#and obviously moral of the story is leave comments. any comments

[chexie]

interdimensional gateway fic update for 3rd anniversary

haha kidding

it takes forever to write fics so I applaud you for still managing to keep up with it, especially multi-chapter fics. and especially especially ones that are over like 5 chapters.

I would've forgotten about it and then just hoped the readers weren't that into it so i could abandon the thing

(have done that in the past but then again they never got many likes 2 begin with haha)

anyways wish u luck on it, dont worry about meeting deadlines n shit

Oh honestly at some point this past spring I had this silly pipe dream that I’d have Gateway’s epilogue up in time for it’s third birthday lmao it’s even pipe-dreamier now, but hey, who knows (I knows, I absolutely probably won’t finish it by then but yknow it’d be nice)

But at the same time the fact that this ask is like. Even here at all is so so wild to me because this is the first time I’ve had people engage with my content so positively and consistently, and I feel like that’s been one of my reasons that work on it’s been so ‘consistent’

(That and the Darkside communities size. Back then we only had 7 fics to pick from so it was my civil service to the community, obvs)

At the end of the day, while the stunted progress in 2022 was just another cost of a mentally taxing year, 2023 has just been me wrangling my brain to focus on anything for more than two weeks and clinically failing, and the lack of engagement chapter 9 got around its release ended up burying DD in my head

I’m not,,, entirely certain what my point was in all of this? But. Thank you. Maybe chapter 10 will drop by year’s end. Wouldn’t that be rad?

[jamiepaige]

Constant Companions Closeup #3: ROT FOR CLOUT

(also on bandcamp and spotify!)

WHAT'S going on guys, welcome back to another Constant Companions Closeup, the show where we take a DEEP DIVE into what makes these tunes tick! Last episode, we went aaaaaall the way there on Not Quite There, and today, we're making that liggity-line go up up up up up with ROT FOR CLOUT featuring VISUALEYES!! Before we get started, remember to SMASH that like button, SLAM subscribe, and FUCK the bell icon. This week's community challenge: leave your credit card info in the comments! Bet you won't!

(*cough*)

---

I check my notifications way too fucking much. It's a habit I'm trying to curb, and to my credit, I am doing better lately, but being chemically predisposed to dopamine deficiencies has done a number on my ability to go five minutes without checking the funny glowing numbers on my phone. Naturally, I also very much seek more validation than I should from the opinions of strangers yadayadayada yeah that's what the song is about but none of that actually has to do with why I started writing this song in the first place.

Have you ever taken a flight with American Airlines?

This was after waking up at 4 in the morning to fly out of Houston thinking I'd be napping on a couch in Ohio by 2 pm at the latest.

I want to make one thing clear here, and that's that I made this bed for myself. Tucked the sheets in and all. You see, on the rare occasions I fly, I normally take Southwest. Southwest does not overbook flights like a lot of other airlines do, so it's a practice I am mostly unfamiliar with. So, when I received a notification on my phone promising genuinely ridiculous amounts of flight credit money in exchange for taking a slightly later flight, I thought - well, shit! That sounds nice!

This is how they trick you. I didn't really realize I'd been tricked until I was on my second flight of the day, sitting in a middle seat at the very back of the plane, heading from Dallas, a city I don't live in, to Washington, DC, a city I was not trying to get to, staring down the barrel of another flight I was destined to get on that had been delayed like two fucking hours.

I became the Joker. All I could do to remain sane was write a song about it. This is how ROT FOR CLOUT came to be.

I guess the moral of the story is this: Don't go to Ohio. And to answer your question,

Yes I am

Not really

No

---

This is a complete sidenote but I want to mention it here: I'm genuinely overjoyed at the amount of people excitedly talking about my songwriting or the intention behind my lyrics. For a long time, it really felt like lyricism was the last thing people cared about from me, while it was always the thing I wanted to take pride in the most... So genuinely, thank you everyone for caring!! Every single fire emoji people have put next to a line I've written has extended my lifespan by multiple years

There's a brief little moment where the song's chords leave the key, doing a really stereotypically jazzy 2-5 movement, and it's one of my favorite parts of the entire song. I'm not really a music theory buff or anything, and I'm certainly not formally trained, but I've always been very passionate about more complicated harmony in otherwise poppy and accessible contexts - bo en's album pale machine really rewrote my brain when I first heard it.

On that note, there are microtones in the vocal melody - During the chorus, some of the rapidly repeated words move up in quarter tones! Possibly the simplest way I could've included microtonality, but I'm genuinely afraid if I learn more than what I already know about it I'll be lost to the darkness.

Obviously, the work of Sasuke Haraguchi was a massive influence on this song, particularly the song Igaku. I think basically everyone on the entire planet has picked up on that at this point, but I do also wanna point out some other songs that were on my mind at the time! (two for three on these posts mentioning louis cole now)

I'd also like to take a moment to spotlight the vocal samples on this! They previously appeared on エビチャーハン!, and they've honestly become some of my favorite samples to throw in things. They're also just a fucking goldmine sincerely

Finally, HUGE thanks to Visualeyes for the delightful synth solo on this!! I had put out a call on Twitter looking for instrumentalists, genuinely originally envisioning a super jazzy piano solo, but their synth playing genuinely brought the whole song together perfectly!

That's about it for this song - though again, if there are any more questions people have, I'd be happy to answer them in the replies to this post or elsewhere!! (*ahem*) THAT'S gonna do it for today's video, folks! Feel free to leave a like, comment, hit the subscribe button for more and click the bell so you don't miss any new videos. Tomorrow? I Wish That I Could Fall. it hurts.

[alessiamalfoyzabini]

𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝐄𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 - 𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐑𝐀 𝟎𝟏 | 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲

Pairing | Yandere Jungkook x Reader

Word Count | 3, 335

Warnings | +18, yandere, obsession, Stockholm syndrome, fluff, smut, fingering, penetrative sex, public sex, unprotected sex, creampie, marriage proposal, this is not for minors

This fanfiction is yandere, if you don't like the genre, don't read and if you are not of age, don't read.

I don't want to hear any complaints in the comments, thank you.

This does not reflect my way of thinking or living at all, it is just a work of fiction, it is like watching a horror movie, many of us love horror movies, but we would never dream of what we see in those movies happening in reality as well.

Simply put, this story was written for entertainment purposes, it should not be seen as a reflection of my values, opinions or morals. I absolutely do not condone such acts.

⤷ Summary | With their lives now intertwined, Jungkook was ready for the next step.

➢ Author's Note | Hi, guys! This is the first Extra from Happy Ending, I hope you can enjoy it ❤

Taglist: @katherine-kookie, @douknowbts, @aiiselle90210, @fewercascade , @mageprincess7, @m00njinnie, @get-that-brain-working, @whipwhoops

➢ Main Story

➢ Spin - Off | Dark Moon || PJM

Things with Jungkook were going swimmingly; every morning before going to work, the man would wake her up with a gentle kiss on her forehead, murmuring softly that he would be gone for a while but would be back as soon as possible to be with her. Y/N would always squint an eye to peek at the boy's attire already ready to go out, then smile lazily at her boyfriend's perfection.

Sometimes she missed college, but only because from her desk she had a spectacular view of Jungkook explaining or drawing on the blackboard, what she obviously did not miss was the sassy looks from the other girls, or the nastiness Yoozu gave her every morning.

But those were distant memories, almost vanished from her mind now addicted to the man who, for good measure, had kidnapped her from her old and dangerous apartment, drastically changing her life forever.

That morning, too, was no different from any other, Jungkook greeted her with his good morning kiss, leaving a soft trail of masculine scent in the room, the kind of smell that drove Y/N crazy with desire whenever she had him near her, the girl got up to do the things she usually did as soon as she woke up, made herself pretty in the bathroom for the man and tidied up the house a bit before his return, sometimes Jungkook would be gone even evenings, long evenings that made her heart ache.

She still did not know what exactly Jungkook did at night, he had explained to her that Seokjin, the school principal, had important tasks to assign to him, tasks that could only be done at night.

Y/N was not stupid, inside, the doubt that the boy was lying to her simmered in her stomach, but with a smile she accepted the boy's apology, the most important thing was that he would never abandon her.

She was baking a cake that day and her hands were smeared with dough when a message notification came to her.

Jungkook had given her a phone for her birthday, it was a special phone since the only contact number was Jungkook's, she could still surf the internet freely, but with some prohibitions. She could not talk to anyone on social media or establish friendships in the forums she used to read, but this was not a problem for her, she only had Jungkook on her mind, he was her partner, her best friend, she did not need anything else.

So she was not surprised when, wiping her hands to retrieve the object, she found her boyfriend's name on the display.

She smiled tenderly at the avalanche of hearts that overwhelmed the actual content of the message; the boy never failed to let her know how infinitely he loved her.

♥ Husband ♥

Dress nice and elegant,

I'll take you to a nice place today, my love.

I can't wait to see you, I ʟᴏᴠᴇ ʏᴏᴜ •3•

Y/N chuckled covering her lips, Jungkook had even emphasized that "I love you" with a totally different font, accompanied by an absolutely ridiculous as well as adorable little face, she imagined Jungkook's lips pouting really like that and laughed again.

In an instant she replied that she would not keep him waiting, glanced at the dough, deciding to put it in the refrigerator to finish that evening the preparation even if with some regret, since the man had granted her free use of the kitchen she had waited for nothing else, beginning to cook new recipes again and again to fill a part of her free time, something that as a college student she could only dream of.

She ran to the bedroom opening the closet she shared with the man, all their things were carefully put in order, although they were not yet married in truth it was as if they were, in more ways than one.

She bit her lip taking two dresses, one was calf-length, red with darker shades on the edge of the puffy sleeves, the other was short to mid-thigh, totally black.

Jungkook loved black, but Y/N knew that red gave him a strange effect when she wore it. She had said she had to look elegant and pretty for him, with a sly smile she put the little black dress back in the closet to give her priority to the red one, whose heart-shaped neckline stopped just in time above her breasts.

Yes, the boy was going to lose his mind.

She opted for low, dark heels with a strap around the ankle, she wanted to slender up given her paltry stature, but not even suffer all evening, god!

When she got to makeup she decided to prioritize her lips, without overdoing her eyes, she had never been a fan of make-up, it was bad enough if she did a minimum of skincare so as not to look like a freak, although Jungkook repeated to her how absolutely beautiful and adorable she looked even with a pimple on her chin, which made her feel embarrassed and a bit teased, although she didn't think that was the guy's goal, after all he really meant every single thing he said.

By the time she finished arranging her hair into soft, smooth, shiny locks, the clock read 6:45 p.m., by now Jungkook must have been on his way home and she felt a moment lost, he would have liked the way she looked, right?

Not even time to worry any further, that the front door opened, Y/N heard her boyfriend's greeting and with butterflies in her stomach she walked slowly up to him to give herself a more elegant look, although she must surely have read the torment on her face about her appearance.

Jungkook when he saw her widened his large dark eyes, suddenly turning them into two shiny marbles. He drank in the small figure of his girlfriend who looked somehow more mature. Not that she didn't usually look it, but dressed like that, with her swollen breasts barely hidden behind the thin scarlet fabric and her legs slender from those heels, the man's brain definitely went to shit.

Not to mention those lips he loved to kiss countless times, dyed a shade of red darker than the dress, begging him to lose control and possess them.

He swallowed hard, "I told you to make yourself pretty for me, not kill me," he whispered almost dreamily, the iron grip in the girl's stomach loosened, and a sly smile soon painted itself on his features.

She approached her fiancé one step at a time, stroking the man's strong, well-trained chest with longing; he was not dressed like that that morning. She remembered that he had come out in simple jeans and a T-shirt, that black shirt studded with crystals of the same color with those dark, soft pants were new.

"Where did you get these?" she asked with a mock pout, "Don't tell me you showed up in class like this."

Jungkook blinked slowly, still speechless.

"N-No, I bought everything later, I had forgotten the change," he explained, not taking his gaze off his fiancée's florid body, she brought her hand down to his toned and well-defined abdomen, feeling the stiffening of his body.

"Mm-mh," she hummed, "Jungkook, are you hard?" she asked innocently, clutching the bulge in his pants, feeling under her palm the rigid, pulsating length, she bit her lips harder as a rough, hot moan left her boyfriend's throat, who immediately squeezed her.

He stretched out his neck to kiss her roughly, but Y/N was quicker and put a hand in front of his mouth, Jungkook's offended expression made her laugh.

"Stop it, Jeon! You'll ruin my lipstick like that!" she scolded him as she moved away to retrieve her purse, Jungkook stared shamelessly at her butt, gritting his teeth.

"You're a witch" he grumbled, Y/N gave him an amused look, "A lustful and beautiful witch" he continued, shaking his head.

They arrived half an hour later at the place the boy chose, it was a very nice outdoor restaurant, different from the usual one he chose, and Y/N looked around excitedly. She didn't often see such places, Jungkook was almost always too busy to take her around, and she primarily didn't go out alone except to shop for groceries or buy things of interest to her.

Jungkook gently pulled her chair aside and with one hand resting on her back accompanied her to her seat, casting harsh glances at any male being who squared his woman too much, even the waiter had no chance.

"What would you like to order?" he asked politely, but casting an unflattering glance at Y/N's cleavage, Jungkook squinted, grim.

"I would appreciate it if you would look my fiancée in the eyes when you address her," he blurted out in fact, startling the other man, who had not expected such a biting reply.

Y/N smiled from behind her goblet of white wine, watching her fiancé glower at the boy who was apologizing to both of them in the meantime; she couldn't take her eyes off him, he was gorgeous.

The soft profile kissed her vision like manna from heaven, what she had done to deserve such a gift she could not yet comprehend even she could not understand.

"Did you choose?"

Jungkook asked her that question with sugar in his voice, as if he had not just finished a resounding rant in front of everyone.

The rest of the evening passed more quietly, behind them the view of the sea shrouded in night made the icy saltiness inhale into the air, the restaurant was now framed by small lights that ran through the entire structure, as well as the tables that lit them up, it was just a nice night to spend together.

"I'm happy to be here, with you," the man pointed out, brushing the girl's hand affectionately, Y/N returned the squeeze shyly.

"Although... at first it was not like that, now it is the same for me too, I am happy to be here with you, Jungkook" Jungkook's face became serious in a moment.

"That's exactly why I brought you here," he took a breath, "We've been so good the past few months, it felt like a wonderful dream, Y/N."

Y/N frowned, "What do you mean?"

Jungkook got up from his seat, inviting her to do the same with a wave of his hand, Y/N wordlessly followed him and they found themselves leaving the restaurant and going down to the beach, they took off their shoes, letting the fine sand make contact with their feet, Jungkook guided her further and further to the shore, until on contact with the water they shivered.

"Dance with me," he whispered, encircling her waist against his body.

At first, Y/N would have refused, partly out of shame and partly out of fear of the man who now held her as if he had the most precious thing in the world in his hands.

In that instant she accepted the boy's invitation, letting her arms wrap around his neck strong and secure, moving slowly inches from their lips, the woman was forced to stand on tiptoe to try to reach him.

"What did you want to say, Jungkook?"

The boy stared at her lips, before raising his eyes to hers, the atmosphere was intimate and close, she could feel his warm breath gently caressing her face.

"I need to feel you more mine," he said.

"I'm already yours," chuckled the girl, but Jungkook shook his head.

"No, more..." he sighed closer and closer, "Be my wife, Y/N and make me a complete man" he dissolved his emotion-filled desire into a breathtaking kiss, pressed his moist lips to those of the young woman, who opened her eyes wide in bewilderment.

For a moment she was unable to respond; behaving as husband and wife was one thing, becoming one effectively was another. It was ... much more serious, important, Y/N blinked a few times before finally letting go of the man's desperate touch, molding her soft lips and giving in to that sick passion, trilling with joy inside.

Jungkook slid her through the sand, heedless of the grains that stuck to their skin or on their clothes; he had been waiting for that moment for months, but he finally made up his mind to confess those words he had been holding in too long.

"Is that a yes?" he asked hopefully, pulling away from her slightly, Y/N nodded with an excited smile.

She was looking forward to nothing more than officially being Mrs. Jeon, that boy had given her so much love, how could she not want him as her husband?

"I want to be your wife, Jungkook," she sighed shakily, "I was wondering when you would decide to ask me," she laughed breathlessly, leaving Jungkook to admire her impressed.

"Oh, my love..." the next kiss was immediately more erotic and physical than the previous one, the man lightly biting her scarlet lips before penetrating that warm and sweet cavern with his tongue, softly intertwining with the girl's, who entwined her own fingers in her boyfriend's wavy and gorgeous locks.

The man settled between the girl's legs, the skirt of her dress had long since curled around her hips, and it was not difficult for him to gently push his own bulge against the young woman's barely concealed intimacy.

"Say once more that you're mine," he sighed into her neck, kissing her soft skin carefully; it was something he asked for every time before making love, Y/N never flinched, knowing that those words would only make his cock get even harder.

"Yours...I'm only yours, love," she breathed raggedly with her panties trailing down her shapely thighs under the force of the man's eager hands, Jungkook moved on to gently torture with his teeth the hidden tips of her breasts barely covered by her dress, "I just want to be with you, I want...I just want your hands on me, oh!"

Jungkook's index finger slowly teased the swollen and sensitive pearl of her core after finding it with ease, by now he knew the woman's body as well as he knew his own and he felt his cock enlarge and throb at the sound of Y/N's hoarse moans, he tightened his lips around a turgid nipple poking out from under the fabric of her scarlet dress, something about the idea of fuck her on that beach fully clothed drove him crazy.

"And only my hands on you will you have, Y/N," he hissed with a dark note in his voice, something the woman couldn't quite interpret, too caught up in her man's fingers slipping shamelessly along her soft, tender folds, violating her entrance with a firm, deep lunge between her soft walls.

"Jungkook! Jungkook..." she repeated his name like a mantra, the tears in her eyes not allowing her to see the proud, focused expression on the man's face as he continued to move his fingers inside her while using his thumb to make tighter and tighter circles around her stiff, scarlet clit, now close to a fierce orgasm, "N-Not resisting..." she cried, shaking her head several times, trying to warn him.

Y/N's thighs tensed around the boy's pelvis, trembling intensely at the sweet and painful waves of pleasure and yearning she was experiencing there, under those intimate and forbidden caresses that anyone could have seen if only they had left the restaurant at that moment.

Jungkook's dark irises shone with possession, Y/N's lost and devastated expression discombobulating him in such a way that he could not hold back a growl from deep in his chest.

He lowered himself just enough to delve into her slit with the tip of his delicate tongue, finding her incredibly delicious and ready for him, "I'm going to get you here, Y/N," he hummed gently kissing her sensitive clit, "The only thing you'll have to do is just be a little quiet, it's not exactly isolated here," he chuckled with a bit of nastiness, remembering how much the girl liked to scream instead when he impaled her with the full length of his cock.

Y/N nodded without really understanding his words, too busy recovering from the previous peak of pleasure she had reached, not yet ready for his big cock that penetrated her narrow slit firmly, going to such a depth that Y/N felt it coming into her belly, with a choked groan she welcomed him into her trembling limbs, eyes widening, Jungkook thought she was wonderful.

He slid into her intimacy with his pants still on, only his cock had been pulled out just enough to catch her on the soft sand, in everyone's eyes they would have looked like a couple making out, unaware of the real pleasure invading their insides with each raw, searing lunge between the sensitive, moist walls.

Y/N felt his essence becoming more and more copious, helping Jungkook slide into her with greater speed, she rocked her pelvis against his so as not to miss the new violent wave that was about to sweep over her body, Jungkook kissed her violently trying to contain her sloppy, needy cries, his increasingly heavy balls slapped the girl's skin hard, "You're so perfect, sweet little thing," he gasped on her, his cock swelling every time he entered that perfect slit for him, vibrating with sharp, forbidden sensations that jolted both their bodies.

"I think I ... I ...!" the woman did not have time to finish her sentence, tensing in her man's arms as her pleasure exploded in her stomach, where Jungkook reached her, cumming copiously in her between tight, desperate movements of his hips.

"Fuck..." he blew on her lips, basking in the last flushes of pleasure, joining their mouths in a slow, languid kiss.

The girl whimpered slightly when the boy left her intimacy empty and the thick, white semen immediately leaked out dripping between her soft buttocks, Jungkook closed his eyes trying to control himself, his cock had a quiver that he did not want to listen to. They could not stay there any longer, someone would really see them otherwise.

He helped her adjust her panties and the skirt of her dress, accompanying each gesture with a kiss on her trembling skin, squeezing her immediately when she was in danger of collapsing on her own still weak legs.

He guided her toward the path made especially for visitors, their entwined hands not loosening even when they reached the car, too busy smiling, some from embarrassment and some from excitement, or both.

"Oh! What's this?" asked Jungkook in mock surprise, pointing to the girl's ring finger, where a marvelous precious solitaire, a symbol of eternal and unique love, was on display.

"Jungkook!" she exclaimed wordlessly, looking at her hand shocked, the diamond caught the reflected light of the moon, it was absolutely stunning, "When...?" she tried to ask him when he put it on her, but she was out of breath.

The proposal was already something special, but such a ring simply made her fiancé's intentions more truthful, he really wanted to lead her down the aisle.

Without realizing it she burst into tears, seeking comfort in his arms almost automatically, Jungkook smiled sweetly returning the squeeze, inhaled the scent of her hair now mixed with the saltiness of the sea, and basked contentedly in the idea that soon she would not be able to escape from him, even if she found out about his double life in Seokjin's service.

"What's important is that the ring is there, where it belongs, Y/N," he whispered on her forehead, causing her to lift her face to look at him, "Soon we'll have a family together, baby...and we'll be truly happy," he hummed with a lip-smacking kiss, Y/N nodded meekly with half-closed eyes, captivated by the words and the presence of the young man who was increasingly adept at making her fall into his inviting trap.

[multiverse-e]

Y'all, I cannot stress this enough: you can manifest without doing anything at all!!!

Seriously! I mean it.

If you have a hard time manifesting or just need a reminder how easy it is, I advise you to keep reading

I used to have a really hard time manifesting. I would do so many things and still, not one result.

Obviously this was extremely frustrating for me and I felt helpless and lost.

So I kinda stepped back from the manifesting scene and just eventually detached.

Then one day, I was looking for corsets and I really wanted one so I added it to cart on an online shopping app and decided to leave it there until I'm able to purchase it. Basically setting an intention to get it

The next day, I went back to school shopping and I saw the EXACT type of corset I was looking for in the mall!!! It was so much cheaper too

After that, something in my brain chemistry changed, knowing I'd finally manifested something. All it took was a thought and light intention

After I realised that and accepted how easy manifesting is, I've manifested countless things, but here is just a few:

• meeting a celebrity (this one took only a few hours too. Seriously)

• weight loss

• shifting experiences

• dozens of online friends

• my best friend

• my partner (took 3 days)

• new clothes!! (Yesterday actually)

• travel trips

Etc etc.

All most of these took were intentions set in my mind.

For example, with the celebrity meeting, I had travelled somewhere and then I thought "omg. How have I never met someone famous? This is actually not slay. Manifesting immediately" or something along those lines then I just let it go and completely forgot about it. A few hours later, there's commotion at our tent then my dad comes to our table, walking and chatting with an athlete who's quite famous, introduces him as his good friend (my jaw dropped) then yeah... We took a few photos with him and he sat with as for a while before going.

So moral of the story? ALL YOU NEED TO MANIFEST IS YOUR THOUGHTS AND INTENTION

Try it!!

You don't have to affirm.

You don't have to lie to yourself

You don't have to visualise

You don't have to try millions of methods

You don't have to do anything you don't want to!!

Just know your desire, set an intention, and detach

Feel free to comment or DM me if you have any questions!!

Good luck! :)

[sewersewersewercouch]

A macro post for a Micro-phone!

To those of you I’ve been threatening with this post for god knows how long–yes, I’m finally doing it. I’m writing the goddamn Microphone meta, because I have SO MANY THOUGHTS on this silly little sentient microphone. (She’s not even my favorite character, she’s my second favorite. My favorite is Cabby, but Cabby makes me go into such a feral state that I can barely form words about her other than writing copious amounts of fanfiction. I digress.) Before I get into it, though, I have some general “please be normal on my post” housekeeping I want to start with.

Firstly, this post is about Microphone. Specifically, about Microphone and the themes of choice and morality as they appear in her arc. This post is NOT meant to comment on the morality or choices of any other character. Specifically, by the nature of Mic’s story in the majority of the show, Taco will probably come up a lot because she’s there for a lot of it, but in a weird way, a lot of this post is kind of about how Mic’s arc doesn’t revolve around Taco as much as it’s often believed to? I don’t know, hopefully it’ll make more sense when you read it, but whatever, this post is not about my views on Taco.

To add on–THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT SHIPPING. I don’t want to hear about how much you like or dislike XYZ ship in the comments or reblogs of this post. Make your own damn post. If you want to know how I feel about a certain ship, you can always feel free to ask, just…like, not here. 

Also, I will admit, part of the reason I started making this post is because there were certain interpretations of Microphone in this fandom that bothered me, but I don’t want that to be the vibe of this post as a whole. I do the “I’m always right about this character and nobody else gets them” bit as much as the next guy, but when it extends beyond being a bit, that’s when you start to be kind of an asshole who refuses to so much as listen to views different from their own. I don’t want to be that. I know I’m not incapable of being wrong, and I also know there’s a lot of this that’s subjective, because it’s a fictional story written by people whose minds I cannot read. I don’t want to make this post to hate on others’ opinions, I want to make this post to love Mic! We are all love Mic!

Lastly, I started drafting (read: rotating in my brain and vaguely mentioning it to friends) this post pre-II16, and as I’m writing this now I’m just after act 1. So this may have spoilers for act 1, but also some of this I came up with before that even existed and had to kind of adjust in order to account for that. Obviously Mic wasn’t in there much, but there are a few small adjustments so I will say here there be spoilers. I also have so much ADHD (so does Mic, but that’s a different meta that I mayhaps will write if this goes over well) and I am allergic to being concise or staying on topic. The title does not fuck around, it really is quite a macro post. Sorry in advance.

That said, it’s Microphone time!

Ok so there are a couple quotes from a Brian livestream that I really appreciated because they kinda summed up the general thesis statement of this post, if you will? So I’m gonna put those here and then refer back to them as needed:

“What I find most interesting is how you would think when [Taco] comes back in season 2, and she’s like, ‘oh, I’m gonna make a deal with Microphone’, that she is going to manipulate Microphone, she is going to be the one in control, the one in power, the one, you know, leading the more ignorant and innocent Microphone, but Microphone at a point is like, ‘I’m done,’ and cuts Taco off.”

“I think Microphone was completely justified to leave [Taco] in Hatching the Plan. Perhaps would have even been justified to do so sooner than that. But, you know, it’s really up to what she wants and what she’s comfortable with, and she set a boundary, and we stan.”

“I really enjoyed the subversion of expectation with [Microphone], that she was not a victim, played an active role, and when a line was crossed, she was like, ‘I’m done, I’m out.’ And you really gotta respect the integrity of that, I certainly do.”

Okay, remember those? Good. We’re going to get back to them in a while, because we’re going through this shit episode by episode.

So, for the first…quite a while, actually, Mic doesn’t really do a whole lot. Like, we see that she’s generally pretty friendly but with a rather short temper, and her main schtick is that 1) she’s loud, 2) this causes her to screw challenges up, and 3) this in term makes most of her team not like her and behave quite rudely towards her. That’s kinda all we got. 

Oh, and she seems to be being stalked by some kind of mysterious entity, but whatever, that’s a later problem.

One of the earlier on scenes I’d like to draw your attention to is in Theft and Battery, where Cheesy walks up to Mic and, apropos of nothing, says, “Mic! I've just experienced the most horrible thing! It was a monstrosity! Your personality! Get it? Because everyone thinks you're annoying!” Which, like, I know I said I wasn’t commenting on the morality of other characters, but I will take this moment to say, fucking asshole. I don’t usually dislike Cheesy but I would have decked him for this one. Mic went so easy on him.

But I digress (I do that a lot! You’re going to find that out over the course of this post!) We see Mic blow up like she usually does at comments like this, but before that, we see inside her head for a second—she imagines being surrounded by Cheesys, all laughing at her expense.

This is the first time we truly see how much all those remarks from her teammates actually affect her. It’s not just a split-second flash of anger—all those things are really, truly, hurting her.

In the next episode, Rain On Your Charade, we see the first time she has an actually good interaction with another Grand Slam, this being Soap. Mic and Soap seem to bounce off each other pretty well—Mic’s impulsivity is a good counter for Soap’s much more rigid way of thinking. They give each other advice on their respective problems and comfort one another. For once in her life (literally in her life thus far, given you-know-what!) we can see Mic having a healthy interaction where she is clearly valued and supportive. Someone who encourages her to listen to her heart—as we see, this is gonna be a theme.

So, of course, it’s just Mic’s luck that Soap gets immediately eliminated.

And now Mic is stuck alone on a team that hates her—that makes disparaging remarks about her every move, and that is doing an absolute number on her mental health. She refers to herself, in her own diary, as annoying, harmful, random, useless, insignificant, a loser. And now she has absolutely nobody in her corner.

Enter Taco, with a cup of tea and a deal to make. 

Okay, the first thing I want to address is the way that Microphone reacts to seeing Taco. Well, I mean, first, she reacts with, “AAAAAA,” as I’m sure many of us would if a British woman jumped out of a bush at us. But after she’s done doing that, she says, “What are you doing here, Taco?” And it makes me sound really silly to say “how’d she know her name?” because, uh, duh, genius, it’s an object show, she’s a taco, but like…you get what I mean, right? She addresses Taco like she knows who she is. Which makes me wonder, did she see season 1? (Did she even exist when season 1 would have been airing?) But she can’t have done, or she would have heard about all the Pickle stuff. The most likely option in my opinion would be that she heard the season 1 contestants talking about it, I guess? But either way, she seems to know that Taco has done bad things in the past, and instinctively doesn’t trust her. (I mean, also she has been actively stalking her, which maybe doesn’t help. Whatever.)

I don’t have too much to say about the rest of this interaction—Taco offers to guide Microphone through the game in exchange for a fifty percent cut of her winnings, Microphone declines, Taco tells her to think about it.

Next episode—Mazed and Confused! As usual, the Grand Slams immediately ditch Mic, and she winds up getting kinda pulled into the Bright Lights group. And there’s some interesting Mic dialogue—featuring the II-typical move of characters not discussing their issues outright but rather showing them via thinly veiled projection. And I will fully admit that I love this. Every time I see it I go nuts for it. Firstly, Marshmallow is talking about Apple using her, to which Mic says, “Maybe it's not so bad if someone uses you, if- if it benefits you as well, right?” Then she has this interaction with Fan:

Fan: B-but in that song, the vocalist lovingly chronicles how they couldn't deal with themselves until they gain the companion they need! It's pure poetry!

Microphone: So, everything he does is decided by someone else? Nice message…

Fan: Well, Microphone, what gives you the right to have an "interpretation"? When's the last time you gained something of value from true art such as this?

Microphone: Ugh... certain people always tell me I have so much to gain.

So, obviously, “certain people” is Taco, and we can see how conflicted Microphone is about the whole situation. On the one hand, she doesn’t like the idea of blindly following someone else’s directions without making any of her own decisions, but also, even if she’s concerned that she’s being used, she does see how it could benefit her. (Also, this is far from the last time we’re going to see Microphone flimsily attempting to justify something going on with her.)

Well, apparently she comes to a decision, because she runs off to get help from Taco. With Taco’s guidance, Mic makes it through the maze, and Baseball even compliments her. We see a clear example of how she could potentially benefit from this partnership. (Well, until she accidentally gives away the position of the exit to Test Tube, but I digress.)

As we get into “Kick the Bucket,” it seems like Mic’s pretty all-in on working with Taco. However, right off the bat, we see a moment where Mic outright gives Taco a hard no on one of her directions, that being, using her temporary paralyzer. (Side note: it absolutely cracks me up how she goes “you don’t do that!” like she’s telling off a small child for stealing candy or something. Never change, Mic.)

We see a couple of things here—one, that Microphone has no reservations of telling Taco she won’t do something where she crosses a certain line. And secondly, with some other evidence, we can figure out where that line is. She refuses to use the temporary paralyzer, she freaks out about Lightbulb and Test Tube being sent back in time, she stops Taco from letting Knife’s minecart go over a drop, she makes her promise “no violence” before they go on the Shimmers’ ship. 

And yet, look at the scene after this, with Balloon. She purposely tries to get in his head to make him feel anxious and afraid that he’s at risk of being eliminated, and then later makes fun of him to her other teammates in order to cast doubt on him. And she came up with this plan against Taco’s advice—although it does end up impressing Taco, that’s not why she does this, it’s pure Microphone. So it isn’t hurting others that she draws the line—one could clearly argue that her messing with Balloon like that is pretty hurtful. It’s specifically physical violence that bothers her, which is kind of an interesting place to draw the line in a world where dead contestants can be revived, but emotions are forever.

Hell, Mic says it outright in the next episode, Alternate Reality Show–”You say that like we didn’t do our share of permanent damage.” She’s aware what she did was “permanent damage,” and Taco didn’t even tell her to do it, and yet, she did. This is where we first start to see the cognitive dissonance that Mic is dealing with here—she has a strong sense of morals, seeing as she’s giving back the temporary paralyzer explicitly against Taco’s wishes, because “it’s the right thing to do.” And yet, she’s actively making choices that go against that sense, and she doesn’t know how to feel about that.

Next up, we’re looking at Mine Your Own Business, AKA one of Mic’s best episodes. Her and Taco’s plan in this episode is to try to get Knife on their side because he’s seen that they’re working together. This goes…not as planned, starting from the moment they blow their cover by getting into an argument about whether you should say “excuse me” when you sneeze, while invisible behind him. (We didn’t get enough of them as a comedic duo, by the way. They crack me up so bad in this episode.) Anyways, Mic tries valiantly to bring Knife in with a very convincing, “Join us…yeah!” When Taco and Knife inevitably begin arguing, however, Mic says “We just wanna help!” Which…do you? Yeah, okay girl, keep telling yourself that.

There’s also the little scene where Mic is trying to get Taco to open up about why she was reaching for the portal. This is one of the first interactions we see them have that isn’t about the game. Microphone just…genuinely wants to know what was distressing Taco so much. You know, like you might with a friend. And that’s one thing that interests me about this—Microphone thinking of Taco like a friend isn’t something that Taco did on purpose to gain her trust, and in fact, she seems rather resistant to it. It’s entirely Microphone initiating these friendly interactions. (Even though soon after she does imply she doesn’t feel she really knows the real Taco.)

Then we see the bit where Knife is about to go off a cliff, Taco gives a thumbs up, but Mic doesn’t approve and manages to get Knife into their minecart. I touched on this above, but this is another example of Mic’s resistance to physically harming others.

The next time we see this terrific trio, Taco apologizes to Mic for not being open with her, and I kid you not, Mic responds with, “aww, Taco!” (I reiterate: Never change, Mic.) And, even when Knife explains what happened with Pickle, Mic still comes to Taco’s defense. Some of this is because of the fact that Mic is beginning to truly see Taco as a friend, yes, but I think another part of it is that previously mentioned cognitive dissonance. She wants to believe she’s doing the right thing, and not just aiding and abetting someone who hurts others, so of course she’s going to want to defend Taco–because if Taco is a bad person, and she’s purposefully helping her achieve her ends just for the sake of winning a game show, what does that make her?

On to Hatching the Plan! (We’re in the home stretch, I promise!) We see Mic joking about the idea of what happened to Pickle happening to her—”At least, until you inevitably ‘drop me too,’ or whatever.” Clearly, she didn’t take too much stock in Knife’s words, and she’s pretty convinced she’s safe from a similar fate. (Which she is! Because Pickle was being unknowingly strung along, and Mic is willingly helping Taco reach her goal. But that’s a later problem.)

Now we see Knife confronting Microphone and trying to convince her to, “stop, idiot, have some dignity?” To which Mic tells him that she “has a voice” (as Taco, in the background, turns off MePad’s volume), “no one’s shutting [her] down” (as Taco powers MePad off) and she’s “not just being dragged along” (as Taco literally drags MePad along.) And the thing is, obviously there’s the ironic juxtaposition of what Mic is saying and what Taco is doing, but Mic also…isn’t entirely wrong?

Remember those Brian quotes from earlier? Here’s where we start using them!

Because here’s the thing—like he said, you would totally expect Taco to be playing Microphone the entire time, to be the one in power and manipulating her, because that’s what happened to Pickle. But that’s…not what’s happening. Rather, Taco has been pretty upfront about what she expects of Mic and what both of them have to…well, for a lack of a better word, gain. And it’s not like Mic has no choice in this matter! She has repeatedly shown that she is willing to say no to Taco when she crosses a line, and as Brian said, she would be totally justified to have noped out way earlier than she ends up doing. But…she doesn’t. She’s making her choices, and then bending over to justify them, because as I said, Mic has a strong sense of morals and knows there’s something that’s off, but she doesn’t want to admit she knows that and has continued to do what she’s doing.

So anywho. Taco and Mic use MePad’s teleportation to go after Fan and Test Tube on the ship, but not before Mic tries to make Taco promise no violence. Taco does not promise this, and of course, immediately kills Fan and Test Tube upon arriving.

This is where Mic’s cognitive dissonance runneth over, and she makes the executive decision to ditch Taco’s ass and leave the game.

I’m going to put Mic’s whole little speech here, because I really like it and it’s kind of the culmination of all the points I’m making: “I haven't been... listening to my heart. Instead, I've been listening to... this... well... It was a voice in my head! And it would tell me how to... go further. Further than I was willing to go. I heard it so often that I never... I never heard myself. So... what's the point?” And also, “I didn't make the best choices. So now... I'm making my first good one. This is what I want.”

Because that’s kind of the thing, right? Deep down, Microphone always knew cheating and messing with people was wrong. But she was, by choice, not listening to that instinct, because what Taco was promising seemed so attractive. Getting the prize, yes, but she also just fucking wants friends. And when she does well in the game, her teammates want to be friendlier to her. And also, as I said she came to see Taco as a friend, and she didn’t want to lose that either.

But…okay, here’s where I complain about a take I don’t like, and I’m sorry about that. I find it to be an oversimplification that Mic left Taco because “Taco hurt her.” Because, honestly, she didn’t really directly? What drove Mic to leave was seeing Taco hurt other people, and that by proxy, Microphone was…not even a bystander to these things, but kind of an active participant. Morally speaking, she couldn’t sit with that. So she decided that the prize and the recognition weren’t worth it, and boom, she was done.

I don’t really have much to say on the following episodes that are already out, because Mic has  barely in here. But I do have a hot take on what might potentially come next for Mic I’d like to share.

I don’t really…care whether Mic and Taco end up on good terms.

Okay, maybe that’s not the best way to say it—rather, I think there are ways to do either way well, and ways to do either way wrong, and what I care more is about whether Mic’s story is well-written than which direction it actually goes.

Quick disclaimer that I drafted this section pre-II16, and at the point we’re at now, I’m operating under the assumption that the deleted contestants aren’t actually going to be dead forever and we will have Pickle again. (If this turns out not to be the case please don’t make fun of me.)

I’ve seen a lot of discourse around the fandom about whether Microphone and Pickle will forgive Taco, and the first problem comes right there with aggregating them into one MicrophoneandPickle entity. Microphone and Pickle are two different people who had very different relationships with Taco. As I’ve said earlier, the Pickle that Taco knew was entirely a facade, whereas with Mic…well I don’t want to say she was entirely honest about who she was, because I don’t think she’s entirely honest about who she is with herself, so let’s just say as honest as she’s capable of being. Pre-II16, my suspicion was that they were going to split the difference and have one end up on good terms with Taco and the other not. Like, I think in terms of the message that the show is trying to give, this would be a good one—if someone has wronged you and tries to make amends, you can choose to accept that or you can choose to walk away, and neither is a morally wrong choice. Post-The Reality of the Situation, I’m going to say that if this does happen, it’s going to be Mic the former and Pickle the latter, just having seen how Taco’s apology went over with Pickle. And that’s the thing—Pickle had no choice in what happened to him. Mic had agency over her situation, and went along with it in full knowledge of what that entailed. The Taco that Pickle had a relationship doesn’t exist, but in Mic’s case, she does. And most importantly—Pickle’s qualm with Taco is that she hurt him, but Mic’s was her actions towards other people, not Mic herself. If it’s proven that Taco has changed and doesn’t want to hurt others anymore…I think it’s not impossible that Mic could be lenient.

But either way—whether Mic ends on good or bad terms with Taco—what would make it satisfying to me is if it’s not framed about whether Taco “deserves” or “doesn’t deserve” her forgiveness, but rather whether Mic chooses to forgive her. Like Brian said—it’s up to what she wants and what she’s comfortable with. Choice has been such a major theme for Mic, and I think she deserves to have her agency at the forefront.

Anyways, it is literally after two in the morning and I wrote this entire thing in a fit of hyperfocus, god help me. Again, if this does well and anyone wants to see a “why Microphone II has ADHD real and canon” post I will absolutely do that.

[wolveria]

Sorry to bring up shipping discourse on your blog. Reminder that you have every right to just ignore this. It’s your blog.

But the whole thing around shipping aspec characters tends to be less “should we do it?” and more “stop fucking erasing a character’s identity just bc you don’t know how to write it”. I mean, not for everyone, obviously, but that tends to be what it boils down to.

Me, personally, I don’t mind the shipping (esp crackships and selfships. They get too much shit as is and I’m not adding onto that), but I do mind when people just ignore the characters identity or treat it as Straight Lite™️, which I have seen a lot of people do. And I know you said that it’s less about what they do with fictional characters and more about how they treat actual aspec people, but oftentimes (as far as I’ve seen) their attitude towards actual people tends to be similar to how they treat the identity of a fictional character. Which is to say, bad.

Again, this is all just from my personal experience with people, so maybe you’ve had a much more positive one. I just figured as another aspec person I could share my view. If it’s not welcome, no hard feelings or anything. I do hope you have a nice day/night.

(Anon is responding to this reblog)

And you can acknowledge your feelings about how fans interact with aspect characters. You have a right to be uncomfortable.

But these are your feelings, shaped by your experiences, and your perception will always be subjective. That's simply a part of human existence.

In other words, feelings don't inform reality (ask any person with anxiety).

There are two separate points you bring up, that 1) fans can erase a character's identity, and 2) how fans treat characters is a direct correlation to how they treat real people:

1) A character isn't a real person, therefore it doesn't have an identity that can be erased. It's an object. A fictional concept. You cannot harm them no matter what you do to them.

I am not speaking about representation. A fan does not have the same impact as a Disney executive. I am not, and will not, put them on the same level of power. How a fan headcanons a character will never equate to how media treats queer representation, and I will repeat this until my dying breath.

Which leaves this question: Do you believe it's immoral for other fans to fantasize about characters in a way that you find uncomfortable?

If so, why? Do you believe it's an actual problem? What would be your solution? How do you control people's fantasies, and is it your right to attempt to do so?

If the answer is no, then you must accept that how people interact with fiction isn't your responsibility or obligation, and that discomfort does not equal immorality.

If the answer is yes, please see below.

2) Correlating fantasies with "immoral" behavior is a talking point of conservatives, fascists, and pro-censorship groups.

People writing stories, making art, creating headcanons, etc., is not an accurate indicator or predictor of behavior. It might be helpful to ask yourself why you're equating these two things.

Why do you believe fantasy influences behavior? Or the inverse, do you believe that fans who treat others poorly will always have "problematic" headcanons/ships?

If so, why is your focus on how fictional characters are treated, and not on the actual behaviors towards actual people?

Are your opinions based on facts or on fears?

Pro-censorship groups will argue that reading certain books will lead to a corruption of morals, or those who write toxic relationships will become an abusive partner, or kids who play violent video games are more likely to hurt other students.

Claiming that fans who "erase" the queer identities of fictional characters will lead to actual bigotry towards real people, is the same kind of fear-based argument as above--it just uses leftist language to do so.

(I don't even know how to address the Straight Lite comment without getting into a whole other discussion about how you seem to believe some headcanons aren't queer enough. And following my own example, I am not going to extrapolate that onto how you might view real people's queer identities.)

I've seen a lot of shitty fans in my decade of fandom involvement. I can make a lot of assumptions about what kind of characterizations they like and how it relates to their behavior. I could do that, with a lot of gut feelings behind it, but that doesn't make it true.

Sometimes, shitty people have certain headcanons, or ships, or fantasies, and it doesn't actually mean a damn thing.

At the end of the day, I understand that what someone enjoys, their headcanons, their art, their fantasies, do not inform who they are as a person, nor does it predict how they treat other people. That's not how human behavior works, and there are decades of research to support it.

You can be uncomfortable. You have every right to feel uncomfortable. But discomfort is not an indicator of right or wrong, nor is it evidence your discomfort has an inherent moral weight.

This concept even has its own term: the wisdom of repugnance.

I hope this has been helpful to you. Thank you for your ask.

[clavissionary-position]

What Emma Would Do

Ignore me. This is just me working through my own thoughts and feelings on this. Also I'm an idiot.

***BIG EDIT: I misread and misinterpreted. Azel was nearly drugged and SA'd, so his reaction, however cruel, makes complete sense to me. If he was real I couldn't apologize to him enough.

Moving @/caffedrine's billion-dollar comments up here.

My original, misguided post is below the cut if you're interested.

I have to ask myself what Emma would do. Within reason. And only within the scope of this fictional game, because I'm not about to touch this topic as it exists in the real world. That's for people much smarter than me.

But for the game, my dismissing of Azel as a cruel misogynist without seeing his circumstances and worldview shuts down the conversation the same way it does when Azel dismisses a woman as a slut without seeing her circumstances and worldview.

(Did he actually use the word 'slut' or did google just translate 痴女 like that for me... I should double-check... edit: oh my bad, he calls her a "female molester", which... I can't say he's wrong considering she tried to give him an aphrodisiac...? The word also means "stupid woman", so he could very well have meant it that way too, especially for some reasons I get into later in the post.)

Soooo, he didn't actually call her a slut. I'm an idiot 😌 I'm sorry, Azel. Dunno if any of my points below mean anything, but I'll leave it here anyway:

The running theme in Ikepri is to look beyond the beast and see the human inside. To meet them halfway. To see their heart. And that heart is always so very terribly scarred. All these guys have gone through their own traumas and come out the other end behaving in ways designed to be armor, to protect themselves from any further pain.

I can only speculate about Azel this early in his story arc, but being showered with the same adoration and reverence that people only show a god, day in and day out, probably fucks with your mentality a bit if you are still only human at the end of the day. Having women try to seduce you only because you're The Living God, well, we saw what that kind of shallow treatment did to Silvio. Women see you as an object and so women become objects to you. You want to be loved, but you don't want to be hurt.

That might only be scratching the surface with Azel, though. He's also clearly jaded from listening to the same old interpersonal problems people have when in relationships. Love is actual trash to him, not even worth a single penny. It's trash because the very people who follow him prove it to him on a daily basis, I imagine.

Yet that's still not the full picture. I mean, we obviously won't have the full picture until his main route drops, but there's another key factor to consider with Azel.

He quotes Pascal in Licht's sequel. "Man is only a reed, the weakest thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed." The full quote goes onto say:

"All our dignity consists, then, in thought. This is the basis on which we must raise ourselves, and not space and time, which we would not know how to fill. Let us make it our task, then, to think well: here is the principle of morality.”

(Did I read the entire context of the quote? HA! What do you take me for? A scholar or something?)

Free will and independent thought is arguably the most important thing to Azel. He has no respect for the sheep who flock to him for direction (though he'll happily take their money and tributes). Even with the dancer who tried to seduce him in the prologue, when he tells her to lick up the food she dropped after he tripped her, he presents it as a choice. Nevermind that the staggeringly unequal power dynamics at play made it so this was nothing short of coercion in the end; there was no way the dancer was in a position to stand up for herself and say no, even if that's exactly what Azel wanted. But from his perspective, defiance would have been welcome. That's why he phrased it as a choice. That she started licking up the food only solidified in Azel's mind that this woman is an unthinking reed without dignity. If you're going to act like trash, he'll treat you like trash... maybe that was part of his thinking.

On a slightly different note, I think another reason he hates the idea of love so much is because love makes people lose their ability to reason, to think. I believe he outright says as much, iirc.

In the end, I don't know from where exactly Azel's fury and cruelty comes from. It could be all of these things, it might be something else entirely. All I can think is, you can't be 'God' everyday and not be scarred by humans.

In conclusion, I can't excuse Azel's behavior. I don't excuse it. But I think Emma would try to understand the why of it, like she does in any other route. The other running theme in Ikepri is that, as a certain someone would put it, the essence of all people is love. It's their environment that twists them. Somewhere in Azel is the purest kind of love. A kind that would make any god look away in shame. That's what I want to believe in, anyhow.

Also, I need stress that I was SO wrong about whether he actually called the dancer a slut or not. Google fucked me over by translating it that way! Ah, Azel, I'm so sorry!

[eyeballsoup7310]

I find it very interesting that people despise Vanessa for threatening Mike but I’ve not even seen a single person mention that Mike beat a man to filth in a mall fountain in front of the guys son.

Not to say mikes an inherently bad person for that, he has trauma and he reacted to something that triggered it— it’s just kind of telling that the entire fandom not only immediately forgave, but also never actually considered criticizing him for violently attacking a man in the first place, but a lot of people refuse to even imagine liking a woman because she was kind of mean to their favorite sad little blorbo due to her own trauma flaring up.

Edit cuz I thought about it again: obviously the dynamic is a little different in each situation. While both Vanessa and Mike were employed in positions of physical power at the time of their fuckups, Vanessa was specifically using her job as a threat whereas Mike didn’t even think about using his power as a guard. They both did something extremely shitty and rash, but if Vanessa weren’t an officer I don’t think people would care as much. Mike did something more comparable to, like, “getting into a drunken fistfight at dennys.”

On the flip side, threatening a man who’s Going Through It is super shitty and I don’t wanna dismiss that, but Mike still physically assaulted a man, and it’s weird to me that the fandom seems to have just forgotten. They’re fictional characters so I think trying to hold them to the exact same standards as real people is a bit weird to me (they’re meant to convey a story, not be a paragon of morality, unless of course the story they’re conveying is about morality but I’ll leave that conversation to people who have more than two braincells) but if we’re gonna criticize Vanessa I feel like we should also criticize Mike a little too

(I will still say, I don’t think Vanessa ever had any intent of trying to even legally challenge him ((i.e. arrest him or charge him or something)) and if she actually wanted to scare Mike she could’ve threatened to take Abby away, something that she previously refused to do in the “dumping shit in the river” scene. Also a stupid move, please don’t throw pills in the river, but it was the year 2000 and she was raised by William Goddamn Afton it makes sense she’s a bit of a dumbass sometimes)

Ultimately I don’t hold it against anyone if they dislike Vanessa because of this scene (or if they dislike Vanessa, especially for being a cop, in general), I guess I’m more so hung up about the fact that if she were a man, less people would hate her. Criticism of her as an officer is fine, we should be shitting on cops, some of it just feels like an excuse to be borderline misogynistic. I dunno, i tend to focus on stupid details. fnaf is a really weird series and an even weirder fandom. can everyone stop writing cops as protagonists please

Edit 2: actually thinking about it more and I just feel. Gross. Defending a character who’s a cop. It’s almost worse that it’s not even relevant to the story, for all the importance it has, she could easily be a janitor with a knife or something and absolutely nothing would change. Eugh. Curse of being written by scott cawthon, I guess. Anyways. Sorry. I think the part of my brain saw a pathetic wet cat of a character who’s a woman this time and went stupid mode

(If anyone has any recommendations for characters with a similar vibe to Vanessa that ARENT part of an extremely shitty job please uh. Comment them)

[moretheta]

ok holy shit holy shit. theories are about to go wild. holy shit. tangled thoughts and theories below the cut:

now we have to consider a few things : firstly, are we going to assume that the prince in question knows? i think judging by longhi's comment, beyond would at least have some level of contact with them- although they might not know about their parentage. second assumption i'm making is that beyond's kid is alive. not just for story purposes, but because, knowing beyond and his tactics he would have surely placed high protections on the child in question to ensure they won.

which leaves:

benjamin - implicitly ruled out by longhi herself. i give it 5% chance she's wrong (if we're assuming that there is, in fact, a bastard in the ranks)

camilla- doubtful considering like. everything we know about camilla and her unwillingness to work with other people. 8% chance

zhang lei - we've had a lot of his POV, and he's thusfar given us no indication that he has any hunter association connections. but he also gave me illegitimate child vibes (i thought his dad might be onior) so who knows. 30% chance

tserriedich. no way. that man is evil enough.2%

tubeppa- would be ironic, considering longhi works for her... although maybe she does have suspicions and is hoping to do some corporate espionage idk. 20%

tyson - this one gave me pause. tyson is one of the more mysterious princes so far, we don't know a lot about her inner world so it wouldn't surprise me if she was hiding something. 40%

luzurus- listen.we all know this man looks NOTHING like his other full(!) siblings. i had theorized that he was actually the child of the cha'r mob boss, brocco li (togashi... you're killing me togashi) due to the resemblance and benefactor relationship between the two. and being of the bloodline might be enough for the seed urn to work idk. but he doesn't look particularly like beyond either.... but who knows the guys mysterious and both he and tyson have kurapika's guys posted on them so presumably they have some level of plot importance. 45%

salé-salé- DEAD!!! HAHAHAAA .0001%

halkenburg - oh this would kill me. i can't imagine him compromising his ethics for a guy like beyond, but depending on how gullible he is... and we do know he trusts tserriednich for some reason... oh boy i hope not. but yk, dramatic irony's a bitch. 25%

kacho- :( .00001%

fugetsu - initially discounted her bc of the twin thing, but upon further consideration the sisters are clearly fraternal & look almost nothing alike. could fugetsu have been a changeling child raised as kacho's twin? idk, but it might offer some insight into her current Cursed condition. 15%

momoze more dead kids oh boy .000001%

maryam - initially i ruled him out, as i did with most of the younger kids because it makes more sense timeline wise... but now that i think about it it's indeed interesting that queen sevranti always (and very obviously) favored one of her children over the other. there are many ways to interpret her behavior, but this could be one of them. 48%

woble .....

ok listen. i could see a case being made- she's the only prince we haven't seen the nen beast of, and some where already theorizing her to be illegitimate. (this brings up the question of loopholes in the seed urn ceremony: is it enough to be the child of a queen? or do you need the kings direct bloodline. because if it's latter than would in fact rule out anyone with a nen beast- which is everyone but woble). however, oito's reaction seems to be one of genuine shock; not sure if the pendulum would swing if she's in the room and not being pointed at, so we can't be entirely certain she's not lying, but at the same time oito doesn't seem the type to be putting on an act at this point. and the other possibility is that she's telling the truth and was SA'd by a beyond pretending to be nasubi. pretty unpleasant to think about so for my sake i hope that's not the case. it would, however, make quite a moral conundrum for kurapika. but at the same time i also dont think longhi would reach out to make this contract in the first place if she suspected it was woble? idk insider information says to have doubts. but the nen beast.... hm. 22%

regardless, the confirmation of an bastard child amongst the "legitimate princes" would of course make the treatment of nasubi's other illegimate children all the more cruel oh my god does morena know-

oh my god?!? could it be morena???!???!!? like, she's not part of the succession war proper, so she technically can't win... unless beyond's plan isn't to win? maybe he has some other goal? but i can't imagine morena's goals of total chaos aligning with beyond's power-hungry schemes....

much to think about!

[keepmycandleburning]

So the last few weeks I've been writing Peter Pettigrew's perspective of the first war in my same universe because my favorite ao3 reader mentioned the possibility of it while reading KMCB. Peter in my opinion is a character who gets misunderstood very badly, I mean he's clearly a very competent wizard and the conversation he has with Voldemort in the Riddle House where he essentially sasses him multiple times is not the person we're supposed to think he is.

The other three Marauders though are characters I don't really understand or care about that much. I've tried to find fics where they're portrayed according to their canon personalities and relationships but I have failed, or I don't know what I'm looking for. I asked for recs a while ago and nobody replied. I've meant to read ATYD because of how much people seem to like it but it's too long (and don't even...) and whenever I start looking at ch 1 I immediately x out the tab. The Sirius and Remus I most often see online don't resonate with the books. Nor the James that is hooking up with Regulus. I've just been looking for metas on them which is more helpful.

What little we see of James in canon he seems like a huge asshole. He gets talked up a lot after death but really generically, and of course he is considering what happened to him. How can I write this person nicely?? I can't! So I'm writing him as a huge asshole. How could his relationship with Lily possibly be healthy? There's no basis for that at all. Well I looove morally gray characters so I'll try to make him ambiguous.

Is the idea that Sirius and Remus could be romantically involved something that stems from something in canon (like how Drarry comes from the fact they're both canonically obsessed w each other for years) or is it made up? If so, what?

Obviously much of the Marauders lore is made up and contains things that are very unlikely like half the Order being at Hogwarts with them. So I'm just ignoring pretty much all the existing stuff that I'm aware of.

Also, I forget if I said this in my author's note or in a comment reply but I also have a continuation of KMCB if Voldemort had won, like the following year after the battle of hogwarts. I was embarrassed of it because it was initially like really going off the rails and reading too much like a fanfiction so I took big parts of it out and filled them in with other things and it's better. I'm writing them both simultaneously.

Anyways does anyone have any thoughts on: Can you recommend any fics or metas on the Marauders? What are James's positive qualities, other than being willing to give his life for his family? What in the books hints at what his relationship with Lily was like? What points to Wolfstar in canon? Is there anything I should make sure to put in or leave out to ensure it's canon compliant as hell?

It's going to be some Hogwarts era and then probably, unless I develop a much higher interest and knowledge level on the Marauders, mostly Hogwarts grad-Halloween 1981 and increasingly Death Eater based with my DE characters and Voldemort making up much of the story. I like them way more. I don't really give a fuck about the marauders map or whatever

Some snippets. Don't worry it's perverted as hell but I want that to be a surprise

[but-a-humble-goon]

As are aware of Bruce's more negative character traits, who while not liking them doesn't dismiss them as a non canon aberration, you seem like the person to ask this question.

Do you think Gut's could be a good comparison as far as characters go in terms of being someone who is capable of great kindness & great cruelty, who is meant to be sympathetic but can at time horrify.

Obviously Guts having been written by one author for one story is a notably more coherent character. This is more of a general comparison if someone embodying two extremes & still making sense.

Guts in the Misty Valley arc could both save & be very cool towards a young child & be a source of comfort, but could also switch to holding a knife to that same child's throat to lure in an enemy for a surprise attack & still feel coherent.

Do you think a well written Batman could be handled as such, and or that Batman as he largely stands in terms of overall collective works could be regarded in a similar light?

I think the sheer insurmountable difference in the writing quality is what makes the comparison difficult. The way I'd describe it is Guts feels like an incredibly well written dark fucked up antihero and Batman feels like a very badly written morally grey goodguy. It's hard to reconcile Bruce's good with his bad because most of the time it genuinely feels like him being kind of a monster happens unintentionally thanks to writers just having no clue what they're doing. Like, clearly during the whole Stephanie War Games saga the audience was supposed to sympathize with Bruce over her but like... they sorta forgot to make him sympathetic and forgot to make Stephanie do anything bad besides being a teenaged girl so the result his he just comes across like a willfully abusive piece of shit motivated apparently by pure spite. Or, again, by pure misogyny if you take Chuck Dixon's word for it. Or whenever he's casually gleefully cruel to criminals and treats them like animals. Most of the time it doesn't feel like the story is commenting on Batman's own issues, it just kinda feels like it's being written by people who think the thoughtless brutality is okay and/or super cool actually and are using Bruce as a vicarious power fantasy. Or all the times they have him lash out with physical violence against his kids, do they actually get how screwed up and over the line that is? Because it feels more like the writers are just like "nah, it's cool, they're not his real kids so it doesn't count as child abuse, just regular abuse which is fine." I've said it before but it genuinely feels like writers think him just being Batman (the beloved childhood icon of whole generations) is a free pass to have him constantly act as awful as they feel like and never face consequences, learn any lessons or grow as a person while expecting everyone to still like him for some reason. I don't think there really is a way to square Batman's constant shittiness with the good person we're supposed to take him to be. Instead it just ends up feeling like there's two Batmans; one who's gruff, antisocial and scary but ultimately a hero who always means well... and another who is a totally incoherently horrible leech of a human being who everyone inexplicably has infinite patience for, presumably because they mistake him for the first guy. On the other hand, Berserk clearly at least understands that the extremes of bastardry Guts ends up going to are indeed extremes. They actually endeavor to make it make internal sense for the character. The dude is at any one time just barely clinging to his sanity after all the horrific shit he's lived through and every single time he tries to let his guard down and start healing the universe punishes him for it, leaving him broken all over again. He ends up being sympathetic because he's somehow only as much of a monster as he is. Even at his absolute darkest he's managed to hold on to even just the faintest glimmer of his humanity despite everything. Also to be perfectly honest, accounting for the sheer difference in quantity of content I would put money on Guts having a much higher proportional rate of humanizing moments of genuine kindness for contrast than Bruce does, even if he does also go a whole lot darker than Bruce ever has.

So if anything the comparison feels more like: here's what to do and here's what not to do.

[vitospaghetta]

re: about Leon's emotions and feelings towards Ada and vice versa. This is my little attempt to break it down and offer a perspective that evidently not many in this fandom have and here's how: it's been romanticised to hell and back, I wouldn't be surprised if one day the division at Capcom reveals a big "well actually it was never about love between them, but rather a plethora of events that attached them to each other"

Because it can't be about love, it's just too ludicrous. It's not love. It's trauma bond, and like you said it's a sense of comfort and familiarity. But people in our society are too simple minded and once again viewing things through such short sighted romanticised lens to ever be objective about the reality of it. Nothing that Leon and Ada have is written in stone to set some "relationship" to flourish because it's not that, it's a situationship and nothing more.

This is why they resort to trying to use what the devs say and conveniently put words in their mouths to try and justify their biased perspectives. Just because they won't change their dynamic of the usual Ada being one step ahead of Leon and always leaving him in the dark and being a weakness of his, does not mean that it's love. Because it isn't, that's not what they're doing and it's emotionally inept to think so. Because everything they've done has shown the exact opposite. Leon's character was never about Ada and Capcom removing the "romance" from their dynamic isn't what's gonna alter the entire plot, it's the nature of their typical two steps ahead alienation that would wreck it and that's why they'll keep the core of it. But it was never romance.

Hope all this makes sense lol, if you got anything to add, please do :)

"Leon's character was never about Ada"

Everything you said here is 100% correct but I think that specifically stands out a lot, because I think a big issue with hardcore Aeon shippers is that they see Ada as an extension of Leon and vice versa. Like you can't have Leon without Ada, and Leon can never have feelings for anyone else because Ada is such an integral part of his story or whatever. Ada is no more significant to Leon's narrative than Claire or Sherry; the only difference is that he developed feelings for Ada, but having feelings for someone does not equate to love.

I've said this before, but I understand shipping from the perspective of 'these two characters look good together/have a dynamic I like to explore through fanon.' When it extends to taking developer comments out of context to prove canonization of a relationship dynamic that obviously doesn't exist, foregoing common sense and any understanding of nuance? That's touchgrass behavior.

Yes, the only canon longstanding love interest Leon has ever had in the franchise is Ada. This is a fact. However, love is something that is developed over time, and Leon and Ada barely know each other. A loving romantic relationship is not what has been established between them. It's very clear that they both have feelings for one another in the original continuity, but any chance of a normal romantic relationship is ruined by the complexity of their personal situations and moral standing. That's the interesting part about their dynamic, which is literally why they're written that way. That dynamic doesn't even entirely change in the remakes; it's tweaked and built upon, like everything else. Whether or not Leon has feelings for Ada, his story doesn't change, and neither does the foundation of their relationship.

[jarlsthegreat]

I Don't Care for Xavier Thorpe

I put off watching the Wednesday show for a while, long enough that I had already had the entire thing spoiled for me when I actually sat down to watch it. This isn't an uncommon occurrence for me, I watch content knowing what is going to happen all the time and it never dampens my enjoyment of the thing. However, I feel that in this instance that I may have come to hate Xavier so much as a character because I went in knowing he wasn't the Hyde.

Watching through the season it struck me that unlike other characters like Tyler, Bianca or Miss Thornhill, knowing how Xavier ended the series kind of left me with nothing to enjoy about him. All of those other characters can still be enjoyed as characters on rewatch of the show, but Xavier is kind of empty. We don't really know much about him in episode 6 that we didn't know in episode 1. The only things of note that I can think of are his prophetic dreams, his strained relationship with his father and his history with Tyler. But, all of these things that we learn are so surface level, his dreams are on the same level as his power to bring his drawings to life since it doesn't really feed into anything else about his character, we only have a few offhand comments about his father and we don't even get to hear him explain what happened with Tyler, it's just vaguely exposited by Wednesday later with no emotion or detail. It just seems like every chance they had to make me latch onto Xavier as a character was cut off at the knees. And with the way he acted throughout the season he really needed a moment like the one with Bianca and her mother or her reaching out to Lucas. If Xavier had a scene where he got to fully express the hurt his father caused him or if he actually got to tell the story of being attacked on Outreach Day onscreen, I wouldn't be writing this post.

Moving on, the way Xavier acted throughout this season just rubbed me the wrong way. I can enjoy mean characters, I can enjoy fantastically evil characters, I can enjoy tragic characters that make all the wrong choices, but I cannot STAND characters that I am supposed to view as morally upstanding being mundanely horrible and never being challenged on it. 

Xavier has a few good scenes throughout the season, namely his introduction scene when he's talking to Wednesday, him explaining physic powers and the scene where he attempts to help Wednesday in the fight against Crackstone episode 8 (despite him failing horribly). But the majority of the rest of his scenes just make me angry. It started out in episode 1 when he came up to Wednesday during the carnival. During this scene he makes it clear that he knows Wednesday wants him to leave but he doesn't. 

The times when Xavier warned Wednesday to stay away from Tyler before he revealed his history with him annoyed me personally because I have been in his situation, and I just couldn't stop thinking "Just tell her" Every time he just repeats that Tyler's trouble without elaborating. If you know someone is trouble and you have already told the person to stay away from them, you have to either accept that it's their life or tell them the reason why. Granted, Xavier does eventually give Wednesday an actual reason to stay away from Tyler, but it doesn't make the previous scenes of him being unjustifiably pissy at Wednesday any less aggravating.

His treatment of Bianca is a whole other can of worms, the fact that he previously berated her for using her powers to manipulate him before having the audacity to ask her to make him forget Wednesday. He has to know on some level how Bianca feels about her siren song so these two actions are just so insensitive towards her. And Bianca is a character that I actually like a lot so this knocks a ton of points off of Xavier in my book.

Then there's the scene where Xavier tells Wednesday that he has believed her from the beginning. This scene has already been picked apart, so I'll be brief. It is so obviously gaslighting that I legitimately thought "this line feels like it should be coming from Tyler as a manipulation tactic when Wednesday wises up to him" like I could actually see Tyler using that exact line on Wednesday when she had him tied up. Moving on.

The final scene that makes me hate this man so much is the scene where Wednesday visits him in prison. I've seen people calling this a great scene because Xavier finally calls Wednesday out on her selfishness. I wish I could see the scene that way, but the fact that Xavier seems more concerned that Wednesday kissed another guy than the fact that there is currently an active serial killer on the loose just angered me to no end. I know this character is a teenager and he is supposed to be immature, but there is a fine line and there is such a profound level of childishness and selfishness in the fact that Xavier does not give even a passing thought that he is actively endangering everyone in his school and the town because of his own bruised ego. And it is never called out, just like all of his other questionable actions. If he even tried to give Wednesday any help in this scene, been the bigger man in any way, or had to apologize for his behavior in a later scene, I possibly could have put aside his previous actions, but after that I don't know if I could ever like this character.

I don't think anyone is a bad person for liking Xavier, I'm sure a lot of you could write an essay just like this one on why you love his character, he just isn't for me. I like Tyler and he isn't for some people. Just act respectful towards fans that disagree with you. They're just opinions on characters at the end of the day.

TLDR: Xavier acts very selfishly throughout this season and the show acts like he has nothing to atone for and he isn't developed much as a character so I cannot latch onto any aspect of him.

[wcshedup]

@fizzarollitm asked " You really are like Tilla. Nothing more than a wife with a man who hates his own children. Making her real proud B. "

counting to ten. writing a letter and throwing it away. driving out to the wastes and screaming her outrage into the soulless abyss. ANY of those options would have been better than engaging with fizzarolli's words, but caught between an exhausting night and one of the twins whining with discontent, barbie falls right back into her OLD way of dealing with him dishing her some shitty piece of advice --

" don't you EVER fucking say that to me like it's something to be ashamed of. my mother was TWICE the woman I'll ever be and THREE times the performer YOU'LL ever be. you ungrateful FUCK. " and there it is, the rolling boil of rage barbie had hoped died with her addiction years ago. obviously not.

the imp is shoving violently away from the table, chair legs screeching against ozzie's perfect marble floors. barbie is quickly turning tail to gather up the contents of her diaper bag and both the twins, both content with the flashing bits and bobs strewn across the blanket they'd been playing on while their mother and auntie had a nice little catchup. HA, nice, right.

" you are SO fucking -- just SO -- " there's a catch in her throat then, the rage threatening to give way to SORROW at the comment. fizz always knew just where to stick the knife, just what to say to inspire the most hurt inside her. but it didn't feel the same as when they were teenagers anymore, little digs about each other's looks or weight or performance -- this declaration that, were tilla here, barbie might be a DISAPPOINTMENT to her. after all the work, after all of the fucking nights of detoxing and vomiting and begging blitzø to just leave her in whatever alley she'd managed to collapse in. ( " PLEASE BLITZØ, JUST LET ME DIE, PLEASE. " ) " you don't UNDERSTAND, you'll never understand. "

because it feels so true. it feels like they're worlds apart now and no matter how she pleads the case, tries to make fizz understand how SHE feels -- it feels like he doesn't hear her. " you've never even ASKED me if i was happy ! you've never once fucking stopped to see if this is what i want, you just stand there on your fucking moral high ground, looking down your fucking NOSE at me like you're so much better. "

barbie continues to shove articles into the bag; tilla's floppy imp doll utters a mechanical-sounding 'mama!' as she does so, and charles' toy saber gives a brandishing swish. " i told you i was getting married and all i got was a fucking LECTURE about how awful he was, a million stories about how OTHER people don't like him, you never asked me how he treated me. and when i told you i was PREGNANT, no fucking CONGRATS, just 'oh barb, don't worry, i know a GREAT clinic'. " the recollections only seem to spurn her rage further and barbie shoves the backpack on with malice, the straps digging into her shoulder providing at least some sense of grounding.

" you'll NEVER fucking understand, NEVER. and you know why ? " she stoops down to gather the twins in her arms, one on each hip as she draws nearer to fizzarolli and leans in with venom, teeth bared in what MOST might interpret as unadulterated rage -- the moisture clinging to her eyes tells a different story if only one has the fortitude to look closely enough. to know her well enough. " because EVERYONE sees you. you walk into a room and you have every set of eyes, everyone admires you and wants you and just -- SEES you. but no one ever saw m-- "

that lump in her throat is swelling then, making her swollen thickly several times to try and fight it down. NO, barbie is NOT going to let this asshole see her cry. she's not gonna give him that satisfaction -- not after he had the gall to bring her dead fucking MOTHER into this.

" no one EVER saw me the way lucifer does. but maybe that's what BURNS you, fizz. that for once, just ONCE, someone wanted to pick me. well, welcome to MY fucking life, asshole. it's so EASY to tell me i should give up what i have, who i love, who loves ME, when you have so much more. "

the cherubic features of each twin peer over their mother's shoulder as she retreats from the room, moving quickly so that the jester won't see the tears now spilling over her lashline. tilla gives a small, open-close wave with her small hand.

" DON'T fucking call me, fizzarolli. "

[webslingingslasher]

hey so uhh, idk how to say this but i need to talk to someone about this. its a long read so i get it of you skip this.

1) im not in the us nor any other 1st world country (this is relevant i promise)

im a freshman atm. i moved to a main city with many unis to one of the top unis in the country. i have a full ride which means i only have to pay for living expenses. im lucky enough to have my parents pay for it, i know that better than anyone. i also come from a city which is known for having a gated community filled with very rich people. i have stressed many times i am not from said gated comunity, in fact from the opposite side of the city. i also want to add that they do not consider my city, or any other city a 'real city' because they are not the capital of the country.

i live walking distance in a non walkable city so my rent is high in comparison to other places but theres amenities in this place that make it so worth it (all furniture, washer & dryer, hot&cold water included, cooking utensils, everything transplant students may need). no one here thats not in my situation will understand it (most students are native to the city and in general moving away to study is not very common in my country) and i get that.

i keep sensing that the specific group of my classmates which have become my friends because i obviously knew no one here (i hang with them the most) have this underlying animosity towards me and i dont know if i'm over thinking this, but i do have a history of choosing terrible people to befriend (not morals wise just in the way they treat me)

today in the gc they were joking about deportation and kept insisting i would get deported. (im white in a poc country (which most of the students at my uni are too)) i said i would get deported to a poor area of the country know for its farmland, given that my family actually DOES come from there, and i dont mean like four generations back, my parents were both born less that 10 years after my grandparents moved out.

to which both replied by telling me to 'stop pretending i have a struggle story' and to just 'admit im priviledged'. obviously, im offended. i never said i had a struggle story, i just stated the province my family is from and i've never acted as if im not priviledged. i like to consider myself to be hyper aware of my economic position considering my parents have always made it very clear where we stand politically and economically.

its not just those comments, there have been other things. i invited them over once and one of them (ill call her A) said for what i pay its not worth it and i could find a better place somewhere else (proceeded to indicate an area which is not walkable) after asking repeatedly to inform her if there were any units empty and if i wanted a roomate. she kept repeating my place 'is not worth it' for about a week after.

one time in class A mentioned how she was named after a telenovela and i said i didnt know about it. she kept dragging my not knowing on until i googled it. said telenovela ended YEARS before we were born and it was from another country, so obviously i didnt know. she proceeded to yell "if you dont have any culture its fine, just admit it"

as i mentioned, im white in a poc country. people always ask me where i'm from and sometimes insist when i dont say us/europe. sometimes i joke about it but only with certain people. these uni people are not in that group. i'm really proud of where i'm from and my culture, and i'm always defending it, so its really fucking annoying to be told i have no culture over a telenovela from a country thats a 12hr plane ride away.

she makes comments about how "i disgust her" and how shes "tired of me" but plays them off as jokes whener i make comments about having to leave uni after class because i need to buy groceries or i talk about back home (for example how our traffic jams are smaller, we are a smaller city, duh).

these comments also come when i mention i get takeout or something, which for context i will say is once a month since i cannot afford it all the time. comments will also come whenver i mention something about living alone like doing the laundry, cleaning days or my neighbours. they all live with their families in their childhood homes, but i kinda want someone to talk to about these things.

they will also judge my food habits and tell me to eat more sustainable stuff. i dont bring heavy foods to school. instead i bring light stuff like oats, yogurts, salads and bars since they are easier to make. they all take strong, home cooked meals which take time to cook to uni. they all live with their parents, of course they will always have a hearty meal. i'm learning how to cook. i cant waste food on complicated recepies i will probably get wrong just to keep up. i make my best efforts at home when i have the time. i take the safe meals to uni and when i dont have time/the food i buy at uni.

another thing that reslly frustrates me is that they always critisize me buying food but always expect some from it and will sometimes take it forcefully. once i bought a piece of pie which they all shitted on me for but they then tried to shame me into giving them some and 'letting them try it'. when i said i wasnt giving them any one of them ripped it from my hands and started running away to try it. that was not the only time they've ripped my food from my hands/ shoved it in my bag.

im not a total pushover and i do put my foot down but they always act as if im the one in the wrong when i do. i've also taken to just buying my food quietly and eating it a home.

one time A made a comment about me being 'so fucking rich' to which i said she doesnt live with me, she doesnt know anything. she then told me to not get upset.

she knows damn well i have a full ride, and i've said many times i could never afford this uni without a full ride. even with 75%, i couldnt make it. my parents are counting pennies back home so that i can study. i turn my breakers down in the middle of the caribbean heat to help with the light bill. im not the fucking oligarch she seems to think i am.

i've told her before im here because of my parents and their effort, and im aware all this sounds like typical rich kid talk, but my dad wouldnt eat when he was a uni student. he got a full ride to a uni and lived in a hostel. his mum would send him chicken once a week and he had to eat it in three days before it went bad since he didnt have a fridge. the other four days? he had to figure it out. my mum dropped out of uni twice. once to take care of my sick grandmother who still died and a second time because 2008 hit and they could barely feed two babies, let alone financially support other family members like they were expected to. my only chance at education has been scholarships, a fact which has been drilled into me since i was six.

obviously she doesnt know this, which to me means she further shouldnt be making comments about my economic position or my family.

i try to keep my mouth shut but all this is very annoying.

idk, am i the one in the wrong? or am i just overthinking this? if im being a spoiled brat i'd like to know. obviously i wont kiss away my apartment/my scholarship/my parents goodbye just because but i will watch my mouth more

idk. this is all over the place and messy. if you even read this i thank you, if you have any response even more

either way it feels good to let it go. i really dont have anyone else to talk to this about

you don't have to or need to explain your way into empathy with your "friends." i can't decide if they're jealous of you or just like having someone in the group to constantly bully.

your parents are working their hardest to support you and you're working your hardest to prove them right and i don't think they would like how your friends treat you.

i'm sending you a hug. <3333

[lepertamar]

Stalking & The Glory of God 2019 vs Revised 2023 comparison

Since it's a short story this is also gonna be just one post! The few changes are still cool enough to have warranted a good bit of rotating in the brain from me though.

to be clear, stalking was published before Birds or Lives, it's mostly only a prequel or comment on Stars and there's no need to wait until after the full series to read it LOL. it's also free and right here.

I've chatted a bit with people who have read the earliest ever version which was actually all the way back from 2016 (this version i have not read since i only discovered this series in late 2021) and learned some things about eg, tamar's characterization, which is so much more boring/bland here than in stars, because it was apparently written before stars. so that aspect is accidental but somehow fits the narrative of stars really well. the 'i didn't have myself...' etc, the way she kind of made herself Become someone blistering and real through her apprehension of an awakening desire etc, sometime in the gap between here and the prologue of stars......it's cool lol. the way safirah here bears so much more resemblance, not exactly in content of personality but in form of metalness and presence, to stars-era tamar, than tamar here bears to her stars-era self.

anyway as usual, new revision changes/additions are in bold, and deleted old things are in strikethrough red

First, a small bit:

Plastered onto the front of one of the cases is some kind of promotional image of two people wearing way too many shiny things. One’s even a demon, as though to say, even a demon can’t help but indulge in what this shop’s got to offer.

I Love Defamilarization So Much. obviously a 'demon' is 'those extremely non-indulgent guys who live apart from society and wouldn't usually be tempted by worldly materialism'. Duh. What else could the term demon mean. anyway it's a nice little curb-cutting before the holy, with it's similar defamiliarized disconnect between irl connotations of term and the in-universe worldbuilding + cultural understanding. The previous version was:

In what Tamar thinks must be some attempt at inclusivity, one’s even a demon. Either that, or she’s just a normal woman with yellow contacts and fake horns, in which case it’s probably the opposite of inclusive.

Which is uhhhh rather cringey and immersion-breaking lol :P Inclusivity even as a concept, let alone phrased in such post-2010s American Leftist sort of language, isn't really a thing on people's minds (or honestly implied to be something being struggled with much) in Sehhinah.

That woman, it was her mouth that was her price for what she did, right? 

Just a little tweak that imo does a lot, especially to someone unfamiliar with the series :) the mention of price and 'for what she did' which leaves the punishing vs approvedness of it ambiguous, especially in terms of how laypeople think of it.

It makes her think of the feeling of awe.  Or fear.  Or curiosity. 

changed from

It makes her think of the feeling of awe.  Or fear.  Or reverence. 

Reverence, too, is not a very culturally salient concept in Sehhinah, I can't think of a single other time such an idea was mentioned in regards to G-d. Curiosity, of course, is incredibly Tamar.

“If you were to do what you’re thinking of,” Elīya continues, “you would have to report back to me on any feelings of guilt, and your overall moral sense of the experience.  After all, it sounds like you have a little bit of morality these days, from my influence, so you should be able to handle that.” Tamar raises an eyebrow, though Elīya can’t see it over the phone. “Impressive bending of moral codes.”

changed from:

“I’m honestly not sure whether you should go into academic philosophy or be a lawyer,” Tamar says, “what with that impressive bending of moral codes.”

It just slightly allows a pause on just how insufferable Eliya is and exactly what Tamar ran away from and had no idea how to explain herself to in Stars when she did LOL. it also mirrors some phrasing that happens in stars, when eliya or yenatru make an expression tamar can't see.

Couple scenes later:

And their left arm is blackened.

Well, it’s more like a reddish-brown, with a slight, flickering glow under the skin.  But it’s burned, burned horribly—the skin twists and turns, and it’s easy to see how it wouldn’t be usable at all.  Adding to that impression is the fact that Safirah doesn’t move it, not even for balance: it really was their price, then. Her breath catches.  It’s beautiful. Actually, as Tamar continues to look at it—she’s allowed to, she reminds herself, no one will even care or notice—she realizes that the twists on the skin are actually moving.  There are patterns there, patterns of flames and not of flames at all; Tamar squints at it.  She continues to watch Safirah’s arm as the debaters take their seats, trying to follow the patterns there.  She’s becoming half-convinced that they mean something—

I flipped out about this passage back in this post but the thing is it's not even a revision thing. It's always been there!!! In plain sight!!!. I've read it multiple times before the revision and somehow just never snagged on these things.

BUT that incredible passage is heightened by the deletion of a single also very cringey line that seems to have been shoehorned in to try to reassure the readers (or the author herself) of its 'normalcy', as a virtue, at the expense of narrative power or the power of a price as a worldbuilding element in the culture:

Her breath catches.  It’s beautiful. And it certainly doesn’t inspire revulsion, and from what Tamar can tell about the crowd’s lack of reaction, that’s a general fact. Actually, as Tamar continues to look at it—

blech right??? just like those books so afraid of being problematic they're ridiculous. the revision is MUCH better.

she focuses on Safirah’s face, trying to discern if there’s anything in the way they smile that hints at the power underneath them. The power that has burned them, changed them. She looks long and hard, finding her eyes drawn to Safirah’s. They seem hard, somehow. Like diamonds. Then Safirah begins their opening speech, apparently having been spurred to do so by the announcer: “This will come as no surprise to those of you who have read my writings, but my answer to the question posited by this debate is no.  Not for myself. Yes, as you can see, I have experienced the glory of God firsthand, here, in this life”—they use their right arm to lift their left, for emphasis—“and that’s not the only thing I intend to experience.  I’m one for variety, and if there’s one thing we know about the world after the Resurrection, it’s that it’ll have a lot of that. “Our lives argue for us—they argue for what we want to happen after the Resurrection, what kind of new world, or worlds, I suspect, God will create then.  And I want to experience that—I want to experience it all.  Heaven is already right here in my arm; in my other arm, maybe there can be something else.” Safirah smiles, sharp.

safirahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ;-;

Another observation that has nothing to do with revision, because it already existed this way before, but i love how much this echoes Lucifer's description of what the resurrection will entail, albeit less gratingly phrased, and, also characteristic of safirah (and of stars-and-lives-era tamar) very casually, unselfconsciously, and self-assuredly packing way more background assumptions that fly in the face of what's spelled out more didactically by other characters, regarding theurgy. (the word 'theurgy' never appears in this short story, the word 'manifested' only appears once and in an oblique manner, and only in Israfil's dialogue).

A friend of mine joked, regarding this:

"safirah, accidentally intuiting the entire plot of sehhinah: "

Another change, are a few words in the angel Israfil's speech:

“I came to existence this way, God’s fire in my veins—and I have loved it, have loved most of all my role in helping make the world, in adding what is of me to what exists physically. Truly, God would not have been able to make any of this without Their angels—and I say that not just to toot my own horn, but because it is true. Their soul is many things, but ground, water, air… are not among them. So of course They could not have manifested those into existence, not without more varied souls.

despite being only a few words off, the original was, on second look, an absolutely BAFFLING and flying-in-the-face-of-all-continuity-and-worldbuilding:

“God made me this way, Their fire in my veins—and I have loved it, have loved most of all my role in helping make the world, in bringing great plans to fruition. Truly, God would not have been able to make any of this without Their angels—and I say that not just to toot my own horn, but because it is true. Their soul is many things, but ground, water, air… are not among them. So of course They could not have manifested those into existence, not without more varied assistants.”

angels as assistants?????? angels as crafted in a certain way for a purpose???????? G-D '''HAVING'''' '''''PLANS'''''???? LET ALONE PLANS THEY PLANNED TO BRING TO FRUITION WITH ANGELS?????????????? all these things are assumptions that are so commonplace as to be unnoticeable in any other fiction or discussion of g-d and angels and creation, but are so, so anathema to everything in the rest of sehhinah they are completely explicitly contradictory to canon and jarringly misleading. and it is TRULY delightful that this series is so specifically a stickler about how many things in its worldbuilding can NOT be glossed by reference to common assumptions.

Tamar looks back to Safirah’s arm.  The burns, the swirling burns, seeming to draw her in with their suggestiveness, their hints of what has happened to them… she is so curious….

changed from

“The burns, the swirling burns, seeming to draw her in with their promise of pain and joy both…”

ahhhhhhh <3 just another bit of characterization and worldbuilding rigor: no promises, no specificity, just a sexually-charged word 'suggestiveness', riddling hints, another appeal to Tamar's curiosity, and the ambiguity of whether the word 'them' refers to the burns, or to Safirah, or either/both. The phrasing also echoes Lives, where when g-d Sees tesena, tamar's pov on the shockwave is:

she doesn't understand anything at all and it's a delight to see it, a delight to see it all, but yet she is so curious...

Then more of what i was flipping out about in that other post, most of which, again, was there All Along, only one line at the end has been added in this revision:

God, the patterns of the burn really do seem to be moving—and wait, the glow… oh.  The glow beneath their skin moves too, in a different way from the marks on the skin itself.  In the glow also, Tamar swears she can see patterns, if only it would stop moving for a second.  She wonders if they’re the same patterns as the ones on the skin.  Do they complement each other?  Do they mean something different? God doesn’t communicate in words, Tamar knows, so they’re unlikely to be letters—but then, maybe, feelings? Or, since that burn in Safirah’s arm is God—is God, Themself, Safirah chose to have part of their body be that great and flaming soul—perhaps it’s not something consistent at all.  Maybe it represents whatever God’s thinking about, right now, at this moment, or what if it’s even what God and Safirah are thinking, saying in reaction to each other…?

auuuugh....... ;-;

next up:

She has prayed to God before, of course.  Out of curiosity, mostly when she was younger—but though she felt the vague turnings of wheels, the sense of God having a whole bunch of eyes, it all felt distant. Like, sure, praying leads to a feeling of a flurry of flames of flapping wings that responds to your thoughts, but it always seemed just… that? A flame like the sun being there suddenly… but yet no closer than the sun.

But having seen a Holy’s mouth, wreathed in flame… a Holy’s arm, burned to a crisp and still swirling… Tamar grins, watching those patterns, watching them…

changed from:

She has prayed to God before, of course. Out of curiosity, mostly when she was younger—but though she felt the vague turnings of wheels, the sense of God having a whole bunch of eyes, it all felt distant. Like, sure, praying leads to feeling bright light and feeling a response to your thoughts, but it’s not much more than the light from sunbathing. So it never interested her that much. But having seen a Holy’s mouth, wreathed in flame… a Holy’s arm, burned to a crisp and still swirling… well, it turns out that praying is barely even a window into the real experience of God. Tamar grins, watching those patterns, watching them…”

this is a bit more in line with how other characters (yairen, tesena, nam'ir -- and the characters in Lives after the Pillar, but that experience is extremely atypical lol) experience g-d while praying: something big, but with very varied experiences regarding how much meaning could be extracted from that non-holy communication. and the trailing off after 'swirling...' is of course superior.

Safirah sighs, long and rough.  They raise their left leg and press Tamar’s chest to the wall with their knee.  That done, they remove their right arm, the one that originally did the pressing, from Tamar’s shoulder.

changed from:

Safirah sighs, a long and rough thing, not at all what Tamar might have assumed one of the Holy is supposed to sigh like, if they are supposed to sigh at all. They raise their left leg and with their knee press Tamar’s chest to the wall.

This is another excellent deletion of a more blandly-commonplace, but completely-out-of-continuity-with-the-rest-of-the-series idea of how the holy are viewed by characters in-universe.

Safirah’s laughter fades into quiet giggles, and they look at Tamar and say, “Oh, kid, you were afraid you were stalking?” Tamar isn’t sure if she should answer that question, but she nods slightly anyway. “Not to say”— another giggle interrupts Safirah’s speech—“that you entirely weren’t stalking.  Oh, but you were so concerned about it!  That’s really sweet, especially when I was half-expecting an actual attack.” Tamar finally makes it to the point where she manages out one word: “What?” Ēnnuh’s nowhere near that dangerous. “Depending on what you’re asking, for starters, I did read your mind, if that answers your question.” Tamar had figured out that much. “Or—well, the other obvious question I can answer is, yes, an attack.  Nothing to do with the city itself, just with me. As I’ve directly argued that little to nothing would be lost if the option for Heaven were removed—not that I expect or want such to happen—I’ve been a target for a decent share of nasty letters lately. Now, usually those types don’t actually follow up on their threats, but when I heard suspicious and yet poorly concealed footsteps behind me in an alleyway… I admit I may have jumped to conclusions. As I think I am generally skilled at not doing in the context of writing, debates, and so on, this one included.”

there is soooooo much more suggestiveness here than in the previous version. maybe my jewishness is showing but i just really enjoy the whole idea of safirah being targeted with hate mail because their ideas are considered dangerous or serious enough to warrant it.

the original was a much less interesting and rather clunky 'a mugger, due to safirah reading too many crime novels' rather than 'an attack, due to safirah getting nasty letters (death threats?) about their work':

Safirah’s laugher fades into quiet giggles, and they look at Tamar and say, “Oh, honey, you were afraid you were stalking?” Tamar isn’t sure if she should answer that question, but she nods slightly anyway. “Not to say”— another giggle interrupts Safirah’s speech—“that you entirely weren’t stalking. Oh, but you were so concerned about it! That’s really sweet, especially when I was half-expecting muggers.” Tamar finally makes it to the point where she manages out one word: “What?” Ēnnuh’s nowhere near that dangerous. "Depending on what you’re asking, for starters, I did read your mind, if that answers your question.” Tamar had figured out that much. “Or—well, the other obvious question I can answer is, yes, muggers. This may be a major city, and very Holy-respecting at that, but to someone motivated enough, my arm may read as a weakness to be exploited—or maybe I’ve just been reading too many crime books lately. What I’m trying to say is, I am neither weak nor always the best at thinking on my feet when in an unfamiliar city. Though I think I did well in the debate.”

this is kinda boring imo. lol. it didn't stand out to me as bad or good before, but one of the really fun thing about all these revisions is how i can really feel how much more thoughtful and/or efficiently-packing-in-implied-ideas-and-info basically all the revision changes are! which is honestly really motivating/idea-generating to me if i ever try to write fiction in the future? how to replace anything bland or whatever-feeling with something that holds more information (including just aesthetic/emotional information).