#because for my entire childhood and adolescence and basically until i moved out (which was not long ago)

[aroldpdl]

how do you.. go about decorating your walls? as in with posters, artwork etc. deciding what i would like to be there is half the battle (i should? know this instinctively?), but the logistics? i can imagine the physical ways someone might obtain a physical object to put on a wall, but how do people generally do that? i have a lot of questions that might seem stupid. i don't even know how to fucking approach it.

[pinkpruneclodwolf]

The Many Facets of a Diamond— Cater D. And What It Means to be Disconnected.

Stole this off of twst wiki

"Researchers from Boston College looked at the effects of frequent moving at different stages of childhood and adolescence; their study included 19,162 people, who were examined from kindergarten through eighth grade. The researchers found that a move, especially in younger, elementary years, negatively affects cognitive skills and social skills, and increases emotional and behavior problems, creating setbacks and problems for students each time they’re forced to change schools." Teen Vogue on "Moving a Lot Growing Up Really Does Take a Toll."

I'm sure that there has already been a post detailing how switching from place to place as a child negatively impacted Cater and led him down the road of social media addiction thing is,,, I haven't dug around enough to truly find that post, but I swear I will pay homage.

Moving away from home is stressfullll and no matter how many times you get used to it there are times when you can't help but mourn the life you're leaving behind, the friends and even family. And with Cater's situation (up until NRC) he's been stuck with people who generally ignore his emotional well being in favor of projecting their ideal him......

Well,,,, you can't start over in real life but you can always delete an account in social media.

Of course Cater isn't the only social media obsessed boy on campus not as long as Ignihyde exists on NRC, especially with Idia having to well versed in technology due to his family lineage.

What separates him from Ignihyde and Idia is that Cater,,,,, I relate to Cater, my family and I moved around alot and as such I ended up disconnected from my peers to the point where I was adverse to the idea of making any, let's not even mention my mother telling me that "School is meant for learning, not making friends."

And with the ongoing pandemic,,,, making friends has gotten a whole lot harder.

Idia is coping from hisbrother'sdeath something completely different and he's more of a redditor than someone who passively scrolls through social media and just ignores the world.

This isn't about our trauma but Cater's.

Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend— Cater's Homelife.

"Even though I'm the star, aren't my sisters having more fun than me?"

The way in which birthday personal stories give out information on a silver platter? Immaculate. Like the put their whole foot, shin, knee, thigh, and ass into those lil birthday stories, the material can lead this entire thesis alone.

I say that cause I'm lazy, but I did watch his personal stories/the personal stories he's involved in to get a feel for him while also reading some other Cay analysis' as well.

Everyone knows the basics about him— his dad works as a banker and due to this he and his family move every two years (as Cater says), and that his sisters and mother were very pushy about what they thought Cater wanted; I can only assume that the Father is emotionally distant because he only mentions what he does for a living not whether or not he also had a push for sweets.

Everyone also knows that he dislikes sucking up to his sisters, but he still states in his birthday personal story that: "if I said I didn't want it, they'd be down; I couldn't stand those [sad] faces."

"Difficulty identifying and fulfilling personal needs because the person is so used to caring for others; feeling inadequate and unworthy." Medical News Today on "Covert Incest."

I'm not trying to say that his mother and sisters have formed an emotional incestuous relationship outright but that I'm projecting my feelings onto Cater lmao.

We already established that Cay had moved around a lot which also negatively impacted him in the long run, however the invasion of privacy, projecting and parading him around like diamonds certainly have marks of covert incest.

Especially when it comes to difficulties setting boundaries and just being passive.

I heavily believe that culture, home environment, parenting, and such and such have an impact on one Unique Magic.

Just look at Riddle: due to his mother's strictness, heavily monitored lifestyle, and heavy expectations for greatness led his Unique Magic to develop at a young age; now I don't know if Unique Magics can evolve the same way quirks in mha do, but if they can't think about the fact that his UM will forever be beheading do to his mother.

Now look at Cater's UM, Split Card; he can split off into various clones and get things done efficiently is a pretty cut and dry analysis.

Then we look at his dislikes: sucking up to his sisters.

And then it all becomes clear— the entire point of cloning oneself is to have multiple 'you's in one place, oft times we wish that we could be in two places at once whenever we're in a pinch.

You catch my drift?

By Cater being able to make multiple hims, he can break off and have all his clones do the work—you see this in his Ceremonial Robes personal story, while his clone was with the first years and essentially being the life of the party he broke off to check his phone even stating that "I don't really care for the Ceremonial Party."

Which leads into my next facet:

Stained Teeth and Cavities— Cater D. And the Dynamic of Sweet and Sour.

"So, because I continued to force myself to eat [sweets] I came to dislike all things sweet." Cater on "What's Your Least Favorite Dish"

"It is striking that helpful and friendly people are considered ‘sweet’ because taste would seem to have little in common with personality or behavior. Yet, recent psychological theories of embodied metaphor led us to hypothesize that seemingly innocuous metaphors can be used to derive novel insights about personality and behavior,” said Dr. Meier. “Importantly, our taste studies controlled for positive mood so the effects we found are not due to the happy or rewarding feeling one may have after eating a sweet food.”

According to Dr. Robinson, “Our results suggest there is a real link between sweet tastes and pro-social behavior. Such findings reveal that metaphors can lead to unique and provocative predictions about people's behaviors and personality traits.” Science Daily on "People Who Have a Sweet Tooth Have a Sweeter Disposition."

Do you ever think about why people are usually surprised to hear someone doesn't like sweet? I'm sure not many have actively searched for a reason as to why but the knee-jerk reaction to someone not liking sweets always ends up saying, "You don't like sweets??"

When I found out that Sasuke (one of my first anime crushes) didn't like sweets, girl I freaked out, because I loved sweets and junk food (whenever food was low) always filled me up.

Mind you this was during the "not like other Naruto Ocs" where they put some of the most traumatic shit in their lil info dumps to match Sasuke as edgy levels measured how much that oc had their chances with duck booty boy.

This also has something to do with metaphors like: you're a sweet heart, sweetie, and things like that, by linking sweetness to someone's personality we perpetuated the idea that those who don't like sweets are more likely to be,,,, asocial and even meaner to some extent by using characters like Sasuke as vehicles for the "I don't care for sweets" brigade reinforces that stereotype.

Yes, it's actually normal not to like sweets and don't let anyone "you don't like sweets??" You into eating any.

However, the reaction to sugar and how people perceive those who like sugar are considered normal and those who don't are considered abnormal; Cater knows this especially, when he's in a dorm where eating sweets is practically in the diet, yeah Trey doodle suits it to another flavor in secret but that doesn't change the fact that he ate it.

I also want to analyze the second paragraph from "People Who Have a Sweet Tooth Have a Sweeter Disposition.", where it states that those who eat sweets exhibit more pro-social behaviors which leads more into Cater's personality.

In his Lab Coat personal story, mandrakes reflect a person's personality and reveals who a person is—when Cater's true personality shows through he tries his damndest to hide it because he sees that side of himself as unsavory

This is the same dude that tried to throw a party for Rosalia so that he could get test answers, the same dude that made a clone of himself in his gym personal story because he was nearly finished with his laps, the same dude that made the first years paint the roses for him was going to such great lengths to cover his hide.

I also believe that some of his actions also reflect how his sisters treated him, such as making others do the work for him (the first years painting the roses) . After all, it does state that Cater dislikes sucking up to his sisters meaning that his sisters use him whenever they want to get something done.

Go With the Flow, Don't Shake the Status Quo— Cater's Place in Heartslabyul.

"The diamond card symbol represents the autumn or fall season. It depicts the “growing” stage of a person’s life when he or she is working on his career. In a nutshell, the meaning of the diamond card is a representation of progress, commitment, ethics, and stability. This symbol represents the component of air." Adda52 Blog on "Card Suits and Symbolism"

I swear to God this is the last facet because I've deleted this whole post twice after getting to this point. This will basically be me concluding this whole analysis in the messiest way possible.

Buckle the hell up.

The reason as to why I started this whole thing is because he is a very misleading character, and twst en doesn't help with that when he basically just spouts internet slang (aave) into the void like its his last day on earth.

Nevertheless I chose him as my very first, serious, character analysis because I find him so fascinating.

And also because I wanna warm up for when I tear Trey a new asshole because that man is evil and I'm tired of yall playing malewife, uwu bilf (baker I'd like to fudge) like he doesn't associate with Rook and Jade on the regular bruh have some critical think skills—

Back to Cater—

The reason why I chose that sub title to conclude this is because I noticed that Cater doesn't play a dynamic part in Heartslabyul in a way that he does in Savanaclaw—yeah, you could say that it's to seamlessly transition into the next chapter and shift gears without being to jarring but....

While the main focus was on Riddle, Trey, and the first years the side focus was on Cater's silent development.

What I meant by Cater being a passive person is because of his card number— 4, satisfaction.

From what we've seen, Cater is satisfied with being on the back burner if it means that he can get what he wants in the end without having to put forth that much effort— Cater managed to convince Leona in the easiest way possible by tugging the right thread:

Leona's respect for women; we know that Cater is well traveled, this boy and his family have been moving around on an international scale, I'd say he's as well traveled as Rook Hunt and his family you can't tell me this man hasn't lived in Afterglow Savannah or somewhere with the same customs, go directly to hell if you think otherwise.

By understanding these fundamental customs he manages to use that excuse as to why he wants Leona to join him to celebrate Rosalia and get the test answers. Leona literally plays chest by himself he could've easily saw through Cater and declined but he didn't on the basis that (a woman, a painting, but a woman nonetheless) Rosalia did want to see him at the party.

Kalim was down to party either way if Jamil didn't pull through.

In his gym personal story when he realized he only had a couple last laps to go he used his UM and dipped off and if it weren't for Trey rat ass witnessing it and Riddle following after Cater would've gotten away with it.

As stated before, Cater didn't care for the Ceremonial Party but instead the pictures. This is a theme that comes back in the Halloween personal story where it dives deep into Cater's social media addiction—

"...If only that was all; Mixed with the new accounts, my comment section and DMs are full of old acquaintances, not just from middle school but classmates all the way from elementary school!"

"... With all those short transfers, we never stayed in one place for too long, so I met a load of people."

"From the best to the worst,,,among them they all had something in common: those places where I stood remain without me."

"...So, instead of being serious about everyone, I just wanna stay happy and casual with everyone!"

"Just have fun and play around like the world is just one big circus!"

"...That's why Magicam's the best. This acquaintance from three years ago just suddenly contacted me!"

"I get more and more casual and light connections y'know? Cay-kun's fave~."

This whole section is rife with insight into Cater's mind I don't understand why I'm making an analysis when I can drop this and begone.

We literally got into the meat of Cater's addiction— shallow connections.

Just look at the dynamic Trey, Riddle, and Cater have: Trey enables Riddle and Cater vibes on the sidelines, neither too involved or too distant, in fact he lags behind the two of them at times and this possibly reflects his relationship with his sisters.

While his sisters take all the spotlight, Cater is left in the background never too far or too distant yet he never actually interacts with them. We see Trey and Cater together a lot and they have their interactions but at the end of the day its shallow and never anything deep.

When the beheaded Heartslabyul student came to the both of them crying the both of them only took up the slack because they were asked to not because they wanted to.

Of course they've both been together (platonically) for 3 years, but that doesn't mean they know each other, if you get what I mean; as soon as they graduate they'll part ways and probably never talk to each other (face to face) again.

He knows this which is why he doesn't put forth the effort to involve himself.

"...But without deeper connections, I think that might actually be a lonely thing."

"...Nothing but lies."

"Lilia-chan, who's all about destined meetings and has always stayed and been able to build upon his relationships..."

"Could never understand my sinking nothing-can-be-done-about-it feelings."

I wanna touchdown on my previous statement about Savanaclaw and how this plays into Cater's development, he's more involved.

With Trey outta commission (which means he has time to plot and scheme like the rat he is), Cater is the one supervising Riddle, and he's surprisingly doing a great job at it.

Yall chalk it up to Riddle mellowing out I say that it ties into what Riddle thinks of him.

"Riddle never truly seems to get mad at [Cater] him."

Trey say your grace cause its over; now of course those bitter feeling still linger, but he's been holding these emotions in for 18 years you can't exactly break something like that so easily, not to mention that he can always regress back into himself after he graduates—character growth is never linear and it never happens over night.

His sisters have mellowed out and even ask him what he wants for his birthday— but does it truly matter to the real Cate?

At the end of the day he's still secretly sad boi hours he just hides behind the internet so that he doesn't raise any questions, because he's afraid of confronting what he really wants.

It mentions that the Diamond card suit symbolizes autumn and adulthood, a time when we stop wandering (childhood) and settle down into our homes (adulthood); its the preservation of what's truly necessary instead of the material (gworl).

Maybe that's what Cater really wants— deep connection and alone time with himself.

But that's just a theory

A Twst theory.

[fantastic-nonsense]

Where would you sort the Batfamily?

So I actually answered this years ago, back when I'd read a lot fewer comics and knew the characters much less well than I currently do, and yet I still managed to peg the majority of them with the same sortings that I would give them now. That being said, I've changed my mind on one or two of them (notably Tim) and changed my reasoning for my choices for a couple more (even if the sorting choice itself remained the same), so here's my full sorting opinions. This response got super long, so I'm putting my explanations along with comic panels for reference under the cut.

tl;dr core Batfam sortings: "Jason, Tim, and Steph are Gryffindors. Dick and Cass are Hufflepuffs (but both are basically hatstalls between Slytherin and Gryffindor, respectively). Barbara and Duke are Ravenclaws. Bruce and Damian are the family's resident Slytherins."

Bonus sortings (which have no further explanation):

Helena Bertinelli is probably a Gryffindor, both because she's the type of person who would have asked the Hat to put her there and because so many of her actions over the years have been informed by a deep yearning to be brave and move past the trauma she endured as a child, but you could also make a really solid case for Slytherin (which purpleladyofthenight has done here).

Kate Kane is also a Gryffindor. She wears her heart on her sleeve, chases risks, and unapologetically refuses to hide who she is or compromise her own values for the sake of advancing her own interests (see: getting discharged from the Army because she refused to deny being a lesbian).

Talia al Ghul's a Hufflepuff who's been traumatized so much she now behaves like a Slytherin out of self-preservation. Basically her entire characterization pre-Death and the Maidens was centered around loyalty, love, and honesty; the tension between her love and loyalty to her father and her love and loyalty to Bruce informed most of her actions until the LexCorp era. Unfortunately, she was forced to gaslight gatekeep girlboss her way out of repeated instances of brutalization, exploitation, and abandonment, which gives her the veneer of being a cunning, ambitious Slytherin while hiding most of the Hufflepuff heart she showcased for decades (this is my attempt at an in-universe explanation for Grant Morrison's character assassination).

Selina Kyle's a Slytherin who would have also done extraordinarily well in Hufflepuff. She's a brilliant, out-of-the-box thinker who has no issues ruthlessly exploiting the weaknesses of terrible people for personal gain, and ultimately she's an incredibly prideful woman who values her own resourcefulness and independence above most other things (a consequence of her childhood and adolescence), but she's also motivated by a deep-rooted sense of fairness and a desperate desire to protect those around her.

Alfred and Gordon are both Ravenclaws. I feel like Gordon is fairly self-explanatory. Alfred (despite being a character who you could make a solid case for belonging to any House) is as much characterized by his pragmatism, wit, and creative problem-solving as he is by his tireless care for and loyal protectiveness of his charges. Ex-intelligence spec ops, former actor, and accomplished scientific botanist (he breeds roses), Alfred wears a lot of hats that point to a wide and varied love of various intellectual pursuits. While his role within the Batfamily suggests Hufflepuff, his personality, hobbies, and skillset all say Ravenclaw.

Explanations for the core Batfam sortings follow:

The Boys:

Bruce: I think you could probably make a solid case for Ravenclaw depending on which interpretation of Bruce's character you go with, but in general he's pretty much Slytherin's poster boy. Local rich man traumatized as a child looks at Gotham and thinks "I'm going to personally wage an extrajudicial war on crime by becoming a vigilante and stopping enough crime to get my NYC-sized city to 'absolute zero' murders?" Ambitious, determined, prideful, resourceful, and self-reliant. He's a snake.

"I'd like to point out that the number of murdered innocent souls has been dropping since hte night you rang the bell and put on the cowl." "One year, soon, it will be zero. Absolute zero."

Dick: Hufflepuff, but like...not for the reasons people stereotypically put him in Hufflepuff, if that makes sense? It is not, in fact, because of his fanon happy-go-lucky and family-oriented personality that I put him there, but because Dick is the epitome of "have I done enough [for those I love and everyone else around me]?" His iron-clad morality and deep sense of personal justice inform basically everything he does, as does his sense of duty; he pretty much orients his self-identity around it, and threats to this identity threaten his emotional state (during the Blockbuster arc and its aftermath, for example). Also, Dick's manipulative workaholic tendencies are largely because he can't turn off the part of his brain that's oriented towards helping others; in his most self-righteous moments, manipulating them or hiding things from them is his way of helping them, saving them, or trying to get things done. He's been through so much pain and suffering, only to come out the other side as a fundamentally kind person who very purposefully works to cultivate relationships with his family/friends and believe the best of people (even when he's immensely frustrated with them and acts like an asshole). And, as others have pointed out:

"Brave, unselfish, utterly kind"/"Always confident, always kind, always cool"/"Next to Superman, Dick Grayson is that one guy alive that every other crime fighter trusts." -Return of Donna Troy #2/Nightwing (2016) #9/Brave and the Bold (2007) #15

Dick's pretty universally trusted and respected by the superhero community because of those traits.

Note: I barely resisted sorting Dick into Slytherin, because Bruce and Dick are actually a lot alike (most people don't want to admit this), and a lot of the qualities they have in common orient Dick towards Slytherin in the same way they do Bruce (you can see here for a more in-depth explanation on this from thebatmanfiles, who did sort Dick into Slytherin). However, The Hat doesn't just take into account your most prominent personality traits, but what types of things you're likely to value, need, and/or orient yourself towards as you grow up. I think Dick prioritizes and values different things than Bruce does (particularly his desire for positive and meaningful relationships with other people-even if he's not always good at maintaining them, his need to be seen as trustworthy, and his different perspective on justice from Bruce), which makes me say "Hufflepuff" rather than Slytherin.

Jason: Gryffindor. thebatmanfiles did an extraordinarily good write-up on "Jason is a Gryffindor" once upon a time, and it's certainly more articulate than I could ever hope to be on the subject. This sorting is pretty self-explanatory, but Gryffindors value courage, bravery, and daring nerve. Jason has all three personality traits in spades; he also in many ways exemplifies both the best and worst traits of Gryffindor House. He looks before he leaps, takes initiative, and throws himself whole-heartedly into whatever he does (whether that's saving and protecting people or crafting his entire villainous persona specifically to spite Bruce); his stauch determination and commitment to doing what he thinks is right shines out from every depiction of Jason regardless of writer. This is just as true in his Robin days as it is as Red Hood, both pre-Crisis and post-Crisis:

"It was ill-advised, Jason, but you didn't do wrong. On the other hand...initiative is one thing, but I wish you'd stop taking on such grand schemes for yourself. You don't have to keep proving your worth to me. I'm sold."

Also, the boy has never been subtle once in his damn life and he doesn't care to be; you know exactly where you stand with Jason at all times. He's probably the most straightforward Gryffindor sorting in the group, for all that he's a lovable little nerd that values education and was dedicated to his studies.

Tim: Gryffindor. This one's changed; I used to think he'd be a Ravenclaw, and I still think you would probably sort New 52!Tim (aka "Not Tim") there. Pre-Reboot!Tim, however, is a Gryffindor. While he's better at the more "cerebral" and detective aspects of the job, Tim’s most prominent pre-reboot traits are not actually his detective or tech skills: they’re his reckless, impulsive bravery, his tendency to throw himself whole-heartedly into whatever he sets his mind to doing, and his ability to analyze and think very quickly on his feet in dangerous situations, all of which are noted Gryffindor traits. Also, Shiva once specifically called out his rather foolhardy courage and his assumption of an honorable fight in the face of death (aka, her), which is so incredibly textbook Gryffindor behavior it hurts:

“So brave. So naive. You speak to my honor. You speak to my heart. I have neither. But I respect courage. Even foolish courage like yours. From such foolishness is born the soul of a warrior. We will meet again when you are grown, Little Bird. And that day will be the last on earth–for one of us.” -Green Arrow #135 (1998)

Tim became a hero not because he was a "super genius" or wanted to show off, but because of his determined, stubborn belief that Batman needed a Robin...also he walked right up to Dick and demanded he return to being Robin because Bruce needed him, and then went "well, someone has to do it so it might as well be me" when Dick refused. Boy belongs in red and gold.

However, I don't think Ravenclaw's a bad sorting for Tim by any means, and I think he'd do well there (you also wouldn't be in bad company by sorting him there, considering Tynion, noted Tim Drake stan, also sorts him there). He's just not a Ravenclaw shoe-in like people often sort him as; he's more of a Hermione-type.

Damian: Slytherin, but you could make a solid case for Damian being an emotionally closed-off Hufflepuff if you wanted to (it's all there in his stray animal collection habit). Damian is a Slytherin primarily because of his values and priorities rather than any core personality traits he has; he was raised to value blood ties, ambition, cunning, and leadership above all else, and those values have persisted even as he has grown beyond his childhood. Damian is a fascinating character to sort because he's undergone some of the most dramatic and interesting character development in comics, going from a spoiled bratty assassin who didn't see the value of life, changing his entire life perspective, and becoming a person who deeply cares about others (even though he pretends not to). But undergirding that care and consideration is a deep pride in his own abilities, a fierce ambition and desire for both respect and acceptance, and a desire for self-reliance even as he's taught that it's okay to trust and depend on others. He's a lot like his father (again, a consumate Slytherin), which Alfred remarks on:

"There's no denying he can be difficult, but underneath all the defensive bluster, Young Master Damian is the inheritor of his father's courage, his determination, his desire to do what is right."

Damian's deep devotion and care for those he's deemed worthy of such loyalty is a core Hufflepuff trait, but the way he behaves and acts on that devotion is extremely Slytherin in nature. My deciding factor on choosing Hufflepuff or Slytherin for Damian was ultimately his behavior in Williamson's Robin run. Jon Kent, his best friend and textbook Hufflepuff, became Superman and instantly went "I want to use my powers to make the world a better place." Damian hooked him up with a teenage activist group and went “That’s cool. I’m proud of you! Meanwhile, I’m going to run away from home and deal with my family trauma and overwhelming survivor's guilt by fighting ninjas in a death match tournament run by my great-grandmother. See you in six months!” That's Slytherin behavior right there, folks.

tl;dr I personally want to sort Damian into Hufflepuff, because I think he desperately needs the stability, safety, and acceptance that Hufflepuff would provide (the same stability and growth that he gains from being attached to Dick for the majority of his first year as Robin and having Jon as his best friend now), but ultimately Damian is a Slytherin and would absolutely choose it if given the choice.

Duke: Ravenclaw. 11-year-old Duke looked at the Riddler threatening to cut power to the entirety of Gotham unless someone asked a riddle he couldn't answer and went "Ah yes, this is obviously a job for me specifically." He may be a reckless dumbass, but more than that he's fiercely independent, pretty confident in his own judgement, loves to learn new things, and prioritizes his individuality (to the point of refusing to be Bruce's Robin because he refused to be "just another Robin"). He's not a rule-follower by any means and displays a lot of headstrong enthusiasm, but at his core Duke is a creative and critical thinker who happens to be an adreneline junkie. There are also a couple of instances of Duke thinking of his life as a set of problems to solve and basically projecting his questions about his own life and place in the world onto his cases, which I think says a lot about him:

"I just feel...lost. I mean, all these kids popping up with powers like mine. If I solve the case, maybe I'll understand who I really am."

He's a problem-solver, not a problem-seeker; it just so happens that his version of "solving problems" often results in him Causing Problems on Purpose in order to get the job done. Also, Duke goes to the Luna Lovegood and John Mulaney School of "You know those days when you're like 'this might as well happen? Life is already so goddamn weird,'" and I admire that about him.

....tldr I think he's a Ravenclaw in the same way that Hermione is a Gryffindor: while Hermione is a bookish and intellectually-focused Gryffindor, Duke is a reckless and impulsive Ravenclaw. He's actually a lot like Tim in several ways, and in that respect I'm absolutely not opposed to those sorting Duke into Gryffindor; if someone wants to give me a better explanation for why Duke is a Gryffindor instead, I'd be happy to read it.

The Girls:

Babs: Ravenclaw. Canon!Babs is everything fanon says Tim is, tbh, and I don't know why people keep trying to project that characterization on Tim when Babs is right there. Librarian, PhD, got a JD from Harvard because she was bored, values knowledge (and having knowledge), and her vigilante job is literally working with how information is acquired and distributed....if there's ever a Ravenclaw Batfam member, it's Babs. She's also fiercely competitive, a known inventor, and absolutely brilliant. Also, a moment of your time to remind everyone that she built a VR simulation room and designed multiple fighting simulation games to help the Birds and Batfam train. Babs is really out here inventing Star Trek-level tech in the early 2000s, we stan women in STEM:

“But you designed this game, Babs. And this incredible virtual reality projection room.” -Birds of Prey (1998) #19

Cass: Hufflepuff. Most people, I think, would see Cassandra's daring recklessness, cocky courage, and dogged determination to do what's right and sort her into Gryffindor. However, ultimately Cass's core personality traits are her compassion, loyalty, and her relentless dedication to The Cause, and her priorization of those things to the detriment of her own health screams "Hufflepuff." Even across universes and the massive personality shifts between them, Cass's deep compassion, absolutely iron-clad morality, and loyalty remain her most prominent traits:

“Dammit, I could’ve-” “No more killing!” “Exactly! How many more will he kill??? You can’t fix him, you understand? He’s not like me! Or you!” “Killing is killing. And killing is wrong.” -Batgirl (2000) #72

“WHY?” [Cass rips the Bat symbol off Kate’s uniform] “This symbol…special. Means don’t kill. Means never kill.” -Detective Comics (2016) #974

However, I think it's far to say that Cass would be the Batfamily's hatstall; the Hat would try pretty valiantly to choose between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff before recognizing that Gryffindor would probably just nurture her already out-of-control recklessness while Hufflepuff would (hopefully) provide the belonging and grounding she needed she gain a better emotional outlook on life.

Steph: Gryffindor, through-and-through. Steph knows what she wants and good luck to you if you get in her way. Steph, at her core, is a fighter; she's had to fight every day of her life to be taken seriously by pretty much anyone in her life, and it's shaped who she is as a person. She's a lot like Jason in that way, actually, except where Jason externalizes his determination and anger as rage about the injustice around him, Stephanie externalizes hers as hope in a better tomorrow. She keeps fighting to prove the odds wrong, and that...that is sheer Gryffindor stubborness:

"Fight or flight...I choose fight. -Batgirl (2009) #2

It takes enormous courage for Steph to go through the amount of shit she has, wake up every day, and say "there's room for hope in our line of work, too." Her courage, determination, and sheer commitment to continue fighting when everyone in her life (Bruce, Tim, Babs, her mom, etc) tell her to quit while she's ahead and go home scream "Gryffindor!" to the rooftops, and we are grateful for that Gryffindor stubborness every moment.

.......okay, whew, I think I'm done. I already explained my bonus sortings, but hopefully these explanations effectively explain why I sorted everyone where I did.

[phoenixyfriend]

Re; Ahsoka and Quinlan being the same age, now I'm picturing Ahsoka, Quinlan, and Rex eventually ending up in a weird sorta thruple where Quinlan comes in and out of the relationship but the door is kinda always open for him? And Rex spends a lot of mornings eyeing the tangle of orange and brown skin on the other side of the bed like he has no idea how he ended up here but he's (mostly) okay with that tbh

Context: Commander Buir in chronological order

YES okay so this is wild to me that people are invested in this but like half the time-travel fics with Ahsoka in the same age-group as Quinlan have me wondering if I should ship them. Let me just. Ho shit.

So, okay, I've explored a lot of possible dynamics but there's something really engaging about how Quinlan, trained as a Shadow before the Sith came back, could react to a War Padawan. Ahsoka isn't really infiltration material yet, she's very much a frontline fighter, but she's got a lot more experience with a kind of consistent dark atmosphere that most Jedi don't. They get exposed to plenty of dark stuff, sure, but not the kind of all-encompassing "this is my life for the last two years" thing that is usually reserved for the long-term field agents like Shadows and Watchmen.

The War Padawans, for all that they were supposed to be just normal Jedi Padawans, were living in the kind of consistently negative environment that's normally experienced by those Knighted Sentinels.

So Ahsoka, while still generally pretty young in these AUs, is a very odd kind of person to be around, because she's spunky and vivacious and snippy and affectionate and snarky and knows how to break every bone in your body from harrowing experience as the only thing standing between death and thousands of brothers.

And Quinlan, I imagine, really likes that about her. She gets it, and she's still an energetic and loving and trying to do her best to be a good person despite everything. He gravitates towards her and she... well, she's not blind. She can tell he's interested. And she's not upset about that.

ANYWAY, ONTO REX

So, Rex is... technically twelve. He hasn't exactly got a whole lot of experience with romance. He is also, up until the point of time-travel, legal property of the Senate and the Jedi Order, which means that Ahsoka, or at least her community, owns him. He was indoctrinated to serve her and that community. She also outranks him, for all that she usually lets him take the lead in the field due to experience. He's older than her physically and maturity-wise, but she's also had a grow-up-faster-than-you-should adolescence, and she has superpowers.

What I'm saying is, the power dynamic is fucked up.

(Unironically I spent hours last night realizing that it balances out a lot more than C*dywan does, which I'm censoring because by god do I not want discourse on this post. I like both ships, and don't want to argue about what's the most problematic. It's Star Wars. The only unproblematic ships are Bail/Breha and Owen/Beru.)

Here's the thing, though, because the main thing people seem to argue here is the age/maturity difference as a problem area:

The age difference in actual time is four years, which is smaller than the two main ships of the franchise (Han/Leia and Padme/Anakin, to be clear). The age difference in maturity is ??? We'll say that the clones started aging normally after they hit twenty, so the age difference in maturity is six years... which is still normal for SW ships.

(This is why I don't have any issues with the ship in a post-O66 context, once they've had a few years to move past the traumas and whatnot. The age stuff all evens out with time, they're a good team, and neither was grooming the other. It's not objectively any more problematic than most SW ships at that point, and I'm okay with that. They deserve to be happy if they want.)

But they get yanked away from all that structure of who owns what, who reports where, who has which rank, who's legally a person in the eyes of the Republic when they end up on Dagobah. Once they've registered when they are, the only remaining complications are:

He grew up in a cultlike environment and was indoctrinated to serve her (but has been replacing that indoctrination with genuine respect and affection for her as a person because they've worked together for two years).

She has superpowers (contextually not a big problem: we see several Force-Sensitive/Non-Sensitive ships that don't consider those powers a complicating element)

He's several years younger than her (canonically less of an issue than it could be: Cut got married and has kids) and has next to no experience with what a normal romance looks like except for hanging out on the edges of whatever the fuck his General has going on with the Senator

She's several years less mature than he is (...something of an issue)

So a lot of this is mostly okay. She feels weird about the fact that she's got more knowledge of romance and all that it entails. He feels weird about the fact that, despite her being older, he looks at her and sees someone that's still a little young, not quite a shiny. Except she is older than him, and he's seen her behead four people in a single move, and they've saved each other's lives more times than either of them can count anymore. He respects her, and the fact that she's babyfaced doesn't change the fact that, in terms of who they are as people and warriors, they're on a level playing field.

She still looks at him and mourns his lost childhood, and he still looks at her and takes a moment to see past the too-big eyes and adolescent proportions.

But they really, really care about each other, and maybe part of them is starting to recognize that there's a bit of a crush before they time-travel, but neither one wants to make a move. There's a lot of baggage on both sides, a lot of "but they're a child" and "but they're (literally vs functionally) below me in the chain of command, I can't take advantage of that" and all that fun stuff. It's the kind of situation where two people circle each other for ages without making a move, because actually making that move is terrifying on account of not knowing whether the other party knows they can say no, on top of the usual "what if it ruins our friendship?" thing.

What happens on Dagobah, though... is very tropey. They're sort of stranded until Ahsoka can fix the ship, and that takes time. The area is also very heavy with the Force, dense and heady with the energy it carries, and it's... actually really not great for Ahsoka. She keeps feeling like she's back on Mortis, and has nightmares from the trigger there, but also keeps hallucinating because she wasn't ready for the thickness of the energy (like Yoda) or still new enough to the Force that she couldn't feel how dense it all was (like Luke). She can't work on the engines as constantly as she'd like to get them out of there, and while Rex is a competent mechanic, he's not as skilled with it as the girl who jumped headfirst into lessons with Anakin.

Rex spends a lot of time holding Ahsoka and wiping her brow with a wet cloth while she's feverish and out of it. Yes we're going full Florence Nightingale romance here, let me have my fun.

They get the communications relay working earlier than the engine, find out the year is wrong, panic a bit. All is well. (It's not, but they're holding it together for now.)

Ahsoka keeps working on the engine when she's lucid. Rex keeps hunting up game and edible plants for them while she does. They cuddle at night, because it's not cold but it is empty of the people they care about, and they kind of want that reassurance of someone they trust and love at their back.

(Morai visits.)

(Daughter shows up in the nightmares, tells Ahsoka that age will not come for her beloved until the time is natural for it. The phrasing is dumb but she does manage to convey that the accelerated aging is no longer an issue, if it even was after they hit adulthood. Ahsoka is relieved.)

And, you know, emotions happen. She takes his hand while they're leaning up against each other. He kisses her forehead while she's having a bad spell. They cook together and tell jokes to keep sane and spar. They hug each other through nightmares and panic attacks. There is much blushing. There is much cuddling.

Once, they kiss.

They break apart, flushing and stammering and being very awkward about the whole thing, and make excuses to leave and panic about the fact that they!! Kissed!!!!!

A couple hours later they find each other again, and have a long and complicated discussion about why they like each other (war makes bedfellows, there's trust and affection and all that fun stuff) and why they're hesitant (age stuff, maturity stuff, prior indoctrination), and make the decision to take it slow. They cuddle, and kiss, and blush a lot because both of them are basically just dumb teens having their first real relationship.

They eventually leave the planet, make it to Coruscant, etc. It takes a bit for anyone except Obi-Wan to realize that something's changed between them. Most people didn't know them before, and Anakin's observation skills are currently at a very low ebb. But they sit together and hold hands, and flirt when they spar, and once or twice people find them kissing (both standard and Keldabe) in a corner while holding hands and then just smiling at each other like loons.

They end up rooming together because nobody has the heart to separate them after hearing about all the war stuff. Like yes attachment's bad, but these two do seem to understand loss of loved ones and recognize that they could lose each other at any time and death is natural and they won't lose their entire shit about it, and if even General Kenobi is anxious as hell about being separated from the people he fought side-by-side with for two years, then maybe it's just... really normal for those two to want each other's company, and everyone can just turn a blind eye to the romance happening.

They share a bed, but they only ever sleep in it. Like, there's some goodnight kisses and cuddles, but everything is very G-rated until they've had time to settle into being true equals instead of just the "well, I guess the power dynamics balance out? Maybe?" of before.

And just... yeah. Rex does not believe that he's in this good of a position whenever he has the time to think about it. He's got a girlfriend! A really pretty, smart, strong, skilled one! Who thinks he's a cool dude! How the fuck did a clone like him manage that? He wasn't even legally a person a year ago, how did he end up in bed with one of the most amazing people he's ever met? He spends multiple nights just staring at her while he tries to fall asleep, asking himself how he got here and just like... marveling at her. She's worth marveling at. He's in love and she's amazing and he has no idea how to handle it at all.

...yeah no I have a lot of feelings now.

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

El and Morality

I don’t know about the rest of you, but the latest teaser left me with a feeling of intense dread. We see these kids playing in a seemingly carefree manner, but then Brenner comes walking in. He greets them, and they obediently respond. They’re all very used to it by this point, and they all call him Papa. He claims to have something special for them, but then we cut over to El’s isolation room and hear Brenner asking her if she’s listening.

Why does this fill me with dread? Mainly because the previous teaser showed some similar images to what we see in this one. The 8-ball, for example, is shown on one of the monitors, only it is covered in blood. It leads me to believe that something terrible happened that day. With Brenner asking if El is ready, then the shot of who appears to be El opening her eyes as if from a nightmare, has me wondering if he used her for something that resulted in the deaths of the other kids.

It’s by no means the most likely scenario for this teaser, but it’s where my mind went. The eerie music, the heavy breathing (ostensibly El’s), the fear on El’s face, it sends an ominous message. Is El remembering something from long ago? Is this a new group of kids in Brenner’s new facility? Is it just a nightmare fed with fear and guilt since she couldn’t save anyone? I really don’t know, but the idea that El may have been used to test the “worth” of the other subjects led me down an interesting road. Whether it was a “training exercise” gone wrong or a deliberate “culling” of the weak, I can’t shake the feeling that El did something that she desperately doesn’t want to remember.

If Brenner intended to use these kids to his own ends, then they should hold no allegiance to anyone but him. Emotional attachments to anyone else would be a risk in his eyes. They would need to have total, unquestioning obedience regardless of what he may ask them to do. For El to be the tool he wishes her to be, she would need to not think twice about killing. Brenner would have instilled in her, and the others, a need to garner his approval. This is why he teaches them to see him as a paternal figure instead of a doctor or teacher. We’ve seen him try to get El to kill a cat, but she refused. This upset him. Yet, we also see her have little issue killing in other circumstances. She’s somehow developed a sense of morals despite being manipulated from birth.

Morals are an interesting phenomenon. The entire concept of right and wrong really is subjective when you think about it. It’s a very abstract concept, and the way we think about it changes as we mature. However, it is also heavily influenced by external sources. In this case, Brenner would seemingly have total control over how his “children” learn to evaluate the morality of a given situation. I’ve previously spoken about El’s mental development, and how Brenner would have wanted to nurture certain intellectual domains, but restrict others. Here I want to discuss a similar process with the psychology of morality. Specifically, we will explore how El may have been manipulated into doing something that we, as viewers, would find horrific, yet come to develop a system of morals in spite, or perhaps because, of that.

Lawrence Kohlberg conceptualized the development of morality as coming in 3 levels (Pre-Conventional, Conventional, and Post-Conventional), broken down into 6 stages . These stages are more or less cumulative, as previous stages help pave the way for later ones. There’s no clear-cut ages for these stages, but level 1 generally encompasses early childhood, level 2 is later childhood and adolescence, and level 3 adulthood. The first level contains the more “primitive” or basic moral frameworks, obedience/punishment driven and self-interest driven. This is a level defined by a more egocentric understanding of the world, as it revolves around what’s “good” being what results in a positive consequence, and what’s bad being what results in a negative consequence. For children, this means learning what’s “good” as a result of an external reinforcer(i.e. “Papa) and then developing this into a sense that it can be used for a mutual benefit (”If I do what Papa says, he will be happy, and I will be rewarded.”). Since it’s still a stage defined by self-interest, there is no loyalty here, and such relationships will deteriorate once it is no longer beneficial.

This may have been Brenner’s fatal flaw. Most individuals wouldn’t move onto the Conventional level until adolescence. While these kids may have had some basic sense of loyalty to “Papa” since it’s possibly all they ever knew, it would still be easily shaken. If you offered these kids some candy, they’d probably do whatever you said unless there was enough fear preventing them from doing so. Fear, not loyalty. El was afraid of Brenner. She may have done his bidding for a long time, but it was because his approval meant better treatment, not because his approval was of value in and of itself.

Given El’s age when she escaped, she was on the cusp of adolescence. Thus, she may have been developing some early features of the 3rd stage, which we can call the “good boy/girl” stage. Here, a person would want to be considered “good” for its own sake, and would look to society for what that means. For our purposes here, Brenner and the lab could have been attempting to be the “society” that the kids would judge themselves with. They would evaluate the morality of an action based on how the others would judge them for it. This is possibly where Brenner wanted the kids to be, only with no concept of what good or bad is beyond what he instilled in them.

That may have been something of a clumsy explanation of the relevant stages of morality, but I didn’t want to get too technical. The important things to take away from this is that El’s sense of right and wrong would have largely have been defined by what resulted in her being happy and/or rewarded. She may have wanted Brenner’s approval, but only because it meant good treatment. The problem here is that El may have been getting her needs met elsewhere: the other kids. If we presume, for the sake of argument, that El developed friendships with the other kids, then we could say that these relationships interfered with the total control that Brenner would want. If she gets older and starts caring more about how they feel about her than how Brenner feels, then his power over her weakens. This is where things get potentially scary.

Let’s say Brenner noticed this happening. El is the most promising, and most dangerous, of his subjects. He must maintain total control over her. However, she is very friendly with the other kids, running the risk of developing attachments that would lead to a more conventional morality. So, Brenner sets up a scenario. He isolates El for an extended period of time, possibly even telling her that the other kids accused her of misbehavior. He tells her that they don’t care about her like he does. El, being in those early stages of moral development, starts to see them as bad since they result in her being hurt. In a real world situation, one kid would be able to do something nice for another in this situation to smooth things over, but this isn’t possible with El in isolation. Then comes the day when Brenner has “something special” in mind for the kids. He’ll see if they’re worth the time and effort, while also finding the extent of El’s obedience.

None of this means El is a bad person, as we will generally see kids acting with such selfishness. One kid gets mad at another for stealing their toy, but fifteen minutes later they’re playing together as if nothing happened. However, kids generally don’t have superpowers they can use instead of pushes and mean words. There’s also usually adults around to help mediate such issues, whereas Brenner would probably want to encourage it to ensure they wanted his approval and his alone.

It’s possible that whatever happened that day changed El and Brenner’s entire dynamic. Whether El was responsible for what (possibly) happened or was just made to witness it, it didn’t have the desired effect for Brenner. We later see El reluctant to kill unless it was to protect (or punish). It’s still unclear where that moral distinction came from, but it suggests that she no longer saw Brenner’s approval as beneficial.

What happened after Brenner walked into that room? Why did he ask if El was listening? Is a present day Brenner asking if present day El is listening while she was remembering/dreaming? Or is the voice a past Brenner asking if past El is listening to his instructions? 

Now, this could all be nothing. A good teaser will try to get us hyped up without giving anything important away. The “are you listening” might not even be from that scene at all in reality, or it could just be for the teaser. Still, I thought it a good opportunity for an exploration of morality in someone raised from birth to be a tool or weapon.

Something happened somewhere to make El believe there were right and wrong times to hurt or kill someone, and I just think this may have been a pivotal moment. I think we first see her kill (or at least serious injure) when she breaks out of her isolation cell. That can be explained by her still largely being in the first level of morality. Being in that cell was not in her own best interest, and she reached a point where she didn’t see a way to improve her situation. She may not have intended to kill the orderlies, but it was also not of concern to her. However, we also see her be more deliberate with Troy. First, she merely makes him wet himself, which is a remarkably clever solution. Later, she breaks his arm, but it appeared to only be due to him holding a knife as she simply knocked James down. When it came to the agents or the demogorgon, though, she was prepared to kill again. When she went with Kali to find one of the Lab men, she was ostensibly prepared to kill him until she realized there were kids around. The only pattern I can really see is that she will kill monsters or adults, but she’s reluctant to harm (at least seriously harm) kids or leave them without a caregiver.

I feel like this shows her being caught in between Pre-Conventional and Conventional levels of morality. She’s still largely going off of her own self-interest, but she’s also starting to consider the thoughts and feelings of others, namely her newfound friends. El seems to really want to keep them safe to the point that she risks her own safety. One could say that their approval, particularly Mike’s, is of value to her. She wants them to see her as good, and she attempts to conceal anything that would make her seem “bad” in their eyes, such as the fact that she’s messing with the compass or the fact that she opened the Gate.

We don’t really know how much time would have occurred between the event I hypothesized from the trailer and when El breaks free of the Lab. It’s possible that something happened there to get El to see some sort of moral distinction. She will prank, or even disable, a kid, but she somehow sees serious harm or killing of them as wrong. This leads me to believe that she harbors some type of guilt from her time in the Lab. It could be survivor’s guilt, especially if Brenner made her bear witness to the other’s being hurt or killed. It could also be something far worse if Brenner compelled her to hurt or kill them herself. Regardless, something happened somewhere along the time to get her to no longer as seeing her life in the Lab as “good,” leading to her escaping.

I think this is another one of those posts that got away from me, but hopefully I got my point across. If I try to hard to edit this thing, it’ll never get posted. Again, I have no idea what the teasers are suppose to mean, but they got me started on this train of thought. If you made it this far, then I apologize for those minutes of your life that you’ll never get back.

[james-joyces-right-eyeball]

Absolute Favorite Books I’d Recommend to Anyone

This is a list of my top-tier favorite books that I would recommend/talk about endlessly to pretty much anyone (in no particular order). I know people probably don’t care but I just like talking about books I love so here we are.

Beloved - Toni Morrison

~ Based off the real story of Margaret Garner, a slave woman who escaped slavery and when captured killed her child in order to prevent them from ever being enslaved again, Beloved tells the story of a mother named Sethe, born in slavery who eventually escaped and is haunted by the figurative demons of her trauma and the literal (arguably) ghost of her dead daughter, who she herself killed. It is an excellent exploration of the horrors of slavery and of the haunting legacy of the institution for those who were subjected to it.

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

~ If you’ve been on Tumblr for a while, you probably know what Lolita is. The story of the predatory Humbert Humbert who lusts after, rapes, and kidnaps the “nymphet” Dolores Haze. An excellent construction of how predators, unreliable narrators in their own right, hide behind fabrications, almost-believable excuses, and pretty words to make their actions seem maybe not so bad. In the words of the book itself, “You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.”

Ulysses - James Joyce

~ Notoriously one of the most difficult books in the English language, Ulysses lifts its structure from Homer’s Odyssey to tell the story of a common man, Leopold Bloom, as he goes about his day. Yes, this book takes place over the course of only one day. We follow Bloom as well as Joyce’s literary counterpart Stephen Daedalus through their thoughts and actions, gathering details of their lives previous throughout. It’s a book that, in my own words, “is life”. It is sad, funny, strange, vulgar, disgusting, beautiful, revelatory, sensual, and nonsensical all at once. Joyce aimed to create a reflection of life through his stream-of-consciousness style which some people might find confusing, but I personally find absolutely beautiful and honest and realistic. The prose is also gorgeous, but that could be applied to everything Joyce wrote. 

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

~ The classic gothic book that tells the tale of Heathcliff and his ultimately destructive love of Catherine Earnshaw, whose eventual marriage to someone else and the general mistreatment of him by her family drives Heathcliff insane and he spends the rest of his life trying to take revenge by abusing and torturing the next Earnshaw and Linton (the family into which Catherine marries) generations. If I’m being honest, I like this book mostly because of how wild and dark it is, but the writing is also genius and beautiful. I think the book also carries an interesting view of the destructive nature of revenge, overzealous love, and othering.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

~ A coming-of-age story at the turn of the century that tells the story of Francie Nolan, a young bookish girl growing up in a lower class family in New York City. It tells about her father’s struggles with alcoholism as well as her mother’s struggles to deal with that and at the same time raise Francie and her brother. Francie is confronted with a strange, uncertain world as a young girl, but tries to face it with bravery throughout childhood

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

~ Another coming-of-age story, this time about four young sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March. You are probably familiar with this book already; it’s had more movie adaptations then I can possibly remember off the top of my head. It’s the story of four sisters as they try to navigate growing up, love, and loss during the mid to late 1800s.

The Color Purple - Alice Walker

~ A novel that tells the story of Celie, a young black woman who is raped and then married young to a man who will go on to use and abuse her, through her letters to God. Throughout the novel she meets Shug Avery, a woman with whom she eventually falls in love and begins a relationship with. Through this and her eventual freedom from her abusive husband, she is able to gain at last her own sense of self and take back control over her life, a life no longer ruled by the abusive men around her.

The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison

~ The tragic story of young black girl Pecola Breedlove, who wants nothing more than to have blonde hair and blue eyes just like the women she sees in the movies. Both a deconstruction of the whiteness of beauty standards as well as how these standards can utterly destroy vulnerable young girls, it is also an exploration of the people who allow these sorts of things to happen, including Pecola’s mother and father. The Bluest Eye, I think, showcases one of the aspects of Toni Morrison that I like the most, that I aspire to the most: her ability to enter the minds of all people, even people who you might despise at first. Her characters, especially Cholly in The Bluest Eye, are ones you might not entirely sympathize with, but they will always be ones you understand.

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

~ Based off of the author’s own experiences as a young college student, The Bell Jar tells the story of Esther Greenwood, whose depression over her place as a woman in a patriarchal society as well as her inability to choose a life path for herself leads to a suicide attempt and a subsequent stay in a mental hospital. A very nuanced portrayal of mental illness, especially anxiety and depression, The Bell Jar is an extremely moving and relatable story for me and clearly is as well for others. It is a classic for a reason.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou

~ A memoir of Angelou’s childhood, this book tells the story of her experiences living as a black girl in the south with her grandmother and brother as well as her later years living with her mother. It also tells of how she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend when she was around eight or nine, and how she struggled to live with that and find her voice, both literally and figuratively. A wonderful book about overcoming struggles and the power of words and literature in such times.

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

~ Ellison’s novel tells the story of a young black man, never getting a name in the text, and his feelings of invisibility and his struggles to find a place in society to belong. His struggles only lead him further into despair, until he decides to “become invisible” as people seem not to see him as a person anyway. Invisible Man is an exploration of American mid-century racism and the isolation it causes to those subjected to it. Not only that, but it is surprisingly relevant to our times now, especially on the subject of police violence. (Personal anecdote: When I first read this book, when I got to the aforementioned police violence part it was right in the middle of the BLM resurgence last summer and I cried for a good twenty minutes while reading that chapter over how nothing had changed and it still hurts me to think about it. Embarrassingly, my dad walked in on me while I was crying, and I had to quickly explain it away.)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce

~ The title basically says it all lol. This book tells of the coming-of-age of Stephen Daedalus (the same one from the later-written Ulysses). His sensitive childhood, his awkward and lustful adolescence, his feelings of Irish nationality and Catholic guilt, and his struggles to fully realize himself, both as an artist and a human being. It is a very hopeful story, and one that I love mostly because I relate so much to Stephen Daedalus as an artist and as a person.

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

~ A magical-realist intergenerational family drama, Marquez’s book traces the various lives and loves of the Buendia family over the course of (you guessed it!) one hundred years. A beautifully written, at times extremely emotionally moving and chilling masterpiece, Marquez in a way retells the history of Colombia, of its colonization and exploitation.  

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

~ A classic Russian novel of society and love, Tolstoy tells the story of Anna Karenina, married, wealthy woman with a child she adores. However, she falls in love with another man, Count Vronsky, and comes to a tragic end for her love. The parallel story of the novel is that of Konstantin Levin, a wealthy landowner who also struggles to find fulfillment in his life and understand his place in society.

The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner

~ A novel that features an entire family of unreliable narrators, The Sound and the Fury details the fall of a once-prominent southern Compson family and always-present place of the past. There are four different narratives: Benjy Compson, a mentally disabled man who is unsure of his surroundings and of time and only knows that he misses his older sister Caddy; Quintin Compson, the eldest son and a Harvard man both obsessed with his sister retaining her “purity” and the fact that she failed to do so and had a baby out of wedlock, going as far to claim it is his baby in an attempt to preserve something of the family reputation; Jason Compson, who is the caretaker of Caddy’s daughter and believes her to be going down her mother’s “sinful” path; and Dilsey, the black maid of the Compson’s who unlike the people she cares for is not weighed down by their history. The narratives take place in different time periods and is in a stream-of-consciousness style. It’s a deeply dark and disturbing novel about the haunting nature of the past, a common theme in Faulkner’s work (see Absalom, Absalom! for more of this).

Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison

~ It is the story of Milkman Dead, a young black man growing up in the south and his relationship with his very complicated family. To say anymore would be to spoil the novel, but I will say that it is an excellent book about family, self-fulfillment in a world that tries to deny you that, and, like The Bluest Eye, exhibits Morrison’s excellent character work.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Tennessee Williams

~ A play which takes place on the patriarch of a family’s birthday in the oppressive heat of the midsummer south, Williams’ play explores lies, secrets, and how repression only results in anger, frustration, and sadness. It’s a tragic but brilliant play that I think was very ahead of its time. If you’ve read it (or do read it) then you know what I mean.

Giovanni’s Room - James Baldwin

~ This book tells the story of a young man and his love of another man named Giovanni while he is in Paris. It is a book about love, queer guilt, and has what I would call an ambiguous ending. There is uncertainty at the end, but there does seem to be some kind of acceptance. It is a bit of a coming-out story, but more than that it is a story of personal acceptance and at the same time a sad, tragic love story.

HERmione - H.D.

~ An underrated modernist masterpiece, HERmione is a somewhat fictionalized account of the author, Hilda Doolittle’s, experience as a young aspiring poet dating another poet (in real life Ezra Pound in this book named George Lowndes) who is a threat to her both physically and emotionally. It explores her own mental state, as she considers herself a failure and falls in love with a woman for the first time (Fayne Rabb in the book, Frances Gregg in real life). 

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

~ People think about going to a lighthouse. They do not. A couple years and a war passes then they do. That may seem like a boring plot, and you may be right. However, To the Lighthouse is not much about plot. It is more about the inner lives of its characters, a family and their friends, on two different occasions of their lives: one before WWI and one after WWI. Woolf explores in this novel the trauma that results from such a massive loss of life and security. Not only that, she also explores the nature of art (especially in female artists) in the character of Lily Briscoe and her struggles to complete a painting. It’s a short novel, but it contains so much about life, love, and loss within these few pages.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers

~ A southern gothic novel about isolation and loneliness in a small town. Every character has something to separate them from wider society, and often find solace and companionship in a deaf man, John Singer, who himself experiences a loneliness that they cannot understand. There are various forms of social isolation explored in this novel: by race, disability, age, gender, etc. A wonderful, heart-wrenching book about loneliness and the depths it can potentially drag people to.

The Waste Land - T.S. Eliot

~ A modernist masterpiece of a poem, Eliot describes feeling emptiness and isolation. The brilliance of it can only be shown by an excerpt:

“Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence.”

“The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; Departed, have left no addresses. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . . Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. “

(My personal favorite line from this poem is, “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”)

The Trial - Franz Kafka

~ The protagonist of the novel, Josef K., wakes up one morning to find that he has been placed under arrest for reasons that are kept from him. Kafka creates throughout the novel a scathing satire of bureaucracy, as K. tries to find out more about his case, more about his trial, but only becomes more confused as he digs deeper. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the world he lives in, and the more tries to explain it the further the more that proves to be the case. An excellently constructed novel and a great one to read if you would like to be depressed about the state of the world because, though Kafka’s work is a satire, like a lot of his other work, it manages to strike a strangely real note.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Tom Stoppard

~ An absurdist play that is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the perspective of minor characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who in the broad overview of the original play, do not matter. Throughout the play, they question their existence and the purpose of it and through that Stoppard dissects not only the absurdity of life, but how fiction and theater reflect that absurdity inadvertently.

As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner

~ The novel details the journey the Bundren family makes after the death of the family matriarch, Addie, to bury her. Each chapter offers a different narrative from the family members and those who surround them, revealing some ulterior motives to them “going to town” to bury Addie. The patriarch Anse desires a pair of false teeth, and the daughter Dewey Dell is pregnant and needs an abortion, as there is no way for her or her family to support it. It’s about the powerlessness of people in the impoverished south. The Bundrens are constantly subject to forces beyond their control, struggles which would be easily solved if they had the money to spare for it. There is more to the book, but that is my favorite reading of it, that of class. Faulkner’s ability to create distinct voices for every one of his characters shines through here.

And, last but not least:

The Collected Poems - Sylvia Plath

~ All the poems Plath wrote during her tragically short lifetime. The best way to demonstrate or summarize the book’s brilliance is just to show you. This is her poem “Edge”, which appears in the book:

“The woman is perfected.   Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment,   The illusion of a Greek necessity Flows in the scrolls of her toga,   Her bare Feet seem to be saying: We have come so far, it is over. Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,   One at each little Pitcher of milk, now empty.   She has folded Them back into her body as petals   Of a rose close when the garden Stiffens and odors bleed From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower. The moon has nothing to be sad about,   Staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.”

HOPE YOU ENJOYED! HAPPY READING TO ALL!

[hardheadedbighearted]

Since Hayley is dying of no-Covid juice and I don't have any other watermelons stuffed with hamburger meat to chase around my enclosure for enrichment right now, I thought it might be a good chance to talk about some of my characters' relationships with gender.

(eta: Apparently it's non-binary people's day so I'm going to pretend that's why)

So, it doesn't get many opportunities to come up, but while most of my characters use the pronouns given to them by canon, that doesn't mean all of them are binary; it just means they all have binary pronouns (for various reasons, which I'll get into in a second). Along with "not really coming up much", another reason is that the characters themselves aren't really there yet, or because even I don't know what their gender will do once they actually get there.

Anyway, all that said, here are some of the characters that I know are non-binary, or who otherwise lack what we would think of as a traditional relationship with gender (which I'll explain in a minute).

-Neopolitan {Redacted}: Neo is the most obvious example, and the only one I've been able to have come up on screen that wasn't an oc. Neo's gender is "all", and "all your gender are belong to us", and "this gender is mine", and "gender: yes". When it comes to pronouns, her stance is not so much "I use all pronouns" as "all pronouns are equally correct". Most people default (herself included) to she just because she is to all appearances a woman, but if someone were to break out a he or a they or a xe or a hir or etc, she's not going to care or likely even notice unless a big deal is made.

However, Neo does at times take on personas in order to do her job, and her personas will sometimes have very different stances on their genders. Gideon, for example, uses exclusively they; if memory serves, the sphynx cat from the raid was a he, and the black cat with the green eyes that is underneath Neo's many illusions is exclusively a she. (There's a reason for this, but she informs me it's none of your business.)

(In before, the black cat with the green eyes is not Neo's "true" identity; insofar as she thinks of any of her personas as the "true" self, that would be Neo, the black cat with the green eyes is just her natural form. This is why the black cat with the green eyes doesn't have a name and is usually referred to using the name of the strawberry calico. The reasons for this are, again, none of your business.)

-Yang Xiao Long and Weiss Schneebird: I'm listing both of these together because they're both in the camp of "haven't gotten there yet" with a healthy dose of "I don't know what they'll do when they do get there". I know that I, personally, don't see either Yang or Weiss as binary girls, nor do I feel the urge to rub my trans man fingers all over them (that's for Ruby... maybe. we'll see). I think Yang will likely end up somewhere on the Butch side of the Butch/Trans cusp; I've been reading a lot of blogs from trans men and transmasc individuals recently and them talking about their experience, and I feel like Yang will probably settle in somewhere in that arena. Weiss, on the other hand... look, okay. Honesty time: years ago during an event I won't talk about, I threw out "nonbinary Weiss" as a counterexample to a point I shouldn't have even had to make, and that single, throwaway suggestion has lived in my brain rent-free for years. Now that I have finally moved past the part of me that is still bitter about what happened (okay.. I'm still bitter, but not as much as before), I feel safe to explore that without the negative associations. Also, I saw an edit last year of Weiss with short hair, and it unlocked something in my brain. I think Weiss will end up somewhere unadjacent to binary (contrary to Yang moving along the feminine to masculine line), with an attachment to certain specific identity labels as removed from the context of a binary identity. Also given how long this turned out probably I shouldn't have made them the same bullet point. (Side note, this early gender questioning is why Yang took care to ask Neo's pronouns.)

-Qrow and Raven: Okay, so this one is the one I meant when I alluded to "non-traditional relationships with gender". While both twins do exist on what we would think of as a binary axis (while not identifying either as binary or nonbinary man/woman, respectively), they didn't get there in the traditional "assigned at birth" or "transition" way.

See, here's the thing about ravens: they don't have much sexual dimorphism to speak of. Males are typically larger than females, but with such a broad overlap that even size isn't that reliable. From this, I headcanon that in DT society, ravens (and other birds that have matching genitals and no dimorphism) don't really have a concept of "assigned at birth gender". You find out what sex you are once puberty hits, and gender is something that ravens just explore, sometimes settling very quickly into one thing and sometimes trying on lots, sometimes moving fluidly throughout their entire life.

When it comes to their actual sex, we know that Raven is female. Qrow... I genuinely don't know. I know based on certain things coming down the pipeline it's a high probability that he's also female, but those are just loosely based on my assumptions about how those loose ideas will play out, and are irrelevant and unlikely to come up anyway.

As far as their relationship with genders go, Qrow settled into male sometime during childhood, while Raven tried on genders for awhile before deciding sometime in her twenties that female was "close enough". However, for both of them gender is about how they're perceived externally, and doesn't mean much as far as their internal relationship with gender goes (which is basically nonexistent).

Will also say that there was a time when Raven was absolutely prepared to try on male for awhile to see if it would get James into bed with her, but that was more out of horniness than anything else. When it's been awhile and your best friend is hot, just got fitted with a metal dick he should probably take for a test run, and is pining for your identical twin, a girl will consider anything. Apparently.

Note regarding Yang re: raven genders, Yang is half-tanager and appeared more tanager than raven until adolescence, so Raven kind of got vetoed by Tai and Summer (not in a deliberate way, just sort of happened like that). However, both Yang and Ruby were raised to think of their assigned gender as a "default setting" that they could change at any point they so chose.

-Reese Chloris: This one will come up as soon as I get the opening for it; Reese is a transmasculine woman, and is in fact early into hrt (this is why I took care to specify her as a peahen when she first turned up). She is also a straight transmasculine woman, something that she's only recently come to accept about herself, because of course a woman who wants to look like a man to the point of taking hormones to make that happen has to be sapphic, right? Reese is still on a journey when it comes to her gender and identity; the three things she knows for sure positive are: 1, wants to kiss boys, 2, doesn't want to be boys, 3, wants to be mistaken for boys.

-Emerald Sustrai: Listen, Mercury's comment that "Emerald's not a girl, she's Emerald" is easy to dismiss as Mercury not thinking of his partner as a potential romantic pursuit until you remember that Mercury and Emerald share a dreamscape and a mental connection and that Mercury is trans, and you start to wonder if maybe he just knows something we don't.

Anyway, Emerald's not a girl, she's Emerald. What that will mean for her... well, that's actually one of the ones that I already know, but Emerald hasn't gotten there yet. Give her time. :)

-Lie Ren: He's never actually onscreen, but I always sort of envision Ren as menderfluid- never a woman, not always a man. He's also aro-ace, but that's unrelated. I just wanted to put that out there. ("But Theo! What about Renora?!" What about Renora?)

-Neon Katt: Nonbinary woman. There's not much to say about this one; Neon just considers the box of "cis woman" to be too stifling for her taste. Strictly speaking she's a she/they and even has a pin advertising this, but it's never come up outright.

-Roman Torchwick and Robyn Hill: Binary man and woman, just not in the traditional way. Not gonna elaborate, they just belong on the list. Don't worry about it.

[hyliangrace-a]

ZELDA, HER APPEARANCE & HER FEELINGS REGARDING IT  /  

talking with amber about the differences between the appearances in our respective zeldas got me motivated to finish this headcanon, finally ! i love zelda’s ocarina of time design, because y’know, imprinting on your very first zelda game & all that, but there’s always room for improvement, right ? these are my ( questionable ) improvements ! this headcanon ... got away from me little bit when i started to talk out my reasoning for zelda’s choice in how she presented herself as queen. i intended on talking about how she looks in other verses, too, such as when she’s a spectre in the queen’s shade universe, but i feel that would suit better as an entirely separate post, so, that’ll come in time ! i hadn’t intended on putting this post under a read more, because i feel it’s a fairly important headcanon & i’d like people to read it, but - surprise ! - it’s really long, & it would feel really rude to just leave it uncut, so behind the black it goes - that, & it also deals with body issues & negative perceptions of one’s body, so please keep that in mind if you’re sensitive to that sort of content. that said, & i’m aware of the irony of this sentence after the last, but i hope you guys at least find it an enjoyable read !  ♡

the three basic tenets of her appearance which have appeared in most of her predecessors & descendants ( pale, blue-eyed, blonde-haired ) apply in most, if not all, of my verses for zelda  but there are only a few verses of mine where i would say zelda’s appearance is exactly as it is within the game & the official art provided by nintendo - primarily the earliest arc of my canon verses, when she’s still the little princess, & the au which follows the events of the child timeline, where she never goes on the run & so never becomes sheik. she’s still quite fit, thanks to horseback riding & regular exercise, overseen by impa, but it’s in this au she most embodies the slim, graceful princess look nintendo gave her. one constant in all her adult verses, however, is her height - by the time she’s fully grown, she’s 5′8″.

in my other main, canon-inspired verses, well - zelda goes on the run at age ten, & it’s from that age impa begins to teach her how to fight, as she knows that she cannot protect her forever, & she’s going to need to become self-sufficient if she wants to survive. it starts off with basic things, graduating into an intense regime, but the result is, by the time link awakens from his slumber, zelda, even whilst disguised as sheik, is broad-shouldered & visibly muscled. i choose to interpret the tanned skin, red eyes & shorter hair as part of a glamour zelda put up, out of fear that ganondorf was searching for girls matching her description á la wind waker, but the muscles get to stay because whilst her appearance might be fake when under this alias, her feats are not. she did, after all, manage to survive seven years in a monster-infested hyrule, stay in the heart of death mountain without a visible goron tunic, & for whatever reason, was at kakariko village before link when the seal holding bongo-bongo back began to break, & i choose to interpret that as her being prepared to fight it. she also managed to make it through the haunted wasteland to the desert colossus / the spirit temple, sans lens of truth, & as she presents as an androgynous, masculine-leaning figure, she might have also had to prove her worth to the gerudo in battle, just as link did - after all, even though the gerudo, such as nabooru, openly disavow ganondorf by that point in time, it would be madness to declare her true self in his hometown.

this piece of fanart by lord-lorens is, honestly, the closest thing to how i picture zelda’s body type whilst she masquerades as sheik, & afterwards, when she reassumes her identity as princess. ( is there a gossip stone out there saying princess zelda has an eight pack ? there’s nothing in canon to disprove this, so yes. ) the only thing which stops it being entirely perfect for me is my headcanons of where across her body zelda is scarred ( which could be another, much smaller headcanon, so i’ll leave it for that ) but considering everyone’s interpretation of how zelda lived as sheik is varied, it was bound to happen - but god, minus those, i just want to pin this somewhere on my blog with an enormous sign next to it which says  ❛ this is how my zelda looks, as both sheik & a princess. ❜ but, with that in mind, lets move on.

i think it’s interesting how similar zelda’s outfit is as an adult ( which she ISN’T, she’s SEVENTEEN, but i digress - ) to the one she wears as a child, & my interpretation of it is that it’s very deliberate - & another glamour. ( seriously, where the fuck would she get a dress like that ? ) zelda hasn’t been seen in public, as herself, in seven years. the last people saw of her, as mentioned by those in castle town prior to drawing the master sword, is her fleeing the castle on horseback with her attendant, & that might have been the first glimpse some people had of her at all. when ganondorf is sealed away, & she re-emerges, she’s dressed similarly in order to spark recognition in people’s minds, & also because she knows that it may be difficult to prove she is who she claims to be, considering the king is dead, & impa has ascended as a sage, & can’t vouch for her. surviving nobles who interrogate her on her memories are able to confirm her claim to the throne, but if she had just strolled into kakariko village in casual dress, it’s very likely she would have absolutely been dismissed.

because of this, zelda’s feelings towards her appearance end up... complicated. in the aforementioned child timeline au verse, where she has a privileged, but more normal, adolescent socialization, she’s quite accepting of her own appearance & how feminine it is, because in that timeline, she fits the mold of what people expect a princess to be - she’s tall, she’s graceful, she’s pretty, & she’s rewarded for fitting that ideal. in her canon universe, where a life on the run left her with an entirely different body type, an indifference to feminity, many insecurities about her suitability as queen of hyrule, especially in her first years of being on the throne, & a desire to conform to others expectations of her ... it’s a perfect storm, whose origins can be traced directly to her choice to homage her childhood dress during her reappearance in hylian society. 

insecurity & fear feeds a lot of her choices in how she presents herself at the beginning of her reign. her body type is what some would call androgynous, others vaguely masculine - broad shoulders & small breasts which combine to give the illusion of her hips being narrower than they are, & she though she herself is content with that, she fears scorn by others because of it, so she works to minimize these features, & she plays up to feminity. her wardrobe primarily consists of dresses, gowns & robes, all loose fitting, all sleeved to at least the elbow, preferably in a style which leaves her biceps covered, & indistinct beneath the fabric. the gold pauldrons she wears as an adult feature in most, if not all, of her garments until her official coronation, seven years after ganondorf was sealed away - they provide her a measure of security, give her a regal appearance, & do a lot of heavy lifting, in conjunction with the sleeves of her gowns, to hide her shoulders & biceps, to the point where people are surprised at just how muscled she is when they come off - she hides the results, but even as queen, she still trains as she did when she was in hiding. most people are accepting of how she looks, but as is always the way, the few harsh comments she hears deafen her to the compliments - the only thing zelda wants, in the end, is for hyrule to recover, & for her people to thrive, & for that, she needs to be a good queen to them. to be a good queen, she must live up to their expectations. her attempts to live up to that via her appearance lead to her first breakdown, three months after her coronation.

it’s not just her appearance, of course - there’s enough stress to go around trying to get hyrule back on its feet again in a fair way, whilst trying to make her own mark as queen & live up to her parents’ peacekeeping legacy - but the nitpicking from a few members of her court, & the constant moving of goalposts as she attempts to satisfy their criticisms of her appearance, is the catalyst for her eventual declaration that she is done trying to satisy other people’s unreasonable explanations. the queenly mask she wears for other people’s benefit is suffocating her, so she decides to break it, & forge a new one. if she is going to be feminine, it is because she chooses to be, not because people expect her to be. if she wishes to dress as a man does, who can stop her ? if androgyny is what she feels, she will not deny herself. so, after a good cry, zelda does what every twenty-four year old going through a tough time does - she cuts her hair. she no longer tries to hide her body or disguise her frame. she is the queen, & the people will accept her as she is.

& most do ! hyrule has some strange looking people in it. a queen with a pixie cut is not the end of the world. she keeps it short for a good while, as a symbol of both her & hyrule’s fresh start, but eventually she begins to let it grow out again, with its length varying at ... well, various important points in her life. a short bob when she begins the programme to build new villages & settlements in hyrule. shoulder length when she begins courting to secure the throne for the future. waist length when she marries. she cuts it to above her shoulders once more when her first child is born, & keeps it mostly at that length until the end of her life, mostly for practical reasons. she was never ashamed of her body, before or after she became queen, as it was proof of her survival, but she became a lot more confident in herself as queen after she stopped letting other people, & her own well-intentioned, if misguided, fantasies of what a queen should look like dictate her life. that doesn’t mean to say that was that, every dark thought about her appearance swept away - there were days afterwards where she still despaired of her appearance, of the image she was projecting to others, of the judgements being passed on her & her country that came from her looks alone - but they were infrequent compared to the constant anxiety she felt about her appearance prior to the night she took a knife to her hair. they also weren’t enough to stop her from maintaining her physique, either - the training regime she began as a child continued into her late sixties, when she finally felt confident enough in the kingdom’s safety to stop, but the results of it meant that zelda was powerfully built through her whole life. even the birth of her children, which softened her body, couldn’t diminish much of her muscled appearance. shedding the weight of others opinions ( of her appearance, at least ) allowed her to stand tall until the end of her days. her body told the story of her life, & eventually, she was proud to let people see it.

[kingspoetrysoc]

Interview with Konstantinos Pappis

Konstantinos Pappis is a poet and King’s alumnus who studied Strategic Entrepreneurship and Innovation for his Master’s. He shares his blackout poems on Tumblr @blackout-diary​ and on Instagram @blackout_diary, and is the Music Editor at Our Culture. The King’s Poet’s Karen Ng talks to Konstantinos about his poetic experiences, process, and inspirations.

What is your earliest memory of poetry?

Like many people, my earliest memories of poetry are associated with school, where I felt pretty alienated by the way we approached poetry. It felt cold and analytical and I struggled to connect with it on a personal level – or perhaps there was less of a need to at that age. Although there were some Greek poets we studied in school whose work I remember liking, including C.P. Cavafy, Kostas Karyotakis, and Odysseas Elitis, it wasn't until later during my adolescence when I started discovering poetry outside of an academic context that I was able to appreciate it more. Things really started to change when I was introduced to English and American poets; for some reason, something about it not being in my native language made it easier to engage with and relate to. And then eventually I was able to approach different kinds of poetry from both an intellectual and an emotional standpoint.

How did you first realise you wanted to write poetry? What do you enjoy the most about writing?

In a word, Tumblr (RIP). But honestly, finding a community of people who used poetry as a form of expression more than anything else inspired me to do the same. I realised it wasn’t this inaccessible, overly sophisticated thing that you had to be especially clever or well-read to really get. Again, if you weren’t doing it to get a good grade, it was considered a bit weird to engage with poetry in any way, so seeing it outside of that context was pretty eye-opening.

It was also something that came with realising I had a passion for the arts in general. Music had always been my primary outlet, but poetry took over when I felt I needed the words to have more space on their own – to jump out on the page and release all the teenage angst I was going through, because listening to Creep every day somehow wasn’t enough. None of that poetry was any good, of course, but it was vital. And when I felt like this really personal thing was something I could share and exchange with friends, writing also became an important part of embracing vulnerability and forming close connections, too. I came to enjoy it more as a medium than an art form, in a way – at first, at least. 

In terms of what I enjoy about it now… Well, it’s hard to articulate, but if we’re talking about writing poetry specifically, I guess the appeal hasn’t changed all that much. It’s been a while since I’ve felt inspired to write a poem, but in the past it’s always been when I felt like I need to channel something that I couldn’t through any other form. Some might view the poetic form as being kind of limiting, but I feel like it’s quite the opposite – it’s almost freeing in the endless possibilities that it presents.

Above: a blackout poem by Konstantinos. The source text is “Moon” by @makingthingswrite on Instagram.

You’ve written a lot of amazing blackout poems! What about this form  appeals the most to you?

Blackout poetry appeals to me for almost entirely different reasons. I treat it more like a mental exercise that can be both calming and stimulating; something that operates on a more subconscious level. I like that I don’t have to be particularly inspired to do it, not even by the text that I’m using. I like that it doesn’t necessarily have to make sense, that I don’t have to stress over the final result too much. I like that it can then inspire me to make something else. I like the visual aspect of it, the act of repurposing something and giving it new meaning not just by altering the text but also its surroundings. Of course, people can make blackout poetry in a much more intentional way, but what sets it apart for me is that it’s a creative outlet that can be simple and almost passive yet gratifying at the same time.

How do you select a text for your blackout poems – where do you look? What do you look for?

It really varies: sometimes I’ll take photos from a book – I used to do blackout on old books nobody would ever open, but I switched to doing everything digitally –  and sometimes I’ll search for poems or articles randomly online. Reviews often work quite well. There does have to be something about the text that sticks out to me for me to use it as a source, but I tend not to overthink it.

I love that – inspiration is everywhere in our daily lives, even when we aren’t looking for it! Can you tell us a little about your writing process? Is it more emotion-led or methodical?

For blackout it’s entirely intuitive. For poetry in general I would say it’s almost always emotion-led, but the editing part can be more methodical. Normally, a lot of it happens late at night when I can’t sleep, and if I can’t sleep long enough for me to write things down and it doesn’t strike me as absolutely terrible in the morning, then it might turn into a poem.

Above: a blackout poem by Konstantinos. The source text is Sam Sodomsky’s review of duendita’s song “Open Eyes”. Your poem pebble (an ode) was one of the first poems to be published in our magazine. It isn’t a blackout poem, but could you tell us a little about it too – do you remember what it was like writing it?

See above re: late-night thoughts and the utter absurdity of the human condition! 

How has your experience of sharing your poetry to Instagram been? Are there any tips you could share with our readers? 

I haven’t done it in a year, partly due to a lack of inspiration and partly because I’ve tried to distance myself from Instagram and other social media platforms as much as I can – though maybe I’ll go back to Tumblr? But my experiences with the Instagram writing community have been nothing but great – I participated in Escapril back in April of last year, a yearly event founded by Savannah Brown, that encourages users to write and share a poem a day based on a prompt. It was a really great and fun challenge that helped me write and read more and connect with other poets. I would say participating in these kinds of communities is probably the best way to utilise the platform.

Thank you for that advice! On a similar note, which poets and poems inspire you the most? These could include childhood inspirations… Have your influences changed over the years? 

I would not be the person I am nor would I have any interest in poetry if it weren’t for Sylvia Plath. I can’t even pinpoint exactly when I first encountered her work, but I identified with it to an almost unhealthy degree as a teenager, as I’m sure many people have. I still get that feeling whenever I revisit her poetry or read more about her life and art. Also, a lot of spoken word videos from people like Sarah Kay really resonated with me at a young age. 

More recently, the closest I’ve gotten to that feeling of being deeply excited and inspired by poetry was when I discovered Savannah Brown’s work a couple of years ago. Her spoken word videos and poetry films really moved me, and her second poetry collection – which came out last year – is absolutely incredible (I wrote about it here). Lately I’ve also been listening to a lot of musicians whose work intersects with poetry, including Cassandra Jenkins and Anika Pyle, whose most recent albums reckon with grief and loss in a really powerful way.

Above: a blackout poem by Konstantinos. The source text is Christopher Gilbert’s poem “Fire Gotten Brighter”. Are there any styles besides blackout which you particularly love, or themes? Are there any topics you gravitate towards? 

I’ve always gravitated towards confessional poetry, both in terms of what I tend to write and what I like to read. Something most of the writers I’ve mentioned have in common is that they use intimate language to evoke a deep yearning for connection, in the face of existential dread and the unfathomable vastness of the cosmos. That usually does the trick!

Have any experiences at King’s Poetry Society or King’s in general – events, classes, readings, people you’ve met, or London itself – been particularly memorable, or inspired you? Can you tell us a little about them?

Absolutely. Just being in London, not even necessarily the experiences I had there, made me want to write more poetry than I had in a long time. There’s a Savannah Brown video essay on YouTube where she talks about passing a billion people on the street – obviously in the before times – and being like, “Who are all of you people? Could I care for you? How many of you idiots could I love?” That’s basically the gist of what had been stirring in me for a long time and that I still think about to this day. And then being a part of King’s Poetry Society was an opportunity for me to try and channel that, and engage in an actual physical writing community in a way I never had before. I literally read a poem inspired by that video during one of our poetry reading events – that will certainly stay with me.

Above: Konstantinos’ poem “doors on the underground”. He read this poem at one of the 2019-20 King’s Poetry Society critique sessions.

How important do you think writing communities are, in fostering “better” writing? In your experience, is writing helped by discussion? 

I think they’re incredibly important, not just in fostering “better” writing but also fostering a space for vulnerability. Poetry can be an intensely private form of writing, but so much can be gained from discussing it, especially if one is looking to not only hone their craft but also learn from and connect with others. Us writers can be especially introverted people (hi!), and may be discouraged by the long stretches of silence that can pervade a poetry meeting, but there’s power in hearing the words you or someone else has written out loud. Even a single comment can completely change a way you think about a poem.

What do you think the value of reading poetry is? Can a poem profoundly change someone’s life? Conversely, can someone read a poem and be unaffected – and if this happens, has a poet “failed”? 

I think Marianne Moore sums it up pretty well in her poem Poetry, where she talks about finding in it “a place for the genuine.” As for the second question, poetry can definitely change someone’s life – not to be corny or anything, but like all art, it can also save someone’s life.

That said, I don’t think a poet has failed if the reader feels emotionally unaffected by their work. Sometimes, a writer may wish to portray an event or theme in a cold and unaffecting manner to get a certain point across. There’s value in that type of poetry, too, and art’s inherent subjectivity means that someone might be moved by a poem that someone else feels indifferent towards. There’s also value in poetry that is private and not meant to be shared, because even if only one person derives something from it, then it is valuable. I do think, however, that the further one strays from that ideal of earnestness, the closer the work hinges on being trivial or pretentious. We’ve moved past the need to be overly cynical or ironic.

I agree, poetry that is never shared is not lesser by any means – I find great personal value in treating a poem like a diary of sorts. Maybe each stanza mimics a different entry... With all that you feel manifesting into this thing that is at once completely attached to your experience but also – if shared – something that becomes detached and open to reinterpretation... That is really powerful. How do you think people who have never written before could be encouraged to start writing for themselves, whether for fun or as catharsis – without the pressures of becoming someone recognised or followed?

I really like that approach! I think the diaristic style of writing is often looked down upon as less legitimate, even though it isn’t. To answer your question, I think normalising the act of writing poetry purely for enjoyment or as a form of catharsis is really important, especially from a young age. Part of that could be achieved by exposing young people to more than what one might call the poetic canon. Being disappointed that a student isn’t engaging with poetry when they’ve only been introduced to Shakespeare is like assuming someone isn’t musically inclined when they’ve only been exposed to a single genre of music. Another way would be to incorporate more writing activities that utilise the poetic form, and allow the freedom to explore it outside the confines of academic study. I’m not saying all teachers should follow the example of Dead Poets Society, but there are so many ways to foster creativity and make poetry more approachable.

Do you think poetry is sometimes perceived as an inaccessible art? 

100%. I think that’s the biggest problem with how poetry is perceived. A lot of it comes down to the way poetry has been taught and disseminated for centuries – through a lens that is inherently exclusionary, upheld by systems that are classist, racist, sexist, etc. Hopefully that is starting to change – studies have shown that more and more young people read and write poetry, largely thanks to the rise of social media poetry. Poetry can represent such a wide range of experiences, but for people to view it as an accessible art form, more barriers need to be broken. Amanda Gorman becoming the youngest inaugural poet in American history, and the first Black poet ever to perform at the Super Bowl this year alone is certainly a huge sign of progress. 

Do you have a favourite literary journal, or a poetry platform you would like to recommend? What have you been reading lately? 

Subscribing to the Poetry Foundation and the Academy of American Poets’ poem-a-day newsletters has been a great way of keeping poetry in my everyday life. Recently, I’ve also been loving a podcast called Poetry Unbound, where each 10-15 minute episode immerses you into a single poem. On YouTube, I love Ours Poetica, a video series curated by poet Paige Lewis in collaboration with the Poetry Foundation that features readings of poems by writers, artists, and actors – including John Green reading Moore’s Poetry and Savannah Brown reading her poem the universe may stop expanding in five billion years. It offers a truly intimate and approachable way of experiencing poetry.

Above: Konstantinos’ poem “lonely little london”.

Is it important to you to read a wide variety of poetry, from different communities and on different subjects? Do you think it’s important for poets to write about things beyond their immediate world? 

That’s probably the biggest shift that has happened since I first got into poetry – realising how important it is to read widely. I was mostly drawn to poetry that reflected my own limited experience, but now more than ever I find it vital to immerse myself in different points of view, especially from underrepresented or marginalised groups. I now see poetry less as a means of personal expression than a form of empathy, and because of that I’m able to gain so much more from it. That said, I don’t think it’s necessary for poets to write about things that aren’t part of their immediate world. It depends on one’s goals and ambitions, but there’s already so much that’s unique about a person’s immediate world – things that are reflected in society at large – that being forced to write outside of it can often lead to work that feels hollow and insincere, or even insensitive. That doesn’t mean it has to be limiting – the beauty of poetry is that you can write about your immediate world but not necessarily through it.

Lastly… Do you think a poet is born a poet, or made into one? Which is more important: natural talent, or practice and growth? Can anyone become a poet? If everyone has it in them, do you think anyone who puts their mind to it can produce meaningful work – since, of course, all work is meaningful in one way or another, whether privately or publicly?

This is a slightly tricky question to answer, because either way it could imply that only some are afforded the privilege of becoming poets. If a small percentage of people are born poets, then of course that means everyone else is inherently excluded; if one is made into a poet, then only those who are able to cultivate any artistic inclinations will have the opportunity of fulfilling their potential. Most people will say the truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle, that it’s some complicated combination of the two. But I feel it’s much simpler than that – when you boil it down, really, everyone is born a poet.

[tothedarkdarkseas]

What do you think is Murdoc's history with crossdressing?

(Behind a cut for length!)

Hey there! I suppose it would depend on how we’re defining the word, and because I know the conversation around these characters and gender can be very personal and uncomfortable, we should probably be clear about that up front: as we become less insistent on a rigid idea of gender I think that most folks, GNC or nonbinary or otherwise, have maybe moved away from gendering clothing and might even find a term like crossdressing a little offensive. In our own lives, mine and yours, this makes total sense! Having said that though, the approach we have to gender is just not the same one I think Murdoc and Stu probably have or had in the early years at least, with Murdoc especially having grown up in an era and location in the world where a man in “women’s” clothing was seen as a joke, a fetish, or both. Either way it was, first and foremost, socially deviant. That’s not a defense or a justification, it’s just a reality of the history.

Going off of that, I think Murdoc’s history here is complicated. With no mother or prominent female figure in his life, it’s unlikely he’d even have access to classic tropes like trying on mum’s heels or makeup in childhood. Murdoc’s focus through adolescence was likely more on survival with blooming elements of rebellion, and less so on his identity or a larger, demonstrative sort of rebellion. I don’t envision it starting at least until his 20′s, when Murdoc began to truly market himself as a performer and (conveniently) was able to challenge himself and his own learned fears while still keeping some very sketchy footing above it. While I know it’s an unfun answer, I just don’t necessarily think younger Murdoc was going to queer nightclubs or wearing gendered clothing to the shop with the hope of being respected and treated “normally”-- I think Murdoc intended to shock and offend, I don’t think he respected himself and the genuine attempts from early progressives to de-gender clothing enough (at that point) to not think it was offensive in some way, and that was what made it okay. I see it as akin to his Satanism: Murdoc has always been someone who chose Satanism in its most obscene, ridiculous, cloak-and-dagger form because he isn’t really practicing out of desire for respectful visibility. He likes that it’s shocking and goes against the cruel and conservative working class background he has such a bone-deep resentment for; a mentality he resents partly because it marked him in a way he can’t entirely erase. His upbringing beat a particular kind of toxic masculinity into him too deep to just discard, that was the sole environment he knew from his very earliest memories, and I have to imagine it shapes the way he subconsciously thinks of his private identity and desires. His jaded, punkish personality may prompt him to show his arse in a thong, stick a long cracked black middle finger up, sneer a nasty and performative fuck you to dear old dad and dear old Stoke and the rest of the pearl-clutching audience (and to Murdoc, every set of eyes is an audience) but... I don’t think that shame, and that belief that he’s “deviant” and it’s really something to be ridiculed for, goes away. I think stealing knickers from a girl he’d slept with and putting them on under his clothes gave him a flush of heat that feels nothing like being on stage and making a show of genderfucking. I think it felt like the heat of nausea, and the heat of embarrassment, and the heat of arousal all at once.

Basically, in the beginning, I think there’s a steep drop in Murdoc’s mind between doing it for the crowd and doing it for himself, even if there isn’t a logical separation between the two. By the time we get to Gorillaz, those feelings around his sexuality and gender have become more muted, and Stu’s presence-- young and small-minded toward these things as laddish boys are, and a great towering thing to hang his desires on-- gives extra incentive to push further. Whether Stu responds positively or negatively, Murdoc gets something he wants, and he can justify that there’s a reason outside of himself, alone in the dark, to wear these things. That isn’t necessarily to say when Murdoc wears a thong or stiletto heels he’s always doing that just for Stu, but having a bigger audience outside of Kong along with a personal (and potentially personally rewarding) audience inside of Kong emboldens him in a way I think he had more reservations toward at 21. And then there’s the speed. That helps. I like to think Murdoc wore bolder things that what we strictly saw of him in this era, but that’s of course skewing into personal wishes and what I wanted to see.

Psychobabble aside, I do also recognize that Murdoc’s comfort around gendered/de-gendered clothing seems to grow, and by Phase 4 onward he’s openly discussing wearing skirts or makeup or giving Noodle his hand-me-downs, which suggests Murdoc’s stopped ascribing shame to doing something like “crossdressing” in earnest. For my own purposes I do think there’s more to it than just Murdoc making a lifelong breakthrough and now being as self-actualized and progressive as he claims to be, but for Gorillaz canon I’d say that’s more what they’re leaning towards. The tricky thing about Murdoc being a fictional rockstar is that anything we see of him is something he’s putting out to the world. While I think you can potentially lean too hard on the excuse that the band (primarily Murdoc and to an extent Stu) are playing characters for the press and they’re really these deeply intelligent insecure sweethearts behind the scenes, there’s also just not really a way for a guy like Murdoc to give an interview-- even one he claims is “up close and personal”-- and trust there’s nothing of a performance to it. And I don’t think Murdoc ever has.

[makeste]

a hero under construction

A.k.a. “yep I really went and tried to defend Bakugou ‘hey there bad decisions, it’s me, ya boi’ Katsuki in BnHA chapter one, if you can believe it. No, I don’t know why I suddenly felt the pressing need to do this either.”

So as you may know from sources such as: This Entire Blog, I like metaing about Bakugou. All sorts of meta! I have talked about Bakugou and Deku. Bakugou and Mitsuki. Bakugou and Determination, and Bakugou and Redemption.

But one thing I have not ever really talked about is Bakugou And That One Time He Told Deku To... You Know. The Thing. Because lol. That was so bad. You guys. Everyone agrees. Fandom doesn’t debate about this. That was a shitty, shitty thing.

And look, I’m not going to debate it either! Not really. But what I will say is that Bakugou Katsuki has always been my favorite BnHA character. Literally from the moment he was introduced. And I don’t feel like I’ve ever really adequately been able to explain why. I don’t gloss over his actions -- or at least I don’t think I do -- but to me those actions also don’t define him. Anyway, out of nowhere I had the sudden impulse to talk about this, so I’m gonna try and take a stab at it. Here goes.

So here’s Bakugou on page one of chapter one:

oh no baby what is you doing.

And then later on, all grown up! Not really though. But you know, older.

Yes, he really was my favorite right from this moment. Quote:

“YOU ASSHOLE, TWO SENTENCES IN AND I’M ALREADY POSITIVE YOU’RE GOING TO BE MY FUCKING FAVORITE. YOU’RE SECRETLY SENSITIVE AREN’T YOU. WITH A TRAGIC PAST. OR SELF-ESTEEM ISSUES THAT YOU’RE OVERCOMPENSATING FOR. YOU SON OF A BITCH. YOU PIECE OF SHIT”

He absolutely was a piece of shit too, the little fucker.

But anyway, the point is, I knew right away. And it’s not like I just went “OH MY GOD WHAT AN ASSHOLE I LOVE HIM” or anything lol. The thing is, it wasn’t Bakugou himself that I immediately fell in love with on the spot. It was his inevitable redemption arc. That shit was written in the stars from day one. It was inescapable. You do not introduce the main character’s antagonistic childhood friend (you can put air quotes around “friend” if you like), who wants to go to the same school as him and seems to be living a charmed life up until this point with everything going for him, and who is, to be blunt, a Humongous Shithead, and not have a redemption arc planned for him. Some things are just fate, guys. So anyways, yeah, I saw that and I immediately went “oh my god, it’s going to be so good,” and I decided right there and then that the only expedient thing to do was to go ahead and make him my favorite right there, before the proverbial ink had so much as dried.

Like, to put this another way. You know Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban? Specifically the part where Harry explains how he was suddenly able to cast a perfect Patronus charm in order to save Sirius and his own past self? “I knew I could do it this time, because I’d already done it... Does that make sense?” Anyways, you see, what happened here is sorta like that. When I first saw Katsuki, he was not immediately my favorite. But I knew that he would be, because two decades of reading shounen manga has helped give me a sixth sense for honing in on this very specific type of character arc. Rivalries, character development, the works. And pretty much the second I laid eyes on this little shit, I fucking knew he was gonna have that kind of arc. And if he did, he would become my favorite. So I thought I’d save time and make him my favorite right there and then. So I did. And I’ve never regretted it. Basically, I don’t love him because of who he is; I love him for who I have faith that he will become (and in the more recent chapters is, in fact, becoming).

Anyways, now that we’ve established that, just understand that all of this was in the back of my mind the whole time as I went on to read the rest of the chapter, and indeed, the series. So! Katsuki then goes on to brag about how he’s going to be the first AND ONLY!! student from Aldera Jr. High to get into U.A., before he blows up the main character’s desk for absolutely no reason. Which, by the way, their teacher just kind of sat back and let happen. You know, I tend to give the U.A. faculty a lot of grief, but maybe I should ease up on them some. The standards for teaching in this society are really kind of abysmal.

Anyway, so we should probably just fast-forward to The Thing already.

Oh Deku, honey. Nah that ain’t gonna happen.

So then,

Like, just in case it wasn’t clear enough before. Katsuki is, in fact, being a big ol’ anus.

And just in case it still wasn’t clear enough!

Honestly, I know fandom has zeroed in on the scene that takes place one page after this, but truth be told, I feel like this was arguably even crueler than that. If only because he went right for the thing Deku values most. He knows how important those notebooks are to him. This wasn’t just the physical destruction of Deku’s property (which is bad enough); it was also a direct attack on Deku’s aspirations. He’s trying to stomp them out. He specifically stayed after class to torment him just for that purpose.

Anyways, he goes on to reiterate that he’ll be the first and only student from Aldera to go to U.A., and then he tells Deku “don’t you dare get into U.A., nerd.” Which is what this entire scene boils down to, really. Bakugou, despite giving Deku endless grief for being quirkless, and repeatedly telling him he doesn’t stand a chance and needs to face facts, in truth feels threatened enough by Deku applying to U.A. that he goes to all of this effort just to try and scare him off. He doesn’t tell him “you’ll never get in”; he doesn’t even say “don’t try to get in.” It’s specifically, “don’t you dare get in.” Even here, at his very worst, at his most arrogant and cruel and physically violent, we can see hints of the insecurity that’s secretly at the root of this entire thing.

Anyways. And then...

Hahaha okay sob so we have finally come to this.

Look. I’m not gonna turn around and start defending this. I absolutely will not. The actions are indefensible. What I will defend, however, is the fourteen-year-old boy who made them. Because he is just that -- a fourteen-year-old boy. In other words, a kid. A very stupid, mean kid, who was old enough to know better. Youth doesn’t excuse everything. But I’m not going to condemn a child for life because of the shitty things they did at age fourteen. Fourteen is a very stupid age. No offense to any teenagers reading this! There are plenty of teenagers who do manage to navigate adolescence without temporarily losing their fucking minds. But I think it’s fair to say that just about everyone makes at least one or two mistakes during that period. Most people wind up with at least a few regrets. Which is honestly a good thing. It’s natural. If you don’t screw up at least once or twice growing up, you don’t get the chance to learn from it.

Anyway, so yeah. That’s my defense. He’s a kid. Maybe to some people it’s a weak defense. And yeah, maybe I’m too forgiving! Again, though, I’m not saying it’s in any way okay. What I am saying is that I don’t believe in one-strike-and-you’re-out. Especially if it’s a child. Yes, some people never change, and they keep on being shitty people for the rest of their lives. But for the most part, people are trying their best. And for kids and teenagers especially, I’m just about always willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and trust them to keep trying to do better. Kids aren’t completed works; they’re still only rough drafts. And this applies to Katsuki as well. He’s still an effort in progress. A hero under construction.

Anyway, though. Basically you either cancel Bakugou after this scene, or you don’t. If you don’t, then let’s go ahead and keep moving forward. So how does Deku react to all of this?

Honestly, I think this here is a scene that doesn’t always receive its share of consideration. There are two things that stand out to me here. First, that Deku’s reaction to his former friend telling him to jump off a roof is to get frustrated about what a stupid fucking thing that was to say, because Katsuki could get in trouble for it. Never mind that this asshat just burned your notebook and joked about you killing yourself! He’s angry because Katsuki didn’t fucking think for two seconds before saying something which could have potentially had such devastating consequences for him, let alone Izuku.

Just. Okay. So not that this makes it any better, mind! But it is worth pointing out nonetheless, because it’s a definite Thing in fandom for people to sometimes retcon Deku’s reaction to this and make this one incident into The Single Biggest Issue From Their Entire Fucked Up Childhood. Like, I’m talking about those fanfics where it somehow gets out that Hey Guys, One Time Bakugou Told Deku To Kill Himself, and Deku is all angry and tearful about it, and Bakugou is super guilty and Ashamed, and everyone is horrified and there is Fallout and Drama and so forth, and then usually some kind of reconciliation afterwards. Which is nice. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be nice to have that kind of catharsis. But what I am trying to say is that I think fandom perhaps places more weight on this one particular incident than the canon does. Or the characters, for that matter. Because while Izuku has every right to feel horrified, and Katsuki by all rights should probably be losing a bit of sleep in his guilt over this, the reality in canon seems to be that neither of them ever treated it as that big of a deal. Possibly because it never occurred to either character for even an instant that Izuku might actually go through with it. I honestly don’t think Katsuki would have said it if he’d thought otherwise. Not that that’s an excuse either, because there was no way for him to actually know. But just trying to get into his mindset here, I honestly don’t think it entered his mind that Deku would try it. And clearly Deku never entertained the thought either. So in that regard, Katsuki basically just got very, very lucky.

Moving on to the second of the two things I mentioned, what does hurt Deku more than the go kill yourself implications, I think, are the I literally do not give a shit about you implications that naturally accompany a statement like this. And that, more than anything, is the sentiment I think Katsuki was actually trying to get across. I don’t care about you at all. I have so little regard for you that it wouldn’t bother me if you died. Which of course is equally as terrible a sentiment as the other, if not more so. It’s an exceptionally cruel thing to imply. But it’s what he wanted to express, regardless. Because, again, he has an entire dissertation’s worth of insecurities when it comes to Deku, and as we learn later on, he’s gotten the idea somehow that Deku is purposely mocking him and trying to knock him down a peg. And so this is his retaliation; his way of trying to deal with what in truth is his own self-imposed baggage. Meanwhile Deku is just trying to mind his own business -- contrary to popular belief, I think he has gotten the message by this point that Katsuki doesn’t want him following him around -- but he still refuses to relinquish his own dream of getting into U.A. and becoming a hero, no matter how out of reach it may seem. And so he puts up with the abuse, because he can’t fight back, but he’s not willing to back down, either. Basically things are tense!! And shitty!

Anyway, so that’s pretty much my breakdown of The Thing. This meta isn’t done yet, though! Because obviously no “Bakugou in chapter one” meta would be complete without an analysis of what I'd argue is actually the much more important Thing that also happens in this chapter. Namely, this:

Hahaha. Welcome to being a character in shounen manga, kid. When that karma train loops back around, it loops hard.

So! Bakugou stomps around some alleyways with his fellow middle school lowlives grumping about how Deku pisses him off. It’s worth noting that he already understands he’s done something wrong, here. His buddies even call him out on it -- “you went too far today” -- and his only argument is that “it’s his fault for messing with me.” He knows he was a shithead. Rather than denying it, he’s already moved on to trying to justify it. Really he’s just got too much pride to admit he went too far. It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s actually one of the reasons he’s so angry in this scene, even. He knows he done fucked up, and that just pisses him off more. Anyway so then he suddenly gets eaten by a giant blob, which. Yeah, this is BnHA. That can sometimes happen.

Let’s go back for a moment and talk more about the “GO KILL YOURSELF” thing! In real life, how would you deal with that situation? Like, imagine that it’s your job to discipline this kid. And assuming also that you work at a school that actually has policies about bullying, rather than teachers who just sit around filing their nails while the kids blow up each other’s desks. But anyways, my guess is it’d probably be some combination of suspension, detention, and/or community service, etc. But here’s the thing -- punishment can only go so far in dealing with the underlying issue. The real goal is to change the behavior. So there should be some measures to address that as well. Mentoring, behavior contracts, counseling, whatever. You don’t want the thing to happen again. You want the pattern of behavior to change.

Anyway, because BnHA society has massive problems which no one seems interested in tackling, this of course doesn’t happen, and Bakugou appears to get away scot free as far as Official Consequences For His Actions. But, because this is shounen manga, and we can’t just let our characters carry on not developing, something does happen instead which fortunately gets the ball rolling toward Redemption in its own unorthodox way. Namely, Katsuki gets eaten by the aforementioned giant blob, and Deku saves him.

That’s right! That Deku! Who, and I cannot stress this enough, bears absolutely no responsibility for Katsuki’s predicament at all, despite what he might think. Deku, whom none of us are worthy of in the slightest. Deku, despite being powerless, despite having no quirk, is the only person to try and do anything at all to save Katsuki, who -- and I can’t stress this enough, either -- is fucking dying. Like, holy shit. How the hell did this whole thing go from zero to fuCKED UP!! in such a short period of time?? just. !!

Anyway, so remember the part earlier where I said like a dozen times in a row, "he’s just a kid”? Yeah, I feel like that bears repeating just one more time.

Yeaaaaah. Fuck me so hard. Like hell there was ever even a chance of me ever not adopting this toxic fucking shitnugget after this. Just go ahead and fade me now. I know what my weaknesses are, and they are: This. Just, all of this.

Because here’s the thing about Katsuki: he tries to be tough, but he’s not. Not really. Not yet. He’s strong! He’s determined! But he’s still young, and far more fragile then he’d ever want people to think. All of his shitty behavior stems from the fact that he’s much less sure of himself than he puts on. He’s someone who has always been the best, and wants desperately to be THE best, and it also just so happens that he has absolutely no idea what he would do if he wasn’t. If he ever failed. If he wasn’t strong. And he’s scared shitless of it, and every last one of his most despicable actions stems from that fear.

But because he’s so bullheaded, he stubbornly refuses to acknowledge any of this, and persists in applying the only solution to this problem that he can think of: just fucking get stronger, and also CRUSH!!! anyone who dares to get in your way. If you’re afraid of being weak, then just don’t be weak. Don’t you dare. And so he doesn’t. He persists in Being Strong even to his own detriment. Even when it destroys his closest friendship. Even when it reaches the point where he can’t take joy in anything less than total victory. Even when it warps him into someone others see only as a villain. As Uncle Iroh once said, Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source.

So he tries to be tough. And he puts up an incredible fight, honestly. This thing is suffocating him. We know from Deku’s earlier POV just how painful and frightening of an experience it is. But he fights back regardless. He doesn’t give up. But he’s terrified. We can see it, in this scene, in case it wasn’t already apparent. He’s struggling, he can’t breathe, no one is helping him, everyone’s just watching. He’s not strong enough to beat this thing on his own. He’s a child, and he’s dying. Like, fuck, though.

And I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that this is probably the first time in his life that Katsuki has ever actually felt helpless. All his life, he’s been afraid of being weak, but he hasn’t ever actually been weak, though. But this, now, is something he’s actually powerless against. For the first time in his life, he’s up against something that not his quirk nor his intelligence nor his sheer stubbornness can get him out of. And the ironic thing is that he’s spent his entire life mocking Deku for being useless and weak. But here, for this one critical moment, the roles are reversed. Katsuki is now the one who is powerless.

And it’s Deku who comes to save him.

Fucking look at how Horikoshi devotes an entire panel to the notebook flopping down on the ground, though. The same notebook Katsuki burned earlier that day. Because Horikoshi likes to really get in there and make you feel that searing irony deep in your bones.

Why, indeed. And we already know the answer, of course. No need to delve any deeper into that one again. Deku has many reasons, but truth be told, he only ever needed one.

That’s it. That’s all the reason he’ll ever need. No further questions asked.

And then All Might springs into action and rescues them both, and the whole dramatic scene ends. With both of my kids intact, much to my relief.

So, to recap! (1) Katsuki burns Deku’s notebook and tells him to off himself, because he’s a fucked-up little turd with a raging case of gifted child syndrome who was not thinking about any of the potential consequences of his actions, and also was just being a straight up jerk. (2) Katsuki then receives a karmic bitchslap in the form of A Giant Sludge Man, Come to Devour Him. And finally (3) Katsuki is saved by none other than the kid he was being a straight up dick to!

So after all of that, I think there’s only one thing we can say, really, and that is: Katsuki did you learn your lesson!?

KATSUKI WHY.

Lol okay, but. In all seriousness, I think it’s pretty clear here that he does realize that Deku just saved his fucking life after he, Katsuki, behaved like a piece of flaming hot garbage to him for eleven years. He understands the implications of that. Otherwise he wouldn’t have chased him down afterwards just to scream at him, “YOU ABSOLUTELY DID NOT SAVE MY LIFE!!” before stomping off to go sulk some more. Like, clearly he gets it. It’s just that his pride won’t let him acknowledge it out loud.

And it would be easy to look at this and say, “smdh, clearly he hasn’t changed a bit even after all of that.” Except that in the very next chapter,

And it would also be easy to say, “well woopty doo, he’s not actively deriding and bullying Deku anymore, finally, after a dozen years, and all it took was for Deku to save his fucking life. HOLY SHIT HOW ALTRUISTIC OF HIM, WHAT A GENEROUS FUCKING GUY, WE’RE NOT WORTHY, etc. etc.. And okay, yeah. Point made. I get it.

But still. Change is change. He realizes that what he did was wrong, and so he changes the behavior. As trivial a gesture as it might seem in comparison to the LITERAL DECADE OF ABUSE -- it’s still a gesture. It’s the start of something. A sign that he is in fact capable of learning, and that he might not be beyond redemption. And much in the same way that I won’t cancel a fourteen-year-old kid for doing shitty cruel immature fourteen-year-old kid things, I’m also not going to deride someone’s baby steps. Just because he doesn’t transform overnight into Deku’s devoted loyal follower doesn’t mean he’s not changing. It’s a process, is all. But one very much worth supporting and encouraging. Because Bakugou Katsuki plays redemption arcs on hard mode; but in spite of that, as with everything else, he plays to win. And when you’re starting from so low, the only thing you can do is rise.

Deku once said that Bakugou as a child was neither “bad” nor “good”, but that after he got his quirk, “he started down the path towards ‘bad.’” And from there, it took him another eleven years to course-correct and painfully start back on the path towards “good” again. But, crucially, he did. And that, right there, was the hardest part. Once you’re back on course, the only thing you have to do is keep moving forward, and not quit. And if there’s anything Bakugou excels at, it’s that. This one thing, he is very, very good at.

He’s still learning. But this is why we trust in the power of redemption arcs. As the saying that I just made up goes, Once a shithead, not always a shithead. You have to believe in the potential. People don’t write stories about characters who only ever stay exactly where they started from on square one. They just don’t. And Bakugou will not. He has not.

And I for one can’t wait to see the good this kid can do.

[mysticjagiya606]

I have always thought it was strange that V and Rika have known the Choi boys since their childhood…The boys being 21 in the game and V being 26. 

The only logical age difference would be that the boys were 12 when they were rescued and V would have been 17 years old. (That is being generous since they look about 6 in the photo, but you never know with anime styled artwork). 

Considering that Rika and V only broke up shortly before MC joined the RFA, you have to calculate how long the couple had to have been together…9 years. Rika and V have been together for nearly a decade. 

V bought Rikas apartment, which would be logically assumed to be directly after she moved out from her adoptive parent’s house.

As soon as V was starting to flourish with his photography and as Rika was just experiencing adolescence and looking for more than the misery she felt with her adoptive parents. Granted, V was the only form of love she knew. They were very young…it makes sense as to why they had an idealized idea of love. Rika wanted to be loved unconditionally…and V wanted to love unconditionally, like his mother described before she died.

Obviously, when they learned about the two abused children from church, they would step in to help. Rika was always wanting to help others and V had a good heart. 

Here is what we learned in the Secret Endings, as well as in Saeyoung’s flashbacks. 

Saeyoung was offered a job in the agency, by V. To be safe from their politician father, the two had to be split up. After Saeyoung was rescued, Saeran was still at the home. He was being tortured and questioned by his mother…truly believing that his brother abandoned him. 

V and Rika wanted to save Saeran too, but it went downhill. The mother refused to give him up and Rika (canon) ends up accidentally killing the twins’ mother in self defense. That is the kind of secret you take to your grave.

Here we are…the GAP.

  There is a Wikia saying that Rika kidnaps Saeran into Mint Eye….but Mint Eye doesn’t form until a couple of years before MC appears. This conclusion is drawn from Another Story…which isnt linked to the Canon route.

What really happens in between? When V and Rika are still together? 

Like I said, no one explains the gap and the journals in Another Story are not canon. The journals in Another Story only account for if Mint Eye were formed when Saeran was a very young child….which it wasn’t.

So there we have it. The only logical place Saeran could have been is with V and Rika, growing up. This is where the mistakes take root. 

Rika and V were kids raising kids…They grew up way too fast and never had the chance to discover themselves or learn to love properly.

To protect Saeran, he would need to be secluded from the outside world. If anyone found out about him, there would be a lot of questions rasied. 

V, still having contact with Saeyoung, could not allow the two to have contact with one another. V and Rika moved out into a secluded area by a cliff, which V said Rika suggested for his artistic flair, but honestly, its very convienient for raising a hidden child. 

In every route, Searan is extremely familiar with Rika’s apartment. Rika and V also lived together for an unspecified amount of time once the cliff house was purchased and the two were engaged. 

Years pass and the RFA is formed. The RFA includes Saeyoung…which is an excellent way to spend time with the boy and make sure he is okay. Again, he cannot contact Saeran, so Saeran would not be able to be invited. 

However, Saeran always knew about the activities of the RFA and that his brother was out in the world being “Cheerful” and “happy without him.”

He would have seen his makeshift mom and dad, Rika and V, having fun, chatting and holding parties with the brother he would never be able to speak to again. On top of feeling abandoned, this would create a lot of resentment…

When Rika finally decides to create Mint Eye, we all know that her and V break up. She thinks V abandoned her, even though she left him. She thinks he doesnt want to help save others. She thinks he is a hypocrite and a liar. 

Saeran would have seen all of this. He also would have seen V walk away from them and continue to spend time with/chat with the RFA members…including his brother. V didn’t even TRY to get Saeran from Rika. (Which I understand….how could he, without Saeyoung finding out? V isnt a bad person…he just didnt have any other choice.)

In Saerans eyes, it would be very easy to believe that V was a hypocrite who abandoned him…just like his brother did. Rika of course, has a hand in turning him against V, but a lot of it would have happened on it’s own. Rika was basically his MOM since his sorry excuse for a birth mom died…and Rika never left him like everyone else.

His seclusion explains why he is so socially OFF….(not including Ray, because he isnt canon). This explains why he is so utterly devoted to Rika, even without the presence of the elixer. (ignoring the childhood forced elixer because that isnt canon or possible in Seven’s route.) This explains why V couldn’t do anything to save Saeran before it was too late.

V also knew that Rika targeted the RFA members as her primary prey for the Mint Eye. V felt like he had to protect them, as they were never supposed to be dragged into this in the first place. He also felt the duty to preserve Rika’s honor…so the easiest way out was to claim that she died and cut her off entirely. Essentially…from Searans eyes…this would be abandonment. V and Rika saved his life. V was his father figure.

What’s weird is that Cheritz doesn’t really incorporate exactly how long that relationship really had to be and that Rika and V were basically parents.

If V and Rika were together from the twins’ being saved up until Mint Eye was formed (shortly before MC appears), then the story of Rika kidnapping Searan as a child is impossible. That is another reason why Cheritz could not make it canon. It would never fit with the canon route of 707 and the secret endings. 

Now, if we want to go ahead and believe in this theory as a possibility…then it would explain other things as well. I am hoping that Rika’s route will come out and explain (canonly) some of the gap…even if it isnt released as canon, it could shed light on some possibilities. 

Understanding all of the above, it explains why Rika absolutely LOSES it when V claims their love wasn’t real. Imagine being told that your engagement and 10 year relationship was a lie…after finally leaving foster care and believing that someone finally loves you, unconditionally. After the trauma bonding they ALREADY went through in the past. 

It also explains why V has such an extremely hard time coming clean. With this timeline, V has been lying for YEARS. Nearly a decade. He even lied to his very best friend, Jumin. 

All of this is especially sad for Jumin, because V is his lifeline. He has no one else. Even as adult friends, they mainly live on memories to get by this phase of dishonesty and absense of V. 

Imagine how difficult it would be to admit you were lying and did all of those questionable things? 

He would have to admit the existance of Saeran…a child the couple kept secluded from the world. Saeyoung’s true identity…which would put everyone in danger… a child he shipped off to a deadly agency. The twins’ mom…which is a literal murder comitted by the Holy Rika. 

It is just too much. It’s too dangerous to come clean. It’s just too much to explain.

The RFA were a group of friends. There was no reason for them to get involved or be put at risk. V puts so much effort into protecting the RFA…On top of that, his personal life is entirely irrelevant to holding charity parties.

Here we can see why V blames himself. He is always saying he does it to protect everyone. He blames himself for everything. Even without Mint Eye, if Rika remained sane, these problems would still exist. This is why he views everything as his mess to clean…even without his idea that his ideal view of love ruined Rika. Now Rika wanted the RFA members to herself in her new cult. It was a mess. Because of this, he is willing to sacrifice himself if it means everything can be fixed. He doesnt care about himself, he cares about protecting everyone else from “his” mistakes. (as he sees it)

We see them repeatedly rejecting getting help from the cops. This may seem stupid, considering that we shouldn’t be encouraging our players to avoid the authorities. Yet, considering the situation, it makes sense. 

The murder…the agency…the hidden child…

Even without the cult, everyone would be in danger and in BIG trouble if this was taken to the police. If V were to use the police against Rika and her cult, not only would she not have a chance to be “saved”, but the past would be easily dug up as well. That would be one huge, reputation-ruining, legal fiasco. 

The drama would destroy the livelihoods of everyone he cared about. V, a famous photographer…Rika, a well-known coordinator…Jumin, heir to an extremely powerful and known company called C&R…Zen, a rising actor…Saeyoung would be killed by the agency…Only Jaehee and Yoosung would scrape by.

V and Rika made very sketchy and very bad decisions together…even if they had pure intentions at the time. Remember…they were just teenagers when this started.

The mistakes started WAY before Mint Eye was ever an idea. Way before Rika caved into her darkness.

Considering how many years go by….whether Cheritz intended this or not…it would explain SO MUCH. You could make a whole anime or drama out of the eyes of V alone. Perhaps, a lot of this will change once more routes come out.

All I know is that the Choi boys were screwed no matter what and took some serious trauma out of this. 

And this, my dudes, is why I REALLY want a Rika route to be released. I want the light shed on what could have happened between saving the boys and forming Mint Eye.

[meditationsfromthethirdrail]

Credentials and Credibility

I’ve written about polarization and about empathy, rights and responsibilities in the last couple of blog posts.  I have a long list of interrelated topics to cover before the November elections and I plan to keep plowing through them.  But I’m well aware that my voice is a candle in the wind, to borrow the phrase used by T.H. White in the title of his tale about King Arthur’s dream of a more egalitarian and peaceful society.  The number of readers of my blog thus far may barely run into double digits and that may never change.  We are all drowning in information (and misinformation) unless we are either so socioeconomically disadvantaged as to be denied access or are actively disengaged from media.  People in either category aren’t reading this.

With all the competition for the attention of readers and listeners, if someone wants to be heard above the din, he or she either has to have a forceful personality and a good platform, or actually have something important to say.  I may not have either of those.  Readers will judge for themselves.  But it occurred to me that I ought to at least provide a little background about myself, which may or may not compel you to hear me.  So here it is.

My story is not one of hard knocks and resentment - it’s a success story.  There are a lot of ways to define success but I feel like I’ve grabbed a nice assortment of brass rings during my almost-seven decades on the planet.  I’ve had a long and happy marriage to an incredible woman; I’ve traveled extensively (six continents and all fifty states) and lived for substantial periods in many states; I have three degrees from a major college; I attained a modestly high position in a large, global professional services firm and was financially well rewarded for my efforts; and I have many hobbies and interests that make it easy for me to stay fully occupied in retirement.  Most importantly, I’m happy and at peace with myself and others.  One could argue that these successes may have caused me to be out of touch with those who’ve enjoyed fewer of them, but I don’t think that’s entirely true, and I’ll try to suggest why.

My parents were the son and daughter of a sharecropper and a truck farmer/itinerant salesman, respectively, in rural Mississippi.  They grew up during the Great Depression. They were married and gave life to my older brother when they were still in their teens.  My dad dropped out of high school to sign up for the Army and served in the European theater in WWII.  After the war he got a G.E.D. and served as a tractor mechanic for a while.  Around the time I was born he was hired by a prominent agricultural implement manufacturing company, which led to him being transferred from Mississippi to Maryland to Ohio to Idaho to Oregon and to Iowa in order to earn promotions, and with family in tow.  Later he also transferred to Texas, Missouri and Georgia, after I was left behind to attend college in Iowa.  In those days it was possible to rise pretty high in the ranks of a business like my dad’s, without a glittery collegiate resume, if you worked hard and were willing to uproot yourself and your family whenever it was called for.  So my dad eventually did rise fairly high in the ranks, and in the meantime my mom scrambled her way to a B.A., then taught high school English for a short time.

All’s well that ends well, as Shakespeare once said.  My parents came a long way from the dusty fields where they picked cotton for 50 cents a day.  My own road to success was much easier than theirs.  During most of my childhood our family was financially situated about in the dead center of what was then considered middle class.  My parents were not rich, although they accumulated modest wealth later in life, and they were always frugal, so I grew up with very few toys and a mostly empty closet.  My parents were not the type to devote much time attending to my personal pursuits, other than to quietly demand that I get good grades in school.  So I wouldn’t say I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I understand that’s a relative thing.  I certainly wasn't lavished with material things as a child, but I never went hungry or worried about having a roof over my head.

Aside from a base level of financial and emotional support and protection, the best thing my parents gave me was a solid education in a robust public school system.  This was a pre Betty Devos era.  Fortunately I had just enough innate ambition (or willingness to succumb to my parents’ expectations) and intelligence to perform in the upper tier, academically.  I could have done better but I often didn’t “apply myself,” as they say.  In retrospect I realize I had ADHD but few people understood or cared about that back then.

My college record was spotty at first, but ultimately pretty good.  I had almost no grasp of what I wanted to do with my life.   As a result, I had an abnormally extended adolescence, to roughly age 27.  Maybe I was a trendsetter; I see a lot more of that happening with young people today.  In any case I considered, at various times and among other things, becoming a Baptist minister (I was licensed and briefly attended seminary), an English professor (I have an M.A. in English and instructed freshman writing courses for three years), a novelist and poet (insufficient talent and discipline derailed that plan), and a hotel manager (nah).   A happy accident of my wandering and indecision was that I acquired a lot of knowledge that later paid off in surprising ways I’ll come back to later.  I was financially very poor the entire time, which gave me considerable perspective on what it means to be concerned about affording basics such as food and transportation.

I vividly remember the catalysts for my decision to enter the social mainstream. One was the fallout from a poker game I got into with some friends.  One of my “friends” was a notoriously unethical character who, one late evening when I was especially unlucky and perhaps too full of beer, lured me into some bad bets that resulted in a $700 debt to him.  At that time, when I was working several crummy part-time jobs to afford food and my $50 share of the rent on a slum-quality house we shared with two other guys, $700 dollars seemed like a million dollars.  I didn't realize and no one told me that on the very next evening the same group of friends gathered for another poker game as I was licking my wounds and trying to form a plan.  I was not present to witness the scene in which the guy whom I was newly indebted to suffered an equally humiliating loss - a loss that was forgiven by the victor on the condition that the loser would also forgive my loss.  My friends assumed that Bart (not his real name, or is it?) would inform me that I was off the hook.  He did not.

For the first time in my life, I devised a budget in order to determine how I could repay Bart the debt that didn’t actually exist, because that’s the kind of guy I am.  I believed, and I still do, that a person is morally and ethically responsible for meeting whatever commitments he or she enters into.  So  I scrambled for more hours working as a church janitor, a tutor and a library assistant; I ate Kraft macaroni and cheese almost every day (30 cents a box, if I recall); I stayed in my room as if I had contracted the then-undreamt-of coronavirus; and I turned over every penny that didn’t go for rent and minimal food to Bart in three monthly installments until I was finally clear.  I was six feet tall but my weight fell to about 140 pounds.  On the day I forked over the last $200, Bart skipped town, just as the news finally arrived that I wasn’t supposed to have owed that debt.

That sordid chapter concluded with me taking a job, out of sheer desperation, in a factory where I was paid a below-minimum wage to operate a machine which applied mailing labels to printed advertisements.  It was mind-numbing.  There were perhaps another 100 workers in that factory doing the same thing I was doing.  The output of each worker was measured daily by the factory management.  By the end of the first week I was the most productive mailing label attacher in the factory.  To keep myself from going insane, I approached my task as if it were a game and challenged myself each shift to beat my previous day’s output, which I always did.  During my brief lunch breaks I used to surreptitiously glance around at the other workers and I understood exactly what Thoreau meant when he opined that the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.  I don’t know if he was right about “the mass of men,” but he certainly could have been describing that crew at the factory.

In my second week at the factory I met another newly-hired college guy whose wife and he were trying to save enough money to move to Los Angeles so he could take a shot at professional acting - this was his second job.  Chatting with him during lunch breaks, i was inspired by his desire to fulfill a dream and the difficult steps he was taking to do it.  I listened to him, I looked around at the hollow-eyed, middle-aged folks who had worked for years operating labeling machines, and I squirmed as I considered what a sap I was for racking up a poker debt and falling victim to a con man.  i abruptly abandoned the factory but I felt so discombobulated that I enlisted my good buddy John to drive out to Idaho with me so I could visit my brother and try to get my shit together.  By the end of that brief sojourn out west, the best job offer I could manage was from Roto-Rooter . . . to work in the field, as it were.  Wake up call!

If you’ve read this far you must be wondering how any of this supports the notion that I’m qualified to write about sociopolitical matters.  It doesn’t, except to demonstrate that I have at least a small measure of “street cred.”  But the best is yet to come.  When I returned to Iowa I found a better job in a hotel.   Initially I was a night auditor, which is a position that involves being a desk clerk part of the time and an accountant the rest of the time.  Only a small step forward, financially, but it gave me a taste for something I had never previously thought about doing for even one minute.  Accounting, I quickly learned, was something I had a natural aptitude for, and in some quirky way I found it interesting.  Once again I viewed my duties as a sort of game, but this was a game that lit up my brain much more brightly than did operating a machine to perform an exceptionally repetitive task.  

My whole life is a series of lucky breaks at critical junctures.  In this instance the break was that I met a co-worker - a guy who shared the hotel night auditor position with me - who had previously worked for a large CPA firm.  He had taken the part-time hotel job because he was trying to become a full-time stock trader and that’s what he was doing during the day.  From him I learned what it is that CPAs in a big firm actually do.  Let me assure you I’m not going to get into that subject, in case you were already feeling the dread.  (Thank God for actuaries - the only people who make accountants seem slightly interesting.)  Suffice it to say that I figured out how I could minimize the additional schooling I would need to become qualified to be a CPA and I decided to take a stab at it.

I kept the hotel job but started carrying a heavy load of college classes - accounting, math, economics, law, etc.  It so happened that I met my future wife, who was just finishing her Interior Design degree at the same college, about the same time I took the first tentative steps down my new career path.  That was even more fortuitous - I give her lots of credit for helping me stay the course.  The two years in which I went to college in the day, worked at the hotel at night, and struggled to get our new romance off the ground, was “character-building,” to say the least.  I can barely remember anything about that period, it was such a blur.  To give you an idea of how much of a blur it was, the major highlight I remember was driving with my new spouse to Des Moines to dine at Spaghetti Works.  $5 for beer-and-cheese spaghetti, all-you-can-eat salad bar and a glass of swill.  Heaven!

When the two hellish years finally ended and I received my B.S. in Accounting, I had already lined up a job in Des Moines as an auditor with one of the Big 8 (at that time) accounting firms.  Not long afterward, I passed the CPA exam and my wife landed a spot with a local design firm, and we were on our way.

Ok, at last I’m where I possibly should have started. In the ensuring three decades I continued to work as a CPA, becoming a partner along the way (meaning that I became one of the owners), and developing a specialization working with clients in the financial services industry - investment management companies and banking and finance companies, primarily.  This is the good part, folks.  My career soon took me from Iowa to New York City, where my background in English earned me the privilege of being a key designer and the principal author of new practice guidance for our international firm, which was just merging with another large international firm.  That put me in the spotlight for a time and gave me a leg up for promotion.  After the merger we relocated to Los Angeles, where I worked with some of the most prominent investment management companies in the world, and numerous banks, mortgage banks and other financial institutions.  Finally we moved to southeast Pennsylvania and I split time engaged with clients there and in California, and with our national financial services practice in New York.

Late, late nights on Wall Street helping to prepare financial offerings with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line.  Late, late nights at client offices in L.A., San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, New York and Philadelphia, managing teams of young accountants to deal with complex accounting problems under tremendous pressure.  Board meetings, fee negotiations, staff meltdowns, discoveries of fraud and malfeasance, financial crises in which I was an inside observer.  A 60-hour work week felt almost like a vacation compared to many weeks with even longer hours.  It was enough to give me PTSD.  I don’t want to overstate it - it wasn’t like actual life or death combat PTSD - but I still have nightmares ten years and more after the fact.

That’s a very quick summary of the 30+ years in which I obtained hard-won knowledge about global finance and economics - a period in which I also had a lot of experiences with politics, charitable organizations and other components of society I didn’t have time to get into today.  I still spend a lot of time staying informed about subjects ranging from psychology and mythology to current events and hard science.  There’s a ton I still don’t know.  But as my all-time favorite singer Joni Mitchell famously said, I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now.

[thebarefootking]

Eye Contact

Sometimes I look back on memories of what seemed at the time to be the happiest, most cherished times of my childhood, only to realise in retrospect that I was, in fact, miserable for nearly their entire duration. The starkest example of this phenomenon is that of the numerous trips I made with my Southern Baptist church youth group. Over the course of each year of my adolescence, we traveled to camps and conventions (and one time even to New Orleans, on a mission trip to 'convert the Catholics'). Each event was one I anticipated (and sometimes prepared for) for months.

The most frequent and reliable destination for our travels was a church camp a few hours away. Once in the summer and once in the winter, we made our way there for 4-7 days of sermons, prayer, and camp activities. Our group was assigned one cabin each for the girls and boys (or, occasionally, the girls got one of the 'new cabins', which were more like hotel rooms, with aircon but no bunk beds, and halfway across the campgrounds from pretty much everything of relevance. Bleh.), as well as a color and a meal hour. I'm not sure why, but we were almost always assigned yellow and green (with the accompanying later meal hour), as opposed to the much prettier and time-convenient colors of purple and blue, which I only recall getting once in around nine camp stays. 

And so we would go, walking around camp with our yellow arm bands (meant to deter non-campers from sneaking a quick meal, they said, failing to grasp any irony in denying meals to the stranger at a Christian institution), doing camp things and singing camp songs.

One of the songs that still gets stuck in my head to this day was part of a camp game the campers played called 'Big Booty'. Being rather shy (read: terminally embarrassed due to rejection sensitive dysphoria) and also dreadful at rhythm games (no doubt due to lack of practice in childhood, stemming from the same), I mostly watched rather than actually engage in the play. Still, the song was catchy as hell, and could be heard from up to hundreds of feet away at nearly any point when the campers had free time. To play, all players stood in a circle and were assigned a number, counting clockwise from the position of the game's leader, who was referred to as 'Big Booty'. The goal of the game was to move up the ranks and become Big Booty, or, in another variation, to be the last one eliminated by messing up the rhythm.

The game started with a rhythmic chant: "Big Booty! Big Booty, oh, yeah! Big Booty, Big Booty, Big Booty!" All players slapped their thighs in rhythm with the chant, and throughout the whole game, to keep time.

At this point, the game was on. Big Booty would begin play by stating their own designation (Big Booty), and the designation of any other player of their choice (for example, Number Four). The designated player would then state their own designation and then the designation of yet another player. Play would be passed around in this manner until someone failed to say their part in the correct rhythm, at which point the one who failed was moved to the place in the circle with the highest number designation (with all other numbers reassigned as needed), or, in the other version, eliminated from play. It sounded a lot like this:

"Big Booty! Big Booty, oh, yeah! Big Booty, Big Booty, Big Booty!"

"Big Booty, Number Four!"

"Number Four, Number Eight!"

"Number Eight, Number Two!"

"Number Two, Big Booty!"

"Big Booty, Number Six!"

And so on.

God, now it's stuck in my head. Dammit.

In retrospect, this was how I spent a good portion of my camping time regardless of the activity at hand; I was a watcher, not a doer. And when I did, I most often did alone.

Not that I necessarily wanted to be alone. Awkward, adolescent, and very, very autistic, I had no idea 'How to Win Friends and Influence People', as the book says. My thought, logical as it seemed at the time, was that if I told people what I was doing, and then went and did it, they might follow along out of interest. And it seemed to me afterwards quite strange that no one was as interested in these activities as I was.

Of course, I didn't know to take into account the eccentricity of activities such as off-road blackberry picking in the eyes of kids who had mostly grown up in the city, and who later would express doubt that such edible berries even existed. To them, I was a quirky loner; to me, I was desperate and lonely.

Well, no, that's not right. At the time, I didn't even acknowledge that I was lonely, though I spent most every moment at camp attempting to remedy that loneliness. I was just delightfully weird, that was all. That was all.

Even cabin time rarely made for good bonding moments, queer as I knew myself to be. The other girls could playfully flirt with one another, knowing they meant only jest. They could touch each other (they knew how to touch each other) in a friendly way, and not have it misconstrued. 

They could touch each other in weird ways. Some of the girls liked to exchange affection (and show off, I guess?) by licking one another's eyeballs in turn. I could only dream of aspiring to that kind of kinship.

No, I didn't touch the other girls. Not until the later years, when one of my close friends finally started coming to camp with me, and then we mostly hit one another, as was our wont. (Incidentally, this behavior never stopped everyone at school from assuming we were a couple. Go figure.)

The closest I ever got to making a friend at camp was making a friend that would later become an enemy. We'll call her Max.

Max was a later addition to the group, not a full time youth-grouper, but one who sometimes made it for trips. She had been brought into the fold by the most popular of popular boys in our group, who she attended school with (and who I had lusted after in my heart since before I even joined the church, possibly before I even knew what lust was).

Max was weird. She read The Lord of the Rings during sermons, instead of taking notes. She talked about Catholicism. She was goth.

She also, as I found out one Winter Retreat, wrote M-rated (and higher!) Rocky Horror Picture Show fanfic.

It would be a startling understatement to say that, at this point in my life, I was painfully naive. I had only recently discovered masturbation and the horrible spiritual agony it left in its wake. I was sure God was pissed because I was abusing the shower head every morning, and REALLY pissed that I sometimes thought of girls while I did. I didn't dare look at or read pornography. That stuff was addictive and homewrecking.

But... I did quite like Max.

We struck up a fledgling friendship as I tried to make her comfortable on one of her first trips with our group. It was the right thing to do. I certainly wasn't doing it because she was attractive and quirky.

And so, upon learning that I was a writer as well, she sought my opinions on some of her writing one evening, as we settled in our cabin. 

"It's the least explicit one I have right now that doesn't require knowledge of the canon," Max said, kindly taking my foibles into account. "No sex or anything. Although she is naked. And there's… some… other stuff? Referenced. But not, y'know, explicitly."

Well. As long as it isn't explicit, I figured.

And that, my friends, was my first encounter with the idea of BDSM.

I was fucking shook.

While I already had, and had had since early childhood, a predilection for and interest in sadomasochism and power play, only at that moment did the spark go off in my head that connected these things to sexual arousal. It was like lightning. Things finally made sense!

But they were bad things. I didn't know what to do with that! I sputtered a bit, pointed out a couple of grammatical and syntactic errors, and told her it was good. I don't think she ever found out how dramatically she affected my life with those few crumpled pages torn from a composition book.

Of course, only a day or two later, I couldn't stand the bitch. She told some of my secrets to the guy I had a crush on (basically immediately after I told her?), and the two came up with a plan to use them against me, for no reason I could see but to be mean. My fault for trusting someone I barely knew, but she just had that vibe around her, y'know? And, as I said, I didn't know what I was doing.

Sometimes, I'm pretty sure I still don't. But damn if I didn’t learn a thing or two from her, including that that guy was a dick.

[noona-clock]

Confusion & Coincidences - Part 10, Final Chapter

Genre: Regency!AU

Pairing: Yongguk x You

By Admin B

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

During the rest of your walk with the Earl -- Yongguk -- he explained that he had written his apology letter because he could tell you had been bombarded, basically, and he had wanted to explain why he had proposed so suddenly. He had also wanted to assure you he took your rejection seriously and would not try to pursue you further.

Also, he added, he was just much better at expressing his thoughts in writing than he was using actual, spoken words.

You, in turn, had admitted you’d found him extremely handsome upon first meeting him... but had sadly mistaken his shyness for haughtiness and had, therefore, written him off almost immediately.

Of course, you had also apologized immensely because you now felt ashamed and guilty for doing so.

“Do not ever feel guilty for judging someone based on their appearance,” Yongguk had assured you, a bit to your surprise. “We all do it, whether or not people actually admit to it. And besides, no matter your first impression of someone, if things are meant to work out, they will work out.”

But then he had asked you what changed your mind about him. You had thought him to be haughty and snobbish; when did your thoughts change?

“Well,” you had sighed. “I’m... not entirely sure. Both Alice and Mr. Kim told me you were simply shy, so that made me realize you hadn’t been rude. And when you didn’t insist on holding my books for me at the bookstore, I thought how very unlike any other gentleman you were. But... I believe my mind was entirely changed when I woke up and saw you sitting next to my bed while I was ill.”

“...After you had already accepted my proposal?”

You’d nodded timidly. “I did like you when I accepted, of course. Especially when you shared what your idea of marriage is. That sounded so heavenly to me, and I knew I was making the right decision. But... I’m not sure. I guess seeing you there, knowing you would quite literally be by my side through thick and thin... At the very least, I knew you were not just marrying me because I’m a fairly pretty face. Because I know I most certainly was not pretty with a raging fever.”

Yongguk had chuckled and, despite your protests, he’d assured you that you had still been beautiful. Just sick and beautiful.

Eventually, the two of you had made your way back to your house, and Yongguk had declared he needed to travel back to London for business. He’d urged you to write to him and let him know what plans you came up with for the wedding.

“I am at your service entirely,” he’d murmured before placing a kiss on the back of your hand. “Just tell me when and where, and I shall be there.”

You’d tilted your chin in the slightest of nods, your eyes fixed on his lips. His kiss on your hand had only reminded you of his kiss on your lips, and boy, had those kisses been divine.

Your mother had come outside to bid Yongguk good-bye with you... and then she had immediately begun with talk of the wedding.

Surprise, surprise.

The following two months were, unsurprisingly, a blur. Your mother bombarded you with wedding planning, even though you insisted on a very simple ceremony. You wanted to invite only your closest friends and family, and you would rather not make a big deal out of it.

Yongguk had assured you many times that you had full control over any and every decision, but you knew he would rather take part in a small, intimate wedding, as well. The two of you were ridiculously similar, as Mr. Kim had pointed out all those weeks ago.

Because you stayed in the country with your parents and Yongguk stayed in London (where you would reside after the wedding), the two of you began a quite regular correspondence.

You had found your fiancé did a better job than he gave himself credit for when it came to expressing himself face-to-face. You’d never heard him talk so much as he did when you’d been on your walk, the day he’d explained why he had proposed.

But then you read one of his letters, and you understood what he meant when he said he expressed himself better in writing.

When his first letter arrived, your brow furrowed deeply upon seeing how many pages he’d written.

What could he possibly have to say that would take up that many pages?!

So you shut yourself up in your bedroom, determined to find out.

After only half a page, you realized Yongguk was helping you get to know him. He was basically writing his life story, and you found you were too intrigued to stop reading. It’s not like anything particularly exciting had happened to him - he’d experienced a fairly normal childhood, adolescence, and proposing to you had seemed to be the most riveting part of his adult life so far - but the way he wrote... you were simply transfixed.

He truly did express himself better in writing.

In turn, you wrote about your life in your response letter, sending it to him the very next day. Both of your letters from then on were more conversational, though his did have some subtle romantic themes sprinkled in here and there. They made you blush every time, and you kept those letters hidden in a special, locked box.

Overall, you exchanged almost thirty letters each in the span of two months. Your mother expressed her envy a large number of times, complaining that your father never wrote her letters.

“My dear, we live in the same house,” your father reminded her. “If I want to tell you something, I can simply tell you. There is no need to write a letter.”

“But letters are romantic!”

You giggled behind your piece of paper as they squabbled over the topic of writing love letters.

A few days before the wedding, you traveled to London. The ceremony was taking place in a small church in the city, and Yongguk had also invited you to dine with him.

You’d never been to his residence before, so you figured he wanted you to see your future home at least once before you moved in later this week.

The moment you stepped inside, your jaw nearly unhinged itself from your mouth.

You had never seen a home so grand; but it wasn’t uncomfortably grand, either. It was just... really, really, really, really nice. I mean, you knew he was rich because your mother had told you he was, but... you didn’t know just how rich.

But you were very, very curious.

So you waited until after dinner, wanting to ask the question with some privacy. Your mother would probably box your ears if she heard you asking about money. She would most certainly want to know, too, of course, but it was impolite to ask.

It couldn’t be impolite to ask your future husband, though!

When Yongguk murmured that he earned around 8,000 pounds per year, you almost gasped.

Eight. Thousand. Pounds?!?!

Your father made nearly three thousand, and you’d always felt your family lived quite comfortably.

But EIGHT?!

You could buy as many books as you wanted!

And now you understood why Yongguk had offered to pay for every single part of your wedding - and why your father had let him (though he still begrudgingly let him).

When your family left that evening, Yongguk managed to steal a good-bye kiss, and your lips positively tingled until well after you went to bed.

You wondered if it was because you were still very much new to kissing or... would it always feel like that? When he kissed you?

And you also realized the next time you shared a kiss with him... you would be married.

Your wedding turned out just the way you’d envisioned it.

Small but absolutely lovely. Your dress was the most beautiful dress you’d ever worn, and Yongguk looked even more handsome than usual in his well-tailored, green velvet jacket. (Later, you would ask him why he had chosen green velvet, and he would admit it was because of your green dress that first time you met.)

But the best part of your wedding?

Well, first of all, Yongguk said ‘I do’ with a half-smile tugging at his lips. And, second of all, when you said ‘I do,’ you felt not even a hint of hesitation or doubt.

You were still not sure if you were in love with him, but you had absolutely no regrets whatsoever about marrying him. You were the opposite of regretful, in fact. You were quite optimistic!

Although... there was one thing which did make you nervous.

Last night, your mother had come to your room and had given you...

The Talk.

She explained what usually happened on a wedding night, and much to your slight horror, she also said this is how a woman begets a child.

“So, it happens that night,” you’d stated with a furrowed brow.

Your mother had done her best to hide a laugh. “Not usually, my dear. It depends on timing.”

“Well... then... you do it more than once?”

“Certainly! Some people have ten children, lovely.”

“So -- that’s happened ten times?!”

“More than ten, I am sure. A woman does not become with child every time she... engages in that particular activity with her husband.” Your mother had raised her eyebrows then, and added in a scolding voice, “And it should only be with your husband. Never another man, do you understand?”

“What?!” you’d cried. “Another man?! Why would I want to do -- that -- with someone else?!”

It sounded strange enough that you would want to even do it with your husband, but... you would reserve judgment until the time came.

So, yes. You were nervous about that. Quite nervous.

But once the ceremony was over and Yongguk took you back to your new home and you realized you could now kiss him as many times as you wanted...

Well. We’ll just say you eventually understood fully why you would want to do that with your husband.

One Year Later

A soft groan escaped from the back of your throat when you heard a deep voice mumbling your name.

“Y/N,” it said in a sing-song tone. “Y/N.”

And then, seemingly since you hadn’t yet opened your eyes, you felt a soft kiss on the back of your shoulder.

And then one on your neck... your jaw... your cheek...

“Y/N,” Yongguk whispered against your skin.

You groaned again, though you did move your head just a little.

You had always been one to wake early, and for the better part of a year, you had risen from bed before your husband six days out of seven. But apparently, growing a child inside of you was quite a bit more tiring than you had ever imagined.

You’d just figured out a few weeks ago that you were pregnant, and suddenly, all of the nausea and exhaustion (and two missed monthly courses) had made so much sense.

(Also, you had an urge to tell your mother that she had been right. You had definitely not become with child every time you engaged in that particular activity with your husband. Because you had engaged in it... quite a number of times within this first year. And you were only now pregnant with your first child. But you would refrain from informing her of this. Of course.)

“I have a surprise for you,” Yongguk continued. You felt his hand begin to rub up and down your arm, and your eyebrows raised.

“Mmm?” you hummed.

“But you have to open your eyes, my love,” he murmured.

You tilted your head in a very tiny nod before moving to stretch and open your eyes.

And when you did open your eyes, you saw your husband sitting up in bed next to you, holding a book.

“What is that?” you asked, now feeling a bit more awake.

He opened the cover so you could read the title page.

“Mansfield Park,” you read quietly. “By the author of --”

You gasped.

“Sense & Sensibility and Pride & Prejudice?!”

A smile tugged at Yongguk’s lips, and you quickly moved to tackle him back onto the bed.

“Oh, you are the loveliest person I have ever known!” you praised, kissing all over his face as you lay on top of him. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Yongguk was laughing - that cute, adorable laugh you only ever heard when you smothered him with affection - and your heart was soaring.

“Do you know much I love you?” you asked in-between nose and forehead kisses.

“Yes, I do,” he chuckled before he carefully rolled you off of him. “Now, start reading, already!”

“Okay, okay,” you giggled. You took the book from him and settled down, nestling against him. He put one arm around your shoulders, cradling you as you flipped to the first page, and the other arm around your waist. He, of course, laid a protective hand on your stomach.

Before you started reading, you turned your head to look back at him.

“I know you said you know how much I love you, but I do love you very, very, very, very much.”

Yongguk pressed his lips into your temple, and you could feel them curving into a smile. That smile of his which still made you fall in love.

“I love you very, very, very, very much, too,” he murmured. “My darling, my heart.”

Your nose scrunched happily at his terms of endearment, and then you turned back and began reading the first line out loud.

Many times during your first year of marriage, you had thought back to Pride & Prejudice. You’d been reading it when you first met your husband, so it was only natural.

You wondered quite often what married life had been like for Lizzy and Mr. Darcy. They had grown to love each other quite fervently, so surely theirs was a happy marriage.

But, no matter how happy their marriage, you always knew with a great degree of certainty - yours was happier.

Much, much happier.

moodboard by @bangyongguktigger 💖

[larryfanfiction]

ABO 

Alpha Harry / Omega Louis

🌕 Where You Lay by HamPalpert (86k)

When Louis’s upcoming heat threatens his success at his new dream job, he asks the best (and only) person he can think of to help him through it: his best mates’ best mate, Harry Styles. Harry reluctantly accepts, and together the two navigate a strange friends with benefits relationship that quickly turns complicated.

🌕 Like Candy In My Veins by littlelouishiccups (31k)

“Um…” Harry said slowly after a moment. “Okay. That’s… this is… Let me get this straight.” He lifted up a hand and swallowed. “You told your family that you have a boyfriend… and my name was the first one you thought of?”

“Harry Potter was on TV, alright? It wasn’t that much of a stretch.” Louis pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t believe he was explaining himself to Harry fucking Styles. He couldn’t believe he was stooping this low. “Forget it. I’m sorry I even thought about bringing you into this.”

Harry snorted. “What? Did you want me to pretend to be your boyfriend or something?” (Basically the A/B/O, enemies to lovers, fake relationship, Christmas AU that nobody asked for.)

🌕 falling into you by stylinsoncity (143k)

In the grand scheme of adolescence and boyhood, Harry was still working himself out, so far with little luck. But four things he could say for certain: 1) he'd been at the top of his class all through primary and secondary school, 2) he was the shittiest alpha to ever walk the earth, 3) Liam Payne never let him forget it, and 4) he’d been in love with this boy, Louis Tomlinson, ever since he was fifteen years old.

🌕 i want you so much (but i hate your guts) by becauselarry (83k)

AU in which Louis gets accepted to play for the Manchester University Alpha-Beta Football Team. The only problem: Louis is actually an Omega. He is determined to make it big in the football world, though, and he can't do that bound to an Omega team. With the help of a faked doctor's certificate and some pretty strong suppressants he is ready to fight for his dream.

That Harry Styles (Alpha, second year and youngest football captain of the A-B team in ages) doesn't seem to like him complicates matters, though.

🌕 Strawberries & Cigarettes by dimpled_halo (74k)

Harry looks up and immediately freezes. Next to Ms. Archie stands the boy from just the other day. The boy with the leather jacket and chipped black nails, that might or might not be sketched in the very book Harry has just placed on the table in front of him. The leather jacket is missing today, probably because they aren’t allowed as part of their required uniform attire, but Harry can still see the fading black nail polish on his nails, and eyeliner around his eyes. Harry’s mouth goes a little dry. This boy is so intriguing to him.

“Ye-yes, Ms. Archie?” Harry tries to play it cool, but he’s almost positive that his cheeks are burning red, and he’s relieved neither of them can tell how fast his heart is beating in his chest.

The boy seems to also recognize Harry, because his lips curve into a knowing smirk.

“Harry is at the top of his class. He’s your best bet at getting familiar with things around here.” She explains.

Louis nods, his smirk still very prominent on his face. “Thank you Ms. Archie. I’ll be sure to take advantage of young Harold here.”

*

Summary: Two stories, eleven years, and the two boys that never stopped loving each other.

🌕 Love is like this; not a heartbeat, but a moan by angelichl (13k)

"He hates this, more than anything in the world he hates this. His title, his rank, his DNA. Unchangeable. Fated.

And then there’s Harry, born to be unobjectively superior to Louis and all other O’s. Unlike other A’s, Harry doesn’t wear his alpha-ness very well. He’s clumsy with it, like walking around in a pair of shoes a size too big. His life is defined by uncertainty and tentativeness, and those are definitely not qualities alphas should have.

Sometimes, when Louis ponders it for too long, he thinks that maybe Harry resents being an A just as much as Louis resents being an O."

In which Harry loves Louis, but Louis has been cold to him ever since he presented as an omega at age fifteen. Eight years later, Louis approaches Harry with a request, and who is Harry to deny him?

🌕 Cold Little Heart by seducedbycurls (194k)

Louis is a soft omega with an abusive past and an alpha child A few months after getting a divorce, Louis meets Harry, an ex-military alpha wolf that offers him something -odd.

In exchange for teaching him how to cook, Harry will babysit his son, Abraham Louis really could use the help.

🌕 Symphony Hall Series by HelloAmHere @helloamhere  (137k)

“I think I have an idea,” Louis said. Slowly, and reluctantly, but with a growing sense of the inevitable. “God damnit, I think I have a really good idea.”

“Oh christ, that’s the problem-solving face,” Babs said. “Last time we saw that face, he sold a company.”

“Wait, what?” Zayn asked.“Right place, right time,” Louis said. “Also, fuck my life,”

“What?” Zayn repeated. Niall patted his hand.“I usually just roll with whatever Louis is about to do,” he said. “It’s better for us all.”

“That’s the attitude,” said Louis, “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Tonight, I need to do some research. Zayn, give me your number. I’m gonna save our symphony.”

🌕 Pray for some Sweet Simplicity by delsicle (237k)

Louis is the only omega to ever make it in the cut-throat world of competitive motorcycle racing—that is, he would be if anyone actually knew about his identity. Now, his sights are set towards competing in—and winning—the European Grand Prix, the biggest and most difficult race of the entire year, so he can disappear underground for good. He’s close enough, too, until an alpha sports journalist is assigned to follow Louis’s every move as he prepares for the event of his career.

Or, an AU where motorcycle racing is the biggest sport in a heavily divided world, Louis is trying to take control of his own destiny, and Harry is in for more than he bargained for.

🌕 As Deep as the Sky by swallowsmateforlife (12k)

A passed-out omega on the bathroom floor isn’t exactly what Harry had in mind when he thought about taking a cute boy home. The idea of leaving Louis there, vulnerable and unresponsive, weighs guiltily at Harry’s conscience. Turns out it’s the best decision he’ll ever make.

🌕 You Burn With the Brightest Flame by sarcasticfluentry (34k)

Harry frowns, thinking that he shouldn’t have to be glad about what gender he is, just like omegas shouldn’t have to be scared and nervous that anyone they meet might want to hurt them. He wonders why none of this occurred to him before, how he possibly could’ve just sailed through life before this without realizing how fortunate he was being born a beta. That seems a bit too serious of a conversation for Simon Cowell’s waiting room, though, so Harry puts an arm around Louis’s shoulders and teases, “You say that like you’re old or something. Two years isn’t that big of a difference!”

“Tell me that when you’re eighteen and looking back on this conversation,” Louis says.

“Well that’s - that’s different, isn’t it? We could be anywhere in two years, we could be famous.

”Louis’s eyes light up, his smile widening. “You think so?”

…or, the X-Factor Era A/B/O fic.

🌕 Swim In The Smoke by whoknows (101k)

 “What about this, Captain?” Liam asks, nudging the boy kneeling between their feet with the toe of his boot. The boy hisses and swipes at him, slurring out something unintelligible around the makeshift gag Niall had to stuff in his mouth. He misses by a mile and tries again, just as ineffectively. Harry looks down at him, at the way the sun streams over his face and shoulders, at the way the gag stretches his mouth, lips pink and chapped. He’s lithe and pretty, smudged all over with dirt. They had found him tied up below deck, mostly unconscious, next to a barrel full of gold. He’s clearly a prisoner, but there’s something familiar about him, something that niggles at Harry’s brain. Something he can’t quite put his finger on. “Put him in my cabin,” Harry decides, turning back to deal with the rest of the loot. The boys screams out jumbled curse words at Harry’s back, muffled by the gag, and Harry can’t understand any of it.

🌕 With Love Comes Strange Currencies by mediaville (16k) 

One day One Direction will be over and Louis won’t be around Harry every waking moment. He’ll be able to finally get some space, let their bond dissipate as it’s bound to do, if they don’t mess up again. He can move to Costa Rica and forget that Harry Styles popped his first knot inside him. Until then, he’s going to have to deal with this. or, They’re Accidentally Mated and Dealing With It Rather Badly.

🌕 Mr. Tomlinson by iwillpaintasongforlou (4k)

Louis is a billionaire CEO who makes grown men cry and rival companies crumble. He’s also an omega. Harry is the quiet cupcake of a man he calls his alpha and the only one who gets to see Louis as anything less than fearsome.

🌕 If Anyone Knew by StarFar (50k)

Harry’s a young alpha who’s strangely gentle. Louis’ an omega who’s strangely protective. Being the only ones in the band who aren’t betas they automatically empathise with each other and decide that it’s their job to look after each other.

Or Harry and Louis through the early One Direction years in an a/b/o universe.

🌕 Settle Down With Me by ItsLivvvy (12k)

I have always loved him, Louis. I will always love him. From childhood till the day we part.

OR

When Louis and Harry slowly fall in love from childhood forward and build their dream together.

🌕 Cameras Flashing by juliusschmidt (81k)

With his breakout single platinum three times over and his second album still selling out in stores around the world, Louis Tomlinson has made it to the top. However, his position as Pop Heartthrob of the Decade is threatened by the edgier, more artistic Zayn, who happens to be releasing an album a week after Louis’ upcoming third. Louis needs something groundbreaking- scandalous, even- to push past him in the charts. Much to Louis’ dismay, his PR team calls in The Sexpert.

Consulting with PR firm Shady, Lane and Associates pays the bills so that Harry Styles can spend his down time doing what he really loves: poring over data. On weekends and late into the evenings, he researches gender, presentation, and sexual orientation, analysing the longitudinal study that is his father’s life’s work. That is, until his newest client, the popstar with the fascinating secret, drags him off his couch and frighteningly close to the spotlight.

As the album’s release date approaches, will Tomlinson and Styles be able to pull off the most risky PR scheme of the millennium and beat Zayn in sales or will the heat of their feelings for each other compromise everything?

🌕  Didn’t Fall For You (You Fucking Tripped Me) by @allwaswell16 (15k)

These days Louis tends to steer clear of dating alphas. He’s dated too many knotheads in his time, and he’s ready to just focus on school and his friends and his pet monitor lizard, of course.

Too bad the alpha next door won’t take a hint and stop using the worst pick up lines of all time on him. He’s really got to stop laughing with him–and talking to him and walking to class with him and letting him bring him coffee and tea and gifts for his lizard and watching Netflix together and…

Alpha Louis / Omega Harry

🌕 Stars Will Align For Us by 2tiedships2 (15k)

"The serial monogamist is single," Niall said by way of introduction when he sat down across from Harry in the canteen.

Harry sipped his chocolate milk. "What are you going on about?"

"Your alpha dream boat," Niall said. "That tiny little footie player? I heard from Hannah that he's broken it off with his boyfriend so he’s single and ready to flamingle. Now's the time to make your move."

Harry sipped his chocolate milk harder to keep himself from replying.

Or the one where Harry is an omega at a loss of how to get past his pining and gain the attention of Louis...especially considering the alpha is always in a relationship.

🌕 But Please, Don't Bite by shyserious (122k)

"Melodic little jingle sounded from a bell hanging over the doorframe and warm indoor air curled heavily around his shivering body for the first time in months. Harry suddenly felt a sting in the corners of his eyes and had to force down a broken sob. Fuck, he was a mess. Such a mess. He had to focus."

🌕 wanna taste your heart, don't interfere by (orphan_account) (16k)

Harry still remembers how unsure he felt when he first told Louis, how self-conscious he was. Louis had been nothing but understanding and kind, though, reassuring him that nothing’s going to change between them, that they’re still best friends regardless of sex. Harry had been mostly relieved at that, because he really doesn’t want to lose Louis as a friend over this, but another part of him had been a bit sad because… well, because nothing changed between them. Or rather, there is change, but it’s completely one-sided as far as Harry can tell.

This change being him not getting enough of the way Louis smells. He just can’t help it, is the thing, unable to stop himself from trying to subtly press his nose against the fabric of Louis’ shirt by his shoulders. He still smells like faint cologne and sweat, which is enough to make Harry start feeling slightly dizzy.

(harry presents as an omega, louis is his alpha best friend, and there are hidden feelings that just get harder to control.)

🌕 lemon eyes by turnyourankle (50k)

It's not proper for omegas to mess around with alphas before finding their bondmate. But Harry doesn't give a damn what's proper and fully intends on getting as much experience as he can before even trying to find one. As far as he's concerned, the right alpha won't care, and he'll have some fun on the way.

And who better to start with than Louis Tomlinson, the alpha with the worst reputation on campus?

🌕 hard to confess by hereforlou (24k)

One, they only did it without a condom once (and a half) and not during his heat. Never during his heat. Two, he never once forgot to take his birth control (he’s almost sure). Three, his plan is to be married for a year before he even starts trying for a baby, and not only is he very, very single, him and Louis aren’t even sleeping together anymore. Which brings him to reason number four why this can’t be happening: Louis. Louis doesn’t want a baby with Harry. (Or, the one where Harry knows he messed up and Louis knows nothing.)

🌕 Drunk on Rose Water by brainwaves (9k)

It’s the first time in a few years that Harry has a strong desire to risk everything for something he loves.The last time, it was being a fashion model. This time, it’s Louis.

🌕 The Beast You’ve Made of Me by ashtarok/ orphan_account (4k)

The bell tinkled, and Harry froze as an overpowering scent, musky and thick, crisp and slightly sweet, yet utterly masculine, delightfully tickled his senses. Harry’s eyes slowly slid up to see the source of this wonderful scent, and his breath was taken away at the sex god before him, all muscled and compact and utterly screaming of Alpha. Icy blue eyes stared him down, set off by sharp cheekbones, a stubbled jaw that looked yummy enough to nibble on, and caramel hair, which was lazily gelled, a few pieces falling over his forehead. His skin was tan, his hands strong and steady, his biceps still clearly visible even through his jacket. Every fiber of Harry’s being stood at full alert. The one where Harry’s a vanilla-sweet Omega and Louis walks into his bakery one day.

🌕 The Bond That Can't Be Broken by louisgrindsonharry (10k)

Louis’ an alpha and Harry’s an omega. They never really stood a chance.

🌕 Between the Shadow and the Soul by MiniMangaFan/ orphan_account (6k)

“It’s just easier to stay in Donny and train, Haz,” Louis says quietly. “Two transatlantic flights in less than a week right before a big match is a terrible idea. We should have known that before, but...”

Harry nods. It’s reasonable. It’s totally, completely reasonable and Harry can support that. Another five or six days of not being able to hold Louis’ hand and kiss him sweetly is killing Harry, but he can handle it. “Okay, so that’s, what, the 20th that you’ll be coming over here?”

Louis hesitates, and Harry has to bite back a frustrated growl. “I’ve got writing sessions and time in the studio scheduled as of yesterday, plus I’m supposed to get papped clubbing in London again and just… it’s shit but there’s no time to make the trip until early May, at the least.”

Or, Harry and Louis spend a month apart.

🌕 Let’s Embrace The Point Of No Return by sweaterpawstyles (6k)

Louis was a whole new scale of beautiful, he was richer than Harry could've ever imagined, and he was the most powerful, dominant alpha that Harry had ever come in contact with. The only problem now is that Louis is also Harry's boss.

Louis believed Harry was an alpha, and had no idea about how he had lied about his status just to get an interview with Louis. He was in too deep now and he couldn't look back.

Or

Harry is an omega intern at an all alpha company. Louis is his boss. There's some complications.

🌕 All These Lights by MediaWhore (34k)

“People vote for alphas because they’re strong and they’re not only beautiful but also mesmerizing. They make you want to give them all of your attention, make you want to beg for some of theirs back. They’re shiny, oozing sex appeal and a commanding presence, and people always want more and more. Omegas are enticing too for sure, but it’s not the same. It makes people uncomfortable. It doesn’t make them want to root for you.”the canon fic where Harry is an omega and dreams come with a price.

🌕 resolutions and lovers in the kitchen by MarchieTheHare/orphan_account (10k)

Their dinner’s probably going cold, but this feels monumental. So instead of sitting them down on the table and talking about it face to face over chicken and pasta, Harry just puts his hands over Louis’ where they’re settled on his lower stomach, not letting the moment slip past them. He takes a deep breath, carefully arranging his thoughts. “She looks really lovely, Louis. Positively glowing. Her bump’s so big, and…” he trails off, breath hitching slightly when Louis lifts his hand higher, settling it right over Harry’s stomach, and that’s—

“And what, baby?” Louis asks, voice now dropped to a whisper, and Harry has to take a moment to collect his thoughts.

“She, um. She knows about you, of course, and she asked me when we’re—when we’re having a baby of our own.”

(harry teaches little kids and louis writes sports articles. they're trying for a baby.)

🌕 i’ll be hurt from the heat (running from the heat) by itiswhatitisbutterfly (11k)

It’s engrained into him, nothing else matters, protecting Harry at all costs is what pumps his heart and floods his veins. It’s just, he didn’t count on the one thing Harry would need protecting from would be himself.

(Harry and Louis are in love, and they are probably soul mates. They just can’t be bond mates because despite the undeniable pull, it’s them against the world.) 

Alpha Harry / Alpha Louis

🌕 No Easy Love (Could Make Me Feel This Way) by allwaswell16 (17k)

There’s never been anyone for Harry but Louis. He had always thought their love would last forever, despite society’s pressures on an alpha/alpha relationship. When Louis breaks up with him and moves to Chicago, he’s suddenly left behind to pick up the pieces of the life they once shared. Instead of moving on, he finds reasons to keep Louis in his life and in the process begins to piece together what went wrong.

Or an Alpha Louis/Alpha Harry au where they get a second chance to make things right with the love of their life.

🌕 Alpha Seeking Alpha by jaerie (3k)

Maybe it's taboo, but Louis can't stop thinking about a strong alpha holding him down and filling him with a knot. Louis may be alpha himself yet there's a corner of the internet where he can get what he wants. He finally has the courage to do it.

🌕 Cancel your reservations, no more hesitations by 14hrflight (22k)

Louis still has his eyes on the bill when he barges into Harry’s room without knocking because he doesn’t want to get evicted and the smell hits him first.

It’s overly sweet and unnatural, and his stomach drops because it smells like an omega. Louis eyes widen and he looks up and - Harry’s on his hands and knees, a half spilled bottle of synthetic omega slick next to him and a huge, knotted dildo pressing into his hole. Harry’s face is flushed and he looks fucked-out and -

“I’m sorry!” Louis squeaks out and quickly backtracks, face red, because he wasn’t supposed to see that and Harry’s an alpha but he - Louis isn’t going to judge him.

--

Louis is an alpha and so is Harry, but Louis helps him through his rut anyway.

🌕 swimming in a champagne sea by delsicle (16k)

Louis is a supermodel. Harry is a celebrity photographer known for capturing the brightest up and comers in their most candid moments. They meet at London’s most exclusive New Year’s Eve party.

An alpha/alpha fic filled with confusion, banter, Ubers, and glitter

Omega Harry / Omega Louis

🌕 A Firm Believer and a Warm Receiver by objectlesson (10k) @horsegirlharry

a few months ago, Louis had his first heat. It was no big deal, aside from it being awkward and weird and all the other things it was supposed to be. He figured he would present as an omega, so he wasn’t exactly surprised or anything.

But then, last week, Harry had his first heat, too.Or, the omega/omega sleepover fic no one asked for but y'all really, really need.

🌕 Even Your Honey Dew by objectlesson (9k)

It probably says something about Harry that he’s so obsessed with another omega’s arse.