#she's also a teenager and therefore naturally dramatic

[dreamedfyre-a]

“Sweetling, there's no need for tears. We may not marry for love, but we learn to bear it.”

@quccninchains // ARRANGED MARRIAGE PROMPTS.

Tears are all she offers, nonetheless, all Helaena feels she has ( all she is willing to give ). She does love Aegon — but not as a desirable husband. They all know what he is like. They all know he doesn't want her at all.

❝ He hates me, ❞ Aegon never hesitated to say hurtful words, and she never did anything but take them to heart. They are the sun and the moon; not meant to be together. And it's obvious, she thinks, plain for all to see — if not everyone, then their mother, surely.

Then why would she simply tell her to dry her tears and endure?

Does she not care at all that two of her children are sentenced to a life of unhappiness?

❝ Please. Marry me to Aemond instead, ❞ Violet eyes look up at her mother, tears streaming down her cheeks. It is the way of their house, she knows, to wed brother to sister, but why bind her to the one who hates her most? ❝ Don't make me marry Aegon. ❞

❝ He doesn't want me, he said so himself, ❞ Desperate, hopeful, certain that if her word alone means little, surely his is worth more. He is a boy, and the eldest son at that; wouldn't his wishes have some bearing in this?

It isn't about marrying for love, she wants to say but finds not the voice to say anything more, reduced to tears and sobbing once again. It is about marrying knowing there won't ever be any.

[magicalgirlypop]

reviewing all the magical girl anime i watched this year

2024 was a year i got into lot of media. i decided to expand my horizons by watching more magical girl anime because i realized compared to some mg fans the amount of mg anime i've watched is relatively few. so i set out to make a long watchlist of mg anime and out of those, i've finished a few. so i'm going to review all the magical girl anime i've managed to watch this year. i'm counting magical girl anime that came out this year, and old magical girl anime i watched this year.

magical girl anime that came out this year

wonderful precure

lets start with this year's precure season. wonderful precure was a show i never thought i'd like as much as i did. to be honest i didn't really care for the theme of animals and i wasn't as invested in it at first. i wasn't one of those "it has no physical fights therefore its BAD!!" people but i just wasn't drawn in at first. but it ended up surprising me with how well written it was. mayu's and yuki's episodes in particular were really good. komugi was lots of fun to watch. and i actually ended up liking the m/f romance that i was skeptical about. satoru was a wonderful addition who helped in his own way despite not being a precure and his relationship with iroha developed naturally and was so sweet that i ended up being drawn to them. these last two episodes in particular have been... well, wonderful. i know precure gets into dark territory sometimes but i didn't expect them to cover the topic of a pet dying, which can be so devastating. and episode 45 is probably my favourite in the franchise so far. i'm surprised that i ended up liking this season MORE than hirogaru sky (probably helps that there isn't a baby taking the spotlight from more interesting characters). wonderful precure is a cute and fun show with some heartwarming moments and while i'm excited for an idol themed season next year, i'll be sad to see komugi, iroha, mayu, yuki, and satoru leave.

himitsu no aipri

this is... a mixed bag for me. initially, i was excited for this show because it gave me aikatsu friends vibes, the artstyle was nice, and it was the first idol show i'd watch as it was releasing. it started off pretty strong too and had the potential for some good story beats with the mystery of who tsumugi was. but... it was very slow paced for my liking. i don't mind slow paced, more slice of life stories, but aipri was not meant to be like that. it really felt like nothing was happening in a bunch of episodes. and it lacked that dramatic flair common to all pretty series. i will admit, i adored mitsuki and himari's friendship. and its also not disappointing in the yuri department. ig another thing that makes this show such a mixed bag for me is how long the subs take to drop, which just.. makes me lose interest in the show. but maybe that's a skill issue on my part.

acro trip

probably my favourite show released this year. there wasn't a single episode where i didn't laugh. chizuko is such a cute lesbian bby and her fangirling over berry blossom was adorable. berry herself was really cute, and i love how she acts like a normal teenage girl despite being idolized by chizuko (example, when she didn't let chroma see her hair because she cut her bangs a milimeter too short and was self conscious), and chroma was such a girlfailure of a villain, i love him and i didn't expect that doomed yaoi between him and mashirou. all three mcs were such a joy to watch. i honestly can't think of anything bad to say about this show other than it was too short and needs another season.

magilumiere co. ltd.

a unique take on the genre, where being a magical girl is a job and all the mcs are adults working for a small startup company. it certainly did come out at the right time as this is the year i dealt with Adult Struggles so the mcs were more relatable to me. i enjoy the bond between all of the employees at the company. and i do enjoy those little jabs at capitalism they make with koga's character, with him seeing a profession that's supposed to help people as only a profit making scheme. i'm really glad its confirmed for a season 2.

mahonare

this is the prettiest show released this year, no exaggeration. the pastel colouring and the storybook feel of the show makes it such a joy to watch. its definitely one of the more slower paced shows released but the unique characters make up for it. this show gives me little witch academia and witch hat atelier vibes. i would say that the slow pace of the show works against it being only 12 episodes because there's so many story beats set up that would be unable to complete in a small timeframe without feeling rushed. so i hope this show gets confirmed for multiple seasons.

the magical girl and evil lieutenant used to be archenemies

i only watched one episode of this show and i did like what i saw back then. i almost supported the main couple... until i found out that byakuya was a teenager and shun was a grown adult and then all my interest in the show went down the drain. i wanted to pick it up again but from what i heard its.. not that great. so definitely one of the weaker shows released this year

old shows that i watched this year

full moon o sagashite

this show is what i'd call "almost perfect". the themes of what it means to live and how to live your life knowing you don't have long to live? touching on how the music industry is not a squeaky clean place and how certain people will play dirty to get on top? the dilemma of the shinigami who grow an attachment to mitsuki, who they're supposed to reap the soul of in a year? and the added detail of mitsuki being a mere child? also the amazing music? it has all the ingredients to be a perfect show. the one thing holding it back from being a 10/10 anime is the FUCKINGGGG ROMANCE! there is not a single romance in this show that isn't problematic! i can excuse mitsuki having a crush on eichi because she's just 12. but there is no excuse for eichi, a 16 year old boy, falling in love with a 10 year old girl. and don't get me started on takuto fucking kira. it wasn't enough for him to fall in love with a 12 year old, but said 12 year old was his FORMER BANDMATE'S DAUGHTER! HIS DEAD BANDMATE'S SICK DAUGHTER! if i was aoi i would rise from the dead to beat the shit out of takuto for that. and its not like its a minor thing i can ignore, the romance plays a major part in the series. full moon would've been perfect as a show about living your life to the fullest with the little time you've been given if it just got rid of the awful romance. one thing i will say, that episode with the old man who can see the shinigami and knows he's about to die? its one of my favourite anime episodes period, no exaggeration, its such a beautiful episode that embodies everything i love about the show.

wedding peach

i'm sorry but this show was a chore to get through. i wasn't expecting anything progressive because its a show released in 1994. but even then i really didn't enjoy watching it. i can complain about how heteronormative the show is but i'm gonna excuse it because again, it was released in the 90s. but for what it is? its still such a BOREFEST. for a show all about romance, none of the main couples interested me. yosuke was just another jerkass love interest i just couldn't get into. takuro gave major incel vibes during his whole arc and was only slapped with hinagiku because he couldn't get momoko. yanagiba was probably the most interesting but that's not saying much since i couldn't get invested in him either. but the thing that bothered me the most was how shallow the friendship between the girls felt. see, this is a genre where female friendships are front and center and given just as much importance as romance. but in wedding peach, i didn't feel like the mcs were friends. they were willing to throw each other under the bus for some guy and the only time their friendship comes up is when the plot needs a power of friendship moment. its definitely not the worst mg show i've ever watched but its not one of my favourites either. i feel if i watched this show as a teenager i probably would've liked it more.

yume no crayon oukoku

i'm honestly not sure this counts as a magical girl show but some people do count it as one so i'm including it here. i really enjoyed this show. i love that the main character was really flawed and the point of the show was for her to get rid of her bad habits. it made her feel more real despite the show taking place in a fantasy kingdom with talking animals and objects. and i like how she never completely gets rid of her bad habits either, because she's a child and she can't become perfect overnight. and although i'm tired of jerkass magical girl love interests, something about cloud endeared me. he reminded me of syaoran li from cardcaptor sakura, who's my favourite mg love interest ever. and the villain for the first arc was hilarious, every time he was onscreen was a joy to watch. the show did remind me of ojamajo doremi in a few ways, but when i looked it up yume no crayon came out before ojamajo doremi so, i feel maybe ojamajo doremi was inspired by this show. but anyways this was a cute, feel good show and i enjoyed it.

kamichama karin

this is the most chaotic magical girl show i've ever watched and i loved every minute of it. of course many people know it from THAT frame, but the show itself is as chaotic as the infamous frame makes you expect. the story is just all over the place and normally that would make it frustrating, but there's something so charming about kamichama karin that just makes it work. the plot twist was just a whole mindfuck but that's what i'd come to expect from the show. the villain made for a lot of funny moments in the show. i realize i've become picky about magical girl main couples though because i was not feeling karin and kazune at all. i've grown tired of jerkass love interests, and kazune fits the "guy is an asshole to girl because he likes her" trope which i've come to hate. and his sexism really dampens my enjoyment of the show. i get that he's a child but still. but kazune's jerkishness wasn't so much of a problem that i couldn't enjoy the show because he does seem to grow out of it by the end.

machikado mazoku

and finally the most recent show i've finished. i have to say, shamiko and momo are already one of my favourite mg ships. i really enjoy how they care for each other despite shamiko declaring multiple times she's momo's archenemy. the story was also pretty interesting. i did enjoy how it was the demon girl who had the cheerful personality while the pink magical girl, who we expect to be cheerful and friendly, had a more withdrawn personality before she met shamiko. the mystery surrounding sakura was also interesting. i'm definitely gonna check out the manga someday. i need more shamimomo in my life.

and that's all the magical girl shows i've watched this year. here's hoping next year i have the time to get into more shows.

[piosplayhouse]

Binghe's cutie mark in MLP aus is an interesting thing to contemplate because it feels obvious to just give him the demon mark, but there's quite a bit of debate regarding what exactly the cutie mark is supposed to represent and why/when ponies earn it. I'm personally inclined to the interpretation that cutie marks are earned not when a pony discovers their talent, but instead when they discover who they are (the example that rlly hits this for me is how Rarity, despite having diamonds as her mark, earns her mark not when she finds gemstones, but instead after she uses those stones to design costumes for her school play, an act which shows her creativity and generosity). So there's a few routes you can take with Binghe depending on what you want to emphasize:

A. He earns his mark with his adoptive mother and enters qjp with it. This could work as he is his truest self with her-- filial and innocent, but I personally feel him entering qjp as a blank flank would make more sense as it further emphasizes his vulnerability to bullying and ostracization from the other disciples

B. He earns his mark on Qing Jing Peak. I assume most disciples earn their marks at this point, and binghe could very well follow that pattern. I think this is much more likely for bingmei for obvious reasons, but if bingmei develops a cutie mark before bingge was supposed to that might tip sqq off that he really fucked the story up earlier than someone might want for world building reasons.

C. He earns his mark at the Abyss OR his mark changes at the Abyss. This is the most angsty for obvious reasons, on both a meta narrative level and on a character development level as this would suggest to Binghe that his "true self" is being a dangerous heavenly demon and that he can never return to being an innocent disciple. Of course, we could also get into the weeds here with if the heavenly demon equivalent to ponies are creatures with no cutie marks and therefore him being a hybrid means that he has unusual cutie mark expression under the influence of heavy demonic energy. If bingge made it this long as a blank flank I expect him earning the demon mark would be the natural outcome at this point in the story, or even within the abyss. Alternatively:

D. Bingge was intended to be markless for the entirety of PIDW. This slots in as an equivalent to the "bingge was never supposed to find true love" element of his character, going further to hit on the implication that the original Binghe is a deeply hollow person who doesn't truly know who he is despite appearances (I imagine he would keep his flank covered, or even use magic to disguise it as a demon mark cutie mark). Obviously this would not happen to bingmei which brings us to the alternative for him:

D.2. Bingmei earns his cutie mark sometime during the falling arc/postcanon after getting together with sqq. This makes sense in that this is really when Bingmei is fully free to be his true self with no inhibitions, but it could be argued that he had his life figured out as a teenager (see B) and got lost along the way, which wouldn't have much of an impact on his mark as we see various canon villains go through redemption arcs where their marks don't change. Of course, though, this would open the way for his mark to be something much more romantic, like a lotus blooming on a fan or something. So this could be a cute route that would provide a nice, if a bit less dramatic, end to his journey.

[yolowritter]

In Defense of Gabriel Agreste

Oh dear Kwami, I can't believe I'm actually doing this... I can't believe that it feels necessary. Before we begin, I want to make a huge clarification. I am NOT supporting any of Gabriel's actions AT ALL, especially anything done in Season 5. That's abuse, that's child neglect, that's grounds for calling CPS. I will never excuse that kind of thing, and frankly this isn't what I'm here to talk about. I simply want to state my opinion on how canon has absolutely ruined Gabriel as a character, and give my own perspective on our local supervillain, including an understanding of his reasons and how Gabriel devolves the way he does in the actual show. This is a mixture of headcannons I've had that are somewhat supported by canon, and I hope you all enjoy my little analysis piece.

First off, let's kick things into high gear by discussing Gabriel's themes. From the get-go of Bubbler, it's blindingly obvious that he serves as the "strict parent" antagonist to Adrien's quest for freedom and self-expression. As an archetype, this works quite well in a lot of stories and media, so I was fine with it when I watched the episode. Through the rest of Season 1, we quickly come to realize that Adrien's mother (and Gabriel's wife) is "missing", due to some reason or the other. At this point some may suspect his relation to Hawkmoth, but there's no legitimate evidence to go off of so we put a pin on that. During Simon Says, specifically Chat Noir and Gabriel's little interaction, we get to see that Adrien does hold some repressed anger against Gabriel because of how overprotective the man is, and then comes the fond remark of Emilie's flair for dramatics. It's a line so many of us have discussed or used in fanworks, but rarely do I see people talk about how Gabriel delivers it. The usually stoic personification of dissapointment seems to finally have some emotion in his voice, for the first really important moment of his character. Combine this with the earlier talk between him and Ladybug, where he praises Adrien and seems genuinely proud of his son for keeping up with all the activities/modeling/etc. Therefore, we get a good general idea of who Gabriel Agreste actually is. A grieving father who has lost his partner to "mysterious circumstances", and is trying to protect his son from any kind of harm. Sure, he's going about it the wrong way and is definately overdoing it, but the act itself doesn't come from a place of malice. Keep this in mind as we move forward.

In Season 2, we start off with the episode Collector. And learn that Gabriel is Hawkmoth. Because of course he is, Adrien is one of the titular characters in the show, naturally the writers want to pull a Luke Skywalker at some point. "I am your father" and all that, we've seen it a million times before. Still, this brings up the question of why? Sure, Gabriel is an asshole. That's very obvious by this point, even though we don't have enough information to truly cast judgement on his reasoning for such behavior. But there's a significant gap between "overprotective single parent who stifles their child" and "local butterfly man who has beef with teenage superheroes". Therefore, this reveal immediately has alarm bells ringing as to what Gabriel's motive is. In a later episode, we have the Gorizilla Incident. And this is where he finally becomes a much more complex, much better character! Because Hawkmoth has captured Ladybug. She's right there, helpless, and all he has to do is either show up and steal her Miraculous, or just wait until she loses her transformation and then take the earrings. His arch nemesis, the person who has been preventing him from accomplishing whatever his goals are...is at his mercy. But...there's a problem. His son is also on the field of battle, and just jumped off a building. Wonderful! Without the slightest bit of hesitation, Gabriel releases Ladybug, therefore saving Adrien's life at the cost of the Miraculous. And much later, during Queen Wasp, Hawkmoth genuinely ponders if he's done more harm than good by trying to defeat the Heroes of Paris. (Side Note: I don't actually remember if we'd seen Emilie in the pod by this point, but whatever.) He would have quit, hung up the suit, and lived out his days as Gabriel Agreste. Miserably maybe, but he would have stuck to that choice. No more Hawkmoth. Until...he gets the chance to Akumatize a Miraculous Holder. And if you want to rewatch this scene, notice the mania in Gabriel's eyes. This extreme emotional reaction is the complete opposite of what we've seen from the man so far (dramatic monologues aside), and the chance at victory rips Gabriel's sanity away from him. Cue Queen Wasp, and later Scarlet Moth.

But I want to stick to this moment for a second. Queen Wasp takes place directly after Style Queen, in which Adrien gets turned into a gold statue. And sure, the show can tell us all it wants about how "he's been turned to dust" or some bs, but we all know Adrien is dead right now. And Gabriel knows it too. This is literally the reason why he tries to convince himself that he shouldn't be Hawkmoth anymore. Because he finally understands what kind of harm he's been doing. By this point it's like the 3rd time that Adrien is in immediate proximity to an Akuma and promptly gets bodied by said Villain, specifically because of Hawkmoth. I do not care what Season 5 says, Gabriel Agreste loved his son with every last shred in that broken, shattered fragment of a heart that was left after Emilie's death, and he shows it very clearly on multiple occassions. He even tries to connect with Adrien again, and has a genuine moment when they watch Emilie's movie together. Gabriel, for all his supervillainy and prancing about in a butterfly costume, seems to be healing throughout Season 2. So why does it only get worse from here?

Well...this is where my headcanons come in to fill the void. Obviously I could go on a tangent about the writers here, but I don't care enough to waste my breath on that again. Swiftly moving past that, I honestly think Gabriel suffers from Tunnel Vision during this show. And yeah that's not a "condition", but think about this for a second. Nooroo warns that there are terrible consequences for misusing a Miraculous in Origins, and the show...never follows up on this? Well, that's weird. Unless the consequences are mental. A deterioration of the self, in a way. Consider: a good portion of the fandom already talks about Gabriel and Hawkmoth/Shadowmoth/Monarch as different people sometimes. What if that's literal? What if that's the consequence? Gabriel was depressed, desperate and heartbroken after Emilie's demise, but according to a cutscene from Miraculous Rise of the Sphynx (and I swear to God why didn't they put this in the actual show???) Gabriel and Nathalie actually spent around a year looking for the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous before deciding to use the Butterfly. It was Gabriel's last resort. And look at how Hawkmoth acts in Season 1. He's...well, he's acting. Playing the role of a villain to lure them out and defeat them, knowing full-well (at least after Stoneheart) that Ladybug can fix pretty much anything he destroys if she wins, and he can just do the same if she's defeated. Gabriel has a safety net, he's acting the part of an evil villain, complete with dramatic monologues and "curse you Perry the Platypus" moments after ever defeat. Then in Season 2, he knows the jig is up. The stakes are too high and this Hawkmoth bs is hurting the one piece of Emilie that he has left...so Gabriel decides to quit.

And this is where the corruption comes in. During "Feast" in Season 3, Hawkmoth re-states his goal of "taking all the Miraculous!" Uh...hold on just a second. Didn't Gabriel only need the Ladybug and Cat? Yes, exactly. That's why the events of the show even happen to begin with. So why has it now changed to all the Miraculous, if the rest are useless in terms of bringing Emilie back? Well, Gabriel's thirst for power is slowly corrupting his mind. Hawkmoth is officially in control by this point, and it gets much, much worse from here. With Mayura at his side, Hawkmoth has a real person to care about, and take care of. Nathalie supports him, keeps Gabriel afloat in this ocean of despair that they're both slowly drowning in.

But what happens when Mayura can't be there anymore? What happens when Gabriel (now as Shadowmoth) spends hours upon hours inside that dark lair, deliberating his victory? It becomes his sole focus. What tiny specks of humanity were still left inside of this hollow shell called Gabriel Agreste have been devoured by a beast that hungers for only one thing. Power. Emilie is no longer loved by him, barely even remembered to begin with. Now instead of genuine heartbreak over his wife's loss, Shadowmoth is using her as an excuse to keep going. He rationilizes it all to himself, saying "this is for my family" and "they will understand" to hide from the very obvious fact that neither Emilie or Adrien would ever stand for this. His ambitions have stripped Gabriel of all sense and sanity, leaving behind a madman simply wearing his skin. The last time we ever see even a flicker of clarity in his head is during Glaciator 2.0, when Adrien is about to be Akumatized. But this is also the biggest indication that it's almost too late for Gabriel, because has to think about it. Sure, he doesn't actually Akumatize Adrien, but even since Chat Blanc it's become perfectly clear that he can and will go through with that to get an advantage over Ladybug. Here, Shadowmoth considered Akumatizing him anyway, even with just the usual chances of winning.

And in Ephemeral (I'm pretty sure, could be just before or after), Nooroo's worst fears have finally come to pass. Gabriel affirms that he wants to destroy the entire world using the Wish. And then re-shape it into one where he's the top dog, by extension making the Agrestes like the Supreme. Gabriel has gone completely off the rails by this point. I'd even argue that the person he was only a few months ago (don't get me started on that timeline btw) is dead. Gone, burried six feet under along with his wife, because Gabriel Agreste would never do something like this. Monarch just makes everything even worse, especially with Evolution. Just like Nathalie said, he had the perfect chance to warn his past self about the Peacock being broken. Step in the portal, detransform, explain that he's Gabriel, then tell them "hey so the recipe to fix it is on this page of the Grimoire, you need to do this before Emilie makes Adrien" and that's it. But he just ignores it completely because of his obsession, hence proving the point I'm trying to make.

To circle back to the beginning of this post, I am perfectly fine with how Gabriel's character devolves and spirals into madness across the show. It's a cool plotline, could have been really interesting if the writers bothered to explore it but even with only what we have, I'd say it adds a ton of depth to his character! Or...would, if they bothered to explain this! Like seriously, you can pretty easily infer than something of the sort is happening, especially in later seasons. Just give Nathalie or Nooroo one or two scenes where they are worried about Gabriel going insane! Especially Nooroo, give the poor guy a few lines trying to warn Shadowmoth like "Master, please! You need to think about what you're doing! Can't you see this isn't you anymore?" or something of the sort. Sure, it doesn't have to be so on the nose, but you get my point! Instead they did nothing with this amazing idea that's already there because they wrote it by accident! And guess what? Gabriel goes from a sympathetic villain in Season 2 to an utter maniac who locks his "beloved" son in an insane asylum during Season 5!

Like are you kidding me??? What alternate universe did I get dropped into where this is the "logical" followup to Hawkmoth's storyline? One of the only things Gabriel even had going for him in terms of complexity was his genuine love towards Adrien! And like I said, I'd be fine if this how they wanted to make things and play the "tragic villain consumed by a lust for power" card! For Nooroo's sake, it's dangling right in front of them like a carrot on a stick! But instead of making the slightest bit of effort and explain that this is happening, or that it's an intentional plotpoint for Gabriel's character, their innaction just reduces him to a one-dimensional "evil because he's the villain" cardboard cutout! Believe me, I love unapologetically evil characters, who do the worst things for funsies! But Gabriel Agreste can never be that type of bad guy because you set up an entire storyline about his poor wife who died because adoption is apparently illegal in this universe! Don't get me started on Emilie Agreste, she's getting a rant of her own soon enough! But come on, would it kill you to at least try and give your villains some depth???

Thomas, do you want me to have a stroke? An aneurysm? To keel over dead like Gabriel's character development? Should I maybe put a fridge in my basement for good measure? And do not talk to me about the "tell Adrien how good a father I was" bs the finale had in it! Just- just don't touch that with a ten foot pole! But...I will admit, there is a very interesting direction they can take Gabriel's character now that he's dead. Because sure, he's now a one-dimensional asshole that screamed in his basement a lot before beating up a cat(bug)girl and dropping dead, but hey! Gabriel Agreste can haunt the narrative now! Have Lila use reunion to talk to him! Have Marinette be tormented by the stupid promise she made! Have Adrien be conflicted over how Gabriel treated him! Give us an existential crisis because "the hero who defeted Monarch" doesn't match up with the abusive asshole Adrien has known for the past year! Gabriel Agreste's character has been utterly trainwrecked by the writers' refusal to explain anything about him beyond a superficial "boo hoo my wife keeled over". Yeah buddy, so what? You can at least be interesting about it!

Anyway, I'm going to go cool off and make another draft for how to fix this idiot's character development. Or you know, give him some in the first place because he's lost it all. I'll see you all soon with an "In offense to Emilie Agreste" post, but until then, Stay Miraculous everyone!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Joseph Burgo, Ph.D.

Published: Apr 29, 2024

When Lisa Littman posited the existence of rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) back in 2018, she told a simple and compelling story: (a) we know from historical examples involving anorexia, self-harm, and recovered memory syndrome that adolescent girls are especially vulnerable to social contagions; and (b) because the current data show that cases of gender dysphoria and trans-identification among teenage girls appear to cluster in specific geographical locations and within friend groups, it therefore appears that (c) we’re in the midst of yet another social contagion afflicting the same cohort.

Simple to explain, easy to understand.

The increasing number of gender distressed boys is more challenging to explain and involves a perfect storm of psychological vulnerability colliding with cultural zeitgeist and new technologies. In brief, I believe that a generation of sensitive, awkward, and often highly intelligent boys is coming of age at a time when gender identity ideology suffuses the education system, social media, and online discussion forums, and when the cultural conversation around toxic masculinity and the patriarchy has made growing up to be an “oppressor” seem repellent.

This essay will flesh out the details of my hypothesis.

* * *

Most people don’t pay much attention to the fact that Lisa Littman’s landmark paper relied on survey responses from parents of adolescent boys (17.2 percent) as well as girls, largely because the “children described were predominantly natal female.” Examples used to illustrate that study’s themes nearly always depict adolescent girls, and the prior social contagions referred to by Littman have afflicted that cohort almost exclusively.

Littman’s paper also lays heavy emphasis on the “substantial change in demographics of patients presenting for care [at gender clinics] with most notably an increase in adolescent females and an inversion of the sex ratio from one favoring natal males to one favoring natal females.” Despite the presence of those teenage boys in Littman’s study, one comes away with the impression that ROGD is a novel phenomenon mostly occurring among teenage girls. Media coverage since has consistently described the condition as one “primarily” or “predominantly” afflicting that demographic.

The subtitle of Abigail Shrier’s 2020 book (“The Transgender Craze Seducing our Daughters”) likewise seems to exclude adolescent boys from the phenomenon. And in the United States today, the most prominent detransitioners speaking out against gender medicine or testifying in support of legislative bans on hormones and surgery for minor children are nearly all female: Chloe Cole, Laura Becker, Luka Haim, and Prisha Mosley. One might naturally make the assumption that the boys showing up at gender clinics today don’t differ much from the ones who for decades have wanted estrogen and sex reassignment surgery (SRS), and that this novel phenomenon of ROGD is all about the girls.

In truth, the number of adolescent boys claiming a trans identity has also risen dramatically, but that increase is overshadowed by the ahistorical explosion of girls showing up at gender clinics. Take, for example, commonly cited data from the Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS):

[ Source: Transgender Trend, July 19, 2019 ]

Due to the striking increase in girls depicted by the rising red line, one can easily miss the comparatively less dramatic increase in boys. But it’s nonetheless a very large increase (1490 percent since 2009 according to Transgender Trend); recent studies have shown that boys make up between 29 and 36 percent of gender distressed youth today.

Who are they, and does their psychological profile differ in any significant ways from gender distressed boys and men in the past?

To answer that question, we first need to understand their predecessors, those dysphoric males who showed up at gender clinics before the sudden rise in numbers that began after 2009.

The Blanchard Typology and Beyond

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Canadian sexologist Ray Blanchard proposed a psychological typology of gender dysphoria and transsexualism, categorizing the vast majority of trans-identified males requesting SRS into two groups: (a) homosexual transsexuals (HSTS)—that is, men exclusively attracted to other men and who had exhibited feminine behavior/appearance from an early age; and (b) autogynephilic transsexuals (AGPs)–heterosexual men who experience sexual arousal at the thought or image of themselves as female.[1] According to data from before 2009, HSTS represented roughly 40 percent and AGPs 60 percent of the men requesting SRS at gender clinics.[2]

Since he first articulated it, Blanchard’s typology has come under intense and persistent attack by trans rights activists (TRAs), though other researchers such as Michael Bailey (2003) and Anne Lawrence (2013) have written extensively in support of it. Based upon a January 30, 2024 comment Bailey made on 𝕏 (formerly Twitter), he apparently believes this typology still holds true for the dramatically increased number of boys and men seeking to transition: “Male adolescents are youth. And they are seeking gender transition. And most are probably AGP.”

As a psychotherapist working primarily with gender-distressed males, I’ve of course encountered both HSTS and AGPs as clients in my practice; I know they continue to show up at gender clinics for hormones and SRS, probably in the same relative proportions as before. But there’s a new cohort that doesn’t conform to the Blanchard typology, and in the pages ahead, I’ll attempt to describe and account for this new phenomenon, this Third Way into trans-identification. My views have evolved in part from my private psychotherapy practice working with trans-identified teenage boys, detransitioned males who realized too late (post-surgery) that they were gay, and men who struggle with autogynephilia.

My insights have been deepened by working with a coalition of professionals and parents of trans-identified male children and young adults who recently launched a website called ROGD Boys devoted to promoting awareness of this cohort. Much of what follows is informed by their research, my interviews with a dozen or so of these parents about their trans-identified boys, and visiting the many online websites and subreddits they brought to my attention. In doing so, I’ve followed in the tracks of my good friend Alasdair Gunn, whose series of articles When Sons Become Daughters, written for Quillette under the pseudonym Angus Fox, first blazed the trail and drew attention to the phenomenon of ROGD in boys back in 2021.

“The typical hyper-ruminative gender-questioning boy,” Gunn writes, “is smart, with communication and intellect out of proportion to his social skills. He’s excellent at mathematics in particular, and often in academic pursuits more generally, although this isn’t always reflected in grades. … [H]e’s likely to have a diagnosis of autism, Asperger’s syndrome or ADHD.” Often described as “quirky,” he hasn’t ever really fit in with his peer group and was likely bullied for his difference. Like virtually all teenagers, he wants desperately to belong, and for this reason seeks “an explanation for why he doesn’t fit in, especially one that comes in a form that his friends and classmates will readily understand.”

Survey research conducted by the coalition behind ROGD Boys supports Gunn’s description. With 124 parents providing survey answers, 81 percent identified their sons as either moderately, highly, or profoundly gifted. 20 percent of the boys had received an official diagnosis of autism and another 35 percent displayed “[p]oor social skills, sensitivity issues, poor eye contact, repetitive behaviors, etc. – but [were] not formally diagnosed” with autism spectrum disorder. About 32 percent of the boys struggled with symptoms of ADHD both before and after “coming out.” More than half of the parents described their sons as socially isolated, a condition which was exacerbated by the COVID lockdowns.

When given a choice of options to describe their son’s pre-adolescent gender behavior, almost 90 percent selected “Masculine (male – but avoided contact sports, somewhat introverted).” The remainder were identified as “Extremely Masculine,” and none were described as either “Feminine” or “Extremely Feminine.” These boys absolutely do not fit the profile of HSTS as described by Blanchard. Whether they qualify instead as AGP has been hotly contested. While certain critics on 𝕏 regularly denounce all trans-identified males, regardless of their age, as fetishistic perverts (that is, autogynephiles) and therefore unworthy of compassion or understanding, parents of trans-identified males are naturally unwilling to accept this description.

I don’t believe these boys are all autogynephilic, though a small unknown number may go on to develop that condition. Instead, I see these lonely boys as full of self-loathing and desperate to “identify out” of their hated self. The story of how and why that might occur involves a condition I’ve called “outsider shame”–the sense that you’re weird, defective, or damaged in a way that means that you don’t belong, not anywhere, and never will.

I believe the source of that shame can sometimes be found in a set of psychological traits that get lumped together as neurodivergence, encompassing autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Sometimes the shame arises from being overly sensitive, awkward or especially gifted in ways that make a child stand out in an unfavorable way. Understanding those traits will also shed light on why these boys are so vulnerable to gender ideology and the siren song of transition.

As did Lisa Littman, I’d like to emphasize that this is a hypothesis requiring extensive research and follow up. We have so little data, and what we do have is of middling quality: the parent survey I cited above, for example, is only a small convenience sample. But we do know from Hannah Barnes’ book Time to Think (2023) that around 35 percent of the children referred to the Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service presented with “moderate to severe autistic traits”–a rate much higher than the under-2 percent rate of autism spectrum disorder to be found within the UK’s general child population.

And that 35 percent rate likely understates the true number of neurodivergent kids treated at GIDS. The British psychoanalyst Az Hakeem has said that, excluding the transvestic cross-dressers in his practice, 100 percent of the males he treated while working for the Tavistock “were on the autistic spectrum.” 

Why do so many neurodivergent or otherwise unusual children self-identify as trans?

How It Feels to be Neurodivergent

To the extent they know anything about autism spectrum disorder, most people think it means having poor social skills and limited empathy for others. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) groups these and other features under the heading “Persistent Deficits in Social Communication and Social Interaction.” A second set of diagnostic criteria involve “Restricted, Repetitive Patterns of Behavior, Interests, or Activities.” These criteria describe people who find change unsettling and who insist upon consistency and sameness. They may have “[h]ighly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus.”[3]

Those diagnosed with ASD often have a hard time identifying and understanding what’s going on inside their bodies (interoception) and may also find it difficult to know which emotions they’re feeling (alexithymia). As a result, they can’t easily self-regulate their feeling states, are prone to explosive outbursts, and may react in ways that seem bizarre and incomprehensible to other people. For an analysis of “How Autistic Traits Can be Mistaken for Gender Dyphoria,” see the excellent essay by that title written by autism researcher Christina Buttons.

Adolescent boys who struggle with ASD come across to other people as “quirky”–the word used by Gunn in the passage quoted above and by virtually every parent interviewed for this essay in describing their sons. These boys strike their peers as weird or eccentric, as “geeks” or “freaks,” and they’re often bullied for their difference. The diagnostic criteria in the DSM-5 diagnosis may give a “scientific” description of someone who struggles with ASD but miss the agony of how it’s experienced within–the feeling that you’re damaged goods, different in a bad way from everyone else, and some kind of ugly alien.

As explained by Buttons,

[A]utistic people typically intuit that they differ from their peers, but are unable to pinpoint or describe the reason, which can be distressing. As they struggle to assimilate, they may become preoccupied with understanding themselves and how they fit in with those around them. In a desperate attempt to resolve their distress, they may “try on” different identities or diagnoses to see what “fits.”

Thus, identifying as “trans” may offer, as Gunn suggests above, “an explanation for why he doesn’t fit in, especially one that comes in a form that his friends and classmates will readily understand.”

I didn’t realize before that I was trans and that’s why I never fit in! I used to be a despised outsider but now I’m celebrated as a part of the queer community.

It’s not hard to understand why someone might want to “identify out” of a tormented self that feels defective and has been bullied by his peers. As adolescence approaches and the desire to belong intensifies, along comes gender identity ideology just in time to save these kids from outsider shame, to “explain” why they’ve never fit in. I believe this holds true for both adolescent boys and girls; it also applies to other kids who struggle with ADHD, and even to those who are so highly intelligent or sensitive that they stand out as “weird” in a social milieu that values conformity. Just recently, one of my teenage clients said it quite succinctly: “You do know I’ve always been a nerd, right? Like really, really strange. I just never understood that it was because I’m trans.”

It’s a simple and alluring explanation, one that also appeals to the autistic tendency to view the world in simplified terms of black-and-white. As Buttons explains, when autistic people “come across overly simplistic views about gender, it can provide them with a quick explanation for their troubles (they are transgender) and a ready-made solution (transition) to achieve what they hope will be a sense of normalcy and comfort in their bodies.” Their tendency toward rigid thinking and a dislike of change will make it difficult for them to relinquish this newfound identity.

A psychological approach to trans-identification gains little traction in public debates about the issue. Instead, a simplified explanation is endlessly advanced by critics such as Kellie Jay Keen: trans-identified males are “porn addled fetishists” and the entire phenomenon of men identifying as women can be accounted for by their addiction to pornography. I reject this theory but believe we must nonetheless understand the influence that pornography does have upon a subset of these boys.

Anime and Pornography

As first noted by Gunn in his series of Quillette articles, quirky trans-identified boys usually display an obsessive interest in anime, a form of hand-drawn or computer-generated animation that originated in Japan. Given how the algorithms work, it seems inevitable that, at some point, they will be exposed to the adjacent category of anime pornography and may become fascinated by it. Based on my clinical experiences with these boys, I see their interest in anime porn as a way station between childhood and fully adult sexuality, with child-like cartoon figures engaged in acts that come across as strangely innocent and sexually graphic at the same time.

At this point, some readers who have so far been empathizing with these boys might suddenly recoil. As I’ve noted before, few subjects elicit as much disgust as the idea of males masturbating in front of their computer screens, and you may be inclined to dismiss these boys as creeps. Bear in mind that boys included in the survey cited above were as young as 10 years old and clustered in their mid-teens. These young boys are struggling with and confused by their testosterone-fueled sexuality; it seems both unkind and simple-minded to write them off as sexual perverts.

Nor do we know how many of these boys have been seduced by more hardcore pornography online. Some boys I’ve seen in my practice seem detached from their bodies and find sexual arousal to be disturbing. Others are exploring their sexuality via anime pornography in a way that seems almost childlike, not compulsive in the way of boys who struggle with a true porn addiction. We need to keep an open mind and not resort to across-the-board categorization or harsh moral judgments.

In addition to anime, another type of pornography bears mentioning here: sissy hypno porn and forced feminization videos. In this genre, male viewers of (or performers in) the video are devalued, debased, and emasculated, usually by a dominant female who mocks them. They may be forced to wear women’s clothes against their will and scorned for being beta males–that is, “losers” who will never be “real men.” For a chilling example of how sissy hypno porn can persuade a vulnerable young man to believe he is trans, watch this recent episode on Benjamin Boyce’s YouTube channel.[4]

The boys I’ve described in this essay often feel that they are losers. Socially awkward misfits, they may feel hopeless about ever attracting females or having a girlfriend. Afflicted by outsider shame and sexually frustrated, they may then find ways to sexualize their shame through forced feminization videos, a topic I discussed in my presentation at Genspect’s 2023 Killarney conference; sometimes these young men take the transmax route and transform themselves into facsimiles of women, inspiring this humorous but disturbing meme: if you can’t get a girlfriend, become someone else’s girlfriend.

Boys that discover forced feminization porn online may in turn be “discovered” by older men, usually autogynephiles, who then groom the boys through conversations held in discord servers and private chats. The older men will encourage this dawning belief that they are girls trapped inside of male bodies and the boys must of course undertake medicalized transition. The groomers may offer compliments and praise for how “pretty” the boys look when cross-dressing and invite them to engage in sexting or the sharing of intimate images of their body parts.

One contentious topic is the relationship between pornography and trans-identification–that is, whether exposure to the former can cause the latter due to habituation and novelty-seeking. In his 2007 book The Brain that Changes Itself, Norman Doidge states: “When pornographers boast that they are pushing the envelope by introducing new, harder themes, what they don’t say is that they must, because their customers are building up a tolerance to the content.” The trans-activist Andrea Chu famously stated that it was exposure to sissy porn that did “make me trans.”

As I told Stephanie Winn in this podcast episode, I remain skeptical. I don’t believe that exposure to forced feminization videos can gradually transform a boy with a strong sense of self into a trans-identified female who finds degradation to be arousing. There must be a pre-condition, a prior sense of shame or inferiority which sissy hypno porn can then exploit.

A main contributor to that sense of shame is the way these quirky teens feel about themselves as boys and men.

Problematic Masculinity and the Male Sex Drive

In the article cited above, Christina Buttons notes that autistic kids tend to fixate on “social justice” issues in addition to transgender identities. In my experience, those social justice issues include the ongoing cultural critique of “toxic masculinity” and the patriarchy; nearly all the trans-identified boys I’ve encountered (either as clients in my practice or through interviewing their parents) subscribe to the oppressor-oppressed world view and consider white heterosexual males to be at the despicable top of that power structure.

These boys have a deeply problematic relationship with masculinity (whatever that means to them) and to their own bodies. Given their struggles to accurately identify bodily sensations and feeling states, they may find the emergence of sexual arousal during puberty to be profoundly unsettling; having learned to look down upon men, they may find  their new masculine sexual urges to be disturbing. As I discussed in my presentation at Genspect’s Denver conference (November 2023), some of these boys never masturbate and find both spontaneous erections and nocturnal emissions to be profoundly unsettling. One of my trans-identified clients, a young man on the spectrum, told me he wanted to take estrogen and become a woman because female sexuality “aligned more with my value system.”

At the same time, these boys have often been the targets of toxic masculinity during adolescence, ridiculed and bullied for being strange. As the survey data discussed above demonstrate, they don’t necessarily display feminine traits and behaviors from an early age, but many boys on the spectrum do come across as “gender non-conforming” in that they don’t behave like typical boys. The link between symptoms of ASD and gender non-conformity/gender dysphoria has been established by a number of studies[5], although the reasons for it are yet to be explained. The study cited in the footnote below links it to a mediating factor–a poor ability to “mentalize” or to infer the interior state of mind of other people. Why a poor ability to mentalize should be linked to a higher incidence of gender dysphoria is but one of many questions needing further research.

I believe these boys come to “explain” the ways they differ from typical biological males (their odd behaviors that might have provoked bullying) by believing something simplistic like: If I don’t fit in with the boys, then I must be a girl. Black and white, either/or. In addition, their inability to identify their own emotions and to grasp the interior states of other people makes them vulnerable to overly cognitive or ideological explanations detached from internal feeling states. I’ll have more to say about the relationship between this kind of detachment (or dissociation) and trans-identification in a later essay.

While these boys may display or cultivate certain gender non-conforming traits and denounce traditional masculinity, they also come across as typical boys obsessed with video gaming, technology, science, and strategies of war–like my client mentioned above who described himself as a “nerd.” It’s not unusual for such a boy to discover another trans-identified male who shares his science nerd interests and to become romantically involved with him. As “transwomen,” they may consider themselves to be lesbians.

I’ve heard these boys express overpowering joy in finding someone like themselves, and relief from a profound sense of loneliness and being different. When you’ve always had a hard time mentalizing the interior states of other people, it comes as an immense relief to meet someone who appears to think and feel the same ways that you do. These romantic relationships seem more like puppy love, not terribly sexual, and steeped in the sense of sameness.

* * *

Comprehending the mysterious mental states of these boys may be difficult for those unfamiliar with neurodivergent or highly gifted and sensitive boys, but a combination of profound loneliness and shame holds the key. Most of us can understand how it feels to be an outsider, excluded or rejected; we can imagine what it’s like to sense that you’re weird or different from other people in a bad way. And after years of listening to relentless public discourse about toxic masculinity, it’s not hard to understand how boys coming of age might feel ambivalent, at the very least, to confront testosterone-fueled sexual urges that trouble them.

Gender identity ideology, spread across emergent technological platforms in recent years, has offered these boys an escape. As destructive as we know that ideology to be, we can also understand why a strange and lonely boy coming of age today, desperate to belong and feel good about himself, might embrace it.

--

[1] For those unfamiliar with this phenomenon, I’ve written two detailed accounts of autogynephilia for this Substack which can be found here and here.

[2] Blanchard R, Clemmensen LH, Steiner BW. Heterosexual and homosexual gender dysphoria. Arch Sex Behav. 1987 Apr;16(2):139-52. doi: 10.1007/BF01542067. PMID: 3592961.

[3] Canadian psychologist Ken Zucker believes that becoming fixated on gender identity might explain why kids on the spectrum are over-represented among trans-identified teens.

[4] Note how Shane, the subject of this episode, had absorbed and been influenced by the cultural conversation around toxic masculinity before he encountered sissy porn.

[5] See, e.g., Kallitsounaki A, Williams DM, Lind SE. Links Between Autistic Traits, Feelings of Gender Dysphoria, and Mentalising Ability: Replication and Extension of Previous Findings from the General Population. J Autism Dev Disord. 2021 May;51(5):1458-1465. doi: 10.1007/s10803-020-04626-w. PMID: 32740851; PMCID: PMC8084764.

[commic-jester]

@chaoticconstellation you’re going to regret this.

anyway. tw under the cut for discussions of sexual assault/harassment, pedophilia, and suicide by nature of ann’s confidant and the story of persona 5 itself. and also, obviously, spoilers for p5/p5 royal

so, as we all probably Very well know by now, atlus is historically Really Fucking Bad at handling their female characters. like. like Really Bad.

this being said, i think the treatment of ann, especially mid-game, is quite possibly the worst handling of a female character i’ve seen in any media period.

let’s start from the beginning. as in, the beginning of the game. our first introduction to ann as the player is seeing her on our way to school before she gets in the car with an adult man, presumably a teacher of some sorts. this is later confirmed by ryuji, who refers to kamoshida as a creep MULTIPLE times. essentially, our first introduction to ann is the knowledge that she’s being groomed.

this isn’t necessarily a bad thing! well, it is a very bad thing, but it’s not bad that it was included. this is a real problem that plagues teenage girls around the world daily. including it in a video game brings awareness to it, and for the most part the topic is handled respectfully (at first, but i’ll get to that later.)

then, later on in the first arc, ann confides in the player that she is in fact being coerced by kamoshida, in exchange for her best friend shiho getting a starting spot on the volleyball team. she confides that she hates it, but she doesn’t know what else to do since society and her peers have already labeled her as a “slut”/just a pretty face.

then, shiho’s attempt. this is ann’s breaking point. she finally becomes so enraged with kamoshida’s actions that she physically cannot stand by any longer, and practically forces the player and ryuji to let her join the phantom thieves and fight back.

then, kamoshida is defeated. this is quite possibly one of my favorite scenes in the entire game. ann is given the choice to spare or kill kamoshida. she chooses to spare him, but make no mistake, it is not out of mercy. she chooses to spare her abuser simply out of the hope that he will rot in a cell and his own sins for the rest of his life, and suffer the way she and shiho and all the other students he tortured did.

this scene is what made me root for ann. it’s what cemented her as one of my favorite characters in the entire franchise. a stereotypical “dumb blonde” “sexy girl” character fighting back against her abuser and rightfully actively wishing suffering on him, therefore breaking free from that box of “just a pretty face”?? hell fucking yes!!!

…..so imagine my surprise when she’s immediately shoved back into that box. quite literally days later. as soon as we meet yusuke, it’s like that character development never happened. it’s back to ann being the butt of every sexual joke. it’s back to ann having multiple full scenes of being “bait” in a sexual manner. it’s back to ann being treated as exactly what she fought so hard not to be.

it’s almost worse that she voices her displeasure with these actions every single time. it’s like atlus recognizes their development with ann, but actively choose to ignore it, and it’s infuriating.

to make matters worse, the player can date adult women as a high schooler. including the teacher. what did we miss about the message of the very first arc? the first palace we ever did was to stop a teacher from having inherently abusive relationships with his students! what are we doing here!!!!

i don’t know. maybe i’m being dramatic, but it’s really fucked up to me how atlus will show such an amazing character arc as my introduction to the series, only to rip it away immediately after. ann takamaki could have been such an amazing character. she still is, but she could have been so much better, if only atlus and their writers didn’t hate women, and i DESPERATELY wish that was a joke or an exaggeration

thank you for your time. i need to go throw myself into the ocean.

happy birthday ann takamaki do you want me to kill atlus for you

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/truth-or-consequences/

Truth Or Consequences

Shakespeare created problems when he wrote Hamlet’s line, “…thinking makes it so.” (Act II, Scene, 2)  Pastor Ben Huelskapm seems to take the words literally. His op-ed declares, Let’s be clear, transgender women are women and transgender men are men.  Hard stop. If thinking makes it so, then Huelskapm’s statement ends the transgender debate… at least for him. Conservative thinker and psychologist Jordan Peterson has done some thinking on his own and points out that to perpetuate the human species, nature requires a sexual dichotomy. Feeling like a woman won’t satisfy that necessity. Because I explored the transgender question earlier, I won’t address it here.  Peterson’s remarks about sanity and communal rules interest me more. Sanity is not something internal, but the consequence of a harmonized social integration… Communal ‘rules’ govern the social world—have a reality that transcends the preferences and fictions of mere childhood at play. Communities define norms and these, as Peterson says, take precedence over subjective assessment. He asks, by way of example, how a  psychologist is to treat an anorexic girl. Should the doctor encourage her fantasy that she is overweight? Or might some other “truth” be brought to bear? Surprisingly, his question opens the door to the  Heisenberg principle, a discovery that informs us a photon isn’t a photon until it is seen. If truth is relative to the observer then which is “truthier,” the observation of the individual or the community? Peterson’s vote goes to communal rules and much of the time, he is correct. Society shapes the bulk of our beliefs. It decides when an individual has the presence of mind to drive a car, work, go to war, marry, serve on a jury, or hold public office. In criminal courts, juries determine an individual’s guilt or innocence regardless of the plea. These rules aren’t etched in the firmament. They alter over time, the outcome of discoveries, wars, or natural disasters, and sometimes because an individual challenges the view of the many. Henrik Ibsen’s play, Enemy of the People offers a good example of the turmoil that follows when one person’s truth clashes with the norm. As a sidebar, because democracy seeks to harmonize opposing views, in times of change, experts see it as more flexible and therefore more resilient than other forms of government. Technology has brought constant change to modern societies, forcing the brain to navigate not only between personal views and communal norms but also those found in the virtual world.  Borne of nothing more than an electronic sequence of zeros and ones, cyberspace holds sway over both private and public perception. Ask teenagers if social media enhances or diminishes their feelings of self-worth. Ask Fox News followers if the 2020 election was stolen. Even the mundane banking world is susceptible to electronic truth. Ask a teller if cryptocurrency is real.  Switzerland, a hub of the financial world, harbors so much doubt, its citizens are circulating a petition.  They aim to make access to cash a constitutional right. Switzerland isn’t alone in its worry about technology’s influence. Innovators in the field like Steve Wozniak and Elon Musk are nervous as well. Joining over a thousand of their colleagues, they’ve signed a letter to the U. S. government requesting a 6-month ban on further Artificial Intelligence (AI) development. During the interim, they urge Congress to dramatically accelerate development of robust AI governance systems. They worry that without guidelines, job losses will destabilize the economy. Of even greater concern, they fear that if unchecked, AI development might lead to the enslavement or elimination of our species. Mad or prescient, Blake Lemoine, a former Google Engineer, claims we have already educated AI to the point where it is sentient.  If true, what realities have we installed?  Ethics seems to be in short supply. Students are using it to cheat on exams and write term papers. At the community level, writer Hannah Getahun has documented countless racial and gender biases within its framework.    Without industry guidelines, some worry that technology can facilitate societal unrest and lead people to abandon communal rules in favor of personal codes. Technology facilities that tendency because it allows individuals to cherrypick data that support their opinions while discarding the rest. Members of the public who insist the June 6 assault on the capitol was a tourist gathering are among these, and Tucker Carlson of Fox News is their leader. To find truth today, we need more than Diogenes’ lamp. The terrain is no longer linear but resembles Star Trek’s multidimensional chess games. We exist in many worlds at once–personal, communal, and one that is measurable. That isn’t new, but technology adds a fourth that colors all three.          Which plane is the most endangered by it,  I don’t know.  But I fear for our inner world, the seat of human creativity, and our spiritual nature.  Will technology help us confront our vanities or allow us to give into them? If the latter, we become caged birds, free to preen our fantasies like feathers until they fall away and expose the depth of our mutilation. Only one truth is self-evident. We must agree on one plane upon which to meet because we are nothing without each other.  

[stellasolaris]

In what ways would you say Stella would struggle as a mother?

I think she’d be the type of mother who'd have no patience for the whims of a temperamental teenager. In contrast, I like to think Brandon has a better grasp on how to deal with teens and their outbursts, and therefore I imagine he’s far better at handling the dramatics of a teen kid. Stella learns a thing or two from him and adapts quickly. 

I can also imagine Stella struggling with personal boundaries, or lack thereof, wanting to know every little detail about what’s going on with her kids and their lives. She’d be deeply saddened when they start requiring more personal space and shutting her out. Not because they don’t suddenly like her or anything of that sort, but because they’re becoming more independent in their personal lives. The day her kids tell her they don’t need her to prepare their lunch boxes anymore is the day she locks herself up in the bathroom and cries because that’s when it hits her that her kids are growing up so fast and don’t need her the way they used to when they were small. It’s a tough pill for her to swallow, as I imagine her wanting to be as involved as possible in their lives, and naturally it takes a little while for her to adjust to the change of dynamics. 

[curewhimsy]

Vocal Synth Total Drama Island AU Concept (so far)

———Very Short Character Introductions——— (56 campers in all, aged 14-18) Haku Yowane- A sweet, lonely, sensitive girl with a lot of heart. Age 17. Neru Akita- A courageous tomboy who is misunderstood. Age 17. Miku Hatsune- A bubbly, cheerful, outgoing girl with a lot of friends. Age 15. Luka Megurine- An artistic girl who has a bit of anxiety. Good friends with Meiko. Age 18. Teto Kasane- A bubbly, cheerful girl with an unexpected temper and badass side. Age 15. Megumi “Gumi”- A bit shy, but underneath, she is very brave and resourceful. Age 16. Meiko Sakine- The Mom Friend. Confident and likes to help people. Age 18. Momo Momone- The nicest girl, to the point of being a pushover… Age 15. Rin Kagamine- Unhinged gremlin sibling 1. Loves causing mayhem. Age 14. Len Kagamine- Unhinged gremlin sibling 2. Loves causing chaos. Age 14. Eleanor Forte- The mean girl and drama queen. Cause of lots of drama. Age 17. Kaito Shion- The dorky boy who always has a cheesy smile on his face. Age 17. Akaito Shion- The moody playboy. More serious than Kaito, but bad-tempered. Age 18. Koto Fuuga- Nature girl. Knows all about bird calls, animal behavior, and more. Age 16. Taya Soune- An extremely polite guy. Always dresses formally. Always. Age 15. Ruko Yokune- Despite her height and quirky love of coffee, quite level-headed. Age 15. Ritsu Namine- Loud and obnoxious, but has a caring and wise side? Age 15. Merli Aoki- A snobby, pretentious girl. Not Like Other Girls. Age 17. Lapis Aoki- Mischievous and up to trouble. Merli’s sister. Age 15. Gakupo Kamui- He’s… just strange. And eccentric. And awkward. Age 17. Miku “Zatsune”- A wannabe goth. Basically, she’s in training. Thinks she’s edgy. Age 15. Uta “Defoko” Utane- A sarcastic, moody teenage girl. But she does have a sweet side. Age 15. Dell Honne- Haku’s grumpy, angsty half brother she hasn’t seen in years. Age 18. Yuuma- The popular boy. Eleanor likes him. Can be materialistic. Age 18. Dandy “704”- A very arrogant and vain guy. Quite selfish and loves to show off. Age 18. “Lady” Parsec- A commanding bully who demands and orders people around. Age 17. Yuu- A cheerful guy who likes parties and fun. Age 16. Wil- A somewhat quiet, mysterious guy who keeps to himself. Age 16. Kyo- A wild guy who is impulsive and kind of dumb. Age 16. Daina- Basically, she’s a furry. Her fursona is a fox. Age 17. Dex- Basically, he’s a furry. His fursona is a wolf. Age 17. Ruby- A girl who likes memes and is basically just vibing through life. Age 16. Yukari Yuzuki- A modest girl who has a crush on Ruby. Easily impressed. Age 16. Shian- An innocent girl who is also quick-tempered and pouts easily. Age 14. Muxin- A kind, knowledgeable boy. He loves history and astronomy. Age 14. IA- A bit mysterious and seems cold and expressionless. Age 16. Piko Utatane- Shy, quiet, and cold. Gets along with Muxin due to similar interests. Age 15. Genbu- Overly-enthusiastic and brash. A bit of a loudmouth. Age 18. Chiyu- Bold, brash, and brave. Kind-hearted and strong. Age 17. Haiyi- Talks a lot. Usually has something up her sleeve. A prank perhaps? Age 16. Leeds Kasumiga- A timid girl with a mysterious heart illness that inhibits her. Age 14. Mew- A real goth, unlike Zatsune, who is a goth-in-training. Age 18. Tei Sukone- A dastardly, manipulative villain who fools people, then bites. Age 16. Cider- A smug, self-absorbed inventor of elaborate but stupid inventions. Age 17. Bruno- An agreeable, outgoing guy who likes spreading good vibes. Age 18. Clara- Bruno’s girlfriend. A little bit timid, but always kind and optimistic. Age 17. Aku Yamine- Quiet and a bit melancholic. She’s… a different type of goth. Emo? Age 14. Lily- A tough high-school delinquent who stands up for the weak. Age 17. Amy- Cheerful, optimistic, yet quite chill. Doubts herself often however. Age 16. Chris- He might be a big guy, but he is quite shy and very gentle. Age 18. Kaori- She seems confident and bright on the outside, but hides sadness? Age 17. Ken- He’s talkative, smart, kind of a dork, but very focused and brave. Age 17. Iroha Nekomura- Innocent and sweet, but agile, with cat-like reflexes. Age 14. SeeU- Energetic, hyperactive, makes bad puns, silly, makes bad puns… Age 16. Kiyoteru Hiyama is the host of the game show. Big Al is in the role of Chef. ——Episodes——— Prologue 1- Introduction to concept. Characters see the advertisement for the game show and contemplate going on it. The winner gets a million dollars! Prologue 2- Introduction to characters via their audition videos, part 1. Kiyoteru chooses contestants. Prologue 3- Introduction to characters via their audition videos, part 2. Kiyoteru chooses contestants. Episode 1- Everyone arrives at Total Drama Island and meets each other. Some get along, and many clash. Notable big-drama-causers include Tei, Eleanor, Dandy, Parsec, Cider, Merli sometimes, and Zatsune sometimes. Koto, Genbu, Ritsu, Haiyi, Daina, and Dex stick out for being especially wild. But really, everyone’s unique personality contributes to the drama and pot of chemistry in their own way. Another camper who sticks out is Gakupo Kamui, who enthusiastically boasts about his skills in martial arts and how ready he is to win Total Drama Island. He begins to get on the nerves of the other campers. “I can out-run, out-kick, out-sing, out-wit, and even out-PISS anybody else here.” Gakupo says. “Well, can you do us a favor and GET-out?” Meiko says. Episode 2- Campers have to jump off a one thousand-foot cliff into a shark-infested lake. Then they have to pull some crates back to camp, and the team from before with the most people who jumped get carts to help them. Then they have to build a hot tub from material found in the crates. The team with the best hot tub wins the challenge. The campers who were too scared to jump off the cliff have to wear chicken costumes for the rest of the day. Despite his incessant bragging previously, Gakupo is one of the few campers who does not jump off the cliff, because it is revealed he is scared of heights, sharks, AND deep water! He even pisses himself and dramatically faints when he gets close to the edge of the cliff... and then he faints off the cliff! However, his jump isn’t accounted for, because Gakupo was not conscious during his fall. Luka has to be the one to jump in after and rescue him! This causes Gakupo of The Dangerous Dolphins to be the first campter voted off. “Well… I guess he was right about out-pissing everyone here.” Neru laughs. The other campers too scared to jump are Taya, Dandy, Eleanor, Clara, Muxin, Chris, and Kaito. Haku is at first too scared, but her best friend Neru encourages her to be brave. They jump together and yell funny things on the way down. Even though Eleanor is scared, she ends up going over anyway after Chiyu pushes her off the cliff, being sick of Eleanor’s arrogance. However, it isn’t even accounted for, because Eleanor did not jump by her own will. Clara is too frightened and doesn’t make the jump, which is surprising, because she was so enthusiastic before. However, her boyfriend Bruno jumped without her… Taya takes one look down the cliff and starts backing away, crying from fear. He feels ashamed that he’s so scared, but he cannot help it. He gets pats on the back from Clara. Dandy makes an excuse as to why he can’t jump. He says he has an open wound from a fencing accident. In reality, Dandy does not fence. Muxin is too scared, but asserts that he doesn’t have to jump off the cliff if he doesn’t want to, and that the challenge is ridiculous. He then comforts Taya, who is curled up sobbing, and tells him not to feel shame. Taya and Muxin become friends, but sadly are on different teams. Chris is too scared and actually starts crying too. People don’t expect it. Kaito is scared to jump, panics and makes a bit of a scene, and is then picked on and belittled by his brother Akaito for the rest of the day. Kaito then vows he will become braver from here on. Braver, and stronger! Leeds actually does jump from the cliff, but it causes her heart to become weak and she has trouble walking for the rest of the day. Some of the members on her team rudely deem her a nuisance, but others tell her to take it easy and understand her. Afterwards, Clara gets a bit sour at Bruno, who is her boyfriend, for jumping the cliff without noticing she was too scared. Koto jumps the cliff and she actually has fun. But afterwards, she wears a chicken suit anyway, because she loves birds. Episode 3- The challenge is to stay awake the longest in the "Awake-A-Thon" after running twenty-kilometers and eating a huge meal that includes turkey, which is known for making people sleepy. Dell of The Killer Porpoises gets voted off for falling asleep first. He generally has a bad attitude and is apathetic. Haku feels heartbroken because Total Drama Island was the first time she had seen Dell since her parents’ divorce (by complete chance, even,) and he is not the warm person he used to be. Also, the time was so short. But unexpectedly, Dell acts nice to Haku right before he leaves, calling her to his room when he’s packing to go off the island. They have a nice conversation. Before Haku says goodbye, Dell says “Listen, I’m just not cut out for this wacky game. So you better win. I KNOW you can do it.” Haku begins crying and hugs Dell. Just like when they were kids. There will eventually be a list of who falls asleep first to last, but that’s quite convoluted. So I will say Dell falls asleep first, and Ruko second. Campers were not allowed to drink coffee during the challenge, rendering our Long Sleeper without access to her “secret weapon.” Koto stays up the longest, because she is a bird lover and loves birds too much to consume them. She was the only one who didn’t eat any turkey with her meal, and therefore didn’t become as sleepy. Also simply because she is badass and feral. Episode 4- A best-of-five dodgeball game. Five people are randomly chosen on each team. This is repeated three times for a total of three rounds of dodgeball. The Dangerous Dolphins win 2 out of 3 games. Zatsune of The Killer Porpoises gets voted off for being scared of dodgeball. It was a fear ingrained into her from her elementary school days, when the “dodgeball kids would bully her.” Sadly, since Zatsune always acts so cocky, nobody feels much sympathy now. Taya and Muxin want to spend time with each other. Being on different teams, they can’t, and are deemed traitors. But when Tei, on Taya’s team, suggests Taya could get valuable information about the other team via Muxin, Taya refuses to sabotage their friendship. This causes Tei to begin picking on Taya… Episode 5- A three-on-three talent show contest. Dex of The Killer Porpoises gets voted off for no reason. He wasn’t even in the talent show! Dandy wanted to get chosen by his team, the Dangerous Dolphins, to be in the talent show, claiming his “talent” was unmatched. However, he wasn’t chosen because he didn’t exactly have any real actual skills despite his claim! Taya, Luka, and Gumi are eventually chosen by the Dangerous Dolphins for their talents in music. Luka will play piano, Taya will play the violin, and Gumi will play the electric bass as they all sing a song cover. This causes Dandy to criticize their every note and call them amateur. Given Taya and Gumi’s low self-esteem, Dandy’s criticism gets to them before the final talent show. As for the Killer Porpoises, Yuuma, Ritsu, and IA get chosen as the team’s musicians. They form more of an idol dance group, with a pre-recorded background track. (It will also be a cover.) The Dangerous Dolphins actually win. If they were to have lost, Dandy would’ve probably been the one voted off for being a prick. Episode 6- Campers have to go to the forest, stay out there overnight, then race back to the campgrounds in the morning. Yukari of the Killer Porpoises gets voted off. See, it wasn’t really Yukari’s fault, but… she got attacked by a bear and is now too injured to stay for the game, so the voting off was mandatory, even though the Killer Porpoises otherwise won. Everyone becomes more-or-less traumatized at this, and feel very hurt for Yukari. Episode 7- Campers have to face their worst fear, specific to each camper. Yuuma gets voted off. Koto’s worst fear is the perfume department from Spongebob, because that scene scarred her as a little kid. So the host of the game show, Kiyoteru, magically opens a door to the perfume department at a real department store and Koto has to walk through it. Koto only makes it 5 steps in before she runs out, screaming. She does not pass her fear test! Yuuma is scared of the Crab Rave because there are too many crabs. So he is taken to a part of the island overrun by crabs, and Kiyoteru turns on the Crab Rave song and they all start dancing. Yuuma dives into the water screaming. But the crabs chase him. He doesn’t pass his fear test. Taya attempts to outwit Kiyoteru and pretends he is afraid of strawberry shortcake, which is actually his favorite food. But everyone remembers how scared he was in the first challenge at the cliff. So Taya’s specific challenge is to jump off the cliff this time… Episode 8- Row a canoe to Boney Island, portage across the island, start a bonfire, and canoe back to camp. Wil gets voted off. Episode 9- Hunt the other team dressed as deers with paintball guns, or if one is a deer, avoid being hit by them. Piko gets voted off. Episode 10- Create a three-course meal for Kiyoteru to judge. Three chefs are chosen from each team. Miku gets voted off. Episode 11- Participate in a set of three-out-of-five trust exercises. Shian gets voted off. Episode 12- Make it through Big Al’s life-threatening and disgusting boot-camp challenges. IA gets voted off. Episode 13- Participate in three extreme sport challenges. The challenges are "sofa skydiving", riding a moose while avoiding being tossed off it, and water-skiing on mud. Lapis gets voted off. Episode 14- Eat a nine course meal of disgusting food made by Big Al. Drink shot glasses of blended cockroaches. Yuu gets voted off. Episode 15- Episode 16- Episode 17- Episode 18- Episode 19- Episode 20- Episode 21- Episode 22- Episode 23- Episode 24- Episode 25- Episode 26- Episode 27- Episode 28- Episode 29- Episode 30- Episode 31 Episode 32- Episode 33- Episode 34- Episode 35- Episode 36- Episode 37- Episode 38- Episode 39- Episode 40- Episode 41- Episode 42- Episode 43- After this challenge, the teams are disbanded. It’s now every camper for themself. Episode 44- Get through several rounds of torture, lasting at least ten seconds in each one. Eleanor gets voted off because she can’t take torture. Episode 45- Receive a clue to find a key hidden somewhere in the island to open a treasure chest containing a prize. Ritsu found a dud chest and his prize was… getting voted off. Episode 46- Avoid getting sprayed by Big Al’s water gun in a game of hide and seek. Parsec gets voted off. Good riddance! Episode 47- Build a bike from scratch, and then race it. Who rides who’s bike? Anyway, Dandy gets voted off. Probably because he’s 7 foot 4 and huge. He probably broke all the bikes. Episode 48- Watch a horror movie and then avoid being captured by a "deranged killer". Gumi gets voted off because she was scared. Episode 49- Catch the specific animal assigned by Kiyoteru and bring it back to the campground unharmed. Taya had to bring back a raccoon. He came back first. Koto had to bring back a bear. She came back second. What a total beast! And I’m talking about KOTO! Genbu had to bring back an eagle. He came back third. Leeds had to bring back a frog. She came back fourth. Kaito had to being back a squirrel. He came back fifth. Haku had to bring back a moose. She came back sixth. Tei gets sent off because she couldn’t bring back a mere chipmunk. The little chipmunk was trained in king-fu and ended up beating her up! Hooray! Episode 50- Compete in the following while handcuffed to one of the other campers: eat disgusting food with your hands behind your back while the person handcuffed to you feeds you, return a fragment of Haku’s cursed tiki idol to Boney Island, and assemble a totem pole with the wooden heads of the voted out campers in the order that they are eliminated. Taya gets voted off. Episode 51- Campers have to find Kiyoteru and Big Al after being washed away by a storm. Leeds gets voted off because her condition came to its worse. Her weak heart had finally failed on her and she suffered a heart attack. She was doing so good in the game despite her shortcomings, and will serve as an inspiration for many. Leeds will not die. She is in good hands. She will get top medical care. Now, a twist is revealed to the audience. Everyone who was voted off actually went to go to a beautiful island resort. The remaining campers still don’t know about this. When Leeds finally gets consciousness back, she finds she is in paradise. At first, she thinks she is dead. The room then fills up with everyone else voted off, and she begins crying. “They really killed you?” She cries. “No, Leeds!” Yukari says. “You’re alive! You made it… to Paradise Island!” Episode 52- An episode dedicated to the Island of Losers, which is actually a five-star island resort paradise. Yukari has fully recovered from her injuries. Gakupo and all the others who were eliminated early finally get their time to shine! The losers will also be involved in the episodes to come, as they will be the audience. Episode 53- The campers have to find their way back to camp after being left in the wild with limited supplies. Unexpectedly, our total beast, Koto Fuuga, comes back last. Rumors have it, this is because she found a bird sanctuary and got distracted. Episode 54- Survive a series of dares, given by the eliminated campers until someone drops out. Haku is forced to do something horrible by Tei. Tei dares Haku to joke around and portray offensive stereotypes. On national TV. She just can’t do it… She drops out, but not before insulting Tei to her face. But Kaito says Haku made the right choice. She sacrificed her chance to win a million dollars so that Tei didn’t have to force her to make a choice that could hurt people when they see it on TV. Kaito thinks Haku deserves an amazing consolation prize. Genbu respects Haku for this as well. Episode 55- The two remaining campers have to climb a pole and retrieve a flag, walk across a board on top of shark-infested waters while carrying an eagle's egg, and run a race to cross the finish line. Kaito is about to give up… but… There is ice cream at the finish line! Kaito makes a mad dash to the finish line and wins Total Drama Island!! Episode 56- Kaito won! But there is a twist. In order to actually win the million dollars, he has to find the a case containing the $1,000,000 and bring it to the Dock of Shame before anyone else does! This is a race between him and all the other campers! If any of the other campers being it to the Dock of Shame before Kaito, there will be a whole second season of Total Drama Island, and Kaito will have to win all over again before he gets his million dollars… ———Teams——— ———The Dangerous Dolphins——— Taya Chiyu Meiko Kyo Koto Tei Momo Neru Akaito Clara Gakupo Gumi Shian Dandy Luka Merli Daina Haiyi Lily Len Amy Ken SeeU Cider Teto Haku Uta ———The Killer Porpoises——— Yuuma Zatsune Mew Eleanor Ruby Dell Kaito Ruko Ritsu Wil Leeds Genbu Dex Bruno Iroha Miku Piko IA Chris Kaori Yuu Parsec Rin Lapis Yukari Aku Muxin ———Notable relationships——— Familial- Akaito and Kaito are brothers. Lapis and Merli are adoptive sisters. Haku and Dell are half-siblings who don’t live together, and haven’t seen each other in years before Total Drama Island. Rin and Len are twin siblings. Haku and Miku are cousins. Amy and Chris are cousins. Kaori and Ken are twin siblings, yet distant. They didn’t grow up in the same household. Ruko has a close cousin named Rook, who isn’t on TDI. Momo has an older brother, Momotaro, who isn’t on TDI. Uta has a younger sister, Koe, and two older brothers, Hibiki and Kanade, who aren’t on TDI. Teto has an older brother, Ted, who isn’t on TDI. Leeds has an older brother, Loop, who isn’t on TDI. Yukari has a little sister named Akari who isn’t on TDI. IA has a little sister named One who isn’t on TDI. Friendship- Miku, Rin, Len, and Luka have been a group of friends before TDI Haku and Neru were best friends before TDI Dex and Daina were best friends before TDI Momo, Teto, and Uta were best friends before TDI Ruko meets Ritsu and they become best friends Taya and Muxin become unlikely friends, despite being on different teams Romance- Bruno and Clara were dating before TDI Teto and Momo’s friendship eventually becomes romance. Haku meets Luka and they form a budding romance Amy meets Kaori and they form a budding romance Taya meets Uta and they form a budding romance Muxin meets Piko and they form a budding romance Lily meets Gumi and they form a budding romance Crushes- Len has always a crush on Miku. Tei has an obsessive crush on Kaito. Yukari has a crush on Ruby. Leeds has an embarrassing crush on Genbu. Eleanor has a crush on Yuuma. Ken has a crush on Chris. Dandy has a crush on Parsec. Akaito has a crush on Haku. Zatsune has a crush on Mew. She denies it. Gumi has a crush on IA. Dislike- Dandy and Cider always fight… with a weird sort of tension. Akaito and Uta don’t get along Miku Zatsune and Miku Hatsune don’t get along Lily and Merli don’t get along (MORE COMING SOON)

[bookwormgirl123]

OKAY SO BASICALLY

earlier this week, like wednesday i think, i was going to my locker as usual, and as i opened it, a sticky note fell out!

now, i have a bunch of random papers in my locker, so at first i thought nothing of it, but THEN I TURNED IT OBER, AND-

“you have pretty eyes

-your secret admirer”

i was, as you can imagine, FLABBERGASTED (arospec, never dated anyone in any way) and at first i was shocked, then excited, and then i reasoned out that it must be a prank.

so, that was that. that was at lunch (the school i go to has you completely dismissed from lunch. you’re encouraged to leave)

my sister, despite being younger, is far (far = she had one boyfriend and they never even went on one date, dramatic effect lol - that has some lore too but idk if it’s my place to spill it…) more experienced with this stuff than i am, so, naturally, i went to her first

she looked at it, and had one reaction: telemarketing (we’ll call Possible Admirer #1 ‘telemarketing’ ‘cause his name starts with a ‘t’ and inspired by how the epic fandom refers to telemachus as telemarketing. his name isn’t telemachus, i just think it’s funny)

if i’m honest, he was my first guess, too.

i then told her about my theory of it being a prank, she told me that it was possible (< - in a way that was less nice than i phrased it here. cause. y’know. siblings). i got another after school, though i can’t remember what it said (i'm out of town rn, so i can’t check lol)

thursday came, and, lo and behold, there was a second sticky. this one read; “your aesthetic is so unique and beautiful, i love it. i also love your hairstyles. -your secret admirer” (lowkey this one made me cringe…moving on) (actually let’s not move on, just for a sec: AESTHETIC????? WHAT AESTHETIC????? YOU MEAN IF A GRANDMA WORE JEANS?????. okay. now we can move on)

two interesting things about this one: one, telemarketing saw me reading this note. he asked me what it was, i showed it to him. “you have a secret admirer?” “i think it’s a prank.” “damn.” (i later told my mom [a teenager???? talking to their parents????? about their life????? in this day and age?????? shocking, i know] and she told me it was suspicious. i may need a second opinion on that; please lmk)

the second is that this sticky note was inside my locker - stuck to the upper part of it. that really freaked me out.

at break, another (the notes became more frequent; did telemarketing see i received it and therefore ‘send’ more?)

lunch that day, i received another, ‘i’ve had a crush on you since 2022. -you’re secret admirer’

hold up, 2022?!

now, this is another bit of bookworm lore that i don’t really have time to get into rn, but i moved at the end of 2022, stayed for 2023, and moved back.

more importantly, i didn’t have any classes with telemarketing until this year - sure, i heard his name prior to this year, but never really met him until this year (i mean, he could’ve had a crush without ‘knowing’ me, but it seems unlikely…maybe that’s the aromanticism talking, though…)

however! that opens the door to four new potential admirers (sticking to meme-y names): copper, greyhound, california, and alberta (i have reasoning for every one of these ‘names’ lol) (typing this, i realize that i’m only including the men in this list…however i live in a very small town, and i'm friends with most of the girls my age, so if any of them had a crush on me i feel i would’ve noticed… or at least recognized their handwriting lol)

there’s also another possibility, ukulele (we both learned how to play the ukulele in our music class), who i was half-considering at the beginning…though i doubt it now - i don’t think he’s lived here since 2022 lol. just throwing it out there

HOWEVER!!!!!!! on the backside of this note (which was on a scrap piece of paper, not a sticky note - not really important, but i wanted to point it out bc i'm Like That lol) there was a second message: i had to improvise

what does it mean? improvise with that note, or just improvise in the past? either way, it points somewhat to telemarketing. (also, i noticed at this point that each note included a little sketch of glasses. does it mean anything? probably not. thought i’d give you all the information)

now, i know what you’re thinking: it’s obviously telemarketing (or maybe not. idk)

but!!!!! the plot thickens.

so, i left town on thursday, but my sister offered to be my ‘secret agent’ as she put it, and check my locker for notes

she gave me no update on thursday, but on friday, she sent me a picture: an orange sticky note that read: “to [redacted], i really like you, genuinely. you’re really funny and energetic. -your secret admirer”

PLOT TWIST!!!!!!! telemarketing, according to my sister, wasn’t at school friday. she did, however, say that it could have been from yesterday, which could mean one of two things - one, telemarketing left it thursday after school and my sister didn’t have enough time to check my locker. two, it was one of the other five possible admirers. (or, secret third option, i was way off and it’s someone completely out of the blue)

it’s the weekend in my time zone, but if there’s an update monday i'll be sure to let you know! (if you want)

well. that’s everything. if you read this all the way through, thanks! and also i hope it was somewhat enjoyable.

sad bc nobody asked me about the bookworm lore < / 3

[bandaged-writer]

Hi! Can I request some falling in love headcanons for Dazai and Mori (seperately) with a fem reader? What would take for them to love someone? How will they react when they realise that they do? Thank you!

I hope you’ll enjoy it! <3

Warnings: mentions of suicide, because it’s Dazai

Dazai Osamu

➤ Dazai said it himself that he likes all women, therefore he doesn’t exactly have a type when it comes to appearance. What’s more important to him are your intentions, the way you think, what makes you tick – everything that makes up the constellation of your mind.

➤ Someone who’s genuinely kind would probably draw his attention the most, similar to Oda and Atsushi who Dazai also feels drawn to. Kindness is easy to read and has no ulterior motive other than making people feel appreciated or to spread some positivity in such a negative world. It’s so interesting for him, because Dazai was probably raised by Mori for the majority of his life and was taught to always find some kind of profit or gain something from the person opposite of him. But you? You don‘t want anything but a simple thank you, although these words are of no use to anyone.

➤ Please, care about him and for him. Dazai has probably never received the care a normal child or teenager usually experiences and even as an adult, everyone is so used to Dazai being reckless that no one actually cares if he disappears, drowining in the river, etc. It’s easy to catch him off-guard when you scold him for another suicide attempt and tell him that he does mean something to you, ask if he’s recently changed his bandages or just bring him something from the Uzumaki coffee shop below the Agency. Dazai will definitely appreciate it, although he doesn’t understand why exactly you react so differently compared to everyone else.

➤ Talking of not understanding other people: You don’t have to understand his train of thought or his plans for missions, he doesn’t expect you to. But you have to put your entire trust in Dazai even if his strategy sounds like pure suicide.

➤ Realizes he’s falling for you when he stops asking you for a lovers‘ suicide. Yes, Dazai is still hung up on the idea of committing a pure, cheerful and energetic suicide that doesn’t bother anyone and preferably with a pretty lady by his side. But you’ve told him about your hopes, dreams, past and said all these factors with such pure trust that Dazai can’t find it in him to let you die. He’s responsible for a lot of crimes and tragedies, but he doesn’t think he could stand the responsibilty of having taken away everything you are. And so, his request stops. Towards any woman, for that matter. Why should he flirt with anyone when his heart was already drawn to someone else?

➤ Dazai doesn’t say anything about his feelings right away, though. He analyzes if you perhaps feel the same way about him by watching you a bit more intently, learning your body language and sees if your gaze towards him is any different, if your touch lingers longer than before, if you blush around him or whenever his name is dropped in a conversation.

➤ Possibility of falling into denial. He used to be a mafia executive, is a man with the blood of many on his hands and committed countless of crimes in the past. Not only that, but Odasaku did tell Dazai that there was nothing which could fill that lonely hole in his heart, so why should you be able to change that? Could you change it at all? Odasaku was an incredibly perceptive man who was the first person to understand Dazai, so why should Oda be wrong about his last words? Dazai denies himself of the possibilty of letting you into his life.

➤ Whines Kunikida’s ear off of wanting to date you, but giving ridiculous reasons why he can’t bring himself to do it. “If you complain about wanting to court [Name] one more time, I’ll sew that mouth of yours shut so you’ll never get to do it at all.“

➤ “Kunikida, I can still write it.“

➤ If he falls into denial, you need to confront him about it and do not let Dazai joke it off. You noticed that something about Dazai was off when he stopped his flirting attempts or quit shoving his reports to someone else and did them himself though slowly and with still some dramatic whining. When you don’t let him off the hook, Dazai will eventually spill the beans.

➤ “Spit it out, what’s wrong with you? I promise I won’t tell anyone.“

➤ “You, my belladonna, are giving me such an incredibly hard time by making me want to take you out on a lovely date, but what kind of mere man could dare to court a beauty of your caliber?!“

➤ Despite Dazai’s theatrical act, you know it’s his way of being somewhat vulnerable and confess your feelings as well. It’s at that moment when Dazai drops the dramatic facade and properly asks you out with a soft smile on his face, seeing the chance of the lonely hole in his heart slowly being filled.

Mori Ougai

➤ Is definitely attracted to someone who has her own head, knows what she wants and carry through with her words. Mori has no interest in someone who he can use like a doll whenever he wants, but wants someone who can think and dares to talk back to him, make suggestions on how to run the mafia and bring good arguments on why certain things should be changed, why supplier xy could harm the mafia, etc.

➤ Mori quickly takes a liking to someone with rational thinking, but also questions it, searches for several solutions to a problem and choose the one with the least casualties and the most profit. It takes some self-reflection and courage to disregard your usual way of thinking and admit that maybe the solution you don’t like is the most optimal one. It shows that you’re capable of putting your own ego or even desires aside for the sake of something bigger.

➤ You have to be loyal to the bone. No questions asked.

➤ Grows a soft spot for you when you play with Elise and she actually gets along with you. Mori is an absolute sucker for Elise laughing and being happy, so whenever the girl laughs because of you while drawing or playing some game while he’s busy with paperwork, Mori admits that you must be an interesting person. After all, Elise doesn’t pay everyone much mind or ignores their presence. However, Elise seems to really enjoy your presence.

➤ Falling for someone is something curious. Feelings develop before one can notice they grew, and so Mori sees you in his office more often and finds your presence to be surprisingly pleasant. Instead of talking about the mafia’s business, the conversation becomes more personal and you let him in on your private life, not thinking too much of it.

➤ Conversations vary between the two of you. It can be something as trivial as Mori complaining about his coffee tasting funny to more philosophical questions such as why people are born without their consent, why death is important, why people are so humane although the brain is built like a computer filled with data. It keeps Mori’s brain going and he likes the change of pace of not having to talk in a business way all the time.

➤ Mori’s out shopping with Elise and finds himself stopping at a sun dress for women, not girls. It catches Elise’s attention and she immediately knows what’s up. She personally witnesses how much time Mori spends with you and how he stopped using you as a mere pawn for his chess games. “Are you seriously thinking about another woman while I’m here?!“

➤ “Elise, it’s not like that, I swear!“ Mori tries to defend himself, but she caught him redhanded.

➤ He has never seen you wearing a dress, so Mori is curious to find out how the article of clothing would suit you and the more he dwells on the thought, the more he realizes he’s falling for you. Usually, only Elise was on his mind during their shopping trips, but now someone else interfers with that routine and he doesn’t mind it too much. Mori does feel sorry for Elise though. He had planned on buying her so much, yet here he was, thinking about getting you something as well.

➤ Unlike Dazai, Mori doesn’t himself of a relationship, although he knows it could tarnish your image at the mafia. He’s well aware of women being accused of sleeping their way up tot he top, although they have to work twice as hard as men to get the position they aim for. Naturally, he doesn’t want it to happen to you. How dare someone speak such vulgar assumptions about his [Name]?

➤ “By the way, I got you a dress when I was shopping with Elise.“

➤ “You WHAT?!“

➤ You still try the dress on and Mori finds himself wanting to buy you more, wanting to spoil you like Elise and wanting to see the rare blush on your cheeks. But that sight was only for his sight to see!

➤ “You should wear that dress for our date.“

➤ “This would sound more convincing if you didn’t say it with such a straight face, but I’m definitely not refusing.“

[evitachristine]

Anti-Hophie Rant

So I finally finished reading One True King, and this is what I have to say. It’s long. 

WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!

Before I get into this, just a small warning: If Hophie is your OTP and embodiment of perfection, this text is not for you. I will not argue with anyone, alright?

To start this off, in my opinion OTK is the weakest of the series. It just feels like a connection between the last book and the fact that Tedros has to become the King. Some might argue that the second book was the worst, well, I disagree. It’s not just because Hophie happens here, but I kind of believe that when the internet spoiled to me that my hated ship was going to happen (because I had to wait until the book comes out in my country), I was expecting more from it. That I would actually be convinced it’s meant to be, which didn’t happen. Also the execution of some characters (Ahem...Merlin) was just...why. It seemed to me that there were a lot of other fan services in this book, apart from Hort and Sophie getting together, but more about that later. 

 I need to remember this for good, and next time I become a fan of something, I will avoid its fanbase. I do not mean to offend anyone, but a fanbase can really ruin a platform, especially when the platform is still developping and the fanbase is influencing it, which I believe did happen a lot with SGE. I will not deny that a fandom can improve such thing - that is definitely true as well - but sometimes the line between improving and ruining is slim, and if it doesn’t ruin the platform, then it might ruin a couple of fans’ experience of it. 

Now to the point of me hating Hophie.

As I mentioned in my previous post, and above. When I discovered the fandom and found out that people are shipping Hort and Sophie, I asked myself “But why? Sophie doesn’t like Hort.” and I kind of thought this was a joke or a meme ship. I always ship characters where both sides have at least a visible bit of attraction towards each other. Whether its friends to lovers or enemies to lovers. Hophie, until the last book and half, was not the case. It was a typical example of unrequited crush, Sophie once only used Hort to make Tedros jealous. But if my mind isn’t tricking me, she was always disgusted by him and even during their first encounter, he attempted to harass her! And the fact that “they were still kids back then” is not an excuse to me. 

Allow me to make a slight turn from SGE. When I was about 8-10, my mum took me to see an opera called Turandot. I will not bother you with opera, but long story short: A princess is very beautiful and a lot of men want to marry her. So she is giving everyone three questions, if they answer incorrectly, they are executed. Everyone are getting executed until a prince in disguise arrives and is in love with her, answers all questions correctly. Princess doesn’t want to marry him tho, so he asks her to guess his name and if she succeeds, he will gladly die. The princess doesn’t feel love at all and doesn’t want to fall in love. She believes she is a saint. Then in a dramatic duet the prince kisses her and ALL OF SUDDEN the princess falls in love with him. 

Whew. Sorry, I tried to make this as short as possible. I remember asking my mum after this: “Why is the girl always forced to love the boy?” Little me didn’t like this idea of a “magical kiss” already, lol. Mum’s answer was “Because it was written by a boy.”, but that’s not even my point here. Do you see the pattern? Girl keeps refusing guy but in the end he still gets her. THIS RIGHT HERE is the main reason why I hate Hophie. It reinforces the stereotype that if a guy is persistent enough, he will get the girl even if she said no a million times. 

Another note I’d like to say about this, and I’m going to receive hate for this opinion. I started book 1 when I was 16. Now I’m in my early twenties and I get that most SGE readers are still teenagers. The age of crushes, clumsy love experiments, etc. OK now I sound like a grandma. But I think this is where Hophie stems from. Everyone are seeing themselves in Hort. Your crush doesn’t like you back, his crush doesn’t like him back. Something like Éponine in Les Misérables. If Marius and Sophie both fall in love with the person who likes them, it’s like the crush of the fan does. Can we call this the Hort-Éponine complex? 

Aside from that, I believe that people who already experienced both sides of unrequited love (like yours truly grandma, right here), meaning Sophie’s side of it, are less likely to support such ships. 

I will now dive into the OTK “resolution” of this pairing. First let me just say, this book made me, if not hate, then at least strongly dislike Hort’s character. The first half of the book and even a some time after before he finally gets with Sophie, his character is disgusting to me. He is so obsessed with her, even while he’s still dating Nicola. As in my previous post, it’s like a huge part of his character is only “I LOVE SOPHIE”. While he’s still with Nicola, he never fails to mention “his FRIEND Sophie”. I will now paraphrase because I read a translation, not the original, but even when Hort’s singing to the guards to distract them so Agatha and Tedros can sneak into the Library, he sings something along the lines “Girlfriend Nikki and friend Soph”. I’m not sure if this was meant to convince the reader that Sophie ending up with Hort is a good idea, but with me, it did the exact opposite. 

In general, their “romance” feels extremely rushed to me. Compared to Sophie’s previous love interests, regardless of who they were as people, these two have zero chemistry. It seems as if Sophie decided to settle because there was no other guy for her. And the description of her suddenly being in love with him, as mentioned above, is another of those “magical kiss” stories. It is hardly believable and kind of... shallow. 

There even were several moments when Rafal was mentioned. In COT, when the protagonists wanted to flee Camelot but Sophie decided to stay, she saw Hort flying to her and she mistook him for Rafal. Goodness. Even in OTK there were a few moments when it seemed that Sophie still has issues from that relationship. Very few, but they were there. 

Therefore I refuse to believe that the reason for this was anything other than to satisfy the majority of the fandom. In addition, the entire book feels like one huge “fan service”, as other ships are “sailing” as well. We have Hestadil and Bogden/Willam, but these two are at least believable. Hestadil started, even tho inconspicously, two books ago, and it resolved naturally. And beforehand they were close friends, so there’s that. As for the boys, they were side characters, so we can only think that all resolved while they were off the scene. 

To sum it up, I thought of three different endings I’d prefer for Sophie. 

On the first place, this was mentioned several times by other people, is that she should have stayed on her own. That happened in TLEA, but this time, really. I hated that OTK made it seem that she really needs a partner. Yes, love, but heck... is romantic love the only thing that is out there? How about friendship? Content with oneself? Pursuing hobbies that you love? Freedom? Come on. Awesome characters that end up single AND ARE HAPPY should have more representation. And I think Sophie would have been amazing like that. 

On the second place I have two things. First, Sophie with a girl. Only I’m not sure who. Maybe Nicola, or Betty if she survived. Or maybe, people might hate me for this, but... Dot? I don’t ship it but I think it could have been cute. Maybe they would start off getting closer as friends and the rest would be left up to the reader’s imagination.

The other preferable ending I have at second place was originally on the third place, but some weird nostalgia overcame me when reading OTK and I had to move it up. People will hate me. But if Sophie should end up with a guy, it should have been Rhian. Yes, I know what you are thinking right now. But think about it. That guy really believed he was Arthur’s son. Imagine if he found out the truth. Something tells me it would be really hard for him at first, but in the end, if he found out that Japeth really only wants Aric, he could’ve joined the protagonists. In my opinion Sophie had the best dynamic with him, before it all spiralled downwards with snakes etc. Maybe he could pretend to help his twin but in the end... I believe I read something like this somewhere on Tumblr as well. Also this kind of feels as if it could have been Soman’s original plan before he turned to pleasing the fans. Or maybe I’m just fantasising too much.  Regardless of how much you’re cursing me right now, I believe Rhian deserved better and shouldn’t have died. After all, he was the better twin. 

As for Hort, well, before OTK I didn’t really care for his character, I didn’t dislike him but he wasn’t my favourite. I simply wished him well hoping he’ll get over Sophie so he can be happy, either with Nicola/someone else, or on his own. After the last book made me resent him, I’m not sure. He could have died, but I know that is cruel. 

He could have been slowly realising that he doesn’t need Sophie, his love would fade away, maybe Nicola could break up with him in the process, then they would get back together, at a natural pace, realisation, etc. Or they wouldn’t, or they wouldn’t break up at all, just separate on different missions, and then reunite and realise they were truly meant to be together all along. 

Whew, if you made it here, congratulations. If you read this as a Hophie shipper, I’m not taking away your opinion. I just needed to let this out. Hope we can respect each other. 

...But I still kinda wish we could get another version of OTK where Hophie doesn’t happen. 

[incomingalbatross]

So, I was wondering, when it comes to your Greg Pines AU do you have any thoughts on how Wirt would relate to his step-family?

Ooh, thank you! This is a very good ask, especially since I’ve been thinking more about my version of the Pines Family Tree lately. :)

So I actually have two answers to this, dependent on my two variant ideas for this step-family’s origins. I will talk about BOTH, because I can’t choose...although that also makes this pretty long. Sorry.

Background: my background is a little complicated, because for timeline purposes I decided Wirt had to be the baby in that one AToTS shot. THEREFORE, I have decided that Shermie met Wirt and Greg’s mom (her placeholder name is Rachel and they had related jobs in NYC) when she was pregnant with Wirt, but Wirt’s father was already out of the picture because he was Not Good Parent Material. Shermie, though, A) really liked Rachel and B) thought she deserved support regardless, and so he offered said support and also got his mom to befriend Rachel. So Ma Pines happened to be taking care of Baby Wirt temporarily the night Stan was disowned.

Two scenarios branching off from here:

Scenario 1: Things didn’t work out between Rachel and Shermie, they parted ways, and she raised Wirt on her own...only to reconnect some years later when Wirt was seven or eight.

In this scenario, Wirt was at first pretty resentful of Shermie’s presence in their lives, and while he eventually accepted him for his mom’s sake, he assumed that Shermie was only tolerating him for his mom’s sake as well. Greg’s birth also gave Wirt some additional insecurities about his place in their family. HOWEVER, I think the events of OTGW canon got Wirt past some of this and led to growth in their relationship.

He’s met Ma and Filbrick, and they visit Shermie’s family, though Ma maintains contact more than Filbrick does. She treats Wirt and Greg pretty much equally as her grandchildren, but Wirt’s never gotten to know her very well, and is one of those kids who sees family visits as being Awkward and Uncomfortable anyway--he doesn’t like strangers in his home! It’s nerve-wracking! So he doesn’t dislike his step-grandparents, but he doesn’t like them either.

Scenario 2 (which doesn’t line up as well with the apparent Creator’s Intent for OTGW, but I like it): Things DO work out between Shermie and Rachel, they get married while Wirt is still tiny, and he grows up with that arrangement. In fact, by the time he’s a teenager Wirt is completely unaware Shermie is not his birth dad, and finds this out very abruptly shortly before the events of OTGW. His parents swear he used to know this! They didn’t realize he forgot! Wirt, meanwhile, maintains that he NEVER knew this and his life is a LIE...

Basically, this reframes OTGW as Wirt’s extended “What Do You MEAN I’m Adopted?” identity crisis, which entertains me.

Anyway, in this scenario Wirt loves Shermie as his dad and values his good opinion immensely, although he still sometimes feels his dad doesn’t Understand him (because, y’know, Wirt is highly self-conscious and Shermie doesn’t naturally talk about things like poetry and teen angst). After the Shocking Revelation, the “he can’t relate to me” angst is dialed up to about fifteen, along with a sizable helping of Betrayal and insecurity, and leads Wirt to decide that actually they don’t have a real relationship. Shermie is just trying to wait this storm out, basically...and then OTGW happens. Which actually helps a LOT, because A) Wirt acquires some perspective and B) again, Shermie is horrified to have nearly lost BOTH his sons and he shows it.

In this world Wirt knows the Pines parents as his grandparents all along. Ma still has more contact with the family (and Filbrick does not give Wirt and Greg equal treatment, but he’s a jerk all-round so Wirt just registers that as general disapproval of himself), and Wirt is still Awkward and Uncomfortable around them, but I think he’s more at ease with Ma in this one? Probably.

In either case, I’ve decided that Shermie reconnects with Stan not long after OTGW, in fall/winter of ‘83. Prior to this, Wirt was only vaguely aware that Shermie had siblings (Ford wasn’t in touch, Stan obviously wasn’t, and Shermie doesn’t know how to talk about them given all that baggage) and after...I think he eventually learns that there was another brother who died and that it’s too painful to ask anyone about, but that’s it.

After this, Stan doesn’t visit much, for Secret Portal Reasons, but he is happy to meet both boys and occasionally send them presents. Wirt is put off by his loudness and tendency to willfully embarrass others *coughWIRTcough*, so they have a rocky start, but things improve.

(When Wirt was a baby, Teen Stan ADORED him. He was the first baby he’d ever known personally and Stan thought he was just the greatest. He and Ford--who also thought Baby Wirt was amazing--babysat sometimes. There was some casual child endangerment but also Ford would tell him science facts in a Very Serious Voice and Stan would let the baby “punch” him and then dramatically reel back.

Eventually Stan will actually tell Wirt enough of this to get them past the aforementioned rocky start.)

In the end, Wirt probably thinks of Stan as the eccentric relative (which takes doing in this family, admittedly!) whose life was marred by tragedy but who’s still family. They’re not in close contact once Wirt’s an adult but if he ever heard Stan was in trouble, I think he’d step up.

...I feel like there’s a lot more that could be said about Wirt’s relationships here, and I’m not 100% sure of all my conclusions, but it’s what I’ve got tonight. Thank you for asking! Although this may be More Words than you signed up for. :P

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Thoughts on Karin’s Magical Girl Story

Another collection of thoughts and reactions, plus analyzing some small changes the NA translation made (similar to the translation comparison I did for Alina’s MGS a while back).

Starting off with not a change, but an interesting note: Karin and Alina’s club situation is rather strange.  Alina is the “outsider” from the Art Club, while Karin is part of the Manga Club.  The classroom they share, though, doesn’t appear to be the main space for either club.  I’d initially assumed that it was the room originally used for the Manga Club, but once Arc 2 updates these backgrounds...

It turns out this actually is an art classroom!  I guess the school just has two?

First major change: Just like in Alina’s MGS, they removed direct references to Karin and Alina’s ages.  The reference to Karin’s age at the start of the Magical Halloween Theater event was also changed.

(In JP here, Alina was said to have won a lot of different awards “for a 16 year old,” while Karin stated her age as 14 in the MHT event.)

Again, unsure of why the change, but it could be in order to fix the continuity issues. Because good lord, that continuity is snarled...

I think the order that makes the most sense is Karin MGS > Alina MGS > Magius forms > one year passes > MHT > Main Story Ch5 > Holy Alina’s MGS.  In theory, then Karin should be 13 and Alina should be 15 in their Magical Girl Stories and then 14 and 16 in the present, but as mentioned that’s contradicted by the start of Karin’s MGS in the original Japanese.

There’s also the weirdness around when/how Karin learned Alina was a magical girl, since Karin seems aware of it in MHT, yet it’s unclear if she knows in Holy Alina’s MGS.

… Anyway, stuff like this is why I gave up on constructing a coherent timeline for Magia Record.  There’s just too many continuity tangles.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

References to Karin being in her second year in middle school and the third years leaving – also changed.  Probably because it’s both an uncommon way to refer to grades in English, and also, once again, another continuity issue.  (If the third years left, why is Alina still there in one years’ time if she’s at least one grade ahead of Karin?)

Another change: some specifics in why Karin and Alina are in the same classroom together.  In JP, it’s not specified who made the deal to let Alina use the room.  If anything it seems like Karin is the one making a deal directly with Alina.

Which actually makes far more sense all around – why does “the school” care that Alina is giving informal lessons to some random kid?

And it makes more sense from Alina’s perspective too, in that it explains why she tolerates Karin constantly bothering her – putting up with Karin is explicitly the price she’s paying to Karin for using the space.

Oh boy, this.  Karin having this mindset is why it took me so long to really ship AliKari.  Because the dark undertone to “if only I improve, then surely Alina will treat me better” is that Karin is blaming herself when Alina is cruel to her.  And that can very easily slide into an abusive relationship - if you don’t consider it one already.

Alina treating Karin decently should not be dependent on Karin’s art skill.  Or anything else, for that matter.  Full stop.

(Tangent time, including some Arc 2 spoilers)

What ultimately made me come around to AliKari is some of the early Arc 2 stuff, where Karin starts thinking the reason Alina disappeared is because Alina is mad at Karin for not improving.  Karin’s explanation is spectacularly wrong, so I’m now more trusting that the game is implying that Karin’s mindset is going to change. That she’ll stop believing she’s at fault for Alina’s actions - and hopefully stand up to Alina too while she’s at it.

The other half of the equation is Alina, who as far as I can tell, is genuinely not interested in bullying Karin.  She certainly has every opportunity to do so – especially given how her teacher punishes Karin for Alina’s behavior – but Alina never takes advantage of it.  So while she is overly harsh and blunt about expressing her opinions to Karin, I don’t get the sense there is any manipulation underlying it.  Indeed, very unusually for Alina, we also never see her enjoying or fantasizing about Karin’s pain or distress.  She really, truly, just wants Karin to get better at art already!

Obviously, for any kind of relationship between the two to work, they would both need to undergo significant character development.  But that’s the draw of AliKari – while other characters have stagnated (sigh, RikaRen), Alina and Karin are still some of the most dynamic characters in the game. And in general, the direction has been that despite starting out in a bad place (like Karin’s mindset above), they’re growing to become very positive influences on each other.

(End tangent)

Enjoying the extra cliches thrown in here and there, and in general how they translated Karin’s dramatics by adding additional cheesy and on-theme descriptions.  Stuff like “dark and dreary night” or “cauldron of trouble” aren’t in the original Japanese, but they’re wonderfully in-character – honestly probably an improvement over the original!

Not a change, but more reminding myself that I really need to read Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne.  I’m like 97% sure that’s what’s being referenced here – the plot description and even the comments Karin makes about “Phantom Thief Kirin” In her later Magic unlock quotes are all a very close match.

Interestingly enough, I’ve heard KKJ mentioned as an earlier dark magical girl series that Madoka Magica rips off.  So it’s quite interesting to see it referenced again back in a PMMM property – I wonder which part of the creative team was responsible for this detail?

Hm, so, the subject and detail of Karin and Alina’s conversation in the middle differs between translations.  In JP, the subject is vague, so the fan translation has Alina going off on an extended metaphor comparing the history of art to the protagonist of Karin’s manga.  Meanwhile, in NA she just makes vague comments comparing her own growth as an artist.  

I think I prefer the former - Alina usually doesn’t like talking about herself, but she sure loves to ramble about art history.

The translation I can find for the metaphor Karin’s grandmother uses here in JP renders it “barely able to keep a business going” - so did Karin’s grandmother possibly own a business herself?  That’s a bit more interesting than just “struggled to make ends meet.”

Speaking of Karin’s grandmother, I really like her as a character.  Her relationship with Karin is really sweet - I mean, how often do you see a teenage girl and an older woman being fans of something together?  It happens in real life plenty of times, but it’s so rare to see this kind of interaction represented in fiction.

And it’s nice to see an example of mental illness being treated as just that – an illness.  I especially like that there’s consent to the cure – Grandma outright says she wishes to be cured, rather than Karin deciding as such on her own.  (As Karin is often wont to do…)

This is a fun illustration of how Alina has a very strong internal logic to her, but she’s really terrible at communicating it to other people.

Karin, naturally, takes Alina’s comment here as an exceptionally mean thing to say – it sounds like Alina is callously implying the thing Karin worked so hard on was so bad it wasn’t even worth Alina’s time to destroy, so she’s making Karin suffer even more in having to destroy it herself.

And the way Alina elaborates makes it quite clear that yes, she did mean to call Karin’s work garbage.  This isn’t Alina having difficulty with Japanese or English.

But while Alina’s sense of taste can be quite sadistic, I don’t think that’s what she was aiming for here.  Remember that Alina believes that “only the artist themselves has the right to destroy their work.”  So this is actually Alina acknowledging Karin’s work as art, and therefore only Karin has the right to rip it up.

And why rip it up?  Because whenever Alina finds her own work unsatisfactory, she destroys it.  Hence Alina’s question at the end of this little back-and-forth:

If Karin doesn’t want to rip up her manga, then according to Alina’s logic, that means she must be happy and satisfied with it.  But even Alina can tell that Karin is still unsatisfied and lying to herself, hence Alina’s frustration and confusion at Karin not destroying her work.

Another timeline note: Alina doesn’t lie, and even if she did, she doesn’t have a ring here.  So I think it’s pretty settled that Karin’s MGS takes place before Alina learned about magical girls.

Oh huh. In NA, Alina thinks she’ll be the one in trouble if Karin isn’t ready.  In the fan translation I’m used to, it seems like Alina is saying she’d just be mad herself… but I think NA has it right here.  (In the original JP, Alina is using the passive form of “get angry” without a subject.)

Both work, but the impression NA gives with both this change and the earlier one is that someone at the school is basically putting Alina in charge of supervising Karin.  Which… what the hell, Sakae Academy?

Going back a bit, Alina’s advice and its effect on Karin is interesting.  One of Karin’s flaws really is that she makes excuses for herself and only half-commits, so Alina pushing her to think about what she truly wants and work hard to get it was genuinely what Karin needed to hear at the time.

However, Alina is also an obsessive perfectionist that tends to push herself to very clearly unhealthy levels…

So it’s rather fitting that on following Alina’s advice, Karin ends up pushing herself into doing something very dangerous: insisting on fighting a witch alone even though Kaede tries to get her to retreat.  Karin is so determined she’s risking her life to fulfill her goal – something Alina would no doubt approve of.  But also a great illustration of why Alina and her advice is flawed too.

Which, come to think of it, is part of why Karin and Alina’s MGS actually form a nice pair of complementary short stories.  If you read them in chronological(?) / original JP release order, you first get to see how Alina helps Karin to grow as a person, and if you think hard about it, you can kind of see foreshadowing for Alina’s own issues.  Then in Alina’s MGS, you get confirmation of that foreshadowing about Alina, and furthermore, the payoff to Karin’s development with her now being the one to give Alina some hard-hitting advice.

[leavetwn]

* AMANDA CAMPANA, NOBINARY + SHE/HER/THEY/THEM  | you know RAMONA GALLO, right? they’re TWENTY-THREE, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, TWENTY-THREE YEARS? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to CRYING ON THE BATHROOM FLOOR BY MUNA like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole COLD PIZZA AS A HANGOVER CURE, TALKING SHIT ABOUT CUSTOMERS IN THE BREAKROOM, LONGING FOR WHAT COULD'VE BEEN,  thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is AUGUST 17TH, so they’re a LEO, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( claire, 22, est, she/her )

HEY , BESTIES ! happy new year (the way it’s 11:55pm here so barely) !! my name’s claire and i’m 22. i’m livin in the est timezone, and my pronouns are she/her. i’m bringing y’all a mess of a muse 😈 because well  ,,, it’s what i’m best at. if you’re feelin ramona & wanna plot, just go ahead and like this & i’ll hit you up. i usually plot on discord, but if you prefer the tumblr ims, that’s no problem at all. anyway, lemme stop waistin time and get to introducing you to ramona. * tw: mentions of cheating & alcohol. 

𝐈. ━━ ˟ ⊰ ✰ 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 .

full name: ramona gallo.  nickname(s): anything your muse wants to call her tbh. age: twenty-three. date of birth: august 17th. zodiac sign: leo. gender/pronouns: non-binary, she/her/they/them. sexual orientation: bisexual. romantic orientation: biromantic. hometown: irving, north carolina. current residence: irving, north carolina. occupation: employee at zoinkies currently,  a lifeguard during the summer. eye color: brown. hair color/style: had long hair up until her breakup then had one of those breakdowns and cut her own hair into a bob and then her own bangs. i bet it was a mess lol so she probably called her friends or went to a salon the very next day to get it fixed. also highlighted the ends red but her natural color is brown. height : 5′5″. clothing style: simple and comfortable. t-shirts, croptops, turtlenecks, all usually paired with either jean shorts or jeans in general. she prefers to feel cozy rather than cute. tattoos: yes. a small one on her wrist. wants more eventually. piercings: both ears peirced & a navel piercing that she did herself against better judgement lol.

𝐈. ━━ ˟ ⊰ ✰ 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 .

you were born on a scorching hot day in irving , your father says so, anyway. you’re convinced he’s being dramatic. your birth went smoothly; after two previous children, your parents had become disillusioned by childbirth. just another one to add to the bunch, and one that was meant to save a dying marriage. still, they loved you nonetheless. your father, to this day. your mother, until you were ten, and then she up and left without a warning. 

your father keeps food on the table by fixing cars. you spend your days in the hot sun watching him replace parts and continuously try to crank vehicles until they run. he fist pumps every time one does. ‘ how lame, ’ you think, but it’s inspiring how hard he works to take care of three kids. and he does a good job. 

therefore , you spend much of your early life trying to make him proud. you’re smart as a whip, and all your teachers have good things to say about you when it comes to academics. you’re a bit of a troublemaker, though. your father doesn’t mind that too much; he was the same at your age. and he’s proud  —  proud to see you work so hard. 

you spend your teenage years doing much of the same. though , you begin to come home a bit later than usual, and your excuse is that you’ve been at ashley’s or samantha’s, but really all three of you were out partying. you don’t think your father would care (your grades are fine & he wants you to live like a normal teenager) ,  but you still lie about it. why ? well, who knows, maybe you like the adrenaline rush it gives you. like most things, you do them for the thrill. 

you join the swim team. you’re kind of bad , but that’s okay. just like always , you work hard, and you realize that you’re kind of a natural. your father cheers louder than anyone else in the stands. it pushes you to do better. with your good grades and athletics , your guidance counselor tells you you’re a shoo in for a scholarship from whatever university you want. you apply to several. if it’s one thing you hate, its this town. you can’t wait to make it out, and you figure, this might be your only way. 

you’re eighteen, and you’re in love. it’s crazy how love can make you see things differently. suddenly , this town doesn’t seem half bad. all your friends find it cute , and you tell them everything. the things he tells you or the way he makes you feel. it’s a crazy feeling; you never want it to end. 

you throw your cap in the air. finally , high school is over. college is looming. you’ve been accepted to several & received scholarships from at least a few. you lie in bed thinking about it. now, you suddenly don’t want to leave so bad. don’t want to leave him behind. how could someone leave another they love so easily? it makes you hate your mother more.

for the first time, you disappoint your father. you don’t go to college. you don’t give a damn. you want to stay where love is. you’re addicted to the feeling. this lasts for three years. now, you’re twenty-one; you’ve gotten a job at zoinkies, and that keeps you away for most of the day. you randomly decide to visit your boyfriend during a lunch break one day. you find him in bed with someone else. suddenly , you realize love isn’t as addicting as you once thought. what once made the world beautiful now made it hideous. what once made you feel so high had somehow made you feel so low. it was horrible, and you’d realized your mistakes. 

you threw away your future for love. something as rotten and twisted as love. something you swore you’d never let yourself feel again. something that you put away in a locked box with no key. irving was the same place you’d always known it to be. boring, drab, familiar. at least you had your family. that was barely enough to keep you sane, though, and it was hard to feel normal.

you turned to the thing that help. alcohol, partying, any escape at all. you lacked coping skills   —  that much was clear, but you didn’t care. you blamed it on something else entirely. just as your teachers had said, you’re a bit of a troublemaker. you do anything to make yourself feel alive, to make yourself feel free of the hurt. 

it’s two years later now. you’re still not over it in some ways, as regret turns to anger and resentment. you’re bitter. who wouldn’t be? but you feel like you’ve had time to mourn. maybe it’s because you never acknowledged it in the way you should’ve ( it’s still locked away in that box. ) you still have your bad habits. you still work at your stupid job that you hate. you’re lost, but you’ll figure it out. you always do. so, you continue to float , seemingly stuck in the town that you never let go of, and you wonder what comes next. only time will tell.

𝐈. ━━ ˟ ⊰ ✰ 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐬 .

still swims but doesn’t have as much time for it. probably not as good, but since she spends the summer lifeguarding, she uses that time to practice & try to get back to where she was. also kinda jaded asf so even if she says she wants to get back into it, she probably won’t lmaoo.

is a horrible driver. how did she get a license ?? not even she knows. def the type to like have a leg up on the dash board, hand out the window, and only one hand on the wheel while speedin idk how she makes it out alive

can take a car apart and put it back together again thanks to her dad. also changes her own tires so let her change your tires. im just sayin 

stays up way too late & would sleep until 2 pm everyday if she didn’t have to work. should probably work on being an adult and going to bed at a normal time but just half the time doesn’t give a fuck so she’s probably sleep deprived a lot. therefore also has a 

character parallels: alice ayres/jane jones (closer, 2004) , clementine (eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, 2004) , fiona gallagher (shameless, 2011-present) , more to be added.

𝐈. ━━ ˟ ⊰ ✰ 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 .

ok but plots really do be making my world go ‘round. 😳 i love em, so literally hmu with anything you’re feeling, and i’ll be down. just wanna plot & write with everyone 💕 but here’s a couple of wanted connections for y’all. i’ll prolly have a most wanted tag sooner or later & i’ma be make a plot page soon.  

* the unholy trinity  — these two are the friends she cherishes most. i’m assuming they’ve been friends since at least early high school , maybe earlier. they went through a lot together. these two were with her through all her relationship troubles. true ride or dies. she’s do absolutely anything for them, and she trusts that they feel the same way. they’re rowdy & wild, do whatever they want, and have a damn good time doin it. also have a gc where they just talk shit and send tiktoks idk just gimme this plsss 🥺

* friends with benefits / one night stands  —  this would probably be the extent of ramona. clearly not over what happened to her the last time 😭, so she’d have plenty of these tbh. she probably wouldn’t think too much about it, but it could be awkward for you muse maybe, etc. 

* unrequited love / crush  —  here’s a toast to the ones who crush on ramona. it would be an absolute tragedy lmaoo. she’s not really mean about it, but she is 100% certain she’s not looking for any type of relationship. could be really dramatic and messy and those are tha best kind. literally this

* former friends / enemies  —  she’s lived here her whole life, so she’s at least got one. these two just don’t get along/no longer get along for whatever reason that can be plotted out. 

* coworkers   — she works zoinkies throughout the year and picks up shifts as a lifeguard during the summer so your muses could know her from that. could delve into a close friend territory too lmao. they probably just sit in break rooms and talk about rude customers or bossy managers lmaooo.

* literally anything your heart desires — a lot could work. we could even just start from nowhere & have them meet for the first time if they’re newer/just to town. 

[sotorubio]

Can you elaborate on "the li's development would be smth ordinary for once"? That sounded pretentious of me sorry lol, but I don't see whats not ordinary about it rn? I want the focus to be on Bilals life but if her mystery sadness is connected to her ex, that works with her being LI (both of them are still inexperienced tbh unless you count 1 short ex = experienced; they'll probs awkwardly explore dating together), and if its her fam, they'll bond over that. What would you consider ordinary? 👀

post-answer addition: this got SO long for absolutely no real reason i'm so sorry smfjdkjdd

oh yeah that's a good question i should've probably phrased it better! by ordinary here i meant that it would've been nice to see smth so common as a first ever relationship (at least for jo) like when they get together that would be the "obstacle" they have to tackle by communicating & exploring their feelings

jo being sad abt her ex or having trouble w family ofc wouldn't be too outlandish or dramatic or anything & u have good points abt it fitting bilal's storyline as well! so that's not out of the ordinary as a concept but i was thinking how they always bring in these Issues & Struggles™️ for the LIs even tho the main character already has plenty to go around n i wish we could have an LI who's actually in a good place bc w a show like skam u only have 10 weeks to go through everything n u can't do time jumps etc so to me personally it's getting a bit tiring to see how these not-main-characters have problems that would be worth exploring in an entire season (tho smth like being upset over an ex ofc wouldn't require 10 weeks to go through) it's not always bad but it's getting repetitive imo

i guess for me it boils down to the fact that we've known jo for 2 seasons now even longer than bilal n even tho we've gotten Some information abt her family & life outside of lamifex there's rly never been much indication of her going through Rough Times. AND that alone ofc isn't bad like ofc the side characters should also have a life n it would be boring if we never knew anything abt their personal struggles just bc they're side characters n for example the ex thing couldn't have come up before s8 anyway but the fact that this mysterious side of jo is brought up Now n never before kinda comes off as them wanting the LI to have development other than the relationship. which obviously is great bc they should be more than just an LI n not just exist there (cough s6 maya cough) but it doesn't seem like this is smth they felt the need to write bc they care abt Jo specifically. it's just that she's the LI n therefore she needs Plot.

n that's kinda what my issue is n what i was thinking w the "ordinary" part like jo never having dated before + bilal apparently being a casanova smfjd it'd be an interesting/easy/naturally written conflict that would develop jo's character (learning to trust, being vulnerable which she almost never is, earnestly talking abt her feelings instead of just making jokes etc) without having to come up w some family drama for no reason. also it would've served as continuity from s7 if they had brought up her inexperience then n it had been "resolved" in s8

but that's rly just my opinion like if there's gonna be smth super dramatic happening in jo's life i'll be annoyed but if it's just her ex or smth minor i'm not gonna claim it's bad writing or anything! i just personally find it irritating that whatever jo's going through is treated as this sort of mystery/smth to anticipate when tbh i couldn't care less no offense to jo at all it's just that we're first watching bilal n his brother become homeless children n suddenly we're like hmm why is jo crying tune in next week to find out skfjslfj so by ordinary i mean that sometimes if the li has go have smth noteworthy going on in their life it'd just be smth they come forth with so we could get to the part where it actually develops the characters. now it's like. even if it IS smth as mundane as her being sad abt her ex they're still turning it into some secret we have to find out along the way which to Me is unnecessary but that's more of a personal stance (also probably isn't As much of an issue for ppl not following in real time)

also yeah u have a good point abt them both being inexperienced they're still teens after all just bc that one girl is pining after bilal doesn't mean he's like actually knowledgeable abt serious dating or anything so it's not like we won't see any normal awkward teenage romance! i just wish that theme could've been more central since so many ppl were happy abt jo representing them as a teenager who doesn't have Any dating experience despite most of her peers being in relationships