#id like to think i treated it with nuance but every day i think about it it's like 'hm. could've been way fucking better buddy'

[lordsardine]

.

[basil-does-arttt]

DMC Questions Anon here!

It turns out that today, July 30th, is friendship day! What are some of your favorite friendships in DMC? What friendships do you want to see? What headcanons do you have about them? Just anything about DMC friendships.

Hello!!

My favorite friendship between anybody in DMC is probably Lady and Dante. Their relationship is very nuanced, theres a lot of complexities and they've been through so much shit together, yet they stuck with eachother through everything no matter what. I can see why some people would assume Lady doesn't like Dante due to how she treats him in the anime, but at the same time its a little unfortunate to me that some can't see past that and realize that constantly nagging him and such is just her way to be around him, and thus, to care about him. She wouldn't constantly be annoying him about money if she didn't care. (and she's never really forced him to pay up either for that matter.) While the ways she shows her affection may not be conventional, it works between her and Dante, and thats what matters.

I really like the HC of them having drinking nights together as well, just as a chance to feel things and let out all their (shared) trauma. They both have a habit of hiding their pain behind a mask, it'd be nice for them to just let loose every once in a while.

Personally i dont ever see Dante and Lady being anything more than friends. The ship is cute, but just not my personal tastes.

I also really like the friendship Lady seems to have with Nico. Even though we dont see them interact more than like twice in dmc 5, its apparent they've known eachother for a while (Lady used to go to Nico for her gun repairs and such iirc), and they seem to enable eachother's mischevious side lol (evidenced by Lady almost crashing the fucking van into Nero, when we've only ever seen Nico drive up untill that point lol).

I would like to see a friendship between Kyrie and Dante, either in a game or a manga or whathaveyou. I feel like they'd get along well, especially considering their shared experiences with losing an older brother. And we all know Kyrie is more of a prankster than she lets on (its canon she told me herself), so her pranking Nero with Dante's help is something i can totally see happening.

Id also like to see the relationship between Vergil and Trish developed more. Theres a lot of baggage there after all... it'd be interesting to see how it works between them, would Vergil get along with her or no? I think yes, but not easily.

Lastly, id really love to see Lucia getting along with Trish, they're both demons in similar ways (Trish being created by Mundus, Lucia by Arius) and maybe Trish could help her adjust better to being around humans, especially with her fears of turning on said humans against her will.

Thank you for the ask!! I hope that answers things :> <3

[us-the-voices-and-more-voices-2]

(I have no energy to describe another one. sorry.)

[IMAGE ID 2: a YouTube comment by thatrandomguywhocares from one day ago that reads.

"to be honest if we didn't make gelatine out of bones/horns/hooves they would go straight in the trash.

and honestly it's kinda wasteful if you didn't, at least with this system we are extracting a whole another type of food from things we wouldn't normally be able to use.

I'd rather it be made into gelatine than not, and this is coming from someone who plans on becoming vegan. (currently can't due to parents being assholes about it)

and has been learning about cooking and foodstuffs since I was little. it has never struck me as cruel to use all parts of an animal, otherwise it's going directly in the trash.

I think the commercial meat and dairy and pet industry is horrid and disgusting. but I still don't believe it's morally wrong nor bad to consume animals.

the ways in which they were raised and the ways they are treated is apparent and despicable. but I don't believe that eating roadkill or cooking using bones and such is a bad thing.

I am against animal suffering but there is many layers and nuances to this whole thing that if we treat every part of everything in this way we are only going to put ourselves in a sad cycle of purging and shame.

at the very least honouring the animals that have died by making gelatine isn't a bad thing. especially if it was roadkill or a friends finished roast.

otherwise it's going in the trash.

idk, food waste sucks." END ID]

if you wanna follow the burner YouTube account you can, but here's Theo's writing.

he's fucking English I want you to know that it in fact DOES make sense that he is (haha I am half English.... my grandparents are literally every English stereotype <3 real.) (obligatory FUCK the empire rq)

this is on literally peta's comment section btw.

honestly Theodore and me share similar beliefs but honestly it's kinda interesting to see him talk about this? I haven't seen him in ages, he's also been around FOREVER and is probably a Geronimo stilton/a teddy bear I have introject lol. reformed into like just some dude in his late 20s, he's weird.

he's literally English I don't know why, he's kinda weird and well spoken and actually takes his time to reply to things and I kinda respect him for that.

but he's ENGLISH AND I DON'T KNOW WHY, hsvafglavshhiofwhie;ogdhv.

either way I don't know here's something you might like.

[soundlessmind]

I have always been a magnet for terrible people, and yet some how ive pulled some of the sweetest kindest people from the ashes of my reputation.

I dont think that would have been possible had id followed the behavior of ass kissers.

Ive seen it many times, ive seen it from people that i know personally, the way they get taken advantage of.

The way theyre taken for granted.

The way they roll their eyes at me and then months later cry about how poorly theyve been treated.

Whatever youve heard about me, if youve heard about me, you dont understand me.

You follow the rumors built on a false identity for this exact reason.

I wont associate with people that can change their position on our relationship so freely.

I want people made of stronger stuff.

People that understand the nuances of a fractured mentality.

Ive not been perfect.

Ive been a child before.

Ive been unstable for a long time.

Ive made mistakes and said things i regret.

But ive never regretted who it lead me to.

Every day i meet people that are better than you, and every day those people make me better than you.

I cant say i think this wouldve happened had i gone about my life any other way.

Because when i was at my nicest and purest and kindest and most empathetic?

Thats when people like you would try the hardest to break me.

When people worked the most against me.

When i was torn down relentlessly.

I did not choose this path, i was given no other option.

I will not apologize for surviving.

[tyrannuspitch]

hey i love the book carry on & ive never read its sequel bc CO felt like it ended exactly where i wanted. i do love the charactrs tho& would love to see more of them. ive seen u very briefly mention its sequel so i think uve read it, even if u werent a huge fan. do u think reading it might be worth it or is it better to stick w CO? (obvs u dnt know exactly what i like from 1 ask & also if u dnt feel like talking abt sequel i get it. just thought id ask.) have a great day! :)

okay um. i'm afraid this is a subject i am entirely incapable of being objective about.

i thought the sequel was quite literally one of the worst books i've ever read in my life. i made a goodreads account solely to write a very long 1 star review of it within a week of it coming out (here.) i wrote angry notes all over my copy (i found something to hate on every single page!) then threw it in the recycling because i didn't want to dignify it with a second-hand shop. i have vowed never to read the threequel because the amount of anger and betrayal i felt after reading WS was genuinely bad for my health.

i would say... there is very little, if anything, to be gained from reading WS. it's not like more of CO. it's a very different book. the tone and atmosphere are completely different. removing the context of the archetypical fantasy story and the war means the characters need to be reimagined significantly (and, in my opinion, a lot of depth is lost in translation - so they don't really feel like themselves. or like real people at all.) the themes, such as they are, don't really pull together to say anything like what carry on said, or... anything in particular, honestly. CO treats its characters incredibly gently, but at times WS feels outright cruel, especially in its portrayal of vampires. and frankly, the writing quality is just much poorer than CO's. prose, dialogue, pacing, you name it. it reads like a first draft.

however, a lot of people DO seem to enjoy it, some of whom have since written fanfiction which i think displays a good and nuanced understanding of the original book, so... it's hypothetically possible to get something out of it. i guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[pussydeluxe]

im adding some stuff onto this (im the gf):

i had a category gay but homophobic on these and besides makoto and joshua (which apparently speak for themselves) i also had coco on it. shes a lesbian but its On Sight with nearly every other lesbian she meets because being a lesbian is like, her thing. everyone else is an unoriginal loser ass copycat infringing on her style and winning personality

i also had kubo on there but hes actually really normal and civil to other gay people in person and treats serious lgbt matters with incredible nuance and a mature attitude. the only reason he can bring it up to do so is because when he goes home he opens up reddit and delves into the pits of discourse and starts trolling and arguing with people online, bringing the absolute most insane takes to the table. its like a spiritual cleansing to him that keeps him tolerable in person.

its pretty explicit that ayano named her iguana after shoka but i like to think the iguana came first. shokas like "ayano whats a good name for a girl? like if you had a daughter what would you name her" and ayano is like "id name her shoka :)" (<- she named her lizard that) and like two days later shoka is like "i picked out a new name can you call me shoka from now on" and ayanos tearing up and like "omg ofc shoka darling!!!!!" (<- can literally never tell her thats the name of her lizard now)

i think hishima is terrible at making up his mind about some things without help so he keeps going back and forth about his gender because no one else can really help him with that one. thats his problem. so hes been Questioning for like, his entire existence pretty much

me and my gf had shoka and rindo inverted on our sexuality one iirc (i had shoka as straight and rindo as bi) and i like to think shoka is like enthusiastically supportive of rindo being bi but rindo is hysterically bad at being bi because every guy hes ever had a crush on for even a minute turned out to be transfem shortly after. this is compliant with my gfs opinions i guess.

My twewy character gender + sexuality headcanons

(some) elaborations under the cut

for the gender chart i think rindo is in the cis (unknowing) category during the duration of neo but then bumps up a notch post-game. hes a sweet little cishet boy who wants to support his trans friends. to me

my gf proposed the idea of kariya being a transmasc lesbian and just not telling anyone bc it never comes up + its not anyones business so only uzuki knows and that rewired my brain

frets a transfem egg and has a gender awakening thru kanon

hazuki is labelled transmasc but unaware bc hes already transitioned he just doesnt know thats what its called. he barely has a grasp on humanity in general so that includes human terms for gender shit and he doesnt really care

the wall reaper being transfem is just based on that one specific wall reaper in neo that fantasizes abt wearing top o topo clothes

hanekoma Cant Not be some kind of nonbinary his noise form is 2 beasts with a male and female body. i know theyre just recolours of tigris and leo cantus but twewy devs canonically gave him tits and cannot take this back

i like the idea of ayano and shoka both being transfem and i think thats another thing shoka looked up to ayano about

originally i put fuya in bi bc of his Implied Wife but the idea of him being in a lavender marriage is funnier

hishima just Doesn't Know

shooter and yammer are like 10 and only care about tin pin. sho as well in a specific au but otherwise has no room in his heart for anything other than math and susukichi just wants to play board games with his besties all day

makoto homophobic gay real

[eroticcannibal]

That's.... A really weird take. My mom used to tell everyone and their mom all my business and I absolutely hated it and definitely have trauma from it but like..... It was only an issue because she didn't have my consent. I'd even specifically told her not to tell others. It is not inherently a bad thing to talk about other people's personal/private things. It's wrong because you are violating their consent, so if you receive consent then guess what! Not a bad thing. Literally no one on this website has nuance I stg.

I also only talk about the bits that are also my trauma (and also only the bits I am permitted to talk about. Some things I am not allowed to talk about with anyone, not even a therapist. I will respect that boundary)

I think its also important to understand what kind of person the child is. Generally speaking, it does not shy away from trauma. In fact trauma, the effects of it, causes of it, how society and oppressive systems cause and contribute etc are somewhat of a special interest to it. It is intentionally vocal about such things because they are important to discuss. It knows the value of bringing attention to trauma, especially that which is suffered by marginalised people, and is very passionate about doing so.

Like, I aint dealing in specifics unless its on the parenting side (believe me i will go for DAYS about the shit said in meetings, but not so much the shit said and done directly too it) I'm saying the world treats my child like shit and that that hurts it.

And yeah, my mum would go discuss, in detail, every meltdown, every instance of self harm, every suicide attempt.... that is a violation of privacy. Her saying in an anonymous context that she was dealing with a child going through that shit? Id have been fine with that. She was hurt too.

[intersex-support]

honestly it's not even like intersex people are creating such rigid definitions of what being intersex is or isn't. we're putting a word to our own experiences in order to gain a sense of community and gather strength in numbers. we're always clarifying that intersex is in fact NOT some sort of black and white easily categorized thing, that there is still a lot we don't know, and that the definition of intersex is changing with every intersex person that exists.

the distinction between perisex and intersex isn't rigid and intersex people are not gatekeeping anything; the distinction exists in the first place because perisex people distinguished us from them first, and it's wildly offensive for perisex people to tell us that we are gatekeeping our own oppression lmao. intersex people are constantly working to remind people that sex ISN'T a rigid concept.

if someone w a "minor" variation IDs as intersex, i don't think that's wrong or incorrect or offensive. but it rly seems like perisex people are just trying to say "well if X thing is intersex then Y must be too, since sex is just SOOO NEBULOUS." it feels like mockery. it feels like a deliberate misunderstanding of our own struggles and activism. just because intersex HAS a definition doesn't make that definition a strict one, and perisex people's insistence that our definition of our own term (that we have to have because THEY treat us like shit systemically) is too strict for THEM to find comfort in, would be laughable if it wasn't such intersexist bullshit.

we can't really get too into the debate of "what definitively is or is not intersex" until we can all agree on the base premise of "intersex people deserve respect", and that is in part due to the NOT strict nature of being intersex, and also due to the fact that there are intersex variations we simply do not know about yet. the information we have available to us is already so limited and fallible that to try and define intersex as anything MORE strict than we already do would be to exclude many of our own, including those we don't know about yet, and that isn't fair to those people. but to define it as anything LESS strict would be to deny our own history of oppression and pain, as well as the lived experiences of many, and that is not fair either. intersex being defined as "a variation in one's sex present since birth that is typically considered outside the 'normal' confines of binary sex structures" is a definition that can, will, and must change over time as we make strides towards intersex rights. but that definition CAN'T change until we are able to actually make those strides in the first place, and perisex people demanding that intersex people change that definition, without ever putting in the work to understand intersex people or what sex even really IS, is nothing short of absurd. all definitions change with time, but intersex is a term that does not yet have the widespread cultural understanding or acceptance needed to facilitate change in such a drastic way without completely derailing the activism the word tries to invoke. in layman's terms, i don't really understand why the definition of intersex would NEED to change right now.

it's very akin in my eyes to doctors trying to make up exceptions to what does or doesn't count as intersex in order to bypass the few intersex protections that exist, but perhaps in reverse; rather than attempting to change definitions from the outside in order to continue to enact systemic medical violence, they are instead attempting (consciously or not) to render the term intersex completely obsolete in order to go back to the days where they never heard about it and thus were not burdened by the knowledge of their own bigotry. when perisex people say "but isn't everyone technically intersex then?" they are not actually furthering a nuanced discussion and understanding of sex as a concept, but instead trying to basically just.... speedrun the liberation process so they don't have to think about it anymore. they might as well be saying, "yeah well EVERYONE is intersex so it doesn't matter shut up".

im just one intersex person so obviously mods and other intersex people are free to disagree or make additions, but yeah, that's just how i view the matter.

Anon I FULLY agree, what resonates with me was the part where you said “speed running the liberation process”. I think we really need to understand the idea that sex is not a strict binary, and look at the intersex peoole who have been doing activist work for YEARS, some who have passed away, some who have never been named, like they’ve put their hearts and souls into intersex activism and someone just going “I have figured out sex is a spectrum so intersex doesn’t even exist as what people are saying it is” is SO disrespectful because I promise you that whatever understanding we do have of sex can always be improved and understood better, and that takes a lot of time and effort and real life work that you cannot come to conclusions from by having little conversations on tumblr.

Those are just my thoughts, I would love to hear other mods thoughts. Thank you for sending this in I think it’s such an interesting perspective

[bladekindeyewear]

Okay so, I have no idea who Aesma is. What does "Turning Vriska into Homestuck's Aesma" mean in this context?

I really don’t want to get into it much, as Kill Six Billion Demons is truly incredible from top to bottom so far and I think it’s more fun to go in blind.  Ideally, ignore everything I have to say and go read it some time.  (Be sure to read the text posts under every so-odd page, the sometimes-present hover-over alt-text too, et cetera.)  Like, don’t even read this post, even though it isn’t really a spoiler.

However, to sum it up if you want it.....

In the mythological pantheon outlined in K6BD, Aesma is the mother of chaos and quite seemingly the embodiment of the Id.  In stories of her exploits with titles like “Aesma and the Three Masters (and the lessons she never learned)”, Aesma is depicted as the epitome of willful selfishness and ignorant wickedness, a committer of atrocities both intentional and inadvertent -- and is also the most beloved of the Creator’s children by said Creator, not just for stripping bare the hubris of others, even the Divine, but for embodying the selfish drive of Life that distinguishes (and in this Creator’s view, should rightly distinguish) the living from nothingness.  She is selfish to the point of stupidity, egotistical in a way that is constantly self-defeating, and yet a paradoxically shining example of an attitude one must embrace in some respect to truly strive in life -- and an example none that live should believe themselves above.  Even the angels begin their prayers with her name in deference, though not exactly entirely admiringly.

You COULD say that some of the writers of Homestuck^2 love Vriska a bit more than the average fan, to say the least, and a little more than Andrew did.  And you could both judge from the story’s current contents and expect from the known views of said writers that they are PERHAPS more likely to focus on how awesome she is than the pain and suffering her continued refusal to learn anything will keep bringing down on everyone.  Showing her toxic flaws off, sure, but at the same time (in some crucial ways) having the narrative almost “forgive” them because she gets results. NOT that they've quite done so YET, not entirely! But they might.

That possibility worries me.

As far as Vriska went, the pre-Epilogue ending of Homestuck was pretty perfect for the story’s themes:  Vriska DID get to save the day, glory-hogging and fighting Lord English in the way she THOUGHT she wanted... but in the process was denied the Ultimate Reward, was in fact rendered irrelevant in the ways that ACTUALLY mattered and was left excluded from the happiness promised to those who decided that creating the next world and living in it mattered more to them than cosmic victory.  She chose relevance over everything else, and Paradox Space cursed her by granting her wish. (Never learning her lesson... and paying dearly for it, in ways she doesn't even realize.)

The Epilogues undermine her further.  They show that she was barely a cog in the machine that resulted in Lord English’s defeat.  They give her a second POTENTIAL chance at eventual happiness, but do so by “banishing her to irrelevance” and thrusting her into the “non-canon” storyline.  It was revealed recently in HS^2 that the history books of the Candy timeline didn’t even really give her actions any credit.

So... pretty much the worst thing I could imagine Homestuck^2 doing -- and I COULD imagine it doing this, unfortunately -- is taking this nigh-unrepentant abuser who has barely regretted her actions and torn the souls and potential out of characters like Tavros who were doomed never to recover from it, and “correcting” this ending a bit.  To have her potentially ruin an ENTIRE POST-VICTORY EARTH with another meteor apocalypse (or try to), to continue her same selfish attitude portrayed in FURTHER “heroic” light, and then have the narrative ITSELF imply that everyone should be thanking her in the end????

There are some good lessons to learn from Vriska’s better qualities.  However, K6BD’s mythological stories of Aesma treat her depiction VERY carefully, or I guess I should say heavy-handedly -- leaving NO illusions or ambiguity about the evil of her actions, the caustic ignorance inherent in the lessons she refuses to learn, turning a selfish perpetual-child into an almost-pitiable one that ultimately DOES “lose”... even as the story cautions everyone not to pity her, as to think oneself too much “better” than her is a grave and arrogant error.  That deliberate, clear nuance would be LOST if the same reverent narrative treatment were ultimately given to Vriska.  Homestuck^2 would become a vehicle to forgive her abuse, her choice of ignorance, as something that can be ultimately padded over or mulliganed at the last minute.  The stories of Aesma carefully depict her to show that if she had learned ANY lesson -- ANY at all in the multiple opportunities given to her throughout her storied life -- she could have been not just the Creator’s most beloved, but truly the greatest in every respect WE value.  And the tragedy that she does not is both unforgivable / deserving of mockery, AND a cautionary, frank depiction of Humanity itself as sharing that same blind failing.

Homestuck is another work that constantly tries to show the value in people who are flawed -- even dangerous.  (Unsurprising that they’d share this, given how K6BD began as an adventure on the MSPA Forums.)  Trying to blindly do the SAME to Vriska as Aesma, though, to finally end the story of the Homestuck series as one that gives her her “due credit”, risks communicating an awful lesson that her crimes were “worth it” despite trampling over the will of almost everyone else who exists, both inside and outside canon.  If it’s not done VERY, VERY CAREFULLY.

I hope they avoid this route altogether, and instead -- since it’s unlikely she’ll purely “die” achieving relevance at the cost of happiness again -- have her finally accept SOME degree of mediocrity in a way that actually learns her a fucking lesson for once, and doesn’t just let Vriska shut her sins into the closet and lean casually on the door, after a brief show of considering contrition or a disproportionately-small sob that her victims’ roiling, broken ghosts would roll their eyes at.

[matoitech]

Galo’s autistic but do you think he’s good autism rep?

its complicated <3

ok but seriously i really dont know how to answer this because like.. technically i felt ‘represented’ when i watched it and was like oh he does things i do! which id never seen on screen with a protag before (esp a gay one lol? like literally ever?) but at the same time, a lot of things about his character hit hard specifically because of his treatment from other characters in the movie and the writers themselves. by this i mean the ableism. so i dont want to say that he was ‘rep’ because saying something was ‘good rep’ sounds like giving trigger credit for something i dont think they deserve credit on (i wouldnt give trigger points for ‘gay rep’ either. i can talk more abt this if anyones curious; it has more to do with how other studios will misinterpret the action movie romance not as typical for the genre, but ‘bare minimum’ and think that if THEY try it in the same way, they’ll win themselves credit or smth- rather then how the movie wrote galo and lio and their relationship itself, because obviously generally gay people did like promare). 

i do believe they at least were somewhat conscious of what they were doing when they wrote him autistic (what remi said to him in the ova proves that pretty obviously.. not even getting into his character itself and his relationships and arc) because a lot of the time autistic characters will be written accidentally but he definitely has.. purpose.. in his writing. the explicit confirmation to me was that ova line. i already knew he was autistic but you cant insult a heavily autistic-coded character for being autistic and have it not mean something.

but anyway, because the writers basically encouraged ableist treatment of him by fans by like, the jokes abt him in the first place, it.. really is complicated to me and i dont think you can just label him bad rep or good rep, or i cant at least because it really depends on the definition you’re using of what bad/good rep is in the first place! if we’re saying good rep is something you felt represented by then yes to me he was but thats my personal opinion and thats also not something i want the studio to get credit for. or allistic writers will see me say that he was rep and go ‘oh so thats how i can treat my autistic characters and its fine :)’ which is definitely missing how all this works

to me, galo as ‘rep’ just.. gets a pass despite the treatment by the writers. because 1) him being autistic is integrated in a way that i personally resonated with and was interested in, and his traits and stims weren’t ones i’d ever really seen on screen, so i appreciated seeing those 2) the studio didnt try to frame him as good rep. like how spop crew said entrapta was Perfect Rep when she definitely wasnt. trigger never tried to say they were doing some epic powerful representation thing. they couldn’t, because that would mean admitting they treated their purposely autistic character poorly. 3) hes gay and you never see gay autistic protags so i was really happy about it 4) hes just a GOOD character. hes a good person! you don’t typically see autistic characters written like him. hes got more nuance and character and emotion than people think he does. hes actively trying to be a good person. he’s conscious of how he’s treated by people and why. i just Feel It with him man

like i said, it really comes down to personal opinion and influenced by what your definition of 'representation’ in the first place is... and not every autistic person is the same so things that i personally liked and resonated with may have been something another autistic person was frustrated to see. typically i see autistic people like galo a lot, but i have yet to see a lot of opinions on whether they think he’s REP or something. usually we’re just like “wow i love galo, go autistic king”

also you have to look at how he’s treated by the writers, and look at what other writers will do if they see you praising it. we can’t just be happy about things unfortunately we have to be like “i appreciate what you did do right, but you clearly didnt respect him as a character due to his autistic traits, which is shitty” so people dont repeat the same mistakes thinking they’re allowed to get away with it. and its a topic for another day but i think ppls concept of ‘representation’ in general is just kind of.. strange because its more like a box they can check to get more likes than it is doing anything for the actual ppl theyre representing. BUT ANYWAY. I TALKED A LOT. I THINK THIS IS INTERESTING AND I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR OTHER PPLS OPINIONS ON IT

[cryptocism]

ive been scrolling through ur blog for a while (cuz ur dc opinions are Top Fucking Notch) and i saw what you said abt bart in tt 03 and f:fma and while i totally agree (it killed tt 03 for me lol) im super curious abt how youd do his development if given the opportunity?

I’ve been thinking about this one like A Lot so buckle up this is long: 

it would kind of depend? On whether or not he’d be in an ensemble team like Teen Titans or with his own solo series. 

I understand metatextually why he became Kid Flash in TT, since they needed him to be more mature and a more recognizable character and having him upgrade costumes/codenames is a good shortcut for both. But I’ve already talked about why it didn’t sit right with me. 

So, lets flip the script a little bit - the start of TT would be largely the same. Our boy Bart is on the new Titans team, and things are kind of awkward after YJ disbanded, also Max is gone and Bart’s relationship with Wally is still not doing great. Things are rough, Bart has newfound doubts to deal with, especially now that the world seems to have gotten harsher and everyone seems to have a lot less patience to deal with him. The pressure to be more mature and a recognizable character is coming from other characters now rather than an authorial need: he’s reminded to take things seriously, or that he should know better by now, that he needs to slow down and think more. So Bart decides a change is necessary, and we get the library scene. He reads all the books, he reappears as Kid Flash, saves Tim via bullet catch, disassembles a gun, takes down Slade, etc. etc. Here’s my departure from canon though: it doesn’t work. 

Kid Flash is not a solution, or a magical cure for immaturity. Reading a whole library so he’s miraculously smarter and more mature and capable is, at its core, a pretty naive conclusion. And it makes sense he would think that. But it doesn’t work. He’s still impulsive, distractible, hasty. He can’t put a lid on his own sense of humor. People still think he’s annoying or lazy or careless. And he keeps trying - he knows all this stuff now, he read a whole library! - but he’s still apparently too much the same person as he's always been. And even though he’s trying very hard to live up to the Kid Flash name, it still doesn’t feel like him. Wally doesn’t like it, since Bart is literally just imitating him now, which makes things between the two even worse. And Bart keeps worrying about what’s supposed to come afterwards, since “Kid Flash” is inherently temporary, and while Impulse was only peripherally related to the flash legacy, Kid Flash comes with expectations. 

Bart is trying very very hard to be ‘grown up’ and ‘mature’, but he hasn’t actually learned anything other than a bunch of facts (which are still useful, but) he’s just trying to be who everyone expects him to be. 

And this is what i mean about the ensemble thing, because this arc would be in conversation with the rest of the core four, who are also trying very hard to be people they’re not, but all in different ways. Bart obviously with the codename change, but Cassie, Tim, and Kon all have similar issues, they’re all trying to imitate people. 

Tim is doing his Batman jr. routine, reverting back to the persona he had at the start of YJ. He’s cagey and mysterious and does questionable things without telling anybody, because he’s de-facto leader of the team again, and he has to be better than he is. No more kid stuff, the Titans are serious, he has to treat it like a job, not like a sleepover. And this whole act is putting distance between him and his friends. 

Cassie is trying her hardest to put herself in a support role. Donna’s gone and she has some big shoes to fill (she and Tim could probably bond about that if he weren’t stubbornly trying to brood at all hours of the day) and she’s doing her best to just Be Donna. Cassie and Tim would work better with their team roles swapped, and they both sort of know this - Cassie is naturally charismatic, thinks on her feet, can maintain good PR, and when she’s confident in herself is great at leading. Tim is partial to planning ahead, secrets, and keeping in the shadows, and is better at being a confidant and emotional problem solver among the team (when he allows himself to be open among friends, that is). 

But they’re both trying to fit themselves into what they see as pre-ordained roles: Robin is leader, Wondergirl is a supportive mediator. But Cassie’s got a temper and little patience for people being idiots, and Tim’s not predisposed to spotlights. 

Kon on the other hand has a story that’s less about who he should be and more who he shouldn’t be. The Lex Luthor dad storyline is here (minus the mind control shit, although the threat of it is still brought up) and Kon is doing his level best to do nothing that could be interpreted as something Lex might do. While everyone is doing their best to Not be their own person, Kon has no idea if he ever was his own person. He’s questioning everything he does, wondering if it’s some kind of evil gene showing through when he’s angry or petty or selfish. He’s going through lots of clone angst. 

So they’re all dealing with expectations and who they are or aren’t supposed to be, trying to fit themselves into boxes that don’t suit them and then convincing themselves that this is how it ought to be. Kon ought to avoid feeling or acting in any negative light because any sign of Luthor is a sign of evil, Cassie ought to tone herself down and act like Donna, Tim ought to step up and lead the team and act like Dick, and Bart ought to listen better and be smarter and slow down and grow up and do his level best to just Be Wally. 

Throughout the issues they’d all get a spotlight on their various crises, taking them through complimenting character arcs. Kon would realize through a couple close encounters and chats with ma and pa and talks with his friends and citizens of metropolis that nobody is all good or all bad. Clark can be a real asshole sometimes and Luthor’s actually done a fair bit of good (usually in his own interests, but still we’re gunning for nuance). Turns out he doesn’t have a dark side to be tempted by, he was made from 50% complex person and 50% complex person, just like everyone else. Which means he isn’t destined to be the next Superman, or Superman’s next supervillain. He’s just like, a person. With his own thoughts and feelings that have nothing to do with genetics. 

Tim would wear himself out and hide it from everybody until he killed himself, but it’s only when he sees Cassie also wearing herself out too that his ‘somebody needs somebody’ instincts kick in and they’re actually able to talk about how miserable they both are. Through some trial and error they’re able to figure out a good co-leader system for leading the team, having each other’s backs along the way, which allows for them both being able to help out the other members of their team with their own shit i.e. Kon and Bart’s identity issues. 

Bart is, like Cassie and Tim, wearing himself out trying to be this perfect version of Wally that never actually existed. He actually hates the recognition the new name gives him, because people have expectations for him now, ones he can never seem to live up to. He’s bad at following orders still, which makes him a pretty shit sidekick for Wally, in fact he’s just pretty shit at being a sidekick in general. But, he reasons, he’s supposed to be grown up and responsible now, and responsibility is all about doing shit you hate until you die, so he’s probably on the right track. 

It’s only later, once he gets some support from his friends, who help him deal with things like Max and YJ disbanding and stuff that he’s able to actually sit down and have a heart-to-heart with Wally. Wally confesses that he understands the pressure to live up to a legacy, and how he did his best to just Be Barry when he became the flash. In fact while Bart was trying to live up to Wally and be a good sidekick, Wally was trying to live up to Barry and be a good mentor. Wally’s the one to tell him that Bart’s always done his own thing, and is at his best when he does. They both agree they suck as partners, but maybe they should’ve tried to be family first. And there’s probably a racing metaphor in there somewhere because speedsters love their racing metaphors. 

ANyway Bart returns to Impulse, forging a new path, getting along better with Wally now and hanging out with him just as civilians with no pretense. He learns some valuable lessons about how maturity can’t be learned in a book, and that he’ll get it himself the more he lives and learns from experience. The Titans all get along better now that they’re all sure of their places in the group, and they can all go on just being themselves without worrying about expectations or roles to fill or whatever. 

...If Bart still had his solo series instead though, id actually want it to go in a sort of different direction? The thing about living up to predecessors and trying to be some ideal version of another person works well for the Titans because they can all deal with a similar issue in different ways, but I think it would also be interesting to do the complete opposite. 

Lots of shitty things happened in very quick succession in Bart’s life that he had no control over: Max’s disappearance, having to move in with Jay and Joan (who are nice, but whom he barely knows,) leaving his friends in Alabama, Young Justice breaking up… Basically, things kind of suck for Bart, and all he wants is for them to go back to the way they were. Instead of trying to be grown up or mature or whatever, Bart is resisting every single encroaching thing about coming adulthood. Because all growing up ever seems to mean is that everything changes and either you have to leave the people you love or they have to leave you. 

So this series would focus mostly on that, both in his civilian life; going into high school, not knowing anybody, the few friends he does make are less interested in ‘kid stuff’ and more focused on dating and interpersonal drama, high school itself seems to be geared entirely toward the “what are you going to do with your life” question, when he visits his old friends back in manchester, they’ve all kind of grown up without him. And in hero life; everyone from Young Justice is trying to move on and not talking to each other, his father figure and mentor is gone and he's not really jiving well with the rest of the flash family, and people just seem to have less patience for Impulse now that he’s older. 

Growing up is hard. It’s hard and no one understands. Especially not when you’re also a superhero and have dealt with some quality trauma like losing loved ones and feeling yourself die. So it makes sense that Bart would resist that in every way possible, do his best to pretend like everything is still how it used to be, for once in his life just trying to make everything stay put. He refuses to get rid of his old stuff, he doesn’t want to treat any villainous threats seriously, people in school keep talking about college and jobs and tuition fees and Bart wants none of that, he acts out, refuses responsibility, gets reckless under the pretense that he never used to have to be cautious. 

And this is the part where I’d bring in Inertia, cause Thad was robbed and I want him to have an actual arc that doesn’t end with infant-splosion. Also he can have a good ol companion arc to Bart. Welcome to foils everybody, where two identical boys with opposing life experiences get to thematically compare and contrast with each other as they deal with the trials and tribulations of growing up. 

So, I’m ignoring every appearance Thad ever made after Impulse 1995, picking up instead where his story left off where he swore vengeance on his creators and disappeared into the speed force. And he’s off to do exactly what he said; Thad Thawne II is going to kill his namesake/grandfather/creator - the president of Earthgov. 

But, turns out assassinating the president of a whole fucking planet is a lot harder than he thought - Thad has planned extensively for every moment of his life, so once he starts going off script things predictably go a little off the fuckin rails. Thad fails, obviously. For one because despite how much President Thawne might deserve to die, Thad at this point hasn’t done anything worse than attempted murder, and making him a killer would put a wrench in any kind of redemption arc he could have. Also he’s acting on rage, in a highly emotional state, basically going up against the entire government. Of course he’s going to get caught by the science police and brought into custody. 

Bart, meanwhile is jumping with both feet into any kind of escapism he can find, which involves various time travel shenanigans and lands him in the 30th century. He gets to reunite however briefly with his mom, but the mission he had gets derailed by the appearance of Inertia. 

Every time Bart and President Thawne interact, the president always seems to make a bid to sway Bart to the Thawne side. This never works, which is part of the reason Inertia exists in the first place; a version of Bart that the president could control. When Inertia landed in the 30th century, hell bent on assassinating his creator, the President subdued him and eventually coerced him back over to the Thawne side of the family feud. No longer a rogue agent, Inertia is back to his old self, all about destroying Bart and the rest of the Allens. 

They have a battle, taking place all over the 30th century city, and Bart does his best but Inertia has the entire Earthgov police force on his side, and Bart eventually gets captured. He gets taken to some kind of holding facility, meets with the President who monologues as him while Inertia stands beside him like a good lackey. Then suddenly the speed-inhibiting cuffs or whatever Inertia had put on Bart to stop his speed malfunctions, and Inertia drops the act, now Impulse and Inertia working together to take down the Earthgov people holding them there. 

Turns out as soon as Inertia knew he couldn’t take out the president, what with all the military force President Thawne had on his side, he bided his time until he could. He uses Bart’s help to finally get President Thawne cornered, and the assassination plan is back on track. Except now Bart is the thing stopping him. He makes the argument about how murder bad. Heroes don’t kill, etc. Inertia insists he isn’t a hero. But Bart reminds him that that’s not how Max saw him. 

Inertia hesitates just enough that President Thawne is able to get away, and now the two of them have to make an escape attempt back to the past. Bart insists on trying to take Meloni with them, and they try but ultimately fail somehow (maybe someone has to stay behind to make sure they can make the trip safely, idk. At first Thad is willing to stay behind, since there’s nothing really for him in the past. But Meloni knows that President Thawne would destroy him if he did, and she can’t let harm come to either of her sons - and she does consider Thad her son, just like Bart. She’s had far too little time with either of them, but she loves them all the same. She tells them to take care of each other, and is the first to encourage them to be like, actual brothers.) 

After yet another tearful goodbye, Bart swearing he’ll find a way for them to all be together again, Bart and Thad go back. And they do end up having to lean on each other, because shit’s tough for the both of them. Thad initially wants to apologize and possibly reunite with Max and Helen, and then finds out Max is gone. And Bart has someone who understands exactly what he’s going through. 

Things get a little more lighthearted from here. Bart and Thad don’t get along well at first, since they’re both going through rough times and lots of changes and their first instincts are to lash out at each other. But eventually they form a sort of camaraderie through shared grief, then shared fish-out-of-water experiences. Which evolves into shared inside jokes and video games and comic books and they become slow but steady friends. 

They upgrade into brothers when Bart defends Thad against the repeated (and not entirely undeserved) suspicion he receives from the rest of the Flash family. Jay and Joan take him in, but it’s clear they don’t trust him, and neither does Wally. Bart stands up for Thad, arguing that he’s as much of a Thawne as Thad is, and treating Thad like he’s the next Cobalt Blue is just going to ensure that history never changes and stupid family feuds are forever. After this, Thad starts trusting Bart a little more, and kind of solves Bart’s problems regarding encroaching adulthood with his friendship. Neither of them really had a childhood, and Thad hasn’t experienced 21st century life at all, much less the societal expectations to grow up. So Bart gets to have fun again, and Thad won't judge any of his games or his books or his attitude or interests for being childish or lame because he’s fascinated by the experience of anything regardless of the target audience. 

And from there it's a series about these two becoming brothers and growing up and the different lessons they learn and wacky characters they meet along the way. Thad ironically also puts Bart in a position where he has to take on more responsibility, since even though Thad can imitate heroic actions and is actually pretty good at it, he doesn’t understand what makes them heroic. Bart has to draw on a lot of the things Max taught him and now has to teach them to Thad. 

There’s crossover comics with Superboy, where Bart laments about having to deal with grown up stuff, and Kon gives him a new perspective on the whole “being young forever” thing, since that was a reality Kon actually had to deal with and it sucked. 

Through various misadventures they meet new and familiar characters to give them different perspectives on the whole passage of time thing. Villains who despise children or childish things, villains who embrace it but probably too much. People who talk about growing up as the worst time of their lives, others talking about it like it was the best. Kids and adults alike trying to force Bart and Thad to act a certain way while treating them another. 

The two of them come to opposing conclusions about this; Thad wants to embrace change completely, partly because he wants to experience firsthand all that life has to offer, but also his worldview depends on believing that anyone can change, and anyone can be better, because he has to believe he can be redeemed for all the shitty stuff he did. Bart, on the other hand, knows his life isn’t perfect but thinks, based on recent events, that it’s all just going to get worse from here, and so resists change as much as possible. 

Thad, in his haste to experience everything, sometimes ends up going too far, either burning both of them out, or pushing them into situations that they’re not ready for or are ill-equipped to handle. Bart, on the other hand is so resistant to change or responsibility that he stops them from doing actual necessary things like planning their futures or doing chores or making new friends. This acts as the crux for their main conflict that slowly builds throughout the series, and then in a finale to the arc, they both figure out a way to get Meloni back to the past, and to raise some stakes they have a falling out in the middle of the mission about it. 

Bart accuses Thad of trying to leave him behind, or trying to be the better version of him again, and that old insecurity about Thad replacing him crops up. Thad thinks Bart just can’t handle anything outside his personal bubble and wants to force him to live in the real world. Plus he also feels kind of abandoned by Bart, who often would leave Thad to do the scary adult things on his own. 

Tensions still high, there's suddenly an external threat to deal with - probably president thawne and the science police - and they attempt to continue arguing even while fighting the president. I’m making this up as I go so lets say yada yada big climactic moment it's looking like the two might fail to get Meloni back and they’re both still angry with each other and Bart just… can’t take it anymore. 

He keeps losing people, and the ones he keeps he always seems to screw up with. And at the end of the day he’s just a kid who wants his mom. Is that really so much to ask? So there’s a reversal, a parallel, if you will, of the assassination attempt from the beginning of the series, this time with Bart. Or, because I don’t think many people would buy that Bart would actually ever for real kill someone, maybe he’s finally about to get his mom back, but she doesn’t want to go (since she made that deal with the president that he wouldn’t harm anyone of the Allen family so long as she stayed with him) so he’s trying to force her, risking the lives/well-being of the entire Allen bloodline across all of time. 

This time it’s Thad who has to talk him down, who has to remind him about being a hero, who has to remind him that trying to go back to some magical time in the past where things were better is just going to stop him from learning and growing as a person, and that doing anything and everything possible to get there is just going to lead to Bart doing something he Actually Can’t walk back from. 

Alright but here’s the thing because having Bart be forced to leave his mom again for like the billionth time is tired and overdone, and personally the whole message about heroics involving extreme and damaging amounts of sacrifice can only go so far. So here; Thad and Bart are both right. 

Like on the one hand, yeah, it’s childish and selfish for Bart to want to be with his mom at the expense of literally everyone else in his family. On the other hand, the fact that they can’t be together because some asshole is upholding a stupid grudge is bad and unfair and wrong. The issue needing to be fixed is not the kid who wants his mom, it’s the jackass keeping them apart (and who also wants to kill/imprison people). So Bart convinces Thad that they have to save Meloni, and Thad convinces Bart that there has to be another way - one where they get their mom back and the Allens don’t have to be hunted. 

The whole story would be leading up to the two of them coming to this conclusion; the healthy middle between the two extremes. Where they have the maturity to plan ahead and sort through their differences and figure out the best course of action with the least amount of collateral, but they don’t let go of that adolescent need for justice and fairness - that thing that makes you dig in your heels and say “no. That’s not fair, that’s not right.” 

SO here’s where I’d put the title card: “Bartholomew and Thaddeus Take Down The Government”. How do they do it? No idea! I’m flyin by the seat of my pants here! Do they run for office? Do they publicize the president’s crimes in such a way he gotta go to jail? Do they somehow turn public opinion against him enough to get him out of office? idk!!! And I don’t remember enough about Earthgov’s political situation to put an accurate read on what exactly they might do to disrupt it. 

Either way they don’t kill him, manage to free their mom, and they all go back to the past together. And a new arc would involve the three of them getting settled in the past; Meloni would be a main character now, and hers is a two-pronged fish out of water story where she’s trying to figure out how shit works in the past, with overtones of the struggles of being a single parent. 

And... I’m not going to say any more about that because this is long enough already oof. 

TL;DR I think a coming of age story would be cool for Bart, and having to deal with growing up when he never really had a childhood. Also the comic itself would be aimed at younger audiences, who can probably relate to having a Bad Time in the Teens and wacky hijinks with friends and siblings.

[maandags]

Eidolon (Angel!Keith x Demon!reader) {part v}

*goes into hiding for 23455 years*

– – –

Summary: Keith is an angel, and he’s completed mission after mission for the Upper Hand, the organisation controlling all of the Above. He’s only failed a mission once: when he was assigned to kill you, a surprisingly charismatic demon. He roamed Earth–Middle Ground–for years before he was caught by the Upper Hand again, and things quickly go south.

Genre: angst YEEEET

Word count: 6.2K

Notes: masterlist - {previous} - {next} -- me: *doesn't update for 67 years* *updates* *doesn't update for 67 ye

– – –

And when I fall to rise

with stardust in my eyes

In the backbone of night, I’m combustible

~ King of The Clouds, Panic! At The Disco

– – –

“I got you caramel popcorn.”

You look up from where you’re tying your boots and raise an eyebrow. “Beg your pardon?”

A plastic box filled with the sticky treats lands on the couch next to you. “Caramel popcorn. You like it, right?” Keith runs a hand through his hair and plops down too, giving a small wince. He’s trying very hard to hide the fact that he’s still feeling pretty beat up, but he’s not very good at it. Or maybe you’re just very skilled at reading him.

You cautiously take the box, pop off the lid and pluck one grain from its siblings. “I do like it.” With a flourish, you stick it in your mouth and smile at the sweet taste. “How’d you know?”

Keith looks down. “You probably mentioned it while I was… out.”

Your fingers, halfway down the box already, freeze. “Say what now?”

He shrugs stiffly, the shirt draped over his lanky frame only barely moving with him. He’s lost so much weight while he was sick, and it’s affected him more than he cares to show. He still tires easily, needs a lot of sleep. He gets nauseous faster, and gets dizzy when he stands up too abruptly. Over the past few days he’s been getting better, staying up with longer intervals between naps every time but he still isn’t quite back to normal.

And it’s bothering him. You can tell it’s bothering him. He tries to help you in any way he can, though those aren’t many. You’ve had him buy groceries a few times so you could come straight home from work–but that was often quite late in the evening, and you right now you’re just about to leave for work.

“I keep getting these flashes of memories that aren’t mine. And–well–you’re the only person I’ve talked to for about two weeks, so I figured they were yours.” He gives a nervous laugh. “Well, practically the only person. I’m guessing it wasn’t the grocer who leaked some of his memories into my brain.”

“No. ‘Cause that would be weird,” you say, carefully removing your hand from the popcorn and placing the bucket on the low coffee table in front of you. Suddenly you feel cold again.

“Look,” he starts, and you firmly keep your eyes on the bowl of popcorn, not wanting to meet his, “I don’t know what you did or who you went to for whatever it is that cured me. But I do know that you saved my life, and I’ll forever be in your debt for that.”

“Keith–”

“No, seriously. I don’t need to know everything. That’s completely fine. But I don’t want you to get hurt because you were trying to help me.” And he sounds so sincere, like he means every word, and you look away and purse your lips and tug at your shoelaces because he’s really not making things easy for you.

Whenever you think you finally have your thoughts out in a row, Keith swoops in and says a line like that one and makes everything foggy again. He could have drop-kicked you in the stomach and you would be less confused. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You wonder if he’s doing it on purpose–if he knows you’ve been tasked with a mission that’s nothing short of impossible.

Not impossible in the literal sense of the word. In fact, it would hardly be a challenge at all; Keith’s still weakened and even without your knives you could overpower him in half a second. No, the impossibility of the task lies in a more complicated and nuanced territory: your morals. Your feelings towards him, to be exact, and how much you can ignore them. If you even want to ignore them, and up til now that’s not looking very likely a possibility.

The portal pass Prince Lotor gave you sits untouched in a locked drawer in your nightstand. At night, when the only sound filling the air is the nightlife of the city, you can feel it pulsing beside you, beckoning to be used. It’s tempting you, whispering for your touch, begging to return home. As far as you know, portal passes don’t have expiration dates, but you’re still hoping that the call will eventually weaken until you don’t even notice it anymore.

No, giving Keith up to the Below isn’t an option. But he’s growing stronger every day, and at one point he’s going to leave. He’ll leave, and you won’t be there to protect him anymore, and that means he’ll be fair game for any Bounty out there who caught word of the prize his capture will grant.

And really, you just want him to stay.

You want him to stay because your life has been infinitely more interesting since he showed up. You want him to stay because you took care of him for a week while he was dying, and you’re the reason he’s here, alive, in the first place. You want him to stay because you’ve grown to like him–and because he understands you in a way no one else can.

“I’m not hurt,” you assure him. Your fingers ghost over his briefly before you pull them back to your lap. “I won’t get hurt. I promise.” He gives a tentative smile and you zip your hoodie up over your t-shirt. “Let’s focus first on getting you all healed up, all right?”

“I’m fine!”

“Keith, you tripped over your own shoelace and immediately knocked yourself out. You almost threw up after going out onto the rooftop.” You tug a soft hat over your ears and, after a small moment of hesitation, grab a last small handful of caramel popcorn and cradle them in your palm. They really are good. “I’ll be back this afternoon. If anything’s wrong, call. I might not pick up right away but I’ll call back.”

He sighs, tugs at a strand of dark hair. “Okay. Bye.”

You snatch up your keys and open the door. “Take a nap,” you smile over your shoulder. You don’t stay to see his reaction.

– – –

The day goes by as most work days go by, and you huff out a breath when you sink onto a chair around lunchtime. “I’m taking my break,” you tell Emmie–the real Emmie–and she nods. It had been pretty weird to see her and the others for the first time after the whole Bountyhunter fiasco. You were pretty sure none of them noticed how you stiffened when they’d greeted you first thing in the morning, and even if they had they would probably just think you had a rough day or something.

Your phone buzzes and you jump. Before picking up, you glance at the caller ID. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Oh, did I get it right? I always forget when you have your lunch break,” Allura says.

“You got it right. I’ve literally just sat down.”

“Fabulous. It’s the hospital, you know. Messes with your perception of time.”

“I’ll take your word for it. I wouldn’t know.”

“Nah, you wouldn’t.”

You shake your head, but a smile tugs at the ends of your lips. “Did you just want to chat or did you need anything?”

“Nah, I just wanted to chat. We haven’t talked in ages! And also you won’t tell me what you’re doing or what’s going on or who is staying in your apartment… you know. Breezy stuff.” Her tone is light, but you can tell she’s a little pissed at you for ghosting her, and you honestly can’t blame her.

“Allura… I’m really sorry about that. My life’s just been really messy for the last two weeks or so. I’m working on it, I promise.”

She sighs, and you imagine the way her lips purse as she glares out into the distance. “You know,” she says suddenly, “I think I’ve been a pretty good friend so far.”

It takes you aback, and you choke out a startled laugh. “You have been. I mean, you are. You’re the best.”

“Then why won’t you tell me what’s going on? Maybe I could help.”

You lick your lips, lightly kicking at an empty cardboard box on the floor. “It’s hard to explain. I–it’s–it’s complicated.”

“Right.”

“Listen, I want to explain it. I do. You deserve to know what’s going on, but… I’m afraid of what you’ll think if I do tell you. And I’m afraid–” You only just manage to cut yourself off and swallow the words about to tip from your tongue. You let your head fall back. “Okay. What if we meet up tonight? After work? And I’ll explain what I can, okay?”

She’s silent for a moment, then says, “Fine. Okay.”

Silently, you let out a breath you’d been holding. “All right. Uh, how about the park? Let’s say half past eight?”

“Sounds good to me.”

You switch your phone to your other ear. “So, uh, see you then? I guess?”

“Okay. Bye.”

“Bye,” you say, but she’s already hung up. You growl, squeezing your eyes shut and raking a hand through your hair before rubbing your temples. “Fuck.”

Is this whole ordeal worth jeopardising your friendship with Allura? No. But then again, how much of a choice do you really have? What are you going to tell her? Oh yeah, I’m actually demon, and I kind of saved an angel that I then later learned is on the lam so now I’m harboring a fugitive. It just doesn’t ring very well.

But you’re going to have to tell her something. She’s starting to get suspicious–she has every reason to. Maybe you’ll just have to improvise a bit.

A glance at your watch tells you that your break ends in ten minutes, and you haven’t even had your lunch yet. You stand up and make your way to the snack dispenser, logging in a coin and, with a fair amount of shaking and punching the already-battered sides of the machine, plucking out a pack of raisins and a chocolate granola bar. Not much of a lunch, but oh well. Keith would have your head if he knew these were your only nutrients of the day.

Then you shake your head and frown. Since when do you care what Keith thinks?

As you nibble on the granola bar, you contemplate your phone that you laid on the coffee table in front of you. Part of you wants to call your home phone. Just to see how Keith’s doing. What he’s been up to (in the whole five hours that you haven’t seen him). Stupid, you tell yourself. Stop it. He’s fine. He’s a grown angel, for Hell’s sake. He can take care of himself.

Really, you just want to hear his voice. It’s comforting. He has a nice voice.

But you mentally scold yourself. Just because you decided you won’t turn him in doesn’t give you an excuse to get all cuddly with him. So you lick the last of the chocolate from your fingers, straighten your blue work shirt and stuff your phone in your back pocket. Tony allows phones in pockets as long as they’re switched off, so you make sure you do just that before you push the door open and resume your shift.

“Keith?” You shout his name before you even properly entered your apartment, and you’re greeted with an irritated hum from where he’s half passed out on the sofa. “Have you just been sleeping the entire day?”

“Hm.”

“Good for you. Wish I could get more than four hours’ sleep a night.”

He cracks open an eye. “You only get four hours’ sleep a night?” Oh. Not as unconscious as you thought.

“No, no,” you quickly lie, “nah, I was exaggerating. I get plenty of sleep. Don’t worry.” You kick off your shoes and drop your keys in their little box. “But you sleeping is good. It means you’ll feel better soon.”

“Hey, hey,” he says, suppressing a yawn and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, “don’t change the subject.”

“Keith. I told you I’m fine. Drop it.”

“No.”

You raise an eyebrow.

He looks at you, squinting with fatigue, but his eyes are determined and glint. “You look like crap. You’ve been working your ass off when you look like you can barely stand on your feet. I didn’t want to say anything because–well–I figured it wasn’t my place to tell you you should rest,” he adds, a bit awkwardly, but voice still firm.

“It’s not,” you say, eyebrow still raised and feeling your shoulders stiffen with ever word falling from his lips.

“But you should. Rest, I mean. I don’t know why you won’t take care of yourself, but I don’t want–” He catches himself before the end of his sentence, and when you narrow your eyes you think you can spot a faint blush dotting his cheeks. “Anyway. Just… be careful, okay?”

“Sure.” For some reason, it’s easier to be curt when he’s worrying about you instead of the other way around. Though you don’t think you’ll actually stop being worried about him until he’s a hundred percent back to normal, but him reaching out and voicing his concerns about you has your emotional walls immediately shoot up.

Up until now, you hadn’t realised how much you’d started to let them down.

You grab a cup and fill it with water, leaning against the doorframe to the kitchen as you gulp it down. Keith’s gaze is still fixed on you, and you pointedly direct yours at the floor.

“Y/N–”

“Keith. Drop it. Seriously.” You set the empty cup down on the kitchen table, maybe a bit more forcefully than necessary. “I’m actually going out tonight.”

He frowns, and again there’s that flash of concern that has you resist the urge to roll your eyes. “I’m just meeting up with a friend. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but you don’t have to wait up for me if you want to go to sleep early. God,” you add with a scoff when he purses his lips, “don’t look so disapproving. What are you, my dad?”

“Y/N–”

“I’m going out.” Your voice is quiet but icy, and you can see Keith knows he won’t change your mind.

He closes his eyes briefly. “At least eat something before you go.”

“I’ll get takeout on the way or something.” You turn on your heel and, after a split second of internal debate you pull your scarf from its place on the coat hanger and wrap it around your face. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

You don’t even wait to hear his answer.

Allura’s waiting for you on your bench, her purple scarf pulled around her cheeks and her hair piled atop her head in a bun. She looks up when you approach, then shifts a little to the side to make room for you. Her eyes are narrowed, though you suspect that’s due more to a mix of fatigue and a protection against the cold wind than it is anger against you.

“Hey,” you say, sinking onto the bench next to her.

“Hi.” She crosses her ankles and looks away briefly before focusing her gaze on you again. Her brows furrow slightly. “What happened to you?”

You freeze. “What?”

“I mean, why do you look like that?”

A hesitant laugh rolls past your lips. “Like what?”

“Like you haven’t slept, eaten, or seen sunlight in a week. No, don’t even–hey, look at me.” She grabs your wrists and forces you to look her in the eye. With every second she scrutinises your face the worry in hers grows, and she reaches out to tentatively touch the tender skin beneath your eyes. “Have you been overworking yourself?”

“No,” you say, deflated, though it comes out more like a whine.

“How much sleep have you been getting a night?”

“Allura, stop it. I feel fine.” It’s a lie, and she doesn’t look convinced. “I don’t need you fretting over me as well.”

She leans back. “What do you mean, as well?” Her lips purse and she takes your hands in hers. “Y/N, what is going on?”

You sigh, cursing yourself and this entire situation internally. You have to think very carefully about what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it. You bite your lip, and after a moment of silence you say, “Remember when I called you a while ago about that fever?”

She nods slowly. “And I told you to sweat it out, and you said that wouldn’t work, so I told you to go find my uncle.”

“Right. Well, I did,” you sigh, thinking back to the strange excursion that was the trip by Coran’s shop.

“And did you find what you were looking for?”

“I did.” She raises an eyebrow, rolling her hand in a Go on gesture. You exhale, fumbling with the words in your mind before speaking them out loud. “It wasn’t for research purposes. I needed it because… a friend of mine–well, he’s more like an acquaintance, really–was very sick. And no, I couldn’t take him to the hospital,” you add quickly when she opens her mouth to say something.

She frowns. “Why not?”

You cringe slightly. For some reason, you don’t think He’s not human is going to cut it. “I just couldn’t, okay? Please just–just trust me on this. Listen,” you say, lowering your head into your hands, “there’s some things I really can’t tell you. I just can’t. But I’m trying my best.” Your voice catches and you’re surprised to find your eyes sting. You angrily wipe the forming tears away.

“I’ve known him for a while,” you continue. “But we never really… talked before. Because we come from… different places.” What a way to simplify it.

“So he’s, like… some kind of famous, rich, bourgeois-esque guy? Is that what I’m picking up here?” She’s trying to lighten the mood, you know she is, but the laugh you manage to grit out is bitter anyway.

“That’s one way to put it.”

It’s silent for a while, and the tension that cloaked the air before starts to fade. Allura can be quite hot-headed sometimes, but she doesn’t always manage to stay angry for long–though in this case, she would have every reason to. You’ve been avoiding her, even if you had a good reason.

Then she sighs. “I’m trying to understand, Y/N.” You glance at her, keep your mouth shut. “But it’s hard. And I’m not sure if this is just you being your mystical self, or if there’s something really weird going on, but I don’t like it. At all. Not if this is how it makes you act and feel.” Again she shoots a pointed look at your face. “But you’re asking me to trust you, so that’s what I’ll do.”

Your eyes, that narrowed as you looked down at the ground, snap open and you turn your head around fully to look at her. “Seriously?”

She nods. “Yeah. Seriously. And I don’t like it,” she repeats, shifting to sit on her hands and glaring out into the darkening evening streets, “but I trust you to not do anything stupid. Or, well, anything very stupid.”

And it makes you feel good. A huge weight seems to fall off your shoulders and you breathe a relieved sigh. “Thanks, Allura.”

“Well.” She sits up straight and hooks an arm over the back of the bench, turning fully to you, her mouth curling into a wicked grin. “Now that we worked that out, you’re going to tell me about this guy, because I want to know who you’re risking our friendship for, God damn it.”

Your head tips back. “Allura. Please. Don’t.”

“Nuh-uh-uh,” she tuts. “None of that. You owe me this. Fine, I’ll start easy. What’s his name?”

You slowly roll your head until you’re looking her in the eye. “Keith.”

She nods, grin turning smug. “Where’s he from?”

You flinch. “…Somewhere up north.”

“Ah. Touchy subject?”

“Eh.”

“Fine,” she huffs, “then answer this one. Why would he come to you now if you’ve never even spoken before? You made it sound like he was in serious trouble.”

“He was. And, well… I guess he came to me because he had nowhere else to go.”

Allura hums. Then, “You sound like you care about him.”

You start. “What?”

“You know. You took him into your apartment, you stayed home from work for a week to take care of him, you almost fucked up our friendship for him… that’s not just because you felt sorry for him.” She says it so breezily, the words more a joke by now than anything, but you still wish she hadn’t said them–if only because they ring so true.

“I barely know him,” you protest weakly.

“But you want to. Get to know him, I mean.”

“Fuck, Allura, I wanted to talk, not for you to tell me how to lead my love life,” you groan, sliding along the backrest.

She wiggles her eyebrows. ‘Who said anything about love?”

“Oh my god.” You jump up, dusting off your coat and giving your scarf a vigorous tug. “I’m gonna go now. Again, the coming days–weeks, maybe, I don’t fucking know–might be weird. There’s a bunch of stuff Keith and I need to sort out. I’ll call you eventually, but it might be smart if you kind of stayed out of it? I’d appreciate that. As a personal favour.”

“Uh, sure,” she says, looking equally taken aback and somewhat smug by your sudden flustered and rambly state. “Why’s that?”

“You know. I was already manipulated into thinking you were being tortured to get information out of me, so. I’d rather that doesn’t happen again. You know what, just pretend you don’t know me until I call you, all right?”

She freezes for only a fraction of a second, then scrambles up and grabs your sleeve.“Say what now?”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal.”

“That absolutely is a big fucking deal, Y/N.”

“Figures. I’m really sorry you got sucked into this mess, Allura. You deserve better friends than me.”

Her lips purse, and before you know what’s happening she’s pulled you into a hug. “Please be careful,” she whispers into your shoulder.

You wrap your own arms around her and squeeze. “I’ll try.” Welcome to my shitstorm of a life, you think wryly, then you gently free yourself from her embrace. “I’ll call you when this is all over.”

She nods, and you’re about to walk back to your apartment when something occurs to you. You spin around again, mindlessly rubbing your forearm. “Hey, one last thing.”

“Yeah?”

You bite your lip, hesitate. “Your uncle Coran. He might be able to answer some of your questions. He’s… a special guy. I think he knows more than he lets on.”

Allura gives a small smile, then nods. “I’ll think about it.”

Your living room windows are dark, and that should have been enough to make you suspicious. Keith doesn’t put out the lights until you’re home.

But your mind is still occupied with everything you told–and didn’t tell–Allura, and you’re just feeling good that everything went the way it did. You won’t have to worry about her getting hurt anymore, and the light feeling of maybe everything will be okay after all is the reason you don’t notice anything’s wrong until you turn the keys and open the door to be greeted with darkness.

You freeze. “Keith?” No answer.

Slowly, you flick on the light switch beside you, blinking hard to force your eyes to quickly get used to the light. Nothing. The sofa looks eerily clean and made up. The blanket you gave him sits neatly folded on one armrest. Your heart speeds up, and you make your way over to the kitchen. The fridge’s contents have been rearranged. The tub of caramel popcorn is in the cabinet where you keep your sweets. He’d put it there before leaving. It’s a small gesture, but one so sweet and innocent and final that it makes a fist clench over your heart.

Somehow you sense that this is it; he’s not coming back. This isn’t one of his impromptu errands. He cleaned up after himself, made sure everything looked exactly the way it did before he even set foot in your apartment.

But it doesn’t feel right anymore. It’s empty.

Keith was never much of a presence. He wasn’t loud or brash or in constant need of attention, but he would quietly come sit in the armchair next to you when you were reading on the sofa, or he’d join you at the kitchen table and doodle on a notepad, one foot tucked under his butt and the very tip of his tongue peeking out from between his lips. His company made your apartment feel that little more alive.

Made you feel that little more alive.

And it’s not that you can’t handle yourself on your own. You can do that just fine. But you’d be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy having him in your home. Another presence like you, to remind you that you’re not alone.

And it just feels weird. Why would he leave so suddenly? Without even giving you a warning? Without saying goodbye? It doesn’t make sense, and you sink down onto the sofa, fingers absentmindedly trailing over the fuzzy blanket. The room’s too clean for him to have been kidnapped or murdered; that would have looked way messier than this. No, he went by choice.

It’s late. It’s late, it’s dark, and if Keith really doesn’t want to see you again you don’t stand the slightest chance to find him in the nightly streets.

And yet, half a minute later you find yourself–all the while cursing and scoffing at yourself under your breath–outside once more, narrowing your eyes against the chilly evening wind. You hesitate for a moment, not quite sure of where to go, then you decide to just make your way to the nearest underground station and figure out where you’re headed from there. Keith knows this city, but you know it better.

So that’s how you end up in the underground at half past ten P.M, brain working at a thousand miles per hour, looking for a runaway angel that you know you have a very slim chance of finding. The cart is surprisingly crowded, and you have to crane your neck to find an unoccupied seat. You plop down beside a reading student.

The grind of the track below you makes it hard to think, so you let your head tip against the backrest of the seat and close your eyes with a sigh. A hand comes up to rub your eyelids. “What am I doing,” you whisper to yourself. The student casts you a half-curious look, but wisely doesn’t say anything.

If Keith doesn’t want to be found you doubt you’ll find him–but what if someone else does? What if someone who knows about the price Lotor fixed on Keith’s head finds him and recognises him? He’s in no shape to fight. He can barely stand upright for more than half an hour. He’ll be handed over to the Below, and then… You don’t want to think about what might happen next.

So you have to find him. You don’t know where to start, don’t know if you even can, but you have to at least try.

Your gaze flicks up to the screen where the route is all stippled out. You’re almost halfway, with four more stops to go until the final destination. None of them ring any bells at first, but then one catches your eye. You bite your lip, leaning slightly forward.

It could be. It would make sense.

You could be wrong, of course. But there’s a feeling in your gut. You’re jittery and fidgeting with the buttons on your coat and when the train slowly stops to a halt you’re the first through the doors. Your destination is clear in your head and you round corners without looking, confident that your feet will carry you where you want to go. After all, you’ve walked this route more times than you can count.

The factory is as silent and still as it was the first time you slipped through its broken gates and between its walls. You can hear faint voices coming from a room on the ground floor; laughter, music, chattering. Probably just a private friend get-together. Keith won’t be there.

It feels weird to retrace your steps from that night. The room where your painting still gleams proudly against so many others–an angel and a demon, red wings dripping from their backs. The painting makes your gut twist in a funny way, so you don’t stay very long admiring it. Then there’s the hole in the wall behind it leading to the staircase. You hop through, start climbing the steps at a leisurely pace, keeping as quiet as possible.

Only then do you start to think about what might happen if you do find him.

Up until now, you had only thought about the possibility of not finding him. But what if you do, and he explains why he left and tells you to go away? Or what if he doesn’t want to talk to you at all? Would you be able to let him go that easily?

You almost stop and turn back. Almost. But there’s something about him. Something about him that makes you feel a certain way, and you’d tried to push it down and ignore it but you don’t think you can do that anymore. And with every step you take your heart beats faster until you’re running the last feet up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.

You half expect to see him as soon as you walk through the doorway, but of course that doesn’t happen. You slow to a halt, unsure of where to go first. You take a step forward, and the hollow sound echoes in the hallway. You clear your throat before calling out. “Keith?”

Maybe not the smartest move if you were going for discretion, but you threw caution into the wind when you stepped onto the dark top floor. He’ll be here or he won’t, and you’ll figure out what to do then.

Another step, and you peek through the first doorway. “Hello? Keith?” Nothing. You steel yourself. You’ll go by all the rooms. You won’t leave until you’ve combed through the entire floor.

And then you hear him softly say your name behind you, and you whip around. He’s leaning against a doorway, a faint smile tainting his lips, sweet and genuine but a little sad, too, and all you want to do is run to him and wrap him in your arms and press your lips against his–

But you don’t. “Keith. Hey.”

“Hi.”

You’d wanted to be a little less forward, but just the relief of seeing him caused your verbal filter to completely disappear. You step towards him, your hand reaching for him despite him standing too far away. “Why are you here?”

He raises a brow. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“What–I came to find you, obviously,” you scoff, the words coming out sharper than intended. You screw your eyes shut, your shoulders bunching around your ears. “Sorry. Sorry. I’m just–I’m glad I found you. I was worried.”

He looks down, fingers fiddling with the hem of his shirt. “Right.”

You bite your lip. “Keith.” His eyes meet yours, and you hesitantly close the distance between you until he’s a mere step away. “Why’d you leave?”

A shrug. “Don’t know.”

“Don’t believe you.”

He sighs. “I just–I feel like I’m being a burden. You’re looking more tired and sick every day and I’m just so useless.”

You start, recoiling slightly out of pure shock. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve noticed it, you know.” His jaw sets and his eyes grow cloudy. “How you try and leave the room every time I’m there. Or how you work overtime to make sure you have to spend as little time with me as possible. Or how every smile you give me is forced. They never quite reach your eyes.” His fingers twitch. “But I don’t blame you. I get it.”

You throw a look over his shoulder. The room he chose is empty bar a filthy pillow that looks like it came straight out of the trash and a blanket in the same state. “So you’ll just live here instead.” You kick an old, empty beer can out of the way. “Real homey.”

He shrugs again. Then he shivers, and it’s that small gesture that completely shatters you. Tears form in your eyes. “You wanna know why I did it? Pushed you away?” You don’t wait for an answer. “Because I actually like you way more than I should. And I was scared of what would happen if I let myself get close to you. I still am. But,” you add, nudging his arm, “that doesn’t mean I want you gone or living in a dump like this.”

“So you came to look for me.”

“Yeah.”

Now he smiles, rubbing his eyes. “You found me pretty quickly. That’s rather embarrassing.” With a sigh, he lets himself drop to the floor and props his elbows up on his knees. “Can’t even run away right.”

You scoff, sliding down the wall next to him. “Don’t sound so disappointed. I, for one, am glad I found you.”

His fingers ghost over yours. “Me too.”

And it might just be that you’re very tired because you’ve been on your feet since six A.M, or that you’re so happy and relieved to see him in one piece after running through all the possible horrible scenarios in your head. Whatever the case, you figure that if it isn’t clear now that he’s more to you than just an inconvenient guest, it might never be, so it wouldn’t mean anything if you were to take his hand in yours.

So you take his hand in yours. He stiffens for only a split second, then relaxes. After a while, he whispers, “How’d you know I was here?”

You hollow out your cheeks. “I didn’t. I wasn’t sure, I mean. But… I don’t know. I had a feeling, I guess.” You shoot him a pointed look. “You’re not gonna get sick again, are you? Last time we were here you almost died. I’d like to not have to try and find Coran’s shop again, ‘cause that was a complete disaster last time.”

Keith giggles. “I wasn’t planning to.”

You shove his shoulder with yours. “Moron. Don’t scare me like that again, all right?” The insult is kind of cancelled out by the fact that you’re still holding hands.

“Okay.” He bursts into a coughing fit and you throw him a sideways look, letting go of his hand to awkwardly pat him on the back.

“This is exactly why you need to come home,” you scold softly. “You’re not better yet. Come on.”

He casts you a look, hesitancy painted across his features. You raise your eyebrows slightly. “What?”

But then he shakes his head and pushes himself up again, holding his hand out for you to grab. “Nothing. Let’s go.”

You take it and let him pull you up, and then you’re face to face. Close. Closer than ever before. For a second you’re just standing, holding onto each other’s hands like it’s the only thing tethering you to earth. You want to kiss him. You want to kiss him. Your eyes flick down to his lips, ever so briefly. You want to kiss him.

“Let’s go.” Pulling your hand out of his feels so wrong, but you do it anyway. Reluctantly. You shove your hand in the pocket of your hoodie to hide its trembling. “We’ll take the underground.”

The ride back is not awkward. You wouldn’t call it that, but there is a kind of tension hanging in the air between you and him and you decide that you don’t like it. Another part of you whispers that it’s probably for the better. The tension means you won’t make any rash decisions. It means that you’ll think about the words you say and the things you do, important or not.

Maybe it won’t make a difference in the end. Maybe it will. At the moment it doesn’t really matter, because it’s late and Keith is half asleep in his seat, and you only allow yourself a brief moment to look at him–really look at him, study the little details of his face that would normally be clouded by lines of worry or fatigue. When he sleeps he looks so peaceful, without a care in the word. His skin smooths out. His mouth hangs open ever so slightly. He snores a little. He looks younger and, somehow, free.

But then your stop is announced over the loudspeakers and you startle as the train slowly grinds to a halt. You nudge Keith with your foot. “Wake up.” He groans, blinks a few times before hoisting himself up, softly muttering under his breath.

Your apartment looks exactly as you left it–which is to say, eerily clean and tidy. You pull a face and immediately march over to the sofa, where you shake out the neatly folded blanket and deposit it on a heap in a corner, after which you give the cushions a good shake. Keith stands in the corner of the room, hands in his pockets, a bemused smile on his lips. You crinkle your nose at him. “It felt too… orderly.”

“Because you’re not orderly.”

“That’s right. It didn’t feel like home. Like some unwanted cleaning lady came in and reorganised my entire apartment. I hated it.”

“So you’re mad at me for trying to tidy up your house?”

You roll your eyes. “Not mad. Not about that. If anything, I’m mad because you fucking ran away, but that’s forgiven and forgotten. Look, I’ve made your bed.” You point at the rumpled sofa and try to hide your mounting grin.

Keith shakes his head, laughs, and it’s a sound you will never grow tired of. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

There’s a silence, but this time it’s not awkward in the slightest. The tension’s still there, but along with it is a kind of quiet understanding. A little sad, maybe. A little longing. But it’s something you’ve both accepted as impossible, and at the moment, that’s okay.

Because he’s back. And he’s okay. And really, that’s all that matters.

[sky-chau]

Lets get down to business.

^This is the checklist.^

I will reffer to it frequently.

Ive understood you the past six times. I understand your frustration but you have to think of it from a broader perspective and understand that there are more variables at play than wheather or not nonbinary people feel like an afterthought.

Just so were on the same page I'm going to make a list of things and people (in no particular order, since tumblr likes to re arrange blocks of text anyway.) I have taken the time to consider and continue to have to think about with every edit.

Femmes

POC

Butches

Nonbinary Folk (anyone who doesn't identify as a male or female)

Composition

Color Theory

Merchandising

Replicability

Color Blindness

Epilepsy

Disabled folk

Trans Women

Mainstream Culture

Intersex people

Production cost

Traditional Symbolism

Ease of Understanding

Character icons

Fun edits

Honoring the Dead

Jewish people

Queer history

Making it hard to erase any identity certain people might try to exclude.

The DAD test

So keeping all these things and the checklist in mind lets run shit down and try to fix the flag.

Goal: make nonbinary people feel included.

So NB people don't identify with the fem signs.

That's valid I get that, I gave an all stripe flag for y'all to use as you wish.

But that still makes them an after thought.

You're right I kinda seems that way. How about we just get rid of the fem signs all together!

Here's all the problems getting rid of the fem signs all together:

1: it leaves quite the empty space and feels like a bad composition

2: violates checklist points 2 and 6.

3:the spotlight would be flat out unrecognisable

Well how so?

POC would be unhappy to know that they have been dropped from the flag. Id imagine the same kind of backlash from disabled lesbains aswell.

Why not just make them into stripes too?

1: we all know how much backlash the brown stripes get from white people who think they're ugly.

2: if nonbinary people are represented as a white stripe and disabled people were a white fem sign, what color stripe would we associated with disabled people?

3: too many stripes.

Alright so stripes aren't a great idea, why not change the fem signs into something a bit more nueteral? Like just circles.

1: looses the clever side of the design that has a couple walking down a road or atop a light house, who's sillouhets are the projection for the spotlight.

2: making them into say a circle is rather abstract and would not catch on.

3: would violate checklist points 2 and 4.

4: its just bad design.

Why not add a third sign?

That gets a bit too complicated and starts confusing the message.

So then how do we compromise in a way that is practical and appeals to a mainstream audience but isint racist/albeist?

Well you make the flag more versatile. Give it different forms for different people with different needs.

But why is the one with the fem signs introduced first and one for Enbies introduced second? Why not introduce them all at once? Why have a primary flag at all?

This is what's called boiling the frog.

If you introduce people to the new flag idea starting with 5 flags that can be used interchangeably, they're going to be rather overwhelmed and might find themselves angry at such a preposterous idea.

So what you do is you introduce the flag with the most signage as the "main flag" and for every flag that is a subtraction of signage, introduce it as a resource for editing.

This allows people to use whatever form of the flag makes them most comfortable without making anyone else feel as if though they've been excluded from representation entirely. It also gives the opprotounity to explain to the clueless why you're using the "resource for edits" as the flag. It gives you a chance to explain to the curious the nuances to your identity at a pace that the person questioning would not be overwhelmed by, and might actually have a shot at understanding.

To say one is an after thought when 1.0 also had nonbinary people is truely reading a tad bit too into it and s little foolish considering you've been woven into the fabric of the flag since the very beginning.

Wait, why do we have to appeal to mainstream culture at all? Queer people have never been mainstream?

I think Natalie Wynn (contrapoints) said it best:

"If you want to persuade someone it helps to meet them where they're at"

So what does that mean?

Well it means baby steps. If we wish to educate people on the variety of lesbians we first have to appeal to what they think a lesbian is. Then over time you can slowly slip your more woke and educated points in.

Most people (outside of tumblr) dont know what a nonbinary person is, much less what the signage for them would look like.

But even that is not what lesbians as a whole are mostly concerned about as for us, where people are currently at is still not knowing what fucking flag to use for lesbians. The fem signs give a very difinitve answer to the question "wait what's that new flag suppose to be?" and potentially sparks interest into finding out why a post used this flag instead of the lipstick lesbian flag.

While it's not the wokest flag around it has been made very strategically to make replacing the old flag, easier and make more sence to the clueless onlooker.

Now a little bit about how graphic design and symbols work:

Lets talk about bathrooms for second. More specifically gendered public bathrooms. I know this is a hot topic and a lot of people are on board with having gender neutral bathrooms.

So for the sake of this example working lets get more specific and say were talking about porta potties. Technically all porta potties are gender neuteral, BUT for camping events lasting longer than a few days on grounds with no plumbing they have a womens porta potty.

Womens porta potties are exactly the same as all the others. They even have a urinal pipe for men. The reason that there is a womens porta potty is because some women do occasionally go on their periods and hazardous waste with blood in it has to be treated differently than hazardous waste without.

Now there's alot of different women and not all of them wear dresses. But the sign on the door to the womens portable shitter has a little picture of a person in a dress.

They dont use that signage to alienate people or dictate what women can wear. It simply uses the culture to illustrate what this crapper is.

They could put a biohazard sign on the women's toilet but, all fecal matter is a biohazard, blood or no blood.

Since not everyone is super savvy on what the bio hazard sign would imply about a women's camping toilet, that would be considered hostile design. Its not easy to understand.

Hostile design as a term usually applied to doors, or anti homless spikes but can be applied more broadly.

Now using the fem signs on the lesbian flag is the same as using the little dress person on a bathroom. Its not making a statement about the demographic using the item, it simply serves to make as obviously as possible using the cultural landscape it lives in, what the thing is for/about.

The most common signage used for lesbians is the interlocking fem signs. Using it on a thing simply states that thing that it is printed on is for or about lesbians.

Without the signs, it may be hard to figure out what flag its suppose to be if nobody told you.

Your frustration is valid and I'm not trying to make you an afterthought. Ive put alot more thought, time and, effort into this than I think anyone realizes.

If enough nonbinary people say they really wont use or support the flag I will make a new one, but be warned: I will throw a fit.

I will whine about it not only because I'm a little bitch like that, but also because its actually a fucking challenge that will require starting over from scratch.

But don't get me wrong I am still absolutely HELLBENT on making a flag that works.

[littlebabycrybtch]

like,,,, sld;fsld yall it really is as simple as you unfortunately dont make the rules, the oppressors with power make the rules, ie straight people, and they dont Want aces and dont get nuanced lgbt+ discourse and think we’re just another fucking flavor of lgbt and will treat us as such whether you want them to or not. like. you cant. change that aspect of it with discourse. you can ignore it every time we try and bring it up but ya cant make it go away. literally every time our erasure turns to visibility, cishets hate our existence (yes,.,, even cishet aces,,, bc of the whole ‘ace’ part,,, which isnt cis or het) and it becomes unsafe for us. lmao im so tired of this shit like you dont,,, have a right to talk over us and tell us that isnt the case or smth bc number fucking 1. Yall never listen to us and push us away so how Tf do u think u would even know how ace ppl experience life anymore, if u wont even occasionally let the narrow forced relatable meme personality drop for a sec to show genuine human emotion and think critically about your morals and rampant vicious actions towards a group most of yall can Admit is marginalized lmAo, and 2. you literally would not do this to any other group you viewed as human beings who werent top tier privileged oppressors like. and we have tried to explain soo many fucking times now why we dont have any fucking power over anybody!!! bc ffs on What Earth should we be considered a major threat when we are consistently forced to experience corrective rape and heteronormative prejudice and medical discrimination (ATTEMPTED CONVERSION THERAPY AND DENIAL OF TREATMENT, NOT JUST ‘do you perhaps have trauma?’ SHIT). like. you are the only other group that experiences these things in this way and is capable of providing the support we need to combat these things!!!!! not the group we’ve “chosen”, the ONLY GROUP. THATS WHY WE ASK FOR YOUR HELP. not bc we wanna ruin ur fuckin day and infiltrate the gay resources and say we’re EXACTLY as oppressed as you are, bc yknow what. nobody in the lgbt community is exactly as oppressed as the next! its not that complicated! it never needed this much of debate bc the most basic way to understand this is that if straight ppl dont fucking want us and if you’ve ever met a straight person you know they view anything not 100% straight as automatically gay, and we’re gonna stay struggling with that without outside intervention, what else are we supposed to Do when we experience injustices like this. how are we expected to just be completely okay living like that. smh dont you dare fucking say ‘get over it’ like. lmaooo, thats not how activism works. pls tell me you understand why a struggling group would want you to help them. struggle less. like. less injustices would be rly cool tbh. id like to exist in a not marginalized way bc i shouldnt have to. dont rly think im a bad person for that just bc it means making u go through the arduous process of trying to care about it. like lmfaooo a bad thing happening shouldnt have to be Ignored until you let it get bad Enough for your standard of trying to stop it. harm prevention is a vital part of human decency and if u just wanna wait till shit rly hurts before being sad about it later, 📣 ur not a good activist 📣

so anyways if u see an ace person celebrating pride this year and wanna pop a vein Maybe run the simple concept through your 2 braincells that truth be told we are not allowed to exist in any positive way literally at all besides the CHANCE of being accepted during lgbt+ pride events. it rly is as simple as; This is all we fucking have, as we gain visibility we only receive more hate and violence, oppression is a complicated system and for oppression to take place at one point in time a group is simply vulnerable and targeted as the system is built against them, so if you dont take the ‘in between’ state of not privileged, not yet oppressed as a mandatory time for intervention to prevent worse harm, you are part of the problem of letting these injustices happen. its basic critical and sympathetic thought to understand that you dont need to be bottom of the barrel oppressed to not just face ‘valid problems’, but ones that Deserve to be corrected. facing prejudice and major constant injustices is... not smth to shrug off and ignore, they are actual problems for the ppl that exist under them and we literally cannot just move past them. and tbh ranking these kinds of things slightly lower and trying to prioritize causes is one thing, but ffs there is literally No moral system that should say ‘well some injustices are ok and ppl should just deal with them theirselves'. expecting ppl to support themselves and get over injustices or stop talking about them for any reason isnt progressive! at all! stop letting ace people be constantly fucking miserable and realize we just want ur fucking help and that our basic emotional responses to injustices isnt cringey(TM) its human, 2k19

[kindabraveandlittlestupid]

Should be noted this post isn't about Shawshank Redemption (which was a damn good movie), this post is however about the term “White Privilege” but also about a less popular but still incredibly important term “Black Oppression”. If you’re not the sort to read a long post and just want the quick answer on how I (a Straight White American Male) feel about those words, I know White Privilege IS real. We see it both social interactions, how the police treat white men, how we are portrayed in popular culture, how we the courts rule in our favor when we break the law and all that doubly so when you start to include economic elements. On the other side, there are things that ARE NOT White Privilege such as voting in certain red states where policies are enacted that don’t uplift white voters but instead suppress black voters. This is where I think we need to use the word Black Oppression and differentiate the two things. Below I will provide some examples of White Privilege, some examples of Black Oppression, and some examples where there is both White Privilege and Black Oppression.

This whole point of the post isn’t to challenge the concept of White Privilege but perhaps add some nuance and shift the way we view things between what is privilege and oppression. If only for us to strive for a more equitable and equal society as well as sharpen our wits for when we encounter white supremacists who rely on flaws in our beliefs, values, and logic to further their own hateful agenda. 

As always this is an opinion piece and if you have your own thoughts on the subject, take your time to reply with your own clear thoughts. I appreciate other points of view regardless of race, sex, orientation, political party or creed. I am always looking to expand my views, understanding complex social issues and develop a better foundation for my beliefs.

Medium

The first thing to discuss when dissecting this issue is the Medium, there are other words for this concept I am sure but basically, this is the expectation of how people should/expected to be treated in society. If you’re a registered voter you expect your ballot to be counted, if you run a stop sign you expect a ticket, and if you go into a store you expect to be able to shop without security following you. I am sure some might argue that certain groups of people have a higher expectation for their Medium such as wealthy thinking society is here to serve them but those people have an Economic Privilege and often White Privilege (though I have encountered a healthy mix of other races who enjoy that same Economic Privilege here in Silicon Valley... still mostly white).

No. the Medium in society is attributed itself to a social agreement, common sense and good dose of empathy of knowing how you would like to be treated and wanting that for other people. It’s why we observe lines the way we do and get pissed off when someone cuts deciding they are more important than anyone else standing there. It’s also why we take a little joy in seeing someone with Economic or Racial Privilege have to observe the social medium like everyone else. You know what I am talking about the lawyer who makes 400 dollars an hour saying her time is precious therefore everyone else should wait in customer service while she is taken care of first? Yeah... that was a real encounter I had once.

So once we establish that baseline we can start clearly identifying interactions that seemingly exceed what is expected in society (privilege) or what interactions are well under the medium (oppression). This seems like a good as a point as any to recognize that all these examines require the human interaction. Interactions plagued with prejudices and biases for our choices every day. Sometimes someone deviates a small degree over or under a medium because they are having a shit day. If we encounter someone who slips up, I always advocate forgiveness when someone makes a mistake.

Privilege

The problem with Privilege; be it economic, social or racial is that when you’re in it you don't always know it. Sometimes you’re so wealthy you're used to people waiting on you hand and foot, simply look to the Kardashians, Bieber, or Jaden Smith. These are some people who enjoy wealth so much that when they have a small thing go wrong they bitch about it all day on their reality shows.

As a White Male, I try to reflect on the privileges I might have enjoyed. I try to differentiate between moments where I received better service or social interactions because of my skin color (or gender). I realize there is a possibility that I could also be “blind” to certain privileges but it if makes you feel better if there are things I am enjoying that others do not, I have full intention of trying to pull other people up to enjoy that privilege so that it becomes the new societal medium. I am ranting a little...

The clear privileges I have enjoyed have not surprisingly been with police. Of the about dozen encounters I had with Police Officers about none of them resulted in a ticket. One incident resulted in a car being impounded but I was under 18 and didn’t have a license and even then I paid to have it unimpounded ($700 Dollars) and had the infraction removed from my record with a driving school class. You can call it luck perhaps but for the most part, I have never been given a ticket and when seeing how police treat other men my age who happen to be black with disdain, its easy to see why African Americans are pissed off and I can only have a vague understanding of how frustrating that might be for them.

Oppression

The problem with being Systemically Oppressed is that everyone living/existing on the medium seems like they are privileged. This leads to a fair amount of anger, frustration and pain in various communities. While the general topic is focused on Black and White, it does not take much imagination to project that same oppression on the gay/transgender community, women, other non-christ based faiths or other minority groups (Latinos and Middle Eastern specifically in the US).

I myself have had only small encounters with oppression myself, most of them taking place at the airport as my ass seems to get selected for extra security screenings. I am not sure what website I went to, if my beard is to thick or if that month in Indonesia has flagged me in the wrong way but that is a personal experience where I am observing social interactions below the Medium.

This post isn't about me though so let's give a clear example of oppression today. That example is voting in the United States. Many Red States have been adopting strategies to disenfranchise black voters by removing voting stations, requiring ID’s and limiting hours while keeping other voting locations (in white communities) open for normal hours. This isn't an example of White Privilege as this is how voting should be like that for everyone. No, this is white voters enjoying their right to vote, while the black community is being OPPRESSED from having a say in politics. Ok, there might be some white privilege in there but for the most part, its mostly Oppression that we are seeing, yeah?

We see other elements of Oppression in the courts, police interaction, and also pop culture, mostly in the film and television industry... which now that I think about it is also white privilege considering Asian and Indian actors are still trying to break through. 

Privilege and Oppression

Most examples share above tend to dabble in both Privilege and Oppression, and as I stated this goes beyond race as sex, economics, and other social qualifiers. I felt compelled none the less to point to politics as a system that both explores a great amount of Privilege and utilizes a great amount of Oppression. Leave it American Politics to show White Wealthy Male Privilege in its full swing while Oppressing Women, Minority Groups, and Non-Christians. It’s easy to see why people don't want to hear from a Straight White Male like me when all these douche bags represent the worst humanity has to offer.

Guess you can say I feel a bit bitter on the fact that I see so many memes on Tumblr telling me to shut the fuck up because I look like them *points to assholes in picture* even though I am on board for a more equitable and equal society. *Slaps Cheeks* Keep things in perspective, Mike!

Coming back to examples of both Privilege and Oppression, another prime example is the police. We look to cities where Stop and Frisk policies exist(ed) and you could see how civil rights were secondary to a police officers ‘gut feeling’ that a black man could have drugs or weapon on them. This is an example of Oppression, clear and simple. On the flip side, you have officers waving on white citizens letting them off with warnings which isn't a bad thing in itself but when the courtesy is ONLY given to fair skinned citizens then it is a problem, it becomes Privilege.

Conclusion

White Privilege is real as fuck. Economic Privilege is real. Social Privilege is real. Depending on your lot in life you might be enjoying a great number of Privileges while others might have lower income bracket, from the wrong ethnic background, and have darker skin having a much rougher go at American life. We, the good fair loving compassionate progressives, should aim to balance these issues out. We need to find the moments where someone is enjoying an unfair privilege (like me not really every getting tickets) and bring me back down so that I have the expectations as everyone else. We also need to find the oppressive interactions (often institutional) and correct them as well and make sure everyone enjoys the same quality of life.

If you enjoy privilege in some form or another you have two options. Either bring yourself down and be held to the same standard as your fellow men (and women) OR start bringing other people up to enjoy the same privilege you do so that it becomes the new medium for society and raises the quality of living for everyone. If you feel compelled to do neither then you might be the problem. Thanks for reading.

Regards, Michael California

NOTE: It’s important to measure subjects like this with data and not anecdotal evidence or experiences. I tend to add a few personal accounts to these sort of posts to better appeal to the emotional side of readers but hard numbers display more of the truth than my personal experiences ever could. Driving While Black is statistically proven in the data where White/Hispanic drivers are pulled over about the same rate but black drivers are stopped in excess. This is also true for Use of Force numbers, Stop and Frisk, Searching of Vehicles and even how the courts decide to process the cases. 

Black Men serve 20% longer sentences to their White counterparts charged for the same crime.

Black students make up 18% of preschool enrollments but make up 50% of suspensions.

Applications with ‘Black’ sounding names are 50% more likely to be passed up by employers compared to ‘White’ sounding names.

And this list goes on and on.

If you’re a white guy, who has had a few moments where you pulled over yourself. It is neither a logical or sound argument to say “I have had difficult encounters therefor my experience is the norm and therefore is no white privilege.” Always! Always look to the data and see the numbers for both the state you live in and the country as a whole. Anyone with half a mind to understand statistics can tell there are some major racial biases in our society.

[violetsystems]

#personal

I still haven't gotten my passport back yet. Old or new. I'm sure it's on the way but taking its sweet time. It hasn't been that big of a deal though it's a heavy inconvenience not being able to legally identify yourself. I have an expired driver's license and a lot of paperwork but that's not really good enough for most of Illinois. Work or leisure. I don't drink and don't really frequent bars anymore. I work for myself though I haven't paid myself yet this year. You have to have valid ID to be gainfully employed by someone else here. If I didn't have my life together already it would be more than annoying. I have health insurance still under a subsidy. I had my teeth cleaned earlier this week. No cavities. Mostly due to the electric toothbrush. I bought a waterpik right after. I've been so bored that I've started attacking problems I wanted to solve years ago. There's still drawers full of crap that needs to be thrown out. Lifetimes of shit do pile up if you are focused on other things like a dead end job or selfish personal relationships. I don't have either of those these days. So there really isn't any excuse for dirty drawers. I'm not planning to shit myself anytime soon to revisit the past. Which leaves the present and the future wide open. Much of that is dictated by my love of computers. I figured out how to mine finally. The open source way. I spent a lot of time in a terminal trying to apply the right definitions to scan my phone for the Pegasus spyware. I do think the results were negative so I'd rather not dwell on the past. Being a technological professional I have definitely spent a lot on electricity. That same idea of dirty drawers applies. You turn things on believing that they are ecologically friendly. It says so on the package. You don't dig enough to gather factual data to know it for sure. You get distracted by real life. Headlines. Drama. Nosy neighbors. The list goes on. And all the while, it just keeps bleeding out. I bought these smart plugs. Half of them monitor energy. The other half I didn't read the description close enough when I bought them. The ones that do measure electrical usage, I've set up in high power rooms. Both those and the low power rooms I can kill switch from my phone or whisper to my smart assistant to power off. I pay the electricity for the unit below me as well but that's more the agreement I have with my landlord. The biggest expense for me is always the AC and the heat. The appliances and everything else are just the icing on the cake. My rent has been affordable enough that with a little care and attention I can stay on budget. I never had that freedom or time to feel motivated enough to try. Now I know my razer laptop draws less than my rice cooker. Not that I'm the twelve hour rice in the rice cooker kind of guy. I have cooked chicken in it. What can I say I've had a lot of time on my hands. This happens when you can't identify yourself.

Sometimes you don't want to be identified. My past is so far behind me that it's a broken narrative. I've written about this narrative for years on this platform. I think it's a great place to write. This morning I saw a Tor books ad that looked like a regular blog post. Soon you'll be able to charge a subscription for your content if you wish. I'm not really here for that but I do think it's a great tool for creators. Bandcamp is still the easiest way for me to release music and shirts when I'm super fucking bored. But somehow five or six people always seem to support it when I do. I sold a shirt all the way out on the Ukraine once out of nowhere. I personally find it easier to mine and watch my electric bill right now then to fight to be seen as an artist. But situations do evolve over time under the right circumstances. And community is something I have never complained about Tumblr not having. Real life? Yes I have a lot of room to complain about the lack of community or respect for individual rights and will. But control over things is something I do have. And I've learned how to do that through setting boundaries for myself. I've learned a lot of those boundaries from being part of the culture down here. Unassuming. Anonymous. Hellbent on keeping it real. Chicago can sometimes be the same. It hasn't always been in the past. The fact that I'm completely disconnected from it is a large clue. The past. Not Chicago. I live here. Just like I do on Tumblr. That's a joke. But being able to write and stand my ground has given me a voice here and sometimes in the real world. Sometimes the wrong people listen. Or people get the wrong idea and make it more about them than me. But life goes on. If anything is true from what I wrote about a year ago, it's that I've both changed and stayed the same. There's things I can't escape about myself. Even if I can't prove to the state of Illinois I'm real enough to buy legal weed. Or how I've been fully vaccinated since April. Or how I can just leisurely set up a mining rig for research in my home office. How I can write here and challenge the status quo just by being the exception. Tumblr probably isn't going anywhere, anytime soon. I can't unlock any of my other social media from the past due to unfortunate circumstances related to identity and email. Not that I'm really complaining anymore. I was. As invisible as I am it feels more like a cloaking device than anything. Chicago in the news can be very dangerous and very wild. And yet, if anyone knows anything about me, I walk everywhere. Slow enough for people to follow you for blocks on end. Wanting to be seen. Worried about my safety. Worried about their safety because I left the house for once. Worried about everything. I'm not really that worried. Annoyed? Beyond annoyed. But as angry as I get, negativity does nothing for me to foster. It makes me look like every other secretly insecure white man here and just makes the turbulence around here worse.

If you have time enough to measure the difference in wattage between your rice cooker and your 6700xt gpu on full blast, you probably have time to pay attention to nuance. I pick up on the little things these days. I get that I share a porch with my neighbors and a cat. I get that I share a neighborhood too. I get that as a cis heterosexual white male I operate with privilege. It's not that hard to understand how to humble yourself in the presence of others. It's not hard to see how people have fought for rights harder than yourself. We're all fighting for the same thing. Freedom. I am understanding where I control the narrative and where I'm a guest. Where I don't have a say over other people's bodies, souls, or thoughts. I'm just as frightened by abuses or power and authority and yet they come as no surprise. I deleted everything Blizzard on my systems and am never looking back. I walk anywhere I choose freely with only a few annoyances. Jesus freaks and right wing antagonists are always up in my face trying to get a rise out of me. People think I'm a demon or haunted by some pirate ghosts. I have pretty good intuition and timing. I was a dj for like two decades. Beatmatching and pattern recognition. I get that I scare people and intimidate them just by breathing. Men are scary. Even to me. "Not all men!" Part of the reason people keep their distance from me is something I have to understand. I think we all have to understand who we are and what we can become when we live without care or intention. A lot of people just sleepwalk through this and blame the victims. They feel it's a weakness to share power. Sharing power is what cultivates freedom. But sharing power is almost pure chaos. It takes a lot of responsibility. And a lot of questioning of authority while asking the right questions and not just pinning a tail on a donkey. It's in the nuances and the people where freedom blossoms. Not in the polls or the pundits. We the people signifies something about America we ourselves have lost sight of. People buy their way into office at the behest of corporate and special interest money. The people are out there suffering while the profits guide the government. And it's really only the people who can turn this thing around. Here in Chicago, we know with our heart of hearts what to do. We have done it for so long. We survive together. We may not always like each other. We may feel like people are breathing down our necks and judging our every turn. But we always know where each other stands. We can stand to treat each other better. At least respecting that people have walls built up for protection more often than to hide something criminal. At least give people the space they need to grow. I have a lot of space to mine and play games. If I stay inside, it's so I don't rock the boat. If I go outside, just remember I have feelings too. We all could do better not to get caught up in them because we're overwhelmed by the bullshit. The bullshit we're in together. Respect is what is going to get us through. And I identify as down for the culture. As an ally you have my word. Love is the future. And the future is for everyone. <3 Tim