#but it's jarring how differently we are experiencing this show

[obstinatecondolement]

Not mentioning names here because I don't actually get pleasure from sneering at things other people enjoy, but binge watching all of [show] in a short period of time really makes it seem like [popular ship] depends on having seen the show week to week for years while collectively rewriting every second of screen time these characters appeared together with the rest of the fandom. And I wasn't there for that! So it's like, I mean, I don't know where you guys are getting any of this, but godspeed.

[alvivaarts]

Writing Tips For You (as if I don’t currently have insane writer’s block)

-Can’t start a scene? Write the setting instead. What is the lighting like? Is this place comfortable? Is it familiar or not? What should you point out now so it doesn’t suddenly appear when it becomes important for the characters? SET! YOUR! STAGE!

-Everyone says “show, don’t tell”. I like to think of that as “what are your character’s physical reactions? What are they feeling?” You can say “Character looked dismayed”, or you can say “Character grimaced with dismay.” See the difference?

-Struggling with dialogue? Talk to yourself while you’re writing. You might be blocking yourself if you subconsciously think some dialogue feels unnatural.

-Context, context, context! This applies to everything from the small interactions to the big plots. Every force has an equal and opposite reaction, allow interactions and events to grow as such.

-Context, context, context pt 2! But worldbuilding! If your character is performing an act, how does that fit into the physical reality they already exist in? How is it possible? Can you imply (imply, not explain) that these things are commonplace or why they wouldn’t be?

-Build the action. (Stealing this from theater class like twelve years ago.) You can’t just put a character into the scene and say ‘they made a sandwhich’. What has to happen for the sandwhich to be made? Your character has to walk into the kitchen, open the cupboard, get out a plate, get out the jam and peanut butter, get out the knives, open the fridge, get out the bread, close the fridge, open the bread bag, lay down two slices of bread on the plate, close the bag, open the first jar, pick up the first knife, scoop up the jam, slather it on the bread, put the knife down, close the first jar- and so on and so forth. Every small step is necessary for you to understand, and to engage your readers. You don’t have to go into ridiculous detail like I just did, but even understanding that for yourself helps remember the ‘state’ of your scene at any given moment.

-See above, but it’s not a scene and a sandwhich. The scene is your whole story and the sandwhich is your plot. What small steps MUST happen to reach the climax? Does changing one of those small steps change the result? How?

-Emotions are best portrayed when you have experienced them or can get insight from those who have experienced them. Let yourself get emotional in a scene. Allow yourself to be empathetic and vicariously experience what your characters are.

-Reread your own work! Your writing style and characterizations can change over time, but if you feel like you’re losing them, don’t be afraid to look at where you started to ground yourself!

-Proofread your own work 2-12 hours after you finish a section! Not while you’re writing! Don’t let yourself get carried away with writing things ‘right’, just get the ideas out.

-Have a friend or volunteer proofread for you too! This can help pick out things you repeatedly say, words you might misuse, grammar and punctuation that might need correction, and phrases that are hard to digest or don’t make sense.

-Make sure you’re making an effort to use regionally/era specific words and slang both in dialogue and in your writing. There are plenty of websites and videos online that list and discuss regional and era slang worldwide. Not to mention, we can connect with people all over the world using the web just to ask! Using incorrect phrases can really break immersion and make characters feel- well, out of character! I.E. an 80s jock saying ‘dope bruh’, American characters (generally) saying ‘lift’ instead of ‘elevator’, so on and so forth.

-Research research research! Research bloodloss limits, research how laws and jobs operate in different regions and countries, research weirdly specific myths and biblical themes, research as much as you can! You can only build a richer environment to write in!

-If you actively want to implement themes, allow them to reflect the experiences of your character. Example character is an Italian American who was orphaned at 13 after his orthodox Catholic parents died, he has been in and out of foster care his whole life, and the moment he got out his military job became strict and he allowed himself to be blackmailed to protect a child in a similar position. This has plenty of fun themes and symbolisms, like sacrifice, fate, lack of control, love, losing autonomy, etc, all of which can be framed under the impactful history of his Catholic childhood. This evokes the imagery of farm animals, servitude, animal tags/dog tags, holy spaces being used for other purposes. Play with it!

-Build three base playlists! One for your overarching story, one for songs that remind you of the main character and their story arc, and one for how you feel when you’re writing/songs that weirdly remind you of your story. You can cycle through these to help get into your mood.

-Consume other media! If all you do is focus on writing, you WILL lose steam and inspiration. Don’t be afraid to watch new shows, read new books, look at more artwork, read more poems, listen to more music. You might get a flicker of inspiration for themes, motives and ideas, and you’ll continue to fill yourself instead of dumping your focus out on your writing.

-Understand how each major character thinks and instinctively reacts to things. Some characters can stay calm, but others might instinctively react to things ‘angrily’, others might try to run away. This is an easy way to figure out character flaws and impliment easy conflicts.

And last but not least:

-Take breaks! Don’t worry about forcing yourself to keep a posting schedule (unless you’re being paid. I’m not. I’m doing this shit for free and for funsies) if all you do is spend all your time worrying about your writing, you won’t be able to relax your brain. Spend time with friends, play games, go outside!

I hope this helps!

[cyrintheum]

Introducing Strohl as an ESFJ! + ARGUMENT WHY HE IS ESFJ

Hello everyone, It’s really jarring how much intuitive bias PDB has. Just because he leads in a group and has a plan doesn’t automatically mean he’s an ENFJ. If he has Ni-Se in his stack, then where’s the desire of his to have a grand plan on his country and even some Se sensory pleasures like blade-riding? He is obviously Si-Ne since he internalizes memorable moments in the past, him being eloquent with his words, and he even comes back with witty jokes and comebacks. I also made this new and improved argument with the help of my friends in order to properly present my argument better and more concisely.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.

I’m gonna cut through the chase here. It's already obvious that he is a Fe dom, so I won’t try to flesh out that part here. I’m gonna explain Si and Ne on this part.

Introverted Sensing (Si): Here’s the important part. His bond mostly focuses on trying to rebuild his past hometown, and he constantly tries to relive the events that transpired through it. He also wants to build a future where everyone gets their ruined cities rebuilt, since he does not want them to happen ever again. In a way, Si thinks about the past, but not just the past. It considers the past as a factor, and also thinks about the future due to the past. Ni is more of an unconscious effort seeing the future due to current happenings. Next, he constantly brings up his parents' teachings on doing laundry, cooking, and even honing your swords. This highlights his familiarity with traditional values his parents imposed on him. A Ni user is more likely to be rebellious with traditional teachings, due to it being one of the most stubborn cognitive functions. 

When going to Brilehaven, you are met with him reminiscing on his childhood in that city. "My parents took me once when I was a boy. I remember the day we arrived, and waking up to the smell of the ocean.” “The place was crowded beyond belief. Everything was so different from our hometown in the countryside.” Another thing, in one of his bonds, Strohl vividly remembers how he met Will, as well as the time where he mentioned that, “The roads were so rough we could hardly keep our arses on our seats, but there you were, reading a book of all things.”

According to Emma Jung’s description of introverted sensation, Si absorbs every single detail of the sensory experiences outside them. It’s like a person whom you’ve told a joke about in the morning, and they will still laugh about it in the night. Those lines show that every single detail of him internalizing sensory experiences into his internal self, attaching personal sentiments due to his parents when they were going to Port Brilehaven, not just remembering the past. This also applies to the time where he remembered travelling alongside Will in the carriage.

In comparison to an ENFJ, Ni is a function that relies on the unconscious. It produces unconscious images imaging the future that pertain to what’s happening right now. They are also big-picture thinkers who have a subjective plan at hand. Think about Louis who is an ENTJ. He has a grand plan of turning everyone into humans for the sake of equality. In comparison to Strohl, he is more focused on trying to rebuild his past glory and the old ruined cities, instead of making a long-term plan that revolutionizes the whole country.

At the end of the game, he reminisces about meeting Will in the recruitment center, and he states that he still sees the same about him. There’s just a lot of moments in the game where he constantly uses Si without even trying hard to remember about his past events whether it is about his traumas or not. An ENFJ would literally try harder to internalize and imagine the inner sensations that they experienced, since they have trickster Si. Their Ni-Se would push those away to make plans for the future.

Extroverted Intuition (Ne):

He came up with the idea that they should bring a person’s head instead of a monster when he knew that there are bounties that are people too. Everyone else had the same idea when he thought out of the box. Based on his past knowledge, he inferred that bounties also include criminals, hence he proposed the idea of bringing a head of a criminal in the competition to sway the audience. Another moment when he noticed that the Drakodios negated the protective magla by associating it with the king’s magic. He already knew that fact, and his intuition was triggered by external objects in reality that was happening at the moment. He even tested the lance and said that this changes everything about the situation.

In one quest, he wants to see what other possibilities the ring has by urging Will to wear it, since he remembered that the ring has a sketchy backstory. Based on Carl Jung, extroverted intuition always seeks new possibilities through seeking on what can be done in an object. It looks out for opportunities that can be done. An Ni user would just assume automatically that the ring shouldn’t be worn due to its dubious history.

Aside from the serious things he does with Ne, he also likes to reply with comebacks and make jokes about things that a Ni-Se user would have a harder time conjuring up with.

Conclusion:

So here’s the thing, Strohl doesn’t even try hard to remember his past experiences, as he constantly makes references about his past, while they’re just doing the most mundane tasks at hand. An ENFJ would be more likely to talk about the future since Ni is their auxiliary function. Literally when even doing the laundry he just casually brings up how much he is a master of laundry, as well as mentioning his parents phrases and values in it. His goals have also changed in his bond, as well as having trouble realizing his own ideals. This signals that he has trickster Ni in his stack, since he doesn’t think about his long-term goals. This concludes my argument for him. I will add more comments if I continue to find more evidence of him being an ESFJ.

References:

Wikipedia. (2024, November, 3). Jungian cognitive functions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_cognitive_functions

Sharp, D. (1987). PERSONALITY TYPES: Jung’s Model of Typology. Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20190722141945/http://innercitybooks.net/pdf/books/personalitytypes.pdf

[writingquestionsanswered]

How do I jumpscare my readers? Like, I want to write something that happens suddenly and unexpectedly. Which makes the reader pause and take a minute to process about what they just read. But I am afraid these "jumpscares" Might ruin the flow of my writing..or mess up the pacing

Recreating a Jump Scare in Narrative Fiction

Jump scares capitalize on the physiological reaction that is part of our body's defense mechanism against potential threats. When a sudden threat is detected, the fight-or-flight response is triggered, beginning with the startle reflex. This involuntary contraction of muscles and heightening of senses prepares us to take action in the face of a threat. As our nervous system kicks in, our blood pressure rises, the heartbeat quickens, breaths increase, and stress hormones (like adrenaline) are released. This gives us the "juice" we'll need to either fight the threat or run like hell.

In general, jump scares work because the stage has been set ahead of time to let the audience know a potential threat exists. Emotion, anticipation, and tension are built-up so that the reader expects the threat to show up, but not knowing exactly when or how creates a sense of impending danger. It's this sense of impending danger that makes the audience ripe for the triggering event whenever it does take place.

On screen, auditory and visual composition are used to increase tension, manipulate emotion, and create a sense of suspension in the moments before a jump scare. We are experiencing the event alongside the character, hearing what they hear, seeing what they see. Print, however, is a very different medium with different tools that work in a different way. Describing a dark room and scary sounds doesn't have the same effect as processing these cues with your own eyes and ears, so the reader is automatically distanced in a way a viewer isn't. Because of that, it's just not possible to recreate a jump scare in print the way you would on screen, but there are lots of things you can do to create a similar effect.

1 - Laying the Groundwork - In both print and on screen, the reader can't anticipate a threat if they don't know one exists. On screen, visual and auditory cues can be used to hint at a threat without any other context, but in print, the context has to be laid out using exposition, dialogue, and action. Techniques such as foreshadowing, pacing, and timing are also important.

2 - Setting the Scene - Even though the reader can't process visual cues with their eyes or auditory cues with their ears, you can still use sensory description to set the scene for the scary thing that's about to happen. Dimly lit rooms full of dust and shadows, peeling wallpaper and decaying furniture, musty and foul odors, cold air, creaking doors, distant thunder... Emotional details can help make the reader fell what the character's feeling... what is the character thinking? What internal emotional cues do they feel? What external emotional cues do they display or see other characters displaying? If a character walks into a house that's known to be haunted, these sensory and emotional cues help raise the tension and increase the reader's anticipation of what's about to happen.

3 - Creating Immediate Contextual Clarity - Laying the groundwork and setting the scene both help create general contextual clarity for the startling event that's about to occur, but it's also important to make sure there is immediate contextual clarity. In other words, if the reader doesn't know there's a rocking chair in the corner of the room, it's not going to be as scary when the rocking chair suddenly starts rocking even though no one is sitting in it. Likewise, a door that suddenly slams closed won't be as scary if the reader doesn't know the door is there.

4 - Interrupt the Flow and Be Jarring - Normally, we don't want to interrupt the narrative flow or do anything that will be jarring to the reader, but this is the one exception where we absolutely do want to do those things. We want to stop mid-paragraph, maybe even mid-sentence or mid-word and just drop the event right in there. We want to use strong verbs, active voice, and rapid fire sentences to create a sense of immediacy. We also want to avoid filter words. We want to say: The door slammed shut with a thunderous bang. Not: She heard the door slam shut suddenly.

5 - And BREATHE! - Finally, we want to give the reader a moment to catch their breath, let them sit for a moment with the lingering sense of dread and unease. Odds are good the character is doing the same thing, which gives you the opportunity to let the character process whatever they just experienced.

Some other posts that might help:

Horror by Darkness Horror by Daylight Adding Emotional Details to a Horror/Tragedy Scene Portraying Strong Emotions

Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[xxoxobree]

These are mainly 42 centered because that’s just what my brain comes up with 😭 hope that’s okay

I feel like this is wildly excepted, but I can’t NOT mention it…Could Miles 42 do his own hair? Yes. But he makes his mama do it so he can spend time with her.

We know that Miles’s dad and Aaron fell out in universe 1610 (at least I think so) SO because Miles’s dad isn’t there to stray the family away from his brother, Miles 42’s music is much more influenced by his uncle than 1610’s is. There’s a lot of oldies in there that he first heard because of him!

Adding on to that, I think there’s records in Miles 42’s room? Like I think it’s like in the back. Idk maybe I just saw someone say something about it

Anyways, on those bad nights where shit’s getting to him, Miles puts on a record or two. He loves his headphones, but the record player gives off a different vibe

I like to think about both Miles’ art styles. 1610’s is very freedom, graffiti centered (as we know). There’s a lot of color, he’s free with it. But I believe that 42’s is more, controlled? Idk the word, really. But there’s sharp lines and maybe even a little restraint? To show the difference between how they both grew up and what they’ve experienced through their loves.

I think Miles 42 is better at drawing what’s in front of him, versus 1610’s tendency to just sort of go with it.

both Miles’ favorite place is the roof, where the memorial for Aaron/Mr. Morales is. It makes them feel closer to the ones they’ve lost.

I’ve seen a Tiktok about Miles 42 having heterochromia? People argued that it was just the lighting in the movie, but I think it’d be cool? His eyes aren’t that different, but one is more hazel while the other is more brown.

Pokemon is Miles 42’s guilty pleasure. He likes the games a little (a lot) more than he’d like to admit

Sometimes I think i’d be funny if Miles 42 was a little on the short side? Like Miles 1610 grew because of the spider bite, but 42 stayed where he was? Like he’s not short, but he’s closer to average than a lot of the guys he hangs around and it’s funny because his attitude is 10 feet tall

Miles 42 doesn’t see his mom as much as 1610 does because she’s always working, so he does little things around the house to make it feel more like home when she gets off work. He lights her favorite candles, makes sure her favorite flowers are always in a vase on the dining room table. He likes taking the pressure off his mom’s shoulders because he knows she works hard. He goes above and beyond for her.

He sometimes (a lot of times) slips money into her savings jar so he can see her face light up when she counts it all

42 has his dad’s class ring from high school. He wears it a lot, but when he doesn’t it stays in a little box with his chains.

I can imagine both Miles’ just knowing random things? Like they have all these facts for no reason except the can

Both of them are the type to say they can’t dance even though they can do it better than basically everyone around them

If I think of any more I can send them! There’s also some stuff on my blog too!

Oouu I never thought of miles as someone who can do his own hair. Now that I’m thinking about it. He can definitely do 2 strand twist, but the two braids maybe a little too complicated for him and that’s why he lets Rio do it and to spend time with her 🥰🥰.

Definitely is influenced by uncle Aaron when it comes to music.

The art thing is soooo interesting I’d love to hear more about your theories on that.

I agree with the rooftop, I’ve written a few fics based on that rooftop 😂😂

He definitely has different colored eyes I actually made a post about that and I love it! Ones green and the others brown.

Short King Miles G 😂 I like to think 1610 miles has like 2/3 inches on him.

Yesss omg I agree with the dancing thing, in my head they’re amazing dancers.

These were soooo good, yess send me the others 🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽 thanks for sharing

[welovetesvkaidan]

OPINIONS ON KAIDAN EE/IF???

My honest reaction:

in all seriousness, if you wanna hear me yap about it, more under the cut

warning like, genuinely a ginormous yap, like a HUMUNGOUS, sleep-deprived yap,,, im cursed to be obsessed with skyrim + modded followers instead of touching grass

I think a lot of this is probably gonna be the same thing other people have said, so im sorry

if you feel i'm gonna be bringing up redundant points and get mad at me😓dont read

I haven't experienced and thus won't talk about the versions of EE and IF that are now separate mods from each other. I don't know anything about that.

if they're better now yayyy but this is about pre-separation

I should preface this with the fact that I've played through Skyrim 3 times with different stages of Kaidan EE/IF:

The initial Dawnguard + fixes/miscs mod

Kaidan EE/IF versions before extensive faction/NPC dialogue for Kaidan

EE/IF w/ NPC Dialogue (AKA Fratpack)

I was also part of the two different discords that were purged and created during these intervals. i don't even know if there is a discord currently?

anyway, that is to say that I have experienced the mod and it's behind-the-scenes progress, extensively so I have a pretty good idea of what I liked and didn't like

That being said, I will introduce probably my biggest problems with it: Tonal whiplash

Okay, well the most common complaint is ofc that a lot of the writing is out of character - and I agree. But it's not just ooc on paper, it's his voice too. I swear, it is very jarring hearing hushed, mild og Kaidan 2 voicelines, and then being deafened by EE Kaidan SCREAMING in my ear ALL.THE.TIME. (like... why are you yelling at me rn jeez)

Seriously. I'm not sure why they didn't just re-record everything from the original mod instead of adding more and more contradicting lines on top of the originals. It definitely could have been a standalone mod, and sometimes it almost feels like it is - because he is just so different.

My most infamous moment in my last playthrough with him happened after we defeated the dragon at Kynesgrove. His og Kaidan 2 dialogue played first, in it he shows interest and is cordial about Delphine ("I wouldn't mind prodding her mind" or whatver dialogue), THEN immediately after his Kaidan EE/IF dialogue will play, in which he walks up to Delphine and STARTS YELLING AT HER AND INSULTING HER - like they argue for quite a bit wtf. And it's like, listen, I have my thoughts about Delphine, but whether or not it was okay to yell at her isn't the problem. It would be fine - IF he hadn't just calmly told me he thought she was okay.

It is sooo confusing how he contradicts himself :(

I mean, yeah, fragments of who he is are still there, I can tell it's Kaidan, but he's warped to fit a different character. Like a con-artist Kaidan.

Anyway, besides the contradictions, it also feels out of character because of his established backstory.

Let's go over it: He's an orphan, lost his only connection to his family(his guardian) to drugs, fell into substances himself, joined a violent cult, had to escape said cult, came clean from his addictions, has been traveling Tamriel bounty-hunting, got brutally attacked by the Thalmor, rescued by mere chance. Do you honestly mean to tell me this man would be yelling, pissing, drinking, lewding, and joking his ass off?? After all that???? NO - or maybe not these levels of extreme. (maybe some other dude might, but Kaidan's characterization insists he is a brooding, keeps-to-himself man, even though he never acts like it anymore)

That man should be tired, and he did feel like he was tired in the original. He was more brooding then than he is now, usually silent, but could still have an edge of comedy/wittiness, he was smart, he had been through a lot!

In that regard, EE/IF Kaidan felt like... we are experiencing Kaidan 10 years in the past - like a Kaidan in his early 20s when he was still a drunkard low-key terrible person. He is just so energetic, always yapping - GOD he talks a lot now. ugh but most of the time it wasn't about anything, it was either inside-jokes, meta jokes, and only occasionally did we get things that added to the experience.

For example, I think most of us who have played Kaidan 2 remember at least one specific line he has said while exploring. What comes to mind for me is either "Can you smell the magicka in the air too? Smells like a rainless thunderstorm." or "Watch for the mammoth with the carvings on their tusks, that's how the giants mark their herd." Alright, both pretty nice small talk for characterization (he IS smart) and worldbuilding.

Tbh i can't really remember any iconic lines from the additions of EE/IF Kaidan... the only two lines that stood out for me were: the "elevenses" line from the clip above (started bumping into him every time he was about to say this so he would stfu... total tonal dissonance), and one he said while I looted Lucky Lorenz ("poor sod wasn't as lucky as his namesake would have you believe!") kai HOW do you know this man, and his nickname, who told you that??? (idc about it that much but its like the only other added line i remember)

I thought that maybe his ooc-iness might have been caused due to the collaborative approach of the mod, I think the mod authors created their own perfect Kaidan - and that's good for them! It takes a shit ton of work (Ik cuz i was there!!) But I think the original essence was lost with each addition. It might have been lack of direction for the voice acting too, a lot of the lines might have hit better if they weren't borderline screamed.

Okay, at some point while playing I got so tired of his constant himbo chit-chatter that I tried tuning him out and bringing other npcs from vanilla skyrim as followers. Problem: even without kaidan on your party, everything starts being about kaidan. Because the extension made it so that Kaidan either has history with/character interactions and development with different NPCs from the base game.

The main poor sods that traveled with me:

Erik the Slayer: Apparently was Kaidan's childhood friend, got inspired by Kaidan to become an adventurer. Least egregious in my opinion, they say sweet things to each other. I swear, Kaidan yells more at me than he ever did at Erik.

The Companions: dumb, dumber, and dumbest basically.. This part of EE/IF was also known as "The Fratpack" and y e a h they pretty much had Vilkas, Kaidan, and Farkas acting like immature frat boys all the time. Just,, absulutely taking away all the maturity out of these GROWN ASS MEN. im sorry, i guess i dont get the appeal. I liked it when they didn't behave like teens (Aela im so sorry, you deserved better than being part of this)

Lydia: All she does is simp for him, ALL.THE.TIME. You think she's about to have a meaningful thing to say? nope, she's checking out Kaidan's ass. Think she'll have a deep convo with another npc about one another? nope! she wants them to tell her all about Kaidan. Both the Companions and Erik will either talk down to her or have to deal with her thirst for Kaidan. i had to start leaving her home.

They also suffered from the same tonal whiplash as Kaidan, unfortunately

additionally, the mod added an "early flirt switch" - you could basically toggle Kaidan to start showing romantic affection for the Dragonborn before the amulet of mara., the interactions were good on paper, but everytime he stammered and stumbled over his words it was written in such an unnatural way... pls people don't talk like fanfics lol !!!

I did like that he gave me flowers, my inventory got full of them - but then he noticed how many flowers I had in my inventory and judged me for "picking everything i see" ugh dude you gave them to me, but also even if you hadnt... mind your business lol

Another addition was a feature that basically made it so NPCs could potentially throw flirtatious comments at Kaidan and the Dragonborn (Bishop flashbacks😨)

You can't do anything to defend Kaidan from those comments, but he WILL take it upon himself to defend your honor infront of any men, women, jarls, or criminals that even so much as find you attractive (THIS INCLUDES FARKAS AND VILKAS BTW :( ) by being rude, forthcoming, AND violent. so yea, you can guess the target audience

speaking of which, he definitely comes on too strong on you once you start the romance, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. I specifically picked the "go slow" option for the romance, and the next day or two it was him constantly complaining about having to go slow under his breath, how he wanted to do anything but slow rn... and like just, wow. :/ yikeees lmao

Maybe this is the result of "i can fix him" romance ideals? im sorry but I liked him when he was down to earth

Bonus? He comes with a campsite now, which has to be magic because its ginormous and he somehow lugs it around despite it also coming with a whole ass furnace (fine fine i'll hold my disbelief)

anyway I do like it, its basically a player house you can take anywhere (so long as kai is with you ig) also you can have a cat in there

I like that there is an MCM, I like that the MCM lets you get through the quest stages in case you get stuck

I like that he can guide you places, usually he gets stuck in a tree or rock but its the thought that counts

I think if the mod had continued in the vein as its original iteration when it was just audio/bug fixes and included these qol features it would have been better than it is now.

But it seems maybe i'm just not the target audience, and as a young woman I'm really confused as who the target audience is 😓

okay im srry rant over

if anyone else wants me to yap about other kaidan skyrim things also ask or join in cuz i like yapping about skyrim and kaidan to people!!!

[danieyells]

Sure Haku can have big balls but we all agree Alan Thoma and Jiro have big dicks? But not like slightly above average but rather 20 minutes foreplay just to loosen up but still be a fair stretch, big as in a fair amount of lube is needed to even slip the head in and might need more to fully thrust inside

You only need that kind of prep if you're a coward!

THEY ARE RATHER LARGE MEN y'know as far as the bishie style goes. It'd be pretty proportionate of them to be well hung and i'm all about sicknasty size difference and distention if you've got a small enough partner--

Fortunately all three of them are. . .idk graceful enough not to be cruel about it.

Alan is definitely inexperienced and he's already so fucking scared of harming his partner he would just. . .whenever they try and get him in bed he just goes "We can't. Sorry." Fortunately he's not the type to, y'know, beat around the bush so if they ask him he'll explain. . .and if they say they wanna try anyway he'll give it a go but he'll be ready to stop the moment they seem uncomfortable or in pain. Which means a lot of reassurances that it's fine, it's fine, keep going. It'll be a lot of convincing, but he'll be as slow and gentle as he can! His partner would probably have to do a lot of leading. . . . Alternatively he'd be all about getting them off and appreciating their body and when they wanna return the favor he hesitates then says they don't have to. He can take care of it himself if they don't want to. And they're like 'why would I not want--oh' when he pulls out this monster.

Tohma has much more experience and is much more confident overall. When things reach that point with his partner he's a little more direct. Maybe he grinds against them to let them get a subtle feel long before the first time they do it, or he just takes their hand and lets them have a feel for themself. "Do you understand? If we take that route, I'm going to need a fair bit of your time. . . ." He knows just how to prepare them, just how to stretch them out, and he makes certain to pleasure them the whole way--and if they're a little limp from the pleasure buildup then. . .that'll just make it easier to put it in at the end. He might hold them up and gently guide them down onto him. . .use them as a little fleshlight once they've gotten used to it enough.

Jiro isn't even fully aware of that he's particularly large. Like, numerically he is, he's studied anatomy before and he's seen Yuri naked and he's a lot smaller(well, Yuri's smaller in every aspect) but it somehow hadn't occurred to him that it could be a problem. Meanwhile the one who knows is Yuri--and when Jiro's partner shows up, Yuri just looks at them in irritation. "Ah, yes, Jiro did say he had plans today after his treatment." And Yuri just thrusts a particularly large, unlabeled jar of gelatinous fluid at them, telling them not to take too much time because they are very busy and Jiro being occupied is a hindrance. And Jiro's like "oh, Yuri said we'd need a lot. I've read that too much can reduce the pleasure, though. I don't care either way, so just use as much as you want." (Not that he can't feel it or anything, he's just. . .indifferent for the most part. It doesn't bother him if he doesn't come, he'll take care of it later if it's a problem.) And of course they understand why they thought they'd need so much when Jiro whips it out. Jiro's very analytical about the whole thing, once he realizes that hm, yes, this won't fit, but with enough elasticity--he's got no problem figuring out what should be done to prepare. The massive jar of lube may or may not be experimental but it does the job with great efficiency. . .turns out it was an experimental gel for anomalous ailments where the afflicted turn to stone or wood with the intention of relaxing muscles and joints and regaining flexibility, but it works great as a lubricant! Jiro's also not very experienced and his tendency to experiment means he might be a little rough just to see how it all works, but he's considerate enough of his partner not to go too hard once he realizes oh that hurts, huh. Kinda antithetical to the evening's plans.

[mothy35]

Parallels between Fuuta and Muu's stories (ft. Rei)

Tws for usual Milgram stuff (bullying, suicide)

Even though Es is saying the above to Muu, isn't it interesting how this seems to pertain to both of them?

Quick key because I say these words a lot in this post: Bring It On -> BIO It's Not My Fault -> INMF Fuuta and Muu have a fundamentally similar story about bullying, participating in it, and experiencing it as a result of that instigation. These stories are told in a way that parallel each other, and where one has blanks, the other does not.

In trial 1, they are both unwilling to confront their role within their crime as a defense mechanism against a fear of punishment. This changes for Fuuta and not Muu because of his verdict forcing him to face it. Essentially, their ideas can be summarized:

Muu's story is told in such a way that she completely omits that she *had* bullied anyone to begin with, while Fuuta's makes it obvious from the get go. Even in INMF, it's unclear what she actually did.

Despite the straightforwardness of BIO, Fuuta's flaw is him not taking full responsibility and shifting blame for Killcheroy's death, while Muu shows us her killing Rei clear as day

Fuuta seems to know what he's doing, but justifies it with groupthink and halfhearted ideas of justice. In a way, Muu shares this idea: "if it's against a bad person, it can be justified".

This belief only works as long as they're not in the position of the "other": they have to uphold that they are good, and the enemy is bad. Their current fates are a cautionary tale on what happens if the very same idea is applied to them.

Muu's idea of bullying is something that is physical in nature, which makes it something she didn't do. (Although that stands to question Rei's state at the end of INMF...)

Muu may not have *personally* soaked Rei and Fuuta may not have *personally* harassed his victim beyond the doxx, but they are still instigators that participated in and enabled this behavior for others

Both seem to downplay or otherwise not understand the severity of their actions because of the lack of direct/physical involvement

They both place themselves as leaders within their friend group (probably more true for Muu)

The way their bullying is depicted is quite detached from reality for the most part (Fuuta's RPG crusade, Muu as a bee creature)

Their denial in their respective areas show up in different ways in BIO and INMF -- Killcheroy appears as her online avatar rather than a human, Muu's group appears as inhuman bug creatures made of porcelain

BIO and INMF have the two take on aggressor roles in their music videos, but there are still glimpses of uncertainty in their otherwise pretty striking messages

In terms of how they carry themselves, their roles reverse after the first trial.

Fuuta starts out in trial 1 with an aggressive attitude to deflect blame -> unforgiven verdict. He is punished, and subsequently portrayed as pitiful and weak, seeking to be saved. In early timeline conversations he was often rude and obnoxious, but in the 2024 ones he clumsily shows concern for the other prisoners and seems quite docile after "[finding] something to rely on".

Muu starts out pitiful and punished -> innocent verdict. Muu is freed from punishment, and she shifts to a smug attitude. Her later timeline conversations with the other prisoners are quite jarring because of how out of touch she seems from them.

If we see an uglier side of Fuuta in t3 and it leads to an unforgiven verdict, it'll be full circle. I could see the debate on whether he *really* feels bad or is just acting on self preservation playing into it (which I've seen a great post about if you're interested in that) The same could go for Muu's story becoming sympathetic again because we've already seen something that could lead to such a high unforgiven ratio, but who knows.

Some more shared impressions between t1 Muu and t2 Fuuta:

Approval seeking

Suicidal thoughts

(Even though the After Pain lyric is vague, the rest of the MV is pretty bleak to back it up)

Now, on Fuuta's parallels with Rei.

While we don't know a lot about her outside of the portrayal Muu gives her, there are still things we can gather.

Both are outsiders. In Rei's case, she seemed to have not been in Muu's friend group to begin with, while Fuuta was eventually cast out of his.

We don't actually know if she's a friendly person or not, but it seems that she is straightforward and not the kind of person to keep up appearances.

In Muu's portrayal of Rei, she seems to be looking down on her group, casting judgement on a basis that seems to appear moral (given her look of disgust juxtaposed with Muu's group bullying a girl). Their fate is a direct "consequence" of their judgements, with Rei being killed and Fuuta having killed another.

They are both drawn with sharp eyes and thick, triangle-shaped eyebrows, the latter trait being not shared by anyone else in the cast.

@caeyrin:

All in all, I'm really looking forward to seeing what the last piece of their stories will be in trial 3. For Fuuta I'd really like to know about Rumerie's place here, and for Muu what exactly happened between her, her friends, and Rei.

[actual-changeling]

Do you think Aziraphale has been verbally, emotionally and psychologically abused by Heaven as well?

I will answer this question like one asked in good faith even though my gut is telling me there's a 50/50 chance it is very much not one.

So!

There are two parts to his answer, or rather one question is actually two.

Firstly, we have to talk about whether heaven is abusive, what that abuse looks like, and how it differs from hell.

Secondly, how did the results of question one affect Aziraphale, if it is different from what the other angels in heaven face, and what additional trauma might he have experienced due to being on earth.

I could write a 10k meta post about this and go into the finest detail, but I will just try and stick to the main points for now. It's still going to be way too long because I am so fucking tired of people accusing me of 'hating' Aziraphale or harassing me on my posts or in my inbox.

Is heaven abusive? Yes, and it applies to both heaven as an institution and the Archangels running it.

Getting to know Muriel and what their life looks like was extremely helpful in properly defining this, because they showed us that although the Archangels tend to travel and work as a group, most of the angels are incredibly isolated.

The result is complete emotional neglect, which not only impairs your ability to form and maintain healthy relationships with other people, it also stops your from learning emotional regulation and how to behave and feel as a part of (angelic) society. We see the consequences of that in Muriel, who comes across as overly naive, socially awkward, and out of touch with not just people but themselves.

When your entire life has been shrunk down to what happens inside your own head, suddenly being confronted with having to live outside of your mind is jarring, overwhelming, and foreign.

How do you talk to people when no one ever taught you how to do that? How do you behave around someone after a lifetime of being alone? How do your regulate your responses to their behaviour?

Who are you when there is someone else to perceive you?

Figuring that out is complicated and it takes time, and while most of the angels are only distantly aware of how humans live and what kind of interactions some of the other angels might have, the effects of that neglect stay the same whether they are aware of it or not.

Muriel shows us that angels are not born/made as a blank slate, and neither are humans for that matter. Tabula rasa as a philosophical belief is one thing, but reality is very, very different.

Angels also appear to have the same inherent need for connection, for a caretaker that loves them unconditionally, for someone to help them figure out how to be, and that provides a safe space to make mistakes. Without some or all of that, you grow up into a disregulated, socially awkward if not inept person who does not know how to have relationships or how to properly exist.

It is one of the reasons why autistic people are a) almost always traumatized to some degree and b) do not know how to socialize. No one ever works with our brains, and the resulting neglect is very similar to not receiving any help at all.

If you are now curious what happens if you're both autistic and were completely socially neglected, the result is uh. me. Hi! Not nice, but at least I am very sure I win the award for being my therapist's most fucked up client, so that's something.

Yet the angels are not solely emotionally neglected, the system/household they live in demands a low self-esteem, a lack of individual identity, and complete adherence to a defined ideology and behavioural pattern. In short, you are told how to be a useless, tiny part in a bigger machine, that your only purpose is to succeed at your tasks, and any opportunity for individual development is removed or destroyed.

If you are now once again curious what that might be like, uh, yeah, hi once more. Obviously my childhood was not exactly like an angels life, but the core characteristics were the same, just realized differently. Again, not pretty, really, really fucks you over.

Take that and the neglect, combine it into one person, and then drop them in the Garden of Eden—hello Aziraphale! Crowley got dropped into hell first, experienced more abuse, and then dug his way up into Eden before joining him.

Aziraphale experienced everything Muriel (and Crowley, and every other celestial being) also experienced, with one main difference: He is the one who got away.

We have to remember that out of every single celestial being, Aziraphale got the best deal. He did not fall, he got out of heaven (more or less) permanently, and was then largely left alone.

Does that erase anything I laid out above? No, of course not!

It simply provided him with the opportunity to heal, to take his cPTSD and who knows what other disorders he developed as a result, and start recovering.

Canonically, heaven did not bother him, like, ever, except for the odd note about 'frivolous miracles' or ten minutes of catching up every millennia. They only started monitoring him once they started to suspect he was involved with Crowley and trying to stop the apocalypse from happening.

Aziraphale worked on some things, he got better in many regards, especially with Crowley there to support him, but after six thousand years, many aspects have stayed the same or regressed back to the start over and over.

I will tell you a hard pill to swallow now: If you refuse to acknowledge your issues to instead live in a world of nicer denial and compartmentalization even when you have been offered the chance to change it, that is partly on YOU.

Is it fair? Fuck no! It's not fair at all, and I have had so many breakdowns over that fact. I did not break it, this is not my FAULT so why should I have to fix it all on my own? Why do I have to do the work, not them? How come they get away with it while I am going to have to carry this for the rest of my life?

I still have to do it though. I have to do the work, no matter how uncomfortable and exhausting, because I want to get better.

-

This conversation has so many facets and is a lot more complex, but this is already long enough, so if you have any questions or want to know something specific (while asking politely and in good faith) just send me an ask; I will do my best to answer it.

-

We are now only missing the last part of question 2, and that one is also so fucking complicated reducing it to the main points almost feels wrong, but I will do it anyway. Again, just ask if you have questions.

Abusive households are horrible, and you want to get out and away, but they are also the only thing you know. The world is scary, too big, too open, where did all the rules go that were previously defining your life?

Surviving in an abusive environment means you establish routine after routine after routine for every possible horrible scenario, you write a mental rule book to try and reduce the abuse (don't make them angry, don't cry when they're already shouting, don't do this, don't do that, do x but not y), and THAT is your socialization. THAT is everything you know, everything you are, everything you know relationships to be like.

Once you are away from that, you are completely and utterly lost. Even breathing feels like making a mistake, you feel watched, judged, rated, berated, you have them stuck in your fucking head. So you keep sticking to what you know, your behavioural patterns that have kept you safe your entire life.

The problem is that they kept you safe, past tense. In a healthy environment, all of those coping mechanisms are now maladaptive and harm you instead of keeping you safe.

However, breaking out of them and starting from scratch is terrifying. So, so, so terrifying. I live in constant fear, I feel judged and unsafe in my own flat with the curtains shut and the lights on. I feel like I am about to get subjected to another one of his fits for daring to use the stove.

No matter what you do, your body and brain are SCREAMING at you that diverging from what you know will kill you—and then you have to do it anyway.

Do it alone and afraid and awkwardly but DO IT. Otherwise you will always find a way to recreate the environment you grew up in, whether that is people getting into unhealthy relationships and replicating the patterns they know (which Aziraphale does with Crowley, e.g. the push-pull of his affection) or eventually even returning to it because they ruined you, but a part of you is so, so attached to them you just have to try and change them.

Some people can move on from it without going back, but sometimes you need to try and experience that failure for yourself before being able to move on, and that's where Aziraphale is at.

He needs to try and fail to be capable of finally committing to recovering.

So, to summarize this entire shitshow: Yes, Aziraphale experienced emotional neglect and abuse, and while it is different to what Crowley went through and objectively less intense and physical, it is still just as valid and horrid.

Just because a car accident is objectively worse than falling off a bike doesn't mean the biker's pain is unimportant. Both can kill you, both can hurt you, and both deserve to get their injuries treated.

Questions?

[sehtoast]

How are you able to like Homelander and not condone his actions at the same time, without feeling crappy? This sounds accusing but I’m asking bc I’m struggling with it. I know ppl who do the same with characters, but I’ve had an unwelcome fixation on him come out of nowhere and I feel sick and guilty bc I feel like everyone will think I’m some kind of freak or something. I’m very much anti-sa and other gross stuff esp as a victim but I still feel like I’m being hypocritical or something. I’m sorry for the weird message but I feel like I’m losing my mind

The short answer is that he’s fictional.  Think of… I dunno, an antagonist in media of a different form (let’s go with anime).  I was a naruto kid growing up, so let’s use Orochimaru for an example.  My guy was on some fuck shit through the entire show. Snatching bodies, murkin’ Hokages, wild experiments, all that shit with Sasuke, and so on.  People still liked him regardless because he was a cool character despite the bad things he’s done.  Some people may have even found him relatable in certain ways.  I feel like it’s the same concept here.

You don’t have to feel bad about enjoying fictional characters, no matter how awful they may be.  At the end of the day, they’re fictional and their actions have harmed nobody in real life.  Their actions may mirror that which does harm real people, but they themselves have not dealt real harm to real people.  Enjoying them does not mean you condone their actions.

I’m also extremely anti-SA, and am a victim of it myself, but I still find a lot of love and appreciation for Homelander’s character– but this isn’t hypocritical.  My love for him doesn’t come from the fact he has perpetrated that act, nor should it come from that.  I love him as a character with the bottom line that he is… extremely complex.  

I’ve said it for years now, but I think Homelander is a compelling tale of the dangers of commodifying the human soul.  He is an example of how awful someone can turn out if you deprive them of humanity with the goal of creating a product.  People are not products, we are not a means to an end, and we certainly should never be treated that way. He was, and this is how he turned out.  He’s a take on the cyclical nature of trauma in a lot of really interesting ways as well.

I find him relatable from a standpoint of my own traumas and being transgender.  Episode four of s4 revealed that I have a jarring amount of trauma that mirrors his own to some capacity.  I’ve always suspected these things, and I’ve had headcanons since the first season, and having them confirmed reminded me just how much I’ve latched onto this character because of it.  Homelander experienced some degree of sexual abuse in the labs– and I wager there may have been worse than simply being called ‘squirt.’ Homelander was subjected to physical torture and locked in a room where his mind slowly fractured, all while being conditioned to never seek escape otherwise he’d be too devastated from disappointing the scientists or losing their ‘love.’ 

I have experienced SA, I was locked in my room with nothing as punishment (my 'bad room'), had very little privacy and next to no access to boundaries as a kid, I was put through physical pain very often by a sibling (my furnace), I was reared and conditioned to have a fear of disappointing others so severe it made my blood pressure drop into the danger zone a couple times as a kid– and still has similar effects as an adult.  I’d literally pass out, have panic/anxiety attacks, vomit, etc.  I also know what it’s like, as a trans man, to have been raised and reared for a life that was designed for me, but was not me.  I was lucky enough to find my way to the person I needed to be; Homelander has not and likely will not ever be able to do so.  In all of the aforementioned, I have a lot of empathy and compassion for him that combines with my fascination with his complexity.  There were a lot of things in my life that should have pushed me down the road to be an awful person, much like the things in his life did. But I had a handful of people to guide me toward better things.  He didn’t.

But I see myself in there nonetheless. Homelander was the first time I ever saw so much of my own trauma on display in a single character.  I’d love to hug the man and tell him he’s enough, show him the humanity he was and continues to be denied, and so on.  When I realized that means that I would, in turn, do that for myself if I only viewed myself through a lens that wasn’t my own, my life changed.  This character changed my life.  I know I thirst-post about him a lot, but my love for Homie runs a lot deeper than just finding him attractive, you feel?

A fictional character doesn’t have to be one of moral high ground or superiority for it to be okay for you to enjoy them.  You can enjoy characters who commit horrible acts. This does not make you someone who condones horrible acts.  I was initially pretty embarrassed to admit I like Homelander as much as I do, but I slowly realized that it does not make me a bad person and it should never be used as a gauge to find out how ‘moral’ someone is or not.  People like Hannibal Lecter, people like Thomas Hewitt, Joffrey, Albert Wesker, Cletus Kasady– any number of fictional characters who have an ugly record or have done horrific things.  We do not assume someone is evil because they like Hannibal, nor should we do the same for people who like Homelander.

At the end of the day, do what makes you happy. If exploring Homie is something you would have fun with, do it! Engage in media, learn tales of caution and tragedy– stories make us human.  You are not inhuman for enjoying Homelander and his tale.  In fact, I would argue you are very human because of it.

[xoxoemynn]

omg you watched kevin can f**k himself! I was obsessed with that show when it was airing, definitely due for a rewatch. what did you think? the breaking of the sitcom with allison and kevin in the last episode has stuck with me since I saw it almost 2 years ago

YEAH IT WAS SO FUCKING GOOD. I've wanted to watch it for years but was too lazy to figure out how to and now it's on Netflix so there's that issue sorted!

I wanted to take my time watching and ended up binging it because I could.not.stop. so I know I missed things and I want to go back and rewatch, but I also want to let it simmer a minute.

Going to put some incoherent ramblings behind a cut just to be safe for spoilers (and yes I know it's been years but I know a lot of people are just hearing about it for the first time now that it's on Netflix).

The last 15 mins of the show HAUNT me. I had a feeling that was coming but actually SEEING it was terrifying. We all KNEW this was Kevin, we all KNEW the sitcom filter was obscuring how abusive his behavior was, but when we actually see him the way he REALLY is and how everything about him changes, it's just HORRIFYING. And it puts everything we just watched into a new perspective because the way he corners her, his tone when he asks her what she said to Molly, when he starts listing off things that happened in the show that even knowing all along that he was a narcissistic, abusive asshole you still might be tempted to think "oh, maybe he's just clueless to the fact he's being awful" and you realize no, he was AWARE and he knew exACTLY what he was doing to control Allison and keep her down...literally I cannot get that scene out of my head.

And then looking back on the series as a whole...

Just how JARRING the contrast was between the sitcom world and the real world? And how it faded away so slowly you almost don't even notice it at first until you get closer to the end of the series and you're mostly in the real world? How the sitcom filter obscures the bandages Allison wears. How dingy the house looks when it fades. How the women's appearances change, looking cute and put together in the sitcom world but in the real world we see Allison's roots are showing and her clothing is in worse condition and Patty's hair looks less TV ready despite being a stylist. How we start to see all the characters differently once Kevin begins to lose his grip on them. How we never actually see Pete in the real world?!

One thing the show does really well, and a reason why I'm so eager to rewatch it, is not outright revealing everything that's happening. Allison wears long sleeves for most of the show; when we see her in a hospital gown there are bruises on her arm that are never commented on. We'd never had any reason to suspect Kevin's abuse was physical, but especially after seeing the finale, I think it's fair to believe that. And then you look back on all the other times Kevin "accidentally" hurt Allison, like the time he slams the door into her face and we see her simply cover it up with makeup... yeah.

Just all the LAYERS to the show. Analyzing it from the lens of how sitcoms treat women, the wives in particular, who are shown as humorless, nagging shrews who are just expected to put up with their husbands who act like children and are engaging in all kinds of antics to the delight of a laugh track that would be horrifying in real life. (And the fact they brought in the actress whose character was killed off in between seasons of Kevin Can Wait and then barely spoken of again was a BRILLIANT bit of meta commentary.)

But then also what it's like to be in an abusive relationship with a narcissistic, charismatic alcoholic, and how isolating and desperate it can feel when nobody sees what you see, nobody understands what you're experiencing, because everyone else is content to live in this world where he's the goofy life of the party. And at the beginning you may be going "okay, girl, just LEAVE," but then as you learn more and more about just how controlling Kevin is, and what he's capable of, and also Allison's own childhood, you start to see why she was SO desperate she'd go so far as to fake her own death because she thinks it's the only way she can ever escape him.

It's just so. good. And intense. I wish they had gotten one more season because while the ending was brilliant, I felt like some parts in S2 were a bit rushed, particularly with Neil, but it was just SUCH compelling TV and I cannot get it out of my head.

[indigos-shits-and-giggles]

homosexual.txt

(yes that is what I named the google doc I wrote this in)

Reblogs greatly appreciated! AO3 Link

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

“So, like… what’s your name?”

A question Wes expects, but always dreads.

It glances up from his notebook at the man sitting opposite to it for a brief moment, squinting at his face to get a gauge for their emotions. The dishevelled, somewhat awkward seeming man appears to glance away the second their gaze meets, though Wes can’t really tell from the mop of long, curly brown hair that covers his eyes. Wes doesn’t blame them, though, it isn’t like it was ever one to enjoy eye contact either.

Besides, he can still read the stranger’s emotions just fine. It isn’t hard to pick up on his anxiety from the way they idly pick at the skin on his knuckles, or to catch onto their subtle skittishness from the way his muscles tenses slightly, as if their body is instinctively preparing to flee at the slightest motion. Though, it also notices his genuine attempt at being curious in the way their head tilts slightly towards him, trying to hear it better. And of course, Wes notices that smile; a small, awkward little half smile that holds an earnest friendliness he hasn’t seen in a lot of people, a spark of kindness it finds himself wanting to shield.

“He’s got a cute smile,” Wes thinks before it can stop himself, and it quickly glances down at his notes to hide the embarrassment that flashes on its face in a split second, trying to keep up that cold, bitter demeanour he’d forged to protect itself.

Remembering he has to actually answer the strange man’s question, it adjusts his glasses as it replies in a calm voice, “No thank you. I don’t want to give you my name.”

Wes swallows, inhaling as he braces itself for the usual responses his refusal receives; confusion, irritation, and even anger that it doesn’t want to give something as simple as a name.

“Oh,” The brown haired stranger comments after a long pause, “Well… I’m See. Just See.”

Wes blinks, surprised by how nonchalant this “See” individual seems to be. Sure, it can still pick up on their confusion without even looking at him, based on how experienced he is with this very same conversation, but he seems to decide it’s more polite to not pry and just introduces themself instead. See seems to be trying their best to navigate this conversation properly, which Wes can’t help but appreciate.

So, Wes lets the barest trace of a smile show on his face as it replies, “It’s nice to meet you, See.”

Silence follows Wes’ response, an uncomfortable silence both clearly want to fill but don’t know how to. Wes takes the time to flip to an empty page in his notebook, before writing See’s name at the top of the lined page in all-caps, taking note of anything that could be important to its private investigations. See doesn’t seem like someone that’d be relevant to his search, but it still likes to keep notes on any interesting people he meets in case it can get that one step closer to reuniting with his brother again. It’s so, so close, he can feel it, it just needs to find that one more clue, find one more thread to tie together, it always got Ridley out of messes, he HAS to—

“…why, uh, why don’t you want me to know your name?” See asks, jarring Wes from its thoughts. A feeble attempt to make conversation, to break the tense silence that had settled between them.

Wes sighs, trying to remind himself that people have perfectly benign reasons to want to know that and it shouldn’t lash out at the stranger immediately unless he’s got a good gauge on their motives. It glances up at See with a raised eyebrow, and his exhaustion from many sleepless nights causes its tone to be a bit sharper than he intends as it replies, “Because I just don’t want you to.”

The reaction Wes receives is far different from what he’s grown to expect, and it’s surprised by the sudden pang of guilt that stabs at his heart from the sight before it. Instantly, See seems to deflate, the smile on his face that’s (in Wes’ objective opinion) absolutely adorable falters for just a moment, and their face twists with sudden alarm as he quickly stammers, “I’m sorry, I didn’t.. Did I do something wrong? I promise I didn’t mean any harm, I just-”

“No, no it’s fine!” Wes hurriedly interrupts, his expression softening as it tries to reassure the jumpy man that he’s not upset. It rests his notebook down in its lap so he can see See’s face better, clearly concerned by just how panicked they seem. Trying to keep its voice steady and calm, he clarifies, “Look, you didn’t do anything wrong, promise. I just… like my privacy. A lot. So I generally don’t let people know my name.”

“Oh,” See mumbles, the second time he’d done that in the space of this single conversation, and they seem to visibly relax a little from Wes’ reassurances, “Yeah… yeah, that makes sense.”

That small half-smile returns, if slightly more tentative than before, and Wes picks up its notebook again to hide a smile of his own. The silence that follows feels a bit more comfortable, though it doesn’t last long before See hesitantly questions, “So, what can I call you, then? D’you have, like, a nickname?”

“Nobody,” Wes answers matter-of-factly, “Just call me Nobody.”

See nods for a moment, fidgeting with his green flannel shirt as they consider Wes’ words. Taking a deep breath, he remarks, “Well, I mean that, like, sounds a bit strange. Calling you ‘nobody’, I mean.”

“Well, it’s what everyone calls me.”

“That.. sounds kinda rude. I mean, like.. I mean, I don’t think you’re a nobody.”

Wes’ face hardens a little at See’s words, finding them shockingly kind for a stranger it just met. He regards the messy haired man with a little more suspicion, searching their seemingly genuine smile for a flicker of malice, but it can’t seem to find any. He finds it hard to believe it’s an honest statement with no ulterior motive, but from what Wes can tell, it’s apparently just the other man's somewhat awkward attempt to connect to it.

Still, Wes remains guarded as he snaps suddenly, exhaustion making it defensive, “If it’s my name you want, you’re not getting my name out of me by saying that. You know that, right?”

See raises his hands in a placating gesture. “No, no, I just… I thought maybe I could, like, call you something else,” they explain, nervously wringing his hands.

Wes forces himself to take a breath, noticing just how stressed it’s unintentionally making See. Trying to bite back his sarcasm, it asks, “Like what?”

“Like, uh…” See begins, idly twirling a lock of their hair around his finger.

Wes finds himself looking up from its notebook, listening to See intently despite his previous attempts to seem disinterested.

“Oh! Like.. Buddy!” See cheers, a look of sudden delight and pride on their face that feels almost infectious as Wes struggles to keep its composure.

“Buddy?” Wes repeats, trying to adjust to how the word sounds on his lips, “Why?”

See doesn’t seem to mind Wes’ confusion as he explains, “See, it- it’s like ‘Nobody’, except you’re not nobody, and like.. like, ‘body’ and ‘buddy’ sound similar, so…”

They trail off, seemingly worried that his explanation doesn’t make sense. The glow of pride on their face dims, his grin fading as they sigh softly.

“That, uh, sounds stupid when I say it out loud…” See mutters, his nerves quickly returning as they idly pick at his skin.

“I like it,” Wes blurts out without thinking, a tiny smile unknowingly slipping onto its face. “It’s cute.”

“Like you,” he adds in its head, though he makes sure to not admit that out loud.

“Well, you’re-” See starts, before their jaw snaps shut comically quickly, cutting himself off as an embarrassed blush colours their cheeks.

Wes does a double take as it clicks in its mind what exactly See was about to say, and his face warms with a light, subtle blush on its own. He stares down at its notebook, suddenly finding it hard to think of what to say, or even to think at all.

After a long pause, See clears his throat and says, “Well, I’m gonna, er… go.”

“Uh- alright,” Wes replies, cringing inside at just how awkward he sounds, “See you later, See.”

See chuckles a little, assuming Wes’ joke was intentional, even though it very much wasn’t. “Yeah, I, like, guess you will, Buddy,” they comment, giving Wes double finger guns as he nervously walks away.

Wes sighs, feeling oddly giddy as it watches See leave, reflecting on the conversation they just shared. A memory of See’s awkward, friendly little half-smile slips into his mind’s eye, and it feels its heart race slightly as his lips curl into a sappy smile.

Shaking its head to clear his mind, Wes quickly stops itself, silently cursing himself for getting so distracted. Now isn’t the time to reminisce on some guy, it was supposed to be researching right now. He doesn’t deserve to get all lovey-dovey when Ridley is still out there somewhere, if he’s even still—

Wes catches itself before he can finish that thought, swallowing hard to get rid of the sudden lump in its throat. Trying to distract himself, it turns back to his notebook, deciding it might as well start jotting down some information about See that might be useful. He examines the otherwise blank page for a moment, staring at the name of its new acquaintance for a long, long moment.

Sighing, he picks up its pencil to write his first thought down on the nearly empty paper. His pencil hovers over the space next to See’s name, before it impulsively scribbles a small heart next to it.

And then another.

And another.

[englishstrawbie]

august 26th : homemade lemonade

Carina arrives home a little after eight o’clock, her body weary after back-to-back surgeries all day. The summer heatwave they are currently experiencing didn’t help. The hospital’s infrastructure is struggling in the hot temperatures and the vents had broken down at least three times today. Carina had escaped to her Porsche in between patients just to enjoy its air conditioning. Her feet ache, her legs are tired, and all she can think about is a cool shower and falling into bed – preferably naked, with her wife.

She is immediately greeted by the overwhelming smell of lemons when she steps into the apartment and, for a moment, she wonders if Maya has been on a cleaning spree. And then she sees her wife in the kitchen, rolling out and squeezing lemon juice into a small bowl – hears her too, as she sings along with the radio, a little off key as always. She doesn’t hear Carina or the click of the front door, so Carina lingers for a while, watching her.

Maya is relaxed and happy, and Carina feels her heart swell at how carefree she is, so different from the woman shrouded in darkness who shared their bed twelve months ago. So many times these days, Carina finds herself just watching her and soaking in her happiness.

As if sensing she is being watched, Maya looks over her shoulder and smiles when she sees her wife.

“Hey,” she says cheerfully. “How was your day?”

“Hmph. Long,” Carina says, kicking off her shoes and padding into the kitchen. “What are you up to?”

She greets Maya with a kiss, then leans back against the counter to watch her work. How her wife makes squeezing lemons look sexy, she will never know.

“Making lemonade,” Maya says. “I stopped by the grocery store on my way home from the station and they had all these lemons going cheap. This heat is insane and it reminded me of when I was a kid.”

She wipes her brow with the back of her hand.

“My dad went away for a few days on a work trip, so it was just me and Mason with Mom. We had a neighbour with a lemon tree who came over with a bag full of lemons, so Mom taught us how to make lemonade. We set up a little table on the sidewalk in front of our house and sold it for twenty cents a cup.”

Her eyes glaze over as she tells her story.

“Mom said we could spend the money we made on whatever we wanted. I chose an ice-cream sundae and Mason wanted a new comic. Mom took us to the cinema afterwards. It was a Disney movie, I think. She even let us have popcorn.”

“It must have been a good day to still remember it,” Carina says, picking up on her wistful mood.

“Yeah, it was,” Maya says. “We used to make lemonade every summer after that, until my dad started coaching me.” The smile drops from her face. “Then every holiday was spent training.”

“Maya…” Carina says softly, but Maya shakes her head.

“It’s okay. Diane says it’s important to remember the good parts, I just have to learn not to let it be tainted by the other stuff.”

“That’s good advice,” Carina says.

Maya exhales, a habit she has picked up on when she is letting go of what used to haunt her.

“Okay, I think that’s enough lemon juice,” she says, pouring what she has into a jug of water and adding a cup of sugar. “You know, my mom always swears by adding a little bit of honey too.”

Maya searches the cupboards until she finds the jar she is looking for. She adds a spoonful of honey and mixes it together. Meanwhile, Carina grabs two glasses and fills them with ice. Maya pours the homemade lemonade over the top and swirls it around, then passes one glass to Carina while keeping the second for herself.

“Cheers.”

“Cin cin.”

They clink glasses and each take a sip.

“Hmm, so good,” Carina says, sighing with delight at the sensation of the cold liquid down her throat. She nods towards the pile of lemons left over. “Maybe tomorrow I can show you how to make lemon gelato?”

Maya smiles. “I’d like that.”

Carina returns her smile as she slides her hand into Maya’s.

“Come on, bella, I need a shower to wash off this day.”

She starts to pull Maya towards the bedroom.

“And you need my help with that?”

Carina smiles over her shoulder. “Not a need – a want.”

august prompts

[cadybear420]

Cadybear's Reviews- My Two First Loves

Welcome to the twenty-seventh official Cadybear's Reviews! Today I'll be talking about My Two First Loves, which I have ranked on the "Rotting Flesh Tier" at 2 stars out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this was back in April-June 2021.

Oh boy! Oh boy oh boy oh boy! I could write a whole essay on everything wrong with this…  

So I will. 

To put it briefly: this story feels like it was adapted from a Wattpad story that was written by a 12-year-old whose only ever exposure to high school media and depictions of teenage sexuality was Glee, and then had serious queer and mature themes slapped onto it in order to make it seem better. Y’know, the equivalent of trying to polish a turd.

Or, heck, it’s probably PB’s attempt at ripping off “The Kissing Booth”, seeing as both have a MC in a love triangle between her childhood best friend and a bad boy named Noah, after all. Which, funnily enough, was also originally adapted from some tween’s Wattpad story. That’s about the equivalent to a dog eating some rotten food, shitting it out, then another dog finds it, eats it, and then shits it right out again. And THEN that second dog’s owner comes along to try to polish that double-toured turd. 

Number 1: The LGBTQ+ tag is clearly an attempt to appease the queer players that they probably think are being whiny. 

Ava’s arc about realizing she’s a lesbian who had been experiencing compulsory heterosexuality is pretty solid in a vacuum. But her being an LI was so blatantly only a last-minute decision PB made during the writing process, and it shows because Ava’s CG just uses her game sprite while Mason’s and Noah’s are fresh art. 

MC starts to fall for Ava sometime around at least 30 chapters in, but we don’t get to officially pursue her as a romance option until about 70 chapters in. I get delaying her as a love interest a bit because of the whole thing with MC realizing she’s bi, but even then, there’s just so few opportunities for building any kind of relationship with her that it hardly feels authentic. 

Speaking of, MC’s supposed bi awakening is completely rushed and treated with about as much value as a Family Guy cutaway gag, even outside of Ava being sidelined. As someone who realized I wasn’t straight three years ago and is still questioning if I’m bi or straight, I understand that people take different amounts of time to figure out their sexuality. But this MC does not spend any period of time figuring out her bisexuality. She basically just goes “Welp, guess I’m bi now”, and then it’s back to being indecisive as per usual except now there’s a female love interest in the mix too.

To add insult to injury, "discussions of sexuality" is placed in a "player discretion" warning, alongside "racial tensions" and "occasionally violence" to boot. How the fuck is discussion of sexuality even remotely on the same level as either of those? If they meant discussions or depictions of homophobia then maybe I could understand… but I don’t even recall seeing any depictions of homophobia in the book, so including this in the freaking warning tags is pointless at best and kind of insulting at worst. 

Not to mention, plenty of other Choices books like MOTY, ILS, D&D, etc. have had discussions about sexuality/LGBTQ+ stuff before, and didn't have to warn us about it. Not even MAH, a later book which had discussions about freaking conversion therapy for Christ’s sake. Sure, some of those books did have content warnings, but they were generally vague and/or mainly warned for violence, and didn’t warn specifically for depictions of queerphobia or discussions of sexuality. Yet for some reason, MTFL feels the need to include a player discretion warning for sexuality discussions, even though it contains far less harsher queer themes. 

Number 2: The portrayal of teen sexuality in this does not feel earnest. 

Let me just say, I found it very jarring how this one was much more sexually charged compared to PB’s other high school books. PB is usually way more “safe” and PG-13 at most when writing high school characters. Even in books like ROD and WEH, where the characters are 18+ and do have smutty scenes, it’s clear that those books are a lot more restricted compared to the adult cast books.  

I mean, with WEH, the safeness makes sense– it was meant to be a serious and tender story from the start, and it does actually follow through on those themes. But ROD feels like it could have easily been as horny with its writing as MTFL was, what with being about a studious “good girl” who goes rebellious. In fact, the story’s loading screen was pretty infamous at first for looking “steamier” than other covers and loading screens.

In actuality though, ROD had only, what, one smut scene? And despite a lot of MC’s outfits being revealing or arguably sensual, there are practically no moments where MC fawned over how “sexy” a revealing diamond outfit looked. Like, I’m pretty sure there were just little to no sexually charged scenes in general. 

My point is, whatever compelled PB to make MTFL *this* sexualized is beyond me. My guess is the fact that PB called this one a story about “navigating sexuality” and thus wanted to focus more on the aspects of sexuality, but if that’s the case… hoo boy, did they do a terrible job at it. 

I don’t really care about the hypersexualized writing of the teenage characters on its own, or how the characters were initially not confirmed 18+ when the earlier smut scenes were written. What I find far more important is the fact that this sort of cliche and formulaic hypersexualized writing is in a book that markets itself as being about “a young woman navigating love and sexuality for the first time”.

Teens do indeed have sex and can be all over the place with their hormones and sexuality. A lot of us have been there in some way, myself included. And there are ways to talk about that type of stuff in a manner that is silly and/or exaggerated, but still earnest and respectful. But the particular way that MTFL handles super-horny teen sexuality, specifically while claiming to be a coming-of-age story, is neither earnest nor respectful. 

The way this story handles these sorts of topics is the writing equivalent to doing a surgery with Fisher-Price toy surgery tools. It’s genuinely difficult to take MC “navigating her sexuality for the first time” seriously when has to constantly blubber about how Mason and Noah are so muscular or how a diamond outfit has “naughty little thigh highs” or how she wants to do a “down and dirty” cheer routine with Ava for Mason and Noah. 

That last one especially feels like the kind of stuff we’d see more in a campy chick flick that doesn’t take itself seriously. Honestly, if this was a more campy high school book with the tone of DLS or the 2023 movie “Bottoms”, it probably wouldn’t be as glaring. But in a book that markets itself as a coming-of-age story, the tone feels completely off and the whole book honestly felt like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. 

(Also, while we’re on this topic of MC’s premium outfits, I really fucking despise how MC gets so upset about wearing "mom clothes" if you choose to wear the free modest clothing instead of the revealing diamond outfit in Chapter 2. Ugh. Yes, the dad was being shitty about not letting MC dress how she likes, but all it does is it just makes you feel like shit for not wanting to dress in more revealing clothes. Stop making me feel bad for wanting to wear simple non-revealing clothing. Same goes for you, Chris Romantic Getaway story with your “the regular jerseys aren’t cute enough for girls to wear, we have to cut one up into a cleavage crop top in order to make it good for us girls to wear” bullshit.) 

And it just slaps you in the face with these sexual moments too, placing them in frequently whenever it feels like it, and the amount of it that actually contributed to any coming-of-age navigating-sexuality are few and far between. Honestly, it felt like it was trying way too hard to look "mature" with how it handled sexuality (as well as some of the other stuff like them drinking alcohol). Like it maybe was trying to portray teens realistically, but it only does so at a very shallow level. 

It's literally just "Look at the teens that talk about sex and like doing sexy things and having sex and doing grown-up stuff like drinking alcohol, see how MATUUURRREEE they are!" and they don't do anything more with it. It's just tacked on so they can pretend their book is a realistic story about maturing/being mature, when it fails at actually doing so.

I mean, I guess you could argue that the MC is meant to be seen as more messy and hormonal. And in that case, I could give it a pass. But, again, MC’s supposed arc of “navigating sexuality” never goes anywhere from that until the very last few chapters where you choose which LI she ends up with. It’s pretty much the same crap all throughout the book. MC doesn’t navigate sexuality, she just runs around aimlessly in it like a chicken with its head cut off.

Number 3: All the serious themes they try to have in the story are overshadowed by MC’s stupid indecisiveness plot. 

I’ve already said MTFL tries way too hard to make its story seem “mature” with the trashy way it sexualizes its characters. I’ve said it feels like it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Honestly though, this just sums up MTFL’s writing in general. 

MTFL has quite a handful of subplots, and I will admit, all of them are pretty compelling. You have Ava figuring out she’s lesbian, Mack dealing with gang drama, and Mason and Noah dealing with their past and Mason’s dad’s abusive behaviors. And an admittedly decent arc about MC discovering her love for photography instead of cheerleading. 

And then you have MC going on about how she can’t decide between her love interests, which is just the bad apple of the bunch that ruins the rest. It just makes it very hard to take everything else seriously. You ever seen that one meme where the Power Rangers put their hands in a circle but then a Teletubbie tries to join in? It’s the writing-equivalent to that, and MC’s indecisiveness plot is the Teletubbie. 

And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if MC’s indecisiveness wasn’t the main focus plot of the whole book. I want to take these other storylines seriously. I want to take this story as a whole seriously. But how can I when the main focus of the story is so god damn shallow? No matter how many "soft positive heartfelt" piano tracks and “so sad and tragic sad” piano tracks from WEH they try put over it, it doesn't change the fact that the focus is MC going on and on about being unable to choose between Mason, Noah, and Ava. 

I get teens are shallow and can have shallow issues, but did we really need it to be that big of a focus of the story? Especially when the way it handles it is completely empty? Something like OG HSS was great because even though a lot of the issues the characters had were seemingly shallow and basic (such as the band fighting over which song to play), they do give a little more depth to it and reason to care about it (ie. Aiden starts to feel like a failure at music because of the band infighting). MTFL just throws MC’s indecisiveness at you for 95 chapters and expects you to take it seriously with nothing else surrounding it. 

And they try to pull the twist on the title at the end where it’s all like “LI and photography, the two greatest loves of MC’s life”. Which is an interesting idea in concept, except it feels so artificial and non-earned when MC’s romance plot was spending 95 chapters being unable to decide between the LIs. 

Number 4: It reuses way too much from HSS. 

I know this is a less severe issue, but I just can’t get past it. Sprites, backgrounds, school colors… even plot points like the corrupt principal embezzling from the school, or MC and LI(s) being locked in a large school room (remember when HSS:CA MC and Ajay were locked in the auditorium?). Heck, even MC having lost her mom and having a photography passion connected to that, rings way too similar to one of Autumn’s arcs from the freaking HSS PRIME GAME! Oh yeah, and both of those characters have a love triangle with a golden boy and a bad boy. Holy hell. 

Easily the most noticeable part is the sprites. In my playthrough, I counted 7 whole HSS sprites that were used in MTFL: Sydney became Iris, Payton became Toni, Frank became this random kid in a flashback for Mason and Noah's past, Morgan became a kid in Elijah's gang named Lucy, Lorenzo became Chad, Aiden's mom became Asian Noah's mom, Skye's dad became White Mason's dad (PB really said use that sprite for abusive dads huh). And there’s probably more, I’m sure. 

And the worst offense? They even reuse the iconic bird's-eye view of Berry High in MTFL. Call me petty if you must, but that's just criminal. It's one thing to reuse and alter a bunch of the sprites, uniforms, and backgrounds from the series but to reuse another book series' iconic background like that? Honestly, it feels rather insulting. They couldn't even be arsed to change the "Go Tigers!" on the football field, that’s how little sense it makes to use that background outside of HSS. Fuck’s sake.

I know it’s kind of the norm for Choices to reuse assets throughout different series, but the fact that they do it so much here and majority of it is from HSS just rubs me the wrong way. At best, it’s jarring and lazy. And at worst, it comes off as trying way too hard to be a “more mature” version of HSS. When in reality, it makes HSS:CA’s side characters look like Citizen Kane in comparison. I mean, at least Clint and Natalie and MC stopped whinging about Rory ⅓rd of the way through the series. 

At least when other high-school-setting books like ROD, WEH, and ILITW were made, they at least somewhat bothered to change up a few things and make it feel like an actually different school. They changed up the backgrounds a bit, used different school colors and uniforms, and didn’t reuse nearly as many sprites from HSS.  

In MTFL, all they did was make new cheer uniforms for the non-reused sprites and remove the Berry High logos from everything HSS that they used. Yeah they made some changes, but it’s clear that they didn’t put nearly the same amount of effort into it as they did in the other high school setting books. 

All it does is just make me miss HSS. Like, stop toying with my heart by piggybacking off of a better series (that has better queer rep too) so much. It’s to the point where it feels like they should have just used the time making this book to instead make a HSS senior year (Which, y’know, would be nice, especially since the sendoff we got in HSS:CA 3 was absolute flaming fucking garbage). 

So… in all honesty, I don’t hate this book. But it had a lot of things that annoyed me to no end and it sure as fuck is disappointing wasted potential. It had a great opportunity to be a nice queer coming-of-age story. But instead it felt like a Kissing Booth rip-off with serious themes only hamfisted in order to make it seem more “mature”.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

im so sorry to send you this but im confused. i thought izzy hands was obviously homophobic while i was watching the show but now people on the internet are telling me that calling him gay and homophobic is a conspiracy theory. i want to trust my instincts on this as a queer myself but they say it so much i think im starting to believe it. i know literally none of this matters but its genuinely bumming me out. maybe we all just have slightly different definitions of homophobia?

I would love to answer this for you. Your instincts are correct. Izzy is gay and homophobic. You should trust your gut on this because it's important for you be able to identify guys like Izzy irl if you're someone who might be on the receiving end of homophobia.

What happened is that back in June of 2022 everyone fully agreed that Izzy was one of those repressed gay men who's internalized homophobia rotted his soul and became externalized. We wanted to put him in a jar. We all interested in how this weird little freak got this way. Then everything changed when the canyon formed. Since then it has been a mad dash to beat the allegations. Unfortunately an actor has validated them in a way that makes me really wonder about him frankly, because he seems to be operating under the impression that people are saying that Izzy is a "homo sex is sin" Style homophobe when nobody was saying that, what we were saying is that Izzy is incredibly weird about and hateful towards feminine men and he believes that Stede is corrupting Ed with his foppishness, which is still homophobia it's just a different brand of homophobia than the religious right's obsession with the mechanics.

Tbh tho I don't actually care about that actors' take because he's not a writer, he has a history of not being very good at reading the subtext given that he fully didn't realize it was a gay show for half the episodes, and David Jenkins has liked multiple metas on twt about Izzy being a homophobe so I'll trust that lol. The only consequence that Con O'Neill being publically wrong has had for me is that people occasionally do an unearned victory lap when he says something.

But also I low key sometimes feel incredibly unsafe knowing that there's a substantial group of people who claim to be queer and against homophobia but who can't understand that the whole subplot with Lucius in episode 5 and the thing with Ed in episode 10 is laced with bigotry against feminine gay men. I don't think admitting that means you have to think it's his only motivation or that it's contradictory to the read of him being attracted to Ed and Lucius or with the concept that he's mostly just power hungry, but it does sort of mean that I have to move through the world knowing that there are people in my own community who would fully blame me if something happened to me. I don't fucking like it. That's why I get so upset about this so publicly. It's like so what happens if I get attacked but the guy calls me a namby pamby or a bitch instead of a faggot. Are you gonna be like "well we don't know~". It's just an uncomfortable thought. I don't understand why they're so desperate to beat the allegations either, like he's fake. People who have experienced things like what Ed and Lucius went through at his hands are real. The argument that gay people can "do something to (someone)'s brain" is written into legislation trying to ban trans people from public life. Nobody wants you to stop liking Izzy we just want you to stop saying shit that's harmful

And I don't necessarily think that everyone who chooses to put more emphasis on Izzys obsession with Ed wouldn't be able to identify a hate crime, I just have seen more than one piece of meta that goes "Izzys not homophobic he just thinks Stede is a mincing fop who's corrupting Ed with his frilly whiles there's nothing homophobic about that" and I just have to block them for being homophobic themselves because what else do I do with that? When I vague post about this shit I'm talking about specific ass things that I've seen that have made me feel very uncomfortable and unsafe not generic canyon trends. I just really feel like we need to calm down about Izzy. Like you can feel empathy towards a gay guy that hates himself and write a bunch of fic about him getting laid without deciding actually he did nothing wrong and everyone who can see that that's not true is making shit up to oppress *checks notes* people who like a fictional character. I don't get why that's so hard to do.

[dtmacgxstorys]

Novelist X Reader!

This is an Orpheus/Novelist X Gender Neutral Reader! (No Plan, Just Write!)

You wake up in an unfamiliar place. You get up off the floor & look around. You notice that you're in a machine of so kind. You also noticed that a door was left a jar. You quickly go over to it & listen to see if anybody's in the room. You open the door & go in to see a guy who looks like they just broke out of prison, a circus performer, a well-dressed man, & a robed man with his eyes covered. "Oh, the new kid's up!" The prisoner said as he gets up from the table. "Name's Luca Balsa!" He said as he approaches you. "Luca, they're probably confused and scared, don't seem so eager to meet them. Am Eli Clark, by the way." "Hhiii New Guy! I'm Mike Morton!" The circus performer waved at you from behind Eli.

The well-dressed man approaches you & offers you his hand. "Hello, cell me Orpheus." You take a step away from him. "..w-what is this place? Why am I here." You asked. "This place is called The Oletus Manor. As for why you're here, we don't know either." Orpheus said. After a while, an overwhelming number of people came into the dining room & introduced themselves. Someone said dinner would be soon & to start finding seats. You asked Eli & Matthias Czernin to sit next to you & they agreed. Luca, Tracy Reznik & Demi Bourbon asked you if they could join you & you agreed. You had a good time talking with them. After dinner, you decided to explore the manor. You walked past a room where someone was playing a piano & a room full of different art stuff.

You eventually come across the quiet room full of tables & chairs. As you enter what you thought was an empty room, you hear a familiar voice cell out to you. "Oh, it's just you. .. I just realized I didn't catch your name." You turn to see Orpheus offering his hand to you again. You don't take his hand & continue walking & say: "I'm Y/N." "You're really not going to shack my hand?" You stop, stand there for a bit before turning back to him & shack his head. "Since you're here, why don't we get to know each other. I enjoy writing stories for others to read. What do you enjoy doing?" "I like to draw but not paint." "Oh!? Could I see you draw at some point?" You turn away from him. "Maybe." "Uumm do you prefer the quiet of nature or the noise of the city?"

You sit at a table & say: "Nature, you?" He sits down next to you & says: "I like the quiet of nature as well. You don't have to answer, but, have you ever expected Love at first sight? If so, can you describe it?" "*sigh* I'm no good at explaining, but I have, once." You say, looking down at the table. ".. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you updated. I don't know how to write that because I've never experienced it." "Um? Oh, it's fine, Orpheus." You say as you sit back up straight. "Umm Love at first sight. ..for me, it was like time slowed and that me and him were the only people in the room." You say while looking down at the table. "... What is your favorite animal, i like birds?" You replie with your favorite animal/s. "Umm interesting. .. Well, as much as I love to continue talking to you, it's getting late for me. You know, I think your room is near mine. Would you like me to show you to your room?" "Ok." You replie.

You follow him down a long hallway & he stops in front of your door. "Well, here's your room. If you need anything, mine is three doors down on the opposite side." "Thank you, Orpheus." You say as you enter your room. You close your door & thing to yourself: "He's probably only interested in talking to me because I don't look poor." For a week now, Orpheus would ask to join you for lunch. You were surprised, but happy to spend more time with him. After lunch, you went outside & saw Orpheus sitting on a bench. You approach him & say: "Hi Orpheus, you mind if I sit with you?" "Um Oh, Y/N, Not at all!" You sit & ask him: "It's rare to see you not writing, are you ok?" ".. Yes, I'm fine."

"... I have an important question for you, Orpheus. .. Would you ever date someone from a lower class for you?" He looks at you a little confused. "..I mean, it would be nice to have more money, but no, I don't care if the person has more or less money than me. Why do you ask?" You turn your head away from him. "No particular reason." You can't see, but he smiles at you. "..I came out here to think about something." You look back to him. "Something positive or something negative." He turns his head away from you but is still looking at you. "Positive. .... can you give me your hand?" He offers his hand to you & you hesitate for a moment but eventually give him your hand. He gently brings your hand up to his lips & gently kisses your knuckles. You blush as he looks up at you. "I came out here thinking about you."

You look away from him & say: "This feels like a dream." He puts his thumb on your chin & gently pulls your gaze back to him. "I promise you, that is real Y/N." He moves a little bit closer to you & ask: "can I kiss you?" You surprise him by pulling him into a kiss. He kisses you back & his one hand runs through your hair. You pull away for him & say: "I love you, Orpheus!" "I love you too, Y/N!"

End!