#lots of strange baffling things

[gaytobymeres]

Just saw the weirdest most over-stimulating production of marriage of figaro…. I feel like the opera, the music, got lost in the set and costumes and props and background cast who were just kind of there? Doing weird things?

[pavelkaramazov]

I think about Svidraigilov positing the idea that eternity is a room full of spiders more frequently than I care to admit

[lonely--seeker]

I think I'm going insane. Lately my dreams have been so mundane, it wouldn't be weird if I wasn't just a person that has nightmares 80% of the time, so I now my dreams are so hard to distinguish from reality.

I wouldn't be able tell what was real from what not if it wasn't because last night I went to my doctor's appointment and I was handed new glasses by Harvey just to go back home and find out Laois was cooking something in my backyard.

[suckinitup]

gets up on my little stage with my secret little four followers blog and turns off reblogs. i think that a lot of current mcyt/mcyt fandom rn would be defending anne rice literally suing fanfic writers who shipped her characters. creators do not have a say in fan works or fan spaces for a REASON. they dont get to say what we make just like we dont get to say what they make. if we dont like their work we can avoid it just like if they dont like ours they can avoid it- UNLESS. someone else. decides to shove it in their face. can you fucking imagine. youve got this one story trope that you absolutely hate or that makes you really uncomfortable and this one jackass keeps showing it off to you. and that is somehow the norm for some of these fandoms??? i have seen elder fans cringe away in HORROR at the concept of how involved mcyt creators are in their fanbases. i grew up writing fics plastered with "I DONT OWN THIS" disclaimers on a website that, straight up, Did Not Allow You to post about certain works by certain authors. if an author didn't want you to create any fanwork, you Were Not Allowed. Doesn't that sound familiar. stories are built on top of other stories on top of other stories on top of other stories. it doesn't matter if someone creates something that grosses you out- all those authors who were disgusted by the queer shipping of their characters were ABSOLUTELY grossed out. the point isn't protecting the creators from others' creations the point is to take inspiration from something you love and to MAKE !!

[thefirstknife]

The God-Wave and the Witness

I've recently been seeing an increase in confusion in regards to the new lore from The Witch Queen about the Hive siblings, the God Wave and the new reveals that all of it was orchestrated by the Witness.

Some even go as far as to say that this was a retcon from how it was described in the Books of Sorrow. That is incorrect. The accusation of retcons comes from a misunderstanding of both old and new lore. I want to clarify this for people who might be genuinely confused. People were confused at the time of release as well, but I thought that with time, this would become clearer? Apparently it didn't and there's still confusion about it.

The new reveal in the cutscene with Ikora and the worm is here. The same dialogue is repeated in Resonant Fury Plate lore, but with additions that I will highlight:

—-It delays our desires so that it may seek its own. These frail siblings… will soon be claimed by the Light. Unless we claim them first. Our whispers were fed to a weak mind. But we have watched these siblings. These children of the king. They are brave minds. Clever minds. Ambitious minds. Yet unsullied by the weakness of aging that plagues their kind.—-

"Then what compels them to hear our whispers?"

—-Desperation. We will tell the most cunning sibling of a cataclysm. A prophecy… of great loss. We will feed her fear. Her pride. We will say… Young Sathona. The end is coming. A great cataclysm. A God-Wave. In the Sky… there is only death. But salvation… lies in the Deep. Lead your sisters down. Your cunning will spare their short lives. And you… will be reborn. The Witch Queen… Savathûn.—-

People seem to be interpreting this as if there was a retcon about which of the siblings first spoke of the Syzygy, aka the incoming apocalyptic event on the Fundament. In Books of Sorrow:

My father died afraid. Not of vile Taox or the Helium Drinkers, but of his orrery. He screamed to me —

“Aurash, my first daughter! The moons are different! The laws are bent!”

And he made the sign of a syzygy.

Imagine the fifty-two moons of Fundament lining up in the sky. (It wouldn’t take all fifty-two, of course: just a few massive moons. But this is my deepest fear.) Imagine their gravity pulling on the Fundament sea, lifting it into a swollen bulge…

Imagine that bulge collapsing as the syzygy passed. A wave big enough to swallow civilizations. A God-Wave.

In Books of Sorrow, the Osmium King learned of the syzygy from the worm familiar and then told Aurash, the eldest sibling, about it. Aurash became obsessed with it almost as much as the Osmium King, but didn't know when the syzygy would come:

I have to find a way to stop it. Before the God-Wave annihilates my species. If I could only get back into my father’s orrery, I could learn exactly when!

This is important. At this point, nobody knew when the syzygy would strike. Osmium King was later assassinated and his children had to flee. These bits are important.

You see, the Witness acknowledges that the whispers were first fed to a "weak mind." Aka the Osmium King. The worm familiar was first his and he was not able to fully understand the whispers of the worm and he never fulfilled what the Witness wanted. The knowledge of the syzygy is still coming from the Witness, via the worm familiar, first to the Osmium King. The Witness also acknowledges that it watched his children and that they are brave, clever and ambitious, but also desperate. The Witness shifted its words to them now.

The same Books of Sorrow chapter also has Aurash acknowledging that Sathona always has a clever plan and "mad ideas" that get them out of trouble. Weeks into their travel away from home, Aurash says:

But more and more we have come to rely on Sathona’s wit. She will go off to be alone (she insists she must be alone) and return with some mad idea — steer into the storm, throw down a net, eat that strange beast, explore that menacing wreck.

Somehow Sathona seems to manufacture good luck by sheer will.

Aurash doesn't know it at this point, and the readers don't know it either, but Sathona has taken the worm familiar. She is getting these "mad ideas" from the worm. She is not manufacturing good luck by sheer will, she is being led, by the whispers of the worm. Sathona reveals this in her own chapter in the Books of Sorrow, immediately following the previous one:

1. It was my father’s familiar. I ripped it from him as we fled. It is a dead white thing, segmented, washed up from the deep sea. 2. It’s dead, but it still speaks to me. It says: listen closely, oh vengeance mine…

She also specifies that everything she told her sisters to do was directed by the worm: she says that she "knows where to find secrets," "knows where vast slow things with long memories live," "knew it [the needle ship] would be there," and that she "knows its purpose" and "what happened to the crew." She also lies to her siblings and contradicts Xi Ro who wants to sell the ship. Instead, Sathona insists that they should use it to dive into the Fundament. This is in agreement with Aurash who wants to get into the ship and command it. Sathona says:

Aurash wants to open the ship and see if we can take command of it. I know this is the right thing to do. I know because I asked the worm…

Another important part is at the start of this chapter where Sathona specifies that at the point of her writing her chapter, they've been traveling for a YEAR:

This year of wild voyaging, these lightning nights and golden days, these forays into ancient wrecks and windblown flights from monsters: these are the happiest times of my life.

Next chapter of the Books of Sorrow also states the following (Sathona speaking):

“We three will die here, in exile. Taox will outlive us. And Aurash, brilliant-eyed Aurash, you will die of old age long before you have proof of your God-Wave, or any way to stop it.”

Why does this matter? Well, a full year after the death of the Osmium King and after a full year of traveling, Aurash still doesn't have either proof of the God-Wave or a plan to stop it. Yes, Aurash first heard of the God-Wave from the Osmium King, but didn't have proof, had no clue when it would happen and had no idea how to stop it or escape it.

For a full year of voyaging, it was Sathona who was talking to the worm. The worm was telling her all sorts of things, things that Aurash believed were just good luck that Sathona was manufacturing by "sheer will." For a year, the Witness was speaking to Sathona, giving her directions, telling her how to survive, where to find the needle ship, where the Worm gods live and to dive into the Fundament.

Obviously, in Books of Sorrow we didn't know that it was the Witness speaking through the proxy of the worm familiar. But we knew, from the Books of Sorrow, that Sathona, aka Savathun, was being given instructions on the syzygy, the God-Wave, where to find the Worm gods and how to reach them in order to escape both the God-Wave and their own mortality through that worm familiar.

It's really confusing to me why people think this is a retcon. Yes, Aurash, aka Oryx, was the first sibling to hear about the syzygy from the Osmium King. But Oryx didn't engage with the syzygy or the God-Wave further; he wanted to go back to their father's orrery to learn more and for a full year still had no new information about the God-Wave or how to stop it. Savathun did. It's directly explained in the Books of Sorrow that she spent a full year being fed whispers telling her where to go.

This was further clarified in The Witch Queen, but not changed. Nothing was changed, it was just expanded that in the year of Savathun being given instructions, the Witness was feeding her fear and her pride and telling her more and more about the syzygy. The Witness also fully mentions that it tried the same with the Osmium King and that it didn't work.

Simplified order of events from the Books of Sorrow: Osmium King acquires the worm -> Osmium King learns about the syzygy from the worm -> Osmium King tells Aurash about the syzygy -> Osmium King dies -> Sathona takes the worm -> Sathona keeps the worm a secret for a year while it feeds her information the siblings need to survive -> Sathona uses the knowledge gained from the worm to lead her siblings to meet the Worm gods

Simplified order of events from the POV of the Witness: Osmium King acquires the worm -> Osmium King learns about the syzygy from the worm -> Osmium King dies and fails to fulfil the worm's purpose -> Sathona takes the worm -> The Witness uses a year of Sathona's time to feed her information and additional knowledge about the syzygy because she's smarter than her father -> Sathona fulfils the worm's purpose

Had Oryx thought to take the worm from the Osmium King, then the Witness would've told him all of this. But he didn't take the worm. Oryx simply heard about the syzygy from the Osmium King, didn't have time to learn more before his death and then Savathun secretly took the worm for herself.

Oryx still spent time trying to understand the syzygy and the God-Wave and tried coming up with a plan to stop it, but he didn't have access to the primary source of information about it; the worm. Savathun had it secretly. Oryx even noted that Savathun was often going off alone and insisted on being alone and then returned with "mad ideas." Meaning, she was off alone to secretly commune with the worm.

This is communicated fairly clearly as a sort of an early mystery in the Books of Sorrow and then explained by Savathun herself in her own chapter (which she also starts with "My secrets").

I feel like this bit in the Books of Sorrow about Savathun secretly communing with the worm alone for a year is often ignored or missed or misremembered. It's very direct in how it's told, specifically about how she suddenly appears with knowledge about the needle ship and the Worm gods and insists that they should dive, while in the meantime, Oryx is despairing about not even having proof that the God-Wave is happening. So yeah, Oryx was first of the siblings to be told about the syzygy by their father, but he had no connection to any of the actual important information about it because Savathun stole the worm and kept it secret. As she does.

Also note that the Witness' speech never says anything about Savathun being the first to ever find out about the syzygy. In the extended version from the lore tab, it states that the first to learn was the Osmium King, who failed, and then the Witness moved on to influence his children. Due to Savathun stealing the worm in secrecy for herself, the Witness couldn't reach Oryx so Oryx was left with only what his father said, which wasn't enough. Books of Sorrow specify that it wasn't even enough to know the basics, such as proof that it's happening at all. Savathun was always the sibling with the most information on the God-Wave.

Another point that's vaguely adjacent that I want to address as well is that this reveal... didn't feel like a true reveal to me. I loved the cutscene and all, but the point of the cutscene ("The Hive were lied to") was an obvious reading of the Books of Sorrow. I didn't expect that to be contentious, even in-universe. Yes, obviously, Books of Sorrow saying that the Traveler is causing the syzygy is bonkers. Traveler doesn't destroy entire planets. The Darkness does.

Furthermore, the Darkness has been consistently depicted as having gravity powers. Where there's gravitational anomalies, there's Darkness. The connection between Darkness, gravity and the Fundament has become exceptionally clear once Last Days on Kraken Mare released which went into out first proper view of what the Collapse was like and what exactly happened. Specifically, it details how the Darkness warped the moon Titan, then released it, causing it to undergo a devastating tidal wave that destroyed the Arcology. My post from 10 months before WQ released that mentions the Fundament as the first recorded instance of Darkness using gravity to destroy.

Like, that is a direct parallel to the Fundament. When this released, it was the final nail in the coffin for what really happened with the God-Wave. I genuinely didn't think that this would be treated as a huge reveal for The Witch Queen. Like, obviously, yes, the Darkness did that to the Fundament and blamed the Traveler to galvanise the Hive into destroying it.

I still loved the whole full official reveal with an absolutely incredible cutscene that still gives me chills. I think revealing things plainly and in an accessible way for everyone is the best course of action for something so important, instead of leaving it to connections between lore books that not everybody will read. I really loved that this was finally fully explained, unambiguously, as was the whole story of how the Hive were tricked. It also curbed all the edgelord theories about how the Traveler is actually evil and the Traveler did that to the Hive.

This confuses me even fruther then when people are saying there's a retcon or that it's a contradiction. The lore around the Books of Sorrow, the Fundament, the Hive and their connection to the Darkness' lies (as directed by the Witness) is one of the most solid pieces of writing in the entire game.

It's the type of lore that has always been written so well and so clearly in line with other lore that it was really easy to take hints from it and understand where the narrators were deceived. Yes, the siblings were told by the Worm gods that the Traveler is causing the destruction of their home and they forced the siblings into an eternal pact in order to make them go hunt down the Traveler for all eternity.

Meanwhile, every other lore ever is showing that the Traveler is not the type to destroy anything and clearly the Darkness it the bad guy here so obviously, the Worm gods lied to the Hive. It's what made reading Books of Sorrow so tragic and ultimately, well, sorrowful. You're kinda expected to conclude that the Hive were the victims of their circumstances who were tricked by malicious forces into doing the bidding of someone else.

I'm glad The Witch Queen fully confirmed that and explained it so beautifully and tragically. It's a fascinating piece of Destiny universe history that ties the power and intent of Darkness across time and space, from the Hive to humans and beyond.

[adamsrcnan]

every single day. every. single. day. i'm haunted by that one iconic tumblr post about kevin's perfect match being some random person he meets at the grocery store who doesn't know a thing about exy. (I'm pretty sure that's the gist of the post it's so old and i can never find it)

like i'm never not thinking about it.

sooooo

imagine a kevin day in his late 20's ???? he doesn't ever go shopping. can't remember the last time he did but he's restless before a big game. he's craving a healthy protein filled snack. it's like 1am. he goes to the 24 hour grocery store. he's got his hood up. if anyone catches him here he'll be swarmed. his pr managers will have his head. he's reaching for his snack. someone speaks up behind him. says something like "the peanut butter ones are the best ones" kevin, with an eye roll and a scoff ready to fall from his lips, turns to the stranger. then he pauses. he's cute. curly hair. glasses. a sweater vest. he notices kevin's tattoo. says "nice tattoo" kevin freezes. oh no, here it comes. then the stranger drops a random historical fact about chess. he's baffled. he's pretty sure he said the exact same thing when he was sitting in the chair at the tattoo parlor half drunk all those years ago. but he takes too long to respond. so the stranger smiles awkwardly and says "see you around" and leaves. kevin can't stop thinking about him. may or may not make one too many midnight trips to the grocery store. he finally see's him again. this time he drops a historical fact on the guy about the veggies he's buying. he laughs. kevin short circuits at the sound. then the man is giving him his number. he doesn't text for days. afraid he's a crazy psycho fan. but then he see's him again. the man looks a little embarrassed when he apologises for being so forward. he's walking away when kevin says "you don't know who i am?" the man looks totally baffled. "should i?" he says back. now kevin is the one baffled. so kevin texts him. they talk about history. kevin doesn't talk about exy. turns out the stranger is a history teacher. kevin is enamoured. but the man still doesn't know who he is. kevin strangely wants to keep it that way. but the little bubble bursts eventually. the kids at the man's school are talking about exy. he's heard of it of course, but isn't a sports guy, so never paid attention. then kevin's name is dropped. and then history teacher is googling kevin. and it's him. it's grocery store kevin. his kevin. he goes a little ghost. he doesn't wanna date a professional famous world star athlete. takes him a couple days but kevin catches on. texts him saying "you figured it out..." they don't talk. they see each other at the grocery store again weeks later. they sit outside in the parking lot at night. history teacher asks him about exy. he doesn't know much or anything. kevin goes off on one. history teacher likes how passionate he is. takes a chance. they keep talking. history teacher listens to kevin talk about exy. kevin listens to him talk about history. they go on secret museum dates. kevin takes the man running even tho he hates it. the man falls in love. kevin falls in love. kevin wakes up one day, and he is finally happy in love.

[thatweirdfandom]

body swap zosan

zoro:

he notices that he has no balance what so ever, he’s used to a heavier body built on muscle

his vision feels normal though, sanji has had his bangs cover one of his eyes forever so it’s not unlike when he lost his own eye

he can distinctly feel too much, he feels how the dust and dirt sticks to him in a way he can’t shake, faint crawling of ghost bugs on his body and he takes more showers then he likes to admit

when he wakes up if he doesn’t eat right away he gets sick- a repercussion to sanji s starvation

strangely when he picks up a sword when sanji isn’t looking it feels familiar- not like his intense muscle memory but that sanji knows how to use a sword above any class beginner

he cant not keep still, if he stays still too long he can feel the phantom aches in his body, the overstimulation of dirt

he ends up overextending by accident a lot, it’s funny at first because how flexible he is- but he’s not used to having to control the small joints so not to hurt himself (que him dislocating something because no, your body can’t just stretch like that unless you do it properly)

he notices he has a small appetite but if he doesn’t eat when needed he will get sick very quickly (ah that’s why sanji always makes excuses to have snacks for the ladies and everyone)

he gets trapped once, it’s nothing unlike he’s used to. but the walls, the tight space, this body knows this feeling and it just gives out on him

when he gets ready for bed he is always baffled why sanji sleeps with his shoes on. little did he know how nasty and brutal sanjis feet ended up (ballet feet)

why can’t he turn off his observation haki?

constant need to feel physical touch but also being repulsed by it when it happens

turns out the cook does in fact just have constant nose bleeds and if he gets too emotional or riled up it just happens. this is a awkward moment when some lady tells the crew her husband just dies and zoros nose starts bleeding

sanji:

he cant see his toes (tiddies too big)

his spacial awareness is terrible he keeps bumping into things

he has intense head splitting migranes that only a nap could help (hmmm thriller bark…) and maybe a drink

a need to work out, to sweat out toxins from his body

accidentally breaks too many things since it’s just sheer force of strength

he gets cramps way too much and can barely do a simple stretch

in battle he can’t help but notice the slight increase in heartbeat- he thinks originally it’s just cuz of adrenaline but he knows that feeling. and this one is fear, every battle no matter how strong he is in this body feels fear every moment- not for himself but those around him

he has to check on everyone no matter what- it’s weird because he does that too but this is more of a subtle pull to do it, a slow meditation of going through each member to make sure they are ok

always being touched by luffy and others to be buddy buddy, he doesn’t have much to cover him and the warmth is unlike something he’s felt in so long (usually one to cover up because he can just feel too much)

he is still a great chef but only in food prep. his hands are too clumsy for much else, and his body is bigger when trying to move in the kitchen

on top of cramps, he keeps pulling muscles (seriously does he never stretch this body?)

he also gets tired quicker- endurance isn’t as lasting when this body focuses on attacks that count on brute force

he cant feel his torso, turns out mihawk really made sure zoro remember by cutting off the nerves

BOTH:

man why does my heart pick up when i see my own body?

[stardustizuku]

Unfortunately I came across a very strange and misinformed video about Black Butler.

It’s not good. Don’t watch it. Unless you wanna ruin your day, in which case have fun.

Despite it all, I watched it. What left me wondering, however, was how off the mark the person who made the video was on, well, everything.

From their insistence that the Book of Circus Arc theme or point is non existent, to reading Ciel’s character so badly they genuinely thought the Green Witch Arc did nothing for his character development.

While baffled, it also made me think on how someone could read Black Butler so badly.

Sure, you can say that there’s no real way to read or interpret something “in the wrong way” but interpreting The Hunger Games as a pure battle-royale action story would make you believe it’s bad.

“Why are we focusing so much on how the capitol preps them?” Or “Why isn’t Katniss winning everything?” Or “I wanna know more about the rebellion” All questions that miss the actual point of the story - which is criticizing (not solving or ignoring) the way that media distracts us from violence via spectacle.

The same thing applies here. While there is no “right” way to consume media, there’s things that the author makes clear they wanna focus when creating a story. Things that, if you understand, make the story you’re reading actually make sense.

And in Black Butler there’s three things that you have to understand to properly get what Yana is saying.

Sebastian is the protagonist

Ciel and Sebastian’s relationship IS the story.

And that relationship is, fundamentally, a positive one.

A quicker version of it would be:

Black Butler is a love story from the POV of Sebastian, and you have to ship it to get it

- but that’s not entirely true.

You can still look at it as a complex but ultimately positive rship and get in broad strokes of what it’s conveying. It doesn’t have to be romantic. Although, it helps much more than a platonic framing.

(That said, interpreting their rship as father and son, still isn’t the best way to go about it. Mostly because by its very nature of “soul consuming” their relationship is extremely sexually charged. And hey, if you’re into that I don’t judge. However, if you’re desperately trying to interpret their rship as NOT romantic to the point you fall back on heteronormative patriarchal ideals of nuclear familiar as framing device, I don’t think this interpretation bodes with you)

Now, having all that ground work:

Why do I say these are the key components to understand BB?

Okay so, first,

1. Sebastian is the Main Character. The protagonist.

There’s a lot of people who wanna argue against it, claiming he’s either the villain or the antagonist. Both wrong.

He does not function as an antagonist. Even if, and an emphasis on if, you consider Ciel to the protagonist, Sebastian isn’t a narrative antagonist.

If you wanna go back to Creative Writing 101, be my guest. An antagonist is directly defined by the protagonist. It’s the opposing force. If the protagonist wants A, the antagonist wants to stop them from getting A.

Sebastian’s catchphrase is “Yes, my Lord”. He never opposes Ciel, in fact quite the contrary. By the mere fact they’ve created contract, it means that they’ve both agreed in the inevitable outcome.

People want to frame Sebastian as the villain, because Ciel having his soul taken by a demon, would be a BAD END in the context of their moral compass. They see Ciel as a frail victim of abuse, who’s being tricked by Sebastian, who wants Ciel’s soul.

Which is an. Interpretation. A bad one. But still one.

The narrative (and whether the narrative fits your personal moral compass and lack of critical thinking is irrelevant) treats Ciel as an agent in his own destiny. The abuse he suffered was the moment in which he had no control. It’s only after he meets Sebastian that he can rid of both his guilt and his despair, and do what he wants.

In this case though, it’s revenge.

The famous “Asthma” scene shows this. If Ciel is taken back to his past, he becomes helpless. Swarmed with pain and memories that make it so that he can’t even react. Sebastian is his saving grace. If Ciel didn’t have him, and the power he wields to rebuilt what’s broken, he would crumble once more.

If Ciel has a panic attack, because of all the pain he has, Sebastian picks him up and says “you are not a helpless child anymore, you are not a victim anymore, you have the power to do anything. So, what do you wanna do?”

Ciel’s answer is to kill them.

A proper analogy would be to say that, if Sebastian offers a gun, Ciel pulls the trigger. They are both at fault. Sebastian, strictly speaking, is not here to directly cause Ciel’s downfall, but as a tool Ciel uses to plunge into the abyss.

If, again if, you were to frame Ciel as a protagonist, Sebastian falls closer to the “Voice of reason” character. Not a literal voice of reason, but a literary one. If you have a protagonist and an antagonist exchanging ideals, the Voice of Reason serves to engage with the protagonist on their own ideals.

That said, Ciel isn’t the protagonist. The story quickly falls apart if you interpret it as such.

Things such as Ciel’s character arc being…shall I say odd?

It’s not that his character arc isn’t there, but it’s never lineal. His goals stay the same, the only thing that happens is that we start to peel back the “why”s of his goals. Throughout the series it’s never about Ciel understanding himself better, he knows who he is, he knows what he wants, he knows why he wants it. He doesn’t ever need to uncover these, but simply remember them. Because it’s always about the audience understanding Ciel.

He knows he wants revenge.

In the Circus Arc: He knows that he needs Sebastian because without him, the pain of the abuse he suffered would be too much to bear. But WE are introduced to it.

In the Book of Atlantis: He knows that with this new lease he does not want happiness and peace, he wants revenge. The one being told this is the audience.

In Green Witch Arc: He knows that their revenge isn’t for his family, the real Ciel or guilt. It’s because he wants it. He’s angry, he’s upset, and this is entirely for him. The one being told this is the audience.

Except. Not really. The one either discovering or remembering these key moments - is always Sebastian.

Sebastian is the one who reassures him that he now holds the power of a demon to override the pain. Sebastian is the one who remembers that to override that pain, Ciel wants revenge. And Sebastian is the one who discovers that that revenge isn’t built out of grief or guilt, but for himself.

We are witnessing it all, through the eyes of Sebastian.

This is why we have an extremely vague idea of who Ciel is, Sebastian does not have the whole picture.

If you haven’t been reading this manga with your eyes closed, you’ll realize we have a better grasp at Sebastian’s character than that of Ciel. We get a lot of insight on how he thinks and what he values through light hearted dialogue he has with the servants. You even see the character development in these little interactions.

Think about how when he first arrived to the mansion he magically created food with no regards to taste, but when he meets Bard he states that food is created to see whoever will eat it, smile.

That is character development, more than you will be able to see from Ciel.

Because Ciel’s character, while not static, doesn’t go from point A to point B. Mostly, cause it doesn’t need to. He went through that when he lost the real Ciel and got Sebastian. Everything we are watching is the falling out.

Now, given the fact that I’ve told you that it makes more sense for Sebastian to be the protagonist/main character, and that he 100% isn’t either a villain or antagonist in ANY of the interpretations you can get:

Do you believe me?

If you don’t, you’ll probably believe Yana herself.

This is from the first Volume, where Yana herself describes the process of making Black Butler. The primary idea behind the creation of BB was a butler as a “hero”.

If you go back to the introductory chapter, you notice that Ciel is barely mentioned. He’s simply the one to give Sebastian impossible tasks and standards that Sebastian must find how to overcome.

Ciel is properly introduced until the NEXT chapter. The second chapter has this formula too, introducing Lizzie as a problem to overcome. Although, to Sebastian the best way to “get rid of the problem” is simply to indulge her.

The issue here being that the problem isn’t as simple as a business meeting but something directly tied to Ciel and Ciel’s past. Each time that Sebastian has to solve a problem, it chips away at Ciel. While with Lizzie he shows a persona, once he’s alone with Sebastian he acknowledges the toll it took on him. It serves to build Ciel as Sebastian’s master, and how some problems aren’t as simple as discarding a tablecloth.

The third and the fourth, are a unified narrative, with a similar premise to the first chapter. Ciel gets kidnapped and Sebastian must find a way to retrieve him without raising suspicions.

If the first chapter is to set up what Sebastian must do as a butler, the third and the fourth serve to set up what he must do as a demon.

The entirety of the volume, and up to Book of Circus Arc, is about how Sebastian tries to follow the increasingly absurd orders that Ciel has - it is not about Ciel trying to solve them.

That’s how they work, we follow Sebastian for the most part, because he’s the one having to come up with the solutions.

If anything, in early Kuro, where the emphasis was more on a slice of life conflict, Ciel is the antagonist. He’s the one creating problems for Sebastian to solve.

What’s more, in the second volume, the very first chapter is one from Sebastian’s POV. So far, we hadn’t gotten an entire chapter from Ciel’s POV. In fact, I would find it hard to point to a single chapter where Ciel is the POV throughout. The reveal of real Ciel and the flashback is the closest contender.

But once we move past early Kuro, and into Book of Circus, this set up changes.

It’s fairly easy to assume that Ciel is the main character, because from this point on the conflict of the plot sorta surrounded him. We spend a lot of time with him and with his story. The enemies start being people directly tied to Ciel and Ciel’s trauma. Rarely, if at all, we get to see Sebastian before he met Ciel.The framing device for the story, is Ciel.

This is where point 2 gets intertwined.

2.- Sebastian and Ciel’s relationship IS the story.

The story begins at the point where Sebastian and Ciel met. Who Ciel was before he met Sebastian, informs why he’s the way he is when he does. You have to know all he went through to understand why he’s a brat, why he lashes out. However Sebastian’s past doesn’t matter…because Sebastian himself doesn’t care much for who he was, before he was “Sebastian”. That’s also part of the narrative.

Unlike Ciel, he doesn’t seem opposed to revealing information from before the contract. He talks about how pets from where he is from are gross, he talks about how he knows how to dance because of other places he’s been to, and alludes to the life he's lived before.

Just that, to him, they're footnotes.

He makes allusions to a very bland, uninteresting life, up to the point he meets Ciel.

That’s why we don’t know more about his past.

As for why we focus on Ciel’s story…okay maybe we need Creative Writing lessons 102

I studied Dramaturgy for about 3 to 4 years. And something you notice is how play-writing is the quintessential story telling. It’s making it work with the bare bones of a story.

Some other mediums have more finesse, more depth, or more spectacle - all amazing things that work for whatever they’re created for. But understanding a play, how and why it works, helps understand the fundamentals of any derivative story telling medium.

Particularly, conflict.

Conflict is dialogue and dialogue can take many forms. A story, in its essence, is a dialogue between two opposing ideas.

Take Batman, for example, who embodies the ideas of justice and order. On his own, he’s not a well rounded character.

If you ONLY present him, in a vaccum with nothing else, you don’t have a character. You have a list of characteristics that you’re supposed to know.

You only know who he is when you have dialogue with another character.

I say Dialogue, but it doesn’t necessarily mean spoken language at one another. Dialogue can mean fist fighting, playing tabletop games, talking to other people about the other, or even just a competition. The idea is to simply to compare and contrast both ideas.

If you want an example on how tabletop games serve as dialogue, watch the video “Well, Someone Had to Explain the Liar’s Dice Scene” by Lord Ravecraft

Another example, were we to retake Batman, you have him fight Joker. Who’s the embodiment of chaos and randomness.

In the following picture, you get far more information than the one previously shown. While the Joke fights with daggers and fake guns, Batman only uses his fists. He doesn’t use the tricks that Joker does. His serious demeanor, contrasted with Joker’s glee at the dangerous situation. The fact that Batman has a deathly grip on Joker’s shirt, while the Joker doesn’t, which shows a desperation to catch him.

You are being shown, through a dialogue, who Batman is.

It’s so much easier and much more effective to explore a character through another character.

This is the reason why Shonen has a tendency to make incredibly good gay ships. If you want to explore Naruto’s personality, and his feelings of inferiority, you HAVE to have him interact with Sasuke.

If you wanna understand Hinata’s passion for volleyball, you have him enjoy himself the most with the only other crazy motherfucker who’s as obsessed with volleyball - Kageyama.

And I think that originally, Yana had this problem.

Sebastian was the protagonist, but she had little room to develop him as a character in the confines of the manor, dealing with random enemies.

She likely tried to create Grell as someone of the same stature as Sebastian. Someone who could be this other person to engage dialogue with and show or allude to his past a bit more.

The problem being that Sebastian didn’t care for his past. Or really, engaging with anyone. He sees everyone as below him, but when confronted with Grell who isn’t below him, he doesn’t wanna talk to her.

So you’re stuck in conundrum.

How do you have dialogue with a character, that as a character trait, doesn’t really wanna have dialogue?

Well, Grell also solves the problem. Because only the moment she gets him to start any semblance of a dialogue - is questioning why he’s serving Ciel.

And this is the moment when it’s perfectly cemented that the focus of the story is their relationship.

Why is Sebastian here? Why does he stay? What did he see in Ciel that made him want this extremely convoluted contract?

THATS the dialogue.

THATS the conversation we’re having in Black Butler.

We need to know Ciel because understanding who he is, let’s us know WHY /Sebastian/ is here.

Then slowly, with the introduction with the Undertaker, we find out Sebastian’s conflict.

Which is…

He’s scared of losing Ciel. It becomes apparent with the constant imagery of the Undertaker taking away Ciel and at some point even obtaining r!Ciel’s body, that he’s worried it might happen.

But he can only be worried that Ciel might be taken away if he wants to stay near Ciel.

And that’s his character arc.

Realizing that he actually likes Ciel, cares for him and the role he plays a butler that he doesn’t want this to end.

In the first chapters, he doesn’t feel a need to protect Ciel anymore than what’s strictly necessary. Just don’t die, that’s about as deep as his involvement in chapter 4 gets.

But by the Green Witch Arc, he feels a need to protect Ciel from ANY harm.

This is why I also said

3.- Their relationship is fundamentally a positive one.

In broad strokes, Sebastian to Ciel is the person who allows him to survive. He’s not worried about giving up his soul since he’s already dead. While Ciel to Sebastian, is someone who’s making him have fun. He’s slowly becoming more and more attached to Ciel and the life he has with Ciel.

Their relationship is not that of just a predator and prey, but also of master and pet.

In the terms that Black Butler itself would call: Sebastian is a wild wolf acting like a collared dog.

Ciel is aware that the wild beast will eat him at the end of the day, but if he clings hard to leash for now, he might just be able to have Sebastian maul his abusers.

Sebastian as a dog, currently finds that he enjoys being a chained dog.

(This is demonstrated in the Green Witch arc where he quite literally says, he doesn’t wanna be a wild beast and prefers to be a butler)

And much like the actual DOG Sebastian, Ciel constantly interprets his attempts to get close and protect him, as an act of aggression.

This push and pull of Ciel’s perception of Sebastian and Sebastian’s true motives is what feeds the story.

And the briefs interludes were that isn’t the case (what other people call the “plot”, but I would refer to as the connective tissue) such as Sullivan and Wolfram, the other servant’s past, the grim reapers and the like, serve as a parallel to Ciel and Sebastian relationship. Either to signify how they care for each other, highlight their weaknesses or fears, or explore how they feel.

It’s no surprise that Sullivan and Wolfram are parallels to Ciel and Sebastian. A sheltered sickly child who seeks the protection of a cold hearted machine that only knew how to kill, but who eventually found he cared for her genuinely.

Undertaker and Claudia’s relationship being heavily paralleled with them, even though we aren’t 109% sure what they had but heavily implied it was a romantic attraction from the undead supernatural creature and a Phantomhive.

Everything is a parallel.

That’s why, like the approach of the terrible original video, is flawed.

Trying to interpret Black Butler as action scene after action scene, with mystery after mystery with the only connective tissue being the mystery of who burned down the mansion - is missing the trees for the forest.

That’s not the point.

And if you’re too much of a prude to engage with gothic horror in its gothic horror game, I see little point as to why you even bother to engage with it at all.

A lot of people, including the person who create the video, simply refuse to acknowledge Black Butler IS the story of Sebastian and Ciel as a close and positive relationship, romantically and sexually charged. The reason for it being that they’re “put off” by it.

Part of me wonders how much that is genuinely true, and how much is just performative outrage. It’s like ignoring the fact that Cersei and Jami are in an incestous relationship and try to frame it as “platonic love”, because the idea of it is THAT off putting.

But regardless of that, if you don’t like the fact that it’s as canon as canon can get, I would reccomend you don’t engage with the story at all.

As I’ve explained, the entirety of the series is about them. If you refuse to see Sebastian and Ciel as, at the very least, a duo that cares deeply for the other - you aren’t reading Black Butler.

I have no idea what you’re reading.Perhaps your own biases and subconscious stigma with British aesthetic. At that point, watch the fucking British Royalty Gossip Magazine. You’d find more substance there.

Just don’t be like the person in the video, please? Don’t play dumb. Don’t ignore the fact that Yana is a Shotacon, don’t ignore the fact Sebastian is a hero, don’t ignore the fact that the entirety of the story is based on Sebastian and Ciel’s dynamic.

Because if you do, you are ashamed. You are ashamed of what this story is about. You don’t wanna engage with the text, you want to engage with yourself. You wanna project into Ciel whatever traumas and experiences you have, for the sake a vanity project, where you come out as the morally superior.

You don’t wanna talk about Black Butler, you wanna talk about how good YOU are. How you “don’t sin” by watching it “without all the gross unholy stuff”.

Which is the exact opposite of what BB is about.

So, if you don’t want to, save us all the humiliation fetish and leave.

[coldwind-shiningstars]

Dungeon Meshi is obviously primarily about food, eating, and crucially survival through eating, but it's also focused on other aspects of survival. Sleep, rest, social ties and social exclusion. There's even extensive commentary on things like personal grooming (Marcille’s hair, Toshiro becoming depressed and no longer shaving), clean bathrooms, and other things. When it comes to disability these things are referred to as instrumental activities of daily life (IADLs), which are more complex things like shopping, housework, and cooking, which people need to do to survive, and activities of daily life (ADLs) which are the basic bare bones needs: eating, toileting, etc. Dungeon Meshi is concerned with the logistics of living and finding joy in those logistics.

This is super related to disability! Yes, Laios is autistic, this has been apparent from the beginning. But what does being autistic mean for him and the story? Mostly, it means his desires, goals, and the ways he goes about achieving them are strange, foreign, or baffling. He has different priorities than other people and the way he expresses those priorities are strange. They affect how he socializes, how he eats…

So, it absolutely makes sense that there would be a minor sideplot about activities of daily living and what it's like to be out of sync with everyone else when it comes to prioritizing things. It's Mithrun Time (he's gonna mith all over the place) and I'm so SO interested in the interplay of disability, caregiving and the logistics thereof, and intersectionality & privilege. Who needs care? How do other people feel about them needing care? How do they receive that care? And who do we think is worthy of receiving care and how does that interact with all these other factors?

Bunch of manga and extras spoilers past the cut:

“So, what's wrong with you?”

I see a lot of people talking about Mithrun's non-eye disability as a depression allegory, which I think is true, but I think it's also metaphorically/symbolically both a traumatic brain injury and a trauma response to sexual assault. The sexual assault aspect is pretty clear if you look at any of the symbolism of the actual disabling event: just look at it.

Mithrun is lying in bed and the goat comes to him, lifts him up and puts its mouth on his abdomen and lower pelvis. The eating is sexually charged, as is the particular way he struggles and protests. It's intensely violating, and things that were once desirable are lost. And the dungeon lord group therapy session involves a lot of people talking about the demons like an abusive lover; Mithrun, even though he wanted to kill the demon so badly, still says that they're gentle.

As for the brain injury, chronic TBIs can cause a wide variety of symptoms. Some immediately relevant ones are anhedonia (lack of enjoyment), executive function issues, poor interoception (trouble understanding what's going on in your body), cognitive impairment affecting ability to reason/multitask/plan/solve problems, changes in behavior and personality, depression, agitation, and restlessness. We see… basically all of these, in Mithrun, as downstream effects of the loss of desires. He can't tell when he's hungry, tired, or out of mana; he can't perform ADLs consistently even if he knows he'll die without doing them and dying without doing them will interfere with his long-term goal, he had drastic personality changes, he oscillates between impatient and totally withdrawn.

Brain injuries can also affect more complex tasks and ability to sustain lengthy periods of complex cognitive work. A common example is losing the ability to read and process longer passages; maybe you can read the words but you can't read a paragraph, or maybe you can read paragraphs but now you get a migraine after 15 minutes. Mithrun's skill loss is not related to reading but the effect is similar – he is and was extremely skilled in a particular area of magic, but also disabled in ways that specifically hinder his skill in this area – to teleport things properly you need depth perception and a sense of direction, and he lacks both of these! And while he's still an incredibly effective fighter it seems like he pretty frequently makes those sorts of mistakes.

This is treated often as a gag and it is genuinely funny but it’s also very real, to no longer be as good at the thing you were good at before you became disabled. Kui takes several throwaway gags seriously later on, not just this one. Another ~gag that's not really elaborated on is the bathroom thing, but I appreciate its inclusion anyway, since even if it's presented humorously it doesn't feel meanspirited in a way a lot of “diaper jokes” do. I think people need to talk a lot more about bathroom issues in a wide variety of disabilities, and I think it's nice that a guy I can already picture the “poor little meow meow” posts about also has this issue, you know?

Preferences vs Desire

Even referencing PTSD and TBIs it's hard to really grasp what having no desires means, and the characters don't generally ask, while Mithrun explains it in vague terms. “Desires” is a very broad term and indeed he has lost access to a wide but related variety of things. Unfortunately this lead to him often being treated as nonagentic.

Mithrun does still have preferences, even if he doesn't express them and has no desire which would drive him to seek out pleasant things and avoid unpleasant ones. He'll comment on the taste and texture of foods, for example – sure seems like he has an opinion!

People treat it like his preferences don't matter since he doesn't usually bring them up unprompted, and he's often in situations where there aren't other options.

Kabru seems best at not doing this (and, noncoincidentally, also seems to be the best at actually caring for him; the Canaries have a lot more Resources theoretically than Kabru And Mithrun Eating Monsters And Kabru's A Bad Cook, but although they are loudly distressed by the two of them disappearing it seems to have positively affected Mithrun's general health)

But, uh, acknowledgement that someone has preferences at all is a really low bar to clear and Kabru also doesn't seem to fully understand how Mithrun's brain works. Mithrun’s caregivers want him to eat when they want him to eat. They want him to rest and drink when they want him to.

He lacks the desire for a number of mundane things but also seems to lack the ability to tell when he needs them. He can't explain why he faints; is “I am out of mana” considered a desire for more mana, one that can be eaten? He can't sleep on his own; it's not only that he lacks “the desire to go to bed” but he can't do anything with his own exhaustion, even if he notices it. He comments on the unpleasant taste and texture of several meals; he may be unable to want to not eat it, but he definitely can tell when he dislikes something. But he also seems to be unable to tell when he's hungry.

Kabru will acknowledge these preferences but there's not really other food options, and Everyone Must Eat. Kabru doesn't know the details of Mithrun's condition yet but you can see the immediate frustration here and the way he offers food to him like Mithrun's a child.

Sure, he won't directly communicate preferences, so that makes it extra hard, but you can always just ask, and if he tells you he tells you.

The pathway between opinion and taking actions about it may be lost in Mithrun but the dungeon forces other people into a similar position – it forces them to eat food they don't want to eat so that they can survive or accomplish other goals. We've seen this with Marcille from the beginning. It's difficult with Mithrun because it seems like there is always going to have to be some sort of someone else overriding his autonomy – yeah, he's not hungry but he still needs to eat or he'll faint. Yeah, he's lying about whether or not he's clean but he still needs to wash or he'll die. Yeah, he needs to take a rest instead of keeping moving or he'll faint. But he's not unique in being in a situation where he has to do nonpreferred things. The difference is more that he lacks the ability to independently do anything when it comes to ADLs, preferred or not, which makes it into someone else’s choice and responsibility.

There's also a theme in Dungeon Meshi that comes up a bit of people being pushy about ADLs but from a slightly different perspective, and they're usually right. You see this in Senshi most commonly; he pushes the residents of the Golden City to actually eat even if they don't need to and can't taste it, and while he's correct in that Yaad does get enjoyment from the food even without taste he's still not quite listening to Yaad. Similarly, Kabru is correct in that he can get Mithrun to sleep without a sleeping spell, but he also ignores the way Mithrun says several times that he doesn't expect massage to work. There's a few aspects to this – wild but expected that the elves would choose the “just knock him out with a spell” route, the “easy way” Senshi always talks about when it comes to magic, instead of actually paying attention to other solutions. But also, generally, people know their bodies best, and sometimes even if you're really sure you have the trick to help them you have to listen to what they tell you.

tvtropes dot org frontslash DisabilityTropes

This is going to be a harder section just because it's so subjective; it's nearly impossible to think about the ways in which disabled people are viewed by the people around them/wider society with any degree of objectivity just because there are so many factors that go into it. But I do think Mithrun is consistently treated as relatively nonagentic and there are several ways this can manifest: being treated as a doll/pet/child, being treated as a weapon, and being a surface for people to project onto.

He's framed or treated as childlike intermittently through the manga; scattered about, just a little vibe in the way he's drawn, like the "say aah" above and Pattadol and Cithis through the teleportation scroll :

That's a middle aged man! And he's framed like a toddler getting picked up or misbehaving.

Which doesn't mean they care about him any less; his squad is really fond of him for someone who's technically like their parole officer. How dare you do this to our captain! They love him dearly; this is obvious and he comments on it! They respect him, too, as the leader and as a strong fighter. But loving someone and thinking they're a skilled fighter doesn't mean you respect their autonomy fully.

There's also an element of everyone projecting their own issues onto him; Kabru with their shared Dungeon Trauma. The canaries all suggesting wacky, midlife-crisis desires. He doesn't ever express that he minds any of this, except when they try to stop him from making particular decisions. They also don't often understand why he'd be motivated to do a particular thing, and in fact some of these projections may actually be correct! But while noodles and pottery may be good later-on goals for him, I think it's striking that a) Kabru was the closest to correctly guessing what desire Mithrun might acquire now and he was still guessing the exact opposite (suggesting a desire to not eat Falin but to help Laios, vs Mithrun's actual desire, which was to eat Falin with no thought given to the promise he made at all) and b) it's a desire that actually makes perfect sense with what we know about him, not something totally new.

And, finally, he's a weapon: people are willing to caretake him because he's good at killing things dead. If his only desire is to kill demons dead, it's easy to start seeing that as who he is. I don't think he'd argue that “trying to kill demons” takes up the majority of his life (it's his only goal and he's obsessed with it) but even if there's only one thing that matters to him he has autonomy (in the sense that he can make his own choices about what to prioritize and formulate his own plans) and personhood.

Politics and privilege – who gets to access care?

One of the things we're first presented with when it comes to Mithrun is that he is intensely capable at handling dungeons. Yeah, there's the immediately visible prosthetic eye and the navigation issues, but the Canaries are built up as being incredibly dangerous and skilled, and he's their captain; they all immediately defer to him. He's intense, he curbstomps an entire room of guards, he's efficient, he's brutal, he's strong physically and magically.

In short: yeah, he's very disabled. He's also still very useful.

At the risk of oversimplification, even within his particular disability, he's much more disabled than Marcille is (she lost something relatively simple and easy to miss, she has no catatonia-moment) but less disabled than Thistle, who seems to still have at least one desire related to the king but is still primarily catatonic. It seems like Thistle is not unusual among ex-dungeon lords, even if there's enough noncatatonic dungeon lords to form a support group later. When Milsiril finds Mithrun, she immediately intends to mercy-kill him – this seems to be a condition the elves are familiar with but consider terminal, at least to the degree Mithrun is affected, and people seem unfamiliar what it means to keep living in this state because Mithrun is unusual in that he survives at all. And he's “allowed” to survive initially because he's not as disabled as he could have been (still has a desire) and that desire is useful. They aim him at the dungeons and off he goes. It takes twenty years for him to recover enough to do it, sure, but they're elves. They can wait. He can still be useful.

Relatedly, when he loses the ability to pursue his desire he's immediately much worse off than he was previously.

The no-desire catatonia is something that can recur and the elves continue to not know how to handle it. If Kabru wasn't there to problemsolve I think he'd have just… stayed there with his increasingly distressed squad.

Speaking of his squad, there's also a fascinating power dynamic going on with just the inherent structure of the Canaries; criminals are assigned as his caregivers. There's the inherent unfairness to the criminal Canaries about them being given extra duties, this strange rich noble guy who's now their Responsibility. There's so much possibility for resentment in normal caregiving relationships, much less being forced by your jailor into caregiving someone. But there's also an element of the power the prisoner Canaries now have over him and his most basic ADLs and needs. Assigning Cithis to his care is such a can of worms! The dynamics of the situation are frankly awful for both of them; of course she resents him initially. It would be strange for her not to. When Pattadol catches her making Mithrun do embarrassing things, she instantly reminds Cithis of her lower-status – she's forced to care for this nobleman and then forcibly reminded that she's beneath him.

She's responding to having menial, low-status tasks forced on her by trying to humiliate him, and although he doesn't have the ability to care enough to stop her it's still a deliberate removal of dignity. He's the instrument with which she is punished and she punishes him in return (until it's not fun anymore and she understands him a bit more.)

Mithrun is a long-lived race, who has structural power over the shorter lived races simply because of how long they live. The dwarves and elves try to actively keep certain knowledge from other races, restricting their access to technology, and other expressions of distance. Senshi spends nearly the whole first season not listening to Chilchuck trying to explain that he's an adult and treating him like a child, and Kabru repeatedly says that the elves do the same thing (and tbh we see them doing it). There's even the fact that it took him twenty years to recover enough to join the Canaries again; a shorter-lived race might have died from old age in this time, or become too old to work in this capacity, and then wasted away without the drive to return to the dungeons. But they're elves; the other elves can afford to wait, and he's not going to age out of dungeoneering any time soon. Being an elf probably contributes to his wealth in the same way skin color contributes to wealth inequality in the real world.

Dungeon Meshi doesn't really go into race in the sense of skin color much, and Kui is writing from a different cultural standpoint than I am. While tallmen are quite accurate when it comes to skin/hair color (yes, even Kabru and his blue eyes; it's rare but possible) and cultural references, the elves, uh, absolutely are not, both in the sense of “dark skin & pale hair and eyes trope” and sense of the royals having jet black skin.

Still, I feel like race is so connected to care and caregiving in the real-world west that I would be profoundly remiss not to mention it. Skin color might not matter to elves in the racism sense, but it matters to humans and humans are the ones writing and analyzing this story. (And I fully expect as the fandom grows with anime-onlies people will like Mithrun more because he's white (has white features) than they would if he had darker skin, because fandom is also baseline racist.)

I don't think we can just not mention that Mithrun is pale-skinned and both Cithis and Kabru, his primary caregivers over the story, both have dark skin.

Racism means white people are more likely to get good medical care, the type you need to get diagnosed and prescribed caregiving. Racism means wealth distribution is uneven, favoring white people. Race affects immigrants taking on undesirable jobs like caregiving for low pay. Racism is a profound stressor which means it contributes to who becomes disabled in the first place in that it can worsen health outcomes.

Similarly to race, gender may not be very obvious when it comes to this subplot within the story but the gendered dynamics of caregiving in the real world are something I do want to touch on. There's an oft-cited statistic about how men are much more likely than women to divorce their partners when their partners are diagnosed with a serious condition; I don't like relying too much on those sorts of statistics because they can be so misleading but it does gesture at something very real, culturally. Even if men aren't supposed to be caretaken, women are supposed to be the caretakers. Certainly, it's not Mithrun's fault that he can't cook and can't do laundry and probably can't do most housework, but I do also think about all the posts passed around about “my boyfriend who won't do housework.”

Again, none of these privileges make him less disabled and less in need of and deserving of care, they're just worth talking about when we talk about caregiving in general.

It's Rotten Work, Even If It's You

People expect disabled people receiving care to be grateful, to accept anything, and to try and make it easier for the caregiver if they're able. Requiring care is an incredibly disadvantaged position, even as actually receiving it can be so tangled up in privilege. Caregiving is tremendously difficult work, it's true, but there's a particular vibe people want from disabled people – all those movies about not wanting to be seen as a burden. Never complaining. Being grateful.

And, uh, well…

Mithrun basically accepts anything his caregivers do, but he's not grateful at all! I appreciate that in a disability portrayal. He'll also lie to and ignore his caregivers, which is Annoying but is definitely an expression of autonomy even if he's probably not doing it specifically to express his autonomy. He's not going to thank you. He's not going to make it easy. He'll accept a lot of things considered “undignified,” and he's not mean or unpleasant in the sense that he's taking advantage or anything, but he's certainly not a model patient.

He's running off back into the dungeons just when you think you've finally gotten him somewhere safe.

There's always a strange tension in caregiving, I've found. It is incredibly intimate but a lot of it is done by total strangers. A number of caregiving tasks are viewed by the wider world as entitled but placing those tasks in the hands of strangers is a remarkably tough place to be in. As a disabled person, I've had to accept my bowel movements being discussed with my parents’ friends, all sorts of being physically moved places not against my will but without my permission, even my pubic hair being shaved off by a stranger (nurse) while I was unable to speak or move. When people are feeding you, making sure you use the toilet, rubbing your feet to make you sleep, helping you with hygiene – people are working so hard to help you. Are you supposed to just accept them doing whatever they want to you?

There's also a dynamic where people will say they don't mind caring for you, they're happy to do it, and then as the years go by and you continue to need care the resentment just builds up. Caregiving is hard work. It's often thankless. The goodness of people’s hearts can run dry, when it's been twenty years and you still can't bathe yourself.

Aaand I need to continue in reblogs, because I'm out of space for images. Please hold. edit: you can find part 2 here

[rocketbirdie]

YOU. You are correct about Cloud Strife. Everything you say about him is CORRECT

Hi I'm going to use your ask as an opportunity to go on an unhinged tangent about him below the cut.

I believe that EVERYTHING about Cloud Strife as a character makes total sense once you realize: it's autism.

Here's a character whose entire arc revolves around the erosion of his identity and his desperate attempts to adhere to an ideal image, at the expense of his own wellbeing; and how self acceptance is the thing that brings him back from the edge of despair.

Youtube theorycrafters waste hours of their lives trying to piece together Cloud's psyche, when the answer is just... autism. It really is that simple. I will die on this goddamn hill.

In Trace of Two Pasts, we learn that even as a toddler, Cloud really was just... like that. Unemotive and awkward. And the entire lifestream sequence in the OG shows us a young Cloud who behaves in baffling ways. Tifa and her friends invited Cloud into their group, but he rejected their friendship while simultaneously harboring a seething jealousy. How the heck does that work, huh?

Viewing this through the Autism Lens™️, his approach make way more sense. Fearing his own inability to read and reciprocate their intentions, he pushes them away, and the resulting loneliness crushes him. He mistakes that loneliness for anger. He turns that anger outwards and gets into fights. Because the other kids don't understand him, Cloud sees them as stupid and immature. It's the perfect recipe for disastrous distrust. The tragic result is that, when Tifa gets into her accident, Cloud is immediately blamed by kids AND adults. He's seen as inherently dangerous and unpredictable, even though he did nothing wrong. It's like they were already looking for the perfect excuse to hate him.

The worst part is, because he struggles to articulate his own thoughts and feelings, he starts to just... accept what other people say about him. He's a pain in the ass. He's a selfish brat. He could try being a bit nicer. Any attempt that he makes to argue, backfires and proves their points even more. He's being childish. He needs to get his shit together. Nothing's ever good enough for him. He stops fighting it and lets people drag him around and violate his boundaries, because no matter how loud he yells or how intelligently he argues, nothing he says ever reaches their ears. He trims away more and more of himself to try and appease others and nurse the constant emotional pain. (And that's not even addressing the entire traumatic *waves hands* everything that he's gone through by the time he reaches Midgar! That would have to be its own tangent lol.)

It's hard to watch as a player; the secondhand embarrassment of Cloud's social blunders is immense. Some people don't like Cloud as a video game protagonist, which is perfectly valid. But a lot of times, they justify their opinion by perpetuating the same damaging language. He's an asshole, he's a weirdo, he hates people. The irony would be hilarious if it wasn't so frustrating. I know Cloud is just a fictional character, he doesn't need to be defended from harsh criticisms. But I can't help but wonder what these players think about the "weird people-hating assholes" that they meet in real life.

It also makes me wonder if they were even paying attention. I think the games make it pretty damn obvious what's going on. He's an asshole because other characters treat him like one before they even get to know him. He hates people because he doesn't understand them, and they don't even try to understand him. He's a weirdo because he has a strange way of showing how deeply he loves and cares, and he's afraid that his love will be misinterpreted like every other emotion he's ever dared to show.

The autism is everywhere. It permeates his entire being. It's in his silly responses when he takes things too literally. It's in his painfully practical way with words. It's in the stiff expressionless look and the flat tone of voice. It's in him constantly adjusting his gloves, shifting his weight, looking down at his feet. It's in his questionable idea of what you're supposed to do with your body at a yoga session. It's in the half a dozen flustered high fives, it's in the motion sickness. It's in the contagious eagerness with his special interests in SOLDIER and materia and chocobos.

It's in the moments where the facade crumbles and we get to see the real Cloud, the one that Aerith knew was in there— the one that Tifa finds in the lifestream— the one that Zack gave his life for— the Cloud that cherishes the whole world. He's got so much of everything inside of his heart, and he doesn't know how to get it out. You'd be a weird asshole about it, too.

[quasi-normalcy]

Every "Nu Trek" (2017- ) Series Ranked from Worst to Best:

Very Short Treks (2023): There's really no words for just how terrible this series is. I mean, I know that it only barely counts because it's explicitly not canon and has a total combined run time of about 15 minutes, but *my god* is it bad! Only one of its episodes is remotely funny, and even that manages to feel like it's driven its main joke into the ground by the end of its 2-minute runtime. The only thing that I can say for it is that is that it gives me an easy, uncontroversial choice for worst Star Trek series, not only of the last 7 years, but of all time.

Picard (2020-2023): Listen; I know that this series is unpopular with the Tumblr Trek fandom, but it actually breaks my heart to have to put it so low on the list. It has, in my own opinion, the best dramatic acting of any Trek series and among the best directing, and almost every individual scene, in isolation, is compellingly watchable. More than that, it has fascinating worldbuilding choices, you can really *see* the passion of the writers for what they're creating (at least in the first and third seasons), and Agnes in particular is among my favourite characters in anything ever. It's got a lot of great moments, too! Picard and Seven bonding over shared Borg trauma; Soji uncovering the truth of her identity; Jurati hacking the Borg Queen's brain; Picard's final farewell to Q; Shaw's Wolf 359 monologue; Geordi's reunion with Data...I could go on. And yet, it just feels like so much *less* than the sum of its parts! Incredible ideas are introduced and then just shrugged off to pursue much more boring ones. Story arcs feel pointless if not actively offensive. Absolutely baffling writing choices are made throughout, with no indication as to why. And the nostalgia baiting , particularly in the final season, becomes so intense that it just chokes the plot to death. One comes away haunted by the feeling that this series should be so much better than it is.

Discovery (2017-2024): Really, this is two separate series: a twisty, grimdark, sci-fi war drama and a gentle queer coffeeshop AU about scientists who talk about their feelings. Both of them have their moments, but they each fall down in the same way: a focus on epic, high-stakes mystery box storytelling that undermines one's ability to really get invested in the characters, or even know who they are when they aren't off saving the universe. Without that, while I liked many of the characters and loved seeing them science the shit out of things using teamwork and the power of math, it's kind of difficult to get invested in this series one way or another. In spite of its absolutely gorgeous visuals, it comes off feeling weirdly...flat.

Short Treks (2018-2020): Not a lot to talk about here; just kind of an anthology series of short films adjacent to Discovery, Picard, and Strange New Worlds. Mostly they're varying shades of mediocre, but a few of them are as brilliant as any episode of Star Trek ever made, so the series gets to be relatively high on the list.

Strange New Worlds (2022- ): This is the first entry on this list that, in my opinion, belongs on the top shelf with some of the best of the older series. And it achieves it basically by adopting the same formula as the original series or the next generation--socially conscious planet-of-the-week adventures with enough wit, cleverness and joie-de-vivre to keep it interesting. I remember in 2017, there was plenty of discussion of how it's possible to update Star Trek's formula for prestige television; how funny that the solution turned out to be "don't change it at all, just give it modern special effects and actual character arcs." That said, the series is a bit *too* beholden to the original, with focus primarily on a bunch of characters who aren't allowed to grow or change too much because we already know how they'll turn out. It would be even better if it were about a new ship and a new crew full of nobodies who we can come to love. Which brings us to...

Lower Decks (2020-2024): Above, I said that Picard felt like it should have been so much better than it was. Lower Decks, frankly, should have been so much worse. How is an adult animated sitcom with Rick and Morty style animation and constant memberberries this freaking good!?! Every episode is a master class in efficient storytelling, with 22 minute runtimes often feeling like they contain as much story and character work as episodes twice as long. And the characters are incredible--like TOS and TNG, they feel almost archetypal, and even though you've never seen them before, they slide so seamlessly into the Star Trek universe that it's hard to believe that they weren't just *always* there; that there was ever a time when you could imagine the Star Trek universe without just intrinsically knowing that Tendi and Shaxs and Mariner were off somewhere in the background. It's greatest success though, the reason why it's comedy works when it really shouldn't, is that it's only *slightly* sillier than the serious series. What we end up with a fantastic series with an ethos that is pure Star Trek, and in fact, if I had written this list a month ago, it would certainly be in the #1 spot. However...

Prodigy (2021-2024?): The first season of Prodigy is...charming. It's got some fun characters, some spectacular visuals, some interesting premises. And if the plots tend to be a little too simplistic to be engaging to an adult, hey, it's a kids' show. It's good. Solid. Above average. And if I had only the first season to go on, it would probably be in third position on this list. But then, a few weeks ago, it went ahead and dropped the best season of Star Trek in a quarter-century, and I really...I just cannot recommend this series highly enough. The sheer, ambitious scope of the narrative; the arcs it puts its character through; the cleverness of the writing; the fricking GORGEOUSNESS of it! And it does all this while redeeming deeply unpopular characters and plot points from other series, in a way that never feels forced or pandering. Not only is it the best Star Trek series of the 21st century, it's one of the best children's animated series since AtLA. Go. Go! Watch it! Watch it now!

[alphajocklover]

Genie Glory the Game

(A [Very Late] Trade with @bigwishes. I hope you like it!) 43 followers. Rich Donaldson, also known as TF2Twink on Twitch, had 43 followers.Rich had been streaming for over 3 years now and only had 43 followers. 43 measly followers. It made him feel pathetic. It made him feel like he was useless. Yet at the same time, Rich was incredibly grateful for every one of those followers. 

Rich Donaldson had wanted to become a gaming streamer since he was a kid. It hadn’t really been a real thing until he was a teen, and most people thought he was crazy for thinking he could make money that way. Some people doubted it was a real job, some thought it was too competitive, some thought it was just a dumb idea in general. No matter what the reason, everyone in Rich’s life agreed that Rich wasn’t going to make it as a streamer. Especially his hyper religious, video game hating parents. Still Rich refused to give up. He knew it would be hard, maybe impossible, but he was passionate and felt like he had to follow his dream. That was what everyone in the movies did after all. Rich moved out, cut contact with his parents, went into debt buying the best streaming gear he could… and immediately regretted it. Rich didn’t mind losing contact with his parents. They had never been the most loving people, so he hadn’t really lost much. Except things weren’t working out like they did in the movies. Rich wasn’t making it, and worse than that he wasn’t getting any better at streaming. He was good at the games, so he knew that wasn’t the issue. The issue was… he was incredibly, painfully, horribly shy. Rich didn’t have the confidence that a streamer needed. He could barely get a word out during the stream without starting to awkwardly ramble, and even when he did he came off as awkward and weird. He wasn’t just unconfident, he was a downright nervous wreck. Still he didn’t give up. He couldn’t after everything he had thrown away to get this chance… all the sleepless nights working part time jobs to stay above water… he was in too deep. So he kept going “Hey chat! S-so t-today…” Rich took a deep breath, trying his best not to ramble “T-today I’m going to be playing a new game. I-it’s not very well known, but i-it looked cool and I’ve heard a lot of people are playing it… S-so let's get into ‘Genie Glory the Game!” Rich said, trying to be excited. Barely anyone was watching, and it was getting hard to pretend he wasn’t incredibly depressed, but he kept smiling. Genie Glory was a pretty simple game with a simple premise that had been baffling gamers for months. It was a pretty simple idea based on a classic scenario. You play a random guy who has discovered a genie’s lamp and now has 3 wishes. You make a wish by typing it into the computer, and the genie grants the wish, but usually in some twisted way that is accompanied by a pixelated animation of the player's fate. The goal is to get through all 3 wishes alive. What made the game so popular was that no one had beat it yet. Whatever AI the game used was incredibly clever and strangely creative, and to make it even more difficult, the game only allowed you to play it once. Popular streamers, actually geniuses, and even philosophers hadn’t been able to beat the game, so Rich knew beating it would make him famous.

“Ok chat. I-it’s time for our first wish… And I’m taking suggestions…” Rich said. Rich wanted to beat the game, but… he wasn’t sure how to beat this game, so he’d take all the help he could get. A few suggestions actually came across the screen ‘BasedBro69: Wish for your muscles to grow!’

‘GenieGay33: No way, that's the way to open ended! The Genie will make him grow until he pops or something’

‘MissTaken27: That's such a basic idea. Might as well ask him to wish to be a frat boy or something.’

Rich laughed at this. He knew most of his followers' usernames by heart, but BasedBro69 was new. Still the conversation he had started was kind of funny, and he figured… why not? “Ok then, why not! Lets make me a frat boy!” He said, snickering as he typed in his computer. He tried to be as specific as possible to avoid the spell being twisted “‘I wish I was an attractive, stereotypical frat boy.”

Rich laughed as he watched the pixelated version of himself grow muscular, his clothing changing to a tank top and backwards cap. He watched as the other version of him rushed a frat. Rich was certain something would go wrong, afterall he knew from first hand experience that hazing could get fucking intense, but surprisingly his character survived and got through the first wish without any incident. Rich grinned widely. Most people never even made it through the first wish, but he, a relative nobody, had managed! He stood up straighter as he watched people start to flood into the stream. He checked the chat happily. ‘GenieMan33: He actually made it with that wish? I’ll never understand this game, but good for you!’ ‘MisterRichD27: Kind of an ironic wish considering you are a frat boy. No offense.’ ‘BasedBro69: I fucking knew that would work bro! You can do this!’

Rich blushed slightly at MisterRichD27’s comment, and his flirty name. While he didn’t tend to think of himself that way, he was technically a frat boy. He had joined one after heading to college in the hopes of finding some friends. His frat brothers could be… kind of obnoxious, and very stereotypical, but they had helped him come out of his shell somewhat and even get in shape. He was still fairly shy, but he never would have gotten this far in college or with his streaming if it wasn’t for them. He chuckled at the chat, slightly embarrassed “I’ll admit, that was a weird wish, but hey, it worked so who cares!” Rich said cheerily “Ok, so what's the next wish going to be? I’m trusting you on this chat!” Rich said with what he hoped was a charming wink. ‘GenieMan33: Maybe something basic like money? That doesn’t usually work but you seem to be on a hot streak.’

‘BasedBro69: No way bro. He only gets to play once. Wish for something like fucking confidence or something. Something fun!’

‘MisterRichD27: IDK, Basedbro69 was right last time. Maybe you should wish for confidence?’ Rich shrugged. He could think up even more ways that this could go wrong, but this game had never seemed to work on logic in any of the videos he watched to prepare for this. So with a grin, he typed in his second wish “I wish I had the kind of cocky confidence that ladies love.” he said with a chuckle. He hoped it would be obvious that it was a joke, since his Twitch username, FortnightOtter44, made it obvious he was gay. He watched as the little version of him grew a big head, quite literally. Rich was worried this was leading to some type of game over, but his head deflated, his muscles grew, and a bunch of pixelated girls in bikinis ran up to the pixelated him. Rich grinned wide and tried not to cuss in celebration, not wanting to get demonetized (again). He had fucking done it! He fucking got past wish 2! He smirked as he watched the chat explode as more people tuned in ‘GenieStud33: Fuck yeah! RDH fucking did it! Knew you had it in you bro!’

‘MissRichD27: RDH is the best gamer ever! And the hottest! DM me!’

BasedBro69: HELL YEAH! You can do this bro!’ Rich, known as RDH to his fans, or RichDaHunk on Twitch, smirked, as he saw the comments roll in. He fucking knew he could get this game. He may not have been the most popular streamer on twitch, but he was a fucking good gamer and a total stud. He flexed his biceps, getting the chat riled up again in a frenzy of lust and admiration. Rich didn’t bother to look at the chat this time. He gave a smarmy, cocky smirk at the camera “I know what to put in next bros. I’m gonna wish for something fucking inevitable.” he said cockily.

He quickly typed in “I wish I was the most popular gaming streamer on Twitch”, and watched with a practiced cool confidence as the pixelated version of him gained millions of followers. The chat exploded with awe and wonder as what Rich had always known was going to happen, happened. He had won the game. He flexed his muscles for the stream, celebrating with his 43 million followers. He didn’t understand why they were all shocked. He was the coolest, hottest, douchiest gamer on twitch. Of course he fucking won!

[austinsastrology8991]

Uranus and why your life is a ShiT ShoW > URANUS IN Yer HOUSe <

Uranus in the FIrst - You are the most unpredictable little fuck-head that everyone loves. They always change > there clothes, there direction in life > their hair colour. they thrive in change unless you try to change them, they are the ones changing and dont you dare change them, thats all they have left ;( Uranus in the Second. - Crazy self esteem issues. these people think they are the greatest then the worst person, also same applies to their income because they dont think they are worth much, until they invest into bitcoin and think they will be the next warren buffet. honestly the only thing stable about you is the perception of your value changing. But they love change, something to look forward to i guess Uranus in the Third your brain and communication skills are kinda fucky you know that dont you. you always know how to say something shocking, and extremely good at changing the subject of a conversation, like you dont have to say much, but what you do say just made everyone go huh what the fuck you say? its amusing tho we appreciate you Uranus in the F4urth - Emotionally avoidant, dependent, and attached personalities. They cant make their mind up on how they feel, so they experiemnt with every feeling to see if they vibe with that. mum was probably very unpredictable, and they wanna be like her. they just trying their best to forgive her <3 Uranus in the Fifth - Okay this one is the genius. This one people actually think your onto something when your showing off because you break free of every social convention, and archetype, but in the most perfect way. everyone believes your special, and you can change the vibe of a room like dat Uranus in the Sixth - what a fkn mess your life is. I had this one friend who would have 10 different drinks in his room and he would drink each one sparingly (they were all warm too). he had some serious health issues, and lets not get into his mental health okay. but yall have crazy lives and you make it that way Uranus in the Seventh - Im not a player i just fuck a lot. they choose their partners based off how interesting they are, if you can satiate their curiosity you got em. but if your boring or not worth figuring out yeah g-bye. also they just come off strange so everyone is extremely curious. they get projected on a lot but they dont mind its a good way to find out something interesting lol Uranus in the Eighth - Freaks who will do anything.... and im not just talking about sex, if they want something they'll find any way to get it. masters of attainment, even if its probably not healthy for them, they don't care if they want it they get it. then the object of their fixation changes as soon as they do get it. they are like obsessed with 'progress' but its hard to call it that sometimes Uranus in the Ninth - Clever minds who are always skipping segments of a speech, or a video to find the juicy parts. They have very quick minds that are so easily bored, but if you talk to them, they'll never not have something interesting to talk about. also when change does occur its a LOt Uranus in the Tenth - why are yalll like this. just baffling people like they know how to make an entrance and when everyone starts loooking at them, they decide to make fun of everyone by doing something a lil bit too shocking, almosst making fun of you for looking at them. gets off on shocking ya Uranus in the Eleventh - They wanna change the world, but not in a way that is practical. until it is. They have a million friends because they have a knack for understanding people, but when you ask what they want or what scares them. it just makes you rethink why your even friends with them in the first place. 12 - your crazy. and its endearing but everyone is this close to calling the cops on you or locking you up in a psyche ward. maybe tone down your retardation. we all got something going on but you take it to a whole new level.

[anna-proxx]

pretty please can we have arthur morgan falling in love with hyperfem! reader? ur stuff is always so so yummy,, no pressure ofc! ૮꒰ྀི∩´ ᵕ `∩꒱ྀིა

⭒✧⋆｡guns n' bows ✧⋆｡⭒

pairing: Arthur Morgan x hyperfem!reader

genre: fluff, slight angst (good ending)

summary: Arthur finds himself adoring a dainty woman who joined the gang a while ago. It suddenly becomes clear to him he has fallen in love.

word count: 3294

tags: high honor arthur, fem!reader, (mutual) pining, arthur being a sweetheart

a/n: thank u so much, dolly! i had a few ideas on how to approach this and decided to make it more story-based and focus on arthur's inner process as he realizes he's in love with the reader (as i would imagine it to go). if you'd like something a bit different, lmk! i've been wanting to write a hyperfem fic for a while now, so i had fun with it. also, i'm thinking about writing a pt. 2 where i'd focus more on the reader's pov and have arthur express his feelings more (be a cutie around her) and confess his love. <3

dividers by @saradika / @saradika-graphics

✮ masterlist

Arthur Morgan wasn't used to being gentle with people. His hands were rough and calloused and his muscle memory trained to draw his guns and shoot. They were meant to be a weapon, to protect and harm for the people he considered his family.

Perhaps he had it in him, but there was no reason to be soft and gentle – the world was just as rough as him and he was assigned the burden of fighting against it. The softest he could get was between the pages of his journal as he wrote about his thoughts and sketched owls and beavers and when he patted dogs and talked to his horse.

But most of those were away from prying eyes and frankly, the role of a dense criminal prized for his brawn comfortably fit around his overlooked qualities, as that was all he needed to be. To survive, to fulfill his role.

And yet you saw right through it. Of course you did, you had a good heart, open to whoever you saw goodness in. While some might write Arthur off as a rugged criminal only, you noticed his edges weren't as sharp as he tried making them seem to be.

His duties were violent, sometimes brutal, the earth soaking up blood of his enemies and his image reflecting in their eyes as the last thing before they closed them forever. To some, he was their biggest nightmare. He wasn't a good man, to believe so would be naive and foolish, but he wasn't all bad either, as some would think.

Your heart was big enough to accept his sins and leave the judgment to whatever was above, meanwhile you sought his presence as it brought you a strangely warm sense of security and comfort. Like moth to a flame, his different nature allured you. Hardened on the outside and soft-hearted on the inside.

Perhaps that was the reason you found yourself liking this big outlaw. Scooted towards him at the campfire, or sat nearby and watched him as he lied on his cot and scribbled something into his journal.

You might've been fragile and soft spoken, but you weren't stupid and your intuition on people was like a radar you could wholeheartedly trust. So you did.

Arthur didn't exactly know you sometimes looked for his presence, but he did notice you were comfortable around him.

It baffled him a little – you were so small compared to him, wearing lace and frills and cute little bows in your hair and yet you didn't seem to be intimidated by his appearance or demeanor at all. It sparked joy inside of him whenever you'd come to him blabbering about the rainbow you saw or gave him a soft smile as your eyes met.

You never treated him with judgment or revulsion, despite knowing very well your morals were against everything he was doing. Just how big of a sweetheart were you to do that? He never said it, but it meant a lot to him.

He felt as though you weren't even a part of all this. You were like a gem among roughened stones or a flower growing in gravel, reading in your tent and braiding your horse's mane while he washed blood off his hands.

And truth be told, because of that, he found you to be soothing and healing for his battered soul. It was so different, to be around someone like you.

You brought out a side of him he didn't know he had, one that was more tender than he was used to be. He didn't feel so angry or cynical, even after a job gone wrong. When he was with you, being gentle was easy.

At the beginning, when you first fell with the gang, it was doubt and hesitation he felt towards you. You were so... untouched by the world's cruelty, so innocent and open-hearted.

Arthur assumed you were naive and feeble, not only in the physical sense but mental as well. The world posed a huge threat to someone like you and he was worried you wouldn't survive in such circumstances. He was convinced you'd run after a few weeks but you did no such thing.

As the months passed, you stayed with the gang, patient and resilient while remaining soft and feminine. You helped where you could and offered a listening ear to anyone who needed it; even managed to get Arthur to open up to you when you two were alone. And you barely ever complained, even ate all Pearson's stews though you must've been used to eating fine food. And you lit up the space wherever you went. Your optimism was invincible. How the hell were you managing to do that?

It dawned on him he must've terribly underestimated you and his doubtfulness turned into admiration and intrigue. You were one fascinating little thing.

Things have been going quite downhill, so he kept checking up on you and you always had a warm smile to offer. You were still sweet and charming, even with the law on your tail.

You were his polar opposite, gentle waves of the sea splashing against hard rocks hot from the sun. Soft clouds concealing the sky after a raging storm. A calm rain on a hot summer day.

Arthur had no intentions of falling in love ever again.

But his heart was a sneaky little traitor.

Dusk softly illuminated the lake's surface when he found you sitting on the pier, your feet splashing in the water. You put your shoes beside you and held the skirt of your dress at your knees to avoid getting it wet. It was your favorite, white and pink, the corset decorated with little bows at the front. Your locks curled loosely over your shoulders, a light pink bow tying some of it at the back of your head.

You looked so vulnerable and cute lost in your thoughts like this, your feet creating creases in the water as you idly watched them. You had no company with you, only a couple of ducks swimming nearby and butterflies fluttering their wings around your head.

Arthur wondered what your mind was occupied with and before he could properly think it through, his steps directed towards your small frame lit by warm light.

You were pondering on the events of the past few weeks when the heavy steps on the wooden planks caught your attention. Turning your head to look up at the person coming, your eyes lit up as you saw it was your favorite one.

"Arthur!" you called out, your big doe eyes digging a pit in Arthur's stomach.

"[Name]. How are you?" His gaze lingered on you as he stood before you, his hands placed on the gun belt around his hips. You found the concern sweet. Instead of it being a casual phrase, his eyes studied you for an actual answer.

"Good, I think. What about you?" Your voice was smooth like honey and inviting, giving the outlaw something to lean into.

"'M alright," his voice rumbled as he shifted on his feet, his gaze dropping to the ground. "Ya like this place?"

You shortly looked around, taking in the view of the trees and dim sky reflected back in the peaceful lake.

"I do, it's such a charming spot." You looked back into Arthur's face, catching a hint of a smile on his lips.

"'M glad to hear that."

You could almost hear his goodbye that would follow but before he had the chance, you spoke.

"Come on, join me." You patted the spot next to you and slightly turned your body towards Arthur when he sat beside you.

Arthur was a bit at loss of words, always quick with his witty responses but uncertain around you. Your flowery perfume overcame him, then the sight of your rosy cheeks and full lips. You looked like a doll, looking at him through your long lashes with the most innocent look in your eyes.

For a moment your company made him forget about everything. He felt like just a man instead of a sinner, leaning into the silent acceptance you provided him.

You swung your feet in the water. "What did you do today?" you asked kindly, no trace of judgment.

Arthur sighed, recalling the day's events. "Robbed a stagecoach, had to shoot 'em guards. Met a few of the O'Driscoll boys too."

He wasn't one to sugarcoat things, especially when there was no reason to. You knew what kind of person he was and despite you never expressing disgust, he knew you must've had certain sentiments of him and they were all true. He was no better than the crooks he fought. And yet, with you, he wished he was.

Your gaze found his hand resting over his knee, barely dried blood on his knuckles.

"Oh, Arthur!" You took his hand in his, examining the damage with focus as you held his palm with both your hands, yours small in comparison to his.

Arthur's breath faltered in his throat. A lukewarm feeling settled in his chest and slight panic ran through his mind as he was slow to realize just what was happening. The warm touch of your smooth fingers was unusually intensive and he wished for the moment to never stop, as if he ever cared for such things.

He felt silly for it. What was happening with him? Why did he feel such fondness at your delicate hands cradling his, the slight blush on your cheeks, the flyaway hairs around your head?

He furrowed his brow at the unfamiliar tightness in his chest, the rhythm of his heartbeat picking up on pace.

He hasn't felt this way ever since...

"Your poor knuckles," you mumbled while gently running your finger over the bruises. "You know, I don't think I've ever seen them healed."

Your tone was nothing but caring, as if Arthur hadn't used the fist to break someone's jaw. You put his hand away, putting yours in your lap as you continued bathing your feet in the water and watching the thoughtful look on Arthur's face as he softly looked at you.

Arthur cleared his throat, chasing all the crazy thoughts away. "And how's yer day been?"

You tactfully ignored the change of topic and played around with your necklace as you spoke. "Well, it was alright. I've been doing chores almost whole day, then went to Rhodes for some supplies with Tilly and Javier. He also taught me a bit of one Spanish song!"

Oh did he? A pang of jealousy struck him. What the hell was wrong with him?

"Arthur, everything okay?" you asked, your brow furrowed at the sight of his troubled expression.

"Sure, 'm... just tired, that's all."

You nodded, looking at the sky coloring itself in blueish grays. "Yeah, I might go to sleep earlier today as well, I reckon."

Pulling your feet out of the water, you started putting on your shoes while Arthur stood up, offering you a hand by the time you were done. You smiled up at him and accepted his hand, being effortlessly pulled up to your feet.

"Thank you, Arthur."

Your voice wouldn't leave his head, even after you walked towards your tent, disappearing from his sight. He walked to his own one in a trance, left with many unanswered questions in his head.

This wasn't like him, even less to be so confused by his feelings. And yet, as he lay in his cot that night, he kept going back to the moment at the lake, imagining what it would've felt like to brush his fingers through your soft hair or cup your cheek.

Another heavy sigh.

Only yesterday you were still just you. A kind girl they had rescued when she had nowhere else to go, a young woman who–

No, who was he kidding. The warning signs had been there long before; the warmth in his chest whenever he saw you, that little jump his heart did when you said his name, the joy he felt when you asked him for small favors.

It gnawed at him, the sense of knowing he tried pushing away.

He fell in love with you. Somewhere along the way, without taking notice. As complicated and messy it would make things, in a way, admitting to himself the feelings he had for you felt relieving.

How was he so stupid not to realize sooner?

He loved the way you got excited over making flower crowns and how you'd weave some for the girls. He loved when he saw you consoling and comforting Karen into putting the bottle away, or even being kind to that bastard Kieran. He loved when he found you playing with Jack, letting him put flowers in your hair. He loved your feminine gaze, the one that would capture all his attention, or how your kindness towards him made him feel. As if there was still hope for him, as if he wasn't damned after all.

But there was a tight knot in his stomach. He might've set himself up for another heartbreak. How could you want someone like him?

Arthur fell asleep riddled with contradicting thoughts that night.

The new reality of being in love with you gave him a sort of solace. But it wasn't until morning that he decided he could only do one thing – keep his distance. For both his and your sake.

You were beautiful and dainty like a rose, but he was the thorns.

Arthur did as he promised to himself – despite the stolen glances and wishful thoughts split in half, he would avoid you, though it wasn't as apparent as he's been so busy lately. Not like he would complain about that, if anything, it took his mind off you, even if not for long.

Above all he wanted to return to camp after a difficult job and be close to you, talk to you, feel your calming presence.

What he didn't expect with his plan was how much it would wear him down.

But the last thing he wanted was to hurt you, which he assumed would eventually happen, or lose his head for someone who wouldn't reciprocate the same feelings back.

He returned to camp late today. In the middle of the night when everyone was already asleep. He wanted nothing more than to lie down in his cot, his shoulders slouched as he got down from the saddle and patted his horse a good night, unsaddling him to give him some rest too. The night was quiet and tranquil, like peace after a storm, given how Arthur's day went.

It has been weeks since Arthur had realized he had feelings for you by this point and looking towards the tents, he couldn't help but wonder whether you were alright. He hasn't been around much lately, so he could only guess you continued to be true to who you've been since the beginning. With ribbons in your hair and a dreamy look in your face.

He sighed at the image. What a lovestruck fool he was.

He missed your sleepy eyes and the little wrinkle between your eyebrows when you were confused.

As if something listened to his wishes, a small figure emerged from the shadows and he realized it was you.

Wearing your undergarments, bloomers with frills and lace, you made your way straight towards him. Your hair was in two braids tied by pink ribbons, though a bit messy from sleep, and the loose strands of hair tucked behind your ear.

He froze in place, watching you get closer while his heart went a little crazy. A part of him was happy to see you approaching him, whatever the reason for that was. It made him feel fuzzy inside and that scared him more than any gunfight.

"Arthur!" you called out for him with a slightly shaky voice, not stopping your steps until you stood right before him.

Arthur fought the urge to reach out for you as he saw you small and vulnerable, looking up at him with need, his heart struck with fear when he noticed the little tears in your eyes.

"[Name], what's wrong?" There was urgency in his voice, a worried look in his eyes and panic coursing through his veins.

You held a sob as you spoke, hugging yourself with your arms, a few of the loose strands falling into your face.

"J-just a nightmare. I woke up so s-scared." You started to shiver as you recalled the frightening images. As soft as you were on the outside, you had a vivid imagination and your nightmares could get very eerie and gruesome, causing chills to travel up your spine every time the memory flashed before your eyes.

Arthur's instincts now clutched his heart tightly, a knot tying itself in his stomach. He hated seeing you like this, helpless, afraid and trembling. The sight of you awakened every bit of his protective nature and he didn't want anything more than to hold you and never let you go, even put his life on the line just to keep you safe.

He didn't think twice.

"Aw, c'mere," he proposed in a low warm voice, enveloping you in his embrace gently enough to give you the option of changing your mind.

But you snuggled into the hug instead, a small sob escaping you as you wrapped your arms around his torso, your arms barely connecting behind his back.

He was so warm and firm and you have never felt safer in your whole life. The anxiety was slowly mellowed out, filling your heart with affection instead.

Arthur breathed in your scent and it made him feel lightheaded, and to feel your soft warm body pressed against his felt like a dream.

You were so delicate in his arms and your exposed skin made it hard for him to keep his thoughts straight. He was a gentleman of course, but his heart raced nonetheless and he feared you could hear it beating against your ear.

"It's okay, t'was just a dream." His voice was soothing and warm, and it worked like a charm. He consoled you with strokes on your back, his big palms hot through the thin layer of your undergarments.

"What horrible thin' did ya dream 'bout?" Arthur asked, his embrace not loosening around you. He was quite happy like this, protecting you between his arms, as if you always belonged there.

You kept your face nuzzled to his chest, comfortably leaning into the hug.

You started talking about the dream and he listened. A monster, you said, something big and deranged sneaking its way around to its victims. You rambled about the details, your descriptions a mess as you spoke in loose tangles.

Arthur slightly smiled at your stuttering, it made you even more adorable than you already were, though he didn't know it was even possible.

He would kill anyone who'd dare to touch you.

"'M the only scary thing 'round here 'm afraid," Arthur muttered, his chest rumbling under your head.

"As if," you retorted with your voice muffled, certainty in your disagreement.

It caught Arthur off guard a little and nervousness arose in him as he asked the following question. "You ain't scared of me?"

He knew if there was even an ounce of fear in you, it would've killed him.

You looked up at him, your eyes big and glossy. "I feel safe with you, Arthur."

His heart dropped and he looked into your eyes completely baffled, not grasping how such a sweet creature like you could say such a thing to him.

You felt safe with him.

You did.

He felt vulnerable under your gaze; not even heavens could make him feel so exposed. He was afraid you could read his thoughts with that pretty mind of yours as you held the eye contact, that you could recognize how much he was now melting and crumbling inside.

So much for being a tough hardened criminal.

He felt like a teenager again. The sweating hands, tingles in his stomach, it was all back.

Arthur tightened his embrace, cuddling you closer.

As he held you under the starry sky, your tiny arms wrapped around him, he was sure of one thing.

He could do many things. But staying away from you was not one of them.

[devourable]

☾ the monster

sfw | tws : teratophilia, yandere behavior/thoughts, kidnapping?

yandere monster x gn reader! only pronoun for reader used is 'you'

the last of my male yanderes from the poll,, finally <3 tysm to my friend for helping me w this :,) this one goes out to all my monster lovers out there (aka me). his name isn't used in this fic but hes named mykolas!

also!! after this fic i'll be going on a short hiatus! i have to work a lot this week and won't have time/energy to write or draw. but i will still respond to messages and will answer asks when i return (or during the down time i do have if i can). i'll see you all soon! <3

the beast was lonely. he always had been, and figured he always would be.

he learned long ago that he wasn't something that people cared for. every attempt to interact with civilization was met with fear and vitriol, harsh reminders that he wasn't allowed to enjoy the company of others. every strange happening, every fool that went missing, every incident that the townsfolk couldn't explain was always blamed on him.

even the sign outside of his forest said it ; "keep away! the beast of rochshire wood lurks!". no one would dare to step foot in his domain.

so the day he discovered you in his woods, things changed.

what were you doing there, he wondered? you looked so content, so unafraid to be in his forest as you traveled from bush to bush, picking berries and uprooting a few edible plants to tuck them away in the basket you were carrying. did you not see the signs? weren’t you afraid?

despite his questions about your presence there, something drew the beast to you. he didn't feel the urge to hide himself away like he usually would when a human stumbled into his home. you… he felt you were different. you must’ve been unlike the others if you could just come along so casually like this.

the foliage he stood in rustled as he slowly approached you. somehow, you didn’t notice or feel his eyes on you despite how intensely he was observing you and continued with your activities at first. it wasn't until a stick loudly snapped under his step thay your head snapped in his direction.

your eyes widened as you locked them with the glowing white gaze of the hulking beast before you. he was massive! so big that the large antlers atop his head brushed against the branches above him. and the pitch black fur that the... thing was covered in did nothing but make it almost seem like an amorphous mass of muscle. he was unlike anything you'd ever seen before.

you wanted to be scared. you wanted to scream and run away, get out of the forest and return to the safety of your home. the rumors, the signs — they were all true! they weren't a joke like you assumed! but despite your brain screaming at you to get out of there, you just didn't. you were frozen in place, unable to move or even react as the creature slowly leaned down to you and...

sniffed you?

the strange chuffing sound caught you off guard, baffling you out of your frozen state. you blinked a few times and realized — it was definitely sniffing you. and it pulled away right after, taking a step or two back.

the monster was so desperate to not look like a threat to you. you were so lovely, you seemed so sweet, and you smelled nice! he didn't want to scare you away! with a sort of chirping noise, he laid his head to the ground in a bid to show you that he was harmless.

curiosity got the better of you. possibly against your better judgement, you took a step toward the beast. he lifted his head slightly as you slowly pressed your hand to what you could only assume was the creature's forehead. and sure enough, this earned a small trill from him.

you couldn't help the small laugh falling from your lips, which promptly got his massive tail wagging. you weren't scared! you were touching him! and it wasn't to hurt him! his heart was pounding so much that he practically vibrated with excitement. he sat back — unintentionally startling you, but thankfully not driving you away.

you tilted your head, slowly, to the left. the creature did the same, its massive antlers brushing against the branches over its head. you tilted your head to the right, and it followed suit. you raised a hand and sheepishly waved to the creature, and to your surprise, it waved back!

that was all he need to fall completely head over heels for you.

you were oblivious to his adoration for you, but you definitely weren't hating your time with him. he wasn't nearly as bad as the village made him out to be! so you didn't notice the time flying by as the monster herded you deeper into the forest (away from the way out), guiding you to the bushes with the best berries and the biggest patches of edible foliage. he seemed so happy to have company, it was so easy to convince yourself to stay longer.

every time you tried to go into a direction he didn't want you going in, he'd pick you up and set you back down in the way he wanted you to go. and you let him. you didn't have very much of a choice in the matter, but it was okay! so what if the sun was starting to set? he was filling your basket — you wouldn't have to shop for days after this. and every time you made even the slightest suggestion of having to go, he gave you those big, glowing puppy eyes that you just couldn't disappoint.

just a few more minutes and you'd leave, you told yourself. you said it even after your basket and pockets were well beyond their capacity. you said it when the shadows started growing and the sky grew even darker. you said it until the moon was overhead, and the path out of the forest was too obscured for you to find it again...

when you looked at the beast again, he offered you his hand. and again, possibly against your better judgement, you took it.

it was dangerous to be alone in the forest, didn't you know? but there was nothing to worry about. the monster would make sure nothing — no one — took you from the safety of his presence.

you weren't safe anywhere that wasn't by his side.

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[saintsenara]

Why Harry being short and frail (or even petite and delicate) past puberty is such a popular take these days? Sure, he is not bulky, but don't we know from Voldemort himself that James was tall and don't we know that Harry was exactly the same height as James during the final battle? Don't we know that Harry works out 3 times a week and is generally athletic? Is it the same thing that is happening with fanon Sirius or is it something different? Is it because he was short as a child and grew up in a cupboard, thus unlikely to end up like he did at the end of the series? What do you think about it? How likely is it? I keep seeing it in many slash ships and I am genuinely baffled. Is it me who has it backwards? Please solve this mystery, dear Asenora!

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

i think several things are at play, tbh - some of which are more understandable than others.

the first is that daniel radcliffe genuinely is short [for a british man, at least] - his height is given online as 165cm [or 5'5], but looking at pictures of him leads me to suspect that's an exaggeration - and was, unsurprisingly, even shorter when he was a teenager. many of the other actors in the films are much, much taller than him - especially people like alan rickman and david thewlis, both of whom were over six foot - and since the films inevitably influence how people picture the characters physically, the height differences we see on screen end up becoming part of that.

the second is that, while harry is described as "tall" in canon, that term appears to be doing a fair amount of heavy-lifting. numerous male characters are described as taller than him in both half-blood prince and deathly hallows - with the example which always stands out to me being the fact that fred and george weasley are said to "shrink" when they polyjuice into harry before the seven potters chase. fred and george - like charlie - are described in canon as being noticeably shorter and stockier in build than bill, percy, and ron. unless ron et al. are so tall that it would be thought of as really unusual - let's say above 6'6/198cm - harry probably isn't over 6'0/182cm tall.

thirdly, it's worth saying that what is meant by "tall" is culturally contingent. i've said that daniel radcliffe is shorter than average for a british man - and that's true - but his height isn't going to be thought of in that way in different parts of the world. similarly, there are parts of the world where describing a man who was, say, 5'10/178cm as "tall" would be considered quite strange - but i don't think the uk [where the average male height in 1998 was just over 5'8/174cm] is one of them. certainly, i picture harry as around that height [allowing characters like ron, sirius, dumbledore, and voldemort - who are all described as such - to be noticeably taller than him, but not so tall that their height would be considered abnormal], and i don't think it precludes him still being thought of as "tall" within the context in which he lives. but an author from, for example, the netherlands - where the average male height is 6'0.5/183cm - would probably think differently.

[there's a point about cultural contingency in the quip he makes about being short because of the cupboard too: i would read that as a dark joke which he doesn't actually think has any truth behind it specifically when it comes to his height, but which nonetheless expresses that the dursleys abuse him generally and this abuse has had a long-term impact upon him; readers from other parts of the world take it more literally.]

and finally, harry is definitely physically fit and - of course - works out a lot as part of playing quidditch, but both he and james are emphasised in canon as having slender builds - and it's also implied in the text that seekers are generally slim. harry doesn't need to be seen as any less sporty if we presume that he has the physique of a distance runner or triathlete rather than that of a sprinter.

however, there are definitely some aspects to the tendency for harry to be written as short and slender which do bother me a fair amount - and i do think that these have something in common with what we see with fanon sirius.

that is, that harry and sirius aren't written as short and slender because the author wants them to just happen to be short and slender. they're written as short and slender because the author wants them to be passive. their height/build is emphasised in the story in order to hammer this home - and it's often accompanied by them being assigned other aspects of physical appearance, personality, dress, or manner [especially ones which might be considered as "effeminate"] which, once again, aren't intended to communicate anything other than this passivity.

and - of course - in the writing of vast amounts of slash, any indication of passivity, submissiveness, or femininity - and the physical traits which end up equated with them - is taken as an indication that the character in question would be an exclusive - and submissive - bottom, who defers to the whims of their partner, an exclusive - and dominant - top.

and - unsurprisingly - topping ends up being associated with masculinity - and the personality traits and physical characteristics - above all a tall, muscular build - which are equated with that.

frail!harry seems to be most prominent - in my experience - in ships like tomarrymort, not so much because people really care about the implications of harry's characterisation, but because they're hugely opposed to the suggestion that characters like tom riddle would ever bottom [since - of course - they associate the act of being penetrated with femininity and femininity with weakness...]. great lengths have to be gone to, then, to emphasise that voldemort - or whoever else - is powerful and proud and authoritative and masculine and tall. and, for some reason, this is apparently incompatible with the idea that he might also like to get railed... which means that harry has to make sure nobody is in any doubt about who's the woman bottom by becoming as teeny tiny as he possibly can...