#anyway i am not writing this because i have the actual thesis to write and that is eating my brain

[bioluminescent-fungus]

every time I switch between writing fic (gazing longingly at a bullet-point outline) and writing my thesis (actually putting words on the page) I think a little bit about the crossover AU that lives in my head. the problem is that this crossover AU, the footnotes AU if you will, would be less "let's put these characters into anglo-saxon england" and more "let's translate the plot of this story into something that the beowulf poet would understand" which is different and probably entirely indigestible to a modern readership. but in my head it exists fully formed and I am very fond of it.

[sumquiasum]

In honour of Tanz Hamburg closing, list of lines that enable my trans Sarah reading.

Sarah @ Alfred: "Du hast was ich gern hätt'"

Krolok @ Sarah: "Ich geb' dir, was dir fehlt"

Krolok @ Sarah: "Du wirst dich in mir erkennen"

[delta-piscium]

asking whoever came up with quotes in academic papers for their hand in marriage, i love filling up my word count with quotes that explain my point so i don’t have to and they make me look so well read too, we shall have a spring wedding my love

[crossbackpoke-check]

56 and any Yamo pairing! 🫶

i just wheezed so hard when i saw what the song was i almost snorted coffee out of my nose i am so sorry for this one

#56 - kyoto phoebe bridgers + yamo

the story of how this song ended up on my wrapped is too long so it’s going in the tags but. let me set the scene for you.

2026 NHL GLOBAL SERIES™️ JAPAN - Presented by YPPI

November 13 & 14, 2026: Dallas Stars, Montreal Canadiens, Seattle Kraken, Vancouver Canucks

Saitama Super Arena, Saitama, Japan

It’s a pitiful excuse of a consolation prize for not being able to go to the Olympics, but Kailer’s not going to look a vacation horse in the mouth. The arena’s cool. It’s huge. The people are cool. There’s so many more of them than he thought there’d be with jerseys that have his name on the back, and a lot more that have the familiar orange and blue. He takes a picture of the fifth Oilers Yamamoto jersey he signs—this one’s the good Reverse Retro—and texts it to Connor, says,

no one here has even heard of mcjesus

and gets a moon face emoji in response. Leon’s influence. Kailer’s still never really deciphered what that one means, and he doesn’t think Connor knows either.

They don’t have a lot of time off between games, but Kailer’s trying to be a good tourist. His dad had been so happy when Kailer had told him about the series that Kailer’d had to stop him from trying to book a flight a year in advance, and his mom’s been just as bad, sending him every article she sees about Best New Spot in Tokyo! Cool Restaurant! Have You Seen This Japanese Cat Café? that she scrolls across on Facebook since June. Suzy’s in the same boat, so they’ve been crossing off their compiled travel-guide list together, looping in as many guys as they can. Everyone’s been pretty game. All the teams are crammed into close quarters at the same hotel, which means everyone wants to spend as much time as possible outside of it, and it helps that Kailer’s gotten pretty close with all the other guys that the NHL picked up as Global Series figureheads. Robo’s memes? Absolutely fire. The groupchat loves them.

For every item he crosses off the list, Kailer takes a picture and keeps it tucked in his phone notes. It’s like speed-running a scavenger hunt—they’re only here for four days—but he’s doing a pretty good job. His favorite so far has been all the gardens. They’re stunning, trees shining bright red and yellow, and every vendor has been selling maple candies, maple cakes, and even fried maple, though the official maple festival doesn’t start until next week. The second garden he visits, he does it on his own after practice, buying two cakes from a cart near the gate and walking until he loses the bustle outside. It’s easy to get lost in the winding pathways, heading deeper into the quiet, and there’s dozens of benches underneath the burnished leaves where young couples are tucked away on dates, or old friends are laughing and catching up. In some of the little clearings, there’s small shrines where people leave offerings, a prayer for good luck or good fortune.

Kailer stops at one without any people and sets the second maple cake on top of it, then sits and scrolls through all the texts that he’s missed. His mom gets replied to with a picture of him outside the garden gate, grinning and surrounded by other travelers. He sends his brother a picture of a trashy graphic I Love Japan t-shirt with the threat that he’ll buy one for him, and Kailer’s dad gets a picture of the meticulously arranged and cut bonsai that are across from the bench where he’s sitting. The Seattle groupchat gets a recycled meme from Robo, and he gets two thumbs up and an “LMAO” before he can even exit the thread. Finally, Kailer takes a picture of the half-eaten maple cake in his hand, holding it next to a fallen maple leaf on the bench, and gets halfway through typing another message before he thinks better of it.

(On the plane over, Drieds was reading them a story about how when they first introduced the high-speed railway, people were afraid to use it because they thought it would be too fast for their souls to keep up.

“Bro, if that were true, you just left your soul in the middle of the Pacific,” Ebs had laughed. “Planes are faster than trains.”

“Are they?” Matty asked. “Isn’t the train in Japan the fastest in the world?”

Drieds couldn’t make it through the rest of the story over the sound of everyone ripping Matty to shreds, so Kailer didn’t get to ask whether or not they found out anything about planes. Kailer’s not worried about his soul, but the logic makes a strange kind of sense; after all, he traveled 429 miles in five and a half hours once, and that was a little too fast for his heart to keep up.)

Fuck it. Kailer’s been trying to write a response for the past ten days, and he’s sick of swiping in and out of the message, staring at the keyboard so long he starts to see swirls in his vision.

Kailer drafts the text again and sends it, no context, no caption. A text travels faster than a high-speed train or a jet. Maybe it’ll pick his heart back up on the way.

[malpractice-morale]

fuck finishing my bsc before starting courses for the msc i hate my thesis so much rn i cannot continue working on it full time plus i need to catch up on work the bastard can accompany me through my first msc semester

[marymycete]

I don't even have an excuse for not being here my friends have just decided we're doing things every other day

[doomdoomofdoom]

With the ongoing investigation into the CEO Killer, it's interesting to see how little people know about police investigations. Which is funny, because most of that stems from Copaganda and is now kinda biting the cops in the ass.

Semi-Educated rambles about copaganda and real procedures below the cut

I say semi-educated because I am writing a thesis paper on copaganda, but much more about the brutality aspects and not the crime solving ones. I did write a much less intense paper on that almost ten years ago, and presumably some things have changed. Take my "expertise" with a grain of salt.

The Copaganda Thing

Copaganda (Cop Propaganda) is basically what the name suggests. Anything that makes police look good. Social media posts about community outreach, the adorable little K-9 units, kneeling next to a protestor that you brutalize after the camera turns off. But the massive elephant in the room here are Cop Shows. There are literally too many for me to name. NCIS, Blue Bloods, True Detective, any of those weird "live" police shows, and yes, Brooklyn 99, too. These shows (often produced in cooperation with the police btw) serve to humanize cops and portray them as good, honest people, who maybe have to cross the line sometimes but it's always for a good reason and they're always right and save the day! The other half of it is vastly misrepresenting how (and if) crimes get solved.

Reality

Ripping this band-aid off first: Police are dogshit at solving crimes. There are aspects technically outside their control, like that only about half of all crimes (excluding murder) actually get reported to the police. (Based on comparing the 'Uniform Crime Reports' and the 'National Criminal Victimization Survey') But this also means that the Police Clearance rates are only half of what they calculate. Numbers get further skewed by not accounting for a lot of online crimes because the system hasn't caught up with like, the 90s. Anyway, for reported crimes, investigations will lead to an arrest in about 20-25% of cases. Three out of Four cases die without ever apprehending a suspect. (While there are ways to deal with a case without an arrest, ask yourself if you think that's likely in a system that measures success by arrest numbers) Conviction rates (which vary massively depending on crime) even out to about 4%, or 2% of total known crimes. (x) Worth noting: Generally, violent crimes have higher clearance and conviction rates. For murder, the conviction rate is around 60% while larceny-theft can dip below 1% of reported crimes. (It's generally assumed that the number of known and reported murders is the same, as the NCVS doesn't track it. Because murder victims are bad at filling out surveys.) To recap: Police solve about 4% of crimes reported to them. Meanwhile in your average cop show, you've got a success rate of about 100%. That's a stark difference, even if you take only murder rates of 60%. If you're an average citizen who's the victim of a crime, the most helpful thing the cops will do is file a report you can submit to your insurance.

Forensics & Procedures

I've seen these float around a bit and it's mildly ridiculous. Supposedly they've found a bottle and a protein bar of our killer and will be testing fingerprints and DNA. If those worked flawlessly, they still would only bring up results if the killer has been detained before. Databases of random civilian fingerprints/DNA samples are not kept by law enforcement. These analyses only work by having a point of comparison (and even then fingerprint analysis remains subjective), so they won't actually help finding the culprit, but they would be relevant to confirm the identity of an apprehended suspect and as evidence in an eventual trial. (There is also something called familial DNA which would work if they had a couple of relatives in the system, but that's both a flawed and incredibly time intensive approach. We're talking months of drawing family trees.) Also your average DNA test takes like 24 hours and fingerprint analysis is algorithmically supported now, but still mostly done manually. And both require a clear sample, so good luck with that. Fingerprint might as well be the clerk who sold the bottle. There's an infamous case of a serial killer whose DNA kept being found on crime scenes all Central Europe with no connection to each other. Turned out the Swabs were contaminated during production. There was no serial killer. Quickfire round of unrelated notes: 1) Lie detectors don't detect lies, they detect stress, anyone can trick one with some practice. the guy who popularized their use thought they could detect stress in plants too and that the plants could read his mind. 2) We're not actually sure if all fingerprints are completely unique. 3) Bite mark analysis is a pseudoscience that needs to be removed from criminal and legal proceedings asap. 4) Any algorithmic detections inherit the flaws of their human predecessors. Those are their training data. (That's also how they keep turning up racist)

And as a final note, it's common for the police to not share details on their ongoing investigations. That's just common sense. The only details that get released to the public are ones that could lead to direct hints or vague ones if there's a lot of public attention, to assure everyone there is progress. For similar reasons, while everyone and their grandma has put together the motive from the bullet casings, cops can't actually go out and confirm that. It's like how Bulbapedia has to say Flamigo appears to be based on a flamingo. Contrary to the cops, Bulbapedia does not have to carefully watch what data they release that might elicit more sympathy for Flamigo.

Why tho

So after literal decades of copaganda brainwashing, the public perception of crime and punishment is heavily skewed. We've been told over and over that cops can catch any criminal in a matter of a 60 minute episode, max. And that's by design. Aside from the image polishing, copaganda is a deterrent. If you're convinced you'll be caught after committing a crime, you wouldn't commit it, right? You don't wanna go to jail. And the bad guys always get what they deserve on TV, no matter how smart they are. You're not gonna risk that, are you?

That's why we keep using lie detectors, that's why the news are full of arrests being made constantly, that's why cop shows get so much support from the police. That's also why we keep pouring money into policing. Part of it, at least. We've built a police force that isn't about solving crimes. If that was priority, we'd invest more into forensics and labs to keep up with the demand of samples that need to be analyzed. Instead, we built a police force that gets new tech gadgets and military gear. It's an arms race against the general public that isn't even running. We take cops and we give them paranoia, weapons, justifications for violence, and targets to brutalize. I don't have to remind you of the riot gear and responses to peaceful protests. The police isn't your friend and helper. You must fear them. Fear their superior intellect, fear their crime solving abilities, fear the high tech arsenal at their disposal. Fear them so much, you won't even think of doing a crime unless you're rotten to the core. And if someone's rotten to the core, then surely the violence is justified.

But that's also why this guy in particular is so dangerous. They've built up this image of being near infallible (to anyone who never actually interacted with police proceedings, at least) and being able to stop any threat, catch any criminal. And yet, this guy shot someone in broad daylight, in the juristiction of the country's largest police department, and he's currently getting away with it.

[ask-the-rag-dolly]

okay . while i was writing the essay , i was going on a big spiel about how fandoms often reduce characters to familiar archetypes . then when i finished writing i realized i actually don't know what the Fuck i was yapping about because it all doesn't really apply to the tadc fandom post-ep 2 ? like Cool !! ragatha's an absolute loser of a woman , i think everyone has known that at this point .

basically ragatha's not the Best model for when i want to talk about nice characters being mischaracterized in fandom because i stopped seeing people making her put-together anyway . i can think of other characters that'll fit the thesis better .

i'm only deciding to post what i had down because i think i did say some stuff of note and because people were interested for . some reason ! . just keep in mind that it kind of became a nothingburger .

i'm in the middle of rewriting it to be less about the fandom though and my god it's already around 1118 words what am i doing with my life

also apologies in advance for the walls of text

——— this is not an essay to get you to like ragatha if you’re feeling meh towards her , or even dislike her . opinions are opinions , you have characters that appeal to you and i have mine ! this is just a ramblefest on why i love her , how people characterized her , and commentary on fandom culture as a whole

this is also not meant to bash any headcanons ! like good for you if you see her as the mother figure in the circus found family . the term ‘ mom friend ‘ here is used to describe how people often reduced her and similar characters down to a caretaker role for other characters while ignoring the Depth they have

as i think is clear in this blog by now , my favorite character in a piece of fiction has always been a mentally ill woman . the more complicated the brain , the better . i don’t have a type , but i know more often than not i would gravitate towards characters that are either misunderstood or disliked by most of the fandom

can you guess which category ragatha falls under —

don’t get me wrong , i am NOT generalizing tadc fans here ! the idea of her being a well-put together person lessened around episode 2 which is GREAT because i got to read very cool fics — and i’m not saying you have to know every part of ragatha’s thought processes to talk about her ( though at this point i think i’ve heard enough takes that makes me want to say that — )

‘ nice characters ‘ ( especially female ones ! ) in fandom never have the most pleasant development in my experience . either they will be pushed aside because they’re seen as boring compared to the more brasher characters or they’ll be disliked for the few times they did something seen as ‘ not so nice ‘ . and in the few times where they Are being paid attention , they’ll be put in an arbitrary box that waters down their traits .

in other words , fandoms put characters in boxes . terms like ‘ mom friend ‘ and ‘ cinnamon roll ‘ are those boxes . they're common tropes in media that fandoms typically like . it’s why people were so disappointed to find out that jax is actually an unlikable asshole instead of a ' jerk with a heart of gold ' — these boxes make the characters easy to consume and understand .

as you can tell , i don’t agree with putting characters in boxes ! first of all , how are they supposed to breathe in there ?

secondly , it’s just restricting yourself from genuinely engaging with a piece of media , especially for a character-driven story like tadc . i would be More forgiving of this problem if tadc was a plot-heavy show where the lore’s the main focus , but The Characters Are The Focus , Johnathan . trying to understand the characters personally to extract any potential moral lessons from them Is The Point of those types of stories

thirdly , i call those boxes arbitrary for a reason ; they often don't describe the characters at all , and in some cases , even goes against their characterization . my biggest problem with mom friend ragatha is that it Takes away the things that makes her interesting as a character .

do you know what's so compelling about ragatha ? it's that , believe it or not , she is Not the most reliable . one of the most fascinating things with ragatha in episode two is how it shows her approaching emotions Vs. Pomni approaching emotions .

even though it's unintentional , ragatha can be seen as Dismissive and Overbearing . the way she tried to reassure pomni of not feeling hurt by being left behind can seem Passive-Aggressive . her conversation with kinger shows that she Assumes what the other person thinks without hearing them out . this contrasts against pomni who lets gummigoo speak out his feelings and actually had viable things to say than ' don't worry about it haha '

this contrast is interesting to note because it shows the world of difference between ragatha and pomni's emotional maturity .

you can tell that ragatha can be simple-minded . not in a ' she's a dumbass ' way , but in that she's Reluctant to approach uncomfortable emotions without beaming it with a ray of positivity . like you can tell she thinks that Repressing her emotions to the point she can't feel them is the same as ' processing ' them . all of these are stuff that don't fit the Mature Mom Friend archetype .

and that's Fine !! because she was never meant to be in the role anyway !! there's a common theme of Community and Support in tadc , and that Everyone Has Each Other . ragatha was never meant to be the Glue holding everyone together , she's meant to be a part of the Unit that is the circus .

there's also a conversation to be had about how older female characters — or at least characters that are seen as having stereotypically ' feminine ' traits of being kind and caring — are often being pushed to a reductive , supportive familial role that reinforces gender roles , but you didn't hear it from me !

anyways uh in conclusion ragatha's awesomesauce ok i'm going back to drawing

[guardevoir]

Why is it that I, haver of no patience, endurance, object permanence, or general good sense, am also so terminally attracted to gigantic mammoth projects that nobody with two braincells to rub together would want to attempt?

(also, why is that project I'm rotating in my mind like a well-done blorbo never the stuff I'm supposed to be working on? I literally have a whole fucking masters thesis to write, about a topic I actually like (and which I will talk about at length if anyone asks, hint hint))

Anyway.

I can spin, crochet, knit (badly) and weave (in three, soon to be four, different flavors). I've sewn things before. I've been severely eyeing nålbinding for a while and actually do have a needle for it.

I am mightily tempted, positively entranced, by the idea of making a whole outfit by hand. Spinning, potentially dyeing, making it into clothes, the whole deal. Bottoms, top, layering for warmth, accessories, all handmade completely from scratch. It would be the project of a lifetime. It would take a lifetime.

The only thing keeping me safe right now is that wool directly on the skin doesn't sound like a great time because even if it ain't itchy, it would be kind of a pain to wash, I don't trust myself to spin a cotton or linen yarn that's both fine and sturdy enough to weave with, and I think a crocheted base layer would be too bulky.

(Also I'd probably have to deal with the Vague Dysphoria of skirt, because I am *not* sewing pants, but I'd do it for the aesthetic. Also, Secret Pants might be a fun third option)

But dear fucking lord, the lure of the "Strange Temporally Displaced Pasture Gremlin"-Core outfit is strong.

[hazzabeeforlou]

i had a question and i hope that it doesn’t sound rude. do you feel ashamed being in the fandom and being a shipper at 32? i ask because i am 27, and have been in the fandom since 2012, off and on. i haven’t rly been in it actively for the last two years or so, but when i want to come back, i feel embarrassed. i also don’t think i could handle the stress of it tbh! lol. i hope you are well <3

I was going to answer this yesterday but then remembered I had a 7 hour drive today and didn’t want to stay up later than I already was. Because I’m an adult, with (now one) previous multiple jobs, a pet, rent, vehicle, three post high school diplomas, and student loans, and there are many things in my life I get ashamed of, like when I answer “you too” when a cashier tells me thanks for shopping or when I let a whole bag of celery go bad in my fridge without ever cleaning or eating it. Shame? At my tax dollars funding death weapons and family members voting for strong men? Sure. Latent homophobic internalized shame from my upbringing? Yeah, sometimes.

But life is too fucking short to be embarrassed or hold shame about a FANDOM. Listen, I “ship” Johnlock, or Merthur, but Larry wasn’t a ship for me it was a discovery of queer joy. Like I’m so sorry but baby Larry was real. 100%, actually, seriously legit, like how else do you fucking explain any or all of that. We watched two boys fall in love with each other and okay we don’t know the devil or the details but we have how many albums and interviews, jokes made by media personalities etc, plus the fact that now, this many years later, their solo stuff is still haunted by a nauseating back and forth, these odd lyrical choices that are echoed in the other?

Yeah it’s not a ship. It’s a thing that happened, that we witnessed, and by virtue of it happening and us witnessing it something about gay love became dreamable, reachable, attainable, soft and puppy and exciting and wild. Their secret sign language and mimed blow jobs and jealous looks and touches when they thought there were no cameras, all those things made queerness not just something you saw on Glee. Not just something your parents talked about while wrinkling their nose up about ‘those people.’ It’s a generational thing, the world has moved on, we don’t NEED Larry anymore. And that’s okay. But we don’t need it because it happened. Not to be a brat but you exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.

And yeah, we wrote fics about highly characterized and publicized versions of Larry, often inserting our own traumas or fantasies, creating a kind of gay mythos around this witnessed event from the periphery, from the lens of the consumer, the only lens we have. But I’m not ashamed of that. You think stories are only ever written about people that don’t exist? At some point you have to acknowledge that in our world, celebrities are the deities of our popular imagination. I could write a thesis, but before I get into the weeds, suffice to say Harry and Louis have created a world of what can be, unburdened by what has been.

Yk? Anyways. Hope this made you feel better. And hope you come back to visit from time to time. I’ll be here.

[sneezypeasy]

Why I Deliberately Avoided the "Colonizer" Argument in my Zutara Thesis - and Why I'll Continue to Avoid it Forever

This is a question that occasionally comes up under my Zutara video essay, because somehow in 2 hours worth of content I still didn't manage to address everything (lol.) But this argument specifically is one I made a point of avoiding entirely, and there are some slightly complicated reasons behind that. I figure I'll write them all out here.

From a surface-level perspective, Zuko's whole arc, his raison d'etre, is to be a de-colonizer. Zuko's redemption arc is kinda all about being a de-colonizer, and his redemption arc is probably like the most talked about plot point of ATLA, so from a basic media literacy standpoint, the whole argument is unsound in the first place, and on that basis alone I find it childish to even entertain as an argument worth engaging with, to be honest.

(At least one person in my comments pointed out that if any ship's "political implications" are problematic in some way, it really ought to be Maiko, as Mai herself is never shown or suggested to be a strong candidate for being a de-colonizing co-ruler alongside Zuko. If anything her attitudes towards lording over servants/underlings would make her… a less than suitable choice for this role, but I digress.)

But the reason I avoided rebutting this particular argument in my video goes deeper than that. From what I've observed of fandom discourse, I find that the colonizer argument is usually an attempt to smear the ship as "problematic" - i.e., this ship is an immoral dynamic, which would make it problematic to depict as canon (and by extension, if you ship it regardless, you're probably problematic yourself.)

And here is where I end up taking a stand that differentiates me from the more authoritarian sectors of fandom.

I'm not here to be the fandom morality police. When it comes to lit crit, I'm really just here to talk about good vs. bad writing. (And when I say "good", I mean structurally sound, thematically cohesive, etc; works that are well-written - I don't mean works that are morally virtuous. More on this in a minute.) So the whole colonizer angle isn't something I'm interested in discussing, for the same reason that I actually avoided discussing Katara "mothering" Aang or the "problematic" aspects of the Kataang ship (such as how he kissed her twice without her consent). My whole entire sections on "Kataang bad" or "Maiko bad" in my 2 hour video was specifically, "how are they written in a way that did a disservice to the story", and "how making them false leads would have created valuable meaning". I deliberately avoided making an argument that consisted purely of, "here's how Kataang/Maiko toxic and Zutara wholesome, hence Zutara superiority, the end".

Why am I not willing to be the fandom morality police? Two reasons:

I don't really have a refined take on these subjects anyway. Unless a piece of literature or art happens to touch on a particular issue that resonates with me personally, the moral value of art is something that doesn't usually spark my interest, so I rarely have much to say on it to begin with. On the whole "colonizer ship" subject specifically, other people who have more passion and knowledge than me on the topic can (and have) put their arguments into words far better than I ever could. I'm more than happy to defer to their take(s), because honestly, they can do these subjects justice in a way I can't. Passing the mic over to someone else is the most responsible thing I can do here, lol. But more importantly:

I reject the conflation of literary merit with moral virtue. It is my opinion that a good story well-told is not always, and does not have to be, a story free from moral vices/questionable themes. In my opinion, there are good problematic stories and bad "pure" stories and literally everything in between. To go one step further, I believe that there are ways that a romance can come off "icky", and then there are ways that it might actually be bad for the story, and meming/shitposting aside, the fact that these two things don't always neatly align is not only a truth I recognise about art but also one of those truths that makes art incredibly interesting to me! So on the one hand, I don't think it is either fair or accurate to conflate literary "goodness" with moral "goodness". On a more serious note, I not only find this type of conflation unfair/inaccurate, I also find it potentially dangerous - and this is why I am really critical of this mindset beyond just disagreeing with it factually. What I see is that people who espouse this rhetoric tend to encourage (or even personally engage in) wilful blindness one way or the other, because ultimately, viewing art through these lens ends up boxing all art into either "morally permissible" or "morally impermissible" categories, and shames anyone enjoying art in the "morally impermissible" box. Unfortunately, I see a lot of people responding to this by A) making excuses for art that they guiltily love despite its problematic elements and/or B) denying the value of any art that they are unable to defend as free from moral wickedness.

Now, I'm not saying that media shouldn't be critiqued on its moral virtue. I actually think morally critiquing art has its place, and assuming it's being done in good faith, it absolutely should be done, and probably even more often than it is now.

Because here's the truth: Sometimes, a story can be really good. Sometimes, you can have a genuinely amazing story with well developed characters and powerful themes that resonate deeply with anyone who reads it. Sometimes, a story can be all of these things - and still be problematic.*

(Or, sometimes a story can be all of those things, and still be written by a problematic author.)

That's why I say, when people conflate moral art with good art, they become blind to the possibility that the art they like being potentially immoral (or vice versa). If only "bad art" is immoral, how can the art that tells the story hitting all the right beats and with perfect rhythm and emotional depth, be ever problematic?

(And how can the art I love, be ever problematic?)

This is why I reject the idea that literary merit = moral virtue (or vice versa) - because I do care about holding art accountable. Even the art that is "good art". Actually, especially the art that is "good art". Especially the art that is well loved and respected and appreciated. The failure to distinguish literary critique from moral critique bothers me on a personal level because I think that conflating the two results in the detriment of both - the latter being the most concerning to me, actually.

So while I respect the inherent value of moral criticism, I'm really not a fan of any argument that presents moral criticism as equivalent to literary criticism, and I will call that out when I see it. And from what I've observed, a lot of the "but Zutara is a colonizer ship" tries to do exactly that, which is why I find it a dishonest and frankly harmful media analysis framework to begin with.

But even when it is done in good faith, moral criticism of art is also just something I personally am neither interested nor good at talking about, and I prefer to talk about the things that I am interested and good at talking about.

(And some people are genuinely good at tackling the moral side of things! I mean, I for one really enjoyed Lindsay Ellis's take on Rent contextualising it within the broader political landscape at the time to show how it's not the progressive queer story it might otherwise appear to be. Moral critique has value, and has its place, and there are definitely circumstances where it can lead to societal progress. Just because I'm not personally interested in addressing it doesn't mean nobody else can do it let alone that nobody else should do it, but also, just because it can and should be done, doesn't mean that it's the only "one true way" to approach lit crit by anyone ever. You know, sometimes... two things… can be true… at once?)

Anyway, if anyone reading this far has recognised that this is basically a variant of the proship vs. antiship debate, you're right, it is. And on that note, I'm just going to leave some links here. I've said about as much as I'm willing/able to say on this subject, but in case anyone is interested in delving deeper into the philosophy behind my convictions, including why I believe leftist authoritarian rhetoric is harmful, and why the whole "but it would be problematic in real life" is an anti-ship argument that doesn't always hold up to scrutiny, I highly recommend these posts/threads:

In general this blog is pretty solid; I agree with almost all of their takes - though they focus more specifically on fanfic/fanart than mainstream media, and I think quite a lot of their arguments are at least somewhat appropriate to extrapolate to mainstream media as well.

I also strongly recommend Bob Altemeyer's book "The Authoritarians" which the author, a verified giga chad, actually made free to download as a pdf, here. His work focuses primarily on right-wing authoritarians, but a lot of his research and conclusions are, you guessed it, applicable to left-wing authoritarians also.

And if you're an anti yourself, welp, you won't find support from me here. This is not an anti-ship safe space, sorrynotsorry 👆

In conclusion, honestly any "but Zutara is problematic" argument is one I'm likely to consider unsound to begin with, let alone the "Zutara is a colonizer ship" argument - but even if it wasn't, it's not something I'm interested in discussing, even if I recognise there are contexts where these discussions have value. I resent the idea that just because I have refined opinions on one aspect of a discussion means I must have (and be willing to preach) refined opinions on all aspects of said discussion. (I don't mean to sound reproachful here - actually the vast majority of the comments I get on my video/tumblr are really sweet and respectful, but I do get a handful of silly comments here and there and I'm at the point where I do feel like this is something worth saying.) Anyway, I'm quite happy to defer to other analysts who have the passion and knowledge to give complicated topics the justice they deserve. All I request is that care is taken not to conflate literary criticism with moral criticism to the detriment of both - and I think it's important to acknowledge when that is indeed happening. And respectfully, don't expect me to give my own take on the matter when other people are already willing and able to put their thoughts into words so much better than me. Peace ✌

*P.S. This works for real life too, by the way. There are people out there who are genuinely not only charming and likeable, but also generous, charitable and warm to the vast majority of the people they know. They may also be amazing at their work, and if they have a job that involves saving lives like firefighting or surgery or w.e, they may even be the reason dozens of people are still alive today. They may honestly do a lot of things you'd have to concede are "good" deeds.

They may be all of these things, and still be someone's abuser. 🙃

Two things can be true at once. It's important never to forget that.

[choccy-milky]

Okay so I read your entire fic in three days and I LOVE IT!? ITS SO GOOD!?! I am supposed to be studying for finals and instead have spent 72 hours definitely not doing that. I originally got into your fic because I saw your drawings from different scenes and OH MY GOD THEYRE AMAZING. The way you draw Seb makes me want to bang my head on the table (in the best way ever)…that boy does things to me. The whole thing is just uGHHH chefs kiss amazing work love it love you amazing

AWW TYY IM GLAD YOU LIKED IT SM (ENOUGH TO BINGE IT AND IGNORE SCHOOL) AND THAT YOU LIKE HOW I DRAW SEB TOO💖💖😍😍😍

LMAOO but fr as a procrastinator and horrible student myself, im pleased with this theme of interfering with ppls schoolwork/thesis/whatever else to read my fic...im dragging yall down with me...just stop using your brain and enjoy sexy seb aha😜 (ILY TOO GOOD LUCK ON UR FINALS)

@jstfndmthngs omg thank you for such a long and in depth ask i hope u dont mind i just screenshotted it and cut it into 2 BAHAHA but THANK YOUU im glad youre enjoying it so far!! 🥹💖AND YESSS BAHAHA IVE ALSO BRAINWASHED YOU TO SEE SEB AND CLORA WHEN YOU SEE A BLONDE + BROWN HAIR COUPLE mission accomplished😈😈 and I LOVE THAT YOU DAYDREAM ABOUT SEB AND CLORA TOO!!! people thinking about your fic/art when theyre not actively reading it is the highest honour fr...😭🙏 AND BAHAHA I REMEMBER THAT COMMENT THREAD ABOUT LEANDER AND HIS LITTLE GARDEN PATCH LMAO and him and seb competing as neighbors/dads over who has the better yard...LMAO im putting in my oneshot that leander lives close by, i might try and find a way to allude to that if i can LMAOO speaking of IM GLAD YOURE LOOKING FORWARD TO THE ONESHOT 💖💖 ive been working on the outline every day the past few days and its 24k words AND THATS JUST THE OUTLINE😭😭LIKE DAWG i was planning on this oneshot to just be short and sweet BAHAHA but i forgot im fluent in yappanese...then i just kept thinking of cute pregnancy moments i wanted to add so it spiralled....BUT ANYWAY I HOPE I CAN FINISH IT SOON!!🙏 also im so impressed you only read 1 chap of my fic a day BAHAHA i admire the self restraint bc i could never...but i feel you with wanting to make things last. LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU CATCH UP!!🥳AND TY AGAIN!!💖💖

omg anon this is diabolical...at first i was imagining it as seb being the one caught in the time loop and going crazy, but i actually think its better if its clora... because the idea of seb watching her slowly spiral into semi-insanity while knowing its bc of some weird time shenanigans and he doesnt know how to help would also make SEB go crazy BAHAHAH. i dont think ill ever write this but i just wanted to tell u i love this idea LOL

aw TYYYYY!!! i’m honoured u think so omg😭🥹💖 you sent this a while ago (before all of the recent family posting ive been doing) BAHAHA so i hope youre enjoying the kid content bc u manifested it girl🥰 and trust me i aint doing work for the fandom, the fandom is doing work for ME!!! by continuing to humour my brainrotted ass😔🙏

"they're my legal parents now" followed by "so anyway can you draw them going down on each other" LMFAOOOOO💀💀💀thank you i love you anon. and i HAVE been wanting to draw this for a while so YES!! i just cant guarantee when...but the day SHALL come rest assured🫡😇

[rotisserory]

Aventurine Is BPD Coded- Some Thoughts

Ahhh welcome back everybody to another installment of 'Rory writes a ridiculously long essay nobody asked for to shine light on characters who exhibit symptoms of borderline personality disorder so that we can learn to recognize symptoms portrayed in media that aren't just 'crazy manipulative abusive ex' and start to treat the disorder with a shred of compassion' !!

A good chunk of you follow me because of my essay I wrote on Reo Mikage from Blue Lock, my beautiful borderline princess, and I am PLEASED to announce that my essay is now the first result when you search 'Reo Mikage BPD' on Google, AND he has since been added to the BPD character database !! Saving the world one baddie at a time, no need to thank me B)

Today, I want to write something out that I've been dying to share. I think Aventurine can be read as a BPD coded character, and I think he would be able to cop a diagnosis should he go see a therapist (which we all know he CLEARLY has not done). I've been puttering around posting this because I've been spending so long on a full, all encompassing analysis of this sick blonde man, but I want to take a quick break and kick my feet over BPD Aventurine, so I invite you to come kick your feet with me!

Some context before I start:

1.) Borderline representation is extremely important to me. I've got the BPD / CPTSD combo meal, so I'm having TWICE the fun !! But seriously though, it's not easy being viewed as crazy and 'bad' all the time. Trauma disorders are rough enough as it is just to live with / overcome, but it's worse when there are books, forums, blogs, shows, ect. dedicated to hating you and talking about how evil you are. So, I get really excited when I spy BPD-coded characters (especially if they're likable people and not just ghoulish irredeemable villains or manic pixie dream girl characters). Fans, characters, and even Aventurine himself refer to him as 'crazy' 'insane' 'unstable' which only further rang my BPD bells because he's not crazy; he's just traumatized!

2.) I’m not a psych, so I obviously can’t diagnose real people, and don’t use any of this to diagnose yourself (I don't need the scandal!) I do, however, have a masters degree in English and structured the basis of my education and published my thesis on mental health, cluster B personality disorders specifically, so I read and research a LOT. I’m confident enough in my knowledge to diagnose anime characters (lol).

3.) If you're somebody who has a weird hangup about borderlines, feel free to either not read this, or do read it and soak up some useful information! Regardless, I know Aventurine fans can have some really wild takes (/neg) , so believe what you want at the end of the day! This is just my interpretation of what's festering in that sad brain of his. You can disagree all you want to, but what we're not going to do is spread hateful stereotypes or perpetuate negative stigmas about BPD! That's cornball behavior and I will call you out for it ^-^

CW for discussion of death, suicide, self injury, and identity disturbances

Anyways, if you ask me, Aventurine has a case of Beautiful Princess Disorder, and I'd like to explain why <3 So, buckle up! This will be another long one.

First, let me define BPD: it's a personality disorder characterized by a long-standing pattern of instability in mood, interpersonal relationships, and self-image. Though it's coined as a 'personality disorder', I urge you to look at it as a trauma disorder. People most often develop it when they are repeatedly traumatized during their formative years. It actually overlaps a TON with complex post traumatic stress disorder, which is why a lot of us baddies end up with both! (On that note, you could definitely view Aventurine as CPTSD-coded as well! I'm a stinky kinnie so I'll just say he's both <3) I won't preach too much on why it's so necessary to treat borderline as a traumatic stress disorder (since hopefully I'll be focusing my own personal academic research on that and I could yap for HOURS about it lol).

But when we look at BPD properly, it's evident that the basis of this disorder is that these people didn't have the opportunity to learn and foster proper emotional reactions. Because of the recurring traumatic events, sections of borderline's brains are underdeveloped as a result. They have a smaller amygdala and they have reduced volume in the prefrontal cortex, as well as other differences in brain development. I've heard it described as 'you were forced to learn some behaviors that helped you survive at one point in your life (for example, maybe fervent efforts to avoid abandonment, unstable emotional reactions, self harming tendencies, lying, mirroring, etc.,) but now you need to unlearn them, because they’re no longer helping you.'  They're trauma responses.

Aventurine shows us a perfect example of the kind of shit that would make someone develop BPD: dude grew up in extreme poverty, was constantly told he was special and he was supposed to bring good luck, watched his entire family and race die in front of him when he was literally still just a kid, was kidnapped and sold into slavery, was forced to murder roughly 34 people while everybody watched him like it was a game, probably went through several other fucked up things while he was enslaved, and then killed his slave owner and was promptly sentenced to death for it. That's...a whole lot of ridiculous trauma that would severely impact somebody's ability to mentally grow and develop correctly. The bulk of his childhood/adolescence was spent with no safety, no security, overwhelming guilt, constant fight or flight reactions, learning how to take on other personas to avoid violence or mistreatment – you get the point. He did not have a normal life and it is absolutely probable that he would develop a trauma disorder from the shit he's been through.

So then, what behaviors/signs does somebody need to exhibit to receive a Borderline diagnosis? The 9 diagnostic criteria for BPD are as follows:

1. Fear of abandonment

2. Unstable or changing relationships

3. Unstable self-image; struggles with identity or sense of self

4. Impulsive or self-damaging behaviors

5. Suicidal behavior or self-injury

6. Varied or random mood swings

7. Constant feelings of worthlessness or sadness

8. Problems with anger, including frequent loss of temper or physical fights

9. Stress-related paranoia or loss of contact with reality

As with my last post, I'm going to organize this based on the 5 immediate traits I think Aventurine exhibits most (you only need 5 out of 9 to receive a diagnosis, so let me cut to the chase and stop wasting your time w my yapping).

Fear of Abandonment:

Aventurine has a habit of wanting relationships and then pushing them away once they get too close. He also clearly has trauma associated with losing people prematurely.

First of all, let's look at Aventurine's tendency to view relationships as transactional. With the expectation that a friendship, partnership – whatever –  is mutually beneficial, that generally implies both parties will leave satisfied once the 'transaction' is complete. That’s his parting line in the game, actually! “Satisfied with our transaction, I trust?” 

That being said, he's already prepared for people to leave when they're done getting what they want from him. In one trailer (and the game) he refers to himself as "another cog in the machine known as the strategic investment department" and then says, "Your humble servant aventurine at your disposal [...] I can also play the role of ‘friend’ – if needed; Go ahead, use me as you wish, even stab me in the back if you see fit."

This is a very strange thing to say upon first meeting someone LMAO. He's speaking of himself like he's an object, rather than a person. Before the other party even says anything, he's basically saying 'hey btw if you end up disappointing me in some way, i'm already prepared for it!' Establishing relationships with the assumption that the other person will betray you/abandon you/hurt you in some way? Borderline behavior. God forbid somebody does try to break down one of these walls, we'll see Aventurine's second habit to avoid abandonment: pushing people away.

Something people don't necessarily consider is that ‘efforts to avoid abandonment’ doesn't always mean the person is on their knees begging you to not to leave them. It can manifest as someone being very flighty and purposefully cutting ties randomly/pushing people away from them so that nobody is able to abandon them. If you leave first, they can’t leave you, right? This is a very common behavior for borderlines to avoid the pain that comes with being abandoned.

The most notable moment of this, in my opinion, is when Aventurine tries to gaslight himself into thinking that Ratio really did stab him in the back during their ploy against Sunday. As we know, their fighting, bickering, and Ratio's 'betrayal' were all part of Aventurine's plan. When they leave Sunday's office, Ratio immediately asks if he's okay and if he needs help, and Aventurine is very dismissive/a little rude in his response. Ratio is confused because Aventurine is talking as if he wasn't the one who MADE this plan and TOLD Ratio what to do:

Aventurine is basically saying, "Hey babe this is not in the script we talked about! Let's stay on track, remember? You hate me, you betrayed me, and now you're leaving me!" And Ratio is like "Yeah okay but are you good? Because you don't seem good,” but Aventurine's heels are so far in the dirt at this point that he is NOT budging at all. When he's in the Trauma Maze, Future Aventurine grills him on this moment:

I get why this part confused some people; why would Aventurine think this when the plan was his idea in the first place? Because, he subconsciously doesn't want to get too attached to the idea that Ratio might ACTUALLY care about him or want to help him. He's forcing himself to think "no, that's not what he was doing, he was planning on actually ratting me out all along, he was only asking about my wellbeing to get in my head."

However, I think it's evident that Aventurine wants relationships/attention just as much as everybody else does, he just won't let himself have it. To further this idea, I think the lyrics to White Night (the Penacony trailer theme song) are worth looking at (these specifically):

I don't wanna be alone tonightOh, lead me with your altered signThere's no one else left for me to loseHeadin' to the other side, other side

I don't wanna be alone tonightI'll bring you to my best disguise'Cause you don't need, don't need to know the truthLet me rave forever in your life

The song is obviously about Aventurine when you look at the lyrics, but these lines in particular just further my point that this man does NOT like the fact that he's alone. He wants relationships, he wants closeness, but he rejects it at the same time out of fear that he might lose somebody prematurely again and doesn't want to experience being abandoned or being rejected for his personality (his real one or his fake one), which leads me to...

Unstable Self-Image; Struggles With Identity or Sense of Self:

The shift from Kakavasha to Aventurine screwed this guy up REAL bad. A MASSIVE part of Aventurine's character, in my opinion, is his struggle with his identity/sense of self. I mean, he literally had to kill off who he used to be in order to live how he's living now, and he didn't have much of a choice in the matter. Jade sums it up pretty well when Aventurine is sat before her on trial: 

Aventurine joining the IPC comes with the price of...well, becoming 'Aventurine'. Since I'm clocking him with a BPD diagnosis, the identity disturbance would have probably happened before this moment, and I think it did. I'll bet it started festering after that first massive traumatic event where he watched his family die and tried to rationalize how that was possible with his 'good luck' (since that was really the only consistent idea he had about himself), and it probably only got worse when he became fixated on the fact that whoever tf he is, he's only worth 60 copper coins (did the math – that's about $3). That's gotta cause some massive identity issues. He's coined as this ‘good luck charm’, this ‘blessed child’, a ‘beacon of hope for the Avgins’, and somehow, he ended up in the absolute worst situation possible while simultaneously dooming all of the Avgins (obviously not his fault, but he thinks it's his fault).

When Jade tells him to pick a new identity, ironically he picks one that is everything he probably grew to hate after his childhood/adolescence.

Associating with the wealthy? The rich were the people who paid to brand him and enslave him. The IPC? Promised to help the Avgins but disappeared when the Katicans invaded, then came back and kidnapped him to sell him as a slave. Now he's both wealthy and a part of the IPC, and you have to wonder how he truly feels about it. We'll look into that more later. Regardless, he's not really 'free' now, even if he isn't technically owned by a master anymore. He's chained to the IPC because this is life now; this is his identity. Where else would he even go? What else would he do? (Die, perhaps?) It's not like he can go home, or go live a peaceful life out on the countryside somewhere. He made 'Aventurine' his entire life and his entire personality. On that note, I really like this quote from his third character story:

“The aventurine, that symbol of power and of the future, is about to be officially handed to him — Yet it would have no more allure or value in his eyes as soon he obtains it, even though he had sought it by putting his life on the line.

He returns to his office in a daze. The aventurine stone emits a peculiar glow on his desk, seemingly congratulating and mocking him at the same time."Was luck truly on your side when you wrestled with fate?"”

Did he really luck out with this one? Comparatively, of course, this is better than his life as a slave, but he essentially just traded his rusted chains for golden ones. Becoming Aventurine might wind up bringing him a lot more pain than it was worth. 

Also, the outfit he chose? Covered in gold, fur, and jewels, all materials that somebody who knows nothing about being rich would assume rich people wear in excess. It's evident in his tacky taste (sorry honey I love you so much but the hat is just crazy work you look like a pimp) that he doesn't know anything about how to dress himself. And I bully him for being tacky but it makes sense! He dresses exactly how you'd think an out-of-touch billionaire would dress. Back to his sense of identity: it's very important to establish that Aventurine feels guilty about taking on this persona! That's all 'Aventurine' is: a persona. If he were to die tomorrow, the IPC would dust off that stone and give it to another bozo who would end up being the next 'Aventurine'.

While he didn't initially develop this personality subconsciously and it was a 'choice' to start playing this role (not that he had a plethora of alternative options), the perpetuation is damaging him mentally. He does a good job of keeping up the act, obviously. This theme that his entire personality is just one big act is overarching through the entire Penacony quest, but there's one moment in particular I really liked: when Sparkle is being a jerk and he has this offhand comment about how he's so frivolous, vain, and flashy, and how he'd hate to live anywhere where it rained since his outfit is too expensive to get wet.

Then, we have this interaction in the maze: Future Aventurine brings up the memory of him and his big sister playing dead, floating in bloody water to avoid being killed by the Katicans when they attacked. He mentions that it was his father's shirt, the last one his father left behind before dying, and that it was ruined. Aventurine says it wasn't ruined, and he's always kept it. (I wonder if that's the shirt he wore during his time enslaved?) Future Aventurine grills him and asks ‘why keep it? This new person that you are would never wear something so dirty and old. 'Aventurine' wouldn't want that old rag, it's not worth any money. 'Aventurine' would never splash around in murky water like that; he wouldn't need to.’ Nobody is hunting him, now he's the hunter. Future Aventurine makes the snide comment that he bets Aventurine wouldn't even dare to go outside in the rain, let alone do any of the things Kakavasha had to do, since he's so much more elite now. Aventurine, clearly hurt by the implication, says that even after all this time, he's never changed.

Of course, he hasn't. Deep down, no matter how much he tries to trick himself and everybody around him, he's still the same scared, traumatized boy he always has been. His future self chastises him for having an inferiority complex and mentions that with every gamble he makes, he has his left hand shaking in fear behind his back.

But the constant pull to push Kakavasha down and keep up this act that 'Aventurine' is the real him obviously perpetuated the identity disturbance in him and made it a hundred times worse, to the point where (as Future Aventurine points out) the hole he's dug is basically impossible to climb out of.

Because of this, I interpret Aventurine to constantly be struggling with his identity, not knowing who really exists under all the masks he wears, not knowing if he or anybody around him will ever figure it out. I imagine he feels very empty and unfulfilled, since as I mentioned in the abandonment section, he doesn't want to be alone. But the higher he climbs on the social ladder, the further he can separate himself from other people. This is a classic issue borderlines face. We masquerade as something we think the people around us will like, someone WE might like, but it always ends up leaving us feeling more empty than before.

(This is just an added bonus to chew on, but I got stuck on this line when I played through Penacony:)

Do you think once he became Aventurine and got the money and the resources, he researched toys that normal kids play with? Fancy ones like building blocks, stuff that he would have never been exposed to as a kid? Obviously baby Kakavasha would not know wtf building toys looked like, and I'm sure teenage Kakavasha didn't have the opportunity to browse toy catalogs. But, he recognizes the toy even though he says he's never played with them before. Maybe he considered buying it but decided against it, since it doesn't fit his new persona. Kakavasha doesn't exist anymore, so there's no reason to nurture that part of him. Anyways, just wanted to hurt y'all a bit more. Speaking of hurting ourselves:

Impulsive or Self-Damaging Behaviors + Suicidal Behavior or Self Injury:

I'm combining these two because my points kept blending together, so bear with me lol.

Aventurine is known for being incredibly reckless and putting himself in the path of danger over and over again. When discussing how he tricked Sunday with the Cornerstones, Future Aventurine asks:

I want to exaggerate how crazy it is (i can say that i'm also a bpd baddie) that he smashed his Cornerstone. I don't think a Stoneheart has ever done that before. Their stone is what makes them a Stoneheart. Ratio mentions that without it, Aventurine would be back to being nobody. Remember: that's what makes him Aventurine. You know, the persona that required him to kill off his former identity? Their Cornerstones are more important than the Stonehearts’ lives, as stated multiple times. But that's just it: Aventurine doesn't GAF about his life. He doesn't mind putting his life on the line to pull off his plan because he has that deep-rooted desire to punish himself for everything he thinks was his fault. He gets called out for gambling with his life multiple times during Penacony, and while most of the time it's reduced to him just being crazy (cough, bpd) or just having a severe gambling problem. Extremely hot take, but I think he gambles literally as another way to hurt himself. I mean, look at what he says when you ask about his hobbies:

"There's no denying it, my fascination is with the game of chance... be it the exhilarating rush of triumph or the extensive emptiness that follows, both are worth savoring, time and time again."

Being impulsive and risky, betting his life over and over –  it makes him feel alive. He knows the end result will hurt, that he'll have to face that 'extensive emptiness' and the extreme guilt he feels regarding his continued good luck, but he does it anyway.

Speaking of betting, his bets are always 'all or nothing', seemingly every time. Future Aventurine calls him out on always risking everything with every gamble, asking:

"Do you truly believe the greater the risk, the greater the reward?"

Or...do you just not care what happens to you? He doesn't need to risk a lot; he's never lost. He could bet the lowest amount and still win every time, and make a lot of money depending on what everybody else bet. In fact, that would actually be a better strategy in gambling (poker/black jack specifically), because it would insinuate that he's not very confident with his hand and prompt the other players to bet higher, assuming that they'll beat him.

I imagine he gets a shred of dopamine betting everything he has knowing that he'll probably win, but hey, who knows? Then after winning and multiplying everything he has, I imagine that 'extensive emptiness' that he refers to is the feeling of 'oh good, more money. More status. More success. A reminder that no matter what I do, I'm stuck here in this role forever.'

For some reason, he also thinks that taking risks makes him appear more confident and secure. He makes a show of always keeping up the big bets and he boasts about how successful he is, while clutching his hand behind his back thinking 'oh god, is this it? will I finally lose this time?' He brings this up when he's speaking with himself and he says, 'How could a weak person take such daring risks?"

Oh, the delicious irony.

That raises the question, though: if he wants to die so badly, why hasn't he yet? It's not like he had an easy life. He fought very hard to stay alive, so why does he act so recklessly now?

I think at his core, he's scared. Dying is scary. His family is there in the afterlife; would they be disappointed in the person he’s become? At the same time, being alive is exhausting. The constant emotional pain this guy probably deals with every day? It's gotta be heavy.

His behaviors around suicide remind of a classic passively suicidal person with BPD: maybe they don't necessarily want to die, but they're tired. They don't have an active plan, but If something is going to kill them, they're not going to move out of the way.

So, carrying out his Penacony plan makes sense. Of course he’s not completely sure what will happen when Acheron kills him, but because he doesn’t have anything to live for, he’s fine gambling with his life. He makes a show of finally throwing out every last chip, too, no longer clutching them under the table in fear. He was fine with smashing the Aventurine stone because it's not like he was planning on using it after his final show; the little bit of power it had left in it was more than enough.

That being said, we do have to address this little number:

Aventurine attempted several times in Penacony, he admits it flat out. The writers even went sofar as to bold this line specifically! I think this does also go hand-in-hand with him being passively suicidal, since he's pretty sure he'll live when he attempts in the dream, but he's gonna try it SEVERAL times just to be sure. Mentally healthy people wouldn't try it... once, Aventurine!

As if we needed more evidence that Aventurine constantly puts himself in danger, you know I HAVE to mention...the light cone:

n case you haven't read the description for this light cone, let me share it with you:

"You don't believe me?"He (Aventurine) provocatively looks at the man (Ratio) before him, then draws out a revolver, empties its cylinder, and leaves a single shot in the chamber.

"Seems like I'll need to get you up to speed on how I do things if our cooperation were to remain amicable."He pushes the gun into his opponent's hand, spins the cylinder, and points the barrel to his own chest.

He pulls the trigger repeatedly, and the smile on his face remains the same after three empty clicks."Life is a grand gamble, and I'll always be the final victor."

Now what the HELL is this? Mind you, this is the first time Ratio has met this man!!! Imagine you meet your new mission partner for the first time and he puts a revolver in your hand and fires it thrice, then leaves. WHO does that? (...a baddie, perhaps!)

I don't think it's a secret to anybody who has spent a reasonable amount of time around Aventurine that there's something off about him, and that there's a really deep sadness running through him. There's some instances where other characters mention his passive desire to die – A few quick examples I can think of:

The instance in Story IV with Opal:

"Maybe luck won't be on your side this time, and the bill for all your past good fortune will come due [...] But isn't that what you've been longing for?"

Opal implies Aventurine wants to fail on Penacony, which, as we've discussed, is an accurate assumption. Jade says something similar after Aventurine's stunt: when Topaz says the light in his stone went out, Jade replies by saying "he got what he wanted."

Also, I’d like to point out that Ratio must have been anticipating that Aventurine would do something rash, since he wrote that note (doctor's advice) long before he started grilling him after the meeting with Sunday.

It's also worth noting the nod to T.S Eliot's "The Waste Land" (a very long poem about life and death). You get the achievement Sibyl, What Do You Want? after playing through the past of Kakavasha's life, and once you defeat boss Aventurine, you get the achievement She Replied, I Want to Die. I don't think that one needs an explanation, but boy does it hurt! (There's other, smaller nods to him being suicidal, like the Waiting for Godot achievement – Google the story if you're unfamiliar. Not as relevant, but I must mention it bc it makes my english major brain go brrrrr)

Also, overspending/gambling/being loose with money is a very common vice for borderlines to indulge in and harm themselves with. It's also implied that he drinks a decent amount. I counted 6 bottles of SoulGlad in his hotel room just from the angles I could see, and he's shown to be passed out at the bar when Ratio goes to get him before they go on their little date-I mean, mission. Aventurine says 'he must have drank too much', and whether or not that was true is irrelevant since it was a believable enough claim that Ratio bought it.

Borderlines are (usually) self-destructive in some capacity, and while some very annoying people assume it's for attention, it's so much more common for it to be because our inner emotions are just so out of whack. Sometimes, matching the inner pain with outer pain is a way to cope. They might also do it to try and combat-

Constant Feelings of Worthlessness or Sadness:

Probably the most nagging, prevalent feeling Aventurine deals with is the constant feeling of worthlessness. One thing about this man? He hates himself. Like, really hates himself. Take a look at the missions during his maze in Penacony. This one is one of my favorites:

It doesn't get much more on-the-nose than him calling himself a selfish, useless loser. He gets stuck on that word, in particular. Loser.

Aventurine, at his core, views himself as a massive loser. Is that ironic because of how much he wins? Not really. Money and materials are just part of the Aventurine persona. He's 'rich' in stuff, but he's not rich in what he actually wants. I think it's obvious that if he had the option to quadruple his wealth or see his sister again just one more time, we all know what he'd be picking.

The only thing he wants is connection – connection with his mother, his father, his sister, anybody at this point – but he can't have it. His family has been dead for a long while, and as I discussed before, his fear of abandonment and his luck scare him away from forming any other relationships. 

This luck, this destiny to be blessed, leads him to reflect on his life a lot and wonder what the hell the point is. He treats himself like some sort of walking curse, because he's convinced that his luck is bound to hurt other people. Every time he wins, somebody else loses. The luck that keeps him safe destroys everybody else around him. As Future Aventurine puts it:

His luck is "built on the pain of someone" else. This perpetuates the constant feeling of guilt, which in turn, makes him feel worthless. Why is it him that's spared every time?

Then, right before you start his boss fight, Aventurine says,

"The architect's flawed stone, of no value at all."

Some people speculate he's talking to the MC when he says this, but I can't help but assume that he's referring to himself. Even if it was directed at the MC, so much of what Aventurine says in his bluffs and boasts are just digs at himself. He's sort of an expert at hating himself, and what do people who hate themselves do if not project? Especially when you consider the fact that aventurine is actually a really cheap, undesired stone. It's like $3 a caret and mostly only used to rip people off and pose as jade. I really don't think it's a coincidence that his character is based around a stone that is, essentially, worthless.

The way that Aventurine is also prone to giving people ridiculous amounts of money/gifts can be read as a frantic effort to keep relationships going and prevent people from leaving him (relating to my points on both his feelings of worthless and his fear of abandonment). He has a skewed view on relationships, since the only value that's ever been associated with him is monetary value and that of his 'luck', which in every context is spoken of as an asset to benefit people he cares about. His sister told him that his luck was 'the most precious wealth' of the Avgins and Jade sees him as an investment that can bring her more wealth because of his luck, but he views it as a massive burden that ends up wrecking everybody around him. So how does he prove to other people that someone as worthless as him should be allowed a seat at the table? Deep down, he thinks that he's still worth 60 red copper pieces, and he's desperate to show other people that he's worth more than that now – even though he doesn't believe it at his core. With all the money he wins now, he can throw it at people and say 'look, look how much money I'm worth now, you want me around because I can buy you anything you want, that's a useful quality in a friend!'

(I did use the 'seat at the table line' as a nod to what his slave master said to him when they were discussing his worth: "Don't forget your place, slave. You're not qualified to be at the table." Which is, painfully, what Aventurine says when you open up chests! He scoffs and says that "it's hardly enough for a seat at the table." :’) )

There is also, of course, Aventurine's overarching struggle with finding purpose in his life. We see a lot of his existentialism during his trauma maze, but at the end of his trauma maze, Future Aventurine finally stops ripping Aventurine a new one and is vulnerable for a second, saying he doesn't understand what he's ever done wrong to have suffered as much as he has.

Then, when he's in the Nihility and he's speaking to Acheron, making the decision on whether or not he even wants to keep going, he asks her:

As I said, he has this conversation with himself in the maze as well, but here he's actually being vulnerable and speaking to somebody else about it: what's the point in being alive if we're just born to suffer? If nothing else, this solidifies the emotional struggle that Aventurine is constantly having. I also think it furthers the idea that he has this nagging sort of emptiness inside of him which is another BPD trait: the feeling that you're empty at your core, and you're constantly trying to fill it with things (friends, money, substances, whatever) but nothing ever works. You worry if anything will ever make you feel 'whole' again, and pair with the the identity disturbance? You're left with a constant feeling of despair.

Other Points:

These are a few other random thoughts I have, inspired by in-game moments but I'm taking them for my own evil fiendish BPD narrative. Take them with a grain of salt.

I think the stigma he gets around 'being crazy' is really BPD-coded. Separate from the ridiculous discrimination he gets for being an Avgin where people assume he's a liar and wolf in sheep's clothing (which can this man catch a SINGLE break jfc), he also has this reputation of being crazy, insane, manipulative, cunning, and someone you want to avoid, which is more rooted in his reckless gambling habit and status with the IPC. Living with this reputation of being insane and unstable for...lowkey no reason at all? Very BPD coded. I think Aventurine leans into that stigma to keep people a certain distance away, but it also just ends up making him hate himself even more.

Also, his entire mantra is "all or nothing", which always rang my BPD bells as well. There's not a lot of gray area with him, which is a key trait in borderlines as we often display very black-and-white thought patterns.

In Conclusion:

I think Aventurine is a borderline princess <3

No but actually though, Aventurine is extremely smart, witty, funny, generous, and very kind-hearted, and he also happens to have a lot of BPD symptoms :^) I don't think it does any harm to view him as BPD-coded; in fact, I think it's great to associate positive, fan-favorite characters like this with BPD because it helps to humanize us. Borderlines are not violent, crazy maniacs, they're people who have been severely traumatized and developed some unhealthy habits because of it. They deserve love, respect, understanding, and communication, just as everybody else does.

If you actually made it this far, thank you for reading! I hope I was able to shed some light on Aventurine and his Symptoms. And, as I do in all of my BPD posts, here’s your reminder to kiss the borderline baddies in your life and tell them they’re important to you :^) Living with BPD is exhausting and I know I speak for all of us when I say that. We try so hard every day to stay positive and regulated, and though rewarding, it's exhausting and very hard work. Nothing makes us smile more than some recognition that we're trying our best !!

Till next time xoxo (and shout out to @roxirinart for helping me edit this monstrosity mwahhh mwah)

[mt-oe]

its finals season (again..) and huge projects for classes right now. can we get a stressed reader x modern mizu where reader is like actually tweaking out? like I mean pulling our energy shots, shivering hands, 'gotta lock in', hysterically crying on snapchat video and sending it to their groupchat for moral support type of tweaking out and the reader is going BANANAS over all the final papers, and studying for finals and mizu helps comfort reader?? i hope this would be a silly little write but also helpful to anyone going through finals season right now. much love! xoxo <3

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

Hey dears!

To start this, I am absolutely sorry for being gone for so long. I had my thesis defense, practicals, laboratory works, deadlines, and my finals all in the span of two weeks AND I fainted twice, got sick twice, and nose bled a LOT.

I was chugging 3 cans of energy drinks a day, eating one meal per day, sleeping minutes less than how long I showered, and smoked quite a lot. Someone even caught me sleeping on the fire exit stairs (istg so embarrassing ;;). Honestly makes me wonder how I'm not six feet under by now.

To those who are going through their finals, please don't follow my lead. Vomiting at 3am from how dizzy you are while some Sepultura song plays in the background is NOT the experience you'd think it was. Try to plan when you'll tackle your work and get some sleep as much as you can, on your free time, on your commute. I swear, answering tests are SOO much easier when your vision isn't spinning or tunneling.

Chose to do this request first to remind you all to take care amidst your finals (or as a reward if your finals are finished, good job dear!).

Hope you enjoy! Mwa mwa <3

warning: not proofread, my corny jokes, she/her for mizu, implied afab reader

Blue orbs watched as you cracked open another can of Red Bull. A small grunt leaving your throat as the fizzy caffeinated drink went down your esophagus. Was this your second? third..no wait..fourth?

Damn.

How are your blood vessels surviving this onslaught of caffeine you've been shoving down your system? She had no clue. But what she did know was that you've had enough. This wasn't healthy at all. Your lips were already as pale as the palms of your hands which were trembling to the point where you couldn't stop writing because that meant you'd feel the quivering of your hands even more.

The two of you had decided to slave off at Mizu's apartment for your finals. It was mostly Mizu dragging you there since your friends have been bombarding her to take care of you since she had the closest to what was considered a free schedule. T'was something about you freaking out and crying over the finals. She didn't have a Snapchat account so she didn't know.

Usually, she wasn't even interested in these stuff, but when Akemi showed her a picture of you with a thumbs up, holding a can of Monster, dark circles under your bloodshot eyes, tear streaks on your face, with the caption 'Boutta pull another Kay Chung tonight', concerned didn't even begin to describe what she felt.

Boutta pull a Kay Chung?

What or who was this Kay Chung anyway?

She knew you were a hard worker, probably one of the most studious people she knew, so she already expected you to be busy studying. What she didn't expect was the mess you were in.

The moment she stepped into your unit, cans of energy drinks, bottles of energy shots, cups of coffee, and random paper strewn randomly littered your apartment. The only source of light was your window and a small dim lamp you had.

Was that cup noodle container growing mold?

Ew.

It was like the Capital Wasteland in here, and she was the lonesome wanderer, awaiting the dangers to come.

And you were a radiated ghoul hunched over your desk with the emptiest gaze she has ever seen. Your head in your hands, as you scrunched your eyebrows together, trying to figure out what the fuck was wrong with your equation.

Now she understood the bombardment of messages from Akemi and the others, and damn was she grateful for the heads up because you looked like you were at death's door and death... Death just thought you looked too pitiful to let in.

The two of you were now sitting on Mizu's carpet, books, papers, and gadgets on the smooth wood of the coffee table. In her mind, she thought a bit of companionship would comfort you like it usually did. But she was wrong.

The shaking grip you had on your pen and the occasional 'what the actual fuck?' or 'the hell?' already told her that you were too locked in to relax even just a bit. You looked like you were losing it.

Her eyes peered over your review sheet before she raised an eyebrow at how scattered your handwriting looked, numbers and symbols italicized to the left and to the right as if they were dancing and your solutions scattered. Add this value here..derive the formula there..problem 3's solution is somehow on the back of the paper even though problem 5 was solved on problem 1's spot. It looked like a shit show.

"What...problem is this for? You did it wrong." Her tongue clicking as a slender finger encircled a formula you derived wrong, making you look at her with a mildly bothered look. Your eyes tiredly scanned your review sheet, looking away to the side to blink the heaviness of your lids away, then looking back at it before letting out a strangled sounding groan, shoulders slumping back onto the sofa as you covered your eyes with your hands before looking at your own solutions again. "I don't fucking know..maybe it's for..umm..for..fuuuuuck," you sighed defeatedly, realizing that you couldn't understand your own handwriting either.

You wanted to strangle yourself so bad right now or like, strangle your professor until they give you a passing grade. Maybe the threat of arson would scare the university admins into passing everyone for the semester???? The prospect of being a sugar baby is starting to sound better than trying to finish this degree.

It wasn't like you were an absolute idiot. You could solve these problems no problemo. However, your vision was already lagging and tunneling. Whenever you tried to read the problem or your own handwriting, it was like your vision was hyper-focusing on one spot and the areas around it were...spinning or it'd focus on everything else EXCEPT the ones you wanted to focus on.

The amount of caffeine you had consumed wasn't even helping anymore. Instead of waking you up, you just felt jittery like a hyper-charged toy. Before you were sleepy and slow, now you were still sleepy but faster.

And when was the last time you even ate anyway? Was that moldy cup noodle your last meal? You didn't even know anymore at this point. You could barely feel anything aside from the fear of your impeding academic doom. Not even hunger was strong enough to stop you.

Mizu's eyebrows furrowed at how miserable you looked before sighing and pulling a sheet of paper out of her own notebook. "Here," she sighed out, sitting beside you and scanning each problem you had printed out before re-writing each question you looked like you struggled with. Her eyes occasionally glanced at you, unseen worry rising with every hitch of your breath and every twitch of your eyebrow as you looked at the questions she rewrote.

"Mizu..I don't want to do those all again," you groaned frustratedly, ruffling your hair own hair aggressively, strands falling to the carpet below. A hand held yours firmly, preventing you from tangling the ends of locks even more. "I'm going to teach you, dumbass. We can't have you failing and dying at the same time," she huffed, grabbing your calculator and placing it in front of both of you. She leaned closer to you, hand on your waist to pull you closer before taking the pencil and pointing to the first problem she rewrote.

"I'm not going to repeat my explanations, so listen well,"

...was what she said.

However, Mizu was a big softie when it came to you. Every time she caught you spacing out or having a hard time in general, she took her time and explained it to you again, even explaining it slower, simpler, or more detailed as needed. She really made sure that you understood the principle of the problems and the process of solving them, handing the pencil and calculator to you to make sure you actually understood her.

After a while, you were slowly starting to understand you earlier mistakes, and with her help, you were able to finally solve the review sheet. Thank god for hot smart women.

A look of amusement crossed her face as she watched you slump back onto the sofa with a loud sigh of relief. Shaking her head with a small lop-sided smile, she took the pen again before grabbing your laptop and searching for similar problems. "Here," she said, turning the device towards you. "Solve these. I'll be back in a bit."

You looked at her in confusion before letting out a tired groan. The exhaustion was starting to let itself be known through the heaviness in your lids. Another problem set was the last thing you wanted to do right now.

Oh wait.

Fuck, you still had to edit your methodologies and results, and you haven't even started on the discussion yet. Oh god...

'Better get started, I guess,' you thought with a defeated sigh. Muttering a string of curses under your breath, you picked up your pencil and calculator and began solving yet another set of hellish questions while the dark-haired woman stood up and walked off somewhere in her apartment. Silence filled the room aside from the aggressive scritching and scratching of lead against paper and the sound of clacking from your calculator.

Every now and then, Mizu would come back with something to comfort you. May it be a cup of water, a bigger pillow, a hair tie, or to charge your phone for you. She didn't really speak though, fully wanting you to focus on your work.

It was like her quiet little way of telling you that she was here and that she cared for you.

Amidst your problem solving, the smell of something being fried hit your nose, making you look up. It was a bit oily, but at the same time, homely and savory. Your stomach growled slightly at the smell, reminding you of that uncomfortable feeling of hunger that you were somehow able to ignore during your study sessions.

Just as you had finished writing your answers, Mizu came out of the kitchen with a bowl of rice and a plate of what seemed to be fried fish. Kinda burnt but maybe that's a charm point...or something. At least she tried.

She set it down on a clear space on the coffee table and gently urged it towards you. "Here," she mumbled, looking at you expectantly. You stared at the food she prepared, snorting a bit at the charred skin, some bits missing which obviously stuck to the pan while she was frying it. "Err..Mizu...?"

"Don't mind how it looks just..just eat, okay?" she groaned, sounding a bit embarrassed, a bit of pink dusting her cheeks. Her eyes looking away as her hand went up to cover half her face. You couldn't help but laugh a bit. Mizu? Embarrassed? God that woke you up, didn't it?

The sound of your laughter made her feel even more embarrassed but at the same time relieved. Your laugh was so fucking cute. She was glad that you were starting to sound a bit more like your usual self. Hell, you were smiling now. A big improvement compared to the face of misery you were making earlier.

Eventually, your laughter subsided upon the realization sinking into you. She really did all this just to take of you. Dragging you to her apartment, tutoring you, fetching things for you, cooking for you...

She really does care. Doesn't she?

Your hands picked up the chopsticks before breaking into the soft flesh of the food in front of you, picking off the bones before taking a bite. It was salty, the char even made it a bit bitter, and for god-knows-why, even a bit spicy?? But it tasted so good to you. Heavenly, dare I say.

As you continued to eat, bite after bite and scoop after scoop, the shakiness in your hands slowly calmed down. You couldn't help but look up at your friend who was now checking your answers, the ghost of satisfaction making itself known through the barely visible smile she had. "Mizu..."

She looked over at you, raising an eyebrow to indicate that she was listening. "Thank you for uh..taking care of me," you said shyly, giving her a small smile. A low chuckle escaped her throat as she shook her head slowly as if in amusement. "At least you're not shaking like a leaf anymore," she joked, followed by you letting out a small 'hmph!', making her chuckle yet again.

Though she wouldn't tell it to you right now, she'd be more than happy to take care of you anytime you wanted or needed it.

The sound of your pen tapping on the paper filled the room again as her eyes narrowed at your answers, checking it carefully. After a while, she handed the paper back to you, looking very much satisfied. "Looks good," she said, eyes watching the proud smile on your face. "How 'bout a reward?...Some rest I suppose?"

Your smile faltered at the sound of rest. "I can't...my manuscript is due in a couple of days and I haven't even finished editing my methodologies and results," you explained, opening the files for each of your chapters. "The data isn't even tabulated in the required format. It looks like shit."

She stood up from her spot and sat next to you, placing a hand on your head to pat it gently as she looked at the screen. Her eyes narrowed again while you scrolled up the file for her before she sighed. "Yeah, it does look like shit," she agreed before suddenly grabbing your laptop and setting in front of her. "Go and take a nap or something. I'll do whatever I can to...whatever this is."

"But Mizu, this isn't even your field. I can't—" She cut you off with a finger to your lips before gesturing towards the sofa behind the both of you. "Nap," she ordered firmly. You sighed before standing up and laying down on the sofa. You knew there was no use arguing. When Mizu makes up her mind, she's deadset on it.

Her eyes scanned your figure for a moment, taking in every curve of your body and the way your face relaxed. Then, she took off her jacket and draped it over you, before giving you a small loving pat. Before you could even open your mouth to protest, she immediately shushed you and turned to your manuscript, scanning over it.

Your eyes observed the way her eyebrows furrowed and the way her eyes darted from word-to-word. The sound of her typing and clicking filling the room, oddly relaxing you.

It didn't take long for you to drift off to sleep. And for the first time since hell week started, you finally relaxed.

No frustration, no stress, just...sleep.

You did nap for hours longer than expected though.

Don't worry.

Your methodologies were now updated, results properly formatted, and ideas in bullet points for your discussion were laid out in a new file. Even your references were fixed.

Damn, you really wanted to smooch Mizu reaaal hard after this.

[bonefall]

I'm curious to know how many times you've had to walk away from your computer and take a break, due to the amount of horrible things people are saying about things regarding Moonpaw, incest, and all the other shit they're spewing.

Oh plenty. Don't worry, I am actually taking care of myself.

I have had vague, undiagnosed anger issues for as long as I can remember, and was in counseling as a result. So I had to learn how to manage that better than anyone else, to appear calm even when I'm furious or terrified, always double, triple checking that my response is proportionate. You better be able to write a coherent thesis even when you're seeing red, because no matter what made you blow up, it will be assumed that you were the aggressor.

Occasionally the irony of that strikes me. I know when I'm at a limit, and when it's my responsibility to walk away from an upsetting situation. I can usually tell when I need a second opinion or when, maybe, a bias has acted on me, or I'm assuming the worst of other's intentions.

Others don't. People LESS angry and short-tempered than me get to act all indignant when someone's mad at them for saying something fucked up. Or have no idea how to identify when something is overwhelming them. And don't check with others to gage their responses.

Anyway. Don't worry, point is I was literally trained on how to protect myself. There is a new event on my favorite silly dragon petsite I'm good

[poeticsandaliens]

Aight so I keep seeing these discussions about what the Arcane creators did and didn't say and whether that means Jayce and Viktor are canon platonic or romantic or some secret third thing and I would like to make a case for ignoring irrelevant things that writers say in an attempt to clarify their creation. And I say these words as a writer who peppers my AO3 shit with random endnotes commenting on my creations, which you can feel free to throw in the trash.

I'm not arguing that we should all just clamp down our ears and go lalalala, nor am I arguing for full-on Death of the Author. I just think if a storyteller has to clarify a textual detail in an interview or on Twitter (looking at you Joanne) then it doesn't actually matter. Because if the creator CARES that much about how we as an audience interpret that detail they should put it into the fucking text. If it matters that much to the text it should be in the text. And if it's not in the text then it doesn't really matter and I'll go on interpreting. This especially goes for taxonomizing murky relationships. We often desire taxonomy, but ambiguity can say compelling things about the way we navigate human connection.

Like there're shades of gray to this. But specifically with respect to Arcane I'll argue that a creator actually gets no bearing on whether you read Jayce and Viktor as erotic or platonic or whatever. Because they chose to tell a story about the power of love and part of that archetype is its slipperiness. Love to the point of literal cosmic singularity. Soul-bonding shit. It doesn't matter to the text whether they're having filthy lab sex in our imaginations.

Normally I wouldn't write a little thesis about it, but I adore love stories where love is hard to pin down. And this reminds me of Achilles and Patroclus. Classicists will argue forever about whether or not they were fucking, and we'll get into historical context, and Athenian traditions that post-date them, and so on. And it's a fun conversation but it's also deeply not the point. I read Achilles and Patroclus as a complicated slippery relationship where war and love and lust get their wires crossed and you've known someone so deeply for so long you can't HELP but cling to them body and soul. But what's so interesting is that clinging body and soul can be any combination of sexual/erotic/platonic/worship/etc. I read them quite erotically but what matters to me in the end isn't whether they're fucking it's how wholly and wildly they loved each other. What matters isn't the taxonomy; it's that when Patroclus died, Achilles dragged Hector's mangled corpse behind his chariot in a fit of grief and feral rage.

Anyway I feel very normal about this.