#i know they're like. a group of people. but that's about as far as i can get before it stops making any sense

[curioscurio]

Why we have to start being nicer to eachother:

I know it sucks and is hard, but I think we really do need to start treating techbros and incels and our fellow humans with a bit more compassion, empathy, and understanding before we jump to bad faith interpretation. Especially when seeing a bad take online used as bait for arguments. We have to give other people the opportunity and knowledge to think for themselves, and make the choice to become a better person on their own.

"Hold on! Why should I be nice to people like that? THEY'RE the ones who are being bigoted to US!"

Well, I'll try and answer that question below! I ended up writing a lot, so check out the "read more" if you're curious. At the end of the day, I'm not an expert or a professional on human behavior, so keep that in mind. This is just something I've been thinking about based on my own past experiences.

Conspiracy theorists, the far right, gun enthusiasts, and even MAGA's all operate on the belief that modern society hates them for who they are. They think the entire world is against them.

And, looking at the kind of hate rhetoric and harmful ideologies they talk about; the cruel acts of casual and extremist violence that stem from that community, it easy to see why the world has turned its back on them. Right?

It makes you wonder: "Why are they like this?"

The easy way out is to simply hold on to the belief that they are behaving this way because they are bad people. Bad people do bad things, after all.

But when the world turns its back on a group of people, those people turn their backs on the world. They will naturally gravitate towards whichever group of accepting humans they come across first. Whoever validates their feelings and makes them feel accepted and safe instead of rejected and fearful.

The far right preys on young men who don't know know any better because they are never treated any better. They have influencers, exactly like Donald Trump, that make you feel safe. They also are lying to these people and using their fear of rejection to control them.

It's very similar to how the Church will help you out and feed you if you're homelss... as long as you join the church and donate 10% of your earnings to "God." (The churchs bank account. )

That is to say, people don't usually pop out of the womb with these prejudices and fears programed into their heads. It's something that has to be taught to them by somebody else. Their parents, the church, their school, their friends, youtubers, etc.

"So, what do we do? How do we save future and current generations from being sucked into this hateful spiral of far right bigotry?"

"How do we help our conservative parents, who we know love us but are absolutely convinced that they need guns to keep their families safe? How do we help our Trump Train family members who used to be loving, compassionate, people?"

Well, you're not gonna like the answer. We have to start being nicer to everyone. We have to be nicer to incels, dude bros, techbros, Karen's, and yes, even your average Republican voters. We have to show them compassion and empathy when they're expressing their fears, without immediately attacking them for it. We have got to prove to them that there's a place for them to come back to.

Their fears are being taken advantage of by a system that benefits from pitting the general population against each other. If we're too busy fighting eachother, we can never join forces and fight the system.

And so it turns into a self-sustaining system of fear and reactive lashing out. They start believing that everybody is against them, except the few people who understand. Until the only safe place left for them is the Q Anon message boards. Quite literally an orobourous of hate.

"But Curio! They literally want us dead! These people are violent and irredeemable!"

Many of them are. So many of these people are groomed into believing that the only way they can keep themselves safe is by killing anything they think has caused them harm. It's an intentional system maintained by those in power to control those who are not.

Some of them, however, are just normal people who got in with the wrong crowd or are too young to know better. Some people were never given the chance to be better.

"So, what SHOULD we do? Be nice to our oppressors? Let them get away with hate crimes and bigotry?"

No. But we DO need to stop thinking of "them" as this massive malevolent demographic who have no souls and are inherently evil. The majority of these people were lied to and manipulated and groomed into these beliefs.

We have to try harder to stop ourselves before we start calling them names and attack them, regardless of if they deserve it or not. We have to engage with them on good faith. Learn about WHY they believe conspiracy theories and why it stems from fear.

"Why? What will this help?"

Because you're quite literally showing them that there's another option available for them to take. You're showing them that, if they do change their minds and want to change their behavior, that you are a safe person to approach with these thoughts. You have the power to create a space for them where they're allowed to think for themselves without punishing them for it.

Once you create that connection, it's like you're showing them another road in life they can explore. They now can see a new future for themselves. A future where their kids start talking to them again. A future where they're not terrified of being humiliated for being soft. A future where they feel listened to.

And that's all. You just have to give them that chance. It's not your job to change their mind, or to tell them that they're wrong for thinking thoughts. In fact, trying to do just that will usually encourage them to double down.

But what you CAN do is build an environment where they have the OPPORTUNITY to change their mind. You can be kind, empathetic, and educational. Be patient and listen and have a respectful conversation with them.

It is especially important for people with privilege to step up and be those kinds of diplomats. People who are able and willing to look past the surface bigotry to address the scared humans underneath. People who can do this without endangering themselves or their community. This may be other cis straight white people who can get away with bringing these topics up gently, without triggering reflexive defensiveness. Who then have the patience to gently educate them and steer them towards a better path.

"But Curio, I can't do this. I've been hurt too many times by these people, and doing this would cause me significant mental distress."

Then don't. You're not obligated to be the better person for every situation and circumstance. Nuance must be taken into account. You don't have to be nice to every troll or ragebait Twitter post. I certainly don't want you to put yourself in a situation that causes you emotional, physical, or mental harm. Hell, you don't even have to give them the time of day. It's your own responsibility to make the judgment call regarding your health.

But people simply won't change if there's no room for them to change. And some people have the power to make that room for them little by little.

"I've tried everything. I've begged, cried, been nice, and shown them that we won't reject them. They won't change their minds no matter what."

And that's also ok! It can happen. When you give people the opportunity to make choices for themselves, there will always be people who still choose to believe the system they were groomed on. They can do that because thats free will, baby. There will still be people who will not change their minds and who will actively choose to become more radicalized.

And it's sad to see. But you also have to respect that sometimes people aren't ready to change at the same time that you're ready to help them change.

But you should try to do it for all the young men and children who are being taught by their parents that White Genocide is real. You should do it for the parents who love their kid so much, but are so terrified when they say they're transgender because they don't know what to do. Because they know the world will not treat them fairly or are afraid of ruining everything.

You should do it for your 10 year old nephew who watches Andrew Tate because their mother doesn't give a damn enough to check what kind of YouTube videos their kid is watching. You should do it for the depressed and hurting teenager who thinks they have no option left but to buy a gun and shoot up their school, because no ones listening to them. You should do it for the tradwife who's alone and hurting after her conservative husband cheated on her and left her with nothing; because she thought she would be the exception.

"...How do you know this will work? What if you're wrong, and nothing changes?"

I don't! I'm just a random person on the internet. I dont know who might read this. It's just my opinion.

But at least, at the end of the day, you tried your best to be a good person to another human being, and I don't think that's such very a bad thing. For me, I'm going to try because I don't want to lose my father to that kind of environment. I want to be able to have a normal conversation with him again.

There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.

[nocturnowlette]

Aren't you worried about forming a cult of personality?

Group hypnotherapy, mediated especially by a single individual, seems to encourage that kinda parasocial following.

Mix that with personalised sessions with multiple people, possibly seen as lovebombing. Elevating your audience to the idea that they're a mutual, when they're not even close to your personal life.

Why not just point to a larger, more professional hypnotherapy server? Such could guide the individual to somebody that may be better equipped for them personally, and constructive yet critical peers for yourself and other hypnotists.

It could offer other methods (including non-hypnotherapy ) that could guide individuals to heal faster.

Imo, it's a lot healthier when attention is spread out mutually, and treatment exposure is not at the whim of a subjective personality.

And if just a group, not primarily about hypnosis and more about your explorations of it, then you should post that kinda stuff to your channel instead so the video can receive feedback from hypnotherapists, and it'll be able to be seen by everybody, not just the people in your server, and you can just do puppy stuff there. As long as it's all safe and doesn't form unhealthy bonds that prioritise escapism over wellbeing.

You seem confused on what this server is.

Firstly, it's not hypnotherapy at all; it's a recreational hypnosis server. I, in fact, actively discourage anyone who is not a professional therapist (let alone hypnotherapist) from attempting to serve that role to someone else. Many hypnotists who just start out see conditioning as a hammer and every emotional problem as a nail, and I shut that down immediately.

You also seem to heavily overestimate my role as the server leader. If we were to quantify activity of hypnotists in the server, I likely would not even be in the top 5. I've largely lost my interest in regular hypnosis sessions for the last few months and serve mostly as the teacher and guide, as well as just the administrative server owner.

This server is not even about hypnosis so much as it is a community server that has hypnosis as a binding topic. If I were to give a topical split of how much it's talked about versus everything else, I'd say that it composes less than 10% of all discussion in the server. Therian/puppy stuff takes up slightly more than that, maybe 20 to 25%, then the rest of the server is nerds talking about their interests and having fun.

Any emotional progress made in the server is consequential and due to the place letting people feel safe to be themselves. Such a thing does seem to help folks quite a lot, but no active therapy is being done, and we encourage folks to actually seek therapy among other things.

My role as the server owner is largely due to necessity. I've always found myself at a lack of communities that actually suit me, so I've always had to make them myself. I quite dislike being the leader and much like with hypnosis, I actually prefer being on the lack-of-power end and not the super-in-power one. I'm a subject far more than a hypnotist.

I'm selective about who joins because every single server member to have caused issues and then left joined the first day of the server before there was a member cutoff. This place simply won't work for the majority of people, and the people who are let in are ones that would benefit from it.

On to the other topic, I trust therapists who know some hypnosis, not hypnotherapists. Hypnotherapy has been infected by quacks who know next to nothing and is, by almost every measure, a community destroyed by scientific mysticism. It is maybe the worst representation of hypnosis in our world and at best is hardly helpful, while at worst is actively destructive.

Every hypnotherapist I've met has been woefully knowledge-less on the actual functions of hypnosis and how it works, and seems to only know how to do the specific things they're taught. It's the difference between memorization and understanding. They were chewed up and spit out by the pseudoscience factory and think they know anything.

I have no intentions to ever be a hypnotherapist because it is not even close to the best method of processing any emotions whatsoever. I like hypnosis as a hobby, a way to have fun with people. If you want something similar that is more helpful, look into Gestalt therapy.

[spockandawe]

Oh, this is interesting. To me. I'm not sure it's interesting to anyone else! But I'm on my computer for once and FULL of words again, and I'm delighted to talk to myself given half an excuse.

So, I made a post about Long Live Evil! Because I cracked open the book and was absolutely taken aback by how transparently it seemed to be an SVSSS reskin. I wrote up a goodreads thing (it's whatever, I'm going to rehash the main points here too), because I was also full of words and beans after finishing the book yesterday, and after polling online friends, I was surprised to see that the comparison didn't seem to have organically occurred to anyone else, when it was so naked to me. I know there’s a TON of transmigration and isekai stories out in the universe, and pointing at one single book was a big claim, so I just had to assemble all my thoughts! I find this so interesting! And I reblogged my initial one-off post with a little more elaboration about some of the things that jumped out at me, then got on with live and went back to chipping at ORV and GHG, and shotgunned MADK this afternoon.

This is a subtle nod and a wink to my passionate love for these kind of... morally grey main characters! Calling them villains might be a bit much, I don't think there are many true villain protagonists out there (LLE included), and even Devil Venerable has a demonic cultivator who's doing demonic shit and killing loads of people... but with the ultimate balance of the heavens and earth as his priority. This kind of story is my jam. I was recced this book on the basis of transmigration and sketchy protagonists being my thing. I can't rightfully call SVSSS the best cnovel I've ever read, but it is my favorite. And I've probably reread it more times than any other cnovel.

So, that SRB post, huh? I put Long Live Evil behind me, and honestly even following up on the sequel is mmmmmdoubtful, but THIS snagged my attention again. First, the comparisons she's calling out as incorrect are wild to me. Draco and Harry? What? Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian?? (I had to ponder that one for a hot minute, but I bet you anything it's about 'the golden cobra' and 'the last hope' and that's just silly, they're not wangxian, they're MOSHANG)

I was recced LLE in one friend group, but I had an anti-rec from my book club friend group. My book club friend hadn't been at all impressed by it! And she's cool, and I talk up svsss and mxtx to that crowd every so often, without really expecting them to read it. I talk about transmigration as a plot device that I love, and the things that can be done with it! But with that connection in mind between the books, as I started LLE, I was jokingly defending the honor of SVSSS to this crowd, so I admit I was primed to recognize similarities.

I really truly did not make it far in the book before locking it down. I was getting vibes basically from the moment Rae started gushing about her problematic fictional fave, I referenced 95% certainty shortly after she makes the jump to the fictional universe, the golden cobra was 98%, Lia Mingyan's, I mean Liu Mingyan's lack of sex scenes was 99%, and the first pov section for Marius-jun was where I gave up and called it as a sure thing.

It'll be very funny if I'm wrong! I don't think I'm wrong.

Plenty of spoilers to follow, because I identified this inspiration early, I guessed basically every plot twist early, I don't have the patience to dance around spoilers while explaining how it all lines up.

Now, I said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating: I don't think this is plagiarism. I think it's tasteless to accuse an author of stealing and repurposing characters to her face. But I think it's also tasteless to repurpose characters as nakedly as happened here! Again? If I'm wrong? That's why I'm talking to myself on my blog and not messaging her directly (?????? who even does that). What are the stakes for me being wrong here? I look like a clown online? That would be terrible, I've never done that before! It's not a crime to write in ways I find distasteful. It's not a crime to write a book I think is not good, even apart from the use of fictional influences. But I like talking about my feelings online, and I can't be stopped!

But there's two aspects of this that make me somewhat uncomfortable in a less fun way. Both are contingent on the big IF. If this is inspired by svsss, I think it's not a classy move to take a Chinese story in a Chinese setting, inspired by the modern Chinese literary scene and classical Chinese fantasy, and just dump the characters into a generic western setting. Fanfic? Have fun and try to be respectful. Profic, making money off it? Ehhhhh. The question of how much change is necessary is a tricky one! It's not one I'm equipped to answer, this is not my wheelhouse or my place to speak. But it doesn't make me feel good!

However, here's where I have more personal stake:

Again, if this is inspired by svsss. It really doesn't feel great to see a queer story (a smash hit in more than one country!) stripped down for parts and made into a heterosexual story. It's not all heterosexual, we get side lesbians, we get men with homoerotic tension. But the central ship is now a guy and a girl. And it... stings a little extra, because in the story of svsss, the idea of assumptions about default (hetero)sexuality are such a central theme. A queer man has written a trashy, oversexed stallion novel where the hottest guy in the universe collects the hottest women like pokemon, and it sells so much better than the more personal stories he tried to write. He has to write this pandering trash to make money to live, he can't live on the more authentic stories he tried to tell before. The protagonist is the projection of his own insecurities and self-hate, and the protagonist's right hand man is his projection of his own ideal man. Another man transmigrates into the book, assuming that he himself is straight, assuming the protagonist is straight, and the force of their love changes the course of the entire narrative. In retrospect, it's upsetting to see those load-bearing themes casually carved out of the story and the hollowed-out remains used like this.

Anyways, in their place, now we've got running gags about how the heroine's tits are BIGHUGE now and she can't keep her balance because her GIANT HONKERS keep tipping her over.

I'm a little more bothered than I was yesterday! On the other hand, since I saw SRB's post, I've been chewing on that central ship. Full disclosure, it was one of my favorite aspects of the novel! My other favorite aspect is the dynamic between the golden cobra and the last hope (the moshang, which I think some people misdiagnosed as wangxian).

I know that the central ship here is the thing that's LEAST comparable to svsss, and the biggest roadblock in the way of my theory. On the other hand, I think it was the thing that HAD to change if this story was going to repurpose svsss without getting called out for being a classic 'bro can i copy your homework' adventure.

For this section, let's assume that I'm right and let's roleplay an author trying to figure out how to change Bingqiu into something not-obviously-Bingqiu. How do we need to differentiate Rae and Key from Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe.

First, we eliminate the martial sect thing. Easy peasy! That's a wuxia concept, and this book goes full nondescript western fantasy. She's not his teacher, he's not her student. And if she's not his teacher and he's not her student, why does this woman have power over this man, to build up the resentment that inspires him to turn the tables on her later? Well, in nondescript western fantasy, she's a noblewoman of some kind, and he's a servant of some kind. Noble lady treats servant like garbage, servant resents her. Doing great.

And to loop back around to the beginning of this a little, I think it really is key to this reskinning that Rae is a SHE. If the central ship remained queer, it would be so, so hard to pull away from the most identifiable thematic aspects of svsss. And pieces of what remain are... kind of bizarre for a normie heterosexual ship where our protagonist is aware that she's transmigrated into an impossibly desirable sexpot character!

Shen Qingqiu never considers that Luo Binghe might be interested in him because Luo Binghe is about to have a HAREM of beautiful women, he's the most heterosexual man of all time, and Shen Qingqiu is straight too! Besides, Shen Qingqiu is his teacher! He half-raised Luo Binghe! Even if Luo Binghe was bent, he wouldn't be interested in an old man like Shen Qingqiu!

Rae is 20, occupying a 24-year-old body. Her character's sexiness is relentlessly remarked upon from start to finish. Key is 18. Why is Rae so sure that he looks up to her as... a mentor, as an older woman? He almost goes down on her! He makes out with her! And she's like 'ah yes, it means nothing. lol. so funny how these things happen.' Bruh, at least after Luo Binghe kissed Shen Qingqiu, Shen Qingqiu finally got hit with the clue stick. Binghe didn't try to blow him only for Shen Qingqiu to keep noodling on about how Binghe definitely isn't into him in any sense, even the most oblivious man in the universe managed to catch on.

Why doesn’t Rae think there’s any chance of genuine attraction here? Yeah, I get that she's coming back from terminal cancer. She's doing great. She knows that the fictional character she occupies is one of the most desirable ladies in the land. He’s a teenager. He’s not expressing disinterest. A lack of horny for sexy lady ought to be more surprising for her. But I guess she’s slightly older than him and that small age gap has been magnified by the transmigration, so she conceptualizes herself only as his teacher, I mean mentor.

I’m not even mad at this dynamic. I love their chemistry, the ‘boss’ thing is cute, but lordt, I have to wonder if it’s meant to substitute for ‘shizun.’ But you know where this comparison really falls apart? Key isn’t really THAT much Luo Binghe.

At least, he isn’t in terms of personality. I mean, we’ve got the mysterious magical heritage, the healing factor, the unbeatable fighting skills, being beaten repeatedly because of the protagonist (tbh it’s sexier when she’s responsible, rather than just being a bystander), being yeeted into the abyss, I mean the ravine, to rise again and assume power as the merciless ruler of all the land. Oh, and he comes back from the dead still bearing the scar that represents her betrayal. In the original novel, he turned on her the moment he got his opening and was responsible for coming up with her gruesome torment.

(Also, Shen Qingqiu being terminally ill isn’t canon, but it’s very popular fanon, and it’s hard to ignore that with how hard the narrative lingers over Rae’s terminal illness as her gateway into this fictional world)

But! But the things that are different! Luo Binghe is a smart and sweet teenager, who had a rough start on the streets and has a tragically deceased single adoptive parent, but that’s their only backstory parallel, he doesn’t blacken until he’s thrown into the abyss. Not like Key, Key is a murder-happy sociopath, a former street kid who fought the odds and made good, and who’s a lot sharper and cleverer than the upper classes think someone like him should be. He utterly destroyed a righteous cultivator clan, I mean glassblowing guild, for the sake of revenge. Once our heroine scores a number of trust points with him, we unlock secret backstory about how as a small child, he experienced deeply formative hand trauma.

He’s Xue Yang.

It took me a moment to process the wangxian allegations SRB mentions in her post, because I was trying to figure out how someone would be aware of wangxian, and read that backstory, and somehow miss it. But it’s fine, I’m pretty sure they were actually talking about the golden cobra and the last hope! So LET’S TALK MOSHANG.

It was so funny. I was liveblogging the book to friends, because honestly, I do not jive with the buffy-esque joss whedon relentless quip-quip-quip writing style. I was struggling to stay engaged when the narrative never took a moment to breathe. And I perked up at the introduction of this new character! He seemed kind of fun, kind of meta, Key came over to share Secret Info with him, and I messaged the friend who recced this to me (also an svsss appreciator) ‘lol, what if he’s shang qinghua. just straight from svsss shang qinghua.'

Reader, a second transmigrator has hit the narrative.

Now, in some ways, he’s a disappointment to me. He’s not nearly as interesting as Shang Qinghua. Adding the author to their own narrative is way more fascinating to me than just dropping a rando into the story. But I’ll take what I can get, I think multiple transmigrators are almost always a fun decision. And for the queer reasons I mentioned above, I think Shang Qinghua ties into the themes of his novel a lot more strongly than Eric does here. I don’t want to call him ‘the golden cobra’ every time, I get more self-conscious every time I write it. And honestly, the reveal of Eric’s full Eric Whatever name feels a little awkward and… pointed compared to the sheer opacity of Shang Qinghua’s existence. Never mind what his name was in the real world, we don’t even know his name before he was a Peak Lord. I’m not upset we got a name or anything, it would make certain fannish activities a lot easier if Shang Qinghua had additional canon names, but it was an interesting detail in light of how parallel the characters are.

Okay! He’s not the author! He’s still a super-fan. He transmigrated into the book years before the LLE main character, and has settled in pretty well. According to canon as Rae knows it, he’s fated to be killed by his own favorite character. He’s fast-thinking and fast-talking, and scattered and all over the place, but dangerous when cornered and more competent than he looks. He deals in information and manages a network of spies. He’s a creative! He and the main character banter relentlessly and get along like a house on fire. He and the king’s trusted ice-cold right hand man share a weird codependent dynamic that’s part hostile, part homoerotic.

Marius has complicated feelings about not-shang-qinghua. Eric is a coward, he’d rather talk fast and lie than stand up for anything, he cowers and cringes and isn’t honorable. He and Mobei-jun also shared a deeply formative experience in their youth, where as a teenager in distress, Eric/Shang Qinghua appeared before them and announced their devotion. In Shang Qinghua’s case, it was offering to serve him (and saving him from huan hua injuries), and in Eric’s case, it was declaring him to be his favorite character (and saving him from sad teenaged isolation), but man. And in the end, after a long, fraught relationship, Marius/Mobei-jun is furious and strangely distraught when Eric/Shang Qinghua abandons him.

Guys, it’s not wangxian.

I think it hits less hard when Marius’s themes of family violence aren’t allowed to sit directly in the narrative, and when it seems like some vague berserker rage thing rather than Linguang-jun just bluntly wanting to murder him for practical reasons, but hey! This was still, genuinely, one of my favorite parts of the story. I wanted more more more of them, I would read this moshang au any day.

After that, the parallels get a little more nebulous! The comparisons between the abyss and the ravine are pretty obvious. I’m not sure why we decided to build our city and palace right on top of the pit of people-eating ghouls rather than literally anywhere else, but it means we don’t need to take a special field trip to Jue Di Gorge, which means we can do the bait and switch where it turns out Key was a heavenly demon all along. The temperamental King Octavian, the young master of the palace, one might even say the xiao gongzhu if they were feeling spicy, jealously tries to romantically monopolize half our main ship and has the other half flogged with a magic whip.

I already mentioned that Rae brings up that Liu Mingyan — wait, I said I’d change some answers so it wasn’t obvious I copied — Lia doesn’t get a sex scene in the books even though loads of other people did, just like Shen Qingqiu praises Liu Mingyan for her untouchable image in such an oversexed, gratuitous book. I don’t think it would be right to call Liu Mingyan a white lotus heroine in either SVSSS or PIDW, but her archetype is in that wheelhouse, and Lia is just a white lotus rival played straight (and played deliberately, another touch I liked). We don’t have made up animals like black moon rhinoceros pythons in LLE, but we do have leucrotas, which are like a lion and a hyena and serve no narrative purpose.

Oh, you know what else I forgot to mention? Rae gives Key one of her red ruby earrings, and he refuses to sell it, and stubbornly holds onto it until the bitter end. Is this Xue Yang holding onto the last piece of candy Xiao Xingchen gave him, or is it Hua Cheng determinedly keeping Xie Lian’s red coral earring with him even through his own death? Por que no los dos?

There are things that are original in here. I know that this presentation undersells how much of the book is original. The trouble is, almost everything I thought was good is something that either was lifted from another person’s creative endeavors, or is being tainted by association with all the other naked lifts. Some of the noble ladies have an archery contest! That’s pretty new and fresh, huh? We didn’t have any archery contests in SVSSS!

Yeah, but we sure did in MDZS. And MDZS is already in play, because we’ve already got one character who’s just copy and paste Xue Yang.

There’s a thermocline of trust in this book that fell off for me sharply, and it turned a lot of this into a guessing game of ‘wait NOW what the refrance? owo'

I’m probably on a hair trigger by now, but I’ve also probably missed some things. And I’m sure this is a synthesis of multiple influences, because most stories are. But this feels like cooking and trying to season your dish with a little salt and then the container lid just falls off.

Emer isn’t a clear parallel to an existing character! Love that for her! Love a lady with an axe, especially if she gets a nice girlfriend! On the other hand, in terms of backstory? Wow, she’s been raised with our protagonist since early childhood, as not-quite-foster-siblings, but she was always the clear unfavorite and harbors a lot of resentment over that. Oh, and once Rae entered the story, Rae started trying to speedrun an enemies to 'hello hiiii we should bestiessss' arc with her. I think she had to have an axe, because a whip or a sword would make the Jiang Cheng and/or Liu Qingge vibes a little uncomfortably strong. She doesn’t follow their character arcs! But the disappointing thing is that it felt like she was just there to facilitate pasting the frankenstein patchwork of the narrative together rather than having an arc of her own.

(why did Marius stop to give her a sword lesson? Why did she immediately sneak onto the roof to eavesdrop on the king?? It’s hard to give her credit for being an original character when none of her original actions make sense in the greater universe)

Oh, I almost forgot, we’ve even got magic plot macguffin plants. While Binghe is in the abyss, Shen Qingqiu needs to get the Sun And Moon Dew Flower Seed so he can build an escape hatch for himself before Binghe wrecks his shit. Rae, on the other hand, needs to secure the Flower of Life and Death by an arbitrary deadline as an escape hatch so she can go back to her original life rather than being trapped here forever. Very different! There’s even little side tangents about how these plants can be so beneficial to others, Zhuzhi-lang is desperately trying to secure a seed to build a new body for Tianlang-jun (which Shen Qingqiu enables him to do, despite not knowing what he wants it for), and Rae thinks about how the flower could “save someone on the very doorstep of death,” and gives it away for that exact purpose. So different!

I need to cut myself off, otherwise I’ll keep going. Truly, there is original content in here. It was just all the stuff I didn’t like. The character quipping was. God. There sure was a lot of it! By sheer volume, that’s a lot of original content. Some of the extended cast was interesting, I enjoyed the Horrors and their brothers, I liked Valencia. Now, I didn’t like how basically every girl ADULT WOMAN in this cast was in shitty teen mean girl mode. I didn’t like how immature every character interaction period was. I lost track of how many times Rae was going around in sexy clothes and rando servants were like “HARLOT,” out loud about a favored noblewoman, you know, as you do. Especially when her bodyguard is pulling against his choke chain just waiting for an excuse to do a murder. I don’t need Rae to be the picture of flawless maturity. But nobody is mature, full stop, not even the set dressing servants.

For a less loaded example, the cumplane friendship dynamic is here, practically intact. Shen Qingqiu can't snipe about authorial choices, because Eric isn't the author, so instead Rae and Eric squabble about favorite scenes and favorite ships and such. But it isn't nearly as charming when we don't see these two characters dropping their dignified Peak Lord cultivator roleplay to talk shit with each other. Rae and Eric never have a filter once in this book. They are always Like This, it isn't a secret face that gets unlocked when they're bouncing off each other, they are never circumspect, never have a filter, never have any idea they shouldn't be speaking their full thoughts at full volume 24/7. Even after this starts to have material consequences when they're inevitably overheard! It's an immersion-breaking level of immaturity, which is terribly frustrating when the original dynamic that I loved is only changed in such minor ways.

And another thing that actually tastes way more sour than it did on first reading – Valencia is probably the least mean girl of all the women in the cast. She’s delightful. Too bad that in every scene but her last one, Rae, who repeatedly references her own experiences having her body and appearance ravaged by cancer, cannot for love or money stop talking about how uggo Valencia is.

I know this is an adult novel. The characters are, by age, adults. There’s almost an oral scene. God, I wish we’d gotten the oral scene. But by every other metric, the characters are all high schoolers and I’m an exhausted adult muttering to myself ‘they’ll grow out of it, please GOD let them grow out of it.’

Again, none of this is a crime! Nobody forced me to finish the book! And I did enjoy the book. Parts of it! But that very distinct partial enjoyment experience almost forced me to dissect my own emotional response. And truly, other than a few flashes like Valencia, almost everything I enjoyed about the book was something I could trace directly back to one author, and mostly to one book by that one author. I… enjoyed half of the book. And if I can track most of that half back to mxtx and svsss, I really think that says something about how much wasn’t done to make the inspiration behind this book the author’s own.

It's disappointing! I read this book because I like svsss, I read it because I want more books like svsss, I read it because I trawl the novelupdates tags looking for more books that will hit me the way svsss did. It doesn’t taste good to be served reheated svsss with expired buffy sauce drizzled on top. It tastes even less good once I have a minute to think about what turning an m/m meditation on sexuality and self-image and assumptions about others into a m/f snooze does to the themes I loved so much. It stings to see an author rehash a book that was/is so important to me, and see what they kept and what they threw out, and be like ‘oh, so… these were the elements that mattered to you?’

Again, I hate to be redundant with this, but. I think calling this book plagiarism would be overdoing it. I think it’s tasteless. I don’t think being tasteless is a crime. It remains wild to me that she’s getting messages calling out her supposed inspiration, even if I’m simultaneously criticizing the judgment of the people making those specific comparisons. And I ABSOLUTELY understand why she’s reluctant to own up to the specific inspirations behind this book, because good lord. If it was me, I’d be professionally embarrassed too.

It’s not my job to be the book quality police, but I think someone as experienced as this should be able to do a better job of synthesizing inspirations into something original. I dropped ‘can’t afford to offend my scheming disciple’ earlier this year, because that narrative couldn’t shake the taste of stale svsss fanfic, and it was much more subtle than this is. Once again, if I’m wrong, this post will be retroactively VERY funny and I’ll be all ears to see what her inspirations actually were. I don’t think I’m wrong.

[justanotherhh]

What characters from helluva boss would the hazbin characters get on best with. I've seen fizz suggested for Angel and Millie for Alastor, but I've seen surprisingly little discussion of it.

Ooh yeah, funnily enough I don't know if I think that Millie would get on with Alastor that much -- I think his old-school Southern Charm might tickle her, but also lowkey she'd think he was.... kinda creepy (which, he is). Alastor would be charmed by her for sure! Her go-gettem take-no-shit attitude, her effortless sweetness, yeah. I think while I say "not get on" I don't mean necessarily in a bad way, just... cautious. Alastor has an ever-growing girl-gang around him, I could see Millie as part of it, but not like. the super friendliest

Fizz and Angel is such a no-brainer, seen a bunch of art and read some fic, these two have so much in common (showbiz! performance! abusive bosses! sex appeal! etcetc) I can't imagine them not getting on, and there's a bunch of scenarios where I think Fizz would want to help Angel out of a bad situation. yeah. there's not much more for me to say on this one that hasn't already been said

I think Cherri (who we don't know too much about in terms of various dynamics at the hotel yet, but I want her and Al to get on so badly....) and Millie would get on like a house on fire. and... set houses on fire. I also think Loona would be in awe of Cherri's whole Everything and Cherri would be kind of touched by the whole idea of "oh I'm a motherfucking Mentor now!!!!" (and they'd set houses on fire) -- but I think there could be a downside in that Loona has some anxieties around partying and drinking and while Cherri might be very helpful with the first in terms of confidence, I think the latter could go badly. but yeah. Cherri and Millie take out Loona. Millie keeps more of a watchful eye on her -- now I've written all of this, I think Millie would initially be quite taken with Cherri, but Millie is in the end a more caretaking person (not of herself, we've seen her and her sister out and about!) + as far as I can tell not super into drugs, so there could be friction there if Loona was in the mix. But it'd be a friction that ultimately works itself out

Verosika, I think, is another character who could get on with Cherri. Gosh I'm just building a Mean Girls extraordinaire group here. I think because both Cherri and Verosika are very Trash Pop Girlies (and I mean that only as a compliment) they'd have so much fun on the dance floor, they'd do karaoke together, lament shitty exes -- Angel would be there also, I cannot take Cherri out to the town and not include Angel. you know he's emo about Verosika's music + again, the showbiz connection there. Verosika so so drunk and so so earnestly telling Angel she's gotten off to his movies and he's incredibly flattered. Those three have a dream team feel to them. but watch out! (nobody to say when to stop)

Also I've written a bunch about Alastor and Striker getting on. that's my pet headcanon. aroace4aroace, both of them aplatonic and loveless, both of them with such an outsiders view of the world around them that they just... end up hanging out. they're not friends, gross, they're just people who understand the inherent terribleness of existence together over a drink every Tuesday

Charlie's difficult because she's at odds with so much of the jadedness that the characters feel in HB, but... I mean she and Moxxie and musicals is right there! I think it'd have the potential to be a very cute friendship that also provides an outlet for two very very nerdy people who frequently get judged by their peers for being rambly and overly sincere. Charlie would fuckin eat up Les Mis

Also I do like the idea that Asmodeus babysat Charlie when she was younger. nothing much to add here, just think that's Neat

Niffty! D'you know I think Niffty and Millie also? (Millie is also a Creechur) and maybe even moreso, Niffty and Sallie May? I think these sisters would be taken by the oddity that is Niffty and also feel a little protective over her. I think Niffty's habit of crawling on people she likes would be well-accepted by them and they'd encourage her hobbies. they might be a little surprised by her puppet shows, but all three of them enjoy sadomasochism

Stolas... I've seen some Stolas and Angel also, which I think would be interesting. They're both characters who are quite dissociated from their own bodily needs/wants and trying to learn about them (possibly for the first time), they've both experienced some identity-based punishment around being gay men, they've both got Style, albeit differently inspired. I think Angel might be taken by Stolas' overt constant sincerity, while Stolas... I mean firstly Stolas has also watched a couple of Angel's movies ofc, and so starts off being quite starstruck (they maybe both have this, considering Stolas is a prince) and Angel has a sweet side that takes ever less prodding to get out and I think faced with Stolas he'd take down his mask pretty quickly

Vaggie! I mean Vaggie is sooooooo difficult to get under the armour of. I think perhaps Sallie May would want to (hit that) know more about her/be quite intrigued and I think Vaggie would be pretty shy but taken with her forthrightness and once she's more comfortable Sallie May takes her hunting or something suitably violent like that. I choose in this scenario to forgo jealousy tropes, and go with Charlie is just super happy that Vaggie is making friends with similar interests!!! (the exclamation marks are Charlie).

Blitzo. Blitzooooooooooooooo. It depends on where in his journey he is I gueeess, but. Okay but what if Blitzo and Husk though, because they're both done-with-this-shit alcoholics who wouldn't need to talk, but also Blitzo is a drunk-talker and Husk knows how to get people to open up, because he's a bartender and Husk kinda feels for the guy, Blitzo's having the worst time and that sure is saying something considering Husk is literally enslaved by a deal. so Now I'm almost imagining this as one of Husk's good deeds, he talks to Charlie and the hotel takes Blitzo out for a good time

but honestly so many Blitzo dynamics would be fun here -- Blitzo and Charlie (unlikely besties, where Charlie's irrepressible optimism meets Blitzo's unstoppable depression and nihilism and he finds that he genuinely is trying not to swear around her out of politeness and it Unnerves him, but hey, you can't disappoint a kid who does puppy-dog eyes like that + her daddy's the king of hell), Blitzo and Niffty (there's a lil undercurrent of brother-gotta-protect vibes in both these shows and Niffty, for all her competency, is a Lil Creechur and Blitzo wouldn't want her to get hurt), Blitzo and Vaggie (fuck this afterlife), Blitzo and Angel (BLITZO HAS ALSO WATCHED HIS MOVIES, YES EVERYONE HAS WATCHED AND ENJOYED ANGEL'S MOVIES, and Blitzo wants to make a good impression... here comes my One Night Stand Blitzo And Angel Sudden HC. I think they would)

gosh there's still characters I haven't mentioned o-kay, knuckle down!

Sir Pentious and Moxxie -- both like machinery, both nerrrds, both dress similarly, both tinkerers, both prefer weaponry to hands-on fighting, both underestimated a lot, both very polite Gentlemen, both dating total Baddies Cherri and Millie (oh wait, there's an episode in this that ties to Cherri and Millie going out, where while the latter have a whole Arc, SP and Moxxie are just chilling so hard the entire time). Vibesssss

Octavia is another one I can see in a lot of configurations. Octavia and Charlie kind of a good one, princesses hanging out, I think initially there'd be a bit of personality friction, but I think Via could benefit from a Charlie in her life + they both have daddy issues. Via would also get on really really well with Vaggie I think, so if we've got a Cherri+Millie+Loona constellation, then we've got a parallel Charlie+Vaggie+Via one, where Vaggie kinda balances out the two very intensely in different directions energies and the three of them have a much quieter night, ultimately, than the other three (why is this all ending up as one big headcanon where everyone meets up and it's a party and some people go out and others stay in and there's a bunch of character development?)

Fizzie btw could go either way in this scenario. he has a foot in both worlds, but I read him as more of a homebody than a partygoer. he's just a very flamboyant homebody, so I think he'd prefer to do his nails with Charlie and Vaggie and Via than to go dancing/burning shit up with Cherri and Angel and Millie and Verosika and Loona. Stolas, I just realised, also hanging out and doing nails and the like, I think also good bonding time for him and Via + he and Charlie would bond over bursting into song and yearning

dyou think Alastor would be incredibly charming with Verosika also and she'd be a lil flustered by it? I want that too. like he kisses her knuckles and says he admires her work and it's a lil, oh boy oh boy (and then she asks Angel and Cherri what Al's deal is, like is he gay or what because she's been flirting with him all evening and nothing, and they're like *shrug* whatever his deal is, it ain't sex that's for sure and she sighs and says all the good guys are too busy committing atrocities, and Angel and Cherri squint, because her taste in men... clearly missing some Red Flags for her to respond to)

Octavia would be fascinated by Niffty also -- Niffty generally has the energy of that gina linetti meme in b99 where all the psychologists are hunkered around her desperate to study her:

whomst am I missing. Kinda skipping the sins+Lucifer, also the villains (minus Striker), and most of the tertiary characters. I think that's it then? *wipes brow*

feel free to add more thoughts/dynamics!

[bitterbutblue]

Is it bad i can imagine Robin as a hopelessly inlove girl like ofmgsh?? Like knowing how popular she is, she doesn’t have an attraction to anyone, seeing how some of her fans are just obsessed. She doesn’t like any of that.

But when she sees how polite and respectful you are, she’s immediately hooked.

Like you’re taking a liking to new cafe? You'll find that all your orders are on the house, already paid. Needing to vent? Her phone is always available ready for any of your calls or messages with flowers mysteriously on your doorstep the next day. You’re sick? She immediately drops everything to take a drive to your house with medicine and some of your favourite snacks in hand.

Please i love Robin, and i will ramble on and on about her everyday 🥺

~🍷

the way i manifested for robin before my final exams like i sat down with a group of friends and we did a little prayer circle and i hit the ten pull button while on 5050 adn we got robin and i proceeded to absolutely NAIL the exams on that day. she's my favourite for a reason.

⤷ you were just one of the people who worked in the fan meet and greets, setting up the venue and whatnot.

⤷ everyone there was going insaneee about THE robin being there, and you were excited too but upon seeing the way her fans treated her or behaved when seeing her, you couldn't help but feel bad

⤷ poor bby looked so uncomfortable, especially when the men are talking to her and trying to touch her as she walks off the stage. so you quickly took action (knowing it mayyyy cost you your job cause they could file complaints) but you couldn't care less.

⤷ you walk up to the man and aggressively shoulder him, pushing him aside as you approach robin to ask if she's okay with a very gentle smile

⤷ oh she's so gay.

⤷ fell for you hard and fast. literally offered you a job on the spot and you were like wtf

⤷ the entire time you worked as her assistant she clearly was in love with you. remembered your birthday, your favourite drinks depending on your mood, your favourite foods, snacks, everything. Always ordered a drink for you too, and you felt bad but she keeps insisting on treating you

⤷ no assistant of hers has ever been as caring as you!! always looking out for her, and arguing with the higher ups if you feel like they're pushing her too far and that was reallyyy what made her fall in love

⤷ you cared so much about her, not just because she's a celebrity but because she's a person. it's been so long she's forgotten how it feels to actually be cared for and not just looked at

⤷ she confesses to you one day when you snapped at her manager for commenting on her body weight again. you were sick of it- robin had barely gained anything but they wouldn't stop talking to her about losing weight so you snapped.

⤷ the manager demanded to have you fired but robin refused. instead she had sunday fire the manager.

⤷ it was a weird surge of emotions she felt in the moment, having someone actually look out for her. your face was red from anger and your breathing was unsteady, a look of pure irritation in your eyes but the moment you laid your eyes back on her the irritation fades into nothing but worry and she's smitten.

⤷ she asks you out on a date when you were walking her down to her car that'll drive you home and you thought you were dreaming.

⤷ she giggled at how u just stared at her, looking so confused and shocked

⤷ she kissed you on the cheek and your entire face just turned brick red

⤷ the next day, she got you another drink. except this time there was a heart doodled on the side, and a promotion letter next to it- asking you to be her manager.

⤷ the most loving girlfriend SERIOUSLYYYYY she doesn't take SHIT from anyone if they say anything bad about you. okay they can talk shit about her, but YOU? she'll start throwing hands

⤷ now that you're dating she spends even more money on u like christ, you knew she was rich but this is a whole other level.

⤷ rented out your favourite cat cafe for the day so you two could have a date in silence and peace without the stress of the cameras

⤷ wrote an entire album about you and you melted when you listened to it for the first time

⤷ despite how busy she was, she still makes you the most thoughtful handmade gifts. she learned to crochet to make you a beanie for when it gets cold when she realised you didn't have one in possession

⤷ she's your lover girl, forever and always <33

[studentbyday]

week 3: let's get this bread! (famous last words...)

Omg I can't believe it's only week 3, sm has happened, I swear more time has gone by than actually has 😅😮‍💨🙃 Starting this week feeling a little discouraged because I still have a backlog of schoolwork to catch up on, but let's see if I can get my hopes up again by the end of this week! 🙏🏻🤞🏻If I want to achieve my goals, I need to drastically reduce my screen time. Here's to only using my phone for essential communications and for music, guided meditations, and pilates/yoga videos this week! 😤

mid-week update: this week has been a f*cking mess. mentally, emotionally, physically, existentially. i have not touched the db course so far which was my main goal for this week...every week i'm trying to add something new. i had my reservations about keeping on my original plan for this week, knowing i ended the last one still behind on school, but i went ahead with it, wondering, hoping if it was at all possible. well. we'll see where i'm at by the end of this week. at the very least i'll be closer to caught up.

end-of-week update: posting this early so i don't have to on sunday. i'm making progress but it's still slower than expected. insomnia is a problem. my nerves feel pretty frayed. must find ways to decrease the stimulation. time to reinstate the no-phone mornings (probs should add to my “bingo”) and a social media detox... not sure if i'll have time to post again next week. i find it hard to keep up. i'll probably come back if/when i get things under control...so bye for now (and i sincerely hope your semester is going better than mine 💗) 👋🏻

Academics:

Check and send pathology assignment!!!! ✅

Confirm immunology discussion due date!! ✅

Watch documentary on Wangari Maathai ✅ (glad i did this first thing on monday after sending the path assignment because it was really inspiring and lifted my spirits enough to keep going 💗)

Meet for pathology assignment ✅ (2 members in my group are like...really high-energy and gung-ho. i'm glad cuz that means it's a lighter load for me but woah was that overwhelming at first 😅 and the thing is...these guys aren't the first i've encountered like this. and i'm low-key jealous of them... they're the kind of people who give off the aura of “i'm capable of doing it all” because they're that driven...and based on what i've seen of them, i don't think they're faking it.)

Read all assignment descriptions for global health before you... ✅

Email chosen essay topic to TA by Thursday ✅

Finish M1 pathology by Wednesday ✅

Complete pathology M1 case questions

Finish half of M2 pathology by Sunday

Start pathology M2 case questions

Finish half of M2 global health by Friday ✅

Finish half of M3 immunology by Sunday

Finish M2 microbiology ~ (made some progress but not finished)

Start M3 microbiology

Participate in global health meeting ✅ (wasn't bad but also...not sure when this happened but i've gotten quite nervous speaking up in class and then in my overstimulation, forget some of what i had intended to say, ughhh just gotta keep practicing...)

Complete immunology discussion ✅

Send other pathology assignment ✅

Complete global health discussion ✅

Health:

Meditate x1

Journal x3

Yoga x2

Cardio x1

Pilates x1 (the first time i made it through a 30 min class in one sitting whooooo!!!!!)

Other life things:

Change bedding

Laundry

Music in My Head:

andante spianato et grande polonaise brillante

study music // 1 // 2 // 3

a strange playlist for strange people

piano trio no. 4 in e minor, op. 90, b. 166, “dumky”: i. lento maestoso / ii. poco adagio

pavane op. 50

Things I'm looking forward to:

end of the semester

the height of autumn

christmas

My not-bingo bingo (thinking I'll recycle this every month lol):

[horsemage]

I think we should bring back basic etiquette lessons such as shutting the fuck up when you’re watching a movie in a group that is not exclusively your friend group 🙂

[no27-autonation-honda]

I Am Once Again Begging Y'all To Be Fucking Normal About People From Other Countries

[yeonban]

It's lovely when I read a book and some random paragraph in it hits me in the face like a train at mach speed

[rotationalsymmetry]

I don’t know if this is what you are looking for exactly, but I enjoy writing for Postcards to Voters because they focus on non-presidential races. I am currently writing postcards against an anti-choice constitutional amendment proposition in Ohio.

I wish more people would do things like that, instead of making posts that guilt trip people for not being excited enough about voting for the Blue sexual harasser instead of the Red one.

Thank you for your highly sensible response.

I guess there's a thing where "just because someone takes 15 seconds to shoot their mouth off online about something that's annoying them doesn't mean they have the time/energy to do anything actually constructive, even more so for the people who took .5 seconds to hit reblog now on someone else's shooting their mouth of post" but I think it would be strictly better for people to spend that .5 second exerting a smidgen of self control and going "either it's actual GOTV or it's not, and if it's not I'm going to not reblog it."

And as the election is over a year away...I don't think "vote blue no matter who" is actually a Get Out The Vote action at this point in time. It's annoying enough when people do it in person but at least then there's occasionally some chance of having a reasonable discussion about it, but on social media between people who don't really know each other? Ha snowball's chance in hell.

(I haven't done Postcards to Voters the last couple years, but I did around 2019-2020 or so and they are fairly low barrier to entry as long as you have stamp money, super introvert friendly, you can be as creative or non-creative as you want to be, and as you can do it from your home on your own schedule pretty darn spoonie friendly as well. As well as covid-safe. And yes, there's a big focus on local/state campaigns, which warms my participatory democracy loving little heart.) (ughh sounds like an important campaign maybe I should pick this thing up again.)

[rotisseries]

actually now that the clique thing is a few days old, i didn't really get involved for a reason and I don't feel super strongly in either direction

but I will say that like. while there's certainly a problem of less interaction on the fanworks/posts from less popular blogs, this isn't really a byler exclusive issue? this happens in most fandoms these days, interaction is just on a decline in general which IS. a problem but not really a "byler tumblr is cliquey" problem. in regards to any actual cliques I wouldn't say they don't exist but I don't think it's "the popular kids" themselves doing this. I don't know if the rest of you have some other bloggers in mind that I don't know about, but as someone who is mutuals with a fair amount of who I thought were the popular blogs, they are always very nice and welcoming to me, and actually easy to talk to once you just. see them and talk to them as a normal human and not an omnipotent fandom god. so this is all to say that if there's a clique issue I think it's from the outside. I think maybe people are perceiving these bigger blogs who all happen to be friends as these untouchable idols in fandom and it's. making it cliquey from the outside. like are they a clique or have you just convinced yourself they wouldn't want anything to do with you and isolated this group from everyone else. this isn't to say that people can't be assholes of course just that I don't think any of this is intentional

[the-maddened-hatter]

The battle of the constant desire to obtain blatantly queer goodies (clothes, stickers, mugs, ect) vs the need to stay low-key in my deep south state :(

[starpros-sunshine]

If I loved Wataei less I might be able to talk about them more....

[im-still-a-robot]

I just want to use charm person because it will 100% get us out of a Situation. The spell literally says friendly acquaintance. However, if you want me to seduce the character you literally named "Lucifer" understand that I am no coward.

[eldrichfuck666]

I post about Electroforez just so much it seem like I need a tag for that 😭😭

[loumauve]

-