#and apply our own ideas to these figures and take it as fact that it becomes problematic

[z-eusie]

I think there will always be a difference to me between the Gods (historical, religious) and the gods (narrative). on one hand I fully acknowledge that gods are a product of their time period, of the historical, cultural, and religious context of their era and that it can be irresponsible to assign morality or personality to them outside of that context. I acknowledge that the gods are powerful, significant deities upon whom my own 'silly headcanons' have no merit. the gods in their original context are beings I would never claim to understand or represent in any way resembling accuracy.

but I think the gods in a narrative context, as representations of concepts, as representations of important lessons and 'archetypes' (in a manner of speaking) are completely different. these are the versions I play around with, the ones I assign a level of humanity that might be unbecoming of their true selves. narratively, I'm going to write the gods in my own context, with human values and experiences. it's not meant to be a true representation of the gods in their original contexts.

I think it's important to acknowledge a) why these figures are significant and where that comes from, but also to b) find ways to connect to them on our own terms. and I do that by writing them in my little stories, portraying the humanity of them in every way I think they could be capable of.

[viperwhispered]

I just wanna take a moment to say thank you for always being around to chat since I don't have many to talk to about TWST. I also suck at characterization so I don't write many fics. But I was very happy when you used one of our discussions for Revel in You. I don't mind if you use our convos to write, just be sure to credit the source.

On that note: saw your smut posts. Here's an idea: Jamil celebrating his promotion to being a Housewarden.

It's Friday, there's an enormous party going on to celebrate Jamil and Kalim's new roles and the successes of the first month with this new dynamic. While Jamil is more accustomed to the spotlight, he still gets "tired out" and leaves it to Kalim to keep the party going and organize the clean up crew. After all, he's due for a more private celebration of his own.

Fun fact: for a good chunk of snake species, the male will bite the females neck to hold them down while mating.

Imagine Jamil relentlessly taking his beloved from behind, deciding they're wriggling a bit too much. Delighting in the sounds they make as he pulls them towards him by the hair, he just bites the back of their neck as his body pins them to the bed. They'll probably be annoyed by morning, but Jamil's already got some concealers beforehand.

Did I forget to mention it's a Friday, Jamil no longer has roomates, and pretty much the entire dorm is still partying to loud music several hallways away?

Also worth mentioning that, as a healthy mature couple, all of Jamil's jealousy and possessiveness is addressed in a healthy manner so the relationship never turns toxic. This statement does not apply to the bedroom.

Aww thank you, always happy to talk with you too 😊 Plus like, if you’d rather talk over messages sometime in addition to the asks, feel free. (And this applies to anyone else reading this post too.)

Yeah iirc I was thinking a bit if I should ask you about using that ask as a jumping off point for To Revel in You, but I figured I was using it more as inspiration rather than rewriting anything you wrote or anything like that. And that since you sent that ask in the first place, I did kinda assume it would be okay to build off it. But good to hear I wasn’t wrong in thinking so, and glad you liked it.

As for characterization & writing: it really is a matter of practice, I’d say. Plus, like, everyone is bound to interpret the characters in a different way, or focus on different aspects of them. Which can be freeing, in a way, knowing that you can bring to the table something that no one else can, certainly not in the same exact way you would.

Also I was actually thinking of asking for some writing prompts since the current wip seems to need a bit more time to marinate, and here you are with perfect timing.

So let’s see what I can do with this concept.

If it wasn’t obvious: smut ahead. Written with fem / afab reader in mind but I think this could be read gender neutral as well since the only specific body detail mentioned is that reader has hair long enough for Jamil to grab.

The day - and the week, and the month - had been such a whirlwind that even Jamil had had trouble keeping up with it all.

Tonight, Jamil had basked in the praises from his dormmates, their congratulations and glowing words - and noted the cautious looks of those who still had not forgotten the events of his overblot.

He had enjoyed food that was not made by him, watched others fuss over the preparations and the serving - well, as much as he had been able to keep himself from giving direction. Still, even he had not been able to oversee every single detail, as much as he wanted to.

After all, both you and Kalim had been quite insistent, in your own ways, that this celebration should be for him, not by him.

So Jamil had danced, eaten, drank, listened, talked, so much so that now when the night was beginning to turn towards morning, he had more than had his fill.

Besides, tired as he may be of the crowd, there was still something on his agenda that he was more than happy to indulge in.

You had been teasing him with promises of a more private celebration - starting from when the party was decided on all the way to when you had been dancing together earlier - and Jamil intended to finally collect his reward.

You were outside for a moment of fresh air and quiet when Jamil found you, wrapping his arms around you from behind and nipping your ear.

“I remember someone promising to be mine tonight,” he murmured, voice low and husky.

You shivered, feeling Jamil’s lips on your neck. You’d half expected him to be too tired to turn your teasing into action. Yet, you certainly welcomed this turn of events, your own tiredness washed away by Jamil’s eager touch and his tempting whispers.

“You know me. Always love - ahhh - spoiling you,” you said - your words turning into a gasp when Jamil licked the side of your neck.

In no time at all you found yourself in Jamil’s room - as easy as it was to be distracted by each other, you both still preferred the privacy over lingering in the common areas of the dorm.

Jamil’s mouth was hungry on yours, his hands working quickly to rid you of your clothes.

Sometimes you wondered just how much Jamil was holding back in the presence of others, for him to get so ravenous as soon as you two were alone.

Not that you were any different, pulling away that long belt from Jamil’s hips so that you could slip your hands under his shirt, your lips covering every available bit of his skin with kisses.

It was always delicious, your naked bodies tangled together. That heady feeling of each other, both of you grasping and kissing wherever you could, like you could never quite feel enough of the other.

“So what would mister housewarden ask of me tonight?” you asked with a playful grin, nuzzling your nose against Jamil’s.

There was undeniable hunger in the way Jamil looked at you, yet also the warmth and softness of your lover that always filled your heart to the brim.

“Just all of you, albi,” Jamil murmured, pushing you down onto the mattress.

You’d entertained ideas of a celebratory blowjob, of taking care of Jamil tonight. But if he’d rather help himself to you, you were certainly not going to say no.

A few orgasms later and Jamil was pounding into you, firmly holding onto your hips while your face was pressed onto the sheets. His cock was invading your insides so hard, so deep, leaving you nearly senseless. You jolted helplessly every time Jamil slammed his way all the way in, the pleasure bordering on pain as it shot through your nerves.

“Ahhh, Jamil…” you whimpered, barely aware of the spot of drool you’d left on the bed.

“Too much?” Jamil muttered, one of his hands leaving your side to instead trail a soothing path along your spine.

“...No.”

It was a lot, your senses nearly overtaken by the intensity of it all - yet you didn’t want anything less.

Still, you couldn’t help squirming, your body twitching with every thrust, yelps and moans pushed from your throat no matter how much you tried to hold them in.

“Hold still,” Jamil grunted. 

He gathered your hair in his hand, making you gasp when he tugged. You could feel the pull on your scalp, almost like Jamil wanted to rein you in - or pull your face away from the sheets so that he could hear your cries more clearly.

“You’re all mine tonight, aren’t you? Mine to have, mine to enjoy,” Jamil breathed to your ear.

“Yes, yes, yes…” you whined, aroused beyond belief.

Always his, just as he is yours - but you had no time to vocalize that thought before Jamil’s weight pushed you prone on the bed.

Your gasp was cut short, turned into a sharp cry when you felt moist pressure at the back of your neck - a bite, you realized, some instinct telling you to keep still.

Not that you had much of a choice in the matter. Jamil’s hand, still gripping your hair. His mouth, latched onto your skin. His body, holding you down.

The weight of him against your back was almost suffocating, yet in a delicious way. Like you could be closer to him like this, more connected than just skin to skin contact - or penetration - could provide.

You could feel the rolling of Jamil’s hips against your backside, the way his cock was dragging along your insides. Not as harshly as before, yet intense enough to keep you trembling and whining with the little breath you could take.

And Jamil’s mouth, his teeth, never letting go. His muffled groans such a delicious sound, making you clench around him.

Such sweet torture, and you never wanted it to end.

Taglist since this turned into fic: @colliope @crystallizsch @diodellet @jamilsimpno69 @jamilvapologist @perilous-pasta @twstgo @cannedpickledpeaches

[unhinged-transmasc-man]

I really do think that some trans people see the word “man” in trans man and their brain shuts off. Their brains go “Oh, man. Man privileged and bad. Men evil and oppressive. Therefore you, Man, equal evil and oppressive. I do not consider you a person now.” The usual acknowledgement of identities and nuance and lived experience they willingly apply to every other group flies out the fucking window. They are so blinded by gender essentialism they completely dehumanize trans men. They don’t know what to do with us in their simplistic bullshit radfem gender politics. Saying trans women are women doesn’t make you not a radfem, deconstructing bio/gender essentialism, and the belief that all masculinity and men/men-aligned/masculine people are inherently morally evil/oppressive/corruptive, and that all femininity and women/women-aligned-feminine people are inherently morally good/innocent/oppressed, THAT is what you have to do to not be a radfem, at the very least.

I am sick to death of non-trans men acting as if trans men never interrogate what it means to be a man. It is in the DEFINITION of being a trans man. We have thought about what it means to be a man more than anyone else (interestingly, trans women also have to grapple with manhood and masculinity in being raised with patriarchal expectations and realizing they don’t fit them and don’t identify with manhood). We build ourselves up from nothing (in terms of making the world acknowledge us as men instead of forcibly trapping as us “women”), we have to make our bodies match who we are, we have to figure out and be determined to be boys and men before anyone else knows we are. We are trans BECAUSE we are men. We have to figure out what being trans and what being a man means to us. Our sense of manhood and masculinity will always be rebellious (not by our own choice, but in the way any oppressed group is rebellious in existing). Trans men are inherently an anti-patriarchal concept. Obviously trans men can be misogynistic like anyone else, but the claim that transforming into a man is automatically misogynistic is radfem trash. The idea that identifying as a man suddenly erases experiences of misogyny is so inherently alien to the actual lived experience of all trans men that it can only come from people who do not interact with, care about, or view trans men as worthy of listening to, or even acknowledgment at all, or even just outright hate us for existing. Non trans men seem to legitimately think that putting on a binder will make cis people see us as men. That is not how it works, and the fact that I have to SAY THAT just shows the absolute miserable state of how rampant anti-trans man attitudes are (anti-transmasculinity more generally but specifically with trans men).

Trans men think about manhood a LOT. We think about it a lot, because manhood and masculinity are central to our identity in a way that is different from any other group of people. We are taking previous experiences and concepts, and re-framing and re-creating those concepts with what fits us. We have to completely construct both womanhood and manhood. It is also a different kind of thinking of being a man because we actually are the men in that situation, “the man” goes from being Other to Us. The complete disregard for our personal experiences, and the reliance on non-trans men and their endless parade of disgusting and bigoted options rather than US is very telling. Trans men have a unique perspective: manhood and masculinity, and the patriarchy (they are not the same thing) were likely traumatic for us, but our own masculinity and manhood are freeing and liberatory for us because we are trans, and because we are trans men. Obviously we don’t want to be what oppressed us, so our usual conclusion is to do masculinity and manhood in a different way. And yet is it so common for that to be turned against us, to assume that because we are trans men we must be willingly aligning ourselves with patriarchy without a second thought. But some trans people do not want to let us do a different form of masculinity, because they see all masculinity as inherently the same, equally oppressive, and evil.

We have a deeper understanding of misogyny and constructs of manhood than most people. We have a deeply profound awareness of how gender works, we live with it every day. Our perspective is critical for advancing any sort of gendered liberation of trans people, and to act like it isn’t, and to act as if only people who do not identify with manhood or masculinity have an inherently more valid perspective is gender essentialist nonsense. Gender is fluid and can be interpreted in many ways, the harmful ways of the patriarchy are not inherent in masculinity or femininity. Masculinity is not inherently oppressive, the patriarchy is. Of course people not allowed to be men who insist on our right to be men anyway think about our identities all the time. Far more than the people who make these nonsensical claims in the first place. Quite honestly, the only way to make this better (what we can do, because 1. It’s not our responsibility to make non-trans men not hate us and 2. Non trans men need to do their work in fixing their attitudes about us) is for trans men to use our voices and share our point of view. Anti-trans man and masc bigotry relies on silence and deliberate violent erasure, and it’s harder to do that if we never be quiet. Our identities are not morally wrong. We deserve to take up space.

[gepardling]

First of all I ABSOLUTELY LOVE YOUR WRITING! YOU ARE INCREDIBLE <33 JUST PRAISE. Now! I just wanted to say that I can't stop imagining our dear boy Gepard with a doctor reader. Like he comes back injured and she just takes care of his wounds and he looks up at her with such adoration. I imagine it something like that Spiderman scene with Peter and Gwen?? If you get me, when Peter goes to her and she treats his wounds, they are so close and it's so cute!! So yes something similar happens with our boy Geppie. (still love your writing a lot!)

scars of service w/ gepard.

desc. : okie so I LOVED WRITING THIS OOPS i initially had a slightly diff idea for dis but after reading the whole thing i jus had a "dis piece is complete" moment n i really liked what i had so ! enjoy :) the title is a play on the love language "acts of service" ♥︎ (wc : 1k )

tags / cw : sfw, just fluff, established relationship, gn!reader, mention of injury/blood but nothing graphic described, hurt/comfort (?) perhaps, gepard is a little arrogant man who should be more careful on the frontlines

Unwavering dedication breeds self-sacrifice, and Gepard's unyielding commitment on the frontlines often gave rise to both acts of bravery and the perilous seed of arrogance. He was no stranger to throwing himself at the Fragmentum, fending off waves of monsters in an attempt to break the enemy line so that his soldiers may have an advantage. While Gepard may have had the stamina, he was only human and you knew he was bound to reach his limit eventually.

On this day, the Fragmentum onslaught proved exceptionally harsh. Unending masses of monsters stormed the frontlines, clashing with the silvermane forces in relentless waves. Even Gepard, alongside his fatigued comrades, was starting to tire. After fending off an abnormally large beast, the captain found himself worse for wear. Without the arrival of the rear guard as back-up, he would have collapsed on the spot.

Hearing the door to the clinic slam open was enough to give anyone a fright, and the icy breeze sent a chill down your spine. You were taken aback when you realized it was Captain Gepard in the doorway, once-pristine white uniform now stained with blood and dirt. As your eyes scanned his figure, your heart raced at the state he was in – that the blood on his uniform was in fact his own and not from a soldier he had brought in for first aid. 

Immediately, you rushed to his side, guiding him to the examination table in the corner of the room. Gepard hissed when you pressed against his wounded side, prompting him to sit on the edge of the bed. At this point, neither of you had spoken a word to the other, and frankly you were too afraid to ask. While it is true that you'd often do volunteer work on the frontlines, you'd never expected to see the Captain in such a dire state as he is now.

As you pushed up his uniform coat, the sight of the grievous laceration on his side made you gasp. Removing the upper half of his uniform revealed even more scratches and bruises he had endured. Wordlessly, you retrieved the necessary materials, pulling up a chair next to the bed. “What happened?” you asked after a long period of silence had passed, cleaning the area around the laceration with an antiseptic solution. Gepard breathed deeply when the liquid seeped into his wound, burning the exposed flesh. 

“The Fragmentum,” he finally replied, pointedly avoiding the worried look in your eyes. With steady hands, you continued your ministrations, your gaze fixed on Gepard's injury. The severity of his wounds sent a shiver down your spine, and concern etched itself into your gentle features. The heavy silence clung to the air, amplifying the weight of your unspoken fears. As you carefully applied a sterile dressing to his side, you couldn't help but press for more answers, unable to ignore the nagging worry that gnawed at your heart.

"You’ve never had an injury this bad," you remarked softly, trying to keep your voice steady. "But this... this time it's more than just a skirmish. What happened out there, Gepard?" Gepard's eyes flickered, his gaze fixated on a distant point on the wall. His reluctance to share the details only fueled your determination to unearth the truth. You knew him well enough to recognize his attempts to shield you from unnecessary worry, but this time, you couldn't let him dismiss your concerns so easily.

Leaning closer, you gently grasped his hand, dabbing his bruised knuckles with the cleaning agent and applying a bandage. "Please, Gepard," you implored, your voice laced with genuine care. "Share your burden with me." Finally, his eyes met yours, revealing a mixture of gratitude and vulnerability. The familiar strength that radiated from him seemed momentarily diminished, replaced by a quiet vulnerability that tugged at your heart. 

A faint smile played on his lips, a subtle attempt to lighten the mood. “I may have overstayed my welcome, but rest assured, I still seem to be in one piece.” He gently raised his hand to your face, thumb stroking your cheek. Your gaze held a sadness that broke his heart, but your mouth curved into a gentle smile.

"You know I worry about you out there," you whispered, your hand pressing against his on your cheek. "I don't want your duty to be your downfall." You looked away, searching for another wound to focus on, to divert your mind from the dark thoughts.

"It's the fear of losing you that gives me the strength to push past my limits. If I couldn't protect Belobog – to protect you – I wouldn't know what would become of me," he replied, a familiar determination etched into his tone. You fell silent, gently applying a numbing gel to the cut on his arm. It was pointless to argue, but it didn't mean you approved of his reckless behavior.

"I would've stitched you up without anesthetic if I didn't love you, you know?" you quipped, chuckling softly at the thought. Gepard only laughed, leaning in to plant a soft kiss against your lips. It was apologetic, for making you worry about him as much as he did. When he pulled away, you no longer felt sadness. His presence alone calmed your worries.

But as he leaned in for another peck, you found yourself pushing against his chest with your free hand. “Hey,” you breathed, “At least let me finish stitching up this cut…” The needle still grasped tightly between your fingers, you hoped you wouldn't accidentally pull the thread too tight. But maybe, just maybe, it would teach him a lesson to be more careful next time.

After you finished patching up Gepard, a quiet understanding filled the room. As your fingers traced across his scars, a mixture of tenderness and concern enveloped your heart. You had come to accept that this was how things would be, that he would always be drawn to the frontlines, risking his well-being for the greater good. Yet, in that moment, you silently vowed to cherish every precious moment, knowing that your unwavering support would be his guiding light in the darkest of times.

the science nerd in me had 2 tone down the medical references and play up the emotions to 100 hehe ♥︎ but OMGGG dat Spiderman scene was so soft aaaa i hope I managed to capture the vibes...

[cloveroctobers]

BODE LEONE — Spring Writings 🩵

A/N: Happy Fire Country Friday! It’s just me feeding the ghost town of a tag that was inspired by that last episode with a side of drama or triggers—i try my best to make spring writings more fluff based which you will get somewhere here. I want to say this takes place a year or two after this current season idk whatever makes sense lol. I know timelines are kinda confusing for this show so feel how you feel!

WARNINGS: strained parent and child relationship, established relationships, infidelity of other characters, mentions of abuse to minors, alluding to s*ic**e, PTSD, blood, lots of descriptions that I should be employed as a screenwriter for the show with the amount of detail I give but we can just pretend, also I’m assuming that Bode and Riley were at least two to three years apart whereas him and Jake are the same age? I think that’s about it enough!

PROMPTS ARE FROM HERE + HERE & I’m using: 9. Our first dinner party & “god you’re bleeding! how the hell did you do that?” “i was trying to cut the tomatoes!”

⚘𖦹☼❀𑁍❀☼𖦹⚘ ⚘𖦹☼❀𑁍❀☼𖦹⚘ ⚘𖦹☼❀𑁍❀☼𖦹⚘ ⚘𖦹☼❀

“God you’re bleeding! How the hell did you do that?” Bode’s voice booms off the “almost oyster,” kitchen walls, making you zone back in to the fact that your middle knuckle and tip of your thumb happened to be oozing red all over the makeshift counter and cutting board.

He’s scrambling around the kitchen, snatching a rag from underneath the sink to wrap around your two fingers awkwardly. Applying pressure, which you hiss at, you meet Bode’s concerned blue-green eyes to see that he’s waiting for an answer.

You sigh, “I was trying to cut the tomatoes!”

Bode keeps his hands securely over yours and barely glances at the work you started on along with your phone that keeps silently lighting up. He blinks his attention back to you, sensing that you were disconnecting and was not entirely sure why. It was your idea to have your first dinner party after he moved in with you at the high rise out in Hillford, which was thirty minutes west of Edgewater.

“I see that,” he starts, “you don’t even like tomatoes, so I’m not sure why that’s on the menu for tonight?”

Closing your eyes for a moment you lift your shoulders nonchantly, “your mom loves a good Mediterranean salad, so I thought why not give it a go?”

Bode snorts, “my mom wouldn’t know the difference if it was store bought.”

His mom was a decent cook but she hardly had the patience to keep up with it. Majority of the time Bode’s dad was the one to throw down thanks to his own mother and grandmother forcing him to learn. Sharon loved to eat and sample so she wouldn’t be too judgmental…unless she ended up with food poisoning then you’d never hear the end of it!

“Vince would depending on what it is.” You peer at him underneath your eyelashes while Bode breathed out a laugh, figuring that you were most likely right. Mr. Leone may seem like a go with the flow kind of guy but one thing about the Leone’s? They loved to eat and if the food wasn’t cutting it then some words would be said.

Bode hoped the idea of his parents being here tonight didn’t make you nervous. It wasn’t your first time having a meal with them and one thing Bode knew about his parents is that they rarely held back. They liked you and they wanted to see him rebuild his life after being released. They were just happy that Bode was finally able to do that but after that text you just received…you weren’t so sure if that would remain true.

Bode gently lifts the rag from your fingers, “the bleeding from your thumb seems to be slowing down but that knuckle might need some stitches.” He announces before raising your hand back above your heart.

Feeling a wave of frustration fly over your being once more, made you want to lay face first on the kitchen floor—if it was sanitary. Hey you kept a clean house, otherwise you wouldn’t be having any family over! You were a bit of germaphobe and tried to ignore the itch of your brain to get to cleaning the mess you left on the wooden table turned island, that you got from a antique store two years ago.

“Hey,” Bode grips you even tighter, prepared to handle the deadweight if you decided to just drop to the floor, “what’s wrong?”

This was more than just you losing blood.

Opening your eyes you move your body around to slump against Bode, who didn’t hesitate to rest his cheek against the back of your head, “Sharon invited my mom and Manny, which is okay, I guess! Then my mom invited Gabriela! Which automatically makes what’s his face, the fiancé, her plus one while also extending it to Eve who invited Jake.”

The mumbling from you was a bit difficult for Bode to grasp but he listened intently anyways to get the gist of it all. There were many things wrong with this and he was tempted to call his mother up right now—despite knowing she had no ill intentions. Sharon seemed to get a kick out of your mom (which only meant trouble) who was casually dating Manny and you already knew your mother was solely the one to drag Gabriela into this. You’ve known the Perez’ since what felt like forever, way back in San Diego where you and Gabriela both attended school and actually became friends due to being in the same friend groups. You both tried out for the swim team, Gabriela made it and you excelled better at gymnastics.

She had the dream of being in the Olympics while you were being shot up with steroids from your coach to be the next star of the team. There was Lilavati Sharma who was the face of the team and carried herself with such grace despite the pressure to always be the best. She was sweet with all the girls and guys on the team and was genuinely likeable. The coach favored her just a little too much to the point she was here and then in the next she wasn’t.

Her father pulled her away from the team and gave the coach a nice shiner to the face that took weeks to heal. That only made the coach train you harder until you broke your collar bone, becoming the biggest disappointment until the truth of your coach came to light after the unexpected death of Lilavati.

That’s when you learned, maybe second best wasn’t so bad after all but that didn’t mean your trauma needed to be diminished as well. You hurt for Lilavati more than you did for yourself and it took years for you to understand why that was.

The universe seemed to have it written in stone that you and Gabriela were meant to be in each other’s lives. Yes you were older now compared to high school but it was safe to say that the both of you have fallen out long before. There always seemd to be some sort of connect with your mother and Manny. They were both once married and Manny’s been raising Gabriela all on his own for as long as you could remember. You recalled the conversations Gabriela would have about the gap she had in her life because of her mother’s absence and how lucky you were to have your parents.

Well…your mother’s been cheating on your father since you were a kid and basically bullied you not to tell your father about it once you were a bit older. Although he’s always known, he hated that she put you in that position after realizing that you’ve known. By the time leaving for college came around, your dad was moving from San Diego to Northern California far out to Edgewater; after serving your mother divorce papers who gave him such a hard time on signing them. She even followed him all the way out there after putting the house up for sale a month before your graduation.

Going back and forth to court was a common thing between them along with a restraining order being filed and lengthy phone calls from your mouthy mother filled your head while studying for finals. So yes your upbringing was as peachy as everyone thought.

Bringing it back to present time, your father was remarried and seemed to be thriving with his new aeronautical engineer of a husband, that you had to cat-sit every time they left the country to explore the world. Your father’s always been open about his sexuality and made you comfortable (considering he was a psychologist) if you ever questioned anything of your own personal experiences. You were one of the rare cases where you always had crushes and flirted once it felt like those crushes also showed interest but…it never amounted out into much.

You never had a significant other until you reached college. Let’s just say, you didn’t marry your college sweetheart. That wasn’t your story. The idea of love that you had wasn’t the brightest although it’s something you always wanted to have, it was just hard to truly receive it. And here you were with a man that always fought through so much in life that also wanted to give love and be loved in return.

“So the gang is all coming basically?” Bode used one hand to gently rub your back, “we could just cancel. It was supposed to just be with my parents…although I don’t mind Manny and your mom tagging along but…inviting everyone else to our place without talking to us about it…is crossing boundaries. How’d you find out?”

It still felt odd for Bode to call this waterfront townhouse his as well but you constantly reassured him that he was open to doing anything that made him feel like the home was his too. For one contributing to the HOA fees was a good start (after fighting a lengthy battle with the court to get EMT training and finally getting a spot on CalFire as stable income was a long time coming). Pre-Prison Bode had jobs before—some that he’s walked out on—but being with CalFire gave him purpose with a smidge of financial freedom. He was able to spend money on things that mattered like annoying adult stuff, a creepy ornamental two piece banana sculpture that he installed on the wall of the breakfast room (a small separate area from the dining room), and you.

“Mom texted.” You huffed, “and I’m trying to get better at not blowing up on her but when she does things like this? It makes it so hard.”

It took a lot for you to stand up to your mother since you tended to hold everything in. Over the years it’s been a build up and she’s apologized various of times but it started to fall on empty ears when she continued to repeat her same patterns.

Bode hated that your mother caused you such anxiety. He’s cupping your face now, gently placing his forehead against yours, “what do you want to do? I’ll call mom and yours up right now if it’s too much? We can have dinner ourselves, just us two and see if there’s any new streams on that movie you’ve been telling me about.”

You send him a small smile, cherishing that, “the kebabs are already done along with half of the other food. We can’t eat all of this ourselves.”

Bode peeks over at the covered food on the rest of the counters then back to you with a smirk of a smile, “want to bet?”

“Bode!”

“What? I can eat and I’ve been dying to try a kebab since you slapped my hand with a Spatula an hour ago.” He playfully glares at you, “I needed a snack.”

“There’s always crackers.”

Bode furrows his brows, “…I thought you loved me but I think you’re trying to starve me. What is this? Three rock?”

You laughed, “well at least one of us has an appetite and I just want to get through this night and enjoy the company of what I thought would just be with Sharon and Vince.”

Bode nods his head, “we still have time if you change your mind so, I’ll give you until after I’ve cleaned you up.”

“I love that you already know that I want you to do my stitches.”

Bode slides an arm across your hips to guide you out of the kitchen, “of course I know my baby. You nearly collapse every time you see prices in the grocery store when we’re out so I can only imagine what the bill from urgent care would look like. Lucky for you, you have a certified first responder as a boyfriend.”

He’s careful with you as he guides you up the narrow creaky stairs to the second floor to the main bathroom and you’re reminded this is the love you deserve.

You’re seated on the toilet while Bode is making a mess—like he commonly does—searching for what he needs. His hands are large and quick as they work the needle through the thread before setting it aside. He turns back to you, moving your hands from the pressure you’re applying against the rag, before motioning for you to keep it on the knuckle while he cleans, applies antibiotics and bandages your thumb first.

Bode kisses your thumb over the bandage, “how are we doing? Feeling faint? Do you need water? I probably should have asked before we came up here.”

“I’m fine.” You smile softly at him as he grabs a stool to sit down on as it’ll take him longer to work on your knuckle, “thanks for checking.”

He hums in response, “want to talk about work as a distraction?”

Blood didnt really bother you but you did cringe at the thought of needles. You can go ahead and write down PTSD note takers! You were an application security specialist, yes a true nerd, and also damn good at your stressful but fulfilling job but it was the weekend so that was a negative.

You redirect the conversation, “I’d like to draw you your next tattoo.”

Did you have artistic abilities like Bode? Let’s just say you were more of a data person while also being pretty athletic—although gymnastics was somewhat history you still found yourself stretching and working out to be crucial to your health routine—you had your own taste.

“Yeah?” Bode asks as he gets to work, “are you telling me you don’t like the two I already have?”

You shake your head, “sure I do. They have their own significant stories, which I’d never change and I have ideas if that artist brain of yours craves for more ink.”

“Appreciate that…so what’s on your mind?”

You deeply inhale as you feel the needle piercing your skin but talk through it, “you’re surprisingly into some odd art and I’ve been looking at vintage Halloween art that my co-worker is obsessed with and thought, why not create a wizard frog with a pointy star hat, wand and everything?”

“A wizard frog?” There’s a teasing tone in Bode’s voice while he pictures it as he pulls tight before going back to your skin while you hold your breath, “Magic’s not really my thing especially since I told you about my dad having me watch that one weird movie with Anthony Hopkins. Riley on the other hand? Could sit up for hours watching that horror crap with my dad…although she always ended up in my room, stealing my covers while talking away as I tried to sleep. As her big brother I dealt with it if that meant keeping her nightmares away, although I regretted it in the morning.”

The both of you share a laugh at this.

What you knew of Riley was that her and Bode were sorta opposites. She had the kindest big round blue eyes, was friendly and open to having conversations with strangers whereas Bode was more reserved before he felt comfortable enough to approach. Apparently she was soft spoken yet determined, into the well-being of animals that she planned to be a vegetarian once she was older, liked magic tricks and horror movies but only if that meant she got more time to bond with Vince that is. She seemed to have a heart on her sleeve and probably would have been a veterinarian if she lived past sixteen.

“Just big brother duties.” You inhale air between your teeth, “and I think she would like my wizard frog idea.”

“Yeah…I can see you two plotting against me.” Bode smiles over at you before giving one last tug before snooping off the excess thread, “all set.”

Before he can even move to start cleaning up, you throw your arms across his shoulders and give him a squeeze. Bode pauses but buried his nose against your fuzzy cardigan before rubbing your back against your embrace once more.

“What’s this for?”

You say, “just because I love you and I’m happy to have you here with me, which I know I probably don’t say enough since words of affirmation is more your thing than mine but I stand by this. I look forward to many more days with you, good and challenging.”

Bode feels his body go warm at your words and pulls back to meet your eyes. “I can’t wait and I love you too, softie.”

You roll your eyes as he chuckles at you while you scratch at his facial hair.

“…You’ll think about the wizard frog?”

Bode sighs with a small smile on his lips, “If it makes you happy, love.”

“Cop out answer!” You flick his broad shoulder with your good hand.

“How?” Bode lifts his shoulders in confusion.

You crinkle your nose in annoyance, “You can’t ever say what I want to hear and make me think I’m always the winner, fight back.”

“Okay…I’ll remember that when I don’t want to watch the traitors uk with you.” Bode holds your stare while you gasp with a hand to your chest and then nod your head, mentally saying that was fair game.

Bode can already tell what you’re thinking, which makes him grin at you before leaning forward to cautiously peck your lips. You humph before slowly pushing yourself to get to your feet and steady yourself.

Bode’s hands are immediately on your hips as you balance yourself and you give him a nod in reassurance before leaning forward. You connect your lips again, his beard tickling your face as you breathe him in. He smells sweet like amber, fresh but calming like cypress, and warm sandalwood and you feel like you could just sink into him endlessly but manage to pull away.

“You sure you don’t want to cancel? We could do more of that and I wouldn’t mind.” Bode squeezes your hips with a lick of his own lips.

You pull from his grip, “that’s what Sunday is for, a day with no plans! Now let’s go, chop chop! We have a dinner to finish.”

And you’re out of the bathroom before Bode can even blink. He’s shaking his head at you and calls out, “fine. Don’t touch any more knives though!”

Once putting everything back where it belongs, he stares at his reflection in the mirror. He’s not entirely thrilled to have Jake here, since they were attempting to get back to where they once were but Bode wasn’t holding his breath since he felt like Jake was trying to live what could have been his when it came to Genevieve. It took time for him to accept what happened when they were teenagers meaning with Riley but since he’s been locked up? It felt like it was one thing after the next even in his freedom. Then there was Gabriela…which you had your own issue with although you tried to downplay it and there was a smidge of a history that Bode had with her that probably didn’t help…

He just hopes this dinner isn’t a true disaster for both of your sakes but at least he could have the task of throwing someone out…if it came to that of course.

That wasn’t what brought a smile to his face, it was the thought of hosting something that he could call his own with the person he wanted to spend countless days with.

You.

⚘𖦹☼❀𑁍❀☼𖦹⚘ ⚘𖦹☼❀𑁍❀☼𖦹⚘ ⚘𖦹☼❀𑁍❀☼𖦹⚘ ⚘𖦹☼❀

[matan4il]

"Breaking your faith in humanity "... Truer words never spoken. There is knowing the true horror that was done to innocent civilians and being horrified by it. But then there is the ultimate sadness in how some people act now. How are people criticizing Paltrow for speaking the truth. Rape is not resistance!!!

Even on a mundane level, I can say as I first found you because of Buddie, I almost have no joy for it coming back. I'm almost grateful there were no shows this fall because it would have felt icky for me. But it still does even now. It feels vapid to find joy in something knowing how people suffered and are still suffering. I, of course, don't judge others who find solace in it. I will watch it and hope. I just find it hard to go back to a normal thing like shipping a fictional couple.

As always, I hope you're staying safe and sane. I hope you feel ok and maybe have the house situation figured out . xoxoxo

Hi darling!

I hope you're well. *hugs*

It's insane to me that the sentence, "Rape is not resistance" is something that actually needs saying. People who are truly against rape, are always against rape. They don't need convincing not to make Jews an exception. I have NEVER heard in any other context people saying, "Well, I'm against rape as an idea, but this specific case is okay."

If you're okay with some rapes, you've never truly been anti-rape.

But the fact that so many of those who say it, who supposedly justify it as anti-colonialist, are actually colonizers living on colonized land, is even more deranged, because it means either they're saying they're okay with they themselves, their families and fellow colonizer friends and colleagues being raped as well (I doubt that's what they mean), or they're applying this "notion" of rape being resistance in a discriminatory way, where rape is resistance so long as it's done to Jews living in the Jewish ancestral homeland. Which is not anti-colonialist at all, IS hypocritical and IS antisemitic. HOW can they take this stance, and not see how harmful to Jews it is? They're being pro-rape and anti-Jewish, while claiming they're motivated by empathy and concern for human rights!?

I'm so happy you found me thanks to my Buddie content, and I endlessly appreciate what an incredible, real ally to Jews you are. I'm generally very grateful for every 911 fan, who actually implements the show's notions of compassion, which include listening to marginalized groups about their own experiences (and Hamas' massacre, the motivation behind the war, the pain over the loss of so many Israelis and Jews by a nation which has survived a genocide, and still carries an inter-generational trauma because of it, the sense of betrayal over the rise in antisemitic incident on Oct 7 already, while the terrorists were still inside Israel, butchering, raping, beheading and burning people, these are OUR experiences. Ignoring us when we talk about them or telling us we're only motivated by bloodlust, an antisemitic trope, when we explain that we're much more concerned about liberating our hostages and preventing another massacre, that's speaking over us. Arguing with us on what is and isn't antisemitic, that's speaking over us, rather than listening to us. It's antisemitic in itself, and it's not something that's done to ANY other marginalized group).

I can't believe we're at the point where Jews have to beg people to just listen to us, listen as if we're human beings, and not caricatures of vampiric villains (again, a classic antisemitic trope), cruelly interested solely in destruction and death. But in response so many people just look at us, knowing there's a rise in antisemitism, and still go... "No."

When people in every fandom go around, not just blocking Jews and Jewish allies who believe a Jewish state has the right to exist in the Jewish ancestral land, but they're also telling others to block us, to silence our voices, to act like there is no pain and there are no victims on the Israeli and Jewish side of this conflict, it is hard to be enthusiastic about any fandom.

At the same time, I KNOW I'm living through a major trauma, the worst Jews have experienced since the end of the Holocaust. I've seen my maternal grandmother never really recover from the trauma she went through in the Holocaust. I've never seen her laugh without a touch of sadness and pain being there, she never went through one celebration without slipping aside for at least one moment and crying. After my paternal grandmother died, I discovered that her sister never had kids because of the Holocaust, and actually ended up taking her own life (up until our grandmother's passing, my sis and I were told she died of cancer). So I know how persistent trauma is. I know that the Holocaust did not end in May 1945, and I know that Oct 7 didn't end when Israel was freed of the 3,500 terrorists who invaded it that day. Oct 7 probably won't end even when the current war does. That's why I recognize how important it is to hold on to every bit of normalcy I can, to not let the trauma take over. And that's what fandom is in a sense. A semblance of normalcy.

Except fandom isn't normal anymore, not after I've seen incomprehensible amounts of hate and hypocrisy, including from people I trusted and liked, and thought liked me. My belief in the kindness of people (especially when it's people who love a show that is all about celebrating kindness) has been shaken to the core.

Which is why I currently honestly don't know what I'll do once s7 premieres. I'll watch it, obviously. And I am excited about some stuff I've seen. But will I write and gif? I don't know the answer yet. It's not a certain yes, it's not a certain no. I guess I'll see how I feel at every given moment. I'm not putting any pressure on myself one way or another. But I promise you that whether I post my Buddie content or not (let's be honest, if I watch 9-1-1, you better believe there will be Buddie content alive and kicking in my mind), I will never stop loving them, or thinking they're the ultimate battlefield boyfriends, and sweetest little family unit with Chris. :) And I know that if I do post, it would be an honor to be in this fandom with you, and those like you, who care about my people, and actually listen to Jewish voices (all of them, not just the few they can tokenize).

So... THANK YOU. I can't say that enough. And yes, I've moved into my new home, though it's not quite what it needs to be yet. But I'm getting there! Tiny steps still count, right? I'm sending you massive amounts of love, always! xoxox

[illegiblewords]

Serious talk about meta under the cut.

I don't know who might need to hear it, but fwiw mental flexibility is a huge part of analysis (and interacting with other humans lol). You need to be able to account for multiple possibilities when examining a work, or understanding a social exchange. You need to be able to separate what is objective fact from your own subjective interpretation and judgment. The most negative interpretation is not automatically the most worthwhile or true. Someone throwing accusations around in-line with their own worst interpretations does not guarantee those accusations are warranted. You are not a bad or stupid person for disagreeing. Shit needs to withstand scrutiny. I don't always strike the right balance myself. I do the best I can but I'm definitely not perfect. Tbh I'm not beyond pettiness either--although I try to keep that out of actual analysis lol. There have been times I've griped to friends privately or blogged about how I felt (sans tags, with spoiler blocks so people can opt out). I've griped recently. I'm bound to gripe again in the future. Some level of griping is inevitable imo and I figure no one is 100% immune.

All that said, even if someone’s take isn't canon AND even if it's something I really dislike--I'd personally rather people follow their passions anyway. Hands down. I could be in the middle of a rant and my answer would still be that the subject of my frustration gets to exist. I'm not the boss and odds are we're going with different versions in our own heads. Discouraging another fan from creating due to my preferences or narrative approach would horrify me. I've seen fandoms where gatekeeping like that killed the creative community and it was fucking awful.

Not everyone is confident in their own judgment. Not everyone faced with a pissed off person trying to use lore and accusations like clubs will feel okay continuing with their own vision. Elitism and manipulation (especially through rhetoric) can be present within analysis. People are not being taught how to recognize those things properly. Analysts aren't always aware or invested enough to even be careful. It’s legit easy to get caught up in ideas or feelings to the point of forgetting about other people’s, and adjusting to account for alternate approaches takes some work. For me at least, I think having a 'no insults' policy and being super careful when it comes to absolute claims (assertions not qualified by 'I think' or 'it could be argued') helps.

Anyway. Just because a person calls something ‘meaningless’ doesn't make it meaningless. Someone pooh-poohing an observation you made doesn't make your observation less true or important. Employing a literary term doesn't mean that individual actually understands the term, how it works, or how to apply it. Which is to say nothing of romantic chemistry or whatever. I encourage readers to extrapolate on this. ‘Shallow’ could apply as much as ‘meaningless’. Denying parallels exist by itself doesn’t actually negate those parallels. Your version of a character may not be the same as the fan next to you’s and that difference doesn't have to detract. There's more I could say on the subject (I've edited out a lot) but basically--just because another fan isn't into what you're doing doesn't automatically make what you're doing wrong, immoral, shoddy, or otherwise less.

Seriously, vet shit. Question the entire premise an analyst tries to establish then decide for yourself if it holds water. Turn over word choices and assertions in your head before deciding if they're appropriate. Do it to me too. I don't care if someone is the holy goddamn emperor of analysts. Just because a person says something is good or bad, true or false, whatever the hell doesn't make it so. Just because a person uses a technical term doesn't mean they're discussing it effectively. Quality of argument matters beyond the packaging it’s wrapped in. It's important to protect yourself from people whose priority is enforcing their own preferences, including dismissing things they aren't partial to.

I just don't want anyone shamed silent man. Not even people whose takes drive me up the fucking wall. Neither I nor any other analyst is an authority here. And there are people who are absolutely ready to take advantage of other people’s insecurities to assert themselves. Might not even be malicious, just indifferent.

For me, analysis feels kind of like uncovering a dinosaur skeleton. I want to share the cool and exciting things I find with other people. Sometimes I might be sorting out what my own thoughts and feelings are. It's also possible to examine why you're uncomfortable with something, or why you love something another person hates, while making very clear what is YOUR READING and not THE READING. Offering a variety of possibilities is very different from presenting yourself as the only correct one. One note at the end when everything else was insulting and intolerant is like a band-aid over a wound.

EDIT: As a last point, that I'm throwing in just-in-case. If anyone reading this thinks they may have overreached and done stuff I've mentioned + feels shitty about it… that's still not the end of the world. It’s okay. This is hard stuff to learn and I really don't think anyone's perfect at it. Worth the effort though. Just gotta take a deep breath, acknowledge you're a fallible human same as everyone else, and do the best you can going forward. Life goes on.

[arthropod-concoctions]

I had an amazing time participating in the @mcytrecursive exchange these last months! I've made a gift for @sharo-maneru, based on her and SugarsweetRomantic's fic Speak to the gods, and they shall answer.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Gen

Fandom: Hermitcraft SMP

Relationship: Zedaph & Docm77

Character: Zedaph

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Religion, Mythology - Freeform, not inspired by any specific myths, liberal use of epithets, Animal Sacrifice, not shown but repeatedly mentioned, Ascending to Godhood.

Summary: The story of an inventor, driven by desperation into godhood.

Text of the fic below the cut!

The inventor was the son of shepherds. He loved his parents and their sheep greatly, always taking care of them both, but there was nothing he loved more than inventing. Hours upon hours he would sit in his room, creating contraptions of all shapes and sizes. He would sell some of them; to like-minded inventors as inspiration, or to other farmers and friends of his parents, on the rare occasion that there was a clear way to use the device. Many of the devices remained in his house, existing just to sate the inventor's curiosity, and to be a curiosity to his parents.

It was one such day, when the man was deeply invested in his creations, that armed figures arrived at their doorstep. They demanded to be given their best sheep, as an offering to their gods. The shepherds, who were getting old and were in no shape to protest, complied.

When the inventor realised what had happened he was distraught. He berated himself for being so caught up in his work he didn't interfere, but his parents told him there was nothing he could've done.

“All we can do now is pray that they don't return,” they said, and so they did.

But the warriors did return. Every week they would come and demand a sheep, and every time the shepherds complied, their herd dwindling quickly.

The inventor grew restless. There had to be something he could do to save his and his family's livelihood, he thought as he lay awake one night. But his parents were right; he had never been trained for combat, so he had no hope of stopping them that way. All he could do was pray; but they had been praying for months, and had received no help. Meanwhile, the warriors took their sheep as offerings, to gain the favor of their own gods.

It was unfair, he thought. Why do they gain the favor of the gods by taking from us, while we receive nothing but silence for our suffering?

Then, an idea sparked in the inventor's mind. Maybe he had to do a little more than pray to receive the gods' help.

The next day he returned to his workshop with a fervor; he was crafting with purpose now. He took an armful of ram's horns they had stored away, and fashioned them into a crown to wear on his head, adding a support that would lean on his shoulder to help manage the weight. He took the mystical red dust that powered so many of his creations and mixed it with crushed blue stone, creating a glowing purple paste to paint his face with. He took a pristine woolen blanket that he used in wintertime and made it into a coat, using the same paste to decorate it with intricate patterns. Then he went outside, gathered many heavy stones, put them into a large bag and tied the bag to a pulley, in such a way that the stones would be released at the pull of a trigger. After his preparations, he told his parents that one way or another, the gods would ensure the warriors did not return.

Seven days after the previous raid, the inventor took his disguise and painted his face, went outside, and waited. He had never seen the warriors that terrorised his family's homestead, a fact which he saw as a blessing now; it meant they had never seen him either.

The sun was setting when they arrived, and the inventor quickly understood why his parents had never argued with them. They wore heavy armor and carried fierce weapons. The inventor grew nervous at the sight of them, and he almost decided to stay hidden, let go of his plan-- but a burst of determination hit him. He had to do this, or his family's livelihood would be gone. He rose from his position and approached the warriors.

“Just what do you think you're doing?” he called out, and the warriors spun around in shock.

“Who are you?” One of them asked, pointing a spear in the disguised inventor's direction.

“You know who I am. Offerings of sheep have brought me here,” he replied, resisting the urge to draw away from the spear. A god would not flinch at a mortal's weapon. Fortunately, the support of his crown of horns forced his head to stay proudly upright.

He saw the looks on the warriors' faces; some looked skeptical, but many others seemed to believe him. The long shadows of the setting sun obscured the edges where his disguise failed, and the shining swirls of paint on his face and cloak would make him look otherworldly, especially to those unfamiliar with the properties of redstone.

When the leader of the troupe spoke, his voice was tinged with awe: “Are... are You satisfied with our offerings? Have You come to bless our mission?”

“'Your' offerings? You must be mistaken,” the man appearing as a god said. “Are you the ones that raised and cared for those sheep?” He took a step forward; the warrior took a step back.

“Are you the ones that depended on those sheep to live? And are you the ones that had them taken from you, putting your lives at risk to feed Me?” he continued, stepping forward with each question.

When the leader spoke again, his voice was trembling. “We are the ones that cast the-”

“No. I have seen these sheep's lives, and I know where they came from. As far as I am concerned, the offers to my favor were made by these shepherds.”

One more step forward. “And they only prayed for one thing: to be left alone. So leave.” With those words, the inventor released a string he had been covertly holding; the string connected to a large pulley, which had been holding up the bag of stones. They now clattered to the ground, causing a powerful rumbling and making the ground tremble.

The warriors, frightened by this display of power, fled. The inventor breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that he'd scared the warriors off for good, and he and his parents could live their lives in peace.

It was when he turned around that he saw a different figure, the sight of whom made his disguise pale in comparison. A shining green light coalesced into the silhouette of a man, with long curved horns like those of a goat's protruding from his head; he towered over the inventor, face unreadable.

“You are bold, mortal, to claim to be one of Us,” the god said.

The inventor gulped, his bravado threatening to leave him, but curiosity prevailed over his fear. If this was a god-- and it had to be, even he couldn't comprehend how to form an illusion like this-- then this was a chance like none other to finally receive answers.

“Why have You come now?” he whispered. “Why not earlier?”

“I have been watching you,” the god replied, his voice sounding like a whisper yet clearly audible. “Testing your inventiveness... and your faith. I chose to reveal myself after seeing what you've done today.”

Of course. Pretending to be a god was blasphemy of the highest degree. “I'm sorry, I didn't think-” he stammered, then looked down at the ground. “Well, I thought you'd abandoned us. That was foolish of me, I shouldn't have-”

But the god interrupted him. “No. Look at me,” he said. The inventor obeyed, and watched the god's appearance shift; his skin and clothing shifted from being made of green light to natural colors, he morphed from a towering figure to a man's height, and his horns seemed to fade into the distance, forming just a faint green outline of his head. He looked intimidating, but human. And he smiled.

“I was like you, once. I believed myself to be equal to the gods, greater, even, and proclaimed this proudly.” His voice sounded more natural now, and the inventor heard a foreign accent as the man-god spoke. “To show me how wrong I was, the gods decided to give me exactly what I wanted: an inkling of Their divinity.

“They called it a curse, but I call it a blessing. It is an existence of power, but also loneliness; and that is why I turned my attention to you. What is your name, mortal?”

The inventor's mouth was dry. He understood the god's words, understood what he was offering, yet could not believe it. A fraction of divinity; the ability to see the world as a whole, to be able to create with only a thought? Who could possibly call that a curse? And yet-

“Will I be able to see my parents again?” he asked, though he suspected he knew the answer.

“You will always watch over them, but they can never see you. What is your name, mortal?” the god repeated.

He didn't like the idea of that loneliness, but again, curiosity prevailed over his fear. He could not decline. “Zedaph,” he said.

The god's smile widened into a grin, almost mischievious. “I am Doc. Follow me, friend. We have much to talk about.”

And so the God of Invention, patron of shepherds, became twofold. And though the shepherds mourned for their son, they would never be attacked again.

[strawberrys-starship]

So, I know it may seem like I've abandoned my mcspirk fic "Take A Hint", but I haven't! In fact, I've actually completely rewritten the first two chapters, both ending up almost four times as long as they originally were

And so, I figured I'd make another post about it now that the new chapter two is live!

Also, everyone say thank you to @historyandqueershenanigans for betaing and making sure this fic is actually legible and letting me brainstorm ideas with them!

Fic info:

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Fandoms: Star Trek: The Original Series

Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock

Characters: James T. Kirk, Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Spock (Star Trek)

Additional Tags:

Established James T. Kirk/Spock, Spock uses he/she pronouns, Eventual McSpirk, Trans James T. Kirk, Queer Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Southern Flirt McCoy, Oblivous James t Kirk, Oblivous Spock, Spock and Jim were already poly before McCoy, Some angst, POV Alternating, TOS timeline, Autistic coded Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Autistic coded James T. Kirk, Autistic coded Spock, i say coded because I don't explicitly stay they're autistic

[fotibrit]

I'm sorry, but HOW do you post every day. I manage a different side blog that posts twice a day, but by now, they're mainly shitposts just to get content out while I stress over school. How do you come up with so many prompts???

Hi! Thank you so so much for sending an ask, and I especially love this question because I actually have an answer for it. I get to ramble about my thesis!!! The answer will be unnecessarily long and undoubtedly will go off on tangents. I’m so sorry. You’ve been warned.

The short answer is that I really like philosophy and that I post whatever comes to mind. The long answer will be below the cutoff, it is long lol

There’s a decent amount of people following my blog who do not know anything about me, so for those people, nice to meet you! Welcome to a peak behind the curtains! I go by Brit or Ae. I’ve been in fandom spaces for a little under a decade, and I’m studying to be a philosophy professor.

Seeing as I am studying philosophy, I’ve had to develop my own worldview and ideas about humanity pretty extensively. I am currently working on my thesis, writing about my theory of universal passion.

By universal passion, I mean that every person has the ability to be passionate about any given object, concept, being, you name it. Any person can be passionate about (or, have a vested interest in) any given thing, if put in the right circumstance.

By anything, I mean anything. A molecule of dust. A fallen leaf. Broken pencil lead. Any person could be emotionally attached to any matter or concept with which they come into context, however small, in the right circumstance.

Imagine a pinboard, like the detectives have in cheesy TV shows, except every single person on earth is represented by a pin on the left, and every item or concept is represented by a pin on the right. Now, we’ve got our basic strings of connection, formed by canon. Peter Parker, on the left, is connected to his Spider-Suit, on the right. Let’s imagine a string connecting Peter’s pin to the pin of his suit.

I theorize that there is also potential for string to connect Peter’s pin to, let’s say, the coffee mug in the background of one scene in AoU. And to Bucky’s left shoe. and to the railing on top of Stark Tower. It’s just up to us to figure out exactly how those strings could form, how those connections could be made.

It’s up to us to decide the circumstance that could, in theory (or in fanfic lol) tie a person to an object, even if they never come into contact.

That is my theory of universal passion. (i’m still working on wording it, obviously lol)

Now, for how that relates to my blog.

Fun fact: I have never queued a post, ever. I don’t even know how. I post in real time, mostly because I’m too lazy to learn how queueing works.

Almost all of my posts are created because I think of a concept (usually something in my vicinity) and try to think of a circumstance in which a character (lets be real, usually Peter or Tony) would be passionate about that concept. I apply my theory of universal passion, finding a way to tie string from the character to the concept.

For each thing you interact with (and everyone interacts with SOMETHING every day, even if that thing is just the floor), a new prompt can be made. All it takes is imagination, to come up with a situation in which the character would care very deeply about that item or concept.

You’ve got to imagine the string. You have to trust it is there, and find where it exists. It is there. Believe me. Every character can be connected to every item, you just have to put them in a circumstance where they care about it.

The tour guide post, about Tony occasionally becoming a tour guide when bored, was written while I was on a tour. I was curious how I could make the topic of “tour guides” relate to irondad. The post from a while ago about Peter trying to create the perfect playlist for lab nights was written while I tried to make the perfect playlist for a long car ride with friends. I just found a way to make the characters care about the topic of “playlists”. I post every day because I consider the objects/concepts I am interacting with and I come up with ways the characters would interact with them.

It sounds ridiculous, that even a single molecule of air can be of interest to someone, but how could you manipulate the circumstance to make it important? I’m planning on writing my thesis on universal passion, how every single thing in the world is worth caring very, very much for, but only if a person is put in the proper circumstances in which that thing builds off their previous experience to spark passion.

In the meantime, though, my theory is fun to write silly little irondad prompts with. If anyone has any suggestions of items/themes/concepts that you want turned into a prompt, feel free to send an ask!

[inchidentally]

tricky asks time! a lot have built up so I'm definitely going to have to do a multiparter - remember to bl 'wank adjacent' to not see these posts <3

I'm putting these two together bc the first one is to do with a super creepy anon who has a very loud and fully parasocial "our relationship" attitude toward Lily and Oscar and ironically thought that me saying that I engage in rpf for fun on a website that requires multiple hoops to get through to even scroll one page of someone's blog. and the second is the side of fandom who have developed a certain idea of "perfect relationships" based solely on the woman remaining largely unknown and the man a major public figure.

okay, so. full disclosure: I don't have a great view of heterosexual relationships when it comes to what they do to women and what they take from women. I'm not automatically down on any of them and as always I'm like, other people's choices are fully their own and my opinions are irrelevant as far as they're concerned!

it's pretty obvious from me repeating over and over but first and foremost !! I am aggressively against internalized misogyny in fandom spaces, and esp toward the women who date or marry male public figures. it's absolutely rampant on a larrying level in carlando and pretty damn bad in dando and I've been adamant that landoscar won't fall prey to those people (carlando and dando fandoms still have plenty of great people, just to say <3).

but make no mistake, me sticking up for these women is because they do not deserve abuse as a basic decency. they're not dolls I pick up and put down based on if they happen to be with a guy I post about. they deserve respect regardless of who is observing them and why. *if they're genuinely problematic then that's a separate topic but holy shit only bring that morality if you're prepared to apply it to the men you're a fan of at the same time !!

the fact that we only know these women based on the man they're dating or married to is already problematic and I get pretty grossed out when fans go hard for a gf or wife and then easily transfer that energy immediately when there's a breakup and a new gf or wife. it's equally gross when they continue to follow the ex and say how much they "miss her" or constantly bring up her ex in spaces she can see.

so when I speak up about or for Lily and any other wife or girlfriend of a driver, I'm doing so with full respect for how uncomfortable it is that I only know of her existence bc of a man. and that I also have a responsibility in a fandom space - even one as fairly invisible as tumblr - to kick back at fans who attack them purely to create space for their rpf ship fantasy or their own unhealthy obsession.

it's also why you'll see me being a broken record about keeping the line between rpf for fun and the reality of these men's relationships.

I don't think I'll ever believe that a woman is anything but relatively happy in a partnership with the type of man who has to give their entire selves to their career. especially F1 that demands 10 months of almost nonstop travel and commitments. and sorry, the whole 'yay she has her own career/life!' as some kind of consolation prize for her sacrifices doesn't work bc in order for the relationship to exist beyond phone calls and texts has always required the wife or girlfriend to fly wherever he is to spend time together. very occasionally, I see someone like George or Alex make the effort during the season to fly out to their girlfriend. Oscar went on a minibreak with Lily during the break last season. like, that's bare minimum lol and nothing compared to these women flying across the globe and being stuck waiting around while their bf or husband only has the rare hour or so between commitments on a race weekend.

so any "praise" of a wife or girlfriend for how they accommodate a man's career and "stay out of the spotlight" or "stay private" is a massive red flag for me. an largely invisible woman dating a man with a public profile will never feel like an organic decision on her part to me. it's a reaction to a situation that shouldn't exist.

"his fans and fangirls are awful though" yea and that's not fucking right and it's not a reason to let them win. decent fans can work harder to suppress the shitty ones and mass report accounts. and I know that for Lily Z, she's gotten temporary respite by being nothing more than a woman walking beside Oscar and not "giving haters any ammunition". but for example, even though Lily M and Carmen still get occasional shit from idiots who just want to hate, they go relatively unscathed because the decision was made early on to be in on the rpf ship jokes and George and Alex consistently make as many posts about them in a sort of joint, impenetrable "this is our relationship and you will not drive these women into hiding". Lily's hugely intelligent and has professional STEM aspirations of her own.

it's wayyyyy too convenient to say she's as private as she is because privacy fulfills her and brings her happiness. it's just the flipside of haters giving her a conditional reprieve bc they don't have to be annoyed by her having a visible personality.

and guess what? we've never once heard from Lily herself that she would be private even without dating a man in the public eye. we've heard what her boyfriend has said. we've heard from Kym Ilm*n. and women in fandom have taken that and decided it's permission to praise her for not wanting to face unfair abuse. like ??? I am not ok with that lol.

"maybe she just doesn't want to be super visible or have a public identity!" nah. if she's under 50 then having a public identity is fully the norm so it's too much of a convenient reach to make that assumption. and if she has a career of her own then she absolutely needs to have a public identity. even when you start out in entry positions, showing the work you do and the people you work with is totally normal for advancement. (I'm in shitty jobs so that doesn't apply to me lol but no F1 wife or gf will be working my jobs. almost all the women I know are in aspirational careers tho.)

women deserve to at least have a go at being a dynamic, public person who pursues life to the degree she chooses irrespective of her bf - and if afterward she finds she wants to be super private and raise a man's babies out of sight AND SHE SAYS SO HERSELF then that's absolutely wonderful.

but absolutely no one can convince me that women aren't conditioned and pressured in a world like F1 to either shut up and stay out of the way, or that they're "asking for it" if they do live publicly and have crazies stalking them and sending them abuse.

*side note that I've heard some ummm potentially not great things about Seb with regard to women that are not worth repeating here in case they've been blown out of proportion or just rumors. (I get the whole "he may have changed" but a lot of the videos of him flirting with women or objectifying them is... not great and hopefully he's seen the error in that) but even if it's all untrue (and obv I hope it is) I'm only happy for his wife if she has openly stated herself that she voluntarily chose to remain largely invisible and put up with him being absent so often and her having to be the one to alter her life to be with him during the F1 season. if she hasn't clearly said that herself (a direct quote "" and not just a reporter stating it) then there's no point in us assuming it about her. and the Seb's words are not a replacement for her own, sorry.

I'm not at all a person to comment on this myself but I fully respect your experience babe <3 I personally know and know of a few ppl who got together in HS and ended up getting engaged or married and they're already cheating or breaking up so I also can't contradict you aslfgsjalgf

and just to say: while I (for all the reasons above) will never be yay I'm so glad Lily is tied to a man whose job absorbs his entire life I will NEVER say that outside these replies. I will always push support for Lily - and any gf Lando might have at some point - bc they deserve and need it in fandom. and any of our takes on these relationships are pointless and irrelevant anyway.

I think I covered my own feeling about this above and tbh it depends on the intent. if they're going to drop the woman in question if/when a breakup happens then yea that is super creepy and weird to make fan pages etc.

I like following certain wives and gfs accounts mostly bc I live vicariously through the glamour of their lives but I'd feel weird interacting with their content or making fan content of it when I know damn well I only started following them bc of a man.

it's tricky to say and I think it depends so much on the individual fan's intent and how they create that content y'know?

but god yeah, unless a ship is a joke openly shared by the men in question like carlando and dando then I need these official accounts to just not do rpf. it's why I tend not to rb when that happens with landoscar bc I so want this ship to remain mostly under the radar and not attract rpf truthers.

[goingdownorup]

Final thoughts on YCAO:

I’m not really expecting people to see this, but as a wrap up for any fic I write I usually like to come back and do my thoughts after the hype has kind of calmed down. This fic is on anon, but I figured I would continue my tradition even if it was just for me lmao.

Obvious spoilers for the fic if you haven’t read it!!!

I’ve seen a few people not happy with the boat boy ending, and with that, I say…good? I mean, not in a rude way, but that is exactly the emotion I wanted when finishing out their storyline. It was pretty clear imo that neither of them could get what they wanted completely. Joel and Etho wanted different things more than they wanted each other, which is why I think it hurts in the end that both of them realize that they really wanted everything. They can’t have both, and that sucks and that's how their world(s) work. Joel can have Lizzie and his world, and Etho can have Bdubs and his world, but they can’t have each other with that outcome. That’s the fact about their relationship.

I’ve seen a few people theorize that Grian could bring Lizzie and Joel back to the main world- which, yes, he could- but at least in my head, that’s not a possibility. Joel’s driving force in the fic was to get home to Lizzie, but it was also to get home. I don’t think, even with their relationship on the mend, that Etho or Joel consider each other home anymore. They’ve grown as people, in both a good and a bad way, and that’s okay! I want that pain of growing distant but the inability to because of an outlying source. Soulbounds are a bitch in this series lmao.

Speaking of soulbounds, Impulse and Bdubs, am I right? But seriously, the one part I put in Impulse’s POV was so self-indulgent but I love his character so much so I had too. As soon as my brain decided Impulse could see the strings I needed to write him. I really love the idea of ‘what could’ve been’ for Bdubs and Impulse. The two of them have already built up a perception of each other that eventually they could tear down, but would take more effort then either of them are willing to do at that point in their life. Maybe down the line they could be friends, and I like to think that with the fact that Etho and Impulse lean on each other more now that they eventually become better friends.

I won’t touch on Scar and Grian, or Ren and Marytn, since their stories are still getting written atm but Ren and Etho… my one critique with myself is not building their relationship up more. I think the impact would’ve been better if I really made the point that Etho and Ren were better friends then what I did. You live and you learn, and hopefully next fic I can keep my relationships more clear. (At least the ones I want to be clear lol)

I think the fic went over unreasonably well, people were overwhelmingly nice and it was such a good introduction to the fandom. Probably the second best if not the best reaction to a fic I’ve gotten tbh. My personal rating: 8/10 I’m proud of this fic

Link if you haven’t read it

[caspersickfanfics]

OKAY!!! I have been released to spew emotional sickie headcanons and tropes and more and I’m thrilled

now ofc not all of these may fit the current fic you’re working on but these are some of my favorites 🥰 AND these specifically I think apply to Cyno

You already captured it perfectly but- the insecurity!! Cyno just losing his confidence and all of the deep rooted fears come to the surface with him asking “are you mad at me” like when a sickie is just so sensitive that any criticism they’d normally brush off hits exactly where it hurts the most. Cyno fears failure in my mind, and Cyno probably HATES letting Nari down the most.

also- irrational sickies. Like sometimes when your fever is that high or you’re just that unwell it doesn’t matter anymore you’re just upset. For cyno i feel like he’d be crying a lot of frustration tears too?? Like at first he’s just upset cuz he thinks nari is mad and every insecurity he has ever had is so raw and loud right now and then he’s crying AND THEN he’s upset, because he got upset! And now he’s crying because he is embarrassed he started crying and he just can’t figure out why he’s crying so much and ‘I can’t ever do my job again cuz I just can’t calm down’ full on spiral. I love this especially when the caretaker takes a clinical calming approach, helps them focus on breathing, and explains “baby, you’re sick. You have a high fever, and sometimes fevers can make our emotions yada yada whatever” and then like, tries to get them to have some water or just holds them.

I also feel like Cyno would start out trying really hard to keep it together and it would result in him just pouting? Like after nari assured him he isn’t mad or however that plays out, nari can see he’s still upset. And he’s trying to not let it show, but the second Tighnari asks him if he’s okay, the tears instantly pool, and he can’t really explain why? 🥺

I will die on the Cynos love language is physical touch hill with pride. He probably didn’t realize it till later in life but he wants to be held. He wants to feel safe. He likes deep pressure and hands in his hair and he wants to be compressed (I may be projecting but whatever)

NIGHTMARES!!! I also am very much sold on the idea that feverish Cyno has wild fucking dreams. Some fueled by his past ofc, but ALSO I’m thinking about you AMAZING fic where Cyno wouldn’t sleep cuz of anxiety and general fears that he’s a monster and will one day hurt tighnari. I feel like, he’d wake up just in pure, sick, panic cuz he dreamt that Tighnari was sick or hurt or killed or whatever and he couldn’t help him, no matter what. So he wakes up confused and scared cuz maybe nari stepped out, or something. Idk I love the idea of his fever brain being more concerned for nari and forgetting that he’s the one sick.

now for some more physical tropes

when an already congested character cries so much they just get MORE congested. Also as someone who eyes have swelled shut after crying too much I am biased to that as well. Like you cry fall asleep and then wake up just blind 🤣 OH and post crying sinus headaches

there’s also throwing up from said panic- or from crying which we have already seen a bit with Cyno in your other work as well. So we know for a fact that fear and anxiety makes him sick to his stomach 👀

self soothing?? Like when asleep, to they rock themselves, or rub their hair between their fingers or try and get really small and tight. I’m not sure if this fits for Cyno but I feel like there’s potential possibly from years of having to deal with illness as a baby on his own.

glassy, watery eyes, whimpers, dehydration from too much crying. Body aches, from flu but also from exhaustion. All wonderful things imo

AND the caretaker- when sickie is emotional it’s so so good when they talk them through whatever it is they are doing next. Even if it’s just to ground them. Cyno is probably used to the silent treatment from his childhood. So after nari gets him to settle I imagine Tighnari just, calmly talking to him or explaining what he’s doing next, or why he’s feeling what he’s feeling or what plant he found etc would really help remind cyno that he’s not being abandoned and no nari isn’t mad at him. oh!!! And last thing- I think- when the emotional sickie, gets upset AGAIN but this time it’s because they are overwhelmed with affection and are just, so grateful for their loved ones that they don’t know what to do. they finally feel they are safe and loved and then they cry all over again lmao

That’s all…..for now 😈

HELP I am!!!! So on board with all of this oml this is incredible!!!!!!!!!

Fear of failure fits Cyno SO well and like! I think it's in a bit of an unconventional way? He's not sensitive to just anyone deeming him as having failed. He genuinely doesn't care what most people think (based on him resigning from his position in canon to do The Right Thing according to his own beliefs). It's only the people who's opinions he values and respects (...Tighnari. also Collei. I could see him getting really sappy over accidentally doing something to upset Collei when he's sick. Or perceiving that he's not been good enough to her etc etc). And I think with Tighnari it's like. He values his opinion so highly, the absolute last thing he wants is to disappoint him.

Irrational sickies, so cuteeeee. My brain connected this one to the nightmare one and like. I just had this thought of. Tighnari is used to Cyno having these really intense, traumatic nightmares. So when he's sick and has a bad dream, Tighnari is thinking in that direction. But then it comes out that Cyno's dream was actually reliving the moment from earlier that night, where he asked if Nari was mad at him, except in the dream he actually was??? And now he just. Won't be convinced otherwise.

Fully agree about the point on physical touch!! Characters who were either overly manhandled or received little to no affectionate physical touch as children (OR BOTH, which may well be the case for Cyno) growing into touch starved adults >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Honestly, I need to write more of Cyno pouting. Thank you for reminding me and motivating me with such a lovely image of him tearing up and not knowing why, I adore that!!

Ugh yes I always lean in the direction of throwing up from crying because that's how my brain is wired, but I love these sinus/eyes/muscle achey consequences too!!! Like. Baby omg </3

Uhm. The self-soothing point. Is one of my favorite things. I had never put a name to it but!!!!!!! I'm so glad you put it into words!!! I DO think this can fit for Cyno, although I imagine it comes up a lot less when Nari's around because he's always going to reach for him first (re: touch as Cyno's love language). If Nari steps out, maybe he comes back and Cyno's hugging himself because he couldn't hug Nari. It might come up more with another caretaker - Collei, Alhaitham. Maybe Kaveh but I like them being cuddly with each other, too. OH the thought of Tighnari coming to help out and finding Cyno self-soothing, all curled up really tight, and knowing he's resorted to that only because Nari wasn't there sooner and Cyno doesn't trust anyone else enough to get close when he's feeling really bad????? *cries*

And yess!!!!! Caregiver communication is so good, especially with the context you gave of a possible history of silent treatment. Yeah. Like. Cyno having been experimented on as a little one, not being told anything, and just silently enduring because getting upset would make things worse. Maybe when he's really feeling awful he tries to hold the emotion in because he doesn't want to get in trouble for it, but Nari picks up on it and is so gentle and reassuring and good at opening that door of two-way communication. Reminding Cyno that he's here to care for him, and also that Cyno's bodily autonomy is going to be respected </3 and then the comfort cryyyyy freaking. Ugh. He's hugging Tighnari and suddenly Nari's shoulder is wet and he's worried, starts to pull away but Cyno just squeezes him tighter and whispers "thank you." Nari gets it, then, and he just holds him and lets him cry it out.

(Also we must have some kind of psychic connection because the next scene I had written was Cyno waking up from a nightmare and getting upset because he doesn't feel right 😂 Idk if that fits the irrational sickie trope exactly but like!!! Close enough lol)

This is all. Ahhhhhh!!!!!!! Just so fantastic!!! Thank you so much!! For sharing all of this with me!!!!!!!!! Genuinely made my night <333 I see that "for now" and :DDD Please feel free to continue or share other headcanons/tropes/etc. whenever you wish!!!!

[katy-l-wood]

Sigh.

Don't really want advice, I just need to vent a little. Gonna stick it under a readmore too, because it got a little long.

I'm burning out so bad at work. I love the idea of this business, it's super fun in theory, as is what I do there. But the way the business is run is a nightmare, and the job does not pay anywhere near what it should. And I thought that was going to get better this January, because the owner finally admitted that we need a full marketing department and asked me if I wanted to run it if I were to be given an appropriate raise, and I told him yes. Then we had our January meeting where we were supposed to discuss everything and he said he's actually decided to interview outside candidates and only consider me as one of them.

Which is fucking bullshit. I built this marketing department from the ground up. They didn't even have fucking business cards when I started. Every initiative I've done has gone massively well for being nothing but hit-the-bricks marketing with zero budget.

I get that, legally, they are required to post the job within the company, but they aren't legally required to post it outside the company as far as I can tell. (Nor have they ever done that before anyways...)

And before this was revealed to me, I sat in on an interview and all the owner talked about during the interview is how much he loves people coming into the business and finding their own way and building new skills. He went on and on about the two main people who have done that, and how much he values them. Neither of them had to reinterview against outside candidates to run the departments they now run. Just me.

I know why it's happening too, which makes it even more annoying. The owner has ZERO idea what I do. None. I do not report to him. Every time I'm in a meeting with him and start trying to explain stuff I get some version of "oh, I just don't understand all of that." I think there might also be a touch of not liking me because I stand up to him. There was a big issue with Twitter over the holiday marketing season because I explained how, despite being our best platform, Twitter was too unstable to be as useful as normal due to the Musk takeover and the owner went OFF about it, about how I shouldn't be "bringing politics into it." Nevermind that ANY corporate takeover is going to be destabilizing for a time and the man has never used Twitter in his life so how the hell would he know what's going on. (Also, not even 5 minutes later he told me he didn't want us using TikTok "because of the Chinese." What was that about not getting political, sir?)

It's really clear that I'm just never gonna get the respect and support I need at this job, despite how great my direct boss is. I'm also really fucking tired of working somewhere with an HR lady that can't do her job and refuses to give us direct deposit because it's "too hard" and doesn't put our accumulated sick time on our checks like she's supposed to because she can't figure out how to make the system do it, so we just have to email her if we want to know.

And I've been applying to jobs! I've had interviews! Some of them have seemingly gone well, it's just that none of them have gone all the way to hiring me.

Even if I get a new job it isn't going to fix the fact that I'm burnt out, because I can't afford to take time off between the jobs to actually rest. I've got, like, $100 in savings right now and nothing in checking until my paycheck shows up this week. (And because we don't have direct deposit, the check could show up anytime between Wednesday and Saturday, unless HR had some random shit come up and didn't get the checks out on time, which has happened before.)

And I should (should) have two weeks paid vacation now that I've hit my third year at this job, but I don't want to just use it all up in fucking January in case I am stuck here for the rest of the year, but I could really use those two weeks right now.

Then, in the background of all of this, is my art and writing stuff. Especially The Pits/its Kickstarter in a couple months. If that Kickstarter goes as well as I'm hoping I probably COULD afford to take some time off. But I won't know about that until the end of March when it finishes. And also, I really don't want to be putting all my baggage from my day job on this one project. That's not good for me OR the project.

I'm fucking tired. I was so close to finally getting ahead of all this before inflation hit last year. So fucking close. And then it all went away. I just want a job that pays me what I'm worth and respects what I can do. That shouldn't be so fucking hard.

[jeannereames]

Good evening, Dr. Reames I wanted to ask you something, a long time ago I read that during the XIX century there was a lot of discussion about the veracity of the figure of Alexander, like: Did he really exist or is he a legendary character? What do you think about it? Thank you very much, I love your work very much.

Did Alexander the Great Actually Exist?

Skepticism about historical figures was part of a larger development in the discipline of history: the critical evaluation of our sources.

“Historiography,” or the history of history. Instead of just taking sources at face value, historians began to interrogate them: who wrote it, when, and what was that person’s perspective?

These are just the most basic questions. As time progressed, historiography became ever more refined. I’ve discussed some of these refinements before in my longer posts here. For instance, the difficulty in untangling imperial Roman tropes/themes overlying anecdotes about Alexander. We work for awareness of layering, narrative context, big-picture themes….

Yet sometimes the pendulum swings too far, at least IMO. Scholarly trends can get out of hand. Shiny new toys (ideas) are fun, but must be woven into the larger scholarly conversation, not suck all the air out of the room. History has fads just like anything else—including undue skepticism. Some things I warn my own students about:

Smoke does not always equal fire. That is, don’t assume the negative report is true over a neutral or positive one; especially the latter can be denigrated as whitewashing. Fact is, people love dirt and lie about or exaggerate bad things just as much as they polish up events or a person’s image.

Things can be exaggerated rather than invented out of whole cloth. Without solid evidence to support pure invention, I’ll tend to assume exaggeration. Layers of “truth” exist. It gets tricky.

Back to historiographic development….

The Enlightenment led to the questioning of much received truth. That’s the era of Darwin, of historical Biblical criticism, Reason over Faith, the birth of archaeology, etc. As part of the critical evaluation of ancient sources, scholars began to doubt the existence of heroes such as Agamemnon, Achilles, Theseus, and events too, such as the Trojan War. In fact, all events in Greek myth/history before 776 BCE—the date of the first Olympics—were regarded as fictional. As archaeology took over Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Italy, Greece was fighting for freedom from Ottoman control, archaeology new there—bronze-age Greece yet uncovered.

In any case, as part of the new en vogue skepticism, some scholars questioned not only heroes and myths, but historical figures too, especially those further back in time. Did Solon exist? Cyrus? Croesus? Or even … Jesus? (Radical!)

Proposing Alexander as mythical falls into that same hyper-skeptical period. The fact all our biographies were written so long after he lived made it easier to hypothesize he was a myth!

Yet recall… archaeology was new, epigraphy (study of stone inscriptions) just starting. A lot of information we have now simply didn’t exist at that time.

Today, trying to argue that Alexander wasn’t real is ridiculous. We have coins minted in his reign, epigraphical evidence from his own day naming him, oodles and oodles of images, archaeological evidence from Macedonia itself, etc. There’s no question Alexander of Macedon existed, and he conquered a hella lot of his known world. The basic outlines of his campaign are documented in hard evidence.

We can, however, (and should!) question many of the stories and anecdotes about his campaign. Even the outlines of some battles. Two mutually-exclusive versions of the Battle of Granikos exist. Some famous events probably didn’t happen at all (the whole proskynesis affair). Others didn’t happen as they’re told. After all, we have competing stories in the original sources themselves—take the Gordion Knot episode. That’s where we apply our critical historiographic eye now.

But to return to our story of burgeoning historiography in the 19th and early 20th centuries….

In 1870, Heinrich Schliemann began to dig at Troy, which opened up the Greek bronze age and put a hard skid on the “it’s all fiction” trend. Now, that shithead Schliemann did boatloads of damage and has earned his rep as a lying little Colonialist weasel who’s roundly cursed by most modern archaeologists. But you gotta give him that small sliver: he reversed the trend that regarded Greek myth as entirely false.

Then the pendulum swung the other way. If the Trojan War had really happened, was myth just barnacle-encrusted history? That notion wasn’t so different from what the ancients had believed about their own myths, in fact.

Many historians sought to “purify” myth: find the truth behind it. The trend remained popular well into the 20th century in both academic history as well as historical fiction (see Mary Renault’s The King Must Die and Bull from the Sea). It also encouraged periodic “searches” for mythical places. The seemingly never-ending “Search for Atlantis” is the most obvious example. (Newsflash: Plato made that shit up. It’s a philosophical metaphor, y’all.)

Today, most professional historians regard Greek heroes as fictional. Instead, we trace how myths and heroes morphed over time and across cultures. So, Greek Herakles translated into Etruscan Hercle, then into Roman Hercules, plus Greek Herakles’s probable antecedent in ancient near eastern myths of Gilgamesh, Marduk, Sampson, Melquart, etc.

We’re also interested in how myths/legends embed reality at the edges to make them realistic to their hearers. It’s not barnacle-encrusted history but may still convey reality…much as fiction does today. If you watch a TV show about, say, hospital emergency rooms, most people don’t assume the characters are actual doctors or the events real except in broad brushstrokes. Yet we do rate such shows for how well they approximate ER experience. World build. That’s how modern historians and Classicists tend to approach myths today.

Myths are the stories a culture tells itself about itself.

What a culture valued, emulated, and how it wanted to think about itself can be found in myths.

These are the same things reception studies consider, btw. They’re less about what actually happened in history, than what people later wanted to believe happened. That’s as interesting a question (to my mind) as the truth of the event itself.

So perhaps all those fads in history tell us as much about the historians who purvey them as what they were uncovering. 😉

[robcognitivepersonality]

The Mastermind & the Architect

How I get along with INTPs as an INTJ

I love INTPs, you guys are my type of friends to hang out with. Honestly I don’t see that awkward anti-social stereotype that looms over being an INTP. Hanging out with you, there’s no peer pressure to speak of, no Chad’s to deal with, no sense to impress anybody. We chat over beers, get high, play video games, share insights about life and people. Type descriptions have painted you as these emotionless sentient robots, totally missing the mark that you are also socially very intelligent. Perhaps the most socially intelligent of all the types. Oftentimes you deliver the most insightful life advice. Your awareness of public sentiments is completely slept on.

I guess it’s just my own anecdote, but the INTPs I know somehow manage to always be in the know. Like Varys in Game of Thrones, you have a 6th sense of little birds spread out everywhere informing you things. Be honest, am I correct that you possess the juiciest gossip details? No worries, I’m not here to know them if it’s not my business. But damn those juicy details can be so accurate though.

The word ‘socializing’ by the mainstream definition may not necessarily apply to you. But you definitely are out there exploring whatever tickles your curiosity. Shit I’m convinced you’re everywhere, physically and virtually. Even if you’re one of the minority that literally hides in Mom’s basement, you’re all over on the Interwebs. I see you in all kinds of subreddits, discord servers, subculture forums, MMORPG worlds, etc. It puts my lurking game to shame. And you know everything. And in some circles, you’re very popular.

You range from vibing and lurking to leading group conversations where everyone quiets down to listen to you. “STFU @everyone, our INTP lord is talking.” It’s a reputation rightly earned! You are the trusted beacon of truth and sentinel of knowledge. Whatever you say will be considered highly advisable. I’d be so busy taking notes and learning, or sometimes I have no idea what’s going on looking like a clown. I’m the socially awkward penguin here.

That leads me to another point: ‘leadership’ by the mainstream definition may not necessarily apply to you either. Yes we know it’s not your charming charisma that we’re gravitated to. It’s your talent for solving problems and discovering insightful information that enable you to command the most value and respect amongst your peers. The most conscientious of you implement so many new processes, enforcing standards, and become our role models. You advise us to make better decisions, give us confirmation checks and confidence boosters, and build us processes and systems that will enrich all of our lives.

"Reality is far too diverse, broad, elusive, ambiguous and complex for us to pin down. Even the limited empirical data we do manage to collect can only be interpreted within the framework of a subjective paradigm. It is, therefore, not really neutral. But in our desperate search for closure and reassurance we confabulate entities and explanations to construct huge edifices of assumed truths. They make up the world we actually experience; a self-woven cocoon of stories, not facts.” — Bernardo Kastrup

That’s all thanks to your Extraverted Feeling and Extraverted Intuition. It’s a stack that makes you altruistic, unpretentious, and unassuming. You help without ulterior motive, except for figuring what things could be improved. If there’s anything egotistical about you, it’s to be understood that your intentions are for the best of the tribe. You playfully and intensely explore deep in the tangled webs of any system, whether we’re talking about society, a software application, or the constructs of reality, searching for how it’s all pieced together while wearing the face of a mild-mannered pleasant person. You sync with the social atmosphere without trying to disrupt it. Like why kill the vibe for no reason right? The music is fine, don’t mess with the playlist.

The contrast with my Introverted Intuition and Introverted Feeling is that, instead of having this kind of symbiotic relationship with the community vibe, I am trying to figure out how to fit my ego into the mix. That doesn’t mean I’m doomed to disrupt everything in my path and that people need to bend themselves for me. On the contrary, I’m constantly reformulating my self-concept so that I can fit like a jigsaw puzzle piece. I daydream about what puzzle I’d like to belong to. I imagine where I’d like to be whether I need to come to emotional terms with myself or change the world around me. So, unlike you, I don’t have the itch to understand how everything is made. I just need to know the relevant things in order to fit in.

Who I am and how I feel is all in my own imaginary world; and it’s the most real thing to me. Everyday I remind myself that the idea of Me is nothing but a fleeting fantasy. There’s always a difference between that and what’s actually real. My existence would be nothing but hopes and dreams if I have nothing to show for it. NiFi in itself is a function pair of existential delusion. That’s why I can be so anal about empirical truth, and put so much value on evidence. I hang on to my SeTe objective concrete perceptions very tightly, as my life literally depends on it. And I make sure I’m correct. The way I see myself would be wrong and not real if it was based on false information.

While both our Thinking-Sensing functions want to get to the bottom of the truth, I love how you don’t care about being right or wrong. You don’t feel attacked about being proven incorrect. You don’t care about being smart. You don’t judge yourself when somebody questions your logic. All of your energy is spent on proving theories, since none was deemed necessary on proving yourself. This is where your intensity lives. Spending all of your energy digging deep down to get to the bottom of understanding whatever you’re focused on. After all, truth only stands after being excavated, scrutinized, and ruthlessly tested.

The funny thing is that truth is elusive. The world as we see it is a playground that is too vast, complicated, and ever evolving to truly be conclusive about it. There are so many ways and angles to look at something, all of them could be correct. Hence the knowledge vault that is your mind is always cracked open. I’d like to think it’s a never ending adventure, like building elaborate sand castles on an infinity beach. But you tend to admit getting lost in these thoughts can make you go crazy. Everything can be explained, we just don’t know how yet. Introverted Thinking and Introverted Sensing gets down to the nitty gritty and figures it out.

“The general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know… The world is a very puzzling place. If you’re not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else’s mind.” — Noam Chomsky

That means you are a Sensor. Yep. With all the shit-talking about Intuitives being smarter, it just happens that the type regarded as the smartest is a Sensor. That whole thing is bullshit anyway. Intuitives generate ideas on top of ideas diverging away from the concrete. On the other hand, your Extraverted Intuition observes the complex and abstract universe so you can render it in with more detail and reduce ambiguity. Life’s troubleshooter doesn’t generate speculations, you search for them. You spend your time trying to make sense of it all. No stone is left unturned. Your knowledge vault is full of concrete minute details of what you understand about stuff. And you can be a real stickler about those details.

My SeTe seeks to consume those TiSi details. Especially if it’s about something I value, I want to hear everything that starts with “Well, yes no maybe. The devil is in the details.” When pursuing my goals, I like to research and make solid logical reasoning to ensure I know what I’m getting into. INTPs have been the indispensable sources of guidance for someone like me who’s driven to stay informed. People say it’s good to be well researched. But where do all the sources come from, you know what I mean? Abe Lincoln once said “behind every great INTJ is a great INTP,” right? You guys have saved my ass, humbled me, and made me happier along the way. There’s seriously not enough credit given for the good and value you have contributed for me and society at large.

When I look into myself, I see that being wrong feels like downing a glass of whiskey. It burns and I’ll just have to tough it up. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger right? To stand corrected is character building. I’ve built up my tolerance, but it used to be so painful. It wasn’t an experience I’d like to go through often. To not be wrong and be hurt again, I dive down the information rabbit holes studying to gain back my confidence. What actually happens was that I’ve been burying myself hiding under the mounds of data I gathered. I didn’t want to be exposed and thought as stupid. I didn’t want to be seen as a fraud. I didn’t want to find out my existence has no real value. I didn’t realize I became someone who was very insecure about who he was.

And here you are as I’m watching you gracefully prancing around without that kind of fear holding you back, waltzing on the line between the realm of what you know and the much bigger one of what you don’t know. I’ve heard you say “no idea” many more times than I’ve ever said it. I’ve seen you routinely make brainfart mistakes. I’ve caught you being wrong on so many counts. Yet you still stand as the one many of us count on to solve problems. That takes a lot of courage to do what you do. It’s mesmerizing. Needless to say, I really look up to you.

"We are in the seat of the US government, a government that was founded by people who were, at one point, ruled by kings they couldn't overthrow. So, what did they do, right? They started over. They came here, to the New World. And the way we win is by creating a new, democratic, decentralized Internet... One where it is the users, not the kings, who have sovereign control over their data. This, I promise to you: I will help you end this tyranny by building an Internet that is of the people, by the people, and for the people, so help me God." —Richard Hendricks, from Silicon Valley

Modeling you I realized it wasn’t even about accumulating knowledge, but about humbling myself and embracing my vulnerability. Exposing myself will push me over the hill of Mount Stupid down to the Valley of Despair; a place you’re very familiar with. That’s the first step to enlightenment — I know… It’s silly to make this an epic journey. For I can only imagine that tumbling back down to the bottom of the Dunning-Kruger effect is just a normal Tuesday for you. While we can question the popular misconceptions of that curve, there’s still reason that you tend to sell yourself short.

And there, I see that you can feel just as unsure and as unconfident as I am, perhaps even more! That comes with such a relief for me. I admit that I’ve felt intimidated by you. Yes as crazy as that sounds, I’m scared to push back when you’re sure about something. I just assume you’re more right. But the more I understand you, the more I see you enjoy stepping in and help out. Whether it’s answering a noob question or one even you don’t have an answer for, it’s as if it was an invitation to get to know each other.

Who cares who’s got the bigger brains. The point has always been about building an amiable relationship by meeting together intellectually. You’ve shown me to not take intelligence so seriously, that there’s no such thing as a dumb question, that it’s OK to say “I don’t know.” I learned to loosen up about being logical. And ironically that made me see the truth: I am an emotional person who had been suppressing his feelings over logic. And I projected this suppression onto others. I shunned people who weren’t bearing the same brunt that I’ve endured to keep my emotions down. I wrongfully believed emotions were weaknesses. I’ve looked down on “stupid” people because I was trying so hard not to be one.

Knowledge doesn’t define us. It’s simply a means for what we want. While I used it to isolate myself, you use it to connect. Information is to food as logic is to cooking, you’re the master chef offering your talents for people to get together and enjoy. I’m the pretentious Yelper giving you 5 stars and a Like. And I gotta be honest — I feel I’ve gotten unfairly way more out of you than you have out of me. You’ve never asked for credit, but I’ll always feel indebted to you. It’s not enough for me to acknowledge what you do. I guess you could trade your thoughts for my opinions.

Like me, you’d rather be left alone observing the world. Like me, you’re fascinated by how it’s all put together. Like me, you wonder where you fit in the vast elaborate structures of it. Well it’s not much… But you have a special place inside my imaginary world. This world that I die trying to make into reality by acting and proving myself who I think I really am. I am your friend. I am someone who deeply appreciates who you are. Someone who wants to be like you. Someone who knows he wouldn’t be where he is without you.

“To be born means being compelled to choose an era, a place, a life. To exist here, now, means to lost the possibility of being countless other potential selves.. Yet once being born there is no turning back. And I think that’s exactly why the fantasy worlds of cartoon movies so strongly represent our hopes and yearnings. They illustrate a world of lost possibilities for us.” — Hayao Miyazaki

I hate to say that this is all I got to give back. But I’ll definitely act on it. After all, feelings are like theories. They’re not real unless we materialize them out. You know that. Your feelings have always stood by your logic, wherever they came from. Many times they’re the reasons why you get deep in your head, why you’re willing to get out of your comfort zone, or why you get these bursts of flow state solving problems. You care for the good of your community. There really is a rose tinted bias in you. It really is the thought that counts. You recognize and solve the questions we should be asking ourselves to live in a better world.

In these moments you become the most genuine and sincere out of all the types. Unriddling the mysteries of the universe and discovering how we’re all connected speaks for who you really are: a human being who’s trying their best with what they know and understand about being kind with one another. Because of that, I’m inspired to be who I really am and to live as genuinely and sincerely as I can. To not hide under the truth but to stand proudly on top of it. I’ll live out my self belief as someone who will leave this world a little better than he found it. Thanks to you, we can make this true. Together as data points serving for something bigger than ourselves.