#and the character themself is just a messy individual

[electro-scorpion-moving]

shout out to blond animated characters popularly hced as butch and/or as genderqueer sapphics for having some of the most impact on my perception of my gender

[gendertrickster]

like i really do just think hussie tricked either themself and/or everyone else into thinking they didn't like writing relationships but really they probably just disliked the very basic notion of "shipping" and how that can strip characters of a lot of individual value and undersell their textual dynamic in favor of pointless fluff. because consistently throughout homestuck whenever they try to write relationships subversively they just end up writing the absolute most compelling messy queer dynamics of all time. like. guys she made vrisrezi.

[triptychgrip]

Fanfic Rec: What if we'd seen Akito in therapy, post-curse break?

For the second time in just a week, Fruits Basket fanfic has utterly ruined me, in the very best way. For the Fruits Basket Monday prompt 'What If', I wanted to share a rec for the amazing story 'I can barely breathe' by @renywrites, which is a masterful 15K story that details the messiness and loneliness marking Akito's journey of atonement and healing after the zodiac curse break.

Note: in this fic, Akito uses they/them pronouns, which is what I'll be using as well, out of respect for the author's vision

Akito is obviously a very, very polarizing character in the fandom, and I'll be honest that they are not someone that I usually seek out reading material for. But as I detailed in my post on the dangers of individualizing systemic abuse, healing for the Sohmas doesn't begin and end with Akito, because they, too, are a victim in the multi-generational cycle of trauma that has plagued the Sohma family. Given the vastness of this cycle and the many people that enabled it to continue over time, I've always wished we could have seen more content in the manga (and more explicitly in Fruits Basket Another) that touches directly on what the challenges would have been when the various members of the Sohma family have to pick up the pieces of their lives after the curse breaks.

'I can barely breathe' does this so poignantly by focusing on Akito and Shigure, in particular. Below is an excerpt of one of my favorite parts, from chapter 2. I hope you'll give it a chance!

----

Akito starts to panic once the sun begins to set. They’d gone through their entire “toolbox”, as Itsuki would call it. They’d done every distraction in the book to take their mind off of it, and after all of that, they still hadn’t heard anything.

They consider calling Hatori to see if he’d heard anything, but if Shigure truly was mad at them and they pulled strings through Hatori to get him home, he'd be furious. Besides, Hatori would definitely chew him out for blocking them.

But the later it gets, the more Akito’s worry turns to anxiety, and anxiety turns to panic. They start to think about what he’d said the night before. Had he really gone home with a stranger?

The thought alone makes them ill, makes their heart race and palms sweat. He’d slept with their mother to get back at them, once upon a time. That thought doesn’t help any, and their imagination runs wild.

Akito lays in bed, mind racing through all the possibilities. What if he had gone home with a girl? What if he preferred that over coming home to Akito? And if that was the case, was she something better?

(Of course. Everyone was better than Akito.)

Was she pretty? Akito thinks of long, silky hair, and curves that could never be mistaken for a man’s body. They curl tighter into themself, burying their face in the pillow, hiding from the thought of Shigure undressing said curves.

(Their mother looked like a proper woman. Shigure had once said, in a fit of cruelty, that their mother looked like everything Akito could never be. Beautiful, tall, curvy. Akito had always wondered if he wished they looked different. If he wished they could be beautiful, too.)

Once the thoughts start they don’t stop. Soon Akito is stuck in a whirlpool, convinced that he had left for good, that they were now truly all alone. The bed becomes too confining, and they find themself on the bathroom floor, fighting to breathe, the tile cold against their skin.

They wanted it to stop. They didn’t want to feel this way anymore! Itsuki had said it would get better, but when? When would they feel better? When would they be good enough? When would their efforts to be a better person pay off?

Yuki had been right. Shigure deserved so much better. Everyone did, really. Akito tangles a hand in their hair, holding hard and hiccupping. They weren’t god anymore. They weren’t anything anymore. When had they become so small? Had they ever been big in the first place?

[littlebosslady7]

did you ppl calling rockwild shippers delusional or wearing "shipper goggles"? do you ship them, and what do you think about the kiss?

I have not, so I suppose that means I follow kind people. The delusional insult is always rude AF to me, but it's common in any fandom. I've been in DC and Marvel fandoms for many years. Yikes! As someone who likes all 3 campaigns, I never understand the competitiveness between ships/story lines. They're different stories with their own messy chapters. People are allowed to like or dislike something if they so choose. Doesn't mean you need to throw other ship and/or other character under the bus.

The shipper goggles thing is funny. Just because someone is a shipper and I most definitely am, doesn't mean we can't see the value of story telling or the value in characters as individual people. I'm an editor and a writer. You got to see the forest for the trees, but also know where your landmarks are. Meaning understand the grander scheme while also pruning/tending to elements that help your story progress.

Of course I still ship Callowmoore/Rockwild. The kiss was fun and tbh, I was waiting it. Those who claim "Fearne didn't have to process./ [gasp] Fearne was manipulated" After she says, "Well, now I don't know if I wanna put this in there." It's surface level, but that little bit of inner conflict of "Oh! I did like that, but I also made them a promise." Is that not at least the start of processing? Ashley said on 4-Sided Dive and in game as Fearne, "The shard should go to Ashton" /paraphrase. She may not have understood the effects. Neither did Ashton, but they had a plan -- albeit a costly and not so smart, but they knew.

IMO, The kiss response from Ashton was what I figured from a character who has a charisma of 6. It's messy and imperfect, but that's true to character story telling.

@i-am-shitpost brought up several good points about was "Last one you'll fucking get" (paraphrase) a thought for themself. (x)

Also very common for Taliesin characters I suppose. If you love Perc'ahlia you know.

That said, Ashton owes Fearne, FCG and Bell's Hells as a whole an apology. I hope that when they do, they carry that lesson and continue figuring who they want to be.

I just keep picturing Fearne picking up FCG to be at Ash's height when they both give him shit. And Fearne walks away with FCG in search for some Courage or Green Tier whiskey within Whitestone.

[kevlarcrack3d]

(TW: HORROR) UrbanSpook's Painter Analog horror theory: 2 Killers - "Bonnie" and "Clyde"

(Note: I am not glorifying or simping for serial killers. I am just bringing up notable examples. Also, this blog will touch the topic of criminal activities and scary stuff, so if you don't like that, click off)

So, I discovered this relatively new analog horror series by Urbanspook called "The Painter" which is about a string of murders with an artistic touch of paintings of the victims. It was not like any other analog horror I've seen because it contains mystery, thrills, and the use of "real fear" due to the fact that there REALLY are very messed up serial killers out there, and here's my theory based on the latest upload!

What am I getting from here? I am very confident that there are TWO PERPETRATORS, with initially one prime suspect, who I'll be calling "Bonnie" , and theres another, "Clyde".

BONNIE THE ARTIST

If we look at the previous videos, there are pictures of this person with long, dark, messy hair and sunken, paranoid looking eyes, one painting of them (titled "self-portrait") and two photos.

Judging by the title of that painting, this person, who I'll be calling "Bonnie," is the artist and what everyone thought to be the killer who also happens to make the artworks. However, Bonnie just sits in their cabin behind a crack and does art because "Fuck going outside, I love to draw." But, in "the Lighthouse", Bonnie has a photo alongside those of the family, so they occasionally go outside to paint alongside Clyde, who I'll talk about later.

I've seen others conclude that Bonnie painting themself is nan implication of suicide because everyone in the paintings is killed, but I think it's a case of simply wanting to paint one's self.

CLYDE THE KILLER

As shown in the latest video, there is a photo caught on Sean's CCTV of a person covered in the skin of a person (there are stitches at the side, a hint to the crappy sewing skills of the killer mentioned in "In the Walls"). Now, if we look harder, this person does not have the sunken, weary eyes of Bonnie. They look vibrant and alert. This is could be a different person.

In addition to that, Sean seems to have written the number 2 in his blood on the wall. He left a clue that there are two criminals on the loose and not just one. After all, I'm sure Sean, a private investigator, had time to fight back a little, remember the information gathered so far, and have a "Eureka" moment in the struggle finally knowing that there are two different sickos commiting these crimes; one who paints, Bonnie, and the other who kills, who I'll be calling "Clyde".

Clyde, in this case, is doing most the dirty work, finding subjects and references, tormenting them, killing them in creative ways, and giving them to Bonnie to paint. They also seem to have some artistic flair with the way they kill, such as covering people in wax (Tom Harris/Wax Doll Tom) and the like. Clyde also seems to wear the skins of some victims to cover up his identity.

DYNAMICS BETWEEN "BONNIE" AND "CLYDE" + INTERACTIONS WITH OTHER CHARACTERS

Now, this is more headcanon and speculation on how these two criminals operate. Expect expectations to be subverted 😄.

Bonnie and Clyde are clearly very messed up individuals, distorting their victims, torturing them, and killing them just for art references, being extreme in their acts, and taking pictures of them to taunt the authorities in an act of "Wanna catch us, bitch? Here's what we can do!".

Bonnie is probably less discreet, having photographed themself in "The Lighthouse." Clyde seems to be the more cautious one, judging by how they tried to cover up the security cam in a panic. Either way, they both enjoy bluffing everybody with their art, grisly actions, and photos, which actually give lots of way, but hey! They view this as an art, so who cares? Art is 💥FLASHY💅 and ✨️CREATIVE🔥.

Clyde and Bonnie here also seem to not mind working together for this, showing a certain level of cooperation and passion for their craft, so, yeah, very fucked up.

To wrap this up,

TL;DR: I AM REALLY CONFIDENT THERE ARE TWO CRIMINALS WILLINGLY AND KNOWINGLY KILLING AND PAINTING THEIR VICTIMS FOR THE SAKE OF ART.

[legionaberrations]

Wdyt the legion kids zodiac signs are? (Idk if you're interested in this but I found out that using zodiac signs for characters is a great starter... Like for building their personality).

You can do the main three (ascendant; basically what others get from their first impression of you. Like the personality you use out in public. Sun; your actual personality, the one you'd use around family and close friends. And moon; your inner personality, your feelings and secret traits that you wouldn't express openly).

I hope I explained these well enough and that it makes you think! (New Anon btw. Hello, mun!)

(I hadn't really contemplated this much until you asked, but I love thinking zodiac so I do have some solid answers:

Julie - Gemini Sun, Scorpio Moon, Pisces Ascendant. Julie is both social butterfly and social chameleon. I think her place as the most social member of the group and how easily she lies and plays a different role in front of other people shoes her in for gemini easily, along with her curiosity and morbidity. While she seeks shallow pleasures for brief fun, what she really craves is emotional intensity, which I think plays with scorpio moon well. Pisces rising because of the strong association with art, social-chameleoning, and having a desire to see the world in and live in a dreamy and fantastical way.

Frank - Sagittarius Sun, Leo Moon, Aquarius Ascendant. Frank hates routine and structure. He's friendly and outgoing, but in a way that still sets him apart from others. He's also very active and fond of sports, which is a stereotype associated with the sag lol. They're also associated with optimism, which I think plays interestingly with Frank's ideology that thinking about something is enough to manifest it. Leo moon is associated with controlling and organizing friend activities, which Frank definitely does - bossy guy, trying to push everyone to further extremes. He's a creative sort with a lot of magical thinking, and likes others to think he's really worldly and knowledgeable. He's paradoxically standoffish and social, but also very paradoxical and irreverent, which I feel fits the aquarius assignment well.

Joey - Virgo Sun, Taurus Moon, Sagittarius Ascendant. Joey is a hard-working individual, but also a very practical and quick-thinking one. He struggles with anxiety and being high-strung, pushing himself too far. He's Responsible. All very virgo of him. With his moon, I think the taurean moon descriptions of like being very persevering, trying to avoid messy or unpredictable situations, wanting to build a reliable situation, etc. is very relevant to him. Sagittarius rising is often associated with Seeking, wanting more out of life, but also being opinionated and competitive, which I think Joey has a little bit of going on. Even though unpredictable circumstances cause him anxiety, he wants to branch out and try these new, crazy things anyways, and wants to have a good time, and more than anything wants to believe everything can be better if he just tries hard enough. There's a reason he ends up buying into Frank's ideology despite initial hesitation!

Susie - Taurus Sun, Cancer Moon, Aries Ascendant. Susie is a very dependable person, but also someone I see as very stubborn and set in her beliefs. She's sensitive, but she's also very fixed - even upsetting her isn't going to move her, and may in fact fix her more firmly in place. For her moon, that sensitivity rings true. She doesn't like change and is defensive of her friends, wanting what's best for them, but is also indirect, not likely to confront issues head-on. I really like this screenshot of the natal chart website I'm looking at for her:

Speaking of family problems, aries ascendants are often described as having an upbringing that requires them to learn to take care of themself. Impatience and impulsiveness and a youthful charm are also part of this sign. I think Susie isn't necessarily competitive but definitely has a compulsion to "prove herself" and an amount of self-criticism that tracks well with this ascendant placement.

Sorry to anyone who doesn't care about zodiac who had to read all this LOL)

[gryptids]

do all your ocs know each other or do they have subgroups?

EEE thank u for asking!! The OCs I tag for on Tumblr generally fall into three universes/stories. (Also I had to rewrite this like 3 times bcuz Tumblr's ctrl+z function is broken and I kept doing it reflexively, so apologies if this makes no sense lol)

As The World Caves In (#culecore): A 70s-inspired eldritch horror romcom about a woman on the verge of a nervous breakthrough. When a one-night stand leads to world-shattering revelations about her connection to a distant eldritch god, Cara (far left) must confront love, loss, forgiveness, and her community in order to halt an impending apocalypse. Dealing with centuries of relationship drama from her demigod paramours is just the icing on the cake. Messy, queer, and unapologetically indulgent, this is essentially a creative sandbox that I play in almost 24/7!! I love smashing together these terrible little bitches like dolls :]

From left to right we have Carolyn Klein (main character, cuntress supreme, can easily whip a dish that will bring you to tears), Saoirse Ross (not-really-tortured artist, grappling with the world's most protracted identity crisis, eldritch splinter of Chaos), Jude Collins (walking Leyendecker illustration, Captain Autismo, eldritch splinter of Light), and Victor Ward (depressed line cook energy, massive flirt, eldritch splinter of Void).

Threads of Gossamer and Glass (#tgg): A high fantasy political thriller about what comes after survival, reinventing your mind upon meeting someone new, and trying to not break the world in half a second time. This is a novel-length work I'm currently working on, which means I have a novel-style blurb for it LOL:

"Maria has worked her entire life to secure a seat in the Artea Crea, an artist's guild that serves as the highest governing body in her home nation of Trevigi. But when her sister's illegal magical abilities are discovered, she's given an impossible choice; play diplomat in a suicide mission to a land of savage mages, or see her sister hanged. However, Maria quickly discovers that there's more to Peykangraz that meets the eye; deadly games of magic and politics, a mountain range that appears to be shifting, and a powerful mage who is as confounding as he is alluring. With every new ally, deal, and discovery, she begins to glimpse the buried truth that lies between the land and her mission. But what is she willing to risk -- and to lose -- in pursuing what she believes in?"

(art by the lovely @dying_anniris on Twitter!!)

&Lavender (#&lav): In a story that extrapolates the machinations of the fae courts onto high-class mob politics, Lav finds themself walking the razor edge between worlds when their quiet life collides with the unknown. As a jeweler specializing in intricate gem faceting, Lav creates flashy pieces for humans and fae alike, performing humanity for their clients through a combination of glamour magic and ascerbic wit. The Courts ignore them, and they ignore them right back. As a wyldfae -- too unimportant to be considered Seelie or Unseelie -- they're used to the lack of interest. But when a dangerous artifact comes into their possession, they must risk everything and forge an alliance with a member of the Unseelie Court to protect it. What follows is a saga of lust, destruction, and all the terrible things that happen when you understand how much you're truly worth.

Plus, I've got a few miscellaneous OCs (including Beverly, a waifish Texas cannibal, and Ariadne, a vampiric Oath of Conquest paladin) who fall into their own individual universes! Together they form the Insane Blood-Splattered Women Brigade <3

TYSM for asking!!! I love the chance to talk abt my guys... feel free 2 ask more questions abt them if you're curious!!!!

[ink-pawprint]

My Favourite tropes

Omnipotent Unreliable Narrator who specifically contradicts themself and repeatedly outright lies and maliciously misrepresents things at times. (Bonus points if the narrator is the embodiment of the theme of the story and that’s where their opinions come from)

Characters who know they are characters (i.e “not real”) and 1. The method of finding out is tailored (i.e they hear the pages turning, start to see the words that make them, feel the repetitiveness, think against their actions etc.) and 2. go through the horror of independence versus design while interacting with the narrator. (Made better by realising they “real” in their own right i.e they make the reader feel “real” emotions so therefore they do real things / the author has to write them “true-to-character” so the author doesn’t have complete control over what they do / etc.)

The BBEG heals/loses interest/joins the heroes/otherwise no longer believes in their previous goal but the Henchman the BBEG had/indoctrinated/corrupted/otherwise wholeheartedly still believes in the cause becomes the next BBEG and even better, gets the original BBEG back on their original side.

Chimerical abominations beloved 🤍 I’m a whore for any “Frankenstein abomination (‘sentient’ or not, both are good) and scientist who thinks they’re superior to god / are god” dynamic.

Bloodthirsty romance. Not just a “power couple”, a relationship where they both tear people (maybe eachother) to bloody ribbons, make them manic, make them feral, make them messy, make them cruel, make them malicious, make them playful, make them unapologetic, make them merciless and make them in “love” (or whatever they think love to be).

Multiverse characters who keep on appearing in different “universes” (i.e a creator makes multiple forms of various media that the character appears in in different stages of their own story separate from the individual media.)

Happy endings no matter the genre

An ethereal/supernatural/god/demon/Angel/non-human entity has to live like a human for whatever reason and finds little human tasks and their new little human life to be very joyful. They by all means live a “mediocre” and “average” life, but they adore the mundane, the domestic and learn to love being human.

[grimae]

I follow you, for a while, for your original fantasy art (incredible stuff by the way) and just because you answered that anon about your tag that I've come to know the weird overlap in our experiences, I also have been writing/daydreaming about my own fantasy world since I was ten and I also have a google doc filled with lore. Being your own lore master is so hard sometimes, but I've found organization is the key for me, do you have any methods that make it easier for you to find/remember stuff?

Sup! Thank you so much first of all! For the greatest part in my life I kept literally everything stashed away in my brain. Only in late 2018, early 2019, I started actually writing things down. Can't remember anymore how it started, but I made a world-building discord server with a dear friend and just dropped everything in there that had some kind of relevancy, also actually starting to write down my thoughts about my characters. At one point I realized that it had become way too much so I copy pasted everything into a google doc file just to see how much. That specific google doc is now my exposition dump doc, it's where I throw in every single thought only to have it securely stashed away. I then later started writing individual docs on things I needed to have sorted. How dragons work, Sacrosanct creatures, vampire lore, alchemy, magic, some general world-building thoughts, etc etc. There was an honest desperate need for that too, because with the current five-trillion pages, the doc needs literal ages to load, lags and slows down my PC like hell. I made a list of all my characters with some basic and more or less important information, such as how many languages they speak, when their birthdays are, their heights and physical ages, if vampire. And to accompany that, a big damn relationship sheet that is a mess to look through because it doesn't take in account that literally over 1600 years happen between all these characters, so I don't share it unless I know people have a general gist of the lore and can fill that temporal hole themself.

Later I made my own discord server, with only me, for general safekeeping of all kinds of informations.

That is how I sort things in there. I still throw everything important into the old one with my friend though, it's just that I got kinda self-conscious about how much I jump from point A to C with no coherence for anyone but me and wanted to start sorting things first to make it understandable, lol. The skindarimian-exposition-dump channel is here where I write down every single thought, then I drop it into the google doc every end of the month. Discord has this little perfect trait that I can very easily access it from all my devices. Can't tell you how often I woke up at 2 am and my first grab was for my phone because I had a thought I needed to write down. So yeah I guess my way of keeping track is a very thorough amount of google docs, a discord server (or two), and backups of all that saved on my PC. It's honestly so much more messy than I want it to be but for the last three years, almost four, this mess has been well lived in.

Btw, the daily channel used to be a challenge where in 2021 I wrote down a little thing every day. A try at a poem, a short story, etc. 2021 was successfully finished with only a few days skipped. I wanted to drag it into this year as well but around February my brain got too clouded for another thing I had to do daily so I stopped. The google-docs channel is just links to all the docs. Rewrites is me noting down things I have to rewrite or thoughts on how to organize. Bots is Book of the Sun relating stuff.

[animebw]

So, much like with season 1, my thoughts on AssClass season 2 are... messy. Too messy for a straightforward review, at least. So let’s do it like last time and make a list of all the points I want to mention. Only this time, I’ll put it all below a spoiler bar, since I can’t really discuss some of these points without spoiling basically everything. Those of you who haven’t seen season 2 yet, consider yourselves warned.

Cool? Cool. Let’s do this.

-This season was way more lopsided than the first. The first ten or so episodes were honestly the worst stretch of this show yet, for various reasons I’ll get into momentarily. But once we hit the final exam arc, it basically slams on the gas and never lets up all the way to the end.

-I feel like the fanservice quotient was ramped up this season, and I did not appreciate it.

-The Kaede twist really caught me off guard. I was always wondering why she was so constantly positioned as one of the main supporting roles when she hadn’t really done anything, and the reveal that she’s been a tentacled assassin all along explained everything perfectly.

-Actually, in general, all the backstory/answers we got were great. Koro-sensei’s past gave such weight to his character and fully earned the far more dramatic turn the story takes in the season’s back half.

-As fun as the first encounter with the Reaper was, I still really hate the way Irina’s treated. She didn’t even really get to do anything in that arc! Karasuma had to save her ass while she watched from the sidelines!

-Karma and Nagisa’s big brawl was especially fun for how nasty and in-your-face it got.

-So, did anyone else absolutely fucking hate how Nagisa’s mom was handled? The show treats it like she’s just not very understanding or overly strict and Nagisa needs to make an effort to bridge the communication gap between them, but, like... this is abuse. This is straight-up fucking “report this psycho to child services” behavior. You do not respond to a parent bludgeoning their kid into submission by telling the kid they just need to try a little harder to stand up for themself. Fuck. That. Garbage.

-Also, I’m not a fan of how the mom stuff poisoned the well on Nagisa’s femininity. One of the reasons I liked him as a protagonist is that he was sort of shrimpy and girly and soft-spoken, so different from your typical loudmouth brawler shonen lead. And I wish that was just, like, a part of himself that he could learn to accept rather than a source of trauma he needs to get rid of.

-On a more positive note, Nagisa tutoring that troubled girl was a really sweet subplot.

-This may be a nitpick, but the final arc was way too dark for me. Not as in tone, but, like, the literal scenes were so dimly lit that I often struggled to make out what was going on. How am I supposed to enjoy this giant fucking monster brawl if it’s all shrouded in murky shadows and you can’t tell a tentacle from a tree?

-That said... yeah, that finale was excellent. Not every Shonen Jump series has the guts to end with a 20-minute-long prolonged scene of assisted suicide, let alone pull it off so emotionally. I’m gonna miss that big yellow blob.

-One of these days, I’ll find another shonen that can write romance worth a damn. Not gonna be today, though.

I think that about sums everything up. In conclusion, AssClass season 2 is a messy, imperfect ride with some damn great high points and some damn shameful low moments. I’d say on average it balances out to a 6/10, weaker overall than season 1 even if it has some of the individual best moments. Oh well, can’t win them all. See you next time for whatever 2016 show ends up winning the poll!

[magicaltrans]

On trans tropes (Part II)

Every week (ahem), on the Magical Trans discord server, we have a discussion in the trans-only channels about one topic regarding Harry Potter, fandom life and trans experiences.

This week (cough), the topic was on tropes regarding trans narratives. This is the second part, find the first one here.

Disclaimer, the following is to be taken as resources for self-development as a cis creator and should never be used to tell off authors. You do not know who is trans and should never bully anyone into outing themself to justify that they wrote such or such trope. Some of these tropes we talk here can be extremely fulfilling for a trans individual.

Let's talk about what should be handled with gloves, shall we?

Coming-out narratives are very rarely written correctly by cishet people, simply because they repeat schemes seen in Hollywood and medias profiting of off queer stories. Coming-outs aren't this great big final ending that free our heroes from the torment of queerness. No. Coming-outs come in a variety of shape and weight. Some can be messy or on the contrary very clean, big deals or not important at all but through it all they remain mostly experimental. It's trying on a pair of shoes for the first time and seeing if they fit. Someone may find their glass slipper on first try, it's not the case for a lot of persons from the lgbtgia+ community.

Wit this idea, trans coming out and the "I've always known" narrative happen but aren't a majority. Most of us know something is wrong, a general uncomfortableness but are unable to put words on it until... Years later. Well into our lives. This kind of stories are just reassuring cis people in their cisness and have them pat themselves on the back for doing a good job at trans representation because Boys Playing with Dolls are inherently queer (neuroa folks, this was sarcasm). Trans identity is a lot more complex than that and stopping at just that is harmful.

Are we forbidding cis people from writing coming-outs? No, what rights do we have to that? We're simply encouraging that other narratives should be explored, other faces of transness that need developing. There's been enough of coming out to one's family to have the violence of their rejection thrown into our faces. We're tired of being reduced to only a moment at the beginning of our journey that is often used as a plotwist for the narratives of cis individuals or to be foil to their great open-mindedness.

On the same line, it's really not okay to pour the transphobia "needed" to your story in one character to either 1/ make your hero shine with rightful outrage and how woke they are to defend the trans character or 2/ not have to deal with the insidious transphobia that everyone has been dosed with at birth. Transphobia needs to be carved out of oneself; it's a process and it's a necessary one. Telling a story where only the villains are transphobic and that transphobia is erased the moment they are defeated is just erasing our struggles.

And for the love of all that is alive, stop comparing us to butterflies. Transition isn't a nice cocoon where you can just exist and come out of looking pretty and colourful. It's difficult and confusing and so very public it's exhausting.

This is the opinion of a singular group of people and isn’t the opinion of the entire community. If you would like to join the discussion as a trans person or to become a better ally, join the server! 18+ only.

[sunlitmcgee]

Inner worlds are such a fun thing to write. Just getting a glimpse into a character’s mind in a way that’s fully tangible compared to plain old narration. Getting to see how they see the world. How they see themself. How they see people in their life and places they often go.

How do they remember things? How do their memories vary from what actually occurred? Are they fuzzy like a faded photo? Clear as a professionally taken pic? Are details vague and out of place, mismatched and out of order, or perfectly in tune with the real event and altered only to fit the character’s perception of it?

Do they see people in ways that aren’t quite right? Do they see others as 2D caricatures of themselves that are scribbled over by messy doodles to show how little the pay attention to those around them? Are they perfect mimics that only exaggerate the traits the person cares about/thinks about the most? Are they overly zealous dramatizations that are so far off from the real deal that it’s almost offensive?

How about trauma? How does trauma affect their inner mindscape? Are things in their mind an ever-shifting mess of pain, confusing, anger, fear and unrest? Are traumatic memories frozen, persevered in all their painful glory to torment the individual for the rest of their days? Are abusers turned into monstrous and unstoppable beasts? Are they themself made small and feeble when in the presence of such a thing? Does the surrounding area twist to match the terror they feel?

It’s just such a fun way to show how a character is. Such a fun little idea...

[crystalkleure]

I think this isn’t widely known. The desire to explore dark topics and grisly situations in fiction doesn’t necessarily come from the desire to partake in those things in real life, and frustration at the inability to do so.

It actually often comes from the exact opposite. It comes from fear.

It comes from the fear of potentially eventually being faced with those horrifying things in person. By exploring them in fiction, a person is allowed to plan out how to navigate the distressing situations without actually being in them. They are able to construct an intricate, detailed, horrible scenario, which allows them to grasp an understanding of it and thus subsequently puzzle out what can then be done to deal with it. Closely examining all the gory details of a gory situation, laying them out like a blueprint [or a map], is in fact crucial for then cathartically deconstructing and subverting it. Their subconscious is trying to figure out how to protect them from something that has been identified as a potential threat.

Humans are afraid of things we don’t understand. We are hardwired to fear the unknown, it’s a basic survival instinct. So, therefore, the key to fearing something less is to understand it more. Dissecting it, researching it extensively, and, often, fantasizing about it -- imagining what you would do to stay safe from it and/or brace yourself for it if you were hypothetically unfortunately ever actually faced with it, are cathartic behaviours.

Because it’s fiction, the methodology is not always realistic though, because it doesn’t have to be. A person who fears death might write about a character being brutally murdered, but then continuing to exist in some sort of afterlife. It’s still a case of “examine this horrifying situation and figure out how to make it fine,” it’s just that rather than “figure out how to avoid death in the first place,” the soothing “it’s fine” outcome the writer is exploring is “death is maybe not actually that bad.”

A person who is terrified of abduction might also write about a character who befriends or seduces their abductors and is thus unharmed by them. This is unrealistic, and is thus arguably pretty useless for the subconscious purpose of making the person actually better prepared for potential abduction IRL, but it is still successful at quelling their fear of it. And if their fear is irrational in the first place, they have no logical reason to think they WILL be abducted IRL, there’s really no need to be realistic about how to deal with it then -- they just needed some anxiety abatement.

Someone who is afraid of vampires might pretend to be one, attracted to the logic of “If I am this Powerful Thing myself, I can stand my ground against the other Powerful Things!”

Someone who is afraid of, I don’t know, vomiting [emetophobia is actually one of the most common phobias], might even develop a sexual fetish for vomit, because fear and horniness actually can’t coexist. Your brain can’t be in Fuck Mode and Fight Or Flight Mode at the same time. Monkey Brain says fucking’s gotta wait until you’re safe, because you’re vulnerable when you’re getting it on, so as a result of that, Monkey Brain assumes you must be safe if you’re in Fuck Mode. This is probably why you see so much porn of horror media monsters; someone can trick themself out of being afraid of something by figuring out how to be horny about it instead. The Horny overrides the Anxiety.

Fantasizing about how to outright avoid something scary is one Anxiety Countermeasure, but fantasizing about how to gain control of a scary situation -- and thus take its power away -- is also very common, and can manifest in many different ways due to the specificity of each individual person, and each individual hypothetical situation being examined. Planning on how to cope with a stressful situation may even be more healthy than trying to avoid it outright forever, in some cases. The two mental tactics might also coexist, like a Plan A and Plan B. Our brains are very messy and complicated.

[feminist-propaganda]

Maid Is a Show About Jungian Archetypes - Episode 3: The Wise Old Man

Carl Jung believed that one of the main archetypes of the Collective Unconscious was called the Wise Old Man. It's also referred to as a senex, and you'll find it in Hollywood or in Popular culture as the messy professor who offers great life advice to the main character. The Wise Old Man helps the subject better understand and define themself.

In ancient Rome, the senex was an old man in a village who was consulted when important decisions had to be made. The word senex has the same root as the word senator.

In analytical psychology, which Carl Jung pioneered, it was believed that after someone had battled with the Animus/Anima system (see Episode 2) for long enough, then they could begin the individuation process. Individuation, according to analytical psychology, is the necessary stage that is found between the confused unconscious blob and the defined and developped Self.

The Wise Old Man represents a structured part of the psyche that manages wisdom, knowledge and rationality. Popular images of the Wild Old Man are Merlin, Confucius, Dumbledore or Obi Wan Kenobi.

Archetype 3 : The Wise Old Man

Remember how in Episode 2 we discussed the unconscious, and Alex's Animus? Well, actually what we saw was her battling with her unconscious. What I mean by that is that in Episode 2, we see a woman who is coming to terms with her own decisions, she is realizing exactly how bad the decisions she's made have been, and she's wondering why. Questions going through her mind : How did things get this bad? Why me? How is this my life now? When does it stop?

No one grows up thinking to themselves : When I'm an adult I'll get married to a violent drunk who lives in a trailer park and punches things! And when I try to run away from him, he'll attack me in court and strip me of my custody. Yeah, that sounds like a *great* life plan.

Yet this is her life. She didn't consciously decide to do the things stated above, but she most certainly got herself in that situation, so those were in fact actions that were motivated by some unconscious engine of her psyche.

After Alex lost Maddie's custody, and was humiliated by Sean in the courthouse, she was lifeless, depressed, switched off and lying on the floor crying. But thanks to her fellow domestic violence survivor, she was able to get up and get angry. She even gets into a fight with the Animus. She finds the Client from Episode 1, steals her dog (symbolizing the Animus), and teaches them a lesson. This results in a small victory for Alex, as she is hired by Value Maids. The Episode is about aknowledging the unconscious, admitting that there are some deep, dark, secrets in our psyche but then deciding to address them, to talk to them.

I need you to understand this. If Alex keeps going through life pretending like "these things just happen to her" and she's just super "unlucky", then she won't be able to get out of her current situation and she'll probably get herself into another very similar situation very soon. But if she sits still and accepts that something inside of her, something unconscious but powerful, has guided her every step and gotten her to this courthouse, to this humiliation, to this embarassment, to this tragedy - then she can maybe have the courage to address this darkness and understand how it works. If she can do that, then she might have a chance of over-ruling it. She might be able to recognize the impulses, and resist the urges.

But if she keeps pretending like this whole affair was all very unfortunate, then she won't be able to recognize the impulses and she sure as hell won't be able to resist the motherfucking urges.

Alex has quite litterally been fighting the darkness in her head and now it's time for some clarity. This is exactly the right time for The Wise Old Man to enter her life and teach her some extremely basic things: things that maybe she feels like she already knows, but really she hasn't integrated them into her life yet, she isn't living by them.

In the series, the Wise Old Man teaches a class that Alex jokingly calls "Bad Mom School". The classroom is filled with young women, and a man with a mustache and a wool jumper is talking about healthy snacks. Very slowly, he enunciates: "Humus sticks and celery. Seedless raisins, but only if the child is over 2 years of age". On the board, there are two words that are written in capital letters and underlined in blue. BASIC NEEDS. One of the moms looks at Alex and sighs. "Is he going to keep on listing fruits?" But Alex doesn't want to dismiss the lesson - she's taking notes, actually.

After Bad Mom School; Alex gets a ride to the diner where she meets a lawyer who donates his lunch hour to the Domestic Violence Shelter because it makes his wife happy. He is yet another embodiment of the Old Wise Man. He tells Alex to keep going to Bad Mom School, and to get the certificate at the end. He also encourages her to apply for all available government programs (food stamps, day care support, subsidized housing). What she needs to do, he says, is to prove to the judge that she has a plan.

It's interesting, because Alex doesn't actually have a plan. She needs to prove that she's in control of a situation, when in fact she is not at all in control. She's living out of a shelter. Sure, she made the good decision to leave a violent home, but she needs to follow that decision up with a lot more smart, good decisions. This is what she is learning.

Alex goes to work that afternoon. The house she's cleaning is disgusting, the bathroom was clogged by the occupants after the water was cut. She runs out and vomits outside, we see her breathing for air, trying to stay calm. This scene represents what we just said earlier about the many decisions that Alex needs to take for herself and for Maddy now. The road ahead is not easy, it's going to be hard to stay on track, to not fall back into old patterns. It's going to feel like scrubbing shit off of walls.

It might sound easier to go back to the trailer and to simply deal with Sean's alcoholism right now. Scrubbing shit off of walls is not that pleasant.

The next day in Bad Mom School, the Wise Old Man talks about STABILITY, which is the word he decides to write in capital letters on the whiteboard. According to his class, it's the most important thing in a child's life. A child needs to have a home they can come back to, rituals that repeat themselves over time. The Wise Old Man explains that children who lack stability have higher chances of not graduating high school, bigger problems handling emotional stress, and more psychological pathologies than average. Alex is on the verge of tears by now. "That's how important stability is".

It's hard for Alex, because in this Episode, she understands how difficult doing the right thing is going to be. In Episode 1 we saw her realizing that the only Mothering she was going to have access to was her own. She needs to build a new world now. But how? In this episode, she's learning that no one is going to jump out of the bushes to save her. There is no prince charming, no knight in shining armour, no Mother welcoming her with open arms in the family farm. She might not feel like one, but Alex is definitely an adult now, an adult living in a capitalist society, an adult living in a patriarchal culture, an adult that needs to raise her Descendance. And she needs to deal with that, head on.

Alex has been so caught up in dealing with Sean's substance abuse and leaving the violence at home, she's probably not had time to think about stability. How is she going to build it? How can she make sure Maddy has it?

That afternoon, Alex meets with her mother. They go to an ex-boyfriend of hers, where some furniture from Alex's childhood has been stored for the past decade. Alex's smile when she greets Larry - perhaps the third incarnation of the Wise Old Man in this episode - is genuine. We can tell that she has a lot of affection for him, that possibly he spent a lot of quality time with her when she was an adolescent.

In the barn, Alex finds her old journals and other treasures from her childhood. It's difficult to watch, because instead of supporting her and being present, we see her mother obsessing about how Larry has remarried and had more kids with a woman half her age. We can only wonder what is going on in Alex's mind. Remember, she's just been to Bad Mom School this morning, where she was told that the most important thing for her child was stability. But now she is forced to reflect on how that was lacking in her own life. We already know that she and her mother moved to Alaska when she was a pre-teen. Now we understand that her mother had a serious boyfriend for years after that and they broke up by the time Alex was 14. That's a lot of changes for just one small child.

Now that Alex is all grown up, it doesn't seem like her mother has found any peace at all. Quite the opposite: she seems restless, anxious and insecure. But Alex doesn't seem upset by it, she just deals with it, and perhaps this motivates her even more to deal with her problems now - in order to move on from them before Maddie herself is all grown up.

There is a fourth representation of the Wise Old Man in the episode. It's the owner of an art gallery downtown. Alex's mother misunderstood the casual conversation she had with him in a random encounter. She thought he wanted to expose her art in his space. The result is an excruciating exchange, where we see the owner of the gallery tell the sculptor that he was just trying to be polite when he told her that her art should be shared with a larger audience. He didn't mean that he was going to put his name on it. It's hard to watch as Alex's mother realizes she is not going to get her big break today. Alex moves into transitional housing that night.

By the next morning, she's learning about MODELING BEHAVIOR in Bad Mom School. She's told by her professor that everything she does, everything she says, every situation she allows herself to be in, is going to be noticed, remembered and later copied by her daughter. Even the way she handles stress is going to be imitated by little Maddy. Right when Alex is about to get deeper into the topic, she decides to exit the classroom to take an incoming phone call.

It's Sean's boss, calling her because Sean hasn't shown up for work. What Alex should do is hang up the phone and go back into the classroom to get her diploma. What she does is quite different. She becomes agitated and starts nervously calling up a bunch of people, asking if they've seen Sean. Then, she asks a ride to one of her fellow Bad Moms - she wants to track Sean down herself. Ironically, Alex has exited a class about modeling behavior in order to go out looking for her violent ex-boyfriend - which we know she knows is out on a binge. This is called enabling, it's what partners of alcoholics do. It's the cornerstone of a co-dependent relationship. Studies say you learn this behavior from your parents.

Alex finds Sean sitting on a rock at the beach, and this time it's not the Wise Old Man we talk to, but his evil counterpart: the Hunter.

The things Sean say might seem deep and true, but really it's just nonsense people come up with when they're high on cocaine. He mutters about being a piece of glass, washed up by the sea, a piece of sea-glass if you will. He says that right now he's broken glass but somehow the sea will make him into something precious and rare, a gem. What does it all mean? And more importantly: WHY IS ALEX LISTENING TO HIM? Why did she leave Bad Mom School for this? Why is she indulging in more bullshit?

She drives him home, and he stumbles onto the couch. Alex says he needs to "sleep it off". Did anybody order some ENABLING?

We cut to the scene in front of the courthouse where Sean tells Alex he's just been to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. He's also removing the ex-parte motion, meaning he doesn't want full custody of Maddy. He wants to work on his sobriety, and he wants shared custody. Alex listens to him and laugh. She also agrees to the shared custody, even thought earlier in the episode she said she wanted full custody. So? What's changed? For the first time since the series began, we see some chemistry between Alex and Sean. We can almost picture them as a couple now. In the words of the great Santigold in her hit song Disparate Youth: Don't look head there's stormy weather.

To be clear, Carl Jung didn't believe that to have a well integrated personality you needed to completely delete all of the contributions of The Hunter and only ever use The Wise Old Man part of your psyche. Not at all. In fact, he believed that both were necessary to achieve wholesomeness. The Hunter will continue to be a part of the mind, and projections of it will be found in the world, but a well integrated human being has the ability to recognize it and avoid it's path. It's kind of like how Little Red Riding Hood didn't have to tell the Big Bad Wolf where exactly she was headed. She could've just lied to him or run away or beat him with a stick.

[autisticpride]

April 10th: How important is representation to you? Is the representation that is out there generally good or bad? What is your favorite piece of representation? What you like to see more of in autism representation? What would you like to see less of?

representation is really important to us and we’ll end up going on a couple long rants about some of our favorites (under the cut) because we can, it’ll be real messy because theres at least 3 of us talking and im just about positive that people were blurry when writing shit out so sorry about that but that’s just how it is

for us, representation enables us to see people like us in stories. the other thing for us, not specific to autistic representation, is just that we tend to enjoy more diverse stories more? maybe we’ve just had good luck but we’ve found that stories with characters who are members of marginalized groups (whether the story itself is diverse or not) tend to be better written. maybe it’s because we generally prioritize ownvoices works, idk.

so first i wanted to take a look at some numbers regarding autistic characters we’re familiar with (yes we know there are more, we just have a focus on books in our brain) and we started with books & comics and got some interesting numbers that we weren’t expecting! we haven’t read all these books yet so there are some gaps in the information.

of the 10 characters (from 8 books and 1 webcomic):

5 are female, 4 are male, and 1 is nonbinary.  2 are black, 2 are white, 1 is mixed (surinamese/dutch), 1 is mixed (vietnamese/irish), 1 is mixed (fictional races). 9 (possibly all 10) are main characters 6 are over 21, 2 are under 12 (9 and 11), 1 is 16, 1 is 18 3 are straight, 3 are gay/lesbian, 1 is bi.

I think that’s very cool actually! we would like to see more trans autistic characters (the only trans character out of the 10 seems to be the 1 nonbinary character) for sure, and more explicitly canon autistic characters in general. i’d like to see less “autism representation” that isn’t actually canon (even though we do love some of the characters, if you have to go find an interview with a producer where they say probably in order to find out the character’s autistic, it’s not canon).

now time for our specialized little rambles!

so i’m going to start with another quick explanation of fictives again because it’s extremely relevant right now.

again, a system is multiple people in one body. individuals within a system are system members (there are many different terms, that’s what we prefer). fictives are system members who are/are based on/are versions of characters

i’m a fictive of danny becket from the webcomic sharp zero and honestly we all love sharp zero! it’s extra fun now because it’s one of the special interests we all share and it’s my source and i’m double autistic (system as a whole is autistic, and I was autistic to begin with) so i now have this intense special interest surrounding... myself??? anyway, sharp zero is great because

sharp zero doesn’t go “the autism one is pure and innocent <3″ sharp zero goes “the autism one drags a corpse through a magic portal to perform a ritual to resurrect him” and that’s pretty cool

also explicitly showing the use of stim toys!! tangle spotted

~Danny

I’m a fictive of Julian from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and I’m one of the favorite cases of representation for most of the system, which is very interesting for me. In the show, it’s a case of unnamed disorder, which my parents tried to ‘fix’ via genetic engineering. I specifically matter to the system because of one particular parallel.

When I was a child, my parents noticed me ‘falling behind’ and decided to ‘fix’ me, and then proceeded to hide that information from me. When I was 15, I found out what they’d done, and began going by a different name.

When the body was a child, we were going to a neurologist for other reasons, and the parents were told that we’re most likely autistic but to not get a diagnosis ‘unless it gets in the way’. They proceeded to hide that information from us. When we were 15, we found out about that. Around the same time, the old host came out as trans and began using a different name.

That parallel is very important to most of our system members, especially the old host.

Despite it never being stated that I’m autistic, and it being implied that my parents may have succeeded in their attempt to ‘fix’ me, it’s clear from my behaviour that they didn’t. Even if they had, it was clearly shown that what they did was illegal and wrong, and that it did direct harm to me. But every autistic person we’ve met who has watched DS9 has taken one look at me and said something along the lines of that man’s a whole autism.

I’m shown having clear interpersonal issues, including trouble with social cues and clear implications that I never had friends before arriving on DS9. My own parents thought a half-finished hologram with no personality who didn’t recognize them was me.

I think that kind of representation is important. The kind where things did go wrong, where there has been suffering and loneliness, and it takes time, but a support system does get found.

-Julian

k now y’all need someone who isn’t just sorta talkin about themself i think, who fuckin knew i’d be the one who was giving the general system-wide opinion

so, rep is really important to all of us, seeing people who’re like us. makes us all feel like someone might actually understand it and understand us

our favorite autistic rep is probably julian, which is real fun with him being here and all that. and i mean it’s actually fun and we all get each other. the way our system works, the way we have a mostly-shared memory, means that we all really get it, and all of us relate to julian a lot in one way or another

anyway, a while back we started lookin’ for books with autistic rep by autistic authors and the first one we found was on the edge of gone by corinne duyvis, and we’ll always have a soft spot for it cuz it’s really good and it was the first one we got

-trip

[girlofmanyfandoms]

Forbidden Spicy Gatorade Chronicles Chapter One

A/n: Ok, so the cult is getting stronger by the minute so if you haven’t been introduced yet, don’t be offended! I’ll try to go through everyone and introduce you in the next chapter. Erica (@the-never-ending-void) has asked not to be included in this fic.

Key:

Tater - @a-lonely-tatertot 

Lynn - @lesbilynnette

Gray - @silver-snow

Lilah - @tribblemakingalicorn

Cadence - me

Ivy - @imaramennoodle

Molly - @molly-sencen

Farris - @everyonehasthoughts

Speens - @an-absolute-travesty

Holes - @holesinmyfalseconfidence

Connor - @linhammon-roll-bromance101

Panda - @worldwidepandamonium

Meg - @ultralazycreatorfan

Word count: 2,382

Warnings: If you’re reading this, you already know what’s about to pop off

Lilah poked Cadence’s shoulder who promptly rolled over. Lilah poked her several more times, a bit more aggressively. Grumbling Cadence sat up quickly and smacked her head on the top of the bunk bed. She sighed, rubbing her forehead. Her eyes slowly adjusted to her surroundings, taking in the strangely black, purple, and gold aesthetic room.

“Why’d you wake me up?”

“You got a notification,” Lilah said, eyes wide open, handing her the phone, slowly walking out of their shared room.

Cadence furrowed her brows, unlocking the phone before calling out to her roommate. “Wait, how long have you been up?”

“OREOS!” she called back. “Where are the keys?”

“On the kitchen counter,” Cadence replied, checking her emails. 1 unread message from Gray, the AI developer who she made small talk with during lunch breaks.

Dear Cadence,

Good evening! There’s a new play coming out on Mainstreet, called The Facade, and I was approached by the team to create a promotional piece. I was hoping you could help, and we would split the rewards 50/50. The play is about a murder crime, which is plotted out in a series of intricate riddles. The plot twist: the lead detective was the murderer, and had been delaying her trial while she was pretending to gather evidence, and stealing from a suspect to gain enough money to flee. And her second in command was funding the plots without knowing that her boss was the mastermind behind it all.

Ok, now that my boss has read above the cut we can talk freely. The offer is real, and I WOULD like to split it 50/50, I just can’t stand talking all formal, y’know? Anyway, since you said you do animations and stuff as a side gig, I thought maybe you could make the animations, and I’ll edit and do the social networking? Idk, I’m just spitballing here, let me know what you think.

Also, Lilah directed me towards this email, she’s really good at tracking people down.

Sorry if I made any spelling mistakes, I haven’t slept in weeks,

Gray

“Huh,” Cadence huffed, glancing at the clock. 3 AM. She had time. So, grabbing her IPad, she opened Procreate and got to work. The Facade. Sounds interesting enough. But what to draw? A lock perhaps? A silhouette of the main character? Before she could decide, her phone buzzed again, a voice recording this time, from Lilah.

“Hey, so I just ran into two of the actresses from The Facade and they said they want to talk to you about it so you can create a better promotional vid, meet me at the local library, k bye.”

Cadence wished on a shooting star that at least an hour had passed by so the buses would be running. But how wrong she was. It was 3 AM. It was raining. And the library was at least a mile away.

“This should be fun,” she mumbled, grabbing her set of keys, her IPad, and a raincoat before jogging the mile it took to get to the library.

_______

By the time Cadence arrived her hair was drenched and she was so out of breath and tired she thought she was going to pass out. She looked for any sign of her roommate, but she was nowhere to be found. Instead, she saw three people sitting at a table chatting freely and crying laughing. The librarian wasn’t fazed in the slightest. On the contrary, they seemed to be enjoying it, leaning over the library’s registry system, talking with them. Quickly Googling “The Facade,” Cadence confirmed that the two ladies were the actresses from the play. The other one offered occasional comments, mostly just watching the occurrences that went on. Social anxiety kicked in and told her to run in the other direction, but she really needed the money. She forced herself to approach them.

“Hey, I’m Cadence,” I introduce myself nervously. “Lilah said you wanted to speak to me about promoting your play?”

“Cadence! Lilah mentioned your animations, and we thought it’d be a new, eye-catching way to get our work out there,” the first one chirped. “I’m Molly, by the way. I play the detective’s second in command.”

“And I’m Ivy,” the other one greeted. “I play the lead.”

Cadence expected the third person to introduce themself next, but the librarian took the initiative. “Hello, fellow human, you may address me as SPEENS, I accept liver sacrifices.”

“They do that all the time,” the third person assured her. “Tater, by the way. I’m not in the play, I’m just working on a novel with Molly. We met up here to talk to good ‘ol Speens when these bit-”

“Language,” Molly warned.

“When these lovely individuals,” Tater corrected, “decided to make this a research sesh for the book. As if we needed more work. I’m free to fly wherever the wind takes me.”

“Amen to that, sibling,” Speens responded solemnly, pulling five wine glasses and vodka out from under the desk like a bartender. Cadence looked confused, but not against it. “Say, where’s the rest of the crew? Lynn, Gray, Farris, and the lot of them?”

“Farris doesn’t work on the set,” Ivy reminded her. “They’re an archaeologist. Holes makes the sets for us.”

Speens wrinkled their nose, seemingly in disgust. “And the others?”

“Well, if you can take a break, we can meet up with them at the theatre. Even Farris, since I heard their last trip was a bust,” Molly offered.

Without a second thought, Speens put up a sign that read “The Librarian is Out.”

“Do they-”

“All the time,” Ivy nodded. “It’s kinda their thing.”

“But, yeah, Farris and Connor tend to hang around the set,” Molly explained. “They don’t bother anyone, no one bothers them. They’re a bit older, kinda like the authority figures of the group.”

“If authority figures would let you make a dumba-”

“Tater,” Ivy nudged.

Tater changed their wording. “-unwise move in order to see what would happen.”

“They’re responsible for us without being responsible for us, if that makes sense,” Ivy commented. “Let’s get going though, before someone blows something up.” She shot a sideways glance at Speens, who put a hand up in surrender.

________

Ivy swung open the doors to the theatre and immediately had to duck for cover. “What the HELL, Connor?”

They were holding onto some theatre seats, zooming back and forth the row on rollerblades, occasionally losing balance and having to sit down. After a particularly messy turn-around, they decided to crawl over to the red carpeted steps and laid there for a moment. Farris was perched in a seat a row down, calming watching as Connor seemed to be having an existential crisis. Upon seeing Tater and Cadence, Farris got up, carefully stepping around Connor. “New kids?”

“Farris, this is Tater, and that’s Cadence,” Ivy helped. “They’re helping us promote the play.”

“Congratulations, you’re adopted,” they vowed, though Tater looked confused. “What? I don’t make the rules. Oh, wait, I’m supposed to be the responsible one…. Ok, so I make the rules, but they can be bent if the alternative’s interesting enough. Right, Connor?”

“Uh huh,” he called from the floor tiredly. If he hadn’t spoken, he would have been deemed dead.

“Lynn and the rest of the gang are in the back,” Farris informed them, pulling a skateboard from under their seat and helping Connor stand. Connor’s rollerblades flailed a bit as he struggled to get up, but his arm was slung around Farris’s shoulder, supporting him.

“DO A KICKFLIP,” Connor prompted, his words slurred.

“Are you kidding, I haven’t skateboarded since I was six, I need an actual skate park to practice that,” Farris recounted. “And how drunk are you?”

“Yes,” he responded, giggling in a hiccupy way. “Does anyone have more vodka?”

“I got you fam,” Speens said, pulling out a suitcase of alcohol from thin air.

“Anyways,” Ivy interjected, trying to get the conversation back on track. “I’ll go get the others, wait here.”

Ivy returned with Gray, Lynn, Holes, Panda, and Meg, and introduced them accordingly. “Gray works on the special effects, Lynn designed everyone’s costumes, Holes makes the set, Panda is a theatre critic, and Meg is our concept artist.”

“So, other than animation, is there anything else you bring to the table?” Molly asked.

“Well, I do glass art,” Cadence supplied. “It’s probably not relevant, but when it’s still really hot and glowy, which is when you can shape it, it looks like it would make a good snack. Hell, it almost looks like Gatorade. I can show a picture if you’d like.”

Cadence took her phone out and everyone crowded around to see.

“More like Powerade, Gatorade doesn’t come in that kind of blue,” Speens added.

“F O R B I D D E N S P I C Y G A T O R A D E,” Connor yelled, startling Farris.

“NO,” Holes countered, clearly distressed. “Do NOT drink molten glass. You’d die!”

“You call it death, I call it adventure,” Molly smirked. “I’m here for it. C’mon Holes, live a little.”

“Sis, how have you made it to adulthood thinking like that?” Lynn questioned, looking a bit scared.

“And I know how to live, I’m living right now!” Holes countered.

“Sure you are, nerd.” Molly rolled her eyes. “And how many near death experiences have you had, huh?”

“Near death- okay, first of all, I am not a nerd-”

“You kinda are,” Tater mumbled. Holes gasped, putting a hand over her heart as if they were betrayed. “What? You are. You make a living off of reading books.”

“Used to, friend,” Holes clarified. “I’m a freelance artist now. I picked up this gig because of these fools. And good thing too, because now you’re about to poison yourselves! Second of all, um, none?! How many have you had?”

Molly clicked her tongue in disappointment. “Five. Blended corn, acorns, eating soap, eating paper, and an intense game of dodgeball. I haven’t even peaked with these experiences yet.”

“Immortal until proven mortal,” Connor finished for her.

Meg stood next to Molly and held her shoulders. “This girl, she’s going places.”

“Meg, not you, too, I swear to god-”

“sLuRp,” Ivy joined in, grinning from ear to ear.

Holes was getting hysterical. “What the actual hell is going on? Lynn, help me out here.”

“The Gatorade is Forbidden for a reason, kids,” Lynn tried to reason.

Gray stood up with a mischievous glint in their eyes. “Where can we get it?”

“From the crunchy forbidden chocolate powder, of course,” Connor chimed in. Panda gave him a high-five while Holes became paler and paler from the cult forming in front of their eyes.

“This one speaks the truth,” Panda shrugged.

“Ok, what even is crunchy forbidden chocolate powder?”

“Sand, duh,” Connor said matter of factly. “Add some vodka, a martini, and some olives, and you got one heck of a slushie.”

“So that means there must be Forbidden Chewy Lettuce and Flavoured Forbidden Chewy Lettuce,” Tater went on. “Grass and flower petals. Cursed, but not wrong.”

“Ooh, and crackle air can be limestones and sodium carbonate, pies are dirt, bread is wood, and hard candy is metal,” Panda proclaimed.

“Fidget spinners are Forbidden Bagels, too,” Connor helped. “I should know, I tried the other day and cut my lip.”

Farris ignored the last part of Connor’s rant. “The variety pack, I like the sound of that.”

“Farris you’re supposed to look after us and you’re condoning this?!” Holes shouted.

Farris mounted his skateboard. “I’m not condoning anything. I’m enabling and hyping them up without joining in. That’s some big brain stuff.”

“This is why they control the brain cell,” Ivy nodded. “WAIT, ARE MY CHICKEN NUGGETS BURNING?!”

“Ives, you literally set a timer on the microwave backstage, you’re fine,” Tater reassured Ivy, holding her from running to check on her meal.

“Oh, like you know anything about microwaves,” Ivy argued. “You microwave ice cream.”

“It takes too long to soften, and I’m impatient,” Tater defended, turning to address Holes. “And it is eaten with a spoon.”

“Do not start this debate again- you know what, Panda, get ice cream from the mini-fridge, we’re settling this here and now,” Holes demanded.

“I think the real question is why is ice cream so hard,” Speens mentioned as Panda brought a tub of Haagen Daz ice cream. Holes used a fork to attempt to chisel out part of the snack. It wasn’t very successful.

“I think that’s just how Haagen Daz works,” Cadence observed.

Holes saw this as an opportunity to gain some momentum in the argument. “Not just this brand! All ice cream works like that!!!”

“No,” Panda objected. “Not Breyer’s. That stuff is always just right when you need it. Hashtag not sponsored.”

“Did you just break the fourth wall?” Lynn asked. “You know what, I don’t wanna know, just for the love of all that is good in this world please don’t drink the Forbidden Spicy Gatorade.”

“Too late,” Cadence said. “It’s easily accessible. Also, I’m calling E so we can recruit her.”

“Holes, I know you’re hiding it from us,” Molly speculated.

“What are you talking-”

“You’re keeping the Forbidden Spicy Gatorade all to yourself because you know of its power and you want it all to yourself.”

“I don’t HAVE the Gatorade, and I’m explicitly telling you it’s going to kill you if you drink it!”

As the bickering went on, Lynn slipped off to the vacant staff lounge to pull out her phone. There had to be a supplier somewhere who would give them this. She searched for a few minutes, and, after a few dead ends, she finally found an investor. “Cha-ching. Forbidden Incorporated is in business,” Lynn smiled to herself.

“Forbidden Incorporated, eh?” Farris asked from the doorway. Lynn froze and cursed herself for forgetting to lock the door. Now Farris knew of her plans. “Tell you what, I’ll keep your secret under one condition: We split the money 50/50, and get equal control over the decisions. So, deal?”

Lynn hesitated. She wasn’t sure she could trust Farris, but seeing as this was the only way to stop Holes from knowing just yet, she had no other choice. “Deal.”

_______

A/n: So that was fun and took entirely too long to write. I hope you enjoyed it and if you’re in the cult and I didn’t include you, reblog this and I’ll make a list. The next chapter might focus on a smaller group bc there are like thirteen characters here and I’m tired. Peace out!