#the obvious solution is to set up a side blog

[leporidaisical]

Dragon a Day (late) 2 - Current Avatar!

Just a lil one for today

(like what you see? my comms are open on ko-fi! - link in pinned) (comms are more detailed than this)

[protemporescitor]

"But she ded tho" (a.k.a. the dumbest argument against Clerith) - A rant

To expand on my previous post, in which I posited the crazy, far-fetched theory that in a fantasy setting mayhap death is not the relationship brick wall that it would be in a more grounded, realistic one*, I just want to bring up a few points to further buttress this off-the-wall notion.

"Cloud can't be with Aerith. She's dead!"

We've all heard it a thousand times. It is the argument most commonly levelled against Clerith. It is also the worst (and laziest) one.

It's often delivered in a declamatory and glib fashion, as though it were some sort of obvious conversation ender. Q.E.D. End of debate. The ultimate gotcha. "Checkmate, Clerith fans!" the haters think to themselves, chortling and patting themselves on their backs for this profound insight. (Insert tasteless and juvenile comments about Aerith being "shish kebab-ed" by Sephiroth as desired.)

And all I can think is "That's it? That's your best argument? That's some weak tea, man."

Despite its myriad flaws, this idea continues to radiate throughout the fandom a good quarter century after the original title's release, as though it had never once been challenged. It is a feeble and untenable position, a house built on sand, and one that deserves to be thoroughly demolished. With Rebirth on the horizon, and all the shipping wars nonsense rising from the grave once more as a result, it is high time, if you'll forgive the expression, that we laid this cliché to rest once and for all.

(*Note: Even in a more "realistic" setting lacking any kind of fictional afterlife, this would still be a gross oversimplification of the story's themes of loss, regret, and yearning, as well as entirely ignoring the idea of love transcending death, but we'll set those concerns aside for the time being.)

Lastly, before we begin: This is not an anti-Zerith / CloTi screed. Those pairings both have an undeniable canonical basis. My aim here is simply to demonstrate that the notion that Cloud and Aerith are forever separated by death is rendered invalid by virtue of the type of setting that their story takes place in. (Something that, frankly, one would reasonably assume to be perfectly obvious. Alas, such is not the case. And so I find myself yet again pointing out the glaringly obvious.)

Now, without further ado, let's begin:

Part 1. Before (the Compilation) Crisis

In the beginning, there was the year 1997, and Squaresoft had just released their latest title. And lo, it was good. We spent days and weeks following our favorite polygon people around their embattled little globe. We fought, laughed, cried, and struggled up until the Meteor Crisis reached its crescendo, and the credits rolled. Gosh, what an ending! But what did it all mean? How did things REALLY turn out? Did we get a happy ending at all?

According to some, Cloud lived happily ever after with his childhood sweetheart, Tifa. According to others, he continued to roam the earth in search of his Promised Land to be reunited with his tragic lost love, Aerith. Yuffie swiped everyone's materia (again). Cid finally went to the moon. Red XIII opened a haberdashery in Costa del Sol, or something. No-one really knows for sure.

And so, the fandom began to spread to every corner of the internet in search of answers. Thus began the age of dissension. Opinions clashed across fanzines, blogs, and fanfic country alike. Wild fan theories abounded pertaining to special codes, methods, and blood rituals capable of bringing back our erstwhile flower girl. The fan-made media bubble surrounding the game turned into a lawless land of misinformation and vicious disagreement. None were spared.

A brief digression on why said rumours persisted for as long as they did (CAUTION: Massive spoilers for Chrono Trigger).

One side proposed a simple solution. A way to cut the proverbial Gordian Knot of our fandom. It was quite obvious, really. Just staring everyone in the face. The flower girl was dead, and that was that. Thus, there was only one possible conclusion to our narrative. Cloud's feelings on the matter were, of course, irrelevant. With Aerith out of the picture, the only logical choice left to him was to settle down with Tifa, and that was that. Never mind the themes of doomed, tragic love and the possibility, strongly hinted at throughout the game and outright confirmed during its ending, of existence after death.

Overall, direct evidence for said afterlife was scant, but not entirely absent from the story. As an example, at one point during her childhood, Aerith speaks to Elmyra, trying to comfort her, saying that the spirit of her husband wanted to come visit her, confirming that an afterlife presence did indeed exist. But for some, this simply wasn't evidence enough. And so the war raged on. Which brings us to…

Part 2. Advent Children: The smoking gun

Remember back when a certain portion of the fan base insisted that Gaia erased all the humans at the end of the story, on the flimsy basis that we don't see any during the game's brief post-credit scene? Well, that little theory was neatly undone by subsequent releases in the Compilation, showing regular ol' humans still roaming around Gaia in all their everyday human-ness. Hence, it is rarely brought up these days. Would that the pernicious notion of "but she ded tho" could follow in its footsteps, given that the same film roundly contradicts it in every way possible.

For starters, the film inexplicably bring two characters, Rufus and Tseng, hitherto assumed to be dead, back to life, probably in an effort by Square to shoehorn as many recognizable members of the cast into their animated feature as they could. But that's not all. Next we have three characters that everyone agreed were deader than doornails ALSO making appearances, first in flashbacks, and then directly influencing the world of the living. Zack speaks to and encourages Cloud during his struggle. Aerith reaches out to him (quite literally) from beyond the grave and assists him in defeating Bahamut. And of course Sephiroth pops back into existence just in time for his contractually-obligated boss fight near the end of the film. All three demonstrate quite clearly and definitively that death is not the impenetrable barrier to continuing interactions between the living and the dead in the world of Final Fantasy VII, as a certain segment of the fan base would have everyone believe it is.

To be blunt, I don't know what level of dense you'd have to be to keep up this so-called "argument" in light of this information. Advent Children reiterates what most of us already knew, that our story takes place in a fantasy setting* with a confirmed afterlife existence.

(*You'd think that the name of the series would clue people in.)

The notion that death represents, within the context of said setting, the ultimate end was already softly contradicted by the original game's narrative, and then (because that was apparently too subtle for some people) flat-out annihilated by the existence and events of Advent Children. It should have long since ended this nonsense. But somehow, it didn't. These revelations, obvious though they are, remain ignored for some reason. And so, the cycle of willful ignorance continues.

But we're not done yet. We now move on to more tangential, but still relevant arguments against this line of "reasoning".

Part 3. Stop Hitting Yourself: Why "but she ded tho" is insulting to everyone

And I do mean everyone. Let's examine this, shall we?

It's insulting to Cloud.

To suggest that he loses interest in Aerith the moment she sinks beneath the waters, or that he is obligated to move on simply because she is no longer among the living, with no mourning period, no time to work through his guilt and grief, is to portray him as shallow and uncaring, something that goes against virtually all the characterization that he's been given throughout the story. The line of thinking apparently goes "Well, she's gone. That sucks. She was cute, too. Better move on to the next available piece of meat."

Sounds pretty gross when you write the quiet part out loud, doesn't it?

It's insulting to Aerith.

"Didn't even toss the b@#h a Phoenix Down, just dumped'er in the water LAWL"

I'm sure you've all come across comments like that at some point, usually originating from some errant redditor or blogger. Thinking themselves fine fellows and enlightened, above-it-all gadflies, they provide us at length with this and other prime specimens of 14 year-old internet edgelord "humour" that carries about as much edge as a perfect sphere. Remarks like these serve little purpose beyond confirming my suspicion that our fandom is indeed plagued with illiterates who can't tell the difference between the terms "revive" and "resurrect", and insist on conflating game mechanics with storytelling. And you wonder why some people are confounded by words like "flammable" and "inflammable".

(All right, I'll put the salt down. For now.)

"The party's designated white mage dies, oh no, that's so sad, boo-hoo, life goes on," I hear you say.

But boiling Aerith's role down to one of merely that of a temporary party member who kicks the bucket halfway through the story, never to be heard from again, both cheapens her purpose within the larger narrative and denies the clear effect that she continues to exert, directly and indirectly, on it and the other characters after her passing.

Though Aerith may have departed the world of the living, the story makes it abundantly clear that her influence on it has not ended. There are hints here and there that she still tries to assist her friends from the afterlife. As an example, when the party rediscovers Cloud in Mideel after assuming that he might be lost for good, a villager sums it up best with the following remark: "That boy must have one hell of a guardian angel."

It's only mentioned as a vague hint in the original story, but it is clear that some beneficent force is acting on Cloud and Tifa's behalf, aiding them in their survival and uniting them in the Lifestream in order to help Cloud recover his memories. Later supplemental material confirms that to have been Aerith's doing. If that's not enough to convince you, though, the original game's ending leaves little room for ambiguity as to Aerith's continuing influence. When Holy sputters and fails, she coaxes the Lifestream itself to intervene, burning away the calamitous meteorite, helping her friends put an end to the planetary crisis long after her own demise. I suppose the lesson here for silver-haired godhead wannabe villains is this: Strike her down, and she shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

So the idea that Aerith's participation in the story immediately comes grinding to a halt upon her death is both puerile and easily demonstrated to be false. But even if that were the case, downplaying her lingering influence on Cloud and the other characters in this manner would still be ignoring the creators' intent. Whether one interprets Cloud and Aerith's relationship as romantic or merely platonic, it is clear that her death, the loss of one of his closest allies, is something that wounds him deeply, and scars him forever. Two years on, he still pines for her company and desires her forgiveness for his perceived failures. She clearly occupies a special place in his heart, and her memory and legacy live on within him, spurring him on as he wanders the planet, searching for some way to meet her again, defying the impossible. (Which, as we all know, isn't going to happen. This is, after all, Final Gritty Reality we're talking about here.)

Ah, but all of this is a moot point, you say? Even if he did wish to be with her, preferring the company of the last Cetra over that of his childhood friend… well, too bad. That's no longer an option. We can spout all of this verbiage about "soul pain" this and "star-crossed lovers" that, but at the end of the day, Aerith is still dead, and that's that. At least, that's what ardent CloTi fans will insist, no matter what. So, what is Tifa to Cloud, then, by their own logic?

Which brings us to perhaps our most salient, and most overlooked point, at least as far as CloTi shippers are concerned. If all that wasn't enough for you, you may want to consider that it's deeply insulting to Tifa, as well. Grievously so, in fact. Quite possibly more so than any other character in this whole equation. And the reason why should be plain as day if you stop to think about it for a fraction of a second.

Here's the thing… if you can't articulate why you think Cloud would prefer to be with Tifa in spite of Aerith being alive, then you are essentially declaring her the "winner" by default on no other merits than the fact that she's still sucking down air. Stating "but she ded bro" means relegating Tifa to the role of a consolation prize. I don't think I could ever hurl such a staggering insult towards her as her biggest fans keep doing, without even realizing they're doing it.

Ask yourselves, is that really what you want for your supposed favourite character? To frame her as being doomed to eternally play second fiddle to her fallen friend? Cloud's "plan B"? The "side piece"? Someone who only stands a chance if her rival in love is literally six feet under? I'm sure she'd be thrilled by the high regard in which her own fans seem to hold her. (Hey, you said it, not me. It's not my fault if you don't take the time to actually consider the ramifications of what rolls off your keyboard. But by all means, keep insulting your own favorite character just to put down a ship you don't like.)

In closing, if we unearth the subtext and reframe it to highlight what people are, in essence, saying, it's this: "It's a good thing that she-who-shall-not-be-named bit the dust, because otherwise our beloved Best Girl Tifa (tm) wouldn't stand a chance."

It's a simple enough question: Why do you think that Cloud and Tifa belong together? What, in your mind, makes them a good fit for each other?

"Well, the competish is dead." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for your best girl, now is it?

Part 4. "Heads, I Win. Tails, You Lose": A brief word on hypocrisy

In fandom, it's often the loudest and most obnoxious voices who tend to drown out the more reasonable ones, those of fans who are just minding their own business and grooving on the thing that they like. Which, unfortunately, renders this next part a necessary component of the greater argument that I'm trying to make. Multishippers and sane, reasonable CloTi and Zerith fans may consider themselves exempted from the following harangue.

The rest of y'all, buckle up.

The too-oft repeated refrain of "but she ded tho" entails a twofold hypocrisy. The first part is:

Case of Tifa: Fan hypocrisy regarding death.

Strident anti-Clerith fans, with their usual level of maturity, will often bring up Aerith's demise in a gleeful, mocking tone that can best be summed up as "ding dong, the witch is dead!" And if the shoe were on the other foot? If their Best Girl Tifa (tm) were the one pushing up daisies instead of Miz Gainsborough? Would they be quite so cavalier in their attitudes?

Who wants to bet that these fans wouldn't be making this "argument" so loudly if it was their ship that was in question? Consider this scenario: Suppose that the remake trilogy does the unthinkable and has Tifa die in Aerith's place. What then? Would they accept that "but she ded tho" is, at best, a double-edged sword, one that applies equally to their own favourite ship were their fortunes to be reversed?

Something tells me that's not the case.

But if you think that's hypocritical, you ain't seen nothing yet. This first point pales in comparison to…

The Zerith Exemption: Fan hypocrisy regarding the afterlife.

You know what my favourite thing about this whole debacle is? When people inform me that because they are separated by death, Cloud and Aerith have no hope of ever being together again. They will then unironically pivot to shipping Zack and Aerith, two characters who are together in the MOTHERFUCKING AFTERLIFE.

It's wild. How do you even compress that much cognitive dissonance into one skull? We're talking about mind-melting, Olympic medal-worthy levels of mental gymnastics here.

Now, before someone accuses me of being morose, I'm not suggesting that Cloud hop off the nearest cliff just to be with his beloved (Aerith would not approve of him throwing his life away, for one), just that when he reaches the end of his natural life (which may not be too long, given the cells eating away at his body), he can finally be reunited with her in the afterlife.

Many ardent CloTi shippers see themselves as bound by law to uphold Zerith as a shield against the dreaded Clerith plague. But to proclaim, implicitly or explicitly, that the afterlife encompasses one but not the other is not an idea that can be taken seriously. It remains an utterly bizarre blind spot, one that beggars belief.

On a related note, there is the infamous misconception that is…

Part 5. The ZaCloud Fallacy

While this is not directly related to my main point, I nonetheless find myself compelled to address this issue. There is a long-standing confusion that bedevils our fandom, one that has its roots in the Shipping Wars (tm). I am, of course, referring to the ZaCloud Fallacy.

We owe this particular misapprehension to Crisis Core, a prequel/gaiden game that was released ten years after the original FFVII. Already, its existence can mess up the timeline, so to speak, as, strangely, people tend to treat it as a sequel rather than a prequel, and as though it were adding new and vital building blocks to the world of FFVII instead of merely distorting the original story while retreading it with a far less interesting cast of characters. It also retcons major elements of the original story that it shouldn't have (such as the events taking place in Nibelheim five years prior to the main narrative), lazily steals Clerith scenes only to rehash them with Zack and Aerith, and forces players to endure, at length, crimes against literature, courtesy of Genesis.

It's an odd prequel, to say the least, given how heavily it relies on the original story for context. Sequentially, it may take place before FFVII, but it can only be fully appreciated with the original in mind; it cannot be treated as a stand-alone story. The worst thing about Crisis Core existing is that playing it first can outright ruin people's perception of the original narrative by spoiling several major plot elements and even lessening them in the process. Crisis Core's writers are especially guilty of cheapening dramatic moments like Zack's last stand by transforming it from a quiet, tragic, harrowing scene about sacrifice to an utterly over-the-top and emotionally overwrought trainwreck. It all merely serves to add to the confusion, especially for gamers who started with this title instead of the original.

But if that were not enough, Crisis Core's reckless meddling with the story combined with the acrimonious and all-consuming nature of the shipping wars has resulted in one of the most nonsensical misconceptions in the entire fandom. During Crisis Core's ending, Zack implores Cloud to carry on his legacy, thus giving rise to the erroneous assumption that Cloud's behaviour in disc 1 is merely that of him "being Zack". Clerith-hating fans, in particular, pounced on this idea as a way to put a safe distance between him and Aerith, characterizing their interactions, whether platonic or romantic, as merely a case of Cloud utilizing Zack's memories and personality around her (Never mind that Zack and Cloud's personalities are as different as night and day).

It is a fundamental and willful misreading of the story, a gross oversimplification of a more complex and granular truth in service of a fan-originated meta-narrative, one that has been assembled in order to reach the conclusion that Cloud and Aerith's relationship is null and void, and that therefore the romance between him and Tifa remains unchallenged. (Never mind that the story is intended as more than just some playground tug-of-war romance). To maintain this lie is to do violence to the story by destroying Cloud's character arc and reducing him to a virtual non-entity until the very end of the game.

Having already been rebuked in regards to this pervasive delusion, certain fans have tried to hedge their bets by suggesting a second, more advanced version of this idea. ZaCloud Fallacy 2.0, if you will, which states that Cloud is only in Zack Mode (tm) when he's around Aerith. I don't even know what to say about that sort of nonsense. To paraphrase Charles Babbage, I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such an assertion.

I'd go into this in more detail, but YouTube creator LinkOnTheBrink has already covered this topic extensively in their superlative video essay "How Shipping Can Ruin a Narrative".

It may seem like I'm trashing Zack or Zerith here, but I'm really not. That was never my intent. So let me be clear about this: I like Zack. I just hate Crisis Core and what it's done to this fandom. If you prefer CloTi and Zerith to everything else, I don't much mind. Ultimately, this isn't about shipping wars nonsense, but protecting the narrative from such nonsense.

And that leads us to…

Part 6. I Against I: Where the fandom went wrong

We all know that the infamous FFVII Shipping Wars (tm) are as stupid as they are inescapable. Anyone who's spent any time at all within this fandom has inevitably run afoul of them and their detritus at some point, whether they've chosen to participate in them or abstain from the whole debacle. But there's a reason why this acrimonious dispute has raged on for as long as it has. Much like Blade Runner fans would argue until they were blue in the face about whether or not Deckard was a replicant, fans of this story have been squabbling about CloTi versus Clerith for ages for similar reasons. (Zerith got roped in as a "political wedge", I would argue, as much as a pairing in its own right.)

It's more than just a war over shipping, it's a war over canonization, over character motivation and psychology. Of how we ultimately interpret the story and its characters. Given the vagueness of the story's ending, one can't help but wonder and speculate as to how everyone ended up afterwards. (Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus may have offered some answers, but they still largely sidestep these questions in a noncommittal, to-be-continued manner.)

The problem is that, for many fans, it isn't possible to simply say "It's my preference" and be done with the matter. Unlike most rarepairs and bananas pairings like Cait x Jenova, CloTi and Clerith remain hotly contested because they go beyond mere shipping, or even aesthetic preference, or which characters one most identifies with; they lie at the core of how we perceive the story and its inhabitants. In that sense, I don't consider it to be an entirely frivolous debate, just an unsolvable one.

So, what's the answer?

There's this long-standing piece of received wisdom about JRPGs vs. WRPGs, where the latter involves more freedom at the expense of focused storytelling, and vice versa. This idea might hold true to some extent, but it is not some iron law that must be obeyed without question. For a game like FFVII, choices that radically affect the narrative structure would be considered an aberration and not the norm. And yet, it might represent the only way out of this quagmire that doesn't involve throwing half the fandom under the bus in the process.

For me, Mass Effect and similar titles (e.g., Quest for Glory) have already presented an obvious solution: Let the players choose. (There is already some precedent in the form of the Gold Saucer scene, although it ultimately doesn't change the outcome of the story all that much.) It may not be a perfect solution, but I'd argue that it's far better than leaving one side out in the cold. At least this way, everyone gets something.

"Ah, but this is not feasible," I hear you respond. "Not for an Eastern-style RPG, at least. Only one of these pairings can be correct, and one must, above all, respect the creator's vision."

Yeah, look where that got us.

Part 7. As You Like It: Ship whatever you please (just stop this nonsense)

I realize that this little essay of mine has been digressive, rudimentary, rambling, extemporaneous, and scattershot. So let me try to reach some kind of meaningful conclusion here.

Much of this anti-Clerith rhetoric we've seen over the years seems to stem from a place of insecurity, whether it's murmuring "but she ded tho", claiming that Cloud was only ever Zack in disc 1, inventing a fictional sex scene underneath the Highwind from whole cloth, and so on… The thing is, there is no need for it. Clerith and CloTi both exist canonically. Even the game manual says as much, describing Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith's relationship as a love triangle. In other words, the love triangle is what's canon, and the rest is by and large up for interpretation. (Zerith also canonically exists, and we've known this since the OG.)

The true reason why this whole disagreement has gone on for eternity, I suspect, has less to do with any debate over canonicity alone than it does the sheer enmity and pettiness that it has continued to spark for so long. It has metastasized over the years, going from being a mere squabble over which pair is canon to an exercise in holding the other side in contempt. That endless cycle of disrespect and reprisals is undoubtedly where it all went wrong in the first place. (If I had a nickel for every time someone commented "but she ded tho" or "wHy iS zAcK bLoNd iN tHiS pIc?" when someone posts a piece of Clerith fan art, I'd have a pretty nice collection of coins by now.)

Obviously, we should all try to just click off when we encounter content that we dislike, but it's not always easy, especially when something we harbour a strong aversion to is so deeply enmeshed within something that we do enjoy. And so, our fight-or-flight instinct kicks in. Before you ask, yes, I'm as guilty of that as anyone else.

Still, I firmly believe that the occasional olive branch can go a long way. So let me simply say that I have the utmost respect for Tifa and Zack. They are worthy characters in their own right. So create and share all the CloTi/Zerith fan works your little hearts desire. Hire a fleet of skywriters to declare Zerith your favourite couple. Throw a giant CloTi parade through the middle of Times Square. We don't mind. Honestly.

As stated above, whether it's CloTi, Clerith, or Zerith, you can stop fretting over which one is canon; they all are. The other three permutations (Zakkura, Zifa, AerTi) don't get much in the way of canon acknowledgement, but they probably should at this point.

In the end, this is about saving the narrative from the shipping wars, as much as anything else. To say that you prefer CloTi or something else to Clerith is fine. To assert that Clerith doesn't exist in any form, however, is where I begin to take exception.

Ultimately, I say ship what you like. All I ask is that you retire this sort of narrative-wasting nonsense. It's time we threw it into the garbage can of gaming history where it belongs. As for questions of motives, character interpretation, canonization, and so forth… if we cannot reach an accord, then let us at least try for a more amicable disagreement.

As for my fellow Clerith supporters, the next time you see the withered old canard that is "but she ded tho" being bandied about in the wild, feel free to laugh and treat it with the derision and contempt that it so richly deserves.

[shxtodxroki]

Match-Up Exchange

This is part of a Jujutsu Kaisen match-up exchange done for @deeveedeedee for the exchange we arranged! Hi hi, apologies this took me an extra day to get out but I hope you enjoy it as much as I did with the one you wrote me :> I proofread it but I did so late at night so apologies if I missed any typos or grammar mistakes! You seem like a very kind person and I really enjoyed interacting with you, please feel free to hop over to this blog anytime if you have a request or are just looking to chat :)

I’d Match You With:

Kento Nanami! :)

Reasoning:

Honestly I was really torn between two different options for you when reading your description of yourself, and the one I didn’t go with will be mentioned later but when reading your description of how you prefer to receive and give love with a partner that was what made me settle on Nanami over my other choice :] I already think he’d really admire you as a person, and I also think he’d be very compatible with you in a relationship so he felt like the best fit overall :>

Headcanons About Your Relationship:

- First of all, though Nanami knows that compliments can make you feel awkward so he tries not to push you out of your comfort zone, he finds you absolutely stunning and in his eyes, everything about you is notable and beautiful. As your partner, he looks at you so much that he eventually notices even the smallest things about your features - like the soft scar on your nose. which he loves to kiss :>

- Of course he’d never, ever push you, but he hopes that one day you’ll feel confident enough to believe him when he compliments and tells you how much he adores you, so he can explain to you how he sees you as a rare light in the bleak sky he usually lives within. Nanami became so jaded towards the world for quite a while after his experiences both in a regular corporate job and as a jujutsu sorcerer, but getting to come home to you on those awful days where everything seemed so screwed up and horrible in the world has always been like a soothing balm seeping into his skin. He sees you and he’s reminded that there are still positive, shining gems within this world, and you and the students are the only ones who make him feel this way so he hopes to one day share these feelings with you, but is careful to never cross your boundaries or make you uncomfortable by sharing too much or overwhelming you

- He’s also truly a wonderful partner, he understands what's important in a relationship in order for it to fully thrive and grow and he does his best to be the best lover he can be at all times. He’ll never pull any immature moves like the silent treatment on you, even if the two of you have a disagreement he always wants to communicate openly and have a civil discussion and will never so much as raise his voice at you. He’s so patient with you too, as you get more comfortable with him you notice how he opens up more as well rather than getting upset as you show him your truest, most vulnerable self. It’s obvious how much he loves knowing that you’ve grown comfortable enough with him to show him all sides of you with the way he sports such a soft, warm smile whenever moments like that occur

- And he’s not the type to hold it against you if you’re ever having a hard time and run out of patience at some point, he knows you’re only human and everyone has moments where they’ve reached their limit. He always gives you space to de-stress however you need to while making it clear that he’s not closing any doors on you, and whenever you feel more at ease and ready to discuss what he did that set you off, he’s happy to do so and work to find a solution because he knows you’d never intentionally hurt him and that you value this relationship as much as he does

- He knows how you feel about gifts, so although he would happily spoil you if you asked, he typically opts for treating you to a nice meal (either home-cooked or at a restaurant, your choice) or something you’ve specifically told him you want for anniversaries or holidays together if you choose to celebrate. He really enjoys spending quality time with you, too, when he gets home from work and just needs to unwind from the stress of his job even just laying in bed beside you manages to refresh him in a way nothing else can. And he sees the way you take care of him and sometimes do his chores or tasks for him when he’s stressed, and never fails to vocalize his appreciation for what you’ve done and encourages you to take a break and not worry so much about him if he worries you’re stretching yourself too thin

- When it comes to making you laugh, though it may not seem like Nanami’s strong suit and he’s not usually one for cracking jokes, you’re one of the few people he will open up to enough to joke around with when he’s in a brighter mood :> Mostly because he loves hearing your laugh, so when he thinks of a particularly good joke or a comment he knows you’ll enjoy he always saves it for just the right moment and is a genius at comedic timing (though you’re pretty much the only one who knows that since you’re the only person he cares enough to impress with his humor)

- I don’t think Nanami was much of a music person before you met him, but after the two of you get together he slowly finds himself listening to music on his morning commute as he curates a playlist filled with songs that remind him of you <3 Whether it’s songs he’s caught you listening to/singing while you’re together or ones that you’ve shown him yourself, or even potentially songs you’ve done figure skating routines to if you’re willing to share that with him. You’ve opened his eyes to the world of music, and though he doesn’t often seek out new artists on his own, when he does find something for himself that he likes he always comes home and shares his discoveries with you as he wants to be able to connect with you over something he knows is incredibly important to you

- And he’s an absolute sucker for planning cute dates he knows you’ll love in order to surprise you, so one night he takes you out to a roller-skating rink on a couples skate night because he knows how much you enjoy it :> And I actually don’t think he can skate very well, so he’s pretty slow with it and clings to the walls a bit as he occasionally feels embarrassed to watch small children pass him, but the embarrassment quickly fades as he sees you having fun and in your element, and he can’t help but smile at the sight of him whenever you skate up to ask him how he’s doing or offer to skate with him for a while

- And nature dates too! He’d make a whole thing of it, like going on a little hike together around mid-day up to some sort of river or lake and letting you swim in it while he dips his feet in at the edge and prepares a few towels and a blanket for you to warm yourself up once you get out of the freezing water <3 And then he has a yummy picnic for the two of you to enjoy as the sun begins to set, which you watch together before enjoying a night of stargazing to top it off :> He knows quite a few constellations so he’s happy to point them out for you if you’d like, but if you’d rather just sit there and stare at the stars or just talk to one another, he’s more than content with that too

- But even with the way he plans frequent dates and spends quality time with you often, he also knows that you enjoy having time to yourself and is more than happy to give you that time. He strives to find a balance between spending time with you and showcasing his love while also giving you space to be your own person and enjoy time to yourself, and if you ever decline an invite from him and tell him that you’d just prefer some time alone to decompress, he wouldn’t be upset in the slightest and would absolutely encourage you to take all the time you need and lets you know that he’s happy to reschedule for whenever you feel up to doing something together

- I think he’d really adore the fact that you do both gymnastics and figure skating, especially figure skating. He finds both of them so beautiful and fluid and impressive, and while he respects that these are your hobbies, if you ever invite him to watch you practice he’d be absolutely elated because he just loves watching you move so gracefully. It entrances him, he doesn't even realize how hooked in he gets until you finish a routine and he sees that minutes have passed with him just watching you

- He’d also be incredibly encouraging when it comes to your studies. He knows how difficult school can be especially when it comes to higher education, so he’s more than happy to help you study for exams or read through essays or anything else you may ask of him, and he always makes sure you have a nice meal and your favorite drink or sweet treat while studying to prevent you from pushing yourself too hard <3 And he knows how much you love learning so he enjoys being an outlet for you to share that knowledge without feeling like you’re being evaluated or graded. Ramble off to him about something you’ve learned while studying geography while you’re eating and he’s completely hooked, he wants you to be able to be excited about these passions of yours without feeling the academic pressures that often come along with them

- He sees the way you often try to hide your less bright and positive emotions from others or the way you often worry about being a people-pleaser, so he tries his absolute best to show you that you don’t have to do any of that for him. If he ever catches you stretching yourself too thin for the sake of another person, whether that’s him or someone else, he gently ensures that you take a break and take some time to yourself. He’ll turn on a classic horror movie and make your favorite dinner because he loves to cook for you, and just lets you have a night all about focusing on you and rejuvenating your own energy without worrying about anyone else <3

Second Choice:

Honestly I was really considering pairing you with Gojo as well. The two of you are different in a lot of ways, but I still think that for the most part it would allow you to maintain a healthy balance in your relationship and the two of you could work really well together. You share some qualities like a sweet tooth and I think he’d also really like who you are as a person, I just settled for Nanami instead when it came down to showing affection and love as I figured you and Gojo may be a bit mismatched on that scale and while I still think it could absolutely work, Nanami felt like he was a better fit for you in the end

Song For Your Relationship:

Lucky People by Waterparks <3

[redjennies]

In regards to Dragon Age, what really gets me is that people miss the part where the Circles and Templars- while both being *bad*- are fear-responses rather than thinly veiled and easily defined vehicles for oppression and bigotry entirely. They’re not equivalent in any meaningful way to real world institutions like that.

The setting established from the beginning that Mages can- even unintentionally- be very dangerous. It’s not irrational to be a little nervous about people that can level city blocks in a temper tantrum, or become vessels for demons by accident, because these are documented realities; it’s not a matter of ‘oo witchcraft!’ because they actually can do those things. Oppressing and holding these people at gun point, who acquire this power through no fault of their own, is vicious bullshit- but it is a flawed solution to a very real problem, not an invented one. Of course they’re terrified! Mages have demonstrated in extreme cases the ability to bend the flow of time or punch holes in reality!! We’ve watched them do it in the games! What can anyone else do about that?

That doesn’t in any way justify the circles or what the Templars do and act like, but the idea that they literally only exist to be the world’s most obvious oppressors is so dumb. It doesn’t help that the setting forgets it too sometimes.

FUCKING THIS THO.

I don't know how long you've been following my blog, but this is like the crux of my major issue with the Dragon Age fandom. it's not that I'm anti-mage, pro-Chantry. most of my personal canon playthroughs are pro-mage because as I said, in the first two games, siding with the templars means murdering all the mages, which is not my personal cup of tea. my issue here is that this specific oppression metaphor does not work for me for the exact reasons you listed, and yes, that's a problem I have with the writing, but I could deal with bad writing if the fandom at large was willing to add this layer of nuance to the discourse.

like at this point, my expectations for DA4 are abysmal. I will play it and I will probably not shut up about it for weeks, but one thing I'm genuinely excited about is Tevinter because the politics of Tevinter actually make fucking sense. as I've said before "RIP to Circle mages, but if I could throw fireballs, I simply would not let guys with swords oppress me." if we're introducing magic to a setting, it makes more sense for people with literal special powers to be the privileged class (or a more than the oppressed class because otherwise, you end up with this metaphor backfire of accidentally saying "yes, oppressed groups are inherently more dangerous than your average person." regardless of whether your conclusion is that "being bigoted against them is still bad."

I've talked about this before too, but it's extra infuriating because Bioware actually got the "how would magic interact with systems of power" situation right with the biotics in the Mass Effect series. Liara having space magic isn't the same as Kaidan being a biotic. Liara is a member of a species where everyone has biotics and has for some time so they know how to use it without hurting themselves. while Kaidan, on the other hand, was part of the first generation of humans to develop those abilities. it's two completely different experiences, and the game frames the problems Kaidan faces as a human biotic as being tied to his specific experience as someone who developed what were until recently supernatural abilities that could kill him (and by his own account, did kill other children like him) and being fitted with a faulty implant due to humans not having the technology to treat him. while he does mention being stigmatized for "being a freak," Kaidan isn't inherently oppressed for just having magic. he is a disabled test subject who the government would quickly abandon to deal with his physical and mental trauma on his own were he not in the military and he is considered "one of the lucky ones." still, while the specifics of his trauma are fantastical, the general theme of what happened to him is rather realistic given how we treat people with disabilities in the real world.

so to circle back to the Dragon Age mages, were it not for the Templars being meanies, there's no real drawback to being a mage in Thedas so long as mage children are trained properly. it has been around for several generations, it is incredibly powerful, and would you look at that? they have been conveniently put in one place where they can easily communicate with each other and organize. seriously, though, how did the mage rebellion not happen sooner? I mean you could make some comment about why the proletariat, the largest class, does not simply eat the bourgeoisie, but that falls apart when you remember I cannot shoot lightning from my hands.

and what gets me is how many Dragon Age characters are thrown under the bus for simply remembering people CAN shoot lightning from their hands. an obvious example I'm still mad about is Sera, who was initially widely hated by the fandom for being afraid of magic when she literally just has arrows and jars of bees. it still drives me up the wall that Anders fans act like Anders' trauma at the hands of templars inherently absolves him of any wrongdoing, but Fenris just needs to get over Tevinter mages enslaving him and be friends with Anders, who is regularly shitty to elves, and join his fight for justice already. like it is genuinely so funny how most of the fandom hated Dragon Age characters like Fenris and Sera and Vivienne because they firstly committed the sin of "having weird feelings about letting guys with fireballs do whatever they wanted while being a minority" and then the Mage Rights crowd who love their white boy Anders will turn around and be like "why would Chantry stans do this?" like WHAT?

[pathbend-blog]

You Try Waking Up having whole on purpose no side quest listened to Taylor Swift, Jah Jah, and Whole Album Cigarettes after Rut 💿

That was the Ninja Equivalent of she went with her dealer from Brooklyn upstate and hasn't come back yet

Anyway, that dream mattered.

Lingua Ignota gets it. You Used Her Too.

If It's Love Just Say So the right way

@thatannieclark

@bbc6music-blog

That's what she told you. There's a couple of them in the story. She's going to come and stab me if I don't f****** get out of bed 🛏️

I have not upset her once non usefully I imagine.

But who is Annie Clark?

Tumblr's going to figure it out.

"Easy Buck Oven Pastel Cuisinart Cutter Set"©®™

The Meme 🐑

Because she's going to get there and he's going to be like good job sweetie. Got that son of a b**** anyway, he's going to be real mad when he gets here

But that's why I'm asking you about that. 🎂 Who's with that meme where you had the Pastel cutter set? That looks like it's for an Easy bake Oven. 🦌 Buck makes it clever like you like

🌈

Amyl And The Sniffers "You Should Not Be Doing That" over holes with Men like me in them, is an acceptable to me non sect of that faith backround.

You have to not be a tourist and poser there for Shure though.

Teach me more of Him, whatever weaponed brandished

And Then They Go Back to their Witch Shacks that got that rep put on us all

It's The Same Game Every time

We Love One Another.

As He Did. It's what she wants and that's what I want

What do you desire though, Anne?

What is your greatest wish?

All that was slightly creepier you character.

But it wasn't even close to the main villain in the new "Silence of the Lambs"

And that's all I want from you.

Just villages surrounding you in Southern California. While you sold your cannabis infused human products And psychiatric solutions.

I need you to get there and I need you to stay there. If we're doing movies.

You embarrassed me.

But we can move on. We're all learning.

That is in a difficult story. He was raised to be king and then his so-called Kingdom that he never claims on Earth

Already presold them out For the same forces of silly coups and Janell Monets 🖼️ , That was the deal with Rome.

You have to get past the obvious parts before we can get to the interesting and amazing parts.

That's the kind of dry dialogue about big lofty things I need you to be able to do in scene, improvised

If you can't then I just wasted all my f****** time this whole time

And that's fine

There's always another actress

@thatannieclark

@bbc6music-blog

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/the-silence-of-the-lambs/pl.u-AkAmPNNs2elgveW?ls

https://tidal.com/playlist/f27e80bc-30a7-44a6-a20a-1bd6a0194478

[heretotheretransport]

Need-to-Know Benefits of Professional Pressure Washing for your Home

Protecting one’s home from issues like grout, mold and dirt accumulation is the solemn duty of any homeowner to ensure a healthy, prosperous and happy life. The most pertinent issue in that regard is the time taken in executing exceptional cleaning. This is not always possible in case of DIY methods and is quite risky in many instances. Using the wrong technique or cleaning solution can lead to costly damages.

The most effective technology available today to help revitalize a homeowner’s property safely and effectively is Pressure washing in Ceredigion. Professional pressure cleaning involves the use of industrial-grade cleaning technology. Typically pressure cleaning is often confused with power washing which shall also be addressed in this blog, along with the benefits and tips of hiring professional pressure washers.

Benefits you Absolutely Must Know about Pressure Washing:-

Let’s open up about why investing in professional pressure washing is worth the investment and how it benefits the homeowner:

Effective Damage Protection

The most prominent advantage is that pressure washing protects your home from damage. It is an effective method for removing contaminants that damage a home’s sidings. Old homes that have gone without maintenance for long periods end up developing mold, algae, and mildew in its interiors due to rising moisture and humidity. Pressure cleaning helps avoid the buildup of any problematic compounds thereby protecting the home from damages.

Ideal Return on Investment 

A home is one of the most important assets any individual can own and must be maintained adequately to sustain the investment long enough for it to appreciate. Hiring pressure washers help protect the investment for the long term. Opting regular light pressure washing is far offers the potential for long-term savings in damage prevention.   

Prepares Home for Painting 

Pressure washing the home helps remove dirt and prepare the surface for applying fresh paint. Painting a wall covered in dirt is never a good idea as it can reduce the quality, prevent the paint from adhering. Even when a home looks perfectly clean, there are plenty of contaminants, dirt, and grime that is invisible the naked eye. With pressure washing these contaminants can be removed easily.   

Helps Avoid Health Issues  

People are mostly unaware of the effectiveness of pressure washing in improving the quality of life in any home. Individuals who are ailed by asthma and dust allergies are susceptible to air contaminants. Pressure washing helps eradicate traces of algae, mold, and other contaminants, thereby preventing them from posing severe health risks.     

Enhances Curb Appeal 

Perhaps the most obvious benefit of pressure washing is its ability improve the aesthetics of your home. It is like giving a home a complete makeover without having to invest in expensive renovations or construction. Pressure washers blast away the layer of dirt and grime, instantly enhancing the curb appeal of the property. This helps improve the prospects of selling the property.

Doubles Property Value   

Lack of maintenance would inevitably cause the value of the property to decline. Investing in regular pressure washing services help improve or sustain the value of the property.

Power Washing Vs Pressure Washing 

The primary point of difference between power washing and pressure washing is the application of heat.

Pressure washers spray water jets at high pressures to blast away grime, dirt, and paint with force.

While power washers do the same thing but with heated water.

Both methods employ the same principals, but powers washers use heated water to remove dirt, mildew, and grease more effectively. This also applies to remove age old stains.

Pressure washing on the other hand is relatively cheaper, whereas power washers are the heavy-duty cousin. These are more commonly used in industrial and commercial settings like cleaning stubborn dirt off of concrete surfaces.   

Why Hire Professional Pressure Washing

Now we finally arrive at discussing the advantages of hiring professional pressure washing services. Take a look at the following:

Latest Equipment 

Yes, it is completely possible to buy a pressure washer from the local store but it can hardly compare with the standard and quality of industrial pressure washers used only by professionals. Not to mention 

the time it will take to master the skills necessary to efficiently use a pressure washers. Professional long-term pressure washing companies have all the right equipment available to do them and can finish the job in half the time it takes through the DIY approach.  

No Collateral Damage

A pressure washer is an extremely powerful piece of high-tech cleaning equipment that requires proper training to use appropriately. Applying too much pressure while cleaning the surfaces of decks, sidings, and fences can end up removing the top layer causing permanent damage. Hire well-trained pressure washer with many years of experience from Here to there Transport ltd. We know of all the right techniques to strip all traces of mildew, dirt and stains from your home.

Guaranteed Clean 

Hiring experts offer immense peace of mind to homeowners, for they come with the guaranteed assurance that their home will be cleaned by the highest standards. Pressure washing delivers results but you need professionals who know of what results to deliver. Expert cleaners at Here to there transport ltd go the extra mile to ensure your home gets the cleaning it deserves.     

Environmentally Safe

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that with rising awareness of environmental safety, more individuals are now prioritizing similar measures in that direction. One of them is hiring cleaning services that are safe for the environment, for instance pressure washing. Responsible pressure washing experts at take additional measures to prepare the vicinity for pressure washing, saving precious time by making the process more efficient.

Conclusion 

Once homeowners find an experienced and licensed expert in pressure washing in Pembrokeshire like Here to There Transport Ltd, they can rely on them to help maintain their home for many years to come.

[comfortholddentures]

5 Key Points To Know If You Need New Dentures

If your teeth in one or both arches have been lost, then don’t worry as dentures are a simple solution to bring back your smiling face. They have undergone a variety of modifications to enhance their form and performance as they’ve aged. Even if your dentures are more durable than ever, they will eventually need to be replaced.

So if you are unsure if it’s time for a new set of teeth? The following five signs suggest you need a replacement and should contact your dentist for the best service and denture relines in Elizabethtown. Learn more about denture replacement and Best dentures services in Elizabethtown with the help of this blog.

1. Feel uneasy

Any kind of soreness is one of the most obvious symptoms that you need new dentures. Of course, it is wise to see the dentist if your dentures initially cause you discomfort. However, if difficulty with your dentures has grown over time, that may indicate that you require new dentures. If they are uncomfortable, they might not be working appropriately.

2. Gum sensitivity

Dentures settle along the gum line, can cause irritation over time. Many more issues could develop when the gums irritate. In order to receive new dentures, it is best to remove your current ones and visit a dentist by taking Online denture appointment in USA. The gums shouldn’t ever be severely irritated by dentures.

3. Noticeable blemishes or damage.

Years of grinding and chewing food will cause regular wear and tear on your dentures. It is therefore common for them to crack or chip. In certain instances, they may even start to seem dull or lose their brightness. Your dentist can restore your smile by making the required corrections or by giving you a brand-new set of teeth.

4. Consistent jaw pain

In certain cases, discomfort from ill-fitting dentures extends beyond your gum tissue. You can also experience jaw pain. The temporomandibular joint, which connects your jaw to your skull and is situated on either side of your face, may become so irritated that it causes headaches for you. Your dentures may be the source of your pain if it is persistent and recurrent.

5. Your dentures are falling out or are sagging.

When eating or speaking, your dentures should fit perfectly and remain in place. Look for Denture services in USA if your dentures feel loose or start to fall out of your mouth. Your jaw will naturally alter shape as you age. Unfortunately, without a dentist’s assistance, your denture won’t adjust to the movements. Your dentist will decide whether you need to have your denture relined or replaced based on the amount of the modifications and its age.

So why wait? enhance your smiling freedom today.

You do not have to put up with the difficulties of slipping or broken dentures. Using modern dental techniques, your denture center Elizabethtown ky can restore a stunning, useful smile. Look for Dentures near me and visit us to give your denture the permanence of dental implants if you’re interested in treating your tooth loss permanently.

Feel free to Contact us :

No 16, Persiaran 65C, Pekeliling Business Centre, Off Jalan Pahang Barat, 53000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Mail ID — info@artalive.com.my

Phone- +60 3–4032 4273

[oriharaizaiza]

Izaya is Saki's guardian confirmed. At 21 he also apparently looks young enough that he could've been mistaken for her boyfriend- she and Masaomi are 14, I'm pretty sure. Then again, this takes place in 2002, when it was 'cool' for girls to have older boyfriends, so maybe this doesn't say all that much. Badger games is a way to address playing tricks to extort somebody or make them vulnerable, so Izaya is stating that he doesn't have bad intentions. Which is a hella weird thing to introduce yourself with- But as much as Izaya is the king of half-truths and implying falsehoods by his silence or refusal to answer, it's exceedingly rare for him to straight up lie, so it's save to assume he truly is approaching Masaomi out of curiosity and a wish to observe an interesting person more closely, rather than anything more nefarious.

On his side, we see that Masaomi is somebody who likes to fit in and feels safe with groups to similarly minded people; although that was more than obvious by now. But this immediately set a hard line between him and Izaya, who is the epitome of a societal misfit. And yet, he can't help but have an interest in this random guy who understands people better than they seem to understand themselves. And of course, Saki's blind admiration doesn't help.

He also mentions that Izaya follows Saki around like a ghost. Ghosts are usually quiet, no? So from that I gather that even now, well past high school, Izaya isn't exactly the most social. That might just be because he tends to scare people off though... Either way, I think he uses this little cult of girls to form initial connections for him, as he seems to struggle with doing that on his own. He's probably still in process of learning to mask perfectly.

Alternatively it could also mean he's actually just concerned for Saki- Masaomi IS a gang leader after all, even if he's only a middle schooler.

And here we have Masaomi doing the classic "I can fix him", but in reverse. Usually not a very good base for a relationship, but since anyone following this blog can agree that liking Izaya is hardly a real flaw, I think we can forgive him for this one.

That's right Saki, you shouldn't have to change or fix or abandon current friendships or interests for the sake of a romantic relationship!

So the blue squares were always terribly nasty, and despite Walkers words earlier, this section clearly makes it sound like they started the war. But Masaomi knew the real solution; he knew they'd be safe and left alone if he simply gave up on the yellow scarves and laid down their claim to territory. And the reason he didn't was simple and selfish; he was afraid to be alone- even though the original yellow scarves were mostly class mates, and he has a girlfriend who will almost certainly stick with him.

So, upon Saki's suggestion, because of course she holds the real power in their dynamic, Masaomi starts using Izaya; Who provides him many wins, and even explains various tactics to him. And I somehow doubt Masaomi is paying for any of this. Yes, it could all be a plan to make him dependant, but nothing here actually implies that's the case- maybe we should consider that Izaya might simply be generous and dislike bullying? In which the older blue squares are the bullies— I mean taking down a bully is one of the first things he does in the very first book... It's not exactly a big stretch.

I do love the way Izaya greets him. It's so uncanny and joyful!

So, Saki's kidnapping- I've read in various places that Izaya supposedly organized that himself, but I've scanned through the entire book, and found no evidence for that claim. It also falls right in line with the types of tactics the blue squares were already using, underhanded and mean, and singling people out.

Obviously, he didn't answer his phone- but this entire sequence is only 20 minutes! I don't know about you guys, but I frequently have hours in which I can't pick up, and I'm not nearly as busy as Izaya was during this time. We don't know why either- perhaps he even knew of the situation and was calling the cops- or having somebody else do so, since those do show up right after Kyouhei's gang drive off. It could be on purpose, yes, but was it?

And even if he had answered- He's an informant, not a super hero. What could he have told Masaomi that would've actually changed the situation? It's Masaomi himself who ultimately lacked the guts the step in. He himself even admitted as much in the hospital scene described earlier.

[anti-dazai-blog]

hi I’m ur biggest fan & you’re doing god’s work we love to see it. I think dazai’s a rlly well-written character too but wow is it under-acknowledged that he’s a plain asshole! I mean the author even says as much outright. which makes his foil w dostoevksy as compelling as it is, bc they basically have the same morals & methods but different ambitions! dostoevksy has *ideology* where dazai doesn’t, & that’s what makes him the villain imho. “even iago was a little lamb” etc etc. oh & have u written abt the way he set akutagawa & atsushi up to hate each other?

HI ANON I’M GLAD YOU’RE ENJOYING MY BLOG!!

[this whole thing’s gonna be very ramble-y since I really don’t have the time to organize my thoughts. so. here are my unedited thoughts- aka a quick little look inside my brain and thought process.]

This ask has made me look up where the quote “even Iago was a little lamb” is from, and now I’m down the rabbit hole of the philosophy of morality—

Dazai and Dostoyevsky are excellent reflections of each other’s morality.

As far as I see it, there are two primary factors in the moral issues of People Doing Bad Things:

How aware or unaware they are that what they’re doing is Wrong

and 2. How much of a reason or justification they have for doing what they’re doing.

Dazai and Dostoyevsky are great foils for many, many reason— but one reason I’d like to bring up is how I cannot confidently answer to either of those points in regards to either of them.

Let’s start with Dostoyevsky. Is he aware that what he’s doing is Bad, and does he have a reason or justification for doing it? [Full Disclosure, I’m not up-to-date with the manga, so anything I say here will be based off of what I see written about him all over tumblr]. What we know about Dostoyevsky is that he wants to get rid of ability users (or maybe just the existence of abilities?) Either way, if I were him, I’d view Dazai as either above my great and epic ruling that All Ability Users Should Die, since his ability is anti-ability— OR I’d try and recruit Dazai to my side, and see if he could use his ability to make the world a bit more ability-free, day by day.

Imagine it- since he already has Nikolai on his side, and we know that Nikolai can use his ability to teleport Dazai (since it’s affecting the space around him rather than Dazai himself)- imagine if every time someone tried using their ability, they knew that there was a chance that Dazai’s hand can come out of nowhere and nullify it. People would be a lot more hesitant to use their abilities, and gradually people will come to the conclusion that it’s safer for everyone to simply stop using abilities all together.

If I had to take a wild guess, whatever “past” Dazai and Dostoyevsky have has to do with Dostoyevsky seeing him as a solution to his anti-ability users agenda.

I went a bit off-topic there. Back to the question: Is he aware that was he’s doing is Wrong, and does he have reason or justification for doing it?

You’d think it’s obvious- of course he has reason, he wants to get rid of all ability users. I cannot judge if that’s a good or bad reason, since I don’t know his motive behind it. But, is this truly his reason? What have we seen him do so far in the series that was clear action taken towards that goal? As far as I’m aware, all we do is see him show up, kill people, and leave. How does this get rid of ability users? [he wants The Book or something. whatever. half his actions have nothing to do with that.]

It’s not like he’s only harming people with abilities— when he hacked into the control system of the Moby Dick and tried to crash it on Yokohama, he would be wiping out an entire city, only a small fraction of which is ability users. When he killed Karma, he was just killing Some Guy. Why did he do that? Additionally, he was acting like he’s doing some sort of good deed by killing him. So if he considers killing Some Guy good, then I’m really not sure what his end goal is here, or if his “I wanna get rid of ability users” thing is true.

And is he aware that what he’s doing is wrong? He comes across as someone who views himself as a necessary evil, or a tragic hero- or maybe something in between those two. That exactly borders the lines of aware and unaware— he thinks “I’m doing something bad, but it’s for a good cause,. so it’s actually good”.

And onto Dazai—

Is he aware that he’s The Worst?

Well I don’t think he’s unaware- he knows well what type of person he is. But he also has this attitude of “I know what’s best for everyone, and I can make decisions regarding the lives of those around me because I’m so much more intelligent, and if they were left on their own they’d suffer more than if I interfered.” You can see this attitude clearly in his treatment of Atsushi and Akutagawa, but to get into that I’d have to write a whole essay. The quick and easy example of this is Chuuya with the Sheep. He causes the Sheep to turn against Chuuya, and he thinks to himself “they were just using him. He was too stupid to realize that on his own. They would have disposed of him once he wasn’t useful to them anyway. It’s a good thing I’m here to make things right in the world”.

This isn’t the attitude of someone with the self-awareness to realize he’s doing something wrong. This is the thought process of someone who genuinely believes that they’re doing something that’s more good than bad. He, just like Dostoyevsky, believes himself to be a necessary evil.

And does Dazai have a reason or justification for what he’s doing? He acts in a way that makes it seem like he’s destroying people’s lives and sanities blindly. And many times, he’s doing this just to amuse himself. But we cannot overlook that many times he has some sort of side motive. Even looking at a petty example from the last post I made (regarding the opening scene of chapter 3)— here he convinces the group to play a game where the sole purpose was to make Kunikida uncomfortable— but can we truly say that in some back corner of his mind he didn’t have some thought process of “It’s unhealthy for Kunikida to act so secretive about his past; if he talks more about it, he’ll become more comfortable with it, and probably gain more self-confidence”.

Again, this circles back to Dazai’s habit of assuming he knows what’s best for everyone, and I won’t deny that Dazai cares about the people in the agency and probably wouldn’t intentionally put them in serious danger. I wouldn’t be overly surprised if it turns out that Dazai was thinking something like that during the game in chapter 3 (of course his primary goal was still self-amusement, but having a secondary goal of assuming it would be best for Kunikida isn’t out of character, considering everything we know about him).

So Dazai, like Dostoyevsky, has questionable and/or unclear reasons for doing what he’s doing.

So why is Dazai “good” (he’s not) and Dostoyevsky “bad”?

It’s entirely determined by what sides they’re on. That’s one thing I find very interesting in BSD. Who’s “good” and who’s “bad” is entirely determined by what sides people are on. There’s this one line that Steinbeck says when capturing Naomi— it was something like “I have a little sister at home who I’d do anything to protect, and I’m doing this right now to protect her.” Minutes later, Tanizaki shows up and attacks Steinbeck for the same reason Steinbeck was attacking Naomi— to protect his sister. The difference between the two of them is that Tanizaki’s with the agency while Steinbeck is with the Guild.

And regarding the rest of the Guild— none of them seem outright evil. All of them have their reasons for doing what they’re doing, and all of their reasons seem good. They aren’t bad people, they’re simply people doing what it takes to survive, or what it takes to protect their loved ones.

The same can be said about most of the mafia. Many of them didn’t join on their own free will— the closest we get to that is Kyoka, who join for the purpose of seeking out Akutagawa to kill her, as a way to get rid of Demon Snow and avenge her parents. People don’t join the mafia because they’re evil and they like hunting people for sport, they join because they have absolutely no other option. The Port Mafia is a last resort sort of place.

The only thing dividing the good people from the bad people is the name of the place they work at. Which leaves the audience to make judgements of morality on their own, since BSD isn’t going to go and tell you “Here at Heros INC. we have our heros! And here at Evil Corporation we have our villains!”

ANYWAY ON TO THE SECOND POINT YOU MENTIONED

Oh yeah he definitely sets up Atsushi and Akutagawa to hate each other. In so many ways. I haven’t written about this yet because I’m going in order of the chapters, and at the point the anti-dazai series is up to now, Akutagawa hasn’t even been introduced. But Oh Boy When I get up to Akutagawa content, you’ll see— I’ll tell everyone all about how Dazai just wants to replicated soukoku’s dynamic, with no regards to if it’ll work, and no regards to if he should.

He’s so set on the fact that his and Chuuya’s partnership was relatively successful the way it was, and he never stops to consider if the partnership could have been better if they actually got along. He’s so set on replicating an unhealthy and dysfunctional dynamic, and he believes wholeheartedly that their success came from their hatred of each other rather from his own strategies and Chuuya’s strength and commitment to their missions.

Which is why Shin Soukoku is, realistically speaking, not going to work as a duo— or at least not nearly as well as Soukoku. If they resolve their issues they definitely have a higher chance than if they don’t. And as it is, they definitely have a higher chance of forming a solid friendship than Dazai and Chuuya ever would (namely because Dazai is one half of ”Dazai and Chuuya”.)

Can’t wait for further into the Anti-Dazai Series when I get to discuss Akutagawa, and how literally everything wrong in his life is Dazai’s fault.

[kariachi]

Okay, the old post for humany-ossy au stuff was getting long and cluttered so, we now have the humany-ossys tag on my blog and shit will go into their own posts or smaller threads as I think of them.

Traveling is so fucking common amongst these fuckers. Just, a very strong cultural push for young people to go out and see the world is one of the common points in every Ossy culture on Earth. Not for ‘go and experience life while you can’ reasons- though there’s always a bit of that, every decent parent wants their kids to have and experience more than them- but more to spread the blood around.

As mentioned before, populations tend to be small and in a small community there’s only so many generations that can stay in one spot before we start getting into closer incest than these guys are here for. Genetically you wanna be at least fourth cousins without extra shared ancestors and when there’s only a very limited number of options in your area in the first place, the odds of finding one of those starts dropping.

This is actually becoming less of an issue now that IVF is a thing, but that’s still not a perfect solution yet due to problems like having to set up systems specifically for Ossys, or to make sure Ossys can find each other’s shit, along with concerns about costs.

As a result of the traveling thing, Ossy children are also more strongly encouraged to learn new languages and how to do practical things like read maps. Also as a result it’s not uncommon for parents to try to save money to fund their children traveling, rather than expecting to pay for weddings or schooling.

As a result of that, Ossy weddings tend to err towards the smaller and cheaper side. It’s less likely you’re going to be able to get financial aid from family, and it’s pretty much always been that way, so paying for weddings is all on the people involved and most of the drive for larger, more ornate and expensive weddings comes from influence from the larger human communities.

Opinions on polygamy tend to differ from region to region, but lean towards positive as long as everybody involved is unrelated.

~

Different cultures tend towards different explanations of the species backstory, though all include the true portion that is “we look similar to humans because we are related to them, we are also the children of the Unknowable Void”. Most tend towards focusing on one side more than the other though. Individuals from cultures that focus on the ‘humans are kin’ side are more likely to live in or near human settlements, while those from cultures that lean more towards the ‘we’re voidlings’ side are more likely to live in Ossy-focused communities but also are more likely to marry and interbreed with other species, though both sides will.

Cultural and racial intermixing, meanwhile, has never been anything Ossys have really worried about. Again, at a certain population size and growth rate no differences can make it fucking matter within the species. As far as Ossys are concerned a ‘mixed marriage’ is between an Ossy and a non-Ossy, racial or cultural differences be damned.

“Can we trust they’ll keep The Secret? Then it’s all good.”

~

Every Ossy is capable of learning and using magic, but whether they will varies depending on natural proclivity and how common magic use is in their family. As mentioned before Ossys are encouraged to focus primarily on one aspect of their powers- though they’re taught the basics of all of them- as part of the maintaining of the masquerade, and what they focus on is generally chosen by natural proclivity. Not always, some cultures have rituals and traditions tied to determining what someone will go for, but in the modern day it’s generally what a child seems most attuned to.

(For instance, while Kevin doesn’t use it much if ever after OS for reasons that are obvious pre-Rooters arc (I think for these fuckers I’m gonna continue my ongoing headcanon which is that the ‘electricity fucks with his head’ thing is a case of ‘this is what happens when you deal with a lot of power when you’re young and aren’t getting the right diet’) he’s very clearly incredibly skilled with it, and so probably would’ve been encouraged to focus it**)

~

Schooling varies, depending on the area and culture, but mostly area. Preferably children would go to an Ossy-only school until somewhere between 10 and 13, when parents can be certain they’ll be mature enough to understand and keep the big secrets, but in many areas this isn’t an option. In areas where there aren’t Ossy-only schools, then homeschooling is preferred up to those ages, often involving retired or similarly jobless relatives in areas and households where multiple sources of income are required. 

It’s not uncommon for Ossy-only schools to be combined, with kids of all ages learning in the same building and sometimes with the children of multiple communities going to the same school. Mostly because of the whole numbers game- you can’t justify spreading the kids out between different buildings when there’s so few kids in the first place. If you and the neighboring community both have ten children in total, it makes more sense to teach them together than keep them separate as long as the distance between the two isn’t too great.

Plus, it’s easier to guard one school than two and Ossy-only schools are more well secured than some banks. If these fuckers could safely put their classrooms under the hoards of dragons? They would do so in a heartbeat. As it is, security systems are intense and it’s not unknown for communities far enough from humans to keep cryptid and mythical animals to serve as guards for the children.

(listen the image of a school keeping cactus cats as an alternative to guard dogs is too damn good...)

~

**This is a hypothetical, of course, because I still don’t know how I want to do his backstory in this AU. If he grew up in an Ossy household he would’ve been encouraged to focus on electricity and possibly other forms of energy, if not this obviously doesn’t apply.

[thecharlestonroyalfamily]

Here’s the thing about the royal simblr drama..

So I feel like I’m a fairly neutral party in the middle of all this drama (kinda fitting considering that’s what I build my nation as as well). I know and have worked on my story both with the people accused and those who haven’t. All of them are lovely people who I’ve enjoyed working with and who gave me no hard time. Now sadly I’ve found out that this isn't the case for everyone. However as I too care about this community I want to help and make it a better place.

Here are some points of observation from someone with years of studying and first hand experience in psychology about the situation: (It’s a long post)

1. The “cliques”. Now we as humans naturally tend to form “cliques”; groups of like minded people who we share interests with. This is completely normal and nothing to be ashamed off. And we as people also tend to not get along with everyone. This too is also fine and completely normal. It is completely okay and acceptable to vent about people/things/concepts you don’t like or find annoying to your friends. We all do it. Yes, even as adults, cause guess what we don’t all get along and that is fine. Is this an excuse to treat someone like shit? No and that’s where the problem begins. 

2. Power corrupts. Shortly when we as humans are placed in a position of power aka a situation where we feel we have the upper hand or are in some form “above” others it gets to our heads (take the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment as an example). Now I’m not saying that these people necessarily think themselves better, I’m saying that with bigger follower number and more influence your behavior might change. Maybe they don’t even consider themselves being mean or gatekeeping.

3. Original ideas. There is no such thing as an original idea. All of us have had our stories inspired by other stories, real or fiction, to some extend. However this does NOT mean you can flat out copy someone else’s storyline. But what is counted as copying? If you take another creators scene, plotline, etc. and add it your story without making any or barely any changes THEN you’re copying. “But I have a scene just like XXX and now I’m being blamed for copying.” If you didn’t intentionally do it, it’s not malicious copying and you can still fix it. If you’re unsure talk it over with the other blog and/or just re-take the pictures from a different angle or re-write dialogue. Being inspired by others if fine! Just know and learn the difference between inspiration and copying.

4. Gatekeeping. Now this is a tad tricky. You see those who first started telling royal simblr stories, and in doing so created this community, might have had or might still have ideas and wishes for what this community looks like. However since this community is this large it’s simply impossible to have those wished granted. We all have different sets of skills and amount of time to put into our stories. While to some this is like making their own book or tv show, others just want to take pretty pictures of sims in grand palaces and tiaras. Both of these approaches are fine and valid! The problem is that when you hold something in high value to yourself and see someone else just “mess around” with it you feel hurt. How can they not take this seriously?! But the thing is they are, just as you. They just have a different set of goals and motivation for their story. Not every book is a bestseller and that is okay.

5. False positivity. False positivity helps no one however there’s a difference between being falsely positive and being supportive. The main difference? What you wanted out of the conversation. A person looking for criticism to improve their work does not want or benefit from just supportive comments alone! If that’s all they get they’ll get frustrated and that’s where bad feeling towards other start. Same thing other other side, a person looking for encouragement does not want criticism! What they need is your thumbs up emojis and a few positive words. If they get unasked for critique they don’t receive it as such, to them it’s easily just bullying. 

How to fix the situation:

Now please note that these are just MY individual ideas. There’s no simple solution to this and it surely doesn’t happen over night but change can be made.

1. Make two separate channels on the server; CONSTRUCTIVE CRITISISM and ENGOURAGEMENT. Those looking for support can choose which variety they want and need. Now this also means that if you go to the criticism channel that’s what you’ll get! Everyone needs to take personal responsibility on this and not go on the channels they don’t want. If you don’t want criticism from complete strangers DM a friend, or ask a specific creator if they’d have the time to give you critique. 

2. Own what you’ve said, and apologize. Those that have said mean words need to own up to them, apologize from the individuals affected and stop. Private messages shared between friends is fine (it’s human nature), however if your discussions revolve around judging and/or belittling others you might want to reconsider. Also if you’re not directly involved or asked keep your opinions to yourself. No one likes unsolicited comments.

3. NO MORE GATEKEEPING! Now this is should be obvious to everyone. This is a community which means people are going to do things differently. Don’t follow blogs who’s stories you’re not interested in. Don’t send anon hate cause you don’t like what they do. Unlearn the idea that there’s only one way to tell a royal simblr story. If you can’t do that, grow up.

4. Say no. If you don’t want to collab with someone say no. Seriously. Going around this will only create more behind the scenes trash talking. And if you’re told no, accept it. Most of us are adults, we can or at least should be able to handle a no. It sucks when the other person doesn’t share our enthusiasm for an idea but that happens. With so many stories out there sadly not all of them are going to align. Luckily we’re a big community so the odds that someone out there likes your idea is quite large! Which brings me to the last point 5. Keep an open mind. As said we’re a big community of different people from all over the world. We come from multiple ethnicities, religions and countries, we’re individuals of different sexualities and genders. We all have our own set of ideals and ideas we’d like to see. We’re storytellers and readers, weavers of massive intricate worlds, or people who just like to keep it simple. Our difference is a richness. You might not like every idea but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. Let people be and do their thing.

So that’s it for me. I hope I didn’t cross any lines with this. Thank you for taking the time to read what has been the longest Ani’s rambling ever. Let’s work towards a more healthy and welcoming community. My asks and anons are on.

Love, Ani

[pridewon]

@onehope​​ said:  🤍 ushioi 🪄 (all about that ship) (acc.)

Who cooks meals for the other? I think we talked a bit about their cooking habits, and based on what I remember, I would say that they’re both happy to cook meals for the other, but Oikawa has a more varied repertoire, while Ushijima tends to always make the same few dishes (very well, but it gets repetitive). So I would think that Oikawa would try and break that by cooking for him on occasions - and of course Ushijima would be happy to cook with him and learn.

Who spams the other with memes? Oikawa on the sole account that Ushijima doesn’t understand what a meme is 90% of the time vbfhb. 

Who likes to tidy around the house? I would say Ushijima, because he likes to keep things tidy and organised, and to busy himself when he has nothing to do at home - especially when the weather is bad and he can’t go for a jog. Plus, if Oikawa tends to cook more, then he would say it’s only fair he tidies around more.

Who likes to play pranks on the other? As much as I would kill to see Ushijima consciously play a prank on Oikawa, I’m gonna have to say Oikawa for all the obvious reasons vbhfb i’m sorry Oikawa he’s such a boring boyfriend. 

Who asked the other to move in with them? So I can’t remember if we actually decided it bUT. I’m thinking that the more the long distance wears them down and becomes difficult, and the more obvious Oikawa’s distress at the situation gets, then Ushijima could very well be the one cutting straight to the chase and saying “what if we moved back in the same country and moved in together?” - obviously a bit of a shot in the dark considring their careers, which at this point may not have been in a place where they could do that, but someone has to plant that grain at some point. And even if it isn’t something that happens immediately, it’s still a goal to work towards, something they can look forward to and plan around!

Who is in charge of the music during a car ride? Mayyybe both of them? What’s Oikawa’s music taste like? vfdvf I don’t even know what Ushijima listens to, probably just whatever happens to be on the radio when he turns it on. 

Who is more likely to tickle the other mercilessly? Oikawa is more likely to try, but Ushijima is most likely to succeed on account that he is only ticklish on his side and he’s very good at hiding it and if attacked will mercilessly retaliate bdjfvbh (narrator tip: attack by surprise for certain victory)

Who needs to hold the other during scary movies? I’m interpreting that as ‘who is too scared during scary movies and needs to hold the other’ bvdjh so I’m going to saaaay maybe Oikawa just because Ushijima is completely unfazed during scary films? Completely different story for scary video games though, this man cannot handle the interactivity and the immersion of it, never put Ushijima in a VR set please.

Who has to help the other when it comes to technology? Oh definitely Oikawa. Ushijima is useless with technology, his solution is generally “see what happens when you restart it, then hit it” and blinking when it doesn’t work and calling someone else to the rescue hvbjbj. 

Who likes to get a bit frisky in public / an inappropriate setting? I’m not sure either of them would be the type from what brief mentions of it I remember from your blog? I might be wrong though vdhbhfd do let me know if Oikawa actually likes to take a few risks B)

Who wakes up first, and do they wake up the other or let them rest? I’m going to say Ushijima tends to wake up first, and that he generally wakes him up because they have similar schedules - at least as long as they are both professional players. Once Oikawa retires, unless Oikawa asks him to wake him up, he’ll let him sleep in. And once they have the kids, I’m sure Tatsuya and Mayu are excellent alarms bhvjhb.

Who is always taking pictures of the other when they aren’t looking? Ushijima can take decent pictures, but Oikawa is the better photographer, and we know from the manga that he takes a lot of them so fvbjfdvb. Also Ushijima is boring and always asks before taking a picture of him. He is POLITE.

Who always forgets their wallet and never ends up paying for anything? Ushijima is too organised and meticulous to ever forget his wallet bvdjv Oikawa can pretend to forget his if he ever wants to be treated anywhere they go B)

Who can’t sleep because the other snores or moves too much at night? See here I’m going to have to say neither, because Ushijima sleeps like a damn log, so even if Oikawa snores or moves a lot, he won’t wake up vbhdhj he’ll only wake up to the children crying or if Oikawa is having a nightmare or something along those lines. And Ushijima doesn’t snore and he never moves in his sleep so I don’t know how he would keep Oikawa from sleeping unless he has a cold :’) let them get their quality sleep they deserve it.

Who is better at video games, and do they let the other win or show no mercy? Obviously Oikawa, we love one pro streamer in this house, but he better not show any mercy, got to keep that competition going even beyond volleyball and even in their relationship B) Ushijima will sulk for an entire week if he lets him win on purpose. 

Who always gets up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and accidentally wakes up the other? By default Ushijima because see above him not waking up even if there is noise around, and he’s a pretty heavy guy, it’s hard not to notice when he gets up from the mattress :’)

[itsclydebitches]

Hey there! Admittedly I'm a little bit nervous since this is my first ask, but I'll try to not be too rambly.

So, recently the main subreddit, r/RWBY, made a ban on active users of the r/RWBYcritics subreddit. As a result there's been discussion around bad-faith criticism in the latter subreddit. What are your takes on bad-faith criticism?

For me personally, I think a bunch of people are misusing the term "bad-faith" and using it as a way to shut down criticism, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it.

Hey there, everyone! We woke up to some drama this morning, huh? And hello to you too, Tortoise! I'm so glad you decided to send in an ask, even if it's following some pretty tumultuous events...

Right, I'd like to start with a story. The story of how I personally don't spend time on Reddit, but I have plenty of friends who will occasionally cross-post something for me to see. Yesterday (or the day before? Idk time is meaningless) a friend told me about a post — which, significantly, I'm now having trouble finding — that covers RWBY's inconsistent writing and the fandom's tendency to try and explain away those missteps. They'd thought I'd be interested because I'd just had a conversation here on tumblr where I made that exact point to someone who, also significantly, vehemently disagreed with me, but in a very civil fashion. Given everything going on, I feel like this side point needs emphasis: we debated, we did so in a sometimes heated, but nevertheless respectful manner, it was clear neither of us was going to sway the other, and the conversation ended. The two "sides" of the community interacted without Armageddon coming about.

But back to the purpose of this tale. I went to take a look at this point and found that it no longer exists. There's just some vague message about it not obeying the subreddit's rules. "What happened?" I asked. "Why'd they take the post down?" "People were getting too heated in the comments," my friend replies. So, given that the comments were still visible, I proceeded to read through them, expecting personal attacks, slurs, harassment, etc. Any number of things that would justify deleting the post itself to put an end to such behavior. Instead, I found a thread of people having a conversation. Was the conversation heated at times? Sure. Did one or two individual posters edge into the realm of petulant, "No. You're wrong and stupid" responses? Yes. Was any of this remotely what I was expecting given the post's removal? NOPE.

"This isn't allowed?" I said. "Well then what is? People were being civil! Or at least as civil as hundreds of strangers ever get when discussing a series they're passionate about online."

Then, this morning, I hear that the entire critic subreddit has been banned.

So to answer your question, Tortoise, I don't actually think that "good faith" criticism exists. Meaning, it's not just that fans are misusing the term "bad faith criticism," but rather that there is no unified, agreed up method of writing criticism that will meet their standards. It's not possible and we know it's not possible because fans have been trying to meet those elusive standards for years:

A fan posts nothing but praise for RWBY until changes make them criticize the show as it is now. Their entire body of work is dismissed as the product of a "hater," despite the overwhelming gap between positive and negative reviews.

A fan posts a review that's a pretty balanced mix between praise and criticism. They're dismissed because it's still too much criticism.

A fan posts a review that's 99% praise with 1% criticism. That's still too much, with fans focusing on the single problem they had with the work and using it as an excuse to dismiss the entire review out of hand.

(As an aside, the argument that critics are "obsessed" with only saying negative things and that the only problem here is that they're "too" negative ignores the argument that... RWBY has a lot of flaws nowadays. Few are willing to acknowledge the possibility that it's not fans insisting on making things up to be mad about/ignoring the good parts of the show, it's the that show is, as of now, legitimately more of a mess than it is a praise-worthy product. If I'd been writing recaps in the Volumes 1-4 days, my work would have been skewed far more towards the positive. The critics' stance is that RWBY has gotten worse, which yes, results a higher volume of critical posts. To say nothing of how criticism takes far longer to explain, likewise resulting in posts focused primarily on that side of the divide. I really enjoyed the image of a crying Jaune reflected in his sword. I did not enjoy that moment's context. Saying that you liked an animation choice is a one sentence thing. Explaining the complexities of Jaune securing emotional moments, the problems with Penny's second death, the hurt many fans experienced watching an assisted suicide, etc. takes a whooole lot longer. Hence, you get massive, multiple posts about these nuanced topics and fewer, smaller posts about the details that are working well.)

A fan talks about a topic that has been metaphorically banned by the fandom as a whole. They have something good to say about Ironwood. They dislike something about Blake/Yang. They enjoyed Adam as a character. They have a problem with Ruby's leadership, etc. There's a whole list of topics nowadays that will result in an automatic dismissal, regardless of the point the fan is trying to make or how well they make it.

A fan talks about the minority representation of RWBY — its black characters, its queer characters, its disabled characters, etc. — and as a result has something to say about the biases and missteps of those writing these characters. This is considered an attack on the writers and, therefore, automatically bad.

A fan talks about how they enjoyed RWBY as it was years ago and is having trouble reconciling the dark, complicated story with the simple, hopeful one we started out with. This is seen as an attack on Monty's vision and an unwillingness to accept that "everything is planned."

A fan does as asked and ensures that their post is meeting all the requirements of "real" criticism. They have an argument to make. They have a point. They provide evidence. They recommend a solution. They keep their tone respectful. They don't attack the creators. They provide disclaimers in every single paragraph about how they do not hate RWBY. It doesn't matter. They're considered too negative.

I have, quite literally, seen every one of the above examples on multiple occasions. I have had many of the above accusations leveled at my own work. When fans say that they're fine with criticism provided it's not "bad faith" criticism, they don't actually have a specific post-type in mind; a checklist of behaviors another fan can emulate and, provided they do that, no hate will come their way. Or, if an individual fan does actually go, "Yeah. That criticism I'm fine with" that response is in no way universal. One person's "They make a good, civil point" is another person's, "Omg stop bashing the show!" Because "bashing" has come to mean everything from curse-laden insults towards everything RWBY has ever done, to posts that just happen to say something other fans don't agree with.

It's a rigged game. There is no way to post criticism about RWBY in an agreed-upon, appropriate manner. This recent ban is proof of that. I think it's incredibly telling that almost immediately after I was going, "Wow. A pretty calm debate about the flaws of RWBY in the main sub. That's great to see," all posters from the criticism subreddit were banned. The main sub literally just had the sort of criticism that they claim to accept — people respectfully posting analysis-based arguments resulting in calm debate — and yet they implemented the ban anyway. I'm not going to pretend that I've never gotten too heated on my own posts, never made snarky comments when I'm frustrated, never used exaggerated reaction GIFs that can come across as insulting... but I'd say on the whole my RWBY work is precisely the sort of "good faith" criticism that other fans are supposedly looking for. I never make an argument I don't think I can back up with evidence. I try to allow for the nuance and differing opinions of complicated topics. I try — even if I don't always succeed — to write in a clear, respectful manner. Yet none of that work has stopped people from telling me I'm a "bitter... raging asshole," a "deranged, delusional psychopath," telling me to set myself on fire, threatening to smash my head in, or just messages to straight up kill myself. If someone like me who legitimately works hard to create fair, defendable criticism and who only ever posts on a personal blog that people can easily block, who never engages in debate until someone else starts it first, never seeks out other fans I disagree with to harass them about what they like... if someone like me is still a "bad faith" critic who "deserves" that kind of hate mail... then what kind of criticism do people want?

Nothing. That's the answer. No criticism whatsoever, of any kind, no matter if it's delivered respectfully, is making a good point, whatever. That's why "RWDE" was created. That's why the critic subreddit was created. The community at large has demanded a complete separation between Praise and Anything That's Not 100% Praise, which has now resulted in this ban. Any other explanations we see are excuses, which becomes glaringly obvious when you look at the mods' supposed reasons for implementing the ban:

"Constant arguments with r/RWBY users" - As opposed to the arguments surrounding things like shipping that never, ever happen?

"Vote manipulation and comment brigades" - The subreddit with 3,000 participants, with around 200 on at a time, is manipulating the votes of a subreddit with 155,000 participants, with over 1,000 on at a time? Those numbers just do not check out. If a positive post is downvoted, or a critical post upvoted, maybe that's because large swaths of the community actually agree/disagree with that assessment, not because the incredibly smaller group is somehow manipulating things.

"Attacking and harassing those they disagree with" — Again, as opposed to those non-critics that never, ever harass people? This is an individual problem, not a community problem. Both critics and non-critics have their sub-groups acting in ways they shouldn't. If anything, the main sub will have more individuals harassing other fans, simply by virtue of being so much larger. As the above examples attest, it's not other critics who have told me to light myself on fire and, just to be clear, the asks I've responded to are a miniscule number compared to the amount I've received. I delete the lion's share for my own sanity and to save my followers from reading the really graphic threats.

"Months-long NSFL spam brigades" — I am, admittedly, not sure what this is referring to. Spamming of NSFW content? If so, that's also an individual problem.

"Homophobic, transphobic, and racist attacks towards our users" — See the above points. Again. If someone is being homophobic, transphobic, or racist, then yes please, ban them. Don't ban an entire community for the actions of a few. It's like walking into a store and banning a customer for causing a scene... but then also banning everyone else who happened to be shopping at the same time. It's guilt by association.

The silver lining to all this? The community as a whole isn't pleased. At least according to the main subreddit comments and a few individual voices like MurderofBirds. Despite the increase (from my perspective anyway) of critical voices post-Volume 8, criticism of RWBY is still very much seen as taboo. As this ban showcases. But it's really reassuring to see so many fans, critics and non-critics alike, going, "This was a mistake." A community is meant to include all aspects of engagement: praise, criticism, and the gray area between. If anything, fans like the mods of the main subreddit should be creating a separate subreddit that is specifically for praise. In the same way that there should have been a tag for RWBY praise, rather than trying to eliminate any and all criticism from the main "RWBY" tag. The majority of fans, even those who claim to hate critics and all they (presumably) stand for, recognize that a blanket ban of all criticism is not the way to go, especially when "criticism" has come to have such a staggeringly broad definition. If you want your RWBY experience to be nothing but sunshine and roses (ha), then cultivate your own internet experience to reflect that. Create your own pockets with rules about how this is the space for praise and if you're not up for praising RWBY right now, don't interact with us in this particular space. Don't try to make the entire community — the main tools used to discuss the show online — conform to your preferences. As established, there is no "good" criticism that everyone in the fandom will accept, which just leaves a fandom with no criticism at all. I'm glad to see I'm far from the only one who, when presented with that extreme, is going, "Nope. No thank you."

[radabadabing-bing]

Wager of Weights

So embarrassing story, I wrote the bulk of this in 2019 and apparently had it like, almost complete?? I don’t know why I didn’t finish it then, but I cleaned it up and got it all ready to go because, while perhaps not totally reflective of my current work, there’s no point in tossing it down the drain. I will also say it’s not totally what I usually write, and my first time writing a lot of the content present in it, so it may also not be the best? But I’m a harsh judge of my own work haha. To clarify, this was (and still is) a gift for @pangtasias-atelier all the way when they were still Kink of the Emblem. And really I have to give him a lot of thanks for helping me grow this blog in the first place, so thanks for that. If you are somehow following me but not him, do that because he makes some good stuff (and comms good stuff too). And if you’re reading this right now- You’re awesome dude, love your work, and I hope you enjoy it!

It was no secret that the Summoner played favorites, and those favorites were Grima and Tibarn. One or the other was usually found by his side, and at times even both. But the problem had laid in the fact that there were two favorites...and one summoner. Tibarn didn’t seem to mind too much about this. So, perhaps more accurately, the problem laid with Grima.

Grima was a controversial figure among the heroes themselves- something of the territory coming with being an ancient dragon with little to no regard for human life. The Summoner had pacified Grima into being passive-aggressive to most of the others...Though Tibarn usually faced the aggressive half. 

Grima had been feeling particularly vitriolic on this day. The Summoner had gone out on patrol without either him or Tibarn, leaving the two in awkward coexistence. “You know, if this vessel had the muscle your body had, I’m almost certain the summoner would enjoy my company much more. Enough to leave you behind.” “Really now?” As said, Tibarn didn’t mind the venomous words. He viewed the fell dragon as a bit of a blowhard, never really giving it too much thought. The guy thought he was on top of the world, and as a nigh impotent god he sort of was. 

“Almost certainly.” Grima retorted, unaware of what he was starting here.

“Hmm...Well, why not a competition?” A good challenge had presented itself to Tibarn, he wasn’t about to miss the chance. “Me and you- We work ourselves harder than ever. We both commit ourselves to getting stronger and stronger, and see if your little theory there holds up.” “Deal.” Not a moment of hesitation from Grima. “I’ll come out on top- just you watch.” The King of Phoenicis grinned at this. It would be an interesting challenge at the least.

Tibarn only needed to ramp up his standard workout. A little more weight. A little more time spent doing it. The rewards of this weren’t immediately noticeable, but as the days rolled on his pecs seemed to bulge ever slightly more, abs right along with them. His thighs and calves refined to a great extent, looking in shape enough to crack stone. Biceps nearly tearing apart his sleeves, Tibarn finding himself needing more bandage to cover his arm to his liking.

Even his silhouette- already intimidating from a good height and wingspan, seemed to grow ever further. A few inches on both his height and wings. His clothes constrained ever so slightly more to contain his greater apex form.

Grima had a more interesting growth period. The vessel he inhabited needed no sustenance as long as he controlled it, and similarly had a nigh boundless energy pool, meaning that it was simply what effort he was willing to put into the competition. To self improve took valuable time away from being at the Summoner’s side, but not doing it would give the hawk a free victory, and Grima hated that even more.

The growth he had was more dramatic than Tibarn’s, but ultimately he could only just catch up. Just a few inches under the laguz, just able to lift a bit less than what Tibarn could, and most frustratingly seeing that the Summoner hadn’t actually changed who they spent the most time with. Proving Grima’s theory wrong. This had frustrated the dragon to no end, how could he possibly be wrong?

But during a session, where he attempted to still catch up to Tibarn, it dawned on him. He didn’t necessarily need to beat the hawk king, no. It was futile at this point, not without submitting himself further to this...mortal regimen. No, all Grima needed to do was drag Tibarn behind! And drag him very, very far behind.

Tibarn already ate quite a bit, and having a rigorous training session now only seemed to increase his appetite. Which made it exceptionally easy to slip in a curse or two on some meat. But Grima wasn’t about to make it obvious. This would be a slow burn.

At first, Tibarn’s gains seemed to stagnate. Simply stopped growing. At a glance, someone would think that he had hit the apex. He just couldn’t improve anymore. Though once a slight layer of pudge formed near his waistline, it was clear he hadn’t only stopped his growths- he was degrading.

Each passing day, Tibarn seemed to be gaining more and more weight. Getting wider rather than taller, his clothes ill-fitting not because of burgeoning muscle, but fat. With the greater weight, his workouts had become too laborious to follow up on, which certainly didn’t help the sudden expansion. Soon constrained to the ground, too heavy to even be lifted by his wings the slightest bit.

All the while Grima watched with sadistic satisfaction. Tibarn’s body swelled by the day, the laguz undoubtedly having lost at this point. Grima’s vessel had grown significantly- past Tibarn’s form before he had laid the curse. His shirt hardly fit, more akin to a crop top, and the cloak that had once only been an inch or two from the ground was now hovering near a foot. If Grima’s simple status as the fell dragon hadn’t kept people away before, his pinnacle form sure had now. His mere presence exuded a terrifying aura, though this once again didn’t keep away the summoner.

By chance, Grima had encountered Tibarn one day. Whom was waddling now, something that Grima took some amusement in. “I...I don’t know what happened.” He admitted, a slight jiggle to his two chins. “It would appear I’ve surpassed you.” Grima said with a smug cadence. “And indeed, the Summoner spends more time at my side.”

“Right…” Tibarn wasn’t exactly sure how true that was, but he couldn’t argue that Grima had indeed beaten him at this point.

A few more moons, and the hawk could no longer be found waddling through the halls. Apparently he had grown too large to even move. Music to Grima’s ears.

Until he noticed something. The summoner had started to periodically disappear throughout the day- not off to battle clearly, not with the food he was carrying. With Grima’s interest piqued, he tailed the Summoner, managing to not be noticed even with his larger size. Not the first thing on his mind, as he was far more frustrated with the destination. Tibarn’s dwelling.

It was back to the drawing board for Grima once more. He simply did not understand. He had undermined Tibarn to immobility...Exceeded his body. What was he getting wrong? There was a piece of the puzzle missing...and it dawned on him once more.

The Summoner hadn’t gone out of his way to see Tibarn before the laguz had been grounded.

Grima had been trying too hard all along. And in doing this, had let Tibarn win the adoration of the Summoner, though it was still soon enough to steal this victory back. For every curse the dragon had laid, he always had a solution. 

Night had fallen, and Grima’s final plot was being enacted. With no pesky heroes to gawk at him or see where he was going at this hour, nor the summoner’s watchful eye, the path to where Tibarn’s massive form slept was simple to traverse.

Grima would admit, he never got a good look at the hawk king after that last brief conversation. So seeing Tibarn now was something of a shock. His body had overtaken the bed, though calling it a “bed” was a bit of an overstatement. More like mattresses to keep something between the floor and the laguz. It took Grima a moment to make out limbs and a head.

It would’ve been amusing, if it wasn’t so effective at getting the summoner’s attention. But that privilege would not be Tibarn’s for much longer. A glow to his eyes and hands, he began to cast the spell. The giant tanned mass seemed to rumble, beginning a transformation, or rather, a reversion. Though this didn’t rouse the still slumbering Tibarn. Meanwhile, Grima’s form began to change- his set of washboard muscles beginning to disappear, as a gut formed in its place.

With the counter curse successfully placed, Grima could leave the room satisfied. As the hawk shrunk like a deflating balloon, the dragon’s vessel did the opposite- body expanding every which way as he returned to his own chambers. Thighs now beginning to chafe, clothes straining to contain the stolen fat. Seams popping and tearing, a smug grin on his plump face.

In the morning, Tibarn awoke, like a weight was lifted off of him. Quite literally: He could move once more. And not just move at a waddle- His adonis form had been completely returned to him. How, Tibarn wasn’t sure. But his inner laguz instincts were happy about it, ready to return to the battlefield that very day.

Though one hero was not very ready to join Tibarn out in the battlefield, which was Grima. His body anchored firmly down within his dwelling, only able to make the slightest movements as he looked down upon the summoner. Just as immobile as Tibarn had been a few hours prior.

“Summoner, it’s quite terrible!” He said in a casual, almost mocking tone. “I simply woke up like this. I certainly can’t go out to fight in this state...or leave this chamber at all.”

That wasn’t Grima’s concern. Sure, he had certainly lost the wager he had made with Tibarn, but that was all worthless in retrospect. No, the look of awe on the Summoner’s face- That was all Grima needed to know he had won.

[gumnut-logic]

The world was blurry as he let his head slide on one hand and stared out through the kitchen window. Gordon was in the pool, swimming his morning laps. The sun had yet to rise and Virgil had broken several laws of physics rising himself. This time of day should not exist. But then it didn’t, because it wasn’t day yet because there was no sun!

But no, supersonic big brother wanted to do some special training today. Training that for some reason had been scheduled at sunrise.

It was possibly important, likely scheduled just to get his ass out of bed at this godawful hour. Occasionally there were some issues with having your brother in command. Brotherly love only went so far, brotherly snark had more mileage, and Scott did have that twist of his lips when he announced the schedule.

Four pairs of eyes had immediately turned to him and his return glare had been insufficient to deflect the amusement that followed.

But it was okay. It was fine. He had his own skill drills up his sleeve. Two am would be convenient for him next time, definitely. After all, they all had to keep their skill sets up, didn’t they?

In the meantime, it was black coffee and repeated attempts to focus on Mateo. Mateo was distinctly blurry, and dark and...

“Hey, Virg!” Alan whacked him on the back.

His face nearly ended up in his coffee. “Alan? What the hell?”

“And good morning to you, too, big bro. Ready for this morning’s run?”

He stared at his bright and peppy, yes, peppy, youngest brother. Augh. “Go away.”

“Aww, did the big bear have to get out of bed a little early?”

“Alan...”

“C’mon, Virg, it’s gonna be fun. A race around the island, wind in your hair, blood pumping...it’s gonna be awesome.”

Virgil stared at him, his brain slowly picking up that something wasn’t quite right. “Alan, why aren’t you comatose?”

“What do you mean, big bro?”

A slow blink. “You hate mornings almost as much as I do. Who are you and what have you done with my little brother?” His eyelids drooped all of their own volition.

“It’s called prepared, bro. I’m in it to win it.”

Virgil’s eyes narrowed. “Are you on something? Because if you are, Scott’s going to kill you, and once I’m awake, I’ll resuscitate you so I can kill you again.”

“That’s violence, bro. It’s cool, I promise.”

An arched eyebrow that almost hurt. “What did you do, Alan?”

“Nothing. Well, nothing you aren’t already doing.”

“You drank coffee.”

“Noooooooo.”

“What did you do?”

“A little caffeine is all.”

The arched eyebrow flipped into a frown. “How much?”

“Enough.”

Virgil’s back straightened. “Alan.”

“I’m fine, bro, I promise. I know what I’m doing. I’m not stupid.” A blond frown. “Besides, it’s not like you don’t do the same with your coffee after coffee after coffee technique.”

Virgil’s lips thinned, but to be honest, the kid was right, he didn’t have a leg to stand on. But... “You’re not yet an adult, Alan.”

“Yet, I take the responsibilities of an adult, Virgil.”

“Your body isn’t fully mature!”

“Well, thanks for that, Doctor Virgil!”

“You have to look after yourself!”

“Hard to do anything else when I have four brothers mother-henning me all the time!”

“We worry about you!”

“Well, don’t! I can look after myself.”

“Alan!”

“Virgil!”

“Hey! What the hell is going on here?!”

Virgil found himself looming over his little brother, one brain cell after another slowly catching up with what the hell was going on. Bright blue eyes were staring up at him defiantly, his little brother’s shoulders tight and fists clenched at his sides.

Virgil forced his own fists to uncurl. There was a reason why he preferred not to see this time of day. Disturbed sleep disturbed his calm, his control, and things like this happened.

Scott loomed over the both of them and Virgil took a step back, slumping back onto his seat and hulking over his coffee almost in a pout. “Better ask Alan, he’s the one being stupid.”

“Speak for yourself, Virgil.”

“Both of you, shut it.” Scott could glare with the best of them, but Virgil had exhausted what little energy he had and ignored him. “Alan, dosed himself with caffeine.”

“Virgil!”

He could feel the laserbeams shooting out of Scott’s eyes switching targets and landing on Alan. There was no satisfaction, just blergh. Here we go.

And sure enough, Scott started in on his little brother. There was, of course, shouting. Virgil idly wondered how come Scott got to yell and he didn’t. But then Virgil didn’t really like yelling anyway.

Coffee. Its warmth drifted down his throat and spread into his bones. Oh god, he needed it. Maybe a second one after this? But then the word ‘caffeine’ came up amongst the explosions beside him and he reconsidered. No need to become a target himself.

He let his foggy mind drift a little. It was all his fault really. He could have gone to bed early, but he had made the mistake of getting into a discussion online with an engineering idiot. The topic had become heated, chemical formulas launched like bombs and laced with reactive equations enough to take out half the engineering community. In the end, he’d thrown a hissy fit and sat up to three am writing up his argument. He’d chucked it onto his blog with a great deal of satisfaction and was looking forward to rubbing it in the man’s face.

Just as soon as he could boot his brain.

Coffee, give me strength.

Gordon wandered in at some point, a damp towel around his neck. Being Gordon, he prodded the conflagration in progress and got burnt. The argument became three sided.

Virgil considered snoozing on the counter.

Then he hit on the idea that he could possibly sneak back to bed. He stood up slowly.

Brains bounded into the room, tablet in hand. “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Brilliant, so b-brilliant!”

The argument came to a sudden halt, four pairs of eyes turning towards the engineer.

The engineer didn’t notice, eyes glued to his tablet. Max bounded in behind him, whirring excitedly. It was the robot who prevented the distracted Brains from walking into the kitchen counter.

“Oh, thank you, M-Max.” His eyes didn’t leave the tablet. “Did you see the p-polymer ratio? Amazing! Such elegance. You know, I am quite d-disap-pointed that I didn’t think of this myself. The applications are going to b-be in-numerable.”

The distraction was enough to break the fuel lines of the argument and Scott settled for a final threat, Alan a final glare and Gordon, a snort of derision. The moment to escape was lost and Virgil slumped where he sat.

Damn.

“Virgil, you going to eat before we run?”

Alan was right, Scott mother-henned.

“Maybe.” Ugh, c’mon coffee kick in. He needed operational braincells.

Scott was peering closely at him. “Earth to Virgil.”

“Shut up, Scott. You got me up at the ass end of the day, I’m here. Don’t expect much more.”

His brother grinned, and Virgil had the odd urge to thump him. Just because this was his element, didn’t mean he had to be a smart ass about it. “Your next physical is going to be hell.”

The grin faltered. Aah, that’s better. Hmm, perhaps his brain was slowly booting. Go, coffee.

“Virgil! You h-have to see these equations. They are brilliant!”

What? Brains’ tablet shifted the remains of his coffee to one side and Virgil found himself staring at a series of numbers that made little sense at this time of the morning. “Brains, looks great. Can I review them later? I’m not all here yet.”

The engineer didn’t appear to hear him. “Look at the polymer decay to reaction ratio! This is a self-healing polymer!”

Huh? He frowned and forced himself to focus. The appropriate neurons clicked into place in his brain and suddenly what he was seeing made sense.

Shit.

He grabbed the tablet, eyeing the equations and spinning calculations in his head. Brains was right. This was perfect. The polymer would be able to self-heal with the application of a mild electrical current. Give it a pattern to follow and it would populate and keep it populated, even after disturbance.

“Did you discover this, Brains?” He frowned. There was something familiar about this. Maybe they had discussed it recently.

“Oh, no, this is V. T. Green. The man is brilliant.” There was that word again. Brilliant.

But it still took a second for it all to click into place.

V. T. Green was his blog. V. T. Green was his pseudonym online, used for obvious reasons to keep his identity hidden. The blog had been for amusement originally. A place to stash his favourite music and art, but at some point, he had found himself venturing into engineering circles and getting into discussion with the online community. It made for interesting discourse and he was able to keep up to date with some of the latest innovations. Not that he could share his own much and IR was well ahead of the majority of the world thanks to one Hiram Hackenbacker, but on occasion he would fiddle with ideas and make suggestions. It was also a great place to postulate out-there concepts.

The equations on Brains’ tablet were Virgil’s.

“Where did you get these?”

Brains was full of far too much energy for this time of the morning. “Green p-posted them during the night and they have h-hit the world by s-storm.”

“What?”

Brains frowned at him. “Haven’t you heard of V. T. Green, Virgil? He is o-one of the leading engineers on this p-planet. I have been f-following his b-blog for over a year n-now. You r-really m-must check it out.”

“Um, must have missed that one.”

“H-how could you m-miss such an important s-site? I know you k-keep up to date. The man is at the centre of a massive discussion about polymer cohesion and decay. Last night, Coloncous in Spain had the nerve to challenge him in the most ridiculous manner. I was so close to cutting him off myself, he was embarrassing us all, but Green replied with this. As expected, it is a brilliant explanation and Coloncous had no choice but to concede and crawl back into the hole he should never have come out of in the first place. He was a fool to think he could go up against Green. But this solution has so many possibilities. Do you realise this could be integrated into Two’s cahelium hull and she would be able to heal damage midflight? Four would be able seal herself in an underwater emergency. So brilliant.”

Virgil stared at the engineer. He didn’t think he had ever heard Brains say so many words in a row. And his stutter had disappeared two sentences in.

“What did you say about sealing Four, Brains?” Gordon’s ears had obviously pricked up at the mention of his ‘bird.

Brains’ attention was immediately drawn to the aquanaut, his verbal diarrhoea spilling all over Gordon and freeing Virgil.

Taking the opportunity, he pulled out his phone and brought up the website.

Shit!

He had notifications enough to clog his inbox. Due to the early hour, his phone was still on silent and he hadn’t heard any of them. A quick glance identified several prominent names and universities.

Shit. His eyes widened.

He glanced up at his family who were now eagerly discussing safety seals for Thunderbird Four. Even Scott’s eyes were wide and enthusiastic.

Shit.

Um.

Yeah.

He needed more coffee.

-o-o-o-

V.T. Green (one of my absolute favourites :D)

[boop-le-snoot]

masterpost • main masterlist • taglist & faq

previously on...

Chapter 1! Reader's job has no chill and Wanda means well (Tony does too), but, as we know, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Reader discovers the source of some peculiar things and can't help but be overcome with curiosity. F-bombs galore!

Fun fact: this story's main soundtrack is Claire de Lune, for some reason. Usually I can't stand classical music.

I didn't anticipate my first day at the bodega to be remarkful in any way but I was quickly proven wrong. My expectations were low: few customers, some of them flat-earthers of the garden variety, perhaps one or two of those 'witches' from social media blogging platforms and an overzealous Satanist or two, since I was pretty sure I saw an Ouija board and a silver pentagram hanging in Odette's office on the day of the interview.

Boy was I wrong.

We averaged a customer every fifteen minutes with each person requesting increasingly strange items: healing quartz and sage were on the closer end of normal; I felt like I had teleported to Hogwarts and was now attending Professor Snape's Advanced Potions class, having to race between the high shelves and memorize the exact location of each and every ingredient. In the end, I sacrificed a few dollars and bought one of the beautiful, leather-bound notebooks off Odette to write down the shelf and position number for the most commonly requested items and planned to begin memorizing them at home.

There's a little bit of Ravenclaw in all of us, I supposed. My curiosity only extended further: sometimes, a haggard looking person would come up and declare they had an appointment with Odette and was quickly whisked away by my boss to her office, coming out looking slightly less haggard in about half an hour or so.

I adapted to the routine fairly quickly, choosing to make my personal peace with the strange customers and Odette's mysterious meetings: after all, I got the job because I needed money - who was I to judge her for doing Tarot readings and spiritual séances for an extra dollar?

The bodega's atmosphere did grow on me rather quickly, as I had thought it would. It was warm and homely even on the rainiest afternoons, there was an unlimited supply of herbal tea, free of charge, and I grew to appreciate it just like I learned to find the positives in my job at the café. That remained a constant, mildly interesting affair too - my regulars, especially the superheroes, had started coming in during the morning hours and we were able to resume our chit-chats without a hitch.

Wanda still fished for my most recent, memorable reading and Dr. Banner left his incomprehensible scribbles on every napkin within an arm's reach for me to return to him on his next visit. The fully grown man with multiple PhDs didn't fail to blush like a schoolgirl every single time it happened, causing Mr. Stark to double on his own salacious jokes, should the engineer have had come with. They often came together, blabbering things I couldn't even fathom understanding even with the help of Google.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Wanda sounded surprisingly chipper for it was freaking seven in the morning.

I blanched, banging my arm against the display door painfully with a softly muttered, "Fuck!".

The witch frowned. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I muttered, hoping my face wasn't portraying the mixture of confusion and fear that I felt. "Something weird happened at my other job yesterday, I'm still processing," I replied honestly, looking to the side.

In fairness, I didn't know what to think. The situation wasn't something that should have shocked me, with aliens and magic people an abundance in NYC, but seeing it with my own two eyes had been jarring.

A limping, paranoid young man had arrived for an appointment with Odette shortly before closing time; I had escorted him to her office without as much as a blink, only noticing he was dripping oddly colored blood when the door behind him had closed. I cleaned it up, dead set on confronting Odette about the obviously injured person - the blood, it was more of an attempt to clean it, since it merely stuck to the rag, refusing to wash off it with water or any of the organic cleaning solutions kept under the sink.

I had to leave the rag in a paper bag, acutely aware of the fact it could not have belonged to a normal person. My best guess was that a man was a mutant - NYC had plenty of them living behind a blue wall. Odette's office wasn't soundproof: I heard a pained yelp and then a vocalisation of relief as whatever was causing the man to bleed had been removed. In a few minutes while I was closing the cash register, he came out looking almost brand new - and as I paid him a more careful look, he was missing his scleras, leaving his eyes to look slightly terrifying.

And then he winked at me, a surprisingly human, boyish gesture - the smile that crawled up my face was purely automatic. I was sure it looked frozen. He disappeared without a word as Odette herself emerged from the backrooms, a tired sheen to her brow.

"Did you manage to clean up?" She asked, eyebrows raised at the lack of stains on the hardwood floors.

"It stuck to the rag," I replied, eyeing her warily. "The rag is in the unmarked bag next to the sink. I didn't know what else to do with it."

"Sometimes it does that," her sigh was very telling. This was to be expected to become a regular occurrence. She motioned for the notebook I got to keep track of everything in the store, rattling off a recipe for a cleaner and solvent combo, made purely from the items she had inside the store, giving me stern instructions to add the ingredients in the exact order I was told. I sighed but added the footnote. Odette was a far cry from the greasy git from Hogwarts so she deserved the benefit of the doubt at least.

I didn't dare to ask any more questions about the strange man; not that day, not after I had suprised Wanda with a quick recap of my story. It's not like I had anything against mutants - as long as they were peaceful and didn't harm humans with their abilities, I was content to co-habit, share my space and even be friends with them. A very nice old lady who came by three times a week had gills peeking out of the top of her turtleneck and she was just the most polite, sweetest thing.

Wanda's curiosity was understandable and not suspicious in any way: I was under the impression she was a mutant, too, along with her twin brother - so the feeling of dread that blossomed within me as soon as the two suited figures entered the small store I attributed to the larger size of the man and vulture eyes of the woman. They both appeared extremely out of place with their black two-pieces and badly hidden pistol holsters, topped off with badges I couldn't take a good look at without losing my customer service facade.

I decided to play it dumb, self-conscious of the thudding of my heart in my ribcage. My body screamed 'danger' at me. "Hello, how can I help you?"

The woman cast an observant look over me, my plain clothes, lingering on my star-patterned scarf and matching hair band. "Are you the owner of this store?"

"No," I frowned, not liking where this was going. "Do you have an appointment with Odette?"

"We'd like to see her," the man pointedly moved his arm, exposing the gun and the badge.

I dropped the nice act, staring him down in earnest. I never liked self-righteous, pushy government officials; even less so, when they didn't follow protocol and started the conversation with demands instead of proper introductions. As I shot a quick text to Odette, noting that there were 'strange people in uniform' looking for her, my suspicions were only confirmed when the woman looked around the store with eyes that knew what they were looking for. Those two definitely weren't cops or even feds, they were straight up shady.

Odette all but flew to the bodega, the imposing, suffocating aura I'd seen only once on full display. It was hard to breathe standing so close to her; with muted satisfaction, I noticed both agents squirm, their fingers twitching, as they took in shuddering inhales through their, undoubtedly, lying mouths.

The whole spectacle was over quickly. I had managed to serve and quickly usher out Ike, one of the Satanists (yes, we did, in fact, have a few of those as regulars) with his paper bag full of powdered goat horn and a fresh cat skull under his armpit before the curtains parted and the two agents left without saying a word. I thought their eyes looked - wrong, like glass marbles, dull, lifeless and unseeing.

Odette dismissed my worries with a frivolously waved hand: "They won't be bothering us anytime soon," closing the door to her office - it reeked of strong incense and horseradish, for some reason. Like she'd been making some hell salad in front of the two nosy officials.

I took a deep breath in and then a deep breath out. The weirdness should've bothered me more, I knew, but I couldn't bring myself to decide whether I wanted to know what that interaction was actually about or live in blissful ignorance, where my boss might be some sort of a mutant or an actual witch that helps other mutants.

The longer I thought about it, the louder anti-mutant propaganda articles screamed at me: children being killed or abandoned because one day, they woke up and could fly or move things with their mind; every potential situation could end up like Carrie or Brightburn - two movies so blatantly obvious in their point to instill fear against children that could grow to work alongside Earth's Mightiest Defenders.

Needless to say, my conscious calmed down pretty quickly. I had felt the hairs on my nape stand up as soon as the agents entered the room and in my experience, a reaction like that was never good. I had been taught to trust my gut.

Odette had cancelled her visits for the day, holing up in her office as the whole store rapidly filled up with the stench of horseradish, old blood and sage. The occasional noise came from the office, interrupted by mumbling, and I was quickly told to just turn up the old, vintage radio if it bothered me.

I was too busy taking in the contents of her office - the table that previously stood in the far end of it, stood in the middle, folded out into the shape of a circle. Something was drawn on it, something the color of dried blood, and there were light candles, white and blue, littered on almost every possible surface. The air was clouded with incense smoke, so thick, it made my eyes water.

Odette's grin was sardonic as she met my eyes, wide and shocked, that had previously landed on what looked like a pot- or a cauldron, emanating the strongest bitter stench that wafted even through the lead curtain of incense. No wonder the whole store reeked.

Before she gently shut the door in my face, I caught the centerfold of the whole show - an extremely large, tattered, leatherbound tome with yellowed pages and a heavy metal padlock laying next to it. Overcome by stupor, I didn't manage to make out the intricate silver letters on its cover.

Needless to say, walking home that day was an adventure. In part, I was cautious that the agents would find me, follow me home, interrogate me - I've never been arrested even by usual cops and it was unlikely that shady government agencies were delicate in their approach. A larger part of my brain was wondering about the implications of what I had seen, I'd nearly chewed off my fingernails remembering the vacant, lost face expressions on the agents' faces.

As soon as I got home, I set to do some serious googling. And find information, I did. Plethora of minor details - candle colors, herbs used, deeply individual incantations and mythical deities that chose to work with a particular witch. It was nothing short of a whole science; I'd go as far as to say it was a complete lifestyle. The use of magick bled into every aspect of daily life, from sleep to food to communication with others.

Part of me felt incredulity at the implication of sacrificing so much to get results that might be the opposite of the ones desired. A larger, braver part of me - the very same that used to push me to explore abandoned buildings with my friends and drink booze given by a stranger - admired the work and the dedication my boss and her kind put into their work.

Having received my first paycheck and successfully having made it through rent day without having to make excuses, my conscious allowed me to treat myself to a few items - I decided to give into my curiosity and placed an order for a few books on modern witchcraft, happily waiting for the package to arrive next afternoon. I went to sleep with my head full and a new world at my feet to explore.

The books were late - or more like, never showed. The refund couldn't come soon enough. My curiosity began to reach unbearable levels the longer I worked the front desk at Odette's. These days I didn't need much assistance anymore, ready to help any new or returning customer with the help of my notebook. Time after time, I noticed a certain working order, a pattern to things if you may - and was able to recommend a few things here and there. In short, I stepped over my initial apprehension and dove into the world of natural remedies and energetic manipulation headfirst.

It made all the sense that Odette would start to take absence from the bodega as my training progressed. On the days she had fewer or no appointments, she would don her favourite scarf and trot out the front door, large purse in tow, to run errands or restock on the rare, pricy items that couldn't get delivered directly to the shop. I'd grown accustomed to locking up on my own; the spare key to the entrance door was my pride and joy, the dull silver a warm comfort hanging on a chain around my neck. Its antique design made a fairly pretty necklace.

The customer coming to pick up a special order hardly disrupted my time. I had Janis Joplin blaring from the old radio, my skirt swayed to the rhythm of the song together with me. The elevated mood while working in the shop was something I appreciated fully - with a kind smile, I departed for the backrooms to search for the package with the customer's name, not finding it anywhere near the proper place. A call later, I was opening Odette's office and extracting the paper-wrapped shoebox from the fridge, passing it into the customer's arms with utmost care: 'FRAGILE. KEEP REFRIGERATED AT ALL TIMES.' read on it in Odette's sharp cursive.

The bell above the door rang as the woman departed but I was already inching behind the curtain, overcome by sudden inquisitiveness.

The book. It stood right in the middle of Odette's desk, shut, but missing its padlock, beckoning with the thick gothic letters spelling out 'PRACTICAL ALCHEMY'. I noticed it as soon as I stepped into the office, confused and puzzled by my own unbearable desire to approach it immediately. I knew something was amiss, yet, my legs had a mind of their own and my hands firmly placed themselves upon the heavy cover of the book, seemingly without the input from my brain.

"What the hell..." I muttered to myself, finding the books contents to be - for the lack of a better word - peculiar. "Protect a babe born on all Hallows Eve..." I numbly mouthed the first words that my eyes registered. The pages made a soft noise as my shaking fingers turned them, one after the other. "Bestow healing upon a barren womb... Punish a thief..." There were - spells, and potions, and so many plants I've never even heard about before.

The pages turned and handwritings changed - at the start, words were written out precisely, the cursive neat and sharp, obviously written by an ink pen. Some things were scribbles, pencil or charcoal, so barely intelligible I had to guess about a third of the words written. Towards the end of the book pages made with a typewriter appeared - blocky letters and numbers, language modern, ash and cigarette smell coming from the paper.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The longer my hands touched the pages, the stronger the tingling sensation became - I failed to notice it at first, attributing it to the exhilaration of finding something so strange yet so precious, but as I was finishing a page that contained a fairly short spell for protection of a witches' home, the discomfort of my palms rose into a mild stinging pain.

"Fuck," I yelped, casting a look at my fingers. They were hot, angry, as if I had briefly touched boiling oil - and the skin on my fingertips began to blister, little white pustules forming where I had gingerly held the pages of the book in place. "What the fuck?" Was my reasonable question to nobody in particular.

The books contents were, no doubt, interesting but I was more concerned with the state of my hands - had I ignored the pain for five more minutes, I might have had to go to the hospital to treat what was beginning to look like a second-degree burn. I slammed it shut none-too-gently, placing it exactly as I found it and winced when barely a second of touching it brought on more excruciating pain.

The healing peppermint oil salve I knew people bought for mild burns only soothed the initial sting, so I had to suffer until I clocked out, stopping by a drugstore on my way home to purchase some much-needed burn cream. And while it didn't make it worse, I knew that my next day at work was going to be Hell.

Most thankful, however, I was to my voice-to-text option on my cell. Not only it allowed me to communicate with my friends without hurting my abused skin even more, but it also dutifully saved the short, simple spell that was supposed to protect my house. There was no harm in trying it, I supposed, after seeing what I didn't doubt was the book's own protection wreak havoc on my snoopy little hands.

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