#like i'm more inclined to believe if there's multiple sources

[lemonhemlock]

I've seen in twt and Tumblr rumours of changing the original script of Aegon's characterization in the show and making him a rapist on purpose just to make the audience side with Rhaenyra regardless of what she might do in the future. Now idk if it's true or not, but the more I think about it the more it make sense to me. Because Ryan before the show get aired was literally talking about how Aegon ii (alongside Aegon v) is his favourite Aegon of the Targaryens and that's because he is "grey" and he literally talked about how Aegon is not like joffery and joffery is a psychopath while Aegon is not etc... Combined with the suspicious absent of Daeron who doesn't get mentioned by anyone not even his own mother and how the show portrayed Aegon as much worse person than joffery (child arena is on Ramsay-level) all of this make think that these rumours are true. Because the show has make every white conservative male abuser side with the greens while make every Lgbt/poc character side with the black this is very politically charged. Making the Velaryons who are Valeryians (the whitest and most racist race in Asoiaf) black+ ignoring the fact that both of Corlys and Daemon are pedos+showing grooming as something romantic+ making larys not only a kinslayer but also a predator when he wasn't in the book+ changing the personality of a nasty character like Mysaria+making Rhaenyra a gay ally and has a good relationship with laenor when she was homophobic to him and he wasn't present in the lives of her children most of the time in the book. So it's very obvious that they wanted this civil war to be a simple bad guy vs good guy story.

I have reblogged a post about this very topic recently - it's not that it sounds unbelievable to me, because it doesn't, considering how divergent everyone was in their interviews. It's that it's so hard to verify if/how much of this is true? These people aren't going to the press and dissing each other off, airing their dirty laundry, because that would be unprofessional. But I'm still SO CURIOUS. Do you happen to know who is the source of these rumours? We need a deuxmoi of our own lol.

[howlsofbloodhounds]

some Headcannons about Killer relationship with Frisk and the Player.

I like imagining Frisk and Killer as rivals the battle of the partners. Killer being both Asriel and Frisk replacement their better version. Killer does refer to Frisk as a different person then the player and Killer seems to have some hate for them wether that Killer own feeling or left overs from Sans I'm unsure.

I like imagining that the player can control Killer their new vessel and replacement of Frisk. Do you think their are just many different players or just one it sounds like their is more than one but I just kinda wanted your opinion on things.

~Musical Anon

There’s not much information on the Something New player (or hacker, more accurately) unfortunately. Just that:

1. The Player really, really wanted Sans to say yes to the deal.

2. The Playee altered Sans’ code to lead to this outcome in some shape or form.

I know a lot of people seem to think that altering Sans’ code was similar to like, taking over his body and forcing him to say yes, but i personally like to think that altering his code made him more inclined to accept the deal because he struggled to discern and separate his wants from the Player’s (via suddenly thinking thoughts and having feelings that don’t feel like his, something like thought insertion in the context of OSDD-2), and is why he remembers what happens during Resets (as opposed to previously being aware that they exist) —and his code didn’t solidify into k1ll_sans until after his soul was changed, and Killer was officially ‘born.’

So in this way I like to think Sans still had bodily free will and agency in accepting the Deal even despite his altered codes—it’s just that remembering all the Resets clearly now and outside influences in the form of the human’s coercion and manipulation—as well as thoughts that don’t feel like his, feel like they’re coming from an outside source but must be what he wants, made him more inclined to listening to those thoughts that he thinks isn’t his as he starts to dissociate to cope with these alien thoughts and urges.

(Prime is example is thoughts of hurt, anger, and rage at Papyrus—likely growing thoughts about wanting to kill Papyrus—about how he “deserves” it—that, at the time, sent Sans recoiling from his own thoughts in disgust, shame, fear, confusion.)

3. The Player is the reason that Killer!Sans exists. Sans is like that because of us.

4. When referring to the Player, rahafwabas and killer only ever use the words “you” and “you’re”—speaking directly to the readers of the comics.

“You want Sans to agree, you want sans to kill them.”

“You are the reason Killer!Sans exists.”

“You are the reason I am like this.”

“What do you mean, tired? You wanted this. You all wanted this.” Suggests that the Something New Hacker could be anyone, and potentially multiple.

5. The Chara in Killer’s head uses “we” to refer to themself. “We only want to help you, sans. You don’t want another Bad Ending, do you?” Suggest to me that this is the language the ‘actual’ Chara used to back when they and killer weee still partners, enough so that it carries over into killers head.

I don’t believe it’s ever said after that if the Something New Player like, still actually around. Do they directly take control of Killer, or do they have him act on their will via stuff in his programming, even when they’re not there?

Did Killer break free by turning on the human, taking control of the Reset, and winning their game, he just thinks he isn’t in timelines where Nightmare kidnaps him—still doing what he thinks We want, even if the Player isn’t actually around anymore? Or was he never actually free at all. Is the Player actually still there, controlling him or trying to control him, or is it all in his head.

[pythagoras180]

Why I Hate Adrien

So a few people have asked me why I hate Adrien so much. I've given it some thought, and I've realized that my hatred comes from 3 sources:

1. Adrien is a passive, useless character and a waste of screentime.

Adrien is a very passive character. He doesn't really have goals that he works towards outside of romance. He doesn't feel like a real person with a real life. He's just an object for the actual main characters to fight over. And to be clear, not every character needs to be active or well developed, but thei screentime should correspond to this. Adrien takes up a massive amount of screentime in the show. And since he ended up being worthless, I feel like he personally wasted my time by appearing so much. His screentime could have instead been used to develop the other characters.

2. Adrien is a creator's pet.

While Adrien doesn't really do anything in the show, I think I still may have felt bad for the character if I felt like this was because the writers didn't like him or something. Thing is, Adrien is the complete opposite, as the writers are clearly biases *for* him at every turn. He's almost always portrayed as right, even in situations where he clearly isn't. "Chameleon" clearly portrayed his "advice" about Lila as good, even though anyone with basic respect for their peers wouldn't be okay with letting them be lied to. There's episodes like "Kuro Neko", where Adrien is very clearly in the wrong amd being unreasonable, yet he's still clearly framed like we're supposed to feel bad for him. Part of the reason he has so much screentime is because the writers love to insert him in every situation they can. Even his status as a passive character can be considered as the writers favoring him. They think he shouldn't have to do anything because he's such a precious boy, so everyone should just do everything for him. I'm not inclined to like a character that I feel is getting special treatment just because of who they are.

3. Adrien does horrible things.

Those last 2 points definitely provide potential for me to dislike a character, but I don't think it's possible for me to actually do so if that character hasn't done anything wrong. Well, despite what the writers want you to believe, Adrien has absolutely done a lot of horrendous things. There's the fact that he continued being friends with Chloé despite her remorseless bullying of Adrien's "friends". He keeps trying to date Ladybug despite her repeatedly rejecting him, to the point where it's straight up harassment. This culminates in "Kuro Neko", where he quits his job of protecting the city because he keeps getting rejected (again, this is portrayed as sympathetic). Like I mentioned before, he tells Marinette to let Lila continue lying to everyone else. And why does he do this? I honestly don't know, and neither does anybody else. There's no rationalization for this moment. But the point is, Adrien put Lila above everyone else for some reason. He also emotionally cheated on Kagami, hurt her feelings, and barely cared afterward. He didn't have to do anything to make up with her, that just worked out on its own. He tried to Cataclysm multiple people despite knowing that it can be fatal, and the only time he displays real remorse over it is when Monarch is on the receiving end. Oh, but he only feels bad for like a minute, then he's fine (I believe that that was just to make Ladybug's exposition about not being able to fix it fee more natural, he wouldn't have shown any remorse if that wasn't necessary). Oh, and then there's that one moment in "Passion" where he pretends not to know what the consequences of making a wish is and tried to convince Ladybug to let him make one. If she said yes, he would have sacrificed somebody else to heal Nathalie. The show has made it clear that this is morally wrong. To me, this is the moment where Adrien became irredeemable. Also, in the Paris Special we find out that Adrien became a mass murdering supervillain in an alternate universe because he's sad that his mom died. He didn't have any grander plan, not scheme to bring her back like Gabriel did. Nope, he just killed people because he was sad, that's how they presented it. I know that this is technically a different person, but the alternate characters from tbe special are meant to be pretty close to the originals, just with different circumstances. So I think this shows who Adrien really is deep down. So yeah, I think Adrien is one of the most despicable "good guy" characters ever.

So that's the reason I hate Adrien, in 3 parts. I wouldn't hate him nearly as much if it wasn't for all 3 components. Kind of a perfect storm really, and I don't think I'll ever hate another character this much, for this reason.

[ladydoesfieldwork]

Leg rattles in southern African music

Question (@culmaer): I've been slowly making my way through Percival Kirby's book on South African instruments (published in 1934), and I assume the spellings he uses for words from the various 'Khoisan' languages are ad hoc, phonetic transcriptions and not the standardised spellings in use today. part of me was hoping there was maybe a contemporary survey of instruments, or perhaps just easily accessible dictionaries/word-lists I could go through to check the spellings he uses

Kirby mentions ankle rattles made of springbok ears of the "Qung Bushmen" and cites the name from Bleek and Lloyd's Bushman Folk-lore as |keriten. I assume by Qung he means !Kung, but I'm not sure how similar !Kung and |Xam are, or if Kirby is making an attribution error ? nevertheless, are you able to verify that name and spelling ?

then, I'm particularly curious about a springbok horn flute, per Kirby, "used by the Kalahari Bushmen near Haruchas, SWA, [which] they call |garras or |garris" as well as a similar instrument used by the "Berg-Dama" called ǂnunib, although their version apparently stopped the horn with wood to create a more specialised embouchure, which I would love more details on. are these instruments still played ?

!Xun (<!Kung>) and |Xam belong to different language families: !Xun is a Kx’a language spoken along the northwestern Kalahari Basin fringe (northern Namibia, southern Angola, northwestern Botswana). |Xam was Tuu language of the !Ui subbranch which was spoken in the west of South Africa, all the way down to the Cape. |Xam went extinct during the first half of the 20th century, while !Xun is still a vibrant language with multiple dialects. !Xun and |Xam speakers were probably not in contact with each other in historical times, but received both influence from Khoekhoe herders (who speak an unrelated language of the Khoe-Kwadi family).

Kx’a and Tuu are resident language families exclusively spoken by foragers, while Khoe-Kwadi languages were introduced from the east around 2,000 years ago; at present, they are spoken by foragers (“Kalahari Khoe”) and herders (“Khoekhoe” and the extinct Angolan language “Kwadi”).

The ‘leg rattle’ word you cite here seems pretty widespread:

Interestingly, the root *ǀɢani (my reconstruction) is indeed distributed across all three families. The underlying uvular onset (uvularity is still visible in N|uu) is responsible for the sound changes /a/ > /u/ and /n/ > /r/. It is impossible to say which of the three families is the source and I am inclined to believe that this root may be very old and refer to a very widespread cultural practice (i.e., dancing with leg rattles) (this is not to say it is evidence for a “Khoisan” family; just for a very old contact area).

I wonder whether Kirby’s “|garras or |garris” ‘springbok horn flute’ is actually the same root. The word is certainly from Khoekhoe because it has the feminine singular suffix -s. The location where it was recorded, Haruchas, also seems Nama-territory to me, so I strongly doubt this was recorded among “Kalahari Bushmen”. Haacke & Eiseb (2002) have an entry <ǀgȁríb>  ‘quick grass, esp. Cynodon dactylon’, but that does not seem to make a lot of sense here - unless, of course, Kirby got confused and the word he lists actually denotes a grass flute. Damara  ǂnunib appears to be the standard Khoekhoe word for ‘flute, play flute’ (Haacke & Eiseb 2002: 415).

Leg rattles are still very common in many San and San-descendant groups from southern Africa. They are also used by some Bantu groups like the Tswana, probably due to influence from neighboring hunter-gatherers.

In the Botswanan San group I worked with for many years, leg rattles are especially used in ritual performances which are not meant for strangers to witness. However, I have videos from a cultural workshop in which a San group from Zimbabwe performs with leg rattles. I'll share the videos as soon as I am back in office next week.

The Khoekhoe flutes are, to the best of my knowledge, no longer used. I will make a post on that (and the terms associated with the flute ensembles) tomorrow.

[transrevolutions]

Do you have proof Robspierre opposed what happened in the towns of Nantes and Lyon? Because as far as I know (and I'm no expert) there's no account of him being explicitly against what happened there, except the argument he had with Fouché in Carlotte Robespierre's mémoirs. Sorry if my question bothered you, I'm just trying to understand the whole situation.

We know Robespierre spearheaded the motion to have Carrier (the man who was in charge of the army at Nantes when the mass killings happened, and who is generally agreed to be responsible for them) recalled and removed from his position. We also know that he was against the violent dechristianizers, whom he called "fanatics".

With Fouché, the main source is Charlotte Robespierre's memoirs, and memoirs can be tricky with authentication, but I'm inclined to believe it because it lines up with the circumstances and what we know of both men. Something must've happened between the two of them for Fouché to feel so genuinely threatened by Robespierre, and we know that Robespierre abhorred excessive violence (he refused to watch executions, for example, and advocated against trying to bring the revolution to other countries through war), as well as the dechristianization movement, which he saw as both needlessly destructive and an affront to religious freedom.

Robespierre was very uncompromising when it came to actions he deemed immoral by government members (and honestly, mass slaughter is usually considered immoral by most people). He was famous for being "incorruptible" (read: not taking bribes) and due to that, there was no way to shut him up if he found out you were abusing your position, other than killing him off. So Fouché must've been scared of Robespierre exposing something about him, and the fact that he participated in semi-legal extrajudicial massacres seems a likely candidate.

Also a lot of his rhetoric in speeches hints about his complicated position on revolutionary violence. Oftentimes he condones some form of violence (like the execution of Louis Capet), but he usually tempers it with some condition about only doing it when absolutely necessary (i.e. terror without virtue is fatal). He also signed relatively few arrest warrants compared to most of his colleagues on the CSP, and was famously reluctant to arrest several people until there was better proof of their guilt (Danton and Desmoulins come to mind here; he eventually did agree to put them on trial but only after trying to dissuade Desmoulins from lawbreaking multiple times). So if he was that careful about even sending someone to trial, it's only logical that he would not be a fan of summary execution.

Sorry if this is long or if it seems like beating around the bush, I have neither the time nor the knowledge of 18th century French style/grammar conventions to comb through all the relevant documents and speeches that might hold more conclusive proof. But TL;DR: he definitely opposed Carrier's actions in Nantes, and it's very likely from what we know of his ideological positions that Fouché's actions in Lyon drove a wedge between the two as well.

(Any other French Rev folks who want to add on with more sources feel free)

[sapplejack]

Ok, so after reading multiple views on Galeazzo Maria Sforza from different sources (books, letters, archives, recollections/communication between him & other ppl), I really believe his reputation of being Literally Satan™ is greatly exaggerated and most likely untrue.

There's a ton of circumstantial evidence and contemporary bias at the time to suggest that a lot of the discontent towards him was by nobles & old heads (very common in cases involving supposed "tyrants"), and their beef with him was because he either spoke/acted with them in a manner that was no different from commoners, or that he decided to effectively replace his court with more technically skilled people i.e. he wanted a meritocracy.

Then of course, there were his brothers who tried repeatedly throughout Galeazzo's reign to overthrow him, the most notable of all, Ludovico (who did end up becoming the new duke, after poisoning Galeazzo's son no less). They (sans Filippo Maria) are heavily implied to be involved in assassination attempts when you read reports of the incidents and check everything that happened after said attempts. And don't get me started on the guy who incited his 3 assassins, Cola Montano. This guy used to be Galeazzo's teacher and would apparently punish him by beating/flogging whenever he misbehaved, and already held a grudge against Galeazzo before he even came into contact with those assassins.

Seriously, it's a lot. But yeah, after going through it all, I'm inclined to believe that this is another Borgia situation. I'm not saying Galeazzo was the nicest guy ever, but in terms of being a duke and how he treated others, he was just alright. Even his critics have said the stories about sexual assault/torture have no evidence to back them up. I'd compare his reputation to Cesare Borgia's but maybe his daughter Caterina wouldn't appreciate that lol.

[heartbrake-hotel]

Ugh. You won't believe this. I'm sorry to bug you, but I just needed to vent.

I saw some idiot on twitter saying that when E met Priscilla he had an eleven year old girl living with him in Germany. They mentioned Scotty Moore said that in his book so I looked it up. What he said was at the time E met Cilla, he had an "even younger German girl" (his words) living in the house with his father and grandmother. Except...well, I can't find any proof of this; there’s no evidence nor mention of this girl (or how old she was) anywhere else in the book nor in any other books written about him. No proof he had anyone else like that living with him in Germany.

So I don’t think that claim is true. Where do people come up with this stuff anyway? How do you not get into an argument with these idiots? Because it's super annoying.

ugh, believe it or not, baby, im not surprised at all. but you could never bug me !!! 💖 sorry it took me so long to answer this, but rest assured i haven't calmed down about this any since you first sent it 😅

a couple notes‐ honestly, i'm inclined to believe scotty. NOT TWITTER to clarify lol.. eleven seems young for him even if you are looking to view e through the most unflattering light possible 😬 but it seems likely to me that he had another teenage girl maybe not uh. officially on the lease or anything but staying over most nights ! more than ONE even sounds plausible.. we all know that someone didn't like his bed cold.!

people who claim to hate elvis sure spend an awful lot of time reviling him on the internet, especially by regurgitating half-remembered anecdotal evidence without citing their sources. 🙄 on the other hand, it's also easy to fall into the trap of too-faithful elvis historian; by that i mean that the fact that so much of his life is documented sometimes makes us complacent in our belief that if it can't be verified by multiple primary sources that it must not have happened. but we can't always say, and getting too involved as if the historical accuracy of one particular proposed event is the end-all be-all of elvis fandom can get exhausting.!

i wouldn't be surprised to find out either way, that this was or wasn't true. but you're free to make up your own mind, and if it distresses you, then fwiw i think you Totally have a leg to stand on affirming it never happened, like you said !! ultimately, it doesn't have much bearing on right now- if you like elvis, this vague and nebulous criticism probably isn't the thing that'll make you stop liking elvis, and if you hate elvis, you're probably determined to keep doing that regardless.

regarding the twitdiots- while looking into this claim i found a lady on there who legitimately believed that agent elvis tells the true story of how e was experimented on and mind controlled into drug abuse by the government.. like she said That with her whooole chest. so i don't put much stock in public opinion over there 😂😂💀

i want to fight those people extremely often (they're not just on twitter, either- it seems to have died down a little praise GOD but especially in early days after the movie there was a wave of ppl on here who would put their elvis hate in the main tags. WHICH DROVE ME BATTY), but i come from the "don't feed the trolls" era of fandom. as much as id like to rip 'em a new one when they rehash the same two issues over and over and OVER again ad nauseum, i content myself with the fact that they're living a pathetic existence in which they actively choose to fill their life with something they dislike for... no discernable reason.?

no one who spends their time bringing up a dead celebrity at all opportunities just to bash them is actually open to a discussion. and i do think there is a discussion to be had- his life was certainly very troubled, and i think there are a lot of nuanced issues that benefit from being spoken about openly !!!

but i like to debate bc i like to WIN- so jackasses tend to be a waste of my time 😘

[lorei-writes]

Meowdy! What is your favorite part about making characters? What is your least favorite part?

Hi! Hi!

(I'm most definitely going to store 'Meowdy' in my dictionary now. I love it.)

Before I jump into this -- please, excuse any typos or other errors I may make. Brain fog is hitting me really hard right now, so well. I am trying. My head just doesn't want to co-operate. (I know I could technically wait, but... a. I don't know when this situation may improve; b. I've been dying to talk about this, since it is an interesting topic).

--

I would say that my process starts at a story, so all of my favourite and most disliked things about making characters are fairly connected to that.

Essentially, I get an idea blurb, make a character-crutch to realise it... and then gradually develop them as events progress, usually while writing. (That's why I talk more about Esther than Viva -- I've simply written more of her). Sometimes I do not plan for a character to become a fully-fledged OC, but the opportunity just calls for it. (Like with Tatsuoki in Winter Flower -- it was around 20k words mark that it occurred to me it would make perfect sense to flesh him out... and so editing commenced).

As such, the favourite moment? When things just start falling into place, and I am inclined to think my character doesn't seem like just a convenient tool for the sake of plot. I want for their internal structure to believably generate events.

Least favourite? My constant source of despair? It means I have to write, or to at least spend a good amount of time contemplating a story (which, arguably, may be worse -- I tend to go through multiple scenarios then. It is easier to settle on things once the words hit the paper). And there are too few Loreis for that! I have more ideas than I can reliably process, but letting go of them makes me sad...

... It's also my current position :') Worst part is, I have the general background idea for this OC. I know what personality framework I'd start with. I know the general plot premise. I know the pairing (... it'd be Clavis). I know how it'd fit into my Pri OC-verse. HELL, I even have the name for her (... Veronica Theresa Pia di Fiore ...) and the design. I JUST DON'T HAVE ENOUGH COPIES OF MYSELF >,>

There are also side characters I came up with that haven't appear anywhere yet. Which is also a source of my " D: ". Because to write them, I first need to get a good grasp on some other events, and for that, well... More writing needs to be done. (That being said... It will be amusing if you ever see Stella "Shtela" Bergamotka, just saying.)

[pumpkinpartytails]

🌲 - I'm Tails, from Sonic the Hedgehog! More specifically, I'm a fictive, like nearly everyone in our system.

🪲 - I miss it. I miss it a lot. There was a lot I wanted to do, and one of them in particular I feel really weird- about leaving behind.

🐸 - Several! Our system has a lot, spread between my canons, but about half of my known canonmates are in @the-fictive-haven. Personally, besides myself, off the top of my head we have Surge, Silver, Tangle, Shadow, and Dr. Starline (he insisted I include the "Dr."), from those canons.

🌳 - Probably about an 8? I have a strong suspicion I'm a median subsystem and swap between versions of myself to match whichever canon I'm most currently involved with, so that helps keep me closer. Our system, while mostly multiple, is median enough that we tend to share some traits, many of which already happen to line up with how I was in source, so the changes aren't too drastic. However, there are obviously natural differences that come with operating on different hardware and having a completely new set of memories tacked on!

🌿 - I'm not entirely sure if our body can be said to have much of a gender lean, actually. We've gone through a mix of male and female puberties, it's all fairly androgynous at this point. And, actually, I'm not entirely sure of my own gender! I'm inclined to think I lean more masculine, though I'm definitely nonbinary to some extent.

☘️ - I'm not sure how to answer this, seeing as I don't have a version of my life without my identity to compare to. I've noticed things related to it in every aspect of my life, though, and it's become sort of a passion of mine to learn what I can about my identity.

🪴 - Very enjoyable! There are significant downsides, but it helps that I've sort of had an acceptance of my situation from the start. I find the whole thing fascinating anyway. Logically I believe I'm probably just a fabricated identity based on a fictional character, yet I find myself treating my canons as though they actually happened despite. I can't help it, I guess the memories all feel too real! But, whether the events of my past actually happened or not, at the least, the relationships I've developed because of it are very real, and I cherish them every day.

🍃 - Anything from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, really. It's a current hyperfixation, so we run into it a lot.

🌄 - Psychological, I guess? I'm almost inclined to think spiritual as well, just because of how strongly I feel about my past lives, but I do still on some level believe that they didn't actually happen despite how real they feel. I'm unsure what my stance is, especially given I'm not even sure what my stance on things being "real" in general is!

🐢 - I deliberately induce phantom shifts whenever I'm fronting. Mainly my tails, ears, and fur if I can manage it, though everything sort of slots into my body image when fronting to some extent.

🥝 - Generally, the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. More specifically I know of 3 canons I was in, none of which are accurate to official material but all of which have significant similarities. I maintain less intense connections to most official modern Sonic media I'm in as well.

🐛 - Sometimes it can be uncomfortable, but for the most part I really like it! Fan works make me happy. I really appreciate how much people care, and they make such nice stuff.

🌵 - I look very similar to how I look in official media, just a couple of years older. I don't grow all that much as I get older, but I definitely get older looking than this in canon! I probably look about 14-15. My mental age seems to be the body's age minus 6, which currently makes me 18.

🥀 - I think they can be a lot of fun! I don't engage with them often though, it feels a little weird. I like that they exist, even the more traditionally "problematic" ones, but I also like when people properly tag those sorts of things to make it easy to disengage.

🦕 - Not romantically, as far as I know, but I've had close friends and familial-type relationships!

Alex's fictionkin ask game!

(mostly for fictional characters)

🌲 - what is your fictotype?

🪲 - do you miss your home? Or maybe you're happy that you're here?

🐸 - do you have any sourcemates? If yes, who/what are they?

🌳 - in scale 1-10, how are you similar to your canon?

🌿 - does your fictotype have a different sex/gender identity than your body/you?

☘️ - what aspect of life does your identity affect the most?

🪴 - is your fictionkin experience unpleasant or enjoyable for you?

🍃 - what reminds you of your fictotype? (E.g.: a figurine, a doll, a tv series)

🌄 - on what level is your identity? (E.g. spiritual, psychological, psychical)

🐢 - do you experience shifts? Of yes, how do they look like?

🥝 - what is your source?

🐛 - how do you feel about fanarts of you and fanfictions?

🌵 - do you look exactly like in your source or do you look different? If you do, then what is different?

🥀 - what do you think about ships with you?

🦕 - do you have/had a loved one in your source?

♪♪♪

So, yeah, that's all! :D

Reblog this, so the others can ask you questions or answer them all right now, if you want to :>

[opinated-user]

the queerphobic responses of LO are as terrible as always. she completely missed the point of the original post about how words can have more than one meaning, across multiple languages or cultures and context will always be more important to determine what's the point of using that word. so LO's bad at linguistics, probably doesn't care about respecting any culture outside the mainstream one she grew up with because she has a colonialistic mindset where she thinks what is good enough for her has to be good for the rest of the world, she's bad at refuting legitimate points someone made and her own reactionary queerphobia is so strong that she refuses to educate herself on the most basic part of LGBT+ history or academics. we knew all of this already and i have plenty of other posts talking about it if anyone cares to see them. what i want to concentrate a moment longer here is on the bits that i highlighted on red in that screenshot. there's two ways i can read the first one: 1. LO's responding to the claims that she fetishizes w|w content by saying that it's a problem of the LGBT+ community at large that should be adressed, when in fact it's just a problem that some people have about the way she talks and treats w|w content as inherently more "pure" and inherently better than any other kind of queer content, which she blatantly ignores when it's not about sapphic characters. btw, thinking that w|w are "the purest form of love" is not an orientation. it's deshumanizing for w|w to see themselves put on a pedestal like that and ignores that, by the end of the day, sapphic people are literally just people. 2. LO's voicing old exclusionist rethoric against out there identities that she herself think are actually nothing else but fetishes. she might claim that she has been "radically inclusive" with many identities over the years, but when it comes to actually be confronted on how to includes these people she obviously doesn't have any idea or care into how to carry that out. she rejects mogai and she rejects queer because she thinks that adding more letters will be enough, even though that's doomed to always leave at least someone behind and without any visibility for the community. i'm inclined to the first one but at this point, i believe that either could be. now to the second point. what rampant "self abuse" is she talking about? it could be that she's still on her queerphobic idea that queer people being proud of being queer are self harming themselves, without any other source than her own opinion... or it could be kinks maybe? or it could even be more making a "LGBT+ community problem" the fact that many queer people call her out on her creepy tendencies? i could especulate all day but that one is just confusing for me. edit: i just want to add this something. do you know why pushback against queer as a community identifier has gotten louder on the last few years? it's because TERFs have gotten even louder, bolder and shameless over the las few years, getting support from massively big public figures like rowling and others. these people who have gotten major public platforms from which to keep spreading their ideology (like dave chapell) or have gotten into official media generally respected to spread their transmisogynistic agenda.

it should be terrifying for anyone on the LGBT+ community, queer or not, that this is happening because it's not about people being uncomfortable with being refered to as a word they don't like. it's about open bigotry and hatred that's currently making the lives of LGBT+ people as a whole worse than it was before.

[meimi-haneoka]

I wonder if CLAMP will ever give us the answer to why can't magic families show their kids their deceased parents photos 🥺

Iirc Akiho didn't have photos of her parents and syaoran didn't have photos of his dad either...

And then sakura has photos of her mom and now she can see them cuz her powers are growing too quickly? Wonder if photos have any influence hmmm...

Curious about ur thoughts on this! :D

Side note, thank u for all the translations and healthy discussions! Always a joy to read them

First of all, thank YOU anon for reading and appreciating my posts! 💜 I love the term "healthy discussions", it is really what I aim for. Sometimes I might be too exhausted to talk about certain topics (cause of discourse I see around) but I try my best.

The question you raised is really interesting! Since we have already two examples of kids part of magical clans who can't somehow see pictures of their deceased parents, it's legit to raise some questions on that matter.

In my opinion, though, the "source" of this is different between Syaoran and Akiho.

For Syaoran, we somehow have a vague idea of the family climate he grew up in. The Li Clan is certainly a renowned and powerful magical clan, and although there might be a certain amount of strictness "enforced" by Yelan (the current head of the family) to maintain a certain control over the clan, we also have seen plenty of examples of love and care in Syaoran's household. His sisters dote on him in the anime (let's remember that, despite appearing only in the anime, the four Li sisters are characters created by CLAMP and their existence is confirmed in the manga as well), and his mother can be very sweet with him in difficult times (like the story of the Mini Book that came with vol. 10 of Clear Card). So I'm inclined to believe that, if Yelan didn't keep pictures of her late husband around the house, there must be a deep reason: 1- Psychological reasons 2- She didn't actually have a good relationship with him 3- She's afraid of the emotional response of her child with impressive magical powers at such young age. Let's remember that Sakura herself was seemingly "stopped" by Nadeshiko's ghost before reaching for a projection of her mother when she was little, suggesting that her chaotic powers might have caused an irreversible damage. After all, we had multiple, subtle & non-subtle evidences that emotional state DOES influence a magician's control over their powers. Maybe Yelan is well aware of this and wants to delay that for when her son is more experienced with controlling his own powers. I don't really know, but these are my theories for what concerns the Li side of this question. 😁

Sadly, I can't say the same for Akiho's clan. I won't call them the "Shinomoto Clan" as they've never been called that way in the story and I have a strong theory that Akiho's name is fake. So I will call them with my favorite moniker, "Squid Clan" 😁😁 As we all know, Akiho was born without any trace of magical powers. So I highly doubt her clan would refuse (because this is what they did, they REFUSED upon her stubborn and persistent requests) to give Akiho pictures of her parents in fear of what could cause an overwhelming emotional response. I don't even believe in the psychological reasons, as no one seemed to particularly grieve for Lilie and her husband's demise, if not for the loss of a magical asset in their clan. And we already know that they couldn't give a f- about Akiho's mental state, since they were the ones inflicting permanent damages on it in the first place. Nah, unfortunately in Akiho's case I think it was simply some kind of "punishment" for not having any magical powers. I remind you that, in one of the flashbacks, one of the bastards even dared questioning if Akiho was truly the daughter of Lilie and her husband. It's somehow as if she can't be really considered their daughter if she didn't inherit any magical ability from them. And so, why would she have any right to keep or even see how her parents looked like? They died to protect her, after all. The biggest asset to their clan was gone because of her. (god, my hands are shaking while I write this.) So once again, I simply believe their greed and cruelty is the reason why they refused her any picture of her parents.

[kikuism]

hi mariam!! 💖💖💖 i have an assortment of embroidery-related questions :'0 do you keep a queue of all your future project ideas or pick on a whim? is there a dedicated embroidery zone that you keep to? do you like to have a full rainbow of threads at your disposal or do you select colors based on the project you're working on? what's your favorite project so far been and do you have any techniques you still want to try?? i love your embroidery sm and i'm in constant awe of your growth 🧵💛

hi jenna!! 🤎🤎🤎 aww thank you so much, i'm so thrilled and touched you love my embroidery 🥺💕💕💕

i make up designs on a whim!! i just think about cute cartoon/toy characters and design something based on that. i've actually been pretty pleased at my designs since i'm not artistically inclined in that sense ... i don't have an artist's eye for design at all but every hoop i've made is something i personally find cute and appealing and something i would want to hang up on my wall so it feels authentic. i have multiple designs in queue so when it's time for a new project i just pick whatever one i feel most excited to work on.

i embroider on my desk! it's actually the reason i got a desk hfjshf before that i was embroidering on my bed without a strong focused light source (horrible!!!) so a desk and a lamp has helped me a lot. it's just that sitting on the desk chair for long stretches of time cramps up my legs/feet, but i guess that encourages me to take a break and stretch for a bit. but yeah, a desk helps me focus much more on my stitches and keeps everything neat and laid out in front of me—i was always always losing my needle on my bed.

i choose colors based on my project!! i like to keep my desk as clean as possible because having too many skeins around me just doesn't do well for my headspace. so before i start i pick out my colors and lay them out to the side.

oooh okay so i have two hoops i'm really really proud of and which i absolutely adore :')))

like, i can't believe i made these?? they're so cute. the care bears one was such a labor of love too and i couldn't be more thrilled at the result. and it was so frustrating because in the middle of stitching that hoop i had to throw away my old needles which had rusted and finding a new one from the pack was a nightmare since i was so used to the old sizes. i finally found one though and i remember stitching really angrily hgjshfhf like stabbing the fabric as i went along bc i was so frustrated since the stitches weren't looking Right.... nevertheless i persevered. so this hoop was definitely a journey but it came out so beautiful and it was worth all the frustration. and the hello kitty one feels so special bc it speaks to my love of reading which i absolutely adore :')) it's such a me hoop!!

for techniques, i think i really should branch out and try more stitches besides my beloved split stitch 😪 it's literally the only stitch i use in my projects hgksjfjf it's so simple and looks so good, nothing complicated about it. i really want to practice embroidering text though! it still scares me and it's not as neat as i would want it to be. oh and embroidery hoops also come in these cute mini sizes which you can use to make necklaces/keychains which is something i really want to try since they're much more affordable than a full size hoop. the only problem is that stitching on a really small space freaks me out, like there's no room. but look how cute these are...

i really want to try this in the future, it'll give me practice for stitching small and it's so cute.

[cy4ngel]

hey um we're a system with unknown origins and we're finding it hard to navigate the interwebs with all of the gatekeeping and fakeclaiming and anti-endo stuff so 2 things 1) are u a sysmed or something and 2) how in the heck do we navigate any of this without getting stressed over f*keclaiming for not knowing if we're traumagenic/what that trauma is

First off, if you ever use the term "sysmed" at me again, anon privileges are getting revoked. That term was appropriated from trans culture and y'all have absolutely no right to use it the way you are. It comes from the word "transmed," short for "transmedicalist" which means a person who thinks that if, for any reason at all you cannot or will not fully medically transition, you are not trans. They treat transness as a disease or disorder, which it is not, and it has caused real world harm. People were harassed, doxxed, sent death threats, and some have even committed suicide.

"Sysmed" means someone who thinks systems form from trauma, and I have looked and found absolutely no sources credible that say systems can form without trauma.

With our current understanding of how systems form, you cannot be a system without trauma. Maybe one day that will change, there still isn't a lot of research on systems. Maybe one day there will be multiple credible sources out there that say this can happen, but as of right now there aren't and I am inclined to believe the science.

On the day when multiple research studies have been done and peer reviewed and published officially and all of that good shit, then I will believe that systems without trauma can exist.

Until then, I really don't give too much of a fuck about people calling themselves endogenic or mixed origin or whatever. It's not my life, I've got my own shit to deal with, so I mind my own business. Let them handle their shit, I really could not care less. If you call yourself endogenic or whatever and follow me, I'm not gonna get pissy, just don't drag fucking syscourse into my inbox.

Speaking of syscourse, in regards to your second question; stop engaging with syscourse. I promise your life will get so much easier.

Here's a dose of reality. Regardless of who you're talking to, singlet or system, traumagenic or endogenic, black or white, gay or straight - we're all just trying to live our lives and find a way for the world to make sense.

Syscourse is fucking stupid. Someone says they're endogenic? Okay, whatever, that doesn't affect me. Someone says persecutors are evil? Damn, they're a shitty person, I hope I never meet or talk to them. Someone says introjects aren't real? They're very uneducated, but it's not my job to educate them, and I'm hungry so I'm gonna grab something from McDonald's down the road.

I have never had any of these problems in the real world, and I know like 3 different systems IRL. That's a lot when you live in the ass crack of nowhere. They only exist online because people love to argue and fight and blow shit out of proportion, and that can make those problems seem way worse than they actually are.

I also recommend taking a step back from the Internet. That doesn't mean leave it completely, or forever, but just step back for a bit and think about you, your system, what being a system means to you, etc.

If you have decent communication within your system, have this conversation with them, too. You're part of a team now, a team whose goal is to keep everyone in your body safe, happy, and healthy. You may have different ideas on how to do that, and that's okay, but you need to talk that out between yourselves at some point, if and when you can.

It will be far easier to focus on yourself and your life if you stop giving a shit about things that don't matter in real life. There are far more pressing issues for systems in the real world then whether or not that alter is a protector or a caretaker. Have you ever tried looking up "DID in the workplace"? It's tips for therapists on how to deal with systems, not tips for systems on how to find and maintain a steady job.

There aren't many resources out there for systems right now. We don't have much, so we make do with what we have. The last thing we fucking need is to be arguing over shit that, again, does not fucking matter in the real world.

Any further syscourse shit in our inbox is getting deleted. I don't want to give it any more of my time than I already have.

[sapphicselkie]

dsmp has been over for a while now. although there's been some resurgence (dream released the world download, a few creators went on and did some stuff recently). importantly, i don't know much about dsmp-era stuff because i never watched it. i just think tommy's neat.

but as for what has happened since dsmp:

shelby grace (shubble) explained in a stream on february of this year (as well as another stream with lexie marie that month) that she had been dealing with physical and emotional abuse from her previous partner. she didn't name him in her stream, but a lot of keyboard warriors put the clues together and guessed will wood (wilbur soot), and will did end up posting an "apology" on twitter, essentially confirming he was the abuser. multiple other women have spoken up since shelby's stream about his abusive behavior, including cosplay youtuber alicenyannya, a photographer, an ex-trumpet player for will's band, and niki nihachu.

streamer caiti (caitibugzz) alleged not long after shelby's stream that george (georgenotfound) sexually assaulted her at a party when she was 18. i don't know as much about this one because there was a huge smear campaign against caiti and i don't know what sources are actually trustworthy. both george and dream posted videos on YT to deny the allegations. i just remember watching a stream from maxggs (i cannot find the vod) that caiti cried about it to him after it happened (long before she spoke up), so i'm inclined to believe the allegation.

this one is more based on personal values but sapnap decided to sign with the kick streaming platform. now, kick sucks for a multitude of reasons, but i think tubbo does a great job breaking down why it's disappointing sapnap decided to sign with them.

dream is... well, dream. someone could probably write a book on all the things wrong with this guy. there was a leaked clip from tommy's and jack's podcast shut up i'm talking from last month where they and philza discuss not liking dream. they don't go into details of what happened behind the scenes but it's pretty telling that phil and jack both disliked dream from the start. (the clip may get taken down because it was behind a patreon paywall.)

anyone who's been online for more than a decade already knew that logan paul fucking sucks, but tommy has figured it out in a shitty way in the past couple months. he talked about it in a stream last month (he starts talking about it around the 7:00 mark), but long story short, logan put in an ad for his and ksi's prime drink during a video segment about the conflict in gaza. tommy got fed up and said that it was fucked up on twitter. logan decided to beef with him publicly and leaked their DMs (which only served to prove that yes, logan is an asshole).

to my knowledge tommy hasn't spoken in any detail about his behind the scenes experiences with these people and he may never do so, but this is the stuff that i could remember off the top of my head that is publicly available.

today is my birthday and tommyinnit has dropped a depressing banger

and i decided to transcribe the very quick, hard to read text boxes that occur between 2:50 - 3:13

#1: If you find a corner of this world wide web that has any substance at all, then please stick to it. The hundreds of millions of people that now place absolutely no value on their time, their precious time, and spend it watching soulless content designed to hold their attention is depressing. This all depressed me. There is so little substance in this mess of a world wide web. So little heart or soul or love. If you find any substance, stick to it.

#2: [something about being angry -- the text is too hard to make out]

#3: A Tribute To Minecraft, The Great Potato War, TheOriginalAce's Q&A's, Ludwig's 2020 streams, SMPLive Talent Show. This was everything to me.

#4: Status is irrational and nature is cyclical. It's attention porn. Don't get addicted to it. It's nothing. It means nothing. They are more insecure than you. But what the fuck do I know.

#5: When I was a boy, alone, this meant everything to me. I found my people. My place. All along the way I was a part of something that really meant something. This is the only good bit of this. Whatever I did that meant something, that is the only good bit.

#6: I can't watch back my old videos because everyone in them wasn't who they said they were. Do you know how bad this makes me feel. Do you know how sad I have felt all year.

#7: How could anyone possibly find out who they are when you are all immersed in this needless, self-indulgent spiral of instant gratification and distraction. This is not good for you.

#8: [upside down text] the poor 12 year old watching this sad ass video when he subscribed for funny minecraft videos. poor guy lmao I don't think I trust anyone here I don't think anyone trusts anyone here.

#9: yeah i know it's too much like bo burnham. It won't be in a year though. In a year it will be like Tom Simons. Just let me figure out what that means, ok?

#10: I used to feel like I was just doing everything wrong. That I just wasn't smart or good like any of my friends. I realise now I was the only one doing the right thing. I just wanted to have fun. What I'd do to get that back, my god. What I'd do. To have things be simple again.

#11: I just don't want to slip back into who I was. A year ago I needed you. A year ago most of my self esteem and worth and love came from you. A year ago I wasn't happy unless you were. I don't think I can ever do that again. That really was wrong. How did I possibly end up there?

[hopeymchope]

So, I'm trying to understand this, from a person who has next to no knowledge on the series. What exactly is going on with Attack on Titan? And I'm more than willing to read a long rant if it means I get an explanation.

If you’re wondering why the tag for the manga blew up in recent weeks, that’s one specific thing - a character “death” (or at least, character-serious-injury) that’s got fans freaking out.

If you’re wondering why everything has been sucking for like two straight years of manga and people like me keep making very salty posts about it, that’s a whole other topic.

And that’s what I’m gonna cover in this rant: How Attack on Titan has been shitting its own bed for more than a year now.

Basic Setup: Attack on Titan takes place in a world where the remnants of humanity live in a walled city. The city’s walls protect them from gigantic, grotesque “Titans” who attempt to devour people on sight.

…but naturally, as the story went on, it got way more complicated.

Most of the problems with the manga began circa the time-skip (which is also where the Anime is going to catch up to once the current season 3 is finished). Rarely has there ever been a time-skip in fiction that’s been wonderfully received, but the four-year gap between “Return to Shanganshima” and the “Marley” arc has to be one of the worst.

But the whole crash-and-burn kind of starts right before the time-skip, when we first learn the name “Marley,” begin to learn the true origin of Titans, and uncover true enemy opposing our heroes via a forced flashback. For the purposes of this little essay, let’s just put all of the Marley-related information into one big collection - I’m not gonna separate the last couple chapters pre-timeskip from all the tons we’ve had afterwards. All things dealing with the aforementioned “enemy” will just go into one big fuckpile.

SO. The time-skip jumped forward fouryears into an arc that lasted almost a year without letting us see any of our established protagonists. Instead, we follow… the enemy I just mentioned.

And since Attack on Titan begins and goes for most of its duration without any clear enemies outside of “TEH TITANS” and “general assholes within the system,” this is where I have to put a spoiler cut.

A Rant on Titan

So the enemy of the characters we know so far is Marley, the actual source of the titans. The world isn’t destroyed at all, naturally. Our heroes just live in one isolated place on the planet, which is forced to be surrounded by Titans because Marley shoved them into that walled city and then created Titans on the regular.

Marley is a nation of………………

…*SIGH*…

okay, look. I could try to call Marley  a “Nazi Germany allegory,” but the allegory is so thin that they’re basically just incredibly overt Nazis. They’re a military-focused nation of incredible genetic pride where purity is celebrated and where one particular race - a group of both different genetic descendancy than them AND of different religious beliefs - are treated as inferior garbage. The Marley government sees “Eldians” as disposable. They are forced to wear armbands with stars on their arms (YES, REALLY) to identify them in public, and they also make them lived in fenced-off, separate communities.

Marley’s science experiments on Eldians (yup, they tossed that in, too) resulted in the creation of the TITANS. It turns the Eldians into mindless prisoners of their own bodies who grow in size, deform, try to eat people instinctively, and long only for their own deaths.

If they made a third AOT video game, it’d have to be something like this. …. So maybe we shouldn’t.

ANYWAY. During this Marley story arc, we mostly follow child soldiers. They’re of “low birth” because of their race. They chose to enter military service in exchange for having their families treated like regular human beings one day, if they earn their way to become titan-shifters. Nevermind that titan-shifters all die within seven years because of the power of turning into a titan - it’s worth it to raise their family’s status beyond just your regular Jews Eldians, right? Nevermind that they’d never really be seen as equals. Even those who have elevated their own rank by becoming shifters are shown to still be subject to some snark and disdain,but yknow - you were just born that way, so you’re shitty regardless, right?

Through this horrific scenario, we follow a few kids in particular - most notably Falco, who is gradually seeing reality and realizing how they don’t deserve to be treated like shit and that this is all a work - and Gabi, who is becoming increasingly militant and more zealous over time.

RELEVANT SIDE NOTE: Gabi’s character design is based upon a sketch Isayama once did of a gender-shfited Eren Jeager (Eren Jaeger is the main protagonist of the series). For that reason, you might be inclined ot think that Gabi is some kind of alternate/parallel Eren.

Except that’s fucking ridiculous, of course!

Gabi is shown to only care about her own rage against the people within the walls of “Paradis” (the sarcastic name for the walled city where all of our heroes come from) above ALL else. She doesn’t care about her family at all, never noticing her brother’s suicidal tendencies and pain even as Falco is acutely aware of it. The fact that her parents are pained by her following her brother’s dark path to becoming a shifter. She doesn’t notice or care. The more evidence that is put in front of her that the other side might not be as evil as she thinks? That just makes her want to commit murder MORE.

Oh, and she DOES murder people. And try to murder more. A lot. She even successfully murders a fan-favorite character - a character who shows her mercy by pointing a gun at her, seeing she’s only a child, and opting to let her live. Gabi repays this mercy by shooting that character in the back later and boasting excitedly about it to anyone who will listen for multiple chapters in a row.

She then tries to top that by attempting to murder that character’s little adopted sister, who is like, maybe 10 years old, tops? Gabi is then protected from harm by Mikasa and now seems to be on the path towards some kind of “redemption arc” because… uh…………..

………………..because Isayama is shitty?

By contrast, Eren struggles throughout the ENTIRE NARRATIVE to bring harm to people who betray him/those he cares about or those who try to kill him/those he cares about, but often runs into incredible challenges when fighting these douchenozzles. The entire time we followed Eren up until now, he always prioritized his family and friends above EVERYTHING. He would risk ANYTHING to protect them and his comrades in the Paradis military… this was true from when he was a young boy at the start of the story up through him being a young man at this point. And he is ESPECIALLY intense about protecting his closest friends, Armin and Mikasa, who he’s known for nearly his entire life. They grew up together.

That’s set in fucking stone for like 90 chapters, so we’re good. Yeah?

Oh, sweet summer child. Perhaps you were so unprepared for Isayama’s Nazi mallet that you didn’t see his secondary weapon coming?

See, the post-timeskip Eren treats his friends like shit. He lies to them, betrays their trust, runs off and starts a literal war on his OWN, and then tells them how much he hates them. Claims he always hated them.

So in the course of just a couple chapters, he goes from saying this:

To swiftly saying THIS:

Note that devastated look in her eyes. Wonderful.

And yes, he’s GOT to be lying, because I don’t think Isayama would juxtapose those two scenes so closely together in some unwitting fashion. But he’s doing so much damage to them by now that I honestly don’t even know if it matters?

Take Hange.

She’s the intelligent leader of the team, the one who always has a wild, unlikely plan. She’s a science whiz and comes up with longshot plans that always seem to weirdly… work out.

We’re told that, three years ago, she was presented a plan to overthrow Marley by Zeke - a fucking bastard who is clearly a member of the enemy, he’s lived with them his whole life, as a child he betrayed his parents to them and had them executed for being disloyal to Marley, and he’s killed COUNTLESS comrades of our heroes - and Hange decided Zeke’s plan was the only possible option and came up with no alternatives for four years. So she made them ally up with the least trustworthy person IMAGINABLE for a terrible plan,b because Hange’s… a stupid sucker now, I guess.

And why is it a terrible plan — aside from the fact that there is literally zero reason to ever believe anything Zeke says to you, since he’s the most evil fucker in the world? Oh, because it hinges HEAVILY around forcing another member of the team — Historia — into a pregnancy to churn out a baby they intend to use for the country’s gain.

Historia’s big character arc in “Attack on Titan” has been her coming to terms with her own identity and OWNING it. She’s been hiding under another identity or been controlled by other people much of her life. She finally comes out under her true name, declares that she’ll never leave in fear or be maniuplated ever again, and then—

… oh wait.. she’s manipulated into being barefoot and pregnant against her own wishes, because their greatest enemy asked for it.

There’s a lot to hate about the post-”Return to Shinganshima” Attack on Titan, in short. From characters becoming inversions of themselves to full fanatical Nazis being treated like redemption babies to complete destruction of self-actualization of other characters and the fact that, even if this is part of some larger plan being manipulated by multiple players (which seems likely), it still won’t really make up for much of the damage… and for that matter, how plausible would it even be?

But basically, there’s going to have to be quite an 11th-hour ass-pull to make this turn out decently in my eyes by now. And that’s not IMPOSSIBLE.

But it’s looking pretty unlikely.

[famous-aces]

Morrissey

Who: Steven Patrick Morrissey

What: Musician

Where: English (Active, internationally)

When: May 22, 1959 - Present

(Image Description: a black and white photo of Morrissey from 1992.  He is a young white man in his early thirties with dark hair and eyes. His hair is short and messy.  He has thick eyebrows and a strong jawline. He is smiling very slightly. He is wearing a pale knit sweater. End ID)

Morrisey is one of those world-famous single named singers: Cher, Sting, Prince, Madonna, Morrissey. Perhaps a little Bono as, while he is more ironic and droll than the U2 frontman, he also has a reputation for douche-baggery.  Morrissey is famous for his music's bleak drama blended with bleak humor, sexually ambiguousness, themes of the past and self-reflection, and being an all around "anti-pop idol".

Morrissey made a name for himself as the frontman for The Smiths in the 1980s (1982-87), but has a successful solo career since 1988 with only a brief hiatus from '98-'03.  His most beloved albums include The Queen is Dead (1986), Strangeways, Here We Come (1987), Viva Hate (1988), Your Arsenal (1992), Vauxhall and I (1994), You are the Quarry (2004), Years of Refusal (2009). His most recey album (California Son) came out in February of this year (2019).

He is outspoken politically on, for example, vegetarianism and animal rights and against the monarchy and Americanization. In 2006 a BBC poll voted him the second greatest living British cultural icon.

I admit that while I like the Smiths well enough I had never liked them enough to really follow Morrissey's career, which is odd as I do like the whole punk/new wave/post punk scene very much. But I started listening to him a bit for this and a bit depressing but quite good.

(Image description: a photo of the Smiths backstage in 1984 by Tom Sheehan.  From left to right Andy Rourke [a white man with brown hair and a leather jacket. Below that he has on a shirt with what I think is a crow on it. He has his bass slung around his neck and his hands behind his back. He has his head slightly cocked], Morrissey [wearing a striped shirt with a low neck, long necklaces, and square glasses. He has his arms crossed], Mike Joyce [pale with black hair spiked up and his bangs falling into his face. He has on a Smiths t-shirt and is mostly hidden behind the others], and Johnny Marr [pale with a black mop top with long bangs, he is thin with an angular face, he is wearing a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He has his guitar slung around his neck and fingers on the frets.] End ID)

Orientation: Humasexual (A word of Morrissey's own creation meaning "attracted to humans" but I will go into why, in Morrissey's case, it seems to fit under the asexual umbrella.)

I'm breaking my own rule here. Morrissey does not call himself "asexual," but uses his own term: humasexual. But as he defines the term and the nature of his sexual/romantic orientation it fits under the aspec umbrella. At one point Morrissey identifed as a bisexual who "hates sex" and later a "non-practicing bisexual," but be later abandoned that terminology. By the 2010s he was very open on the exact nature of his orientation.

While I would not go up to him and demand he identify as aspec the experience he describes does fit in fairly neatly into our letter of the Alphabet Soup. Again, I would not demand anything of him. He is a human person. Sexual orientation is, in the end, highly personal and individual. Do not be The Guy/Gal/Person. In the end everyone is entitled to name and define their own experience.

It may seem odd that a man who writes a lot about sex/sexual desire in his music could be asexual, but I don't think writing is necessarily indicative of the writer's true feelings.  Morrissey agrees, saying time and time again from his earliest fame that he is writing a general story, not a biography. He says of his lyrics that "It was very important for me to try and write for everybody...nothing is ever open and shut.". Remember, while the artist always leaves a trace of themself in their art it is not always in the most obvious way.

I believe his humasexual might be closer to demi (or perhaps gray) than it is to utterly asexual. Aspec, but not at the zero/zero point, when we get to the quotes section I will explain further.  Morrissey is definitely not aromantic. But he was intentionally celibate until his mid-thirties. It was then he had his first serious relationship, all by his own admission, not being interested in sex much before that.  He still seems to have stints of celibacy. Sex as a "maybe" or a shrug rather than a necessity. And again it took a deep personal connection to his partner for him to even feel the urge to have sex. Indeed, he claimed to "hate" sex before that.

I hope to clear things up in the quotes section when I let Morrissey speak for himself, which he has done, extensively. I included quotes from his most recent public discussion on the matter from 2013.

(Image Description: a more recent photo of Morrissey performing on stage this one in color. He has graying hair now and is slightly larger than he was as a younger man, though he is not overweight. He is just less trim. He is wearing a dark suit. His face is wracked with emotion, eyes closed, mouth open. He has one hand in front of him, open palmed. The other holds the mic to his mouth.  End ID)

“Unfortunately, I am not homosexual. In technical fact, I am humasexual. I am attracted to humans.  But, of course . . . not many.”

-Morrissey in a statement from October 2013 (quoted by Time Magazine. Emphasis in original as it is the same in multiple sources) (I think this should be obvious. Again, labels are entirely up to the person using them and thus I am not applying one to Morrissey, but clearly he could stand under the ace umbrella mspec romantically and aspec sexually)

"[F]or the first time in my life the eternal ‘I’ becomes ‘we’, as, finally, I can get on with someone, Jake [Owen Walters] and I neither sought not needed company other than our own for the whirlwind stretch to come.”  

-Morrissey in his 2013 memoir Autobiography.  (Walters was his first serious relationship.  The relationship began in 1994 and ended in 1996. It describes sentiment echoed by many demisexuals "'I' becomes 'we'" and "finally I can get on with someone". Also the idea of solitude may reflect an aspec relationship.)

"Girls remained mysteriously attracted to me, and I had no idea why, since although each fumbling foray hit the target, nothing electrifying took place, and I turned a thousand corners without caring … Far more exciting were the array of stylish racing bikes that my father would bring home.”

-Morrissey on being a teenager in that same memoir

"I don't recognise such terms as heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and I think it's important that there's someone in pop music who's like that. These words do great damage, they confuse people and they make people feel unhappy so I want to do away with them."

-Morrissey in a 1985 interview. (I don't agree with him in the least, my label makes me very happy and I know it makes many other people happy [although I did feel like this before I had my asexual label.] I think he might have been projecting. I think his not quite fitting into anything made him uncomfortable and it shows why he might not be inclined to stick to a traditional label and instead invent his own.)

[Nick] Kent: …[Y]out write a lot about homosexual longing.

Morrissey: I've always said that I leave things very open and that I sing about people. Without limitation. And I don't think that automatically makes me homosexual.

Kent: What about...sexual relationships?

Morrissey: I don't have relationships at all. It's out of the question.

Kent: Why?

Morrissey: Partly because I have always been attracted to men or women who were never attracted to me. And I was never attracted to men or women who were attracted to me. So that's the problem. I've never met the right person.

-A 1985 interview with Nick Kent, quoted by David Brent in Morrissey: Scandal and Passion (2004) (not finding "the right person" seems quite demi to me. He also says that is "part" of the reason. So there is probably a more complicated reason too. Also of note, Morrissey doesn't like Kent [or at least didn't at the time] so odds are he was disinclined to further articulate his most personal life to him. But that is purely speculation and it is dicey waters even speculating that much.)

(Image Description: the album cover of You are the Quarry. It shows Morrissey on a red background holding an old fashioned Tommy gun and wearing an old fashioned pin stripe suit. He takes up most of the left side of the image. Beside him on the right it says "Morrissey, You are the Quarry." End ID)