#i really am the common factor in making things worse

[ratvich]

it was really a punch to the gut

[sol-consort]

How are you? What are your plans for this weekend?

They still haven't restocked my pink lemonade

Now I'm drinking apple juice like some kind of freak

I want strawberries, but The Creature (economical inflation) demands my left kidney for it

Bad. It's been bad, Anon. I hope your days are better than mine

Was hoping to go to the cinema this weekend, but I don't wanna risk it burning down like that one bowling alley on my birthday

[so-i-did-this-thing]

Hello, I would like to ask you a question that has been interesting to me for a long time, but I am afraid that it may somehow offend you, so I apologize. I understand if you do not want to discuss such things.

May you please tell me a little about the side effects of the transition?

So, the downsides of medical transition? Sure, I can name a few things. But a lot of "side effects" people warn you about are really just "be sure you're prepared to be more physiologically like a cis man -- you can't pick and choose what effects you get, but you can predict some of them based on genetics."

(Transphobes like to make this sound scary, like you're damaging your body. But it's like... OK, a receding hairline? Yeah, no shit that's gonna happen. Happens to most dudes. Jokes on you, a lot of people are into that. And I can take some finesteride to slow it down, so stop using visual shorthand for masculinity to scare me away from masculinity.)

That said, be sure you're prepared for changes to:

How you gain muscle & fat

Your libido

Your hair growth patterns

How you express (and possibly even feel) emotions

Your voice

Your genitals

Your risk factors for certain health conditions. Some will improve, some will get worse. Me, I have to keep an eye on my congenital heart issue.

That said, the only real "side effects" that I feel are unique to being trans and/or me are:

Vaginal dryness. There's creams for that, so, completely manageable.

You of course need to be aware of your liver health, since you're on a major medication. But it's your doc's job to check your levels and adjust accordingly. I have had no issues.

My ADHD and memory maybe got a bit worse? But they are both stable now.

If I miss a shot, I get irritable (T makes me a much calmer person)

That's really it for me.

I've had top surgery and the only side effect there was that I rejected some sutures (first time that has happened) and thus got a gnarly scar, but that can happen with any surgery.

Other folks are welcome to chime in. Again, I think it's important to distinguish between "side effect" and "this is a new-to-you thing to deal with that is common for cis men."

[tiny-pun]

On writing pain

Okay so for once this isn’t an actual prompt but more so a tip:

If your character is supposedly in pain that lasts more than a couple of days or even weeks and months, eg. Because of a bigger wound or of a (new) disability… you most likely should show this in more ways than just the occasional “gasp and clutching the wound”!

Having such constant pain will have at least some kind of emotional impact: the stress of constantly being in pain, the constant push and pull between just succumbing to the pain and laying down until it goes away or just ignoring it and powering through. The balancing act of not overdoing it and being hypervigilant to the point you just hunch down to avoid worsening it.

Additionally you have to think about how to treat all of the different pains. How connected are they really? How much sense does it actually make to take pain meds ? Are there enough? Do I trust my doctor/s, to actually listen to me and take my pain seriously? Am I over exaggerating my pain? Am I underselling it? Am I annoying my doctor? Should I just wait and hope it goes away? It’s probably nothing anyway. But what if it’s so much worse ? What if this pain is just covering up something truly awful? But what if I’m making such a fuss now and tomorrow I can jump around like always? How unnecessary it would be to get so many people involved. Right ? This is especially hindered by poor use of words aka incapability to communicate. ( My head is just … kinda fuzzy?/Everything hurts?)

Another factor is how much they want to openly tell others about it. And whom they could possibly even tell and all the whys and hows surrounding it. And how hard it would be aka how long they’ve know each other and how much time they spent together. The hiding and lying adds more emotional stress and also possibly leads to neglect of any medical help. The “overt” complaining about the pain/situation can be exhausting and thus a different kind of stress. Especially if they’re feeling childish/unheard or otherwise ashamed about voicing anything but positive emotions but the pain is just too much and too consistent.

This can also lead to a constant comparison of how far into their recovery they “statistically already should be” or just the plain old “I could do xyz SO EASILY before”. Or worse: they’re comparing themselves to another (equally) wounded/disabled character. Wether it’s an internal belief or externally expected: if the character believes, that their wound/pain is comparably minor or should be easily overcome by themselves; and especially if they have a certain goal in mind, by which they should be back to their regular power and it’s not look in good … well then you certainly have a nice cocktail of stress and anxiety.

And if during the time of their supposed recovery, they end up getting some minor but more common sickness, eg. A cold or a stomach bug, it might not be their first thought. In fact they might do any and every test possible BUT think of the common cold. Not bc they’re necessarily stupid but bc of the fear, things might go to hell after all. Especially if the symptoms of both illnesses are similar enough. Anything else will just not be in their radar.

Also how would they like to be taken care of ? How much of that is a facade to please others ? Do they actually want to be hugged right now or are they just trying to please someone yet feeling suffocated? Do they just want their dead siblings soup and is a companionable silence enough to know they’re gonna be fine? How honest are they towards not only themselves but to others? And how much can the people and the situation itself even give that to them right now? (Do they need silence but they’re currently lying low in the city’s biggest hotel next to the market place?)

For all of this it doesn’t matter how big or small the pain actually is. What matters is that it is seemingly constant and only very slowly going away. The combination of constant physical pain with so much emotional turmoil and back and forth between opposing ideals aka stress can translate to even more physical pain aka psychosomatic pain. Headaches, breathlessness and even bigger issues such as literal heartaches can be the result.

This all can lead to spiralling and in the worst case a (temporary) depression. I dont think I have to explain how that could look like.

And one last thing: If the character is used to being in life or death situations, no matter if it’s due to multiple fights or an already existing disability: the common cold might be worse to deal with. They could be so used to dealing with the possibility of death that anything less than that is ironically unbearable. During a basically fatal stabbing they might just say a cheeky joke but freak out during the common cold.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. If you have the same pain for more than 6 week pls get it checked out if you can! And get well soon. These are just possible ways to write, what kind of thoughts and issues any type of constant pain (fatal or not) could cause.

[freckles-a-constellation]

The Doctor is a tragic character in the best Greek tragedy tradition.

So y'all know how the most common driving factor for intelligence to develop in species is if they're social? (Octopi aren't very social but let's ignore that real quick, the Doctor's a vertebrate anyway so invertebrate intelligence can probably be dismissed as irrelevant) Because after a point, more intelligence isn't really needed to avoid danger or gather food. But more intelligence does make it possible to communicate more efficiently, form more complex social bonds, eventually develop culture. Cue why social species tend to be more intelligent than solitary ones of otherwise comparable lifestyle. And cue why humanity is the way it is.

Now look at Gallifreyans. (I am purposefully ignoring the Timeless Child thing bc I don't rlly believe it and besides, even assuming it's true, The Doctor is similar enough to Gallifreyans to have flawlessly believed himself/themselves/herself to be one for 13+ regenerations, so anything that can be concluded to be true from analysis of Gallifreyans has good basis to be presumed true about the Doctor, whatever the fuck semantics you wanna use) So, Gallifreyans. A species much more advanced than according to DW canon humanity will ever be. More intelligent than humanity. High levels of education and not on the basis of private tutoring. Lives in cities. Has complex language and technology capable of instantly translating pretty much any language of any other species to be understandable to them. (Hell the TARDIS consistently still translates shit to English for the companions while they're outside it.) Complex social structure. That's one fucking social species.

And it gets better. The TARDIS is meant to be operated by a team of six. And even if River was joking about six, it's still clear that it should at least be more than one. Compare the Doctor steering the TARDIS alone to when he was with Susan. I mean, even those two looked like they could use an extra hand. Have you ever seen a human private use vehicle designed with 2+ pilots in mind? Definitely a species more social than humanity.

And the telepathy thing? Hello? Insanely, mind-boggingly social species.

Now take a being this fundamentally social and do something to them so that they see no recourse other than to take one (1) same-species (as far as he was aware disclaimer ig) companion, steal a ship they have little to no clue how to pilot, leave everything and everyone they've ever known and run without ever stopping for breath, no matter how much they miss home, no matter if it hurts. (And I do believe something must have happened to make him run like that, since the beggining, way before the Time War) Have them be scorned, judged, punished, mistreated and rejected by their species, again and again, for ages. Have them love, again and again, only to always lose everyone they've cared about, through abandonment or death. Have them essentially be forced to exterminate their whole species and believe themselves to be the last of their kind, only to be proven wrong by the whole Master situation, which alright is better, but also in some ways is worse. Have them, once again, form deep bonds with companions and once again lose all of them in various varyingly tragic ways until they have no hope left that anyone can ever truly stay for any amount of time even close to satisfactory, that love can for them end in anything but loss and pain. And they can't even avoid love altogether in an effort to spare themselves the inevitable agony of losing loved ones, because they're incapable of not growing to care for those around them. And they can't be without company either, because their sanity goes straight to hell in a handbasket within like,, 5 minutes of being alone.

Let me remind you this is not a human we're talking about. It's a member of a species much more inherently social than humanity. My point?

The Doctor is literally more lonely than the human brain can comprehend.

[velvetvexations]

Some morrrrre enby takes, plus one about the concept of binary privilege, and as a reminder to be safe...

Disrespecting yourself is when you use the term you actively prefer apparently. It would be much more respectful of me to call myself words that actively make me uncomfortable.

"Grown ass adults should not be embracing immaturity" Wow, absolute dogshit take. Why not? Why are adults not allowed to embrace 'childish' things? Why does it matter how other people refer to themselves, it literally does not effect you if other adults use words or like things that you (general you) think are too childish. I myself am in my 30s and that just sounds to me like more of the same garbage that's always been shoved down everyone's throats about how fun stops at adulthood, no watching shows aimed at kids or having stuffed animals or wearing fun clothes because if you do no one with take you Seriously. No calling yourself a boy or a girl or an enby because those are baby words for babies and letting someone call you that is allowing yourself to be disrespected. Like I'm sorry but that's also the same logic others use to misgender me when I say I use it/it's pronouns, that to them it's disrespectful so I'm really the problem for preferring it. I cannot stress this enough, how other people define themselves and what words they feel comfortable with is none of your business and someone liking a word you don't is not a threat to you. Also like, some of us feel out of touch with our actual ages for one reason or another and may enjoy childish specifically because they're childish, and again, that isn't anyone's business but their own. You can hate being called something, you can want there to be more variety in what terms are commonly used to refer to nonbinaries as a group, you can tell people to not ever uses a specific word to refer to you, and you can be upset that a word you don't like is being used as a default, but you don't ever get to police how other people feel about it or what they call themselves. I am an adult who has never been able to really conceptualize myself as an adult or even a human due in large part to autism and ptsd, and I'm going to call myself an enby and an it regardless of other more Serious Adults are shaking their head and judging me for it, because my identity is for me, not for the approval of others. I didn't mean to go off quite that hard or get so worked up, sorry if that was too aggressive Velvet, I know you don't really have a horse in this race.

As a nonbinary man (as one of mnay mostly-fitting labels), I have deeply mixed feelings on the question of "is enby infantilizing as a default?" because, On the one hand, I understand the linguistic argument that it is on the grounds that many of the most common nouns that end in a long E sound are diminutives or otherwise "cutesy" (baby, puppy, kitty, cutie, mommy, daddy...) - even if the etymology isn't as infantilizing as some myths make it out to be, it doesn't exist in a vacuum with regards to existing language NOR with regards to common stereotypes of nonbinary people, and those things can DEFINITELY be argued to collide in a pretty unfortunate way, On the other hand, there are a lot of people - not everyone who makes the argument, but enough to be a derailing factor in the conversation - whose arguments against it DO come from exclusionist myths about etymology, or worse, "vibes" such that when you take even the slightest look under the surface you see that they've either internalized the stereotype that nonbinary people (other than themselves of course) are all just white teenage girls trying to be special, or at the very least they're letting that stereotype have WAY too much control over them, and often nearly get to the point of saying that ANYTHING other than the longform and almost clinical "nonbinary person" would be too infantilizing, But on the third, transhuman robot hand, well, isn't the line between "letting the stereotype have too much control" and "acknowledging the fact that the language doesn't exist in a vacuum and can have unfortunate implications due to how the sounds of English interact with that stereotype" kind of blurry in the first place? And on the fourth cyborg hand, we STILL haven't gotten the damned exclusionists who will argue for OR against it in bad faith to shut up! Personally I'm on board with the idea of "enban" and "enby" to have the same relationship as "woman" and "girl" + "man" and "boy" - references to the same category of genders, with the appropriate word chosen based on context and Vibes that are loosely but not entirely based on the age of the person in question - but I'm not super invested in the specifics; I like to study them more than direct them, so I'm not gonna be personally offended if that's not what takes off or anything.

i think enby is fine for the most part but as someone who has identified as genderqueer since before people started widely using nb it does bother me a little bit in the same way as a lot of language shifts around "other" genders that there's an assumption that everyone who uses them identifies with the term "nonbinary", which i honestly wouldn't mind as much as an umbrella term if it wasn't for the fact that a large driving force behind this shift was "you can't say genderqueer because queer is a slur and that's icky" (and also the most widely used nonbinary flag was created both because of this and because "too many afabs are genderqueer so it's not a welcoming label for transfems!!" (the person who coined genderqueer is transfem) and i know like nobody knows that anymore but it still stings)

As a black nonbinary person I never understood why nb had to just mean non black or non binary??? thats dumb. anything can be shorted to its starting/defining letters. thats like when people got mad at twitter/tiktok users for shortening white to yr to save space and they weee all like "thats youtube!!" its dumb and no one ever needed to act like they couldn't share a term when context will make it clear what youre talking about. enby is a perfectly grown up word that just fine to personally feel like it doesn't fit without implying that a term many adults comfortably use is infintalizing. just say you dont like it because its not accurate and ask people to use what works for you!

Yeah honestly the enby over NB conversation was... bad. And particularly galling as someone who is a) nonbinary and b) Australian Aboriginal because so much of the framing of it was this very American-centric, 'how fucking dare you not be aware of Black American conversations' vibe from the same people who scream and cry and piss themselves every time one of us calls ourselves Blak or says "hey if you're into omegaverse can you please not use the term a/b/o without the slashes, it's a pretty violent slur towards us" or rejects the term POC as not being relevant to our experience of racism on our own land or literally anything else about our oppression that doesn't centre American voices. It exposed a really ugly side to a lot of anti-racism advocates, many of whom *weren't even Black themselves but white 'allies'* and I really hope we're not about to rehash it just because some people don't like seeing 'enby'. I'm Australian. It's culturally impossible for me to spell out an entire word when there's a shortened nickname version available. Sorry.

“NB exclusively means nonblack” “enby came about as a result of black bloggers saying not to use it” wrong actually! It was a result of white saviors saying that black bloggers said not to use it: we never did ^-^ hope this helps!!

This whole discussion of 'binary privellege' has made me think more about my thoughts about the term privellege overall. I really think its about time we stop referring to marginalized groups as having privilege over one another. Like. I believe that transmisogyny, transandrophobia, and exorsexism are all real forms of oppression. Trans men, trans women, and nonbinary people experience oppression in forms that are often different from each other. But if two people each have privellege over the other in certain areas, doesn't that kind of just balance out to them being the same amount of privelleged? They should be able to talk about their own experiences and what makes them different, but trying to measure which marginalized group has privellege over another one just seems like a waste of time. As a nonbinary person, I face a lot of exorsexism. There's types of transphobia that I experience which the binary trans people around me generally don't. Does that mean they have binary privilege? Absolutely not! The oppression they face isn't better or worse, it's just different. That doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to talk about my experiences or have words to describe them. It doesn't mean my experiences aren't important or worth discussing. But I think framing the difference as 'privelege' inherently implies that my oppression is worse than theirs... and that's the problem. They aren't any better off than i am. We're both still facing bigotry, that bigotry just doesn't look exactly the same. Anyway sorry if this is rambly or doesn't make sense. Brain fog is fucking me up right now but hopefully I've managed to edit it enough to be somewhat coherent. This may or may not be my 5th attempt at writing this ask but at least I THINK it makes sense this time

[yuri-is-online]

Do you have any thoughts on Jabberwock and the ghouls there?

I really enjoyed it! It makes me wonder why the house doesn't allow general students, maybe a risk factor? But if it was a risk factor, why would the school allow general students at all?

Haru's a treat, I really enjoyed meeting him, he seems to also push himself too hard. Do you think his gloved hand is a prosthetic or something similar?

I also ended up warming up to Ren at the end. I can understand why someone would be annoyed with his attitude and general asocial behavior, but I do see things from his perspective, he's like a more moody Kaito in that aspect of "I might be a ghoul, but I'm still just a normal guy. I didn't ask for any of this, I'm not built to go through this kind of stuff" way of thinking. But I also appreciate that he will do something when the going gets tough, as long as he's allowed to complain about it, lol. He has a different way of showing that he actually does care and I do really like that about him.

I also want to see him and his relationship with Towa evolve. I kind of already had a feeling that Towa wasn't a big Ren fan towards the beginning, neither person understands the other it seems, and it makes me want to see what Ren's thoughts are about Towa. Towa calls Ren an interloper, so it's obvious that he doesn't think that Ren belongs there, and Ren would probably agree, but then I remember what Kaito said in the prologue about Jabberwock needed someone grounded, someone to tell them when one of their ideas are kinda dumb or they're doing too much. That's why I also believe that when Ren does become a second year, he won't actually want to transfer houses anymore. I think he'll warm up to the house, Haru and Towa.

My apologies, my plan was to discuss all of Jabberwock but it turned into a Ren rave session!

I also really like Ren, so no worries. If you have more thoughts about all of Jabberwock you can send them my way, you aren't limited in your asks.

A couple things of note~

Jabberwock did have general admission students at one point, Kaito tells us at the school administration only stopped this recently. This makes me think that something occurred during the clash that made them deem the house unsafe, perhaps something to do with Towa since the school feels the need to be "careful with him."

Actually while I am talking about Towa, I have this thought... crack conspiracy theory if you will since I have next to no evidence for it but just hear me out- What if he wasn't always human? Animals becoming human is a common theme in myths, he could have wished on his demon to become human, and if he was maybe some sort of powerful anomalous creature it would explain his ability to "control" them... and why it's different from his stigma which appears to be controlling weather. And why he loves Haru so much! All the anomalous creatures do! And why he eats flowers and why his blood type is unknown and his obsession with romance because he probably finds it a bit silly and why he hugs MC after she says she thinks anomalous animals aren't so different than people and-

Anyway I got Jabberwock in my little dorm test at the beginning (they were always going to be my boys, for better or worse) and during that sorting Hyde specifically says "Interesting, so you value trust, huh? You're caring and loyal in all your endeavors." So when I saw Ren get sorted into Jabberwock that's what I immediately thought about. Ren appears to be filling our gamer/otaku trope in the roster, so seeing him as someone who values trust isn't really hard for me. He probably was thinking about how he wanted people he could be himself with, and while Haru and Towa are certainly out there that's not beyond them to do. If anything they seem like the most accepting people in the whole school, their little group really does feel like a family. It's nice.

I hadn't actually thought much about Haru's gloved hand since one glove on and one glove off isn't exactly uncommon (Ace Trappola Twisted Wonderland only wears one in his school uniform cards) but I went back and checked the available card art in the game just in case I had missed something. Haru always wears two gloves unless he's in his casual outfit, where he has just the one or his sprite after being injured where he has his gloved hand and then his bandaged one. I don't have an sr or ssr of him so I can't set him to my homescreen to check what his Nightmare Raid sprite would be, but since Tohma is still wearing his monocole for that idk if I would say that counts as evidence. It could be that he has a prosthetic of some sort, he is always over working himself so I could see him injuring his hand to the point where he needs one? But I am uncertain if he has one now.

I think a lot of my opinion about Ren and his social aversions sort of comes from my own thinking about my anxiety disorder... simply put it is not healthy for humans to spend as much time alone as Ren is trying to and even if it drains you, you need to push yourself to interact with people face to face. Not just online. It's work, ugly hard work but you have to do it so seeing him interact with Haru and the animals and just try. It makes me so proud of him I really want to see where he goes from here.

I don't think anyone's pointed it out yet, but I think he might know Sho. He refers to him in his thoughts as "that burn out" and constantly hides from interacting with him. He is also VERY AFRAID of the water, specifically sea water, which makes his efforts to save Calamari just that much more admirable. Sure, he complained the whole time, but he fought his own fears to save the life of an animal because he is caring and loyal and god I was so proud of him!!!! Go Ren!!!! I agree that I don't think he'll leave in his second year, he's a lot more "normal" than Haru and Towa are but still just crazy enough to fit in to their little group. They really do need him, and I'm sure he will realize that he needs them too after a while.

Towa has difficulty communicating in general due to his non verbal nature (as a side note, this seems to be tied to time of day. he's been chilling on my homescreen and he stays non verbal until around sometime between 3-5 est??? Which according to my brief google search is around 4-6 am jst... I need to pay closer attention) he seems to try and give flowers to communicate? Of the flowers he has given out, wolfsbane symbolizes misanthropy? "A dislike of human kind" so I think he is using that to say "I don't like you D:<" to Haru when he is chilling injured on the couch. He both calls and gives MC a dandelion, which symbolizes "hope, healing, and resilience" and you could also point out how some people see it as a weed despite it being a very useful plant. And in his homescreen lines he gives MC a five leafed clover (good luck) and cherry blossom petals (death, beauty, and violence). He says he keeps some petals in his memory box? And seems to expect you to eat them so it could be nothing but the idea of him with an angry pout collecting plants just to say "harumph. i don't like you right now ୧(๑•̀ᗝ•́)૭" is just too cute.

Back to his and Ren's relationship though, I think he probably sees Ren as annoying in the same way a particularly bratty child does a new younger sibling. It used to just be him and Haru but now there's this new kid that Haru is putting a bunch of time into and that means less time with him! Also it probably doesn't help that he slacks on his chores around the dorm. The book 3 mission seems to have helped bring them together a little bit, so I am looking forward to when we hear from them again.

Because we had better do you hear me game, we had fucking better!!!

[whaliiwatching]

Caught up to the fic!! Absolutely fascinated by all the queer/punk/poc history here, since I don't know much myself. Very sweet chapter as well.

Unrelated question - mostly - but why is it common fanon to depict Noir as the more scarred up of various spiderpeople? Naturally everyone has their fair share of fights, though the only we see sustaining any marks is Peter B and his misaligned nose. Personally, I've taken it as Noir Peter not healing as cleanly due to it being Spider God stuff over Weird Radioactive Healing Factor stuff. Thoughts?

thank you so much!! i’m glad you liked it, & hope the ending was satisfying for ya <3

short answer: hot

long answer, plus a map of my idea of noir’s scars: under readmore :)

i’m not a devout spidey comic/movie fan or a doctor. this is based on conjecture and minimal research!

when i came up with my unmasked noir ideas, i wasn’t influenced by fanon—i hadn’t seen any other fan art, not even when itsv came out. but i can think of a good few reasons that scarred noir is a popular headcanon: evidence of what he’s been through makes him feel more tangible/relatable, the visual difference enhances his thematic individuality as distinct from other spider-people (especially other Peter Parkers), self-consciousness can explain why he doesn’t take off his mask in itsv even around other spiders.

all perfectly valid and interesting reasons! but the first two reasons are doylist and the last one is missing a crucial question: why does he have scars? unless a wound is severe, gets infected, or gets lucky, it won’t usually scar. facial injuries especially need to be really bad to leave a mark. and of course most if not all other spider-people have the healing factor. so what gives??

i like the spider god’s curse influences healing factor idea; it opens up some nice angsty possibilities regarding an inability to Be “Fixed;” no matter how much he tries, he can’t erase/forget what’s happened to him. but i also enjoy the bandaging someone up after a fight genre of fic, and am annoyingly pedantic, so my personal working theory is that the healing factor is not a doctor with ten plus years of experience and an accurate understanding of human anatomy. when a bone really badly breaks, it has to be reset or it’ll heal wrong. to me, the healing factor doesn’t know what ‘right’ is, only ‘fast’ and ‘effective.’ it’s an accelerant, not a substitute for medicine.

so let’s establish the baseline. modern spideys either receive modern medical attention or the injury is superficial enough that they don’t require it. even poverty-stricken peter parkers get rushed to the hospital, because fictional doctors Don’t Care About The Money and/or peter is dolled up in spider gear and who’s going to ignore a visibly beat-up celebrity hero?? plus i honestly believed peter b’s nose was just genetics or smthn. my nose is misaligned and it’s never been broken to my knowledge

to compare, noir lives in 1933 and, far as i can tell, doesn’t rlly garner the same fame and respect from the public as modern spideys do. in the 30s, medicine was meh (they had x-rays but didn’t rlly consider radiation much of a threat, penicillin was still in its infancy, polio was a huge threat, etc) but was also, more importantly, far too expensive for most people suffering during the Great Depression. whatever treatment noir receives after a fight, if any, would look way different from ours. that means his healing factor, which can’t differentiate scars from normal skin or a misaligned bone from a whole one, would be inefficiently assisted or left alone. it would leave its history behind.

on the infectious disease side of things, it’s probably much easier for even noir to recover from less physical ailments like the flu and pneumonia—spider healing factor likely remembers and codes for immunity better than regular immune systems—but without modern drug therapies he’d still be worse for wear, ie internal scarring. mans would have a shorter-than-average parker lifespan if not for the pseudo-immortality of the Spider God

anyway. all this to say, here’s my personal map of parker’s scars. crop tank and daisy dukes to keep tumblr off my ass <3

(tbh this is more for my reference than anyone else’s, i’m sick of looking through my art of Just His Forearms to keep my details consistent, but maybe someone will find it interesting lol)

[chaos0pikachu]

I am here actually to appreciate your post. I saw a blogger’s post saying The sign would have been ‘successful’ had it got filled with fantasy and romance and limit action to 10%. I wondered why that person, who says BL is all about romance, watched a show whose genre is action. Then I saw your post about people watching many shows to stay in fandom and I agree. Also you are right about dramas with a complex story receiving heavy criticism. Everything (even lack of proper plot or conflict) is exempted in a romance drama. No wonder most BLs are confined to ‘2 boys and their jealous & crying moments, routine conflicts enhanced by Escola or leads explaining how important Nikon printer is for their relationship’

Well damn hit me in the feels with this appreciation I'ma get all shy and shit.

I always wonder if by "successful" people mean in terms of critical acclaim, story telling, or monetarily. When it comes to Thai shows - and some please correct me if I'm wrong - it's difficult to tell how "successful" they are terms of audience reach/monetarily because there's no easily verifiable information. Like, there's Youtube numbers sure, but The Sign as an example, aired on Channel 3 what were it's ratings total on that channel? Idk, does anyone know that? Sincerely asking lol

Personally the way I like to judge a piece of media is what I call the Roger Ebert method; he often judged films based not solely on whether they were "good" or "bad but by how successfully they accomplished their goals.

If you read his review of Space Jam while it's clear Ebert doesn't think the movie is high art, "You can watch the movie on the sports and cartoon levels, and also appreciate the corporate strategy that's involved. [...] It is difficult for an actor to work in movies that combine live action with animation, because much of the time he cannot see the other characters in a scene with him. But Jordan has a natural ease and humor, an unforced charisma, that makes a good fit with the cartoon universe."

Ebert praises that the film, while filled with obvious product placement and banking on both nostalgia for the toons & star power of Jordan, accomplishes it's goal of being a family for that can be enjoyed by adults and children, and also the ability to blend techniques of live action, animation and 3D rendering.

I bring this up specifically b/c when I see "reviews" of shows in BL - the most common form of meta I see in BL fandom as a whole and that's not a knock just an observation - it's usually always about the narrative. Nothing about the filmmaking. And if there is discussion about he filmmaking it's usually misinformed or worse misinforming - no that's not what aperture means, yaoi framing isn't really a thing in film, the t-shirt is really just a t-shirt, etc, etc.

And like I get why. Fandom is more about story, what the words on a page or what the characters on screen are doing and saying. It's easier to talk about the amazing communication two characters have b/c you don't really need a film knowledge to discuss that. Which is a factor in why I think shows with lower stakes, more streamlined and straightforward plots get praised at a higher, less diligent and harsh level, than shows that are a bit more daring. They're less challenging in structure, they take less risks, so there's less to critique, and there's less room for a show to disappoint.

There comfort food, rather than trying something new at the restaurant. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, again, this is just a general observation.

To me, The Sign is miles better than Cooking Crush on a simple technical level. I only watched one episode of Cooking Crush and I found it pretty mediocre at best from all technical points: acting, editing, cinematography, directing, storytelling.

This isn't to say Cooking Crush is "bad" or that even if Cooking Crush was "bad" people shouldn't like it. I don't give a fuck if people like it, good for you chase the things that spark joy! I like lots of "bad" media, have y'all ever watched Jason Takes Manhattan?

For me, The Sign, like Space Jam, accomplishes it's goals and those were ambitious goals. An action fantasy BL that actually lives up to that premise and looks good?? The fight choreography looks great considering the obviously budget??

Like one of my issues with Laws of Attraction - aside from how painfully disinterested those kisses looked - was the fight choreography was bad.

The characters very rarely land hits in a way that looks real, or even marginally real. I can only speculate they didn't hire a stunt coordinator and/or couldn't hire stunt doubles so there was a worry of injury on set (for both reasons).

This isn't a disparagement on the actor(s) either, like stunt work is difficult and it's important to have professionals on set who can walk an actor through the steps so both them and others don't get hurt. Jackie Chan is probably one of the best known actors alive for stunt work, but watch how many times he fumbles and potentially hurts himself to the point where other actors are actively worried for him:

So yeah I'm going to give The Sign it's fucking gold star stickers b/c aside from some missteps in the gun handling - to many one handed gun fights but even then it wasn't all the time and bullets ran out of ammo! Y'all don't know how exciting for me that was to see - the fight scenes look damn good.

I understand the work that went into them, I understand the pre-production time that it took for the crew and cast to learn that and filming them well is another beast too.

There's a couple scenes with shaky cam that I dislike, but god do I love that first long take in The Sign. I love how good the CGI looks overall again, considering what is probably less budget than Black Christmas (2019).

I'm admittedly, fucking picky about what I watch b/c I'm really lazy and prefer watching films in general. I don't really like TV all that much, but if I am watching a tv show I wanna be impressed with more than just the characters talking to each other. Especially if said show is 12 hours or more.

When I'm looking at a piece of media - a comic, a novel, a film, a tv show - I'm thinking about stuff like "what were it's goals, and did it accomplish them? How was the filmmaking? How was the narrative structure? What is the time/place/culture this was made in?"

I'm not sure if people are arguing if The Sign was "successful" in terms of narratively, monetarily, or critically.

In reality we can only really speculate on how successful a Thai BL is based on data that's not not entirely accurate - social media, youtube stats, awards, etc - and even then most of that is based off international audience.

I can glean that 2gether was successful for gmmtv b/c it got a second season and a film, pretty much skyrocketed Bright and Win's individual careers but again, and created a cross country alliance for activism. But even all that is still speculation not facts (except the alliance that's a real thing that happened lol).

[This is all regardless of my own feelings regarding the show which is not kind. But feelings have nothing to do with individual discussion about how monetarily successful or accomplished a show is or isn't.]

Like it might be valid speculation on both shows but it should always come with a disclaimer of - these are not facts. Also, what is "popular" or "successful" can and will be dependent on individual countries too.

Take Cutie Pie for example, I would argue that it wasn't super "successful" here with American fans, but given how overwhelmingly popular Zee and NuNew are in both Thailand and Korea, I would then argue that the show was a success in Thailand and Korea. So was Cutie Pie "successful" or not? I would say yes!

Because "success" isn't and shouldn't be measured only by how western fans receive a piece of media.

In regards to The Sign, I'd argue it appears to be very successful with only the partial data I have at hand - social media which includes places like twitter, facebook, tumblr, the success of their sold out showing for the finale, a special episode, etc. If people argue it was unsuccessful in terms of narrative, well that's debatable and I have no interest in debating why the show is good except in terms of technical filmmaking and storytelling.

And even then it's a pointless debate like or dislike whatever just don't lie or mislead people regarding film terminology and techniques or harass people because they did like A Thing or clog up the tags with annoying posts about how you didn't like said Thing.

Overall, I don't give "reviews" on things I watch either positive or negative cause, well, I'm lazy lol, I don't believe putting how much I hate a show in it's tags and a thorough rating system would be to much work. I actually like how My Drama List rating system works, I just find most reviews on it to be Annoying lmao. Like giving Kinnporsche a 5 or below is absolutely bonkers to me but whatever es lo que es. But I also don't think my thoughts and opinions on shows are that valuable in terms of discussion.

These are mostly my general thoughts on fandom at large and it's not directly at any particular people its just observations at large across various social media platforms.

I think if you like more squeecore shows that's totally gucci, I just wish didn't proposite that 1) those are the only valid shows in terms of BL/queer media and 2) didn't overhype them to such sky high levels

[thatrandomartistjavi]

I’ve been trying to sit down and really think why Alice by Heart Cheshire didn’t make an impression on me because on paper I should at least like him. It’s an adaptation that does its own plot that acknowledges that he is Alice’s friend and cares for her. Not only that but they don’t make him a bootlicker which is scarely common.

So overall when going to watch the show, I thought that would at least like him and think that he was a good version of Cheshire. But I didn’t. He isn’t bad, trust me I’ve seen way worse in my time of watching AIW adaptations.

But if someone were to ask me to recommend versions of Cheshire, it would take a LOT for me to recommend this version.

And I think maybe is that even tho he seems to be important, he doesn’t really do much. The show itself doesn’t do much with Cheshire and barely even engaged with him other than his big major scene.

Like they have his irl counterpart be homeless but they don’t really do anything with that concept. It doesn’t factor in to why Cheshire is the one to sing to Alice about how she has to learn to let go of Alfred and come to terms that he’s dying. Not having a home and losing a loved one are two very different situations that garner different emotions.

And the decision to make Tabatha homeless doesn’t really make sense because Cheshire isn’t homeless in the book. He’s very explicitly the Duchess’ cat and very much lives in the same house as her. He’s literally included in the illustration where the Duchess is nursing her baby and the Cook is making her soup. He’s very much there and Alice asks about him to the Duchess.

This wouldn’t be so bad if the Duchess wasn’t included therefore rendering him homeless but the Duchess IS THERE. She has a whole scene with Alice and she’s seen at the trial, and not once do her or Cheshire ever acknowledge each other in the slightest.

I don’t mind Cheshire not having a Duchess. Most Cheshires who I consider good don’t have them. But it does peeve me off because in my opinion, Alice by Heart really needed to acknowledge that fact.

Why DOES Cheshire sing Alice Some Things Fall Away. Cheshire isn’t wise as a character. He is helpful or tries to be at least. But he isn’t a character that you can tell any problem to and they’ll be able to give sound advice. Cheshire isn’t omniscient nor does he claim to know everything. So them just making him sing this for no particular reason makes no sense to me. It feels a little lazy like he only sings it cause he was the first person there.

This song should be emotional. This song should’ve made me all full in my emotions cause that’s usually how I am with Cheshire and Alice but because there isn’t any meaningful connection between the song and him, then the moment falls flat for me. I feel nothing listening to it.

And this is where acknowledging the Duchess when it comes to Cheshire would be useful. The Duchess in the book has a baby. They reference it in show with her calling Alice her pig. And while this isn’t smth said explicitly, I do think that to some degree Cheshire makes himself responsible for the baby. The reason why he goes outside is because Alice takes the baby with her and in their last moments, their conversation is centered around where the baby went and what it turned into. And he leaves the scene to find said baby. And I really think they should have done smth with the concept of Cheshire being somewhat responsible for the pig baby with Tabatha.

Tabatha could have been an older brother to his baby sibling in which he lost due to war. So now Cheshire would have some reasoning to sing Some Things Fall Away because Tabatha knows what it’s like to lose a close loved one. Tabatha knows how hard it is to come to terms when someone like that is no longer in your life, that you’ll never get to talk them again, never laugh with them again. But ultimately that stuff like that is out of their control and the only thing to really do is to just come to terms with it. That, at least to me, would make that song much more impactful.

I also think there’s smth missing in the performance that I don’t really know. How the actress played him didn’t really scream Cheshire to me but idk what specifically.

My brain has this thing where if I don’t like or care for the Cheshire, I will not be interested in the adaptation. Which is like one of two reasons why I probably didn’t like Alice by Heart as much as I thought I would. Just

It’s hard being the #1 Cheshire analyzer literally nobody gets him like I do /lh

[goldenhickeysandramen]

📢🔊🎤🎶 LOVE IS IN THE AIR... 🎙🎷🎺🎸🎹and 5 takeaways from the past months

THIS IS A LONG POST.... 

Oh my Gosh! What an afternoon of excitement!

Apparently Jimin changed for nanoseconds(?) his profile picture and posted one of JK 

Too bad the account didn't record a video..... If there is only one person as a testimonial, let me be a bit skeptical. 🤨

But who knows... maybe Jimin was playing with Jk, as this latter did on April 28th.

https://twitter.com/jkfl6wer/status/1640512226829189122?s=20

Also emerging on twitter are the constant cacophonies heard in Jimin's last vlive....LOL

https://twitter.com/jeje_machi/status/1645017065609388032?s=20

I take these things with a grain of salt, because they always happen... there’s always someone in tiktok who hear voices in Jimin's and JK's vlives 🤣 

BUT

I do think they were together the night of Like Crazy's BB100, because all the k-army accounts (I follow) perfectly hear, at the beginning of the vlive, a "go quickly" with a busanese accent. That can't be a coincidence, nor a general delulu mode! 

In any case, I'm here to celebrate Jikook's love fest of this past month.

📢🔉🔊🎤🎶🎵 LOVE IS IN THE AIR... 🎙🎷🎺🎸🎻🎹

I have to admit that there was a time when I didn't understand why the hell we didn't know anything about Jikook.😫

Those who wait are in despair. And if I'm the one who waits (while quitting smoking), it's even worse, because I'm (above all) IMPATIENT! hahaha. I missed jikook a lot and I was in a total skeptical phase.

Don't scold me, I am not insecure, I like to be objective and critical. And there were things from these months that just made me wonder if everything was okay... I'm not going to go into them, because there’s no need. But I am going to share with you some of my lessons or takeaways from these months of CHAPTER 2 and that now, with more perspective, I can share, in case it helps anyone for next months.

1. The members who interact the most are the ones who are promoting at the time. 

I don't expect to see others in official content, unless they have something to promote. I guess it's marketing strategy. Just compare how Suga has reacted to other albums on socmed, with how he has been more involved in Jimin's, because he came next. 

The only exception is Hobi who is constant. Our dear sunshine..💜

But as I could see, if we want to see the rest, it's up to them.

2. This brings me to the next point: JIKOOK has chosen to show us that they are still there as usual, but without the exposure. 

Let's cry in chorus! 😭😭❤❤

JK wanted to support Jimin and for us to see him. And he wanted it to be something special, dammit! And so it has been!

I melt with him and everything he has done so far: from saying how great the Set me free Pt2 MV was going to be, to playing the chords of Letter, and the vlive reaction to Suchita and Jimin's best moments unbothered.

Plus the next morning reacting to Jimin’s live LOL

And Jimin has always been active in JK's vlives, whenever he could, with some very memorable lines 

3. What we don't see is almost EVERYTHING. And what we can see depends on many external factors. 

Thanks to the editors we could see JK visiting Jimin. It looks like they were together for only 5 seconds, but we know that was not the case.

if they even said goodbye in two different positions LOL

On the other hand, Letter was not recorded remotely, nor did JK teach himself to play it on guitar on youtube, like he learned to make sushi on ITS. 

This would be a point for non-jikookers who believe that jikook has not seen e/o for months.... but, I write it as a reminder for everyone, but especially for ME. 

What we see in recorded content is Hybe's choice. The rest is either shown to us by them or we have to assume it by applying common sense.

On the other hand, does anyone expect jikook to plug in a vlive when they're at home together watching The Notebook for the umpteenth time? I don't... Which brings me to the next point...

4. Army is always a support to Jungkook

I really believe that when he has been feeling very bored, alone or melancholic, we have been a help to him. Maybe he needed a rest, but at some point the inactivity has taken its toll on him, given that he didn't have his precious people around him.

In particular, I am happy to see him in his new role as CK ambassador and to see him travelling and active, at least until he enters the more intense work phase of his future projects.

So when I've seen Tae at his home, or with him at concerts, far from worrying about the cults's reaction (Who cares!!), I've been glad he was getting him out of the Mikrokosmos cave, because JK is an introvert and his comfort zone isn't exactly socialising.

[How I feel about Tae and his vlives and name dropping at certain times is another matter. But I have no doubt that Tae loves him and has made it a point to take him out bowling or to concerts]

5. Perhaps most controversial, but most obvious.....JIKOOK don't officially live together and that's what we're going to see from here until they leave for military service. So it's best not to give too much thought to the issue of houses.

But there is a very big obviousness to this issue. JK lives in a house rented by Hybe, with furniture from the dorms and barely decorated (althoug full of underwear 😁), as if he can't rent a house while his mansion in Itaewoon is being built...LOL! It's a joke! (and by this I mean that perhaps he spends part of his time elsewhere 😏).

If jikook is an established couple, as many of us think, we will always have to bear in mind is that they cant fulfil everything we would see in a long-term couple, like living together in one house 24/7/365, for obvious reasons, but basically because they are hidden couple and they’re also chased (especially Jungkook, who has a lot of sasaengs behind him).

And this is basically my main takeaways.... I'm sure I have more lessons learnt.... but I don't remember them now.... or I'm tired of writing.... maybe it's the latter ;)

I purple you 💜

[tvnacity]

I FINISHED MY FIRST SEMESTER AS A PHD STUDENT

here are my top 5 most interesting class material-related things i learned (no particular order):

neurometabolic cascade of concussion

common factors in clinical psychology treatment (specifically, how just using those alone can be helpful to clients)

women have worse incidence, severity, and recovery rates of sport-related concussion (note: can only make this claim about cis women as research on trans or gnc people has not really happened yet)

perceived scarcity measures are generally a better determinant of someone's psychological health outcomes than objective scarcity measures

many specific ways in which biological sex is FAR more complicated than right wingers like to think

here are my top 5 favorite non-class-material-related things i learned (no particular order):

my cohort is so excellent and I love them all, and based on all the other cohort drama I've heard about, this will make my life soooo much easier

my mentally ill ass IS capable of getting an a in a grad school class and i CAN finish all of this work

i am capable of paying full attention to a class for 3 hours at a time

having deep discussions with people with experiences that vary from yours significantly is the best way to learn something and is also so much fun

my partner and i are capable of living together while having a grand ol' time and not killing each other (though we still have some minor kinks to work out lol)

[ialwaysknewyouwerepunk]

Hey Ella. I thought I'd come to you with this because you always give off a kind and sympathetic nature so at the very least I won't be treated like a shitty person for what I want to say.

I'm really struggling with Harry atm and it's actually kinda devastating because I never saw this happening. There is so much around Harry that I vehemently dislike, from the people around him to aspects of his public image and narrative. I was so good at separating all that from Harry himself but lately I've been feeling my bitterness bleeding onto Harry. I've seen this happen so much. People who were originally fans getting annoyed at small things and that growing bigger into bitterness and hate. I don't want to be one of these people.

What is making this worse is that I as a person do not place a high value on things like career and ambition. Not in my own life and not in others. So it's getting hard for me to relate and support Harry in his ambition as to me there are infinitely more important things in life. This wasn't a major factor before because his fame and success wasn't at the level it is now.

I honestly don't know what I'm trying to do with this message. I guess I would just appreciate some perspective if you're willing because I genuinely do not want to start resenting Harry. Honestly just typing this is making me tear up.

hi kind anon, i think you're dealing with a pretty common problem in the fandom these days. it's tough to feel like you don't relate to someone you really always felt comfort with. maybe a first step is to take a breather from the fandom as well as gp/main media talk about harry. no twitter (and i'm not saying this bc i have a weird biased thing against twitter. it's a place where opinions are thrown around like it's something ppl have been begging for, like it's fact, and it's really hard to keep reading opinions and debates without getting influenced), no harry content on instagram, no tiktok. i am not interested in anything others have to say about him, and i actively shield myself from it. i don't watch videos others have made with commentary, i don't read articles, i don't even read discourse on here usually. i think the habit of picking everything apart, of making sure you focus on the negative to properly enjoy the positive, is unhealthy, or at least for me. i know myself enough to not fall into blindness or naivety when it comes to what's wrong with enormous success and the industry. i just don't feel the need to get into it every time harry achieves something.

when it comes to harry's ambition and success, i just know (from what he's shown over the years, but the full extent we never will) how much it means to him. i think it's also a mix of actually wanting to be big for him and getting as high as he can to prove that he can to everyone who told him he couldn't. i don't relate to it either, and i don't think it's cool to have all those riches, but i still cry with harry when he cries of joy at his madison sq garden banner. i'm okay living with that nuance without always debating it. i love his music, i love his artistic vision, i love his lyrics, i love the way he carries himself. i also know i don't know him, that i never will, and that there are things he does and says i don't agree with. i have the exact same thing with some of my lifelong best friends, as they have with me. i'm okay with that. happy, even, of how unique and imperfect we all are

what i do, and what keeps me so in love with harry beyond the noise of the gp and the fandom, is focus on what makes me love him. remember that this is an interest, something that makes you happy, and not your object of study, or your career in politics. enjoy it all for you, enjoy it offline as well. and then, i guess, if that doesn't do the trick, a few steps away from harry and all that surrounds him might be necessary to let go of the bitterness. bc you can also just stop liking something, and that's also okay

[daebelly]

so like. i understand anti-voting sentiment. i get it. i think it's not all that good for effecting change, too. we agree on this and are friends. i also understand and resent that our current president has thrown in his lot with israel while israel commits genocide, and i would withhold my vote were it my choice. but here's the thing that i think a lot of people who say we should not vote for the lesser of two evils haven't factored in: their effective accelerationism will near-inevitably result in a genocide of poc and queer people if it were to succeed. trans people would probably be attacked first, with an especially immediate impact on trans women--guess what i happen to be one of? that's right! a trans woman!

the worst option is to vote for trump or whichever fascist in his place. the second worst option is to simply not vote. (and after that, it's voting third party, which is mainly bad bc it doesn't bolster our defenses against republican solidarity in their voting habits. i understand though, supporting getting a foot in the door for having more than a two-but-actually-one-party system is a very good thing to do, cant fault that).

i just think it's especially convenient for people who want to use israel's genocide of palestine as a foot in the door to spreading genocidal sentiment elsewhere that people are using sympathy for the victims of the genocide to make people in the us think it's productive and/or helpful to just not fight back against the fascists that really want us dead.

just kind of disconcerting to see people declaring that us americans shouldn't vote for the outright nazi's only real opponent while knowing if the outright nazi gets back in there's a chance a lot of us won't make it. and i'd much prefer to survive than be executed for my identity.

put simply: if a nazi gets in, more people die and there's yet less checks on the crimes that the president can commit. a notion of 'honor' in not voting for the lesser of two evils is worth less than the lives of people within the state that's voting and the lives of those that that nazi not getting in will save through preventing the galvanization of the us gov't's support of israel. put even more simply: if things get worse, they will be worse than they would be if they stayed the same. this is so bizarrely simple an equation that i do not get how some people aren't getting it. reducing harm to the minimum is the point.

for anyone confused or intentionally misreading this, a bulleted list below the cut

i am not saying that voting is the only thing you should do. you should be taking more action than just that. but you should still vote. use every weapon in your arsenal, they all perform a function.

i am speaking of rhetoric used by and towards usamericans specifically and i am not prioritizing usamerican issues over the suffering of the victims in gaza. please be respectful and do not try to cast me as seeking to be the victim in a situation that does not really affect my life because i am not.

on that, i think it's unreasonable to expect there to be no discussion at all of issues peripheral to an ongoing crisis, especially when the primary topic in that conversation is of the government of a different state entirely and how people behave within it and an ongoing crisis contributing to that behavior. i have seen sentiment against discussion of this sort and it just doesn't feel reasonable.

if i get weirdness about the 'especially immediate impact on trans women' i'm gonna be cross. it's common knowledge at this point that trans women are a priority target for conservatives and that we register to conservatives as a nice first target to lead into everyone else in the community.

apologies for the rigor, i have just seen some Very Hostile Responses to others political posts for much less and i am not about to countenance that behavior here

[quantumnori]

Shifting motivation

For those who have not shifter and/or are skeptical, I encourage you to read further for some motivation. I am going to be sharing a story time from earlier, so enjoy the motivation and my horror 😂🥹.

Background information;

Since I was a child, I have had a very bad phobia of a specific bug, or flying beetle I should say. Now, this species of beetle is native to my country, their life cycle starts usually in mid/late summer, they hibernate during the colder months. I will not share the name of it but I will describe some key factors about it with you. (1. This beetle is nocturnal, it’s a wood burrowing beetle that sleeps during the day, and flys very drunk like during the night (it’s technically half blind, so it can’t see where to fly). Side note, they live in native trees so they’re not common in towns or city’s, they are found in more rural areas. (2. They are attracted to light, and will crash into everything trying to get to the source, they are also attracted to water (can hold their breath for up to 13ish hours). (3. This beetle can get very big, up to the size of a grown man’s palm, they sound like mini helicopters while flying when they are decently sized, they are also indestructible, immune to every repellent and can survive blunt force/being stepped on. (4. Arguably the worse part, since they live in trees and eat tree sap they have very sticky legs, covered in barbed hooks so they can climb?, I’m not exactly sure. Anyways, I developed this phobia because for a short period of time in my childhood I grew up in my ancestral home which is basically in the middle of the Forrest. Since we were surrounded by native trees, during the summer nights these beetles swarmed in the millions, just flying around aimlessly. My parents used to jokingly tell stories about how they knew people who had these beetles crash into them, get in their hair, then they start violently buzzing, trying to get away but they can’t because of their legs, so you have to shave your hair to get them out. To little old autistic me, those stories sounded like an overstimulating nightmare, also just the sight/sound of them are unpleasant, so at night during summer I ended up developing a phobia to them. Mind you, this isn’t just any phobia, this is my worst phobia, the mere sight of them even in an image sends me into a panic, I am afraid of them, I do anything I can to keep them outside away from me. Only recently I moved back to the general area where I’m from, also where these beetles exist, I used to live in a town for 2 years so they just weren’t a thing.

Present day:

It was like 11:45pm, I had just finished eating dinner (it’s the weekend), I went back to my room and sat on my bed. I had forgot to shut my window but I thought it was fine since it had a bug screen on it, it was not fine. I had my AirPods in, watching TikTok, so I didn’t hear it initially, I was vibing so hard because I had made a really nice drink and I was enjoying it. So I looked to my left to grab my drink off of my nightstand, I cannot even make this up, I saw the antennas and head of a baby version of one of these beetles on my fucking shoulder. At first it didn’t move, so I was like what the hell (I hadn’t registered it yet), then it wiggled its antennas, so I was like “oh hell no”, and I will admit I screamed. It did the bug thing where it opened its wings before it began to fly, so I dodged it from smacking right into my face, then I jumped up and ran to my door. I hadn’t seen it fall down the side of my bed, so I stood near my door, panicking, I thought I had hallucinated real bad. Amongst my panic and confusion, the fucker flew back up the far corner of my room above my bed, crashing into the wall repeatedly, so I ran out and shut my door behind me. I ran into the kitchen/lounge area, I sat down at the dining table and I began to panic and cry, I thought about going to get someone but at this point it was 12am, so I decided against it. In previous times, I could cry to my dad and he’d sort it out but I don’t live with my parents, which also made me sad. So after having a mini mental breakdown, I had a “Queen never cry” moment and I locked the fuck in. I literally remembered that I am a shifter, I can shift, if I don’t like something I can simply get away from it, so I did. I wasn’t calm, I wasn’t in a meditative state, I simply closed my eyes and told myself that I was in a reality where the bug was gone. I first tried shifting back to my room, but I was shaking and it was hard to focus, so I settled on just proofing the bug. I persisted for a few minutes before I opened my eyes, nothing seemed different than before at first. I am a shifter but even I wasn’t sure if it worked, so for my own sanity I grabbed some bug repellent (to make myself feel better) and investigated my room. I did the whole scared, skitterish thing you do when anticipating a bug to come flying out at you, just because I was still shaken up. The bug is completely gone, I sprayed various areas of my room to make myself feel better but nope, I had shifted. There was no evidence of it leaving, there’s no evidence it was ever in here, I’m still shaken up as my phobia is pretty bad but I know it worked.

Conclusion:

I hope this proves that shifting is real, that it doesn’t really matter what state of mind or position you’re in and that anything is possible. All you need in my opinion is the knowing that you will end up in your desired outcome, you don’t have to be particularly trusting or relaxed. It also doesn’t matter what you’re shifting goal is, it really can be as simple as avoiding a scary bug. Me already being able to shift doesn’t make a difference, I feel like this sentiment applies to anyone it resonates with. I hope someone finds this entertaining or helpful, I don’t see many sharing experiences like this showcasing how easy shifting really really is.

That’s all for now!, happy shifting!.

[wrathofrats]

Some questions about the transition

What will happen to rain

Did anyone else help

Was most the only old ghoul who stayed for dew

Did the transition make dew meaner

Do the other ghouls know about it/copia

Did terzo feel bad

Did everyone hear the screams

Does Dew Drop resent aether for what happened

Sorry for the questions

Hi! Don’t be sorry I am so very actively encouraging questions! It helps me as a writer think about these things and also it’s just fun bc I get to share a bunch of my lore ideas!

What will happen to rain?

Good question, it’s not really known. Mist chose not to transition herself even after Terzo asked if she wanted to, and she is still ok. I think it honestly depends on a lot of factors, like I believe mist and rain will one day end up like the old water ghouls, but not anytime soon. Water was a very old ghoul and river and lake themselves were not super stable. Delta transitioned on his own anxiety and dew didn’t want the same to happen to him.

Did anyone else help

Purely transition wise? No. Only quints are allowed to work in the infirmary. Only their magic is allowed to be medical. But not transition wise? I think it was a whole pack thing. The other ghouls in the clergy stopped by to see what they could do for weeks.

Was most the only old ghoul who stayed for dew

Nope! Everyone cares a lot about him, I think mist is the only one who refused to leave though. She didn’t trust the process and genuinely assumed the worst, while everyone else knew he would be ok. But some of his closer pack mates ended up staying for a bit longer. Like ifrit and mountain and earth.

Did the transition make dew meaner

Not at all. I don’t think elements really change core aspects of your character, but maybe more of how you deal with emotions and stuff. So he’s absolutely not meaner, never really was mean. But it makes him a bit more volatile. He’s never been good with his emotions, and the trauma and new element can make him a bit prone to blow up a bit a times, but he’s working on it.

Do the other ghouls know about it/ copia

Absolutely, it’s not a secret. Dew isn’t ashamed of his past self and aether isn’t ashamed of what he did (though there’s complicated feelings on his end, but he’s not ashamed) it’s kinda just common knowledge at this point that dew used to be a water ghoul. I don’t think it’s brought up often though.

Did terzo feel bad

Yes but he doesn’t regret it. He feels worse for delta as he couldn’t stop him, and delta got the worst ending of what could happen, even though omega tried to help him. He feels bad for dew too but dew agreed to the process and he got to keep his ghoul, so he’s happy, though I think his pain sometimes eats at him, wonders if there’s a better solution.

Did everyone hear the screams

Everyone in the infirmary did. They didn’t last long, just the day the actual transition took place. I think ifrit and mist were the ones there for that. But if you’re also asking if everyone knows? Again I don’t think it’s a secret, but it’s not discussed openly. To any ghoul that came after him it’s kind of a “we know this was bad and we aren’t going to ask” situation

Does Dew Drop resent aether for what happened

Not in the slightest. Dew wanted this, and he loves aether. If anyone was going to do it he’s glad it was aether and probably wouldn’t have done it otherwise. In his mind there’s no one to blame but himself, but I also don’t think he regrets it, but he does have complicated feelings.

I hope this helps (: