#tell me about your blorbos Ill talk to you about mine

[whumpfish]

I'm really gonna need people to let me, a person with chronic pain, write about that pain and label it what it is (chronic pain) without jumping my ass telling me it's "your" tag for "your" community.

It's my community, too. I'm allowed to write about it.

This hostility to the just the idea of fiction being anywhere near chronic pain spaces is so self-destructive and just perpetuates already painful isolation. I would have loved to find Word of Honor posts tagged "chronic pain," it would have led me to the series (whose main character has chronic pain! finally, rep that isn't some asshole doctor with a show about what an asshole he is) a lot sooner.

Here's the thing about this blog and the reference posts I make:

Whump saved my life.

This is not an exaggeration. It was the only place I could talk about pain where it would be not only not taboo, but appreciated. When my ME/CFS hit critical mass, I was more alone and powerless than I'd ever been in my life. I had lost my job, my "friends," my apartment, my independence, my health. Everything. I was devastated. I couldn't even write anymore. Everything was pain. That was the lens I now had to view life through, and in the able world, talking about pain is impolite and burdensome to others. So my existence became impolite and burdensome to others.

But then I found the whump community. I could write about pain and it wasn't weird. People didn't leave when I talked about pain, they were interested. They had questions. They wanted to improve their understanding of it. They wanted to improve how they represented it in their own writing. So I started making reference posts.

Now my pain was useful. It was positive. It connected me to others instead of cutting me off from them. Not all of these others have chronic pain or even disabilities, but I refuse to push away people just because they aren't like me. I literally have to live in a world where I'm on the receiving end of that every day, why would I continue it online?

If all my posts about chronic pain are meant only for those who also have it, what good have I done? We all know what pain is like. We all agree it's isolating, we agree isolation feels terrible, so why defend that isolation with both barrels?

Why attack anyone who unites real experiences with better fictional representation of those experiences and assume the person talking is an abled idiot who's in it for the "blorbos?" (I hate that word, by the way. Am I allowed back into my own community yet?) That's what's insulting. The idea that writing about my pain and allowing for the possibility that others might connect to me through both their writing and mine makes me no different from an abled person who's never felt a moment of pain in her life.

I have a chronic illness. I have chronic pain. I write about both. And I don't owe you an explanation.

Block me if you don't like it. But don't jump my ass about "your" community like it's not mine, too. Don't jump my ass about "the" community/tag as if writing about it means I have to turn in my disabled badge.

[sampoststuff]

For the opinion thing, Jarod and Robert.

Jarod is on the left, and Robert is on the right. So explaining Jarod:

Jarod

He got both too much and too little screen time. Like the man’s got seven encounters, which honestly I’m all for, I just wish everyone else got that too. And I also think that, while all of his are pretty solid encounters, I think there could’ve been more moments showing a softer aspect of him. We mainly get this in Beat It, Roll With It, and Walk the Dinosaur, where there are moments where he’s talking about Lola in softer aspects (before it mostly turning into something bad/ending abruptly depending on the encounter), and even then he never talks about how he felt about it all. I mean, you can clearly tell how he feels by his actions, which is good! But that small part of me would like to see an encounter where he talks about it a tad more again and about maybeee a smidge about himself.

He’s objectively a horrible person by killing people, especially when most are Brigades who are just caught in the cross fire presumably (kill cops tho and Robert go off). No one’s arguing that. The man does have his limits I believe, and won’t kill on a whim, like in Take Your Time (Do It Right), he’ll just let the player go. And considerably he’ll give the player character warnings when he will kill them and the game offers you chances and dialogue to avoid that. In canon too he spares Sonya, realizing finally that she tried to save Lola.

The deeper than he seems sentiment mostly goes off the top points. He’s not like any other taxi cab serial killer lmao. Mentally ill about this man

Anyway if he were real I’d be scared but also lowkey I’d trust him to hold my drink or stuff anywhere. And also I’m carrying this man in a handbag and he’s a blorbo of mine fr fr.

Also anything I write with him even though I try to be close as possible to canon mannerisms will differ so like, technically whatever I write and what I like with writing him isn’t canon. Also I blame the discord for some thoughts with him. If you know then you know

I love his vibe and how he pulls it off physically. Also mans looks like a scrunky man and I love that for him.

Robert

I would be scared and or uncomfortable around him irl and I’m not trusting him to hold my drinks.

Sideburns don’t like but it’s also lowkey funny lol. Balderino over here lolll

Anyway now that the joke stuff is out of the way with Robert, i don’t actively dislike him, but I don’t really like his actions per say. He recruits and uses kids actively for his cause, and like, I feel like anyone reasonable should be like “AYO they got under developed brains and are fragile why the hell are we recruiting them?” Granted, I don’t know what a country like Petria is like to live in, so maybe there’s some differences in that aspect, but that’s just me chief.

On that note, I do think he is a deeper character. I think maybe before the attack in 86, he had concern for his members just as much as he was concerned for the cause. However, after all those deaths, he got motivated in a way that was more on the protest and violence side, kinda like how John is more motivated for a less violent route with the Brigades. His mind is just so focused on the cause now that it doesn’t matter who he recruits or how he reaches his end goal, so long as he reaches it.

[helpfulbug]

for the blorbo meme, could I ask yyh? :3c 😄

YES i will always use any excuse to talk about yyh thank you sarah<3

i really like how u explained your answers a bit w dmc so ill also hide mine under a readmore: (also no emojis bc im on desktop i prommy well get through it no matter what tho)

GLUP SHITTO ASK MEME

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

anyone who follows my yyh posting knows im working on in theory a yukina specific au so obviously shes my fav:) shes the twin sister of hiei one of the main characters (the short troll doll shaped fellow) their mother was part of an ice demon culture where women bore only girls on their own but their mum went off and had a little fun and came back pregant w a girl (yukina) and a boy (hiei) she gave birth to both of them and while she was still down from giving birth they made her best friend throw hiei off a cliff and assumed he died.... so he had his whole shonen character orgin story but never forgot where he came from and returned there as a teen. their mother had died and his sister had set out to find him. the only thing she had to go on was the "tear" of her mother bc ice demons shet tears that turn into extremely valueable pearls so shes looking for her brother who will ofc recognize his pearl. she enters the story when the gang learns a demon has been kidnapped and is being abused bc of her valuable tears and they learn its hieis sister when he kamikazes the guys holding her....she immediatly recognizes smth in him and he asks him who he is but he just responds w "no one" and after that they have this weird relationship of recognition but hiei can never tell her hes her brother for reasons i cant explain bc this is already like a page of text so tldr: scorpio legend back story and relation to the main charas that make me cry and throw up every single day of my life killer design i need to stop now i could go on forever one of my ALL TIME FAV CHARACTERS EVER (im so mad she gets sidelined that im actively working on an au)

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

im gonna go the creature route here once more and say puu!! bc hes literally shaped^^ hes connected to the main character and supposed to show yusukes innermost self so he feels everything he feels and changes w yusuke over the course of the story i wont say too much but know theres some instances of puu that slay me on impact everytime i experience them.......CREATURE

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

not really underappreciated in the tumblr scene but GENKAI you might know her from my old url shes the legendary gamer grandma!!! shes just an old as shit tiny women who can shoot lasers and has an arcade in her home w games that she herself has to put quarters in i love her sm if u say anything mean about her she will kill you on the spot or beat u in street fighters at her house whatever works for her

again slightly spoilers but the way she and the first big antagonist are connected and play off eachother......togashi literally invented femism here (and uninvented it w biski in hxh)

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

koto!!!! togashis mind when he wrote the quintessential tournament arc and had the whole thing commentated and refereed by women. koto is just in the ring to see violence and blood and will complain if someone is having a shonen character monologue instead of fighting her design is also really cool shes a fox girl w a microphone doing backflips!! she sadly only really appears in the tournaments but when she does.....you know i go insane!!!!!

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

i can say this in good faith bc im part of the elite tumblr users who can experience the chapter black arc w a gay gaze like it was meant to be consumed bc hes very fucked up but also he was brainwashed as a child so whatever maybe hes right also i will be sending him to super hell very shortly

if were going less villian and more main character i have to say kuwabara bc i think a lot of ppl think hes super annoying and loud but hes actual the blueprint for all gay shonen boys out there....if your reaction to getting punched in the face is "omg he remembered my name" bestie.....i have news for you. also actually fits the description of poor little meow meow

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

koenma im 100% sure he inspired boss baby also hes collecting child soldiers and manipulating them bc hes too lazy to do his job when this doesnt work out he just looks for someone new who cares what happens to the last guy if i say acab im including koenma in this

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

as promised sensui and itsuki go to superhell i mean is it any different than spending eternity in the void at least there will be other gay ppl so youre welcome:)

also kurama bc hes commited crimes (in a funny way) and is fruity (im banking on him escaping i just think it would be funny if he was in there for a bit)

but also dont pretty much all of our main cast take vacation jobs in demon world in one part of the story.......so theyve all at least BEEN to superhell i guess

[fearlessinger]

Hello if this is weird be free to ignore it . But what are your favourite books ? ( Aside from TOA )

Hi! It’s not weird, don’t worry, that’s a lovely question! 

Not gonna lie tho, you’re putting me in a tight spot bc I’m terrible at picking favorites lol. for me it’s always “here’s my Current Obsession, and here’s everything else that left a mark on me one way or another which is basically everything I didn’t immediately forget 5 minutes after having read it. 

So, to make things easier for myself I’m gonna exclude a priori anglo literature bc there’s enough talk about that on this website already. This is still in no way an easy task ahhh

Italo Calvino. Honestly a lot of the names & titles I’m gonna cite may vary depending on when I’m asked but no matter what his name will always be somewhere at the top of any personal fave list of mine. I can’t even choose ONE book to recommend, everything he wrote is fantastic and no work of his is like the other, even his essays are a joy to read. In a famous cycle of lectures he outlines what he thinks of as indispensable qualities of the kind of literature he wants to write and read: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity, consistency - in order of importance, and it’s the best summary of his style I can think of. It has this ethereal, almost weightless, fairy tale-esque quality, even when it tells of real history. It has depth of meanings and truths but it never gives them to you straight; rather it invites you to make your own way to them, and the journey feels somehow both deeply personal and universal at the same time. His books are ones you can and will want to devour in one sitting and then think about for months afterwards. My first encounter with Calvino was The Baron in the Trees and its spiritual successors, The Cloven Viscount and The Nonexistent Knight, but the ones I’ve reread most out of all of them are The Castle of Crossed Destinies, which is really a book about the act of storytelling, and Marcovaldo, which is a gentle, humorous, melancholy portrait of the extremely modest, simple life, aspirations and dreams of a farmer turned industrial laborer in 1950s-60s Italy.

Jules Verne. I just inhaled his books as a child and will always hold them dear in my heart. I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff in there that’s not aged well, but nonetheless this is the kind of adventure I dreamed about quite literally, these stories just opened up my imagination like WHOA. Special mention for the In Search of the Castaways - Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas - The Mysterious Island unofficial trilogy, definitely my fave of the bunch, starring my proto-Blorbo Captain Nemo, a prime example of poor little meow meow ante litteram, LOVE that guy so much. And I’m gonna say something a lil heretic here but you can skip the slower sections! You can jump ahead dozens of pages if you want! You do not need to read everything to be able to enjoy these books, go straight to the good parts, skim everything else or go back to it later, put your own interest and pleasure first! (This honestly goes for all kinds of literature. Books do have a fast forward button and you should always feel free to use it)

In the same vein, Dumas (père). Just let me be the basic-est of basic bitches for a sec and rec The Three Musketeers + sequels. I know, I know there’s like 3000 adaptations of these works around we all know the story but I still think the og novels are worth a read bc they are great and just straight up FUN. 

Bianca Pitzorno is a tragically underrated kids’ lit author and the main reason why she’s so underrated is bc she writes almost exclusively about GIRLS. The horror. Her books were such a huge formative influence on me, with their fully fleshed out fully flawed female protagonists, driving their own stories both for good and ill. I’m afraid there may not exist english translations of most of her work, but if you manage to get your hands on a version that you can read of L’incredibile storia di Lavinia, La bambola dell’alchimista, Polissena del Porcello, La bambina col falcone, La bambinaia francese… I promise you’ll be in for an unforgettable ride. I love especially how weird a lot of her stories get, and how unabashedly hopeful they all are - sometimes even too much, but hey, that’s what kid me needed and I doubt I was the only one.

The Divine Comedy. Listen. Listen I don't know how this rec (I know you didn't ask but this has turned into a rec list apparently whoops) is gonna work if you don't know Italian bc poetry is so hard to translate even when the translators are given enough time and money to do it properly - something that's tragically more and more rare these days - and while I'm a big proponent of the 'just fucking read the text, you can always look at the commentary later' school of thought this is a case where the text is old enough and full enough of pointed yet obscure-to-us-modern-readers references that you really are gonna miss out on a lot if you don't have a good commentary on hand. So like, I'm not gonna pretend it's no work to read the Comedy, but damn if it isn't worth it. I know on tumblr Dante is mainly known as the guy who wrote self insert rpf of the Bible and I'm not here to tell anyone to stop joking abt it bc it's damn funny but I wish more people realized, too, how immense and nobilitating of a compliment to fanfic it is, to compare it to the Commedia. How empowering the comparison should be, bc IT IS. Because the Commedia is an absolute masterpiece. Not just on the technical plane (the way it straight up SINGS when it’s read out loud) but in the way it goes right to your heart. It's a work so full of love and so unashamed of it. It is about religion, yes, specifically a very medieval kind of catholicism, but it’s also fundamentally about PEOPLE. All of them, the good, the bad, the infinite combinations in between. About how only through the work of knowing them and loving them you can hope to get to truly know and love god.

Cesare Pavese. No joke this man’s writing can and WILL give u depression. You gotta take it in small doses. There’s two works of his that I can never stop thinking about: The Moon and the Bonfires, about rural northern Italy and the partisan war and family and blood and the way roots ground you and trap you simultaneously, which I will never read again because I'm not strong enough, and Dialogues with Leucò, a collection of imagined dialogues between Greek mythological figures exploring existential themes through incredibly effective and piercing back and forths, which I’ve reread a number of times and loved more every time. It’s a very short and incredibly dense book, and one that I recommend wholeheartedly. 

One hundred years of solitude. This is where I realize that there’s a bit of a common thread tying all my biggest faves together and it’s a kind of… mythological quality I guess? Tho not always strictly tied to classical mythology, obviously, of the storytelling. Not that it’s not grounded in reality, because it very much is, but that it sort of transcends it also on some level? Idk. This book made me feel small and finite in the best way, it told me of a whole world that I didn’t know about and yet that I could recognize and resonate with nonetheless in so many ways. Just a stunning, deeply compelling read all throughout.

I’ve been writing for like an hour already so I’m gonna stop here for now lol

I’ll leave you with the (not rrverse) book that’s next on my to read list bc I may as well keep plugging Italian authors, especially when they are actually writing in english: Let the mountains be my grave by Francesca Tacchi. I have high hopes for this one, the premise sounds extremely my jam