#but i keep forgetting to make it particularly gender specific because that's just how my brain works | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

n4bp · 1 month ago

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FAQ

This gets quite long, you can read more under the keep reading. More to come.

WHY TUMBLR? I am looking for alternatives that don't expose my real life identity, so Google Docs is out of the question. I'll swap over once I find an alternative that allows content for adults.

What names do you prefer being called? Nod is fine. The long version of BP is probably fine. Can't say the B part of it because tumblr's weird. My real name doesn't matter and I don't particularly identify with it. You might hear guildmates call me Aly or Syl, but neither of these are my names. They're actually names of characters I role-play on WoW. (Short for Alysithra and Sylindia) - It's a fairly common practice for WoW players to refer to each other with names or nicknames derived from RP characters. If you don't know me from this, please just call me Nod. Thank you.

How old are you? Late 20s, I'll be 30 in a couple of years. I've been playing WoW since 2010 and DBD for a few years. Took a break for a few years on WoW.

What are your pronouns? Gender? They/them, I'm agender. I have no gender.

I am not open to "debates" on my existence and you will be blocked if you decide to be transphobic.

Where do you come from? England. I was born and raised in the North East, specifically Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

I had two moms, one also a Geordie, and one from Ireland.

I am aware my accent floats all around the UK oops. I grew up with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), which back then was known as Specific Language Disorder. Or Specific Language Impairment (SLI). I still often pronounce things like how they are read, and struggle, in general, with learning language.

Are you disabled? Yes. I'm pretty open about talking about this for the most part since I grew up with most of these things. I mostly mention this because people occasionally come into my chat seeking support on some of these topics, or just someone to talk to.

I'm autistic. Diagnosed twice officially because they didn't tell my bio-mam the first time (thanks, NHS...), so I didn't get a lot of the support I needed until late... if at all. This is why I'm technically both 'self diagnosed' and officially diagnosed, despite the fact I had an official diagnosis from 4 and got it again at 16.

I'm also dyspraxic (diagnosed at 6 due to an awesome teacher I had), I don't play DBD with any assistive equipment as most of this would be against the rules. I only play with settings and filters that have been confirmed to be OK by BHVR. I mostly survive by luck, by killer mercy, and pure muscle memory/guessing.

I also have Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS), which I've had all my life since it's a genetic thing, but I was only diagnosed with as an adult. (But to be fair, doctors blamed a lot of the symptoms on the Dyspraxia.)

Finally, there's a few I'm not comfy talking about that I haven't listed. All professionally diagnosed.

Do you play with any accessability settings?

I play with the heart setting in DBD due to sensory processing issues that come with the autism/dyspraxia comorbity. Sometimes sound doesn't make sense and it's all just a blur that blends in together.

The heart setting is available through settings and accessability. I think it's the first setting. Having a visual indicator helps.

This is also why I use filters so I can easier see. Some people use nvidia filters for their filters. I use reshade or gshade, I forget which. I think reshade. Unfortunately, I don't remember where I got my pre-set from, I'm sorry.

Might've been ever Kyto or Momoseventh.

Do you always Solo Queue? It's my default as I don't have a dedicated duo any more. I'm happy to play with people who ask politely, though please bear in mind our MMRs may mismatch as I'm not very good, lol. As my audience grows my time might be more split depending on how things go. I'll likely implement a queue system in the event this happens.

What happened to your Kate/Yun-Jin duo? Gone.

She has been blocked and banned from the stream, so you won't run into her again. I'd rather just forget her entirely.

Why am I banned? You broke a rule so severe I don't want you in my stream any more. Or you were just such a jerk I didn't want you around.

Of course, this isn't a first resort. Most rule breaks will just result in the removal of your message or a timeout. Some rule breaks, extreme cases, result in an instant ban.

You can appeal in a week if you're respectful. If this is denied, I would appreciate it if you just gave me my space and leave me alone. If you're doing it for the last word, remember I can respond to get the True Last Word. I tend to treat people how they treat me.

I also have a bot that autobans spammers and certain slurs. (Well, they issue timeouts for the latter, but usually I'll also ban the user.) Depending on context (eg saying a different word that happens to just contain the slur, quoting someones username) I will likely unban when noticed, or simply not ban at all. Usernames containing these slurs will be reported on twitch as well, as they break TOS.

One of these slurs appears in an addon in DBD. If you're in good faith just referring to this addon, I'll unban. If you're just trying to get around the filter, you'll stay banned.

Why am I banned? I've never been to your stream! If you're genuinely curious and not just trying to be a jerk, here are a few different reasons for this.

The first, rulebreaks.

Either you broke a rule in my stream or you were directly witnessed (by me) to be breaking some pretty major rules in streams I often watch. Usually bigotry, sometimes self-promo or general respect stuff. I have a list of streamers I'll crossban people for if directly witnessed.

Occasionally other survivors or killers I've played with will be prebanned if I can link profiles as a result of the above as well, but this is usually in extreme cases. We're talking straight up breaking game or stream rules. I have some known hackers prebanned as I don't want to be easy content for them, and they make me nervous.

Otherwise, if you're prebanned, you either have slurs/chuddy behaviour in your profile I noted before the game, or you did something nasty and failed the vibe check in the game. Vibe check bans of this nature are usually done to prevent future harrassment from you, either to myself, viewers, or even the people I've been playing with/against.

Just being a victim of these things won't result in a pre-ban. It's only if you're the one doing this stuff.

I'm allowed to curate my personal space how I see fit, I hope you understand.

Why did you get banned from Steam Forums? Figured I'd just add this here, since I can't exactly talk for myself on forums.

I got banned for saying I don't like Dull Merchant (well, I just called her skull merchant at the time) the first time on a thread specifically asking for opinions about Skull Merchant (full month ban, btw), and then they turned it into a permanent ban when I said "no its not" twice in a completely different forum thread a while after being unbanned, which is somehow spamming. (It isn't spamming, and the situation was very much over as I'd already stopped talking in the thread after my last comment to go back to gaming. By the time I checked my messages again, I was permanently banned from the Steam Forums.. hours later, after the situation was long over.)

Anyway this cemented my eternal, undying hate for dull merchant.

I genuinely think they were just looking for reasons to get away with bigotry and ableism or one hell of a power trip, rather than fair moderation. People have repeatedly spammed more without any issue. Repeating a couple letters, or in this case 3 short words /once/ isn't spamming. Saying "no its not" twice isn't grounds for a warning, never mind a ban, and isn't spamming. And the skull merchant one doesn't make sense at all considering it was on topic and constructive. (It was for a month, too. Very silly.)

Steam forums will ban quickly and often unfairly, but won't do anything about the ableism and transphobia often witnessed there. BHVR if you're reading this, I'd appreciate the unban and I'll gladly volunteer some time to moderate your forums for free, since I'll do a better job. I guess.

And I don't see this as hypocrisy to the above question as the situations are different + the DBD steam forums are a public place.

Would you consider becoming a Fog Whisperer? No. I don't think I'd be listened to as a result of the Steam Mods on the forums, and I've heard as much that the Fog Whisperers aren't really listened to anyway. (Also, I don't think I'll be eligible for a long time. My community is too small. I love you, fam, just we're not quite there yet.)

Will you ever get a twitch tshirt? I want them, but I don't know if I'm eligible because my schedule is sporadic. BHVR please consider removing the schedule part of the eligibility criteria to become more disability accessible. Thank you.

If you could add any cosmetic to the game, what would you go for? There's so many answers I could give to this and they'll probably change depending on whims.

At the top of my list are more long hairs for Nea that I can combine with multiple outfits. I love her, but they keep giving her awful unmatchable hairstyles which limits me to about 3-4 depending on outfit.

I also would love scooby doo related survivors/killers and cosmetics.

I also would have LOVED them adding the Strawberry Cowgirl Kate, and I'm sad they didn't.

If BHVR added cosmetics from you specifically, what would you choose? Depends on what sort of freedoms I had and stuff. Maybe a legendary skin for Nea (or Sable tbh, Nea's my main but Sable maybe fits more) that looks like Revenant. She could play with her powers on the loading screen but they're disabled ingame, of course. Or maybe the cosmetics show up on a pallet stun/flash stun.

More specific bits that might work more:

Maybe a black and white bloodpoint themed shirt with my name on the back. Or maybe grey and black. Maybe black and grey with bits of dark red.

This probably won't happen but I'd be open to it.

Do you write Fanfiction? Yes. I'll advertise it on this blog if I get around to making DBD stuff. I'm a slacker. :(

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kyogre-blue · 2 years ago

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Hmmm....I'll try to pen down my train of thought, lmk if it doesn't make sense:

I guess I just don't see how Ei could have made that pointed 'those who have lost their lives are those who insisted in pursuing their ambitions' if she didn't know that people HAVE lost their lives like that (it's Oddly Specific, when the Traveler has been INCREDIBLY vague when telling her how the vision hunt Actually Affected People) and the only examples we know of are 1. Tomo 2. Teppei and maybeee some of the "not so fortunate" Delusion bearers in the resistance (can't really tell if that was Kokomi's tactful way of saying "they died" or the weird "This Is War But Nobody Dies!" Filter)

The resistance which, canonically, includes people who lost their visions and still chose to fight, and if that doesn't sound like the textbook definition of what Ei is describing... (plus the Traveler immediately goes 'Teppei' as a repsonse, so you are indeed meant to think about the resistance here)

Then Ei, on the heels of that convo, brings up that she knows what the Fatui are up to—which, given that if you choose to tell her that "the Fatui have deceived the Raiden Shogun" she IMMEDIATELY goes "pfft you small-minded mortal fool, I know more than you about the actions they take" with no confusion or follow-up questions, I thought that meant she did know about the Delusions—that, following her explanation, she doesn't purge them because they're only distributing to those who would grab for that power in order to pursue their ambitions.

I think it's the change in tense that bugs me—switching between "nobody will lose their life" and "those who have died" instead of an easy, flat "nobody has died" strikes me as odd. It makes me think that this is Ei saying "Okay, so people have died, but as soon as they stop this silly fighting and roll over quietly they won't die anymore" (victim blaming, ahoy!)

.........laying it out like that makes me realise that this can all be explained by 1. genshin writers not knowing that in a conversation there's never an unnanounced switch to an unrelated topic, because otherwise a topic only gets brought up if it's related to the current one even if only tangentially. And 2. Genshin writers forgetting to write from the character's limited perspective instead of their own, which is very likely given they have a horrible track record keeping track of what characters should or shouldn't know (see the Traveler, life-sucking delusions, character stories, what books are public knowledge, the knights of favonius somehow not recognising dvalin despite having lisa AND albedo AND a close working relationship with the church, AND Dvalin being able to speak for himself)

Well, it was a cool house of cards I had built up from an in-universe perspective, I'd like to think...

tbh I'm not terribly interested in interrogating the details here because 1) it's badly written no matter what, 2) I genuinely do not care.

Inazuma never really managed to get me emotionally engaged for a variety of reasons, but it completely lost my interest once we hit Act 3. I didn't care about Teppei, I can't stand Yae, Kazuha's big moment was a joke, Signora was a mess of disappointment, and the entire shogun business was incredibly limp-wristed at best.

One thing I will say is to caution against getting too caught up in examining the small details of the dialogue. It's tempting to do so, but that's a quick way to get stuck on a headcanon that is not actually real.

The EN translation of Genshin is not awful but it's not great either. The details might just be wrong. They got Kusanali's gender wrong initially, remember that? They translated the first half dozen references to "the Heavenly Principles" in a half dozen different ways before they gave in and started just directly calling them that. They translated a reference to the Abyss Order's homeland (Khaenri'ah) as the sibling's homeland.

Not to mention that Genshin's writing is not particularly clear in general. People were thinking that Zhongli created Azhdaha's body when he only gave him sight. And remember Albedo's entire convoluted dialogue in the second Dragonspine event? The one we still don't really know what it meant?

It's fun to speculate, but just keep this in mind.

#playing genshin

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monstersandmaw · 6 years ago

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Dullahan ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ Story - Part Ten (sfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

Sorry it’s a smidge late! However, we're back! D’s back too! *cheering*

Got some fighting in this chapter, and a serious injury, but other than that, I don't think I have any warnings for you.

Last time, we made a surprising discovery, met half-goblin Will, and only seconds after unlocking his cage door, we heard the mayor’s returning footsteps! Those of you who voted chose to hide Kravik, so that’s what we’re going to do! Buckle up, my friends - things are coming to a head!

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine

Reacting on instinct as the footsteps approached, you scooped Kravik up in your arms and hauled him upright. The only place you could see to hide him was in the lea of the low cabinet to the left of the entrance to the cavern. It was a poor hiding place, and it might only just cover him, but you had few options in that split second.

Kravik might have been only three feet or so tall, but he was muscular and compact, and you staggered as you half-dragged and half-carried him over to the wall. He was still winded and dazed from the tunnel collapse, and the searing flash of the wards on the mayor’s laboratory door had done nothing to help his recovery.

You knew you wouldn’t be able to hide there beside him as well, and that his only chance of staying hidden was if you moved somewhere else. But where?

You stood warily, back hunched defensively as you searched frantically for somewhere else that might just hide you, but no sooner had you begun to sprint for the wardrobe when you heard the mayor’s cry of fear and surprise from the entrance. The game was up. You’d been spotted like a hare in an open field.

Before you could react, however, she had summoned some kind of ball of energy to her hands, and was clearly readying it to launch straight at you, a fierce look blazing in her eyes.

A scream tore itself from your throat and instead of darting for safety, you simply froze on the spot. With your feet rooted in place, you could only stare in wide-eyed horror as Will shouted something from the cage on your right. The sequence of events that unfolded next all seemed to happen very slowly, and yet they were still over in no time at all.

Will sprang from the open cage, the key flying from the lock and skittering across the floor, and as the mage hurled her spell at you, he leapt between it and you. Blinking in shock, you watched his knees go out from under him as he caught the full force of it in his small chest, and he fell sideways to the rough floor of the cavern.

The mayor let out a wordless cry of horror and dived down to kneel at his side, heedless of her smart robes or the ragged, dusty cavern floor. “William!” she hissed, shaking him, then fluttering her hands uselessly at his temples. “How did you get out? Are you hurt? William?”

Relief flooded through you when he croaked and sat up, wheezing and short of breath, but otherwise unharmed. His stone-bound blood must have absorbed the force of her spell, you realised, and then cold horror dropped through you as the mayor got carefully to her feet. Her jaw ground and her eyes flashed as she met your gaze.

“You!” she snarled, extending her finger to you. “You did this? You let him out? You blew up the tunnels?”

“This has to stop,” you croaked helplessly. “It’s wrong. Can’t you see that? You’re poisoning people and…” your eyes darted to Will’s shaking form on the floor. His tattoos had flared a bright blue at the impact of the magic. “And you’re torturing your own son!”

She advanced on you then, stepping around Will as though he were little more than a piece of furniture. Her face was terrible in her rage. “You dare involve yourself in my affairs?” she hissed. “You have no idea what’s going on here!”

“I have a pretty good idea,” you said, aiming for defiant and missing as your voice gave a little wobble.

It was as Will staggered to his feet behind her that you saw Kravik beginning to creep out from behind the cabinet against the wall, quiet and careful as the shadow of a cat. He was making for the exit, and as you looked at him, he brought his bony finger to his lips, smiled, and then mimed ‘boom’, his hands splaying apart silently. He intended to go and blow up the one remaining store of phoros in the mine. You looked away from him just as the mage took her last few steps towards you, close enough that you could smell her perfume and see the stippled sweat at her temples.

“Mother, no,” Will said, lurching towards her and grabbing the back of her robe. “She’s right. This has to stop. You’re killing my own people just so I can have access to your magic? So you can have a son who’s a mage? It’s wrong! Can’t you see that?”

“I will break through that cursed stone-bound blood of yours,” she offered over her shoulder. “I will not have the shame of my family heaped upon me twice over.”

“What sort of approval is worth all this?” you asked defiantly, disgust thick and evident in your tone. “Do you really want the approval of people who can’t accept that you loved someone, regardless whether he was a goblin, and that you have a son who isn’t able to use magic?” you snarled. “Is it worth all this to you? Is his ability to use magic Will’s only worth to you?”

“Don’t you dare! You have no idea what it was like for me!” she snapped, tears sparkling in her eyes. “To have all the weight of expectation on my shoulders growing up, and then to be expected to marry some mage from another kingdom, just to try and distill a little more magic into our family line? I loved his father,” she said, jabbing a finger behind her at Will. “I loved him, and they ridiculed me for it. I brought shame on them. They can’t show their faces in the senate because I bore a non-magical son with a dirty goblin.”

Will’s sharply-handsome face cracked. “Why can’t you just love your son, mother?” he choked. “Why do I have to be more than what I am to earn your approval? Why can’t I be enough for you?”

The heartbreak in his voice sent a tear rolling down your own cheek. “She doesn’t deserve you, Will,” you hissed.

The mayor ignored you both, her face settling into a grim expression, and she grabbed you by the arm. Her grip was astonishingly strong, and she began to steer you helplessly towards the cage despite your frantic protests. Will launched himself at her, wrapping his skinny, lithe arms around her waist and knocking her to the ground with the force of his attack, and you twisted free.

“Go!” he shouted. “Run!”

Kravik’s feet vanished around the tunnel ahead of you, and your own legs faltered. You found yourself looking back over your shoulder, terrified for the half-goblin who had saved you.

“Go!” Will yelled again.

You didn’t wait around any longer this time, and bolted, but you soon heard footsteps chasing after you. Your heart was in your mouth, pounding desperately against your throat as you ran blindly up the dim corridor, back towards the collapsed tunnel.

A flash of light whistled past you, your lungs burned, and you fought off a fit of spluttering coughs as the air got thicker around you, the dust from the earlier cave-in still heavy in the air.

Voices. Up ahead. And a dim glow of light.

Kravik’s harsh, frantic, scraping tenor, followed by something richer and darker, and finally a female voice, scratchy and curt. It couldn’t be!

“D! Ten!” you screamed as another ball of energy hissed and crackled past your shoulder.

The voices stopped and then you heard the sound of Justice bellowing your name. It resounded off the tunnel walls, and was immediately followed by the ringing of boots on hard rock and the sharp rebuke of Tenacity, which apparently went ignored.

D rounded the corner in a blaze of greenish-white light. He was not wearing his head, but instead his ghostly body glowed in the darkness, and you flung yourself at him.

He caught you easily and wrapped his arms around you, the solid weight of his chest buttressing you up as your knees went weak with fear, adrenaline, and exhaustion. “I found you, I’ve got you,” he crooned, as much to himself as to you. “I was so afraid for you. I felt the earth shaking… I thought -” he cut himself off and took a deep breath. “What happened?”

“Oh D!” you whimpered. “Run! We have to get out of here! She’s coming!”

“Who is?” he asked, stroking your hair back from your face and pulling back a little to get a better look around the tunnel.

“The mayor! She’s injecting her son with phoros to make him open up to magic. Krav and I found him, but then she came in, and she attacked, and then Kravik went to try and destroy the rest of the supplies, and then she turned on me and she’s coming after me!” you said in a huge, garbled rush.

D instantly put himself between you and the tunnel behind you, and no sooner had he done so than the mayor herself appeared.

She had a staff in her hand now too, and she stopped abruptly at the sight of the dullahan standing squarely in the corridor. Clearly, a spirit of justice had been the last thing she’d expected to see.

D began to growl then, a vicious, feral sound that resonated in your chest and against your eardrums, and you glanced up to see that his lips had peeled back into a snarl, revealing his ghostly canines. They matched the elongated fangs he had in his physical head, but somehow they looked more dangerous in this eerie green light. He truly was inhuman and monstrous as he seemed to grow and fill the space with his menacing presence. The darkness seemed to grow deeper against the burning light of his phosphorescent glow. He pulled his shoulders square and moved his taloned hand to his side where the gruesome whip made of human vertebrae hung at his hip. He unhooked it with practised ease, and as he took up a fighting stance, footsteps sounded behind him.

A red light preceded Tenacity’s appearance, and your breath caught in your lungs as you saw her for the first time without her head. She looked like death itself. True red flames flickered up from her empty collar; her long hair was the white hot of iron ready for forge-welding, and it flowed freely behind her as if caught in a current of slow-moving water. Her hands were bare, and the snaking lines which had once been black were now blood red and glowing. But it was her eyes that truly terrified you. Blazing scarlet with righteous anger, she came round the corner with death in her gaze, and even the mayor balked visibly at the hellish apparition.

“No,” she whimpered, but then she seemed to rally. “No!” she repeated, more fiercely. “I will not let you take my research from me. Not when I’m this close! I will not be cut off by my family for loving a goblin, and I will not be beaten! I will have a mage child if it kills me!” she shouted.

“And what if it kills him!” you yelled back at her.

D put his hand out to keep you behind him, but even his black-clawed talons could not keep you silent.

“What if you’d killed those other goblins instead of just nearly poisoning them to death?”

Your words enraged her and she hurled a fork of lighting through the tunnel that left a blazing white afterimage in your vision. A sudden crack and flash of white light stopped it in its tracks, and you realised that D had used his whip to create some kind of barrier, perhaps to counter the incoming bolt. He was breathing hard. “Get back further behind me,” he growled at you. “Ten, go with Kravik and blow up the rest of those crystals. I’ll deal with her.”

Tenacity approached him and laid her hand on his shoulder, and her other on yours. “Light be with you,” she said. “And for the love of all that is good and right, Justice, do not get yourself killed.”

He nodded, never taking his terrible gaze off the mage, who still seemed to be struggling to recover her reserves of magic after her last failed attack.

Ten turned, and as her red light disappeared around the corner of the tunnel, a sudden, icy fear dropped through you. This was the first time you’d seen what D could really do, and you were terrified for him. “D,” you breathed, but he shook his head.

“Stand back. Go and find somewhere safe,” he said, taking a step forwards and readying the whip at his side for another attack. He knew as well as you did that he had to hold her off long enough for Ten and Kravik to blow up the stores. He was the last defence, and he had to hold.

The mayor brought her staff in front of her, holding it like a quarterstaff, and you saw it had a wicked blade attached to the butt of the shaft. It glinted and seemed to ripple and flicker in the light emanating from D’s ghostly head. He made no move to attack her, simply standing there, watching, keeping himself between her and you. But when you saw what was inlaid into the steel blade at the end of her staff, your blood ran cold.

“D,” you hissed, “D, that blade has got gold on it!”

“I know,” he said calmly, still facing the advancing mayor. “I can feel it from here. I’ll be careful.”

And then the fight began.

The mayor stepped forwards, launching a flash of magic at him with one hand while spinning the staff up with her other, attempting to slash him across the chest with the blade.

D danced gracefully backwards out of range of the weapon, but caught the spell directly in the shoulder. He let out a grunt, but sent his bone whip flailing out at her. She dodged it, keeping the staff safe from the whip’s grasp, but she caught the tip of it in the face. It lashed across her cheek and left a gash that began to bleed instantly.

She turned on him in a fury of attacks, forcing him further back up the tunnel towards you.

“Get out of here!” he yelled hoarsely, sidestepping and using his whip to try and grab her ankle with it to pull her off her feet. She shifted positions and this time sent a fireball hurtling up the tunnel. It missed you by a fraction of an inch, and the heat of it seared your skin as it flared past. “I can’t protect you and fight her!” he gasped. He had only his whip and his body to fight her, and while he had her dancing side to side in the confines of the tunnel, he was clearly concerned.

He moved with the fluid grace of a hunting cat, spinning and arcing, his foxfire trailing behind him as he forgot to maintain the effort it required to keep his ghostly head there. He battered her back down the corridor again, but just when you’d though the might have gained the upper hand, he bellowed a roar as another blast of magic took him in the gut and he staggered backwards, winded.

“D!”

Taking advantage of his weakness, the mayor pressed forwards, swinging the staff blade up. It connected with his arm as he shielded himself instinctively, and he let out a yell of pain as it sliced through the thick material of his jacket and connected with his dark grey skin. A liquid the colour of his green mist spurted out, oozing down the blade and dripping to the cave floor, and the mayor laughed.

“You do bleed,” she snickered. “I can finish you.”

“No!” you screamed, and at the sound of your voice, D pushed himself up off the wall with a shout like a wounded bull. He lashed out at the mage with the whip, wrapping the tail of it round her neck. In panic, the mayor brought the staff up and tried to cut through the bones in the long whip, but to no effect.

Then you saw, in the bright glow of the now-blazing light at his collar, that a new idea formed in her mind. Her eyes locked onto a spot on his chest, and she smiled horribly, despite the colour rising in her face as the whip cut off her air. She held the staff like a javelin, and hurled it straight at D.

“No!”

The shout was not your own. It came from behind the mayor. It was Will. He swung something through the air and it caught his mother on the back of the head. She fell, limp and unconscious to the cave floor, but it was too late. The damage was already done.

D let go of the handle of his whip, his fingers going slack, the staff embedded in his chest. As he staggered and slipped sideways, the heavy staff fell to the rock with a clatter, and his bright, unusual blood began to soak outwards with horrifying speed into his jacket. He gasped and gulped, the light of his ghostly head flickering, and his knees gave way. He toppled backwards onto the tunnel, even as you darted forwards to try and catch him.

A crash like thunder rippled through the mines, followed by a series of deep rumbles.

“The storage room,” Will said, staring wide eyed from his mother to the fallen dullahan. “They did it.”

You barely heard his words as you crashed to your knees beside D, hands pressing down hard on his torso. “D?” you sobbed, your vision fogging with tears. “D? Oh gods, D? Can you hear me?”

Horrifyingly, the ghostly apparition of his head simply disappeared, flickering out like a guttering candle, and you saw the raw, scarred stump of his neck in the open collar for the first time. The tissue was hard and puckered with old scarring, a shade darker than the slate grey skin of the rest of him.

“D!” you shrieked, your voice breaking with terror as it ricocheted off the walls of the tunnel. “No! Please!”

You pumped at his chest, trying to get his heart going again - not knowing if dullahans even had working hearts or not - and as you did, you heard shouting and running footsteps. D’s green veins began to glow again, giving you the tiniest of faint hopes, and a green mist furled lazily, teasingly, out from the collar of his jacket like a single breath fogging the air on a cold day.

A warmth began to creep into your leg and you looked down to see his hand on your thigh.

“D?”

He twitched his thumb and index finger just once.

Tears flooded your face and you blinked as a red light bounced and bobbed down the tunnel towards you.

Tenacity, and she was sprinting. “Justice!” she whispered, her pounding feet skidding to a halt when she saw him on the ground. She hissed like a cat when she saw the gold-tipped staff beside him. “Get that out of here,” she snarled, and to your surprise, it was Will who stepped forwards, his tattoos glowing a soft blue in the darkness, and picked it up. He walked past you, heading back down the tunnel towards the laboratory.

As he walked by you, he paused and laid his gnarled, goblin-like hand on your shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “This is all my fault.”

Blinking the tears from your eyes, you shook your head, but had no words for him. D was lying there, unmoving, and Tenacity had sunk to her knees. Red light spiralled down from her palms as she held them over the wound.

“Come on, you stubborn fae,” she snarled at him. “Accept my magic, you little bastard. I’ve saved you before, and I’ll save you again, if only to thrust that blade right through your stupid heart and kill you all over again myself for being so fucking stupid!”

“Ten…” you gasped, shocked by her words.

Her head snapped up to stare at you, and you lurched away in horror and surprise. Tears flowed down her ghostly cheeks like blood from a wound, and you saw then the desperate fear of a mother about to lose her son. You’d known the two of them were close, but the more you thought about it, the more you realised how much she must have taught him, how much she must have tutored and encouraged him. She had guided him through whatever ordeal a dullahan endured to become what they were, had been at his side for a century, and now she faced losing him. And part of that was because of you.

Tenacity scooped D’s limp body up in her arms and staggered upright. She might have been tall and muscular, but D wasn’t exactly willowy and light himself.

“Take him to my house,” you croaked, getting shakily to your feet after her. “We can heal him there, can’t we?” you asked with the innocent hope of a child holding out a broken doll to their mother.

She stared at you.

“Ten?” You swallowed thickly. “Ten, he’s going to be alright, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” she said at last. “That gilded blade went deep. If it reached his heart, he will die. It will poison his blood and he will die.”

Your knees wobbled and the world tilted. “Please, Ten. Don’t take him away. Let him come and rest with me.”

“I could heal him here,” she said slowly, her voice harsh as a handful of river grit. ��But I will need to go to the fae realm to fetch supplies. He might die while I am gone. On the other hand, he might not survive the journey to the fae realm. If he does survive, he’ll heal faster there, for sure.”

“Please,” you whimpered, reaching out and grabbing his limp, dangling hand. It was so cold. “I can’t bear the thought of letting him go and never seeing him again.”

You knew she was leaving the choice to you. Let her take him away, which might kill him anyway, or allow him to be cared for in your hut, where he might still die anyway.

You took a deep breath and told her.

______________

Hope you enjoyed Part Nine! Don’t forget that the whole reason I’m doing this story is for you to get involved in the telling of a story here on my blog. It’s a thank you for helping me reach 3000 followers, and it only works if you get involved and vote! If you liked this part, don’t forget to leave me a like, comment, and/or reblog/inbox. You have no idea how happy that makes authors and creators like me, and it makes all of this worthwhile.

Voting is open to everyone, so… your wibble-making options are:

Tell Tenacity to take him to the fae realm to recover

Tell her to take him to your hut to recover

Votes close 28th November

Click here to cast your vote anonymously by Google form

Part Eleven

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#dullahan #male monster #male dullahan #male goblin #female dullahan #half goblin #magic #fantasy #choose your own adventure #cyoa #serious injury #male monster x female reader #but i keep forgetting to make it particularly gender specific because that's just how my brain works

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shxtodxroki · 3 years ago

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𝙼𝚒𝚗𝚒-𝙷𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚗𝚜: 𝙺𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚂𝚑𝚘𝚝𝚘 𝚃𝚘𝚍𝚘𝚛𝚘𝚔𝚒

Summary: What are Shoto's kisses like when he's in a relationship?

Warnings: Brief mentions of food

Pairing: Shoto Todoroki x Gender Neutral! Reader

Word Count: 500+

Send in mini headcanon requests for one of the students!

- Shoto is very gentle and tentative when kissing you, especially at the beginning of your relationship

- He’s incredibly worried about crossing your boundaries or making you uncomfortable, and he’s also not entirely sure of his own boundaries and how quickly he’s comfortable moving things along in your relationship just yet, so kisses with him start off as very gentle, quick pecks

- As you get further into your relationship and he grows more comfortable with you he will eventually be able to kiss you for longer, and he will be less worried about being gentle, but I don’t think he’d ever be particularly rough with his kisses unless you specifically asked him to

- He likes to have his right hand gently holding onto the side of your face and his left hand wrapped around your waist when kissing you

- If his hand isn’t wrapped around your waist it’s holding yours, he just likes holding on to you while you kiss because it helps keep him grounded and helps him realize that this is real, he’s actually dating you and gets to kiss you all the time

- He also really likes cheek kisses, nose kisses, forehead kisses, basically any quick kisses he can give you out in public without making too much of a scene. Once he’s comfortable with you Shoto’s very big on affection and loves both giving and receiving kisses pretty much any time, so quick little pecks across each others’ faces are common with him

- He loves to jokingly bite you after kissing your cheek or the tip of your nose, (of course never hard enough to actually hurt you) giggling mischievously when you shoot him a playful glare

- He also loves kissing your hand whenever he visits your dorm or you visit his, he’s a total gentleman and regularly greets you by kissing your hand if it’s your first time seeing him that day

- Shoto’s favorite form of kisses, however, are when you just pepper his face with little pecks all over until both of you are giggling and grinning like fools, you save this for when you can tell he’s having a rough day and it always manages to bring a smile to his face and a bright blush across his cheeks

- Shoto’s kisses often taste like noodles (lord knows how often he eats them) or like fresh mint, as Shoto’s very serious about his dental hygiene and never forgets to brush his teeth so kis kisses always taste lovely. <3

- Sometimes he accidentally activates his quirk the slightest bit while kissing you if he gets too lost in the moment. Never enough to hurt you at all, but sometimes you’ll feel your cheek slowly decreasing in temperature as his right hand grows colder or your waist/hand slowly heating up as his left arm does as well. If you point it out he’ll blush and apologize, but it’s never really a huge deal to either of you

- All in all, kissing Shoto is very gentle and careful and kisses are very common in your relationship, so be prepared for all the kisses he can offer you as it’s how he likes to show his love for you. :)

A/N: Reposting this because it wasn't showing up in the tags, Tumblr pls stop being a pain I'm begging 😭 but AAAA this was so cute I had so much fun writing these :D I had a snow day today which gave me some extra time to write which I really enjoyed, and I was in a weird mood yesterday so I figured now was a good time to get this written to lift my spirits a bit :) Thank you so much for sending a request in, Requests are still open so if any of you have requests please feel free to send them in to me! :]

Taglist: @pasteldaze

If you’d like to be added to any of my taglists, you can fill out this form here! Thank you for your support <3

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tera-starstorm · 3 years ago

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making a quick ref for a canon character as if he is my damn oc. he might as well be

since i didn't type a summary like i did on my others refs bc i got lazy i will do it real quick here. keep in mind that i. pretty much entirely disregard canon DR and engage in oc x canon so expect both of those things here

so in my silly little hc. yuta kinda lives in hina's shadow. his family doesn't mean to make him feel like that but it does happen. he still loves them and just tends to hold his tongue about it, but it's really demoralizing - sure, he's good at things, but he never gets the same fanfare as his older sister. it kinda gives him imposter syndrome.

yuta's grades were sort of all over the place. he is not stupid. not by any means! but he's sort of been made to believe that. he's not good at math. he's probably not aware of it, but he has dyscalculia. he can't focus on english and writing essays. his ADHD does not allow it because he has no interest in it. he doesn't really know he's ND. he just thinks he's stupid and lets people joke about it and tries to laugh it off. it hurts, though.

you know what he is good at, though? marine biology. he's been fascinated with sea animals since he was little and it carried over through his whole school career. it's a bit jarring to see his grades in math classes compared to bio. he doesn't really talk about it because he sees it as kind of embarrassing and he's self-aware of how excitable he can get about it. he's been shut down and talked over in the past.

he is trans. he realized this in his early teens and struggled for a while because he still liked to be feminine to an extent but that sorta gave him even More imposter syndrome this time abt being trans. he cuts his own hair and probably got both top and bottom surgery as soon as he could. hina helped fund it! she is a good sister <3

he didn't really like... know what to do when he graduated. he felt pressured to get higher education but didn't really want to and didn't even know what he'd go for. instead, he decided to put it off if he decided to go at all. he works at an aquarium to fuel his interest in marine biology and is particularly fond of the otters.

aaand now we arrive in oc x canon territory. he and hina used to walk to a local arcade a lot and play the games there. yuta wanted so badly to get the top score on a specific game, but the leaderboards were always topped by the same three-letter name; ARC. he's there all the time and has never seen them. if someone beats the score, it's right back the next day. one day hina forgets her wallet and runs home to grab it and leaves yuta there. he's about 15 or 16 at the time, so he can handle himself. and that's when he sees someone his age at the machine he's always trying to beat. they clearly know what they're doing, and he starts watching in hopes of taking notes so he can do the same.

and then they notice him.

he gets a little flustered and says he didn't mean to stare and explains that he wants to get good at the game and noticed they were great at it. he asks them if they're that ARC person that's always on the board. he nods and introduces themself as arcade! they hit it off pretty well and arc teaches him the ins and outs of the game. by the time hina gets back she sees them hanging out and before long all three of them are getting along. arc sorta becomes their gaming buddy when they're there and eventually yuta's closest friend.

arc is transmasc and doesn't conform to typical gender norms like. at all. he's unapologetically feminine all while being brash as hell when he's fully opened up to yuta. it ultimately helps yuta ease his fear of expressing any femininity.

when they graduate, arc tries to take a year of university and drops out because he hates it so much and like. it's... not a good time for him. very heavy! he was originally gonna take a gap year but felt pressured to go to college. after some much needed comforting he and yuta plan to move into an apartment together. this does indeed come to fruition. and that's pretty much the abridged deal up to the present. yes they are a little gay. i am gonna cap this ramble off now so i can go eat some cereal

also his interest in track started because he loved (and still loves) sonic as a kid i do not take critism i am right

#yuta asahina #i like him. I LIKE HIM SO MUCH NOBODY GETS HIM LIKE I DO #ohh my beloved f/o *puts this picture in my mouth and shakes my head around like a dog*#i could say a lot more too but i will Refrain. this is supposed to be a quick summary and its already longer than intended #also do not mistake him being a little demoralized by his situation as him being introverted and quiet #because He Is Not. at all. even a little #magnus infodumps #🦦🕹

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shihalyfie · 4 years ago

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An Adventure/02 pseudo-honorifics chart

I’ve mentioned a few times that I maintain an Adventure/02 honorifics chart for the sake of fanfic writing (it’s generally a pretty vital thing to have on hand if you intend to use honorifics in fanwork, or even in fiction at all), and I’ve even mentioned that I’d like to release it someday, but one thing that was always holding me back about it was my constant checks for accuracy -- an acquaintance was also keeping one, and when we compared them we found some minor inconsistencies that would require us to rewatch the entire series with a notepad to get the right references.

After a fashion, I realized that I was scrutinizing this way too closely. The important part is not the specific honorifics themselves but rather the pattern in which they’re used -- especially because they would often alternate in-series, partially intentionally, and partially because they would flip-flop depending on writer. On top of that, most people who would be interested in this are likely writing post-2002 fanfic, where it could be reasonable for certain honorifics to change based on certain relationships.

As such, I’ve decided to just throw out the minutiae, forget about making an organized “chart”, and simply write a general overview of how the twelve Adventure/02 kids use honorifics for each other. Hopefully this can be an interesting resource/meta for those who are considering writing fanfic with these (or even simply due to general interest).

Before we begin, a few notes:

Overall, I am mostly omitting “obvious outlier cases” where a character called someone else something different from usual, but context made it clear why that particular instance was different. (For instance, Miyako trying to butter Daisuke up by calling him “Dai-chan” in 02 episode 8; she very much would not have done this in most circumstances.) I am also not looking too deeply into one-off outlier cases that seem to wildly fall outside the pattern, and seem to merely be the result of whoever was writing that episode/piece of media not checking the chart.

The tri. anime series and tri. stage play actually contradict each other, and given that they’re supposed to take place in around the same period, you basically have to commit to one or the other here. Between the two, the anime series has a number of incursions that go against patterns in ways that make it difficult to form a consistent analysis about it, whereas the stage play is much easier to make a consistent case between 02 and Kizuna (with comparatively much fewer outliers), so in terms of providing actual analysis, I will be prioritizing the latter’s take.

Due to similarly having too many obviously contradictory incursions, 02′s first drama CD (Armor Evolution to the Unknown) is also mostly removed from consideration, with the exception of instances when it’s a factor in an already ambiguous situation.

All twelve Adventure/02 characters are consistently respectful with elders and strangers (with some exceptions; Taichi really wasn’t very amused with Gennai when they first met). The following analysis is important mainly in regards to the kids’ relationships with each other.

I’ll be marking down the first-person pronouns for Digimon partners as well, but for the sake of brevity I’ll be sticking with the “base” forms (Child for everyone except Tailmon, who’s Adult) and not the higher ones.

General overview

A quick crash course on honorifics and how they’re used!

Firstly, there’s first-person pronouns, which, in the scope of fiction, generally are used to indicate a character’s disposition. Note that “one character consistently using one first-person pronoun for nearly every situation” is very endemic to fiction in particular; in real life, one may change their pronoun depending on whom they’re talking to or the context in which they’re speaking, but Japanese fiction is generally much more consistent about using these as consistent points for characterization, even to the point of bringing out pronouns that aren’t practically in use anymore in real life.

The ones generally of importance to the Adventure kids:

ore: Masculine and assertive. Note assertive instead of aggressive; it simply implies being very self-assured, and you can still have a stoic character who uses ore. Since it’s a very casual and somewhat brash pronoun, a character who uses this might still default to something like boku depending on the surrounding circumstances (for instance, Taichi, who normally uses ore, will still use boku when speaking to adults on the phone).

boku: Masculine and deferential/polite.

watashi: Gender-neutral and somewhat deferential/polite. When used by male characters, usually it’s to imply that they’re particularly mature or polite (since otherwise you’d probably expect boku).

atashi: Feminine and casual. The “casual” connotation means that it’s often employed by aggressive or assertive girls in a sort of feminine equivalent to ore, but it can also simply mean that they’re just very girly (see: Mimi).

When referring to each other, honorifics come into play. Honorifics are generally used based on a combination of “comparative level of station” (i.e. whether someone is in a “higher societal position” than you or not -- yes, even a single school grade can matter here!) and “sense of distance” (i.e. whether you are a close friend to the person in question or not). And, of course, there’s also the question of how polite the speaker is in general. These factors do weigh against each other, so that’s why it’d still make sense for two very close friends to use honorifics on each other, if said friends are portrayed as particularly polite in general.

No honorific: Referred to as yobisute in Japanese, this is actually something that merits a category on its own, because it’s something you should only be whipping out when you’re particularly close to the person. This is especially in the case of elders; unless you really do have a close relationship to the elder in question that they can forgive it, you’re being a bit in-your-face and rude for acting like you’re on their level.

-san: The most common honorific, because it’s the one you can generally rely on to default to if you’re not sure and want to be polite. Upward-facing and polite.

-senpai: Similar to -san in that it’s upward-facing and polite, but it has a stronger connotation of “someone who has been in a certain field longer than you have”. Depending on the characters in question and the relevant situation, it and -san can be interchangeable (this happens with the 02 kids and their Adventure seniors, who are both people the 02 kids look up to as people in general and people who are in higher school grade levels and further experience in Digimon-related issues).

-kun: Downward-facing and polite. In this case “downward-facing” simply means that the person you’re addressing is either on the same “societal level” as you or lower on the social ladder; it’s not meant to be used in a condescending sense! (Well, at least, not by default, anyway.) Its use is still considered respectful, especially moreso than dropping the honorific altogether, but it simply means that you’re also not necessarily deferring to the other person being higher than you. On very rare occasions, you could theoretically use it for a senior you consider yourself particularly close with, but this kind of usage never comes into play with the twelve kids in the Adventure universe (its most notable Digimon usage is Appmon’s Haru using it for Rei, who’s one year older than him).

-chan: Endearing and somewhat casual. Often used for younger girls. Because of it having a “cute” implication, it’s the one honorific here that may be advisable to avoid if you want to avoid that implication; it’s not rude per se to be using it, but it’s definitely possible to want to avoid the implications and go for “-san” (despite that normally being upward-facing) or “-kun” (despite that being a bit more formal) instead.

On top of that, it should be noted that there is a difference between calling someone by their surname vs. their given name, mainly in terms of sense of distance -- formality usually dictates prioritizing surname first by default, someone really close with a particular friend can go as far as given name with no honorific, with the other extreme being using surname and adding an honorific. Likewise, “surname with no honorific” can imply a bit of bluntness yet mutual level of comfort in a relationship, while “given name with honorific” can imply politeness but still with a sense of tight friendship and familiarity -- basically, it’s a grey area. Fortunately, in the case of Adventure/02, this only really matters in the case of Ken (and, in one instance, Koushirou).

And finally, note that if two characters call each other a certain way long enough, honorifics can “stick” and even start taking on an “endearing nickname” sentiment -- which is why you might see a phenomenon of people still using honorifics on each other even when their closeness to each other might suggest otherwise. This is pertinent mainly in the case of certain characters who continue calling each other a certain way even after their relationship should suggest that they’ve gotten a lot closer -- the implication being that they’ve called each other that for so long that it feels weird to change now. (Yes, that even includes between dating and/or married couples.)

Incidentally, all Digimon partners (with the exception of Tentomon and Hawkmon, who use -han and -san respectively, and Wormmon, whose single-minded dedication to “Ken-chan” means he really doesn’t talk about anyone else other than a reference to “Izumi Koushirou-san on the phone” in 02 episode 26) simply refer to the humans by given name and no honorific (including humans who aren’t their partners); presumably they’re allowed this due to not being members of Japanese society per se, and therefore not being beholden to its standards.

To wrap this up, here’s a reminder of everyone’s school grade levels in relation to each other, from highest to lowest (note that we don’t actually know anyone’s specific birthdays, so we have to go by school years):

Jou

Taichi, Yamato, Sora

Koushirou, Mimi

Miyako

Takeru, Hikari, Daisuke, Ken

(empty space here)

Iori

Taichi

First-person pronoun: ore (assertive)

General honorifics pattern: Given name, no honorific for the boys (”Yamato”, “Jou”, “Daisuke”, etc.). Uses given name with “-chan” with most younger girls (”Mimi-chan”, “Miyako-chan”), the implication being that he simply treats them casually without being extra blunt or extra polite.

Parents: tou-san and kaa-san��(still roughly respectful, but casual enough to drop the respectful o-).

Sora: As he’s known Sora for a while even before the events of Adventure, Taichi simply calls her “Sora” with no honorific.

Mimi: Taichi was known to call Mimi “Mimi-chan” in Adventure, which was consistent with how he called Miyako in 02, but in Kizuna it seems to be just “Mimi”. There are multiple potential interpretations, one being that something may have happened to make the two more intimately close between Adventure and Kizuna, one being that something happened to make Taichi feel that Mimi shouldn’t have a “diminutively endearing” honorific, one being that the scene in question was rather serious and he felt it wasn’t the right time...and one being that the writers simply just forgot.

Jou: Notably, Taichi’s lack of using honorifics for the boys also extends to Jou, who’s a year older than him, either because he’s fine being casual enough with Jou that he doesn’t mind violating propriety, or he made the same mistake as Yamato (see below) and initially mistook him for being in the same school year due to Jou not initially coming off as very senior-esque (unlike with Mimi, Jou wasn’t explicitly designated as the leader of the others’ camp groups).

Hikari: Hikari is Taichi’s sister, so he simply calls her “Hikari” with no honorific.

Other notes: Amusingly, while everyone calls Gennai “Gennai-san” for the most part, Taichi isn’t very patient with him at first and calls him “jiji” (old man) during Adventure, but seems to have gotten over himself and calls him “Gennai-san” in Kizuna. (Well, he’s not an old man anymore by then.) Unlike Taichi, Agumon uses boku (polite), despite the two characters otherwise being very like-minded. Agumon is a little more easygoing than Taichi in general, so it can be said that Agumon represents Taichi’s nature of not being altogether aggressive when it really comes down to it.

Yamato

First-person pronoun: ore (assertive)

General honorifics pattern: Given name, no honorific for the boys (”Taichi”, “Jou”, “Daisuke”, etc.). Like Taichi, he uses given name with “-chan” with most younger girls (“Hikari-chan”, “Miyako-chan”).

Parents: oyaji (think roughly in the sense of “my old man”) for his father, kaa-san (again, a bit more respectful but still rough enough to drop the o-) for his mother (whom he doesn’t live with).

Sora: Yamato omits the honorific for Sora, implying he considered her a close friend even during the time of Adventure.

Mimi: Notable mainly because of our lack of information about this; Yamato and Mimi never referred to each other over the course of Adventure or 02, and while Mimi’s way of referring to Yamato (”Yamato-san”) was easy to extrapolate even before Kizuna based on existing patterns, the reverse could go either way, depending on whether Yamato would see her as close enough to merit the drop. The Adventure mini dramas have him call her “Mimi-chan”, but this was in unison with everyone else, so it’s hard to tell whether it counts; the tri. stage play and the Kizuna novel has him drop the honorific.

Jou: Like Taichi, he never uses any honorific with the one-year-older Jou, the canonical explanation being that he initially mistook Jou for being in the same year (well, not like Jou was acting as the epitome of a dignified senior...).

Ken: Yamato initially refers to him as “Ichijouji-kun” when discussing Ken’s circumstances with Iori in 02 episode 35, but during 02 episode 42, when Ken is now working directly with him and has integrated himself more as everyone’s friend, Yamato simply calls him “Ichijouji”, being more willing to speak to him on a more blunt/close level (but not quite knowing him as well as the other 02 kids, whom he’s on given name basis with).

Other notes: Yamato is the one Adventure senior who gets a lot of interaction with the 02 group in Kizuna, and interestingly, the four of them all call him “Yamato-senpai”, despite him not going to their school -- given that they’re dealing with a Digimon incident, the implication is that they’re treating him as an experienced senior in that respect. Despite what his shy personality would suggest, Gabumon in fact uses ore, like Yamato. Gabumon can be said to represent Yamato’s emotional core, so it is true that he can be very assertive when it really comes down to it.

Sora

First-person pronoun: Mostly used watashi in Adventure, with fairly uncommon lapses into atashi, fully moving to atashi by 02. This is consistent with her characterization difference between Adventure and 02, the latter of which portrayed her as quite a bit more assertive about what she wanted and rather less deferential (and also a lot more willing to come off as more feminine, at that). The tri. stage play sticks with atashi. Kizuna has her go back to watashi, which can possibly be taken as her deciding to be a bit more mature in her adult years -- basically, Sora is the kind of person where going either way fits her, since she’s capable of being assertive but also likes to carry herself calmly and maturely (and her teenage years are where you could most definitely believe she’d be the most aggressive about it).

General honorifics pattern: Uses “Jou-senpai” for Jou, treating him properly like a school elder. Given the rest of her way of using honorifics, most likely she’d use “-san” or “-senpai” for most elders. Uses given name plus “-kun” for younger boys (”Koushirou-kun”, “Daisuke-kun”) and “-chan” for younger girls (”Mimi-chan”, “Miyako-chan”). In other words, generally diligent about using honorifics, dropping it only with people she’s particularly close with.

Parents: Generally respectful okaa-san and otou-san.

Taichi: Having known Taichi as a peer for quite a long time prior to the events of the series, Sora simply just calls him “Taichi” with no honorific.

Yamato: Initially Sora calls him “Yamato-kun”, and it’s reasonable to extrapolate she probably would call most boys her age with the “-kun” honorific, but early in the series, Sora starts alternating between “-kun” and simply calling him “Yamato”, which allegedly was actually intentional to indicate foreshadowing of their building relationship. This alternation continues all the way into 02, even after they start dating -- Armor Evolution to the Unknown has her calling him “Yamato-kun” even when she refers to him super-endearingly (implying it really has become a nickname of sorts), while DSB has her drop the honorific, and both firmly depict them as dating. For what it’s worth, the tri. stage play and Kizuna also depict her as dropping the honorific.

Daisuke: Sora actually drops honorific for Daisuke, possibly due to knowing him from the soccer club.

Ken: “Ichijouji-kun” in 02 episode 38. This is in the context of her observing how much he’s changed, so, much like with the other seniors, she thinks well of him, she’s just not particularly close with him to merit moving to given name basis.

Other notes: Piyomon, who’s portrayed as clingy and affectionate, uses atashi from day one.

Koushirou

First-person pronoun: boku (polite)

General honorifics pattern: -san for everyone older (”Taichi-san”, “Jou-san”). “-kun” for younger boys (”Takeru-kun”, “Daisuke-kun”).

Parents: Generally respectful okaa-san and otou-san.

Mimi: Mimi is the same age as Koushirou, but Koushirou presumably doesn’t feel comfortable using the “affectionately endearing” “-chan” and would rather use the more respectful “-san” instead.

Hikari: Hikari is an unusual case in that she’s quite a bit younger than Koushirou, but Koushirou still calls her with “-san”. Presumably, he didn’t feel comfortable going with “-chan” like everyone else did (and presumably for the same reasons he won’t use it for Mimi either). This persists even all the way into 02, but interestingly, he calls Miyako differently (see below), so it’s hard to say what his stance would be on younger girls in general, or whether Hikari got special privileges due to the circumstances of how she met the group (as the younger sister of his respected senior Taichi, and as a fellow Chosen who met everyone during some rather personal circumstances detached from school). The tri. stage play floats up the idea that he might have accepted “Hikari-chan” by 2005, but Kizuna takes the stance that he’s still using “Hikari-san” in 2010.

Miyako: Koushirou, having met Miyako during some rather impersonal circumstances and initially only having a computer club senior-junior relationship with her, calls her “Miyako-kun”. Note again the avoidance of the “-chan”; he really doesn’t seem to want to use the “cute” honorific, and would rather treat her a little more formally.

Ken: Koushirou refers to Ken as “Ichijouji-kun” in general, Ken getting the surname basis as he joined the group on the level of him somewhat of a stranger to Koushirou compared to the other 02 kids. That said, this shows up even during their heart-to-heart in 02 episode 33, so other than the surname thing, it’s clear that Koushirou using the honorific is less detachment and him simply wanting to extend the same respect he uses for everyone else.

Other notes: Koushirou is infamous for using polite language (-masu, -desu, etc.) in every circumstance, including even with the Digimon (who are generally treated as being outside societal obligations of honorifics) and younger characters. The implication is that this came from Koushirou being deferential to everyone out of sense of distance and lack of self-esteem after his revelation of being adopted made him lose sense of his place in the world. In Adventure episodes 38 and 54, it’s made apparent that Koushirou wants to learn to speak more casually with others, but has difficulty doing so, and his parents and Tentomon assure him that he doesn’t need to force himself. Koushirou continues speaking this way even into 02 and Kizuna, but the epilogue implies that he at least doesn’t do this with his daughter (and the Character Complete File that he at least broke out of this with Tentomon). Tentomon uses Kansai dialect, which is stereotyped as being associated with easygoing and less book-smart characters (in contrast to Koushirou, and also for the absurd humor of the terrifying-looking Kabuterimon speaking this way), but he also uses the polite form, so he can be said to match Koushirou in this way by simply being polite and deferential to others in general. While most Digimon don’t use honorifics for humans, Tentomon also uses “-han” (the Kansai variant of “-san”) on any human he talks to.

Mimi

First-person pronoun: atashi (casual). Mimi is normally a very polite girl, but she also likes being in-your-face cute, so her usage of the pronoun is in line with this.

General honorifics pattern: -san for any and all elders (”Taichi-san”, “Sora-san”), -kun for younger boys (”Koushirou-kun”, “Daisuke-kun”), and -chan for younger girls (”Hikari-chan”, “Miyako-chan”). Mimi is depicted as having been raised as a sort of “lady of the house” (ojou-sama) personality due to having been spoiled by her parents, so she’s basically a “spoiled sweet” sort of girl who is polite and respectful to pretty much everyone -- hence why her speech pattern is uniformly consistent across everything. Of course, since she’s also very fond of “acting cute” and proud of it, younger girls like Hikari and Miyako get the cute “-chan”. The sole exception to her pattern is “Jou-senpai” (see Jou’s section on why).

Parents: Super-affectionate “Mama” and “Papa”, in line with the over-the-top lovey-dovey-ness of the Tachikawa household. Mimi’s mom goes as far as to endearingly call her “Mimi-chan” (her father is just “Mimi”).

Ken: Referred to Ken as “Ichijouji-kun” starting in 02 episode 25. This was in a context of her wanting to get him in to help, so she clearly has no ill will with him, she just doesn’t know him all that well compared to the other 02 kids.

Other notes: Palmon, who also enjoys acting cute, uses atashi much like the like-minded Mimi.

Jou

First-person pronoun: boku (polite). There’s an incident where he famously slips into ore when trying to intercede in the argument between Taichi and Yamato during Adventure episode 8, so it can be taken that he does have it in him to be more assertive if he lets his emotions take control of him, but otherwise is deferential.

General honorifics pattern: Interestingly, Jou seems to consider himself close enough to the older boys in the Adventure group to use given name with no honorific (”Taichi”, “Yamato”, “Koushirou”), despite what his insistence on societal propriety might make you think. In other words, he can be very casual when he really wants to be. With the girls, he generally uses given name plus “-kun” (”Sora-kun”, “Mimi-kun”), the implication being that he doesn’t like using the affectionate “-chan” on them and wants to keep them at a somewhat respectful and polite distance rather than the more casual manner he treats the boys with. Likewise, boys who are a certain level of younger than Jou are on given name basis plus “-kun” (”Takeru-kun”, “Daisuke-kun”); since this includes Takeru, who was also part of the Adventure group, it seems to have more to do with closeness based on age than anything. It’s unclear what he would do with elders since he’s the oldest depicted of the twelve, but most likely he’d at least be consistent about his -san and -senpai if he’s not particularly close with them.

Parents: Jou was never depicted with his parents in the series proper, but in Armor Evolution to the Unknown he uses “tou-san” for his father and “kaa-san” for his mother (generally respectful but still somewhat casual).

Shin and Shuu: Jou is depicted as calling them “Shin-niisan” and “Shuu-niisan” respectively.

Hikari: Jou’s one major reference to Hikari in Adventure was “Hikari-chan” -- presumably, Hikari being so young that it’s okay in his book to use the endearing honorific. The tri. stage play has him use “Hikari-kun”, so you can maybe presume he now sees her as old enough to be treated with the more formal honorific. Because both cases are somewhat isolated (one showing up really only once in the series and one being from a writer who may not have caught that one time), it’s difficult to make a projection.

Other notes: Jou infamously seems to exude such a “school senior” aura that he’s occasionally called “Jou-senpai” in settings where other characters might use “-san” for others (mainly Mimi, whose initial relationship to him was being under his responsibility in their summer camp group, and the 02 kids, who jump on using “-senpai” for him much faster than they do most of their other Adventure seniors, despite not even going to the same school as him). This has led to the Japanese fanbase often latching onto calling him “Jou-senpai” affectionately. Gomamon infamously uses the first-person pronoun oira, which is basically like the assertive ore but with a more laid-back and almost country bumpkin-esque air to it. It’s much in line with his very laid-back and playful personality, the complete opposite of Jou’s.

Takeru

First-person pronoun: boku (polite). This is actually a plot point; Adventure episode 12 (which is a Takeru focus episode) also uses boku in its title, and the narration for the 02 episode 50 preview suddenly uses boku, culminating in the reveal that the narrator was Takeru the whole time.

General honorifics pattern: Consistently uses given name “-san” for all elders (”Taichi-san”, “Jou-san”, “Miyako-san”, etc.). Uses given name plus “-kun” for boys who are the same age or younger (”Daisuke-kun”, “Iori-kun”). Hikari is “Hikari-chan”, so he’s comfortable enough to use the endearing honorific (although it might just be because it’s Hikari, whom he happens to personally know very well). In general, Takeru is a fairly polite person and adheres reasonably well to honorific propriety.

Parents: Super-affectionate and somewhat childish “Mama” and “Papa” in Adventure; generally respectful “okaa-san” for his mother and ever so slightly more casual “tou-san” for his father in 02.

Yamato: In Adventure, Takeru initially calls Yamato “onii-chan”, the “o-” being respectful, and “-chan” being endearing. He carries this into 02 as well. Given that it’s unlikely for him to continue doing this much longer after 02, different media ended up going in different directions with this; DSB went with “nii-san” (still very respectful, but missing the “o-” and not as “cutesy”), the tri. stage play went with aniki (one of its few holdovers from the tri. anime; somewhat more blunt and less respectful), and Kizuna uses DSB’s “nii-san”.

Ken: Takeru starts off calling him “Ichijouji-kun” when they’re just starting to get to know each other. This does happen to persist even as their relationship gets deeper and Takeru significantly warms up to him, culminating in him still seeming to call him this by Kizuna’s drama CD, but it seems to be more out of politeness/respect (or, most likely, habit, considering how long it took for Ken to get on good terms with everyone in the group) by this point. (Ironically, this is a significant improvement over when Takeru had punched out the Kaiser in 02 episode 17, in which his references had been an extremely passive-aggressive “Ichijouji-san” and a more genuinely angry “Ichijouji” -- once everything had calmed down, Takeru presumably felt that he at least deserved proper respect.)

Other notes: Patamon uses boku, much like Takeru, which is probably meant to accentuate his “childishness” (in Adventure) and general like-mindedness with Takeru and easygoing nature (in 02).

Hikari

First-person pronoun: watashi in Adventure, atashi in 02, watashi in the tri. stage play and Kizuna (specifically the drama CD). This is likely for similar reasons to Sora in that Hikari was portrayed as rather deferential to others in Adventure but got quite a bit more assertive in 02, then, as she got older, went back to carrying herself a bit more maturely (and, if the tri. stage play is to be believed, went back to it at an earlier age, presumably since she’s more on the polite side than Sora), albeit still of course bright and assertive when she wants to be.

Parents: Generally respectful okaa-san and otou-san.

General honorifics pattern: Much like Takeru, she consistently uses given name with “-san” for all elders (”Sora-san”, “Koushirou-san”, “Miyako-san”). Uses given name plus “-kun” for boys of the same age or younger (”Takeru-kun”, “Daisuke-kun”). It’s unclear what she would do with younger girls, but she probably wouldn’t be averse to using “-chan”. All in all, much like Takeru, she’s fairly polite and adheres to honorific propriety.

Taichi: Hikari consistently calls Taichi “onii-chan”. Given Hikari’s personality as a lot more willing to come off as “cute”, this is in line with her.

Ken: Like Takeru, Hikari starts off calling him “Ichijouji-kun” and sticks with it even after the group accepts him; again, Ken took an unusually long time to get on good terms with everyone in the group, by which time the surname basis had likely become habit for her, Takeru, and Iori.

Other notes: Because Hikari is called “Hikari-chan” by so many characters, the Japanese fanbase tends to attach the honorific to her name a lot when discussing her. Tailmon’s first-person pronoun usage mirrors Hikari’s in that she uses watashi in Adventure, atashi in 02, and watashi in the tri. stage play and Kizuna drama CD -- beyond mirroring Hikari, it also exemplifies 02 being the point in time when Tailmon seemed to be keen on making use of her new life and freedom.

Daisuke

First-person pronoun: ore (assertive)

General honorifics pattern: Consistently uses “-san” (”Taichi-san”, “Koushirou-san”) and/or “-senpai” for his elders (mostly “-san”), with the exception of Miyako (see below) -- in general Daisuke is actually quite respectful of his seniors in the Adventure group. For his friends in the 02 group, he eschews honorifics entirely and generally goes to given name basis with no honorific (”Takeru”, “Iori”), with the exception of Hikari (see below), so when it comes to people he’s actually closer with on a personal level, he doesn’t really seem fond of keeping distance with honorifics (much like Taichi and Yamato).

Parents: Doesn’t directly address his parents in the series proper, but the Character Complete File supplies “tou-san” and “kaa-san” (generally respectful but casual).

Jun: Refers to her as “aneki” (blunt and in-your-face).

Taichi: Although Daisuke has used both “-san” and “-senpai” for both Yamato and Jou, Taichi is the one where the interchangeability is most clear, since Daisuke has a particular relation to him as his respected soccer club senior.

Hikari: Consistently calls her “Hikari-chan”. The implication is, of course, that he sees her as cute and endearing, although it’s also completely possible he’d use “-chan” for any other similar age or younger girl he develops a particular rapport with (he does go along with Mimi’s suggestion of “Nat-chan” in The Door to Summer).

Miyako: Omits the honorific with her and simply calls her “Miyako”, despite her being a year older. The implication is that they banter so much and are so like-minded that he feels comfortable being more abrupt with her. She personally doesn’t seem to mind, especially given that, when Daisuke momentarily gets a bit disoriented and calls her “Miyako-san” in 02 episode 30, she complains that it sounds weird (meaning that it sounds weird coming from him, given that everyone else in the group calls her this).

Ken: Initially calls him “Ichijouji” prior to 02 episode 39, having just gotten out of the fights with him as the Kaiser and not quite being on personal friendship levels with him (much less treat him at a “polite distance”), but still wanting to handle him casually in his bid to integrate him into the group and get to know him better. He first drops the idea of switching to given name basis and calling him “Ken” in 02 episode 30, and is depicted as directly switching to it on-screen and committing to it when declaring Ken to be his friend in 02 episode 39. From then on, with Ken as basically his best and most important friend, he sticks with it.

Other notes: Being the very active and playful type, V-mon uses ore, just like Daisuke.

Ken

First-person pronoun: boku (polite); that includes as the Kaiser, implying that he was trying to portray himself as “regal and dignified” during that time.

General honorifics pattern: “-san” for all elders (”Koushirou-san”, “Miyako-san”), although he also uses “Yamato-senpai” in Kizuna (implying a sort of “Digimon senior” relationship with him and potentially other seniors by that point). Given name plus “-kun” for Iori, and presumably all younger boys. Ken generally uses given name basis for everyone, including the seniors; however, because he started off using “Motomiya-kun” and “Izumi-san” for Daisuke and Koushirou respectively before eventually shifting to “Daisuke” and “Koushirou-san”, it’s implied that this wasn’t necessarily the case when he was still initially ashamed of being around everyone.

Parents: Super-affectionate “Mama” and “Papa”, and his mother calls him “Ken-chan” in return (he’s just “Ken” from his father). The history behind this is really complicated, but the point is that the family is very affectionate when it all comes down to it.

Daisuke: Initially alternated between “Motomiya-kun” and “Motomiya” (phasing out the former as the series went on), having been in an awkward position of Daisuke so prominently having opposed him before suddenly getting in his face trying to befriend him. He drops a “Daisuke” (no honorific) in his head in 02 episode 26 and once outwardly in 02 episode 39, and while he never quite commits to given name basis during 02 itself, he uses it in DSB and in most postcanonical material, including Kizuna, indicating that with their relationship having gotten so close, Ken eventually got over himself and started referring to Daisuke as such.

Hikari: Hikari is the same age as Ken, but he calls her “Hikari-san”. Since the circumstances of why Ken wouldn’t use “-chan” with her are apparent (given his relationship to the 02 group at the time, it would have been incredibly inappropriate for him to use an “endearing” honorific with her), it’s hard to tell whether he would have extended this to all other girls his age or younger, or whether his way of referring to Hikari would have changed as he got to know the 02 group better (our latest point in time is Spring 2003, where he still calls her “Hikari-san”, but past that, it’s unknown).

Takeru: Notable mainly in our lack of information about this -- other than Daisuke (see above), Takeru is the only other boy his age that we get to see, and 02 never actually has Ken use his name in the series, so there’s been dispute over whether it would be “Takeru-san” or “Takeru-kun” (with a larger camp going for the latter, since Ken’s not averse to using downward-facing honorifics, he just clearly didn’t want to use “-chan” for Hikari at the time). There have also been interpretations that Ken might have been on surname basis with Takeru for at least a while; this is also ambiguous, given that he was initially on surname basis with Daisuke but went straight to given name basis with Iori (who, at the time, hated him the most out of the 02 kids).

Other notes: Nobody in the Adventure/02 group of kids actually calls him “Ken-chan”, but Wormmon and his family calling him this stuck so much in memory that the fanbase (and, at times, even official staff) constantly defaults to endearingly calling him this. Wormmon himself uses boku, much like Ken (and also in line with his generally polite disposition).

Miyako

First-person pronoun: atashi (casual). Does occasionally use watashi (polite), but this is very, very rare.

General honorifics pattern: Uniformly given name “-san” for all elders and seniors (”Sora-san”, “Mimi-san”), with the exception of Koushirou (see below), and seems to not be averse to using “-senpai” in certain cases. Generally uses given name plus “-kun” for younger boys she’s good friends with (”Takeru-kun”, “Ken-kun”), but will eschew it if she has a particular rapport with them (see below). Uses “-chan” for Hikari, and likely other younger girls as well. In general, Miyako’s neutrally polite to others “by default”, but is a bit more willing to be in-your-face with people when she deems them to be particularly close.

Parents: Uses “kaa-san” for her mother (generally respectful but casual). She’s not seen addressing her father directly within the course of 02. The Character Complete File supplies “okaa-san” and “otou-san” (overall respectful).

Siblings: Miyako isn’t seen addressing Mantarou directly during 02, and her only direct address to her sisters is in Armor Evolution to the Unknown, during which she calls them “onee-chan-tachi”, implying that she may call them “onee-chan” (respectful, endearing) individually.

Koushirou: Having looked up to him as a computer club senior (but not really having known him personally at the time) prior to the events of 02, Miyako starts off the series calling him “Izumi-senpai”. While she is depicted as briefly calling him “Koushirou-san” in 02 episode 33, most portrayals stick with “Izumi-senpai” (even Kizuna), and given that she calls the other Adventure seniors by given name honorific, the implication is that it really has stuck too much with her, given the way she looks up to him.

Mimi: After bonding with Mimi in 02 episode 6 and fantasizing about Mimi being a sister-like figure to her, Miyako starts calling her “Mimi-oneesama” (”older sister Mimi”). While she does carry this into 02 episode 14, this only crops up when Miyako is in a particularly cheerful or playful mood; when things get serious, she goes back to using “Mimi-san” as usual.

Daisuke: Unusually, she only calls him “Daisuke”, with no honorific like she does Takeru. The implication is that, with how they bounce off and bicker with each other, she considers him enough of a peer to just go straight for the name (especially since she’s averse to Daisuke calling her with an honorific in turn; see above).

Ken: Initially called him “Ken-kun” while gushing over him in 02 episode 8 (not knowing he was the Kaiser), basically fantasizing over the idea of being close to him. Once his true nature was revealed and the fight with the Kaiser ended, Miyako initially kept him at distance as “Ichijouji-kun” when contemplating her feelings on him, but immediately started going back to using “Ken-kun” after solidifying her intent to have him on the team in 02 episode 25, committing to it fully in 02 episode 30 after the incident that led to her slapping him. She is the first person on the 02 team to use given name for him; the implication is that she deliberately decided to start calling him this because of how much she wanted to reach out to him and consider him a friend, with no illusions of standoffishness, and the fact she made this kind of conscious change so early into knowing him is likely why she didn’t end up getting habituated into surname basis like Takeru and Iori seem to have.

Iori: Miyako never uses an honorific for him, simply calling him “Iori”; the implication is that this is from her background of having known him as a neighbor and friend prior to the events of 02.

Other notes: Hawkmon uses “watashi”, which is in line with his very formal and polite attitude. He also perpetually uses polite-form Japanese, and is one of the few Digimon to use honorifics, adding “-san” to everyone’s names.

Iori

First-person pronoun: boku (polite)

General honorifics pattern: Consistently “-san” for everyone older than him (”Koushirou-san”, “Daisuke-san”), occasionally “-senpai” if the circumstance is right (very rarely). Since he’s the youngest of this group, we don’t get to see much about how he would address younger people, but it’s likely “-kun” would be in play to at least some degree. In general, he’s extremely adherent to societal propriety.

Family: Generally respectful okaa-san and otou-san in reference to his parents. His grandfather is “ojii-sama”, getting an elevated honorific due to his extra tier of formal respect from Iori.

Ken: Iori calls him “Ichijouji-san”; by the time he fully warms up to Ken (which takes him the longest of any of the 02 kids), he still calls him this, all the way up to the Kizuna drama CD. Presumably, it also got habituated.

Other notes: Like Koushirou, Iori speaks to everyone formally and politely with the -masu/-desu forms, but in Iori’s case, it’s implied to be part of his strict and formal upbringing, and something he consciously has to hold himself to -- unlike Koushirou, who had to actively force himself to try and speak casually, Iori speaks casually on-and-off with the Digimon, and actually has multiple moments of slipping into casual speech whenever he loses control of his emotions or gets sufficiently angry. Because of this, it’s hard to tell if he’d continue to speak formally with younger people, although Kizuna depicts him as at least speaking that way with his peers in school. Armadimon uses the assertive ore and speaks in Nagoya dialect, giving him an image of a very rough-around-the-edges but laid-back type.

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #shihameta

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olderthannetfic · 4 years ago

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Something I've noticed in fandom that I don't particularly like is how... serious, everyone takes everything. I don't mean this acc in particular, but just. Why do I need to send a professional grammarly-edited thesis for why I like/dislike something. Why do I need to speak to everyone like they are my boss, and why do they speak to me like I am their child. Why. And another thing: why do people automatically assume malice? Over discord servers, unless it is a politics specific discord, I try not to talk about politics. Yet somehow everyone and their grandmother feels they have the right to assume where I stand just because I don't make it clear every damn sentence with performative lip service. Fandom has always been political, but God fucking damn, give me a break. And this whole business with minors; I don't give a fuck. Sincerely. I wasn't the pure Christian child and I don't expect anyone else to be, but again and again I've gotta sit here and listen to some random stranger on the internet tell me that because I only have 18+ in my bio that is not enough to prove I'm an adult and therefore unworthy to follow them. How about this for proof: fuck right off, you have no privilege to know my age, my gender, or anything about me. I put 18+ in my bio as a courtesy, not because you fuckin demanded it. And then God forbid you violate one of the three thousand rules in a fandom discord. I can understand if it's graphic images or hate speech, but getting told not to make """nsfw comments""" over a ligma joke??? Like is this fucking first grade??? There's so much damn discourse over nsfw and actual fucking issues that people have somehow conflated the two into one issue that should be taken dead seriously. Little confession? I hate fandom discord. I do. You enter a fandom discord, they either have a bazillion useless channels, pay lip service to political issues while in the same breath taking a fuckin fandom week as seriously as a protest, are pearl clutchers of the highest degree, or all at the same time. AND ANOTHER THING. How did a space so fucking queer become so damn christain??? When did it become the norm to act like a passive aggressive stereotype of a southern evangelical when someone is ""sinful"".

I'm tired.

Sorry for the rant.

Heh. Yeah. Honestly, I think people sometimes forget they can just... moderate things themselves. Yeah, yeah, it’s work, but you set the tone for your own space.

I thought a lot about what to say for my latest discord. I ended up with a “server philosophy” channel instead of a “rules” one for now. It has one post so far, which reads:

This server is for fans of Abe no Seimei (Qing Ming) and Minamoto no Hiromasa (Bo Ya), media they appear in, and the topic of onmyouji or "yin yang masters" in history and media.

We're a space for adults to discuss in a chill environment. All kinks are welcome. Bigotry, including anti-fujoshi hate, is not.

The entire server is a potentially nsfw and choose-not-to-warn environment.

I hate going into a discord and seeing a massive wall-o-text full of nitpicky regulations, and then the mods always end up ruling based on their gut feelings about things anyway. I figure something short that hits the target tone clearly might help more than an exhaustive list of thou shalt nots.

But it also helps to keep your fandom spaces down to a dozen or two active people, not the entire damn internet at once.

#Anonymous

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oscopelabs · 4 years ago

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It’s Arrested Development: How ‘High Fidelity’ Has Endured Beyond Its Cultural Sell-By Date by Vikram Murthi

It’s easy to forget now that at the beginning of 2020, before the pandemic had taken hold of our consciousness, for a brief moment, High Fidelity was back. Not only did Nick Hornby’s debut novel and Stephen Frears’ film adaptation celebrate major milestones this year — 25th and 20th anniversaries, respectively — but a TV adaptation premiered on Hulu in February. In light of all of these arbitrary signposts, multiple thinkpieces and remembrances litigated Hornby’s original text on familiar, predictable grounds. Is the novel/film’s protagonist Rob actually an asshole? (Sure.) Does Hornby uphold his character’s callous attitudes towards women? (Not really.) Hasn’t the story’s gatekeeping, anti-poptimist approach to artistic taste culturally run its course? (Probably.) Why do we need to revisit this story about this person right now? (Fair question!)

Despite reasonable objections on grounds of relevancy, enough good will for the core narrative—record store owner seeks out a series of exes to determine a pattern of behavior following a devastating breakup—apparently exists to help produce a gender-flipped streaming show featuring updated musical references and starring a decidedly not-middle-aged Zoë Kravitz. I only made it through six of ten episodes in its first (and only) season, but I was surprised by how closely the show hewed to High Fidelity’s film adaptation, to the point of re-staging numerous scenes down to character blocking and swiping large swaths of dialogue wholesale. (Similarly, the film adaptation hewed quite close to the novel, with most of the dialogue ripped straight from Hornby.) Admittedly, the series features a more diverse cast than the film, centering different experiences and broadly acknowledging some criticisms of the source material regarding its ostensibly exclusionary worldview. Nevertheless, it seemed like a self-defeating move for the show to line itself so definitively with a text that many consider hopelessly problematic, especially considering the potential to repurpose its premise as a springboard for more contemporary ideas.

High Fidelity’s endurance as both a piece of IP and a flashpoint for media discourse is mildly baffling for obvious reasons. For one thing, its cultural milieu is actually dated. Even correcting for vinyl’s recent financial resurgence, the idea of snooty record store clerks passing judgment on customer preferences has more or less gone the way of the dodo. With the Internet came the democratization of access, ensuring that the cultivation of personal taste is no longer laborious or expensive, or could even be considered particularly impressive (if it ever could have been). Secondly, as one might imagine, some of Hornby’s insights into heterosexual relationships and the differences between men and women, even presented through the flawed, self-deprecating interiority of High Fidelity’s main character, are indeed reductive. Frears’ film actually strips away the vast majority of Hornby’s weaker commentary, but the novel does include such cringeworthy bits like, “What’s the deal with foreplay?” that are best left alone.

Accounting for all of that, though, it’s remarkable how many misreadings of Hornby’s text have been accepted as conventional wisdom. It’s taken as a given by many that the novel and film earnestly preach the notion that what you like is more important than what you are like when, in fact, the narrative arc is constructed around reaching the opposite conclusion. (The last lines of the novel and film are, literally, “…I start to compile in my head a compilation tape for her, something that's full of stuff she's heard of, and full of stuff she'd play. Tonight, for the first time ever, I can sort of see how it's done.”) That’s relatively minor compared to the constant refrain that Rob’s narcissism goes uncriticized, even though the story’s thematic and emotional potency derives from what the audience perceives that Rob cannot. To put it bluntly, High Fidelity’s central irony revolves around a man who listens to music for a living being unable to hear the women in his life.

While Hornby’s prose immerses the reader in Rob’s interior monologue, providing ample room for the character to spout internal justifications of his behavior, the novel hardly obscures or conceals this conclusion. Moreover, the film makes it unavoidably explicit in numerous scenes. Rob (John Cusack) triumphantly pantomimes Rocky Balboa’s boxing routine soundtracked to Queen’s “We Are The Champions” after his ex-girlfriend Laura (Iben Hjejle) confirms she hasn’t yet slept with her new boyfriend Ray (Tim Robbins), but doesn’t hear the part where she says she prefers to sleep next to him. When Laura informs Rob that she did eventually sleep with Ray, Rob completely falls apart. In an earlier, more pointed scene, Rob goes out with his ex-girlfriend from high school (Joelle Carter) to ask why she chose to have sex with an obnoxious classmate instead of him. She venomously informs him that he actually broke up with her because she was too prudish, an abrupt, cruel bit of business we actually witness at the film’s beginning. It was in her moment of heartbroken vulnerability that she agreed to quickly sleep with someone else (“It wasn’t rape because I technically said, ‘Okay,’ but it wasn’t far off,” she sneers), which ultimately put her off sex until after college. Rob doesn’t hear this explanation or the damning portrait of his teenaged self. Instead, he’s delighted to learn that he wasn’t actually dumped.

These are evidently low character moments, one’s that are comedic in their depiction of blinkeredness but whose emotional takeaways are crystal clear, and one’s that have been written about before. My personal pick from the film, though, comes late when Rob attends Laura’s father’s funeral. He sits in the back and, in typical fashion, turns to the camera to deliver a list of songs to play at his funeral, concluding with his professed wish that “some beautiful, tearful woman would insist on ‘You’re The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me’ by Gladys Knight.” It’s a really galling, egotistical moment that still makes me wince despite having seen the movie umpteen times. Yet, it’s immediately followed by the casket being lowered to the ground as Laura’s sobs ring out in the church. In a movie defined by John Cusack’s vocal timbre, it’s one of the few times when he completely shuts up. From two-thirds down the center aisle, Frears’ camera pushes into Cusack’s face until tears in his eyes are visible, but what you really see is an appropriately guilt-ridden, ashamed expression.

However, none of this evidence carries any weight if your objection to High Fidelity is that Rob suffers no material consequences for his behavior. While Rob is frequently called out for his actions, he is never actively punished. He doesn’t, say, receive a restraining order for continually calling Laura after they’ve broken up or end up alone mending a permanent broken heart because of his past relationships. By the end, Rob and Laura get back together and Rob even starts an independent record label on the side. It’s a stretch to characterize Hornby’s High Fidelity as a redemption tale, but it is a sideways rehabilitation narrative with a happy ending that arises at least partly out of mutual exhaustion.

Those two elements—Rob’s asshole recovery and the exhausted happy ending—rarely seem to factor into High Fidelity discourse. Granted, there’s credence to the idea that, socially and culturally, people have less patience for the personality types depicted in High Fidelity, and thus are less inclined to extend them forgiveness, let alone anything resembling retribution. I suppose that’s a valid reaction, one against which I have no interest in arguing, but it’s somewhat ironic that High Fidelity has endured for reasons that have nothing to do with its conclusions regarding inflexible personal principles and the folly of escapism. Both the book and film are specifically about someone who slowly comes to terms with accepting reality rather than live in a world mediated by pop cultural fantasies whose unrealistic expectations have only caused personal suffering. It’s not unfair to characterize this as a fairly obvious epiphany, but considering we currently live in a world dominated by virtual echo chambers with an entertainment culture committed to validating arrested adolescence, it retroactively counts as “mature” and holds more weight than it otherwise should.

Near the end of High Fidelity, the book, after Rob and Laura have gotten back together in the aftermath of Laura’s father’s death, Hornby includes a chapter featuring five conversations between the couple unpacking the state of their relationship. During the third conversation, Rob and Laura fight about how she doesn’t care about music as strongly as he does, catalyzed by Rob’s objection to Laura liking both Solomon Burke and Art Garfunkel, which, in his mind, is a contradiction in terms. Laura finally admits that not only does she not really care about the difference between them, but that most people outside of his immediate circle of two don’t care about the difference, and that this mentality is indicative of a larger problem. It’s part of what keeps him stuck in his head and reluctant to commit to anything. “I’m just trying to wake you up,” she says. “I'm just trying to show you that you've lived half your life, but for all you've got to show for it you might as well be nineteen, and I'm not talking about money or property or furniture.”

I fell for High Fidelity (first the movie, then the book) as a younger man for the reasons I assume most sensitive-cum-oblivious, culturally preoccupied straight guys do: it accurately pinpoints a pattern of music consumption and organizationally anal-retentive behavior with which I’m intimately familiar. I spent the vast majority of my early years listening to and cataloguing albums, and when I arrived at college, I quickly fell in with a small group of like-minded music obsessives. We had very serious, very prolonged discussions filled with impossibly strong opinions about our favorite artists and records. Few new releases came and went without them being scrutinized by us, the unappreciated scholars of all that is righteous. List-making wasn’t in vogue, but there wasn’t a song that passed us by that we didn’t judge or size up. I was exposed to more music during this relatively short period of time than I likely will ever absorb again. Some of these times were the most engaging and fun of my life, and I still enjoy discussing and sharing music with close friends, but I’m not such a true believer to fully feel comfortable with this behavior. It’s not entirely healthy on its own and definitely alienating to others, and there comes a point when you hear yourself the way a stranger might, or maybe even catch a glimpse of someone’s eyes when you’re midst rant about some stupid album, and realize, “That’s all there is of me. There isn’t anything else.”

This is what Rob proclaims to Laura in the conversation when she tells him she was more interested in music during their courtship than she is now. It’s a patently self-pitying statement on his part that doesn’t go unchallenged by her in the moment or bear fruit in the rest of the novel. Yet, it’s this type of uncomfortably relatable sentiment that goes under-discussed. If High Fidelity will continue to have a life well after its cultural moment has passed, then it’s worth addressing what it offers on its own terms. Near the end of the book, Laura introduces Rob to another couple with whom he gets along quite well. When the evening comes to an end, she tells him to take a look at their record collection, and it’s predictably filled with artists he doesn’t care for, e.g. Billy Joel, Simply Red, Meat Loaf. “'Everybody's faith needs testing from time to time,” Laura tells him later when they’re alone. Amidst Rob’s self-loathing and sullen pettiness, Hornby argues that one should contribute in some way rather than only consume and that, at some point, it’s time to put away childish ideas in order to get the most out of life. It’s an entirely untrendy argument, one that goes against the nostalgic spirit of superhero films and reboot culture, but it doesn’t lack merit. Accepting that some values aren’t conducive to a full life, especially when it’s shared with someone else, doesn’t have to mean abandoning interests or becoming an entirely different person. It just means that letting go isn’t an admission of defeat.

It’s why I’ve always found the proposal scene in the film to be quite moving, albeit maybe not specifically romantic. It plays out similarly in both the book and the film, but the film has the added benefit of Cusack and Hjejle’s performances to amplify the vulnerability and shared understanding. Laura meets Rob for a drink in the afternoon where he sheepishly asks if she would like to get married. Laura bursts out laughing and says that he isn’t the safest bet considering he was making mixtapes for some reporter a few days prior. When asked what brought this on, Rob notes that he’s sick of thinking about love and settling down and marriage and wants to think about something else. (“I changed my mind. That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. I do. I will,” she sarcastically replies.) He goes on to say that he’s tired of fantasizing about other women because the fantasies have nothing to do with them and everything to do with himself and that it doesn’t exist never mind delivering on its promise. “I’m tired of it,” he says, “and I’m tired of everything else for that matter, but I don’t ever seem to get tired of you.”

This sort of anti-Jerry Maguire line would be callous if Laura didn’t basically say the same thing to him when they got back together. (“I’m too tired not to be with you.”) It’s possible to read this as an act of mutual settling, but I always thought Hornby’s point was personal growth and accepting one’s situation were intertwined. The key moment in High Fidelity, the film, comes when Laura finds Rob’s list of top five dream jobs. (In the book, Laura makes Rob compile the list.) At the bottom of the list, after such standard choices like music journalist and record producer, lies architect, a job that Rob isn’t entirely sure about anyway. (“I did put it at number five!” he insists.) Laura asks Rob the obvious question: wouldn’t you rather own your own record store than hypothetically be an architect, a job you’re not particularly enthused with anyway?

It’s Laura who convinces Rob that living the fifth-best version of your life can actually be pretty satisfying and doesn’t have to be treated like a cruel fate worse than death. Similarly, Rob and Laura both make the active decision to try to work things out instead of starting over with someone else. Laura’s apathy may have reunited them, and Rob’s apathy might have kept him from running, but it’s their shared history that keeps them together. More than the music and the romance, High Fidelity follows the necessary decisions and compromises one has to maneuver in order to grow instead of regress. “I've been letting the weather and my stomach muscles and a great chord change in a Pretenders single make up my mind for me, and I want to do it for myself,” Rob says near the end of Hornby’s novel. High Fidelity’s emotional potency lies in taking that sentiment seriously.

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purplesurveys · 3 years ago

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1240

Are you better at cooking dinners or making cakes/biscuits/sweets? I can’t make any dish. I wonder when I’ll get my ass up and start learning...

Have you ever cut someone else’s hair? I wouldn’t dare; I have no skills in that department at all.

Who was the last guest in your house and what were they staying for? Angela and Hans came over so we can watch Sowoozoo.

How many long term relationships have you been in? One.

Do you sleep with all the lights out, or do you leave a lamp or even the television on? My default is lights out, but sometimes I’ll fall asleep with my night lamp still on and that’s fine too.

Who is one person you have forgiven, but still have not “forgotten” what they have done? I don’t really do forgiving.

Are you a fan of Lana Del Rey? No. I’ve tried listening to her songs but I find them too slow for my liking.

Do you know your blood type? It’s O but I keep forgetting what specific type.

Do you know your mother’s birthday? Yes.

Have you got your period at the moment? It’s on its last few days.

Have you ever been pregnant? Nopes.

How old were you when you first went on a plane? I was around 10 or 11, can’t remember exactly. But it was in 2009 and we headed to Boracay.

Have you ever had to take out a loan for anything? No. OMG, adult activity I don’t quite understand just yet hfdhfkdjfhdf.

Are both of your blood parents still in your life? Yeah they’re both grumbling right now just outside of my room because the power went out lmfao.

When was the last time you went apple picking? I’ve never done this. Apples don’t grow here.

Someone asked you what you wanted, what would you say? My pay for the last two weeks haha, but that’s not coming until Friday.

Have you ever been drunk at school or work? No, I wouldn’t dare. I’m pretty unpredictable when I get drunk, so I’d rather stay safe haha. I’ve worked while tipsy, but it had been outside of work hours.

How many bedrooms are in your house? 4. One for each kid, then my parents’.

Are you smart about computers? Nah.

Have you ever played Just Dance for Wii? We didn’t have the game on our Wii, but I’ve played Just Dance before, just at other peoples’ houses.

Do you own a Xbox 360? We were a Playstation household.

Would you ever do a sex tape for a million dollars? Erm, sure, whatever.

So, do you need a nap? I think I should be taking one for the sake of my health, but I won’t.

What would you rather be doing? I stumbled upon a Facebook post of this newly-opened store in Greenhills that exclusively sells photocards and I wanna head the fuck over there rn with Angela. That store concept is practically unheard of so it’s a big deal and I wanna go there as I’m 100% sure the BTS ones would sell out pretty fast. But they heightened the stupid COVID protocols yet again and we have to stay at home, so there’s that.

What sport are you the best at? Table tennis.

Do you have a little sister? What’s her name? Yeah but she’s turning 21 this year, so little wouldn’t be accurate anymore. We call her Nina at home but everyone else calls her by her full first name, Janina.

Do you complain a lot? I do complain a lot but I also do the thing that is causing the complaint right after so I can shut myself up lmao.

Would you rather go to an authentic haunted house or an ancient temple? Both sound fun but I’ll probably take the temple. Yay for learning something new about culture!!

Do you like fruity or minty gum? I don’t mind flavor when it comes to gum because they fade out anyway.

Are you looking forward to any day of this month? My company set another mental health break day this upcoming August 27th, so I’ll be thinking about that day throughout the month.

Have you ever gotten detention? We don’t have detention.

Is there a traumatic event that you’ve experienced that’s changed your life? Sure.

Do you buy a majority of your clothes from a certain store, or do you just pick out items of clothing you could see yourself wearing, not caring about the store it came from? The latter. < Same. I can be brand-conscious sometimes, but generally if I find something cute, regardless from where I found it, I’d grab it.

Have any of the artists you’re fond of released new albums recently? Technically yeah. It was a single album.

Would you ever keep your favorite animal as a pet? I already have two of them.

Ever cried so much you threw up? Possibly.

Who is your best guy friend? Hans.

What do you two do when you hang out? We usually eat out and have a drink or two.

What is a movie that you thought you would hate but you ended up loving? Spotlight, just because it looked boring at first glance. It turned out to be very riveting and the screenplay was fascinating as well.

Do you even like horror movies? Yes, but they’re best watched with other people.

Do you live in the country? Nopes.

What is your favorite accent? I don’t have one.

Have you ever had a boyfriend your parents didn’t like? No.

Do you drink Pepsi or Coke? I had the chance to try out Pepsi when we went to Taco Bell two weeks ago - it was my first time to have it and it was...actually pretty good??? The soda-hater in me was scandalized HAHAHA but it was good!!! I think I prefer Pepsi now.

What do you plan to do on your 21st birthday? My 21st birthday started out terribly because Gabie’s family didn’t want her to hang out with me on a Sunday (the day my birthday fell on), so we were in an argument the whole day. Angela saved the day when she planned out an impromptu dinner + arcade date for me, and that was the only good part of the day, really. I’d rather forget the rest of it.

Do you have any person in your family with an addiction to beer? I don’t think so.

Do you take a lot of pictures? I’m starting to, now.

What kind of face wash do you use? Good ol’ water.

Does drama always seem to follow you? Not these days.

Does anybody in your family race? Nope.

Are you closer to your mom or dad? Dad, I guess. But I wouldn’t particularly call myself ‘close’ with either.

How much money did you used to get from the ”tooth fairy?” I never received money from them.

How long do you want to live with your parents? Maybe up until my mid-20s? Late-20s at the latest. I’m not exactly in the position to move out yet. The money I make at the moment would probably just be enough to cover rent, and just rent. I’d end up starving to death hahaha.

Do you have a laptop or desktop? Laptop.

Do you like your parents? Sure.

Do you secretly like someone? I don’t.

Would you ever date your best male friend? No. I also wouldn’t do that to Angela.

What are you currently listening to? Moon by Jin! Such a comfort song.

Do you want to be single? Yes.

Did you go out or stay in last night? I stayed in and was knocked out pretty early since I had been up since 1 AM.

Have you pretended to like someone? No. I don’t see why I would have to that.

How is your heart lately? Just filled with nothing but Bangtan at this point haha. It’s doing well!

Are you wearing socks? No. Socks bother me for the most part; they make my feet feel a bit suffocated.

What do people call you? Robyn.

Do you get stressed out easily? Yeah, I’m quite the overthinker.

Have you ever been taken to the emergency room in an ambulance? No, I’ve never actually been inside an ambulance, whether it came for me or for another person.

What is wrong with you right now? I should probably cut back on the vaping, for one.

Do you own something from Hot Topic? No.

Would you rather sleep with someone else or alone? It’s hard for me to sleep with someone else. Even when I had been in a relationship, I usually only got to fall asleep an hour or so after my partner already dozed off.

Do you still talk to the person you last made out with? No, I cut ties at the start of the year and have been substantially better since then.

Have you ever seen your best friend cry? I honestly don’t think so. I’m the bigger crybaby between us.

Did you get any compliments today? My mom thanked me for covering for Cooper’s shots today since they ended up being quite costly.

Have you ever gone to a beach? Yes, it’s one of my absolute favorite places to be.

What would you say if someone asked you to get high right now? Pass up on the offer.

Do you believe that everything happens for a reason? Yes.

Have you ever done volunteer work just because you wanted to? I’ve never had the ample time to, so no. I’ve always wanted to volunteer at an animal shelter, though.

Do you have long nails? They’re not dramatically long, but they have started to grow out.

Do you like the gender you are? I don't like or dislike it, honestly. I'm just neutral. < Same.

Do you generally look nice in photos? I think this is the case these days, yeah. I’ve started feeling more confident and I think it’s able to translate in photos.

Have you ever had a stick insect as a pet? No.

What colour are your father’s eyes? Dark brown.

If I handed you a concert ticket right now, who would you want to be the performer? BTS DUH

Name three facts about your family? I come from a family of lawyers; many of us are big history buffs; and many are also fantastic cooks so I don’t know where that talent could have possibly gone when it come to my generation hah.

Would you ever get into a long distance relationship? If I’ve reached a certain level of investment in the relationship, I could probably handle it.

What’s the most thoughtful present you’ve ever received? A Punk shirt and Petals For Armor physical CD from Andi this last Christmas.

What’s your favorite hot beverage? Hot chocolate. < Yessssss!

Did you ever play an instrument? If so what? I don’t.

Would you rather carve pumpkins or wrap presents? Carving pumpkins sounds fun, especially since I haven’t tried it before.

Do you think you’re important? Idk. I don’t really like drawing attention to myself though, so that could probably answer your question.

What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received? Andi wrote a letter for me to accompany the aforementioned Christmas gifts they gave, and it remains to be my favorite letter I’ve received. They essentially reminded and affirmed me that I’m stronger than I think I am, and that I’ve been through a lot and have grown a lot, and that that growth is seen by people around me.

Have you been diagnosed with any mental disorders? No.

Have you ever moved to another state or country? If so, how did it feel to be new? Just to different cities, but considering how tiny my country is, the move is quite insignificant lol.

Do you know how to properly eat food with chopsticks? I’m 100% sure I don’t know how to properly hold chopsticks, but I have my own way and it works lol. Fake it til you make it.

Are you more of a leader or a follower? Definitely a follower, but I can step up in certain situations. < Same. I don’t mind leading, especially considering the control freak I can be lolol.

What was the first thing you ate today? I haven’t eaten anything today. I skipped breakfast since I brought Cooper to the vet, and by the time I got back the dining table had already been cleared. It’s fine though, I don’t feel too hungry.

If you could spend the day, doing absolutely anything, with anyone, anywhere, what would it be like? I’d be with Angela, Reena, and Hans at that insane new photocard store I talked about earlier. IDEALLY, we’d probably pick up a photocard or two if the ones we want aren’t sold out yet (lol a rarity), then we’d have some nachos and stuff right after and just talk about all things Bangtan lol with Hans cracking us up the whole time since he is just naturally hilarious.

If I were to ask you how you are doing, and you were only able to answer completely honestly, what would come out? Content. Happy. I feel warm and loved and surrounded by the best people.

What is the one thing that you have been avoiding that you should do? Learning how to cook is one.

Is there anything that you wish you could take back? Not really.

What, in your mind, could make you truly happy? Being in the purple ocean with my best friends.

If you could change one conversation in your life, what would you say differently? Would it have REALLY made any difference? A part of me wishes my final face-to-face conversation with Gabie had been a more solid closure, just so we could finally put a hard stop to that chapter. But at that time I thought we would continue talking, so there had still been some stuff lingering in the air when we called it a day and parted ways. So in a sense we never really got closure when I finally cut ties, which the ESTJ in me remains to be nagged by, but I try not to be bothered by it anymore considering how much better I am doing right now. We didn’t know the future at the time, so it’s okay the way things turned out, ultimately.

When is the next time you’ll change your hairstyle? Will you color it? I have no clue. It’s not really a priority.

Do people normally say you’re a fast typist, or are you rather slow? I’m fast.

Have you ever been considered the ‘smartest person in school?’ Nah.

How many drugs are in your system? Just caffeine.

What’s on your schedule for tomorrow? Werkwerkwerkwerk.

Do you currently have any bite marks/hickeys on your body? Nopes.

Do you call anyone baby? I don’t.

What’s your current mood? I’m prety neutral. I wish I could be out right now, but stupid Covid and stupid quarantine. But I don’t really mind staying at home, either, so. I’m just so-so.

Do you think you are a good person? I hope so.

What were you doing before filling out this survey? I watched Sunday mass with my family.

How late did you stay up last night? Around midnight.

When was the last time you cried really hard? I cried just a few days ago because period hormones, but the last time I cried hard? I’m not sure. April maybe?

Is your hair longer than your shoulders? LOL yes it’s soooooooo long already.

#survey #surveys

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revengeoftheantichrist · 3 years ago

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From Eden

Warnings: Harem, violence, work-place harassment, mentions of pregnancy and miscarriage

AO3 <<<Previous

Chapter 3

There was absolute pandemonium in the harem. Michael had decided that he was cutting down on the number of girls in there. It was a simple formula, those that were the least successful were going to go. Those that had carried for the longest would stay. For now. Michael would eventually get rid of them all, they just didn’t know that yet. He needed to keep some around for stress relief and backup, while he put his little ‘experiment’ in action. If it was successful, the harem would be obsolete. He hadn’t thought about what he would do with the space yet, but he’d cross that bridge when he got there. “Your Majesty, please think this decision through, it’ll cause chaos through the ranks,” pleaded the matron of the harem. “Chaos has already won, what difference does a little more make?” The doors of the harem opened with a loud noise. All chatter had stopped. The only sound that could be heard was the fountains. He walked into the centre of the courtyard, the attention of all ten girls and staff on him. The four chosen to leave were stood in front; faces stained with tears. He stared at the four of them, looking them up and down. “don’t cry girls,” he reached forward to wipe one of their faces. “You’ll still be on the 8th floor, just now you can be anyone’s whores, except mine,” he smiled. One of the girls fell to her knees, grasping at his feet, begging him to keep her, that she could do better. He looked down with disgust, kicking her off him. “Grovelling won’t help you today.” He snapped his fingers, guards coming in to escort them out, some left with no fight, some had to be carried away. Michael smirked to himself, they’d be devoured by the wolves outside, fighting over his leftovers. How pathetic. “As for the rest of you, don’t get too comfortable. None of you are safe, anyone could leave,” he explained. Michael reclined himself on the chaise lounge, propping his head up with his arm, inspecting the girls. He snapped his fingers again and the remaining six fawned over him. The chatter in the harem started again. One of the greys brought out wine and fruit. The girls poured out Michael a glass, they fed him grapes, cherries and strawberries. Watching his plump lips around the fruit. They forgot the events from earlier, pleasing their king was their only task now. Biting into the fruit, he thought of the girl that had toiled away to pick and deliver the fruit, of ‘Eve’ in Eden. She dreamed about him last night, of the future he wanted; he did send the dream. The seed was planted, all he had to do was nurture it, just like she did on a daily basis. But now wasn’t the time to think about that. He pulled down the dress of one of the girls, taking her nipple into his mouth, while smacking the ass of another. He had a lot of planning to do, so today he would de-stress and relax. //// “Did you hear? Some of the harem girls have been kicked out,” whispered your friend. You raised your brow and laughed, “why? Is the king running out of stamina for all of them? She slapped your arm telling you to shut up. You were on your delivery run, carrying the baskets down to the harem. There had been a double order today, probably for a dish the chefs were trying. You got to the servants’ entrance, being let in by the guards, and walked to the kitchens. “Ah Y/N and Lucy, how good to see you both this afternoon,” greeted the chef. “I’m gonna cut straight to the point Milly, what’s the goss and all the ruckus?” She sighed and shook her head, gesturing for you to help sort the produce out. “Well, the king has decided to cut down on numbers, something about wasting chances for others,” the clattering of the equipment covering your already hushed tones. “He’s still out there right now, enjoying what we have to offer,” she finished. “Is he being hand fed fruit, like a roman emperor or something?” you snorted. Milly just looked at you, tight lipped. “Oh, so he is,” you confirmed. “Aww, what a widdle baby,” you laughed. The staff glared at you, telling you to hold your tongue. You tried to hold in your giggles. Over the silence, the sound of skin slapping on skin and moaning could be heard. It echoed through the courtyard and into the kitchens. Milly cleared her throat, “so, what have you been up to recently, anything new?” “Hmm, nothing much really, I spent all day yesterday inspecting the perimeter, we suspected a breach but it’s all good.” “Tell her about your dream,” interrupted Lucy. Milly looked at you expectantly. “well,” you started, “I had a dream that I had babies. I mean me? And babies? They were really cute though, as they would be being mine,” you flipped your hair as you said so. “It could be a sign from the universe, maybe it’s about time you contributed to humanity,” said Lucy. You pretended to act offended, “I make plenty of contributions to humanity! You all get to eat nice things because of me, don’t forget that.” The staff all laughed. The snapping of fingers calling away a few greys again. “But maybe your right. Or maybe it’s because everyone seems to have baby fever this time of year. There’s no one on the ‘roster’ that’s caught my eye” you explained. “Not even Jeff and Mutt?” “Not even Jeff and Mutt.” You were interrupted by are particularly loud moan. Making you laugh again. “He is really going for it out there.” You made some more small talk, collecting your materials and wishing everyone goodbye. You continued to laugh towards the exit. Catching a glimpse of blond hair and lightly tanned skin through the decorated screens. That must be the king. You turned back to Lucy. Not noticing that Michael had heard your laugh again, he too was looking though the screens, catching a glimpse of your smile. //// Today you were on lab duty. You had samples to test today, especially after the false alarm of two days ago, you had to be extra vigilant. “What’s up y/n?” It was Jeff. “Don’t startle me like that! I could have dropped the samples,” you warned him. You were not in the mood to be messed with today. Two days of dreaming of little children did take a toll on you, surprisingly. “I’m just up here to check on things. Heard about the false alarm the other day.” “You could have just read the reports, no need to leave the garden of pleasures for it.” “But I like talking to you Y/N,” Jeff whined. You rolled your eyes, getting back to your job; you were almost finished. “So, what are you up to these days,” making small talk while inputting data. “the usual, eating, fucking, sleeping, snorting lines in between,” he replied. “Living the life then, not toiling away like the rest of us peasants,” you laughed. You’d much rather be doing this than living like those on the lower floors. “you… don’t have to be up here all the time you know,” he was hesitating, making you put your work down. “What do you mean by that?” “Well, I’ve decided it’s about time I let some mini mes loose into the world. But I haven’t found a match that I like you know.” You stared at him wide eyed. You knew what he was hinting at. “Look, Jeff, we’re good friends and stuff but… I don’t think it’ll work if I’m honest. I mean our lifestyles are totally different. I’m sorry.” He looked like a kicked puppy. “Can we still be friends at least; I hope this hasn’t made things too awkward.” “Obviously we can still be friends. Hey some of those harem girls are available now, I’m sure there’s someone in there,” you tried to lighten the mood. He lit up. “Oh yeah! I totally forgot about that man. That’s why you’re a genius y/n!” he kissed your cheek and ran out. Leaving you there to wonder what was going on in your life. //// It was time for Michael to come pester you again; you were on lab duty today. He was supposed to saunter in and get on with it. But the sound of you talking to someone made him stop at the door. It was Jeff. Jeff who had been specific instructions to stay away from greys. Michael’s jaw clenched in anger. It seemed that the coke had left Jeff with some permanent brain damage. He had heard the whole conversation, satisfied that you had turned coconut head down. However, he was not happy that you were ‘friends’. He stormed into the lab. “Why are people interrupting me today?” you snipped. “Oh, it’s you.” You looked at him, annoyed. Going back to your work as if he wasn’t there. “You really have no respect for your superiors, do you?” Michael pointed out. “Adam was it? You’re here to observe my work. I am currently working,” you gestured to the desk, “you can sit in that seat over there and do it then,” you pointed to the stool in front of you, going back to inputting data. Michael stood behind you instead, pressed up against you. You could feel his warmth on your back. He could sense your discomfort, but you continued to work. You moved to tie up your hair, but he stopped you. Running his fingers through your scalp, gathering your hair in a high ponytail. You sighed slightly at the sensation, how long had it been since you had been touched like that? He removed the ribbon from his own hair, blond curls cascading down his shoulders. He used it to tie your hair up. He leaned down to whisper in your ear, “Don’t you have work to do?” You came out your daze and cleared your throat, getting back to your work. Michael grabbed the stool from the opposite you, bringing right next to you and sitting. You could feel him staring at you, maybe through you, into your soul. He seemed to be moving closer with every breath, eventually feeling his curls on your own shoulders. “Have you ever thought about children or… dreamed about them?” he broke the silence. You stiffened again. Dreams? Did he know? Of course not he’s just a man. Or maybe a figment of your imagination? “Hasn’t everyone?” you finally replied. “I’m sure baby fever is common in people of all genders.” “Such an animalistic and natural instinct isn’t it little miss scientist?” he got closer to you, “to breed and to be bred. To feel so close to someone, to have a physical reminder of that passion,” you could have sworn he hissed that part out. “uhm, I guess?” how on earth were you supposed to reply to that? This was so awkward, worse that the conversation you’d had with Jeff earlier. “And you miss Y/N? have you ever felt that passion for someone?” his fingers started to trail up and down your arm. “not really. Someone decided to end the world before I could… you know,” you gestured. Michael started to laugh, “the world has ended, and you have still manged to stay untouched. Your ‘status’ is more valuable than you think, be careful who you share this information with. I’m sure the devoted would throw you onto the alter given the chance.” Being a human sacrifice was not the way you wanted to go. Michael’s face got closer, your noses touching, breaths mixing. His lips looked so plump, so inviting; you were sure they would be as sweet as the cherries you grew. You thought it was the most perfect pair you’d ever seen, and you were sure they’d fit perfectly with yours. Before you could act on your thoughts. Your data-pad notification broke the silence. You turned away from him to read your message. “I’m needed up in the main lab now,” you scrambled up from your seat, speed walking away from him. As you turned the corner, you broke out into a run; what the hell had just happened? //// Michael growled. He almost had you. That damn job of yours was keeping you too far from him. You were far too specialised for him to move you arbitrarily. He needed a way to get closer to you and this ‘inspector’ thing could only work for so long. He could just keep you prisoner on the 9th floor, no one but himself and Mead were allowed entry; but people would ask questions. H could ‘promote’ you to the harem, but that would put the previous decisions of cutting down up for question. Then he had an idea. It was perfect and fool proof. You would still be doing your job, but on the 9th floor. He could watch you. He could control exactly who saw you and talked to you.

You would build him a garden.

Next>>>

#my writing #michael langdon #michael langdon x reader #FE3

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chaos-of-my-mind · 5 years ago

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Mini rant below, you’ve been warned

I’m going to try and keep spoilers out of this so I don’t ruin anything for you if you have not finished the show yet as I am wont to forget to put the spoilers tag (or any tags) on a post. I might make very specific references but keep them as vague as I can but spoiler warning just in case. But also, apologies if my ranting sounds nonsensical or vague.

I don’t wish to offend anyone, I just want to voice my thoughts. Overall, I enjoy the show and likely will watch a second season if they make one but there’s just some things I want to get off my chest.

Okay, so I just watched The Letter for the King and I have a lot of thoughts.

I’m just gonna talk about the first four episodes because I have a lot of thoughts on these episodes and it gonna be reeeeeaaaaaaalllllllyyyyyy long as is.

First of all, right off the bat, this is a seriously loose adaption of a Dutch novel that I looked at the wiki page for and sounds a fair sight better than this show.

The show as a concept is fascinating and the diversity is a welcome change from the usual primarily white cast we tend to see. Certain plot lines were wonderful.

Tiuri is an amazing and refreshing main character. I was kind of expecting him to be angsty or something but he wasn’t. He has a good heart and caring spirit. He believes strongly in doing what is right and is unwavering in his belief. He is also... just about the only character I like.

I liked the Abbott and Ristridin and Ardanwen but Tiuri was really the only character I cared what happened to them.

Costume design is absolutely incredible, I’ve always had a soft spot for this style, especially the dresses. The intricate details of the clothing is fascinating to me, especially now after having taken a class in costume design.

Sets and locations? Wonderful. Some of the locations they shot at for these first four episodes are beautiful. The monastery in the third episode is almost delightfully unsettling with its flickering shadows and the raging storm outside.

Out of the first four episodes, third is my favorite. Mostly because of the scenes in the monastery, particularly the one with Tiuri and the Abbott.

I don’t have much to say regarding the Queen, I appreciate that she rules on her own without question but she didn’t really have much of a presence (at least IMO) in the first few episodes.

The score is absolutely beautiful. I love the score for this show. I really wish it was on Spotify. Anyone else listen to movie and TV scores while studying or is that just a me thing?

No offense to anyone else, this is simply my opinion and since none of my friends watch the show and ranting to my wall offers little catharsis, I’m venting here. We’re getting into my issues now.

Anyway, I CANNOT stand Lavinia. She’s absolutely, one hundred percent my least favorite character. Yes I understand and acknowledge that this is a loose adaptation from the book but though she shows up in the book, she is nowhere near as prominent a character.

I don’t want to be mean and I am all for powerful female roles but Lavinia, in my mind at least, really didn’t add much to the story.

She kind of felt like when shows add a character just for comic relief and they offer nothing else to the show, you know?

I think it’s her greed that bothers me the most. Yes, I understand her not wanting to be forced to marry but her plans and actions feel a little too selfish for me.

Tiuri is trying to fulfill the Black Knight’s last request even when it means great personal loss for him and all Lavinia talks about money. Maybe this changes in later episodes, but right now she’s wearing on my last nerve.

I get being cautious and skeptical but then there’s being obnoxious. She’s introduced as someone who will do whatever to get what they want with little regard for what happens to others. There are six episodes in the season, I’m 3/4s of the way done and I still can’t stand this character.

The other would be knights have their faults but they’ve still grown on me to some degree. Except Arman, he’s a snot. But I still like him better than Lavinia.

I feel like I need to say this has nothing to do with her gender and everything to do with the way she is written.

I get that by taking the basic plot of the book and the character names from the book means you have to say it’s an adaptation but seriously? I don’t really understand why they chose to take a (from what I gathered from the wiki page as this is based off a Dutch novel I have no access to) very minor character and have them be a main character.

Honestly, I feel like all she does so far is complain, talk about money and snark. She has some interesting storylines that are brought up briefly but none of them have been fleshed out or furthered yet. Maybe if they went into these plot points, I’d be more okay with her but as it stands, she just doesn’t seem essential to the plot.

Now onto the would be soldiers. I don’t really understand why Piak is with them or how he managed to get away to follow them (not really a spoiler, happens within like the first or second episode). I know it’s medieval or middle ages but you’re telling me no one is at all watching this ten year old boy even slightly? Also, why isn’t anyone concerned about whether his parents know where he is?

This may seem nitpicky but other shows, movies or books have been based on the plot of a kid going missing.

I don’t find their plot wholely necessary, feels kinda like filler fodder to me but I also have ADHD and get distracted/bored rather fast. Foldo, I like. Jussipo, I like. Piak, I like. Arman, meh. Iona, definitely the most competent of the group, don’t know if I trust her.

She feels like she’d be an interesting villain. She has that vibe, especially when they were with the Red Riders, kind of reminded me of that seagull meme/picture:

this one? She seems very cutthroat, tough. She’s a really interesting character but I don’t feel like she’s being given the time or character development she deserves (again only four episodes in but six episodes total so I’m not optimistic).

She’s clever and I like her fine, I just think they’re wasting time that could be spent on giving her more depth on filler scenes or Lavinia talking about money (again). I really don’t like Lavinia. Sorry.

Also, is Viridian the villain? I don’t think saying that’s a spoiler (it’s mentioned in the trailer or the first episode I think) but sorry if it is. He literally does nothing.

He does something horrible in maybe the first ten minutes of the show and then nothing. He stands in a tent and talks about prophecy and whatever, his soldiers are better villains than he is, at least they’re actively doing something!

Also, he looks just enough like some other actor that it’s all I can think about when he’s onscreen, it’s very distracting. I think it’s Max Lloyd-Jones he looks like but I’m not completely sure.

Hopefully he actually does something in the next two episodes because so far, I don’t see the point in showing him onscreen at all.

The thing that bugs me most is that while I know the plot is progressing and things are happening, it feels like nothing’s happening. The plot feels kinda aimless and vague and it’s just slower than I would prefer it to be progressing. The trailer I watched made it seem action packed and all that but it really... isn’t.

It gets so close to something happening and then the show’s like ‘Just kidding, they’re an ally’ or ‘Nevermind, it’s someone else’ or ‘Ooo, coincidental thing happened and we got away!’

It’s super annoying. That’s about everything I can think of. *sigh* I feel better now.

Thanks for reading.

#the letter for the king #letter for the king #tlftk #netflix

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werevulvi · 4 years ago

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Finally someone i can relate to somewhat. I like the effect of mtf hrt for the most part but i don't want to forget (or pretend to not know) that i'm a bisexuabl male with a chemically modified body. I am fairly stranded communitywise (ironically gc spaces worsened my dysphoria so i couldn't remain in them) which always brings a cutting sorrow of not having a 'home' but it's kinda good to see people who are on a similar wavelength even if i'm never going to truly meet you. Keep thriving queen!

Hi! I can totally see why gc spaces make your dysphoria worse... I've been noticing that many gc circles (especially radfem) tend to be a bit (lot) anti-male, so if it's those you came across, it's no surprise to me that it made your dysphoria worse. And I'm really sorry about that! I can only imagine that hearing you're some kinda evil oppressor for just how you were born physically can make you hate being male even more. I don't view it quite so harshly. Sure, a few (or a lot) of males were socialised very badly and thus turned out crap humans.

But it's not because of their biology that they're crap humans, and I would never condemn anyone for just the way they're born. I've known horrible men, but also very wonderful men. And most MtF's I've met, I've struggled to relate to, but they've been decent people just living their lives. I don't hate males, I can't agree with that sorta sentiment. I hate how some aspects of male socialisation teaches many men to hate women, but that's hardly the same thing, and I think it's an important distinction to make. Those semantics really do matter.

Point is, it makes sense to me why feminist, and female focused gc spaces, would make a dysphoric male/MtF even more dysphoric instead of less. Let's be honest: they give you all the reasons to hate being male.

And then what other gc spaces are there? Well, the conservative right (many of whom also Christian) comes to mind, and although they're less likely to hate on men, they do have a tendency to be uncomfortably anti-gay and anti-gnc, which... I dunno about you, but that makes at least me incredibly uncomfortable, if not even badly upset. Even those who aren't outright hateful towards gays/lesbians/bisexuals and gender non-conforming people, the vibe is just not very welcoming. That kinda gender critical community is not gonna help any gnc/same sex attracted person feel good about themselves either.

(I'm clearly stating the obvious here, but I think it's important to point out these issues with gc communities, just in case you don't know why they make you feel bad, and in case you want to know. If not... I'm sorry for salting your wounds!)

And that's about it when it comes to gender critical spaces, aside from individual people who aren't really aligned with any specific ideology, but still criticise gender ideology harshly, and/or help raise the voices of those who do. Posie Parker, Benjamin Boyce, Joe Rogan, and Arielle Scarcella come to mind. They're gender critical to varying degrees, but not particularly conservative, nor radfem. Although I've rarely ever seen any gc stuff that's actually positive towards males, that doesn't turn around and say stuff like "I hate men" and "femininity is gross on men" or "don't be gay" etc the very next second. So if I had been male instead, and still dysphoric, I'd probably be having a very difficult time accepting my sex too.

As I've been saying (mostly to myself) lately: we're not broken, the world is.

I feel pretty stranded communitywise too, actually. I have like one foot in the radfem/gc circles and the other foot in trans circles, neither of which really like me criticising them. I mean, it's probably just very human to not like being criticised for one's opinions, but... yeah basically gc's sometimes think I'm either "still in the trans cult" for not wanting to get rid of my physical masculinity, or they think I'm a man pretending to be a detrans woman, and they don’t like that I disagree with some of their views. The trans masses on the other hand generally have far more issues with me, my opinions and my identity. They would have be beheaded for less than just looking a little suspicious!

But here's the thing: I think trying to not rely on a community to feel loved and accepted is probably very important. There will always be individual people who love and support you, and agree with things that matter to you. These individuals can come from all sorts of ideological backgrounds, but what ties you together is true friendship, not community, which only mimmicks friendship in an often political way. I'm trying my best to focus on those individuals in my life (which really is just a handful of people) instead of trying desperately to find a whole community that will love and support me. Because that's probably not gonna happen. I am too provocative with my womanhood, and will always keep questioning everything. I don’t actually want to settle ideologically. I want to keep evolving and learning. The way I view myself doesn't really fit into any set ideology, because it’s a combination of things that matter to me personally. It is tailored to fit me and only me. And I think that's what's causing the friction. I'm ideologically a freeloader, or nomad, and thus, I get along best with others who also ideologically freeload.

Alas... I still feel that "ideological homelessness" too, and it does hurt. I think it might just be a result of too much ideological couch surfing. I'm always a guest, but never at home. Thus, I am always treated as a guest, and viewed with more scepticism. Who am I to barge into THEIR community? However, I still have a home, ideologically. It’s just that I’m the only one living there. And I think that might be applicable to you too: you do have an ideological home, you just live alone. That can be lonely, but it also allows you to think more freely and be more genuine about your opinions. Thank you, I want you to thrive too! Meeting irl might not happen on random like that, no, as I'm suspecting you don't live on the same Swedish island as me... but if you think an online friendship might be worth a shot... it's totally okay to send me a pm! I will warn you though, that I have a tendency to ignore people for a few weeks here and there though, as my sensory overload gets the best of me... really a lot. It's a challenge to be my friend, but some have told me it's really rewarding once they do get to know me. It's up to you! But I get the feeling that we might get along well.

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the-queer-look · 4 years ago

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Queer Limelight

Name: Anton Age: 59 Location: Redfern Occupation: News Presenter Sexual Orientation: Gay Gender: Male

I’ve been a news presenter for the past twenty five years, and I’ve spend just over twenty two with SBS, in the presenters chair since 1999. I identify as a gay man. Of all the labels you could apply to yourself in life that would be the one that most defines who I am. I would describe myself as being quite conventional in the way I present in terms of gender, and fashion forwardness. I don’t think I’m particularly adventurous when it comes to fashion, I like to look smart and presentable, but because there is a public version of me and a private version of me, I tend to keep the two fairly seperate. For professional events, appearances, and broadcasts there is a very specific way that I am required to dress, and it’s quite constrained. When I’m not in that mode, just walking the dog, hanging out with my partner, or doing sports it’s much more dressed down than even just meeting someone like I’m meeting you today where I would want to be along that line of smart and comfortable. In terms of presenting gender wise I present as very male. I come from a generation of gay men where there was a very strong divide between flamboyant men, and masculine men, and no one wanted to be the flamboyant man who was easily identified as gay – It was a time when you wouldn’t want to be easily recognised as gay, luckily times have changed, but I still feel that that sense of who I am is leaning to that masculine side. Given I’m not a particularly masculine personality, the way I present is definitely leaning in that direction.

A lot of people say that it (realising your sexuality) happened very young for them. High school for me was the turning point where I realised that there was an attraction that I felt. The way that my guy friends were getting crushes on girls, I was getting crushes on boys. Initially you just think “oh thats just a phase I’m going through, don’t worry about it.” but by the time I reached high school I realised that’s a feeling that isn’t going away and that it felt very natural. It’s a fairly agonising time, realising that that’s part of who you are, and not just something that you’re going through and will grow out of.

I am more assertive as a gay man, There is a burden that is lifted from you when you come out, and thirty five years ago it was a very different process coming out compared to what it is today. It manifests in smaller things like… would a man wear a scarf? There was a time when I wouldn’t do that because it felt too flamboyant, too obvious. Now though I feel much more comfortable, I’ll wear statement pieces, I wear an ear stud on camera – there was a time that would have been completely unacceptable for being too gay. Today? No one gives a stuff, News presenter is wearing an ear stud? So what? I’ve had it in since 1982, it’s not a new thing, but I can now feel comfortable having it in and presenting a part of my personality. I used to have to take it out and replace it with one of those blank studs for the news, its so much easier now!

I’m originally from South Africa, which was a fairly repressive society, and there was a lot of pressure to conform. I was outed by a newspaper reporter who just ambushed me saying “I just found out this information, would you like to comment on this story? I’m going to publish it anyway.” I was outed and not sure where it would leave my television career, but it was also like a liberation, I didn’t have to hide anymore. From there I became active in sports administration, gay and lesbian sport specifically. That was a big validation for me, it was like finding a home to be where I felt comfortable. We were actually campaigning for change, acceptance, and awareness. We had media campaigns going, local and international sports events going and that was a big turning point for me in terms of feeling comfortable as a gay man.

It was both empowering but at the same time those were the early nineties. It was a time of great transition for all of South Africa. Apartheid was being broken down, all of that negotiation was going on and it felt like the gay community… we weren’t the main game, but there was an opportunity for the community to say “hey, don’t forget about us, there are all these major political reforms, new constitution and everything, and we are a part of the deal.” It was quite empowering – I wasn’t a part of the process, that was for all of the advocates, lawyers, campaigners, and activists, who were doing all of the negotiating, but it was quite exciting to be a part of something new – to go from a system of great repression to a model constitution that was a world leading document that included a bill of rights that specifically included no discrimination on the basis of age, gender, sexual orientation, ableism and so on. It felt like being a part of history.

It was interesting to come to Australia from that, a whole different environment that was completely unknown. I came into a media market where I had zero experience and just lucked out at finding any employment. In about 2002 there was a thing in “The Good Weekend” called “Just The Two Of Us.” where they just interview two people about their relationship. They called me up and asked me to take part and I didn’t think for one second whether I should consider the implications, or consult my employer, and it was like a second coming out, just here in Australia. I outed myself as a gay man to a national publication. Luckily I work for quite a progressive network where that sort of thing has never been an issue.

I’m quite positive about the term “Queer”, I’m very much in the camp that says “That’s out word to use in whatever positive and constructive way that we want”. There was obviously a time in my life when that was used as an insult, and you couldn’t speak back against that because that was just the way society was set up in those days. There was the “establishment” the state, the church, community leaders, psychologists, everyone was on one side, and you were the exception, the outsider, the rule breaker, the disruptor, and the establishment could use all of these weapons to beat you down and try to make you conform, and that was one of the words that they used in those days to try and force you to be something you were not. I celebrate the fact that nowadays we can take a word like that and say this is our word, this word is for us and we have the right to shape how it is used.

I thin it’s very important to keep some pressure on all media to keep everyone honest. We all have a place in all of those platforms, and you need to keep reminding them that cant have an all white newsroom, and all white presenting team, and all heterosexual presenting team, or an all non-indigenous group. We need that diversity, and we need to keep reminding people when they fall down on the job. There are organisations like Media Diversity run by Antoinette Lattouf from Chanel Ten, and it’s really important to have organisations like that to support people trying to get opportunities in the media, whatever little support and advocacy you can get as a minority is always welcome and needed.

I always try in whatever small way I can to support organisations, individuals, campaigns that try to present a positive image of the larger gay and lesbian community. I’m not sure if that counts as being completely engaged in the queer community, I’m not an activist or advocate, but I try to support the community whenever I can.I feel absolutely connected with gay and lesbian people in the wider community. It is very much a part of who I am and how I see myself. I’m proud to be a part of that community, it isn’t something that was thrust upon me, it’s something I embrace. You don’t want to be pigeonholed as the “something” person within the media landscape – I don’t want to be labelled as the gay news presenter, or the brown skinned, or the migrant. We are many things in many situations, but my connection to the gay community is a key part of who I am.

I think that, like it or not, those of us that have a public profile have a sense of having to be better just to be good enough. You cant be just another person. There aren’t enough queer people in the media in order to just disappear and not make an impression and not make a positive impression on the airwaves. I don’t regard myself as a role model, but whatever positive presence I can present I can, and if I’m here then there’s room for other people like me to be here as well, and if that’s the only message that I can put out there then I’m happy with that.

We’ve come such a long way, but I would like to reach a point where it becomes more ordinary. We shouldn’t just be noticed when it’s Mardi Gras, or have someone be noted as our first gay something or other. I don’t want my gayness to be the main thing that people define me by. I want to reach a point where a person’s gender or sexuality is present, but unremarkable.

Full gallery on Facebook.com/thequeerlook

Please contact us if you would like to be involved

#lgbt #lgbtqiaplus #gay #queer #the queer look #photography #portrait #pride #sbs #Anton enus

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