#or they're the most important parts of all

[zorilleerrant]

What they didn't tell you, when you made that bargain, was that it changed from person to person how much you had to sacrifice. There have been complete strangers you've been able to resurrect for the price of a hank of hair, all the way on the other side of the world. Someone you never knew by anything but reputation might cost nothing but a palmful of blood or the skin from hands rubbed raw. The costs aren't hidden. For every potential resurrection, you know just exactly what you have to give to ignite it, and it depends on how much you care.

There are people you hate that you've managed to resurrect with a mouthful of spit. Even with your mouth gone dry from terror, you can bring back your enemies. Just because you hate them doesn't mean no one needs them back. Their families can tell how you feel, you're pretty sure, but they still hug you as they thank you for bringing someone back. They meet your eyes, afterwards, most of them. Some of them even thank you themselves. None of them bother to get in your way again, not after they're back.

You lost your smallest finger to a childhood friend. The two of you hadn't spoken in years, but still, there was that love that lingered, there were those memories like treacle making it so hard to tug a person back. When you heard, when they reached out to you on a long shot, you rushed back home.

It wasn't the first body part you lost, of course. You'd had to try. The first you lost was to the young prince, not because he was so beloved by you, but because the people wanted it badly enough it infected you with greed, delusions of grandeur, some certainty that you'd be held in estimation far above your peers. It cost you an ear, because ears are cosmetic, but it's enough to remind you, every time. How much you care is often personal, but not always.

It caught you in the mirror, right after. You hated the sight of yourself, then, staring at the brand new scar that looked years old. You wished you'd had the years to think about it. Instead, all you could do was practice until you were sure you knew how.

That was when you discovered it. Planning to dig divots into your arms and legs, you were confronted with a pit of unmourned dead, each one asking no more than a fingernail. A strand of hair. The brush of your eye against a single tear shed. You perfected your technique, that night. You practiced until you knew every shift and shimmer of the magic, and it cost you nothing at all.

You're known as a healer. You're known as a healer because you travel the land every day, in a cycle that's roughly predictable, and people can always apply for your aid. You rarely turn them down. You don't have the werewithal to care about other people's dead, anymore, which means you can care for all of them, with a sympathetic smile you barely feel on your face. Most of your kind have lost at least a leg, somewhere along the way, scarred more obtrusively than what you bear: only one whole hand, only one whole ear. There's a scar on the back of your shoulder where you were too shocked to wait for calm to bring a child back, and you think that's the last time it hit you, even if you sometimes still cry.

There was only one reason you undertook this quest, one person important enough to risk all of that, and you have to wait until you couldn't possibly care anymore, because a life that's important enough to take your life will ask it. Eventually this knowledge will wear you out. When it does, you know it will be safe to try again.

You can bring dead people to live again, but for every person you bring back, you have to sacrifice one body part

[lizardsfromspace]

It's tempting to call out evangelicals on grounds of hypocrisy - on ignoring the teachings of their own religion - but to them, it all makes sense, because they've developed a framework that basically amounts to Jesus having no real philosophy

They acknowledge the many verses about caring for the poor etc, but take it either as a code or of lesser importance. It's not about changing society, it's about individual charity, but not about compelling people to be charitable, just that it's nice. When Jesus spoke of the "least" of society, that wasn't about helping marginalized people, that was either about Christians, or about what side to take in the war that happens after the rapture. Simple. You may think "wait, but right before that it mentions caring for the poor, sick, and imprisoned" and their answer is, as I understand it, that you can just read every verse of the Bible in isolation from every other verse and it still makes sense on its own, so it doesn't matter (for reference, the New Testament wasn't split into numbered verses until 1551, when they were decided on by a random Frenchman)

This doesn't make sense on many levels. Anyone outside the sphere would point out that, religion aside, it would be really weird to have a story about someone telling a bunch of people to help the poor and then reveal "actually, it was all about events that will happen thousands of years after everyone present was dead! Nothing that was said matters to you or most people reading this!" Like what's the point. But within the sphere they have so many rationalizations, like how it's taken as writ in evangelical circles that it's okay to be rich because the "Eye of the Needle" was a specific gate in Jerusalem that was merely difficult to get through. Meanwhile, outside their culture, no references to that gate exist, because it didn't exist

One fun strain of this thinking is this

The Good Samaritan is a parable that ends with the directive to "go and do likewise". So clearly, the real point of the story is that you can't do anything. Jesus told everyone to go and do likewise to prove that nobody can ever show the impossible love to...help a guy who got robbed? Because Jesus was perfect, all advice from Jesus can be disregarded, because nobody can follow it because they're not Jesus

This idea, that every story Jesus told was just about how nobody can ever be like Jesus, is a thing in those circles and it's such a baffling foundation for a religion. Follow our messiah, who told us to be nice to people, but we know all the secret messages about how all those stories meant we SHOULDN'T be nice to people. Their sacred text is not a guide to living, it's a textbook for the apocalypse and how to go to heaven disguised as a guide to how you should be nice to people and help poor people. But a bunch of well-off white people discovered the secret parts of the Bible absolving them of the responsibility to care about people, so

[takethelongroadhome]

the thing that (imo) no one is acknowledging about astarion is that shame is a huge part of his psyche. just as much as (arguably more than) fear--an important aspect of his fear is that he fears becoming the person he was so ashamed of again.

most of the abuse he's implied to have experienced from cazador is so extremely degrading and humiliating that it's almost unimaginable. his siblings describe him as especially likely to fawn and submit for safety. leon goes out of his way to mock him for being cazador's "favorite," whatever the hell that means.

when he meets the 7,000 spawn for the first time, he's not just willing to sacrifice them for the ritual, he wants them to die--he hates them in a very visceral, personal way. the pity and guilt he feels for them is drowned out by his contempt-- they're "pathetic, horrible." if you call him out on the fact that they clearly remind him of himself, he absolutely flips out and says he killed that version of himself. he not only is willing to trick and kill his siblings, he not only thinks they deserve that, he is surprised that you feel differently. he was one of them barely a month ago! he knows that!

shame -> contempt sublimation is very real. when you hate yourself for what was done to you, it's barely a leap to begin hating others for what is done to them (I mean, he says outright that he doesn't want to help the gnome slaves in grymforge because they're depressing). he hates the person he was forced to become under cazador--the person who simpered and played along with the man systematically torturing him for his own gratification, who had to abandon all self-respect and dignity for survival, and so he draws a sharp distinction between past-astarion and free-astarion and is obsessed with separating himself from any trace of the former. anyone who's a victim like past-astarion gets hit with the full force of his contempt and disgust. free-astarion is good and worthy because he is no longer like those pathetic victims, and is free to look down on them all from his tadpole-enabled throne!

it's to the point where he actively gets joy out of seeing victims brutalized, because he's had to adopt cazador's worldview over the 200 years he spent trying to appease his every whim. (as much as he hates cazador, he also clearly "looks up" to him--he hypes him up as a threat like he's in a powerscaling argument with you. he has to! how else would he have survived?) you are either the powerful and dignified victimizer or the pathetic victim, and for once he gets to be in cazador's position, relishing the just punishment of the weak for being weak. he has no other model for what dignity can look like beyond this victimizer/victim dichotomy. if he wants basic self-respect, he thinks he has to be like this.

this isn't a good worldview, both in the moral sense and in the qualitative sense. it's miserable. astarion will never actually be able to achieve peace or happiness like this. no amount of power will satisfy his sense of shame--it certainly didn't for cazador! what he needs is to feel real compassion for other people and for his past self--not anger, not grievance, not bitterness, but actual compassion. that's part of why you get approval for talking him out of ascending--he may truly, desperately want to ascend, because everything he believes about the world is telling him that the 7,000 spawn deserve it and it's the only way for him to become worthy and whole and dignified, but even more than that, he wants someone to convince him that he's wrong.

obviously this isn't, like, the only factor at play in his head. he contains multitudes! but I do think it's an important one

[concretejunglefm]

I'm not ready to let you forget me (part 1).

*edit credit goes to the lovely @defuckingthrone-dot-com

You told your friends you want me dead And said that I did everythin' wrong And you're not wrong

An anon request for lovers to enemies 

Summary: It’s been two years since Noah cheated on you, abruptly ending your relationship. However, the universe seems to have a peculiar sense of humor in its plan to reunite you.

Pairing: Noah Sebastian x reader.

CW: none really. Mentions of cheating, Noah can be an overall asshole and a tad bit of angst.

WC: 3.2k.

Dividers: Silent-stories.

Had Noah cheated, you believe that you could've handled everything a lot better, but somehow what he did had been worse.

It wasn't cheating, even if you couldn't ignore the pit in your stomach when you thought about him and her together.

Noah's ex had joined the last leg of his tour as an opening act, and while under any other circumstances it wouldn't have bothered you, his nonchalant attitude about it did. 

This had been a man who spent time after time cursing her out to you, pushing aside any doubts or worries you had felt when it came to her, and now he didn't care if she was joining him in the most important aspect of his life.

Even worse was how he’d knocked back your own suggestion of joining him.

"It's only for a few days. I'll get to watch you play, and we can see it as a vacation." "You can see it as that. For me, it's work, babe. You know that, and you know how important it is to me." "I know I just thought." "Well, don't. Not this time. Maybe next time."

You did your best to brush off the hurt at the time, and now again as the memory resurfaces.

Noah didn't cheat, but what he did was close enough to make you feel heartbroken and forgotten about.

Messages and calls came less and less during this leg, and now you were sitting up early Saturday morning going through the posts on your Twitter feed like a fool, allowing yourself to be more hurt with each one that you came across.

@badoxmens: Did you see Noah and his ex on stage last night?

@ieatconcreeete: I hope this means they're finally getting back together !!

@artitficalsuicide: If I were his girlfriend, I would hate myself right now.

@deduckingthrone: Noah has a girlfriend? Are you sure? Him and his ex looked pretty cozy if he does.

The videos and pictures which accompanied the tweets did nothing to ease the rising bile in your throat, and every attempt to reach Noah was left unanswered.

Noah ignored every single text and call you made to him, not bothering to even make it obvious that he was ignoring you, the delivered and read notifications driving you mad until you had to stop yourself altogether.

Instead of breaking up with you, he ghosted you, your only proof of this coming a week later when another set of videos and photos showed up on your feed of him attending the album launch party of his ex.

There was no ignoring the closeness between them, the way he lingered by her in the one video, the way they were caught slipping off together and hovering a little too closely in another.

You almost went to write out a long-winded text, one full of all your feelings for everything that had transpired over the past week, but instead settled for a simple 'fuck you'. Even going as far as to block and delete his number to not allow for any temptation in reaching out to him.

You deserved better than this, that whatever had transpired for Noah to play with your feelings in this manner and you decided then that you'd do whatever it took to move on.

"What you need is a girls’ trip." The suggestion from your best friend came as no surprise, Sloan would always choose a spa day or a girls’ trip whenever she felt a need to unwind, which was practically every week according to her.

"Huh?" You snap back from your own thoughts, mindlessly stirring a spoon in your latte.

"Babe, please tell me that you are not still hung up on that guy." You hear both the pity and disdain in her tone.

To Sloan boys were nothing more than toys to be played with, to be thrown down and picked back up whenever she wanted. That was her trick to not being hurt.

"It's been two years."

"I know." You don't even need to give her a real answer for her to know, but it still doesn't stop your mind from wandering and from the pang in your chest each time you think about him.

“Girls’ trip, this weekend and I'm not taking no for an answer."

You wish that she had taken no for an answer.

A girl’s trip sounded delightful until she suggested Vegas and you were squeezing yourself onto a last-minute flight there. You wouldn't have minded had it not been for the fact that your seats were apart from one another and you had been given a middle seat, which meant you were now stuck in between two strangers.

Moving along the aisle towards your seat, you slide your weekend bag from your shoulder and toss it into the overhead bin. Looking down at your ticket, you confirm the seat number and tuck a piece of hair behind your ear as you tap on the shoulder of the man sitting on the end seat, covered up with a black hoodie.

"Excuse me. I'm 33B." You gesture to the empty space beside him, and the minute you catch a familiar pair of brown eyes gaze back at you, you feel your heart plummet into your stomach and bile rising up your throat.

Noah.

You're ready to make a dash towards the back of the plane, either to throw up in the bathroom or attempt to throw yourself out of the emergency exit.

"Sor—."

He cuts himself off on the sight of you, and you huff as he moves himself and allows for you to squeeze past.

When you fall into the middle seat, you find Jolly sitting on the other side of you and realize that they must be on their way to a show. 

In Vegas? 

You almost turn and ask him but decide not to. You spent the last two years ignoring his and his band's existence; you can do that for another hour on this flight.

When you dare a glance in Jolly's direction, he's already sliding his headphones on and looking out of the window, completely disengaging himself. You're almost jealous. You'd do anything to disappear from this moment's event, even exchange seats with the Swede so as not to be sat next to Noah.

As the flight pulls out to taxi, you feel Noah's leg bouncing against your own. You know it's his nerves. He's always been a nervous flyer, and it makes you wonder why he's choosing to fly instead of driving to Vegas.

You mentally smack yourself because it's not your place to wonder these things or even care about them anymore.

"Will you stop that?" You finally voice your annoyance as the plane begins its descent down the runway.

"You know I'm a nervous flyer!" He retorts, and yes, you do know, but he's not supposed to highlight that fact.

“Yeah, but it's annoying." You snipe beneath your breath.

"I can't help it!"

You sound like a couple of squabbling kids, and you hit your knee against his as if to prove a point for him to stop, but he only bounces his leg harder.

It's as if he's purposely trying to piss you off, and unfortunately for you, it's working.

"Just—" You reach over and press your hand down on his thigh, forcing his leg still. "There. Stop."

He does stop, but then you feel his larger tattooed hand atop yours, and his fingers slip beneath and around your own as if choosing to accept this as you giving him some form of comfort.

You're not, but you can hardly pull your hand away as the plane begins to take off and you feel his fingers tightening around yours, signifying his general fear and discomfort over flying.

That is until you're hit with the reminder that this guy ghosted you, and you owe him nothing.

You snatch your hand back, glaring at him as he looks down at you.

"What was that for?"

“Oh, please, you're a big boy. Hold your own damn hand if you're that scared." You don't hold back on the mockery in your tone, crossing your arms over your chest.

"I was always there for you, and this is how you repay me?"

“Oh, please, you were there for your own ego."

You feel Noah lean in closer to you and you edge yourself away as best as you can without causing too much disruption to Jolly tucked in the window seat.

"You could at least try to make this work."

You hear him whisper, and your mouth drops open due to the utter audacity this man has to even suggest such a thing.

"Why would I do that when you did such a great job proving you're not worth the effort?" You snipe back, keeping your voice low.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're really choosing now to play dumb? God, you really are all muscle and no brains now, aren't you?"

You couldn't ignore the fact that over the past two years he had buffed out even more than you can remember.

Noah had always been physically fit during the time you were together, with muscles coming in, but there was something more toned and larger about him now. 

It was a noticeable enough sight that could have any girl drooling over him.

But not you. 

You refused to engage with the thought.

"So what you're saying is you think I look hot?"

You don't need to look at him to see it; you can hear the smirk in his voice, and it makes you shake with anger at how unfazed he appears by all of this. 

You can't resist jabbing your elbow into his side, resulting in him letting out a whine which draws the attention of passengers around you to look over.

"What was that for?" Noah grumbles, bringing a hand to his side as he rubs the spot you’d caught. 

"Because you're a dumbass." You spit out between gritted teeth.

"Excuse me, is there a problem here?" You haven't even noticed the seatbelt signs turn off, and when you look up, you spot a young air hostess peering in at you both. The moment her eyes catch sight of Noah, you spot that sudden flash of recognition in her own.

"Here we go," You mumble under your breath, rolling your own eyes as you direct your head forward and press back against the headrest. 

You wait to hear it, his charm that he always uses whenever there's a fan who recognizes him in a place he doesn't want to be noticed.

He's suave with it, and it always made you swoon in the beginning because you believed that he was merely trying to seek out his privacy for you both, but now you realize it was just one of his many tactics for keeping up some reputation he felt the need to uphold.

"Well, well... It looks like someone has good taste in music. You just made my day… but if you don't mind keeping it between us?"

You scoff and press your lips together when feeling the heat of a stare on you, but the air hostesses' quiet giggling is enough to prove that his little charm worked.

Shaking your head, you roll your eyes. "Real smooth." You remark once she leaves down the plane aisle to attend to another passenger.

"It worked on you, didn't it?"

"Don't flatter yourself. That was after five drinks, and I'd been eyeing up Folio all night."

"Oh—"

"Will you both quit it before I bang your heads together!" Jolly cuts Noah off, interrupting your squabbling.

"She started it." Noah argues, and your head turns back to him as you shoot him a glare. 

If looks could kill, you'd have done it multiple times by now.

The rest of the flight wasn't any easier, between playing elbow hockey with Noah over the armrest and more snide remarks, you were thankful the moment the plane came into land, unbuckling your belt and attempting to move the moment the seatbelt sign turned off.

"The plane hasn't even come to a stop." Noah points out as you attempt to stand, ushering him to move out of your way.

"I don't care, just move." You huff and glare down at him as he remains still, his tattooed hands sitting and tapping on his thighs, barely giving you a brief glance.

"Not even a please? You're so rude."

You know that you shouldn’t, but you begin to attempt climbing over him, holding onto the seat in front as you try to drag yourself past him and over his lap, muttering as you go. "And you are absolutely incorrigible."

"Wow, that's a new one. Is it your word of the day?"

You glance behind him and see him attempting to push back into his seat more, as if that's helping you in any way, and when you see his hand raise, you instinctively swat at it with the assumption he's going to touch you. 

"Ow?! There was no need for that."

Finally free from your row, you huff and pull yourself together, reaching for the overhead bin and pulling out your bag. 

“Well, this was fun. I really hope we never have to do it again." You glare at him and begin making your way down the aisle with the rest of the passengers towards the exit door.

You've never been happier to see the back of a plane in your life, moving as fast as your legs will let you through the crowd of people, almost missing the sound of Sloan's voice as she calls after you.

"Wait up, speedy!" She laughs as she finally catches up, and you come to a slow down, shaking your head free of all the thoughts which had been swirling around in there due to the unexpected reunion you just briefly had with your ex.

"Sorry. I just had to get out of there."

"That wasn't who I think it was, was it?" You spare a glance over at Sloan, and your irritated expression gives that answer away. "It was? What was he doing on a plane to Vegas?"

"I can't say I really cared to ask him, Sloan." Your tone has a bite still left over from the sniping that you and Noah had done. "Sorry, he just really gets under my skin."

"I can see that."

"The sooner we're at the hotel, the better. Then I can wash this whole thing off me, and we can finally start enjoying our girls' weekend."

"Yes! Girls’ weekend. No talk about stupid boys." Sloan slips her arm around yours, linking you together as she lets out an excited 'woohoo'. It makes you laugh, and you finally feel the tension that being sat next to Noah for the last hour had caused, slipping away.

It's a feeling which is short-lived, however.

After making your way through the airport and standard checks, you reach the taxi rank outside, and as you open the door, you turn back to call for Sloan, only to be met with the 6'3 asshole who's covered in tattoos.

“Oh, thanks, you shouldn't have." He flashes you a grin as he slides into your taxi, followed by Jolly, who offers you a brief apologetic look. Maybe you should've been giving him a harder time if he was enabling this stupid behavior.

You stand speechless as they pull the door close, tossing daggers at the cab as it drives away and a scream rumbles in your throat. 

"Where's the taxi?" Sloan asks as she chooses now to join you. You grumble something incoherent under your breath as you turn to wave down the next incoming taxi.

She's now joining Noah and Jolly on your shit list.

"It's going to be perfect! There's a spa, three pool areas. One of them is an infinity pool off the balcony upstairs." Sloan continues to drone on about the hotel and everything it includes. You only have a weekend here, but she's already planning multiple ways for you to take advantage of everything.

Currently, your mind is back on Noah and his stupid, smug ass face as he stole your taxi. You try to distract yourself from it, shaking him from your thoughts and coming back into the present, to this weekend.

Seeing him was a blip, but you refused to allow him to derail your plans or excitement.

Counting the room numbers down the hallway, you look up as you come closer to yours, room number: 308. 

Sloan has the room opposite you, disappearing inside after making plans to knock on after shower and changing. A shower sounds perfect right about now, not only to wash off the plane smell but also with being in such proximity to Noah in general.

As you fiddle with the room key, you hear a familiar voice, which causes your back to raise. Turning your head, you peer down the hallway, watching a group of familiar faces grow nearer to you. Noah is the one trailing behind, while Folio and Matt's voices are the ones you hear echoing down the hall.

You hastily attempt to open your hotel room door, being met with the red light before trying again.

You huff and close your eyes to calm yourself from growing irrationally angry.

Hearing the voices past you, you open your eyes and look back to find Noah standing at the door next to yours, room number: 310.

"Hey, neighbor." Noah flashes you a grin, and you shake your head in protest.

"No."

"No?" He repeats back at you in a question, his brows knitting together. "What do you mean no?"

"I mean no, we are not neighbors, and you cannot be here. Not in this room, not in this hotel. Hell, not even in this state." You're being irrational, but you never did quite have much rationality when it came to him. You always found yourself diving in headfirst to whatever thought crossed your mind.

"And who said this? You?" Noah raises a brow at you, taking a step closer as he leans a hand against the wall.

He easily towers over you, and under any other circumstance before now, that would have you weak at the knees and buckling for him, but right now it has you infuriated that he's somehow here, ruining your weekend and attempting to charm you.

"Yes."

"Still as bossy as ever, I see."

"And you're still an asshole." You snipe back, your eyes narrowing, still attempting to get your keycard in your door and slip away from this conversation.

"Ouch, that hurt." Noah raises his free hand, bringing it to his chest, feigning a tone of disbelief and hurt while you roll your eyes in response.

“Oh, please, that would insinuate you had any feelings to begin with."

"I have a lot of feelings, actually. Such as feeling sorry for you while watching you struggle with something so easy. Here, let me."

Before you have a chance to protest, he's reaching out to take your hotel room key and slips it into the swipe, drawing it out to a flashing green light.

You huff as you open the door, pushing forward, and the last thing you hear before the door slams is another final snarky remark from him; "Not even a thank you?"

Once in the safety of your room, you let out a loud scream of frustration, only to hear Noah's chuckle from the other side of the door, and you gently bang the back of your head against the door as you lean back on it.

Great, now you really can't escape him this weekend.

[gangstalkerbarbie]

OK topical swerve but: punk is inherently about being countercultural, which is why Soviet punks were/post-Soviet punks are a bit obsessed with fascist imagery, and also why so many punks you might politically agree with are ginormous dicks personally.

I think this is an important point to introduce into discussions of the future of a hypothetical solarpunk society — when the fighting is done (and it is fighting), when the raw glory of it fades, how is a new society going to deal with the future it builds? How is it going to be sustainable? When this isn't countercultural anymore but you've built a mainstream society that still values nonconformism for its own sake, where is that going to lead?

I think some of the most important work that can be done is the type of community building that looks forward to the point where life is liveable, and then beyond it, to the next generation. This is a point that people in activist circles often forget about because, for completely understandable reasons, most people with the time to do ecofuturist activism are childless or child free — but any society is going to contain children, you know? It has to.

Is it a sustainable world we're building if we aren't, now, thinking about being able to sustain it, in terms of cultural infrastructure for its maintenance and for the raising of healthy children? In terms of the values we want to instill? All of this is to say that it's natural for sustainable healthy communitybuilding in defiance of the state to be labeled as punk /now/, but think again about what happened to the counterculture in the Soviet Union.

That's not why it collapsed, but it devoted endless needless time to beating on its youth for wanting American jeans and shit, for wanting connection with the world, and, like, what are we doing about our equivalent of our kids wanting jeans? Not that, not like, fucking statist repression, but it often seems to me like people in these circles either are still teens, finger on the pulse of how to talk to teens because they're not in an unavoidable hierarchic position of authority over people afraid of authority yet, or have never met a teenager, ever.

I want to interject to say that mythbuilding and identity construction is integral to any society, and I worry sometimes that strongly identifying living a healthy, sustainable, governmentally unexploited life with punk, with the counterculture, might lead into a repeat of history. And then — your society crumbles, because your kids that the state knows how to get to over the internet are young and dumb and buy into ideologies that subvert you out of spite, because you encouraged them to believe that they have a right to do this.

This is why hippie communes usually last a couple generations at most. The government is not as dumb as people think, and this is why most serious activists in this vein focus on making existing, recognised communities better — but even there, there are limits to the usefulness of anger. Don't plant trees and cook meals for the homeless and elderly and agitate for rail because you hate the state — you'll run out of steam.

Do it because you love your city and you'll fight until your neighbours, in all their smallminded conservatism and traumatic relation with civics and sexism and racism and old pain, have clean water and clean air and clean food.

It takes a particular kind of person to be punk to begin with, and you actually very much don't want to cultivate this type of person in a new society, or even in an activist movement to improve an old one. When things get bad enough, and there is always a bad enough for every kind of such individual, this type of person trashes everything around them because fuck you (the new authority) and then does absolutely nothing to help. They came to the commune or the movement to make coffee with Sock and Moss and to grieve their grievances, ultimately, and to feel part of something. Eventually they either get bitter and useless or run out.

No one asked, but this is why personally I don't identify myself as solar or any punk. Punk identity is transitory and fundamentally relies on there being an enemy to rebel against. I'm not pretentious enough to call myself an activist and I don't count as white enough in the US to be taken seriously as such, but in order to be something approximating an activist, you have to think about what happens after.

We fight now, but the most a warrior generation can ultimately do for the health of the community is eventually to beat their swords mostly to ploughshares. How are we going to make sure the kids maintain what we've built, without threat of harm or coercion? What do we do for the children? Eventually angry defiance has to cool down to calm, assured disobedience that knows what it's doing, or else the movement attracts a critical mass of angry, defiant, compromising people, who can't be trusted and won't be directed and don't even know what they're fighting for. Anger makes you dumb, and we can't afford to be dumb about this now that the forces we're looking at know how to break down societies like we hope to have.

We have to work with the human nature we have, and again, I think that means minimizing adversarial framing. With adversarial framing you have sides instead of communities, and if you have sides...

All of this is to say, we have got to cultivate a hopeful, resilient, disobedient activism grounded in a mature, communitarian civics, where there are no wrong kinds of people, but there is a right civic ethic.

They're very good at this in Detroit, despite everything. I used to volunteer with a guerrilla gardening initiative run by the people who taught me this.

I keep seeing people asking ‘is solarpunk really punk?’ because it’s too happy and optimistic and stuff

and I’m picturing a perfect moment in a solarpunk community — the neighbourhood mayor standing with a shit-eating grin on her face when the cops come and cut them off from city power, and nothing turns off

[sky-is-the-limit]

Staying silent and comfortable is being an accomplice. Yes, it's fucking scary to confront people, especially nazi lunatics but what is the alternative? Letting them win? You already did that when you didn't go to vote or voted for the 3rd party.

They always go for the PRESS and YOUTH first. Peaceful protesting isn't doing shit. Do yall understand how fucking terrifying it is to watch someone with such power nazi salute an entire nation?

Hitler literally convinced the people by promising them to get them out of depression while convincing them that anything other than straight white and traditional was EVIL.

You have to suck it up and speak up. Being fucking soft isn't an excuse right now, they're literally trying to pull all of us back into the 1930s with more dangerous means.

READ BOOKS. Get informed, read about how the fascist regime in Italy and Germany took power. SPEAK THE FUCK UP. Don't give up, don't hide, don't stay silent. This is how fascism wins.

It's gonna be everywhere. Your friends, neighbours, teachers, family, public conversations, the news, social media, EVERYWHERE.

Listen to Europeans warning you and don't take it as a threat cause someone already commented under one of my posts that they'd rather stay silent cause they already did their part by voting blue and that I shouldn't speak on this cause I'm not from there. MY COUNTRY WENT THROUGH THIS SHIT TWICE.

Well, guess what? BLUE LOST. So now what? You're gonna let fascism win because of one loss?

Wake the fuck up America. They're nazi saluting you in your face.

THIS IS YOUR COUNTRY. You live in it, FIGHT FOR IT. The United States did not let you down, a percentage of the people did. Don't let them take the most important value, freedom, away from you.

Be PATRIOTIC. Love your country cause it's yours and TRY to save it from fascism.

[velvetvexations]

Please correct me If I'm wrong, but didn't Playdough's whole beef with Bechdel trying to reframe her as a TERF start originally because escentially she wanted to prove that HOMESTUCK is somehow more deep and influencial and important queer media than DTWOF?? It was a poll thing and people where getting mad that homestuck was beating dtwof (this is the homestuck website like cmon) so Playdough started there the discourse of Bechdel being a terf to discredit her work

I have no idea if homestuck is actually that queer in it's content, but this incident made me realize something very common about pretentious cult-like groups like TRF and Tankies.

They want to find the way to parrot that their interests are somehow morally superior and more correct than other's; forcemem can not be just a kink it's actually a culturally significant political practice and forcemasc is just a transmisogynist bastard copy, transfem headcanons can not be just normal fandom shit for enjoyment they are the more correct and intelectual reading an analysis of any character that doesn't adhere to strict tradicional cis gender roles and transmascs headcanons are anti intelectual media illiterate misogyny, homestuck can't be just a popular old webcomic you still like despite It's flaws (like srly It has a shit ton of racism and ableism, it was created on the era of the internet 4chan was more culturally relevant than ever in memes mostly so of course) no It's not a pillar of queerness in fiction and media and the comics created by a literal feminists trans ally buch need to somehow be morally inferior because they're both compiting in a Tumblr poll

AHAHAHAHAHAHA SHE'S STILL DOING IT TOO

I'm sorry, but imagine having this much of a grudge over your fave losing a poll lmao lmao lmao lmao this is so funny oh my God.

But it's especially hilarious because all of what she wrote about June is complete nonsense that was never part of the text. Now let's look at what she had to say about transmasc headcanons:

Welcome to projection playground, ma'am! She's literally using the idea of "legitimate analysis" just to prop up her own headcanon. This is so gutbustingly hilarious. Does she even think it's possible transmascs could have headcanons based in 'legitimate analysis'? Considering the fact that she seems to vehemently insist literally every transmasc headcanon ever is actually transfem, probably not, right? Because she doesn't understand masculinity is revolutionary and transgressive for people who weren't assigned it? Because she's a self-centered moron?

But wait, there's more!

She's so consumer-brained and she doesn't even know it.

I love that her whole personality is structured around being the world's most obnoxious Homestuck fan who uses academic language to build a comfort blanket to soothe her insecurities and lash out at others because it's gender validating if she gets to lash out at trans men the way cis women are allowed to with cis men. Except I've never seen a cis woman do it this ineptly, or so blatantly the product of issues they desperately need to work out.

Anyway, back to Bechdel...

I know I've been ranting about this subject in a general, undirected way all morning, but I'm going to tell you that this is a problem with Plaidos, specifically, which she passes on to her audience:

They don't know what TERFs are.

A TERF has defined political views. There is a lot going on with them. You cannot take one belief or action in particular, such as Bechdel softly supporting some sex-segregated spaces, and call her a TERF when she's praxis in much bigger, material ways. It's not just about Homestuck with Plaidos, or TERFs in general. It's also about the fact that Bechdel ever did anything that had anything to do with the idea that some people are more wymynly than them, which they take personal offense to that overshadows, oh, I don't know, loud and consistent advocacy for children having access to HRT? Any real transfeminist would recognize that matters infinitely more. But with these people, that's not the issue. They don't care about anything but how badly it hurt them to hypothetically not be welcome to a shitty music festival, and Bechdel having went - even if she criticized it's policies - is basically the same as having flaunted her gender assignment to intentionally make them dysphoric.

But Bechdel supports minors getting HRT. She supports them being in women's bathrooms. A lot of TERFs have identical conversations about her.

So what makes her a TERF? Because she went to a party you weren't invited to?

Do you understand how pathetic this makes you look?

It's gross and TERF-y to say trans women as a category are jealous of people AFAB on some level but when you prioritize like this where being let into the club is the one big all-consuming deal over things like Bechdel repeatedly going to bat for minors having HRT, and they obsessively treat trans men the way they do...

Like, listen. TRFs. My friends. You're women. I promise you you're Trve Wymyn. Please get over not having been AFAB. Come to peace with it and accept that people who got what you want are on your side and are happy to support you in being recognized as a woman in spite of what was on your birth certificate. Get over it.

Just get over it.

And also get over your transfem headcanons not being any more textually supported than transmasc headcanons, losers. You're so obviously the ones addicted to seeing yourself reflected in every piece of media you consume if you have to write essays about how it's bad literary analysis to not believe in your strings-on-a-thumbtack-board shit and run down anyone else having headcanons related to their identity. You're not doing literary analysis, you're playing pretend with cartoons for children and getting upset when you see other people having their own fun without you.

One last thing:

EXTREMELY holy shit racist. Do you see what I mean? How TRFs care so much about slights to their Trve Wymynhood over all else that they say shit like this? Like yeah Michfest was basically the KKK, you're right, unimaginably stupid White woman. Remember when Lisa Vogel hung all those trans women to warn us not to vote?

[ode-to-fury]

I think I've boiled down all of my complaint about Veilguard to to things

1.) Lack of a companion dialogue wheel in the Lighthouse

I think whoever made this decision seriously misunderstood what the wheel is for. It's not for meaningless banter that you get out on missions anyway, or repetitive dialogue that doesn't add anything to the story, the dialogue wheel has been there since origins to tease out the companions' backstories and worldviews. How much Chantry lore would we have missed out on in Origins if not for Leliana? Or Crow lore if not for Zevran's talking about it? And also I wouldn't know the characters. And the companions are such important parts of the story in Dragon Age. I can't remember if da2 had dialogue wheels, but there were so many other oppertunities for Hawke to interact with the companions outside of that that I think they made up for it. It's also a way to centre Rook's bond with their companions, instead of the companions' bonds with each other. It irks me so much how they get to build such intense relationships with one another but I have to headcanon everything they feel about Rook. Let's face it, 90% of our Rooks' relationships with their companions is headcanon, and like... that's fine, I enjoy doing that and the game gives me enough that I can realistically do it without having to make up too much, but I've always thought like the companion relationships with each other I can headcanon off of banters from missions. Rook's relationship with them or whatever protagonist we're talking about has to be built and shown in game because me as the player should be the most important piece on the board. Sorry, that's just how videogame writing works. That's why Tav works in bg3 even though they're just as much of a 'nobody' as Rook is. I don't mind that Rook isn't all powerful or competent or whatever other critiques there are out there about Rook. I love Rook, they're probably my favourite da player character, but I want to feel that the companions love Rook too, or at least know them. I didn't feel like that with anyone other than Lucanis and Davrin.

Which brings me to

2.) The game isn't long enough.

I know people are going to argue with me on this one and that's perfectly fine, everyone has preferences about how long a game should be or not, but just bear with me for a second. The biggest part of this game is obviously 1.) the main questline, and 2.) the companoin quests. I actually like that there isn't too much other than that because I get completionist anxiety about sidequests but that's beside the point. My point is I don't really have an issue with the pacing of the main storyline, but if you are going to centre the companions in this game... finish their fucking storylines. I think Emmrich's quest is the most well-rounded out of all of them, and I still would have added at least two more quests to his. In fact, I would add at least two more quests to every single companion questline, and three more to Lucanis's. And do not get me started on the scenes with the companions. Though this could also be fine if they'd added the dialogue wheel. Because then we get bonding through that instead of having to put a whole cutscene in there. But anyway, yeah. Every single one of the questlines were rushed and it irks me SO MUCH because they could have been SO GOOD. Also the hardened character should have had alternate quests and cutscenes instead of just... not having any content. Neve got a few scenes, but Lucanis just... isn't a character if you harden him.

Tldr: the two main issues I have with Veilguard that could have basically fixed the game for me is 1.) a companion dialogue wheel at the lighthouse and 2.) a longer game.

[sunsetsover]

i know i'm late to the party and most of these points have probably been touched on already, but i said i would make a post about why kant safewording in episode 8 was so impactful and i am nothing if not a man of my word so here we are

(under the cut bc this got completely out of hand)

tbh i feel like i could write 10,000 words and i still wouldn't be able to fully articulate the way it completely turned me inside out when i first watched the ep, but i still wanted to pull this scene apart anyway bc as i said at the time, there were (and perhaps still are) people who think kant safewording in that moment was silly or out of place or whatever, and so for my own sanity i need to list all the reasons it was not only not stupid, but actually incredibly powerful for both kant and bison's characters and their relationship overall

bc think about the context. think about how shy bison had been when he had introduced the idea of a bdsm dynamic to kant, how he had admitted it's something he had wanted for a long time but never had the opportunity to actually have that with anyone. think about how reluctant he had been to actually hurt kant, and how enthusiastic and happy he was when kant told him he was into it too. how careful he was with kant, how thorough he was about consent (excluding the scene in his bedroom obv, considering he was drugged and couldn't consent nor dom properly). how insistent he was that they have a safeword despite kant's dismissiveness bc he knows how important it is that they're safe, and that they trust each other completely. to have it and to use it.

and then think about how gutting it must have been thinking about all of that in the context of a lie. a complete farce. this thing that bison wanted so badly, a thing he was so happy to finally have w someone, to trust someone with that part of him after a lifetime of keeping it inside. think about how vulnerable and exposed bison must have felt in the wake of that realisation, esp considering he doesn't have really any experience actually domming someone fr. how used he must have felt, knowing that this really deep and personal desire had been used as nothing more than a tool to manipulate you by someone you thought you were developing a genuine bond with. kant betraying bison is one thing - imo, it was the sheer depths that kant had seemingly gone to just to use him that was what really hurt bison (which in turn made him angry). like think abt it from bison's pov: why would kant make a point to project the northern lights all over the walls for him, sit and make all these plans together so that bison's dream come true? and why the hell would he go so far as to let bison dom him when bison had tried so hard to basically talk him out of it? that's not just betrayal. it's sadistic and it's cruel. it's like kant didn't just want bison arrested, but also to break him from within.

so that's the context. keep all of that in mind. and then think about kant, tied down, completely at bison's mercy. following bison's every instruction. taking all his abuse. and then think about him safewording. he could have said anything, could have done anything. but he chose to safeword. why? why that word? why right then?

well. the use of a safeword is obvious right? it's someone's way of telling their partner 'that's enough, i don't like this anymore'. and that is the very surface level of what kant was saying by safewording. but obv the context is very, very different here. and i think it goes back to the conversation that they had when they agreed on the safeword in ep 3: kant doesn't understand then the importance of what a safeword is and what it represents. he thinks he can just tell bison to stop and that he will, and bison is obviously like 'well no, that's not how it works'. he basically says to him 'how am i supposed to know you're not still enjoying it? how will i know you actually want me to stop? what if i get confused and hurt you more?' and kant says he gets it, and to a degree he obviously does, but i don't think he got the depth of what a safeword represented until it was tumbling out of his mouth on that beach.

bc as i said, a safeword is about trust. it's about two people (or more! but we're just talking abt these 2 rn) trusting the other that if this word is said, then everything stops. no ifs ands or buts. the sub obviously has to trust that the dom will stop if they safeword, but it's just as important that the dom trusts that the sub will safeword if they're unhappy with whatever's going on. the dom has to trust that the sub trusts them.

and so kant safewords. and yes he's saying 'i don't like this anymore, i want to stop'. but he's also saying 'i paid attention, i listened, i remembered. i know you meant it and i meant it too. what you told me was important to me. i value what is important to you. i didn't just dismiss it, i didn't just dismiss you. this was never just a tool. it was never fake to me. i never used this against you. i really am telling you the truth and here's the proof.' (which, for the record, is also what he was saying before the safeword when he was like 'i know you've never trusted anyone before, i still haven't forgotten our plans, i still want to go to iceland together' - it's all reassurance that he hasn't forgotten and that it wasn't fake, that he meant all of it and it's all important to him too). and he's also - maybe even more importantly - saying 'i trust you. i trust you to stop because i'm telling you stop. if you will listen to nothing else i say, i trust you to listen to this. i'm trusting you because this is important to you, and it's important to me. i trust you to keep me safe. i trust that that if i say this word, you won't hurt me anymore.'

which is exactly why one of the first things bison says to kant afterwards on the beach is 'you think i can't kill you, don't you?' because he knows. he knows exactly what kant using that word meant, what he was saying. it's why he froze, why he was so thoroughly devastated, why he briefly lost his shit then completely fell apart afterwards - because even though it was just one word, he heard everything behind that word, and what was underpinning all of it, which was basically kant saying this isn't over for me yet. i'm still in this relationship with you. i'm still yours and you're still mine. i still trust you. and though you might not trust me right now, i know you'll trust this.

(and that's also why he repeats it so many times imo. by saying it over and over, he's proving that it isn't just a desperate or panicked plea to get himself out of that situation - he says it again and again, making a point to look bison right in the eye each time, bc that's acknowledgement that he's well aware of what he's doing and saying by using their safeword, and he wants bison to know that too: this isn't an accident, this isn't a mistake, this isn't a last ditch effort to live. i'm saying this on purpose, because i know what it means for you and me both.)

which yeah, is kind of a kick in the guts if you're bison. he knew he couldn't hurt kant. he knew he wasn't angry the way he was pretending to be angry, because the hurt was just too visceral (which i'll expound on in a second). and here was kant basically sticking his fingers in a fresh wound. here was this man he shouldn't trust at all, telling bison that despite who bison was and after all things bison had done to him (deserved or not is irrelevant here), he still loves him - not just with words but proving it in a very tangible way. a way that was theirs and theirs alone.

that was what gutted me on my initial watch. i obviously didn't think about all of it consciously in that moment, but i still knew it was there. i still felt it, the same way bison did. kant safewording in that moment was never just about him saying 'stop, i don't like this, please stop hurting me' and bison knew it, which is why he reacted so strongly to it (and why i did too lmfao)

so that was my initial thoughts, but liz @ropebunnykant brought up a really interesting point that i hadn't considered at first which is that kant was also safewording for bison's sake. which, while it hadn't been my first thought, definitely wasn't the first time i've heard of something like that happening either - a sub safewording, not bc they necessarily need to, but bc they've noticed that their dom isn't enjoying it/isn't in the right headspace to continue etc. and when i went back i could see it so clearly, esp as kant started to repeat it.

bc what happens immediately before the safeword use? kant pushes, and bison says shut up. kant continues pushing, and bison keeps telling him to shut up. the back and forth of bison and kant's safeword discussion is once again so important to the context here - kant asking if he can just say bison's name to stop him, and bison telling him no, that they need a way to differentiate when 'stop' is just a word and when it's genuinely meant.

bison telling kant to shut up was his stop. and kant pushed, because he didn't realise it straight away, because he had so much to say and for the first time bison was listening, because sometimes stop doesn't mean stop. but at some point kant realised that this stop did. and what did bison teach him to do when he really needs to stop?

and so kant safewords.

i do think kant could have kept playing that game for as long as he needed to. as long as bison was angry, kant would have stayed chained up like a dog. he didn't have to - he proved he could easily get out of his restraints in their very next scene. he could have asked the caretaker to help him get away. but he didn't. he chose to stay. maybe he wasn't on the boat, but at that point kant was a willing participant in what was happening, he was consenting. why? bc kant deserved punishment. bc bison deserves to punish him. bc to him staying there is it's own kind of proof. bc if bison's angry then he's still talking, and if he's talking there's hope. apathy is what was going to kill kant and he knew it - if bison's angry, that means he still cares.

but then we get that shot of kant's pov, of bison staring down w the gun pointed at him, barrel shaking, tears in his eyes. and it's not fun anymore. neither of them are gaining anything from this. bison's anger has finally given way to hurt, to heartbreak - kant knows in that moment that bison isn't getting any kind of satisfaction out of making kant squirm, and likely never was. which literally goes back to the core of a dom/sub relationship, doesn't it? you engage in that kind of dynamic bc both parties are getting something out of it. kant was getting the flagellation he thought he deserved after what he'd done to bison, the punishment he wanted (and to a degree needed) as payment for his wrongdoing and the sense of absolution that provided him. bison got the satisfaction of providing that punishment, of letting out that anger, of making kant hurt for what he did - or so kant thought. bc the reality is that bison wasn't getting any satisfaction out of punishing kant. no matter what he said or did, no matter how he hurt or degraded him, none of it made him feel better. and kant hadn't noticed that until that moment (which i think he can be forgiven for, given everything that he was going through). but then he does notice.

bison wasn't getting anything out of the hurt he was inflicting, and was inflicting pain upon himself in the process. and if one of them is not getting anything out of it - if one of them is actively hurting themselves in a way that doesn't feel good - then they need to stop. someone needs to safeword. kant knows this. and so he safewords - not so bison doesn't kill him, as some people have said, but to stop bison from hurting himself any further.

and so kant safewords immediately. retracts the consent that perhaps bison hadn't even realise he'd given willingly. he ends the game. he uses his safeword just like bison taught him to, bc it matters and he trusts him and he loves him. that hasn't changed, not even like this. and he repeats it so many times for that very reason.

and believe it or not, i feel like there is still so much more to it i could pick apart even beyond this. bc god there are just so many layers!!!! like there's fear in it too, bc as much as kant is unconcerned abt the gun and is sure that bison won't hurt him, he's still human. some degree of fear is normal. i also think kant sensed an opening in bison's defenses that he wanted to get at just so that bison would just listen to him - bison wasn't really in the headspace to listen to anything before then, which is exactly why kant hadn't really tried to explain himself properly. it would've been pointless. and as much as he loves bison, kant is still kant - he still knows how to work people. i also think kant was tired and hungry and emotionally exhausted and while i do think he would've played along for as long as he had to, i think he also needed bison's anger and attention to fuel him. faced w nothing but his sadness, he lost all steam. kant's own sadness and overall feeling shitty probably hit him full force in that moment too, and he didn't have the strength not to fold under it. and so he safeworded.

however, if i start picking apart all of that i really will end up writing 10,000 words and no one really wants that, least of all me. but the point that i really want to make is that kant safewording in that moment was never really abt him not wanting to die. it was about care and it was about trust. it was about acknowledgement. most of all it was about love. and we'd all be doing the story and these characters a disservice to simply go 'hehe he safeworded out of murder' while not also addressing what it really was! which was kant acknowledging their bond, showing bison care in the only way he could while telling him he loves and trusts him all at once!! it was him claiming ownership of the ownership bison has of him!! he said penguin bc there was literally nothing else he could have possibly said in that moment that would have had the depth and significance than that one little word did!!! he said more with that one word than he could have said with a thousand other ones!!! and it drives me crazy whenever i think about it for more than 5 seconds at a time!!! thank u for coming to my ted talk!!

[suzuran777]

BL game magazine Cool-B will be ceasing publication this month

After 20 years, BL visual novel magazine Cool-B is publishing its final issue at the end of this month. As someone who was always looking forward to the new information featured in the magazine, I'm sad to see it go, though I do understand the reasoning behind it. Due to rising manufacturing costs, in 2024 Cool-B was re-branded to Cool-B Kiwami, and the publishing schedule was changed to quarterly instead of bi-monthly. So for some time, it seemed like the magazine would continue with this new schedule. However, unfortunately in October 2024, another announcement was made on their social media in which they mentioned that the magazine would end publication in January 2025, as the contract with their publisher was also coming to an end.

Compared to 20 or even 10 years ago, the BL visual novel market has changed a lot and the number of newly released games is much smaller nowadays. Despite that, Cool-B continued publishing information, working closely with BL visual novel writers and artists to publish short stories and illustrations. The opinions of fans were important to them too, as they would organize yearly popularity polls and included game sales statistics and information about which new games people were looking forward to the most. The magazine's editors always seemed passionate about their work and even in their final statement, they mentioned that they want to find a way to continue, though right now they are unsure how.

Cool-B started publication in 2005, though its predecessor Binetsu Ouji released its first issue in 2002. Around this time, there were several other magazines which published information about BL visual novels, which I've written about in this blog post. All of them were eventually discontinued, which resulted in Cool-B becoming the only BL visual novel magazine. The other day the official Twitter/X account revealed the cover of the final issue, and instead of featuring a single game on the cover, they decided to include all of the previous covers. The text "最終号:BLゲームは不滅です" roughly translates to ''Final issue: BL games are immortal" implying that there will always be BL game creators who are passionate about their projects who will continue making new games in the future. And I think they're right, as earlier this week Parade (known for NO, THANK YOU!!!, Room No.9 and Lkyt.) announced their fourth game "lesson" which is scheduled to be released this year. The cover of the final Cool-B issue also teases a completely new project by Yura from Tennenouji (known for Miracle No-ton, Luckydog1 and Friendly Lab) as well as a completely voiced remake of a BL visual novel that was released in 2001 called Seraphim Spiral. Carnelian's new project Tokyo Gentou (or Tokyo Phantasmagoria) is also scheduled to be released this year, as well as the second part of Ooe which many BL fans are looking forward to, as part 1 was incredibly well received.

Including the final issue, Cool-B published 118 issues of the magazine between 2005 and 2025. They also had their own otome game magazines, Sweet Princess and Bitter Princess. As it's a bit difficult to see what's on each cover in the image above, I uploaded another image which should make it a bit easier to see. I also compiled a list of all the games/game franchises featured on each cover which you can check below. Some official game titles are rather long, so sometimes I wrote the name fans typically use when they refer to these games, but I think you should still be able to find it on vndb (visual novel database) if you want to learn more about these games.

1) Gakuen Heaven. 2) White Shadow. 3) Hanamachi Monogatari. 4) Torus Zero. 5) Lamento. 6) Messiah. 7) Gakuen Heaven. 8) Laughter Land. 9) Messiah. 10) Lamento. 11) Lamento. 12) Kichiku Megane. 13) Magia Mystica. 14) Ore no Shita de Agake. 15) Square na Kankei. 16) Maid★Hajimemashita. 17) Messiah. 18) Fanatica. 19) Togainu no Chi. 20) sweet pool. 21) Messiah. 22) sweet pool. 23) Kichiku Megane. 24) Luckydog1. 25) Hanakage. 26) Luckydog1. 27) Gakuen Heaven. 28) Hanakage. 29) Luckydog1. 30) STEAL! 31) sweet pool/Lamento/Togainu no Chi. 32) Luckydog 1. 33) Gakuen Heaven. 34) Togainu no Chi. 35) DRAMAtical Murder. 36) Gakuen Heaven.

37) Luckydog1. 38) Shingakkou. 39) Luckydog1. 40) Taishou Mebiusline. 41) Luckydog1. 42) DRAMAtical Murder. 43) Luckydog1. 44) DRAMAtical Murder. 45) DRAMAtical Murder. 46) Luckydog1. 47) DRAMAtical Murder. 48) Omertà. 49) DRAMAtical Murder. 50) Gakuen Heaven. 51) Luckydog1. 52) Si-Nis-Kanto. 53) Omertà. 54) Taishou Mebiusline. 55) Luckydog1. 56) DRAMAtical Murder. 57) DRAMAtical Murder. 58) Luckydog1. 59) Tsumi naru Rasen no Ori. 60) Togainu no Chi. 61) Gakuen Heaven. 62) Tokyo Onmyouji. 63) Luckydog1. 64) Luckydog1. 65) Taishou Mebiusline. 66) Luckydog1. 67) Togainu no Chi/Lamento/sweet pool/DRAMAtical Murder. 68) New World Order. 69) Luckydog1. 70) Luckydog1. 71) Taishou Mebiusline. 72) Omega Vampire.

73) Luckydog1. 74) Togainu no Chi/Lamento/sweet pool/DRAMAtical Murder. 75) Taishou Mebiusline. 76) Luckydog1. 77) Hashihime. 78) Paradise. 79) Luckydog1. 80) Luckydog1. 81) Paradise. 82) Nie no Machi. 83) Luckydog1. 84) Omega Vampire. 85) Luckydog1. 86) Nie no Machi. 87) Luckydog1. 88) Luckydog1. 89) Uuultra C. 90) Tokyo 24-ku. 91) Friendly Lab. 92) Lkyt. 93) Uuultra C. 94) Dystopia no Ou. 95) Uuultra C. 96) Slow Damage. 97) Luckydog1. 98) Tokyo 24-ku. 99) Hashihime. 100) Luckydog1. 101) Luckydog1. 102) Hashihime. 103) Friendly Lab. 104) Suito wa Hakumei. 105) Haiiro no Arcadia. 106) Hashihime. 107) Hashihime. 108) Hashihime. 109) NU:Carnival. 110) Tokyo Satsujinki. 111) Friendly Lab. 112) Luckydog1. 113) Hashihime. 114) Psychic Eclipse. 115) Luckydog1. 116) Ooe. 117) Luckydog1/Friendly Lab/Miracle Noton.

Some additional information which I thought was interesting -There are three games featured on the cover of the magazine that were never actually released and cancelled, which are White Shadow (2), Torus Zero (4) and New World Order (68), so you won't be able to find these on vndb as it unfortunately deletes these entries. I did include all three of them in a previous post about cancelled/unreleased BL visual novels if you want to check them out! (I just noticed all the typos in these older blog posts…please bear with me). Two of these game developers are still around, as Core recently returned as Procyon, and Holicworks still releases games, so perhaps some of their ideas were re-purposed, or scrapped for other ideas. There's actually a fourth game which hasn't been released yet which is Suito wa Hakumei featured on issue 104, though its status is currently unknown.

-In total, 31 of the covers feature characters from the Luckydog1 games, therefore Tennenouji is also the creator that was featured the most on the covers. Friendly Lab also has 3 covers (4 if you include the one with all of the Tennenouji game characters), therefore the total number of Tennenouji covers is 34, which is almost 40% of the covers. I'm assuming that Cool-B staff always worked closely with Yura, but Luckydog1 does have many different games, with the covers featuring Luckydog1, Gian-carlo's LUCKY HAPPY LIFE, Gian no Tame Nara Sekai o Kowasu, Luckydog1 + Badegg, Mr. Giancarlo and the Vita and Nintendo Switch ports of the first game. In the 117th issue, Yura did mention that the series was finished now with the release of the PC version of Mr. Giancarlo, and that she wants to focus on a completely different series now.

-The company with the second largest number of covers is Nitro+CHiRAL, with a total of 20 covers (about 23%). Among the Nitro+CHiRAL, games, DRAMAtical Murder has the most covers, advertising the first game, fandisc, anime and vita port. Of course, Nitro+Chiral is also known for its crossovers between their own games, so there are multiple covers which feature characters from different games together, promoting events such as the Chiral Night. Some of these feature the Chiral Night's mascot Naito-kun as well.

By the way, the magazine would always come with different postcards if you pre-ordered it from a specific website, and these postcards would feature new art from even more games, so fans had a lot of things they could collect. These were limited-edition, but you can still find people selling them second-hand on websites like Surugaya, Yahoo auctions, Mercari and more. Other than publishing magazines, Cool-B also released several artbooks, such as the Hashihime, Uuultra C, and Taishou Mebiusline official artbooks. I'm not quite sure what will happen to the sales of this as other stores like Stellaworth also sell them and they're often out of stock, but only time will tell.

To conclude this, I do hope they will be able to continue publishing information as they're clearly passionate about what they do. I always had a lot of fun guessing what kind of game would be on the next cover, as well as collecting postcards of games I liked. It's kind of sad that any future games won't have this, as the magazine would often publish original short stories and promotional material about these new games too. Even if the development of some games took a long time, it never really felt long as we would usually get updates every two months when Cool-B was released. Cool-B would often publish new chapters of manga too, such as the Paradise and Hashihime manga, so I do wonder what will happen to these and if they will be published somewhere else.

[lilith-vodkaaunt-of-demons]

I'm no professional writer, and some of this is okay advice, but also I feel like this is focusing too much on...I can't really think of the word, but my point is that it talks about things "Feeling repetitive" or "Mechanical" or "Flowing Naturally" but put all together it seems to forget that....people don't all...speak like this?

Like the "Do: Keep Dialogue Concise" part. The "Instead of Doing This" part sounds like someone dragging out a sentence because they're afraid of the consequences of expressing that they're leaving. Meanwhile the "Consider Doing This" part has no emotion. It feels more like someone backing out of something as mundane as a particularly long Monopoly game than someone telling someone they care about that they can't take the stress and pressure of continuing some arduous task, but they're afraid their friend will be mad or hate them.

I can pretty much same the same for the "Don't: Have characters explain too much" bit, although I will add in the caveat that the "Consider doing this instead" option still functions depending on the characters current state of being. The first one comes off as someone having a break-down, babbling emotionally because the things that made them who they are have slowly disappeared and they've lost sight of themselves. The second reads more of someones who's past that, they've shut down and accepted they entire persona is a facade hiding an empty shell with no substance.

My overall point is that some of the advice is okay some of the time, but it almost feels like the writer forgot that people don't communicate perfectly concisely, perfectly eloquently, and perfectly non-repetitively most of the time. People repeat themselves, have a tendency to be unnecessarily verbose, and over explain things all the time. At one point near the end, the writer says "Repetitive Dialogue can make conversations feel mechanical and predictable." as if communication shouldn't be predictable, while also instructing the reader to pare down their dialogue to an almost mechanical point. "Don't be repetitive because that's mechanical, but don't be too wordy because that's long winded."

Again, I'm not a professional writer, but my advice? There are three core components to any and all conversations. The participants, the circumstances, and the intent. The Participants: Who all is in the conversation? What are their relationships to each other? What are everyone's feelings on the topics and the conversation in general? These things will inform how different participants behave while participating. Someone who doesn't want to be having the conversation will talk less than those who do. If someone a character likes is participating, they might talk more.

The Circumstances: Where, when, and why is the conversation happening? Is it in person? If not, what is the method of communication? Are things happening around the participants? Are they inside? Outside? Safe? In danger? A squad of rebel soldiers in a hostile area will have a different conversation than a group of coworkers in an office, even if the subject of the conversation is the same. The setting and circumstances surrounding the conversation will inform the tenor of the dialogue. The soldiers conversation would likely be more concise and clipped for speed and precision, whereas the co-workers would be more drawn out and lazy because they're more relaxed.

The Intent: What is the conversation about? Are there goals for the conversation? And if so, what are the desired outcomes for each participant? How important are those outcomes to the people that want them, and how would they go about trying to achieve those outcomes? Are there hidden ulterior motives? The intent of the conversation is the purpose of the interaction, which is then modified by the Circumstances and Participants.

Here's an example. We have two groups, Soldiers and Coworkers (the participants.) The Soldiers are in hostile territory during a war, and the Coworkers are in the office on a weekend pulling some overtime (The Circumstances.) Both groups are talking about talking a meal break (The intent.) The conversation between the squad of soldiers is going to clipped, concise, a little repetitive, and quiet as they try to find a place that's secure and defensible while they quickly eat their MREs and maybe get a quick power nap in before moving because staying in one place for too long behind enemy lines is dangerous. Meanwhile, the Coworkers conversation is going to be more leisurely. They'll waffle more between where they want to go to buy lunch. They might have small side conversations between the actual decision making of where they're going to eat. There's more room for disagreement because there's little to no stakes besides someone being less than completely satisfied with their meal. Maybe some office politcs gets brought up because FUCKING BRENT never pays for his meal even though he get THE MOST EXPENSIVE ITEM every time. The conversation will be slower, less focused, more wordy and over-explained as people suggest, strike down, and defend options.

Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts

Do: Keep Dialogue True to Character

Instead of:

"I cannot believe this is happening, and I am utterly devastated by the consequences of this disastrous situation!"

Consider:

"This is a mess. I don’t even know where to start."

The first example sounds forced and unnatural, while the second feels more like something a real person would say when overwhelmed. Keep your character’s voice in mind—how would they speak, based on their personality, background, and the situation?

Don’t: Overuse Exposition

Instead of:

"You know, Jane, it’s been three years since we met in that small town in Iowa. I was just 19, and it was the summer of 2003 when you moved to that street, right next to the café where we had our first coffee."

Consider:

"I remember the first time I saw you across the street. You had that awful red scarf on."

The first example dumps way too much unnecessary information on the reader. Stick to the essentials—dialogue should enhance the plot, not rehash everything.

Do: Use Subtext for Tension

Instead of:

"I can’t believe you left me in the middle of the night without a word! I thought you loved me!"

Consider:

"You really should’ve told me you were going. I would’ve liked to say goodbye."

The first example feels overly dramatic and obvious, while the second is subtle yet impactful. Subtext lets the emotions simmer below the surface, creating tension and making the reader feel what’s being left unsaid.

Don’t: Overuse Dialogue Tags

Instead of:

"I don’t think we should be doing this," she said worriedly. "But I want to," he said eagerly. "This isn’t right," she said hesitantly.

Consider:

"I don’t think we should be doing this." "But I want to." "This isn’t right."

Excessive dialogue tags like “said worriedly” or “said eagerly” can feel redundant. Trust the dialogue itself to convey emotion. Only add tags when absolutely necessary.

Do: Keep Dialogue Concise

Instead of:

"You know, the thing is, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. And I realize that this situation is really tricky, and I don’t know how we got here, but I know I don’t want to be in it anymore."

Consider:

"I can’t do this anymore."

The first example drones on and loses impact. The second gets straight to the point, leaving more room for tension, action, and emotional impact.

Don’t: Have Characters Explain Too Much

Instead of:

"I’ve been feeling this way because, you know, ever since I lost my job, I’ve just felt like I don’t know who I am anymore. I guess I don’t have a purpose."

Consider:

"I don’t know who I am anymore."

Over-explaining emotions or backstory in dialogue can sound unnatural. Let your characters’ actions and non-verbal cues fill in the blanks. Sometimes, less is more.

Do: Use Dialogue to Show Relationship Dynamics

Instead of:

"I’m angry at you for leaving me behind like that!"

Consider:

"You’ve always done this, haven’t you? Leave when things get tough."

The second example shows more vulnerability and history between the characters. It’s not just about the present moment—it hints at past experiences and establishes a deeper emotional dynamic.

Don’t: Use Dialogue to Tell How the Character Feels

Instead of:

"I feel so hurt by what you said to me yesterday. It really hurt my feelings."

Consider:

"You didn’t have to say that. I’ve been trying my best."

Rather than stating exactly how they feel, the second example shows the character’s hurt through their reaction. Let the emotions emerge naturally from the character’s words.

Do: Use Pauses and Silence

Instead of:

"Why didn’t you tell me? You should’ve said something earlier!"

Consider:

"You should’ve told me." (Beat) "Why didn’t you tell me?"

The pause makes the second line feel more impactful and thoughtful. Silence and beats in dialogue create space for the reader to feel the tension and weight of the moment.

Don’t: Use the Same Dialogue Formula Repeatedly

Instead of:

"Are you okay?" "Yeah, I’m fine." "Are you sure?" "Yeah, I’m sure."

Consider:

"Are you okay?" (Beat) "Do I look okay?" "I—" "No. I’m not."

Repetitive dialogue can make conversations feel mechanical and predictable. The second example introduces uncertainty, making the dialogue feel more natural and layered.

[fall0utmind]

If I'm allowed to speak out, I don't think Marc is going to be a gentleman. He's a hunter, it's in his nature, as soon as he feels blood he'll eat you alive. All his careful words are now more focused on trying to be polite and calm the excitement that was caused by his transition to ducati. (I'm still sure that Valentino is playing some kind of secret game in the background, so it might even be dangerous). So this is, well, not exactly a lie, but rather gentleness and something like an attempt at mind games (and most likely part of Ducati's PR strategy) to mitigate the impending storm. I can't say what Pecco thinks, but he always tries to appear like an "honest racer" compared to others, but Marc is almost 100% lying, he came here to win the ninth title and I think everyone knows that.

Someone on the forum gave a wonderful quote, and I think it perfectly describes the situation on behalf of Marc: "Pecco will be the leader of the garage, number one. And then I'll surpass him."

Completely agree!!!

Marc isn't a gentleman on track, he never has been and I doubt he ever will be.

I mean, he seems lovely off track most of the time. But let's be real he's a pain in the ass on track. He fights you at every corner - he will do ANYTHING for a win. Like you say, he's a hunter. People who have competed against him know- dovi, dani, Jorge. They know he's a devil on that bike.

I absolutely believe he's playing a PR game here. He's at a new team. He's sussing out the situation before he pounces. Frankly, I think he's going to destroy pecco next year. I do like pecco but I feel at the moment, on this current grid, there are very few riders who can challenge someone like Marc. The calibre just doesn't seem the same as it once was. Maybe I will eat my words, I don't know.

Either way, being a gentleman on track isn't part of motorsports. It's important to note that this doesn't mean they're horrible off track. They can still apologise and be kind and likeable when they aren't racing. (Or y'know, pull a valentino and start a hate campaign against someone a decade and a half your junior)

Vale wasn't, neither was Jorge, or Marc, or Casey. Even in f1, max isn't, neither is lewis or Schumacher, Rosberg, Sebastian. The list goes on. You do not achieve great success in motorsport by letting people walk over you.

To be clear, i don't think pecco does let people walk over him... well, maybe a little bit last year. And I do think he's talented. But I defo think they're pedalling a narrative, and I'm not sure it'll work in his favour. No one remembers the polite kind one who won less....

I hope yo see some really good battles between them next year and I'm sure marc will be going for the ninth (I dont doubt he will get it)

[circular-jerkular]

Little Is A Dumb Word Anyways

The old man in this case is syscourse. I do not want to start shit with the individual linked here, but I think it's vitally important to discuss how atrocious these sources are, particularly as others have been in agreement with them. Here's a link to the post. Content warning for SA, as it's not tagged. This post isn't here to bitch about the user who posted this, however -- it's to dismantle the ideas they're presenting, which they keep presenting. Do not, for the love of God, fucking contact the user with this. It is blatantly obvious they do not want to hear it, and they've already received enough harassment at this point. They will not be convinced out of their misinformation by harassment, and I am very disappointed in everyone who chose to go after them. You are worse than the misinformation being spread.

I am not writing this for you, OP, and genuinely, if you happen to read this, I hope you (and your thumb, I saw about your hospital visit) are doing alright.

But I figure the general syscourse community needs to be able to discern real information from... what you posted. Because you're trying to pass your opinion off as fact using illegitimate sources that don't actually support what you're saying. And that's something that does need addressed.

TW for, well uh, trauma discussions, lol. Also, please excuse the color coding -- it's needed for me to process just what on Earth I'm writing.

STEP ONE: SOURCE REVIEW

So, let's talk about the sources OP uses here first!

Source One: The Mighty

To start, their first source is from The Mighty, which is a newletter opinion article website dedicated to mental health. This particular article is someone discussing "every type of alter role," though they only actually depict 10. What a lovely article this is, which:

Assumes every system has a host

Discusses types of alters but not really "roles" as depicted in medical literature (such as "animal," "dead," and "demonic," as well as little, as none of those re actually 'roles')

States that demonic alters "come about by the host blaming the abuse on a supernatural being or the abuser using it as a reason to hurt the child." This is not universal and is not even the case for most demonic alters I see.

Uses the term fictive, which is not a medical term for the role. Also doesn't mention factual introjects, which used to be one of the most common types of introjects in systems (or at least were cited as that at one point, I distinctly recall that).

Assumes every system has gatekeepers

Simply put, this is all the opinion of one system, based on their own experiences. They have no sources, they have no claims beyond their own ideas, and while what they say is perfectly valid for their system, it doesn't fit mine. For instance: My demonic alters did not form from supernatural beliefs and have their own actual roles beyond being demonic, I have no host and no gatekeepers, and I have no fictives but I do have fictional introjects (I do not use the term fictive). This article is almost entirely useless to understand my system.

So, what do they say about littles? "Unlike biological children, they can usually understand very complex concepts." So littles are not biological children and can understand complex concepts (yknow, like consent). "They commonly speak and act like children." Commonly, but not always. "They can be a version of the host as a child, the child that was wanted, or just a trauma-free version of the host." None of these options actually describe my littles in the slightest. And the rest of the description is entirely personal information about their own system.

In general, this source is entirely based on personal information and what the individual has gleaned from their experiences with systemhood. I could just as easily post my own "10 types of alters in systems" and include my dreamway part and the two created alters, along with "elf alters," since I have one. I could also depict littles as my own are represented, which would be something like "Unlike biological children, they usually understand very complex concepts. They rarely speak like actual children or act like actual children. They're sometimes younger versions of various parts in the system, or are meant to hold the trauma of maturity. Part of their healing is reclaiming childhood, but part of it is reclaiming the sexual freedom that was stolen from them." Cause, well, that's my experiences.

Source Two: The Dissociative System Fandom Wiki

Their next source is the... fandom... wikipedia for Dissociative Systems. I did not even realize they made a fandom page for my disorder.

Interesting choices all around.

Anyways, I don't think I need to explain how inaccurate a wikipedia page can be. This is not a scholarly source; there aren't any references to back up the ideas presented in this very short article, and the edit history could be literally anyone with internet access. A little themselves could've written this article.

So, what does this source say? "A little is a type of alter that takes on characteristics of a child." Vague, but I suppose that works. "They may appear younger in the innerworld and often act like a little kid." May appear younger, but not necessarily will appear younger. Often act like a little kid, but not always. "Each system's littles are different in what they can and cannot do. Some littles may be able to drive or work while others cannot." Oh. Okay, so every system works differently, and some littles may do adult tasks. "It is important to treat each little differently depending on what they need." Oh, awesome, so this article acknowledges that some littles will need something different. My littles require sexual things in order to heal, so that's awesome that this article acknowledges those cases! "A little often is a traumatized young part that hold onto the memories of abuse the system suffered during that age, but not always." Yep, my littles are not that. Actually, it's mostly me (Rice) who holds onto that! So nice that this article shows that. "A little tends to be between the ages of 0-10 years old, but different systems may use a different age scale to define who is a little in their system." That's the last bit -- acknowledgement that different sysems define littles differently than just 0-10 -- which is nice, since we count our ageslider who is usually 21 when he fronts now, and our 12 (13?) year old.

So, overall, this article can be summarized with, "Every system is different, so treat littles the way they need to be treated for each individual system."

Source Three: Trauma Dissociation Dot Com

Finally, a fairly decent source. At the very least, this website cites the information it provides, which is a damn step up from the last two. Unfortunately, I cannot find much information about the site managers, but I can find that the aim of this website is, essentially, summarizing information from medical sources. Not bad! I would love if someone with more free time could dig into this one a little bit!

The linked article is long. And of course, with any long piece of DID information, I definitely disagree with some of what it posits. For instance: "All the alters together make up the person's whole personality." This idea, presented with this wording, can be incredibly confusing for systems -- this information was presented to me to mean that we all had to fuse together in order to be a true person, when really, it simply means each alter in the system as a whole is responsible for the outward personality presented to others. I do wish it were rephrased!

To keep a long article short, let's see what this says about littles:

"Often nicknamed "littles" or "little ones" are a common type of alter. Several child alters exist in most people with DID." So far, so good; many DID systems experience having littles in their system. "Child alters often talk in a child-like way, but unlike a biological child they can normally understand abstract concepts and long words." Mm, abstract concepts, such as consent. They are unlike biological children. "They are often found to hold memories of child abuse which occurred at around the age the child alter feels he/she is. [7]:18" Often, but not always. Mine do not have those experiences! "Some may have the speech or appearance of a very young child, the youngest being unable to talk, read or write. [7]:18" Glad none of mine are like that, and that it acknowledges that only some child alters are like this. "Child alters may gradually age of may remain the same age. Some child parts may hold feelings of terror and pain, while others may be playful and fun-living and have only positive memories. [16]:60 A child alter may also be an idealized representation of the "perfect child" from the "perfect" family, for example the "good boy". [7]:18" (Emphasis mine). So, repeatedly, this article also acknowledges that all of this is subjective to the specific system's experience. It's an overview and nothing more.

TL;DR: Each article acknowledges that sometimes, littles can understand abstract or mature concepts, beyond what is expected of biological children. The first article shares that littles understand complex concepts. The second article determines that every system's little requires different things. The final article describes common aspects of littles while also acknowledging they are not the same as biological children.

None of these sources agree with OP's assertion that littles cannot consent and must act like children.

Your own sources disagree with you. Each of them suggest that littles do not have to act childlike, and even says most of them do not think like biological children.

STEP TWO: RESEARCH

However satisfying it is to get a good debunk out there, it's also important to correct misinformation by providing new information to fill that void. And, to be frank, two-thirds of those sources were garbage anyways, regardless on if they agree with OP's opinion or not. So, what does the research actually say about littles?

Unfortunately, I do not have the free-time I once did. Even with the grace of delays and snow days that I have received from Mother Nature recently, and the hard work I put in at work to get all my grades completed fully this past month, I just cannot put in the time to find all the various articles on littles and child parts. So why don't I just toss out the big guns?

Source: Therapeutic Hazards of Treating Child Alters as Real Children in Dissociative Identity Disorder

This paper was published in the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, volume five, and was written by Shielagh R. Shusta-Hochberg, a clinical psychologist who worked in NY at the time of publishing. She now has a private practice in Naples, Florida. The article focuses on the treatment of littles in therapeutic settings.

The article opens up with a basic description of how DID forms, as well as the dangers of misdiagnosis and mistreatment. It's a lovely review of the horrors of having this disorder. The author also mentions how therapists need to be gentle while also setting firm boundaries -- something I've seen echoed frequently in treatment guidelines.

Then, we get to the parts about child alters.

"These child alters can be identified by any or all of the following: childlike vocal tone and pitch, sing-song or stilted speech cadence, simple or naïve vocabulary, body language and posture including widely open eyes with raised brows, frankness or timidity, brief attention span and rapidly shifting focus, behavior such as playing with office objects, and childish affective tone." Shockingly, even though I do not experience littles who act like children, my littles do fall into some of these categories. They do use more childlike vocals, and they do have open eyes and body language that is different from the adult parts of me. Notably, the author does not say a little must be these things to be classified as a little; only that they can be identified in this way. She continues, "Putnam (1989) has observed, “Child personalities may be easily recognized by their nervous fidgeting, movement overflow, and childlike gestures (e.g., rubbing the nose with the back of the hand)” (p. 122)." I have to disagree with Putnam here, however, as more often, my adult parts display these traits -- due to our autistic tendencies. Which, could open up a very interesting conversation about how autistic adults are treated like children, just like littles are... anyways. "Child alters are so common in cases of DID that that every clinician treating the disorder, however briefly, is likely to have encountered them. Child and infant personality states often outnumber the adult aspects of a patient’s system." Mmm, I would love a source on that. Unfortunately, there is none -- poor authorship there imo.

I like what she includes next, though, so much that I'll include the entire paragraph in full: "It is important to remember that the patient is an adult, despite the childlike ego-states. These parts are not actual children. I am in agreement with Ross (1997) who is of the opinion that “child alters are not packets of childness retained in a surrounding sea of adult psyche. They are stylized packets of adult psyche. . . . I hold the child alters responsible for their behavior in the same way as the adult host personality”(p. 147)." Once again, as everyone has been saying for the past day, littles in adult bodies are still adults. They are not actual children! Ross treats littles with the expectation of adult responsibility, and I think that's really important.

The article continues with how to explain DID to various parts and have the patient accept the diagnosis, as that's a common struggle. It doesn't hold much bearing on this conversation, so I'll skip it for brevity, but I do so love the technique this article describes of window blinds. But then. The author goes in a wild left turn, one that honestly I think my therapist could benefit from hearing. Essentially, she posits that, since child parts are often seen as so different from the system -- oftentimes with childlike mannerisms, for instance -- then, "The clinician unbends and reacts to the “child” in familiar ways, responding with more warmth and simpler speech. Thus, child self-states elicit and reinforce nurturing and care-taking responses on the part of therapists." Basically, treating them like children makes the therapy less effective.

The case studies (as in, true experiences of DID systems) she presents where therapy has been made less effective -- or even completely denied and impossible for the patient -- are horrifying to me, from an outside perspective. She describes cases wherein:

A patient stormed out because a new therapist would not hold her child parts when they fronted, insisting that her old therapist would do so.

A patient breaks down at the suggestion from a friend that they go watch an animated cartoon movie that has monsters in it, as her child parts cannot handle that.

A patient completely socially isolates because she spends so much money on her littles that she cannot afford her rent, and she lies to her friends about who the toys are for.

A therapist throws a child-part party for her DID patients, because it's "repairative" for the childhood that was lost. Despite the adult parts of the patients feeling disturbed by this, they go along with it, retreating deeper into the consciousness to avoid the situation. Then the littles are upset that the experience turns into a therapy session, rather than a fun party.

And, lastly, a description of a woman who falls prey to SA due to an older gentleman emotionally manipulating her younger parts.

All of these occur because the system (or even the therapist) is treating their littles like actual children.

This is horrific to me as someone who did have parts who we treated exactly like this. Our littles -- yes, the ones we frequently talk about being adults and having sexual desires and who do adult things -- used to be child parts through and through. Sie could not function as an adult when we were in high school, and she only started to get there when we were in college. Which... okay, when we were in high school, we weren't even an adult. So that makes some sense.

But Sie absolutely was 100% the type of child part that is frequently described by those who isolate littles and treat them like children. And the fact is, isolating littles and treating them exactly the same as children is harmful to many systems, and can prove to be a barrier to healing.

OUGH! STILL MORE TO READ. Speedrunning it now, the next section discusses treating littles like, well, part of a system. "The work may involve bringing the patient around toward a more family systems approach toward the DID (Chu, 1998), stressing that the safety of the “children” is ultimately in the domain of the patient herself, and not that of her therapist, psychiatrist, parents, partner, employer or friends. The fact that there is only one body despite feelings to the contrary is sometimes a very difficult truth to accept for DID patients." I repeat: It is the job of the patient, and not anyone else, to ensure the safety of littles.

The next section of the article discusses real-world safety concerns with littles, which I feel like are discussed frequently already, but really hones in on the fact that it is the system's responsibility (and nobody elses) to be responsible for taking care of their system. Examples include:

Switching while driving to a child part who cannot drive

A child part forcing a patient to go to an appointment, which worsened physical pain

A patient (it doesn't specify a child part, but I can assume that based on the topic of this article) suffers bad falls from the littles attempting things beyond their capabilities

Not an example, but she also mentions medication issues and how it might be needed to have a medication manager.

The author of the article specifically calls out that adult parts should be in control for difficult tasks that require them, and I fully agree. Until a child part is capable of handling adult tasks, then adult parts should be the ones handling things.

Next, she discusses re-parenting, and frankly, I fully agree here too. The parenting has to come from within, not from a therapist -- and definitely not strangers online dictating what littles should do. The article does push toward fusion (in this case, labeling it integration) of parts, and she addresses that many systems view this as a sort of death. "The host may misinterpret integration as death, saying something such as, “We love the kids. We’re never going to integrate. It’s not fair that they have to die.”" Treating littles like children would definitely contribute to that fear.

And then.... Fuck, man, the article rips my heart out by including a statement from littles within a patient's own system -- a patient whose child parts were repeatedly treated as children, over and over again. Here's the whole quote.

"It’s hard for the bigger parts to take us seriously. It’s hard to be out in a grownup body, especially in the early days of awareness of the DID. The protectors want to protect us too much now from reality, and we can deal with it now. They are overprotective and there’s no need to be. We are as much a part of the whole system as the other parts and want to be equal. As the walls come down, we can share our childlike joy with those (older parts) and they won’t close us out. We can tolerate their seriousness. And we’re able to comfort them, not only them comforting us. They can hold us but we can comfort them, because they need to be loved, comforted, or forgiven. Barriers are coming down. It’s mutual.”

I fully suggest reading that full article.

TL;DR: Treating littles as children in a system can be incredibly harmful for the patient, in many different ways. In the end, it is up to the individual system to reparent themselves, and it is not anyone else's job -- and, really, no one else's right -- to speak over that system's functions.

STEP THREE: PERSONAL REMARKS

As much as I would have loved to find more, discuss more, and go deep in depth with this research, I just... can't. I don't have the time anymore. And genuinely, I don't expect others to.

What I do expect is that others don't try to pass off their opinions as fact. And the thing is, regardless of how many times you post "It's just an opinion," that does not negate that you then attempted to back up that opinion as if it was supported by medical literature. You attempted to say that your opinion was supported by medical facts. And the fact is, the medical literature disagrees with your opinion, with sources to back it up.

I want to address some of the common things I see from systems who try to dictate how other littles act.

"But your littles are vulnerable." One, not all littles, according to medical studies. Two, isn't the goal to heal and make it so that my littles are not so vulnerable as to be a danger/dysfunction for me? Isn't the goal to make them less vulnerable? How do you propose we do that without also engaging with safe risk?

"But your littles aren't safe." One, that is for every single system to decide for themselves. Two, the Dignity of Risk is in effect here, in that it's okay if someone else gets hurt. Yes, even badly hurt. It's not the concern of anyone but the system if they get hurt.

"But my littles/my friend's littles-" Stop. Regardless of any trauma you or your friend may have, it does not impact anyone else. Your trauma is not my trauma. It is vastly, vastly different.

"If your partner fucks your littles, they're a pedophile." Pedophilia is specifically attraction to a child's body. I will not be posting any pictures of my body on here for fear of the Ban Hammer, but you have to understand that I am not a child. Even if my littles were to fuck my partner, my partner would be attracted to an adult body. At most you could say my partner would be interested in... IDK, a higher pitched voice??? (Side note, because I've never actually mentioned this: My partner has absolutely 0 interest in fucking my littles and we've discussed at length how they'd be a little weirded out by it.) Side side note: as a victim of CSA and whose parents used their disorders to try to make them feel incapable of love, stop fucking boiling the term pedophile down to "someone who has sex with someone I deem too childlike to have sex." I'm tired of my trauma being dismissed so you can use a buzzword loudly.

"Letting your littles consent makes you a predator." So, when I was 13-16 and [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and [REDACTED] because I thought I could consent, does that make me a predator? Are CSA victims predators because they thought they could consent? How am I being a predator to myself? My littles are me. Your arguments make absolutely no sense and are wildly offensive to CSA survivors.

"I'm going to judge you for it." K. Do you make it a regular habit to judge people's recoveries? Cause like. I highly suggest you take a class in Not Giving A Shit, perhaps a gardening class so grass could be caressed by your tender hands, and maybe, just maybe, consider either therapy or self help for your own issues, if you haven't yet. You should really concern yourself more with YOU than with judging other people.

"I'm going to report you for hurting yourself."

I am a 27 year old queer individual. I am a person who has a loving spouse. We have sex. Do you regularly report (and to whom?) adults who have sex? Do you regularly look at people and say, "Actually, your relationship is going to cause you harm because I said it is, so I'm reporting you for your safety!"

In that case, I should be reporting every single syscourser, because syscourse harmed me, so clearly everyone who is in the tags must be self-harming, right?

I think that's the funniest part of all of this. In a dark humor kinda way. See, letting my littles access sexual content -- letting Sie write smut, and letting LED embrace sexuality, and letting Gazi (whom we are now comfortable talking about after doing good good therapy about it) enjoy and take pleasure in her sexual desires -- has let us heal from our CSA and feelings of insecurity.

Without letting them have that, we would have continued to hold resentment for myself. For who I am. For "what I am because of what they did to us."

You are trying to tell me that my recovery is secretly harming me, and that the medical world agrees with you. And frankly, you have no right to lie to me like that.

... But then you look at the syscourse thing and go, "Yeah, no, it's totally normal and okay and up to the individual if they're harming themselves."

Pick your lane and stay in it!!!

Ough. Thank you for reading, if you got that far. Two very long nights and a very, very patient partner who is waiting for me upstairs. I'm ending the post here, with a reminder to everyone to please be respectful. Respect other systems privacy. Respect their rights to dignity and risk. Respect them as people. And for fucks sake, let littlecourse end. (It's a dumb word anyways).

[rosurie]

Noé and Damsel relationship chart ♡

Damsel's Relationship Breakdowns:

Noé - "My precious baby brother Noé ♡"

- Noémie and Damsel are thick as thieves. she's also kinda the reason he has such a skewed view of romance, whoopsies ♡. Noé is precious to her, and she let's him get away with far more than anyone else in the orphanage. her precious baby brother that occasionally gets her off ♡

Kylar - "My cute little pet!"

- Kylar is obsessed with her. she finds that hilarious. she loves Kylar in her own twisted little way, but if we're being honest, most of what she feels for Kylar is just a lust-filled power high. despite this, she is incredibly possessive of Kylar. she'd further isolate him if he even considered falling out of love with her. she craves the validation he provides. Kylar thinks she's a perfect angel who can do no wrong.

Whitney - "My bitch ♡"

- Whitney wants to fuck her so bad it makes her look stupid. Damsel is aware of this. she thinks it's sooo funny. Damsel feels this odd mixture of actually liking Whit as a friend sometimes and wanting to beat her ass on the daily. Ultimately Damsel thinks she's kind of pathetic and that she purposefully picks fights for her to humiliate her. cute ♡

Robin - "Don't fly too far, Robin. You owe me."

- Damsel resents Robin as much as she cares about him. Robin thinks Damsel is amazing and feels indebted to her, plus he has a crush. Damsel takes advantage of that. She teases him a lot and keeps him at low confidence because it makes her feel more powerful. it's the least he could do for her.

IW - "Who...were we?"

- Damsel is...wary of The Wraith. she's interacted with them enough to know they have some sort of connection..but what is it? she is The Wraith's precious pearl. she's not sure what they mean by that. she's also pretty sure she's seen them before, in those months where she had disappeared.

Harper - "Doctor Harper..."

- very mixed feelings. on one hand, he did help her post-reappearance. on the other hand, he very clearly is the shadiest fucking doctor she's ever seen. but also she thinks he's kinda pathetic for attempting to hypnotize her into kissing him and performing sexual acts on him. she thinks that's cute ♡. Harper thinks she's lovely, she was pretty compliant during her treatment. shame she doesn't come around much anymore.

Niki - "I think I'm in love with you. I have to die."

- Damsel is so down bad for Niki that it genuinely embarasses her. if anyone ever found out how often she thinks of Niki, she'd die immediately. she's going stir crazy thinking about him. Niki thinks she's cute and a great model. they like her more than they let on.

Landry - "She's almost like a mom! or an older sister."

- Landry and Damsel have a very playful relationship. they both tease Mickey when they're together and Damsel thinks Landry is a pretty nice woman, all things considered. Landry thinks it's a little odd how many important documents and items Damsel manages to her her hands on and to sell, but hey, she hasn't gotten caught so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Bailey - "I hate you. [I don't]."

- Complicated feelings. She doesn't like other people demanding money from her and she doesn't like how quick he is to try to literally sell her. but...she was very attached to him as a kid and that's hard to shake off. [she also thinks he's hot but she'd jump from a building before admitting that]. Bailey thinks she's reliable. sometimes he still looks out for her.

Noémie's Relationship Breakdowns:

Damsel - "My tiny older sis ♡. I'll keep you safe."

- he does everything he can to keep her safe. he also feels a bit entitled to parts of her but I go into that more here. Damsel was the first person he attached to at the orphanage and some things never change. despite not being around her much physically during the week, he does seem to always know how to find her if he needs to.

Robin - "We grew up together. You should be less naive."

- he's noticed Robin's attachment to Damsel but he doesn't really bother with it. Robin isn't a threat. Robin tends to see Noémie as an extension of Damsel because they interact him in similar ways and so he's got a very confusing boner for Noé.

Kylar - "You're not good enough for my sister. You're lucky she likes you."

- if he could get rid of Kylar without Damsel being upset, he would. he doesn't think Kylar is worth any of Damsel's time, even if she's just using him. Kylar views Noé as a roadblock to Damsel and him living happily ever after. he's partially right (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶).

Sydney - "Fall into my arms, I'll guide you."

- Sydney is naive and pliable, the perfect subject to convert into his devotee. he wants to drive Sydney into calamity just to be her savior so he can be her new god. Sydney's low-key losing it because of his teasing and she's falling hard.

Jordan - "You seem so innocent for someone in such high regard. Curious."

- so curious about Jordan. how can someone so innocent be a priest for this fucked ass Temple?? wants to ruin Jordan but also thinks he's fun like this. likes to subtly flirt with him because Jordan is very easily flustered. Jordan thinks Noé is sweet and kind! even if he can be a bit of a smooth talker. he's choosing to ignore how that affects him.

Bailey - "I spent a lot of time around you when Damsel and I were young. You seemed so different then."

- he gets pissed off when Bailey attempts to sell off Damsel [before she made bank of course]. there's still some bitterness there, but he also still thinks of Bailey as that guy Damsel used to cling to and admire so he's not completely on his shit list. Bailey doesn't like to be around him too long because the air around him is always ice cold, but Noé pays his dues so he doesn't have any strong feelings about him.

Relationships I didn't add so the chart didn't get too confusing

- Noé is very interested in The Wraith and their interest in Damsel. however he's also like...please stop trying to impregnate my sister with your parasite babies ♡

- Noé likes Niki [btw my Niki is amab but uses he/they pronouns so if you see me hopping between those now you know why]. they treat Damsel well and she doesn't get harassed nearly as much in his photography studio. he's Noé approved.

- despite her bad blood with the Temple, Damsel actually really likes Jordan! she feels a bit bad that she doesn't visit him more often. also she low-key wants to get in his pants but she's choosing to ignore that.

[unpretty]

i said it in my original tags but i want to talk out of my ass and say that one place that a lot of current romantasy falls short for me is that it ends up being written by people who mostly read other romantasy without going back to the original genres of romance and fantasy. it's like a 'learn the rules before you can break them' kind of thing. you have all these magical macguffins to hit the tropes but can you make me believe that these characters have chemistry without that? is there chemistry, or did you tell me they're fated mates and now i'm supposed to assume this fight is sexy? does the fantasy aspect exist for anything aside from the magical macguffins? i'm not going to throw stones from inside my house made of worldbuilding designed to make all my fetishes happen, but the really fun part is when the lore spins out of control and you end up really going in depth on linguistic anthropology things that aren't relevant to the makeouts.

and the other thing is that you can't really sub in fanfic for this. plenty of fanfic takes characters from other genres and plops them into romance, but it's not the same. a good romance novel says, "here are two characters. you may know their archetypes, but you don't know them. you are going to get to know them, and you are going to love them, and you are going to want them to love each other, and when they love each other you are going to be happy for them". i love a rakish duke. when a man who's never had to do his own laundry is slutty as fuck that's my shit. but you still have to make me like him. you can take that archetype and make a guy who fucking sucks. most fanfic will not impart to you any knowledge about how to make a reader like a guy from scratch. you already know that guy. that's the whole point. fanfic with as much character building as an original work is the exception, not the rule.

the whole reason i get catty about fics that just make a different guy is that... you've made a different guy. i don't know who this guy is and i don't like him, and you haven't bothered trying to make me like him, because you slapped another guy's nametag on him like a cheat code. it's cool if you did make me like this new guy, but why is he wearing that other guy's nametag if no other aspect of him is present?

read the genres you want to write, obviously, but there's a reason the shitty comphet romantic subplot is a cliche. it's because romance is its own skillset, and if you try to fit romance in your thriller when you only read thrillers it's probably going to be the weakest part. if you want an ensemble cast then chemistry between characters is important regardless of whether they're going to fuck about it.

How did you get so good at writing??? Did you take classes? I feel like you should get paid all the money for this! (I subscribe to your website!)

after i dropped out of high school i found a torrent of like 5GB of OCRd romance novels and i read like 3 romance novels a day for a while

read enough romance novels and you will realize that they live or die entirely on technical skill. if you are new to romance novels then even bad ones can dazzle you with novelty but by the time you are on your 30th historical fake engagement between a bluestocking and a rakish duke you can grade them and you know when they've failed. when two books have what should be the same main characters hitting the same plot beats, but one of those books is delightful and the other fucking sucks, you learn some things. some books are bad and still delightful. other books are good but they just don't hit. you start to see the seams in the bad ones. 'oh, this is a weird out of character moment because she wanted to have the kabedon moment and didn't know how to get there'. 'she didn't want the ust to end but couldn't think of a better reason than this deus ex cockblock.' that kind of thing.

you could probably do this with other genres but i like romance because the plot is two people fall in love. that's it. everything else is set dressing. if you can figure out how to make that work you can carry it over into whatever other genre you feel like. mysteries would give you a different skillset around plotting that i don't have.

anyway after that i wrote a lot.

[tales-from-drama-school]

I HAVE BEEN WAITING WEEKS TO POST THIS

But punko made us promise not to spoil, so I didn't

I present to you...the keys family portrait!!! More content under the cut <3

I know ex libris wouldn't have anything like this but it's kind of fun to imagine if they did. Like look at them

They're sitting on bookmarks

Back: Ambrose, Bronze, Cerulean, Goldie, Nox, Garnet, Sparaxis

Front: Platinum, Ivy, Silver, Violet, Greywen

(from left to right btw)

My story roles are roughly based on Carl Jung's theory of the 12 story archetypes. I know I'm going to have to redraw this at some point when we meet the rest of the keys bc Punko will do it differently but that's a later me problem

Of course we have our faves, Goldie, Bronze and Silver. Who are the Hero, helper and heroine respectively

In the archetypes, Hero is self explanatory, but Helper is equivalent to the 'caregiver' role, and the 'Heroine' is just an aspect of the hero. But I think the 'Heroine' role could replace the 'everyman' role. So there's that.

NOX AND VIOLET EVERYBODY!!!!!

I actually think Nox suits him so well, although I still think of him as Buddy most of the time

The 'villain' and 'villainess' don't really exist in the archetypes, although there is a role called the 'outlaw', which I expect would kind of be an antagonist. But because of what we know of them so far, Nox (Buddy) replaces the 'explorer'. Not that this is very important

Sorry the picture turned out so big!!! This is Cerulean. I invented him for my fic Darcy Forenski and the Summer She Was a Wizard and he's the mentor key, which is the 'sage' role. They're the same thing. It's why he has a beard :D

This is Garnet, the ruler key. We've seen an arm of a red key in the episode 'dreams by day', so I just drew the rest of him lol

This is Sparaxis, the trickster key. In Cinderella boy, there's a 'thief' key that's mentioned, and in the 12 story roles there's a 'jester' key. Because Buddy (Nox) was the black colour I kind of ran out of ideas to make them look more like a thief, so I just made them a trickster with a jester hat.

Also the name sparaxis comes from an orange-coloured flower

This is Greywen, the creator/inventor key. What role does this allow you to access? Mad scientist. Artists. People that set the plot in motion. (she kind of ended up looking a little bit like prunella. Oops)

This is Ivy, the magician key. I did not draw her very well. But we also saw her in 'Dreams by day' in Silver's dream, and I thought the wings fit well with the magic idea.

This is Ambrose, the lover key. I know, I know! Its been said that there is no 'love interest' key, but that doesn't mean there can't be a 'lover' key. I mean, I guess he could be the thief key but that would just make him Hermes

Like, the literal greek god

anyway

Last, but certainly not least, we have Platinum. The innocent/the shadow.

This role is kind of hard to explain because in the 12 roles theory there's a role called the 'innocent', which is like the doomed innocent. The things that are good in the world. But there are a lot of roles that don't quite fit if you put all 12 keys in a story, and also because the keys are people I don't think she would be this perfect little girl all the time, even though she might look it. That's why I called her the shadow. I think this one is the least likely to be part of canon but it's what made the most sense to me

Anyway have some extra drawings of cerulean because he's my boy and I love him