#but thats not really relevant to the history of people ignoring it

[wildfyrevalkyrie]

i came into the fandom post-kh3

then ig lemme give you some perspective from someone who grew up with the series.

so base kh2 was my first kh game. im not sure how, since im pretty sure my family owned kh1 first, but it was. as a kid coming into this with absolutely zero context from the prior games, kh2 was not only understandable, but became one of my favorite games. the flashes of memory recapping the plot in the prologue was enough information for me to get the gist of what had happened before, and kh2 is written in such a way that it can both stand on its own and serve as a satisfying finale to the kh1-com-kh2 trilogy. this game set a standard for kh numbered titles.

the next game i played was base kh1. i couldnt beat kh1. i tried multiple times over the years, but each time i would get stuck at the lion head fight in agrabah. i still respected kh1’s story, even if i didnt get to see hollow bastion until i finally played the hd remake following kh3s release.

com was a title i was aware of. my family owned the walkthrough book for it but not the game itself. all i knew about it was that it was for gameboy, it features card games as the gameplay system, and that sora ends up in a bubble flower because of namine. as a kid, it was pretty obvious that handheld + vastly different gameplay system = spinoff, and that wasn’t a negative but a statement of fact. (honestly, i find it weirder that you associate “spinoff” as being equivalent to “bad”.) as such, while i was curious about com, i didnt feel like my experience in 2 was affected enough by this knowledge gap to go out of my way to play it.

i literally did not know about days. maybe it was cuz i didnt have a ds.

i was aware that bbs existed. i couldnt play it tho cuz i didnt have a psp. i think i was aware that it was a prequel series, maybe that it was connected to the keyblade graveyard seen in 2’s ending (remember i owned base kh2, so lingering william didnt exist), and i definitely had the misconception that took place back in the Ancient Times™️ when keyblades were common. (unironically, finding out years later that it was set only 10yrs in the past was very disappointing) so ancient history + following a completely new cast + handheld = spinoff, a really cool sounding spinoff that i wouldve probably played had i owned a psp, but nothing close to a console seller in my child eyes.

ddd i was not only aware of relatively close to release, but i had a 3ds and was hyped to play a sora-focused spinoff… and then i got pinpoint spoiled that its about sora and riku taking their mark of mastery exam and riku passes while sora fails. i decided in that moment that that was all i needed to know and wrote the game off. literally never found out about the dream eaters or any of the time travel nonsense, hell i still didnt know old man xehenort even existed. it just made so little sense to play a game that ends with the protagonist failing, and even less that sora would fail a keyblade mastery test while riku passed, so i skipped it.

i had a friend that played the mobile game back when it was a web browser game. she tried to get me to play it, but i think i was either still mourning the death of pixie hollow/toon town or was busy with other stuff.

re: coded im p sure i got as a christmas gift in like 2014? it was definitely after the web browser game came out, because i remember checking out the character editor thing included and thinking it was neat that you could make a web browser character. it was straight-up not fun to play, and the story wasn’t compelling enough to make me finish it.

0.2 i knew for being a tech demo and having a silly-long name. i didnt play it cuz i wasnt interested in paying full game price for a tech demo.

by the time of kh3, i knew a lot of the general story beats for the games i had missed (still not the time travel plot—apparently i had intense blinders on for ddd lmao), and i was so hype for a new mainline title. i didnt bother with playing any of the titles i had missed, because i didnt own them, because why would i do homework for a video game, and because kh2 had taught me that the numbered titles can more or less stand on their own.

kh3 doesnt stand on its own.

im sure thats obvious to you, having come into the series post-kh3, and likely already cognizant that all of kh was connected and going to culminate in 3, but that wasn’t obvious living through the releases, especially for someone who was a more casual fan.

so in response to your question of “why do kh fans ignore games they find irrelevant to the plot”, historically its got a lot to do with the accessibility of these titles and little to do with the “plot relevance”. now that things like the all in one package exist, making the entire series experienceable on one platform (plus or minus two ds games), people ignoring the titles between 2 and 3 is way less common. but back in the day, the general consensus was that most of these games were generally worth it if you owned the system it was on, but weren’t console-sellers. and that’s reflected in my own experience. i played (or wouldve played, rip days/ddd) all the games the were on systems i owned that i was aware of.

Y'know now that I think about it, the kh fandom seems to have a huge problem with ignoring or disliking games they find "irrelevant" to the plot. I came into the fandom post-kh3 so I can't say I know how the fandom's changed over time but.. it's kinda ridiculous to me tbh. Because from what I read it sounds like most people hated/ignored BBS and 358/2 days because they were "spin-offs." (Which is dumb anyway, like, even if hypothetically KH3 didn't exist and they were just spin-off characters- Why is that a bad thing? Why should you treat them like they don't matter? Why do some people think the characters from those games don't matter because they only care about the fate of the Destiny Trio?) And even still people consider Chain of Memories irrelevant because "Oh Sora forgets everything anyway, all you need to know is that." And then they consider Coded/Re:Coded irrelevant because "It's all data anyway." And THEN they consider DDD irrelevant because "All you need to know is the Xehanort time travel stuff in the finale." It's so weird to me how some people can claim to be invested in these games yet only care about the numbered titles. It can't be because they care about Destiny Trio that much if they consider titles including them to still be irrelevant.. So what is it then?? Is the concept of a spin-off inherently bad to these people? Like, sure, if you're thinking of the BARE MINIMUM KNOWLEDGE then yes I would agree you don't need to know much about those games beyond what I listed.. HOWEVER, that does not mean it's good to only go into the games with that knowledge. If you truly care about this series and its characters, you would value the ways those games expand on their characters. And even if you don't.. If you're only going into these games with the idea of "vaguely understanding the plot" but the plot alone. Not the characters. If all you care about is "How did Xehanort revive other versions of himself?" And not the buildup for the characters and how these arcs affect them, y'know, as characters..

I just don't understand how you can go into these games like that and still have fun with it. Like sure if I'm into a series where I appreciate the worldbuilding but there isn't much to the characters I can get behind that. (And I mean that in the sense of games with blank-slate protagonists, not to say the characters don't matter to me, but that the characters don't have much personality to get attatched to.) But in a story like Kingdom Hearts where it is about the characters, and the story is just how the characters choices affect each other- I dunno man. I'm not sure of the right words to explain what I'm trying to say but it just feels so dull and boring to only care about that in a series, and especially a series like this. I could go on and on about the ways those games affect the characters and the story more than those little one-sentence quotes.. And sure, maybe I will in addition to this, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here. Even if they didn't affect the story, even if they were solely character-building, or even if they barely served a purpose at all beyond a couple of scenes.. It shouldn't devalue the entire experience as irrelevant. (Chain of Memories I kinda get disliking due to the combat LMAO but aside from that + some people do like the combat-) The games are more than story alone. They're more than gameplay alone. And they're more than characters alone. All aspects of the game come together to create an experience, and if you want to devalue the entire experience as a bad game, because you find it irrelevant due to it not fulfilling your specific preferences of what you want out of these games- Then I have a hard time believing you appreciated this series at all to begin with. Also a hard time believing you have good media literacy or even care about having any but hey that's a topic for another day am i right

[horseimagebarn]

Ok so thanks for the answer vis a vis the centaur situation I appreciate it a lot and I'm not trying to convince you to change your ruling but unfortunately you used the word taxonomy which triggered one of my damn neurodivergences. I hope you don't mind but my response will be to deposite these few paragraphs in your inbox I'm sorry in advance if this comes off as aggressive or condescending or just plain annoying I'm just sensing an opportunity to infodump to someone who might be interested in tbe topic so I'm seizing it I'm sure you know what it's like

Anyway there's a disconnect between pragmatism and scientific rigor that people are blind to which vexes me and biological taxonomy is a particular pet peeve of mine the biggest instance of it is crocodiles and alligators which are really the same damn animal for all intents and purposes but that's not relevant

Naturally when one thinks of horses one thinks of domestic horses specifically (Equus ferus cabellus) but I'd argue that certain pictures of donkeys (Equus africanus) look more like domestic horse pictures than certain pictures of Przewalski's horse (Equus ferus przewlaskii) despite the latter being classified as the same species and the former not

And I feel that for a horse image barn the resemblence of a picture to an archetypical horse image should be a higher priority criterion for inclusion than some criteria that biological taxonomy relies on like the presence of specific haplotypes which isn't even a word anyone knows and if you go to its Wikipedia article you get a definition of it that's not really relevant to this ask

So yeah in conclusion I wouldn't tie the in/ex-clusion of images to scientific taxonomy but to Vibes if I were the admin of this or a similar blog but I'm not and you are so you can like do whatever

Also I won't be submitting the centaur image I wanted to submit but can I still send it as an ask I like showing it to people spreading it around etc it's kind of cursed but also funny and I like it a lot and I understand why it's not horse enough to your taste but it's definitely horse adjacent and I want to share it

as a fellow animal wikipedia delver i agree that taxonomy is not the end all be all of the human perception of animals however what i meant to imply is that the differences between centaurs and horses are large enough to be considered taxonomical and are not debatable even in a taxonomical sense due to their many massive differences also i have posted przewalskis horses before as they are true horses and this is horseimagebarn not assimagebarn or centaurimagebarn even though i love donkeys just as much and would own a donkey over a horse any day

i did just take my adderall and am bored at work so i have to humbly yet lengthily disagree with you that taxonomy is not important in both cases presented while the crocodilian assumption you make has bruised my heart as i love alligators and i find them far cuter than crocodiles due to the differences in their jaw structure that makes their bottom teeth fit into their mouth instead of jutting out like crocodiles (which is one of the many actual and notable physical differences between them alongside choice of salt or fresh water etc) i wont get into that and will focus on horses since thats the point of this blog using actual punctuation and capitalization for the first time in this blogs history ill be referring to przewalskis horse as takhi as it is also known so i dont make a typo which i know i will

long ass (donkey pun) post warning

Taxonomy can of course be vague at times or muddied, but it is not an invalid study. All human knowledge is constantly evolving, and mistakes are inevitably going to be made, but that does not make our efforts invalid. It is beneficial for us to know how evolution works. Taxonomical differences are real and worth considering, even if mistakes are made sometimes. Two animals looking similar is not a valid reason to ignore their taxonomical differences, nor is it okay to ignore similarities because they look different—if we went by that logic, every dog breed would be a totally different species.

Speaking of, here's a little more on the whole appearance thing before we get into the science:

The other day, I was watching a video about the actual horses that existed in antiquity, and they are far more similar to takhi than you might think. I'll link the video if I can find it, apologies for a lack of a source on this right now, but the gist of it was that horses of yore were much shorter and stouter than modern horses. The tall, thin horse often seen in modern depictions of ancient time is inaccurate, as is the thick, muscular draft, which didn't become common until later on. Back then, people wanted horses that were sturdy—most people didn't care as much about specific breeds or having the hugest and prettiest horse on the block, especially when food to maintain larger animals like modern horses wasn't always guaranteed, and having such a huge animal could be dangerous and more difficult. Their horses were more similar to ponies than our big guys now, and ponies aren't a separate species. The selective breeding of horses to become taller and leaner made them appear way different from the takhi, but just like dogs, they remain extremely similar to those of their taxa despite looking different on the surface. For example, take a look at the ancient fjord horse breed next to the takhi...in fact, sometimes takhis are called Mongolian ponies! We can even see this in ancient art earlier in the horse's domestication:

Anyway, science:

Firstly, the takhi isn't wholly classified as the same exact species as the true horse, our domesticated Equus ferus caballus. Both Equus ferus callabus and Equus ferus przewalskii are considered subspecies of caballines, or true horses, meaning they're more like cousins (I know it's a cliche to say this, but I mean it), with donkeys and zebras as, like, their nephews twice removed. If the takhi was considered the exact same species as the domestic horse with no acknowledged differences, it would be considered a breed of horse, not a subspecies (though breeds are typically manmade, they are not always—see the word "typical" in the dictionary definition). This means that it does have recognized, distinct differences from the standard domesticated horse that have been taken into consideration in their taxonomy—it is not like the two are blindly considered the same exact thing.

Mistakes have been made in Equus taxonomy in the past, but continued research has led to a retaxing of the genus as early as the 1980s. In the 2012 review article "Discordances between morphological systematics and molecular taxonomy in the stem line of equids: A review of the case of taxonomy of genus Equus," by E. Kefena et al., a number of scholars reviewed the methods with which the Equus genus has been taxed in the past and how they have changed in the past few decades.

According to that article, equines are an incredibly plastic genus. They are very good at adapting to their environments, which led past taxonomists to overcount the amount of Equus species that existed in the past and therefore miscategorize the history of the genus in general. Many were actually just adapted versions of the same thing. This is what we see in the horse and takhi—they are similar but have adapted to their different environments and niches.

In 1986, two molecular scientists, George and Ryder, performed the first DNA-based molecular taxonomy on all living equus species, publishing their findings in the article "Mitochondrial DNA evolution in the genus Equus." By mapping equus DNA and constructing a phylogenetic tree, they were able to take a closer look at the actual genetic disparities between equus species.

George and Ryder found that "[In the mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) cleavage map,] the percent sequence difference between E. przewalskii and E. caballus individuals was found to range between 0.27% and 0.41%. ... Overall, the amount of divergence presented here is small and not much greater than the 0.36% divergence reported for mtDNA differences found among the human racial groups (Brown 1980; Cann et al. 1984)."

So, horses and takhis are incredibly similar. Using these findings, they separated equus species into three clades: "One that groups the zebras, a second that groups E. africanus [African wild ass] and E. hemionus [Asiatic wild ass, aka the hemione], and a third that associates the true [caballine] horses E. przewalskii and E. caballus as a unit. However, as stated previously, the E. africanus-E. hemionus clade remains enigmatic."

They later state that "E. hemionus and E. africanus appeared more karyotypically [chromosomally] similar to each other than to other equids," hence why they were considered a clade despite being "enigmatic." Kefena et al. explain this weird enigma further, and, notably, compare it to the takhi: "Next to Przewalskii's horses, hemiones were the first species to be diverged from the stem line of extant equids, suggesting that they might be closely related to caballine horses than to asses, though they are monophyletic with donkeys than with horses. On the basis of these evidences, morphological resemblance between species doesn't guarantee genetic similarity between equid species." This means that asses and horses have distinct genetic differences that far outweigh those between takhi and domestic horses, despite the fact that donkeys and takhi look more similar. The hemione looks very similar to the African wild ass, and it is closer to it genetically, but it is not the same due to the way it evolved—it broke away from the general line earlier than any other ass. The takhi is the same; it diverted earlier than other horses, but remains very genetically similar—more than any other extant Equus species. And, even with the takhi's extra chromosomal pair, George and Ryder also found that they and horses were also very close karotypically, giving them incredible similarities both mtDNA-wise and chromosome-wise. Despite that different chromosome, horses and takhis can successfully interbreed and produce fertile offspring, unlike horses and donkeys.

Kefena et al. "MYBP" stands for "Millions of Years Before Present" Funnily enough, G&R also say, "There has been little to no dispute over the close relationship that exists between E. przewalskii and E. caballus; thus the addition of E. caballus to the E. przewalskii branch should be easily accepted." Which is so weirdly on the nose that I feel compelled to say that it's on page 544 so no one thinks I'm making it up. So, with their genetic similarities, their actually surprisingly similar appearances, and their sequential DNA similarities, the Przewalski's horse and the domesticated horse do belong in the same category when compared to other equines like donkeys and zebras. They're not identical, but they're in the same room of the larger equine house. And, check out the tarpan, Equus ferus ferus, another subspecies of Equus ferus and the most recently extinct of them all, alongside the current Equus ferus species (and a concept of the original Equus ferus pre-domestication by Cameron Clow on Artstation)! They're all friends:

Conclusion

you can send me centaurs if you want i just wont post them

[juni-ravenhall]

If you take over SSE, what would be your first changes that you make? Like immediate things you want to do?

And what’d be your long term goal, how would you achieve it?

- ro-sso

this is the best ask ever thank u but u might not be prepared for this essay........ sorry :3

first off id need to find out exactly who are the current ppl for game director, art director, etc direction positions, and who of them are making the crazy decisions. is it directors and managers, is it the CEO, etc. ofc there might be many parts in this chain from an uncaring CEO down to a confused director down to a struggling game designer down to a coder/writer/artist that doesnt get enough time and resources, like, i understand its a complex chain but that doesnt change the fact that someone (or several) have been fucking shit up for all of sse's history. so i would do a lot of talking to staff respectfully and finding out whats really been going on in the chain, and who is not working in the best interest of the game's quality and the company's stability. map out where in the company theres the most and least problems.

(this to me is easy, im analytical and resistant to lies and manipulation as a person. i see through shit very easily and i have a long history of self-studying and analysing stuff related to running companies and making games, since thats my life goal... so to some ppl it might sound like "thats harder than you think" bc theyre just not me. some ppl arent passionate about running good healthy ethical game companies - i am!)

sse clearly has basically never had good directors with good direction, or if they did, those werent given enough power and resources. they shouldnt have been changing artstyle several times, they shouldnt have been abandoning storylines and areas, they shouldnt have been ignoring bugs in general, they shouldnt have been ignoring bugs and cheats in racing and champs, etc. so, its very important to get a good game director, art director, and so on, in place, whether its an existing staff member who just needs more power and resources, or its someone new who is a good fit.

then ofc take a look at all staff hired and see what everyone is there for. after the layoffs im not sure if they have many passive workers left but id get an overview and do some interviews w staff to find out how the efficiency situation is and if more/less ppl are needed in diff areas to actually pay ppl to work on the game itself. (as an example mb u need one less social media person and one more programmer, one less team manager consultant or other middleclass word salad jobs... etc.)

then overview of salary differences. this is a huge point to me. was the CEO that im assumably taking the job from, earning a lot more than everyone else a month? then thats not happening anymore. all salaries within the company would become more balanced, setting in place a system where the minimum salary and max salary at the company are tied together in a ratio so that to raise the top u must also raise the bottom. this will instantly lower much of the top and assumably raise some at the bottom (how much, i dont know from the outside). this ratio system would be clearly outlined and from now on a pillar of the company's structure. also, check that skilled senior staff has appropriate pay for their experience, etc, make sure salaries seem fair.

along with this ofc a good overview of costs, loans, earnings, the current office and all of this to know the situation. i think thats obvious but ill say it anyway to be clear. have a complete grasp of the economic situation, talk to the economics staff.

with staff interviews and salary checkups it would also be relevant to see if theres any gold star workers who should shift up in positions, for example a very good animator could become lead animator, stuff like this. sse has already done things like this fairly often (sometimes maybe not with the right people) so im not too worried about it but i would do another check. also just general talk w staff to find out who has hidden potential that might not be getting used. (i want to know my workers and be able to help them shine, this is good both for the workers, the work environment, and the company results.)

at this point, we should have balanced out some of the leaking money at the top (and hopefully made a few leeches jump ship while at it), boosted the happiness within the company (balanced salaries etc), and have a great overview of whats going on from the more economic and hierarchy standpoint. we should have gotten rid of some potential leeching staff that didnt actually help create a good product and run a healthy, ethical company, and we might have gotten new people in positions where we needed more skills (direction, programming, whatnot). compared to sse's 10+ years of being a chaotic mess, the company structure should look pretty good now, even if not perfect.

i would have a lot of talk with the directors and team leaders and senior staff to make sure everyone is on the same page from now on: we are making a good quality game, we are being consistent, we are not adding new random shit just bc ooh shiny or cashgrabs, we are going to impress the players and make them feel "oh god, finally sso is consistent and living up to its potential". everyone at the company needs to understand this goal and why the loyal players are disappointed with the game. there will still be new horses and item recolors etc ofc, we do need a certain degree of "ooh shiny" from the player side of things (hopefully good gameplay and good stories would also be ooh shiny though), but there needs to be a new focus on the Actual core and Actual pillars of the game, which sse failed to do bc they have bad direction.

most likely, we would change the weekly update into bi-weekly or monthly, maybe starting with bi-weekly to test the waters. in order to deliver a good quality main storyline and also good quality stories and updates to tie up loose ends, there needs to be enough time to do that. there would be very solid goals on the cadence at which major updates are released and no long stretches of time without main story, and no long stretches without other significant updates.

an important part of that is also the seasonal events - i think the 4 seasons of events is a good thing, but they need to be properly bug fixed and have some design and writing improvements, one new fun (more challenging) race for each of them, etc. so hopefully we can afford enough staff that we have a few ppl working on updating and finalising the 4 seasonal events to their more or less final form.

each seasonal event needs to have a cool and challenging race (similar to cloud kingdom rainbow race or some other recent races) that HAS A HIGHSCORE BOARD. this is a key thing to me. all event races should have highscore boards (and some crappy event races may be removed, or combined into a better version of all of them together). *everyone* playing would be able to just better their own score for a generic gold/silver/bronze score, which gives specific rewards for reaching the medal score on the event race(s), and those who are at the top of the leaderboard among everyone, would get a non-exclusive prize, like 1000js. its not a huge win - not to encourage cheating to get to the top - and mostly based in the existing "daily best" system. it would still encourage players to actually try their best at the event races and feel like there's some stakes in it. (active human moderation of suspicious race results is also necessary - we should be able to afford that now.) i also think, if someone has won the daily best, they should then not be able to get the daily best for at least another week, leaving place for other people... but this becomes a problem with alt accounts, so it needs more consideration, i dont have the full answer to that yet.

also, all the tack and clothes need a stats overhaul. the random top stats we currently have are stupid and they seem like they just didnt think about this at all. this is partially a dress up game, so you need to be able to dress up cute and still have top stats and be able to win champs. if possible, i would set staff to work on letting you upgrade any piece of equipment to max stats (which would be something like 5-10 in each stat i guess). this system might require starcoins to upgrade - a way for the company to earn money from cosmetic changes, that seems fair enough to me. (maybe there would be a way to pay with shillings and collectables, but just an easier way to pay with sc, it would be considered.)

we'd also need to sit down and take a good look at what all horses stats are, which horses seem to be boosted or nerfed in races for no reason, and make sure all horses at least function fairly and as intended. after that, to consider whether you should be able to train all horses to have the same max stats, or if we want to keep breeds unique and different, then those differences should also be well thought out and actually matter. right now, and for a long time, some horses are just better at races than others (pintabian, etc), and some (ardennes) seem to be shit for no real reason (other draft horses dont necessarily have the same problem). so it needs to be properly looked at and fixed so all horses at least have good reasons to be different, if they are different at all, and no bugs or unintended boosts and nerfs. horse stats should make sense for gameplay.

all the champs need to get their updated forms, so i also hope we could afford enough staff to have a few ppl working on updating the champs consistently until thats done. i do think a lot of sso's races also should be overhauled, because racing is the main gameplay we actually have (collecting light in hollow woods is not challenging and not really gameplay) and it should be satisfying, fun, and challenging, like playing a mariokart race (that doesnt mean it should play *like* a mariokart race, just that it needs to be fun). the highscore boards and the gold/silver/bronze medal systems are really, really neglected assets of sso's player motivation. if getting a gold medal score on a race was consistently actually difficult and required practice, and getting that gold medal also gave you a good reward (shillings, items) that motivated you to aim for it, then players might actually have fun challenging themselves for higher scores! the same goes for daily best / etc scores that should be looked into, what rewards they give, etc.

also, there should be a ban on adding any new npcs to the game if theyre not extremely necessary. sse has been adding new npcs left and right all the time, and it just clogs the game with random irrelevant characters that dont add anything to the game, it takes time and resources to make their model, give them a name, write their dialogue, and so on. instead, focus all that energy on actual relevant npcs and ones that players want to talk to and find out more about, hear their storylines, etc, and let races be handled with either existing npcs or with new and improved highscore board objects (make it obvious you click them to start the race).

of course, the art style of sso should never again change. art direction from now on is consistent and solid with an art director who understands their job, lead artists and lead animators who 100% understand what the goals are. directors who make sure that the quality of art, design, animation are up to the standards of the style we are using, that things fit together in the game. new models should not actually be "better" than the old ones - you end up in a destructive cycle where the art keeps changing. the style should be consistent with only relatively minor refinements over time. so, the art directors and leads need to make sure the style continues to be consistent, and update things that need to be. (im not sure how many areas of sso should really get the complete overhauls like silverglade village anymore - at some point you're also wasting resources on something less important than the gameplay and story, but some areas also look really outdated, so careful consideration needs to go into which areas to update and *how* to update them. maybe jarlaheim doesnt need a complete overhaul but a partial one. etc.)

the gen 4 horse needs to have very solid planning before release, which seems to have been the case so far from the little ive heard about it. if players can finally get a more custom horse with custom markings, mane and tail styles (preferrably available across breeds), and ability to pick coat, mane and tail colours separately, i think this would be great. it also relates to the whole thing with horse stats and just making sure that horses function properly and have reasons to actually have different stats and such, if theyre going to have that.

there also needs to be a decision made about sso's future - specifically, should we keep developing this game on this crappy messy engine for another decade, or should we eventually say, "this is sso 1, and we're finished with it (the story is finished, game isnt buggy, etc)" - and then go on to create a new game (while still keeping sso 1 running!) on a new, modern engine, where there is good direction and good planning from the very beginning? i dont know how far they got with project curie before cancelling it, whether theres much work to salvage, but i think that creating a new horse mmo set in jorvik (curie was supposedly not a horse game) as a more or less "sso 2" is a fair idea. the potential of customisable gen 4 horses might not really be that relevant for sso 1, or customisable player character faces and bodies like the sims. maybe this is stuff that should be in sso 2 from the very beginning, rather than patches trying to fix the mess that is the current sso? i think a lot of players wouldve been happier to see the old avatars and stuff remain in sso 1 and see the new, current artstyle we have be a separate game as sso 2 instead. (runescape classic etc.)

so, i would want to very carefully consider what really should be in sso 1 versus if we should be making sso 2. its possible to decide, actually we do want to just keep updating sso 1 and make it the best it can be, to basically keep adding expansions to it. but even if we decide that, the thing is, its hard to save the original story at this point due to the careless updates that have already been made for years. my question is, is it possible to give the loyal, old players a satisfying ending to this story and these characters' stories and this world's lore, within the current state of sso? or is it just too far gone off the track? so this needs to be carefully considered. maybe sso 2 could be a sort of remake of the story, starting with elements based on SSL, rather than the haphazard "uh these girls saved the world a while ago and now youre here i guess" that sso did start with. maybe its not too late to give the loyal long term players a satisfying end to the story. but its a complex issue that needs a lot of thought. (which should never have happened! the story shouldnt have changed the way it did, things shouldnt have been abandoned randomly, added randomly, changed randomly, all of this is just bad shitty direction and management without respect to the players, which is especially frustrating bc it goes right into "girl gamers dont matter, girl games dont matter,".)

there are more things, like a weather system, that i would have loved to see in sso but ultimately might be better to save for sso 2. or maybe sso keeps going with major updates and major expansions and then it would be relevant to consider for sso. the same thing for customising our home stable, getting a player home to customise, there are lots of fun ideas like this that i could talk about but that ultimately im not sure how much time and resources should be sunk into when sse have chosen to fuck themselves over for this long and caused this many problems with the game that need immediate attention to make it playable and enjoyable. so in this... essay... i focused mostly on solving problems and making the game a solid and fun experience, and what to prioritise to keep it that way, while these bonus new content like weather or customisable horses or customisable player faces/bodies and all that, would be great updates (or sso 2) but have to come as a bonus when everything else is under control.

so yeah thats covering both a lot of immediate stuff and long term considerations. this is like, a fraction of the stuff i've thought about. i have a lot more to say about a lot of things to fix in sso and other things that have to do with running companies too. and ofc theres a lot of things i just cant know from the outside, and so on, im not a perfect person who knows everything and never pretend to be (i have to say this bc ppl like projecting things on me just for being confident in my skills). getting to take over sse would still be a learning curve with finding out exactly where the problems are and how to solve them. i view this realistically. there are always unknown variables and things i'll have to figure out when i get to it, but you can do that if you have a strong core and strong direction that wont be swayed by capitalism or ooh shiny. i just know a lot about prioritising and directing and about ways to run healthier, better companies, and ways to be ethical and create good products instead of cash grabs - and i also value the skills and knowledge of others, which matters in finding the right people to work in the right positions. these are specific interests i have and spend a lot of time thinking about, analysing, studying, practising, etc.

if you or anyone else actually read all of this (im shocked) and want to discuss more about it or have questions about it, im all ears :D

[hussyknee]

do u really not see the difference btwn writing fanfic on the internet and buying a game whose storyline is actively being written by white supremacists and having the money go directly into the pocket of the most vocal & influential terf in the UK? that's not even touching all of the other racist and offensive bs in her series inc her antisemitism, appropriating first nations cultures, her asian racism, etc? i guess thats why you dont have 'antisemitics dni' on your blog

First, let me be clear – I do not give one single shit about Harry Potter. They are the best memories of my extremely shitty adolescence, I still read fanfic from time to time, but other than that, if I never hear the word "Harry Potter" again it will be too soon. I care about the fact that you clowns are

encouraging bullies and endangering mentally ill marginalized fans

leeching the air from leftist and queer discourse

fuelling a Western culture war that distracts from combating systemic transphobia

making suffering Black and brown communities, who mostly see white and Western trans people, think that trans people don't have any real problems beyond video games

Now, on to your ask:

I said never said not buying the game was the same as writing fanfic on the internet. I said that the furor over buying the game is leading to everyone who had anything to do with Harry Potter, including just writing fanfic, being bullied. I've had to unfollow so many people for reblogging posts attacking people for being in the *fandom*.

Asking people to refrain from doing something to prove that they care, especially demanding that they don't, has never in the history of activism worked. Black people have been speaking out against copaganda shows forever and STILL get harrassed. Indigenous people have been asking people to boycott Avatar and gotten nothing. Some people comply, but more do the thing simply out of contrarianism, and the entire issue becomes a culture war divided along political affiliation. People on the right go out of their way to do the thing, the people on the center and center-left won't really care, and people who identify as leftist divorce themselves even more from the rest of the left as being no better than the right, which eventually devastating results when it comes to actual elections and agitating for political change.

What works a lot better is harm reduction. Pirating is harm reduction, asking the HP fandom to offset JKR's fuckery by making their own merch, promoting indie games and donating to trans healthcare funds is harm reduction. People won't stand for being policed, but they like giving and also not paying for stuff with a clear conscience. You would have raised so much fucking money and promoted so many different things in all this time you've spent giving the game negative engagement clicks and keeping it trending on social media so long after its release.

You keep insisting that people shouldn't be fans because JKR equals her fandom with her own influence. This is called buying into the right-wing narrative. The woman is delusional (I can't think of a non-ableist word atm, and I honestly think that she's not all stable) and you're enabling her and her terf cult. We created the online HP fandom ourselves back in the aughts, before there was any merch, before movie rights were ever sold to WB, a full decade before her advertising machine ever woke up to the fact that an internet fandom existed. JKR has lost relevance for HP fans a long time ago; imagine the slap in the face for her if the fandom starts countering her bigotry by very prominently engaging in trans activism? The JKR terf cult in the HP fandom are a minority, like TERFs themselves (they're only so loud because the right-wing promotes the shit out of them). The vast majority of fans are just the kind of vaguely well-meaning cis people who don't agree with transphobes but are pretty ignorant about trans issues. And I do mean the vast majority, because literally a billion people grew up on her books and only a bare fraction is on social media at all, and even fewer even see the leftist drive to boycott the franchise.

Let's talk demographics. Because of the aforementioned vastness of consumers, the majority of HP fans are cis het, abled, neurotypical Millennials. Because of the way internet penetration works, the majority of HP fans online and even in fandom are white or Western. Leftist spaces mostly attract young and marginalized people, and transformative fandom is full of neurodivergent women and queer people. Which means the majority of people you're reaching are young queer neurodivergent people who have limited economic power themselves. And the people most vulnerable to and impacted by policing and harrassment are trans, Black and brown, Jewish, mentally ill, poor. Do you see the problem? You're policing the very bottom rungs of the socio-economic ladder on the off-chance of maybe influencing a privileged few who might give a damn.

This is literally why we say that boycotts, especially over social media, don't fucking work. Firstly because they penalize the most disenfranchised consumers, it's hard to reach enough people to even explain why they matter, it's hard to keep up with the constant discourse and changing information, and it relies entirely on performance. Someone can stay quiet or nod along furiously to whatever you're saying and then just...go out and buy the thing. Social censure doesn't work when you have the option of not having to face the consequences. Contrary to hellsite opinion, the Fantastic Beasts franchise died because it sucked, and Harry Potter is dying because it's fading from relevance and JKR is being an embarrassment. The wider market doesn't even know y'all exist.

As for the game being racist and antisemitic...you come on my blog, a South Asian who has been in fandom for twenty years, and try to tell me about racism in media???? NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF ALL MEDIA IS RACIST AND ANTISEMITIC YOU ABSOLUTE CLOWN. I'm from South Asia, our children grow up on books written by colonizers! LORD OF THE RINGS is white supremacy! NARNIA is white supremacy! Disney and Marvel is one of the biggest figures in US military industrial complex that razed the Middle East to the ground. It's so ubiquitous that we have to accept the racism and white supremacy as a matter of course to engage with any Western media! And even then fandom is so racist it's hard to even exist in it! We get run out of it when we try to talk about it. You suck on white supremacy every single day you live like it's your Mum's teat! Do you know what it's like to hear whiteys ranting that people who consume this one game they hate are being antisemitic and racist??? While still fawning??? Over cop shows???? And Disney???? And sending Black people??? Death threats??? Over a game???

I don't say "anti-Semites DNI" for the same reason I don't say "racists DNI". Nobody identifies as a racist or antisemite, that's not how systemic oppression works. Radfem and Zionist and Communist are political identities. Radical feminism is underpinned by transphobia and racism, Zionism is currently entrenched in Palestine occupation, Western communists refuse to acknowledge USSR and Global South genocides. See how that works?

Bitch, you didn't just come at me about JKR's indigenous cultural appropriation when I was among the few who were trying to discourage people from supporting Fantastic Beasts back in 2016 and literally got flamed for it. You people did not give a single shit about Natives back then, and you don't give one now. Just like you don't actually care about Jews and never did. I literally never heard about why and how openly alt-right people keep getting this kind of power and position in the gaming industry. Conversations about antisemitism in gaming and antisemitic tropes in entertainment haven't gotten this much traction. No wider revelations about how entertainment media directly funding and promoting social harms. But sure, it's about antisemitism and racism and has absolutely nothing to do with a mess of white queers realizing they can weaponize it like a cudgel against anyone they believe are against them. We know you whites. You care about excuses to take the moral high ground without having to do any self-interrogation or cost to yourself.

Finally, to give y'all one example of where the current discourse around this stupid shit is at:

Fuck you.

[genderkoolaid]

please consider why trans women might take offense at being lumped in with "amab people" as a whole or with "failed men". the way amab/afab is used in discourse is virtually the same as male/female, so when an ally or another trans person refers to us as "amab people" it doesn't feel from when a transphobe refers to us as males (for example, your post wouldn't be functionally different if you changed "amab" for "males"

beyond it being offensive to lump in trans women with amab people as a whole, it also doesn't reflect reality for most of us. I've been on hormones for several years and don't get misgendered generally. the way I exist in the world and how I get treated has infinitely more in common with cis women than it does with "amab people" generally. If someone lives her life as a woman, why would a core part of it relate to "antimasculism" or whatever? How is it not biological essentialism to say that about someone just off the genitals she was born with and with no regard to how she's actually living in the present tense? for a lot of trans women, being a woman eventually becomes way more relevant to our day to day lives and oppression that we face than being trans, which can end up being pretty irrelevant

please consider why trans women would differentiate ourselves from amab people" or "failed males". it's not trying to ignore our own history or whatever but having enough of a brain to notice how the way we get treated after transitioning is completely different from the way we were treated before, so it wouldn't make sense to lump us in with people who only have the same genitals as us.

I empathize with trans men and nb people who want to talk about the way the gender they were assigned at birth impacts their oppression and their being victims of misogyny while still living in their current genders but I don't agree with extrapolating that analysis to trans women without really thinking about its implications or whether it actually applies to us, since it just ends up being transmisogynist and not reflective of our experiences

(sorry for writing so much in response to your post, but it's something that's been irking me for a while and several people shared your post and seeing it so much without any pushback made me feel upset and wanting to respond. I hope I didn't come off as too antagonistic since I care a lot about solidarity in the trans community, but it's the kind of thing that often makes me feel unwelcome in trans spaces)

Don't worry, you didn't come off as antagonistic at all. This was very polite.

My intention wasn't so much that antimasculism is a key part of every trans woman's life, but that the way society treats trans women is impacted by antimasculism. In the same way a trans man might not personally face misogyny much anymore and feel very different from cis women, but the way society views trans men is wrapped up in a lot of misogyny. A lot of stereotypes about trans people (trans women being aggressive/sexually predatory, trans men being tiny and sexualized) come from the same sexist ideas that are used against marginalized cis women & cis men, and i think its a mistake to ignore these connections. I was thinking more from the perspective of "how transphobia sees trans people" than "how trans people experience sexism as individuals"; I think trying to analyze how cis society sees trans people without talking about how our agabs affect that leaves a lot missing from the discussion of transphobia.

Although I want to emphasize that I don't think thats the extent of transmisogyny/transandrophobia, and its also a mistake to ignore how misogynistic stereotypes are used against trans women and antimasculist stereotypes are used against trans men, as well as the ways misandrogyny is used against all trans people. the ways amount of each of these people experience is going to vary a lot depending on everyone's unique situation ofc, and I didn't mean to imply that trans women only experience antimasculism or that misogyny isn't also a crucial part of their oppression. I personally feel that solidarity between trans people and gnc people of our agab who are also considered "failed [x]" is important, which shapes a lot of my opinions & posts, but i also get why a lot of people would be uncomfortable with that kind of position & I don't blame you for that.

I also want to clarify I used "trans people who were amab" to avoid ignoring trans people who don't identify as transfem who were assigned male, since a lot of posts about trans issues end up re-binarizing nonbinary people by assuming "transmasc" and "transfem" are enough to sum up all trans people. I used agab because I was specifically thinking about how agabs relate to transphobic perceptions of trans people, but I can understand how that may have been a mistake since agabs are far from the only thing that influences transphobia & how much it does can vary a lot from person to person.

I hope this explained more the reasons I made & wrote that post. I really do appreciate your opinion on this & I hope that comes across.

[exitwound]

hi zoe i love ur blog and opinions. u always have just amazing analysis and like. general ideas that just are mindblowing. and i was wondering if you're often inspired by art and stuff around you that helps you come to your thoughts? asking because honestly i always feel like im stealing and plagiarizing other people's ideas and thoughts when im inspired by someone's work to create my own - like my tone or style is too similar, or my words are practically the same. and it feels awful because im like is this even inspired or am i literally just stealing? it feels like i can't ever create work with my own thoughts and idk what to do with that. sorry i know that was like a ton of info feel free to ignore

wow omg thank you. this is crazy to hear because i would personally say that the last time i had an idea it was about dean winchester. but for sure those ideas would really really have not had been posts if i didn’t see other ideas and stretch them to a new location on the media body. but thank you.Ummm i would say that it’s difficult to tell when i have a thought where it came from except when it’s not and know exactly where it came from. but definitely i don’t live in a vacuum and i am always always always always always very inspired by everything and by art and art and art and art and other peoples analyses and ideas about art and and and and and. and honestly i think that originality of ideas is a little bit nothing i think that the meaning is mostly in the expression of the idea bc like most art is a pretty simple idea but it’s done welll it commits to the idea and it trusts you to be blown away. slightly unrelatedly I think there is enormous value in intentionally attempting forgeries of others work although of course for this you wouldn’t pass it off as your own. Back to being related i think generally it’s more difficult to actually plagiarize on accident than you might fear. sometimes i worry im writing something i just forgot i read but there was kind of nothing i could do about that worry so i decided to move on and anyway if i forgot i read it then i definitely forgot the context so im already doing something new with it. i find that when i consume a lot of one type of writing for example like if im doing an english paper i sometimes slip into writing in the same style of the book im doing a paper on without realizing. Maybe a solution to feeling stuck in copying a style is to just get it out of you like new document and purge it just keep copying until you’ve run out of recombinations based on this source material and then you begin to scratch at the surface of the thing you were submerged in and break into the new yourself that swallowed a source like a spider and uses its thread to make a new web but it’s not your thread but it’s your web. I think that tends to happen to me in a way when I have an obsession on an idea i first encountered expressed in art and then began trying to re-express it myself. Which is super normal and most art is the re-expression of other expressions for sure. i don’t know i guess i used to be very terrified of plagiariaztipn in my poetry and then i started reading poems and i would find lines in things i had never read before that were very similar to things i had written already and i started realize you will be copying something whether youve seen it already or not so thats that and not really because of this and more because of fractals but definitely relevant to this is i started to make a belief system that the wider your lens the more infinitely small the number of things and all you can do is try to say something that in all of history has never been uttered but means something that everyone who ever lived has felt you know. i hope this helps definitely most of my thoughts are not my own but once i think them they’re mine and immediately being recontextualized with the other thoughts and the new environment if that makes sense… it comes from where it comes from . sorry if this isn’t helpful but i hope it is much love sending reassurance and confidence xxxx🪰🫙🥣🔌📡🪆🪣

[alvie-pines]

again. enderspawn posting about jrwi mlp has made me want to talk about the au that’s been swirling around in my head for a while now. special interest go brrr

i havent drawn jay yet and i changed my design for gillion so unfortunately all i have visuals for so far is chip (here)

these notes are completely unorganized, but i swear there’s a coherent au with a storyline underneath

Jay: pegasus

- the Ferins are a lot taller than most pegasi (which are typically the smallest of the pony races) and they have noticeably large wings

- the navy is majority pegasi (because in mlp canon, pegasi already have a history of culturally encouraged militarism)

- her cutie mark is waves near a beach--specifically depicting a riptide current--and she got it by saving someone at sea. later, as a pirate, she realizes that this--what her, gil, and chip are doing--was what her cutie mark was about all along. being at sea. saving people. its a little unconventional, but it feels more true than her previous interpretation of it being navy-related. 

Chip: changeling

- left the Hive and was taken in by Arlin and the Black Rose pirates; they knew of his actual species and were among the only people to not distrust him for it

- the reason he looks so similar to Lizzie is because he used to pretend to be her twin. after the hole in the sea, he adopted that look as his disguise permanently, because he missed her

- after Gil and Jay learn about his species, he shapeshifts in much the same way he does in canon with his bandanna. he uses it to play pranks, disguise himself, or catch an opponent off-guard... oh, you know chip, he uses it to fuck with gil 

- he does this thing where, when trying to persuade someone, he changes his cutie mark to something relevant to what he’s saying and subtly puts it in their line of sight. he played a dangerous game by doing this even before his crewmates knew, trying to keep the changed mark out of their sights

Gillion: kelpie

- i was originally going to make him a seapony/hippogriff, but it just didnt fit him, so instead i designed what is basically tritons, but horse, and then decided to call them kelpies ignoring the kelpies that are canon to the comics

- for kelpies, the coral that grows from some of their heads’ acts a lot like a unicorn or kirin’s horn. they also have a subrace without coral. they do not have a pegasus-like equivalent

- kelpies actually DO get cutie marks which is unsual since theyre not technically ponies! i included this because gillion having an unhealthy relationship to his cutie mark due to its connection to destiny (which he naturally has a fucked up relationship to) was important to me with this au. his cutie mark is a sword pointed down, struck by lightning, which becomes blood partway down the blade and drips off the tip. it takes a lot of work for him to see it as a good thing, being so obviously linked to the violence he was raised in, but he eventually recontextualizes it as not “being the chosen one” but as “protecting family and friends and crew”

Ollie: half-kirin, half-unicorn

- in this analogy, kirin = elf

- he has the mane and tail of a kirin, the coat of a unicorn, and his horn is a mix of both. he can also become a nirik if properly enraged, but the crew hasnt really seen this side of him yet.

Lizzie: earth pony

- the face that Chip based his pony persona on

- got a cutie mark for piracy, which Chip accuses her of “copying” from his. (lizzie: thats not how this works you dumb fucking changeling)

Caspian: aquatic unicorn

- no notes. head empty. just caspian

- ok i lied. head very full of thoughts of an entire group of unicorns who specialize in aquatic magic (breathing underwater, swimming fast, etc) being part of the undersea

- theyre not biologically distinct from unicorns. they just practice a specific type of magic to sustain their lifestyle underwater.

- foals would be born and raised abovewater for their first few years. the minute they can consistently keep themselves alive underwater, the family moves back to the undersea.

[battlestar-royco]

I think you’re totally right about the “women in their twenties showing more nudity” thing and it’s... kinda gross? Also i hear American boys—because of the lack of “older women breasts” in p*rn and tv shows, etc.,... get shocked?? Grossed out?? When they learn breasts start to sag?? Like?? Uhh ok thats YOUR problem you have to deal with i guess lol how ignorant are you where you don’t even know about basic aging/anatomy?

I’m trying to think of shows I’ve watched lately where young womens’ nudity wasn’t the case, but even in shows like The Americans—with many actors in their late thirties—it’s still... idk if they use body doubles or what—they all look pretty good. And no male frontal nudity. Of course. Mad Men doesn’t really have nudity from what I recall. Peaky Blinders and Narcos does, of course, have a lot of boobs. (Funny, how that happens with male-audience targeted shows)

Maybe?? Maybe Breaking Bad didn’t do the whole nudity thing? Only a few times but those were with strippers, etc., not main female characters. And Better Call Saul has NO nudity, and is very classy with the way its sex scenes are portrayed (plot and/or character relevant only, surprisingly female-focused)

Am not sure about romance shows like Outlander or Bridgerton because that’s par for the course: showing nudity, etc., but it seems to be getting better at balancing things.

It’s weird how fantasy/historical shows in particular (the witcher, the tudors, etc.) have become a hotspot for nude scenes with young women, maybe its to attract younger men?? Maybe they dont think people will watch history without showing sex and skin? Which is a depressing thought in itself, that history/fantasy is supposedly “boring” without boobs and/or sexualizing young women

glad the post resonated with you! i hate that nudity has become this thing that is so heavily associated with objectification, sexuality, and sexism because it's perfectly natural and can be neutral with the right director. it's just that it so often has to be gendered, racialized, ageist etc, especially because there's such a big taboo around it.

i've watched all the shows you mentioned except outlander, but several years ago. the americans tried too hard to be sexual, imo. mad men was super misogynistic. peaky blinders was a mixed bag of extremely tasteful and extremely distasteful sex scenes. i would get more specific but this is a long ask so maybe next time.

i think the presence and treatment of nudity is more of a network thing than a genre thing though. i see nudity in drama, crime, fantasy... all across the board. shows that want a more adult or edgy reputation typically land on hbo, starz, showtime etc, whereas freeform or cw don't allow it

[if-the-crown-fits-translate-it]

Discord pt 90

[Date: 17/03, 02.33 PM GMT - 17/03, 03.53 PM GMT]

[This conversation was going on in #arg, partly simultaneously to another in #general. The second is referenced later and was posted separately before this one.]  

[Direct continuation of pt 89]

[After Void pointed out the gdoc change, Fetch added another message:]

[Added was: “Please don’t tell them please don’t tell them please just pretend you never saw this just please.”]

Void: “nvm may be just my bad internet fucking things up ignore me”

Jack the Observer: “Oh. I see it.

Little sunflower seeds in green and yellow :)”

[Maxwell: “Where do you see that?”]

Jack the Observer: “Ask fetch, I think. He’s the one who edits the blog”

Jack the Observer: “But it’s there, if you look.”

Maxwell: “Fetch....”

fetch: “It isn't though?? I'm looking at the doc right now and there's nothing about sunflower seeds”

Jack the Observer: “I can send pictures, fetch.

If you would prefer?”

Maxwell: “i cant find anything”

fetch: “jack. after yesterday do you really wanna push me.”

Jack the Observer: “Yeah, i kind of do, actually

I could

I feel like it’s important and relevant information”

Void: “fetch knows best about what is there just ignore what i said,,,,”

fetch: “yeah. let's just ignore it.”

Maxwell: “but you all said...seeds”

donti (e): “... fetch please, this is serious.. it could endanger everyone here”

Jack the Observer: “Sunflower seeds :) leaves in yellow and green. You think if i won’t let Max hide it, I’ll let you, Fetch?”

fetch: “jack. drop it. right fucking now with that stupid fucking smile.”

Jack the Observer: “You are, in fact, just as important as Max is.

Unfortunately.

And it’s imperative that we keep all of you safe.”

Maxwell: “that...is one of the nicest things ive heard you say to us....”

fetch: “i know the doc better than anyone. i know what's there and whats not. if I say there's nothing there then there's nothing there.”

Jack the Observer: “You put it there, Fetch.”

fetch: “there's nothing there.”

Jack the Observer: “ Uh huh. /s”

jaynoblade: “he's right. there's nothing there. i just looked”

fetch: “im not ignoring anything there's nothing there.”

Jack the Observer: “Jay, what the fuck”

jaynoblade: “genuinely. i just looked. nothing”

donti (e): “hey hey hHEYyyyy chill”

Jack the Observer: “Is it gone — wait”

fetch: “check for yourself, jack”

[Context: Fetch deleted his edits about the seeds.]

Jack the Observer: “Oh, no i still have it”

fetch: “as i said. there's nothing there.”

Jack the Observer: “I still have it. And i have more pictures if you want to see them.”

donti (e): “... seeds?”

Maxwell: “thats just an image of a previous thing?”

fetch: “how do i know you aren't just editing shit”

[donti (e): “... seeds?”]

Jack the Observer: “I’m trying to have Fetch tell you first.”

kateza: “Hi good morning what’s going on?”

Mothbo: “Jack saw something no one else did”

[fetch: “how do i know you aren't just editing shit”]

Jack the Observer: “Fetch. You know I don’t lie.”

[Mothbo: “Jack saw something no one else did”]

Jack the Observer: “Haha :)”

fetch: “but you sure as hell spout a lot of bullshit.

now for the last time. There's nothing. there. Fucking drop it.

please.”

Jack the Observer: “And now instead of knight you sound like Max

Crazy”

Maxwell: “what?”

Jack the Observer: ““Oh no, i don’t want to tell them, please i just want to suffer by myself and not accept any help even though I clearly need it, no everyone else is busy, everyone else is stressed, they can’t know please don’t tell them”

That’s what you sound like

And that’s what Fetch sounds like too”

fetch: “you better watch your fuckin mouth, pal.”

Mothbo: “Jack, that's not going to help them all. I know you're hurt cos of Syd but don't take it out on them.”

Maxwell: “....”

[Mothbo: “Jack, that's not going to help them all. I know you're hurt cos of Syd but don't take it out on them.”]

Jack the Observer: “I’m not angry, I’m amused. And I’ll admit, slightly frustrated. What is up with these people and their self esteem issues.”

fetch: “what's up with you and your attachment to someone that doesn't exist anymore?”

Maxwell: “.....fuck off”

Jack the Observer: “If you don’t tell them within the hour ill see you in #img”

[fetch: “what's up with you and your attachment to someone that doesn't exist anymore?”]

Jack the Observer: “Oh, so you don’t exist when Knight is out? Shut the fuck up”

Maxwell: “i....”

Jack the Observer: “I’m glad you’re not all acting so goody goody and nice talking me anymore. This is refreshing.”

[People tell Jack and Fetch to stop arguing with each other. That just solved nothing and there’s no time to waste]

fetch: “i don't have the energy to fight anymore. there's nothing in the doc, whatever you have is edited bullshit, end of story.”

Jack the Observer: “Okay, we’re just going to ignore someone purposefully endangering their own health then. Sounds good to me /s”

[kateza: “I just woke up, I’m assuming something supposedly happened with the doc, I’m assuming the edit history was checked can we please stop fighting I don’t like this”]

Jack the Observer: “I can see something important. I’m being forced to keep imperative information to myself. You can see why I might take issue with this.”

fetch: “i thought you loved keeping information to yourself. that's what an observer does right. he just takes in information and does nothing with it. he doesn't get involved.”

Jack the Observer: “This is different.”

fetch: “of course it is.

just drop it.”

donti (e): “ah.”

Jack the Observer: “Yeah it fucking is different, Fetch. We fucking need you on this team. We’re meant to just ignore when you’re hurting? We’re meant to ignore when you’re endangering yourself?”

fetch: “i said. drop it.”

Jack the Observer: “Holy fucking shit not everything is about Syd”

Jack the Observer: “Maybe this is just about you”

fetch: “well maybe I don't want to be paid attention to. i'm not a fucking zoo exhibit. just leave me the fuck alone.”

Jack the Observer: “I don’t know how many times? I have to say this? But if I saw you as nothing more than a ��zoo exhibit” i literally wouldn’t care about this at all”

Void: “fetch, people will learn one way or another. please at least take the chance to tell them yourself?”

Jack the Observer: “Clock is ticking”

fetch: “there's nothing to tell. im fucking fine.”

Jack the Observer: “There you go, sounding like Max again”

kateza: “wait, ok, so now fetch supposedly has the buds? Is that’s what’s going on? No one is catchinng me up everyone’s just arguing”

Jack the Observer: ““I’m fine I’m fine” you’re clearly not.”

[kateza: “wait, ok, so now fetch supposedly has the buds? Is that’s what’s going on? No one is catchinng me up everyone’s just arguing”]

Jack the Observer: “I can see something. Fetch isn’t letting me tell anyone.”

fetch: “well MAYBE I DONT WANT YOUR FUCKING HELP.”

donti (e): “HEEEEY HEY

jacks doing what he can”

fetch: “YOU EVER THINK ABOUT THAT? YOU CANT FUCKING HELP ME.”

Jack the Observer: “...”

fetch: “QUIT TRYING.”

Jack the Observer: “...”

Jack the Observer: “...

...

that was a bit too loud for me, actually. Ill be in #img in fifty minutes.”

Jack the Observer: “good luck.”

fetch: “fine. i need a nap anyway.”

Maxwell: “......”

[People talk about how important it is to share information, especially with how the situation currently is, and that they’d have to work together if they were ever going to resolve anything about this problem. They then note that if this in-fighting continues, more and more people might be dragged into Crown’s court. But then…]

jaynoblade: “okay, this is somewhat off topic, but.... do we even really know who crown is? because we thought he was ranboo in enderwalk, but then in that one ask he implied that he isn’t”

Maxwell: “hes something else then....”

Maxwell: “uh small problem”

donti (e): “prince read the backlog.”

[This refers to the conversation that had been simultaneously going on in #general2.]

A random Spark: “I know...which means Prince probably now knows the deal with the three court members and why they're gone”

kateza: “which means we'll be having another mind wipe probably :/”

LLyr: “D:”

Maxwell: “OH NO OH NO OH NO”

Maxwell: “i...”

donti (e): “if we had explained it fae would be wiped and then we'd be in trouble.”

Maxwell: “can we tell faem? fae already know....”

Maxwell: “he only brought up me and fetch....should we tell him about marcus?”

donti (e): “... maybe?”

A random Spark: “It's a good idea to.”

LLyr: “if the dam has already broken, i dont see a reason to keep it hidden. maybe ask marcus what he thinks about it?”

Maxwell: “i wanna say his name...”

donti (e): “you already namedropped him,

go for it

he might as well get the facts.”

kateza: “i don't like this

i don't like where this is going”

Maxwell: “jack what did you put in images”

Jack the Observer: “What i promised i would.”

donti (e): “fetches entry.”

Maxwell: “hes..oh god”

Maxwell: “i messed up i messed up i messed up--”

kateza: “no no no

you tried to help max. you did what you thought was right and even if it didn't have the outcome you want you tried to do what was right and that's good of you”

Maxwell: “i made it worse no no no no”

Jack the Observer: “You calm down too.

Panicking isn’t going to help prince.

It’s fine. Let faem remember.”

[2n2n]

the interesting thoughts of my husband~~

I do think the point of 'Hanako' IS that it is irrelevant, and has no significance to Amane's life, history, self. I think that's what he wants it to be. It being a girl's name just helps with that sense of non-identity and distance. It's just funny. He doesn't want to take anything seriously at the start.....

It's interesting .. obviously in this fandom, many think of the boy as "Hanako" ... but in canon, not a lot of people use that name. The mysteries understand their mythology is what it is, often separate from them and not their choice (remember even the Mokke were given a different name!) ... its really more of a job description, as Bird said. The Bookstacks and the Hell of Mirrors don't even give a name... and the Misaki stairs are just named for the Misaki family shrine; Yako's attachment to Misaki isn't actually relevant. That is just the family that ran the shrine, where her statue resided.

Amane is only "Hanako" as much as Tsuchigomori is "The Bookstacks".

I think adding the "-kun" is Nene-chan being rather cute, childish, naive ... which is interesting to Amane. Her wanting to see him personably, early on, it's just cute/funny/ignorant/silly.... (<- this will hurt him later).

He's really nanaban-sama or Lord no. 7 to, everyone he works with… up until now. Even when someone is being more disrespectful, like Teru is, he might just be called "No. 7". He maintains a lot of distance, and his position means others have to prioritize being deferential, typically. He is a title. Given that mysteries can change rumor whenever, or whoever is playing that rumor can have their own sense of self, and kaii don't have human lifespans so, it could change, referring to the number is just convenient ... between one another. Nobody wants to have to update anything ...

If Tsuchigomori or Mitsuba wanted to abandon their social identities, they could become only "Bookstacks" and "Mirrors", and then someone could say "well, I want to think of you as a person, so I will call you Bookstacks-chan!" ... lol .... ... in my perception, that is what Nene-chan is doing ... ... a cute innocent girl ...

"Hanako-kun" is truly ONLY what NENE-CHAN calls him ... her invention to invite personability. Kou disrespectfully avoids using an honorific because he is rude and shitty, so he just uses "Hanako".... thats about it for "Hanako"s presence.

Nene-chan has truly imbued it with the most personal and sentimental meaning, all on her own. Someone now loves Hanako-kun. Hanako-kun exists due to Nene-chan.

Why does Amane choose his name hanako, I understand yako choosing misaki but why hanako of all things, why the specific spelling in kanji that means flower kid

Ooh, you know, incidentally, I've been dwelling on the name "Hanako" lately...

The kanji (花子) is actually pretty typical, for "Hanako"... Let's say, it's one of the most classic spelling of this name? Building off of that, the myth of "Hanako-san of the bathroom" (トイレの花子さん) is actually one that has existed in Japan for years, and in it, the name is commonly spelled like that. From a writing perspective, Iro-sensei is just maintaining the ah, iconography of the name, I suppose?

I've talked before in a previous ask about how the "Jibaku" in the title is evoking several things at once. Well, I think Iro-sensei is the sort that likes everything to feel multilayered, so even the usage of "Hanako-kun" is conveying something very particular. Hanako is a very feminine name (as flower names commonly are; think of names like Daisy or Rose) — so appending -kun to it is a little bit strange... My wife and I have joked, it's sort of like, if the story was starring Bloody Mary… but the twist is that Mary is a boy, and we call him, Little Lad Mary, or something… Lol. This is one of those things western fandom might be missing out on, due to culture discrepancies. We read Hanako, and it perhaps doesn't stand out next to Natsuhiko as a very girly name. To the point where I don't really blame anyone for not keying into it; it's not so intuitive for us.

I mean, I myself have had to really internalize what the experience of reading the title could be like, for a native speaker. You're looking at Hanako-kun on the title, and then seeing this spooky cursed boy sitting on a toilet. And you're like "-? ? .. ?? Hanako... toilet ghost, but boy-? And, self bondage???" (lol) There's just ah, a different first impression when picking up volume 1, I think.

Now, to get into the in-world reasons for why Amane uses Hanako... Well. The thing is, we haven't actually gotten a very direct explanation on what Amane feels about the name. Feels quite shrouded in mystery still... perhaps, it's not something we'll know the truth of until we are able to learn about what Amane went through that made him become a mystery in the first place. For now, all we can do is infer...

Logically, we can say the name Hanako comes from the rumor of "Hanako-san", which is something that could have existed before Amane even died. The mysteries can be swapped out by other individuals, as we see with Mitsuba, who becomes the new "Hell of Mirrors". It seems the rumor itself doesn't suddenly change, despite Mitsuba being a wholly different person. And, beyond that, perhaps there was a different entity before that tengu that was the Hell of Mirrors... etc. So, a possible explanation is that the name Hanako was one that Amane inherited once he became No. 7.

Though, we do have examples of mysteries with titles that allude to their specific circumstance... such as the Misaki Stairs and Shijima-san of the Art Room. Questions that arise from this are: If a kaii replaced Yako or Shijima, would the rumor stay the same? What were the rumors for No. 2 and No. 4 before theirs existed? Were there any at all...? I suppose, we don't know how long there have been 7 mysteries guarding the school. In any case... I wouldn't totally rule out the possibility that Amane himself is the origin of the Hanako-san rumor. For whatever reason, his actions in the past might have created Hanako-san. Shijima-san's rumor is a product of misinformation about Mei's death, so it might not have been Amane's choice how people perceived certain events.

I try and keep my mind open to the possibility, at least... though, if you want my personal opinion, I'm leaning more towards the former. I assume that Amane just inherited the role of No. 7, and the rumor associated with it was Hanako-san. The reason is... before meeting Nene, I'm not sure who else would even be calling him Hanako-? The mysteries are relatively distant from one another, and typically refer to one another by their numbers. I would say Tscuhigomori is the mystery that knows Amane the most personally, and deep down, I think Tsuchigomori simply sees Amane as... Yugi Amane. To Tsuchigomori, Amane is the same as when he knew him in life; he's been frozen in place here, never moving on. Tsukasa meanwhile knew Amane best, ostensibly, and was close with him through most of his life... and only ever calls him Amane.

I'm of the belief that Amane himself, does not closely identify with the name Hanako, before meeting Nene. I think it was a business name... I think it was even, kinda funny, like, Lol, girl's name... sure. He's amicable to wearing thigh highs and letting Nene dress up his hair, nor does he really fret about being gender-swapped, so it's not like having a "girl's name" would bother him much. It must feel very inconsequential...? He's only being regarded as Hanako-san on the rare occasion a soon-to-be-dead student summons him. Otherwise, he's Nanaban-sama to his co-workers... and internally, I think he's Amane... er, in a compulsive way-? Like, he can't control this remnant of his past life... Tricky, since there is a bit of compartmentalization happening; I do think Amane thinks of "Yugi Amane" as having died and no longer "really" existing beyond that death... What he is now, is something different and unrecognizable (... or, so he thinks.) At that point of dehumanization, he probably doesn't regard his current self with any name. Maybe he is just, a kaii, a mononoke, a murderer... etc.

Upon befriending Nene... I think that Amane wasn't taking their relationship so seriously. Her referring to him as Hanako-kun was kind of cute, funny, novel. He WAS obfuscating his identity, after all, so maybe it was ideal for her to see him this way. (Amane himself wouldn't have even let Nene know he killed someone in the past, let alone his real name...) So, performing as Hanako became something he does specifically for Nene's sake. This comes packaged with representing the mysteries as more close than they are, his job as more heroic than it really is, etc. I would say at this point, Amane starts to imagine a divide between Amane, living boy, and Hanako, the ghost that came after.

However, over time, the identity of Hanako-kun became more sentimental than Amane would ever have chosen. This was never supposed to be... more than, a flimsy front, a mask he wears, your silly bathroom ghost friend. That's why he's confused in Picture Perfect, with Nene's insistence that Amane-kun is the same as Hanako-kun. These should be separate things — Amane shouldn't be the same as Hanako! But... of course, they are, because he's the same as ever...

Haha, it's all kind of convoluted, but I like how much it makes one reflect on identity... Whether you personally identify with something or not, the urge to split yourself up, but also the way that you're always... yourself, even after things change... *wiggles fingers* Pretty cool, right? Often in posts, I'm kind of wrestling with how to refer to Amane, and how to keep things consistent enough to not be suuuper confusing... but it's hard! The names Amane and Hanako can be useful in tandem. It's such a Vibes thing, at times.

I typically default to Amane when referring to him as... the character, the entity of Amane, across many worlds/timelines. The entire history of the character, is "Amane" to me. Whereas I think of Hanako as more specifically encompassing the time he's spent with Nene! It's really Nene that has made Hanako more than just a title... though deep down, ig the real endgame of this would be regarding him as Amane...? [personal blatherings here...] Anyhoo...

We're surely due for more information on this topic someday. My wife has even mused on why the name Hanako is used for him... It's something to really contemplate-!!

[waukrife]

Thanks @willowcrowned for tagging me. I don’t normally do these but I do love getting to talk about myself without having to talk about myself. Ego <3

Rule: answer the questions and tag 9 people you want to get to know better/catch up with!

Three ships: I don’t really do shipping, because I will forget to read the relationship tags and then realise by around the third significant hand touch that oh ok, thats where this is going, and I’m invested now, am I? The thing about Star Wars is that no matter how logical a ship is, it always has to be insane as well- case in point, the last ship I read that was relevant to the plot was probably Mace Windu and Jar Jar Binks. Uhhhh...The last ship I wrote was unfortunately Palpatine and Jar Jar.  I’m not proud of this who am I kidding yes I am. I think before that, the man the myth the legend @visoremi and I wrote a scene where Obi-Wan and Cody kick the shit out of each other that could have been read as romantic. 

Last song: Gawain by The Trials of Cato. 

Last movie: I saw about a third of Solo I think? That was a haze. Maybe the last film I watched to the end was St Trinians 2: Legend of Fritton’s Gold (iconic) or What We Do in the Shadows. 

Currently watching: Shakespeare & Hathaway, Death in Paradise, Rise of Empires: Ottoman. If I get bored enough, (and I’m feeling brave) I’ll re-watch an episode of Teen Wolf or Queer Eye. 

Currently reading: Re-reading Blue_Sunshine on AO3′s The Desert Storm series. I’m slowly making my way through A History of God by Karen Armstrong and The Hobbit, but I don’t have the mental fortitude to read a whole print book in one sitting like I used to, so thats been months in the works. I’m currently very invested in most things by blackkat and sensibleshroom on AO3 and @nevertheless-moving’s Suicidal Misunderstandings AU. 

Currently craving: I really want to be in a hammock right now. Mentally, I’m camping. 

If you’d like to join in, consider yourself tagged, if not, just ignore :) Apart from @amylikesfrogs. You don’t have a choice. Tell the world which film you watched last, I dare you. 

[fuck-customers]

I don’t care if you spend $150,000+ yearly here, you’re still getting kicked out

Hi! Im a casino dealer for a well known and one of the largest Casino chains in the USA. I adore my job and 9/10 nothing happens to me that I feel the need to bring up to a supervisor or security. My regulars are great, the new faces are usually fun, and the worst thing I have to consistently contend with is my players getting antsy over how long the servers take with drinks on busy nights. Its a great job for the most part.

The absolute only thing, that 1/10 times, that I have to deal with is people, usually men, getting overly aggressive or sexual. When money and alcohol are involved, it can bring out the worst in people. And Im also quite young looking, with a very soft voice and demeanor at work, and Ive been warned by management that bc of that I may deal with some harrassment. Luckily, theyre never shy to support me and do what needs to be done to get it sorted. Because of how great management and security are, Ive never felt unsafe, despite how people can act.

This story is not about the average guest, however!!! No, this story is about a reoccuring character in my casino, a misogynistic high roller who only ever seems to come out of poker room or high limit to harrass me.

At my casino (and those sister casinos under a larger, well known brand) we have a rewards program that ranks the guests on, basically, how much they spend and win.

Basically, you get 1 point for every $1 to spend or win on a table game (there are other ways to win but thats the way thats relevent to me, a table games dealer). For each rank, you have to earn, yearly:

Gold: 1-4,999 points

Platinum: 5,000-14,999

Diamond: 15,000-149,999

Seven Star: 150,000+

Which, yes, means that a Seven star player spends and wins more money at my job than Ill ever see in my bank account! In one year, EVERY year, they want to be a Seven Star member!

So, Ive had issues with this one Seven Star (7S) member, consistently. Mainly, he treats me like crap and calls me a b*tch to his friends when he loses (which happens, bc its gambling, and its not my fault). In the same breath, he’ll refuse to continue the round until I ~apologize to him or ~blow him a kiss to make up for taking his chips. Or he’ll make uncomfortably intense and detailed comments on my appearance.

Every time I go to tell my floor supervisor about him, he sees me and colors up his chips and runs before they can handle it. On the bright side, it means I usually only have to deal with him once a night, because after that he avoids me (although he will walk by my table and tell my players how bad of a dealer I am despite how attractive he thinks I am, and how much of a shame that is).

This weekend is Halloween weekend, however, and we were allowed to be in costume. Im in love with fashions inspired by older time periods, so I went into work in an all-wine red outfit inspired by Edwardian fashion. It was really cute, and I got a lot of compliments from my coworkers, so I was having a great night.

But 7S sees me as hes coming out of High Limit BJ and makes a beeline for my table. I dredge up my best customer service smile and buy him in and shuffle the cards. As Im working, however, he is wasting nO time in making sure I understand how physically attractive he finds me in my costume.

Before I can say anything, he is pulling his phone out and pointing it directly at me, saying hes going to take a picture.

1) Policy states that, for security reasons, guests are not allowed to have their phones out while sitting at a table.

2) Policy also states you arent supposed to take pictures on a table, or anywhere really, bc of above. There are of course exceptions, like taking a quick selfie or SC, that security wont bother with. But if the officers on the floor or the Eye in the Sky (the security watching the cameras) see you taking video or photos a suspicious amount, please know you ARE being followed my an officer, either on the floor or over cameras.

3) Common decency and security both also state thst you dont take pictures of employees without their consent.

Now, still smiling, I tell him he knows full well he’ll get in trouble if he takes a picture of me because he knows the rules. Hes not supposed to have his phone out, at all, at the minimum. He just smiles lecherously and tells me its an exception bc its Halloween. False.

Luckily, however, I’m just there for 20min to give a coworker a break. In the mean time, no matter how often I insist he has to stop, he doesnt. It just so happens that my floor supvervisor was having to deal with 2 drunk guests fighting 2 tables over from me, so I couldnt immediately reinforce the rules. I had to spend 20min dealing with this guy drooling and taking photos of me when he thought I wasnt looking until my coworker came back and I could walk up to my supervisor directly. (Poor guy was dealing with a lot, so i dont blame him for not seeing what was happening at my table.)

Typically, 7S saw my ratting him out and tried to run. My awesome floor sueprvisor didnt hesitate. All I had to say was “The 7S player at spot 5 kept taking pics of me” and he was calling security, no further explanation needed.

I was giving another coworker a break when the rest of the story unfolded.

Security and my shift manager track him down and force him to delete the multiple photos from his phone, explaining in detail why that wasnt allowed. The female security guard even went so far as to take the phone away, go into the deleted section, and made sure to hard erase the photos so he couldnt recover them.

He, apparently, insisted that it was an exception bc it was Halloween, that I gave him permission, that did we know how much money he spends here?!?! How dare we tell him no! He’ll never come here again! You’ll take an employee’s word over hIS? When he spends so much money here?!?!

Security, many of whom Ive made a point to become friendly with over the months Ive worked here, werent having his crap and told him that he had a 24hr ban for the premises. Unfortunately, the only way out was to walk him in front of my new table.

7S, no matter how many security officers were walking him out, kept trying to walk up to me and start talking. At one point he managed to just stand there in front of my table and just... stare at me, ignoring the security trying to make him leave. He just stood there, perfectly in front of me, with a gross, malicious smile, waiting to be acknowledged by me as a whole security team tried to urge him forward without having to take physical action.

I had guests on my table, so I wasnt about to talk to him, but I glanced up at him and smiled, and continued to deal the cards.

I wish I could say I was trying to be witty, but honestly after working so long in this position, my default response to guests in general has just become the Customer Service Smile. I was actually very afraid in that moment, and very grateful to the security guard who finally wedged herself between us and forced him on.

Later, the female security officer who made sure my photos were fully deleted came up to me on break. She let me know that she made sure to get everything off his phone, and that she was honestly frightened of how he treated me and how he was acting towards me, and that its now going to be known how he feels towards me. She said that if he ever sits at my table and even vaguely makes me uncomfortable, bc of his history with me they wont hesitate to take care of it.

Working here is one of the best things to ever happen to me, and Im glad the security and management here are able to minimize the guests who give me problems. And hopefully he hates me enough that he never plays at my table, again.

TL;DR: A guest who spends $150,000+ yearly at my casino repeatedly sexually harrasses me over a period of months. It comes to a head when he takes photos of me without my consent in my Halloween costume. Security and management make him delete the photos and temporarily ban him from the establishment in a scene that was bad enough for security to put a policy in place to keep him from bothering me ever again.

[gone-series-orchid]

Omg i agree with you on the Judaism post 100%,, like mg did the same with lanas grandfather being Cherokee, but her heritage was never really relevant after that, and he seemed to have forgotten it himself... honestly to me it felt like he was trying to check all the diversity boxes, but didn't elaborate further to not make mistakes and become problematic™(idk thats just my opinion and I want to know what do you think about it)

i think that’s pretty apt, though i feel mg does a fairly okay job (speaking as a white person) depicting the different experiences of african-americans like dekka, who’s well-versed in experiencing racism and homophobia (if her “there are always lines” quote is any indicator) and grew up in america, dahra, who was adopted from ghana as a baby (though i don’t think her ethnicity was explicitly confirmed until later books, so eh) whose adoptive mother is a doctor, albert whose parents run a mcdonald’s, and africans like choo, who experienced his village being massacred before being adopted by the rich white brattle-chance couple. they’re characters who are all black, but come from diverse backgrounds and have very different personalities. like there are various signifiers that remind us that all those characters are black, the audience isn’t allowed to forget it. we get this with sanjit who formerly lived on the streets of thailand, and edilio, too, who’s specifically an honduran immigrant with an accent and makes jokes about people’s ignorant mislabeling of him as a mexican. we understand his plight as an undocumented person living in poor conditions whose family nonetheless cares for him very much. like there’s a history specific to these characters’ ethnic heritages, if that makes sense--it’s relevant to how their characters have developed and how they view the world, even in a subtle way. 

so i think it’s a little harsh to say that michael grant was just trying to check diversity boxes, because it seems in a lot of ways he does try to represent his ethnic characters fairly, in that their ethnicities don’t define them but also aren't irrelevant, either. still, though, i agree that lana being part cherokee feels like something he might have forgotten to cut from an earlier draft; it’s disappointing because why make the narrative choice to make her part native american if it isn’t going to be mentioned again after the first book?

this is obviously tricky because there’s a fine line between “this character is black and that doesn’t define them! anyway let’s not talk about anything potentially alienating to white audiences with regards to their character for literally the whole series but still get woke points :)” and indulging in stereotypes. and that’s a line that white authors specifically have trouble with, in my opinion, but i still think they should get kudos for trying, even if they don’t succeed. that isn’t to say that they shouldn’t be criticized for whitewashing or racism or anything, but (again, as a white person) i’m a little more lenient when it comes to white authors writing ethnic characters insensitively if you can sense through the writing that they do want to be progressive and genuine. and i personally get that vibe from michael grant, especially because it’s still typical for books to be populated mostly with white characters and gone does have a lot of ethnic diversity in comparison. it isn’t perfect, but it tries.

thanks for the ask, anon! send more if you want! :)

[dustinchris]

dude im starting to foam at the mouth at tmr. whats ur characterisation of the mains i need to hear the tea

when i first read this i was like MY characterization? but eye didn’t do anything.. and then realized james dashner and whoever wrote the screenplays didn’t really do anything either so.

i feel like (much like Avatar, 2009, Oh, Wouldn’t You Know) tmr focuses more on building a world than building its characters, now i don’t really mind this as i happen to be a fan of Places and Things, but i AM annoyed bc memorable characters = relevancy and thats a setback for what i’m trying to do here

i’m literally not even saying the characters are bad i like them but they needed rebranding. if thomas had some sort of unique physical distinction synonymous with who he is and his backstory, destiny, and legacy maybe we’d have a maze runner theme park at universal studios rn you know.

ok ok but the funny thing abt tmr is it’s basically a teenage boy hivemind..... the only thing they CAN think about most of the time is how to not die, they don’t seem to individually represent anything, and they all have their fucking minds wiped so there’s nothing about their past to shape them or motivate them or anything like that.. in this post apocalyptic hellscape the core goals of the heroes AND the villains are just going to be about survival and while that’s not uninteresting, none of that makes it easy to create distinctive characters. ahdjdkkd sorry i’ll stop myself and talk more about that later and now i will actually try to chat abt the tmr characters !!

okay so i mentioned none of them having backstory which is a lie because THOMAS, hello, actually has a backstory, and it is completely wasted on him which is so funny to me. like he’s a very in-the-now person who willfully ignores the fact that he has a past and honestly that doesn’t matter bc it barely affects his current reality at all besides people from WCKD already knowing who he is. like i strongly think if thomas was just some random he would still do everything the same and everyone would still be trying to kill him. thomas (alright besides his magic blood i’ll give you that) is not actually special but it’s like HE is the only one who knows that. everyone’s like why is thomas so special why is thomas different, but i think (again, besides the blood) he’s genuinely not, he’s literally just stupid. it’s implied maybe he used to be really smart but that obviously didn’t work out for him because now he’s just a newborn calf who’s dumb and brave and impulsive and it WORKS !!!! he’s naturally very curious, which is why he’s a good protagonist for exploring our fun settings and (more importantly) another reason why it’s SO funny he does not care to know about his old life . and thomas is a circumstantial leader. i think most YA protags in things like this don’t want to be the leader but are good at it once they try and usually NEED to be the leader for whatever reason. thomas leads when it makes sense for him to lead, like when they need to take immediate action or someone needs to yell “RUN!!!!” otherwise the leadership role goes to someone who is capable like alby or minho or newt or if they’re lucky enough to find literally any grown up who isn’t evil it’ll go to them. i think it’s nice that thomas pushes when something’s important to him but otherwise is fine with whatever he’s given. if one were to use cats 2019 terms i would say most of the time thomas is victoria if she was the jellicle choice but he’s jennyanydots when he’s alone (he sits and sits and sits and sits)

i think it’s significant TERESA was the only one who got her memories back and in the movies she doesn’t really become a person until she finds her purpose from those memories and her former self’s morals. thomas was like “yeah there’s no way i’m fucking with WCKD again because they suck. they put me and my friends in a killer maze. i ain’t reading all those memories. i’m happy for me tho. or sorry that happened.” but teresa needed to know and needed to justify her choices. if thomas doesn’t think he’s different, teresa definitely thinks she is! and she is unique, once she gets her memories she’s SMART AGAIN she’s a teen scientist wunderkind which i will never stop thinking about like how does she really feel about thomas who she KNOWS has lost all intelligence on PURPOSE and is on the right side of history because of it. what teresa did wasn’t even that bad i guess she had noble intentions but she betrayed the boys and that is not on. teresa is what always sunny would call “the useless chick” for most of the time in this fun little series but her shining moment is when she entered the maze and was like IMMA START THROWING ROCKS AT ANYONE WHO IS NOT DYLAN O’BRIEN (a very accurate and impressive representation of a teenage girl). and can i mention the dynamic between thomas and teresa would be a lot more interesting if they were twins. it’s the drama of the last of your family making a decision completely opposite your own instead of some random coworker you have no real chemistry with

BRENDA is just like Cool Action Girl i have no thoughts on her but i don’t dislike her. i don’t think we like ever see her interact with the whole maze group but they’d all be scared of her because she’s not fucking around and i think she would be mean if needed. she’ll fit in

this is the part of the tumblr post where i get to the best characters but have nothing to say about them 😔

MINHO is too cool for this series. i’m confident every single one of these teens is in love with him and he knows none of them are good enough. in cats terms he’s munkustrap because without him everything would be a mess but he’s got the range for the rum tum tugger. minho is the one who says “guys why don’t we just say fuck like normal people” after a week of everyone saying stuff like “shuckface” to which gally or any other rule abiding freak is like okay that’s IT time out. get on top of the fridge. and he screams THIS MAZE IS A FUCKING NIGHTMARE

newt :-) NEWT is mr mistoffelees in cats 1998 (NOT 2019) because he’s gay, he has the panache of a cat twirling around in a light up jacket shooting lightning out of his paws, and he’s saying things like “the rum tum tugger is a terrible whore” to RTT’s face and getting away with it. i love when he asks thomas if he still likes teresa and gets in his face about it and screams like what was that even about that was homosexual activity. i really love newt.... like can i talk about his fashion choices again the scarf and fingerless gloves in scorch trials even tho it’s a thousand degrees he looks good. and the shearling jacket in the death cure literally STYLIN... it’s very important that newt is the only british person in this whole thing i think. what’s up with that. i love it. he’s the most likely to think “wow this glade thing is kinda like love island” but the least likely to say those words out loud

[fatrainbowmermaidunicorn]

PROMPT GAME #1

Totally unedited and I have to cut the storyline a little short, because well, its supposed to be a drabble. Ahahah ❤ and I decided to combine all promts you requested into one.

"Seriously Jeon? You have fucked everyone else and now you are finding girls in my home?" Y/N sighed and walked passed the shirtless male, grinnibg with his mouth full of cereal. Her cereal, in her house, using her bowl.

"Not my fault your roomate is hot," he winks, totally shameless about the fact that he and her so called roomate keep the whole house, specifically her, since shes the only other person in there anyway, awake all night, with their disgusting activities. Endless activities. "Cereal?"

Y/N rolled her eyes and grab the half eaten bowl and throw in the sink.

"No thanks, and thanks for offering, since that is my cereal in the first place. Now that you have disgraced this house, would you please get out so I can comfort my roomate when she realizes what an asshole you are and what a mistake she made?"

"Aww, come on Y/N why so grumpy? Someone not getting any?" Jungkook smirk, slipping on his shirt, thank god. He might be an asshole, but hes an asshole with a bod! And its hard to be snarky with his hard pecs staring back at her.

"Ive been getting plenty on my own, thanks," Y/N rolles her eyes again. "And I rather be dead than being with you in the same bed Jeon,"

"Oh come on Y/N, I know you wish I want you. Hey, maybe I do. Wanna gove it a try?" He winks, taunting her.

"Just get the fuck out Jeon," Y/N open the door and crossed her arms, waiting for Jungkook to walk himself out.

"Okay, okay, no need to be so hostile," he laughs and walks out. "See you babe. Just call me if you change your mind, I'll make time for you," he laughs before the door slammed at his back.

The rivalry between Y/N and Jungkook started so long ago that even Y/N cant remember how it even started or if its even relevant anymore. But what she knows is that she hates that fuckboy's guts. Walking around like he owbs the damn campus. Well, maybe it started whe Jungkook pull her braids at the playground when they were 5 or maybe it didnt. It doesnt matter anyway. What natters is that Y/N hates him.

Whole heartedly.

/////

"Ouch!" Y/N turns around as her hand hit a solid rock. A rock that makes a sound. Wait, what rock?

Theres an intruder in her bed!

Y/N freaks out and immediately sits up, a massive headache attacking her head like sharp needles before she takes in her surrounding.

This is not my room.

And I am definitely not alone.

Not just not alone... Y/N turns her head slowly and nervously to the side and screamed out when she sees Jungkook rubbing his head, evidence of being hit by her hand earlier, naked, only with a blanket covering his bottom half.

"What the hell are you doing here?!"

"Geez woman, stop shouting. Its like too early for this," Jungkook rubs his eyes and yawns, totally unbothered by the fact that they are in bed together and naked.

"Get out! What are you doing in my bed?! What did you do to me?" Y/n starts hitting him.

"Yah! Stop it!" Jungkook catches her hands and hold it tight. "First of all, this is my bed. So the question you should ask is, what are you doing in my bed?" Jungkook smirked. "And second, you dont remember?"

"Remember what? What did you do to me?! I couldnt have done this on my own free will! Never!"

"Oh sweetheart, think it long and hard and maybe you will remember," he grins and lays back on the headboard, totally relax.

Y//N scrunched her nose, trying to remember, and slowly everything came back to her.

"I cant believe I missed the dateline for my Math project!" Y/N wailed to her friend. "Im so stressed oit. Urghhh!"

"Then I have good news my friend. Theres a party happening tonight, and I heard its gonna be big. Everyone is invited,"

"Then I'm in!"

"Wow, you are really stressed out. Nerdy Y/N saying yes to a party without hesitation? Amazing,"

/////

"Wow, never seen you at a party before," Jungkook grins towards Y/N as he sits on the kitchen counter of the packed house, a bottle of beer in his hand. "This is usually my forte,"

"Pissed off Jeon. Why are you everywhere," Y/N slurred, losing balance and almost fell if Jungkook didnt catch her.

"And definitely never seen you this drunk before," Jungkook helped to steady her. "Actually, I have never ever seen you drink, at all. Are you alone? Who did you come with?" Jungkook looked around, concerned etched on his face. "Lets just sober you up a little then I'll send you home okay?"

Jungkook held her shoulders and bring her upstairs, to his room. Its such luck that the party is being held at his frat house. His room is off limits to everyone, but this is an emergencu. Hes not going to leave Y/N downstairs to be taken advantage by all the guys at the party. He knows the guys. He is one of them. But he will never let anything happen to Y/N.

Not Y/N.

"Just lie down here. Ill take some water for you okay?" Jungkook places her on his bed, covering her with a blanket.

"Nooo, dont go," Y/N pulls him, making him fall on her and giggles. "Wow, you are so handsome," she traces his face with her fingers.

"You are definitely drunk Y/N," he laughs, he hinself a little tipsy.

"No, I am not. Hey Jeon... Why do I hate you again?" Y/N stares into his eyes, not letting her grip on him go.

"I-I dont know.." Jungkook whispered. He knows its wrong. Y/N is definitely drunk, and he himself is intoxicated. And they hate each other, dont they? Atleast thats what Y/N been telling him, but Jungkook hasnt been hating her for the longest time already. Its actually quite the opposite.

"Jungkook?"

"Y/N?"

And as Y/N pulls his face, connecting their lips together, the rest of the night is history.

/////

"Fucking. Hell..."

"So I take it you remember?" Jungkook grins.

"I was drunk! You took advantage of me!" Y/N screamed making Jungkook laughed. So dramatic.

"Me?! You are the one who make the first move! You took advantage of me! Besides, its not so bad. I made you feel good," he winks. "We both kinda win here,"

"Urghhh, shut up!" Y/N quickly stands up and collect her clothes which is strewn all over the room, hastily putting it on, all the while mumbling like crazy. "Not a word of this to anyone! Oh God, I cant believe this happened! I an serious Jeon, no word to anyone!"

Jungkook laugh and made a swear sign with his hand.

"I swear. I wont tell anyone. Although are you sure? I know you want to gloat on how good I made you feel," he laughs more.

"Shut the fuck up! Urghhhh," she threw a pillow to his head, missing him by an inch, making him laugh more as Y/N scurried away.

"Thanks for the night!"

"Fuck off!" Y/N screamed out and slammed the door, leaving Jungkook still laughing on the bed, mumbling to himself, smiling.

You are such a pain in my ass, it actually hurts to fucking love you Y/N. If only you knew how I feel.

/////

Eversince that fateful morning, it seems like Jungkook is everywhere. She cant seems to shake him away. Grinning, waving, annoying her...

Y/N never told anyone about that night of course. She doesnt want to be knows as another one of Jungkook's girls, or his latest victim. Jungkook is someone she despise and thats the extend of their relationship. And she would like to keep it that way.

But fate of course have another plan and her science teacher partnered her up with Jungkook, as part of the mentor - protege program hes trying. A good student oartnered up woth a less performing on, in hopes it could help each other. Worse, after weeks ignoring him and asking him to do his own thing, the class is assigned with a project, something Y/N could never run from. And that is how she is in the library, sitting beside a grinning Jungkook.

"We are finishing this project as fast as we can and thats it,"

"Oh come on Y/N. Cant we atleast be friends?" Jungkook grins, teasing her. "Afterall, you have seen me nak-"

"Shut up!" Y/N quickly covers his mouth. "What are you trying to do? Telling everyone we hooked up? It was a drunken mistake okay!"

Jungkook laughs and mumble to himself. So cute.

"What?"

"Nothing. I didnt say anything," he smiles and shrugs.

"Look Jungkook, I'm serious okay? This marks are important to me. Lets just do thia properly and be serious about it. I will divide the work load so we can do it on our own time and we can meet uo eve-"

Y/N was cut off when his lips landed on her and he grins.

"What the hell did you just do?!" Y/M hissed, looking around to see if anybody noticed. "Didnt I tell you just now? You cant just go around kissing people! I mean, I know you are a manwhore but thats not how the rest of the human world works! Stop being a-"

Another kiss.

"Jeon Jungkook!"

"I only kissed you because you were talking too much," he smile, bunny teeth showing, chin olaces in the palm of his hand that is laced together, looking at her.

"I-uh..."

"See, it works. You are finally speechless," Jungkook smile got wider. "Lets get to work shall we?"

/////

The project did bring Jungkook and Y/N closer together. They can be now considered somewhat... friends?

"So.. do you still hate me?" Jungkook asks as they are having coffee together after submitting their final project.

"Well.. hate is a strong word Jeon," Y/N smile. "And I think I am getting used to you. But I still dont like you," she giggled.

"Well, I'll take that," Jungkook smile. "Uh.. hey.. do you want to go to the dance with me?" His voice laced with nervousness.

Y/N was surprised by his question. Is Jungkook asking her out?

"I-I mean, as friends? To celebrate our new friendship?"

"Whatt? Does the great Jeon Jungkook has no date for the dance?" She laughs.

"Hey, I spend all my time doing this project with you. I got your nerd aura all over me okay," Jungkook smile. "So will you?"

"Yeah," Y/N smiles. "Yeah, why not,"

/////

"Hey Minji, I have to meet up with my professor, kts a last minute thing. If Jungkook came can you tell him to wait? Please?" Y/N shouted to her roomate as she rushed to the door.

"Jungkook? Wait, you are going to the dance with Jungkook?" Minji raised an eyebrow.

"Y-yeah. He asked me. Wait, you are okay with that right? You said hes only a one night stand right?" Y/N stopped in her tracks.

"Of course. It was a mutual understanding. Im only surprised because I didnt know you two still hang out. And he never brings a date to a dance. And dont you hate him or something?" Minji questioned, hands crossed on her chest.

"Well, lets just say hes changed," Y/N smiles. "My phone is out of battery but I'll be back in a jiffy. Let Jungkook know ok? Thanks, love you!" Y/N waves off and went out.

Lets just see if Jungkook truly changed Y/N-ah. A fuckboy will forever be a fuckboy. And if you think a nerd like you can chabge him instead of someone like me, you are dead wrong. Minji smirks.

/////

"Oh hi Kookie, what are you doing here?" Minji gave him a sultry smile as she opened the door to see Jungkook looking dashing in a tuxedo, flowers in hand. He even get Y/N her favorite. How tentative. Minji rolled her eyes.

"Im here to pick up Y/N. For the dance?" Jungkook smile.

"Oh no," Minji puts a hand on her chest, brows furrowing in sadness. "I am sorry to hear that, but Y/N left,"

"Left? But I'm her date?"

"Kookie, I am so sorry. I dont know how to say this. But she was so happy she managed to tricked you. She said its some kind of revenge and that you are stupid to believe she would actually be friends let alone go to the dance with you?"

"W-what? N-no. Y/N couldnt... could she?" Jungkook's face pained as the clutch on the flowers loosen and drop to the floor.

"I am so sorry..." Minji carressed his face. "But hey.." he pulls him to the sofa and scoot closer. "I can make you feel better and forget about her,"

/////

Y/N almost ran home. Shes ao excited and she needs to get ready, to look good for Jungkook. She dont know why she have to, but she just wanted to. And shes late.

She happily pushed open her door, a wide smile on her face, which immediately dissapear once she is greeted with the image of Jungkook being balls deep inside her roommate, on the couch... in the middle of the fucking living room. He cant even find the decency to take ger to the room atleast? Knowing she lives here too?

"W-what?"

"Y/N?" Jungkook was shocked and immediately pull out, scouring for his boxers and slipped it on.

"What the hell?! You cant even wait for a few minutes without fucking anyone?!"

"You bailed! I thought you left. And what do you care? Arent I just some kind of revenge?" Jungkook smirked.

"What are you talking about?! Bail?!I was meeting my professor! I told Minji this. To tell you! And what revenge?!"

"Wait, what?" Realization suddenly hits him as he turns to face Minji who is smirking. "You lied? You bitch!"

"Hey, dont be mad at me. If you can just keep it in your pants this wont happen," she shrugs. "Y/N, I am just trying to show you that fuckboys will never change. Just one lie and hes already fucking someone else! How can you be wih him?"

"Shut the fuck up you lying manipularive bitch!" Jungkook yelled at her, trying to control his temper. But he knows Minji is not important right now. Y/N is. "Y/N listen to me, I can explain. Minji.. she said-"

"It doesnt matter Jungkook. Minji is right. Just one lie from her is all it needed for you to start sleeping with someone else?"

"Y/N, no. Its not like that. I was hurt. I was-"

"Save it Jeon," Jungkook stopped at the nickname. It felt so cold. He took a step forward, lurching for her arm but Y/N pull back immediately.

"Stop. Fucking. Touch. Me!" Y/N yelled. "Minji is right. Fuckboy never changed, get out Jeon,"

"Y/N-"

"Why should I care anyway right, we are just friends," Y/N angrily wipe her tears. "Maybe not even friends," she stormed off into the room, slamming the door, leaving Jungkook to pick up the pieces of broken heart.

/////

"Go away!"

"I am going to annoy you, follow you around until you talk to me. Until you forgive me. I dont care what it takes, or who knows how desperate I am!" Jungkook followed her around like a pupoy around campus for a whole three months now. Never once did he gives up. Y/N has finally had enough. The whole campus heard about how Jeon Jungkook, the campus player is now whipped and chasing some nerd. Y/N cant already tolerate the endless flowers, chocolates, gifts, texts and phonecalls that he sent everyday, but following her around, all day and all night? For three whole month? Its too much.

"Why wont you give up?! We were not even friends to begin with!"

"I am never giving you up. Ever!"

"Seriously. Why?! The fuck, why?!" Y/N has reached her limit, screaming in the middle of campus to the campus player, not caring to maintain her cool anymore.

"Fine, you wanna know so bad? Its because I fucking love you L/N Y/N! I have love you for so many years eventhough you hated me! And now that I have the chance to be in your life I am not gonna let some manipulating bitch ruined it for me! I want you and I am not gonna stop until I get you!" Jungkook's chest heaved from his confession. "Got your answer now?"

"N-no," Y/N shakes her head, eyes searching his. "It cant be. We hated each other!"

"I dont. I never did. I dont even know why you hate me? Ia it because I pulled your braids when we were 5?" Jungkook smiles. "That just means I like you Y/N. And I have never stopped since,"

"B-but all the girls you have been with? You are the campus player!"

"Its only to get you attention," he bunny grins. "I gor your attention when I slept with your roommate and I have stopped ever since Y/N. Please, believe me. I love you,"

"B-but-"

"Please Y/N," Jungkook kneeled down and hold her hands, in the middle of the busy campus. "I wont stop until you say yes. I will follow you. I will tell you everyday I love you. I will call you, text you, I wi-"

Y/N cuts him off by pulling him up, grinning, tears in her eyes.

"Serioualy Jeon, you are so annoying,just kiss me already," she grins, hands holding the back of his neck, making Jungkook smile with his bunny grin, love in his eyes.

"With pleaseure my love,"

[acethena-discourse]

Exclus: Aces don’t experience real oppression bc their ace Me: Really? Because i have personal experience of being abused and assaulted explicitly because i’m ace. By cis het allo perisex people.  Exclus: Well you see thats jsut your experience and- you really shouldn’t bring your trauma card into its not really that common uwuw Me:really? Because heres a bunch of stories, both online, offline, all antcedotal, but all victims of horrific crimes bc these people are ace 

Exclus: well see your assault and abuse didn’t happen the way you remember. Uwu. SO stop bringing it up. 

Aces: So you’re gasslighting us now. 

Exclus: No we’re not, stop using the terminology of REAL ABUSE VICTIMS

Me: Me and many aces are assaulted heres a bunch of stories

exclus: YES BUT YOU SEE ITS NOT IN AN ACADEMIC JOURNAL IN A QUEER THOERY CLASS

me: Yeah because ace, while it has always been there, has been erased for a long time. Ace as we understand it today is incredibly new, just like how bisexuality, and nonbinary was at one time. Research is being done, its just not very often, and not very popular  Exclus: But you see thats not true bc you’re not queer. No laws abuse you Me: you’re right, except not really. Studies have shown we are asaulted, and denied housing similar to bi people. We are discriminated against by cishets for not being “enough”. We are queer to them. You do not decide who is welcom in the out group, the group that makes up society does. And society has excluded us from them. So our only option is you, people who are also not straight, not cis. 

Exclus: So sexual deviants are just welcome in lgbt spaces now!!

Me: pride has a long history of welcoming kink actually its rather Neat(tm) but to answer your question, no, a cishet perisex woman and her cishet perisex male partner are not queer just bc they do bdsm. But do not ignore the history of lgbtq people. 

Exclus (with f*g d*ke or tr*nny somplace on their blog uncensored) ANYWAY I”M GAY NOT QUEER UWU I”M LESBIAN NOT QUEER BI NOT QUEER

Me: Hey that phrased was created by terfs to divde “proper political gays” from trans and “nonpolitical gay” people. It is inheirently transphobic please don’t use it. It divides lgbtq people from their oldest members and that aint cool. 

Exclus QUEER IS A SLUR HOW DARE

Me: No ones saying its not. But it is reclaimed, hence why its used in classrooms. Context matters. 

Me: exclus mirror biphobic, and terf rhetoric, please be aware that many phrases you use, many ideas you have, come directly from them. no I don’t believe you, a trans person who is bi, is infacta terf, but i do think you are unknowingly parroting them, and i don’t want you to hurt other people with their talking points.  Exclus: WOW HOW DARE YOUC ALL ME A TERF YOU CIS HET 

Me: i’m nb and pan. 

Exclu: YOU FILTHY CISHET HOW DARE I”M A TRANS PERSON

Me: So am i, please stop rhetoric doesn’t mean you are a terf. 

Me: I was doxxed, so was bi woman, by exclus. I’m also a victim of stalking and abuse, so giving out the smallest bit of information about me sets of my PTSD and causes me great stress and pain. I didn’t leave my house for weeks because I was afraid due to this small information given out. i understand this was irrational, but the fact is that it triggered me, caused me great mental and physical pain. 

Acey lovely: LMAO LOOK AT THIS IDIOT THEY DON”T kNOw whAT DOXING MEANS

Me; I have been violently stalked and abused. It doesn’t matter that it was one private thing, the fact is the result on my mental, and physical health was the same Acey lovely: HOW DARE YOU TELL ME YOUR FUCKING TRAUMA I”M A PESRSON TOO

Me:Its hyper relevant that you understand that you are supporting the pain that was caused me. You are now responsible for the fact that I was hurt. Just because it doesn’t seem super bad to you, doesn’t mean for me it wasn’t trigger, caused me unbelievable regression in progress. Years of my mental health and physical health undone in an instant because of one person. You are saying this is okay, and that in fact makes you an abuser.