#but FUck TO INSIST THAT 'i dont think it's at all likely that science is a culturally constructed way of thinking that is only true for us--

[235uranium]

every day i barely restrain the urge to bitch about the social sciences

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

i'm fucking hollering, how is this man managing to be wrong about SCIENCE, TOO??

[mentallhealthmatters]

Hi! Wilbur supporter here. respectfully I think it’s really fucking strange to act as if Wilbur is aromantic. He has literally said he’s straight so many times. You can’t headcanon a real persons sexuality, which is seemingly what you’re doing here. Idc that he called lovejoy music “aromantic coded” he’s also called himself straight several times, recently even. Making think pieces where you assume someone’s sexuality makes you seem super strange!

Strait people can be aromantic, its called being heterosexual but just not heteromantic. Aromantic ISNT a sexuality as you still have a seperate sexuality, you can still have sexual attraction even if you dont have romantic attraction. Asexuality ≠ Aromantic.

Im not assuming anything, if he said the word to describe songs about his love life first, thats not assuming anything. Thats just him describing his love life and experiences and art made based off those experiences.

I dont care if you dont care, but he said it first not me. Aromantic or anyone of any gender, romantic or sexual orientation people dont have to mention theyre aromantic every five seconds for them to be so. Hell, they dont even have to be direct.

Once is enough.

The songs are about his life experiences, his love life which is a HUGE detail being left out here. He calls the songs about *his* life and more specifically *his* LOVE life 'aromantic noise'.

Its not headcanoning aka assuming peoples anything if THE person in question is using it describe themselves. Its aromantic art, and that aromantic art is about him.

Hes aromantic.

Like, its as direct as you get without being told "im aromantic". Im not sure what your getting here, if i made art, whether it be music, visual art, or a written story about my life and life experiences and desrcibed as "gay dribbles" its gay and im probably should be considered gay by the fans. Its not rocket science im afraid? I think like if the arist says this art is a part of me, is a mirror of me, is my life in art form and described it with sexuality, romanticallity, or gender orientation its probably for a reason?

Also your insistence him saying i life girls over and iver again somehow invalidates the one time he basically described himself indirectly as aromantic is weird. Like. Are you a wss? Because that doesnt seem supportive the seems like easure of his identity to point your like yeah igoring the time he indirectly called himseld aromantic you cant say hes-

No i can because he said he was? Even indirectly he did. Like if we can accept all pop icon "bicons" that seemingly only date men as true bicons and actually call out people biphobia for trying to say they arent just because they only publically date men, i think we be better people and when guy says hes aro, hes aro, even if his heterosexual. Like, its liks acephobia but make it arophobia! Such a true WSS, no underlying red flags in your words what so ever!

L

Sincerely and genuinely, an aromantic homosexual person.

[bizlybebo]

Do you have any OCs? :0

THIS IS SERIOUSLY SUCH AN AWESOME ASK TO GET IM RRGWHRHNEMGMTMWKE

not entirely sure whether you meant for jrwi or like. in general but i can do a short explanation of some ocs i have from both categoriea ^__^ !!!!

—-

bad photo + not super proud of the drawing but here’s an oc i made for apotheosis back in february ish ^__^ i settled on Raph (just pronounced raff) for a name i think. if i remember right i was theorizing a lot about the gods of that world and made this Lil Guy as some weird griffon-inspired angel or Something that was cast down + had his heart torn out in the process. he’s like old and shit cause he’s. an angel. but mentally he’s around 13-14. still haven’t finished apotheosis so the information i’ve retained from that campaign is horribly incorrect and not a lot but yeah ^__^

don’t have a great proper drawing for my next one (at least not w/o digging through my sketchbook) but here’s a little doodle of one i made for prime defenders!!! Axel my beloved,, some mutuals may recognize her. i made him after the whole expansion on depowering in season 2, and basically made this Fucked Up Guy who was able to steal said depowered powers. dont ask too much its very handwavey bullshit science stuff. it’s a very painful + slow process, though, and she can only steal one power set at a time. not pictured but xe has a really sick robot arm, which is the only reason why xe can do this— otherwise, xy’re just powerless. ^__^ he’s also got a lot of imagery relating to king midas since her powers lead to a similar effect/pitfall. very cool xy’re my toxic yuri oc

—

okkk and then heres a doodle of robin, my most recent DnD oc i made for a campaign im in. typical bastard character with a dead sister, whos apparitions haunt her. she refuses to believe she’s dead, though, insisting that she’s only missing, and is currently set out on a mission to find her. she’s a very performative person,, talks big and loud and distracts people while she steals their stuff. really smooth talker but genuinely dumb as rocks i love her a lot<3

other honorary mentions of ttrpg characters ive played in the past who i miss dearly: reese, mica, rosalie, and margaret.

——

and then as an original fiction writer i have. A Lot of ocs so im not gonna show them all off but. shoutout to aphid and flick, the two ive been rotating the most in my head lately. theyre from this super cool but very fucked up steampunk/futuristic world. most codependent bitches on the planet. all the drawings i have of them are also in my sketchbook which im too lazy to dig through but heres a rough doodle of what they look loke:

^ flick is on the left, aphid the right. my lil guys <33

[punkbxt]

dime the takes. por favor.

*gets real close to the vending machine* quiero pepsi

okay all seriousness tho imma try to do this in a way thats like idk semi respectful towards janeway but i also need yall to know i do NOT reallyf fuck with her. idk if ive explained why before but i guess here we go

unlike most people that enjoy star trek i didnt really get into it till 2018 and then the demmy hit n i had nothing but time to consume every star trek imaginable and thats how i found voyager. yeah sure make fun of me for not knowing what star trek is but i need YALL to know that it is white and usamerican culture to be raised on trek and I DONT CARE. the only reason i got into star trek is bc a white friend introduced me. all this to say i was introduced to janeways actress through oitnb red ilu so much red best evil white lady <3

anyways i know janeway gets hate for having been the only lady captain and i always preface anything i say about her with this so yall understand that this is not the reason i dislike her but in reality it doesnt help either

also its tiring as fuck to include my opposing argument but it has to be done bc ppl are like “what about- pkay but you didnt consider how- yeah but- actually youre wrong bc-“ like fuck man im doing my damndest i literally hate voicing my opinions bc yall INSIST people of color dont actually get it n its tiring

if youve followed me since i started voyagerposting you may have noticed ive only actually drawn janeway twice and its cuz as a person she rubs me the wrong way for so many reasons

janeway gets put in this impossible position of being the top of the hierarchy pyramid to a crew that doesnt think theyll ever make it home again. shes deemed a mother figure by a LOT of characters but im gonna talk abt her dynamics with b’elanna, and seven because if i were to talk about the dynamics between janeway and harry thatd have to be its own post

when i get into a show, i loooveeee knowing what was happening behind the scenes because i love it!! i love set design i love character design i love costume design i love seeing what the actors are like outside of the show and how they feel about these characters bc these things ARE important. (writers too pero i have beef) behind the scenes is the biggest influence to the final product bc its the reason the final product exists in the first place and behind the scenes so many things went wrong. and when actors are mistreated or dont get along with eachother it becomes pretty apparent. well at least if you analyze things the way i do

so heres my issue with janeway seven and b’elanna. b’elanna is typecast to be the ugly character. klingons gave always gotten the short end of the stick and the case with her isnt as harsh bc her actress is a mixed puerto rican (information that has actually only recently been revealed bc when i tried to find out what roxan’s ethnicity was in 2019 i literally could not find anything definitive except for shes latina) but she STILL gets a lot of shit

one of my favorite things about voyager before the introduction of seven was how b’elanna and janeway actually got to bond a lot over science and when seven took on the roll of pretty girl on the ship, b’elanna and janeway suffered a LOT for it. we have an interesting dynamic between a maquis engineer and a federation captain genuinely not getting along bc b’elanna doesnt see janeways as an authority figure. not until chakotay has something to say about it and also until b’elanna and janeway actually talk about shit n get over their differences. the issue is when ppl purposely skip the earlier seasons to get to seven and then a lot of important interpersonal character building is missed I SAY THIS BC PEOPLE OFTEN FORGET THAT VOYAGER HAS BEEN ASSIMILATED BY THE BORG BEFORE AND EVEN THE WRITERS LET IT SLIP THEUR MIND N ITS LIKE BRO U HAVE GOLD TO WRITE WITH N U JUST LET IT COLLECT IN THE CORNER

seven is a unique and interesting character when she is first introduced. seven looks like any other borg and is so COOL. and then immediately all the cool interesting things about the way seven looks is basically negated to a few shiny parts. and yes janeway is partly to blame

BUT! what is the easiest way to gain the trust of people who already have bad history with who you once were? assimilation of course! seven goes from being one of many to the outcasts outcast

but punkbxt! what does any of this have to do with why you dislike janeway as a character? if anything it sounds more like you dislike seven. as long as the character is white ill always hold a lil disdain for them in my heart <3

janeway symbolizes the best of starfleet. she is an accredited officer and an extremely capable scientist. she is a beautiful white woman in THE position of power something that was revolutionary for her time. the issues with white women being put in positions of power is they they have NEVER had the interests of black and brown people to heart. “yes they-“ SHUT UP and let me speak before you decide to comment on this goddamn post

feminism throughout the centuries has focused on white women and while a show is merely a fraction of the lived reality of its time the effects are still extremely clear. white feminism JUMPED at the character of janeway and celebrated her and rightfully so! the issues came about when women like b’elanna got attacked and pushed to the side. this directly affected janeway within fandom and she got and still is recognized for accomplishments SHE DID NOT DO. she got put on a pedestal and once that happens to a character they suddenly can do no wrong. except she does because shes a human and shes white and shes a character with writers behind her

b’elanna has never actually been a super popular character and the wave of love for her is actually pretty fucking recent and not to toot my own horn but i definitely was a big part of the b’elanna love resurgence. when i got into voyager and these dates ARE important, i used to scroll through her entire tag easily a couple times through a DAY. fans occasionally created art for her and yeah! she got fics but nowhere in comparison to her other peers. surrounding yourself with people who also love her and want to create for her does help with recognition of b’elanna but its super recent stuff. and to add onto that any white fan that has an opinion about her will always be biased because they just do not understand what it is like to exist as a latina woman of color

this is where me myself and i come into the story because wowowowowow star trek is so cool! star trek preaches on and on and on about diversity love acceptance hate oppression and all that good stuff so who wouldnt love it??? and then??? OMG THERES A LATINA CHARACTER IN ONE SERIES OMG OMG OMG. imagine my disappointment when i found out that she a main character barely was getting any love. it hurt. because even within a narrative of inclusion somehow characters of color just seem to always be pushed to the side. especially when a fandom has such a majority percentage of white people

watching her story was SO personal to me. i could see myself in her struggling with living in america. i lived my childhoods in puerto rico and in many different parts of usamerica, surrounded by family and people like me until that wasnt the case anymore. i spent my life living as a nomad with no place to call home for on average no less than a year and no more than three. i could understand b’elanna with her struggles of living in a klingon monastery and then being thrust into an unforgiving and unaccepting world where humans/white people are the most important. the internalized racism that i grew up with was horrendous and to this DAY i am still trying to learn and better myself and connect with my culture in any way i can. because in a black ans white world, where is the space for those of us that dont fall under either? we are ignored and erased and with b’elanna is has been the same

the rejection b’elanna had to her klingon side was something i could relate to incredibly. but it still isnt enough. because even though i could connect with her through her klingon-ness, her latinidad is simply a label. throughout the show you see her change and grow and assimilate to the federation standard and it HURT. the narrative that i was directly picking up from her story was yeah you can be a part of the club but only if you do it how we want you to do it. and dont you EVER even talk about being latino unless its to shit on your deadbeat of a father. and i did. i learned how to adapt at an extremely young age. ive been told its one of the things i do best (sad isnt it?)

and okay how do seven and janeway have anything to do with this? well they are the white women who we literally have to conform to and for. thats it period

seven as a character had an amazing opportunity to challenge gender and sexuality because of her story (one that would have been better suited had she been an indigenous woman which ive spoken on before but thats for another post too) and then the people in charge decided that she just HAD to be the sexywoman instead of leaning into just how much she was no longer human and how humanity itself doesnt actually have one right way to be

this narrative is given to us by janeway time and time and time again correcting seven and telling her that seven simply is not himan enough and still has to learn. (things autistic ppl can suuuuuper relate to which is a reason i could connect with seven at all). no matter how you want to look at it (whatever canon you want to decide isnt canon anymore for the sake of a fucking ship) janeway was directly written to be a mentor and mother figure to seven. janeway is there to help her learn when in reality she can never understand what its like to be an outcast within the federation and to take it a step further be part of a eace which is treated with hostility by humans. something b’elanna CAN understand and relate to because at the time of voyager shits still om the rocks between klingons and humans. janeway pushes seven to accept and embrace humanity as if thats the only option seven has to become a better character but its just not true. the story woven between janeway and seven is one of white women and femininity and how to be the perfect white woman and how to be a good lover. by actively ignoring the help and influence b’elanna could have provided for seven to learn and adapt to a majority human world they put all that weight on janeway. something that affects ALL three of them negatively and results in a narrative of “well b’elanna could never understand and relate to seven in a way that matters” which is beyond true because they are so interwoven even unintentionally so. it simply just wasnt taken further and its a true shame

and this isnt even touching on how badly seven’s actress was treated by janeways actress for being the pretty new doll at the time of filming and how that affected how i felt about janeway/seven as a ship (similarly how castle and beckett did not get along behind scenes i could no longer enjoy that show anymore)

i simplified this IMMENSELY and this shit is already long enough as it is so im sorry about that but yeah thats it. also sorry if things got repetitive ive been told i tend to do that when i write. these are my feelings and i am a real human behind this account so keep in mind how you react to this post. i have recieved countless hate anons most of which ive deleted throughout my short lived time as a fan of this franchise. i used to be MUCH more vocal about representation within star trek and people got mad so i left. but im back because the people that love b’elanna and that love that i have things to say about her matter so much fucking more than any angry person ever will

[yearningandpatheticaboutit]

CHAPTER 11: SHITTY REASONS WHY

wc: 8000 and change i think

warnings: stalking, drug use, violence, mental health issues

prev chapter

***

"fucking 90% on your calc test, are you kidding me?" jongho said in impressed disbelief. he handed yasmine her test script with a smile, sitting next to her outside the botanical garden of the school.

yasmine covered her face as she felt it redden, her smile going embarrassedly broad. "when i asked you to get my script, i didnt mean look at it!" she whined.

"no, but its really good!" jongho insisted. "keep that up and these 4 years will go by so fast. you'll be out of the country before you know it."

yasmine stared at her test, smiling fondly. she was good at math and science and was really interested in anatomy. it fascinated her, the human body. she knew exactly what she wanted to go into, the program, the university. it was still early, but she knew deep down.

but the problem was her parents. her smile was quick to fade.

"whats wrong?" jongho asked her, concerned. "you went all quiet."

"its just," she sighed heavily, already feeling stupid. "i could call my family about this and they probably wouldnt care. or they'd forget about it in an instant."

yasmine didnt want to sound like the cliche rich girl that never got attention. especially to jongho, who also had parents who were in and out of the country.

she frowned and shook her head, tucking her hair behind her ear as she laughed awkwardly. "its dumb, i know. im happy they let me model for them and stuff but i feel like they dont care about my other accomplishments, thats all."

"hey," jongho's gentle hands found her chin, stroking it softly. yasmine gulped as she stared at his handsome face that were giving her pitiful eyes. "im here. i care about your accomplishments."

yasmine sighed internally. that was the point. the reason. all right there.

there was something about venting to a man that just felt pointless. especially when he found you attractive. he'd somehow always make it about him. or make sure he looked good at the end of it. as if he was some solution to all your issues.

yasmine couldnt stand it. but she loved jongho as a person. so she never spoke her thoughts.

maybe it was his attention. she thought if she lost it, she would be worse off. after all, its not like she had her parents. they were in their own bubble more than half the time.

"thanks jongho," yasmine defeatedly muttered with a smile. standard procedure.

"i can tell you dont feel better, you know. you should come over later," he suggested. "we can have a few drinks and chill. watch a movie. i can make you forget for a while."

she'd be lying if she said she didnt want to forget. things were bad at home. constant arguing. yasmine was always getting told she was the only good thing in the house. the pressure to not fuck up was getting worse. when all she wanted to do was fuck up. she wanted to let loose. and be free.

she smiled again. "yeah yeah, i'll come over. will it just be us?"

jongho gave her an awkward smile. "do you want it to be just us?"

just as yasmine was about to answer, a message popped up on her screen, the notification tone blocking her words.

shit.

"crap," she hissed, standing up and dropping her bag from her lap, and all her things at once. "its yaera."

jongho groaned aloud. "ugh, what now?"

yasmine didnt miss the disdain in his voice. but she couldnt deal with his hatred for her now. her head was pounding just thinking of how bad the atmosphere would be when she got home.

"she skipped school and got drunk. shes at the police station, she got arrested," yasmine said with a heavy sigh. "they just called my parents."

"of fucking course," jongho said with a roll of his eyes. "im not even surprised. shes doing all this for attention you know."

"i dont think im going to be able to come over because of this," and just by those words jongho's anger rose to the surface.

"i fucking swear. she ALWAYS gets in the way of things," he snapped, making yasmine flinch. she knew he couldnt stand her but seriously?

"its not that serious, chill," she tried to say, but jongho just shook his head angrily.

"no but its true, isnt it? she keeps fucking up and then you have to clean up the mess. why doesnt she just run away or something since she wants to get kicked out so bad? shes just making everything worse at home!"

yasmine felt guilty. jongho wasnt wrong. everything argument these days revolved around yaera. her grades. her attitude. how she was in her own world. how she didnt have any goals. how she was stuck in her room and couldnt put in any effort. how lazy she was, how much space she took up. every single thing was a problem.

but yasmine wished she could help it. she tried before. fixing her sister. but all it did was made her latch onto her like a koala to a tree . then yasmine had to cut her branches. and now yaera was going off on her own, not telling her anything, acting out in ways worse than before.

"i dont get why shes doing this...i just," she felt exhausted just thinking about it. "something happened but she wont tell me. maybe i did something. maybe she got her heartbroken. shes been getting worse."

"theres nothing wrong with her," jongho scoffed. "shes just an attention whore. now that youre not attached to her hip shes acting out to make you feel guilty. dont fucking fall for it, yas."

he was so harsh. "the counsellor my parents got for her wants to send her to a therapist or psychologist or something. they think shes depressed or has something going on up there."

jongho bent his elbows on his knees and sighed, staring at his shoes. "i cant believe she fucked up you coming over. i wish she would just go away."

yasmine frowned and picked up her things, starting to pack them. jongho looked up at her broodingly. she was leaving.

"i have to get going," she said with an apologetic smile. "i'll talk to you later, yeah."

***

yaera

im pacing tirelessly in the dull sun, grey clouds hanging over and my stress levels up to my head. san is sitting on the grass with his backpack clutched infront of him, jongho's prized camera inside.

that asshole is so dead.

"whats taking this fucker so long?" i snap, my irritation erratic. i just want him to face me. to dare be so callous about what he did. it'll be funny, really. hearing his bs explanation.

"hes scared," san says, annoyingly calm. "he should be really. this looks really bad for him."

i stop in my tracks and stare at him dead straight. "arent you angry?"

he frowns in confusion. "angry about what?"

"about how he almost tried to frame you and pin it on you because you're poor. you're not angry about that?"

san shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head. "im not worried about me right now. his stunt was cheap, but im not surprised. he'll get whats going to him, is all im going to say. wooyoung and i still have to have a talk with him."

"good," i say coldly. "jongho deserves whats coming to him."

san's eyes trail behind me and he suddenly stands up. when i whirl around to check, jongho is creeping up on me slowly, looking like he has a stick pressed up his ass.

"where's my camera?" he asks, giving san an annoyed look. "do you have it?"

i force a laugh and step infront of jongho as he tries to approach san. "im sorry? you owe me a fucking explanation."

jongho groans and looks down at me with disdain. "i change my mind. i dont owe you anything."

"what?" san asks harshly. there's an edge in his voice that makes jongho cautiously step back.

"why should i explain myself to you people?" he asks defensively, like a cornered animal. "she was my best friend. its natural that i have pictures of her. she was everything to me."

this fucking guy.

"pictures where she doesnt even know you're there? thats natural?" san scoffs. im gritting my teeth as my hands start to warm and twitch.

jongho lets out a dry laugh and rolls his eyes arrogantly. "shut up and give me my camera back you pauper."

"is it natural to have pictures of me too?" i bring up harshly, making jongho pause and look at me.

its the worlds most awkward eye contact. he doesnt look ashamed. theres nothing behind his eyes.

"i was going through a phase. it was grief," he says emptily. "just give me my camera back and we can act like this never happened."

"you really think its going to be that easy?" i laugh humorlessly. hes so used to getting his way.

jongho sighs irritably like this is some inconvenience, like getting the wrong order at a restaurant. "what the hell do you want, yaera? i explained to you, didnt i? i said it was grief."

"you didnt explain shit!" i burst. "and bullshit! you call this grief? you stalked yasmine while she was still fucking alive. you stalked her before she went missing. whats to stop me from taking this to the police right now to fuck you over?"

"no–" jongho suddenly steps forward, grabbing my wrists and tightening his fists around them. i stare at him in disbelief. san gets in the middle quickly and shoves him hard, making him stumble back and fall onto the grass.

jongho looks up deranged, like an even bigger drug addict than yeosang. "you cant take that to police!" he screams. "you cant. i wont let you. its all i have left of her."

"how do we know you didnt harm her sister?" san snaps. "you're clearly a sick fuck."

"i would have never harmed yasmine!" jongho shouts furiously. "she was my best friend dont you ever utter bullshit like that again!"

"yet you stalked her?"

"i was at the party the night she went missing, you idiots!" jongho gets up, practically heaving with rage. his dark eyes dart to me. "dont you remember, yae? i was fucking cleared before anyone else. i called your parents to ask if yasmine ever made it home. what the fuck are you accusing me of here?"

"i just want to know why you stalked her while she was still alive and kicking!" i burst out in frustration. "why did you stalk me too? what the fuck is wrong with you?!"

"because..." he groans and starts to grip his hair hopelessly. "i just wanted to feel like i still had her."

san and i turn to look at each other, neither of us having any idea of what that meant.

"she was slipping away from me," he admits pathetically. "she was seeing someone. she wouldnt even tell me who, but he was better. richer. older too. i just wanted to pretend like she was mine. so i followed her. i followed her when she met him. i took pictures of them together. and then the one time i didnt follow her...she went missing and..."

an empty ache settles in my chest and i dont even have the words to describe how i feel. i dont know how im supposed to feel.

"and yaera?" san presses on. "why did you stalk her?"

jongho lifts his head to look me dead in the eyes, a distant gaze of regret and resentment buried deep inside. "a failed experiment. i tried to gain some control over my life again. i wanted to pretend like she was still here. like she was still around. so i followed you and–"

he doesnt get to finish that because i drive my fist into his jaw, knocking him back a few steps. jongho holds his jaw as san grabs my wrist and pulls me away, turning my body away from jongho.

i quickly shove him off me, not even bothering to enjoy the contact. it feels like my head is going to explode from all the rage clogging up inside. i cant believe this.

"you're such a fucking loser, jongho," i say with a bitter laugh. "and so very pathetic. yasmine died so you stalked me and pretended i was her? as if you didnt compare us enough when she was still alive. you're a sick, pathetic fuck!"

"you're the one who wanted to know so badly," he mocks me. "do you want to know why i stopped? because i realized you would never be her. or come close."

i stare at him in disbelief. "it must suck doesnt it? to know that even in death she surpasses you."

i hate him. i hate that he weaponises her death to trigger me. i hate that he keeps trying to enforce a rivalry with someone i love, who i will literally never see again. i hate him so much.

"hey thats enough. are there more pictures?" san asks him coldly. "are these your only ones?"

he hesitates before shaking his head. san scoffs.

"so if we came to your house and checked, there wouldnt be any more pictures?"

"you're not coming to my house!" jongho huffs.

"except we are. or else everyones going to find out how mental you are," san threatens. "we know you have more pictures. youre going to give us all of them. and i'll.make sure they get wiped."

"why are you doing this?!" jongho screams hopelessly, looking at san. there are tears in his eyes. this fucker has the nerve to cry. "you wont gain anything from this, you know? you're just–"

"get therapy, jongho." i interrupt him, accepting his anger.

"arent you the one who tried to kill herself?"

"thats enough!" san yells above both of us, grabbing my hand and glaring at jongho. "we'll see you after school."

we leave him on the field to stress and wallow in his own hatred, his eyes never straying from us until we're out of reach.

***

San

the fact that my future could have been ruined at just the beginning of the school day fills me with a sudden hatred i didnt even know i had in me. i never paid attention to anyone at this school, never had any friends because the rich and entitled pricks that floated in the halls of mountain creek legitimately drove me insane.

its happening again.

its lunch and all i can think of is pounding that asshole jongho's face in. i know its not smart though, so i hold myself together. i'll wait till i have enough leverage over him, then, i'll put a crack into his skull.

i text wooyoung about it while im on my way to my eating spot. hes excited to beat the shit out of someone again, and i know im not supposed to encourage his violent tendencies, but this time i would. wooyoung can be a loose cannon, hes still in so much trouble for what he pulled with the black dragons. but that enthusiasm is exactly what i need tonight.

the kind that makes rich creeps like choi jongho pay.

as im picturing his stupid face getting pummeled, something slams into my shoulder. or rather, a LOT of somethings.

im knocked into the metal of the lockers, my backpack sliding off my shoulders and my phone crashing to the floor. i hear the screen cracking further, which drives me insane. what the fuck. i dont have time to get a new phone.

i look up at the culprits and feel my blood boil.

players from the soccer team. they're all watching me with disgusted faces, all sporting their black and gold jerseys. fucking jocks. i always hated them.

"watch where you're going, guttercrust!" one of them yells at me. great, another slur for poor people. these assholes always have a bunch on hand.

i dont say anything. i dont want trouble. i just want to get to eat before this break ends. i reach down to pick up my bag and phone, but both are snatched out of my grip before i can graze them. my phone is kicked across the hall, and my bag is lifted over one of the soccer players heads, sending all my books tumbling out and onto the floor.

"what the hell!" i snap, grabbing my now empty bag from the guy's hands. they all cackle together, sounding like a choir of farm animals.

"thats only a fucking fraction of what we'll do to you," one of them says. "we know you took those stuff from the boys lockerroom. jongho wouldnt lie."

"yeah, maybe you wouldnt need to steal if you went to a school that fits your tax bracket." another adds and they all burst out laughing again.

i can beat the shit out of them. every single one of them. maybe even kill them. maybe i should just use Miss A and ask her for a favour for myself for once. maybe then–

"hey hey hey, leave my boy lazarus alone whats going on here?" a voice interjects. i sigh and turn around, that horrid nickname coming from the one and only...

"yeosang-uh...we were just..."

yeosang wraps his arm around my shoulders and i look down at his short frame awkwardly. he smiles up at me, then at the soccer douchebags. what the hell is happening.

"you werent bullying my boy choi san were you, mingyu?" yeosang asks, his smile suddenly falling. "cause you know i dont like that shit."

"relax man," the guy named mingyu says, visibly tense now. "we were just playing around."

"really? not cool man. not cool," yeosang sighs. "if this is what you call playing around, dont bring this shit anywhere near my party, alright? you get me?"

mingyu nods awkwardly and beckons his flock of soccer assholes to follow him as they leave. but before he goes, yeosang whistles aggressively.

"hold on, boys! put my boy lazarus's belongings in the state you found them."

i cant believe my eyes. i dont know what sick social contract exists in this school, but yeosang actually manages to get the soccer players to reverse back and pick up my phone and scattered books. they hand everything back to me in a neat fashion, awkwardly nodding to me as they leave.

"theres no way you're that popular." i scoff to myself, pulling away from being yeosang's arm rest. i face him awkwardly. "thanks, i guess. but what do you want?"

he blinks at me, feigning offense. "what do you mean, lazarus? i did that out of the goodness of my heart!"

i force a knowing smile. "you want more rosies?"

"well now that you mention it im kind of unhappy with your customer service," yeosang suddenly glares. "you didnt check your messages again. i asked you to bring me two more bags."

why the fuck is he going through these bags so quickly? "yeosang how many times do i have to tell you–"

"i dont need you to tell me anything, lazarus. im the fucking customer and i lay your bills. you should be grateful i even put up with this, sunwoo never did this to me. he would bring me what i want whenever i wanted."

i cant believe what im hearing. this idiot doesnt care for anyone but himself, which i know shouldnt be surprising. hes addicted to drugs and hes a rich boy, but still.

"i gave you four bags not too long ago, just yesterday actually," i remind him bitterly.

he leans forward and shoves his pointed finger into my chest. "and im telling you. i want. more whenever i ask. when you come to my party tomorrow, i expect you to be my righthand fucking man. dont show up unless you have what i want, and if you behave you can even bring marino as your plus one."

he laughs at the end, that usual, arrogant laugh that comes with knowing you couldnt face the consequences of your actions even if they were right infront of you.

yeosang's mention of yaera reminded me of how he treated her and i cant help but remember what he did at yunhos club so many months ago. this guy is a piece of shit. im not any better, but ive definetely been too friendly.

he doesnt respect my boundaries no matter how much ive asserted. customer is always right? i think the fuck not.

"whoa, lazarus!" yeosang dramatically says. "why are you looking at me like you wanna kill my ass? did i say something wrong?"

"you remember yunho?" i question. my fist is tight beside me. one more provoking word out him and hes done for.

"yeah? friend of my old pal sunwoo? the club owner right? what about him?"

"hes missing," i say. yeosang frowns in confusion. as if he doesnt know what that has to do with him.

"damn i didnt realize i was supposed to care?" yeosang rubs the back of his head. "you guys are going through some shit, huh? havent heard from sunwoo in four months either. why you telling me this? i didnt know the guy."

"be careful, yeosang. behave at this party of yours."

i sling my backpack over my shoulders and walk away, leaving yeosang with his mouth hanging agape. "what the fuck, lazarus? did you just threaten me?" he yells after me. "i just helped you, asshole!"

when i get to the stairwell, yaera is already there waiting for me. god im tired. i just want to sit in silence and eat. i slump down on the floor and lean my head against the wall.

"what the hell happened to you?" she asks, looking me up and down.

imagine admitting to getting bullied. at eighteen years old. im almost nineteen for fucks sake. i dont answer her because i dont feel like it.

yaera sighs. "well then. i get it. this day isnt a complete fuck up tho. i got a buyer."

i hear money calling. she suddenly has my full attention. "for the rosies?"

"nope, not yet," she lifts her phone for me to see. my glasses arent on so i dont know what im looking at. "for the watch. i got paid a shipping fee and everything, some dude in india really wants it bad."

i nod, kind of impressed. "wow, that was quick."

"the transaction isnt complete yet, but the money will be in by this weekend. we can split the cash then."

"good job."

shes kind of efficient. i guess she has really done most of the things she told me she would do. now all i need are the results. im gonna start drawing up how much money has been coming in. i still have the black dragons cash wooyoung and i split.

i should give yaera her share.

"hey, before we go to yeosang's party tomorrow, come by my apartment," i tell her. "i have something for you."

she smirks. "are we finally getting to third base? we havent even been to first."

"what?" i cough on my own spit. my cheeks are flaming. "uh no. ugh. just...wait till you get there. but it isnt that."

"damn, you really love turning into a stuttering mess when im around, huh?" she teases. "must be my natural charm."

"charm?" i scoff, not really having a comeback for that. i go embarrassingly silent after as she waits for me to elaborate. fuck it.

"your phones ringing." she innocently points out after. i look down and see wooyoung calling me.

"woo?" i answer, sighing. wooyoung is a man who never listens.

"yeah yeah yeah!" he instantly screams into my ear, making me wince and pull the phone away. i put him on speaker and dial the volume very low so i can hear him on a normal level.

"i know you said not to call you at school but i dont really wanna hear from you either, alright?" he says, making me chuckle against my will. "Miss A got a job for us tonight. we gotta go to the night market in the old town. get some protection money outta them."

"can i come too?" yaera asks excitedly. i glare at her and shake my head before answering wooyoung.

"is that it?"

"yeah, then we take everything to changbin, he'll give everything to Miss A."

"can you do that for the both of us?" i ask him. "you got nothing going on right?"

"no way man! i already faced him by myself after what happened with yunho. he wanted proof we changed the license plate!" wooyoung says, sounding stressed. "and he's been keeping up with the news since the club. apparently the cops caught us on camera from a distant alley, but they cant recognize us."

my blood runs cold at wooyoungs words. that night was the riskiest thing to ever happen to us. everything was reckless from the beginning. the thought of my future disappearing freezes me up. it flashes before my eyes before i get a grip.

"okay, i'll go with you," i say with difficulty. "but you'll still pick me up from school right? you know what you promised."

my eyes drift up toward yaera. shes watching me curiously, not being very subtle about listening in.

"yeah yeah, you little baby. we'll go beat the shit out of that stalker for your little blackmailer."

i can hear the eyeroll in wooyoung's tone. i quickly hang up but yaera chuckles to herself, having already heard it all.

"i cant leave school with you guys, just fyi," she says. "you know my parents are picking me up. i can just go to jongho's house on my own, he only lives fifteen minutes away from me."

i nod, thinking to myself. the two of them really hate each other. i know why, but everytime they interact i feel like it goes deeper than what yaera's told me.

before i can ask, the bell rings and i havent even touched my food yet. yaera frowns and pouts.

"do you wanna skip class? we have evans next period."

"i dont skip class and i wont start now," i tell her. she rolls her eyes. "and neither will you. im not tutoring you just so you can fail again. you're coming with me to class."

she seems to take my words as a challenge. "and if i say no?"

i shrug. "then i dont tutor you. i dont like wasting my time."

yaera stares at me, a smile forming on her face. it looks devious but sincere at the same time. and like always im left speechless and awkward. at this point im convinced she does it on purpose.

"okay. lets go to class then."

***

yaera

“where are you going?” 

my father’s voice startles me as im halfway out the foyer, backpack on my shoulder and ready to leave. i didnt even hear him come in, ive been alone all afternoon, the empty house something im already used to. hes watching me over the rim of his glasses, a magazine in hand. 

“oh hi. when did you get home?” i ask. 

“half n hour ago. now answer me, where are you going?”

“to jongho’s house.”

“alright, I’ll take you.” he begins to stand up and i groan in annoyance. 

“thats not necessary. he lives 15 minutes away.”

my father stares at me blandly. “i know you’ve been sneaking out at night. i dont know why but im making sure you’re going exactly where you say you are. your mother is meeting with Santo as we speak, they are working hard on the gala. whatever you are busy with, im going to tell you once to stop.your mother does not need the extra stress, alright?”

i bite my lip and stop myself from laughing. i cant believe this. im kind of embarrassed for not being slick, but at least it was my father and not my mother. hes far easier to lie to. 

i dont say anything as we get into his car, texting san that ive run into a little inconvenience. hopefully they wait for me before shit goes down, i dont want to miss a single thing. 

the car ride with my father is empty and silent. im in the passenger and he avoids eye contact with me like a man facing medusa, something im used to after everything thats happened to our family. we have never been close, but its never been this bad. i guess its hard to face the only child you have left after neglecting them for years, knowing that most if not all of their hardships have directly been caused by you.

but no. i cant just blame them. my therapist always said that i cant control what others do, but i can control how i react to their actions. me wanting to get far as fuck away from them feels like having all the control in the world.

“how long are you planning to stay at jongho’s?” he breaks his silence. 

“a long while. you dont have to wait for me.”

he nods curtly. “i didnt realize the two of you still spoke to one another.”

as if he knows anything thats going on with me lately. i dont answer him.

“have you been sneaking off to see him?”

the question makes me frown, disgust pooling in my stomach. i would have probably gotten butterflies just thinking of that, but right now all i feel is sick. then i think this is the perfect opportunity to guilt trip him. 

“no, ive just been going out for walks by myself. i cant sleep nowadays,” i mutter. “ive been thinking of her a lot. i know you probably think im out drinking or getting into trouble, but all i really do is sit on a park bench and think of what it would be like if she was here right now.”

silence. empty, cold silence. my father has stopped infront of jongho’s house, his eyes ghostily staring at his steering wheel.

i dont feel bad for hurting him. i had to get used to him being physically there and yet being far away. i had to get used to saying five sentences a week to him. i had to get used to him never hearing me out when he was at my mothers side, i had to watch him slip away while he was right infront of me. ill hurt him however i can. just so he can feel something, or anything when he looks at me. anything but empty.

“dont sneak out anymore.” he tells me after five minutes of just sitting there. eyes still on the wheel. “or let me take you where you want to go. if something happens to you too, your mother will be very upset.”

“okay. bye papa.”

“bye.”

i get up and out of the car. as my father pulls away and disappears down the street, a black van comes around the other corner, stopping infront of me. its the same one san got into when he chased down yunho. when the window rolls down, i come face to face with wooyoung and his massive black sunglasses.

“youre lucky you have someone like san around, sweetheart! you did nothing to earn bodyguard services.” he yells, and i hear san punch him in the shoulder. “ouch! what did you do that for?!”

“i told you he tried to get me in trouble!” san grits through his teeth.

“yeah, because you were involved with her! this guy hasn’t once looked your way before!” 

“you dont have to be here if you dont want to,” i say with an insincere smile. wooyoung gets out and rolls his eyes at me.

“yeah right, as if im letting you drag san into your shit alone. wheres this bozo stalker you speak of?”

i turn around and see jongho’s room light on. we still have his camera, so he’ll have to come out. i start to ring his phone, and he answers on the first ring.

“we’re out front.” i say and immediately hang up so he feels the urgency. 

he doesnt come out. his iron wrought fence buzzes open for us to go inside, and he's waiting on his veranda.

"this is the guy?" wooyoung scoffs. "whys he a creep? hes attractive as fuck."

san and i both give him side-eyes as we approach jongho. his eyes are low as he holds the door open for us.

"did you bring my camera?" he asks, his shoulders stiff and tense.

"uh uh uh, wheres the rest of the pictures?" i ask. jongho glares at me.

"i...have it. i have it, just do you have the camera?"

i nod silently, walking into his house. wooyoung and san follow behind me, with both of them staring wide-eyed at jongho's massive house. its all dark inside, with only certain rooms lit up. just like i know him,living like a fucking vampire most of the time. maybe thats why hes so weird.

"the pictures...they're up in my room." he says.

"why are you slurring?" i ask, leading the brigade. "you still feeling the effects of getting the sense knocked into you?"

wooyoung loudly sniffs him. "nah, this guys been drinking. he smells like fucking hand sanitizer."

i push open his room door and find the place empty. its been so long since ive stepped foot in here. things happened against the lack of my better judgment. even when i knew it wouldnt end well, i always ended up coming back.

im lost in it for a moment, remembering why im here. "where are the pictures?" i turn around as something loudly creaks.

im staring into the mouth of the gun, with jongho pointing it right at me. i forget to breathe on the spot.

"give me back my camera," he seethes "and then get the fuck out of my house."

"you wouldnt kill me, youre too much of a pussy," i grit out at him, albeit terrified. "you stole your dad's gun just to get back your creepy stalker pictures? thats rich."

"yaera, shut up. jongho,put the gun down," san says, him and wooyoung frozen on the sides of him. "what do you think youre doing?"

"you think im kidding?" he snaps. "i want my shit back! you had no right to fucking take it!"

san starts to take off his backpack. "dont fucking give it back!" i scream. "hes bluffing, cant you see that?"

"shut up, yaera," san mutters, infuriating me. he takes the camera out to my disbelief, actually moving to give it to jongho.

just as san puts it in jongho's hand, wooyoung comes from the side and rips the gun from his other hand. he shoves jongho into his wall, the camera falling to the ground. i lunge to pick it up and immediately run to the other side of his room.

jongho lets out a frustrated scream. "you fucking assholes!"

wooyoung laughs mockingly as he looks at the barrel of the gun. "would you look at that? its empty."

"pointing a gun with no bullets, arent you embarrassed?" i sneer. "i knew you were just bluffing."

"now where are the actual pictures?" san asks coldly. jongho looks up at him hatefully, refusing to answer. a second later, wooyoung runs full speed at jongho, kicking him hard in the chest. jongho falls to his knees, and san rips his hair back, making him wheeze out in pain.

"tell me. i wont ask again," san demands. wooyoung is excitedly waiting on the side for no answer again, just so he can slam the end of the gun into jongho's temple. he hits his floor head first, coughing hazardously.

at first it feels good to watch him suffer. to see him in genuine pain. then i realize what we're doing. its getting us nowhere. we're just beating him up, but he still has everything we need.

wooyoung is pounding his fist onto jongho and only when i get near does he stop. "no more games," i say and bend infront him, his bruised face leaking with blood. "give it up, jongho. or would you rather i take this camera to the police?"

he raises his hand and points to his bed before weakly choking out, "under it."

san goes to get it, struggling to lift the heavy bed along with wooyoung. underneath it they find a file, it looks like an ordinary photography file as san flips through it. but then the photos get more sinister. dark figures appear on different occassions. only silhouettes of what once was.

"what is this?" wooyoung groans. "you cant see shit in these."

"leave it to ningning," san says, taking the file and shoving it into his backpack. he tosses the camera onto jongho's bed, and jongho hopelessly stares at it as warm tears spill down his eyes.

i dont know why im queasy. he did something wrong. he is in the wrong and yet i feel so empty looking at him.

"we took your memory card, so dont even try to get those pictures back," i tell him. he doesnt react. im about to get up when he grabs my hand and pulls me down.

"you took the only part of her i had left," he says weakly, but his eyes are angry. "fuck you, yaera."

i roll my hand out of his, disgusted and annoyed all at once. san comes and takes my arm and we leave jongho to seethe on the floor with his injuries.

my stomach is in knots all the way out, especially when its time for us to part ways. i know san has places to be and things to do tonight, but i cant help but feel insanely grateful for what hes done.

he didnt need to beat the shit out of jongho. he didnt need to come here. but he did.

"i'll get these checked out by that contact i told you about," san tells me while we stand on the pavement. "she'll be able to get you everything, time, date, where these pictures were taken."

"i want to come with you," i say. wooyoung gives san a silent but obvious look, clearly thinking its a bad idea.

san is hesitant. "are you sure?"

i nod. "i wanna see first hand. i'll behave i promise."

"okay. fine, we can go together then."

wooyoung loudly sighs. "okay this was fun, but we have somewhere to be, remember san?"

"oh...yeah." san awkwardly looks down at me and gives me another nod. "goodnight, yaera."

"thank you...for tonight," i say, kind of embarrassed. i dont know why. it always ends this way. hes so many different people in one day. but it always ends with this. i feel like we should hug but hes so extra distant with wooyoung around.

i hesitate to call my father, wanting to wait till they leave because i know he'll be here in a flash. san and wooyoung get into their van and speed off into the night, leaving me alone.

***

SAN

"i feel like you already know this is a bad idea, but youre still doing it, so let me pick your brain, choi san. what the fuck is going on inside your head?"

i sigh, not in the mood for this. i keep looking at jongho's photography file and his ominous photos from following yaera's twin and her lover. i wanted to ask him where he followed them to but i doubt jongho's saying a word of anything anymore now that he has nothing left to give us.

"earth to san???" woo starts clicking his fingers beside my ear. i glare at him and shove at his shoulder.

"eyes on the road asshole," i remind him.

"answer my questions," he demands. "what exactly do you plan to do with those weird ass pictures?"

"i'll take it to mao's granddaughter then–"

"AND WHAT do you hope to achieve?" he interrupts me. i stare at him flatly.

"what do you mean?" i ask in annoyance.

"okay so ningning tells you who the guy in the photos are and where these pictures were taken, best case scenario. i wanna know what the fuck it has to do with you san."

"her sister was MURDERED, woo," i say exasperatedly. "and no one has been arrested. no ones probably seen these photos before. this could be her sisters murderer right in these blurry shots."

"yeah but what does it have to do with you?" woo insists, giving me a deadpan look. "i thought you two were just using each other, so why are you doing all this for someone who blackmailed you into shit?"

i dont answer. why should i answer? now im just annoyed.

"fine, be angry at me," woo says with a sigh and cranks up the radio. "but just remember, youre getting way too involved. you wouldnt walk the dog of your evil business partner, so you shouldnt care about shit that doesnt benefit you."

"jongho almost got me expelled!" i remind him. woo doesnt react to my raised voice to my disappointment. "and why did you help me if you were just going to be annoying about it? i could have beat him myself."

"i HELPED because of YOU, idiot. and sure jongho almost got you expelled but thats not why you were so worked up, huh?"

i stay quiet out of irritation. i know woo's just gonna accuse me of shit and he already thinks hes right so theres no point in arguing.

"you're not doing yourself any favours, sannie, just remember that. its better to keep your distance and make sure you get your cut."

we arrive at the night market at the old town, the smell of fish and the cold ocean wind hits us hard as soon as we step out of the van. our masks are on, our beanies too. to these people, we're just walking pairs of eyes demanding money in the name of Miss A.

we go to different street vendors, collecting her 'tax'. wooyoung does most of the talking because he likes the theatrics.

"collecting for Miss A," he dramatically deepens his voice, leaning half over the peoples stalls when he does.

when the people respond its not the end of the month yet, wooyoung reminds them of an age old gang war that no one cares about anymore, that killed ten street vendors and asks if they want to end up the same. if not, they have to pay the protection money to stay protected.

"you're a sick fuck, you know that?" i tell him as we walk through the lit pathways. the place is lively, with people shouting sales and prices right in your place as you walk.

"what? im just saying what changbin told us to say!" he defends. i roll my eyes.

"you enjoy that a little too much. plus youre only supposed to say the collector line, not intimidate them!"

"says the guy who just came from.intimidating someone for a girl!" wooyoung fires back and i put out my leg to trip him. he jumps over it and flips me off as we exit the market.

we take a route through the dark alleys, as it keeps us out of any police view. they normally roam the market because of light weight brawls in the street, but recently they've been catching on to gang presence in the middle of it all.

i cant wait to graduate. i wont be here for when this all goes to shit.

as woo and i walk through the alleys on the way back to the car, we hear a faint rumble in the air. i stop in my tracks and turn around as woo continues strolling, acting like he isnt carrying extortion money on his person.

a black cars headlights shine on us, so bright i cant see the people in the front. its a sleek black mustang. where the fuck did it come from????

woo stops once he realizes im not next to him anymore. "hey what the?"

the cars lights stay on us, making my stomach clench. suddenly it jerks forward, rolling right toward us.

"oh fuck!" woo screams and we both break into a run. the car is fucking speeding on us down the alley and if we arent fast enough we'll be smashed into the wall or dragged under it. theres a sharp bend and we take it, but the car makes the sharp turn as well, still on our heels.

"ITS STILL CHASING US!" woo screams. its literally a few feet away from crushing us. i spot a fence at the end of the alley and i clench my fist as i run for it, bracing myself.

"woo, JUMP!" i tell him just as i vault myself at the fence, holding on for dear life. woo jumps just as the car crashes into the fence, not making it but landing on the hood of the mustang. he screams and collects himself and quickly joins me in climbing it, the two of us making it to the other side in a few panicked seconds.

we turn around and look at the mustang in disbelief. it reverses back without anyone getting out, disappearing right back around the bend.

woo and i look at each other, hes pale. i know im pale. my heart is racing. we just ran for our lives. whoever was behind that wheel just tried to kill us.

"did we just...almost die?"

A/N: IM SO SORRY IVE BEEN GONE SO LONG AND THIS CHAPTER IS REALLY ALL OVER THE PLACE 😭 I'LL DO BETTER NEXT TIME

also you guys should let me know if you want me to tag you for when new chapters come out. i also started uploading on wattpad. @amphibianblood if you prefer to read on there. warning tho, the story is behind on there 😭.

NEXT CHAPTER

[kamoegoi]

Witch Theatre? :0 would u like to Expound?

oh hey sure!

me, from the future, after i finished writing this: oh god oh fuck im a rambly asshole and i put this underneath the cut

im pretty rusty all things considered and i dont think ive said this explicitly but my academic background is in english literature but within english literature i focused dramatic literature and within dramatic literature i focused specifically on witches and their potrayal on stage. i cant rattle off the esoterica like i used to but essentially the witch on page and on stage is the personification of a given community's anxieties and often in western literature of the anxieties associated with social hyopcrisies and, as one might imagine, socially out-grouped women end up being a pretty good vehicle for that kind of imagery. an an example i like to point to in western canon for its visibility and how explicit it is to these points, while notexactly my specialty because american literature is especially weak for me, is the scarlet letter because its a whole book about a woman suffering the punishment of a man's sin that he super duper definitely also commits but is still totally cool guys i swear and i think a lot of people have read or are aware of the general plot. in this example, they push her to the edge of town while all of them secretly continue to patron her to create a sort of ‘girl what were YOU doing at the devils sacrament’ type of  beat when they are literally all going there for her needlework. to those ends, we see the very basic theme of appearances vs reality re: social hyopcrisy, but its an extra fun layer of commentary on the community’s fears in that they revile her but seek her out specifically to embelish their own vanity (which is very on the nose for our contemporary understanding of puritans haha (wherein the text they are concerned with the appearance of virtue rather than actually acting virtuous)). so the witch in ficiton can often be portrayed yeah as sedentary because a witch who leaves the community who fears her forfeits the dissonance the community participates in that gives her power over that community in the first place. spoilers for scarlet letter, but the reason why i like to point to it as an example especially is because it really does insist on that single-placedness: in the end, neither hester nor dimmesdale can escape the puritanical rule that torments them to, in this reading, illustrate that neither witch, woman or otherwise closted as dimmesdale is, can ever really leave the seat of their power because without it they are a spooky scary reflection without the object thats casts them.

but also my head is full of fuck! and while this was my focus of study, i am by no means an expert (i actually went on to pursue education instead of getting deeper into literature or theater and that body of knowledge has waned even further for me relatively speaking lmao)! this is just one reading of literary witches that i am deeply fond of and is a very handy way to understand any (socially) isolated fictional woman’s role in a story. wrt to our blorbo in laws, consider this reading in context of say savathun or mara or eris morn and you see a lot of neat things that characters in fiction are afraid of. its also sorta funny to psychoanalyze the player base at times, esp wrt how mara is talked about at large at times (but again i cannot emphasize that i dont know anything and i know even less about social sciences and every part of history that i didnt specifically scrutinize for my own study)

[exotrauma-vents]

HEAVY TW for mutilation, torture, body horror, kidnapping, death, massacres, public humilliation, forced cannibalism, manipulation, propaganda, brainwashing and some cult and lovebombing mentions. (also cw for caps and repetition)

i feel disgusting tbh. i cant seem to get that feeling of discomfort away.

i hate having my flesh and bones ripped apart for fun. i hate feeling my blood on my back. i hate the feeling of my skin being ripped off. i hate the crunching sounds of my mask breaking to pieces. i hate the way theyd steal it and torture me again if they saw me gluing it back together. i hate looking at myself and wanting to vomit. i can still feel those stupid lamprey eel arms tearing me apart and feeding on my organs. i can sense that microscopic amount of their venom running through my veins. the torment and humilliation of having my face exposed and shared online.

i was trapped for days in there. along with my best friend some of my comrades. i think they were like.. 100 ppl? yeah, approximately. i dont know who they were. they seemed traumatized aswell. we were dehydrated, sleep deprived, and the only food we were offered were the remains of our peers, already consumed by someone else and regurgitated into a cupcake which we couldn’t even eat because they were right in front of us. most of us refused to eat it, but theyd sometimes force us to eat it through threats or pushing it into our mouths through forcefully anyways.

they did if for fun. for fun. for FUCKING. FUN. THEY JUST THOUGHT “wouldnt it be silly id we kidnapped and traumatized our ex-friends??”. THEY DID IT FOR FUN!!! ITS DISGUSTING!!!!!

by the time we got rescued, we were maybe like 7 people. i cant seem to remember. they threw explosives at the monsters that were torturing us and it worked. my legs werent able to function, and both of my arms were ripped out. luckily we found one and we were able to stitch it back. on the way out i found my friend’s dead body, laying on the floor and half eaten. i was devastated. if i could go hug it, i would have. but i couldnt. so i spent the rest of my time crying because i couldn’t be with my friend on its last moments.

i tried to tell the MEG about this, but they insisted they needed to see my face (which required me to take off my mask, an item with strong cultural meaning, that held my personal and cultural identity. i’d dissociate heavily if it was taken off or broken.) to prove i had gotten scars from it and that killing the creatures that literally massacred us on multiple occassions made us equally as violent as them, even though it was literally self defense and they couldnt feel pain. wanderers weren’t safe either, as they had been manipulated by partygoer propaganda and shot us on sight because rhey thought we were dangerous. we had to pretend to be extinct and run away from our home to a completely different place just to find safety. all the names we have are either the MEG’s way to reduce us to an anomalous entity that should be studied for science and A LITERAL CARICATURE OF US THE PARTYGOERS INVENTED FOR THEIR SICK PROPAGANDA!!

everyone hates us. everyone hates us for no reason why do you all hate us?!?!?! WHY DO YOU ALL HATE US???!!!?!? YOU HAVE NO FUCKING REASON TO HATE US YOU HYPOCRITES!!!!! we used to be good friends with the partygoers (even though they also abused and brainwashed us during our friendship and kinda resembled a cult?..)! we used to rescue wanderers and shelter them for free!! we used to help the MEG understand our biology in ways that didn’t require us to take off our masks!!!

i cant seem to get it out of my head. i feel so gross i need to take a shower.

the worst part is that i kinda wanna go back. i know i hated it. i know it was bad. but i cant help the fact that they brainwashed me into finding some sort of comfort in it and that it was just tame friendly fire and that it was the only thing i was good for. i feel like a traitor for that. a freak. a failure. they also made me think that of myself but i dont care. im worthless!! im fucking pathetic!! im an asshole for hating them!!! they gave me everything i needed!! they payed attention to me and cared for me (that was kinda lovebombing but idgaf. at least they pretended to love me!!)!! they were my only true friends (also manipulation)!!!! why did i leave them like that?!?!!!!?

anyways sorry for the long rant. im so fucked up

feel free to delete this if its too gory but. i just needed to say this somewhere yk.

uhhhhhhh hope my mutuals dont find this

.

[feralfungii]

Small rant

terfs rly are some of the most misogynistic pieces of shit out there and they seem totally unaware of the irony of it. Claiming to be feminist but then the moment someone dfab is like "i dont identify as a woman" theyre like "OH YOU POOR CONFUSED LITTLE GIRL. You clearly have been so terribly misled and tricked!!!! Not to worry, I know you are incapable of critical thinking or making your own decisions in life, so I'M here to tell you your business, to dictate what you do with your body, and to tell you how you, as a woman, should behave!!!!"

Like wow yeah youre such a feminist, trying to dictate what other people do with their bodies and lives and telling them they don't know any better. That's definitely not at all anything like our society's tendency to tell dfab people they're irrational and reactive and don't know what they're talking about and cant be trusted to make decisions about their own bodies.

Terfs are like the pro-lifers who insist theyre feminists - they don't understand that feminism is more than just "yeah i dont think dfab people should live to be subservient to dmab people" or "men suck" or "women are angels and goddesses who can do no wrong." You arent a feminist just because youre a cis woman who's full of herself and raging at people she doesn't consider to be her equals. Feminism is such a huge and nuanced thing and it drives me nuts to see people directly undermining what feminism actually is while insisting to be championing it.

Also, any real feminist would be unabashedly supportive of trans women, that's just a fact. Real, actual feminism is not based in sexist fake science, it's based on "the way we as individuals and as a society treat people needs to be considered in context of many layers of intersectionality, privilege, oppression, and every nuanced thing in between. No one's experience and life should be invalidated and taken from their control based on gender, race, religion, class, or sexuality."

Insisting on gender roles and specific gender presentation and policing of other peoples bodies, harassing and bullying people who dont conform to your personal preferences... I cant think of anything less feminist than terf ideology. There is nothing more harmful to the true purpose of feminism than their weird self-righteous misogyny and transphobia. There is nothing more insulting to the spirit of feminism than to totally invalidate anyone else's personhood and identity based on sexist gender ideology.

If you think that chromosomes and genitals are deciding factors of who people are, who they're capable of being, and what they're capable of doing, you have a lot of internalized sexism to work through. If you think someone's entire life needs to be dictated by their gender, you also have a lot of internalized misogyny and sexism to sort through. You cannot claim to be fighting for women while excluding people who are also suffering under the system feminism is supposed to be fighting against (spoiler alert, the system is run by a bunch of old rich white guys, not by trans people who want to be able to use the public bathroom without getting literally attacked) and also promoting and spreading the same hurtful, hateful rhetoric that people have always used to say women aren't really people. They will literally parrot archaic gender ideology from times when women weren't fucking allowed to vote and claim they're feminists, it's absolutely nonsensical.

Im sure many of them dont actually believe in their own righteousness and just hide behind the smokescreen of feminism so they can use it as a defense when theyre called out for abusing and harassing people. They can just say it's in the name of feminism. They're not abusing and ostrasizing marginalized groups because theyre bigotted! Oh no, not at all, they're just soooo feminist.

But im sure there are also plenty who are genuinely just... women who have been deeply hurt and are lashing out at oppressed groups and minorities in some attempt to offset the sense of helplessness that comes with the fact that so much of their pain is being caused by people in power. They cant punch up high enough for those people to even notice, so they punch down instead. And they get the temporary feeling that they're doing something to counteract whatever or whoever hurt them, that they're helping a just cause by hurting the big bad scary trans people who are clearly the driving force behind the mistreatment of feminine people in our society, and then any time they might have an inkling of "Am I hurting people who are already suffering?" they can turn around and be assured by their echochamber that no, you aren't, because the transgenders aren't people, their suffering is faked to invalidate the suffering of "real" women, and your actions are beyond reproach because the other terfs all agree youre in the right

Cause, yknow, people who dehumanize entire sections of the population and want them eradicated or controlled can usually count on others of that mindset to be able to objectively identify when they're being hateful or going too far. Groups that shamelessly take pride in being "radical" while targeting minorities, who seem to base their victories on "how much harm can we cause to the people we dislike," and whose talking points often seem to be scarily along the lines of eugenics, conversion therapy, or straight up eradication of real people are usually totally reasonable and rational and definitely in the right. Not hateful or bigotted at all.

I get that they hate trans people but man they really fucking hate feminism too for people who include it in the name. Feminist should never have been used to describe such evil.

[thegreatimpersonator]

Moving update: moved but still have things to unpack. They're probably gonna stay unpacked for the next month or so at this rate but that's a story for a different day

Now for a funny story I'm calling: how the hell do you fuck up something as simple as banana bread?!

short answer: eyeball the ingredients, bake on a low temp, do everything in your power not to follow the written instructions

long answer: i set out to make banana bread but my mother in law (smarter than einstein, suffered more than jesus kind of lady) insisted i follow her baking "tips and tricks" like eyeballing the liquid ingredients. i told her no several times, we even got into a debate of how grams and milliliters are two separate measurement (weight vs volume) but she insisted it's one and the same and she told me how much wet ingredients to add according to whatever math she came up with. once everything was mixed and ready for baking, she started messing with the oven temperature and settings, so what was supposed to bake for about 50ish minutes, ended up baking for 100ish minutes and it was still quite raw in the middle. she insisted that's normal. i insisted it's not. she went out of her way to comment on how no recipe turns out the same way twice. i went out of my way to explain how each time ive made this one ~alone~ it's turned out the exact same way. because baking is a precise science, it's not like cooking, which i admit she excels at. it's also why i prefer baking. it's precise, which means unless you don't follow the directions, it's hard to mess it up. so she went to my husband to ask how many times ive done the recipe while we lived in another city. he told her countless times, it's an incredibly easy snack and always turns up perfect. i still dont think she believes that it's not my first time making it.

so she's allegedly making it on her own tomorrow, and she described the recipe i provided in all the wrong ways, including using a blender to mash the banana and then mix ALL the ingredients in it (which you don't want to do because it ends up with too much gluten which makes baking it more difficult) and not using enough honey and even adding the bananas last for whatever reason. cant wait to see what happens.

she kept insisting im upset because i messed up because im inexperienced and it's my first time. i kept telling her im not (im actually not bothered in the slightest and i find it comical because i expected the end result to be messed up as soon as she decided shes a master baker today) but she didn't believe me for one second. i dont have fuck to give about what she thinks is feel honestly, i have other things that i actually need to worry about. and im not touching anything in her kitchen until she's at work anymore. all that talk about "make yourself at home this is your home now" but then you gotta do everything someone else's way, well no it's not, im obviously bothering them with my existence and we all gotta compromise which isn't easy but like cmon, i can do some things right in the way that i like to do them lmao

manifesting the smoothest least stressful unpacking process for you 🥺 also aksksjdjdn it is SO easy to fuck up a baking recipe like why bother following a recipe if you're not gonna stick to it 😭

[scribble-brain-aced]

-chronic hand pain. i dont think there’s any other possibility (not that it matters much to FestivalVerse!Dust, actually. pain is all he knows. he’d be in agony, writhing and sobbing, if there was nothing because he’d think Something Bad was happening. i think. but regular Dust is unfortunately aware of Pain vs Not Pain, and must deal with a METAL PLAQUE DRILLED INTO HIS HAND.)

-extreme fear of uncontrolled electricity (namely exposed wires), any experiments regardless of ethics, being trapped in a locked room, general Fucking Around And Finding Out, a lot of stuff. considering the.. variety.. in Handplates experiments, it’s pretty hard to not be scared of everything.

-weirdly good at swimming and has no idea where that came from, because he’s never been to the pool in his life. (test tube liquid.)

-can explain various types of torture methods, and injuries that will happen if you do a certain thing, and doesn’t know why. but he knows, and therefore will NOT let Killer do that Stupid Thing, as funny as it would be.

-has no idea how to express affection. if given a compliment, he’ll just go “fuck you” and lightly punch their arm. translated, it means: ‘i am sobbing in joy, i will treasure this forever.’ or ‘don’t be a kiss-ass.’ either one.

-VERY, VERY overprotective of his pet rat, Cocaine. Sci suggested enrolling her in an ethical experiment, because she seemed especially smart, and Dust did NOT like that. he knows that rats are often used in experiments, and his logic is “they hurt me, but i’ll die before they hurt you.”

-actually hates science but he knows the most about it so he grudgingly accepts his role as the Resident Science Nerd. (even though he fucking hates it.)

-the gang CANNOT watch any movie involving mad scientist stuff. not the serious stuff, not the joke stuff. with the serious stuff, dust shrinks into a little ball of blankets and doesn’t move for the entire scene/movie, with the joke stuff, he’s either quieter or he’ll go on a rant about how it doesn’t make any sense, that’s not even possible?? (add that to Nightmare’s insistent questions of “is that even realistic?”, and nobody can concentrate on the movie.)

handplates dust hcs,,,, i beg

[babylove00]

Till time ends itself

Part 1, book 2

°☆°☆°☆°☆°☆°☆°☆°☆°☆°☆°☆°☆°☆°☆°

2012, two year after Natasha's and buckys wedding

It's been two years since Natasha and bucky got married, and things aren't working out. Him and nat have been going to couples therapy once a week to try and salvage their marriage. "I want kids but he refuses to talk on the subject!" Nat spat to the couple therapist. Bucky sat there for two hours each week with his wife arguing, the therapist said that it is "progress, that it's good that we are

communicating in some way" james thought this was a waste of time and money.

He didnt want kids with nat he didn't want anything with Natasha. All of this started on their second week of marriage when bucky and Natasha were having sex. Bucky moaned out y/n's name in the middle of the act. "James why dont you want to have kids?" The therapist asked her name was mrs. Margot, "I used too, but now I dont really see myself with kids" the real answer was i do want kids i just dont want them with Natasha. I want them with my old girl bestfriend, that I have cut off and haven't seen in two years because I made a huge mistake and married the wrong girl.

But still to this day he refused to think of y/n the thought of her y/e/c eyes or her soft smile made him sad. The happy memories now were sad, he felt guilty that he cut her off but Natasha made him. She was pissed when he moaned y/n's name not, the annual friend night they had once a week. The fun nights were they all teased y/n for being a science nerd, the trouble they used to get into I high school. Late night drives to McDonald's while they laughed and blasted music.

His life was blend, boring, mundane, uneventful. His life was every word that describes boring, he missed everything about y/n her smile, her laugh, her goofiness, her soft y/h/l, y/h/c hair. He thought about her everyday since his wedding, he still couldn't admit that he made a mistake though. That he royally fucked his life up, he couldn't take the burn of his own actions.

"James, what made you change your mind?" Mrs. Margot asked, james snapped out of his thoughts. "I dont really know, I mean I imagined this whole life I wanted and I thought had it but now this is so far from were I thought I was, from what I wanted." This was partially true, he did imagine a life with kids and a wife. A big house and happiness but even when he wasn't with Natasha and even in high school he imagined that life with y/n.

He thought that this was normal or he was just horny. That he couldnt actually be in love with her that every guy thought about what it would be like to love or dream about a life with their bestfriend. But he was sadly mistaken now he knew he loved her but every time he tried to come to terms with y/n being with another man he could feel the anger burn in the back of his throat.

He didnt know why he was so hung up on her. He had a hot ass wife who loved him, he made millions a year. A great company, fancy house and cars. He had it all so why did he feel like something was missing? Why did he feel like  had nothing? Nothing without her. He hoped that his heart over time would forget y/n. Stop wishing and thinking about that stupid conversation he had with his mother at his wedding. She was right 'damn it why did she have to be right.' He thought.

The rest of the couple therapy was hell like always. Him and Natasha drove home in awkward silence, they now lived in New England in a huge house that Natasha insisted that they build the way she wanted. They walked in the house and went to their separate rooms. Yes it was that bad that they now had separate bedrooms, they hadn't had sex in probably 3 weeks. And it only happened because they were in argument, hate sex they only had hate sex. Love was something that wasn't here, and now they both questioned if it ever really was.

Its was now 5 PM and bucky went outside to check the mail. He opened the mail box and found some random letters but his breath was taken away when he saw a wedding Invitation.

You have been Invited to the wedding of y/n y/l/n and steve Roger's

June 15th

Bucky felt pain blossom in his chest as he continued to read about the details. Y/n was getting married to steve and it was in a week from now. He crused himself that he cut y/n off didn't say goodbye to her or steve and the both of you still looked at him as your bestfriend. He realized that he was now truly to late he was married and now you were getting married to the most wonderful man in existence.

He didnt know if you felt the same way but he had no clue that at some point you did love him the way he still loves you. He walked back in the house Natasha was sitting at the kitchen table, he was still in shock from moments ago. "What wrong it looks like you've seen a ghost." Natasha joked. he handed her the wedding Invitation, her eyes widened "y/n And steve are getting married" she said in disbelief

Bucky never cried but tears were about to spill from his eyes the sadness and hurt turned to anger. "Yeah they are I guess." Natasha just stared at him, she wasn't stupid she knew he was in love with y/n she knew it from the begging. But refused to address it and now she was facing the consequences. Bucky ripped the invite from Natashas hands and stormed off In anger, he went to his room.

He sat on his bed staring at the invite. tears fell as he wished that some how you could hear him "please y/n/n please, no love, I'm sorry." He mumbled. He got up and went over to his desk in a locked drawer was a pictures of y/n and old love letters that he never sent. Many nights he looked at them and cried thinking of wear he went wrong. He stared at your picture anger again filling him, he got black out drunk crying himself out of anger and tears.

[irkenheretic]

hell yea talk abt yr characters. 27, 42, 69 (nice)

ty king i owe u my life!!!

numbhmer 27 issss... grapa!!! he was on the actual show once, he took the credit for blorch's conquest? but in the comics it was larb who was blorch's supposed conqueror? well... in anarchisma, grapa suffered a seriously bad mental break during an interview, and went into a self-imposed exile and moved in with his buddy sneakyonfoota on his assigned planet, and the pair are eventually joined by a heretirken named minie. the trio of the are the center of an arc, and while the more well-adjusted sneakyonfoota is a good influence on grapa, trying his hardest to get him to settle down and talk about what caused his mental break and what's going on with him emotionally, grapa gravitates to the more "do drugs to forget" style of minie, the two of them eventually going on a huge drug bender

i genuinely really like the interactions of the trio as a whole and how each personality compliments and contrasts the others- i find it really interesting how these three play off each other, especially with grapa and sneakyonfoota's contrasting reactions to minie, the outsider- grapa and minie have similar mental problems but he refuses to connect with her due to her status as a defect, meanwhile sneakyonfoota has none of the problems but tries his best to understand and help both grapa and minie. i just think their dynamic as a triad is really neat!

next up, number 42 is....

oh.

my god.

number 42 is lefy himself.

what can i say about him that hasnt already been said? he's lefy! he's a keetish guy whos done a lot of things, most of them i cant talk about here for spoiler reasons! but uhhh... he's a singer/songwriter? i got that for ya! yeah its hard to talk in-depth about lefy because a lot of stuff about him is spoiler-heavy but yeah! oh another thing!! lefy is blatantly blatantly 100% without a shadow of a doubt in multiple ways De Fect Ive but is extremely in denial of his own defectiveness- he's not herephobic, though, not at all! he insists that he's not defective but that he "just thinks they're neat," and lives in denial about his own status. in a way hes a foil to zim himself; they're linked in a few ways in The Narrative and have a lot of the same mannerisms, down to both of them telling people to shut the fuck up when they're backed into a Denial Corner lmfao! but yeah lefy's denial of certain situations and his contrarian, oftentimes hypocritical view of certain things are the crux of his character, at least early on before he gets some character development and all that! he's a really interesting character that i could talk for HOURS about, but i also can't because, y'know, spoilers

number 69.... okay the funny thing is that i swore i could remember doing number 69 way back when i did this for the first time

and i did! its just that.... since then, more characters have been added to the sheet, so now number 69 is a completely different character!

her name is plum, and shes a hybrid scientist! she studies specifically hybrids, irken hybrids in particular, and is a medic for them as well due to her specialized knowledge! she's a very tall woman, but she's naturally average-height... she's addicted to getting height extensions- every time, she's told they can only increase her height a little due to her various physical ailments, and she agrees- only to go to a new person the next time and lie saying she's never gotten one before! it's uh, slowly degrading her mobility and quality of life. she has a lot of depressive episodes just as a side effect of Hereditary Mental Problems and being in pain all the time doesnt help. she was drawn to hybrid sciences due to herself being a hybrid, and her later romance with another hybrid!

and this will be a minor spoiler for h-word that relates to her, so if you just wanna wait till it comes out, feel free to! but if you dont really care, it's under the cut for ya

truth be told is, youve already met her if youve been keeping up with the story! but id understand if you havent recognized her.... because she's red's egg! yep!! plum is red's as-of-now unhatched smeet! isnt she.... uh.... interesting?? lmfao. she's a real cutie pie when she's hatched, though!!

[laurelnose]

also five years is nothing for adults but it is a lot for children & teenagers and I definitely feel some kind of way about 1) the incident early in the Ash sequence where Caird essentially gets the crowd to bully Cosgrad into getting half-naked:

Shy Torrinde had been convinced to take off his shirt and display the principles of isometric bodily control, which Farrier insisted allowed him to twitch his tits individually.

combined with 2) the really intense way Cosgrad reacts to Caird lying about his age in combination with his agreeing to tutor Kindalana, which, as Tau notes, does not seem to be simple jealousy (and this is how he behaves about Caird’s conduct in front of another Prince):

“Tau would like you to be their tutor,” he said. “How would you like that, Farrier?” And he fixed Farrier with a look of such challenge and conviction, such utter doubt in the man’s good faith, that Tau was instantly fascinated. [...] “Farrier was quite the womanizer in school,” Cosgrad said, with no trace of jealousy or bitterness, an absence so marked that it was like an eclipse; you can see that something is in the way, concealing the truth.

(Farrier claims specifically to be a whole year younger than Cosgrad, too. we-dont-have-time-to-unpack-all-of-that.jpg but also how’s it go again? “A king holds his power unto death, but the republican should abdicate young”? very cool and normal perspective on age from Cairdine Farrier)

3) whatever this line from Cosgrad at the end of Tyrant refers to:

I’ve whored myself to Incrastic science for my whole life. They used me as a boy and now I use myself.

and 4) the thing he says immediately afterwards which provides some context to the Kindalana thing:

I don’t care what Kindalana does with her sex. Farrier’s the one who could never get past her body. [...] I cared about the choices she made, the future she wanted. That was what I wanted to keep away from Farrier.

which is interesting because the Hesychast/Itinerant dichotomy is the obsession with body vs. mind, nature vs. nurture, and Hesychast is firmly on the body half, but here Cosgrad claims the opposite dynamic; and furthermore their whole rivalry is based on who gets to write the future of Falcrest and in what ink, so it’s easy to read “the future Kindalana wanted” as Cosgrad just wanting the chance to shape it himself — which he undoubtedly did, whether as deliberately as Caird or more inchoately as a desire simply to have Kindalana agree with him — but at the time Cosgrad was also a young person (23yo) whose teenage years & future had been indelibly altered by the presence of Cairdine Farrier.

anyways i sometimes see people reading a sexual charge into their relationship but usually straightforwardly as kismeses too hung up on homophobia to do anything about it. but if they met as actual children, before either of them were teenagers—which since Cosgrad is only 49 and the narration says Caird has had his hands around his throat for more than forty years is certainly the case—I think the vibe is actually weirder than that

afaict, they were both sponsored as cryptarchs by Renascent, and it kinda looks like she chose to start young, the way Farrier did with Baru, which is way more fucked up than “academic rivalry.” this is a pressure cooker for the worst kind of pseudo-fraternal competition for resources from a parent who won’t provide equally. with a solid helping of “most hellish boys’ boarding school experience imaginable.” this absolutely inflicted irreparable damage on both of them but also growing up together like this (compounded by whatever tf was going on with little Cosgrad and the Metademe) had to have been much worse for Cosgrad than it was for Farrier. I’m not saying Caird himself was sexually abusive towards Cosgrad (I think he was mostly just an unrelenting asshole to the much younger boy who the adult(s) around him were threatening to replace him with) but I’m sure that the kind of boys-will-be-boys sexual harassment was rampant throughout their teenage years. like … the general vibe was probably so psychosexually rancid. no fucking wonder they’re so goddamn weird about each other.

For more than forty years, Caird’s had his hands around the throat of his classmate Cosgrad Torrinde, a man who he named, in the cruelty of their teenage arguments, a cruelty he now sometimes but not often regrets, the squid priest.

Ten bucks says that “regrets” means Farrier occasionally thinks, “Damn, it was a little undignified of me at 18 to be calling a 13-year-old The Squid Priest,” and involves not even an ounce of actual remorse

[denkilightning]

Uh hey, no pressure but do you have any tips for writing c!george? I'm trying but he just isn't right? In my story and i don't want to mischaricterise him -💛

a bit of a disclaimer: i am actually no the authority on cgeorge since i am not ccgeorge and all the things ill say are based off my opinions. if you dont wanna do sth the way i say it simply dont <33

about mischaracterisation: honestly dont worry. it doesnt matter whether hes in character or out of character because things like that are rather subjective, and what matters is an interesting characterisation. it doesnt have to completely align with canon c george because canon c george is incredibly fucking hard to grasp, mainly because whether he doesnt care or cares about everything is decided like its a russian roulette, same with his grip on reality.

but if you wanna stick to canon i reccomend watching and analysing his behaviour in the presidental debates stream (on quackitys vod channel), 'quackity and jschlatt win the lmanberg election', the november 16th stream (building a house), the george lore stream (not the 'doing george lore' one but the one that was george streaming, with dreamxd), the friendsgiving stream (mainly karls pov, but there are few others) and the 'is dream smp over' stream. they give you a lot of insight on what cgeorge used to be like vs what he is like now.

the biggest thing about cgeorge is how completely independent he used to be and you can see the decline from doing whatever the hell he wants (like running for vice of the nation he wanted destroyed) to being the wreck of a person after his entire family fell apart that cgeorge is now.

for that i also reccomend the lmanberg independence war vids from punzs pov, theyre great base for cgeorges characterisation

other than that few little things that can translate into bigger things depends on what context you write in:

cgeorge actually likes ckarl. like They Live Together and once they were implied to be married where in the same sentence ckarl told csapnap to live in a different house

cgeorge is probably autistic with adhd. at the very least he is very ND coded (using the word coded lightly) imo

whether cgeorge cares about sth happenning is completely up to luck. its like a game of russian roulette and i dont think even cgeorge knows when or why he cares about certain things

cgeorge is the epitome of choosing the people over things. even tho hed complain a lot about not being stacked (believeing not wearing armour is 'being naked' per cdreams words) he doesnt care about material things unless they have emotional meaning to them. a characteristic cgeorge shares with ccgeorge, where hed let sams armour and things burn, but started frantically insisting on saving him once he learnt nikis christmas gifts would also get destroyed

the point of cgeorges character at the moment of the story were in is that if given a chance hed destroy his own very home he helped create. and he definitely doesn't feel safe in his own head or like a person anymore. big derealization and depersonalization issues

other than that i reccomend making him sharper and more contrasting than he is in canon. more aggressive, a bit more vicious, only putting csapnap over everything (remember that its csapnap who was invited to the red banquet but it was cgeorge who actually went), more protective of his own people while not minding murdering them (a trend we see in the ogs, i.e hunters + cpunz). let him be enthusiastic about picking flowers and baking bread as well as killing ans breaking people's bones.

also let him be smart and know things. personally id recommend transforming ccgeorges 'knows a fuckton and loves to talk about technicalities of things like youtube and stuff' trait to cgeorges 'knows a fuckton and loves to talk about technicalities of like torture and assassination and shit'. also science. theres no fucking way cgeorge is not a science nerd so keep that in mind.

it's rly rly important how much cgeorge loves nature. youll see it in the way he got mad at cdream killing the dogs in the early days, or how theyd keep foxes in the house even tho he couldnt tame them, and how while sarcastically praising lmanberg he stood at the crater reclaimed by nature and went 'it actually is pretty nice'.

also!! his trauma response is fawning. thats also important to keep in mind. it really matters wyen it comes to his relationship with cdream

and when it comes to my personally liked quirks about his characterization, i like to think cgeorge and jinx from arcane are very similar. rly smart, rly deadly, rly needing therapy. oh and blue coded <33

but yeah sry if this is very rambly and inconcise, if you have any more specific questions you can always ask or dm me <33 good like with writing your story!!

[feralaot]

AOT characters in school hcs </3

writing these while i sit in a zoom completely dead to the world

no warnings

modern / school au

eren

dead to the world. zones out and falls asleep all the time. how the hell does he even sleep? it’s so loud in this class what is wrong with you eren. he also yells at teachers and has the most detentions

mikasa

takes two sets of notes for herself and eren bc he won’t do it himself. he doesn’t even study them nor does he actually throw them away so he just has a pile of old notes written by mikasa that he does nothing with

armin

the only one that’s actually actively engaged in class. raising his hand, asking questions, etc. total teacher’s pet. always has honor roll and if a teacher raised their voice at him he’d probably cry

jean

just the really cryptic kid who doesn’t seem to do anything at all but is somehow passing. avoids eye contact with the teacher when they’re looking for hands but is somehow always the one that gets called on

connie

not paying attention, ever. is sending sasha memes the entire time. has had his phone taken away so so many times but it doesn’t stop him

sasha

same as connie, sends him memes during class but she also has snacks stashed in her pockets

historia

always has a water bottle. favorite subject is international relations. hydrates while taking notes <3

ymir

literally pays 0 attention she just has earbuds in during the entire class and hides them under her hair while she jams to mother mother or something. favorite subject is linguistics

hange

the cool science teacher that has set their desk on fire several times and insists on doing experiments almost every class. during a quiet work period they’d probably be so bored they fall asleep and one of their students has to wake them up. literally everything is a challenge to them. they’ll hear that erwin’s students are enjoying his class or something and they’re like oh yeah?? parry this you casual [blows something up for a demonstration]

levi

smth tells me he would be a french teacher. always has his students do things for him e.g. move desks, organize things, etc and usually has to have one of them reach things for him like books on top of shelves

erwin

yall already know this man is a history teacher. he’s usually deadpan and smells like coffee all the time but lowkey really enjoys his job and is enthusiastic about teaching history

mike

the gym teacher that always feels the need to show off for some reason. when he joins one of the dodgeball teams he loses all self control and goes completely ham

reiner

has never done an honest test in his life. always has some kind of cheeky little way to cheat his way through even though if he really wanted to he is probably smart enough to do things on his own. him and annie cheat off of each other and talk major shit about other students

bertholdt

he’s canonically good at everything he learns so I think he’d also be on the honor roll. definitely the responsible one. organizes all his notes and schedules and deadlines and turns things in on time (usually). his favorite subject is geometry because he likes shapes. “did anyone do their part of the project? guys?”

annie

also probably dead to the world. zoned out the entire time but somehow she’s always passing. very respectful so you wouldn’t guess that she’s had a lot of detentions for fighting

porco

he actually is pretty smart and could definitely do things if he wanted to. favorite subjects are english language arts and social studies but in any other classes he’s just.... not going to pay attention if he doesn’t like the topic. his motivation is nonexistent. but if you tell him to write an argumentative essay it’ll probably be 10 fucking pages long because boy oh boy does he have opinions. used to get in trouble a LOT for being disrespectful

pieck

she’s really good at math and does pretty well in most classes but her english teacher has had to talk to her several times about how “poggers” and “swag” are not academic language to use in essays. and that it is infact very rude to call fellow students daft shits

zeke

the other history teacher that has a feud with erwin. hangs out in the teacher’s lounge a lot and probably steals erwin’s lunch and blames it on those pesky students. he would never say it to any of his students’ faces but he judges them so hard like he’s genuinely disgusted when his students dont wash their hair or some shit

yelena

really quiet and really cryptic. probably prefers to sit on the floor instead of her chair

niccolo

just a friendly little nerd that everyone seems to love for some reason. if he gets picked on by someone literally all the jocks, preps, geeks, etc come to his defense