#something to be said about my own research on tragedy. how important it is to the psyche to to sit in tragedy. full range of human emotion.

[multifandomloverthrowaway]

What Sky’s Character Should Have Been

(And why her and Viktor needed to be canon.)

This is LONG, and just my opinion. Please be nice!

In storytelling, each character, each scene, and each literary device is crucial for the advancement of the plot. If any is over or under utilized, the story remains cluttered or incomplete. That being said, it truly is a tragedy how horribly the characters, especially the Zaunite characters, came to be treated in season two. The characters and arcs set up in season one are butchered, and Viktor’s story is particularly disappointingly miswritten by the authors and misrepresented by the fandom, and we see this in the narrative and to a certain extent even fan treatment of Sky.

Sky is a ghost. Her presence, while tangible in the story, is not fully realized to the audience. We do not get to know much of her besides her interest in Viktor and a small flashback indicating that they knew of each other in their youth. Thus her existence and her death are ultimately unsatisfying; we do not know enough about her to be able to connect with her, and so she is ultimately only perceived to be an object to propel Viktor’s descent, even though we do not know much of his feelings towards her either. This is an unfortunate misuse of her as a supporting character, especially when it has a good potential reason to exist other than to solely be Viktor’s love interest.

Before understanding what Sky can represent, let us first define her in the context of the setting, particularly in relation to the characters that she supports. I have touched upon this in more detail in my Viktor character analysis posted, but for the TLDR:

It is clear that Jayce and Viktor are foils to one another. The difference in their opinions on Hextech sets them up to be a parallel to an important aspect of the class struggle set up in season one: Even when the oppressed are “good enough” to compete with their privileged peers, the resultant treatment by the oppressor between both is starkly different. Where the privileged will be lauded and commemorated, the oppressed will only be served minimal acceptance and approval. Thus, their characters and how they interact with one another, as well as the characters of their immediate mutual contacts and their own corresponding interactions, should serve explore this struggle further, especially when it comes to Sky, Mel, and Heimerdinger.

So Sky, like Viktor, should show how Piltover can misuse Zaunites against their hometown. However, to keep her character separate from him, unlike Viktor, who loses himself getting out of this trap and back to Zaun, Sky must be lost to trap itself. She must show just how inhumanely far Piltover will go in exploiting Zaun to maintain its subjugation over the latter. Like we see with other innocent Zaunite background characters that are killed by Piltover on the battleground, Sky must represent those that are killed in softer, more covert methods: through the extraction of Zaun’s finest intellect and the resulting false diplomacy. We must eventually see how Piltover indirectly kills her for being Zaunite, even though we know she is killed by Viktor and the Hexcore.

Sky then needs to have a fleshed out background that indicates of her optimism, grit, and innocence. It does not have to be as in depth as that of the main characters, but the audience must be shown the following:

Her academic prowess that indicates how she can capture sponsors and spin her botany research to help Zaun into something that Piltover thinks it can also benefit from. From which councilors or patrons does she benefit? How and why?

Her motivations for Zaun. What does she view an ideal Zaun to be? What would its relationship with Piltover be? We know she wants to make it better by creating natural greenery, but why does she choose to do so in Piltover? What pushed her to apply to the academy?

Her relation to Viktor, the only other known Zaunite at the academy. Did they interact more than that one time in the river? Were they friends or mutuals? How did Viktor help her get a position as his assistant and why? We know she is fond of him, but what about the other way around? What are their experiences at the academy like? How do they interact with casual prejudice? Do they stick up for each other? Do they find support in each other?

We must see her struggles to successfully obtain funding and traction for her own research due to Piltovan pushback and prejudice. (In this case, she must be in the same research group as Jayce and Viktor, but no longer their assistant as a decade is far too long to remain as such. She will be tied to Jayce’s name but not under him or Viktor.) This needs to be shown to contrast Jayce’s ease in becoming a councilor and gaining enough authority to push out Heimerdinger to further his and Viktor’s research. We need to see her project take the back seat because it is not the project that Jayce is directly tied to. We must see her have to to be careful and planned in who she talks to, how, and what she is able to get from them. This would provide a perfect parallel to Mel and about how being outsiders provides challenges when it comes to change; one being born into power with an imperialist upbringing and getting past Piltovans gracefully to a councilor position to invite it, and the other having no power and so relying on the street smarts and a resource seeking mindset from a more impoverished background to scavenge for it… yet both using the same methods (smooth talking, strategic connections, etc.) to do so.

We need to also know her relationship with Zaun and her perception of Piltover. She must be shown to nurture her feelings about the unfair treatment of her home into a more determined and optimistic view of potential equality and diplomacy, and their growth over time with her and Viktor’s research and their duty to represent Zaun. We should see her friendship with Jayce. We should see her interact with Mel and Heimerdinger. This not only lets the audience sympathize with her by empathizing with the struggles she faces above and her defiance in face of them, but also contrasts Viktor’s internal anger about Zaun and Piltover that he lets fester with his growing ailments and erasure of academic and technical contributions. This contrast sets her up nicely to symbolize the “good that could have been” in the relationship between Zaun and Piltover, and thus by extension, between Viktor and Jayce - hence her initial role as their assistant, and something that is cast aside as each character grows more towards their goals rather than the partnership.

This also sets her up to personify Viktor’s humanity. We’ve seen them meet. Let us see them study together, build things together, perhaps even fend for essentials together. Let us see how and why Sky fell in love with the Viktor from her youth. Let us know of Viktor’s endearment of her as we see him choose her to be his assistant. Let us see how they interact after facing prejudice from Piltovans and band together. Let us see her meet him when he’s on the hospital bed. Let us see her and Viktor be protective of and vulnerable with each other as they face the enemy. Let us see them bond just like we have seen him do so with Jayce. With Sky, we can see Viktor’s insecurities and his empathy like no other character can; in her we can see what makes him human.

This is integral to Viktor’s character and his arc. Whereas Jayce can actively work towards a future for his life with Mel and his career outside of Hextech, Viktor does not have the same luxury due to his illness. He cannot pursue anything but Hextech because his life and the lives of his people are on the line due to Piltover’s control. And that is precisely why when Sky loses her life due to the technology, it isn’t just Viktor that kills her. It’s Piltover’s waste, Piltover’s luxuries, Piltover’s unfulfilled promises that do. And Viktor realizes that after. Sky, in all her optimism, is fundamentally what Viktor could have strived for had he not let his anger and urgency spiral. As a mirror to Mel and Jayce, Sky is not just Viktor’s past but also his hopes for the future. And he realizes that he and Zaun has lost what could have been.

By giving Sky agency, we see just how much she could have done for the plot. But seeing how much the story fumbled Viktor, it’s not surprising to see her get “fridged” twice. I hope I did her justice!

If you’ve read this all, you deserve all the desserts. Thanks for reading!

[guiltycorp]

I feel like when ppl discuss the influence of trauma on Geto’s downfall, how Gojo managed to move on by immediately overcoming his weakness & dealing with their assailant and then proceeding to hone his technique instead of stagnating...  They often miss that it wasn’t just the trauma for Geto.  The most important thing for him was always looking for meaning, his anxious and righteous nature forcing him to come up with an explanation for their world and his own purpose in life. His simplistic views of ‘there are strong people (sorcerers) and weak people (non-sorcerers), and the strong must protect the weak’ as well as trust in their system were challenged time and time again throughout the backstory arc. But it wasn’t only Geto being depressed and reactive, it was also about fixing his previous assumptions. Unlike Gojo, he overthought things to a fault, eventually coming to the wrong conclusions (even when Yuki offered him her solution on a plate, that being the research into making non-sorcerers into sorcerers), likely out of prolonged misguided fixation on the dichotomy of weak vs strong, but nonetheless it was a product of a thought experiment and deliberation, even discussion with Haibara and Yuki.  Still, my point is that... Gojo simply never cared enough about things like ideology. The light novel made it seem like he only realised that maybe there is something wrong with the system when Geto left, not when Riko or Haibara died! He simply didn’t think about those tragedies as anything other than random sad occurrences that he could prevent in the future by being better at being the strongest (spoiler: he couldn't). He tried to internalize Geto’s original values of protecting the weak since he could sense some merit to them, finding joy in entertaining Riko and later his students, but he completely missed the reasoning behind those values. This is why he spouted all those things about not saving/reaching Geto (without having attempted it in the first place) and about becoming a teacher to prevent young sorcerers from missing out on their youth (immediately going to indoctrinate young Megumi into their messed up system as a pretext of saving him from the Zenins, exploiting Maki’s childish ambitions of getting back at her family, later risking students’ lives to progress Yuta’s potential, letting Itadori run around without much oversight, ignoring the situation with Megumi’s sister, ignoring the more ‘uninteresting’ students, the list goes on)... He has only a vague idea of what his perfect world would be like (still kind of ridiculous and reliant on Being Strong a-la Sukuna), but he makes no effort to properly explain it to his students who are supposedly meant to change their society in the future.

The only way he can empathize with them is by remembering what he himself enjoyed in his youth, that being companionship with his bff and his growing power. And when some of them don’t show interest in that (like poor fucking Megumi) Gojo is simply not interested in exploring alternatives.  To him, it’s not a question of ‘why’, it never was. ...All that said, this could all be eaaaasily author’s bias who leans towards Gojo’s way of thinking irl, in which case it’s unlikely to get a resolution of some kind :^) Personally, I hope it will bite Gojo in the ass more than it already has. I do have some hope since the current fight vs Sukuna is underlining how similar they are to each other. 

[colouredbyd]

cw: trauma, abuse, SA mention, mental illness, chronic illness, disability, autism, and sensitive topics.

i wanted to take a moment to address something important regarding certain types of requests i’ve been receiving, it’s about requests that involve sensitive topics—and i’m talking about the very real, very heavy ones. things like abuse, childhood trauma, sexual assault, mental illness, chronic illness, autism, disabilities, and more.

i’m writing this because while i welcome those kinds of requests, and actually love creating inclusive work for the communities i myself am a part of, there are a few things i need to make very clear moving forward. so please take the time to read it in full if you plan to send something in.

first and foremost, i want to be very clear: my blog has no filter. i do not shy away from difficult themes or painful narratives. i write stories that reflect the nuance and intensity of real experiences, and that means not every fic will end in a fairytale. however, i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: i don’t take requests that end in tragedy, not because i’m not capable, but because if i open that door, my inbox will be flooded with every kind of angst imaginable, and that will ruin my mental health. but for my own original fics? i am not obligated to serve yiu happy endings.

i always tag my fics with the appropriate warnings. death, violence, trauma, emotional abuse, sexual themes—everything is labeled!! and if i ever miss a tag, you are more than welcome to let me know politely and i will fix it immediately. but if you read something tagged for heavy content and still come into my inboxx crying about how “you didn’t like the ending” or “why did this happen’ then that’s on you, not me.

your media consumption is your responsibility!

second, if you’re requesting a fic with serious themes—reader is a survivor of abuse, or has autism, or is chronically ill, or anything of that nature—you need to understand that i am not an expert. i’m a 17-year-old student who writes in her free time!!! if you want that story written with the depth and dignity it deserves, then you need to give me information. not trauma-dumping—just context, enough for me to treat it properly.

to offer an example: my “black siblings” three-part fic was rooted in my own childhood, which allowed me to write it from a place of deep emotional familiarity. in contrast, “bitter sweetness,” a fic about a diabetic reader, required extensive research because i wanted to be as accurate and respectful as possible.

both stories mattered to me, but they required very different approaches. i currently have requests in my inbox involving autistic readers, survivors of childhood trauma, and more. and i am working on them.

i say all of this not as a complaint, but as a reminder: i am trying. i’m trying very hard to hold space for everyone who comes here looking for representation, for comfort, for catharsis. but i ask that you extend some patience and compassion in return.

writing is not just an act of creativity—it’s also an act of labor, especially when the stories being told are this heavy. and if i’m going to write something about your story, i want to do it right. i will never write trauma for shock value. i will never include SA or abuse in a story unless the emotional and narrative weight demands it.

so to summarize:

• i will write about heavy topics if i feel equipped and ready.

• i will not be guilted into happy endings for every fic.

• i will tag everything. your job is to read the tags!

• i will not write traumatic stories just for aesthetic or drama.

• i need details if you want a sensitive fic written well.

• and most importantly, i am doing this for free. i don’t get paid. i am not a professional. i am a student, i have my own mental health struggles, and i am doing my best to give you work that is thoughtful, real, and respectful.

[blossomingbooks]

Book Review: The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

I rarely do rereads, because there's always so many books on my TBR and so little time... However, I had been meaning to go back to The Picture of Dorian Gray for a long time, since it was one of the first classics I ever read, when I was 13. I've always defined it as one of my favorite books, so I needed to revisit it to know if it still kept that place.

Long story short, it definitely does. I'm very glad to have reread it now as an adult, because it really enriched my perception of the book. As a pre-teen, I was able to grasp and enjoy the story conceptually, but now I was able to find much more beyond its Gothic themes and Decadent aesthetic.

Something that definitely didn't catch my young eye is the social and class criticism, which really caught me off guard since I've always seen Wilde as such a bourgeois figure. On that note, I had the feeling that the character of Lord Henry was somewhat autobiographical; but upon rereading, he seems more likely to be a critique of Victorian society. Wilde himself said:

[The Picture of Dorian Gray] contains much of me in it – Basil Hallward is what I think I am; Lord Henry, what the world thinks me; Dorian is what I would like to be – in other ages, perhaps.

Understanding this and researching about Wilde's biography was a relief, because the misogyny in Lord Henry's haughty speeches is blatant. However, his character seems to have been purposely written to be despicable. Although punctuated by interesting reflections and aphorisms, he's clearly a product of his time and represents not only the hedonistic corruption of Dorian's mind, but the overall moral hypocrisy of the elite circles in Victorian society. We read about "the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing" and how "the real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but self-denial", because "beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege of the rich.”

A grande passion is the privilege of people who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle classes of a country.

Society—civilized society, at least—is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef.

Moreover, rereading this after having read À Rebours, the book that "poisoned" the mind of Dorian Gray, was also very satisfying. Although never named, the description of this book perfectly fits Joris-Karl Huysmans' decadent novel, which Wilde later mentioned during his trials. The parallel between the two novels is very pertinent and, to a point, metafictional. In chapter 11, he digresses about the chapters in À Rebours', in such a manner that it reads just like the French novel. In the same way that Dorian feels fascinated by the latter, so does Wilde's novel enthrals the reader:

For years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence of this book. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he never sought to free himself from it. (...) The hero, the wonderful young Parisian in whom the romantic and the scientific temperaments were so strangely blended, became to him a kind of prefiguring type of himself. And, indeed, the whole book seemed to him to contain the story of his own life, written before he had lived it.

This time around, I also paid attention to the differences between the original 1890 novella and the extended, more censored 1891 novel version. I think it's safe to say that the original novella, although less developed on some characters' backgrounds, loses nothing on the way of the story's essence and conceptual thesis. Still, it was interesting to see which chapters were added later, as well as the edits made on homoerotic connotations such as follows (which merely serve as evidence to confirm a very palpable subtext):

I have worshipped you with far more romance of feeling than a man usually gives to a friend. Somehow, I had never loved a woman. (...) I quite admit that I adored you madly, extravagantly, absurdly.

Finally, I can't finish this review without mentioning the Preface, which is a masterpiece in its own right: it contains, in a single page, both Wilde's artistic manifesto and his response to some contemporary controversies which aroused over his novel. "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book", he states: "Books are well written, or badly written. That is all."

[waitwiah]

Why did no one tell me how much smelling salts burn?!

\Post 07\: Can you create meaningful, romantic relationships with a chronic illness?

 **TRIGGER WARNING: Talks about chronic illness, de*th and disability. With some sad gyal vibes

Hello Everyone.

I hope you all are doing as well as you can be, considering… the crazy state of the world.

This post is coming to you unplanned. 

It's been a long time. And every time I say I'm going to post more frequently - life starts to life. Again. Like you're getting in your car but you forgot you were listening to the radio really loud, so when you start the car the radio starts blasting suddenly, sending a shock through your entire system. The last few months have felt exactly like that. 

I'll give you all a little glimpse at my life lately:

Over the last few months I've lost people I cared about a lot. One after the next - like the earth is slowly getting rid of the good people in my life, one light at a time.

One week ago today I lost my grandfather. I lost the one person who was willing to set his entire life to the side just to take care of me, willing to move across the country to make sure I could focus on healing and figuring out this disease process. 

He was always looking for solutions and doing research. There was always a phone call or a voicemail with new information he found that he thought might give me a chance at having my life back. And every single time it broke my heart to tell him it was something I had already tried without success or that it was something my doctors refused to look for or try.

I remember hearing the pain in his voice when he told me how sad it made him that I asked for use of one of the family plots; he sat on the phone with me for a bit and took deep breaths. Said he just needed to take a nap. I know it broke his heart, the thought I may not recover from whatever this is, how my family won't recover if they lost me to illness.

At one point I thought people may have been over dramatic at funerals; fainting and wailing. Screaming into the abyss. But the sob that left my body when I got the call, that the police found him, feet on the floor, sitting up like he was ready to take on the day... It broke me in a way I had never experienced before.

You know - it's different suffering personal tragedy. Doctors accusing you of faking an illness or malingering. Your care team saying it's all in your head or you're "catastrophizing". Making the decision to pursue hospice. Having what was supposed to be the hospital stay, where an entire team does widespread exploration of your illness, turn into "I don't know what's causing this but we won't look into it further." Being put in a dark room of a hospital for hours while you writhe in the worst pain flare of your life, going in and out of consciousness (this was just just over a week ago).

A little less than a week ago I also lost a relationship - but maybe it was lost long before that, I refused to see it. It's not entirely their fault. It's never really anyone's fault with things like these.

I needed support through really hard things and they were not always able to provide it and that's okay. It's understandable. It's impossible for someone to be there 100% of the time. Sometimes, you have to be there for yourself. I know that. I've been there for myself most of my life because feelings are not serious or that important in some households. I'm really good at it too, for the most part.

But the times when I was in desperate need of the support of someone who only knows me like they do (or did?), when it really counted to me, when I was sobbing and questioning everything, that amount of support took a sharp decline. It was jarring. So much so I remember thinking how selfish I was for needing anything at all, for asking anyone to be there for me, even my own partner. Why am I asking someone who loves me to show that love to me in the ways I need it? Especially when they have their own stuff? Am I selfish for needing support, for wanting support? It felt like it and every time that happened a little piece of me crumbled away and that piece was put in a small box deep, deep down. But it was fine because I should not want these things anyway and I was already selfish for wanting to be in a relationship in the first place. 

Sometimes I just wanted to be scooped up and whisked away without having to ask for it. Real romantic-like.

A call saying, "I'm here and coming up. Let me help you pack a bag; let's spend the weekend in bed watching movies."

Instead, I watched the door and my phone. And I waited for something I already knew wasn't going to happen.

Illness is hard. Unpredictable. Messy. Confusing. Frustrating. Exhausting. 

My therapist keeps trying to hammer into me that Jamie from A Walk to Remember deserved her days with Landon. I always say, "of course she did. But that's different." But I can never explain how it's different, but experience shows that I may not be so deserving, and if I were then things would not be playing out this way. But I did have a Landon at some point and everybody saw it. I saw it. 

Navigating chronic illness and relationships is hard. It isn't always hard. That can change in a heartbeat.

Especially when you've already felt the person pulling away. Saying hurtful things or saying nothing at all. Assuming the worst of you when really, you're just in the hospital again. No one deserves that. 

But it's hard to be loved when you don't feel you deserve it and it's hard to love when you feel the other does not want it.  A real mess, right? And which one was me and which one was them? I think each of us were both. And yes, I still love them.

They didn't even put up a fight. Didn't even question it. That might hurt the most, especially after planning futures and talking about baby names. 

People can move on. People can change. We might cross paths at a different point and be friends or something positive like that. Who knows. 

Will I move on? Do I even want a relationship? Was my original fear proved valid?  Those are questions I'll have to answer another day.

Anyway, enough of the dramatics. This is still a survival guide, a toolkit for those with chronic illness. 

SO WHAT NOW?

Well, I'll be channeling the little energy I have into creating a non-profit, a foundation of sorts to help those with undiagnosed illnesses and maybe connecting people with those who have a passion for solving medical puzzles. I have no idea what I'm doing but I can't do nothing. I am not throwing in the towel yet.

I will still be actively trying to figure out my disease process by digging through copious amounts of medical records, talking to whoever is willing to listen, trying not to let everything get to me.

I will continue to take notes, monitor symptoms, read research articles, and challenge common thought processes about illness and disease.

I will continue to be a place for people to vent about what is going on with them. (Thank you for letting me listen ❤️)

I will continue to advocate for myself and for others who are not able to do so right now. 

I will continue to have and create meaningful relationships with those around me. 

My grandfather wanted me to make the most of whatever time I had left. And I want everyone who reads this to do the same.

So when your doctor says no to that blood test or that imaging request or that new medication or to that second opinion, keep in mind that no one actually has time to waste; THAT INCLUDES YOU. Use your free will to its full capacity and get creative. There is someone out there who believes your symptoms are real, is willing to do more than the bare minimum, and to break the confines of the box people like to put a disease or illness in. Even if that someone is you, it still counts.

******and take breaks when you need them****** 😤😤😤😤😤😤

As always, you deserve the entire world and then some ❤️✨

[fromevertonow]

Oppenheimer and the Chain Reaction of Violence

My take on the Oppenheimer issue regarding the omission of the Japan bombings (even though no one asked):

For those who don’t know, the movie does not include an actual visual of the bombings in Japan, to the surprise and even disappointment of some.

On the one hand, I get the critique. It’s a huge tragedy in history and a key element of the story. Maybe some people were expecting more action from Nolan. But on the other hand, the story is not about the bombings specifically. It is about Oppenheimer and his legacy.

Albert, when I came to you with those calculations, we thought we might start a chain reaction that would destroy the world.

I remember it well. What of it?

I believe we did.

The final scene of Oppenheimer, a conversation between Einstein and Oppenheimer

At the end of the movie, we finally find out what was said during the conversation between Oppenheimer and Einstein. It was a huge question mark throughout the movie because of Strauss’ schemes, but it turned out the two scientists were discussing their biggest fear—their scientific research leading to evil. Multiple characters mention the “chain reaction” and often it was in the context of chemicals and what their reaction to each other would be. But in the end, the chain reaction was something bigger—the continuation of scientific research and it leading to nuclear war.

The movie is not about the bombings in Japan. Yes, it is a huge “plot point” and the movie does build up to it, but it is just one link in that chain. Oppenheimer feels incredibly guilty for having created the atomic bomb and wasn’t at all convinced for the government to use his creation against innocent civilians. His guilt is what is most important here because it is the result of that chain reaction.

This isn’t a historical movie in the sense that we are simply given a life story of Oppenheimer. This is a historical movie that reminds us history is still influencing the present. Scientists and governments are currently working side by side to create even bigger weapons of mass destruction and it is a heavy realization that the world might one day be actually set on fire because of them. We don’t know where this current ‘Los Alamos’ is, we don’t know how big the new weapons are, but we do know they don’t lead to anything good. This is the chain reaction.

Oppenheimer was a theorist. That alone should tell you that actually creating the bomb was insane to him. He wanted to rely on theory to prove that it was possible to build one, but people around him pressed him into actually creating it and, most importantly, testing it. The Trinity test scene is prove of how horrified Oppenheimer was by his own creation. The visuals are chilling. In that scene, Oppenheimer grasped the true scale of the destruction the atomic bomb can cause. It sealed the link to that chain, and the reaction was the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Aside from story’s message and the relevance of showing the bombings, there is also a technical argument against including the bombings. The story is mostly told from Oppenheimer’s perspective, he is almost in every scene. But he wasn’t there when the bombings happened, so it wouldn’t have made much sense to show them. Oppenheimer asked Groves to inform him about when the bombings would happen exactly, but he heard about it like the rest of the world—through Truman’s radio announcement. Oppenheimer was incredibly anxious about the bombings, as can be seen in the scene where he is waiting by the phone the day before it happened. His guilt was eating him up from the inside while everyone celebrated either a military victory or a scientific break. Oppenheimer only saw the destruction of the world and the deaths of innocents. With his research he sealed the fates of millions of people. Because that is the chain reaction—the accumulation of historical events.

[superconductivebean]

Helloo! From the writer ask 11, 16, 17, 19 and 30 pls 😁

[link to the list] on my way!!

11. a WIP you’d like to finish someday

JULIA'S FIC. The tragedy of my life, it has so a lot and yet I have shared so little of it as of now. I hope to finally begin posting soon.

16. favorite place to write

I can write everywhere but it must be quiet so not to disrupt the music I'm listening to, has a comfortable seat, and have dim lights.

17. talk about your writing and editing process

When writing, I prefer to rely on syntax. Composition is only ever limited by the borders of the language, and if I know where these borders had been laid, I can play around and within them. I also rely on syntax books.

However, English language has proven difficult as there isn't a comprehensive book on its syntax and most important, its misuse. Style guidelines can honestly burn in Hell, they're of no help. Maybe I hadn't found it yet; I have to adapt what I have from Russiаn. Anyway.

When editing, I need to fine-tune, clarify, reformulate… It will depend on what the scene needs. Characters acting on their own occurs here but I wouldn't call it that anymore; they don't act on their own, it is their personalities are sets of lenses, and it isn't always possible to memorise or predict how the light of your story will turn, especially when said lenses are constantly changing in your head as the story evolves and gains more details.

When I started to work on Julia's story in the summer of 2023, she used to be a very different character. I'll keep her traits from back then, mind. BUT. The explanations, the details, the background trivia; all has been added and expanded on in order to make the story carry more than bare bones but some meat as well.

I'm afraid to go through my drafts at this point tee hee

30. hare a fic you’re especially proud of

One fic… Oof. An essay I wrote about Bоrderlands: The Prе-Sеquel's plot. It's in Russiаn.

Another would be the draft for Julia's story, Не хнычь! / Chin Up! …

It's been hidden for quite some time. I was rewriting it and didn't have it in me to finish due to… Well, back when I was writing it, I joined russiаn HL fandom and shared it with them on more than few occasions after people asked for the links, and… Let's just say, people were asking for links but they never opened them or wanted to engage with me whatsoever. And it's normal. What isn't normal is asking but never answering back and also creating an environment where you are kind of welcomed but people bluntly ignore your every attempt to spark a conversation about something that isn't silly and nerdy—and evidently, people started mocking me for it and taking my research skills for granted (until the dam imploded and my theories and way of thinking were called straight up delusions; why did I leave, do I wonder; "was I alright", really? lol, lmao even and good riddance). I poured a bit of my heart into Chin Up! and seeing so much false politeness or what was that even… It broke something in me, eventually. So I hid it. I can put it back up but I won't be translating it. But please mind, it's explicit and it's 5th year; Julia and everything around her were a mess in the early drafts.

[mybookof-you]

I found the above article to say some important things worth consideration. It is a serious matter, and, while it is fun to post memes, there are some somber issues to think about.

I have hesitated to point out the dangerous plans laid out by Project 2025. There is no direct way to prove Former President Donald Trump is in favor of the plan. The plan has inconsistencies, direct contradictions, and seems like something out of a fictional novel. Surely, it can't be. It is plausible for someone to frame me as a doomsday prophet drudging up fear where it isn't warranted should I make the claim that this is indeed the direction former President Donald Trump plans to carry out.

Yet, we have seen the results of the majority in the Supreme Court, a majority created by the appointments of the Trump Administration, which dismantled freedoms we took for granted. Those freedoms have been defended by Donald Trump as state's rights from what I understand. What it looks like to me is the states have been granted the freedom to trample the rights of its citizens. You know, those rights we so highly value which allow individuals to live as they believe. As has been reported, the rights given to citizens has been so egregiously crippled as to cause people to lose the ability to have control over their own lives. The outcomes, set in play by the former Trump Administration, have taken us backward and seem to support Project 2025 goals.

There are other examples which are worthy of consideration. I don't know the heart of Donald Trump. I don't know why he will state one thing in very clear terms to one audience and, then, turn around and contradict that statement to another audience. He has a bit of explaining to do. Meanwhile, I am permitted not to trust what he says. I need more transparency and more clarity. What does he really stand for? I value the rights of all people, and I do not wish to see any of us hurt by an administration which would seek to diminish those rights.

I appreciate what has echoed through social media recently in that we really need to do our research. No one can tell you how to vote or what to think. How will you know what to think if you do not research, check out opposing opinions, and weigh the facts? We can only do what we are able to do. What a tragedy it would be if I voted for someone without examining information available to me, and that person turned out to oppose everything I believe in. If the President of the United States is allowed to have so much power as to turn the F.B.I. into fodder, restrict anyone or any agency from balancing his power, grant pardons to those who violate laws designed to protect its citizens, etc., I have basically shot myself in my own foot.

Terry Pratchett wrote something to that effect. You know, if you seek to restrict or oppress certain peoples and rights, what makes you think you won't be next? Something more brilliantly said, but you get the idea.

Ask yourself what you really want. Do the research. Vote.

What I say in private is my own business. I don't always mean what I say. Sometimes, I blurt things out in anger or sorrow or pain. Feelings are your own, and they do not define your character. Your actions define who you are, and you always have the opportunity to change if you do not like who you are. That is your business. The first thing I thought when Trump was an "apparent" victim of a second assassination attempt was, "Geez, they keep missing." I don't really want to see him assassinated. That is not a true reflection of how much I value human life. Though, I am sure some of you get the feels.

Sure, you can wonder what people say in private if they are willing to say certain things in public (like Project 2025's website). I don't really care what Donald Trump says in private. I can't speculate about who he really is in his private life or in his heart. I do care about what he says in public, however. What he does in public demonstrates who he is. Maybe he means what he says. Maybe he doesn't. His actions while he was in office show that he means it when he says he believes he can be friends with Putin and Orbán. He may think he can prevent World War III. I don't know, but I am pretty sure I don't want to find out how he plans to ensure that, given his affiliation with authoritarian governments. I don't know about you, but I think that doesn't look good for us, peoples.

I am willing to bet that if you currently support Donald Trump for President, you want certain things to happen that you believe in. Consider the whole picture beyond those hopes. Consider what that means for others and what that might mean in action. It just might not be what you bargained for. Only you can decide. So, I won't preach the end of the world. The world always seems to go on, but, please, I urge you to consider the kind of world you want to live in and how that can be accomplished.

SRS 2024.09.18

#personal #opinion

[thelikesoffinn]

Hey hiya hi Hi, I stumbled across your Blog because of your Billy post and then I saw that you had this rly detailed and indepth dissection of that other character and I have no cleu who that is but I've still read the whole thing and it was awesome and now I wanted to ask you if you could make something like that about Billy maybe? You seem to like Billy and that would be so great 👀😫🥰

Well hello there, love!

Honestly, I would love to. Because you're absolutely right, I do like Billy a lot and I'm a slut for tragic characters and I really enjoy writing these analyses.

Thing is, however: I don't have much to work with, when it comes to Billy.

With Astarion - the chap from my obnoxiously long post - you get a lot of input, both actively and passively. There's a ton of conversations to be had with a ton of different options to pick, mostly each leading to its own answer and reactions.

But that's not it. You get to see where he grew up, you get a lot of backstory and you get to see his very passive reactions. You know, Astarion is from Baldur's Gate 3, a crpg where you make the choices. But you get to see his reaction to your choices, get to see what he approves and disapproves which tells you a fuck ton about his character and grants me a good basis to build my observations on.

With Billy however? Not so much. If I had to guess, I'd say the fella has maybe 50 minutes of screening spread out over four seasons, 15 of which he is actually himself. The other 35 minutes are either spent under the influence of the mind flayer or impersonated by vecna. So we don't get to see the true Billy all too much, so most of the things I'd write would probably be at least half bases on headcanons, which would probably still be fine but I personally like to stick to the things I can actually provide evidence for if you know what I mean. (At this point, it might as well be lasting uni trauma, haha.)

On top of that, there's another thing that makes Astarion somewhat of a special case and that is, quite plainly, how well he is written. You can tell that there was a lot of attention to detail and that the authors put both research and love into his character. (In my personal opinion, his writing even far excels that of other origin characters in the game, which is pure art because they're all amazingly written.)

Combine that with Neil Newbon's - Astarions VA - performance and you have a proverbial feast for people like me.

We don't get that with Billy. A lot of Billy - both his charme and his tragedy - rides on Dacre Montgomery's shoulders. His performance and his very obvious love for the character make up a lot of the Billy we've seen but, in the end, I don't think he is that well written as a character. There were a lot of moments where I felt they wasted his potential by letting him fall flat because he was nothing but this throwaway character, throwaway "villain" they build.

(Which matches up with what Dacre Montgomery said, how he asked them to give him a story because that boy wouldn't be evil for no reason, which just once again proves that all Billy we got to see was entirely carried by Dacre Montgomery and Dacre Montgomery alone.)

This a problem the stranger writers all seem to have, somehow. Characters they don't deem that important can be rendered a bit flat, which makes them pretty two dimensional between the otherwise colourful cast of stranger things and, as someone who holds side characters and minor characters in extremely high regard, this annoys me to no end. A story without side characters is lifeless and empty, so the least they deserve is to be paid attention to. But they don't, which is why I personally find it extremely easy to guess which character is going to stay and which one isn't.

So far, the only character that surprised me was Steve. I was 100% convinced he'd be gone by the end of season 1, because season 1 Steve also felt like a caricature of himself. "Main good girl's popular boyfriend that gets knocked down a peg by the "looser" character and falls from grace". So when he came back around in season 2 - and with that much added charme - I was like damn? Pretty boy is still around! And he has a proper personality this time!

Anyway, sorry love this turned a bit ranty towards the end there - to make it short: I would really truly love to write an analysis on Billy Hargrove, but I don't think I actually can do so properly, I'm sorry! 😭

[m0nt3cr15t0]

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for this. There is no literary take that boils my blood as much as "Victor is sexist" (save for "Dorian is straight1!1!1!" I hate that one, too).

I'll forever be a Victor defender, I think it's important to recognize that the book is a tragedy for EVERYONE in it; but I can also see why people hate him. What I cannot, however, EVER see is how people can genuinely believe him to be a misogynist????

The main reasons as to why he refused to create a wife were as follows:

1) They could reproduce and create more Creatures

2) What if she doesn't like the Creature and becomes even more vengeful and angry than he? What if she is then stronger than him?

I've seen people say he's sexist because "his reasoning for not creating a wife was that he feared she'd disobey the man!!" which is just. No. Not only is that never said in the book, but it doesn't even make sense??? Seriously, why would he give a shit about that? What does "disobey the man" even mean? Wouldn't that just be a concern about marriage in general? Wouldn't he then be concerned about Elizabeth disobeying him?? Why would it specifically only matter if it's with the male and female Creatures' relationship?

And how about we break down his ACTUAL reasonings for not making a wife, yes?

He's considering the fact that a woman could be stronger and scarier than an 8 foot man, which is a pretty feminist fear to have for the time period, I'd say. He's questioning what the woman would want and feel; he's asking if it'd be more painful to be made purely as a man's possession or made to simply exist, as Victor is worried that she may be more pained and anguished than the original Creature, and in turn angrier than the first being was. Once again, a pretty progressive point of stress for the late 1700s - early 1800s.

He then, because of these points, chose to destroy the wife knowing damn well that it would actively endanger and risk not only his own life, but Henry's. He chose to pay with his life because he believed the wife would feel oppressed. He chose to pay with his life because he was worried that more innocent, unknowing lives would be taken.

"He's sexist1!1!1 He's misogynistic!!1! He's a woman hater1!1!" And then they're talking about a guy that was inspired by Mary Shelley's husband, of which she married for love. They're talking about the protagonist of Mary Shelley's writings, as if her mother isn't regarded as one of the first prominent feminist writers in history. She would never purposefully write a man, this man, no less, to be sexist.

I'd also like to add that he's not stupid for not simply neutering the wife, which is another take I see a lot; there literally wasn't research on ovaries at the time in history, he had no clue how or what to remove in order to make her unable to bear children. Hell, he didn't even know that it'd be possible to remove something and prevent a woman from bearing children. That's like if you were suddenly sat in front of a regular ol' telescope and told that you need to direct it at a specific spot on a specific crater on a planet that wouldn't be discovered for decades to come, and then called an idiot for not knowing what the fuck to do with it.

One of the things that piss me off the absolute most about popular academic Frankenstein analysis is the “Victor Frankenstein is sexist” take. Like I know I’ve spoken about this quite a lot before but god damn it’s like people just look at the text and see, “(I) looked upon Elizabeth as mine—mine to protect, love, and cherish. All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own.”, and they just immediately go, “Oh! Oh! Sexism! Misogyny! Victor Frankenstein is a sexist! Why does he want to create the perfect man, huh? *gasp* is it because he thinks women are inferior?”

When if those people pulled their heads out of their asses for five minutes and read the rest of that paragraph, “On the evening previous to her being brought to my home, my mother had said playfully, “I have a pretty present for my Victor—tomorrow he shall have it.” And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine (…)” along with the fact that Victor explicitly says he was “about five years old”, they’d maybe consider, “huh, maybe it’s very fucked up of a mother to give her to her son as a gift and spent her entire life basically shipping these two adopted siblings together until, on her death bed, she says, “my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father.” Wow, maybe that’s kind of fucked up. Maybe painting, again, a five year old, who was honesty for all intents and purposes pretty much just manipulated into thinking it was his duty to marry his adopted sister out of respect for his dead mother’s last wishes who died when he was seventeen, as a wife-beating woman hater who reanimated the dead to spite half the human population, is very very fucked up!”

Like I can’t stress this enough – both Elizabeth and Victor are victims here. Of course as the story goes on a bit and Victor is a grown adult man who’s still avoiding his feelings and fucking off across the continent with his buddy pal best friend every five minutes instead of facing his mistakes and emotions, yeah, he is honestly more or less to blame for Elizabeth’s death, but that isn’t misogyny. Avoidance of everything is like one of his integral character flaws.

And I mean if you thought the 1831 republication had some creepy undertones, look at the bloody original 1818 version.

“(My uncle) request(ed) my father (…) take charge of the infant Elizabeth, the only child of his deceased sister. “It is my wish,” he said, “that you should consider her as your own daughter, and educate her thus.”’

So just explicit incest, basically. And again, if you thought Victor’s mother was a bit creepy and pushy in the republication,

“I have often heard my mother say, that she was at that time the most beautiful child she had ever seen, and shewed signs even then of a gentle and affectionate disposition. These indications, and a desire to bind as closely as possible the ties of domestic love, determined my mother to consider Elizabeth as my future wife; a design which she never found reason to repent.”

“………A desire to bind as closely as possible the ties of domestic love?” My brother in Christ you were groomed. Fun fact, I read the 1818 version first and read that in the middle of form class and sat for a good five minutes staring flabbergasted at what the fuck I was reading.

So no, dear God no, nowhere in the text does it imply Victor Frankenstein hates women. I mean honestly it’s kind of shown in the way he talks about the Creature’s Bride that he doesn’t view women as objects and does, in fact, view them as people.

“He had sworn to quit the neighbourhood of man and hide himself in deserts, but she had not; and she, who in all probability was to become a thinking and reasoning animal, might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation.”

My guy basically says “well what are we expecting her to do here, immediately marry you just because she was told to?”

(Just a fun little comparison I noticed there – not to turn the conversation back to my whole “does Victor is gay” theory but I think it is interesting that Victor thinks that, that he does go “well she can’t just be expected to marry someone just because she was told to!” and then suggests to himself that she would probably rather “turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man” – interesting, Victor. Like Clerval’s “form so divinely wrought, and beaming with beauty”? Interesting as well that after Victor comes to that conclusion and destroys the Bride, the Creature immediately then kills Henry and only then does Victor finally go “well. I finally have to marry Elizabeth.” Feeling disheartened by sparing her your predicament only to be thrust even deeper into your own, are we?)

But yeah. “Victor Frankenstein is a full-blown women-hating misogynist” takes really piss me off. Another case of “oooh yes let’s cherry pick the text scouring it for anything we can possibly use to turn things back around to the same few analysis points we’ll reuse over and over instead of possibly considering that just because a text is written by a woman doesn’t mean that it’s a massive rant on the patriarchy disguised as a science fiction novel.”

Maybe that’s kind of sexist itself. Maybe women can just write kick-ass gothic horror sometimes. And maybe just because a work definitely has undertones about sexism and misogyny (like, fair enough, a lot of Elizabeth’s character definitely does) that doesn’t mean that the male protagonist wants to kill all women! And surprise surprise as well, works can comment on misogyny and patriarchy and acknowledge that women are treated badly in society and have been in differing ways for hundreds of years, without going “all men are inherently evil and fuck them all”. Bit of a side rant that I won’t go all into here, but just worth mentioning that after seeing this over and over again in media and analysis of media over and over again, hey, misandry won’t fix misogyny. It just makes everything considerably stupidly worse. –your friendly neighbourhood bisexual

[ganymedesclock]

These are questions I've had for some while and it's hard to find someone who'll answer with grace. This mostly relates to disabilities (mental or physical) in fiction.

1) What makes a portrayal of a disability that's harming the character in question ableist?

2) Is there a way to write a disabled villain in a way that isn't ableist?

In the circles I've been in, the common conceptions are you can't use a character's disability as a plot point or showcase it being a hindrance in some manner. heaven forbid you make your villain disabled in some capacity, that's a freaking death sentence to a creative's image. I understand historically villains were the only characters given disabilities, but (and this is my personal experience) I've not seen as many disabled villains nowadays, heck, I see more disabled heroes in media nowadays.

Sorry if this comes off as abrasive, I'd really like to be informed for future media consumption and my own creative endeavors.

Okay so the first thing I'm going to say is that while it IS a good idea to talk to disabled people and get their feedback, disabled people are not a monolith and they aren't going to all have the same take on how this goes.

My personal take is biased in favor that I'm a neurodivergent person (ADHD and autism) who has no real experience with physical disabilities, so I won't speak for physically disabled people- heck, I won't even speak for every neurotype. Like I say, people aren't a monolith.

For myself and my own writing of disabled characters, here's a couple of concepts I stick by:

Research is your friend

Think about broad conventions of ableism

Be mindful of cast composition

1. Research is your friend

Yeah this is the thing everybody says, so here's the main bases I try to cover:

What's the story on this character's disability?

Less in terms of 'tragic angst' and more, what kind of condition this is- because a congenital amputee (that is to say, someone who was born without a limb) will have a different relationship to said limb absence than someone who lost their limb years ago to someone who lost their limb yesterday. How did people in their life respond to it, and how did they respond to it? These responses are not "natural" and will not be the same to every person with every worldview. This can also be a great environment to do worldbuilding in! Think about the movie (and the tv series) How To Train Your Dragon. The vikings in that setting don't have access to modern medicine, and they're, well, literally fighting dragons and other vikings. The instance of disability is high, and the medical terminology to talk about said disabilities is fairly lackluster- but in a context where you need every man you possibly can to avoid the winter, the mindset is going to be not necessarily very correct, but egalitarian. You live in a village of twenty people and know a guy who took a nasty blow to the head and hasn't quite been the same ever since? "Traumatic Brain Injury" is probably not going to be on your lips, but you're also probably going to just make whatever peace you need to and figure out how to accommodate Old Byron for his occasional inability to find the right word, stammers and trembles. In this example, there are several relevant pieces of information- what the character's disability is (aphasia), how they got it (brain injury), and the culture and climate around it (every man has to work, and we can't make more men or throw them away very easily, so, how can we make sure this person can work even if we don't know what's wrong with them)

And that dovetails into:

What's the real history, and modern understandings, of this?

This is where "knowing the story" helps a lot. To keep positing our hypothetical viking with a brain injury, I can look into brain injuries, what affects their extent and prognosis, and maybe even beliefs about this from the time period and setting I'm thinking of (because people have had brains, and brain injuries, the entire time!) Sure, if the setting is fantastical, I have wiggle room, but looking at inspirations might give me a guide post.

Having a name for your disorder also lets you look for posts made by specific people who live with the condition talking about their lives. This is super, super important for conditions stereotyped as really scary, like schizophrenia or narcissistic personality disorder. Even if you already know "schizophrenic people are real and normal" it's still a good thing to wake yourself up and connect with others.

2. Think about broad conventions of ableism

It CAN seem very daunting or intimidating to stay ahead of every single possible condition that could affect someone's body and mind and the specific stereotypes to avoid- there's a lot under the vast umbrella of human experience and we're learning more all the time! A good hallmark is, ableism has a few broad tendencies, and when you see those tendencies rear their head, in your own thinking or in accounts you read by others, it's good to put your skeptical glasses on and look closer. Here's a few that I tend to watch out for:

Failing the “heartwarming dog” test

This was a piece of sage wisdom that passed my eyeballs, became accepted as sage wisdom, and my brain magnificently failed to recall where I saw it. Basically, if you could replace your disabled character with a lovable pet who might need a procedure to save them, and it wouldn’t change the plot, that’s something to look into.

Disability activists speak often about infantilization, and this is a big thing of what they mean- a lot of casual ableism considers disabled people as basically belonging to, or being a burden onto, the able-bodied and neurotypical. This doesn’t necessarily even need to have an able neurotypical in the picture- a personal experience I had that was extremely hurtful was at a point in high school, I decided to do some research on autism for a school project. As an autistic teenager looking up resources online, I was very upset to realize that every single resource I accessed at the time presumed it was talking to a neurotypical parent about their helpless autistic child. I was looking for resources to myself, yet made to feel like I was the subject in a conversation.

Likewise, many wheelchair users have relayed the experience of, when they, in their chair, are in an environment accompanied by someone else who isn’t using a chair, strangers would speak to the standing person exclusively, avoiding addressing the chair user. 

It’s important to always remind yourself that at no point do disabled people stop being people. Yes, even people who have facial deformities; yes, even people who need help using the bathroom; yes, even people who drool; yes, even people whose conditions impact their ability to communicate, yes, even people with cognitive disabilities. They are people, they deserve dignity, and they are not “a child trapped in a 27-year-old body”- a disabled adult is still an adult. All of the “trying to learn the right rules” in the world won’t save you if you keep an underlying fear of non-normative bodies and minds.

This also has a modest overlap between disability and sexuality in particular. I am an autistic grayromantic ace. Absolutely none of my choices or inclinations about sex are because I’m too naive or innocent or childlike to comprehend the notion- disabled people have as diverse a relationship with sexuality as any other. That underlying fear- as mentioned before- can prevent many people from imagining that, say, a wheelchair user might enjoy sex and have experience with it. Make sure all of your disabled characters have full internal worlds.

Poor sickly little Tiffany and the Red Right Hand

A big part of fictional ableism is that it separates the disabled into two categories. Anybody who’s used TVTropes would recognize the latter term I used here. But to keep it brief:

Poor, sickly little Tiffany is cute. Vulnerable. How her disability affects her life is that it constantly creates a pall of suffering that she lives beneath. After all, having a non-normative mind or body must be an endless cavalcade of suffering and tragedy, right? People who are disabled clearly spend their every waking moment affected by, and upset, that they aren’t normal!

The answer is... No, actually. Cut the sad violin; even people who have chronic pain who are literally experiencing pain a lot more than the rest of us are still fully capable of living complex lives and being happy. If nothing else, it would be literally boring to feel nothing but awful, and people with major depression or other problems still, also, have complicated experiences. And yes, some of it’s not great. You don’t have to present every disability as disingenuously a joy to have. But make a point that they own these things. It is a very different feeling to have a concerned father looking through the window at his angel-faced daughter rocking sadly in her wheelchair while she stares longingly out the window, compared to a character waking up at midnight because they have to go do something and frustratedly hauling their body out of their bed into their chair to get going.

Poor Sickly Little Tiffany (PSLT, if you will) virtually always are young, and they virtually always are bound to the problems listed under ‘failing the heartwarming dog’ test. Yes, disabled kids exist, but the point I’m making here is that in the duality of the most widely accepted disabled characters, PSLT embodies the nadir of the Victim, who is so pure, so saintly, so gracious, that it can only be a cruel quirk of fate that she’s suffering. After all, it’s not as if disabled people have the same dignity that any neurotypical and able-bodied person has, where they can be an asshole and still expect other people to not seriously attack their quality of life- it’s a “service” for the neurotypical and able-bodied to “humor” them.

(this is a bad way to think. Either human lives matter or they don’t. There is no “wretched half-experience” here- if you wouldn’t bodily grab and yank around a person standing on their own feet, you have no business grabbing another person’s wheelchair)

On the opposite end- and relevant to your question- is the Red Right Hand. The Red Right Hand does not have PSLT’s innocence or “purity”- is the opposite extreme. The Red Right Hand is virtually always visually deformed, and framed as threatening for their visual deformity. To pick on a movie I like a fair amount, think about how in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the title character is described- “Strong. Fast. Had a metal arm.” That’s a subtle example, but, think about how that metal arm is menacing. Sure, it’s a high tech weapon in a superhero genre- but who has the metal arm? The Winter Soldier, who is, while a tormented figure that ultimately becomes more heroic- scary. Aggressive. Out for blood.

The man who walks at midnight with a Red Right Hand is a signal to us that his character is foul because of the twisting of his body. A good person, we are led to believe, would not be so- or a good person would be ashamed of their deformity and work to hide it. The Red Right Hand is not merely “an evil disabled person”- they are a disabled person whose disability is depicted as symptomatic of their evil, twisted nature, and when you pair this trope with PSLT, it sends a message: “stay in your place, disabled people. Be sad, be consumable, and let us push you around and decide what to do with you. If you get uppity, if you have ideas, if you stand up to us, then the thing that made you a helpless little victim will suddenly make you a horrible monster, and justify us handling you with inhumanity.”

As someone who is a BIG fan of eldritch horror and many forms of unsettling “wrongness” it is extremely important to watch out for the Red Right Hand. Be careful how you talk about Villainous Disability- there is no connection between disability and morality. People will be good, bad, or simply just people entirely separate from their status of ability or disability. It’s just as ableist to depict every disabled person as an innocent good soul as it is to exclusively deal in grim and ghastly monsters.

Don’t justify disabilities and don’t destroy them.

Superpowers are cool. Characters can and IMO should have superpowers, as long as you’re writing a genre when they’re there.

BUT.

It’s important to remember that there is no justification for disabilities, because they don’t need one. Disability is simply a feature characters have. You do not need to go “they’re blind, BUT they can see the future”

This is admittedly shaky, and people can argue either way; the Blind Seer is a very pronounced mythological figure and an interesting philosophical point about what truly matters in the world. There’s a reason it exists as a conceit. But if every blind character is blind in a way that completely negates that disability or makes it meaningless- this sucks. People have been blind since the dawn of time. And people will always accommodate their disabilities in different ways. Even if the technology exists to fix some forms of blindness, there are people who will have “fixable” blindness and refuse to treat it. There will be individuals born blind who have no meaningful desire to modify this. And there are some people whose condition will be inoperable even if it “shouldn’t” be.

You don’t need to make your disabled characters excessively cool, or give them a means by which the audience can totally forget they’re disabled. Again, this is a place where strong worldbuilding is your buddy- a handwave of “x technology fixed all disabilities”, in my opinion, will never come off good. If, instead, however, you throw out a careless detail that the cool girl the main character is chatting up in a cyberpunk bar has an obvious spinal modification, and feature other characters with prosthetics and without- I will like your work a lot, actually. Even if you’re handing out a fictional “cure”- show the seams. Make it have drawbacks and pros and cons. A great example of this is in the series Full Metal Alchemist- the main character has two prosthetic limbs, and not only do these limbs come with problems, some mundane (he has phantom limb pains, and has to deal with outgrowing his prostheses or damaging them in combat) some more fantastical (these artificial limbs are connected to his nerves to function fluidly- which means that they get surgically installed with no anesthesia and hurt like fuck plugging in- and they require master engineering to stay in shape). We explicitly see a scene of the experts responsible for said limbs talking to a man who uses an ordinary prosthetic leg, despite the advantages of an automail limb, because these drawbacks are daunting to him and he is happier with a simple prosthetic leg.

Even in mundane accommodations you didn’t make up- no two wheelchair users use their chair the exact same way, and there’s a huge diversity of chairs. Someone might be legally blind but still navigate confidently on their own; they might use a guide dog, or they might use a cane. They might even change their needs from situation to situation!

Disability accommodations are part of life

This ties in heavily to the previous point, but seriously! Don’t just look up one model of cane and superimpose it with no modifications onto your character- think about what their lifestyle is, and what kind of person they are!

Also medication is not the devil. Yes, medical abuse is real and tragic and the medication is not magic fairy dust that solves all problems either. But also, it’s straight ableism to act like anybody needing pills for any reason is a scary edgy plot twist. 

(and addiction is a disease. Please be careful, and moreover be compassionate, if you’re writing a character who’s an addict)

3. Be mindful of cast composition

This, to me, is a big tip about disability writing and it’s also super easy to implement!

Just make sure your cast has a lot of meaningful disabled characters in it!

Have you done all the work you can to try and dodge the Red Right Hand but you’re still worried your disabled villain is a bad look? They sure won’t look like a commentary on disability if three other people in the cast are disabled and don’t have the same outlook or role! Worried that you’re PSLT-ing your main character’s disabled child? Maybe the disability is hereditary and they got it from the main character!

The more disabled characters you have, the more it will challenge you to think about what their individual relationship is with the world and the less you’ll rely on hackneyed tropes. At least, ideally.

-

Ultimately, there’s no perfect silver bullet of diversity writing that will prevent a work from EVER being ableist, but I hope this helped, at least!

[katcadecascade]

Pressed thin like your favorite page (Silco X Reader) Chapter 6

Ao3

Chapter One: Oh Teacher my Teacher

Chapter Two: Song of Iliad

Chapter Three: Tale of Two Cities

Chapter Four: I Write Sins not Tragedies

Chapter Five: Yesterday Upon the Stair

Chapter Six: In Perfect Light

Additional Tags: references of (canon) death(s); discussions of grief; I didn’t research canon lore of a League character so I glossed over any specific backstory; I lowkey accidently wrote Reader with a drinking problem but it isn’t an overarching thing

Word Count: 7750

“I have not seen you in months and the first thing you do is tell Jayce I need a doctor?”

Like every time you let yourself in Viktor’s house, not including the previous take, Viktor was nonchalant with your comings and goings. He was always busy with his own work and you with your own.

Sure you turn to him for some assistance in your writing blocks but after Patroclus’ Heart and Achilles’ Arrow you both decided to end your collaboration. It was all due to the amount of lack of sleep you two share over spending the late nights to early noon just staring at blank papers and scribbled notes. Your handwriting has never been so terrible. 

So after that, any of your visits was treated as unremarkable since you and Viktor hadn't had many days of absence. So your good friendship returns with proximity. 

That is until today apparently. 

You blame Jayce Talis. 

Too bad he isn’t here right now for you to glare at. It’s just Viktor in his parlor, apparently too engrossed with lecturing you instead of the notebook in his lap. Another day and another book, never a dull image for you to see Viktor still studious as ever. 

Except for when he wants to complain about you interfering with his well being. 

“It was a suggestion,” You said in your defense, you hold your hands up in surrender and use a foot to close the door behind you. 

“I was not heavily ill the other day,” Viktor said. 

You frown unimpressed at him and wander over to his seat on the couch. Upon further inspection, there are more books on the coffee table joined with scattered pages and colorful pens. It’s like your desk back home. 

Pointedly glancing at the mess, you stated, “You’re doing this here and not your fancy lab because you’re avoiding Heimerdinger, aren’t you?”

“A baseless conjecture.”

“Is Jayce covering for you?”

“No, he’s with his sponsors at the moment.”

“Okay, you’re hiding out here so that Heimerdinger won’t bother you.”

Seeing that you’re not letting go of your theory, Viktor rolls his eyes and settles with this. “I’m not in the mood for the Headmaster’s advice nor his opinion on my research.”

The way his shoulders sag, how Viktor clutches at his notebook makes you sigh. You’ll never truly understand the yordle that has given so much to Viktor yet when it matters most, Heimerdinger’s prestige does not uphold.

You sit besides your friend, “What project did he deny?”

“A water purifier.”

“What?” You shouted in outrage. “No! Why would anyone reject something as important as-”

Viktor pushes a blueprint schematic map to your face. You stare at it and then at the scientist, and back to the paper. “Why is it so massive?”

“I’m trying to solve the river toxins, Reader.” He says it as if it is obvious, “You know, a major problem of the fissures?”

“The construction of this purifier takes over the entire southern docks.”

He taps at the measurement scribbled at the one corner, “No, merely half, a one-third at best.”

“Can’t you make it smaller?” You take the paper from him, holding it like it’s a foreign puzzle. “Like the size of a water mill.” 

“I thought that,” Viktor confessed sadly, dragging a hand over his face, “but it won’t be enough to make real progress with the toxins.”

This is a ‘go big or go home’ way of thinking that normally does not stop Viktor. He wants to create something that will help the Lanes, inventing projects with an all or nothing approach that is admirable. 

Headmaster Heimerdinger was one of those who were impressed and gave Viktor the chance to get more resources and finances. You understand Viktor’s wonderment and pride at gaining this level of support. The day you signed your stories to Rebekka Manette was a dream, an overload of endorphins at the chance presented to you.

A chance to actually bring the Lanes out of the darkness and into the light.

Viktor would one day invent machines that construct new foundations of the Lanes, a long overdue detox of the land. Meanwhile you would teach and share knowledge of the strife, stories that persuade people to want to be in this new light. 

Yet here you two are, sitting on a Piltover couch far away from home with no real progress to help the Lanes.

Piltover, the City of Progress. 

You stare at Viktor’s notes of his rejected water purifier. 

One of your hands grip at the stupid tassels of the couch, with the other, you force the blueprint down before it could be crushed in your anger. 

You know nothing of Heimerdinger to reason why he aides to forsaking the undercity. 

It’s like the professor fails to realize that the Lanes need bigger projects to uproot the problems you and Viktor breathed though. 

“I still check on your old toxicity monitors,” You tell him, your hold on the couch tassels still strong. 

“They still work?” Viktor leans in, curious and excited at the knowledge that an early invention is still functioning. “They stopped sending data to my chart weeks ago.”

“I took my students to see them.” You smiled, recalling how Tyson had to hug Franny before they could run into the waters. “Upstream is still swimmable but downstream?” You shake your head, “I couldn’t see that monitor under all the oils and runoffs.”

Viktor doesn’t hold back a sigh, a heavy toll on his body that you almost regret causing. 

You know Viktor, he isn’t a man to mope for too long. He sets a hand on your shoulder.

“Thank you for telling me.” He faces away from you, not out of shame but just to look around his parlor. “I haven’t been home in quite some time.”

“And it’ll still be there when your next project is ready.” You finally relax your hands, placing one on top of Viktor’s resting hand. “Viktor, you’re doing great up here.”

He nods at you, grateful, “Yes, all the Hextech engines have been a success.” His hands return to the water purifier plans, “I just wished these will come into fruition as well.”

You don’t have the optimism to tell him to have hope. After all, Viktor has been up here for a long time without any big funded project to help the Lanes. Yet you rather not bring it up. There’s a chance that Viktor would criticize or empathize with your own failings. You hadn’t taught more than three students this week. 

“Work with what you have, Viktor,” You advise as if you know anything, as if you’re capable of wisdom for your tired friend. “This Hextech has been popular, stick with that.”

A small laugh from him surprises you, but it’s out of good faith as Viktor pats your back, “You haven’t used your teaching voice on me in forever. Almost missed it.”

“I don’t have a teaching voice.”

“You have one,” he insists, pointing at you teasingly. “Your students might not notice it but I do.” You merely roll your eyes at him. “How are your students by the way?”

“Franny believes they’re ready for bigger words.” You grin, “I’m trying to find them a word of the day calendar. As for Tyson, well…” Lips pressed thin, you sadly explain, “He’s been busy with his dad’s shop so his lessons have been stretched out basically.”

“What about your brightest students?” Viktor sets his work down in favor of you. “The mechanic boy and the inventor girl.”

“The boy hasn’t been to class in months.” 

If it wasn’t for Franny, you would have thought Ekko was gone too. He was close to his mentor, Benzo. His death was a heavy toll on the kid. 

“I talked with his parents a while back,” You recalled. “They’re convincing him about taking up an apprenticeship topside.”

“He’s still young, correct?” Viktor asks and you nod. “If he continues progressing his practice he should be more than ready for any application interviews.”

Your heart thumps nervously at the thought. Ekko has a brilliant mind for mechanics, no doubt, but it’s still a Piltover apprenticeship. He may not be your first student who can outwit and outmatch a Piltover student but Ekko is the first to show an interest to apply. You gave Ekko’s parents all the mechanic books you own to increase his chances. 

Viktor continues on, “And then the girl, the one with a sister complex. How is she?”

You take a deep breath through your nose. With your elbows on your thighs, you sink your face into your hands, hunched over and welcoming waves of gloom. 

“...It has gotten worse considering the sister is now gone.” You quickly tacked in to clarify, “Not dead, but it’s enough for her to be a mess.”

“Oh. Was it-”

“It was a bad, bad argument. I didn’t pry anymore. I didn’t want to know more.”

What a cowardly mantra you developed over the years, watching your students flee from your life. You will never know what hurts more, seeing your students carry on with their survival in the Lanes, discarding the little education you’ve provided, or stumbling upon their corpses. 

“I’m sorry, Viktor,” You tell him, your head still buried in your hands, “I swear I didn’t come here just to be depressing.”

“I will always enjoy your company, Reader.” You feel his arm draped over your shoulders. “You are my friend.”

“Thank you, Viktor.”

“You must vent this out. Clearly your life is messier than mine as of late.” At his jovial tone, you elbow him in the ribs. “What? It’s true. On top of all this mourning, apparently there is this attractive parent of your student.”

Slowly, you lean back and properly face your friend, lying with a straight face. “It’s nothing.”

“Liar.” 

Immediately you broke your charade and grinned hopelessly, unwillingly meeting Viktor’s own amused expression. 

“Okay, fine I like him but now’s not a good time.”

“You think you’re good with excuses, even better with cover stories, but they never work on me, Reader.”

“Ugh,” You dip your head back, complaining, “You’ve never been interested in my love life.”

“Because for the longest time it was Rebekka and I did not like her.”

As far as you could tell, you only casually mentioned dating your publisher for a few months. Then later again to casually mention that you broke things off. Those two instances cannot be enough for his judgment and yet you now wonder…

“Did I do something… to make you dislike her?”

Viktor shakes his head, looking at you with both worry and disappointment. “No, no, she did something to you that made me dislike her. You have a light in you, for your students, for your writings, and for the Lanes.” He takes your hand and cups it to the center of your collarbone. “She shrouds you.” Viktor sighs, “I hope this new crush does not do the same.” 

“He won’t.” You find those words effortlessly, even with the sudden definition of your past relationship with Rebekka. 

With her, there were so many conversations that felt like an unsanctioned surgery. Her praises and advice and cherishment were all scalpels to remove your organs. You don’t feel like remembering the day you ran from her operating table. 

Viktor lets go of your hands, appearing assured by your faith in this new person in your mind and heart. “What’s he like?”

Silco. 

A man of great power and influence, precision and passion all for his plans. That type of person with such determination for a revolutionary plan builds up fear in many men. 

While you acknowledge that fear, it gets pushed to the corner of your consciousness in favor of other emotions. 

“Has an eye on the bigger picture,” You smile, enjoying your inside joke. “He really cares about the Lanes to the point where he knows its limits and how to push it. His old fiery determination is still there, but it's in better control now, everlasting and patient for the endgame.”

“I’m not quite seeing how this is an attractive trait.”

You shrug, “I don’t know how else to describe him. It’s obvious that he’s been through a lot of pain and suffering but he still endures this world we’re given, all for the sake of gifting a new one to his daughter.”

Viktor rolls his eyes, making you glare at him. “He’s good with kids, of course you like him.”

“Hey!”

“But yes,” He shrugs back, “I could see the potential.”

You cross your arms and mockingly imitate Viktor’s accent, “Hmm, Jayce is good with tools, of course you like him.”

“He has impressive back muscles,” Viktor shares, unfazed. 

Annoyed, you muttered, “I knew it.”

“And my theory is that your beau has a frame such as I,” Viktor gestures to himself with a smile so sickeningly charming you gag. He elbows your rib, luckily not too harsh. “He has scars, doesn’t he?”

“...Yes.”

Viktor laughs at you, “You’re gonna write poems about him.”

“No, no!” You shake your head fiercely, denying the existence of your poem journal, “I haven’t sunken that deep!”

You have though. 

He clapped once and the dreaded fate was sealed. “It’s only a matter of time, Reader.”

You reach around and grab the couch’s throw pillow, hitting his arm, “Poetry is hard.”

“So you have tried,” Viktor needlessly reads you like an open book. He smirks at you, “An esteemed novelist who fails in the art of poetry.”

“Have you tried to write it?”

“No.”

“Then. Shut. Up.” You beat him with each syllable. 

Viktor merely raises one arm up to guard, not at all bothered that his furniture is used against him. 

“If it makes you feel better, I’m missing a certain Patroclus book from my collection. You have gained another fan.” 

He gestures to his bookshelf over by his bedroom door. You know that Viktor has all of your novels, even the ones not under the Reed Eros name. A bubble of laughter rises from within you when you do see a gap between the books. 

“I’ll be sure to ask for two early copies of Escaping Ogygia,” You tell your friend. “I’m sure Jayce would appreciate it.”

“Oh I want to see the look on his face,” Viktor grinned. “But before that,” he gets up, his cane assisting him to the bookshelf. He grabs one of the bulky science books and hefts it over to you. “Trade?”

“Trade,” You snort, exchanging your cushion weapon for his book. “What’s this for?”

Viktor takes his seat again, fluffing up the pillow for his back, “Oh for your inventor student. You see her brilliance, I believe this would help.”

“Thank you Viktor,” Your voice is soft but utterly grateful.

“Yes, yes, you're welcome. Maybe this will impress her father as well? Your crush and her father are one and the same, yes? I think you mentioned him before.” His usual smile trails off, lost in thought and looking away. He does not notice your rapidly paling face. “Was it Van?” 

Vander. 

A clamminess grows in your throat and a hollowness builds in your gut. You hug the science book tightly to your chest, a corner jabs uncomfortably in your stomach but you allow it. It has been so long since you thought about Vander, another dead friend you push away to the caverns of your mind. Yet the way Viktor couldn’t even grasp Vander’s being, it unsettles you more than the ghosts. 

“No, um, no it’s not him. She got a new dad cause…” You stumble over your words, avoiding his worried gaze now upon you. “Vander’s dead.”

“Oh,” his voice is distant and small. “Reader…”

A big part of you wants to make your exit as fast as possible, damning Viktor’s concern but you know better. He would chase after you because he is your friend. You don’t want to be followed. 

“Reader, I’m sorry for bringing up bad thoughts.”

“You didn’t know,” You remind yourself more than him. “His death, he didn’t go quietly into the night. Everyone in the Lanes still mourns him.”

“This includes you?”

You nod because it is easier than admitting what is truly distressing you. 

“I’m so sorry, Reader,” Viktor gives his condolences that you hastily accept. 

“Thank you Viktor,” You gesture to the book and then stand up, “I’m gonna head down.”

He stands up too, cane back under his arm, “Will I expect more visits?”

“Of course,” You answer before departing his apartment.

You make it out without causing him more to worry, or at least you manage to plug up most of his concerns, enough to make him believe you’re in a healthy and stable state of mind. 

Right now, you don’t have control of your thoughts as you march your way through Piltover. His sentiments ring in your head and it worsens the maddening rage and appalment at Viktor’s reaction. Viktor consoled you like an outsider. 

You know that Viktor will always care about the Lanes, you know his efforts and beliefs for a better world for the Lanes. That doesn’t erase the fact that he hasn’t lived there for years now.

Vander’s name didn’t ring a bell in his memory because Viktor wasn’t there for Vander’s era. He wasn’t there during the raids, the bombings, the food shortage. 

Life in yours and Viktor’s youth hasn’t been pleasant, it frustrates you both that the children are still experiencing those same unpleasantries.

Yet this certain upsetting anger is directed at your friend all because he has been stuck at Headmaster Heimerdinger’s side doing absolutely nothing. 

Meanwhile you were there at the edge of the battlefield. Not as a warrior though, no that was never your role during the raids. 

Someone had to stay behind to watch over the children. 

Those bitter memories fade in and out of your vision. The smoke and gasses rising from the fires. The odor of blood and puss from bullet wounds and infections. Sometimes the ground would shake and everyone would get scared because was that one of our bombs or the enemy’s? 

It worsens when you reach the end of the road. You barely hear the waters under the bridge over the storm in your head. 

There are multiple bridges that connect Piltover to the upper crust of the Lanes. You avoid the ones with the most funeral memorabilia at the end. There are other people crossing the bridge, their destination either the rich air or the acidic dirt. 

A few people aren’t moving, peering over the bridge to watch the lapping waves, rocking the traveling boats. You don’t partake in the sightseeing, eyes glued to the stone tiles that lay out the bridgeway. 

They are all intact, the only wear and use from footfalls and carriages. It makes sense that Piltover would do reconstruction on the bridges. No one from the topside would want to walk across bloodstained rubble. 

You cross the bridge in a daze, still clutching the book. The sky is blue and clear, birds perch on the tall railings, and you and others continue to walk. 

Like you thought, there are small picture frames gathered at the end of the bridge. Some photos are weighted down by trinkets and candles. You scan the faded faces and a breath you didn’t know you were holding releases. 

It’s silly isn’t it? You know exactly what you won’t find. Her picture is two bridges over. 

You don’t know if it’s getting easier or not to avoid the bridge your best friend died on. 

Yet onwards you walk. After all, you want this book with Jinx today. 

Maybe you could wait a day, take some time to collect your thoughts. All reasonable ideas that fail to manifest in your logic. 

You always brace down your storming thoughts each time you cross the bridges. You are reminded of what the Lanes lack every time you breathe the air in the topside. They have purity in both the air and water, clean clothes and fresh fruit, and most importantly, they have books like the one you are carrying.

It’s important, it’s for Jinx. She’ll be able to learn more than anything else you could provide from your limited understanding of geometrics or chemistry. You are no mage or mathematician. 

You’re a reader with a weakness for fantasies. 

Jinx deserves a reality, one that she can thrive in without ghosts or enforcers hurting her. 

So you whisk yourself down to The Last Drop with tired legs, rubbed at eyes, and a dry throat. 

You just want to give this book to Jinx, hope that she won’t ask for more of your time, and then head over to the bar. Everything about that plan makes it sound like you’re a bad teacher but honestly you are doing your best. 

There are hardly any more books in the Lanes for you to understand physics or how to write in other languages. Hands on experience and diving in is the way of the Lanes, books are not a prioritized tool and you acknowledge that. 

Ekko needed a place to actually tinker, otherwise he’d continue to scavenge the toxic junkyards. You talked to Vander about it and he roped Benzo to hire the young boy. Whenever you popped into Benzo’s shop, Ekko always had something to show off. Some little gadget or his favorite pocket watch. 

Tyson learned various dialects from his father, a desired skill in the marketplace. Yet both failed in writing in any language they know. It’s the only reason Tyson is allowed to spend afternoons with you. To teach Tyson how to write in another language, you have to know it too. 

Franny… They love learning things as much as you do, maybe even more. They seek it out to the point the child would wait at your doorstep because they failed at picking the lock. 

For Franny and all your other students, you make the trips over to Piltover for the books you could never find in the undercity. 

You cross the bridges your people died on, hoping to teach their children something. Because once you teach them everything you know or when they decide to stop learning, you fear if they will die trying on these bridges just like your best friend. 

So with no real professional background or even proper paper and pencils, you teach as best as you can. 

And at the same time, you crave a drink. 

It’s only the afternoon and it is barren inside the bar. Silco’s men are the only drinkers here, playing cards and by the looks of it, one guy has a terrible hand. Meanwhile at the bar counter, Therium is wasting time by polishing up a glass. 

“Hi Reader,” Therium gives you a nod and places the glass down, “You want a drink?”

“Later,” You hold up the book. “Gonna give this to Jinx, first.”

“Oh she’s not here.”

You blink. “What?”

“Yeah, bossman gave the kid the all clear to go outside and she cartwheeled away,” Therium summarized casually. 

“Huh,” You said, caught off guard by the news. A smile blooms on your face. “I didn’t think he’d actually listen to me. I guess Silco isn’t as much of a control freak as I remember.”

“You make me sound unreasonably stubborn, Reader.”

The smile on your face freezes uncomfortably at being caught. It doesn’t help that Therium is also wide eyed and scared of your wellbeing, his hands shaking as he pretends to be busy polishing up another glass. 

Silco is at the top of the staircase, adjusting his cuff sleeves to fold up to his elbows. The man is, as always, dressed in this waistcoat fashion but in a more simple gray coloring with no fancy patterns. Even for remote work, he still wears clothes that elude power. 

“Well, I um I mean,” You fumble with your words. “You’re too stubborn to die, am I right?” You weakly attempt at a joking smile but you just look pained, seeking help from Therium. 

He’s no help as he dutifully inspects a smudge on the glass he’s still polishing. 

In that small moment of you glaring and gritting your teeth at the bartender, he’s sweating bullets you must add, Silco reaches ground level and joins you at the bar. 

You can’t help but tap your nails on the book, nervously watching how his path ends with him standing right in front of you. 

“Perhaps you’re right about that,” Silco said, his tone light and dare you describe it as humorous. “What brings you here?”

“I have a book for Jinx, I think she would benefit from learning more about the inner mechanisms of motors and batteries.”

You hand over the book and notice how Silco holds it carefully. He traces a finger over the title, the words carved into the bookface for a tactile feeling. 

“I doubt you found this at a regular bookstore, Reader.” He stops studying the quality of the book to gaze at you. 

“It’s from a friend,” You shrug. 

“I see. You aren’t dressed for any meetings.”

His head tilts a bit at you, appraising your outfit.

Considering he saw the expensive side of your wardrobe, your current turtleneck is a bit of a downgrade for Piltover terms. Yet it’s still cleaner than your usual jackets and coats. 

“Then we’re both off the clock,” You conclude. “At least if you truly do take breaks.”

“I do,” he answers and takes a step to the bar, “Why don’t you join me for lunch?”

“Huh? No, I shouldn’t intrude,” You wave your hands in a dismissive manner, the opposite of your plan of getting a drink. “I only came here for the book.” 

“It’s not intrusion if I want your company, Reader,” Silco said and you believe the genuineness in his voice, his hand on the back of the chair. The book is set to the table corner but he still stands. He’ll only sit if you do. He then adds, looking thoughtfully, “I believe Calcifer has baklavas prepared.”

You’re immediately in the next chair, “...Baklavas you say?”

“Patience, dear Reader,” Silco eases himself in his own seat. “You’ll have to wait for your dessert.” He turns to Therium, boss tone back on, “Go get Calcifer to prepare lunch for us.”

The bartender says a “Yessir” and makes a break for the kitchen. At least he left two cups of water. Maybe Therium ain’t a bad bartender after all. 

“So what’s this about Jinx spending the day out?” You asked before taking a sip. 

“I considered what you said. Jinx and I made a compromise. She can go out as long as someone supervises.”

“...don’t tell me,” You mulled it over for only two seconds. “Sevika?” 

He nods. 

You snort.

“Compromise is a mind game,” Silco lectured, the corner of his lips twitching up. 

“I’m just glad you’re giving her freedom.” You raise your glass up, “A world cannot be a room.”

“True,” Silco copies you, clicking his glass with yours. “I can sympathize with that.” At your raised eyebrow, he continues, “My supposed death needed to remain so, without any doubts. I laid low in the lowest parts of Zaun until the time came to resurface.”

You squint at his wording, there’s likely an inside joke for his own musing. 

“Well,” You brush off the crypticness of the man, “Jinx should readjust to her world, testing her borders and be comfortable in her own space.”

“Without a doubt.” Silco chuckles and shares, “Jinx has become fond of having the high ground, setting up her own space in my office ceiling.”

“Sounds like welcome company,” You smile. “Not too distracting though, right?”

“Jinx has her moments but nothing I can’t handle.”

It’s kind of impressive. How close he’s letting Jinx be in his life.

“You’re really trusting her a lot. That’s more than I expected.”

A tension rises in Silco’s shoulders, catching you off guard as he frowns, “You told me before, I needed to be there for her when she’s happy or bored, and not simply there to console her meltdowns.” 

You recall that day, sitting with him with the maps of the world. Of course you were wary of him regarding Jinx’s safety. If she only drew close to Silco during her episodes, she might develop some sort of association of trauma with Silco. Jinx needs to normalize Silco’s presence in her life without the ghosts, she deserves that. 

“She needs you,” You tell him. “All of you and she needed to learn how to be around you too. For that to happen, you need to learn how to be around her, even when nothing serious is happening.”

Silco interprets something else from you, concluding his suspicions, “From the start, you didn’t have any faith in me as her caregiver.”

You dare yourself with a bold move and place a hand on his arm. 

“Silco, that’s because you’re not on the path of a caregiver or guardian. You’re becoming her father. Do you understand that?”

He’s quiet for a moment, his eyes falling to the touch of your hand. His gaze lands on your wrist and ever so slowly travels up your arm. You feel heat when you believe he’s staring at your turtleneck collar until finally his eyes meet yours. 

One eye is the color of the meadow, an image of grass under sunlight. Something you’ve never personally seen outside of paintings. 

The other eye, the Eye of Zaun, a sun you once described, casted in a dark void. A darkness that not only enrapts but consumes everything into its own orbit of a dying star. 

“I do.”

His voice wakes you from your thoughts. There’s a visible startle as you look away from him, embarrassed at all the staring you’ve done. Viktor was right, once you start writing poetry, you are done.

Fortunately Therium comes in with two hot plates of grilled filets with vegetables. The veggies actually look fresh, Silco must have accumulated a lot of money. 

The warm fish slices easily under your fork and you take a bite. It’s the most elegant thing you’ve tasted in a long time. 

“Is it to your liking?” Silco asks, accepting a wine glass from their bartender. 

“So good,” You mumble around your fork, lost in the taste. Therium offers another glass in front of you, gesturing to the wine bottle in question. “Yeah, it’s later now.”

He tops off your glass and you take a long sip. 

It’s what you've been needing every time you cross the bridge. Something older than you taking away your heartache. 

“Leave the bottle, Therium,” Silco dismisses the bartender. 

The Last Drop is a quiet scene, even with only Silco’s men here but as you watch Therium walk off, you realize that the other men from earlier are also taking their leave. Well they take their cards with them so they ain’t coming back any time soon. 

You’re alone with Silco. To cool your nerves, you take another long gulp of wine. 

There’s not a doubt in your mind that he’s gonna kill you. He doesn’t seem like the type to wine and dine you just to murder you. No you vaguely recall Silco’s war strategies, he is a man of calculations and planning. Silco is not one for improvisation. Well, maybe if it’s for Jinx though. 

“Alone at last?” You joke with a little shake in your voice, “Is this when you’re gonna threaten me, Silco?”

“Hardly,” he said. “I just wish to thank you for being Jinx’s teacher.”

“Oh,” You blink, surprised and touched. “I’m happy to continue teaching her.” 

“She enjoys your lessons. There was a good chance she wouldn't like my teaching methods.”

You squint at him. He’s ever poised as ever when slicing apart his dish. 

Doubt drips from you as you ask, “Do you even have a teaching method?”

He pauses, mid chew, “No I do not.” 

Silco glares at you when you laugh. 

“Sorry, sorry.” You hide your smile in a sip of wine. “If it makes you feel better, I’m happy that you chose to be her father rather than her teacher.”

“Yes my wounded pride is healed,” Silco says very deadpanned. You chuckle at that and his tone returns to his usual gravel, “It’s good to hear that you do approve of me as her father.”

“You don’t need my approval, Silco.” 

“True but it would be ignorant of me to ignore the advice of the teacher of the Lanes.”

“You’re a smart man,” You praised. “You’re giving her opportunities that show your trust in her. She’ll probably like the responsibility, not just to feel capable but to know she’s earning your trust. In doing so, you end up earning her trust.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

He places his cutlery down and reaches for something in his jacket’s inner pocket. Some sort of cylinder thing with a needle inside. There’s purple fluid bottled up on one side. 

A chill of fear stabs into your spine. The memory of its scent is in your nose. 

“What… is that for?”

“One simply does not drown in toxins and come out fine.” 

He studies the instrument, likely reflecting on his trauma and the needs for recovery, as best as it could be considering the circumstances. 

“So it, um, goes…” You close your right eye and point at your left eye. Silco nods. “That sounds very extreme.”

“A necessary extreme,” he said. “Shimmer is versatile, medicine is merely one purpose.” 

You look at the syringe curiously. 

It’s so easy for you to dismiss Shimmer as just another drug. After all you mostly know the ecstasy of it, that dazed out bliss people chase in a good smoke. 

Yet you’ve heard the rumors, seen the aftermath of addicts with purple warts and bloodied hands lurking in the dead ends of alleyways. 

Shimmer is power, a curse and blessing for wrath. Yet in its tiniest of drops you never get to witness it as something else. 

“Medicine, huh?”

“Yes. So far Jinx isn’t appalled at all by this,” He holds the syringe up and points it at his eye. “She has precision with her inventions and toy guns. I believe I can trust her with this.” 

Out of any context, the idea of giving a child the responsibility to administer medicine is scary and risky. But it’s Jinx, she has an innately high accuracy. 

You examine Silco’s left eye. At that point you realized that the man always showed his right side to you. You never really got a proper look at the scars running down his face. It is grotesque at first, something you may have unintentionally avoided for the longest time. 

Why, though?

It doesn’t remind you of his tragedy, of his near death and Vander’s brutality. 

It doesn’t remove the picture of humanity from Silco. You’re already aware of the hellfire he started in the old days. 

The scars and the unblinking eye. It has been Silco’s image since the moment he came back to the world. You don’t recall any close moments with him during the raids, back when he wore simpler attire, but you kind of remember his messy hair. 

You’ve gotten to know this version of Silco, the one with an eye represents all of his suffering and rebirth. 

“What’s it made of?” You wonder aloud, “It can’t be just glass. Is there a tiny dot for your Shimmer dose?”

His eyes are pretty, both the natural one and the unnatural one. 

“Reader,” his tone is low, a warning and that’s when you realize you’re leaning very close to him.

You reel back, one hand pressed against your flushed cheek and the other reaches for the glass. 

“Sorry,” You sheepishly grin, “I must have drank too much.” 

Despite your words, you take a sip. You shouldn’t be acting so carelessly. A few glasses of wine is only enough to relax you, not become this clingy mess. Maybe it’s just a Silco thing, you have enough self-awareness to realize your attraction to the man is a slow build up from all these small moments with him. 

You just don’t have any belief that he would ever develop the same feelings. 

“And yet you keep drinking.” Silco notes, thankfully there is no condescending judgment from him. It’s merely an observation as he offers to refill your cups. You accept it.  “Something upset you today. What is it?”

You debate the topic in your head, tipping it back as you gulp down the fine wine. Its sweet bitterness almost matches the frustration in your heart regarding your friend. 

“I, ah, was catching up with a friend uptop. He was from here too but…” 

Both the wine and your frazzled emotions interfere with your words. It’s been quite some time since you’ve let yourself be vulnerable to another. Rebekka was always the wrong person to open up to. She made you feel stupid to get sentimental over something she doesn’t understand. She’ll never understand what it's like to breathe in the dust of a failing day. 

So explaining your thoughts became a torturous hurdle. It became easier to simply never open up about it to her and in doing so, you belatedly realize how you distanced yourself from your friends. 

Lost in your work, picking out new materials for your students, and reading every book you could get your hands on rather than visiting Viktor or Adora and Eden. 

A warm hand is on your shoulder, a thumb brushing this way and that. Its pace is peaceful, slowly taking you out of your thoughts. 

You don’t dare look at Silco’s face, otherwise you might never get out of your own head and instead hype fixate on him just to avoid opening up about your feelings.

This time, you actually want to talk about the things in your head because if anyone would understand you, it would be Silco. 

He understands betrayal and while Viktor’s inaction was not out of malice, you can’t help but be utterly pained by his absence and blissful ignorance. 

“We were talking about my students, how they’re all doing. He knows Jinx as one of the smartest kids I ever taught. He’s where I got the book from.”

“You’re stalling.”

“I am laying down the events.” You chided, as if he wasn’t accurately calling you out. You raise your head up, meeting his gaze. “It’s all about the delivery.”

Silco smirks at you, “Then deliver.”

You roll your eyes, feeling too fond of him always returning your own words. 

“Anyway, he sort of remembers… or he doesn’t remember… He doesn’t know Vander.” You frown, recalling the innocent unawareness of Viktor. “He doesn’t know who was a part of the raids, who was important here. He’ll never know the people we all lost.” 

And maybe it’s not just Viktor who doesn’t know the suffering you’ve seen. Rebekka and the rest of Piltover choose to stick their heads up high and never look down. Yet when they do glare down, it’s to make you feel small. 

“You mentioned someone who helped in our raids.” Silco asks, “Who was she?”

It’s a small thing to endear but you’re grateful and surprised that he remembers your conversations. 

“Her name was Kore.”

Silco removes his hand from your shoulder. You try not to miss it.

He reaches over to hold his wine, “I vaguely recall her.”

“It’s fine if you don’t remember her. She’s just one of the many people who wanted to be in the front lines. She was really inspired by Vander. A lot of people were.”

Vander the fists and Silco the eyes of the operations. These two men lead the floodgates of hope and anger for a taste of victory. That’s how every revolution starts, someone with rising power. 

Even you were swept up in the chaos, enamored with not just the idea of your home getting proper recognition and clean air but the bliss of seeing Piltover getting punished for their injustice upon your people. 

At the time, nearly everyone was willing to die for the cause. 

Kore was one of the many people who did die. She wanted a better future for her family and you. There were two reasons why you never joined her at the forefront of battle. One, you are no warrior, you’re decent in a brawl with a knife against someone of your same stature but against an army of Enforcers, no you don’t believe you’ll make a dent. 

The second reason is the most important reason that you dedicated your time and every waking thought to. 

Kore trusted you to take care of her toddler.

She really believed in a bright future for her son and you but look at where you ended up. The raids failed and her kid is no longer in your care. You have no idea where he is. Everything was falling apart when Vander returned home without Silco. 

Now though, it is Silco without Vander. 

You needed to look Silco in the eyes when you asked, “Do you think we actually had a chance to cross the bridge back then?” 

True insanity is from repeating the same thing and expecting a different outcome. Silco may be too stubborn to give up on his dream of Zaun but if he does anything like before, those suicidal plans to take over the bridges, your world will once again fall apart. 

Everything about Piltover and the Lanes conflict at the bridges, the midway point and the barrier between two worlds. It took so many lives for Vander’s diplomacy to finally get things settled down for everyone to walk that bridge. 

Yet only one side has a memorial. Only one side sees the stone tiles as a deathbed. It’s always the undercity who has to cross the bridge and know who they lost. You mourn your oldest friend with each step you take over the bridges she died for. 

You can’t bear to think of more dead bodies on the bridges. 

“Yes, we always have a chance.” Silco answers with his stubborn confidence, “Back then and now, we can make Zaun a sovereign nation. I swear it, Reader,” he places a hand over yours, “It’s possible and it will be perfect.”

He swears this and yet says none of his plans. You know of the monsters this man has control over, both the drug and his own wellbeing. Silco will always be a scary and powerful man, driven by his ideals and this concept of perfection. 

He doesn’t share any details of his plans nor will you dare ask. You take in his platitudes and accept it as it is. 

A promise. 

“I believe you,” You tell him honestly, “but I’m still going to worry and doubt, Silco.”

He frowns at you but takes his time mulling over his thoughts by drinking more wine. You copy him. Your throat is dry and you want your emotions to dull under the bitterness of the drink. 

“It makes sense that you wouldn't fully trust me,” He said. “Afterall, you thought the same for Vander, yes? He’s responsible for Kore’s death and more.” 

“Are you including yourself on that list?” You raise an eyebrow at him.

He huffs at you and you’re sure that counts as a chuckle. “Yes I am.” 

“Hmm, well I can’t blame you,” You said and set your glass aside. “Silco, considering what’s ahead of us, I don’t want to mourn another bridge worth of people.”

Silco stares at you, the frown remaining as he takes another sip of wine. “It’s alright to mourn someone.”

“I know but it hurts to constantly grieve her and the rest.” You admit, knowing how this repetition is the main source of your desentization of the death around you. 

Your hand reaches for the glass again, swirling the red around. 

Silco sighs, “I understand. I mourn for Vander. Even when we killed each other for our ideals, he is still my brother.” A glint of determination shines in his eyes. It flashes over onto you. “He got his dues for his Lanes and I will do anything for the day when the sun shines on our nation of Zaun.”

You have this small desperate hope for this holy plan of his. The nation of Zaun. It could work, it has potential to actually save the Lanes from its own decay. 

More importantly, it could provide for so many children. It’s what you always wanted for them. 

Because even though a part of your heart is gone from finding Kore’s body, from learning too late that her boyfriend had left the country with their son, the one you swore to protect, you used the remainder of your heart to give to your students. 

But you desire more than just salvation for your people. 

“You sound like your old self Silco but you’re missing something.” You cast a crooked smile at him, “Where’s your hellfire, Silco?”

The corner of his lips from a smirk, very amused and his eyelid lowers halfway at you, “Oh I always have a dream to burn down Piltover, you know that.” His eyes never leave you as he reaches over for the wine bottle, sets it between the forgotten dishes. “Tell me what you really want, Reader.”

With the bottle within your reach, you take it and fill your glass up full once more. 

You take a slow slip, enjoying it and the image in your mind. You close your eyes. 

“I want Piltover to kneel, to acknowledge us and our power. I want them all to realize how with one wrong step, they are fated to the fissures. Once they’re in, they’ll realize that it’s destitution is only a speck of what we’ve endured. I want them to suffer and know that they are not special.”

Opening your eyes, Silco has leaned closer to you. A giddy feeling rises from your chest, warmed by the wine, as you lift your wine glass under his nose. You swirl the wine a little, letting the scent roam against Silco.

There’s the barest hint of a grin from him as he accepts the glass. You note that he spins it. He takes a sip from the rim, perfectly on the spot where your lips once were. 

His eyes consume you like how you two consumed the wine bottle. 

“That sounds perfect.”

-

Chapter Seven: Godlike and Helpless all at Once

Taglist (happy valentines yall): 

@sana-within-you @masteracewindu @shameshomalo @dovahdokren @ancientbeing10 @totallylostinfeelings @cyborgjules @shadow-pancake9 @potato-dragons @subbing-for-clones @faraige @testsubject24601 @accordionplayingrat @idiotic-canadian @accordionplayingrat

[keyboardandquill]

It’s a tragedy when a library closes its doors. The community loses a beloved space, and more often than not, it happens because nobody who cares is important enough to do anything about it.

More tragic still, shelves of books are left to rot; only the “valuable” ones are given homes in other libraries or on collectors’ shelves.

But the biggest tragedy of all? It’s the ones who care about the library who wind up being the ones to find a way inside after fruitless months or years of haranguing the city to let them in.

They mean well. I know they do. But every ounce of enthusiasm comes with an ample supply of “Acting Without Thinking.” And because the powers that be would rather pretend their library problem doesn’t exist, there are few (if any) public service announcements about the dangers of entering neglected libraries. It’s simply not common knowledge.

Sure, everyone knows to stay away from the big, sprawling ones going on decades or even a century old. But a library without a remediation budget can start showing signs of starvation damage after a closure as short as one or two weeks, and librarians have to bring in something new for the catalogue just to make up for the neglect. Any longer, and the city has to pay an agency to handle re-opening procedures. Remediation, as it’s known in the biz.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

A neglected library should only be handled by an expert or team of experts. The general book-loving public should stay far away. But they don’t know that, so well-meaning Friends Of the Library activist groups go in. I assume they get confused because the interior no longer looks like it used to, and that’s all they have time to think before The Library itself gets involved.

The results are messy. Too often, librarial neglect continues because now there’s nobody left to care.

~~~

There are two kinds of groups to whom I offer my services pro bono: Friends of the Library-type clubs who actually do enough research to find me in the first place, and universities facing funding cuts of their own. I have been known to take a nominal fee from small towns, the grieving children of eccentric collectors, and, in one case, a library itself.

The last instance came in the form of a book being spat through a returns slot, a twenty tucked into its pages like a bookmark. It landed at my feet as I was walking by—I was off work due to an injury at the time, and hadn’t even realized the old library had grown so much from its home building at the other end of the block.

By the time I emerged the next morning, sneezing and dusty and only a little worse for wear, the library was a library no more.

Okay, people who think the physical book itself is some kind of sacred relic, there’s no need to clutch your pearls. My work is entirely humane: I take the “essence” of the library and disperse it. Salvageable books, if there are any, are taken to my agency’s redistribution centre. The records, preserved in our database. We even archive the ephemera, like flyers for readings and such, if such ephemera exists. Once there is no longer a library, there is also nothing to starve, and nothing to pose a danger to intrepid bibliophiles.

You see? Preservation and eradication all at once. Simple.

~~~

Small agencies, like mine was when I started it, usually limit themselves to small jobs. Certain situations call for a well-coordinated team of specialists, while others, a solo agent can handle in an afternoon.

I’m probably giving you the impression that my colleagues and I are like spies or something. A more accurate picture would be “exterminator meets flood remediation technician meets librarian.” If you wanna toss in some Ghostbusters imagery too, I won’t stop you.

(And, yes, many of us are former librarians and all of us have degrees in library science. You would not believe how handy the Dewey Decimal system is in this line of work.)

That said, our clients usually have no idea what kind of agency they need. I’ve sent my fair share of potential clients to the big guys, and they’ve sent small-time clients to me. I’m normally pretty good at sussing out what kind of job it’ll be even before I get to the site, and anything that sneaks past my questionnaire or client interview typically gets caught during pre-inspection.

Notice my use of words like ‘usually’ and ‘normally’ and ‘typically.’ I can’t afford to deal in absolutes. Learned that one the hard way.

It was my first big-girl job after my internship. I’d landed a—frankly—pretty sweet position at a medium–large agency as a junior agent, and I was eager to impress. The agency had a rule: no matter an agent’s experience level, if a job’s scope reached a certain size, everyone working solo had to call in backup.

After a few partnered expeditions into mostly tame libraries, the agency sent me on my first real solo job. They paid for my flight, gave me meal vouchers, and set me up in a nice hotel on their dime—room service included.

I was excited. I was nervous. I panicked a little, then a lot, and then looped back to being excited again. My rideshare took me straight to the old library from the airport, passing the new public library on the way.

The old library building looked fairly nondescript: boarded-up windows just like many other businesses on that street (side note: the uniformity of it all should have been my first indicator something was up); a warning sign on the door saying the building wasn’t safe to enter, which was to avoid lawsuits in case someone thought it was prime squatting real estate; and graffiti on its brick facade. The street, on the other hand, looked like a bomb went off: It was little better than rubble. I’d been on smoother logging roads.

“A gas main blew,” the rideshare driver said. I guess he’d noticed my slack-jawed expression. “Thankfully, the street was already pretty empty and no one got hurt. You said you’re a building inspector?”

I nodded. It was sort of true, and much easier to explain than my actual job.

“Anyone with eyes can see they should just tear it all down. But I guess they gotta keep things official for the paperwork, eh? About time—it’s been sitting like this for years.”

That should have been my second indication that was something up. But, I was brimming with youthful naivete and running on two hours of sleep, so if any alarm bells rang in my head, I staunchly ignored them and charged ahead full speed. (Some free advice for you: Don’t do that. Always go into a dangerous situation well-rested.)

“Years?” I remember saying. Where a seasoned, safety-conscious agent would have seen the need to call for backup right then, I saw an adventure. A chance to test out all these newly acquired skills I’d gone into debt for. The driver helped cart all my gear to the front door. He probably made a comment about needing so much stuff for a simple inspection, and I probably made a joke about being prepared for anything.

He drove off after I insisted he didn’t need to wait for me, and I entered the building alone. I didn’t even pause at the doorstep. (That would be mistake number three, for those keeping track at home.)

Have you ever felt like you were being watched? The hairs on the back of your neck stand up, maybe you get goosebumps, a sense of dread like a rock in your gut. I’ve become well-acquainted with the sensation in all my years as an agent, but I wasn’t too familiar with it at this stage of my career. I chalked it up to nerves and pressed onward.

Leaving most of my kit at the door, all I had with me as I entered the lobby was my flashlight, my toolbag, and a cheap e-reader filled with titles that had all come out after the library closed. I stopped in front of the checkout desk. It was at this point I realized I had messed up royally.

Many pet owners will know what I mean when I say there’s a big difference between innocuous silence—like when a dog or cat is asleep—and suspicious silence. It’s intuition. Our brains pick up on so many details sub-consciously.

As I swept the beam of light across the abandoned shelves, the building was dead quiet. No groans or creaks. No hum of electricity. No sounds from outside. I couldn’t even hear myself breathe.

The beam wavered as my hand began to shake, and I tried to turn around. My feet wouldn’t budge. I lifted my eyes—and only my eyes, since my head wouldn’t move either—and the air rushed from my lungs.

There was no ceiling. I don’t mean the roof was missing, I mean there was nothing.

Before I was a remediation tech, I was actually pursuing a degree in marine ecology. I know, hell of a career change, right? But one summer, I went on a month-long research trip to the Mariana Trench. They took us over the Challenger Deep, where eleven thousand metres of dark water separated us from the ocean floor, and sent an ROV through those fathoms upon fathoms of darkness all the way to the bottom.

I imagined a sapient species living down there and wondered if they would fear the gloomy distance between them and the surface like we do the depths. I got my answer and then some in that library: How can you worry about something as trivial as distance when you’re staring into the yawning abyss?

And yet some people are drawn to the infinite. I’m one of them—I wanted to be at the bottom of the ocean right alongside that ROV. And maybe that’s why I survived the library.

You’ve heard that Nietzsche quote about staring at the abyss long enough that it stares back? It’s truer than you can imagine. I don’t know what that library saw in me, why I’m still here to tell my story first-hand. A starving library will consume any information it can reach, and what is a human brain but a complex repository of knowledge?

Whatever it found, I’m grateful it did. It let me go. I returned with backup. We did our jobs. The library was—is—no more. Every once in a while, I’ll come across a book that once lived there, as if it’s saying ‘Remember me?’ and I take a moment to be thankful I’m alive.

Especially considering all of the precarious situations I’ve found myself in since then.

Deep Water Prompt #3064

When libraries are not maintained they expand, swallowing cities block by block. If you run into a building too big to comprehend, that city has starved its library, and you should not go in. 

[emerald-chaos]

Already Gone

**gif not mine, credit to the owner below!!**

Oh hohohohoho besties. You are in for it on this one. The other night I had an idea that popped into my head and to say I got carried away with it would be a gross understatement. This is the first time I've written smut in forever so bear with me as I get back in to it. I hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. As always, please feel free to send feedback!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 5.3k (oops)

Warnings: Smut, 18+ (MINORS DNI), language, ANGST (holy shit is there angst), fingering, unprotected sex (please be smarter than these two), infidelity, and I think that's about it? Please let me know if I left something off.

A/N: Thanks to my sweet, sweet friend who read through this for me and helped me fix a few things. Also I take the, MINORS DNI, warning very seriously, so please only interact if you are of age. Please have your age in your bio so I can confirm. By clicking "read more" you agree to this. I really don't want to have to block people.

The cacophonous trill of shattering glass erupted through the space. Raised voices, thick with rage, echoed off the walls. It was difficult to tell which words were coming from which mouth, the both of you overlapping as you spewed out hatred toward one another.

“What in God’s name is going on here?!” Steve shouted as he entered the room, coming back from a late night run at the most inopportune time.

“Stay the fuck out of it!” Your two voices shrilled together as you both pointed toward Steve.

You could feel your chest heaving and it almost felt as though you were foaming at the mouth. Rage was completely consuming every crevice of your body and spilling out into your actions and your words. You turned back to the object of your aggression and watched as he ran a hand through his hair and turned to walk away from you.

“You’re nothing but a coward, James Barnes. A goddamn selfish, son-of-a-bitch, coward!” You screamed with every ounce of energy you had left in your body.

The two of you had some knock-down drag-outs in your past, but it was nothing compared to this. Months of pent up feelings, insecurities, jealousies, and secrets were all coming to a head at this very moment. The last few months the two of you had been incredibly short with one another - a stark contrast from your usual loving tone. Passionate kisses became brief pecks to the cheek, midnight roaming hands became backs set to one another, and ‘i love you’s’ felt more like a habit than a genuine feeling. In your heart you feared it would come to this one day. No matter how hard you tried, how much you wanted to, you were never going to be able to fix what had been done to the man you loved. There was no amount of love in the world that could reverse the tragedy of the Winter Soldier - at least that’s what you were convinced of now.

The man in front of you turned and strode across the room, minimizing the space between the two of you. His metal hand in a fist as he brought it up to jab a finger into the middle of your chest. Pupils were blown wide, what was once a lustful look was now filled with only pure anger. As he opened his mouth to speak, spit flew into your face.

“And you are a self-righteous, ignorant, self-important bitch!”

As your eyes raked over the contorted facial features of the man standing in front of you, you realized you couldn’t recognize them. The man standing in front of you was not Bucky. It was not the man who twirled a strand of your hair when he sat with his arm behind your chair, not the man who pulled over the car to help a turtle cross the road, and definitely not the man who held you in his arms as he cried after a nightmare. The man standing in front of you was a frightening enigma of hatred and rage. This was not your Bucky. In fact, you were almost certain you lost your Bucky months ago.

* * *

You hadn’t noticed the bouncing of your knee until the man who sat beside you gently cupped it with his hand, stilling your nervous movements. It was enough to break you from your thoughts as you turned your head to meet his kind eyes.

“We don’t have to do this, you know. I’ll have them turn the car around and we’ll go back to the airport. We catch the next flight back home.” He whispered in reassurance. Even though your mind was anxiously racing, you couldn’t help but smile at the compassionate gesture.

“Of course we do,” you started, cupping his cheek with your hand as the sunlight glinted off your pristine wedding ring, “Tony was one of the most important people in my life. Plus, I’m pretty sure he would haunt me if I didn’t go to his funeral.”

8 years ago you promised yourself in the taxi ride to the airport that you would never step foot in this place again. That all changed when you got the news of Tony’s death. Your time working with the Avengers was a life-changing experience and it was all thanks to Tony. The memory of him seeking you out to work alongside Dr. Banner in the research lab was one that you could never forget. Tony was an arrogant, pompous asshole but he was undeniably a good man. You would curse yourself for the rest of your days if you let your own baggage get in the way of that.

“Alright,” your husband responded with a sigh as he squeezed your knee, “But please, promise you’ll tell me if there’s anything I can do for you.”

“Promise.” An agreement that you sealed with a kiss.

Mike was a good man, he was someone who cared for you deeply and who made you feel safe. After your transfer to the DC Shield Office, you had sworn off any more office romances. Those never ended well. That was until your path crossed with Mike. From the beginning of the relationship, you were upfront about your past issues with relationships and how you weren’t ready to dive into anything and he simply stated that he was okay with that, that he would wait.

The marriage was a happy one, Mike always playing the role of doting, caring husband. No matter how much you pushed back against him, he was always willing to give you space and to let you feel what you were experiencing. Mike was a good man. But he wasn’t him.

Your gaze left his as your eyes returned to the skyline, the familiar pressure clawing its way back to your chest. It’d been 8 years since you saw him. 8 years since you packed your bags and left the only home you’d ever truly known. Sure, you had this new life - a new husband, new friends, new job with similar duties, but there was still a piece of you that was missing. A piece you knew could never possibly be filled again. You had come to terms with that, slowly, but it had happened eventually. Now that you were back, you knew you were going to have to see him again - see all of them again. While a lot of good memories resided within this area, there was a hell of a lot of pain that went along with it. All you could do in that moment was remind yourself that you were here for Tony - to honor his memory and pay your respects. You didn’t owe anything else to anyone else. Something in your chest, however, told you that wouldn’t be the way things played out.

* * *

The service was beautifully executed. It was obvious that Pepper had poured her heart and soul into ensuring that Tony Stark was remembered as he should have been. The walls of your heart tightened as you saw Pepper clutching their young daughter to her side. Although Tony had made a lot of mistakes in his life, he spent his last years making sure to do good and to make things right. While it felt like a hot knife had been stabbed into your chest as you said goodbye to a once dear friend, you took solace in knowing that Tony was so loved by so many. That his legacy would live on in so many different ways. And that Pepper was there to say goodbye.

It had been your plan to attend the service and then leave immediately after it had ended. Of course, life has a funny way of never doing quite what we want it to.

It was Sam who stopped you first, pulling you into a tight hug against his form as your fingers gripped his jacket. Sam, being the angel he was, never once mentioned anything from the past and instead expressed his happiness with seeing you again and learning that you were doing well. The one thing Sam was not good at however, was keeping his mouth shut. Word quickly traveled through the crowd of your attendance and one by one old friends began to find you. Wanda didn’t have much to say but kept you in a grateful embrace while you expressed your condolences for Vision. In a shocking turn of events, It was actually Peter who was the most difficult to see. The once bright, happy-go-lucky, smiling boy was visibly devastated - heavy dark bags lingered under his eyes and his glow had been severely dimmed by the loss of his mentor. You couldn’t help but cry as you held him in your arms, expressing to him how proud of him Tony was and how he’d told you just that on several occasions.

After the hellos, the hugs, and the reminiscing you had told yourself that was it, that you were going to leave. It was then that Pepper stopped you with a soft hand on your shoulder, a kind smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, and a warm embrace. After a pause of silence, she pulled away and invited you and Mike to stay for the gathering that had been planned following the service. Your mind screamed at you, begging you to politely decline - tell her you had to get back to DC, that you had a flight already booked that you couldn’t miss, that you had important business to get back to.

“Of course, Pepper. We’d love to.”

* * *

The gathering was exactly what Tony would have wanted. It was family and friends gathered around eating and drinking, but most of all - it was a bunch of people talking about Tony Stark.

You told Mike before the two of you arrived that you would stay for 20 minutes tops. That it simply would be out of respect for Pepper and once you felt your presence had been noted that the two of you would slip out unnoticed in the sea of people.

That was 2 hours ago.

Laughs came easy, tears flowed frequently, and stories were shared amongst friends. Surprising to you, it felt good to be around these people again. A familiar pang of home would hit you every now and again as you reconnected with those who you hadn’t seen in years. You introduced Mike to your old friends, who welcomed him warmly and with open arms. What you had thought would be a stressful, gut-wrenching day had actually turned out to be a joyful celebration of life. The day had been progressing smoothly and you wanted to chastise yourself for being so pessimistic.

That was, until you saw him.

Hands stuffed into the pockets of a black bomber jacket, long chestnut hair falling onto his shoulders, and a familiar collection of facial hair decorating the lower half of his face. He looked as terrible as you felt at the beginning of the day. Dark circles had only grown more prominent beneath his beautiful blue eyes and the corners of his lips were drawn down in a permanent frown. You couldn’t help but notice that he’d lost a considerable amount of weight. The once broad, thick man was now far more lean and toned than you ever remember him being.

A breath caught in your throat as the cerulean eyes met yours. Unable to stop yourself, you shoved your drink into Mike’s chest and hurried off to the nearest bathroom. Barely making it in time, you emptied your day’s stomach contents into the toilet. Breathing heavily, you fought back sobs as they threatened to leave your throat. To anyone else, it may seem you were simply grieving the loss of your friend, perhaps taking it harder than most. Oh how you wish that were the case.

You knew it would be difficult to see him again, but you didn’t expect it to feel as though someone had set your entire body ablaze. The heavy feeling of grief, anxiety, and stress from the beginning of the day was crushing your lungs, your stomach still trying to lurch although it had nothing left to give up, and tears burned the rims of your eyes. As you cleaned yourself up and flushed the toilet, you exited the stall to wash your hands and rinse your mouth. You tried to convince yourself it was the entire day's worth of emotions that had led you to this moment. That man no longer had this kind of hold on you - you had moved on. Or, so you thought.

Slowly, your gaze met your reflection in the mirror. The woman there looked worn and tired, like she had been fighting a raging war that she had been losing miserably. Mascara had begun to run down the apples of her cheeks and lipstick was smeared across her mouth. A heavy sigh left your lips as you did your best to make yourself more presentable. A shaky hand entered your clutch as you retrieved your lipstick and applied another layer. You gave yourself a final once-over and decided that your current appearance was as good as it was going to get. Just as you were going to turn around and return to the party there was movement in the mirror that caught your eye. The door was being pushed open from the outside. You turned to protest, to let the intruder know that the bathroom was occupied.

“Excuse me, sorry, there’s someone--”

It felt as though all the air had been taken from your lungs and your heart threatened to beat out of your chest as you came face to face with the man you had tried so hard, for so long, to forget. It was as though you were frozen in time, as if he were Medusa - turning you instantly to stone. Logically, the thing to do would be to tell him to get out or for you to leave the bathroom so that he could occupy the space alone. However, all you could do was stand and watch as he closed the bathroom door behind him, as his fingers closed around the lock and clicked it into place.

Then it was just the two of you. Bodies unmoving, aside from the rapid rise and fall of your chests in tandem. The air felt 100 degrees warmer than it had when you were alone. The silence, paired with the thump of your heartbeat, was deafening to your ears. You were hyper-aware of his gaze as he studied you the way you had him not minutes before. His eyes finally met yours once more and there was a poignant silence before he finally spoke.

“Can’t believe you still have that dress.”

Your eyes blinked a few times, brain trying to process his words and the situation you had currently found yourself to be in. You looked down to the front of your dress and smoothed your hands down it. How could you have gone the whole day without realizing that the dress you were wearing had been a gift from Bucky on your first anniversary? You were positive you had rid yourself of anything even remotely related to him. In fact, you distinctly recall dumping a box of momentos into a barrel and tossing a lit match inside. You don’t remember making the conscious decision to keep the dress, or why you would have made the decision. Now here you were - mere feet away from the man who had put it on and so delicately took it off of you many times.

“S’perfectly good dress. Shouldn’t go to waste.” Was all you could muster as a response in that moment.

The man before you took a step forward and you took a step back, hips coming into contact with the cold marble counter of the sink.

“Thought I’d never see you again. Y’look...different.” His gaze roaming its way down your body once more.

As his eyes landed on the diamond ring nestled onto the 4th finger of your left hand, you felt a lump begin to form in your throat.

“Congratulations.” His words were cold. Inauthentic. “He’s a lucky guy.”

“What the fuck are you doing in here, James?” The words were supposed to be sharp, but instead came out shaky and insecure.

“Saw you out there, starin’ at me. Guess I just wanted a closer look at you.”

By the end of the sentence he had closed the gap between the two of you even more, chests threatening to bump one another. His metal hand slowly reached forward and brushed a piece of hair off your shoulder. The cool appendage felt like fire against your skin and you know he heard the way you sharply inhaled, but you just couldn’t help it. You swallowed hard, head reeling and knees trying to buckle beneath you when you felt his cool palm cup your fiery cheek. It took everything in your body to avert your eyes from him, especially when you felt him even closer than before - warm breath fanning the expanse of your face. Why was he doing this? What was he going to accomplish? The fight or flight response in your body was screaming at you to push him away and run, but you didn’t.

“I’ve thought about you every day since you left, sweets. There’s not a moment that passes by where you’re not on my mind.”

Your eyes closed tightly, tears now welling up and spilling over.

“Everything you said about me that night was true. I am a coward. A coward who lost the best fuckin’ thing that ever happened to his sorry, broken ass.”

A small sob escaped your chest as your hand flew to your mouth, failing to keep it from tumbling out. Bucky found a loose thread and was slowly unraveling everything you’d worked toward in the last 8 years, every step toward progress and peace that you had worked so hard to find.

“I’m so fuckin’ sorry, doll” Bucky was now fully cupping your face with his large, calloused hands, “I’m so sorry that you fell in love with someone like me - a broken son of a bitch who never got put back together. I’m sorry that I hurt you so badly. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you the way I promised I would. I’m sorry that -”

In a moment of weakness, before he could finish his sentence, you were crashing your lips to his. There was nothing else that existed in your world - there was only you and there was only Bucky. Seemingly moving on their own accord, your hands found their way into his hair, grasping wildly for something to hold on to. As your fingers tugged on his roots, Bucky let out a deep moan into the kiss, sending a shiver down your spine.

The kiss was sloppy and desperate, all tongue and teeth. It was a balance of dominance between the two of you - although you were the one who initiated the kiss, Bucky was the first one to gain access to the inside of your mouth, and you were the first to tug his lower lip between your teeth. A pathetic mewl left your lips as Bucky’s mouth began trailing wet kisses across your jaw and down the column of your throat. The heartbeat in your ears from earlier was much worse now, making your head throb in pain. Every nerve ending in your body felt as though it was on fire and a small voice in the back of your head kept pleading with you to stop. For a moment you entertained the idea of shoving him off and telling him to fuck off, but that was before he started sucking that spot on your neck that he knew drove you mad. It was your turn to moan this time as you involuntarily arched your back, pressing yourself up against his firm torso.

You knew the way that you were tugging on the strands of his hair had to be incredibly painful but it only seemed to urge Bucky to continue. A soft gasp tumbled past your lips as you felt Bucky’s thigh push against your aching core. The sensation had you digging your fingernails into the back of his jacket as you finally released your grip on his hair. Before you could stop yourself, you could feel your hips grinding yourself down against his clothed thigh. Your dress had been pushed up around your waist, now only a small piece of cloth covering you as you desperately chased a high.

“I shoulda never let you go. Shoulda been at the airport to stop you before you got on that plane.”

His teeth sunk into your pulse point once more, earning himself another moan from your lips. The sting was soon replaced with the cool sensation of his tongue tracing the marks he had left.

“I love you, doll. I haven’t ever stopped lovin’ you.”

“Show me,” you whimpered pathetically against his shoulder, “show me you love me, Bucky. Please.”

An audible breath caught in his throat as he pulled himself back to look at you. Your chest was heaving, make-up smeared once more, and your pupils were blown wide with lust. You obviously weren’t able to see the look you gave him, but judging by the way he looked back at you it was fair to say you looked broken, pathetic, and desperate for him. The eyes looking back at you had the softness to them that you remember, the strokes of his hands against your body contained the passion that you’d so been longing for, and the tone in his voice told you that he was desperate for you too.

Within seconds your feet were lifted from the ground and your ass made contact with the cold, wet countertop. There wasn’t a lot of room, objects were scattered onto the floor and others were left to push into your hips with aggressive force, but you just didn’t care. It was impossible to care when Bucky moved your knees apart and dragged a finger along your clothed pussy. The sensation made your head fall back against the mirror with a hard thud but you couldn’t feel any of the pain from it at all. The only thing you felt was the way electricity rippled through your body when he used his thumb to apply pressure to your aching clit. Bucky groaned and rested his forehead against yours, lips slightly parted as he felt your need for him growing.

“So wet for me, just like I remember. Lemme make you feel good, sweets, hmm?” He had leaned forward to whisper softly in your ear as his teeth grazed your lobe.

It was you who reached down and shoved your panties down your thighs, meeting a surprised look from Bucky as he helped you drag them down to hang around your ankle. Bucky’s tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip as he hooked his hands underneath your knees to spread your legs open for him. Another groan came from him, this time more guttural than the last. You felt small underneath his gaze and the cool air in the bathroom brushing across your soaking core made you shiver.

Your hand flew to your mouth to suppress the noises you made as his finger slipped through your folds, running up and down to collect your wetness.

“More. God. Please, Buck. Need more.” You whined, attempting to roll your hips against his hand to find any form of friction that you could.

“Anything for you, baby.” He whispered as he gently inserted a finger inside of you. The two of you moaned in tandem.

There was a brief moment of embarrassment with the way your walls immediately clenched around his finger and the way his finger immediately found that soft spot. It was shortly replaced with a feeling of ecstasy. Bucky captured your lips with his to swallow your moans as he added another finger. The way his fingers were curling and pumping inside of you already had you close to the edge. Bucky pulled back and held your gaze as he added pressure to your clit with his thumb, circling the area as his fingers continued to repeatedly hit that spot inside of you.

“Please, please don’t stop.” You begged as you felt the pressure building within the lower part of your body.

“S’okay. I’m right here.” Bucky’s other hand was cradling the back of your head as he whispered to you. “I know you’re close. Can feel you squeezin’ me. You can let go for me, I got you.”

As your eyes met his, foreheads pressed together, you finally came apart. The white hot sensation tears through you as your legs quake. You squeeze your eyes shut and allow Bucky to help you ride through your orgasm as he peppers light kisses along your neck.

“I almost forgot how pretty you look when you cum.”

You whine at the emptiness and loss of contact when Bucky removes his fingers from your center. As your eyes flutter open you see him push the fingers into his mouth and suck them clean. The look on his face was euphoric.

“God. Almost forgot how fuckin’ sweet you taste too.”

Mustering up all the strength you had, you sat up and pulled him closer by his belt. The two of you worked together to rid him of his pants and boxers. Your hand wrapped around him, thumb swiping the red tip and using the pre-cum to help lubricate as you pumped your hand down his length. Bucky’s jaw clenched as he moaned at the sensation. Just as you were going to leave the counter, you felt his hands grabbing your shoulders and halting your movements.

“Maybe a different time, sweets. But right now I gotta be inside you.”

You caught your bottom lip as you nodded and released your hold on him. Bucky’s hands wrapped around your thighs as he pulled your hips to the edge of the sink. The metal hand left your thigh as he grabbed himself at the base and pushed his length through your folds. The two of you once more shared a moan at the sensation. As he lined himself up with your entrance, your hands wrapped around his neck to pull him in for another kiss. The next thing you felt was the familiar sting of his cock stretching your walls as he slid into you. Your lips left his and your forehead found itself pressed against his once more. Both of you panting heavily as neither of you dared to speak a word.

Following a moment of silence, allowing your body time to stretch to accommodate him, you nodded slowly as to signal to him that it would be okay for him to move. His thrusts were slow and calculated at first, as if he was attempting to regain his memory of your body - one that he once knew so well. You couldn’t help but dig your fingernails into his shoulder as you held on to him for dear life, subconsciously afraid that if you were to let go of him he’d be gone again forever.

“Faster, Bucky. Please.” You whimpered into his ear as you took his earlobe between your teeth and nibbled softly.

A low growl left his chest as he grabbed your hips and lifted you off the counter, moving slightly so that he could cage your body against the wall. You wrapped your legs firmly around his waist, locking them at the ankle. His thrusts became faster, deeper, and it was apparent he had gained his confidence back.

“You feel so fuckin’ good, baby. Just the way I remember.” He grunted as he dug his fingers harder into your hips.

His lips were on yours again, this time tears were starting to decorate the corners of your eyes. The pleasure, the regret, the passion, the guilt - every feeling was building up along with your orgasm. Bucky pulled away from the kiss to tap on your bottom lip with two of his fingers, which you greedily accepted into your mouth. Your tongue swirled around his digits until he pulled them out and used them to circle your clit. The added pleasure was almost too much to handle.

“C’mon, baby. Wanna cum with you. Can you do that for me, huh?” Bucky whimpered, his thrusts beginning to falter from the calculated snaps he was giving you before.

All you could do was nod your head quickly as the pressure steadily increased, bringing you to the brink of your second orgasm.

“I love you. I love you. I love you so fuckin’ much, oh my god.” Bucky grunted as the two of you reached your peak together.

You leaned forward to bite down on his shoulder and suppress the scream that left your mouth as pleasure erupted through your body. The two of you assisted each other through the high of your release and you felt your ass make contact with the cool countertop once more.

The only noise present in the space was your heavy breathing and a small dripping noise that came from the sink. Bucky’s final words before he came replayed in your head over and over again as you attempted to slow your breathing and bring yourself back down to earth. Your body shuttered slightly as Bucky slipped himself out of you. As you sat up, you noticed he was looking around the bathroom.

“Shit, sweets. I don’t think there’s anything I can use to help clean you up.” He sighed and turned to meet your gaze that was locked upon him.

“It’s fine, Buck. Not a big deal.”

Bucky bent over and helped you pull your panties back on before he redressed himself. Neither of you spoke for what felt like eternity.

“I-...” You muttered finally, “I love you too, Buck. I thought I was over you, I thought I moved on but...I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop loving you no matter how hard I try.”

Bucky reached out to stroke your cheek with the back of his hand as he listened to you lament to him. His eyes were soft and caring and you could almost swear he was looking into the depths of your soul.

“I think —“

Your conversation was cut short by the sound of knocking at the bathroom door.

“Hey, are you okay in there? Do you need anything?” Mike’s voice had your entire body flooded with the shame of your infidelity. In one swift movement, you were on the floor and turning the sink on to make it appear you were just washing your hands.

“Y-yeah I’m fine! Just finishing up! I’ll find you out there in a minute!” You squeaked.

Mike seemed to pause for a moment before you heard his footsteps retreat from the bathroom door. A wave of relief washed over you, but it was only temporary. As soon as you were relaxed the gravity of the situation you were in was clouding you once more.

“I have to go. I can’t give him any reason to think he needs to come in here.” Bucky nodded, eyes not leaving yours as you spoke while collecting yourself, “but we need to..we should..we have to address this. Later.”

“I agree.”

“Our flight leaves tomorrow night. I’ll...see what I can come up with as far as an excuse. Then we can put this to bed for good.”

“Absolutely, sweets.”

The nickname made your knees buckle once more as you sighed.

“Goodbye, James.”

You finally tore your eyes from his as you unlocked the door and slipped out of the bathroom. In reality, however, you knew this really wasn’t goodbye. Not even close.

[demonxlove]

【character analysis ― douma】

✎ just wanna start this by saying this is sort of both an analysis but also my own personal portrayal on douma’s character based on what we see from canon, so it definitely has a lot of my own opinions on it. & and it also sort of shows how i plan to write him if/when i get requests for him. you don’t have to agree with any of my thoughts but ya know i wanted to share them since douma is my fave character!

✘ warnings before you read: cults, mental illnesses, mentions of death and trauma, especially childhood trauma (that partially stems from neglect) - also not so much a warning but this is very long and obviously contains manga spoilers.

⇢ let’s be completely honest here, douma is an extremely complex character. and while we know a lot about him, at the same time, it’s almost like we know barely anything. we don’t really know an extreme amount of what goes through his head, but it’s kind of just assumed he’s a completely emotionless character, usually stated to be a psychopath because of this.

⇢ i really, really urge anyone labeling a character with a mental illness to do research on it before even considering to use the term, i should mention. and it’s very important to mention mental illnesses are very different to how they effect each person. but from what i understand, both psychopaths and sociopaths (just in case that term gets thrown around too) feel emotions, just very differently to how someone not suffering from the mental illness does. now since i don’t have either illness i’m not gonna say douma is either one, as i personally don’t feel comfortable diagnosing characters with mental illnesses i don’t have or haven’t very clearly been stated they have in canon, but it’s very important to have a very clear understanding of those illnesses if you’re gonna say douma is one.

⇢ but regardless of how you see douma mental illness wise, i personally think he does have emotions, they’re just obviously not as clear as others due to his upbringing. and we do see he has emotions as a kid, shown very clearly by him crying due to everything these grown adults were piling on to him.

⇢ he’s very obviously upset. and why wouldn’t he be? to hear such things from adults day in and day out as a child, being expected to be the one to solve their problems? it’s stressful. it eventually leads up to what we see of his parents death. he’s not upset. he doesn’t really feel any sadness for the two. but that can be explained.

⇢ his parents never acted as parents to him. from the moment of his birth douma was just an object for them to create this cult. i don’t really know what they wanted from it: money? fame? who knows. but it doesn’t really matter. douma was just something for them to use in order to gain what they wanted. even if they did genuinely believe he was a special child, their actions sure didn’t show that. and while douma said that he felt sad they believed he was special, douma was a child. his parents had no reason to show their genuine intentions to him, so we’ll never really know what they thought. but as i said, they didn’t seem to care much how messed up he became as long their cult was in place. douma never had a chance to live a normal childhood, he was placed on a high pedestal from birth and never got to be child. never got to really understand things he should understand. he couldn’t understand actual genuine love from his parents or if he actually loved him. sure, he could feel things such as happiness and love and all of that, but if he did feel it, how could you ever expect him to know? he was in such a constant horrible state, how would he ever know how positive emotions even felt?

⇢ to go back to his parents deaths for a second, even if he didn’t feel anything, it didn’t mean it didn’t cause him any suffering. he was a child, that sort of thing you don’t come out from without trauma. especially since he saw it happened with own eyes. and that probably significantly worsened his already poor mental state. but that also means he was raised from that moment by the cult, and his chance of every coming out okay was straight up zero. let’s be real, the only reason douma has any sort of hold over the cult is because he is their object of worship. they didn’t treat him like a child or even a human being. he was nothing more than someone for them to worship and believe in that they would be blessed. of course, it’s a cult, so most of these people are victims much like douma himself, but the fact there had to be people at the top that were raising him and used him to accomplish their own goals. to use his influence as they saw fit.

⇢ and it was never ending cycle, he never got out of it. all he did was learn to keep the cycle going since he couldn’t simply just leave. and maybe there were moments where he thought himself to be happy due to having so many people worship him, but it wasn’t true happiness. 

⇢ maybe the first bit of happiness he got was from being a demon and getting to interact with other demons? unclear since it’s not like we really saw it. but it was different. it was a small crack in the cycle. but those demons all ended up hating him due to his attitude, that despite no one liking he still kept up. why? why didn’t he just act in a way to make others like him?

⇢ maybe it’s a reach, but to me personally, it’s a mixture of how he desired to be - carefree without any troubles - mixed with how he imagined a child to act. like i said, he had basically no childhood, and it’s not uncommon for those who never get to experience a proper childhood to act more childlike later on to my understanding. he even uses terms like “bully” to describe people much like a child would.

⇢ however, this brings me to what i truly believe was one of the few happy times in douma’s life: kotoha.

⇢ i don’t think he realized it himself, because why would he? but he cared for a lot more than one would believe capable for him. i’m not sure if i would call it romantic or purely platonic, but kotoha was genuinely important to him. i mean, what purpose would he ever have to say he didn’t plan to hurt her?  he wanted to keep that small bit of happiness in his life, maybe in somewhere deep in his heart he even believed they could be their own happy little family to break this never ending tragic cycle he went through.

⇢ but he lost that happiness. she grew scared of him and basically hated him in his eyes upon finding out the truth. and the cycle of tragedy continued once again.

⇢ and to really come to my last point: we’ve seen douma mad.

⇢ and i suppose some could write this scene off as him continuing to be emotionless, but it doesn’t explain the way it’s drawn. the shading on his face that is usually used to show anger. or why he would ever really care about what kanao said in the first place if it was actually true and it didn’t hurt him in some way. the reality is douma does many things that can’t be explained for someone who supposedly has no emotions. and a lot of these details about his character are more subtle, so maybe they mean nothing at all at the end of the day, but in my personal opinion this is how i interpret them.

✎  but that’s really how i see douma, another demon with an extremely tragic story, but one that doesn’t come to light just how tragic until you think more on it. and that is how i do plan to portray him when writing for him personally! maybe i’ll do this more for other characters at some point, but he was the one i wanted to talk about the most since i just have so many thoughts on douma.

[interact-if]

I’m sending this in because it seems like I could get good opinions from not only you but also the people who follow you. I have an idea for an IF, and I’m very excited for the story. My question is, would people be offended if I made the playable MC physically female that identifies as female and all the ROs physically male that identify as male? I have seen some out there that are strictly M/M or F/F, and I’m so happy they exist because I feel that population is underserved. I just feel, not having the experience, I could bring justice to writing LGBTQ+ (and I don’t want to offend anyone in that community by writing something incorrect), mostly when it comes to sex (which I plan on including in my game). I support games that have those relationships in them and admire them, even play those games, and I don’t care who plays my game. The more the merrier! I still want the characters to be diverse. One of them will be of a descent that is based on Japanese culture and many others, based on Persian culture. I also want the playable MC to have any skin tone/features the player wants. I just want to know if this…will have people coming after me? I want to tell my story, but I don’t want to be attacked for it, if that makes sense?

I really don’t mean to offend anyone. I just don’t want to cause trouble, and I just want to respectfully ask for people’s opinions on this.

Hello! So, before diving into our response, we’d like to emphasize that we are but five individuals running a blog devoted to interactive fiction. We are neither the end-all-be-all voice on this matter nor necessarily a representative mouthpiece for the community.

First off, you can write whatever you would like to write; as the author, you have absolute control over what you produce, so nobody is going to stop you from writing what you want to write. It’s also important to write what you enjoy.

That said, the community is, in our experience, very inclusive, and largely devoted to providing a space for the queer community. We can understand the desire to have an appropriately inclusive and diverse game, and why you particularly want to turn to characters of color to bridge the gap; however, substituting characters of color for queer characters to claim diversity in a project is possibly something that will receive the wrong kind of attention. Furthermore, assuming that writing characters of color well is any less complex than writing queer characters potentially suggests that said characters could end up underdeveloped or tokenized. (See Nines' and Roast’s response below for more context)

All of that doesn’t mean you can’t make a game that’s genderlocked and restricted to M/F romance, and I don’t think anyone will be offended by such a game, but it might limit your audience. At the same time, there are (many) other visual novels that have this format, so it’s not something unheard of. As far as CoGs and text-based games go, as far as we’ve seen, they are rarely genderlocked unless for plot reasons, etc.

There is also a chance that you may receive feedback requesting that the MC be un-gender locked, or for additional ROs to be added of different gender, or for the ROs to be made gender selectable. These requests may be gentle, insistent, kind, or aggressive, and they may only occur at the beginning of your work, or may occur throughout your game development. Maybe they’ll never happen at all. It’s impossible to predict the future, but in our experience, we have often seen this occur to games in the past with RO gender imbalances, locks, etc.

As for searching for feedback, if you’re looking for feedback but you’re not pursuing the CoG format, may we suggest the Reddit subforum? It’s a little difficult for you to get the feedback/dialogue going here that you’d likely like to get, so Reddit’s format may be more conducive to your needs.

In the meanwhile, those who would like to provide their thoughts are encouraged to respond in the comments of this post. Please remember to be polite with your discussion!

— — —

The above is our general mod response; a few of us wanted to offer some individual thoughts as well, and those can be found below. These are personal opinions and reflect each individual mod’s thoughts, rather than a collective response.

While it can be a little daunting to write about something you’re not familiar with, writing often broaches topics with which we don’t personally have first-hand experience. Additionally, queer relationships are ultimately still relationships between people—they’re not all that different from heterosexual relationships. If you’re worried about the way you’re portraying your content, that’s something well-curated beta readers/testers (from the population you’re trying to represent) can help test for, and give feedback on. And on top of all of the above, that’s not to mention the potential issues associated with substituting in POC to replace queer people, which is perhaps not what your intention is, but is what it feels like your intention is (see Roast and Nines for all the ins and outs on why this is an issue). Ultimately, I stand by the opinion that on the most basic level, most will not be offended by a game that’s about a straight, cisgender female MC—yet some, or even many, may be off-put by such a game. I know I, personally, am. (P. S. Also consider that the MC has to interact with the other ROs that she isn’t romancing, as friends, enemies, acquaintances, what have you—having selectable ROs, for example, also allows the player to “diversify” their acquaintance group, if they so wish.) — Dani

I understand that this ask is coming from well-meaning intent but I would just like to state that writing characters of color is not easier than writing queer characters. One of them isn't a substitute for the other. Writing characters of color and writing queer characters are separate matters entirely, and both come with its own difficulties. Wanting your characters to be diverse, while admittedly lacking the perspective to back such identities, is still a murky water to navigate.

Personally speaking, and I really do have to be transparent about this, the way certain sentences were phrased in this ask rubbed me the wrong way. Still, I understand that this isn't malicious, just someone who is asking for guidance, which is something I can't fault. We all have to start somewhere, you know? That being said, if you really want to write diverse characters, my general advice is to do research. Lots and lots and lots of research. No author is exempt from that, honestly.

Find helpful articles, journals, studies, video essays, etc. to aid you in writing your characters. If you still feel like that's lacking in some way, which is a valid concern, being open to feedback from the appropriate people is also a good way to improve. The integrity of a project is important, but so is reasonable criticism against, for, or about it. Keep an open mind, educate yourself, and don't be afraid to ask for help or clarification should it be needed. — Nines

Nines says it well that queer people and poc are not interchangeable nor any 'easier' than the other. The fact that you're willing to do research and include characters of color yet not include queer characters tells me that you're afraid yet misconstruing how much effort actually gets put into cultural research.

There is a 'purity culture' that goes around tumblr that claims that diverse characters have to be perfect, have to have no flaws, cannot die, cannot have trauma, cannot face adversity, they must be perfect and good and happy.

I think this is bullshit.

I also think the backlash from this 'purity culture' community is what is creating so much fear in authors (including queer authors!!) in making characters with different backgrounds and identities than their own. In making queer characters with flaws and tragedy and negative characteristics.

If we only ever wrote what we knew, what we've personally experienced, fiction would be a very boring world.

Being afraid of representing a community wrong is a valid fear, but it shouldn't stop you from trying. You can write what you want to write, but it shouldn't be limited by fear.

Do your research. Get sensitivity readers. Be open to feedback. Be willing to be afraid, but do it anyway.

If, in the end, you decide to gender lock, make it an informed decision at the very least, and if you are including characters of color, know that that is a heavy amount of research too, and should be handled with the same care as what we've said on queer characters.

And like we've said before, we are not the voice of the community, we cannot give you permission or our blessing or flawless feedback, we are just five people running a blog. — Roast

Alright this was already mentioned a bit before but I wish to add my two cents: M/F relationships are the norm anywhere else in real life, and if you feel like there's no space for you and your relationships in a mostly-queer community then you might want to recheck if this is the community you wish to have as your target audience.

No one's going to be offended if your story is cishet, as we said, but you are extremely reducing your audience by doing such. The appeal of interactive fiction is that a good bunch of us have played female-mc-straight-love-interest visual novels in the past, having to endure being misgendered or romancing people we might not be attracted to.

The current interactive fiction community we're trying to promote has opened a million doors for everyone to explore themselves, so don't be surprised if your story, no matter how good, is ignored due to this aspect. Most of us have no interest in being forced to play as something we're not.

Again, we cannot tell you what you can or cannot do. We don't speak for the community, we speak for ourselves and for this blog. Maybe every comment we've made was incorrect and your game turns out to be successful, really, but it's what we believe you should keep in mind. — Cruz

Honestly, I don’t have much to add since everyone here mentioned and discussed important facets of this ask! At the end of the day, we are not a group who can or will ever dictate what you can or cannot write. That is not the purpose of the blog or the reason why we’re working as hard as we are. 

There have always been games with this specific set of characteristics: gender locked MCs and/or ROs. Some people may enjoy it, others may not, for whatever reason. 

Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee anything in terms of how people will respond to a game, because people will react to content differently. All we can do is offer our perspective and the potential things that may happen in the future based on the experience the lovely devs above have had. (fellow interact-if mods, my beloved ❤️)

It’s always admirable for people to reach out when they’re unsure, and I’m sure there are infinitely more opinions that vary or are similar to the ones in this response. But there you have it, some of our thoughts! 

Goodluck with your project! — Mars