#conclusion: they're difficult

[talesofsymphoniac]

I Know What You Think Of Me, Tim Kreider

Kaguya-sama: Love is War, Chapter 150

Wicked, Defying Gravity

Death Gate Cycle, Performance Notes for "Closing The Seventh Gate"

" Heartbreak is what happens when love is lost. [...] Change in another person I love may be a good thing. It may be significant personal growth, and I may be happy about it and proud of it. It can also change our relationship and break my heart."

--Joe Reynolds, quoted in Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown

Steven Universe, The Answer

"For all those things to not have happened, you would have had to not have been you, and I would have had to not have been me. And then it wouldn’t have mattered because it wouldn’t have been me meeting you. It was me meeting you. It was inevitable."

Letters, Resolved earlgreytea68

"Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I'll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's. In the first case you are a man, in the second you're no better than a bird."

--Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

~*~

I want you to be you more than I want you to be someone I like/I want to be me more than I want to be someone who you like

[spirits-art-blog]

More Detective Conan art, this time its a bunch of sketches! Still trying to figure out how to draw most of the characters (the change in artstyle and designs does not help), but I'm getting there!

For those who don't know, I'm watching this show completely blind so please keep spoilers out of this post; as of posting this, I have just finished ep 514.

[kedreeva]

Do you know things about peacock pheasants that you could share? (Any variety, I think they’re super cool and would love to keep some someday maybe)

I do not know very much about peacock pheasants, since I've never kept nor wanted to keep them, but I know that they are a very uncommon, expensive, difficult-to-keep pheasant regardless of which species. I have a friend that keeps a pair, or was keeping a pair of palawans (I think she lost the hen this winter), and even though she keeps peafowl and a few other types of fowl, and has kept himalayan monals before even, these were worse. My understanding is that they need a lot of space, and are delicate, wild birds.

Unless you have a lot of experience keeping pheasants in general, I'd pick a different, hardier breed that is a bit cheaper, like some mutant ringnecks or even varieties of golden pheasant. They're both sought after for pelts and/or meat, and pretty widely available. Even silver or amhearst are easier finds, easier to keep alive, and cheaper to acquire than peacock pheasants (and I mean like, there's a COUPLE of peacock pheasant breeders in the entire US and babies are HUNDREDS of dollars and you'll be on a waitlist, vs if you have $5-20 and are willing to lose sleep for a night you can go get a ringneck or a golden pheasant morph from a bird swap or livestock auction basically every weekend in the summer here) and less of a loss to the community of keepers as a whole if you make mistakes and lose a bird. Obviously no one wants to lose any bird, but the impact to the breeding pool for peacock pheasants is so much greater a loss than it would be for the others, it's just not worth the risk to try to start there, both for you and for the birds.

[fleetsonourgecentral]

ugh all I can think of lately is Fleetway!Sonourge. good job on spreading that to me

also thinking about the Freedom Fighters protecting Scourge from Zonic when he shows up. like, him trying to arrest all of them for hiding and protecting a criminal and all. how do you think the FFs would overcome him?

:3 it's spreading as planned

It would take a while for the zone cops to even come to the conclusion Scourge is hiding in the fleetway dimension, tbh. He's good at running from the cops, and knows lots of places to hide. It's difficult to track him down when he's not actively causing trouble, and the fleetway universe is quite a ways away from the dimensions he normally hangs around in. The zone cops are expecting him to show up in Moebius, or try to take over the Prime dimension again. They aren't going to be looking in the dimension with the evil Super Sonic that's thousands of miles away, because why would he be there? Even once they do investigate there, they're probably initially be inclined to take Sonic's word for it when he says Scourge isn't there. Zonic knows this Sonic hates lookalikes, after all. It would take a while for them to genuinely suspect the fleetway universe

Usually when Zonic shows up, the first thing they do is hide Scourge, which can range from hiding him elsewhere in the dimension (special zone included) or finding a way to get him out altogether, and he'll find somewhere else to hide until they leave again. The zone cops can't actually arrest him if he isn't there, and they can't prove the freedom fighters have been hiding him, since, well, he doesn't legally exist in the fleetway universe. The best they can do is ask around to see if anyone has seen him, but Sonic is always quick to point out that anyone could be a green hedgehog in a leather jacket. Metamorphia did turn into a green hedgehog, once. Without seeing Scourge with their own two eyes, the zone cops have no way to prove the green hedgehog in a leather jacket is Scourge and not someone else.

"Everyone around here is an idiot," Sonic will sneer if Zonic tries to point out that he showed a picture of Scourge to some civilians and they said they recognised him. "They'll mix any hedgehog up. Someone mistook Amy for me, once."

Technically, the circumstantial evidence is enough to bring Sonic and the other freedom fighters in, but there's always the risk of him turning into Super, if we pick the part of the timeline where they're one person. He's harmless if they get the collar around him, it's just getting the collar around him without being vaporised that's the tricky part. Even if they're separate people, well, if Sonic is gone, who will stop Super if he goes out of control?

If the zone cops decide to bring them in anyway, well. The freedom fighters are freedom fighters. They're going to fight, and they're going to fight dirty. Sonic alone is a pain in the ass (and, again, a huge risk if he and Super are one person) but everyone else will make it even worse. The cops could subdue them eventually, but... ultimately, I think they find it more trouble than it's worth to bring them in, especially when they have no surefire way to prove Scourge has anything to do with them. And if the freedom fighters were arrested, Scourge would work his ass off to bust them out. It could be a good way to trap him, but Scourge has escaped from prison once before, they don't want it to happen again

Ultimately, I think they decide to bide their time. There are other criminals to take care of, and they can't really spare the resources to go hunting for Scourge when he isn't even causing any trouble aside from "already being a wanted criminal", so they decide it's better to periodically check in to see if they can catch him unaware or wait until he causes a big enough problem to give them justification to go knocking on the door and arrest the lot of them. Unfortunately for them, the freedom fighters are protective, and will make sure that never happens

[antirepurp]

in my perfect little world digivolution mechanics are slightly tweaked so that ultimate and mega digimon are harder to evolve into, rookies and champions are viable for a longer time when repeated digivolutions make them strong enough to face even higher digivolution stages without being at a significant disadvantage, ultimates feel like the natural peak of a digimon's lifespan and seeing them in fights is a sign that shit is REALLY going down, and megas are showcased sparingly due to extremely difficult requirements for evolution that only rise in the direst of situations that might only happen a few times over the course of the story. alas -

[dreamlogic]

quietly getting more & more annoyed at my housemate & her bf as the evening goes on. thought they were at his house this weekend but they showed up unexpectedly to have loud sex here, left for a little bit, came back in the middle of a fight, and are now watching tv really loudly in between continuing to totally-not-fight-everything's-FINE.

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

Hi Ralph! How is everything going?

So, I didn’t know who to ask for this, and have a serious answer, though, obviously m you don’t have to answer at all, lol.

My question: why is everybody talking about Louis and Eleanor having broken up? Like, what are the bases of that thought? I don’t follow her, so, I basically see what people talk here, and sometimes I check her IG, and I’ve seen see still posts from Louis’ London house. So, in my eyes, nothing has really changed, apart of her going to less Louis’ concerts since the north American leg of the tour.

And I just read in one of your asks about how Louis is avoiding talking about his relationship status in interviews, and , like, he hasn’t talked, but how is it clear that it has been blacklisted? English is not my first language, so, sometimes a miss things between the lines, and also, I haven’t read most of Louis’ interviews either, so, maybe is my fault that I’m not up to date with louis’ private life and talking point during promo, and really everything is obvious for everyone paying attention, lol.

Sorry if this asks is a mess, but I’m at work, and people can’t stop interrupting me, haha.

TLTR: why does everybody think Louis and Eleanor broke up?

For me, the thing that makes me think that Louis and Eleanor are not together is the ways they haven't been seen together. They haven't been seen together since Glastonbury. That wouldn't be significant if Louis wasn't in the public eye - they've almost certainly gone longer without being seen together. But Louis has been playing gigs and promoting an album. It's not just that Eleanor hasn't been attending those gigs (which she hasn't). She was also out of the country when Louis came back from tour in Australia. She was in Spain just before the Away from Home Festival and then flew back to the UK.

I've always said that we won't know anything unless there's announcement. Everything that we've seen could be undone. But I suspect what we're seeing is deliberate.

She's continued to post from his house, but the ability to continue to live in that house could be part of the deal of them breaking up (whether or not they were actually together it would be a perfectly reasonable thing to do).

The reason that I avoid the term 'blacklisting' is that I don't think fans are particularly clear about what it means. And I'm not quite sure what you mean here. Blacklisting isn't something that just happens out of nowhere. It's when a team briefs artists about the questions that an interviewee is not prepared to answer. So if something is blacklisted that's an indication that Louis has decided not to talk about it.

[factsilike]

As hilarious as it is to read about WWX initially being unable to perceive his own attraction to Lwj as anything other than the typical reactions of a woman, I wish more people would realise that it was not due to obliviousness, but rather because of compulsory heterosexuality and him simply not being aware such things existed. The time period he grew up in speaks for itself, as well as his unsafe (because the Jiang household was anything but secure) environment.

It was funny when it was treated as a crack idea, but it's frustrating when it's treated as a canon trait of his, when it's not. This guy is highly intelligent, both emotionally and intellectually, and the conclusions he came to regarding his own feelings as well as Lwj's were based on the information he had at the time. I see people point it out most in that scene at the start of the novel where Lwj gets drunk and points to WWX saying 'Mine."

But I can't believe how obtuse those same people are when they don't realise that while it's obvious to the reader (because duh they're reading a danmei novel about romance between the two main leads, and they let themselves be blinded by their own perceptions) that he's referring to WWX, to him it's not. Because what was he supposed to think? When all Lwj had ever been towards him was tolerant at best, and outright hostile at worst, and with his previous cold behaviour, was WWX really supposed to think, oh he must mean for me to be his! Because that would have made no sense at that part of the story. It was only logical for him to try to find a rational explanation, and the only one WWX could come to was that LWJ was referring to his sword, because obviously WWX wasn't going to take him seriously even if he had confessed, he would have only thought that he was drunk rambling or something. He didn't have any reason to believe him at that point.

It's not until the rest of the events of his second life progress and give WWX many opportunities and chances to reflect on his own feelings and Lwj's (changed and more affectionate) behaviour, does he start to think, could it be that I like him? Because WWX is no idiot; he realises his own feelings for Lwj pretty early on. And he catches onto Lwj's love for him too! Which is what the whole getting drunk at the inn thing before Guanyin Temple was about; he was scared to find out whether or not Lwj's love for him was platonic or not. (Which is a valid thing literally every person who has ever had a crush can relate to; worrying over whether the person of your affections feels the same or not. And it's difficult enough navigating these things in heterosexual relationships, let alone same-sex ones)

I think the way MXTX wrote WWX's journey of discovering his sexuality as well as his budding love for Lwj is beautiful and deserves more praise and recognition, rather than just glossed over as tee hee 'obliviousness'.

[heartfullofleeches]

[18+]

Introducing - Shy Perv/Horny Alien Darling who's happy to be kidnapped by cute little humans if it means they'll get their dick touched.

Bound and chained up in their kidnappers home - Darling has but one question as their obsessive stalker declares their undying love and how darling will never, ever leave their side again-

"s.... since we're dating now....may - can I touch your breasts?"

Alien Darling from a planet where sleeping with another person for pleasure is looked down upon and intimacy is not seen as common . There's hardly any need for it in terms of reproduction either as technology has mostly taken over in the entire process. Needless to say, Darling is blown away when they learn about earth and some of its cultures. They want to go on dates, and hold hands with someone cute, and maybe even kiss them, and- and.... There's just so much for them to do.

Darling ends up on earth one way or another - working their way up to a far enough life as a cashier. Approaching humans in a romantic/sexual tense is a bit difficult when you only have experience from the films you've seen in the short span of time you've known about them. Darling remains alone and finds fulfilment elsewhere on the internet and with human toys they purchase for "research" - How they'd love to be able to use what they've learned with a cute human, but no person in their right mind would want an awkward outcast like them...

Right?

When Darling finally released they're being followed - they come to the conclusion that it has to be some strange human mating ritual. Yan likely discovers the various blogs Darling has made detailing their journey they probably think nobody will read or believe. Regardless of whether darling truly is from other world - it's clear to see how depraved they are. Yan sees that for themselves when they leave a pair of their underwear in darling's bed and instead of questioning where they came from Darling skips an entire day of work just to drool all over them. Darling is too busy fondling Yan's chest to notice anything wrong - like how their boss hasn't called to check up on them in a while.

Oh....That's right - they don't have a phone anymore. Their lover said they didn't need it anymore.... Plus, their boss was found dead in a lake a few weeks ago.

Huh.....How could they forget something like that?

"Would you like me to take my shirt off while you touch me, love?"

"Yes, please!"

Darling feels the need to ask before every kiss. It's cute - until they're drilling their tongue(s) down Yan's throat everytime since they claim Darling can do whatever they desire to them. It's still impossible for them to believe a cute human would want them so badly. Captivity is a small prize to pay to finally act out the fantasies they've had since they've learned of earth and its people.

[beguilingcorpse]

weaponry in the locked tomb is so interesting because when you break it down it's like:

guns exist in-universe but are used by the freedom fighter terrorist organization almost exclusively

swords are (were?) commonplace enough that gideon was able to find and train with a decently well-balanced two-hander on the ninth, despite the fact that the ninth has no military force or even interplanetary traffic. gideon's sword is at least 20 years old, probably older

swords are definitely still in use within the empire, at least by cavaliers, but likely within the cohort as a whole. to my memory there are no mentions of cohort members carrying military-issue guns

even though they're trained in a variety of weapons and techniques, cavaliers (are supposed to) carry exclusively rapiers. gideon prefers her two-hander and cam carries twin shortswords, but these seem to be rare and shocking exceptions to the standard.

rapiers are used by cavaliers explicitly for the purpose of lyctorhood. they're light enough that a scrawny necromancer without swordfighting experience can pick it up and rely on their cav's training without needing to build the muscle to wield the sword effectively

because of the secretive nature of the megatheorem, and lyctorhood as a whole, most people just follow the rapier rule because it's tradition. it is what is done. harrow makes this pretty clear at the beginning of gtn

cavaliers can carry a variety of offhand weapons. it seems like the full spectrum of middle age weaponry is possible - but still, no guns. not even secretly, as with cam's dual blades. some cavs choose to carry material for their necromancers as their offhand - ortus carries a bowl of bones for harrow, and i can only assume "the powder" mentioned as harrow's choice for gideon's offhand towards the beginning of gtn is some kind of bone dust

from a doylist perspective, all of this creates a aesthetic that starts very analog and gothic and gradually grows into a more standard sci-fi space opera through the series. by ntn, we've hit most of the established genre weaponry tropes that we've come to expect from older futuristic space media like star wars and alien. blasters and guns are standard fare, and it makes sense to hold off on introducing them until the scope of the story gets broader and more interplanetary

from a watsonian perspective, it's a little more difficult to draw concrete conclusions without the context that atn will inevitably provide. but if i had to hedge a guess, i'd say that, as with most things, It's All John Gaius's Fault. when he resurrected the galaxy i'd assume that he wanted to keep the aesthetics of medieval imperialism, and given his 21st century liberalism probably didn't want guns to be part of the equation. but they were anyways - we know this because wake carries a big one - and instead of standardizing firearms within his military and for his lyctors, he clings to the aesthetics of swordplay. please correct me if i'm remembering it wrong, but to my knowledge every gun shown in the series is either directly linked to boe or implied to be sourced from them. jod dooms his own lyctors and military by refusing to update their weaponry.

all of this poses a lot of questions about atn: who will carry a gun, and why? where did the gun come from? why DON'T the lyctors just use firearms? and most importantly: will they be fighting zombies with swords???

[feyd-meowtha]

Some thoughts on Dune, media literacy and the way we interact (and do not interact) with difficult topics in fiction....

Buddy, imma say this with kindness in my heart.... If this gets you 'tweaking' then you aren't gonna like the ending of Children of Dune...

On the media literacy note.... big sigh.

It is explicitly said that Feyd and Paul were meant to marry and have a child had Paul been born a girl - obviously the natural reaction is to consider what the nature/implications of that would have been. The source material is EXPLICITLY telling you that they were made for eachother, destined to be together. This is also the text EXPLICITLY telling you that this relationship would be an acceptable thing in this world. Therefore engaging with this concept is not at all a reach and is very much backed up by the source material. People are not getting this idea from nowhere.

(Also if that still offends you, they're not actually first cousins but cousins once removed and 2 seconds of thinking about the family tree would have made that obvious, not that it really matters at all in the context of this story, but it is a very easy feat of inductive reasoning)

The fact is that this is a story about ruling families and (as they almost always do) it involves a degree of incest. This is ESPECIALLY true in the world of Dune where these people are being selectively bred like show dogs to have certain genetic characteristics, I hope I do not have to patronise anyone by explaining how that works. Especially given as Reverend Mother Mohiam says this, oh, 10 pages into the first book:

People who haven't read the literature love to lecture people on literacy, funny.

So, in conclusion, if this is how you feel then, with love, Dune is not the story for you. The fact is that a degree of incest IS normalised in this universe and if you're inclined toward tedious moralising based on writers exploring difficult ideas in fiction then I'm honestly surprised you ended up here in the first place. Dune is a story that constantly presents the reader with difficult ideas and invites them to critique and analyse them for themselves, including the morality of the Bene Gesserit breeding programme. In Dune no character is morally pure, no ideology is beyond corruption and no path is free of ugly choices. As adults we can engage with these difficult topics as we wish.

*Sigh* A few years ago these people learned the term 'media literacy' and they've been insufferable ever since.

[pseudowho]

In Flagrante Delicto

Higuruma Hiromi will fight your help and guidance every step of the way...until one night, he catches himself needing you desperately.

An AU where Higuruma is forced into the employ of Jujutsu High after his role in The Culling Games.

Warnings: 18+, sex pollen!, angst, smut and fluff, Hiromi being willing to argue with anyone about anything, with a little bit of sex pollen needy Hiromi

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Higuruma Hiromi was undoubtedly the most difficult mission you had ever been given.

Tasked with walking Hiromi through 'the systems' of the Jujutsu world, you, a sorcerer who had been introduced to this world more conventionally, had absolutely nothing in your armory to counter the veritable force of nature that this man was.

You argued, constantly. He forced you to acknowledge the hideous insufficiencies and injustices in the system you worked for, at the most inconvenient of times.

Your patience was a finely tuned machine. You had perfected your ability to debate and discuss the ethics and morality of Jujutsu sorcerer activity, both legal and illegal, over a number of years.

But Higuruma Hiromi had driven you to drink. One evening, sat at home, deeper into a bottle of wine than you had anticipated, you received two messages in quick succession; one, from Yaga ("Mission with Higuruma tomorrow. Details to be sent over by Ijichi") and the other, from Higuruma ("I look forward to continuing our discussion tomorrow"), and you groaned, sinking the rest of your wine, and hoping it was enough to get you through the chaos of Higuruma's mind.

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"So," you started, approaching the subway with Higuruma, "lots of late-night civilian disappearances on this one line," you pointed to your map, "and two Second-Grade sorcerers have already disappeared in separate incidents. What does this tell you?"

Higuruma was silent, musing as he tapped his gavel lightly against his hip. Reaching his conclusion, he turned to you with a wry smile: "That your higher-ups knew, by the first Second-Grade's death, that a Second-Grade wasn't strong enough, but sent another Second-Grade anyway."

You sighed, deep and weary, "While that's probably true, we don't know they're dead--"

"Well they're not playing Scrabble, are they--"

"--and that's not the answer I'm looking for--"

"Well, I'm not here to be charitable, or unrealistic."

"Oh, are you here to be insufferable?"

Higuruma half-laughed, "Preferably. God forbid I should be sufferable--"

You swiped his gavel from his hand, and tapped him sharply on the forehead, "Higuruma. Please. I'm begging you," you clasped your hands for dramatic effect as he assessed you, a sardonic half-smile in his hooded eyes, "the quicker you play the game, the quicker you and I can go our separate ways and you can just go out and do this by yourself."

Higuruma's lip curled up in bitter distaste. He wiggled one finger into the knot of his tie, loosening it with an irritated twist of his neck. "I'll reiterate," he said, considered and flat, "that my joining the Jujutsu sorcerer's established hierarchy is a Hobson's Choice."

"If I want to go about making some positive changes to this cesspit," he spat, "I have to prove myself trustworthy in their eyes, and atone for my crimes by playing their game." Higuruma approached you, his chin tilted down as he looked through you, with sombre eyes.

"And the sad thing is," he said softly, now inches from you as you burned under his scrutiny, "you've been playing their game for so many years, you've convinced yourself that the rules are fair."

You swallowed, meeting his gaze; your agreement with him passed as an unspoken pact, but you were, as of yet, unable to betray your established part in this system with words. Higuruma nodded, slowly, understanding.

"So I'll inconvenience you as little as possible," he reassured, "and try to be a good boy today." You closed your eyes, breathing in through your nose, and out through your mouth, counting to ten. Opening your eyes, you caught up to Higuruma, who was already halfway down the empty subway steps.

"Please don't go ahead without me," you pressed, "I know you're not completely inexperienced, but fighting Curses is much more nuanced than fighting Curse-users."

"But they're brainless, right? By all means they're probably easier." You tilted your hand from side to side.

"They fight on instinct. We can be guilty of overthinking something that's primal for them. I'd never assume I can out-think evolution."

Higuruma hummed, satisfied with your answer. You were relieved to have averted another argument. Reaching the bottom of the steps together, your shadows were short in the low eerie glow of the empty subway system.

"So the victims got on a train, but never got off it," Higuruma confirmed with you.

"But it hasn't been the same train every time, so it seems to--"

"--pick a host. Right. And you've asked the station master to keep to the same train schedule tonight?"

"Mhm. No people around though."

"So, we could always just get on trains until we're attacked."

"That is completely reckless, and I won't--"

Higuruma breezed away down the corridor, his slim suited figure sloping away so lackadaisically that you felt annoyance bubble up in your throat.

"You don't have to come," he called back, relaxed and confident, "I've got this covered." You ran after him, grabbing his upper arm. He stopped, annoyed and impatient.

"Just...trust me," Higuruma urged, "try something new. You may be pleasantly surprised." He gripped your hand, firmly breaking your grip as he stared you down.

"How can I trust you? I barely know you."

"Then why are you worried about me?" He taunted, heated and scathing, "Not really what you lot do, is it? Worry about each other?"

"Well I worry about you," you snapped, "I worry about you every day and every night since they tasked me with taking care of you." You swallowed, embarrassed by your outburst. Higuruma hesitated briefly, looking...touched? He spun round, his back to you now, tapping his gavel in irritation against his thigh.

"That settles it then," he said, convicted and grabbing you by the hand, "you've got to come with me. It would be cruel not to let you worry. Come along."

You were pulled through the dim corridors of the subway system by Higuruma Hiromi, protesting the whole way.

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"-- so stupid, you could have died--"

"-- but I didn't, and I'm fine, so stop worr--"

You slapped the wounded shoulder you were currently patching up for Higuruma, and he made a noise of protest as you scolded him, "Stop telling me to stop worrying," you cried, pressing gauze to his cuts, "because I've worked in this shitty system for years, so I know that if we don't worry about each other, nobody else will worry about us, and you have no regard for your own wellbeing--"

Higuruma's head snapped up, smiling, "So you agree," he pressed, excited by the new development, "that the higher-ups have no intention to safeguard any of you--"

"--I never disagreed with you, Higuruma. You just...missed the point. As usual."

Higuruma turned, unable to look you in the eye as you continued dabbing the back of his shoulder. His eyes beseeched you to continue, dark and quizzical.

You continued, your voice tight and upset, "Whether or not we fight back against the higher-ups, makes no difference. Almost every sorcerer in this wreck would go where they were sent anyway, because at least we have a chance of defending ourselves against the monsters out here."

You sighed, taping bandages down, Higuruma's bleeding now settled, "So that's what I decided to do. I expend my energy protecting the non-sorcerers because they're the weakest link in the equation. They can't defend themselves. It's the right thing to do. I'll fight the big fight on my days off."

Higuruma was quiet, allowing himself to be chastised. He rolled the gavel between his hands. He suddenly felt so exposed, shirtless in front of you, feeling every touch of your soft hands as they assessed his ribs, and he gulped, unusually unable to find the words to say.

"Do you, uh...do you want to grab a drink? After we're done here," he offered weakly, eager to spend time with you outside of these roles you were forced to play.

"No," you emphasised as he rubbed his nose, "you'd probably tell me my drink order was wrong." Higuruma sunk his face into his hands, laughing.

"I'm not that bad--"

"You are dreadful. I love the...the passion you have, but I'm just...I'm tired. I'd rather go home." Higuruma nodded, thoroughly shot-down, respecting your refusal.

Sloping home that night, insisting he'd prefer to walk over being dropped home by Nitta, Higuruma considered he may have been fighting the wrong person for weeks now. Torn between 'playing the game' to get out from under your feet as soon as possible, and resisting becoming part of another broken, unjust system, Higuruma found himself erring unusually on the side which benefitted you over anyone else.

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In the midst of battle, you found yourself separated from Higuruma, cold dread seeping into your belly as you realised there was nobody else here to save him from himself. Distracted, you took a major hit, thrown by some sordid thrashing beast down an old brick staircase.

You had largely protected your body in swathes of your own Cursed-energy, but still had the breath forced out of your lungs as you had hit the wall below. The Curse, enormous and puce-coloured, roared down the stairs after you.

Trying to stand on a dice roll, your numbers came up short and you stumbled, heart lurching into your mouth.

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You and Higuruma had been assigned to clear out a growing populace of curses in an abandoned block of flats. Trying to talk to him, to plan tactics and methodology, Higuruma had seemed quietly indifferent towards you on the journey there. Refusing to engage with you on any serious level, he seemed almost bored of you, staring impassively out of the window throughout.

You tried not to be hurt, reminding yourself you were here to assess whether or not Higuruma was safe to act independently as a sorcerer. After his series of murders in the Culling Games and before, he was offered two choices: work for Jujutsu High, or refuse and face being hunted down and executed. But, he was an adult, and his safety was ultimately not your jurisdiction if he refused to take your advice.

And yet...the thought of his death by any means filled you with a sickly dread.

Because in reality, Higuruma represented the idealism, the ethical standards that working within a broken system had steadily stamped out of you. Your anger towards him was a projection of your own shame at having fallen into line when you wanted nothing more than to rebel, to protect the weak, including your own colleagues, despite the resistance.

Even worse, Higuruma saw this, and his disappointment in you only deepened your shame. You were meant to be 'helping him' to adapt to your world, and you felt sick to your stomach as you tried to contaminate this man. You felt sicker still as you felt yourself creep closer and closer to his way of thinking, wondering if you fit in this world anymore.

You couldn't tell him how deeply you admired him for being everything you had fallen so far from.

After efforts to interact had fallen flat, you sat beside each other in stony silence. Still, you felt, despite his feigned indifference, anger poured off him, not cold, but white hot.

"What have I...what have I done?" you asked, afraid of the answer.

Higuruma looked at you, eyes still glowing like little coals in his impassive face; "What have you done?" he retaliated. You sighed, a short breath out of your nose.

"...you're not ready to be sent out alone yet. You're reckless and you've got by on luck so far, but--"

"--so you saw fit to carry on this babysitting charade by telling the higher-ups that I'm a danger to myself and others around me." Higuruma scowled at you, not trying to conceal his fury anymore. You blushed, feeling the shame twist in your throat.

"...you...assume you're going to come out on top in every fight, so you don't assess the danger before you jump in, and it's just a matter of time before-- before you--" You reached out to take his hand, desperate to communicate your fear for him in a way he would understand. Higuruma moved to pull his hand away and you held on harder.

"I just...couldn't stand to see you die some pointless death," you urged, "I need-- we need men like you." Higuruma appeared unmoved, silently allowing you to squeeze his hand. Eventually, his long fingers slowly closed around yours.

"I don't think anyone's cared about me this much in years," he replied, as lightly as if he were talking about the weather.

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Brickwork and rubble clouded your vision as the floor rumbled beneath your feet, the Curse blown sideways, shunted by a comedically large gavel. You felt a taut-muscled arm loop around your waist, yanking you to stand-- "get up, come on-- NOW!" -- and you half-ran, half-staggered through a devastated corridor. Your heart sank as you spotted the staircases downward completely collapsed, leaving you both stranded on the fifth floor.

Higuruma appeared, dusty and spitting, wiping residue out of his eyes and slamming his hand to a button on the wall. In a wild flurry, the Curse turned the corner, screeching and hissing, and with a *ping* the lift doors opened. Not looking back at you, Higuruma shoved you into the open lift, slamming his hand on the button again for the doors to close.

"No-- Higuruma! Hiromi!" You skidded across the lift on grazed knees, wedging your arm between the doors with a yell as they closed around it. The lift didn't move down, and you heard Higuruma's incoherent shout of rage at you as you forced the doors open, reaching out for him and dragging him in by the back of his collar, and hammering the 'close doors' button repeatedly as the Curse, still dazed and staggered, made its headlong rush towards you.

As you fell into the lift with Higuruma, you felt a hand press behind your head, its fine bones crunching as it cushioned your head's strike against the wall. You sat, slumped, Higuruma's body over yours in a protective cage, as the doors slid closed, denting inwards as the Curse hit them with a metallic thud, and a roar.

Silence. Higuruma, silent and seething, reached behind him to press another button. The lift started a smooth descent downwards.

"I had it," he spat, lips curled upwards, nose wrinkled in animated fury, "and you stopped me-- for what? Why?"

You gulped, coughing brick dust out of your lungs as you croaked, "You were lunch. You were that close to being killed--"

"--do you really think I'm that inept--"

"--you're not inept, just inexperienced--"

"I'm not a fucking child!" Higuruma's voice rang, deep and final, around the lift. The lift pinged as you reached the bottom floor. You sighed again, pushing him away from you as you stood, moving towards the doors.

"We'll regroup and consider our plan of--" A wiry arm blocked your path, holding down the 'close doors' button.

"We are not finished," Higuruma pressed, enunciating every syllable with gritted teeth. You rested your hand on his forearm, gentle and weary.

"I am. I'm finished." Higuruma stared at you incredulously, hackles still raised. You continued, "I can't coddle you anymore. You're a smart man, you're happy you know what you're doing. So I'm finished. I won't keep fighting you for your own life, Hiromi."

Hiromi deflated slowly, unable to fight without an opponent. His lip still curled, he refused to move his arm from blocking the door, looking away from you as his fury simmered low.

"I'll clear you with the higher ups. Do what you want to finish up here. I'm done." Still, Hiromi didn't let you go, silent as your hand stayed tenderly on his forearm. A few heartbeats passed between you.

"The thing is, Hiromi...you've already lost the fight when you think the result is the most important thing. Being willing to put yourself forward to defend people, going through that fight for them...that's the really noble thing. Any idiot can win a fight. It takes guts to stand up and decide to fight in the first place."

Reaching past Hiromi to press the 'open doors' button, the lift flooded with daylight, muted by the external veil. Hiromi's arm dropped, beaten. As you moved to step past him, his fingers gently tangled in yours, your hands ghosting together between your bodies.

"Can I...can I buy you a drink? To thank you." You swallowed, throat thick with conflicting emotion. You hesitated, then nodded. Hiromi smiled down at you, something unreadably tender in his eyes.

He leaned slowly down, and pressed a soft-lipped kiss to your forehead; "thank you."

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You didn't get to go out for that drink. After giving the higher-ups your approval for Higuruma to be released, he was thrown headlong into mission after mission.

You sent him occasional texts, and he messaged back, usually dry witty commentaries on the jobs he'd been given. You found yourself missing him, feeling little golden bubbles of joy when your phone pinged, his name on the screen.

It had been a week since your disastrous argument in the lift. You still felt guilty for having abandoned him, still not feeling he was ready, but knowing he had to find his own footing at this point.

Late one evening, you dried your hair with a towel, padding around your apartment in just your underwear as you got ready for bed. You jumped and squeaked with alarm as someone hammered on your door. Grabbing an oversized t-shirt from a pile of laundry, you pulled it on over your head. Approaching the door, cautious, you were alarmed to feel--

"...Hiromi?"

Hiromi leaned against your doorframe, his head on his forearm, and he looked at you with feverish eyes, panting, apparently in pain. His dishevelled suit, and a blossoming bruise beneath his right eye placed him as a man fresh from a mission.

Without hesitation, you gripped Hiromi by the hand and pulled him into your apartment, closing and locking the door. Immediately your hands grasped his cheeks, looking deeply into his eyes, a look of such sweet concern on your face that he gulped, overwhelmed, desperate.

"What happened? Why are you here? You should get to Shoko--"

"I don't want Shoko," he spat, chest heaving as he turned away again, pressing his forehead to his fist against the door, "I want...I want you." You blushed, pleased he had come to you for help, but your medical knowledge was limited.

"What happened?" You asked again, hands cautiously ghosting over his abdomen, checking for injuries.

Hiromi groaned, low and slow, as he burned from the inside out. Your touch shot through him like a thousand arrows. His fingers seared his skin as he fumbled, trying to undo his own tie, and you took pity, reaching round him, your small hands cool against his neck as you removed his tie for him. You felt him tremble against you.

As his collar opened, you spotted a narrow, inch-long dart in his neck, like a cactus prickle. Curious, you plucked it out and dropped it onto the sideboard near the door. Is he poisoned? You questioned yourself in a panic, and you grasped him by the cheeks again, looking deeply into his eyes, terrified you'd watch the life ebb out of him, unable to do anything.

"What do you...what are you feeling?" You took him by the hand, guiding him to your sofa and forcing him to sit as you stood in front of him. His sloped eyes were narrow, taking in your barely-covered legs, the barely-concealed nubs of your nipples beneath the t-shirt fabric. Hiromi reached out with a shaking hand, grazing his fingers up your calf and your breath hitched.

"...Hiromi?" His hooded eyes flicked up to yours as his fingers stayed on your calf. Oh, you looked so uncertain, so concerned for him, and it was...delicious.

"It hurts," Hiromi croaked, "I need-- I-- I need--" His throat was tight, and you took him in, how desperate he looked, how needy, and the realisation clicked into place.

"You need...me?" Hiromi shuddered, recalling how he'd walked directly into an obvious trap while hunting down this godforsaken Curse, not taking in his surroundings, stubborn and certain in his ability to prevail--

"I'm sorry," he whimpered, cock throbbing, trapped against his thigh, his whole body burning from the inside out, "I was wrong."

"Oh, so you do know how to flirt," you teased and he huffed out a laugh, groaning again, in agony, and he begged, shameless, his head leant forward to press against your tummy as his hands crept up, eager to grasp your hips and pull you straight to his mouth.

"Please...please--" he whined, and you shivered feeling his hot breath on your belly through the fabric of your t-shirt, tangling your hands into his hair. Hiromi trembled, letting out a sandy growl against your clothes.

"Don't stop me, please," he urged, "I can't...I can't stop myself." He flipped your t-shirt up and you gasped, his strong hands sinking into the plush of your hips, holding you to his mouth, his tongue tasting you as he swiped open-mouthed kisses just above your underwear.

You felt sweet pleasure throb between your legs, all good sense thrown out of the window as you felt how deeply you had missed Hiromi, how ridiculously grateful you felt to be needed by him in this way, and you breathed to him, "You know I'd always help you."

Hiromi moaned his appreciation, his mouth now slipping down to the front of your underwear, and his tongue traced the shape of your pussy, groaning at the taste of you on the tip of his tongue. Your knees buckled, weak with the feeling of his mouth against you.

His lean arms hooked around the back of your knees, lifting them over his shoulders as he leaned you back against him. You cried out, when leaning forwards to grasp the back of the sofa, your clothed pussy pressed firmly against Hiromi's face.

You blushed as he breathed you in, his hips bucking instinctively upwards, aching to be inside you, cum heavy in his balls and desperate for release. His teeth grazed your pussy through your underwear, and he nuzzled into you, trying to part your folds with his nose through the fabric. Impatient, and feeling your hand sink into his hair again, he used two fingers to swipe your underwear aside, sinking his tongue instantly between your folds.

You whined so beautifully above him, and he undid his trousers, pulling his cock out of his trousers, gripping it tightly as he rubbed his nose and tongue urgently between your soft lips. Hiromi began to stroke himself furiously, squeezing hard at the tip, pre-cum dripping down his fist, shivering at the pleasure.

You allowed Hiromi to use you, your keening voice rising as he latched onto your clit, sinking two fingers into your pussy with no warning, thrusting them roughly into you. You bucked your hips against his face as he whimpered his approval. You blushed as you heard the frantic plaps of Hiromi pleasuring himself, your brain foggy with bliss.

Hiromi's fingers bullied into you, desperate to study you, imagining how deliciously his cock would stretch those plush walls. The constant pressure of his fingers against your cervix and his desperately nuzzling tongue and nose between your folds had you reeling, humping his face as you trembled and shook, Hiromi encouraging it as you approached your orgasm.

Your pleasure peaked, sharp and sweet, and Hiromi held you tightly to his face, still determined to taste you, drawing your orgasm out until you quivered, overstimulated, feeling your heart pulse between your legs. As Hiromi shook from his own orgasm, but not at all relieved and panting, cum dribbling down the front of his shirt, he dropped you into his lap.

You gripped the front of his shirt, his cum sticky against your belly. His hand tangled into your hair as he crushed his lips to yours with bruising force, forcing you to taste him. Nipping your bottom lip between his teeth, he whispered, begging again.

"Inside you...please, please..." You nodded again, and Hiromi threw your shirt off over your head, leaning back to drink you in; panting, trembling, straddling his lap, what the fuck was he playing at by fighting with you for so long--

Your hands worked nimbly at the buttons of his shirt, unbuttoning and pressing it down his arms and you leaned forwards, almost as hungry as him as you took his nipple into your mouth. Hiromi hissed with delight, kicking off his trousers, shoes and socks and rocking your hips against him.

Hiromi grasped your hands, pressing one to his cheek, and one to his chest, forcing you to lean forwards as you shamelessly cast your eyes up and down his lean body, his muscles twitching with the electricity of your core on his aching cock. His teeth scraped against the thin skin on the inside of your wrist, your shivers like a sedative to him.

His eyes burned into yours, hot and pleading in the dark. His body was a furnace against yours, desperately craving a cure for the agony he was in. You lifted one leg off him, intending to stand to remove your underwear, but stopped as Hiromi all but sobbed against your wrist at the sudden loss of pressure on his cock, throbbing and sticky with cum against the neat, black hair on his belly. His fine-boned hands pressed you hard against him, before methodically tearing the sides of your underwear, flinging the scrap of fabric to the side.

When you grasped his aching cock, Hiromi was almost blinded by the anticipation, his hands flinging out sideways to grip the fabric of the sofa, and he panted, whimpering and pleading as you rubbed the angry red head of his cock between your folds, gathering wetness.

When you sank slowly down onto him, crying out as your walls fluttered around him like wet velvet, Hiromi came again with  a shout, faint with bliss and temporary relief, feeling his own seed drip out of you and onto his thighs. He growled in frustration when, after his cock had stopped twitching inside you, he felt the need to cum again build up within his belly, overwhelming him with an almost violent urge to pursue it.

"...Hiromi? Do you...is this...?" You rode him slowly as he twisted in pleasure and anguish beneath you. Reaching up to grasp your breasts like stress-balls, Hiromi shook his head desperately at you, feeling pathetic and helpless. He was corseted by his intense need to not hurt you. You leaned into him, whispering reassurance and soft nothings in his ear.

Hiromi couldn't take it anymore. Standing up, holding himself inside you and locking your ankles behind his hips, he flipped you over, crushing your thighs to your chest. Grasping the back of the sofa, Hiromi snapped his hips against yours with determined precision, his shoulders tight and mouth slack as with every thrust he felt the urge to push harder, deeper, to empty himself inside you again and again, until you were putty in his hands, until he had cleansed himself of this unscratchable itch.

You clawed for purchase on anything as you were pounded into the sofa, drunk on the sensation of being so full, your insides feeling thrillingly bruised, the tenderness building, slow and intense. Reaching up, you plaited your fingers in Hiromi's at the top of the sofa, and he leaned down, nipping and kissing your knuckles in grateful affection.

The air was filled with the wet slaps of your joint bodies, and Hiromi's constant soft whimpers as you came again, this orgasm burning through your body as you hiccuped, tears streaming into your hair.

"Please please please...please, please," Hiromi begged as his next orgasm surged ruinously through him, dropping him to his knees on the edge of the sofa. Hiromi felt his senses return to him with each pulse of cum that left his body, relieved...for now.

Weak, exhausted, Hiromi flopped onto you, wrapping your arms and legs around him in a full-body embrace, suddenly feeling so touch-starved. Hiromi almost wept his thanks into your hair, and you stroked his hair in soft circles with your nails, all reassurance and acceptance.

By the time you had made it to your bedroom and slipped, sticky and spent, between the soft covers, Hiromi's eyes had returned to you, hungry and burning, his fingers stroking through your folds, fascinated by the drips of his seed still leaking out of you. He had flipped you over and pinned you prone to the mattress, sinking into you and moaning your praises as you had clenched, trembling with overstimulation, sucking his cock into your aching body.

Throughout the night, his relief had waned, with longer and longer gaps between him seeking out the warm acceptance of your body. You would wake to his body flush against yours, Hiromi lifting your leg over his hip as he sunk into you, mewling and panting in the night.

Finally, you had woken with sunlight streaming through the windows, Hiromi draped around you, looking soft and exhausted as he slept; Hiromi woke to the smell of coffee and you, very much ready to be cared for...and, occasionally, argued with.

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Ugh, yes. Debate me, lawyer daddy.

[notherpuppet]

Is there any particular reason you use ship names with qpr relationships? (Like using a / or radioapple for examples) It makes it a little hard to tell what's meant to be romantic and platonic in fandoms sometimes, no shame for using them obvi and not pushing you to change your tagging or anything. Just wondering

Well the QPR I'm depicting is pretty affectionate (I mean mostly just xo's, not xxx hahaha) so even if it's NOT romantic, it probably may still be perceived as a ship between characters. I'm purposefully displaying a bond that is affectionate and loving, albeit platonic. So I still consider it a ship and that's why I tag it as such.

So with QPRs like radioapple, radiorose, almimzy, radiostatic, etc. etc. (alastor ships pretty much lol) I just figure that if people don't like to see characters in this ship, they're able to just block the tag. There are ships that I don't particularly like, but I just scroll away. It doesn't really bother me, but yknow; we get to cater a lot of our own social media experiences. There's the block and mute options for a reason.

As for ascertaining whether a ship art is QPR or not, I think someone can inquire or just do a little more legwork to figure that out themselves tbh. Some things may not have been written to be QPR, but may fit inside that idea for someone engaging in the artwork/fanfic. Some things may be intentionally written to be QPR and not coincide with a fan's taste or personal ideas. For example, someone may depict a QPR that includes sex. These are valid QPR experiences. On the flip side, someone may not be depicting a QPR and they include nothing explicit or affectionate, but it still fits into someone else's idea of what a QPR can look like. It's not black and white. There is nuance.

We should individually do the work of assessing if a fanart is something that we appreciate or not. AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO TELL AN ARTIST IF YOU DON'T LIKE HOW THEY DO SOMETHING BTW. Just saying. Pretty RUDE ACTUALLY so yknow I would advocate for NOT doing that. I also don't think we need to put it on the artists to define exactly what they're depicting, since it can be a pretty difficult relationship to pin down. Affection and friendship can look very different for lots of people. And I don't think it's necessary for an artist or writer to spell out their intentions for us. Art is a means to express oneself and to have fun. If we choose to engage in an artwork, then we can also interpret it and come to conclusions of our own.

TLDR; I'm gonna go ahead and tag QPRs as their fandom ship names and I think it's up to us as users to cater social media to our tastes individually.

[botanyshitposts]

Hey! I'm not a botanist, but I'm in circles where it's a bigger thing and I'm kind of curious about something.

So, from an outsider's perspective, the genus Garcinia has a lot of weird and messy classifications. For example, common species like G. intermedia and G. gardneriana are really similar to Garcinia brasiliensis, to the point that it's pretty controversial if they're actually separate species. The Garcinia species colloquially known as "achachairú" also appears to bear a lot of similarities to that trio (although much less than they share with each other), HOWEVER it's almost exclusively referred to (in cultivation and in studies) as G. humilis, a Carribean species with small oval-shaped leaves, despite actually having very long lanceolate leaves and being exclusively found in the Andean foothills of Bolivia. Also, multiple frequently cultivated species like Luc's garcinia and Russell's sweet garcinia haven't actually been described yet, despite for example the former having a decent amount of scientific interest and frequent genetic testing done on it.

All of these odd classification things and even more others have been pretty well known in my circles for the past 15 years-ish, but still nobody seems anywhere close to a conclusion for them. How long does it usually take for a genus to get organized when it has as many species as Garcinia does? And how do they do it? Do they go around testing every single species or only a few at a time? If a species is currently not named, do the same people usually describe them as part this endeavor, or just leave them for somebody else? I saw Plinia and Artocarpus recently got reshuffled a lot because of some prominent genetic studies on them, and several new species and even genera were added, but it just seems alien to me how stuff like that even ends up happening. There are so many plants out there!

Sorry if I'm asking the wrong person here, but I've been wondering about how this stuff will eventually be resolved for yeeeearrs

There are so many plants out there!

ok im kind of surprised i can offer a few possible answers to this question despite having never heard of this but i think i can. if the question is 'why aren't some plants actually described', this is the primary reason why.

when i was in plant anatomy class in college, the person teaching us was a plant anatomist who assigned us different plants from the greenhouse to dissect and describe in a paper for her, and she told us that we might find something that hadn't been described before, which was pretty shocking to me. what do you mean i could potentially find a new-to-science thing? has nobody in history looked at this plant that's just growing in the greenhouse upstairs??

what she said was that no, sometimes not. there are so many plants out there that it's difficult to do one exact in-depth description and published examination of each species, so what botanists end up doing is doing or finding one in-depth examination of one species in a specific group and assuming that all the others in the group are at least similar, if not the same. which is good because it saves time and works as a shorthand, especially if there's not much funding, but also sometimes it has the potential to overlook more nuanced differences that can go undiscovered for a long time. but that's just botanical species in the conventional sense, which i don't think is as straightforward in what you're describing.

another answer to this question that's more specific to the species you're talking about here is that plants are having sex. they have so so so soooo much sex. few things they enjoy more to be honest. and given that the most conventional (but not only) definition for different species is 'can't have sex with other species because it's too different from them', the lines get blurrier to deal with, and one thing botanists do when the lines between species get too blurry (because of all the sex) is to just assume that they're all part of some kind of hard-to-describe genetic soup with individual plants falling along gradients or spectrums of similarities or differences, and in this case you'll see botanists just name the most prominent species among them and call it the '[most common suspect] complex', which groups together all the ones that happen to be having sex with each other at the same time, just to make them easier to talk about. this typically doesn't mean that they're species-less, but more that they can be thought of as a group with a few distinct points where they can look very distinct, and those points are the species, if that makes sense; see the citrus sex graph at the end for an example.

i also see from a cursory google search that people seem to be planting and eating these in a more widespread way, and people are talking about them on forums and stuff. this is one of the cases in botany where things get tricky, because a person looking for traits in a fruit that's having tons of sex might not actually be looking for the same things botanists are looking for when describing a species-- it might seem easiest to just find which species or few species are the tastiest and grow those, but if it's a genetic soup then all you can really do is do it the old fashioned way and breed individual plants for the traits you want. which, who knows, could end up being a hybrid between all of them.

case in point: again i am not completely up to date with the lore here but i found a forum thread where people were debating which species to plant and the consensus was just to plant multiple species at once, which is fine but is also really funny given that it DOES facilitate even more sex, thus blurring the lines even further and-- if the posters decide to plant the resulting seeds from the fruits-- will create even MORE hybrid plants of no discernible concrete species in the plant soup. the hybrid of a hybrid of a hybrid of a hybrid or whatnot. when does one stop calling it a hybrid between two species and start calling it 'the tree in grandma's backyard that's the tastiest of the berries i've tried'? that is the question, truly, one humanity has had for millennia in the search for the tastiest berry, and at that point it might just be easier to call it a variety or cultivar, which are horticultural terms for just that-- a distinct 'kind' among the same species that taste good subjectively and can be reliably rebred and harvested, like all the apple varieties people debate about.

another reason is that plant phylogenies are hard and brain-twisting and plant taxonomists and systemisists are among our strongest warriors. it's not uncommon at all in botany to be researching something and to find out it's been reshuffled because of a new breakthrough on the case a bunch of people more qualified on the subject decided made more sense like a decades later. sometimes species themselves will even change names multiple times if it turns out that it was described earlier by someone else considering the new circumstances. if you're a really unlucky or just controversial plant all this can happen over and over again until, finally, the trees of math have been resolved in a way that makes sense. how long will it take? surely there is a concrete end to the madness? nah. lol

finally, if you're looking into studies on this, you should know that some phylogeny stuff is opinion-based or subjective, especially at first. what counts as a new group for one group of researchers might not count as one for another. so when you see stuff where people are inventing new categorizations or genuses or whatnot or merging multiple ones together spontaneously, it'll depend on how well supported their reasoning is and what the evidence seems to show, and the larger community of plant taxonomists will, overtime, decide what they want to do with that information-- which may include verifying it or refuting it with more evidence. what researchers are proposing when they split stuff off or merge it together is a new or updated model for thinking about existing information, and that model may be more or less useful than the existing one for the means of actually learning more about the plants.

anyway in short there are lots of reasons why this might not be sorted out and the more sex these plants have the longer it's gonna take. i'm strongly reminded of that one citrus sex graph (its this one) (screenshotted to see it on night mode):

[qiu-yan]

MDZS and asshole victims: thoughts on the second siege of the burial mounds scene

this post is not about morality judgments. this post is about reader sympathies only.

one rather clever rhetorical trick MDZS employs is putting all the more background "surviving victims of wei wuxian's actions" into one big angry mob at the second siege of the burial mounds, instead of letting them crop up anywhere else in the story. it's easy for a first-time reader to write off the guy who lost a leg at nightless city, or the guy whose parents died at nightless city, because both of those guys are being dicks. they're part of an angry mob baying for wei wuxian's blood--unfairly baying for wei wuxian's blood, because this time he didn't even do the thing they're saying he did. by putting these two victims into a mob of not just fellow victims but also unaffected individuals (ie. sect leader yao, who just showed up for kicks), the story can effectively equate these victims' grievances (ie. "you killed my parents") with unreasonable mob rule--even if these two things might not actually be equivalent.

the effect of this rhetorical trick, then, is that the reader can at once perceive the themes about mob mentality MXTX wishes to convey, and also effectively write off the victims' complaints. "yes, i did that to you, but i literally died already, what more do you want me to do? shall i walk on my knees repenting?" becomes easier for the reader to accept. and more importantly--wei wuxian's likability as a moral and just protagonist is not impacted.

ngl tho. it would be a bit more difficult for the reader to write off these victims' complaints if, instead of meeting said victims in an angry mob, the reader instead met these victims almost anywhere else. imagine if, instead of meeting mr. "you killed my parents" at the second siege of the burial mounds, we instead met him getting smashed at the local bar and crying about how his parents are dead. imagine if, instead of meeting mr. "you chopped off my leg" as a member of an angry mob, we instead met him begging for alms on the side of the road because his disability rendered him unable to work in a wuxia-esque setting. or imagine--if either of these background characters, overcome with survivor's guilt and trauma from nightless city, hung himself in his bedroom, and the next day his body was discovered by his 15-year-old daughter.

all of these scenarios are entirely plausible. you could easily include any of them into the story without changing the main plot at all. but suddenly shit just got a lot more depressing.

however, no such scene would ever be included in MDZS. the reason is that, as a work of fiction, MDZS's single most ardent goal is for us the readers to conclude not just that "we like wei wuxian as a character," but also that "wei wuxian is ultimately a morally righteous person." when the narrative focus shifts onto the people who were actually helped by wei wuxian's actions (mianmian and her family, lan sizhui, the few months of dignity the wen remnants were afforded) this becomes much easier for us to conclude; wei wuxian does indeed look like a hero. but the more narrative focus is given to the negative impacts of wei wuxian's actions--the more the "victims of wei wuxian" (whether actual victims or not) are given a face, instead of abstracted away by broad summaries--the more the reader might side-eye wei wuxian instead. every new victim given a name, given narrative attention that isn't just focused on making them look like an asshole, arouses the reader's sympathies in the opposite direction--and thus increases the risk that the reader might ultimately disagree with the novel's conclusion of "wei wuxian is a righteous person."

tbh, this does not seem like a risk MXTX particularly wants to take. instead, she's mastered the art of writing Asshole Victims.

which is an entirely valid writing decision, because imo basically every work of genre fiction out there does this to some extent.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

hey! I'm pretty new to your stories: currently reading curse words and loving it! (I started the first book with the mindset that I wouldn't be caught enough to miss some real life stuff because of reading... guess what, I missed some real life stuff reading.)

but now I have a question: the books have a pretty intricate plot with a lot of good payoffs for small things. which is very cool from a reader's point of view, but from the writer's one— can you maybe share some stuff about your process? especially in the early stages, how do you go from the initial spark of an idea and what this is about to a fully formed plot? would be cool if you're willing to share

anyway have a great day I'm off to start the third book hehe!

One thing to know about me is that I have just the worst possible imagination. Absolute pisspoor garbage imagination, nothing going on up there. When I want to plot, my process is simple:

Find a problem, then solve it.

Curse Words was born of several disparate story ideas coming together, but mostly I wanted to play with the magic system -- I wanted to write a story where spells were metaphysical parasites that possessed mages, and each mage could only cast their unique spell. The whole thing came about when reading The Princess Bride, specifically the chapter where Buttercup dreams of being a perfect baby and the doctor looking her over and regretfully informing her parents that she was born with mo heart -- I was possessed with this powerful impression of a slightly wacky doctor peering over the top of his rose tinted glasses to inform a pair of parents that their baby had a curse trapped in her heart. From there, it's find the problem, solve the problem.

I wanted to separate Kayden from his family and put him in an unfamiliar environment for the story so that he and the audience would be on a pretty similar level re: world information; isolated magic and a magic school is the easy way to do that. Okay, so why is this school isolated? Why is the curse thing not common knowledge? Why do the public fear curses and have such limited access to magic that it's not a part of Kayden's day-to-day, if it's so useful? Solve the problem; look at the economy. The unique nature of spells makes them difficult to scale up, and the unpredictable nature makes them inferior to technological solutions to problems in most large-scale issues. What does this say about how the Industrial Revolution would've affected the usefulness, and therefore the public perception, of magic? The logical conclusion is the Purity Revolution.

This school is gathering and teaching all these students; why? I wanted a clear division between witches like Kayden and a privileged elite that formed most of the school body; why are they different, how are the elite kids here, why are witches accepted and integrated into the student body? Solve the problem; look at the economy, the politics. Where are these rich kids getting their magic? Why pull in witches? One question answers the other. Why didn't Kayden and Kylie know that curses were spells in advance? Seems something that should be common knowledge. Look at the politics; tie that in. Logical conclusion: magic trap. We have this magic lake with a monster in it that we introduced super early for dramatic purposes and haven't explained yet. What can we do with that? Let's invent empowered water. Let's look at what that means for the creation of potions worldwide. Let's tie in the management of unmanageable spells. Let's elaborate on the structure our magic trap.

Now we have a channel of power. Curses parasitise witches; some are blessings, some are more trouble than they're worth. The school collects curses, domesticates them, makes them more useful, locks away or renders harmless that which it cannot make use of. More curses are collected over time, the school grows and grows and Refujeyo becomes stronger and stronger as they control more of the world's magic supply, but every system has a capacity. What's the effect of this infinite growth? Here we have a clear and unavoidable economic metaphor, so obvious that not centreing the story on this concept would basically be dishonest. Who's managing this collection, what does it say about the power of the school within mage society? How would such a school relate to the rest of Refujeyo; how would Refujeyo, collecting power like this, relate to and be viewed by other magical traditions, and by nonmagical society? Run through the reasoning, solve the problem.

Why would the school only approach Kayden as a teenager, after his curse caused problems? Surely the school would want to collect as many curses as if could as early as possible. There has to be a reason why they waited. This is a good one because it flows directly from the complex political relationships between Refujeyo and commonfolk politics that have to exist, AND ties neatly into critical character motivations that have to exist for book 1's main twist to function (notably, Malas Aksoy's actions). Sort this out for book 1 and accidentally create a critical political point for the rest of the entire series.

I started writing book 1 with the idea of the court case and subsequent twist about Kayden's curse being the big mystery, but Kayden still needs something to actually do at school. We have this mage who we threw in to rescue Kayden and Kylie from the lake, and had Max hero worship her for flavour; she seems to be becoming central to a lot of interactions for some reason. A lot of dramatic stuff is therefore automatically happening in her presence, but why is this incredibly accomplished and intelligent mage fucking up so much? We've established her as careful and thorough. We need a reason for all these accidents beyond random chance. Someone's sabotaging her -- why? Let's look at our established characters and figure out who has means and motive, and who the most fun red herrings would be.

How could a place like Refujeyo, such a complex and time-consuming project that would have to involve the cooperation of so very many mages, even get built? How would it survive long enough to be powerful? When and where did this happen? We've already established the Purity Revolution; maybe there was something more coordinated than just random undirected economic forces. We've established some incredibly powerful mage families and the old system of apprenticeship and inheritance; we know that the most powerful family in Refujeyo used to have a prophecy and owned a very powerful place that helps prophecies specifically. They could coordinate something, given enough motivation and the help of enough other powerful mages. What kind of motivation? Let's go back to the Purity Revolution. If tech develops alongside magic without central oversight of some kind, what could magic enhance? What problems could be foreseen that would make this kind of investment worth it? How does Refujeyo save the world?

Tie this into our power channel. Refujeyo's attempt to save the world endangers the world due to infinite growth and power being passively collected by those who benefit from the dangerous status quo. It fits our economy metaphor, because they're essentially the same thing, just putting in magic instead of money as a means of power.

Find a problem, then solve it.

The important thing with this method is to keep your solutions cohesive. If you come up with a new different reason for every thing, your plot will look scattered and disorganised. We don't want to look like we're just pulling the story out of our arse. I mean, we are pulling the story out of our arse, that's what writing fiction is, but it's a big part of our job to help our audience suspend their disbelief on that. Whenever possible, you should look for answers that solve multiple things and weave disparate parts of the story together; this is especially true when they relate to the core plot or central theme of your story.

Also, leave gaps for reader inference. You don't have to answer every single question, you just need to make sure that some plausible answer exists for every single question. Sometimes this involves saying less, not more, and letting the audience figure it out.