#but she ends up being a plot device with no real character

[paradiscake]

Re-expreincing RE7 and RE8 is WILD, mainly because of Mia Winters. What do you mean she aided in building a bioweapon, kept valuable info on Miranda and her cult to herself for four years (which is how Miranda targeted them easily in the first place), kept lying to her husband and their protectors, betrays both sides...and literally faces no consequences? No punishment from either side? No trial or jailtime for committing literal crimes? Not even a mild show of remorse that her actions, lies and manipulations caused this?

What was Capcom on when writing her character...was she supposed to be a villain but the writers forgot? Was she supposes to be a good person who makes mistakes but the writers forgot the part where she shows regrets?

Imagine if Ada Wong was caught by BSAA but then they just give her cookies and tea.

[bringthekaos]

I'm excited for your thoughts on the new season if/when you share them

It has legit taken me 3 days to come to terms with Act 1. Enough to be able to speak about it. Gunna apologize in advance for the wall of text, and I’m hiding it under a break for spoiler reasons. Also prefacing with these are all just my opinions. All are free to disagree with me and RB with discussions/theories etc. just don’t be a dick about it, I’m not engaging in any discourse.

Ok. So. I have mixed feelings, and I’m aware that this is because I don’t have the whole story yet. So this is all contingent on how the rest of the season plays out.

First and foremost, I’m… wildly swinging back and forth between love and disappointment for Viktor’s arc. So first the negative, and I’ll try to keep it brief because a lot of people have already expressed this and I don’t need to be beating that particular dead horse.

Viktor has had his agency, his bodily autonomy, his original ideas and nearly everything that made him Viktor stripped away. Nothing so far has been his choice. And while this could have worked just fine for an original character, he wasn’t. So there is a massive disconnect between what this character was/should have been. In League, it was all his choice (albeit with a healthy dose of mental illness thrown in, but still). AND it was very heavily suggested that many of the augmentations he performed weren’t as extensive as he lead everyone to believe (namely the controlling/dousing of his emotions). But it appears that whatever the Hexcore did to him, it’s real. He is clearly having a difficult time accessing his emotions, and if he can feel anything, it is limited to the point of him being completely stoic. And the thing with stoic characters is that you obliterate any emotional payoff for the audience. It’s very hard to make an audience feel an emotional connection to a character’s story arc when they themselves don’t feel anything (I have a theory about this though, but I’ll address it a little later in this post). And then there is the issue of Blitzcrank. Blitz was Viktor’s whole world, after his exile. How are they going to swing that? Like, I’m not even asking for Blitz to be in Arcane (that would be great, but I really don’t think they have time). But I stg if they take Blitz away from Viktor, make them someone else’s invention (my suspicion is Heimer or he finds the idea in Sky’s journal)… I’m sorry but no. This was Viktor’s idea, Viktor’s genius. I will genuinely be extremely upset if they take that from him too.

Then there is the whole situation with Sky. First, this girl was fridged. She was nothing but a plot device and continues to be just that. It feels hollow and forced, especially now that he’s hallucinating her as some sort of penance for what he did. (I have seen the prevalent theory that it’s the Hexcore using her image and his guilt to manipulate him, given that it “ate” her, and we have seen it “manipulate” him before when it punished him for trying to destroy it). But back to Sky—he barely acknowledged that poor girl. The reason for that can be argued, whether it’s because he’s gay or because he was just so wrapped up in his one-track minded research. But regardless, there just wasn’t enough setup between those two for this whole thing to have as much weight and meaning as I think it’s supposed to. Honestly to me (TO ME) it reeks of comphet. It feels like that random woman they threw at Poe Dameron to No Homo him. I’m not even asking for Jayvik canon. But the creators were well aware of this ship, after all it’s the second most popular ship in this show and it’s been around since 2012 when Jayce was literally created for Viktor. I’m asking for the bare minimum here—that it’s left open-ended as it was in League, open for interpretation.

Last negative I have is the whole Viktor Jesus thing. The first problem is I am pretty violently agnostic, and messiah narratives have never spoken to me. I don’t enjoy them, they feel weak. The whole “ordained by a higher power” thing is just… stale. Especially when this character originally had no higher power, he gave it to himself through his own hard work and ingenuity. Honestly, Viktor’s original arc is about as far from a Jesus allegory as you can possibly get. And I am absolutely terrified that they’re going to end said Jesus arc the way you’d expect—with him dying for it. Which leaves the moral of his story “disabled man should have just accepted that he was going to die despite the fact that it was the oppression and xenophobia of Piltover that left him out to dry, without proper health care, accessibility, equality, or equity that lead to his terminal diagnosis to begin with.” Which is a very oppressor-centric narrative and we do not need another one of those.

Sorry, I know I said I’d keep the negatives brief, and that was… not. My bad. But moving on!

I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it, I did. I am working to embrace this new Viktor narrative and work it into my brain in a way that doesn’t ruin the ship for me. So without further ado, the positives.

Jayce.

Jayce.

Jayce.

I’d have to go back and time it, but it feels like he got more screen time in this first act than the entirety of the first season combined, and his character shined for it. It humanized him in ways season one never did. He’s caring, he’s devoted, and he loved Viktor! No matter what kind of love you think it is, it proves he loved Viktor without a doubt. He carried Viktor several city blocks to the lab to save him, and then YES, he broke his promise about the Hexcore because he couldn’t stand the thought of losing him!

And he’s funny! (The scene where he picks up the regular sized hammer in the fight against Renni and made that “this is ironic” face?? And then basically the entire interaction with Ekko? The hand me a tome thing, and then when he basically pulled this when Ekko suggested “so this is all your fault cuz you pissed off the Arcane”:

GOD that shit was great. Jayce’s personality just shined, and maybe it’s too much to hope, but maybe this will douse a little of the hate. Because instead of being a subtle hint at all of those things being true about him, it’s now overt. And when people lack media literacy, the hints have to be overt.

And th-the. The h. The HUG SCENE. I don’t think I will ever emotionally recover from that scene. Starting with Viktor who, despite being clearly emotionally—I dunno, vacant I guess—sounded so lost and scared when he said “what am I?” For me, it was whispers of that scene from The Last Unicorn: “what have you done to me?” And my poor sweet Jayce, who clearly hasn’t left this damn lab except to go to Cassandra’s memorial. Sleeping on the desk and bleeding through his bandages because he doesn’t want to spend a moment away from Viktor while he “recovers.” And his euphoric response when he finds Viktor alive, when he realizes he hasn’t lost him. And I OWE HIM AN APOLOGY, goddamn. I said in a post that “Jayce will not understand.” I thought that was how Arcane was gunna start the divorce. But Jayce genuinely did not care, as long as his lover friend was alive. And just… Jayce being so affectionate through this entire scene. The hug obviously, but also blurting things he thought he’d never get to say to Viktor—“I’m resigning from the council, my place was always here in the lab with you.”

And… the hug itself. I know we’re all analyzing it frame by goddamn frame, but I see exactly what everyone else sees—there is a moment where Viktor very subtly smiles. But it’s gone in an instant, and it turns bittersweet. LOOK AT HIM.

There is something there, it’s just buried. Deep beneath the surface. It seems to say “I want this, I have wanted this for so long.” But then he realizes something, something I don’t think we’re meant to understand yet. Maybe that he doesn’t feel anything about it anymore, and he recognizes that this should upset him and it doesn’t. Or perhaps it’s something more along the lines of “it’s too late.” Whatever it is, I think this is the exact moment he knows he has to walk away. Because he knows he’ll cave to the affection, he said it himself. (Which is another thing entirely. His voice changes when he says that. Something in him is reacting to that word. Maybe he’s fighting against it, or maybe he’s fighting to get it back. But something made him almost growl that word.)

Which leads me to my final thought (for this post anyway, cuz it’s turning into a novel); Viktor is still in there. He can still feel things, I just think they’re extremely muted by whatever the Hexcore did/continues to do to him, or he has to fight to express them. Because he also smiled at the hallucination of Sky after he “cured” Huck. And if he feels nothing, he wouldn’t have been “joyous” at the thought of her being proud of him, approving of the good things he’s trying to do in her memory. He wouldn’t crave that validation, that vindication from her. So I’m hopeful that we start to see this shell crack a little, especially if those visions of Sky are the Hexcore manipulating him through guilt. It will start to erode him, no matter how stoic he has become. And literally the only thing I’m clinging to is that Jayce will see this and try to pull him out. “He’s still in there and I have to save him.” And that maybe it’ll start to work.

[honeyflashbang]

My theory on Sampo's true identity...

(Minor Spoilers for 2.4) (also, I’m no expert in… anything, really, but these are just my ramblings).

So, this has probably been mentioned before, but I have a teeny-tiny theory about Sampo’s true identity, and it relates to Finnish mythology.

So, “Sampo” in and of itself doesn’t have a set meaning, but it has its roots in Finnish mythology, particularly the “Kalevala” which is a 19th-century compilation of epic poetry. In it, a blacksmith god by the name of Seppo Ilmari(nen) forges the mythical device known as “The Sampo”. It’s never quite explained what The Sampo really is; some versions depict it as a mill, others as a cornucopia from which bountiful creations flow from, and some even have it as being a world tree/world pillar, so what The Sampo really is, isn’t entirely known. But, what is known, is that it brought riches and good fortune to its holder (again, the same as the cornucopia from Greek mythology).

But why am I mentioning all of this? Why bring up the Kalevala? It could be that Hoyo just chose the name “Sampo” for some flavour—befitting of a character who magics up relics from seemingly thin air and is trying to create riches—and yeah, it’s a possibility…

Until I saw these two screenshots from the 2.4 story:

You know what this means, right? 

Kalevala is a real planet in Hoyo’s Star Rail universe, and I find it awfully coincidental that they would use this name for a planet and not have it related to a certain blue haired conman, especially since The Sampo is such a pivotal element in the plot of the Kalevala—there is no way this is a coincidence (I refuse to believe it).

This leads me to believe that Kalevala is Sampo’s real home world, and is where he originates from.

Now, this is all well and good, knowing where “The Sampo” hails from, but I want to focus on its creator—Seppo Ilmari(nen)—and his parallels to a certain blue haired conman. For one, Ilmari(nen)’s name is quite interesting as the ‘Ilma’ part is Finnish for ‘air’ or ‘weather’, and as we know, Sampo’s element is that of ‘wind’ (And also the fact that Ilmari(nen) is credited as “Godlike smith-hero and creator of the sky”. I could go into a whole spiel about Ilmari(nen) and Qlipoth swinging their giant hammers in tandem together for all eternity (Go Sampard! Geppie is Qlipoth's true heir, you can't convince me otherwise!), but that’s for another conspiracy theory lol).

So, ‘Ilma’ means ‘air’, and Sampo wields ‘wind’.

Cool.

If the parallels ended there, I’d just say I was being crazy… but there’s more.

Sampo’s 4th (and arguably best) eidolon is called “The Deeper the Love, the Stronger the Hate”. Two out of his six eidolons refer to 'love', whilst the other 4 are to do with wealth and riches. The wealth and richest aspect leans towards The Sampo of mythology, whilst the ‘love’ aspect, well…

According to the story, Seppo Ilmari(nen) is the unluckiest bastard alive when it comes to love. Like, seriously. His whole storyline is that he can’t find a woman. For one, Seppo Ilmari(nen) is double crossed by his so called buddy, Väinämöinen, into creating The Sampo for the evil witch Louhi of Pohjola in exchange for her daughter’s hand in marriage (which, Ilmari didn’t even want in the beginning), but when the poor guy actually sees the daughter and falls in love with her (and subsequently creates the Sampo—after failing miserably a number of times, mind you—he creates a crossbow, a boat, a cow(wtf?) and a plough, all which are somehow either evil or flawed), she ups and just leaves him hanging! (in the original runes, however, he is successful in gaining a wife, as his ‘unlucky in love’ spiel was later added by Lönnrot in compiling the Kalevala).

As with any mythology and re-telling of it, there’s so many different versions of the same event. In “The Maiden of the North”, a 1898 opera written by Oskar Merikanto, both Ilmarinen and Väinämöinen compete for the chance to marry Louhi’s daughter, who is then mentioned as being “Ilmari(nen)’s first wife” and who later dies to Kullervo’s curse (apparently she was a bit of a bitch to Kullervo by taunting and tormenting the poor boy—who was a child slave mind you!). Distraught, Ilmari(nen) forges himself a wife of gold and silver, but he finds her to be too cold and callous—he forges her out of love but only finds hate—so he tries to gift her to Väinämöinen (who doesn’t want her either, lol), and suggests he cast her back into the furnace and to “forge from her a thousand trinkets”.

Here’s the accompanying poem:

Never, youths, however wretched,

Nor in future, upgrown heroes,

Whether you have large possessions,

Or are poor in your possessions,

In the course of all your lifetime,

While the golden moon is shining,

May you woo a golden woman,

Or distress yourselves for silver,

For the gleam of gold is freezing,

Only frost is breathed by silver.

It is apparently your standard Aesop’s fable of “money can’t buy happiness”, which is something else I see in our dear old Sampo Koski. During our time in Belobog, we see how different he acts with the Underworld and Overworlders. To the poor, he actually seems approachable (albeit a bit of a nuisance), going so far as to help the Underworlders (an example being the questline “Survival Wisdom” in which he and Peak set up a business together renting out his tools to help the miners make a decent wage to support their families). In contrast, we actively see Sampo being very hostile towards the Overworlders, scamming them and putting the nobles in their place or setting them up to be caught by the Silvermane Guards (an example being during the museum questline where you discover his identity as “Mr Cold Feet”. Sampo clearly states to who he thinks is his mark that ‘we are not friends’ in a very hostile manner, something which we’ve not seen from Sampo before as he is usually quite amicable). 

For all Sampo’s showboating and flashing his money around, he helps where it counts. He wants to make money, sure, but not at the detriment of the people who need it the most, only to those with excess.

Anyway, back to him being unlucky in love…

In another rune entitled “Kosinta”, Ilmari(nen) goes on a journey to compete for Hiisi’s daughter, and wins by completing various feats, one of them being “ploughing a field full of snakes”:

And as we know, Sampo is very heavy on the snake motifs (the head of the snake on his shoulders, the spine wrapped around him, the daggers are its fangs…etc.)

So that’s another interesting link between Seppo Ilmari(nen) and Sampo Koski.

So, why have I gone on this long winded tangent about Seppo Ilmari(nen) when I’m supposed to be talking about Sampo Koski?

Well, that’s because I think Sampo Koski’s real name is (or a variant of) Ilmarinen.

In the Hoyo universe, I believe Ilmarinen came from the planet Kalevala and ‘created’ the persona of Sampo Koski, much like how in the Kalevala, Seppo Ilmari(nen) forged The Sampo.

As I’ve listed above, there’s so many links between the two:

“Air” as a name and “Wind” as an element.

Seppo Ilmari(nen) ploughed a field of snakes to win Hiisi’s daughter’s hand in marriage, whilst Sampo Koski relies heavily on snake motifs for his attire.

Sampo’s two eidolon names that relate to love (which are completely different from the other 4 eidolon names), whilst Seppo Ilmari(nen) is known to be unlucky in love.

I’m pretty damn sure Sampo creates his own bombs and tinkers with the old relics to bring them back to life, whereas Seppo Ilmari(nen) is a smith who created the dome of the sky! They’re both artificers!

And now the revelation that a planet by the name of “Kalevala” exists is no mere coincidence.

So, either Sampo is Ilmari(nen) - or! - Sampo is a puppet (like Herta) created by someone called Ilmari(nen). 

(I would love if his 5* version is him with this name).

Right, I’m finished rambling. Gonna go huff some copium...

[leavesdriftinginthewind]

I think what pisses me off most about the Wednesday fandom is that so many are intentionally ignoring the fact that Tyler is MEANT to be a tragic character because he is a Hyde. We basically have it beaten over our heads that Hydes are the outcasts of outcasts, deemed too difficult to help, and therefore abandoned and left to their own devices, basically giving them no way to NOT be tortured into being someone’s slave or ultimately having something tragic or awful happen to them that forces out their Hyde and leaving them to become a monster and/or get killed.

So many people blame Tyler for every bad thing that happened in this first season when he LITERALLY had no option but to do exactly as Laurel wished. He was TOLD to go murder the people he murdered, he was TOLD to get Wednesday to trust him, he was TOLD to go after Eugene, he had no CHOICE but to obey, it’s literally in the show’s lore. And we are both told AND shown what lengths Laurel went to to literally torture this teenage boy into becoming a monster that was FORCED to obey her. Not only that, but all that “mama” talk and physical touch is gag-worthy. SHE is the true monster who wanted everyone dead, and she ruined that boy’s life to try and get what she wanted. And the show INTENTIONALLY shows AND tells you all that.

We are SHOWN how Tyler was chained, beaten, poisoned to bring the Hyde out, to become Laurel’s perfect slave. And still so many see HIM as the “true villain,” stating that if he was truly “good” he never would’ve done all he did. Meanwhile the lore has TOLD you, Hydes have no choice. But WAY too many disregard this plot point entirely simply because they see it as something to cling to for their preferred ship to happen. That’s infuriating to me, truly. Not only from a standpoint of really loving Tyler as a character, but also from a standpoint of it being apparent to ME of where the story is going, and knowing that so much of the fandom is gonna be pissed off about it because it’s Tyler-centric.

We are given so much information about “Hydes have been banned from Nevermore for 30 years,” “Faulkner was studying Hydes but he died before he could finish his research,” “nobody knows for sure if, once unlocked, Hydes are only monsters or if the person they were is still in there.” Between all this within the narrative itself and Hunter talking about how he’s excited to explore the duality of the Real Tyler versus the Hyde next season, I think it’s obvious that Wednesday and Tyler are basically going to get to the bottom of this “are Hydes all 100% bad and dangerous” problem themselves, and the result of their research will probably get Hydes accepted back into Nevermore.

Wednesday already knows how unjust the whole system is, she mentions it FREQUENTLY in the first season. Once she gets past feeling betrayed by what happened in season one, it’s likely going to weigh on her that someone she cared about deeply enough to bring her walls down for, to actually seek out to KISS, was so hurt by this system that he ended up doing all he did. And Tyler is inevitably returning, the writers have talked about how we’re going to learn more about Tyler and explore his true feelings for Wednesday. They’ll be brought back together, no doubt. And thus, the deep dive on Hydes will probably begin.

I don’t care what you ship, I don’t even care if you really LIKE Tyler as a character, but I DO care that so many have made him out to be a pure villain simply because that suits their own personal narrative better, and makes them feel like it’s more likely their preferred ship will win the “war.” Like, try and WATCH a show, actually WATCH it, and not simply cling to bits and pieces that suit the storyline you’ve made up in your head. You’re SUPPOSED to hate LAUREL, you’re supposed to, at the very least, wonder if the Real Tyler is still in there, if he can be helped, and you are SUPPOSED to feel some pity for the boy who was forced into becoming an enslaved monster.

[artist-issues]

And another thing.

The original The Little Mermaid is about understanding. One of the main plot devices is that the witch takes what from Ariel, ladies and gentlemen?

Her voice.

Ariel did not leave the sea “for a boy.”

Ariel left the sea to be understood. Because for the whole first part of the movie, we’re shown hints of what her life is already like, and how she’s tried to be understood but nobody’s listening or communicating.

She’s introduced by describing a ship as amazing and wonderful, while her fish friend clearly does not understand and wants to get out of there.

Even her best friend doesn’t share her love for another world.

Her first interaction with her father, count how many times he’s speaking over her.

He has this prejudice against humans, and because she’s disobeyed him, he won’t listen to any of her evidence that they may not all be bad.

Even when she has a voice and a cavern full of proof that humans aren’t all barbarians, her father won’t listen to her, so he can’t understand.

And the truth is, she doesn’t have that much proof. She knows that humans are clever and make “wonderful things,” and that’s what she bases her belief in them on. But those beautiful objects, and her pretty ideals, are not enough to make her abandon her family and culture and world.

When she sings and talks about why she wants to be Part of That World, it’s because she wants to understand it. And, subconsciously, Ariel also hopes to be understood up there. Where they make cool devices, and maybe daughters can stand instead of being reprimanded. There’s this hope for freedom and being known associated with the surface.

But it’s not until she meets Eric that those ideals are really, actually, proven true.

Ariel sees Eric out on the sea exploring instead of staying in a palace on his birthday. He gets a gift from the closest person to him, and it’s clear that even the closest person to him doesn’t understand his tastes—he doesn’t want an over-dramatic statue of himself. He sticks to his ideals in an argument that somewhere out there, is the right girl for him. But he doesn’t have to leave the argument in frustrated tears. In the end, he risks his life to not only watch out for his friend, but nearly dies going back to a burning ship to save his dog.

Eric personifies everything Ariel has always idealized about the Human World—AND he might understand her.

In her one observation of him, she finds out that he, a human, is:

A Prince, but nobody can tell him what to do.

More interested in activity and exploration than palace ceremony.

Unable to relate to his closest companions.

Handsome—beautiful, not a savage.

Criticized for “silly, romantic notions” but sticks to the idea of something wonderful out there in the great beyond.

Brave, self-sacrificial, and compassionate to animals.

Eric is, all at once, everything Ariel always hoped a human could be, and yet still so like herself. They have twin souls.

She’d rather be exploring human ships, he’d rather be out exploring the sea. She believes the surface world is good and beautiful, he believes in the girl of his dreams, no matter what anyone says. She has nobody who gets excited about new adventures, and he has nobody who gets excited about new adventures.

When she sees him, she falls in love not just with his upstanding character, or even the human world he represents—she falls in love with the hope that he might understand her in away nobody under the sea does.

Then the ironic thing is, she’s got to make him understand who she is and what she should mean to him without a voice. And unfortunately, that’s really hard because he is suddenly associating his dream girl with a voice and a magical rescue.

As close as they may get when she finally does meet him face to face and gets herself human legs, Ariel and Eric can’t be together until he knows who she is, for real. After all, how can love be true without understanding?

And we’re not DONE with understanding. Because even after he learns what and who she is and still commits to her and saves her and loves her, Ariel’s back to having a tail. She’s back to being in a world where he can’t be.

Except now, Triton is the one who understands. He finally sees what they’ll do for each other—and that Eric, ”savage, spineless, harpooning fish eater with no regard” saved his daughter. He sees that they love each other and are each worthy of the other’s love.

It’s not until Triton understands what Ariel has known and felt all along that he gives her human legs the right way.

That’s the point of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. “True love is found in understanding and sacrificing for one another.”

Triton had the sacrificing idea down, but he didn’t have understanding. Eric had understanding, but he didn’t have the chance to sacrifice for it.

Ariel has both. She understands that Eric’s world is not only barbaric, but beautiful, and she’s willing to sacrifice her tail to be understood in that world.

That is what this movie is all about. And because they’re probably willing to sacrifice critical scenes, like the Prince saving the day (which is important because it provides Triton with a new understanding of humans) or the girl leaving the ocean to be with the boy (which is important because what she really wants is to be understood) the creators of the Live Action Little Mermaid are going to miss the point and ruin the movie.

[monabee-draws]

There are too many things to say about Act 3 but one truth is that Episode 7 is the best episode in the season. And I mean in terms of a complete, narrative arc in one episode. There are plenty of absolutely perfect scenes and moments in other episodes (Isha's scene in ep 6, Jayce and Viktor's final reconcilliation) but wow was 7 the best written episode overall.

The Ekko/Heimer plot:

- Explores the beauty of a world entirely uncorrupted by the Hextech dream because this Powder chose to close the power away in a drawer.

- We watch Heimerdinger see the fruit of what his work might have done if he didn't dig his head in the sand for decades. It is blissful inaction and lack of compassion that kills. It is the maintenance of the status quo by those who benefit from it that kills. It is the entire false dream of Piltover that kills. And it can be changed, but only if those in power recognise their own hubris.

- Heimerdinger's death foreshadow's Jayce and Viktor's as well. He chooses to 'evaporate' into the Arcane so that the younger generation can try again, and make up for his mistakes. His brand of scientific omniscia did not work, and neither will jayvik's.

- The sister's tragedy persists in every universe. Vi and Jinx never get to be together no matter how perfect things could have gone. Vander warns our Vi that the kids will always follow her lead, and its on her head if things go wrong. Their Vi paid that price for them. She saved Mylo, Claggor, Vander and Powder. But there will always be a loss somewhere. There is no perfect world.

- Powder/Jinx was never going to be happy staying in Zaun and always needed to be free beyond other people's wants for her/their protectiveness/the cycle of violence. This foreshadows her imagined conversation with Silco and her flight at the end of episode 9 (she's alive I'm sorry.)

- Ekko learns to reconcile his vision of freedom with the imperfect nature of his own world (a very necessary lesson for a time traveler), a realisation that also foreshadow's future Viktor's realisation that perfection isn't good actually.

-> overall, this half teaches us Jayce's lesson about the importance and beauty of imperfection, of freedom of will, and going beyond the will of others. It's a perfect microcosm of the story as a whole, and expertly sets up every other character's choices in the end. Not to mention the literal time travel device ends up saving the world. That small imperfection - "That device cannot be" - is what sets everyone free.

For Jayce's story:

- Se see that Viktor's beautiful commune was always a lie, and all of the people he 'healed' were already dead at his hands. Hextech was never going to save anybody. The dream was tainted from the beginning.

- Jayce's resillience and agency grow and recover beyond what we see of him in season 1. He takes real accountability for his actions for the first time. The sheer spread of the consequences contradicts Jayce's insistence that they thought of every countermeasure. This entire sequence destabilises his (and Viktor's) images as gifted scientists whose intellect is equivalent to omniscience. They too are blinded by the same folly of Piltover's elite - their superiority is finally and thoroughly challenged in an indisputable way.

- His injury and leg brace level him with Viktor in a way that is crucial visual language for their later reconcilliation and Jayce's speech about accepting flaws in the finale. The fact that it is his Hextech hammer that breaks his leg is even more important - more evidence of the corruption of their dream, and of violence not being the correct solution.

- The scope of the dead world needed to be explored for us to understand how bad of an apocalypse we risk facing such that Zaun and Piltover cooperating could even be conceivable despite Caitlyn and Ambessa's fascist campaigns tearing the cities apart. The audience needs to have that disbelief suspended, and those scenes achieve that. In-story the cooperation between cities is still unbelievable, but this episode succeeds at making it understandable from a meta-perspective. We know what lies beneath the mask.

-> Overall, this half reinforces the themes of glorious imperfection, but also helps better set the stage for the audience to suspend their disbelief later on. And, it very importantly reminds us that no one character in Arcane has ever or will ever be 'correct' about the best path to move forward. It must always be a collaborative effort, and when we forget that, we forget ourselves, and we doom the world to a twisted vision.

[androgymess]

ARCANE SEASON 2 YAP FEST, SPOILERS season 2 is rushed, to no ones surprise since netflix put a gun to everyone's head for an early release, but that aside, i do personally enjoy reading between the lines of the show

the jesus (smtimes moses) and judas (ramses can apply too) depiction of viktor and jayce, ambessa's protectiveness over mel making some real sense now, amebessa's foreshadowed death and mel picking up the pieces in the intro etc etc, all good stuff

i LOVE this season dont get me wrong, but the speedrunning and time skips (esp when caitlyn goes through TWO ARCS, IN LIKE, SPLIT SECONDS?) i do fucking hope she has not forgiven jinx all willy nilly after becoming reincarnation of hitler for a good minute there

like PLEASEEE TAKE UR TIME, WE SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN A SEASON 3 MAN. or atleast let the writers cook up for another 3 years, i LOVED the current two arcs of season 2 but i mourn the lack of fucking dialogue? jayce and viktor barely talking is crazy to me?

relying on songs (which are bangers) to carry the emotional weight of your scenes, we have MORE fight scenes than dialogue between important characters, i loved s1 because the characters...talked, you could fill in the subtext there too, at some point s2's subtext was just me over-reading into every aspect of the show, isha is a plot device at the end of the day, the noxian storyline didn't have enough time to stand on its legs, idk, show me more scenes with caitlyn going further unhinged and drowning in mourning that causes more death to people

plus the black rose stuff is...idk? introduced too quickly, that is one of the main problems with the show, it expects people to get emotionally attached to certain things or characters and neglects alot of its core cast in favor of progression

but when the plot starts progressing without your characters, it makes me as a viewer also lag behind. before anyone comes for my neck, like i said i LOVE seasons 2, i love it enough to be critical of its shortcomings in my humble nobody opinion, i loved not being spoonfed and babied by the show. i can even look past the pacing issues, but the plot devices we got this season is crazy, one offs, first draft storylines as one of my friends said, but eh, better we get arcane than have netflix cancel it.

to wrap this up, they are gonna explore more league storylines, probably in the works already so that is something to look forward to

[sophieinwonderland]

The Plurality of... The Exorcist

Trigger Warning: Discussions of real life torture and child murder.

I'm going to tell you something horrifying.

Something to fill you with dread.

Someone you love isn't who you think they are. They have others hiding inside them. There is something else there who takes over their body. An other.

And this other could be dangerous. They can look like the person you know, they can control them, they can lie and pretend to be them.

This is the horror of The Exorcist. This is the horror of... plurality!

The Exorcist

For those who don't know what The Exorcist is, let me first welcome you out of the fallout shelter you've been hiding in for the past 50 years. Turns out, the world wasn't destroyed by nuclear war and everything is okay! 👍

The Exorcist is one of the most iconic and influential horror movies in history. Even if you haven't seen it, you've probably picked up the general idea of what it's about from pop culture.

This classic horror movie centers around a girl named Regan who becomes possessed by a demonic entity.

She communicates with this entity first through a Ouija board. It's later implied that she might have some sort of internal communication with it as well but this isn't elaborated on much at all.

Regan isn't the main character of the story. This isn't a story about the horror of being possessed by a demon. It's a story about the horror of having your daughter possessed by a demon, and of being the exorcist whose faith is tested by the demonic spirit.

A good example of this is an infamous scene where the possessed Regan is seen... let's say "impaling" herself with a cross, saying "let Jesus fuck you," while covered in blood. This is most iconic for the way she twists her head 180. This scene is shown from the perspective of the mother, depicting how horrifying of a sight it is to walk in on.

The movie doesn't much care about what it's like for Regan to be possessed or the pain being caused to her.

We don't know much about what was going on in Regan's head while possessed because the movies doesn't care about Regan. It cares about how her personality changes affect those around her. She's almost more of a plot device than an actual character.

By the end of the movie, the demon is exorcized and Regan is saved, successfully being returned to a single person in one body as God intended.

There are plenty of analyses of why this movie is problematic from a feminist perspective, such as the personality changes and the "let Jesus fuck you" scene being metaphors for female sexuality and puberty, but I don't know that it's ever been approached from a plural perspective before.

That's what I'm here to change today!

The Horror of Plurality

Plurality, is an umbrella term for multiple self-conscious agents sharing a body. These can be psychological in origin like alters in dissociative identity disorders or tulpas in modern tulpamancy. Or it can be spiritual in nature, as seen in many cultures with non-pathological possession states. A spiritual medium who regularly communicates with the same spirit, and allows that spirit to possess them, could be considered plural for example.

This umbrella term didn't exist when The Exorcist was made. And it wouldn't for another 20 years after.

However, plurality as a concept has existed for a long time in different forms. Spiritual possession states have existed for centuries as a form of plurality across the globe, and Multiple Personality was well-known even if it wouldn't be put into the DSM as a diagnosis of its own until 7 years after The Exorcist was released.

In fact, in the film, there's even a scene where Regan's mother says her daughter is acting like she might have a "split personality." This is quickly dismissed in the film, stating that there have been less than 100 cases in history. And the doctor acts as if it doesn't really exist.

Regan's mom: Did you see or not? She's acting like she's fucking out of her mind. Psychotic or split-personality or...

Doctor: There haven't been more than 100 cases of so-called split-personality Mrs. MacNeil.

(I kind of want to smack him...)

This was the early 70s when this was actually true. Not because dissociative identity disorder is actually a super rare disorder, but because DID was often misdiagnosed as other disorders. We now know much better, and DID is estimated to affect 1%-1.5% of the global population.

The idea of "split personality" isn't really explored much more in the film beyond it just being stated that it's rare and she shouldn't look further into it.

And yet... the movie does use language that seems to be based on multiplicity, with one character even describing how there appears to be at least 3 "personalities." (Only to be rebutted and told that it's only one demon. I could go on a side tangent about how that's a pretty weird conclusion when the only biblical example of demonic possession is Legion who were thousands of demons possessing one person... but that's a rant for another day.)

To what extent this possession relates to multiplicity as it was understood at the time isn't clear, but one thing can't be denied. And that's the fact that the horror in the movie is based on this innocent girl having someone else inside her and no longer being recognized by her mother.

Regan's mom: You show me Regan's double, same face, same voice, everything. And I'd know it wasn't Regan. I'd know in my gut. And I'm telling you that 'thing' upstairs isn't my daughter.

The horror of The Exorcist and similar possession stories, even if the word wasn't used at the time, was coming from the idea of the girl being plural. The fear that maybe hiding beneath the skin of this cloistered youth...

Is an unholy fiend...

(Art by Igor Kieryluk)

Why Possession Stories are Problematic.

Like I mentioned above, this is a story focused not on Regan, but on her mom and the exorcists. Regan doesn't really matter besides being the healthy girl who develops a condition and needs to be cured through ritual torture.

Okay... maybe that's not totally fair. The most they really do to Regan is chant at her and throw some water on her. Even if the demon is screaming in agony, that wouldn't really be considered torture, would it?

I mean, unless you're a young neurodivergent child with sensitivity issues who would be traumatized by having people shout at you and douse you in water. And if they do scream in agony because you shouted at them and threw water on them, then I guess that proves that they were a demon all along?

Look, I am not saying that the characters within the fictional movie did not have legitimate reason to know that this girl was possessed by a demon. I mean, she flew!

Of course, within the fictional context of the exorcist, Regan is possessed by a literal demonic entity who has not only hurt Regan but has murdered other people.

What I do want to get across though is that a lot of horror is built on the fear of the other. And the other in The Exorcist are people who are plural and people displaying symptoms of mental illnesses.

A popular topic is coding in fiction. This was originally used to point out how many characters, especially villains, are queer-coded. Meaning they commonly incorporate queer stereotypes without being explicitly queer. But this also happens with mental illnesses. For example, it's been pointed out how a lot of robots and aliens in fiction end up being autistic coded. The very tropes that are used to define robots in fiction are also tropes that are associated with autism and other neurodivergences. And they very often play into a narrative of wanting to be more "human," which really translates to "more like a neurotypical."

Likewise, the tropes of the demonic possession in the exorcist are associated with plurality and mental illness. The similarities aren't lost on the movie either. Much of the film is trying to figure out if this is a brain issue or psychosis, and again, the possibility of multiple personalities is brought up.

The comparison was made by the movie.

If we can acknowledge how often robots in fiction are autistic coded, then I think that we also need to acknowledge that the possession in the movie is plural-coded, and more generally, neurodivergent-coded.

While you can argue that the movie was not explicitly about dissociative identity disorder or plurality, the fear it encouraged and played off of was a fear of anybody with multiple selves.

And this is a fear that has endured for generations.

Pluralphobia: The cultural impact of the exorcist

The exorcist redefined what horror was. In media, it created an entire subgenre unto itself of these exorcism movies. Even if a movie isn't really about the exorcisms, many horror movies and shows about spirits will include at least one exorcism scene.

We can also see this in television, such as CBS's Evil, which follows a group of assessors for the Catholic Church, some of which end up involving exorcisms of possessed people.

On that note, when you watch The Exorcist, you might notice that exorcism is spoken of as this very hidden practice that's barely talked about within the Catholic Church. And from what I've gleaned of historical sources, this seems to be pretty true. The Catholic Church didn't talk a lot openly about performing exorcisms prior to the movie's release.

They were trying to move away from the more mystical aspects of their religion in the public eye, to appear as a more rational religion for a more rational age.

The movie popularized the real practice of exorcisms. It increased demand for these rituals. It caused parents to start legitimately believing that their children were possessed by demonic entities.

And while you might think that people would move on from exorcisms in the age of the internet, this hasn't been the case. It's actually only been increasing.

In 2005, the Catholic Church had 12 people who specialized in performing exorcisms in the United States. That number was 175 as of 2023.

And this culture has already affected actual plural systems. I have spoken to plenty of plural systems who have described having people believe that they were possessed whenever they describe their headmates and being plural, and some who have even been told they needed an exorcism or had exorcism pushed on them.

Countless more plural systems hide their plurality out of fear that this might be how they would be perceived if they were out as plural publicly.

And a lot of this modern religious pluralphobia can be traced directly to this movie. When somebody writes a book called "The Exorcist Legacy, 50 Years of Fear," this isn't an exaggeration.

The Exorcist created a fear of the demonically possessed, and its impact still reverberates through our culture more than 50 years later.

And sometimes, the results of the fear of the demonically possessed can have disastrous results.

The exorcism of Anneliese Michell

The year is 1975. The exorcist was released two years ago in 1973. The German dub was released in 1974.

A German woman by the name of Annelise Mitchell has just been approved by the local bishops to undergo an exorcism.

She has been diagnosed with epilepsy and psychosis but past medical treatments haven't worked for her. She has started hearing voices and has become convinced that she is possessed by demons.

Over the course of the next year, Anneliese underwent 67 exorcisms.

In audio recordings, Anneliese speaks in a "demonic" voice that is very reminiscent of the voices used during the possession in The Exorcist, and claims to be possessed by such figures as Hitler, Judas, Cain, and Nero.

During this time period, not a lot was known about dissociative identity disorder, how to recognize it, or how to treat it.

Perhaps, if given another decade, when it was more well-known and more doctors were willing to diagnose it though, Anneliese could have been diagnosed with DID and successfully treated for it.

DID often can present as demonic possession. There's even a whole section in the DSM section on DID that discusses this.

What happened instead is that she starved herself during the exorcisms, saying she wasn't permitted to eat. She died of malnutrition, and her body was found with its knees broken.

Unlike the exorcism in the movie, the exorcism of Anneliese was a long and brutal affair which saw her condition worsen to the point where she died.

To be perfectly fair, I have never seen anyone confirm that Anneliese or her family saw The Exorcist before this incident. The fact that she started being exorcized two years after the movie's release and a year after the movie's German dub could be a total coincidence that didn't play into it at all.

And if there was a connection, that's not to blame the filmmakers for their movie. There isn't any way that they could have predicted the type of cultural impact it would have. But the truth is that fiction can affect reality, and sometimes in ways that we don't intend it to.

Anneliese was a real human being who died because she and her family and priests became convinced that she was possessed by demonic spirits in a post-Exorcist world, and they responded by trying to get rid of those spirits.

This exorcism later inspired more movies in the same exorcism genre like The Exorcism of Emily Rose...

Which sensationalizes the story and plays into the ambiguity in a way that leaves the door open to people thinking that maybe both the fictional Emily Rose and the real woman she was based on actually were possessed by a literal demon.

What happens when plurals come out to a world where Exorcisms are becoming more prevalent? Is the real horror yet to come?

I believe that we stand on the edge of a major change in the world in terms of the visibility of plurality.

But with increased visibility, comes increased dangers as well.

History hasn't been kind to marginalized communities that step out of the shadows.

What happens when the plural community comes out? When it can't be ignored any longer by mainstream society. What type of opposition will we face? Obviously, I have no doubt that many of the attacks will be ableist in nature. They will call plurals crazy, they will use associations with mental illnesses to discredit us and deny us rights.

I have no doubt that we are going to see Fox News and other far right media outlets attacking plural systems for our plurality in various ways, much as they have done to queer people. There's even a pretty large overlap between the plural and queer communities, so they can use much of the same attacks against us. Already, we see pluralphobic rhetoric adopting queerphobic talking points, such as people accusing systems of "grooming" people into believing they're a system, which was popularized by the Right in recent years to use against trans people.

But there's another concern I have that I want to give voice to here.

That we might see religious fundamentalists begin attacking us on the basis of demonic possession.

This has already started happening.

Earlier this year, there was an incident where a right-winger infiltrated a panel at a gender conference that was focused on plurality. While the panel discussed plurality, the conservative claimed she felt a dark energy come over her, and had to leave the building. She later claimed that she felt the presence of a demonic spirit there.

I won't link to that because the panel was never intended to be recorded, and the speaker was not out as plural and did not want to see the video get promoted further with their face revealed, potentially outing them if it gets back to people who might recognize them. You can find my past discussion of this incident here.

But this isn't the only such incident we've seen recently. In a similar vein, conservative pundit Rod Dreher also wrote an article on tulpamancy, where he suggested that tulpas could be demonic spirits.

This could be the beginning of conservatives ratcheting up fear of plurality. This could be the beginning of a new wave of pluralphobia.

Especially with conservatives increasingly seeing their support of conservative candidates as spiritual warfare in a battle against literal demonic forces.

What if the legacy of The Exorcist is creating a culture of fear around those who are multiple? A culture that is still in full force over 50 years later and gaining ground?

The Nightmare Scenario: A Reign of Christian Nationalism

Let me tell a story. A story of one possible future, a worst case scenario for plurals.

The plural community grows ever larger online as more people realize they're plural. More studies are conducted into plural systems leading to more support from psychiatric institutions. Plural awareness continues to spread through college campuses and institutions and educated Left-leaning spaces.

This is something I believe is going to happen within the next decade. It's also something that conservative pundit Rod Dreher fear-mongered about in his blog post.

And for far-right Christian nationalists, this is an opening. Because the acceptance is primarily coming from left-wing spaces, this becomes a divisive partisan issue. Christian nationalists will jump at the chance to craft a narrative of plurality being used to open children up to possession by demonic forces.

Conservative pastors play TikTok videos of plural systems switching as examples of possession. This makes its way into right-wing media outlets to boost it 100 fold.

In the minds of Christians who have grown up on horror movies like The Exorcist and all that it spawned, who have been fed a myth in their churches of demons waging spiritual warfare against them, they will all too happily buy into the lie that plural systems are an extension of this. That we are the demons they have been warned about. The evils they have been taught to fear are no longer hiding but are now openly encouraging their children to embrace demonic possession.

This might sound farfetched to the nonbelievers and sceptics who think it would be silly to convince a large portion of Americans something like this, but belief in demonic possession is already pretty high, with 51% of people saying they believe in demonic possession according to one YouGov poll, with 20% undecided.

Less than a third of Americans were hard non-believers in demonic possession.

So how difficult would it be to convince a large portion of the other 71% that the people saying they are multiple people in one body are actually demonically possessed?

During the resulting hysteria, we see a massive surge in demand for exorcisms. The number of Catholic exorcists in America ends up increasing from its current 175 to over 500 and they still can't keep up with the demand caused by this right-wing hysteria.

And this is where the real danger comes in. Because I actually believe that the Catholic Church learned from what happened with Anneliese Michell. I think that their own trained exorcists are going to be heavily regulated and will be far more responsible to avoid causing another massive scandal that will blow back on a church already marred on controversy.

No, the real threat is going to come from unsanctioned exorcists. People who haven't gone through the proper training and don't care as much about safety.

In 2020, a 3-year-old girl named Arely Proctor was believed by her family to be possessed. They carried out an exorcism on this girl for over 20 hours that ended with her strangled to death.

Was Arely's murder an isolated incident? Or is it a canary in the coal mine?

For the purpose of the scenario, let's assume it's the latter. That this is the result of our culture's growing obsession with exorcism, an obsession that started with The Exorcist 50 years ago.

And as the plural community and Christian nationalists clash, the result is a wave of incidents of child abuse through unsanctioned exorcisms. The happier cases end with kids being removed from their parents' custody after suffering abusive rituals. The more tragic cases end like Arely and Anneliese.

Keep in mind that the victims won't necessarily be plural. Other neurodivergents will be affected. As will those who stray into the heretical by the Christian nationalist standards. Anyone even perceived as being possessed will be at risk. But it will be the hysteria around plurality that pushes this into overdrive. This will be the inciting incident for this dark future.

If this comes to pass... How can we, as plural systems, even hope to fight back against that?

If one horror story can change the world... Then maybe we need to tell better horror stories...

Luckily, this hasn't happened yet. It remains a story. Purely fictional, much like The Exorcist itself is.

But the thing about stories, which I hope to have shown here, is that they have power. There is power in stories to change the world. For better or for worse. Every new horror story about possession by evil entities further builds onto The Exorcist's legacy, encouraging fear of people who are more than one.

But positive plural representation like Moon Knight helps normalize plurality, and stories like IF can normalize imaginary friends and, by extension, tulpamancy.

And horror can be used the same way.

Horror has always been built on the fear of the other.

This is why the tropes are so often ableist or racist or xenophobic. Throughout history, horror has unfortunately been used to cause harm to marginalized communities. Because often what people are afraid of are the people who don't think like them or have a different culture than they do.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

You could subvert the classic possession and exorcism conventions. Tell a story of someone sharing a body with friendly spirits where the horror comes not from the other headmates but how the culture around them reacts to them. Position the exorcists and those pushing for exorcism as the monsters trying to banish the good helpful spirits or headmates.

Or maybe the protagonist isn't the "possessed", but the headmate who is being locked in their mind, only getting fleeting moments of freedom as the host becomes convinced by those around them that the headmate is a demonic entity that needs to be eliminated.

Tell horror stories that build sympathy for the possessed or those who share a body with them. Sympathy for the discrimination they endure. Sympathy for being treated as if there's something wrong with them. Sympathy for being othered. Because there is a horror in that too. A horror in being the other, being the outcast.

If you are plural, you can pour your own experiences into the stories you tell. If you're not plural, you can learn about plurality from plurals and how to tell more inclusive stories about plurality.

Ultimately, what you need to remember is that in this world, there is no power greater than the power to tell stories. Stories shape who we are. They shape our cultures. They shape our fears. And they shape our future.

I don't think anything demonstrates this better than The Exorcist, with the way it managed to change the world, for better or for worse.

So let's tell a better story.

Even if your story won't be the next Exorcist, maybe it can be a story that inspires it.

One more thing you can do...

Vote.

I'm sorry to ask this of you. I know that politics can be exhausting and you probably didn't click on this for politics. But Christian nationalism is increasingly on the ballot. It's a threat to plural systems. It's a threat to queer people. It's a threat to women's rights. It's a threat to religious minorities.

And because they also know the power of stories and try to restrict access to stories they don't like, it's a threat to our very ability to tell stories.

If you are reading this post when it was made, the 2024 election is in a week. You can still make a difference. And if you're reading this in the future, hopefully we defeated Trump and Christian Nationalism in the battle for President. But the war is far from over. Winning one fight isn't enough. Maintaining freedom requires constant vigilance. There will be more elections coming up, and we'll need your help with those too. And even if we did win the Presidency, there will be other fights we didn't win. There will be states that have elected Christian Nationalist governors, judges, and state legislatures. States that are pushing laws actively restricting the rights of queer people. States that are placing hard restrictions on abortions and birth control, banning books with LGBTQ themes while mandating the Bible be put into schools.

So please vote. Not just in this election, but the next election too, and the one after that and so on. Because as the saying goes, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.

And to those that have voted or will, thank you for standing up for our Democracy and our futures!

Conclusion

When I do these Plurality of... posts, I generally like to talk about the story itself and the plurality featured in it. With The Exorcist, I don't think there was a lot to say about that.

It is a sort of plurality. And it's an extremely problematic portrayal. But what's more important about the Exorcist wasn't its story or its characters, but its cultural impact.

While that cultural impact has actually been pretty bad for plural systems, IMO, it proves something that I think is all too easy to forget.

We all have the ability to change the world through the stories we tell in ways both large and small.

If there's one takeaway I want people to have from all of this, it's this:

Your stories matter. Your vote matters. You matter.

And if we want to make the world a better place for all plurals, and for all people in general, then we're going to need people like you to tell your stories and share them so that the stories that spread aren't just the most harmful ones.

By telling your stories, you can make sure that the stories people hear about plurality aren't just the ones that demonize plurals.

Oh, and...

Happy Halloween!

For more of my discussions of plurality in creepy media, be sure to check out The Plurality of… Bill Cipher. Alternatively, for a plural story that does deal with discrimination for being plural, see The Plurality of… The Hybrid Chronicles: What’s Left of Me, where I discuss a novel set in a world where people are born with two souls. As always, thanks for reading.

[rose-morose]

I want to mention before you start reading this, this isn't a hate post on Arcane or Jinx, so if you're gonna read it please read to the end, though it is a very long read, so you have been warned

look I know it's not a very popular opinion, but I really wasn't a fan of Jinx in the first season of Arcane, I just thought her whole madness arc was uncharacteristically generic and over exaggerated compared to the rest of the show's extremely competent writing, and her character felt very one dimensional and simple

(Arcane season 1 and 2 spoilers under the cut)

after she stopped going by Powder and became Jinx, she just kind of felt like the kooky crazy lunatic archetype with no other facets to her personality

there were moments that kind of made her seem more complex, like some of the early interactions she had with her sister Vi after the time skip, and her relationship with her father figure Silco, and the one scene on the bridge where she was fighting Ekko, but she seemed to only exist in the context of the other characters and wasn't really her own character, to me she seemed more like a plot device than a person

but then season 2 came, and Silco was gone, Vi didn't want anything to do with her, Ekko was off doing his own thing somewhere else, and for the first time ever she was truly alone

and it suddenly felt like Jinx could finally be alone and still be compelling and interesting and have her own growth and development outside of the context of other characters, she could be her own person

she went from over the top stereotypical movie crazy to a person struggling with genuine mental illness, a past filled with trauma, and complex feelings around her remaining relationships with the other characters, characters that she no longer depended on, as well as her self

like when she had the shot on Vi, but couldn't take it, there was a great deal of strife and contemplation on her face and ultimately it was her tear falling that alerted Vi to her presence, this is the first time she didn't seem to have one of those black and white demeanours of unbridled aggression or passive despair that she had often flipped between when interacting with other characters

and Jinx finally formed a real relationship with Sevika rather than just being outwardly jealous and petty but ultimately not behaving like she actually cared that much about her one way or the other, only using her to justify her new initiative, and while they still don't seem to like each other, now there is more complexity behind that unfriendly relationship that allows for nuances like the two working together in the wake of Silco's death, someone that they had both previously relied on for direction and purpose, which was really the only thing they had in common in season one

and the introduction of Isha gave Jinx another opportunity to form a relationship with a new character that required more than one word like "dad" or "sister" to adequately describe it

now Jinx had her own little sister that looked up to her, instead of her constantly looking up to Vi, she actually had to take the initiative and act on her own and allow Isha to follow

I of course hope to see Isha continue to develop as her own character as well, but for now I'm content with her helping Jinx to be her own person

now I said that this isn't a hate post on Arcane or Jinx, and that's because I actually fucking love this show, the writing is brilliant, and now I love Jinx's character too, Silco was my favourite character and I'll admit that I was apprehensive about how the story would unfold without him, but now I really can't wait to see what Jinx and Sevika do in the next two acts of the show

thanks for sitting through another one of my extremely amateur and even more extremely long characters analyses, hope it wasn't too wordy (even though I know it was) as usual I would love to hear the insight of others on the topic, so feel free to reblog or comment your own take and I would love to read it

[kylieswift31]

Liar, liar, pants on fire

Taylor has referred to herself as the narrator of the story within her music over and over again, but what type of narrator is she referring to? It’s appears that Taylor has been alluding to being the unreliable narrator of her own story.

The unreliable narrator is a form of literary device utilised by authors to create plot twists and conflicted characters within a story. In the process the narrator may withhold information, lie to the audience or mislead them. This encourages them to cast doubt on the narrative and engage with the material on a deeper level. The benefit of telling a story in this way is that it forces the audience to come to their own conclusions when the narrator’s point of view cannot be trusted.

When we apply this context to Taylor’s role in retelling her story we start to understand why she has been affectionately referred to as ‘Tayliar’. There is a layer of mistruth sprinkled throughout her story to alter the way it is interpreted so that everyone can slowly see through the facade that was being presented to us. This is a gentle approach, but also an effective one.

Taylor has slowly been drawing more attention to the lies so that more people will notice. This has intensified the split in the narrative, leading to a hostile divide between those who can see the truth and those who believe that the fantasy is real. Both have different points of view but only one side is right, and it's the gaylors because we can see how all of the pieces of the puzzle fall into place when it's viewed through a queer perspective. There's a lot more to the story past this point, but it is the beginning point for many to begin questioning the narrative.

What we're continuing to see unfold now is the lies being told to keep up the facade for everyone else. This phase is supposed to feel contradictory as Taylor continues the process of leaving a trail of clues. I understand many have known the truth for years and are growing tiresome waiting for an ending, but I'd urge you to see that what's happening now isn't for us, it's for those who still believe in the fantasy.

Unfortunately the ending of a story told by an unreliable narrator is oftentimes anti-climactic. It sounds cliche but it really is about the journey and not the destination. But the good news is that there really is so much suspense, complexity and beauty when you are paying attention to all of the small cracks forming in the facade. This is where it becomes clear that Taylor truly is a mastermind.

It's likely that some will accuse Taylor of gaslighting her fans when they discover the truth, but the majority will begin to understand why she kept it a secret once they've had a chance to uncover the truth that has been hidden in plain sight for themselves.

"If you ask me if I love him, I'd lie" -Taylor Swift

A tortured poet,

Kylie x

[canmom]

booksbooksbooks - "yeah ok uh. you're worthless! how about that!"

I read Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt! I have previously talked about Brainwyrms on here, her second novel; this is her first, and honestly they are such similar books (thematically, structurally, stylistically - it's possible even that they are in a shared continuity) that a second comment almost feels redundant - but then it turned out I had a lot to say when I got into it. Spoilers below, though I think most of the effect of this book is how it's told rather than what happens.

(Also: the recent bookcrit posts will sometime soon be making their way to canmom.art for easier reading - I've rather dragged my feet on that but Soon(TM).)

So this is a haunted house book that's about fascism. You know it's about fascism before the book even begins, since it says as much in the content warning. More specifically it's about British fascism, personified in an evil house called Albion at the edge of Brighton that corrupts all around it, drawing people in and bringing out the fascist mindset in them.

It would be reasonable to fear this might end up as a polemic loosely packaged as a novel - even if an absolutely on-point and warranted polemic. You can absolutely see how characters fit into the 'argument': a white trans woman who has not fully escaped her racist upbringing on the one hand, her Jewish-Pakistani girlfriend* who runs into the arms of the TERF movement on the other, their blonde cis third wheel who is the first to be fully corrupted by the House. A plot hinging on conflicting accusations of rape; the house itself being established through a series of eugenicist murders. And on top of that, in between parts you get some quotes from, variously: Félix Guattari's Everybody Wants to be a Fascist, Isabel Fall's Helicopter Story, Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism, a Stewart Lee skit, and William Blake's A Little Boy Lost (primarily for the 'Albion' pull I think).

*actually a deep closeted trans guy, wouldn't ya know it

I think it would be easy to find this directness kind of annoying, but what makes it work for me is largely its style. Rumfitt has a hell of an ability to set a mood and environment, to convey the all-too-real bitterness and pain of its characters in circumstances I recognise. It is a story more than willing to veer into delirious fever-dream streams of consciousness or to spend a few pages quoting some fetishist imageboard rant at length. But more important is the genuine and raw anger of the author that seems to run through it: when the narration slips into addressing the reader, it feels like the intensity of feeling can't be contained in fictional devices anymore. The word 'sharp' is surely a cliché, but this is the kind of book to leave you looking up and going 'phew' between chapters. It works because it is able to make you feel the bleakness that its narrative demands.

(Possibly a relevant comparison at this point would be Sálo, but something to develop another time.)

At the same time, it's a book that is so blatantly About Stuff that it's almost impossible to read it simply as a novel. It has a certain degree of mystery structure (what happened in the House? what became of Hannah? who raped who?) and escalating waves of intensity to pull you along, it's got setups and payoffs and callbacks as the ideas raised early in the story bloom again in the final blast of words, but it's not really something you can simply take as a haunted-house story. Some of the biggest horror scenes would be kind of completely ridiculous without the metaphor-drenched context.

We can describe the main beats, all the same.

the bit where I summarise the plot

Alice and Ila are two survivors of an ill-fated expedition into an abandoned house. Alice (trans girl) is haunted by something which manifests in the form of a stain on the wall, and when she covers it by a picture of a racist singer from the 80s who she once admired, his phantom (it's presumably Morrissey, but they book doesn't ever name him). she gets by through shooting sissy hypnosis videos for clients who have her say all sorts of dubious racist shit. Ila (cis) has been welcomed as a token brown woman for the TERF movement, getting interviewed on the radio and invited to conferences. Both of them remember being raped and multilated by the other during the visit to the House - more on that anon. The third member of the party, Hannah, entered with them but never left the House.

Alice's closest thing to friends are a hetero couple of hard partiers; the guy Jon is into knifeplay and it's clearly not something his partner is all on board with. She tries to hook up with a girl but the Morrissey-haunting scares her away, providing some setup for the concepts of haunting this book will use. Ila, meanwhile, is almost raped by another TERF after recounting her story at a conference; the woman in question preemptively DARVOs her on social media so she won't tell. Some other cis(?) girl who Ila had deliriously called a tranny during sex (thanks House!) seconds it. Throughout all this, Ila has been frequently messaging Alice asking to talk again.

The narrative jumps around; we gradually learn more about the circumstances of their previous trip into the House (named Albion by its first two inhabitants), and its history: built by a gay guy in a period that would get you arrested and named Albion by his 15-year-old lover, then the site of a series of eugenicist murders (with explicit allusion to Bluebeard); in modern times, the random suicides it inflicts on the people in the buildings around it, etc. It's a real bad House

So, Hannah (cis, straight) had been feeling third-wheeled by the couple Alice and Ila. We get some flashbacks as Hannah: that time Alice and Ila had sex on the beach and Hannah totally heard it all, that time Hannah hooked up with a black guy and Alice and Ila were kind of assholes to him... When they enter the house together, Hannah becomes separated and drawn to the red room at the heart of the house. When Alice and Ila enter, Hannah is fully claimed by the House and physically transformed into a human swastika, and the narrative splits in two as both Alice and Ila enact brutal rapes on each other; in one version, Alice cuts 'ARBEIT MACHT FREI' into Ila's belly, in the other, Ila cuts a symbolic vagina into Alice's scalp. The two of them leave the House with these injuries, and the narrative pointedly refuses to tell us that one is the real course of events, or that something else happened.

Ila contacts Alice and convinces her to return to the House to put an end to it. They try to have sex and they're not feeling it; then they have nasty politicised sex, which gives the book its title:

“Call me it, please,” she says. “Call you what?” “You know. You know you want to, as well.” She hesitates for a moment. But Alice is right. She does want to. “You fucking tranny,” Ila moans. “God. Fuck. Please.” The pleasure is nearly unbearable for Alice. “Do it again. Tell me what you think of me, what you really think of me. Tell me I’m nothing. Tell me I’m worthless.” “You,” Ila grabs Alice’s hair, “are a fucking worthless tranny.”

Finally the two go into the House and we enter a kind of fever dream of an alternative fascist-ruled timeline in the green and pleasant lands where Mosley plays on the radio, Alice never transitions and marries Hannah and kills herself, Ila is deported to unknown quarters, and then in a parallel vision they both embrace while respectively self-disembowelling and bleaching -

then, finally we get a version where they escape alive and burn the House, only for its curse to continue to affect the next building to be built there, which gives rise to a bomber who bombs the Pride parade where Alice and Harry (formerly Ila) are walking together. But they hold each other in the ashes. t4t end.

You get all that?

I'm leaving out various dream sequences, flashbacks, and meditations on the state of things, like the factory or the, 'shitty transvestite pigs', which could honestly be said to be more important than the narrative itself.

fascism then

So for a book that is so much about fascism, what does it actually have to say on the subject? The facet of fascism examined here is mostly of the online-radicalisation or unspoken-sentiment type, the thing you tell yourself is a joke until you stop telling yourself that. The characters are carrying intrusive patterns of thought, taking different but similar forms for each. The House, or the ideology, feeds on their interpersonal resentments and drives them towards self-destructive cruelty.

In the narration that is (at least at times) their train of thought, they ask themselves why they stay in the House, or get drawn back. The closest thing to an answer comes, in Hannah's point of view, shortly before the dual rape scene:

Alice tried to kick open the door, but it wouldn’t move, however hard she kicked. It felt like there was nothing on the other side of the door – that it wasn’t a door at all, but the border to the world, and the inside of this room was the entire world. If you were to open the door you would find… what? The world outside is dark and unknowable. In the room you are safe. You are subject to violence, abuse, mistreatment, hurt, pain, all of the above, but you are safe from what is outside the room and that is what matters, inside the room is the pain you know, outside the room is the pain you do not know, it’s not a hard choice to make in the end, to sit here ‘neath the burning sun of her body, (...)

But more than that, fascism is some kind of permanent infestation. The House itself is at once England (as the name Albion suggests) and the persistent, seemingly eternal infestation of fascist ideology, which are pretty much one and the same - a country so racist that it will vote to kill its own immune system right before a global pandemic, a country so racist that the very ground stinks, a country so racist that your seemingly left-liberal parents have a map of the British Empire hanging on their wall (excerpted from the middle of a run-on-sentence too long to reproduce here).

So Alice and Ila confront their dalliance with fascism by returning to the House, and in a sense purge themselves through this catabasis; but fascism is not destroyed when the House is ruined, or burned down, or replaced with flats, and keeps growing back to consume more lives.

Mostly the thing the book seems to have to say about fascism is it's fucking everywhere and it's terrifying, a sentiment that is hard to disagree with. But it also has a fair bit to say in depicting its dynamics in the modern world.

What of this dual rape scene then? There is a scornful paragraph at one point about how the social-justice rules of engagement totally fail, mockingly describing how you could plug the two characters into an intersectionality calculator to determine who has narrative authority here, ending with this remark:

So, there’s just two girls leaving a house and maybe you don’t have to take a side, maybe you can empathise with them both and hope they get the therapy and help they need and can learn to forgive one another. No. You can’t do that. Are you a fucking idiot? Are you that fucking stupid that you genuinely think you can do that and that something like that is possible?

At the same time as presenting this situation of absolute ambiguity, the book doesn't seem shy about acknowledging there are straight up bad actors, whether Jon or the older TERF; recurring more than once is the idea of the moves a rapist might make to silence a victim or witness. All sorts of lines: "I'm too important to the movement, think of what would happen", or blatant lies, "it's the only way [the unconscious person] can get off".

All of this, frankly, accords with my experience of the world; these are all things that happen. If it revels a little in setting up these little ironies in its account of the TERF movement (elsewhere we see Ila making up stories to post on a forum that is obviously Mumsnet), it is also painfully cognisant of the ugly dynamics of accusations. Elsewhere this very website gets a shoutout! In an Alice POV chapter:

When I was about fifteen, I used the website Tumblr. It still exists, as far as I know. It was a strange place, and it’s hard to even describe how the culture of it felt when you were part of it: at times welcoming and at times unbearably tense. It was the first time I really read about what being trans was, and it was also where I was sent endless anonymous messages telling me to kill myself. People would often accuse others of things, baselessly, and those accusations would stick to them however much they tried to shake them away. One of my Tumblr mutuals was accused of being a paedophile and a Nazi. We hadn’t really talked much at all – she’d re-blogged my selfies a few times, and I hadn’t thought much about that until people started to accuse her. I began to wonder what her intentions had been when she shared a fifteen-year-old’s selfies. She denied these accusations, of course. Anyone would. She claimed that the people accusing her of being a paedophile and a Nazi were TERFS – and the problem was that some of them were. Or had, at least, started to share TERF rhetoric onto their blogs. Which made sense… they had just been exploited by an older trans woman, and suddenly these other older women were telling them, oh, come join us. There’s a pattern to this, and we don’t have to accept it as normal. I didn’t understand it at the time, I was just angry, angry and confused, but I get it now, with Ila spooning me. I understand why she is the way she is. I hope she understands why I am like I am, too. (...dialogue about the House happens...) I stopped using Tumblr shortly after that whole affair, and after having other people creep on me too – most notably a nineteen-year-old fat rights activist who seemed obsessed with my hair. I turned to 4chan and other forums in that vein, where, even if there were Nazis and paedophiles, at least they were generally honest about being those things, even as they remained anonymous. It felt better to know that I was talking to someone who liked to masturbate over little boys than to talk to someone and find that out about them later.

I was a bit older than the fictional Alice when I arrived on here, and I've never had the sense to leave lmao, but this accords well enough with my experience - notably, I strongly recall how a certain opposed accusation of rape/abuse (with knifeplay involved!) torpedoed the simplistic 'believe accusations' worldview I had held onto up to that point. The girls involved became a cause célèbre for two rival factions in the trans scene at the time, with who you believed largely depending on who your friends were, each rallying to defend theirs and cast the others as apologists. Ironically, both those groups would later fall apart.

Whatever parallels I might draw to touchy real life history, we can certainly see here some of the devices this book likes to use: a long personal illustrative anecdote of some messy shit, seguing into a moment of narration and a remark that connects it to the present, and helps sketch its characters as the extrusion of much-larger social forces. It is not easy to adequately capture complexity without getting completely lost in mush, and I think this book manages solidly. (I am tempted to draw certain parallels to works like Psycho Nymph Exile which address similar dynamics, but that would be way more than I want to get into right now).

It is strange reading this book, in many ways. I have only been in Bright a few times, but once was indeed for a Trans Pride, and I remember sitting on the beach described in the book (I went home before anyone started fucking). I may not have shown up to some anti-TERF demo, but I know well the 'tuneless chants' that Ila derides in her early POV chapter. So many trans books are American, and here is one that is furiously British, and that certainly strikes a chord.

With everything so caught up in magic and metaphor, what can we pull out of our own immersion in this book's wash of terrible images? Simply to love each other defiantly, in the spirit of the old songs? I recall talking with @thesiltverses on how horror and dystopian fiction undermines itself by presenting a relief at the end, and I am inclined to agree. There is no relief here, no 'this is what we need to do to counter the rise of fascism'; it is a story that ends only in a tragic moment of defiance, tinged with that little cynical detail, after a fascist bombs a Pride parade:

He goes to her, on his hands and knees, rubble and blood and bodies all around them. The police, the ambulance, the news crews. They are coming. Photographers are taking pictures of them, and they will put these pictures on the front pages of newspapers, and the picture will be with them forever, they won’t ever escape it, two trans people covered in blood and embracing amidst the carnage. The photographer who gets the image wins a prize for it. They don’t know that yet. They only know this: Harry crawls towards Alice with the last of his strength, his arms outstretched and reaching. The rain will come. When it does it will be bloody. The future will be red-tinted and unknowable, but they will be together. Come to me now, mouths Alice. Hold me.

I feel like this is the tone of a lot of recent tranny-adjacent fiction: we cannot stop them coming, but we will live furiously all the same: a story about the possibility of a pocket of change, that two people so thoroughly corrupted by the House could move past it. Is that all we can hope for? If we can win more, it's probably not for a horror novel to say so.

I know I know at least one person who has known Alison Rumfitt, the UK trans scene being what it is. I'm glad her book is resonating with people, if it is only those who show up at queer bookshops (shoutout to Category Is books where I got my physical copy). We are certainly experiencing a moment for grimdark fiction, and while that suits my tastes rather more than the 'cosy', I distrust any self-congratulation about being soooo transgressive and nasty compared to those pathetic wimpy steven universe gays. This, however, is something quite different: it's nasty because it's simply extremely pointed and the subject kind of demands it.

A couple of weeks ago I was discussing with some people at the film festival about how you'd do a film adaptation of this book. Having now read it, I'm scratching my head - it seems rather unfilmable, because so much of what it's saying is caught up in internal monologues and devices of narration that would hardly translate to the screen. But hey, you know what, if someone tries, I want to see.

[infiniteaugends]

The Tommy/Buck break up came out of no where and makes no sense. Did they think we would celebrate or enjoy losing queer representation? Especially in such a cruel way! I don’t get it. It feels icky that for the first time Buck’s love interest doesn’t get closure is when it’s the queer man. Especially a man who has expressed feeling alone and isolated. This is by far the worst of Buck’s breakups and it means a queer character’s arc ends with isolation and heartbreak. What message are they really sending with this?

For me as a bi person it feels even more icky. “You’re gonna break my heart.” “I’m your first, but not your last.” These feel like illusions to the bi stereotypes that we are indecisive, cheaters, and greedy. Like Bobby married the first woman he dated after the death of his family. Athena married the first man she dated after getting out of a very long marriage. They didn’t need to ‘explore their options’, but Buck is Bi so that must mean he can’t just choose a person. He needs to demonstrate it, onto the hamster wheel we go.

I was so excited about a well done Bi character (they are few and far between) and Oliver Stark said they were doing it with care. This is not with care! This is horrible, and harmful, and it makes me so upset. This is literally the second time this week that a piece of media that was supposed to be safe (that I was excited about), became a source of shame and borderline biphobia. Along with the results of the election, I’m just so tired and heart broken.

I’m sure many Buddie shippers are going to be cheering on the downfall of queer representation in the name of getting what they want. The hate and vitriol they have spouted at a queer character and an actual real human being has just been rewarded. They were right Tommy Kinard was just a plot device, another in a long list of used and abused queer characters. It all just sucks so much and makes me want this week over that much faster. This was a cruel decision done without care for queer viewers.

[thecountesstribe]

I'm checked out of this Liv/Rhea feud and it's not because of the performers. It's cause of the direction it went and where it's going and the stans. A miserable majority of people are making this hard to enjoy with all the discourse. It's because people are misunderstanding Liv's whole character right now, turning it into shipping wars and being insufferable to both women. Warning: this will be long and I'm so sorry.

Could we please stop saying that Liv isn't a credible threat to Rhea? She is. The whole thing with Liv is she understands she can't beat Rhea in terms of strength, even with her ‘nothing to lose’ gimmick which she also can't employ because she has everything to lose right now. She's got the title, her family and Dom. She can't overpower Rhea realistically so she runs, which might seem like the cowardly thing to do but overall it's the smart thing. At the start of this entire mess the whole plan for Liv to get at Rhea was her outsmarting her. She can't beat her in terms of strength, she uses her brain. Simple. Is it annoying that she's running.. yes but that's exactly the point. She lulls Rhea into a false sense of security and then she strikes. “She always attacks Rhea from behind”, she has to. When Rhea was unfortunately injured (it was an accident btw), what did Liv do? She attacked her from behind. We all see what happens when she tries to attack her head on, Rhea mops the floor with her. She's a heel (that's what they do) and she's sticking to tactics that actually work. “Rhea is in the wrong! She's not the victim!” At a point in time some of you might've been right and I would've wholeheartedly agreed with you but Liv isn't the victim you guys are making her out to be. She tainted herself in her quest for revenge. Y'know that saying ‘if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss will eventually stare back into you’ that's what happened. Rhea injured her, she injured Rhea back. She got her lick back. She got her title (bonus). Here's where Liv tainted herself: she started going after Rhea's “family”. If she wanted to remain the hero in their story Liv was supposed to know when enough was enough. Rhea's problem was that she was arrogant and didn't know when enough was enough. She got back at Rhea the minute she injured her cause that's exactly what Rhea did to her. She went overboard when she decided to become a nuisance to the rest of the women in the locker room and started manipulating Dom (sure she came to love him in the end but it started off as manipulation) and working with Finn (who wanted to get at Damian) to further get back at Rhea. Liv literally turned herself into the person she hated (Rhea) and I just think that this was so poetic and this story had the potential to be so much better if creative had just focused on that instead of centering it around the man (Dom) in the feud. For the 10 times Dominik had been mentioned 8 times outta that should've been about the WWC and the history that led up to that point. Dom was just a secondary plot device. Instead creative turned it into a who's hotter competition and a vying for Dom's attention kinda thing and it turned it weird. We only got some substance these last two weeks if we're being honest. “Rhea should've taken accountability, she being a hypocrite and she should've apologized!” She did take accountability, she said she was wrong for turning on Liv. The hypocrite argument is kinda shaky as well because Rhea was a heel, she was just doing bad guy shit, just like what Liv is doing right now. As far as apologizing though that's taking it a little too far. In the beginning she absolutely would've had to apologize but Liv took it far and if we're being real Liv didn't want that apology anymore. When Liv decided to mess with her family, her “boyfriend” and actively was trying to make her life hell, she lost all rights to what was owed in the name of good faith. Both of them crossed lines that couldn't be forgiven. She wanted to ruin Rhea and she got what she wanted. By any means necessary even if that meant turning herself into the villain and losing herself in the process.

I'll briefly touch on Finn and Damian's beef cause it's intertwined with Liv/Rhea feud. For the two of them the jist boils down to ego, pride, jealousy and paranoia. Rhea was just collateral damage for Finn to really hurt Damian. When the judgement day was founded it was Edge, Damian and Rhea. Finn joined after multiple assaults and they kicked out Edge. It was always Damian and Rhea though. Finn wanted to hurt Damian in all ways. Everything that concerned Damian, Finn wanted to destroy and what better way for Finn to destroy all things concerning Damian than hurting Rhea, who concerns Damian a lot. After all Damian was the only one checking for her. Sure losing the WHC was gonna hurt Priest but to really drive home the point Finn knew he had to screw Rhea as well. He saw the opportunity to drive the knife in deeper and he took it, he didn't care if it hurt Rhea in the process, which worked out perfectly fine for Liv.

The situation with Dom. Is it focused entirely too much.. yes but he's also a major key factor in their feud. Rhea was with him for 2 years, he betrayed her (whether it was deserved or not), this is where that gets blurry because yes she beat his ass in the beginning but Finn and Damian also did the same thing and when she started antagonizing him and Rey it wasn't because she liked him. Their relationship grew during the duration of the judgement run. Dominik chose to turn his back on his father and Edge at the point in time to join the judgement day. That decision was entirely his own. Was their relationship power dynamic toxic at times? Yes. There were no innocent parties in Dom and Rhea's relationship though. Both of them had communication issues, Rhea was an asshole at times, Dom was a shitty boyfriend in certain instances and he did cheat (which he didn't have a right to do). Even when she returned, she wanted nothing to do with him and he still went out of his way to get her back with him to ultimately betray her at SummerSlam. “But she was flirting with Jey!” She was not. She was distracting Jey so her boys could get the one up. JD cost Finn and Damian the tag titles the first time and when she came back Dom asked her about it (which is preposterous when you think about it since he was already cheating on her) she was really messing around. Dominik was audacious as hell, I'll give him that 🤣. He could've left her alone, again he chose to betray her and the worst part about it is that he decided to betray and humiliate her with her biggest adversary. He planned this btw. The frustrating part is that creative gave him an ass promo to explain his action when in interviews he gave substantial answers as to why he did what he did. So yes Rhea is going to have a problem with him, she's hurt, he humiliated her and he was a major reason she couldn't regain back her WWC. He was not supposed to be centered as much but this is what happens when a storyline is written by men that has been catered to men. I'll give creative a point for not centering Jey in this feud as well. He's minding his business and Rhea and Damian are minding theirs.

So all in all like I said in my previous post it comes down to this, The Judgement Day and The New Judgement Day has no innocent members. All of them are liars, hypocrites, manipulators and backstabbers and all are to blame in their own downfall and misery that was brought upon themselves. Priest and Rhea got theirs and no they shouldn't have to apologize to their former family when they were all bad guys even if it was to each other.

As for Raquel returning and helping Liv. I'm over it. Liv could beat Rhea clean if she uses her head like we know she's capable of doing. If anything it's gonna discredit tf out of Liv even more because creative booking her reign has been ass. Let Liv pull off the upset of the century by herself. I don't understand the need for more outside interference which will drag the absolute hell out of this feud and creative is not doing it justice. It's just gonna lead up to Raquel eventually turning on Liv because her eyes were set on the WWC and if we all remember correctly Dom cost her the shot against Rhea. Raquel hates Rhea and Liv turned herself into the one thing she despises. We're losing the plot here. Rhea doesn't need back the championship now anyway either. The WWC scene is just gonna be tied between the three of them until they decide to eventually squash the feud cause Triple H and his cronies are against booking the women's division properly. Let Raquel come back and go into business for herself. So there'll be more contenders besides the obvious for the belt. This reeks.

This is me yappin without any biases btw. I'm so sick of the nonsense though.

[artist-issues]

THE END of the Hunger Games is flawless.

The ending paragraph of "The Hunger Games" is so perfect. It so totally wraps up the whole point and takeaway of the books, and every character's journey, and nails it.

First off, the paragraph's context is about what you teach your children. Children, who are seen as the most precious treasure any person can handle in the book--treasures that can be turned into weapons and used against the treasurers. Children, who can bring down corrupt authority or keep it in place. So first off, a paragraph that addresses how important teaching children is is the best context for this perfect paragraph.

Second, Katniss is specifically teaching them what? "how I survive," which is her entire being. She makes every decision based on survival. She volunteers for Prim and doesn't kill Peeta in the first Games and chooses not to be with Gale and chooses to play her part against Snow all because she can't survive in a world where the alternative outcomes happen. Plus, survival is what other characters base their decisions on, too. 13 doesn't nuke the Capitol because it might ruin humanity's chances at survival. Hunger is the central plot device used to give Katniss all her skills, because without food, you don't what? Survive. Even "love" in these books is only another tool for survival; it makes suffering worthwhile, and purpose visible, and loss surmountable, and nightmares endurable, for every character. Finnick, Peeta, Katniss, Katniss' mother, even Buttercup the cat. The point of the book's lesson is "how to survive."

Third, the thing that could ruin love and pleasure's usefulness as a tool for survival is fear. But specific fear--"I'm afraid it could be taken away." It's fear that something you love, which makes survival worthwhile, could be taken away, and with it goes survival itself. The whole Hunger Games demonstrate that--"you rebelled against us? Then we're showing you that we can take away your children, the things that make survival worthwhile." And you know what? That's the dividing line between Katniss and Snow. Both Katniss and Coryo have survival as their ultimate goal, and have fear of the things they love being taken from them. For Katniss, it's the good opinion of the people of 12, it's her life with her sister and mom, it's the freedom from owing anyone anything, it's food and the ability to feed herself. For Coryo? It's his family name and reputation, his cousin and grandmother, his legacy, and his ability to never return to the cannibalism of the war. The fear of losing those things that they love is what could drive them to take no pleasure in them. To be afraid forever--and with fear comes the never-enough desire for control. To hang on to those things long after you've forgotten to take pleasure in them. Katniss almost does this with marrying Peeta or running from 12 or even becoming the Mockingjay. She's so afraid of losing what she loves that she jumps through hoops to control hanging onto them: does what Snow says, then does what Gale says, then does what Coin says. Plays a part in each of their games, to try and control the outcome. Coryo actually does do this, and for a while, has enough power to make that control almost universal. All because of fear of the things that he used to take pleasure in being taken from him.

Fourth, the alternative to focusing on the fear and the very-real danger of losing everything--is "focusing on every act of goodness I've seen someone do." This is just faith. Because it's true that the world of Panem (and the world in general) is full of people who are so afraid of losing control over what they love that they kill children and mutate nature to keep up the game, the illusion that they're in control. What you love could be taken from you. The world's full of that. But. The world also has unconditional love in it. People like Peeta, who saw that Katniss would kill him for her own survival in the first Hunger Games, but still chose to sacrifice for her anyway. People like Finnick, who loses everything including his mind, his body, and the things he loves most, but still gives Katniss the only rope he's got that's holding him together, just because he sees she needs it. Focus on that truth, instead of the simultaneous-truth that the it could all be taken away, and you'll have faith, not fear. You'll give up control and just enjoy what goodness you can. And when you do that, nobody can take it from you--not in spirit. Just like nobody could take Peeta's love for Katniss from him.

Finally, "it's like a game." To make a set of rules for yourself, a set of responses to the darkness of the world like making a list of things to focus on exclusively, is a game. It is a type of control--but it's just control of your own thoughts. Carefully using the game so that, in the arena of your brain, the love-shaped tribute is victor over the fear-shaped tribute. So that that battle stays in your head, instead of breaking out into a war that destroys what made your life worth surviving in the first place. Controlling what is your responsibility to control, instead of playing God and trying to control what's not yours. Drawing a line between what's good and what's bad, and staying firmly on one side of it without justification for crossing it.

That's why The Hunger Games is so good. Not because it has interesting dystopian settings, or because Gale and Peeta are hot and the romantic tension of the love triangle lets us self-insert ourselves. (Like other, worse YA fiction.)

No, The Hunger Games is so good because every part of it, from the characters to the setting to the symbolism to the names to the pacing to the development to the mood to the twists in the narrative, is used to uphold that main point. The main point that's so succinctly, cleanly, beautifully made in the last paragraph of the book.

[poetryandfluffycats]

Hi! Can I request a one shot with an afab!reader riding sub!himeru while praising and being all sweet and comforting because he was stressed? Thank you in advance 💕

A/N: HELLO OKAY never in my life did i think id write this much for himeru of all people but uh, it is what it is i guess?? i went off the rails with plot

Pairing: HiMERU x fem!reader

Content: As Crazy:Bs producer, you have lots of duties that tire you out so when your day off does cone you look forward to taking a much needed nap. The world has unfortunately got other plans for you, however.

Warnings: NSFW, porn with plot, dry humping, oral over clothes(m receiving), riding, kind of sub himeru, minimal amount of biting, messy making out, shared orgasms, mentions of depressive tenancies, rinne + niki have screentime, lots of praise and comfort, ooc himeru(?) he breaks character like once

Words: 5.6k

NSFW oneshot under cut!

Ring, ring, ring. The phone stored safely in your pocket was vibrating, alerting you to the incoming call you were receiving. With a sigh, you stopped in your tracks and pulled out the device to check the caller ID.

A part of you hoped it was a scam caller rather than a member of the unit you produced. Not that you didn't like speaking to the members of Crazy:B, you enjoyed their company more than anything! The reason was that today was your off day and you had hoped to spend it catching up on your missed class work and then sleeping for the rest of the afternoon, not dealing to whatever new problem the boys had encountered.

Luck wasn't on your side today, unfortunately. The caller ID read 'Rinne Amagi', the smirk of the infamous redheaded idol staring you down through his contact photo, as if taunting you to get ready for whatever nonsense was about to spill from his mouth.

Another, much longer, sigh left your throat as you tapped the answer button. Duty calls, you supposed. Surely whatever he wanted couldn't have been too hard for you to handle. "Hello?"

"(name)! My dearest lil' producer, hows ya day off? Doin' alright without me? Missin' my handsome face?" Rinnes voice was as smug and as loud as ever through the speaker, so much so that you found yourself pulling your phone away from your ear so you didn't go completely deaf.

His cheeky tone didn't go unnoticed by you, and you let out a scoff at his sheer childishness. "Fine, yes, and no. Don't butter me up, what do you want?"

"Straight to the point, I like that in a woman!" There was a laugh cut off by a loud cough and 'ahem', Niki most likely, before the man on the other end continued speaking. "Ah, well, ya see. HiMERU didn't show up to practice today, and he ain't answering when we call"

Your eyes rolled so far back into your skull you nearly saw your brain. Of course on the only day you had off in forever would be the day Rinne decided to come and give you an unskipable side quest. And for such a mundane task as well, something he could have easily done himself if he bothered to get off his ass. Seriously, how typical.

"We were hopin' ya could go and get 'im for us? Since ya know, yer the most wonderful producer in the whole world and ya love me so much"

"Sure I do... and why can't you go get him?"

"I got shit to do! Leader stuff, important stuff! Ya wouldn't understand. I'm real hard at work here-ow! Niki! Stop hittin' me dammit! That fuckin' hurt! Whatdaya mean 'don't cuss'? She ain't a baby!"

The line went silent for a few seconds, the only sounds going between the two of you being the muffled groans and slaps of Rinne and Niki fighting like toddlers. You swore you could also hear Kohakus sighs of disappointment from across the practice room.

It was a mintute or two before Rinne came back on the line, breathing heavier than usual and voice more strained. Niki 1, Rinne 0. "Got no time left ta talk! Go find that bastard and bring 'im back here, alright? I'm countin' on ya!"

"Wait, I never said I would-"

"Fuck! Shit! Niki, let go of my phone! No! Don't bite me!"

"(name)? Its Niki! I'll make you dinner if you go and get HiMERU-"

"NIKI!"

Click, line dead.

Your phone screen was now black, Rinnes smirking face replaced by your dumbfounded reflection staring back at you. Typical of you to become involved in Crazy:Bs shenanigans even when you weren't in the same room as them. That nap you had longed so gracelessly for was seemingly drifting further and further from your grasp, all thanks to the laziness of your idols. How wonderful

No use trying to escape your faith now, unless you wanted to endure the wrath of the group when they forgot the routine for the next live due to not practising at all. You did a 180 turn on your heels and began walking back in the direction of the dorms. When people asked what you did on your day off, maybe you could say you exercised?

/----------

"HiMERU? Are you in there? The guys want you at practice"

HiMERUs apartment door stared you down like a lion stalking its pray, mocking you like this was some sort of sick game. "Gonna come in?" It seemed to ask, or maybe that was just some voices in your head, "or are you just gonna stand there like a weirdo?"

You'd really outdone yourself this time. Half an hour later and you had searched half the school for the blue haired man. Before coming to his doorstep you had come to two different conclusions to his absence. Either, he had gained the ability to teleport and was somewhere on the moon, or, he had died and you had lost one of your best idols. The former, unlikely, but knowing the strange man HiMERU was it wasn't entirely impossible. The latter? You sure hoped not.

Despite your wishes of being able to go home and take a well deserved nap, you held your hand in a fist and knocked on the door once more, louder and harder this time. "I swear to God if you don't open this door I will break it down HiMERU! This is ridiculous! I could have been relaxing right now if it wasn't for you!"

As you spoke, there was a shuffling sound from inside the room, accompanied by a few soft thump-thumps of feet against the floor. Finally, the door opened, revealing the man you had been searching for.

"You are giving HiMERU a headache"

HiMERU stood before you in all his glory, dressed in nothing but a pair of sweatpants hanging dangerously low on his hips and a long sleeved shirt that due to the nature of his pants, showed off his mid-drift. Blue hair was a flattened mess atop his head, and you noted that he looked far less formal than usual. You had to mentally slap yourself before you stared for too long. "(name), you are aware you are not a wild animal, correct? HiMERUs door does not require barking to open"

"Practice, now. I don't care if you've got a headache or if you're in a mood, Rinne wants you there now" You ignored his snide remark, crossing your arms over your chest in attempt to look more authoritative. It didn't seem to work all that well, however, as HiMERUs facial expression remained unchanged.

"What if HiMERU had a lady friend over? Or perhaps a gentleman friend? Such loud noise would have disturbed imitate times with a special friend. What if HiMERU had been having some fun with his body?"

The urge to punch the man in front of you was stronger than ever before. Was he really trying to gaslight you into believing that he couldn't practice because he had been having sex? HiMERU of all people? You doubted he even had a dick, let alone someone to get it wet. Anyone else, sure, you could believe that. Not HiMERU, no matter how good looking the media made him out to be he was still a whackjob. Whackjobs didn't have sex.

"Were you?"

"No. HiMERU was reading a nice book and drinking some lovely herbal tea, he was simply making a point that you should be more considerate of others"

"I don't care-"

"You don't care about HiMERU? How crude, is this how CosPro treats its idols now? HiMERU will not be attending practice, he has other duty's to attend too"

The audacity of this man. Here you were, trying to be as nice as possible, just trying to get him to do his job, and he can't even do that! How much of an ego could one man have? Sure, you weren't perfect yourself, but at least you did what was expected of you, like right now even when you weren't meant to be working!

You could feel a vein pulsating in your forehead, your patience wearing thinner and thinner by the second. If you had to stand here for any long, you swore you would explode in several tiny pieces. You had to keep your composer if you wanted to keep your job, however, so you chose to remain silent instead of ripping him a new one. You narrowed your eyes at him, shooting lazer beams through his body with your pupils, praying to whatever God was out there that it would scare him into listening to you.

HiMERU seemed to get the memo, finally, his lips forming into a massive pout that nearly hit the floor, a bad look on the usually stoic idol you noted. "As you wish, producer. Please, come inside and wait whilst HiMERU gets ready" He moved out of the way of the door, outstretching his arm in invitation for you to come inside.

You took the invitation, kicking your shoes off and bowing your head slightly as you walked inside. You had never been inside HiMERUs apartment before, besides on the off occasion when you dropped him off. Considering who HiMERU was, a prim and proper diva who seemed to think he was far better than you, you fully expected for his apartment to match his personality. Clean, neat, not a speck of dirt on the ground. Maybe a few plants here and there, real plants that were watered everyday and cared for to the full extent.

As you soon came to realise, you had been wrong. Dead wrong.

"Holy shit..."

HiMERUs apartment was the polar opposite of what you thought it would be. The lights were off, curtains pulled shut, and a musky smell of tea bags long gone cold lingered in the air. A messily made futon laid out in the middle of the floor, blankets and pillows thrown atop it like it was a fort for children rather than a grown mans bed. Finishing touches to the pigsty of a room were the dirty clothes scattered across the floor-some of which resembling his idol uniform, but you couldn't quite tell through the mess-and a book opened in the middle of the floor.

"HiMERU would prefer if you kept your opinions to yourself" His monotone voice hissed from behind you, a sigh evident in his words. "Take a seat anywhere you'd like, be careful not to trip on anything"

How could he be so relaxed? You'd been in many idols rooms before, seen many of them doing things you hadn't expected before, some of which made you want to bleach your eyes out thinking back at them. But none of them had ever been this messy, you didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or just stand there in shock.

"I... huh? Is it always like this?" You squeaked out, eyes trained on HiMERU as he walked past you and into the kitchen, picking up a mug from the counter and taking a long sip.

"No, not usually" He admitted, leaning down with his elbows against the countertop and staring at you with that unreadable expression of his. Dead cold blue eyes trailed up and down your figure, and you almost felt as if he were dissecting your soul. "Does it bother you? Are you offended? Does mess make you upset? Are you going to cry?"

"What? No!" You shook your head. "I'm just surprised is all"

"A crying woman in HiMERUs home, that would be a sight to behold, wouldn't it? Please, sit down, HiMERU will be ready in a moment"

You were at a complete loss for words. The longer you spent with HiMERU the more he confused you, like a never ending puzzle that only got harder the more you tired to solve it, or a board game where every round new rules that contradicted the old rules were added. Was there even a word to describe such a man? A person whose identity was so clouded and muddled it was impossible to grasp them?

Trying to guess what HiMERU was thinking about at any given time made you want to jump off a cliff, live, and then jump off another cliff for good measure. You were going to get Rinne back for this, he owed you big.

Taking a seat on the floor next to his futon, you crossed your legs over one another and watched as the blue haired man pottered around his dorm. He seemed to be moving in a daze, similar to a zombie or a sleepwalker. He would take a sip of tea for a moment, then stop to put away a dish, then drink some more tea, then inspect one of the plants on the counter, then back to his tea, repeat until you found yourself even further in bewilderment.

"You're weird" You commented, resting your chin on your knees and bouncing your heels up and down. "Why are you acting like this?"

"Like what, (name)?" HiMERU raised an eyebrow, finishing off his tea and placing his mug in thesink, now moving to rummage through a pile of clothes.

"I don't know, like... drugged or something? Like a dead man walking? Stranger than usual I guess" Your eyes darted from him to the book laying on the ground. It was a normal looking book, white cover with some black writing on it, thick but still slim enough to be a causal read. "Do you like reading?"

A small laugh came from HiMERUs lips at the question. "That book is not very good. The information inside is not factual and rather silly, things about mediation and healing your inner child. An interesting read, but a waste of HiMERUS time. He does not believe in those things"

It was your turn to raise your eyebrows now. "Then why buy the book?"

"HiMERU has had a rough week, he wanted to indulge in some self-care. Alas, you and your begging interrupted him"

You had half a mind to snap at him for that comment, but you bit your own tongue before the insults could come pouring out, instead opting to obverse his actions. Having been in the industry for awhile, you were aware of the basic signs of burnout, and HiMERU was the poster child for it

Dark circles under his eyes, sluggish movement, a general state of being out-of-character, the sudden urge to skip training and sleep instead. It wasn't unusual for idols to suffer from fatigue and stress, it came with the job after all, but HiMERU had never been one to let his emotions get in the way of work. For him to be this out of it, it was concerning to say the least.

"Are you okay?"

HiMERU froze mid action, hands hovering over a t-shirt in the pile of clothes, staring at you like you'd just asked for a thousand dollars. "Excuse me?"

"I asked if you were okay, are you?" You stood up from your spot on the floor, brushing the dirt from your pants as you slowly approached him, snatching the book from the ground and reading over the blurb. "I didn't take you as the type to read these types of books, you must be really stressed to pick this up"

"Before you were yelling at HiMERU to go to practice, now you are acting concerned for him? HiMERU said, he has had a tough week, that is all"

"There has to be some way I can help you. Look, you don't have to go if you don't want to, I'll tell Rinne you were feeling ill" You opened up the book, scanning through the pages and reading over some of the content.

The language was a tad confusing, obviously made by someone with a higher knowledge in psychology than you, but it was still readable. "Some of this actually looks helpful, maybe we should try some of it? Like, I could give you a massage, or I could-"

"Turn to page 77, please"

You nodded, turning to the page in question. On top of the page were two separate drawings, one a diagram of a mans body and the other a sketch of a man and a woman in the classic missionary position. You could feel your face growing hot with embarrassment at the images, but continued on reading the page. Underneath the drawings were a few paragraphs of text, some certain words having arrows pointing to different parts of the pictures.

Taking a large gulp, you shut the book and looked back up at HiMERU, pupils wide as plates from what you just read. You noticed that he was closer now, only a few mere inches away from your body. Had be always been this tall, this handsome? You couldn't recall.

"HiMERU? I don't understand, these are pornographic, what are you talking about?-"

"Page 77, healing through sex. It says here that orgasms can be a natural stress reliever, and that regular intercourse is healthy for a persons body and mind" One hand came up to brush your cheek, thumb stroking up and down in a way that made your heart flutter, "You wish for HiMERU to go to practice, yes? Then he expects something in return"

His lips were on yours before you had time to blink. You dropped the book in your hands, it hitting the ground with a loud 'bang!' and laying open on page 77. Wet lips moved against your own, hand the once stroked your cheek now moving downwards to grip your waist, spinning the two of you around to press you against the countertop.

What little emotion HiMERU showed in his face, his kiss made up for. It was filled with desire, passion, lust, all the things that were so silent but still screamed the same three words. 'I want you'.

He pulled away before you had a chance to deepen the kiss, the both of you panting with your lips swollen and glossy with each other's saliva. A lewd sight, sure, but who else was there to see? No one, just the two of you in the dimly lit apartment.

"HiMERU-no, I need you to help me. Please, please help me" His voice was barely a whisper, so quiet you had to strain your ears to hear him. His desperation was all the same, however, and it was enough to make your brain go fuzzy. "I don't like to beg, you know, but you're making me lose it"

If you had have been standing on a tightrope, that would have been what broke the string holding you up. Those damn eyes, once filled like a endless void of indifference now spilling with want and need, the need for you to make him feel good, the need for you to relieve his tension by fucking him. How could you deny him?

"Let's move to the futon, yeah?" You pecked his lips once more, watching as his eyes lit up like a puppies. "We can take it slow, if you'd like"

The smile that overtook HiMERUs face almost made your heart burst wide open. "Yes... thank you, (name)"

You wiggled out of his hold, taking his hand and guiding him slowly to the futon on the floor. He sat down first, scooting backwards until he was sat just below the pillow, stretching his legs outwards to allow you to climb in between his legs and straddle him.

It was a position you never thought you'd find yourself in, and yet here you were, tugging at the hem of HiMERUs shirt and pulling it over his head. The skin underneath was pale and cold to the touch, causing goosebumps to creep up your arms. You ran your fingertips up and down his chest, lingering on the dip of his collarbone and the ridges of his ads. They were only little, like tiny hills on the plains of his over wise flat stomach, but they were sexy all the same.

HiMERU watched you with half-lidded eyes, glazed over and unfocused. His lips stayed parted, a whine leaving his throat each time your fingers traced over his skin. You leaned down to kiss him again, this time wasting no time in plunging your tongue straight inside the wetness of his mouth, sucking on his own tounge and feeling around on the inside of his cheeks.

HiMERUs hips buckled upwards to meet yours, earning a moan from you and a louder whine from him. His sweatpants strained with the growing budge in his crotch, poking against your thigh and leaving a small wet patch on your skin from the pre-cum leaking through. He must have been super desperate.

"(name)~" HiMERU whimpered as you pulled away, a sticky line of spit still connecting the two of you. You licked the excess saliva from your lips whilst a grin spread wide across your face. "Please, (name). HiMERU would you to-ah!-"

His pleas quickly transformed into moans as you rolled your hips against his, savouring in the pleasure of your clothed crotch rubbing on his now fully erect cock, The friction was like heaven, and the fabric of your shorts didn't do much to hide the wetness gushing out from your panties. You'd probably need to buy new ones after this, you thought, but that was a problem for future you.

HiMERUs hands flew up to hold your waist, guiding you backwards and forwards over his budge and rutting his hips in time with yours, the two of you humping like horny dogs in heat. A light pink flush had spread all the way from his cheeks to his ears, down his neck and even to the tips of his shoulder blades, the most sinful look of pleasure on his face as he threw his head back on the pillow.

"Do you like when I do this? You seem to be really enjoying yourself" You cooed, leaning down to suck a lovebite onto the underside of his jaw. "You're pretty, you know? Real pretty, real handsome for me"

The only response you got from HiMERU was another moan, louder and raspier than the others. The sounds made you clench around thin air and your thighs quiver with anticipation. Each time your core met his covered tip you could feel him twitch and throb beneath you, and every time the feeling had your eyes rolling into the back of your head.

Like an awaiting forest fire, the atmosphere was getting hotter by the second, the heat of both your body's pressed together creating a sensation indescribable.It was the most bliss you had ever experienced and you were yet to even be undressed. You were panting, HiMERU was panting, sweat was forming on your forehead and dripping down onto HiMERUS bare chest.

"More, HiMERU wants more" The man below you whined, fingernails digging into the flesh of your hips to leave tiny marks for later. "HiMERU wants you to fuck him, don't make him-augh!-say it again!"

"Fuck.." You breathed, bracing yourself by placing your palms flat against his chest. You lifted your hips up, giving the both of you a short break to catch your breath before you reached downwards to tug at the waistband of his sweatpants. With a tiny bit of a struggle they were off, revealing the dark blue boxers beneath that were nearly bursting from the strain of his erection. He was huge. Certainly bigger than you had seen in porn anyway. "I-, fuck"

Your loss for words assumed HiMERU, who took a deep, shaky exhale before speaking again, that desperate tone still clear as day in his voice. "Are you impressed? Is HiMERU that big?"

"Yeah... it is. I can't wait to have it inside me"

You purred out your words, moving down to rest on his thighs rather than his hips, your face in eye-line with his throbbing budge when you leaned down. The entire front of the fabric was wet with pre-cum, it having spread all over the area due to his impossibly long length. Your lips came into contact with the tip, your tongue swirling around and lapping up the sticky stains.

It pulsated at your touch. HiMERU let out a groan of pleasure as you continued your ministrations, kissing, licking, and sucking him through the thin cotton. One vein that you could feel was particularly sensitive, causing HiMERU to basically jump each time you grazed your teeth over it.

"Wait! No, stop! HiMERU will cum if you keep doing that!" The bluenette suddenly cired out, his legs kicking you in the sides as he tired to pull you off. Of course, you obliged, but not without giving one last farewell lick to his tip. You sat up on his thighs and tilted your head to the side, studying his expressions carefully and awaiting his next words. "HiMERU would like to cum inside. He thinks that would be the best way to get rid of his stress, not finishing in his pants like a pathetic teenage boy"

You nodded, "so you want me to...?"

"Sit on it" You'd never seen HiMERUs puppy dog eyes until now. There was such a longing in them, desires hidden in the ocean of his irises that only you could bring out in the moment. "Ride HiMERU, use him like a chair. HiMERU just wants to feel you"

Denying him would be a criminal felony. Climbing back to straddle his hips once more, you grabbed a hold of his waistband, gently pulling it downwards to finally free his cock from its confinements. Once the fabric was completely removed and his cock had sprung free you tossed the underwear away somewhere in the room to be dealt with later.

To say the least, HiMERU was large. Slender, and long, with balls that were tight and full against his shaft, pent up and waiting to be emptied inside your cunt.

The vein you had been nibbling on was a blue colour that rivalled his hair and ran down and up the underside of his cock, stopping just below his head. Speaking of the head, it was glowing red, dripping with arousal. You were pround of yourself for having caused that kind of reaction, especially when it came from an idol you knew as emotionless and cold hearted. Your own heart pounded inside your ribcage as you began to strip yourself down. You tired to make a show of it, pulling your shirt over your head in slow movements that you prayed to God looked seductive rather than silly.

As if he could read your mind, "You look beautiful" HiMERU barely whispered the words, but they were still heard all the same by you. You thought he might be staring at your breasts, or at the spot between your legs as you removed your shorts and panties, but no. Instead of your body, his blue gaze was solely fixated on your face.

"Thank you, you are too. Beautiful, I mean" A small smile graced your face as you thanked him. With your shorts now gone and your pussy exposed to the air, you lifted your hips once more, slinging your entrance with the very tip of HiMERUS cock. "Are you ready?"

"HiMERU has been called many things before when he has been stressed. Annoying. Selfish. A nuisance. Never beautiful"

You didn't have much time to respond, or even react to his comment before a hand was on your shoulder, pushing you down and impaling you on his cock. It hurt, but not in the way that made you want to scream and cry, but more so in the way that made your walls clench around him, your eyes roll into the back of your head and your toes curl in your socks.

He filled you up to the brim, tip poking against your cervix and each vein and ridge moulding your walls into the prefect fit for him. A raspy whimper left your throat as you adjusted to his size. HiMERU allowed you to take your time despite the twitch of his hips just begging for any sort of friction, instead opting to rub gentle shapes into your shoulders while the both of you huffed and heaved.

"HiMERU is sorry, he couldn't help himself" HiMERUs lust clouded eyes avoided your own, staring at the wall behind you instead. "You won't judge HiMERU if he finishes early, will you?"

You shook your head, grinding down on his pelvis to give him and yourself some of that desperately needed pleasure. "Not at all. You're amazing, so good. You fill me so well, I don't think I'll last long either. And even if we don't, we can always go again"

A faint nod from HiMERU was all you needed before you lifted your hips, placing your hands on his chest to balance yourself as you released him from your velvet walls, leaving only the tiniest amount of the tip in before slamming your hips back down. A loud "plop!" was made as your body smashed against his, the heat from your shared arousals filling your brain with no thoughts other than HiMERU.

HiMERU. HiMERU. HiMERU. HiMERU!

You set a gentle, but fast pace, bouncing your hips up and down in smooth rhythm, sounds of your wet cunt squelching and sloshing mixing in with the groans leaving HiMERUs lips. Him inside you felt like heaven. Hot and sweaty heaven. Your walls dragged along his cock like the prefect fleshlight, sending waves of electrical pleasure down his spine and all the way to the very tips of his toes.

Althought a little bit more stable, you were in a similar state to HiMERU. Each time you slammed back down onto him it felt as if all the nerves in your body were being twisted, pulled, and knotted in a way that had that oh so familiar warmth beginning to pool in your belly.

Praises spilled from your mouth, coating the inside of HiMERUs brain with words of encouragement and affection rather than whatever he had been feeling before. Right now, in this moment, you would have been lying if you said you didn't care for him, and not just in the way you would care for the other idols of Crazy:B.

One particularly hard bounce had you crying out, "HiMERU! H-hey, you know your a good boy right? So good to me, gonna make me cum, huh? You wanna cum too? I wanna see your pretty face when you're filling me up"

HiMERU only grunted in response, but you could tell your words had worked when he started thrusting his hips to meet yours. You could tell he was close, too, his eyes had become so dilated that his irises were only a thin string of blue around his pupils.

You felt bad for his neighbours, no, actually, you felt bad for anyone within 10ft of the building. The walls of the apartment were basically shaking from the sheer noise of you both, and what happened next didn't help that much.

HiMERU gripped your hips, nails digging in hard enough to leave marks, then pulled you flush against him. Chest to chest, skin to skin, you were as close as two people could possibly be as your lips found his in a sloppy open-mouthed kiss. Your teeth clashed together in an ugly way, tongues went anywhere but where they were supposed to and if your younger self could see you now, she'd probably throw up at how your saliva dissolved into each others.

"(name!)"

"HiMERU!"

You weren't sure who came first, or even how long the two of you spent whining and moaning into each others mouths, but you felt HiMERUs seed filling you up, dripping out of you and for sure staining the futon. Your own orgasm washed over you like a wave, a tsunami wave that destroyed cities and uprooted trees, leaving you breathless and trembling atop HiMERU.

It took you a few mintutes to come down from your high, since your vision was clouded with white spots and you could almost feel the tiny sperm cells swimming around trying to reach your uterus. Thank God you were on the pill, over wise you would have been in deep shit. One day, maybe, if whatever just happened was to happen again, but that wasn't something you liked to think about.

"Are you alright?" You whispered as you pulled yourself off of HiMERUs now softening cock, laying down on your side besides him. "How do you feel?"

The man in question seemed to be in a daze, staring at the ceiling with no thoughts in his eyes. You poked his cheek with a finger, quickly jolting him back to reality as a smile tugged at his lips.

"HiMERU feels good, thank you" The smile on his face was genuine. Sometimes you questioned whether HiMERU was real or not, whether his personality was as fake as your gut told you it was. Here, you could see how your gut was wrong. That smile was real, this feeling was real. "HiMERU feels he should get stressed out more often, no?"

You scoffed, crossing your arms over your bare chest, "Don't push it, I won't help you if your doing it intentionally!"

"Then a date? HiMERU will pay, all you will need to do is be pretty for him"

You smiled back at him, "I'd love too"

You spent awhile on that futon, just chatting and staring into each others eyes like any old couple would do. When you did leave, it wasn't without a goodbye kiss and a promise to meet up again soon.

And, you would've let Rinne off the hook for making you go over there in the first place, if it wasn't for the message you received later that night.

Rinne: what position he put u in??

[devine-fem]

I wanted to talk about Damian’s sexuality.

That comes out weird, I know but this is prompted more so because I saw someone post about how he’s always been straight and op didn’t understand how people were so surprised when he started dating Nika. Then someone took a jab at Damijon + another person who said they didn’t understand the concept of Damian not understanding queerness.

I think that Damian doesn’t understand queerness but I’ll get into it toward the end of the post.

This will be put in two parts. One for Damian and how he feels about his sexuality and Damian’s internalized homophobia.

Let’s start with his canon love interest; Flatline. Flatline unlike his other attempted love interests was supposed to be taken seriously and didn’t suck. Compared to the others on this list, we should be rejoicing at Flatline.

Then this person used panels where it suggested that Damian had a sexual interest in a woman.

Almost every single person Damian has been interested in has been treated like a joke and not taken seriously. Some women are much too old for him and just awful picks.

Katana… why… stop please. Another example of them only doing it as a joke. This is so weird considering she’s much older.

Supergirl. Another joke. And much older.

Djinn… I don’t even know why…

Cassie Sandsmark… in a Earth, nice one Tom Taylor.

He has a couple more one off ones that weren’t taken seriously as well.

I know he got a cheek kiss from Emiko. He also dated Raven in an animation but I feel it was more a plot device. Also there are a lot of sexual jokes about Damian and I hate because he’s supposed to be ten by that time… there were some weird sexual impilcations when he teamed up with steph and I don’t know why writers do that instead of exploring the potential of their characters together and relationship…

Now let’s get into how Damian personally feels about his sexuality.

He jabs at romance and the concept of it a lot.

In Robin 2021 he also was very against romance but it was more as a way to sheild himself from his feelings. The only real confirmation that Damian is attracted to woman is Nika. So thank you, Nika. Anything other than that is just comphet to me at least.

This is also why he’s hc as Aro, Ace or Demi because he literally shows no interest in romance and the only times he does it feels like the writer has forgotten his personality.

TW: SEXUAL ASSAULT.

People don’t talk about that time Damian was kind of drugged/mind controlled and sexually assaulted… I’m not sure if people don’t perceive it that way but it seemed like SA to me.

She’s much older than him. He’s a ten year old. The way she’s speaking… her being naked. Damian telling her he doesn’t like it. Him not being in his right frame of mind… it reads this way to me.

Listen, I don’t understand how you can interpret Damian as any sexuality anyway when he’s so young. Only when he’s thirteen/fourteen can it truly be explored.

Although, Damian saying he won’t/can’t feel that way also proves my case.

He’s never really shown a whole bunch of interest in anyone.

—— End of trigger.

Now for the internalized homophobia.

So, the arguement is “he’s too smart not to know about queer culture…” What? What part of not knowing about queer culture makes you stupid?

Damian grew up in a very controlled environment where he was taught how to survive, taught how to lead and how to feel. What part of his schedule would fit in learning about queerness?

Internalized homophobia is in no way a bad thing and personally, as others do as well, see it as another way to queer code because its something a lot of queer people experience. This doesn’t negate the attraction to woman by the way but that doesn’t mean Damian can’t be interpreted as some other type of queer.

There’s also people who like to negate and ignore this part of Damian’s character but… why? These moments are part of important comics with his character. Damian was young and didn’t know much about well, anything. If you’re not personally queer yourself then you have no real incentive to learn about queerness.

There’s nothing really wrong with it. Even if Damian used gay as more of an insult. I doubt he knew what being queer was outside of “When boy likes boy.”

Also, he makes some comments often that come off… not the best.

I still really don’t think its bad and can be interesting if explored.

This also coupled with his culture shock, probably adds to his confusion on certain cultures.

I mean, he doesn’t know all that much. He’s not exactly mister super genius when it comes to real life things as well.

He doesn’t know what laffy taffy is… come on.

All this evidence doesn’t even matter anyway because it’s confirmed that when he does go to pride that knows literally nothing about it and has to be EXPLAINED by a friend about how it came about and how it works but people get so upset about that.

I don’t know what Damian’s sexuality could possibly be but I just don’t personally think he knows either and that has nothing to do with Damijon or any ship, but with canon.

I wanted to go more indepth to this but yeah, internalized homophobia Damian is very close to me.