#some turn of phrase to where they have deniability

[krysmcscience]

I have some questions about karaoke night, Alex Hirsch. Very Important Questions. Which I will happily scream at a poor hapless baby triangle who can have no answers for me, and possibly also does not have object permanence yet.

Follow-up that is I guess suggestive, but let's be real here, Bill's a fucking triangle:

Dude slipped right into his birthday suit, lmao

this is so stupid :D

Anyway, I don't care what anyone says, this brilliant individual knows what's up - Bill is absolutely way more of a monsterfucker than Ford could or ever will be, full stop.

[thisisaname-whatahappyname]

fox news the absoloute Belothed fuck those bastards

[bonefall]

Now we've got all six of em, can I just say that CRIPES ALMIGHTY the titles for a starless clan suck major ass! Both separately AND as a group!!

I Do Not Rewrite Arcs Until They Are Done BUT DO YOU WANNA HEAR MY WIP RENAMES SO FAR

Remember: Don't get too attached yet, the only one I can say with certainty will show up somewhere is the title of Book 4.

ARC RENAME: A Starless Clan -> A Prayer Unanswered

The original name is really good but I'm getting a vibe that the theme of the rework is going to be... when love isn't enough.

It's about how some things can't get better. It's about how all the kindness in the world couldn't get Bramblestar to turn around as a leader. It's about how Heartstar might have had good intentions, but occupation never works out in the end. It's Nightheart's relationship to his family being salvageable, not because they don't all want to fix it, but because his life has worked out best with distance from them.

So, Prayers Unanswered is both about the religious part of how RiverClan doesn't have a leader and can't get in proper touch with StarClan, but it's also about every other wish that hasn't come true.

River -> Starcrossed One of the VERY large changes I'm considering is actually massively reducing Nightheart's POV. I'm thinking of doing this, not because I dislike him, but because I think it might actually be a better story if the audience is guessing as to his intentions just as much as the other characters are. So, until he's ACTUALLY needed later, his chapters are short and sparse. So Starcrossed would be about setting up the troubles of the Clans, especially the parts of the conflicts I want to highlight more in BB. It would be setting up the rule changes for "starcrossed lovers" (lmao) but also the brewing anger that the cats have towards code changes... and StarClan, if I do decide to keep the newest revelations and work them in better, in hindsight.

Sky -> Fracture There's a phrase in my head that is so interesting to me that I need to do something with it. "Only frozen water can fracture." I want to make the RiverClan situation worse than in-canon. First of all, there's going to be identifiable groups this time which begin to scramble for power. Instead of having the cats just... forget how to do the chores they've done their whole lives, the Clan is splitting up into factions. This is why they won't be able to win against Heartstar later, when she decides to take drastic measures. They're not fighting like a Clan; they're fighting like a bunch of disorganized teams. There should also be a bunch of needless injuries, maybe even a border aggression that lead to a death, before Heartstar barges in. I also want to make this a bigger part of the story, Erins willing. Too much time was spent on the Catnip Patrol, imo, we're going to have ANOTHER big trip and I don't want this one to eat up so much time. Rowankit is also still going to die; and maybe a couple of elders around the Lake too.

Shadow -> Snakes and Turnclaws Berryheart's hate movement has been too tame, from canon books 1 - 4 as of the time of writing. It's ridiculous that they haven't even injured anyone in the Battle Cat series. I saved Antfur from the previous arc so that she can die here. We've been seeing the Anti-Turnclaw movement rise from the first book, so now with Nightheart's boldness leading him to a place where he will be unsafe, we need to see his rusty butt in actual danger. I'm even thinking that, instead of Nightheart failing his task on purpose, Sunbeam makes him fail by stopping him from getting killed. I need to know the ending of ASC first though, because I MIGHT be having Berryheart getting her exile here. Whatever kills Antfur is either deniable enough that she's able to squeak by while Sunbeam quietly leaves (refusing to accuse her mother of anything publicly) OR it's so obvious that Heartstar casts her out on the spot. Meanwhile, we see the OTHER half of ShadowClan's conflict as RiverClan finally unites... against them, as their common enemy. Task failed successfully, Heartsy

Thunder -> The Source of the River I'm still unspeakably proud of this outline. There's so much I want to do here. She's going to come back with a DND party and I'm hoping that all of them end up in RiverClan with her; INCLUDING Nightheart. I want the fact that he accompanied Frostpaw to actually be the final straw for him. While he's away, Sunbeam is acclimating to ThunderClan and falling in love with her new home. There are parts she misses about ShadowClan, but as she's adopted by Sparkpelt, taken as a secondary apprentice by the deputy, smiled upon by Squirrelstar after she pressures Bramblestar to abdicate... this starts to feel like this is where she belongs. And that's too hard for Nightheart to ever come back to. "You come to the source of the river, and are vexed that you do not find the water that is flowing downstream" dude.... man. That's what BB's about. Change. I also really want Nightheart to choose HIS OWN NAME by the end of this series-- so at some point in this book he should finally admit "Nightheart" wasn't his choice either. (I'm thinking Deltastep. Because his journey with Frostpaw begins at the southern delta of my reworked map.)

And I haven't done them for Book 5 or Book 6 yet, especially since I might end up condensing them or chopping them up to put into the other books.

I do know I'm really love to play with the idea of a starless sky for one of the last books though, I may or may not keep Splashtail's lack of faith in StarClan (hate the Evil Atheist thing they keep doing), but the idea of a "Pitch-Black Star" absolute fucks as symbolism, ngl. Maybe something like "A Gap in the Stars" or "Constellation's Void" or "The Stolen Star"

Also also also I'm having Curlfeather come back as a Dark Forest Demon for at LEAST one scene.

I don't give a good goddamn if they don't go to the Dark Forest or not. ONE weird coincidence that could totally have been Just Good Luck but was actually Curlfeather. Let Her Drown Splashtail, she deserves it. Let her be a malevolent spirit who protects her baby. RiverClan can whine all it wants about Mothwing who ooo doesn't believe in God, Frostpaw's got a demon. Cry about it

Also I hope Frostpaw becomes leader because I'll make it go hard

[bomberqueen17]

well, it goes on

It was my birthday and i celebrated by working. well, i'd had the previous day off, my only day off in the whole two-week stretch, so i spent it lying around and trying to catch up on sleep and also, sort of against my will, writing fanfiction about minor characters from the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin series.

I need more people to talk about this fic with, alas, I've been siloed in Witcher stuff so long that I don't know where to turn. I've been hesitant to browse the tags because the thing is I don't care about writing or reading Aubrey/Maturin fic and also I haven't seen the movie since it came out in '03, I specifically want to geek out about the minor characters and the books, LOL. So anyway if anyone is interested in cheer-reading my attempts at slashing Tom Pullings and James Mowett please drop me a line. I was going to just write a couple of drabbles but well, as these things go, it's now 15k long. (Uh, fair warning, they're super underage for the beginning bit and like not in a fun plausibly-deniable way either.)

No, I have no idea if it's any good or makes any sense, but that's a separate consideration. I just. Listen! They should fuck. But I am me and couldn't just have this be a oneshot. No. They have to have a strange circling complex relationship over the course of ten or twenty years that includes Tom's canonical wife. I can't rest unless I make this happen. No, I'm not done with my Witcher stuff either, but I've been blocked on it a bit and decided my birthday present was to let myself write some of this. So that's what I did.

But. At any rate. I listened to the whole series and now I'm going back through it in a desultory sort of fashion for my own amusement. I might liveblog this reread. I don't have time to do anything more interesting or in line with my long-term goals at this moment. But, snippet.

“I think my virginity’s grown back,” James said glumly, leaning back with his book on his knees. It was a fine day so they were laboring at their mathematics, tucked out of the wind under a grating between two of the midships guns. It was an out of the way spot but they could use the harsh light from the grating to read their figures. “It’s ages since we’ve been into port,” Tom agreed. He was nearly cross-eyed with his sums, and though he’d had the best of intentions about doing extra to practice, he didn’t think he could manage it now. He gave it up and put down his pen, carefully ensuring the inkwell was shut tight. Then he frowned. “It don’t work like that for boys, there’s naught to grow back.” James blinked owlishly at him. “I thought it was universally metaphorical, at any rate,” he said.  “No, I think it’s a real thing, but for girls,” Tom said. The phrase universally metaphorical had so many syllables he hadn’t actually parsed it at all but was operating solely off James’s dubious expression.  “That doesn’t seem right but I don’t know enough about girls to tell otherwise,” James admitted.

[antvnger]

Blood Brothers AU - "I'm not touching you!"

((LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL I love this so much. This is peak sibling behavior.

The short answer is it depends on the day, Anon. Depends on the day. Mostly Scott but it depends on the day. ⬇️))

As previously stated, most of the time that was Scott’s move to annoy Tony to no end.

Sometimes Tony would get into a funk and not want to be bothered or he’d get knee deep into some kind of project or fill-in-the-blank that he would ignore everything else for a while, and that certainly would not do at all for the younger Stark brother.

He had seen other kids in his class pull this kind of stunt before with surprising results.

And any interaction with Tony was better than nothing in this boy’s mind soooo…

Scott extends his pointer finger out to his big brother’s arm, leaving just less than an inch of wiggle room in between. And he waits.

It feels like he waits for a long time, when it’s only been a few minutes, but eventually Tony suddenly feels like something’s…not quite right.

He jerks his head to the side to see Scott not touching him. “What are you doing?”

Scott shrugs innocently. “Nothing.”

“Why are you touching me?”

“I’m not touching you.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are!”

“Nuh uh!”

“I can practically feel you touching me! It’s like you’ve got a force field or something, so yeah, you’re touching me!”

That was the wrong thing to say. Scott gasps. “A force field? Cool!” He slowly moves his finger closer to Tony’s arm, and he leans away from Scott’s touch. “I DO have a force field!”

“Which is why I’m saying you’re touching me, so quit it, Scottie.”

“Nuh uh!”

“Don’t make me call Mom!...or Jarvis!”

“But I’m not actually touching you, Tony!”

Tony growls and turns his head in the opposite direction and inhales deeply. “JAAAAAAAAAAAAARRVIS!!”

The younger boy pulls away like he'd been electrocuted, putting a safe, plausible-deniability distance between himself and his big brother. “I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!”

But there have been occurrences as they got older where Tony took a page out of his brother’s book to get some sibling attention.

After all, any interaction with his little brother was better than none at all.

Sometimes Scott would get in moods where his self esteem takes a blow and he’ll pull away from people, or his ADHD would throw him into such a disorganized, unfocused state of mind despite moving at all speeds that he can’t get anything accomplished.

And sometimes distracting him seemed to help the mental clutter.

It takes a while for Scott to notice the presence of Tony’s finger an inch from his ear, especially if his ADHD is not cooperating, but eventually Scott turns his head and finds Tony’s index finger right in his face. “What the–?! Tony! What are you doing?”

Tony smirks gently. “Uhh I believe the phrase is not touching you.”

He's rewarded with an incredulous stare. “Are you serious right now?”

“I’ve never been more serious today than I am right now.”

“Tony, quit touching me.”

“But I’m not touching you, Scottie.”

Scott growls and smacks Tony's hand away, only for Tony to return it like nothing happened. “See, you touched me. I have not touched you. There’s a difference.”

Scott smacks Tony’s hand away a few more times only to render the same result as the first time before he huffs in defeat. “Okay fine, what’s it going to take for you to not…not touch me? Not not touch me? Not…what’s it going to take for you to stop?”

“Have you taken your meds today?”

Scott checks the clock and sighs. “It’s too late in the day to take my meds.”

Tony suspected as much already which is why he has a contingency plan ready to offer. “Then let’s get you down to those batting cages you love so much. You can work off some energy, and I can run some data and some schematics on you having a better batting cage machine than those old dinosaurs you work with.”

“First of all, they’re calling pitching machines. Secondly, yes please.”

Problem solved for the time being.

[contentment-of-cats]

Postnarc Living: The Flying Monkey

As the child of an top-flight narcissist, it would have been easy for me to become a narcissist and even easier to remain in the codependent dance with the narcs in my family. One of the worst things you can do is to call someone who has survived a narcissist a narcissist. It hits us right where we live, it gaslights us into thinking 'well, what if I am?' The accusation doesn't even need to come from your 'induction narc' - it can come from anyone, but it is most likely to come from a 'flying monkey' or someone else who benefits from your own self-doubt and questioning. My therapist laid this one to rest, but I still need to remind myself.

A narcissist, or anyone with one of the Cluster B disorders is incapable of even asking themselves that question. A narcissist never asks themselves if they are a narcissist. They are incapable of the introspection. This is an 'everyone else' problem and not a them problem. The narc knows that the way to self-doubt is paved first and foremost with experience. Calling people a narc is one of the narc's best weapons, and getting other people to do it for them is even better.

Let's talk about the flying monkey.

In my experience, flying monkeys appear benevolent. They are concerned, but it's the type of concern that made your school principal ask what you did to piss Karen off so much that she broke your leg. Narcs achieve the kind of sociopathy excused by the phrase 'children can be cruel.' Of course, there are some flying monkeys that love the drama and others who are just as sociopathic as the narc whom they are servicing, but most flying monkeys are people of good will. They are people-pleasers, empathetic, fearful because they feel the narc has something on them or fear losing their friends, or having the narc and their friends turn on them, or they might have poor boundary setting skills because they have been previously narc'ed. Some of the drama-lovers even get into flying monkey mode because the drama has so much more going on than their own that they feel subsumed into their friend's life - like a riptide, or a big wave. Most of all flying monkeys service the narc by doing harm at a remove from the narc themselves, lending them plausible deniability. They didn't say that, so-and-so did. They didn't demand anyone do x or y, people just did it. Anything the narc can't touch without leaving their metaphorical fingerprints on it is, in fact, the flying monkey's job.

The flying monkey is usually ferociously loyal to their narc for a variety of reasons. The narcissist often employs DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reversing Victim with Offender and FOG (Fear Obligation Guilt) )to keep the flying monkey in play. The flying monkey invalidates the victim and enables the narc in such a way that the victim is made to feel like the offender, gaslit into believing that it's their own fault. The narc and the flying monkey will use the victim's own empathy against them and carve way the support needed to walk away from the narc.

It could've been worse

You're overreacting

You're too sensitive

You expect too much

You need to let it go

You shouldn't feel that way

You brought it on yourself

It wasn't personal

It wasn't a big deal

It was bad, but not that bad

You misunderstood

Emotional invalidation can cause confusion, deepen self-doubt, make you distrust your own emotions and thought processes. Your thoughts and feelings are wrong. It can even make you question your own identity, reality, and self-worth. This is what it is meant to do - make you depressed, make you anxious, remove your mental stability and worsen any issues already present.

It is a violence of the mind; scheming and choreographed, malicious and malevolent.

Above all, it is meant to do one thing - keep you exactly where the narc wants you and in the role they've assigned.

And now, for the obligatory playlist vid.

[noir-renard]

Daniel J. "Call Me Danny" Fenton was. Odd. An excellent employee. Incredibly bright. But Odd.

That he stood out as Odd in a place like Gotham was notable.

He’d joined Wayne Enterprises last fall, during the time Bruce was “dead” and Tim was “CEO”. Tim had been a bit too preoccupied with not getting assassinated or letting Hush take over WE to worry about all the new hires, so he didn’t officially get around to meeting Danny until months after the fact.

Now Bruce wasn’t dead, Tim wasn’t CEO, and Danny was still here.

“Tim, Bruce, meet Danny. He’s the new lead on the experimental engineering sector of R&D,” Lucius had said, introducing what was to become the subject of Tim’s newest obsession.

Tim hadn’t known it at the time; at the time, Danny had just been another black haired tech in a lab coat and goggles. Someone Tim would have to learn to work with and around, now that Tim was going to be the assistant head of R&D under Lucius.

The first thing Danny had ever said to Bruce (and Tim, who was standing right next to Bruce at the time), was “I always knew you’d come back some day.”

Which was support that would have been nice for Tim to have had months ago. But, no matter. 

Tim did nearly have a minor conniption when Danny continued with, “You got back just in time,” but maybe it was just a turn of phrase. He couldn’t possibly know Bruce had been lost in time and almost died for real in the process of getting him back.

But it was the first of many strange…encounters.

—

The first incident that Tim Actively Noticed as Odd was about a month after Tim had first met Danny.

"Hey Mr.Fox, Mr. Wayne. Mr. Drake-Wayne,” Danny had said, breezing into the very private meeting they were having in the third office on the fifth floor that only existed to give Lucius, Bruce, and Tim a place to meet while at work.

It was nowhere near the R&D department, where Danny apparently “lived”. Metaphorically. Maybe.

How he found them there, Tim wasn’t sure.

“Did you want that moonlander prototype ready for the board meeting this afternoon or are we pushing to next week?"

"Moonlander Prototype?" Said Bruce.

"Board meeting?" Said Lucius.

Danny blinked, squinted, and scrunched his nose, in that order.

"Oh. Have we not had that conversation yet?"

"I think we can assume no."

“Right. Different time-line.” Danny backed out of the room without turning around. “Um. Let's pretend this didn't happen, okay?" 

There had been some kind of crisis they were dealing with at the time, but Tim had noted in a passive way that it was. Well. Odd.

—

The next Odd Thing had been some time later.

Danny had walked up to Tim so silently that Tim hadn't heard him at all until he spoke.

"Ahh, so that's how you do it," he'd said.

Tim had whipped around, wondering what Danny had seen. He'd technically been working on stuff for his Night Job, but it wasn’t something that was apparently obvious…unless you knew every project inside and out. Like Danny.

Still, Tim had played dumb. Which didn't come easy.

"How I do what?"

"Well, I've been wondering how, legally, you get away with designing things for. You know." Here, he put his fingers up on top of his head, as if to imply bat ears. "I've seen tons of stuff on the servers that the locals don't use, but unless they work here I wasn't sure how they got the designs. But it's enrichment and plausible deniability all wrapped up into one, right?"

"What?" Said Tim.

"Like, they can have access to any designs they can hack into. So you can design things for them without actually designing things for them. I've been wondering how to send my stuff over. I have ideas, you know."

"Huh?"

Danny clicked his tongue and shot him a finger gun. 

"Exactly. But hey, if you wouldn't mind looking over my stuff, I'd love your input. I don't usually have to worry about people dying or falling to their death, so I might have overlooked something."

Tim had gone to look at Danny’s stuff, because he was curious.

It was good. And he wanted it. 

Technically, he could just access it directly from the WE server, but Danny was expecting someone to hack into his account to get it and he said 'he'd know' if it happened. 

Tim, by this point, had every reason to believe him.

He'd thought he could hack it no problem. As it turned out…it was a challenge. More importantly, it was fun. It'd been a while since Tim had had fun, he realized, which made it all the sadder that hacking into his co-worker's account to justify making use of the designs made for him probably said a lot about Tim.

Nothing he was prepared to admit though.

—

There were other things, too. Easily explained away but which had accumulated into a Pile of Things Tim Couldn’t Ignore.

Like the overheard ("overheard") FaceTime between Danny and two other people.

"For the last time, Sam, I know you wanted to come to Gotham, but according to Clockwork the timelines where you become Ivy's protégé all begin with you living here! Besides, you secretly love undermining Lex, don't pretend otherwise."

“You just say that because Evil Me is so much hotter than Evil You,” said Apparently Sam.

"I thought we decided Danny can't work at LexCorp because Lexy would definitely want to study him like a bug?” said Voice Number Three.

"As if we’d let that happen, Tucker,” said Sam. “Anyway, Mercy is incredible, she could do so much better than Lex. I’m gonna flip her and/or marry her."

“Well I get to work with the Stones, DILF and RILF” said Tucker, “so who’s really winning here?”

“Me, obviously,” said Danny. “But we’re all breaking rule number two.”

The other two people, based on context clues alone (as well as Tim’s totally justified research into Danny’s background), were Sam Manson, the Ethics Board Lead at LexCorp; and Tucker Foley, Head Programer at S.T.A.R. Labs Detroit.

Tim had investigated Danny for weeks after that, convinced of either corporate espionage or an evil plot.

All he found was a private group chat with a pinned set of rules: 1. We don't talk about work 2. We don't talk about or fall in love with our co-workers 3. We don’t talk about NB1-7 4. Vladposting hours are always

There was the incident where Danny, somehow, single-handedly prevented DalvCo from buying 50% stock in WE. Literally. All it took was a handshake and the deal was off. Which was good, because although Tim was sure the buyout was somehow illegal, he couldn't find evidence.

There was the time he walked up to Jerry from the mail center—one of the criminals Bruce had recruited off the street as Batman—and told him right in the middle of the break room, "your brother is proud of you for stepping up and changing your ways for his kids, and he's sorry about the tooth incident."

Jerry burst into tears and hugged Danny. Danny somehow left the situation with the broken break room microwave in his custody and thirty unreformed Gotham Goons on speed-dial “in case he needed literally anything ever, no questions asked, just say Jerry the Salamander sent you”.

Tim had watched the security footage from that day thirty times. He still wasn’t sure when the microwave even broke, much less how Danny ended up with it. There was some kind of glitch in the video.

It wasn’t obviously Danny’s fault, but by this point Tim was starting to suspect any strangeness in the building had something to do with Danny.

—

It all came to a head on what should have been a normal Tuesday, for what counted as normal in Gotham.

The whole WE building was on lockdown because of a ‘mysterious pathogen’ making employees exhibit odd symptoms, like floating, duplication, and general peevishness. Because of the unknown nature of the pathogen, the floors had been sealed off from each other and the outside.

Tim, much to his chagrin, was stuck in R&D, which was to say: The Basement. 

Where Danny just so happened to be as well.

The only good thing about being stuck in the basement with Danny aws that Tim, hopefully, might have a chance to Study Him Without Interruption.

Somehow, Danny seemed more mildly inconvenienced than worried.

“She always does this,” he grumbled, pulling up a program on his computer that was definitely not part of WE’s IP.

“Who always does what?” Tim pressed, desperate for answers.

“Spectra,” said Danny, green matrix-like text scrolling across the screen. “Good thing Technus owes me a favor.”

With an ominous click, a cube on Danny’s desk that Tim had incorrectly assumed to be raw material started to move, slowly unfolding itself to a nine foot tall behemoth not unlike what one might see at a mecha convention.

“I AM TECHNUS,” said the Robot, arms charging with some kind of green…vacuum power? In his hands? “MASTER OF WORKPLACE SAFETY AND CLEANLINESS.”

“What?” said Tim.

"He doesn't normally say that," Danny mumbled, sounding disappointed.

It wasn’t until after the whole thing was sorted out—the source of the virus having been some sort of interdimensional being? Apparently? —that Tim had the chance to ask : “Where did the robot come from?”

“From the broken microwave, obviously.”

“Why did you make a mech from a microwave?”

Danny had looked at Tim like he was the unreasonable one.

“Everyone knows you send a robot to fight a pathogen. They come preloaded with antivirus software.”

Unintentionally Mysterious Danny

No one in the Justice League/Wayne Industries seems to know much about their colleague Danny Fenton. Every time he opens his mouth, he tends to leave everyone in the vicinity with more questions than answers. That is, until they were put on lockdown.

[electricbluebutterflies]

hugging them from behind for the prompts <3

Late-era Jessica/Leto, PG-ish, also on ao3.

She hates these things. She’s good at them, but she still hates them.

Jessica has accepted most of the countless unexpected dramatic turns her life has taken over the years with surprisingly minimal complaining – the development of recurrent petty domestic fights is justifiable as long as it all stays petty – but most of the roles she has been put into still don’t feel right. Too visible, too…

Lady of the house in every way but formal title. That there is the heart of the problem.

If she were the person she is still occasionally accused of being, this would be frightfully easy to fix. She could lace her voice just so – most likely during intimacies, all her partner’s barriers already lower for her – and get what she wants. It wouldn’t even take much of a push, and she does think about it at times, and-

That is not who they are. She has promised, closest she will ever come to wedding vows, to respond in kind to how she is treated. When she made that decision she did not realize she was compartmentalizing her power, but it felt right when she did, one person kept immune to her, one person-

She is not the wife, she is not going to be the wife until they are both old enough that such a formality would only be a minor scandal, and she is still stuck vaguely supervising the preparations for one of the annual formal events. Her presence right now is optional; the protocols for this one haven’t changed in decades, but there has always been something calming about functional routines and-

This isn’t paranoia, she can claim that much. There is very little that could go wrong. Just the same decorations that have always been used, no noticeable modifications in the years that this event and its kin have been her problem, and-

Jessica is both unnecessary and distracted, and she does not realize she is not alone in her area until she feels arms wrap around her waist from behind.

Her partner likes to do this sometimes, when such rare occasions present themselves. Mess with her reflexes just a little, always affectionate, always-

“Have you hit anyone with that set of papers yet?”

She glances down at the few pieces in her hands, barely enough to use as a fan if she were so inclined. “You think this would do adequate damage?”

“More the effect of it all…”

If she were in a slightly different mood, she’d turn and demonstrate, but… current position feels too good to lose, his body molded around hers, much more public affection than she actually likes but she’ll take the intent. They have to actually talk like this, not show off how well they communicate with just facial expressions, and-

“I haven’t needed to,” she murmurs. “I don’t even really need to be here.”

“Then don’t be here. Find some other-“

“Trying to stay out of trouble, remember?” A phrase that should never need to be said by a thirtysomething woman with a stable romance and a child, but here they are and-

She turns her head just in time to watch her partner process the implications, and she normally loves how cooperative he is – there has been very little she’s ever needed to explain, he trusts his judgment of people and once he’d decided he wanted her close she ended up with far more plausible deniability than she even needs most of the time – but there’s still that moment of you’re-not-telling-me-something before it fades, compartmentalized perfectly and never to be discussed and-

“Trying to stay findable,” he repeats. “Understood.”

“Preemptive, not…”

“And you’re this bored.”

“That’s not the word I’d start with, but…”

She won’t go into how important it is for her to keep up appearances, to be everything she isn’t whether she actually enjoys it or not. There will always be rumors, but she can at least control what she does that makes people talk, and-

“You don’t need to prove anything to anyone,” her partner murmurs, at least aware where her anxieties usually lead her. “Not this early in the day, at least. Later…”

“I’ll look perfect.”

“You always do.”

He lets go of her slowly, and she is reminded how much this is her exception, how intensely and intentionally their dynamic goes against everything else she is. No one else knows her well enough to sneak up on her so easily, and no one else would be able to do so without receiving a few scars for their time, and-

“You have better things to do than make sure I don’t ruin us,” she says, twirling around to face him, and at the same time she doesn’t want the moment to end just yet, and-

“If you do enough damage to this one, the petty social repercussions could last generations. Change one light fixture…”

“I forget, am I technically even allowed to do anything that visible?”

“Allowed, yes, but…”

Jessica closes the distance again and takes a heartbeat of a kiss. “Don’t tempt me, darling.”

“You don’t need that kind of motivation.”

They separate, and she can’t help the longing as she watches him walk away. Today will be one of their good days; in the evening he’ll get pleasantly distracted by a dress he’s seen her in a dozen times, and she’ll be able to cling more than usual because at least this is a smaller-scale ritual, and-

She’s doing too much. She should do something about that. She never will.

[nicnacsnonsense]

I saw a meta where the person justifies an interpretation of Stede’s actions by saying that he is the one who knows about passive aggression and how to use it and I’m like, yeah, barely. We see him attempt to use passive aggression two times in the show, and both times he kind of sucks at it to be honest.

But wait, I hear you saying, he is super good at passive aggression; he burned that whole ship down with his passive aggression skills. Oh, my dear, dear friend, just because Stede says he was using passive aggression, that doesn’t mean he’s right. Stede is using passive aggression in that scene like neurodivergent person who believes they have learned a social rule, but is utilizing it in a way that makes it clear that they don’t really understand it. Because, you know, that’s what he is.

Stede defines passive aggression to Ed earlier that episode as “cutting remarks disguised as politeness.” Which yes, but also no. Passive aggression is about engaging in aggressive behavior but in way that avoids direct confrontation. That can include either going stuff behind someone’s back (which we’ll ignore for now since that’s not the kind we’re dealing with here) or doing it to their face while maintaining some kind of plausible deniability that that’s what you’re doing.

So obviously Stede’s conversational tone and his suggestion that they play a game is his attempt at masking what he’s doing in politeness. And it could work. Look at how he starts in with Gabriel & Antoinette, asking how they met, only for them to give different answers. And if he continued to follow that thread with seemingly innocuous questions while inevitably leading to the revelation that the two of them were siblings, that would have been masterful passive aggression. But he doesn’t do that; he immediately follows that question by just outright stating they’re siblings. And with the previous two partygoers he doesn’t even try to hide it, he’s just out here like, let me reveal your dark secret by phrasing it in the form of a question. That’s not being passive aggressive, that’s just walking into a room and dropping a lot of truth bombs with the obvious express purpose of getting everyone pissed off at each other.

The other occasion Stede deliberately tries to use passive aggression is with Calico Jack, who absolutely rubs passive aggressive circles around him. The particular exchange I want to call out starts with Jack calling Blackbeard a real pirate, unlike one of these “store-bought types,” the latter part said while looking directly at Stede. This is good passive aggression. Jack has just insulted Stede by saying he’s not a real pirate, but in such a way that if called out on it he can claim he wasn’t talking about Stede or that he was just making a joke about Stede’s fancy stuff but didn’t really mean it.

Stede, despite his lack of skill at using passive aggression, is still pretty good at picking up on it when it’s directed at him (years of experience, poor baby). So he attempts to volley back by asking Jack where his ship and crew are, because you’d think a real pirate would have one of those. This is much better than the French party. If the crowd had been on Stede’s side he probably could have gotten away with it as just friendly ribbing, so I would call it actual passive aggression. But he still isn’t being terribly subtle about it and is running right up against the line into regular aggression. Which Jack takes full advantage of by starting to “cry,” turning everyone against Stede and his “bitchy” question.

Ironically, I think the closest he comes to good passive aggression (as in well done, not morally good) is after Mary’s show when he throws out there that he forgives her for sleeping with Doug. I say ironically, because I don’t think Stede was really trying to be passive aggressive there. I mean, probably a little, but I think in his (still drunk) mind, he was just putting out there that they’ve both been having a hard time of it and both messed up since he got back, and he’s sorry for what he did and forgives her for what she’s done. I mean, it’s definitely a terrible apology for a number of reasons, I just don’t think he was really trying to be aggressive there.

[lyrebirdswrites]

Shrödinger’s Nobara

So we got an update on how Nobara is doing. It was not the update I wanted to see.

My first impulse was to consider this a point blank confirmation of her death. I still think there’s a high chance she will not be recovering, and I would advise all Nobara stans to prepare emotionally for the possibility that she really is dead if you have not done so already. However, I also think it’s possible to make a case for her survival based on the information in this scene and the context from previous chapters, and I’m going to do my best to do so. Hopefully I can provide some comfort to anyone who might be freaking out over the implications here like I was at first.

Megumi doesn’t say she’s breathing or we don’t know or even it doesn’t look good - he says nothing at all. That does not fill me with confidence. But he doesn’t directly say she is gone either. This is a good time to remember the cardinal rule of character death; it’s not confirmed until we see the body. I think until we actually have indisputable proof of her death, we should continue operating under the assessment Nitta gave when he halted the damage caused by her wounds - don’t get your hopes up, but it’s not a zero percent chance.

I don’t consider Megumi’s pessimism to be indisputable proof. It’s damning, yes. But he is also highly subjective, inclined to assume the worst, and not an omnipotent force in the narrative. This isn’t me saying that the only reason there’s ambiguity is because she’s definitely still alive—that would be a wrong assumption to make. But if Akutami is still in two minds about what to do about her, or if he knows but doesn’t want to tell us, this scene is a neat way of sidestepping the need for a definitive answer right now. There’s enough plausible deniability in the framing of this exchange for Megumi’s answer to be read as she’s 100% dead, OR as she’s alive but in super fucking bad shape and it doesn’t look good. Whichever result it turns out to be, the scene can work in retrospect either way.

Which brings me to my not-retroactive interpretation of Yuuji’s immediate reaction. I think he would have been way more distressed if he perceived megumi’s silence as confirmation that she was without a doubt dead. He pulls himself together remarkably quickly for someone who full on had a mental breakdown mid fight at the sight of her injury. In the comments section over on readjujutsukaisen (credit where credit is due, not my analysis) commenter Asinine said “I think Megumi's non-response indicated the severity of her condition. I think Yuji's reaction revealed his pain followed by hope (clenched fist) she'll pull through.” That makes more sense to me than Yuuji thinking she’s actually dead and only having I get it!! to say about it before we rush on with the plot.

I’d really like to read the original raw version of this chapter, because it’s worth noting that the unofficial fan translation phrased Yuuji’s question like this: how is Kugisaki’s condition? It matters whether his question is past tense or present tense, because that positions Megumi’s answer as either past tense or present tense too. Megumi could be looking sad because, past tense, what happened to her was bad. Or he could be looking sad because, present tense, her condition is bad. I think the nuance there definitely affects how we as the audience should interpret this exchange and consequently Nobara’s chances. If anyone knows where I can read the raw scans please tell me.

Speaking of Nobara’s chances—structurally and narratively there is still more than enough room for her in the plot. When she was first taken out by Mahito, I figured she’d be fine because I thought her frequent references to people ‘messing up her beautiful face’ and her argument with Momo about scars on female jujutsu sorcerers/sexism in the jujutsu world were foreshadowing her having to live with that massive scar and a missing eye. If Akutami wants to continue exploring themes of feminism and sexism, as he has indicated through his characterisation of the broader zenin clan, Nobara now has a unique role to play in that aspect of the story: being treated differently after getting scarred.

Similarly, there are some interesting implications when it comes to her cursed technique and the current arc. Theoretically, she could use resonance on any of the newly awakened sorcerers/vessels and do some serious damage to The Brain, because they’re all strongly linked to him through the powers he gave them. She might provide an avenue to attack him later via that method—or Akutami might be deliberately sidelining her for the duration of this arc with the intent to have her recover later, because he saw this massive plot hole coming and he needs to thin out (cull) the crowd of awakened sorcerers first so she doesn’t have such easy access to a really powerful weakness in a major antagonist.

It’s also possible that he saw the plot hole coming and is killing her to fix it. But if that was the case, he wouldn’t have said in one of his interviews that he hadn’t made up his mind yet whether she was dead or not (?? That’s the translation I saw iirc, but I can’t vouch for its accuracy because I didn’t personally translate or cross check it myself).

Every other character’s death has been clear in a very gut punch kind of way, but ever since Nitta showed up this one has been SO ambiguous the whole way through. In my opinion, this scene does far more to increase the ambiguous tension than release it. It’s too vague. Akutami has been pretty good about giving his characters a fitting send off up to this point. I would be genuinely surprised if he broke the news about one of the main trio officially dying via one page in one chapter which doesn’t even give a status update though words, let alone through an actual drawing of her corpse/grave/ashes/funeral. Which loops me back to the cardinal rule of character death: it’s not confirmed until we see the body.

And let’s face it—if Akutami plans to keep Nobara alive, I am 100% sure he would drag the reveal out as long as possible and make it look as unlikely as possible in order to inflict Pain™ on his audience. Of course, if he plans to kill her off, the situation would look equally grim. But you know he wouldn’t hand us her recovery on a silver platter. Things seem bad (and like I said nobara stans this is your wake up call to start preparing for the worst case scenario now) but that doesn’t automatically mean that they are as bad as they seem.

In summary:

[mmmmalo]

Reached Tagora and Vikare, got hung up on gay subtext.

Tagora's route, the first in Friendsim to mention rainbow drinkers, starts off with an angry driver calling MSPAR a "lumpsquirt chugger" -- a turn of phrase emphasized when Tagora asks you to move your "chug column", ie neck. The lumps in question are likely breasts, turning "lumpsquirt chugger" into "milk drinker" and thereby insulting MSPAR for being a mammal (not unthinkable on a bug planet). But the lumps could just as easily indicate balls, turning the phrase into "cocksucker" and bringing the drive-by hostility into alignment with earthly homophobia. These would probably overlap: centaursTesticle dranks his centaur's man-milk after all, the liquid whites were never far apart... Anyway Tagora continues the general Alternian-vampire trend of draining you (of cash, in this instance), and the twin epithets for "substance sipper" might hint at a homoerotic bent to the lawyerly cash-suck that intensifies in concert with Gor-Gor's anger (especially since the story features Tagora's gay kismesis).

Vikare is such a boundless fountain of plausibly deniable innuendo I scarcely know where to start. Let's mark some choice quotations:

1 . "I'm nothing but an avatar of baloney. In truth the myriad temptations and desires of space do nothing to tickle my biscuit. [snip] My interest lies in something a little… Lower down." This is Vikare confessing his deviance, that his heart (his "pump biscuit") prefers atmospheric flight to the spaceflight mandated by his society. But what I hear is "I am a sausage receptacle. Society's normative pathways of desire fail to stimulate my ass. I am interested in... the butt."

2. The ass fixation was perhaps first announced when he marks your trek to his hive with the imperative "let's get a wiggle on!" -- though the parallel routes seeming deployment of "lumpsquirt chuggers" to conflate milk and cum makes me squint a bit when Vikare treats the word "friend" as a euphemism and cautiously probes your response to the alternate phrasing "bosom companion"

3. Speaking of probing, Vikare's hive being shaped like a UFO might act to bring us close to the specter of anal probing, especially since he eroticizes the secondary alien-abduction activity of vivisection: "I would like to trust you a little more before vivisecting myself // And displaying my bleeding organs before your penetrating gaze // Which is a metaphor for exposing my portfolio" -- Though if we were to take "bleeding organs" literally within the context of innuendo (as opposed to the rawness of the inner body in general), it'd be more indicative of vagina...? Or I guess if trolls vomit blood for reproduction, the throat is also a match... he eroticizes vivisection again when he says he not a macho type who can "whip out" his organ-harvesting tools at a moment's notice, which turns us toward a phallic paradigm, but I still have some lingering doubts about Alternia being all-male, as put forward in Slurquest.

Anyway,

4. Turning "two shakes of a lamb's tail" into "two shakes of a baby baa beast's hindquarters" again orients us toward the ass

Listening to Brodemus's Friendsim playthrough again at work and it clicked that Ardata continues the association of the 3rd Eye with mind control -- previously established by the glowing emblem on the foreheads of the psychically intertwined and Jane's mindhack tiara.

[witlessficcer]

Intruder Alert

A/N: This fic is based on an ask by@multi-muse-transect. The ask was for a Peggy/Nat AU in which Natasha is taken in by Wong after he defeats Drykov. While she is studying as his apprentice, Nat sees Peggy working out. I have not seen The Black Widow. I hope this somewhat meets the request. Enjoy.

Natasha Romanoff still burned with the imprint of her former training. Her Master, Drykov was a viscous taskmaster and one whom distributed brutal punishment on those who did not meet his impossible standards. Nat did not fail, but she saw plenty who did, plenty who disappeared and were never seen or spoken of again. When Wong came to Red Room, many of the girls scattered, taking the opportunity to escape, if they had the nerve. Natasha watched. She watched as the General threw everything he had at Wong. But, the peaceful looking Asian was not an ordinary man. By some power that Natasha did not understand, Wong defeated Drykov.

When the battle was over, such as it was, the man looked at her intently. She returned his scrutiny with curiosity of her own. He approached her with open hands and smile with which the young assassin could find no fault. She was looking. Hard.

“Do you want to leave this place?” he asked, like he was order lunch. “I do not think there is anything left here for you.”

“I'm supposed to follow a strange man though a glowing golden portal and hope it all turns out well for me?” Natasha answered, coldly.

“Better than a Russian Gulag or being hunted like a dog for the sake of deniability,” the Asian answered, softly, but directly.

“If we get along,” the redhead offered. “And, I'm not saying we will. I want you to teach me what you were doing. The golden patterns were...beautiful. The power in them is obviously strong.”

“It is possible that this could be done. If we get along. As you know, students get the grunt work. Are you prepared to keep working? I promise that learning form me will be nothing like this place.”

“Let's go,” Natasha said, ready to leave with the clothes on her back. “There is nothing here for me.

She watched as the portly man seemed to spin a web of light, which opened into a larger circle and showed an empty alley on the other side. Without a glance toward her, he walked through.

She stood still; considering he empty alley, the oddly content man, and potential to learning a power beyond her understanding.

“Are you coming?” he asked from the other side of the portal. His hands clasped behind his back. “The window will close momentarily.”

“Who are you?” Natasha asked, her heart rate rising.

“My name is Wong.”

“Who are you, really?” she pressed. “You will find out soon enough. JUMP! NOW!

Natasha jumped as the portal closed around her.

*****

The house in New York was old, but comfortable. Stylish, in a museum kind of way. Nat found its timeless, multicultural decorations relaxing. It was inviting in a way the Red Room complex was spartan and lifeless. Nat was also pleased that she and Wong had worked out a teacher-student relationship that was both challenging and rewarding. His positive reinforcement was a refreshing change from Drykov, but also an initial hurdle as Nat knew she was exhibiting the behavior of an abused child. It took some time for each of them to learn to trust each other. It was coming, slowly, but surely.

After three months of introductory lessons, Wong decided to give her something a little more complex. He handed her a small leather bound book with ornate decoration on the front and back cover. It could not have been more than 20 pages long. Opening the volume, she found child like illustrations and words in a language she could not read. “Study this for this afternoon. Talk to me about what you have discovered at dinner.

Nat was not one to retreat from a challenge. Sitting at table on in the library, she started to 'read'. The words meant nothing, but the pictures...

Two hours later, Nat was knocked from her reverie by the faint sound of grunting an exertion. It wasn't Wong, or anyone else she had met at the House. She could hear the unmistakable sound of fists pounding leather. Kicking too. Rising from her chair she was was surprised to see golden sparks dissipate about her. What the hell? Even the sparks couldn't keep her from following the sounds of someone beating the shit of a hanging bag. Following the exhilarating sounds lead her to a wide, carpeted stairwell leading down. Of course its coming from the gym, dummy.

Making her way down the stairs and through a longer than normal corridor, Nat pulled up short before entering Wong's work out room. Peering into the room, but remaining out of sight, Nat was amazed at what she saw. The person beating on the bag was a woman. A giant woman. She must have been...over six feet tall. Her shoulders, glistening with sweat, were broad and muscled. Her entire body was broad and muscled. In her boxing stance, Nat could see the definition in her calves, thighs, and abs. The skin tight exercise pants left little to the imagination. The woman had a magnificently tight set of glutes. It was a nice ass. Who was she fooling? Despite herself, Nat found her eyes glued to the mystery woman. For the time being she felt that observing would be the best course of action. She wished the woman would turn around so she could get a look at the rest of her, but the Amazon was positioned to only show her back.

“How long are you going to stand there and watch?” the brown haired woman asked.

For the second time in a few short minutes, Nat had been caught off guard. Lost in thought. It was unforgivable. Drykov would have beaten her and thrown her naked into a cell the size of broom closet. That was then, though. This was now. Now, was a beautiful, muscle bound woman calling her out for staring. Natasha turned on the ice.

“I was waiting to get a good look at our intruder,” she said, flatly.

“Well,” the other woman said, turning to face Natasha. “Am I good looking?"

The former Red Room assassin, trained in all manner of self control and deadly precision, blinked. Dark brown eyes, strong jaw, aquiline nose, full, luscious lips, and large breasts, that seemed to strain against her loose grey tank top.

“Passable,” Nat said, without emotion. You thought luscious lips and big boobs, you big liar!Natasha felt like she needed to leave. She wasn't thinking clearly. This woman was affecting her in a way that she couldn't control. At first sight, her training was gone and she was succumbing to baser instincts. She's a hot athlete who started flirting with you immediately.

“Better than I get from the guys on the construction crew,” the larger woman said. “I think they're scared and don't know what to do with someone who could take them in a fight.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Natasha said. “Can't be easy taking shit from guys like that.”

“They are harmless. Literally. None of the them could hurt me.”

“Nasty names can't be easy every day,” Natasha said, moving not so stealthily toward the chair where the woman's bag lay open and white towel hung over the edge. “Plus, I'm not sure sure such names are entirely accurate.”

“Changing your tune that soon?” the other woman challenged. “I didn't come here to to be hit on by little girls. I came to work out.”

“I am not a little girl and I am hardly hitting on you,” piqued by the boxer's audacity.

“That drool at the edge of your mouth says otherwise?” the intruder continued, brazenly.

“I don't drool,” Nat responded, harshly, her self control eroding further. “Who are you? I need a name to give the police.”

“I'm Peggy, and there's no need to call the police. They would come, find you unconscious, and I would be in the wind.”

This woman, Peggy, was instigating her. Why? Perhaps she thinks your cute too. Did she already know who Natasha was? Was she an associate of Wong's? Or, did she simply like pushing buttons?

“If that was a threat, it was lost on me,” Nat said, with confident cool. “I can take care of myself. I'm sure you've heard the phrase: the bigger they are, the harder they fall?”

The larger woman's brown eyes gleamed with mirth. Placing on gloved hand on her hip, she brought the other to her mouth in failed attempt to stifle a laugh.

“Did you really just say that?” Peggy said, rounding out her chuckle. “Trained assassins should be able to make better threats than that. Seriously.”

Another figurative right hook to Natasha's ego sent her reeling. “Do you need a towel? You're sweating?” That's right. Offer to wipe down her sweaty muscles while you try to recover from her owning you from the moment you saw her.

“Sure, Natasha,” Peggy said, taking the offered towel and beginning to wipe herself off. “Since you mentioned it, if I fell, which is unlikely, I would make every effort to fall on top of you so there would be no clear victor.”

Nat was sure she was hypnotized. She was a Red Room assassin and a Sorcerer's apprentice. Who did this Amazonian street thug think she was? This is getting old. You are not hypnotized. You are hot for her at first sight and just won't admit it.

“Who's Victor?” Nat said, emerging form her inner argument. “And, how do you know who I am?”

“Are you okay?” Peggy said, coming toward her. The taller woman, pulled her boxing gloves off and tossed them to the floor. She turned her hand knuckles out and reached toward the assassin's forehead. Nat blocked the strong forearm aside before the hand could touch her.

Raising her hands in surrender, Peggy said. “I'm not going to hurt you. I was trying to check your temperature. You seem out of sorts.”

“How would you know what sort I am?” Nat said, too harshly.

“You're sweating,” Peggy said. “Your face is flush. You offered me a towel. I didn't see that coming.”

“You're sweating!” Nat exclaimed, causing a small burst of golden sparks to shoot from her temples.

“Whoa,” Peggy said, shocked, as the sorcerer's assassin collapsed toward her.

Peggy caught the younger read head and scooped her up into her large arms.

“What has Wong gone and done this time,” Peggy said, as she walked Natasha up the stairs in search of her teacher.

[beautifulterriblequeen]

A Tiadrin theory

I woke up this morning with a sudden headcanon about Tiadrin, and as I poked at it, it filled out nicely, so I’m gonna go ahead and call it a theory at this point.

It gets angsty, as all good Moonshadow theories do. If your heart doesn’t weigh 6 tons by the time you reach the end of this post, I didn’t capture the feeling properly.

Several bits of detail flutter around this mysterious woman, and I’ve theorized various versions of her circumstances, her relationship with Runaan and Ethari, her former position before the Storm Spire, the reasons she went there, and the reasons Runaan was so hellbent on avenging her dishonor.

I don’t think any of them landed as well or tied together as neatly as this one, though. Hence “theory” instead of just “headcanon.” Here we go:

FIrstly, some meta information. This is a fun tweet, but in this post I’m looking directly at “belief systems as sources of both comfort and restraint” and at the “weight of guilt” and “cycles of trauma” lines, in regards to Moonshadow culture, and specifically Moonshadow assassin training.

And raise your hand if you’ve been looking further afield than the front-and-center Janaya-with-Soren nod from “ripped women who teach soft boys to stab,” because I have. TDP is full of parallels and imperfect mirrors.

So, in the spirit of soft yet angsty cycles and the ripped women who perpetuate them, Theory Part I: Tiadrin trained Runaan, because she was the leader of the assassins before he was.

She’s referred to as a mastermind. Assassin leaders need to be good with plans of all sizes. We’ve seen how Runaan silently adapts to chaos and doesn’t tell anyone what his new plans actually are. He’s a good leader. But he also had to learn those skills from someone. Whoever instructed him was a tactical genius, and also very Moonshadow, and Runaan was an adept student.

Also, Tiadrin is a goddamn badass. She’s several inches shorter than Lain, Runaan, Ethari, and Viren. But she is a powerhouse in battle. She knows her physics well enough to drag this 6′2″ human battle mage skidding across the floor. Monster thighs, monster intellect.

As a 5′4″ woman who trained in jujitsu for several years, let me just say: gender equality in battle is great, but physics does not care. It will crush your popsicle-stick ass if you try to chuck a 250 lb person across the room and your math is off. The most accurate fighters are the ones who know how hard physics hits back when you’re sloppy.

Tiadrin earned every inch of respect, and every inch of her thigh circumference, the old-fashioned way. She worked for it, all day every day. Runaan does the same thing. He might have half a foot of height on her, but he trains like the world will crush him if he’s not perfect. And that’s very Moonshadow assassin in its own right, because it will, and it tried. Tiadrin knew what she needed. And she knew what Runaan, soft boy that he is, needed. And she made sure she trained it into him, all day every day.

Tiadrin is one of the reasons that Runaan survived the fight in Harrow’s chamber. She made him the fighter he is, the person he is, and that was just enough to pull him through... so he could see his own mentor trapped in a coin. Yay, thanks Viren.

Theory Part II: Runaan’s squad was made up of all the elves Tiadrin has personally trained, or trained by proxy.

If Tiadrin was Runaan’s trainer and mentor, then her honor was his honor. And when she supposedly faltered and fled at the Storm Spire, that suddenly cast him, as an individual assassin and as the current assassin leader, in a terrible light. If his mentor was a coward, what did she teach him? Would he also duck and run when things got hopeless, and abandon his duty?

The doubt that must’ve swirled around him when the village learned the terrible news about Lain and Tiadrin must’ve sliced right through him. Thousand-yard stare, biggest internal Oh No ever. Runaan lives to serve his people, and to have them doubt him, after all he has done to train them and protect them from harm, would be the worst kind of pain. He had to make it right.

But not just him. Assassins seem to take solo missions even for their first kill, if Eljaal’s covered shoulders are any indication. You can Moonshadow your feels if you don’t have to watch your friend kill someone, if you don’t have anyone watching while you stab someone to death. You can pretend it’s all serene and just and smooth and valid and honorable. You can hold to your love of life and dance right past your embrace of death, if no one else sees it. But Runaan’s mission had 6 members. They were definitely going to have to watch each other murder people. Why?

Tiadrin’s honor was their honor. An extended family of brothers, sisters, cousins, fosterlings, anyone who was drawn to Tiadrin, or her to them, bonded together over their family feels and protective instincts. They were family. And then their leader fell, her honor crushed.

They had to make it right.

They all carried Tiadrin’s honor with their own, taught by her personally, regarded as honorable assassins. Until she seemed to have a fatal flaw in her character. Then everyone wondered if that flaw got passed down, too. The assassins had to prove that it hadn’t been, for the sake of their people, and for all of Xadia who trusted them to take out threats in the dark. They had to go set right Tiadrin’s “mistake” and take Harrow for Zym’s death. All of them. Every single one, no exceptions.

No exceptions. That’s why Rayla had to go, too. Tiadrin taught Runaan everything he knew about being an assassin, and when she moved to the Storm Spire, Runaan dutifully passed Rayla’s mother’s teachings to Rayla herself, feeling like part of the family, an essential connection between mother and daughter, between assassin mentor and mentee. He tried to get it just right, just perfect, so Rayla would feel like she’d been trained by her actual mom as much as possible. Not just because Tiadrin was Rayla’s mother, but because Runaan respects Tiadrin’s prowess so much. She was the best, and every bit of Runaan’s efforts to be his best reflects his respect for her.

You don’t get to be the assassin leader unless you’re the best there is. Runaan knows that from both sides. And just like Tiadrin did with him, he does his best to teach Rayla everything she needs to stay safe and alive, so she can do her duty too, and come home safe to her family every day.

And, in the end, part of that duty had to be avenging her mentor’s mentor, her own mother, by accompanying Runaan on his mission. Her lessons were from Tiadrin, one step removed. If there was a flaw in her training, no one would trust her when it was her turn to lead the assassins, and she’s not even done training yet! Rayla understood Moonshadow honor, assassin honor. She was driven to ask Runaan to take her with him, and he could see exactly where she was coming from. Their honor was tangled up with Tiadrin’s. They couldn’t back out. They had to go to Katolis, them and everyone else Tiadrin had trained.

That’s why the binding ribbons came out. They were in a do-or-die situation, in the most literal sense.

They could not go home in failure. If they all failed, it would take out a whole line of assassin training, possibly the same one that had lasted for countless generations (okay maybe we can count them and there are like 30) and crush the Moonshadows’ spirits. And they’d literally rather die than see that happen. They were all ready to give their lives to restore Tiadrin’s honor, and their own, because without her legacy, there would be such a crater in the assassin corps that it might never recover.

Yes, this is basically my angsty “Runaan’s found family went into battle together and most of them died” headcanon again, but this time with a solid theory behind it. I’m not sorry. I love this angsty idea, it’s horrible. Do you see the cycle of trauma? I’ve got one more part to add, which may make it clearer.

Theory Part III: Assassin leaders always go serve at the Storm Spire once they successfully train their own replacement.

In this theory’s version of Why Laindrin Went To The Storm Spire, Tiadrin was always going to end up at the Storm Spire, once she became the assassin leader. That’s where the veteran assassin leader goes, see, to liaison between the dragon throne and the current Moonshadow leader. They know the assassins’ skills far better than any Skywings or dragons do, and they know the leader in charge of them, so they can give guidance or direction as needed, or simply phrase the Dragon King or Queen’s request in such language that the assassin leader knows intuitively what really needs to be done.

Yeah, Tiadrin writing Runaan mission directives. I can see it.

Tiadrin’s mentor would’ve left for the Spire when Tiadrin got promoted to leader. The person she trusted most in the world, who had trained her, left her behind, only to communicate by long distance. Moonshadow deniability, amirite--we’re not stabbing people, we’re sending tactical correspondence, yep that’s it. But Tiadrin was still surrounded by Runaan and the other young assassins, and she bonded with them all, and life was bright.

Then, the shadow came once again. Runaan was an excellent student, and she knew he was ready. Maybe she delayed, and delayed, Moonshadowing her reasons. Maybe she wanted the chance to bring life into the world, to try to balance out some of the death she had dealt. Maybe she wanted a few more years of domestic life in the Silvergrove with all her favorite elves, to bolster her heart for the years to come. Maybe her mentor at the Spire was up to shenaniganry in dragon politics and she wanted to buy them more time to lay those plans in place.

Knowing Tiadrin even the slightest bit, I will assume it was all this and more. But eventually, she couldn’t put things off any longer. She had to go fulfill her duty to the dragon throne and join the Dragonguard as the representative of the Moonshadow assassins who had bound themselves to the protection of Xadia long ago. She had to walk away from her bright life, her family, her friends, her allies, and climb up into that misty stone tower, to spend who knows how long away from everything she knew and loved.

And she did. She chose to walk away, for love of Xadia. She took her beloved husband with her, but she left the Silvergrove, Xadia’s protection, and her own daughter’s upbringing in the hands of the elf she chose to replace her. The soft boy she’d taught to stab, who would teach her baby girl to stab, too.

Because this is The Way.

I know I’ve had an angsty headcanon that assassins don’t retire. But, consider this: maybe one of them can. One of Tiadrin’s many plans could have been counting on Runaan’s extreme prowess and devotion to Rayla. If Tiadrin knew that she could return to the Silvergrove in peace and retire there with Lain once Runaan trained Rayla to take his place as the assassin leader, then she could live in the Silvergrove again for the rest of her life, and also get to see Rayla grown big and strong and become the assassin leader herself, another proud elf in a long line of honor and tradition. She might feel that was a big accomplishment, considering the dangers they all face. And it would be.

Yes, this would hinge on the fact that Runaan would have to leave the Silvergrove to replace Tiadrin at the Storm Spire, to serve as Rayla’s liaison to the dragon throne. Cycles of trauma, remember? Tiadrin can’t have all of her family back in one place, ever again. She has to love and train someone enough to put them through the life that she’s having to live, and she has to be strong enough not to let that break her. And then, she has to choose between them. She chose Runaan first, so that she could hope to choose Rayla later. She trusted him with all the future happiness of her heart. And he did his best with it.

But they didn’t quite make it, in the end, because of Viren.

I know this has been a lot of angst. I know. But there is a moonlit lining to this theory, and I think we all need to consider it. If there is a cycle of taking the assassin leader out of the Silvergrove to serve the dragon throne for ancient promise reasons, then if that ancient promise is ever rescinded or redressed in an effective way, the family won’t need to keep yeeting loved ones out of its orbit. And if assassins cease to be a necessary evil as a result, then no one will have to leave, or stab, again. At least, not for the same angsty reasons. They could stay together and never need to leave again.

It won’t be easy to break such a cycle. It might be impossible. But if anyone can manage it, it’ll be Tiadrin, and her family.

extra headcanon for this theory:

Tiadrin, packing up for the Storm Spire: One last thing, Runaan.

Runaan, stoically attentive because what are feels on the day your mentor leaves you: Yes, Tiadrin?

Tiadrin: Ethari will need to pick an apprentice to replace him, too. He should start looking now.

Runaan: Why? Only the Silvergrove’s Master Craftsman gets to pick an apprentice, and Ethari isn’t--

Tiadrin: *wink” Not yet, he’s not.

Runaan: Tiadrin, please, what have you done?

Tiadrin: I want to come back here someday, Runaan. I want to see your good work with Rayla. And I can’t do that if you flat-out refuse to leave your husband when Avizandum calls for you to replace me. So he needs to be ready to leave, too.

Runaan: I, I, I would nev-- I couldn’t--

Tiadrin: *patting his shoulder briskly as she strides out* Mmhmm, sure thing, kid. The council votes him in next Thursday. Be good while I’m gone! I want to find this place exactly the way I’m leaving it. Lain, honey, get your coat!

Lain, in the next room: Yes, Tiadrin!

Runaan, soft-eyed, to the silence in her wake: Yes, Tiadrin.

[theonewithallthefixations]

okay, here we go. Also, @silvercaptain24 please don’t apologize for the length of your thing because it is fantastic and tops this by miles.

It’s so much easier to type than handwrite! Who’d’a thought!

My Toulmin’s Module Analysis of “The Ten Duel Commandments” by Lin Manuel Miranda

The song “The Ten Duel Commandments” by Lin Manuel Miranda explains the rules for a duel during the Revolutionary War in order to set up the scene for a duel between two soldiers in defense of George Washington. 

At the beginning of each paragraph, you can see an example of parallelism. This catches attention for the first line of substance in each paragraph, the purpose of the paragraph. This first sentence states the rule. 

In the second paragraph, the statement of “if they apologize, no need for further action” is found, and this shows that this is not something done for fun. In the third paragraph, however, Miranda states that this is common, and uses slang to show that  nobody thinks much of it, if this is not already shown by the fact that there are rules that have been set up for this specific purpose. This helps the audience understand that this is a time where reputation is defended greatly. The fact that “negotiate a peace” is said, and then Hamilton cuts in, saying “negotiate a time and place” shows that he is itching for a fight. The harmonies mixed with dissonance on the last phrase- “most disputes die and no one shoots-“ adds emphasis to it. This statement is important because it shows how unnecessary most of these arguments are. If someone is willing to apologize that easily, it means that it is not a big enough deal to die over. This also shows how big of a deal Hamilton found an insult to George Washington. 

In the next paragraph, it mentions getting pistols and a doctor on sight, showing how both of these are considered important in a duel. Another example of parallelism is found in “You pay him in advance, you treat him with civility, you have him turn around, so he can have deniability.” The audience feels relief at this statement, at knowing that at least the doctor will be okay, but also panic, because this means that something will happen, making deniability necessary. 

In the next paragraph, where leaving a note for your next of kin is deemed necessary, the audience feels sad because they are leaving family for something that seems so unnecessary. The alliteration in Hell or Heaven puts emphasis on those words, along with the opposition between the meanings. Putting the word “pray” in the same sentence as the word “Hell” creates a juxtaposition, making the audience think about why you would pray to go to Hell. They feel confusion, which melts into understanding as they think about what it would mean if neither Hell of Heaven let them in. 

At the end, with Burr addressing Hamilton rather than the other way around, calls the memory of Hamilton seeking out Burr at the beginning. It shows how much Hamilton has risen since the beginning of the Musical, and how quickly. Faster that Burr, certainly. 

The rhythm of the entire song sounds urgent and calls to mind the vision of an execution. It creates an anxiety in the audience that may have not been achieved any other way. 

The song “The Ten Duel Commandments” is very effective at getting the desired message across, and certainly adds to the story as a whole. 

Very stiff I am completely aware. I wrote timed write style and speed so it’s not as good as I would like it. I will probably go back and edit at some point, make it sound smoother. But I did the thing! YO! ANYONE ON COLLEGE BOARD PLEASE MAKE THIS YEAR’S RHETORICAL ANALYSIS PEICE THIS SONG SO THAT I DON’T ACTUALLY HAVE TO DO WORK AND I CAN JUST SCRIBBLE DOWN WHAT I REMEMBER OF THIS AND THEN SPEND THE REST OF MY TIME ON MY ARGUMENT AND SOURCES PEICES! Anyway. I’m probably going to make a continuation of this for the entire musical, but not now, cause I gotta do some analyzing for a grade.

Why the Ten Duel Commandments is actually genius from a writing perspective.

okay @theonewithallthefixations SO!

(Sorry this got. LONG.)

The Ten Duel Commandments is fascinating from a writing perspective for a lot of reasons, because looking at it- Lin didn't have to do that part. It could've been an easily mentioned and forgotten line in a song, and he could've done something different, But he didn't, and this is why it's genuis-

A. Fantastic writing. It tells us all the rules of a duel, even little nuances ("Pick a place to die where it's high and dry!"). And while it does that, It takes us through the duel between Laurens and Lee.

B. It gives us another view on duels. Because we later see a duel from an outsider perspective (Phillip's Duel) and an dueler's perspective (Burr and Hamilton). But this one we see it from the perspective of a second. We see the duel without the main characters being in danger.

C. FORESHADOWING. Cause some people may have come into Hamilton knowing that he dies from a duel at the end, but maybe not everyone, and I doubt many knew that his son died in a duel. But by showing the duel between Laurens and Lee, we get foreshadowing with the setup of all the rules of a duel.

D. It sets us up for later (Yes this is different from foreshadowing). Like I said, it gives us the details, it gives us the rules. So then later, when we see Phillip's duel, it doesn't have to go back into those details as much. Which makes the reuse of the melody in The World Was Wide Enough hit that much harder, because we get reminded of all of them.

E. It shows the differences between the duels. It shows us the difference between Lee and Laurens, which doesn't seem as high stakes, and Hamilton and Burr, which, while it has the same melody, the differing words and using the melody again really really hammer down that this is higher stakes. This feels more important. there's something different about this one.

[itsnothingofinterest]

I think this fandom needs more villainous Christmas content, and also we really need some light Villain content right now; so since the PLF were formed and Shigaraki was still with them for last Christmas, here’s what I headcanon Shigaraki & the lieutenants got each other during their tense first few days after the merger.

Shigaraki

He get everyone video games. And also personal consoles for each and every one of them. Now Hero Aca is 200 years in the future, but I’m gonna list specific games & series anyway and just say if it still exists, it’s the latest game from that series, if not, it’s something similar to that series. With that said, here’s what he got everyone.

Dabi: Doom

Toga: Assassins’ Creed

Spinner: Grand Theft Auto

Twice: Animal Crossing

Mr. Compress: Mario

Geten: Dark Souls

Skeptic: Professor Layton

Trumpet: Command & Conquer

Redestro: X-COM

Attitude after merger review: Good marks; no noticeable signs of favoring old friends over enemies turned allies. Good job hiding that animosity Tomura!

Dabi

He went to a book store and got everyone books; because they’re good gifts that still allow him the opportunity to knock everyone’s literacy skills by saying they should read more. It’s an important balance for him to strike, getting good gifts without appearing friendly in the slightest. Anyway, here’s the genres he got everyone

Shigaraki Edge action adventure

Toga: Romance

Spinner: Action adventure YA novel

Twice: Slice-of-life comedy

Mr. Compress: murder mystery

Geten: University-level math textbook

Skeptic: Sci-fi navel gazing

Trumpet: Political theory

Redestro: Suspenceful Thriller

Attitude after merger review: Would’ve been fine if not for that dig at Geten’s uneducated status. Try harder next year, please.

Toga

Reminiscent of her pre-quirk Christmases, she decided to make homemade gifts for everyone using whatever she had available. Which was a lot, actually, since she was not afraid to spend Redestro’s money on supplies. In fact she went out of her way to get the most expensive supplies available at every opportunity.

Shigaraki: A grim miniature carnival ground where action figures of All Might & other pros are tortured and mutilated.

Dabi: a miniature statue of him made out of platinum and then crudely painted.

Spinner: An origami model of Stain with a vast arsenal of origami swords.

Twice: a Hand-knitted toque just a bit to big for his head.

Mr. Compress: A collection of new masks in fancy paints.

Geten: A mountaineering pick-ax with a handle in his color scheme.

Skeptic: Just a piece of paper saying “I know about the neck snapping. I look forward to working with you.”

Trumpet: A Trumpet.

Redestro: A bust of his head made of solid gold and smiling his to-wide fake-y smile.

Attitude after merger review: Also docking points for a dig at a former adversary, and what’s worse is it wasn’t even in the form of a proper present. Also losing points for going out or your way to spend Redestro’s money, which granted, everyone else was doing too, but you were a bit upfront with it. Employ more subtlety next time!

Spinner

Spinner also got everyone video games like Shigaraki did; however he looked into indie games. Gotta support the little guys, y’know? That said, indie games 200 years in the future are nearly equivalent to AAA games now in all the ways that matter, so there’s not too much of a difference except it’s all spiritual successors, no franchises. Huge selection though, and there’s successors to everything so Spinner’s set.

Shigaraki: Metroid

Dabi: Mario Kart

Toga: Danganronpa

Twice: Rayman

Mr. Compress: Clunhouse Games: 51 Classics

Geten: Celeste

Skeptic: Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes.

Trumpet: Call of Duty

Redestro: Roller Coater Tycoon

Attitude after merger review: Full marks just like Tomura, as expected of his closest lieutenant. Excellent gifting Spinner!

Twice

Now that he has money, he just went on some Amazon-esque website and got the first thing he saw the reminded him of everyone. As such, his gifts are the most sporadic & random.

Shigaraki: A bottle of Kurogiri’s favorite wine.

Dabi: A quality pack of cigarettes.

Toga: Hairclips with characters from an anime she liked growing up.

Spinner: One of the spinning whetstone things for sharpening blades.

Mr. Compress: A new hat.

Geten: a pair of mittens.

Skeptic: Several Spools or wire + a pair of wire cutters.

Trumpet: A maintenance kit for trumpets.

Redestro: A $1000 donation to a quirkless rights movement in his name. (Can you tell he’s still mad about Giran?)

Attitude after merger review: Once more, major marks docked for taking a dig at an enemy-turned-ally that you can hardly even pretend is a proper gift. Once again; if you can’t do anything nice, be more sublet when acting mean.

Mr. Compress

He frankly wanted to see if he could get anyone into his hobbies, or at least get them something to remind them of him, so he robbed a magic store for magic trick-based toys & performance tools.

Shigaraki: One of those things where you saw your assistant in half (complete with saw).

Dabi: Those weird orb things that slid around your hand.

Toga: One of those boxes you have your assistant stand in and then stab them (complete with knives).

Spinner: Fancy deck of cards

Twice: Yo-yo collection.

Geten: Hula hoop

Skeptic: Semi-transparent Mirror

Trumpet: Bracelet things where you put one inside the other.

Redestro: Fog Machine

Attitude after merger review: Nearly full marks, but it is rather noticeable how League members got, on average, much larger presents than the MLA alumni. Still, the plausible deniability is worth something here. 

Geten

He just went to a store to get whatever he could find. He did not try very hard for the League. Or Skeptic & Trumpet for that matter.

Shigaraki: Santa hat

Dabi: Snow globe

Toga: Chocolate Bar

Spinner: Elf hat.

Twice: Bag of candy

Mr. Compress: a $20 gift card.

Skeptic: New tie.

Trumpet: A wallet.

Redestro: A Blue-Ray collection of a movie series he’d been meaning to see.

Attitude after merger review: Absolute lowest marks; the fact that he got bad gifts for fellow MLA members does not hide this fact as well as he may think it does.

Skeptic

Not really knowing enough about any of these guys enough to really think about what they want, but still wanting to show off; he hacked into the personal bank accounts of several heroes & famous figures and, using each one, got a ¥ 1 million gift card from this store franchise that doesn’t allow any kind of refunds.  Here are the corresponding accounts used to make each person’s gift (he did at least put thought into who each recipient might like to rob).

Shigaraki: All Might

Dabi: Endeavor

Toga: Best Jeanist

Spinner: Wash

Twice: Yoroi Musha

Mr. Compress: Edgeshot

Geten: Mirko

Trumpet: Some political opponent

Redestro: The HPSC president

Attitude after merger review: Both thoughtful and balanced between old & new partners, full marks for one of the last people you might’ve expected. Way to use that pride, Skeptic!

Trumpet

A rather materialistic fellow, he got everyone some new tech or item of convenience.

Shigaraki: An expensive watch.

Dabi: A temperature-controlled water bottle

Toga: A big make-up kit

Spinner: A nice suit

Twice: An Ipod.

Mr. Compress: A nice suitcase.

Geten: A mini-fridge.

Skeptic: A new laptop.

Redestro: A new phone.

Attitude after merger review: Full marks, I suppose, if only because he equally half-arsed it for everyone. Not even out of malice either, he just didn’t try all that hard for anyone.

Redestro

The richest of the lot: he also just got everyone some piece of technology/luxury rich person thing, with the difference that his presents were really big & expensive. He was rather invested in endearing himself to the new team.

Shigaraki: A kind of really big yacht, one with windows around the deck to keep people from seeing him. Imagine a cross between a yacht & a limo, actually.

Dabi: A stupidly big TV with like 10 different streaming services pre-paid on it. 

Toga: A self-driving car.

Spinner: One of those 4-wheeled dirt bikes

Twice: His very own mountain lodge.

Mr. Compress: His very own hot tub.

Geten: His own private jet, complete with a walk-in freezer installed in the back.

Skeptic: A warehouse & collection of those big data storage units; enough to back-up all the data his company had ever collected.

Trumpet: A new van

Attitude after merger review: Full marks and well earned; because even if they weren’t always the most personalized, they were too high quality for it to matter. And for once the expense wasn’t a mark against him because he was spending his own money!

Final review: Toga got everyone the best gifts, with Twice taking 2nd place, because theirs were both thoughtful and unique. Even the non-gift to Skeptic & Redestro couldn't bring them below anyone else’s score. Everyone else sucks at this. 3rd place goes to Redestro though, because “money can’t by happiness” is a phrase that doesn’t apply to poor people.

[wirewitchviolet]

A Little Horrifying Primer on Transphobes

Some time ago, I put together a Little Fact Checking Primer on Trans People, as a basic resource for disabusing people of some of the many completely ridiculous yet absurdly widespread beliefs about trans people that simply have no basis whatsoever in reality. And wouldn’t you know it, every single lie exposed in that primer is not only still widely believed, but is presently being used as a basis to sign some absolutely horrific human rights abuses into law. So it’s high time I follow that up, in this case focused more on who keeps actively spreading these lies and why. I’m going to try and keep things as light as I can here, but we’re going to be looking at the most monstrous side of human nature, so apologies in advance if this is a dark read.

First, let me just note that there are two things I don’t plan to do in this piece. I’m not going to waste time debunking the arguments of the people I’m highlighting (much of this is already covered in my earlier primer, others have done the work in cases where I haven’t, and frankly these people’s claims should be self-evidently utter nonsense to begin with). I am also going to be very selective in what I link to, or even share related images of, as I would frankly not like to fill a post on a blog I generally try to keep safe for all audiences with media directly dealing with, for instance, child sexual assault, and much of the relevant information also involves stochastic terrorism against innocent people, and I would prefer not to throw more fuel onto such fires.

Transphobes lie constantly, about everything.

To some degree this is obvious. We’re talking about people who scaremonger about the possibilities of trans women dominating competitive sports and assaulting people in restrooms, despite the status quo already reflecting the conditions they insist would make these inevitibilities for decades and centuries respectively, and their grim visions never once having come to pass, and also constantly insisting that the woman in the photo below is actually a man, going further to say this is evident to anyone giving her the merest glance.

It goes beyond that though. There’s at least a little plausible deniablity in claims like this, or that “science is on their side” if they were simply uninformed about the world they live in, never actually looking into what laws exist, what science actually says, and never actually meeting a trans person or even seeing a picture of one of us. I’m talking really bold lies here. Like wholecloth fabricating a story that a convicted murder was trans, including anecdotes about wigs dresses and a planned name change, in a major newspaper. Or to cite an old favorite of mine, the time a pack of bigots walked up to a crowd of people peacefully picketing a transphobic legal proposal, started roughing them up and taking closeup photos of members of the crowd to stalk online when they got home, got sufficiently riled up for one to straight up assault an innocent person half her size, filmed the whole thing, uploaded it to youtube, and used stills of that assault as acomanying photos when they went home to write articles about the assailant being a “grandmother” attacked by rowdy trans women. And yes, they did monkey’s paw my wish to see that specific image on newspapers. Interesting side note, when it came to real public light that J.K. Rowling endorsed this sort of hatred, it was because she accidentally pasted some profanity laden rambling about how the imagined moral character of the other party in that incident, years after the fact, into a post praising a child’s fan art of her work.

To be a little less niche, transphobes can’t get enough of spreading the lie that the young fellow in this photo is a girl. Specifically a trans girl, providing proof that all their scaremongering about the dastardly threat of trans girls in competitive sports has finally come to pass.

To be fully clear, that’s a man (or a boy if you want to split hairs about him being 17 in that photo). Mack Beggs. A rather insidious choice for this sort of story, considering the actual context for that photo. See, Beggs attended high school in Texas, during a (still ongoing as I write this) period wherein that particular state had caved to this exact sort of propaganda, and in order to head off a wholly imagined wave of trans girls competing on girls’ sports teams, and enacted a law mandating that in all such competitions must compete under whatever gender is stated on their birth certificates. And as it happens, the first, and to my knowledge ONLY time this has come up was with Beggs here, who again, is a man, as no one with a grip on reality could argue against, has “female” on his birth certificate. Which is another way of saying he is a trans man. The guys in the same boat as trans women who we talk about a whole hell of a lot less because their existence is extremely inconvenient to the majority of transphobic propaganda. Case in point. And this is all information it is really impossible to come across if you’re coming across this photo in any sort of respectable source. Take this story, which is as unambiguous about this as you can get. And yet, in the very comments section of that story, there they are. Carrying on like this story about a trans guy, forced by a transphobic law to compete as a girl, which he absolutely did not want, and received horrific threats over, using phrases like “female to male” and bringing up that he was assigned female at birth and is on testosterone-based HRT, is about a trans woman cheating the system. Or to quote word for word, “Now also transgender female want to be male also compete in female sport. biological born“ That’s not “being confused,” that’s standing next to you in a white desert and complaining about being adrift in a black ocean, bald-faced, not even trying to be convincing just make a power play, lying through one’s teeth.

I could spend this whole article on just this point. Lying about who they are, various people’s falsified credentials, whole websites full of “anonymous parents of children who think they’re trans” turning out to be one single woman documenting the abuse of her very much trans son, or of course the people behind the whole “bathroom bill” panic candidly admitting it was all based on utter fiction. I do have other points to cover though.

Transphobes are firmly entrenched in the media.

It is extremely difficult to find oneself in a position of having to explain to people that a particular group of people is effectively in control of press outlets, as that is rather classically a claim conspiracy theorists absolutely love to toss around at various marginalized groups (including trans people hilariously enough, but of course the most common and lingering version of this is the antisemitic variant). I really can’t get around it here though. Specifically in the U.K., you honestly can say that transphobes control the media. I already touched on this with the assault case I mentioned above and the fabricated story about the murderer, but this is a pretty well-documented situation. I mean, even The Guardian calls out The Guardian on this, and that’s the outlet that gets the most attention because it’s the one with the most otherwise respected name, but every paper in the country has been running transphobic propaganda pieces on a weekly if not daily basis for years now, and while they do get reprimanded by watchdog groups and have mass walk-outs over the worst of it, it’s not like there’s some governing body with the authority to step in about it. Meanwhile the BBC is constantly inviting diehard zealots like Graham Linehan to news programs where he compares being trans to being a nazi, and hosting debates where someone just sits down and repeatedly chants the word “penis” at a trans woman.

Things are better in the rest of the world, but we still have right-wing creeps like Jesse Singal both writing horrific propaganda pieces (we’ll get back to that one) and blackballing trans writers out of covering trans issues ourselves (and personally stalking the hell out of those of us who try). We’ve got our Joe Rogans and Tucker Carlsons out there (no way in hell I’m linking videos here, have a real information link and a still).

The line between diehard transphobes and straight-up nazis basically does not exist.

What even is there to say here? You can easily poke around havens for nazi activity for yourself and compare the particular unique vocabulary used there to the primary bastion of anti-trans hate speech on the internet (the “feminism” section of what was originally a site for parenting tips before violent fascists took the forums over) or just peruse the follows of the thousands of people I’ve blocked on social media and see if you can sort out a clear division in the networks of channers with frog avatars and the accounts with names like GoodieXXrealwoman, or you can read up on Gab and Spinster, the two twitter alternatives that are just different portals to the same server, set up by the same guy. Maybe do some research into “the LGB Alliance,” or WoLF but any way you slice it the only real difference to be found is the general purpose nazis take a little time off now and then to watch borderline pedophilic anime and the really dedicated transphobes think to use language that sounds vaguely well-educated and left-leaning. I mean, this came from the “feminist” side of the fence:

And not to belabor the point here, but the ones claiming to be a bunch of “feminist mums” sure do let the mask slip any time they’re confronted with the fact that “women” includes black women, and oh just have a whole thread about all the weird conspiratory theories these people have about how trans people’s whole existence is some sort of Jewish plot for world domination. I swear a few months ago they were all passing around a story about some bank having an above average number of trans employees and they were all just “and we all know who controls the banks, right?” about it.

Transphobes endorse an awful lot of people who are openly pro-pedophila.

This is the part where I am really loath to link the many many specific examples I have on hand. Or to talk about this at all for reasons of good taste. Or, for that matter, to talk about this in a tumblr post when there’s an ongoing problem of people with backgrounds strongly tied to this site making baseless accusations of pedophilia against every queer person they can find, so let me be very clear just what I’m talking about while avoiding anything too graphic.

That’s James Cantor. Transphobes love him for being one of the closest things they have to a scientist on their side. And I am featuring him in a screenshot here showing that he is followed by current queen of the transphobes J.K. Rowling, while speaking to both another big name in transphobic circles, Debra Soh, and based on their names, what I’m guessing is at least one straight-up nazi. And in case you think “the P” he’s talking about adding to LGBT (or “GLBT” as weird anti-queer bigots who also have issues with women often write it) might stand for “poly” or “pan” he’s all too happy to clarify that.

This is the entire thrust of Cantor’s work and life. He is the world’s biggest pedophile rights advocate. He wants it declassified as a mental disorder, all stigma on it removed, and tirelessly pushes forward the idea that the majority of.. people who feel compelled to sexually assault children are good people who present no potential harm to anyone and should in fact be lauded.

I am not generally one to claim that someone with a PhD is spewing out questionable garbage with regard to their field, but the reason I am aware of Cantor at all is that other transphobes keep trying to hold up a particular post on his blog as "a study” (which it is not) that offers “proof” (in the form of a blurry jpeg of basically some random numbers) of some ridiculous quackery about how trans kids will “grow out of it” if exposed to conversion therapy (another way of saying torture), which Cantor himself seems to be pushing, so I am somewhat skeptical of his academic chops. And I am, of course, REALLY suspicious that all these other bigots gravitate to him purely because they’re that desperate to find anyone with a PhD in anything that backs them up against literally every scientist in a relative field, to the point that they merely forgive his particular advocacy they are plainly all aware of, particularly when such a common fig leaf used by transphobes is “keeping children safe from sexual deviants.”

And of course, Cantor is most often invoked when coming to the defense of Kenneth Zucker. This Kenneth Zucker.

Those are separate papers. Zucker isn’t controversial though for organizing panels to discuss how attractive people agree small children are (at least not exclusively). Mostly, he’s known for running a conversion therapy center which subjected gay and trans children to various sorts of torture in an effort to “fix” them, which at least for those trans "patients” I have spoken with involved a fair amount of having them strip completely naked and talking a lot about their genitals.

Zucker is something of a controversial figure with the transphobic scene, as they are extremely on board with his sexual torture of queer children, but he does actual work (for some value of the term) involving trans people and thus is not able to commit as fully as they would prefer to making life horrible for trans people, due to a professional obligation to acknowledge reality now and then. As an aside, the similarly positioned Ray Blanchard, while not to my knowledge particularly interested in the attractiveness of children, lives in a similar purgatory of trying to reconcile his career, bigotry, and sexual hangups, yielding compromises like this:

Of course, that’s just looking at the straws transphobes grasp at when looking for scientific credibility. Real leaders of the movement include Germaine Greer, author of The Beautiful Boy, which is about what you are afraid it might be, and features a very young child in a cover feature he did not consent to posing for. Or Julie Bindel, who among other things is rather infamous for writing whole articles on subjects like whether a teenage girl she came across maybe has a huge penis you can totally see if you really squint at her skirt. Again, I will not share a link to go along with that one.

Transphobes terrorize and attempt to defund charities and other unambiguously good organizations.

Graham Linehan, previously best known for cowriting some sitcoms and possibly spending a year angling to get into my pants so awkwardly I didn’t pick up on it is now best known for trying to pull the plug on a children’s charity, in a story that somehow also involves Donkey Kong. Well, and the interview about nazis. And possibly the other interview about “defending me from nazis” until it got into his head that I might not be as young and hot as he imagined. Rather not link to a far right extremist youtube channel though.

There’s also a current effort to replace Stonewall (an organization named after the location where a pair of trans women kicked off a riot which is generally agreed to be the start of the LGBT+ rights movement) as the UK’s primary LGBT+ rights organization with the “LGB Alliance.” The hate group mentioned above, with the skull face and the rifle. Closest I can find to an article on that effort on short notice that isn’t propaganda.

Transphobes paper areas in truly disgusting propaganda.

I don’t want to directly link to grown adults skulking around children’s playgrounds and bathrooms plastering surfaces with mass printed stickers of crudely drawn penises, but would encourage you to read this very long post, being sure to load all the images, to really understand how deeply strange this behavior gets.

Finally, I cannot stress this enough, this really extreme behavior I’m citing, and the specific people involved in the examples I’m giving, these aren’t random cranks on the fringe of things. The people going on televised panel discussions, writing up news stories, and testifying before lawmakers in efforts to pass horrifically discriminatory if not literally life-endangering laws (there is a major ongoing effort to legally end all medical care for trans people, and I don’t just mean care directly relating to being trans) are literally the same people involved in the sexualization of children, nazi collaborations, and roving gangs assaulting people in the street. At a bare minimum I urge people, when booking guests and handing out writing contracts, to do background checks and see if they’re platforming actual terrorists. If we could actually bring legal consequences to bear against the worst of this, that would be great too. As things stand though, the whole world is just consistently citing a bunch of racist, woman-hating, serial liars with no real credentials, and questionable attitudes towards the sexual abuse of children, as “trusted experts” and refusing to seat actual trans people or people who have legitimately committed lifetimes to academic and practical work with trans people any seats at the table.