#but im grateful for it all the same

[allastoredeer]

Hello, don't mind me, I just need to vent for a second.

First off, I just wanna say, as an aroace person on the ace-spectrum, feel free to ship Alastor all you want. Ship him with anyone. Have fun with it. Sex repulsed. Non-sex repulsed. Grey-ace. Demisexual. Pure unadulterated smut. Whatever, have at it. I love that shit.

Just please do it without infantilizing ace-aro people.

The amount of art, fics, and takes I've come across that's so patronizing to Alastor and his sexuality. Thing's like Alastor venting to Rosie about his feelings for a character with the caption "Alastor feeling love for the first time." Or Alastor wanting to have sex with a character and having feelings about that, and someone commenting "That's called a boner, sweetheart. That means you like them 🤭"

Like??? Like do ya'll not see how patronizing that sounds? Being ace-aro doesn't mean you don't know your own body. It doesn't mean you don't understand the functions of your body.

It doesn't mean you've never experienced intense emotions. It doesn't mean you've never experienced love before.

And, look, I know these are meant to be jokes. I know. People are joking. I laughed at the first few I came across, too. It's not meant to be harmful or condescending; no one means it that way. But there's been so much with such...bad takes recently, and I don't know about any other ace-spec people (I don't speak for all ace-specs. Hell, there are probably other ace-spec's who don't mind, enjoy it, or are making content like it themselves. I just speak for myself) but GOD it's getting uncomfortable.

Alastor is in his late 30's-early 40's in human years. That is the established age range we have for him. Do you really think that he'd go that long without ever experiencing "love?" He went through puberty just like everyone else, do you think he doesn't understand his own body???

Being asexual, or sex-repulsed, or touch-repulsed doesn't mean you automatically don't explore these parts of yourself. It doesn't mean he's never, once in his life, touched his own dick, or pussy, or whatever genitalia you're giving him. He can still very well be a "virgin" (which in and of itself is a social construct) while also knowing his body and confidently handling any "sexual needs" he has.

Do you really think he doesn't know what a boner is? That in all the years he's been alive and dead (on Earth and in Hell), he wouldn't have experienced these things once? (And you know what? Maybe he hasn't! Perhaps there are ace's out there like that! But you're telling me he doesn't KNOW what that is??? Really???)

Ah, no, it's all because he just hasn't found the right person yet, right? It's not until Lucifer/Angel Dust/Vox, whoever found him, and they gave him these feelings, and oh no, poor Bambi is feeling twitterpated and horny for the first time, isn't that romantic!

Honestly, not really. It just sounds like the same, stupid shit ace-aro people hear from family, friends, and acquaintances about their sexuality. You know, the tried and true: "Oh, you just haven't found the right person yet. You'll want all that eventually, you'll see😊"

Do you not see how frustrating that is?

Look, I am all down for Alastor exploring parts of himself. I want him to navigate different relationships, feel them out, figure out what kind of relationship he wants and what he's okay and not okay with doing. But there are ways to do that without treating him like a little UwU silly baby boy who doesn't know his own body, or his own emotions, or his own relationships with other characters. Like he needs someone to teach him about himself.

How about instead, he finds someone he feels comfortable exploring these elements with? Instead of them "teaching" him how to fuck, or masturbate, or whatever the hell you want to call it, they're giving him the room and safe-space to explore it at his own pace??!!

It comes across as someone who isn't on the ace-spectrum "teaching" an ace-spec character about their own sexuality which puts such a gross taste in my mouth. Or, at least, that's how it comes across to me.

And the thing is, I know people aren't going to stop. I know they're going to keep infantilizing Alastor and his aro-ace identity, and I wasn't originally going to make this post, because you can't control what people do in fandom.

So this is mostly just a post to say: HEY! Hello! Ace-aro person here! I hope you all are having fun and I love that you're exploring Alastor's asexual/aromantic identity! Especially those who may not be in the ace-spectrum themselves, as you're learning about us and our experiences! That's awesome! Can we just do that while also treating Alastor like the adult he is? Can we do that without being infantilizing and patronizing about his sexual identity? Please?"

That's all I really wanted to say. I just needed to get this off my chest instead of letting it fester. This isn't an attack on anyone, this is just the perspective of an Alastor multi-shipper who loves exploring his relationships with other characters (sexually and non-sexually) and deep-diving into the dynamics of the show.

Thanks for reading.

[sunlit-mess]

Sometimes you just gotta take life one day at a time, but you never know when things might turn around for the better. Please stay safe and keep doing the little things that makes you happy to distract yourself, it's gonna be ok 🌷

Now you guys are just trying to make me cry fr hADUHFUBGKAHAHA

[ganondoodle]

kind of expected that the ability breakdown wouldnt get that much traction (especially on twitter bc if it doesnt do well in the first few hours it might as well be dead) but what i didnt need to wake up to was looking at my twitter notifications and thinking there was a long comment on it at first but then i read it and it turned out to be some guy having dug up one of my old totk tweets where i talked about how zelda was treated-

and if a quote retweet with a thread attached already starts with "this entitled brat didnt understand that zelda was being a history nerd by being in the past and getting to experience it herself" with two screenshots attached of the end of totk with zelda staring at the cam all uwu (which has ??? to do with their point??) i dont even want to know what else was in that thread

if thats how the majority of the fandom is then im even less surprised that nintendy doesnt even have to try to write anything good :I

ah yes, i am a game nerd, and by putting me in a game where i stand around doing puppy dog eyes while being shoved around by NPCs is me being a game nerd OBVIOSULY

[anirritant]

like man the parallels between stan and bill are so so so so so fascinating to me ough...... the most obvious thing is that they speak so similarly, often using the same terms and i can't help but wonder how intentional it all was on the part of the writers. biggest one being "eenie meenie miney you" to me, it's so specific.

it could simply be bill picking up stan's mannerisms through ford's memories to further appeal to ford (is that canon somewhere? i don't actually know but i see it mentioned a lot) but some of these are things bill still says and does even when ford is absent. for a being that's lived for trillions of years would terms he picked up only a couple decades ago cement themselves in his behaviour so much?

(also, has anyone ever brought up dreamscaperers' deleted scenes where bill summons a paddleball in the mindscape? stan does the same thing in his own mindscape in the finale. again, that's so specific i can't help but wonder how intentional it was or if it was just a coincidence. i know deleted scenes might not be the best to point to as evidence but i think i've only ever seen someone allude to in one fic and nowhere else?)

i havent read tbob and haven't really kept up much with the new info from it but i have seen the poem about stan and gosh like. it really does seem like it's being consistently hinted at over and over that there's something there with specifically bill and stan. the axolotl's poem was already eyebrow raising with how much of it could be applied to stan and now there's even more..

[bunnihearted]

being too weird and unlikable and off putting and always being shunned and turned into an outcast everywhere i go and not having felt the connection and healing friendship has on you for so many years has really done a number on me

[kithj]

the more people complain about genderlocked characters i feel like the more stubborn i get about it...

i just feel like. there's a fine line between wanting to see yourself reflected in the art you engage with (everybody wants this to some extent) versus just straight up refusing to engage with any kind of art that you can't personally relate to.

and sure you can argue it's not that deep when we're just talking about romance games i guess but usually this extends beyond just IF romance games, i see it on bookstagram or in mainstream video gaming circles, too... and particularly in IF & gaming it tends to lead to this very entitled attitude where if the thing doesn't appeal exactly to what you personally want, then it's Bad and Wrong.

i definitely understand in some instances, as a butch lesbian there is like... no game even off the top of my head that i can think of that actually has someone that looks like me in it (except for the stuff i've personally written. lol) and i do really like the gender-selection mechanic for this reason. most of the time it's the only way we get sapphic ROs. but to me that's just a band-aid and not a real solution, especially when a lot of authors tend to lean on bioessentialist ideas to depict the gender-selectable variants, and most of the time don't even seem to be aware that they're doing it.

i would much prefer actual female characters, or actual trans characters, over gender-selectable characters. because the other thing we see is that a lot of the time the male variation is the most popular, and is seen as the "default." this is through no fault of the author, really, it's just how the cookie crumbles, i guess.... i don't really know what the solution is but i do really wish people would be more mindful about... well. all of it. authors and readers alike. and maybe broaden your horizons and read something that's different for you, or write something challenging outside of your comfort zone. i get that a lot of these games are pure wish fulfillment, and that's fine, we're not all going to like or want the same things. but when most games don't include people like me, i'm forced to pick from a much smaller pool of fish than everyone else, and i don't agree with that. both in that i wish there were more options for me, obviously, but also that i shouldn't only limit myself to games that "represent" me and am still willing to reach for something different and still give it a chance. both things can be true.

now when a game is intentionally excluding entire groups of people, of course that needs to be called into question. because then it's just bigotry, and we all know bigotry is bad, yes? a game that... let's say. only allows white mcs. is going to attract a particular kind of audience. we know this we can acknowledge this. but i do also kinda think it's a waste of time to try and appeal to authors like this... i'm not against offering feedback but at the end of the day these authors excluded these people for a reason and they have no interest in us. don't bother. there are other authors out there that are writing women and trans people and poc that you can read instead of trying to get a misogynist or a racist or a transphobe to write about people they clearly don't give a shit about.

and i really feel like that encapsulates why i both like and dislike the gender-selectable mechanic... again it's just a temporary band-aid. it lets me play a sapphic mc for a little while. but the larger problem still remains which is that there are no depictions of butch lesbians (or lesbians in general) in most of these games, and there are not a lot of authors out there willing to even try. there are a lot of instances where i feel the gender-selection mechanic is just... a cop out. there's no thought or effort put into it.

i dont think every single author needs to start genderlocking or anything (that would be stupid) i just wish it was something both authors and readers would spend more time thinking about, rather than just automatically defaulting to gender-selection. people approaching Blood Choke and then complaining that it's all genderlocked but... the story is About being a lesbian. it would not exist in any other way. and the beautiful thing is that you can still read it even if you're not a lesbian! in fact i wish more people would. again, reach for something different and you might find that you actually like it. you might even connect with it in a way that surprises you. meanwhile The Northern Passage has a lot of options for the mc both in the character creator and when it comes to romance options. i have a gender-selectable character there, and a lot of people enjoy that, and i do too. and i also chose to lock Clementine originally because i knew i wanted there to be a nonbinary RO that could not be ignored (and then the other two followed shortly after once i started writing).

there's Nuance. there are lots of reasons to genderlock and there are lots of reasons why someone might not. there are games out there that let me play with an all female cast that i hate, other games with a mixed, genderlocked cast that i love. there are authors out there that do handle their gender-selectable characters well, some of my favorite games utilize it! and there are genderlocked games that are all just skinny white cis people that make me recoil. there are downsides to both. this is not an either-or situation. it's just something to think about, both when creating a character as an author and when engaging with a work as a reader.👍

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

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

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

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

More:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[good-beans]

Pros of Milgram releasing song snippets at the beginning of each trial: it gives us info about the characters to start theorizing on throughout the trial instead of waiting a year to have ideas about the later prisoners, it gives us something to look forward to between songs, it lets us (slightly) prepare for the emotions we're getting ourselves into with each, and more!

Cons: It has been months of me vibrating with the thought "Double is going to kick ass" and it will continue for months!!!!

[beelas-bees-art]

the chapter 3 experience babey!! what a wild ride, the last pic are my character rankings/opinions so far :P

[good-beanswrites]

A little comedy drabble for @kyanako5972 in return for their very impressive musical skills! (The Jailbreak mix wouldn't have fit together without ya👍) Fuuta gets his hands on some slime... They've done some art for it here :3

[I couldn't think of something funny enough, but insert broadway bootleg Milgram Slime Tutorial joke here]

Fuuta was open-minded. Of course he was. He was the most open-minded guy here. He knew that vengeance could come in many shapes. Sometimes it took the form of beautiful, poetic violence. Sometimes it was cutting words and a grand victory. And other times, it appeared as sticky craft slime. You just had to have an open mind to see it.

Not everyone was in as receptive of a mood. 

“A-are you sure it’s not a, a toy?” Haruka asked.

“It’s not.”

“B-but,” he pointed, “it’s --”

“No! It’s a weapon.”

“I don’t know if you know what a weapon is…” Amane looked down at the table. “You couldn’t have requested something a bit more… sharp?”

“Eh!? This is a pri-son. Like they’re gonna give me something like that. I’ve got to take matters into my own hands.”

To prove his point, he picked up his creation. The color wasn’t as flashy as the others’, but it held the perfect consistency for what he needed. It had taken some time to formulate the perfect plan of attack. There were rules he had to work around, after all. (No matter how open-minded he was, rules were rules.) There was a no-violence ban. Fuuta had already tested that one -- several times, actually -- and was sure he couldn’t get around it. Their requests were monitored, and it wasn’t as if he could go and order weapons. And then, even if he did get his hands on something truly dangerous, the original ban would stop him from using it. That left him with only one option.

“It’s definitely a toy. The others are playing with it.” It was true, Haruka, Muu and Yuno had their own colorful creations. Amane herself hadn’t grabbed any, though she sat with her eyes glued hungrily on the others’ projects. Her interest in it wasn’t helping Fuuta’s case.

“Exactly, it’s the perfect disguise! They’ll never see it coming.”

“There’s nothing to see coming…”

Muu poked at hers. “Look~ Mine’s cute and pink, see? I’m even going to add some glitter when Haruka’s finished with it.”

“I-I Uh, I think I added too much… sorry…” Haruka’s slime had lost all appealing texture, turned into a clumpy, sparkling mess.

Fuuta heaved the loudest sigh he could manage, but the others continued paying him no mind. He was doing this for them, shouldn’t they care? Es had slapped Haruka during his interrogation, for god’s sake! That was child abuse! Yuno was only a year older and returned from her interrogation with complaints of violence! And Fuuta --! Well, he actually hadn’t experienced any of that, but that didn’t matter. No hero of justice would let all that go unpunished. 

His moment came quicker than expected. He’d planned on ambushing Es coming in or out of their room, but they surprised everyone by coming into the common area. It was fate.

“I heard you all were playing with some crafts in here.”

Amane glanced at Fuuta. He shot her a look back that meant “don’t say a single word.” His exaggerated expression only drew Es’ attention.

“Something to say, prisoner three?”

“Yeah!” He wound up his arm. 

He had an open mind, but not necessarily a quick one. With more time, he could have come up with a righteous cry, something along the lines of: “this is for Haruka and Yuno, you damned scoundrel!” Or even: “meet your judgment, tyrant!”

But as the slime came careening toward’s Es’ face, the only thing he managed was, “fuck you!”

Splat.

The common room fell silent. Fuuta froze. The slime had hit its mark perfectly. It hit Es squarely on the side of the head. It splattered onto their hat. A good deal had tangled itself in their hair. It oozed toward their shoulder, clumps falling onto the uniform. As they tried to wipe it from their face, the material clung to their gloves, getting stuck between their fingers. 

Their eyes moved slowly from their ruined clothes to Fuuta’s still outstretched hand, to his face. “I see.”

They turned on their heel and left.

“That’ll teach ya!” He called out, a moment too late after they’d gone. He turned to Amane, who was watching with a mix of amusement and disappointment. “There’s no way that stuff’s washing out easy. Maybe they’ll have to put on a spare uniform in the meantime.” 

“You shouldn’t have made them so mad,” she said.

“Pah! What’s the brat gonna do? Name me guilty over it?”

[tamagotchikgs]

i wonder if ill ever get to know myself in a different environment or if ill b the same stunlocked kid forever

[lialox]

I would write 'Apostrophe' a whole lot faster if I wasn't so angry towards ORV and complained in literally every single chapter (to myself)

For every 2k words I write, there's 200 words of negativity omitted. That's like 6k words of just AUGH by now.

[liverpool-enjoyer]

the wasted potential feelings are hitting SO ESPECIALLY hard tonight i need to go to sleep

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

anyway. the uk sucks ass and living here sucks ass too! NHS is sooo amazing until its soooo not!

[indigopoptart]

man i love the people im surrounded with. how did this happen. youre all so lovely😭

[orcelito]

Did driving practice today. Actually did parallel parking practice this time, even tho I really didn't want to still. Finally got it into my head that I can maybe do this.

SO......

I have scheduled my driving test. For November 13th, 3 weeks from today.