#its weird that theres only like one person using this approach

[robocorn-fun]

I was so charmed by the emergence of the edgy, theatre-kid, deviantart cartoon after 20 years that I forgot I don't like edgy, theatre-kid deviantart stuff.

[the-s1lly-corner]

Hello how are you :3? I was wondering if you could write E.J., Hoodie, and Masky with a s/o that has a lot of scars? (Toby too but platonic for him) I’m not sure how many people we can request so if it’s too many just Hoodie? I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable and thank you!

Various!Creepypastas w/ a scarred!reader

waaaah im so sorry for not seeing this sooner! i didnt recieve a notification for this ask!! really theres no limit to how many characters you can send in! i think my personal max varies from prompt to prompt!! mix of how they approach the concept of a scarred lover (friend in tobys case) with some hints of fluff! cause of scars will be vague as admittedly i didnt know if you meant general scars or SH! side note i hope this posts right! im writing this on my computer, im used to mobile!! + apologies for any weird wording or typos, im listening to music and im getting hyped!! not proof read we die like my spiderverse brainrot

Includes: Eyeless Jack, Hoodie, Masky and Platonic!Toby!

CWs: touch and go talk of potential past trauma, body image issues, vague mentions of SH(?) in EJs part + Toby's parts

admittedly admin doesnt know if its technically SH due to the nature and motiv but personally id still count it as such and tag it as such

Eyeless Jack;

he gets it, he really does. the basic run down of my hc/take on ej is that he wasnt always some flesh eating monster; just some dude who got caught up in some bad stuff

so naturally, he doesnt... really vibe well with the concept of eating human flesh, which can lead to a few... instances. from intentionally to accidentally harming himself while hes lost in his instincts

so hes no stranger to being a little roughed up around the edges

but hes a stranger to comforting; he'll likely approach it from a logical side before trying anything else. "you've been hurt," before going on a small tangent about the formation of scars. hes not the most... emotionally... good... available... person

so youre going to need to lay out the general basis for what you need for basic comfort, on days where your scars become an issue; be is needing comfort or a distraction. it may take him a while, but hell eventually start to pick up on cues and hints as your relationship develops

otherwise hes very neutral about them, again approaching them with a blunt view; seeing it as neither good nor bad. he doesnt draw attention to them, but he doesnt act like theyre gross

really just. vibing with it, doesnt make a huge deal of it since he feels he doesnt have any place to judge, nor does he feel its his business to pry for information

solid 6/10 imo, hell comfort you if you express that you need it but hell likely not go out of his way to do it

Hoodie;

Soft touches, he almost does it before he has your permission to touch you

naturally he has his own fair share of scars from various.. activities

really im still all jumbled up with how i wanna write him and masky; not sure if i want to make them like how they are in their MH source or lean into the proxy thing that was prominent in the early days of the fandom... lowkey leaning into the proxy thing for this post because im more... versed..? in that, but anyhow

hes more upfront and compassionate than eyeless jack, in fact hes probably the most caring out of the four in todays post... maybe thats because i read one (1) fic years back that changed my entire approach to his character but! yeah

subconsciously trails his hands on them when the two of you are holding one another; something gentle and intimate, not too obnoxious to make you self conscious, but not careful enough to go unnoticed

i view hoodie, and by extension brian if i end up considering him and tim fully seperate from their 'proxy' parts, as a very tactile person

true to the popular fanon interpretation, hoodie doesnt speak much. but that only makes him a better listener, so on days where things get hard, hell let you talk his ears off with anything thats bothering you. very rarely, hell speak up and offer some words of advice, most times hell inch closer to grasp you. though it does get awkward since most the time hes just. blankly staring at you silently without emoting or saying a word

overall? personally hes a 7/10 for me, i would rank him higher if he were more verbal, but thats just because admin has an easier time venting if its a two way convo; but overall hell make sure that your scars dont effect your worth

Masky;

very similarly to hoodie, masky also has his own set of scars for the same reasons

he probably starts pointing out his own scars to you and mumbles about where they came from if he knows their origins

this doesnt mean "oh hes invalidating your experiences and hes trying to make it about himself," but more so "hes showing that he really does get it and he doesnt mean to talk over you"

much like EJ he approaches scars with a very blunt and upfront mindset, but to a lesser extent. he admits that whatever led up to the tissue forming, it hurt. emotionally and physically, and hes not going to deny that simple fact. hell listen to you, have a conversation with you about it, and try to help you through whatever you may be currently going through regardless of if youre injury is relevant.

or at least, thats what hes trying to do.

hes still has his own personal issues regarding going about his own problems in a healthy manner but hey thats something for another post; maybe, if i remember

honestly this post doesnt have enough fluff imo, and i can kinda see masky doing this, but imagine he boops his mask against your scars in a mockery of a kiss (doesnt take off his mask often, in fact youll probably never ever see him without it on), i can see jack doing this too tbh

thoughts? 8/10, gets the bonus points for being less awkward to rant to imo, plus i think asides ej, i think i have a bias for masky for the simple fact i had the fattest crush on him when i was in middle school

Toby;

okay! this one is going to be interesting for one main reason! i actually havent touched tobys character in YEARS! so hes probably going to have the shorter list... obligatory i havent built any solid hcs for him past what was going on in the fandom in the 2010s, before toby briefly became a mild discomfort... but we're back in business baby!! (^^ dont feel bad for requesting for toby btw! hes no longer a discomfort, and if i didnt want to write for him i wouldnt be including him right here!!)

obviously we cant talk about his part without talking about his cheek. and other, similar hcs. while i dont think most of the self inflicted marks on his body were from a place of.. for lack of better words, darkness; it doesnt change the fact he still has them. i think a lot of them are from the fact he cant feel anything; accidental burns, gnawing through his cheek, digging his fingers deep into himself. really i could go into detail, but due to the aforementioned fact that my take on him isnt as developed as other characters + i really dont think its appropriate for this post (or really, anywhere on this account,), ill stop there

while he cant relate to the physical pain of what caused your scars, he can sympathize through your feelings. do you feel sorrow, or anger to whoever hurt you? hell be getting worked up right with you, because to him youre one of his closest friends

i feel like he doesnt talk much about his past, regarding his family. but hed tell you, and you can sure as hell bet that hell do his absolute damndest to grant you the same feeling of security.

hell probably touch and prod without truly meaning any harm, but thats because he can have problems with boundaries, but hell listen if you sit him down and tell him it makes you uncomfortable if it does

more so emotional than outwardly... supportive? idk the words, but hes very empathetic with you and tries to relate to you through emotion rather than feeling what you felt. honestly? kinda based for that, but maybe thats because i dont see feelings about this topic being touched on, usually its straight up about how the scar makes the person look or the physical trauma they had gone through, but idk, maybe thats just a me thing

he can be an asshole at times but hell usually backtrack and cool off somewhere else if you call him out on it imo

not sure if its because as im LITERALLY investigating his characteristics and interpretations as we speak, but i think im starting to relate to him so ER-OH!

anyways, i wish i could make his segment more... in tune with the characters above but its probably going to take me a while until im comfortable with how i portray this dude, which sucks because as a kid he was probably one of my favorites

i dont think im going to give toby a rating like the others; since i dont think i can accurate rate him due to the lack of proper concrete ideas outside of him being empathetic to your emotional pain since he cant relate on how much it hurt

im gonna end this here since im starting to sound like a broken record on tobys part so!

i hope you enjoyed this! characterization may be a little off but i blame that mostly on the fact that i kinda fell out of the loop in regards for writing for these guys (that damn spider movie! the brainrot threw me off my creepypasta grind!/j) but its good to be back writing for this fandom! it was a fun little brain exercise trying to figure out each character goes about this kind of thing without making them all the same!! with that being said, im going to go listen to an audio reading of tobys story so i can regrounded in his character and hopefully do him some justice in the future!

[syrupspinner]

i completed the demo for metaware high school

shoutout to beloved mutual autistic nari for selling me on this, and sorry for forgetting to make this post until now lol. thisll be a long one so strap in!

so i think its safe to say that ddlc really shook up indie gaming from a cultural standpoint. first is that it helped people figure out that visual novels have value as a medium, inexplicably. theres been this weird holdover in western gaming culture at large from like, the 2010s xbox era, where visual novels dont count or something. if people engage with them at all, its dismissively, and people come away with the idea that everything is a sound novel and therefore boring. but like... not only are sound novels good, but ryukishi07's work is the only example of a vn not having an interactive component. dating sims are basically stat managers, detective games require attentive puzzle-solving, and a lot of vns outside that have interesting gameplay hooks like va11hallas drink mixing

all this is to say that i feel like ddlc was designed in a lab to be a 'hiding medicine in the balogna' situation, where people can say that it may be a visual novel, but its totally worth it for the funny viral scares. well, im glad it did, because now it feels like people are very very slightly more receptive to visual novels

but, more importantly, it brought more attention to the postmodern potential of video games as a medium. this isnt the first time that gaming has borrowed aspects of postmodern literature (characterized by interacting with itself and intentionally subverting audience expectation) such as stanley parable's famous use of a unreliable narrator within the context of a controllable story. but ddlc makes it feel ludonarrative. games like oneshot and imscared already paved the way for games that interact with the player as computer files and use this context to create puzzles and simulate a haunted computer, but ddlc was one of the first games to make a character aware of the fourth wall and interact with their negative feelings on the matter. traditionally, 4th wall breaks are treated as comedic, seen best with characters like gwenpool. but... wouldnt knowing that not only is everything in the world fake, but there is only a single person who actually matters? a player that has agency that you are designed to lack, a sole audience member that you are asked to perform for. thatd fuck anyone up.

hence, metaware high school. fun fact, because of how much i associate VNs with high school settings with japanese culture, i keep wanting to pronounce it metawarAY, but that ruins the pun of the portmanteau of meta and aware. i played fucking めたわれ bro.

so its pretty clear that this game is iterating on ddlc, only in the context of being in a demo. in addition, it takes more of a character studying approach to how individuals understand their world. nari gives into despair and helplessness knowing that she is helpless to fight her scripted actions. hope takes a very relaxed and lackadaisical "its just a demo, bro" outlook, izzy is obsessed with fulfilling her role but anxious because she doesnt know what the full game is. the idea that they dont know the full game is interesting, because it brings to mind religious undertones. christians, as children of god, are 'supposed' to live godly lives, and seek fulfillment from something that they can only trust is invisibly real. the difference is that the player is different from the creator. i didnt make izzy, but its still her purpose to demonstrate the game. what is the punishment for failure? what does failure even look like? is it worth the risk to find out?

going back to nari and hope, i find their dynamic really interesting. the game presents nari as a mysterious character to begin with, hardly talking except for the end of routes. personally, i think it makes sense for her to have such a connection to hope. i should capitalize her name so you dont get confused, huh. its funny because nari has a pretty hopeless disposition, resigned to her fate and disillusioned from her surroundings. i dont think she has completely dehumanized the other characters in the same way monika saw the other club members as meaningless code. my view is that nari is just as real as her friends, and any disregard of them is just from post-realization depression. the player isnt more real or more important, at least outside of the demo's machinations that nari is forced to work within, but instead a lovecraftian intruder from outside their schema of reality. Hope sees them as more of, like, some fella. weird glowy thing. i wonder if they like mochi. this isnt out of stupidity or callous disregard, we are shown scenes of Hope being emotionally considerate and using the structure of reality in creative ways (the "what word am i thinking of" gate), so we as the audience know that Hope is making the personal choice to acknowledge the world in a more positively nihilistic way. yeah, its a demo. thats what the world is. wanna get mochi? i like mochi

i think if Hope werent so roxy lalonde flavoured, Aspen would be my fave. nari reacts with despair, Hope reacts with a casual smile and a shrug, izzy reacts with concern and anxiety, then aspen reacts by thinking about how they can directly benefit from the situation. the second they find out the player knows about the future, they sequester you into a very long series of questions. like, im convinced if the the apocalypse was happening, aspen would cheer and go full mad max. i think this extends to why they want the game to be a dating sim so much, because that would be the genre that directly benefits them the most. like, if its a detective or mystery game, theyd have to solve a mystery or die or whatever, but if its a dating sim they get a cool ephemeral entity to date!

and then theres chris. shes something of a mascot for the game demo, so i expect her reaction to reality (read: her personal philosophy) to be pretty important. from her route, we learn that she loves visual novels, and from that she wants to make the player enjoy her visual novel (demo) too. i think this is interesting on its own: if you learned that the world was a game, wouldnt you want that game to be good? especially in the context of the player messing around and taking the piss, where she gets upset that youre not taking her effort seriously. if izzy is the stage director, chris is the lead actor, at least that's how she's appointed herself. actually, her contrast with izzy is interesting, because theyre both the only characters who feel dedicated to performing their roles appropriately. with izzy, it feels more negative, but chris feels more like a sincere and intrinsic dedication. she wants to make the world better, just because shes enjoyed so many other great worlds and wants to spread that feeling to others.

so yeah, this feels like a more exploratory expansion of ddlc's concept. but upon reflection, i dont think theres anyone who copes with their circumstances the same way monika does. monika goes through a sort of philosophical derealization where the player becomes the only thing thats real, but nobody in metaware feels the same level of disconnection in my opinion. nari gets the closest of course, because she has the most intimate awareness of the games code and script, but shes uniquely powerless and is forced to recognize that, in addition to the aforementioned realness of her friends. so she CANT be a yandere, she hates the player for essentially being spoiled by having the whole world live and die by their convenience. ddlc's player is the most important person (positive) while mwhs's player is the most important person (negative, in naris perspective). it reminds me of how everhood positions itself as a response to undertale, building on its interaction with games as an artistic medium by building on its themes without presenting itself as a correction. i also just love the fact that since the world being a demo is a known truth, no characters perspective is presented as definitive, which does a better job of inviting the player to engage with the world and come to your own conclusion on what reaction would be the most justified

oh, and the ending... its like every character is confronted with the ultimate culmination of the world, as a direct challenge to their personal outlook. Hope's playfulness dissolves into panic, because she never seriously contended with this and used her casual playfulness as a coping mechanism that doesnt work anymore. nari meanwhile is totally nonreactive, this has been a forgone conclusion for her for a long time, such an innate inevitability it may as well already have happened... which doesnt make the moment any more enjoyable, shes panicking as much as Hope. izzy's biggest concern is her friends, the ones shes been panicking at the whole game until that point, the ones shes been relaying her concerns to and desperate to force into line to try and Play Their Role as theyre supposed to, just in case. but shes alone anyway. aspen reflects on their efforts to extract meaning and benefit from their circumstances and lements never having real control. chris romanticizes their memories and just expresses thanks for everything, ever positive. its an interesting analysis of their culmination of all their philosophies. like, hope and nari were pretty opposed, but they feel pretty similar in the end. chris's optimism cant hold up in the face of oblivion and fades into the same mournfulness and regret as her friends. end the end, regardless of outlook, its hard to change the basic human reaction to inevitability and tragedy

metaware is immaculately crafted, its a wonderfully made exploration into human reactions to fundamentally inhuman circumstances. the characters all feel unique and reasonable, memorable yet realistic, but still with a thematically relevant twinge of scripted performance. anyone who doesnt like visual novels can kiss my ass, youre gonna play this and youre gonna like it.

so yeah, excited for the full game! i hope its a roguelike deckbuilder

[blueikeproductions]

After days of uncertainty, it’s official via a trademark applied by Hasbro.

It’s coming next year, and is indeed the successor to EarthSpark.

It’s still being treated with uncertainty by some if it has a show, but we’ve crossed this bridge before with each new show. Need I remind people how it was commonly believed Cyberverse was going to be a filler toy line with no show or some new Animated or Prime sequel when increasing evidence proved otherwise. (Though I suppose in a way they were half right on the former, since it did come off as a filler kids line when Hasbro put all their eggs in Netflix WFC’s basket, & look how that turned out.)

But no matter what we keep having that weird cycle of denial. Some still convince themselves Cyberworld is a sequel to EarthSpark or that it’s a continuation of TFONE.

TFONE themed series is more plausible but too soon to call because TFONE isn’t out yet, & we don’t know if it will be profitable. Just because people say they liked something doesn’t mean it made money or casuals liked it. -gestures to CV, RotB & ES rotting on shelves-

A Mutant Mayhem style Tales of the TMNT continuation DOES make sense, but Hasbro going full steam ahead with Cyberworld after EarthSpark’s underperformance feels more like a reaction to EarthSpark specifically not TFONE.

And again, why focus on what appears to be an Optimus Prime vs Galvatron story? How does that make sense where TFONE leaves off via leaks. What emotional connection does Orion Pax have towards Galvatron if he’s a separate person? Why skip ahead to D-16 having apparently upgraded further to Galvatron when he named himself after his idol Megatronus Prime? Theres leaps of logic that don’t make sense from either a Hasbro or fan perspective. The same can be said with Scorponok, who to my knowledge, isn’t even IN TFONE.

EarthSpark sequel speculation. Same problem. Even Rescue Bots Academy, despite focusing on new Rescue Bots, was very upfront in leaks and marketing about still including Heatwave’s group, so how is this an ES sequel when the Terrans aren’t even included? Not even any hint of new Terrans or for that matter new unique to the show Transformers.

The Autobots so far appear to be Optimus, Mirage, Grimlock & Snarl. Unless Hasbro is also sick of Bumblebee, the little lemon should be front and center along with Twitch & Thrash (with new Vehicle Modes), but he’s seemingly not in favor of Mirage. People try to defend it as an ES sequel due to its “unorthodox choices”, but are they really? Cosmos, Skywarp, Nova Storm, Skullcruncher, & the Insecticons feel more like hold overs from Cyberverse more than anything since both shows share staff, & in both shows hardly any of them get to do anything memorable. ES Cosmos’ only memorable thing is being voiced by Weird Al so far as of typing. Hardtop is the only one that sticks out to me because of his highly specific reference to a forgotten toy only TF Cybertron toy. And then he proceeded to be a nothing character with his arm used by Mandroid. Dude didn’t even get his own toy (yet), not even as a bad repaint of Swindle’s toy…

Sky-Byte, in fairness if he were allowed to be his RiD personality, DOES make sense for EarthSpark, but they never used him for it for whatever reason. (He too is a Cyberverse hold over in that earlier context, so it is kind of strange they didn’t use him).

One thing that does stick out to me though.

Similar to Digimon, Transformers has gotten into the habit of using one of the 13 Primes as a gimmick for a show, like using one of the Seven Deadly Digimon as a set piece.

Prime had Alpha Trion (& the Prime arm Megatron wore), RiD15 had The Fallen as a major villain and Micronus as a supporting character, Cyberverse had Alchemist Prime as a major character (albeit not handled well & feeling tacked on), & EarthSpark of course has Quintus Prime as the reason the show’s events happen.

If we’re to assume Cyberworld follows a similar approach, would that mean Onyx Prime gets used here?

It’s still bizarre to me he wasn’t used in RiD15’s own Beast theme, and with Cyberworld seemingly having its own Beast theme using Grimlock, Snarl, Sky-Byte & Scorponok, perhaps Onyx might have a role here? Maybe his weird Mask ties into the World aspect?

It can see other times, people, places and WORLDS after all.

Above all, the bare minimum is CyberWorld has to be fun instead of whatever CV, PW, WFC, & ES were.

And that will be put to the test soon enough…

…As Studio Trigger has been confirmed as working on some kind of Transformers anniversary anime thing. Notable rep includes Animated, Armada & G1 in what’s been teased so far. More than likely it’s a short similar to Gridman’s Boys Invent Great Hero short, and as many have pointed out, that served as the launching point for the well received SSSS.Gridman, SSSS.Dynazenon & Gridman Universe series & film. Fans seem extremely excited at this, so hopefully it’s a big return to the anime TF era that began with RiD01 in the states (yes I’m aware of Headmasters & the rest but still). With Trigger at the helm too!

We have nowhere to go but up after late stage IDW, CV & ES’ shortcomings, & with Skybound continuing to do well as of typing, hype for TFONE remaining strong, and general excitement at Cyberworld & Trigger, perhaps an emphasis to back to basics is just what we needed.

[ultra-raging-ghost]

Idea for a little Cucuhalo fic/au. Ok hear me out:

Roommates/Office au

So, I haven't fully fleshed out the details yet, but Cucurucho as a rich boss that owns some kind of company and Bad is an employee that just moved from somewhere and started working in his company not too long ago. They try to get along... well enough in the office, albeit there's some tension and passive aggression between them.

Their co-workers love to gossip about them because it looks like there's something going on between the two, but it's all speculation for them. What they don't know is Bad and Cucurucho are actually secretly roommates, and they "hate" each other even more outside of the office.

Cucurucho has a cat that Bad wasn't initially fond of named Emotional Support (they're actually raising that cat like it's their baby lols) because Bad is more a dog person, but Cucurucho insisted on getting a cat as a pet. That's only one of their roommate quarrels. Most of the time they are extremely passive aggressive, and do things like, idk, not washing the other person's dishes lmao.

Despite how much they claim to hate each other, neither want to leave because "it's easier to share rent" or "no one would take care of Emotional Support when the other person is busy", some kind of excuse like that. But really, it's because they do enjoy having each other around, and sometimes, they have nice dinners and movie nights together. Then they fall asleep on their couch and wake up entangled, but neither wants to admit they were literally cuddling the night before. They are so attached to each other, but no one wants to say it out loud.

Basically this au is me wanting Cucuhalo office and roommate drama with a dash of sexual tension and long-term denial, romantic comedy sitcom style.

- alchemicaladarna

WAITTTT REAL

I love them living together and making up excuses to do so....

"Its expensive to live alone" "Emotional support is already so attached to him itd be mean to take her away from him" "We bought the furniture in a way that would make it weird for us to move out" (bad bought both the beds, or the one bed hayoooo, cucurucho bought like 20% of the spices and condiments, they dont feel like splitting up the furniture is what im getting at) "Theres no available housing in any areas id want to live in" etc. etc. any excuse to stay together even though to everyone else it seems like theyre at eachothers throats all the time!!

I think the way the workers would find out is a couple of them getting invited over. Like after a night out, one of them cant find a ride home so bad (resident guy who doesnt drink) offers to let them sleep on his couch for the night, and the next morning they wake up to arguing. They sit up on the couch and over the back of it who should they see in the kitchen together but CUCURUCHO and BADBOYHALO who are arguing because bad didnt ask before inviting said coworker over!! They kiss and make up (either metaphorically or literally) and cucurucho lets it go for now and sneaks off back to his (possibly their) room so he isnt caught and has bad send the coworker out as soon as they wake up. The coworker doesnt say anything about seeing cucurucho right then... but later on cucurucho and bad hear a lot of whispering that gets suddenly quiet when they walk by, and then it continues when they walk past.... more so than usual!!! And they dont think too much of it, but then someone comes up to bad's desk one day or approaches him in the hallway or by the water cooler and goes "so.. you and cucurucho, huh??"

(and then they realize bad's not the one to approach because hes very aloof and wouldnt pick up on the implications that the coworker would be dropping.. but theyre too afraid to go ask cucurucho about it for fear of getting chainsaw'd LMAO)

SHOUT OUT TO THE "ONLY ONE BED" TROPE, WE COULD DO SO MUCH WITH IT!!!

[nonbinarygamzee]

i think it is very interesting how people pick and choose which characters to sympathize with on the basis of being reduced to plot devices or being in general captives to their narratives. and obviously you dont have to like or give a shit about every character to exist especially not in a work so simultaniously dense and flat as homestuck, but i have both an intense interest in sociology and too much experience with how this fandom treats people for liking the "wrong" fictional children not to be eternally preoccupied with what makes these distinctions. when the character is liked, they are allowed the grace of being kind of poorly written; its the fault of the author, or theres some significant nudging about of their story beats to recontextualize them into something more nuanced and whole. by contrast, if the character is generally agreed upon to be uncharismatic, their personality flaws are inflated and the flatness of their writing is either erased in preference of integrating those authorial decisions into the characters personality (regardless of how glaringly contradictory) or more concerningly becomes a means of shutting down criticism on the basis nobody should care about the unserious/unwritten ones anyways.

interestingly, with gamzee in particular, ive found that people tend to do one or the other moreso than both; dont get me wrong, theres still a plethora of moralizing over peoples sympathy for This particular fictional child going on, obviously, thats basically the reason i am trapped here. but because gamzee is accepted as not a character but a plot device or an obstacle, a lot of people arent invested enough in her potential personhood to insist that the (antithetical) ways that she behaves are proof of her being "iredeemable". but they still have a negative emotional response to people having investment in her character. it isnt relevant whether or not shes a bad person, or whether she is being puppeteered, because her functionality in the world she exists in is to propagate the story and stand in opposition to its protagonists.

however as interesting as i think that is and for all i do think it says about an individual persons approach to homestucks presentation, i also cant ignore that that dichotomy only really started to Exist once it became less in vogue to harrass people for their character allegiences. in the same way, it seems like we as a fandom cannot escape the trap of being really, really weird about tavros every couple of years. skirting around some of the more blatantly ridiculous stuff because i do actually value my sanity a little bit, he is definitely one of the characters i first noticed people using critique as a pretense for passing judgement on people who liked or cared about him. again basically coinciding wiyh when it stopped being generally socially acceptable to just openly laugh about what a pathetic loser the disabled kid being humorously abused onscreen was. when ableism started to become a topic people cared about and disabled people and fans who related to tavros began to provide more in depth critique of the writing choices, and of fans, namely fans who made very light of his disability or who had a general refusal to talk about vriska's(and others but you know why its about her here) ableism, there was a massive uptick in people feeling the need to talk unprompted about how boring and shitty tavros is, questioning how anybody could like him when hes so badly written, etc. all in ways that did not try very hard to hide the fact that the concern about character writing was disingenuous and only really served the purpose of shutting down critiques of ableism in the fandom and comic. obviously this all seems to stem from investment in canonicity but i do notice it informs even the choices of people who approach their engagement in a "my city now" type of way. because the presentation of these characters impacts the wider perception, which impacts the ways people will deconstruct them. and this is why the idea that "homestuck doesnt have a canon" is a lie being sold to you for the sake of shutting down investigations od authorial motivation. was not intended to be epilogue snark but thatd as good a way to end this nonsense as anything else.

[pesterloglog]

Dave Strider, Dirk Strider

Act 6, page 7748-7756

DAVE: ok actually maybe i will get into it

DAVE: i dunno why my friends got to have adults around who cared about them

DAVE: they complained bitterly about stuff so i guess i convinced myself they were all in the same boat as me

DAVE: but thats not how it was

DAVE: their complaints were trumped up nonsense and i bought it cause... i dunno

DAVE: i didnt have any frame of reference

DAVE: but his dad and her mom no matter what they said it was so obvious they cared about them deeply

DAVE: even jades weird fuckin grandpa who died when she was young obviously would have done anything for her

DAVE: why did i get such a raw cut of the asshole deck

DAVE: and why did it take me so long to figure that out

DAVE: and like hes dead now so thats that

DAVE: so all thats left to do is look back and try to put the pieces together of my first 13 years

DAVE: and all i can think is what the fuck WAS that?!

DAVE: i dont come away with the impression i used to try convincing myself of, that he was like "mysterious" or "stern" or "aloof"

DAVE: the only feeling left is this insane impression that i was raised by somebody who fuckin HATED me

DAVE: and the whole act of even "raising a child" was some totally fucked up game to him

DAVE: like parenthood was one of the highest tiers of irony in his solemn bullshit bro-ninja code

DAVE: so he went through those motions and did whatever he thought was "funny" or "badass"

DAVE: but under that weird stylistic and totally sociopathic approach to parenting i cant even IMAGINE there was any emotion toward me other than some sort of loathing

DIRK: What...

DIRK: Did he do?

DAVE: i dont want to get out the laundry list

DAVE: but for reference laundry wasnt one of those things

DAVE: that was just one of the many little domestic things i just had to sort of FIGURE OUT

DAVE: sorta like i eventually had to learn what the REAL purpose of a refridgerator was from movies

DIRK: Wait.

DIRK: What??

DAVE: i dunno theres too much to even get into

DAVE: just

DAVE: i dont remember the atmosphere ever not being nerve wracking

DAVE: all havin to sneak around and...

DAVE: ugh my shitty childhood spider senses are tinglin just thinking about it

DAVE: it was "training" you know

DAVE: but you know what it really was it was some vicious shit that was bad and sucked and i hated it

DAVE: it didnt make me stronger

DAVE: it did the opposite

DAVE: it made me never want to fight

DAVE: it made me never want to see blood or be near danger or hear metal sounds

DAVE: it made me hate the idea of being a hero cause he was a hero and he ruined the idea of heroism

DAVE: i dont even want to be fighting this shitty version of jack but hey nobody else has secret welsh powers so i guess i have to

DIRK: ...

DAVE: what gets me is how long it took me to put all this together

DAVE: to stop seeing it as some kinda roughhousey and eccentric life i had but was otherwise normal

DAVE: it took years to deconstruct it all and put it back together to understand how fuckin mad i should be

DAVE: and in particular how stone cold deeply uncared for i was my whole life

DAVE: like... being merely "monitored" by a violent robot

DAVE: i only started getting it after spending a lot of time in person with a bunch of people who actually did care about me

DAVE: and i could start feeling like

DAVE: actually somewhat human for the first time

DAVE: instead of...

DAVE: some sort of runty afterthought to a household cabal of smutty puppets

DIRK: ... Puppets?

DAVE: the fuckin puppets!!!

DAVE: i know how it sounds but i am NOT joking and there is NO shred of doubt in my mind that he loved all those puppets more than me

DAVE: honestly it is very possible that he was just insane and thats that

DAVE: i guess it didnt help either that we lived with what we have come to understand may theoretically be the most evil doll to exist in any universe ever

DAVE: in fact its my tenuous understanding that he came down to earth with that thing and like actually grew up with it

DAVE: maybe...

DAVE: maybe spending 30 some years being unseparable from that hell puppet had some effect on him??

DAVE: maybe if it hadnt been casting a pall over our apartment 24/7 since he took me in...

DAVE: grinning...

DAVE: glaring...

DAVE: laughing in my sleep...

DAVE: maybe our lives wouldnt have been quite so...

DAVE: maybe we would have...

DAVE: ugh

DIRK: What?

DIRK: You ok there?

DAVE: .....

DAVE: .....

DAVE: yeah

DIRK: That doll.

DIRK: That was Cal, right?

DAVE: yeah

DIRK: Right.

DIRK: My version is "empty", apparently.

DIRK: Whatever that means.

DAVE: huh

DAVE: how do you know that

DIRK: A source.

DIRK: One supposedly knowledgeable in jujus.

DIRK: I never quite knew what that meant, though.

DAVE: well

DAVE: whatever his was

DAVE: "empty" is never how i would have described it

DIRK: Hmm.

DAVE: man

DAVE: i dunno if i figured something out here

DAVE: like um "explained" something or

DAVE: if im just driving myself crazy with this talk and nothing even needs explaining

DAVE: it doesnt change my past or how i feel about him

DAVE: he was still pretty much awful no matter what the reason

DAVE: and im sure thats the only feeling ill ever have about him

DAVE: so who cares why it was like that

DIRK: Yeah...

DIRK: That...

DIRK: All sounds really bad.

DIRK: I don't know what to say though.

DIRK: Maybe I shouldn't say anything.

DIRK: Since I just remind you so much of him, for, uh. Obvious reasons.

DIRK: I don't want to make you feel worse, or make it sound like I'm offering a defense.

DIRK: For him, or me.

DIRK: Because I don't have one.

DIRK: For either of us.

DAVE: come on man

DAVE: YOU didnt do anything

DAVE: this was just some douche bag with your exact dna, who happened to grow up to be my bro

DAVE: you had a completely different life full of like

DAVE: different choices and actions and stuff

DAVE: and even if you were gonna turn out like him youve barely cleared the half way mark on actually chronologically gettin there

DAVE: in some way ranting about all this is probably just uncool of me because...

DAVE: you arent him

DAVE: youre not resposible for any of this shit but im sorta implicitly tacking it on you anyway

DAVE: so

DAVE: sorry about that

DIRK: I'm not sure it's true though.

DIRK: At least, I don't feel that way.

DAVE: what way

DIRK: That I'm not him.

DIRK: The fact is, I am.

DIRK: It's something I've come to understand about myself.

DIRK: All splinters of me are basically me, no matter how much I want to resist that truth.

DIRK: Or pretend they aren't reflecting my own qualities back at me.

DIRK: I bear a certain responsibility for all of them.

DAVE: splinters...?

DIRK: Yeah.

DIRK: I guess the concept isn't that unique to me.

DIRK: We've all got other versions of ourselves running around here and there, throughout the various compartments of this messed up cosmos.

DAVE: right

DIRK: I just happen to be particularly connected to mine.

DIRK: I've felt...

DIRK: Haunted by them.

DIRK: And what that really means is, I'm perpetually haunted by my own bad qualities.

DIRK: So, when I hear about stuff I did in another reality,

DIRK: I'm not sure what my adult self might have ever tried to do to atone for that stuff, if anything...

DAVE: pretty much dick squat

DIRK: Yeah. But in any case,

DIRK: I'm sure I was completely in the wrong, and I'm sorry I messed up your life.

DAVE: ...

DAVE: thanks

DAVE: but

DAVE: it still feels a little odd accepting an apology from somebody who i just met and technically had nothing to do with my life

DAVE: even if you do feel guilty splinterways or whatever

DAVE: it is just a messed up situation

DAVE: and i guess i had to vent

DAVE: and there was never anyone i wanted to say all that to

DAVE: and the only thing that was gonna drag it out of me i guess was like a teen stand-in phantom of my dead bro

DAVE: just some perfectly innocent dude havin to take the brunt of this shit

DIRK: I'm not particularly innocent though.

DIRK: I've messed a lot of things up.

DIRK: With my friends.

DIRK: Honestly, that's why I wasn't that bent on sticking around, when I showed up.

DIRK: And pretty much jumped at the offer of flying here to get ready for some yet to be explained battle.

DIRK: Battles are easy. Just you, a sword, some bad guys... it's a lot simpler than having to answer for things you did.

DIRK: For the most part, I feel pretty bad about the role I played in my friends' lives.

DIRK: Especially Jake.

DAVE: what happened there

DIRK: I don't even know.

DIRK: An unmitigated disaster for which I'm entirely to blame.

DIRK: It's not any one thing. I think I was just a completely toxic element in his life from day one.

DIRK: I don't know what he's doing now.

DIRK: I wouldn't be surprised if he was trying to avoid me as much as possible.

DIRK: I'm sure that's for the best.

DIRK: I think I need to stay out of his business for a good while, so I don't risk poisoning another innocent kid's life.

DIRK: Like I did with you, apparently.

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: i mean

DAVE: maybe its a little different cause relations between peers is a whole other thing

DAVE: its tricky shit and youre both figuring stuff out on a relatively equal footing and youre both at the same point in your lives

DAVE: its not like when one person is older and supposed to be a lot more...

DAVE: never mind this is a fucked up thing to think about

DAVE: but the bottom line is yeah laying low while you sort out your stuff cant hurt

DIRK: Right.

DIRK: The thing with that, with my adult self's...

DIRK: Ways.

DIRK: The sad thing is,

DIRK: I can really see it.

DIRK: How someone like me can go unchecked in life, and turn out to become a much worse person than I already am.

DIRK: I guess I'm just relieved I still have some time to make sure that doesn't happen.

DAVE: you dont actually seem like a bad person to me though

DIRK: No?

DAVE: nah

DIRK: Why not?

DIRK: We did just meet, after all.

DAVE: because

DAVE: i dunno if truly bad people wrestle so much with whether theyre good or bad

DAVE: i think if i ever sensed my bro like

DAVE: struggled at all with what he was doing or who he was

DAVE: or showed any sort of doubt

DAVE: that might have changed everything

DAVE: but there was never a crack in it

DAVE: or the slightest hint of introspection behind the aggressive cooldude facade

DAVE: if there was i sure never noticed

DAVE: i mean personally

DAVE: i think about it all the time now

DAVE: what it actually means to be good or bad

DAVE: or if not something that starkly moral

DAVE: at least just trying to examine the difference between being decent and being a douche

DAVE: maybe its because of him i worry about that now

DAVE: but for me i think that internal struggle is kind of mild

DAVE: for him...

DAVE: or you i mean

DAVE: it sounds like some pretty dark shit

DAVE: like grappling with...

DAVE: becoming evil vs simply trying not to

DIRK: Yeah.

DIRK: That's not too far off.

DAVE: but the point is

DAVE: even just talkin to you a little bit

DAVE: its obvious youve been fighting with that

DAVE: which means that you care enough to put in some effort

DAVE: i think that counts for something

DIRK: Maybe.

DIRK: Not sure if I'm ready to accept a pat on the back for recognizing I have some problems, and worrying about whether they'll destroy me and fuck up the people I care about.

DIRK: That might be setting the bar kind of low.

DAVE: well when it comes to the subject of him

DAVE: the bars already pretty low dude

DIRK: The weird thing, honestly,

DIRK: Is that it's actually kind of refeshing to hear a sincerely leveled critique of all my negative qualities, coming from another person invested in a relationship with me, rather than from a fucked up iteration of myself as some bizarre "trollish" form of self abuse.

DIRK: The only thing I've ever been exposed to are either various forms of self loathing either from me or my auto-responder, or attitudes completely oblivious to my real issues, as expressed through my friends.

DIRK: My friends always seemed to cut me so much slack, or were just never aware of the kind of person I really was.

DIRK: Well, Jake probably is, by now at least.

DIRK: But he's also the sort of guy who's just as likely to blame himself for stuff I did, as he is to blame me.

DIRK: Jane and Roxy, though.

DIRK: Never seemed to see anything wrong with me.

DIRK: If anything, just the contrary.

DIRK: Roxy in particular had a certain... fixation.

DIRK: She meant well, but was so enamored of me, and seemingly everything I did.

DIRK: Which I think was the last thing I needed.

DIRK: To be idolized in some form by other people I respected.

DIRK: I had enough of that feeling coming from within, particularly when I was younger.

DIRK: And since then, I've been plagued by the insane ego of my youth in the form of an artificial intelligence I designed which essentially trapped that state of mind in a sort of horrid suspended animation.

DIRK: Until... recent developments, of course.

DAVE: so

DAVE: was that stuff true

DAVE: when you said you idolized the other version of me

DIRK: Yeah.

DAVE: and not just some bullshit like how i used to say the same thing about my bro when i didnt know any better

DIRK: It's definitely not like that.

DIRK: I never lived with him, or met him, so couldn't have anything like the contentious relationship you had with my older self.

DIRK: He was a historical figure from centuries ago.

DIRK: There was a lot to admire, and think about fondly.

DIRK: Especially since I was alone, and never had any direct contact with another person, or any concept of civilization.

DIRK: So even though I'm sure I romanticized what his life was like, and the early 21st century in general,

DIRK: It was nice to think about you.

DIRK: I passed a lot of time that way.

DAVE: you say there was a lot to admire

DAVE: like what

DIRK: Well...

DIRK: He was pretty famous.

DIRK: Made some successful movies.

DIRK: At least under a somewhat expansive definition of "success".

DIRK: And an even more expansive definition of "movie".

DIRK: His work accumulated a lot of subversive political influence, which got him in trouble later.

DIRK: He made like a million bullshit Statues of Liberty, scummed them up with jpeg artifacts, and littered them all over the planet.

DAVE: holy shit

DIRK: He was also a pretty badass swordsman, and an active member of the resistance movement.

DIRK: He slaughtered the clown presidents on the roof of the White House, and flew away on a shitty skateboard.

DIRK: Then it seems he gave the Batterwitch a pretty good run for her money.

DIRK: It wasn't enough, but at least he went down fighting.

DAVE: that

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: ima need to hear more details on this some time

DIRK: Sure.

DIRK: But as you can tell, clearly there was a lot to look up to.

DIRK: I thought about the examples you set constantly. The creative ideals, the advanced theories on irony and humor, the tales of courage and martial prowess.

DIRK: Really, I modeled everything about myself after you. Or at least everything good that I was trying to become.

DIRK: And I probably spent an embarrassing amount of time imagining what it would be like to live during his time, and to be able to have something resembling a sibling relationship, or be in some sort of master-apprentice situation.

DIRK: When I finally learned you existed, and started to understand who he really was in relation to me, that put a lot into context.

DIRK: I realized he was a version of you who got a chance to live up to his full potential.

DIRK: And when I understood there was a young version of you, in a situation sorta like mine, whose time on Earth got cut short when you were thrown into all this,

DIRK: I was at least happy to think there was some reality where you got the chance to do everything you wanted to do, be successful, and fight for all the right things.

DIRK: Even if ultimately it didn't lead to a great outcome for humanity, you had an opportunity to live a full life and show what you were made of.

DIRK: While I guess I had... the same opportunity on your world, somewhat less fortunately.

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: but then for all my bitching i guess i still never grasped your full reality

DAVE: just like you probably didnt grasp mine, but just reading into the mindset of a historical figure as best you could

DAVE: what if i wasnt as heroic as it seemed?

DAVE: what if adult me was kinda douchey too in a way you couldnt observe

DIRK: Perhaps.

DIRK: But beyond a certain point, I think accomplishments speak for themselves.

DIRK: I dunno if you can just completely shred every person who ever did great things because they had some flaws.

DIRK: All I can say is, it was important to me to see him the way I did.

DIRK: As a good person who inspired me, and set the standard for what I wanted to be.

DIRK: It kept me going.

DIRK: That said, I'm also glad there's this version of you who got to go through all the things you've been through.

DIRK: Like, yeah, you didn't get to be the cool celebrity who cuts down juggalos on badly defaced government property.

DIRK: And the idea of a "normal life" was rudely taken from you, and it's something you'll never get to experience.

DIRK: But this is so much more challenging, and uncertain.

DIRK: You get to apply all that potential you showed in one reality to something much bigger and more existentially critical.

DIRK: Whatever strength you showed in trying to save a dying planet, the fact is, I think we need that more here.

DIRK: And the trials inherent in being a part of something like this, I think they bring more out of you than a relatively pedestrian life on Earth would. Make you face more things about yourself. At least, that's been true for me.

DIRK: But it sounds like it's been true for you too.

DIRK: It sounds to me like the experiences you've had changed you a lot, for the better.

DIRK: You mentioned the experiences with him that were designed to make you stronger have actually made you weaker, but really, I doubt that's true.

DIRK: I bet you've become stronger than you realize, not because of anything he did, but because of what you've done, and the ways you've changed yourself through your own effort.

DIRK: I hope it doesn't come off as overly sentimental garbage, but it seems to me like you turned out to be a really good dude.

DIRK: Like, really, a better sort of dude I ever imagined talking to when I pictured meeting the legendary guy I idolized.

DIRK: I pictured him as probably being "too cool" to be the type of guy you are.

DIRK: But you know what, fuck being too cool for that.

DAVE: ...

DAVE: you

DAVE: ...

DAVE: ...

DAVE: ...

DAVE: you dont think im cool?

DIRK: Nah.

DIRK: I mean, in the right way, yes. I think you are.

DIRK: But, in the way that doesn't mean anything and doesn't matter,

DIRK: Not particularly.

DAVE: ...

DIRK: Anyway, that's...

DIRK: All my "stuff", with respect to your other self.

DIRK: Again, there's a lot more I could say about him.

DIRK: Maybe stuff you should know, or maybe it's all irrelevant to the path you're on now.

DIRK: Regardless, I'd be more than willing to answer any questions you have about him.

DIRK: Or, anything really.

DIRK: Feel free to ask me whatever, ok?

DAVE: ...

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: i

DAVE: ill have to think

[kurakurakura99]

Just read your post on AC6 about how connected you were to your AC. And I just gotta ask how you got that feeling? I've a good amount of posts about this same thing, such a deep connection to your mech, but I never got it. I want that feeling, to truly be one with a 40 ton war machine, yet to me my AC is still just that, a machine.

Even my PvP AC which is getting close to Mark 15 now is still just a tool for me. Like I love that AC and my lastest version is fucking genius imo the love is more like the love I have for my emotional support hammer (yes I have one sue me).

Sorry for venting randomly to you about this but like reading that part on your post about how changing parts on your AC felt wrong during a boss fight made me think about my toughest boss in the game. Not saying the name cause spoilers but it was beating my ass hard. After I realized my build wouldn't work the first thing I did was start changing parts, and even when I used the meta ones nothing worked. In the end like 2 days later I beat the boss, not by swapping back to my original design, but by using a pair or weapons that are entirely overlooked. But even after all that I didn't feel that connection to my AC, a newfound respect for the twin active homing missiles but once again only in the way I would respect a wrench that finally fits onto an annoying bolt.

So like how do you get so close to your AC, how did you get that connection with it? How can I get it?

Find common ground with your mech. its deeply personal, like I said, but I empathize with Capable so much because we are both Objects, means to an end. There is a certain kinship to be found, conceptually, between a person who has been dehumanized as much as I have and a machine. Theres also a measure of...sentimentality? that you have to approach building them with. My girlfriend is baffled by how Capable is put together. I use the DESSERT legs because they got big fucking paws and fat thighs, like I do. I picked her arms soley because they would hit harder with my Pile Bunker (Itself a dubious weapon choice for late game, some may claim) and it had a nice, flat surface to write "Forgiveness" on. Getting a little whimsical with it led to Capable being, frankly, a freaky little mech with weird issues when it came to boosts and mobility. Having something that didn't move like a more optimized design helped really cement her in my mind as a partner and not a tool. AC6 feeling by and large, much easier and accomodating to player expression compared to the rest of the games I've played in the series, makes this much more feasible. Beyond that, even a simple change of language towards your mech helps:I avoid using "It" for Capable, ever, and she is only "my mech" when I'm talking to someone who doesn't know her by name yet and needs the context of what the fuck I'm talking about. Otherwise, She is Capable.

These are tips I guess but. its just something that happens naturally for me so its hard to give anyone tips on how to force it

[mashamorevvna]

1, 2, 4 for the Durgetash creator asks?

thank youuuuu bestie :33

1, Your hottest Durgetash take. The kinda heat Gortash had to endure in HoH. (But be respectful about it fellas, this means everyone)

i dont think they can ever experience true emotional intimacy. they can tiptoe around it, they can even creep into some of the weird grey areas that exist between projecting yourself into another person and fully recognising another as a separate entity. but neverrrrrr fully commit. classic bataillean nutcases where the only fully romantic resolution they can have to that enmeshment is death (of one or both; with different outcomes but thats another post)

2. Romance, queerplatonic, eldritch horror? How would you describe the relationship these two have? This time without limitation.

solidly in the halfwaypoint between romance and eldritch horror!! my personal interpretation is that a lot of the emotional vulnerability they can achieve with each other is because they view their counterpart as a void that you can love but wont love you back! for gortash its mostly due to the mostly intentional, sometimes not, dehumanization of durge as either beast or godling; for durge is i think the awareness that they can never let their guard down and fall fully, because he will use that against them. and that can feel very safe if you have their level of emotional issues you can love a beast, and you wont know it can love you back, thats the eldritch horror; the fact that are painfully human, very lonely creatures, and that it doesnt have to be like that, is where the romance comes from.

4. Which one of them is the morally worse person? Your Durge or Gortash? Who's really just a sadistic little fuck and did they make the other one 'hol up' before?

gortash, personally. durge i view as a sort of amoral instrument by virtue of the restrictive environment they grow up in; between strict social conditioning, actual divine conditioning and continuous reinforcement of their purpose, theres not much choice there, bad as the effects of said non-choices are. theres a difference to me between an earthquake that levels a city, and a person who does the same for, say, eugenic purposes. that being said i do think they try to one-up each other constantly; and by virtue of having v v v different methods there was, imho, at least ONE instance where the other was like okay, i see the benefits of the approach. taking notes.

[alphaketoglutaricacid]

an anon from one time before. I really wasn't asking in bad faith what kind of microagressions Toshiro has experienced from Laios and the rest of the party. I just know that Laios a)interrogated him about the Eastern Archipelago and b)misheard his name and seconds later introduced him with that name to his party. (I think Laios heard his name like that bc Toshiro was so exhausted from having to talk for five hours and could only speak quietly (and he even could not speak the whole word at once. Relatable) so he said To... shiro, so the To could have been interpreted as the hesitation word eto with nonexistent e, and when spoken without much vocalisation, shi sounded like shu as in japanese the u is rarely strongly vocalised, so he ended up with that nickname for 2 years). He couldn't confront anyone about his name so he had to endure it, unfortunately. I get him, although it's not about racism in my case, as people like using the shortened more childish version of my name, and I don't like it, but as I'm also very non-confrontational, as demanding to call me by my full name would be seen as arrogant, I've just become used to it.

So back to the topic, I just want to have a better view of all the characters and I might not be the only one who might have not noticed some obvious things.

Oh i didnt take offense to it! I’m just lazy abt citing but I will get to it. But informally; Its a little hard to explain micro aggressions but like imagine ur minding ur own business and some guy u dont know approaches u says u look weird, asks where ur from, asks if theres elephants where ur from that shits crazy. And he keeps doing it and treating his culture like a funny curiosity. Thats weird. Somewhere in the manga laios is like rice was shuros favorite food (insane thing to say). Maybe its a little hard to explain it but the interactions ape a lot from like the experience of being an asian person in a predominantly white country… ppl rlly do act like this w no self awareness and its frustrating and dehumanizing. Does that make sense?

[lilac-set]

I just reblogged a post talking about how important it is to respect the boundaries of minors on tumblr especially regarding sexual content. And yes thats absolutely true, and im not trying to say theres ANY excuse for not doing that, but i wanna say -

“Dont be weird” doesnt communicate ANYTHING useful to whoever might be reading it. If i saw a blog say “dont be weird”, if i didnt just immediately block them for some reason, i would think theyre saying dont be neurodivergent, dont be queer. It would never, EVER occur to me theyre saying not to be suggestive especially in a straight and vanilla way. Not everything nsfw is weird. Only things non-normative are weird. If you say “im a minor, dont be weird!” Im obviously not gonna sexualize you (because of the “minor” part) but it would never occur to me not to be mildly horny in the notes about the character youre posting about. I need you to be clear about “dont put anything suggestive in the notes” if thats what you mean, cuz its not obvious. It just sounds like you hate non-normative people, in like a political way rather a personal comfort way

Disclaimer: by “i need -“ i mean obviously you can do whatever you want with your blog, if you dont want to state what youre uncomfortable with in a clear way and just want to block people you dont wanna be around, thats completely fine, genuinely, lots of us on tumblr take that approach. Its just that i dont think its reasonable to say its the fault of people you’re choosing to block for breaking completely unstated expectations

This isnt a rebuttal to the post that inspired it, that was a good post, its just that it brought to my attention that some people are using the word “weird” in ways i had never imagined, and that fact made me angry

One more thing. “Weird” is derogatory. It can be reclaimed, but dont call other people or behaviors “weird” unless you genuinely dont like them. If you say sex is weird, that means youre sex negative. (Not sex repulsed, sex negative). You can be a minor who doesnt want sexual interaction, you can be sex repulsed, and not be sex negative. Again, now that ive read the previous post i dont think thats necessarily intentional. But thats how it comes across

[blorbocedes]

c/l is actually c*rlando i'm so sorry 😭 c-lestappen will get his day to shine but this was the vision that seized me at 5am this morning! this ask will be focused on insight into lando backstory and context bc there is a 7k doc that i can’t simplifying into one ask

main event of the fic is the terrible dreaded therapy appointment, because lando is nearing the horrible event horizon of having a fully developed prefrontal cortext and in a/b/o verse this means that he will be past the best before date (ideal shelf life of omega is five years) and will be aging at the speed of light into being a barren spinster or whatever!! 

theres also a pressing deadline thing hanging in the background where its like. landos next heat is fast approaching! its also his last ditch insane omega fertility gambit before he hits 25 and gets his frontal lobe cortexified or whatever horrible degenerative thing that happens to omegas after they turn 25! this is all Science Backed™ bc everyone is like ofc ofc… omega body understands this is the point of no return! this is the last resort before it defaults into like beta levels of fertility when he turns 25

so sorry about the incoming bullet point dump this is only 1/3 of the actual general ideas if it helps.

his family is reasonably okay and progressive! he has older sister/s that can inherit family stuff etc everyone thought he was going to be an overly sensitive beta or one of those modern alphas bc its the 21st century! alphas can be like this if they want! 

and then he presents as an omega and it is this awful lifechanging event bc male omegas aren’t rare but they are a much smaller part of the population and usually get sent to finishing school or something or have marriages arranged for them as soon as they present

so his family freak out bc everyone knows that you have to be careful and raise omegas The Right Way or else u will ruin their lives and give them lifelong emotional  maladjustment bc u didn’t follow correct protocol… still reasonably progressive but lando has to be the exception! having a male omega in your family is also a sign of great prestige and good marriage opportunities, upward social mobility even! 

unfortunately lando is a scrawny with a delicate constitution (get those needles and tests away from him! he hates your omega prep boarding school food and the rooms all smell disgustingly floral and he wants to throw up bc he has a sensitive nose too :( or go home but he can’t) even before he presents, and presenting does not magically make him into a hot commodity appearance and personality wise. 

it probably actually makes him worse bc now all of a sudden he’s not the youngest and only son who is a little spoilt but indulged and doted on bc its not the 18th c anymore we’re modern now we don’t have to force our only son into having to be Aggressive and Authoritative in case it means that he presents as a BETA (follower type disgusting not fit to be heir) or worse an omega bc then we won’t have a man to carry on our name :( 

everyone assumed he would be a beta probably or even just a kind of weird alpha (bc we’re modern now! alphas can be emotionally sensitive and in touch with their feelings… lando is just maybe ultramodern. breaking down all stereotypes and barriers by absolutely refusing to eat fish or take part in the fishing part of family fishing trips. his parents are fine with this bc his sisters can inherit business and enjoy fishing ❤ 

lando gets to enjoy having reasonably progressive family in a beautiful modern age except SURPRISE! he presents as an omega and all of sudden he is this Exception to all their progressive talk and raising… most awful miserable experience of his life

even worse than all the tests and boarding schools bc he got used to them… this was the Big Betrayal… the Lifelong Heartbreak… the End Of His Life….. 

the actual Bad Therapy Event bullet points: 

they have separate therapy appointments! same day though. carlos gets to sit quietly in the waiting room and feel like the worst person alive because he goes first and he needs a little more time to marinate in those bad vibes, while obv lando should be immediately thrust out of distressing omega experience 109282931 and back into real world w/out any waiting room time to think or process. 

the lando talk is much more EVIL AND EMOTIONALLY MANIPULATIVE bc its clear that he is a bundle of emotionally vulnerable nerves abt this and desperately afraid that carlos will wake up from his mildly progressive loving mentality and realise that lando is getting older (he not he’s literally like 24) and still hasn’t grown out of it his stupid mental bullshit abt what being an omega means to him 

therapist basically just rips into him and destroys him thru the power of emotional manipulation and straight up gaslighting abt himself and his relationship

ive used up all my fake therapy appt w/ bad therapist ideas on carlos (had a rlly great time but lando is slightly more interesting to me lmk if u want expansion on the carlos therapy experience, but if u want to imagine the destructive bad things said to him pls do no brainpower for me rn)

he leaves absolutely shattered, much more quiet and withdrawn. also more obedient but only in that he doesn’t really disagree or protest or say much as they get ready to leave and also just sits their quietly on the journey home. 

carlos has no idea what they’ve said, only that before lando comes out, the therapist exits the room without him, closes the door behind them and asks to speak to him for a few seconds

(lando inside the room is absolutely marinating in how bad and awful he is and how carlos will probably LEAVE HIM for a good omega as soon as he hears what the therapist has to say. he has to be normal and good and maybe they’ll love him enough to fix him bc no one else is going to be as patient and as careful as carlos :( he’ll have to go to a convent until he dies bc he is such a failure

they tell him about how lando broke down and got vulnerable and they talked about some of the deep insecurities that have haunted him his whole life that he was never able to fully express. 

that he loves carlos but that carlos doesn’t push him enough, that carlos needs to push him to express what he wants and ask for stuff MORE (and this is pretty normal to carlos! lando is a finicky little weirdo who is as happy as he can get when he’s the one saying stuff and carlos is listening and things are under control and safe… he should’ve realized that this extended to other more dynamic stuff too) 

also that everything they told him was verified and backed up by what lando said today but they can’t tell him the specifics bc it is private therapy stuff. they’re only telling him these general things bc lando is okay with them saying this stuff bc he’s not ready to tell carlos it yet, and they can work together on it now! 

lando’s never going to contradict this bc they will be in the car and carlos will try to Authoritatively Ask them abt whether the therapist was right (bc he wants to check in! lando’s been so anxious and quiet looking the whole time) but it rlly just comes out as kind of concerned and gentle bc he’s not ready to go around ordering his omega to tell him whats wrong! he’s still carlos! and lando is so afraid, he doesn’t want to hear what the therapist told carlos abt him but he just nods and says that he’s fine that he wants them to be fine more than anything 

carlos wants to reassure him so he says some platitudes like that the therapist knows how hard lando is trying and how good they are together and that he is glad he knows more about how to help lando now because what he wants more than anything is for lando to be fine 

(carlos internally: i can’t let lando know that it is ALL MY FAULT bc when the alpha authority of ur life is useless and a failure it means no structure means emotional maladjustment at the age of 24 it means bad stuff. but i also need him to know that there is nothing wrong w him except that there is! but i want him to be okay and better) 

unfortunately this only compounds to lando’s internal distress hellscape! bc now carlos is acting like he’s the one at fault and accomdating lando’s stupid sensitivity when lando hsould be the one accomaddating him more… the therapist is right their relationship is unbalanced. lando has been so selfish, wasting carlos’ prime being father of children years :(

oh carlando!!!!! ofc! that makes more sense.

op you were not kidding about the world building 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 there is SO MUCH going on here... you also like introduced carlos with no preamble so I didn't know his relationship to lando (whether he's a boyfriend or #mate #husband) and I was like wait what mr krabs in bondage looking shook meme

it's very rich lore heavy perfectly calibrated to hurt lando which I love <3 I also laughed at the idea of ?? fishing being so important to the norris' that they're giving away their inheritance to their daughter who loves fishing..... ok slay girlboss...

so basically this world is divided into Leonardo Di Caprios and his girlfriends and once they turn 25 they're discarded I see I see...

now WHY is the therapist being evil apart from being evil..... like do they have a stake in maintaining in traditionalism alpha/omega roles and Lando and Carlos have a pretty non traditional, almost equal in terms of power hierarchy relationship which is a no no to the status quo? actually why are they going to therapy in the first place...? cause Lando's 24 and not barefoot and pregnant?

i think since carlos is a more traditionally well adjusted (although consciously gentler) alpha compared to Lando's whole . Issues being an omega and all, it's easier to manipulate carlos like look. your omega needs You to step up and Provide which means you have to be the support system, and that might mean making some tough decisions like being more authoritative with lando. because he Needs it! or else you're a bad alpha boyfriend mate husband!!!

poor Landito being ripped apart emotionally...... what does He want.... what's his whole deal.... I'm so curious

thank you for sharing wow!!! I hope you're writing this I'd love to read it!!! It's such a fleshed out universe

[celestie0]

ELLIEIEIIEIEIE hiii ☺️💗

its been forever bae i’ve missed uuu ☹️ i’ve been so busy lately i havent had time to send in my asks 😞 i’ve been thinking abt u tho 😘🤞(omg gojo is that u?? am i gojo??)

OKAY BUT BAE OH MY GODDDDD I’ve started catching feelings for one of my friends and he is literally the sweetest kindest most caring boy i’ve ever met. we’ve been friends for YEARS and he has literally NEVER hurt me. he’s the kind of person you can talk to about anything and he will literally literally not judge you no matter what ☹️whenever im with him i always feel so safe

OKAY BUT LEMME TELL U A FEW THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED WITH HIM CAUSE LIKE I SWEAR THERES SOMETHING BETWEEN US⁉️

okay so a while ago his friend who imma call J was interested in me and kept trying to flirt with me, but the guy i like (imma call him C) noticed this and he got like very protective of me. like for example he wouldn’t leave me alone with J, he’d be kinda touchy when J was around and he always made sure to keep J at a distance. One time tho J approached me when C was busy doing something and J was like saying some kinda weird creepy stuff to me so when I told C he was FURIOUS 😭 I swear he looked like he wanted to smack someone, I also found out that J was a playboy and he liked to mess with a lot of girls so I think thats why C was acting that way??

the other time was a few days ago C and I decided to hang out at a park bc it was a nice day and I decided to make a flower crown bc there were a bunch of daisies,, so I was sitting on the grass making it and C was sitting next to me watching me so I asked if he wanted one but like the boring man he is he said no 😒😒 so i picked up a daisy and tucked it behind his ear instead 😆 he wore it the entire time we were out and he even kept it ☹️ lowk felt like i was having a main character moment, LIKE IT FELT STRAIGHT OUTTA A FANFIC OR SOMETHING 😭 it felt fanfic worthy anyway 🤷‍♀️ OKAY BUT I SWEAR I CANT TELL IF HE KNOWS IN FLIRTING WITH HIM OR NOT 😭 cause like i said we’ve been friends for years so we’re just super comfortable and close with each other 😭😭

okay but enough abt C,, how’re u doing bae?? i’ve been missing u lately ☹️💗 i hope you’ve been taking care of yourself! it was pretty hot up here in norcal for this past week so I can only assume its been hot down there as well?? imma tell u bae as a city girl,, i cannot deal with hot weather. over 67° and i’m melting 😭 idk how you guys in socal do it 😭

anyway bae thats all for now,,

BYEBYE AND I LOVE U SO MUCH 💗💗

-🦌 anon

awwww hii my love i was thinking about you earlier last week!! so happy to see u <33

omg 🤧 C sounds soooo nice :””) he had those red flag glasses on when he was steering u clear of J but also maybe he was jealousss?? 🤔🫣🤭 also the flower thing is so adorable n you’re so right that’s like straight out of a fanfiction omggg ✋🏼😭 friends to lovers goes CRAZZYYY. if you like him bb u should tell him how u feeeeeel. i just watched ‘one day’ netflix series recently which is like friends to lovers but hella slowburn over the course of like twenty years but if there’s anything it taught me, it was to just tell ppl how u feel honestlyyy 😭😭😭 i’m rooting for you!! also is this the same guy that you were texting last time that wanted to stay awake w youuu at night?? 👁️

i’ve been doing well my love!! i just got back from a 20 mile bike ride so i’m exhausted n gonna go pass out LOL. im training to do a 100 miler w my friends in october so 😵‍💫😵‍💫 been spending sunday mornings working on rides haha. but yea im chillin im gonna hang out w my mom cuz mothers day i think her fav brunch spot is doing some 15% off mimosas thing so my brother n i are gonna take her there. YEA omg its getting hotter slowly, surprisingly this week is going to be still cold for us, tbh it’s supposed to be hotter this time of the year i’m a bit surprised by how pleasant it was when i was out riding today?? the sun only came out around 10am. shocked but i’m not complaining HAHAHA. we’re like low 70s rn and its bliss bc once summer hits i just wanna DIE. so jelly of youuu ik norcal has some wind to cut the heat too but not so much here at least not where i live since i’m more central from the beach 😭

i missed u toooo bb so nice to hear from you <333 LOVE YA HUGS N KISSES 💋 💕

- ellie 🦢

[away-ward]

I love one of your latest asks about will being weak because it's so true!!! Anon, im with you on this! Weak men and MMCs are truly a fucking disease!!!

Ok i feel like this other topic has been discussed here but maybe not, i dont remember, but its about how will always reminds emmy and himself that emmy didnt fit in with his friends, as if theres something wrong with her for not fitting into a label and box that they have for everyone else (as if these characters themselves did not spend their whole fucking books and lives fighting against people labelling them and putting them in a box, but hey everyone in DN are fucking hypocrites, we knew this already), while at the same time will himself had never made much effort to fit into emmy's life or get to know her lifestyle, to be her friend or get to know her deeper outside of what he wanted. It still doesnt make sense because i believe if will wa smore respectful and kind towards his approach with emmy, we couldve gotten a friends to best friends to lovers arc!!!! Maybe we can even get some betrayal and separation to justify will's anger, like think about it. The missed opportunity!!!

I also think there's something wrong and weird with the way will went about this "emmy not fitting in" because from the way ke kept on saying it made me believe that the horsemen were some wonderful group of people to fit in with or something, but in reality, it's just a group of super privileged MMCs and FMCs with ugly ass characters, personalities, lifestyles, with varying degree of misogyny. My first thought was, "now why the fuck would you shame a women for not fitting in with a bunch of nasty people, with nasty moral, and nasty personalities, as if EMMY was the weird guy, and not the other way around". Like theres something wrong with the way the whole crew went about it. And thats why i also believe that alex's attack of emmy in the train wasnt just out of worry for aydin's safety and jealousy for whatever bullshit manipulation of aydin made she think about aydin x emmy, but also because alex probably had at a certain point put emmy on a different pedestal than other women she met in life, be it because of will or because of the way he saw other men treat emmy as compared to alex. So when alex found out that blackchurch emmy wasnt so different than her lifestyle, i think alex trying to fight emmy in the train and later on demanding for her underwear back from emmy was not just out of petty fight, but it was to prove to everyone the things alex said to em in blackchurch "i knew you could do this too". Implying that emmy was just like the crew in thunder bay, even if emmy might never admit it out loud. Alex probably had misinterpreted emmy as being judging towards her life to just because everyone else does, and emmy never said much of anything. We dont even know how much alex knew about her. Now, on the other side though, we knew from emmy's pov that emmy never had a problem with what she wanted or even the horsemen or alex, the only problem is she thought she couldnt have them, but how was the rest supposed to know this right? And so this might also be one of the cause of misunderstanding between alex and emmy. To show that emmy was not so above everyone else, that she wa sjust "like us", and mistaking that emmy looked down on them for this particular lifestyle like aydin did to alex. Because aydin had shamed alex in many ways for her lifestyle, out of his own resentment and shortcoming, so i feel like this could also be where alex was coming from. HOWEVER, I hate alex even more for this though because alex couldve just asked emmy where she came from (theyre "friends"!!!), but alex made assumptions about emmy, humiliate her in front of everyone, and tried to put emmy down just to look good in front of the rest, and that all happened because of internalised misogyny. Literally, there wa sno excuse for this because we never saw emmy did the same, nit even with her female bullies at school. One of your alex's anon asks in the past was right, alex shouldve had this same energy (or even worse) with aydin and call him out and beat him up instead for treating her like a dirtbag, but why hurt emmy? No explanation here, it's internalised misogyny, lmao! I hate this repeated misogynistic plotline from pd so much! Why cant they let these women be pillars for each other and build amazing healthy female relationship instead of always cretaing female rivalries? Idk, the more that i think about alex's character, the ickier she gets, and i hate it because pd framed her to her to be this "pure good morally right person viking", and im like, where? And on the same note, wasnt emmy the same? But why was she framed differently?You all are right, even alex was guilty by association, just by being around the horsemen nd their wives + crew. Unfortunately, alex, just like the rest, was a delusional bitch, no wonder she said something about emmy's presence as being grounding. Someone needs to pop their thunder bay bubble asap!

That leads to my next point. DN series turned me off for a different reason: all these grown adult men and women always be doing the most vile things to others (almost always undeservingly) and they wont own up to it. Interesting how their moral judgment is very relative, because as long as they're not micah's terrorist father or gabriel or evans or trevor level of nasty, they're consider and label THEMSELVES as good? Delusional privileged people behaviour! Cowards! They be saying things like "own it, before it owns you" but then go out if their way to try to justify their bad deeds as if we readers are stupid or something. They look like cowards to me honestly, because pd couldve used this to make it about morally grey or black villains who dgaf about anyone and living their life to the fullest, doing ACTUAL crimes, not just petty ones and own them (even rowan in The Fine Print was more a piece of shit than Michael when it comes to business ethics, and he's in a romcom bro, so embarrassing!), but pd made their characters to be the worst of the cowards and losers. I think one of your damon hate asks even mentioned about their unsatisfaction towards damon's character where he was unskilled and incompetent, even in his own crime, because everything he did, he was never active, always had someone's help to make it happen, but readers ate it up, acting as if he was this super competent guy doing everything or smth like that. Which i agree 100%, because not even damon who got special treatment by pd was someone amazing due of his own lacking that went unnoticed just because he was "seen" as hot to some. Just like that anon, maybe im just like them where i hate incompetent and unskilled men, and i would never love to read stories about these kind of MMCs or date irl men like them, so maybe thats why i noticed this even more than the rest. Being conventionally attractive and having that as your main attributes doesnt do it for me especially for a long term/ lasting relationship and admiration, they have to have somethimg going on in theirpersonal and professional lives for them to be interesting to me, and i noticed, this was what dark romance genre was always lacking.

I believe that dark romance is a hard subgenre to write, because not only it is already hard to write non-dark romance, now you have another layer of darker elements that you gotta add to make your stories work. I've never read one DarkRom book that i truly love because of this. My favourites were always non-darkrom because darkrom always felt lackluster and incomplete, i always felt like they lack substance, so as much as i might like their themes explored, writing style. or characters, or plot, or settings, i can never give them a full 5 stars, because theyre not enough for me. Let me know if you notice this too, or if you find your expectations for darkrom having a lot /not much difference than non-darkrom. Idk if others feel like this too, but these were what took my enjoyment from this series. The DN series was shallow and cheap for these reasons among many others, especially the "there was not much concrete substance" part, because even the substance was not grounding enough to me. I just need more i guess, idk. In fact, i wish it was more unhinged, because if theres one thing about pd that i like, its their writing style. They can really write great spooky or suspense-building stories, i gotta give them that. Not many non-horror or thriller authors ive read so far that could write spooky scenes or danger-consuming scenes like pd, and i was disspointed that they did not capitalise more on this. Ngl, if pd wrote thrille ror horror one day, i might even pre-order it, because one of the best thrillerxsuspense opening from a non-thriller books was Credence by them. The first few chapters were kinda eery in a reality-grounding way when you read books by famous horror thriller writers, the same goes with hideaway. Ngl, nightfall's opening was more goofy to me than it was scary, im so sorry pd 😭🤣

Anon, im with you on this! Weak men and MMCs are truly a fucking disease!!!

You guys are so funny. I feel like a middle man for your conversations. Like I’m playing telephone or something. I think I’m gonna have to go back and start labeling the Anon messages with numbers or something so you can reference each other.

Let me know if this is okay with all of you or if you have a problem.

I’m going to let you know before we get into it, that I’m in a mood as I’m typing this. I’m not sure what’s caused it, but I’m feeling a bit more sarcastic than usual and feeling less like editing myself. So this is going to be a long one and I hope you read the sarcasm for what it is. Remember, bold is not for emphasis but for ease of skimming and reading.

will always reminds emmy and himself that emmy didnt fit in with his friends

I would be surprised if there was a topic we haven’t touched on by this point. I have thought about this so I also can’t remember if I’ve talked about or just ranted to myself. Either way, I don’t think it’s the first time the issue has been raised. I know that I have discussed how Will’s privileged blinded him, and how his attitude about his privilege probably didn’t seem all that bad to him because of his peers. They were all in the same boat.

I mean yacht.

And I think I’ve mentioned that even without the abuse, Emmy still would have had a hard time fitting because of her lack of privilege. So I don’t think for either of them being aware of this reality is a bad thing. What irritated me the most about this situation was Will pursuing Emory so heavily, only to remind her that she’s replaceable anytime she didn’t do what he wanted. My reaction in that situation would have been “then replaceable me.” Similar to Em’s. It was such backwards thinking. Like he could somehow trick her into wanting him by reminding her that he was desirable to others. Reverse psychology at its worst, truly.

But I think that’s probably what I liked about Will more than the others. He actually had realistic path to grow?

I don’t know. Sometime when people talk about characters, it seems like they want the characters to have already reached their full potential and all their mistakes be because of external issues. And I'm not accusing you of that, but it's a trend I've seen. This always sticks out to me because I love when characters mess up and change, as long as that growth makes sense. Whether it's for the better or worse, it should make some sort of sense. People aren’t always great. Sometimes people suck. Just genuinely suck. And then, as they have life experiences, they can grow into a better person.

For me, Will takes this course. He sucked, because he wasn’t even aware of how badly he was messing up. Sure, his intentions with Emmy were sincere, but even if he did become aware of the abuse while they were in school, I have no doubt that his immaturity would have messed it up even more. Either way, he could have then had experiences that formed him into the person we see towards the end. Someone who can admit their mistakes, and forfeit what they want if it would make the people they care for happier. We never got to see a fully developed Will, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the direction he was going in.

And this opposes his friends. Michael and Kai didn’t undergo such a changed. They sort of stayed the same throughout their story. They just got what they wanted in the end and it made them happier. Yay. Damon did undergo a significant change, but as it’s been pointed out, the way it happened and how quickly was sort of unbelievable. Will has the most believable story line in terms of development. He still sucked. But sucked slightly less at the end, and I could easily see how he got to that point.

But that’s just me. I get where you’re coming from.

if will wa smore respectful and kind towards his approach with emmy, we couldve gotten a friends to best friends to lovers arc!!!! Maybe we can even get some betrayal and separation to justify will's anger, like think about it. The missed opportunity!!!

True, but like I said, I feel that Will thought he was being respectful and kind, because he was blind to the reality of how Emmy would interpret his attentions. He’d never experienced that level of rejection before, and because he didn’t know about the abuse, he couldn’t see a reason for it. Wasn’t he being nice by doing her homework? Wasn’t he being nice by listening to her when she complained that they were ruining her pool time? Wasn’t he being nice by giving her a ride home? Sure, she put up a fight, but she secretly liked it because he saw her reaction in the science lab. He’s giving her a way to act on those thoughts without forcing her to embarrass herself by admitting she wants it.

Isn’t. He. So. NICE???

And as the reader, we’re like no. You’re literally ruining her life! AND disrespecting her, because she told you no.

Friends-to-lovers isn’t my usual go-to. But I also don’t like second-chance romance, which all of DN basically is sooo…. Plus, I did read a whole book just to delude myself into getting a friends-to-lovers willemmy, so safe to stay I might have really enjoyed that. It would have been a nice break from the usual with this series.

it made me believe that the horsemen were some wonderful group of people to fit in with or something

I mean. It seems to me that most wealthy, privileged people think everyone wants to be like them. And, if we’re talking about their time in high school, then that way of thinking is probably even more prevalent. These are people who don’t really experience life outside of their wealth, so it’s normal to them. And if you don’t have what’s normal, wouldn’t you want it? Aren’t these life’s necessities? And they wouldn’t see each other as bad people, so for Emmy to point out their flaws and go “you guys are horrible people”, doesn’t make sense to them. Because

They’re good people. They’re not out there ruining other people’s lives. They’re just having fun. They’re not like Anderson or their parents or Martin, after all. Those are the really bad people. Why couldn’t Emmy tell the difference?

Obviously, it’s because she’s a judgmental hag who never wanted to see them clearly to begin with because it would ruin her superiority complex.

That’s seems to be his reasoning, at least.

because alex probably had at a certain point put emmy on a different pedestal than other women she met in life, be it because of will or because of the way he saw other men treat emmy as compared to alex.

Oh, Alex...

I can see Alex having some sort of complex about Emmy, but more than anything I felt she was curious when she approached Em at the cove, wanting to confirm what she thought she knew. Alex confused me when she put the thought into Emmy’s head that she could be competition.

I mean, I get that Emmy still wanted Will, but more than that, she wanted Will to be happy (because she’s a good person!). So even if Will found happiness with Alex, Emmy wouldn’t see her as competition because she’d basically already taken herself out of the running. But are we supposed to see Emmy being jealous of Alex because Alex is who he wants now? And Alex pushes this idea for what? To play with Em? To get her reaction? To encourage her that she still had a foot in the race to Will’s heart? To try and be her friend? It never made sense to me.

I don’t think I’ll truly ever be sure of Alex’s motive for attacking Em, and that’s because Alex takes ownership of her actions. She made choices, she wasn’t a ""victim"". Okay. If you’re not a victim of circumstance, like Em, and you both achieved your goals doing what you thought was best for yourselves, then what are you jealous over, Alex?

Unless… the taking ownership of her decisions is all pretense and posturing? Convincing herself that she’s just as good as Em, except that Em made decisions she was proud of; she worked to get her degree, she actually sacrificed what she wanted to save herself and her grandmother, she’s still strong without anyone holding her up. You can’t convince me Alex doesn’t see Emmy standing alone, defiant against the Horsemen and Aydin, and wonder if she could do the same? I don’t know. I mean, the characters in this series aren’t consistent and I’ve said that Alex was meant to be perfect always, so it’s hard to really figure out what was going on.

If one thing is for sure, I think Alex has succeed in being one of the most controversial characters in the series, and it’s not even about her career as a sex worker. Does that count as progress???

So when alex found out that blackchurch emmy wasnt so different than her lifestyle,

I’m not sure what you meant with this thought. To me, they have different lifestyles, so if you could clarify what you mean?

We dont even know how much alex knew about her.

That’s true, I guess. We know she could easily recognize Emmy on sight, and that she knew from Will that Emmy was “sassy” or something, indicating that Will probably talked about her. I HC that he talked about her more than once. I don’t see him getting into all that in one go. She probably knows about the gazebo and why he went to prison. But how much of their relationship, specifics about Em? No idea. But what’s irritating is that Alex believes in her ability to read people so much, she thinks she’s got Emmy all figured out, when it’s very clear that she doesn’t.

And so this might also be one of the cause of misunderstanding between alex and emmy. To show that emmy was not so above everyone else, that she wa sjust "like us", and mistaking that emmy looked down on them for this particular lifestyle like aydin did to alex.

You’re saying that Alex’s attack was to prove to Emmy that she wasn’t better than them, that they weren’t better than her, but they were all cut from the same cloth? Or that Alex believed that Emmy thought she was better than them because she didn’t frequently go around breaking the laws and giving into all her impulses? And Alex wanted to prove to her like “see, you have the same impulses. You can act on them here, with us, and it’ll all be okay. We’ll catch you.”

I can understand that. If that was the case, it was a weird way to go about it. Very confrontational. But I doubt Emmy was in any state to trust any of them, so maybe backing her into a corner for her to push herself out of was the only way to get there. I think the first one is what you meant; that Alex thought Emmy thought she was better and wanted to bring her to their level because she was feeling judged, but I think the second one is closer to what PD thought they were doing. Because Alex is all knowing and always right. She knows what everyone needs.

alex even more for this though because alex couldve just asked emmy where she came from (theyre "friends"!!!), but alex made assumptions

But Alex asking questions would mean that Alex isn’t all knowing and isn’t always right and doesn’t knows what everyone needs before they know they need it. How can Alex be perfect if Alex has to ask questions?????

Why cant they let these women be pillars for each other and build amazing healthy female relationship instead of always cretaing female rivalries?

That would have been nice to see. I usually don’t get mad at Alex for not attacking Aydin. If Alex was running scared from her feelings towards Aydin, not ready to sort them out, and she was overly concerned for Will, then Emmy becomes an easy target because she knows she can’t ruin her relationship with Emmy.

Note: I don’t understand how they have that close a bond after one night of drinking together. I’m just saying what the narrative told us. And as the narrative as reminded us multiple times, Alex is… apparently some sort of addictive substance that people experience once and can’t get enough of??? I have no other reasoning for the other character’s reactions to her.

Either way, it would have been nice if Alex used her powers for good to build up the friendships in the group instead of trying to get laid literally all the time.

To be clear, I do feel this is an error in storytelling. I can’t blame it all on Alex when PD is one who created her and forced those decisions on her, for reasons that I don’t understand. It feels like PD really did prioritize empowering women through freedom of sexual expression, but at the cost of writing actual friendships on the page? It was choice, and not one I can appreciate fully. Especially when I love seeing friendships play out so much. But I’m sure it’s found it audience somewhere and for that, good for them.

all these grown adult men and women always be doing the most vile things to others (almost always undeservingly) and they wont own up to it.

I’m laughing because I don’t know if it was the past storyline or because of their maturity levels, but I always forgot these characters were in their mid-twenties. Like, I don’t care what the timeline says, these characters are between 17-21 in every book and being told Will was 26 in NF was like a slap in the face. I was disgusted with him.

pd couldve used this to make it about morally grey or black villains who dgaf about anyone and living their life to the fullest, doing ACTUAL crimes, not just petty ones and own them

Yeah. Every time they were gearing up for a “big” thing, I kept expecting something… you know… big to happen. But it was all mundane, teenage antics (see point above).

I believe that dark romance is a hard subgenre to write, because not only it is already hard to write non-dark romance, now you have another layer of darker elements that you gotta add to make your stories work. I've never read one DarkRom book that i truly love because of this.

This is a good point. I don’t usually read a ton of dark romance. DN was a weird phase for me. If I do, I like the “dark” characters to be intelligent at least, not just mean. Even then, I know I’m getting into some nonsense, ridiculous plot so I usual turn off my critical thinking skills. Because of that, I never remember the books I’ve read that are considered “dark romance”. If you bring one up, I can remember if I’ve opened it or not, but characters names and events have been erased.

And your comments before that are probably why Dark Rom is meant for adults who already know that seeking out these types of people in real life is a horrible idea? Still, I know some readers who aren’t ready for this material for various reasons, be it age or past experiences they haven’t dealt with or something else, will get ahold of books like this and think that the abuse and drama that happens in these “love stories” are what true romances are made out of. Frustrating, but also none of my business. Just be happy that you know yourself well enough that these tactics wouldn’t work on you.

However, I don’t think I’ve ever attempted a dark romance. I’ve attempted to write stuff that has a darker edge than my usual, but never that dark. I’m not a thriller or horror writer, so… But I think the goal would be to bring in an equal balance of each genre, and then push them to the foreground at different parts of the story to blend them together. I’m not sure how I would do it, and I probably won’t ever try, really.

The DN series was shallow and cheap for these reasons among many others, especially the "there was not much concrete substance" part, because even the substance was not grounding enough to me.

Interestingly enough, DN to me is like a carnival as opposed to a theme park. A theme park is a whole thing. A day excursion. A planned event.

At a carnival, the rides are short, they’re not really scary, you’re never really worried, yet they’re still fun. Maybe even a little boring to some. But one ride is never enough. And it’s not the only the rides, it’s the whole environment. It’s the candy and games, and the lights and sounds, it’s the people. One night to escape from the usual. It’s what you make it. It pops up for a time and then leaves, because it was never meant to stick around. It still provided a good time.

I’ve said before this series was never meant to be torn apart and analyzed to this degree. And I know there are a hundred other series that have the exact same tropes and similar plotlines? So are we so mad that this series was so bad compared to them, or are we mad that this series could have been better? Why are we still here talking about it when so many others have faded as soon as we closed the cover?

As you said, there are some things PD does very well in their writing. So maybe we are just upset that DN had so much promise and failed to deliver?

[shrikebrother]

rant under the cut abt like. books i guess?

the weirdest thing abt andrea long chu’s article abt ottessa moshfegh and how ppl reacted to it is that like. alc didnt rlly like.. say anything that wasnt already known. like ppl knew that moshfegh put racism and fatphobia and other bigoted or “gross” themes into her work, theres literally no way u could have claimed to read her books w/o noticing that. this isn’t to say that that shouldn’t be criticized—i def think some of it should be, to an extent—but plenty of ppl had already been criticizing moshfegh for this before acl’s article, but the majority of ppl just didnt care at all bc at that point moshfegh was still popular and on social media she was the “super unhinged aesthetic girlboss woman writer” or whatever. it was only when a somewhat popular person said “man this stuff is Weird right guys” that ppl suddenly did a complete 180 and decided that they hated moshfegh bc she was Problematic Now I Guess. like, just a day ago the same ppl were talking abt how much they loved her bc she wrote abt “unhinged women” (a term im glad to see is finally dying out somewhat) and right after the alc article they acted like they were just. completely and totally blind to everything that was criticized, as if it wasnt literally in their faces the entire time, and now they’re totally dumping moshfeghs books bc the general consensus now is that shes Bad.

again i do think there are some aspects of moshfegh’s writing and some things shes said that should be criticized, im not saying shes like innocent or anything, im just saying its weird how ppl’s opinions seemed to flip on a dime overnight. it feels like no one even rlly had like. a real opinion of their own. they liked moshfegh bc ppl were pushing that “unhinged woman” persona onto her and everyone just loved that, but when one popular person is like “erm.. shes kinda problematic and talks abt shit a lot for some reason” ppl are so quick to hate her bc thats how they Should feel. i dont know i feel like a broken record but its just so weird to me. maybe im being biased bc i personally find alc and some of her opinions really weird & annoying, and i do enjoy ottessa moshfegh’s writing (though i also have my own complicated feelings abt it), but like. it still strikes me as unfair. i also found it a bit confusing how alc talked abt moshfegh’s fatphobia in her books but not abt the racism or the ableism, which were also two really big criticisms of her at the time. i dont have any particular horse in that race so i wont say more but like. if ur gonna write an entire article at least mention those two, like id say theyre pretty major

i also dont like the mindset that writing abt taboo or gross things like moshfegh does is inherently bad. now i Know that this wasnt the point alc was trying to make at all, but i feel like its something that ppl on booktok and booktwt or whatever seem to believe sometimes. sometimes ppl just write abt pathetic, bigoted, awful people and use “dirty” ways to describe things, moshfegh certainly isnt the first and she definitely wont be the last. again, i have my own criticisms of her and im not saying that she shouldn’t have been criticized for anything alc mentioned, bc i feel like that did need to be acknowledged a bit, but moshfegh’s unflinching approach to awful ppl and disgusting subjects and her swift and direct writing style is what drew me to her so much. alc wasnt rlly criticizing moshfegh for writing like this, in fact she was actually pretty complimentary abt it, but this was the sentiment that i saw a lot of “booktok” ppl having when they talked abt the article

i probably wont talk much abt alc anymore but like. abt her in general, its a shame bc i do think shes a Good Writer on an objective level. she knows how to word things eloquently and in interesting ways and how to structure her points and just how to Write Well. but i also just think shes annoying and her opinions on gender and transition just dont rub me the right way. i would go looking for those tweets she made and some paragraphs from her book “females”, but im lazy and im not gonna put in extra effort for this post that is basically just a stream of consciousness rant. but it feels like her whole philosophy around transness revolves soley around her personal experiences and how much she hates being trans. she calls another trans woman “a dumb blonde” in her book for acting feminine “in the way she should”, then goes onto say that someone’s personal identity and feelings abt their gender is “on its own, worthless” and that gender is something that “other people have to decide for you”, which is the only reason why ppl transition. she also made a tweet saying how, for political reasons, people replaced the term “real” women with “cis” women, and it wasnt said in a way that was criticizing that, it was said in a “well, this is just the way it is guys, nothing wrong with it, just face the truth” sort of way. there are a bunch of other things i found weird but honestly i formed my opinions abt her a long time ago so i cant remember it all, and again i cant be fucked to find anything right now. maybe if someone asks i’ll link to a couple articles criticizing her work

ANYWAY, back to books and how ppl treat stories abt anything disturbing or upsetting like theyre inherently bad. i think at some point i’m gonna read things have gotten worse since we last spoke. ive heard a lot of bad things abt it but unsurprisingly most of it was from booktok ppl who just. Didnt like that this horror book had horror in it, and that the horror was gross and disturbed them. i guess i cant fault them bc it probably just wasnt the sort of book theyre used to reading or like, which is fine, but dont make it seem like it’s a bug and not a feature. if it disturbed u then. like. it sort of succeeded? thats the point, its horror, it was advertised as gross and disturbing. its a shame bc from what ive heard abt it it seems like the exact kind of book id love, and the concept is so interesting to me. i guess i should hold my tongue before i read it but i feel like it gets a lot of undeserved hatred

[tears-of-boredom]

I feel normal about the name [my uncle's name]. I don't always associate it with my uncle. I can diffrentiate between a person and their name. I don't have complicated feelings about my uncle...seriously i don't know if im jealous or relating or whistful or just thinking about him a lot for no reason. I havent seen him in like probably 8 years, I have no idea where his life went. I don't know if i see myself in him or what. He's the only thing I can think about when I see a turqoise VW van. I don't think we ever even exchanged a single word. My relationship to him is just so weird. Maybe its just because i saw him actually get independent and move away from my grandparents place. Maybe from an early age i felt like I should do that as well. I don't know I feel like these types of feelings are something i should discuss with a therapist. I hate my life and it hasnt even really begun. Its sad how i refer to my childhood like im not currently living it. I wonder how life would've been if mom had a partner to raise us with. I don't really feel sorry for her, I'm just sad that I didnt get a proper childhood. It ended when i was maybe 11. At least thats how it feels. I used to brag about how i knew how to cook macaroni and minced meat for myself at 10...Whenever i think about my age i see this row of numbers in my mind. Theres a clear distinction that a new phase of my life begun when i was 10. That that was like a level milestone in a game...One time when i went to my therapist appointment she talked about my future, and i was too tired to stop myself from crying. I think I talked about how i broke down in swedish class that day. The general consensus was that it was my medication that was making me so sensitive to crying. It really wasnt, but i wanted to believe that changing the meds would magically cure me. One other time she talked about how I should start doing social interactions bit by bit, and to remember that the worst thing people could do was not say anything back. I told her that i was getting really fucking anxious just thinking about talking to someone. She offered to change the topic, reminding me later to still try and maybe say "good morning" to a classmate sometime. Maybe 2 times I've actually told her about a thing that I had to hesitate over, that i had to have a battle over in my head, that was a big deal to me. She listened, but she really only said things like "how do you know that the other person feels like that?" afterwards. I don't know it, but frankly really nothing will change the fact that I have social anxiety, therefore i wont approach someone banking on the fact that they remember me positively and not like a fucking weirdo. I know that my social anxiety isnt that rational. That's why there are two layers to my mind that i call "the emotional side" and "the factual side". It's just fucking hard to really do anything when my mind is contradicting its own thoughts constantly. This mind layer bullshit is why I sometimes feel like im not actually autistic. Its the reason I'm so hesitant to imply that i have any mental illness. If whenever i have a sensory overload, I'm extremely aware of how im acting, I feel like im doing it for attention. Because i do wish people would see me struggling and worry about me and regocnise me and.. everything. Someone said that you can't "accidentally fake something", and I straight up dont believe them. Yeah it sounds logical so it probably is true.. but I don't believe it. I wish my dreams were really clearly nice and exactly what I wish my life was. It feels more painful when they feel like real life but just so that i have friends. She's Losing It by Belle and Sebastian is a good song. The lyrics dont really match my situation but sometimes i like to ignore that and cry to it anyways.