#sometimes not getting into discourse directly with these people is better

[rye-bread-soda-iceberg]

I saw some light discourse going around hsrtwt about Ratio being bad/good/morally ambiguous

I'm not gonna comment on that too much cause I wanna talk about smth else but clearly he's a good person, probably one of the nicest people we meet compared to the war criminals and murderers. his major crime is that he's blunt, mean and makes his students cry (which is something about him I don't particularly enjoy for personal reasons, but still)

what I like, something that i feel like people tend to forget, is that he's very openly kind and caring

of course there's the basic stuff, like the fact that he pours his whole heart into making the universe a better place, has eradicated a whole illness called 'the king of illnesses' (so, supposedly, very deadly) and the entire not getting into the genius society because he cares about humanity too much. but also, you know

first of all, he has canonically made various statues depicting himself making a heart with his hands while smiling warmly. I've always found it endearing how he mildly prides himself on 'keeping the world at bay' and just being generally mean while also doing this so casually. I mean, it's a clear message: 'I love you' that's what he's saying, and he's saying it in a silly way

something a bit more hidden is these quotes from hoyolab's post. we all know the 'ignorance is an ailment' quote is directly taken from his character stories, making it canon. that subsequently makes the other two just as canon. obviously it's an official post, but I sometimes see people doubting the validity of these silly little snippets into the hsr universe

I don't particularly know if he is saying those last two quotes in general or to someone/a group of people in particular, but it's like... one of the sweetest (and corniest) things ever, and it makes me giggle a little bit. it almost felt out of character to me the first time I've seen these, but if you think about it, it's always been there

this one is from the valentines day ""event"" on twitter from earlier this year. I like his reaction to the gift for he still has some of his usual, you know, 'I cannot bear to hear such foolish questions'. he's being nice in his own way here, his demeanor is just barely reserved but the sentiment behind his words remains a positive one

another quick thing, though I don't have more examples for this one. he's always going on about how you should always consider whether the question you're about to ask already has an answer (so encouraging you to think for yourself) but he's still Always offering to help. in this and, if I remember correctly, in the mail description you get when you used to receive him for free he's making it clear that he's willing to help you discuss things for you to understand them better and will answer any question as long as it's not a 'stupid' one. he is a teacher, after all. the biggest thing about him is that he wants people to do better. other than this, despite his slight reluctance to help others himself, he does say in his character trailer that sometimes a little encouragement is required

and he does encourage people openly when they do good! no 'I suppose this is acceptable' nor 'I guess you did good'. when someone or something impresses him, he genuinely expresses it. I like to point this out because I see so many people say he's self absorbed or puts himself above others, when that is simply not true. which, I mean, can also be seen in his small little interactions with Herta, Ruan Mei and Screwllum (he literally praises them)

then he also says this a couple times. I don't exactly know what he considers courtesy or discourtesy, but it's clear that at least not all his blunt or mean words are meant to offend. this is something I'd love to look further into, but for now simply want to put here with the rest cause it's an interesting thing about him. he is already described as elegant, which implies a certain level of basic courtesy and politeness when interacting with others, though this just slightly crashes with his 'rude' demeanor

supposedly, you could make the argument that while he canonically realizes how non-endearing he can be (knows his own shortcomings, one of the exact traits he praises) perhaps he actively struggles with coming off as nice. and seeing all I've pointed out so far, maybe all those instances of him being nice are how he'd prefer to come off as (some times). that is unless I missed some bits of canon dialogue where it's implied otherwise

this isn't that detailed or well made of a post, nor the first time someone has pointed out this stuff. in fact I reblogged an incredibly good, lengthy post some time ago that talks more in depth about how nice/kind of a person Veritas Ratio really is

I simply cannot stand when he is described as cold, uncaring, selfish, self-centered or someone incapable of being gentle and loving. and it's not nearly as subtle as people seem to think it is

[doberbutts]

So I'm going to ask an honest question here and ask you please explain in layman's terms. Every trans person I know irl has no concept of the transandrophobia discourse but every time I see more of it online I'm...unsettled, and it takes a lot to power through all the terminology.

I initially was really receptive to transandrophobia because the rationale behind being against it sounded stupid and akin to label discourse in the queer community. I saw "being a man is not an axis of oppression therefore you don't get your Own Word" and thought that was pedantic nonsense, that language doesn't need to adhere to that rule, and that it's helpful to have a term designated towards transmasculine experiences so people can find those experiences easier. Not that trans women's experiences aren't also beneficial! But that, well, obviously no matter how similar the experience birds of a feather and that sense of comfort of sharing identity still matters. This is true for other issues of identity too, I find, weather that's a good thing or a bad thing idk, but it is human.

The thing is I follow a lot of transwomen and have been seeing some alarms being raised about the community being formed around this word. You blocked one of the most egregious offenders so I trust you (which is why I'm asking sorry) I've seen a lot of misogyny and essentialism from people using the term "transandrophobia" and more egregiously "transmisandry." Idk your opinion on the latter term (I haven't scrolled down far enough on your blog, sorry if you talked about this before) but to me it's unconscionable. I was taught that transandrophobia existed as a term specifically NOT to use that term, that elevating misandry to a legitimate issue was dangerous for obvious reasons and it was one of the reasons why I was so supportive of transandrophobia. To me, it seemed like an awareness that misogyny was the prevailing issue behind all issues of gender oppression, but when I actually look at the tag I...get uncomfortable.

Blogs I follow have repeatedly been upset at misogyny from this community, and have been using the term "transandrobro" to describe behavior they find akin to cis MRAs. I've truly seen horrible things with hundreds, sometimes thousands of notes to it that do, unfortunately, feel like women are being blamed for the plight of trans men. I've seen cis people say they were originally on MRA reddits and then came to tumblr to "confront the misandry directly" only to wholeheartedly adopt transandrophobia into their worldview. It's hard because I KNOW I shouldn't judge a community based on a few crazies but it truly does feel sometimes like "transandrophobia" gives misogynists a venue to air their woman-hating to an eager audience, kinda like how "Karen" has been co-opted beyond the og meaning of being for racist white woman to any woman being mildly rude.

So like, here it is: can transandrophobia exist without being co-opted by misogynists? Is there a threshold of proliferation for misogynists destroying this word until a new one needs to be made? Or will every word trying to identify the transmasculine experience be inevitably co-opted by misogynists because misogynists are just that powerful, so people should double down harder on the word and work to push misogynists out?

(Also am I going crazy, or did this word a year ago used to have a WAY better community than the one I see nowadays. Back then I could find your blog and really compassionate people easily, and now it's just...bad.)

It is a little hard to understand some of this post but I will do my best to answer what I think is being asked.

To put simply, I think the reason why it was better a year or two ago is because the majority of the people who were actually trying to further the conversation and not just circle jerk in the echo chamber got chased off. Transandrophobia, anti-transmasculinity, transandromisia, transmascphobia... the guys who coined these are largely either not posting at all anymore or post far far less than they used to. They were harassed and the constant exposure to transphobia made them shut down their blogs for their own mental health. Not all of them, but a lot of the so-called "big names" had this happen.

Even I stopped posting for a while and shuttered the doors for a bit outside of a long queue of dog photos because of how much it was affecting my mental health.

In their place remain people who are not committed to the same conversation. Perhaps they are younger, or less familiar with the building blocks of theory that really should be required reading, or are still stuck in their "everything sucks and it's YOUR fault" phase. Maybe they do come from different places, like 4chan or reddit, which are less prone to this sort of discussion. A lot of the original crowd had been on tumblr long enough to remember when we could still edit posts, and I keep seeing people who would have been in elementary school at that time posting to the tag nowadays.

I was discussing this problem on discord with a small group of friends and one of them- a trans fem- called it second wave transandrophobia discourse as a bitter joke. I think she is more right than wrong, regardless.

I'm not sure who you believe I've blocked- in general I don't air out who I block on this blog because at nearly 12k followers there are too many people who would love to dogpile someone for the sin of disagreeing with me and I do my best to prevent that. I don't want anyone to be harassed, after all. There's a lot of assumptions that have been made about my block and follow behavior that vary from "hilarious but untrue" to "outright offensive slander".

People are people, and some people are shitheads. Trans mascs and people who want to support trans mascs are not exempt from that. I say this all the time- Kayne West is objectively a shitty person but his existence doesn't prove the concept of antiblackness to be a myth. Caitlyn Jenner is objectively a shitty person but her existence doesn't prove the concept of transmisogyny to be a myth. So why do shitty trans mascs prove our own theory to be dangerous or nonexistent? Why hold us to a higher standard than any other marginalized group?

I could ask you the same question- there are posts on here with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of notes made by trans fems and cis women who blame their problems with transmisogyny on trans mascs. There are people coming from reddit, Twitter, 4chan who are being actively transphobic and misogynistic and claiming they're doing it for the good of transfeminism. There are posts filled with misogyny and bioessentialism and gender essentialism and even interphobia and racism and transphobia being left completely unchecked. Do you think it would be acceptable for me to ask if that means transmisogyny theory should be abandoned or if we should just accept that it will draw people with bad intentions?

Or do you think the better answer is to focus instead on finding those with a good head on their shoulders, and making sure it's them who has their voice heard? Do you think we should maybe not judge entire demographics because there exists some shitty people who claim the same identity?

[violexides]

before people get vicious i want to remind you all of a few things, starting with the fact that third party voters are not to blame for the results of the election, but rather that (1) the democratic party refused to end their genocide at every opportunity and, most influential in this specific case, (2) there has been a substantial rise of right-wing sentiment in this country that is what contributed most directly to the Republican victories we have seen in Congress and in the executive office.

regardless of who entered office, there would have been a substantial need to organize, and we are seeing that now more than ever. this is obviously horrifyingly scary shit, but queer people are resilient, Palestinians are resilient, the Black and Brown and Indigenous people of this country are resilient, the colonized people of the world are resilient. we will be able to organize until every last one of us is dead, so know that there is always something you can do. and that hope is a stronger thing than something one tyrant can end.

this is an interconnected struggle and at no point does our work stop. we don't owe candidates or politicians shit. volunteer with a hotline. call/sign petitions. go out into the streets. create art. form connections with people you may not have talked to before. cook for your friends. connect with unhoused people in your area. talk to the elders in your community. find sanctuary online if you cannot find it in person. politically educate, starting from the absolute basics because that is what is most lost in discourse sometimes. take everything one painful step at a time. maybe you got out of bed, maybe you brushed your teeth, maybe you ate breakfast, maybe you changed clothes-- these are all substantial things, and the movement suffers without you so keep doing them.

this is a terribly scary time in the world for all of us, but it has been a terribly scary time for a while across the world. don't let hopelessness stop you from fighting for the end of the genocide in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, and many other places in the world. know that if you are queer, we have survived worse shit throughout our history, and there are so many more options now for us. we need mutual aid for queer people but also and especially for our siblings of color and our disabled siblings and our poor siblings and our altogether marginalized siblings, from here to Palestine, from Sudan to West Papua, from Tigray to Kurdistan, from Armenia to Congo, from the world to the world.

i don't take a second of my time on earth for granted and i haven't for a few years. i am really fucking scared right now, i have been for months and months but it's taken a new form. but, today, the sun is out and shining on my bedroom floor. i brushed my teeth and i'm going to eat some grapes now. my professor sent a kind email. i have a lot of work to do. i have to get busy loving a lot of people.

eat what it takes to survive. sleep what it takes to survive. talk what it takes to survive. learn what it takes to survive. love what it takes to survive. live where it takes to survive. these are our fundamentals. and know that from there, we organize and we fight for something better than survival.

i am not losing my family, my found family, my friends, my peers, my professors, my roommates, my community like this. we gotta get busy.

take as long as you need to grieve. i have been grieving for a long time (this past year, for Palestine; my lifetime, for Iraq) and will grieve these results for the next four years. but understand that no matter who wins any presidential election, we have to organize. we can learn from our past here. i don't care if it's a bush in office, an obama in office, a trump in office, a biden or a harris in office, we have work to do because they won't do it for us.

Palestine and the occupied nations and people of the world will be free. they will not make martyrs of all of us. the struggle will continue so long as we are all free. victory is assured so long as the struggle continues.

i love you. i love you. i love you. i love you as hard as i hate the empire. this hate and this love forges what we need to keep this struggle alive, until victory and liberation for us all.

[deliajackson]

I saw on the PJO side of TikTok cause I was trying to find some book Percy Edits.

And I saw something saying about Annabeth that said "Annabeth is too good for Any Man, Annabeth Is too good for Percy".

And I just started laughing, like I wanted to comment something but I honestly knew that if I did I was definitely gonna get Attacked.

But I found that TikTok very funny because they seriously thought Annabeth was too good for Percy when In Reality it's the other way around.

Like she should be Lucky she's even dating Percy cause if Percy even had a ounce of Self-worth he would know that he deserves better than Annabeth and CAN do better than Annabeth.

Like most of this fandom doesn't understand how much of a Catch Percy is and it annoys me so much

Like he's So far out of Annabeth's league it's not even funny

Imo he's way out of Everyone's League but what do you think about that?

.... What I think is a little bit sensitive.

Look, I really don't like how media portray "feminism" and how that media actually shaped how people especially girls herselves should act and behave.

From early 2000 to here, "feminism" media is about making the woman be a badass/extra intelligent/rude - while passing rude as girlbossing - who doesnt need any help - especially if it comes from a man - and reduce the man to either "stupid boyfriend who cant do anything without her"/"in dark romance they are sanctified because they would commit genocide but he wouldnt harm the girl and do everything she pleases"/"vile stupid idiot sexist who needs to be beaten up by the strong girl mc"

It is literally 50/50. Men are not equal to his partner in those relationships. They are bellow their girlfriend in literally... everything. In other words.... They are used as plot devices to prop up the female mc. It is as boring as the girl being only there to be what drives a man in the narrative.

Like. Their entire personality is reduced to that. And while sometimes that may work in the story, as you know a character in which the purpose in the story is especifically to haunt the narrative like how Epic treats OdyPen - all the new media is streaming this kind of thing and yelling "we are feminist".

No. You are just playing with sexism and believing you are being woke.

It is annoying. It is bland. It is cheap.

Why that long discourse? Because Fandom and Riordan since HoO is making Percabeth and especially Annabeth fall into this category. Where her flaws are not treated as flaws, actually they are praised. She doesn't grow, she acts worse then when she was 12 in many ways, especially regarding her treatment of Percy. Percy is always at fault, and Annabeth is always in the right. The entire dynamic of Percabeth is basically Percy trying to appease Annabeths feelings and insecurities and fears while they are in supernatural adventures, and when it comes to Annabeth, Percy always has to sacrifice something for her, while all of his own traumas are put in second place and in return Percy is mocked, disrespected and physically assaulted, guilty blamed many times by someone that should care for him as much as he cares for her.

For godamm sake, Riordan made Percy incapable of tying his own shows and Annabeth needing to speak up for him, because according to Annabeth Grover and Percy were in awe in Hecates presence because she was a goddess in WoTG.

(You know, the same Grover who is the lord of nature and lived around Dionysus since he was born. The same Perseus who fought gods, titans and giants, who looked at the face of many gods and treats them either as friendly (like Hermes) or openly passive agressive. Perseus who was named Praetor and directly responsible for the fall of Typhoon in the Last Olympian. The same Percy who saved her life from primordials and monsters down in Tartarus. It is the first time in my entire life I see a MC be devolved so terribly on page only to prop up his own girlfriend in the narrative) I will stop here because talking about wotg is bad for my mental health.

In a relationship both people have to deserve each other. It is not about who is stronger. Who is smarter. Who comes from which family. It is about what they do for one another, what they do with each other and put it on the balance. They have to respect each other. They have to cheer each other up. They need to be each other safe place. Where they can be themselves free of cruel criticism, but still be able to grow and envolve to the best versions of one another. (I am highlighting "cruel" because that is important. I am not meaning construtive criticism.)

I will say it till my dying day: PJO Percabeth (the five original main books) it had everything to be a great couple. There were problems, of course, but they could easily - and I mean easily - be solved with the right narrative decisions. They had everything to be as great as hiccstrid in term of the relationship development and (as important as the other) individual development.

From HoO ahead: Annabeth doesnt deserve Percy and Percy deserves someone better.

[sophie-frm-mars]

Transmisogyny discourse on here has such an annoying shape to it.

Like I know that a bunch of it is just because it's from people who are / have always been very online / don't have much life experience as with all discourses that take on annoying shapes so I've been trying to not get too fixated on it but like,

Okay TMA (Transmisogyny Affected) and TME (Transmisogyny Exempt) are absolutely useful and valuable terms in the discussion of transmisogyny and how it works, because you need to be able to talk about who transmisogyny directly affects in order to talk about it. The much larger group of the total population is TME people, because that's (broadly) all cis people, and transmasculine people. So the majority of transmisogyny is necessarily directed from TME people to TMA people, but it's important to understand that as a social force it is actually directed from everyone towards TMA people. Trans women also engage in and perpetuate transmisogyny, sometimes incredibly vicious and harmful transmisogyny - the point of these terms is to identify the groups relevant to the discussion, not to identify an innocent oppressed class and an oppressor class who does entirely 100% of the social dynamic.

The next annoying part of the discourse is that in talking as if TME people = the transmisogyny doers, we keep winding up at a transfems vs transmascs discourse. This part of the discourse is like 1 part transfems misidentifying where the fight worth fighting is to 5 parts transmascs wanting to talk about ways they're also oppressed to like 20 parts raw transmisogyny. Yes, people who perform masculinity under patriarchy are more respected by partriarchy and get some benefits from that, and this is reflected in the differences between experiences of transmascs and transfems. This will be true everywhere that there is the basic patriarchal binary gender division between masculine (possessing agency, meaningful subjectivity, power) and feminine (being a type of property that belongs to others). Incidentally this is why the dyke butch/femme dichotomy is just there to sell more gender.

Everyone should get to perform their gender in a way that makes them happiest, and the problem is that we live under a patriarchy, which disempowers some people for the ways they perform their gender. I'm getting really basic here because some people on here talk like they need reminding.

The real reason the discourse is annoying though, just like all online discourses are, is because none of it is about how to organise to actually fight transmisogyny - that is, to make things meaningfully better for transmisogyny affected people.

2 years ago in the UK a teenage trans girl, Brianna Ghey, was stabbed to death after a prolonged campaign of transmisogynistic bullying by her classmates that the adults in her school life were absolutely aware of and did nothing about. Her death was the most important thing to every trans person in the UK for a moment, and then the political energy just dissipated without gaining any momentum. This is because organised structures of trans community, protest, politicisation and direct action just weren't there.

3 years ago in the UK a cis woman, Sarah Everard, was murdered by a police officer. There was an organised vigil which was politicised by Sisters Uncut, a feminist direct action group with chapters across london and the UK which had evolved to embrace police abolition over the course of its existence. The police escalated against the vigil and the spectacle of the police crackdown on women mourning the death of a woman murdered by police became a crucial moment in police abolition discourse in the UK. Because Sisters had already been laying down the organisational infrastructure for years, because it had been holding discussions among members and because it had responded to its members needs, it was in a strong enough position to act quickly and make change in the public consciousness. (You can read more about this in Abolition Revolution by Aviah Sarah Day and Shanice Octavia McBean.) If there was an organisation half as well put together as Sisters Uncut present in the trans community in the UK when Brianna Ghey was murdered, the organised response could have done something similar and meaningful.

I wrote a bit here about how trans people could use an assembly-organisation model to achieve meaningful change, but that's just my personal proposal for what would make a difference. The larger point is that discoursing over transmisogyny online, just like all discoursing online, is just shadows on the wall of the cave.

[velvetvexations]

Recently I made a survey for two cis allies - both women, one involved in discourse, one very much not, for contrast - to get a look at their perspective. This is nowhere near scientific, but hopefully it works as a small look at how the cis people in our camp view and relate to us.

Thank you and so much love to the participants. <3 You are vitally necessary.

Questions and answers the cut!

Do you know anyone IRL who’s trans? Co-workers, friends, family?

No, live somewhere more small and rural, so the chance of meeting any queer people, much less ones open about it, is slim.

I knew one trans girl in middle school, and I have a cousin who's a trans woman.

Have you ever considered being trans, or had any adjacent unusual feelings about your own gender?

I have, but I've ultimately arrived at "I don't know, I don't care, whatever". Maybe somewhere agender-adjacent, if I'd have to put a word to it? I ultimately don't consider myself trans, though.

No. I very strongly identify as a cis woman.

Are you a fan of any trans content creators?

I don't think so? I don't consider myself a fan of a lot of content creators in general.

Yes, I'm pretty sure.

Do you feel you think often about trans people’s struggles?

Yes.

I try to think about and participate in activism in a lot of different areas that don't directly affect me, so yes, sometimes.

Would you consider yourself knowledgeable about trans issues?

More than the average cis person, at least.

Not really, but I think that's mainly because I never want to feel like I'm overstepping, since I'm a cis woman.

In what ways do you feel the plight of trans people is similar to the suffering of cis women under the patriarchy? How is it different?

Both trans people and cis women (and a lot of cis men, really) suffer from being forced into a box. You have to be this way, and you do not get any say. If you aren't, you're either broken and shouldnt have agency (for your own good), or a threat. People will dish out violence and try to remove your rights to force you into that box, and punish you for stepping outside of it. I think these issues are heavily linked, and while the specifics of what each demographic faces is different (nevermind intersections), i believe the overall problem is the same; what society wants you to be, and how they want you to be it.

I think it's similar in that trans people are discriminated against and we cis women are also discriminated against, like, on a systemic level. The specifics are different, though.

Do you feel that you've ever contributed to transphobia in society?

Yeah. Especially when i was younger, and haven't examined any of it yet. Growing up in a transphobic society inevitably left me with some stuff to work out, and I've done my best to do so, and i will continue to. That's the important part, i think.

Not that I know of, and I would feel really bad if I thought I had accidentally.

Do you believe trans women or trans men have “male privilege”? 

No, that's a really loaded term. Individual trans people may get some advantages in certain settings depending on how they're perceived, but I don't think any of them can really be considered to get any gendered form of privilege, considering their gender is directly what makes them marginalized. Hiding your identity in order to not be mistreated isn't a privilege, it's a result of being oppressed.

I don't think so. This isn't an issue where I feel comfortable speaking as I said. Not that I know of, though.

Do you think things have gotten better or worse for trans people in the last ten years?

Besides the... recent pushback, as a whole, yes.

I think it's a mixture of both, but that's just my outside perspective.

Are you optimistic about where the struggle for trans rights is headed?

I refuse to be anything but. No matter what happens, there will always be trans people, and there will always be allies, and we'll continue fighting. There's simply no other option.

Once again, it's hard to tell as an outsider. Things seem mixed.

How would you react to a trans person being transphobic in your presence? Forex: misgendering someone they dislike.

Just correct them/express my disapproval as i would if they were cis, really? Transphobia is transphobia.

I would feel uncomfortable. Since I'm cis, I don't know if I would feel comfortable saying something, though.

Do you have any message you’d like to give as an ally?

Don't let anyone convince you you're alone in this, and that cis people are all against you. We're here, we love you, and we'll continue to fight for you. Please, don't give up. The world is a better place for having you in it.

Yeah, just that if there's anything I can ever do to support people I would love to!

[deathdetermineslife]

how do you manage to get any followers or friends in the selfshipping community? is it just luck?

for months i’ve been trying to interact with others and follow people, engaging with stuff like ask games and hosting reblog games, but when i try to share any artwork or i reblog an ask game myself, its radio silence. like even in small discords i get ignored so bad

i don’t say this at all to be guilt tripping /gen, it’s genuine curiosity at how this stuff even works. like am i doing something wrong or is the community just like this?

here is my comprehensive and lame guide on How To Get Selfship Followers

step 1 - posting

so a lot of my posts are either kinda general or fun. folks I will not lie to you. these are all stupid shit that come to my mind on a day to day basis. for example, today, I thought, "man I'm such a loser I'm not in college like all my friends r" and then I was like "omg wait. i could make a post out of this" so I did that.

you also kinda gotta be conistent. so i try to post at least *something* everyday. even if its a reblog, tho, I don't reblog a lot of things other than ask games.

another thing with posting is that i do try to make a lot of community based content. so idk if yall remember but in the beginning of my account, I did the "things you can do if you have xyz f/o". i did like,,, I think almost 100 of those ?????? it was a lot. then I started making templates and I made some ask games and ofc I post a lot of general like,,, imagine stuff. oh also polls. people seem to enjoy polls.

step 2 - be positive

this is the big thing. as most of yall (hopefully) know, I do not fw proshippers !! but I don't talk about discourse unless its directly brought up. not only this, I put a big focus on just,,, being nice idk. like id like to think I'm a pretty down to earth person.

if you make a template and people tag you in it, say something nice! reply to peoples art, send in asks, things like that. i try to do my part in being nice. i also just like hearing about peoples selfships.

when people post promos and have the little "rb to be moots", reblog! when you come across someone having a bad day, maybe they made a vent or something, reply with a simple "I hope you feel better <3" or "your f/o loves you <3". things like that, ya know?

step 3 - have fun

genuinely. i post as much as i do because I like it. i didn't go into this thinking "oh... yea... I'm gonna get selfship famous..." like no I just wanna ramble somewhere bc none of my close irls r selfshippers.

you wont get popular or get followers because you grind out posts. literally one of my biggest posts on this account I wrote while I was half asleep one night and wanted to test out queuing on my account.

and in that regard, it is partially luck. i don't control what posts people do and don't like. sometimes I write up imagines and no one sees them. sometimes I write up a post saying "lol go kiss your fake boyfriend ooo smoochie smoochie" and that does numbers

step 4 - interaction

im only in two servers. one server (which was the first public server I think I ever joined ???? i could be wrong tho,,, bad memory blehg) that I don't own and then my own 18+ server. i don't think being in servers does anything,,, considering I'm only in one that isn't mine. i think its more like ,,, sticking to one or two places ?? like just being consistently in an area you're comfortable in.

i guess you gotta just find the right people ??? and like I mentioned, be friendly, but ya know. also I guess tags too? idk if you look at any of my regular posts I have 8 million tags on them. idk if that actually does anything or not because its kinda hit or miss sometimes.

i was gonna say something else but i forgot. see look listen I dunno how I got here but this is what I do ,,,, effectively nothing. also with the being kind thing, maybe this is how I am bc I'm pagan but I think that if you expect kindness back you wont get anything. sometimes its just nice to be nice. eventually you gain a reputation for being a nice person. you kinda have to not want that tho? like I don't see myself as particularly like ,,, super kind ,,,??? i just do what feels right.

step 5 - uhhhh idk im just rambling now

i guess i also went into this kinda like. damn sometimes this community is a cesspool of absolute meanie pants. i don't wanna be a Meanie Pants and just post my thoughts and the things I think about. i guess how I see it too is, I kinda like ? idk I think all these things anyways why not post them? kinda feels like a waste not to.

also ive been told my posts are pretty recognizable bc of how I format them ? my dividers and such. also tagging all of my imagines and stuff with my 🥀📜 emojis. i guess that helps too? because that's how I recognize certain accounts. "like oh there's them I recognize their dividers and their tags".

also you kinda gotta like,,, not let hate get to you. like have fun with it? i know that's hard, but, that's what you gotta do. when I get printer ink (bc. a hoe does NOT like buying printer ink) im printing out that fucking 8 mile long hate message I got sent. but also that's just the kinda person I am. like people being a dick and stealing my posts and telling me to swallow a glock 9mm doesn't upset me, im more like,, confused more than anything because never in my life have I ever sent hate to anyone. also I have had this "I do not care because you're some loser on the internet and you being an ass wipe is no where near as bad as the shit people have done to me irl" attitude.

TLDR; i dont think youre doing anything wrong because I don't exactly know what I'm doing right. i just... do... and sometimes, "just doing" is enough. maybe its luck, maybe I've been blessed by the tumblr algorithm and I've somehow figured it out, or maybe the community is just genuinely that bad and they pick favorites. maybe its all of the above! who knows. i try not to worry about it. i think at the end of the day, as long as you're having fun posting about your f/os and selfshipping, that's what matters.

alright thats all see ya. if you have any more questions feel free to ask however I fear I cannot answer them </3

[grison-in-space]

Hi! Just wanted to say, re:veganism discourse: Excellent Opinions, Great Delivery, Immaculate Vibes 👍 have a great day :)

cheers, ty! it is honestly sort of surprising to me that folks are reading along--as I said to someone else in DMs, I kind of figured that response was mostly something I was putting together in my own head, so I'm pleasantly surprised it's resonating with other people.

I am also just. :| not thrilled to have to be typing up all these "and here's how caring about animal welfare can radicalize you down all these shitty pathways if you add X and Y and Z" because at the end of the day I do think all species are worthy of basic respect; at the end of the day I do think there's nothing fundamentally better about me as a human than any other species. At the end of the day it actually matters a lot to me that my research mice are kept with as much enrichment as I can give them and that their lives and bodies and effort are honored and used wisely. It matters to me that the dogs I teach and the people I teach to train their dogs are learning with minimum stress and maximal confidence. These are all really important planks of my personal code of ethics!

It sucks to feel like I need to sit down and enumerate all the reasons that I think this other perspective of people who start in the same place I do--animals are neat individuals who encompass both the alien and the familiar, which share our lives in a multitude of ways--has developed in such a way that I think it encourages a really toxic way of relating both to animals and ourselves. In general I prefer to focus on places where I can agree with other folks, even if their opinions are different from mine. Someone in the notes brought up "struggle sessions," which are kind of the epitome of toxicity within the left: good values and a desire to help one another get so channeled through perfectionism and backbiting that you wind up with people gathering to literally torture and destroy each other. (Not just in China, either; it keeps happening, cf. Synanon in the US and the dissolution of the Japanese United Red Army.) That's not the kind of way I want to interact with people I'm supposed to be working together with.

So I try not to do that shit too much. I think about the places where people who have values just like mine go down rabbit holes and wind up in bad places, and I try and build barriers so I don't get burned out and angry and dissolve in a puff of flame. (I'm not directly engaging further with this anon for that reason, actually.) But just--aaaaaaaaauuuughhh, ARAs really irritate me because I can see where the roots are, and yet the entire ideology means that there essentially can't be listening. You can see that in the way I'm sitting here going "No, I know what your ideas are, here's why I have rejected them," and still I am getting exhortations to just listen and understand about ARA ideology. No. I did that, the last time there were protests about it in my workplace I went ahead and read the actual detailed IACUC reports released by FOIA that the protestors were shouting about, and bluntly it was a) not convincing and b) exactly the same appeals to emotional knee-jerk reactions and emotional flooding that I decried yesterday. Twenty years I have been checking my responses to these people, and it's never anything different.

I don't think that removing emotion totally from ethics and morals is wise or even possible--we use emotion for decisionmaking and encoding our values, after all, a person without emotion literally cannot decide things--but I do not like or tolerate subcultures that won't leave space to sit, think, and let the first knee-jerk rush of gut response die down. Sometimes, often, I do decide that my gut reaction is right! But I need the space to sit the fuck down and think about it, and if you take that to an ARA space you will mostly get flooded with more emotionally reactive imagery until you agree or leave. And that is coercive.

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

Yeah honestly the discourse is quite stressful... I don't interact with the fandom and I'm quite new to MK, and I'm pretty young so the only mainstream MK thing I've been exposed to is the show (I did read the Lemire run though, planning on reading the Jed Mackay run soon) and while I do have some of my own complicated thoughts on the show, I do sometimes feel bad for liking the characters and the show in general as much as I do because alot of fans of the comics seem to hate it lololol. I like the shows version Steven espeacially, I really love how grounded and fun he is (people seem to dislike him too tho aha) Your blog truly is Autism heaven thank you so much for putting as much effort into this as you do :-)

Boy howdy you gave me a lot to think about.

What part of Tumblr you been hanging out in? Let me tell you the secret to enjoying Moon Knight: Stay out of the discourse. Moon Knight discourse is not new and just cycles the same topics over and over and over again and have done so since the OG run in the comics.

You are allowed to like BOTH the comic and the show. Who gives a flip what someone else thinks about it? I got to listen to someone rant about how much they hated the show because it wasn't full of action and crazy and violence (they were wrong and like Moon Knight for all the wrong reasons and are the type of fan that gets on my nerves but at least they are reading Moon Knight, I guess?)

The show is a fantastic jumping on point for new and younger fans! Why? Because even though the majority of the main points of the story are different, and Steven Grant is different, it still hits the big points that make Moon Knight what it is.... That and Marc is and always will be a Dumpster Fire in every iteration.

PLUS, Steven Grant is adorable and love-able and really draws you in. Do not feel bad for liking the characters in the show. The fans of the comics who actively put down the TV show characters have no idea what they are talking about. Do they HAVE to like them? No. You are welcome to hate the show, but if you hate it for reasons of saying it isn't enough like the comics...They CLEARLY have not read the comics.

LET'S GET INTO THIS META:

The original run of the comics opens with Moench having the idea for one man living three undercover lives.

Steven Grant, millionaire philanthropist, and Charity giver.

Jake Lockely, street wise cab driver and friend to the people.

Moon Knight, a masked vigilante.

Notice how Marc Spector is not included in that. In the original idea, Marc Spector was a man on the run from himself and doing what he can to discard who he was and become someone better and different so as to make up for all the pain and wrong that he had done.

So in the OG, we get a BIT of Marc to tell his back story of how he 'died' and then we jump into Steven and Jake. A little later, Moench starts to flesh out Marc a bit, putting him into more stories with his side short stories about Marc's past and also when they go into missions that pit Marc directly against who he was and his past. Such as when the Statue is stolen and broken and he has a break down (severe existential crisis about his death and who he is). The BEST look into his past where he confronts who he was, in my opinion is when a friend from Marc's past is murdered and he goes to Israel on a special mission and for revenge. Issue 17: Master Sniper's Legacy and Issue 18: The Slayers Elite.

The thing is, Marc isn't the main character in the early OG comics. He's a presence that is always felt and often discussed and lurking in the shadows, but the main star is Moon Knight

and the character we often follow the MOST is Jake Lockley.

We also hang a lot with Steven.

Marc Spector is The Bad Guy.

Yes... Despite how every time we get a back story like the "Marc Spector Adventures" mini comic that was at the end of a few issues showing us how goofy and conflicted Marc Spector really is, he's still the bad guy...To himself. No one hates Marc Spector more than Marc Spector.

This is something that carried very well into the show.

(That is the face of a man that doesn't want to be there. Or anywhere.)

You see, Marc Spector isn't the main character of the show either. Steven Grant is.

So... Here's the BIG question.

WHY did Marc Spector become so big in the comics?

Back in the OG run, Jake Lockley and Steven Grant were the main characters. But it's hard to relate to the fancy million air that likes fine things and opera and charity events and swimming around in his pool in a speedo.)

But Jake Lockley? There's a man we can enjoy and relate to. He likes to hang with the homeless. Chat it up with some kids and play Basket Ball with them. He hangs with a single mom in the poor side of town and he drives around and takes action. He's easy to understand and easy to paint as a good honest man and a hero.

In the show? The show was ORIGINALLY going to take it from Marc's point of view. Marc was the one in the fancy Mr. Knight suit (like in the later comics drawn by the amazing Declan Shalvey.) My bet is that in the original idea for the show, Moon Knight was filled with more action and violence.

But they realized they needed to draw you in. They needed to give you someone you could relate to.

Enter Steven Grant.

(Hello dear).

I will forever be asking the question on why they went with Steven Grant and not Jake Lockley because the gentle kind and caring man in the comics is Jake... But maybe the name Steven Grant just fit the role they needed better. Either way... We got this marshmallow of sweet snarky sass.

And the personality? We can thank Oscar Isaac for Steven. He came up with the accent and had a lot of input on how to develop Steven as a character. The story naturally progressed from there.

So this is where the show and comics deviates. ....Or dose it?

Because after Moench leaves, the characters start to change.

We hit the 90s and Marc Spector, man of violence and action and dark pasts is now in and Steven Grant is out. Oh, and so is Jake.

We get a solid decade of watching Marc devolve into a disaster of character murder. It's... It's a thing alright. It's a rough read. My goal in going back through the comics is to try to pinpoint the exact moment when the characters are lost from their original personalities and Jake is turned into a violent insane Caricature of himself, Steven got the boot, and Marc became the overarching main persona.

Even in the 2000s up to 2010, Moon Knight characterization is all over the place!

It isn't until Lemire that we get a solid hold of someone trying to bring the characters back to who they were during Moench's run. Even then, it's a rough grab and by the next writer (we shall not speak of him here) we have completely lost all view of the characters again.

We don't get a redefinition of Jake, Steven, and Marc until the current run with MacKay.

This is 1984 until 2021 people! HOLY CRAP.

In fact, things got so bad in the 90s that Moench had to step in for 4 short issues to try to reset Marc Spector! (I cannot wait to get to those.)

So people that tell you that the show completely ruined the characters.... Clearly have not REALLY read the comics. In fact, ask them what their favorite run is. Give me a good laugh because I can probably guess what they are going to say.

The people that are more modern and sing praise only of MacKay need to get off their high horse and go read some Moench. I love MacKay and will sing his praise all day, but he isn't perfect. I love Lemire, but he also had some issues. Heck, even Moench had issues fleshing out his own characters at times! (and there certainly were a couple of issues that are NOT my favorites at all). Heck, I think the best fleshing out of Marc Spector was actually done by Zelenetz in the death of Elias Spector run. (I may have made a huge mistake while reviewing this run because I thought it was Moench and then realized it wasn't half way through reviewing all the other issues and then sat there for a day wondering why I was an idiot and what to do about it.)

SO. ....I'm not sure if I made my point or got distracted halfway through, but I hope I made some sense here.

The thing is, the characterization of Moon Knight depends on the writer and there is no real set thing to go on other than the fact that Marc Spector is a dumpster fire of a man. If that fire ain't burning in the shittiest way possible, they are doing it wrong.

And anyone with discourse saying the show ruined everything needs to mind their own business. I have no issue with someone hating the show. It's different. But don't tell other people they can't like it and the comics too.

They have obviously never lived through the Moon Knight waste land times when there were like five fans and no merchandise or material. I'm just happy to be able to talk about Moon Knight to someone that isn't my dog for a change.

So thank you kind Annon! Thank you for giving me someone to talk to Moon Knight with and reason to talk about them! And thank you all for listening to me ramble and rant about a little broken system of guys who have gotten the unfair shaft from Marvel more than a few times.

[osokasstuff]

i want to have more representation of people with congenital heart defects.

i have a congenital heart defect, and i've known about it for my whole life, and i've never felt represented.

it's not rare (rare conditions deserve representation, too!), it's kinda 2% of children are born with congenital heart defects, but like. where we are? oh i forgot. we either die in early childhood or get surgery and become perfectly healthy (tm). /sarcasm

when i look for media about characters with congenital heart defects, it's either tragedy (tm) or inspiration porn. when i look for experiences of people with congenital heart defects, it's either parents of children with chd (i don't mind of caregivers being in disabled spaces, but a) i wanna see actual people with chd too; b) their discussions are from parents to parents, so they don't center living experiences of people with chd and it's not all what i looking for; c) some of them are ableist), or medical articles, or tragedy stories (tm) centering struggles of caregivers of people with chd, or inspiration porn, and very rarely actual people with chd being people and talking about their experiences.

like. i wanna awareness and acceptance. i wanna stuff like for some others disabilities, i wanna "nothing about us without us," i wanna pride, fuck, i even agree on discourse (/half-jokingly), i wanna something besides radio silence!

there is tons of info! there is tons of shit to debunk, there are tons of questions to consider, there are tons of overlaps and comorbidities and intersections! (what am i doing i'm literally promoting talks about chds to online community. here lack of representations can get you. /jokingly)

do you know that chds aren't rare? do you know that surgery (tm) doesn't make you perfectly healthy? do you know that surgery isn't always performed on infants/younger children? do you know that surgery isn't always necessary? do you know that lots of us have to undergo several surgeries, sometimes lots of surgeries? do you know that lots of us have other disabilities, congenital or acquired? do you know that surgeries (tm) cause complications (tm)? do you know that lots of chromosomal conditions are associated with/directly causing chds? everyone knows that autism often co-occures, if not causes, the digestive issues, but do you know about high comorbidity of autism and chds? (maybe i overestimate awareness about autism & digestive issues overlap. i'm sorry if it's so. it wasn't intended to erase someone's experience. i just often see talks about autism & digestive issues in popular autism advocacy and never see any mentions of chds. i don't know how to word it better. i recognize we still need to raise awareness about autism & digestive issues comorbidity, especially awareness that doesn't center lsn perspective. i appreciate work of autism & digestive issues comorbidity advocates. i simply mean that we need autism & chd awareness and advocacy too). do you know that anesthesia may cause brain damage? do you know that connective tissue disorders have a huge comorbidity with chds because the cardiovascular system contains lots of connective tissue?

do you know that infectious diseases are dangerous for us because we can get heart complications? do you know that we are often immunocompromised because of our chds?

do you know about ableism towards us? do you know about the idea that heart problems are something for elder people and not for children/teenagers/young adults? do you know how anti-fatness stereotypes and narratives affect us and frame our experiences? do you know that heart problems are often framed as personal fault and failure, as a result of having a "bad lifestyle?" do you know how extremely healthist the society attitude towards heart conditions is? do you know that, while heart conditions are often framed as something "extremely serious," our struggles are often overlooked, denied, and erased because of assumptions around this idea (children can't be disabled, children can't have something serious (tm), chds are only for children so adults can't have them (if you have chd, when you get 18 yo, you explode, i assume /sarcasm), surgery (tm) completely fixes us (tm), so if we have some symptoms after surgery, no we don't, and more more more).

i can elaborate endlessly. i think i'll make other posts about some experiences with having a chd. so stay with me if you wanna read more.

[azaharinflames]

I really thought I would be doing my post on Buck and Eddie's friendship before making this one (and I am still doing it eventually, because oh do I have opinions), but I've been seeing a lot of discourse on Eddie lately, so it motivated me to write this first.

Now, small disclaimer, I guess. Eddie is nowhere near my favorite character from the show, and from our 118 main crew, he ranks fifth on my podium (sorry for not counting Ravi here, only counting mains this time). I don't necessarily dislike him, I just feel mostly neutral about him. I do dislike his actions, and, admittedly, I do dislike how he was portrayed in some episodes in Season 7, but that's mostly regarding the buddie platonic friendship. So. No hate for Eddie. Don't love him, but don't hate him either.

And, look. One of my passions when watching a show is to analyse the fuck out of the characters, and I think Eddie is painted very clearly for us to admire. As much as the writers were at a loss on what to do with him for a long time, we can all backtrack his actions and see an explanation for them (not an excuse. But to explain them).

So. Eddie's actions.

I've seen a lot of discourse on these lately, including criticisms and opinions, and all are valid. Eddie is an incredibly flawed character, and one thing we have going on with him is that he rarely seeks change for himself. He doesn't necessarily want to grow out of those behaviors, and only does it when they reach a limit, or someone else calls him out on it. He's pushed to change, to correct his behaviors, and eventually, he does. Sometimes.

And I think Eddie's selfish actions and attitude directly result from his childhood. And I know we have somewhat little information on what it was, but we do know he had to act as the man in the house from a really young age because Ramón was always traveling. We know he's had a heavy weight on his shoulders since he was very small, and we know that weight only grew heavier once he had Christopher. He had to be a husband, a father, and a provider. We can debate if he did a good job or not, sure, but he did make an effort and a lot of sacrifices to do what he was supposed to do.

And then he gets home, and he struggles. And Shannon leaves. And his parents are pushy and a bit overbearing, and Eddie is kind of drowning. And then he moves to LA.

And it is at this point, and not before, that Eddie lets himself be selfish, in my opinion. He lets himself take from the people around him because, and this is important to note, the people around him are okay with him doing so. He's still a father, and now he's a widower. But things are different because he has a web of people who would do anything for him and Christopher, and he can sort of breathe. And perhaps it reaches a point where he's overdoing it a bit, where he does not realize he's taking too much, or not being fair. But he has not had this before, so how could he realize his actions are not necessarily right? Even more so when no one has ever told him of his wrongdoings?

I am the first to think the Buddie friendship is not 50-50. On a good day it may be 60-40, but not always. Yet, I also think Eddie is not a bad person, and that just like everyone else in the show, his actions are a result of his trauma and his childhood.

I do want the writers to have him finally find solid ground, to have an idea of who he is in the way that every single character other than him does. I do hope Season 8 can bring that to him.

Also, I am not even going to get into how he treats women, because I think that's been heavily debated, but to be clear: I think he's a terrible romantic partner and that every single one of his romantic partners deserved better. Even Shannon, and I am no fan of her.

Anyway. I hope this made sense. I'll still do a post on the Buddie friendship - too many thoughts on it not to.

[thecoolerliauditore]

THE SHEPSCAPADES COMIC! That was to me (and from my perspective to the fandom) the turning point of “ok, im not imagining this”. It doesn’t change any dialogue or anything, it just gives the characters facial expressions and yet it’s almost impossible to interpret the interaction in any way other than the relationship not being good.

The dl era, to me, was a lot of trying to ignore the implication of ranchers fanon lore being that, for once, someone is being nice to Jimmy. People could see the difference in their interactions, which made the abusive behaviour all the more difficult to ignore, and yet acknowledging this directly would be labelled shipping discourse and no one wants to be THAT fan, right? But the tension growing was palpable.

I also would like to add that once I decided to scroll through anti-toxic fh blogs to try and understand why they think like that and… a lot of it was just “well it makes me feel gross”? And I get it. Cannibalism and mass murder are, to most of us, a very distant concept, so it’s more comfortable to engage with than the horrors of the mundane, especially when applied to a queer character. But that doesn’t mean it’s any better than talking about domestic abuse.

The last paragraph is phrased weird but i don’t know how to write it better so i hope it’s understandable.

That comic was patient zero in "oh my god other people see it too" for so many of us, I think. And yeah like you said it sticks very close to what happened taking into account tone of voice and everything. Adaptations of that sequence are like an almost surefire test to figure out what someone's interpretation of FH's relationship is and I think that's wonderful.

Big agree on the ranchers lore and I would argue Pearl's POV also has a similar effect where it forces you to acknowledge Scott not being the best ever. Funnily enough I watched the ranchers pov before the FH pov and didn't really see any of the post-FH horrors until I watched FH. I just kind of assumed when people said Tango was the first person who treated Jimmy as an equal they were putting "and Scott too but that was a season ago" in footnotes. But no they meant full-time and they'd be right lmao

My favourite example of Jimmy expecting the worst is this interaction he has with Bdubs where he essentially gets a bucket for free when the ranchers were struggling for iron and tells him to not tell Tango because he's scared he'll get yelled at. Like there is literally nothing Jimmy has done here that would be remotely considered reasonable to yell at him for but he's so afraid of having agency and making his own decisions at this point he just defaults to assuming his partner will be upset at him. (FYI I think this is more a result of how everyone treats him - Southlanders certainly did not help - but getting mad at Jimmy for doing literally anything except sit still was something Scott was especially privy to)

Don't worry I think your point was clear enough on that last paragraph, I kind of roll my eyes when people try to use distance as an excuse to justify why some dark topics are okay but others aren't, but I can't talk too much about this because I find it annoying and will probably end up saying something that feels mean lol.

Redirecting this once again to Bree's post about how hostile the language people use when talking about this discourse is to abuse victims e.g. "why can't you be NORMAL and write about NORMAL relationships and let them be NORMAL" which I think partially comes as a direct result of refusing to engage in abuse storylines and thus not being sympathetic to these portrayals or the people who write them.

And aside from that it's not even like. abuse and toxic relationships themselves are the issue sometimes. Obviously generalizing here a bit but I see a lot of the same people who find toxic fh "gross" gas up interpretations where Jimmy cheats on Scott or otherwise treats Scott horribly. Not to mention Pearl and her storyline getting turned into "girl who is mad gay man won't date her".

It just uh. sometimes feels as though the "grossness" is coming from a need to defend Scott's honour than a need to disengage with these themes entirely, which rubs me the wrong way.

(not to mention that I do think calling abuse storylines "gross" in of itself might have some unfun implications attached but I've said enough)

[aihoshiino]

Hey there! I love your OnK posts especially about Ai so I wanted to ask you something that's been on my mind this week. Do you think she was "fridged" just for shock value? I've heard people call it that because of how it starts Aqua's revenge quest and I was curious how others saw it. Would love to hear your thoughts!

anon can i just say. not calling you out but the thing about being active in other parts of the fandom outside tumblr means i will get asks like this sometimes and immediately know which post on the subreddit I am being asked to indirectly reply to. again, not calling you out, but i did read this ask with a strong sense of like;

but anyway, to actually answer your question: No, I don't think Ai was fridged and I think that anyone passionately insisting she was has a fundamental misunderstanding of what purpose her death serves in her own arc and that of others and also just… what fridging even is as a concept. I've commented on this before and basically summed up my thoughts as best I could so lemme grab that old comment of mine.

Fridging implies a certain disposability and lack of care for the woman at the center of things. It's sort of drifted and gotten muddled because of misuse in modern discourse like the term 'Mary Sue', but as it was coined, it was specifically, explicitly both observation and critique of how female characters are treated in fiction primarily centered on men: the ways in which they are treated as uniquely disposable, their interiority as less full and complex, their stories as less valuable and their tragedies as inherently unworthy of exploration and interrogation. The term literally originates from the phrase 'women in refrigerators' which itself was coined by Gail Simone in reference to the trend in American superhero comics of gratuitously brutalizing, sexually assaulting or killing specifically female characters for the sole purpose of spurring the protective instincts of their male counterparts. While it's true that Ai's death spurs Aqua's revenge arc, it is also the very explicit capstone to Ai's own character arc that she goes on over the course of the prologue arc and her life in general. It is the textual manifestation of something that exists in subtext: that being an idol and growing up in the entertainment industry has robbed Ai of the opportunity to have a normal life. It makes pitch perfect thematic sense for this idea to climax in an embodiment of the misogyny, purity culture and fan entitlement that has caused her so much pain to make that idea literal in bringing an end to Ai's actual life. On top of that, Ai's actual death scene is entirely about her: it takes place entirely from her POV, centers her feelings and pain and resolves her character arc and the two most important relationships to her. The manga even frames the scene in such a way that Ai's own thoughts and feelings drown out and crowd out the most bloody and shocking moments, spending page time that could be used on goggling at the spectacle of her pain instead on forcing the reader to look at her heart and understand her. Rather than focus on her bodily agony, up until the last moment, Ai's death is about her strengths, her flaws and the absolute purity of her love. From there, interrogating the tragedy of her life and death is the entire driving force of Oshi no Ko's narrative. Ai touches and contextualizes every character's story; her legacy is the light that every one else chases while standing in her shadow. She's the beating, bleeding heart of almost every emotional beat. Almost every arc involves her, directly or indirectly, and the current arc of the manga is built explicitly on the idea of understanding and empathizing with Ai as a person and trying to honor her wishes even though she's gone. So no, I don't agree that she was fridged and I think it's reductive to try and make that call entirely off the first episode. As someone who has spent the better portion of the year having a cognitive energy dedicated to this character that surely makes me in some way mentally unwell, I think her death is so incredibly, miserably satisfying as the capstone of her arc and getting to go through the rest of the story with her heart and legacy as its foundation has enriched pretty much everything else about it.

'fridging' is not 'anytime a woman dies' anymore than 'bury your gays' is 'anytime a gay person dies'. The context surrounding these phrases is important and by extrapolating them to the point that they can mean literally anything, they lose their edge when it comes to serving as tools of critique and commentary on harmful trends in fiction.

[cybershock24601]

Not to say Veilguard's writing is perfect or doesn't have any problems because it does but I feel one of the biggest reasons people don't like it is because it treats the dragon age fandom like it is, stupid and reactionary.

When Inquisition dropped in 2014, those were some dark fucking days. People were coming out with the most wild hot takes and ready to start putting heads on pikes over differences of opinion. I totally get why the devs choose to file down some of the rougher edges and not put some of the darker and more problematic elements of the setting into such sharp focus because if my memory serves me right, people were pissed the fuck off that bad things were depicted at all in Inquisition. There were pages and pages of discourse over every little thing so trying to side step the stuff that made people start frothing at the mouth probably seemed like a smart move to the devs especially since the way the fandom talked about a lot of the stuff was like they didn't want to see any of it onscreen at all. It's not like Veilguard doesn't have fucked up stuff going on but its more in the background now and I can see how that decision was made considering fandom sentiment over the years. Also a lot of people who like to roleplay oppression don't get to do that in Veilguard, not saying that's the reason for all the push back on the shift in tone in Veilguard, there are a lot of legitimate criticisms, but there were definitely people that took rping as a fictional minority a little too seriously back in the day.

The other reason people can't stand Veilguard is because it definitely holds your hand sometimes when it comes to the narrative which people get upset about because it makes them feel stupid because duh, its so obvious I didn't need the game to treat me like a child but is it just obvious because the game is explicitly spelling it out? Considering some of the horrendous fucking takes I've seen whenever the writing has some nuance or requires some critical thinking, yeah no shit the writing team decided to be a lot more explicit when it came to certain aspects of the game because oh boy does a whole lot seem to go over people's head. Things go over my head too sometimes since I'm usually more focused on playing the game then analyzing it especially on a first playthrough, but my god do I get why the writing is a lot less complex in Veilguard. Some of it is definitely a result of rewrites and budget and time constraints and EA doing what EA does but there is a reason Veilguard can feel like Dragon Age for babies because when the game does choose to treat people like adults, so many people seem to completely miss what the game is trying to say when it isn't hammering the point into directly into your skull. There are things Veilguard could have done better on but I've seen a lot of common complaints that just seem to be the result of people refusing to do any deeper thinking about what the game is saying and doing very surface level readings.

[twstfanblog]

*~It's Okay~*

AN: Well this took me a while. And it's because I started writing Diasomnia almost immediately and that's already half done before I even managed to finish this part XD So that should be done in the coming few days!

Word Count: 5.9K

Warnings: Talk of mental illness. Brief Creepy Neige. Swears. She/They Yuu OC.

Pairings: Alluded to Riddle/Floyd

Enjoy~!

Starter, Part 1(Pomefiore), Part 2 (Here), Part 3 (Diasomnia)

Riddle lived his life by a guideline of very strict rules. Rules he’s learned to live with since he was a child, no matter how they made his insides clench or how unfair they seemed. He learned to deal with the growing loneliness, the growing anger at and from himself, how hard it was for Trey to even talk to him some days…the nights where he could only just cry himself to sleep and wake up the next day to do it all over again.

He’s also learned to make amendments to those rules (Sure it took a mental and emotional breakdown, but he learned to compromise). Little gaps in the guidelines that he’s had to extensively think over to make them more ‘fair’ without making the rule obsolete. Cater told him with the new system, Riddle still ruled with an iron fist, but the hold wasn’t as much of a death sentence as before. And Riddle wondered just how far he had slipped into tyrannical madness to realize only then how good that made him feel.

Things were better in Heartslaybul, rules were rules of course. But, sometimes people preferred honey over sugar cubes, and that was okay. Some rules were flexible and it was okay to bend them if it kept his dorm from cracking like an egg. Riddle could learn to bend a bit more and he had.

But one thing he refused to allow was someone in the bed with him whom he didn’t invite. It wasn’t even a rule, simply a preference, but it was a very strong preference. It was enough to put Floyd Leech on his ‘shit list’ since their first year together (The EelMer still hadn’t explained why he was not only in his bed but how the hell he broke into their dorm after hours). He simply did not like waking up to some unknown person being under the sheets with him. It directly ruined the experience of waking up if he panicked the second he did it.

So ripping the sheets away from the body next to him in panic, he could only sigh and pull a face at the beastman next to him. Chenya gave him just as dirty a look, hair messier than normal and only half-dressed. Riddle glared at the cat beastmen before grabbing his pillow and slamming it on his half-awake friend, “When?”

Chenya huffed, a yawn almost slipping into a growl when he closed his mouth. He rolled over, grabbing the pillow from Riddle’s hands and snuggling into it, “Around midnight…Neige got back really late and by the Seven, I wasn’t dealing with it…”

Roommate discourse, a common reason for Chenya to abscond from Royal Sword. Riddle would allow only this once, like he’s allowed it ‘only once’ over a hundred times before.

He yawns, moving himself off the bed and gathering up his outfit for the day. Glancing back at the bed he raised an eyebrow, “Do you have your medication or do I need Trey to bring your emergency ones?”

“...Shit, knew I forgot something…”

Riddle sighed and shook his head, walking toward his ensuite, “My phone is on the bedside table, just text Trey and he’ll bring them up with some food. Are you staying all day? The campus is open to visitors after all.”

Seeing how he wasn’t going to get more sleep, Chenya yawned and stretched, starfishing onto the bed, “Ok…I’ll see you and Trey at lunch for tea and talk. I got so much to rant about…” He barely notices Riddle’s nod before he reaches for the redhead’s phone, sending a quick message to his other friend. Chenya then curled into his friend’s blankets, not falling back asleep, but simply trying to stay present in the rose and paper-scented sheets.

Chenya wasn’t ever sure if getting his signature spell so young was a blessing or a curse. Disappearing seemed fun to the other kids, and it was. He loved popping in and out of view to scare people. But when he stopped being sure if he was even there, when he wasn’t sure if he was seeing something from a place he went to when he disappeared, it got scary. The doctor told his mom that his signature spell may have jump-started his supposed to be teenage psychosis. It was a hereditary trait in his family, ‘Pinker’s were a bunch of psychos’ his dad would joke.

But, because this was sadly a common trait in his family, he got support and help the second the doctor gave the diagnosis. He’s been taking medication ever since and he’s been very lucky to keep his daffy sanity. Sure, he still had moments where he wasn’t sure of where he was or what he was even hoping to do. But familiar things helped, so he covered himself in them. Every last stupid little trinket and patch he and Trey got from coin machines. All the plain black hair clips Riddle would toss out his window when he saw him walk by and his mother wasn’t watching him. Sure it looked silly, but he was silly and that was okay.

Chenya always had fun on the Night Raven campus. The second anyone saw him, it was like a primal switch flipped and they needed to try to kill him. It was hilarious disappearing and watching them run right by him. It was even more fun watching one of the first years he had seen last year with his family. The older guy with him may as well be a copy-and-paste but enlarged. They even made the same face when they yelled at him, pointing him out as a ‘Royal Sword Punk’. The woman with brown hair yelled at them, stating she raised them better than to point and yell in public, but they had already rilled up the surrounding students. Chenya laughed and disappeared around the corner, deciding he had enough fun with the students and slipped back into Heartslaybul via the mirror.

He kept up his spell, smiling at all of the excited students showing off the newly enlarged dorm to their family or friends. He even saw a stray Royal Sword classmate being toured around, oh he wondered if they were gonna get jumped by the end of the day. That’d be hilarious. Walking back into Riddle’s room, he snickers at the uniform hanging up neatly from the canopy frame. Chenya had no issue with wearing the same clothes twice in two days, but Riddle surely did and Trey never seemed too fond of it either. The Heartslabyul uniform would also keep anyone from chasing him, didn’t want to be late for tea after all. That’d be quite rude.

He hummed under his breath, fiddling with the half-painted rose on his lapel, sending a wink at one RSA student who recognized him and stared at him bewildered. Walking to the center of the rose maze, whistling a jaunty tune, perking up to see Trey and Riddle waiting with tea and sweets, “I meow-de it!”

Riddle huffed, glaring at Chenya and slipping Trey a single Madol bill. Trey smiled toward him, “Hey, Chenya. Feeling better from this morning?”

“...What was that?”

Trey chuckles, slipping the Madol into his wallet while Riddle grumbles into his tea, “Just a little bet I made with Riddle.”

“Well, forgive me for thinking he’d be able to hold back a pun for 5 minutes…”

Chenya sits down, joining Trey in laughing at Riddle, “That was a bad bet, Queenie. I need to pun to stray alive.” He holds his cup up as Riddle gestures to pour the tea for him, “So, status repurrt lads.”

Riddle groans, making peace with the incoming puns yet to be spoken, “Everyone seems very excited with the new changes, I was even able to get Crowley to update and expand the hedgehog and flamingo enclosures. Not to mention with the construction we were able to shift around the maze for a little variety come the school year. We’ve even sectioned off a part farther in the maze to grow flowers other than roses.”

“Huh…that explains how I nearly got lost…” Chenya waved Riddle’s worried glance off, grabbing one of the ‘Eat Me’ cookies, “But you told me all that already. You and Cater have kept me very up to date on everything going on since I wasn’t allowed to visit.”

Trey hummed, “In our defense. We were afraid you would get hit during construction trying to sneak in. Also, you and Cater talk?”

“Cater talks to everyone it seems.” Riddle mumbles, looking to the side with what Chenya could only call a pout.

“True…”

Chenya lets out a groan that slides into a yowl, “Come on! I wanna spill tea, not re-mew stuff you guys told me already.”

“Penelope had her litter. We haven’t told you that yet have we?”

“That’s not- wait, really?” Chenya was instantly invested, Penelope was one of his favorite hedgehogs. She was a delightful shade of plum and knew how to roll in a perfect spiral, “Please tell me one was purple.”

“Yep.” Trey cut at the strawberry tart, making sure Riddle was given the first piece as he preferred, “And her name is Mewple.”

Chenya squeals, drumming his hands against the table in excitement, “Please! Please, I gotta see the baby girl before I go!”

“Of course, Chenya. No need to yell, Riddle already named you godfather-”

“Don’t phrase it like that!”

“Aw~. Riddles~!”

Riddle glares at the beastman, cheeks flushing in a mixture of rage and embarrassment, “It’s merely the fact Crowley has given me permission to take a number of the hedgehogs when I graduate. It only makes sense I would bring my favorites…”

“You have favorites?” Trey questions, smiling teasingly at Riddle.

“...No.”

After a brief laugh session, Chenya leaned his upper body onto the table, ignoring Riddle huffing at him ‘breaking the rules’, ”But anyway, tea. How’s your boyfriend Riddle?”

“Floyd is not my boyfriend!”

“He didn’t say his name, Riddle.”

“Shush.”

Chechnya smiles, sipping at his tea, “Well, that answers cat. But I want mews! I want dirt! Tell me something I don’t know~.”

Riddle sighed, shaking his head while Trey thought to himself.

“Well, Riddle and Yuu almost got into another fistfight over tea…”

“I have never engaged in fisticuffs with that child and you know it, Trey. Plus that isn’t at all what happened.”

“Wait, why? Aren’t you two friends meow? I know she doesn’t like tea but you two spent like a whole week trying flavors out with Kalim, didn’t you?”

Trey snickers, “So about that, it happened after that week and during an unbirthday party…”

The garden had unsurprisingly been the first part of Heartslabyul that was fixed. It acted as a safe haven for the students during more construction noise and allowed them to have their unbirthday parties. At the main table, Yuu sat with the core Heartslabyul crew, quietly stirring their tea as the others chatted and Grim walked the table for treats and banter.

Deuce noticed their quiet nature, asking them if they were okay with a slight nudge under the table.

“...You know…I never really noticed that you make tea with hot water for a reason.”

…

Cater closes his eyes, putting his phone down and reaching over to put his hand over Yuu’s. He took a shuttering breath, as though to gather strength, “Yuu-Chan, sweetie…Have you been making tea with cold water?”

“Yeah? I always thought tea was made hot because it just made the water tea-ify faster.” She sips at the tea, making a face before adding another sugar cube to what could only be hot syrup at this point, “Didn’t think it was the proper process or something…”

Ace leans onto the table, staring at Yuu with a pinched face, “What, are you too impatient to microwave some water for three minutes?”

Yuu opened their mouth to remind him that they didn’t drink tea until it was their only option to drink. Instead, Trey put down his own cup of tea with a muted ‘Clack’, resting the bottom of his face in his clasped hands. The 3rd year looking at Ace with a level of intensity that made the 1st year sit back in his seat nervously.

Trey moved his hands to speak, just so he was heard clearly, “Ace…Why are you putting water in the microwave to boil it…for tea?”

Deuce holds up his hand, frowning with his eyebrows creased, “Clover-Senpai, I don’t think Ace has the patience to boil water on a stove.” 

“Deuce-Chan. Water takes less than a minute to boil on a stove.” Cater turned away from Yuu, looking at his underclassmen, an expression of stunned surprise on his face.

Ace scoffs, “Is your stove the sun? How does it take less than a minute?”

Trey pulled his face from his hands, tilting his head to question Ace, “How long do you think water takes to boil?”

“Like Seven minutes!?”

“Look,” Deuce’s fist bangs on the table, drawing everyone’s attention before he addressed Ace, “Just put the mug on the stove on medium heat and it takes like two minutes to boil-”

“You’re putting the whole mug on the stove?”

“I mean sometimes I use a saucepan to do it…?” 

Cater was struggling to hold in his laughter, face to the sky as he willed his tears to not ruin his newly gifted sponsored eyeshadow.

Trey looked at the two underclassmen, a hand over his mouth before he whispered under his breath, “How have you two survived this long?”

Cater wheezed, smacking a hand against Trey’s shoulder, “By the Seven, this is gold. I should have been recording…”

Riddle speaks, eyes wide in bewilderment at what he could only call the most frustrating conversation, “Do either of you know what a damn kettle is?”

Yuu sat back, a hand over their mouth to hide their smile as the table descended into madness.

Chechnya giggled, his own wide smile just barely hidden behind his cup, “Oh~. You’ve got your hands full with a bunch of uneducated kits, huh, Riddle?”

“I had to teach both of them how to use a proper kettle…”

“I mean in their defense, they had really good reasons why they never learned to use one…” Trey sighs.

“Mew?”

“Apparently, Ace put a teapot that was supposed to be for serving only on the stove to boil water and it exploded. Deuce’s mom forbade him from using a kettle when he was young because he managed to completely take apart their electric one…Guess he thought she meant every type of kettle.” 

Riddle shakes his head, “Deuce still nearly broke our electric one by turning the dial too far.”

Trey laughs under his breath, “Well, at least they know how to make a proper cup now.”

“Ok, but why did mew and Yuu almost fight Riddle?”

“While Cater and I were trying to explain proper tea protocol to Ace and Deuce, Yuu apparently whispered to Riddle ‘This wouldn’t be an issue with coffee’.”

“They don’t even like coffee either! They just hate that I scold them for drowning their tea in cream and sugar!”

“Well, people can like their tea-”

“A simple lemon tea doesn’t need 6 lumps of sugar!”

A moment of silence passed over the table, Trey sighing and leaning back in his chair when Chenya started to snicker again.

“He’s got you there Trey~. Man, what I would give to have simple problems like you guys.”

“In what way-”

Riddle perks up, “Oh. That’s right,” His expression sombers, looking over to Chenya, “You said Neige came back and was acting strangely, more so than usual? Do you know why or would you rather not talk about him?”

“Oh by the SEVENS. I need to talk about this kid, I keep thinking I’m hallucinating half the stuff he does if I didn’t tell you guys about it.”

“So, he came back to your dorm room. What was the scenario?”

“So get this…”

Neige had been gone all day. That wasn’t anything weird or new to Chenya, Neige was usually gone for whole weekends doing model and actor business. This means Chenya either had the whole dorm suite to himself for a few blissful days. Or, Neige had lied and was going to stalk Vil Schoenheit and Chenya had to babysit the dwarves. True, they were capable of tending to themselves and even making meals unsupervised. The problem was most of them were painfully curious and just too short to be left alone.

And Chenya really didn’t mind looking out for them. It mainly was just grabbing things off high shelves so they didn’t climb each other and risk falling. Maybe having to give a few vocab definitions from their textbooks. But all in all, very cushy babysitting gig, since Neige both paid for the service and hush money.

But when 11 pm rolled around and Neige still wasn’t back, all of them were worried. The dwarves increasingly so. Chenya did his best but he was one cat-trophizing thought away from calling the police himself. Sure, Neige was some flavor of an obsessive stalker who could possibly pose a danger to the object of his affection. But what super fan wasn’t? It didn’t mean he wanted the guy to be in a ditch somewhere.

But, their metaphorical prayers were answered a little after 11 pm when Neige stumbled into the dorm room. His pink wig was nothing but a frizzy mess in his hands, his other arm braced against the closed door as he panted. He was coated in dirt, or what Chenya had hoped was dirt, clothing covered in various sweat marks and rips.

“By the seven Neige! Did you get hunted by a wild animal!?” Chenya rushed over, helping Neige to walk to his bed once he saw his roommate start to stumble, “Me-ouch…You’re a mess bud…”

Neige was panting, even when resting on the bed, managing to spare a shaky smile to calm the dwarves. He finally caught his breath, eyes slowly sliding into a thousand-yard stare, “I wish it was a wild animal…A wild animal would give up at some point. He chased me through the whole forest I think…”

Chenya looked over his shoulder, walking to the ensuite to grab their school-issued first aid kit, “Who?”

Brown eyes stared into the air, his breathing still lightly labored, “Green eyes…I can never look at green eyes ever again…”

Ok, he wasn’t going to unpack that. Kneeling on the bed, he looked over the kit. Once satisfied with the contents, he nodded and nudged Neige up from the mattress, “Go shower off all that…what I hope is mud. You reek and I gotta disinfect those cuts.” 

Neige comes out from the bathroom 10 minutes later, sheepishly toweling his wet hair. He sat still, letting Chenya dab the rubbing alcohol against the open cuts. One being a long thin slice right along his cheek, as though Neige had just barely dodged something sharp at top speeds. Soon Neige was cleaned and medically tended to, his roommate was even nice enough to place cream on his skin so that it wouldn’t scar.

But, now that he was healed, Chenya and the dwarves all sat in front of him. Each of them glaring with folded arms, even Hop had a fierce frown on his face.

With a shaky laugh, Neige tilted his head, “I should explain huh?”

“You broke into Night Raven to see Vil.” Chenya wasn’t even going to beat around the bush, Neige came in looking like roadkill. His roomie was clearly out doing something to bring one of the Night Raven student’s ire. But even when Chenya was caught, he wasn’t roughed up nearly as much as Neige was. Maybe a ripped shirt, possibly a sprained ankle. Not whatever death match Neige got into with the forest floor.

“W-well, you do it all the time! And Vi is a good friend of mine, it shouldn’t be an issue to go visit him…”

“Maybe it wouldn’t be if you weren’t stalking him.” He ignores Neige shaking his head, trying to make him stop talking about his ‘activities’ in from of the dwarves. Chenya sighs, “I go there expecting to be hunted down and I can handle that. You want there like you were going on a date and come back looking like you got mauled.”

“Wish I was just mauled…”

Chenya would let Neige pass with that muttered comment. He really didn’t want to get involved in his weird going-ons, “Look, I was fine with all the time you’d take in the bathroom. But, I think you need to put the cat back in the bag and hang it up. This… ‘friendship’ you have with Vil is clearly gonna get you killed…”

Neige looked distressed, opening his mouth to plead with Chenya to not get anyone involved. Instead, the dwarves all jumped up, shouting their own disagreement about ending the relationship.

Doc stood on his chair, trying to meet Chenya in the eyes, “No! Vi and Neige need to keep being friends! How else will they be able to work toward their happily ever after!?”

“Neige has worked so hard to be where he is so he can stand by Vil’s side! To tear them apart is too cruel!” Hop wailed, holding up a nearly asleep Shelpie who could only tearily mutter ‘No, no, no’.

Chenya stood baffled as the Dwarves all gave their objections and then moved to crowd around Neige, shouting their support for Neige’s happily ever after. Stating how they always knew of Neige’s overzealous attempts to get closer to Vil, how they did their best whenever on set with him to make shoots longer by sabotaging equipment or erasing photos. How sweet they found Neige’s candle-lit altar with photos of Vil hidden under the floorboards, the one with an empty water bottle Vil had given him years ago on a movie set.

Tears of joy welled in Neige’s eyes. He dropped to his knees, bringing the dwarves into his arms and hugging them all tight, “Thank you guys so much! I never knew you supported me so much! Okay, no more secrets then, we’re gonna be a team and work together to get Vi’s love!”

The room was soon filled with multiple voices, plans of romantic outings and opportunities to ‘meet the family’. Chenya simply shook his head and walked to the door once Neige pulled out his phone to show off all the pictures he took in his infiltration, “Yeah, I’m leaving, don’t wait up.”

“Good night, Chenya! Thank you for hanging out with them!”

“What. Ever.”

“Well, to answer your question, it was Rook. Whatever happened to Neige was most likely Rook.” Trey laughs under his breath, pouring more tea for Riddle, “Even if he does like Neige, Rook is like an over-excited dog sometimes…And he’s robust enough to be a threat even when he’s placid.”

“I don’t understand how Vil hasn’t noticed he’s being stalked so heavily. One would think being near Rook so often he would be able to pinpoint anyone following him.”

Chenya groans, “I think that may be the reason he doesn’t notice Neige’s creepiness. I’ve only met that Rook guy once and he creeps Me-owt.” He sighs, leaning his chair on its back two legs, “I think being around something just makes you used to it. Like us and weird people.”

Trey laughed again, “I’m worse off then. I’ve been used to you guys since we were kids.” he blinked at the silence, looking at Chenya and Riddle. Both of them stared with blank faces, as though they were waiting for a punchline, “...Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Trey, how do I purr this…” Chenya folded his hands, resting his chin on them as he loudly hummed, showing he was thinking. He snapped his fingers, shooting double-finger guns at Trey, “You’re insanely weird, my friend.”

“I…I’m not the weird one!”

“Trey, you like teeth.”

“He’s right. Liking teeth is paw-sitively the weirdest thing, Trey.”

“Caring about my oral hygiene does not make me weirder than you two! What about Riddle’s need for rules? Chenya’s general thirst and need for chaos and discord?”

“I’m Traumatized. I get a pass to have an obsession.”

Chenya shakes his head, placing a hand over Riddle’s, “That’s not how that works, but I’m glad you’re admitting it.” He turns to Trey, his smile widening to his regular teasing expression, “And I don’t care for discord. Chaos sure, but I’m not the kinda cat whose vocation is disharmony.”

Rolling his eyes, Trey huffs, adjusting his glasses. He turned his head away, trying to hide his embarrassed flush, “There’s nothing wrong with caring about my dental health…”

Chenya snickered, leaning closer to Riddle to whisper in his ear, “Does he still use like four different brushes to clean his teeth?”

Riddle nods, whispering from behind his teacup. Grey eyes glancing at Trey as though to judge him, “He’s recently gotten acquainted with one of my equestrian club members. His father’s a dentist.”

“No!” Chenya gasped, holding a hand over his smile in a scandalized gesture.

“Indeed. It’s only a matter of time before Trey acquires a professional dentistry kit.”

“For your information, I already have one.” Trey pointedly ignored the hybrid guffaw and snort Chenya lets out, “And also, I am not the weird one. Of all I have to deal with in this dorm and with you two during summer? I’m the only sane one left.”

Rolling his eyes, Riddle turned toward Trey, “Oh, it can’t be that bad…”

“Oh really. Let me tell you then…”

Trey should have never let Yuu teach the Adeuce duo ‘Pig Latin’. Whatever ancient tongue the two were arguing was lost on most of the dorm. Riddle was somehow able to understand it perfectly, but the house warden wasn’t around to translate for him and Cater.

Leaning against the island, Cater scrolled through his phone. He whistled a low note when the shouting in the next room started to grow in volume, “Should we intervene? They’re getting pretty heated in there.”

Shaking his head Trey keeps kneading his dough, a relaxed smile on his face “Naw. Riddle says they use it to debate homework answers. Since someone teased them mercilessly about one wrong answer, now they do it in code.”

Cater looks away, only having the grace to look slightly bashful as he posed for a selfie, “I said sorry…”

Their chat continued, topics of their own homework or school news filling the kitchen. Cater was recounting a story of something that happened in the Light Music Club. The redhead barely containing his laughter, scrolling through his phone for the video he took before he was interrupted by a bellowing yell from who they could hear was Ace.

“OURYAY OM’SMAY AYAY ILFMAY!”

The silence that followed was almost lethal. Trey and Cater stood stunned, looking at each other in surprise, only to hear footsteps stomping toward them. Soon Deuce entered the kitchen, face red in fury as he grabbed a knife from the block and stormed out of the room.

Only when he was gone did Trey and Cater jump into action, fully realizing what the first year had planned, “Deuce, don’t do it!”

“Your mom is gonna be so disappointed if you kill someone, Deuce-Chan!”

“What…are you doing?” Trey looked at the scene in front of him. He tried not to glare, his face instead showing just how tired he was. His hands gripped the serving platter harder as his nerves started to rise.

Cater was suspended over the railing at the top of The Heartslabyul staircase, nearly tiled over as Ace and Deuce held onto the 3rd year’s legs. He had the nerve to smile and wave over his shoulder, “Hey Trey-Kun~ I’m trying this new photo trend. You take aerial pics from the tops of staircases. They looked so cool and our dorm has the most funky staircase of all! I’m gonna get mad likes. #TopPics #SoCool #WatchYourStep #LOL.”

“Don’t worry Clover-Senpai! We’ve got Diamond-Senpai in safe hands!” Deuce smiled, arms locked tightly over one of Cater’s legs. Ace sniffled from Cater’s other leg, trying to rub his nose onto his shoulder.

“...Okay…” Trey looked away, sighing and turning around to continue to Riddle’s room, “Just make sure you guys are safe.” A smile slowly grows on his face hearing Deuce start to ramble out promises to be responsible.

“You can trust us Clover-Senpai! Ace and me-”

ACHOO

Cater’s fading yell makes Trey drop his serving platter, ruining the tart and glassware, rushing back to the stairwell. He nearly went over the railing as well. Slamming into the metal banister, Trey looked down with wide eyes. He finally relaxed, seeing Cater on the ground floor on top of a few other 3rd years. The poor upperclassmen groaning under the impact Cater surprised them with.

The diamond redhead moaned but gave a shaky thumbs up, his phone still clutched in his hands, “I’m okay…!” His smile faded from his face as he fully slumped over, glaring at the pictures he managed to snap in his panic on the fall, “#IBetterGet100KHitsForThisShit…”

Trey looked to his side, eyes stopping at Ace wiping at his nose with his finger. The hearts redhead sniffled, looking away from Trey and Deuce’s glares, “I didn’t do it on purpose…”

The first thing Trey realized was that it was 2 am. He blinks, trying to take in his blurry surroundings. Trey put his glasses on his face, reaching blindly over to his side table and grabbing his ringing phone. Bleary eyes squinting at the contact reading ‘Jade’ before he answered the call, “Jade? It’s…very late what is this about?”

“So sorry to bother you Trey, but it’s most important that you make your way to Octavinelle. Post haste if you will.”

“...Why?”

Jade chuckled, Trey could visualize the EelMer holding his hand over his mouth, hiding his teeth, “Well, it seems we’ve acquired something of yours and Azul would like it gone before he loses any more sleep.”

“...What?”

He could hear Floyd cackling loudly in the background, being able to make out him yelling, “Come here, Goldfishie~! I wanna give you a squeeze and a kiss!”

“Get away from me, Floyd!”

“...” Trey sighed deeply, sitting up in bed and looking around for his shoes and jacket, “Why is Riddle in Octavinelle?”

“Let me check.” Jade moves away from the phone to yell after Riddle, “Riddle-San? Why are you here again?”

“Rule 124! The sink in my bathroom broke- Go away Floyd- and the faucet soaked me- DON’T YOU TOUCH ME!”

“That’s why.” 

Trey could hear the smile in Jade’s voice. He closes his eyes, tilting his head back and bites back his groan, “I’m on my way. Please don’t let Floyd frisk Riddle again.”

“Well, let me go stop him then. You might want to go check on that faucet Riddle was talking about, though.” Jade hangs up, the sounds of Floyd laughing and Riddle screaming in the background clicking off instantly.

Trey sat in his seat glaring at his friends. Riddle and Chenya finding their cups of tea much more interesting. Riddle looked mildly sheepish, Chenya looked ready to burst into laughter. Though the cat beastman knew if he did he wasn’t going to be welcomed in Heartslabyul for quite some time. So he bit into his fist, taking care to not press too hard and break the skin.

“I live every day in terror from the lovable menaces I’m forced to room with. If I’m odd it’s me trying to cope with the madness around me.” Trey frowned, grabbing his own slice of lemon curd and lavender tart he had been experimenting with.

Riddle sighed. Managing to meet Trey’s eyes he nodded his head in apology, “Condolences, Trey. I also feel…overwhelmed at times with our current batch. I didn’t stop to think about how your duties plus looking after everyone was affecting you…And I was no help, yet again…” His expression fell more into sadness as he realized he wasn’t easing Trey’s predicaments as he had tried to do.

Chenya reached over, pinching the fat of Ridle’s cheek and pulling. He ignored his friend’s scolding, face turning his impressive shade of red.

“No more of that~. It’s not purr fault, your mom kinda kept you from learning empathy for your peers. We’re just glad you still turned out to be such a nice kitten!”

“...” Riddle sighed, face going back to its pale shade before he spoke in a slightly slurred tone, “Thank you, Chenya…”

“Plus~. Trey, you should rely on me more too, you know? I’m here a lot in the afternoons most days, I can help around where no one can see me. You guys just try to have a cozy repeat year~.”

Smiling, Trey shakes his head. It was a sweet sentiment. But Chenya was a 3rd year, he needed to focus on his grades and finalizing his internship, “Thanks for the offer Chenya. But, I’ve told you, 3rd years need to work on preparing for their internships. You should do the same. I and most of the other NRC 3rd years got lucky and whoever had a placements got their time extended.”

Chenya tilted his head, “I’m still a 2nd year, though?”

…

Riddle put his teacup onto the saucer, nearly breaking it from the force, eyes wide at the information, “What? How? What class did you fail?” All those hours studying and getting texts full of mind-numbing emojis about aced tests, were those all lies!?

“Nah. I just chose to repeat 2nd year after hearing you had to. I did promise we were going to do our internship together after all.”

“...” Riddle felt his face flush again, only this time in embarrassment—the promise from before their first year. Chenya had managed to meet Riddle in secret. The cat beastman told him all about his tour of Royal Sword, saddened by the fact Riddle had been accepted to Night Raven. But he did promise to make sure they were able to hang out at their internships, “You can’t just…decide to repeat a year for me…”

Chenya smiles, waving his hand and sharing a smile with Trey, “Eh~. Me and Trey had a whole plan for when we graduated. Trey would get the groundwork for a place for us and I take over his ‘Riddle Rangling’ job. The plan doesn’t work if we’re both away from you, goes against the whole thing!”

“I- plan? What plan!?”

Trey leaned on the table, his knuckles gently knocking on the side of Riddle’s head to call his attention, “You’re our friend. We’re gonna want to make sure you don’t have to go back with your mom. We’d at least offer you the choice.”

“...Trey…Chenya…”

Chenya tilted onto the back legs of his chair, smiling at himself with his eyes closed, “In my opinion. Our first plan of just burning your house down with your mom inside was way easier.”

“Chenya.”

Riddle huffed out a laugh, keeping silent as Trey and Chenya bickered about the mortality of ‘Justified Arson’. His friends were odd, he was odd. He took a sip of his tea, the faint taste of honey mixed with lemon pleasant on his tongue.

Trey smiled to himself, letting Chenya continue on about his reasonings. It hurt at times, seeing the way they were now. Happy and together sharing treats, laughing and at peace with simple conversation. Just like that day nearly ten years ago. A part of him always wondered what they’d be like if that day was never ruined. If they were all just left to be friends. But such a day didn’t exist, and his signature spell wasn’t going to ever change the bitter taste it left in his mouth.

But, they had today and plenty of tomorrows to be friends, and that made it all okay.

[oblivionbladetd]

Lily's subtext post grates because it's so obviously just her drawing on popular Tumblr discourse specifically about authors who would throw in things like sexualities or disabilities into interviews or commentary rather than explicitly identifying them in the text (see: the initial reveal of Dumbledore's sexuality), and whether that was really worth championing as true representation.

And like, sure, that's a discussion worth having in like-to-like contexts. What it isn't, is a hard universal rule to wield as a cudgel of moral superiority against the very concept of subtext? "I don't accept subtext whenever it would be better to portray something directly" sounds silly because it's echoing a much more specific statement along the lines of "I don't accept the argument that the subtext implies the existence of a marginalized identity in this story and that's enough to make it important representation; if that was indeed the creator's intention, then this particular story would have been better served by a more explicit presentation of that identity for xyz reasons".

Buuut that would require Lily genuinely understanding the terminology she's trying to use, vs broadly regurgitating Tumblr's critical zeitgeist in order to spin her personal dislike of a story into 'actual critique'.

Anyway. I have been enjoying your recent breakdowns of her more, er, 'literary' posts! I know there are more serious issues surrounding Lily, but the fact she insists on marketing herself as a knowledgeable analyst deserves a bit of unpicking, I believe.

One hundred percent my anonymous friend. She has very skewed views on a lot of narrative tools and is wielding them as weapons against... Twitter? If even. Overall problems that either aren't or are pointed haphazardly and arbitrarily. Like her speaking of addictive tactics in storytelling while playing World of Warcraft of all games.

Not to mention, she falls for as many traps as she manages to avoid. Sure, you'll never catch Lily dead writing a hellscape of subtext, symbolism, and metaphor slamming together like a destruction derby inside a paint shaker. You'll catch her any minute of any day trivializing any struggle, big or small, and brag that it's just sensible. Like Aliana having a book on five easy steps to sever a force bond wedged in her couch cushions or Assana's mom being big chill about hearing her daughter fuckin' GETTING IT all night long when even minor annoyance at finding it hard to sleep would have made the scene a million times less weird.

As for why I focus on the literary side of the drama. It's absolutely me pointing at her work and saying, "How's this baby's first star wars fanfic enough to ignore what she's done?" I know a lot of people just don't care where their entertainment comes from as long as it's good shit. With the world as it is, I find it hard to discard the notion wholly myself. There will always be a give and take on how much you like something vs. The hatred of its creators' actions or lack thereof. If you've got even an inkling of the abuse that Lily perpetuates, I want to make it abundantly clear that the blind eyes or, God forbid, FORGIVENESS for her evils is rewarded with NOTHING. The only thing you get for being her fan is her active contempt, and sometimes she'll shit out a solid D- fanfic. I may not feel all that qualified to talk about the allegations at length, but I know what all of them are, and I sure as shit know that the reward for blind eyes is pitiful if not absolutely insulting.