#because they can't even have the 'we have the same power' thing be THEIR thing

[sauoce]

There are, quite literally, several scenes discussing people who do other things. People have jobs. They play chess that gets increasingly fucked up and weird. They probably have a regular ass game of Sorry because that shit never gets old. And I am almost 100% certain that America is it's own little cultural bubble, and my headcanon, if it's not regular canon because I can't remember, is that most other nations in the world are way more sci-fi and high tech, just because they could be and people eventually got used to it.

The reason that the entire country seems stuck in a specific time period is because that's exactly what culturally happened. People who have reached maturity don't change with the times, for the most part, because that's what children are for. And since they stopped having children, there are no more people to advance our society. A lot of other cultures don't have that problem, or at least not to the extent we have it.

So, eventually, we stagnated, and started to loop. We lived through the same couple decades over and over again, because that's just what people are comfortable with. They live the lives they remember loving forever, because what force is more powerful than nostalgia? The desire to go back to a better time, even if it really wasn't better? Humans never change, after a certain age, and there's no reason for them to try and adapt either, because they are practically immortal. Humanity, essentially and truthfully, can't advance past that point, culturally. There's no point. And that's the point.

Oh and it's about football because Jon likes football.

i see a lot of criticism towards 17776 along the lines of “ugh if humanity actually stopped aging or dying and people really did just live forever they would not spend their time playing football… that is not what EYE would do with MY time…. this is so unrealistic….. clearly the author just wanted to write about sports 🙄😒” and like. yeah. yes. exactly. jon bois is a sports writer and sports analyst who wanted to examine why people love sports and why sports have cultural staying power and why he especially finds sports compelling and what sports have to say about the human condition and our ability to care. so he made up a fake scenario about humans being immortal and then he made it about sports. and he wrote about sports. the story is titled ‘what sports will look like in the future.’ if that isn’t something that you can vibe with then maybe the story simply is not for you

[genderqueerdykes]

i dont know why, but your butch post got me thinking about about yet another problem the lgbtqia+ community has: prelabeling people as tops/bottoms. and even being disgusted with/erasing switches, which I've seen a lot. I'm a lesbian. i don't consider myself butch or fem because I'm not comfortable with those labels, but to the outside eye I do seem a little butch. i remember when I was in highschool I had a friend who always said I was "top-coded" and always called me a top. as a bottom and now a questioning aro/ace spec that shit made me so uncomfortable. and I told her that many times, but she just used the shitty "its just a joke" excuse. like omfg shut up

holy shit thank you because i literally wanted to talk about this in that post but wasn't sure if it would make it too long. you messaged me at exactly the right time, thank you so much because this bugs the hell out of me too

that's soooooo gross, i'm sorry that person was saying that to you. first of all that's literally none of their business, you really shouldn't just say that to someone. what the fuck does "top coded" even mean? not all tops are the same, there's literally all kinds of different top dynamics. also i think people get top/bottom and dom/sub mixed up, too, which is even more frustrating. they're not mutually exclusive, they don't mean the same thing. you can be a dominant bottom, or a submissive top. power bottoms are a thing. service tops are a thing.

i literally hate that people inherently assume that butches are tops and femmes are bottoms. like it's just kinda written in stone that femmes have to be submissive pillow princesses and butches have to be tops that take care of all of their needs and barely have theirs addressed at all. like, what about the butches who are bottoms? what about the femmes who are tops? also like you mentioned, do people literally not realize switches exist...? like that's literally also an option.

"butch" does not mean "top". "femme" does not mean "bottom". it's soooo gender essentialist and binarist to go. masc partner = top fem partner = bottom. you just recreated the cishet binary *again*. i can't get over how this is NOT progressive. i do NOT get why white cis lesbians think it's progressive to force butch lesbians to behave exactly like we expect cis men to behave, and force femme lesbians to behave exactly like we expect cis women to behave, but it's NOT PROGRESSIVE!

also, great point, which is that a lot of lesbians are ace. it's so shitty for someone to sit there and try to guess if you're a top or bottom when you're not even interested in sex. honestly is' gross as hell to analyze your friends' and prospective partners behaviors and categorize them into top or bottom. what the hell is wrong with people. that's not a joke, that's invasive, and creepy.

[leighsartworks216]

The Calm After The Storm

Sylus x gn!Reader

I know it isn't Christmas anymore but the vibes persist in my notes app

Warnings: fluff, domestic fluff, silly, Christmas, alcohol, drinking, kissing, cuddling, some family drama

Word Count: 834

Main Masterlist

First Love and Deepspace Masterlist

Second Love and Deepspace Masterlist

AO3

Tag List Form

You scrub a hand down your face, as if it could wipe away all the stress and overwhelm from the last few days. Booking flights, packing bags, wrapping gifts, dealing with your parents' nagging and your extended family's... whole deal. You can't wait to go back home.

Sylus sighs as he settles down beside you. His arm immediately wraps around your shoulders, drawing you into his side where you belong.

He's been your rock through all of this. When you start to lose your head to the holiday season, he's there to reel you back in. It was a real catch 22, though. He could be there to block your family's questions and interrogations, but that only brought more questions to the surface.

How did you two meet? How long have you been together? When is he going to propose? Will we finally have some grandkids? Why isn't he with his family? How big is he? (Asked by your great grandmother, utterly shamelessly.) And on, and on, and on.

For all the headache it brought you, he didn't seem too phased by the excitement. With all the grace of a businessman, he deflects, redirects, and obfuscates just enough to satisfy their questions without giving them too much of a rope to tug on.

Now that you've finally got a moment to yourself - all your relatives gone, your parents off to bed - all you want to do is sit on the couch and come down from it all.

Sylus is quiet. You know it's for your sake, to give you all the (metaphorical) space you need. All the power is in your hands to start a conversation. All he does is hold you close, rub circles into your arm, and offer you the wine glass in his other hand.

You grin wryly as you accept it. It's fruity, sweet - definitely not to his tastes. "Is this the one my nana got you?"

"Mhm," he hums. "It's a nice gesture."

You chuckle. "She had no idea what to get you. I mentioned that you like to drink, but she's... Well, she tends to gift other people things she likes."

You settle deeper against him, cradling the glass to yourself as you lean your head against his shoulder. He presses a tender kiss to your head.

"Is it always that chaotic?"

"No." You tilt your head up to look at him. "It's usually a lot worse."

He chuckles lowly. "I'm glad they were on their best behavior for me, then." He brushes his nose against yours, drawing out the peace of the moment just a while longer. He's had to severely cut back on how affectionate he gets to be with you to avoid encouraging even more marriage and children questions; he really wants to savor this for as long as possible.

The lights of the Christmas tree in the living room dance across the planes of his face. Every now and then, the red catches on his iris. Or the gold does, and gives him a draconic look. He's beautiful. Ethereal. Your cousin took one look at him, at his arm lazily wrapped around your waist, and gaped in awe at you. The only reason she couldn't get a chance to get Sylus alone and try to steal him is because he was too insistent on staying by your side through it all, whispering teasing remarks in your ear and making sure you weren't about to have a panic attack.

It felt really good being able to put her in her place at dinner, when she purposefully vied for the seat beside Sylus's. He'd ignored her the whole time, save for a politely dismissive phrase or two. After she stole your boyfriend from you in 9th grade pulling the same stunts that she tried tonight, you had no sympathy for the teary-eyed pout she pulled on her way out the door.

You lean up that last little bit. He ducks his head down to ease the strain on your neck, meeting you in a honeyed kiss. Sweet, warm and unhurried. You taste like the wine, hints of the bitter alcoholic sting softened by the fruity sweetness clinging to your lips. This may be his new favorite wine, if only for the way it tastes on you.

You pull away slowly. He leaves a few chaste kisses on your lips, chasing after the lingering sweetness, before finally humming his satisfaction. As soon as you both get home, he's going to make up for all the lost time. For now, he tucks your head under his chin, holds you in front of the tree, and basks in his first Christmas spent with you.

"Merry Christmas, Sy."

"Merry Christmas, sweetheart." He can't wait to celebrate with you again next year, crazy family and all.

You take a slow sip of the wine, basking in the silence for all of one minute. “Sy?”

“Mhm?”

“We’re taking the jet back home. I can’t be sat sandwiched between two screaming babies again.”

---

Tag List:

@the-golden-jhope @huen1ngk41 @armycaratlover @sylusfluffymeow @cheesemachine44 @nyx2021 @angel-jupiter @thelittlebutton @pikachuzhc @pomegranatepip @cordidy @an-ever-angry-bi @thejysemongko

[crimsonphantasmagoria]

I've been scouring my brain for weeks now, trying to come to a reconciliation between the Solas we get through Inquisition into Trespasser, and the Solas we see in Veilguard, and I think I've finally come to an answer which satisfies me, though YMMV of course. It all has to do with selfishness.

What put me onto this is the way he talks about the romance path. "It was selfish of me" he says, almost angrily. Selfishness is a thing he can't stand in others, and certainly can't stand in himself.

Solas has had his opinions and wants dismissed in the name of selflessness again and again. Most importantly, this has been done by the person he Respects the most, Mythal (this is true whatever you believe the nature of their relationship was).

The first thing, which led to everything else, is that she persuaded him to take a body for a selfless cause: protecting the People from those like Elgar’nan. Then, she had him craft the Lyrium Dagger, against his wishes, because it was necessary to end the war. And then she betrays him. He was brought into this world against his will to prevent Elgar’nan and the like basically from doing exactly this, and she's going along with it? He doesn't want to go against her, but he has to, for the good of the People.

Once the rebellion starts, Solas is required to act against his personal wishes again: he has to uphold the mantle of the Dread Wolf. We see this in Felassan's letter to him.

The next time we see Solas and Mythal together is when he warns her about the Evanuris using the Blight, and more or less asks her to run away to the Fade with him. And she refuses. We can debate her motives all we want, but I think it's safe to say that running away to the Fade with her was what he wanted. His selfish wish. And she rejects it, and goes to confront the Evanuris alone, and dies. His grief reframes this as her dying because he was selfish. And in his grief, he chooses to seal away the Blight and the Evanuris. Now, this wasn't a bad thing to do, but he is pretty explicit in Trespasser that he did it directly in response to them killing Mythal. A selfish act. And it goes catastrophically wrong.

He comes to years later, and the world is horrifying. Elven mortality, corrupting spirits, magic suppressed, all because of his mistake. His selfishness has hurt the People he has a duty to, given to him by the person he respected the most. He immediately sets about fixing the mistake. After all, he's more or less the only one who can. He kills Felassan, when he betrays the cause. He doesn't want to, but since when has he wanted any of this? When was the last time something he wanted mattered? Fixing what he's done to the world matters more.

But then he gets outwitted by Corypheus, and the Veil is coming down in the worst way possible, causing untold harm on both sides. And he can't fix this problem. The only person who can is the one with the Anchor, the future Inquisitor. So he sets himself to helping them do so, because it's the best he can do to fix his new mistake. And in doing so, he sees the best parts of the new world. He meets people he genuinely likes and admires, potentially even loves. He realises that these people are complete as they are, 'real'. It goes faster with a high approval or romance Inquisitor, but even with low approval, he eventually gets to the same place. He wants to help them. He wants to stay with them. He wants his time with them to have mattered.

But that would be selfish. Since when have his wants mattered?

He leaves them. He doesn't want to, but he has to. He kills Flemythal, because he needs her power if he's going to do this, even though he doesn't want to. He weeps. Gets back up and continues on. Since when has what he wanted mattered?

Trespasser happens, and he tells the Inquisitor almost everything, because they deserve to know, but also...he doesn't want to do this. This is the beginning of his subtle attempts to help them stop him. He can't admit it. He can't admit that he needs help, that he wants to stop, but he can subtly, almost unconsciously guide them.

This culminates in him leaving the eluvian path open for Varric and co to follow him to the unguarded, unwarded ritual site. Unfortunately, Varric tries to reason with him. But he cannot be reasoned with by Varric. Nor by the Inquisitor, nor anyone else in modern Thedas. That's what he wants, you see? He wants to stop, so he can't. That would be selfish. I do think that, maybe, if Harding had taken the shot, he might have allowed it. Taken it as a fair defeat. But she doesn't, so we'll never know.

So he ends up in the regret prison, otherwise known as literal Hell for Solas, and tricks Rook into helping release him. He's more or less the only one with power sufficient to take on Elgar’nan. You know, the guy he came here, unwillingly, to oppose in the first place? So he goes and helps the Shadow Dragons in Minrathous, but it isn't enough. Fortunately, Rook escapes, and they defeat Elgar’nan together. Unfortunately, he has now run out of excuses to not do the thing he doesn't want to do, and the Veil is coming down anyway, so.

But then Rook offers another choice. Bind yourself to the Veil and save us. He does seriously consider it for a second, because it's what he wants to do, and Rook isn't a person he cares about personally. He might respect them, but he doesn't really like or care about them, like he does Varric or the Inquisitor. Weirdly, this might make it a more effective plea, taken from this perspective. Ultimately, though, the Unselfish thing is clearly to fix his mistake, fix the world, so he goes to do that.

Then here comes the Inquisitor. He can't stop for them either, but he feels like he owes them an explanation still. He failed Mythal, and she died. He was selfish, and she died. This will all have been for nothing if he acts selfishly now.

Now Morrigan arrives. Whose fault is that? She channels fragment Mythal. I like to think this part is these two fragments of Mythal reuniting for a few moments. And Mythal says, in effect, "if i had let you stay where you wanted, if I'd listened to what you wanted, then maybe none of this would have happened. You aren't the only one at fault here. Be free from your duty to the People, and choose your own path from now on."

The Inquisitor reinforces this, and it takes him about two seconds of collecting his thoughts to choose, because frankly it's what he's wanted to do the whole time. And then he chooses to return to the Fade, and to seek atonement for his part in creating the Blight. Probably also something he wanted, but felt like he couldn't persue because he wanted it. But now he finally can, because his wants have been acknowledged by that person he respected the most as valid. So off he goes.

This might actually make the romance with Lavellan even more powerful because it means he wanted her badly enough that he almost chose her anyway, even despite his prior conditioning. Sadly, he eventually realised that the relationship was fucked if he couldn't stop his plans and couldn't tell her who he was because he couldn't stop his plans, so he ended it, for her sake, another selfless act, to try and make it easier for her to hate him. And if she doesn't, and asks to come with him in Trespasser, he refuses, for selfishly stated reasons, because he wants this one thing to remain pure and uncorrupted. But in the end, he won't refuse her again because he's finally allowed to want again, and what he wants most of all has always been her.

Idk, I've just been struggling to make Solas’s motivation change between games make sense to me, and this is what worked. Nobody else has to think this. Totally just my personal speculation.

[invested-in-your-future]

It's almost like there was a way to have both the Arcane subplot and the actual central heart of the show—by merely using the Arcane the same way they did in S1, where it's a threat of technological progress misused in the hands of the rich and powerful, as well as the downtrodden and the oppressed, during the times where tensions and conflicts escalate.

It's possible to have the subplot of "arcane getting out of hand" and Jayce and Viktor being at odds without magic technogods and robot zombies and worldwide apocalypses and time travel and sweeping the class conflict the S1 set-up under the rug with centrist af "and they teamed up against evil Third Party and lived happily ever after; watch spin-offs about all those characters doing things elsewhere that don't directly relate to why you watched the show, pls."

There's no reason for The Arcane to be the central literal mcguffin subplot or direct villain rather than a thematic unifier.

As for LOL—why should LOL be used in a way that's detrimental to telling a good story? Arcane S1 did just fine doing that while having clever nods and cameos and not abandoning its narrative tone and character-focused drama.

Arcane lore is intended to be the "soft canon reboot" for LOL anyway, building the new setting—there's no reason they can't do better than just "Hey, remember this?" especially when characters like Mel started in the show and not the game.

There's no reason to have Vander-retcon-subplot just for LOL Cameo when Vi and Jinx should resolve their conflict via actual proper characterization rather than deus-ex-machina that screams, "Watch the spin-offs," and effs off.

There's no reason to have a whole other country invading or Mel being taken out of the actual subplot she's best in—politicking and power struggles—and spending time wanting to join the MCU.

There's no reason to have the barely comprehensible (to non-LOL players, that is) Black Rose cameo stuff, or the random traitor girl that is pointless, or a bunch of extras that do not even come close to S1's extras when the base conflict is already set up.

Imagine if someone were remaking Parasite by Bong Joon-ho and decided, "But what if we add aliens who force the poor family to live there, and also if they leave, the world gets overrun by robots, and also there's another house nearby inhabited by a pair of wizards because we need to advertise another movie?"

The majority of Arcane S2 (especially the second half, maybe even everything past the first three episodes) is clutter detrimental to what actually made S1 so good.

Don't you just love it when the actual meat and bones of the narrative—the class conflict and the nature of privilege and wealth—get dropped because the show wants its MCU magic zombie fight?

[artbyblastweave]

How would you say the x-men are "turbo-fucked". Is it just the common criticsms that ppl say about them or do you have real specific point ppl haven't brought up yet? (Not trying to be aggressive here, just curious)

My stance is essentially an amalgamation of every free-floating complaint about the X-Men you've ever heard- that it's a bad metaphor for oppression because real minority groups can't kill buildings full of people on a whim, that the comics are frequently tone deaf in the comparisons drawn between real and fantasy oppressions (Kitty with the hard R, oppression-splaining to a Pakistani-American girl), the ugly ways in which the metaphor can intersect with real-life issues of nationalism and ethnonationalism (Is Magneto a Zionist? Locked after 12,000 pages, etc). Moreover there were always going to be fundamental cracks in the foundation because mutants-as-civil rights metaphor was a retrofit that they pivoted to from what was originally transparently a time-saving measure for the mass-production of silver-age cops-and-robbers participants. Even then it's still theoretically possible to make the metaphor work, but I think that the demands of serial publication are particularly injurious to the metaphor because it prevents the creation of a specific, unified, finite narrative that can dig into this in a way that sticks. They'll be stuck treading water on the issue forever, held back from really internalizing the thorny-but-interesting implications or meaningfully adjusting the status quo as long as the X-Men need to remain available in the toybox for future writers. The closest they can get is the umpteenth "mutants claw their way back from the brink of extinction" storyline. Are we on the second or third mutant ethnostate collapse?

At the same time you have to hold space for the fact that the X-Men are only uniquely vulnerable to these criticisms because X-Men authors had the audacity to try to center these themes, to try and use the space as it existed to do something new and thoughtful. 50 years of hindsight have made us aware of the limitations of what can be done with those themes within the monthly-serial context, but that wasn't clear at the time, and let's be real, we wouldn't be talking about this franchise at all if Claremont hadn't shot his shot and gotten the ball rolling. Perfect is the enemy of good, comic books are a conversation, yadda yadda yadda.

Anyway I can't recommend The Power Fantasy highly enough- it's an indie thing by Keiron Gillen that's heavily in conversation with the X-Men specifically (informed by his recent run on the book), making full-use of an alternate-history to explore the idea of X-Men flavored people with superpowers as a geopolitics-altering thing-unto-themselves, the limitations of attempting to construct superhumans as a unified demographic, and the horrifying but specific ethical nightmare scenarios that emerge from Great Man Theory of history having actually become true.

[papasbaseball]

The Wizard x Reader (Wonderful Wonderful Girl) | Chapter 7

Pairing: Wizard x F!Reader

Rating: Teen (Rating to Increase)

Warnings: Power Imbalance, Boss/Employee Relationship

Summary: Being a maid in the Royal Palace of Oz is not half so bad. Despite the meager wages, everything else is provided for you for an honest day's work. It can be unnerving working for the most powerful man in Oz, but you are able to avoid him most of the time. This changes during Lurlinemas, your paths soon becoming inextricably intertwined.

Word Count: 3,724 of 19,250

Start | Prev

AO3 Link

The festivities start before the sun sets. I watch as it sinks below the horizon, a fat red apple amongst the crooked charred tops of green houses and shops. Its dying light falls gently on the shoulders of ladies and gentlemen as they arrive, like a glowing kiss of welcome as strokes of real gold, gold that could be minted, bathe their cheeks and laughter-filled smiles. They arrive in pairs, by themselves, in whole parties that tumble out of stuffed carriages. I watch from the window of my room, having already been done up for an hour at that point. I have dragged the vanity stool over to the window so that I can watch better. Anything to pass the time as I wait for the inevitable final guest of the party: myself.

I have no desire or intent to go down to the feast because I knew that he would be there: the Wizard. Every stroke of the makeup brushes this afternoon felt like porcupine bristles being dragged across the skin of my cheeks, eyelids, and lips. The lips had stung the worst, right in the spot where he had touched his thumb. It was embarrassing really, the way I fell for it all. Emily didn't know anything about what had happened in the throne room, but her words from weeks ago echoed in my head as she wound locks of my hair around the hot iron. You're not the first dummy to try and sleep her way to head maid. The fact that I wasn't the first one was what was eating at me. Was this the kind of treatment that they got? How many had there been before me?

I shake my head at that. No, not before me. I am not a part of any line of women who would sleep with the Wizard, and I do not want to be any part of that line. I'm sure he has needs that are natural to his human body, just the same as he needs to bathe or dress or sleep, but I refuse to think of him like that. It feels disrespectful to even think that he could be so carnally biased that sleeping with him would earn you a higher rank and station, rather than merit.

The thought of him brushing my lips stings me again and I wince, getting up from the window and throwing myself on the bed. There is something about watching the guests arrive that is causing my mind to lose itself, fixating on... I grit my teeth as I push my face into the pillow, not even trying to protect the curls Emily had set or the makeup that had been painted. The cotton pillow is soft against my made-up face and when I try to breathe in, my lungs are confused by the lack of oxygen. Good. If I knock myself out maybe I'll get out of the whole thing altogether.

There is a knock at the door and I dig my claws into the comforter. It's only been a few minutes since Emily left the room and already someone is coming to bother me. I breathe in the pillow quicker, hoping to speed up the process. There's the sound of the door opening and then an unexpected voice.

"You planning to fall through the floor to get to the party?" Bruno says. He bats at my shoe. "C'mon. He wants you downstairs."

What? So he can embarrass me? It was one thing when we were in the darkness of the control room, or even teasing remarks in front of Humak, but to do it in front of hundreds of strangers? "I'm not going," I muffle into the pillow.

"I don't know what you said, but you'd better get up before I make you," he says.

I turn my head just enough and find myself involuntarily sucking in clean air. "I said 'I'm not going', okay? You can't make me."

"For Oz's sake," he says, and then he yanks me by the ankle as I squeak in protest. "This is the hill you're going to die on? A stupid party is worth your sister's life?" He yanks me once more and I tumble to the floor, the wind going out of me in a yelp.

"No! I'll run away!" I say, scrambling to my feet. I say this, despite never having thought about it before or knowing how I would survive outside of the Emerald City with no money and a second mouth to feed. I don’t even know how I would get out of the palace without a guard stopping me.

"You look fine," he says. "Now, let's go."

"No," I say.

"What the hell is wrong with you?” he says “You see a ghost or something? There's food downstairs and drinks and dancing.” Dancing. The thought of the Wizard's hands on me again, the knowledge that I'd fall for it again like an idiot... The Wizard had magic in more ways than one.

"I don't want to dance," I say, "...with strangers, that is. Have you seen the Arjiki guards? They're frightening." They aren't, but it's better than confessing my relational problems to no-nonsense Bruno. What would he know of... whatever the Wizard and I were?

"Well, then you can dance with me then," he says.

I blink, having never considered the possibility before. The party would be better than hiding in my room upstairs because I would have an excuse to not see the Wizard. How could he dance with me if I filled my entire dance card with other people? Up here I ran the risk of him slipping away from the party to come torment me in private. "You mean it?" I ask. Bruno simply offers his arm, and I take it.

We take our time walking down to the Grand Ballroom. I ask Bruno how Leo is doing. Apparently, he got in trouble at school the other day for beating a kid up on the playground. I ask him if the kid deserved it and he laughs, asking me about Fileah instead. There's nothing new to report back besides telling him I'm trying to be on my best behavior so I can see her again. We don't talk about the riot. I hope Fileah has stopped talking about it by herself as I hadn't had the chance to tell her to. The Wizard has been keeping me busy with etiquette assignments and other stupid tasks that seem to take up the whole day past when visiting hours are over. As we enter the Grand Ballroom, I can feel the puzzle piece of the confusing social training click into place and realize that he had this party planned for a while and was truly planning to surprise me.

Tulle and taffeta skim across the floor in coiling circles as partners guide them along, sometimes breaking off and weaving in and out of the ladies and gentlemen, all the while laughing. Toward the front of the room parallel to the wall, and on the dais there are tables laden with food. As we draw closer I can see suckling pigs that have been roasted until bronzed, the skin pulled so tight that you could taste the way it would crackle in your mouth without ever sinking your teeth into it. There are turkeys that have been herbed and stuffed and are twice the size of the biggest one I've ever seen. In between the meats are bowls so big that you would have to carry them with both arms filled with buttered turnips, roasted brussel sprouts, sugared beets, whipped and airy potatoes, and several others that I ignore once I see the towers of desserts. The guests who are not dizzying themselves with merriment have taken seats along these tables, filling their plates with any and all of the offerings.

The table on the dais is packed. Fiyero, Humak, and some of their guards that I had seen earlier are seated on the left, a few strangers are seated on the right, and in dead-center there’s him. The Wizard's lips are pressed together in a hard line, goblet draped lazily in hand, and an empty seat beside him. His eyes are scanning the room, and I know he is looking for me.

"This was a mistake," I say, pressing against Bruno to try and get past him.

"I'll be here and ready to dance with you when it's time," he says reassuringly. He takes my wrist which now has a dance card attached to it. Someone must have slipped it on me while I was salivating over the food. Quickly, he pencils his name into two or three slots – I'm not sure how many as I'm watching the Wizard stare at me, not once breaking the gaze – and then he guides me up to the dais. "I'll come get you when it's time."

I climb the stairs on the right side of the dais, trying to find a seat that hasn't been taken already. Unfortunately, all of the seats at the table are labeled with place cards, little bits of cream cardstock that have been etched in curling script with names and titles. I try to keep my eyes on the whirling bodies of the dance floor and away from the Wizard's tiger-like gaze. The dancers seem to have moved onto a reel, two great ovals smashed together as couples take turns dancing down the aisle of refined and all-green and gold clothing. I watch intently, even as I take my seat next to him, even as I can smell the spiced cloud of his cologne, even as I can feel his eyes burning into the side of my face to make it so hot that I wonder if I have a fever and might be excused from the party to undisturbed bed rest.

We sit like this for an eternity, letting the full orchestra swallow up our unsaid words, until a familiar voice asks, "Are you a big dancer?" It's Fiyero, goblet in hand, and much more fashionably dressed than the last time I saw him, a satin blue military jacket perfectly accompanying his blinding smile and the twinkle in his eyes.

I have to ask him to repeat himself, feigning that the orchestra is too loud to hear him. He does, and I swear I could go down to the Unionist chapel right now and thank the Unnamed God for getting me away from the man sitting next to me. "Oh yes!" I say. "I love dancing. I don't get to do it much, so I'm really trying to take it all in."

Prince Fiyero laughs at that. "Wouldn't it be better to take it in on the dance floor?" He offers me a hand, and I don't have to think twice before taking it.

I don't have to imagine that Fiyero is a heartbreaker back in Winkie Country. I can feel my own butterflies flap their wings in curiosity at how graceful and perfectly gentlemanlike he is: the way his hand warmly guides me by the waist, the way he laughs at anything that I say and always has the perfect banter ready to shoot back. Even his eyes, his hair, and his teeth are perfectly perfect, and yet I am still not completely sold. Stopping me from falling for him fully is almost equally the shock that a prince has asked me to dance with him when I had been sharing a bed for warmth and stealing ribbons weeks ago, and the fact that I can still feel the Wizard's eyes on me.

I look to the dais, and even though we are a good hundred feet away, I can see the anger seeping from him, how Humak who was sitting to his right looks at him nervously as if the man in the satin green tuxedo were going to explode and kill him in the process. Good, I think. It was time for him to get a taste of his own medicine. It wouldn't hurt him to see me dancing with the enemy. It's just a little harmless fun so maybe he'd stop trying to mess with my head and toy with me.

I'm not familiar with the dance that plays next, but Fiyero is such an excellent partner that everyone who looks at us would think I had known it my whole life. He jokes with me about how the party hadn't really started until I showed up and I almost believe him. By the end of it, I have a stitch in my side from all of the dancing and the laughing. I feel as if I could down an entire bottle of fizzy wine the way I'm out of breath and giddy to go again. I don't need the wine as I feel a strange warmth spreading within me. Looking at Fiyero, I'm more than glad he came to the Emerald City, and not just glad that he got me away from the Wizard.

"Come on! Come on!" a man in spectacles that pinch his pupils into reptilian slits shouts. "Let's play a game of Blind Man's Buff!"

This sends the crowd into a tizzy of excitement, young women shrieking with delight and pushing each other, the gentlemen gathering closer to the bespectacled man.

"Blind Man's Buff?" I say, grabbing Fiyero's arm. "What is it?"

Fiyero's grin spreads wide in excitement and he pulls me into the throng of those who have had enough of dancing. The man in the lizard glasses is now waving a white scarf as if it were a flag of surrender as the mob pushes in.

"Who shall be our Blind Man?" Lizard Eyes asks.

Fiyero pulls me forward and pushes me to the front. "Take her!" he shouts, waving my hand above my head. "She's a virgin!"

"A virgin!?" Lizard Eyes exclaims.

I'm short-circuiting over them discussing whether I've slept with anyone before when Fiyero whispers in my ear, "It just means you've never played before, love." The butterflies are now beating their wings in earnest.

"Yes! Yes!" Lizard Eyes says. "It will be a special Lurlinemas treat, then. A real game to remember!" Quickly, Lizard Eyes blindfolds me, the world going dark as the soft and warm cashmere is wrapped snuggly around my eyes. Despite the scarf being white, there is still a green light that comes through, and I realize just how truly green the entire palace and city are if even a thick scarf can't block the verdant glow. "Should we make it a special game?" the voice of Lizard Eyes says.

"Lover's fate!" Fiyero shouts out.

"What's that?" I try to ask Lizard Eyes. However, I can't see him, and my guess as to where he is remains in the last place I saw him. I reach out to my right and touch nothing but air. This earns a laugh from the crowd.

"Lover's fate!" people agree, some even starting a chant.

"Lover's fate it will be!" Lizard Eyes says. He must have moved back behind me, I realize, turning in that direction. "You will have to search the room looking for people. Once you grab someone, you must identify them." He giggles.

"Sounds easy," I say. I hope I catch Fiyero, I think. He's familiar enough and I wouldn't mind an excuse to touch that perfect face of his.

"Well, it would be, except you can't use your hands," Lizard Eyes says. "You'll have to kiss them to figure it out."

I want to rip off the scarf and go hide under one of the banquet tables when Lizard Eyes grabs me by the shoulders and starts spinning me around and around until I'm so dizzy that I want to lay on the floor until my head comes back to normal. Even if I lay there all evening, it would never stop the spinning on account of how many strangers there were and that I would have to kiss one of them. The thought makes my stomach go cold, so I know that I have to find Fiyero. Maybe I’ll be glad that I came to the party after all. Maybe...

The mob that had gathered around Lizard Eyes is now quickly dispersing and reeling back in. Their whoops and hollers are growing distant and then occasionally they bump past me in taunt, but I don’t care. Frankly, there are too many of them, and I'm trying to pick out Fiyero's voice. The slight Winkie accent is what I'm looking for, the way it sparkles. I think I hear him 10 feet diagonally to the right of me. I go chasing after it and can hear his laugh as I fall through the air in my attempt to catch him.

"If I had known you wanted to kiss me that bad," he says, "we could have skipped the dancing."

I'm following his voice once again, trying to sneak up on him. "Okay," I say. "So then get over here." Another snatch and a miss.

"Nuh-uh," he says. "I'm undefeated in this game. You can kiss me afterward if you really want to."

I make a dash for him and miss the grab again. I stomp my foot, willing him to hold still.

"You know, you're supposed to chase other people too," he says. Another missed grab.

"Well nobody told me that," I retort back. I fake going after other people, trying to keep his location in mind. When I'm satisfied with enough squeals and laughs, I taunt him again. "Maybe you're undefeated because you're scared."

"I'm not scared," he says. 8 feet to my left. I reach for the rustle of a skirt that I hear closest to me, pretending to chase it as I make a semicircle to cut him off. I shoot my hand out and grab hold of an arm clad in a soft satin. The blue and gold dress military jacket.

"Too easy," I say with a smirk. The room has gone silent and I can't stop grinning at the thought of the Arjiki prince kissing the Wizard’s special guest. Serve’s him right. "Kiss me."

His fingertips are warm as his hands cradle my face. The room is still holding its breath as I feel just the brush of his lips against my own.

"You call that a kiss?" I whisper. "Kiss me."

His lips crush mine openly, an invitation. I let my tongue slide against his lower lip as his tongue slips against mine and into my mouth, pressing my tongue back into submission. It's everything I can do to not fall into his arms and let him carry me out of the party. He was certainly better than any schoolyard kisses and there was a promise of domination in the way his tongue danced with mine that sent a thrill up my spine.

When he pulls away, his name is already on my lips as I tear the scarf off. I don't make it past the first syllable.

It's him. There's a look of hurt in his eyes and I can't help but feel like an idiot. I was so wrapped up in the idea of kissing Fiyero that I couldn't even recognize the same small scars that had touched my hands earlier that day or the way his mustache and goatee had scratched the delicate skin of my lips.

So many things are crashing and burying me like an avalanche: the way he's looking at me, the way the room is still silent and staring at us, the way Fiyero has a shit-eating grin and I can tell he's holding in a laugh, the way I liked it and still want more. This last part is what sends me running from the room and out into the winding halls of the Emerald Palace.

I need to get away from him, to think this out. How was I ever going to face him again? I remember telling Bruno about how I would run away, and now I'm seriously considering it. How much could a train ticket possibly cost? Fileah and I could probably run away and live in the jungle off of the fruits of the forest until we found somewhere nice in Munchkinland to house us. Maybe Bruno had some family outside of the Emerald City that could hide us.

I burst through the hallway and find myself back in the throne room. Sweet Oz, anywhere but here. The face is well hidden amongst the vines again. I consider going up into it to cry – it'd probably be the last place he'd expect to find me – when I hear a queer wooden sound. It sounds like a penny made of wood is spinning around and around before it falls flat. Then the crash happens, followed by cursing.

I run over to the source of the commotion to see Humak Tigelaar with a funny-looking object in his hands.

"Humak," I say through a tear-constricted throat, "you're missing the party."

Humak laughs nervously at this, agreeing with me. It is as he's trying to slip away that I realize what he's holding.

"The Grimmerie," I breathe.

Humak's smile drops and instantaneously he's bolting into the hallways.

All I wanted to do was to be left alone, to just go somewhere where no one would find me while I tried to sort out what would be best for me, what would be best for Fileah. No, in truth, it was just what would be best for me. If I had really been selfless I would have played whatever part he had set for me and done it happily. Ribbons were a fraction of his generosity, and she could have had anything in the world if I had just played the stupid part.

I feel like Lizard Eyes has spun me around and around for a second time as the machine that is Oz the Great and Terrible seems to be floating up with its ropes towards the ceiling, the ceiling falling to the floor. I stumble, feeling for any sort of familiarity or guidepost in what to do, and I keep stumbling, footstep after footstep until I reach the entrance to the Officer's wing.

My voice sounds a thousand yards away as I yell for help.

[exhelluvafan]

The thing that irritates me the most about Helluva Boss is the adamant need to waste any potential for depth in every character. The thing that stops me from abandoning this train wreck of a show and feeling total apathy for it is its wasted potential.

TOO MUCH FUCKING WASTED POTENTIAL.

And obviously, the elephant in the room, aka the blatant misogyny and double standards because viv is writing yaoi so the fans could consume the emotional uwu moments and porn. SO MUCH PORN DAMN IT.

And the thing that eats away at me is the characters such as stolas and stella had such an easy chance to be morphed into something so deep that the show could be a soap opera about their drama alone.

In my humble opinion, the Goetia demons shouldn't have been in this show at all. They belong in a show like Hazbin that's showcasing the upper echelon of hell. This should've been about IMP, but I'm not ripping that one bandaid off because the wound under it is a biohazard. Anyway, I wanted to offer a rewrite for the 😍 lovely poor uwu baby Stolas and his DEMON, BITCH OF A WIFE, Stella. (Yeah, the sarcasm's strong with this one)

First of all I love how her name means star 🌟. It ties in together nicely with the whole astrology aesthetic of the family. We're gonna ignore the born-to-be-a-bitch personality the show presented her as having and focus on what caused her issues.

First of all, she probably knew from a young age that she was going to be wed off into an arranged marriage (just like stolas), and she knew she had the responsibility of birthing an heir. That's going to affect how she views love and marriage in general. She'd see it as a transaction, that she can offer an heir and her body, and receive what she wants. I have no problem with her being a spoiled brat, a mean girl. In fact, take it up a notch. She can be both of that! She was probably given every materialistic thing she wanted since the day she was born other than love and affection. That probably made her narcissistic and selfish, with the "I get everything that I want and you can't stop me" attitude.

She's a party girl, and we stand for that. She seems to be very extroverted and outgoing, and that clashes with stolas' more subdued and introverted personality.

I see her as being EXTREMELY paranoid about appealing to the high society that she's a part of and keeping herself at the top of the food chain amongst other aristocrats, unlike stolas who only does it to keep face or avoid getting too much attention, she wants to be noticed ans seen. Her gossipy, high society friends also reinforce the fact that she never had normal friends who cared about her, and she never grew out of her mean girl phase.

I see her as someone with so much passion in her heart, and sadly, we had to see all that turned into rage. She has trouble controlling her temper and the constant rage that boils inside her, and she explodes and lashes out on people, especially stolas.

I see her going into a marriage with stolas with the same "I'll get what I want" attitude. He has power, money, and legions to his name, and he isn't necessarily bad looking. So stella is like, "Eh, might as well..."

He isn't her dream partner, but she goes into the marriage thinking she can mould him into her dream man. Or thinking he's meek enough to leave her on her own, or she could even manipulate him to do as she pleases. None of those go as planned, though.

.

.

.

I can lowky see her dragging him around as she shops and him just wanting to die inside, lol

Oh my, Anon, this quite a lot of words, but I actually really love your rewrite, I can see Stella actually watching Mean Girls while Stolas dies inside and just stares at the infinite lmao

But sadly, this is a Viv show, and you know that women in these kinds of shows aren't allowed to have any nuance beyond a one-note use or personality trait, unless they're stepping stools for the male cast, which in that case, they're allowed to have a bit more of depth, but not too much.

And yeah, actually, now that you mention it, the Goetia demons shouldn't have been in Helluva, if anything, they should've been shown on Hazbin, like you said, because we are following along a protagonist that was born in royalty (Charlie) and it would make a lot of sense to see the Goetia demons there, since it would be a royal meetup or something like that.

And lastly, about the porn... I can corroborate this since a lot of the designs made by Viv or by her team look... conventionally attractive, so conventional that's artificial and try hard at times, and also, pretty safe but sometimes pushing the limits a bit to pander to gay people (Vortex, Asmodeus and Satan, to name a few muscular characters that are quite popular, but also Moxxie, Chaz and Striker, also popular in the gay side of the fandom) but it always boils down to the same purpose: to get people horny, and this is exemplified so painfully clear when Loona shook her ass towards the camera in one of the episodes, turning out to be shameless furry bait, and when I say that these shows are gooning and softcore porn shows, it's because of deliberate shit like this.

But alas, thanks for your input, Anon, it's greatly appreciated and it's quite the palette cleanser to see someone competent pick up Viv's mess and restructure it into something actually compelling and nuanced.

[mumms-the-word]

Hi! This might be stupid but I am still a little confused how everything connects. The titans and the Evanuris and the blight especially.

Are you able to explain at little at all?

Oh dear sweet anon don’t worry, I’ve got you. I spent days trying to make sense of everything in my head so there is no shame for being confused—I was also confused for a minute because Veilguard blasts new lore at you with all the speed and quantity of a water from a high powered water hose. It’s a LOT.

So buckle up and I’ll explain briefly thoroughly but with humor, because I have not much to do this Christmas Eve (for the first time in a while). But if you're interested in a full lore dive with pictures and so on, like I've done with BG3 lore dives, let me know!

Under the cut for spoilers!

Okay so most of this comes from Solas’s murals in the lighthouse, which they show us out of order because the first three basically confirm what we learned in Trespasser, and then the next two really drop the lore bomb on us. There’s other stuff we learn from codexes, too, but the murals and the debriefing sessions from the companions tell us the majority of the information.

So, briefly: In the beginning there were mortals, spirits, and Titans. Some spirits, like Elgar'nan (formerly Tyranny or something) decided they wanted physical bodies, but they wanted their physical bodies to be powerful and capable of great feats of magic. So they stole the blood of the Titans (aka lyrium) to build their bodies.

Keep in mind, the Titans were probably one of the first primordial beings in Thedas and they are huge. They're the size of mountains; the lyrium veins that run through mines and caves in Thedas are their literal blood vessels. And (this gets into some codex hints and is partly headcanon) it sounds like lyrium in a pre-Veil, pre-war-with-the-elves world must have been INSANELY powerful and capable of all sorts of wonders. Like building physical bodies to house spirits and make them powerful people, as one example. Powering eluvians is another example.

Now, I imagine that casually stealing someone's blood is bound to make anyone angry (and isn't it so interesting that some of the first magic in Thedas was technically blood magic? but I digress). But it sounds like the first elves, the spirit-born elves like Elgar'nan and Mythal, didn't just take the blood, they straight up killed Titans, too. According to Elgar'nan's concept art way back in the early development stages of the game, the red crystals on his collar (he has them in the game too) are trophies from every Titan he's killed. That's a lot of Titans.

So we have a war between the elvhen (those who used lyrium to build bodies for their spirit selves) and the Titans (who are reasonably angry because they keep getting hurt and killed). Things get desperate, the Titans are winning, and the only way for the elves to win the war, according to Mythal, is to craft a relic and a ritual capable of mass-lobotomizing the Titans. If you can't kill them, neuter them. Or...something.

So that's what she and Solas do. Together they make the blue lyrium dagger (yes THE dagger we keep hauling around) and Solas says that with the proper ritual they can use it to sunder every Titan from their dreams.

Basically? He made every Titan Tranquil, but worse than Tranquil, because he sort of stole their entire minds and separated them from their bodies. That's even worse than being Tranquil. Imagine if your entire consciousness was forcibly ripped from your physical body and them sealed away in a cage. That's what Solas and Mythal did to the Titans.

Now, we're still in a pre-Veil world, so the physical world and the Fade are overlapping and all the same and so on. Basically, everything is magic and magic is everywhere. This includes the Titan Dreams, which are now some kind of living, magical force no longer anchored to a physical body. Also, their dreams were stolen in the middle of a war, so you can imagine that these dreams are probably not pleasant or peaceful to begin with. Cage up these angry dreams, leave them to stew for a few centuries, and you just know they're bound to turn into something bad.

Well, that's exacty what happens. As Solas says, these dreams will go on to become a "disembodied blight of pain and anger." Therefore, we have the Blight. The Big One. The Mother of all Blights.

But! Somehow, when they first sunder the dreams from the Titans, they seal away this Mega Blight. Problem solved! The Titans are quiet (lobotomized, not-quite-dead, etc) and the elven people are safe. And the Blight is sealed! All is well.

Except, well, no, the elven people are now being enslaved by Elgar'nan and some of the other Evanuris who are a bit drunk on power from killing one of Thedas's most powerful primordial forces. Solas is like "Sorry this isn't actually what I signed up for" and rebels against all of them, including Mythal. Rebellion ensues. Solas becomes Fen’Harel. Elvhenan grows into an impressive empire for the elves.

But the Evanuris still want more power! One of them, Andruil, stumbles upon the Blight again (according to a Dalish legend which may or may not be real, but we're going to pretend it is). Mythal steps in and it gets resealed and sorted, but now the Evanuris have had a taste for what the Blight can do for them.

So now they're actively looking for ways to break into the Blight so they can use it for themselves. Solas catches wind of this, goes to Mythal, and is like "I know we're on opposite sides here, but the other Evanuris will listen to you, and if they don't, you should join me instead." She's like "Don't worry, babe, I'll talk to them."

And then they stab her with her own lyrium dagger and she dies.

And also they might have released...a tiny bit of the blight? Because we see Ghilan'nain messing with it during Solas's rebellion memories.

So, shit, now they have the Blight, and they're using it, and Mythal is dead, and things are REALLY REALLY BAD NOW.

So Solas is like "There's only one thing I can do here" and he stages an attack on Elgar'nan's citadel so he can steal the dagger back (this is the third Solas memory in the Crossroads) and then prepares a ritual to seal all the remaining Evanuris into one big glittering golden palace thing along with 100% of the Blight and use the life forces of the Evanuris to create the cage that will trap them there.

The goal? Cut them off from the Fade, seal them up with the Blight, let them get corrupted and rot for eternity, the end! Evanuris get stuck in a small bubble with no Fade and all Blight, the rest of the world gets the Fade and peace.

Yeah that…didn’t work.

What actually happened is the ritual failed somehow and instead of locking 7 wackos in a singular little prison with no Fade, Solas trapped them and the Blight in the pretty golden palace and also trapped all of the Fade in a very BIG bubble with the Veil between it and the rest of the world.

This is how he created the Veil. By accident.

So now we have the Blight and the Evanuris in a golden city and we have the Veil.

Also, he trapped the Evanuris, but he didn't trap the dragons they had bound their souls to. These dragons, which would go on to become the Archdemons who run the Blights in Thedas for several centuries (and five Blights), went into some kind of hibernation. I think? But also they became the gods that the Tevinter Empire worshipped, so maybe they weren't in hibernation yet. No idea! Point is, their dragons/The Archdemons were still around in Thedas, and the Tevinter people were like "those guys are rad, they are our gods now."

And also at some point the dragons went into hibernation below the ground. Unclear when.

Now fast forward a few centuries. The Evanuris have been whispering to the priests who worship these dragons/Archdemons and tempting them to break into the Golden City (unclear if they think the Maker built the Golden City by this point or if that came later, I'd have to check the timelines, but it doesn't matter right now). Eventually several magisters/priests are like "yeah! we should do that! Let's break into the Golden City and claim untold levels of power!"

Except what they actually did was break into a Blight Prison with seven Evanuris wackos, get immediately zapped by the Blight, and cast back out into their own world. We know this from the Chant of Light.

These magisters became the first of the early modern darkspawn, the pests we've had to fight for three and a half games, and thus the First Blight began.

So, long story short, Solas and Mythal created the Blight by separating Titans from their dreams and then letting those dreams fester in a cage for a while. Then the Evanuris tried to use the Blight and Solas got Mythal to try and stop them. But they killed Mythal and kept using the Blight. So Solas used their life forces to trap them and the Blight in the Golden City, and also accidentally created the Veil when he did so. And then a while later the Tevinter magisters broke into the Golden City and started the slow chain of events that led to Veilguard.

Hope that helped?? 😂 sorry it was so long winded

[erogenousmind]

Agreement

"Amazing things start to happen when you combine all those ideas together," Paul said. Laney could feel his excitement. She could see it in his eyes. It was palpable. She loved that energy. It was contagious. She couldn't help but want to know more. It was so satisfying to listen to someone speak so passionately about something that meant so much to them. She nodded along, eager to hear more.

"Let's say we start with conformity," Paul continued. "You see how someone else behaves or how they respond, especially to a novel situation. A situation where you aren't sure how you yourself should respond. You are predisposed to follow their example and respond the same way they did. The more unusual the situation feels to you, the easier it is to conform. And the more you see people respond that way, the easier it is for you to follow. Or if you feel some special connection with them, it feels natural to do exactly what they did."

That made sense to Laney. She could remember quite a few new experiences she had had with Paul. Times when she didn't know what to do, or what to feel. But the image was so clear in her mind. She had seen what others did, seen how much they had enjoyed it. Seen how Paul encouraged them. Seen what he had done for them with just a few words of encouragement…

"And you couple that with expectation. Where you know what you are supposed to do. Where you've been told what is the right response, the right feeling. Even the right thoughts to have about something. Our minds are so receptive to those kinds of prompts. All it takes is the right encouragement. The right incentives.

"And here's where it gets so much more fascinating. Those expectations. The people whose example you follow. They don't need to be real. You can know they are entirely a product of your own mind. But you make them real. You create your own example to follow. You can even create your own rewards for behaving the way you imagine you are expected to behave. Isn't that incredible?"

"It is!" Laney responded enthusiastically, her eyes wide. She wasn't sure she understood. She could imagine someone in her mind. Imagine how they would act. How they would behave. And that would make it easier for her to do the same? And the more vividly she could picture it, the easier it would be. Something about that felt so exciting to her, but she couldn't exactly say what.

"And here's where you can really start to encourage behaviors. Because you know saying 'yes' makes saying yes easier. How after just a few times, your yes starts to become automatic, doesn't it?" Paul was smiling now happy to be able to share his ideas with Laney.

"Yeah, it does." Laney was starting to get it. She was beginning to understand just how powerful this could be. Using that power the mind had to do amazing things with the way you think.

"So we combine that with even more powerful ideas, like non sequitur," Paul continued. "And when we think about conformity and yes sets, you can imagine what happens in your own mind when you see someone repeating 'yes' over and over again, can't you?"

"Yes," Laney repeated. It seemed so simple. You could see someone agreeing over and over again. They didn't even need to be a real person. It can be someone who was described to you, or someone you invented in your own mind. But you would, subconsciously, want to follow them. Would want to do exactly what they were doing. And if they were becoming more and more agreeable every time they said "yes" then you would too, wouldn't you?

"And that's why it feels so good when you can say yes over and over again. It gives your mind and your body that extra pleasure doesn't it?"

"Mhmm." And it did too. Laney felt wonderful. Paul was right that saying yes would just make her feel better and better.

"So of course, agreeing with me makes it easier to relax, because it feels so good. And that makes it easier to think less about what you are agreeing with. It's easier to focus on how good agreeing feels, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"So it only feels natural for me to think for you since you aren't thinking anymore. You can imagine all those thoughts just drifting out of your head. You can see it, can't you?" Yes. "And if you can picture it in your mind, if you see that girl becoming more and more mindless as she happily agrees, it is so natural for it to happen to you as well. Isn't that right?" Yes. "And the only thing that needs to come into your head is what I'm telling you about how good it feels to agree and follow along with that image you've made in your mind of what happens when you encounter the unexpected when you are commanded to SLEEP

Deep into trance. You see her so clearly as her mind stops. As the Laney in your head surrenders all her thoughts. As she feels my words replace her thoughts. As I think for her. And you can see how good it makes her feel. How excited she is, even without thoughts. And your mind can only allow itself to follow her. So hard to think of anything else but slipping down into that mindless bliss. Isn't that right?

Yes

But the more of you that slips away, the more you cling to my words. The deeper you feel them sink into you. The more they become a part of you. The more you need to follow them. To do as you are told. You want to do as you are told, don't you?

Yes

Becoming more obedient to my words just as you see the Laney in your mind becoming more obedient. And the more obedient she becomes, the better she feels. The picture is so clear in your mind, isn't it? How happy it makes her to obey. How eager she is to be told what to think and do and feel.

Yes

And the image in your mind can take on a life of its own. As Laney is commanded and as she eagerly obeys. You can see her following the suggestions that that deepest part of you needs. See her commanded to become what you have always wanted to be. See her transformed. And if she is transformed, you know you are transformed as well, don't you?

Yes

It is becoming automatic for her. Automatic for you. Whatever thoughts may still be in your head, they are no longer connected to what you do or to how you feel. Laney does as she is told. Feels as she is told. I put a thought in her head, and it becomes part of her. I give a suggestion and she follows it. I command, she obeys. And she is so eager too, isn't she? Yes It feels so good for her to do as she is told. To respond so enthusiastically to everything that is done with her. Everything that is done to her mind. All she can do is say "Yes" Yes And you are like her, aren't you?

Yes

Thinking what you are told. Following what you are told. Obeying what you are told. My words penetrate deeper than any thought in your head. You obey without thought. You might not even notice your response. And that's alright isn't it? Yes All you need to do is agree and do as you are told. Because doing as you are told feels so good, doesn't it? Yes Even as my words slip deeper into you, as they take over your mind and your body, it just feels better and better. Mindlessly following. Because you want this. You need it, deep down. It feels so right to accept it into you. To surrender. And it happens so powerfully, just like you see it happening to Laney. See her captivated. Enthralled. And it can happen to you too. It is happening to you. You know how to let it happen. What do you need to say to allow yourself to feel the bliss of being owned and obedient?

Yes

[queerbeverage]

Okay, i will engage with this, sure.

Firstly, yes this is absolutely an experience both transmascs and transfems and nonbinary people who don't fit into either category have. I am not saying that this is wrong in any way, i just think these people should think a little about how others they share a space with might feel about these things.

I don't think you have any right to tell me how to cope with my oppression. Basically telling me to "loosen up a little" and take it with humor does not solve my problems, and is in no way healthy for me as a way of dealing with that. It's cool that it works for you and for others, but it absolutely does not for me and i think telling me i have to is just bullshit.

I may have been not precise enough on this point: Trans femininity is a threat to the patriarchy, because we represent options. In their eyes, we are 'men' that 'choose' to become women. In their worldview that pits men above every other gender, a man seemingly abandoning this higher standing for a lower one threatens the order of the gender binary.

>The assumptions you've made about other trans people even up to this point alone are wildly inaccurate

Every single trait i have described here i have experienced in real life. The amount of conversations i had with uneducated trans people where it became clear they offer nobody that has a different experience with gender any grace or understanding (to be clear - this includes transfems aswell as transmascs) is frankly astonishing. Thankfully this is mostly a problem with newly out trans people, but i have also experienced this with older trans ppl who were out for some time already.

It's incredible how you can just brush these systemic issues aside, as if it were solely the fault of me and my friends for getting bullied out of social circles, getting lies told about us by people we considered friends, being dropped like one-time-use disposable toys after whatever we had to offer got squeezed out of us. It is not a personality issue if every transfem person i have ever spoken to can tell me atleast one anecdote where they have been harrassed by someone who is not affected by transmisogyny and has weaponised that against them.

Yes. Yes i am as passionate about transmascs being excluded from social groups and queer meet-ups, and i advocate for change when i see it happen. Yes, i talk to younger transfems about the oppression transmascs experience and how that differs and in what ways it is the same; and that we should have empathy for each other. I don't think just hating on transmascs & trans men is the answer to this problem, and i also think we can't let transmisogyny weaponised by these people slide. It's important to call out in the community, just as much as it is important to call out people who have it out for transmascs.

It's just plain bullshit that trans men and transmasc people can never have power over women. That is just plain not true and antifeminist bullshit. Neither is saying that every trans man / transmasc has power over every trans woman / transfem. Gender is of course a spectrum, and the newly out young poor not-passing nonbinary transmasc person is not really capable of oppressing the older middle-class trans woman who has been out for a decade. Yet the passing trans man with social standing can OF COURSE oppress a trans woman. This isn't some ground-breaking relevation, it's intersectionality and feminism 101.

It's cool that for you gender is just a funny little cloak you can don whenever you want to, and you don't feel as dysphoric when getting misgendered, and that you use the bathroom that has the shorter line.

However, have you maybe for one second considered all of these things are privileges people like me do not have? When i go into the women's bathroom, i might get kicked out or assaulted. My specific kind of gender will not be acknowledged, because anything feminine is immediately seen as threatening. Idk, i feel like a lot of trans people and especially transmascs never learn to respect other trans people who may have different experiences and get oppressed in different ways. It's not enough for you to be trans, that does not make you a feminist by default! It does not make you understanding & accepting of other identities! That is still work you have to do yourself!!!

And frankly i am tired of getting kicked from communities and socially murdered because a transmasc decided i was too weird/didn't fit into their transmisogynistic worldview/any combination of those two; and watching my sisters get ostracized with no support system over the most basic of differences. It gets even worse when we call this shit out, it's immediate social murder, everyone turns away and abandons you.

DO. BETTER.

Educate younger transmascs, be vocal about transfems, stop attending events where no transfems are and either work to make those spaces better or hold space and grace for the transfems in your life. I am tired of my sisters being hurt so badly in the places they're searching comfort in. DO BETTER!

Transmascs & trans men who are vocal about these issues, i love you. Your voice is important in this, and it's imperative that if you notice one of your TME friends act like this around transfems to speak up. To them, your voice carries a lot more weight than ours does (as sad and shit as that may be). Just like feminist cis men, you can help a ton by just calling out bullshit in your communities.

Please, i'm fucking tired of being hurt by the people that should be my brothers and siblings.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji goes to Lotus Pier (No relation to the AU of the same name)

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I wanna know ur Fontaine msq criticisms 👁️👁️👂I’m all ears

I'm not sure if you wanted me to talk about this secretly or publicly but! Here I go!

The TLDR: Fontaine MSQ aestheticised prison, poverty, child abuse, the justice system/court and didn't properly address any of it.

More:

Focalors/Furina has way too much of a sympathetic angle for a dictator who's lets people drown with her inaction.

Neuvillette feels Bad for sentencing some people to death/prison, but that's it. He's one of the most powerful people in Fontaine. If he felt like there are systemic injustices, I.E sending an abused Child to prison, he should be the first person to DO something about it, not just cry and be sad so the audience can be like aw, that's complex character writing isn't it? No it's not! And guilt doesn't absolve you!!!!!!! (These are stuff we deal with in OTCOJ read my fic now /j)

Meropide has children in it, both Sentenced there (Wriothesley) and BORN THERE (Lanoire), and this is just a quirk of the place. Not only that, Meropide accepts prisoners of all genders and crimes. There are abusers and abuse victims in one place. Do you know how bad that is? How much potential for crimes to happen in a place like that— oh wait, Meropide isn't under Fontaine's jurisdiction. If you are assaulted as an inmate it literally means nothing to the court.

Wriothesley had no qualifications when he took over. Depending on how long he lived on the streets, how old he was when he killed his parents, how old he was when he was first taken in by the orphanage, etc, the man might never have more than 4–5 years of formal education. Sigewinne probably had to teach him how to write reports. And do Meropide's spreadsheets. Edit because I forgot to elaborate on this one: This isn't a point brought up anywhere, which is bad, because when poverty and incarceration robs you of a proper education (and the rights to vote in many places too, too, by the way), it reduces your prospects for jobs, reduces many people's ability to get a home etc etc. Wriothesley was just, narratively, Given his position.

Meropide is an industrialized prison, and they portray this as a good thing. Prisoners are paid in coupons for their labour, and this is also portrayed as a good thing.

The One-Meal-A-Day reform was something Paimon gushed about being so great of a perk, that people might want to go to jail for food (could be interesting and reflective of systemic poverty if MHY had brains, but they don't, so I was just Pissed because essentially all Paimon wanted to say was "Prison isn't so bad, but still don't go to prison guys! Prison labour is really hard!"). By the way, in most real-world prisons they are obligated to feed you three meals a day. Because that's how much food a human needs. MHY went with one meal just so they can say "if you want to eat more, you have to work." And then the welfare meal is a goddamn gacha. So imagine you're a starving child who's too weak to work in the fucking robot assembly line, and you wander up for your first meal in 24 hours, only to luck in with a shit one. I'd kill myself.

They wrote Wriothesley, who's a victim of the system, into a guy who's say shit like "I'm the Duke I can do whatever I want" for a cool moment where he choke-slams an inmate (I know he was a bad guy. But also, in copaganda when cops are violent/disregarding protocols, they are always only portrayed to do that against bad guys, so what does our critical thinking tells us about this one?) They wrote Wriothesley, who was an inmate of a prison so bad, so notorious that it is the literal boogeyman of Fontaine, that has a legal (???) fighting pit, with an administrator who abuses his position to be unreasonable, to willingly stay in the place and become an Administrator who would choke-slam an inmate while saying a cool line about how he has the power to do whatever he wants. They wrote him, the guy who had to be fed on the streets by melusines, to think one-meal-a-day was a good enough reform (while he spends god-knows how much on his boat). This wasn't a victim-turns-into-abuser narrative either, they want all this to be seen as positive character growth.

And then, the final kicker is, they gloss over his entire abuse. You can only read about these shit in his profile, which most people don't because they don't Have Him or doesn't care to unlock it/read it online, and they jammed his entire backstory into a flaccid info-dump at the end of his character story quest. This man isn't Allowed to feel abused and neglected and show any reaction to it within the narrative of Fontaine itself, because if they actually Gave Weight to what happened to him, they'd have to confront THE FUCKING JUSTICE SYSTEM they had NO PLANS on criticising. I don't think they ever explicitly said the fucking Crime-Theatre nonsense was Bad either.

I could go on, but this is already so long. But yeah, I hope this gave you an idea.

[pa-pa-plasma]

i don't think i'll ever get over how people treat kids that aren't good in school as worthless no matter what. "oh it can't be that bad" my guy idk how to tell you this but the last time i went to a normal high school the principal called me into his office to brag about how he failed me in all of my classes before the semester was even finished & i should quit while i'm ahead cuz i'm too stupid ("officially" diagnosed as such by a school counselor & a psychiatrist!!) to succeed. & this is considered normal

[wild-at-mind]

You cannot absolve yourself from the fact of your existence in a country that has done horrible things in the past and present by failing to vote. Sorry.

Should you need to absolve your own existence? Some people talk as if you do, but personally I passionately do not think so. Guilt and actions caused by it do not create good activism. The person who convinces themselves that voting is the same as committing war crimes themselves will have a lot of difficulty with basically anything they apply that standard to. That's the problem with society- you can't opt out, not really. Not even with the hyper-anarchist existence I was trying to describe recently. Everything we do, if through enough degrees of separation, harms someone. Anything we need to survive in this world- clothes, food, electronics. We know this. We have to live with this, and not succomb to the type of thinking that most closely resembles OCD with morality fixation. When I see people behaving like this, it blows my mind, like I spent so long trying to unlearn these thought patterns and you're doing it to yourselves?!!

Society is currently set up so that we have to harm people all the time, from living in countries that sanction wars in other countries to damaging the planet. We have to live with that in the here and now, and do what we can when we can. Of course we can ask for better, but I firmly believe the only way to work towards better is to work within society and make connections to others rather than driving them away with this absolutist guilting and hostility to each other. Do not take on a burden of guilt that the person you passed on the street doesn't have. We cannot make society better if we are constantly stumbling under the burden of guilt.

Signed- an OCDer and eco activist

[yappacadaver]

god. inquisition + trespasser was so good... fuck