#alt-right thinking is self-destructive

[hazelrose3637]

Reblogging as a reminder that while, yes, we shouldn't hate anybody...

The problem isn't that the left hates men. If you just came from the alt-right, and there are people who aren't nice to you, that's a normal reaction. And it's not because you're a man, or white, or any other "immutable trait."

It's because they don't know why you suddenly decided to switch. Do you actually see the error of your ways? Are you working to undo everything the alt-right has done? Or is it more surface-level?

And while it's great you aren't directly part of the alt-right anymore, that doesn't mean biases go away overnight. Keep learning, keep talking, and keep working to dismantle all those biases you have and the systems in place that keep them there.

Don't just say you support the left. Prove it. So many people are hurting and scared, and they're not suddenly going to give someone a chance because he just switched sides.

Men aren't the scum of the earth. No one is, regardless of any "immutable traits." But a lot of people judge actions.

So, TL;DR, if someone doesn't suddenly call you a friend, that's ok. Maybe you need to give them more time, or maybe you'll never be friends, but you at least can be allies. And please, whatever you decide to do, be mindful of your actions. They define your character.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[sonicasura]

Me: *sees AUs where if Transformers Animated Optimus and Black Arachnia switch places* Let me give you all something better.

First off Optimus' robot mode. His will be based on a drider, a mythological creature with a human top half and a spider lower body. Retains Autobot colors but with additional orange markings on the abdomen similar to a jumping spider in pattern.

Alt Mode? Goliath Birdeater aka the world's largest spider and a tarantula. These beauties right here! I like to mention Goliath Birdeaters are actually gentle giants who only bite when threatened and rarely eat birds.

Optimus is a BIG BOI particularly around 32 ft in size as he had some growing to do so his body could fully support this new frame. If you are wondering, yes he does molt like spiders. And Optimus also kept them as a morbid reminder that the bot is now a monster.

Yeah I forgot to mention the guy went into self exile. Instead of the behavior people usually portray Arachnus Prime, he's still a kind soul but now layered with self depreciation, loneliness and thinks 'monsters like him' don't deserve companionship. OP more likely to run away than chase someone off.

He ends up on Earth ten years before Megatron and made his own nest somewhere near Detroit. Optimus becomes a local cryptid akin to Big Foot on levels of popularity. The only proof people could gather is the tracks he leaves behind, empty punctured oil drums, or molt fragments.

Spider brain tends to go off where he tries to catch birds and other critters. Only casualties were a few deer alongside the realization Optimus can subsist on organics too. He shuts himself in whenever this new craving occurs as he rather not eat a human during a feral state.

The rapid rise in technological advances for Detroit later forces him to relocate within the sewer systems since his previous den faced absolute destruction. Feral episodes become more difficult to manage as Optimus resorted to fishing to satisfy himself. It takes awhile before things become normal for him.

Then a repair crew from Cybertron emerge lead by his dear friend, Elita-1. A blast from the past Optimus wished to never face again. Nor the Decepticon threat that will soon expose his existence.

Good luck Optimus as you'll need it.

[nougat-rockrozma]

tumblr crunched the quality so bad hahaha. image desc in alt text been rping with my new iterator oc for a few months, but i think they deserve a proper introduction to the world! meet conative beckon, young iterator determined to find a solution, no matter what.

extra tidbits and a cb version of my ol iterator oc bingo under the cut!

fun facts:

Conative speaks in quite a professional tone, and likes to keep it that way. However, a more... impulsive side slips through often, as much as Conative wants to keep it in check.

When frustrated with a task or overly emotional, they like to throw their pearls around.

Can be quite kind, but their undersocialized nature impedes this.

Specifically fears directly breaking the self-destruction taboo.

Has no city, and no significant cultural value.

Was made between a joint effort of a few regional, lesser-known houses as a communally-worked on project. Their cooperation began to have... issues when the mass ascension was announced.

Barely spent time with their creators at all.

Future!Conative's design would have yellowed plastics replacing the white-cyan ones in the present, an inside-out, slightly battered poncho and a broken (our right, their left) inner antennae.

???

[kkbardd]

so uhh i got summoned to asurei court, if anyone's interested in my testimony papers, theyre down below the cut. (aka my whole take on how i believe their dynamic would develop in cannon)

asurei isn’t for everyone & its whole point is unhealthy dependence.. toxic yuri if u will.. anything resembling a healthy relationship would only be in one of the alt universes created by the 3rd impact 💀 rei and asuka both have what the other wants (whether it be the worth asuka puts on recognition of piloting skills or rei's desire to break from mindless obedience like asuka seems to do so easily.) They both hate and admire each other for this, and asuka specifically expresses this by lashing out at rei. asuka's whole relationship w lesbian comphet plays a HUGE role into all of this but let’s gloss over it for the time being. (now, with asurei u gotta get a bit delusional cuz cannon doesn’t give us much so from here on out is just my opinion on how it'd play out.)

in terms of rei's POV in this:

rei hates the attention they gets from men, and is especially disgusted by gendo's fake kindness. he sees rei as a replaceable doll and pushes yui's image on them. gendo has never actually seen rei for who they really are, and rei later begins to hate and despise not only gendo but themselves too. in the anime, rei is shown to have self destructive tendencies & suicidal ideation because not only are they constantly being replaced & having their memory wiped, but each time they forget any sort of emotion that they learn in the meantime. recall the scene in which rei, right after being "revived" and left with no memory, sees gendo's glasses. although they cant remember anything, its hinted that their "soul" still remembers and hates him. rei tries to break the glasses but in the end, they’re still unable to defy and break free from their situation. feeling frustrated and helpless, rei starts crying & remarks how this should be the first time they've experienced it but somehow it feels like its not. back to the present, reis acting very reckless in battle and basically using themselves as a meat shield. they're so full of self-hate, and seeing asuka's obvious inferiority to them just upsets them even more. why does she put so much worth on the one thing that acts like a plague to them? compared to these pointless test results on a screen, asuka has something so much more valuable. the ability to think for themselves, to not be someone's doll. asuka's inferiority is almost insulting. rei verbally lashes out at asuka in the elevator, showing defiance that they never knew they could produce. it felt almost liberating. they find that being around asuka gives them emotions that they've always longed for, no matter how ugly they may be. they soon find themselves seeking asuka out, and the inferiority that was once insulting became a means to control and keep her close. asuka, someone who was seemingly invincible and can roam free without care, has one weakness that causes her to crack and shatter from the slightest touch. and that weakness is none other than rei themselves. rei becomes possessive in a way that they've never known possible. so much so that a part of them starts to hate themselves, fearing they've become just like their abuser gendo. nonetheless, rei begins to value their life more. they become deathly afraid of dying & being replaced by some mindless clone that has forgotten everything they now know about asuka and themself.

now what is asuka doing in all of this?

asuka deals with a lot of comphet and its an integral part of her character, so much so that it doesn’t seem right to not mention it. but to quickly summarize, because of this she has a love-hate relationship with attention from men. she feels disgusted by it but gets extremely jealous when it seems like another girl might replace her. then comes rei. (now what most ppl don’t seem to notice is asuka didnt start off hating rei, she tried to be friends but ever since the beginning misato has ALWYAYS pitted them against each other. this of course led asuka to feeling threatened & seeing rei as an enemy. especially since it involves piloting ability, something that asuka sees as her whole point of living.) she begins to hate her because how can someone who is so good at piloting be so brainless and doll-like. that’s exactly what asuka was trying so hard to not become! in this aspect, rei's entire existence defies what asuka has tried so hard to believe in up to this point. her hate & inferiority towards rei is only made worse when she sees that they're not only being objectified by men, but are seemingly unbothered by it unlike asuka. rei is now constantly on her mind, and asuka starts to realize that what she's feeling towards them isn’t just hate. its around the time of the elevator scene that these confusing emotions and inferiorities are at their peak. right after this, asuka goes into battle & is ordered to be rei's backup. she defies this order but receives a mental attack from an angel that causes her to re-live all of her trauma & comphet issues. the person that saved her from this is none other than rei. at this point asuka is at an all-time low, and states that she'd rather be left for dead than saved by someone like rei. she’s still confused by her feelings towards rei, but right now her hatred and insecurity is taking priority. its right after this battle that her synchro rates plummet and she loses the #1 thing she based her life worth on. she then goes out to die in an abandoned building but is eventually retrieved by NERV. I believe that during this time alone, she’s also wallowing in her feelings for rei and coming to terms with a lot of comphet stuff, especially after that psychological attack. right after this the world like ends or whatever but lets forget that for now & extend time cuz the gays need it 🥰 .

rei and asuka at this point realize their feelings in one way or another, and there's a lot of tension in their conversations. asuka is at a very fragile point rn bc of all the stuff that just went on, and rei is unsure how to go about things, half due to their inexperience & half due to their fear of becoming like gendo. however, asuka realizes rei is acting different from before, and advances on them as a way of lashing out. but to her surprise rei is undefiant and actually willingly helpless in her hands. she feels a rush of superiority and is amused by how inexperienced rei is. she also realizes that unlike her previous experiences with men (like when she tried to kiss shinji but didnt want to see, smell, taste, or even feel it & had a mental breakdown afterwards lol ) she actually likes it!? the romantic/sexual affirmation that asuka has always wanted from men like kaji is being fulfilled by rei in a way that asuka feels completely in control & comfortable. she's not forcing herself or being objectified, but rather is taking the lead. this is something she never imagined possible before. and all of this is with rei to boot! the rei that, in asuka's eyes, has always looked down on her and been unobtainable is now melting in her hands like putty. there’s a sense of accomplishment she feels, which makes her want to push rei even more. she finally has authority and to make herself feel better, she takes it out on rei through advances like this. she goes further and further, and in an ironic way, uses intimacy as a form of self-harm. she feels shame and despises herself for doing such things with ill-intent, and with another woman at that. its a toxic relationship that tries to fill the hole in her heart, but only leads to a bigger one forming.

when asuka first advanced onto rei, they felt something unlike anything before. unlike when gendo would often touch their shoulder, rei didnt recoil from asuka's touch. rei also felt something similar to asuka, in that the person who always seemed unbound by anything in now giving them her undivided attention. the fact that this came from an act of anger didnt really bother rei, since they knew from the beginning that was one of the only ways to get asuka to even spare them a glance. rei would gladly become hated if it meant binding asuka to them. in a mix of touch-starvedness & unhealthy dependency on asuka, rei kept looking forward to any interacting with asuka, since it was what really made them feel alive. asuka slowly becomes rei's world and meaning for living, but they eventually realize that causes a great insecurity. asuka is independent and can go anywhere she wants if she feels like it. from rei's pov, asuka desperately wants attention from men, something that rei could never give her. rei's afraid that asuka will leave them, & to tie asuka down they play the role of a villain. rei keeps asuka feeling insecure by becoming what asuka envisioned them as, and slowly starts hacking away at asuka's Achille's heel. rei desperately uses the short time that asuka has given them to engrain themself into her, so much so that asuka would be nothing without them. rei cannot let asuka realize her worth for fear that she would leave them. rei notices that asuka enjoys seeing them helpless and plays the part, almost like a honeytrap. slowly tho I believe that rei starts to take control of the relationship in hopes of making asuka dependent on them.

Asurei is in no way a wholesome relationship, and ik that’s not for everyone.. my vision of a happy end for them would be both of them becoming comfortable in their relationship and finding that the actions they once used to express hatred for themselves and each other is now slowly becoming fueled by love and desire for each other. They form a very unhealthy co-dependence on each other, but for them it works. They cant envision a world without the other in it.

[sharpth1ng]

Saw your post replying to the ask about 'losing a Billy person' and it got me thinking about this. I guess I'm a Billy person who's (nearly) lost their Stu person (which is actually rare and quite the opposite to their dynamic) In WoM Billy decides to move and start a new life afar from Stu because all the shit that's happened and his feelings about him and stuff so he's being sort of avoidant too. They both have very poorly communication skills and they definitely don't resolve anything so I can totally picture Billy getting away from Stu when he starts doing dumb shit (and because of Billy's fear of abandonment because of his mom, he doesn't wanna get hurt, feel vulnerable... etc) and when he doesn't get in exchange the kind of feedback he wants, ( a Stu who's devoted to him and their relationship, a lifetime partner, and everything he's bowed to) How would Billy deal with a lack of commitment? An unexpected betrayal? I guess I love angsty Billy way too much, lol. I'm a big fan of Stu going thru the process of grief but if the opposite happened how would Billy cope with it? My take on this is: bad copying mechanisms, tons of unleashed anger that he's been boiling up and listening to the same 3 depressive alt rock CD'S.

Also, re-reading Debaser and Wom it's like my biggest source of comfort atm so thanks for sharing your amazing writing with us<3

I think the way I write him Billy is also terrified of the idea of a lifetime partner tbh. Does he want that internally? Desperately, but because of the situation with his mom he doesn't feel safe wanting that.

Allowing himself to fully want and have Stu means acknowledging that he would be worse off without him, that he needs him on some level. Billy's got that self-sufficiency type toxic masculinity, he thinks he needs to be perfectly ok on his own and that he shouldn't ever need to rely on anyone else (which is just not how people work).

As a result, Billy running away in WoM is very much avoidance because he got a taste of what it would be like if he lost Stu and he couldn't handle it. Literally all of this is happening because Stu is too trustworthy, too reliably supportive, and Billy essentially thinks that enjoying that makes him weak.

So if there was an actual betrayal? He's going nuclear honestly. It doesn't even have to be the biggest betrayal. Stu's basically the last person he actually trusts in the world, he definitely doesn't trust Nancy anymore. Really the only reason he hasn't totally blown up at her is that he's put her on a pedestal, he sees her as a victim in this situation. So her actions are somewhat justified to him, but at the same time any trust he had for her has completely eroded.

Now with Stu, where he actually does trust him and also is essentially afraid of what that means? If he was betrayed or that trust was broken he would take that to mean that he was right; trusting or relying on anyone else is a bad idea. I think his specific reaction depends on what happened- if its a smaller thing yeah he might just run away, self isolate, smoke too much and get really aggro in general.

If it's anything even a little bit bigger though I think he would be on an actual warpath, like its Billy Loomis vengeance time and we all know what that means. He might decide to make Stu's life a living hell in a lot of little ways or he might decide to bottle it up, act like things are normal the way he did with Sid and then completely tear Stu's life down around him.

Either way I think this results in a much more self-destructive Billy than what we saw in his revenge plan with Sid. A Billy who's lost his trust in Stu is a Billy without direction, without comfort, and I think ultimately a Billy without hope. Like worst case scenario I do think he might try to kill Stu, but either way this is a Billy defending fully into nihilism.

So yeah, if there’s a lack of commitment? Billy is gone, he’s isolating and he’s telling himself he doesn’t need anything or anyone. If it’s a betrayal? He’s on the warpath.

[catbountry]

It has been 22 years since 9/11; I was 15 years old in second period art class when a kid, who'd been running down the hallway, opened the door and announced a plane had hit the World Trade Center, and then ran off down the hall, leaving everyone confused. The principal advised teachers not to turn on televisions for us when this was happening, leaving us in further confusion as he tried, feebly, to carry out the rest of the day. We were dismissed before lunch, before fourth period ended.

There are people who are able to legally drink that weren't born yet when this happened and let me tell you, the actual event was fucked up but what happened afterwards, the decisions made in the wake of this fucking event, are a big reason why everything is so fucked up now.

I remember the color-coded terror threat chart, explained by Tom DeLay, who would become a minor internet meme just because of a weird photo of his face. I remember the phrase "known unknowns" in regards to justifying the invasion of Iraq. The "yellow cake" uranium. Being assured that there were weapons of mass destruction. Shock and awe. Bush in a flight suit in front of that "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" sign. The 2000's was the decade of neo-conservatism and 9/11 was a glorious and golden opportunity to have what America had lost with the fall of the Soviet Union; an ideological enemy that hated us because of how great we were. A perfect vessel to pump patriotic sentiment into the public. And it worked... kind of. Not so much for us younger people, those of us who were teenagers or in our 20's. You have to understand that we were at a point where Jon Stewart, the host of the Daily Show, was considered to be some sort of beacon of truth. We would rather get our news from a satirical news program than the actual news, because Stewart would at least recognize the absurdity of it all. A lot of artists did. Green Day's American Idiot is considered to be their most important album and the whole thing was a protest album. I've always had a soft spot for Radiohead's Hail to the Thief for the same reason. Counterculture was dark and bitter and cynical and brooding, and often incredibly edgy, flying directly in the face of the propaganda about how great America was. Counterculture was more queer, more atheist, dressed in black and online, making memes about 9/11. 9/11, this day that was supposed to be symbolic of the nation's greatest modern-day tragedy since the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the bombing of Pearl Harbor, was being photoshopped to make it look like Hulk Hogan was taking down the Twin Towers through sick wrestling moves. 4chan seems to have since been infected with reactionary brainworms over the course of the 2010's, but in the 2000's, counterculture wasn't conservative. It was making conservatives upset. We saw destruction and mass human death played on repeat over and over and we grew numb to it. Desensitized. We saw the obvious emotional ploy that was being used as an excuse to inflict even more violence and oppression on people on the other side of the globe. We reveled in shock sites, in edgy jokes, in transgression, in scaring the normies.

The young men who fall into the alt-right rabbit hole, who might not even be old enough to remember 9/11... I can't help but wonder what they think of it. Because they still want to be edgelords, but now to own the libs. To work in service of the very same people that we were trying to piss off 20 years ago. Trump spoke on 9/11 about how now, the Trump Tower, which had once been the tallest building in Manhattan, was now back to being the tallest building in Manhattan. He's a completely different breed from Bush, Cheney and company. Completely self-interested. Not even bothering with the pretext of things like conviction or truth. Truthiness incarnate. Embrace it. Feel it. Be it.

I think back to a few years ago, I posted a doge meme with the child doge in front of the Twin Towers, with a joke about how great the future was going to be in the coming decade. I had a teenager try and educate me on how insensitive this was. They hadn't even been born yet and I snapped at them that the meme was a real sentiment, that all of us who were old enough to remember essentially watched our futures explode on television, over and over, in a fireball of jet fuel.

This went stream of consciousness again. It always does. It's hard to summarize 9/11 and its aftermath in a cohesive way because we're still living in the shadow of it. COVID-19 is now the big historical event that traumatized us all that we will have to reckon with for decades to come, and how it affected young people growing up at the time. The new scar on our collective psyche. But 9/11 will continue to be that formative scar. Before that for me, it was Columbine, but only because the aftermath did directly affect me. Before that? Princess Diana's death, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the O.J. Simpson trial, and of all of those, the bombing was perhaps the most actually impactful on us. Before 9/11, it was the largest terrorist attack on the United States, carried out by a far-right racist retaliating against the FBI firebombing a compound because a pedophile cult leader with a bunch of guns refused to give up and used his child brides as human shields. That'd be Waco, by the way.

There was another bombing of the World Trade Center that happened in 1993. It was much smaller, using a bomb inside a van in a parking lot underneath; it's the reason Biggie rapped about "blowing up like the World Trade." Osama bin Laden was also behind that one but that wouldn't be fully realized by us until 1996. It only killed six people. It was considered a failed attempt; it was supposed to take down the entire North Tower. It didn't come out of nowhere. The CIA knew that this was in motion since Clinton was in office, and this ball got rolling because of training the United States offered to resistance fighters in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the 80's. I remember the shock I felt first seeing that photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam Hussein's hand, knowing about the Gulf War and living through the War in Iraq. All these puzzle pieces are scattered on the floor and my brain is making connections between all of them as I try and fit them together. I'm looping red string around push pins and asking who Pepe Silvia is, except it's not a conspiracy, it's just me trying to fully grasp this event that happened in my lifetime, before I was an adult but after I'd started paying attention to the news regularly and had developed an interest in politics. Just as I was forming my own political beliefs. 9/11 and its aftermath has informed so much of who I am politically, and what my values are. George W. Bush is my Nixon, and yet, somehow, things got so much more cartoonishly worse as I entered my 30's that I was in denial about it until COVID. Trump's presidency felt like a clown show. How on earth was I supposed to take this man seriously? This motherfucker made the neoconservatives appear restrained and reasonable by comparison, and those motherfuckers are actual war criminals.

I can only really tell people who are too young to remember what this era was like what it was like. It's hard to explain if you weren't there in that moment. We're seeing Y2K nostalgia become a thing, which fits, because of the 20 year minimum big nostalgia cycle, as those whose childhood was 20 years ago are now young adults. And some of those adults were born after 9/11. They never knew the world before it. I knew, but I was a child and couldn't really fully grasp it. The 90's felt very distinct from the 2000's, with it's very open cynicism and even nihilism in the very first years of a society with no Soviet Union.

If only we knew how bad things really would become.

[liceparade]

the scene between johnny nuking arasaka and getting soulkilled always bothered the hell outta me bc like. this is the first time we meet saburo and he's staring out at the mushroom cloud and i mean, that's an instantly resonant image with both 9/11 and the bombings at hiroshima and nagasaki, right. and so i assumed this was deliberately framed by the game as like, an insight into saburo's motives for complete control (Never Again, basically) and that it would like, grapple with the tower attack memorial and the ramifications of johnny's actions later but it...really doesn't, by in large.

it bothers me. at the time of playthrough i chalked it up to an explicit failure of the game to deal meaningfully with atrocity, and for the most part i still feel that is missing from the story.

but thinking about it more, and reading generously--alt tells V explicitly in their conversation beyond the blackwall that johnny's recollections are unreliable, and the off-screen knowledge of key facts that differ from johnny's memories. namely, that morgan blackhand led the charge and shaitan attacked smasher, not johnny; that johnny didn't unplug and kill alt exactly like that, though he and rogue et al. did unwittingly contribute to her death and imprisonment by arasaka; that johnny had likely been killed by smasher before being soulkilled, so this whole memory could be a fabrication.

taken together, these points of unreliability suggest that 50 years in Mikoshi have amplified johnny's self-aggrandizement and guilt, giving himself a locus of control he never had. he attacked the tower, he killed alt, he is the butcher of blaviken.

so with a really generous stretch, this confrontation with saburo could be read as staging of johnny's complex feelings of guilt, helplessness, rage at having been violated by soukiller and tortured in Mikoshi, and twisted pride at having left his mark--a violent, bloody mark--on the world.

another, more tenuous point: character design. another thing that snagged my attention was how johnny's character model has tower attack-related tattoos in the flashbacks leading up to the tower attack. this might be for game design reasons, idk. the relic has essentially recompiled all the engram's memories, but since he died before he got a chance to hit up the ripperdoc for a commemorative tattoo, i think it can be read as a subconscious symbol. (the G20 motif could be a reference to August 20th, the date of the tower attack, so i liberally interpreted all three tattoos as tower-related).

there's obviously a tie-in to the game's running use of tarot symbology. i don't pretend to know anything about tarot, so i'll leave more complex thoughts in that vein to someone who knows more.

i'll similarly spare you any posturing about homeric ekphrasis, but it's notable that johnny's metal arm might be of arasaka make (he's tellingly tried to scratch off the logo), which creates a strange parity of imagery: the mechanical arm, from which johnny takes his stage name moniker, was installed by arasaka during his military service, but his subconscious has populated his organic arm with symbols of his violent, but ultimately self-defeating rebellion.

to me, this evokes an framework theme: johnny, the man and the engram, is as much an artifact of arasaka as he is a paragon of hyperindividualized counterculture. arasaka created him, in more ways than one. reckless, unchecked corporate subjugation seeded violent rebellion. in turn, johnny's methods are their methods, albeit with more forthrightness: he is ruthless, callous, paranoid, and habitually dominates everyone around him, even those closest. by the time he turns to rogue for help, we see he's alienated or turned on everyone his rebellion could meaningfully be for, notably including himself--even though he does mean to escape with spider and rogue, his final act as a living man is essentially self-destruction.

"protecting the things you love instead of destroying what you hate" may sound trite when stated so plainly, but this is the journey he undergoes with V.

his fundamental failure that sets the rest in motion is his failure to protect alt--not in chauvinist, damsel-in-distress sense, though that does factor in, but to know her for who she is, not as an extension of himself (as rilke says: love that greets, borders and protects). in his conversation with thompson (the journo) at the ripperdoc, he reveals he doesn't even know the extent to which she's famous netrunner and assumes arasaka must be there for him. we don't know their relationship outside of that scene, and it isn't any moral or personal failing of his that he can't save alt, but it is his continuous and pervasive failure to fundamentally know or understand her as she was that sets into motion all the rest of his destruction.

which leads to my conclusion: that despite the flaws of the tower attack premise and staging invoking real-life death and tragedy, it is a core strength of the narrative that johnny's character arc isn't one of atonement, but one of learning in death to live, with and for others.

[autisticgirliesbracket]

What makes Nico Robin from One Piece the autistic girlie ever of all time? Here's what the people have to say:

Robin-related asks/reblogs: x This post will be updated after each round!

Image ID in alt text and under the readmore.

[Image ID. White slide with a screenshot on the right of Nico Robin where she is thinking about cats. She is surrounded by text boxes which read,

"she's sooo autistic coded, she has a special interest for archeology and world history, and is very scholarly. robin is the most quiet and reserved character in the cast- clearly having trouble connecting to others and reading the room, as she even makes dark comments about situations that frighten her friends (like "oh i hope that we don't die horribly right now") but she's actually just really silly- like she enjoys ugly-cute things and thinks about silly cats."

"She like me for real"

"She got a PhD at age 8 and then the government made her special interest illegal. She is very emotional but usually has a blank affect. She says concerning stuff only she understands to show she likes someone. I love her dearly and I'm autistic so she is too"

"She's so wonderful! Her life's mission is to find out the 'True History' of the One Piece world, and she's been fixated on it and archaeology since childhood, making her extremely knowledgeable on the subject. She has a very dark sense of humour that can come across as out of touch to people, and she's very to-the-point when she acts and thinks, but the crew adore her for it :>"

"Highly skilled in dead language, martial arts, and devil fruit application; outside of that she is a bubbly mess of single minded self destruction. So on the whole stoic that it took an overtly treasonous action by her six best friends to get her to express any emotion at the prospect of being executed. Her trauma can make her more subdued on average compared to the other autistic members of the Straw Hat crew, but her experiences shouldn't be invalidated by finding her people."

"idk, just a vibe"

"she literally looks like the autism creature to me"

"OK. OK. FIRST OFF. OSTRACISED BY OG COMMUNITY. SECONDLY. BECAME AN ARCHAEOLOGIST AT AGE 8. THIRDLY. them eyes. Also bc shes hot."

"She has the Autism Stare. Like, a blank expression. Barely emotes. Doesn't talk often. Has a special interest in archaeology, but also most morbid things. Has a morbid fascination with death. Likes to be alone, but doesn't mind being in a group. Less than average empathy, shown by the fact that she doesn't flinch at torturing people in the slightest." End ID.]

[blackjackkent]

Heyyy, have you ever written your Hec and Karlach with the "blows up at the pier" ending? I am just not sure where to look for it lol but I always love imagining the "alt routes" but I understand if others are too sad to dip toes in

Oh man, anon coming in with the Big Feels out of nowhere. :D I love it. As per usual this got way longer than intended and very out of hand. XD

I have not written that before and it is indeed VERY sad to think about. But I am up for giving it a try! [rolls up sleeves, braces self]

(If you're interested, I also answered a similar version of this question a while back regarding Hector's life in a worldstate where Karlach got mind-flayered, which was ALSO sad. 😭 )

So anyway. Scenario, then: the brain fight didn't go super smoothly and Wyll is unconscious, so Hector is left with no other voice to save Karlach from her self-sacrifice.

-----

No one moves. The pier is suddenly deathly silent as the roaring of Karlach's engine falls to stillness. Hector sways unsteadily on his feet, clinging to the afterimages of the flame still burned into his eyes.

Don't breathe. Don't think. When you think, it will become real...

But there is no stopping it. Thinking is what he does best, after all. She taught him to live, for a while, to see the glory and goodness of the wide world outside the monastery, the bright intensity of its colors.

But she is gone, and he can see the grayscale already fading in again at the corners of his vision.

"No..." he whispers. His voice sounds choked in his throat. "No." Somehow he always believed, deep down, that something would come to save her, that they would find some way to make everything all right. "NO!" He falls to his knees, burying his fingers in the ashes; his palms blister in the lingering heat.

"NO. NO. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO NO NO NONONONONONO!"

He's screaming, he realizes distantly. Sobbing too. Everything has snapped; every ounce of the control that he wears like armor has vanished. He feels detached from his body, unreal, numb with grief. The tears pour down his face, blinding him.

It isn't fair. After everything they have been through, everything Karlach suffered, it isn't fair that this is how she ended, without even a body to bury in the city she loved. It isn't fair that he will never hold her again, never feel her arms around him, never protect her and be protected by her, never see the world at her side, never... never... never...

The world is so cold without her warmth.

"Gods, please... please come back to me!" he howls into the uncaring ocean view. "I can't... I can't..."

The first paroxysm of anguish starts to fade. He collapses forward on his elbows and knees, his face pressed into his fists, and sobs.

In the monastery, they taught him there was no pain that discipline and prayer could not soothe. They were wrong. He knows now just how wrong they were.

"The Moonmaiden sees me… no grief nor pain nor fury shall wrest me from her path…" He whispers the mantra brokenly, instinctively, desperate for the comfort it has brought him in other moments. But there is no comfort to be found even in Selune's light, not for this.

He is alone.

But no... not completely alone. A hand touches his shoulder softly; a form crouches gently at his side. Shadowheart. He can see the sympathy in her eyes, the compassion and shared pain.

"Come here," she says softly, and opens her arms to him, as he did to her after the House of Grief. And as she did then, he falls sideways into her embrace, presses his face into her shoulder and cries bitterly. Her armor feels cold after the furnace heat of Karlach's destruction, but the hug is tight and fierce and she rocks gently side to side, holding him.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers.

His voice is hoarse, almost inaudible. "It hurts..."

"I know... I know..." She looks up. The others are watching at a distance - those who remain, anyway. Astarion is gone into the shadows, Lae'zel to the Astral. Gale is crouched by Wyll's unconscious body, but his eyes are fixed on the back of Hector's head, unblinking. Minsc, his face drawn tight with regret, is standing a little closer, Boo balanced on one fist.

And Jaheira closes with them, moving to sit on Hector's other side. The druid rests a hand on Hector's back just above where Shadowheart's arms hold him. "Silvanus guide the light to the source," she murmurs. "Take her to what she justly deserves. By nature's will, what was given is returned. What was turmoil is now peace..."

Hector draws a long, slow, shuddering breath.

"May the Moonmaiden's light follow her into the dark," Shadowheart says softly. Her voice is still a little unsteady on the Selunite prayer, but she knows Hector needs to hear it. "The silver light always at her back..."

He swallows, sits up slightly, not pulling away from either woman's touch. They are grounding him, drawing him back to himself, and his heart rate begins to calm, the sobs slowing to unsteady, hiccuping breaths. "Perhaps," he whispers hoarsely, "perhaps had I served Shar, it would be easier... I would be prepared for such loss..."

He can feel Shadowheart give a single, sharp shake of the head.

"Do not think it," Jaheira says, her voice low. "You would be empty. It is no better. The grief carries all the meaning of what was; it is the love with nowhere left to go. In time it will be bearable, cub."

He does not want it to be bearable. He wants it gone. He wants her back. He wants the hole in his heart filled back in.

"My Lady..." he whispers, squeezing his eyes shut. "See her soul as it travels outward. Take it where mine would go, I beg you."

Karlach once said that she liked the thought of her soul spreading out through the world, becoming part of it. He liked the thought too, for she was always full of life and loved the world so deeply, with such fierce devotion...

But he knows the truth, as it was taught to him. She will go to the Fugue Plane to be judged. And if no god fights for her soul, she will exist in limbo forever, trapped in another unending wasteland.

"Take her to you, My Lady... please. In my place, if you must, but do not leave her forgotten..."

----

Some months later, he and Jaheira travel at Withers' behest to a gathering outside the city.

It has been a good half-year, all things considered. The city is starting to rebuild, to regain some semblance of its former life. Hector has been hard at work among the Harpers, lending his strong back to building projects and his counsel to those in need of it.

He's filled out with new muscle and a sense of pride in the Gate. Jaheira has noted it more than once - with surprise, given that he once lived in such isolation from the city's life. But they both know, truly, where that pride stems from. Karlach could not live to see her city flourish again - so Hector must see it for her.

In his pocket always he carries the three copper coins Jaheira delivered to him a few days after the brain fell. Sometimes he listens to the message recorded on them. More often, he simply places a hand against them when the loneliness threatens to overwhelm him, feeling the soft warm buzz of the enchantment on them and imagining he can almost feel Karlach's touch.

Withers finds him wandering away from the party, late in the evening, and addresses him without preamble, grave as ever.

"Thou feelst it still," the skeleton says, with something oddly like kindness. "She is not here. She who means the most. Hast thy thoughts been with brave Karlach often?"

Yes. Of course they have. He doesn't speak of it much to Jaheira and the others, and he has tried to move on - and some days he can almost manage it. But her loss always sits in the back of his mind, inescapable. Every moment of victory bears its quiet reminder that she is not here to share it with him. Every failure brings the ache for her comfort and her warmth.

"I loved her so much," he says quietly. "It isn't fair."

"No," Withers says placidly. "It is not."

He feels a sudden tightness in the back of his throat. He has not spoken of her aloud for so many weeks, but Withers of all people coming to him with kindness brings the feelings rushing back, stinging into his eyes. "I don't know how I can go on without her," he mutters.

Withers's dessicated lips curl in a slight smile. "She battled in Avernus, fueled on naught but hope," he says. "And that hope came to become truth. In but a dozen tendays, an entire life was lived. More than mortal years-- mortal centuries were hers." He gives a slow nod in acknowledgment of Hector's grief. "Thou might endure a great eon of mourning. But thou must hope, as once she did. Her life... her happiness... was you."

Great, now he really is going to cry. That strain in his throat is rapidly forming into a lump that makes it difficult to speak. "And she was mine..." he whispers.

"Thy life was hers for a while," Withers says gently. "It is now thine again. Live it well." He reaches out a hand and rests it on Hector's shoulder. It is light and skeletal and bears no warmth, but it goes with the intensity Withers suddenly has in his expression.

"In the Fugue Plane," he says, "her soul burns so bright, it pains the gods to look upon. Recall that in time, all changeth and all is rejoined. Thou shalt be with her again."

Hector feels something tight come loose in his chest, and he nods unsteadily. These are not empty words; this is Jergal speaking, not Withers. This is, perhaps, the only voice available to him that could tell him truly what he needs to know - that Karlach is not lost to him, nor beaten into dim submission by the wasteland of the Fugue.

She is still bright. And she is waiting for him. And one day, when he has brought her city back to life, he will go to find her.

[sunburnacoustic]

Muse - Absolution (2003)

After years of waiting, loaded with trials and experimentation, apocalypse finally has a soundtrack. No, it’s not the angsty, heady crooning of yet another musician in love, it’s not the introspective Beatle having seen the Truth, it is not Johnny Rotten tearing down the Establishment (again), and it isn’t the self-destruction a James Hetfield would growl about.

Apocalypse as a genre has been claimed and made a natural home in, and by a seemingly unassuming young band hailing from the idyllic seaside Middle Of Nowhere, Teignmouth, Devonshire in England: alt-prog rockers Muse.

Muse’s 3rd studio album Absolution (released in 2003) picks up on the big sounds and potential the band had been showing throughout their second album and takes it twenty notches higher. The instrumentation is solid, the rhythms are tight, the guitars loud, the sound, bombastic in moments and delicate, vulnerable and beautiful in the next, the lyrical themes are exploratory, and the band themselves seem to find their feet and lay down the foundations of what even today makes up their signature ‘Musey’ sound.

Yet that little summary couldn’t begin to do justice to the grandiose and power this album packs. At it’s finest, Muse take you on a fifty-two minute trip out of the world (quite literally, as the titular track ‘Sing For Absolution’s music video features the band jetting off into outer space to escape the planet only to have their spaceship crash down into a burning, post-apocalyptical London), charming and haunting you with dark, sustained Rachmaninoff-esque piano breakdowns and blowing you away with larger-than-life drums, distorted guitar and bass working in perfect synch to build up a rising tide-wall of sound that may make it hard at times to remember that there are but three musicians in the recording rooms shaking up your world, as singer Matt Bellamy wails, sings and warbles on about facing death (‘Thoughts of a Dying Atheist’), running out of time (‘Time Is Running Out’), meeting up with the Devil himself (‘The Small Print’), and changing the world (‘Butterflies and Hurricanes’), amongst other things, with each song bearing as Muse-like a name as there comes.

And Matt Bellamy, contrasting this album with their previous efforts, said in an interview that Absolution “is more about us being personable, about us being normal people at home”. 

Well, normal Matt Bellamy at home, that is.

The album is introduced with a stomping, twenty second intro, the sound of boots getting closer and heavier, culminating in a single phrase: “Siege heil… marsche!” Twenty seconds in, the apocalyptical themes have already begun kicking in.

But before you have the time to breathe, the first song of the album, ‘Apocalypse Please’ begins, coming right at you with all of Bellamy’s pensiveness and despair, heavy ‘apocalyptical’ piano chords and drums crashing down on you as Matt declares that Earth needs a miracle and that “this is the end of the world”, layering the chorus as multiple Bellamy’s seal humanity’s fate.

The song’s mid/low tempo (around 80bpm) and loud vocals—almost cries of despair, really—and the closing bars with amplified, sustained single bass notes under forceful piano run-up chords, work quite well in conjuring up quite the image the band is looking to build and set the scene for the rest of the album to come.

Following this is one of the singles off the album, ‘Time Is Running Out’, starting with a low, almost choking yet flowing bassline with Bellamy almost breathing out lines like ‘I think I’m drowning/Asphyxiated/I want to break this spell that you created’, a song that starts out soft, restrained, then building up to the chorus as a tormented Bellamy tries to break free and realises that their time is running out, again employing the signature Muse technique of layering multiple guitars and vocals to build up a wall of sound, amplifying Matt’s thoughts, as does its twin later on the album, ‘Hysteria’.

On the titular track, ‘Sing for Absolution’, Bellamy seems to find a Muse of his own, turning inwards to a much more relaxed tempo. The band makes effective use of bassist Chris Wolstenholme’s staccato bass, offset and complemented by the almost dreamlike delayed, echoing guitars and pianos, to cook up an image of a lonely, reflective singer up alone in a room on the top floor of a house, sitting in the faint blue gleam of starlight, gazing out the window into space, thinking about his own life (‘Tiptoe to your room/A starlight in the gloom/I only dream of you/And you never knew’).

On ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, Matthew Bellamy takes the tried and tested ‘captor-and-captive-fall-in-love’ narrative, a darling of writers and musicians everywhere, and breathes new life into it by adding a new dimension of emotions to it, playing on the presumed captor-narrator’s guilt, confusion and sense of hopelessness (‘And she’ll scream and she’ll shout, and she’ll pray/And she had a name’; ‘We’ll love and we’ll hate and we’ll die/All to no avail…’; ‘This is the last time I’ll forget you… I wish I could’)

Muse use drummer Dominic Howard’s drums; pounding, loud and noticeable as a heartbeat in a quiet room; and Bellamy’s trembling vibratos to effectively paint the brutality and vulnerability; indeed, in the last chorus, behind the brute forces crashing on the guitars, bass and drums, one can hear the almost fragile, delicate piano arpeggios in the background, swallowed up by the guitars, almost hidden, protected, in a story that extends beyond the words.

Muse’s ability to switch from a light-hearted, fast-paced tone to a brooding, dark, haunting wail with effortless ease and grace stands out throughout the album and particularly on the sixth track on the album, ‘Falling Away With You’. The song, almost a hidden gem tucked away snugly in the middle of the album, is one of the few times the man who would go on to sing about conspiracy theories, the second law of thermodynamics and uprisings, turns inward and reflects on the people in his life and his relationships with them.

The song’s opening is slightly similar to Blackbird by the Beatles, with a quiet, reverberating guitar over a near-silent backdrop as Bellamy sings about his fears of forgetting a loved one and how relationships change, slowly building up and letting his bandmates catch up in a sort of relay-race, to a chorus that bursts to life with a screaming Matt falsetto-ing to a climax as the band fades to make space for Bellamy to calm down again, and the cycle continues.

It would be fair to say that the bass line drives the next track off the album, ‘Hysteria’. The song opens with a booming bass riff and all the straight faced extravagance that is both the band’s signature and legacy. A three-way harmonic melody solo rages on in the upper octaves that run in the background of the last chorus as a tormented Matthew tries to break free of his inner demons and Muse bring the song to a close in a manner worthy of a stadium closure.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Muse album without experimentation, and while Muse aren’t recording in zero gravity (for now), the band takes to string arrangements in search of new sounds and avenues on ‘Blackout’, dishing up a slow lament, complemented by fuzzy single note tremolos, and it only gets better on the next track, ‘Butterflies and Hurricanes’, as Bellamy sounds off a call to arms to get up and change the world, and “use this chance to be heard”. The strings create a dystopian air, with a terse, fuzzy bass running underground and Wolstenholme’s backing vocals playing in the open skies as Bellamy commands his summoned army to action. His emotions seem to spill out of his fingers onto the piano in sudden gushes in a beautiful, flying, sustained solo that stands even today as a testament to Bellamy’s superior skills on the keys.

Absolution marks a sonic departure from Origin of Symmetry (2001) in that the production seems a lot more refined and cleaner. The band favours richer, fuller sounds: more gain-heavy guitars and bigger drums that would feel home in arena, as opposed to the “dirtier”, more grungey, piercing sounds used on their previous endeavours.

 However, there is tons for fans of the band to savour (in addition to a very musically accomplished record) on the track ‘The Small Print’. Bellamy returns to one of his pet themes as he takes on the role of the apathetic Devil (‘I’m a priest God never paid’), watching the world and its happenings with an omniscient eye (‘I hope you’ve seen the light/because no one really cares/They’re just pretending’), a nod back to Origin-era songs like ‘Hyper Music’. The band’s commendable execution, both with the lyrics as well as the rough, almost lo-fi edge in the production on this piece make it astonishingly powerful for a song with a niche theme and a simple guitar riff repeating over shifting root bass notes.

There really is never an uneventful moment on the fifty-two minute, thirteen-second record. The band throw familiarity to the winds on their next track, ‘Endlessly’, a song both very predictably Muse-like, yet something quite unlike anything the band had done before. Trading in the guitar for dampened, “muddy” synths, Muse give you the feeling of sitting underwater, drowned in the waterfalls of sound. Synth chords fall silently around you and ripple under the layers of arpeggiated synths that build up the wall of—excuse the pun—endless sound and lock you into Bellamy’s greyness as he promises a loved one the he’ll do anything for them but won’t leave them– until finally deciding that that moment never comes and calming down to a finish, internal turmoil now at rest.

Bellamy, mind wandering like a child, turns to more existential ideas soon after on ‘Thoughts Of A Dying Atheist’, a fast-paced, energetic and curiously happy-sounding piece, musically, for a song that is about an atheist at the end of their life, knowing that what lies ahead of them is nothingness (‘It scares the hell out of me/And the end is all I can see’) and seems to create an ironic contrast between the energy of the song and the narrator’s nervousness that works to the band’s credit.

Muse continue to shock and awe, haunt and bewitch you right up to the very last song on the album, ‘Ruled By Secrecy’. Lyrically perhaps the most quotidian song on the album, this track deals with the pressures in life and realising that you’ll never be on top. Lyrically and musically, it’s one of the darkest pieces in the band’s repertoire, beginning with low, quiet pianos. A ghostly, whispering Matt, sings with sustain and echo, recreating an almost surprisingly gothic, medieval church-like sound reminiscent of the Middle Ages, bringing to mind fear, uncertainty and mistrust (‘they’ll hide everywhere/no one knows who’s in control’), gathering force and building up to the signature piano crashing chord work that defines this album throughout. 

The song, and consequently the album, ends with a final touch to the cymbals, a subtle finish to an album with so much grandiose, its power and assertion leaving the listener reeling and the band flying high on yet another tasteful record successfully polished off.

Watch out Martians, Muse are coming.

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

A review for Absolution I wrote back in first year in 2018. Happy 20 years of Absolution! I'm happy to note that this time around, with the reissue, Fury will not be left off the album anymore, and my review will (happily) be out of date come November.

[notthestarwar]

having Jango thoughts on this night

“Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.”―Fyodor Dostoevsky crime & punishment

(Keep coming across new quotes that make me think about Jango but with this already being soooo long and also the image descriptions not working properly I've decided to try this again with multiple shorter ones split in to themes. Part 1 is here.)

i just… what if you were a man and everything that could have gone wrong went wrong, time and time again. and it happened to you so many times, at such defining points in your life, as you were growing, that it made you in to everything you never wanted to be.

what if you couldn’t allow yourself to feel, what if you ran from yourself and in doing so, were numb to the consequences of your denial. were ignorant of who you were becoming. what if you rationalised the terrible. what if you convinced yourself you were right because to face that you are wrong, that you could be better, is too painful

what if you started on this path, inadvertently. the worst happened to you and you didn’t deserve it. but the person you became after that tragedy, was someone that maybe did deserve each tragedy after it. what if you were your own worst enemy. what if it didnt have to be like this, but it always would have been like this, because this is who you are now.

what if your whole life was defined by surviving the people you loved. what if you kept surviving the unsurvivable, and it left you alone, everytime. what if you could never move past that loss. the grief is a haunting. you should have died and you didnt.

what if nobody hates the man you have become more than yourself. what if you are everything you hate. what if you walk a path of self destruction trying to destroy the person you have become, trying to find the death that escaped you, and until you find that end, everyone else is only collataral damage

what if the person you could have been, in a better world, haunts you. what if you know that those that you grieve, would hate the man you’ve become, the person that loss made you. what if your love for your family, for your people, was corrupted, twisted beyond recognition. something good, made horrific.

what if the idea of facing any of this, the idea of allowing yourself to be something that could once again be loved, terrified you. what if you work to destroy the possibility. what if there was a way out, there were 100 ways out, but you never would allow yourself to take any one. what if, you hurt those that tried to love you, because you couldn’t stand the vulnerability

[and its not letting me insert alt text so i’m gonna reblog with an addition with the desc. plus additional sources i’ve found for some of them that were missing from the og posts]

image descriptions below

what if people want to tell themselves you are a bad man, something evil. less than a person, only a monster. but really, the very worst thing about you is how overwhelmingly human you are. how you are a person that in kinder world, might have been good. how even here, you are still so very human, all of your worst cruelties are fueled by fear. you stand as an example: of something that every person can become. a horror that lives in each of us, a person who does the unimaginable, because it is easier than trying to be good. a person who takes one mistep, and then another, and finds themselves running down a hill.

- LINE BREAK-

 tumblr post by longsightmyth Here’s the thing I keep trying to articulate and possibly failing: I don’ actually mind characters who are terrible people. I have enjoyed many. What I mind is characters who are terrible people while the narrative keeps trying to say that they are wonderful, often contradicting what the narrative shows us, with no self awareness

tumblr post by exilley “Doomed by the narrative” is sexy and all but i think the narrative wanting to save a character who is utterly set on dooming themselves isnt as much of a thing and it’s so good as a concept antigonick 5d ago

“Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.” -Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“1. Man is a MORAL animal. 2. You can get human beings to do anything-IF you convince them it is moral. 3. You can convince human beings anything is moral.” - Frank Bidart, excerpt of “In the Ruins”, in Half-Light

“ Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.“ -Anne Carson (Translator), Grief Lessons

tumblr post by supreme-leader-stoat “This story is a tragedy because it didn’t have to end this way.” “This story is a tragedy because it was always going to end this way.” addition by veliseraptor #the best: this story is a tragedy because #there were SO many ways it could have gone differently #but the very fact of the characters” natures precluded any option but the tragedy 

tumblr post by manywinged  obsessed with the concept of being haunted by yourself addition by manywinged  maybe you were someone you hate now, and that person remains a cold hand on your shoulder that says you do not deserve this. perhaps you had to destroy yourself and become someone else to escape something worse - but now they hang over you like a shroud. you abandoned me. everyone did, but you - you were all i had, and you left me to rot. maybe the life you could have had was taken from you-and isn’t that a death of sorts? - and now it shadows your every step. you keep moving further away, but it follows. there’s a ghost after you, and it wears a frighteningly familiar face.

tumblr post by louisegluckpdf  best kind of character is ‘guy that didnt die when he should have’ (quotes) “To live past the end of your myth is a perilous thing.”  Anne Carson “I survived myself, my death and burial were locked up in my chest.” Moby Dick, Herman Merville

Walter White: I’ve been to my oncologist, Jesse. Just last week. I’m still in remission. I’m healthy. Jesse Pinkman: That’s good. Great. Walter White: No end in sight. Jesse Pinkman: That’s great. Walter White: No. I missed it. There was some perfect moment that passed me right by, but I had to have enough to leave them. That was the whole point. None of this makes any sense if I didn’t have enough. And it had to be before she found out. Skyler. It had to be before that. Jesse Pinkman: Perfect moment? For what? To drop dead? Are you saying you want to die? Walter White: I’m saying that I lived too long. You want them to actually miss you. breaking bad, fly, dir. rian johnson

“I am someone who did not die when I should have died.” anne carson

tumblr post by: autisticandroids  many problems are caused by the mindset that the world is divided into good people and bad people and the bad people can be “found out” and removed, eventually leading to a utopia containing only good people. addition by: andromeda3116  “It was much better to imagine men in some smokey room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told the children bed time stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, then what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.” –Jingo, by Terry Pratchett

And all of my devotion turns violent (according to google, from boyish by japanese breakfast)

“You are shaking fists & trembling teeth. I know: You did not mean to be cruel. That does not mean you were kind.” (google says: Venetta Octavia “the burning”)

“What a thing, to be both starving and empty. To ache for love- to take the scraps from it’s table, and yet, run sickly from the feast. You can’t fathom why I’d gobble your kisses but duck your attention, please. Understand- Some of us have gone so long hungry, the idea of being full feels worse than the affliction. (LOVE DISORDERS AND OTHER OLD HEARTACHES, by Ashe Vernon)

I was far too scared to hit him But I would hit him in a heartbeat now  That’s the thing with anger it begs to stick around So it can fleece you of your beauty And leave you spent with nowt to offer  It makes you hurt the ones who love you (google says: sam fender-seventeen going under)

Ivy Walker: Sometimes we don’t do things we want to do so that others won’t know we want to do them.

To feel anything deranges you. To be seen feeling anything strips you naked. In the grip of it pleasure or pain doesn’t matter. You think what will they do what new power will they acquire if they see me naked like this. If they see you feeling. Anne Carson, Red Doc

Tumblr post by: ivipite

“came back wrong” this “lived wrong” that, what about dying wrong. my death will forever cling to you, leaving behind a slimy trail and a metallic taste in your mouth. my soul will forever drag you down like the heavy corpse of a long-dead god, who somehow still grants wishes. you can’t tell which one of us is the one not letting go. you know not even your own death will end this.

post by: papayajuan2019  cruelty is so easy. youre not special for choosing it

post by:mycannibalromance (quotes)

even if you don’t have something anymore, you can be defined by its absence Joan Tierney, free range angel produce

And I want to go home But I am home mountian goats riches and wonders

In a field I am the absence of field. This is always the case. Wherever I am, I am what is missing Mark straind, keeping things whole

the expurgation of a neon sign and the team’s prov sions of the house’s powerful ability to exorcise any and all things from its midst.“F Mark z danielewski house of leaves

But here I touch an open wound: my memory. -rosario castellanos memorandum on tiatelolco tr. maureen ahern

-end of description-

[princess-dirt]

Long Rant, please ignore... or don't

Growing up, my mom would tell me how handsome I was, how I'd have to be careful with girls because of how many I'd have to deal with. She told me this as early as elementary school.

Of course, she couldn't have been more wrong. I grew up with undiagnosed adhd and likely autism. I had social anxiety and horrible self-image issues. I never cared how I looked, but hated how I looked. I was socially awkward and could barely talk to girls. That's to say very few girls ever approached me.

I was thinking about this, and only now have I really connected the dots. The patriarchy and heteromormativity of the world fucking sucks. Like I grew up and every good thing about my appearance that my mom would say never materialized. No wonder I suffer so bad from self-image issues. I had my mom pushing it down my throat that I should have a girlfriend, but also to be careful of girls, but also that they'd be all over me, but also that I have to make the first move since I was a guy.

I think the worst part about all of this is that when I was in high school, the lack of any romantic relationship really fucked with me mentally. I already had a pretty shit childhood, so it was frosting on the cake. It got so bad I fell down the alt-right pipeline and was a few months away from becoming an incel.

But I watched MLP. This show was the first time I was ever really taught empathy, and it changed my life. Fast forward senior year, and I've been experimenting with how I look. I have alt and queer friends, I'm learning about myself.

I spill my heart out to my mom about everything and how trapped and hopeless I felt about relationships. Like 20 minutes she listened to me. I was crying and desperate for any bit of advice from my parent.

"So are you gay?" My mom asks sounding almost annoyed.

Which leads to me begging her to listen to me and to take what I am saying seriously.

"Well, how do you think I feel?" She says now sounding angry.

This same conversation happens a half dozen more times. Each time I become more desperate for any hint my mom cares at all.

"You just need to approach them and be nice."

"You should try harder."

"Are you calling me a bad mother?"

"I didn't raise you this way!"

Now, both of my parents are brainrotted by Fox News. My dad is mentally ill while being the most toxic man ever, never being emotionally available for me ever. My mom still thinks I just need to try harder and that girls will just throw themselves at me. Her state of delusion is horrifying tbh.

It sucks because they will both die never having known their son. They'll die never knowing I use he/they, never knowing I'm pansexual, never knowing I crossdress, never knowing I cosplay, never knowing me, the pansexual nuero divergent femboy. And I don't feel bad over it.

I know my story about this kind of shit is way more common that I'd like. I've seen tik toks with very similar events I've mentioned with 100s of 1000s of likes and comments.

To think a generational gap could have such destructive consequences. My only solace for this is that I was able to overcome their horrible parenting.

It seems to me that as each day passes, the only way I'll remember my parents when they are long since dead is the mental scars they've left. I hate it, but I love my parents. They tried their best, but their best failed me and my 3 brothers horribly.

Anyways, back to watching Vampire Dormitory. It's a gay ass anime about some twink and a vampire.

Edit: finished episode one, the Twink was girl. I feel so betrayed.

[greengargouille]

A correction on Karasuma’s career

(...And Takaoka’s too I guess)

A fandom wiki can be a fickle thing. Sometimes helpful. Sometimes, straight up misinformation. Some time ago, I woke up in the middle of the night, pondering something about a character’s past that I immediately needed to check- as one is bound to do when they should be asleep. Said character? Karasuma Tadaomi of Assassination Classroom (as some mutuals will have cleverly guessed from the title). ...Except. Something was wrong. I’m not talking about his description as a ‘handsome young man’, because it’s supposed to be true within canon (despite visual evidence to the contrary). I’m talking about facts that are harder to disprove just by a glance- especially since the source isn’t written. “I’m... pretty sure Karasuma never was in the Air Force, that doesn’t sounds right.” “Warrant Officer? ‘According to the manga, Karasuma’s dress during his career-’ where. Which panel is it and where can I compare it to an actual uniform.” “Uh, Takaoka’s profile doesn’t help much more. ‘Takaoka and Karasuma were in the same squad in the military but were in different sections.’ That’s not possible, as a squad is part of a section. And unsourced too.”

So. Even though I don’t participate in the fandom. I had to do something. Edit the wiki? Well I don’t know if I need permission to do that, so no. But, there’s something much easier I can do, one thing I’m pretty used to. Complain about it on Tumblr! 

So, I looked up what I could. The official French translation, the English scans. His Graduation Album’s profile just in case, though it was unhelpful. Hunted down his tankobon’s profile, and, bingo, a career path! ...With a few differences from the French translation. Hmm. At this point I would need to look at the raws. Thankfully, I do have Roll Book Time, in paper format, a gift of years ago from my good friend and sweetheart. Unfortunately, I don’t actually read Japanese- but as if that stopped me in the past! By now I’m an expert at painfully looking over radicals to search for accurate kanji on jisho.org, one at a time. It’s long and tedious and in the end I still rely on Google Translate, but at least I’m going somewhere. So, without further ado! Let me show you what I’ve got!

[Alt: Photo of a half page from the Roll Book, describing Karasuma’s career. The text is in Japanese, and illustrated by two panels from the manga. One shows Karasuma in camo uniform training recruits, the other shows him at the start of the manga, presenting himself to the 3-E. ] For those of you who wants to read the Japanese text, but it is too small or the pic isn’t showing, here the transcription:

烏間先生の経歴ファイル 

自衛隊入隊

第一空挺団 配属

自衛隊の第一空挺団では、他者を寄せ付けない成績を収め、教官としての才能も目覚しかった。

統合情報部ヘ異動

諸外国の軍事、政治情情報などを収集し分析す���諜報部員としても活躍。事務能力でも一流だ。

臨時特務部ヘ異動

これらの実績を買われて現在の特務部ヘ。迢破壊生物の暗殺・監視、E組ヘ技術提供に勤しむ。

As for some sort of translation, here’s a little something to get the gist of it, but don’t consider this as a totally accurate translation.

Karasuma-sensei’s background file Enrolled in the Self-defence Forces Assigned to the 1st Airborne Brigade In the SDF’s 1st Airborne Brigade, his talent was unmatched. His talent as an instructor was also remarkable. Transferred to the Defense Intelligence Office He had been active as an intelligence agent who collects and analyses military and political information in other countries. His office ability is also top notch. Temporary transferred to the Special Services Office Due to his past results, he was brought into the Special Affairs Department. He works with the monitoring / assassination of the “destructive creature”, and teaches his technique to Class E.

So, the first point of this. The Japanese Self-defence Force (which I will abbreviate in JSDF) is, like most if not all armies, divided into ground, air and naval forces. You would think the 1st Airborne Brigade is part of the Japan Air SDF, since there’s ‘airborne’ in the name. And you would be wrong! It is part of the Japan Ground SDF, and my, what a part it is. They’re considered among the toughest soldiers of the JGSDF, deserving of their “The Matchless Elite Second To None” motto. While the JSDF are supposedly defensive, as the name said, for legal reasons (they technically can’t call themselves an army because Japan can’t have one), this brigade is considered as one of the few with an offensive capability. Yeah, fitting for Karasuma! (And yes, this means Takaoka has been part of it too. Which... kinda explains why he underestimated Nagisa so much. If you’ve been in an elite troop for years, you can let a scrawny teenager with a knife get closer to you a few steps further, just to prove a point.) Then, we have what the tankobon profile’s translator chooses to translate as “Information Bureau”, but I choose Defense Intelligence Office. You see, the original text was 情報部. Now, Matsui has been known to slightly modify the name of actual places/schools rather than reference the actual thing (dunno if he’s required to do it or it’s a personal choice). And, if you take 部 (office, bureau, department- I prefer ‘office’ since it’s found in the translation for some Ministry of Defense’s extraordinary organs) and add 本 to make 本部 (headquarters), you get 情報本部, which is the Japanese name of the Defense Intelligence Headquarters! Which is still part of the Ministry of Defense, so it makes sense the transfer could be done. (As for Takaoka- The first page of chapter 38 shows us a shadowed Takaoka, with his chief going ‘It’s a hidden ball trick, courtesy of our Information Bureau’. So I guess it’s either a natural advancement career, either he followed Karasuma there, or this guy has the worst of luck.) Finally- Special Services Office- or Division, as per the English scans. But the tankobon profile translation talks about ‘Special Forces’? Well, I can disprove that. The Special Forces Group of JGSDF is 特殊作戦群 in Japanese. Meanwhile, 特務部 is... nowhere close from that, except there’s 特(special) in their names. Furthermore, we do have an 部 again at the end, which implies an office/department/division/etc. Given the explanation in Karasuma’s profile, I would assume this office was created specifically to deal with Korosensei, and various agents were transferred to it temporarily? Notably, Karasuma and Takaoka. --

Now, that solves it for the Air Force misunderstanding. What about Karasuma’s rank, though?The fandom wiki mentions his uniform in the manga. Which turns out to be one panel. It... makes sense, since Karasuma is no longer part of the JSDF, having transferred, and so wouldn’t be able to use a military uniform on important events ; the French translation of Karasuma’s chief’s words in his flashback from chapter 38 even says “After you abandoned your military uniform [...]”. What is this famous panel, then?

...Well, that’s going to be tricky. We don’t have a view of the arms themselves, though he doesn’t seem to have a patch. Then we have the notch lapel insignia, but those meant for rank are put on the upper notch- the lower notch is for the branch of service, from what I gathered in photos. (And I mean, it would be ridiculous as a rank insignia- it seems to have three dots in a triangle, so either a captain or a colonel, can you imagine this, a colonel? A guy in mid-twenties? Ridiculous) What about the shoulders, then? Well. Let me tell you a thing. ...Finding things about Japanese formal dress military uniforms is super annoying. US uniforms? Sure, no problem. French uniforms? If you type in French, sure. Japanese Uniforms? Oh, did you mean WWII Imperial Army uniform? No? You’re sure? Because this is what you will get. Oh, sure, Wikipedia has a page on the ranks and insignia of the JSDF. But it doesn’t seem to account for those formal epaulets, which are only used in ceremonies. But! There’s a silver lining! Typing 陸自 儀礼肩章 (JGSDF formal epaulets) in a pic search, we can then click on the ones that interest us and look for the grade. (Though, some of them seem to come from Yahoo Auction, and are unavailable to me). So, on our manga panel, we have three dots on the knot, plus a little one at the end to pin it to the uniform.

Something like this. Now those specific ceremonial shoulder insignia are for a 一等陸佐 (or 1等陸佐), which correspond in the US Army to... uh. Hm. Wait. Let me check. Gotta be a mistake. He can’t be a colonel.

...A bit smaller but that will do. Notice how the knots have one less... wire? Thread? Look, I’ve put way too much energy into this post to start worrying about words. Anyway, the number of stars might be the same, but the whole epaulet is different. And we even have the less formal insignias on the side! Those are for a 1等陸尉, which corresponds to... Captain. ...No, seriously. I mean, you can check on other sources if you want. Wikimedia even has this photo if you don’t believe me.) As for Takaoka (as well as every man present in the panel), it’s small but you can see two stars on his shoulders, so he has the grade just below- 2等陸尉, which corresponds to first lieutenant. But hey, maybe Matsui and his assistants took a random uniform as reference! You know, the anime tends to have interesting background details in the classroom, so maybe they would also have been careful with this!

...Ah, yeah, not really. What about Takaoka?

...Well. Not very helpful either. It does show us he has the service ribbon for the Medal with Blue Ribbon, a Japanese medal of honour awarded to individuals who have made significant achievements in the areas of public welfare or public service. As for the weird infinity sign- this pin badge is likely the same as Karasuma’s in the manga, which is not quite clear on the scan, but I can confirm on the tankobon that it’s the Ranger Courses pin badge. The fact it is golden means he specifically completed the Fuji School one, which is needed to be a course instructor or an officer. ...So, I have no idea where this Warrant Officer rank came from. It would make more sense, but it seems like somehow, Karasuma reached captain rank. Despite being in his mid-twenties (he’s 28 by the time of the manga, which is to say, after he spent time at the Defense Intelligence Office). Seriously, is it too much to ask for a bit of realism in my supersonic giant yellow octopus manga? ...One mystery remains, though. ...Where the hell did Karasuma find the time to get a valid teaching license? Because he does tell Gakuhô he has one early on, and being an instructor for military recruits certainly doesn’t require the same license as to teach middle-schoolers. Did he get a special rush training between the time Korosensei said he would be 3-E’s teacher and whenever chapter 3 happens? Or did he just happen to have one before? He probably entered the JSDF as soon as he got the minimum age, so I can’t see how. Matsui please show us your notes.

[alfietalksaboutcomics]

Riot at Xavier’s, a character study in juvenile political rebellion

Created by Grant Morrison and Keron Grant the character of Quentin Quire first appears in New X-Men #134, the issue that leads into the “Riot at Xavier’s” arc which spans from New X-Men #135-137 with a epilogue in issue #138. Quentin who is the main focus character and antagonist of the arc is a vehicle for Morrison and co to tell a story about the often surface level politics of alienated teenagers.The kind of person who doesn’t hold politics out of a real conviction or understanding of what those politics entail, but dresses themselves in the aesthetics of those politics as a means to performatively rebel to their elders and the world around them.

Many readers have drawn connections to Quentin Quire and the alt right which would arise about a decade or so after the publication of “Riot at Xavier’s”. The alt right, a primarily online Neo-fascist political movement, came to prominence in the 2010s, it prayed upon young disenfranchised men as its primary recruiting demographic, In this way it mimics the social critique Morrison was making with Quentin Quire. This has led many readers to draw a direct line between the two, the belief that Quentin Quire is an uncanny proto alt right character. How well does this hold up with a close read of his character in “Riot at Xavier’s” though? I intend to examine that very question, go into detail on the character arc of Quentin Quire, and the broader social critique being made.

Quentin feels alienated and rejected after learning from his parents that he was adopted, it fundamentally shakes his sense of self and throws him into questioning every aspect of his life. He lashes out because he feels disenfranchised, by rejecting Xavier’s dream he is venting his frustrations at the world, it's an outlet not a sincere position. Quentin adopts anger at the death of Jumbo Carnation not out of genuine anger at the grizzly murder, instead he takes the position when it becomes another outlet for him to point out the supposed hypocrisy of his elders and fuel his anger. 

Throughout the course of the arc we see Quentin’s acts of rebellion escalate more and more into violent and destructive actions. It starts with cruelty to his peers, his actions escalate further when he and his Omega Gang start assaulting random groups of bigoted humans.

Quentin at the climax of the riot exclaims “So much for the dream! All my life I’ve waited for this “dream” to come true! We were promised peace and security! All my life! Where is it!” Here we see his true motivations, he wants the security of loving parents but his birth parents abused him (which we learn in X-Force by Ben Percy), his adopted parents are in his eyes not really his parents, he feels disowned and abandoned. And now he thinks his teachers also have failed him. Quentin Quire has devastating abandonment issues that fuel his actions in “Riot at Xavier’s”.

As much as the riot itself escalates the omega gang lack clear goals or demands for their actions, they are just wildly lashing out because of “kick” and juvenile angst. It’s very much like a baby crying out for the attention of the adults.

In their sadism the Omega Gang are blind and uninterested to the real harm done to their fellow mutants as shown when they attack a U-Men base. Instead of seeing that the U-Men are planning on attacking Xavier students they obsessed over sadistically murdering a U-Man. Their riot leads to the death of Dummy of the special class. It’s a display that they are completely uninterested in actually fighting against anti mutant bigotry but more use the concept of humans as a target for Quentin’s violence, their ideology is style over substance. They aren’t actually interested in the politics or understanding the reason for practicing them, they are only interested in the act itself.

Earlier in the arc we see Quentin wearing a shirt that reads “Magneto was right” which is a parallel to the real life use of Che Guevara on graphic T-shirts that was popular in the early 00s among students, the comparison Morrison is making is from an inexperienced juvenile ideology dressed up in leftist aesthetics. Much like in the real life co-option of leftist imagery the adoption of the motto  “Magneto was right” doesn’t represent an actual political position but the rebelling against the positions of the professor, the politics are purely stripped out and made into an aesthetic of juvenile defiance. 

With the use of kick what was a normal rebellious cause for a teenager going through turmoil becomes the source of tangible harm, the Omega Gang’s actions don’t do anything to avenge Jumbo’s death. They  lash out without caring to understand the violent consequences of their actions. It’s action for the sake of action, a cult of action which is most commonly known as a characteristic of fascism as identified by Umberto Eco in Ur Fascism. However I�� think that kind of methodology (or lack thereof) isn’t inherently right wing in nature, it can be found in unguided, vague, often experienced political organizing from many groups across the political spectrum.

All and all in “Riot at Xavier’s” Grant Morrison tells a story about adolescent angst and the political posturing that often comes at that age. In most children this is a healthy if somewhat cringe worthy point in development. In the case of Quentin Quire this development is derailed by a combination of Kick and his rapidly out of control mutant gift. Quentin’s politics are neither left nor right, they are vapid and void of political substance, if anything its dressed up in imagery of the left wing, from the Che Shirts to the Pink dyed hair. While Quentin’s path does mimic that of many young men who fell into the alt right, disenfranchised and angry looking for an outlet. But I don’t think that means that he needs to represent that subculture. I think that given time the character of Quentin Quire could grow and evolve out of this phase which luckily we are now seeing done masterfully in X-Force by Ben Percy, I’m excited to see how this character continues to grow up with his second chance and hope that readers open themselves up to seeing how he can grow behind his original actions in “Riot at Xavier’s”

[brown-little-robin]

Writer asks: 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 20, 26, 28, 30

Dude, that's a lot! I'm going to have to answer these questions as efficiently as possible... a real challenge for your local Robin...

7 is answered here!

9: Favourite OC?

aughhhh... I love so many of my ocs so very dearly and it changes all the time. At the moment it's Rudy (the Party Clown).

10: OC you most struggled to make?

SIX. I am STILL struggling to figure out Six. He's a vortex of "who are you???" in my brain. I know I need him in the story and I can describe his effect on the others but I don't KNOW HIM. He keeps CHANGING on me. Even the picrews are out of date.

12: Which story took the most research?

Caravaggio story (based on the mamluks in 1250s Egypt and Mongolia) took the most difficult research. There's not a lot of resources on day-to-day life in 1250s Egypt. But the story that took the most time in research has been Clown World, for which I have read three full books and a bajillion articles and watched a documentary and a few short clown performances.

13. Which story has the most lore?

Probably Clown World...? But Strange Redemption comes really close. If you don't count details about characters that will be written into the story, Clown World definitely has the most lore. LOTS of worldbuilding, LOTS of backstories that will never be fully explained in-universe.

20: What story are you the proudest of? Why?

The Strange Redemption of Thaddeus Thawne. It's... deeply personal... it's cathartic for me and for others... from what I'm told, it often does what it's intended to do, which is let people experience Thad's perspective but not get lost in it, to get them thinking about healing and trauma and what it is to be alive... I'm proud of the story for what it is, even though I can see all the flaws. I'm proud of its slow, careful pacing and the way I write Thad's mind.

Also, Strange Redemption is my longest work and my first public work, AND I managed to publish it weekly and biweekly for two straight years while in college. And I'm sticking with it now even though it's like pulling teeth at the moment. I'm proud of myself for the writing of it.

26: What are your favourite books?

In no particular order, Howl's Moving Castle and Archer's Goon by Diana Wynne Jones; The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman; Watership Down by Richard Adams; All Systems Red and the rest of the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells; Going Postal by Terry Pratchett; and The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison.

28: Favourite songs at the moment?

Famous Last Words by MCR (hard rock, but it means a lot to me (it's about brotherly love!) and it's stuck in my head); Something Good by Alt-J (sweetly-sung melody about distracting oneself with self-destructive behaviors); Life Itself by Glass Animals (I associate it with Clown World!); and The Ballad of Bull Ramos by The Mountain Goats (from a concept album about pro wrestling, this song is about what the narrator imagines as the best possible old age... it's so strangely sweet...... it's about staying tough but having the freedom to help out his friends.....)

30: How are you doing? <3

Good! <3 I'm visiting a friend right now, and it's been lovely. I'm tired right now, but so content.

Overall, though, to be honest, I'm increasingly anxious about the future... it's my senior year of college, and I don't know what I'm doing after that. God will provide, but it's exceedingly nervewracking not to know how. So I'm doing good, objectively! I have an overabundance of good things in my life and even a good amount of security and stability! But I think maybe the stability itself is making me fall apart a bit 😭

[erosrevenge]

🖤🏴‍☠️ OFMD Fandom 🏴‍☠️🖤

I write stuff. I want to share it with you.

1. Let Them Say We're Crazy: 80s rom-com beats, friends to lovers, all the pining, slow burn, rated E

2. Drops and of Jupiter: 00s Nostalgia, friends to lovers, lost love, fluff & angst & smut, SMAU style (with alt text), tons of music, fast to slow burn, rated E, ✅ COMPLETE

3. A Madness Most Discreet: Completely unhinged dark Romeo & Juliet AU (better ending guaranteed), tons of smut, enemies to lovers, completely off the rails, mind the tags, fastest burn, rated E

4. Unfortunate Souls: A Little Mermaid AU but not in the way that you think. Featuring Kraken!Ed, angst/fluff/smut, enemies to lovers, movie & original fairytale beats, comedy, medium burn (probably, but I have zero self-control so who knows), rated E

5. Kryptonite: Superhero AU, Comedy, rated M

6. Sandcastles: Drops of Jupiter Series

Oneshots set after the main story, various ratings

Bubbles

Tinsel

Visions of Sugarplums

Say You Won't Let Go

7. Next Christmas: Fluffy, fun, modern holiday/winter RomCom AU based on the movie "The Thing About Harry", slowburn, rated E (for eventual smut).

8. That One: Rated E, Modern AU, Angst & Smut, Fastburn. Stede starts an affair with one Ed Teach, a man he's already been told belongs to someone else.

9. Thirteen Hours: Labyrinth (1986) AU, adult version, dark & moody, angst, smut, comedy, Rated E. WIP collaboration with @fandomsfrillsandfuckingtea

All I can really say is if you love Labyrinth you're going to like this one.

10. PRN Take As Needed: Modern AU, Rated E

One small town doctor bored out of his mind. One mouthy automated thermometer on the verge of world destruction. One hot new blonde med tech able to charm the pants right off everyone. Everything is definitely going to be fine.