#like you dont know me and putting up personal aspects of myself in some symbolic way for a painting is eugh

[cinnabeat]

i fucking hate self portraits btw especially when my professors are like make it represent something about yourself 🥰🥰 like fuck youuuuuu

[balrogballs]

I’m curious how you “plan” your fics in your notes! If it’s okay with you to share your secrets ofc… I always face the trouble of wanting to write a story where ���nothing happens” and its more an exploration of ones character. But then i never know when to start? I always feel like stakes need to be involved in order for me to write 😖

Of course, perfectly happy to share!

So sorry it took me a day or so to get to this, I was travelling and wanted to answer properly haha. Below the cut!

Just a note though this is just my chaotic little process and is by no means particularly expert/useful - I do put in quite a bit of work into them but I defo don’t take myself too seriously so this could fully just be me rambling! Also I am still in my cold tent hence forgive typos!

Have also attached some examples of my plan, from The Sword Tree oneshot but ofc no need to read that, its just an overview of the process :)

With the below re, planning, this applies to anything that isn’t in my Feral Children series - that series is a bit more loosely planned in that I centre them all around family/parenthood so its a bit more fun. I like to balance posting both kind of fics, and I’d say Cast in Stone would be the sole story where it’s both.

Normally I like to think of a few themes first, normally one or two for each, and theyre quite basic/expansive. In False Spring it’s an eldritch manifestation of sea longing as chronic illness in Elrond, and then in Rats of Valinor, the spiritual sequel, it’s how said illness isn’t ‘cured’ in Valinor, with a side of diasporic ‘reverse’ longing. Then I write, normally by hand bc I’m a dweeb, a general thematic outline of what I’d like the story to convey. Here’s an example that I’ve shared before from the Sword Tree.

Since with most of these stories, nothing very much ‘happens’ in terms of story beats, eg. climatic point of Rats is literally Elrond seeing a rat, the one for Sword Tree is Maedhros chopping down a tree, the “drive” is mostly emotional rather than action based. So I plan out the emotional arc, and then decide the best ways to convey each aspect of it. I don’t really write this out, but have a vague idea in my head.

However, and this doesn’t really apply to the lighter feral children stories at all as I dont plan those, I do spend a bit of time on the prose and symbols/elements for each aspect before I write the story itself — this is me being unimaginative actually, as I’m writing in a very similar style and process to my novel writing, where again, the prose matters more than the narrative arc. I actually find it a lot harder to write long plot driven stories, and hope to challenge myself on this front in the future.

But yes, here, I talk to myself a bit on Google Docs, think of interesting ways to say what I want to say, tighten some important bits of prose before I actually put it all together - here’s an example, again from The Sword Tree just to keep it consistent!

And then I just write it! Most of the dialogue, and definitely all of the humour/random observations/inserts are written as I go, and I’d say my general narratorial style is conducive to this as for the most part it follows a somewhat ‘storyteller’ style, which works well with said random inserts or fourth wall breaks so to speak - I actually very much played this up with Cast in Stone for narrative/plot reasons, as anyone who’s read it would know haha. I will say though, said storytelling style works nicely with Tolkien due to how the original books are written, and is probably why I’m so compelled to and enjoy writing for this fandom, but it’s not read too well when I wrote for, say, Naruto haha.

Anyway hope thats helpful and that I havent been just chatting out of my arse for such a long time! Sorry for the lateness as well, I wanted to answer properly and just really didn’t want to be the person that says “oh haha i just write xoxo” because wayyy too many people in litfic say stuff like that lmao

I also wanted to say this is by no means expert advice or even that this is very good advice even - it’s just what works for me!

[poopscooplala]

(psa this is mostly referring to the movies)

ive seen a few posts that have bothered me. i searched "remadora bad" on google to see what people were saying and it came up eith tumblrs and reddits etc and they were all really weird.

i recently got into the marauders fandom after reading atyd and being a fan of harry potter since i was a child, this fandom made me really happy because of the escapism it provided. many of us have loved hp and then realised its problematic aspects and seen jkr being the worst and no longer can escape with hp.. and marauders fandom is a much more inclusive and feels safe space. i do ship wolfstar and i want to get this straight because one post mentioned wolfstar shippers and it was definitely a weird take.

the post was about how women who ship two men together hate women because if theres a woman in the picture its always a crime against her i guess? they also touched on fetishisation of gay men in a way that seemed to be encapsulating all of these people into that message.

1. not everyone who ships two men hates women. i mean this is absurd 😭 it seemed much more like this poster was more anti fanon, which is odd. anyone who defends jkr instantly puts me off, i understand if someone is confused by not following canon when talking abt media.. but it shouldnt go so far as to licking jkrs ass saying "shes the author she knows best🤓🤓" we know shes the author, thats half the problem. anyway, i understand this point but it didnt work in the context they were using it for (remadora/wolfstar). the marauders fandom has been criticised for misogyny, but the generalisation of shippers all having that belief is just untrue.

2. fetishisation of gay men is most definitely prevelant in shipping spaces but it goes eithout saying that an entire community of people wont all have the same views and opinions. from personal experience, i have always been wary of fetishising gay men and recently realised that my special interests being shipping different gay relationships has been involved in my gender identity. im not really sure of anything yet but i am exploring being actually a man or gener fluid or non binary.. as i said i dont know yet but i have realised that i have always put myself in these ships, wanting to be one of the men in them (of course this hasnt been the sole reason im questioning my gender). generally, i think shipping is very fun and just a great way of exploring romance in your favourite medias that represent you - which is what many people in the marauders fandom express. i do understand this concern though - fetishisation is a real thing and these ships shouldnt be objectified to be apart of that. i just dont think we should automstically assume every shipper is fetishising gay ppl.

nothing ive talked abt has rlly been abt marauders so far but i just wanted to set up some context and rant abt that post tbh.

as ive grown, ive realised how forced remadora was in the movies. i always felt like it came out of nowhere but i was a kid and i didnt care enough to think abt it like i just wanted to see harry running through the grass and shit. anyway, ive watched a few viedos abt the marauders fandom and about jk rowlings problematic writing and i have a few points to make about remadora and tonks' and remus' characters respectively.

in ootp, tonks is introduced as a fun, independent, and rebellious person. they arent afraid to speak out abt their name to someone more experienced in the field (mad-eye) and they have bright purple hair so obviously they r cool and awesome. they are a metamorphagus(?) meaning they can change some parts of how they look. i, and many others, see this as a symbol of trans teens. correcting the feminine "nymphadora" to a more unisex "tonks", the fact they can literally change how they look (perhaps showing their desire to change themselves ehich many trans people relate to), and their overrall childlike attitude. i think rowling makes tonks young and fun to show immaturity, therefore the transcoded character is sort of displayed as an immature teen that doesnt know any better (insert jkrs transphobic tweets here).

THEN in hbp the newly called "dora" is married. not only is tonks feminised by heteronormativity (a big aspect of stereotypical femininity is marriage) but their general appearance and attitude has changed. her hair is now like a light brown, and this natural colour i feel may allude to the natural order of womanhood is to maybe go through a rebellious gender non conformity teenhood, but eventually we all "mature" into our "natural" womanhood.. may be a reach buut?? anyway, their dialogue in this movie is very small - i assume its different in the book, but i feel like either way their dialogue would be similarly all focusing on remus (way to fail the bechdel test) which ironically is more represantative of jkr hating woman soo the ship they r saying is the anti "gay shippers who hate women" is one of the many symbols of misogyny in jkrs books.. i mean idk if i need to say this but a woman isnt defined by being married/with a man and i feel like jkr is trying to present it that way.

jkr seems to have unintentionally presented her transphobic views in the character of tonks. many people related to tonks because of their gender fluidity and hbp disappointed many with this character development.

now, the age gap between remus and tonks is 13 years which is gross. especially when you think about the more childish representation of tonks in ootp, like theyve been matured in hbp for the purpose of making the relationship less weird? idk but this is a point that really irks me because many ppl ignore this and always conclude that ppl who dont like remadora are just wolfstar shippers and also hate tonks because they r a woman. even if i hated wolfstar id still hate remadora because of this gross age gap😭😭

another post was from like 10 yrs ago so, perhaps the opinions are just outdated considering jkrs problematic behaviour has become more of general knowledge in recent years but they basically were the common "he not gay jkr mad ehim be with woman he cant be gay 🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓" .. jkr has made lots of promises she couldnt keep.. like the whole can of worms that is the time turners (no cedric diggory would not become a death eater please go back to bed omg) so it really isnt unheard of that she could make a gay character and then just.. ruin it?

she definitely didnt intentionally make anyone gay, because she ahtes gay ppl, but remus and sirius are very commonly interpreted to be queer coded. loads of ppl mention this, but even david thewlis (remus lupin actor) read the characters as lovers. many people saw them as lovers so thought remus was gay, then saw him marry tonks and felt confused. of course he could just be bi but jkr wasnt writing that i dont think lolz EVEN if that was the case, remus is meant to be a good character so why is he getting with tonks who is so much younger than him, to me it makes no sense. which is why many people think remadora doesnt make sense, why many marauders fans, including myself, dont see remadora as what would happen. like im not saying that sirius would be a live and blah blah because im referring to a still canon compliant story, it just would not include remadora and its weird energy.

also, jkr said once that lycanthropy was a symbol for rhe aids crisis (thats not a gay allusion at all 🤗). and hootsyoutube makes a great point about how this is problematic. remus lupin is not the only werewolf in the series, greyback is another one that is apart of the wizard nazis and was the one who bit little 5 yr old baby remus lupin. so.. this is very predatory behaviour, i mean he sliterally biting people (like a lion eating a gazelle or sumn idk r u getting what im putting down 😭😭). now, what is a harmful and highly perpetuated stereotype against gay people.. you got it - predatory behaviour. jkr connects the aids crisis to werewolves who are (except remus) presented as predators who prey on little children 😝😝 amazing!!! SO jkr does allude to gay/bi remus buuut its also in a very evil very malevolent light because shes a witch cackling in the night

i hate canon dick riders because not only is the canon problemstic and jkr is evil BUT its literally a made up story... why do you care abt whats canon and ehats not? some may not get it but i love the feeling of being in the marauders fandom, where everything is just made up by us like its so whimsy so fun.

another post that rlly grinded my gears was saying "yall will complain abt remadora age gap but then ship snarry and snermione" which if ur referring to only ppl who ship this then yes you ate down very demure very mindful.. but it wasnt. why ar eppl generalising so hard like i know for a fact I do not ship that... thats pedofilia guys!! and i know most in marauders fandom dont either because most marauders fans i see rnt disgusting monster people? but they also used this to undermine the age gap in remadora, like no they r both bad both weird and the fact that one is by the author of hp is very telling

okay thats the end of my rant uhhh 🥸

[chierry]

since this got long i will have to make a separate post about it lmao but @hopeswriting

it's just one of those tropes that is just too convenient, to the point of almost feeling too cheap to actually invoke any emotion in me you know?

like, up to the "vomiting flowers with symbolism" i am fine with it. i like flower symbolism! i think it would work well.

but then we get to the aaaaaangst part and it just doesnt work for me bc like... oh, you will DIE from this. and there is a surgery that will save your life but it will DELETE your memories with this person (why???) or worse, it will make you NEVER FEEL LOVE AGAIN (why??????? i thought the flowers were in your lungs not your brain)

like... its fantasy, yes, but at some point it just feels too absurdly specific in its effects that it just takes me out of the story. pick a struggle u kno or pick a less... dramatic struggle like girl why is SURGERY ON YOUR LUNGS removing your memories. sue that doctor they gave you a lobotomy not a hanahaki cure

and i will say: i dont like the flavour of angst of hanahaki! related to the last point, but it just feels too theatric. i dont vibe with this at all. i dont like the "time bomb" aspect of hanahaki bc the "cure" is just... love? like DONT GET ME WRONG love is one of my favorite aspects of humanity and one of my favorite aspects of media (i love love. so much. i could make an entire essay about love and its different forms) but also GIRL MY LUNGS ARE HALF PLANT YOU GIVING ME A NICE KISS ISNT GOING TO FIX THIS??

frankly if the angst of hanahaki was more low-key i would prob vibe with it a lot more. like if they didnt have to die for it, and the surgery was just expensive and dangerous instead of NO MORE LOVE OR MEMORY, it could make for some very fun fics about exploring crushes and such. i can imagine the hanahaki fic that i would like in my head but its so specific its the kind of thing i would have to write myself and even then like... i could just not put it in and not much would be lost. idk, low-key and non-lethal hanahaki sounds fun but its not a very common version

and also i wont lie: i AM a lil bit bitter that the body horror aspect isnt explored more. i love body horror and the idea of someone having to rip off a bunch of branches off their THROAT, no painkillers no nothing just having to leave your throat raw bc the branches are suffocating you and your own body is slowly closing off your ways of survival bc also eating with a bunch of flowers on your throat is hard is just YES. PLEASE. GIVE ME THAT but again, rare for people to focus in this aspect, which fair its a love trope not a horror trope... but it could be

TLDR: a little bit too much for my tastes and the general vibe of it its not something i enjoy too much.

that being said i have read a few hanahakis i liked (all of them 1859, for some reason??) but yeah overall not my thing

[levyfiles]

Am I overreacting when I say that I find the reaction to Ryan wearing pink uncomfortable? Its not the moodboards, gifs, etc. I dont mind that and I'm not trying to gatekeep anything lmao, but its when he wears pink and people are like "omg our fem king, hes saying fuck you to toxic masculinity!!" like no?? I get he's had a masculinity problem due to him being in a frat etc. but hes not feminine just for wearing a colour. You always have good takes and I wanted to know what you would say about it

I really had to give this some time and sizzle over this because I think as a society we have a really complicated relationship with social constructs and gendered objects, and we have an even more complicated conflict with femininity, which of course means there isn’t really a simple answer to this. 

I don’t think any of Ryan’s former toxic masculinity was exclusively a frat thing because honestly, most cis men will have to contend with their own learned relationship with masculinity, however not as much as women and afab NB people have to contend with femininity and what defines it in a world that has learned to demonize femininity, especially as a performative construct. I like celebrating my own version of femininity as long as it can be acknowledged that it’s a fluid experience. The colour pink is a huge symbol for femininity and I’ve found a lot of afab people who demonize it tend to out of kneejerk internalized misogyny but the truth is it’s just a symbol. I know I myself elected to hate on the colour when I was in my edgy teenage years so the embracing and celebration of it when you get older is a way to reclaim it under our own terms whether we are man, woman, or nb, but it is still purely a symbolic thing. However, therein lies some of the issues; the symbolism and connotative meaning behind our relationships with colour as attributed to the aesthetics of gender puts us in an uncomfortable position of being able to separate colour from identity while also acknowledging our previous inability to do so. 

I think that, for me, just like the meme “so and so says trans rights” or “so and so says [some other socially conscious performance statement]” and the people who spam Shane and Ryan in comments asking them to say trans/gay rights, it’s more for the individual than it is for a community at large. We look for aspects of validation from the people we look up to and enjoy watching. We all mostly like a dude who doesn’t ascribe to binary gender normativity and Ryan wearing pastels more now (and looking good doing it btw) is something I’d say people are allowed to celebrate. 

The “boys don’t wear pink” bullshit is not an opinion you stumble on very often, so I understand why you and I would default on “it’s not that deep; it’s just a pink hoodie” but there are a lot of harmless behaviours (including feminization exclusively in headcanon/fiction) that people are going to participate in that is out of our own control. That is because it’s an individual’s relationship with aesthetics, colour and gender associations. 

Ultimately, my take is that we are better off separating colours and a lot of other things from their binary gendered associations so people can just exist; however, symbolism and constructs have a way of unravelling at a slower rate because we all have our own experience with them. Where I’d say it goes too far is if that is with the only angle we approach it. I myself was initially uncomfortable with people saying Shane dresses like a lesbian when the topic first came up 2 years ago, but nowadays, I acknowledge that my experience with clothes, gender, colour, and aesthetic is a different one than some others and that it’s OK to normalize all sorts of gender/sexuality expression in both straight and non-straight lenses until it’s all a collective without assumptions or meaning. Until it just becomes the words a person says and the statements they make about themselves that define them rather than their clothes or the colour they wear. 

I hope this was coherent, and this is only one person’s take on it. However, I don’t mind discussing more on the subject from other perspectives so feel free to reach out. 

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-08-23

More homestuuuuuck

I’m a little tired today so I don’t expect much intelligent analysis out of myself, but if anything classpecty happens I doubt I’ll be able to help myself regardless.

oh, always

(EDITS: added note on horn colors, link to ask on potential Blood powers reference)

> CHAPTER 12. Really Convoluted Metaphorical Horseshit

cuuute

In the bowels of a different ship, at a moment in time that is not pinpointable in either direction from the previous interaction, another Dave raps quietly to himself.

another dave raps quietly to himself.  i am glad that phrase exists it brings me joy

(LATER EDIT: A friend on Discord pointed out that throughout this entire update, Karkat's horns are #FF0000 red. They were normal candy-corn colors in previous glimpses at the ship crew, though they used a dark single-color shortcut typical of old Homestuck at one point... but THIS time it stays STARK red even when we zoom in close later. Is this just artistic liberty? Did Karkat color his horns for fashion? Does this happen to red-bloods like the Sufferer after a certain age? Just how much time has actually passed, here? We might have to wait for the commentary for this one.)

KARKAT: I WAS SAYING I THOUGHT WE MIGHT GO, I DUNNO, ANYWHERE ELSE ON THE ENTIRE SHIP WHILE THE CLOTHES WERE WASHING. KARKAT: SEEING AS THIS DECREPIT MACHINE WE WERE SO BLESSEDLY PROVIDED WITH MAKES A WHIRRING SOUND SO PANCHAFINGLY ARHYTHMIC THAT IT THREATENS TO ERADICATE THE ENTIRE CONCEPT OF TEMPO FROM THE UNIVERSE.

Karkat really has chilled out hasnt he?  like this is surprisingly level for him, and that fact is hilarious.

KARKAT: AND YET SOMEHOW BASICALLY ALL THAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE WE STARTED THE LOAD IS THAT YOU’VE BEEN USING IT AS A FUCKED UP BEAT TO WHISPER TO YOURSELF ABOUT FLOWERS TO.

oh gosh that’s why he’s rapping

> ==>

DAVE: kanaya was telling me this kids story the other day about this dude who didnt cherish a flower enough until it peaced out to do flower stuff idk its not pertinent to the story DAVE: except the flower was a person DAVE: because it was a metaphor

Oh right, coming back to the Little Prince stuff I was too lazy to metaphor-deep-dive into, and literally asking the same questions we were asking about who the Little Prince’s story applies to mapped here if anyone at all, like Dirk and such, or what biases were in the retelling of it and the way Kanaya phrased it.  So now we’re practically mocking it by deep diving it here, hence the last page’s “DAVE: i was just thinking through some really convoluted metaphorical horseshit”, which means we’re both about to further explore AND shit all over the existence of this story metaphor until it doesn’t mean anything and most of the meaning we drew from it earlier is made a joke~

well, not “we”, cause I was too lazy, so... y’all

DAVE: anyway what goes down in the story is that once the flower lady is out of the picture DAVE: the main character goes around making all these connections between her and everything else in the universe until every damn thing feels like a symbol for how much he fucked up and how much he will never see her again KARKAT: THIS SEEMS PRETTY FUCKING INTENSE FOR A KID'S STORY DAVE: yea thats pretty much what i said

Oh holy shit.  That’s yet another way to put it.  Are we doing a whole moral takedown of the Light aspect today?  cause it sounds like we’re taking a dump on the Light aspect and RoboRose getting too obsessed and immersed in it, which would be excellent

DAVE: but i guess its not so much what the story was technically textually about but more like the version of it kanaya internalized and then told me when we were talkin about how she misses rose

exactly

DAVE: so like now im taking the story she told me she was projecting her feelings onto and projecting my feelings on top of that

yes absolutely, you just rephrased it a different way with that exact same bias

DAVE: this is just one big game of emotional projection telephone so feel free to go paraphrase it to roxy later and make it about whatever fuckin thing youre currently missing

perfect. i need an emoji for that Italian thing for when you pinch your thumb and forefinger together and kiss it

ah this’ll do:

its like the expression “choice” but in nonverbal form

[...] whatever fuckin thing youre currently missing KARKAT: YOUR ABILITY TO GET TO THE POINT DAVE: gotem DAVE: anyway you’re not gonna have to miss that skill of mine for long DAVE: get ready for this shit because i am about to slap you with the point so hard youll fall ass first into the washer DAVE: just scrambling around in there getting all sudsy DAVE: but your brain is gonna be so blasted from the mindfreak of a point im about to make that there wont be anything left to clean

Anytime dave is told to get to the point he is contractually obligated to spend at least 20 seconds talking about how he’ll get to the point in a way that is not getting to the point

DAVE: so its genuinely cool that kanaya can go around creating meaning that may or may not be actually present in every little thing DAVE: connecting every feeling she has to the idea of her wife existing out there DAVE: so i told her she should keep that shit up DAVE: but im having the opposite issue where im struggling to find anything to be that kind of tether because every single thing i could possibly consider about what it is were doing just reminds me of yet another thing to be afraid about

Great examples of Light being good and bad!  Attaching strands of connective meaning to everything.  --though, in Dave’s case AND Kanaya’s case you could argue it’s both bad in terms of effects.  That it’s great for Kanaya to care, but that she should be able to divest herself and live on her own terms without idealizing Rose literally everywhere she looks, personal growth which would be useful in helping bring Rose back to her in the first place.  The struggle they’re looking forward to is largely philosophical, not just physical, and until Rosebot acknowledges that she was wrong it’s not over.

DAVE: everything fuckin sucks huge cosmic donkey sack and im terrified KARKAT: OK, SO I FEEL LIKE YOU SKIPPED A COUPLE NECESSARY STEPS IN YOUR POINT CLARIFICATION PROCESS.

Pretty sure Dave was on the same page as most Epilogue and start-of-HS2 readers.  This situation is pretty bleak to dump our heroes into, no matter how much we believe will be resolved in the long run.

DAVE: ok but were you going with sweet or savory please give me that much at least KARKAT: YEAH IT WAS GOING TO BE SUNDAE-BASED. DAVE: nice KARKAT: YEAH. KARKAT: DO YOU WANNA WATCH MORE GBBO AFTER THIS? DAVE: absolutely

--ah, Great British Bake-Off, can’t say I’ve indulged

do they still have that?? did they save it from old Earth?  or did they go where unflooded Britain used to be and say hey, new show reboot

KARKAT: GREAT. ANYWAY, LIKE I WAS SAYING, FOR THE LOVE OF SWEET HUMAN CHRIST, PLEASE BACK UP TO WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU’RE ACTUALLY SCARED OF. KARKAT: ALSO COME HERE, IDIOT.

That last line is like, exactly as fucking sweet and awesome as we imagined their relationship to be.  :)

> ==>

OH MY GOD THAT’S ADORABLE

DAVE: ok yeah this is a better position to unleash all my inner fears n anxieties from

indisputably.

DAVE: those times its like my mouth was saying words about the situation wherein our friends are AWOL and maybe dead but my brain wasnt fully letting me experience the emotion that goes along with them DAVE: man its like i cant even start genuinely thinking about how afraid i actually am for rose and john without my brain flippin its wad and whiting out DAVE: like haha fuck i hope theyre ok DAVE: now i better make a fuckin joke before i succumb to the gaping mouth of despair waiting for me to fall in it as soon as i look down and acknowledge that its there ogling how juicy my ass looks as it trembles with terror

I really hope that the writers of HS2 know full well that this feeling? the one Dave is describing here? is what many of us who got way overinvested in the well-being of Homestuck’s surviving characters felt reading the Epilogues and Homestuck^2.  So I really hope they’re working through it in a way that will result in a preponderance of GOOD THINGS happening and hope-filled situations.  Cause that “can’t even think about X” feeling is too familiar, and if they understand it as well as it LOOKS like they’re getting to, I’d really like them to give us a helping hand healing.

I think that’s what they’re going for?  Seems hopeful for me to think so, but they HAVE been doing better as HS2 has been going forward, from an emotional standpoint anyway; definitely better than the Epilogues.  And I’ve worked through some of that stuff with the help of that, because it’s MUCH easier nowadays to think about Homestuck without my gut clenching.

DAVE: i guess im just fucked up about how to worry about dirk and be angry at him at the same time DAVE: because if i get as unholy pissed at him as i sometimes wanna be i also gotta admit to myself that maybe i coulda done something different there

Mhmm, Karkat’s potentially a pretty good person to speak with here since he’s done so much work trying not to feel responsible for everything that’s ever gone wrong.

DAVE: also like DAVE: and this by the way adds a whole other layer of guilt on there that i dont really know how to fuckin reckon with but DAVE: even with all the shit hes pulled and the fact that we are more or less heading toward having to take him down DAVE: whatever that is gonna mean and whether or not he planned it like that DAVE: i just DAVE: me and him had come so far with each other and it was really cool for a while to have him and i DAVE: ugh DAVE: i dont WANT to hate him

Yeah, Dirk and Jane’s heel-turns were really shitty for anyone who was a fan of them in the fanbase, as well.

KARKAT: WELL THEN QUIT FUCKING PICKING AT THE SEAM ON MY SHORTS AND SPIT IT OUT. THEY'RE BARELY HANGING ON TO THE DEFINITION OF "SHORTS" AS IT IS.

That is an adorably real boyfriend-laying-in-boyfriend’s-lap thing to do

DAVE: the part i mentioned before about how we really have no goddamn clue how long this trip is even gonna take DAVE: i cant help but feel like its barely getting revved up DAVE: and for me and roxy and jade and callie and kan thats normal shit at best and boring at worst but we all have our immortality to thank for that DAVE: we can just dick around in space for near-eternity waiting to catch up to our friends who may or may not be our enemies now and itll be fine DAVE: i mean no itll be categorically miserable DAVE: but well survive it KARKAT: HOLD THE FUCK ON. DAVE: but you KARKAT: DAVE. DAVE: no lemme say this

Oh god damnit.  Karkat’s limited lifespan.  As if we hadn’t ALREADY covered a nauseatingly extensive gamut of disheartening topics of conversation.  We really have to confront every shred of misery in their past, present and future one after the other after the other in the Epilogues and HS2, don’t we?  >:(

I guess it had to be discussed, though.

DAVE: we dont talk about it much and i got shit to say about it DAVE: its not like i never thought about how youre mortal before but i just thought wed be able to figure it out before it mattered DAVE: come up with some kind of plan DAVE: i was just distracted being happy with you i fucking guess and so i didnt think up a way to fix it DAVE: and now thanks to dirk we have to work it out right the fuck now DAVE: because i cant spend this trip just sitting around watching you get old and die

Jesus.  I mean, WE know(?) that it’s not gonna be THAT many years, but THEY don’t know that.

Unless it really IS going to be that many years and HS2 is going to shamelessly take a fucking sledgehammer to our feelings for no goddamn good reason.  Which it won’t!  Right???  >:T

> ==>

Dishwasher ding

> Dave: Grapple with the clean, soggy consequences of the passage of time.

Hey, don’t make it a metaphor here. --though, fuck.  I suppose we are dealing with everyones dirty laundry.  God damnit.  SURE, deal with it all story but then GET IT OUT OF THE WAY AND PUT SOME SERIOUS FUN AND LAUGHS IN HERE so we don’t feel like we’re wading through an entire garbage dump!!!  *click*

Karkat’s eyebrows-only mouthless frown is really cute.

> ==>

okay Karkat explain the nope you’re lodging

> ==>

*put*

> ==>

*foot*

> ==>

DAVE: ok go on

I mean I at least appreciate the time investment in adorable boyfriends.  That’s definitely something of SOME good value they’re giving us in exchange for this misery

> ==>

That Karkat image makes me wanna do that red-shaky-gif-thing with it

KARKAT: IT'S NOT LIKE I'M NEW TO THE PARTICULAR MOOBEAST WRANGLING EVENT OF SOMEONE I PREVIOUSLY LOVED BRUTALLY TURNING ON ME AND LEAVING ME TO TRY AND CRAM MY FEELINGS ABOUT THE SITUATION BACK TOGETHER ALL ON MY OWN.

True

KARKAT: HE DID THAT ON HIS OWN. AND WE MADE THE CHOICE TO GO AFTER HIM ON OUR OWN.

Yes, and you’ll possibly convince him more of that over time, though not in this short conversation

KARKAT: I WAS FOLLOWING YOUR LITTLE TRAIL OF COOKIE CRUMB FEARS UNTIL IT LEAD TO THE BIG SNACK FINALE OF WORRY ABOUT MY FRAGILE MORTAL MEATSACK. KARKAT: IF I HAVE SOMEHOW NOT BEEN CLEAR ABOUT THIS WITH YOU YET, LET ME GO AHEAD AND RECTIFY THE SITUATION RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. KARKAT: HANGING OUT WITH YOU ON THIS LONG TRIP TO WHO THE SHITTING FUCK KNOWS WHERE IS QUITE LITERALLY THE HAPPIEST I HAVE EVER BEEN IN MY ENTIRE MEAGER EXISTENCE. KARKAT: I'M SO ABSOLUTELY BLISSED THE FUCK OUT OF MY MIND TO BE ABLE TO LOOK AT YOUR STUPID IMMORTALLY SMOOTH HUMAN FACE SKIN EVERY DAY AND NOT HAVE A COMPLEX ABOUT IT.

D’AWWW

And with that darkly angry expression too, that’s PERFECT

I mean it’s true.  What exactly would they be doing DIFFERENTLY on Earth C other than enjoying each other like this?  It’s pretty fucking great.

...hm.  Isn’t this journey-not-the-destination stuff pretty Breathy?  Karkat’s proving more balanced by the moment.

KARKAT: AND I'LL BE STRAIGHT WITH YOU. IT'S NOT LIKE I HAVEN'T BEEN EXPERIENCING SOME COMPLICATED GUILT, MYSELF. KARKAT: THE FACT THAT I'M HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE JUST FUCKING CHILLAXING AND BEING IN LOVE IN SPACE IS A CLEARLY INCONGRUOUS WITH THE REASON I'M ACTUALLY HERE CHILLAXING TO BEGIN WITH, AND I'M NOT LETTING MYSELF FORGET THAT, EITHER.

Pff.  He feels guilty for ENJOYING IT so much.  <3

KARKAT: BUT I RESENT THE IMPLICATION THAT MY HAPPINESS IS REGISTERING FOR YOU AS YOU HAVING TO JUST "SIT AROUND AND WATCH ME GET OLD," BECAUSE I KNOW YOU KNOW IT'S MORE THAN THAT.

I’m glad Karkat knows that DAVE knows somewhere in him that it’s more than that, because yeah, if Karkat thought he DIDN’T know that at some level that’d be a reason to take MUCH MORE SERIOUS offense.

KARKAT: LIKE, JESUS, DAVE. YOU KNOW I'M AFRAID FOR YOU, TOO, RIGHT? KARKAT: OR DID YOU FORGET THE WHOLE HEROIC DEATH THING? KARKAT: I WORRY ABOUT LOSING YOU FAIRLY FUCKING REGULARLY.

Hah!!!  Point taken.  Karkat must view Dave as practically more fragile than HIM.

KARKAT: ONE: WE'VE BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH HELLACIOUS PANWARPING TRAUMA THAT I REFUSE TO NOT ENJOY THIS SHIT WHEN I FINALLY FUCKING GET IT, NO MATTER HOW LONG IT MAY OR MAY NOT LAST. KARKAT: TWO: IT'S NOT LIKE WE'RE DOING NOTHING. WE’RE MOVING. WE’RE WORKING. WE’RE HEADED SPECIFICALLY TO A PLACE WHERE WE WILL UNDOUBTLEDLY ENDURE YET MORE FUCKING HELLACIOUS PANWARPING TRAUMA. KARKAT: AND THREE: WE'RE DOING THAT BECAUSE WE HAVE FRIENDS WHO WE CARE ABOUT THAT NEED US. THAT IS OUR FOCUS, HERE. NOT OUR FEAR. IT'S ABOUT THE PEOPLE WE HAVE TO SAVE. KARKAT: SO DON'T FUCKING WORRY ABOUT ME, DAVE. I'M FINE.

Okay, this is great and wholesome.  I am now retroactively GLAD that this topic got brought up.  :)

> ==>

Dave is still afraid. There is a part of him that will always be, he thinks. He has accepted this about himself. There is another feeling coursing through him too, though. It’s something he's felt before, though never quite so intensely. He looks up at Karkat and understands, viscerally, the simple power his words have. They pump through Dave’s own body, alive and warm and true.

He wonders if Karkat realizes it, or if he’s just, as always, saying what he feels as he feels it. Dave doesn’t attempt to dissect it further. There will be time for that later.

Every really loving moment like this is sort of undercut by the fact that it’s also, in some senses, part of alt!Calliope’s narration and, by extension, her fanfiction.

EDIT 2: There's also either a hint to potential Blood powers or even an explicit Blood power use here that I didn't recognize. I'm leaning towards it's-laying-the-groundwork-for-future-use-of-Blood-powers-but-isnt-magical-in-this-case.

> ==>

Smooooch!

That was nice.  Still gonna wait on doing any commentary til next time or a Bonus update or two, cause I’m beat.  See y’all next time!

[shay11a]

New Rules, an overly long review

Alright, let’s do this.

I’ll just start with a little disclaimer that english is not my first language and although I’m usually fluent-ish some of my sentences might not translate very well from french, so please bear with me. Also this i like barely edited so sorry about the mistakes.

I’m here to talk about my favorite fanfiction, not only in this fandom, but in all fandom (and trust me, I’m a part of a lot of fandoms), and of all the fanfictions I’ve ever read (and trust me I’ve read a lot) : New Rules by the amazing @tayegi

The first time I read, I binge read it, but make no mistake, I don’t mean that I rushed though the story in one day, oh no, I mean I couldn’t do anything else, every minute of my day that I wasn’t in class or adulting, I was reading it, but it’s one of those rare fictions where I knew I was reading something just that good that I needed to make it last as much as possible. Imagine my struggle, balancing the need to know what was going to happen next and my visceral need to make it last as much as possible because I knew I could never experience this first reading again. 

That’s how much I love this story.

Unfortunetaly, there came a time I caught up.

So I re-read it.

Again.

And Again.

To this day, I often come back to it, re-reading entirely or picking up at any point to enjoy again a moment that I particularly like. I do this often with fiction I particularly liked, but one thing that I find amazing with NR is that, contrary to most fic, no matter where I pick up, I know what is happening, what happened before that, because the plot is just so wonderfully crafted that everything has consequences, every character is relevant and their actions have consequences that they are held accountable to by the plot (dunno is this makes sense but it does in my native language sorry) I regret not posting a review under every chapter as I read, it was selfish on my part, but I needed to continue, I have some notes from this review at the end but they lack the specificity of first impressions, I apologize for that. 

I also have to mention that this review is NOT spoiler free so if you want to read it please, PLEASE New Rules before that there is absolutely NO way that you won’t thank me (and Tayegi of course) afterwards, and don’t ‘I don’t mind spoilers’ me this story DESERVES to be read spoiler free.

Alright, buckle up kiddos, let’s do this.

I. The writing

The way the plot unveils is downright cathartic. I recently re-read it entirely to make this review and going back to the first chapters and seing how everything just MAKES SENSE and how a small thing happening has consequences over everything later. Just HUH brilliant. (I’m thinking about OC’s crush on Jimin here and how through the prism of Mijoo we later see that her crush was her projecting // Jin, now THAT’S WRITING) 

The smut, how do I put it, is bomb but it doesn’t feel like smut smut, it feels like actual sex described, not idealized and in my opinion it just adds to the quality of the story, because sex is an essential part of the story, not something added to satiate the hormones of horny readers (as an ex-horny teenager, I want to thank people writing this kind of smut and say that there is nothing wrong with writing this kind of smut) or just for the sake of it because apparently having sex is the culminating point of a relationship. Sex scenes tell a story as much as argument scenes, if not more. First, because as a sex friends to lover AU (smh) it is inherently part of the story but also because the characters don’t just stop having a backstory, emotions and emotional baggage when they have sex, all those things are still present and they influence the way they act in bed. And THAT is satisfying to read.  

On many occasions, in the fanfic writing community, you can hear (read?) people saying, « this fiction could / should be published like an actual book » I’m not here to further the debate on real literature, fanfiction and so what not, but this fiction is one that, more importantly than it being published, I feel like I could study in english class, take an extract and study the amazing characterization, how the scene furthers the plot, what are the literary devices used to do so. I feel like I could study the running metaphors, the sub plots and how they correlate so well to the main plot and further the characterization of a character, the plot itself or something else. Everything feels like a neatly knitted masterpiece. 

In that aspect, one scene that I particularly liked was the one where OC is hidden listening to JK and Hyejin, and as she hears what he says, she crushes the rose in her hand. It’s such a simple and yet telling idea: her bourgeoning love and hope for a romantic relationship symbolized by the ultimate romantic symbol : a rose, and JK’s words make her try and crush those feelings, but she hurts herself doing so, because the action itself is a painful one — trying to refrain hope / trying to suffocate feelings — but also because love, just like roses has thorns that may hurt, that’s why JK is so afraid of committing it seems, and the irony is that he is doing exactly that to someone else. (My explanation is so messy plfnmesdmflfmqf sorry)

One recurring idea/plot device that I have noticed is the one of misunderstanding / misreading each others. OC and JK constantly misread each others (I’m thinking about the scene in the bar where she rubs his back affectionately and he interprets it in a sexual way) and idk but something about this really hits me hard, because it’s human, so inherently human, this makes the characters feel like human beings not fictional archetypes. Because in real life, we can’t take a step back and have a view of the bigger picture the way we can as an omniscient reader who remembers very well what one said or did earlier that explains their behavior. In real life we dont know and cannot guess why people act a certain way based on some hinted at tragic backstory that would explain their commitment issues.

On a lighter note, the writing is just so freaking FUNNY, like I can’t count how many times I cackled like an idiot reading. + Tayegi has a way of cutting from scenes to scenes or from dialogue to dialogue that is just so FUNNY (if it was a movie I would talk about editing because it’s exactly how it feels, like when you got A saying ‘I will never do that’ and it cuts and the next frame is A doing exactly that)

More on the writing in the notes for every chapter further below.

II. Feminism, social justice and me relating to everything 

Ok this part is going to be a bit more personal but I had to address how much main girl and her struggles resonated with me. As a feminist myself I VERY often struggles with the same problem : that is when my beliefs come brutally crashing with the social constructs I have internalized and have yet to deconstruct as well as the people surrounded me who don’t necessarily share the same belief. And the way Tayegi portrayed this is spot on not to say borderline genius. 

Her mixed feelings when facing Hoseok « not like other girls » comments or the conversation where she struggles to explain why she is fucking the notorious fuckboy despite her talks about hook-up culture were punches in the guts to me, because feminists are always the ones to be criticized the most easily (I am aware that my phrasing here is horrendous but I don’t know how to word this differently again sorry English is not my native language) and the slightest slip-up will be pointed at by people who aren’t even feminist but see an easy way to gaslight them. So, to read this, to read another woman facing the same situations and being as utterly upset and sometime powerless as I felt, god was it cathartic. 

And don’t get me started on the way she always ALWAYS sticks by her principles of sorority, even to the women that have been nothing less than mean to her and how hard it is to support other women when we live in a society that always pit women against each others. I FELT that. But nevertheless main girl tries to, she compliments Somin on her dress, Hiejin as well even though they both have been openly hostile (and even mean sometimes) to her. I truly felt this, all theses little moments, just a sentence here and there, but I felt them in my guts.

III. The characters 

The characters, oh god, the characters. OC ? Marry me. JK? Marry me (also I want to slap him but it’s another story). Taehyung ? Marry me. Mijoo? Marry me.   

The relationship between OC and her BFF is in my opinion one of the best thing about the pic and one that really remarks it from other, the twist about twist alsmot made me believe it would be like every other pic where oc ends up with virtually no friend (especially female ones because like everyone know girls cause drama riiiight ) but it happens so early ? How could it ooooh it’s not like that, OC and her BFF and mature enough to discuss it, it still has  consequences, the scene where OC accuses BFF of pushing her onto Jk to make herself feel better about jimmy still gives me chills because, yeah, it makes sens that she would, and it kinda feels like she did with how insistant she has been, but again, we are told the story from OC’s perspective, so obviously she feels bad when BFF insists that her and JK are meant to be bc she knows that JK wouldn’t date her, but again, as readers, we can kinda see from BFF perspective, they indeed look perfect for one another and only misunderstanding and insecurities and Jk’s past seems to be in the way (okay granted when you say it like that it seems like a lot), but in the end, Mijoo also seems genuine in the way she pushes them together, even though, yeah she might have, consciously or not done it for that reason.

i don’t know if I want a happy ending for OC and JK, I want one because they are so good and sweet together and after everything they’ve been through I feel like they sort of deserve it, but after everything they’ve been through, especially the way JK has behaved, it seems hard for a happy ending to happen. I feel like it’s going to take a lot of time and talking (including his backstory that has been hinted at a few times wink wink) for them to work things out, if they work things out.

I’ve mentioned that before but : THE SORORITY oh lord where do I start? OC standing up for Hyejin and Somin even when they had a few rough patches, sign me the fuck UP. OC not turning totally on her best friend Mijoo (my girl btw) and overlooking their friendship and what she had done for her in the time of Jin because Mijoo made a selfish mistake ? Yes please, MORE.

Hoseok is, in my opinion, spot ON. It took me some time to exactly pin point who he reminded me of but then I realized he is exactly what I call the 'apolitical guy’, who is convinced to not have controversial opinion and would deny ever having prejudice when he clearly has (i.e. the scene where Oc calls him out on his misogynie

I have to admit that Hyejin and Somin are amongst my favorites because even though the plot (and the fact that we are basically supposed to be on OC’s side as the story is told from her perspective)  makes them very unsympathetic, your writing allows us to understand their actions and empathize with them. Learning about Hyejin’s past with JK makes her look like the character of a fan fiction where she could have been the main character unfortunately for her, this is OC’s story so Hyejin can’t get the guy in the end. But truly, her backstory feels like an entire other ff in the story and to be honest basically every other character’s backstory as well as the subplots feel this way. And Somin, well Somin is basically going through the same thing as OC but with Hoseok so how can we mock her for it while crying for OC ? That’s impossible and that’s why your writing is so powerful, there is no clear ‘bad guy’ (appart from J*n but who cares about that roquefort face) and everyone is in that gray, humane area. 

Every character has so many layer (I don’t count JK and OC in this because at this point we can’t talk about layers anymore it’s a damn millefeuille) and getting to discover more about them is amazing. 

Basically, every side character reflects something on OC and JK and further the plot, the themes while feeling like their own individuals with their own complex thoughts and problems and I think that’s fucking brilliant. 

And now onto my notes for every chapter (it’s low-key very messy sorry)

Chapter 1 :

Lord to thing that it started with a simple friend request :’)

I love how in the very first line, OC telling Mijoo how she knows JK instantly characterizes him to the reader, it’s smart BUT also characterize OC as someone quick witted and serious/professional but also very sarcastic, funny and taking no shit from anyone. Incipit done well here. I mean, so much exposition is crammed into the very first lines but it just feels soooo natural!

I also love how the dynamic between Mijoo and OC can appear « basic » but will later be revealed to be so much more complex and profound and that’s basically how everything in this fic just keep getting better and more complex as you read.

Also, I love how OC and JK’s first encounter is because they are both trying to help their best friends, I missed it in the first reading but it’s so telling of their characters. Also I appreciate OC not hating on JK just because she hates him from afar and he suddenly notices her and gets turned on by that (like in a lot of ff let’s not lie, I love myself some bad boy!AU but it’s getting redundant), she genuinely seems to not give a fuck about him and it’s so funny to me somehow, my girl just minding her business, getting her straight A’s and doing charity work, we stan. Also, the entire part where they complain about Jimin and Mijoo is downright hilarious 

I really like the way JK says the poetry assignment is easy, hinting at the fact that he is, in fact, not a stupid fuckboi cliché (+ what happens with their presentation and him working his BUTT of)

The entire part where OC and Jk act like they are together is so DAMN FUNNY but at the same time it just shows that they have great chemistry from the get go and I love that. (But seriously it’s so f*ing funny)

I love they way OC’s crush on Jimin is brought up, it’s not outwardly said, but the way he is described form her pov makes it obvious and her helplessness when looking at him and Mijoo is just so heartbreaking (+ getting to me on a personal level since I’ve been in a very similar situation for years so :))) like, you can feel that she doesn’t want to be feeling this way, and is obviously trying to help her BFF and be selfless but cannot help but feel jealousy.+ JK immediately catching up on her crush, showing he is more observant than you’d think.

JK and OC being dumb & dumber AND partner in crime is everything I’ve ever wanted

The description of the feeling of loneliness post-parties is so accurate, and the way she feels is so relatable and heartbreaking. 

The part about anguish and the way she feels suffocated by her feminine attire got to me and honestly I got really close to cryingThe end of the chapter upsets me in the best way, to see JK be so oblivious to how vulnerable and lonely OC is, man it really makes the entire thing so much more gutswrenching.

Highlights (basically lines that made me laugh or that I find particularly well written) :

“then I don’t know why he’s friended you”

“should I block him too?” 

“can you get you get more obvious without tattooing ‘Park Jimin’ on your ass? It’s obvious he owns it anyways”

“why does this kid has so many shirtless selfies”

“it’s like this boy is like a walking cliché of the world’s most basic fuckboi” I see what you did here ;)))

“Ah… you knew?” The way I laugh EVERY time at this line

“Would you be really mad at me if I poured this all over your boobs?“ alkfnenfmefnkgjh Mijoo is my queen

“try her ass instead” JK you absolute moron genius

“Mijoo as been trying to get you laid since freshman” I looove how this just sounds so random and plays into the cliché of the extroverted BFF trying to drag OC to parties and get her laid but with OC’s backstory // Jin it makes SO much more sense

“I won’t feed you lies” he, said, you know, like a liar.

“Your worth as a woman isn’t defined by your purity or whatever bullshit” love the hint at the later reveal that JK is, indeed, a woke king. We stan

“But unfortunately, you aren't the altruistic saint you wish you could be. You suffer from the same human emotions that plague everyone. And they aren't pretty.Despite what the artists and poets claim, the world works in a logical way. It's a simple mathematical formula. Girls like Mijoo end up with their princes. And you remain a bitter stepsister, helpless but to watch their happily ever after from a distance. One that you'll never achieve.” God that part.... 

“Here is a man who actually wants you. Not you, but your body, a little voice in the back of your head reminds you. But it doesn't matter. All that matters is that someone might actually desire you…  ... He feels so thick inside of you that for a moment, the hole in your chest is filled”  This is what I mean when I say that the smut in this story makes SENSE

“You wish you could cling onto this feeling forever so you'll never feel empty again.” The way this scene is supposed to be all smut sexy time but it is actually one of the most emotionally packaged and heart wrenching scene, really I can’t with your writing </333 

“He grins at that, "I thought you knew me better than to take anything I said seriously?“Jk you manipulative mf I hate your fuckboi ass

"Ugh, please don't tell me you're a cuddler," you grumble as you twist in his embrace. "I'm not," he denies, but the way he buries his nose in your hair says otherwise, "And don't think about asking me to stay the night, because I'm not that kind of guy." The dynamic of the entire duo summed up in one paragraph

Chapter 2 :

The moment she reassures Mijoo and see what she is missing is :((

I remember than the first time I read new rules and feminist JK came clean I was honestly shocked (years of being guarded around men’s misoginy and fake feminism I guess) but re-reading it, it’s so nice to see the hints everywhere that he genuinely is and it warms my heart.

The convo JK and OC have about relationships and meaningless sex is not only such a good foreshadowing of the problems they will face later when it comes to coming clean about both their feelings (looking at you JK you moron) but also such a relatable feeling of ‘I know I said men are trash but I’m still vaguely heterosexual and would really like to believe that some aren’t and I know it sounds like I’m reassuring myself and honestly I am because it’s starting to become hard to really believe that’

The twits oh god the TWIST!!! The heartbreak it gave me, I was going to put some sentences in the highlights but honestly I almost ended up putting the entire scene so I gave in but it’s just so well written and nerve wracking to see what could have been and to realize that the friend that OC has been putting so much effort into helping betrayed her.  Like, I can emphasis enough how much I cried reading this, considering I have been in a very similar situation, and that’s probably why this struck a chord so powerfully but wow. 

The blowjob scene is simply another brilliant double meaning smut scene, the way OC is trying to regain control over something, someone, even if it’s not the one she wants, the way she makes him beg to hear compliments, heartbreaking (I know I’ve said this word like a million time and we’re just on chapter 2 but your writing really is something else) 

The scene where she confronts Mijoo is in my opinion one of the BEST I have ever read, the way you can feel her heartbreak and her powerlessness but also the maturity she exudes, the way she tries to be the bigger person and do what’s right, lord I see myself here and it fucking hurts.

“He really likes you, Mijoo. Don’t let him slip away… You’ll only regret it.”  The double meaning that applies to OC here is killing me  

“On any other day, this is the kind of party you would protest, running around with a half dozen other of your feminist friends as you collect signatures for a boycott.” <3

“Wait… what makes you think that we’re supposed to be the hoes?”  <3 <3

“Yeah. You really do.” Jk sometimes I really like you 

“No, sweetheart. You’re the childish one for not being able to accept grown up emotions. Why is falling in love and caring for someone outside of their physical appearance so shameful to you? You need to grow the fuck up and realize that feeling for another human being does not make you weak.”<3 <3 <3

“Frat brothers are despicable…except this one, of course.” Absolutely love how first reading makes it sound like her crush is speaking and second reading shows her idealization of him here 

“You swallow the lump in your throat. It would be one thing to see them wildly making out or grinding in the mosh pit like all the other horny kids. But to see them so enveloped in each other, content to just hug for the rest of the night… It hurts you more than you can express. You’d rather walk in on them fucking. This display of the purest affection… No one has ever held you like that before.You’re jealous. It’s shameful how horrendously jealous you are.”</3

“You need me?” you repeat in a small voice.” OC baby I get you I love you and you deserve th world ;(( </3

“You feel like such a villain, grilling this angel and making her upset. It’s such an irritating feeling, but you can’t choke it back.“It’s not like I liked him anyways…” Lord what have you done to my heart and I think it’s my favorite sentence in the entire story !

Chapter 3 :

OC protecting and looking out for Yerin is just so adorable I CAN’T

The discussion with Hyejin, the foreshadowing!!!!!!!

The way OC is self-aware and thinks JK only wants her body (and at the time it was highly likely) just makes the scene that much more heartbreaking, which makes me realize that all the smut scene up until now have been that way. 

The entire chapter feels like a BIG call out to me thanks for that I guess. (I’m kidding it was wonderful and actually got me reflecting a lot on my habits and self deprecation)

“the ugly cage around your heart loosen a bit”

“Wow, your fungal cream is so nice. I hope you get that infection checked out." We love a considerate and caring man

“You would take this over the hollowness in your chest. You would gladly take the meaningless sex, the hard pounding of your pussy without a single gesture of affection. Who needs an emotional connection when you can have the pain beat out of you? Who needs someone to like you when you have someone to use you?”  No words.

Chapter 4 :

I don’t know if I said that already but I just looooove the way you sprinkle hints here and here about everything ! Foreshadowing events and future revelations it’s just so nice to read and makes second (and third, and fourth) reading sooooo much more entraining and satisfying <3333. Like Oc and Mijoo are drunk and we get a snip at what happened freshman year, there were other hints previously but this just makes the reader WANT to know what the f* went down. And it makes up for Mijoo betrayal, it’s a nice way of explaining why OC « brushed » over her betrayal, we know that she was there in such a hard time for OC and yes it really builds the suspense around that whilst portraying Mijoo as more than the fake BFF who betrayed, I love that.

I love the way you use the word ‘ugly’ and how it’s very often associated with jealousy.

I want to address how much I adore your side characters and sub-plots. Like all of them are so likable (even Somin) and feel like genuine people with their own complex thoughts, seriously your characterization is out of this world! (special shout-out to Yoongi who is spot-ON imo). Like, I want to hangout with these people and be their friends. 

ALso I feel like we are really starting to see Jk and OC’s chemistry (unrelated to being evil little matchmaker) and it’s SOOOOOO good, it feels so natural and seeing them slowly slide into a romantic relationship (don’t tell Jk) seems like the most  natural thing (+ everyone thinking they are actually together and honestly they are)

"Hey so you like kick around a ball or whatever?" I love your humor I genuinely laughed at this 

"Balls?" he says pointedly.” Same here

"Who are you talking about?" Jungkook asks in confusion, "I don't have a—ah you mean ___?" You sure didn’t think for long jk 👀👀and you didn’t even deny it 👀👀👀and you came as soon as being asked 👀👀👀👀👀👀sus 

"Beats me," he whispers back, "I didn't even know we had a soccer team until this week!"LMAOOOOOOOOO

Chapter 5 :

The foreshadowing with Bang telling JK he is worried about his performance !! That’s why I love this fic so much! EVERYTHING is here, nothing happens out of the blue, you just have to pay attention to things to see things coming and not in a predictable but rather gratifying way.

The scene where OC hugs JK ? a masterpiece. I don’t know what more to say about it, it’s one of those things that touch on such a level that deconstructing it feels impossible and would break the spell, the intimacy I felt between the two of them and the stark contrast with Hyejin are perfect to characterize their relationship. Feels natural behind closed doors but lacking the words to clarify what they are, especially when faced with other people, and themselves. I L O V E it.

“you watch Taehyung roll around in the grass with his high-tech camera” don’t know why this is so funny to me but it is 

"Are we not speaking the same language right now?!" Jungkook barks into the receiver, "Are you fucking high?" The fact that he barks it makes it even funnier

Chapter 6 :

Oc’s conversation with Taehyung about hookup culture (and her behavior at large) just SCREAM ‘I have had such a terrible experience with love before that I cannot even begin to think about letting it happen again otherwise I will never love again’ and it HURTS. But! The way she approaches things with such maturity and is so in touch with her feelings is simply admirable. 

When OC is caught between Hoseok and JK at the party !!! It’s so frustrating but in the best  way possible because they got soooo close to actually talking things out clearly and making things better but their pride and whatever got in the way and we know it! JK and Oc I love y’all but also you’re so stupid. (Also it’s exactly what I was talking about in my ‘misunderstanding each others’ part. I feel like this is during this chapter that they really start to fuck up the communication because that’s the chapter where it becomes abundantly clear that feeeeelings are starting to get into the mix, they both try to distract themselves (unconsciously or not) with someone else, HYejin and Hoseok, and miserably fails. 

Also the domesticity!! That’s cute and fluffy and I’m blushing like I’m 12 year old again. 

“You’re right, » he says « I have to get more creative” I have said that Taehyung is hands down the funniest character here ?

"I want someone to choose me," you admit in a small voice, "I want someone to fall for my personality—to love me because of my hot temper and annoying disobedience, not in spite of it. I want this person to be surrounded by prettier, nicer, sweeter girls, but still seek me out… I'd rather them fall for my personality first, then settle for superficial traits like my lacking appearance… Is that really too much to ask?" Once again, thanks for calling me out also I’m crying this is one of the best paragraphs you have written

“He's like a character from a 1950's romance novel stepped off the page” Oc sweetheart remember something else about the 50’s 👀👀 Like ... the sexism ?

“The moon is high in the sky at this point of night, not shrouded by dark clouds for once, and illuminating the entire rooftop with its luminous silvery gleam. But for some reason, it seems like all the moonlight concentrates into a single beam on Hoseok, surrounding him in a brilliant white halo. You swallow tightly and drop your gaze as though burned.” The imagery here is beautiful and I like that you associated him with the moon when he is usually the sun 

"Oh, honey… You don't have to pretend to be strong in front of me." And there goes my heart.

"Did you think I was going to let her sleep on the streets or something?" is his sarcastic reply.You roll your eyes, "Thanks, Yoongi." We love character development (their friendship is so endearingly funny)

"Right… But um… what happened after the game on Saturday… uh…" A blush suddenly suffuses his cheeks, coloring his skin a lovely shade of rose, "I… I just wanted to—""Ah, that's right. There's another game next week," you hastily steer the conversation away, terrified by what he might say. "Don't worry, I'll be there too. I really need to start writing this article.""Oh, right… That's exactly what I was going to say," he says, awkwardly scratching the back of his head.” I want to slap some sense in these idiots’ heads 

"Yeah, but the problem is that I don’t want to." I am S C R E E C H I N G

Chapter 7 :

The scene where they wake up together and he smiles and calls her pretty and the misunderstanding scene makes me want to slap them you belated idiots

SO MUCH things happen in this chapter and I think it’s one of my favorite!! I have to say that the scene where OC protests against the date auction and faces the resistance of her sorority hit close to home. It’s always so heartbreaking to see fellow girls complying to sexism. 

Also also, feminist JK keeps me up at night. Fuck yeah. (You know the lisa simpson meme with the orange juice, that’s me with feminist JK, give me MORE of that. 

Also, her performance : I C O N I C

"You're just exclusive fuck buddies… Even though you don't do casual sex and Jungkook doesn't do exclusive. It totally doesn't feel like you're hiding your feelings." My thought exactly Mijoo

“Staying so guarded might protect you from pain… But it'll also protect you from any happiness." *Slow clapping*

“Why would you go for someone who doesn't see your worth? You deserve to be with someone picks you out in a sea of people. Who likes you the best." 👀👀👀

"…Do not resuscitate… Got it," you solemnly note.” You’re so funnyykekzldk

“You aggressively bid from backstage, even as Taehyung motions for you to get lost” I laughed out loud at this

« sold » HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIJIfhehfqenfoneqlfnqdkfncqefnlmzfkbnrdbfksvm kjnefkenfe hAAAAH ????!!! flefnekf HIIII ç!!!!ç!uj

Chapter 8 :

I’m sorry there is not much commentary about this one but I can for the life of me read it with a critical eye since I’m too caught up in the suspense and the fact that a million things are happening, the only thing I can think about is that your fiction, although it is a college AU is so versatile and you touch on so many other genre (here : sport) and manage to successfully make every single one enthralling and further your plot!

“Maybe if I had lost, you would've hugged me again." HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIJZKELMLDIZPEKDLEBDLLDKKEJ 

"Please, ___. Please don't go."But sheer panic flashes in his eyes when you attempt to shake him loose. "Don't leave me," he croaks out in desperation, "Please, ___. Don't leave me…"Not like she did." Don’t think I’m not seeing what you’re doing here 👀👀

Chapter 9 :

I feel high-key stupid because that’s like the 6th time I read New rules but I just realized that there might be a parallel going on between Jk and OC’s story, it’s obvious with the hints that you’ve sprinkled that something bad happened with JK’s past girlfriend but it’s just now re-reading Oc’s backstory with Jin that I realize that JK might have been in the ‘fucking around to get back/over his ex’ stage of his breakup like OC in the summer Freshman year, which led to him having his fuckboy reputation despite not ‘really’ being one (i.e. him saying that he hates hookup culture when Oc talks about her story)

Also, empathetic, feminist and understanding men make me w*t. 

"Yes," he says, a smile tugging at his lips, "Yes, you did." I sEE YOU 

"I don't know what goes through that fantastical imagination of yours” This might be my favorite line ever

“But you don't move one inch. Because you know Jungkook better than that.” Aaaawwwwwwww

Chapter 10 :

This is some greek tragedy shit right here. Mijoo trying to push OC and Jk because she feels guilty about JImin (she way you write it makes it seem so believable but I can’t decide if it’s true or not because we are seeing Oc’s perspective here and she knows she actually crushed on Jimin while Mijoo doesn’t, which would be a huge factor in her pushing OC towards JK) and also because she is the only one with a brain? Oc refusing to believe it and opposing semi-logical semi-bullshit arguments to convince Mijoo and even more herself that this isn’t happening because she heard JK talking to Hyejin ? Jk saying that because he’s an insecure asshole (and also very probably because of his ex girlfriend wink wink) whilst acting like the most belated man, ever ? Na a TRAGEDY!!!!!

Also, the entire speech that Mijoo gives, everything she says ???? A punch to the GUTS! ! ! 

THEY NEVER UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER THEY CONSTANTLY THINK THE WRONG THING I WANT TO TIE THEM TO A CHAIR AND FORCE THEM TO ACTUALLY COMMUNICATE THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING (in a oh god HOW are they going to fix this and finally come to an understanding of each other kind of way)

He finally breathes when she says his name I’m :(((((((((

“it wasn’t fun” Love how this simple line implies that Mijoo and Jimin have problems and arguments of their own and makes them feel like human beings who have a life outside of the story.

“Or was your image of him so perfect and unrealistic that you couldn't tolerate these humanizing details?" Ouch!

"You're only pushing Jungkook on me to ease your guilt for stealing Jimin away from me!" I don’t have the words to explain the way I felt when I first read this line except : oh fuck. Goosebumps. Literal goosebumps.

"I like him," you abruptly confess, your soft voice breaking through the tense silence the same way the brilliant meteors abruptly burst across the darkness of night. "I like him so much." Masterpiece 

“It's equally horrifying and an absolute relief to finally admit this deeply harbored secret after so long. After all these months of repression, it feels like a dam has burst with the way your emotions come tumbling out, threatening to choke you and sweep you underwater.” I said MASTERPIECE ! !

“Mijoo," you gasp, "What do I do?" Im crying. This isn’t a figure of speech. This isn’t an exaggeration. I’m crying. This entire scene is so powerful 

“You know your role. You're just the side character—the best friend or comic relief. You have no right to even dream about a life by Jungkook's side—much less to feel this amount of pain and jealousy seeing him with another girl” .... talk about being relatable 

“The loud electronic beat is pulsing through your veins with the same painful intensity of the tequila beating against the soft tissue of your brain. You feel like you’re being consumed by the powerful sensations… and yet, it's not enough to protect you from the helpless thoughts drifting across your mind, no matter how much you try to ward them back.” You really shine when it comes to making me cry 

"Can't you just let me be petty and sulk for once?" Baby :(

“How could you have misinterpreted the situation so horrifically?” Well we have this saying in French that goes : love makes you fucking blind 

“At this point of night, the moon has fully risen overhead, and its silvery rays cast down across the ocean, illuminating everything in white-gold. Awed, you can't help admiring the way the moonbeams kiss the top of Jungkook's black hair and the angles of his face, sheathing his figure like a cold halo.The waves continue to beat against the sandy beach like clockwork, and you  sway with them, as though lost in a rhythmic dance lulled by the force of the moon. Your thundering pulse acts as a metronome in this dance, pounding away at a dozen beats per each drag across the shore. You are cold. So cold that you've lost all feeling in your hands and legs. But for some reason, you don't feel the need to shiver anymore.” <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

“Could it have possibly been a defense mechanism? Was he just trying to protect himself in advance?” We are making PROGRESS

"Why is everything about sex with you?" HE SAID! AS IF HE WANS’T ABOUT TO DO WHAT HE IS AVOUT TO DO AND MAKE IT ABOUT SEX I HATE THIS MF

Chapter 11 :

My heart is non existent.The way Oc swallows her feelings to protect Yerin and stands up for her ❤️

I want to thank you for introducing a gay character in your story also Yoongi is one of the most interesting character in the story.

The way everything is slowly coming to a conclusion and every piece of the puzzle settles in the right place is so damn satisfying UGH

The scene where OC confronts Jk is so fucking satisfying, a masterpiece, 10/10, everything I wanted to hear come out of her mouth, my girl knows what’s up and won’t let this fucker get away with it.

"I've told you since day one that I'm not that kind of guy. God, can you even imagine me in a relationship?" he says with a derisive snort that feels like a punch to your stomach, "Did you honestly think that you could trap me into one with sex, ___? Or with a kiss? Come on. Get real." Your insecurities are showing asshole

"I hope you get over this soon, ___," he tells you in a sincere tone, "So we can get back to the way things were." Fight me in a parking lot salopard de merde

“Well, at least you've learned your lesson now.” I had to take a pause after this part 

"What if they were my parents?" he asks in a quiet voice, "My siblings? My community back home? The people I love most in this world? What would you have me do then?" As a closeted bisexual this one hit close to home

“But Yoongi turns to you with an incredulous look, "You can't be serious. Anyone with eyes could tell that Kook is completely whipped for you. Where is this coming from?” Yoongi is my man 

"You're a fucking coward." My thoughts exactly

Chapter 12 :

Getting through this chapter without crying is genuinely hard..All the girls standing up for themselves and not taking shit for the shitty men in their lives ???? YES PLEAse. And thank you for not only that but also including the girls that the story pushed us not to like that much up until now like Hyejin and Somin when really they were going through the same things as the holy trinity of best girls OC, Mijoo and Yerin. 

I have… mixed feelings and I feel like these feelings are exactly what OC has been feeling all along with the conflict between her beliefs and her heart. I wanted them to go through this and by being « willing » JK would have eventually just realized everything and stuff  because I love romance and shit. But I also want OC to get what she deserves, and it’s not that. I want them to have this happy ever after end but I feel like we won’t get that before long because as Hyejin pointed out, JK clearly needs to grow the fuck up.

"Oh, ___," she sighs your name.” Don’t mind me I’ll be crying over there 

“For a split second, you consider feigning ignorance. It would be so damn easy to laugh along with him and continue living this lie of being the cool, sporty tomboy who doesn't care about stupid "girly" things. After all, Hoseok isn't a bad guy. He's so handsome, popular, and kind. And he likes you. Someone actually likes you. Isn't that better than being alone? For a split second, you're tempted to grab his hand and flash him an award-winning smile. For a split second, you contemplate giving up all your morals and living a life of comfort with this lovely, charismatic man.” I love you so much for writing this

"Sexist?" he repeats in horror, "The fuck are you talking about?! I'm no sexist!" You’ve perfectly channeled the  and OC’s entire speech to him should be taught in school 

"We're just in different places right now," you inform him in a small voice, "It'll never work out, so please don't make this harder than it needs to be." I’m dying but also proud, producing

"I think I'll channel Somin and cut the toxicity out of my life." Attagirl 

To wrap up this overly long review, I want to say thank you to Tayegi for writing this piece and feeling generous enough to share it with us, reading this story and seeing the plot unravel, characters be introduced and developed was a true privilege. I rarely connect with the « reader » in reader fics and just say a random name in my head (or even 'your name ») but here, here… Never have I been so close to actually feeling like I’m the one in the fiction, not for the romance but for the way she is portrayed, for her ideas and how hard it is to stand by them sometimes, for her past and traumas. New rules is a masterpiece, and the fact that I connected to it on such a personal level, which, arguably could cloud my judgement, doesn’t make it any less.

[thirtheenprimes]

The Gaang+Iroh Classpects

I'd like to start off by saying there are no gender restrictions on classes nor aspects. Hussie himself said in a post I'm not going to take the time to find that any indication otherwise by the characters was just speculation. Let's be honest, gender restrictions are dumb.

Aang - Witch of Breath. First the obvious, he manipulates air as an air bender. But more than that, he pushes boundaries, and he redefines what the aspect means. Breath is about more than air, and Aang isnt just an air bender, he's the avatar. He is a leader, and he takes things into his own hands because he wants to do the right thing. Witches are bubbly, nice, and make great friends. Breath is also about freedom, direction, finding your own path in life and going with the flow. I would also consider Maid of Breath, but I'm pretty positive on the Witch thing. Though the Heir title does strike me as it still manipulates, but it has responsibilities and inheritance tied to it, but they more let their aspect control them than they control it. Aang doesnt let his destiny control him.

Katara - I compare her to Kanaya, I think. She's a passive class, but will still cut you for hurting someone she cares about. Given "because hope is all we have" isnt based off nothing, Hope is a viable aspect. She kindles and heals the hope in Aang and plenty of others, sort of mothering everyone into a rebellion and believing in themselves. But she could also be blood. She represents keeping people grounded, bonded to their loved ones. Her village, her deep care for everyone, and a great compliment to Aangs Breath. Plus, it would be great poetic symbolance with her whole blood bending arch. I think my official judgement for her is Sylph of Blood.

Sokka - Either Mind for his deductions, planning, and critical thinking, or Space for his creative thinking and ingenuity. Sokka uses his brain a lot, but he's also the creator of the group. Initially, I am split 50/50 on which one he is. So let's move onto class before deciding. Again, I have a gut instinct for him and that is Knight, because he sees himself as a warrior and as the only nonbender of the group, he has to be a fighter at heart... right? No, he is the plan maker, the schedule keeper and the inventor. Sure he's a warrior, but he's too open about himself to be a Knight. Knights hide behind something and that just isnt Sokka. So, moving past that, I consider a rogue. Rogues are fighters too, but they are more clever about it. They take their aspect and use it to benefit the team. Most everything Sokka does, especially later is because of the team. Rogues tend to be nice and earnest, like Sokka. So, then is it Rogue of Mind wherein he takes the logic and thoughts of others to benefit the team by coming up with new plans and ideas, or a Rogue of Space, wherein he takes physics and general creativity to do essentially the same thing? Personally, I lean a bit more toward Rogue of Space.

Toph - Toph is a Knight. That or a Thief, since she's def an active role as a foil to Katara's passive. She weaponized her aspect, and knights hide behind a facade of some kind, you know Toph hides behind her 'I'm tough and independent, I rely on no one!' act. But Thieves are forceful and unbending, like Earth. Not that all earth benders need to be thieves, but Toph is kind of the greatest Earth bender in the world for a reason. I'm feeling more Knight, though. As for aspect, I had a bit more difficulty. I was stuck between Life and Heart. Life I associate with vitality, luxury, privilege, and power. She comes from a wealthy family and even when she more than happily forsakes that life, living in wilderness and being a dirty barefooted rock child is luxury to her. It is fulfillment, and she needs to be in charge of her own life, a common trait for Life players. Heart I associate with soul and willpower, the force of an individual. That fits her well too, as an earth bender who understands her need to be true to herself. So I'm still not sure if I consider her a Knight of Life or a Knight of Heart but I am leaning more to Heart to be honest.

Zuko - Heir. He inherits, struggles with inheriting, and never fully controls his aspect, whatever it is. Rather, he learns to live with it and redirect it. We all know he's the group dad, and I see heirs as having to do with father figures. John and his dad, and you know Popop was a great dad. Mituna was a failed heir, as they all were, but Zuko is so successful at being an Heir he somehow breaks the definition and evolves into King (I know he becomes Fire Lord, but lord is a class and it isnt him). Now after saying all that, I also admit he fits the role of a Page really well too. He takes so long to find himself and come into his own, but when he does he is fantastic. But thematically, I believe he is an heir. As for his aspect, I'll start off by saying that if he is a Page, I'll go full Blood. Page of Blood, in which case Katara would be Sylph of Hope because I dont believe there should be two of the same aspects in one group. Thematically speaking, they are too different, even if everyone embodies their aspect differently. As an Heir, which again I am more of a proponent for, he would be an Heir of Life, given he is royalty and used to the finer things in life, then learns what the real finer things in life are from his uncle. Relating fire bending to the sun and sustaining life supports this too. Life is luxury, duty, and vitality. Again, I dont believe in repeated classes or aspects in a group, so if he is an Heir of Life, Toph would most certainly be a Knight of Heart.

Iroh - Zuko's ancestor, certainly. In homestuck, the humans share no pattern with their ancestors but the trolls share their aspect. I do not see Iroh as a Hero of Life, but I could see him as a Hero of Blood. If his aspect were blood (understanding others, what's important to them and how their culture is significant, it just screams Iroh of the white lotus and master of tea), I believe Iroh could be a Muse of Blood or Mage of Blood. I lean more toward Mage myself, as mages suffer from their aspect. Look at who his brother is, know his suffering from his son's death, and how much do you think he hurt when he thought he lost Zuko to the abuse of the Fire Lord? A mage is a sage because of their experience and you cant tell me Iroh isnt the best old sage ever. I'm not saying Zuko is a Page of Blood because they are related and he learned how to reach his full potential because of Iroh, because they dont have to have the same aspect, I'm just saying Zuko was lucky to have such a great Mage of Blood taking care of him. Muse might work also just because the most important thing a Muse does is exist, and the most important thing Iroh does is just being a good person, though I think he's too active in taking care of everyone to be a Muse myself.

So my final decision

Aang: Witch of Breath

Katara: Sylph of Blood

Sokka: Rogue of Space

Toph: Knight of Heart

Zuko: Heir of Life

Iroh: Mage of Blood

*Iroh and Katara embody Blood differently and can have the same aspect because Iroh is an ancestor, not one of the kids. I just put him in here because he is my favorite character.

[witchcraft-in-wonderland]

Cori's Tale (Pt.2)

-------------------------

We sat there for a few minutes, I exchanged stories with Patton about the surface world. His expression of sadness and anger at the notion of the other children sending us down the mountain as sacrifices was one I wouldn't soon forget. I learned a lot about him, to, he had a cat allergy, he took care of six children before I got here. That last line stopped me in my tracks.

"What. . . Happened to the other kids?" I asked, Patton's face seemed to fall.

"They. . . Left. . . That's all you need to know for now, dont dwell on it ok kiddo?" Patton rested a hand on my shoulder for a few seconds before getting up.

"I think we should head off now, yeah?" He said, holding a hand out. I merely nodded and accepted it. I walked with Patton into a narrow hallway. On one end was a sign, on the other a lever and pressure plates. Patton stepped a pattern on them, his hooves clicking against the stone, before flipping the lever. A door opened and he walked through it. I chose to read the sign before following.

"Only the fearless may enter here, brave ones, foolish ones, both walk not the middle road," I read aloud before crossing. The words bounced in my head for a bit, fading to the background as my attention turned back to Patton.

"This next puzzle you can do on your own,  I've labelled all the levers for you," he said, I watched him cross a few bridges to the end of the room, the second doorway was blocked off by a set of spikes on the floor.

I walked over to the first lever, light blue words were scrawled on the walls next to it, telling me this was the right one. This repeated with about two more levers before I heard a clicking sound and noticed the spikes behind Patton retreating into the ground.

"This next puzzle is dangerous, take my hand," Patton said, holding it out. I took it, not paying attention to much until I realized what we were walking on. Rows, and rows, of sharp, silver, spikes. The spikes seemed to retreat under Patton's hooves, I found this matter interesting.

"Now, as you go through the ruins, you may encounter monsters, and they may try to attack you, I want you to know you should just talk to them and I will come to resolve the conflict," Patton smiled and gestured to a dummy at the center of the room. I walked up to it and noticed the heart that had been established as my SOUL appear in front of me again. I saw something behind the eyes of the dummy, something I couldnt quite place.

"Hi, I'm Cori, she/her and they/them pronouns, what's your name?" I said, not really expecting the dummy to respond. The mysterious aspect of its eyes seemed to evaporate, my SOUL retreated back into my chest, I looked to Patton for guidance, but he merely smiled and clapped in approval.

"Now, follow me kiddo," he said, walking to another room. We'd nearly gotten there when a small frog-like creature appeared in front of me. A barrage of flies aimed straight for my SOUL, I narrowly managed to avoid them by spinning out of the way.

My mind seemed insolent on two options, threaten, or compliment. I was never very accomplished at threats, so instead I decided to compliment the symbol scrawled on its chest. The frog began to blush, it was seconds away from preparing its next attack when Patton stepped out onto the scene. With a glare that could freeze even the toughest child in their tracks, he shooed away the frog creature.

"You did wonderful kiddo," he said, smiling as he lead me to a much longer corridor.

"This test is going to be very difficult, I am going to leave you alone, and you're going to have to walk to the end of the hall, do you think you can do it?" He said. I nodded, I'd been on my own plenty of times before this.

I watched him disappear down the hall and began walking myself, I'd almost reached the door when I felt a hand on my shoulder once again.

"Its alright kiddo, I didnt really leave, but this was a very important test of your independence, I need to make sure you can be alone, I have to handle something," he said. He dropped what looked like one of the old phones the guardians back at the community talked about used to have.

"I will call you periodically to make sure you're alright," Patton walked away from me and I stood there.

He did, in fact, call several times before his phone was stolen by a dog. After about twelve calls I decided it might be best to venture out on my own, after all, I already knew how to talk to and spare the monsters. I packed my art supplies and sketchbook back into my bag and set off.

The ruins were relatively calm, with only the occasional froggit or molsmal to interrupt my walking, though my complimenting and flirtation skills were advanced enough that I could pass them easily. The first real problem presented itself in the form of a ghost, laying on the floor and sulking. It was a sort of faded purple color, and it seemed to be pretending to sleep.

I elected to nudge it slightly with my foot, resulting in a retaliation from the ghost.

"Oh. . . Oh no. . . They noticed. . ." Lavender, as the words appearing above the ghost called it, seemed rather upset.

"I'm sorry- I just needed to get past, I've got somewhere to be," I said.

Tears rained down from the ghosts face, I held my hands up to block them, but they seemed to float back upwards, changing shape the closer they got to my outstretched palms.

"I really didnt mean to frighten you, you seem rather nice," the ghost seemed surprised by this statement.

"I want to show you something," she said. I merely nodded and watched as she cried, her tears floating up and beginning to form what looked like a flower-crown on her head.

"Woah- I wish I could do that," the ghost retreated out of battle.

"I met someone today. . . And they were actually really nice. . . Wow," the ghost disappeared without another word, needless to say it was a uh- different experience, but I didnt mind it. I kept walking on, solving puzzles as I passed them, fighting all manner of strange monsters. I left some money in a web of spiders, each seemed to be wearing their own small hoodie, I decided to write a note complimenting them on it, hoping they would find it sweet. I put the donut they gave me in a ziploc bag of other food items I'd collected, hoping that would keep it from messing up my backpack.

I finally managed to reach what looked like a small house, out of which Patton walked, phone in hand before he noticed me.

"Oh my goodness gracious how long was I gone! Come here kiddo- I'll heal you," he said, trapping me in one of the biggest bear hugs I'd ever experienced. I felt a calm wash over me. Patton let go and guided me into the house.

"The pie isnt cool just yet, but I'll let you know when it is, feel free to explore," said Patton. I, however, had had enough of exploring that day, and decided that I would rather draw at the table.

I began to get tired later in the day, and elected to go to bed. I woke up later in the night with the smell of pie filling my nostrils. I merely set it in another ziploc in my bag before going back to bed.

I wasnt sure how long I was in the ruins before I began to feel homesick, but soon enough I'd plucked up the courage to ask Patton about leaving.

"Stay here kiddo, I need to handle something," I watched as Patton disappeared around the corner before following him. We walked all the way down the stairs before he stopped at an archway, turning to me.

"This is the exit to the ruins. . . I am going to destroy it. . ." He said.

"I have seen five children pass through these doors, and never return, one who didnt even make it through the ruins themselves, I cannot let it happen again," I was frozen, processing the words to slowly to interrupt.

"If you cross, they, Logan, will kill you," Patton said, something about the way he said Logan's name resonated with me. He sounded distraught, as though he were talking about someone personal to him.

"But you cant keep me here forever, it's not right," I said. This seemed to breach the silence.

"You are right. . . You would just be unhappy here. . . Very well. . . Prove yourself to me, and I will let you go," this time, two hearts appeared. My own ever-changing one, and an upside-down white one on Patton's side.

I barely had time to comment before facing a barrage of fire and flames. I narrowly managed to dodge it, holding my hands out as a barrier.

I wanted to talk to him, but I couldnt seem to find the right words.

The fire kept coming, I held my hands out, envisioning it in my head as changing shapes, which it soon obeyed. I watched as the fire molded itself to the images in my head. Soon enough the spitting image of Patton was in front of me, made of fire, before it split off into separate whispers of smoke. I could see the surprised expression on Patton's face as he watched.

Soon enough his attacks became less calculated, almost as if he was actively avoiding hitting me.

Finally it was over, Patton sighed, defeated.

"I am so sorry kiddo. . . You're right. . . You would just be unhappy, my expectations, my loneliness, my fear, I will put them all aside, for you," he said. He opened his arms for a hug, which I embraced in full. As he let go I could see the tears making their way down his face. I watched him leave, turning his head slightly and giving me a small nod.

Then it was just me and the door. As I walked through, I was met with a long corridor. At the end if it, a familiar orange face.

"Well done! You spared the life if one innocent person!" Said the tree.

"What do you want with me." I growled under my breath.

"I am the prince of this worlds future, but do not worry, my plan isnt regicide, this is so much more interesting,"

I stomped my foot into the ground "What. Do you want. From me." I repeated.

"You interest me, human, sparing even those who would kill you without hesitation, but what will you do if you meet a relentless killer? Will you kill out of frustration? Or will you continue to die, because you would rather rely on magic than murder," the tree seemed to disappear abruptly, leaving me alone with the words echoing in my head.

I continued down the path, and was met with an overwhelming sense of cold at the end.

----------------------------------------------

Tag list:

@nerosdayinhell

@that-artsy-gay

@official-lucifers-child

@spooky-scary-virgil

@misunderstoodshadowling

@youtuberswithalex

[zenosanalytic]

Great Beasts of Legend: Centaurs, Sirens and Chimaera: The Greeks and th...

I know I’ve posted this lecture by Dr. Jeremy McInerney before, but I was watching it again(third time; really love this one uwu) and at 41:55 he starts a discussion of a boundaries-based reading of Centaurs(good target for that given the melding/muddying of boundary btw animal and man Centaurs represent[1]), beginning with the Herakles, Deianira, Nessos Myth that I feel he doesn’t quite hit though he makes/brings up other great points and it made me want to write a short little thing about why this myth, specifically, is really open to such a reading:

Ok so the basic outline: Herakles and Deianira are traveling, they come to the river Evinos where Nessos[2], the Centaur, is selling his services as a living ferry(ppl sit on him and he carries them across). Herakles, of course, decides to swim across and pays Nessos to carry Deianira across. While doing so, Nessos attempts to rape her, Deianira calls for help, and Herakles whips out his bow and arrows dipped in Hydra’s blood, and shoots Nessos dead. As he dies but before Herakles reaches them, Nessos tells Deianira to take a vial of his blood(sometimes blood mixed with his semen). The story splits interestingly here, so remember this point for later. Years down the road, Herakles is off in some part of Greece partying in celebration of yet another city he’s plundered, and he sends a train of new slaves taken from said city-plundering back home, along with a messenger with an off-hand request to Deianira that she send his favorite cloak along cuz he plans to keep partying for quite a long while. This is another point of ambiguity in the story and its retellings so remember it, too. She steeps his cloak in water mixed with the vial of Nessos’s blood, sends it along and, while the poison doesnt kill Herakles cuz he’s part god and Hydra’s poisonous blood isn’t powerful enough to do that, it DOES cause him such enormous, unending pain that he builds his own funeral pyre and burns himself alive, apotheosizing into a god in the process.

So, regarding Boundaries:

Nessos, obvsl, is a physical manifestation of the close and ever-present boundary between humans and beasts; btw self-control and indulgence; btw “civilized” behavior and “uncivilized”, as discussed above, and particularly of the threat of rape Greek men present to Greek women.

This story involves a River, a physical boundary

Rivers are ALSO what separate the world of the living from the world of the dead to the Greeks, and this is a story ABOUT TWO DEATHS, both tied directly TO a River(one taking place in it, during the act of crossing it; the other a long-term effect of that event[but also Herakles’s hubris, though most versions, being written for men, don’t emphasize that totally obvs aspect of it]).

Not only that, it’s LITERALLY the story of Herakles’s apotheosis: of how he comes to finally transcend the boundary between God and Mortal which he has straddled his whole life.

Herakles is celebrating the sack of a city, ie, his violation&destruction of the Boundaries defining said city, when he dies. Greek cities are often protected by female divinities(Athena usually), so it’s yet another symbol of rape.

So Split 1: In most versions, the reason Nessos gives for why she should take his blood is that it is a powerful love potion that will ensure Herakles remains faithful to her if his eye ever strays. BUT, also in most versions, this is a lie and he’s secretly trying to poison Herakles, though how would he know Herakles’ arrows are poisoned with Hydra-blood? I remember reading a version where he presents it to her AS POISON, explaining about the Hydra, but I cant find any mention of it online, so maybe my brain’s just making it up(or maybe this was the Hercules TV Show version X|).

Split 2: BUT BUT, while in most version Deianira sends the cloak out of desperation to keep him faithful(and of course there’s a particular slave girl in the train she’s warned about just so all of this can be EXTRA the fault of women, rather than Herakles for being a giant asshole like he always is), in other versions she sends it OUT OF VENGEANCE, TO FUCK HIM UP because Herakles is being a giant asshole, wrecking up Greece, partying as much as he likes, flaunting his rapes and his victims in her face(this is VERY RELEVANT given the nature of other versions of this story), and leaving her to run his household alone while ordering her around like she’s a slave rather than his Wife.

These are mutually exclusive: she cannot be both seeking to punish him, and trying, in anguished desperation, to keep him faithful to her[3].

Herakles in this story, as is ALWAYS THE CASE IN ALL HIS STORIES, is flaunting the boundaries of Proper Behavior, in this case those defining a happy and successful marriage(IE Hera’s Domain; which you’d THINK would be kind of relevant, given the deep narrative connection between Hera and Herakles and her quickness to anger regarding marriage violations, yet it somehow perennially goes unmentioned), and getting punished for it.

Now here’s an ADDED kicker. There’s a version of this story were Herakles initiates the conflict. one day he visits the house of Deianira’s father, Dexamenus, and while a guest, rapes her. Dexamenus can’t fight Herakles, of course, but he demands by the gods and tradition that Herakles marry Deianira to “repair” the injury(WE LIVE IN HELL!), and Herakles agrees. After he leaves to prepare for the wedding, a local Centaur, Eurytion(name meaning “Widely Honored”) visits Dexamenus and proposes to marry Deianira himeself(you know: without the whole BEING HER RAPIST thing), and Dexamenus complies. Herakles arrives a few days later, kills Eurytion, and sees that their marriage is carried out. Presumably in this version, the blood poisoning the cloak would be Eurytion’s.

What I’ve tried to get across here is that, among other things, there are readings of this myth were Herakles is the bad guy and Deianira the agent of divine punishment, if not the actual Protagonist. And those readings suggest certain ideas we would be prone to consider “modern” about the agency of women, consent, personal and social boundaries, morality, Greek ~Heroic Masculinity~, and yes even Centaurs, might not have been so alien and “anachronistic” to the ancient Greek mind as we tend to think.

But anyway, even if you think that particular part of my little argument here is total Bunk, I hope I’ve managed to get across that Deianira and the Cloak is a myth Absolutely LOUSY with the theme of Boundaries, what they mean, what it means to Cross them, and the Consequences for which you Cross, when, how, and plain just choosing to cross them in the first place. It’s a really great example for him to suggest for this particular topic, and it really inspired me quite a lot today, and I just wish there was a lecture online where he developed it further uwu

[1]And not only that, but of course owning horses was a common sign of aristocratic status, and trading horses a common aristocratic activity(this is one way you know Hesiod’s claims of poverty are a put-on; his family breeds and sells horses). I feel like it’s pretty well understood that Centaurs are in someway a commentary and meditation upon the nature of Greek masculinity, on the capacity for violent cruelty and wanton appetite Greeks inculcated men into beside all the talk of civilized society, but I also feel it’s less well understood how open they also are to a similar reading regarding the appetites and barbaric capacities specifically of the upper classes of Greek society.

[2]In some versions Nessos and Herakles actually have a history, and the whole incident is Nessos’s attempt at vengeance. There is another story, where Herakles visits a centaur who is his friend named Pholos, and a gang of nearby Centaurs(I like to think they were Rowdy Teens myself u_u) smell the wine they’re drinking and crash the party to share some. Herakles, being Herakles, of course immediately begins killing them for the perceived insult, which inevitably leads NOT ONLY to Pholos dying(cuz Herakles isn’t careful and shoots him too, or in other vers bcuz he refuses to so much as retrieve his arrows from the bodies due to concerns with “pollution” from the corpses, and Pholos cuts himself on one of the arrows), but ALSO the poisoning, and eventual death, of Chiron, who was one of Pholos’s neighbors and who Herakles accidentally knicked while wildly chasing down and shooting the interlopers. Nessos is one of these Centaur teens, and the only centaur in the whole situation to survive (:T

[3]Which, btw, the whole “faithful” thing doesnt make much sense(even though it pops up regularly in Greek Myth), because her “competitor” in these versions is a slave. These next sentences are going to be gross and awful, but in the society which told these stories male slave-owners already had unrestricted sexual access to their slaves and, beyond that, I’ve never read a single example in Greek or Roman sources of a slave being legitimized and married as a wife(which doesnt mean such examples dont exist; I’m an amateur). So the idea that a slave could threaten Deianira’s position as Herakles’s wife seems very dubious to me(as does the general trope of slave women as threats to wives in Greek stories). Again: this is all super-awful, but it’s something complicating the traditional presentation of the myth, which is rarely addressed because most academics writing for a general audience are super-loath to deal with classical slavery as the awful, body and soul crushing institution which it was.

[fireeaglespirit]

@fireeaglespirit @viviane-lefay i do worry sometimes with the stories I write if things might be too much for you. To be fair I dont think in any fanfic Ive ever written anything too explicit but now Im so conscious of other people’s viewpoints and being inclusive that it is a concern. Ultimately I write what I want to/need to but I am aware it might not be for all tastes hence always trying to follow ratings etc.

Replying here so it doesn’t cause any problems with OP, etc..

Ohh. I’m sorry if this worried you.. tbh this was very random and I wasn’t even thinking about fiction when I rb this. This one reminded me of a few times I went out with friends and colleagues and I just felt starkly asexual, lmao

About my tolerance regarding sex and explicitly in fiction, I’ll be honest with you…

There’s hardly anything I could say I wouldn’t read about. I just don’t feel ‘triggers’ or anything of the sort, no hard feelings when it gets to fiction and I value your will to be conscious of other viewpoints but its practically impossible to cater to all tastes like you said, so don’t worry about it much… there’s always someone out there who will feel offended and others who will fiercely love it.

As for myself, I’m very tolerant to sexual content in fiction, idk? I don’t seek it out particularly but its not a deal breaker either.

I know some asexual people are less tolerant, I usually just get a ‘meh’ feeling whenever those subjects are touched in much detail, idk some works do get nasty and bothersome because of much detail involving sexual practices so I just give up on them or put them aside when they bring me no joy but I gladly consume material with sex on it as long as I like some aspects of it. Also, I’m good at ignoring or glossing over things I don’t like in fiction… when I read explicit scenes with intercourse it does nothing to me and my eyes focuses on the sentences I loved such as regarding the feelings between the characters and subtle interactions instead of the physical/carnal aspects of it, and this makes it all worthy it.

Even so, some works might become overwhelmingly depressive or repulsive so I might put them aside even if I enjoyed an aspect of it or I might just skip through them and this happened recently to a series of fantasy books I tried to read which were actually really good but they were so overwhelmingly and unnecessarily dark and had an horrid oppressive atmosphere towards women an sex so I just felt no joy reading them? Its not like I was traumatized by its tone but it felt like a chore and I couldn’t care about it further and no character inspired me whatsoever that the world could change for the better, so I dropped them.

But its not like I’m judging it, I just feel weirded out to some things and I just imagine the kind of mind that takes upon themselves the chore to write a whole series of book which has nothing but suffering and misery in them, especially concerning women, lol. We already had this shit in history and still have in some places in the world so I kinda feel like its not interesting for me to read about it in a fictional setting, especially if I don’t feel like the writer is going to challenge the setting.

But I’m aware most people are much more sensitive… these things can be horrid for those who are more sensitive, and perhaps my own asexuality protects me from feeling it fully as I don’t even think of myself as a being capable of partaking in this (weird, I know), so I have problem even projecting.

But I did felt really strongly for the way women were oppressed absurdly and had their agency completely obliterated, so that sparked a sort of empathy or kinship in me which made progress in such book a chore…

You got my point and this just illustrates a bit my relationship to fiction and things that irk me since you were interested in my opinion… I have another example of fantasy book with lots of sex in it:

I read asoiaf even thought its full of sexual stuff but I don’t feel joy at these parts, yet the work is so good on other themes that I ignore it for the most part… but even so, recently I’ve read F&B and it was kinda overwhelming on the sexist aspect with myriads of female characters turned into child brides and raped and dying at their childbirth repeatedly it just got very tiresome and repetitive near the end, because there where almost no counterpoints to it, unlike in the main series where the situation is dire for women but we have characters challenging it more often and idk. F&B just lacked on that front.

So, this shows a bit my sensitivity towards sex is more related to sexism and the feeling that women are confined to their reproductive aspects: motherhood, childbearing, marriage, sensuality, etc.. I don’t have a problem with sexual intercourse per se as you can see, but that’s from my unique point of view and I know some asexuals are more repulsed towards it, but you asked my opinion…

So, if its consensual sex: its not my cup of tea but I don’t feel like its a deal breaker…

Just to give you a positive sex example: when I see an OTP of mine getting to the point of having sex I think its pretty sweet, like when Jon and Dany consummated their love on that boat… I was happy for them, for all that it means, the symbolism between the union of ice and fire and just two characters which I love dearly, finding happiness and comfort in each other. What’s not to love about it??

This is a rare stance I can say I saw a pair I ship get to that point xD

I love shipping as you know, but its more about the psychological aspects and potential for character development and even when I’m reading fanfic about my OTPs I enjoy more the angst and symbolism than the ‘hot’ parts which usually just makes me go ‘meh’ (again).

So this makes me say: when sex is the focus of works I could feel like I’m too asexual for this, even if it regards an OTP, it just doesn’t have a very exciting effect on me or I’m not explicitly interested in this part of a relationship, when so many other things caught my eye… sometimes subtle interactions and dialogue and and gentle approximation (touches, caresses, kissing, etc..) is so much more exciting for me to read about than the ‘thing’ itself, lol.

To sum it up: when its there just for p*rn or even worse, shock value it just makes me go ‘meh’ or ‘ugh’ or ‘uhh why am I even reading this?’

This reminds me of Vivi’s take on the ‘hiero gamos’, in this case I just say I might even enjoy the theme as long as the scenes involving sex are meaningful and passionate and the aspect I value the most about them are sublime and platonic instead of carnal but I’m aware the carnal aspects are very important for the characters and the audience so I also worry when I get to show my stories people will think they lack sexual content ^^  I get you.

Now that you know my feelings towards sex in fiction, to a broader sense I just wanted to say..

There’s no way to guess people’s sensitives but it doesn’t mean you need to walk on eggshells afraid to trigger people all the time, hell no! I’m all for freedom of creation. At least around me there are no metaphorical ‘eggshells’.

Everyone has their own set of opinions which makes them unique, not just me, I mean…  even so I will let my snowflake syndrome show but I’m quite peculiar if you could say, so I sort of grew a strong ‘carapace’ towards the world as I deal with people with completely different views and values on a daily basis which might make me have inflamed political opinions while at the same time, I’m very flexible and forgiving when it comes to fiction in general.

I don’t expect much of the population to be like this so I’m also self conscious when it gets to writing my own stuff because I know people can feel very strongly about it and you’ve seen the way fandom reacts to minor things and bash creators when they perceive flaws in their work… I’m just not a judgmental person, its not in my nature. I just ignore things in fiction if I don’t like and I became even more relaxed over time in regards to this all, lol I nearly reached a ‘nirvana’ as I don’t even feel strongly negative feelings in regard to this.

Snarky and bitter comments from time to time? Yes… but no hard feelings. RL needs my hatred, lol so I don’t have it to spare with fiction any longer.

Anyway, on an unrelated sub note… as you might have noticed, I don’t feel comfortable about current fandom trends and specially policing, and with reason as this gets very serious and quick with literally ‘wave chain reactions’ of hatred sparked apparently from nowhere. I hope people could create more freely instead of the political correct police and restraining of creativity we have now. It was good for a while and I’m all for diversity and change in status quo (for the better), but I think this has gone too far and I perceive a lot of rigidity in fiction right now due to fear of fandom backlash we have creators afraid to make their thing and afraid it isn’t ‘inclusive or progressive’ enough… so they bend themselves endlessly until fandom ‘approves’ them, but even so someone is bound to scream and say the work is offensive and the cycle of hatred is restarted.

I know this reply was like a huge egocentric monologue and I strained with non related issues at the end, but you asked my thought on this so I tried to convey it with detail.. including things related to the perception we have concerning fictional themes and I just kinda had to vent at some parts of it.

etc…. This doesn’t mean I forbid judgment from others or criticism or that I forbid people from harshly criticizing works of fiction, just that sometimes it gets more harmful than beneficial and scare people off, and I felt like saying that.

Anyway,,, just want to say nonetheless I find it very sweet and considerate that you are taking different opinions in mind while writing, but you don’t need to worry at least from my part, and I don’t think you ever got even close to being explicit in your writings so there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.

[caskit2]

Gorillaz Analysis

Caskit’s not ready to throw all their cards on the table but the time has come!!! 

Okay then, I had to think long and hard about what I wanted to talk about here with Gorillaz cause DAMN!! 

I love gorillaz, 

I love the characters 

damon is a gift that we just dont deserve 

But how did I end up in the fandom pool? 

Well for one, I have heard of gorillaz music back in middleschool but at the time I was busy with Invader Zim and Inuyasha as well as jumping into this band wagon as well  (Full metal Alchemist) 

so by the time I turned to look at Gorillaz was when phase 3 was JUST wrapping up and making way for phase 4. which means I jumped into a fandom that had characters that I knew NOTHING ABOUT. Do you know what that means?

It means I also had no understanding or knowledge of why people shipped “this or that” in the fandom, but I gained some intel on the characters and the growing plot of the story, but other than that, I didnt understand why I was drawn to a particular “ship” in the fandom.  

*actual expression made, im not joking*

Once upon a time, caskit discovered 2doc and was not surprised that this was a ship. I have seen similar stuff that has a common theme that i was drawn to at the time. I was more interested in why fans ship them so I dived in head first into the boiling lava and came to a conclusion.,.....

I dont see them as able (capable?) of ever ending up in the way that most 2doc shippers would pick. The two are chaotic on levels of different tiers of “weird and gross” and I dont really have a reason as to why i was drawn to the ship, but It made me want to analyse what exactly a stable relationship is!

I basically walked around in that area of the fandom and didnt really form any “attachment” to it. I never really experienced a “healthy relationship”, lived in childhood and teen years were I went through life avoiding relationships. So I didnt have a good start, but I knew eventually that I would have to explain myself. 

I feel bad that I wouldnt be able to give a solid answer to what makes me want to sit down and analyse any scenario that has “present abuse undertones” but I know that in the past and how I grew up with what I was exposed to...That I would come to realize how unhealthy it is just for me. 

This post isnt particularly about 2doc itself, but its more about discussing how I handled MY reaction to something that I have seen over and over. In a way, I could see those abusive tones that were present.

Basically Caskit never experienced good healthy relationships and decided that it was a good idea to use gorillaz as a processing strategy....not a good idea in the end cause...OOOHHHHHHH 

It confused me more than before!!! 

I got friends that tag their stuff, and I dont really get so bothered with peoples own opinions, cause I was more worried about how I would come to understand everything. 

When I think about how fans are dividing and putting up a wall to keep “haters outa my yard”  it usually has to deal with shipping stuff, and character hating. And I guess I was confused about everyone’s perception of the characters.

Talking about the characters, I dont have a “least favorite to most” cause I have specific connections to them in different ways. 

I can find similarities to noodle for the expectations she had in a band at age 10 and growing up (plus we are both gays that dont like to publicly talk about relationships) 

I connect with Russel cause I lost a piece of myself  after a paranormal encounter and 3 near death experiences and suffer hallucinations. His protective demeanor to little noodle clicked with me. I see him as the Heart and soul, dedicated and warm friendly guy. ( you mean a decent human being right?)

I relate to 2d in a way that I share his enthusiasm, and mad bravery to live with the same guy who ran him over and caused 2 accidents that are permanent. 

I relate to murdoc in a weird way...  His childhood hits too close to home for me, as a CSA survivor of 2 incidents, pain addict and victim of abuse, draws similarities. But there were things that he has done that match things to my past like the abusive father, and dwelling on the darker aspect of a bittersweet reality. I was expressing physical violence to “show affection” and was never called out for it. I was not just a victim, I was also the abuser and since it was something that murdoc is faced with, is why I hated him. He is (for me) the thing I hate about myself. 

When I saw more and more fans hating on murdoc I wondered if people would ever think I was the same as him. Fans didnt like the way he treated 2d  and the rest of the band, And I agreed. Fans hated him for lying and causing drama and I agreed.  

His ignorance was a comedy slapstick (dressing in a nazi uniform cause he thought it “looked cool” despite russel telling him that its not a good idea) and was seen as the “crazy hooligan that has delusional dreams of fame”  and it bothered me that jamie used this to cover up allot of obvious issues that needed to be addressed. and the way that the fandom treated him made me think about how I would be accused of being like him. 

(thank goodness I didnt cause a car accident and have to sell my soul to satan for a shot at fame with a kickass band and didnt make uncomfortable sexual jokes or ignore others that tried to help me.) 

I can separate what justifies the hate on murdoc when it comes to abuse and causing shit to go down. becuase I did those things in the past, but it didnt take me more than a decade or more to realize that what I did was wrong! I didnt take forever to change for the better. so Im frustrated at him for taking so long to turn around and go “holly fuck im a bastard! I should probably fix that” 

Yeah NyOO ShiTT HunnayYY!! 

I dont hate him for being an idiot, I hate that he symbolizes all things wrong about me that never got closure! 

him admitting to being the cause of 2d’s social anxiety and eye damage as well as the abuse is easier said than done! but the fact that he is letting everything out of the “in-denial basket” is nice for me to see, cause right now Healing and progression in closure to issues of trauma is what is important to me. 

The endgame for my perspective on 2d and murdocs relationship is this: 

I dont want to ship them

I dont even see it as a thing regardless of character development and both guys working through their own shit themselves. 

I am not the best person to explain what a toxic or abusive relationship can be. 

Why? becuase I lived through it and I was both the victim and abuser to myself  and grew up without a good relationship (and I have a fear of positive affection) so I dont enjoy going through the same pattern as before where i shipped abuse in the past as a “dumb 13 year old weeboo” 

I dont view their relationship as romantic, or platonic, or healthy. 

I just want the boys to enjoy their own character growth individually. 

I would like to eventually see a friendship with them But I’ll be more excited if instead the whole band eventually gain a healthy relationship with everyone.  

Year 2018 marks the year I jumped in head first into gorillaz as a blind fruit bat 

(I call it the year caskit played with fire) for cosplaying ‘murdoc fuckn wrinkles’ at a convention around the time the fandom was yelling at him and jamming to 2d’s album. 

Caskit jumped into the shipping lava all for Behavioral analyzing and hopped over fences to see other fans perspectives of characters they liked and hated just to make sure Caskit could understand the illuminati that is Gorillaz. 

I made friends all over the fandom, and thanks to a few people, I gained more confidence to push my art skills and create some kickass art of Gorillaz. 

And yeah I yap yap about murdoc ( looks over @russelhusselhobbs im sorry you put up with my bullshit) but remember peeps. 

I like hearing about the others and have gotten more into 2d’s character as well as Jumping over the fence to go hang out with russel fans and listen to fangirling from friends and just trying to be a freakn fairy godmother and deliver some good representing art. 

And for those who aren’t aware, my past artwork is probably gonna float around so if its signed as Caskit or Caskit19 then its mine and if you see my old 2doc stuff.....,

for the trigger. 

But YEAHHHHHH!!! I wanted to throw all this on the table. and I dont know how to feel about that...(I swear my friend jokes with “need some feel good inc for Caskit” ) Kinda contemplating my choice between sticking my head into a hornets nest or jumping into a dark water trench.... the hornets nest sounds less likely to give me a seizure induced panic attack so ill go for that. ( I have a tolerance for inflicted pain so no you cant hurt me by using violence cause I dont have any consideration for myself and my safety)  

But yeah now I can get back to drawing fun stuff. (hopefuly caskit wont have to bore you guys with stupid shit ever again! xD) 

[jasondean]

i'm sending you the first thing i thought of when i tried to think of an ask to send you. so. here's this cursed thing. heathersstuck.

ohhh my god okay first of all im gonna preemptively apologize for how long this is about to be. 

another disclaimer that this is all gonna be based on my knowledge of the alternia that we see in homestuck itself because i havent gotten super into hiveswap yet. and, as we all know, any good homestuck au is one where the contending canon is thrust into the homestuck universe as opposed to the other way around. so im gonna spare everyone the painful ideation of plucking a small handful from the VAST homestuck cast just to put them into the plot of heathers

im ALSO gonna preface that im thinking about the heathers film while writing this, not the musical. and im not gonna go into anything regarding martha, betty, kurt, or ram because i think focusing on the main cast is enough for right now lol. 

anyway, potential positions in the blood caste system as well as god tier assignments under the cut!  

so ive definitely thought about this on several occasions and ive seen some heatherstuck content where the heathers are trolls right. the thing is, the color symbolism from both media dont line up. and the heathers being drawn to keep their original colors just doesnt work out with the hemospectrum. like no way is heather chandler a red blood or mutant blood (imo itd make sense for jd to have mutant blood). the heathers being red, yellow, and green blooded would just make them a group of lowbloods and that doesnt fit with the power structure depicted in either canon. 

heather chandler would absolutely have fuchsia blood! i couldnt imagine it any other way. duke could maybe get away with being jade blooded because thatd put her in the midblood range but also what does that leave for mcnamara? i dont really have a good answer for that right now but - 

the heathers themselves aside, veronica would actually be pretty well suited for being some kind of blueblood (teal or cerulean maybe?) veronica being blue blooded would put her in a position of enough privilege to be taken under chandlers wing but also not privileged enough to naturally be at the top. 

jd would probably be rust or mutant blooded. but its also fun to consider: purple blood? since those in that blood class are more susceptible to becoming more ..unhinged. however, i personally favor rust or mutant blooded since i am partial to reds and it would help play into his hatred of society.

trolls or not though theyd all be destined for something right? so im gonna move onto potential god tiers. 

now this is where my laptop cut out so most of the classpect analyses themselves come with help fom http://dahniwitchoflight.tumblr.com

im imagining veronica as a rogue of space. first of all, space players are CRUCIAL to a session as one of the cardinal aspects (space & time making up the fabric of paradox space). its been said by calliope that space can be a passive aspect that holds great power, “hosting the stage before suddenly in some way ‘showing who the master truly is’” and then collapsing in on itself. space players are essential to sessions because it falls on them to light the forge which is necessary for the process of ultimate alchemy (creating the next universe) - and that aside, the idea of veronica collecting and breeding frogs is incredibly cute to me. 

“Those bound to the aspect of Space are, as the name suggests, concerned with the big picture. They are patient, masters of the art of ‘wait-and-see’, and are inclined to take things as they come. That isn’t to say that they’re pushovers or willing to let injustice lie-they just choose their battles wisely, understanding that sometimes you have to let something burn to the ground in order to build it back better and stronger than before. To this effect, they tend to be innovators, concerned with creation and redemption. Catch them recycling the old to make the new, the fresh, and the beautiful. For the Space-bound, the journey is as, if not more, important than the destination; how they do something is as important as what they do. At their best, they are steady, impartial, and creative. At their worst, they can be detached, apathetic, and vague.”    – this description of space players comes from the extended zodiac quiz itself 

rogues invite theft through their aspect or theft of their aspect. they have problems coping with their aspect or their supposed lack of it, they think that they cant handle it which causes them to give it up too easily. the challenge rogues face is to come to terms with their aspect and own it. 

heres a bit on rogues of space specifically: “They might have a tendency to quickly change the subject into others things or cover their interests up to distract from what they perceive to be their failed creations. They may feel uncomfortable with the thought that everything is random and meaningless in the universe, or that it is what you make of it, because they often think they don’t know what to make of it. They may feel lonely at times and feel like they have too much Space to themselves, wanting to fill it up with other people and things. They might lower their standards to the point that they give up their personal Space to someone not worthy enough, just so they won’t feel alone.On the flip side they might feel like they have too much stuff, maybe because they invite others to use up their Space, giving it away too readily, lamenting their lack of impatience with others, or the ability to say no to people. […] a Rogue’s challenge is to learn to be comfortable with their Aspect, and allow the healthy parts of it to enter their lives. They must learn to be okay with what they have right now, that they have it within themselves to change things and make them better. They don’t have to give up so easily.”

jd seems like hed obviously be a prince of doom and this feels self explanatory but. princes are described as being stubborn and pessimistic and they actively destroy using their class / destroy through their class. a princes challenge is to not end up destroying themselves along the way. doom aspect because not only does it pretty much encompass chaos, but the symbol (and the aspect itself has been speculated to be) pretty clearly draws from The Tumor which is. a giant fucking bomb essentially. another fun tidbit about doom players is that they are DEATH MAGNETS they die a LOT and its theorized that for this reason sburb has a sort of game mechanic in place to help balance that out by granting doom players multiple dream selves. i just think itd be really fun to see a sburb session where jd (maybe) cant be kept down by dying. doom is also associated with judgement and sacrifice, and have been said to be “fates chosen sufferers.” “doom players are wise, kind, and non judgmental at their best and bitter, resentful, and fatalistic at their worst.” 

and while i definitely think the doom class is fitting for jd im stuck between prince and bard? bards are the embodiment of the “wild card”. they allow destruction through their aspect / invite destruction through their aspect and their challenge is to not be ruled by the whims of their aspect. and im just now thinking that while this does make sense in its own way, princes and bards are active / passive opposites and i cant really imagine jd being the more laid back of the two. hes just too extra, lol. although i love the idea of jd being in that ridiculous bard getup 

heres some insight to princes of doom: “A Prince of Doom unapologetically pushes people way past their own limits. They are truly passionate, even almost crazy activists. They hate being told no or that they can’t do something, but are more likely to simply destroy or kill the person who said no then prove them otherwise. Depending on what kind of situation or session they find themselves in, and whether or not what they do is really needed at the moment, they can be heaven sent saviors, freeing people from what binds them, or terrifying dictators, ruling over people and enforcing their will wherever they want, letting nothing and no one limit what they do. […] They likely use Bombs and Fire as their main weapons. They have a lot of potential to go down a very destructive or even evil path if they use their powers irresponsibly, but not every Prince of Doom is automatically evil or will Doom their session.“

heather chandler i can definitely see being a witch of rage. witches manipulate using their aspect or manipulate their aspect directly and their challenge is to use their rule breaking powers in a morally conscious way. 

heres some info about witches of rage: “You don’t tell a Witch of Rage anything, they tell you. Anything you have to say they can Reject with Doubt, Negativity and Skepticism and be like ‘No you’re wrong, it’s actually this way.’ They manipulate fear, mistrust and anger, either lowering it or making you believe it’s not all that bad, even if it is. Or they can amplify it, making you paranoid and afraid of even mundane things. […] They can be ‘loose cannons’ and this can be good or bad, depending on how good you are on getting them on your side and keeping them there. Their entire moral challenge lies in the choice between using their powers on their allies or their enemies, like most witches.”  

heather duke would likely be a maid of mind. a maid creates with their aspect / creates their aspect, and a maids challenge is to rely on themself for their aspect. this absolutely isnt to say that duke cannot think for herself at the beginning of the story by any means.

here’s a bit about maids of mind: “At first they tend to defer to the decisions of the group rather than be a part of them and are more focused on watching and waiting and seeing how other people make decisions. […] When a Maid of Mind starts rising to their challenge, they start deciding for themselves what roles they need to play and when. […] They may just have an apathetic and indifferent personality in general. They start letting their thoughts and decision be known and have an effect instead of just referring to others and blending in.” 

and finally heather mcnamara would probably be a page of heart. (i had a hard time coming up with a god tier for her since, if im being honest, shes not a character i pay much attention to.) pages invite exploitation of their aspect / invite exploitation through their aspect. they start with a deficit in their aspect that they overcome through (obvious) overcompensation. their challenge is to keep at things, even if they fail or the journey is slow, to become stronger in the end. 

bit about pages of heart: “They can be very over dramatic in their emotional displays, blowing up every little thing completely out of proportion and giving disproportionate emotional responses to almost everything. […] They can be easily exploited through all of this by other people who either take advantage of the Page’s emotions and empathy, or take advantage of the Page’s obsessions and desires, using it against them. […] When they rise up to their challenge, they start learning to be more balanced and sincere with their emotions, their affections, and with themselves. They learn how to be passionate, sincere and truly honest with themselves and others.”

and all of this is just SOME of the possibilities of what could happen in a homestuck heathers au. would they all be in the same session? would they all be trolls? would the heathers & veronica be in their own session and jd be in his own session that ends up intertwining together? theres literally SO MANY possibilities when it comes to homestuck aus and i love that shit. 

now that ive spent so much time speculating all this its time to deposit myself directly into the dumpster 

[oceanwitch]

you said that the dark zodiac is based off of real people you know and characters. is it okay for me to ask the story behind them?

Aries is based on the deviant trope. An uncontrollable individual who lives a hedonistic lifestyle. They indulge themselves on toxic things, such as drugs, alcohol, smoking, etc. They are manipulative, and don’t care about other people’s feelings, especially if it gets in the way of things they desire. So Aries After Dark, I pictured as like that guy or girl at an edgy night club, who is dtf. Down to fuck and/or fight. This is based off of the negative traits of an Aries; dominate, stubborn, short tempered, unpredictable, selfish. I don’t know many aries in person, so it was hard to find inspiration for this based on real people, so I went with character tropes.

Taurus was a little more difficult, so it is loosely based off someone I know who is a Taurus that I don’t like. They’re lazy, and materialistic, and blame other people for their own faults and bad luck. So I combined that person with my character I made in Zodiac as Antagonists series, as a rich, self indulgent, greedy business man trope. I ended up with a character that has a princess/prince complex, that doesn’t really like to do anything, takes what they have for granted, and values materialistic and shallow things in life. Such as jewellery, expensive alcohol, money, etc. Taurus after dark is passive aggressive, sarcastic, and unambitious, and is too stubborn to change who they are, which is the crowning fault of this person I based this on.

Gemini is a complex one. Every bad ex I’ve dated has been a gemini. So in this I rolled them all in one. These people were two-faced, untrustworthy, inconsistent, high strung, fickle minded. As a lot of Gemini’s would testify, they do not like the stereotype that Gemini’s are crazy, or psycho/sociopaths, because their dual personalities and high anxious behavioural issues makes them hard to understand. Which is why I chose that quote “You’re a Psychopath” “I prefer creative”. It just illustrates the opinion of how others see Gemini, vs how they view themselves. So Gemini after dark as a character is a person who is indecisive, and fickle minded. They’re liars and backstabbers because they are incapable of keeping promises, and they know this, so they keep that part of themselves hidden upon first introductions. But they’re also confused by their own self. They don’t know what they want, they dont understand their own emotions. They’re not good with them.

Cancer, as I’ve mentioned, is heavily based off of who I was when I was a teenager and an early adult. So I’ll break down the imagery I’ve used to illustrate this. One thing that cancers are known for is sentimentality. They grow too attached to things. I’ve linked sentimentality with christian imagery, which also symbolizes my struggle with finding myself spiritually through religion. The crown of thorns and the crying Madonna symbolized martyrdom; I kept on sacrificing my own happiness, or rather giving it up. I consensually put myself in pain on purpose. I was drowning in my own pain and emotions, and to deal with that I over indulged myself in unhealthy habits. In the graphic I used smoking as an example, but for me it wasn’t smoking, it was food and drugs and sex. In terms of relationships, I fell in love too fast and too easily, and I would do anything for these people that I fell in love with, even if it meant carving my heart out for them. But as I grew up, and had to live through my share of Gemini’s (read above), I became more and more aromantic. Hence the Love is a lie image.

Leo is another personal one, because this one is talking about a very specific person in my life, who I won’t name, nor share my relation to them. Now I usually get along with leos; the people closest to me are leos. But this particular leo embodies all the negative traits of one. This person believes they are the protagonist of everyone’s story, and everyone else is an antagonist, or a supporting character. They surround themselves with “yes” people, to fuel the illusion that they’re always right and everyone else is wrong. This person does not swallow their pride, and has no intention to. Their pride is the most valuable thing they have, and the only thing that’s important to them. They’re vain, and materialistic. And their claws come out when someone threatens to take away their crown or bruises their pride, or takes something away from them. This person has no problem retaliating and ruining people’s lives. They would set the world on fire if they could. In short, this person is the real life Cersei Lannister.

Virgo I had a little fun with. I had this character idea of a conservative woman that people over look, but is actually a very dangerous person. So I played with the name Virgo, and used Christian symbolism, but I also balanced it with gothic, and witchy aesthetics, and created a story. Virgo’s appearance is very conservative. She’s very critical, and is never in a good mood. But she’s a mason jar that’s been over stuffed with evil that’s about to explode. She’s trying to control these ghosts that stir in her, but every once in a while, when something tries her patience, she acts out. She does not like to be messy, though, so she berates herself afterwards. Virgo after dark is probably one of the very few in this series that has a story behind it. I just visualized a woman in Salem, trying to hide her craft, and being the perfect image of christian puritan woman, but everyone knows there is something dark behind that white lace.

Libra is the reason why I started this series. The most common complaint I’ve seen is that people were growing tired of libra being depicted as light-hearted and soft. So, because of this, I focused on the traits superficial, self-indulgent, and manipulative. Libra’s were also said to be introverts, so I came with the idea of a lone-wolf type. So this aesthetic is inspired by my interpretation of Druella Rosier, Bellatrix Lestrange’s mother. I’ve role played her before, so I was able to draw imagery into this that would relate to her. So Druella, or rather Libra, is a born-rich woman, who is smarter, wiser, and more cunning than people take her for. She doesnt want to live on the name of her father, but make her own name for herself. All her successes are her own. She’s a boss bitch. She gets shit things done alone, and doesn’t need help from others. Libra would destroy your life from the inside out, and it would be right under your nose.

Scorpio’s are my baes. I’ve never met a scorpio that I didn’t like. With that being said, Scorpio’s in a negative light are frightening. They’re very passionate, but because of that they can get obsessive, possessive, jealous, controlling, resentful, suspicious, and dominating. Other people cannot touch what is theirs. What’s worst, is that Scorpio’s are exceptionally mysterious when it comes to emotions and what they’re feeling, so you never really know what they’re thinking or feeling. Scorpio is really based off of every character I’ve ever fallen in love with but would be extremely bad for me. Scorpio after dark is the bad boy that isn’t good for you, and you should not want to be with, and will never change no matter how hard you try. They’ve really sexual, as well, which keys in with the possessive and dominant traits. We’re talking about a Christian Grey type character. But a well written version. Just to make an emphasis of how dangerous this type of person is; most serial killers are born in November, including Charles Manson.

Sagittarius was a bit hard, because the only one that I knew in my life that I didn’t like, did not embody any of the traits of a sagittarius at all, not even the good ones. They were just one blah of a person. But the other ones that I knew, I knew as very adventurous people. They weren’t in the same place for long. So I started to think of any negative traits they had, and that was carelessness and tactlessness. So I constructed a criminal, “dare devil”, type of character that lives outside the law and does what they please. They don’t care about getting hurt, and if something bad happens they just call it part of the journey. The carelessness comes with them not thinking things through, how that this person doesn’t consider how their actions and words could harm other people. They’re knowingly breaking laws and rules, but with their overconfidence, they believe they wont get caught.

Capricorns I’ve always seen as the masculine version of virgo, which already comes with implications. So I based Capricorn after a character who is a capricorn, and that’s Tom Riddle/Voldemort. Capricorn after dark is a malicious figure of power that resides behind the curtains. He is Oz, if Oz was a fascist or the leader of the illuminati. We’re talking about an individual that is dangerous on a global scale. He is both death and the devil, but sees himself as a god. Every chaotic event that’s ever took place in history has been carefully planned and executed by this person, and you have no idea. He is not sentimental, he is not empathetic, he gives zero fucks about anyone. His scale of morality doesn’t exist, he just wants control and power to the highest degree. The kick of it, he doesn’t have to be one person.

Aquarius is the most unique Zodiac. It’s an air sign that’s symbolized by water, for some reason. They’re the dreamers, but I call them airheads. Not because they’re stupid, but because they have thoughts of grander. So for my Aquarius, I brought back from my old series, Zodiac Signs as Protagonists, and put it in the negative. If there was any generation to relate Aquarius to, it would be millennials, because we were born and raised during the rise of the age of Aquarius. So really, this is based off of the negative aspects of my generation. Delusions of grander. Regretting nothing. Unwillingness to conform. Shooting for the stars, and landing in the sun. Aquarius after dark is a person that is a pariah of progressiveness, but they wear that with pride. They believe their views are the correct ones, their way of life is the best way, that everyone else are the insane ones, but at the same time question the vitality of those that begin to sway to their way of thinking. They do not conform, they do not want normalcy of a modern society. Often times they don’t have a job because they don’t want to contribute to capitalism (or rather that’s their excuse), and they are more likely to participate in riots and protests. They believe they are changing the world for the better, one brick at a cop car at a time, but they end up hurting the cause they’re trying to support.

Pisces was pretty simple. This is also another one based off of me. My moon is pisces, so I found this one easy to portray. Pisces and Aquarius are very different. While Aquarius is “woke”, Pisces is living in a willful delusion. They float through life with their eyes closed and disassociate from reality, and make no move to change, even if they live in a constant state of misery. I used drug imagery, because psychological drugs, or downers, allow you to escape from reality and your problems, and bring you into a surrealistic world where real world issues don’t exist. That’s why it’s so easy for someone to become addicted to drugs, because it’s a temporary solution to escape reality, rather than the permanent solution which would be death. Religion has also been used to ignore facts and things you do not want to accept. For example, the idea of heaven was created because people did not want to cope with the fact that one day they will be dead and none of it would have mattered.

[5questions]

Peter BD

as the young man gazed up at the eclipse

he thought

“damn, i’m looking at

the

eclipse”

So begins acclaimed poet Peter BD's dizzying journey into the depths of the textual Self, in which reflexive phrases play off one another like a thousand points of light shining through a fifth of cognac and illume the striving and conniving which defines our current moment. From treatises on chicken to the moral quandaries of Winona Ryder, touchstones of the Now seep through Peter's verse like osmosis like milk through lace like the blinking of your fifth eye. Buoyant humor and steely irony mix together to form a wild combination which goes down easy but lingers with you for the rest of the day.

BUY IT TODAY FROM INPATIENT PRESS

How many of your famous/infamous email letters have you sent out? By your estimation, what's the ratio of positive to negative feedback you have received (could also throw in neutral)? Or is it hard to categorize them as such? What are the most wild responses you have ever gotten? Define 'wild' as you will. 

i'm not sure how many stories i've emailed people. i've never kept count. in the beginning i'd write a lot of people things but don't do it now as much as i used to. all i can say is that it's probably a big number overall. or maybe not. sorry for not being able to answer this one. feedback to the stories is either positive, neutral or no response at all. i'd say it's about 60% positive and 40% neutral. this is just going on my responses in my inbox. i don't have any social media besides twitter so unsure what the overall reaction is, if there is any. no one really replies to me in a negative way. i remember one person corrected my grammar once which was funny. i think my most memorable negative response came from you. i sent you a 3 part email and here was your response: FUCK YOU ASSHOLE STOP SENDING ME YOUR FUCKING EMAILS ITS FUCKING FICTION I HATE YOU PEOPLE JUST KIDDING ABOUT ONE OF THOSE PARTS NOT ALL OF THEM FUCKING ASSHOLE I AM UNIMAGINATIVE I STALK PEOPLE GIRLS BOYS WOMEN MEN ANIMALS PLANTS SO FUCK YOU DID YOU HACK MY EMAIL PLEASE DONT IM SORRY I  LOVE YOU PLEASE LOVE ME BACK this was one of the most memorable responses because it's around the time i first started doing this and also because it's wild. i guess it's more wild than negative. whatever it is i enjoyed it. i don't receive too many wild responses but one i did enjoy was when this artist named jacob sanders wrote a song about me. i was working this shitty job and was up at 5 am when i received it. it just talked about how i can accomplish whatever i want or something like that. i was really happy at work that day haha. it made feel really good and humbled that someone would do that for me. i think someone sent me a dick pic once. that was wild. another person responded to one of my stories with a story of their own about me that was thousands of words. that was wild as hell.

What was the writing process like for your recently released book? How did you decide on your publisher? 

i don't think i would've written these poems if i hadn't gotten sick last winter. i had a lot of down time and just began writing a bunch of short poems/stories every day. i saved them in my drafts not thinking anything would come of them. i probably wrote hundreds of them. then one day, over the summer, i was eating a burrito somewhere and mitch anzuoni from inpatient press approached me and asked if i was writing anything he could publish. he saw me read at an event and guess he thought i was book publishing material. we talked for awhile and that's how this 'milk and henny' idea came to life. i didn't even have a finished work to present him and we already got to the point of discussing a second book. it was really weird and serendipitous. so i went back in my drafts, put together some things i liked, and presented them to mitch as a powerpoint presentation a couple of weeks later. i didn't even know if anyone would like the poems except me. it was all pretty random haha

What's your day-to-day life like? Will you answer this question?

my day to day depends on what day it is. either i'm at work, or recently, going to see some doctor. i've been feeling ill again but anytime i go to get checked out they tell me i'm 100% fine so maybe my illness isn't easily traceable or it's all in my head.

i write some days. other days i just read. i think i'm gonna meet a friend to get drinks in a couple of hours. life is pretty random these days. i'd like some stability. being alive is strange and hard as you know.

How do you find your online persona to be different than your real life personality? Is there any separation between these two or just different gradations and systems of perception that make the two seem separate? 

at this point i think how i present myself online is similar to my real life personality. i went from thinking i'd just do this for a couple of months and then go to grad school to it becoming who i am completely. it probably sounds dumb, but creating this fake internet character brought me closer to myself. most likely, i would've gone to medical or pharmacy school if i hadn't began writing when i did. being in the sciences seems crazy to me now, even though the money would've been nice. this is a hard question to answer completely because i think we all show people certain aspects of ourselves and hide others. i don't feel any different than anyone else in terms of persona presentation although what i do might seem strange to some. 

my family and a couple of my friends still don't know about whatever this is that i do. maybe i don't think it's important enough to tell them or maybe i just want to keep it to myself. probably the latter. there's some shit that you just need to have for yourself, ya know? especially when it comes to being creative. i think growing up i was steered away from the arts and told that i had to do something practical. but now that i'm a grown up i can be as impractical as i want to be 

What are the best things you have read in the past year? Why? 

a read a lot but i didn't read as much in 2017. trying to change that this year. i really liked this book by ralph ellison called living with music. it's a collection of his jazz writings but it's mostly about music in general. a lot of what he says applies to music of today and how people react to it. he's very good at criticism. i picked up rome poems by pasolini off my roommates bookshelf and enjoyed it. ed mullany gave me man and his symbols by carl jung. i'm enjoying it thus far because certain topics that he discusses interest me lately. it's strange how you can begin a book and it ties into what you're going through in your life. there's nothing like a good book to take you somewhere else for however long you're reading. it's like a instant mental vacation. 

i read twitter daily. that's where i get most of my news. i want to read more richard wright this year. and octavia butler. i want to read a lot of the books i saw on your bookshelf. excited for your upcoming book. there's never enough time to read all these good ass books that exist.

[swampgallows]

syn-admin replied to your post “well, so, tumblr ate my post on my phone, but the gist of what i...”

Beautifully written. I felt similar things, though I saw myself in Elisa. It's incredible to see an older, unconventionally beautiful, disabled woman represented not only as a STRONG, whole, sexual person on her own but also as someone to be loved and desired by the beautiful amphibian man. I've always thought of monsters and robots to be just the same as humans if not better... there's a purity and innocence. I want to be loved by a creature who doesn't understand I'm incomplete.

Thank you! i wrote that post for a second time at 5am in a kinda loose mental state so i thought i had written about elisa and realize now upon waking that i didn’t. my only possible complaint about the film is that i wished we could have seen elisa and the fishman interact more. obviously i’m a sucker for that shit, but it also would have shown more of his communicative capabilities (though i guess they were implied well enough; anything else would have purely been for fluff. but that’s what i WANT)

elisa was fantastic. as someone who is reaching what would’ve been considered Old Maid status a generation ago, seeing an older woman was great. Not attempting to speak over anyone here, but I think most of us who identify with monsters or feel an attraction to them are often in the position that makes us an Other: her gay older roommate, her black friend/coworker, she herself as a mute woman. and that was all tacitly alluded to in the film as well: not only does fishman “not see what she lacks”, as elisa puts it, but he is an Other, and therefore, really, just one of us. “He’s not human!” “If we don’t save him, neither are we!” 

I guess I didn’t mention all this in my original post because to me it’s so implicit. I saw myself as elisa too. although i’m not “classically” disabled, i’m mentally ill and have a host of “unattractive” qualities: acne, bad eyes, bad teeth, bad blood which makes me physically weak, and i’m generally not conventionally attractive (as i have been dutifully informed throughout my life). where i differ from elisa is that i have sexual trauma and identify as [bi] asexual, so for me personally having a relationship with a “humanoid” creature would be a chance to exist as i am without having to adhere to human sexuality, or alternatively getting a chance to “try again”. but dont get me wrong i am EXTREMELY HAPPY she was shown as a sexual being; disabled people, especially older disabled people, are immediately written off and glossed over sexually. i feel like everything im saying is very obvious so it feels silly to say it “out loud” but it also feels good to talk about it. this was a really.... self-indulgent film for me hahahaahha

but i mean, why shouldn’t it be? nobody watches romance films so they can go home and think. i’ve just... never been able to have this experience before. i’ve never been able to indulge in this or have this idea entertained with such sophistication. beauty and the beast is as close as many of us got, but even then he becomes a human prince at the end. 

When her kiss transforms the Beast, she is furious. “You should have warned me! Here I was smitten by an exceptional being, and all of a sudden, my fiance becomes an ordinary distinguished young man!” — the 1909 play Beauty and the Beast:  Fantasy in Two Acts by Fernand Noziere, the very first published version of the story where the Beauty is disappointed when the Beast transforms into a human at the end

the appeal of monsters is that they are not human. and those of us that have felt so excluded and different find a kinship in them because all of the humans we have ever known have simply dismissed us. while ideally we should find humans of our own ilk to bond with (and, ideally, we do) the monster also represents the escape from having to try. 

i wish i could remember where i found or read this, but i read statistics once that explained “gendered fantasy”: young boys surveyed overall maintained a superhero power fantasy, of being The One to save the world, to be a super-human. young girls had this fantasy too, somewhat, but it never took place here. they were a queen or a princess of a far-off enchanted kingdom, or they turned out to be The One in that they were a lost princess and had to return home. Women feel alien on their own planet, and we feel so shut out from attaining any sort of power that we, even as children, find it more pleasing—no, find it ideal—to be from another world rather than having to struggle in this one. and when i read that i felt like so many of my fantasies were validated: that, and the “disabled woman’s” fantasy of being rapunzel in the tower, not locked up of her own accord, but the validity in “wanting to be saved”, that it is not “unfeminist” not to expect disabled women to save themselves. 

so all of these aspects came together in the shape of water and a lot of this... is it even a genre? monster romance. though the true ending was that elisa dies, the ending we visually see is her wrapped in the arms of her love and her scars becoming gills, which is so many worlds of empowering and symbolic. what crippled her in this world becomes the thing that lets her breathe in the world she truly belongs to. she gets to escape this world with her love and be with him in the sea. she gets to renounce human society and be in the world she belongs in without leaving her identity behind; she will never be a fish-person, but she is “fish enough”, and that is leagues better than ever having to scrape by to be “human enough”. i would rather be the scrawny human outcast assimilated into a clan of orcs than have to be the scrawny human outcast among other humans the rest of my life, and that’s because i have felt disowned by humans. i have been shunned and rejected by them. so even if i am different among these non-humans, i am accepted. 

“He doesn’t know what I lack,” is how Elisa puts it. It’s not that he doesn’t know, in my opinion; it’s that it’s of no concern. an orc wouldn’t care if i have acne (well, maybe. they shunned those with the red pox but that was more about quarantining a contagion than looks); they would only care about their own values. although, with my weak body and brittle teeth i would probably be among their dregs too, hahaha. but then there’s also the fantasy of the healing taking place: the fishman could heal wounds and was a god; orcs in warcraft have healing magic and could probably regenerate my teeth (god aint that the fuckin DREAM) and train me enough to have some physical strength even if i have poor stamina. 

but even then, the ultimate fantasy is that i would overall be accepted as i am, and in being accepted, also protected. and THAT is essentially why i LOVE playing a forsaken and being part of the horde. I am this skinny, sickly, brittle thing that is protected and valued anyway, and i have left my human life behind and gained power in doing so. i am still physically weak but i have attained a strength of other means: camaraderie, healing magic, political asylum. I belong in their lands, with them, with their magic.

ahhaha you can see as i’ve started waking up that I’ve gotten a little more coherent. At least, I hope I have.