#because why would you lie about something that could get you ostracized from the community?

[nerevarbignaturals]

"but he's so highly regarded-" yup. most abusers are.

"but he's a family man-" yup. most abusers are.

"but he's such a good community advocate-" yup. most abusers are.

time and time again, you will find that people who groom, manipulate, and abuse are charming. they are, often, the most bubbly, bright, and fun person in the room. you might never have expected that they could do whatever it is they did.

because (and i say this as someone currently being isolated from my community for daring to speak up about being groomed by a school staff member) THAT IS HOW THEY GET AWAY WITH IT.

believe us. god, i hate that it feels like i am begging into the void, but survivors who speak up about these experiences have everything to lose. and, regardless of how it might look, their abusers almost always have nothing to lose because they know that nobody will believe that such a "great" person could cause such harm.

[sneezemonster15]

I saw recently someone post a screenshot of a woman's video that read "my husband came out as gay after 20 years of together" and the screenshot poster said it's extremely cruel to waste 20 years of someone's life and pretend to be in love with them when they could find someone who actually loves them, "if you're gay and in the closet then just be single, you don't have the right to ruin someone else's life" tbh I don't know what to think, I mean I don't feel bad for Sakura and Hinata because they are selfish assholes, but about real people… I would genuinely think I had wasted my life too if my spouse suddenly told me they were never in love with me, and forever have trust issues. But I feel bad for gay men too. Or are women who end up with gay men a specific, gullible type

Except that in conservative societies where heteronormativity is institutionalised and homosexuality is criminalized, the conditions for straight women and gay men aren't the same. Closeted gay men are closeted for many reasons. Institutional punishment, ostracization, disenfranchisement. That cannot be compared with a straight woman whose feelings got hurt. I am not invalidating her feelings, but it's like comparing apples and oranges. It is unfortunate that she lived with a person who basically lied to her for 20 years but it's different from a man who has been living a lie his entire life. It's a kind of violence one can't imagine unless one has gone through something similar. Denying your identity is like denying your existence. Besides, Hinata and Sakura aren't unaware. Sakura for sure knows the nature of Sasuke and Naruto's relationship, and to a large extent, I think Hinata does too. But it suits them to ignore it as long as they are getting what they want. At least in their case, they don't come off as the hurt party. They are the ones who are benefiting from it, having trophy husbands, which is what they always wanted. If they really wanted to do something about it, they would have.

Also, I think most people talk at each other. Not with. If you really pay attention to the other person, what they say, how they say it, if you pay attention to their body language, you can tell a lot about a person. Or get some solid ideas to follow through at the least. A better part of communication is non verbal. It's very useful too. There's a lot of information to be gleaned and used later. It would be pointless to expect that Hinata and Sakura would know to do all that. Otherwise they would have been better shinobis too lol.

It's not that easy to stay in the closet and remain unattached, I know that in many countries, in joint families, no matter what, you gotta get married when the elders say so. You can't come out and you can't say no. There are other obligations too, people's lives are complex. I don't think a gay man would feel so compelled to get married to a straight woman if he had the freedom to choose and express his sexuality without stigma or prejudice.

Also love does not always have to be sexual. There have been many gay men in the past who married women, sired kids even, and yet, respected their wives, mothers of their kids. Of course, in their case, the wife knew the truth. Thomas Savage, for example. Like I said, people's lives are complex. It's not that black and white. There can be love between a gay man and a straight woman without it having to be sexual. There can be mutual love and respect, if they are both open with each other. If they aren't, they should look at the reasons why rather than playing blame games. If separation is the answer, then so be it.

[rainy-autumn-day]

10 Books to read this Autumn & Halloween🍁🍂🍁

1. Dracula  by Bram Stoker

This start of beautiful season off with something classic and a little scary.

The name of Dracula brings to mind visions of vampires, stakes, garlic, and crucifixes. Yet, when you read the novel, it becomes self-evident how twisted modern vampire fiction now is. The vampires in  this classic story are not meant to inhabit the roles of heroes. Instead you go back a few hundred years when men and women believed truly that the vampire was a real immortal, cursed to quench his undying thirst with a living mortal’s blood. The very idea of a blood drinker should, therefore, inspire the image of a villain and that is what the titular character of this novel is. A villan you can’t help but keep reading about. 

2.  And Then There Were None by  Agatha Christie

Another story that is perfect if you want something that will keep you up at night like it did for me when I read it last year.

There is scarcely any comfort to be found in this book, only an ancient, arcane horror. Ten people receive a mystery letter from someone they don't know that indicates they should come to a remote island. Why would they go????? After arriving, they try to figure out the connection between all of them while waiting for their mysterious host. After coming across a cute little poem about how ten little indians die, they decide they will wait it out until the next morning when the ferry comes back to take them home. But it will never come! Each guest suddenly dies matching the line from a poem. It really keeps you on the edge of your seat.

3.  THE BONE WITCH BY RIN CHUPECO

A story about a young witch just fits so well with this season, but this story is not about a teenage witch =just flying around on a broom. No it’s far darker than that. When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother from the dead, she learns she is different from the other witches in her family. Her gift for necromancy means that she’s a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community. But Tea finds solace and guidance with an older, wiser bone witch, who takes Tea and her brother to another land for training.In her new home, Tea puts all her energy into becoming an asha��one who can wield elemental magic. But dark forces are approaching quickly, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles…and make a powerful choice.

4. Night Film by Marisha Pessl

This story opens in October on a cool evening with a blood chilling scene, it’s really everything you could hope for on a autumn night.

Night Film opens on a cold, cursed October evening, when Ashley Cordova, a young women full of potential, is found dead in a warehouse. Police rule her death a suicide, but investigative journalist Scott McGrath isn't so sure. From that inception point, Scott McGrath enters the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley's life and death, and comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror film director Stanislaus Cordova--a man who hasn't been seen in public for more than thirty years. For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova's dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself. Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova's eerie, hypnotic world. The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more.

5. Autumn by Ali Smith

Ali Smith's lauded Seasonal quartet, a series of four novels rooted in a different time of year, kicks off with Autumn there we watch as love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand in hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as they always do.

6. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I can’t tell you how many times i have read  this beaful story in my life buti wants have it one my list to read at last once a year and i find it fits so well in to the amazing season that is autumn with   The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring

7.I Know Who You Are by Alice Feeney

This story is haunting and it will stay with you after you read it.

It's dark, twisted and unpredictable until the very last chapter keeping me on the edge of my seat from the very beginning. You are met with the unknown as you meet Aimee Sinclair, an actress who after coming home, she realizes her husband is missing and after that you are sent on a wild ride to find him.

8.Little Women by Louisa May Alcott  

Another classic. I have always found that that reading about a world now gone is so very perfect for autumn, as we watch the leaves we had watch grow turn colors and fly away from us.

Little Women is a beauty told story with each of the sisters seeks out a different form of happiness: Meg wants to marry, Jo wants to be a writer, Beth wants to care for her family, and Amy craves material success. We get to live their world as we following the lives and loves of the four March sisters and their mother as they mature from youth through adolescence and adulthood.

9.Mexican Gothic  by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

If you love gothic horror, this one is for you. It has the same feeling as Jane Eyre but way creepier and set in 1950’s Mexico.

The atmosphere is perfect for the season, a debutante heads to a creepy countryside house, after receiving an ominous letter from her newlywed cousin, and finds the dark secrets that lie within the house and its occupants.

10.The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

A suspenseful and eerie mystery told via dual timelines all surrounding a rundown roadside motel and the secrets lurking that captivated a woman so much that she went missing in the 1980’s and now have caught the attention of her niece 35 years later. If you love a good mystery mixed with timeline jumping this a perfect one for you.

Bonus

11.The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

Handmaid’s Tale meets Salem: Born of rebellious feminist resistance by a girl who is branded as cursed because of her mother’s sins and facing the dark powers to make definite and concrete changes at the dystopian, puritanical, secluded society consisted of hypocrisy, ignorance, illogical and unfair laws.

This is another terrifying, fist clenching, soul shivering, mind crushing, heart pounding, forehead sweating, edgy, spooky, bleak, dark journey take you to the dark woods to face the four witches are ready to haunt you in your dreams and place a quite irritating thoughts inside your brains.

[snorlaxlovesme]

full thoughts on the chaos walking movie? I want to hear more about it lol I haven’t seen it yet

it just...it felt like TKONLG but without EVERY GOOD PART, you know?

scene-wise, the closest individual scene we had to anything in the book was maybe the scene where Viola read Todd’s mother’s book to him? (even that wasn’t the same bc that was also the scene where we find out he’s illiterate, and he lets her read it right away, so there was no deep-rooted embarrassment about not being able to read). also it happened in Farbranch. BUT, like it captured the emotion of the OG scene a little, where Viola is reading to Todd and he’s hearing his ma’s words and getting emotional about it.

but all the stand-out scenes from the book, i.e. saying goodbye to Ben and Cillian, meeting the girl and getting hit in the head with a branch and bandaging her anyway, ALL of the Aaron fights, the bridge, the massacre of Farbranch, the song of Here, the Spackle, Todd’s illness, the waterfall scene, Haven, NONE of that was in the movie. so imagine all the really important and powerful moments gone

also all the overarching themes? those are gone too. todd becoming a man is  HUGE deal in the books. even in his horrible awful town he just wants to feel like he BELONGS and he’s the one person in the entire town being ostracized. two of the biggest secrets in Todd’s whole world are kept from him for the majority of the book because he’s “not yet a man”. it’s important to him. and once todd realizes the connection between Prentisstown maturity and murder, he spends the rest of that book WISHING he could be a killer. wishing he could have that kind of strength and seeing himself weak for not being able to kill. 

all of that?? gone. movie!Todd often chants the familiar “I am Todd Hewitt” (and sometimes “be a man”) when he’s nervous or trying to cover something in his Noise, and has a little tiff with Ben and Cillian at the beginning of the movie bc the Mayor sees Todd as a man while Ben and Cillian do not. (that’s a weird little bit though bc the movie never really explains why the Mayor had such an interest in Todd). but that’s about it in terms of coming-of-age material in the movie. and about murder. seeing as he doesn’t. kill. the. Spackle. let that sink in.

also like. the Noise is shown as a CONCEPT but not as a theme. the THEME of Noise is that, and I quote

“In this world of information overload, the ability to feel, my boy, is a rare gift indeed.”

or perhaps

“Knowing a man’s thoughts ain’t knowing a man.”

or even

“Knowledge is dangerous and men lie and the world changes, whether I want it to or not.”

in this movie, Noise would be described as like. a nuisance at worst and a superpower at best. you can hear most of every man’s thoughts in the movie, though not a constant, never ending stream. just just bits sporadically at either plot-convenient or comedic times. the Mayor (and at one point Ben, and at one point Todd) uses his Noise to construct illusions around people kind of similar to that Jake Gyllenhaal villain in Spiderman: Far From Home. 

but neither of these two main examples really SHOW the themes that Patrick Ness showed us in the books. that Noise is powerfully ANNOYING; that it can quickly break down relationships between groups of people; that it can be manipulated making large lies still possible.

like, remember when in the books, Todd and Viola get to Farbranch and poor Todd is absolutely GOBSMACKED that 1. the women are ALIVE and 2. the men and women are living together?? in harmony?? what the eff?? and you see Hildy in Tam’s Noise and just how much they genuinely love each other and Todd is like “damn we ain’t in Prentisstown anymore Manchee”. and you can just see based on the contrast that Prentisstown people are a whole different breed compared to the kindness of Farbranch?

in the movie Todd has a few moments of inner dialogue where he’s like “oh man that’s a woman. that’s nuts” and then we move on. his world should be turned upside down here and its not. and the difference between the two towns is that they kinda just made it seem like, yeah, Noise is annoying so we have the men sleep separately from the women so we all get a little peace, and it’s fine. that’s how Farbranch deals with it. it all just feels very blasé 

(i can’t remember specifically where this happens, probably either in Farbranch or cutting back to the Prentisstown men getting ready to march, but at some point a leader ends up saying something to a crowd of people and you can see how just one sentence spreads through an entire group of men and how they all start amplifying it and getting more and more panicked and i did think the mob mentality was cool. it reminded me of the beginning of The Ask and the Answer were the Mayor is addressing the citizens of Haven and you get that moment where the whole crowd flinches over the words of one man.)

and in all of this I’ve barely mentioned Viola. my wonderful girl. how they’ve massacred her story. god.

all of Viola’s development for the first half of the book is tanked from the start bc you SEE the crash, you see her stealing food from Ben and Cillian’s house (that’s the inciting incident of the movie), she talks to the Mayor in Prentisstown almost immediately after Todd finds her and his Noise helps everyone locate her, she talks to Todd a lot before getting to Farbranch after they escape Prentissown. the book does a LOT of work for Viola by having her mute and scared for the beginning and slowly showing how she comes to trust Todd. and how even after their incessent bickering in Farbranch they still choose to escape together because they know the army is after them specifically and they’re all the other has. that progression is really important in the book, as well as afterwards when we see how snarky Viola can actually be when speaking, how she thinks this entire planet is BACKWARDS and she can’t wait til her ship comes and shows them a thing or two about how to live.

movie Viola, well. she wants to find a way to communicate with her ship. she’s under the impression that since her scout ship crashed they’re gonna assume she’s dead and leave her behind. even though the Mayor brings up the settlers a lot after he learns about them, Viola curiously never really brings them up in any other context besides they need to come and get her. like it really made it sound like she planned on calling them, having them scoop her, and then they’d all just fucking leave, i guess. i don’t know what her end goal was besides CALLING HER PEOPLE which became the main point of the movie. the Mayor trying to find Todd and Viola so he could....use her to contact the ship?? that was also kind of unclear. and Viola trying to get to a communicator possibly so she could get the hell out of dodge. idk if that was her actual plan, but it was certainly what Todd was thinking, enough to where I was wondering if he was going to sabotage her mission in order to force her to stay (yeah. yeah. he had that energy about him and it was grosss)

and quickly, since all the animals couldn’t talk the way they do in the book, Manchee was more of a cute prop than anything. i could have gotten over it if he was useful in any way, but he never even like attacked a dude to save Todd or anything like that. so when he died it was sad on a dog-level but not a character level, since besides sitting next to Viola like twice while she cried he really added nothing to the story. also the shock of animal death was greatly reduced already since Todd’s horse that he used to escape Prentisstown from got a broken leg after he rode him off a cliff, so Todd used the knife (off-screen, thank god) to put him down. so Manchee getting killed was kind of lessened a little since my man Whiskey got nixed like 40 min earlier in the film.

this is getting long so I’ll cut it here since I’m gonna probably post about this a thousand more times. but yeah. if you watched it completely divorced from the books you would probably think “that was a cool concept but also what was the point of any of that” which is basically what most people thought based on the review headlines i’ve read. and if you are an avid book fan you’re gonna think you’re watching something else entirely.

[sawwyouuinadream]

FIFTH HARMONY EXPOSED

Isn’t this the type of headline that intrigues people? Well, here I will expose some myths that the so-called Exposing accounts go on exposing. Just declaring something here in the beginning: I love all my Fifth Harmony girls, OT5 that is, and read it at your discretion. The thoughts stated below are opinions of mine, gathered over months and years, and I firmly stand by them.

Cutting to the chase, here we go:

1)      Fifth Harmony the Band Image:

This group was manufactured by Simon Cowell on the X-Factor, back in 2012, and it broke up in 2018. On the show, Lauren Jauregui, the green-eyed white Latina was given the majority of solos and they performed songs in Spanish and garnered Hispanic fans banking on the fact that there were three Latinas in the group.

After they signed to Syco/Epic when the show ended, we saw Camila Cabello, the more convincing Latina, who was born in Cuba, get more and more solos. Normani Kordei was promoted as the “dancer” of the group, Ally Brooke as the “unproblematic one”, Lauren as the “broody edgy girl” and Dinah Jane as the “relatable Polynesian”.

Not surprisingly, Camila was the first one to do a solo venture with Shawn Mendes, the song I Know What You Did Last Summer, which, according to me, was a song to test the waters for both Shawn and Camila.

As more time passes, Camila was portrayed like the lead, not by HERSELF, but the trademark that Fifth Harmony was. She stopped talking in interviews, started doing more and more solo stuff, and even signed to a different manager. Voila, we were getting the rift in-band vibes galore.

Now here’s my verdict:

Fifth Harmony was made by Simon to not get the next One Direction, but to get the next Taylor Swift. Little Mix was already there in the U.K, and people know Girl groups don’t do as well as Boy Bands, mostly because of the inherent Misogyny in the society.

They wanted the next relatable girl next door who could influence teenage girls.  Camila being Latina, could now have an even larger fanbase, in Latin America as well as South Asia, because South Asian music is quite similar in a groove to Latin Music.

Why Not Lauren or Ally then?  Well, they were simply not interesting or Latin enough.

Why Not Normani? Do I have to tell? Those bitches are racist as fuck.

Why Not Dinah? Same thing. Less Appeal to a large fanbase.

That’s why Camila was the goofy dorky most relatable person on 5H. That’s why she readily had a high budget tour all set up for her the moment she left the group. That’s why they promoted her. 5H was never the long-lasting plan. Camila was. 5H was just an excuse to get her a strong fanbase and give Epic 4 more mediocre artists. I am really happy that Normani proved her worthiness and released smash hits as well. And mind you, this was done without Camila herself wishing for it. It was just the label’s decision.

 2)      Camila- the beauty or the bitch?

Camila Cabello is a very intriguing person to me. At the first glance, you haven’t seen a more dorky, goofy, and relatable celebrity like her, eating bananas and tripping on air. But then she starts talking about profound and deep experiences, and you go on her Tumblr and find quotes from books and aesthetic pictures. But then you see her leaked text messages and old Tumblr and all those images crumble before your eyes.

Think about this. Among the 5H girls, Dinah, Lauren, Ally, and Normani have friends outside the industry whom they talk to and hang out with. They have family they post about. Camila? She seems to have no friends apart from Sandra and Marielle Guzman, and those are the people we got the leaked texts with. What about her school teachers and school friends? Nothing.  All she hangs out with is Shawn Mendes and Taylor Swift and her mom who follows her like a hawk. She doesn’t seem to have a social life at all except for events she goes for business.

In my opinion, Camila has a pretty big secret that is guarded closely by everybody but her.

Is she racist? Yes. She was. She didn’t have any sensitivity to Black people or their struggles whatsoever. But you have to understand she is Hispanic, and not born in the U.S. And she has sort of always been a big mouth. I am from a country that doesn’t have a single black person in the near 30000 miles. We grow up using racial slurs as if it's nothing. I had to unlearn my indoctrinations and consciously undo the wrongs in my head and implement them in my actions. Bit it doesn’t undo things I said as a child. I bullied one friend of mine in middle school simply because her skin tone was darker than mine. But I was not canceled. Because I am not a celebrity. Have I learned? Yes definitely. I will never dare to act like that again because now I understand the pain of being ostracized and I recognize the struggles of black people. But that happened over time.

I feel like Camila is a changed person now, and tries very hard to educate herself. She is not perfect, but she doesn’t deserve so much hate. She deserves a second chance.  If she was indeed like that, Normani wouldn’t post a photo with her in IT on the eighth anniversary of 5H.

As far as her being a jealous bitch goes. The rest of 5H always had good things to talk about her after 5H dissolved in 2018. Lauren, the activist, even praised her. Dinah still seems pretty close to her.

Did she do solo stuff without 5H knowing?

No. If she did, and the whole not attending meetings thing happened, Dinah wouldn’t go to her Bad Things concert one day before she left the band. Lauren wouldn’t laugh with her in the VMAs like that if they weren’t friends and just work colleagues. The whole 5H vs Camila feud was planned by management because apparently shade helps sales. For both parties. Another manipulative misogynistic example of society.

 3)      Are/ Were Camila and Lauren romantically together?

All the roads lead to Rome honey. Camren has too many coincidences to NOT be real. From song lyrics to shady potato photos to weird comments and body language in interviews, I am pretty sure the Camren blogs will keep you covered.

Why does Lauren hate it so much? Why are we being invasive?

Lauren is supposed to nix it every time because she is contractually bound to do so. She needs to be the one to keep Camila’s straight image intact, although we have more than tons of evidence that Camila is anything but straight.

To everyone who says we shouldn’t force sexuality on people. Heterosexuality is not the default. Don’t force straightness on her. She never said she was straight. We’re just speculating she is with Lauren, and that’s it. Lauren just happens to be a girl. That’s IT.

Why did the nosy shippers out Lauren?

Nobody did. They just speculated on her sexuality based on assumptions. But no fan posted photos of her and Lucy from her aunt’s Facebook, because it was password protected. It was most probably intentional. Note that she shot a coming-out photoshoot with her “ex-girlfriend” Lucy Vives even before the Wedding where she was supposedly outed. Why shoot a photoshoot TO COME OUT and then hide behind the closet? Her coming out was planned as early as 2015, and so was the bearding of Camila simultaneously.

To me, Lauren and Camila are contracts bound to lie, at this moment. But they have a very grown-up and well-communicated relationship that is very sacred and private, and only the two of them know everything about it. Lauren and Camila are still related to the same contract, and this intuition of mine was confirmed yesterday. She was shooting something for Roger gold’s label. I hope the best for both of them, and I would love it if they were together. But them going public would be huge and in my opinion, detrimental to them.

4)      Who’s Shawn Mendes?

A really career-oriented artist. Shawmila is for him and his promotion only. Not his fault though. He is just a conceited boy with good guitar skills who wants to be extremely famous. I will not talk about his sexuality, because unlike Camila, I can’t trace him to anyone in particular.  But I can say this, Camila’s solo career had plans for Shawmila since the very start. I also believe it will end like Jelena and be back and forth for some time for minor promotions.

 Final Verdict:

Nobody is perfect. Don’t make this about Shawmila Vs Camren. Every artist has their struggles. But please break out of the shell of heteronormativity, misogyny, and racism. Love human beings. The 5H girls and Shawn Mendes are teenagers, now adults, who have been oppressed and manipulated by a capitalistic racist homophobic industry, for money and money only. And only the fans have the power to see the truth and choose the right stuff.

[bluexepher]

Enough is enough

I have been a member of Succulent Tart on WRA since roughly early 2017. My character Xepher has always been a performer and spoke well of the troupe in character. Whenever people asked me about the guild ooc, I told them to apply if interested and when events were. I partook in events whether performing, bartending or supporting and even purchased art to donate for raffles. But the reality was there was something else going on behind the scenes. From onset, I noticed the dreaded clique mentality that we all hate to see in rp communities. Especially when it comes to the elf circles. I remained quiet and watched, assuming that in time things would get better. When I did speak up, I was silenced or told that my points were irrelevant. Time went by and nothing got better. 

What became increasingly frustrating for me was the guilds interaction with people of color and their cultures. The way it was erased from certain themed events they hosted or completely trampled over in other events. No one spoke up. No one said a thing. And when I looked around I saw that Succulent Tart people were everywhere, presenting this guise of pristine reputation so fans believed they could do no wrong.  I recall a conversation in guild chat about why Black face references should only be used for Orcs or Trolls since there was no such thing as black elves. Meanwhile, I have ALWAYS roleplayed Xepher as a brown elf whose face reference is a black model from France. Not a single officer said anything to those people nor did someone speak up. That was just one instance of the many microaggressions that would go on in this guild. I couldn’t say or do anything about it because my point would be invalidated or I was told to be overreacting. And if I went to the public about, well then I was just a hater seeking to start drama. 

What many of you don’t know is that Succulent Tart made those posts about BLM because I spoke out about it in general chat. Prior to all of this, nothing was mentioned in guild chat to let people know they were welcomed in this space. It was just assumed as white privilege has a funny way of doing that. The assumption was all felt safe in the guild from the perspective of many white members and officers. This gallery will showcase what happened in its entirety, from start to finish. The lie that so many in the guild cared and loved me when in reality they never wanted to hear my voice and never supported my endeavors. The chat images can be found here  https://imgur.com/a/o12Y6NX . And the conversations after here https://imgur.com/a/JOoQM02 . 

Some of you will recall I wrote a post about the new skin colors for elves and what this meant for the bigger picture. In the gallery above, a person attempted to make reference to my post as though the guild had done something so amazing for POCs in reblogging it. The irony of that reblog is that  guild members spoke about it as though it was me giving them permission to roleplay black elves without guilt. They completely missed the point and did not understand at all what I was talking about. Also, I want to get something straight, that post was created as a direct response to something that occurred within the guild. Bella, an officer, stated that the lack of ducks in WOW was just as important as the new skin colors. Bella is someone who runs another guild called the Howling Owl and that wasn’t the last time she said something like this. I was provided screenshots of her response to a very real problem that is going on in the guild. All the proof can be found in this gallery. https://imgur.com/a/NhNkJwM

Furthermore, it should be understood that this presentation of understanding and support is meant to save face. This is why you all are seeing their BLM statements on the menagerie, fire fest, and guild tumblr pages. How can they speak to supporting black people and wanting to empower their voices when within their own guild they quite literally ostracized one? The post for the Fire Fest had a pride flag that didn’t have the brown and black stripes. A change that only occurred because I brought it up and it was later argued that it's relatively new so people may not use it. If anyone looked at the menagerie post for BLM you will see there is a quote from Angela Davis. Just the day before, I posted the same quote from her as she is someone I not only follow in philosophy but met and had discussion with in real life. So not only is there a silencing problem here but there is also a lack of credit? Of all the quotes to choose from you pick Angela Davis and that one of her many? Yeah right.  

On June 5 I was approached by an officer from the guild to speak about what changes could happen. This was Alastren, the only officer who made a public statement to do better. The only one who came from a place of wanting to grow rather than defensiveness and fragility. This is an officer of the guild (who has now left) that said the group's echo chamber is problematic. I will include the gallery of our conversation because it speaks for itself. https://imgur.com/a/htamCSp

I will also include links to the guild leader Dice’s post and Alastren’s post for those of you who haven’t seen it for context. You can find Bear’s post on the twerk off and Rhillia’s post about the ‘Uldum Nights’ here for reference.

It was stated earlier that this guild shouldn’t be “condemned for a mistake”, the problem is this isn’t just one mistake. This is a deep rooted mindset that has been maintained for a very long time. The only difference is that now it is coming to light. There was an instance of someone calling the COVID-19 the Kung Flu and no other discussion was had about it after.  So no, I’m not just going to sit tight and hope they change. Alot of people in that guild have privilege to not be concerned with what is going on and to try to just act like this will go away. I do not have that allowance. I never had and never will. Being in this guild was not a positive experience when all I did was give support and content to the guild’s purpose of entertainment and performances. I will not let this get pushed under a rug or forgotten. This shit is real and I’m exhausted. I will no longer have anything to do with Succulent Tart and the Menagerie Boutique. You do not deserve my support when you can’t even earnestly support the cause of many.  

@succulent-tart

[soft-sunflower]

Hyunsoo and Alexithymia vs ASPD

I wanted to make a post on my thoughts in regards to this... I feel like I need to get this off my chest, because this is just personally what I think. You don’t have to like or even agree with me. I just really want to talk about this. When we first meet Do Hyunsoo, we are lead to believe that he’s a psychopath, (we learn he’s actually not) that he was (wrongly) diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder when he was a very young child, without the therapist actually bothering to look into why Hyunsoo would be behaving the way he did. Such as the disappearance of his mother, for example, or even sent some kind of child protective services to his village to find out what’s going on there, have him on surveillance, something rather than just deciding he was going to turn out to be a terrible person.  Back in a previous episode, it was stated that Hyunsoo did not start behaving this way until after his mother went missing. We also know that Hyunsoo’s past was incredibly traumatic, without even really having the details of what happened. (Yet. Hopefully they touch on this. I don’t know.) We’ve recently learned that Hyunsoo has a very repressed memory of his childhood, why? His earliest memory was from when he was 10 years old? And he doesn’t even remember why he was wandering lost in a forest at such a young age? Why? What happened to him to make him forget? Usually a severe trauma is what takes place to make one have true repressed memories. I do not believe that Hyunsoo has ever once suffered from Antisocial Personality Disorder. At all. People with ASPD are also likened to sociopaths, psychopaths and serial killers, which is what his FATHER WAS. NOT him. The only thing Hyunsoo struggles with understanding, recognizing and feeling emotions in himself and in others. It’s why you see focus on his eyes and him reading and studying Jiwon’s expressions for example. He’s learning. He’s teaching himself, because nobody ever taught him this. He was never guided properly in regards to this. He was always told he is essentially a monster and when he grows up, he will be a manipulative and cruel monster.

Sociopaths/psychopaths are not too far off the spectrum in similarities. People with ASPD are normally classified as high functioning sociopaths. These people lack the ability to feel emotion. They lack the ability to understand it. They manipulate, twist, lie, trick, all for their own benefit and enjoy it. They don’t care who they hurt. They have little regard for anyone else, and they also normally are narcissists. Which we know Do Hyunsoo is the furthest thing from. He thinks far too little of himself to even go down that road. Alexithymia, an inability to identify and describe emotions. People with alexithymia have difficulties recognizing and communicating their own emotions, and they also struggle to recognize and respond to emotions in others. Alexthymia can develop from severe sustained trauma. I feel like Hyunsoo leans more toward suffering from alexthymia than being an actual psychopath/sociopath/having ASPD. I think the so-called whack job for a therapist diagnosed him VERY wrongly and inaccurately. She never bothered to find out why he was the way he was. So many adults failed him growing up. They made him believe he was a monster. They made him believe he’d grow up and continue being a monster. They made him believe that he was not able to process or feel any kinds of emotions, and yet he can. We’ve SEEN it. We just saw a complete outpouring of emotion from him in episode 11. I don’t see Hyunsoo as a psychopath/sociopath and never have.

1. His attack on Moojin- justified. Moojin stoned the ever living fuck out of him when he was a just a child. He was getting his revenge on him by messing with him and I’m glad he did, quite frankly. Has he actually done anything that terrible? 2. Faked grief- Of COURSE he did. His past is ready to come back and hunt him down because of freaking Moojin. And someone is trying to hold him accountable and blame him for murder AGAIN that he did not commit. It doesn’t take someone with ASPD to do something like that. Also, this is Kdrama world. If you go back through the past episodes, what has Hyunsoo done that’s bad enough to just go on ahead and decide to diagnose him as a psychopath/sociopath/ASPD/whatever? It all boils down to how wrong he was done as a child thus diagnosed wrong, because we know our man can feel. He spent how many episodes having panic attacks over the thought of losing his wife and her finding out the truth of his real identity? He was forced into taking the identity of Heeseong, don’t forget that. It’s not something HE pushed for. He was threatened with prison if he refused.

Now that he has this happy and loving life, with a wife and daughter who both love him unconditionally and bring him happiness and safety and warmth, something he NEVER experienced growing up, would he really want to risk losing that all by his true identity and all the rumors around it being exposed? What has he really done here that’s so wrong? Please tell me. I’m dying to know.

I don’t see a psychopath. I see a man who’s literally SUFFERED damn near his whole life because he was forced into believing he was something he wasn’t. He was beaten, ostracized and betrayed by people he thought he could trust. I see a man who does suffer from a mental condition, but that he is not beyond help like most psychopaths/ASPD folks are. There’s a huge difference in it all and that’s my honest to goodness opinion on it all. If I had to diagnose him with anything? It would be Alexthymia and anxiety/panic disorder developed from the fact that his emotions have been buried under trauma and lies for so so long.

[creacherkeeper]

How is the cowboi doing? :) I’d love to hear about some of their recent adventures.

OH WELL IT'S ME + ALSO MY DICE HATE(/love) ME SO YOU KNOW THEYRE GETTING WHUMPED CONSTANTLY LMAO

there have certainly been some Events Unfolding so those are under the cut, casey since youre in our campaign now NO PEEKING

fair warning this is .... long ..... you have asked me to talk about my dnd character and you simply CANNOT stop the floodwaters now. enter at your own risk

okay so basically the first arc of the campaign kind of kicked off with them getting a vision from their goddess (the grain goddess/goddess of agriculture) saying that she was trapped in a fey gate and that they needed to come rescue her

so erley immediately Rallied The Posse and set off to do that. they NUMEROUS times tried to pray to her, commune with her, basically just get ANY sort of communication or guidance from her, but the dice like to tell their story so i literally never got above an 11 (paladin with only +2 to religion my beloved) and they never heard from her, which was making them. pretty nervous. when it seemed like everyone else was able to talk to their gods just fine

well we eventually figured out that there was a huge gathering of fey in the woods (me: this might be too big for us to fight. what if its like 30 fey? / my dm, glancing at his notes where he has 2000 fey written down: (: ) and basically the fey like. had captured and were trying to kill what was left of the pantheon so they could bring back gaia as the One True God

we found all this out because it turned out several members of the party had been lying about how much they knew of the fey and had personal connections to the fey they'd kept hidden. and erley, who is ALSO HIDING A LOT from the party like. immediately went on the offense and was just generally very unhappy about this

there had been this fey merchant who kept popping up wherever we were trying to sell us magic weapons that seemed tied to us specifically. erley was always VERY suspicious of her and did everything in their power to stop the others from buying her weapons (which we literally had to buy with -5 to a skill point, not money, v sus) to mixed results. but basically when we got to the fey gathering (we called it gaiapalooza) erley rolled a 1 on their survival check to get through the magic field and like. got teleported to her. and they really wanted information from her so they basically were like LEORA I DONT KNOW WHO TO TRUST I THINK MY PARTY HAS BEEN LYING TO ME, CAN YOU TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT THEM CAN YOU SEE US WHEN YOURE NOT THERE? and basically pretended to need a therapy session in order to milk her for information lmao. she also seemed like. REALLY interested in erley and i was also very nervous about that

and i was RIGHT to be suspicious of her because we found out she WAS ACTUALLY THE BIG BAD and we had to fight her in the arc finale. and several of our party members had rl stuff and were not there, and in game our druid was away casting an 8 hour long spell to try and stop the palooza ceremony, so our party was SUPER nerfed and also as soon as erley realized it WAS actually leora who was behind all of it and she WAS trying to hurt them with those weapons (the weapons were tethers to the gods to be able to kill them basically), they got .... a little angry

and my party found out after irl a year of playing these characters that erley's first level is barbarian :))

so erley raged and did frankly a staggering amount of damage in this fight, and also only stayed up because of rage because they took a LOT of hits. but also. they dont rage FOR A REASON so it sort of took them over and when leora dropped, one of the other pcs ran over to stabilize her as she was making death saves and erley :) maybe :) drove a spear through her heart and killed her :)

and her body immediately just like. overgrew with plants and vines and flowers and basically wrapped the spear in a bed of plants and it was very cinematic and cool

(we have since found out that leora was like. actually an aspect of gaia so. that is. interesting)

of course then erley popped out of rage and was like FUCK this is why i dont do this, i went too far, it always goes too far, THIS is why im ashamed of this, and just got very emo boi about it. so they used their last spell slot to cast restoration on the space they had fought in and reached out to their goddess, having just saved her and the rest of the pantheon like she had asked them to

and i rolled a nat 1!!!

(the dm was like "you have committed this violent act, you feel so low and so bad and in need of guidance, and reach out to your goddess. and the absolute lack of a response just makes you feel empty inside" and i was like :) oh :) okay cool :) you love to see that with your paladins huh)

at this point the druid came back in and, instead of erley like. examining any of their own shit immediately lashed out at her and was like "why did you lie to me about the fey, why did you lie about why you were here, why ARE you here because i realize now it wasnt to help me"

and at that point ONE OF THE FEY QUEENS WALKED IN and the druid was like "... mother ..." and we were all :O

so it turns out the fey queen is her birth mom but had like? kidnapped one of the children of her firbolg tribe and was holding her hostage and the druid was on a quest to find her and bring her back

so erley :) felt :) even more bad about that :) and very shamedly pledged their help to her, and basically was like "as long as youre on this noble quest i will follow you if you'll have me"

so we're on our second arc now, which is traveling across the country to go meet the fey queen and get this kid back. as we were traveling my dm had me roll religion and a luck check and i got a 21 ON RELIGION FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER and a 6 luck. and he was like "you dont usually dream, but you have a nightmare. you know this nightmare was given to you, it was divinely inspired, but you dont know who sent it" and it was just erley killing leora over and over and over again. so they were like. well fuck

(my dm also messaged me privately and we talked and he was like. yeah you can get rid of your oath of devotion and change it to oath of the ancients, i am not telling you or erley why the subclass has changed and you also might get nerfed later. also level up barbarian for the next fight)

so erley was. feeling PRETTY DANG BAD and very guilty and stressed and all that. they did also realize their barbarian side was getting stronger which, considering their backstory is all tragic barbarian shit they were NOT happy about. i was fully prepared to have them be more ostracized from the party and go into full angst mode, but then the druid actually like. pulled them aside and explained why she had hidden information from them, and had a very sweet conversation with them and held their hand and it was VERY touching (she also had the baller line "you think your goddess can hear you and she's not answering. but maybe you're talking in a whisper and she needs to hear you scream")

we had another fight (we're level 7 and my dm told us after it was a cr 32 fight like. dude??? what the fuck?????) and once again erley didnt go down only because of rage

THEY ALSO UNINTENTIONALLY CAST MISTY STEP (which is an ancients spell they didnt have before) and were like WELL NO TIME TO UNPACK WHAT THAT WAS RIGHT NOW, HAVE TO NOT DIE

after the battle was over i asked to roll a check to figure out why i had access to that spell and got :) yeah you guessed it :) another nat 1 :) so erley has literally no idea how they cast that or what it could mean. we just had a new pc introduced who is a sorcerer so erley is definitely going to talk to her and see if she knows anything. because they are FULLY IN THE DARK about their subclass change or what that means in game

we're also (because of the fucking cr 32 fight) going to be leveling up again soon, and babey you KNOW im leveling barbarian. after rage kept me up and then rolling another nat 1 religion check, and also me the player not knowing whats up with their goddess/magic, i simply cant level paladin rn. so im BETWEEN A FEW SUBCLASS OPTIONS and ive been thinking them over but i think it really depends how the next few games go

my FULL ANGST option was to make them level into zealot barbarian like their awful dad, but i thought that made the least sense in universe rn

secondary angst option is to level into berserker, which i think fits pretty closely with how i've been roleplaying the rage so far. trading off an extra attack for a level of exhaustion fits pretty closely. also whump central

the NICE option is to have them be a totem warrior barbarian, and have both their paladin steed and their totem be a bull :) (they are a cowboi after all) i think thats the closest i can marry their two classes and potentially have some healthy growth for them, let them see that the rage doesnt HAVE to be a bad thing, that being a barbarian isnt something they HAVE to be ashamed of. reskinning the bear totem would give them resistance to all damage but psychic while raging, and im planning on taking the tough feat, so theyd pretty much be ... an unstoppable tank. plus i can still divine smite while in rage so theyd be VERY powerful

and now youre all caught up on my very special boi :))))) bet you didnt expect quite that much of an infodump but. listen. listen im simply obsessed with dnd i cannot help it. any chance to talk about my characters i WILL TAKE IN A HEARTBEAT (thank u for prompting my ramble lmao)

[izlaria]

Someone you like (part 2)

This is the second chapter of my “Someone you like” inspired fic. It’s also available on AO3 in case you prefer that platform.

Feel free to write comments in the tags or send me messages about this. I love feedback!

16 and 14 years old

Pidge Gunderson. I am Pidge Gunderson.

Katie looked herself in the mirror, trying to convince her brain that the image reflected was hers, that it was a boy, with no previous links to the Garrison, someone who had wanted to go into Communications.

It didn’t really work. All she saw was Matt: his glasses; his short, unkempt haircut; his nickname for her.

Maybe it was better like this. Katie had initially meant to immerse herself in this new identity, to go so deep into Pidge Gunderson that no one would be able to see past the cover, but the truth still kept slipping through her defenses. Katie was a Holt and her family was missing, so she was gonna find them. Pidge was just a tool.

It would be easier if there weren’t so many risks in studying at the Garrison.

Her father hadn’t brought her around often, but Katie had become infamous among the night-time security for her excursions to discover sensitive information regarding the Kerberos mission. Iverson, in particular, was probably expecting a new advance on her part.

He hadn’t recognized her, yet.

Sometimes Katie worried that she’d already been exposed and that they were just gathering evidence before actually making a move against her. If the Garrison was willing to lie about her father’s and brother’s deaths, then she couldn’t overlook the possibility that corruption ran deep within the organization.

She sighed, tugging at the ends of her hair.

“Come on, Gunderson!” she heard someone shout from outside her door. “You’re coming to lunch with us whether you want to or not!”

Lance continued to make noises, probably talking to Hunk. They usually threatened to hack into her keypad if she didn’t come out to join them for meals. Katie couldn’t really understand their stubbornness. She might have appreciated their offer of friendship back in Middle School, when she’d felt ostracized by her peers, but now it was just another hazard to her already convoluted plan.

“Go bother some poor girl, McClain!” Katie shouted in response, feeling more inpatient than strictly necessary.

She knew that Lance meant well, but she didn’t have time for his hijinks. Katie had a duty to her family, first and foremost, and any effort spent placating her teammates was a waste in that regard. Not to mention that Lance had a knack for attracting attention that completely opposed her own need to remain unseen.

Her door slid open with an elegant swoosh.

Katie poked her head from the bathroom to glare at the two boys who stood there. Hunk had the sense to look ashamed, but Lance just grinned.

“It’s bonding time, Pidge!” He stepped into the room, arms wide open. His easy smile was the same as ever, despite the news they’d received earlier that day about their performance stats. It was probably why Lance was there, after all.

Katie actually felt a little bad about the whole thing. She wasn’t particularly invested in training as a communications officer and, though she wouldn’t say it affected her retainment of the knowledge demanded from her, it certainly translated into frustration when they were in the simulator.

She wasn’t much of a team player, Katie could admit.

“If you’re trying to get on my good side, this is not how to do it,” she grumbled, trying her best to keep her voice low. Too much of a change would eventually weight on her vocal cords or sound plain ridiculous, but a difference in pitch and speech patterns were certainly necessary to disguise her true identity. Thankfully, any slip up could be attributed to puberty, as she’d been seeing many of their male classmates endure the difficulties of cracking voices.

Lance took her by the shoulders and shook her indiscriminately. “Quit being the worst!” His cheerfulness hid the vexation that Katie knew he truly felt. “We’re having burgers today, so I’m not letting you bring us down.”

She snickered. Lance was notorious for his love of junk food, despite Hunk’s attempts to get them more nutritious meals. He frequently spoke about his mother’s cooking but didn’t seem to have that same interest in the dietary plan prepared by the Garrison.

Katie couldn’t really fault him for that. Their meals were usually so blend that they seemed to withdraw taste from any of the condiments added.

From behind Lance, Hunk had finally gathered enough courage to come in. He looked around in such false innocence that Katie might have believed him, hadn’t she caught him going through her drawers the previous week. That boy was nosy as hell.

Just another reason to keep them away.

“If I go with you to the cafeteria, does that mean I can get you out of my room?” She fixed them with a stony look.

“For a time,” Lance offered, all cheeky and bright and annoying.

Hunk put a hand on his shoulder, pulling his friend back from Katie. “We noticed you didn’t eat yesterday, again.” He sighed. “If you took better care of yourself, we wouldn’t come here so often.”

Katie let that reasoning sit with her for a bit. She usually sneaked granola bars and other less-perishable types of food into her room to eat while she worked, but it was true that she didn’t really sit for meals unless the boys pushed her. She didn’t think they would notice.

It brought a strange warmth to her chest. She’d felt cold for so long now, always at arm’s length from those around her. Her mother had tried, but she was grieving and her suffering filled her until there was no more room for her daughter. These small kindnesses had gone away with Matt.

She struggled not to reach into her pocket for the picture she kept of them. Hunk had a curious soul and Lance was a gossip; they had almost caught her one too many times.

“I guess I did want your input on how to recalibrate this old radio I found in the junkyard…” Katie huffed out a breath, which the boys took as a surrender.

“Ah, nothing like the smell of oil and grease to really improve the day!” Lance put an arm around her shoulders, but she quickly dodged away, lest he recognize anything different about her body. Even though she was already pretending to be a boy, Katie didn’t want to also have to pretend to be trans. It was a line that she dared not cross, morally.

She felt the dysmorphia more acutely than she’d imagined she would. As a child, she had enjoyed cutesy things and dresses and her long hair. The sudden departure from those possessions was supposed to remove her from her previous identity, but Katie would always know the truth. There was no escaping it.

More than anything, it was the inability to choose that left her frazzled. The loose clothes and glasses and boyish haircut didn’t bother her and they did give her a liberty that more feminine wear didn’t, but Katie wished the circumstances allowed her to be a girl too, sometimes.

Alas, here she was, stuck between Hunk and Lance as they basically escorted her to the cafeteria. Matt would have a conniption if he ever found out there were boys breaking into her room at all times of the day.

“You thinking about those amazing fries we’re gonna get?” Lance sighed dreamily. “Honestly, I don’t know how they do it. Every other meal freaking sucks, but then Monday comes around and the cooks just nail it!”

Hunk chuckled, nodding along. “They probably want to put us in a good mood for the week. Everybody knows that getting back to classes after the weekend can be hard.”

“Hard? It’s impossible.” Lance dragged his hands through his face. “I nearly fell asleep during Arithmetic today. Professor Reeves is such a bore!”

“Maybe you wouldn’t fall asleep if you didn’t spend Sunday nights in town,” Katie quipped before she could stop herself.

“Yeah, well,” Lance floundered. “What’s your excuse, then? You won’t come with us, but you still look dead on your feet in the mornings!”

“I’m just not a morning person.” She crossed her arms, turning away from Lance.

In doing so, however, she came face to face with Hunk, who was staring at her with an inquisitive look. He was less loud about it than Lance, but it was clear that he also had questions about what Katie spent her time doing.

She tightened her arms around herself, feeling her stomach drop.

This was why Katie didn’t like to talk to them. It was usually easy to ignore Lance, because of how over-the-top he was, but Hunk’s gentleness and concern made the guilt rise within her. She didn’t want to involve other people in her lies, didn’t want them to believe Pidge was their friend only to be faced with a betrayal.

And that’s how they would see it, wasn’t it? Katie didn’t have a lot of experience with friendships, especially not ones as deep as Hunk and Lance’s, but no sane person would take it lightly to find out someone had lied about their whole identity and motivations.

Besides, if she ever did find out what the Garrison was hiding, it could possibly affect the future of the organization and disrupt the trajectory of every student there.

Before Katie could go further into her spiraling thoughts, she felt Hunk maneuver her into the cafeteria line. She had tuned out the rest of their conversation and now Lance spoke of a girl in his Aerodynamics class.

She ignored his ramblings. Lance tried to project this image of a lady’s man, but the few dates he’d scored since they started school never seemed to really move forward. They ended up in an endless cycle in which Lance fixated on some girl, hit on her endlessly, then finally gave up and went crying to Hunk.

Katie couldn’t see the appeal of it, but it most likely had to do with Lance’s self-esteem and need for validation.

“I think Jiya might actually like me!” he declared, despite how both Hunk and Katie were more focused on filling their trays with food. “Whenever the teacher asks me to stay behind and clean up, she stays to help! That has to mean something!”

Katie collected her juice box and went to sit down, pointedly ignoring Lance’s questions.

“I’m sure you’re right,” Hunk said agreeably. He didn’t sound too sure, but his expression showed that he was trying to be positive for Lance’s sake.

“Or, you know, the girl is just a nice person who thought you were being picked on by the teacher.” Katie raised her eyes to give Lance an unimpressed look. “And you’re reading too much into it.”

The boy scowled at her. “What would you know, Pidge? I’ve never seen you with a girl before.”

“Yeah,” she raised an eyebrow, feeling smug that the other two wouldn’t understand the humor in this. “What do I know of girls?”

Katie had to suppress a laugh when Lance turned to her with a very confused expression. Hunk, however, gave her a small, secretive smile that set off all kinds of warning signs.

“I don’t get it,” Lance complained to Hunk, then turned back to her. “I don’t get it!”

“Well,” Hunk started and immediately her heart started pounding in her chest. Outwardly, Katie tried to remain impassive. “The girls in our class all love Pidge.”

“They do?!” Lance burst out, eyes widened. His gaze shifted back and forth between her and Hunk.

They didn’t, Katie was pretty sure. Did they?

“They think he’s cute,” Hunk confirmed, waving his fork in the air as if trying to recall the exact words. “Pidge is quiet, but he’s smart and mostly polite, so Denise decided he was a good guy and the rest of the girls kinda followed her lead.”

Now that Katie thought about it, it was true that she’d helped Denise with her Bio homework and that people had been nicer to her since. She supposed they could see Pidge in a good light, especially because he seemed so much younger than the other students in Engineering.

Katie blinked rapidly to dispel her thoughts. She’d been thinking of Pidge in the third person, again.

“Fine, then.” Lance narrowed his eyes at Katie. “What miraculous advice do you have for me, oh Great Pidgeon?”

Despite his sarcasm, it was clear that Lance truly wanted an answer. It was one of the most ridiculous situations Katie had ever found herself in.

“How about you show some interest in what these girls like, instead of showboating around them?” She flicked a fry at him, which Hunk quickly stole for himself. “Sure, some people want to be impressed, but we all got into the Garrison and a lot of them already know your grades on the simulator. Most girls want someone who will listen and who they can have fun with.”

“I can be fun!” Lance protested.

“I get what Pidge’s saying, though,” Hunk intervened. Katie hadn’t meant to be harsh, but Lance suddenly looked a little deflated. “We know that you’re great, but you’re always so busy trying to be what these girls want from you that you don’t really get to know them. A little kindness goes a long way.”

Katie nodded along, munching on her burger. “No girl wants an egocentric boyfriend,” she added, mouth still half full. Lance glared at her in both disgust and indignancy.

“I don’t want to hear this from you, Mister I’m-not-here-to-make-friends!”

She shrugged and continued to eat her burger.

“Okay, okay…” Hunk put his hands up placatingly. “How about I get us some dessert and we change the subject?”

Lance glanced at him through the corner of his eyes. “Those guava-flavored popsicles?”

“You know it!” Hunk grinned back at him and the two shared a high-five.

“You’re so easy to please,” Katie commented once Hunk had gotten up. She used her last fry to soak up the mayo leftover on her plate.

Lance glared at her for a moment, before letting the last of his annoyance slip away. He reached into his backpack and took out an apple.

“Here.” He deposited it on her tray.

Katie frowned at him. “What is this?”

“You always eat fruit after we get something greasy, right?” he asked it casually, distracted by trying to squeeze ketchup onto his remaining fries. The condiment bottles in the cafeteria were continuously blocked.

“Yeah.” She blinked up at him, caught by surprise. Her voice had gone soft and she had to clear her throat to dispel the emotion that knotted there. “I didn’t think you would remember.”

Lance looked up from his food to give her an exaggerated eye-roll.

“You’re my friend, Pidge.” He kicked her under the table. “In spite of all your efforts to keep me away.”

She stayed silent for a moment, staring at the apple.

“Thank you,” she said. I’m sorry, she wanted to add, but it would make no sense to him. As far as Lance knew, Pidge was cold and self-involved and clinical to a fault.

“Don’t mention it!” He threw a fry up and tried to catch it with his mouth, but it merely bounced off his nose, marking it with ketchup. “Dang! One more!”

Katie let out a breath of laughter. Then, sitting up to better her odds, she waved at Lance. “Try me.”

By the time Hunk returned, Katie was biting into her apple as Lance complained about the ketchup stains he’d gotten on his uniform jacket.

--

She didn’t know what had driven her away from the dorms that day. There was a restless energy within her that demanded space and, though she’d never been the biggest fan of nature, it had sent her directly into the Arizona desert.

Katie felt like Pidge, today. Not like Pidge Gunderson, but like the little girl who’d yelled a misheard swearword at locked doors, until her brother had come to her rescue. She felt young and impulsive and alive, despite the grief that still weighted on her shoulders.

More than anything, she missed her mom.

In Katie’s eyes, Coleen Holt knew everything there was to know about agriculture and plant life. She was a different kind of genius from her father and brother, possessing a peacefulness about her that none of the other Holts could ever hope for. It had been a comfort through the years of Katie’s adolescence.

Sitting underneath one of the few trees distributed across the Garrison grounds reminded Katie of her grandmother’s place in Italy, where the fruit trees spread as far as the horizon. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine the sweet smells that rose from the vegetation.

“I wonder if they have lemon trees here,” she murmured to herself.

“I don’t think they do, Pidge.”

Katie lurched back in shock. She felt her shoulder scrape against the tree trunk and had to stretch out an arm to keep from falling. Lance sent her a carefree grin, bent down at the waist to look her in the eye, as he usually did. It irritated Katie to no end, not only for how condescending it was, but because it always put him too far into her personal bubble.

“What are you even doing here, Lance?” she asked once her heartrate had gone down.

“I saw you through a window and thought we could eat together, since Hunk is sick.” He looked pointedly at the half-eaten sandwich she’d tossed in her surprise. “I see you started without me.”

“Well, now I’ll have to buy something else for lunch, so thanks for that,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Don’t be like that, Pidgeon.” Lance poked her on the ribs. “I even brought you something as a bribe.” And then he extended an apple towards her.

Katie took it, trying to cover up her amusement with exasperation. “Do you think I’m obsessed with apples or something?”

“Next time I’ll bring you a lemon,” he teased.

Maybe it was because she felt more herself than she had in weeks, but Katie snickered at him. While his sanguinity could be exhausting, this time it was a welcome relief from the stagnation she’d fallen under.

Lance pulled out a sandwich from his pack, one of those 30 centimeters subs in Italian bread and multiple fixings, and Katie felt her mouth water at the sight. He must have noticed, because Lance chuckled and broke out one end for her.

“I think this is a palo verde,” he remarked after swallowing his first bite. At a confused look from Katie, he clarified, “the tree. You were talking about it before, right?”

“You speak Spanish?”

“Yeah…” He sounded like he was laughing at her. “I’m Cuban.”

Katie suddenly felt very stupid. He and Hunk had probably mentioned this already, but she didn’t pay them that much attention. It was a little embarrassing, especially when Lance seemed to be memorizing every small piece of information she offered him.

“Oh.” She searched for the right thing to say. “I didn’t know. Your last name sounds American.”

The whole situation left in her a sense of déjà vu. She couldn’t quite remember why, but the words pulled at her memory.

Thankfully, Lance took it in stride. “Our family has been to the US, then back to Cuba, then back to the US for generations. My whole name is actually Lance Serrano Mcclain.”

She nodded. Normally Katie would let the conversation drop and focus on finishing her meal, but she had already decided to take a bit of a break that day, in order to be more attentive at night. It couldn’t hurt to find out more about her teammate.

“So… Palo verde?”

“It means green stick, which seems kind of unfair, because this tree is actually pretty big, especially for the climate around here.” Lance fanned himself. “I hate how dry it gets.”

She almost agreed with him, but, as far as Lance and Hunk were concerned, Pidge Gunderson had no reason to have been outside of Arizona. Instead, she pretended to ponder his comment.

“The desert can be pretty unpredictable. The lack of humidity during the day is bad, but I wouldn’t want to be caught out when the temperatures drop.”

Lance faked a shiver. “Don’t even talk about that! I have too much tropical blood to handle the cold well. Hunk’s Samoan, by the way,” and there was unnecessary emphasis to his words here, “so he’s the same.”

“I didn’t realize both of you weren’t from around here.” Katie could imagine how much they missed their families. Choosing to voluntarily leave so that they could study at the Garrison must have been difficult.

“That’s nice to hear.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just…” He scrunched up his nose, as if he wanted to take back the words as he said them. “You were so cold to us when we first met, we weren’t sure what it was about.”

It was her turn to grimace. Katie hadn’t wanted to seem like so much of a jerk. She could be snappish and patronizing, even with those she loved, but her haughtiness towards her teammates had been a façade created to keep them out. Not that it did any good.

“Ugh, you’re already closed off, again.” Lance threw his head back in frustration. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s just personal, Lance.” Katie played with the apple in her hands. “I swear it’s not about you two.”

Without looking directly at him, she couldn’t tell what expression Lance was making. He stared at her, letting the silence extend.

Then he popped the last of the sub into his mouth, spreading back onto the grass.

“We will pester it out of you.” She turned to see him grinning. The confidence there was a quiet thing, so much different than Lance’s usual hyperboles and that much more effective. She felt dazed by it. “Eventually.”

Katie had never understood what the girls in her school meant when they talked about crushes. They always seemed frivolous, going on about someone’s hair or how handsome they were or how strong. Meanwhile, Katie had simply hoped for a friend, for a respite to the unending mocking.

Still, Lance suddenly looked very interesting under this light. His chin was too pointed to be considered attractive, but his blue eyes caught the sunshine like polished stone. He could be funny and thoughtful and inventive, attributes Katie hadn’t expected to value.

She moved her gaze to where another group of students was sitting, uncertain if the heat running up her neck would translate into a damning blush. She bit into the apple to keep from incriminating herself further.

[chibivesicle]

i’d like to hear more about what you think the consequences of asirpa’s crush on sugimoto will be! do you think sugimoto knows? i find it hard to believe that asirpa would think that sugimoto would just go “aw shucks” and stay in hokkaido with her if botarou steals all the gold (if that’s the reason why she let go).

I’m combining two asks which are pretty much on the same topic.  What do I think about Asirpa’s crush on Sugimoto? First off, thanks for your asks! 

I have complicated feelings on Asirpa’s crush on him.  Personally, I’ve never been a fan of this plot point/plot device since I’d like to have a female character not being driven in part by a male character.

I’ve been wondering more recently if Asirpa’s crush is a way for Noda to remind us that she’s still not an adult and that despite her best intentions, she’s still going to approach things as a child or young teen.  As icing4me states, I too find it hard to believe that Sugimoto would be like, “Welp, no gold to get that expensive eye surgery in the States for the woman I love, Umeko.  Might as well stay here in Hokkaido with my adopted kid sister/personal pure icon.”

Based on the number of times that her crush on Sugimoto has been pretty obvious to characters like Ogata and Boutarou, I’m both surprised and not surprised that Sugimoto is oblivious to it.  We know that Sugimoto’s ultimate goal is to make a quick buck to get the required surgery for Umeko and he isn’t afraid to do bad things to achieve this goal based around some unresolved guilt about Toraji’s death.  We know a bit more about this from Sugimoto’s flashbacks, but I think we are missing some key points about it.  Sugimoto also can be pretty dense about things when it interferes with his own opinion and worldview.  Sugimoto wants to paint himself as a black and white kinda guy.  I also think Noda is a decent artist by making Sugimoto not respond to her crush whether or not he is actively aware of it.  I really think he doesn’t know.

As our Anon ask indicates - the big question is if Asirpa will confront this crush of hers. And if so, it be a very interesting aspect to the story. One of the most important angles around her crush is how Ogata tries to use it to his advantage to convince her to give him the code.  Before he has his meltdown on the ice floe, he creates a horrible but somewhat believable story to get Asirpa to trust him, driven by the fact that he knows Sugimoto’s motive in the gold hunt.

By focusing on Sugimoto’s distant female love interest he tried to appeal to breaking her crush on Sugimoto and to have her feel sorry for him in his apparent death and would give Ogata the information to help this unnamed woman which results in Ogata using the name Tome.

I among many other readers of GK thought that Ogata’s story, though a lie to try to manipulate Asirpa, was likely grounded in truth based on his own experience. e.g. Tome is his own mother and that Sugimoto was the stand in for Hanazawa as he is there to witness his end as well as his declared love for Tome.  He also made Sugimoto say that he liked anglerfish nabe ,which we know Ogata liked as well as his father according to his mentally ill mother.   One part of me wonders if this was actually true seeing that Ogata’s father was a wealthy elite and instead his Mother made up this story to help Ogata connect with the dish something like “Oh your father loved this nabe, it is great you love it too young Ogata!”  Anyways, the manga has made it clear that Ogata’s mother suffered from mental illness and had what one may call a crush on Hanazawa.  Therefore, Ogata has seen the negative effects of an unrealistic crush on an unattainable man.

I honestly had expected that after Asirpa had time to digest what happened on the ice floe, that she would have been able to reflect on her own feelings for Sugimoto seeing how Ogata almost had her convinced.  I’ve never been able to shake off the gut feeling that Asirpa’s crush on Sugimoto and Ogata’s own mother are intrinsically linked in the story.  Hell, Sugimoto’s own crush on Umeko and feelings for her left him bitter as he watched his ‘best friend’ marry the woman he loved and then he beat him up to prove - well something and having Umeko validate her love for Toraji.

Instead, she seemed to double-down on her crush of Sugimoto where she tells herself that she’d be willing to kill for Sugimoto’s sake.  Of course as a reader, I don’t want to see this happen since she has so far avoided killing directly, but as I’ve argued before she isn’t innocent in all of this in the same way Yuusaku was not innocent as a flag bearer in the war.  Maybe this double-down was to make sure that Boutarou would observe her and the use it to his advantage in the recent chapter.  With Ogata out of the group for the time being having Boutarou examine things while she denies her crush allows him to plot how he’ll make his moves. We know that Sugimoto, despite saying he’s in Hokkaido to find gold/quick cash to help Umeko, he never had the guts to talk to her about his plans.  Instead, he’s doing things without ever telling her of his intent which lets us know that he’s in part running away from reality and this might be part of his own PTSD response.

At the same time, Asirpa has run away from her own responsibility to grow and develop in her own community.  Wilk wanted her to be the next leader of the Ainu/Partisan fight against imperial powers and part of that was to have her redefine what type of Ainu woman she would become.  I’m in favor of the idea of her being a new type of Ainu woman, but running away for your own community to develop that in a crazy quest to find hidden gold that your mastermind father hid may not be the best way for her to come into her own.  Early in the manga, comments are made about her lack of facial tattoos (though the Japanese government was working hard to ban them) and when she first meets Kirawus, he calls her a weird kid.

It makes me wonder if her crush is also an excuse for her to ignore reality and growing power of the Japanese over the fate of the Ainu.  If anything, it seems that Asirpa may be a more conflicted character than she has revealed to date.  She wants to help the Ainu.  She wants to help Sugimoto b/c of her crush.  But she also wants to go home and just be her best Ainu self and spend time with her Huci.  I think that Asirpa knows that she can’t have all of these things.  But as long as she clings to her crush and this ‘childish dream’ it can continue. When Ogata was talking to her on the ice floe, the idea of Sugimoto being dead was a good reason for her to find heading home to be a good option.  She lost her ‘partnership’ and her role in the quest for the gold could be complete if she told someone the code.

It has been clear that Asirpa holds her emotions down and she tries her best to act mature and pretend like she’s cool and collected.  This is where she has overlap with Ogata again; both of them try to suppress their emotions relating to a wide variety of things and they have more similar backgrounds than either of them have with Sugimoto.  I’ve debated if Ogata has actively tried to ‘help’ Asirpa by rationalizing that she lost her mother when she was young and raised by her grandma like him and also having an absent father who was perhaps looking for a pure icon (though that pure icon bit is total Ogata-vision).  One could argue that Ogata ‘lost’ his mother long before she died of poisoning and Noda has beat us over the head about this. Specifically, the link between Asirpa’s fine line of being involved in a bloody conflict while keeping her hands clean with that of Yuusaku, now ‘haunting’ Ogata’s mind.  It is easy to understand that both Hanazawa and Wilk ‘abandoned’ their children for their own personal career/gain.  Hanazawa ignored Ogata due to the questionable state of his mother and her likely poor social standing/embarrassment potential while Wilk had to sacrifice himself to the system and leave Asirpa clues to lead her to what he would like her to perhaps do.

The manga started on the concept of a partnership between Sugimoto and Asirpa which is a thought provoking concept on many levels.  Adult with teen.  Man with girl.  Japanese man with Ainu teen.  The Japanese man isn’t abusing nor sexualizing the Ainu girl.  This premise is what really caught my attention.  As the manga has unfolded, even though the Asirpa - Sugimoto partnership was an initial spark, I have always been more fascinated by the huge amount of overlap between Ogata and Asirpa which I’ve written about before.  What we do get is some of the ‘pure & innocent’ native stereotype from Sugimoto from time to time which Ogata never applies to her.  Sugimoto was ostracized being a survivor of TB (or the fact he somehow never got it) but he has always seen himself as a Japanese man not questioning the policies of the government he fought for.

Asirpa in contrast isn’t happy with things, but in part refused to participate in the changes to Hokkaido to avoid dealing with the issue. Wilk told her to learn Japanese and she didn’t.  Wilk didn’t do this because he wasn’t proud of his own background, he told her because it was practical and would help her in finding the gold.

Honestly, I want her crush to be shattered by a realization that her denial of the possible outcomes is indeed childish.  I think she let go of the door handle since Boutarou is telling her the reality that destroys her dream.  Asirpa was enjoying this crazy quest to avoid making a single decision and being an adult about things.  She can help her people; she can be with Sugimoto; or she can just head home to Huci.  Her hesitation and the fact that Boutarou goes straight for that indicates that he likely knows that she’s attempting to balance the impossible. 

Frequently, I’ve made fun of Tanigaki about how he was avoiding reality by treating Asirpa like a side quest.  But, Tanigaki is the most obvious character who is hiding from going back home to the matagi native range and facing his father.  Yet, we could argue most of the characters are avoiding heading back to face reality.  Sugimoto is avoiding Umeko and the disappointment and guilt.  Ogata is working towards his mysterious goal related to Tsurumi.  Shiraishi could have just gone back to the mainland and bounce around going to brothels and drinking. Hijikata could have found Nagakura and they could have just retired to be two old guys drinking tea and hanging out but he’s on a quest to find a fight worth dying for.

This reply has spiraled out of control; whoops.  My main opinion is that Asirpa will have to face her crush and what it means for the rest of her life and how she will interact with the rest of the cast.  My gut also thinks this will get tied back to Ogata due to her overlap with his mother’s own ‘crush’.

[shadowfae]

There's gotta be people who lie in the middle ground between otherkin and copinglinkers, right?

This just reminds me of the "can people choose to be trans" discourse and personally I've never found the value in trying to find a clean dividing line between people who "choose" to be trans and people who "are" trans, like obviously some people feel dysphoria much more than others and it's important to recognize that, but that doesn't mean theres some "how miserable would you be if you were forced to be cis" test that can decide who is a Valid Trans Person or not. It feels to me like it might be the same with the broader otherkin spectrum, but admittedly I don't know much about the community?

That said, the otherkin community has been really cool and like, when I go digging in early internet history I often find beautifully preserved histories and narratives from otherkin blogs about communities and sites that people frequented. And that's something I'm forever grateful for. I'm glad that there are still folks out there who pass on that history and find value in those communities.

Okay so I waited until I’d officially gotten out of bed (yes, everything I’ve done today was on my phone in bed) to answer this properly.

The thing that I’ve never much mentioned in my place of this argument - and I feel that if I’m going to, I should have a few personal essays to publish first in order to make my point clearly - is that at least for me, my kintypes and my linktypes feel so different there is absolutely no way I could mistake them for each other.

That’s why I’m not calling whatever’s going on with the Xweetok stuff a linktype, because there’s no choice there, it’s just me getting hit in the face with Xweetok animality and trying to figure out what it all means.

My kintypes are intrinsic to my personality. If you leave me alone for a bit, or put me somewhere where I feel totally, completely safe, I go so feral it’s not even funny. I growl. I hiss. My ears, tail(s), and wings do all my body language for me. I walk as digitigrade as a human is capable of. I settle into the mentality of an animal, except for when I slide into dignity and divinity, or when you hand me a piece of technology and then I’m as gruff as a pirate and humming to lyrics nobody else can hear.

My linktypes? Something happens. Panic, anger, fear, terror. I am [insert linktype here], here is what it is correct for me to do, here is what I will do, I navigate my way out of it with grace, I handle it as my linktypes would. Things hurt and I settle into their skin, if only for a little while. When their skin is hard to settle it, I simply change it. Being Kiyoteru was a way for me to understand my own sexual awakening when I’d never been safe enough to recognize my own animality, until I fused it with Luteia kinfeels into the world’s worst coping mechanism (don’t do that, kids) and did some things I’m very much not proud of.

Being Yukari was an answer to dysphoria and social ostracization that served me for quite a long time, and that I no longer need, because I am slightly more comfortable in my own skin. It was a matter of personality and aeslinking: she was a moon-girl who liked warm tea on snowy days and pretty poetry and rabbits. I never had her connection to rabbits, they’re just pets to me, but when I needed it I could pretend to be near a bunny the way she probably was bunnyhearted, and I could be a moon-girl until the sun came up for me.

My kintypes are deeper than that. Ranisson and Pale do seem a matter of personality, being as they are the closest to human, except for all the places where their experiences built them from the ground up. As Pale I was a Devil without his powers that didn’t quite know it enough to stop reaching for more power. As Ranisson, I was a girl in a war that was going to end with everyone I cared about dead, and I almost didn’t care, because we’d all be in the hivemind and I’d never be alone again.

Kiyoteru and Yukari were not that way. They were blank canvases that I could change as I needed to, for the purposes of saving me from myself. Even if they’d had actual stories, even if they were more than pretty faces and aesthetics, I would have made them do as I pleased to get me through.

From the inside, linktypes and kintypes seem so fundamentally different to me that I honestly find it hard to see a middle ground there. I’m not everyone, for some there absolutely is a middle. For some, they really can just ignore their own nonhumanity and walk away unscathed. There will always be a gray area, a fringe case or seven, a middle ground where nobody can define where it stops. And I’m not going to be the one to lay down what that middle ground is, because it is antithetical to my entire existence and experience, and it’s something I will never understand for my own.

I insist that everyone be clear about the terms that fit them to the best of their ability because I don’t like being lied to, especially after I’ve placed my trust in people to tell the truth. I don’t trust a salesman, but I’ll try any answer on StackOverflow once. You give me an answer on SO to a complex problem that fucks up my computer, I’m going to be pissed. You lie to me knowingly about your nonhuman/fictional identity in our tags, I’m going to be pissed.

If people say “this is an identity and I don’t know how voluntary it is” I go “yeah okay fair enough.” If they say they’re one or the other, I say the same. If they say they’re one and their experiences match the other, I’ll point that out. If they proceed to insult me and tell me I’m a gatekeeper, I am going to be pissed.

And then if they proceed to throw death threats in my face, I will be furious. I think I have every right to be in that case, and I have no use for those who would side with that sort of person. That’s all anyone’s been asking. Be where you are but be honest about your experiences, and we’ll find a place for you. Even if you say “I’m a linker, but I feel better in this space for otherkin, are we cool with me being here?” the answer will be yes, and then we’ll probably bring you our questions about your experiences. That’s what we do. We ask about others’ experiences and we nitpick how they work because they’re fascinating.

We preserve our history because we have to know where we come from. We have to know we’re not alone. I don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to read the history of the community they’re from. Now maybe it’s that I have no ties to my own heritage by blood, and those who do aren’t so interested, but if anything happened to our history I don’t know what I’d do. We need it to say no, if we’re crazy it’s not for this, that this is truly what we are, that we are not the first to have walked this path, and that those who came before us survived to tell the tale.

I am what I am. Everyone else is what they are. So long as people say that, then I have no issues with anyone about it.

[19mrs-barnes17]

Alike

Summary: You are a witch, but the Winchester don’t know just yet.

Part: 1/1

Pairing: Dean Winchester x reader

Warnings: angst-ish

Word count: 2,452

A/N: Just a lil something I wrote because I had time. Enjoy!

~

“Do you know what time it is?” The dark sky barely lit with a splattering of stars was hardly any help in illuminating your brand new stalker friend. The figure was a man but you knew better than that, he was more than a man and you had a feeling he was more than a stranger. He had been following for at least 3 blocks, through alleyways and across streets. You glanced at your phone and paused, glaring the man down with a rather tired expression. “It’s three in the morning. So if you’re going to attack you better hop to it.”

The figure freezes in place, almost as if they aren’t believing what they see and are waiting for the illusion to fade. However, the longer you stood tapping your boot on the pavement the more keen he seemed in resuming his previous activity. The moment he started to gain speed his hand extended, face momentarily illuminating beneath a streetlight. Your heart dropped into your stomach. 

“Damian?” He sped up a little but not enough to make a difference, he was nearly upon you when the shot rang out. It’s echo hauntingly familiar to your ears. You had feared the sound throughout your childhood, always waiting for the day they came for you. The racing of your heart and the dropping of his body stunned you into silence, eyes staring in shock. It didn’t surprise you to see it, but it did surprise you that it was your ex who had bitten the bullet. He was a pompous ass, but still… Something about seeing someone you used to care about drop dead messes with your mind. Especially when you were terrified you were next.

“Hey, you alright?” Through all the chaos inside your skull you hadn’t paid much attention to the man standing beside you, hand reaching out gingerly. Your eyes met a pair that held a mixture of color swimming in an ocean of green. They seemed to change depending on how he stood and the way the lighting hit, it was a tad distracting. He wasn’t aiming his gun at you but you still didn’t trust yourself to speak just yet, only allowing a single nod. 

“Well he’s down, she okay over there Sammy?” While the man next to you had ever changing glimmers in his green eyes, you were fairly certain you preferred this man’s. An indescribable deep green, one that surpassed a forest and the typical candy apple green, they were one of a kind. And he seemed to know it, his smirk appearing as he studied your gaze.

“She has a voice and a mind of her own.” He held up his hands and apologized before extending a hand and introducing himself. Dean Winchester. He called the man next to you Sammy… Oh, you were majorly fucked if they even began to suspect you for a minute. The Winchesters? Damn you Damian! You were a shit boyfriend and you’re shit at hiding from hunters. Now you’re terrible taste in men was coming to bite you in the ass. Real fantastic. He’s at least dead, you however still have to deal with the hunters before you.

“You got a name?” You eyed him with a flicker of curiosity running through your veins, debating if the truth would kill you. A shrug and an introduction later it turned out it didn’t. They hadn’t recognized your family name, so they weren’t familiar with the witch families. That was good.

“Well, um, thanks I guess? Asshole cheated and blamed me, and the whole time he was a…?” You trialed off feigning ignorance, if you were going to get out of this alive you needed a cover quick. Since you were hardly shaken up, the sight of something you had dealt with all your life, a hunter seemed the best one. 

“Witch. You a hunter?” And so you played along, answering their every question and thanking the stars that you hadn’t brought anything but your Tarot deck with you. Why do you have it? If anything you could tell them the truth, you grew interested in Tarot and its guiding capability when you were young. Why had they never met you or heard about you? You kept a low profile and typically worked alone. What got you in? You sort of grew up with the supernatural as a part of your life. None of it was a lie, but it wasn’t a direct answer either.

Thus began how your lie wove itself into a truth, how you had begun to hunt and especially with the two boys. Never would you admit to your family what you were up to, but they were either in a different country or dead so you didn’t exactly have anyone checking up on you. Your life was fairly like a solo adventure, off in the world by yourself. In any case, you never dealt with witch cases. If they recognized you it was game over. The little family you had would ostracize you, even if you were killing witches who were murderers. Your family didn’t interfere in the lives of innocent people, they stuck with their own kind and were peaceful. But that did not mean that they were fond of hunters, or that they would accept that you had become one. None of them would understand, they would say you chose the side of the enemy. That you chose the people who killed your parents, almost you and your older brother as well. 

You knew it was reckless mingling with hunters, especially the Winchester brothers who were infamous in the witch community. Hunters tended to shoot first and ask questions later, even the boys would do so. It didn’t matter how close you were to them, how much you cared nor how much they did. As soon as the veil was removed you feared they would not hesitate to drop you and put a bullet in your skull. So you kept it inside, hid it deep away and never even gave a reason to doubt. When you moved into the bunker you moved your ingredients and charms, all your witchcraft items so to speak, into a storage unit. You had taken a day to pack but in reality it only took an hour or so to get all your necessities together, the rest was spent hiding your true self away behind a steel door and a combination lock. 

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Dean sat on your bed holding your journal, fingers running across the pages solemnly and your mind immediately prepared for you to make a run for it. Fear crept into your heart, the aching of the betrayal on his face too much to handle. Your petrified eyes finally looked him in the eye and his gaze softened a little. The truth never should have made it onto those pages, but you had thought they respected your privacy enough to never look. It should have been under lock and key. “Why did you lie? Why keep up this charade?”

“None of it was a charade. I never actually said I was a hunter, just answered your questions vaguely enough with the truth so you wouldn’t kill me. What was I supposed to do Dean? Tell you I was a witch and watch as you shoot me? Feel the life drain from my body just as it did from my mother? From my father? Half my family has been slaughtered by hunters so please forgive me for not wanting to join them.”  

“You’re a witch. They were witches. Hunters find witches when they make themselves known, usually by killing someone. So I’m sure-”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence because they almost killed a 7 year old girl that night. Her brother was only 10 years old and yet they seemed perfectly keen on murdering them in their beds where they slept soundly, still in the belief that their parents were alive. My family doesn’t interact with the outside world apart from normal things like grocery shopping. My mom had a gardening club for fuck’s sake. The only people they had a problem with were hunters who would shoot first, leaving their children parentless. But their solution was peace.”

“I-”

“You have a right to be pissed at me for not telling you something important about me. It could attract trouble, but you have no right to go after my family as if yours is a picture perfect example. You don’t know if you’ve orphaned children, so don’t come to the difference of a pair of murderers. I’ll pack my things if you’ll give me the chance of a head start.” Off you went to pack your life away again, a lump in your throat and a tightening in your chest.

"I thought…" Dean cleared his throat as he watched you stuff the duffle bag you had found. “I thought that you were one of us.”

Your body froze, the clothing in your hands dropping into the bag as a sigh passed through you. When you regained control you tilted your head to look at the man in the doorway, the one that it hurt the most to disappoint. The one you had grown closest to, despite all your common traits with Sam. You were infatuated with Dean Winchester but that was always a distant dream, but it hurt nonetheless to see it crumble. 

“I know it's the cliché sentence to say but I am still me, I swear I am. The only difference is now I can be more detailed when I talk about my family. What’s left of them anyway…” His gaze softened, he knew too well the feeling. “So I know witchcraft, there it is. It’s not something I chose just like hunting wasn’t something you chose. We’re more alike than you may realize, but I get it. You’re the hunter and I’m the monster. At least... give me a head start.”

His brow knitted, almost like he forgot that this meant he had to hunt you. Dean took a few steps forward until he was at the base of your bed and took a seat. He sighed softly before grabbing the bag and dumping it back onto the bed, the action left you stunned and utterly baffled. 

“I won’t do it.” You arched a brow as he grabbed the bag and tossed it out the door in one fell swoop. The action begged the question of why, and he simply gazed into your eyes fervently.

“Do what? Give me a head start?” He shook his head but before you could protest he began to fold your clothing and set it back in drawers, the wrong ones but that wasn’t important. “What are you doing?” He simply gestured for you to give him a minute, so there you stood watching as he put all your things back where they belonged. Or close enough anyway. 

“I should be livid. You kept something huge from us, how were we to know you weren’t evil if you were keeping secrets. I know we unknowingly guided your fib but you could have clarified before moving in here. And yet…” He turned to you with his hands held out, you were too wary to hold them, scared he was tricking you. Dean gently grabbed your hands in his, thumb caressing the back of your hand. “Hell, I don’t know if I could ever bring myself to kill you. Even if you did turn on us.”

“I would never. You two are the closest I’ve come to family in a long time.” Dean smiles softly, pain lingering in his eyes. “I never meant to get into this mess. Honestly, I thought I’d die before I turned 18 and when I met you two I was terrified that long held fear would come true. I never expected to care about either of you.”

There was a long pause of silence, you tried to decipher his meaning behind keeping you in the bunker and he seemed to be searching for the answer as well. Dean’s gaze stayed on yours, neither of you moving until it became too much for you to stare into those eyes. A question was eating away at you and you couldn’t help but ask it.

“Why let me stay, why not let some hunter stumble upon me and take care of the problem for you?” Dean visibly tensed, his eyes darkening a bit at the idea.

“Because I love you, damn it.” Your jaw dropped, brows raised as shock overtook your expression. “I know I’m supposed to want to kill you, but instead I want to protect you. I would fight another hunter to keep you safe and that goes against everything my dad taught me. Hell it goes against everything I know. But I’d rather have you in my life than risk losing you so I can keep to my principles.”

“Even though I’m…” He nodded, a hand caressing your cheek. “You know you sound like Mr. Darcy right now.”

“What now?”

“Against your better judgement you care. It’s very Pride & Prejudice.” Dean’s expression was perplexed to say the least.

“Is… that a good thing?”

“For the scene? No, it was rather offensive. But I know what you meant.” You took a step back and looked him dead in the eye, losing your jesting mood. “Are you sure? My family has no idea I hunt, and I have no issue with that but you won’t be able to keep this a secret from other hunters forever.” 

“Screw whoever says we can’t be the exception.”

“If we can change our minds maybe over time some others might see things differently. I used to think hunters were all just murderers and you thought the same of witches.” Dean nodded in agreement, it was true, both of you had despised one another’s people. 

“And yet, I don’t want to think what I’d be like without you. My life is infinitely better when you are in it, witch or not.” 

“If someone had told me I would end up with a hunter one day, I probably would have called them crazy. You aren’t what I expected a hunter to be like, you’re much more... compassionate.” He has a dopey grin on his face as he holds you close in his arms. “Don’t let that go to your head Winchester.”

“I’ll try not to.” Dean swept you into his arms, carrying you over to your bed before placing you down.

“So that’s why you folded my laundry. Very sneaky Winchester.” He smirked before leaning into a kiss, hands beginning to roam.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

~

Tags: @qtmeryr​ @broken-hearted-barnes​ @asphalt-cocktail​ @gstran18​ @cantnkrusshedevil​

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

I have been trying to write something about separatism almost since my first dawning of feminist consciousness, but it has always been for me somehow a mercurial topic which, when I tried to grasp it, would softly shatter into many other topics like sexuality, man-hating, so-called reverse discrimination, apocalyptic utopianism, and so on. What I have to share with you today is my latest attempt to get to the heart of the matter.

[…] The theme of separation, in its multitude variations, is there in everything from divorce to exclusive lesbian separatist communities, from shelters for battered women to witch covens, from women’s studies programs to women’s bars, from expansion of daycare to abortion on demand. The presence of this theme is vigorously obscured, trivialized, mystified and outright denied by many feminist apologists, who seem to find it embarrassing, while it is embraced, explored, expanded and ramified by most of the more inspiring theorists and activists. The theme of separation is noticeably absent or heavily qualified in most of the things I take to be personal solutions and band-aid projects, like legalization of prostitution, liberal marriage contracts, improvement of the treatment of rape victims and affirmative action. It is clear to me, in my own case at least, that the contrariety of assimilation and separation is one of the main things that guides or determines assessments of various theories, actions and practices as reformist or radical, as going to the root of the thing or being relatively superficial. So my topical question comes to this: What is it about separation, in any or all of its many forms and degrees, that makes it so basic and so sinister, so exciting and so repellent?

Feminist separation is, of course, separation of various sorts or modes from men and from institutions, relationships, roles and activities which are male-defined, male-dominated and operating for the benefit of males and the maintenance of male privilege–this separation being initiated or maintained, at will, by women. (Masculist separatism is the partial segregation of women from men and male domains at the will of men. This difference is crucial.)

The feminist separation can take many forms. Breaking up or avoiding close relationships or working relationships; forbidding someone to enter your house; excluding someone from your company, or from your meeting; withdrawal from participation in some activity or institution, or avoidance of participation; avoidance of communications and influence from certain quarters (not listening to music with sexist lyrics, not watching tv); withholding commitment or support; rejection of or rudeness toward obnoxious individuals. Some separations are subtle realignments of identification, priorities and commitments, or working with agendas which only incidently coincide with the agendas of the institution one works in. Ceasing to be loyal to something or someone is a separation; and ceasing to love.

[…] Most feminists, probably all, practice some separation from males and male-dominated institutions. A separatist practices separation consciously, systematically, and probably more generally than the others, and advocates thorough and “broadspectrum” separation as part of the conscious strategy of liberation. And, contrary to the image of the separatist as a cowardly escapist, hers is the life and program which inspires the greatest hostility, disparagement, insult and confrontation and generally she is the one against whom economic sanctions operate most conclusively. The penalty for refusing to work with or for men is usually starvation (or, at the very least, doing without medical insurance); and if one’s policy of noncooperation is more subtle, one’s livelihood is still constantly on the line, since one is not a loyal partisan, a proper member of the team, or what have you. The penalties for being a lesbian are ostracism, harassment and job insecurity or joblessness. The penalty for rejecting men’s sexual advances is often rape and, perhaps even more often, forfeit of such things as professional or job opportunities. And the separatist lives with the added burden of being assumed by many to be a morally depraved man-hating bigot. But there is a clue here: if you are doing something that is so strictly forbidden by the patriarchs, you must be doing something right.

There is an idea floating around in both feminist and antifeminist literature to the effect that females and males generally live in a relation of parasitism, a parasitism of the male on the female… that it is, generally speaking, the strength, energy, inspiration and nurturance of women that keeps men going, and not the strength, aggression, spirituality and hunting of men that keeps women going.

[…] The parasitism of males on females is, as I see it, demonstrated by the panic, rage and hysteria generated in so many of them by the thought of being abandoned by women. […] If it is true that a fundamental aspect of the relations between the sexes is male parasitism, it might help to explain why certain issues are particularly exciting to patriarchal loyalists. For instance, in view of the obvious advantages of easy abortion to population control, to control of welfare rolls, and to ensuring sexual availability of women to men, it is a little surprising that the loyalists are so adamant and riled up in their objection to it. But look.

The fetus lives parasitically. It is a distinct animal surviving off the life (the blood) of another animal creature. It is incapable of surviving on its own resources, of independent nutrition; incapable even of symbiosis. If it is true that males live parasitically upon females, it seems reasonable to suppose that many of them and those loyal to them are in some way sensitive to the parallelism between their situation and that of the fetus. They could easily identify with the fetus. The woman who is free to see the fetus as a parasite might be free to see the man as a parasite. The woman’s willingness to cut off the life line to one parasite suggests a willingness to cut off the life line to another parasite. The woman who is capable (legally, psychologically, physically) of decisively, self-interestedly, independently rejecting the one parasite, is capable of rejecting, with the same decisiveness and independence, the like burden of the other parasite. In the eyes of the other parasite, the image of the wholly self-determined abortion, involving not even a ritual submission to male veto power, is the mirror image of death.

[…] There are other reasons, of course, why patriarchal loyalists should be disturbed about abortion on demand; a major one being that it would be a significant form of female control of reproduction, and at least from certain angles it looks like the progress of patriarchy is the progress toward male control of reproduction, starting with possession of wives and continuing through the invention of obstetrics and the technology of extrauterine gestation. Giving up that control would be giving up patriarchy. But such an objection to abortion is too abstract, and requires too historical a vision, to generate the hysteria there is now in the reaction against abortion. The hysteria is, I think, to be accounted for more in terms of a much more immediate and personal presentiment of ejection by the woman-womb.

[…] Male parasitism means that males must have access to women; it is the Patriarchal Imperative. But feminist no-saying is more than a substantial removal (redirection, reallocation) of goods and services because Access is one of the faces of Power. Female denial of male access to females substantially cuts off a flow of benefits, but it has also the form and full portent of assumption of power.

Differences of power are always manifested in asymmetrical access. The President of the United States has access to almost everybody for almost anything he might want of them, and almost nobody has access to him. The super-rich have access to almost everybody; almost nobody has access to them. The resources of the employee are available to the boss as the resources of the boss are not to the employee. The parent has unconditional access to the child’s room; the child does not have similar access to the parent’s room. Students adjust to professors’ office hours; professors do not adjust to students’ conference hours. The child is required not to lie; the parent is free to close out the child with lies at her discretion. The slave is unconditionally accessible to the master. Total power is unconditional access; total powerlessness is being unconditionally accessible. The creation and manipulation of power is constituted of the manipulation and control of access.

All-woman groups, meetings, projects seem to be great things for causing controversy and confrontation. Many women are offended by them; many are afraid to be the one to announce the exclusion of men; it is seen as a device whose use needs much elaborate justification. I think this is because conscious and deliberate exclusion of men by women, from anything, is blatant insubordination, and generates in women fear of punishment and reprisal (fear which is often well-justified). Our own timidity and desire to avoid confrontations generally keep us from doing very much in the way of all-woman groups and meetings. But when we do, we invariably run into the male champion who challenges our right to do it. Only a small minority of men go crazy when an event is advertised to be for women only–just one man tried to crash our women-only Rape Speak-Out, and only a few hid under the auditorium seats to try to spy on a women-only meeting at a NOW convention in Philadelphia. But these few are onto something their less rabid compatriots are missing. The woman-only meeting is a fundamental challenge to the structure of power. It is always the privilege of the master to enter the slave’s hut. The slave who decides to exclude the master from her hut is declaring herself not a slave. The exclusion of men from the meeting not only deprives them of certain benefits (which they might survive without); it is a controlling of access, hence an assumption of power. It is not only mean, it is arrogant.

[…] When those who control access have made you totally accessible, your first act of taking control must be denying access, or must have denial of access as one of its aspects. This is not because you are charged up with (unfeminine or politically incorrect) negativity; it is because of the logic of the situation. When we start from a position of total accessibility there must be an aspect of no-saying (which is the beginning of control) in every effective act and strategy, the effective ones being precisely those which shift power, i.e., ones which involve manipulation and control of access.n.

[…] When our feminist acts or practices have an aspect of separation, we are assuming power by controlling access and simultaneously by undertaking definition.

[…] The powerful normally determine what is said and sayable. When the powerful label something or dub it or baptize it, the thing becomes what they call it. When the Secretary of Defense calls something a peace negotiation, for instance, then whatever it is that he called a peace negotiation is an instance of negotiating peace. If the activity in question is the working out of terms of a trade-off of nuclear reactors and territorial redistributions, complete with arrangements for the resulting refugees, that is peacemaking. People laud it, and the negotiators get Noble Piece Prizes for it. On the other hand, when I call a certain speech act a rape, my “calling” it does not make it so. At best, I have to explain and justify and make clear exactly what it is about this speech act which is assaultive in just what way, and then the others acquiesce in saying the act was like rape or could figuratively be called a rape. My counterassault will not be counted a simple case of self-defense. And what I called rejection of parasitism, they call the loss of the womanly virtues of compassion and “caring.” And generally, when renegade women call something one thing and patriarchal loyalists call it another, the loyalists get their way.

Women generally are not the people who do the defining, and we cannot from our isolation and powerlessness simply commence saying different things than others say and make it stick. There is a humpty-dumpty problem in that. But we are able to arrogate definition to ourselves when we repattern access. Assuming control of access, we draw new boundaries and create new roles and relationships. This, though it causes some strain, puzzlement and hostility, is to a fair extent within the scope of individuals and small gangs, as outright verbal redefinition is not, at least in the first instance.

[…] It is our experience in the movement generally that the defensiveness, nastiness, violence, hostility and irrationality of the reaction to feminism tends to correlate with the blatancy of the element of separation in the strategy or project which triggers the reaction. The separations involved in women leaving homes, marriages and boyfriends, separations from fetuses, and the separation of lesbianism are all pretty dramatic. That is, they are dramatic and blatant when perceived from within the framework provided by the patriarchal world view and male parasitism. Matters pertaining to marriage and divorce, lesbianism and abortion touch individual men (and their sympathizers) because they can feel the relevance of these to themselves–they can feel the threat that they might be the next. Hence, heterosexuality, marriage and motherhood, which are the institutions which most obviously and individually maintain female accessibility to males, form the core triad of antifeminist ideology; and all-woman spaces, all-woman organizations, all-woman meetings, all-woman classes, are outlawed, suppressed, harassed, ridiculed and punished.

To some of us these issues can seem almost foreign… strange ones to be occupying center stage. We are busily engaged in what seem to us our blatant insubordinations: living our own lives, taking care of ourselves and one another, doing our work, and in particular, telling it as we see it. Still, the original sin is the separation which these presuppose, and it is that, not our art or philosophy, not our speechmaking, nor our “sexual acts” (or abstinences), for which we will be persecuted, when worse comes to worst.

- Marilyn Frye, Some Reflections on Separatism and Power in The Politics of Reality: essays in feminist theory (1983, Crossing Press)

[sorrelstream]

entering “proper grammar” mode because I’m writing this on a google docs first and I don’t want to deal with all those ugly squiggles ahdfsdfds…

But!! Here’s the fully answered Ailuornymy question list, as requested by anon :D! More below the cut!

Favourite canon warrior name?

Hmm… let’s see… Honestly? Probably Silverstream! I don’t think we get many -stream suffixes anymore and there’s something soooo pretty about her name and the way it flows !!

Least favourite canon warrior name?

Snowbush. There’s something so clunky about the way this dude’s name reads in my head and I don’t know why!!! Also Harrybrook >:(

Warrior you’d most like to rename?

Harrybrook. I just!! It doesn’t sound nice at all please give him a better name :( Best name-change name? One-eye! I’m not sure if she asked for her name change or not, but I’ll admit “One-eye” is a pretty baller sounding name and I love that. Also Deadfoot has a cool name too (though I wish he had asked for that name change rather than saddled with it :/)!

Favourite canon character overall?

 Mousewhisker and Hazeltail! They’re two unimportant side characters that don’t really do anything ever but man do I love them with my whole heart <3!

Least favourite canon character overall? 

Thistleclaw and Crowfeather. I’ve talked about why I don’t like either of them a lot before so to keep it short they both make me incredibly uncomfortable nor do I enjoy reading about them at all.

Favourite Warriors book? 

The Darkest Hour! It was my first Warriors book that I read from the main series (Sasha's manga was the first Warriors book in general and how I got into Warriors), and MAN does it still stick with me! So many scenes from that book are just iconic. 

Least favourite Warriors book? 

Anything from Dawn Of The Clans honestly :'). I tried so many times to get into reading that arc and I never could get into it -- it just bored me any time I tried. Same for AVoS, eh.

Favourite canon scene or dialogue of all time? 

Such a random scene but there’s a scene I think about all the time from Power Of Three where Lionpaw has a nightmare about Hollypaw, and she just playfully (? ominously?) says “I’m going to get you” while hidden in the shadows before turning into a fox and attacking him. I think about it SO much…...

Favourite canon leader of all time? 

Crookedstar, followed closely by Tallstar! I love them…. 

Character you think deserved better? 

SO, SO MANY. IT’S UNREAL. Hollyleaf didn’t deserve to get killed off the VERY NEXT BOOK after she came back to ThunderClan, Snowkit didn’t deserve to get killed off just to push Speckletail into the nursery, Nightcloud didn’t deserve… literally anything she got both in canon and how the authors and fandom demonized her, Honeyfern…. Silverstream… the list goes on really :’/

Character you’d like to see “morally” flipped (made “bad” or made “good”)?

Leopardstar, kinda?? But not like. Morally flipped? I guess? I just mean I wish they had gone more into her redemption arc and why she allied herself with Tigerstar besides just “oh she was in love with him”. So it’s not that I wish she was morally flipped, but I wish they went more into her morality because she’s soo vague as it is (and, frankly, maybe I’m biased because I like her but I would’ve loved to see her overcome her initial prejudice or perhaps work for forgiveness for her Clan - perhaps her alliance with Tigerstar was out of worry for the entirety of her Clan since she saw him as the strongest cat and not just… because she “loved” him). Same for Breezepelt, honestly! They kept dancing between “he’s a troubled son of a negligent/abusive father” and “he’s evil :)” and personally? As a child of a negligent father who also abandoned me, it would’ve been way more … I’m not sure WHAT the word I’m looking for is but I think Breezepelt’s story would’ve been better if they focused on making him a troubled teen of a negligent, bad father and actually embraced Crowfeather being an antagonist in PO3 instead of not wanting to make him look bad. It’s just weird the erins flip flop between “this character is evil” and “this character is ok” so much it’s FRUSTRATING :/

Favourite AU (alternate universe) concept? 

Answered here! 

Warrior code rule you think is best?

Always help a kitten in need, no matter their heritage! I know that’s not the exact wording but anyways. Perhaps I’m biased because I, in general, don’t like reading about child death (I know it happens and I can handle it in some plots but sometimes it’s just so excessive), but in general I think it’s one of the best and genuinely helpful code laws, especially because kittens always deserve a chance at life. I think the second best rule would be the one that states a warrior does not need to kill to win a battle, because I think that adds a lot more depth (potentially) to how warriors value the lives of others and creates a bigger scene? scandal? when someone is killed in battle versus dying of wounds later on. It also, again, keeps the youngsters like apprentices safe!

Warrior code rule you think shouldn’t exist/should be changed?

If you know me, you won’t be surprised because it’s the same answer as always: the leader’s word is law. I’ve spoken a lot about that code before and even have a comic about its flaws, so I won’t go into it too much here, but I just think it’s a recipe for disaster.

Describe your ideal vision of Starclan/clan afterlife.

Hmmm let’s see… my ideal vision of StarClan/clan afterlife would be a little bit like what it’s like in canon at the moment but with a few twists. I think the borders would dissolve in StarClan so there’d be less in-fighting (though I imagine, after growing up your whole life hating your neighbors, a lot of cats have a hard time getting used to the no-boundary life-style of StarClan, and a lot of young/new spirits tend to stick within their own Clan cliques before venturing out and meeting former members of other Clans. Older spirits would be the ones most used to interacting with former members of other Clans). I think there’d be sections that mimic the corporeal Clan’s territories in theme, but with different landmarks and such so that new spirits have a new world to explore. I’d also take away the fading aspect because I don’t really think that’s… fair? I guess? It’s weird to me but I’d prefer not to go into it. I’d also make it so that there’s no great wisdom to these cats - or, at least, the wiser StarClan spirits are the ones that have been around for as long as anyone can remember. They wouldn’t be able to interfere with the living as much in canon and can only really visit medicine cats, or possibly leaders, in dreams; anyone else has to go to the sacred area to commune with the dead. Not sure what else though! This is just kind of a general idea.

Traditional or non-traditional naming. Thoughts?

I think both have their merits! While I prefer traditional naming systems because I enjoy seeing the way people develop suffix meanings and assign well-known meanings to them (and even connotations!), plus it helps me personally assign even the smallest trait to a side character so they feel just a little more real, I see why people would enjoy non-traditional naming systems as it does give more breathing room for individual name creation. Also, I’m not gonna lie, there’s some gorgeous lyrical names out there that flow beautifully. My heart will always belong to traditional naming, though, I think. 

If traditional: What non-traditional suffix would you include in your system? If non-traditional: What’s your favourite canon suffix?

Traditional! I actually have included some non-traditional suffixes in my system, just for variety! But those are: -throat, -pool, -belly, -fern, -bee, -berry, -chirp, and -tooth, for example. There’s actually quite a few more but I don’t wanna list every single addition shfbd!

Best thing about the clan system as a concept in your opinion?

Hard to pick, honestly! But I do think the best thing about clans as a system is their unity; they’re a little society that has each other’s backs, and the care for young and elderly a lot is touching!

Favourite Warriors fanfiction (or fanfiction writer)?

HA this might be an obvious answer, but 100% solacefruit on ao3 (also: @/ailuronymy and @/burnt-sycamore on tumblr!). His worldbuilding is to die for and there’s something so charming and attention grabbing about his writing style that always has me waiting for the next update. Seriously, probably one of my biggest writer inspirations. 

Favourite Warriors fanartist (includes animators)?

Answered here!

Most interesting villain?

Mapleshade and Sol, honestly. I’ve rambled about Mapleshade before, I think, but I think her story could have had a lot of potential to call out the misogyny and bias of StarClan and the code, and how mollies are often punished harsher than the toms for their code-breaking. Her story also features how weird the warriors are with the warrior code - it’s like they cherry pick what they want to believe? Oakstar sends three innocent kittens out of the Clan, presumably to die (which they do), despite the code speaking to never endanger a kitten’s life no matter their heritage, and no one ever questions him, or the rest of ThunderClan, for standing by to watch kittens die? Even Frecklewish outright stated she watched the kittens die and did nothing about it. Why? Why was everyone okay with punishing Mapleshade for breaking a rule of the code but no one questioned Oakstar or anyone else in ThunderClan for kicking out the kits alongside Mapleshade, when it was Mapleshade’s crime and not the kits? And why doesn’t Appledusk get punished or ostracized by his clanmates as severely as Mapleshade did? It had a lot of potential but it’s just a mess. Anyways - onto Sol. Another interesting concept kinda messed up by the Erins. In general, I really love villains that are just nuisances at best and no real threat - kind of like Heinz Doofenshmirtz - and with Sol’s backstory being the way it was, he was the perfect opportunity to have him be this little antagonistic shithead who, while annoying and causing problems, wasn’t actually a serious threat, and he of all villains would have had the best shot at redemption I think.

Favourite canon clan?

RiverClan! I love their aesthetic, their territory, and their general vibes. In love with water-based places <3!!

What would you ask Erin Hunter, if you could?

“Would you hand the series off to a new team of writers?” All good series must come to an end, but with Warriors being as broad as it is, I think this is a series where spin offs can be made and still thrive - just not with the current author staff we have at the moment. There’s lots of people with amazing, creative ideas for Warriors, and I know this is just a fantasy at best, but I would love to see a new writing team take over and weave brand new stories and worldbuilding with it in spin-offs. Hell, even I’d love to take a crack at publishing a Warriors spin off, but, again, it’s a fantasy at best.

Top five prefixes (canon or otherwise)?

Sorrel-, Chub-, Mink-, Rose-, and Vervain- (you can tell I like these prefixes considering these are all prefixes of characters featured in my webcomic besides Sorrel-, which is used for my wcsona’s name ha!) Honorable mentions to: Black- (or any color based prefix like Yellow-, Red-, Ginger-, Blue-, Gray-, White-, etc. I don’t know why but I’m fond of them), Beetle-, and Fidget- (which isn’t a traditional prefix, but I think it’s cute hehe.)

Top five suffixes (canon or otherwise)?

Just narrowing down for traditional because I need a smaller pool to pick from habdfsd but! -face, -flower, -stripe, -storm and -nose! 

If you were on Drunk Warriors Rants, what would you talk about?

I have no idea what Drunk Warriors Rants is actually but I’m assuming it’s something where you get drunk and rant about warrior cats so… I would absolutely rant about Hollyleaf and mainly the wild mischaracterization the fandom has made of her break down and the murder of Ashfur. It irks me to no end how so many people have pushed this weird concept that Hollyleaf was aware her parents were Crowfeather and Leafpool when she murdered Ashfur to the point that most people I talk to genuinely don’t realize this, because not only does it just make so sense narratively but I feel like it really does take away from the depth that is her character. I think Hollyleaf is one of the few characters we get, like, an actual depth to, who is developed beyond “typical protagonist with love interest”, and has an interesting arc, downfall, and redemption. When she killed Ashfur, she was totally unaware that Leafpool and Crowfeather were her parents - in fact, the entirety of Sunrise is about Hollyleaf, Jayfeather, and Lionblaze trying to figure out who their parents are, so I honestly don’t know where this whole “Hollyleaf knew about her heritage when she killed Ashfur” thing came from. It really ruins her arc by making her out to be some nonsense cat who killed to keep a secret she spilled anyways, and not a cat who killed to keep a secret she didn’t fully understand yet, who then completely unraveled once she discovered the origins and how her existence completely went against everything she was raised to believe in.

What would your warrior name be?

Pretty obvious answer but my warrior name would be Sorrelstream! Or possibly Sorrelstripe, but I lean towards Sorrelstream. I love to swim a lot actually but I wouldn’t say I’m a particularly strong or skilled swimmer but hey… It’s my warriors sona and I get to give him one (1) skill.

Bonus questions:

Describe your favourite original Warriors characters! 

HONESTLY this question is a little tough because I have such a huuuge cast of original warrior characters it’s hard to narrow down! I’d say if you’re interested in hearing more about my ocs or seeing them in action to check out my @/roseface blog, which is dedicated to my wc comic, or check out my ao3 account (kiittenteeth) because I’ll probably be posting warriors-centric original character stories there soon!

Describe your original Warriors clans! 

Heyyy fun fact! I’m actually working on a small novel fanfic (only about ten chapters long) featuring my fanclans! They’re a group of four Clans set in an abandoned gated neighborhood/area - FernClan (located in the local abandoned mall), PondClan (located in the abandoned golf course), GleamClan (located in the local abandoned restaurant/diner), and FieldClan (located in the abandoned K-12 academy school). I won’t go too much into them here since I want to explore their worldbuilding in my fic, but keep an eye out for them when I drop the first chapter of Ribs! 

Talk about your feelings about the Warriors series! 

Oh man. A lot. The series itself is… disappointing, at best, but I’m awfully attached to it no matter how many times I try to break away from it. It was my biggest media interest growing up (keyword: media), so it’s a pretty big part of me and the way I grew up. Plus I met a good chunk of my friends through warrior cats related areas, so :’)!!! It’s a series that despite all its flaws is incredibly close to me but I’m mainly here to read everyone’s fan content because MAN does the fan content go above and beyond!

(Asked by @/whocares-idont) What’s your opinion on fan made Clan pantheons? 

I LOOVE fan made Clan pantheons actually! Mythology was always something I loved learning about as a kid, and I’m particularly fond of the worldbuilding people make for the Warriors setting. I feel like creating a pantheon and mythos tied to it adds to the depth of the world and makes it all the more interesting and realistic, especially since mythology is such a huge part of so many cultures, both ancient and modern one. I think creating pantheons really adds to the setting people make with warriors, and, honestly, they’re always really fun to read about!!

[violetsystems]

#personal

My connection is super trashy this morning much like the cards I’ve been dealt in life these days.  It seems like my actual turn in whatever game is in play gets ignored more blatantly.  I found an old USB on the shelf cleaning a couple of days ago.  On it was a copy of Rise of Skywalker, Ninku, and Blade Runner.  I’ve watched Blade Runner a thousand times and never picked up on the chess game.  Bishop to King Seven.  A famous move I made the link to in a post here only countered by forking in tandem with the opposing knight.  The Immortal Game.  Sometimes if you really believed you were living in a simulation there’s magic moments such as that.  To me it’s really just the poetry of my life I live with nobody else gets but me.  I write about it sure.  I listen to Steely Dan all day too.  Nobody wants to hear from men right now I get it.  Especially Jerry Saltz and the neoliberal elite.  But that’s where I came from.  And judging from the dead responses on LinkedIn when it comes to networking, people would rather forget I even existed.  I feel like sometimes I get the hint and most of the last three months has been hobbling away from that.  My generation was the first generation after the boomers to be forgotten about.  We were in constant rebellion at the sheer audacity of how we were supposed to live.  Subsequently we were never really designed to rise up from under that thumb unless we were part of the family.  And the one thing I’ve learned from the tax hell I look at every day in my financial planning is that families definitely have more opportunities to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.  I’m an only child.  Never been married.  Never had children.  Mentored enough people to know I’d be a good father.  But overlooked, ridiculed and shunned enough to feel like I’m worthless.  Ironically for the first time in my life, I’m worth something on paper to a bank and a credit union.  Possibly to the companies I still hold equity in.  But for me it’s a very unique situation to be in.  Painted in a fucking corner with nobody to tell you what to do other than your better judgement.  I don’t wonder if my plan for the next year is right for the long run.  The long run has been just that.  Twenty years of my life just vanishing in a blink.  People eerily waiting for you get the hint.  Appalled at the audacity, like Terrell when Roy Batty confronts his maker.  Why can’t I live?  Everything out of Terrell’s mouth is an excuse.  Replicants were made to serve not made to last.  Every last inch of life has been accounted for and speculated against.  Terrell and the makers coo that you should feel great joy you have a purpose in their eyes.  And yet I’ve seen things you humans wouldn’t believe. I’ve seen everything in my old office disappear into the trash without any real confirmation.  I’ve seen friends I helped through thick and thin respond cold, callous and on some sort of script fearing legal action.  I’ve seen barely anyone but my neighbors between grocery drop offs.  And most likely they’re just nosy. 

Everyone makes sure they are in proximity of me when I crack and open up to the world.  This is still people’s assumption.  That I’m looking for new friends after all of this.  That my vulnerability can be further speculated on.  That I can still be trapped.  After sitting here with no closure listening to people’s problems but having my own go completely unnoticed.  Much like the replicants in Blade Runner, I have no prime directive other than to walk around and look cool in military upcycled gear.  I check my LinkedIn notifications to look for jobs.  There are some bright spots.  Mostly in China.  Everything else is a team of salesmen and recruiters looking for desperate contractors to overhaul IT departments they bought after laying off entire staff.  It’s the equivalent of getting back into the market like a scab.  All the salaries are the same for these kinds of jobs.  And it would be a lateral move with no pay increase.  These are for profit jobs.  I spent twenty years in a non profit with barely a cost of living raise.  That was the salary I achieved.  Nielsen Gallup polls and artistic corporate analysis has stolen everything from me, including my non profit salary and made it the new normal.  I was barely able to escape any sort of lifestyle creep including debt.  I chewed my way out of it alone.  Made to feel undesirable and worthless.  Received a few lump sums after the reduction of force.  And the markets are beating the war drum out there like the best thing to do is to put it all back in the hands of corporations that won’t look me in the eye to hire me.  All the while, people pretend that I’m not real enough to talk to.  I’m a ghost that conflicts the lies people hope no one uncovers.  An inconvenient truth to even myself.  And this is where the politics stop for me.  I have to live like everyone else.  America is on a collision course with everything these days.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a shining light of hope for getting out of the clutches of disturbing Christian White men who treat money like a whip.  Mitch McConnell is already dancing on her grave at this point.  These people have no shame.  Trying to push a supreme court candidate before the elections to further their political agenda.  An agenda that has nothing to do with respect for freedom unless it benefits their interests and way of life.  The American dream in this respect is and has always been a total lie.  To be betrayed by it and left for dead is something I have already learned from.  And my grand chess move is the same as it was a few weeks ago.  In the meantime I sold all my blizzard stock to buy IBM while they partner with London fashion week.  Even if the speculative value of my portfolio is trash, that trade confirmation went through loud and clear.  We all have different values in America for sure.  But the people who bought and lobbied their way into offices have little value to me.  

The way things look for me, I will be sitting out until February at the earliest.  I’ve budgeted myself out with health insurance.  The premiums are fucking outrageous and I had a chance to open enroll two weeks before I was let go.  I could have softened the financial burden if somebody would have just let me know.   If I would have had any lead time I would have made some different decisions.  But after twenty years, I was treated in a way that sent a real message.  One that nobody seems to be able to carry the weight of other than me.  It’s a unique situation.  Capitalists would love to shower praise on it as being the spirit of entrepreneurship.  But we all know that’s some Ayn Rand survival of the fittest bullshit.  There’s two choices.  You either believe the pyramid scheme and give up your money, power, and influence for the greater agenda.  Or you get ostracized.  Generation X in America was always an alienated group.  Maybe we were the first to realize how we were being scammed.  Some of us got dropped out of the nest and cracked.  The Kurt Kobains that succumbed to heroin and suicide.  The ground wasn’t very soft during those times.  A stable job seemed like an accomplishment.  Truthfully there are jobs out there that require over ten years of experience.  It’s a nice option to have.  A resume that actually looks like you’ve done something even if nobody wants to acknowledge you even existed.  But when I look around for answers in this city I find very little.  I have a safe place to stay for awhile without having to do much.  I got approved for a license for Ableton Live.  It’s the first time I’ve owned it.  I spent last night replacing the SSD in my laptop with a terabyte drive with faster read and write speeds.  With the ram upgrade I can do video and audio on the fly without blinking.  I write in my sleep and I communicate organically throughout all of this.  I’ve had to own my struggles and pain time and time again only to be buried.  And at this point, my friends down here realize my side of the story more than most.  And I’m sure it feels hurtful and hopeless to know what I’ve been through doesn’t mean all that much because I’m a Steely Dan fan.  The truth is people will grasp at straws to throw stones in a glass house.  Capitalism is a self destructive behavior.  There’s not enough to go around to feed the hungry shareholders, the investors, the financiers, the lawyers, the useless aspects of society speculate on paper currency and not human spirit.  We end up confronting it sooner or later.  And the answer we get is simple.  Bishop to King Seven is checkmate.  You have no more moves.  And I’m done hearing the excuses.  I have won the game.  I am simply waiting for your concession.  If I have to wait all winter, please know that I’ve burnt enough bridges to stay warm.  Hate to throw cold water on the plans to keep me obsolete.  My incept date passed a long time ago.  And while most of my past is lost in the rain, I am at least still human enough to cry.  Make no mistake I shed no tears for winning. <3 Tim

[lovelylogans]

Do you have any tips on how to write a female character that's majoring in journalism?

oh boy!!!!!! generally, character-wise, people will of course approach things in different ways, so i’m gonna like mention you know said character and the decisions that she’d make better than anyone else, but i’m gonna write about 1. some “character archetypes,” as it were, that comprise a lot of female members of my journalism school, 2. some general advice on personality traits that would likely be useful/realistic for a female journalism character, and 3. what not to aspire to when it comes to writing women in journalism (ie, this section is just gonna be my biggest gripes about how female journalists tend to be portrayed in media.)

let’s get into it!

section one: “character archetypes,” aka the average personality a lot of female members of my journalism school.

a lot of my really great friends are in the journalism school, and their personality types vary greatly. there are so many awesome women in journalism and this isn’t exactly, like, “BE EXACTLY LIKE THIS OR SHE ISN’T A REALISTIC JOURNALIST,” these are just some character traits/personality things that i’ve noticed when it comes to a lot of aspiring female journalists.

curious. always write them as curious. that’s the backbone of being a journalist is being curious and going after the story. they want to know more about the world, they want to know more about their communities, and they want to provide the perspectives for you, or the reader, or the community, so that you can be better informed/make decisions/be aware. journalists, above all, have that curiosity down; journalism majors can rarely stand not knowing things.

(this also means that female journalists, and journalists in general, really, are very tuned into gossip. not even necessarily “he said she said” gossip, though that can be interesting sometimes too, but things like who got what good grades, which professor said this, what internship accepted who? journalists are basically trained to be investigative and dig deep for things; when it comes to, say, two editors being snappy at each other at a meeting, well, you want to know why, in case whatever is affecting them will affect you. again, not necessarily gossipy in a malicious way that can be portrayed sometimes! gossipy in the sense that they’re usually very in tune with their social circle and immediate community, as well as community at large.)

they are also researchers!!! many journalists are prone to the whole “wikipedia rabbit hole” research thing. they dive deep on a lot of subjects, both broad and narrow, and they like discussing these topics with each other, which again, can vary greatly! the biggest mbmbam/taz Stan i know is a female journalism major, and from there she has a very vested interest in dnd, all because it started with a few funny mbmbam clips (okay, guilty, i was one of the two people who mentioned that it would seem like her thing and now she’s way more into it than i am) and on the flip side of that, there are MANY female journalists who have made careers off their interests—film journalists, video gaming journalists, and social media/pop culture reporters all exist for a reason, and it’s likely because they marketed their interest and therefore “expertise” in these subjects and managed to spin a job out of it!

ambitious. so many kids in the j school strive for really great things, which is super crazy awesome, and they work really hard to achieve it. i know people who have netted amazing internship opportunities while they’re in the j school (we’re talking washington post, new york times, cnn, associated press, like, big organization names) and it’s because they have the ambition to achieve it. they dream big, a lot of the time, and tend to have detailed career goals to go with it.

inclined to ethical/moral discussions. there are a lot of ethical questions when it comes to covering news (there’s actually a wyliwf oneshot in the draft talking about one of my least favorite days of the semester that always comes up in class, which focuses on ethical decisions in times of death, major tragedy, or injury, look up “the breakfast test” if you want to learn more about that particular aspect of being a journalism major) but even when it doesn’t come to major disaster coverage, there are still a lot of little ethical questions to analyze in each area of journalism; journalistic ethics is a whole branch of conversation that i (and a lot of my fellow journalism majors!) fall into discussing. it can be things from the disclosing of anonymous sources to what is and isn’t right to photograph and the inclusion of certain sensitive information or ostracizing it and the importance of fact-checking. i think journalistic ethics is a really interesting topic and it’s usually one of my favorite things to discuss; this wikipedia page just scratches the surface, and here is the spj code of etihcs, widely regarded as a base code of principles for most american journalists to follow, but i encourage you to go out and seek other instances of journalistic ethics, because a lot of the time, what is legal for journalists to do isn’t necessarily right.

organized (even if it doesn’t look like it from the outside) or complete disaster

let’s take my friend, who i’ll call a.c. ac has a color-coded planner, frequently works ahead of schedule, plans out her entire day. she is very tidy, very organized, and seems generally put together. we were roommates in the fall semester and she had a tidy room, a set routine when it came to dinners and organizing her stuff, she’s very On Top Of It

and then there is me. ac once looked at me in horror when i was just starting to write a paper the morning it was due and informed me that the way i approach most deadlines is “her worst nightmare on drugs.” i forget assignments a lot and tend to scramble to do things at the last minute, i am a CHRONIC procrastinator, and yet i still make sure i get things done in time. in essence, i know my limits, and the pressure of a deadline tends to be what kickstarts me into starting those limits.

what i’m saying here is that it’s a vast spectrum, but what tends to drive most journalists is deadlines. journalism people are VERY deadline oriented and their approaches definitely vary, but that tends to be what they stick to most. journalists also tend to have perfectionist tendencies, as a sidenote.

stubborn. holy god. like, just look at the way journalists consistently send foia quests alone, for example, this story about journalists using foia to track hospital bed and ventilator availability in illinous (a dive into sunshine laws, aka releasing public records, which is a whole other thing that people very rarely tend to notice as an aspect of journalism but also lead to really big stories, especially if leaked (pentagon papers, anyone?) and just, yeah. check up on the state’s sunshine laws that you’re writing your story in, i think it could provide a real interesting subplot for you.) journalists. are. STUBBORN. i know people who have sat in offices waiting for public officials to come out for the better part of a work day; i know journalists who have sent hundreds of emails to get one interview; i know journalists who have staged stakeout sessions to see how public officials were using their time when they said they were in the office (hey, including me! i stood in a parking garage for three hours in the middle of winter for this exact purpose once.) what i’m saying here is they are stubborn. if there’s a story, they’re gonna dig. it took woodward and bernstein two years from the time of the watergate breakin to nixon’s resignation. most of the time, that stubbornness pays off.

competitive. yeah, remember that whole ambitious thing i mentioned earlier, coupled with the stubbornness above? journalists are competitive. it’s a competitive job market, so that means that many journalism majors tend to strive for those same big name journalism internships. this is definitely part of my j school culture, so i’m not sure if it’s the same at others, but a lot of people tend to examine what internships or job opportunities or professor favoritism or whatever and see what everyone’s doing, because everyone compares everyone to everyone else. this also tends to feed into other things: getting a story, getting good grades, so on. there’s a definite competitive sense to things, i’m not quite sure how to best explain it, but... yeah. journalists are competitive, sometimes. when it comes to women journalists, it can also be interpreted in other ways (”bitchy” is one) but a lot of journalism majors strive for the best.

supportive. 

section two: some general advice on personality traits that would likely be useful/realistic for a female journalism character

a lot of these were touched on above, but i’d also just like to add: they probably have an interest in some aspect of “social justice,” as it were. feminism, ecological issues, economical issues, racial issues—most of the time, a lot of journalists see these real world issues and it’s what leads them into the career. 

there’s also the whole... ugh... fake news media thing, which i feel like i have to touch on just because: i will say fake news is a meme amongst journalism majors, in that we mutter fake news to each other when our professors are like “this class average is so low y’all need to study more” when it’s their fault for not teaching us i won’t go on that tangent, however, i will also say that this whole idea has contributed to spiking rates of mistreatment and violence against journalists. i’ve been fortunate in that the most tense i’ve ever felt in that situation is taking an uber to a journalism assignment in a white guy’s truck littered with american flags and blaring alex jones on the radio, which i was able to lie and say that i was doing something else and concealing the whole journalism aspect, for my own personal safety, but a lot of other journalism majors i know aren’t so fortunate. i know women who have been yelled at, insulted, and there was a girl who worked around the same time as me who got spit on.

female journalists are usually treated more roughly regardless (when i went out for my first story, my editor sat me down and looked me in the eyes and said “someone might laugh at you because you’re young, and you’re a woman in print journalism, and you know what? fuck ‘em.” which was the first time i’d ever heard her swear and also one of the only times i’d ever heard her swear) so they tend to have to double down and really make sure they know their stuff in case they’re ever quizzed on it in a way that male journalists never really are. this is of course not to say that we’re all mistreated, all the time; it’s just something that female journalists are aware of, the way most women are aware of sexism in general.

section three: realism, and also, hey, maybe don’t do this? just because it’s both unrealistic and like. kinda sexist undertones imo

hoo boy. i’m just gonna take it down the list of some popularized media portrayals of journalists that you might be familiar with and outline why each one is, well..... Not My Favorite?

camille preaker, sharp objects

i do really like gillian flynn’s work, especially gone girl, but camille preaker just rubs me the wrong way? it primarily comes from the ethics involved in her whole situation, and i know they did it for ~drama, but it just... okay, here we go. for starters, you would probably not go out drinking with a source, unless it’s at an event, and you definitely don’t get drunk. you try not to interview people you have personal ties to, because the bias can infiltrate through your work. you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT sleep with your source, especially if he is a member of the police force and a primary source on the murder investigation you’re looking into. just...yeah, those two are the main things?

rita skeeter, harry potter

ugh, the way that rowling painted the daily prophet rubs me the wrong way. like, i understand, and i know that it’s probably more a mention of tabloid culture than like News, but it still just?? it’s the primary news source of the wizarding world?? really?? but yeah, sneaking into places (hospitals especially) to get a story is a massive no-no that would immediately get you arrested.

joan calmezzo, parks and rec

look, i know it’s a comedy, and i know that it’s not realistic, and i know that there is definite semblance for the “alcoholic journalist” thing (an editor i worked for once talked about how her old boss hid a flask in the water fountain in city hall so that he’d be able to get it and drink on the job) and statistically, it does show that journalists turn to sugar/alcohol/caffeine, but i just?? journalists wouldn’t show up to work absolutely blacked out, and if they did they’d definitely get fired.

rory gilmore, gilmore girls

the way rory approaches job hunting makes me cringe down to my very soul. in the original series, from what i’ve seen, she approaches it relatively well (applies everywhere she can, networks, ends up accepting a relatively small job that still provides a massive opportunity to report on a major political figure) but in the revival. who DID that. rory sleeps with a source (WHAT IS IT WITH FEMALE JOURNALISTS ALWAYS SLEEPING WITH SOURCES IN TV SHOWS AND MOVIES?!??!?!!? NO!!!!!!!!!) and falls asleep in the middle of an interview (N O !!!!!) and seems to not understand the concept of freelancing at all (really????? you aren’t working on multiple stories at once??? really????) and also just??? completely disrespects the basic semblance of a job interview??? no matter how impressive your resume is, you still come prepared with ideas and answer questions and no job is OWED to you, especially not with journalism being as competitive as it is, just????

the movie “absence of malice”

i know this one is probably less common, as it’s a movie from the ‘80s, but i still wanna talk about it anyway. sometimes, yes, you write about suspects of murder on the front page of the paper, but federal prosecutor’s don’t usually leak info like That (though rosen is obviously corrupt) and you just?? okay, anyway, carter not revealing her source is good, that’s what a journalist would do, however, teresa perrone disclosing personal information and pleading for her not to include it definitely falls under the realm of an anonymous source. the primary aspect of journalism is “do no harm,” and since disclosing what perrone told her would have harmed her livelihood, carter absolutely either shouldn’t have put it in or made perrone an anonymous source. then we get back to the whole dating sources thing (YOU DON’T DO IT!!!!!!) and then you don’t REVEAL THE SOURCE THAT HURT THIS MAN, OH MY GOD, you still have an obligation to protect your sources!!!! also just generally just!!! this movie does explore a lot of ethical journalistic issues but the sloppy reporting in it just puts me On Edge, ya know?