#but it is truly just kind of inaccessible

[ghostscarface]

Long-term Dementor Exposure and how it affects the mind and soul

@doeprince-blog 🩶 I did it !

Yes a fucking psychological theory:

So what will happen if a living being that consists of sucking people's souls out of their body, repeatedly attacks people, what kind of symptoms or even mental health problems could a person develop? Like the prisoners in Azkaban or Harry? I deepdived into this subject , bc it was on my mind lately. Firstly we must not forget that Dementors are weapons of psychological warfare. Repeated exposure to them isn’t just a bad memory or some minor trauma.The "Kiss" forces you to you relive your worst trauma ,they devour your will to live, they suck the light out of your brain, and turn your strongest memories into torment. That’s long-term neurological and emotional damage.

Dementors are literally used to guard prisoners people are meant to lose their minds in there , like Bellatrix, or fade into nothing, like the Longbottoms after too many Crucios. JKR stated in an old interview that dementors are a metaphor for depression.

Repeated Dementor exposure could absolutely cause:

Severe Depression (obviously)

Memory loss (esp emotionally memories)

PTSD

Cognitive Impairment (slowed thinking, poor concentration)

Emotional blunting (inability to feel)

Possible first effects on the mind:

1. Memory and Cognition

Happy, warm, or emotionally charged memories begin to fade first Dementors feed on those. Victims may retain knowledgebut lose personal context or emotional resonance.

Cognitive Fog: Chronic exposure causes difficulty concentrating, slow reaction times, and confusion in high-stress situations. Joy, love, hope, and curiosity become inaccessible emotions. Over time, even grief or anger dulls, replaced with an ever-present sense of hollowness.

2. Paranoia and Delusions

In extreme cases, prolonged fear and isolation lead to psychotic breaks hallucinations, disordered thinking, or magical instability.

3. Social Consequences

Victims often lose the ability to feel joy, empathy, or even interest in others. Loved ones feel like strangers. This emotional “flatness” can make them seem cold or distant, even though they’re suffering deeply inside.

Even if someone tries to stay, the emotional wall is often too thick to breach.

Friends and family may withdraw:

They might interpret the person’s changes as weakness, negativity, or instability, rather than as symptoms of trauma.

Social distrust: Society might see them as morally compromised, even if their trauma came from injustice or bad luck.

Unstable

Dangerous

Broken

People under long exposure often become emotionally numb, unresponsive, or even seemingly robotic, surviving, but not truly living.

Apathy Toward Death: In the absence of joy and hope, the will to live can quietly fade

4. Magical Consequences

Patronus Degradation

A weakening Patronus becoming less corporeal or vanishing totally , may show soul fatigue or fragmentation.

Magical Affliction

Soul damage could manifest as long-term magical instability.

Wands rejecting their user

Wild surges of uncontrolled magic during emotional spike

Lack of mental health support in the wizarding world:

St. Mungo’s has no known treatment for soul damage.Hogwarts has no visible therapists or counselors There is no indication that Harry or other survivors received therapy or magical healing for trauma.The Ministry’s usage of Dementors as prison guards was not only cruel it likely caused thousands of irreversible soul injuries. The wizarding world acts like you can “just cast a Patronus” and be fine. Bullsh*t. That’s like saying a soldier just needs a helmet and war is no big deal.

Harry surviving them repeatedly—and never being helped—is symbolic of how we treat real-world survivors: applauded for surviving, ignored while suffering.

Other societal problems

Entire groups exposed to Dementors (like long-term prisoners or war survivors) may pass on fear and distrust to others. Communities may become withdrawn, suspicious, or haunted by collective memory.

[prettyboykatsuki-moved]

there’s a video essay online of a guy dissecting fifty shades of grey and he basically concludes that christian grey bears a closer resemblance to the author than anna and that that might be where a lot of people self insert and that’s how i think about bl comics bc i would like to top and/or dom men as a woman but that is very hard to find so nsfw bl can satisfy that curiosity for me

wow that is a very interesting conclusion? i would love to watch that but honestly i dont doubt it being true

while it is oddly niche and taboo online, i feel like there is probably a higher amount of women who do that kind of projecting w bl than they fully understand. it gets more complicated for straight women especially imo bc yk gender roles in str8 relationships dont rlly allow the same kind of fluidity

part of the reason im so comfortable with my sexuality in terms of being dominant is bc i am bisexual for sure. it gave me freedom to explore that in my sex life without the limitations of gender and helped me find ways to seek that out when i did date or interact with men. like being bisexual helped me figure out that i am in charge before anything else lool

i think its a lot harder for straight women to unpack that part of their sexuality as it is seen as unwomanly in many ways. and i think bl has probably been an outlet for that historically - especially given the actual history of terms fujoshi and fudanshi etc.

its a lot easier to find femdom comics now - but truthfully even a lot of the best manhwas do not fully fit the bdsm niche. there's a crazy amount noncon and dubcon in those roles and while im not against reading that, it is a different thing to actual bdsm which is what i want to read most. i can count on one-hand the amount of bdsm femdom comics with consent and plot that exist in the world and have certainly read all of them

but i cant be picky in the way i can be with bl. it is genuinely a little depressing for me to think about lmao

[sunderwight]

PIDW but it's a game.

You play as Luo Binghe, the lowliest disciple of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect's Qing Jing Peak. The first part of the game proceeds more or less like a semi-normal fantasy dating sim -- Luo Binghe is bullied and downtrodden, but can seek help and opportunities to build relationships with various female characters, like Ning Yingying and Liu Mingyan. The game's interface implies a truly staggering number of potential romance candidates to unlock, however, so it makes sense that the first part in your disciple years doesn't get you very far in any of the routes.

But then for the second part, things start to shift. You get an option that seems to amount to asking whether you want to make things better for Luo Binghe or not. When you click the obvious choice, that you do, your previously cold and ruthless shizun seems to go through an inexplicable change of heart. You get a weird kind of fanservice-y scene featuring him during the Skinner Demon Mission. Then he features extremely heavily in the Demon Invasion Mission, only to turn up as your companion in the Dream Demon Mission.

After that, it seems like you've gotten onto his route, somehow? Why does the scummy male teacher even have a route in a game like this, though? You try to check for player guides but you can't seem to find any. You try reloading older saves and making other selections, but no matter what you choose, you end up finishing the Dream Demon Mission by moving into Shen Qingqiu's house, and the routes for Liu Mingyan and Ning Yingying and the briefly-encountered Sha Hualing are all greyed out.

But maybe that just means they're inaccessible for advancement for now, or something. And a lot of games have plot points that are on rails, and you can see where Luo Binghe actually getting a place to live would be one of those things. The format of the game changes as well, going from a relatively loose sequence of scenes and interactions to a daily management style, where you have tasks to complete (make shizun breakfast, go to morning lessons, cultivate, do chores, etc) and only a set number of hours in which to complete them. You have affection points, but any time you try to spend them on anyone other than Shen Qingqiu you get an error message. There are dialogue options for flirting with other characters, but they're always greyed out and impossible to select.

Still, you can unlock scenes. A lot of them are just long slow shots of Shen Qingqiu doing things, like reading, or lecturing, or eating. You get missions, and sometimes you meet female characters who seem to unlock new possible romance paths, even though they're still constantly greyed out. Maybe this part of the game's just especially on rails? Waiting for the actual harem-building segment? You kind of like a lot of aspects of it anyway, though. Luo Binghe is an especially compelling character, not at all like the usual sort of non-entity placeholder main guys in games like this. He definitely has personality.

But then you get to the third part. The Abyss. Shen Qingqiu pushes Luo Binghe in, and suddenly you're wondering if you've somehow reached a bad end. You were saving up some of those affection points for later, maybe you should have spent them all on him? Was there something you did wrong to make this happen? You're not even sure why he's thrown poor Binghe away, he was cold and cryptic about it, and now you're wondering if all the time you spent distracted by other things was time you should have spent farming a better relationship with him. You can't help but wonder where you went astray, because Luo Binghe will not stop wondering about it, and wondering about it in ways that make you feel oddly like he is accusing you, the player, of making the wrong choices... but in a way that could still plausibly be aimed at himself, as a character. You feel bad. You kind of want to restart, but you also can't bring yourself to abandon Luo Binghe. You have to see this through, to help him make it to the other side.

Regardless, the Endless Abyss seems like it must be an inevitable plot development. A lot of the game shifts to account for it. There's even an option to essentially select this "thought" from Luo Binghe's internal diatribe, that this is inevitable, and it seems to turn off the litany of recriminations for a while, although sometimes it also results in Luo Binghe... glaring at the screen?

At you?

Anyway the daily management system goes out of the window, and instead there's an energy bar now. Encounters with monsters or the occasional demon woman will lower the energy bar, how much depends on what you choose and how the encounters proceed. Sometimes there are romantic/sexy responses for interacting with the demon women you meet, and they aren't greyed out, but if you try and select them the cursor will jump to another option. You think there might be something wrong with your mouse? Sometimes you get Luo Binghe glaring at the screen scenes afterwards. When Binghe's energy bar hits zero, you're offered two choices -- "sleep" or "think of shizun". Sometimes even if you pick "sleep" the cursor will still jump to "think of shizun", and you'll be treated to another one of those slow lingering scenes of Shen Qingqiu. Except they are becoming increasingly strange, obviously warped by the exhaustion and trauma of the situation, so that aspects are eerie or even disturbing. For example, sometimes Shen Qingqiu seems to be missing limbs, or eyes. Sometimes there's blood on his hands. Sometimes the food he's eating is rotted, or the bamboo house background looks like the Qing Jing Peak wood shed. That kind of thing. You don't mind the idea of harm coming to the man. He deserves it, really, for pushing Luo Binghe into the Abyss. But the few times you try and select options along those lines, the UI glitches again.

Also the "think of shizun" option only restores a quarter of the energy bar, whereas resting restores all of it. But if you try to go for too long without doing it, it will lock you into choosing it successively for a long time.

In addition to the energy bar, there's a calendar. It's not all that sophisticated or even consistent, and it's clearly meant to reflect the fact that Luo Binghe has troubles accurately judging the passage of time in the Abyss. However, the longer you spend in the Abyss, the more violent and unhinged things start to become, and the more the UI starts glitching to reveal disturbing messages, and the more often Luo Binghe "glaring" scenes happen. So you decide to do your best to get Binghe out of here as quickly as possible. This part of the game must be broken, but hopefully if you can make to the next segment, it will work properly again.

Eventually you get to the Xin Mo Mission, which is the last part of the Abyss section, and Luo Binghe escapes.

But the weirdness continues. Worsens, even. You still get missions to like, take over the demon realms and infiltrate Huan Hua Palace, all cool stuff, and you still meet girls who seem to unlock possibly romance paths. But most of the time everything is greyed out. There will be 5 dialogue options but maybe only 1 or 2 of them will be selectable. Parts of the menu are inaccessible. You don't have an energy bar anymore, you have a Xin Mo corruption bar, and it just keeps steadily rising. Sometimes you're presented the option of propositioning a character to "mitigate corruption", but if you try and click it the game glitches or the cursor freaks out and it fails. Sometimes the game crashes outright, and when you reload your last save, it starts with Luo Binghe glaring at you through the screen. You still get the "rest" and "think of shizun" options at times, but neither one helps the corruption bar.

Then. Jinlan City. You reunite with Shen Qingqiu. There seem to be a lot of options for acting vengefully towards him, but they're all greyed out, except for a few which let you chase him down or manhandle him a bit. The whole segment is frustrating, full of weird fanservice-y moments but also mired in how little Shen Qingqiu will say, how often he insists on evading or running away, and how Luo Binghe doesn't seem to have the right prompts to actually get him to explain himself. At times it seems like the "think of shizun" mechanic is bleeding over into the real interactions with the character, so that you can't tell what's really going on vs what are the manifestation of Luo Binghe's trauma or even hallucinations. The Xin Mo bar has maxed out. You have to catch Shen Qinqiu. Catch Shen Qingqiu. Catch Shen Qingqiu--

Then suddenly the bar is at 0, and you're watching Shen Qingqiu's lifeless body fall towards the ground, his energy expended in the effort to push back the corruption. Like, all of his energy.

You catch Shen Qingqiu. Or at least, you stop his corpse from hitting the dirt.

Now the game art is crisp and clean again. All the weird UI artifacts and blocked-off menus are either gone altogether or else working properly. The sound, which had been very gradually deteriorating with low-pitched ringing and muffled portions, is normal. You can hear characters gasping and distantly shouting, and birds chirping somewhere, the ragged cadence of Luo Binghe's breaths, while the camera focuses on Shen Qingqiu's body.

Huh, you think. That's a sort of dramatic resolution to that plot arc, and it raised more questions about Shen Qingqiu than it answered, really. But at least it's over with now? Does this mean Luo Binghe can finally start to recover, or advance other plots?

Then everything blacks out. You get booted to the main menu, or something that looks like it, except the only option you can select now is the New Game+ one.

When you click it, it seems like you've started the whole game over again. Except that there is a Xin Mo corruption bar, greyed out, already waiting for in a corner of the screen. And instead of starting out with a view of Qing Jing Peak, you start out with the young Luo Binghe looking directly towards you. Like he's staring through the screen. It's the basic starting point character, except he already has his demon mark on his forehead, and his expression is way more cold and calculating than anything the junior protagonist would have worn.

"Don't get in my way," he warns.

Then the game proceeds like a visual novel with extremely limited choices. The old selections and the menu for various romance routes don't even appear, the menus have all changed again, this time oriented entirely around hiding Luo Binghe's demonic cultivation (while building it) and managing daily choices and Shen Qingqiu's relationship status. A romance game with only one romance route, and it's the treacherous crusty old teacher? Wtf? But otherwise it seems almost normal, except for the special faint-lettered red options that sometimes appear in weird places on the screen, suggesting things like preventing the Skinner demon from catching you unawares, or saving Shen Qingqiu from Without a Cure poisoning, or keeping out of the Endless Abyss.

Those options seem like they should create different outcomes, and you click them whenever they show up, but they consistently fail. As if there's some other force in the game pushing things back onto the rails no matter what you do...

Anyway, eventually you get through the main plot again, and Shen Qingqiu dies once more. This time the game keeps going from that point, however, with quests to try and find ways to resurrect him. You're starting to wonder why you're still playing -- after all, you signed up for a harem game, not this tragic gay love story? You're not even gay! It's just that Luo Binghe is such a compelling character. You decide it's time to take a break, though, so you get up, do some stretches, go to the bathroom, etc.

It feels like someone's watching you.

You've definitely been playing that game for too long. Sometimes you think you catch sight of Luo Binghe's face out of the corner of your eye, in the bathroom mirror or on the black surface of your phone's screen, just before you turn it on. But when you look twice or turn your phone off again, nothing's there. You call your little sister, to apologize for dropping off the face of the earth for a bit, and you joke about getting too invested in this weird game that might be broken? She hasn't heard of it, but she sounds a little worried as she suggests maybe coming over and taking you out to lunch, or something.

You decline -- she's got a lot on her plate, and she mentioned already having plans earlier -- but then you promise to get some fresh air anyway. But when you go to head out, somehow you find yourself turning away at the last minute. You try again, and yet it's like you just keep getting distracted before you can open the door. After a few tries you give up, swallowing down your growing unease. You take off your shoes and coat. When it comes to it, you really do want to find out what happens to Luo Binghe next.

The game is running.

You don't remember turning it back on...?

The screen is focused on the familiar image of Shen Qingqiu's preserved corpse. You can see Luo Binghe's hand in the frame as well, transferring qi in yet another familiar sequence, the one that seems to run at the end of every in-game day. There's some text.

Is it you? the red letters ask, scrawling and flickering, as if someone is attempting to write directly onto the screen. Are you the one behind all this? Thwarting me at every turn?

Yes/No options appear in the game's usual font and position. You try to click "no", even though you're unsure and feel like you must have missed a scene somehow. But the interface warps and when you hit "no" it changes to Stay Silent.

I can't figure out. Are you here to help me, or get in my way?

Help/Harm. You click "help" but again it changes to "stay silent" afterwards.

What do you want from me?

This time there's no option to select at first. Then, as if being shoved onto the screen by some alternative function, a text box opens up. Like the kind that some games have for implementing cheats or selecting character names. This particular game has never shown such a function before, Luo Binghe's name was locked in and you don't even know if it has cheats. The cursor blinks, and somehow it feels as if you have only one chance, and if you don't take it now, it will be gone forever.

You type in "help" and barely manage to hit enter before the interface blinks out. No list of prompts or possible options appear.

Shizun? the red text scrawls, shakily.

Then the whole game crashes.

You wait, but it doesn't start up again. You try to run it again, but you can't find it on your system, somehow. Really weird. Even if it had crashed, it shouldn't have gotten deleted? But you still can't find it. You start to feel genuinely alarmed. Not only can you not find the game on your system, but when you try and search for it absolutely nothing comes up. You try and go to the online shop page for it, but you can't remember where you actually got it from in the first place, now that you're thinking about it.

What bullshit is this?

What, was the game actually some kind of virus? It couldn't have been. Also who would make a virus like that? You get up and pace, trying to make sense of it.

It's gotta be some kind of mistake. Maybe you've just missed too much sleep, you're not thinking right. You'll take a break and when you come back you'll realize that you were just looking in all the wrong places, somehow.

You head over to the fridge to grab something to eat.

You can't remember the last time you went shopping, but the food in there is probably still fine. Right?

[darkmatilda]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐩 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 | 𝐬.𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: a short story of how you became the intrigued observer of madness. possession. fixation. obsession—and every other synonym you can think of. a witness to how the taste of your lips marked spencer like a curse he can’t break…unless you let him do it again. the only question is: will you?

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬/𝐭𝐰: spencer reid x diva!chemist reader, diva's pov gunshot so a little sneak peek into her inner thoughts <3 spencer being obsessed with her lips after they kissed, reader wearing a lipstick, sassy spence supremacy

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 1.7k

𝐚/𝐧: anon's request.

No one would be surprised to hear you enjoyed teasing Spencer Reid.

Enjoyed? That’s an understatement – you loved it, just as much as things like a hot bath with fragrant bubbles that reached all the way up to your nose, testing out a new microscope model, or discovering the perfect lip combo that made your lips absolutely irresistible.

But we’ll get back to those irresistible lips.

Anyway, you loved it just as much as those little everyday pleasures, the essentials to get through the day, like your morning coffee or a little sweet treat.

Well, you weren’t about to pretend this was something reserved solely for him. On the contrary, this kind of dynamic colored most of your interactions with men. Sensual inaccessibility, sharp wordplay, a clear assertion of your place and expectations. Honesty about your intentions. Yes, honesty. Because if you wanted to have some fun with someone, you weren’t about to pretend your goal was a shared future, settling down, and offering them all of yourself. Men were drawn to your beauty like naive flies to honey, but you didn’t care about them enough to hide your true nature and everything that lay beneath that perfect facade – if one got put off by a few unkind but truthful words, another would quickly take their place, one who could keep up with you better.

Yet, you couldn’t hide the fact that teasing him gave you just a bit more pleasure. Maybe because, unlike some, he was actually smart, and his remarks and comebacks were sharp, spot on, and challenging. The kind that sometimes required some real mental effort to come up with the right answer—what a perfect way to train your mind. You liked being around him also because he amused you.

Yes, he amused you. It was fascinating watching him try to maintain indifference to your attractiveness, pretending it didn’t catch his eye with every move you made, every step you took. You knew your physicality attracted him, though there was nothing special about that – you’d grown used to it. Desire was deceptive, you yourself wanted people you had nothing to do with, or ones you barely tolerated, but you were always aware of that, just as you were aware that it didn’t have to immediately mean that dreaded L-word. Yet he deluded himself into thinking you hadn’t noticed. He even took pride in how perfectly he hid it. He’d even tell you that you were pretty—in the same tone someone might use to point out that someone had eyes of a particular color or freckles on their cheeks, a simple impersonal statement of fact, in no way connected to a personal opinion. A personal opinion that could upset the balance of a relationship. Because if the other person knew you were attracted to them, it was as if they had power over you—nd it seemed he truly believed that.

He pretended to be indifferent to you, but the moment you managed to coax him into kissing you, he lost it all.

Actually, you hadn’t expected him to actually go through with it. You thought he’d stubbornly fight your unyielding gaze until the very last moment, not that he’d actually press his lips to yours. Without a hint of hesitation, you could boldly declare that he was good at it. His experience wasn’t vast, you could tell, but he made up for it with his enthusiasm and thirst, which fueled his confidence and led to an intensity that almost made your knees go weak—something you wouldn’t admit so readily. And paradoxically, the fact that he gave in, surrendered, made you think he walked away from that elevator incident with some dignity.

At least, that’s what you thought at first. Then something very, very strange started happening. 

First, it was as if he had disappeared from your radar. You could hardly catch sight of him anywhere. Not that you were particularly trying—after all, he wasn’t the center of your world, and you had plenty of work and other concerns to keep you occupied, but still, hand on your heart, you could swear you bumped into each other more often before, even if just by chance. Since the elevator incident, whenever you did see him, someone was always with you, most often a member of his team. This allowed him to silently avoid you, without raising any suspicion —he could bury his nose in the case files he was working on, squint his pretty eyes in concentration, and no one dared distract the genius from his duties. Ugh. But whenever you did manage to strike up a conversation with him, all that intelligence seemed to evaporate from his face.

He swallowed hard. At least he didn’t stutter (though you kind of wished he would, just once…), and to be fair, his words and quips remained high quality—but only when he managed to avoid your gaze. The moment your eyes met, a dazed sort of fog would pass over his face for a second, and then, unmistakably, his eyes would drop straight to your lips.

It happened so many times that you turned it into your own little game. You’d catch his gaze—and then count to three. Right on cue, all his attention would zero in on your lips.

And while at first, like any little game, it amused you, it quickly started to get on your nerves. Because days kept passing, and Spencer still acted like he was under some strange spell. Even Penelope noticed, muttering under her breath that you two seriously need to kiss already to ease the tension. Blissfully unaware that you had! And maybe it had worked—at least, you weren’t glaring at each other or snapping anymore. That tension had vanished, but it was instantly replaced by another.

You wanted to confront him about it, but that turned out to be harder than you’d expected. Catching him alone was nearly impossible. It wasn’t until one Wednesday that fate, apparently, decided to give you a break. During a rare lull, in an empty lab (which was shockingly unusual at that hour and only proved your theory that fate was absolutely meddling) just as you pulled a tiny mirror from your lab coat pocket to fix your lipstick, he appeared in the doorway—clutching a plastic evidence bag in his hands.

First, he swallowed.

“It needs to be checked for any genetic material," he informed you stiffly and matter-of-factly, standing a bit further away and extending the bag toward you.

You didn’t take it, not even nodding, too focused on fixing your makeup. You saw him roll his eyes, irritated by being ignored, which made you smile involuntarily. Welcome back, old Reid.

He placed the bag on the counter, turned his head as if he were about to leave, but his legs seemed to betray him, not moving. He stayed frozen, standing in front of you, as you set the lip liner aside and reached for your lipstick. However, you didn’t immediately start applying it.

"I realized," you started, twisting the lipstick in your hand, focused mainly on the task at hand. "…that we didn’t agree on which one of us was right."

He furrowed his brows, something you caught from the corner of your eye.

"Right about what?"

"The kiss, smartass. Did it work? Are we getting along better now? Did the team mention how much easier it would be to tolerate the two of us now?"

The silence stretched out, lingering between you. You didn’t rush him, still focused on applying the lipstick with delicate, precise strokes. You gently parted your lips, tilting your chin slightly upwards. The silence continued.

You finally tore your gaze from the small mirror in your hand, only to catch him staring at your lips.

In the most obvious way possible. The kind that made you sigh, which immediately broke him out of his trance. For pity's sake.

"Honestly, it doesn't even matter if it worked," you muttered. "We couldn’t stand each other before, now I can barely stand you. Seriously, Reid, what’s happening with you?"

You were dying to see how he would explain it.

"With me?" he repeated, looking confused, then tilted his head slightly, as though trying to collect himself. A mock cough followed, one of those pseudo-serious ones. "With me, nothing. I don’t know what you’re talking about."

You snorted.

“You’re getting liptrified every time you see me,” you said.

“I’m getting what?” he scoffed.

“Liptrified.”

“You made up that word, so don’t expect me to know what it means.”

“It means that you’re staring at my lips. Nonstop. Like you’ve never seen anything like it before in your life,” you explained, tilting your head slightly to the side. The next words danced on your tongue for a moment before you spoke them aloud. “Or like you’re just hoping for more.”

The confidence and lack of hesitation with which you spoke hit him like a slap to the face or a bucket of cold water dumped under his shirt. Suddenly, his posture straightened, his gaze sharpened, and he shook his head slightly, as if in disbelief.

"You really think you're the center of the universe, don’t you?"

You looked him in the eye, and surprisingly, he held your gaze, not once looking down at your lips. Ladies and gentlemen, new record.

"Aren't I?"

"You’re hilarious when you think you are."

"Blah, blah, blah. You’re mocking me, but you could’ve just said that kiss was heavenly can i have another one?'"

Reid crossed his arms over his chest, letting out a short laugh. A bit stiff, but quite attractive, if you were being honest. You wondered if that was how he masked his embarrassment from this confrontation.

"Would you give me another one?" he asked.

Your eyebrows lifted slightly, unable to hide your surprise at his response. Before you could speak again, his hand shot out toward you. You followed its movement with your gaze, completely forgetting what you were going to say, but it landed… on the plastic bag, gently sliding it toward you.

"Please, check it as soon as you can," he requested.

Your gaze lingered on his hand as it traveled along his arm and up to his face, which now was much closer to yours than before. His eyes conveyed urgency, no extra glimmers or shine. But then, just for a brief, very brief moment, his eyes rested once more on your lips.

"The previous lipstick color suited you better," he remarked. His chest rose slightly, as if he was taking a deeper breath. "It tasted pretty good, too."

With a slight, almost dismissive nod, he turned toward the door, which you observed in silence.

This bitch—

[carriesthewind]

Ok. I am maybe kind of losing my mind just a little bit.

A few days ago, I mentioned in a post that the IA only cares about information being digitized, not about actual digital access. And I mentioned that access includes patrons being able to actually find what they are looking for, and suggested IA did not prioritize that critical aspect of access. But I didn't really go into any more detail.

So someone over on bluesky linked to this write-up of a talk Brewster Kahle gave about using so-called AI. And one of his reported statements made my mouth drop open in shock.

...and then I read further in the article and realized it was incorrectly reporting basic facts around Hachette, so I had to go and listen to the whole speech myself.* (And I want to say, briefly - he raises some legitimate potential uses for LLMs! He's kind of a dick about some of it ("it's up to us to go and keep [Balinese] culture alive"), but some of the things he's talking about actually seem useful.)

*Incidentally, while Kahle doesn't lie about the ALA brief in the speech, he absolutely misleads about the nature and facts of the case and deliberately omit the part of the story where the IA decided to suspend the one-to-one owned-to-loan ratio thing, despite repeatedly emphasizing that one-to-one was what the IA was doing with their lending program.

And oh my god. He really said what the article reports. (This portion starts around 20:10.)

He says that the IA has scanned over 18,000 periodicals. And that they used to have professional librarians manually create descriptions of the periodicals in order to catalog them. (Sidenote: there are existing directories, but he describes their licensing terms as "ridiculous." This is not a field I know much about, but I spoke to one person who agreed, though for different reasons. His reason is that you can only license, not purchase, the directory descriptions. The person I spoke to was instead focused on the prices demanded for the licenses. Regardless, the idea of creating an open, free directory seems both like an incredible amount of work and an amazing resource...if it was accurate.)

But according to Kahle, it took 45 minutes to an hour to create a description and catalog each periodical.

And so now, instead, they're using AI to make the descriptions and so it only takes 7-10 minutes!

"And yes it hallucinates, and it has some problems, and whatever — but it’s a lot faster than having to write it yourself!"

Oh. My god.

Just.

YOU ARE KNOWINGLY INTRODUCING AI HALLUCINATIONS INTO YOUR CATALOG?!

(And yes, he says that they are "confirmed by a librarian" but it can't really be, not if it's only taking 7-10 minutes! Maybe the librarian can do a quick check for super obvious errors, but actually checking a AI's summary work requires actually going back to the source and reviewing it yourself!)

I just....

I need to emphasize for those of you for who aren't familiar - if a book or article is miscataloged, it is effectively lost. Because it doesn't mater if a library or an archive owes it - if someone can't find it when they are looking for it, it is not only inaccessible, the only way to find it again is through chance. Imagine if you went into a library, but instead of organized shelves (where if even if you can't find what you're looking for, the librarians know where to look), every single book was just piled in a heap.

If a book is miscateloged, it still exists, but it is lost, not truly accessible. And they know that this is happening, "but whatever." Because Brewster Kahle doesn't actually care about real, practical, digital access. (Much less non-digital access.)

(And then to top it off, he goes on to criticize the Library of Congress for not being "access oriented.")

I just. 18,000 periodicals. And they've knowing, recklessly lost who knows how many of them. I feel like crying.

18,000 periodicals.

[trans-axolotl]

content note: this post talks about eugenics, incarceration and institutionalization, and violent ableism

tangent from that post because i didn't want to start writing an essay on someone else's post and this is about a conversation i had irl this month, not intended as a reply to that post. but i actually feel very complicated about the idea of whether or not we should be pushing for more "accessibility" in jails and prisons and psych wards and institutions. i put that word in quotes because i don't think there is ever a way that being incarcerated is actually accessible to our bodies and minds; it is a disabling experience on so many levels. i'm not going to list out all the reasons why on this post; i've made so many posts talking explicitly about the harms of institutionalization before and i don't want to do that again right now. Talila Lewis has given several interviews about ableism, incarceration, and disability that are really worth reading and go more in depth into what that violence looks like. Liat Ben Moshe has also given another interview about disability and incarceration that goes over many of the same topics. given that these places are intense sites of violence towards disabled people, it feels difficult for me to claim that they could ever truly be accessible in any meaningful sense of the word.

what's also true right now is that institutions and prisons are incredibly inaccessible for physically disabled people in particular. i've been arrested with a wheelchair, i've been institutionalized with a feeding tube on top of that as well, i've been held on medical floors for psych treatment before, and i know very well exactly how bad it is. i've watched myself and so many other physically disabled people almost die in these places because of sheer neglect. i have physically disabled neighbors who were killed in these places. it is so dangerous for physically disabled people who are locked up in these places, yet at the same time, often psych wards are so inaccessible that physically disabled people just can't even be admitted because wards refuse to take people with mobility aids, medical devices, specific types of medication or care needs, if you have some kinds of terminal illness, and on and on and on.

what's also true is that when these places are so inaccessible that many physically disabled people are excluded and unable to even access them in the first place, it doesn't mean that we then somehow access other types of care instead. it just means that we're also discarded and left to die. this also is a really similar dynamic for a ton of other marginalized groups that get excluded from psych care--many of my comrades who are people of color have also experienced this same type of denial of care. initially i think that can seem like a confusing contradiction--how is it that psych wards are locking up some people up against their will but refusing to take in other people? but when you start thinking about the underlying logic at the core of these systems, it makes sense.

psych wards operate under this idea that madness must be cured by any means possible, up to and including eradication. institutions are a way of disappearing madness from the world--hiding us away so that we don't disturb a sane society, and not letting us free again until we either die in there or are able to appear like we've sufficiently eradicated madness from our mind. preventing physically disabled people from accessing inpatient treatment is operating under the same assumptions--except that this particularly violent convergence of ableism is happy to just let us die, both because it eradicates madness from the world and because they view our lives as unworthy of living in the first place. eugenics is still alive and well in the united states and it's still fucking killing us; both inside institutions and outside of them.

i would never tell someone that they're privileged for getting institutionalized--i think that would be a cruel thing to say to someone who has just survived a lot of violent ableism. and at the same time, our current systems of mental health care are set up in a way where not being able to access inpatient care can be a deadly logistical nightmare. there are some partial hospitalization programs that have such a long waiting list that you can only really get in if you just got an urgent referral because you're getting discharged from inpatient care--how the fuck are physically disabled people supposed to access those programs? if you need meal support for your eating disorder 6 times a day and the only places that offer that are residential treatment in a house with stairs, what the fuck are you supposed to do? if noncarceral outpatient forms of treatment like therapy, support groups, PHP programs, peer support funding, etc etc etc are often prioritizing people who have recently been discharged from inpatient care, how are you supposed to access any type of mental health care at all? (to be clear i know that not all forms of outpatient care operate in this way, but a lot of state run/low cost programs that accept Medicaid/Medicare operate in that way, and i've seen it cause enough barriers that i know this is a very real problem.)

so when i think about what it would take to actually ensure that physically disabled people can access mental healthcare, there's a lot that comes up for me. on one hand, so much of my work is about tearing down institutions and ensuring that no one is forced into these places to face that type of violence. on the other hand, so many physically disabled people need care right now, and we have to figure out some way of making that happen given the current systems we have in place. i will never be okay with just discarding physically disabled people as collateral damage, and any world that we're building needs to be one that embraces disability from the beginning.

i keep thinking about the concept of non-reformist reforms that gets talked about a lot in the prison abolition movement. the idea behind non-reformist reforms is that usually, reforms work to reinforce the status quo. they're usually talked about in liberal language of "improvement" and "human rights", but when it comes down to it, they're still giving more power to harmful institutions and reinforcing state power. an example of a reformist reform is building a new jail that is bigger and has "nicer" services. or when the cops in my city tried to get funding for more wheelchair accessible cop vans. these are reformist reforms because when it comes down to it, it's still giving more money and legitimacy to the prison system and increasing the capacity to keep people locked up--even when people talk about it using language about welfare for prisoners, that's not actually what's happening. having more wheelchair accessible cop vans would be dangerous for the disabled people in my city--it's helped us out a LOT that it's so difficult for the cops to arrest multiple wheelchair users at once.

non-reformist reforms are the opposite of that--they're reforms that work to dismantle systems, redistribute power, and set the stage for more even more dramatic transformations. They're sort of an answer to the question of "what do we do right now if we can't go out and burn down all the prisons overnight?" Examples of a nonreformist reform are defunding prisons, getting rid of paid administrative leave for cops, shutting down old prisons and not building new ones, etc. they're steps we can take right now that don't fully abolish prisons, but still work to dismantle them, rather than making it easier for the system to keep going.

so, when we apply this to the psych system, what are some nonreformist reforms that could help make sure that all disabled people are having their needs met right now? Some ideas I'm having include fixing the problem of PHP/outpatient care requiring referrals from inpatient, increasing the amount of Medicaid/Medicare funding for outpatient mental health care, building physically accessible peer respites that allow caregivers to stay with you if needed, increasing SSI/SSDI to an actually liveable rate, creating more disability specific mental health resources, support groups, care webs, and a million other things we'd probably need to actually get our needs met. non-reformist reforms for people in psych wards right now might look like ensuring everyone has 24/7 access to phones and internet, ensuring that disabled people have access to mobility aids in these spaces, making sure that there's accessible nutrition for people with dietary restrictions and/or feeding tubes, and more.

when i see people saying that we need to ensure that psych wards or prisons are made accessible it makes me feel nervous. i worry that the changes required to do that wouldn't actually provide care to disabled people, i worry it would just make it easier for increasing numbers of disabled people to get locked up and harmed all while people claimed it was a success story of "inclusion." i worry that it would just continue to cement carceral treatment as the only option for existing as a disabled person, and that it would make it harder for us to live in our communities, with the services and adaptations we need. when i think about abolition, i'm always thinking about what can we do right now, what do disabled people who are incarcerated and institutionalized need right now, what can we do right now to ensure that everyone is surviving and getting their needs met. i'm not willing to ignore or discard my incarcerated disabled comrades in the moment because of my dreams for an abolitionist future, i'm always going to support our organizing in these places as we try to survive them.

overall i guess what i'm saying is that i think making inpatient psych care accessible would require dismantling and fundamentally destroying the whole system. I can't imagine a way of doing that within the current system that wouldn't just continue to harm disabled people. and that as a psych abolitionist i think that means we have a responsibility to each other right now to fight for that, to understand that physically disabled people not being able to access mental health care is an incredibly urgent need. I refuse to treat my MadDisabled comrades as disposable: our lives are valuable and worth fighting for.

i'm also going to link to the HEARD organization on this post. They're one of the few abolitionist organizations that does direct advocacy and support for deaf and disabled people in prisons. if you or one of your disabled community members ever gets incarcerated in jail/prison, they have a lot of resources. donate to support their work if you can.

[asharaks]

@vigilskept SAY NO MORE @ikarons and i have GOT you

So the thesis here is that between Leliana, Cassandra, and Justinia, we have a sort of holy trinity of femininity, the three faces of womanhood in Thedas, with femininity and womanhood being defined in relation to Andraste: she’s the platonic ideal of a woman.

First: Cassandra, as the public-facing one. She’s the most Respectable, noble-born, pious, earthly; she takes her permission to fight and command from her association with both divinity and nobility, both structures in Thedas that demand and expect “purity” of women, as an associated product of femininity. Her violence is extremely tightly controlled — she isn’t allowed to be undisciplined, sloppy, and emotional (if she has a strong negative opinion of you, she gets drunk and yells at you; this is treated as an abject failure of hers), and she’s never out of control. Her violence is sanctioned by her faith and her association with the chantry, and thus is sanctified as something holy, and not to be treated lightly; she’s the embodiment of Andraste’s strength, and she is very much still required to conform to femininity in other ways. She loves music, art, flowers, she’s a sap at heart, she reads cheesy romance novels and wears makeup; she expects to be wooed, to be the passive partner in a courtship, to be the desirable one — all things traditionally associated with femininity. Again, she’s allowed the remit of violence, but only as an extension of her spirituality, and the player is constantly reminded of her femininity.

Leliana in Inquisition represents the “darker” aspects of femininity that white people love to associate with womanhood; she’s more mysterious, angrier, secretive, privy to knowledge no-one else is. She’s manipulative, and ruthless, and subtle: her power doesn’t come from martial prowess or spirituality but from knowledge. There’s a bit of the Thedas version of the Madonna-Whore complex here (shoutout to @gyrovagi for the Andraste-Witch terminology), with Leliana taking the part of the Witch to Cass’s Andraste; she’s darker, scarier, more sexual, more menacing. She twists the things traditionally associated with Andraste’s femininity (music, birds, flowers) into weapons (her bard song, poisons, the ravens) in a mirror of Cassandra’s Andrastian associations.

This in contrast to her role in Origins, where she very much played the nice devout Andrastian girl to Morrigan’s occultism; Leliana is able to switch, her presentation fluid in this way specifically because she’s not a mage, and thus has the freedom to move between presentations in a way a mage — strictly feminised in a derogatory way — can’t. The type of femininity (the “good” kind, the “pure” kind) on that side of the balance is utterly inaccessible to anyone with magic, but Leliana’s able to move between them as she moves through life, and to use that perception of virtue as a tool to suit her needs. This is very much a costume she can take off and put on, playing different cards in different situations (see her spymaster self in the rookery vs the way she presents and behaves at the Winter Palace), and one she is able to wield effectively and safely because of her position: as a non-mage acting in service of the Maker (in DAO) or a representation of Andraste (DAI). 

Finally, Justinia: the spiritual leader, the untouchable, the “pure”, the divine face of Andraste that’s allowed to be inaccessible. Her age grants her this freedom, as does the way she’s never really seen on screen; she’s not a romance option, she’s not a companion or a character, she’s a symbol you never truly meet, and she’s never granted characterisation outside of her role as the Divine. Her authority as a woman is tied into this spirituality —- the reason it’s okay for her to be in this position of power is that she’s unmarried, childless, undesirable, and her position feeds into her undesirability in an endless loop. Just like Andraste, she’s more an idea than a person, and an idea can’t perform gender Wrong.

Leliana and Cass are both very feminine figures, but neither of them take on spiritual roles; Cass is very much guided by chantry doctrine, but never creates it (if you make her divine, she is conservative, cautious, slow on progress); it’s important to note here that most, if not all, of the women in powerful positions both within and without the chantry appear to be largely conservative, but especially the ones who aren’t Chantry Sisters. Leliana is far more progressive than Cassandra, who is in a more masculinised role of Templar (and Cassandra is far more progressive than Meredith, in her role as Knight-Commander), and many of the higher-ups in the Chantry are talked about as conservatives and traditionalists in war table missions and ambient dialogue.

Leliana tends to view chantry teachings as suggestions (she is a reformer, but very much not a militant one) and distance herself from the position of priesthood, from Origins on. This, in combination with her perceived duality (Andraste-Witch dichotomy) is a double-edged sword; on the one hand, it works to her advantage that she is able to put on and take off the persona of Witch (in a way that is impossible for any mage — lots to say about Vivienne, and she deserves her own post, but particularly note how committed she is to people perceiving her as Intimidating and Frightening; she is forced to capitalise on the negative connotations of the Witch and try to use them as a base from which to gather power, because she is denied the opportunity to be perceived as ‘correctly’ feminine as a mage, but she simultaneously has to manage this perception through careful presentation because of the risk of tranquility or even execution being perceived as the Witch carries for her — unlike Leliana, she can’t step out of this role when it suits her, and unlike Leliana, the consequences for embodying it can be fatal) but on the other hand, those Darker aspects of her persona can be and are used against her; she’s accused of underhandedness, manipulativeness, accusations of deception and falsehood are thrown at her to discredit her role, and by extension, her power. The system is designed to support and uplift a very specific image of femininity, one defined by its relationship to spirituality, and anyone who steps outside of that gender binary is punished or discarded.

Both Leli and Cass distance themselves from traditional Thedas ideas of Womanhood, but they are both still notable as women in positions of unusual power, and their femininity and performance of gender is tied heavily to the ways they want to be perceived, which is in turn tied to the ways they want and reach for power, and the ways they use it when they have it.

[girlishguitarist]

I always feel so weird when I see companies making mega expensive “punk” and “goth” clothes. I used to know this other person who kept on wanting to get into the goth scene, and another one of my friends literally was so willing to help her and get her started out with like music recs and clothing tips and she’d constantly tell us. “Oh, but dressing goth isn’t accessible for me. I don’t have the money.”

Which y’know makes sense, not everybody has the money to drop on getting goth clothes. Especially when your priorities are literally keeping a roof over your head and paying bills. We’re all from working class families here. But then we just kind of realised she was referring to the shit you’d find on like… Killstar or Dollskill and everything made a lot more sense. It’s been making me think. Ever since alternative subcultures such as goth, such as punk, even grunge tbf have made their way into mainstream fashion trends on the internet it’s made people believe that the only way you’re able to get clothes to “dress the part” is to fork out shite tonnes of money to these ridiculously overpriced online clothing stores. (You don’t even have to dress goth for example to be goth because it’s a music based subculture but that’s a whole other thing.)

The way trends are today with this whole, “aesthetic” thing along with the consumerist HELL that is fast fashion sparks a wave people just buying swathes of overpriced clothing to hop onto a clothing trend that is actually ripped from a subculture they don’t really understand? Like part of the whole core of these subcultures is that we are anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist. You are a fucking joke.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking negatively about people who truly want to get into these subcultures. There is nothing wrong with that at all, of course there isn’t. I’m talking about people who will see a fashion trend and just hop onto it and really have no idea what they’re doing. (This is part of the reason why I believe it’s unlikely we’ll ever have a new subculture as big as previous ones ever again because of just how everything is a trend now.)

Fashion that has been born from these subcultures has always been DIY. Making your own battle jackets, thrifting pieces of clothing and tweaking them to be how you want. Like… I don’t know about you babes but I don’t think goths in the 80’s were getting their clothes from fucking Hot Topic.

The fact that companies are now and have been making ridiculously priced pieces of clothing to capitalise off of: 1.) People who want to hop on trends because they don’t want to make the clothes they just want the style now, and 2.) People who want to genuinely get into subcultures such as punk and goth but may be misguided as to where to get clothing just makes me so fucking mad because it makes getting into the fashion within these subcultures seem inaccessible and consumerist-ridden when they’re absolutely not meant to be.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Adventure: The Scholar, Scorned

Artsource

Once a brilliant alchemist and favourite of the nobility, Jovanis Hilth fell from favour and kept falling till he hit rock bottom. Some say it was failing to deliver on his grand promises that caused it, others infer a scandalous affair with the wives of more than one powerful benefactor. Either way it ended with Jovanis being locked in a gloomsome battlement in the old city walls, kept alive only for his usefulness in producing gunpowder to fill hits debtor's arsenals.

Jovanis has had a .... tenuous grip on reason in the three decades of his imprisonment, forbidden to talk to the outside world or his guards he's resulted to conversing with the rats. The only problem is that the rats have started talking back, promising the alchemist their aid in his escape if only he repays them at a later time.

Adventure Hooks:

The next time the party is in a tight spot while adventuring in the city, a rat helps them out: pointing out an otherwise inaccessable entrance, dropping a much needed key in their laps, or squeaking at just the right time to alert them to oncoming danger. These little favours accumulate, until one day the rats present a shakily scribbled letter from Jovanis, begging them for their help. This letter and their ratty guides takes the party to a series of secret passages worked through the old battlement, filled with city scavengers and ghosts left over from forgotten wars.

Rescuing the alchemist is not so simple as springing him from his cage and wishing him on his way. The man is penniless, wracked with agoraphobia, and more than a little disturbed by the isolation and exposure to hazardous substances he suffered while locked away. That's to say nothing of the fact that he has powerful enemies that will be hunting him, and the party if they managed to incriminate themselves during the escape.

The party may have to smuggle Jovanis out of the city to one of their allies, or find someone equally powerful who'd be willing to take him. If they happen to have any holdings, they might also be able to shelter him, and if provided with a lab, he'll gladly repay their kindness with a steady supply of unstable creations. All these plans will be complicated by the fact that Jovanis is a wererat, an aftereffect of a misguided attempt to slip his bonds by taking on a new form. Near feral while transformed, rat-Jovanis retains just enough of his intelligence to be truly dangerous, seeking an outlet for thirty years of suffering he's endured. Removing this curse is even more trouble than your traditional case of lycanthropy, as the hardluck alchemist is in thrall to the demon Tivvverrriiik who ensures that everything Jolvanis makes comes to ruin: Cures bring bring madness and itching pox, promising reactions have disastrous and explosive outcomes.

[ruinofchimera]

Regulus Black.

The boy who cracked Voldemort’s secret, turned against the Dark Lord, and gave his life to strike a decisive blow for the greater good. Sounds impressive, right?

But don’t let the fanon fever dream—or the Chalamet cheekbones—fool you.

1. The Fanboy Who Bought His Own Propaganda

How did Regulus get into this mess in the first place? He wasn’t dragged kicking and screaming into Voldemort’s inner circle. He wanted it. This was the boy who looked at Voldemort’s genocidal cult and thought, “Yes, this is my moment.” Voldemort wasn’t just a leader to Regulus—he was an idol, a pure-blood messiah, promising everything Regulus had been raised to worship.

His parents weren’t even Death Eaters themselves. Walburga and Orion preferred to clink their glasses from the sidelines, content to watch the chaos from their pure-blood balcony seats.

But Regulus? He wanted center stage. For him, the Death Eaters weren’t a prison—they were a playground. He signed up for the dark glamour, the exclusivity, and the chance to be on the frontlines of Voldemort’s “vision.” Regulus wasn’t coerced or manipulated—he was all in, fully convinced he was playing for the winning team.

Until, of course, Voldemort stopped being the star of Regulus’s dark power fantasy. And when reality set in, Regulus had a change of heart. But did he admit, “I was wrong”? Did he stand up and fight for the people he’d helped oppress? No. He folded.

2. The Master Plan That Wasn’t

Regulus was practically spoon-fed the truth about the Horcruxes. Voldemort’s most guarded secret was gift-wrapped and dumped at his feet, courtesy of a tortured house-elf.

And this wasn’t just any secret. This was the kind of revelation that could’ve turned the entire war around. But instead of responding with precision, foresight, or even basic competence, Regulus managed to botch it at every possible step.

Step 1: He stole the locket.

Stealing the locket sounds like a bold move, right? On paper, it’s the kind of Gryffindor-level defiance fandom loves to romanticize. But in reality, it was a tactical nightmare.

Regulus didn’t just take the locket from a location Voldemort’s obnoxious ego would’ve eventually exposed. No, he took it and hid it in Grimmauld Place.

Instead of leaving it in the cave, where someone might’ve uncovered it, Regulus thought, “You know what? Let me stash this in my creepy ancestral house, where only my guilt-ridden, traumatized house-elf knows it exists.” Revolutionary thinking, truly. Because when dismantling a Dark Lord’s immortality, the best plan is obviously to make the Horcrux even more inaccessible, right?

The only reason the locket ever surfaced was because Harry inherited Grimmauld Place. If not for that stroke of luck, the locket would’ve sat there, untouched and invincible, for decades. Maybe centuries.

Or worse—as we saw happen in canon—it could’ve been stolen, passed from hand to hand like a cursed trinket, and lost forever. Voldemort would’ve cackled his way to world domination while the wizarding community fought a battle they couldn’t ever win.

Step 2: He didn’t destroy it.

Destroying a Horcrux isn’t easy—I’ll give Regulus that. But did he even try? Or did he just hand the locket to Kreacher with the world’s vaguest instructions, essentially saying, “Figure it out, sweetie,” before marching off to die dramatically?

Kreacher, bless his loyal, trauma-ridden heart, spent decades torturing himself trying to destroy an indestructible object with no tools, no guidance, and no real chance of success. He tried everything he could think of, punishing himself endlessly for failing a task that was never within his power to complete.

Regulus doomed him. Instead of empowering Kreacher to carry out his wishes, Regulus turned his act of “redemption” into a lifelong burden for someone who had no choice but to carry it.

Step 3: He told no one.

Now here’s where Regulus truly shines in sabotage disguised as sacrifice. Whether it was arrogance, misplaced pride, or a refusal to meaningfully contribute to Voldemort’s downfall, he ensured that the secret he uncovered—the one that could have turned the war on its head—was buried right alongside him.

Perhaps the poor boy couldn’t stomach the idea of contacting Dumbledore or joining the resistance. Maybe the thought of lowering himself to grovel before the Order, confessing his sins, and actually helping was too much for his delicate pure-blood ego.

But what, then, compelled him to entomb such precious knowledge alongside his corpse? Would it have killed him—again—to ensure Kreacher delivered the locket and its significance to someone who could actually do something about it?

Instead, Regulus left behind nothing but a moody breakup note to Voldemort that helped absolutely no one.

“I hope you will be mortal once more.” Oh yes, that glorified Dear John letter. Maybe he thought his scathing parting words would haunt Voldemort forever. Perhaps Tom was meant to reread it late at night, questioning his life choices.

3. What Could Have Been

Regulus had options. So many options. The fact that he chose the least effective course of action is almost impressive in its sheer incompetence.

He could’ve swallowed his pride and gone to Dumbledore. Say what you will about the man, but Dumbledore was Voldemort’s greatest fear for a reason. Armed with Regulus’s intel, Dumbledore could’ve started breaking apart the Horcrux network years earlier, crippling Voldemort before Harry was even born.

He could’ve warned the Order. Regulus could’ve shared this revelation with his brother. He could’ve even scrawled a quick, anonymous note: “Voldemort made Horcruxes. Here’s one.” That alone could’ve shifted the entire war.

He could’ve destroyed the locket himself. With access to cursed objects, forbidden magic, and centuries of pure-blood knowledge, Regulus had the resources to figure it out.

If Regulus had simply done nothing—if he had left the Horcrux untouched in Voldemort’s lair, waiting for someone more competent to find it—it still would’ve been a better choice than what he did. At least then, it wouldn’t have been stashed in a location even less traceable than Voldemort’s own cursed lake.

4. The Fallout of Failure

Regulus didn’t just fail—he left behind a colossal mess for others to clean up.

Kreacher suffered for decades. The loyal house-elf blamed himself for a failure that was never his fault. Regulus didn’t just abandon the locket—he abandoned Kreacher to a lifetime of guilt and self-inflicted punishment.

The Order fought blind. Deprived of any knowledge about Voldemort’s Horcruxes, the Order spent years floundering in the dark, waging desperate battles against Death Eaters while the true key to victory—Voldemort’s immortality—remained untouched.

The Trio cleaned up his mess. Harry, Ron, and Hermione spent months hunting down a Horcrux that could’ve been destroyed decades earlier. Their entire mission to find and destroy Voldemort’s Horcruxes was prolonged and made infinitely harder.

5. Fandom’s Saint of Aesthetic Suffering

In the end, Regulus was just a boy who stumbled onto a world-shattering discovery, fumbled it completely, and left behind a legacy so utterly useless that it took sheer dumb luck to untangle long after his dramatic exit. Regulus’s actions didn’t just delay Voldemort’s defeat—they actively sabotaged the resistance.

But none of this matters. Fandom doesn’t love Regulus for his actions—it loves him for his aesthetic.

A brooding boy with tragic eyes, a flair for melodrama, and three vague lines of backstory ripe for fans to twist into epic sagas of angst and redemption—and to demand the rest of us bow down in worship of their self-styled martyr.

[blueskittlesart]

As someone who first played a friend's copy of Skyward Sword when it released with the Wiimote attachment, I can say that it was still a somewhat janky experience. Like, it didn't make me hate the game or anything, but I distinctly remember being like "yeah, as much as I love Zelda, I might just skip this one because I am not feeling the controls". And, I never ended up buying it

i really genuinely think it’s a tragedy that skyward swords control scheme was so difficult to use (and if you tell me it’s a skill issue i will kill you. we don’t have to lie through our teeth to feel superior towards other randos on the internet. it is bad. full stop.) because the game is genuinely really good otherwise. it’s got some really great dungeon design and some AMAZING bosses, its art direction is great, and its story is basically a love letter to the fans and the lore. there are so many really really amazing things about the game but the controls make it legitimately difficult to enjoy those things because there’s such a sharp learning curve to get past. i do understand the novelty of precise motion-tracked swordfighting, but the reality is that the tech was not ready. it could not reliably track the different movements quickly or accurately enough to be practical for the kind of real-time fast action combat that was built into the game, making a good 60% of the game frustrating at best and fully unplayable at worst. there are definitely places where the motion controls really shine—namely the sky map flying and certain motion-controlled dungeon items. i just wish they’d done a little more playtesting or taken a few steps back and assessed what their tech could ACTUALLY do instead of what they WANTED it to do bc i truly think that the game would be in most people’s top 3 if it wasn’t for the sheer inaccessibility of it when it first came out.

[devildom-moss]

Could you write poly dialuci asking a gn mc out? Maybe how each of them realizes the crush they have on mc and how they’d like to ask mc to join their relationships? I’m fine with just hcs or a full piece, whatever works best for you :>

I wrote you some headcanons, anon. Hopefully they are to your liking. They're a pretty common ship, but I think this is my first time writing anything for them. (Am I going to need a ship and threesome section in my masterlist soon?)

Poly!DiaLuci want MC to join them

(Lucifer x Diavolo x gn!MC)

(Slightly suggestive)

Word Count: +700

Diavolo, as the prince, is more guarded and inaccessible than Lucifer, so it takes him longer to be completely smitten. This works out better because Lucifer would be more prone to jealousy than Diavolo – or, at least, Lucifer's jealousy is more petty and bitter than Diavolo’s.

Lucifer develops feelings through a series of kind acts. Seeing MC take care of his brothers is the first step; someone who treats his brothers well is a prerequisite. As much as he likes to act all tough, and despite how he scolds them for spoiling his brothers and encouraging their poor behavior, he’s actually endeared by it. When they extend that kindness to him afterwards, his heart begins to melt.

Lucifer falls first, but he doesn’t act on it in earnest. (He might flirt and tease a little bit, but he doesn’t truly make an attempt to seduce them.) Diavolo notices, but instead of being jealous, he’s just intrigued. He wants to get to know MC more. Anyone who can capture Lucifer’s attention has Diavolo’s interest.

Lucifer tries to play the long game with Diavolo, believing that it’s only a matter of time before his partner sees MC’s charm as well.

It doesn’t take long for MC to get to Diavolo once he becomes more receptive. Whenever they do something thoughtful, Diavolo melts instantly. It would be something simple, like bringing a limited-edition flavor pudding to Diavolo while he’s working. As chance would have it, there was only one left. Diavolo would offer a bite to MC, and despite Lucifer being in the same room, he would insist on feeding them.

MC’s smile was so sweet that Diavolo would offer another bite, but MC would refuse because they got it for Diavolo. He should eat the rest. With that, MC would be on their way, leaving Diavolo to his pudding and work.

Lucifer saw the way Diavolo looked at MC and decides to confront him. Lucifer already understands how he feels about MC. Now is his chance to bring Diavolo onto his playing field. There was a quiet understanding that they were both crushing based on how they spoke about and looked at MC recently; Lucifer was just waiting for more tangible proof to bring up the topic. (And honestly, I think Diavolo would already be aware of Lucifer’s plan, so he chose to feed MC in front of Lucifer on purpose. He also just wanted to feed them, though.)

“You’re quite fond of them, aren’t you?” “I suppose I am. You can’t blame me, though, can you, Lucifer?” “We’re of the same mind. What should we do about this?”

They would hatch a plan to get MC alone and try to seduce them together. I imagine Lucifer would suggest that they invite them to tea or for a glass of Demonus – ideally at the castle for the sake of privacy. Lucifer just wants somewhere intimate where they could confess. (And let’s face it he’s horny on main. He wants to confess somewhere where they won’t be interrupted after the confession, either.)

Diavolo, on the other hand, would want to show off a bit more – take MC out and spoil them; he wants to prove that it’s a date before they can even confess. He’d want to take them somewhere fancy or beautiful: renting out an entire restaurant, paying for a private room at a club (which honestly gives me so many smut thoughts sorry), or even bringing them on a day trip if he can get the time.

They’re pretty upfront about it and quickly ask about MC’s feelings. “MC, we’ve brought you here today to discuss something in particular.” “How do you feel about us?”

Once they confirm MC’s feelings, they’ll confess properly. (Although, I don’t think they would invite MC on a date if they weren’t certain that MC would return their feelings beforehand.) “I see. Have you entertained any particularly naughty thoughts about us that you’d like to share, MC?” “Lucifer! Don’t tease them so soon. We should at least be honest first. MC, you’ve caught our attention. Neither of us is opposed to sharing if it means getting closer to you.” “Which is to say, if you’re interested, Diavolo and I are not so exclusive that you couldn’t join us: romantically. . . or sexually, if you’re inclined.”

Honestly, I think Diavolo would immediately put the moves on MC, asking them to come over and sit on his lap while they “get to know each other better.” Lucifer will pretend to be more composed, but he’s no better; he’s eager to get his hands on MC too.

A/N: There's only one more day left in to answer the December post poll. I also posted details about what I'll be doing for the 1 year anniversary of this blog. Check that out if you haven't already.

[mama-qwerty]

Understanding SCU Knuckles

Okay, one of the big things I keep seeing a lot of people bring up is the fact that movie!Knux talks about being a warrior all the time, and how different he is from other characterizations of Knuckles, specifically the games and comics. He doesn't seem to care about guarding the Master Emerald, and always seems ready to jump into things fist-first.

So I thought I'd do a deep dive into his psyche to see what truly makes him tick.

Buckle up, this'll get long.

Before I start, I wanna just put it out there that I headcanon the SCU is a separate universe from any other Sonic media. I actually take ALL Sonic media as separate universes--Boom is separate from Prime, which is separate from the SCU, which is separate from the games, which is more connected to but still separate from the comics. They're all different, which means the interpretation of the characters will be different too, to varying degrees.

The Knuckles of the SCU isn't like any other version. He wasn't born and raised all alone on Angel Island. He wasn't always the last of his kind. He wasn't essentially raised with the knowledge of what the Master Emerald truly is, and understood his role as its protector and guardian. He wasn't completely removed from what happened to all the other echidna, all those many years ago. He doesn't have the benefit of hindsight, to recognize that the warrior ways of the echidna were what ultimately led to their own demise.

Movie!Knux knew his tribe. He was raised by them. They were still in the middle of a war with the owls, so yes, they would still be warriors. That was what he strived for, too, because he's been raised on the stories of his people, with likely a heavy slant toward the "we did nothing wrong!" angle of what happened all those years ago. (And honestly, we don't have a completely unbiased story on what truly happened back then, so who knows what the actual truth is. But, anyway.)

He lost his tribe to that very same war. All of them. As a very small child. One who was then thrust into a dangerous galaxy, whether willingly or unwillingly, to figure out how to survive and try to complete the quest of his people. That was the only thing driving him, the only thing keeping him going. That quest.

So yes, being a warrior was, and is, a very important aspect of how he sees himself. That was his people's legacy--how they worked to retrieve the ME and regain the honor that had been stolen from them all those generations ago. Seeing this mindset through the eyes of a small child, he would accept that as being the way he should carry himself as well.

Movie!Knuckles has been living in survival mode for most of his life. He felt a tremendous amount of pressure to find the Master Emerald and complete the quest of his lost tribe. He was all that was left, it all fell to him, and failure meant his entire race died for nothing.

Fighting is what kept him alive. He didn't have the luxury of staying out of conflict, like game!Knux. He didn't have the advantage of being on a nearly inaccessible floating island, surrounded by harmless chao and flickies and other critters as he grew up. Movie!Knux was hunted and forced to fight in arenas for the entertainment of others. He fought, or he died. It was that simple.

And, it could be, over time the idea of what an echidna warrior was became warped in his head. He only had his memories of a young boy of about 6-ish to guide him as to what an echidna warrior stood for. Being out in the galaxy and having to fight for survival may have gotten the ideal of "being a warrior and fighting for a cause" confused with "everything requires a fight to solve".

He calls himself a warrior because he wants to keep his people's legacy alive. He wants to make his ancestors--his father--proud of him, by carrying on their tradition and honor.

He lived his life how he thinks they would have wanted, based on his memories as a child who lost everyone he loved.

He fought. He survived. He searched to complete that one quest that had plagued his people for generations. And when he finally, finally got his hands on the Master Emerald, he had this look:

This is not the look of a brave warrior, proud to have finally finished his quest.

This is not the look of a proud warrior, celebrating his victory after so many years.

This is the look of a boy, who'd lost everything he held dear, because of the pursuit of this little rock.

This is the look of a boy who thinks "Is that all? Is this truly what cost his entire tribe, his entire clan, his entire race, their lives? Was this rock truly worth the sacrifice made in its name for all those years?"

Maybe part of him hates the Master Emerald. Hates that the single focus his people had with it is what left him all alone. It was well hidden on Earth, tucked beneath the waves of a secret temple. The very second it was found, someone he trusted used it to cause great destruction and harm.

He had caused great destruction and harm in his own pursuit of it. However noble he believed his own goals were, he had behaved in ways he may be ashamed of now, all because of the belief that the Master Emerald belonged back in echidna hands, by any means necessary.

And now look.

The sacred temple, destroyed. Green Hills, partially destroyed. Sonic and his guardians, very nearly killed.

All because of this rock.

All because of him.

No one would have ever found the ME if he hadn't come looking for it. He nearly brought the same fate as his people unto the heads of who knows how many others.

All for this little rock.

Remember that the legend indicated that the Master Emerald was created from the chaos emeralds. The ME shattered, releasing the chaos emeralds that allowed Sonic to go Super. When Sonic released the chaos emeralds at the end of the fight, he scattered them throughout the world, and severed their connection to the ME in the process.

It's very possible no one really considers the Master Emerald to have any power itself. It was simply the container that held the smaller emeralds with all the power, and once they were released, the ME itself was simply a pile of crystal shards. Knuckles reformed the ME, but at this point, there's no reason to believe it holds any power at all.

When Knuckles fixes the ME, he doesn't say that the emerald itself is a threat to the safety of the universe. He doesn't say they needed to band together to prevent others from using the emerald's power to cause harm. He says they needed to use their power to keep the universe safe. This is a very vague statement, and does not indicate to me that he's looking at this as a "This emerald is a danger, we must keep it out of evil hands at all costs."

At no point in the series did Knuckles make any mention of the Master Emerald as a source of great power. (At least I don't think he did.) He simply said he had sworn his life to protect it. It's possible he looks at it as simply a totem of his people, a reminder of their fall. A sacred relic that is tied so firmly to his people's history, he feels responsible for keeping it safe and well-guarded. His people all died going after this thing, so he will honor their deaths by keeping it near.

So it's not surprising movie!Knuckles isn't all about guarding the ME and never letting it out of his sight. It's a dead rock, one that holds no power at all. An heirloom that carries his tribe's history, and that's all.

The series picks up very shortly after the second movie, so Knuckles is still leaning really hard into his warrior status. It's all he knows, it's what will keep his people alive in his own heart. Just because he's not constantly on the run anymore doesn't mean he can simply stop doing what's essentially ingrained in him at this point.

He's spent his whole life on the move. Training, fighting, questing. He's a work dog who can't adjust to life as an indoor companion pooch. He needs something to do.

He's a warrior, and a warrior doesn't just relax. So he's not gonna just sit around and make his entire life revolve around the Master Emerald.

Yet.

Keep in mind that we haven't seen the entire story of the SCU yet. Just because he's still leaning into the warrior thing now doesn't mean he always will. It doesn't mean he won't have some epiphany or vision or just a change of heart after some time in the Wachowski's care, and realize that being a warrior maaaybe isn't the best path for him at this point. That maybe that part of his life is done, and although he'll still need to fight when necessary, he is free to pursue other interests now. That he doesn't have to live his life according to what his people would want or deem appropriate.

I don't believe he's actually grieved for his loss yet. Not fully. I think a part of him always felt like an open wound because the ME was still out there, still tainting the memory of his people. And now that he has it, and is on a planet that allows him to feel safe, he'll be able to work through those emotions. Work through that grief and maybe discover who he is, apart from his people and their legacy.

The fundamental aspects of what makes Knuckles who he is is still within movie!Knux. In the series he told Wade that he had been betrayed over and over and over again, which indicates that even though he was in a rough and dangerous galaxy, he tried to trust others. He tried to make friends. But each time he did, they betrayed him. But that didn't stop him from trying again.

We saw glimpses of a different Knuckles in the series. One who opened up to others. One who cared about others. One who acted like the boy he was, instead of the hardened warrior he thought of himself as.

Movie!Knuckles needs time to figure out who he is now that his quest is over. Change doesn't happen overnight, and given his backstory, it makes sense for him to still hold onto that warrior title with both fists. He's an echidna, the last echidna, and he doesn't want to turn his back on what he remembers his people to have been.

I'm eager to see how he'll behave in the 3rd movie.

[super-paper]

I know you were pretty checked out already by this point, but what were your thoughts on Deku’s conclusion in the last chapter?

Some good ideas, but even the good aspects of his conclusion sadly feel bogged down by poor execution/characterization + literally everything that led up to the final chapter.

I do think Izuku becoming a teacher was probably the most fitting ending for his character as a whole, but tbh, I would have taken it a step further and had him become an elementary school/middle school teacher rather than a teacher at UA.

That is to say: Izuku working at UA-- a highly exclusive school that only accepts "the best of the best" and children who are already on track to becoming heroes-- sadly makes him inaccessible to the type of students who need him most, I feel? His chance meeting with Dai only reinforces that tbh. If that child hadn't tripped or if Izuku hadn't happened to be right there, Dai would would still be feeling miserable and discouraged because no one in his class bothered to stand up for him-- Not even his own teacher. Like I understand the purpose of the scene (to parallel Toshi's first meeting with Izuku and show that Izuku is now inspiring others to be heroes in the same way) but that doesn't stop it from feeling more manipulative than truly heartfelt imho, bc Dai's existence only highlights the issues still deeply ingrained in hero society rather than inspiring any sort of hope for its future lmfao.

Anyway! Back to teacher Izuku-- I do love the idea of Izuku becoming someone who would have helped his child self! (and who could've possibly stepped in to help children like Tenko, Himiko, and Touya) (Honestly, kindergarten teacher Izuku is also a possibility that makes me go 👀👀👀). But again, him teaching at UA specifically kind of undermines the idea of him becoming hero for children like himself (or tenko/himiko/touya/etc). I think that the scene with Dai could have worked a lot better (or at least felt more emotionally genuine) with Izuku as his actual teacher, maybe?

I also think Izuku as a kindergarten/elementary school/middle school teacher (or any sort of educator outside of a hero course, really truly #beatingthatdeadhorse) would have eased the sting from how deeply and terribly the finale fumbled his dynamic with Tenko, too— Izuku actually reflecting on how AFO completely abused his position as Tenko's "teacher," and then resolving to become the sort of teacher that Tenko needed.... Izuku using what he learned from Tenko’s past to better identify abused children and using his new position/power in society to advocate for them/get them out of those situations early.... framing it this way would have really sold the “I’ll never forget him” promise, bc as it stands now, that promise ultimately just comes across as more hollow lip service from Izuku. ☠️

As for Iron Deku... if I'm being honest, it just doesn’t hit the same way for me as Iron Might did? Like I've gone into detail on why Iron Might works for me before both here and on twitter:

Iron Might worked for me because it was ultimately used as a vehicle to tell/complete Toshi's story and helped tie together the underlying themes that connected him to Tenko and AFO's arcs. Like it might not have been perfectly implemented bc Hori decided to make it an 11th hour surprise for the sake of building hype/suspense in the readers, but this combination of factors still made Iron Might work for me. Iron Might itself was not the answer to "can someone w/o a quirk be a hero like you?," Toshi's willingness to act when no one else was able to was the answer. He retains his heroic shading even after the armor is stripped away and after he's left entirely at AFO's mercy.

At the same time/Conversely.... I feel like "Iron Deku" just muddies the overall message of the series in the end:

Again, Toshinori's answer to "Can someone without a quirk be a hero like you" wasn't Iron Might-- It was "Yes, because you always work hard and never give up on your dreams/because you're someone who could never let his dream die."

......... only for Izuku to more or less let said dream die after losing his quirk. Like????? (like, another big problem with heroaca's tone is that it keeps trying to prop Izuku up as "someone who never gives up" when he does, in fact, end up giving up in some fairly big ways with some fairly big consequences-- Like, even though the series tries to skirt around saying it outright, Izuku did ultimately give up on saving Tenko and chose to treat him as collateral to AFO. Like... it's okay to have your protagonist get discouraged/give up, but in cases like this, I expect the narrative to actually acknowledge it as such instead of trying to convince the reader otherwise. Attempting to gloss over Izuku's failure with sugary-sweet platitudes after the series spent 400+ chapters deriding platitudes and defining actual true saving as "saving their their hearts and their lives" is the type of shit that results in a complete breakdown of trust between the author/reader.)

At any rate, yeah. Izuku's conclusion had a few good ideas that were sadly weighed down by poor/rushed execution and mixed/unclear messaging-- and sadly, the epilogue/final chapter did nothing to fix the huge problems with his character writing throughout the entirety of Act 3. It's a shame bc Act 1 & 2 (and even early Act 3) Izuku really was one of my favorite characters, but at some point his writing took a complete nose dive that Hori sadly wasn't able to pull out of. :/

[lurafita]

Inspired by No Way Home, Alec’s deal with asmodeus is instead that Magnus will get his magic and his immortality back but in exchange Alec Lightwood will be wiped from Everyone’s memory.

Bonus if Alec is made immortal in this, to suffer eternity as a stranger.

I’m just not sure how we get back to Malec or if they have to meet again.

Or if we say that just like the books, Ragnor hid in a pocket universe and when he comes back his phone has messages from Magnus pining for an Alec Lightwood perhaps with an image attached?

To be honest, I'm in favor of most things that change the "Break his heart for his own good" plot. (I believe I have posted here already why I hate it so much, so I won't bore you with it again. XD )

Immortal Alec is always a goal for me, because I need immortal Malec, because I cannot stand the thought of Magnus having to lose yet another person he loved so much.

And the memory wipe thing, I mean, I may be a little too blazé about this, but I don't think that needs to be such a bad thing. (though my personal dislike for big drama plays into this, so I'm probably just gonna think in far too simplified terms about this)

But, I mean, come on. It's not like Alec was blissfully happy with his lot in life, right? Magnus and his siblings, as I see it, were the only things he truly cherished. And with them, he can simply rebuild his relationship. Maybe not to what it was before where his siblings are concerned, but still something good. And with Magnus, he can strive to be even better.

And the immortality thing, maybe, since wiping Alec from everyon's memory is such a big scale operation, since it also invovles rewriting the memories of all those involved to make things make sense without Alec being a factor in all that had happened. Maybe that means that there is a balance kinda thing, where mortal Alec cannot exist where the memory of him doesn't exist. So his being needs to be made into something different. And so Alec becomes ... I don't know, an unseelie, or a dark fae, or a warlock, or a vampire, or whatever else is immortal, or maybe some kind of higher demon. With his own memories intact, but inaccessible to anyone else.

And then he can meet the group after that, while they are out closing a rift or whatever, and help them. Make a whole new entrance for himself. Start out as an ally, and then get absorbed into the group again.

Or meet Magnus first. Who would most likely still be single and having had his heart closed off for centuries. Meet him on more even footing, under better circumstances (like, not right after Magnus had lost some of his warlock friends to the circle members. I can't believe the show just hand waved that away. An apartment full of traumatized people who had just been attacked by murderous fanatics, but the shadowhunters needs came first, of course...)

Anyway, I think a setup like this could be made to do something really neat, without having to wade through too much drama.

Many thanks for this message. This is really fun to think about.

Hope the driver's liscence thing all works out. Though anything that has to do with departmental work usually takes way longer than it shouuld ..

[heyftinally]

Okay, I almost ranted about this on a reblog, but it can (and probably should) be it's own post.

Fiction effects reality and fiction does not effect reality are BOTH true.

Yes, I'm going to elaborate in the most unedited, covid-fueled rant I can, as tumblr intended. Hold on to your butts, grab a soda, and strap in.

First and foremost, I need all of the piss on the poor readers to stop their feral response typing - READ what I'm ACTUALLY SAYING before you start bitching about what you're pretending I said. Got it? Good.

This is going to involve nuance. Yes, I know, this website is allergic to nuance. Pop a Benadryl, you'll be okay.

Now, for real:

Fiction DOES effect reality BUT

Only in subtle ways. Absolutely nobody is going from your average normal Sarah to a cold blooded mass murderer because they played silent hill or something. People who become murderers always have some other motive, usually long term and/or severe (ie years of abuse, victim of trafficking, untreated psychological disorder usually paired with abuse, etc).

When I say fiction influences reality, I mean kids who grew up hearing Disney's Pocahontas say "you think the only people who are people are the people who look and think like you, but if you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew you never knew" are more likely to be accepting of diversity than the kids who exclusively grew up on South Park and Family Guy.

I mean reading stories of real people's struggles with disabilities not being accommodated will make you more likely to notice inaccessibility in your daily life, and make you more likely to be accommodating to those who need it.

I mean reading about how a character was skeptical of or easily misled about something via the media can make you more critical of what you read.

Fiction effects reality because if you only consume one kind of media, we assume that's the only way things are. If we consume a vast array of media, we learn to explore different possibilities.

Fiction does NOT effect reality IN THE WAY THAT

Reading a fanfic (or even a published novel) with dubious themes is inherently going to normalize those themes in your reality.

Millions of people watched Hannibal, but cannibalism didn't surge.

Lolita is a rather famous novel, yet I've never heard of it being the sole reason someone suddenly condoned pedophilia out of nowhere.

Horror movies do not routinely make people murderers.

Fiction is not enough to make someone completely change their morals.

So where is the line?

Exactly where your critical thinking ends.

Because yes, there are people who watch shows like South Park and Family Guy and take the crass, bigoted, and otherwise truly vile jokes at face value, and find the humor in that. There are also people who watch it and see the jokes as hyperbole emphasizing just how terrible the people in the show are. Yes, some of this also has to do with the show writers, but again - your critical thinking is what tells you "is this show promoting being racist, or is it showing this character as racist to drive home what an absolute shitbag they are?"

The other aspect is your personal moral compass and ability to adapt.

Yes, I'm talking about echo chambers.

If you can NEVER accept being wrong, or if you refuse to change your mind on a specific topic (again, like racism), so instead of adapting you seek out people who are more likely to agree with you, you may find yourself starting to agree with other viewpoints that previously you wouldn't have.

And this can be good OR bad - if being friends with someone who agrees with you that racism is wrong, they may influence you to also start believing homophobia is wrong, and that's a good thing! But the reverse can also happen, and that's bad.

But media alone didn't do that - it was one of MANY contributing factors, including race, religion, disability (or lack thereof), income, how you were raised, where you live, and more.

So whenever I see people talking about "pro-ship" and "anti-proship", all I can think is

Shipping is only one tiny thing that media can influence you on - why is shipping your sticking point, but not murder?

You aren't capable or willing of engaging with the media you consume in EITHER direction.

Being anti/proship is irrelevant. If anything you're just telling me whether or not toxic purity culture is part of your specific flavor of media illiteracy. It means nothing of substance.

Instead of worrying about who ships what, worry about how your views and actions shape how you percieve and impact those around you.