#obviously the concept of caring about human beings for no other reason than that they're human beings is alien to you fucks

[hussyknee]

“listen to people in the global south!! anyway go harass these communists who are mostly from the global south” great praxis there

Which fucking Tankies on here are from the Global South???? Unless you mean second generation immigrants from the diasporas who won't talk to the FOBs. I'm sorry but if you live geopolitically removed from the ground realities of your native lands and won't center the people who do, then you don't represent the realities of living in your native lands. In any case, I've never harassed anybody in my life, but if there's actually Global South people on here race traitor enough to be a Tankie I may be moved to make an exception.

I don't care about communists my dude, I care about imperialist bootlickers and genocide deniers. But it tracks that you Tankies think you represent all communists. Zionists think they're just Jews, radfems think they're just feminists, transphobes think they're just people with dissenting opinions etc. You people are very deliberately obtuse about the fact that you're held accountable for actively holding a specific ideology that is lethal and poisonous to innocent people.

[under-lore]

Toby Fox once made a post saying that he didn't want to sell merch of Chara because it would trivialize what they meant in game and the message they carry, do you have any idea what he could have meant by this?

Well, obviously this topic is inherently speculative so take it with a grain of salt, but there still exists some room to try and analyse it nonetheless.

Here is the post in question :

First, he uses "i" in the first sentence, and then "Because".

This immediately tells us that Toby Fox personally is the one that is opposing merchandise of Chara being made, and that all the things which will come afterwards are about what he was intending to do with them as a character in Undertale and why that makes the idea of Chara merch bothersome to him.

This isn't the only time Toby has shown to be picky about Chara-related content. For example, he has only openly promoted fan content containing Chara once since the game was released (and they were not the main focus of it) whilst the rest of the cast is seen quite often.

In general, Toby is quite dodgy when it comes to the first fallen human as a character. Sometimes even acting as if they didn't exist.

But as the mail also repeats, that isn't because Toby doesn't care about Chara, but rather because he does care about their character. Like how Toby actually went ahead and personally intervened to change Chara's Tarot card (Along with removing the Gaster one entirely), even if those weren't even official merch anyways. He does care about how they're being portrayed at least.

Okay, so next is our main puzzle piece.

The reason why he doesn't want Chara merch is because Toby considers that merchandise of Chara would have to portray them in a way that does not allow to properly represent what Chara stands for in-game, and thus fail to convey the message that they were intended to carry.

To rephrase this, he considers that if he were to make Chara merch, then "merch Chara" would be incapable of portraying correctly what he actually intended "in-game Chara" to be, and thus miss out on a significant portion of their character & what could be taken from it.

So he would rather not have merch at all rather than to have merch that misses the point of who "in-game" Chara was intended to be.

Since the only direct hint we have about this is that what Toby meant couldn't have been portrayed with merch properly, then the only way to obtain more insight into what he meant exactly is to go about it the other way and to ask which pieces of Chara's character merch could have portrayed and work backwards.

A prime example of what could have been done for Chara merch would be content similar to the Tarot card mentioned earlier.

As that card shows, it is far from difficult to make designs that capture most of the concepts and themes that are explicit-genocide-route-dialogue-specific & are said by or associated to the character.

To cite only a few that can be seen from this card, life & death & killing, power, demonic parallels, the number 9, the absolute, statistics, consequences, souls, knives, nothingness,...

(Side note : The person who made the Tarot card actually did not even know about the name "Chara" at the time, they weren't really a fan of the game and mostly went along with their first impression of the genocide route & the fanon of the time.)

Aside from perhaps their relationship with the player, there is frankly nothing about the direct Chara appearance at the end of genocide & the heavily Chara influenced flavor text of the end of the route that cannot be easily shown through merch. (Just look at all the fan content over the years)

And considering the way Toby acts merch-wise with Frisk and with Kris respectively, we can be pretty confident that their relationship with the player is not the reason that Chara merch is being blocked either.

So with that, we can be pretty much sure that what he meant wasn't about the explicit-genocide-route-only parts of in-game Chara.

Aside from the genocide route, the only other direct appearances of Chara are that of pre-death Chara. Between their fall into the underground and their death after the failure of the plan.

While we don't have clear cut examples like the Tarot card here, we do still run into the same problems.

The game implies a lot of things about pre-death Chara in many different ways. But all of those details or personality traits are either not much of a problem to portray or are also shared with other characters who do have merch made of them, meaning they can't be it either. (Its usually Undyne)

Not to mention that, when it comes to pre-death Chara, the game itself does show us some sepia artworks of Chara & The Dreemurrs. Like this one for example :

If properly representing those character traits of pre-death Chara was truly what this was all about, then why not simply make merch out of a colored version of that image if nothing else ?

It's in the game, right ? So surely it can't possibly be misrepresenting the game...

A trivialisation means to downplay something or to reduce it to something simpler.

If both pre-death Chara and genocide route-Chara & what the game shows about them could be represented with merch like any other character, but that Toby considers that doing so would still be missing out on an important part of Chara's character & their message, then the only conclusion would seem to be that Toby is not refering to any of the direct appearances of Chara in the game at all, but rather to another seemingly very important side of Chara that isn't shown directly in-game, and couldn't be through merch either.

While those could still be accurate in theory by themselves, making merch of Chara like this sepia art or the Tarot card would still be trivializing them in Toby's mind in the sense that it would be limiting Chara to only those things, and thus exclude that core part of their character from "merch Chara". Something that Toby refuses to do.

So our situation would seem to be : There is more to Chara than just what we are told about pre-death Chara and genocide route Chara. However, this part of Chara's character cannot be properly shown with merch yet is too important to ignore in Toby's mind.

There is one last thing we can say about what this part might be, though.

Toby seems quite insistant on the fact that this particular part of them was absolutely key to understanding what was Chara's role as a character in the game, and to understanding the message that he was trying to convey through this character.

A character's role & message can be conveyed through their story, through their actions, and through their mentality.

As we've seen earlier that this part of Chara was not an explicit appearance, the "actions" part is either minor enough to miss, or absent.

So it would seem we can be somewhat confident that this piece of Chara's character that Toby is worried about also either adds more implicit parts to Chara's story or gives important insight on their mentality (or both).

That would make Toby's core reason for not wanting to make merch of Chara be less about Chara's character itself and more about what the player is to understand from the way he constructed their character, which would match up with his words about it being "something that cannot be bought in a store", too.

Anddd... As far as purely impartial analysis goes, i think that's pretty much all that you can deduce, unless i've forgotten about something.

If you want my personal opinion on it, though, i would have to say that using NarraChara theory would be a really elegant way to fill up all those blanks.

Considering that the theory, if true, would constitute 90% of Chara's character & be absolutely crucial to understanding the character's mentality and the way they think or behave in different situations or routes, that would certainly make it key to understanding Toby's intent with the character relative to their message or what they would stand for.

I can also hardly see plausible alternatives. Considering that pre-fall Chara and post-game Chara are pretty dry wells in that regard and genocide Chara's words about when they were "brought back to life", the only moments left timeline-wise for this key part of Chara's character to happen would be during neutral/pacifist routes or during the part of the genocide route that weren't already brought up earlier. That would make it seem like a pretty natural answer.

But more importantly, anything to do with the NarraChara part of their character (if the theory was intended) literally couldn't be properly represented through merch.

Because, unlike the common fanon portrayal of it which exists for that same reason, NarraChara according to in-game flavor text wouldn't be a ghostly figure floating around Frisk, but rather a foreign entity sharing their body and their mind. Which is a crucial part to both how NarraChara would work in-world and to the morality-wise implications of it.

Of course, that didn't prevent some fans from sweeping that under the rug anyways, even though it misses one of the most important points of the character they're trying to represent.

That might just be why Toby would rather just not.

How would you make merch of that ? You would just be making merch of Frisk instead... Let alone portraying correctly such a complex character. It just wouldn't work. This is a pretty common problem for media with bodysharing characters, those mechanics and all the implications that follow genuinely just cannot be "sold in stores."

They are a purely psychological experience.

[cyren-myadd]

Avatar official account posted their screenplay of the Sullys arrived at the Metkayina clan on their TikTok. This part here caught my eye. Neytiri has a secret shame that her kids are half half-human.

What's your thoughts?

oh man, I have some really mixed feelings about this ngl...

First thing I want to say before I get into my rant is remember that not everything in the old script is canon, so Neytiri feeling ashamed of her children isn't canon as of right now, but there's a possibility this will be confirmed in a later movie.

A little self-disclosure, I'm engaged to a guy who is from a different race and culture than me, and I'd like to have a kid with him at some point. My partner and I have discussed the fact that our kids would be mixed, and we've already made plans to teach them both of our native languages and make sure they're exposed to both of our cultures. Even though my kids will be different from me in some ways, I don't care, I'll still love them no matter what and I can't imagine ever being ashamed of their differences-- especially since I was the one who chose to have children with a man who was a different race/culture.

While Avatar is completely fictional, the romance between Jake and Neytiri is a clear allegory for a real-life mixed-race couple, with their children's "hybrid" traits being an allegory for real-life mixed-race children feeling insecure about their features. Obviously, not everything is a one-to-one allegory, since Neytiri has been directly and violently victimized by Jake's people and most modern mixed-race couples in my country deal with more systemic forms of oppression instead, but the allegory is still there.

To be completely honest, if the writers actually follow through with this line from the script and show Neytiri being ashamed of her children on-screen, I might actually start to hate Neytiri. Her other character flaws, like her chauvinism, her resistance to change, and her hypocrisy about Jake vs Spider, are completely understandable, especially since she's been through unbelievable amounts of trauma because of humans. I still like Neytiri a lot even with her flaws. But being ashamed her own kids? The kids she chose to birth/adopt, knowing they were hybrids? These two babies right here?

I am really, really trying to be understanding here, 'cause Neytiri's been through trauma that I could never imagine, but still... ma'am those are YOUR babies. I don't think any kind of trauma justifies being ashamed of your children for something they have no control over.

Whenever I see that screenshot, all I can imagine is Kiri or Lo'ak finding out their mom feels ashamed of them. Could you imagine? They would be absolutely crushed. I think Lo'ak especially would have some kind of a crisis over it, since he's already so insecure about being a hybrid. Even Miles freaking Quaritch, the vengeful colonizing monster, isn't ashamed of his son being so different from him.

For the record, I know the only reason I feel so strongly about this is because I'm projecting my own feelings about being in a mixed-race relationship and planning to have mixed-race kids onto Neytiri. But I feel the way I feel, and if this ever becomes canon I would never be able to look at her the same way, so I'm hoping this idea stays in the old script and never sees the light of day again.

No matter what happens, this is James Cameron's story, and I trust him to deliver a fantastic movie even if I don't like everything about it. Besides, this is only one line. It doesn't go in-depth into the nuances of Neytiri's feelings. Maybe if they choose to go with this concept and flesh it out better, I'll change my mind about it, who knows.

I'm also gonna add this here, cause I know how tumblr is: these are just my personal feelings on the topic-- my personal feelings that are completely subjective and are greatly effected by my own life experiences. I know some people like this idea and think it would be a great thing to explore for Neytiri's character, and if you think that, then great, good for you, no hate to anyone with a different opinion.

[yourwitchybrother]

Here's a Valuable Part of My Practice

I just learned you can change the color of titles. My life is changed for the BETTER!!

Anyway! One part of my practice that I hold so near and dear to my chest is the concept of Hero Work.

Being a Hellenic Pagan, I work very closely with a lot of aspects of Greek mythology specifically. I have worked closely with a few different Greek heroes and it's very different than working with Deities.

Hero Work Summarized

I tend to equate Hero Work with ancestor veneration. It's very similar in the sense that you're honoring souls, not divine beings. Therefore, it should be treated differently. I still set up smaller altars for them, and little trinkets and things. The two heroes I work with are Patroclus and Odysseus, so I set my copy of The Iliad and The Odyssey next to their altar back when I had the space for one. The altar was a little shoebox that had their names written on the inside in Greek, and when I had people over, I'd shut the box with their offerings inside and put it away somewhere to protect it.

How Can I Do Hero Work?

First, I identified if any heroes were reaching out to me. I typically do this with a tarot reading, though, everyone has their own methods so you should use whatever method works best for you! Always make sure you're asking clarifying questions though. Ask questions about their myth, specific ones to help vet and ensure you're working with a spirit and not a trickster or dangerous entity.

Second, I try to discern what the spirit wants to aid me with. Lots of these spirits, especially Heroes, are there to help guide you and help you learn valuable lessons. Patroclus entered my life to help me with self-care and learning about first aid and other medical facts. He also helped me learn that I don't have to be physically strong to still be strong. Odysseus continues to help me with my journey of physical strength and he's helped me learn how to be a little bit more cunning and witty. They're there to help you, try learning these reasons early on! It helps with the relationship!

Third, remember that they may be very in-and-out in your life. Patroclus only ever interacts with me when I'm on my college campus and Odysseus typically pops in when I'm going through a rough patch in life. They may not be consistent in your life, and that is okay. Like physical relationships, communication with the metaphysical is key.

You can treat hero work however you'd like. If you want to equate it more with working with Deities, go for it. But remember that these are mortal souls that are more aligned with ours than they are divine, with some exceptions (think of heroes who are demigods or gave up their mortality for immortality). This brings a level of humanity with the partnership and it's very refreshing. I can joke with Odysseus about things that Apollo or Neptune may not understand. I like to have fun with my practice. Otherwise, what's the point?

So... What Are The Benefits of Hero Work?

I've found that Hero work is particularly fun because of the humanity of it. Odysseus and Patroclus, while they may be works of fiction, have to be grounded in some form of reality. Based on some warriors and soldiers in the wars they come from. So they're... a bit better when it comes to expectations. Not that my deities are misunderstanding, but sometimes it can be hard for a divine being to understand human limitations. At least, in my experience.

Another one of my favorite parts about hero work is simply talking with them. Clairaudience makes this easier than it is for others. I didn't have a roommate in my first year of college, and this meant that I was able to have a plethora of conversations back and forth with Patroclus and Odysseus, and they're always the best!

Obviously, your practice is yours, and it will be different from mine which is different from yours which is different from someone else reading this post. At the end of the day, do what works best for you. Do what works best for you and your lifestyle, because not everyone can be as open about your practice as me or others on the platform.

I'm in the mood to yap today, so... there may be another post coming up! If you have any requests, feel free to comment them or ask :) Blessed be, may the Sun be your guide! A domani!

[noodle-made-a-mistake]

A short list of things that bother me about the Magisterium canon:

Forgive me in advance for rambling, I have to get these thoughts out of my brain lmao (also it's been a couple years so correct me if I'm wrong! (I really hope I’m wrong on some of these :’) )) Spoilers ahead obviously!

● The lack of Calron :(

● Not taking the opportunity to develop Tamara's character and keeping her static until she's randomly just different. Strong female characters aren't just skilled and perfect until their one flaw (usually it's having feelings like any other human being) is revealed shockingly (that's just sloppy characterization), they should be crucial to the plot and not overlooked in favor of developing other characters (from what I remember she literally was my favorite while reading the series until she just got annoying (??) after a while, of course that could just be because the story is told through Call's perspective but still)

● The entire school system that I need more info on bc it sounds so unthought out and not like something that has existed for hundreds of years

● The forceful nature of making people serve as masters?? That makes no sense? Like, “Congratulations on not dying during your schooling or in the war(s), your prize is forced labor 👍.”

● Also THE COLLEGIUM WAS MENTIONED AND NEVER ELABORATED UPON

● TGT. Least favorite book. Get out. Tgt truthers how do you do it??

● The Maugris plot twist. It destroys the meaning behind the past four books. It's just so uncalled for and frankly just sloppy ig? I love the idea in a way, but only if it's foreshadowed from the beginning. Also I'm too attached to the complicated dynamic of Alastair raising his possible ex-bestie for it to end up like that

● The fact that the iron trio is out of school for half the series, I'd like to know what's normal, y'know??

● THE LACK OF ELABORATION ABOUT THE FIRST GEN I WANT TO KNOW MORE I HAVE TO KNOW MORE

● They did my man Constantine especially wrong, give him some ✨️character✨️ aside from E V I L and problematic (trademark) and charming (???)

● AND ALASTAIR GOD TELL ME MORE?? He's characterized as distant and obviously traumatized with his hate of his magic involved past but I just need to know what that past was like. Like who was he before his dead wife syndrome?? Idk but I'd of liked any excuse to know more about it just so I can understand him more??

● Please give me a single character trait of Declan's?? Like he was mentioned a handful of times and that's all we got. He was just some guy and I am hating it !!

● And Sarah. Like. She was a mom and liked peace as a concept but she also made a cool ass knife. That's a lot of things left up for interpretation. And I know Call wasn’t allowed to ask questions for plot reasons but god i wish he had more information about his own dead mother for Christ's sake

● Also other than a victim, who was Jericho? I need to know who this kid who drew scribbles in the margins of his very important journal while writing about how he was slowly being killed was. What was his relationship really like with his brother if he was so scared to say that he was dying or what gave him the impression that he didn't care?? It's fascinating and I need him under a microscope immediately

● Also the lack of queer representation until the last two books. AND THEN IT WASN'T EVEN ANY OF OUR MAIN CAST. Literally the saddest L ever :(

● AND AARON WAS NEVER CONFIRMED QUEER LIKE WHAT THE FUCK JUST L O O K AT HIS CHARACTER AND INFACT ALL OF OUR CORE CAST IS AT LEAST BI LIKE C O M E O N (ik they're like kids but even I knew I was not straight when I was like 11 and i lived in the most conservative non-LGBTQ-friendly town known to man)

● Low key, callmara was so bad, like I love them but not the way it happened, horrible set up. Tamara deserved so much better and to not have her entire character destroyed by becoming a love interest. I wish they thought about her as an independent character instead of the means to implement a romantic subplot in tgt, they did so good in the first books with that

● Also there's no elaboration on what chaos is. It's the mystical 5th element. Wow! Let's go girl, give us nothing! You'd think that if Makaris were so exceptionally rare and special that we'd get some explanation on how they come to be and what it is exactly that they can control but we're just left to assume it's the special "chosen one" type of thing. Idk it bothers me for some reason :/

That's just off the top of my head and it's been years since I read the series all the way through (I should do a reread soon). For the most part I adore this funky series and I hate to bash it but I felt the need to ramble about it's shortcomings because I'm not crazy, right?? It had so much potential! Anyway, I'm sort of glad for the blanks in the story despite complaining about them because it leaves room for fics and fan interpretations that I always love to see, but on the other hand, I'd like for the story to feel finished and not like a last minute science fair project.

Thanks for sticking around for my late night rambling lmao

[yarameijer]

Hi, miss Yara! How are you doing? Good things, I hope! I wanted to ask you about something if you don't mind sharing? I'm really curious about your unpublished Tenma-centric fic where he's the only human and everyone is a supernatural. It reminds me so much of 'Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun!' and the similar concept is really interesting! I was hoping if you could share some things about it? If you don't mind, of course! You can ignore this if you'd like. Stay safe!

I'm good I'm good, just super busy once more, but alas that's life.

Ooh, the Supernatural AU, I haven't worked on that one in ages but I do love the concept of it still. I don't have a lot for it but I can give you some info on what I had in mind:

There's basically this societal hierarchy of creatures, and humans are firmly at the very bottom. While there used to be a very clear divide historically, for all species except humans that's been decreasing in modern times.

Racism towards humans is insane. Think of not being allowed into stores or cafés, working the least-paying jobs, certain areas of the city they're not allowed to be in unless they had the necessary paperwork. It's definitely supposed to be extreme, and based on historical examples of racism. They'd only be allowed to live in designated neighborhoods, which I was considering might have some actual fence or barrier around it - including a curfew. Again, I haven't figured out how bad it would actually be, since it's a sensitive topic and it depends on how well it would fit the plot, but there's definitely racism.

Raimon is one of the few ''all-inclusive'' schools, where all species are welcomed - they are distinguished by the colors of their uniform, though. Specifically the lightning bolts.

Some schools are more like private schools for one specific species (this is also usually the case for humans).

While Raimon does allow humans, tuition is very expensive, so there's only a handful of humans actually attending. Tenma is one of them.

Tenma is actually luckier than most, and there's one simple reason for it; Aki. They're still related, but she's not human, while he is (tbh it really depends on how much human or other blood you have that impacts what you actually are). She's as much as a sweetheart as she is in the anime and doesn't care that Tenma is human; he still lives with her instead of the human neighborhoods, and there's enough money to send him to Raimon.

While it's not against the school's rules, no humans are really part of any clubs. It's just not done.

At least, not until Tenma accidentally shows off his soccer skills in front of the team and Endou decides he's got to have this kid on his team. He tries to convince Tenma to join the team without much success, but eventually wears him down - also because Tenma being part of the team would sort of give him this protection at school? Anyway, eventually Tenma agrees to join.

The rest of Raimon does not agree with this. They give Tenma a very hard time; some of them aren't so bad (Shinsuke and Aoi) but others are pretty horrible to him.

I had this idea for a scene where multiple teams are actually present; maybe during the starting ceremony of the Holy Road, or a training weekend? Yeah, the other teams are also pretty dismissive towards him (and also make fun of Raimon,  they've basically become a laughing stock for having a human on the team and that's only more reason for them to dislike him) and there would be some physical altercation where I can just imagine some of Raimon's worse players being present and just, uh, letting it happen.

ANYWAY. Over time and through forced exposure, the team slowly realizes Tenma isn't so bad.

I actually had an idea for another scene where, just before a match, Tenma gets attacked by some opponents of theirs when he's alone and proceeds to not tell anyone about this because they've already got enough to complain about when it comes to him, and being so obviously weak would make it worse. He ends up playing in the match and Shindou would find out because their opponents mock them; he confronts Tenma, pretty pissed off, and Tenma snaps back. That's the moment Shindou begins to realize he might have been wrong, and also the turning point for the team.

In the end Raimon becomes a damn good team and Tenma gains really great friends; whenever anyone tries anything, Raimon is ready to defend him.

I had this vague idea that humans that work as servants for a non-human and are given this sort of, insignia or badge that is basically a sign that this human is protected or works for someone, that's infused with protective magic and whoever they work for has an insignia connected to it, for example to show location. It's uh, sometimes a good thing, and sometimes it's kind of like how you'd treat a pet? Like, this human is under my protection and therefore it would piss me off if someone else did something to them. Anyway, Raimon eventually custom ordering a lightning-shaped pendant and each of them having a bracelet connected to it that Tenma can basically use as an alarm button if someone bothers him, and Raimon will come running. It's also got some pretty nasty protective spells built into it.

More and more people, like the Earth Eleven, get on board with this idea and request a bracelet too. So basically if Tenma is ever in trouble he'll be able to alert like, 40 people at once who will all come running to help him. He's got a network.

He does use it, at some point, and ooh boy. No one dares to try anything for a long time after that.

Oh, Tenma still ends up as captain in this AU!

I've got less of an idea for the plot (except the start), but more individual scenes and the worldbuilding. Might get around to it again someday, because it still sounds like a fun idea to me. Hope this answered some of your questions!

[donnerpartyofone]

I haven't read any of the discourse and I'm not going to, but the "male loneliness epidemic" is a curiosity to me just because it's framed as if only men get screened out of sexual competition. Part of me thinks that this is because women who are not sexually desirable are just not even seen as human by most people so there's a collective unconscious prejudice against the consideration of a GENERAL loneliness epidemic; however, I know that the consequences of male loneliness occasionally make the headlines, so there's more to the identification of this epidemic than just the treatment of ugly women as some sort of non-human pest. I just saw an excerpt from an essay by [cancelable author I don't want to argue about] where he says that economic class may be the primary social divider, but sexual currency is certainly the second. I thought everything he said was true although he did seem to imply that this only affects the lives and potential of men. I can't really blame him for just speaking from his own experience, but it often feels like "woman" is this mass concept that everyone understands to be erotic and desirable and so when we talk about "women", we almost only mean this creature who has the ultimate say over who gets laid and who doesn't, and whose biggest problem is deciding who gets access to them. Meanwhile there are these seas of women who are not sexually desirable and who are also not included in any kind of loneliness epidemic, and who is talking about that? Unfuckable women are treated like some sort of statistical outlier that is just naturally excluded from social observations, and no one feels obligated to say why that is.

I've heard a few things about gender dynamics among the heteros that insist that men actually fall in love more easily and therefore they're in more emotional peril than women are, and I thought Wow it has never been clearer that an author is surrounded by exclusively hot women and I wonder how aware they even are of why that might be. It's so funny, like that is not the stereotype I grew up with--it was exactly the opposite, that women are sensitive and often get used by men who only care about conquest and instant gratification--and it wasn't even the stereotype that I have lived with in New York City. Actually during the period when I was leaving an abusive relationship with someone who made his unfaithfulness a public spectacle, and uncertainly reentering the dating pool, there was a big article in The Village Voice about how straight women dramatically outnumbered straight men, so if you were a woman looking for a boyfriend (or family material, god forbid) you basically had to take what you could get and/or put up with letting your partner do whatever he wants at all times. That perfectly reflected my experience and the experiences of other women I have known, even the cute ones. The idea of this world where the only people who are suffering sexually and romantically are men borders on hilarious to me.

It does occur to me that maybe part of the construction of the male loneliness epidemic, that I will not research further, could be that straight men are often crazily picky. A lot of the guys I've known who have been very vocal about being desperately lonely and sexually deprived have also turned down women who were their perfect match in every way except for some standard of looks they refused to budge on. And I mean you can't always help who you're attracted to or not, but that does tend to make all the mourning and weeping about how women are too mean and shallow to fuck them sound kind of silly. Obviously it's not silly to the guy who shoots up a university because he's not surrounded by free use supermodels, but you know what I mean.

I guess the other reason I can't take the male loneliness epidemic seriously is that for men, looks aren't the main determining factor of your entire personal potential, and for women they really can be. Sexual attractiveness isn't just this thing that only affects whether you have sex, it can affect everything you ever do. I was making complaints along these lines one day, and somebody replied that they were confused because I'm married, i.e. a person fucks me so how could I possibly have complaints related to attractiveness. As if sexual currency isn't such a centralized issue of society ESPECIALLY for women, and it couldn't possibly affect things like your self-esteem or your ability to get a job or how you're treated in businesses and by the public and like, all types of other things. This won't be news to anyone, but a lot of people have a shockingly limited idea about the way things work.

[aro-in-danyl]

HP X HH AU - Alastor is Harry Potter and Voldemort is his Shadow

I've got a whole concept idea for how Alastor time-traveled to early 1910s New Orleans and how he trapped Tom Riddle as his shadow- but that's a separate post entirely. This is about what happens if they get de-aged in Hell following their retreat from Adam. Because I want to see the Hazbin crew's reaction to Harry and Tom.

----

When Adam slashed him with his guitar, it purified both Alastor and his shadow to an age when they were still innocent.

Alastor, Harry, to age 11 -- moments before he'd disintegrated Quirrell to death.

Voldemort, Tom, to age 10 -- days before he led his fellow orphans into a cave to torture them.

They awaken in a crumbling radio tower covered in blood and a broken radio staff clutched in Harry's hands.

Tom, being raised Catholic and carrying all the trauma that comes with being able to talk to snakes from a young age, is the most terrified.

Harry still hopped up on the adrenaline of facing his parent's murderer from what he believes is only minutes before, manages to hear the creaking of the radio tower and get them out before it fully collapses.

They wander Hell and quickly come across various demons, all of which have nefarious intentions. They try to escape but even with magic there's only so much 2 human children can do against demons until-

"HEY!" Something hits the back of a hellhound's head, knocking him out and giving Harry the chance to run to stand in front of Tom.

They both look warily at their savior: a tall heavy-set demon with imp-like horns and bat-wings. In his hand was the broken guitar he'd used to smash over the hellhound's head. He looked angry.

"BITCH! You owe me a new guitar!"

----

Adam sees these kids and assumes they're the reason he's in hell. That he has to save them and then he can return to heaven - how else would 2 human children who reminded him of his own just happen to wander into his path?

So he takes them in and re-learns what it means to be a father responsible and care have empathy for his descendants. He meets other sinners who are not the worst and it makes him feel guilty confused.

For 3 months, he tries to find a way to get these 2 children back to the human world. They're both so bright and kind but absolutely fucking traumatized. He's going to have to find them better parents when he takes them back because they were under no circumstances going back to whoever they were with before.

Everyday he's with them, the kids open up just a bit more. What does it say about their homelives that they feel more comfortable in Hell living with what they think is a demon? They have so much potential like Abel and capacity for goodness like Cain before he-.

He tries -oh god how he fucking tries- to get them out of this hell-hole, but eventually he has to man up and ask for help.

HA! Sike. No, he obviously was supposed to demand Lucifer send them back. After all, it must've been his fuck-up that got these kids stuck here so it was his responsibility to fix it. Not Adam's!

Yeah that sounded right.

He marches up to the Hazbin Hotel with the kids behind him he wasn't scared shut up and knocks on the door.

----

Lucifer contacts Ozzie to open a portal.

Problem #1 The moment Harry touches the tear in realities, he hits a brick-wall. Or at least what feels like one. The portal is nothing more than a 2-way mirror for him. He can see but not cross-over.

Problem #2 Lucifer takes a closer look and realizes that their souls are already marked for Hell. But they're full of holy energy even after 3 months.

Adam refuses to believe this and demands to talk with Heaven.

Problem #3 ...No one has heard from Heaven since the failed Extermination.

----

Adam stays at the Hotel since it's safer for the kids cheaper than renting his overpriced studio apartment that smells like piss and cheese. Niffty fucking hates him though, he hurt her favorite bad boy! He's not dead she would feel it but he's gone again because of him!

Over the next 3 months, the kids grow. Not normally though, every time they make even a minor sin, they age rapidly before Adam's eyes. Sometimes he swears their nails seem claw-like, their teeth sharper when they smile, and their eyes seem to glow when he's looking out of the corner of his eye.

They eventually get in contact with Emily who first informs them that Sir Pentious was redeemed. She then takes a look at the kids with Lucifer. They discover that the children had been de-aged to a period of innocence due to the holy-light that had flooded them.

Lucifer tells Adam it was likely his holy-light wave that sliced the hotel in half that did the deed. They must've gotten caught too close to the blast-radius.

They hypothesize from their rapid age growth and behavior, that sinning will eventually revert the children back to their original demon forms.

And Adam-

Adam, for once in his immortal life, refuses to give up on his children.

[tadpoles-and-daydreams]

hi hi! kinda new to the helpol crowd so i was wondering: what is it like when a deity contacts you? do you see an image of them? hear a voice in your head? or do you have thoughts that are distinctly not your own? are their messages more direct or indirect? what are the messages usually about? how do you feel when you recieve them? which deity do you get contacted by the most?

Heyo! So, first, obligatory UPG disclaimer: this is all only my own experience, and has no basis in mythology or anything like that. Also for the sake of transparency; I'm not a Hellenic Polytheist. If you've been around my blog and you vibe with the way I work with deities, then cool! But I do feel the need to say that I'm a witch who works primarily with Hellenic deities (and then there's Loki) so I don't follow the same traditions as some of the helpol community! (The best example being the concept of miasma. Some helpol people swear by it, others don't, and as for me it makes me wildly uncomfortable.)

Disclaimer aside, I'll just answer all these as best I can! Thank you for the ask^^

When it comes to how exactly I receive whatever they're saying, I feel like it's... a weird mix of all of your examples. Sometimes, especially if I'm not particularly tuned in, it's absolutely a thought that just isn't my own. Sometimes I even mistake it for my own at first, and then go "I have absolutely no reason to think that what the hell was that about-?" (ex. naming Loki's playlist "Loki's shit music taste" or giving an offering that has no association with them, pausing bc what the hell no, and then realizing that was them.) Other times I get words and images, although now that I think about it I'm not sure they have distinct voices? I "hear" them in my head, and some of them have clear voices sometimes, but it just depends on how I'm feeling. They essentially communicate however I'm able to receive it at the moment.

I feel like right now, it's more direct than indirect. Obviously this isn't the case for everyone, and I feel the need to say that it's not something anyone should ever feel bad about. It's not better, it's just different. As for what they talk about when they do... uh, everything? I don't know how to word it any better XD Sometimes it's about offerings, sometimes about genuinely serious stuff, but usually it's just... them popping in because they have something to say about whatever I'm doing. My work with them is fairly casual, so it ranges from "YOOOOOO your sleep schedule is so good right now I'm so proud!" to literal memes and no I'm not joking. But that's less the Hellenic deities I work with and more Loki.

(Although, I am reminded that Aphrodite and Loki are an absolutely wild comedic duo. They all do have a sense of humor lol.)

So for the most part, as weird as it might seem since I'm talking about deities that a lot of people view as above humanity, I.... just feel like I'm talking to friends most of the time. Maybe parental figures, since I literally call Hades and Persephone my "underworld parents" lol. For the most part, it's just a nice feeling like chatting with someone I know and care for and that I know cares for me.

And last but not least, right now Loki- although I know they're not a Hellenic deity, so they may not be the answer you were looking for lol- is the most active in my life. They're very loud, very much so prone to the clearest signs and clearest direct communication as well. Apollo and Aphrodite are a close second, though. Apollo has been fucking thrilled that I'm starting to finally successfully change my sleep schedule, and Aphrodite has really been nudging me towards self-care lately.

[kohakhearts]

okay so what if mew *was* goh's first pokemon somehow - it chooses to stick around him for reasons unknown after that first time they meet, maybe he doesn't necessarily catch it but it humors him and listens to his commands for the most part. i'm thinking so hard about what Being Chosen By Mew At Six Years Old would do to his ego

OH MY GOD WHAT I LOVE THIS!!! THIS CONCEPT IS LIVING RENT-FREE IN MY BRAIN NOW

((ok tangentially before i get into this i just want to say in the deep lost osa pokemon au i haven't actually worked on in forever, this is exactly what happens to poseidon LMAO mew is my chaos analog so enter: 12 year old boy and his mythical drama cat dealing psychic damage to everyone within a ten-mile radius of them. mew is such a little shit of a pokemon so like. theres that))

anyway. GOH.........actually, i do think obviously this would over-inflate his ego quite a bit. but at the same time, i think it's important to consider that like...goh's confidence is a projection. he's incredibly insecure, and all of that has to do with his lack of relationships. if he were chosen by mew at a young age - and mew being a little chaos-wreaking jokester, too - would probably only make things harder for him. i don't think his friendship with chloe would survive it and i think that would mess him up in a lot of ways because on a deep, very human level like. of course he cares about her more than he cares about mew. but on the psychological level of someone with such a deep Need to be Special, i don't think it's something he could turn away from.

so in like this weird, complicated way - i think he would resent mew a bit? like this is a lot of pressure put on him suddenly! sure, mew listens to him for the most part, but it's also an incredibly powerful pokemon that likes to play practical jokes and sometimes takes it too far. goh is a kid who can't seem to connect with people. in canon, he blames other people for leaving him, because they think they're better than him or whatever. but on a deeper level, i think he has some awareness that it's something about him (i say this because in his relationship with ash, their arguments really centre around things that ash does "wrong" that goh caused himself, or otherwise also did "wrong" - especially their last big argument, where he had this idea of leaving and he was upset with ash for saying it first. because ash doesn't get to leave him. it has to be on his terms - i really don't think he's upset at ash's decision simply because he's afraid of being abandoned. i think he's upset more because he's been feeling Complicated about his own choice but it's such an easy decision for ash to make. if that makes sense? and it's the same thing at the beginning of jn, with the ivysaur. he's angry at ash for not listening to him, he's annoyed because ash is ignoring the fact that pokemon need to be able to do things for themselves. he's angry about this because if a person can help pokemon, a group of creatures he identifies STRONGLY with in lieu of like, actual human relationships lmao, then that means people can also help Him, but they don't. and he justifies this as needing agency more than he needs help. in 90% of their conflicts, ash did literally nothing lmao. i think goh knows this intrinsically). in this case, i think it'd be a little more complicated? like...undeniably, mew is at fault for the fact that people don't talk to him. and it's not just thinking he's weird or anything - they'd probably be a bit afraid of him.

so what would he do? he'd rationalize it of course and make it into a "good" thing. i.e. to deal with feeling like everyone is fucking terrified of him and his crazy pink monstrosity, he'd tell himself they're jealous, or in awe, of him. jealous, especially, with chloe i think. it would be a huge disconnect between them. it makes zero sense. she doesn't even want a pokemon - why would she be jealous? i actually think they'd become...pretty bitter enemies, lmao. but at the same time, professor cerise would absolutely not be ok with goh just. secreting mew away. a) that's a child whose parents are notoriously Not Around Much and b) that's a mythical pokemon that has not been very studied at all, really. so i do think that he would try to establish a connection with goh because well...that's his daughter's best friend and he knows the reason she's acting like she hates him so much is really because she feels hurt and upset at the fact that he's not really being a good friend to her, and also like. it'd be very clear that the pressure of looking after a mythical pokemon is way too much for a kid to deal with. even one who is as well-researched and "prepared" as goh (spoiler: he is not really prepared at all LMAO, he just thinks he is).

so the situation is kind of like...chloe has this extra layer of Issue with her dad because he wants to help goh even though he was a huge jerk to her and cerise knows that, but at the same time goh is even more isolated than in canon. in fact, he's probably of the opinion he doesn't Need friends because he has mew. mew is his friend and that's all that matters. does mew protect him? honestly, maybe. he's got Big Feelings and mew is a psychic-type, so it probably reacts to them on some level. that's a good reason for his peers to fear him (is he allowed to have a pokemon at school? probably not - so that would be why he'd just stop showing up LMAO). on the other hand, i actually think his parents would worry about him less because they think he seems very happy AND he's got a playmate who hangs out with him all the time and seems to look after him. they are not involved enough in his life to see that it's cause significant rifts between him and other people his age, and since he's on email terms with professor cerise, they probably never even find out that he and chloe aren't friends anymore.

all in all - he would be a whole different flavour of insecure, with the added bonus of like...he achieved something so great, but he actually isn't happy about his achievement because in many ways, it's making him miserable. he doesn't want to blame mew, even though he knows mew is to blame. idk if it's possible for him to become more cynical, but he probably would somehow.

i doubt he'd have a fateful lugia encounted with ash à la canon, but they could still meet in similar circumstances. maybe when cerise opens his lab, research done on mew would be like...something he specifically mentions. since ash was invited by professor oak to check it out, he'd meet the trainer who "caught" mew - and they would absolutely get into it beacuse goh would be crazy protective of his role as mew's Person, but lets be real...mew would take a real shine to ash LMAO. in a way, they might actually have more in common, except ironically ash is like undeniably Chosen One MaterialTM and absolutely refuses to claim the title becaue he's content being Just Some Guy (but who is nonetheless epic in a pokemon battle), meanwhile goh has the chosen one complex without...really being much of a chosen one. he would have to realize that he doesn't Have to be special, and that he can have both a relationship with a pokemon like mew AND with people, but he's got to be like. more aware of the fact that mew doesn't listen to him out of genuine affection and respect - and that's something he has to work to earn from it, in order to be listened to by it. i cannot think of anyone more equipped to help him learn that particular lesson than ash and pikachu tbh!

anyway yeah this would change a lot of things - it's worth noting that meeting mew for the first time was what kickstarted his obsession, so if mew stuck by him from that moment on, his obsessing would be of a very different flavour. at the end of the day though...he's still an insecure obsessive know-it-all (AFFECTIONATE. EXTREMELY AFFECTIONATE) so he'd probably still hole himself up in his room for research just as much as before, lol

[causesciencethatswhy]

The way jimin presents is much more obviously queer than any other member (purely based on mannerisms, cause if you hear joon or yoongi talking about love for a few minutes you can put two and two together). And his overt queerness makes a lot of cis hetero shippers (or kpop fans ) uncomfortable because they're forced to confront their internalized homophobia and misogyny head on. So they find a way to diminish his importance to the other members or villanise to cartoonish levels to deal with that discomfort.

(I'm the anon you responded to with this^^)

Add onto that how a lot of ARMYs seem to assume that just being a BTS fan makes you an ally/intelligent/a good person, and it's the perfect scenario for some cognitive dissonance. Only that JM haters and Tkkers don't seem to have enough cognitive for it to be anything. Even (maybe especially, even) shipping two men doesn't automatically make you supportive of the queer community and understanding of the struggles just existing as a queer person brings about.

They always clamour "but two gay men wouldn't do xyz in a homophobic country", failing to recognise that queer people have existed through so much worse and still have done things wildly more gay than anything Jikook have done.

There's also a lot of them who only see JM's gender expression and "queer subtext" (meaning fashion choices, and the whole concept of his photofolio + album) while disregarding JK's. Like, that man pulled out the most feminine look and attitude in his "bobs+bangs" Calvin Klein shoot. And he fucking owned it. But instead, at least in my perception, the fandom is split on him: one half genuinely sees and appreciates JKs expression of himself, while the other mostly memes it to death and ridding it of meaning. Any perception of JK as a potentially non-hetero man is forgotten the moment he presents as classically masculine again, aka stereotyping the whole queer community to death.

The latter doesn't happen with JM, because - like you said - he fits the common perception of a gay man. Which is all fun and games for the many "The JM effect" compilations, but for cis shippers it starts sliding into homophobia the moment they need to stop perceiving the members as Ken Dolls and instead treat them as actual human beings with all their complexities, faults and incongruent behaviour.

Which brings me onto Hobi. Now, I don't think he gets it quite as bad as JM.

One reason being that there's simply not as many Yoonminers who aren't mainly tkkers. The latter often uses the former to not be seen as a JM anti, but aside from compilations getting spread to push the "married couple" agenda, they don't focus their attention on it. (Also can the "arguing a lot = being in love/married" thing plz die? As someone whose grandparents argue every 20 minutes (real numbers) it's the actual worst and not really a reflection of romance...)

Another one is that Yoonminers do not care about original content at all. From what I've seen during my baby army days, they pick and choose everything down to the tiniest detail. So they mostly ignore that Hobi even exists as a possible variable.

Which brings me to my next point, which kinda breaks my heart: I don't think a lot of shippers in general, and the tkk/ym crowd in particular, see Hoseok as someone to focus their attention on. He gets forgotten a LOT, relegated to the fun sidekick comic relief while the ships are the mc's. (Which is why, imho, it's always his releases a lot of the fandom doesn't care about/actively ignores). The actual deep founded love every single member of BTS has for him - to the point they should actually propose - is insane. How can you think Ym is more real than Sope or Jihope? How can people be that willfully obtuse?

As someone who thinks Jikook could be real (2019, I am looking at you), I had my doubts seeing Jihope interact a few times. But what gets me is how fucking whipped Hobi gets every time he watches Jikook be all adorable. He looks at them like the proud BFF who got them together. A lot of that is his general love for the maknae line and his personality, but that level? The instances of it happening?

...

.......

This was a lot. Okay.

Tl;dr: BTS are human beings, also Hoseok is the best person on the planet probably. Be gay, do crime🏳️‍🌈

Even (maybe especially, even) shipping two men doesn't automatically make you supportive of the queer community and understanding of the struggles just existing as a queer person brings about.

This!! Is so key to everything wrong with a large group of shippers and even solo fans. This idea that because you ship on m/m ship over the other, you are no way capable of making homophobic assumptions and statements. To a lot of shippers shipping a potentially queer couple is just another way to fulfill some forbidden romance fantasy of theirs and not actual concern for the lived reality of queer couples in conservative countries.

Which is why the painful torture of two boyfriends being torn apart from each other like star crossed lovers sounds more palatable and realistic to tkkrs than a queer couple deciding to stick by each other's side through thick and thin, despite the risks. It's less spicy I guess, but who cares of queer joy when the dramatics of the other possibility is so much more enticing.

Everytime I see tkkrs make the whole, "being gay in the military is forbidden so a gay couple would never risk going together" argument, a part of my soul dies. I don’t know what's more offensive, the idea that a closeted couple will just forget how to behave around each other after potentially years of being together because Gays and their crazy sex drives, am I right?

Or the alternative explanation that queer people in conservative countries just never make risky descions for the sake of their partners because the law forbids them from even existing.

Both explanations are tone deaf and ignorant of the lived reality of queer people. Its a direct result of straight people dominating shipper spaces. I do sometimes wonder what queer tkkr shippers make of these theories (cause I'm sure they exist as well). Are they perhaps more sane or do they subscribe to this bs as well ?

And oh my gosh yes about jungkook. That boy has very vocally played about with his gender expression and has been the one ignored the most by seriously cis heterosexual fans. This daddy Dom fantasy they project onto him is a bit much though I do think he does enjoy a more masculine cool image for himself as well. Which to the straight mind is confirmation for all their wattpad inspired fantasies of him. It's unfortunate but alas, stereotypes stick , especially those made by people with a very set view of the world.

As for hobi and the ynmner /sope dilemma, I totally get it. Ynmn shippers do tend to get on my nerves from time to time as well and it no doubt does have something to do with the correlation of them to the tkkr subgroup. I have grown fond of the ynmn dynamic since my baby army days I must admit though, because you can clearly see how much yoongi genuinely appreciates jimins presence and how jimin relies on yoongi for emotional comfort. It is sweet, but yeah I don't necessarily see anything else going on there.

Same goes for sope honestly. Nothing has ever made me seriously question them, except the sunshine bf with grumpy bf dynamic they do fit into very perfectly. They also clearly rely on each other for emotional support (Bring Hobi, hes my vitamin 🥺) but yeah Nothing as eye raising ig ? But yes, i can completely see why it's so frustrating to see how Hobi is dismissed within other shipping dynamics similar to the treatment j/m has gotten. Hobi does tend to get overlooked a lot in these bts dynamic discussions when he very much does embody the heart of the group and the members love for him is so heartfelt and grand, we really seriously underestimate his significance to keeping the bts spirit in line all these years.

I love my ball of sunshine who holds and even bottles up a lot emotionally for the sake of his fans and the team. And he always deserves more appreciation by everyone in the fandom (myself included)

Ps. Jihope in that one 2020 music bank live was definitely a 👀 moment lol.

[abyssalpriest]

On the term: Veil of Ignorance (aka "the best way to go steal things is to walk out of the store like everyone else")

Lev gave me the term, or more so he used it quite a few times in front of me and I may or may not have picked up the same definition as he has in my head, but my definition still gets a job done. You may have seen me use it, and I'll explain the concept here, but it boils down to: The utilising and redirecting of the distance - ignorance - between you and other people's mind in order to "veil" or hide something true, mostly the self.

Lev hides in plain sight, uses the veil of ignorance, which is effectively "They don't know to look for me, they don't have the eyes to feel my energy, they don't have the knowledge to put two (my energy) and two (understanding of who that energy belongs to) together, therefore I can just sit among them and they won't know." The veil is that unknowing, unwillingness to learn, and overall, as I said, distance between his mind and the onlookers'. It's a philosophy behind a lot of his appearances where he just shows up and presumes - rightly - that no one is going to click that it's him. The ignorance is used to veil him like fabric would veil his face, where someone veiled can walk past family without even being recognised because ignorance shields recognition.

The concept extends outside this, it's complicated, but boils down to the fact that there's distance between your mind and others as said. Others don't feel your anxiety at being caught, they don't hear your thoughts, they don't know you're trying to hide something... But trying to hide something draws attention - hence, you use ignorance, not obvious forms of concealing, to be the concealment.

If you want to be open about your spiritual self online but don't want harassment, take advantage of the fact that they're ignorant of the importance of you declaring who you are - and find ways to invoke the ignorance. Your rare spiritual posts on a fandom blog draw attention, ignorance comes when you post about the same topic all the time but slip in those spiritual details you wanted hidden casually, and a little less explicitly than you may want. They just blur into the rest of the posting, no one knows which details are ones you dont want reacted to. And remember, your blog is one of many they follow. If someone's not informed that a post you're making is telling truths about you then they will treat it like one in a hoard of thousands of posts, something they may or may not read given it's just, to them, a post. If you want to be obviously x spiritual species but not have attention drawn, do it, and know you're veiled by the fact that no one knew to look out for you.

... And obviously extrapolate this to things outside of tumblr, e.g. your face as a customer is one of many the server sees in a day, they won't know you're anxious about having just cut your hair from long to short because you realised you're trans masc if you don't highlight your anxiety with it. Move with the crowd, move behind ignorance, they are ignorant to your reality until you let them into it. I'm just talking about posts for... a reason...

The key does boil down to the fact that you have to know that if they have the skills to know, they will know, so stay in ignorance. The idea itself is key in my work, where I don't care to announce to the world my relationship with Lev for example, but you will know if you can sense it. i can't hide it from you, but if you are at the skill level to know who we are you will be at the skill level to know its truths - basically... Ignorant people tend (tend, "ignorance" here is a neutral word, it's a quality we all have) to be aggressive when you tell them something they can't prove themselves, or when the truth is on a topic they just emotionally hate... naturally, thats human and indeed being-nature. But the amount of issues that come up when you walk into a room, like in Lev's case, and say "Im Leviathan, hi." The most insecure (speaking neutrally still, we are all insecure in some respects) people, the people with the least grip on their own ability to dissect truth from fiction, are naturally going to be the most scared and the most reactive. We all are like that in certain topics, because insecurity happens in all the areas we don't know much in, so when it comes to topics like spiritual existence, facts of who you are when you're someone powerful, and so on, the best thing you can do is not give the laypeople a reason to start sniffing out details in things that are going to scare them.

Diviners, oracles, (other) gods, professionals, people with keen clear senses, and other people with authority on matters you're veiling will be able to dig through your concealments, but they're less likely to start trouble if not through self-security and confidence in their ability to dissect the world, then certainly when they see and feel and know what you're hiding is a truth they can't fight... So the veil of ignorance not working so much on them is fine at the end of the day if you're strong enough to not have to veil completely, but you can always employ multiple types of concealment.

At the end of the day, it's just a low-energy - therefore very efficient - way of veiling and making yourself invisible. You want distance from yourself and others? You dont want everyone to see you face? Take advantage of the fact that no one is close to you and able to see you until you do the work to let them in, and work with that ignorance and make it work for you.

Why bother planning a heist to steal a cheeseburger at gunpoint from the clerk when you could just take it from the table of someone who went to the bathroom? Bad example obviously, that's nasty lmfao but stealing is the part in our society where we understand - even if we would never ever steal or agree with stealing - that "acting natural" is key to high odds of getting away with it, and the veil of ignorance is similar to that. Similar, but not quite the same, the difference being that the veil of ignorance being employed is not about changing your behaviour, its about being aware of whats around you and the ways in which people will presume you're not doing something they give a shit about paying attention to. It's being uninteresting so that people are uninterested in you. It's less like acting natural with the cheeseburger, and more like coming to a place where roads are being worked on and not acting natural IE wearing a high-vis vest you never would wear otherwise so you can take the traffic cones on to your truck and steal them. Where is the ignorance in others with regards to you? Play there, write there, be there. Put your work everywhere, dance in the day and night, but when the clouds pass over the moon thats when you pull out the moves you dont want anyone to see. You, to the audience, are just dancing, and the obscured movements under cloud cover are presumed to be... just dancing.

Do what you want, but don't drag others into it, and you'll find that the distance between you and others shows you that you werent as involved in their lives and brains as you thought. They're not scanning your posts for every instance you showed your secret kins or whatever, and the people that are doing that are going to look like they see something no one else does.

There's a variety of things used in it - a variety of different types of "ignorance". For me, people thinking I'm crazy and "just" psychotic is reworked into the veil. That's ignorance about who i am and what i can do, and means I can just straight up post "crazy"-seeming things about what i do and am and have people laugh me off. Problem solved. My demon and angel kin years? If I were still in them, I could find myself in the centre of huge arguments about how calling myself a demon or angel means i think im an authority and a this and a that when Im just minding my own business, but if they just think Im crazy? Sucks to be them, they'll never know, they're lost to this part of life because they refuse to find it. Likewise to accusations of insanity, accusations of being a novice when you actually have more skill, being incorrect and unable to see the truth, and so on can be reworked into the veil of ignorance. People's misinformed, malformed, negatively-intended, insulting, ignorant ways of viewing you are gaps between you and them and they are ways in which people will misunderstand you and stop caring about you. Make them do it on purpose.

And im not going to post here at the end about how this shouldn't be used for bad things, or you should take criticism instead of saying its ignorance, because honestly... That misreading of my post is the ignorance in question. I say one thing, you see what you want to see, thanks for the perfect example if you were going to say it. People will always have distance between their mind's projected idea of me and the real me, which means the real me can swim away under the surface while you argue with a projected reflection you think is the fish under the water.

[eccentric-nucleus]

sorry i'm still posting about progression fantasies

anyway one story i've been reading and actually enjoying is super supportive.

this got long so i'm putting it behind a readmore.

the setup: it's 2040. aliens contacted humans in the 1960s and were like "hey we'll give you superpowers and magic technology and access to our multiworld government. all you have to do is sign this contract. its fine. just, all the superpowered people are our property and we can summon them up as servants whenever we want to do whatever we want. you'll be obligated to provide some humans to do this. we'll pick who gets superpowers and no they cannot refuse. its fine." one other alien is like "it would be more easier if i explained (the my boss, the alien) that your friend was your pet or your property b/c 'friends' isn't really a reasonable category for them."

the degree to which the aliens are, you know, clearly and obviously taking advantage of humans cannot be understated in the initial chapters. there are supervillains too, and the aliens are just like, yeah we don't care if they murder some humans it's fine. there's a lot of intentionally-jarring narration about characters with skills going between "powerful superhero" and "forcibly-conscripted alien valet" depending on whether they're talking about their image vs. what they actually do. plenty of heroes get summoned out into the universe and are then never heard from again. the secretary at the alien consulate the main character goes to is a prisoner/slave who is under a geas so strong that he can't express food preferences. there's a short little aside about how "stat boosts" to your "appeal" stat also involve mental manipulation to make you more personable and agreeable, and yes yes technically forced mental manipulation usually isn't allowed according to the alien contract but by selecting points in appeal you implicitly consent to it! and yes you could technically say, every time you want to (or are forced by class requirements to) put points in appeal that you don't want any of the mental stuff but really that's just being stubborn and digging your heels in and people won't like that. etc.

it kinda reminded me of uhhh becoming alien in that it is about a human going "wow cool scifi adventure!" and then slowly realizing that the political & bureaucratic structures in play basically make it a meat grinder for idealists. that's fun.

anyway so it's a little jarring when we get introduced to some of the high-powered alien paladin-wizards and they're all perfectly noble and self-sacrificing. or, there's (to me) a very noticeable point in the story where it shifts from Initial Premise mode into This Is A Long-Running Serial mode, and it kinda jettisons some of the existing tensions so it can introduce new concepts. story elements that were introduced early on and connected to hazy, unclear corners of the worldbuilding get resolved in a way that sidelines them (like e.g., alden's gremlin stops being so much a thing with a story connection and a mystery around it to mostly just being a power he has. "hey why does this make me better at wordchains?" gorgon: "weird it's more fragmentary than i thought; it isn't supposed to do that; well, w/e")

i mean yes it is in-progress and it's clearly setting up for the eventual fallout of alden's whole pseudo-knight thing getting revealed (probably like another 100 chapters on), but i would be shocked if any of the actual knights objected to it in a meaningful sense + we have not actually seen any of the exploitative aliens we were promised with the introduction. like, ro-dan maybe. i'm sure artonian politics is gonna come up eventually but as it is currently a whole hunk of that was jettisoned w/ one conversation that's like "well okay maybe we do have this extremely exploitative contract system for all our resource worlds and maybe you are all effectively slave labor who can be compelled by the contract to do whatever we want but actually it's just messy political design-by-committee so it's not like they're all evil or anything. no further questions."

so like i'm sure there will eventually be a "let's talk about artonian politics" arc, probably around whenever alden's whole secret gets blown up, but the nature of serial fiction means that we're gonna be hearing about his time in superhero school for quite a while.

(long-running progression fantasy serials have these two moves that show up again and again. the "let's do a dungeon-crawl" arc and the "let's go to magic school arc". just like, these enormous filler arcs that don't really do much aside from consume the word quota for a while. i mean, super supportive's superhero school section is fine; it's more engaging than most. given the initial concept of the story it's both inevitable and also a natural part of the whole narrative; it's not shoehorned in. i'm just saying, it's an extremely common narrative chunk to throw into all sorts of progression fantasy stuff for no reason. it was very funny when i went to look up what books 3 and 4 of sporemageddon/spores and sorcery were, and the answer was: all of book 3 is a dungeon crawl arc where the only important or interesting thing happens at the very end; all of book 4 is a magic school arc where the only important or interesting thing... actually i don't think anything really happens the entire book. the mc assassinates some people b/c that was the entire point of going to magic school and then they leave and it's like oh okay this could've been a one-paragraph summary of doing a job for the union. anyway this is a tangent.)

anyway i think super supportive is already like 500k words or something so maybe by the time it hits a million words i will have been exhausted by the premise and be done with it. but maybe not!! it's been okay so far!!

[go-go-devil]

Top 5 autistic headcanons and top 5 aroace headcanons?

TRIPLE A LET'S GOOO!!!

Autism:

Dale Cooper (Twin Peaks): One of the most obviously autistic characters to ever grace television. The allistics just didn't get it probably because he was "too social" or whatever other slight deviation from what's stereotypical in autistic characters

Kris (Deltarune): I genuinely believe Kris is deliberately autistic-coded, mostly due to that "How to Care for a Human" book you find in the library in Chapter 2 but even beyond that all of their described behaviors are SUPER relatable to me as an autistic person (and bring me back to how I felt about it in my youth...)

Daniil Dankovsky & Various Other Characters (Pathologic): Thank you once again for showing me the light in how truly autistic Daniil is at his very core <3 Besides him though I'm also in agreement with the very code of Classic HD that Peter Stamatin and Grace are on the spectrum (tortured savant and death-obsessed weird girl rep respectively), but I would also argue that Yulia Lyuricheva is autistic as well. I mean the woman is described as someone who "sits in the corner and quietly observes others" and invented an entire philosophical theory in an attempt to explain the pattern of random events invisibly triggered by people. That's what we in the business call STEM-influenced autism :)

The Lodger (Knock-Knock): Yet another video game character that is so intensely autistic. Willingly living in isolation, simultaneously longing for and hating the presence of guests in your house, talking to yourself while pacing through the hallways & infodumping about the most niche scientific field imaginable? It's so relatable 🕯

Diane Nguyen (Bojack Horseman): This one maybe doesn't have the most "evidence" compared to the others per say, but I honestly found myself relating to a lot of Diane's personality quirks and struggles AS an autistic person (ex: hating surprises, trouble regulating her emotions/prone to emotional outbursts, having the most specific overly-convoluted Halloween costume ever). With her I think I'm more in the minority for this hc since her other mental illnesses overshadow her autistic traits, plus her's aren't nearly as obvious as Juda's (who as far as I'm concerned IS canonically autistic even if it's not outright stated by the characters)

Aroace:

Patches (Soulsborne Series): There is no fucking way this man has ANY desire for sex and romance. The only hole he's interested in are the enemy-infested ones he can kick you down! Plus I do know of that one famous line he says in Dark Souls 3 which he claims to be "devoid of all worldly wants" so this might as well be canon

Artemy Burakh (Pathologic): I don't care what the shippers think, I just love the idea of Artemy having a narrative revolving around the concept of "love" while being alienated and eventually coming to terms with how he himself doesn't experience this emotion in a socially conventional way. Besides just 'cause he's aroace in my mind doesn't mean he can't form QPR's ;)

Death of the Endless (The Sandman): ABSOLUTE AROACE ICON! She's a being who loves humanity, but keeps a reasonable distance between any individual person due to her role in taking their souls upon their death. Though instead of being all moping and "oh I can never allow myself to truly be close to those I love T_T" she's instead endlessly jovial and enjoys every second of spending time with other humans in a platonic fashion, brief as those seconds are in the grand scheme of her job. If that ain't actually positive aroace rep I don't know what is 🖤

Every Character in Hylics: All of them are aroace. They're functionally immortal clay aliens who probably don't even need to procreate in traditional means to produce new life, and besides they're more interested in prog rock than romance anyway 🌙 🎸🌯

Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye): A very personal hc for me. Reading that book was one of my earliest instances of me relating to a character for their lack of desire for sex and romance; in particular the whole story about Holden losing his best friend Jane due to her no longer valuing him as a friend and wanting a boyfriend instead, to which he couldn't find himself filling that role. It's just such a vivid portrayal of THE aroace experience of having your platonic connections become "lesser" in the eyes of society, and it really pisses me off that so many contribute this character trait of his as something "he refuses to grow out of" because no it fucking isn't! But then again most analyses of this book are godawful ableist pieces of shit so I'm not exactly surprised there's a lack of meaningful analysis on the main character being sexually deviant alongside his mental disorders

[theliterarywolf]

I think the worst thing about the whole welcome home situation is that it really brings to light 1. just how "commercialized" the perception around creative pursuits has become (it might not be the right word but I can't think of another one). like this isn't [insert random corporation]'s IP #67484934 but someone's own work they are still directly involved in and unaffiliated with any major company. and 2. somehow the basic concept of respecting boundaries has been lost not just on fanpol but some proshippers too it seems. "no nsfw of my original characters please" is a pretty reasonable boundary actually and if someone feels the need to do it anyways they should at least have the decency to keep it private and away from the og creator instead of mocking them for *checks notes* being so arrogant as to have one boundary on interacting with THEIR work that they were so kind as to share with others on the internet

"Just how "commercialized" the perception around creative pursuits has become"

No, that's it exactly and we can see this echoed and causing the trickle effect that has led to the current situation with art and creative media in general.

Look at how the concept of a good adaptation (books, games, comics, anime, etc) is a rarity and not the norm. It's because you have a bunch of talking-head studio-executives not seeing the IPs they're scrambling over as creations from individual groups and artists but just something to get eyes on a watered-down screen, milk for ad-revenue, and then repeat the process with another IP.

Look at how the Triple-A video game space has turned into less of a 'we want to create fresh new experiences and ideas' and more 'okay, let's get a skeleton crew to make enough of a game to justify DLC and live-services for a year or two... Okay, time to do the same thing over again!'

Look at NFTs and AI "art" and how, the only reason why those two things were able to rise to the plague they currently are is because you have this brain-dead portion of the population who refuse to see art as a practiced skill of human labor that should be paid for and appreciated as such but, instead, they just 'want something pretty to look at for a second before getting another something pretty to look at for a second before...' Ad-nauseum.

Two perfect recent examples of that last one: one dude who calls himself rapidly making 'better' art of Princess Peach when all he's doing is clicking on an AI and getting nightmare amalgamations that look worse than pre-Toy Story Pixar and one person who made a piece of Sonic fanart with a human fem!Sonic in the center but all the 'Sonics' around her looked more inbred than the Hapsburgs.

But, of course, even with actual artists pointing out 'hey, these look wonky/weird/bad', you have thousands of people who don't care. Why? Well, look back to a certain comment that people use to dunk on current Star Wars, Marvel, and other mainstream IPs:

'Don't ask questions; just consume product and then get excited for the next product'.

No one wants to think about the creators of their favored IPs anymore. They just want to be given the shiny new ball to treat (or mistreat) in any way they see fit for a while before dumping it to the wayside a month or so later to do it to something else. And if, heaven forbid, you get a creator who dares to want to have some matter of agency with how people engage with their creation, well...

'Why do you hate people having fun?'

'Well, I'm just going to do it anyway.'

'So... Anyway, these characters are now mine because the creator is obviously shitty and doesn't know them as well as I do'

And then

The Cycle

Repeats

Anew.

[findmeinthefallair]

if that hexsquad each piloted a voltron lion, who do you think would pilot each lion?

Aaah!! An opportunity to answer an ask that is about my two biggest brainrot shows! 😍

I remain here for VLD because of its premise, for what it stood for before Tim Hedrick - the Head of Story - got fucked over and had his show bible thrown out...Also coz Studio Mir~~

When you wanna compare the paladins to Hexsquad it's like, having to look at what element in nature each Lion stands for and also each witch's deepest wish. And how the characters with their traits would match with the traits that the Lions are looking for. And I'll not only be referencing the new paladins, but also their predecessors: including perhaps the only redeemable thing about S8 which were the old paladins' speeches from the astral plane scenes.

And I'm obviously going with the S1 and S2 pilot configurations, not the post-Lion Switch config.

Starting with who will "form the head":

The Black Lion wants her pilot to learn about control and calmness, which is why she could go perfectly with Shiro's main conflict with his PTSD.

It works very well for Willow for this precise reason:

She and Shiro also share the habit of not wanting to rely on others to help them with their problems, i.e. wanting to stay strong and put up a constant front of portraying strength. We've seen how both characters behave when having panic attacks. So lol, Willow in this universe wouldn't be using plant magic.

One might think that Yellow is the match for her after hearing her deepest wish:

And sure she could express the exact same wish if she were a Paladin...but the Black Lion would pick up on what her area of growth is i.e. the goal to be in control isn't a goal to be reached all on your own. The Lions have their requirements, but they are sentient and can telepathically get a read of an individual's unique challenges and darkest fears. Being the Guardian Spirit representing the cosmos and sky, Black can go nicely with Willow's nurtured leadership qualities and her desire for strength and wisdom.

Next, the arms :

Red is definitely for Amity.

Red is the Lion that wants you to follow your instincts with determination, to defy what's expected or imposed on you if needed. (ah, but I hear you thinking...doesn't this fit Hunter as well? More on this later)

Look at the similarities between her and Keith's arcs:

Both were not entrusted with the space to explore what they wanted in life (imagine...Iverson *could've* been a parental figure for Keith, but he reflects how the education and foster care systems often are IRL), and were expected to fit into a box: which was to their detriment. They were determined to not let their inner fire be put out.

Bonus that they're also rather seasoned fighters, for their respective ages:

The Green Lion might choose Gus. Being a user of illusion magic, Gus's arc has the theme of truth vs illusion, and Green wants a pilot who is curious and has a daring intellect. Who better than the little guy who is curious to know all there is about the human realm, who wants to see what is out there beyond the Isles. Green is best for stealth operations and Gus would be a natural at that, he'd be the best tech guy too!

His deepest wish nicely matches the realization that Pidge had after she met the Olkari: about being connected to the universe and to everything in it (that's what the Forest element symbolizes via the whole "network of roots and branches" concept, which also reflects the imagery of the nervous system linked to the brain. Both Pidge and Gus are prodigies/geniuses).

And having an ambassador role can't really be carried out from the safety and comfort of hiding in your comfort zone of one's insecurity:

Finally, the legs:

I vote Blue for Luz because her deepest wish:

goes so well with this exact line from Blaytz, Lance's predecessor (when we finally hear about what the Blue Lion represents):

Blue is the teamwork lion, kind of the opposite of Green. Easygoing, bold and spontaneous like water. And it's no coincidence that she's the friendliest lion. Luz can befriend anyone because of her extraordinary empathy and I have good reason to suspect this was also the intended arc for Lance...:

Yellow is the morale lion, sort of the opposite of Red.

BUT! Hunter is very interesting since, at least to me, he embodies both Red and Yellow traits which at first glance are *supposed* to be in conflict with one another (this is a sign that he is magnificently well-written. Sorry Keith and Hunk and everyone in the space show, beyond S3 :'D).

I mean c'mon, look at my two kiddos:

It's really important to note that Hunter and Amity's deepest wishes are essentially the same. Which is why it's also easy for me to visualize Hunter piloting Red.

But it's kinda unmistakable: the writers wanted us to see that Hunter's strength is his kind, loving heart (Yellow paladin traits).

His courage and determination (Red paladin traits)

are only the next priority and exist to make the case for his kind heart, in my opinion. Because he wants to live, not just survive...in order to keep learning and giving and loving, to basically remain in a relationship with the world instead of being in isolation.

It's also a bit eerie that Yellow is the Guardian Spirit of Earth/Land, and well..a certain grimwalker was literally grown out of the earth. Hmm........

And wowzah if you look here:

it's a contrast to the Golden Guard being Belos's instrument to keep the Isles as divided as possible, under the guise of promoting unity, with Belos even going as far as coining a name like "The Day of Unity"...during which he wanted to carry out a plan of causing even more major division among the people of the Boiling Isles, via literal genocide. Yeah, yikes. Hunter's future in palisman-carving certainly brings unity born out of love, opposing Belos's forces of division born out of fear. Gyrgan is right in what he says above: unity is born from love.

Anyway this sweet child can really feel like both Keith and Hunk combined into one character. Sometimes he recklessly charges ahead, sometimes he's very nervous about a ton of things. He manages to be the pathetic wet cat but also the most huggable warm teddy bear, lmao.

But if he had been brought up in a healthy and loving home - which is what Hunk had:

him as Yellow's choice would be crystal clear.

Thank goodness Hunter DOES end up in this place though, surrounded by the best found family!

PS: Moringmark had a different configuration for who would pilot who, he just based it on matching colour codes haha (link)