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“Sirius killed people-“ so did Snape, supposedly loved Lily but betrayed her location to Voldemort because he was jealous of James actually winning her heart, not to mention convincing Harry the abuse was his fault, nearly giving Neville PTSD to the point where his boggart was Severus Snape himself, being a racist pos to anyone born of muggle parents, and becoming a high ranking member of the death eaters so what? He could protect Harry?
“It’s easier to cry in a Ferrari-“
it’s easier to defend a terrible character and play the racism and eat the rich card when you can’t understand context and inference clues that JK Rowling laid out.
What’s easy is inventing canon. What a load of made-up nonsense, mate.
1. Learn to read. I didn’t say Sirius killed anyone, but he did attempt murder. And he did it because he thought it was funny to torture Severus.
2. There’s no evidence that Severus killed anyone before Dumbledore asked him for euthanasia. This is made quite clear when Dumbledore talks about his concern for Draco’s soul, and Severus immediately questions him about his own soul. If Severus is so worried about it, it’s implied he hadn’t killed anyone before—or at least not in cold blood.
3. Have you even read the books? The only person who knew the Potters’ location was Peter. He’s the one who betrayed them.
4. There’s no evidence he was a racist. First off, equating racism with the concept of blood purity not only trivializes a serious social issue but also makes it clear that some of you have no idea what racism is or its history. The discriminatory dynamics and their foundations are completely different. But anyway, putting that aside, there’s no evidence whatsoever that Severus discriminated against Muggle-borns. The only time he makes a comment is during the incident with Lily—which, conveniently, happens when James and Sirius are sexually assaulting him, and Lily seems to smile at James. I don’t think you can judge someone’s ideology based on a comment made in an extremely tense moment. Canonically, Severus doesn’t treat Muggle-born students worse in class or make comments about their heritage. Nor does he badmouth Muggles. At most, he makes condescending remarks—which, let’s be real, all the characters do, even the “good ones,” because they’re ridiculously patronizing toward Muggles.
5. Severus was literally a double agent and reached the highest ranks of the Death Eaters to, yes, protect Harry. That’s literally why. He’s following Dumbledore’s orders. Like, have you read the books, or are you just pulling this stuff from fanfics? 99% of what you’ve said so far is pure fantasy, mate.
6. Yes, love, it’s actually pretty easy for me to defend people whose actions are a direct consequence of their life circumstances, and whose poor decisions were directly influenced by a lack of opportunities, security, and the violence of their environment. In fact, that’s literally my job. That’s what I do for a living.
Look, I don’t give a damn if you’re a Sirius fangirl. You can love a character while admitting he was a massive piece of crap. I love The Penguin, and there’s no way to justify him at all. Like, it’s fine, you know? You also have every right to feel sorry for him—I’m not going to judge you for that or anything. I’m not invalidating other people’s feelings if they think Sirius’s life was super tragic and feel a lot of compassion for him. Everyone has their own feelings and points of empathy. But that’s not the case for me. I don’t feel sorry for him. There’s no excuse for being an abusive bully with sociopathic tendencies toward someone who was canonically in a position of social and economic disadvantage. If Severus had come from a good family, with money and power—or if Sirius had been someone without a name, wealth, or status—then I’d view the situation differently because they would have been on equal footing. But just like the Black family chose Muggle-borns to torture because they knew they could, Sirius chose Severus because he knew he could. He’s a hypocrite and a piece of garbage. At least Bellatrix admitted her tendencies.
#severus snape#pro severus snape#severus snape defense#sirius black#sirius orion black#so i’m sorry but sirius background didn’t excuse his actions#sirius black you posh bastard#sirius black sadistic bitch#sirius black meta#severus snape meta#sirius black headcanon#harry potter#harry potter meta
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“Don’t overthink it,” I say. “They can smell that, you know? They sniff out insecurity.”
“You make them sound like beasts.”
“No. No, they’re not. They’re not that scary.”
“Right. It’s just you keep going on about how un-scared and completely chilled you are, and you bringing it up like, fifty times is making me feel like you actually are a bit frightened of them,” Jen, cross-legged on my bedroom floor, pats glitter onto her eyelids. “They’re just bouncers. How bad can they be? Surely not worse than those bastards in Dublin.”
“They’re not violent, they’re just judgmental.”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, no. They’ll judge me. What’ll I do? I’m immune to it. Unless it’s my mam there at the door, I won’t be phased.”
“I’m just trying to prepare you for the realty. You know? Like, if you don’t get in, you shouldn’t take it personally, because they’re so particular, and honestly, most people get turned away.”
“But not you?”
“Hm?”
“Not you? You’ve gotten in to Berghain already?”
“Oh, yeah, of course.”
I haven’t. Tonight will be my sixth attempt, and crossing the threshold has become my most pressing need since I moved. Each time, I pray the bouncers will see past whatever it is about me they find so unsuitable for their club, but each time I am disappointed. Maybe Jen will be my good luck charm, and will be so distracting at the door that nobody even sees me slip past.
“Well,” she shrugs. “If they let you in, then they mustn’t be very picky at all.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m messing.”
“But not really.”
Jen laughs into the mirror. “No,” she says. “Not really.”
In the Berghain queue, I adopt a new method of staying perfectly silent and still. I am a statue in black denim, as techno beats throb from within the looming walls of the club. The party is continuing from the night before. I am nervous, but I try not to show it on my face, nor the movements of my body. Jen offers me some of the cigarette she is sharing with Jonas, and I shake my head, for fear that this act, or any act at all, will draw too much attention. That it will set off the radar of the doormen, guarding the club with their mysterious rules.
“Cold, isn’t it?” Jen comments, and I wish she wouldn’t.
“Mm.” I reply. A group of men are turned away.
“They must be too drunk.”
“Maybe.”
We stand mute for the next half an hour, Jonas bobbing his head to the music as the queue shortens ahead of us. He gets in every time no matter what he does. He is never nervous.
We reach the top, and my palms sweat despite the cold, fisted inside the pockets of my coat. Jen keeps a straight face, like I told her. She doesn’t speak. A doorman examines her, and Jonas, and me.
“Welkommen,” he says, and waves us inside.
I have been holding my breath. I let it out in a rush. Someone asks for my phone, puts a green sticker over the camera. I hardly dare to look around me.
I am inside, awash with approval.
“Very grungy,” Jen comments, nonchalant, as we climb a staircase to the main hall. The industrial fittings from the building’s electrical plant history, with soaring, concrete ceilings and pipe and disintegrating tile, plastered with stickers, German slogans I only partially understand.
It is the wall of sound that takes me by surprise. The immense noise of it that invades my body and vibrates through me, my heart thumping in time with the beat.
“Christ,” I say, though nobody hears me. My voice is inside my own ears and nowhere else. Around us, bodies drift upon the dancefloor, arms up, weaving together as though moving underwater. I’m in another realm, like diving beneath the surface, time liquid, direction lost. Hundreds of bodies move in leather and latex, with chains and spikes, studs, laces, and masks. These people could be scary, but it isn’t like that. It’s mesmerising. Disorienting. There is a moment where I leave my body, and forget where I am, and I’m drifting above them.
Jen yanks me down, her mouth against my ear. “Do you know where your friends are?”
“Somewhere,” I bellow, and shrug, staring out over the sea of dancers under the lights and the smoke. Impossible to tell one person from another. One thousand shades of black. “In there. We can go in.”
“Yeah, okay,” She grabs my hand, then Jonas’, and pulls us toward the churning centre.
I do not understand this brutal music, but I pretend to. It thuds on, repetitive. It rattles my bones and I close my eyes and smell the cigarette smoke and sweat. I move with the wave.
“Jude, baby!” hands are on me, and there is Elias, glitter on his face, and his pupils black. Next to him, Dalia, the same, her curls sticking to her forehead, jaw gurning.
“We found you so easy,” she says, close to my ear. “You stick out.”
“Oh. Because I don't belong in here.”
“Nah. Because you’re tall as fuck. This your friend?” She’s reaching for Jen with fingers wiggling, her signature warm smile made edgy by the manic look of her eyes.
Jen meets them, Elias and Dalia, and I can’t hear what they’re screaming into each other’s faces, but they’re smiling, because she’s likeable. As I watch them, my eyes settle upon a dusting of white powder in the fibres of Dalia’s top, and I feel hungry. We’ve been doing this a lot these last few months, not at Berghain, obviously, because of my unsuitability, but in other clubs, other parties. It’s fun, the way it is here, the culture around the drugs. It doesn’t feel dirty the way it did when I was in school, like I didn’t know what I was taking. The things I put into my mouth or up my nose could have been scooped off the floor of a Portaloo, for all I knew. This is different. I like it more. But it’s fine, it’s like cigarettes. I don’t really smoke. I don’t really do drugs, either.
Within five minutes, Elias, Jonas and I are doing lines in the toilets, and then we’re dancing with the girls for some undeterminable amount of time. The music pounds on, we smoke cigarettes, the liquid crowd swirls.
“You’re on it,” Jen says, peering into my eyes as we sit in a lounge above the techno room, and I feel guilty, because it’s her, and I used to try and be sober when we were together.
“Nope.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Nowhere.”
She digs around in my pockets, and I knock her hands away from me. “Get out of there. I don’t want you stealing my chewing gum wrappers and bits of lint.”
“Oh, come on.” She shoves her hand into the back pocket of my jeans.
“Stop grabbing my arse, you filthy little freak.”
“What are you doing, Jenny?” Elias cries. “What do you want, darling?”
“Nothing,” I say, giggling now, and I firmly plant her hands back in her lap.
“I think Jude has drugs. I wanted to see them.”
“Oh, he doesn’t. But I do.” Elias produces a baggie of pills and tips one into his hand. “Here, I’m not leaving anyone out of the fun.”
I panic and snatch it before she can. I tip it into my mouth and swallow. Jen gapes at me as I grimace. “That was for me!” She cries.
“Was it? Too bad. It’s mine now.”
Elias rolls his eyes. “Oh, Jude, don’t be so selfish. Don’t worry, Jen.” He offers her another pill, and again, I snatch it, and I swallow it before she can. Now she stares at me, her brows drawn, confused and annoyed. “Hey! Stop robbing them,” she says. “Those were for me.”
I grin. “Well, too slow.”
“You’re cracked.”
Her nostrils flare, and there is a twinge of anxiety in my stomach, as I know my body will make me pay for this later, but the impulse to protect Jen is much stronger than my self-preservation instincts. It’s not that I was foolish enough to assume drugs would not be present, abundant even, at Berghain, but I didn’t think Jen would try to take them. After all that stuff from before, the images still burned into my brain, of fourteen, crying in Michelle’s bathroom as her dad held Jen over the tub, the plastic tube, and her sobs.
Again, Elias reaches for the bag, and this time I push his hand away, “No, Elias,” I say, “Leave it. She can’t have any.”
“Oh, stop. She wants them!” He winks at her and smiles that big, white veneer smile of his, but he doesn’t understand. I tighten my grip on his fist. “No,” I repeat. “She doesn’t need them.”
“I can do what I like,” she says, and like me, she’s trying to keep the tone jovial, but her voice is rising, tightening.
I lower my face to hers, and mutter to her through gritted teeth so nobody else can hear, “No, you can’t.”
She coughs out some outraged imitation of a laugh. “I’m a grown woman,” she says, which is absurd. She is eighteen. It’s an argument for argument’s sake, which is so frustratingly Jen that I could scream.
Instead, I soften my voice and attempt to be reasonable, “C’mon, Jen. I know you know where I’m coming from.”
“Well, you’re creating a fuss in front of everyone.”
She’s right. My friends sit around us staring at anything but the situation gradually escalating in front of them. “What’s the alternative? Do I try to explain my way of thinking to you, or do I do an entire bag just to prove a point?”
She huffs, her face reddening. “How come you can do them, then? Huh? You’re there with your big black eyes and cocaine on your upper lip, and you’re going to tell me what I can’t do?”
I touch my face, and my fingers come away with a light dusting. Later, I will be ashamed of the two seconds I spent looking at the residue, visualising rubbing it into my gums while she’s sitting there looking at me. “It’s different,” I insist.
“Why’s it different? We hung out in the same places, tried the same things, you don’t–”
“Well, I can stop anytime I like,” I hiss, “And you can’t.”
She makes a little outraged sound. “You can’t say that to me!”
“Well, it’s true, because–”
“Hey! How about we all dance?” Dalia says, rising to her feet and hauling me out of the seat. “Let’s go downstairs.”
“Yes!” says Jonas. “I think that’s a good idea.”
Our discussion ends there, and down we go to the techno floor, diving back into the sea of dancers. I come up there, washed by a wave of euphoria as the beat hammers on, and I think I get it. I think I get the thing about techno.
Jen dances with Elias, their skin sweat sheened, and I take her hand to pull her closer to me. “I’m sorry, Jenny,” I say. “I shouldn’t have said that to you. Upstairs, like.”
“It’s okay. I don’t care.”
“It wasn’t nice.”
“Well, you were probably right.”
“It’s not right to talk to you like that, especially in front of people. I–”
“Forget it!” she says, and grins with that snaggletooth smile she’s had since ten. She dances around me, and we hold one another’s hands, and it strikes me that nothing really matters with me and Jen. No matter how much time has passed or how much we change, nothing can ever touch us. And now, in Berlin, sweat in our hair and our hearts matching the DJs rhythm, we’re swimming together, riding a wave, four hundred miles from the sea.
Beginning // Prev // Next
#lucky boy 2011#woohoo we made it inside#i'm consistently bowled over by how hot Dalia is at every moment of her existence#also Jude here??? Looking good in that leather jacket i gotta say#drugs tw#drug abuse tw
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okay so you said genuine question and im not from around here but i do have an answer! so you've unlocked an unskippable cutscene!
this is a much bigger topic than it appears on the surface, and i might be able to answer your question succinctly and briefly, but it would miss out on a lot of the stuff happening behind the scenes which is actually very important!
since this is going to be quite long (I did a rough notes on my thoughts and what i might say and it was almost 1k. so.) i am going to put the rest under a readmore
but now that you've clicked the button and commited, let's break this into parts for both our sakes.
part 1: moral purity and the loss of 'squick'
so there's been a fun phenomenon happening lately online, and it's the idea that you can assign morals by the type of things that someone likes. that the act of enjoying something or disliking something is an inherently moral act.
this in itself has a lot of reasons behind it, and digging through that history would be an essay in its own right, so im going to glaze over it. but the current state of affairs is that your own personal taste, be it in media, in people, or yes, sexual thoughts (even ones without actions) are in themselves, moral.
no matter the cause of these feelings, the outcome is this: if you find yourself liking or disliking something, there must be some reason behind it. if you find yourself grossed out by something, there is a moral and justifyable reason behind it.
this is, to me, related to the loss of the idea of a 'squick'; something that just grossed you out. 'squicks' didnt have to be triggers, they didnt have to be evil or harming you, they were a preference about something you just personally did not like.
now however, along with other terms, we have lost the idea of a 'squick' and so if you don't like something there must be a reason this thing is evil.
so now you have people seeing things like animal packers, and they are for some reason uncomfortable with them. where we might have once said 'oh well, not for me', we must now have a reason for why we are uncomfortable with this idea.
1.5: the perpetrator and the victim
in any given situation, to prevent discourse from becoming muddied or hard to answer, there must always be a person who is definitively in the right, and a person who is in the wrong.
this is a really normal reaction, it's hard to accept something as not having a clear answer, and so it's easy to find ourselves doubling down on something so we dont have to confess to the worst thing of all 'i dont know'.
Coming from disability advocacy, it's important to recognise that there are going to be situations which are not clear cut, in which nobody has done anything wrong, but people have ended up hurt or upset. sometimes needs and people are simply incompatible, and there's nothing wrong or evil there.
but that is difficult and scary, so instead it's much easier to talk about the victim and the villain. if someone is being hurt (i am looking at something that grosses me out) then someone must be intentionally hurting them (evil gross kinksters)
In this understanding of things, the discomfort itself must be harm done, and if harm is being done, then someone must be at fault. it becomes a matter of who is the perpetrator and who is the victim. So in order for them to be uncomfortable and not be evil themselves, the thing that is making them uncomfortable must be evil itself.
now that we've established these things we can actually get around to answering the actual question you asked:
Part 2: why zoophillia?
if this person has deemed the act that these people have done to be evil or bad, why not just call the act itself (which i am given to understand is hyper-realistic animal packers?) evil?
well what you surely understand, and somehwere in the back of their brain they understand, is that that's incredibly fucking stupid.
if you walk up to the average person and say hey, this person is doing this evil thing, and explain that, theyre going to think you're insane. so how are they supposed to tell the average person that this person is evil? they escelate it to most awful acusation they can think of in the moment.
in most communities, the terrible thing that they will accuse someone of is pedophillia, but in the therian circles, they dont need to escelate it to that point, because there is already a hot button topic they can point to instead.
Zoophillia, as i am given to understand, is one of the most hot button topics in the therian community. it is the group which is regularly aligning themselves with therians, that many if not most therians want nothing to do with.
it's also a group that is often conflated with therians, meaning that many therians have an immediate 'no fuck off that's not us' reaction to it, as a form of self preservation. because as soon as people have made a claim that you may be a zoophile, and you fail to respond in the appropriate way, you will be cast out of your own therian in group.
so the use of using zoophillia as an acusation is two-fold. for one, it makes people take the accusation seriously, and for two, it prevents people from doing their own research and looking into it.
because if you are told this person is evil, and if you support them you are also evil, at that point any questioning on your part is seen as complicity in evil acts. as apologism. this person is evil and if you ask my why, you must also be evil.
so lets circle back a little bit here, earlier i mentioned that the typical claim is pedophillia, which everything i said previously about evil acts is still true of, but you might not fully believe me about people escelating to the nearest most terrible thing they can think of, but the thing is that i have seen this before.
Part 2.5: tired asexual
hello again, youve probably never heard of me before, so let me tell you that I'm Asexual. more importantly, I'm an asexual person who has been on tumblr for a solid decade.
if you werent around in the mid to late 10s, you might not know just how bod aphobia on tumblr got, but i was there for it. and you know what the most common accusation of why asexuals, and anyone trying to discuss asexuality were evil?
because discussing asexuality was pedophillia.
yeah, asexuals. the well known 'lack of sexual attraction' community.
Now I can go into the series of claims that led to this, hell I could probably go diving on my old blog and find screenshots of these actual accusations, but that’s kind of besides the point. The point here is that the actual reasons people give for it being ‘insert evil thing’ are unimportant.
yeah, when i say it to you, a person who i am assuming knows a little something about asexuality, that that was the claim, your first thought is that that's an insane thing to say.
but for a lot of people the first time they heard about asexuality was in this discourse. so their brain is now primed to make the connection of 'oh, okay, asexuality is evil.' and now, when they see people defending asexuality, they're already defensive. they assume youre trying to trick them, or make them complicit.
asexuality is not the only place this tactic has been used though, you see it all the time. it's at its most common in things like homophobic legestation, anti-trans bills, or drag bans.
These people cannot justify the initial action as evil, so they jump to something you are more likely to agree with, and try to argue it is the same thing. this is what we call equivocation.
equivication is an incredibly effective tactic in fear-mongering, splitting up groups of people, and getting something innocuous labeled as morally wrong
'Think of the children' is a good example of this. No it’s not that im transphobic, it’s that I’m concerned about children. Therefore, if you’re arguing against me it must be because you yourself hate children and want harm to come to them.
but not everyone is as obvious as to say 'think of the children' or some other line we've heard a bunch before. they find new ways to say it, and because the current safety tactics are to watch for certain phrases and words, people dont know how to look for underlying beliefs and sentiments, leaving people more vulnerable than ever to this kind of manipulation.
so now i've hopefully answered your initial question of 'why zoophillia', i want to take this a litte bit further and ask, 'what is the end goal?'
part 3: what next?
okay so would you believe me, if i said that until now ive actually been taking an incredibly good faith reading of the discourse so far?
currently I have been presenting this as a misdirection of discomfort, but not necessarily actively malicious. now however, i want to go back to the ace discourse.
bigots on tumblr weren't actually starting shit with the ace community because they really had a bone to pick with asexuals, they were doing it because they were transphobes. Surprise!
this isnt speculation on my part, transphobes have since openly discussed that they used aphobia as a kind of 'gateway' to 'gatekeeping'
if they come out of the gates talking about how 'transexuals are evil' and should be 'kicked out of the lgbt community', then they would be immediately revealed as transphobes and most of the queer community won't listen to them. these transphobic talking points have been around long enough to be identifiable and more easily discussed.
asexuality however was, particularly at the time, very under-discussed. it also wasnt a part of the 'standard' LGBT acronym, which made it easier for them to make the argument that asexual people should not be allowed to be considered part of the community.
aphobia at the time was considered less divisive, you could be more easily convinced that this community you have never heard of is evil, dont question it. theyre pedophiles and groomers, if that isnt enough to convince you theyre evil it must be because you're also an evil person, so don't question it or do your own research. then we might come for you.
This was wildly successful! And now that that campaign has gone so well, they can now openly admit that they were secretly transphobes all along! And wow, you already aligned with us, so you need to double down on hating trans people because the rest of the queer community doesn’t want you back after that bullshit!
now maybe you consider this to be a particularly poor faith reading of the current discourse. maybe i had you in the first half, but all of this stuff about secret transphobes and conservatives playing along in ways that are more acceptable seems a little far fetched and conspiratorial to you. a bit of equivication here and there isnt inherently a sign of deeper sinister intentions. isnt all of this a bit of a stretch?
and maybe youre right, maybe im just someone who has seen something similar play out before, and im jumping to defence at something that wont become the same issue.
but isn't it interesting that the people being most vitriolistically upset about all of this, and attacking the creator of these things and accusing them of zoophillia are also misgendering him?
[Tw: Zoophilia mention]
Genuine question: WHY do so many people in this community jump on everything they find weird and immediate label it as zoophilia?!
Like- animal packers, fantasy toys, yiff art, pet play, kink gear, LITERALLY ANYTHING.
Seriously, relieving dysphoria, having "dirty" urges related to your identity, even straight up liking some freaky shit does NOT mean someone is attracted to animals. And it definitely does not mean they are actively harming/thinking of harming real animals.
People really take whatever is too weird for them and try to accuse it of war crime. Be better y'all.
#hello inlaws#yelling into the void#hope yall enjoyed my minor essay#i dont go here but my husband does#transphobia#zoophillia#aphobia#discourse#pedophillia mention#holy shit i just checked and this is almost 2k#i am absolutely putting it towards my daily word count#because i for sure did this instead of writing the story im supposed to be working on#very ready for absolutely nobody but me and august to read this#also i dont want to call you out like this in the main post but equivication is something we should always be aware of#just because its a tactic used by transphobes and conservatives doesnt mean its something that we are immune to#and zoophillia isnt a war crime by our common definition of the phrase#its interesting to note that you also while trying to explain that they were doing a bad thing (unwarranted accusation of animal abuse)#you also used the language of escalation in a bid to try and get people to take the thing they did more seriously#i dont mean this as a 'youre secretly a terrible person for doing this'#i just think its an interesting note#and something we should all watch out for in ourselves#god knows ive been guilty of it
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For unhinged and deranged ships: Snape/Bellatrix.
thank you very much for the ask, anon!
i adore these two haters, and not just in a "toxic situationship which leaves dozens dead" way.
because - as the most delusional snapemort defender in history, who would also defend bellamort with my life - i think it's inherently plausible that snape spends his period as a death eater during the first war feeling profoundly jealous of bellatrix.
after all, she's the dark lord's favourite - and voldemort isn't exactly shy about this being known [she wouldn't run around yapping about he "calls me his most loyal, his most faithful" if she had even the slightest feeling that voldemort would murder her for leaking his pillow talk] - which means that, if you go in for the idea that he's sleeping with her, i think you can argue that he also permits her some degree of public physical affection. i don't think they're holding hands during acts of terrorism, or anything like that, but i do think that bellatrix is summoned away from group settings to join voldemort, everyone knows what they're about to get up to, and the dark lord doesn't care.
snape - in contrast - is kept as a pretty clandestine part of voldemort's operation. karkaroff can't think of anything specific to credibly accuse him of, sirius isn't fully convinced he could have been a death eater, and so on.
and this makes sense - it's clear that snape gets taken on by voldemort in a back-of-house role [to be a spy he can eventually place at hogwarts, and very probably originally to brew for him], and is peripheral to the more public-facing, combat side of voldemort's terror. which means that any time he spends with the dark lord is probably one-on-one - and any affection he receives from voldemort during these sessions [and look, i ship it...] is similarly private.
but it's also clear in canon that this order only continues for a few months after bellatrix gets out of azkaban, before things start to shift and she finds herself having to be the jealous one.
from the start of half-blood prince onwards, snape usurps bellatrix in voldemort's public favour [no matter what he's like with either in private]. and we know that she's not thrilled about this - not least because she's correctly worked out that snape's not trustworthy and voldemort's only response is to tell her to wind her neck in.
and we also know that snape fucking loves how annoyed she is - he's having the time of his life roasting her when she cockblocks narcissa by stomping around his front room [the line about "endless reminiscences of how unpleasant azkaban is"... a third-degree burn, i fear] - and that all of snape's best pairings feature that "we literally cannot stop hurling insults at each other, i will not rest until i've told them this next zinger, i am incapable of letting anything go" dynamic.
textbook enemies-to-enemies-who-fuck.
where this turns into enemies-to-lovers... is that both snape and bellatrix are clearly profoundly lonely people. and not only that, but profoundly lonely in strikingly similar ways - above all in that they're in love with someone who doesn't want them in the way they'd like to be wanted. i don't think bellatrix loses anything of her character - her cruelty, her temper, her resilience - if we also imagine her as a bit of a hopeless romantic [her joy at voldemort complimenting her - "no higher pleasure... that means a great deal, bellatrix, coming from you" - which vanishes when he turns it into an insult is but one example] who would jump at the chance to be mrs riddle. snape's unrequited love is well known.
neither of them seem to have friendships in which they're the priority - snape is close to lucius malfoy, but the relationship is nonetheless transactional; bellatrix clearly adores her sister, but she's secondary in narcissa's concerns to her husband and son. they live their lives in service to men who regard it as their duty to sacrifice themselves for their cause - snape with dumbledore, who may like him, but who also thinks of him primarily as a tool to bring about voldemort's defeat; bellatrix with voldemort, who considers her to have done the bare minimum in terms of loyalty to him by enduring fourteen years in azkaban [even though he also thinks this places her above all her fellow death eaters, who didn't even do that]. they both have experience of imprisonment - snape metaphorically, trapped in the school he doesn't seem to have particularly enjoyed and the childhood home he thought he'd escaped; bellatrix literally. they're both voldemort's exceptions in terms of the demographics of the death eaters - snape on account of his social class; bellatrix on account of her gender - which means that they depend entirely on maintaining the dark lord's goodwill and are peripheral to the elite male social group which makes up the rest of the inner circle.
and these similarities mean that they have a pretty high chance of being able to understand each other, comfort each other, and help each other move beyond their isolation...
until voldemort gets jealous, that is.
#asks answered#asenora's opinions on ships#unhinged and deranged ships#or not as the case may be#bellatrix lestrange#severus snape
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How about B, L, Q, and Y for Mikan?
B,L,Q and Y fluff alphabet prompts for mikan tsumiki
🩹B=baby(do they want a family? How are they with kids?)
Mikan is actually pretty great with children. She has had a lot of child patients, so she has experience in dealing with them, and her soft presence is actually really comforting to kids. While she would definitely like to have a kid, she'll need you to bring it up because it would be too embarrassing for her and she needs to know if you'd like to too
🩹L=love confession(how did they confess to you?)
She's pretty sure she would have just died from embarrassment if she told you directly, so she decided to write a love letter. She puts everything she wants to tell you in that letter, how much she loves you and has been crushing on you for months, how thankful she is for how nice you've been to her and that she wants to start dating you. She leaves it in front of the door of your dorm and waits in hers. She was very worried you wouldn't accept it so when you went to find her to tell her you loved her to she couldn't have been happier
🩹Q=quizzes(how much do they remember about you?)
She actually remembers quite a lot, especially if it's something important. She particularly has a really good memory when it comes to your medical history. If you have any allergies, she'll make sure to always check the ingredients in things she buys. If you tell her that you're not feeling good, she'll remind you of everything new you did to try and figure out if it was any of that.
🩹Y=yes (how do they react to you proposing to them?)
"M-my beloved, this date was amazing thanks"
Mikan smiles at you with a small blush on her face
"B-but if I may ask....why did you bring me h-here?"
She quickly waves her hands embarrassed and starts to talk quickly
"N-not that you need a reason b-but-"
"There actually is"
"H-hm?"
"It's this"
You get on one knee and pull out the box with the ring. As you start speaking, mikan starts crying, but for one of the first times in her life, she's not sad. It's tears of happiness
"T-thank you so much beloved, i-i just don't know what to say, I never thought s-someone would want to m-marry me, but......thank you. Y-yes I definitely want to be your wife....f-forever....just thank you so much"
#danganronpa x reader#danganronpa#danganronpa goodbye despair x reader#danganronpa goodbye despair#danganronpa 2 x reader#danganronpa 2#mikan tsumiki x reader#mikan tsumiki#x reader#gn reader#fluff alphabet#fluff prompts#fluff
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ough why is medieval times so hard to WRITE ARGRHAG
WHAT YA’LL DOING OVER THERE!!!
#you dont question what medieval people did when its not about swordfighting and warring kingdoms#like. what the hell they did when they were bored#where do you drink water from#what bowls do they use its not ceramic is it#what do you use as lights in your house#in a castle#what do servants in a castle eat#how often do you get to eat meat#whats the attire#did you buy it from someone or did you make it yourself#was it cotton or leather#did yall have games on your stone tablets#i know thats more ancient than medieval but#fkdjgrth#me everytime i write medieval times im like. ‘fuck i have to do 1 million research just to know what kind of dress i can put on my reader’#also all the questions i asked. i know a little more about them now thanks to research#so thats one way to learn about history#yay#aka rambling tags#i know what medieval peasants wore thanks to the snake in the mountains
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.
#its really weird you know#like ive kinda distanced myself from a lot of interactions#but when i do talk to people#and just to see how removed they are from politics etc#im not wording this very well but examples are just#me casually tutting when labour are mentioned#to be asked if i dont like them#and im like yeah i hate them. especially kier starmer.#and theyre like nodding along. but then to be diplomatic (this person was english) i say that i do like certain labour mps though like zarah#sultana etc#and the blank look i got. like idk. im probably just very online but this is someone whos educated and has a good job. so i just kinda#assumed theyd be a bit mroe aware of whats going on?#and then another person#i mentioned how theres books for kids about palestines history#i didnt mention anything else#and just... kinda silence. like a head nod and then convo moved on#and again i could just be over analysing but it almost felt like they didnt wanna talk about it because they didnt know/care?#which maybe. but i just kinda feel like at this fucking point. how can you not know.#i dont get how people are just so unaware of whats going on in the world around them. especially when its things that do indirectly affect#them. when it comes to people being incriminately harmed and murdered#like i dont think these people are against palestine or big labour fans etc etc either#but its just the blissful ignorance#idk maybe im just jealous tbh. because this shit haunts my every waking moment. the thought that theres so many bigoted and ignorant people#around the world scares me. and i never want to be one of them#this is such a jumbled ramble#but alas#le text post
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Ykno the suckiest thing about being broken up with for someone else is that like. Well I'm doing generally fine, all things considered, but I Am kinda sad thinking about the things I've lost and all the casual affection that I can't have now.
But she's out there having all the affection she wants from her coworker, and it's just like. Damn this feels so skewed and SO unfair.
#speculation nation#and then U add in the fact that the girl she broke up with me for is already dating someone else (poly sort of situation)#and im just like. WHYYYYY did she break up with me instead of trying to negotiate poly???#she was gonna at first but when i expressed concern about poly given her obvious communication problems about it#then she dropped me like a hot coal. like sorry i wasnt about to let myself be stood up and ignored for basically a whole day#just to accept u trying to negotiate poly. like What?????#anyways i may have a bit of a history with being a bit of an asshole and breaking up with them#but at LEAST ive never broken up with anyone to immediately start dating someone else#and at LEAST ive broken up with them in person and not over text!!! the fuck?????#i keep alternating between 'surprisingly okay with it all' and 'maybe a little sad' and 'absolutely fucking LIVID'#and i keep wanting to yell at her more but i already said quite a lot of things. so id just be repeating myself#and at that point id just be a vitriolic piece of shit. which i try not to be.#so im letting her live in peace while i continue to be So Pissed about it and it just sucks man lmfao#why do i gotta be the bigger person fr. i even apologized for the hurtful things i was saying in anger. literally in that same conversation.#and she gets to pull this stunt and walk free and spend so much time with her new 'love' ignoring the world etc etc#honestly i hope it fails miserably for her. bc sure theres a chance it works out but every single part of this is impulsive and So Stupid.#and even tho my ex agreed with me when i told her it was INSANE. she was just like 'i have to' like OKAY????#jesus fucking christmas she's revealed a side to me that i really hadnt seen before.#so i hope it fails and i hope she tells me about it. i hope she owns up to her mistakes. for my own satisfaction.#but i have 0 intention on ever taking her back. because what the fuck????#i may be a flawed individual with plenty of problems. but i still have basic fucking dignity. and i am NOT accepting this back in my life.#and god damn her friend is moving into the unit across from mine for this coming year#and i may have to see my ex sometimes bc of it 😭😭😭#the friend seemed generally level headed tho. idk if i happen across him & he doesnt avoid me maybe i'll ask him what he thinks of this#bc she was treating me with such love and affection showing me off to all her friends. and then she drops me like a fucking coal.#i wouldnt say i made friends with them myself but we were at least friendly. so i doubt theyd have a good opinion of her for this.#so would the friend loyalty take precedence? or would he be willing to chat with me and confirm Yeah what the fuck?#bc if i had a friend who did this same exact thing id be side-eyeing them SO hard.#id support them bc theyre my friend but i would also be like 'hey uh Why did you do that. that was pretty awful of u you know that right'#& itd also make me more cautious of them too. for being Able to drop someone so suddenly lol.
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i have so much information about this random man’s sex life now because people in their late 20s LOVE telling me too much about their lives and i love listening to people be insane
#he was bisexual and boy did i get to hear all about his dilemmas of whether he should settle down with a man or a woman#i havent approved his request to follow me on instagram yet bc like listen . i have so much information about him now .#it feels Odd ! it does !!! he doesn’t know that much about me but he does know i haven’t ever been in a relationship which ALSO feels like#too much information……….#anyway idt he was flirting with me fr bc he has a woman who he’s seeing atm who he’s very into he tells me#but he did keep saying how beautiful i was which was very sweet but he kept being like ‘IN THE LEAST FLIRTATIOUS WAY but also i would but#also no but also ANYWAY UR BEAUTIFUL’ and it was fucking weird#anyway weird experiences i love being sober when everyone else is drunk i do genuinely think it’s so much fun#ALSO A GUY FROM MY FUCKING HISTORY CLASS WAS THERE???? horrible#i went to a gig alone and then a friend of a friend spotted me and asked if i wanted to come talk to HER friends#and then introduced me to this guy who is in my fucking classsssssssss#and then idk there were suddenly about 10 other ppl n one of them was the man who i now know too much about xoxo#i do now it seems . have a person to buy acid from if i ever want to do that though#anyway the band was actually kinda good n i’d love to see them again but idrk if i want to see everyone else that i talked to last night#again which makes it difficult bc most of them knew at least one person in the band#I DID get to meet the band and kinda sorta go out with them tho bc of this which was fun#lead singer was absolutely shitfaced and bought an $8.50 pie and i have never seen someone so horrified and happy at the same time#if anyone even thinks they know what band this is about or that they know me irl please unfollow immediately#except ofc the ppl who i have met intentionally irl <3
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I think one of the craziest things that a former object of my affection has ever said to me is “your boyfriend is just a less attractive version of me” like?? why would you say that?? are we still doing a Nick and Jess or are you just deranged??
#he's deranged. he's just deranged.#last month we both had boyfriends and yet that did not stop him from saying this#or saying 'how do we know me and bri's boyfriend aren't the same person if we've never been in the same room at the same time'#or constantly bringing up my romantic history for no reason and acting weirdly jealous whenever there's someone new#telling me why all of them are terrible and deflecting whenever i confront him about it#last time i pressed him on it he said that he only thinks about my romantic interests this much because he's making a tier list#like okay yeah for sure for sure that's why you bring it up in front of all of our close friends and judge all of them so harshly#yeah keep never unpacking that one#i swear some men would rather d*e than do basic introspection to figure out why they act the way that they do#bri speaks#LIKE HE'S BEEN OUT OF TOWN FOR ABOUT A WEEK AND HAD A PACKAGE DELIVERED TO HIS HOUSE#AND WHO DID HE ASK TO PICK IT UP???#WHO DOES HE DEFAULT TO WHEN HE NEEDS SOMETHING AND NEEDS SOMEONE HE CAN TRUST#never his boyfriend nah why would you go to the person you're dating for anything when bri is right over there??
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Before Sukuna was defeated, he hid your identity from history as well as he could. He wanted to make sure his beloved lover was never found by the sorcerers. However, after his death, no one was there to stop you from being found and sealed.
They would have killed you, but the love poetry and letters Sukuna had written to you was proof that you were his only weak point, so you were sealed in the fear that Sukuna could possibly return centuries later and you could be used to calm him as a back up.
Centuries later and the ancient sorcerers were right. The fearful King of Curses was revived and the higher ups of the Jujutsu world wanted Itadori Yuji executed for being his vessel.
However, Gojo Satoru had other plans.
Your prison realm was stored away deep within Jujutsu High, and he knew exactly where you were and how to unseal you.
“Where…am I? Who- who are you?”
“You are currently at Jujutsu High, a school that trains young sorcerers for the world ahead of them. And I am Gojo Satoru, a teacher here at Jujutsu High and the strongest sorcerer of the modern age. But don’t worry, I didn’t unseal you to hurt you.”
“What did you unseal me for then?” You have no clue what he’s talking about. You’ve been stuck in a cube for what felt like — and was — many many centuries. And this strange man with white hair and a blindfold is telling you about things you barely understand. Your head is spinning.
“I wanted to reunite you with someone.” The man turns around, waiting for you to follow. “Are you coming?”
“How do I know you won’t kill me?” You say shakily, tears pricking the corner of your eyes. You’re so unbelievably scared.
“I won’t. I just want to bring you to someone you know. Someone you love. Sound good?” He finally turns to face you again. Even though he’s blindfolded, it’s like he can see you shaking on the floor.
You wearily bring yourself to your feet and purse your lips. “…okay.”
————————————
Gojo: Hey, Yuji. I’m with someone
I’d like you to meet. Meet me at
the training field in 20 mins.
Yuji: Okay! See you soon Sensei.
————————————
The walk to the training field felt long but also fascinating. Everything around you was so new! How long had you been in that cube? You’re pulled from your wonder when you see someone sitting on a step by the field. His fluffy pink hair reminds you so much of Sukuna it makes your heart break. You miss him so much. Perhaps Gojo has taken you to meet his descendant?
“Ah, Sensei! Who did you want me to meet?”
“Hello Yuji! I wanted to introduce you to someone very important. Say hello to L/N Y/N!”
“Oh, hello Mx. L/N! I’m Itadori Yuji.” He gives you a bright smile and a firm handshake.
“Hello…” There’s a beat of silence before Itadori turns to his teacher.
“So, why’d you want me to meet this person?-“
“How is Sukuna right now?” You perk up at this. Did he just say Sukuna? Was this kid Sukuna? No, definitely not. Then what…
“Huh? Well, he’s completely slient for once. It’s actually quite refreshing to not have his constant nagging- why’d you ask?” Suddenly an eye and a mouth apear under Itadori’s left eye.
“Y/N…”
“Huh- hey!” Itadori slaps his cheek to stop Sukuna from freaking you out.
“It’s okay, Yuji. Let it happen.”
“But-“
“Sukuna?” Itadori’s confusion intensifies when he sees you tearing up. Not out of sadness, but rather happiness and confusion. Just who are you?
————————————
Please don’t copy or take as your own. Likes and reblogs are appreciated!
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#jjk x reader#jjk#jujutsu kaisen#jujutsu kaisen x reader#sukuna ryomen x reader#jjk sukuna#ryomen sukuna x reader#sukuna ryomen#ryomen sukuna#sukuna#sukuna x reader#jujutsu kaisen sukuna#jjk gojo#jujutsu kaisen gojo#gojo satoru#satoru gojo#gojo#yuji itadori#jjk yuji#jujutsu kaisen yuuji#jjk itadori#itadori yuuji
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i think a lot about exactly 1 thing from the roman empire: the concept of bread and circus. the idea was that if your population was fed and entertained, they wouldn't revolt. you are asking us to give up our one small life, is the thing - for under 15 dollars an hour.
what would that buy, even. i am trading weekends and late nights and my back health. i am trading slow mornings and long walks and cortisol levels. i am trading sleep and silence and peace. for ... this. for what barely-covers-rent.
life really is more expensive right now. you aren't making that up. i make almost 3 times what i did 5 years ago, and despite an incredibly equal series of bills - i am still struggling. the most expensive line item i added was to own a dog. the money is just evaporating.
we were okay with it because it's a cost-benefit analysis. i could handle the customer harassment and standing all day and the manager's constantly changing temperament - i was coming home to hope, and my life planned in a blue envelope. three hours would buy me my dog's food for a month. i can give up three hours for him, for his shiny coat and wide, happy mouth. three days could be a new mattress, if i was thrifty. if i really scrimped and saved, we could maybe afford a trip into the city.
recently i cried in the car about the price of groceries.
business majors will be mad at me, but my most inflammatory opinion is that people should never be valued at the same place as products. your staff should not be a series of numbers in an excel sheet that you can just "replace" whenever you need something at that moment. your staff should be people, end of sentence.
it feels like someone somewhere is playing a very bad video game. like my life is a toy. like someone opened an app on their phone and hired me in diner dash ultra. they don't need to pay me well or treat me alright - they can always just show me the door. there is always someone more desperate, always someone more willing.
but i go to work and know i could save for years and not afford housing. i am never going to own my own home, most likely. i have no idea how to afford her ring, much less the wedding. my dog doesn't have his own yard. everything i love is on subscription. if i lose my job, i have no "nest egg" to catch my falling.
this thin life - they want me to give up summer for it. to open my mouth and throat and swallow the horrible hours and counted keystrokes. they want me to give up mountains and any non-federal holiday. to give up snow days. to give up talking to my mom whenever i want. to give up visiting the ocean and hearing the waves.
bread and circus worked for a while, actually. it was the kind of plan that would probably now be denounced by republicans as socialist commie liberal pronoun bullshit.
but sometimes i wonder if we should point them to the part of the history book that says: it worked until it didn't.
#spilled ink#warm up#writeblr#i have a good job please shut the fuck up before telling me to get a better job#girl i have vision and dental.#if u blame the victim that's wild. do u know about economic systems
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Hi- er, this is my first-ever writer's strike, how does one not cross a picket line in this context? I know how not to do it with things like Amazon and IRL strikes, but how does it apply to media/streaming?
Hi, this is a great question, because it allows me to write about the difference between honoring a picket line and a boycott. (This is reminding me of the labor history podcast project that's lain fallow in my drafts folder for some time now...) In its simplest formulation, the difference between a picket line and a boycott is that a picket line targets an employer at the point of production (which involves us as workers), whereas a boycott targets an employer at the point of consumption (which involves us as consumers).
So in the case of the WGA strike, this means that at any company that is being struck by the WGA - I've seen Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Warner Brothers Discovery, NBC, Paramount, and Sony mentioned, but there may be more (check the WGA website and social media for a comprehensive list) - you do not cross a picket line, whether physical or virtual. This means you do not take a meeting with them, even if its a pre-existing project, you do not take phone calls or texts or emails or Slacks from their executives, you do not pitch them on a spec script you've written, and most of all you do not answer any job application.
Because if this strike is like any strike since the dawn of time, you will see the employers put out ads for short-term contracts that will be very lucrative, generally above union scale - because what they're paying for in addition to your labor is you breaking the picket line and damaging the strike - to anyone willing to scab against their fellow workers. GIven that one of the main issues of the WGA are the proliferation of short-term "mini rooms" whereby employers are hiring teams of writers to work overtime for a very short period, to the point where they can only really do the basics (a series outline, some "broken stories," and some scripts) and then have the showrunner redo everything on their lonesome, while not paying writers long-term pay and benefits, I would imagine we're going to see a lot of scab contracts being offered for these mini rooms.
But for most of us, unless we're actively working as writers in Hollywood, most of that isn't going to be particularly relevant to our day-to-day working lives. If you're not a professional or aspiring Hollywood writer, the important thing to remember honoring the picket line doesn't mean the same thing as a boycott. WGA West hasn't called on anyone to stop going to the movies or watching tv/streaming or to cancel their streaming subscriptions or anything like that. If and when that happens, WGA will go to some lengths to publicize that ask - and you should absolutely honor it if you can - so there will be little in the way of ambiguity as to what's going on.
That being said, one of the things that has happened in the past in other strikes is that well-intentioned people get it into their heads to essentially declare wildcat (i.e, unofficial and unsanctioned) boycotts. This kind of stuff comes from a good place, someone wanting to do more to support the cause and wanting to avoid morally contaminating themselves by associating with a struck company, but it can have negative effects on the workers and their unions. Wildcat boycotts can harm workers by reducing back-end pay and benefits they get from shows if that stuff is tied to the show's performance, and wildcat boycotts can hurt unions by damaging negotiations with employers that may or may not be going on.
The important thing to remember with all of this is that the strike is about them, not us. Part of being a good ally is remembering to let the workers' voices be heard first and prioritizing being a good listener and following their lead, rather than prioritizing our feelings.
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In 1985, one of the only persons interested in an interview with a “new” writer called Terry Pratchett, after his publication of the Colour of Magic, was one Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman was writing for Space Voyager at the time. "The Colour of Pratchett" was the name given here:
It ran exactly one page inside the June/July issue of that year. The interview took place in a Chinese restaurant in London.
Here is Neil many years later holding that issue. You can see it here if you want. Warning: extremely emotional video.
Neil arrived wearing a grey homburg hat. “Sort of like the ones Humphrey Bogart wears in movies” he later wrote. (Before saying that in fact he did not look like him, but like someone wearing a grown-up’s hat). Terry Pratchett, photo courtesy of one @neil-gaiman, was in a Lenin-style leather cap and a harlequin-patterned pullover. At this point, Terry was already a hat person, although not that hat.
Terry offered Neil this : "An interview needn't last more than 15 minutes. A good quote for the beginning, a good quote for the end, and the rest you make up back at the office"*. (Terry Pratchett had worked many years in journalism by this point ).
But the meeting went terribly well. The two of them realized they had "the same sort of brains". So well indeed, that in 1985, Neil had shown Terry a file containing 5282 words, exploring a scenario in which Richmal Crompton's William Brown had somehow become the Antichrist. Was a collaboration in the cards as of that moment? Not really. But Terry found in Neil someone to whom he could send disks of work in progress and to whom he could pick up the phone sometimes when he hit a brick in the road of his writing.
Terry loved it and the concept stayed in his mind. A couple of years later, he rang Neil to ask him if he had done any more work on it. Neil had been busy with The Sandman, he had not really given it another thought. Terry said, "Well I know what happens next, so either you sell me the idea or we can write it together". **
On collaborating together:
Here is a video of Sir Terry saying why he chose to collaborate with Neil, another video talking about the technical difficulties of writing a book when the two of them where miles apart ,and some pages from Interzone Magazine Issue 207 published December 2006:
An Interview with Sir Terry Pratchett and his works- and Neil Gaiman, where he shortly addresses the process of writing Good Omens.
Terry shortly mentions,
“Neil doesn't rule out another book with me and he was good to write with...yep, it could happen. With anyone else? I don't know, but probably not.?”
Neil says,
"Terry took that initial 5,000 words of mine and ran it through the computer (because I’d lost the files in a computer crash) and made it the first 10,000 words, and it was definitely Good Omens at that point. Neither one thing nor the other, but a third thing.”
"I think Terry could do a very good impersonation of me if he needed to, and I could do a very good impersonation of him; so we knew the area of the Venn diagram in which we were working. But mostly the book found its own voice very quickly. It helped that we were both scarred by the William books when we were kids...”
And as you know, unless you’ve been living in Alpha Centauri, the rest is history. That was the beginning of what would become William the Antichrist and later would get the name Good Omens:The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. (Title provided by Neil Gaiman and subtitle by Terry Pratchett).
More about the writing process:
Terry took the first 5,000 words and typed them into his word processor, and by the time he had finished they were the first 10,000 words. Terry had borrowed all the things about me that he thought were amusing, like my tendency back then to wear sunglasses even when it wasn't sunny, and given them, along with a vintage Bentley, to Crawleigh, who had now become Crowley. The Satanic Nurses were Satanic Nuns.
The book was under way.
We wrote the first draft in about nine weeks. Nine weeks of gloriously long phone calls, in which we would read each other what we'd written, and try to make the other one laugh. We'd plot, delightedly, and then hurry off the phone, determined to get to the next good bit before the other one could. We'd rewrite each other, footnote each other's pages, sometimes even footnote each other's footnotes. We would throw characters in, hand them off when we got stuck. We finished the book and decided we would only tell people a little about the writing process - we would tell them that Agnes Nutter was Terry's, and the Four Horsemen (and the Other Four Motorcyclists) were mine.
From the introduction to William the Antichrist:
“In the summer of 1987 several odd ideas came together: (..)I found myself imagining a book called William the Antichrist, in which a hapless demon was going to be responsible for swapping the wrong baby over, and the son of the US Ambassador would be completely undemonic, while William Brown would grow up to be the Antichrist, and the demon would need to stop him ending the world. The unfortunate demon, whom I called Crawleigh, because Crawley was a nearby town with an unfortunate name, would have to sort it all out as best he could.
It felt like a story with legs.
Terry took the 5,000 words, and rewrote them, calling me to tell me what he was doing and what he was planning to do. The biggest thing he was going to do, he told me, was split the hapless demon into two characters – a would-be-cool demon in dark glasses (which was, I think, Terry’s way of making fun of me, a never-actually- cool journalist in dark glasses) who had renamed himself Crowley, and a rare-book dealer and angel called Aziraphale, who would embody all the English awkwardness that either of us could conceive.”
William the Antichrist being a direct inspiration of the 1976 film The Omen. If the baby swap had just been a little bit messier and the kid had gone off somewhere else he would have grown up as somebody else. “And then there was a beat and I thought, I should write it, it will be called William the Antichrist” says Neil. ***
“The first draft of Good Omens was a William-book. It was absolutely in every way it could be a William book. It had Violet Elizabeth Bott, it had William and the Outlaws, it had Mr. Brown”.
Over time they realized that they would have more creative freedom if they in their own words filed off the serial numbers. William and the Outlaws becoming Adam and the Them.
But the spirit of Just William was never far away.
The joy for Neil was to construct “perfectly William sentences”. The one when Anathema tells Adam that she has lost the Book, and he tells her that he has written a book about a pirate who became a famous detective and it is 8 pages long… that’s “a William sentence”.
If you want to read more details about William The Antichrist, here are some slides I made.
Good Omens was also inspired by a particularly antisemitic moment in The Jew of Malta and John le Carre's spy novels. (Neil’s ask)
Then I was reading The Jew of Malta by Kit Marlowe, and it has a bit where the three (cartoonishly evil) Jews compare notes on all the well-poisoning and suchlike they’d done that day, and as a Jew who never quite gets his act together, it occurred to me that if I were the third Jew I’d just be apologizing for having failed to poison a well… And suddenly I had the opening of a book. It would be called William the Antichrist. And it would begin with three Demons in a graveyard… (x).
“When we finished the book we estimated that the words were 60% Terry’s and 40% mine, and the plot, such as it was, was entirely ours.” -Neil Gaiman
"Neil and I had known each other since early 1985. Doing it was our idea, not a publisher's deal." "I think this is an honest account of the process of writing Good Omens. It was fairly easy to keep track of because of the way we sent discs to one another, and because I was Keeper of the Official Master Copy I can say that I wrote a bit over two thirds of Good Omens. However, we were on the phone to each other every day, at least once. If you have an idea during a brainstorming session with another guy, whose idea is it? One guy goes and writes 2,000 words after thirty minutes on the phone, what exactly is the process that's happening? I did most of the physical writing because: 1) I had to. Neil had to keep Sandman going -- I could take time off from the DW; 2) One person has to be overall editor, and do all the stitching and filling and slicing and, as I've said before, it was me by agreement -- if it had been a graphic novel, it would have been Neil taking the chair for exactly the same reasons it was me for a novel; 3) I'm a selfish bastard and tried to write ahead to get to the good bits before Neil. Initially, I did most of Adam and the Them and Neil did most of the Four Horsemen, and everything else kind of got done by whoever -- by the end, large sections were being done by a composite creature called Terryandneil, whoever was actually hitting the keys. By agreement, I am allowed to say that Agnes Nutter, her life and death, was completely and utterly mine. And Neil proudly claims responsibility for the maggots. Neil's had a major influence on the opening scenes, me on the ending. In the end, it was this book done by two guys, who shared the money equally and did it for fun and wouldn't do it again for a big clock." "Yes, the maggot reversal was by me, with a gun to Neil's head (although he understood the reasons, it's just that he likes maggots). There couldn't be blood on Adam's hands, even blood spilled by third parties. No-one should die because he was alive." -("Terry Pratchett : His World”)
(Here are some slides of mine where I go into some other details concerning the origins of Good Omens).
Another wonderful insight with Rob Wilkins in "The Worlds of Terry Pratchett".
*Quote: from Terry Pratchett A Life With Footnotes by Rob Wilkins, but said by Terry of course.
** All the quotes, facts listed here : see above.
***all other quotes by Neil Gaiman from various interviews and asks I’ll link.
#good omens#neil gaiman#terry pratchett#crowley#aziraphale#ineffable husbands#good omens fun facts#the colour of magic#the colour of pratchett#space voyager magazine
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a reflection on MatPat's plagiarism
Hello, my name is Della, or micer2012, and 2 years ago Game Theory plagiarized three Tumblr posts of mine, making a video that now holds almost 6 million views.
My posts explaining his plagiarism made their rounds on Reddit, Tumblr and Twitter, but despite the Hermits and Pooka commenting on it (generally in support of me or saying they don’t know enough details about the situation to say either way), MatPat and his team have never owned up to anything, and no mention of my name is present on the video. The one Reddit post they made denying it (which was made before my detailed takedown, which they have never responded to (though the mods on the r/GameTheorists Reddit were kind and made sure it stayed up)) didn’t even mention me by name, just referring to me as “a tumblr user”. (Though one of the screenshotted comments in the body of the post does say my name)
This experience was baffling, but it’s overall had a positive impact on my life. r/Hermitcraft gave me a Golden Apple Award (post of the year, 2021). My inbox was filled with excited fans, wanting to ask me questions or pose their own theories, far more than the hate I got. (Though the hate I got from Game Theory fans was VERY funny. I wondered why none of them gave me shit about saying “MatPat misgendered Evil Xisuma” before realizing none of them read that far into the post.)
And getting on a more personal, and much more important note, I met most of my current online friends through this, including my partner. It helped me grow closer with my irl friends as well and gave me an entertaining story that I tell whenever I have the chance. It was one of the first things in my life that really made me feel like my talents, my autistic hyperfocusing and analyzing of things I love, could be valuable. Useful. Exploitable. It blew my mind that MatPat thought an autistic kid’s ramblings about a Minecraft Youtube joke character were good enough to steal. To put an audible sponsorship on. To get 6 million views off of.
And that’s why I’m writing this post, this update years later. As you might’ve been able to guess, Hbomberguy’s Youtube video on plagiarism reopened this wound. It was really hard for me to sit through, it took days of pausing and taking breaks, because I had experienced everything he was talking about firsthand.
In my 10 page long takedown post, I wrote about how his rewording of my sentences made him say things that were incorrect, just like Filip did. The content farm production style that made big companies like Cinemassacre take one creator (AVGN/MatPat) and turn him and his content into a brand, a voice that reads out scripts by other people with other opinions/theories, is a history shared with Game Theory. What really hit me was Harris talking about how big creators only do this to people they think they can get away with doing it to. How they view their victims as lesser, as not deserving of their words, repackaging them as their own to give to an audience that can gain from hearing them, but deserves better than to have to listen to the original victim.
That’s the thing, I 100% think a video version of my theory to expose to a bigger community than “Evil Xisuma Fans on Tumblr” is a great idea!! Near the end of the video Harris talks about how video adaptations of things could be a great market, even an accessibility tool, and I completely feel that about my posts. I wrote them quickly assuming the reader was someone well versed on Evil Xisuma lore, after not even watching most of the CarnEvil series, and the diagrams I made to explain them are even less comprehensible. Harris makes a joke that I completely agree with,
“I’m sure some of my videos would do very well if someone translated them into English.”
I don’t think I would’ve ever made my posts if I didn’t have autism, and a special fixation on Evil Xisuma and Hermitcraft. I made them because I felt the character was being done an injustice, and because I wanted to share with other superfans this theory that might explain it away. I do think that MatPat plagiarizing me was ableist. I used to wonder a lot if this would’ve happened if my posts were articulated better, if they had been peer reviewed, if the posts themselves had been spread to a wider audience before MatPat made his video. At one point when the discourse was fresh (before I had the time to write out my 10 page rebuttal), a bigger YouTuber (100k subs at the time) messaged me and started talking on Discord, interested in possibly making a video on the discourse, but I think my style of typing and general enthusiasm drove him away. You can tell by a single look at my blog (or my original 3 posts!) that I don’t usually type like this. This post you’re reading now has been peer reviewed and edited, and took me hours to format correctly. That video could’ve been huge, the entire outcome of this MatPat situation would probably be much different.
I also used to stress a lot about “being the one who ruined Evil Xisuma’s story”. If you didn’t know, to me S8 Evil Xisuma’s story got wrapped up pretty quickly and unsatisfying (in my personal autistic opinion). (though this might’ve been due to s8 being experimental and ending early with moon big) There was no real culmination of the plot points and arcs going on, and I don’t want to blame myself, but when Xisuma said on stream (when the MatPat thing was first going on) that he didn’t want to focus on the discourse or draw more attention to it, it makes a lot of sense to me that he just wanted to wrap it all up as quickly as possible. For a while I beat myself up about it, of ruining the story of this character I love, but it’s not my fault. If anyone’s, it’s MatPats, but I don’t think it’s useful to just blame someone else. That’s how the story ended up going, and that’s fine. This is Evil Xisuma we’re talking about, their inconsistent lore is what made them such an interesting character. And notably, Pooka made an animation with an awesome culmination of Jeff, the Dreamer, Evil Xisuma, and his own sona’s story, and it makes me so happy to watch. Whatever Pooka does is of course his own choice, but I’m glad he got to give this personal story his own ending (if it is an ending, and not just the start of a new chapter!).
Typing this all out and getting it off my chest has made me feel a lot better. For a while I wanted to make my OWN video essay about Evil Xisuma’s lore and CarnEvil’s lore, actually going episode by episode to explain it instead of just assuming you knew as much about Evil Xisuma as I did. That idea is still not off the table, but MCYT isn’t something I’m that into right now. Maybe if something else comes out about Evil Xisuma I’ll get back on it, but for now I’m fine with letting that go. But I want to make other videos, share other theories and analysis… if I have the freetime I’d love to make YouTube videos, and if I don’t have the time I’ll continue posting to my tumblr and infodumping to my friends. Apparently my infodumping is valuable enough “content” to steal! Writing this out has made me feel a lot better though, I’m really glad I got it out.
If anyone ever wants to talk to me about the things I’m obsessed with, or reach out to me as a source in a bigger discussion about Game Theory or other channels, my inbox is more than welcome :] Thank you for reading!
Sincerely, a tumblr user.
#exiavojtmmc#hermitcraft#matpat#gt#game theory#hc#mcyt#evil xisuma#hbomberguy#plagiarism#james somerton#jeff the minion#mine#micer2012#hcs9
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If Civil War didn't end in divorce and everyone lived together Part 2
Read Part 1 and Part 3
Tony: Why is Underoos mopping the ceiling?
Sam: Told him since he's sticky that's his chore
Bucky: It's only fair he helps out around the house
Tony: Hm. Makes sense
-
Vision cooked dinner:
Peter: *pushing around food to make it look eaten*
Natasha: *surreptitiously spitting into napkin*
Steve: *taking small bites with tons of water*
Bucky: *just stares at full plate*
Tony: Well this is disgusting, I'm ordering pizza
-
Sam: C'mon man stop moping around, you gotta get yourself a girl
Bucky: Ok.
Sam: Ok? Okayyyyy! I know-
Bucky: Give me your phone
Sam: Oh you got a number in mind already hotshot? *hands phone over*
Bucky: *ring* Hi Sarah ;)
Sam: BOY-
-
Peter: Ned thought you would seperate your colours from your lights but he also thought you'd be homophobic so I don't pay him much mind cuz clearly I'm more of a superhero expert than him but he does have a 2% better average than me in history so like maybe you do hand wash your clothes and that's why I asked what underwear you wear because-
Steve: *listening intently with apprehension and alarm*
Natasha: I can't believe you found the one person on Earth who talks more nonsense than you
Tony: I know right, it's incredibly unnerving. I'm planning on adopting him
-
Peter: Mr. Stark I have to tell you something. I think Vision is a... *whispers* pervert
Tony: Um, why?
Peter: He keeps floating through my room without knocking! He saw me changing, he saw my nipples !
Tony: Well if anyone's a predator here it would be you. I mean showing your nipples to a 2 year old? Deplorable.
Peter:
Peter: Oh god, I'm the pervert...
-
Bucky: Y'know animosity isn't good between teammates. I think we should spend more time together
Sam: Am I being punked right now? Where's the camera
Bucky: I'm serious. I think it would be healthy for us to bond
Sam: Okay fine I'll bite... what did you have in mind
Bucky: Wanna go for a run?
Sam: *slams door in Bucky's face*
-
*staring at Bucky's sparkly clean metal arm*
Bucky: Dishwasher?
Peter: Dishwasher :)
(later that day)
Bucky: I've decided to let the child live
Peter: YoU wHaT?!
-
Thwip
Tony: Who took my coffee cup, It was right here
Thwip
Bruce: Um, has someone seen my book? I just had it
Thwip
Steve: I could've sworn I was holding a pen a moment ago
*giggling from the ceiling*
Tony: Young man I will take those webshooters away if you use them for shenanigans and rascality
Peter, muffled: Mr. Hawkeye told me to!
Clint: Oh so you're just gonna rat me out like that?
Peter: Sor- OOF
*falls out of ceiling vent*
-
Sam: You're in my spot
Bucky: There are no spots, it's a common area
Sam: Well that's my spot
Bucky: Did you buy the chair??
Sam: No, but everyone knows that's where I sit. Right Steve?
Steve: Oops I forgot something in my car, be right back *leaves*
Sam: Still my spot
Bucky: Still not
Sam: *sits on him*
Bucky: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU ALL THE COUCHES ARE FREE-
Sam: IT'S MY SPOT YOU CAN'T TAKE A MAN'S FAVOURITE CHAIR-
BUCKY: YOU HAVE ISSUES GET OFF ME-
(one hour later)
Steve: Hey so turns out I don't have a car! Isn't that funn...
Sam & Bucky: *Squeezed awkwardly on the chair together*
Steve: I think I left something in my car
-
Steve: Leave the bedroom door open when you have Vision in there
Wanda: UGH you're so protective
Tony: Teenagers, am I right? Caught Pete reassembling my particle accelerator at midnight because he needed to neutralize a miniature nuclear bomb he nabbed off some guy he neglected to tell me was trying to kill him
Steve:
Steve: Wanda y'know what do whatever you want
Wanda: Really?
Steve: Yes just keep being normal. At least I can read about our issues in a parenting book
-
Thor: Ah, new warriors I see! Good to make all your acquaintance. But why are you so grumpy my friend?
Bucky: *glaring*
Peter: He's always like that. It's um, P- P- PMS? Wait -
Natasha: Yes it's PMS
Wanda: He's got it bad
Steve: *genuinely concerned* Bucky you didn't tell me something was wrong. What can I do to help?
Bucky:
Bucky: I like chocolate
-
Wanda: Welcome to the first annual girls night! This place reeks of men, so I thought we needed some women time
Pepper: Why is Vision here?
Wanda: I get sad when he's gone
Natasha: Why is Pietro here?
Pietro: Slay queens
Wanda: Moral support I think
Maria: Why is Peter here?
Wanda: He looked really upset when I said he wasn't included and I felt bad
Wanda: Anyways... yay girls! Who wants me to paint their nails?
Peter: ME ME ME
-
Steve: Pancakes or waffles?
Natasha: Pancakes
Steve: Good because I don't have a waffle maker
Natasha: Then why would you ask-
Steve: It's important for your voice to be heard, as team leader I value your opinion
*2 minutes later*
Steve: Good morning Clint, pancakes or waffles?
Clint: Waffles
Steve: Oh no.
-
Some of these were based on requests (ex. more Sam & Bucky, dad Steve w/ Wanda) so if you have certain dynamics you enjoy let me know !
#irondad and spiderson#marvel incorrect quotes#marvel mcu#mcu#incorrect marvel#incorrect quotes#incorrect marvel quotes#avengers#domestic avengers#the avengers#irondad#peter parker#tony stark#steve rogers#bucky barnes#sam wilson#sambucky#natasha romanoff#wanda maximoff#clint barton#pietro maximoff#thor odinson#bruce banner#marvel#vision
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