“Let ‘em listen, they’d just be jealous,” Penelope says breezily. “Another one?” 

“Can we run ‘Eviler Twin’ with the new bridge?” Spencer asks. 

Penelope adjusts levels on his synths and shoots him a thumbs up. “You got it, Boy Wonder. Hotch, count ‘em in.” 

-

Lead singer Emily Prentiss has a larger-than-life presence from the moment she steps onstage. She’s commanding and confident, and it’s hard to take your eyes off of her, whether she’s crowdsurfing, jumping around the stage, or delivering one of her trademark fiery speeches between songs. 

When Prentiss first expressed an interest in singing, her mother hired a private vocal coach who specialized in opera, and was disappointed when her daughter showed interest in less classical genres. 

“She was pissed,” Prentiss says, smiling to herself. “I started sneaking out when I was fourteen or so and going to this one little local dive bar that got all the punk and hardcore bands. I’m still not sure how I convinced them to let me in. But seeing the Dead Kennedys made me decide I was going to be in a band. I just looked at Jello Biafra and thought, I want to do that.”  

While their music isn’t explicitly political, the band themselves aren’t shy about expressing their opinions, Prentiss in particular. 

-

“...and that’s why I never wear a bra,” Emily finishes. “Does that answer your question?” 

“I think so?” Paul says hesitantly. He’s making a noble effort not to look down at her tits. 

Emily’s pretty sure it doesn’t answer the question, not even a little bit, but she’s also pretty sure the question was about relationships, so. Fuck that question. 

Emily’s not great at press, but she is excellent at rambling about the patriarchy until people tune her out. 

-

Drummer Aaron Hotchner, best known as “Hotch,” has become the unlikely sex symbol of the band, despite being the only one who’s happily married. The attention only seems to embarrass him. 

“It’s real fun to read him thirst tweets and watch him turn colors,” Penelope says, with a devilish grin. “But you didn’t hear it from me.” 

When Hotch goes out to greet fans after the show, the female shrieks reach a deafening pitch. He greets everyone with a charming, dimpled smile and talks to each one as if there’s no one else waiting for his attention. The crowd is sizeable and some of the fans are overfamiliar, to put it mildly, but Hotch spends over an hour there, speaking to everyone individually. He remains unfailingly polite, taking pictures and signing things even after the rest of his bandmates have excused themselves for the night. 

“He’s just the sweetest,” one girl sighs to her friend as they finally head home. 

Hotch, who is notoriously unenthusiastic about talking to the press, did not want to comment. 

-

“Love you too, Jack. Take care of your mom,” Hotch is saying, as he walks through the green room door. He hangs up, and Emily can see the moment he notices Paul; his smile vanishes and his eyebrows flatten in a scowl. 

“Was that your son?” Paul asks politely. 

“Yes.” 

“How is he?” 

“Fine.” 

Paul’s smile falters for a second. “Do you talk to them every night, when you’re on the road? Touring must be tough.” 

Hotch just gives him a curt nod this time and Emily winces. Paul clears his throat. 

“So… you used to play in a grunge band, is that right?” he asks tentatively. 

Hotch gives him another stony look. “That is correct.” 

JJ opens the door, and Emily can’t help but mutter, “Oh thank fuck.” 

JJ looks between Hotch, who is holding eye contact without blinking, and a petrified Paul. Then she quirks an eyebrow at Emily, who gives her a panicked nod. 

“Hi there, you must be Paul,” JJ says warmly. She jabs Hotch discreetly in the side as she passes him. “Rossi and Morgan are getting food, Hotch, they said you should join them.” 

He looks like he’s about to protest, but Emily shoots him a look and he heads for the door. 

JJ sits next to Paul with a dazzlingly bright smile, eyelashes fluttering. “It is so nice to meet you. Reid and Garcia are in the batcave, I’m happy to take you out there, but I’m all yours if there’s anything you’d like to ask me about first.” 

Emily shoots her a thumbs-up and escapes before Paul notices. 

-

Jennifer Jareau, better known as “JJ,” has the sort of wholesome, all-American beauty that turns heads wherever she goes; she wouldn’t look out of place on a magazine cover. In fact, modeling was what led her indirectly to the band. 

JJ started playing music in her high school marching band, but never intended to pursue it seriously. She was the valedictorian of her small town’s high school and had a full scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh. Between her sophomore and junior years, though, she was spotted by a modeling agency and offered a job; it would just be one week, in Los Angeles. She says she was most excited about the opportunity to fly in an airplane for the first time. 

While in L.A., JJ met Prentiss, and the rest is history. The two women seem to work seamlessly together and frequently complete each others’ sentences, but while Prentiss is commanding and confident, JJ is soft-spoken and feminine, almost motherly. 

-

“I always wanted a family,” JJ says, with her most heartfelt Colgate-ad smile. “It ended up looking a little different than I expected, but here we are.” 

JJ’s 95% sure that’ll be the pull quote for the article. Men like Paul eat that traditional shit up with a spoon; she should probably rein it in before he jizzes himself. 

-

The “batcave,” as they call it, is so full of gear and recording equipment that I stand in the doorway while I talk to Reid and Garcia. Her desk takes up a third of the room, and it holds two laptops in addition to several sound boards and microphones. She’s putting together a rough demo of a song they started working on a couple days earlier. 

Reid, meanwhile, is sitting on the floor, surrounded by the disassembled parts of two amps, and he’s tinkering with something tiny and delicate-looking. When I ask what he’s doing, he rattles off a rapid-fire string of technical jargon, and I have to ask him to repeat himself. He looks to Garcia, who holds up her hands as if to say ‘don’t look at me,’ and Reid turns back to me to say, simply, “I’m making it sound better.” 

Reid has a tendency to speak at three times the speed of most humans, and frequently goes off on baffling tangents about everything from obscure composers to beekeeping to the origins of Halloween. It’s hard to follow, sometimes, but his bandmates seem used to it. 

When asked if anything has changed with the band’s recent success, he says thoughtfully, “I honestly haven’t noticed. None of it makes a difference to me, as long as I get to play music.” He pauses for a moment, then adds with a smile, “My high school reunion last month was very satisfying, though.” 

-

“... William Onyeabor, of course! Lately, also, a lot of Philip Glass and Gil Scott-Heron.” 

Spencer realizes he’s been staring up at the ceiling instead of talking to the reporter. He blinks and refocuses. Paul looks slightly shell-shocked. 

“So to answer your question, yes, we do spend a lot of time writing when we’re on the road,” Garcia interjects. Spencer winces. “We’ll probably have almost an album’s worth of demos by the time the tour is over. We could stay in here all day, the trick is getting Reid to remember to eat.” 

Spencer rolls his eyes. 

“So is that how you guys spend most of your spare time? Writing and playing music?” Paul asks. 

“Well, it’s not like we’re total shut-ins,” Garcia says. “We go out and have fun too. Admittedly, JJ and Emily’s idea of fun is starting bar fights, but -”

“Really?” Paul asks, looking at Spencer curiously. 

He scoffs. “No, she’s kidding.” 

Garcia, absorbed in whatever she’s doing on her laptop, continues absent-mindedly: “Well, it’s not that they start fights, but they both do Krav Maga and also attract a lot of idiots, so… idiots start bar fights and then the girls finish them. Let me tell you, you do not want to mess with JJ.” 

Paul looks at Spencer again. He shakes his head quickly. 

“I mean, can you really picture JJ in a bar fight?” he asks, forcing a laugh. 

Garcia’s still rambling. “Honestly though you really gotta watch out for this one right here. Reid’s our resident wild child.”  

He gives Paul a disarming, wide-eyed, ‘who, me?’ smile and shakes his head again. 

“Oh, man, one time in Boston he -” 

“Garcia,” Spencer interrupts. She looks up, glances at the tape recorder in Paul’s hand, and shuts her mouth hastily. Paul is starting to look suspicious.

“Ha! Just kidding,” Garcia says shrilly. “He’s a big ol’ dork, really.” 

Spencer nods earnestly, doing his best puppy eyes. “I spend most of my time reading, honestly. She’s just trying to make me seem cooler.” 

Paul’s expression clears slightly. “That… makes sense.” 

He doesn’t press for details, which is good. The legendary Boston Incident is not something Spencer needs in print. 

-

Derek Morgan learned guitar from his father, a Chicago blues artist, but says that when he began to write his own music, he immediately gravitated to classic rock. He cites Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin as influences, and it’s easy to see that onstage; Morgan has the rakish charm and suggestive swagger to rival the moves of any of his idols. If anyone out of the group were to fit the mold of the traditional rockstar, I’d expect it to be him. 

The truth is much more innocuous. Offstage, he’s a perfect gentleman, respectful and chivalrous to a fault. He doesn’t drink, and he somehow finds time to work out almost every day, even when they’re on the road. 

“Sorry to disappoint, but I’m dead boring,” he says, with a wide grin. “Truth is, none of us really fit into any of the usual boxes. That’s why we get along so well.” 

He says Garcia is his best friend in the group, and I can tell he’s fiercely protective of the band, especially the women. When asked if he’s usually the one looking out for the girls, he laughs. 

“Honestly, they’re not the ones I worry about,” he says. “But sure. We all look out for each other, really.”   

-

The bartender shows up, finally, and slides two glasses over to JJ. She knocks back the shot first. If this dumb hipster keeps slurring at her about how much artistry there is in dubstep, she’s going to need another one very soon. 

“People just don’t get it,” he says, sidling a little closer. JJ steps back. 

“Ben - Ken?” she asks, and the guy pauses, affronted. “I’m sure that’s very interesting, but you should probably know that I’m gay.” 

He raises his eyebrows. “Like, gay gay?” 

“Gayer by the second,” JJ says coolly. 

“How do you know, though?” Ken says, which is a level of douchebag she didn’t actually expect from him. He must be even drunker than he looks. 

JJ gives him a polite smile. “I’m going to go find my friends now.”

“Hey, hang on.” 

He grabs her arm as she turns away. Behind his back she can see Derek heading in their direction. She gives him a little “stand down” wave. 

“Bad idea,” she warns Ken. 

“Oh yeah? What -” 

“Back off,” Emily snaps, appearing at her side. 

Ken looks at them mutinously, and as they turn away, he mutters something that sounds like (but probably isn’t) “Duckin’ bikes.” 

“Say it to my face,” JJ tells him sweetly. “Let’s see how that goes for you.” 

“What are you gonna do about it?” he asks belligerently. 

Emily grabs one of his wrists and twists hard, while JJ gets the other. Ken yelps. 

“Everything okay here?” Derek says from behind him. He’s doing what can only be described as looming in a distinctly menacing way. “I think it’s time for you to head home, buddy.” 

“Shoo,” Emily adds. “Go on. Skedaddle.” 

Ken skedaddles. JJ can’t help but laugh.

“We had it under control,” Emily reassures Derek. 

He frowns. “You sure?”

“Just another one who thought he could cure me with his magic dick,” JJ says with a shrug. “More shots?” 

“No way, uh-uh,” Derek interrupts sternly. “Emily. Come on. You remember what happened last time you tried to outdrink JJ?” 

“It was so much fun until then, though,” JJ chirps. He knows them too well. She exchanges a look with Emily. 

“Hey, have you seen Reid lately?” Emily asks innocently, and while Derek is scanning the crowd and scowling, JJ gestures to the bartender. 

-

Only time will tell whether Business As Usual will continue to grow in popularity, but Rossi seems confident that they’re here to stay. To hear him tell it, he’s met everyone from the Stones to the Strokes (“And I have the scars to prove it!”) and he has an eye for which bands are in it for the long haul. 

He says, “Long-term success isn’t about who’s the most talented musicians or the best performers, although these guys are both. So many bands crash and burn early.” 

“Why is that? What makes you so sure these guys will be different?”

“You hear people blame it on the lifestyle, the drugs, the parties, but truth is, those don’t matter all that much as long as the band is taking care of each other.” He smiles proudly. “These guys, they’ll always have each others’ backs. They’re a team.” 

-

“You about ready to head back to the hotel?” Hotch asks quietly, lining up his shot. “This isn’t going to last much longer.” Sure enough, he sinks the ball neatly and straightens up, giving the table a calculating look. 

“Let me round ‘em up,” Derek says. “Meet you outside in five.” 

“When has it ever taken five minutes to round up this bunch?” Hotch asks wryly. “You have fifteen and then I’m leaving. Shout if you need help.” 

He spots Penelope first. She’s in the middle of the dancefloor, dancing with a guy who might as well have cartoon hearts popping out of his eyes. She’s not drunk to the point where she’s doing her signature Shitfaced Shimmy, so she won’t be too hard to wrangle. He catches her eye and taps his wrist, then points to the door, and she shoots him a thumbs up. 

Piece of cake. 

He looks around for Reid next, hoping against hope that the kid hasn’t attracted any crazy tonight. He’s not sure why or how, but Reid has proven more prone to disaster than the rest of the crew combined. If you asked Derek who in the band was most likely to get slapped, get kidnapped, get stabbed (accidentally), lose his shoes on the way back from the bathroom, get fully lost on the way to the bathroom, get hit on by a prostitute, puncture his own foot with a dart, snort something sketchy and end up wired til dawn, or befriend a mob boss, the answer would be Spencer Reid, every damn time. 

He knows this because Reid’s already done most of those things. 

Emily pops up at his side. Her level of sobriety is surprising until Derek notices the smug smile on her face and the phone number Sharpied on her arm. He gives her a fist-bump. 

“Meet you outside,” she says cheerfully. 

This might be even easier than he thought. 

“Hey, Emily,” he calls, and she turns back to look at him. “Have you seen Reid or JJ?” 

“JJ found me a while ago to borrow my swiss army knife,” she says thoughtfully, and then her eyes widen in realization. “She never came back and I haven’t seen Reid. Shit.” 

“Alright, you check outside, look in the alley, I’ll do a sweep around here. If Garcia’s not already outside, call Hotch.” Emily nods curtly and turns toward the door. 

Derek elbows his way around the fringes of the dance floor, scanning the crowd for JJ’s blonde hair, but no luck. He checks a couple of the out-of-the-way nooks and crannies where Reid likes to curl up to pass out, even glances under a couple tables, but there’s no sign of him. He heads for the door that leads to the hallway with the bathrooms. 

He almost runs right into JJ and Reid, who are arm-in-arm as they burst through the door. 

“Oh good,” he says, mildly surprised to see them both upright. Then Reid looks up with big, innocent eyes, sniffing and twitching his nose like a goddamn rabbit, and JJ flaps her hand urgently toward the front of the bar, stepping around Derek without breaking stride.   

“We should go,” she says quickly. “Now.” 

“What did you do?” he groans, shepherding them through the crowd. He can see them exchange a glance. JJ wipes her nose with the back of her sleeve, Emily’s multi-tool still clutched in her fist. 

“We may have rearranged some things,” Spencer mutters. 

“There might be some physics magic brewing,” JJ adds. 

Just as Derek half-shoves them through the front door, he hears a shout from the direction of the bathrooms.

Amazingly, everyone is standing on the sidewalk waiting for them. 

“Double time,” Derek says hurriedly, and they all fall into step. 

“Eight minutes and thirty-seven seconds,” Hotch says, looking at his watch. He holds a hand out to Penelope. “Pay up.” 

“Thing One and Thing Two over there were just stirring up some chaos,” Morgan explains. 

“Do I want to know?” Penelope asks, fishing a twenty out of her purse. “Is this a plausible deniability situation?”  

Emily shakes her head. “I swear, Reid, one of these days I’m going to put a leash on you, and not in a fun sexy way.” 

JJ and Reid are already half a block ahead of the rest of them, arms linked, heads together like they’re plotting again. JJ lets out one of her weird little coke-giggles and Derek can hear Reid chattering about… the Wizard of Oz, for some reason? Whatever. 

Just another day for this weird-ass bunch he calls family. 

[thewebcomicsreview]

Homestuck 2! Chapter 13! The funeral! 

One thing I’ve noticed about these Homestuck Chapters is that they are exclusively Meat or Candy, and we never cut from one to the other in a chapter. Presumably this is setting up a “rule” that will be “broken” in a really dramatic moment (a la “Pearl doesn’t Shapeshift” in Steven Universe). Or it’ll be an anticlimax joke. Or, given the occasionally sloppiness of the writing team, it’ll happen randomly this chapter right around the point the trend is starting to become noticeable. Anyway. Jane is speaking, and it’s a funeral, so presumably this is Candyland and this is a chapter with Yiffy in it.

Are those the Derse and Prospit colors in that church?

Why are there so many trolls in the audience if Jane’s a human supremacist and humans and trolls are at war? I know HS2 sanded off the grimdarkness of the epilogues, but is there even a war anymore? Or is it just a family squabble between the gods? Jane conspicuously avoids mentioning the Trolls, but references the “Human Nation State”, formerly known as the Human Kingdom. If the Humans are now an independent nation then what exactly is Jane the president of? If there’s a one world government, then what the hell is Jane talking about? Why does anyone give a shit what she thinks of troll breeding if the four nations live in harmony are independently run? What is the political situation of Earth C, exactly? Is there an open war? Is Karkat leading like a terrorist cell? Who’s in charge of the Troll Kingdom?

Maybe it doesn’t super matter because the story is less about politics and more about “Bluh bluh, Jane’s a huge bitch”, but I’m kind of curious as to what the facts on the ground are.

Speaking of things I don’t understand that will hopefully be explained soon. What’s Yiffy even doing here? I guess to be revealed to the world and executed?

JANE: And my first memory of our Purple Prince 

Classpect speculation time! Everyone’s favorite! “Prince” is a class, and it’s even capitalized here so we don’t miss it, but Gamzee wasn’t a Prince, he was a Bard. The joke may be as simple as “Jane doesn’t really care about Gamzee”, but it could also be foreshadowing, as Prince and Bard are opposite classes and inversions and all the BladeKind Eyewear stuff.

It takes Jake a few seconds of puzzled eye contact before he catches exactly what it is Yiffany is tossing down. In his defense, he is distracted by his wife’s speech, which is doing the emotional equivalent of wringing him out like a wet towel, before using that towel to slap the sweaty buttocks of a large, odorous man. Even if he knows everything she’s saying is a load of horsefeathers, it does nothing for his composure to hear her heap praise on that smelly, homewrecking clown.

This narration is trying way too hard to be quirky.

He narrows his eyes in Yiffany’s direction. She’s a lovely girl, really

Oh good, a weird throwaway implication that middle-aged Jake English is sexually attracted to his own teenage granddaughter who he’s literally holding by a leash at the time. That’s just phenomenal. Thanks, Homestuck. 

I do love that, as soon as Jake accidentally-on-purpose lets her go, Yiffy chooses not to escape but to just fucking charge at Jane. As a character who doesn’t talk (but could talk at any time, another “rule” being built up to be broken at a dramatic moment), Yiffy has to be characterized by her actions, which thus makes her way more, well, active than anyone else in Homestuck 2 or really even in Homestuck 1. Even Vriska would filibuster a bit here before attacking, and Spades Slick would have some dramatic narration, but Yiffy gets none of that, just wild abandon, attacking a woman who is blah blah blah-ing endlessly. 

Obviously this isn’t an all-purpose “correct” choice for every story, but I think having Yiffy be silent and the narration not clueing us into her thoughts works really well for her. It gives her a bit of mystery (void?), lets us project into her a little which inherently makes her more sympathetic, and makes her very fresh and different in a comic that’s mostly known for giant walls of introspective dialogue. She’s a bit of a counterweight to the comic’s excesses, in that way.

JANE: I was born on proto-Earth, that half-finished dystopia mangled by the ravages of foolish leadership and endless war.

I legitimately don’t know if the point of this line is “Jane, who had a rich and privileged upbringing, is pretending she didn’t in order to score political points” or “Fuck Obama”. 

JANE: It would be simple to let this disgusting, vile, SHAMEFUL act of spiteful revenge turn us away from the blinding light of the sword of justice that hangs over us all--

For fuck’s sake.

Writers.

If you’re going to have a villain ironically monologue about how “justice” is coming for everyone, unaware that a hero is about to attack her, and the villain says that justice “hangs over us all”, then why is the hero attacking from beneath her? Why not have Yiffy, like, lass scamper up to the rafters and then be dropping down on Jane as she says this line? Wouldn’t that work stronger? A low angle shot of Jane saying justice hangs above us all, blissfully unaware of Yiffy in the background dropping down on her? Come on. It’s right there. 

Oh, okay, never mind. Yiffy is not attacking Jane, she’s childishly and ineffectively stomping on Gamzee’s coffin. That’s....much less cool than what I thought was happening, but it’s still okay for something to be not cool. I guess Yiffy, child of the two smartest characters in Homestuck, is a bit of a dipshit. 

I do like that Jane is just continuing with her speech as if nothing is happening.

Wait, they have Gamzee’s body? Isn’t Jane’s super-power raising the dead? I get why Jane isn’t doing that, but you’d think someone in-universe would’ve asked, unless she’s planning to do it right now. 

Does the president of the world and/or the Human Nation State not have bodyguards? 

Ah, there we go. Now the Sword of Justice is hanging above Jane, who’s realizing that the shock collar isn’t working as well as expected and that she might be in trouble here. I just had to be more patient, we got there eventually. 

JANE: After everything I’ve done for you--paying for your education, helping your parents cover up your existence from the world!

(Honestly, the sudden reveal of a hitherto unknown CHILD OF THE GODS should probably be a big deal to the people of Earth C, but none of them matter)

There he flies--in his gangly, purple, necrotizing glory. A phantom honk seems to hang above the congregation, as if from an echo of a time long past. A simpler time. A time before we had to deal with this disgusting clown’s bloated corpse every other update. He vanishes into the seething crowd, and we are confident that we will never have to deal with this asshole ever again.

The more the narrator opines on what’s going on, the more I question who the fuck it is. I thought it was Alpha Calliope, who was drawing weird stories with “lots of nudity”, but Calliope was all gung-ho on Gamzee’s redemption arc.

But also I kind of hate the Candy narration? I get that we’re supposed to be going “Wait who is this” and the constant editorializing is meant to call attention to this question, but let’s take it down 20% fellas? 

The stained glass window shatters inward, obliterated to stardust. The war is knocking.

Ah, so there is a war. And Jane stood in front of a giant-ass window on live TV in a church with no security in it? These are the dumbest fucking people, I swear to god. 

[whitehotharlots]

“Literal violence” and the death of the heterodox

I teach college students. This means I assign young people things to read. If the students don’t do the reading--if they consider it too boring or uninteresting or difficult--they don’t do well in the class. I update my reading lists every semester, because what was interesting to students a few years or even months ago might not click with the students of today. Sometimes students love what they’re assigned. Sometimes they hate it. And it’s very hard to tell if a piece is or isn’t going to work until I’ve assigned it and gotten feedback. 

As I’ve gotten older it has become more difficult to relate to young people. This is a completely normal part of life--nothing to be ashamed of or panic about, and I think almost everyone agrees that it’s more dignified to age gracefully than to try too hard to seem hip or with it. And so, over the past few years, as I’ve found it nearly impossible to find good, engaging writing with a broad appeal, I figured it was just because I, naturally, don’t relate to young people as much as I used to.

But lately--certainly since Trump’s ascendance, but perhaps going back as far as the early twenty-teens--mainstream writing has become incredibly predictable. Name any event and I can tell you almost word-for-word how it will be discussed in Jezebel vs. Teen Vogue vs. The Root vs The Intercept. And, increasingly, there’s been very little analytical divergence even between different publications. Everyone to the left of Fox News seems to agree upon just about everything, and all analysis has been boiled down to the repetition of one of a half-dozen or so aphorisms about privilege or validity. There is, in short, a proper and improper way to describe and understand anything that happens, and a writer is simply not going to get published if they have an improper understanding of the world. 

This, I think, is the result of our normalizing hyperbolic overstatements of harm and the danger posed by anything short of absolute fealty to orthodox liberalism. If it’s “literal violence” to express mild criticism and incredulity, people aren’t going to do so. Editors don’t want to risk accusations of “platforming fascists,” and so there’s been very little pushback against fascism being recently re-defined as “anything that displeases upper middle class Democrats.” 

Not long ago, it was commonplace on the left to celebrate the internet’s ability to allow writers to bypass the gatekeeping functions of old media. With mainstream liberalism needing a scapegoat to explain away the failures of the post-2008 Democratic party, however, the tone has shifted. 

Case in point, Clio Chang’s rather chilling piece from the Columbia Journalism Review that seeks to problematize an open platform called Substack.. Substack allows writers to publish almost whatever they want, outside of editorial control, and then charge a subscription to readers. As more and more websites and print media are being hollowed out and sacrificed to the gods of speculative capital, a large number of big-name writers have embraced this new platform. It has also allowed writers to report on stories that are objectively true but inconvenient to the Democratic establishment, such as Matt Taibbi’s admirable work debunking Russiagate bullshit. 

Chang begins with a lengthy description of Substack’s creation. She stresses that no one—not even the site’s founders and most successful writers—consider it an ideal replacement for the well-funded journalism of old. Chang focuses on one particular Substack newsletter called “Coronavirus News For Black Folks” which appears to be moderately successful (the piece cites 2000+ subscribers, and its founder is earning enough to have hired an assistant editor). Even after describing how the platform has given large grants and stipends to other newsletter run by women and people of color, the fact that this one particular newsletter isn’t as successful as others is held up as proof of the platform’s malignancy.

​“Coronavirus News For Black Folks” may be somewhat successful, but Chang implies that it rightfully should be even more successful, and that something evil must be afoot. Simple arithmetic tells us that a specialized newsletter—one pitched specifically to a minority audience and only covering one particular issue—is going to have a smaller readership than a more general interest piece. Rather than accept this simple explanation, Chang instead embraces the liberal tendency to blame a lack of desired outcomes upon the presence of evil forces.

While Chang provides a thorough overview of the current, fucked state of media and journalism, at no point does she grapple with the role that mainstream liberalism has played in abetting the industry’s collapse. This is surprising, as a quick google search suggests she generally has solid, left-wing politics. This omission reveals a problematic gap in left analysis, and bodes poorly for any hope of leftism accomplishing any material goals while the movement remains aligned with more mainstream identity politics. Even as she cogently explains the destruction of media and the hellish future that lay before writers, Chang still embraces the mystical fatalism that liberals have been leaning on since 2010 or so, when it became clear that Obama wasn’t going to make good on any promises of hope or change. She blames our nation’s horrors not elite leadership, but on the presence of people and ideas she doesn’t like. In this case, Substack is problematic because many of its writers are white and male, and some are even conservative:

When [Andrew] Sullivan joined Substack, over the summer, he put the company’s positioning to the test: infamous for publishing excerpts from The Bell Curve, a book that promotes bigoted race “science,” Sullivan would now produce the Weekly Dish, a political newsletter. (Substack’s content guidelines draw a line at hate speech.) Sullivan’s Substack quickly rose to become the fifth-most-read among paid subscriptions—he claimed that his income had risen from less than $200,000 at New York magazine to $500,000. When I asked the founders if they thought his presence might discourage other writers from joining, they gave me a pat reply. “We’re not a media company,” Best said. “If somebody joins the company and expects us to have an editorial position and be rigorously enforcing some ideological line, this is probably not the company they wanted to join in the first place.”

I’m no fan of Andrew Sullivan, but the man has spent decades building and maintaining his audience. Of course he’s going to have a larger readership than someone who is just starting out. This isn’t a sign of anything nefarious. It’s basic commonsense. But there’s no other conclusions that can be reached: things are bad because people haven’t done enough to root out badness. Things are bad because evil exists. The only way we can attempt reform is to make the evil people go away. Anyone who says anything I don’t like is evil and their words are evil and they shouldn’t be published.

Chang doesn’t make any direct suggestions for remediating Substack, but her implications are clear: equity requires censorship and ideological conformity. Providing any platform for people who are disliked by the liberal mainstream, be they too far left or too indelicate with their conservative cruelty, equates to harming vulnerable people—even when those vulnerable people freely admit to making money off the same platform. There is no room for dissent. There is no possibility of reform. The boundaries of acceptable discourse must grow narrower and narrower. Only when we free our world from the presence of the bad ones will change magically arrive.

NOTE: I wrote a follow-up to this piece that I think does a better job of articulating the points I was trying to make.