#obviously our relationship with language is complicated and I'm not saying this to be the cops looming over your shoulder

[darklinaforever]

"I will never understand why people ship them together when the Cat King is just SO nonconsensual and downright creepy towards Edwin. What are people even seeing??"

"Also his apparent idea of romance is trying to coerce Edwin and then trapping him to subject him to continual harassment like dude enough is enough"

I still remind you that without the Cat King, Edwin would probably have had no development in his feelings and his sexuality.

It is literally the fact that the Cat King blocked him in town and tried to seduce him that causes a positive development in Edwin, with his iconic confession to Charles. Without Cat King, there's none of this.

And again, in case these people forget... Edwin's punishment was literally an equivalent of what he did to a cat. The punishment was fair.

Also I call him back, but Edwin seemed very, very willing to the Cat King's advances. I even dare to say that our Cat King sabotaged himself by putting the bracelet on Edwin because otherwise, Edwin would clearly have let himself be kissed and maybe even more.

Edwin did not perceive the Cat King's advances as harassment. On the contrary, deep down, he liked them. It felt good to be desired like that. His whole body language shows he was enjoying this.

And the Cat King being visibly strongly linked to desires, and more particularly Edwin's desires in the logic of the scenario, something tells me that he must have felt it. The Cat King was content to flirt with someone he liked and who he felt liked in return.

Even when the Cat King forced Edwin to tell the truth, it may seem immoral, but it was a good thing for Edwin's character development and even just a good thing in the sense that it allowed him to unravel a weight by confessing something that visibly weighed him down. We can see him nodding very briefly and discreetly when the Cat King tells him that he shouldn't feel better after revealing this ?

I'm tired of seeing this type of person spouting their bullshit. It seems like they're purposely watching the show with their eyes closed. Either that or they don't have an education in media analysis.

I personally believe that what must annoy these people a lot is the fact that even their precious little Edwin, whose honor and physical integrity they are trying to defend at all costs, canonically has a big crush on the Cat King and was completely ready to be kissed by him during their literally first interaction which they like to describe as assault. 😂

Also, even though most of us Catwin shippers would like them to be endgame, we are well aware that it's a low probability and that Charles will surely eventually realize that he romantically loves Edwin in return. On the other hand, these people who spit on the character of the Cat King seem to simply refuse to recognize his importance in Edwin's sexual and romantic journey, trying to portray him as a disgusting abuser who would have traumatized the poor Edwin when just... no.

It's not very complicated to understand what we like about the Cat King and his relationship with Edwin. But for that, these people would already have to have the descent to understand the basis of the character. He is fully present to serve Edwin's positive emotional and sexual development. Without the Cat King, Edwin would probably never have been pushed against the wall in order to fully assume who he is. What the Cat King brings to Edwin is very beautiful and important. And for this to happen, Edwin obviously has to actually feel things for the Cat King. But these people really don't seem ready to hear that either. Basically, we like this relationship because it is well written with a goal and complex characters sharing a connection to tell it to us.

[greedandenby]

Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid, and others talking about Jam Reiderson.

Here's a compilation of bits and pieces from various interviews about these two men's beautiful friendship. Will be updating as new promo for subsequent seasons comes out!

(Long post, so keep reading!

- there's SO MUCH good stuff)

Pride.com

Q: You guys have incredible chemistry. It hinges on that. Can you talk a little bit about how you built that kind of connection?

JA: I find it so difficult to talk about chemistry. Because me and Sam… like each other.

SR: Yeah. I think we’re very similar in a lot of ways, and that was a big relief. It’s a very bizarre job to do when you’re doing it, cause you’re shooting entirely at night, you have amazing costumes and contact lenses and accents and teeth and blood. The scenes, while they feel like they have a flow to them, there’s a lot of splitting up while we do it because we’ve got to have special effects come in or the blood come in, or we’re on a rig of some kind. So it’s a weird experience, and we also had these extraordinary lines of dialogue to say as well. And so to have somebody who’s similar, can process these things the same way as you and bounce off of and decompress with is vital.

JA: Yeah, and the first step is you just have a common language that you find, and sometimes it clicks and sometimes it doesn’t. And we were just lucky that we, you know…

SR: Yeah. Yup.

Amc Talk

Q: The relationship between Louis and Lestat is rife with complications, but at its core there's obviously a real connection there. What was it like crafting this tumultuous relationship on screen with Sam Reid? You two are quite good friends having come out the other end of Season 1.

JA: Yeah, we were good friends when we were doing it and I think that's part of why it worked out for us! We didn't put too much emphasis on trying to figure everything out. The scripts are so beautiful, the writing is so dense and so full of life and detail that you don't need to discuss it too much. Obviously, we talked to the directors, and they'd have ideas and we'd have ideas, but I think, in terms of me and Sam finding it, I think we just paid attention to each other. We just trusted the writing, trusted each other, and it meant that we’d already be prepared for whatever was going to come up. We felt comfortable with each other, so we could try things and it felt safe. It felt like we could play around with body language and with eye contact and all these things. But it was unspoken, I think. It wasn't something that we spent a lot of time discussing. Everything's intentional to a certain extent, but there's this other thing that is just about instinct and listening really.

Q: And having the right scene partner where that happens.

JA: Yeah, I felt really lucky! Sam gives you so much. There's so much to play off and I hope that I did the same for him. Our first day of shooting we did the opera house stuff, and I was so excited. It's the scene where he talks about loneliness, and I remember thinking even though I'd got to know him a little bit and we'd done a bit of rehearsal and we'd become friends by that point, I was like, "Oh wow, this is going to be really special! I'm going to get to do this every day. I'm going to get to watch this character come to life and respond to it." That's a gift. Sam Reid is a gift!

Q: The relationship between Louis and Lestat is rife with complications, but at its core there’s a real connection there. What was it like crafting this tumultuous relationship on screen with Jacob Anderson? You two are quite good friends having come out the other side of Season 1 so if anything, I’m sure the experience brought you closer together? 

SR: Yeah, definitely. It definitely brought us closer together. It was really crazy this stuff that we were doing together. We'd have these massive scenes, and it would be just him and I in the middle of the night playing opposite each other, not really being able to see each other all the time with the contact lenses. You just rely so heavily on one another. You also rely on each other because you're like, "Have we pushed it too far? Is it too much? Is it enough? Like, do we believe each other?" Because it's this very intense relationship but we’re also supernatural beings. So, you're constantly having to reframe the way that you look at a relationship and say, "Well, hang on, my character has all this power." Like in Episode 4, I remember saying, when all the police are coming over to the house, I was like, "Why are we even worried about this? I don't understand why I would be even concerned about this at all." But you're negotiating with someone who's going, "Yeah, but my desire to have a connection to humanity makes this important," and so you're like, "Oh, okay." We managed to balance off each other in that way, because my character's way past any connection to humanity and Jacob's character is holding onto those last threads of his humanity. When we'd both be examining a scene, we'd both be coming at it from different angles. Because of the love between the two characters, there's always that negotiation and blunting of the other's real intention. I couldn't really imagine doing it with anybody else! We did all of it, everything, together, really.

Gold Derby Daniel Hart Interview

Q: In what ways does the show’s really rich visual palette and then of course Sam and Jacob’s lightning-in-a-bottle chemistry on screen influence some of the choices that you made on the score throughout your process?

DH: There’s a theme that I would call their love theme, and it’s sprinkled throughout the first episode but it played in full over the end credits in a piece called “In Throes of Increasing Wonder”. And that theme appears in almost every episode, I think, in some form or another. I don’t think that theme was possible before I had seen some of that interaction between Jacob and Sam as Lestat and Louis. It’s born of their emotional reactions to each other.

IWTV Podcast

Ep2

Q: You and Jacob did your chemistry tests over Zoom? Which, I mean, does anyone have chemistry over Zoom?

SR: Yeah, I don’t really know what they were looking for or how you’re supposed to gauge chemistry from that, because it was really glitchy and we were all speaking on top of each other and trying really hard to act into the camera, which just wasn’t working. But look, I really… Jacob is such a lovely person, such a really fantastic actor and so easy to be around. And I could see that he was going to be a very easy person to fall in love with. So it was fun. In fact I just came from having ice cream with Jacob and he says hello.

Q: Oh my God, I’m obsessed. I want these moments. Give me that footage, okay? I want ice cream footage, I want strolling the streets of downtown New Orleans footage.

SR (laughs): Yeah, I mean we hang out all the time and we’ve become very, very good friends. Cause it is a crazy journey that we’re on and it was a crazy job, so it’s really lovely to have such a good friend.

Ep3

Q: Talking about Sam, how much time did y’all get before you started actually shooting? It’s like “Okay, we’re in love now and it’s going to be very tortured and complicated” – Rolling!

JA: Yeah. I don’t know if I completely believe in luck, but I think there’s like a weird cosmic luck in this whole thing. It is a huge roll of the dice. The first day we met each other, obviously we both had our masks on, and we had a hug and we were like “Oh hi”. And then we just spent the next day walking around New Orleans and getting to know each other. And I truly love that man, so much. Like, we connected so quickly and just found like… And I think part of that as well is that there’s a level of trust that we had to have, otherwise we weren’t going to be able to do this at those hours, and those scenes, and the intimacy of their relationship, and also the toxicity and the fire in it. We had to really hold each other and be like “All right, have we got each other’s back?” And we did, we were just like “We’re in this together. Let’s listen to each other and try and have fun.” And we did, we had a lot of fun. I thought that taking on this role would be quite triggering for me in lots of different ways. I thought it was going to force me to have to reconcile with lots of feelings that I had. I thought it was going to be just a guilt and shame and despair fest for six months. And actually I just found it really, really cathartic being Louis, and Louis has helped me a lot. I think there’s something about acceptance in Louis and acceptance of self, and like “This is who I am, this is who I’ve been, and I’m enduring, I’m choosing to keep going. I’m choosing to accept who I am.” And that was really helpful for me. So rather than feeling tortured, I think I ended up just feeling very… held, very comforted by the whole thing, in a weird sort of way.

Ep7

Q: I’m wondering what you guys would do or how you would hang out on set. Is there hanging out or are you more like “Okay, they’re setting up a light, I gotta go lay down, I can’t with you right now.”

JA: No, we were pretty inseparable, to be fair. There wasn’t really any hanging out. We just were. At a certain point, we just were. We didn’t share a trailer, but it was like, a wall separating us. And we’d just end up sitting on the stairs or texting each other through the wall.

SR (laughs): Through the wall, just texting all the time.

JA: We became a hive mind.

SR: We did, yeah.

Q: Were you still a hive mind once you wrapped? Would you still text and stuff?

JA: Yeah.

SR: Yeah.

JA: We’re going to the theatre tonight. We’ve seen each other every day for the last week. We’re still choosing to spend time together. It’s probably not very healthy. Very co-dependent (laughs).

Ep8

Q: Obviously viewers are in love with Jacob and Sam. People are tweeting me photos of them eating ice cream. We call ourselves #icecreamhive. The fandom is strong. Can you tell me about how you found Jacob and Sam, and the process of deciding they were Louis and Lestat?

Rolin Jones: Well, obviously 9 billion people auditioned. You kind of get down to ten actors that you like on both sides. The simple math of it is the second those two got into their Zoom rooms together, it was very clear something very dynamic was happening. On Jacob’s side, there’s this sort of genuine warmth, kindness, humanity. You’re like “Okay, for a character who’s going to make a number of questionable choices, how do you make them want to love him?” And on Sam: I saw his face and I said “No fucking way! No fucking way that guy, this chiselled, stupid chiselled, with his locks and his dreamy eyes. I was like no, no, no, no. And then I pressed play, and he really knew how big we were going to go. He was wildly specific and subtle. It was in his voice. There was something a little Jeff Bridges/Starman about it, and I was like “Oh, this guy feels like an alien and he feels other than us”. They both won the audition, that’s basically what happened. Although I’ll tell you, here’s a dirty secret: ready for this? Sam bought this piece of technology, that you can do a push-in close-up right when the scene is getting a little juicy. And I just started laughing my ass off. I was like “Oh my God, this guy wants this so hard.”

Mark Johnson: You called me the first time you had seen Sam, and you were just so excited about the potential of this guy and you basically said: “He’s going to be next to impossible to beat.” And sure enough, nobody could really touch him. But from the very first time you saw his audition you were pretty convinced that we had our Lestat.

Keep It Podcast

JA: Sam is just like my… partner-in-crime, and I feel so lucky that I got to spend every day with him. We had to do a lot of stuff in this show and when I say a lot of stuff I mean, those nights are no joke. Knowing those scenes and working on those scenes together at that hour – you can only do that with somebody that you like, even if the scene calls for tension. I think you would just kill each other if you didn’t like each other.

New York Post (October '22)

JA: For anything I got to do with Sam, that relationship is so fun to play. You bond in a really particular way when you're working nights and dealing with these lofty themes. The feelings are huge in every scene. If you don't have that common language and find that chemistry... I don't think me and Sam needed to find it, there was something natural that we found together. It would be rough if we didn't like each other an awful lot.

PaleyFest

Q: Jacob and Sam, I feel like the show wouldn’t work unless the chemistry’s there between Louis and Lestat. There’s a lot riding on that. So how did you two form this immortal bond, if you will, during filming, knowing how important it was?

JA: We just spent a lot of time together even when we didn’t need to (laughs). I don’t know, like, how do you put that kind of thing into words? It’s just, like… I really love Sam. I like spending time with him. I like working with him. I find the way that we talk about what we’re doing… Well, we’re not talking about what we’re doing all the time but I think we have a similar language. I dunno, it’s ki(smet?)… It’s, like, how do you describe a vibe? (laughs)

Q: Sam, how do you describe the vibe?

SR: I think the work, the world and the characters are so extreme and it’s a very intense thing to do. And I think we leant on each other a lot throughout the process and we were very grateful for the friendship that we had built to be able to get through six months of night and some pretty intense scenes. And to have someone that you can look across the room and have a private giggle with and get on with the job and debrief with at the end of the day is invaluable. Chemistry with actors is a complicated beast because it is our job to manufacture it, but when you don’t have to and it just comes naturally it makes everything so much more easy and enjoyable, particularly when you’re nude and bleeding (laughs). You’re really happy you have a buddy (unintelligible).

Q: I was in the Entertainment Weekly suite when all you guys came through for Comic Con at the Hard Rock Hotel and, I mean, I was watching you all interact. Bailey, break it down for me: these two, do they have like a super-bromance going on? Like, what is happening?

Bailey Bass: They’re best friends! They really are, it’s really precious. (Delighted grin from Jacob) Look at Jacob’s face! (laughs)

JA: Are we best friends, Sam?

SR: Yeah, you’re my best friend.

Eric Bogosian: I have to say, I have to throw in: I have two sons who are roughly the age of these guys, and we all went over to Comic Con, us three. And walking around was like being with my kids. The two of them are just like together (clasps hands together) getting into everything and I’m following them around, like “Wait a second, wait a second! Let me catch up with you there!” I didn’t really get it when I first got to set, I didn’t understand what was going on with these two guys, because they were so happy and they were so tired and they were so bonded and I was like “What dimension have I entered here?”

Reddit AMA (2022)

Q: Many of the scenes in the show are very emotionally demanding for even just a viewer of the series […] Is it taxing on yourselves as people or is it something you can simply switch off?

JA: It really helped having Sam there. We just went and sat on a bench and checked on each other. Without Sam I think I might have found it a lot harder.

Rotten Tomatoes

About the casting process:

JA: I asked (Alan Taylor): “How did you guys decide that it was the right thing?” And he was like: “To be honest, by that point” – cause we did like eight rounds of auditions – “it was more about the way that you interacted when you weren’t doing the scenes. It was about how you listened to each other.” It’s just that we got on, we were pretty comfortable between the things.

Schön magazine

Q: Tell me more about the dynamic between Jacob and you who plays Louis, your love interest?

SR: Jacob and I get on well, we have a close friendship. We bonded strongly throughout the making of this show. He’s one of my favourite scene partners I’ve ever had because it’s just such an easy working relationship. There’s a lot of trust between the two of us. You know, it’s a fucked up toxic relationship. It’s messed up. But at the core of it is like this intense, inescapable love. So, we have to play out a very morbid, obsessive, passionate relationship. I think it would be really hard to do if you hated the person opposite. I’m so grateful that we get on.

ScreenRant at SDCC 2022

Q: Louis and Lestat have an iconic relationship: epic, spanning years and continents, lives ruined, bloodshed. What is it like bringing that to the screen and working together to really establish that immortal bond?

JA: It’s been the greatest partnership – creative partnership – in my life.

SR: Awww.

JA: No, I’m not joking, it really has!

SR: I’d agree, actually. It’s very hard, it’s a very intense relationship that they have, and you have to believe in that relationship. The things they do to each other are so extreme and painful and hurtful. And it’s been fun to have a real buddy to go through that and debrief with at the end of the day.

JA: I’m not sure how we could’ve done everything that we’ve done if we didn’t really trust each other.

SR: Yeah, it would’ve been awful if we hated each other.

JA: And it’s one of the great… you know, in the books, when they join together again – even when you know how awful they’ve been to each other – it’s just like you’re home, and I think that’s something that we always subconsciously tried to make sure was in there. They are kind of like home to each other, particularly after Louis’ human attachments start to fall away.

Eric Bogosian: I just want to say, these two guys (pointing to Jacob and Sam), it’s great watching them, their bonding and everything. The only difference between them and the guys in the fictional world: I’ve never seen them fight.

Bailey Bass: They were walking together alongside the San Diego beach. (To Jacob and Sam) You were! I mean, how adorable is that?

JA: We’re quite co-dependent. I don’t know if that’s a problem (laughs).

SDCC 2022 Panel

SR: It’s the greatest gift that I’ve ever been given, really. And then of course (pointing to Jacob) this guy.

JA: Awww!

SDCC 2022 Press Conference

Eric Bogosian: As a witness to what was going on, watching the way these guys (pointing to JA & SR) interacted was amazing. They had a chemistry that I’ve actually never seen before, and it continues even as we’ve been here for Comic Con. It’s wonderful to watch. I won’t get into it too much, I don’t want to characterise what goes on between them, but there was a great feeling on our set.

TV Insider at SDCC

Q: The level of intimacy that you two have to establish early on is really impressive. Did you know each other? Did you get to spend time hanging out before you got to be these immortal entwined characters?

JA (to SR): What did we do? We had like one Facetime call…

SR: Yeah, we had a Facetime call and then we were texting. We texted a lot, so we go to know each other via text.

JA: Me and Sam talk to each other every day, by the way. We couldn’t cut the cord.

TV Insider’s Trivia Night

SR & JA: Hi, we’re Jam Reiderson and we’re from Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire!

Holding up boards that say:

SR: [I won!]

JA: [But I won (really) at life]

SR: Bastard!

JA: Because I get to be with you, Sam, all the time! That’s the twist.

TV I Say Podcast

JA: Me and Sam spent 40 minutes yesterday in a sticker shop. Like, just looking at stickers and buying stickers. That’s not a thing that you ever really talk about. You don’t go like “Are you into stickers?”, you know? (…) I feel like Sam and I end up mentioning things in passing like “Do you wanna go do this or do you wanna do this?” and the other person’s like “Yeah!” But then, we have… There are so many crossovers. You wouldn’t expect it because we grew up in very different ways in very different countries. But we have crossovers of weird things or very niche things that we’d never discussed, really, right up until the point of promoting this show and doing press, that we’re like, “Great!” Like we’re going to go to Universal today. And I thought “Oh, is it a bit of a weird thing to ask?” Like, I don’t know if it’s awkward to… Normally, I wouldn’t ask a friend if they just wanted to go to Universal. But with Sam, I’ll be like “Should we go to Universal Studios?”, and he’s like “Yeah! Let’s do it!” Do you know what I mean? It’s just, I dunno, we just have similarities that we couldn’t have really… We couldn’t have known that we were so similar, but it really helped us when we were working, even if we didn’t know it at the time.

W Magazine (Oct ’22)

Q: Is there anything specific that you read first thing in the morning?

JA: Realistically, text messages. In the last few months it’s been texts from Sam Reid, who plays Lestat in the show, because he’s in Australia and I’m in the UK. So there’s always some kind of really nice conversation waiting in the morning.

Young Hollywood

JA: I don’t know, we just liked each other straight away. We just had similar thoughts about what this was, about what we were doing. He’s one of my favourite people I’ve ever met in my life, let alone worked with. We just work well together. I can’t even really pinpoint exactly why. We’re going to hang out now, like after this we’re going to go to the Grove…

Q: Oh he’s in LA?

JA: Yeah!

Q: Oh my God, that’s perfect! I was going to say when was the last time you talked to him?

JA: Like half an hour ago.

Q: What’s the best thing that came from IWTV for you?

JA: That’s hard to… Sam Reid. Let’s say Sam Reid.

SFX Magazine – May 2024

That being said, [Rolin] Jones admits that it was a tough adjustment for Anderson and Reid to navigate this season. “It’s very clear, they’re very, very good friends,” Jones observes. “They really do talk every day together. So generally speaking last year, they had each other. They would get off the scene, they’d go to the bench and they would talk.”

92NY Season 2 Advance screening

JA: [Working with Sam on S02] was like slipping on a glove. Like, a glove that fits really well, wasn’t it? (laughs) Wait, is that dirty? (laughs)... An old sock!

Eric Bogosian: I have to say, I’ve never seen two actors in a company behave the way these two guys do. When I got to set and I first met them, they were already as if they were stuck to each other like brothers. (…) And then I watched them just… They follow each other around, like, whenever they’re not in scenes they’re like two puppies playing together.

Instinct Magazine (May ’24)

JA: I think the chemistry between Sam and I is based on a similarity in approach, and the way I think about these characters. Also, we just get on – I think that translates in a way.

AMC Talk (May ’24)

Re working with Sam on “DreamStat”

JA: We didn’t work on it too much ahead of time. Sam and I really trust each other. So, we’d just show up and be like, “we’ll be fine. We’ll just figure it out as we go.” We really listen to each other. (…) [Louis and Lestat’s] dynamic this season is very different. They’re not fighting. They’re not shouting at each other. That kind of intensity has gone a bit, which was fun! That was a new thing for me and Sam to play, this kind of companionship thing. It was fun and I was just glad that Sam was there, and that I was going to get to work with him.

JA: Sam and I have talked about how nice it would’ve been to have had a little mini-series where you just see Lestat and Louis just hanging out in New Orleans. (…) And not necessarily hunting, just like walking, sitting on a bench, chatting, really like the norm.

People Magazine Interview ‘24

Q: What’s a headline you’d use to describe your friendship in real life?

JA & SR: Sam and Jacob go to the movies (laughs)…

JA: … and walk around the city…

SR: … sit in a park and chat for hours.

Sam Reid answers fan questions (AMC)

Q: Who makes you laugh the most on set?

SR: Jacob.

Question from Jacob 😏 (SR reaction: Jacob Anderson? Who's that? 😚): Why is Jacob Anderson your favourite person to work with?

SR: He is very talented and he does some extraordinary work in this season. I feel very lucky to work with him… aside from the fact that he’s a dick. 🥰

Salon (May ’24)

SR: They’re trauma bonded, Louis and Lestat…

JA: … And Jake and Sam also trauma bonded!

Roxane Duran interviewed by Autumn Brown (June ’24)

RD: When I first met Jacob and Sam… They’re just the kindest souls and they really, really take care of each other and of everyone around. […] Jacob and Sam really have that sort of really beautiful friendship, and you see them and they’ve got a huge joy being around each other and also being around everybody else.

Vanity Fair / Little Gold Men Podcast (June ’24)

Q: Can you talk a bit more about Sam as a scene partner, the connection you two have developed over the years?

JA: The key thing that Sam and I have is complete and utter trust. We trust each other. We know that wherever the scene goes, it’s going to be safe. We also know that we’re going to surprise each other. […] Sam always does things with his chest and that is also how I like to work. Say it with your chest; mean it. I don’t think he’s ever doing anything out of a sense of vanity. It’s like, you exhaust as many possibilities as you possibly can and you’re unafraid to look silly or to go to a really heightened place. I think we hopefully see that in each other. When Sam and I are in a room together and we’re about to shoot a scene as these characters, it’s exciting. You don’t always find that, where you just have a symbiotic, or completely common language in the way that we work together. Even though we’re quite different. I think that’s what it is. I think we speak the same language in the way that we relate to these characters and this story.

Variety (June ’24)

JA, about filming the S2E8 reunion scene with SR:

“We held each other’s hands, and we just fucking jumped.”

TV Guide (June ’24)

Rolin Jones about shooting the S2E8 reunion scene:

They arguably did not get enough takes to do that scene. It’s just one of those things that when we turned on the camera, you could feel three years of their friendship. I knew on this side of the camera I needed two takes. I was like, “Jesus, what just happened?” But they wanted to stay there forever.

About the unheard words in the scene:

I don’t know, to this day, I don’t know, nobody knows, except those two, what they said. We wrote it in. That was the gift, to say, “You guys, not only your friendship, but where you’ve taken the characters, you should have something private for the rest of your lives. And go ahead, have it.”

AMC “Inside IWTV S2” Special

SR: I speak to Jacob every day, nonstop, all the time.

JA: Any day where Sam is there is a good day for me.

Den of Geek at SDCC ‘24

Q: How do you go about building such rippling chemistry with another human being, with Jacob? And I know the answer is “chemistry is chemistry”, but how? How do you do it?

SR: Well, I don’t “build” anything. Unfortunately I’m going to give you that same answer. But we’re very good friends. We’re really close. I don’t know if that chemistry happens before you become friends or after, but there’s a lot of trust and we just have a lot of fun making this show. I think chemistry isn’t just two actors or two people together: it’s the whole group, it’s everyone who makes the show. It’s the space, it’s the feeling when you come on set, and you feel like you can do things, try things, be experimental, push the boundaries a little bit. And that creates a sense of play and trust. You might think that it’s just Louis and Lestat’s chemistry, but it’s actually the whole chemistry of every cast member and every creative and every director, every piece of beautiful dialogue we have, the design, down to every crew member. Everyone puts a lot of chemistry into it, so it’s a pot – a big, bubbly pot.

Rolin Jones: Bowling, too. They do a lot of bowling.

SR: We go bowling, yeah. I should’ve said that.

Assad Zaman: Ice cream.

SR: Yeah, we eat a lot of ice cream. And we do sticker play (laughs).

Q: Care to elaborate on sticker play?

SR: Make it up.

Q: A lot of bowling alleys in Prague?

SR: They build them for us on set. It’s contractual.

[hexofvex]

Jealousy headcanons with my Anemo favs ft. Gender Neutral!Reader

Characters: Wanderer, Xiao and Kazuha

CW: jealous behaviour (especially worse in Scara's), a bit of swearing

Total WC: 1348 words

A/N: Switching it up a bit until I get a good one-shot idea. I'm kind of using the idea of the nations having their own languages plus a common language in Kazuha's. Also I'm sorry Kazuha's is shorter I hope you enjoy it tho <3 and as always feedback is appreaciated!

Kazuha

Kazuha is the least jealous out of these three

He's rarely ever jealous if anything

He's very confident in the stability of your relationship

However, when he gets jealous, it's directed at the outsider, he's more annoyed than anything

Would probably just intrerrupt the conversation to place a kiss on your cheek (yk to show the person in question that they don't have a chance)

You'd obviously notice his that his atitude is a bit more cheeky than usual tho

And you'd be a tad bit surprised, because you didn't really expect something like this out of him

Kazuha was not the type to get irritated easily.

But as he watches the owner of dango stall flirt with you (shamelessly, I might add), he feels his jaw tensing up. Honestly, why were they dragging this out so much? He'd been so excited to show you around Inazuma City, and for the last fifteen minutes you were stuck at the dango stall.

Of course, you had no way of knowing what the seller was saying because of the specific expressions they were using, but he understood all too well. You were nodding your head politely, with a smile that looked more pained by each minute that passed.

When he's had enough, he walks over to the stall. "My love?"

You turn to face him, and he leans over to place a soft kiss on your cheek. "We need to leave."

You try to hide the wave of relief that washes over your face, as Kazuha explains something to the vendor. When they realise the context of your relationship, their attitude changes as embarrassment blooms in their expression, and Kazuha can't deny the exquisite satisfaction he feels at the sight.

"What did you tell them?" you ask, as the two of you continue your walk through the city.

"That we are two travelers that need to get back to Ritou, to catch our ship."

Not exactly a lie. Maybe except for the fact that the Alcor leaves in three days.

"Thanks for the save." Your lips curl up into a smirk. "Was kissing me a core part of the plan?"

Kazuha smiles, the kind of radiant smile that is more than enough to give you butterflies.

"Sorry, my dear. But if you knew the things they said to you...I just couldn't help myself."

Xiao

Very jealous, but tries his best to hide it

He thinks it's embaressing, how can an adeptus feel things such as jealousy

He also feels guilty and criticizes himself for not trusting you through and through

He knows, at a rational level, that you love him, so why is it that he feels like this?

(Un)fortunately for him, he can't hide shit from you emotion wise

Xiao felt like his head was underwater, barely registering what you were saying.

You had just returned from a comission which you had taken together with another adventurer. You were just telling him how glad you were that you ended up with a partner that could carry their own.

Someone that feels like an actual partner.

That's what you said, and although he knew it wasn't that kind of partner, he couldn't stop the thoughts from flooding into his brain. Would you need him anymore? He was so complicated and hard to handle, especially when karmic debt was taking a toll on him, it wouldn't be hard for you to find someone less exhausting-

"Xiao?"

The adeptus returns to the present, broken out by your voice. You're standing in front of him, puzzled look on your face.

"Did you zone out?"

Xiao swallows. "No. I was listening."

You frown. "What was I saying?"

"You were talking about the stone slates."

"I was, five minutes ago." You face softens as you take a few steps closer to him. "Xiao? Love, are you sure you're alright? Did something happen while I was gone? Is it the karmic debt? I'll go to the harbour right away to bring more medicine if you need it-"

"No. You don't need to worry, this is no matter. Continue your story...about...your friend." He curses himself for the way his voice cracks on the word friend. And of course, you notice, and your expression shifts to a lesser degree of worry.

"Are you jealous?"

"That is beaneath adepti-"

"It's fine if you are, you know. I mean, not fine for you, but, you don't need to feel embaressed about it. It's just how feelings are sometimes. You know I'd never actually...you know..."

His eyes widen. "No, of course not! I- Forgive me." He takes a deep breath. "I do not know what to do about it, you know this is all very new to me."

"Well,I guess I just have to show you until we crush every shadow of doubt." You cup his face and slowly press your lips to his. It's a simple kiss, but you make sure it communicates your feelings.

"A little better?" You ask after you pull away.

"Yes," he replies and pulls you in again.

Wanderer

Literally unbearable

Y'all know that meme that goes "You're the most jealous man I've ever known." "You know other men?"

Yeah that's him, but he does that with everyone

His abandonment issues are big as hell, it was kind of to be expected.

Unlike Xiao, he doesn't even try to hide his jealousy

The type of person to wake you up in the middle of the night to ask if you really love him

The fact that you're with his insufferable ass should be proof enough

You're sitting in your room, enjoying a book, drinking your tea, until you feel a disturbance in the force, when you hear the door to your house getting slammed.

And before you even get to process what's going on, said disturbance walks in your room.

"Who was that turnip head that was flirting with you earlier today?"

You close your book, put down your cup and lean back in your chair, crossing your hands.

"What?"

"About 10 A.M., in front of the Akademiya."

"Ah. That was a colleague. And they're taken, in case that helps ease your mind."

"Good."

"You know, have you ever considered that perhaps I'm not looking to cheat on you at every corner?"

Noticing the hurt tone of your voice, he backs off and the anger fades from his face.

"I might have acted too brashly."

"You think?" You leave your book and cup of tea abandoned on the table as you head towards the door. You stop and turn your head to face him. "I won't betray you, Kunikuzushi. You should know I wouldn't do that."

"I know that."

"Then what's the problem!?"

He sighs and avoids your gaze.

"I am. The more time I spend in your presence the deeper I fall. It is only natural that I wish to preserve this partnership of ours. Does that make sense to you, [Name]?"

Although you're familiar with his straightforwardness, such an admission still delivers a bit of shock.

"It does. Because I want the same thing."

You step closer to him and turn his head so he's facing you.

"You don't need to do all this. I love you, that's the whole reason why I'm with you. If you'd see things from my perspective, you'd never have these thoughts again."

He's silent for a moment, until he grabs your hand and squeezes it.

"I will make attempts to get rid of this. Because I want to believe in your love. Are you willing to believe in mine?"

You laugh. "What kind of question is that? Of course I am. Why do you think I'm still here?"

"It might not go perfectly on the first try, you know."

"I'm alright with that. Just try. You can do that for me."

He lets go of your hand and goes to cup your face, bringing it so close to his that your noses are touching, and you can see the swirls of fiery determination in his eyes.

"I cannot know the results, but I could attempt anything for you."

[texanmarcusdavenport]

Mighty Med Headcanons

Gus

Gus is secretly a Perry. They have a lot in common: weird side character that shows up at the most (in)opportune moments, has an unrealistic variety of skills and resources, a past that's WAY too storied to be true yet somehow it is??, and obsessive behavior over their romantic interests (Perry with Douglas & Gus with Jordan). If they're not related, they'd 100% get along like a house on fire if they did meet.

Gus and Oliver are childhood friends of the "our parents forced us to hang out" variety. Oliver is GOBSMACKED that both his parents like Gus better than Kaz. Like. How??

Jordan

Jordan!! I <3 her. There’s a post going around on here that says she should've been in Elite Force instead of AJ & I 100% agree. She does seem like the type that'd be a surprisingly good hacker... and honestly I just really miss her :(

Her & Daniel(le) would get along. I have no proof I just know it. Troublemakers Inc(TM)

Kaz(imieras)

Pansexual & polyamorous. As long as everyone's having fun he's down for whatever

Transfem genderfluid, he/she/it. Starts by calling itself a woman/girl casually until Oliver's like. Kaz is there anything you want to tell me. & Kaz is like pfffft what no that's ridiculous ha ha Oliver I think I'd know if I was transgender. Then Kaz thinks about it & it's like. Damn it.

It/its pronouns also happen via jokes, she's just like. I'm like if a girl were a bug :) or perhaps a small mammal. Until someone calls her 'it' and she's like. Hm. Kinda slaps.

Doesn't even realize she has dysphoria, just starts acting & dressing more feminine when it suits her & 2 years later she's like. Huh. I haven't been avoiding mirrors lately. Wonder what that's about?

Combined-type ADHD

Dyslexic & dysgraphic. Only got through English by the Grace of God (Oliver). But I headcanon that other than spelling & syntax errors he's actually a great writer when he puts the effort in. He'd kill in public speaking but he'd never do that lol.

If she had a Normo job, it'd be firefighter

Oliver

Trans guy, he/him. He & Kaz are transmasc/transfem solidarity. His mom is more supportive than his dad.

OCD, anxiety, autistic. Gets all 3 from his parents which is part of the reason it took so long to get a diagnosis (both of them just thought getting crippling bouts of anxiety was normal).

Aroallo, specifically cupioromantic bisexual... this is so important to me you don't understand. Oliver is a very codependent character and I think learning to live on his own & not be jealous of his friends would be a great character arc for him.

He & Kaz r so fucking queerplatonic don't even get me started. Do Not Seperate Them.

Skylar Storm

Ace lesbian

She's an alien so I don't think she prescribes to human gender roles like. At all. So she's not really "trans" or "cis", but she does use she/xhe pronouns & mostly describe herself as a woman.

Futch Skylar... futch Skylar supremacy!! Has a sort of complicated relationship with presentation and whatnot, human femininity is sort of the norm for Skylarkind as a fashion trend. Xhe and Experion actually were both ostracized for their presentation (butch/trans Experion my beloved <3). I think xhe prefers more masculine dress but in fun styles and colors because, in her words, "practicality doesn't have to be boring".

Skylar Storm is essentially just a stage name, it started as anickname based on a very loose translation of xyr actual name.

Alan Diaz

Trans guy, any pronouns. Mostly because they're confused by language as a concept.

You know how its a running gag in MM that Horace never taught him how to count past eighty? That, but with language. Horace speaks Arabic, Old Castilian, & Mexican Spanish interchangeably so Alan grew up thinking that's just how people talk. Mix that with random alien languages &, well, they're incomprehensible on the best of days.

Doesn't know they're trans. Like they're trans obviously but if you told her that she wouldn't really understand.

Oliver: so you were, uh, born a girl but you're a boy now?

Alan: no, I'm a boy.

Oliver: yeah, obviously, but like, physically--

Alan: What Normo nonsense are you on about.

And it continues like that.

Polysexual, and if xe were married xe'd be a Wife Guy (positive).

[sunwarmed-ash]

Heyoooo Happy Monday!

Did yall read last nights Sinful Sunday update? its here if you didn't get a chance yet!

I also got tagged by @lizzy0305 for WIP Wednesday Monday!

WIP MONDAY

Detroit Become Human, Hurt/Comfort, Sad Gavin Reed, HankCon established, previous Hankvin, eventual Hankconvin

My love language is misery: (Ch 3 preview)

It's silent in the car since Connor and Hank left the station to go check on Gavin.  According to Detective Chen, the younger Detective had left work shortly after their ‘interaction’ outside the breakroom. Mentioning something about needing a change of clothes before walking out. Hank and Connor were quick to follow him out the doors and Connor’s earlier worry only compounded the longer they traveled.  “To answer your question from earlier, about me and Gavin having a relationship. sorta.”  “Sorta how?” Connor asks, needing to know everything to sort out a best course of action to help Gavin.  Hank exhales through his nose and keeps his eyes forward out the windshield.  “Before everything went to shit, and before me and Annie got together again. When we were both young and single, and fuckin’ everythin’ that moved… We hooked up, few times. But I thought- He never mentioned…” Hank huffs a little, struggling to find the right words, “I didn't think it was more than that… Always thought we were just playin’ but, what he said yesterday… haven't been able to get it out of my head since.” Connor analyzes Hank's increase in blood pressure and stress and places his hand on Hank’s knee in comfort.  “What did he say?”  Hank takes one hand off the steering wheel to squeeze it before returning his hand to its previous position on the wheel.  “That I only want him when I can’t have him. Specifically, when I’m already with someone else. I don't know, I guess, now that I look back and think about it, I can see why he said it. I’ve never been very good at maintaining personal ‘relationships.’” “I don't know, I'd say this relationship is going quite well,” Connor smiles. It eases enough of the tension hanging in the car and Hank chuckles.  “Yeah, I think that’s sorta the problem.” “He perceives me as a threat,” Connor interprets. “Big time.” “I see.” “We’ve always had a, complicated, relationship, Gav and I. But he's got some of his own additional demons on board. I think that might be what’s fucking him up now. Especially since uh, we aren't doing to much to hide our relationship at work.” “Yes, perhaps we have been playing a little ‘fast and loose’ with that line,” Connor agrees.  “Mmm,” Hank agrees. A few moments of silence pass in the car and then Connor has to ask,  “What happened to him?” Hank’s next exhale is obviously conflicted.  “Can’t tell ya that, I’m afraid. Sorry Con. It's his business, nothing personal. I just wouldn't feel right.” “I understand,” Connor says, because he does. No unintended subtext. PTSD is something Connor is intimately familiar with now, and he wants to come across as non threatening as possible tonight. “Are there any general things I should be aware of? I don't want to unintentionally set off an attack.”  “Just, follow my lead. And let him come to you. When he’s dissociating, he can’t always see what's going on in front of him.” More pieces slid into place for Connor with that confession.  “Like this morning, in the breakroom.” “Yeah, exactly.” It’s quiet another moment and then Connor says,  “He’s lucky to have someone like you Hank,” because he means it. Gavin doesn’t have a lot of friends at the DPD thanks to his almost 24/7 sour mood. And after today, he could probably use one.  Hank scoffs a little disbelievingly at Connor’s praise but meets him in the middle with,   “Yeah well, hopefully we can at least convince him to accept our help.”

@sweeteatercat @treeffles @disdaidal @tradedsymmetry @covenscribe @advictoriams @negative-citadel @writerwhowritesao3 and anyone else who wants to!! Have a great day everyone, I'm gonna try and get some sun today!

[legobiwan]

I find it interesting that king boo and dimentio see luigi as the bigger threat or nuisance in king boos case seems like the most dangerous villains tend to focus more on luigi than mario also what are your thoughts on antasma?

I think King Boo in particular is interesting as he went from having no particular opinion about Luigi (you get the feeling that he would have captured whichever brother had entered the mansion first in LM1) to holding a festering hatred of Luigi by the time we hit the third LM game. You almost get the sense King Boo regarded Luigi as a someone laughable until he actually fought through the entire mansion and beat King Boo. And I think at that point, King Boo just fixated on Luigi as this seemingly cowardly, anxiety-prone, far less famous of the Mario brothers who brought down his ambitions Three Whole Times. By the time we hit LM3 (and I haven't played Dark Moon yet, have only watched some cut scenes for writing purposes), it strikes me that King Boo doesn't give a damn about Mario or Peach or the Toads, only their value in luring Luigi through what I would contend is a drawn-out, premeditated gauntlet of 15-ish levels of ghoulish battle. It's almost like he wants to watch Luigi beat these ghosts who he obviously holds zero regard for, only so he can finally top this nemesis of his and assert his dominance over the ghostly population. Wild stuff.

On the other hand, we have Dimentio, our favorite bastard magic man. Unlike King Boo, the minute Luigi came into his orbit, you get the feeling Dimentio was gunning for him. (Whether or not Dimentio had scouted out Luigi and the gang prior to the Chaos Heart's arrival is up for debate, but it does raise the interesting question of why Luigi was marked to be brainwashed while Peach and Bowser and Mario were left to their own devices. Now, was this the Count's own idea due to what was written in the Dark Prognosticus or was DImentio whispering in his ear? I'm not entirely certain, but by the time Luigi/Mr. L came to Castle Bleck, Dimentio would have been tracking him, to phrase it as Dimentio would, like a bloodhound denied his nightly dinner).

All this is to say, Dimentio was laser-focused on Luigi and worse yet, because Dimentio is a cunning, manipulative asshole, he read all of Luigi's insecurities that got blasted about in his Mr. L form like a child's picture book. For Dimentio, I think, he sees not only a tool but someone who could ultimately be swayed to his side, had he the time. A man of a terrible potential he doesn't even realize, anxiety masking a hundred and one other emotions Luigi either can't or won't recognize. (I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I am 100% convinced Luigi's anxiety is, to a degree, a coping mechanism so he doesn't have to deal with the more complicated, sometimes darker emotions and thoughts whirling around his head).

I have yet to play M&L: Dream Team, but I have seen some takes on Antasma and his relationship with Luigi, who seems play a pivotal role in this game. I'm excited to get to this one (it's one of the next on my list after I finish Thousand Year Door! That and Dark Moon!) so I'll have to report back once I've gotten into it.

But I would say to your assertion that the more dangerous villains are drawn to Luigi -

Let's think about it this way. Mario is a known variable. He's a hero, he's incorruptible, at least according to the stories. His role is to beat the bad guys, to stand in their way, to protect and be the guardian of the moral high ground. The villains want to defeat him.

Luigi, however, is a little more complicated. He shares the same desire to protect as Mario, to be the hero and stand on the moral high ground but...we see the way he acts in the Paper Mario series, the overblown language, the way he wants to be included, the way the Toads treat him, the way he's referred to so often as number two, the way his anxiety is out in the open. Luigi presents as someone a lot more malleable than Mario is, as someone who could not only be defeated, but exploited. And, of course, each time Luigi defies those expectations because he's a lot stronger and braver than he presents (although he's always complicated). And it's the type of thing where I imagine it's partially that the villains feel their egos are bruised by their defeat coming from the "other brother," on one hand, and on the other, there's that promise they see in Luigi, whether or not he'd actually betray his brother, but they see those shades of grey in him, see something they could use and it has to be alluring to them.

(Not to mention Luigi's penchant for magic - the Thunderhand, his weird negative dimension thing in the Smash Brothers series, his dream capabilities - unlike Mario, Luigi's abilities tend to fall into the more fantastical and in tandem with his engineering skills, have the potential to make him so, so powerful. If He Ever Tapped Into That Side of Himself.)

[septembriseur]

I really find that I can no longer tolerate a lot of what passes for "journalism" online. I don't know what I would call this kind of journalism— "copium" comes to mind, because it is clearly produced as a kind of self-soothing drug that mimics the effects of an opiate, but "copium" is something intended to soothe the pain of defeat, while this is in large part intended to soothe the discomfort of privilege. You consume it so that you will not be confronted by the costs of that privilege.

This is deeply connected to that Kaveh Akbar that I keep coming back to: "On social media, the same rhetorical language was being used about the casting of some Marvel movie as about the leveling of a village in Syria. The same exact rhetorical algorithms of outrage were used to talk about one as the other." If you look at the Slate Magazine front page right now, you see that the same issue exists in journalism: the ending of the TV show Beef, Frank Ocean's performance at Coachella, the trail of Evan Gershkovich, the U.S. Supreme Court's position on abortion, and "the case for the hip thrust" are all positioned at the same rhetorical level of importance. In The Atlantic, "what your favorite personality test say about you" and "the scariest part of a relationship" take up as much space as the pro-life movement's plan to end abortion, Evan Gershkovich, and Dianne Feinstein.

Obviously, there's a capitalist logic to this. We currently live in an attention economy in which profitability is directly linked to "clicks." Media must produce "clicks" in order to remain viable; one easy way to do this is by publishing stories that make people feel comfortable rather than stories that make people feel uncomfortable. When we read stories about personality tests, exercise styles, and pop culture, we are only ever uncomfortable in ways that are easily contained and exorcised. When we read stories about the tremendous and cruel suffering that is the engine of our society, we risk feeling uncomfortable in ways that we cannot deal with: we find those stories complicated to understand and painful to absorb, and hard to engage with. We are more reluctant to read them. Media profits from low-effort journalism because of this reluctance.

I really feel like I see the effects of this in people's inability to meaningfully weigh the importance of things. I'm not characterizing this as some kind of moral crime; I think in large part it's because of the colonization that Akbar talks about that in interview— they have been taught to distribute their attention and their compassion in this way. But we've got to unlearn this. We've got to. It's got to be a deliberate practice through which we arrive at awareness of where our attention and compassion is going and develop the ability to redistribute those things. We have got to learn to be uncomfortable, because being uncomfortable is the only moral position.

[my-castles-crumbling]

hi cas it's sapphic anon again

so my friend was dating someone (they broke up over a month ago) and she immediately started liking someone else which is fine except every time she likes someone she makes it 95% of her personality and by extension our conversations and it's come to the point where she switched of her phone bc and i quote "90% of my phone life is about her" now it could just be me but i dont get how some people just completely make their lives about romantic attachments like she's talking about the next few months in terms of what will happen in her pining stage for that person and yeah, we're best friends i'm more than willing to listen to her rants but every single conversation is about who she likes like sometimes i feel like just telling her to shut tf up bc she's honestly the type of person who'd choose her relationship over friendships that have lasted for years. it happened last time but it was her first time and she said she'd never choose a relationship over us again but i highly doubt it. and um so i also like this girl i used to like her before but she did something shitty so i got over her but i kinda like her again now which is complicated af but idk how to really feel about the shitty thing she did (context: she fatshamed a girl who just happened to be tall and broad) and this friend is the only one i told about it and obviously now that i might like this girl again i want to yk work through my problems with what she said first and she just dismissed it by saying that the girl i liked was confusing and went straight back to talking about who she liked?? and apparently, according to my friend, the girl was looking at me and then shit happened over text but i finally got texted back and i told her obviously and she was just like happy for the span of one message and then started asking me if the girl she liked had posted anything while she had been offline. she also keeps going "i miss having a girlfriend" and i got so sick of it that i just told her that maybe she should get a life outside of romantic attachments because i cannot keep putting up with this every single time she has a crush. to top it off, i sent her some song lyrics about things we want never working out and i genuinely feel like it and have seen it in my life but things she wants keeps happening and she knows it too but she had the nerve to go "real" like ik some friends do that and it works for them but why does she have to make things that aren't even about her about herself. lastly their was a song i dedicated to the girl i like rn the last time i liked her and it's a song in one of our country's major languages but we aren't really fluent in it and i had told her that i had kinda dedicated it to the girl and she listened to it a few days ago and said she understood nothing so i sent her the translation and today she literally quoted a line from it, making it about her and the girl she currently likes and ik i have no claim to the song but she didn't have to take a song that i had dedicated to someone and make it about her and someone else especially when she knew that i had dedicated it to someone and like, yes, this feeling's irrational but i didn't go around dedicating songs she had told me made her think about someone to other people and what makes me so angry is that she had never really listened to that song before i mentioned it and like, not everything is about her.

i remember back when she was dating her ex we had a huge fight because she insisted on dragging that girl everywhere with her even when i wanted to have a private conversation with her and she ignored me for an entire week and i broke the silence first and we discussed our issues but she never really replied to my explanation about the things she had a problem with me doing and didn't say much about the problems i had with her and a week later when i brought it up saying that i had more shit to say, she just went "yeah if you say it now i wont listen bc if you tell me something more than once i dont really feel like it" but we're best friends and i want to talk about my feelings and she just swept it under the rug and acted like she had nothing to apologise for and when i said that i wanted her to acknowledge that she was in the wrong too bc she kept acting like she was a saint she went "sorry for what? not spending time with you?" like i'm her best friend and the relationship was so codependent i rarely ever saw her in school and when they broke up it turns out that me and all her other friends (she even cut one off for talking shit about her ex) were right about her ex and she was like "im so sorry" and bc this was during the exams and i didn't have the time to argue or shit i was like "it's okay you were in love" except it isn't okay but i don't want to bring it up again. not to mention that she completely villainised me during that week to all her friends who i'm not friends with and made me out into this possessive toxic best friend who couldn't stand being replaced and couldn't be happy for her best friend (ik i'm possessive sometimes but never that concerningly). i was happy for her until i saw the red flags and got worried for her and tried to protect her from heartbreak bc a couple of months in they were already saying "i love you" and saying that they'd get married and shit and i didn't think her ex cared enough about her (spoiler: she didn't). i can't even be harsh towards her because she'll either end up crying (which she does rarely) or it'll end in a fight and her birthday's coming up and i don't want us to be mad at each other on that day. (jeez how much of my life and actions do i base around her feelings.) anyways sorry for all of this it kinda got too long and i feel bad bc so many people keep asking you for advice and i don't really want to add to that load

Hi!

Honestly, I think you need to like...lay out what you need to your friend. It sounds like you need times where you can talk about your feelings and emotions without things being brought back to her. You need time spent together, without any significant others. And I think the thing is, you need to calmly say this to her. Because there's a chance she's unaware of what she's doing and even if she is aware, you can at least say that you gave her the benefit of the doubt. After you calmly say what you need, if she still doesn;t give that to you, you know she isn't a good friend to you. And you have a right to walk away at that point, or readjust your expectations. But you need to share how you're feeling or nothing is going to change, you know?

Sending love and naming you spoiler anon!

[adayinthelife0fmwah]

Long Distance Relationship Advice #1

So, something to note, I'm in a long distance relationship and it's almost been one whole year on this journey.

It's tough I won't lie to you, but here's some tips and tricks for those out there on the same/similar journey.

Here's something I like to call - Shifting the Love Language

As you may know there are 5 love languages. Namely acts of service, words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch and, receiving gifts.

These will need to shift in a long distance relationship because, well, it's kind of obvious that most of these languages require partners to be together, physically. BUT! On our journey, my partner and I have realised how to shift our love languages to accommodate the space in between us. NOT CHANGE COMPLETELY, but shift. You do not need to change your love language because you're far away, you just need to learn how to accept that it will be different to what you're used to and shift it a bit to accommodate distance.

First and foremost, your partner needs to be aware of what makes you tick. How they can show their love for you in the way you need, and vice versa, especially for long distance.

For example, if you or your partner are words of affirmation people, this can be quite easy to accommodate in a long distance relationship. Sending sentences or paragraphs with loving and reassuring words can help a lot. Obviously you're not around each other all the time which can stress a person out, cause doubt and worry, and make a person over-think (trust me I've been there). Whether it's different cities, countries, or time-zones - a simple text or phone call reassuring your partner can help so much. Communication is key, and communicating your love to your person can make the distance easier. Consistent reassurance can be very beneficial. Obviously, you don't want to lose your partner or let the distance tear you apart, so make that known always. Phone calls are also important. Hearing your partner's voice or seeing their face over video call is as close as you're going to get to the real thing during your long distance relationship, so make sure it happens often. Find the time to include your partner in your day as much as you can. Also, I don't care how old you are, keep flirting with your partner! Being far away doesn't mean you can't tell them they're beautiful/handsome/the sexiest thing alive. Get creative with your words- they do make a difference.

If you are an acts of service person, obviously your partner cannot be in person with you to complete those acts of service and vice versa, however, you could order them Uber Eats as a gesture, or even message a friend or family member who could potentially pick up some stuff for your partner and drop it off at their place. However, I know that this one is a bit tricky. It doesn't have to require you doing anything complicated, just simply being there for your partner when they need you is service. Supporting, comforting, listening. Long distance will make things harder and you both being away from each other means that they will be going through stuff without you physically being there, and that is hard. So be there for them as much as you can. Support, comfort, listen. Show them you are there.

Quality time falls into the category of being present through the phone. Yes I know, the phones have us by the balls BUT, for long distance people, you are excused for being on them more often. I said it before and I'll say it again- video call. Set up virtual dates, cook together (even in different time-zones it's still possible), watch movies together (heck, I even watch Formula One live with my partner- we are on video call and both have our TVs on). Just because you're not together in person does not mean you can't spend quality time with one another. Plan the dates in advance too as I have found that this helps you look forward to something through the week/s. Like I said, long distance is hard, so making those arrangements can mean so much and help make things just a bit easier.

Now, physical touch is the toughest one... I think you know why... BUT fear not! as this too can be accommodated for in a long distance relationship. When on a phone call you can kiss the camera, or blow a kiss to each other, (I don't care if I look silly, that's my baby on the other end of the phone!) Keep one of their hoodies or a can of their deodorant if you must, anything that helps you feel closer to them. As for the more advanced stuff, I don't want to dive into the details as I do not want to be banned on here. As this is too personal to comment on, all I'll say is 'just get creative okay!'

Receiving gifts is one that can be quite easily shifted into long distance. With the availability of online shopping, gifts have been made a much easier task with people far away from each other. Step 1- know where your partner lives and have an idea of what they like. Step 2-all you need is a little bit of money (unless you're loaded), and you're good to go! Buy them flowers, chocolate, food, presents etc. Even if it's just for a birthday or Christmas, make the effort- it makes a difference. And the element of surprise when a package arrives at your door unannounced is truly a great feeling, especially if it's out of no where and from your loved one. There's also allowing your partner's card to be on your phone so you can be directed to 'go and get yourself something nice', however this option can be dangerous (you have been warned). There's many ways to keep up with this love language.

People in long distance relationships, communicate with your partner. Tell them what it is you need more or less of. Be honest. Navigate this road together, as a team. It's a bumpy road at first but having those conversations can ease the process and help you get into a routine. Shift your love language to accommodate the distance, it won't be forever, so just adjust for now, it could save your relationship and get you to your end goal as a couple. Good luck and if you liked this then there's more where this came from! Please share!

[thecottageinthedark]

#readmore#Obvious disclaimer that like. some people are venting/using catharsis in response to#accusations like from conservative pearl clutchers#oh gays hate straight people#obviously our relationship with language is complicated and I'm not saying this to be the cops looming over your shoulder#I'm basically suggesting that it's good to ask ourselves about habits/jokes we make consistently

I think there's a tricky place we can fall into with discourse about prejudice where the pattern goes,

"sometimes people will be angry! Demanding minorities to be sanitized and peaceful and pleasant to groups that have hurt them and in the face of behaviors that continue to hurt them is unfair!"

Which is a good thought!

But then it becomes, "it is always ethical to bully people who are More Privileged Than You!"

At which point there are three problems,

Problem one is that bully mentalities are not good, not in a moral sense as much as a practical one. Even incidents we do celebrate, like that one time a neonazi spokesperson got punched, we don't celebrate because it's a bullying action. It was a targeted act of deplatforming. That guy wasn't embarrassed because we wanted to snap his underwear and send him home crying. The punch was a means to take the platform away from a dangerous person who was using it to spread hate speech. The goal is to stop the harm. The goal is to stop the harm.

The goal is not to be a bully, because being a bully feels good and fun and cathartic and the more you encourage that impulse the more you will actively want to find people to bully, because it feels good, and being left alone with your feelings doesn't feel so good. So the categories broaden. As a means to vent anger it fails, because it makes you angrier, because you want to be angrier, because if you have more justifications there are more people to hurt. An endless buffet of people to hurt! You're better than ALL of them! (Not good for you, not good for praxis, not good to be around)

Problem two is that every human being on the planet is complicated and Privilege is a thing we can identify much more easily in vague abstract than we can in practice. Trying to split hairs and divide everything down to the finest degree to rule who outranks who on the great objective scale of privilege, creates a model where people are incentivized to strip themselves down to victim status for credibility. And most of the categories are extremely broad and affect people to very different degrees. Is my disability "disabled enough" for people? Or because I don't have physical disabilities and I'm not nonverbal, should I shut up forever, regardless of what I'm saying? Are strangers on the internet entitled to my medical history?

At that point it's basically just repeating ableism- you're only credible if you're suffering SO much you can't live without help and then we should all pity you and see you as such a victim. And that's just one example. There's a lot of ways this can go wrong.

Problem three- and the thing that inspired me to make this post- is that if you establish a narrative where the closer to a cis, white, straight, perisex, allosexual, able-bodied, english-speaking christian man in America someone is, the worse a person they inherently are, which gives ownership to all these qualities to the worst people.

I feel like I often see jokes or discussions of characters where male characters are ascribed 'stupidity' as a trait when the thing that the audience is clearly actually reacting to is that he's. nice. trustworthy. patient. And I feel like that's kind of unfair, isn't it? Are we implying any sufficiently smart man would hurt and maltreat others? That the best thing he can be is stupid? As a transmasc person myself, I don't really like the idea that if I reached a point in my transition where people saw me as a man more than anything else, they'd be afraid of me and have to decide if they think I'm too stupid to hurt them.

Men don't inherently suck, cis-heteronormativity creates a shitty box to put men in and this experience hurts them. If the hypothetical Perfectly Normative Man I listed above is the winner of the 'game' that prejudice creates (again, in America, not necessarily in every country) he wins a really bad prize. The primary nexus of misogyny, of racism, homophobia, transphobia, acephobia, ableism, prejudice against intersex people and non-christian religions and secular beliefs are directed off him, but he is made a soldier for these causes because he is never that far off the crosshairs. A cis straight man is often culturally socialized to be terrified of queerness because there is always the warning he could fail to measure up, and become rejected like those Others. Virtually always, in some way, he is already Other himself, even if he hits all the 'correct' categories he may not hit them in a way that power approves of.

This is a system that perpetuates itself through suffering, and the worst possible men, cis people, straight people, so on and so forth do not deserve to be given the right and privilege to speak for the category.

[arowitharrows]

I feel like there are so many aspects that people should consider before forming an opinion on loveless aros, and since I've had multiple people ask me about this topic I thought I'd just make a post about it.

This post is long so I'm putting it under a read more, but the questions I go over are:

What does love even mean?

What do aros mean by societies concept of love?

Why might someone have a complicated relationship with the term love?

What does the loveless aro label stand for?

Are there alternative methods of dealing with a new topic you don’t understand other than harassing people?

The first thing that always seems to be the cause of misunderstandings is the definition of love itself so

What does love even mean?

There is no set definition of love. The meaning of love is heavily dependent on language, culture, context and individual interpretation. One person will say love is a specific feeling, another will say its all good feelings, some people say its not a feeling at all, its actions and behavior. In the end, “love” is just a word, a language tool we use to try to simplify the complexity of our experiences.

When confronted with a concept such as loveless aros, it’s good to ask yourself “what does love mean to this specific person?” instead of projecting your definition and your interpretation of the “absence” of love onto another person. If you call happiness “love”, and therefore believe being loveless must make your life joyless, then maybe the next person just calls happiness “happiness”, and the amount of joy they feel in their life is independent of their interpretation of love. Same goes for things like caring, respecting, valuing etc. These are feelings that you might file under the category of "love" while the next person doesn't.

What it comes down to is: everyone has their own idea of what love means, and there's no use in trying to force your definition onto other people.

What do aros mean by societies concept of love?

This is usually tied to amatonormativity, the concept that (romantic) love is the pinnacle of human existence and something we all strive for, but it goes much deeper than that. It's societies tendency to tie humanity to love ("love is what makes us human!"), to use love as some sort of judgement of morality (people who love are Good and Pure, people who don't are Evil and Monstrous) and to frame love as the only true goal in life ("love is the only point" etc).

Why might someone have a complicated relationship with the term love?

Well there are different reasons. For many aros it usually comes down to this: love is often used as a synonym for romance and aros are therefore often excluded from discussions surrounding love, and when people frame humanity around (romantic) love we are often excluded from the definition of humanity. At the same time, love is often forced onto aros as a way to make our identity more palatable by saying "aro people may feel little to no romantic attraction but that's okay because they can still feel love in other ways!!". Our identity is treated as something that needs to be redeemed and it's only redeemable through love, the thing we struggle to be included in in the first place. To add to this, many times aros voice criticism about (romantic) love, we are shut down from all sides with statements along the lines of "love doesn't have to be romantic and if you interpret it that way it's your own fault you silly little aros", even when the original concept that was being criticized was obviously about romance, and even when the broadening of love doesn't invalidate the criticism.

I hope it's understandable that some aros end up with very complicated and messy feelings about love. Some aros use terms like lovequeer and go the route of reclaiming the meaning of love and reshaping it to fit their experiences. That’s awesome! Other aros use terms like loveless and go the route of rejecting love all together and defining their experiences outside of societies concept of love. That’s also awesome!

There are of course many other reasons why people might struggle with the term “love”. Maybe they are neurodiverse and they’ve been told by society that they are performing love “wrong”. Maybe they are abuse survivors who have been hurt by people in the name of love. Maybe they just don’t feel love the way others do and embrace the fact that lovelessness tells them they don’t have to force themselves into conforming to societies concept of love in order to be considered a “good person”.

What does the loveless aro label stand for?

Well, as this entire post demonstrates, it's a complicated topic and a broad term that aro people can identify with for a multitude of reasons.

Some aros use it because they do not feel love, or do not relate to love as society describes it, or do not wish to label any of their feelings as love (again keep in mind that the definition of love varies!). For others it's more of a moral standpoint, it's about rejecting societies concept of love as something essential and a requirement for one's humanity. It's rejecting love as the only measurement of Goodness. To quote this post: Loveless aros are aromantic people who are opting out of the idea that we are only acceptable if we love in other ways. As K. A. Cook put it in this essay (which I would highly encourage you to read):

No shape of love alone exists that by definition makes us deserving of respect, acknowledgement, safety, protection and value. No lack of love alone exists that by definition makes us undeserving of respect, acknowledgement, safety, protection and value. The very idea that we should have to love in some way to be respected as human is an abominable, hypocritical one–one that ties into a long history of finding excuses to deny the humanity of other humans.

So. What this comes down to in then end is that humans are complicated and our experiences are nuanced and diverse. Tying humanity and 'the meaning of life' to any feeling, and especially to one as vague as 'love' will always end up excluding people.

Are there alternative methods of dealing with a new topic you don’t understand other than harassing people?

I've seen some very vile takes on loveless aros, both from outside and inside the aro community. When confronted with a new topic such as loveless aros it is always a good idea to assume that there are probably many intracommunity discussions that you might have not been exposed to that form important context to this label. Try to do some research! Look up the tag, try to find some blogs that discuss the topic, find their personal loveless tag, go through those posts, follow links, listen to loveless aros, and if it still doesn't make sense ask politely and kindly for further explanation or just.. leave it be.

Because even if you do not know anything about this label, calling people mentally ill or throwing around questionable terms like "sociopath" and telling people to "go to therapy" makes you look like a plane old bigot and it honestly tells me more about you as a person and how you treat others than using the label loveless (as you are interpreting the term) ever would.

TL;DR what does and doesn't fall under the definition of love depends on personal definition, but society as a whole tends to treat love as an essential factor in defining humanity. Some aros opinion on love has been heavily shaped by their negative experiences with the way society excludes them from the concept of love and simultaneously forces it onto them whenever it's convenient. The loveless aro label is a broad term that can refer to people who do not feel or relate to love, people who reject love due to how it’s been used against them based on e.g. their aromaticism, neurodiversity or abuse, and people who support the moral standpoint that one’s humanity should not be dependent on whether or not one can feel love.

[yuriko-mukami]

3. whose writing has impacted your writing style the most? (you can choose anyone! famous writer or not.)

7. describe your favorite relationship dynamic. (can be any kind, platonic, romantic, familial, antagonistic, etc.)

13. what themes/motifs do you hope other people notice most about your character?

QUESTIONS FOR MUNS.

3. whose writing has impacted your writing style the most? (you can choose anyone! famous writer or not.)

(( This is a complex question actually. If I think about my writing in general I think I've gotten impact from several authors I read regularly but these days I would say I still have a steady own writing style in my native language. What I've been trying for the last year is to move that into English too. I don't want to translate my text but be able create my own style also in this language. That's still work in progress.

When it comes to roleplaying I actually try to adapt to my partner's style but keep something of my own at the same time... if that makes sense? So, I would say that if you write with me, then you have at least a little impact to my writing style.

But the biggest impacts? I would name two people here:

@ask-ruki-mukami

Especially in our private RP has impacted a lot. I think we are slowly creating kind of "our style". We usually use a short form on Tumblr but much longer way of writing in private (a novel length story, honey, we already have a novel worth of text) and that has done wonders for my style. I'm very grateful for this opportunity to develop my way to play with the written words and enjoy this love story together with Ruki's admin. 🫂❤️

@mukami-kuron-mrsadisticcat

I know that we haven't written that much... but Kuron's writing style challenges me and I just love writing challenges. I still have a lot to learn but I quite enjoy when I need to squeeze my brain to match with writing like his. So, I'm very grateful that Kuron is willing to write with me too.

7. describe your favorite relationship dynamic. (can be any kind, platonic, romantic, familial, antagonistic, etc.)

(( I'm sucker for romance, can't be helped. Sorry, not sorry about that. Writing romantic scenes just makes my heart bounce faster... and well, let's face it, smut as part of it too. I truly love slow burn romance where things develop at their own pace and you just sit there and wish the couple would kiss already. And when they finally do, it's awesome. I love struggles and a little bit chaos but crave the happy ending too.

Of course, I also enjoy other kind of relationship dynamics. Not everything needs to be about romance. Family relationships just melt my heart (I just would love to have more Mukami family interactions 🥺).

I love friendship things too. Yuriko has such amazing friendships with other OCs and I love that! It's always so much fun to write those.

And I have to admit that I kind of like the dynamic Yuriko has with the Sakamakis. I don't know if it could be called antagonistic but anyway. It's intriguing how they treat Yuriko, so different than the Mukamis, obviously. If we don't count a certain "Mukami Laito" who treats her even worse at times. Though, funny enough, also much better than the Sakamakis. Yeah, it's complicated, okay?.

13. what themes/motifs do you hope other people notice most about your character?

(( Hmm... I don't want to interpretate too much but let the people find their own views of Yuriko... But I guess the loneliness that Yuriko has could be this kind of thing. It affects her deeply. She isn't just being dramatic but she really yearns for people who don't leave her. She develops strong attachments to people who let her close enough. And sometimes she lets them treat her badly just because she loves them and doesn't want to lose them. I'm not saying it's healthy behavior but it is how she is.

On the lighter side, being half kitsune is part of Yuriko's character. For example scents are important to her, so she probably sniffs the new people she meets. I try bring small things of her kitsune side to the interactions every now and then. I don't know if people notice that but it would be nice if they do.

[pumpkinpaix]

Hello! Feel free not to answer this question if it is in any way too much, but I've been wondering about something concerning the "western" mdzs fandom. Lately, i have seen multiple pieces of fanart that use what is clearly Christian symbolism and sometimes downright iconography in depicting the characters. I'm a european fan, but it still makes me vaguely uneasy. I know that these things are rarely easy to judge. I'm definitely not qualified to do so and was wondering if you have an opinion

Hi there! thank you for your patience and for the interesting question! I’ve been thinking about this since i received this ask because it?? idk, it’s difficult to answer, but it also touches on a a few things that I find really interesting.

the short answer: it’s complicated, and I also don’t know what I feel!

the longer answer:

i think that this question is particularly difficult to answer because of how deeply christianity is tied to the western art and literary canon. so much of what is considered great european art is christian art! If you just take a quick glance at wiki’s page on european art, you can see how inextricable christianity is, and how integral christian iconography has been in the history of european art. If you study western art history, you must study christian imagery and christian canon because it’s just impossible to engage with a lot of the work in a meaningful way without it. that’s just the reality of it.

Christianity, of course, also has a strong presence in european colonial and imperialist history and has been used as a tool of oppression against many peoples and nations, including China. I would be lying if I said I had a good relationship with Christianity--I have always faced it with a deep suspicion because I think it did some very, very real damage, not just to chinese people, but to many cultures and peoples around the world, and that’s not a trauma that can be easily brushed aside or reconciled with.

here is what is also true: my maternal grandmother was devoutly christian. my aunt is devoutly christian. my uncle’s family is devoutly christian. my favorite cousin is devoutly christian. when I attended my cousin’s wedding, he had both a traditional chinese ceremony (tea-serving, bride-fetching, ABSURDLY long reception), and also a christian ceremony in a church. christianity is a really important part of his life, just as it’s important to my uncle’s family, and as it was important to my grandmother. I don’t think it’s my right or place to label them as simply victims of a colonialist past--they’re real people with real agency and choice and beliefs. I think it would be disrespectful to act otherwise.

that doesn’t negate the harm that christianity has done--but it does complicate things. is it inherently a bad thing that they’re christian, due to the political history of the religion and their heritage? that’s... not a question I’m really interested in debating. the fact remains that they are christian, that they are chinese, and that they chose their religion.

so! now here we are with mdzs, a chinese piece of media that is clearly Not christian, but is quickly gaining popularity in euroamerican spaces. people are making fanart! people are making A LOT of fanart! and art is, by nature, intertextual. a lot of the most interesting art (imo) makes deliberate use of that! for example (cyan art nerdery time let’s go), Nikolai Ge’s What is Truth?

I love this painting! it’s notable for its unusual depiction of christ: shabby, unkempt, slouched, in shadow. if you look for other paintings of this scene, christ is usually dignified, elegant, beautiful, melancholy -- there’s something very humanizing and humbling about this depiction, specifically because of the way it contrasts the standard. it’s powerful because we as the audience are expected to be familiar with the iconography of this scene, the story behind it, and its place in the christian canon.

you can make similar comments about Gentileschi’s Judith vs Caravaggio’s, or Manet’s Olympia vs Ingres’ Grande Odalisque -- all of these paintings exist in relation to one another and also to the larger canon (i’m simplifying: you can’t just compare one to another directly in isolation etc etc.) Gauguin’s Jacob Wrestling the Angel is also especially interesting because of how its portrayal of its content contrasts to its predecessors!

or! because i’m really In It now, one of my favorite paintings in the world, Joan of Arc by Bastien-Lepage:

I just!!! gosh, idk, what’s most interesting to me in this painting is the way it seems to hover between movements: the hyperrealistic, neoclassical-esque take on the figure, but the impressionistic brushstrokes of the background AAA gosh i love it so much. it’s really beautiful if you ever get a chance to see it in person at the Met. i’m putting this here both because i personally just really like it and also as an example of how intertextuality isn’t just about content, but also about visual elements.

anyways, sorry most of this is 19thc, that was what i studied the most lol.

(a final note: if you want to read about a really interesting painting that sits in the midst of just a Lot of different works, check out the wiki page on Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, specifically under “Interpretation and Legacy”)

this is all a really long-winded way of getting to this point: if you want to make allusory fanart of mdzs with regards to western art canon, you kind of have to go out of your way to avoid christian imagery/iconography, especially when that’s the lens through which a lot of really intensely emotional art was created. many of my favorite paintings are christian: Vrubel’s Demon, Seated, Perov’s Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, Ge’s Conscience, Judas, Bastien-Lepage’s Joan of Arc, as shown above. that’s not to say there ISN’T plenty of non-christian art -- but christian art is very prominent and impossible to ignore.

so here are a few pieces of fanwork that I’ve seen that are very clearly making allusions to christian imagery:

1. this beautiful pietà nielan by tinynarwhals on twitter

2. a lovely jiang yanli as our lady of tears by @satuwilhelmiina

3. my second gif in this set here, which I will also show below:

i’m only going to talk about mine in depth because well, i know exactly what i was thinking when I put this gif together while I can’t speak for anyone else.

first: the two lines of the song that I wanted to use for lan xichen were “baby, I’m a fighter//in the robes of a saint” because i felt that they fit him very well. of course, just the word “saint” evokes catholicism, even if it’s become so entwined in the english language that it’s taken on a secular meaning as well.

second: when I saw this scene, my immediate thought was just “PIETÀ!!” because LOOK at that composition! lan xichen’s lap! nie mingjue lying perpendicular to it! the light blue/white/silver of lan xichen in contrast to the darker robes of both nie mingjue and meng yao! not just that, but the very cool triangular structure of the image is intensely striking, and Yes, i Do love that it simultaneously ALSO evokes deposition of christ vibes. (baxia as the cross.... god..... is that not the Tightest Shit) does this make meng yao joseph of arimathea? does it make him john the evangelist? both options are equally interesting, I think when viewed in relation to his roles in the story: as a spy in qishan and as nmj’s deputy. maybe he’s both.

anyways, did I do this intentionally? yes, though a lot of it is happy accident/discovered after the fact since I’m relying on CQL to have provided the image. i wanted to draw attention to all of that by superimposing that line over that image! (to be clear: I didn’t expect it to all come through because like. that’s ridiculous. the layers you’d have to go through to get from “pretty lxc gifset” --> “if we cast nie mingjue as a christ figure, what is the interesting commentary we could do on meng yao by casting him as either joseph of arimathea or john the evangelist” are like. ok ur gonna need to work a little harder than slapping a song lyric over an image to achieve an effect like that.)

the point of this is: yes, it’s intentionally christian, yes I did this, yes I am casting these very much non-christian characters into christian roles for this specific visual work -- is this okay?

I obviously thought it was because I made it. but would I feel the same about a work that was written doing something similar? probably not. I think that would make me quite uncomfortable in most situations. but there’s something about visual art that makes it slightly different that I have trouble articulating -- something about how the visual often seeks to illustrate parallels or ideas, whereas writing characters as a different religion can fundamentally change who those characters are, the world they inhabit, etc. in a more... invasive?? way. that’s still not quite right, but I genuinely am not sure how to explain what i mean! I hope the general idea comes across. ><

something else to think about is like, what are pieces I find acceptable and why?

what makes the pieces above that reference christian imagery different than this stunning nieyao piece by @cyandemise after klimt’s kiss? (warnings for like, dead bodies and vague body horror) like i ADORE this piece (PLEASE click for fullview it’s worth it for the quality). it’s incredibly beautiful and evocative and very obviously references a piece of european art. I have no problem with it. why? because it isn’t explicitly christian? it’s still deeply entrenched in western canon. klimt certainly made other pieces that were explicit christian references.

another piece I’d like to invite you all to consider is this incredible naruto fanart of sakura and ino beheading sasuke after caravaggio’s judith. (warnings for beheading, blood, etc. you know.) i also adore this piece! i think it’s very good both technically and conceptually. the reference that it makes has a real power when viewed in relation to the roles of the characters in their original story -- seeing the women that sasuke fucked over and treated so disrespectfully collaborating in his demise Says Something. this is also!! an explicitly christian reference made with non-christian japanese characters. is this okay? does it evoke the same discomfort as seeing mdzs characters being drawn with christian iconography? why or why not?

the point is, I don’t think there’s a neat answer, but I do think there are a lot of interesting issues surrounding cultural erasure/hegemony that are raised by this question. i don’t think there are easy resolutions to any of them either, but I think that it’s a good opportunity to reexamine our own discomfort and try and see where it comes from. all emotions are valid but not all are justified etc. so I try to ask, is it fair? do i apply my criticisms and standards equally? why or why not? does it do real harm, or do i just not like it? what makes one work okay and another not?

i’ve felt that there’s a real danger with the kind of like, deep moral scrutiny of recent years in quashing interesting work in the name of fear. this morality tends to be expressed in black and white, good and bad dichotomies that i really do think stymies meaningful conversation and progress. you’ll often see angry takes that boil down to things like, “POC good, queer people good, white people bad, christianity bad” etc. without a serious critical examination of the actual issues at hand. I feel that these are extraordinarily harmful simplifications that can lead to an increased insularity that isn’t necessarily good for anyone. there’s a fine line between asking people to stay in their lane and cultural gatekeeping sometimes, and I think that it’s something we should be mindful of when we’re engaging in conversations about cultural erasure, appropriation etc.

PERHAPS IT IS OBVIOUS that I have no idea where that line falls LMAO since after all that rambling I have given you basically nothing. but! I hope that you found it interesting at least, and that it gives you a bit more material to think on while you figure out where you stand ahaha.

was this just an excuse to show off cool (fan)art i like? maybe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(ko-fi)

[wet-from-water-water-from-wet]

this intrigues me also; sometimes contradictory labels make sense in that they can communicate a more complicated or otherwise difficult to accurately express idea via their contradiction, but to me this doesn't converge on anything comprehensible to me? it doesn't immediately make sense to me what being a man and also a woman who exclusively dates women without being non-binary or genderfluid could imply, as opposed to how I can glean some information out of "bi lesbian" that points towards a few possible coherent ideas yknow.

if I had to guess I would assume that it's guys who don't want to let go of their pre-transition lesbian identity; the lesbian part coming before the trans part chronologically. it seems much stranger to imagine a trans guy who later realizes he's a lesbian somehow. though, I still can't imagine why someone would want to do that? cynically I would guess it's a desire to not lose a minority status and the social authority that entails,

but also if there's such thing as a non-binary egg, that's definitely it, right? the tendency to believe that some part of your current identity has reached it's endpoint and the contradictions that arise because of it. when you consider the breadth of possibilities that exist for gender, it's way more likely you're non-binary than it is that every aspect of your identity lines up perfectly with the binary. sometimes you just gotta break through the gender inertia and you'll be happier for it.

but then also, is not every label contradictory from a certain viewpoint? when I was in middle school in my moderately transphobic stage, my main gripe with the idea of being transgender was that it seemed contradictory with how I knew to define gender. I thought gender was a pointless system that imposed oppressive rule on people, and the idea of transing your gender seemed counterproductive to my ideal of none of this gender stuff existing. but, it ended up being that it was far more practical and useful to redefine gender and twist the system such that the oppressive rules no longer existed and then you could leverage the categories that already existed to more efficiently express and identify yourself. it all depends on which rulesets you view as the "correct one," but we made all this up so it's entirely possible, likely even that there just isnt one.

I personally am in a pretty unambiguous straight relationship, but both me and my partner agree that something feels inexplicably gay about our relationship. perhaps it's because we're both bi, maybe it's because I'm trans and that brings with it a certain fun "taboo" vibe that makes it feel gay. neither of us are really sure but it's fun to say.

perhaps being a trans guy who's a lesbian is "just nonbinary and that's okay" in the same way that being a trans girl was "just a feminine guy and that's okay" to my middle school self. there's no way to really know until I understand the rules of the system they're operating within. it's a bit of a separate language.

it's a bit of a copout answer, but at the end of the day it doesn't really affect me any. it doesn't seem obviously transmisogynistic the way "afab trans woman" and the like are. it seems clearly not to be invoking the rules of the system I understand due to how it just doesn't make sense to me; I can't imagine how gender and sexuality are being defined here and I don't know if it's a useful way to do it, but as long as it remains not transphobic or misogynistic I guess I'm fine with it? perhaps I'm being too charitable but I like to assume the best of people. I wouldn't discard any of the possibilities I mentioned, though.

perhaps if you are a lesbian trans guy you could enlighten me as to the way the system you're operating within functions, if you're consciously aware of it.

time to be problematic on main i guess

i really don't understand people that say trans men can be lesbians. I've heard a couple of arguments about it here and there, and it just never made sense to me.

(i'm ignoring nonbinary people here, this discussion only makes sense within the confines of the gender binary)

I've heard people say that trans men have an inherently queer form of attraction, and that therefore it's fine for them to identify as lesbian. I don't buy that at all. A binary trans man that is only attracted to women is straight; and I cannot see a possible scenario where this person calling themselves a lesbian makes sense.

What confuses me the most is that we never hear binary trans women wanting to identify as gay. Not once have heard of it happening, which makes me think something fishy is going on.

My reasoning at the moment is that people think straight is a dirty word. They see themselves as queer and don't want to be called straight. It's nonsense. Straight queer people are valid and there's nothing wrong with that.

I'd love to know if i'm missing something or have i'm misunderstanding something because right now this doesn't make sense to me at all.

[queenlucythevaliant]

Favourite quotation from 1 Timothy

Okay, so I know I said that 1/2 Timothy were among my favorites; what I really meant was that 2 Timothy is a favorite and 1 Timothy gets lumped in because they go together and I can honestly never remember which bits are in which unless I double check. Like, 1 Timothy is good and fine and practical and I've heard some great sermons on it, but 2 Timothy gets me on my feet, dude.

That said, I really love the language of 1 Timothy 1:18-19:

"This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwrecks of their faith."

The Epistles to Timothy are for everyone, obviously, but they're especially for the young. I'd paraphrase this along the lines of, "believe what is true about yourself, and based on that fight hard, have faith, and act with integrity. If you do all that, you won't screw up your relationship with God."

Paul is so direct, which I think is why I find it powerful. Because all young people are worried about messing our lives up, right? We're all terrified that we'll make a wrong turn and then everything will be a mess and we'll be living in our parents' basements at 40. I mean, right?

And sure, you can say "It's impossible to be outside God's will." That's true. But we also have to be wise, right?? I mean, right?? C'mon, can I get some actionable advice here?

And most of all, I don't want to make a shipwreck of my faith. That's very vivid language on Paul's part, but it's absolutely what it feels like. If I don't do my devos for a month, am I messing up? If it's out of exhaustion and I don't do any novel reading either, I can justify that, but what if I'm just enjoying my book and read until midnight and then don't do any devos? What if I haven't seriously prayed or journaled this week? What about when I sin? What about sinning big? What if I sin big and never tell anyone? Is it okay that I don't have many non-Christian friends? Am I giving wise council to this person I'm supposed to be discipling? Am I being too polarizing at Bible Study? At what point does my faith go from healthy to unhealthy??? Unhealthy to a shipwreck??????

I'm characterizing these as young person issues because we, in particular, tend to be really neurotic and perpetually feel as though our lives are going off the rails. We don't have anything figured out and it all feels like we're constantly in danger of crashing onto the rocks.

I have theological answers to all these questions, but that doesn't always translate to feeling like you have answers; head-understanding isn't always heart-understanding. I appreciate how simple Paul's advice to Timothy is. Hold to what's true. Fight hard. Have faith. Act with integrity. It's not easy, but it's simple. It sounds like something I can do.

Timothy is good for that sort of thing. I tend to really love complicated Scripture, complicated theology. But 1/2 Timothy is so wonderfully simple.

[missvifdor]

Alright, I share a quick thought like this, but imagine Bucky having the DID (be careful, I want to make it clear that I'm not an expert and any mistakes on my part are unintentional and I'm sorry for being so stupid The DID is not a joke, it is a real trouble and I would never allow myself to laugh or joke about it).

So I was saying, Bucky having DID:

Thinking back to all the traumatic moments in his life, it would be easy enough to think that he could have had it. Imagine that at one point his brain and mind say "STOP" and no longer able to cope with all these events, decide that in order to survive, he must create a "shield" (I don't know if I am speaking correctly, sorry if that doesn't make sense).

Because if I'm not saying bullshit, that's what the host's DID is for, to protect it and that's where the Alters come in. The basis of the DID is that the host not supposed to know he has it.

But all the time, there will be signs: amnesia, dissociative disorder, depersonalization, derealization,. Imagine, one day, everything is going well, you get ready to go to sleep and then when you wake up, the date, the time have completely changed, you are now dressed and you have no memory of having lived this. that happened after you last remembered.

Now imagine Bucky going through the same thing, he'd be pretty scared I think.

Bucky would have these symptoms, but not just that. For example, he might feel like he has feelings, thoughts, moods, or anything else that is not ... his but belongs to someone else. Or he would hear voices talking to him (Wait, this has nothing to do with schizophrenia, the voices heard cannot be suppressed with medication and to the host this is really heard as a person's voice real voice or an interlocutor. These are real voices).

You know when we think and hear a voice but it is that of our subconscious, and well that is still different.

(I won't procrastinate any longer, but if you are interested, I advise you to inform yourself to find out more. For example, there is a youtube channel that talks about it because the designer has DID, she and other affected people talk about it here: https://youtu.be/ek7JK6pattE ).

Back to our Super Soldier:

Bucky, like anyone with DID will have both good and bad triggers.

The good ones would be: Music from the 40s, his favorite food, something that reminds him of his sister or mother, etc.

The bad ones: Something or someone who could bring back bad memories, maybe the language Russian, the pain linked to his metal arm, the situations where he cannot feel comfortable or very anxious, a dangerous mission that has gone off the rails a bit.

Let's talk about his Alters: The Winter Soldier will have taken a big place in his life and I think he probably never left him because he is part of him.

So I would lean towards the fact that Winter (let's call him that) has become one of his Alters. It would have become this:

Alter Trauma Holder and Persecutor: some of his tasks are to hold traumatic memories ... especially so that other Alters are not not disturbed by these memories and that the system works more or less. And often, well, trauma holders do not voluntarily choose this role, they are there because the brain did it like that and it can seem very unfair!

It is common that in addition to h: And, even when they do, sometimes they just aren't able to pass it on to the rest of the system and, unfortunately, to the outside either. This is one of the reasons why it is very difficult for a system to find and manage trauma or to talk to a therapist, for example. This is one of the reasons why it is very difficult for a system to find and manage trauma or to talk to a therapist, for example.

Trauma holders are also It called “Secret Keepers / Secret Holders”.

Her Part Persecutor: To put it mildly, the "Persecutor" is an alter who is hostile to the system or the outside world . Well, obviously, it’s nowhere near that simple.

In general, persecutors are alters who have internalized hatred or rejection, either towards themselves, towards other members of the system, or towards the outside world. It is a traumatic response that follows physical abuse, toxic relationships and assaults experienced by the system. Like the protectors, the persecutors seek to prevent further attacks, attack in defense or suffer for the rest of the system. But they ... don't always do it the right way.

There are different kinds of persecutors, some tend to reject any outside person, others may have internal words and feelings of worthlessness, still others may sabotage a possible therapy for fear of the medical profession, then of others can re-experience their traumas, injure themselves, etc… They are very often hyperviligant and easily activated.

They are sometimes very withdrawn and influenced by feelings causing for example a strong anxiety or suicidal thoughts. But they can also be authoritarian and seek to impose behavior on the rest of the system, considering that the others are incapable of protecting themselves and are responsible for the abuses suffered. Finally, some persecutors are a representation of aggressors and persecute the system like these. The persecutors are above all persecuted by trauma and in particular they need to be secure. It is very common that, once appeased, they become essential protectors of the system.

Here's another Alter, James: It would be quite similar to the Bucky of the 40s but different at the same time.

He would be an Alter Internal Self Helper: The "Internal Self Helper" is an alter that helps the system internally. It is not uncommon for ISHs to serve as some sort of mediator to the rest of the system, as if they were "the voice of reason."

They often have a good knowledge of Alters and how the system works (but this does not mean that they easily share this information). They are also often discreet, facing little or not at all or only side by side with another alter.

Internal self helpers are often associated with the creation and management of the innerworld, especially when it was conceived unconsciously.

ISH is a frequent supporting role among gatekeepers, protectors and sometimes among trauma holders.

And Bucky would be the host: Host "refers to the alter who fronts most of the time ... when all is well. And this nuance is important!

Indeed, the “Host” is a bit like the basic Alter, the one who is there when there is no need for any other Alter, no triggers, and no Alter is needed wanted to face. In principle, he manages the day-to-day life, so you would think that it is indeed the alter that uses the body most often, yes. But no.

A system is frequently affected by all the little things in life, whether or not it requires the presence of another Alter at the front. And, especially when it is not conscious, it can be common for another alter (social or protective, for example) to be more present than the host. It all depends on the environment of the system and the awareness of its multiplicity as well as the choices and possibilities of each of its members.

For this reason, there are systems without a host (or with a sleeping host) as well as systems with multiple hosts (which are then called co-hosts), which handle different aspects of the day-to-day. good. Of course, the hosts can also have another role, such as caretaker or alter social.e for example. It may also happen that a new host appears and the system changes hosts.

The host is a role that can be difficult to take in at times, as it is often the first alter to become consciously aware (yes, consciously aware) of his multiplicity. And it's already not easy to realize that we "are not alone in your head", but it is also difficult to realize that you have shared your whole life with "these others people in his head ”. It is very common for the host to doubt his legitimacy, to be afraid of lying, etc. They are often influenced by the feelings, thoughts and feelings of other Alters.

On the other hand, the host can usually be an alter who allows for better communication, as he or she serves as a bit of a mediator, conciliatory and benevolent towards the system and the outside world, while being held to it 'deviation from the consequences (emotional for example) of traumas. A stable host is an important basis for functional multiplicity.

Be careful, it must be said: the host is not the original! Many systems don't have an original, and while you might think the host is some kind of original, it isn't. Of course, if there is an original in the system, it can be a host. But, whether host and / or original, all Alters should be considered equally. (Really, for this to work, it's important to understand this)

Otherwise, a person with DID may have other Alters, the number can vary and they are all different!

Now, how would it be if Bucky had a Y / N ? Would other people in the system agree with that? Would Y / N manage and understand this situation? That is the whole question.

But let's imagine that in the best-case scenario, Winter and James are ok with this relationship and even have feelings for Y / N, it will still be a job all the time.

The best would be someone who can differentiate the three and act with the three as if they were three different individuals (Who they are and this is very important because each Alter deserves to be recognized).

Being in a relationship with Bucky is a bit like being with a big teddy bear who could easily shoot you in the head with near-deadly precision. And a gentleman under all circumstances, of course.

Being with Winter is complicated enough, but not impossible. You just have to know how to do it and above all succeed in interpreting his looks, his silences. The man is not the biggest talker but know that he would be ready to kill for you and protect you.

As for James his Fronts are very rare but when he will be there, believe me when I tell you that he will not leave you alone with his affections! He is surely the one who is the most sociable of the three and who will take the greatest pleasure in teasing you or improvising a dance with you in the middle of your living room.

Well I have finished! Do not hesitate to tell me what you think of it in the comments, or if you want a part two to find out more in general or to know more about the romantic relationship side + ... SNFW.