#i have a problem where i think anything i like or make is inherently embarrassing which ik isnt true i have problems

[eyesopod]

do you have info abt yr ocs posted anywhere? i feel like itd be rly neat to learn abt them ^_^

hello i could kiss u on the lips.

most of my ocs have a tag tht has their general vibe, and theres 2 tags for shared stories/universes (?? i cannot think of the right words rn) that are gs and ss :] every character in ss is shared with my bestie theo sunblisters, and gs is like a legit story i want to make into something. everything else was made for funsies or are from a dnd campaign :P

[lakesbian]

i remember gregor & his interlude being discussed on here semi-recently as an oddity in terms of how, unlike more or less Literally Every Other Fat Character In Any Wildbow Novel Ever, gregor is portrayed as likable and sympathetic + it's even explicitly mentioned as shitty that it's acceptable for people to mock him for being fat. so i'm interested in looking at what's going on there now that i'm actually rereading it

Gregor walked down the side streets of downtown Brockton Bay with the hood of his sweatshirt casting his face in shadow. Anyone who happened to cross his path and look beneath his hood were quick to glance away. Embarrassed, spooked. Those that saw him from a distance knew him as monstrous as well, but in a different way. To them, he was simply one of the morbidly obese. A man in his late twenties or early thirties, nearly three times the weight he should be for his five feet and ten inches of height. His weight, he knew, was one of the rare things in this modern world that someone could use to mock him openly.

there's a lot of implications to unpack wrt "one of the morbidly obese" and the specific detailing of his young age vs not being the weight he "should be." like, i think the obvious connections between piggot being fat & being unhealthy show that worm is coming from a deeply fatphobic lens wherein fat people are seen as 1. inherently unhealthy and 2. disgusting and/or morally degraded for that perceived unhealthiness. actually, even moreso than piggot, it's the constant usage of the (widely scientifically inaccurate) medical term "morbidly obese," obvious emphasis being placed on the perceived unhealth of fatness via the word "morbidly." the, like, really precise focus on exactly How many times over the weight he "should" be also demonstrates such fatphobic, pseudoscientific medicalization of weight. (not that someone would deserve oppression based on perceived lack of health even if they really were unhealthy and even if it really was 100% their fault, but that should go without saying.) it's being implied that it's bad people are a cunt to him about this, but it's also still being implied that the thing they're being a cunt to him about is something actually Wrong with him. so. not great.

i also can't help but wonder how much of the description about how he's treated (i.e. as so monstrous no one can even look at him and he can't go outside or do anything in public ever) is projection of authorial beliefs. like, true, fat people are constantly dehumanized and treated as grotesque and monstrous to life-ruining extents--but this paragraph coming from an author who consistently describes fat characters with palpable disdain and disgust is like. yeah, i'm sure he would compare being fat to having translucent snail-encrusted skin you can see organs and bones through. hard to believe the description here is coming purely from empathy without aaany elements of how the author views fat people he sees in public in it.

but the most absurd line here is of course the last sentence: "His weight, he knew, was one of the rare things in this modern world that someone could use to mock him openly."

this is very funny because:

brockton bay has a nazi problem. characters in worm make fun of each other for acting [r slur]ed or being gay or not being white or being an addict or looking ugly all the time. what do you mean, being fat is one of the rare things that can be used to mock someone openly. there's a conversation to be had about fat people as accepted targets of mockery even in ostensibly anti-bigotry spaces in the year of 2024, but when this was written in 2011? in worm? it's a genuinely bizarre statement

wildbow is literally always interrupting character narration to viciously mock fat people. literally all of the time. forever. Where is the self awareness.

overall i guess it's nice that there's an attempt to establish narrative sympathy with the fat character, but it's being done with Literally No Self Awareness as to how the work itself treats fat people, to the point where it probably would've been better to not bother including the description of how it marginalizes gregor at all--wildbow doesn't try to do this for any other character's marginalized status, so i'm not sure why he felt the need to attempt it with gregor. like, at this rate, you'd be better off just neutrally mentioning that he's fat when describing his appearance and leaving it at that

[microwave-core]

A Handful of Headcanons

These are, uh, kinda unhinged.

I love Nemona with my whole heart and soul, but I almost always write her (and you, dear reader) as being insanely oblivious because I just can't help myself. Every time I saw her in my Scarlet playthrough all I could think was “You wanna kiss me so bad you look stupid” because that is exactly what she’s like.

Her friends have been telling her for the past Arceus knows how long about her crush, but she never understood where they were coming from. Her obliviousness is completely impenetrable, it’s insane. They’re all pulling their hair out by her inability to recognize her own damn feelings.

Like, it’s to the point that her friends think she’s worried about people’s reaction to her being gay. Penny will casually tell Nemona that everyone was fine with her being gay or bi or whatever but Nemona’s just genuinely a dumbass when it comes to romantic feelings. 

(It’s funny, really, because anyone that would have a problem with her sexuality would never voice it lest they get their ass kicked but I digress.)

But when she realizes it? It’s fucking over. Her entire perspective has changed and she is now a new person. She now spends her nights staring at the ceiling plagued by thoughts of you. She could never fall asleep when thinking about holding your soft hand, or playing with your hair, or feeling your lips against her own. Occasionally, her thoughts become unsavory, and it never fails to make her feel like a complete creep because she shouldn’t be thinking of you like that.

When around you, she manages to act pretty normal. She’s too distracted by you to be overthinking her own feelings. The most she’ll do is just… look at you, but kinda intensely.

She’s just in so much awe at your existence, how you could look so beautiful, so elegant, just sitting there. Your every action sets her heart ablaze. Please give her affection, she deserves it even if she can be inexplicably stupid at times.

Cynthia would be such a wife-guy, it’s unreal. I have given this much thought. Sometimes I think about those alignment chart memes and everytime I do I think about the champions in regards to how they would treat their partner and, without fail, Cynthia and Leon fall into the wife-guy section and I will not elaborate further (that is a lie I will elaborate if asked). 

People across the world look up to Cynthia as a pillar of strength, as a serious badass who could curb stomp you with a single look. These people have no idea how much of a nerd she is, but they sure as hell know how much she loves her wife. 

Every interview she’s ever in, she will bring you up. No matter how much you might beg or plead her to, to avoid the embarrassment of her unabashed declarations of love, she will not stop. She cannot stop herself even if she wanted to.

She is the definition of relationship goals. All of her interviews have comments like “get you a girl who will talk about you like how Champion Cynthia talks about her wife” under them. 

And she absolutely adores your embarrassed reaction to them, too. You just look so adorable when you’re flustered. Don’t worry, she won’t tease you that much, that’s not really her style. She’ll always make it up with hugs and kisses and chocolate and anything else your heart may desire. She loves you more than anything else, after all.

Geeta is lowkey a sugar mommy, no matter what. Certified Girlboss™ over here is so busy, which she’s not inherently against as a workaholic, but it does prevent her from seeing you.

And so whenever she does get time for you, she will spoil you. Gift giving is her way of showing affection, at least when it comes to you. She’s practically made of money, please spend as much as you want. It’s her treat and you deserve it. Don’t even think about pulling out your purse or wallet, she will not let you pay. 

During quiet moments in her day, she’ll pull up a store on her phone and scroll until she finds something you’d like. She’ll be scrolling through fancy-smancy stores during an important meeting or when talking to someone like Nemona or Clavell because she just thought of the most darling thing to get you and she needs to find something suitable this instant. And she’s not slacking off or not paying attention, either, she knows exactly what is being said around her.

She’s also shameless. On more than one occasion, someone’s seen her looking for fancy, incredibly expensive lingerie. They’re incredibly embarrassed about it, but Geeta doesn’t care. She is in no way flustered or worried, just amused by their reaction.

If you don’t live together, she’ll totally send packages to your house or apartment. She’ll usually tell you, but sometimes she just doesn’t and suddenly you're opening your door in the morning only to be greeted by several packages. 

Not so much of a headcanon as much as it is a concept, but Courtney and Shelly pining for the same person. That’s it, that is the thought,

These two are their own brands of unhinged, and they would absolutely rip the other to shreds if it meant winning your heart. Courtney is just batshit insane. She’s feral. She’s completely unhinged and would go to any lengths necessary to get you by her side, no matter how much she has to dirty her hands to do so.

Shelly is also unhinged, but she’s far more calculated. She’s part of the brains behind Team Aqua, and so she’s not going to take action without considering all her possibilities first. She’ll go to the same lengths Courntey will go to, but she'll consider all her actions before making a commitment.

There is very little you can even do in this scenario. They would choke each other out with their bare hands if it meant having you. Don’t think this can end in dating both, they would never tolerate the other. They’re just going to continuously fight each other, try to one up each other, until one of them snaps. 

Drasna is severely slept on. I don’t even have a grand vision to put here. There is no idea, there is no headcanon, and there is no scenario. All you get is the concept of Drasna.

Just like… look at her. She borders on milf and gilf, she is decorated in dragon bones, she is sweet and kind and could kick your ass. She is gentle and loving but changes into cold and savage when in the midst of battle. 

She could curb stomp your ass any day of the week, and you (by which I mean me) would thank her. Not that she ever would. She cares about you too much! If you did battle her, she would attempt to go a bit easier on you, toning down the intensity a bit, but it slips out every now and then.

Also, do you think she’d have fangs? That’s how all the dragon tamers are in my head, so it’s not really Drasna specific. Actually, don’t answer that, she totally does because it’s my fanfic and I get to make the rules.

Anyways, Drasna would totally live in a cute little cottage. She’s from Celestic Town (apparently), so she likely prefers a quieter, humbler lifestyle. That is to say, you get to live with her in a cute little house that’s surrounded by nature and is also covered in dragons. You get to unwind at the end of the day by sitting in your cute little garden with her, and isn’t that just the dream?

…. How do we feel about gilfs? Like, in general. Milfs are pretty unanimous, I think. We all love a hot mom, but what about hot grandmas? I say that like the Pokemon grandmas are hot which I don’t think they are (except Cogita, obviously) but like… is there a consensus on this?

I don’t know man, when I look at Agatha and Bertha and Opal it’s just like… that’s a grandma. She’d bake you cookies and ask you about school or work. Agatha has an implicit risk, as you will be jumpscared by her ghosts. She’s also a little bitter and would totally just bitch about the people that get on her nerves. She’s old, she doesn’t care about anything anymore.

Bertha is the kind grandma who always asks if you want to help her make the cookies (she will not be offended if you decline). She’ll ask how your life is and will give you so much useful advice. She’ll also tell stories from her youth, and she looks so happy when she does it. She’s just nice, that's all I have to say.

Opal. Oh Opal. This specimen already has the cookies baked when you show up at her door unannounced. She knew you would be coming. Come sit down and complain about your life. She wants all of the gossip. Tell her everything, especially about your love life. Be careful about what you tell her, though, because she will not hold back when giving you her opinion.

Sorry I couldn't help myself. I had to write this out. I’ll go back to the regular headcanons.

Regular is a strong word. I desire Sada carnally. She is broken and I can fix her, okay? I have thought about this a lot, and I would subject you to all of those thoughts in incredible detail if I was strong enough to truly capture her image.

Real talk though. Sada is hesitant to fall in love again. She’s gone through a messy divorce before, and doesn't want to go through that kind of thing ever again. But she couldn’t help but fall in love with you, which leads to one of two things happening.

There’s the realistic option, that her love for you will make her work even harder towards finding paradise, which basically just leads to how the game plays out. She spends more and more time in the crater until she decides to move into it and eventually gets got by Koraidon, but you don’t know that. It would suck, but you would not be totally alone as you would have Arven there, going through the same thing. At the very least, he’ll turn out slightly better (until he has to tell you that Sada’s been dead for Arceus knows how long). 

But that’s sad, so I present to you the ideal option, that her love for you makes her realize how damaging her workaholic nature has been. She’ll be able to take a step back from her work, from the time machine and Area Zero, and just be able to live in the moment with you and Arven, like a normal family. She starts working as a regular professor. Hell, she might even start teaching at Naranja, where she’ll get to tease Arven everyday.

Anyways, regardless of what happens you get to be Arven’s stepmom, and that makes it worth it because he deserves a good parental figure in his life. I love him, he is my son, and he deserves the world.

Speaking of milfs: Lusamine. Hear me out. Technically, there are three types of Lusamine. There’s Sun and Moon Lusamine who is completely unhinged and selfish and will stop at nothing to get her way. There’s Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Lusamine who is also slightly less unhinged and will stop at nothing to get her way, but she’s doing it for a greater cause (although it’s still kinda selfish but sometimes it’s the thought that counts). Then there's the anime Lusamine, who is actually pretty normal. Not unhinged or feral or incredibly selfish, just a mother trying her best for her two kids. 

All three of them are near and dear to my heart, but, to me, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Lusamine reigns supreme. She’s the best of the other two, where she’s both unhinged and trying to be a good mom (after the Ultra Necrozma business goes down, anyways).

When she becomes more adjusted, not worrying about saving Alola from an unworldly entity, she’s incredibly supportive, both to you and to her kids. Speaking of kids, if you don’t support Lillie and Gladion with your whole heart, she will cut you off. Her family is important to her, especially after losing Mohn.

Writing this, I realize that I might just be invested in giving these kids better lives, but whatever. Lillie will open up to you pretty quickly. She wants to do all kinds of mother-daughter activities. Please just spend time with her, she will love you forever. Gladion takes a bit longer, but he’ll cave to your kindness in time. He won’t admit it, though, he has an edgy persona to upkeep.

Or maybe you're into an evil bitch and you want selfish and crazy Lusamine, which is also understandable. She’ll do anything for you, and I mean anything. She would be pretty controlling though, and she might love the Ultra Beasts more than you, but that’s the price you’ve gotta pay if you want her unhinged.

Oh and also, please don’t look into Ultra Wormholes or Ultra Beasts. No matter what version of Lusamine you’re into, just don’t. Lusamine would never recover if you disappeared like Mohn did.

I’ll end this with Marnie, because I like her. She’s kinda quiet and maybe even a little shy, but she’s adorable and loves you with her whole heart and soul. Her quiet nature, though, is lost when you start doing… basically anything. Whether you’re battling or studying, she’ll be your number one cheerleader.

When you’re battling other people, she’ll be hyping up your every move. You're her girlfriend, you're obviously up to snuff, and she’ll remind you of that fact constantly. She’ll even bring in Team Yell to help out. She wants the entirety of Galar to know how strong you are. 

But she’ll cheer you on quietly, too. When she senses you're overworked or stressed, she’ll be bringing you blankets and hot tea before you can even complain about your problems. And when you’re settled in, she’ll bring you curry and huddle into your side. She’ll even get Morpeko to cuddle up to you. Feel special, Morpeko won’t even do that to Marnie, and she would complain if it wasn’t making you feel better.

If you’re battling against her, she won’t openly cheer you on like normal. She’s a gym leader, she can’t just go throwing a match because she loves you! But she’ll compliment your strategy when you're doing well. Team Yell won’t be cheering for you, though. 

Also, Piers would be totally chill with you. He couldn’t be intimidating even if he tried, he is a literal twig. He just wants his sister to be happy and safe, and mans knows you would never do anything to hurt her. Besides, someone has to tell you Marnie’s embarrassing childhood stories and baby photos.

[kitkats-and-kittens]

Okay. Once again interacting with miraculous ladybug.

Lord help me 😭😭

But unfortunately I wound up watching the statue episode. I can’t remember the name, but I know everyone who has even a semblance of knowledge about miraculous ladybugs knows what I’m talking about.

Genuinely I got so baffled about the whole sub conflict of that episode.

Basic synopsis is that Mary sue and Adrien head to this wax statue museum because babysitting? And it turns out they have a statue of him (which is also strange, like he clearly didn’t know about it beforehand) so he decides it would be funny to replace the wax statute version of himself to prank Marinette.

Marinette comes in. Is sufficiently fooled and then starts acting like an absolute freak with this wax statue of her crush. Which granted, on its own isn’t entirely weird, like shes 14 and while I never did the whole kissing photos of your crush thing I have friends who did and yeah I make fun of them, but I’m not going to condemn them for it. However they’re in a public setting and while at 14 our standards were on the floor, I think we still had enough dignity to not attempt kissing a wax statue in public.

But that’s not where my issue lies. Rather when Adrien recoils as one who are near victims of assault are prone to do, Marinette is so humiliated that she gets mad at him. For what? Idk, because this would not have been anywhere near as big of an issue if you hadn’t been acting so weird with what she thought was a wax figurine.

I’m assuming the whole problem lies with the fact that Adrien didn’t break character sooner and let Marinette act like an idiot in front of him. Which granted he defo could’ve like backed up beforehand, but also he seems genuinely surprised when she tried to kiss him. Like he looks confused the whole time she’s pronouncing her love to him and maybe I’m reaching, but he’s shown to not be the best with social cues, and it’s not exactly criminal to assume that he really just didn’t pick up what Marinette was putting down.

I mean she does all of that and he still doesn’t realise she might like him. I’m just saying.

Still Marinette has absolutely no right to be upset about the situation she has put herself in. It pisses me off that the writer were twisting this to make her seem like the victim when she was acting weird as hell. Attempting to kiss a wax statue of your crush and then having them apologise for it is weird enough on its own.

But when your crush is also a friend you hang out with regularly then it’s just downright disturbing. Like I’ve had crushes on friends, but at 14 I definitely was not constructing weird romantic fantasy’s and roleplaying with a wax mould version of them.

Am I crazy??? Cause I feel like the whole fandom sees it as more of a second hand embarrassment moment, but I find it genuinely weird. Like Marinette sees Adrien as less of a person and more of a character she can project her fantasy’s onto and while I don’t really think there’s anything inherently wrong with that (she’s a teenager, of course she’s putting her crush on a pedestal) I feel like the fact that it’s never acknowledged by the narrative just makes it weird.

[androdetective]

I enjoy reading you takes on the show so I just wanna ask, how do you think a healed/healthy tulio would look like? or do you think he is beyond saving ?

This is a really interesting question. I can imagine what steps he'd have to take to better himself, but I can't see him actually taking them. Tulio is a very proud guy. He also hates vulnerability. He is also very selfish and inconsiderate. Many people point to his high ego as one of his flaws. And to some extent, I agree, but I think the way he goes about it is the actual flaw. A high ego simply means that one has a high self-esteem/importance/whatever. This isn't inherently bad. People valuing themselves is cool. But with him, it leaves him dysfunctional. This impairs his quality of life. It leaves him quite insecure, actually. He's sensitive to people critiquing him or making fun of him. He doesn't like being ignored. Which leads to desperate, often embarrassing, attempts of trying to get attention. He's even had a moment where he admitted he thinks he's a useless asset of the show. Which seems like the opposite of how he presents himself. Both to others and even himself. This is unfortunate for him. These are quite common problems and insecurities. He has a high ego, but he is also very insecure with a lot of things. Like his looks or image or how he appears to friends. It's like he hides behind a high self-esteem to cover up his low/just very mixed and dysfunctional self-esteem.

The thing is, he chooses to be selfish and mean. He chooses to lash out at his friends whenever he gets insecure. He doesn't apologize as often as he should. He takes advantage of everyone. He doesn't learn from mistakes and continues hurting his friends all the time. Having low self-esteem didn't make it so that he had to be a bad person. Even a high self-esteem wouldn't make someone be an inherently bad person. Neither of those things matter when it's his actions that do.

I think that in order for Tulio to heal, he'd have to admit he's not perfect. He'd have to be fine with being a flawed person. And that being flawed doesn't mean he's the worst person ever that doesn't deserve anything. Tulio would have to learn how to cope with not having to rely on constant attention. That his friends still like him even when they aren't paying attention to him. And that his attempts at getting attention aren't the best/can hurt, for himself and even others. He'd also have to realize that lashing out won't make his problems better. And also he'd just have to not be a bad friend/person and be more nice, even if it might leave him vulnerable. We know he likes people. He just doesn't always show it enough. He'd have to apologize to his friends and coworkers and actually take the steps to being better and nicer to them. Also stop exploiting workers. Honestly, he'd have to go over all this in therapy. He has the money for the best therapy too.

But would he? I don't think Tulio likes being insecure. I think he'd like to overcome that, but he wouldn't take those steps. He's too dependent on his facade of being perfect. He'd hate the idea of going to therapy and acknowledging he's flawed. I think he's too comfortable with his maladaptive coping skills. Probably too scared to get better, too. But also, he does like being mean. He likes being selfish and rude and horrible. Even if he didn't have really bad insecurities, he'd still be some sorta mean person.

Now for a hypothetical healed Tulio? I'm thinking he'd be similar to how he was in season 1. That being more calm, less snappy, and a bit more professional (a bit 💀). He still had a bit of an ego, but it wasn't as bad as later Tulio. He was also nicer to his friends and not as cruel. I'm thinking back to those times he wanted to cheer up/make things up with friends. Like cheering up a depressed Bodoque or in the movie where he was very selfless trying to make things right with Juanín. Those times showed a more genuine Tulio, a Tulio that actually does care and has the ability to be selfless. I think if he was healthier, he'd have more moments like these. He'd overwork Juanín less, too. (with the movie I just assumed he'd do that but alas) (Although Juanín would probably still overwork himself as he has genuinely bad workaholism but that's another topic) He'd still have some quirks of his personality but he'd be a more pleasant/tolerable person. His friends would like him more, and he'd be happier. Unfortunately, he's still too set in his ways, so not only will his friends continue to suffer, but so will he. I don't think he's unfixeable, I just think he'll refuse to get better.

[acearohippo]

Alright I’ll bite. First of all, I don’t give a shit about tang yun, you can blast off about him all you want. I have a problem when someone starts implying that the creators are intentionally making it incest or, sorry, “”incest undertones”” with proof the size of a walnut

Second, obsession and possessiveness is not inherently romantic nor sexual. Are both the tang brothers and Yuuhime and Yamato’s relationship toxic and abusive? Very much so, especially on the latter relationship. You are allowed to hate these relationships and talk about how toxic and abusive it is. But-

Third, the proof you have is *checks notes* a blush and the word hogtie. And for Yamato, it was caressing her cheek. Kay so, Tang Yun blushing could be interpreted as embarrassment or shame since the context is that Tang Xuan literally just told him “don’t tie up people you love bitch, that’s weird” (exaggeration but still). Putting yourself into a hypothetical obsession mindset, would the target of your obsession saying that make you: A) make your heart go Doki Doki B) embarrassed? For the hogtie thing, hogtie isn’t inherently sexual either just because it’s used in bdsm. Fucking police hogtie people. The definition is to bind all four limbs together and knowing dislyte’s translation history, probably what was originally meant.

And Yamato “lovingly caressing Yuuhime’s face which mean he obviously wants to fuck her”… bro, have you never seen any villain ever do that. It’s a common trope to sadistically caress or touch a person’s face while they’re impaired or captured. He’s doing it to show the power and control over her. It’s possessive and abusive to a T but it’s not fucking incest. Like literally give me a list of actual romantic or sexual gestures he does to her cuz I haven’t seen it, I got my binoculars on.

My original point was that by consuming media where sibling relationships turned into incest, thus, incest media, you admit that you are biased towards seeing these interactions as potentially becoming incest and thus would influence your critique on them. As for your whole “I added tags to explain you can just ignore me UwU” You wrote a hella provocative post. You can’t expect a paragraph of fucking tags to handwave away anyone who would get pissed at you.

Sighs. Alright, I guess we’re doing it. First, let me remind you that the three definitions of incestuous, the adjective, I’ve been very specific on using, are:

Constituting or involving incest

Guilty of incest

Excessively or improperly intimate or exclusive

All of these are pulled from the Miriam-Webster Dictionary. Got that? Good. Because I have only been using the term “incestuous”, specifically to highlight the inappropriate levels of “affection” both Tang Yun and Yamato express towards their respective siblings. Not. Once. Have I said anything that about Dislyte intentionally making incest in there stories. What I have said is 1.) I am not going to forgive them for having incestuous overtones between the two siblings during the final act of the Sea of Sorrows event and 2.) the imagery Tang Yun brings up when speaking to his brother (or implying something to his brother) is uncomfortable. Not once do I say or imply that I think Dislyte is trying to push a romantic bond between the two siblings. Incestuous, the adjective, isn’t inherently romantic or sexual coercion, it is simply intimacy that is improper, inappropriate, uncomfortable, manipulative, abusive, and so on. Companies that have incestuous relationships with their customers have manipulated a state of dependency on the customers with their products, rendering them docile and accepting to whatever demands the company asks of. Incestuous can relate to intrusive thoughts, the way someone thinks- consciously or inadvertently- not necessarily how they act. Incestuous is just a descriptor, not the event.

This is why I specified that "incest media" is not the same as "media with incestuous overtones". The former is a kink, the latter is an unfortunate story telling device.

We see this in Tang Yun’s voice lines, in game, and how they are literally about how he feels towards Tang Xuan. If he can’t have him, no one can. All that he does, he does it for “his dear brother”. He simultaneously looks forward to the day and fears the day he can destroy his brother with his two hands. He was accused of abducting his brother and then he says he’ll hogtie him if he disappears like that again. These are all uncomfortable levels of obsession. It’s excessive. He agrees with Yamato’s intense stance on “protecting” his sister, Yamato who took away her second of freedom to be the one in charge of her actions through the musical device. 

This is now the second time someone brought up Tang Yun blushing, I don’t know why cause that was never my focus. The two times I’ve brought up the incestuous overtones, it was always about the actions and their implications, never about the physical reaction. Him blushing doesn’t mean anything, but him cutting off his justification for his possessive thoughts when he noticed his brother getting upset with him after voicing them? The implication that he’s holding back his darker thoughts so as not to spook Tang Xuan, the object of his obsessions? That’s infinitely more solid proof of the disturbing nature of his affection.

The fact that they are SIBLINGS is what makes it appear more incestuous than a regular villain/victim combo. You know why no one sees villains “caressing” their victim’s cheeks “lovingly” as incestuous? It’s because the victim isn’t usually related to them. Cause, guess what, when there is a familial relationship? The consumers of the media will see it as incestuous. Because it is. It’s a line being crossed/blurred between family. If a villain does this action to their victim of the same sex, guess what? It will be interpreted as homoerotic overtones. If a villain does this action to a child, it’s interpreted as paedophilic overtones. That’s the point of being able to make logical inferences, without the author needing to explicitly state “Hey, this villain right here? Immoral as shit.” They can use this sort of tool to exemplify the corrupted morality of the villain. The posts I’ve made were never about the two siblings being incestuous, but it being used as a tool to paint Tang Yun and Yamato as immoral bastards. I understand that not everyone will pick up on that, but as someone who has consumed media where this happens often, I can pick up on that story-telling tool. Because, once you notice how it’s been used, you will pick up on it quicker.

Speaking of noticing things, did you truly read my post or did you skim through it and get upset? Because I made sure to find an example of hogtying that wasn’t NSFW and highlighted the position itself, rather than any sexual implications of it because this post isn’t about anything sexual. If you still saw it as sexual, then I can’t really blame you, or anyone, for seeing it that way. The thing about tying people up is that it is seen more often as a sexual kink, and I was worried about people having that imagery which is why I tried to minimise the damage by finding a demonstration that wasn’t overtly sexual (you’ll notice it’s more of a diagram featuring a fully clothed man with a neutral expression on his face, with colours contrasting only the rope and number/angles against said man) and by explicitly asking people to ignore any NSFW implications to focus on the the vulnerability.

It’s ironic, because I got this image from an online journal/news outlet documenting the US Criminal Justice system. The image is in reference to police hogtying, and yet you still got the BDSM reading I was trying to avoid. That, accidentally, proves my point that the imagery Tang Yun conjured with that specific phrasing is disturbing, seeing as it is directed to his brother. When it comes to siblings, there shouldn't be any sort of sexual implication between them.

It also doesn’t disprove what I was saying about vulnerability, because the position is used to render victims immovable and, historically, has been used against minorities in overt displays of power imbalances, rendering them vulnerable for sick displays of superiority. I’m sure the Dislyte devs understood the weight of that word, corrupt policemen being an international plague, and that’s why they had him use hogtie rather than just threaten to tie him up, something way less emotionally charged.

Let me reiterate, that the phrase I have been using, “incestuous overtones”, is used to describe any sort of uncomfortable intimacy between two people, specifically siblings in this case. If I was calling it incest, I would tag it as such. Its not incest, it’s implied. And implications can be just as uncomfortable to see/read as demonstrations. While it wasn’t my intention to be provocative in my post, I guess I’ll accept it since it’s inspired this sort of conversation. At the end of the day, I’m just a fan trying to piece together the behind the scenes relationships of one of my favourite characters. If you don’t notice anything incestuous, there is nothing wrong with that. That’s the fun thing about storytelling, people can get different interpretations from the same material depending on their experiences. I recognise the incestuous red flags, you only recognise the abusive red flags. I know that the overtones are done in a way to provoke discomfort in the audience, you are interpreting my understanding as a callout to the Dislyte Devs. I am telling you that’s not even close to my intentions but, at the end of the day, if this is how it feels to you (and others) then I cannot do much about it. I’m not going to spend all day going back and forth with you, you cannot convince me there aren’t any incestuous overtones. Likewise, I am not here to convince anyone that what is happening is incestuous. I am responding to your queries, but this isn’t me trying to evangelise anyone. I don’t care whether or not you agree with me, but you wanted my side so here it is.

Basically, I think this boils down to: you think I'm implying a sexual/romantic relationship is happening between the Tang twins and Yamato and Yuuhime, but that couldn't be further from the truth. It was never sexual/romantic to begin with, just disturbing and uncomfortable to watch happen between siblings.

Has it occurred to you that, perhaps, you're doing the projecting?

[lepertamar]

one of the big.....among the biggest-on-a-narrative-level changes in the revised stars is not really a change as much as making something that in the previous version was very very slippery and avoided and impossible for me to textually justify but still got a deep deathly tingle of on the back of my neck. and which in this version instantly makes everything 5x richer and more layered and pierced-to-the-heart-of The Issue even as it triggered me intensely, that is:

the preceding context, which is not the point but is necessary, is in chapter 4 or something, there's this change, where lucifer's reading from a book about something unmemorable, changed/restored to being a book about a girl who was falls in with a 'bad crowd' and is tricked/forced into burning herself (lu reacts with vicious disgust-based ableism/pity as well as doing it in a context that's very........clearly testing yenatru to make sure he reacts the way they want, they aren't very on-the-nose vicious usually):

but that's not the main point. the main point of this change only makes itself clear many many chapters later, when lu is about to go track down tamar:

hopeful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

that’s the problem!!! the problem lu has is not having to be around a g-d manifestation, the problem is not the triggering reminder, the problem is that tamar is someone who liked it, who doesn’t want to be saved from it. tamar being miserable and forced into it and hating it would fix everything for them!!!!!! would immediately be no problem for them!!!!!!!! even though that would approximate their own trauma more and should hypothetically be more triggering!! but that is not their problem, triggers are not their problem. hopeful!!!!!!!!!!!

even though, a few pages earlier in the same chapter, talking to the same person, they said:

and i wrote in my liveblog chat, i feel very deep shame and embarrassment every time i try to justify the connection but truly:

the stated reason for this revision was 'better continuity with The Lives That Argue For Us, and I see exactly why.

but also, it is so so SO much better. it is so much more cancerous and corrosive, so much gears-turning-other-gears in the psychology/society/narrative/themes of this series. it is no longer single-note trauma as a floating disconnected excuse that does not affect anything or get affected by the traumahaver's frameworks anymore. the really really dread-feeling part is how lu is...charming and insightful and actualized and likable and a good person (....when they are interacting with eliya, or with kjorel, and not when with anyone they like interacting with.) and like???? kinda normal, not in any way edgy or shocking, and not at all inherently or unusually awful. in fact it would feel less bad if they were…..the badness is that, just like irl, people who are not awful can and do sincerely and unironically act like this, because they just think there is an exception, that there are people who are the anthropomorphic representation of not-being.

[r0sepetalbed]

I know but I can't fix it.

So, I am perfectly self-aware and conscious that my taste in men is a problematic--not to mention a paradox--thing to begin with.

For instance I long for peace and calm and stability, maturity and understanding. Yet, at the same time I wouldn't mind if he was mean, if he was ignorant, if we fought and disagreed.

Worst of all, I would forgive him for hurting me, in all regards, but frankly I draw the line at betraying me, if he lacked loyalty. I know, that sounds quite stupid, makes one wonder "where are this girl's priorities and why is she okay with anything else?" My answer to that might be insufficient. When you know, you know. For instance, my parents had a rough relationship, many bad moments and good and calm ones sprinkled in. But they never looked at other people, never betrayed each other. I know, bare minimum, but there are couples that cheat. I'd rather go through hell than get cheated on, that's why, in my skewed perspective I could forgive him or her if he mistreated me as long as he is loyal.

This only applies to me, I don't believe anyone else should be subjected to such things, maybe it's my martyr complex, ever the victim, but at my own hands. I have experienced almost all forms of abuse except drug and sexual abuse--thank God--and I must say I am an ungrateful b-word for feeling okay and at the same time haunted by it. Why can't I be normal and feel a certain way about it? Still, there are moments in my life, where I am happy and genuinely, the unbridledly desire of betterment and healing so close, yet out of reach. Finger tips graze the edge and I realize, "no, this scares me, it feels weird. I'd rather stay miserable."

Well maybe I don't explicitly think I should stay miserable, but I return to my old ways. That brings me back to my type, my "romantic" interest. It's embarrassing vocalizing it, so I write it down instead.

I don't idolize bad men, not those serial killers or criminals, I actually have a very tame and mild obsession with men that any woman would like; Mads Mikkelsen, Cillian Murphy and so on. Well that, and mostly fictional men. Women too, but that is a topic I am yet too shy to delve into.

Someone I want, or maybe desire is not equal to what I need. I know the differences between the two, yet desire wins over conscience. Forgive me God. I need someone gentle and patient, warm and welcoming, private and mature. But I want someone who is emotionally not there, controlling, older and wiser but also self-aware of his own flaws yet unwilling to change, someone stubborn and cold yet warm, keeping me starved but feeding me enough to keep me alive for their love.

Someone who has the power to destroy and build me back up, who knows every secret of mine and doesn't shy away from tough love.

And that is a problem, I know, but I don't see why exactly, I don't see why I can't love someone who is deemed unlovable, so long they are not fundamentally bad people, I find a way to long for them. No one is inherently bad or good and I'd rather want someone I can feel comfortably with, even if they are not the healthiest choice.

I want someone who is on a black and white spectrum a dark grey.

But I shouldn't, because I know I can't handle it, I am far from perfect or healthy or happy or mature. I would crumble on the outside and I'm afraid I won't like it, I hate showing vulnerability, especially to those I hold dear.

I am working on it, baby steps.

[coristophanes]

Well this post certainly isn't going to go in the direction I had thought my first post would go when I made this account a few days ago but I told myself that this account for just kinda posting whatever comes to mind; Like a journal of sorts.

I doubt anyone will end up reading this but if you do, I do know that this could be posted privately, but my brain tells me that if it's private there's no point in writing it at all when I could just keep it in. Also I don't know how tumblr is supposed to work but I don't really care. Wow this mobile formatting bothers me. I also don't think I used the semicolon right but I care even less about that.

I'm gonna be talking about mental health and suicide so trigger warnings or whatever.

---------------------

So uh how to start. In my experience, whenever people talk about suicide or whenever it's protrayed in media, it's always a lingering thing, you know? It's always talked about like this monster looming over a person and all it takes is one particularly bad day for it to get close enough to get you. It builds and it lingers and it just always hurts. For so many that's just how it is I'm sure.

I've had my share of suicidal thoughts, they've never gone further than that but they happen. But I feel like my experience is different than the lingering monster. At least I think it is but I'm not really sure, which is part of why I feel the need to write it out. My suicidal thoughts aren't lingering, they're reactive. They happen in response to things that upset me, even just minorly.

I struggle greatly with self worth. Its not that I feel inadequate but more that I feel purposeless? I guess? I'm capable of so much, I know that I am, but I'm unable to use that. I've tried furthering my education, developing a career, going to the gym, taking care of myself better. I can never manage. It starts out strong but lose focus. School in particular was tough because the littlest fuck ups snowball. All it took was a single missed assignment to cause a domino effect leading to me literally missing 80% of all my classes and classwork.

I don't really know where I'm going with this but I think I got off topic. The littlest mistake, embarrassment, bad memory, anything, is enough to pop into my head the idea of "it would be so easy to just do ___ and have it all be over with." And then it's gone. Either I push it out or or it just leaves and I don't think about it until the next time. The thing that spurred all this on in particular is that I've spent too much money recently. Was laying in bed, thought about my spending and then just "this sucks, I suppose I could just end it." Only reason I'm thinking about it now is because I've chosen to think about it because you know... Probably not a healthy mindset to have.

But when I got to writing the first part of this post I started thinking "is this really different from the looming monster metaphor" (not my best work). Sure it's not inherently the direct nono thoughts always looming over me, but those triggering thoughts absolutely are. I find myself always needing some kind of distraction lest the thoughts creep in. I watch so much Netflix and YouTube and tiktok, etc, just to keep the thoughts from rearing their ugly lil heads. Even as we speak, or I guess as I write, I'm rewatching suits on Netflix in a little popout window on my phone (if your curious where I am, Mike just got arrested for being a fraud). Notably, I don't typically listen to music because I'm still able to empty my head when I listen to music, leaving it open for the thoughts I don't wanna deal with.

Honestly I don't know where to go with all this at this point. I'm kinda out of thoughts to write down. Uhh might see Oppenheimer next week, that'll be fun. Maybe barbie too, idk about that one though, kinda harkens back to the spending problem.

Harkens? Did I use that right? I'm gonna assume I did. I probably didn't but who cares, whats gonna happen? The nonexistent reader gonna make imaginary funny of me for harkening wrong? I think not.

This was never the intent of this account. I thought I was gonna be funny and just kinda post random 'quirky' thoughts but uhhh I do think there's gonna be more of these in the future because it felt good to get this off my chest.

Future Topics you can look forward to [or dread]:

- My emotions [or lack thereof]

- My relationship and why I think it's struggling [spoiler alert: I might be aro but I have no idea]

- Why I randomly changed from round to square brackets [I didn't feel like fixing them once I noticed]

- quirky silly goofy Minecraft Roleplay Server trauma (trauma might be a little strong but the hyperbole makes it funny.)

- Cheese probably. Idk why or when but cheese is important to me and I'm gonna discuss it eventually.

- the fact I think I have ADHD or some other neurodivegency (but you'll never catch me telling someone because I despise self diagnosis)

- hyperfixation of the week

- the fact that I accidentally went back to round brackets

- the fact that this list is way too long now but I don't really care to delete any of them but like whatever? Nobody is reading this. Probably. Like I said idk how tumblr works.

Uhhh anyway bye.

Sike I realized my about me section isn't actually made yet so breif background info I should probably put at the top but uhh fuck you.

Cori, 22, Agender(ish), Use any pronouns but if you ask me which ones I use I'll tell you they/them otherwise you'll end up using exclusively he/him and I don't want that because that is incorrect, sorry. Canadian... If that's relevant. I like purple. Big fan of Satyrs. Love D&D. Not straight but don't ask me what I am or I might have to kill you (I don't know). Fun fact: approximately 65% of the crushes I had while in pre-post-secondary school ended up realizing they're actually various flavours of transmasc (one's actually Triple A but don't worry about it).

None of this is relevant, but my episode of suits ended so I'm just kinda rambling until I can find a good point to stop typing, otherwise return of the bad thoughts. I hope tumblr posts don't have a word limit (looking at you twitter [or should I say 'X'] {I shouldn't say X, X is stupid})

Wait this is already and incoherent disaster I can just stop now.

K byeeeeeee

[minu-moni]

Thank you for all your answers!

Honestly your issues with the intermission are so much different than mine that I’m a little embarrassed to talk about it kahfkfja but let’s do it anyway!

My only issue with the intermission really is regarding mainly Spades Slick’s character, specifically his sexism and misogyny.

Now, before anything else, I wanna clarify that this is by no means me saying “you can’t make bigoted characters”, my issue with his character isnt him being sexist in and of itself, but him being sexist as a reflection of Hussie’s own bigotry.

With the majority of intermission characters being male, interactions with female characters are scarce and stand out because of it, mainly Spades Slick interacting with Snowman. What stood out to me the most is the way he addresses her when they interact, mainly calling her a bitch.

It stands out to me because Spades never refers to her as an asshole, a motherfucker, a dipshit or any other cursings. No. He calls her specifically a bitch. And only a bitch. Which is particularly uncomfortable because Snowman’s silhouette is one that makes her slim waist and boobs stand out, so essentially him calling her a bitch and nothing else reads to me like slutshaming.

She’s not a bitch because she treats people poorly and is a dictator. She’s a bitch because she’s a woman with big breasts.

Spades also behaves weirdly towards Ms. Paint, jumping straight into flirting with her when they meet, which also plays on the sexism Spades has. It just feels weird (and particularly uncomfortable) to me that they don’t even talk before he starts flirting, which rings me very much like those construction workers that whistle when women walk by them on the street or hospital patients flirting with nurses.

Now, none of this inherently means Hussie is sexist. Correct.

Except this isn’t only a thing with Spades Slick, but something Hussie has kept consistent since Problem Sleuth.

Notice the way he names the characters in that comic. The male characters have actual names, like the three main characters, Problem Sleuth, Ace Dick and Pickle Inspector. But the female characters are named after sexist stereotypes for women, ie: Nervous Broad; Hysterical Dame. This is something he has carried since those times, and it lines up chronologically since the intermission is very early Homestuck.

“Oh, but this all lines up with what noir movies and stories do, and that’s where the basis for the Midnight Crew and Problem Sleuth come from.”

True, but just because those movies had sexist tropes, doesn’t mean you’re obligated to include them in your story. Just like Bridgerton isn’t obligated to abide by “black people weren’t aristocrats in the regency era”. The decision to put this on the story was a conscious one Hussie made.

It’s not Spades’ character that is the issue, but the fact that he’s written like that because Hussie has a sexism baggage.

Also I really don’t like the idea of Snowman living with like 15 men. Nothing about this is relevant within the comic, but thinking about it too much makes me uncomfortable. Give that woman some female friends please (and maybe some girlfriends too)

A lot about Snowman is written as sexist actually. She is the “bad girl” stereotype that men love putting in their movies to appeal to the male-gaze, barely has a personality in comparison to the Midnight Crew, has a body that makes no sense for a species that apparently reproduces through cloning (even tho she’s hot as fuck and I love her) and is called a bitch (and only a bitch) by the character that interacts with her the most, which sums up like 90% of the time she’s on screen or mentioned.

And this isn’t only an issue with the intermission characters (see the Hussie putting boobs on female trolls despite them being basically insects discussion).

As a woman reading these stories, these little things are stuff that not only feels unnecessary, but are uncomfortable, and I know for a fact I’m not the only one that felt like this since I talked to people about it before.

If it was just the characters, it would be mostly fine, I could easily ignore that, but since it’s an issue with Hussie as an author, it’s something more worrying than just writing a bigoted character.

I don’t know Hussie, so his visions on the subject could’ve changed (and I hope they did) since it’s been a long time since he wrote these characters, but it’s still something that bothers me when I read the intermissions and anything with Spades Slick in it.

I like Spades as a character, but that trait of his and the implications it has are absolutely something I would change.

Genuine question for my homestuck intermission colleagues: are you guys genuinely content with the way the intermission characters are written (The Felt, Midnight Crew and Doc scratch) or is there anything that bothers you? Would you change anything if you could and what?

[ganymedesclock]

I think there's a tricky place we can fall into with discourse about prejudice where the pattern goes,

"sometimes people will be angry! Demanding minorities to be sanitized and peaceful and pleasant to groups that have hurt them and in the face of behaviors that continue to hurt them is unfair!"

Which is a good thought!

But then it becomes, "it is always ethical to bully people who are More Privileged Than You!"

At which point there are three problems,

Problem one is that bully mentalities are not good, not in a moral sense as much as a practical one. Even incidents we do celebrate, like that one time a neonazi spokesperson got punched, we don't celebrate because it's a bullying action. It was a targeted act of deplatforming. That guy wasn't embarrassed because we wanted to snap his underwear and send him home crying. The punch was a means to take the platform away from a dangerous person who was using it to spread hate speech. The goal is to stop the harm. The goal is to stop the harm.

The goal is not to be a bully, because being a bully feels good and fun and cathartic and the more you encourage that impulse the more you will actively want to find people to bully, because it feels good, and being left alone with your feelings doesn't feel so good. So the categories broaden. As a means to vent anger it fails, because it makes you angrier, because you want to be angrier, because if you have more justifications there are more people to hurt. An endless buffet of people to hurt! You're better than ALL of them! (Not good for you, not good for praxis, not good to be around)

Problem two is that every human being on the planet is complicated and Privilege is a thing we can identify much more easily in vague abstract than we can in practice. Trying to split hairs and divide everything down to the finest degree to rule who outranks who on the great objective scale of privilege, creates a model where people are incentivized to strip themselves down to victim status for credibility. And most of the categories are extremely broad and affect people to very different degrees. Is my disability "disabled enough" for people? Or because I don't have physical disabilities and I'm not nonverbal, should I shut up forever, regardless of what I'm saying? Are strangers on the internet entitled to my medical history?

At that point it's basically just repeating ableism- you're only credible if you're suffering SO much you can't live without help and then we should all pity you and see you as such a victim. And that's just one example. There's a lot of ways this can go wrong.

Problem three- and the thing that inspired me to make this post- is that if you establish a narrative where the closer to a cis, white, straight, perisex, allosexual, able-bodied, english-speaking christian man in America someone is, the worse a person they inherently are, which gives ownership to all these qualities to the worst people.

I feel like I often see jokes or discussions of characters where male characters are ascribed 'stupidity' as a trait when the thing that the audience is clearly actually reacting to is that he's. nice. trustworthy. patient. And I feel like that's kind of unfair, isn't it? Are we implying any sufficiently smart man would hurt and maltreat others? That the best thing he can be is stupid? As a transmasc person myself, I don't really like the idea that if I reached a point in my transition where people saw me as a man more than anything else, they'd be afraid of me and have to decide if they think I'm too stupid to hurt them.

Men don't inherently suck, cis-heteronormativity creates a shitty box to put men in and this experience hurts them. If the hypothetical Perfectly Normative Man I listed above is the winner of the 'game' that prejudice creates (again, in America, not necessarily in every country) he wins a really bad prize. The primary nexus of misogyny, of racism, homophobia, transphobia, acephobia, ableism, prejudice against intersex people and non-christian religions and secular beliefs are directed off him, but he is made a soldier for these causes because he is never that far off the crosshairs. A cis straight man is often culturally socialized to be terrified of queerness because there is always the warning he could fail to measure up, and become rejected like those Others. Virtually always, in some way, he is already Other himself, even if he hits all the 'correct' categories he may not hit them in a way that power approves of.

This is a system that perpetuates itself through suffering, and the worst possible men, cis people, straight people, so on and so forth do not deserve to be given the right and privilege to speak for the category.

[owlf45]

Hi owl, did you ever have problem with making your character made mistakes? Or maybe made them do something wrong? Because i currently have this problem i like Izuku too much and i just couldn't let him made mistakes eventhough i know its part of growing up, but i dont know why i just can't do it? I dont know whats wrong with me,

Oh yeah absolutely. I was dealing with this all the time. Especially a couple years ago, I was a perfectionist little shit who cringed in second-hand embarrassment whenever a character made a really stupid mistake/decision. I'm not going to assume your age but I will say it gets easier when you're older to embrace that shit.

I'm going to put a TL;DR with advice up here because I can never shut the fuck up and write a normal amount of words to anything. So here:

TL;DR: If the scene where the mistake is made is too hard to write, write the aftermath. (The mistake is important, but the fallout is usually more so). Using humor/minimizing the amount of time you spend on the consequences of an action can help. Characters can make mistakes without the scene being embarrassing. If you hate the embarrassment of a stupid decision/mistake, rewrite it so it's not making you feel yucky about your writing. Realize that mistakes are not inherently moral/representative of your character being a shithead, and mistakes are sometimes unavoidable (AKA, Izuku broke the laws saving Iida from Stain. A mistake, but not one that was truly in his control). Shit happens. Shit happens! Shit happens. Mistakes happen, it doesn't have to be a big deal.

There's a lot of conflict in the original series where the characters do the right thing, but they get in trouble because they don't listen to the rules. I find that you can still create conflict and acknowledge that characters shouldn't be the ones doing x, y, z (there's a very popular trope where Izuku and his classmates' adolescence comes into play—AKA, they're children, they should leave certain shit to the adults/professionals, even when the pros aren't enough).

It also helps if a character you're really attached to genuinely feels like there's no other option in a situation. Especially with Izuku, he doesn't necessarily try to break the rules. He just values the lives and safety of others over himself and over the law. So yeah, he's going to save a kid he sees is injured and break like, ten laws in the process and probably 3 bones, but that doesn't mean he's bad or wrong, he just doesn't ask for permission because there's not enough time. (Think the Stain fight). It's a mistake, but maybe it's an unavoidable one.

Also, mistakes are not necessarily moral. They don't have to be catastrophic or a reflection of being a bad person. When writing your scene, just remember: shit happens.

If writing the mistake itself is too hard, instead, skip it. Just write the aftermath.

Like. Okay. Example time. Izuku wasn't communicating well with Katsuki on the field because he got frustrated, and the previous night he had a dream about them as kids promising to be hero partners and it got him too deep in his head. And because Izuku wasn't communicating well, because he was out of it, someone got hurt, and the villain escaped. That's a hard scene to write. So I wouldn't write that. I would write the scene after that. Like this:

Izuku's in the locker room, sitting with his head bowed towards his knees. He hasn't moved an inch since he landed there an hour ago. His ears are still ringing from the villain's quirk. No one's dead. But it was close. It hasn't been that close in years.

A locker slams beside his head. Izuku startles.

"So are you going to explain what the hell that was about?" Katsuki says. Oh yeah. He's pissed. Of course he's pissed. Katsuki was yelling on-scene and Izuku had reached up and turned the earpiece off because his head was spinning. He didn't hear that the villain had a partner until it was too late.

And then after this snippet ^^^, they duke it out because of course they do.

At the end of the day, characters make mistakes because they're human, but as a writing tool, they make mistakes to reveal a deeper problem. Izuku doesn't communicate with Katsuki some days because they haven't worked out all the issues in their relationship. Izuku tries to go vigilante as a 12-year-old because he wants to help people more than he cares about his own life. Izuku doesn't argue with his teachers when they tell him off, he just nods his head and goes right back on his self-destructive bullshit because he didn't have a very constructive relationship with his teachers in middle school.

Or maybe a character says the wrong thing to a person who needs help, because they don't know enough about the person/situation. Or maybe a character is an immature child and fumbles a very important conversation with a Very Important Adult. Shit happens. It doesn't have to be a big deal to your characters. Also don't make yourself feel yucky over your writing just because you're trying to shoehorn in some kind of mistake that doesn't progress the plot or character arc.

[pennielane]

I know you said "a discussion for another day," so if you don't want to post this (or if it's just too long) no worries. But as someone who went from absolute 0 (knowing the Beatles only from the most basic cultural osmosis) to 100 (in deep in the fandom), I have lots of emotions about the whole narrative thing.

For me, the core problem with this topic in Beatle fandom, as I see it, is that a lot of people who know even a bit about The Beatles (or just classic rock) have trouble understanding what the people who only engage The Beatles as pop culture icons do and don't know. The idea that the "Paul is a boring and inferior" narrative still matters in pop culture feels wrong because it has mostly been stamped out for anyone with any actual knowledge. But as someone who only had the most basic knowledge of The Beatles as cultural figures less than a year ago, I feel very differently. Because the impression I got through cultural osmosis (and seeing as the sources of that impression were tv, movies, and music, not family members, I think it's accurate to the general cultural idea), was that John's solo career was almost as great and important as his Beatle career, Paul's solo career was completely embarrassing and terrible, and George and Ringo didn't have solo careers to speak of.

I don't think that's the biggest injustice in the Beatles broader legacy. I couldn't, for 1 million dollars, have told you George's name. If you had asked me to name all four Beatles I would have said John Lennon (because he's John Lennon), Ringo Starr (because his name is easy to remember), after a minute or two I would have come up with Paul McCartney, and then I eventually would have said Yoko Ono after being completely unable to think of the fourth one.

There is one area where I think Paul fans (but John fans too) get fired up that doesn't really matter to the larger cultural understanding of the Beatles. The idea of "Paul songs" and "John songs" was completely alien to me before joining the fandom. Or any attempt to "split" the credit. The general cultural knowledge I had was that all the Beatle songs were co-written by Paul and John. If you had stopped me on the street and asked me which of them was more important to the songwriting, I probably would have guessed John based on the evidence of his solo career being good, but it would have been a new idea to me in that moment. I also would have had no idea there were any Beatle songs not written by Paul and John except Twist and Shout (which I knew was a cover). I would have pulled a Frank Sinatra and credited the only George song I had ever heard of (Here Comes the Sun) to Paul and John.

How much fans care about the broader legacy of the Beatles as cultural icons is another topic, but I think this idea that the "Paul being inferior isn't a real narrative anymore" comes from fans, even casual fans, not knowing what their broader legacy is. I also think there is still time for the broader cultural legacy to change (especially when the world reacts to Paul and Ringo's deaths) but the further we get from history the harder it is to change the general public's understanding of it.

I have some more nuanced thoughts on pieces of this, but this is the gist.

initial ref

hi. okay. i've thought about this a lot over the past few days. i agree that we, on here, see the beatles through the skewed, myopic lens of Being A Beatles Fan. but at the same time, i sort of disagree with the point you're making. because your perspective is inherently singular, too.

for instance, i remember my pre-beatles super fan days well. my dad was obsessed with band on the run, so i never viewed paul as inferior to john. contrary to your experience, i actually hardly knew anything about john. i knew his name because he died in a tragic way, but i knew nothing about his solo career except for the song imagine. i could name ringo because, like you said, it's an easy name to remember, and i also couldn't name george until later on (my dad started pushing all things must pass on me right before i dove into the beatles so i became familiar with george then). but see, my experience is singular, too. so we're both not in positions to speak on anyone else's perspectives about the perception of paul being "inferior" to john or not, because everyone's introduction to, and knowledge of, the beatles is so wildly different.

the reason, though, i said i don't think that narrative exists anymore is because of how revered paul has become in mainstream media these days with people like dave grohl and taylor swift constantly praising him, as well as bits like james corden's carpool karaoke (barf james corden but anyway), etc. every time you watch a talk show where someone exceptionally famous discusses meeting paul, they're always like ohmygodpaulmccartneyisagod.

and sure, maybe these people are all beatles superfans (we know dave grohl is), so their perceptions could also be skewed. but, using their huge platforms, people like dave and taylor are putting it out into the zeitgeist that paul is someone to be respected, and i really do think it's been sticking. was the narrative different in the 80s, 90s, and even early 2000s? sure. but we're not talking about those decades. i meant present day i don't think that assessment of paul being inferior stands up anymore. of course there are uninformed people who are going to think that, but i do believe the trend these days swings towards people recognizing his talent and impact on the music industry.

also the second message you sent - that you're based in america - i think also makes a big difference. i'm not from the UK so i can't speak to the general rhetoric about paul there, but i've got to think that it's much more complimentary than in the states.

[filipinoizukuu]

hello mr simp do you have any thoughts on the leeks 👀

FIRST OF ALL. THEY CAME SO FUCKING EARLY??? BRO I WAS ASLEEP

SECOND OF ALL

holy SHIT YALL

Okay, it's no secret that I'm an All Might stan. I LOVE All Might. Very very much. Not just as a simp, but genuinely, I enjoy his character SO MUCH.

--And unlike what some people may think, I'm not totally blind to his flaws. I know he sucks as a mentor and that he's done way more harm to Deku than good. He's.... not perfect. in every sense of the word. The whole point of AM's character is that he is a DEEPLY FLAWED individual— but at the end of the day, still good.

This new chapter gave me SOOO many new feelings. I'm not gonna lie to y'all and say I was a Stain apologist beforehand because I wasn't. I disliked Stain to a certain degree, but I also knew he was morally grey enough that I was able to still quite appreciate him as a character. This chapter was about EVERYTHING to me because I honestly did NOT expect Hori to go in this direction and for things to happen the way they did. It was too good to be true! Too fanfic-y! The disbelief I felt when I read what happened was on par with when Bakugou and Deku had that apology and kinda-hug in the rain!

But this disbelief is not because it was a bad thing.

I think the writing in Chapter 326 is phenomenal. The moment that All Might was really beginning to lose hope in not just himself as a hero, but himself as a PERSON... we finally hear the opinion of someone who would abso-fucking-LUTELY make or break the last of his spirit.

Stain is, as much as his views are pretty agreeable and his label is that of a vigilante, still a pretty shitty guy. He's tried to kill literal kids who got in his way, even if said kids made pretty dumb decisions. AM hearing what he has to say is absolutely mind-boggling to him because he knows all of that. He knows Stain is a shitty person and that his worldview is perhaps terribly skewed. He knows Stain has spent a hot minute frying his brains down in Tartarus and isn't good at making judgment calls. Knows that for all intents and purposes, Stain's opinions are not to be trusted.

But the thing is... Toshinori also knows that Stain, regardless of the soundness of his mind, is telling the truth.

Regardless of how fucked-in-the-head Stain is, we as readers are able to acknowledge that he isn't blinded by hero worship. Sure, he's bitter, cynical, and quite the absolutist--but Stain is still clear-headed enough to be able to see AM's flaws for what they are and accept them, ultimately proving to Toshinori that the power of All Might was never his own but rather the legacy that he inspired.

The society MHA takes place in is flawed. We all know this. Heroes, as a concept, had been corrupted into being purely about good and evil. Purely winning fights for money or fame or the abstract concept of victory (coughs Endeavor and the no.1 spot coughs), making heroism as we know it about flashiness and power instead of mercy and the desire to help others.

All Might symbolizes the ideal version of the Hero Society. He represents doing the best you can. Being a hero until you reach your limits, and then going even past that. He symbolizes pure intention and the desire to be a hero not for material gains but because of the pure want to make society a better and safer place. Stain refers to Kamino Ward and the statue as a "holy land" because he believes that through and through, AM's only had the purest of intentions and morals. To him, Toshinori was like a deity that had no fault in making society what it was in the present because that accountability fell on the generations of heroes that failed to fulfill his legacy.

The point being, Stain understood that All Might was fundamentally not about 'being there' for everyone 24/7, but rather the message his presence had sent.

All Might's monologue at the beginning of the chapter essentially boiled down to the ideas that:

A. He regrets not being there properly for Deku

B. His image was a delusion that ultimately led to the downfall of hero society.

To break this down, his problem with Deku is his inability to be a competent mentor. It shows that he has led him down dangerous and horrible paths (Deku's stubbornness to do things by himself and his 'dark' arc post-war), and is unable to bring him back into the light even if he tries. It was only when Class 1-A had intervened that they were able to get Deku to rest and let people tag along, after all, which is why Toshinori was far too embarrassed to follow him into UA's walls even after everyone had come out with umbrellas.

Stain disproves this in two ways.

First, he says that it was never about All Might's ability to actually be there for people. The whole point of what inspired Deku to be the inherently good-hearted "true hero" he is today is because of the values that AM's brand had instilled in him as a child. AM's biggest positive impacts came from behind the screen where he was used as the proof that true heroes can and do exist. Deku does want to be exactly like All Might, yes, which is why we see Toshinori leading him down the same path that he walked--but the underlying message of this is that the very first thing All Might gave him even before OfA was the courage to help fix society.

I do believe Deku is an innately compassionate person. Most people in the series are. However, what makes All Might's smile so uniquely impactful to what it did to Hero Society is the way it gave people courage to help people. Less hesitation. Less bystander syndromes. The ability to move without thinking. Because you can feel the want to help a person, but the courage to be nosey and actually do it? That's portrayed as something AM's image teaches people.

The second way he disproves AM's insecurity of dragging Deku down is that he makes it clear that this pain is somewhat of a necessity in reforming society. He says, interestingly enough, that this is but the 'middle process' in reforming society. This spills over to how he addresses Problem B, but what Stain is essentially saying here is that this sort of brutality and isolation that Izuku faces is impermanent. A phase. It implies that even if Deku is struggling and Toshinori is unable to help him, it is something that needs to happen before they re-realize the ideal heroes All Might's image is meant to create.

The second problem in regards to how All Might feels about current society (how it's collapsing because of him, etc. etc.) is more interestingly addressed. There are many things that Stain says--like how Toshinori doesn't need to actually be the one to fix society with his bare hands. The current society is not his fault because of the fact that it is not finished developing. I'm not sure if I can go so far as to say that Stain means this in the sense of the Scorched Earth method of tearing everything down to build it back up better-- but I can say that Stain still has faith in society to rebuild after this period of chaos.

This rebuilding starts with the old generation of heroes correcting what they messed up (i.e. Endeavor v Dabi) and more importantly, paving the way for a better generation of heroes that was inspired by All Might's image. Heroes that are led by people like Deku, who is defined by his proclivity to help without thinking. The violent deconstruction of society is about exposing society to the raw truth of All Might's image that not everybody can be as strong as him-- which is why we have to take care of each other.

When the lady comes in to remove the sign and start cleaning the statue, it's symbolic. It's a clear metaphor that the past few chapters are the turning point for society as a whole, and how people are starting to remember what real heroism is. From the distrust that was seeded in society ever since LoV had surfaced, we are seeing that trust being returned TEN-FOLD now that people can see not only the mask of a hero's smile, but also the person underneath.

I think it's some really neat symbolism here too about how Deku, who's metal mouth guard was literally all about representing All Might's smile, is shed.

This is hero society dropping their masks. Letting people see them for as they are. Toshinori revisiting the statue in this form makes all the more impact because he shed his mask ages ago during the Kamino Bust, so this is him coming face to face with the image he's created and seeing the differences between them, and how his image continues to live on even after he's almost completely Quirkless. The lady cleaning the All Might statue shows off the fact that things can be repaired again--that society can be clean (hehe stain pun) again.

It's interesting to me here how Stain offers the information from Tartarus.

He doesn't care anymore about his life. It's evident. He disagrees with what the LoV is doing, but believes enough in Deku to think that it's time for him to retire the mantle of 'Stain'. Unless this is another test, it's very odd for me to hear that Stain is offering a blade and his life to someone he isn't even sure is All Might.

But the impact of this action reads loud and clear.

This is Stain taking pity on All Might. This is him realizing that All Might too is a person behind the hero. That Toshinori Yagi is incapable of doing anything past the image he had already created. By offering that knife and information on Tartarus, Stain is giving control back to Toshinori. He is giving AM the chance to do something big again to help society's reconstruction. To be a part of the revolution that he so badly deserves to see. That knife is essentially an exit ticket from the sidelines, and one last chance for All Might to be able to see what his image has done for people.

I personally think that the main reason Stain is willing to die then and there by Toshinori's hand, despite not being sure that he is All Might to begin with, is because of the final impact it creates that it isn't about Toshinori Yagi's true power as a person, but the image of All Might. It is because he looks like the symbol of peace, that Stain (the literal HERO KILLER) feels comfortable laying his life in his hands and giving away valuable information.

If that isn't a great testament to the power of AM's image, I don't know WHAT is.

I guess all I have to say is I absolutely love what Stain did in this chapter. Everything felt so incredibly symbolic and emotional and as someone who absolutely ADORES All Might and what he stands for in the story, this felt like a cool balm after seeing Deku tragically reject his bento box a good few chapters ago. I have a few more opinions about symbolism, and how I think Deku's generation of heroes is going to stray from the old gen, but I think that's a discussion for another time.

Thanks for reading 'til the end!

[ladybirdplace]

The Shame Of Love

Recently I’ve had some trouble that I’m working on, and I might as well share it with you.

It’s very strange—and of course, understandable given our culture where emotion is weakness—that loving, or even just liking, someone, can be considered so shameful.

In my life, I find love to be the one thing in life that makes living worth it. Love for another person, love for animals, nature, knowledge, places, or just living. It’s the reason why we are alive.

To me, joy is always the product of love; a love of the moment, the present.

And I think love for another person, as per my definition in my two posts on love, acceptance of a person despite or because of their humanity is a wonderful, wonderful thing, not just because it is another form of love that keeps us going, but because an ability to love another means you could love yourself too.

But for some reason, love is embarrassing. Romantic love, mostly, but platonic or familial love is stigmatized as embarrassing too.

I suppose the reason for this is because romantic love is probably the most rare love we experience in our lives, and the idea that our love will not be shared can be very upsetting or even agonizing for many people.

Obviously, a lot of us want our romantic feelings to be reciprocated because that means then that you will most likely be in a relationship with that person.

And even in the absence of that fear, the vulnerability is scary.

Now, I am orchidsexuromantic in regards to anyone but myself, and I always have been since I was little so the fear of non-reciprocation was never really a problem for me.

I never wanted my crushes to like me like I liked them, but I certainly didn’t want them to know so they wouldn’t treat me poorly for my feelings. The social rejection to me was worse than the romantic rejection.

Since I was little, crushes were always fun little thoughts and feelings for myself to play with. The thought that the person I had a crush on would want to fulfill my fantasies turned me off, because I didn’t actually want them to reciprocate my feelings or do anything romantic with me.

Usually, I didn’t even want to interact with them at all, because at that age, I still had a strict limit for the socialization I could handle and reasonably enjoy.

One of the reasons I’ve always so adored fiction is because the potential for autistic social error is completely eradicated.

In thought, I would never get tired, or not know what to say, and my partner would always say and do what I wished. They would never not accept me. They’d always treat me well.

In fact, I have an amusing little story about a boy I had a crush on in third grade liking me back, and my feelings for him dissolving in an instant.

I wanted no part of it, not even the 'good' part.

The times I’ve fallen in love in my life, I still didn’t really want my feelings reciprocated in the same way.

There always seemed to be an inherent power dynamic, explicit or imagined in my head, where they were the perfect, desirable agent of divinity and I the hopeless follower unworthy of their attention and doomed to forever pine for something I would never obtain.

It wasn’t as much that I put them on a pedestal as it was I thought so poorly of myself that anyone who was not as subhuman as I was inherently far superior. Anyone who was not me was about as good as a saint compared to me.

I’ve noticed only now, in my relationship with myself, how past crushes and loves have damaged my self esteem and how I view romantic love.

Because of singlist amatonormative culture in which love that is not shared is worthless and tragic, I thought that the fact that I fell in love only with people who did not love me the same way that I was pathetic. I thought it meant something poor about me, that I was a loser, that I was unwanted.

The thought of me being in a relationship (with myself) in which I am loved as much as I love, it made me confused. I could not understand it.

As strange as it sounds, whenever I thought about the fact that I, the object of my affections, knew the depth and breadth of how much I love me, I felt embarrassed.

And to say, 'I am in love with you' to myself felt shameful.

Now that I’m older, I realize that love doesn’t exist to be shared. That is not why it exists. Again, it exists to get us through the day, to keep us happy, Love is there to be felt.

Though it is beautiful and wonderful for love to be shared, that is not love's purpose.

Love does not NEED to be expressed or offered up or shared or consummated or proven to be worthy. Love need only be felt. Love is, because love is.

Love is good in its own right. To love is enough.

I am not pitiful for loving people who didn’t love me in the same way, just as how people who share love are not somehow more respectable and desirable.

What does it mean that I loved people who didn’t love me? That I loved. That I found people to be lovable. That I have a heart capable of love. That is all.

To have loved at all is lovely and worthy of being cherished in and of itself.

This isn’t to say that anyone who does love and WANTS their love to be shared is wrong, not at all, I mean that the quality of your love is not dependent on whether it is returned or not and to have loved at all is something to be enjoyed and celebrated.

Thinking of love as being conditionally worthy only leads to one feeling either entitled to other people's love and romantic services and/or being wildly insecure about whether one's love is shared.

This all has lessened my embarrassment but it is still hard to wrap my head around, that I am in a happy relationship in which I am loved as much as I love, even if that love is the very same love. Still, it is great to know that I’m not somehow lesser for the people I have loved.

[messymessyml]

Breaking and Entering

I'll be moving this one over to AO3 at some point (done, available here), but I'll start this off on Tumblr. This is a lighthearted, multi-chapter Jasonette story.

Summary:

Marinette is away from home when a curious visitor drops in. The kwami don't see any problem letting the man in; the question is: what will the guardian think when she realizes an intruder was in her house while she was gone?

Chapter 1 is below the cut.

Chapter 1: What did I come back to now?

Marinette felt a wave of relief hit her as her key turned smoothly in the lock. She was more than ready to unload her bags and take a well-deserved night in after a whirlwind week of consulting with clients in Metropolis. She’d decided to take Tikki and Sass with her and rent a hotel for the week as most of her clients were only available for early morning consultations, and while it was the most effective way to make sure she didn’t miss a meeting, she was glad to be back home.

Gotham may not be as glitzy or have as many potential clients as Metropolis, but it more than made up for that with the anonymity that Gotham allowed her. The local mentality of ‘take no shit’ and ‘mind your own damn business and I’ll mind mine’ allowed the kwami and her freedom that they wouldn’t get in Metropolis, a city crawling with news stations and a baffling love of all things mundane. Half the time when she visited Metropolis it felt like she had a target on her back; the paparazzi were worse in Metropolis than they ever were in her Parisian hero days and that held for her professional pseudonym as well as plain Marinette. It was a wonder that with so many news outlets (and Superman to report on for crying out loud) that she was still the topic of a news piece twice in the past week: once as MDC and once as plain old Marinette. In all seriousness was helping with a local tree planting event for Earth Day that newsworthy?

‘Enough of that’, she thought, realizing that although her door was now unlocked, she’d thought so much about arriving home that she hadn’t even fully opened her door. A slight twinge of embarrassment hit her. Carrying her tiny friends everywhere was always a blessing, but sometimes, she mused, it might be nice not to have an audience for every action she took—no matter how embarrassing.

Letting go of that train of thought, Marinette stepped through and closed her door behind her, feeling tension bleed out of her shoulders. The underlying scent of vanilla and blossom honey hit her nose as she strode over to the kitchen island. She set her bags to the side and took a hold of one of her swinging barstools with the intention to sit for a bit before making any attempt at dinner for the kwami and herself. Absently tracking the path Sass and Tikki took as they flew in the direction of the room where she kept the Miracle Box, she hesitated to sit as she noticed a slowly building feeling of unease hit her. Something, she thought, was off.

Sharpening her gaze and gripping the barstool a little tighter, Marinette scanned her apartment. At first glance, the living space looked unchanged from how she left it; the furniture was where it belonged, and her shelves and wall art were unmoved. As she looked closer though, she saw items around the house that were shifted a bit more than they would be if the kwami had decided to explore while she was away: the living room rug was centered, the dishes she had left to dry right before leaving the house a week ago were put away, and the barstool she was currently grasping was a bit more level than it had ever been, thrifted as it were. The kwami were a joy to interact with and an honor to serve as their guardian, but cleaners and tinkers they were not.

Marinette released her grip on the stool, rounding the kitchen island to open the cabinets. Like she thought, the dishes she had washed a week ago were put away and the towers of plates and bowls looked straighter than they were normally. Her gut churned as the beginning stages of worry started to fill her.

A chorus of greetings from behind her met her ears, disrupting her thoughts. Turning, Marinette saw the kwami flying towards her from the hallway.

“Marinette, did you have a nice trip?” Mullo squeaked.

“Guardian, I hope all went well on your trip. It is wonderful to have you back home.” Wayzz said.

The other kwami threw in their own noises and words of agreement, mirroring Wayzz’s welcome.

Marinette couldn’t help her small smile, replying, “My trip went well, and I am happy to be back here with you all.” She paused, hesitating before she asked, “Did anything happen while we were away?”

“Not much, Pigtails.” Plagg swam leisurely into view, tailed closely by Tikki, both twirling as they approached. “Some fighting outside, and a bit of a showdown on rooftops at the end of the block, but no damage to our building.”

Wayzz intercepted Plagg’s path, floating into the center of her vision to say, “That may be true, Plagg; however, one of the combatants took a breather on our balcony by using the garden for cover. He didn’t seem injured, but he was breathing heavier than was wise. Most of us hid in the box while I continued to strengthen the wards on the outer walls and windows.”

Marinette interrupted, “No one entered the apartment?”

Wayzz hesitated, then said “The man stayed hidden as best he could, but he was quite large, and I could feel the shifting balance; if he stayed on the balcony, he would have drawn fire here. I strengthened the barrier outwards then loosened the barrier on the balcony doors, undid the latch for him, and asked Trixx to hide us from view. He had a protector’s spirit and none of us could feel an intent to harm any but the ones he’d been fighting outside. I am sorry, Guardian, for making this decision without your input.”

Marinette took a deep breath to fend off the impending tension headache, unclenching the hand she had used to subconsciously gripped her other wrist. She loosened the muscles around her eyes to soften her gaze. “It’s alright, Wayzz. I wasn’t there, and I trust your intuition. What did he do?”

“He seemed distrustful of the open door at first but ended up entering almost silently and quickly moved to scan the apartment.”

Trixx added, “I made sure he could not see the Miracle Box and that he was not visible from the outside at any point, but he stayed away from the windows for the most part.”

Roarr piped in, “He has a fierce spirit, and I agree with Wayzz that he has a strong protective streak.”

She heard some murmurs of agreement from the other kwami, some of them breaking out into small discussion pertaining to the man’s character. “If so many of you saw him, did you leave the Miracle Box then? What did you see?” Desperately, Marinette wished that the immortal beings she called friends could get to the points.

“Some of us came out to see, but most of us stayed in the box. Trixx’s illusions held; he didn’t see or hear any of us.” Barkk confirmed.

“Yes, he mostly stayed in the living room. He sat right here for a while!” Saying this, Pollen surged towards the end of the couch, landing with their back to the armrest in a bored sprawl. “Like this!”

Plagg, swaying upside down near the ceiling, lazily added, “He wasn’t much fun. All he did was check his guns then started cleaning the place. Boring.”

“Guns?! Cleaning? Why?” Alarmed, Marinette’s heartbeat started to pound at the picture painted by the kwami. They had let a large combatant enter her apartment and all he did was inspect his guns and clean??? ‘This can’t be real’, she thought. ‘Was I caught up in one of Scarecrow’s attacks on the way home?’

“He had good manners at the least.” Kaalki sniffed. “His gear smelled of money and he fixed that stool of yours that never would have entered the premises if you had listened to me from the start. At least now it isn’t horrendously squeaky.”

“Hey!” Mullo protested.

Kaalki just turned away.

“He needed the protection.” Wayzz apologetically said. “He didn’t seem interested in your workroom and he wouldn’t have been able to find the box, so we observed. He cleaned a bit and left after checking that the coast was clear outside.”

Marinette allowed her shoulders to sag. “Alright. If you’re sure.” Glancing around, she gave the kwami a smile, eyes hesitating on the glass doors leading to the balcony, she absently added, “Thank you for keeping an eye on things while I was gone.”

Striding over to the doors leading out to the balcony, she peered out. Nothing seemed out of place out here, but she couldn’t be certain. Checking the door handles, she noticed that one of the kwami or her mystery visitor must have relatched the lock. Unlocking it, she stepped out and went to sit at her patio table. Leaning back in her chair, she let her head tip back to view the sunset, partially obscured by the balcony two floors above her own. Her apartment building had mostly staggered the balconies to allow more light to reach its inhabitants, a must in Gotham’s dreary weather.

After a few moments, she let her head droop forward to land in her hands. As much as she loved them, the kwami’s survival instincts always seemed at odds with hers. She couldn’t tell whether that was due to her anxiety amplifying everything past the point of reason or that the kwami’s inherent existence rendering most danger obsolete, but while some intruder might not be a danger to beings that could turn intangible and invisible at will, she was definitely a bit more breakable (‘Mortal’, her brain whispered) than them. If she had been here? Who knows how that visit might have gone?

Taking a few more minutes to calm her body’s response, a few deep breaths, and a moment or two of gratitude that nothing bad had happened, she straightened a bit as the evening wind started to pick up and a splash of white started to flutter at the edge of her vision. Glancing up, her eye caught on a piece of paper at the other end of the table that was weighted down with a rock she had decorated a while back with paintings of ladybugs and cats playfully chasing each other across a meadow. That particular rock usually spent time in the catnip bed Plagg had insisted on and Tikki had seconded as a nod to both kwami. Curious, she reached out and grabbed the sheet of paper underneath. Opening it, she read:

Dear Stranger,

I was in a bit of a tight spot and hanging around your balcony when your door swung open. Haunted house, much? Hope you don’t mind, but I ended up using your house as a temporary safe house while you were gone. Don’t worry, I made sure no one saw me entering or exiting, so you shouldn’t have any problems from the type of shit that follows me.

On the topic of haunted houses, are you sure yours isn’t haunted? Your house is unnervingly the calmest- and safest-feeling place I’ve been in a while, but I kept seeing blurs out of the corner of my eye and I was NOT concussed. Might want to talk to someone about that.

I ended up tidying a bit while you were gone, hope you don’t mind. Fairs fair, you (unknowingly, I know) lent me a place to stay, I tidied up a bit. Stay out of trouble, alright?

Cheers,

- Red Hood

The Red Hood? The RED HOOD is who they let into the house? For kwami’s sake, what were they thinking?!?