#my first fully collected category

[jelreth]

life and death and love and birth and PEACE AND LOVE ON THE PLANET EARTH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ryin-silverfish]

A Guide to the Chinese Underworld (and what it isn't)

As many FSYY and fox posts as there were on my blog, I am actually a huge fan of the Chinese Underworld mythos. Mostly because I was once a morbid little kid that loved reading about the excavations of ancient tombs, and found the statues depicting hellish torture in the Haw Par Villa "super cool".

Apart from the aesthetics, the history of its evolution is also fascinating. Most of us, Chinese or not, only know the most popular version of the Underworld——the "Ten Kings" system, yet that isn't always the case. So today, I'll start off with a short summary of that.

In pre-Qin era, there was already this generic idea of a "Realm of the Dead" called the Yellow Spring, Youdu, or Youming, but we know very little about it.

Then, in the Han dynasty, two ideas start to emerge: 1) the Underworld is a bureaucracy, 2) the God of Mt. Tai ruled over the dead.

This early bureaucracy might not function as an agent of punishment; the main focus was on keeping the dead segregated from the living so they wouldn't bring diseases and misfortune to the latter, as well as using those ghosts to enforce collective punishments upon people for their lineage's wrongdoings while they were still alive.

Post-Han, after Buddhism entered China and took root, its idea of karmic punishments and reincarnation and the figure of King Yama was merged with folk and Daoist ideas of the Underworld bureaucracy, and, came Tang dynasty, resulted in the "Ten Kings" system that first appeared in Dunhuang manuscripts.

It was very rudimentary and far from well-established, as seen in Tang legends, with some adopting the Ten Kings system, some sticking to the Lord of Mt. Tai and some favoring King Yama, and overall little agreements on who's in charge of the Underworld.

But the "Ten Kings" system would become the mainstream version from then onwards, used in Ming vernacular novels and made even more popular by folk religion scrolls like the Jade Records (Yuli Baochao).

As such, most points in the following sections will be based on the fully matured "Ten Kings" system of the Underworld, as seen in the Jade Records and JTTW.

What happens when you die?

(This is a fictionalized walkthrough of the posthumous fate of souls under the "Ten Kings" system. I try to stick to the very broad progression outlined in the Jade Records, but many creative liberties are taken on the details.)

Let's say there's a guy named Xiao Ming, and he had just died of a heart attack. Bummers. What now?

Well, the first thing he saw would be the ghost cops.

There isn't really an unanimous agreement on who these ghost cops are: they may be a pair of ghosts in white and black robes, wearing tall hats (Heibai Wuchang), they may have the heads of farm animals (Ox-Head and Horse-Face), or they can just be generic ghost bureaucrats. For convenience's sake, let's say it was the first scenario.

"Who are you guys and where are you taking me?"

"Glad you asked!" The taller ghost cop, being the cheerful one of the pair, replied. It wasn't very reassuring, considering that his tongue was dangling out of his mouth way further than it should. "I'm the White Impermanence, my sour-looking colleague here is the Black Impermanence, and we are taking you to the City God's office."

This City God, a.k.a. Chenghuang, is just like how it sounds: the divine guardian of a city, who also pulls double duty as the head of the local Dead People Customs Office. They are usually virtuous officials deified posthumously, and in JTTW, they fall under the category of "Ghostly immortals", together with the Earth Gods a.k.a. Tudi.

So Xiao Ming went with the two ghost cops——not like he had much of a choice, made his way through the long queue at the City God's office, and was now standing in front of a gruff old magistrate in traditional robes.

"Name?"

"Wang Xiao Ming."

"Age and birth dates?"

"21, April 16 2003…"

After he was done asking questions, the City God flipped through his ledger, then picked up a brush, ticked off Xiao Ming's name, and told him to go get his pass in the next room. More waiting in a queue. Wonderful.

"I never heard anything about needing a pass to get to the Underworld," the girl in front of Xiao Ming asked the ghost cops, who were standing guard nearby. "Is this a new policy or something?"

"Yeah. In the old days, we'd just drag y'all straight to the Ghost Gate." The ghost cop in black said, then muttered to himself, "Fuckin' paperworks and overpopulation, man…"

(This "Dead People Passport" thing was popularized in the middle-to-late Ming dynasty, as shown by the discovery of such documents inside tombs in southern China. )

(It might have evolved from similar passes to the Western Pure Land in lay Buddhism that recorded their acts of merits. Which, in turn, might be traced back to the "Dead People Belongings List" of Han dynasty, to be shown to Underworld bureaucrats so that no one would take away the dead's private property down there or something.)

Anyways, after he received his pass, Xiao Ming departed together with the rest of the bunch, to be led to the Ghost Gate. It was like the world's most depressing tourist group, where instead of tour guides, you got two ghost cops in funny hats, and the only scenery in sight was the desolation of the Yellow Spring Road.

They weren't the only travellers on the road, though. Xiao Ming noticed other groups moving in the far distance, behind the fog and the flickering ghostfire, led by similar figures in black and white.

It made a lot of sense; realistically, there was no way two ghost cops could fetch hundreds of thousands of dead people all by themselves.

(SEA Tang-ki mediums believed there were multiple Tua Di Ya Peks——Hokkien name for the Black and White Impermanences, working for different Underworld Courts.)

At last, the Ghost Gate stood in front of Xiao Ming, guarded by two towering figures. Normally, they'd be Ox-Head and Horse-Face, like what you see at Haw Par Villa's Underworld entrance.

However, older Han dynasty works like Wang Chong's 论衡·订鬼 also mentioned two gods, Shenshu and Yulei, as guardians of the Ghost Gate, who would use reed ropes to capture malicious ghosts and feed them to tigers, making them possibly the earliest incarnation of "Gate Gods".

So here, they were what Xiao Ming sees, standing side by side like proper doormen, silently watching herds of ghosts being funneled through the entrance.

The place was more crowded than a train station during the CNY Spring Rush; the ghost cops had already said their quick goodbye and left to fetch the next group of dead people, leaving the resident officials of the Underworld proper to maintain order and quell any would-be riots.

Now you started seeing the Ox-Head and Horse-Face guys, poking at unruly ghosts with their pitchforks and dragging away the violent ones in chains. Among their ranks were other monstrous beings, blue-faced yakshas and imps, but also regular dead humans who look 100% done with their jobs, like the lady who stamped Xiao Ming's pass when it was finally his turn.

After this point, Xiao Ming had entered the Underworld proper, and his next destination would be the First Court, led by King Qin'guang. Here, his fate should be decided by what is revealed in the King's magical mirror.

If Xiao Ming was a good guy, or someone who had done an equal amount of good and bad things in life, he'd be sent straight to the Tenth Court for reincarnation. However, if the mirror, while replaying his life events, had displayed more evil deeds than good ones, he'd be sent to one of the 2nd-9th Courts for judgment and then punished inside the Eighteen Hells.

Each of the Ten Kings was also assisted by ghostly judges. Many of them were righteous and just officials in life who had been recruited into the Ten Courts posthumously——Cui Jue from JTTW is one such example, while others were living people working part-time for the Underworld, like how Wei Zheng, Taizong's minister, works part-time for the Celestial Bureaucracy in JTTW.

We decide to be nice to Xiao Ming, so, after reliving some embarrassing childhood incidents and cringy teenage phases in front of a bunch of dead bureaucrats, he was found innocent and sent to the Tenth Court.

The queue here was almost as long as the First Court's, stretching on and on alongside of the banks of the Nai River. King of the Turning Wheel made his judgment without even lifting his head when it was Xiao Ming's turn:

"Path of Humans, male, healthy in body and mind, ordinary family. Next!"

Exiting the Tenth Court building, Xiao Ming saw the Terrace of Forgetfulness, standing tall before six bridges, made of gold, silver, jade, stone, wood, and…some unidentified material. Before he could get a good look at them and the little dots moving across those bridges, he was hurried into the Terrace by the ghostly officials.

Now, both JTTW and the Jade Records mention multiple bridges across the Nai River. In the former, there is 3, and the latter, 6. The bridges made of precious materials are for people who will reincarnate into better lives, as the wealthy, the fortunate, and the divine, while the Naihe Bridge is either the common option or the terribad shitty option.

However, the Naihe Bridge proved to be so iconic, it became THE bridge you walk across to reincarnate in popular legends.

Anyways, back to Xiao Ming. He found himself standing in a giant soup kitchen of sorts, with an old lady at the counter, scooping soup out of her steaming pot and into one cup after another.

This is Mengpo, the amnesia soup granny; according to the Jade Records, she was born in the Western Han era, and a pious cultivator who thought of neither the past nor the future, only knowing that her surname was Meng.

Made into an Underworld god by the Jade Emperor, she cooks a soup of five flavors that will wipe the memory of the dead, making sure they do not remember any of their past lives once they reincarnate.

It tastes awful. Like what you get after pouring corn syrup, coffee, chilli sauce, lemon juice and seawater into the same cup.

Such was Xiao Ming's last thought, as he gulped down the soup, and then he knew no more.

Things you should know about the Chinese Underworld:

1. It's not the Christian Hell.

Rather, the Chinese Underworld functions somewhat like the Purgatory, in that there are a lot of torment, but the torment's not eternal, however long the duration may be. Once you finish your sentence, you get reincarnated as something else, though that "something else" is not a guaranteed good birth.

Other people can also speed up the process via transferring of merits: hiring a priest/monk to chant sutras and perform rituals, for example, or performing good deeds in life in dedication to the dead, or they can pray to a Daoist/Buddhist deity to save their loved ones from a dreadful fate.

Interestingly enough, a thesis paper I read mentions that, whereas Buddhist salvation from the Hells was based on transference of merits——you give monks offerings and pay them to chant sutras, so they can cancel out the sinners' bad karma with good ones, Daoist ideas of salvation tend to involve the priest going down there, sorting it out with the Underworld officials, and taking the dead out of the Hells themselves.

(The paper also stops at the Northern-Southern and Tang dynasties, so the above is likely period-specific.)

2. Nor is it run by evil demons.

Underworld officials are not nice guys and look pretty monstrous and torture the sinful dead, but they are not the embodiment of evil. Rather, the faction as a whole is what I'd call Lawful Neutral, who function on this "An Eye for An Eye" logic, where every harm the sinner caused in life must be returned to them, in order for their karmic debts to be cleansed and move on to their next life.

They can absolutely be corrupt and incompetent and take bribes——Tang dynasty Zhiguai tales and Qing folklore compendiums featured plenty of such cases, but that's a very mundane and human kind of evil, not a cosmic/innate one.

This is just my personal opinion, but if you want to do an "evil" Chinese Underworld? It should be a very bureaucratic evil, whose leaders are bootlickers to the higher-ups, slavedrivers to their rank-and-file workers, and bullies who abuse their power over regular dead people.

Not, y'know, Satan and his infernal legions or conspiring Cthulu cultists.

3. The Ten Kings are not Hades.

Make no mistake, they still have a lot of power over your average dead mortal. But in the grand scheme of things? They are the backwater department of the pantheon, who only show up in JTTW to get pushed around and revive the occasional dead people.

When Taizong made his trip to the Underworld, the Ten Kings greeted him as equals——kings of ghosts to the king of the living. If they see themselves as equal in status to a mortal emperor, then, like any mortal emperors, they are subordinate to the Celestial Host, and the balance of power is not even remotely equal or in their favor.

Also, it isn't said outright, but under the Zhong-Lv classification of immortals JTTW is using, Underworld officials will likely be considered Ghostly immortals, the lowest and weakest of the five types, much like Tudis and Chenghuangs.

Essentially: they are ghosts that are powerful enough to not reincarnate and linger on and on, spirits of pure Yin as opposed to true immortals, who are beings of pure Yang.

It's pretty much the shittiest form of immortality, the result you get when you try to speedrun cultivation (the Zhong-Lv text also made a dig at Buddhist meditation here), and if they don't reincarnate or regain a physical body, there is no chance of progressing any further.

Oh, and fun fact? In the Song dynasty, commoners and literati elites alike believed that virtuous officials in life would get appointed as ghostly officials in death.

However, the latter viewed it as a punishment. Which was strange, considering how they still held the same position and the same amount of authority, just over dead people instead of living ones, so there should be no big losses, right?

Well...it was precisely the "dead people" part that made it a punishment. See, a lot of the power and prestige they had as officials came from the benefits they could bring to their families and kins and native places, as well as the potential wealth and reputation bonuses for themselves.

A job in the Dead People Supreme Court would give them the same workload, but with none of those benefits. Since all the dead people had to reincarnate eventually, they couldn't have a fixed group as their power base, or keep their old familial ties and connections. At most, they could help out an occasional dead relative or two.

Like, working for the Underworld Courts was the kind of deadend (no pun intended) job not even living officials wanted for themselves in the afterlife. That's how hilariously sad and pathetic they are.

4. In JTTW at least, they aren't even the highest authorities of the Underworld.

That would be Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, who is technically their boss, though he seems to be more of a spiritual leader than someone who is actually involved in running the bureaucracy.

Which makes sense, since he has sworn an oath to not attain Buddhahood until all Hells are empty, and his role is to offer relief and salvation to the suffering souls, not judging and punishing them.

Now, historically...even though Ksitigarbha in early Tang legends was still the savior of the dead, he seemed to be unable to interfere with the judicial process of the Underworld, merely showing up to take people away before they were judged by King Yama.

However, in the mid-Tang apocryphal "Sutra of Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha" (地藏菩萨经), he had evolved into the equal of King Yama, with the power of supervision over his judgements. By the time the Scripture on the Ten Kings came out, in artistic depictions, the Ten Kings had become fully subservient to him.

5. Diyu usually refers to the prison-torture chamber part, not the courthouse, nor is it the entirety of the Underworld.

And for the majority of souls that haven't committed crimes, they'll only see the courthouse part before they are sent to reincarnation. That's why I personally don't like, or use the name Diyu for the Chinese Underworld: I prefer the term Difu ("Earth Mansions"), which encompasses the whole realm better.

Also: even though historical sources like the Scripture on the Ten Kings and Jade Records seem to suggest that the dead were just funneled through this Courthouse-Prison-Reincarnation pipeline with no breaks in between, in practice, that isn't the case.

According to popular folk beliefs, after the dead were done with their trials/sentences, they stayed in the Underworld for a period of time and led regular lives, while functioning as ancestor spirits and receiving offerings.

Which would imply that the Underworld had a civilian district of sorts, populated by regular ghosts, making the whole realm even less of a direct Hell/Purgatory equivalent.

6. It is located in a different realm, but still part of the Six Paths and doesn't exist outside of reality.

In Buddhist cosmology, like the Celestial Realm, the Underworld is part of the Realm of Desires and thus subject to all the woes of samsara.

The pain and misery of the Path of Hell may be the worst and most obvious, but becoming a celestial being isn't the goal of serious Buddhists either: despite all the pleasures and near-infinite lifespan they enjoy, they are not free from samsara and will eventually have to reincarnate.

So if, say, the world is being destroyed at the end of a kalpa, all beings of the Six Paths will perish alongside it, leaving behind a clean slate for the cycle to start anew. The dead won't all end up in the Underworld and face eternal damnation.

7. The Black and White Impermanences would not appear in the Underworld pantheon formally until the Qing dynasty.

The concept that when you die, you get fetched to the Underworld by petty ghost bureaucrats is already well-established in Tang legends, but these were just generic ghost bureaucrats in all sorts of colorful official robes, with yellow being the most common color.

The idea of there being two specific psychopomps in black and white would only become popular in the Qing dynasty. Mengpo is kinda similar: although she existed before the Ming-Qing era as a goddess of wind, venerated by boatmen, her "amnesia soup granny" incarnation came from the Jade Records.

[mcytblraufest]

MCYTBLR AU Fest: General Rules and FAQ

TIMELINE: 

May 4: Discord opens at 0:00, Artist creation starts. May 30-31: Artists with a finished piece of Art can sign up, submitting their work for claims. May 31: Artist creation period ends at midnight. June 2-4: Writers can claim art and be assigned to Teams. June 6-7: Writers who wish to be assigned a Beta Reader can sign up (this is optional) June 9-10: Beta Writers can claim writers/art and be assigned to Teams June 29-30: Check-in #1 July 13-14: Check-in #2 July 26: Writer creation period ends at midnight. Unless you have an extension, you must be fully ready to post at this point. July 27: Posting period begins at 0:00 August 2: Extension period ends. Unless you are a pinch hitter, you must be fully ready to post at this point. August 9: Posting Period ends. All work must be completely posted by midnight.

ABOUT:

MCYTBLR AU Fest is a mini reverse-big-bang event where artists and writers work together in teams to make stories and art inspired by MCYT and set in an Alternate Universe.

EXPECTATION: 

Artists must make a completed Art piece. Writers must deliver a story of at least 5k words, inspired by the art they signed up for. Dark or triggering topics or themes must be tagged for.

RULES:

You must be a member of the discord, for team matching.

Because of Tumblr, Ao3 and Discord TOS, you must be 13 to participate.

Respect your fellow participants, even when you disagree on fandom matters

You agree to work together with your teammate(s) to make a piece of art and a fic together, and link to each other's works.

All works must be MCYT-centric and set in an AU— no canon-compliance. 

No AI-Generated content.

LINKS:

Discord: Here Ao3 Collection: Here

FAQ:

What is MCYTBLR AU Fest? MCYTBLR AU Fest is a reverse minibang-type event where writers and artists come together to create fanworks centred on MCYT and set in an alternate universe from canon.

How does it work? Artists will have a month to complete an art piece. After a month, once the art is complete, they will submit the art, with information about server, characters, relationships, and any warnings they are opting into, which will be posted anonymously for writers to view and claim, first-come-first-serve. Teams are assigned by mods, and then writers will have two months of creation time to make a pice inspired by the work (minimum 5k words).

What type of MCYT is included? We welcome creations based on any SMP, whether or not they have a canon tag on Ao3. Mianite, DSMP, QSMP, Hermitcraft, 3rd Life, Lifesteal, Witchcraft SMP— it’s all welcome. 

Can I join if my Art is a Game/Web Weave? We welcome all types of art— web weave, game, traditional art, original songs, videos, etc. While the list is not exhaustive, we have outlined some of the baseline expectations for an art piece below.

What are the requirements for art? It is difficult to define precise expectations for art pieces, especially given the broad realm of things that could count as art. We are primarily looking for art that is complete to a level that you would normally post as "finished", ready to inspire a fic piece of 5k or more, containing an audio or visual component beyond the confines of the written word, that does not take more than an hour to consume. While you will have the opportunity to include your understanding of the world in things such as if the relationships depicted are romantic or not, the art piece must stand alone without explanatory text or extra worldbuilding.

The defined requirements for different forms of art are:

Digital or Traditional art: one piece, completed to whatever you would normally post as "finished", ready to inspire a fanfic.

Web Weaves: a web weave of at least ten elements, original or properly credited.

Video/animatic: a video at least 30 seconds long.

Other Art Form: other art forms such as fan games or original songs would fall under this category. If you wanted to sign up with an Other art form, you need to contact the mod team and work out what minimum expectations would be for your art.

Is shipping allowed? Yes. Because there is no broad fandom-wide consensus about how Creator boundaries are to be enforced in specific cases (whether it's okay to write beeduo as /r or /p is an obvious one, or whether it’s permitted to ship Joel Smallishbeans) or between specific fandoms (Lifesteal approach to shipping and boundaries is different from HBG is different from DSMP), the mods will not be policing any specific understanding of boundaries across the event. The event's motivating ethos is Don't Like Don't Read, in that artists will be able to specify for themselves if a given relationship is to be interpreted as romantic or platonic, and writers will choose to opt into that, and NSFW will have to be specifically opted into on both sides.

Is NSFW allowed? Yes. NSFW works are allowed, but must be opted into, both in terms of viewing art and in terms of creating fic. No one under 18 is permitted to opt into NSFW and attempts to do so will be grounds for a ban from this event and anywhere else the mod team touches. For the comfort of the greatest number of participants, and to conform with Tumblr TOS, anything with the tags Underage or Incest will not be permitted to be part of the event. 

Are major archive warnings (noncon/graphic depictions of violence/MCD) allowed? Aside from the content rules governing NSFW (no underage or incest, for the comfort of the greatest number of participants), major archive warnings are allowed. Depictions of real life horrors such as genocide and slavery are not-uncommon motifs in MCYT fics, and the mod team is not interested in legislating which types of horrors, griefs or abuses are inherently worse than others and are therefore off-limits. Because holding writing to a quality standard or saying only survivors can write atrocities is unworkable from a moderation standpoint, the three mentioned major archive warnings (MCD, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Noncon), are permitted to be included.

However, Major Archive Warnings must be explicitly opted into by the artist, and writers are free to not include Major Archive Warnings that their artist has permitted. Delivering un-asked for major archive warnings is grounds for a ban from this event. The mod team reserves the right to warn other mod teams on both the MCYT and Multi-fandom side about your bad behaviour.

What kind of an information will I provide as an Artist? How long or detailed? Artists will be able to specify

the server their art takes place on

the characters in the work

whether the relationships in the work are romantic, platonic, or could be interpreted either way

if they are okay with NSFW work

what age group of people they are okay working with

the type of AU it is

any content warnings present in the work already (i.e. gore, eyestrain, child death)

if the work is nsfw

any major archive warnings they are okay with happening in the story

common fandom themes and/or triggering content that they are okay with happening in the story.

A DNW

What sort of fandom themes will I specify? While this will not be an exhaustive list of every possible triggering concept, the mods want artists to be able to specify if they are okay with dynamics that circulate in the fandom that may be triggering or people simply may have strong opinions on, and for writers to be able to sort by that. Some of the themes include domestic abuse, alcoholism, family dynamics, pregnancy, dubcon, torture, body horror, dehumanization, child death, non-consensual touching, drugging, etc.

What is a DNW?

Artists will have the opportunity to fill out a DNW, which stands for Do Not Want. This is anything that has the potential to ruin a fic for you, and is where you opt out of content that would trigger, squick, or just render the gift unreadable for you. DNWs must be phrased politely, (so no "No foster aus because they suck and you suck if you like them"), and they must be reasonable, (so no "no blood/injury" if the art depicted shows injury, and no attempting to box someone into a specific gift beyond what is depicted in the art, so no "dnw anything that isn't a modern au where scar is a theatre teacher and grian is a biology teacher and they live in a city named hermitopia and grian has a situationship with mumbo and scarian has a rivalry at a coffee shop for the half-price muffins and jellie has psychic powers she's manipulating the muffin market with" if that is not clear from the art), and they must be specific and clear, (so no “no triggering content"), but they can be as petty (disliking 1st person) or as broad-reaching (no modern aus, no specific ships not depicted, no crossovers with specific servers or fics) as you like. Deliberately breaking someone's DNW is grounds for a ban from the exchange. 

Is Dark/Violent content allowed? As long as it is something that the artist has not opted out of, yes. For many of us, the source material that originally drew us to the fandom includes major character death, torture, murder-for-hire, death games, public executions, child death and more. The fanfiction that arose from the source material follows in that trend. We will allow dark content to be part of the event, but it must be tagged for. 

We also ask that participants use best judgement in delivering commonly triggering topics un-asked for. We reserve the right to ban people at mod's discretion for delivering unrequested triggering content, under the "do not be an asshole" rule.

Moreover, if your fic is rated E for any reason, (including violence or gore) your entire team must be 18+.

How can I get involved? You can participate in this event as a:

Author

Artist

Pinch Hitter

Beta Reader

You can even sign up for multiple roles, as long as you’re very sure you can make your deadlines!

What is a Pinch Hitter? A pinch hitter is a person who saves the day and steps in when the original creator is unable to deliver their work for whatever reason, making a new work on an accelerated timeline. You must reach the minimum word count of 5k. . 

When do I have to join the discord? You have the option to join the dicord and hang out as soon as creation starts on May 4, and if you are an artist, you must join before sign-ups close on May 31. If you are a writer, you must join the discord before claims begin on June 1st. If you are a Beta Reader, we'd ask that you join before claims begin on June 9th.

How does team assignment/claims work? We will release a document with all the art pieces linked in it, and 24 hours afterwards we will release a sign-up form. Writers will be expected to list out out a top-five of artists they want to work with, and mods will match writers with art on a first-come-first-served basis.

How does Beta Reader assignment work? Shortly after writer sign-ups end, writers who wish to sign up for Beta Readers will be able to do so. In a similar way to how writers claimed art, beta readers will be given a list of summaries and then, 24 hours later, will be able to submit a short list of fics they want to help work on. Beta readers will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.

What happens if there are more artists than authors, or more authors than artists? If there are more writers, some artists will be assigned multiple writers. If there are more artists, we will put in place a question where writers can specify that they’d be willing to make multiple pieces, and a (hopefully small) number of writers would be assigned multiple teams. 

What if all the artists I list have already been assigned? If every artist you wish to opt into has already been assigned, mods will contact you and ask if you wish to be matched to people who have not yet been claimed. You will then be able to choose if you wish to claim other teams, or wait and hope that there will be more writers than artists, and multiple writers on a team will be opened up. If that happens, you can re-submit your list and be assigned as a writer to one of your original artists.

I’m in [insert time zone here]. What if I’m not awake when claims open? There will be a spot to input your time zone in the discord. Mods will try to open the claims at a time that works for as many writers as possible. The art pieces will also be available for 24 hours before claims so that everyone can view them and pick out the ones that are the most interesting to them. We will aim for claims to open between 7 a.m. and 1 a.m. for as many writers as possible across all time zones. If claims fall outside that zone for you, you’ll be able to contact a mod and we’ll work out an alternative method for claims for you. 

I don’t know what time zone I’m in? Go to timeanddate.com and enter the nearest major city, and it will tell you your current time zone.

What’s a check-in and how do they work? Check-ins are there to make sure everyone is on track to finish their piece in time, and to communicate any issues with the mods! If you know that you won’t be able to check in on a specific date (lack of internet, etc), please contact the mods in advance.

How long should my fic be? The minimum word count is 5,000 words! There is no maximum word count, but we ask you to be mindful of how much you can actually create in these two months. 

If I wrote a multi-chapter work, do I have to have it all posted by the end of Posting Period? You must post your work in its entirety by the end of the two-week posting period.

What does AU mean in this context? AU stands for Alternate Universe and in this case means anything that would make the work not able to be tagged as canon compliant. Alternate endings, role reversals, complete setting or plot swaps, and crossovers all count. As this is a fest specifically to celebrate AUs, we ask that the AU be a significant and celebrated part of the work, not something that could be skipped if you aren’t paying attention. 

Can I create two fics for my artist? Absolutely! There is no maximum for number of fics you want to create, but again, be mindful of not biting off more than you can chew two months of creation time.  Can I post just the first chapter of a longer fic/Can I use AI to help me with my piece? All fics must be complete (no missing chapters or truncated scenes) and created specifically for this event, inspired by the art claimed at the beginning of the creation period. Writers and Artists must create their work themself. Works may not be wholly or partially created by generative text or art programs (so-called "AI") such as chatGPT or OpenArt.ai. Works may not be wholly or partially duplicated from other works, and may not contain substantial repeated material included in an effort to boost word count (such as paragraphs or comics panels that are copied with minor variations).

Can I sign up with two pieces of art? You are welcome to sign up as part of the fest with multiple art pieces. However, if you do so, we will ask that you prioritize which art piece you want to be matched on first, and you will only receive a match to your secondary art piece after everyone else has an writer. We’re going to proritize every particpant getting a team before we prioritize every art piece getting a team.

Can I sign up with a multi-piece art piece? If you want to sign up with a web weave that features multiple panels, a long video, a long comic, a series of connected art pieces, a song cycle, or any other more complex/more ornate work, you are welcome to. We just ask that you make sure you can complete your art piece during the month of artist creation time, and keep in mind that if your piece is sufficiently complex, that might restrict the writers who are able to sign up for your piece. But if you think you can pull it off, then go for it.

Can I sign up with a writing buddy— as part of a collab team? You are welcome to sign up as a collaborative team, either an art team or a writing team! We ask that you make sure you work together well, and when you sign up for an team, you must declare that you’re a duo, so people know that they’ll be getting multiple team members and not one. 

Can I submit an art piece that is part of a larger AU? All art pieces must stand alone, so you can't have it that your writer has to consider other art pieces to make a work. The art must also be made specifically for the event. We ask that you not submit an art piece that was made prior to the event, or one that is part of an au you've posted about so often that it will effectively de-anon you. Brainstorming or sketching early is fine.

Once my art piece is done, when can I post it? Art and fic should be posted together, during the Posting Period at the beginning of August. Once you have your art done, you'll have to hold onto it for another two months, while your writer is working.

What if I need to drop out? It is your responsibility to communicate with us if you need to drop out of the event for any reason, and we do need that communication. We know that life is no respecter of fic and art deadlines, so no hard feelings if something happens. However, we would hate for any artist to end up having no fic for their art, so please think about this if you are thinking of dropping out close to reveals. Dropping out after the last check-in without informing the mods will result in not being permitted to take part in further events run by this mod team.

I have a question not answered here? Send us an ask on tumblr, contact @antimony-medusa on tumblr or discord!

[ameriko-steelie]

Mechtasims - 4t3 Back to School Set

*updated to include wonderful previews by @sideshowsnob!

Happy Simblrween 2023! And whew, my first OBJECT set! I've worked really hard on this set, and now my right hand is very, very exhausted after typing and clicking and constantly opening TSRW...

I have worked REALLY hard making some of these functional and fully recolorable whenever possible! All credits go to Mechtasims! Further info is in a text file in the .zip file! A collection file has also been provided!

In short:

There are 19 items (20 including a duplicate of the trunk that uses a different script),

EVERYTHING except the wall calendar, the textbook, and posters are fully recolorable (but the posters have the pin recolorable)

The bed is functional! I repeat, THE BED IS FUNCTIONAL! It has some clipping issues with the pillows while relaxing, and the blanket when a bigger or male Sim gets out of the bed, but it's minor and still functional!

The bedframe is separated because I didn't want to remap everything,

The minifridge acts as a regular, base game fridge akin to the Hydra boba minifridge or the Mini-Freeze on MTS, rather than the University Life minifridge that only gives snacks.

Both the phone and the clock are functional as alarm clocks, and the heart wall light is also functional.

The trunk, as seen by the bedframe, is functional as a storage chest. It's stackable!

The wall items are moveable up and down with: ; and '

The .zip has all the info on polycount and categories. I have also adjusted slots for these objects!

There are two different trunks in the .zip file; both function as a storage chest, but the one labeled "Portable_LorenRose13Mod" at the end requires the "ATS3_object_chestlike_fisherbasket.package" file from here, where there is further information. Basically, you'll be able to put the modded chest in your Sim's inventory, unlike the regular version! Technically, you can have both trunks in your game, but there's really no point.

Some of these objects come with different texture overlays (but the rest of the mesh is recolorable). See below the cut for all the masks and combinations!

Download - SFS

or

Download - Simblr.CC

I'm using Red-Green-Blue-Yellow for Channel 1-2-3-4 respectively.

(the legs are still recolorable on all of these, I just got tired of putting the green)

The third channel also recolors the interior part!

There are additional swatches that change the hue of the phone screen!

[covid-safer-hotties]

What would an adequate COVID response look like? - Sept 05, 2024

By: Julia Doubleday

Ok, COVID is a problem. What can we do about it anyway?

The problem is stark: we have unmitigated transmission of a deadly and disabling virus, in all public spaces, with zero plan to bring it under control.

We’re seeing millions of infections in each wave, and multiple waves a year; an unsustainable health burden on an already strained healthcare system.

We’ve got a student absence crisis, record worker sick days, rapidly rising disability, and the expulsion of high-risk people from public spaces.

And unfortunately, we have a public that is largely uneducated about and unaware of the problem, thanks to the tireless efforts of our political leaders and corporate media outlets who pushed for a “new normal” of forever COVID reinfections.

The first hurdle is making people aware of the problem. But beyond that, a second hurdle; often, once the risks of recurrent COVID infections are conveyed, the next objection is: but what can we do about it anyway? Surely you don’t want a permanent forever lockdown?

Well, I don’t. So what, in my wildest dreams, would competent public health bodies be doing to mitigate transmission of COVID, even years into a botched response with millions of people negatively polarized against collective measures?

Start from the top: acknowledge that COVID is airborne. Loudly.

Educate the public about airborne mitigation measures and model them.

On April 30, 2021, the WHO officially acknowledged that SARS-COV-2 is a fully airborne virus. They did so quietly, without fanfare, on their website, without a well-publicized apology for the year they spent loudly claiming otherwise.

The embarrassment of this early mistake- costly and deadly as it was- has doubtless played a role in the subsequent inadequacy of communications around SARS-COV-2’s actual mode of transmission.

Droplet measures like surgical masks and social distancing were inadequate to prevent the transmission of COVID; both can reduce, but not eliminate, risk. Has the public been made aware of this? Have medical practitioners?

Official communications from representatives of the WHO and CDC tend to avoid mention of high-quality respirator masks entirely, if masks are mentioned at all. The importance of ventilation and filtration have never been properly explained to the public, certainly not by our politicians who continue to do nothing but repeat their treasured talking point, “COVID no longer controls our lives” while a thousand Americans lose those very lives to the virus each week.

In public, operatives from public health bodies do not mask, nor speak about airborne disease mitigation. Politicians certainly do not mask, even elected officials who quite clearly fall into high-risk categories, belying their claim that people are simply adopting the libertarian “personal risk assessment” approach to COVID. This refusal to mask, no matter the case numbers, no matter the risk factors, is a political choice designed to encourage the public to accept a lack of airborne disease mitigation. It pushes people to believe the virus is harmless, even as scientific research fails to support this claim, and while the CDC puts out conflicting guidance that large swathes of the public are high-risk.

Refusal to directly communicate 1) how COVID spreads 2) that it can be avoided 3) how it can be avoided while modeling mitigation, makes pandemic communications much more difficult for vulnerable people, activists and marginalized groups attempting to reduce disease burden in their communities. We should not be swimming against the current of public health officials’ poor pandemic hygiene.

Mandate airborne infection control in all healthcare settings

Of course, COVID is an international problem, and it’s critical that measures like indoor clean air and airborne infection control in healthcare are implemented globally. WHO has no legal authority to issue such a mandate; it can do little more than make recommendations. However, those recommendations have power, and as of now, it has failed to make them. Recommendations from WHO often form the basis of directives from regulatory bodies like the CDC.

The decision to claim that SARS-COV-2 was not airborne was politically motivated. There was no data to support this claim, only decades of bad physics in medicine and very strong financial and legal incentives to assume that COVID was not spreading through the air. It all comes down to the cost of rethinking medical care entirely, with an eye to airborne infection control.

I already wrote about the WHO’s recent attempt to both acknowledge COVID’s airborne nature while walking back their early-pandemic claims that, were COVID airborne, of course they would recommend proper airborne infection control measures.

Specifically, WHO Health Operations, Infection Prevention and Control Technical Team wrote in an April 2020 email to a group advocating for airborne precautions:

"Would there be evidence of significant spread of SARS-CoV-2 as an airborne pathogen outside of the context of AGPs [aerosol generating procedures], WHO would immediately revise its guidance and extend the recommendation of airborne precautions accordingly"

Well, COVID is airborne, and they have not immediately revised their guidance.

This continues to cost the lives of hospitalized vulnerable people every day.

It also contributes to public confusion about how COVID transmits, including among healthcare workers. Doctors and nurses are well aware that there is no airborne infection control in medical settings; their personal justifications tend to be either “because COVID must be mild” or “because COVID can’t spread that way.”

This is an understandable psychological response to watching their employers- hospitals and medical facilities- fail to implement measures to control the spread of airborne disease in a hospital. Either COVID must not be spreading that way, or COVID must be no big deal.

Education and mitigation practices coming from the top will speed the process of normalizing disease control and bringing down cases at an institutional level.

Like seeing public health officials masked, seeing doctors and nurses masked in hospitals with well-fitting respirators will also help educate the public about how SARS-COV-2 spreads, and confirm that indeed, COVID is still with us.

While there is no previous legal framework for patients to rely on, what medical institutions are doing is highly immoral if not explicitly illegal. They are failing to even attempt to provide proper infection control in hospitals.

Public health bodies should properly educate medical professionals about airborne infection control and mandate upgrades to hospital infrastructure that accommodate the existence of SARS-COV-2. Set the expectation that healthcare settings will be held responsible for healthcare acquired infections.

Legal and financial consequences for healthcare acquired infections

Currently in the US, many HAIs have to be reported to the CDC; that COVID does not, is a choice based on the reality that they are allowing it to spread freely.

From the CDC website on Healthcare Acquired Infections and the 2022 HAI Progress Report:

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is committed to protecting patients and healthcare personnel from adverse healthcare events and promoting safety, quality, and value in healthcare delivery. Preventing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) is a top priority for CDC and its partners in public health and healthcare….The 2022 National and State HAI Progress Report provides data on central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs), catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs), ventilator-associated events (VAEs), surgical site infections (SSIs), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bloodstream events, and Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) events."

The CDC itself states that preventing HAIs is a top priority, and it collects reems of data around other, more easily controlled infections. HICPAC, the CDC advisory body that recommends infection control measures has repeatedly come under fire from activists over the past several years as they attempt to shove through a new set of recommendations that incorrectly equates N-95 respirator protection with surgical masks and otherwise ignores airborne transmission of viruses.

HICPAC’s strategy for dealing with the entirely new paradigm uncovered by engineers and aerosol experts in 2021- because, bear in mind, the work of scientists like Linsey Marr showed that no viruses are spreading via “droplet” alone, the way scientists formerly conceptualized their transmission- is utter denial.

It would be too disruptive to decades of infection control norms to acknowledge that SARS-COV-2 came in like a wrecking ball to previous guidance; thus, HICPAC members are pretending they’ve never even heard of COVID. Watching their public facing meetings is bizarre; hours of academic debates where the pandemic isn’t mentioned, followed by 45 minutes of activists explaining that they are unable to access medical care, or that their loved ones caught COVID in the hospital and died. HICPAC members remain utterly stone-faced throughout these sessions and fail to acknowledge the comments at their next session.

Currently, Medicare has a program that reduces funding to hospitals with higher rates of acquired infections; COVID is not one of those targeted. Change this and watch how quickly hospital management goes from not understanding, to indeed understanding, airborne infection control. This is all a matter of financial incentives to hospital management, and those incentives must change.

Since 2020, incentives have stubbornly pushed healthcare institutions to ignore COVID to save the money it would cost to dramatically reimagine healthcare with top-to-bottom airborne infection control. How do you properly segregate COVID+ patients? When do you test them? How often do you test staff? Do you send COVID+ staff home? (Yes, you should, but currently the hospital saves money by not doing this).

We need to pivot from the early pandemic model of mandating individual behaviors (masks, distancing) to mandating outcomes (lack of viral spread in public spaces). That doesn’t mean a public space can never mandate masks, it means that masks must be part of a coherent strategy to prevent infections; this should also eliminate irrational mask rules (mask only before you sit down) and incentivize mask hygiene, education, and distribution. If a hospital loses money because of hospital acquired COVID, it is not merely incentivized to mandate masks. It is incentivized to mandate proper respirator masks, educate staff as to proper mask wearing, fit test masks, properly ventilate and filtrate, ensure that masks aren’t being worn on chins, test staff and patients, send sick staff home, ensure that meals can be eaten in a COVID-free, low-CO2 area, etc.

Legal and financial consequences for infections acquired in congregate settings, prisons, workplaces and schools

Continuing this theme; there is nothing particularly radical about the idea of legal repercussions for infectious disease via negligence in a workplace, school or congregate setting.

You can sue your workplace for infecting you with a foodborne illness if it was not following proper public health regulations. You can sue a school that doesn’t get your kid his epi pen in a timely manner. You could sue a retirement home with cholera in the water.

Therefore, world governments need to set indoor clear air standards, as well as assign culpability for the containment of outbreaks to employers, schools, prisons, etc., with government money available for infrastructure upgrades and a timeline for their achievement. If disease transmission occurs because indoor CO2 is high, because air filters weren’t turned on, because sick people were forced to work, that should be legally actionable the way dirty water and poorly handled food is.

All institutions- schools, workplaces, retirement homes, prisons- must have not only baseline protections like clean air, but outbreak plans. What happens in the event of a positive case? How is that handled, how is spread prevented? Government money, guidance and resources must be available to ease the development of this process.

Before Biden was elected, he promised to implement a new OSHA standard to protect workers from COVID infections. On January 21, 2021, the day after his Inauguration, he issued an Executive Order asking OSHA for revised guidance to protect workers from COVID-19. What resulted was both grossly inadequate and temporary. In June of 2021, OSHA issued an ETS - Emergency Temporary Standard- for healthcare workers only. It included guidance about social distancing, AGPs, solid barriers, and surface disinfection, though it was issued over a month after the WHO updated its website to affirm that COVID was not droplet spread.

It did, however, contain good guidance including screening for healthcare workers, sending positive workers home, reference to respirator masks, reference to HVAC and MERV-13 filters, but it has since expired. In the years since, OSHA has dragged its feet as workers’ groups like the National Nurses Union (NNU) lobbies for protections and industry groups like the American Hospital Association (AHA) lobby against them. If “COVID is here to stay” and “we have to learn to live with COVID”, why would worker protections from infection be temporary?

On the whole, workers were forced back into COVID-riddled workplaces with no new protections. A new OSHA standard should acknowledge the threat of airborne disease, make use of the many technological solutions for mitigating airborne disease, and outline the responsibilities of employers to both utilize available technologies, promote mitigation, and send sick workers home.

Comprehensive indoor clean air laws with specifications for upgraded ventilation, filtration, and other tools like Far UVC

I’ve already written about this in detail. The CDC has decent guidance, updated in May of 2023, about ventilation and filtration, here. However, none of this is enforceable without new legislation, nor does our current infrastructure meet these standards.

Ventilation norms and requirements must be overhauled. Currently, hotels and schools often have windows sealed shut; this is inappropriate for disease control and leads to dangerous levels of CO2 accumulation. All public buildings must be able to guarantee air changes per hour (ACH) deemed appropriate by aerosol experts, keeping CO2 as low as possible. Only MERV-13 or higher (HEPA filtration) effectively filters airborne virus from the air, so these must be standard.

I have only the basic knowledge of a layman; to learn more, you can check out this roadmap for national IAQ standards written by dozens of experts and published in Science.

Far UVC is another promising tool, and engineers should be consulted as to the appropriateness of implementing it in public spaces, particularly in schools, airports, hospitals, and crowded venues.

Work from home should be encouraged, conferences should be virtual where possible, flights should be tested.

Unwinding WFH in the midst of wave after wave of COVID was anti-science and self-defeating. Increasing the severity of waves and worsening spread in the community creates less productivity and more worker absence. Additionally, lessening the environmental impact of commuting and converting commercial real estate to residential should be priorities.

Governments, instead of pushing people back into the office, should be pushing in the opposite direction, for a sustainable approach to long-term remote work. This lessens community spread, environmental pollution, and local traffic, while creating more accessible jobs. Conferences should always have virtual options if they can’t be fully virtual. The carbon footprint of professional conferences is something I do think about a lot, but I digress.

Relatedly, yes, I believe people should have a negative PCR to fly. You do not have the right to get in a tube with a bunch of other people while positive for COVID, period. People need paperwork to fly. They need an ID to fly. They need a passport to fly internationally. It is expensive to fly. There should be on site, cheap, fast PCR or PCR-accurate testing at the airport, and you should need the negative to fly, like you need your ID and ticket. PlusLife tests are 5 Euros.

I had to PCR test to board flights to Mexico, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina in 2022 and nobody died. As a disabled person, it was the last time I was able to fly internationally, because I wasn’t forced to risk exposure. Testing has the added benefit of encouraging pro-social mitigation behaviors when people know they will have to test before flying.

Free masks, free tests, free vaccines, free Paxlovid, universal paid sick leave, and negative tests to exit quarantine

Expense should never be a barrier to practicing disease control. As usual, our governments continue to be penny-wise and pound-foolish, depriving people of the tools to keep themselves safe and incurring much, much higher expenses to the economy in terms of long-term health loss of workers.

As of now, volunteer-led radical mask blocs are attempting to fill in the gaps by offering free masks and tests to locals in need, but there is only so much that small groups of (often disabled and multiply marginalized) citizens can do.

We need free distribution of proper KN95 and N95 respirator masks, as well as tests; ideally tests that work well. Currently, the government sends out the odd packet of 2-4 rapid tests; RAT tests are 28% accurate on day 1 of symptoms. We need to get more tests and more accurate tests into the hands of the public, for free. Then we need to allow people to stay home until they test negative.

The CDC has unscientifically reduced the COVID quarantine several times until it has become functionally non-existent; this was done not to effectively control disease, but to appease employers. People with COVID-19 should leave quarantine when they have tested negative on two tests, 24 hours apart. Period. Not before. A positive test = viral load = contagion.

OSHA standards that penalize employers for spread between employees would incentivize the provision of proper sick leave. I do understand that the government, after failing to control COVID for so long, cannot shift the burden of disease control overnight to individual business owners. There needs to be a long period of infrastructure upgrade, education, resource distribution, perhaps even tax incentives for proper pandemic management and airborne infection control. But overall, incentives must align to push individual institutions toward infection control and away from infection maximization. The government must continue to provide support, resources, and education, while building a framework for regulation and financial disincentive as well.

Vaccines must be free. Paxlovid must be free. And in an ideal world, in a world that truly wants to end this pandemic, and all pandemics, healthcare must be free.

Education

Education can take many forms; even the implementation of proper airborne infection control in hospitals is a form of education. It educates the public “here is how you halt the spread of COVID” and “yes COVID is still here” and “yes we take it seriously because it can kill”. Currently, hospitals and medical professionals, at the behest of the WHO and CDC, are communicating the opposite.

But in addition to the education provided by modeling airborne infection control, wearing masks, instituting infection control, implementing legal consequences for infections, setting a new OSHA standard for workers, etc., the public needs direct, honest communication about the health risks of COVID.

This means talking about the risk of Long COVID that accompanies each infection without purposely undercutting that messaging by then loudly reassuring people “but it probably won’t happen to you.” It means explaining COVID is a multi-systemic disease, not just a respiratory virus. It means explaining that COVID carries long-term health risks that outlast the acute infection. It means explaining that COVID variants are excellent at evading immunity, meaning they learn to outsmart our body’s protection via vaccine or previous infection; that’s why you must get boosted and layer your precautions.

Of course, the above is only an overview of prevention. We need another coordinated, funded, communications and research campaign to handle the Long COVID crisis.

In the fantasy world where tomorrow, we can build an ideal pandemic response from the ground up, I see several major switches that would need to flip.

The first is that the culture of silence and denial among leadership would have to change to one of education and communication. Right now, state representatives are deliberately avoiding mention of COVID, while propagandizing the safety of infection and/or the end of the pandemic by refusing to mask. It is hard to imagine how successful a pandemic response might be if public officials were actually trying to end the pandemic. We quite literally have public health and political and media figures working to hide three pieces of critical information: public knowledge of the virus, public knowledge of mitigation measures that would reduce viral spread, and public knowledge of the severity of the virus (which would motivate desire to reduce viral spread).

On the one hand, that is a terrible and depressing place to be. On the other hand, it tells us that we might better control COVID through public behavior alone, if the public were given information and tools instead of purposely obstructed from accessing either. We have a lot of room to grow.

The second would be the construction of physical infrastructure to deal with the existence of very contagious, very common, highly disabling airborne virus that is currently circulating in all public spaces. If we have to “learn to live with” COVID, let’s learn to live with an airborne virus by cleaning the air.

The third would be building the legal infrastructure to enforce and hold accountable a failure to implement said physical infrastructure, along with other disease control measures. Patients should not be infected in hospitals. Workers should not be forcibly infected at work. Prisoners should not be forcibly infected in prisons. Kids should not be forcibly infected in schools. Let’s drill down and prevent transmission in congregate settings, with accountability.

COVID control essentially came to an utter halt because our system was not designed to control airborne disease. Our governments did not want to pay to do it. Our governments did not want to explain that they did not want to pay to do it. But this is 2024. We have technology we haven’t even begun to deploy in the fight against COVID, all because we’re too proud to admit we’re still fighting. We have not even scratched the surface of what would a pandemic response that acknowledges the airborne nature of COVID could achieve.

The introduction of the vaccines in early 2021 appeared to our governments like a “get out of jail free” card. They thought they could grab onto it, induce broad herd immunity, and get back to normal without ever acknowledging or paying for clean air. But that isn’t what happened, and now, our lack of mitigations continues to rapidly produce new variants that harm the efficacy of our vaccines.

It would’ve been nice if the vaccines were all that were needed to end the SARS-COV-2 crisis. Since it isn’t, we need our leaders to stop doubling down on their failed strategy, accept reality, and start building a long-term approach to ending this airborne pandemic, as well as avoiding future ones.

The problem underlying all the current failures is that, quite simply, our government is not trying to end this pandemic. It is trying to hide this pandemic. And you’re not going to solve a problem you won’t acknowledge.

[jenniferjareauwife]

Down South

pairing: jennifer jareau x cowgirl fem reader

category: smut

warnings: smut, strap on r receiving

word count: 698

summary: after meeting the rest of the BAU JJ takes you home 😏

When we got home JJ wasted no time stripping me of all my clothes before pushing me onto the bed. "You're so beautiful." She whispered as she stared at my breasts. She ran her hands all over my body teasingly, biting her lip while holding eye contact the whole time.

"JJ please-"

"Please what baby?"

"Touch me."

"Touch you where?" I whined, not wanting to say it. It sounded so vulgar. Instead I took her hand and tried to place it between my legs but she tutted. "You have to use your words my love."

"I want you...here." I pointed between my legs.

"Down south?" She asked in her best southern drawl. I rolled my eyes and giggled.

"You're such a dork."

"A dork whose name you're gonna be screaming in a few minutes." I blushed a deep red and watched as she went to her nightstand to get out the eight inch strap. I gulped, we had only used this three times but it felt so good. "This ok?" Her demeanor changed for a bit, checking in on me to make sure I was fine.

"Mhm. More than ok." She smiled and laid down on her back once the harness was set. "What are you doing?"

"You're gonna ride me, cowgirl." She reached for the cowgirl hat hanging above our bed and handed it to me. I moaned at the thought of riding her like a cowgirl, putting the hat on my head and getting myself lined up.

Once I had gotten her full length in me and was ready to start riding her she stopped me. "You tell me if it gets to be too much at any point, ok?"

"Mhm. I promise." I started bouncing up and down, slow at first to let myself get adjusted to the size. I let out soft moans every time the strap brushed against my g spot. "F-fuck."

"Keep going." JJ reached around to grab my ass, squeezing it tight before her hands drifted higher up my body and grabbed my breasts. I let out a gasp and started bouncing faster.

"S-so good." I stuttered, leaning forward so it could hit at a better angle. I let out a high pitched whine as it hit my g spot perfectly. "Gonna come." I gripped JJ's breasts for stability as I tried to get myself over the edge but it didn't work if I didn't have clitoral stimulation. "JJ...JJ my clit." She reached down and circled it quickly, sending me flying over the edge. "Fuck..JJ!"

I slowed down and collected myself, feeling the waves of euphoria washing over me, closing my eyes to fully experience it. "Again." I heard my girlfriend's command and who was I to refuse. I started to bounce again, faster since my orgasm was coming faster this time.

"JJ...please." I whined. "I'm gonna cum." I needed the clitoral stimulation again but she wasn't giving it to me. I knew better than to do it myself so I just kept moving, hoping that by some miracle I could cum without it. "I'm so close." My whole body spasmed when she finally rubbed my clit. "JJ! JJ!" I chanted her name as I came down from my high, panting and collapsing against her. "JJ."

"Shh, you're ok." She lifted my waist to lift m off of her strap and then set me back down so I was straddling her belly. She took the hat off of my head and stroked my back. I panted against her neck. "You feeling ok?" I nodded.

"Felt good."

"Yeah?" I nodded again, cuddling closer to her. She lifted her hips so she could take off the harness and then put it off to the side. "What do you need? A bath? Snuggles? Food?"

"Snuggle." She started stroking my hair tenderly while kissing the top of my head. I readjusted so my legs were tangled with hers.

"Y/n?"

"Hm?" I nuzzled my nose into her neck.

"I love you." I shivered as she ran her fingertips down my spine. I hummed in response but she knew I was basically saying it back. "I just want you to know that, ok?"

"Mhm...love you too."

[centrally-unplanned]

Another big stop in Tokyo for me was Jimbocho Book Town! It is a neighborhood of, depending on who you ask, up to 400 generally-secondhand bookstores flanked by some of the major universities in Tokyo. The local government even prints out maps of the stores to help people find them all:

Which, you will note, is not 400 stores, because the process of becoming an "official" Jimbocho Town Bookstore is an intensely political operation run by local stakeholders with tons of fights over what should qualify and what rights that entails - never change humanity!

"Book Towns" used to actually be quite a common thing, and they peaked during the literary boom of the late 19th century. Figuring out "what books existed" was a hard task, and to do serious research you needed to own the books (you weren't making photocopies), so concentrating specialty bookstores in one area made sense to allow someone to go to one place and ask around to find what they need and discover what exists. It was academia's version of Comiket! Modern digital information & distribution networks slowly killed or at least reduced these districts in places like Paris or London, but Jimbocho is one of the few that still survives.

Why it has is multi-causal for sure - half of this story is that Tokyo is YIMBY paradise and has constantly built new buildings to meet demand so rents have been kept down, allowing low-margin, individually-owned operations to continue where they have struggled in places like the US. These stores don't make much money but they don't have to. But as important is that Japan has a very strong 'book collector' culture, it's the original baseball cards for a lot of people. The "organic" demand for a 1960's shoujo magazine or porcelainware picture book is low, but hobbyists building collections is a whole new source of interest. Book-as-art-collection powered Jimbocho through until the 21st century, where - again like Comiket - the 'spectacle' could give it a lift and allow the area to become a tourist attraction and a mecca for the ~cozy book hoarder aesthetic~ to take over. Now it can exist on its vibes, which go so far as to be government-recognized: In 2001 the "scent wafting from the pages of the secondhand bookstore" was added to Japan's Ministry of Environment's List of 100 Fragrance Landscapes.

Of course this transition has changed what it sells; when it first began in the Meiji area, Jimbocho served the growing universities flanking it, and was a hotpot of academic (and political-polemic) texts. Those stores still exist, but as universities built libraries and then digital collections, the hobby world has taken over. Which comes back to me, baby! If you want Old Anime Books Jimbocho is one of the best places to go - the list of "subculture" stores is expansive.

I'll highlight two here: the first store I went to was Kudan Shobo, a 3rd floor walk-up specializing in shoujo manga. And my guys, the ~vibes~ of this store. It has this little sign outside pointing you up the stairs with the cutest book angel logo:

And the stairs:

Real flex of Japan's low crime status btw. Inside is jam-packed shelves and the owner just sitting there eating dinner, so I didn't take any photos inside, but not only did it have a great collection of fully-complete shoujo magazines going back to the 1970's, it had a ton of "meta" books on shoujo & anime, even a doujinshi collection focusing on 'commentary on the otaku scene' style publications. Every Jimbocho store just has their own unique collection, and you can only discover it by visiting. I picked up two books here (will showcase some of the buys in another post).

The other great ~subculture~ store I went to was Yumeno Shoten - and this is the store I would recommend to any otaku visiting, it was a much broader collection while still having a ton of niche stuff. The vibes continued to be immaculate of course:

And they covered every category you could imagine - Newtype-style news magazine, anime cels, artbooks, off-beat serial manga magazines, 1st edition prints, just everything. They had promotional posters from Mushi Pro-era productions like Cleopatra, nothing was out of reach. I got a ton of books here - it was one of the first stores I visited on my second day in Jimobocho, which made me *heavily* weighed down for the subsequent explorations, a rookie mistake for sure. There are adorable book-themed hotels and hostels in Jimbocho, and I absolutely could see a trip where you just shop here for a week and stay nearby so you can drop off your haul as you go.

We went to other great stores - I was on the lookout for some 90's era photography stuff, particularly by youth punk photographer Hiromix (#FLCL database), and I got very close at fashion/photography store Komiyama Shoten but never quite got what I was looking for. Shinsendo Shoten is a bookstore devoted entirely to the "railway and industrial history of Japan" and an extensive map collection, it was my kind of fetish art. My partner @darktypedreams found two old copies of the fashion magazine Gothic & Lolita Bible, uh, somewhere, we checked like five places and I don't remember which finally had it! And we also visited Aratama Shoten, a store collecting vintage pornography with a gigantic section on old BDSM works that was very much up her alley. It had the porn price premium so we didn't buy anything, but it was delightful to look through works on bondage and non-con from as far back as the 1960's, where honestly the line between "this is just for the fetish" and "this is authentic gender politics" was...sometimes very blurry. No photos of this one for very obvious reasons.

Jimbocho absolutely earned its rep, its an extremely stellar example of how history, culture, and uh land use policy can build something in one place that seems impossible in another operating under a different set of those forces. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

[ch0wen]

Cover - Part III | Tangerine x Fem!Reader | 18+

warnings: smut mentioned, (minors dni), cursing, & violence

to catch up - Cover - parts one & two

———-

Tangerine's large hands wrapped around the diner's ceramic mug full of his muddled-grey tea. Warming himself while also trying to still his shakiness. He was having a tough time attempting to conceal his nerves. He avoided eye contact to retroactively stall the dreaded discussion.

“So,” you started, “Tangerine and Lemon. Fruits. Why choose from that category?”

Across from you, the man looked physically and mentally relieved that you hadn't leaped right into the hard questions. A smile wriggled under his mustache,

"When we were younger, Lem and I loved to watch American cinema. We would get inspired by a lot of ‘em. We played the games they did, tried out the sports, and picked up similar traditions.

One day, during a rare, hot English summer, I suggested starting a lemonade stand. My brother reacted with, ‘lemons are too tart! No one even likes sour drinks. I don't want to sell rotten lemons,' and I would remind him that you can turn a sour lemon into a sweet delight with a little bit of sugar. Shit, you should've seen his face when I ended up persuading him and he tried our first attempt at a batch. We got the measurements so wrong!”

His eyes shone as he spoke. He seemed to have been slowly opening up. Laughing into his hand and playing it off as a scratch to his face before dropping it to the table's surface. He was earnest as he told of his boyhood. Intriguing you with his storytelling, and leaning toward him as he continued on.

"Anyway. He would tell me that I'm like the sugar. That I make things better. But frankly, I can be a rotten arsehole to him. And by now, maybe he has forgotten about those silly childhood praises, but I never did. Those were the times, especially at the beginning of our career, when he made me feel wanted. He's good at that. He doesn't even require me to be the sugar in our brotherhood. He's naturally a genuinely good man.

I do need to tell myself I am useful, and deep down, I may not believe that to be all true. But he reminds me. He’s good at making people feel understood and cared for. He is true to his codename. He's a lemon, and everybody loves ‘em.”

Absentmindedly, you played with his finger twitching on the sticky table. He curled his hand properly around yours to hold.

———-

The hours passed and the diner went through waves of people. Coming and going, in and out, like clouds in unsettled coffee. Breakfast rush, stillness, then lunch chaos. To the both of you, the other was the focal point. Everything else just felt like a static buzz.

“I can't help but notice that you haven't asked the question. Basically the entire point of this morning."

"I didn't want to force it out," you finger at the sugar packets, like skimming a mini record collection. Attempting to downplay your interest. “I wanted us to get there without having to press it.”

A grateful hum of, “You are a peach," transitioned into a sigh, "but I suppose you deserve to know that I am a contracted assassin."

———-

It was only half past two in the afternoon when you both emerged from the diner. You made sure to avoid the eyes in the queue of the waiting patrons. The large tip, Tangerine thought he dropped into the checkbook unseen, should at least ease the hostess's agitation about your prolonged stay. You stand facing each other on the bustling city sidewalk.

The silence felt heavy after hours-long conversations. You studied each other. Your chance to fully take him in, in a different perspective, a new light. You were wary of how to leave this after the time you just spent together. The things he depicted. The part of himself that he had fanned out. He seemed to have bore it all. How do you grapple with that while having to part ways?

Tangerine didn’t keep you speculating. His handsome face sported a pleasant smile as he stepped forward to hug you. The embrace lasted only a moment, but it felt that he didn’t want to let go -

Like he was trying to hold you still. Keeping all those secrets that he poured out over the cooling cups of coffee between the two of you. Pressing them in close and sealing them behind tight lips. To him, when you walk out of his sight, you’ll take his story with you. The moment that he lets you go, the truth gets out. Exposed are all the mysteries on the inside and his safety. The scary reality is that he potentially jeopardized his and his brother’s lives to answer your curiosity.

Except, that was just your mind racing again. Tangerine's hug lasted for a minute and in a beat, he was pulling his shoulders back to look down at your face. And then he pulled you in for a kiss, the breath-stealing and tangling your hand in his hair, kind.

———-

The date with Tangerine was like an omen that you wouldn't be able to get the pair of assassins out of your life. Every day, something happened that would remind you of them. One of your little students would ask for a bandaid. You'd hear a song that played in the diner or a familiar theme song that Lemon definitely was humming. You’d find yourself grinning.

Little reminders would pop up here and there. Until one-half of the duo started turning up here and there when you’d least expect or anticipate it. It was a gradually natural formation of a budding friendship with Lemon and an eventual relationship between you and Tangerine.

Your romance with the latter was like any 2000s Rom. Com. daydream, except for the consistent reminders that you were dating a killer ——

Your boyfriend would show up unannounced with fresh flowers and a splat of blood on his neck peeking out from under his collar.

Written-out jokes from Lemon were handed over with a roll of his eyes but the ghost of a smile on his lips. Signaling that he has already heard the ridiculous gag that his brother came up with.

He’d be up early and missing in action during the day, but made up for it by staying late on date nights.

He always found time to call you between the sporadic periods of action while on the job. Just hoping to chat about your day so far or what he wanted to do to you later. Your mind runs with what exact situations he was calling in the middle of, whenever he was out of breath or your conversations were cut short with crashes and shouts.

You could sense when he exerted too much energy after those particularly long workdays. He tended to be quieter, or his body weight pressed impossibly closer on top of yours as his cock pushed in deep, or when Lemon would physically need to drag him into your apartment and throw him onto the couch.

Regardless of his fatigue, once you got each other going - either by massaging his sore neck, his rough thumbs grazing over your exposed thighs, or knee rubbing against his bulge as you bandage up a cut - He basically reverted back into stealth mode. Targeting his focus on only you. It felt like he existed to get you off. Wanting you to come on either his mouth, fingers, or pounding dick. He may have been exhausted but he wouldn't lose stamina until you were finished.

Nine times out of ten, whether after a hotel rendezvous or candle-lit dinner over a pack of instant potatoes and Kraft Mac and cheese, you’d find yourselves snuggled up in bed. You were always left stated after a good fuck from Tangerine. Hands, tongues, and whispers danced in the shared tranquility of your space. You were making special memories with the limited time you found with him.

———-

It went on like this for years. Each day felt like you peeled away another layer of a fruit's skin. Discovering a new trait or trick of your boyfriend's. You anticipated something exciting when he flung open the apartment door or your bedroom window. He never ceased to thrill and fulfill your every need.

And that one Tuesday in Spring was no different. He strode up to your car after class let out, seizing your waist from behind. A spin to your hips in his grasp had him close enough to breathe into your ear,

"Fly out to France with me, yeah?"

———-

[meimi-haneoka]

༻✦༺ Welcome! ༻✦༺

Last update Sept. 26th, 2024

Hello and welcome to my main blog, my little home where I share my love for Cardcaptor Sakura and CLAMP works to the world! ✨

I'm Cinzia, she/her, Italian. Aged in a barrel of hyperfixations and daydreams. You might wonder, why this blog url if this is mainly a CCS blog? Well, when I opened this blog more than 10 years ago I was heavily focused on Kaitou Saint Tail, but when I started posting more and more about CCS, at some point I realized it was too late to change url or all the links to the posts I had shared around would become broken.

Regardless! I have closely followed the serialization of Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card ever since it began and my monthly commentary became something more when I realized the official English translation wasn't doing justice (to use an euphemism) to the original Japanese version. My friends and other fans in general were left confused and misguided by the countless translation mistakes (some to the point of changing the plot), so I started pointing them out in my monthly posts.

I also post other kind of stuff, like reports of CLAMP Spaces when they talk about CCS, or long time ago I posted summaries of interviews with the staff of the Clear Card anime. I plan to eventually translate those fully, considering my skills with Japanese language improved since then. But please remember that "English is not my first language" etc etc., so if some sentences sound weird, you already know why. Now that the manga is over, I post with irregular schedule some in-depth analysis and trivia about the story, examining one topic at a time. Despite being a CLAMP fan and loving other stories as well, I chose to focus on and dedicate myself to CCS in particular, due to time and limited mental resources. Thinking about following me? That's great, thank you! ✨ But if there's an idiom I love, it's "good fences make good neighbours", so please make sure to understand what kind of blog you're about to follow. I consider this my fandom home so additionally to those posts I mentioned above, I also unapologetically post about the ships I love. I love to analyze, I like to theorize. I don't disguise, I don't tiptoe.

I am a CCS fan born in SyaoSaku, and reborn with YunaAki, with currently a preference for the latter ones. If you're curious to know what my POV on this pairing is, you can get a very clear idea looking at my #yunaaki and #cosmos & crystals hashtags . If for any reason that's not ok with you, you're absolutely free to unfollow or even block me. In fact, I encourage you to do so. I'm here on this site to enjoy what I like, not to make anyone miserable. Unkind asks will be ignored; attempts to "lecture me" about what is acceptable and what not, what I can like and what not will probably be laughed at (I'm old for this stuff, it doesn't work with me). On the contrary, if you like YunaAki too, you'll be more than welcome here! Send me a message to share our headcanons! ✨

Now that we've cleared that up, here you can find the real reason why I wanted to make this new introductory pinned post: a convenient list with links to all my relevant posts, organized by category! I will update this list as I add new posts, so always check the date at the top for new additions! 👍

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card: commentary + translation differences

(started at chapter 41 because that's when I got access to ENG scans) Collected under the hashtag #translation differences . The first posts might be a bit overzealous, as I was getting the hang of it. TBA: I have a bigger project for this in the works, an easier way to browse through all the relevant translation differences, divided by chapters and volumes, starting by chapter 1 (even marked by severity).

41 || 42 || 43 || 44 || 45 || 46 || 47 || 48 || 49 || 50 || 51 || 52 || 53 || 54 || 55 || 56 || 57 || 58 || 59 || 60 || 61 || 62 || 63 || 64 || 65 || 66 || 67 || 68 || 69 || 70 || 71 || 72 || 73 || 74 || 75 || 76 || 77 || 78 || 79 || 80 || Epilogue || Short stories 01 || 02 || 03 || 04 || 05 ||

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Trivia series

All about Clear Card, from the most mundane trivia to the deepest thematics presented in it. Collected under the hashtag #clear card trivia .

Clear Card Trivia 1 ~ Literary and musical references/mentions in Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card

Clear Card Trivia 2 ~ Alice in Clockland and its meaning in Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card

Clear Card Trivia 3 ~ Sakura's journey of growth and self-understanding throughout Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card

Clear Card Trivia 4 ~ The most ancient Magicians of Europe, the Magic Association and their role in Clear Card

Clear Card Trivia 5 ~ Real life models of buildings featured in Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card 🆕

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Timeline

An easy-to-read timeline of the events and facts depicted in Clear Card, placed correctly in chronological order inside the bigger Cardcaptor Sakura story.

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Timeline

English translations of short stories and Drama CDs

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card BD vol. 8 one shot

Card Captor Sakura Clear Card Arc - Drama CD part 1

Card Captor Sakura Clear Card Arc - Drama CD part 2

Clear Card manga volume 10 Special Edition bonus - Mini Book

Sakura & Syaoran parallels in CCS and TRC

Discontinued, even though I know there are more. Who knows, maybe one day I'll continue it! Collected under the hashtag #syaosaku parallels .

1 ~Hands~ || 2 ~Pinky Promises~ || 3 ~Hugs~ || 4 ~”Tell me”~ || 5 ~Desperate hug~ || 6 ~Scream and shout~

CLAMP Space reports

Reports and in some cases translation of entire chunks of conversation from CLAMP Spaces on Twitter. These are all the bits relative to CCS/Clear Card and there's lots of insights/production process tidbits on Clear Card.

July 30th, 2021 || September 5th, 2021 || March 27th, 2022 || April 4th, 2022 || August 7th, 2022 || October 24th, 2022 || November 8th, 2022 || December 28th, 2022 || January 4th, 2023 || May 5th, 2023 || January 8th, 2024 || April 1st, 2024 ||

Interviews with the Clear Card anime staff and cast

Highlights and recaps of the interviews released during the period of broadcasting of the Clear Card anime. If you want to know what kind of feelings and ideas Clear Card was made with, as well as the origin of the 25th anniversary project (which turned into Clear Card), check these out. I plan to translate these entirely, so this list is only temporary, waiting for the complete interviews.

Interview with CCS Clear Card producer Chiyo Kawazoe in Animage 12/2017

Morio Asaka x Sakura Tange interview in Newtype 05/2018

Highlights of Morio Asaka’s interview in the Starter Book

Interview with Yukana (Meiling’s VA) in Animage 06/2018

Interview with Sakura Tange and Motoko Kumai in Animage 07/2018

Interview with Sho Saito (Nakayoshi editor) and Nozomi Matsuura (CCS copyrights manager) in Animedia 07/2023 (full interview)

Other random stuff collected under hashtags:

My fanarts

My fics for YunaAki (to be moved soon)

Enjoy your stay! ✨

[theroyalsims]

BREAKING: ANYA AND GUS MAKE GLAMOROUS SURPRISE FIRST (POST-WEDDING) JOINT APPEARANCE!

Just look at these two! 😍

Their Royal Highnesses Crown Princess Anya and Prince Gus made their first-ever joint outing as husband and wife at this year's Brindleton Academy of Cinema and Theatre Arts Awards, also known as the BACTAs.

The Crown Princess famously took over the role of Royal Patron from ex-Princess Eleanore, when she was stripped of her titles and patronages. Ever since, HRH has attended the annual awards ceremony to present the night's biggest award, Film of the Year.

In the past, HRH has stunned in her solo appearances, but this year, she finally has a date to the glitzy event!

Funnily enough, the two looked very much like a bride and groom. Gus, as always, looked handsome in his classic tux. Anya, meanwhile, wore a literal wedding dress to the event - a §5,380 Riod dress from this year's W/A bridal collection. The stunning fully-embroidered gown features a full skirt and an off-shoulder neckline.

HRH was also dripping in diamonds thanks to her massive diamond earrings and her matching bracelets and necklace from the Brindleton Diamond Lattice Parure. Of course, the cherry on top is her very-hard-to-miss diamond engagement ring, which she now wears with her thin gold wedding band.

The couple's attendance was kept secret, which explained the loud cheers from the surprised public that greeted the duo when they stepped on the red carpet. The royal couple left everyone in awe, and even the stars were, themselves, starstruck!

Actress and BACTA Nominee Amelie Grundy-Lewinsen posted a photo she took of the royal couple (see above photo), which she captioned:

"What a wonderful surprise to see TRH Crown Princess Anya and Prince Gus! These two are so beautiful together, they look like they popped out of a fairytale! I've never seen two people look more in love! #bactas #royalty #lovelovelove #sosweeeet"

The Crown Princess took to the stage to announce the winner of the Film of the Year category. The historical drama movie "Only" took home the prize, which was received by its director Nick Bahanchod.

We're soooooo hoping this becomes an annual thing for our favourite newlyweds because seeing these two in formalwear is always a sight too behold!

Also, massive congrats to Prince Gus for his red carpet debut and his first official outing as Brindleton's newest Prince (and Duke, and Earl, but you get my point).

And congrats to the winners of this year's BACTAS!

[starry-907]

hi starry!!! <3 i've been seeing so many stick men on my dash, and i've gotten super curious. the fandom wiki page answered none of my questions, so i thought i'll turn to the resident expert <3 <3 <3 whomst may be these characters and where do they come from?

RESIDENT EXPERT SJDLFJSKDJ THANK YOU I GUESS?? i'm just very autistic abt these silly sticks, i don't think i'm much of an expert

the stickfigures are from Alan Becker's Animation Vs series/franchise (calling it a franchise seems wrong but there's multiple series under the umbrella so idk how else to describe it) on youtube! i'm gonna go into more detail on that but i'm putting it under a cut because i don't know how long this'll get to be completely honest

also sorry if this takes a while to get answered i wanted to collect screenshots and visuals

So i'm not gonna get into a full play-by-play, mainly to avoid spoiling you, but the series can be kinda split up into a few different categories (the first two being the "primary" series of the overarching series)

ALSO the creator refers to all the sticks with he/him but a lot of people tend to headcanon differently (it's me i'm people) so i might use my own hc pronouns for characters. honestly part of the series' appeal is the fact that there's wiggle room for headcanons to emerge.

anyway! starting off with the og:

Animator vs Animation

animator vs animation starts off with the simple question of, "hey what if my drawings came to life and fought me", which is somewhat of the overarching question through the first 3 installments

the fourth one winds up turning that question on it's head by the end because of this silly li'l guy, The Second Coming (usually called second or orange by the fandom)

by the end of ava 4, second (and the friends they found on a website) have reached an understanding with the animator (who's also alan, it's a bit confusing but i try to think of it like mcyt rules where there's the creator and then the character), and are now friends with him. ava 1-4 were recently bundled into being animator vs animation season 1, i'd recommend you start with these four if you want to watch the other series.

ava seasons 2 and 3 (season 3 is currently ongoing) take a bit of a different turn, delving into the previously left up to question fates of the past three sticks that alan had made in ava 1-3, along with also dropping some bombshells of lore here and there. semi related side note i'm taking the chosen one and shaking them in a tupperware violently.

Animation vs Minecraft

this one is the longest of the different series, with 35 episodes (36 counting the original). it also pulls off the "mainly filler eps until everything suddenly spurs into motion" thing very well. it's also funny because the series started out named as "animation vs minecraft shorts" when episodes in season 3 would get up into at least 20 minute runtimes.

this series is where we start to get personalities developed for the four sticks that second befriended in ava 4, through the lens of different minecraft niches, from animal care to potions to redstone to noteblocks.

avm seasons 1 and 2 focus more on exploring the different aspects of minecraft (such as build battles), though season 1 does have a very brief arc involving this other stick, purple

(purple shows up in later episodes as well)

speaking of purple, if you're watching animation vs minecraft as a whole, make sure to watch animation vs leauge before you get to season 3 otherwise there could be a brief moment of confusion.

"but starry idk anything about minecraft-" THAT'S OK!! sorry for yelling i got excited. the series does a pretty good job of laying down the basics of the more complex mechanics before the stickfigures proceed to take it to heights that are probably not achievable in vanilla.

"starry what about season 3-" I'M GLAD YOU ASKED sorry got excited again. season 3 takes a hard pivot from "semi-unconnected episodes with maybe a few overarching elements" to "fully episodic adventures that will genuinely make you a bit emotional at times near the end". it also starts with blue going to find netherwart before the escalation escalates and trust me once you know how the season ends that seems so much funnier.

season 4 goes back to the less sequential episodes, just with a few status quo updates from the end of season 3 added in, namely the occasional addition of two characters from season 3 that people go feral over seeing included.

I'LL ALSO USE THIS SPACE TO TALK ABOUT THE ACTUAL SHORTS, which, as stated, are shorts that don't have a runtime over a minute or a minute and a half. they're somewhat of a mix between minecraft themed and being themed around other aspects of the series (there's one where the sticks and alan try to max out a clicker game, for example).

animation vs education

these ones are a bit less "plot" and a little more "hey look at this cool thing". the only character we're familiar with to be in this is second, and we essentially follow them going through these various black spaces exploring different educational concepts. right now we have avmath, avphysics, and avgeometry.

they all manage to be engaging and interesting even when the concept being explored reaches the point where you might not understand what the heck is going on (a big example for me being when avphysics started getting into more theoretical stuff, the sequence was cool enough that i didn't even care that half of it was going over my head).

i also feel like these are the ones that people unfamiliar with the series are likely to find? at least when i mention the series usually if someone's heard of it it's cuz they've watched avmath or avphysics.

even though these don't seem to have any connection to the main series (though a lot of people hc that they're second's dreams), i still recommend giving these a watch if for no other reason that they're really cool!

influencer arc

this one's the newest bit added to the umbrella! it's a 3-episode arc about one of the sticks, green, making a youtube channel with his friends and also exploring adobe products. we only have one episode of this so far, and it was funny because everyone was literally going feral over it when it released.

this one's also fun because there's an actual youtube channel for green, so you can see the full version of the videos they make in the episodes! the channel was leaked before the episode release so everyone went feral over that then too. the videos on the channel are very much "kids messing around with a camera" vibes.

the one-off eps

there's quite a number of these that explore different things, like animation vs youtube, where second and green manage to tick off a video player, or the team trees and team seas videos where blue gets the ability to grow trees and remove trash with money (at least in second's dreams). like i said, for understanding one aspect of avm season 3 (namely why everyone's fairly chill with purple when meeting them), i recommend watching animation vs leauge before reaching season 3, purple shows up there.

if you want me to go more in depth about the characters themselves (with some of my headcanons bleeding through a li'l), let me know and i can make a part two! i recommend giving the series a watch if you want to understand better but you'll likely want to break it up into more managable chunks

i also wrote most of this while on the bus to work

[babiebom]

What Kind of ~dere the bachelorette's would be

A/N:it's the girl's turn<3333 it took me 5ever to finish this for some reason. I'm only writing it now because i'm watching doctor who and need 2 different kinds of stimulation and i have no snacks tbh(doctor who started buffering so now im watching the little mermaid Im not trying to give play by play of me writing this but Im so hyped rn and its 2 in the morning)

TW: maybe some spoilers, maybe some cursing, idk yet nothing that bad! There is some brief mention of childhood trauma and abuse on Penny's part but nothing graphic.

Genre: Headcanons

WC: about 10 bullet points per person

Abigail

Hiyakasudere

Penny

Described as light-hearted and flirtatious, often mischievous and playful on the outside and constantly teases their loved one as a sign of affection.

Would playfully bully you to try and make her crush on you not obvious

Makes it painfully obvious to everyone but you

"This sunset is cool but you know whats cooler?" "What?" "My sword collection"

Probably smacks you when laughing

Smacks you when you do something funny

Laughs extra loud

"Lmao I'll fight you idiot"

You two probably get in trouble to playing around in serious situations

Invites you to the mines with her

Or to the woods past the wizards tower

You two probably get into trouble together and think its funny that you were attacked by slimes

Does make fun of you even when you get together

"Ew you have a crush on me that's so embarrassing"

Undere

described as a "yes-man" to their loved one no matter what the consequences are their devotion doesn't allow them to betray their loved one easily and is an extension of the Goudere characterization.

OR

Leah

A Kekkondere

Which is described as some who believes in love at first sight and wants to get married right away. They have a deep desire to remain close to the person they meet for better or worse and this can sometimes evolve into them becoming a yandere type

So I could not choose which she fit more so I will try to fit everything within 20

I feel like due to her being a more submissive type in my mind that she would 100 percent be a yes man

Especially with a woman like Pam as her mother.

She has probably learned that disagreeing with her led to consequences that she does not enjoy.

So due to her childhood trauma she is more likely to just agree with whatever you say

And even if you try and get her to actually say her own opinion I don't think she fully grows out of it but it develops into a more shes a yes man because she feels safe.

Does not matter what will happen to her you are her main priority now so it is whatever you say goes because this is her fairy tale ending

On the other hand I think she is on par with us fanfic girlies on how delusional she is

Spends time constantly reading romance novels and imagining herself as the female love interest or heroine

So when she meets you and is immediately attracted to you

It turns into oh yeah this is love at first sight

This is meant to be because look at how i feel

This is like in the books I read

And she wants to get married very quickly

Brings it up maybe once at the beginning of your relationship

If you dont agree she doesnt say anything again

Just tries to manipulate you into marrying her quickly by doing wifey things

She will put it on you and make you wanna marry her

Will have you forever and ever just don't try to leave because she will enter yandere territory

Deredere(explained on Emily's part because I did hers first)

Honesty I thought none of these fit her thoroughly

Shes too....normal I guess?

At least to fit these categories

She's literally just an artsy girl i don't know

Like shes a creative but not delusional like Elliott so yandere is out of the question

Especially because her last relationship moved at a pace she disliked and was going to restrict her and what she wanted to do

So obviously shes not going to be the type of partner to hold you back in any aspect

But shes not going to let you run over her

Shes just a stable adult

Love that for her tbh

Could never be me where can I learn to become a Leah?

Emily

Deredere

Described as someone who is energetic, kind, and caring and while they show their affection to their loved one they can still hold normal relationships with others.

The sanest one here

Would not let herself get swept up in romance to the point of where its her whole life

There are other things she has to worry about

Like her sister, the wellbeing of all of her friends, being the chilliest woman on the planet

Emily tingz

Is the least likely to do something deranged because she knows that your relationship is stable and she doesn't need to do anything special

Because you love her for her and she loves you for you

Like yeah shes a weird(affectionate) person in general

But I also think she's the oldest out of the bachelorettes(hcs maybe?)

So she does have a clear head most of the time.

Amd she has probably been around and knows that she doesn't have to be crazy because trust is a good thing and luckily she has trust in you

Was probably insane in her younger years and its why shes chill now

Tbh overall a green flag

Maru

Hajidere

Haley

Described as someone shy and nervous around their crush and can socialize with anyone who is not them. Usually blushes or gets flustered at them making the first move

Gives me vibes like she will become super clumsy in front of you

And 100 times more socially awkward

Will stutter and trip over her words

Or drop things

Is the definition if the shy anime girl tbh

"O-oh Farmer! D-did you s-see that?"

I cringed writing that pls

Like it isn't very apparent in the game she just gives me these vibes

Especially because she does sort of go on about her sciencey stuff but i think that's just her being a nerd

I feel like she would be fine before she has a crush

But the second she realizes her feelings it becomes a problem

Obviously you notice but I think you would be too nice to say anything

Unless you're an Abigail type then ofcourse you say something

Becomes dumber the longer you are in her space because you're so attractive and now she cannot breathe

Mayadere

described as someone who is usually the antagonist who switches sides after falling in love with the main character. Usually first appears hostile or intimidating but a change of heart allows them to reveal their true feelings later on

Mostly this because I think she's a butch

But then she becomes cute after getting to know the farmer

Honestly I did not really like her and wanted to fight her up until I actually started gaining hearts with her

So I feel like this fits totally because like

She was the antagonist of my story at least

And she became cute and lovable the second she started feeling feelings

Like with one of her heart events

You literally take pictures with animals

She gets mud in her hair and doesn't even complain like

How she got me on her side Idk

Would probably be the type of girl to be like

Oh farmers here? And then very loudly say things like

"Oh yeah i could TOTALLY grow a few crops no big deal AT ALL"

"Did they hear it? You think they want me to move in yet? Do you think they're in love with me yet? Of course they are i'm Haley duh."

Not quite tsundere because she wouldn't do the whole "its not like I like you" thing

She would make it clear that she likes you but that she's the prize and not you

Sometimes is still hostile before she remembers she can let down her walls.

Its a journey to get her to say what shes actually thinking about certain things but you get there!

[69constellationsinatrenchcoat]

Hi! I'd love a rundown of why you use PluralKit and Tupperbox! I've not looked much into did management apps before tbh

Awesome! This is adding on from this post about SimplyPlural.

Your main options for tracking apps are SimplyPlural and Octocon.

Octocon is currently only available on android while SimplyPlural is on web, android, iOS and can be run as a program/pinned to taskbar on Windows (I don't know how but one of my sysmates installed it as a web app program 😅).

Main options for discord proxying (or messaging as an individual); PluralKit, Tupperbox and Octocon. All three are added to a server as a bot, and allow for a proxy/app message that displays as a different username but remains linked to your account.

Using commands specific to each application, users can find out who posted each message.

Okay so back to the question

Why do we use TB and SimplyPlural instead of the alternatives?

SimplyPlural

Super easy explanation: we've been using SimplyPlural longer than Octocon has been around. We've got about 16 months worth of tracking data, friends, 40 or so custom fields saved in it, along with all our alters and personal info. Making the switch to Octocon was something we tried when it was first announced, but we decided against it after giving it a test run as both an app and as a discord bot. We had some issues with importing custom fields and image hosting.

For those of you who don't know, custom fields are categories, or questions that you can ask an alter to fill in; some come built in like favourite colour, food etc, however you can also add your own as needed. Ours include everything from name, internal relationships (e.g. alter A hates alter B but adores alter C, alter C is alter D's child, alter C and B are siblings etc), skills, favourite things, and positive/negative triggers, amongst other things. We use them all the time, and a fair number of our alters have filled in the questions - losing that information was not something we wanted to do (..or heaven forbid... copying all of it over from existing SimplyPlural profiles). I suspect this is something that Atlas, the developer, is working on.

Presently, Octocon doesn't have the functionality we need/are used to from SimplyPlural. Sooo, onto some positives; things we adore about SimplyPlural

>The ability to host images within custom fields and alter descriptions, using '' allowing us to do things like this...

Kaden learnt how to do this and posted about it at the time, since then he has since been slowly explaining to the rest of us how to do it.

Our SimplyPlural profiles are one of the places where we can be fully ourselves without worrying as much about the collective's outward appearance etc; some of us dress our profiles up with collages, fancy text, banners, and flags while others just have a bit of information or an empty bio; it's completely up to the individual (and not being biased or anything, but our personalities really show up in profiles).

> Front history

Having a full breakdown of fronters past (as long as they log it) is super helpful, especially when our therapist wants to check in on triggers etc. It also helps us to figure out when an alter may have gone dormant or may only appear at specific times. I specifically like that it gives you a visual breakdown of who was fronting during what time, and it holds information on individual alter profiles about when they fronted, and for how long.

>Privacy buckets

This is something I posted about a few days ago. The current beta version has reworked the privacy settings from public (all friends), trusted friends (selected people) and private (your system only) to entirely in the user's control. Instead of having 3 options, you can make specific categories for groups of friends, or even label each of your friends with one bucket and choose each alter, custom field and custom front they can see.

@persmo made a really detailed post on this in late August that I've linked here.

>Friends

The ability to change the amount of data friends are able to see (eg. ee shared members, see fronter etc)

>Message Boards

Each profile has their own message board. Messages left on boards send a notification to the phone when that specific alter fronts, meaning if someone forgets to check the shared chat, they still get the information. Notifications will continue being sent every time they mark front until that alter marks the message as read.

Being able to leave messages for each other has been a literal lifesaver.

>In-system Chat

SimplyPlural has a section where you can chat solely within your system. It functions a bit like Discord in the way that you set up sections with individual chats inside of them.

We use them for fun things like silly quotes, reading logs, infodumping, as well as more serious things - if something happened to someone we love, we'd mark it in there to make sure the information is passed on to those who need to know.

>Groups

Alter groups are incredibly helpful for us, even though we're a relatively small system. We use them as tags for interests, roles, ages and tagging sources for our few introjects.

Tagging interests and roles often ends up looking like this 😆 I promise it makes sense to us... ish.

>Analytics

System analytics is one of the features we use a lot in therapy, especially now that we have more than 6 months data saved in SP tracking. We can see at a glance how much one alter has fronted in a set amount of time, and how many times they have tracked as fronter.

>App reminders

SimplyPlural allows for users to set reminders at specific times (eg. everyday at 3pm take your meds) but also that the reminders are sent after an action happens. We have an automatic reminder set up for a set amount of time after someone marks front, to make sure they are still fronting.

>Honourable mentions

System polls

Switch notifications (both for our friends and for when our system friends switch)

'Quick front entries' - adding a member to front history if they didn't track

User reports; reports generated by SimplyPlural that remain attached to a URL that can be sent to family, friends, therapists etc without giving your SimplyPlural username or making them get the app.

Cross platform support: SimplyPlural runs on android, iOS and web, meaning as long as our friends have a log in they can use it... and we can run it on all our devices.

I've totally missed some things, but they're the most important points

TupperBox

This section is shorter, promise.

We chose TupperBox over PluralKit and Octocon as we didn't want to have any personal data (beyond names) linked to our discord. PluralKit has the capacity to have member profiles, however the trade-off is having a system ID number that is attached to every member profile (no matter how tight your privacy is) that can be used by anyone to pull up any linked information that's marked public. More information on why here.

PluralKit makes users automatically public with commands and the online portal being the only way to change it. Unfortunately, many treat PluralKit as if it's private and often include extremely personal things in their descriptions (triggers, sexuality, etc). More conversation on that here.

Unfortunately, I don't have much experience with Octocon's integration on Discord, but I have heard pretty good things about it.

Tupperbox has less functionality than PluralKit and Octocon in that it's mostly streamlined for role-playing simplicity. All that displays when you send a proxy message is the name of the tupper/user and an optional profile picture, which we drastically prefer. It sucks not being able to bring up a profile to say who we are, but we'd rather have that than have our PluralKit leaked.

All of this is personal preference, use whatever you find works best! :)

[armoredtitanmistress]

𝙖 𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙡𝙤𝙦𝙪𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙬𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙖𝙙 | Toji Fushiguro| friendships

characters: toji fushiguro x gojo!reader, toji zenin x gojo!reader

summary: an unlikely pair form a friendship, sort of.

tags: toji x gojo!reader, gojo’s older sister, pre-star plasma vessel arc/star plasma vessel arc, Toji is enough of a warning, suggestive talks, strangers to friends, angst, fluff.

series masterlist

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To anyone wondering if that interaction stopped Toji from continuing the following game he had started with you, I hope that the image of Toji Zenin trailing behind you as you escape to your garden during the next social event six months later is sufficient as an answer. 

He watched your white hair try little to fight the wind as it swayed against your kimono with each step you took. He observed as you made no effort to stop his advances to get closer to you. As he had done in previous years, he began testing the waters to see how close he could get to you until you stopped him. Since that last interaction, Toji was now aware that you’ve known of his habit but even then you didn’t voice your concerns. 

In the mind of Toji Zenin, you didn’t view him as a threat. That notion irked him to no end. It was widely known that Toji was a disgrace to the Zenin name with no cursed energy to even redeem the surname. It wasn’t information that was strictly reserved to the clan as with any other clan, the fuck ups need to be acknowledged to spot who to mistreat at functions like these. 

“For a future clan leader, you are uncharacteristically okay with being defenseless.” Toji mocked as he continued to walk tread behind your figure. You knew little to nothing of the man but you had a feeling that he had a smirk etched alongside his scarred lip.

“You’re talking?” You huff out a laugh and don’t make an effort to raise your guard before continuing. “I’m not a liar, Zenin. What I said that day was true. I consider you a friend. Why would I need to defend myself?” 

“I’m sure you’ve heard of my feats. Surely, that should raise some alarm for your safety.” The feats in question were all the sorcerers he has killed in the past 3 months. The man had been undermined by his lack of cursed energy his whole life. Only a select few had acknowledged his potential. That niche collective pertains to the people who employed him. He was now trying to uncover which category you would slot into.

“All bad things, of course. You have quite the reputation, Zenin.”  You affirm his claims, searching your mind for more adjectives that have been used. It was a hot topic of discussion during the monthly elder’s meeting; Toji Zenin defected from the clan and Jujutsu society to become a mercenary: The Sorcerer Killer.

“You’re not here to kill me, are you? Friends usually don’t do that.” 

“Friends also usually know each other’s name. How about you try saying mine, doll.” 

“Doll? We’ve already gotten to the nickname stage? Should I make one for you?” Though he couldn’t see it he heard the lilt in your voice and could imagine your eyebrow raised in amusement. 

“Gotta say my name. Maybe then I’ll consider it.”

Plopping yourself in the same spot as last time, you face him, and your lips slightly parted. It was the first time you’ve seen him fully.  His appearance aligned with his lineage, the stark black hair and probing/emotionless green eyes. However, he looked nothing like his older brother Jinichi, who was an unruly man that you’ve had the displeasure of meeting on multiple occasions. The only attributes that could categorize him alongside his older brother were the scar on his lip, the fresh wound on his cheek, and his body.  If there was a word that surpassed well-built then Toji’s body was that. It was hard to discern with the baggy black sweatshirt and sweatpant set he wore but based on the muscles that peaked through the opening of the neckline, you don’t believe your assumptions to be baseless. Alongside that, he had to have been either the same age as you or older than you by a year at most.

You let your eyes fall in line with his,  “Toji.” He enjoyed how you said his name. “Your name is Toji, right.” 

“I guess we are friends.”  He huffed and followed your gaze. There you went again looking at the stars. He would never understand your fixation with them. Perhaps because all his life he had been described as anything but that. 

“So does that mean I can give you a nickname?” 

He shook his head and chuckled, “Keep dreaming, doll.” 

You let out a breath of disappointment before carrying out your usual routine of staring at the stars. The stars on duty tonight were far less than usual. You wondered what caused the shortage. Maybe some were stationed at another stretch of the hemisphere and were stationed to add an illuminating mystical ambiance to a pair of freshly weds the night of their honeymoon. You pitied the ones that shined dimly over you both. They were stuck overlooking a mercenary and a glorified puppet interacting for the first time. 

“You have a Heavenly Restriction, right?” You asked. “You were either limited or granted improvements in exchange for being born without cursed energy. What category do you fall into?”

The gamble when someone is given a Heavenly Restriction is 50/50. Some are left impaired while others are given improvements to their physical capabilities. This was what you had learned at Jujutsu Tech but you had never met anyone who possessed it. 

He rolls his eyes and the scar moved in unison with his lips. “I saw you checking me out earlier. Take a wild guess.” 

“Clarification wouldn’t hurt.” If he hadn’t been staring at you, he could have guessed that his words didn’t affect you. However, he could vaguely see the apples of your cheeks turning a faint red peeking through the parts of your hair that weren't actively in your shielding your face. 

A majority of your life had been confined to the Gojo compound. The sliver of time where you weren’t there was at Jujutsu Tech and the other students there were hardly anything to gawk at. Even at social events like the one you were escaping from, all the men looked the same. Average height, average build, below-average face, and infant-level intelligence. It’s safe to say that Toji was nothing like that. 

In addition to all the men looking the same, they also all looked at you the same, a piece of meat that would be best served on their bed. The man beside you held that same expression when he looked at you. It was an expression that was so natural for him that you wanted to believe that it was second nature for him. You don’t think you would mind if it was reserved just for you.

In layman’s terms, you found Toji Zenin unfathomably attractive. 

“Oh, is the heir of the Gojo clan blushing? What a lucky day.” He teased as he moved his body to be facing you. “The rumors surrounding you were wrong. You seem to be far more expressive than they make you out to be. At least with me, you are. Is there any reason for that, doll?”

A womanizer, you thought to yourself. This man had to be a womanizer with how seamlessly he could convert an unsuspecting conversation into a suggestive one. He certainly had the looks and personality to become one if he wasn’t one already.

“Do you want them to be true?” You challenge blatantly ignoring his other question, setting aside the brief embarrassment as you cast a gaze through your peripheral at the man. 

“Nah.” He shrugs as he replies. “You’d just remind me of that pain in the ass Naobito and that’s not what I come here for.” He had heard his clan describe you as a woman of few words with a silence that makes up for them. It was hard to picture as you have been anything but that with just this interaction as his evidence.

“So what did you come here for?” You asked the questions that have been circulating in your mind for years. “Why did you start coming here? This isn’t a place that many people can find. So how did you find it?”

The garden as previously described was deserted before you found it. No one knew of this haven besides you and Satoru. It was hidden further out of the Gojo compound and you could make the argument that it was outside the Gojo compound boundary. 

You truly did not beat around the bush, “You curious? The answer is gonna disappoint you.”

“I don’t have any expectations on what the answer could be so go ahead. I can assure you the reason as to why I’ve allowed you to follow me here will also disappoint you.” Your voice was relaxed but the way you formulated your sentences remained formal. Even in the way you sat; posture upright, hands placed neatly in the space between your legs, and eyes permeating through his soul. 

He racks his mind looking for a choice of wording as he props his head with his knuckles while his elbow is nuzzled into his knee supporting his position, “I dunno. You looked interesting and I followed. Nothing more to it than that.”  He was never good with words.

As he said before, he expected some form of disappointment to show on your face but as you did so well you did the opposite. For the first time, you smiled at him. Well, if it could even be considered that. He would describe it as quaint and faint. It was discernible to know that it wasn’t shown often as it felt foreign to see on your face but he didn’t seem to mind it. “That makes me feel better about my reasoning.”

Tucking your knees into your chest as you laid your head upon them, you confessed, “I noticed you the first time you started following me here. I thought you would approach me but you never did. I’m not one to start a conversation either so I didn’t make much of an effort to approach you either. It would’ve stayed like that if Satoru hadn’t noticed you that day.”

“You were just going to continue to let me watch you? Is that some sort of kink for you? Think they call that being an exhibitionist.” This man watched as visually recoiled at his words and sent him a pointed look.

“And wouldn’t that make you a voyeur?” Those three years at Jujutsu Tech were very informative. All thanks to Yuki Tsukumo, a failed mission of yours is how you would categorize her. She was supposed to be the Star Plasma Vessel for Tengen but somehow between the beginning of the mission and taking her to Tengen’s barrier you decided to offer her a second chance at life. The downside would be she had to become a student at Jujutsu Tech and become a sorcerer for the duration of her time as a student. Due to that act of kindness that nearly stripped you of your place within your clan,  Yuki made it her mission to expose you to life beyond the strobe of Jujutsu society: underage drinking, clubbing, blind dates, and adult content that came in all forms. Anything that could leave the elders of the clan in a catatonic state if they ever heard of it. 

“Look at that, we're the perfect match. We should test that compatibility of ours out one of these days” Toji thoroughly enjoyed the fact that he was able to unlock multiple expressions/emotions from you. In each passing moment, he felt the need to up the ante to see how far he could go before you would consider him to be crossing your boundary.  

You were none the wiser. Under other settings, there would be an obvious power imbalance between the two of you. You, who was put on a pedestal within the Jujutsu world, and then Toji, who was degraded for his lack of curse energy. However, the power imbalance between the two of you now was different. 

When you turned your face to offer a retort you were greeted with his face only a few inches away from yours. You don’t know when or how or if you were distracted by the conversation but at some point he had reached you. His eyes glided over your face and inspected every detail of it: your eyes that followed his own, your nose that was twitching in confusion, cheeks that still had leftover red, and your glossy lips. You noticed they stayed focused on your lips longer and he noticed that he had made a bad habit of doing that.

Momentarily you allowed yourself to wonder what it would feel like to let him close the gap but didn’t let it linger for too long. You instead focused on the fresh wound on his cheek that you had noticed earlier. It was merely a cut but it bothered you. Lifting your finger to touch the wound, leaving the man's eyes no choice but to deviate from your lips and follow your fingers. 

“You’re a careless man.” is all you say as you begin to use the reversed cursed technique to heal the minor wound. It was completely unnecessary on your part. A bandaid would’ve worked just as well. It could have been a fluke but you felt compelled to help him. 

Your hands were rough due to years of strenuous training yet they held a sort of gentleness alongside it. You felt his green eyes watching you closely but didn’t let them affect you as they had previously. At least that’s what you wanted to believe. Tapping gently along the cut, you say,  “I would ask where you got it from but since you haven’t answered my last question I won’t even try.”

“Tough day at work.” Toji wasn’t going to verbally tell you that he had just killed a man even if it was now common knowledge that his trade of work wasn’t formidable. You didn’t ask further questions upon that answer. You could see the curse residuals in the cut, the hint of blood in his smell, and the faint imprints of dried-up sweat on his skin. He knew you knew what he had done and there was nothing that you could do but silently acknowledge it.

“You’re letting me tread very close to you, doll. Wonder how close you’ll let me get next time.”  He teased as you felt his breath graze your lips. The proximity between the two of you felt far too intimate. 

You shook your head, removing your finger from his cheek briefly before trying to place it in the same position while activating Infinity. It would be the first time you had activated it throughout this entire interaction. Visually your finger looked as if it was touching his cheek but physically the man could feel the absence. Smirking slightly at the man, you affirm, “I wouldn’t get my hopes up. That was the last time.”

A friendship between two liars, the perfect match. 

[drbased]

Hi! I stumbled across your blog last night, and since then I've read your whole tag on the theory of symbolic states. Really interesting stuff, and the way you write is very engaging and accessible. Even though we have had different experiences I've come to somewhat similar conclusions/revelations myself. There's such a strong emphasis on "identity/s" these days, and for years I was wrapped up "exploring" my identities (in reality, I was creating narratives and symbolic selves). (pt 1)

Thank you for your very kind words! I'm very happy to learn that my writing is engaging and accessible, because that's what I want!

I am not aware of Erickson's theory of the stages of development (and will look into that) but I absolutely agree that it's a teenage mindset. I wrote a post a while back about an immature mind, for example, fantasising about becoming a rock star - and how in that mind, 'rockstar' isn't the result of a human dedicating years of their life to developing a craft and then recieving praise and adoration as a result, but rather a distinct 'category' of person, where everything in the scene (the band, the music, the instruments, the stage, the screaming crowd) all serves as part of the same metaphysical identity; there is not distinction between the person and the symbols around them, and this scene is considered almost outside of time, existing in situ, in a vacuum. Part of engaging with symbolic necessarily involves a disconnect from understanding what things are and how they're conncted, and there's a narcissism where all things are made made to serve the person's 'identity' instead of existing in their own right; this is perfectly natural for a teenager, I would argue, because they're yet to truly understand what things are. But adults have 'no excuse', biologically-speaking, so any clinging to the symbolic is absolutely done to eschew adult responsibility and emotional maturity, preserving that comfortable teenage mindset of fantasy (I say this with full self-awareness, for the record).

However.

I err on the side of caution when it comes to pinning the blame on what is, essentially, 'kids these days' and their immaturity and entitlement. Whilst I fully recognise that the symbolic mindset is a form of stunted development, it is only one facet of a rich tapestry of potential forms of immaturity. Here's what I actually believe is happening:

This is the first time in human history where a large chunk of the population have existed in relative physical comfort and safety for multiple generations; we're not scared animals anymore, and for a long time we were vulnerable to accepting whatever minimal circumstances, belief systems etc. we were exposed to. In a comfortable environment, there is time to reflect on grander concepts - and, with mass media, this reflection doesn't have to happen to a billion individuals with minimal ability to communicate to each other, but rather we can collectively learn as a society, forming a group consciousness (in a purely metaphorical sense, not jungian or spiritual or w/e). As that consciousness is reflective of the individual consciousness, it can 'mature' in the same way an individual can, and what I see is a gradual emotional maturing of society.

Maturation is not the perfect system we all want it to be - a lot of archetypes of a 'mature' person are a tacit acceptance of systems as they are, dissilusionment, and an internal inner peace that allows for a disconnect from the empathy of others. We're told all the time that people 'get conservative as they get older' and I believe that's because as you go through more shit, you get stronger/more comfortable in yourself, and you start to look down on people who don't have the same maturity level as you.

One of the issues surrounding our perception of 'growing up' is that you never escape conditioning by the world around you. And the entire way we communicate, the way we think, the way we interpret ourselves and others and social behaviour and morality - all of it is (I don't like to use the word 'corrupted' because that implies there's a 'pure' version of these things) influenced by a society that is structured in hierarchy and domination - and that is entirely the case because there are people who benefit from it. A perfect example is the phrase 'sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me' - this is a phrase I grew up with, and as a bullied child I despised it. But that was the convential wisdom of the time; a mark of maturity is to be so strong in yourself that words simply bounce off you, and you can't be hurt. But how do slurs factor into all of this? In the past decade, the biggest leftist social faux pas has been to directly challenge these social wisdoms - to say that, actually, victimhood isn't a mark of impurity on the victim and that, actually, hurting people makes the person causing the pain look bad. That our 'personal responsibility' is to make sure we're not causing pain to others, not to take zero responsibility in causing pain and to merely expect that the other person decide within themselves that they're not hurt anymore and now can forgive you. We're rapidly forgetting how powerful the culture of machismo, especially for men, really was - the dominant wisdom for a long time was emotions make you weak and cringe.

What I percieve as happening that we have a cultural growth that has reached its own stage of emotional maturity. We're not so scared and vulnerable anymore, so people are finally able to look back and say, 'hey, that person hurt me, and that was their fault, actually, not mine'. But, naturally, there has been an overreaction, and people who still wish to dominate and be cruel (because we still live in a society where the foundational structure is built from domination and cruelty), are absolutely using that to their advantage. Abusers can now claim to be soft souls hurt by others - something we should be reserving for the people hurt by them. And then, of course, those that still think this is cringe and immature see the abusers and the narcissists take that language for themselves, and use this as 'proof' that the whole enterprise is inherently narcissistic and a deviation from a healthy, emotionally mature society. Right-wingers believe that any tendency towards fairness and compassion is proof society is going downhill, and after a decade of being told they weren't allowed to use slurs, they saw wearing masks as taking this whole kindness thing too far, and dug their heals in in a way that didn't happen when my country literally banned smoking indoors.

A major factor in all of this I do not want to ignore is capitalism. A primary reason that there's a 'cultural obsession with personal identity' is literally because of capitalism - 'consumerism' isn't just a minor factor in it, but rather a symptom of an identity constructed in an environment of both capitalism and mass media. Mine was the first generation to grow up with a litany of mass media, and I can now recognise that my relationship with the symbolic was formed during that time. As part of the cultural growth, a checkpoint is the irony-poisoned 90s, where there was a growing self-awareness, especially around how the culture we consume has affected our identity. I grew up in that environment, and without me knowing I was consuming very self-aware media - The Animaniacs comes to mind. This definitely influenced my relationship with myself as inherently meta and self-referential, I understood myself in terms of tropes before I ever got to fully get to know myself in isolation. I think that's a large reason why my generation in particualr is prone to this brand of symbolic thinking. I emphasise this brand of symbolic thinking because, once again, we think of this 'identity' stuff as something inherent to 'kids these days', but before this people took their identity and narrative and aesthetic from literal religion - I can't ignore the role atheism has to play in the way my generation engages with the symbolic.

All of this - the cultural irony leading to cultural dissilusionment, the growing up with (self-aware) mass media (especially video games), the loss of religious narrative but without a strong sense of identity to replace it, the internet allowing for us to indulge in symbolic identities and describe ourselves using words and concepts to others without needing to attribute those concepts to material, physical reality - all of this has been absolutely exploited by capitalism. Capitalism wants us to have symbolic identities, capitalism wants to exploit out trauma, our vulnerability - or, rather, 'capitalism' doesn't really want anything because it's ultimately a metaphysical concept. But how it's played out is that it benefits those in power to naturalise and cement the social and fiscal structures that preserve and perpetuate their power, through making them an inescapable part of how we exist and communicate both individually and culturally; capitalism, especially internet-powered capitalism, is the first time in history that our symbolic identities have resulted in real-world impact. Capitalism makes symbolic identities real in a way nothing else can - religion is a close second, but religion kind of necessitates a pro-social element, whereas my identity can be influenced by me walking past an advert and going into the shop to buy my mountain dew, and then I can post a photo of me drinking 'gamer juice' online and have people percieve me as a curated, isolated identity of 'gamer'. No church can incite within me such a personal and intimate and 'concrete' sense of symbolic identity.

TL;DR it's very, very easy to view this whole phenomenon as kids these days being obsessed with identity for nebulous/unknown reasons, but I think there is a very real and delicate and complex web of social factors at play, here. And the last thing I want is to downplay what the benefits of 'therapy speak' and 'identity labels' etc. have done for society, especially oppressed peoples lacking a voice - it's only natural that those things are going to get misused accidentally/maliciously (and I don't think there's a clear-cut line between those), because the process of social change/growth is messy and nonlinear. Unfortunately for me the big question is just how sustainable this concept of 'taking responsibility for our unconscious beliefs/behaviours and caring about the hurt we cause others regardless of our intentions' is; we're already seeing a mass backlash against the concept of privilege just in how the term is deployed in arguments against 'terfs' - women always get lumped with the blame whenever an important social change gets misused.

[ultrainfinitepit]

Town of Puddle: Witches

Last updated 08/14/2023

Witches are born from humans but can be considered their own type of creature. A witch could have one or both biological witch parents from whom their magic is inherited. This is a hereditary witch. Or they could have a witch parent who uses magic and a human surrogate to create their child. 

Witch magic is reliant on reagents and rituals. Common reagents include crystals, herbs, and bones. Rituals may be dictated by seasons, constellations, or lunar cycles. Magic potions are originated by witches, though others have learned to make them. Witches require lots of prep time, but in exchange they have very safe, stable magic. Contrary to popular belief, a witch is rarely corrupted by their own magic unless by choice.

Witches are unique in their ability to create new life from the inanimate. A witch’s first spell is usually to create a familiar. A familiar is a creature who serves the witch and is their close companion. So long as the witch lives, the familiar will always return to life. A witch and her familiar have a very strong bond. It is very rare but possible for a witch to have more than one familiar.

While some witches can do without, most witches use a spell focus to direct their magic, particularly for targeted or combat spells. This focus is typically a wand of their own construction but might be another object such as an orb or staff.

There are different types of witches, each drawing their power from different sources. Listed here are a few.

Green witches, who derive power from nature or fey, are the most common type. Green witches are quite a broad category, because nature is quite a large thing. 

Brown witches are a subset of green witches associated specifically with the household, and include kitchen, hearth, and house witches. 

Blue witches are another type of green witch, associated with water. Moon witches are a type of blue witch specifically associated with the sea and the Moon, who controls the tides.

Purple witches are yet another type of green witch who derive power from the night and the stars.

Outside of green witches, we have: red witches, who consort with demons for their power. 

Black witches, who commune with ghosts and other undead.

Pink witches, also known as love witches, draw their power from their emotions or the emotions of others. They are particularly talented with love spells or other magic to do with relationships.

White witches draw their power from two or more sources, and are so named because they can encompass many colors just as the color white contains all the colors of the rainbow. White witches result from the union of two witches with different powers. A white witch will never be as strong in a specific magic as a witch devoted solely to one type, but have the advantage of more easily using hybrid magic. 

If the colors are difficult to keep track of, that is alright: the classifications are rather arbitrary for witches and are more helpful for witch-hunters than anyone else!

Most witches are female. A few witches are male. And some male witches prefer the term warlock. And some are neither or both and don’t or do.

Witches must wake - that is, become aware of their magic. Many witches go their entire lives without ever performing witchcraft or learning their true nature. After waking, a witch must perform tasks to fully come into their abilities. A few witches sacrifice human life to do so. This is where much of the hatred against witches comes from. 

Most witches are solitary nowadays. In the old days, witches were more inclined to form covens. Covens were groups of witches who combined their powers to manifest bigger spells, or perform group ceremonies or rituals. However after centuries of witch-hunting, witches are so scattered it is difficult to form covens. It can also be dangerous if the coven is found. Many spells and other parts of the collective witch culture have been lost because they require covens.

Below are my named Puddle witches so far.

Lily Teek is a green witch, specifically a blue jay witch. She has an ancestral memory like how birds know migration patterns. Usually her witch knowledge comes to her in vivid dreams. Lily has a biological human mother, whom her witch mother used as an unsuspecting surrogate. Lily’s familiar is a horrendous gryphon named Bernard. Were it not for the curse on the town of Puddle interfering with Lily’s fledgling magic, Bernard would be a cute little blue jay.

Lily’s witch mother is Morgan, a raven witch. On each shoulder she has a foreboding raven familiar. Morgan has three other witch children: Corvus, Raveena, and Maggie.

Amanita is a black witch, specifically a grave witch, who lives in Louisiana. She hunts other witches who disrespect graves by taking bones from them, and returns the bones to rest.

Harriet “Hattie” is a brown witch, specifically a bread witch. She lives in Puddle and once she starts to wake, Lily helps her navigate being a witch.

Kokebe was a mischievous strix witch, who married Hajari and started Zipporah’s maternal bloodline.

Lilith “Lily” was a red witch and Sam’s friend in a past life.