#bc i was like why would you bring csa into this?

[revacholian-girl-utena]

There are no stars. There is no light. There will be no future. (Requested by @thediscoelysiumlesbian )

Alt text: Screencaps from Revolutionary Girl Utena with overlaid text. 1: A closeup of Anthy's eyes, hair down and no glasses, staring down Utena in the moment she discovers Akio abusing Anthy. Text: "Oh, yes."

2: A closeup of Utena's eyes, wide with shock, from the same scene. Text: "This is real darkness."

3: A framed photo of Akio and Anthy, half in shadow as the window shades rise to reveal the room. Text: "Real darkness has love for a face."

4: Anthy's silhouette, hair flying wildly, pierced by many blades. Text: "The first death is in the heart." End alt text.

[truckstoptigers]

why can't i have a dad that's nice to me

[sisterpaxton]

okay story time about the crazy grown ass woman from when i was a teen that would dump her hcs about otis csa from his dad and try to get me to tell her sex hcs about spotis cause it "helped her stress" and harass me for fanart

back when i just turned 16 there was this bitch who found me cause id post otis art on insta. grown ass adult woman btw. and she started to dm me and beg me for detailed hcs about sex (cause at 16 i was an obnoxious kinnie about spaulding and she shipped spotis) which in retrospect was extremely weird but that wasnt the fucked up part. she had like 10 different fics, some going over 40k words, where shed have entire chapters describing otis as a kid getting brutally raped by his dad. she was also super obsessed with otis having an ED and hip problems from where his dad broke his hips from raping him so much as a kid (keep all this in mind for when you read the screenshots). shed dm me randomly outta the blue while i was in class for my GED telling me her otis csa ptsd hcs. that was the shit that made me so disturbed. all of this was unprompted. and at 16 i was going through a lot with being homeless and my dad going to prison for dv so i was just letting her yap in my dms bc these things dont trigger me but it sure was fucking weird.

flash forward to about 2 years ago and she tried to ask jack for the otis bio pics and he was like hey....wait....aint you the cunt who used to fantasize child rape in my man's dms when he was a vulnerable teen and she deleted all her fics like they never existed. crazy shit.

screenshot dump just so yall can see how....strange this chick was:

^ this one isnt too bad its just so random. source? what the hell are you on about? why are you fantasizing about the irl man bill moseley with your weird ED fetish?

^ her randomly bringing up otis getting raped as a kid. again. as she always did. left the first part in just so you can see how she'd just shove it into every convo.

^ the first screenshot is showing how shed fucking interrogate me to give her descriptions of her weird fetish. also she wouldn't stfu about woobifying otis for it. love how you can essentially see me being like Why Are You Thinking About This So Much

^ this is just a general cringe screenshot cause im like yeah they used to rob places and kill people together of course cutter's dug a bullet or two out of otis before and vice versa. and shes like Fuck.....if otis went to the hospital.......how was my 16yo ass less cringe and more logical than this grown woman

^ i actually clearly remember i was ghosting her during this time period because of school and also just. i didnt wanna keep having her bring up kid rape about my man every 4 messages. and here she is doing it again unprompted.

^ ANOTHER UNPROMPTED OTIS RAPE HC !!! LET HIS HOLE REST GIRL GODDAMN.

^ im talking about my surgeries and this bitch just pops off with "otis hates sucking his dad off" i remember the whiplash this gave me and its been 6 damn years. it still takes me off guard every time i remember.

^ to end this on a lighter note cause this always makes me laugh. ma'am do you even remember who youre talking about

[johannestevans]

Hey, I'm a big fan of your work and longtime follower, and I have a question re: navigating hookups while having Issues if you have the time and feel like you can answer (or want to toss it out to your followers.)

Basically, I have some pretty extensive csa trauma, and I haven't had a lot of sexual experience. I've been doing a lot of self-discovery lately and have been really intensely craving and fantasizing about getting to know and play with some cocks. I'm in the process of doing therapy for the trauma and extracting myself from a shitty relationship situation, and while I've had some fun exchanging pictures and videos online, I want to try dipping my toes into exploring irl hookups...

...but I'm not sure what the best way to navigate the potential trauma timebomb is! I genuinely don't know whether or not I'll end up getting triggered when I'm actually faced with a real cock in front of me, because I've never been in that situation as an adult. I'm not looking for another relationship, although I wouldn't mind an ongoing casual fooling-around-buddies type of thing. And while I'm okay with fantasy talk and exchanging pictures/videos, right now at least I'm not comfortable actually letting someone else touch/see my body when we're together - I pretty much just want to find someone who has a dick who is cool with letting me play with it for a while.

I'm not sure what the most, I guess, graceful way of communicating "I've had bad experiences in this area and I'm trying to experiment and really want to just touch someone's junk for a while without any reciprocation at all, but also I don't really know what I'm doing, and also there's a nonzero chance that trying might freak me the fuck out" - I have a pretty good idea of what I know are firm boundaries and where I suspect there could be problems, but I'm just not sure how to go about communicating it in a hookup app type environment without telling random strangers way more about my life and business than I want to.

So I was wondering, since you've also mentioned dealing with similar experiences if not having exactly the same type of issues bc of it, if you had any suggestions for when or how to bring it up in a way that communicates the necessary information without getting into the nitty-gritty details?

Honestly, Anon, I think you're overthinking it a little - you don't ever need to explain anything at all, let alone get into the details.

You don't even need to focus on not wanting to be touched - you can put the focus on wanting to touch and play with the other person without a need or desire for reciprocation.

Some people want to just show up and give someone a handjob or a blowjob with no reciprocation, and it's the most normal thing in the world - lesbians have stone butches, gay men absolutely have similar equivalents where like...

Someone might not want their dick touched because they have erectile dysfunction; they might be in a chastity cage, or have an agreement with partners or doms that they not be touched below the belt; they might be celibate, semi-celibate, or ace; they might be very sensitive and prone to premature ejaculation or immediate; they might be going somewhere else later and don't want to come too soon; they might be insecure about the size or shape of their genitalia; they might be poz or have lasting anxieties around HIV or other infections and thus prefer only giving oral without receiving anything or doing other forms of penetrative sex; they might, like you, be traumatised or otherwise touch-averse. They might just be in the mood to suck a dick!

I think your brain has jumped to the explanation part when like...

I don't think a lot of people would necessarily ask in the MLM cruising scene? Like.

If I've showed up and said, "listen, I just want to suck your dick then hit the bricks, that cool?", I doubt that you're gonna go, "Hey, why only the dicksucking? Why don't you want to do something else?" because like. We met up for the dicksucking thing, and I already said I didn't want to do anything else. People are generally chill with that because like I said, there's a million reasons why.

To use an example, like... I frequently tell hook-ups I'm not interested in kissing on the mouth, or that I don't like kissing on the mouth, which generally, I don't - I'm quite picky about it.

People have expressed disappointment when I've said I don't like it, or gone, "Aw, okay," or similar. No one, out of dozens of men, has ever asked me why I don't like it in response to the boundary as I set it - a few have asked about it after we're done, and it's always been in a casual way that's curious and just interested in what makes other people tick.

The thing about the MLM cruising scene is that a lot of us are having a lot of sex. We're having sex with different people, we're learning what we like and what we don't like and what our quirks are, and in the process of that you become quite comfortable setting boundaries or asking for the specifics you like without worrying so much about if they're odd or weird or esoteric to other people - not wanting to be touched reciprocally when you're just interested in dispensing a blowjob or playing about with a dick is barely odd at all in the scheme of things, and even if it were, a lot of people wouldn't necessarily ask the whys and reasons for it. They'd just say "yes" or "no" as to whether they want to be involved.

And same for tapping out, like... Any reason, at any time, you can just say, hey, sorry, I'm not feeling this, and head out. It happens all the time!

[opla]

Hello. I hope my message doesn't come off as mean or judgemental. I wanna talk about the OP/OPLA fandom.

I fully agree with the criticism of Taz Skyler, but 98% of the OP fandom worships Oda like a God when he's friends with 2 mangakas who are child predators (the Kenshin and Toriko creators)... I love OP as much as any other fan (I don't give it my money though), but I wish fans didn't feel the need to kiss the creator's ass so much, or make excuses for him using his clout and money to promote his predatory friends.

People in the fandom saying that Taz or the potential casting of Jamie Lee Curtis as Kureha will "taint" OP when the creator already did that feels like people don't take CSA as seriously as they should. Almost anyone who brings up Oda's terrible taste in friends gets shut down with poor excuses or treated like a "hater".

OP is also a story full of fatphobia and misogyny, where Oda makes it clear that the only women worthy of being seen as attractive and worthy of devotion need to be thin and have big breasts. People fight me on this one all the time, but the treatment of fat female characters like Alvida and Shinobu proves I'm right.

Again, I love OP... but it's been flawed before Taz Skylar tweeted anything.

hello! it's not mean at all & i agree 100%! oda is incredibly flawed & there's a lot to criticize about the original manga. i've actually spoken about oda's misogyny in my own personal blog before.

this is why i'm not acting like still enjoying opla is a sin (or one piece in general), even tho the cast may be problematic. if i did, i would stop running this blog at all. i am merely withdrawing my personal support from the cast for the sake of my sanity to be frankly honest.

i'm glad you brought up these issues & sent this message, so thank you! honestly part of the reason i'm excited for the live action is to see them hopefully rectify some of the major issues with the animanga, like the horrendous fatphobia, certain characters' (like sanji) misogyny & queerphobia, etc.

i agree that judging opla & its cast, while pretending that oda & the original content does not have plenty of issues is indeed incredibly hypocritical. i'm also not a fan of ppl using the genocide in palestine to speak ill of opla in general bc they never liked it to begin with. it's honestly disgusting & disrespectful.

i think the bottom line is that it is important to be aware & critical of what we enjoy & the ppl involved in it.

thank you once again for taking the time to send this message, i really appreciate it!

[spikeinthepunch]

if you thought that was the last post i would write today about Lisa, you are a fool. i wrote that last one at 2am so i have energy for another one, bc i had *more* thoughts even after that

TW for sexual abuse/rape/assault (i am going into more detail so please take that TW seriously)

Do victims talk? & how all the men mean something.

This is stupid long, sorry lol. i threw two topics into one.

okay so i had these thoughts on my mind prior and again i havent played Joyful (a few minutes of the start only)-- but with just the context of Painful this still sits on my mind.

Do victims talk? I want to answer this for myself.

Lisa (the character) was sexually abused and The First was pretty much an inner look at her mind. This reflects through most of Painful whenever it comes up, even if they aren't straightforward about it. That was the main thing, was not being clear when i played Painful, I didn't know what I was getting into. but with enough information it wasn't hard to side with Brad whether it was because of the abuse or the suicide-- and the fact that Buddy had been kidnapped in a world of men, who needed her in order to bring the world back. From the start, I felt like I knew what was coming in that regard...

But Buddy's important to the world was clear.... Obviously important. But Buddy is a child and so when Brad has a realization/assumption over what will happen the player can side with him. When i played i was immediately like, oh god, oh jesus. Of course I wanted Brad to save her... what I saw in their life of Brad keeping her inside didn't seem wrong, not exactly.

But there was a change of mindset towards the end of the game. Thats where that good intent falters. And you look back and question things... you kind of realize why Buddy acted how she did, and how she has been able to defend herself.

But the biggest notice to me is the lack of Buddy talking about anything the men implied they did to her. When you explore you hear them say vulgar things, then you get the to the Hairspray guys (whatever theyre called) and you hear what they're saying about having her in a back room for men to take turns on her and thats the first "oh god" moment. You of course find a man in her place, but still implied that she was in fact here and escaped. So, the implication still remains... You haven't seen Buddy at this point so you dont know what she'd say.

But when you do-- that is when she brings up Sticky. And yet again, the implications make it sound like Sticky raped her to 'teach' her about sex. But buddy seems to describe it vaguely after Brad gets mad about it. To continue this furthers and more quickly-- other instances of abuse/violence/assault on Buddy that are show or mentioned are Buzzo cutting off her nipple (shown), the mutilation of her face (shown), and at the start of Joyful the comment that one of Rando's 'friends' tried to touch/assault/rape her when she was tied up (off screen). That last one, Buddy again brushes off and doesnt say much.

So what do i say this all for. Well, the question is "how much of this actually happened to buddy?" We saw some on screen violence. But rape, assault, molestation? She doesnt say it exactly... but I think any survivors or those familiar would know full well that that doesnt mean it didnt happen. I think its completely wrong to assume nothing could have happened. lets break down the things that occurred from Buddy's end/how she acts, and some other details

Brad has already closed her off and isolated her. she doesnt know like, anything. she probably doesnt understand at all what sex would be and what would be bad (much like many csa victiums!)-- especially if Sticky did it, someone she trusts.

She shuts down when she starts to tells Brad, not exactly because she doesnt want to tell him- rather because he starts to get mad. Buddy knows that is a scary reaction from the past and probably ties that all into the anger Brad had towards her wanting to learn and explore (something she felt Sticky did)

overall, Buddy wants to use this opportunity to explore and see and learn and most of all, not be with Brad. she doesnt want to talk to him or share with him anything because she knows what hes like.

and ultimately... victims often dont tell people. maybe they dont know how. maybe they dont realize its abuse (again, common for children who dont know a lot). and for buddy too, she doesnt trust the one person who wants to make sure she is safe from all of it.

to go on the statements Buddy and others make regarding these events- i think it would be odd for all of those men to be lying. especially sudden moments like the start of Joyful (especially when the guys said they killed the other for what he tried to do). The Sticky instance was stated by Buddy in a vague way herself which is reliable. there was enough shown violence, attraction, and ability to contain her for moments that it just doesnt seem right to think theyd be lying too, like the Hair guys.

In the end you have two important things to think about: Buddy does not trust Brad anymore. She won't tell him anything. And the men like bragging. They loved talking about her. With the evidence we had about when she had been capture her, this doesnt look like lying from them- they were proud to have potentially having her for good.

In this story the men mean a LOT. they imply so much. and after the secret boss fight? I realized they mean so much more.

How all the men mean something.

The secret fight with Marty showed how deeply ingrain he is in Brad's mind. I expressed a LOT more about that in this post from last night. But the main thing to gather for this topic is how a lot of that mindset is defended by Marty as "this is how men should be".

Masculinity. Power. Control. Dominance. He expected the same from Brad and failing to do so meant he was weak, unworthy, pathetic, unmanly... While Brad escaped and desperately didn't want to be like him, he did what Marty did to Dusty and he abused drugs, etc. For Brad, he cannot shake the guilt that he will be the abuser his father was.

What does this have to do with the world of Olathe being full of men? Oh it has so much to do with the story. The implications... Olathe is full of men. They have formed groups who fight each other and are quite horribly violent at times. Masculinity is undeniably at its peak, and directs much of their culture....

You see how masculinity plays a huge role? No not every man alive here is horrible and abusive. But the point is that masculinity drives them, and more often than not its an "excuse" to living the way they do. Be tough, hold your ground, don't let anyone make you weaker than them. If you're weak and you can't stand up, you will face consequences for it. Toughen up.

The sense of power and dominance these men have in this world became WAY more obvious when Buddy comes up. They are scrambling to find her and their dynamics become incredibly violent and push these aspects of masculinity to the worst of it. Marty's mindset is the worst of the twisted idea of how to assert authority, and how to treat someone weaker than you. You can do as you want. You can beat them or rape them. The culture that Olathe created for these men made them fall into this warped mindset much like the one Marty promoted. These guys knew Buddy was a weak little child. They wanted to use her and do as they pleased. They could they could because they were bigger, powerful, etc.

Their words and wishes are basically as disgusting as the things Marty would say. I think thats enough to solidify that connection.

Lisa has an incredibly interesting narrative on how a Victim is viewed from the outside. How abuse effects further abuse- the distrust of child to guardian in telling them when something bad has happened and the inability to save them due to it. And from the inside, how masculinity through trauma can warp your mind. How the influence of a man towards man, feeds into a cycle of abuse and the world where that masculine culture is ingrained in everyone no matter how deeply they act on it.

cycles. "you cant escape". everything things about it seems utterly hopeless but the game still pushes you towards something-- it makes you want to crawl towards the light that Brad struggles to reach. but this was never an easy process. your action created consequences you never wanted to happen in the first place. your intentions were selfish- you didnt learn, you didnt understand how actually fix this. it was a desperate attempt.

but by god you want to change it so bad. isnt that something? internally you gotta keep holding on to it. jesus christ, dont let go, or itll be all for nothing. you are not fated to be your abuser. you are not fated to never escape. you have to remember that. you must face all of this but you have to fucking rip apart the guilt and the anger and the sadness to get there first. maybe this wasnt the way to do it. but please dont give up, okay? thats what its all about.

[sunflowerdigs]

I’m not expecting a mencken x roman hookup and that doesn’t bother me at all, this show features very little sex especially since s3 and the sexual tension/flirting is enough. But explicitly canon queer roman feels so easy to do and considering how progressive the writers team is, I don’t really understand why they’ve been holding back? they don’t even need to label his sexuality imo, I wouldn’t be surprised if roman himself doesn’t know, they can just make it clear that he’s attracted to mencken and that that’s been part of the driving force behind his actions this season. I wonder if they’re concerned about the fact that roman is established to be into a lot of supposedly deviant, transgressive sexual stuff and they don’t want to draw a correlation between that and being lgbtq+? (Plus many people hc him as a csa victim) Or they think he’s the “worst” of the bunch/perceived to be the most terrible and don’t want to equate being gay with a villain? (I feel like this would be especially dumb bc really everyone main on this show is almost equally horrible)

The thing is, because Roman is so heavily queer coded, the correlation between queerness and everything you listed has already been drawn. In particular, his relationship with Jeryd is already highly homoerotic. So, they might as well bring it into the light and make it canon instead of continuing to treat queerness like this dirty, secret thing that shouldn't be spoken of or acknowledged in text. I agree, for a progressive show it is very strange that they're dancing around this thing that they should just portray frankly and honestly. Like, when people come down overly harshly on Shiv, we can call out the misogyny. We all know why people are unusually harsh on Roman but we can't call it out because technically he's not canon queer.

[oddmerit]

i try REALLY hard to like cohost dot org and there IS a lot to like about it, legitimately:

most of the staff are jewish gaytrans furries so they Get the need for firm moderation that accounts for “plausible deniability”-type bigotry, even if they slip up it’s pretty quickly rectified (see below)

good 18+ filtering, pro-posting queer hole

NO BULLSHITE ALGORITHMS. chrono timelines only

css/html/markdown crimes

that being said.

the general culture there is rough bc a lot of the prominent powerposters are friends or friends-of-friends of the devs by nature of how they conducted the closed alpha, but bc of the lack of public metrics it’s considered taboo to claim that there ARE powerposters in the first place. and because powerposters are just a few degrees removed from the devs, people who WERENT part of the alpha want to emulate that general vibe. part of which means getting extremely hostile and defensive if anybody says something that could be construed as putting the devs down and claiming they’re “twitterbrained” or whatever and that people who “expect too much” of the devs are going to be the downfall of the site

the most recent incident of this stemmed from a moderating misstep where someone i followed reported a nazi channer who followed her and was part of an antisemitic harassment campaign, but hadn’t posted anything to the site yet. the staff who handled her report said “this is concerning so we’ll wait and see BUT we don’t take action based on offsite behaviour”, despite that being untrue based on previous moderation actions (notably TERFs getting nuked from orbit before they could even start posting). the person who reported them got upset and several of her followers (including me) were like “what the fuck, that’s unexpected and shitty”, some saying that made them feel unsafe in case that ever happened to them. once the decision got traction (and other people started reporting the account) the staff went back on its decision “based on internal review” and suspended the account in question, which is where this story should have ended

except, the day after it happened, i woke up to a post on my cohost dashboard that was someone screaming their head off about people who had said “this is disappointing and makes me concerned”, and kept quoting one specific person who they claimed had overreacted and was symptomatic of the above-mentioned “twitterbrain” and that it was all “bad faith”. like, if THAT is gonna be the community reaction to someone being alarmed about inconsistent moderation, why would you ever publicly bring up moderation concerns at all?

its one thing to ask site members to be considerate of staff (its a small team and half of them were at a con AND it was a weekend AND they eventually backtracked and apologized anyways so it was all good at that point) but its another thing to go off on a rant quoting mostly one specific person while claiming its really “just general you” and claim that they’re the reason the site will go under. if you’re going to claim that you need to bite your tongue over missteps “for the good of the community” that’s a HUGE fucking red flag! bc thats how resentment will grow and eventually explode into something MUCH worse! it wouldnt turn into “intra-community infighting” if everyone was like “cool, thank you, please make sure this doesnt happen again” after the issue is solved instead of dragging it out and turning it into an example of “oooo look how PRO-HARASSMENT twitter has made you, you’re HARASSING the devs by voicing concern”!

and dont get me STARTED on the shitfits people were throwing when staff said “we don’t allow loli on this site”. people understand “cohost isnt a free speech absolutist site like twitter” when it comes to hate speech but they absolutely do NOT understand it also applies to jerking it to fictional csa lmao. cohost isnt overrun by “puritans”. the devs will not ban queer hole*. the devs post queer hole. its fine

(*the only way i can see NSFW getting banned is if stripe drops them for processing cohost+ subs or the future tipping system and even then i trust staff will fight for Queer Hole as hard as they can)

[nerdfighterwhatevernumbers]

#don't forget than many autistic aces were also told#that they /were/ really autistic but they weren't ace they were just 'being desexualized by ablists and don't know better'#the most condescending infantilizing bs#many people touted 'aces can be at pride!...if they're also REALLY queer (gay trans etc)'#otherwise we're invading spaces and should make our OWN events#i still flinch when i see posts about 'gay public spaces besides bars and clubs'#the concept of gay cafes REALLY made the aphobes come out#accusing us of calling them all sexual deviants bc some people liked the idea of a place without the expectation of going there#to meet potential partners#heaven forbid you were demi/graysexual and not even 'really'ace#bc 'that's just how everyone is you just want to feel special!'#the people who claimed we couldn't use the term corrective rape bc it originated from Black lesbians describing their experiences#meanwhile Black lesbians were like 'we don't care if they use it wtf?'#and like the autistic ppl correcting them about 'aspec' they ignored them or claimed they were lying about their identity#saw posts from a bi woman I used to follow#about how it'sokay to bring her straight BF to pride bc he's with her and is allowed to be there as an ally#and it doesn't make her less bi to be with him#and in the same post say 'but straight aces don't belong there and need to go somewhere else'

All this but also the constant assertion that aces were uniquely homophobic. There was homophobia in ace communities, but there were also troll blogs pretending to be homophobic aces, sex-repulsed aces who were just talking about sex-repulsion in general, and lots of homophobia from other queer blogs that weren't ace. There was and still is homophobia in bi communities, trans communities, and even gay communities, but somehow aces were singled out.

There's still a refusal to talk much about alloaros and there was this idea that the only people who would be alloaros are misogynistic men who want to have meaningless sex with women, then in the same breath they'd say aces are the ones slut-shaming. They said demis and grey aces were hypersexualizing others because if you think you experience attraction less than others you're allegedly saying other people are naturally horndogs and sluts. Not only was saying kids could be ace sexualizing them, exclusionists claimed it was putting CSA victims in danger because hyper interest in sex is a sign of sexual abuse and if kids can be ace then they can be allo and we'll ignore a kid expressing sexual interest.

For some reason, we were told we aren't allowed to use general queer terms. A very popular queer blog said they disapproved of aros and aces using the phrase 'coming out'. We couldn't call people trying to make us allo 'conversion therapy' or say we were subject to comphet even though everyone is. Queer blogs would have lists of what queer identities could reblog their posts in case an aspec accidentally related to another queer person's experience. One lesbian blog specifically allowed everyone BUT aromantics to reblog their posts.

There was also responding to any post about queer platonic partners with 'You mean friends?' and saying the only way you could think of a QPP is if you didn't have real friends to know the difference. If you wonder why people define QPRs in the most restrictive terms of 'living together and raising children together and even getting married' it's because that's how far we had to go to explain that we understood the difference between friendship and partnership.

They treated being aspec like you were saying 'I'm 1/16th Cherokee' to get into a meeting of POC and ignored any stories of people being abused, raped, or taken off needed medications in an effort to make them allo.

One blogger I unfollowed last year said they only believed aspecs were discriminated on an individual level and not a systemic level. This is true in very specific matters like gay marriage, imprisoning trans people in the wrong jails, dadt- it is true some things won't happen to certain aspecs. But it ignores that conversion therapy is systemic and happens to aces, the medical discrimination faced by aces who are given or denied meds based on their asexuality, the way the legal and economic system are designed around couples and not single people so a non-romantic partner is denied inheritance or hospital visits and you can't afford to live without a spouse, the way single parents are disadvantaged and discriminated against, the fact that I'd have to lie or file for common-law marriage for my QPP to be on my insurance...

But if you bring this up, oh, that isn't against aspecs, it just HAPPENS to be against single people and people perceived as not attracted to the opposite sex enough. Which somehow doesn't mean people with no sexual or romantic attraction. And if you really want to be oppressed, you should be hate-crimed more, but obviously if you don't tell someone on the first date you're ace that's not avoiding violence, it's entrapment.

I don't think younger/newer users fully grasp the shit show that ace discourse was around 2014-17

It was so hostile that, to this day, discussions that begin to derail just enough can make me physically nauseous, some specific mockery trigger crying sessions years later. We lost most accounts with any sort of ace positivity. There was no information, no support, and all this damage was done predominantly by other queer people.

All this to say that you, however you identify yourself, should be engaging with aphobic comments the same way you do any hate. We don't sugarcoat or try to be comprehensive with people who are blatantly racist, homophobic or terfs, so why give it a pass just because it's coming from a queer person? I see how this tolerance goes and it's done enough damage as it is.

[selchwife]

on a more serious note (spoils c&w for everyone reading this blog bc we're far past that point. as a people. you guys all know plenty about what's going to happen in this fic)

i think the mortician and the rake actually do have a kind of interesting relationship precisely Because like, the mortician is an emet expy but i've created circumstances that prevent him being romantically interested in the rake, so there's something else going on there but it's still quite strong.

like the mortician was working with the rake, essentially, during the rake's time as a spysassin in the great game, and the mortician is not a fucking idiot so he was aware of how the rake was being treated by the procurer (as were most people, honestly, bc the rake was not the first or last child to be victimized by this creep). but when you're involved in the game there is often not a lot you can do about things of this nature, and despite the many other scruples he'd happily abandoned in order to meet his goals, it really galled the mortician. and he was fond of the rake, in the way adults are SUPPOSED to be fond of obnoxious teenagers, and despite generally finding him annoying still tried to treat him nicely enough in a way he knew he wasn't getting from other adults, although they weren't close.

i think the rake going to prison is kind of what hardens the mortician's heart permanently, honestly. what little he could do for the rake was not enough, so why even bother with sympathy anymore? the only real like, morality chain he has left in the neath breaks. and this is when he goes from pretty bad to MUCH, much worse. eventually the rake does get out of jail but rather predictably he wants nothing to do with his old life anymore, so the mortician knows that he's out and knows he's avoiding ever seeing the mortician again and i think it does kind of hurt his feelings that the rake remembers him as part of the problem rather than as someone who wanted to help him and couldn't.

also like, on top of everything else that would make the mortician having a romantic attraction to the rake impossible, i think having known him during the time that he was facing CSA specifically is like. he would just feel like he was revictimizing him, so that's another dimension to his being completely disinterested in him.

and of course the fact that he can't cheat on the corpse in his basement he's trying to bring back to life, but

[bpd-shuichi-togo]

Now that you mention it, what are your thoughts on chapter 12 actually? Why do you seemingly imply it’s worse than any other chapter before it? Do you agree with that one person who described it as Act 2’s equivalent of Act 1’s chapter 8? What do you think about Fuxi and Smoky God, about each of their departures from the game and about LW’s liberal interpretation of the characters? Of course, I’d like to hear your thoughts anyway even without an answer to all or any of the questions above.

really sorry to disappoint you but i didn't read through this chapter myself, and i don't intend to (except MAYBE to skim through for togo content, but likely not even that bc i hatehatehate cullen's sprite). everything i've gathered about it, i've gathered from @vegetarian-macan so you'd be better off asking them for these specific insights. but to give my thoughts despite that: (under the cut for LENGTH as well as csa/incest/sexual abuse as pertaining to foosie :|, tl;dr i'm not reading all that)

good god i'm not reading all that. like quite sincerely, i'm not reading all that, for a few reasons. those particular reasons aside for the moment: the creators were so crudely shoehorned in and i find both hecate and kuniyoshi so unpleasant just as concepts that the thought of having to sit through any length of creators' screentime immediately turned me off from the chapter, even before i learned about the other shit. like what do you think you're doing. i don't CARE about these guys. you can't just abruptly yank me away from the shit i actually have an investment in in the story and drop me with a bunch of randos, at least 2 of whom i find unbearable, to do? idk i didn't read that far i think you get the point. also correct me if i'm wrong but just from what i understand, All That wasn't even really necessary, from a writing perspective? like, if the point of All That, plot-wise, was to start to alienate the protag from the majority of app users, have them meet the creators (who presumably will be more relevant in later chapters), and get them where they need to be to encounter smoky and later tindalos… they don't actually need to be abruptly separated from all the other summoners for that to work. imo All That would have been alot better with at least one of the others there, at least initially, for the creators to play off of as they're being introduced- and more importantly, to carry over the tension from shuichi bringing up the possibility of them betraying the protag. fucking UNBELIEVABLE that they would have that conversation happen, have people start turning against the protag, and then just separate the protag from the summoners immediately after instead of reckoning with that at all. remember how the protag has memories of being murdered by their friends? what a great time to address that! and then they don't. man, can you imagine if hecate had her 'oh this seems like genuine hatred between you' line (or whatever it was idk), but instead of being about the protag and some guy they just met and have no relationship to, it was about the protag and, like, toji? saying all this and realizing how much better it could have been executed is so annoying -_-. all this with a grain of salt or whatever ig

aside from that there's like. i just don't like act 2 lol. ch12 continues to move parts of the story in directions i don't like, like how the shuichi-duo conflict is being handled (CHRIST ALIVE.), and- more significantly- the mononobe-solomon thing. good fucking god i hate the mononobe-solomon thing. but these are topics for their own posts probably. basically PLEASE just let shuichi process his negative feelings surrounding duo or at the very least Acknowledge that duo… genuinely did do him wrong even if he didn't actually ditch him, and for the love of god the whole POINT of mononobe is that he is a normal man. i DON'T like act 2.

in any case. as annoying as all that is, i would have suffered through it (with a healthy dose of griping) just for the togos (cullen is in this chapter!!), were it not for 1) foosie's presence. obviously. 2) The Reveal regarding the protag's origin or whatever.

going to address 2 first since it ties into your question re: ch8 pretty neatly: this is an ABSURD comparison. ch8 is the climax and conclusion of act 1, so unless i missed something and we're now on act 3, ch12 quite literally can't be its act 2 equivalent. moreover, ch12 couldn't reach ch8 with a fifty foot pole and a running start, and it's perfectly illustrated in their Big Reveals. the revelation in ch8 that not only can there be a destiny set into one's role and rule, the protag in particular is doomed to die thanks to theirs- and moreover, they have died, over and over, including at the hands of their friends, because tokyo is trapped in a time loop- is, imo, simultaneously one hell of a rug-pull and a fucking phenomenal culmination of act 1's exploration of Narrative, which it had been building towards from the moment the protag declares their Role as wanderer. ch12's limp attempts at being meta with '~the character customization screen was canon~' and (presumably) alluding to the player just are not going to impress me after that- even if they didn't contradict the premise of the story and overwrite what the protag brought to the theme of 'the violence inherent in imposing a narrative onto a person' by erasing that they were a normal human from an alternate tokyo until they were pulled into the game and connected with boundless tail in a process that cost them all their memories and could have obliterated their capacity for personhood altogether… which i also just Do Not Appreciate.

frankly, i'm insulted. what the hell is this. i want to know what's going on in the writers' room just so i know whose face to spit in for this. like I Am Not Reading All That just for it to culminate in a cheap twist that undermines the quality of the writing, especially not after chapters 7 & 8. ooh the character screen was canon get the hell out of my face. i didn't read ch12 disclaimer once more. god i hate act 2

as for foosie. skimming the summaries before 12 got translated i read something regarding him from late in the chapter that made me decide i'd probably skip reading it. and then i forgot! and then after it got translated literally his first line made me remember and also quit playing immediately. if everything else about the chapter were fine, i still wouldn't be able to bring myself to read through 12 just because of foosie's presence. the whole 'teenaged protagonist in imminent-to-immediate danger of sexual abuse from a grown ass man who btw is using them as a proxy for his sister' thing would be too visceral for me to stomach, even if it weren't utterly gratuitous and was executed/handled well. and from what i understand it was not handled or executed well: afaik foosie added nothing to the story but a gratuitous, gross, and honestly confused portrayal of incest. like they simultaneously wanted to fetishize and romanticize/sanitize incest, both of which individually are repugnant, but also are basically mutually exclusive so it's like… morally this is abhorrent and from a writing standpoint this is incoherent. they portray foosie as unbalanced, possessive and predatory, accentuated by the fact that he's pursuing a child, who he allows something horrible to happen to that leaves them alienated and incredibly emotionally vulnerable before completely isolating them and making advances, all of this reflecting on- and painting a HORRIFYING picture of- his relationship with nuwa, who he is pursuing through the protag. and then after all this, the problem with his and nuwa's relationship is supposed to be that he was too distant and dismissive of her or something, as though his whole thing this entire time has not been being obsessed with her. you know how all the severance-wanderers were killed/violently banished from their worlds by their respective representatives? like, that's the whole thing? not so here, apparently! she ran away of her own volition without any instance of foosie being violent towards her or actively harming her in any way! perhaps you'd like to buy a bridge! and they send him off not only trying to illicit sympathy for him (FUCK OFF???), but with the parting note that now that he knows to be less dismissive he hopes to reunite with nuwa and have a healthy incestuous relationship. kiss my ass.

^feel free not to correct me if i'm wrong on any of this btw, there's no possible permutation that is going to be even remotely tolerable.

and for what? someone please tell me what he was supposed to add to the story. or don't! he's literally only here bc someone thought sexual violence was titillating! afaic there's nothing this even theoretically added that couldn't be done in some variation without the fetishization of sexual abuse or the sanitization of incest! i really do hate this fucking game

anyways.

i didn't actually gather much about smoky. before 12 got translated i thought he'd been working together with foosie so i did not care for him at all, but it turns out that's the literal opposite of the case so he can hang. honestly very curious about what's going on with him?? i've seen alot of vitriol for him, but i don't know what he did, let alone what could be so bad as to be memorable with foosie right there. more and more i feel like i shouldn't be surprised but i cannot fucking believe they introduced a brown man literally just to die horribly. on that note, re: his and foosie's departures: man wouldn't it have made so much more sense for smoky to have been the one to peacefully resign from the game, with foosie- the gambler, having bet it all and lost- as the one to somehow die so hard it's permanent? so the guy who 'tricked the app and the gates' is still alive so that can be explored later bc wtf does that even mean.

altogether, i'm not reading all that shit. (Man Who Thought He'd Lost All Hope Loses Last Additional Bit Of Hope He Didn't Even Know He Still Had voice) really does not leave me optimistic about the direction this game is going. still though, i'm still VERY invested in the togos' plot line(s), especially cully-wullen's potential fratricide arc. despite everything somehow i'm looking forward to reading 13 when it comes out, for isaac if nothing else.

[foxie-paws]

Hi, (no pressure to publicly answer this if you don’t wanna block up the feed) just wanted to say that I really really appreciate you making this blog. I relate a lot to andrew and thus have the assumed amount of Stuff Goin On and morals have been a very hard thing for me to figure out as of late. Explaining what specifically was wrong about things andrew did is really helpful to my own thought process, so thank you for taking the time to go in detail about it. Having trauma is not an excuse for giving others trauma. I try my hardest to remember that.

TW: SA - PLEASE BE CAREFUL

Hello! I hope u don't mind I made it public.

I must admit I spend some time thinking about a response to this. Your comment made me decide to put sth out there. I feel pretty safe and anonymous saying this on this hell site. So here is the thing: I am a CSA survivor. It took me many years to actually understand what happened. At some point I was sure I made it up, but how could a kid made sth like this shit up? I remember that at some point my younger self knew that sth is NOT RIGHT. I tried to tell it to some I was sure would get it. Unfortunately, I could not find the right words, so I ended up saying sth that had the same meaning like "xyz has a crush on me". I got a warm laugh and a pat on the head bc "silly kid, probably watched too many disney movies". Sure af never tried again.

It's pretty funny to me how my story history is similar to Andrew's. His "I was seven" is mine "I was five" (and many other people's unfortunately). Maybe, that's why he bugged my for so long. I feel that I more or less am on the same lvl and can "see the world through his eyes" (to some point). As silly as it sounds. That's why I was actually horrified by some things he did.

I'm all for problematic characters, really. But in my opinion a good problematic character has to be pointed at and called out on their shit by the canon media (and fandom). Unfortunately, Andrew's actions, in the books and in the fandom, never really get addressed? Of course there are posts pointing some behaviors out! But mostly it's just "Well Andrew is Andrew!" Then, applying this logic, someone can say "Riko is Riko!" or "Nathan is Nathan!". Neither of those three felt any regret about their actions (yes I am aware that you cannot put = symbols between those 3 bc their actions don't have the same harm lvl) as cruel as it sounds.

It kinda hit me bc some people justified his actions by the trauma he has. And sure this certainly influenced his character, but it's not an excuse. Unfortunately, in psychology there is this phenomenon when the abused become the abusers themselves. And to some point I think it's the case with Andrew.

Morals are fluid, and they depend on what life position u are. They can get changed by the things around us. I am in no position to tell anyone what their morals should or shouldn't be. At the same time, I know that my history doesn't give me any right to inflect pain to other innocent people. Andrew as a character has many aspects. He is not only his trauma, his decisions are his doing.

My history doesn't give me any higher moral ground to judge anyone (real) in fandom — I want to make this one clear, especially knowing there are, unfortunately, more people with stories like mine. I can only speak for myself and share my opinions. I don't want anyone to feel personally attacked or feel like I'm pointing fingers.

I would never bash anyone for liking Andrew! Do it! If he brings you comfort and u relate to him — it's 100% valid.

Well that was a ride. I hope that my lengthy response didn't overwhelm anyone.

If my post helped u in any way, I'm glad! Thank u for you comment once more!

Disclaimer: I know there will be some people thinking that I made my story up or threw it out there for some brownie points, so I have only one thing to say to them — my story was not for you, you can go and fuck yourself with a broom stick!

[wifegideonnav]

the actual short version is: read this pesterlog and try to tell me that 1) vriska doesn’t see herself as inherently “bad” and corrupted (a killer is a killer, and she’s definitely a killer) and that 2) she doesn’t absolutely hate herself and wish she could change

long version under the readmore

im not gonna super edit this bc i don’t. want to. so understand it was originally directed at someone who hasn’t read the comic and therefore it overexplains certain things. that being said, let’s a-go:

why do people hate vriska? and more importantly, why are they wrong?

basically first in order to understand vriska you gotta understand the society she was raised in

alternia is a very violent society, with death and violence being a lot more commonplace than it is in our world. also, the way the society is set up, the only people left on the planet are the children. once they mature they leave the planet to go work on the conquest of the galaxy. this is partly for practical reasons vis a vis empire building, but also for practical reasons vis a vis preventing the adults from killing the entire population of children

you're left with this planet populated entirely by children, raised in a society steeped in violence. their only caretakers are literal monsters who also cant even talk. obviously this is going to lead to troll kids having very very different lives than human kids

so that's the first thing. people ignoring or dismissing the context of the normalized violence and dog eat dog nature of alternian society

then there's vriska herself. she is blatantly being abused by her lusus who will literally kill and eat her if she doesn't bring it a constant supply of other trolls to consume. this creates a dynamic where vriska is constantly terrified of being killed by the creature thats supposed to nourish and protect her. for the first 13 years of her life, vriska is forced into this position where she has to go out and literally hunt and murder her peers in order to survive. which obviously does quite a number on one's psyche

because you've got that double combo of 1) violence and murder are less of a big deal to trolls AND 2) vriska is forced into a position where she has to be more ruthless than she genuinely is on the inside

thirdly, apart from the abuse from her parental figure, she is groomed by a literal child predator in a pretty transparent metaphor for csa. this pedo, doc scratch, is an omniscient, evil being who manipulates vriska into attempting to kill one of her friends, starting a cycle of violence that ends with tavros paralyzed, terezi blind, vriska armless and eyeless, and aradia dead.

readers obviously care more about the violence done to characters that we know and care about rather than the faceless masses that she killed before, so this is what a lot of people get caught up on, along with her constant cruelty to others, which i'll get to. but it's also obvious that vriska is eaten alive by guilt and deep seated shame because of her actions, and desperately wishes she could undo or fix the situation without having any idea how to. im holding off on including screenshots of convos, but this is not some subtle thing. anyone who reads what she's saying should be able to understand how destroyed she is over what she did

so going back and picking up the cruelty thread: vriska is a bully. there's literally no question about it. she's mean, and snide, and says some pretty terrible stuff. i would never argue that those things dont matter. bc she *is* a morally grey character, which is the part that people cant handle. she does plenty of shitty stuff, and whether or not shes sorry about it doesnt change the fact that it happened.

however, it's also painfully obvious within the text that the person she's cruelest to is herself. this is especially apparent in the conversation between her and her dead alt timeline self, whom she verbally eviscerates. like, tears her to shreds, leaves herself crying. vriska isn't cruel to others because she's an inherently bad person, she's cruel to others because:

1) the specific way she was abused means that she learned early on that weakness was unacceptable. in order to survive, she had to be tough, ruthless, and remorseless. however, internally, she's a very sensitive and insecure person (also. because of the abuse). therefore she's cruel to herself for not meeting the expectations she has for herself. also, this ties into an aspect of herself i haven't mentioned yet, which is her ancestor mindfang. mindfang was a ruthless pirate queen who basically did whatever she wanted and left a trail of devastation in her wake. vriska idolizes mindfang, and wants to be her. she even roleplays as her extensively. this is just another layer adding to her belief that being "weak" or "soft" is an unforgivable deficit

2) because of this, in some twisted way, she believes that her cruelty helps people. she picks on tavros over and over again because she wants to make him "better," especially since she feels so guilty for paralyzing him. she believes that other people just need to toughen up and go after what they want

3) she also bullies other people, especially those who she views as weak or deficient, because she's so angry and jealous that they've found a way of life where they don't have to be the way she thinks she has to be. when she confronts (vriska), her dead alternate self, (vriska) has become a lot more happy and vulnerable during her time in the afterlife. (vriska) tells vriska that she'll never be happy acting the way she does, and points out that she's miserable. vriska is furious because she *wants* to be like that but believes that all sorts of bad things will happen if she does

so some of this requires a little bit more critical thinking than other parts, but most of it doesnt require any kind of deep dive to notice

vriska is very blatantly an abused child lashing out at the world, who hates herself for not being what she was raised to be, and who has no idea how to even approach any of her issues. and honestly that's the other big thing that people leave out when they're hating on her. she's a child!! the comic covers her from ages 13-16. of COURSE she's selfish and mean and emotionally unintelligent. she's. a child. who has had NO positive guiding influences in her life.

vriska is absolutely not morally justified in what she’s done. there’s arguments to be made about moral relativism, but it’s quite clear that despite alternia’s violence the trolls actually have humanlike consciences. so vriska is absolutely culpable for all the shit she did, from bullying to murder. her remorse and self hatred do not at all forgive her or excuse her. but also… she does lots of good things too. she *tries* so hard to be good. and i genuinely believe that with an author interested in giving her a character arc she could have a very believable and satisfying redemption/growth arc

tl;dr i don’t think that her backstory excuses her from her actions, i just think it’s so important to note that those actions have deep reasons behind them and also that… vriska never really stood a chance

so did vriska do anything wrong?

hiiiii *twirling my hair* do you want the 1800 word essay i texted my friend or the short version. which is that yes but it’s ok bc i forgive her 😌

[transsexualhamlet]

okayokayokay i have like. Q U E S T I O N S because i have *wanted* to read no longer human but have been afraid to SO -

1) what's it like? what do u think of it? im sooo curious 👀

2) do u think that asagiri-sensei based bsd dazai sorta off the book more than off the actual authour? i seem to remember reading that once but i dont remember if it was speculation or not

3) .......just infodump as much as you want, really; im Curious™️ and it looks like ur having fun with the book XD

p.s. - have fun with crime and punishment; thats a book ive DEFINITELY been meaning to read (but i havent had time to yet djfjdjfjf)

AHHHHHHH HI TYSM I WAS HOPING SOMEONE WOULD ASK. I read the entire book in 2 hours before going to bed like four days ago, though it probably wasn't the best time to do it, that shit is nightmare fuel

I'm just gonna preface this with I know basically nothing about the actual author other than what's in the book, also I read the manga version (the junji ito one, yeah) so yeah I'm not sure how much that differs from the original text.

So for how much he based it off of the book vs the actual author, I couldn't really tell you- no longer human is somewhat of an autobiography, so I'd say that those work together. (it's complicated, bc the main character of no longer human is not actually dazai, but dazai is there, and they like??? basically say that that character and dazai are like actually the same person???? and they like, switch places at the end?? its really confusing, but basically, I'm treating the mc of no longer human as dazai himself.) The important stuff about the author that I know of worked into dazai's character is all in no longer human too so,,, yeah. I think saying that it's based more off of that book is probably true, though I don't know what asagiri was thinking.

But about the book itself- Yeah uhhhhhh seriously, I don't really recommend reading no longer human if you have much of a sensitivity to basically anything, especially the graphic novel version because when i say graphic novel i mean Graphic there is so much nudity, sex, s/a, addiction, violence, Mental Illness of all types, religious trauma, obviously suicide, and frankly just visually horrifying stuff

So everything under this is gonna be under a cut just cause Uh Yeah It's A Lot and i do not want to subject everybody to it

But reading it was certainly something I am glad I did, because it did teach me a lot about dazai and how he was created, as well as confirming a lot of theories I had about him that can't be confirmed or denied in bsd canon.

Like me and my friend were just like examining his character and kind of coming up with ideas about him- like we both agreed that he had Motherless Energy TM and that his dad had to have been an absolute fucking piece of shit. Also, we thought that he definitely had to have had A Lot of csa trauma and probably issues having to do with his neurodivergency when he was a child.

Literally all of that ended up being true within the canon of no longer human, so I was kind of impressed that we were so right?? It makes me feel better for thinking a lot of those things, especially since they're just Pretty Fucked Up.

But yeah its. No wonder he turned out that way when he was So Autistic and Masking So Much And So Badly and with absolutely no guidance as how to deal with his neurodivergency other than just fucking let anything anyone wanted happen sooooo he got raped, as a kid, like. A lot. A LOT. And basically ended up thinking that because of this all humans were just horrifying awful monsters and yeahhhhh things pretty much went downhill from there

I don't have a ton of time so you can send me more asks about it lol this is just barely scratching the surface this thing is pretty intense

A lot of other things that I think I can apply to bsd dazai as well, tho they're not gone into that much in the canon:

-This dude is like always fucking drunk or high, cause he just cannot stand being sober that much. He's a serious alcoholic and actually addicted to opioids and I cannot think that much differently about dazai. He's got issues.

but there are a lot of differences between Dazai and the no longer human mc, though there are enough similarities that this is definitely the dude he was based off of.

The main difference is that the no longer human mc is actually just a good guy. He's made a shit ton of stupid fucking mistakes, but he's trying to be a good man and he feels awful for the things he's done, which, I really cannot say Dazai has. Dazai is not a good man, I think everyone knows that. He doesn't really care that much lol

-both of them are like. Weirdly popular with women. Which is hilarious but like, with Dazai he doesn't really take it seriously, and he actually flirts with women. The no longer human guy like. He doesn't hes just like Tragically Attractive and women want to be with him and he has no clue how to say no so he just ends up being a whore bc hes socially useless. It causes a lot of problems bc hes like constantly cheating because of this lol.

-Dazai has a much more poetic view of it all? The no longer human guy is just fucking suffering and hes like why is this happening to me im so awful and i bring misfortune to everyone around me and its not fair and he wants to die and everything but it's not at all in the same way that Dazai does. Dazai acts more like an author than him, in the sense of his "I want a death that is narriatively satisfactory and I want to know the meaning of living by seeing the worst of it and observing how it is to be a human" yeah that's not the same at all. No longer human man really just doesn't understand them and is just. Not having fun

-Also, it's really the thing about Dazai having such an utter lack of religion compared to his original counterpart. Like, the main thing that kept this dude alive for so long was the fact that he had so much religious trauma and was constantly guilty and worried he would go to hell and basically scared of everything. Bsd dazai is like, nearly the opposite, he's the kind of dude who was born and raised atheist, and in the kind of way that he's trying to basically come up with his own meaning of life and religion to follow, whereas the original is struggling to live with one that's been perscribed to him. Both are Very Neurodivergent but it was, handled differently

And yeah i really do have to keep this short, you can totally ask me more and I have a lot more to say but one thing I want to bring attention to is the fact of something they do have in common- their masking. It's a big part of no longer human, about how the mc doesn't understand social customs and what is acceptable or how to talk to people or seriously be happy, so he basically comes up with this "clowning" which is basically, make a fool of himself on purpose all the time so people will never take him seriously or think he's good or smart. That's something dazai completely does, wholeheartedly, and something that fucks him up bad in no longer human. And I think that could be examined a lot more deeply, this dude has issues and so many of them are related to autism. God, I have so many thoughts but aghhhhhhhhhhhhh i hope u enjoy

[kevinbirthday]

Critically analyzing The All For The Game series

While this may seem like a hit piece on the books I will say that I absolutely adore the books beyond even my own comprehension. I own multiple pieces of fan merch of characters created by Nora and this series got me through incredibly tough times. I enjoy being critical of the media I enjoy so this is in no way meant to hate on Nora or drive you away from reading the books. The series will forever have a special place in my heart I am just a cynical person lol.

The all for the game series really is amazing, though there is subpar writing and glaring plot holes at times. Nora took lots of ideas I’ve never really seen in any other YA novel and ran with them, hell she even had a queer couple that didn’t exist solely for queer bait. I just feel like Nora had lots of ideas and there were so many concepts and half-baked notions of what should happen that not all of them were executed correctly.

I also think her putting out the extra content that contradicts the books multiple times was a poor choice. Yes, it’s great to get questions answered about things but I think if you have to constantly go back in and explain why something happend or when, then you should have spent more time on the books development. I have strong opinions when it comes to the extra content. Part of me believes it shouldn’t exist past answering a few questions about the books, not 300 paragraphs of random reiterations of the storyline and extra side stories that contradict canon.

I think a lot of the series was based on contrived plot points and driven by too many plot devices to make the story seem like a linear progression to me. The readers of this should also read the books on their own and form their own opinions on the book. Nora doesn’t alway do things incorrectly and I will never claim she’s a terrible writer on the basis that she self published the entire series. The books were never professionally polished and I think that is part of what gives this series so much charm. Suspension of belief is needed to read this series and it does inspire feelings of “What the actual hell. Did that just happen?!” Which honestly just shows the creativity of the series and proves that you can write a book full of morally grey characters and it be successful. As stated earlier I give Nora props for never making the main characters queer relationship be the entire focus of their exsistance. She did drop the ball on that when writing Nicky Hemmick’s character.

I also believe that while Nora was amazingly creative with this series, she created a whole new sport and badass characters for Pete’s sake that’s talent. I also Nora didn’t handle many things correctly or with the tact needed to pull certain things off.

Andrew and his whole meds situation paints medication and mental illness in an extremely poor light. I think she just wanted to throw something in to cover all her bases instead of researching pills. I agree it’s not far fetched to say that Andreil never say I love you in terms of vocalizing the words to each other because of the fact that they have their own private version of the words.

What I do find extremely far fetched is that Andrew never ‘heals’. Andrew Minyard goes to therapy even after the mandatory sessions are finished. Andrew agreed to go to joint therapy sessions with his brother to work their issues out! Tell me this man is not healing. Andrew will never not have bipolar disorder because it’s not something to be cured and he most definitely has C-PTSD after all he’s gone through. Those things can’t be cured but they can be managed by having a support system, going to therapy, and talking though issues within your family system. What is Andrew Minyard doing? Exactly that. He’s managing his symptoms which is part of healing, sure he’ll never be ‘normal’ but he’s healing as a person. The mindset that someone will never heal bc of their csa and mental health issues are ‘too bad’ is literally the worst mindset to have and is so damaging!

I also understand that you have to call on some suspension of belief when it comes to Andrew’s sentencing after he protected Nicky during the fight at Eden’s, but the only case I’ve ever personally seen someone be forced to take mind altering medication after a fight and not be sent to a psych ward was in the case of a combative schizophrenic and hurt someone and the person they attacked pressed charges. I find the whole Andrew on medication ordeal both infuriating and incredibly confusing.

Another confusing thing to me is the entire characterizaton of Nicky Hemmick. Can we all agree that it was incredibly uncomfortable? He was written as an extremely stereotypical gay man with rapey ‘undertones’. Who am I kidding with undertones he shoved drugs down Neil’s throat with his tounge and can’t take no as an answer. This being said, I do love Nicky’s character. I just don’t think that someone who was subjected to conversion therapy no matter if they had some to help them work through their internalized homophobia, would act so flamboyantly during the 2000’s. There were still commercials about not calling people gay as a insult, Paris Hilton had to tell people to use the word stupid instead. He was also one of the only explicitly stated characters as being a person of color and while I’d never say that Nora had racist intent behind that writing him as an extremely predatory gay man always rubbed me in an uncomfortable way.

At least he had some semblance of a back story though, due to Mr. Unreliable Narrator Neil Josten it felt like some characters were there just to prove that character’s besides the monsters, a few of the upperclassmen, and riko existed. Riko’s villain status seemed like it was something to make more of an immediate threat to Neil than Nathan. We had to have some reason for Kevin to be with the foxes and to go to a team so ranked down other than just Wymack being his father. What was Riko really there for other than to tell Neil that the Moriyama’s think he’s their property and then get shot in the head? I also think his death was just to wrap things up neatly and provide closure to the reader that all the ‘bad guys’ are gone. Evermore mostly served to further Neil and Andrew’s relationship and to provide extra drama. Nathan was too out of site out of mind to provide any suspense or drama for the readers. Riko was more of a plot device than a character in my personal opinion. We also only have the bare bones of almost all of the upperclassmen’s back stories. All we really know about the upperclassmen is that Dan used to be a stripper and her stage name was Hennessy, Matt’s dad sucked and he was an addict in the past and Andrew was the reason he went to rehab, Renee was in a gang and is a reborn Christian, Allison had an ed and was disowned and who cares about Seth because he was just killed to bring the foxes together. Was the team so dysfunctional Nora had to kill a man to get them to work together? I feel like his death could have been avoided and was completely meaningless. I enjoyed the the books but at times it was a complete information overload and I can’t even imagine how Neil felt in the situation when I as a reader will never had to deal with that firsthand.

[xourche]

Hold on I wanna hear more about your latest post, what do you mean their designs are opposites of each other?

thank u ofr asking . really long post up ahead

pic 4 the people

So starting off: colors In the anime giorno has a mid pink-purpleish suit and fugo has a bright lime green suit. Direct complementaries on the color wheel. Now for the manga you can think of it two ways, a deep blue for giorno and a bright red for fugo, blue and red have often been seen as rival colors though they’re not opposite. Or you could take the bring orange as fugo’s true ‘manga’ colors and those would also be complimentary. I included the orange because 1: I like it 2: I saw someone on Twitter bring up how orange are his actual colors ackshually and while I disagree I won’t ignore that orange shows up a lot for fugo in illustrations. Next: their suit designs Giorno’s suit is based off of a school uniform, or at least it looks like it in the manga. It looks like an accessorized version of josuke’s suit which is already a modified Japanese school uniform. That aside it’s prominent feature is a heart shaped cut out right at his chest. Next it’s his ladybug broaches, wing emblems at his collar, and the little gold border that surrounds his heart (hehe golden heart) Fugo’s suit is Swiss cheesed. No collar and his coat only has 1 button done. In the early manga he also has a round cutout at his chest though the common design now excluded that. Much of fugo’s body is exposed through the holes all except for his chest, even when his suit had the hole at the chest his tie still covered it. Idk why he wears his tie under his suit nor what it means if it means anything. But basically all there is to fugo’s suit is the suit, strawberry tie, and belt. That’s really it, no ornaments like giorno. And since I mentioned it: the holes are perfectly cut, the same size, and not really placed randomly. The holes on his right sleeve match the left in terms of placement

Small one: anime giorno has light blue and gold for accents, anime fugo has deep red/pink and dark blue for accents. Not really present in the manga based off those colors anyways

Now for their hair: giorno has a nice and (usually) clean hair style that consists of 3 victory rolls in the front and a braid at the back. He went from black to blond as we all know

Fugo has (usually) 3 large spikey bangs over his face, sometimes in the form of an emo fringe no I refuse to let emo fringe go I love it so much and I’m mad it changed it to 3 bangs coming off his face. The back is a messy and choppy mullet really.

Interestingly enough giorno and fugo both have blue earrings in the anime. In the manga they both have gold earrings, though sometimes fugo has larger strawberry earrings rather than studs That’s it for design . Now for other parallels bc I think they’re neat. I’ll be combining anime, manga, and phf canon because I do what I want Fugo first to join. Giorno last to join. (Phf) fugo last to join Both are pretty smart giorno can read people fugo can. Fuckin read books lol. Though I think they both struggle with being properly social Now we get into anime backstories 

Brief TW: child abuse. if you know fugo’s anime backstory i tried to avoid going into a lot of detail but if you know you know and if you don’t know im surprised you read this long but if you decide to look it up be warned that it involved csa.

Giorno is neglected by his parents, fugo is overwhelmed by his parents. None, too much. Giorno’s emotions and rage are largely internalized and repressed while fugo’s are more explosive and people think it’s the only thing he does is be mad but that’s a different topic for a different day On a related note: giorno comes across as a creepy emotionless child , fugo as an angry violent bomb about to explode but really they’re both rather polite. Fugo immediately apologizes to Narancia after their fight where narancia was ready to stab fugo right in their intro. Giorno tries to get along with the team even if he’s new though is still pretty reserved because. He’s new. Lol Both of them are pretty close to narancia actually. Fugo brought him in and now is tutoring him through school, which fugo dropped out of college at age 13 because . Yeah. Very smart kid, studied law it seems like. Giorno was the first to defend and compliment narancia after the little feat arc and, as the manga made a point that giorno never cries only trembles, cries at the end for narancia. It hurts. And then the final scene of fugo added on in the anime is related to that scene. Fugo could kill giorno (and the rest of the team) at any given time. After the man in the mirror arc which introduces purple haze, giorno is immune to the virus and gains fugo’s respect Speaking of stands lol Purple haze. Gold experience. Purple and yellow are complimentary colors. Anime colors only since the manga isn’t much different Gold experience has purple accents, lady bugs, wings. The only really cloth-like part of it is 2 straps that gang off it’s waist which resemble pants dio has. Purple haze has yellow accents, spikes, stitches. Like, shorts and a cape. Gold experience has sort of a helmet with a swirly design , and purple ‘eyes’, it has no pupils. There’s lines that honestly resemble tear tracks running down it’s eyes Purple haze has actual eyes with yellow sclera, being protected with the visor of its helmet. It’s mouth is stitched though it still drools In general gold experience has a softer rounded design while purple haze has a sharper pointed design. Gold experience makes life, living organisms, purple haze makes a virus that quickly takes lives. And viruses aren’t considered living organisms by many scientists.

xtra stuff: - gold experience often poses in a showy manner, purple haze is slouched over and looks like it wants to hide - giorno’s favorite foods are chocolate and pudding, it’s safe to assume fugo likes strawberries. fugo’s first name is pannacotta which is like. pudding - giorno’s name is part of the phrase buon giorno, which means good morning, a greeting. fugo’s name means dismissing, to leave, goodbye. 

uhh yeah lol i just think theyre neat