#or at least a facet of the topic

[procyongaaay]

I remember growing up my mom told me "one day you'll understand" meaning that when I had kids I'd understand how wrong abortion was.

My son was wanted. He was wanted so much when I told my spouse I was pregnant with him, I said "4th times the charm?" And cried into their shoulder because after repeated miscarriages I didn't know how much more I could take. He was our rainbow baby. But he grew, pregnancy was hard as hell (and absolutely not for the faint of heart) but we got through it together. Then, a few weeks before Christmas, there was some complications durring birth and after 10.5 hours of labour had to have an emergency C section. He had had his cord wrapped around his neck twice, and had his hand tangled in it in a way that ment he never would have been able to be born naturally. It took them 4 minutes to revive him once they got him out. And that was only the beginning of our troubles. Apparently there had been a transfer of blood between us, and we have different blood types. So some of his blood was in my blood stream, but I'm an adult, and it didn't do much more than a tinge of yellow in the corners of my eyes after a few days. But he was so little, not even 7lbs, and the bit of my blood that got into his system ravaged him. He had dangerously high bilirubin levels that just kept rising. He was in an incubator with intense phototherapy, both a light above and a biliblanket below, for 2 weeks. We had to flush feed him so his little body could fight through. He was too weak to eat or cry at first, and just made these tiny mewling noises that broke my heart to hear. Every time we'd take him out of the incubator to feed, change, or have a little skin to skin time the machine would complain the temperature dropped too low with a *beep beep boop*. But my little guy is a fighter and we pulled through. I fought to get my kid here and keep him here. And without medical intervention neither of us would have made it.

Just saying "beep beep boop" can almost bring me to tears almost a year later.

And then just a few months later in April, I had a sudden stabbing pain that came with an impending sense of doom. Something was wrong and I felt like I was going to die. I was in so much pain I threw up, which hadn't even happened durring labour. We rushed to the ER. I had a male dr look me over and tell me "it's probably just your period, they can be a little crazy after birth, and if this is your first cycle after giving birth it can be a little wild with the hormones, just go home and sleep it off." And while it's true that first cycle can be a doozie, I knew immediately that's not what was happening.

I asked for a second opinion and he said ok but it'll be a while before someone else can see you we're very busy. So for 10 hours I sat in the hallway of the ER, the pain getting worse and worse, starting to feel faint, and the sense of impending doom getting worse and worse till I was on the verge of a panic attack.

Finally there was a shift change at 5 in the morning, and a lady doctor came to see me. She was like "hmmm no this doesn't seem like a period to me, not even a first one post partum. Something else is going on." So she sent off some blood tests, but before she left to wait for those to come back she was like "hey is it ok if I do a bed side ultrasound? I just have a feeling that I need to check."

I remember watching her eyes go wide as she said "oh. That's a lot of blood. Oh no." And call for a nurse to immediately call to wake one of the surgeons and prep an OR. She said "hey it's gonna take them about half an hour to get ready, in the meanwhile we need to get a better look at you, we're gonna take you down to ultrasound to get better pictures." I called my spouse, who was at home with our then 5 month old son to tell them I had a lot of internal bleeding and they didn't know why yet. They said they'd get my mom to watch our son then come join me asap. I ended up passing out after they got the ultrasound images because I was too weak to stand at that point. They wheeled me into the red zone and that's around when my spouse arrived.

We were together when the dr told us that I had apparently become pregnant again, but due to scarring and adhesions from the C section, it was an ectopic pregnancy, and scarring was extensive enough if I ever became pregnant again, it would be ectopic again. My left fallopian tube had ruptured, and I was bleeding out internally. They rushed me in to surgery, removed both fallopian tubes and the embryo that had almost killed me, and patched me up, sent me home. The bruising along my sides and belly were truely impressive, but I only have a couple of tiny scars to show for it now, one of which is hidden in my belly button.

But did you know that that last surgery was an abortion? One without which I would not have survived. My son would be without his mama right now if I didn't have an abortion. My agressively anti-abortion mother refuses to call it one. Because to her there are no exceptions, and because I was going to die without it so it didn't count. But it does. It was an abortion. It being medically necessary doesn't change what it was.

Honestly I've always been pro choice. But especially having gone through pregnancy and birth, and having had an abortion myself, I don't know that its possible to be more pro choice now. I would never make someone go through all that, it'd be so incredibly inhumane. I'd rather have to string up someone and beat them than to have to force them to go through with a pregnancy. And mine wasn't even all that complex compared to some people. My body has permanently changed. My brain has changed. My sense of smell and taste has changed. The process of getting my son earthside has fundamentally altered who I am as a person. He was very much wanted and planned for but has still altered the very foundations of who I am as a person. And I can't imagine someone forcing me to do all that against my will. It's just horribly unspeakably evil snd wrong.

I love being a mama. My son is my world. His first birthday is coming up in just a couple weeks, he's big and strong and happy and healthy and amazing and I love him more than life itself. But I chose this. I wanted this. I wanted him. It's all been worth it because this was our plan all along, to start a family, to grow together. All the hardships and challenges, all the changes, even the more negative ones, have been worth it all because of that.

But for someone who wasn't wanting to be pregnant? Who didn't want to start a family? Or just someone like me for whom an abortion was medically necessary? Especially for women for who that pregnancy was wanted and then needed a medically necessary abortion? Well I have a kid now, and I understand more than ever that denying an abortion to someone who needs one is one of the most horrible things I could imagine. I will be pro choice till the day that I die and I will fight for people to get appropriate medical care. Wether that be at the polls, calling my reps, or calling out family members at Thanksgiving dinner. Mama bear don't give a shit.

giving birth sucks tbh. not only do you and the baby you’re birthing almost die, usually you shit yourself and often you tear your taint. then you have to push an organ out of your body (placenta) and if even a little of that remains in your body, you can hemorrhage to death or develop an infection that essentially rots your body from the inside out. even if you had a relatively “easy birth”, you bleed for weeks on end. even after that stops, your body and brain is changed for the rest of your life, the pregnancy leeched minerals from your bones, that can cause osteoporosis later. minor urinary incontinence is not uncommon, brain scans of people who gave birth show permanent changes in their brain, you’re never quite the same.

I say all of this not to say giving birth is disgusting but it is a harrowing and visceral experience. society downplays how fucking awful it is and makes it out to be a ~magical~ experience but it isn’t a magical transformative experience for everyone. it can be an extremely traumatic experience for someone who wanted to carry a pregnancy to term, much more so for someone who did not want to be pregnant in the first place or someone who knows their baby won’t survive the birth. anyway, abortion is a right. pregnancy and birth aren’t just inconvenient, it’s fucking awful.

[elizabethminkel]

hi i read your article on fanfiction culture changing and it reminded me of a comment i got on a fic in 2023. (i was going to say this year/recently but then i checked and wow time moves fast) it was phrased like i wasn't ever going to see it. which is weird bc there were only 2 other comments both of which i'd responded to. it was written almost to an audience that did not include me. idk what that says about the "culture" but i enjoyed your article!

Aw <3 thank you so much! (If anyone hasn't read it yet, this is in reference to "The Endless Appetite for Fanfiction.")

That's super interesting, and definitely relates to this broader ~thing~ imo. My first thought is about the (significant?) rise in people putting fic reviews on Goodreads. That's definitely part of the overall context collapse—and deeply annoys me!!—but it does make me think about the concrit conversation, and how fandom post-LJ has largely shut down critical discussion of fic, which was not a rarity back in the day. (I'm not opening that can of worms now lol.) Like, I have sympathy for the Discord fic book clubs, because you should be allowed to say whatever you want about a fic in private! But I feel like that needs to be just one component, especially if you have a lot of positive things to say about a work.

Funnily, I got a comment somewhat recently that felt, at least in one bit, like it was addressed more to the world than to me. It was a really nice comment! But I showed it to a friend in my confusion (and then just replied like it hadn't struck me as odd). I've also received comments in the last few years on older stories in which the commenter acts like I've long departed from my fandom—when I've published new works as recently as a few weeks prior, and post on my (linked from my AO3 profile) tumblr daily. Which seems related, too—like, me, the fan, is still right there, very easy to see?

I do think there's something to be said about depersonalization across social media, and the way people collapse "content creators" with their "content" (to be clear, I'm not calling fic writers or fic either of these things, but part of this whole situation is that a lot of readers are thinking of them that way). Like, the creator economy is structured to encourage people do that, even. And of course there's great commentary here on tumblr dot com and elsewhere about how people talk to strangers in ways they'd never dare to in real life. I mean, the digital disconnect led to plenty of...issues...back in the day, even when fandom and fanfic weren't as bifurcated as right now.

Anyway, I think this is all swirling together...and like, it's not great! (Haha this is like how I ended the article. "This sucks! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯") But thanks again for your message—this topic has so many interesting, if depressing, facets!!

[satubby]

◇Yandere Concept◇

•○ 《Ryu Shi-Oh》 ○•

『This is just my own concept but not the general and true view of the character as a yandere, although canonically he may or may not present these... behaviors』

〔Warning ⚠️: This may or may not contain Spoilers for the show in question, please do not read it if you have not yet seen the mentioned K-Drama. In addition, somewhat sensitive topics such as child abuse, drugs, mentions of sex and among others will be included.〕 Postscript: There may or may not be spelling errors, misplaced character pronouns (I'm dyslexic) so I'm sorry for the inconvenience because this was written at night and I was sleepy, and I'm not a fan of English, so this might be bad.

A puppet of the Russian mafia, Ryu Shi-oh is ruthless and unscrupulous. Depending on how you have met him, he will treat you differently. He would most like a Darling who is as lively, positive and almost like the protagonist of the K-drama where he comes from.

》☆ Obsession:

Ryu Shi-oh will take quite a while to trust you, since he has the police and other enemies after his head. However, if you're the gentle type (if you go all in with this yandere, it would be best for both of you), he'll see you as his emotional refuge, the only source of light in his dark life, though that doesn't mean it won't take a little effort for him to be open to you. Despite his yandere tendencies, he feels a desperate need to protect that vulnerable part of himself by sometimes seeming distant (or perhaps he is at first).

Once he is aware of his feelings for you, then things will change (not much but at least he won't always be on guard with you). You will see him as shy, loving (in his own strange way). Of course, he will be somewhat slow in his feelings but VERY loyal once he is sure of them.

》☆ Obsessive Control:

Russian mafia upbringing has instilled in him either consciously or unconsciously, a need for absolute control and even to the point of violence. Ryu Shi-o monitors every move you make (that's only in his facet of having just met you), from his daily interactions to his friendships. Since if it's at the beginning of getting to know you, he wants to make sure there are no betrayals or double-crosses on your part.

On the other hand, if you've known each other for a while, then his vigilance will be more about getting to know you in depth since he is somewhat clumsy in interactions (other than about his work or murder). He will know everything about you, even things you may not even remember. What kind of flowers you like, X item you've been lusting after and so on.

》☆ Dark Gifts:

To express his love, Ryu Shi-oh tends to give you expensive and luxurious things (When he is getting to know you they are more like decoys) But then he gives you things that you might like, as I mentioned in the previous post, but often these carry a hint of double interactions (He stressed, Ryu Shi-oh doesn't trust people much, he has traumas.... Someone get this man some therapy for god's sake!!!).

》☆ Intense Jealousy:

The thought of losing you arouses a fierce rage in Ryu Shi-o. He can become possessive and jealous, going to extreme lengths to keep you tied to his side. His traumatic past contributes to his constant fear of being abandoned or betrayed, he horribly hates lies (This is Canon by the way, he said so himself).

Since he grew up in a precarious and horrible environment, his concepts of love are null to say the least.... he doesn't know anything about the real meaning beyond what is written in books or Google. So when his jealousy is present, he usually lashes out in anger because he doesn't understand or know how to handle his emotions well, that's why he is always stoic and avoids emotional contact with others.

He thinks at the beginning that these emotions are a weakness (because of his upbringing obviously) so you will understand his attitudes and actions at the beginning.

Back to the scenario (depending on whether you work for him or otherwise were Nam Soon's sister, so to speak). However it was, before and after he met you until he gained your trust, his jealousy is powerful and terrifying.

For example, if you deny him or are somewhat alien to his feelings (ahem! Nam soon) then Ryu Shi-oh may or may not threaten those you hold dear or end up killing the subject of his jealousy if provoked enough.

He may or may not send you videos of it, who knows, he's a fucking mafia-bred man.

》☆ Demonstrations of Power:

As CEO of Doogu, Ryu Shi-oh uses his influence and resources to protect you from his enemies, though also to investigate you, but often does so ruthlessly. He uses his position to eliminate any perceived threat (whether real or not, as in the case of being jealous), regardless of the consequences.

When it comes to, for example, demonstrating how happy you could be (excluding that he is a mobster and has a front business for the real thing, drugs) he can afford a whole restaurant for just the two of you or go on trips when he is not busy.

Also when it comes to dealing with you, depending on whether or not you agree to go out with him, he will use his resources. Either way you will end up with him (if you don't want innocent people hurt).

》☆ Hidden Insecurities:

Despite his confident facade, Ryu Shi-o harbors deep insecurities. Fearful that the reader will discover his dark side, he struggles not to show his vulnerability. This can manifest in moments of emotional self-isolation. More common when they are getting to know each other, refusing to accept their emotions more as a passing interest.

When he already falls for you, he refuses to see you leave him for someone else (Or when you don't want more than a friendship) He clings to the feeling you give him or your kindness/courtesy. He has never felt the comfort you give him, you treat him as human and not the tool the Russians used.

》☆ Future plans:

Although his methods are questionable, Ryu Shi-oh looks for love in you. He sees in that relationship an opportunity to find peace and redemption for the sins of his past, even if his actions may be morally ambiguous. He really is a yandere who would give everything for you, though of course after fulfilling his goals.

Since he has experimented on himself, his strength is inhuman and that may or may not lead to use on special occasions... special occasions. Going back to his plans with you,if you behave just by staying out of it, you will have a dream life.... On the other hand, if you are a treacherous liar like Nam Soon (Ryu's own words) Even if he loves and cherishes you, he won't go easy on you.

He will first take it out on your loved ones, then ruining your life until everyone forgets you even exist.... Only then he can stop being angry with you, he is cynical about it.

He will tell you: "But Honey! You did that to yourself... You shouldn't have betrayed me, I gave you everything, I trusted you with my secrets and you were a spoiled whore..... Accept the consequences, only then can we forgive each other."

》☆ Violence as a last resort:

Although he doesn't hesitate to resort to violence towards his subordinates (regarding the real drug business) He never uses it with you as he doesn't want you to see him as someone bad, he tries to keep it as a last resort (We already gave vast examples of which situations can lead him to that) The contradiction between his desire to protect and his ability to be brutal reflects the complexity of his character.

You will always see him as the suave and polite gentleman although distant in his interactions, but as you get to know him better he is just someone traumatized and hurt by his past (He doesn't justify his current actions but he explains why) He never touches a hair on your head if you treat him well (Ryu Shi-oh has the philosophy that his enemies he treats harshly and his allies worse or something similar, what do I know I am just a brat of 18 years old).

》☆ NSFW

》☆ This will be short, but having sex with Ryu Shi-oh is the most sensual thing you could imagine. I won't add much because I need to learn more about the character, well he likes to bite and scratch. He will be slow and very gentle with you when starting this, but when he gets excited like every man he loses his mind and you may or may not end up with whippings or broken bones given his superior strength (literally).

》☆ Ryu loves when you suck his cock or his neck, his favorite parts of your body are those where he can squeeze (female breasts or buttocks). He likes to suck your breasts and play with your neck. His cock is introduced slowly so when you are ready, he gives you everything he has.

》☆ In the end, you will end up tired but satisfied (Unless you have done wrong and Ryu is angry when making love, there it is not smooth and he could even take it out on you due to his jealousy) Afterwards, the care he gives you is soft and sensual, always apologizing for breaking some bones.

In general, having a yandere like him can be a double-edged sword. Ryu Shi-oh can be so kind or cruel depending on your reactions and treatment towards him. It's like swimming on nails, you have to watch where you're going or you'll end up getting hurt.

This is all independent of the K-drama "Nam soon Super Strong Girl" since it is merely my interpretation of this beautiful villain who, from my perspective, didn't deserve so much pain even though he brought it on himself in the end.

[For those anons who asked me for something, I promise that as soon as I get my ideas together I will start writing because I am a mess at this. I could barely do anything right with this yandere concept.]

[imalwaysaslutforthevoid]

The Summer Hikaru Died and onomatopoeia

I've wanted to gush about this topic for a while and i have no organized thoughts but a lot of feelings i need to get out. First and foremost being "Holy shit this manga is so damn loud" which is a weird feeling to have since manga is generally understood to be a silent medium.

And yet the Mangaka MokuMoku Ren has filled their work to the brim with sound. Now comics using onomatopoeia (words that echo a noise ie: crunch) is nothing new the sound of a fist hitting it's target and walls being wrecked is nothing new. But usually onomatopoeia is worked into whatever action is resulting in the noise

adding both a sense of motion as well as sound. Which is what makes The Summer Hikaru Died's use of it so unique and compelling. To utilize onomatopoiea you have to give up on space that could otherwise be going to deatil work in the background or foreground. Now this is fine with smaller unobtrusive effects like Wolverine's claw extending, and there's numerous example's where a sound will take up large portions of the page to show how loud something like a bomb going off is. But i've yet to see another comic western or otherwise so consistently use this facet of the medium to instill such claustrophobia and dread. As a slower paced horror manga The Summer Hikaru Died builds it's suspense mostly through atomosphere, the supernatural happenings weighing on the surrounding evironment until they break the surface

The use of sound is heavy, it's harsh, it's a vehicle to show how wrong things have gotten from the whisper of "it's coming" heard in the ringing bell of a train crossing to the omnipresent call of birds, bugs, and frogs that pushes in on the paneling shrinking the world with their cacophony.

the way sound shrinks the world making reader and character both feel suffocated by the drone is matched by how the manga uses silence as a way to make the characters feel exposed and vulnerable. the page is now empty of distraction the world of the story on full display and it still feels wrong it's agorophobic, at least amidst the din there was some sense of anonymity being just one voice among hundrends.

even the speech bubble feels out of place as it wanders off desperate to fill the space. The manga is full of these moments of sound and silence in some dance with eachother always too much or too little, never comfortable. It adds a lot to the horror of the manga, and is just one part of many that makes The Summer Hikaru Died such an excellent manga, every chapter I can feel my skin crawl as the setting becomes more hostile to the charactres while they uncover more of the truth of their circumstances.

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

Are You Sure?! - Episode 1 Observations

Who said it during the Bon Vogaye S3 interviews? "We click". Was it Jimin or Jungkook? Either way, it's clearly mutual and and we've heard iterations of that throughout the years in other contexts, particularly in terms of work ethic.

The first night they spent in Connecticut at that cabin in the woods showed us a different facet, in a more domestic realm. The delegation of each role during cooking pointing out what the other one likes, knowing exactly how to prepare something based on a word. It was like a well-oiled machine that has been functioning for ages. It also gave us a taste of what was to come the next evening when Jungkook cooked pasta, an entire scene worthy to dissect.

But what stood out to me more was what happened next. I know we've all joked and talked about poor Jimin and his stomach bug. A very unexpected topic, but here we are. The level of candidness might have felt surprising (at least for me initially), but they are also guys and perhaps coming from a place socially and culturally in which it's not unusual.

But it did contribute to that element of authenticity I mentioned in my first post about the series. I want to digress a bit here because the entire situation reminded me of a conversation I had perhaps more than a decade ago. I was talking to an acquitance about elements that are usually kept out of films, part of the mundane. What is left out of the story due to its lack of relevancy. And he said that scenes of people urinating are common in films, but we don't see/hear people taking a shit, or even talking about it. Yes, the language was that crude. (And no, Salo doesn't count). Shortly after, Godard's Adieu au langage was released and if my memory serves right, it had that exact scene that my acquitance was talking about. I don't think it was a matter of authenticity, the film was a lot more complex than that in its experimentation, but it did go as far as to show somehow the hidden parts of human behavior on screen, now suddenly at a forefront.

What's the purpose of that in a travel show? What does it say about the choice to show it and about the people? In variety content including surviror type, travel or even food show, issues connected to the body are not something foreign or unusual. But in AYS, it's about the length and how it became a way to show the care a person has for the other and consequently becoming another example of that authenticity.

Both Jungkook and Jimin kept a light tone over Jimin's progressive state of sickness, but in no circumstances has Jungkook ever treated it like he needs to keep his distance. The man was sitting in bed, telling Jimin it's alright, while he was fighting for his life in the bathroom.

Despite keeping a light tone, in Jungkook's case it's often about his actions. His own way of showing that he cares more than what appears to. He might laugh and joke that Jimin is dying, all the while being the one to give him the medicine. He keeps on making jokes as he goes outside, only to immediately decide to build a stone temple so Jimin can get better.

I found it all very moving. I know it might also seem trivial, but I choose to see some gestures for what they appear to be a sign of: complete comfortability, with no uneasyness or shame or lack of aknowledgement. It's a result of seeing that person going through everything and knowing that person intimately, at whatever level any of us choose to interpret it.

To be continued...

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hi sex witch!! First off thanks so much for all the educational content. My sex ed has never been lacking but I've still learned so much following you. Second, I've seen you talk a bit about herpes before and your opinion of it and I'm curious to hear more. I have oral herpes that I contracted as a child and it's just kind of a fact of life for me, I mostly just wanna hear more about it from someone knowledgeable about the topic

hi anon,

well my opinion of herpes is the same as my opinion of, like, left handedness or bilingualism or having tattoos, in that it's a teeny tiny facet of who most people are that might be kind of interesting to know about but is only important in extremely specific contexts and is otherwise none of my business. for the most part I consider it rather gauche, to put it mildly, to hold any opinion about other people's health.

it does sadden and frustrate me to see how many people are seemingly unaware that herpes and the vast majority of STIs are both common and curable, or at least manageable. subpar sexual education has left a lot of people uninformed and ignorant about STIs as a normal part of sexual activity, and so many people—especially in America, where the miserable influence of protestantism is never far away—see it as a personal moral failing if they do something a borderline inevitable as getting sick. the way that many people talk about themselves after contracting herpes or another STI as if they've become a walking biohazard unfit for society is devastating.

if you want more herpes-specific chat you can check out previous sex ed posts like the ones here, here, here, here, and a silly one here.

(apologies if any of those links are repeated, attaching links from desktop on my phone is a shitshow)

[brynnterpretations]

Hi! Could I please request Frenchie x Reader HCs?

Frenchie x Reader Headcanons ☻

GIF Source: @amazingmaeve ★ (link)

Frenchie isn't someone who immediately feels romantic attraction towards someone, so it would happen pretty casually and slowly —  AKA no "love at first sight" for the guy, who believes love is a very purposeful thing (and action). Sexual attraction is another case, though, so if Reader experiences it and/or is comfortable starting out that way, I'd say it would start out with hookups. If that's not in-line with Reader, it would start as a friendship or a close working relationship.

What would transform this relationship to romantic would likely be a shared sense of hope, strength, and willingness to overcome all the shit that plagues the universe of "The Boys". We all know that Frenchie has been through a lot, and he forms very strong bonds with people who have been through shit, too, but are still trying their best every day to be and do better, even if just for their close social circle.

He wouldn't be opposed to you working with The Boys — in fact, he'd prefer it, since the coup is an extremely important facet in his life. He would appreciate not feeling like he had to hide anything from you.

Frenchie is very publicly affectionate with his friends, and that would be the same for a significant other. No matter where you are, he'll always have a hand on your back, plant a kiss on your cheek, rest his head on yours, etc.

Cooking drugs also gave him a lot of talents in the kitchen with normal food, so the guy's a serious foodie and would love cooking with you. He's someone who sees food itself as something very romantic, so he would really love the intimacy of cooking with you. He has a fondness for baking (particularly because he'd enjoy throwing powder at you).

Frenchie would dance around the topic of his past for the first few months of the relationship, but would start telling you about through bits and pieces before eventually opening up to you about it. If you respond with non-judgment yet an empathy that shows you know how much what he did hurt both him and others (because Frenchie knows what he did was wrong, and he doesn't want to be absolved and excused), he's yours. Forever. Enjoy your puppy.

He's a very spontaneous guy, and would love taking you to dives around the city, whether they're bars, hole-in-the-wall diners, or dinky antique stores (that you two may or may not get kicked out of at least once for knocking something over).

You learning French would be huge for him, and it would endear you to him forevermore. It doesn't matter if you butcher the words — if you speak and/or learn French for him, he will fall head over heels for you. Communication is extremely important to him.

Whether you know English (which he's mostly fluent in, but does struggle with a bit) or any other languages... he would immediately start trying to learn it. M.M. would be driven crazy by those Duolingo pings you get from completing a level.

Expect tons of cuddling. Frenchie would love being the big spoon, but on difficult nights, him being able to be the little spoon would be very comforting and dear to him. Frenchie often has night terrors due to his past, but they reduce significantly when he sleeps with you and when you hold him.

[lacesoflove]

hamzah once tweeted that he didnt care about fics being written about him idk if his viewpoint changed but honestly i dont think so cause hes chronically online still so he knows how it is (also i lowkey think that the tiktok community is the worst of all slushy communities they just make up fake stories about hamzah having a secret gf like every other week and most people commenting on there are really something else)

oh don’t get me started on the tik tok community…i just talked about the reddit community because it’s relevant and topical rn, but the tik tok community is actually something else.

i think, and maybe I’m overanalysing this way too deep, because im high as fuck, but i feel like typing a wall of text rn, so i will do just that. (everything said is my opinion and based on my experience from fandom culture, also i forget to say “not all but some” sometimes so i just want ro let you guys know im generalising) also i mention sa very very briefly!!

i think a lot of the tik tok fans are trying to mold hamzah and martin into the traditional social media personalities archetype, similar to tara yummy and jake and the rest of those “emo” guys (idgaf about them ngl 😭 apologies ig if you enjoy their content) - and i’m not saying slushynoobz’s is somehow more highbrow - which i want to quickly add (i swear im not beefing with like the entirety of this fandom i actually love slushies), i feel like there’s also another facet of slushies (to be totally honest i can have my downfalls and act like them sometimes) who like to treat hamzah and martin (i think i said this in my previous post) as above social media influencer culture or are highbrow because they make controversial jokes and shit, but like - they’re literally not? they’re close, or at least familiar with, people like tara yummy and them. they are very much content creators, they are just more self aware about it and have more “humble” (?) origins and have less controversies lmfao and are less brand friendly - i.e hamzah just doing social media because i think he didn’t want to go to college and martin just being an IT worker for canadians gov who made comedy videos. i think the reddit fans (not all tho!!) want to turn slushynoobz and slushies into like sturniolo brothers and tara yummy’s. i notice this especially when they talk about hamzah’s love life. and it’s like yeah, i’m curious too sometimes but i think sometimes they push it. esp with the hamzah and claire shit (which mind you shes still a teenager and hes like 22 - and yes, three years is not bad but like she was 15 and he was 18 when they met, the maturity difference hello???) or even, and i made a post about this already too lmfao, the whole mandy hating martin jokes (which ik are jokes 😭 im not that autistic) which tbh, in my personal opinion, are just overused and in poor taste.

im just worried that the fandom is gonna become a mess, especially with their growing popularity, and i feel like once hamzah can go to the states again, it’s gonna attract a bunch of new people! which is great for them and the community but unfortunately ive been through the dsmp and i hate to sound like that one gatekeeping ass hoe who calls new fans newgen (especially considering i only began watching slushynoobz this year and would only watch 4freakshow when a clip here and there would pop up), but like the fandom is going to get worse 😭

i just wish there was balance in this community like idk man and that people weren’t so extreme (which might be contradictory because i feel like i sound extreme in this post but then again, it might be the ganja), like yes? is it okay to be curious to want to know whay happened between hamzah and haley? yeah, maybe, sure - they’re public figures and had a falling ouf, naturally people are going to be curious? is it right to leave her comments about it or make weird rumours about them dating? no. is it weird to write really weird hamzah fics (and im talking weird with really grotesque topics like sa)? yes. it is, but my issue with reddit fans - the slushies arent even writing fics like that anyways, it’s tame.

im running out of what i wanna say coherently but yeah i just want us all to get along (which tbh, us tumblr girlies do with each other ngl) 🤒

[getvalentined]

I've never done a full breakdown of everything that happened to my version of Vincent while he was under the knife (although there is a partial breakdown from like 12 years ago on Ask Vincent Valentine), but @spinejackel tagged my recent Vincent doodle gushing about autopsy scar (Vincent Has a Y-Incision headcanon supremacy!) so I figured it was probably a good time. This is also probably the best method, since I can apply the right tags and trigger warnings to hopefully keep it from hitting the people who would be disturbed.

For anyone who doesn't know, figuring out the fucked up physiology of victims of science is like my entire jam. I think this is what happens when you let a chronically ill child watch Akira and the original Bubblegum Crisis OVA and most of the works of Masamune Shirow. All that before FF7 even existed. This means that the explanation under the cut may seem excessive, and this post is very long. I've been building it over over a quarter century, I don't think there's any avoiding it at this point.

Warnings for body horror, nonconsensual body modification, medical horror and torture. Basically, if there's anything you can think of related to becoming a victim of science under the rule of an unethical sci-fantasy oligarchy, it's probably in here to some degree. It's explained plainly and simply, in clinical but not visceral detail.

My headcanons for what Hojo did to Vincent are pretty specific, albeit not precisely comprehensive; 27 years later I still don't really have a particularly solid concept for how he turned Vincent into a shapeshifter, although at least we know it's not something entirely specific to Vincent—Hojo repeated that facet of the experiment in Azul, but not in any other SOLDIER operative even in DeepGround, implying that it's only possible if very specific physiological conditions are met. The minimal concept I do have involves a twisted application of the concept of incarnate summoning as it appears in FFXIII-2, but it's very vague and also not the topic of this post. Maybe later.

Regarding the Y-incision/autopsy scar, my headcanon is that once Hojo tweaked Vincent into being able to regenerate from any injury—an enhancement that is confirmed to be entirely Hojo's work in Dirge—the professor of course felt it necessary to run various tests quantify the usefulness of his handiwork. He did this first by inflicting various surface injuries, then by causing more extreme bodily trauma, which eventually culminated in Hojo removing the majority of Vincent's internal organs in order to measure how long it took them to grow back and, assuming they did grow back, how the new ones compared to Vincent's original parts.

To be able to observe this as closely as possible, Hojo kept Vincent's torso open for the entire process—which he repeated twice more in order to check the weight, size and structure of the newly-grown organs in comparison to the originals. This study proved that most of them did grow back, but the majority of them stopped developing much earlier than was appropriate for Vincent's age and size. The difference was consistent, Hojo just never figured out why most of them grew back smaller and less-developed.

The reason this happened is based the fact that most of the organs in the human trunk are used in digestion and other related processes, and Vincent's regeneration means he doesn't need to eat or drink anymore. His body only expended as much energy as was completely necessary to develop those organs to the point of being functional rather than normal, because they're not really necessary. Vincent is glad he still has them, though, because he does still occasionally eat (usually in social situations) and also he'd be really sad if he couldn't even have coffee.

Vincent's brain activity remained normal during the entire process, although that may have something to do with Hojo driving a bunch of fluid lines into his head and flooding the inside of his skull with mako to keep him awake the whole time even while deprived of oxygen. (Rebirth spoilers, but seeing the bit in the Nibelheim Protorelic questline where Hojo does something super similar to this, after this has been my headcanon for decades, was a trip.)

Two organs didn't grow back at all: Vincent's appendix and one kidney. This was also the result of efficient energy expenditure, as the human appendix isn't necessary for survival, and only one kidney is really required. (Each time Hojo removed the new kidney, the one that grew back would be on the opposite side, which bothered Hojo to no end.)

His lungs grew back a little larger, possibly because his skeletal structure never quite recovered after his first transformation into Galian—his arms and legs are noticeably too long for his body, although not to the point of looking impossible, and likewise his ribcage settled to breadth that would allow for larger lungs. He doesn't really need these anymore either, related to his brain being exposed to so much mako during the process that it can now operate without oxygen if necessary, but switching himself over from aerobic to anaerobic respiration is really unpleasant and Vincent tries to avoid it when he can.

His heart was pretty normal by the time Hojo was done with him, although his heartrate had dropped to like 20bpm even when elevated. Again, if respiration isn't necessary, there's not much reason for the system to be active. (By the time Lucrecia was done this had dropped to around 5bpm on average, although it's completely arrhythmic and jumps all over the place when he's not either particularly active or on the verge of a transformation.)

This was the experiment that left Vincent susceptible to degradation, which Hojo didn't realize until after finally closing him back up. Upon realizing that Vincent's body wasn't responding properly to a different test (a repetition of an earlier experiment related to the regeneration of external tissues and features), Hojo just kinda threw him in a tube to be disposed of at a later date, kinda like that scene in Arrested Development where there's that dead dove in a bag in the fridge. The incision healed at some point during the period that Lucrecia was working on him, but early enough in her work that the tissue couldn't flawlessly regenerate (like it does in the present), leaving him with one more gnarly scar on top of all the rest.

Vincent is self-conscious about all the physiological changes brought on by what was done to him, often to the point of loathing. His left arm is the worst—it rotted off while he was in the throes of degradation and grew back as something that he hesitates to call his arm—but Vincent hates that Y-incision scar almost as much. Some days they tie.

(It has come up in appropriately horrified conversation with Shalua that, considering how his regeneration works, Vincent could probably get rid of all the scars on his chest if he somehow peeled the skin off his torso in a single swath. He will not be doing that. Besides, it might grow back the wrong color/texture/etc, like his left arm. Not worth the risk, much less the suffering.)

Also I gotta finish off this entry with the extremely stupid headcanon reveal that Vincent's (honestly fairly impressive) dick was cut off during the first round of bodily trauma regeneration tests—and Hojo has never felt the sort of rage he experienced upon discovering that it grew back bigger than before. This occurred early enough in the experiments that Vincent was not awake for it, and thus has no idea how the fuck this happened, and does not want to talk about it ever thank you very much. I've never mentioned it in public anywhere because it is extremely stupid, but I hope someone out there finds it as funny a concept as I do.

[joys-of-everyday]

SJ and the Pitfalls of Toxic Masculinity

Liking women wasn’t shameful in the least, but treating a woman as your savior, shrinking into her embrace in search of self-confidence—Shen Qingqiu needed no one to tell him how incredibly shameful that was. So he would rather die than tell anyone, particularly not Yue Qingyuan.

- Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu Extra

Hot take: og!SQQ had toxic ideas about masculinity, and it ruined him.

SVSSS is all about the ✨Toxic Masculinity✨ but this seems to be more associated with SY than SJ??? So yeah, lets talk about SJ (my poor meow meow).

There’s actually some subtlety here, because talking about SJ and masculinity naturally involves an interplay between historical and modern views on masculinity in China, which is something that has developed over time and has influences from other cultures (e.g. the west and our views on masculinity). (Interesting thing if you haven't already come across it) I am… not qualified to read the subtleties here.

To note, SJ is coded as masculine… sort of. He’s the head of the scholarly peak, a master of the Four Arts, which is one facet of ideal masculinity in traditional Chinese values. (Fluttering a fan around was very gentleman-like. Although also, expressing your emotions through poetry and copious amounts of tears was very masculine back in the day. 'Traditional masculinity' has and always will be an elusive ideal.) But I get the feeling nowadays ‘scholarly’ has more feminine connotations than ‘martial’, albeit a slightly weaker one than in the west. Also, on the topic of toxic masculinity, certain groups of people Who Shall Not Be Named would like you to believe that Real Chinese Men are stoic warriors and ‘gayness is a western thing’ (my rage is unreal but we will not talk about that).

Anyway, broad strokes, broad strokes.

Arrogance and Insecurity

A big part of toxic masculinity is a need for social recognition, to be the ‘alpha male’ (not an ABO pun and on a side note I literally cannot take anyone talking about alpha males seriously now, for many reasons, but this is the funniest).

SJ is obsessed with his cultivation, but more pertinently, he is obsessed with his reputation. He demonstrates this in a few ways. Firstly, he works his ass off, which is not bad in itself, but he does this to the extent it is detrimental to his health (that grindset lol). Secondly, he projects a certain image with his actions and mannerisms: reading in order to seem intelligent, looking down at people to seem superior etc. Thirdly, he responds to any perceived slights of his ability with violence. (Fighting with LQG is an example, but also drawing a sword on SQH when he pointed out that he was reading an upside-down book.)

Now interestingly, the unanimous vibe that Cang Qiong seem to get from SQQ is that he is ‘arrogant’. When in truth, all of this is compensating for his insecurity.

Shen Qingqiu was overly suspicious, always feeling as if everyone was talking behind his back about how he was still incapable of forming a core, didn’t accept his position, wanted to sabotage him in secret, and so on and so forth.

- Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu Extra

Sadly, SJ is justified in being afraid of other people’s opinion. His comfort and security rely entirely on his status, which in turn rely on other people’s opinion of his competence. Of course he wants to get to the top – he’s been under other people’s power before, and suffered terribly as a result. Why should he not desperately defend what he has worked so hard for? Yet ultimately it works against him, because when he’s in serious trouble, he hasn’t been able to build the human connections he needs to get help.

The problem is with the system. The idea that having strength allows you to do whatever you want hurts not only the people regarded as inferior, but also creates a collective sense of anxiety for those who find themselves ‘at the top’. Anyone can be kicked down and treated like scum. Everyone is afraid.

Dominance and Bullying

The phrase ‘toxic masculinity is fragile’ quite often, but to elaborate, these kinds of rigid ideas of masculinity are by nature constantly under threat. Because any crack in the perfect shell is regarded as failure, it requires constant, aggressive maintenance, which takes the form of bullying the weak in order to elevate oneself.

SJ’s treatment of LBH is complicated, but here I want to draw attention to a different character – Ming Fan.

SQQ (SY) would have you know that MF is not a bad kid, other than the fact he’s a huge bully to LBH. And in part that comes from jealousy of NYY’s crush on him, but what allows it to happen is the way SJ runs the peak. It's interesting to note that so much of SJ's bullying of LBH happens through MF, whether it be giving him the faulty cultivation manual, giving him chores or physically assaulting him. In doing this, SJ creates a system that firmly establishes himself at the top, likely in order to give himself some semblance of security.

But ironically, this is the very system that SJ has suffered under his entire life, recreated to it's extreme on the peak that he controls. When he was completely under the power of others (QJL, LBH) he suffered. When other people were under his power, he inflicted suffering. He encouraged other people to do the same. Again, the whole thing is a scam! He is putting all of his energy into things that aren't helping him, things that ultimately bring him down.

Real Men Don’t Cry – the Dangers of Emotional Repression

SJ has many, very justifiable reasons in life to be upset and angry. The things he went through are both terrible and extremely unfair. Being angry at everything is not a healthy outlet for these feelings, but he hasn’t exactly been taught an alternative either. On the streets, tears would have gotten him absolutely nothing. Anger at least gave him energy to fight back.

And this destroys him. He is angry at the fact he had no one in his life who loved him, his talents were wasted because of QJL/WYZ, nobody takes his abilities seriously… and with no healthy way of expressing this, he goes onto bully LBH. LBH then returns to destroy him, literally. More subtly, he is unable to express his fear and anxiety in healthy ways, so acts standoff-ish and aggressive to his those around him. As his relationship with them deteriorates, his fear and anxiety increases. Feedback loops.

SJ puts on a mask of anger and stoicism to the point that everyone around him (including himself) is convinced that he is unrepentant and evil. Suppresses and suppresses until it breaks him, until he has nothing – not his comfort, nor status, nor the one that he truly cared for:

He had single-handedly facilitated Luo Binghe’s today, and now who had single-handedly created this outcome for him? Yue Qingyuan was never supposed to have an end like this. In order to come to a decades-late appointment, to fulfill a completely useless promise. A broken sword and a dead man. It shouldn’t be like this.

A Note on Ambivalent Sexism

It’s funny because I think there’s a fandom vibe that SJ was the secret feminist of SVSSS. Don’t get me wrong, I love this in fanfics. Badass feminist SJ all the way. But my honest opinion is that I don’t think that was the case.

More explicitly, I don’t think SJ took women seriously. NYY, for example. Certainly, SJ valued NYY. But the expression of this care involved doting on her, hiding his treatment of LBH from her, and not particularly pushing her to grow. And PIDW!NYY wasn’t implied to be the most mature of the lot. Okay, while we don’t know a lot about PIDW!NYY (narrator unreliable), it’s probably safe to say some distance from SJ helped her a lot.

Another point – the Qiu massacre. SJ killed the men, but not the women. And while this says more about his distaste for men, it also indicates (possibly - I will float this idea but I won't die on this hill) that he straight up doesn’t see any woman as an enemy, or capable of being a threat. Which is possibly a natural conclusion he’s drawn from his experiences (QHT was not very perceptive, or very threatening) but also inaccurate as a worldview.

And his attitude towards the women he sees as saviours? Has the same vibe as ‘it’s so embarrassing to be protected by a girl’.

Okay, so being doted on and not being killed are positives compared to being abused or murdered, but this kind of attitude is the opposite side of the same coin to ‘women are incompetent and inferior’. And when it comes to raising kids, not allowing them to grow can be extremely harmful as well. See e.g. Ambivalent sexism.

Although I do want to mention that I do not think SJ was like… actively misogynistic. I think he genuinely liked women more than men. The point is you can be sexist without realising it.

Conclusions

To conclude, SJ had ideas of success and self-worth associated with toxic masculinity which were instrumental in his downfall.

Masculinity doesn’t have to be toxic. While the Cang Qiong family aren’t exactly the healthiest bunch, YQY’s calm and patient leadership, LQG’s steadfast loyalty, LBH’s ability to cry like a maiden and still be the strongest… these are all traditionally masculine traits that can be very positive. These are also people who can have feminine traits and explore their gender identity without being prissy or weak.

It's the great tragedy of SJ that he had many positive characteristics. He was talented, intelligent, articulate, perceptive, loyal, and caring… under the right circumstances, he could have grown into a great person.

And maybe he still had that chance, right until the end.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

What R# Means: The ABC's of Fear.

The grading system used by the OIAR is one of TMAGP's more central mysteries. The show is rife with administrative work that's obfuscated even to the employees that assign each case's rating.

I have my own theory about DPHW that I think is proving more and more likely each episode, but as of yet I don't think a comprehensive theory on CAT# or R# has been given. CAT# is still proving a hard to crack but I now think I can take a strong stab at the meaning behind R#.

Spoilers for TMAGP 1-7 below the cut.

For the people who aren't keeping close track of this I'll break down how those terms are used. Each incident the OIAR assesses is assigned a case number in the following format CAT#R#DPHW. CAT, short for Category, is assigned a value of 1, 2, 3, or any combination of those three digits (12, 13, etc.). R, short for Rank, are graded C, BC, B, AB, A, or S (potentially AS but it's not come up). For DPHW each letter is a category itself and replaced with a digit from 0-9 for its grading. So there are 6 separate statistics that the OIAR uses to assess each incident.

If I'm correct about DPHW it's a ranking based on the qualities the incident presents. That's obviously very valuable information. Because of how CAT# is formatted we know it's likely three non-mutually exclusive facets. I had some idea about what it could be but it's proving quite tricky to nail down.

However it's R# that is the topic of today's post and it's something I've had a few ideas on before. We know can assume from its formatting it's a linear scale. C is the "worst/weakest/etc." while S is the "best/strongest/etc.". Initially, I thought that R# was simply a straight forward ranking of potency or threat. Higher the rank, spookier the incident. Very early on that seemed like a strong idea. It was quickly disproven but I then had the idea that Rank was instead the scale of the effect. Higher the rank, wider the incident. Also quickly disproven.

Now I'm thinking it's graded on how hard it is to deny an incident's supernatural nature. Simply put, an outside observer can more readily find a believable rational explanation for an incident of lower rank than of higher rank. Either via their own conviction to believe the supernatural isn't real, or based on the story the OIAR cooks up to explain it.

For that to make sense it needs to tick two boxes. It needs to be able to be pre-assigned to an incident as all CAT#R#DPHW's seem to be, and it needs to be useful information to track. As they're operating under the assumption that CAT#R#DPHW's can be pre-assigned then they're operating under the assumption that each type of incident is relatively stable. Meaning that the likelihood that it can be rationally explained is also relatively stable. Tick 1. There is also a really strong reason for the OIAR to use this as a grade. They're the Office of Incident Assessment and Response, the Response Department might be dead but it was a part of the initial plan. Grading each incident on how likely they are to cause concern should the details go public is very useful for deciding how to approach any given case. Tick 2.

It being useful is all well and good but it does also need to have some evidence so let's look at our highest ranked incident to this point: CAT23RAB2155 - Transformation (Eye) -/- Trespass. A man grew eyes over his body. That's pretty tricky to explain away as a medical mystery. On the other end of the scale we've got CAT2RC1157 - Dolls (Watching), or CAT2RC3338 -Agglomeration (Miscellany) -/- Congregation†. Just a creepy doll and some crappy antiques. I think of all the incidents the one that's the least immediate fit is CAT3C7494 - Collection (Blood) -/- Musical. Most of that incident is very easy to slot in here. "It's just a violin that has sharp strings, so what?". But it's also a violin that made some people eat some other people. However, mass hysteria events do get reported every so often IRL and do have a very long history. So in the grand scheme of things I don't think the details of the event are necessarily all that outlandish. It's really in the realms of urban legend and witch hunts than it is definitive proof of the supernatural.

With all that out the way this is the broad strokes of how I could see this breaking down. C ranks are things you can entirely write off as urban legends, freak accidents, and stress. Potentially things that might not need any covering up at all. I think the majority of events people could entirely say didn't happen will end up in C. "Of course the doll wasn't watching you, dolls aren't alive". B ranks are things that are harder to entirely discount as things that happened but are themselves still relatively easy to excuse as mundane. "Sure, the circumstances of that blogger's disappearance are strange but people go missing all the time, doesn't mean a monster did it". We don't have any A ranks but given the AB rank we do have I'd say A's are things in which no rational explanation can account for it, and as such require more extensive covering up, if it indeed happened. "Okay, maybe the supernatural is real because people don't just grow eyes like that".

As I mentioned early, an S rank does exist. We've not seen this attributed to anything in the show yet and so it might prove to be a special case. However on Klaus' sheet‡ from the ARG it's attributed to an interesting incident. A CAT1RS[No DPHW] with the note Mr. B. And, well, if you know, you know.

From Klaus' sheet we also know that the higher ranked incidents happen less often than lower ones and that idea generally tracks with what we know of TMP and TMA. The supernatural tends to be something you can explain away. It often is explained away. Incredibly overt manifestations are a rarity.

This one will be a slow burn to see if it bears out. Much like with DPHW's it's only really interesting when things go against the theory. I'm not as certain on this one as I am the DPHW theory but I do think it's got legs with our current data.

† This did also feature people who seemed to erase their physical features from your memory after you interacted with them. This isn't something I mention in the theory because it's not taken into account by the header and case number. A major flaw in the OIAR's methodology here is that all incidents are only ever one thing. So the case number is based solely on the presence of lots of miscellaneous objects, rather than the mind-wiping people carrying them.

‡I have made an incident master doc here, containing all the current cases, their CAT#'s, R#'s, DPHW's, etc. It has about as much information on each as I think is reasonable, including who narrates it, a link to its episode, and any other relevant notes, as well as headers for incidents we didn't hear. Additionally it also contains the Klaus sheet (German and English) and links to it when an incident matches. It will be updated each episode after the episode is publicly available.

[nonasemporium]

John and Colorism

John is Māori. He is a man of color, and he is coming from a society where he was racialized. Specifically, at least as a general consensus, his "faceclaim" in a sense is Taika Waititi.

Anyway, without getting into every facet of how I think the series and fandom engages with and addresses men of color, because that scope starts getting out of this specific topic and into a different one, I want to state that I think the relationship John has to both Alecto and to G1deon actually further represents themes of colorism.

John makes himself God. He makes himself god and to him that becomes some strange performance of western civilization roman empire 2.0 space imperialism planet consumption speedrun mixed w New Catholocism or whatever, but where there's a PERFORMANCE of equality where there actually isn't. Just like I argue John not ONLY makes new classes with necromancers and cavaliers (I'm not even getting into everything else with this), but ALSO he did not in fact shatter gender oppression, he just shifted it and patted himself on the ass for it.

YES it is queernormative and as a queer man himself, it makes sense this would be important to him, just like it makes sense for it to be important to him that race manifest very differently (go pretty unacknowledged really*) across his New Roman Empire in Space. But he has his own limits and biases and I would argue both colorism and misogyny are present for him.

He chose to make Alecto the way he did. And he had all of his own reasons for it, but surely it can also be noted how linked those reasons can be to both colorism and misogyny as well. I know he made her a specific barbie that had specific history to him, but does this barbie and his choice in her also highlight his priorities, just as blatantly as his choice of empire?

I need Alecto to come out so I can finalize some of these concepts, but it is still colorism for a man of color, especially one wounded by rejection (as we see in Nona) to see power in dominating a white woman. To see a SUBVERSION in the act of it. I think John sees a lot of things as subversion without seriously considering the levels he's actually engaging in. I think John is shallow.

Which brings me also to G1deon and Pyrrha. I think John had some concepts around their dynamics, their relationship, in their interactions that was in these same lines. I think John saw G1deon a specific way, I think he passively compared himself (including how he discusses it in Nona, again), I think the way he engaged with G1deon did not show solidarity or equality (G1deon was also an engineer!) but showed presumed superiority on John's end. Also he made G1deon how he did before he crafted his 10,000 year old weird empire. If I could put it into words more eloquently, I would, but I feel like John saw triumph in G1deon being Pyrrha's necromancer and I also think he then delegated him to "attack dog" for himself (as we see in Harrow the Ninth especially!!!)

I genuinely think 100% that regardless of if G1deon is racialized as black (I think he is personally), he is meant to be darker and racialized more than John was. And I think John subconsciously compares that! I think it is instead further evidence towards a narrative on colorism, including the way he's separate from Mercymorn and Augustine through HtN.

This is without getting into Pyrrha as a cop.

*I actually don't know if I should say "unacknowledged" here, because the cavs being almost always darker than their necromancers seems really notable.

[y-rhywbeth2]

On the topic of “what deity could Durge convert to who would both protect them and also really piss of Bhaal?” And the fact that I’m on the final book of the Moonshaes, I think Chauntea would probably be one of the most HILARIOUS, absolute slap in the face options for Durge to convert to.

I think I only have maybe 5 or so chapters left of Darkwell (Bhaal’s only just had the idea of making the ravager) so i don’t think he’s aware of Chauntea turning her gaze upon the isles yet (since she hasn’t really done much herself and it’s just been Robyn using her scrolls), but considering how pissed he was at the Earthmother over Kazzy’s, thorax’s, and most of his perytons dying, I can only imagine how mad he’s gonna be when he gets personally defeated by He Who Should Really Keep It In His FUCKING PANTS.

I honestly can’t decide which would piss Bhaal off more. Durge converting to Chauntea or Cyric, although I’m kinda leaning towards Chauntea a bit since she’s Bhaal’s antithesis. I mean at least Cyric is evil.

(The Earthmother is actually part of Chauntea (an aspect, part of her primordial facet as the earth itself from before she was an agricultural goddess), although Bhaal seems unaware of this)

Chauntea is a brilliant choice for Durge. Not only is she Bhaal's antithesis, but she's humble and expects it from her followers. The antichrist, with all that raging ego Bhaal expects from his avatar/child... gives it all up to move to the countryside and go be a humble crop farmer and midwife. If gods could have aneurysms from rage, Bhaal would be having one.

Cyric is a personal insult, and I still wish he'd been a cleric option just because it would piss literally everyone in the game off. Cyricist Durge romancing Gale is probably the funniest way to go if you're trying to upset the gods. Including potentially your own.

I stand behind Bane as a great option, because Bane backstabbing the other two and pissing Bhaal, specifically, off is my hobby (also Bane/Durge is my crackship and I get to make tasteless jokes about it). He does offer to make you Chosen and apparently canonically likes Durge, if we trust Gortash...

Jergal's a fairly basic choice in the form of giving absentee grandad custody rights over his much worse adopted son who is an actively shitty father.

And I'm on my strange Mililan Durge kick from now on. (Milil is fun to me, because of Alfira, and because his whole dogma is about embracing life and making it beautiful and creativity and change and etc. Very antithetical to Bhaal's doctrine of death and destruction. You quit being the antichrist to go to music therapy, join the local choir and run a music shop. This is only marginally better than being a farmer! (Plus Milil is in a situation where he needs to rebuild his faded presence as a god, so he's going to be on the lookout for strong followers to sway to his worship. Durge is potentially at a crossroads of healing from 'the world is vile, everything must die' indoctrination while looking for something to fill the void that faith often leaves, it could be a fateful meeting type of thing.))

There are other good options, though I don't remember them at the moment.

And yes. Somebody whack Tristan over the head and tell him to stop sneaking around with old ladies' corpses who are actually dinosaurs who are actually Malar in service to Bhaal (Or actually Bhaal. He may in fact have fucked Bhaal. Sources vary).

[jacevelaryonswife]

Golden and Silver, my new colors | part two

That day Aemond had thought about you more than ever. Maybe it was time to deal with his ghosts and allow your to approach, to see beyond what his eye could see.

∴ pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Wife!reader

∴warnings and a note: slight angst, pregnancy, some reader’s thoughts may be a little aggressive to the topic of pregnancy, spiteful reader, english is not my first language. There's a bit of book!aemond here.

golden and silver masterlist

Duty was more important than petty desires. Prince Aemond did not wish to marry so suddenly, but he performed his duty with obedience. You were a good lady, beautiful and quite polite, but nothing more. You were like all the others that made up the royal court, just normal, there was nothing special about you and he didn't have to convince himself of that. However, there were certain moments when he almost leaned into your touch and let himself sink into the melody of your voice a little longer. It was unexpected, sudden, and almost ripped a hole in the armor that protected him from your affection. It started when you so proudly displayed his colors in your dresses and jewelry, the blue with the purple hues of sapphires enhancing your beauty. Later when you asked him about reading preferences, maybe your intention wasn't as genuine, but it was a good attempt at rapprochement.

He knew that his posture did not match that of a husband, nor the husband you deserved, but it was strange to deal with your presence and especially your affection. No lady ever bothered to disguise their disgust when crossing his path. No matter how good he was with a sword or if he owned the largest dragon in the world, in the end he was just Aemond One-Eye, not as handsome as his younger brother or lucky enough to be the firstborn. So imagine his surprise at not receiving your dislike? You were a pretty little thing, a little afraid and almost desperate for your husband's attention and approval. A good, kind lady, in his mother's words. A nice ass and nice tits, in Aegon's words. Yet what prevented him from removing a part of the shield to allow entry? You weren't dismissive, much less cunning or cruel. A part of him refused to budge, another part just didn't have enough interest. Too simple maybe.

But then the news of your pregnancy hit him. He would be a father. It was particularly strange to the ears. Not all men are born to be fathers — he had some very close examples — so the thought troubled him. How could he be a decent father if he kept failing as a husband? He was aware of his flaw though he didn't do much to remedy it, not even Alicent's constant advice and suggestions made him change. However, things will never be the same, you were pregnant, expecting a little dragon in your womb, his dragon. The thought that had haunted him before (and continued to haunt him) now gave him a small twinge of pride.

“I hope that with this happy event you can understand each other,” the queen said.

That day Aemond had thought about you more than ever. Maybe it was time to deal with his ghosts and allow your to approach, to see beyond what his eye could see. He kept his hand over your for the better part of the dinner his mother had arranged last night — much to the delight of both families — and an almost satisfied expression was visible on his face. On the other hand, you were quieter than usual. Your answers were short and your gaze was almost always beyond the moment. Women were emotional, he knew that, and pregnancy tended to make them even more sensitive by what the books said. It could be something or it could be nothing.

To the surprise of everyone present, it was something. Unexpected and uncomfortable, to say the least. His tender and obedient wife, so affable and meek has just displayed an unknown and almost aggressive facet. Aemond could choose the blindness of ignorance and believe the nonsense his father had said to smooth your way out, but he knew better that wasn't a good sign, especially when you treated him apathetically in subsequent developments. At that moment the one-eye prince felt different sensations, but none were as terrifying as the realization of guilt. It could be a coincidence in fact, but it wasn't what his heart pointed out. After returning to the small dinner, Aemond reassured your parents and his mother with false words that he wisely disbelieved. Would it be naive to believe that your devotion would remain active without any kind of return? He mulled this over at the owl hour as you rested facing the wall. A small detail.

The next day when orange rays directly illuminated his face, Aemond noticed the empty bed before he noticed another small detail: you didn't wake him. Often your hands touched him on the face or shoulder so you had breakfast together every day. All from the first day of marriage. He faced the ceiling as he brooded over the situation. Maybe you needed to go somewhere, maybe the pregnancy made you more sensitive, maybe just like him you didn't know how to deal with the news. There were many options, but the one that tormented him was caused by himself.

That morning you felt a sudden urge to get away from him. Aemond was also a morning person, but he woke up a few minutes after you, giving you the advantage of sneaking out. Not that it was too difficult, you thought, your presence wasn't usually appreciated, what difference would it make?

Your personal maid had set the table as usual, but this time you didn't bother to dismiss her immediately for privacy with Aemond. She asked about the prince, which you answered quickly. Not a word was exchanged after that, you didn't even notice when she withdrew upon the arrival of your husband, too caught up in your current condition. A child, you would have a child soon and you couldn't get anything good out of it. Would you be able to love him with all the grudge you held in your chest? Would you be able to love this child while wishing his father would get out of your sight?

The wisest thing to do was to suppress such feelings and move on as a devoted wife and honorable daughter. But you didn't want that. No, you wanted to feel the grudge in it’s most palpable and fervent state. You wanted the freedom to feel and want what you desire without the interference of right or wrong.

"How are you feeling?" asked Aemond, breaking the silence.

"I’m fine."

That's all the two of you talked about. Interestingly, both the question and the answer were not completely honest. Yes, Aemond worried about you because of your condition, but mostly because he noticed the change in your behavior. And yes, you were physically fine and healthy, but on the inside… you just wanted to slaughter him.

Your meeting with the craftswoman was just after breakfast, the dress you wore was light orange, the majority color of your house, which would soon be replaced by shades of gold and silver. You also asked for new jewels of the same colors, of the most diverse sizes and shapes. You were a little extravagant and always liked to be neat. One of the perks of being a member of the royal family was the improved quality of cloth.

“I ask you to make them as soon as you can, I want to have them with me soon.”

“And the other dresses, my lady… the ones you own?” Asked the artisan's assistant, receiving a rigid answer from her:

“It is none of your business, Irma.”

"There’s no problem. I'm actually thinking of distributing them to the other ladies of the court or to the women of the poorest part of Kingslanding”, your voice was calm. "I never liked green, it won't be a problem to discard them." You didn't mind the look exchanged between the two women, very interested in the new models you would own.

On that day, the tradition that you and your friends kept of getting together whenever one was pregnant happened. You were the last of the small group and expected to be nervous. You felt nervous whenever you remembered the fact, but you were happy to be in the beautiful garden on a beautiful day.

“Have you thought of the names yet?” Drusilla asked.

“Not yet,” you replied as you took a piece of lemon cake.

"Valyrian names are very beautiful, but please don't name Aegon if it's a boy or Rhaenys if it's a girl," your other friend Livilla said, making you laugh.

“Please, how many Aegons has House Targaryen seen? I don't intend to collaborate with another one”, you replied in a good mood.

“And the prince? Did he suggest any names?” Kalena asked, bringing a sour taste to your mouth. Oh please, you meant to reply with an eye roll.

"No, not once, but if he wants to suggest it it should be a tawdry name like Maegor." Your tone was more prickly than usual, more than you intended to show (no less than you felt). Your friends smiled with some concern, and the comment in particular caught Livilla's attention.

"What's he like? You know, he was always so quiet and reserved?” she asked.

“He is quiet and reserved, nothing more.” Looks like I married a door, you wanted to say, but you chose not to reveal too much. You never know when the walls might hear.

“At least he is not unfaithful like Prince Aegon,” Drusilla said. How lucky I am. “It was a little difficult with Willas at first, we were strangers and I always thought his brother was better looking, but he was the heir, not Tyrent. However, time and the magical treasure he keeps in his legs made things easier.”

“Drusilla!” Kalena looked at her with wide eyes before laughing.

"You can't blame me for being fond of my husband's dowry!" she made light of it, “what about prince aemond, what is he like back there in four walls?”

“Uh…” you tried. “I don't know, is it normal? I think. I don't know."

“I'm sorry, dear”, it was Livilla's turn to speak. “I always thought that behind that black wall there would be a fierce stallion.”

“Behind that wall are as many other walls as the swords that forge the Iron Throne, believe me,” you complained.

“Targaryens, love them devotedly or hate them bitterly,” Drusilla said, studying your posture.

“Don't let these things get you down. Men are like that, they take time to appreciate what really matters. Perhaps now, with the pregnancy, he will open up to the present at your side,” Livilla said with a friendly smile.

You knew the risk of her next words, especially if they were heard, but you couldn't help it.

“What if I don't want to?”

On the other side of the palace the queen was talking alone with your husband. Not for the first time, but she hoped it might be the last —they both hoped for different reasons. She asked what happened last night, which he answered truthfully.

"I don't know, she's been quiet ever since."

“She’s pregnant, it’s a difficult but happy period. You are very lucky to have her by your side.”

“You already said that.”

“And you don't seem to listen. Do you think I like to repeat that?” She asked. “What's the problem, Aemond? What is the problem that makes you not understand?”

He did not answer.

“I have my own things to manage, the things of the kingdom in your father's absence. Do you know how much it demands?”

"Yes mother."

“Then why do you insist on going through with it?”

"I'm not asking-"

“But I’m your mother! And believe me, I've been in her place. It's been a long time since your union, Aemond, don't make things difficult on purpose. You will be a father soon, act like it, act like the son I raised.”

His gaze was hazy, hard to read. He hated being charged or warned about something he knew, he didn't need it, Aegon did. Leaving his mother's room after being dismissed, the one-eye prince knew he had a decision to make, but he didn't know he had little time to do so.

taglist: @immyowndefender @arcielee @malfoytargaryen @drinking-tea-and-be-obsessed @fan-goddess @dark-night-sky-99 @siriusdumblittlepuppy @let-love-bleeds-red @sassysaxsolo @cicaspair418 @yentroucnagol @mefools @risefallrise @auratiqs @glitterandgoldfinds @bellaisasleep @plzletmedaydream @padfooteyes @bellameshipper ✨✨

Thank you everyone for the positive feedback! There are a few people I wasn't able to tag, but I appreciate all the feedback received 💙

[mecachrome]

very selfishly would love more of ur thoughts on oscar accommodating and mirroring lando.... as an insane landoheadTM ive been watching lando slowly match oscar's energy in the past year and its been driving me insane and ur SO right that oscars done the same thing!! kind of crazy kind of losing my mind would love to get more thoughts out of u

!!!!!!!!! hi kira i would LOVE 2 talk about this. also this answer may or may not be 2k words long

god there are so many Angles and Frameworks and Contexts through which it is possible to examine 814's dynamic that i constantly feel unhinged about it. and probably sound unhinged as well…… pls note that all of this is pure insanity from my insaneperson brain ⚠️ ;__; ok where to begin.

to me the thing about 814 mirroring each other is that in reality it's actually a metaphor for many different things ❗️ on one hand you can interpret it Literally as in a strictly physical sense—the idea of mirroring someone as running parallel and positioning yourself firmly opposite each other, as constructing intricate rituals in order to NOT touch the skin of other men, being so specifically magnetically repulsed that any contact is accidental and fleeting and causes you to spring away as quickly as you'd met. but then there is also the other sense of mirroring that is….. more amorphous and conceptual, e.g. how oscar has in many ways indirectly orbited lando his entire career and how although they've only been teammates for a year now lando has technically been a primary reference point of his throughout a majority of his teens. AND what i think is so interesting about that too is that if you look back at oscar's Evolution As A Person, you could argue that he's been purely Himself As He Is Now for a very long time... yes there've been minute fluctuations in maturity and just general cringeness and muscle growth and cheek fat etc. etc. but at least outwardly in how he communicates with other people and displays his mentality / innate habits / mannerisms he's basically been his fully realized adult self since he was like 17??? which obviously cannot be said of lando norris who has grown massively in appearance and perspective and assuredness and so on from the ages of 17 to 21 to 24. yet this constantly evolving & changing your_choice_of_lorde_album Growing Pains lando has always been a sort of distant static fixed point in the future of oscar's mind… hmmm. that's just part of it tho

basically 814 as they are now are sooo fascinating to me because again They Do Not (Consciously) Touch but they've still very gradually managed to build off the foundations of oscar's subconscious teenage mirroring by turning it into something… well perhaps not quite fully intentional (and isn't that almost better in the end!!!) but certainly more self-aware and generally conscious. basically: the Negative Space of landoscar's demonstrated "affection" is where their reciprocity lies! if that makes sense.

and i guess what i'm trying to get at is that… on surface level, it's easy to say that 1) Oscar has always only ever been himself (generally true) and that 2) As the guy who came into f1 at 19 and was continuously expected to meet his more extroverted teammates' energies lando is the one who's habituated to experiencing marked change (also fairly true), but this still obfuscates equally important facets of their personalities: i.e. that oscar may be the more ~intellectually~ inclined of the two (which also who Cares. completely totally off-topic LOL but personal pet peeve of mine is people acting like there is a discernible difference between a-level maths and whatever private tutoring lando did after dropping out when their job title is lichrally F1 Driver…?! both are negligible fractions of fractions of whatever postgrad coursework the team's Actual engineers have done!!! but anyway), my personal argument is that really oscar is so consistently himself BY having zero concept of himself. whereas lando….. actually does possess a very strong inner character and intense, at times destabilizing self-awareness but also boasts a higher eq that enables a very high capability for social camouflage.

……????????? this is like a 10-paragraph intro. What am i getting at.

so basically. Yes. mutual accommodation……. i think my main point is that despite lando's strong baseline character and idiosyncrasies and particularities and fussiness and general weirdness, He Can, when necessitated, (as long as it doesn't completely contradict his moral impulse etc. etc.) soften that edge and adapt to another person's expectations—Even if just to maintain bearable social rapport & conversation. whereas on the other hand oscar can sometimes actually be a lot more malleable because he doesn't really hold strong conviction in much outside the few non-negotiables in his life ??? (read: racing...) like yes he's still competitive in challenges and is pedantic as shit but also he kind of just Doesn't care……. so basically he's the perfect fit for lando. because he DOESN'T expect anything from lando and lando DOESN'T need to camouflage himself for oscar and because oscar interprets things straight-forwardly and at face value and reads lando's intentions in good faith and honestly probably like 30% of lando's overthinking is a result of people constantly assuming the worst of him so i think on some level it's like 👉 👈 when you're both a little weird and also weird in these little different ways but in the end those minute shifts are what make you compatible and fit you back together again ?!?!?!? as i said it's the negative space of it all.

so really landoscar are not totally "opposites attract" but they're also not identical "mctwins" or whatever because Nuance and Secret Third Thing and what's truly critical about their mirroring is basically that 1) they don't EXPECT the other person to do it 2) they don't INTENTIONALLY do it and 3) it only happens because they're intensely aware of the other person's personality and mannerisms and appearances... bref IT'S ABOUT THE CATALOGUING!! like lando saw oscar in 2023 for the first time and immediately went oh you've gotten taller? oh you have big arms now? and they can't help pointing out each other's hair and ALSO >portrait painting (gets ko'd) "do you like purple?" "...uhhhh i can do now" like WHO SAYS THAT? ANDDDDD this was after oscar had picked purple to begin with but lando was like Nooo you can't do that :/ so oscar changed even though he'd argued that he'd "already committed to it" literal moments prior. Many such cases (i'm not finding a chair anyone?). they make me feel insane.

right let me just finish up with a few more moments (if you're still reading i'm sorry) but Vocabgifset is kind of a rough overview of how, at the very beginning, i think oscar did come in with a very undefined approach to How To Be A Teammate ? and was ready to treat lando as he'd treated rob and logan and fred and whomever and maybe even reflecting the atmosphere as reserve at alpine a little bit idk—essentially more visibly abrasive and pedantic and generally annoying. Also (ahem) perhaps how he'd seen lando act around carlos and daniel before... Guy who has carlando tweets in his twitter likes. 😔

but of course lando REALLYYY doesn't like being unnecessarily corrected over ultimately inconsequential things and again his demeanor is far from bombastic when it hasn't been demanded of him, so i think oscar quickly recognized that in his character and learned to just play along with what lando liked and wanted—not because he was preoccupied with lando getting annoyed at him or thought that lando was sensitive or whatever and not because he himself is a pushover because of course there is a healthy & endearing amount of push/pull to their dynamic but just because he sincerely respects lando and with that respect understood that he didn't need to "force" their dynamic when it would prosper by just being himself and more importantly letting lando be himself……….. Or something.

which imo is basically the basis of their current communication style: a lot of wordless meaningful looks & expressions (because they're both entirely honest people in different ways) (SEE: VIRGIN RADIO UK) (the thing Is that lando has no verbal filter but oscar is the one with 0 control of his expressions and deeply revealing permablush), oscar always folding to whatever lando says in an interview, jumping into frame and following along lando's message in the british f4 anniversary video, listening to lando's music through the walls of their driver rooms, and of course any instance of their Soft Talking Voices such as → "yeahhh you're up there" "aww (genuinely a little pleased and flustered)" and CAT 5 behind the scenes smoothie convo and oscar patiently waiting for lando to finish speaking and not wanting to enforce his presence but always being there and ready to help him….. like the worst part 2 me of the "well-represented" video is that andrea turns to lando first and tries to help him but lando is Still processing and Not listening so THEN he looks at oscar to be like um i don't know the word and that's when andrea looks back at oscar expectantly 🥲😭😩!!!!!!!! what if i dyed. honestly. the category is truly just oscar being susceptible to Lando Norris…………… i could go on.

also >RANDOM MOMENT TOTALLY NOT IMPORTANT but the yes/no challenge is so devastating on every conceivable level and yet One thing that i do not think is discussed enough! is the way oscar physically leans into lando's space on the table every time it's his turn to answer the questions and Specifically how in round 1 the media people were trying to get his attention to tell him to put the mic pack into his pocket but he was soooooooooo focused and fixated on lando's face right up until lando turned to speak to the camera that he didn't notice for like 3 minutes. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH. argh. the problem with oscar is that he's SINCERE. truly. "are you ready oscar piastri?" [zero hesitation whatsoever] "i am ready lando norris 🥰"

of course it's not like oscar doesn't introspect whatsoever because obviously he is very capable of self-assessing when something is important by an objective measure of success (aka recognizing deficits over a lap), but relative to lando's specific brand of overthinking & online lurking habits then oscar very much does.... basically underthink??? yes he overcomplicates simple ideas by being too literal but really as a person & conscious being he's great at living in the Present and filtering out excess noise. er... i won't delve too much into the ojp Learned Behaviors of it all and why he's so charming to older people specifically but basically Wwyd if an F1 driver microdosed autisticswag? joking. mostly. but i def agree re: your tags that oscar is never actually consciously trying to be a WELL AKSHUALLY guy because it's just fundamental expressive compulsion alkdsfhaldfh.

also specifically one of my favorite tiny little 814 things OAT is when lando says something unexpected or ridiculous and oscar parrots it back all high-pitched and breathily and disbelievingly like? Girl. this is super jank but perhaps you understand....... 😔

in the end it's getting asked >what have you picked up from lando and oscar saying Well everyone hmmms but not in the Special Multifaceted Uniquely Expressive way that Lando does ! whom I not only know well enough to intimately recognize this mannerism from but have also elected to mention multiple times in this interview. and at the end of the day...? maybe that's romanze

is this anything… idk. also i offer you the jankiest gif ever because i had to remove zbrown to fit them together (Which perhaps is also a metaphor for reaching each other Across The Distance NO PHYSICALITY REQUIRED!! ok i can't just keep saying see: [another random ass example] so i'll stop now but also see: eyebrow raise knowing smile at the end of the sim city video.) anyway why's this such another crasyinsane little moment of how they communicate with each other?! is it just me ?????????

alskfhsfd ok i'm so sorry. thank u for letting me ramble incessantly 🧡

[writing-for-life]

Nuance in (The Sandman) Fandom

Send me asks about everything Sandman-related!

I thought a lot over the past few days, partly prompted by discourse on here, partly due to a couple of “interesting” asks and messages I received (the type you don’t answer). I *think* they might have been prompted by engaging in discourse on topics like anti-blackness/racism, misogyny/sexism, TERF characters etc in The Sandman.

Fandoms are always getting super sensitive if someone shines a critical lens on their favourite works, authors and characters. So to make this clear (in case it isn’t already obvious from my brain-rot blog):

I love The Sandman. I love Neil Gaiman. I have an extremely soft spot for Dream (and Desire btw, who deserves a lot more character analysis than just being summed up as “villainous, sexy bitch”. One day, perhaps ;)).

I can read The Sandman and just get lost in the story, even after decades and many rereads. 

But I can also view it through a critical lens—these things aren’t mutually exclusive.

Not critical enough or too critical?

As fans, we can get trapped in certain thinking patterns, like:

“My blorbo can do no wrong”-syndrome 

“Characters with flaws are inherently problematic and imply authorial endorsement of those actions” 

“Characterisation and problematic subtext are one and the same” (aka overanalysing and looking for problems where there are none is the death of every story, but failing to see problematic patterns where they are clearly visible is a problem, too).

Don't say anything bad about my favourite character

I think this doesn’t need much further exploration. It’s not my personal way of looking at stories through permanently rose-tinted glasses (I always feel it stalls my experience, but my experience is not everyone else's). Some people prefer that type of escapism, and I’m good with that (although the downside is of course that by not willing to engage with issues, we can unwillingly perpetuate them). Live and let live, ship and let sail. But please, for the love of god: Don’t insult people via their inboxes or messages just because their opinions and preferences don’t align with yours. I’m not going to sugarcoat it or phrase it “nicely”: It’s infantile (and a form of bullying btw), end of.

How can you even like a character who's so horrible? And that author must be equally horrible, too

We have to separate flawed characters, even those who are written to be really problematic, from real-life endorsement of these actions. 

Author, narrator and character are three fundamentally different things, and don’t overlap as much as some people seem to think. 

We can write vile, despicable characters to make a point (for me, Thessaly was always a prime example for this, and I explained why here). We probably hate them as we write them. I don’t know what else to say, but this facet of writing seems to get more and more lost on people, and it’s a worry. Crying for sanitised characterisation is one step away from censorship. We explore what is problematic about people and humanity through story. That’s how we process and learn. It’s nothing new, but it becomes impossible if we can’t write flawed and even disgusting characters. 

Face value…

Since I’m mostly in The Sandman fandom, I often read that its ending is hopeless, and that’s supposedly the entire message. 

It is agonisingly sad, yes. But is it truly hopeless? I personally see it as quite the opposite, but of course that’s my opinion, coloured by my life experiences.

I also get that show-only fans often haven’t read the comics, or at least not the whole arc. And as such, their outlook from what they’ve seen so far (and choose to focus on) has to be different by default. I also understand that many people are quite new to the comics, even if they have read them in their entirety. I’ve sat with them for 30 years, and I still find new things on every reread (and I read it more times than anyone should 🙈), and I still don’t feel like I’ve understood it all. Perhaps because I still haven’t fully understood myself (and it’s unlikely I ever will). If there’s one thing The Sandman isn’t, it’s one-dimensional and easy to grasp in its whole depth.

I just wrote a ginormous meta on it, if you’re interested, it’s here:

Subtext, (not so) glorious subtext

This is where it gets complicated:

We shouldn’t mix up characterisation and story subtext. Overanalysing every line to death will always make us find something that’s “problematic”, when it really isn’t in the wider context of the story.

Zooming in is NOT always a good thing. Sometimes, we actually need to zoom out. 

But subtext *can be* (accidentally) problematic. Even in stories we love. And none of this negates what I previously wrote.

Stories have real-life implications of sorts, and we need to be able to talk about it. That’s where those slightly flabbergasting, hostile inbox messages come in, and I want to expand on that "topic of contention" a bit:

Neil himself confirmed that the Endless basically warp reality, and that this is why, after Dream’s failed relationship with Nada, many black women in his vicinity suffer terrible fates (Ruby and Carla in particular). And that this spell is only broken when he dies, and that it is the reason why Gwen doesn’t suffer the same fate. And said Gwen then gets used as a plot device to basically absolve Hob (who canonically really is a problematic character, whether show-only fans like it or not) from his slaver past. Once again, very clearly: No one is making this up. Neil confirmed it (for the comics, and that was over 20 years ago. It remains to be seen if his stance has changed as we move into that arc in the TV show).

I don't think it is correct to imply that Dream as a character is racist (I've read that, too) because he logically can’t be. He holds *all* the collective unconscious. He is also, strictly speaking, not white. He is everything and nothing, and he shows up in many different ethnicities throughout the whole arc, depending on who looks at him. But Neil played with a subtext here (reality warping due to a bad relationship which then affects everyone with similar physical traits) that will read very differently to a black person than it reads to a white person, and we have to understand why that is an *extremely* slippery slope.

Plus, we are supposed to see Hob, who *was* a racist at some point (you can’t not be if you’re a slave-trader—it’s impossible by default) as redeemed. And yes, he *does* regret deeply, good for him (and if I were saying this aloud, you would hear the sarcasm in my voice, because it is indeed all about him. We are to sympathise/empathise with him and his character growth while there isn’t much mention of the people he maltreated). But also: it was a black woman who basically forgave him (with dialogue that personally makes me cringe). And that black woman who offers forgiveness is not truly a black woman—she is a character written by a white man. And as much as author and character are not the same (see above), there is an inherent sensitivity in that power imbalance that we can't brush under the carpet.

I don’t think Neil is racist. Probably quite the opposite, and I can even see that his intentions were good from a storytelling point of view. BUT intention and impact are two fundamentally different things, and telling the story this way (comic version) betrays blindspots only white people have. Just like women have blindspots when they tell stories about men, and men have blindspots when they tell stories about women (and there are a few of those in The Sandman, too). And and and…

As storytellers, we can’t always speak from lived experience. It’s impossible. And that also means we occasionally make mistakes that look bad in hindsight, even if our intentions were good.

I guess the proof is in the pudding: What do we do when people who *have* that lived experience tell us it looks bad? If they inform us why it is hurtful, plays into old stereotypes etc?

Are we willing to listen and yield (both are the foundations of allyship btw), or are we insisting that our viewpoint as someone *without* lived experience is right? That lived experience extends to all lived experiences (sex/gender, sexual orientation, age...), and from all we’ve heard from Neil so far, it seems important to him to rewrite what he sees differently today. Whether they’ll always get it right for the show—we’ll see. At the moment, it looks a lot better than in the comics, and certain issues are already being handled with a lot more sensitivity, but a few problems remain.

Pushing back on criticism that comes from people with lived experience is problematic—I’d encourage us to think about what it looks like if a white majority in the fandom is basically saying that the opinions of POC are essentially “overreactions” (and yes, that happened).

It’s complicated. The Sandman was written in a different time, and I think we have to distinguish between things that weren’t really problematic at the time but have aged poorly (again, Thessaly springs to mind, and I have lived experience as a queer person during that time, so I can see it in context while at the same time acknowledging that I would make changes to bring it to the present day), and things that were always a problem due to blindspots. They were a problem in 1990, and if they don’t get changed, they are still a problem today.

This fandom is generally so much more open and nicer than others I know. But that doesn’t mean it’s infallible, because it’s full of humans. 

Nuance is sorely needed, in both story interpretation and interaction between said humans.