#the short answer is that I think they're fascinating but I personally would not want to keep them

[tanadrin]

Sorry about the long ask, but what do you think about this claim: i often see marxists (and adjacent groups, blah blah) say that the united states (empire) is about to collapse or is gradually declining, something along those lines, and specifically with regard to its economy, military and ideology. For example, i was watching a video hosting Richard Wolff, and he claimed that the united states is being replaced by china as the global superpower; he compares the situation to the historical rise of the united states relative to the british empire that slowly took place in the 19th and 20th centuries. I think his comparison is slightly flawed (imo hes comparing apples to oranges here), but in the broad strokes he might be right? I also remember seeing a pretty respectable maoist on here claim the us military is failing. Idk, i would like to hear your take

This answer got real long, so I added a cut. The short version is "people who say things like this are living in a fantasy land, and you can safely ignore their opinions on anything else as a result."

The United States is not the USSR in 1990 or Somalia in 1994 or Rome in the fifth century, or anything similar. Failed states are absolutely a thing, and they're fascinating (and often quite depressing!) historical case studies, and the United States looks nothing like a failed state. It's not even about to collapse in the sense of "suffer a prolonged period of sharp economic decline that forces it to drastically reduce its presence in the wider world and curtails its power in influence." It's not even about to collapse in the sense of "experience significant regime change." The U.S. economy is, overall, doing quite well. There is no significant popular unrest. There is no elite appetite for revolution. There are not competing centers of power that would rather see the status quo burned to the ground than their rivals get power. You might want the U.S. to collapse, and you might not, but the idea it is about to is pure fantasy.

I think before we get to any other specific claims about the United States' position relative to other countries, it's important to note that claims of impending American collapse are, like claims of impending civilizational collapse or Paul Ehrlich's claim of worldwide hunger or breathless claims that the war in Ukraine is going to escalate into WW3 any day now, IMO affective claims about how the speaker feels about the world: there is a certain class of person who, whether out of nihilistic glee, hope of revolutionary change, or simply untrammeled anxiety sees the signs of collapse all around them, Doom-Is-Nigh streetcorner prophets who are emotionally invested in the idea of collapse, for whom the idea of collapse would often justify some pillar of their politics. If, after all, the US is a failed state about to be toppled by its own decadence, this would justify their inordinate degree of contempt for the US.

On another recent post someone phrased claims like this as often being more about "what would be necessary for someone's politics to be justified," and I think that's an important part of it! In fact I think "affective claims about the world being distorted into factual claims about the world bc they are what would be necessary to justify someone's politics" is a fully general phenomenon, regardless of political orientation. There are much milder forms of it than out-and-out doomerism, though of course the absurdity of doomerist claims to this degree make it really hard to take someone's claims about the state of the world seriously.

About the specific claims here:

Re: China: China has experienced terrific growth since the end of WW2, and that's great! A country of over a billion people should by any reasonable metric be one of the largest economies on Earth, and China is, it seems, taking its inevitable place internationally as an economic powerhouse. It's a big country with a ton of people, and it's terrific that it has been able to lift so many people out of the grinding poverty that prevailed throughout much of the country in the 20th century. But like a lot of middle-income countries it seems to be having a ton of trouble, for significant institutional reasons, transitioning from an industrialization-focused economy to one driven by consumer demand and consumer spending. AIUI (and I am so, so far from an expert; mostly I just read what folks like @argumate post from other sources), China has a lot of debt dragging down its economy, and weak consumer demand. China is still much poorer than the United States on a per capita basis, and though it has a large military, is much less capable of projecting its power beyond its borders. It has aspired to increase its economic and diplomatic influence through the Belt and Road initiative, but returns on this project have been decidedly mixed, and China's military and strategic focus remains decidedly confined to its neighborhood. It wants to absorb Taiwan and protect its interests in the South China Sea, and prop up North Korea and such, but it's not able to or interested in, like, fielding large carrier groups that routinely sail up and down the world's oceans or conduct invasions of distant countries like the U.S. is able to. N.B., I'm not saying those invasions are good, just that the U.S. can historically, if it wants, invade and occupy basically any small-to-medium sized country on the planet in a few weeks, and that's not the kind of capability China has, or--AFAICT--is interested in developing.

The British Empire comparison is also, I think, very misleading, and gets at something I find frustrating about a lot of modern Marxists: they want to fit everything into the model of 19th century capitalist imperialism, when the modern global system doesn't look too much like that anymore. Mostly countries like the United States, if they have economic interests in a country, don't invade and reduce the country to a status of colony to extract raw resources from. The Cold War supported a fair bit of regime change in the service of commercial interests, even in the aftermath of post-WW2 decolonization, but nowadays the tools used to develop and enforce the international order preferred by the Status Quo Coalition (which is led, but not commanded by the United States) are much more indirect. They don't involve directly administering colonies, which is significant because colonialism is, for the states that run it, expensive as hell. Sure, it's great for commercial interests--but it's often more a drain on state finances than anything else. I have come around to the view that colonialism was as much an expression of wealth as it was a means to acquire more. Britain was always a small-but-wealthy island country whose empire was much, much larger than its metropole. The vast majority of the population and wealth controlled by the United States is within the fifty states which comprise the core territory of the United States. This isn't Britain with a far-flung overseas empire which is expensive to administer and a minority of Britons on the island itself--this is a country whose wealth and industry is built on a population of 350 million or so which identifies as American first, which speaks English and votes for President and congress. Most of the United States' actual imperial possessions are tiny archipelagoes these days that are economically marginal, or else military bases overseas--these do not generate American wealth and power, they are expressions of it. For the United States to collapse like the British Empire did, it would have to lose control of California and Texas and the Midwest or something like that--which is a goofy-ass fantasy, because if the United States federal government disappeared tomorrow, I think the vast majority of the 350 million or so people living in the present borders of the United States would support re-establishing the United States federal government. Americans like and support the country they live in! This is very different from the subjects of the British Raj, or even the people of Australia and Canada, who had begun to develop their own identity (and thanks to distance from the metropole, completely divergent economic and political interests).

"The U.S. is an empire analogous Britain" is only true if you squint from very far away and don't care about the specifics of history, economics, or politics. But I think again the way to understand this claim is partly affective. If the U.S. really is the second incarnation of the British Empire, then you can cast a lot of disparate conflicts that otherwise don't fit the mold under the aegis of a broad anti-colonial struggle. It also facilitates a certain sort of base campism that some people love to indulge in--the NATO-is-always-evil-so-anything-NATO-doesn't-like-is-good angle, which has a lot of self-described leftists backing in to saying that Putin's Russia is somehow an antifascist or anticolonial force for good in the world.

"The U.S. military is failing" is pure cope. There's no country or active coalition of countries that's even remotely close to the U.S. military in capabilities. Though there is always going to be a stream of waste and corruption and medium-sized bureaucratic fuckups streaming out of the U.S. military, it remains without peer simply by virtue of one of the largest economies on the planet being willing to spend like 4% of its GDP on military stuff. The EU or China might in some counterfactual world be able to field a similar military if they spent a comparable amount, and had similar strategic aims, but they won't and they don't, so unless U.S. foreign policy drastically changes and military spending is slashed as a result, I don't see that changing at any time in the near future.

[breadandblankets]

Duke is a man of science and a man of questions. This leads him down many rabbit holes but most specifically printing out dozens upon dozens of business cards.

Gothamites are by and large, smart people, so not many people scan the little code even if it was put in their hands by Gotham's very own daytime hero. But it only takes a couple to get #SignalSurvey trending.

Duke doesn't find out (even though he has been trawling social media for days) until Babs shoots him a text in his Econ class (which is honestly a snoozefest anyway).

Sauron: I'll keep your secret.

Galadriel: dont u dare skew my data

Sauron: I would Never

Galadriel: yes u would

Sauron: little birdy has been a good boy so he may live.

-

Young people, who were reckless enough with their online safety (and knowledgeable enough to actually Use the thing) are the first to complete Duke's little experiment.

The answers start pouring in, with Red Hood well in the lead. The comments include things like "wet blanket" and "lame" which makes Duke laugh his whole ass off.

It's not until older internet savvy people get a hold of the link that the results become Fascinating. Nightwing begins to pull ahead, the comments are filled with: "please please less puns they're terrible" and "can't stand him but he's adorable so I forgive him".

Memorably: "Nightwing rescued me from a hostage situation one time. He talked the whole time and at the end I wanted to go back to my kidnappers. You're my hero Mr. Nightwing but Please."

Duke does actually get some votes for himself (included for sake of completeness) and he's not going to lie, shit hurts. Although some of the comments are just to the effect of "Bright :(", which does make him laugh.

There are plenty of votes for Batman (expected), Spoiler/Batgirl (expected but he's mad about it), the Robins (Fair), and a handful for Batgirl/Batgirl.

(Those seem to mostly be from goons complaining about her efficiency and how scary she is, Duke thinks they may have missed the point of the survey.)

-

At the end he compiles it all, gleefully makes a powerpoint, and bounds into Family Saturday Dinner™ with a ultra short throw projector and a dream.

The noise of the dining room doesn't dim even as Duke clears his throat, typical. It's when he starts speaking, clear and even, that people stop waging their personal wars.

"Most Annoying Bat, as voted by the people of Gotham," Duke anounces.

"A vote? By the people of Gotham?" Jason says, his voice strangled. "You mean the thing that killed me?"

"Number three: Batman."

It's here that all hell finally breaks loose.

[lostcauses-noregrets]

Bad Boy

A few meta-type thoughts about Bad Boy, now the dust has started to settle.  There could hardly have been more hype in the run up to the release of Shingeki FLY, but Bad Boy certainly delivered.  It’s classic Isayama; for such a short chapter it really packs an emotional punch, blending real pathos and tragedy with shockingly graphic violence and body horror.  It doesn't really add anything to the over all plot, which is to be expected, but it does provide insight into Levi’s character and answers one question that fans have been speculating about for years.

The story of why Levi holds his tea cup in such a peculiar way isn’t new. Isayama mentioned this in a magazine interview (I think?) way back in 2014

Q: …why he has such way of holding cup? Isayama: About that, I was thinking of drawing this one day. When he was a kid, Levi was living in slums and poverty. He was yearning for a life in clean & neat environment (not rich life). When he finally obtained the tea and tea set those he has been desperately wanted, he was rejoicing that finally he can drink it. But when he started to grip on the handle and lift up the cup, the handle came off and his cup was shattered. He was so traumatised by this experience and that’s why he changed his way of holding cups to not using the handle.

However we now know that the cup belonged to his mother and the extraordinary lengths Levi went to recover it. What is new is that we finally have confirmation of when Levi’s Ackerpowers were awakened.  Fans have been arguing about this for years; some thought it was when he killed the man with the knife immediately before Kenny left, others suggested it was when Farlan and Isabel were killed. Now we finally have an answer.  It’s not exactly clear how much time has lapsed between Kenny taking Levi in, his powers awakening, and Kenny leaving, however the fact that Kuchel’s tea set hadn’t yet made its way to the surface suggests that not much time had passed at all. 

Levi’s description of his powers awakening is fascinating;  

“Strangely enough I didn’t doubt what was happening to me at that moment. The pain had vanished, my head was calm, as if it had been immersed in water. Clear instructions on what to do came to my mind. I simply followed them one by one.”

This is the most information we’ve ever had about the famous Ackerpowers and goes some way to explaining Levi and Mikasa’s preternatural calm and focus when they're fighting.   They really only succumb to panic and despair when their loved ones are threatened.  Think of Mikasa in Shiganshina and at Fort Salta, and Levi when Farlan and Isabel die and when he allows Zeke to escape after Erwin rode out to his death. 

The panel illustrating Levi’s powers awakening is also interesting as it looks very like a Titan transformation. This suggests there is more than a grain of truth in what the Yeagers said about Ackermans being a by-product of Titan science, who were able to access the power of the Titans without becoming Titans themselves.   

It’s not difficult to draw a direct line between the abuse and persecution Levi suffered as a child, with his determination to use his power to protect those in need.  Initially he used his strength to protect the vulnerable people of the Underground, such as Isabel, however once he met Erwin he was able to exert his power to serve an even higher goal - saving humanity. Isayama discussed this in the Answers Guidebook way back in 2006 and I think his comments are worth repeating here. 

Isayama With the heroes of American comics, conflicts dealing with the situation “with great power, comes great responsibility” have been depicted. In Levi’s case, if he had no power, he would probably have been an ordinary person with no responsibilities but, as a consequence of having power, that he became a person excessively burdened with responsibility. Kenny talked about “everyone… was a slave to something…”, when he put the question to Levi “what is yours!?”, Levi himself too perceived it. That he himself too was a slave in regard to his own strength. The sense of duty that “I must become a hero”. …the same thing can be said of Mikasa too but…, for the Ackerman family, in the service of their master, there are many people who are able to manifest their power to its maximum.

[Translation by @tsuki-no-ura]

I think it's also very in keeping with Levi's character that he remained devoted to saving humanity after the Rumbling; providing succour to the children in the refugee camp, and working to renew the environment destroyed by Eren's genocide, despite his injuries and regardless of whether he retained his Ackerpowers.

The title of the chapter, Bad Boy, is also interesting. No one actually calls Levi a “bad boy” in the chapter (though he is called worse) which suggests that this is how Levi sees himself.  It makes me wonder how much he internalised the thug’s insinuation that his mother would have been disappointed in him, and it also recalls Levi’s speech to Historia and the 104th, where he says he’s fine playing the role of the violent lunatic.  Poor baby.

Another point the chapter clarifies is the origin of Levi’s belief that Kenny was his father.  To be honest, it’s hardly surprising that Levi assumed this considering Kenny clearly had some kind of relationship with his mother and took him in without question. Still, knowing that the seed of that belief was planted by a thug who was willing to torture and kill a child, or sell him into sexual slavery, really twists the knife. 

[Translation by krtk.]

I am a little sad that we didn’t see more of Kenny in the chapter, but his presence certainly looms large.

I had expected to see more of Kuchel but at the same time I’m almost glad we didn’t.  Her life was brutal beyond measure and we’ve already seen her tragic death. Several fans have suggested that the reason we only see Kuchel in partial profile is because Levi’s memories of her are so hazy, all he really recalls is her grace 😢

It’s remarkable that Kuchel was able to retain such poise and grace despite living in such desperate squalor.  @momtaku has made the point that Kuchel appears to have been born into at least modest comfort, judging from Grandpa Ackermans’ home, which would explain where her elegance and also her fancy china came from.  It’s heartbreaking that both she and Levi clung on to this small memento of a better life. 

Levi’s devotion to his mother, his desire to emulate her grace and cling on to her belongings is devastating, is very much in keeping with everything we know about his character.  Levi has boundless compassion, is deeply loyal, and never forgets those he loves, whether it’s Farlan and Isabel, Erwin, or his squad.  He’s also very sentimental; saving his mother’s tea set, and drinking tea evokes a direct connection to Kuchel and the only good thing he remembers from the squalor and cruelty of his childhood. This makes Erwin’s willingness to indulge his sentimentality and bend the rules to procure a steady supply of high quality tea for Levi all the more poignant. 

There's been some debate about Gabi's reaction to Levi's story in the final panel...

Some people have interpreted her expression as holding back tears, while others have suggested she's trying not to laugh. I'm definitely in the stifled laughter camp. It just seems so very typical of Gabi and her relationship with Levi...

Gabi: - winds Levi up - Levi: - trauma dumps - Gabi: - stifled laughter / more wind up - Falco: - actually upset - "Would you guys stop??" Onyankopon: - shade -

It's also very typical of Isayama to poke fun at his characters like this, and it stops the story from tipping over into bathos.

There is one burning question that Bad Boy doesn’t answer and it’s this - what tf was kid Levi doing in Mr Smith’s classroom?? 

Despite hoping against hope, I never really expected Isayama to answer this, because he does love to troll his readers.  Is it too much to hope that sometime down the line he’ll reappear with another chapter called School Boy?? 

[thepagansun]

Hi! I know your favorite Iliad character is Agamemnon (I love him too) and I would like to ask, what’s your opinion about Menelaus and his personality? And their relationship with each other?

Thank you for your answer in advance! :D

Hi! Thanks so much for your question! I love Trojan War questions! Especially regarding Agamemnon or his family! 😁

I do like Menelaus, especially in the Iliad. He shares similarities with Patroclus in that they're both kinder than Agamemnon and Achilles respectively and are underestimated as a result.

Combat: Menelaus probably ranks as the 10th strongest warrior since he wasn't included among the top 9 who volunteered to fight Hector. But he was still quite courageous. He dueled and curbstoped Paris. He was the one who asked Big Aias (Ajax) to help a wounded Odysseus and with Athena's help, he was able to protect Patroclus' body and briefly stand against Hector before getting Big Aias again. So he's definitely impressive.

Relationship with Agamemnon: I love their relationship in the Iliad! Their scenes together are brief but sooo touching! Agamemnon really did seem to go to war for Menelaus' sake and not as most modern (far more inaccurate) portrayals that make it seem like he just wanted Troy's wealth (as if Mycenae didn't have more than enough gold). In Book 4, Agamemnon freaks out when he thinks Menelaus got wounded. In Book 6, Agamemnon is so angered by the injustice Menelaus suffered that he kills a Trojan prisoner Menelaus himself was willing to spare. And in Book 10, they share such an emotional, touching scene where Agamemnon defends Menelaus from Nestor's criticism and subtly warns Diomedes against choosing Menelaus for the night raid. He even lends Menelaus his mare so Menelaus could participate in the chariot racing for Patroclus funeral games! Their love for each other was so genuine. And for his part, despite the heartbreaking quarrel Menelaus and Agamemnon had in the Odyssey, Menelaus is inconsolable when he finds out Agamemnon's fate and he erects a barrow for him in his memory.

Relationship with Helen: I do think Menelaus genuinely loved Helen and she loved him. As early as Book 3, Helen makes it clear she regrets leaving with Paris and we find out it was heavily influenced by Aphrodite. And in the Epic Cycle, Menelaus spares Helen's life. And the Odyssey, they seem to live contently (although still grieving their loved ones) and are predicted to live together forever in the Elysian Fields.

Other Notes: But I think sadly, Menelaus' story gets lost in the bigger story of more powerful characters like Agamemnon, Achilles, Big Aias, Diomedes, Hector, Odysseus and even Helen. The quarrel he has with Agamemnon in the Odyssey seems almost necessary for Menelaus to finally have gotten his own story/epic that sadly is lost to us. We only have a glimpse of his wanderings in Egypt through the Odyssey and the play Helen by Euripedes. But the Athenian plays should be taken with a grain of salt for his portrayal because the Athenians were biased against Spartans due to the Peloponnesian War.😔

In short, I think Menelaus was a tragic epic hero whose story sadly gets overshadowed by others. But I love that the small bits that survive prove that he was almost as fascinating as Agamemnon. I hope this helps! 😊

[oxygenbefore1775]

rotten endeavour

➼pairing: zeke x reader

➼cw: very grumpy zeke (he has his reasons), both of them are emotionally stunted idiots, tame mentions of injuries, canonverse

➼summary: worrying about zeke is a rotten endeavour sometimes but you persist anyway

➼wc: 4,3k

➼a/n: for a better understanding it's best to read this post first since this explains what boo-boo happened to zeke cuz he never explains it in the fic itself (fr, i mean it)

“You are the last person I'd come to for this.”

The first time you hear the words, they sound like a poorly veiled taunt, another reminder of the distance Zeke maintains between himself and you. Even when he chooses you, he ensures you're not honored by it.

“Usually Pieck or Porco assist me—”

But they're away on some military exercise, leaving you as the only option to him — the undesirable option. Even now, you sense it. In all the time you've been talking, never once did he turn to face you. His gaze constantly glosses over your features, fixating on anything in the room but you.

A surprisingly cold tone for someone hoping his beckonings would succeed in swaying you. His aloofness would gain him no favor, especially now, when you are the only one he could consider for help. Your favor — the word has a nice ring to it — and with it, your control over the decision. 

You cross your arms over your chest, pondering your options. 

“So you want me to walk you from the Titan research facility back to your home, that's all?” you lay it down plainly.

Rarely one for being interrupted, Zeke seems almost glad to hear you sum up his request concisely. A quick nod is all he deigns to reply with, as if his ability to answer with words has deserted him.

Surprised by his lack of rebuke, you quirk your brow at him. 

A short walk to the facility and back might exhaust an ailing elder, but certainly not the Chief of the Warrior Unit. You can’t help but to wonder what the possible explanation for this could be. Yet for the first time, you finally feel yourself in the position to demand one, instead of going along with his excuses as it often happens. 

“And what is the reason for this?” Your voice is on the verge of shedding its stoic tone. It feels almost wrong to ask something of him, not when he always keeps his answers so close to his chest, but you must persist. If he hopes for any of your help, he should give some common courtesy a try. 

It takes effort to cast your glance his way, silently demanding that he meet your eyes. To his credit, he obliges, but there isn't a sliver of the seriousness you had hoped to see.

“Should there be a reason?” he counters with a quip unbefitting his current position yet somehow so predictable, which brings your blood to a boil. 

Lacking the mood to entertain his antics, you do not relent in your inquiries. “With you, there usually is.” You don’t hide the skepticism in your blunt statement. 

At last, the finality of your reply compels a shift in his disposition. He glances at you, as if sizing you up, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes before he quickly looks away. As much as you’d like to brand it a silent re-consideration, you know him far too well to expect an immediate pliancy.

And it doesn’t come. 

He sighs, poorly hiding (or mimicking?) the exasperation you, apparently, have had the insolence to cause him. “Maybe I just want some company. Ever think of that?” You shoot him a look full of disbelief but before you can reply in the frankest way possible, he piles on, “Besides, aren’t you the one with the morbid fascination for my position? I thought you’d appreciate the chance to show me off.”

Even now he won’t say a thing. You wish you had enough annoyance in you to roll your eyes at his flippant tone but it all has burnt out and turned to simmering anger. Oh well, he is the only one to be poorer for it. You linger in your eloquent silence — a sign that Zeke would usually welcome, considering the plentiful history of your constant bickerings. But today it must have instilled him with something beyond the bland interest of having traded words with you. 

Before you are able to catch it, though, he turns away. The match, taken out of his pocket, hisses and burns, and the room is soon filled with the putrid scent of nicotine, the fog of smoke shielding his features from you. A cheap ploy, not to mention unpleasant for your senses. You are about to leave and free yourself from its presence when he suddenly speaks up. The next thing Zeke says is coated with a sentiment you never thought him capable of — nervousness.

“So, will you come?” Something in his voice falters, adds a yet unspoken urgency to his tone, and it urges you to hesitate, but not enough to break your silence.

You shoot him an inquisitive look in hopes to see the hint of the seriousness in his demeanor, but instead, he feels the need to ask you again, this time resorting to calling your name in his question. You can’t believe the distress you’ve caused in him with your lack of response alone. 

You purse your lips. Fuck him and his stubborness. 

“Sure.”

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

He'd better express some sincere gratitude, and lots of it, for you sacrificing your only day off to assist him. Especially when the morning weather has left you yearning to wait it out in the warmth of your bed, not forced to endure it at the gates of the research facility as you are right now. The Marleyan soldiers haven’t allowed you in since — as if you need yet another reminder — you have no official relation to Zeke that would sanction your immediate presence.

Yet annoyance seldom takes deep roots in your heart, even if its target is as persistent as Zeke. If anything, the only thing that seems to stir the ire within you is the intensity with which he plagues your thoughts even at this hour. Stuck waiting at the gate, pondering about him is left as the only way to pass the time. 

Zeke would rather die than ask you for a favor. Barring the unlikely scenario of him developing a newfound fondness for your aid, there are only a few reasons for his shadow of an attempt to break down the walls around him and actually seek you out. One particular reason seems to lie over there, in the caverns of the facility where they could be doing who knows what to him. But what? What could instill him with more dread than being vulnerable for once?

With each of your guesses more sinister than the other, it takes you time to notice the gate screeching as it opens behind you. The sound of his steps is light but somehow his voice is even lighter when he greets you with the same loud words of his.

“Now, aren't you a welcome sight, patiently waiting for me all those hours of the morning? One might mistake this commitment for something only a spouse is capable of.” A hint of sneer finds its way into his tone but drops just as quickly. “Shame that the resemblance alone couldn’t secure your entry past the gates, where I very much needed your company.”

Before you can take in the sight of him, a retaliatory quip already leaps off your tongue. “You can tell that to the soldiers standing at the gate. While their sentiments mirrored yours, the words they chose to express to me were far from mindful.” 

Only then, you look at him. 

Zeke is pale, and awfully so. As if they have drained him of all the blood his body had to offer back in those sterile rooms. He himself, however, seemingly refuses to acknowledge his condition as well as the unprompted reaction of shock that it has elicited from you. 

Perhaps the thick fog this morning has distorted your perception of colors, you muse to yourself. If he himself doesn't display any concern for his own well-being, then you shouldn't either. However, you choose not to seek comfort in this excuse for an explanation. The faster you get to Zeke’s house, the less time you’d get to spend in his company, already pestering as it is.

Fearing that you may slip and mention his deathly complexion out loud, you decide to speak no longer, instead signaling him to take off. And he, for a change, lacks the rebuke to call you out on it. At least this one time you'd enjoy the ‘peace’ of his company, you note to yourself with distasteful glee — only to become disgusted with yourself moments after. It’s wrong to think that way — if not of Zeke Yeager, then at least of the honorary Marleyan.

His gait is neither fast nor steady. For every three steps you take, he manages only one — and even that requires a significant effort as he drags his feet and takes his sweet time before making the next move. If you weren’t there with him in the early hours of the morning, you would think that he is walking in the dark. Not devoid of basic compassion, you shoot him a tentative look. For all you know, darkness might be all he sees right now. In all the time you've been watching him, his eyes have never strayed from the invisible spot he’s fixed on.

As you walk side by side — or rather, as you slow your pace to match Zeke’s — you flinch at the sudden feel of his palm brushing against yours. It’s not just the touch, already as rare as it is for your… connection, but the coldness of it that surprises you. Somehow unaware of this, he persists in finding your palm repeatedly, unaware of the subtle withdrawals your hand makes time and again to evade the clammy grasp of his trembling fingers. He’s too close. He’s never been that close, for that matter.

Just as you are about to turn your head to him to voice your quite justified confusion with his unprompted proximity, you hear the soft rustle of his voice. 

“You wouldn’t be thrilled at the prospect of lifting my two-hundred-something-pound body off the pavement if I were to collapse right here,” he says, his blue eyes appearing haunting against his pallid face. “Better to take care of this now, while I’m still in the right frame of mind to warn you.”

The loquaciousness is of no help to him, especially now, when he looks like this. Yet his words still have a sway over you. Your gaze averted, you take hold of his arm instead of his hand. 

It’s quite difficult to walk now, with you fused together at the side and him eagerly leaning his weight onto your frame. At times, you contemplate sending daggers his way, but your intentions are swiftly repelled by the sight of his half-closed eyes. His lids twitch ever so slightly, as if his whole body is held in tension. 

You've never seen him in such a state. If it's true, if he really is in pain like you suspect — no display of nonchalance can fool you on that — it still leaves you perplexed. A rare witness to his injuries, considering all of them that you see on him quite so happen to be the ones you inflict upon him yourself in the heat of the moment, you are nonetheless keenly aware of one telltale sign betraying his hurt — a sign currently hidden from your view. 

Clouds of steam — not one visible to your eye. You want to ask but you're too apprehensive of his answer. If he will be able to answer you at all, given his state, that is. 

Just what have they done to him? 

How fortunate for you both that only a small distance lies between the research facility and Zeke's home. 

You come to a sudden halt at the sight of his front door. In a mere moment, he will disappear behind it, dismissing you to continue on your way. And afterward? You can't anticipate that someone so accustomed to enduring frequent physical hardships would possess the knowledge of proper self-care. His default course of action would likely be to wait it out — whatever ‘it’ may be. From what you can see, ‘it’ has only worsened for him.

“Now would be the absolute worst time for you to go back on your promise,” Zeke hisses through his teeth as your nails dig deeper into the flesh of your palm in hesitation. “Not just a few steps away from the house.”

“Watch me,” you shoot back momentarily, fiddling with the keys.

In a way, he is correct. It's just the level of your commitment to the promise that he is wrong about.

Standing at his doorstep, you ponder the sentiment that has driven you here. Perhaps you linger a bit too long for Zeke's liking. With the seclusion of his house so within the reach, he feels bold enough to reject your assistance and stagger past you. No, you would never feel such worry for Zeke Yeager, the thought settles in your mind. The holder of the Beast, though, is another matter entirely. There’s no strings attached to the concern a conscientious citizen would express about the well-being of the invaluable warrior, his regeneration be damned. A sense of relief washes over you as you pinpoint the exact reason for your lingering presence. You are simply here to watch over him, the honorary Marleyan, to ensure he doesn’t have the indecency to deteriorate further. That’s all there is to it.

He doesn’t object as you follow him into the house, he’s too preoccupied with making his way to the couch. Each step is unsteady, as if he's channeling all his focus into placing his feet just right. A grunt escapes his lips as he collapses onto the couch, his coat and boots still on. He buries his face in the crook of his elbow, away from the cold white light streaming in from the street.

The shallow ragged breaths he takes mirror the fluttering beats of your heart as you stand near the doorway, in an abashed contemplation of his form. 

“Why are you still here?” he murmurs, likely hearing you go deeper into the room to close the curtains rather than near the exit like he’d prefer. 

“Well, how do Finger or Galliard usually proceed when it comes to this point?” you counter, a soft rebuke finding its way into your voice. 

He takes his time to answer, spacing his labored breaths between each word. His response is laden with a finality you’re expected to pick up on. “They do precisely what they’re asked and leave,” he hisses. “Do you get a kick out of doing exactly what I told you not to?”

His voice, though quiet and almost breathless, still persists, as if his silence might jeopardize his perceived victory in the confrontation you two — apparently — are having. As much as the barbs of his words beckon your counter quip, you can’t find it in your heart to entertain it. There is no bickering to be had with the man who’s a hair’s breadth away from passing out from pain.

“And what then? What do you do after they’re gone?” you inquire further, emboldened by the lack of possible retaliation on his part.

Silence is the worst that he's capable of at this hour. And that's all you hear first, until a whisper reaches your ear. 

“This. Precisely this.”

You find no pleasure in being right, because it means that every time — and you don’t dare to venture an exact number — he’s been in the caverns of the facility, he’s been recuperating the same way he is now. On his own, with an injury apparently too grievous even for his regeneration to heal. "Zeke is no stranger to the mutilations his body has endured during his years of service to Marley, yet you’ve never heard of a single wound rendering him to the state you find him in right now.

“Oh, how viscous of me, then,” a smirk starts but fails to form on your lips as you struggle to keep your nonchalant composure, approaching the couch he is laying on. “Taking care of a man who’s too helpless to resist my nursing advances. Only a monster would be capable of such cruelty.”

Your remark doesn’t elicit any reaction from him. The serene expression of his features you’re so used to seeing is now shattered as you pry his arms away from his face to get his glasses off. Ever averse, he opens his eyes the moment he feels your touch on his skin. 

“What a rotten endeavor you’ve chosen for yourself,” he speaks with a sullen strain in his voice, “to pity me.” 

In the dim light, it’s hard to see clearly, but it appears that even his eyes have lost their usual brightness. Only the shadow of a smile that he manages to crack remains the same, ever playful. As much as he feigns annoyance, the inordinate amount of attention you give him still amuses him. 

“Not true. It’s not true,” you rush to counter him.

As if the redundancy would make your lie any less obvious.  

He doesn’t fight your advances anymore, not with words nor attitude, as he closes his eyes again and lets you slide the glasses off of him. The metal frames have left red dents on his nose and forehead, even more visible against his pale face now. His hair, a mess of damp locks clinging to his forehead.

Lying down seems to have provided some relief from the pain, whatever its nature may be. But not much. His ragged breathing and shivers ravaging his body are dead give-aways of that. He must be concealing from you the true extent of his suffering.

His voice rustles once again, but even in the deathly silence of the room, you have trouble discerning his words. Thus, he has to repeat himself, much to his chagrin. “A smoke, give me one.”

“I don’t think that—”

“I think that you are still here because of some noble notion to ‘take care’ of me,” Zeke lashes out in a whisper that somehow manages to sound brimming with frustration despite its weakness. “And the only thing that I want right now is a good smoke, so be so ‘caring’ as to give some to me.”

It’s strange to see him crippled with pain to such an extent. Maybe that’s why you pay no mind to his unusually quiet yet all-too-familiarly barbed outburst and refrain from mirroring his retorts. 

He finishes the first cigarette in under a minute, reducing it to a stump between his trembling fingers in a few deep drags. With his lungs saturated in nicotine, a semblance of calm finally settles into his breathing. Despite yourself, a sigh of relief escapes your lips at this sight. Without missing a beat, the second one is ignited. Nicotine is all he breathes. 

“I'm sure that there's something more interesting in the house to stare at other than this couch.” The puff of smoke carries his words. 

His hint falls on deaf ears. A begrudged plea is all you can recognize in the sound of his voice. 

You ponder for a minute, casting your gaze towards the very thing he'd like you not to look at. Perhaps it would be a good bet to let him endure the pain in the comfort of solitude with you keeping a close eye on him from another room. At least that way he will have to expend energy on healing, instead of employing a fruitless tactic to hold back his grunts and keep a straight face, like he is trying now. 

He doesn’t need you. He wants you gone. Even with the gravity of the situation in mind, you can’t help but to let his attitude cut deep. Broken and suffering, he wouldn’t dream of letting down his guard for you.

Fine. You’ll allow your sentiments to mirror his, then.

“Indeed,” you feign agreement. “It’s not like you’re a sight for sore eyes right now, anyway.”

You mean to hurt him, even just a little bit — a semblance of retaliation for what he’s put you through on this endeavor — but his emotionless facade doesn’t even budge. If anything, he appears glad at the mere mention of finally getting some alone time.

You infuse your voice with feigned incredulity to a painful extent, grateful that he's in no condition to pick up on it. “Well, I suppose even the shelves in your room could be a more welcome sight than this, especially with what happens to fill them.”

A flimsy excuse to leave his side, but he’s all too happy to take the bait. Your veiled ultimatum is accepted without a moment’s consideration as Zeke immediately shoots back.

“Yes, a lot of deficit stuff to read, so help yourself. Now get out.”

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Cooped up in a room filled with the rarest books Zeke has collected from invaded cities for the past hour, you find yourself caring less for these spoils of war than you'd like to admit. All your thoughts are of the living room, of the warchief’s broken form on the couch.

You rush to the living room as soon as you hear his grunts still. For the briefest of moments you consider the possibility of him being dead, the regeneration having failed in ridding him of this invisible ailment, yet brush off the baseless assumption. Marley wouldn't do anything to cause the death of their wonder-warchief. Not for another five years at least. 

You have proven yourself right in the end. Without your persistent presence, his guard has dropped enough for him to fall asleep. A considerably better outcome to staying awake and aware of the pain. 

Entering the room filled with blue smog, your attention is immediately drawn to the ash-covered patch of flooring near the sofa. It all still smokes, fills the air with the nicotine stench from no less than half a dozen stubs, the smell so potent it stings your eyes, making them brim with tears. In the poisonous haze, it takes you a moment to make out the amber glint still nestled between his pale fingers — a lit cigarette, burning away. The ember laps at his skin, singeing and instantly steaming anew with regeneration. You ensure to take it from him and stub it out in the ashtray nearby. His body doesn’t need any more damage beyond that of the original mysterious ailment that’s led to his chain-smoking in the first place.

You have to admit there's a touch of morbid curiosity, if not concern, compelling you to contemplate his features and the impact that the shock from the last few hours has had on them. Usually his sleep is far too thin for this fit to work out in your favor. But now he barely registers your presence even as you sit down at the very edge of the couch beside him.

Even in his nicotine-fueled dream he fails to find rest. His body’s still full of pain-born tremble and tension. Yet you have to admit that he does look less deathly than a couple of hours ago. Neither pallor draining his complexion nor sweat beading his skin seem to be the case now. 

You’re glad, almost relieved even, to see him find some semblance of peace. With his body’s regenerative abilities, it's only uphill from here. At least until the next time he has to return to the facility. 

Another time that likely won’t come for you, given how your recruitment happened. And along with it, any chance for your curiosity to be sated, if it ever truly existed. No amount of pressing on your part would make him consider divulging any explanation for his compromised state to you — pressing that you are too prideful to conduct in the first place. 

In the quiet of the room, disturbed only by the sounds of his breathing and the occasional noise of the city coming from outside, you can’t keep your thoughts at bay. So you turn to him once again. The sight of his features, still heavy with sleep, brings you twisted comfort that you may sit here with him for a bit longer. You study him closely. For a moment, you’re even tempted to reach out and brush the hair from his forehead but restrain yourself. 

The redundancy of your altruistic intentions is truly laughable. A man of his gifts, known to be undeterred by the multiple loss of his limbs, would want for nothing when it comes to his health, let alone your feeble attempts to take care of him. And yet despite his regeneration, there’s a part of you that wants to help, no matter the futility of your efforts. But you know better than to expect gratitude or even acknowledgement. Zeke is not one to show vulnerability, and most certainly not one to thank you for witnessing it. 

And in the end, you’re always the one poorer for it.

The warchief’s quarters are much more quaint than yours, but there's no comfort in being here now. You recall the very reason you decided to stay instead of leaving immediately. With your intentions fulfilled and his sleep growing lighter, you desire to leave more than ever. You don’t want him to wake and his first words to you to be yet another remark at the sliver of affection you have for him. He doesn’t get to hurt you any more than he’s done today.

Only fools harbor hope — you care to remember that after the years of knowing him. But for your persistence today, you’ve been given a glimpse of the other Zeke. Even now, you can see a bit of that in him as he lies there, curled up on the couch, wincing ever so slightly at the light pouring in from the open front door. Once again, you stand at his doorstep in a moment of weakness, pondering one last thought before leaving. Maybe you're fine with being hope’s fool.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Was the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black actually any special, and were they seen as some kind of royalty to outsiders?

Because in every (or most) fanfic I’ve read with them, they are always depicted as being way above anyone and everyone else, even their own partners. The only ones good for them, or the only ones who understand them, are the ones with black blood running through their veins. As if they are some sort of gods that no one, but others with their blood, can touch. And everyone loves (and/or hates) them and wants to be a part of their family because they are so powerful and attractive, but watch out because they are prone to being crazy.

Which is actually another thing I wanted to point out and ask:

Did the Black family actually have some kind of curse of madness?

Hi 👋

Now, like many, I'm not immune to being completely fascinated by the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black, so I was pretty stoked about this ask.

For the first part, are the Blacks actually as important as they make themselves (or fandom makes them to be)?

The short answer is not really, but they are important.

Now, the long answer:

I mentioned here how I believe the Wizengamot functions like a council of lords (which is what the Witengamot is named after in our real world), as such, families like the Blacks, the Longbottoms, and even the Potters likely do have a "noble title" (for lack of a better term) that allows them a seat there.

That being said, I don't think the Blacks are above any of the other families there, not really, but they think they are. The Blacks are an old wizarding family, they can probably trace their family tree back to the founders' era and perhaps even before, and it's important to them. They take pride in this legacy of one of the oldest pure-blood families in Britain. The Malfoys, for example, are probably richer than the modern Blacks, but they don't have the Wizengamot title and they came from France, they're not British Pure-Bloods, not originally, and I think the Blacks as a whole would look down on that. But other Wizengamot families that have just as much British history should be their equals then, and they are unless you ask a Black. They are a very proud family, and they might think they're above everyone, but they're the only ones thinking it.

I also personally headcanon that they have more houses aside from Grimmauld Place as well. I mean, back in the Regency and Victorian era it was common for richer aristocrats to have a manor away from London and then a townhouse/manor in London for the social season. So, I kinda assumed that's what Grimmauld Place initially was. So it isn't the family manor the way Malfoy Manor is and there is a Black Manor somewhere in the countryside.

For the second question:

No, I don't think the Black Madness is real.

Let's define "madness". Since it isn't really a medical term, I'd go with the dictionary on this one:

So, we'll treat it as repeated foolish, frenzied, or uncontrolled behavior that cannot be explained by other factors.

We don't meet many Blacks, and most of the ones we do are far from mad (I'll get to Bellatrix and Walburga).

Both Narcissa and Andromeda are completely sound of mind. Sure, they might have made mistakes, or rash decisions on occasion, but that's being human. They both care deeply for their families and act in their best interest. And they are intelligent, logical, controlled, and consistent in their behavior. So, two Black sisters are not insane.

What about the Black brothers, Sirius and Regulus?

Well, neither of them ever read as mad to me. Regulus was obsessed with Voldemort until he realized what he got himself into and his actions weren't ones of a madman, a desperate one, maybe, but not mad. He was smart enough to figure out about Voldmort's Horcruxes and smart enough to do something about it without Voldemort knowing.

Sirius isn't at the best of mental state when we see him considering it's after 12 years in hell on earth. But he is logical, sane, and sound, especially during Goblet of Fire in which he uncovers the plot with Barty Crouch Jr perfectly, just getting the wrong Death Eater. He comes to correct conclusions about people and is clearly intelligent:

“I don’t know,” said Sirius slowly, “I just don’t know . . . Karkaroff doesn’t strike me as the type who’d go back to Voldemort unless he knew Voldemort was powerful enough to protect him. But whoever put your name in that goblet did it for a reason, and I can’t help thinking the tournament would be a very good way to attack you and make it look like an accident.”

(GoF, page 334)

Yes, his mental state deteroits in OOTP when he's back at Grimmuald Place, but that's Sirius dealing with his grief, trauma, his sense of helplessness, and complicated feelings about his family. He never was mad, even then, just in a really shitty situation.

And yes, he was cruel as a teenager, but as I keep saying later in the post, cruelty does not equal madness.

So, what about Bellatrix, the fandom's poster child for the Black Madness?

I don't think she's insane either, well, at least she wasn't until Azkaban. In her trial, she is quiet throughout the proceedings, looking board, even, until the verdict is given:

The dementors were gliding back into the room. The boys’ three companions rose quietly from their seats; the woman with the heavy-lidded eyes looked up at Crouch and called, “The Dark Lord will rise again, Crouch! Throw us into Azkaban; we will wait! He will rise again and will come for us, he will reward us beyond any of his other supporters! We alone were faithful! We alone tried to find him!”

(GoF, 595-596)

She is fanatical, sure, but there's no baby talk like we see in OOTP, she is cold and clearly understands the situation, she isn't in a frenzy but in control. She just knows about at least one Horcrux so she truly believes what she is saying and from her point of view, it makes sense she believes that. I won't say she is right to torture and murder Voldemort, no, she is cruel and sadistic, always was. But you can be cruel and sadistic without being mad.

The baby voice she was useing when talking to Harry in OOTP was a taunt as well, not how she usually speaks:

“Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, boy?” she yelled. She had abandoned her baby voice now.

(OotP, 810)

The moment he cast an unforgivable and she started treating him seriously she dropped the baby voice.

She is cruel and fanatical, but not insane. She rightfully suspects Snape throughout HBP and DH, she is aware of her surroundings enough to see Snape's loyalty is odd when many others don't. She is intelligent and logical. She can keep herself in check when she wants to, she's, just, obsessive, and willfully blind to anything to do with Voldemort because she practically worships him.

But, she isn't mad in the sense the Black Madness seems to imply. Also, I think how we see her, post-Azkaban is worse than how she was before. I think we met a less stable, crueler version of Bellatrix, not that she wasn't cruel before, but she was more stable I think. I mean, she did spend about 14 years in Azkaban, and Fudge said Sirius looked too sane to him after a decade in the place. The Wizarding World expects the prisoners in Azkaban to lose it. So, is it really a wonder Bellatrix was affected by her time there?

And what about Walburga who screeched about blood-traitors and mudbloods constantly? Well, I think, like Bellatrix, we're seeing the worst of her.

I mean, Walburga had her portrait painted after:

Her eldest and favored son ran away from home

Her second obedient son joined the Dark Lord and then disappeared. She likely believed he died a painful torturous death of a traitor considering that's what everyone thought.

Her husband died soon after, leaving her alone with Kreacher in a gloomy home that hasn't felt like a home to any of them since the war started brewing in the 1970s. Since Sirius left.

So, I think the version we see of her, is one who was grieving. She was lonely, bitter, and in mourning. And that is the state of mind the portrait captured. I think magical portraits capture the person as they are when they sit down to have the portrait taken, so it captures all of Walburga's pain, and Walburga, proud daughter of the house of Black spits acid instead of letting her pain get to her, instead of allowing herself to feel the guilt that is weighing her down.

Walburga was never been the picture of a good mother, or of stability, but I mentioned here and other times that I don't believe Walburga was physically abusive at any point, but she always had high expectations for her sons, especially Sirius. She probably had control, and she wasn't always as frenzied as we see her, we just see a version of her broken by life, and when she broke, she got so much worse.

So, I don't think there is a curse of Black madness, not really. It's just the Black family had shit luck in the Wizarding Wars, and to a degree, it was their own doing — their pure-blood mania that sent their kids away.

As for other members, well, we know Alphard was sane enough to give Sirius money when he ran away. We know Araminta wanted to legalize muggle-hunting and Elladora started the tradition of hanging house elves' heads on the walls. The thing is, you don't need to be mad to be cruel, you can be perfectly calm, collected, and intelligent and still do unimaginable horrors. In the case of Araminta and Elladora, they don't consider muggles and house elves as human, as equal to them. therefore their pain and suffering aren't cruel in their eyes, it's like killing a deer and mounting its head on the wall, it's an animal, and it's fine. I don't think they were even necessarily cruel towards other wizards, just towards those they considered lesser, who they thought of as animals. They weren't good people, but that doesn't make them mad.

I think there is something to be said about evil not always equaling insanity and that people who'd be medically considered completely sane can do a lot of evil. I think calling every evil character insane or mad cheapens these terms and has always felt to me like a cop-out. Insane is what you call someone you want to Other, to forget that the evil they committed was done by a person, it's a way to wave their behavior away and say: "Well, I can't understand why they did that, they're insane," and this kind of excuse for characters' behavior always left a bad taste in my mouth. Evil can be done by perfectly sane humans, and I think that angle of analysis, is much more interesting because then you force yourself to understand. You force yourself to face the humanity in a character in a way calling them mad won't allow you to. Real evil is hardly ever so simple as "madness" makes it out to be.

(As a side note, I think it's possible quite a few of the Blacks have mental health issues, but that's very different than how terms like madness and insanity are thrown around and portrayed)

[abyssal-author-and-artist]

Pacifica Northwest is transmasc and you can't change my mind

Okay. That sounds insane. I am aware. It sounds insane to me. But fuck it - I already did the trans Dipper rant essay and so I'll do the same with trans Pacifica.

So Pacifica grows up rich with very oppressive parents. She's clearly a child of abuse who likely has no sense of identity. She's forced to fit a strict mold of The Perfect Daughter. Someone who is perfect and demure and pristine and womanly and who has to wear the right color dress and can't just wear something close enough because otherwise she gets something implied to be very bad.

Put another way: A kid is forced to be exactly perfect and the definition of whatever their gender is. They are not allowed to deviate from that definition in the least otherwise Bad Things happen. They're scared to even be slightly different.

Sound familiar? Because a lot of trans kids go through the same thing. A lot of trans femme people have to play with the Boy Toys because otherwise they're a flower boy and that's bad (which in itself is bad because flower boy is old slang for gay/derogatory as well as gender expression and identity being different but it also hurts trans people). A lot of transmasc people have to play dress up because if they don't there's Something Wrong with them.

I am more than 90% certain that it wasn't intentional, but looking at Pacifica through the lens of someone who tried to do a Boy Thing once and was forced to be hyperfemme for the rest of their life is just so good to me.

Pacifica embodies a lot of toxic girl tropes. You've heard of toxic masculinity, now get ready for toxic femininity - she's petty and superficial and puts too much stock in appearances. Which, granted, is a thing that happens in girl friend groups - I've seen it happen many times - but it reads as different to me. This isn't malice, Pacifica has been shown to be a good person (The Golf War, Northwest Mansion Mystery). She cares for those around her and often only acts the way she does because she has to. Any time she tries to speak up, she gets ruthlessly shut down. She has to be what her parents want, when they want, how they want. If she doesn't, she gets punished.

Yes, Pacifica shows up to every event dressed femme. But who drove her to those events? Who has their claws in every aspect of the town? Who would hear about anything that happens in Gravity Falls? Who buys her clothes? Her parents. And if her parents - who, again, are likely abusive - want her to be and dress like their perfect little girl, their hyperfemme daughter, then she will. She has to be.

From a writing perspective, Pacifica is made to be the opposite of Mabel. One loves fun and color and chaos, is nice no matter what. The other is sitting outside this room and named Pacifica Northwest. But looking at it like that, why wouldn't Pacifica be trans? Especially if Mabel is transfemme - which is a fun reading of her and one that I love to see. It's not canon but think about it. If Mabel is transfemme then Pacifica - her inverse - would be transmasc. The other end of the spectrum.

But now I need real evidence, right? My transmasc Dipper essay was built on much more than "this is behavior seen in a lot of trans people just generally". I pointed out specific scenes in specific episodes - though I forgot Carpet Diem, which is fascinating and which I could so make an essay on by itself. Can I do that for Pacifica?

Well, the short answer is no. The best evidence I have is a general hand-wave at her behavior and environment and "this just reads as transmasc to me". Which, to be completely fair, is how headcanons work. They don't necessarily need any degree of proof. It's nice and it can help people to agree with you, but in the end, it doesn't matter. I can say I headcanon anything, and because it's a headcanon, you can't do shit about it. If I say Pacifica is transmasc beyond a shadow of a doubt, then you can challenge me.

To be fair, I did say that. The title of this is literally "Pacifica is transmasc and you can't change my mind", I will take that I was making claims. But also I immediately followed that up with "it sounds insane to me" so I should hope we all know that I'm going into headcanons-based-on-the-text territory.

And I'm never going to attack someone over a headcanon that makes someone feel seen, and I'd hope that holds true for everyone. I like Pacifica as transmasc and forcing herself into the box of cis female when it's wrong because I did the same. I love transmasc Pacifica. I love the idea of Pacifica and Dipper hanging out and him telling her that he's trans and Pacifica just kinda goes "you can do that? But then why doesn't everyone? Being a girl kinda sucks - there's girl drama and dresses and girl puberty and all that stuff. Everyone would be a guy if they could" and Dipper gives her The Look and says "Pacifica Northwest, that is the most trans thing I have ever heard".

In conclusion, I headcanon trans masculine Pacifica Northwest. Still workshopping a chosen name for him but I do, and I love him. It's all silly fun headcanoning a children's cartoon character as trans and it hurts no one. And it doesn't even affect a lot of the things I'll do. I have one fic that will hint at it and one that will treat it as the main center of the story planned. (It will be a part of my AU but not a major part and I'm also playing with the thought of gender-fluid Pacifica for Divine Falls. It's entirely ignorable and will not affect anything related to the main AU's plot.)

Yes I referred to Pacifica as she/her for most of this essay but it was referring to a pre-realization Pacifica who isn't out yet and thus would convince herself that she was uncomfortable with he/him pronouns and therefore calling them he/him would be wrong until he came out.

[retellingthehobbit]

Your retelling, will it be implying a Thorin/Bilbo attraction?

I ask because I just discovered that ship and when I looked it up on tumblr, it led me to your work lolol

Every time someone asks me this I feel more like I'm making a Real Adaptation! I love the idea of people following this webcomic for years while analyzing the gay subtext as if they're waiting to see if Supernatural will make Destiel canon. a powerful feeling. The short answer is yes! The long answer is that it's complicated, and that if you're not a Bilbo/Thorin Person you should still stick around because I'm going to handle it in a very funky way that is not what you're expecting (also at the rate I draw, it won't be "canon" in the comic for approximately 2039482289798334534534534534 years.) Generally Thorin's role in my version of the story is that he's a living embodiment of The Quest, and Bilbo's feelings for Thorin mirror his feelings for the Adventure. When Thorin first arrives at Bag End, Bilbo is overwhelmed and annoyed and confused-- he finds him both fascinating and horribly frustrating at turns, and has no idea how to feel about Thorin in the same way he has no idea whether he'll join the adventure. As the story continues, Bilbo's feelings on the Quest will shift, and his feelings about Thorin will shift as well. I just really love the general idea of a new take on Thorin where he has a bit more pathos and a deeper relationship with Bilbo. I also think the way LOTR retroactively reframes The Hobbit as a story written by 'unreliable narrator Bilbo Baggins' adds to the possibilities a lot! there's a lot of queer subtext in Lord of the Rings, and it's fun to bring more of that subtext into the Hobbit. Tolkien often refers to hobbit adventures as "queerness,' and makes "queerness" the name for the thing that bigoted hobbits are afraid of; the fact that Bilbo has been repressing the "queer" part of himself that he inherited from his mother is, canonically, the thing he's struggling with in the beginning of the story.

I really enjoy the bit in the Unfinished Tales where Gandalf describes Bilbo like this:

And now I found that he was 'unattached' - to jump on again for of course I did not know all this until I went back to the Shire. I learned that he had never married. I thought that odd though I guessed why it was; and the reason that I guessed was not that most of the Hobbits gave me: that he had early been left very well off and his own master. No, I guessed that he wanted to remain 'unattached' for some reason deep down which he did not understand himself - or would not acknowledge, for it alarmed him.

That feeling of not being "out to yourself" and not knowing what it is that you want out of life is just!!! It's just very compelling to me.

Thorin's still gonna die though. Don't you hate it when you have this whole elaborate coming-out-to-yourself story but then your first gay crush is so Problematic he kiiiinda nearly starts a war so you betray him by stealing the Heart of his Mountain in order to prevent that war, but then the war happens anyway and he dies horribly :/. A universal gay experience.

Thorin is also an interesting character to play with, especially because I'm diverging more from the book (compared to Bilbo or Gandalf.) The way I'm planning to handle him is that he's a character we see only "from the outside," from the perspective of other characters, and no character sees every side of him. The dwarves portray him as a noble king; the elves portray him as a haughty arrogant joke, to the point where it affects Tolkien's own "translation" of the story; Bilbo has his own complicated feelings about Thorin, but even his portrayal of Thorin is heavily biased and he never gets to see the full picture.

But yeah-- the Hobbit is originally a very lighthearted story, but I do think there are lot of darker and deeper emotions you could explore in it if you wanted to, particularly if you bring in the metatext of how it's reframed in Lord of the Rings. And I do want to explore those darker emotions! So I am XD. There already was an extremely book-accurate comic adaptation of the Hobbit that came out in the late nineties (though it's super short and the pages are cramped to fit in all the prose)-- so I don't really see the point of being obsessively close to the original novel, since an obsessively close comic adaptation already exists. This comic is for the Weird Queer Overly Emotional Metatextual Reframing of The Hobbit!! Anyway, it's fun.

[comphetkoncass]

Something about steph and self-image? Very vague I know but you always have good insights to how characters view themselves and I think Steph is fascinating ! 💜💜

ooo, good one! i actually have an additional fic for you aside from the one i'm writing now! i'm currently more interested in her view of herself as a person and hero -- but on my old account, i wrote a fic about body image. it's a little dated but i think you might like it as well! https://archiveofourown.org/works/17849309

but here's the fic prompt answer:

/////

It’s a while before Stephanie goes back to the cave after… everything.

After she died. After she “died.” 

After the gang war, and Leslie sort-of kidnapping her so she could heal far, far away from Gotham. After being away from the sickness its heart, getting to decide whether she wanted to go back after she was clean. 

Stephanie had. 

And now she was back. And the cave was exactly the way it’d looked when she was Robin. 

Exactly. 

As in – Jason Todd’s Robin suit was still hung up as a memorial. And Stephanie’s is just back in storage somewhere. 

The way she sees it, it’s all the more proof she’s the biggest fuck-up the cave has ever seen. Maybe even a bigger fuck-up than that weirdo who took over as Batman a few years ago and turned Batman bloodthirsty. 

But unlike him, Batman knew Stephanie sucked from the get-go. 

Which is like, the problem. She was the ultimate fuck-up Robin, and she doesn’t even get credit for it. She’s just swept under the rug, and there’s no part about Stephanie that was supposed to go down easy. 

Stephanie stands there, in her shiny new Batgirl costume, and can’t help but stare at Jason’s trophy case. At the plaque. Guess the non-fuck-ups get trophy cases. Or maybe they're just reserved for the real Robins.

Everyone acts like they’re supposed to learn from Jason’s mistakes, because he died in costume and it’d be such a tragedy for Batman to lose another soldier. Which is kind of fucked up, in Stephanie’s unprofessional opinion. But from what little Stephanie has gleaned from Tim and Batman, Jason Todd wasn’t even that much of a fuck-up! He didn’t get in over his head intentionally. He just wanted to know the truth about his mom, and got stuck in a shitty situation. How was he supposed to know the Joker would be in Ethiopia? That was a crazy one-in-a-million chance! 

Stephanie’s the real fuck-up Robin and she should be remembered as such! She innovated in ways that proved there was truly no limit to how bad a person could mess up. Except, everything she did as Robin, right up to the end, was entirely by the book. She followed orders, she did everything she was supposed to do. She stepped exactly half a toe out of line, something that she knew for a fact the other Robins did all the time. Especially Tim. She used her judgment, used her brain – and everything had gone fine. 

And then she’d been fired. Just like that. 

It’s infuriating. She’s heard about all the ways Tim and the first two Robins deliberately disobeyed. Tim got the gig specifically by ignoring Batman’s instructions! It wasn’t fair that the one time she improvised – which still led to a decent outcome! – she got sacked for it. Tim would’ve gotten benched, maybe. But because B already knew Stephanie was the fuck-up of all fuck-ups, everything she ever did wrong needed a triple dose punishment. 

It wasn’t fair. 

She wasn’t supposed to just be forgotten. She’d died, too, hadn’t she? However briefly? 

But then, even if it was brief, they thought it’d been for good. And he still…

There wasn't even a trace of her here.

Whatever. It was short. Like what, two, three months? Jason had been Robin for almost three years. So he got the trophy case. And she got the storage room. 

Because she’s a fuck-up. And fuck-ups don’t deserve memorials. They’re not even worth the cautionary tale. They’re only worth a tired, hand-sliding-down-the-face, ‘What did you do this time, Stephanie?’ 

So no memorial case for her. Whatever. it’s not like any of the others could even learn from her mistakes anyway. Not like Batman was just itching to hire more girl Robins, so why did it matter that she was Ms. Teen Pregnancy PSA? They couldn’t learn from it. Maybe they’d use a condom or something, but if Dick or Tim got someone pregnant, Batman would probably have just congratulated them. Yes, you’ve done your duty, you’ve put more batlings into the world. I’m so proud of you boys. 

And the other Robins didn’t have evil dads, she was pretty sure, so why would they need to learn how hard it was to let your dad get arrested instead of killing him in cold blood? They wouldn’t need any kind of Attempted Fratricide Redemption course. 

It’s just-

Every bad choice she’d made, she learned from, and she’d made the right choice in the end.

Well. Right up until the biggest fuck-up of them all. 

A lot of people had died. All because she’d tried to prove herself. That she was good enough. That she was still worth something after she’d been fired. She'd been wrong and so many people were in graves because of her hubris. And now she was alive and they weren't.

Stephanie closed her eyes a moment.

Maybe she'd been fired for a reason. Maybe he'd got a premonition that she'd be capable of cataclysmic fuck-ups, so B had just chosen to fire her early.

Because it was different, for her. The others had been benched before, and sure, Dick had been fired pretty unceremoniously too, but he’d had the Titans, and another name, and gear, and…

No one had ever been just one-and-done fired like that. Not in such a short turnaround. 

In hindsight, it was so obvious that she’d been nothing more than a placeholder for Tim at best, and a ‘look what you made me do’ at worst. Because Tim had been right there with Batman telling Stephanie to quit back when she started. She’d hoped that Tim had genuinely changed his  mind, but… She was just there to lure him back out. She’d just been there to keep the mantle warm.

And when she got fired, to Batman, that was it. He didn’t care about her, which meant no second chances. Not like the other Robins got. Because again, she was the fuck-up, and she didn’t deserve second or third or fifteenth chances like all the rest seemed to get. She didn’t get to use her own judgment in the field because no one trusted her.

They don’t support her because she’s a huge fuck-up. One big walking hazard sign. 

No one should’ve been surprised when she managed to start a gang war, and got captured and tortured, and died from her injuries.

But unlike Jason, who gets a whole trophy case, Stephanie didn’t even die in the Robin colors. 

She died as Spoiler. No relation to Batman. 

She wasn’t missed, she wasn’t remembered. She’s not even a goddamn lesson, because what is there to tell? “Don’t hire fuck-ups?” That doesn’t need a fucking plaque. 

Or-

Or maybe it does. Fuck it.

Stephanie finally takes a step back from Robin II’s memorial case, and gives it a two-fingered salute. “I know you weren’t a fuck-up,” she tells him. “And believe me, I’d know. Don’t worry, kid. I’ll make sure you’re not totally alone here.” 

And with that, she’s got a mission. She’s supposed to be in the cave for a supply run for Babs. Because apparently Babs is in the business of working miracles, and… After Cass gave Stephanie the suit, Babs…

Well. Stephanie isn’t entirely sure why Babs hasn’t tried to chase her off yet. Stephanie also isn’t entirely sure why Cass let her be Batgirl. But the point is, Babs hasn’t successfully discouraged Stephanie yet. She’s even been willing to work with her, give her supplies. Give her access to the Batcave again. Stephanie won’t abuse that trust, she'll finish the task Babs gave her, but she’s never been very good at following the rules to a T. And even when she did as Robin, it still wasn’t enough, so maybe it’s just a cosmic fuck-up thing. 

Stephanie finds the old costumes, stowed away, clean and neatly pressed.

Hers is among them. She’s only a little surprised – she’d half wondered if B would’ve burned it in a new no-girls-allowed campaign. (Stephanie tries not to think too hard about how and why Cass is the exception.)

She unfolds it, looks at it properly for the first time since wearing it. The red and green and yellow of it all. The skirt. The headband.

She has half a mind to take it with her. 

Instead, she sighs through her nose, and pulls out a sticky note. It’s no memorial plaque, but it’ll do. 

A good fuck-up, she thinks morbidly, and almost writes it when the sharpie hits the post-it note. It lingers for long enough that it forms a dark, swelling dot. But the others would probably kill her if they ever found it. Disrespecting the properly-dead, and all. 

Stephanie closes her eyes, and thinks about what the version of her who died on the operating table, however briefly, would have wanted to read.

…Fuck Black Mask, I hope he dies. Take care of my mom. Was I ever good enough? 

Not quite punchy enough. 

Spoiler Alert! She finally writes. She dies at the end. :) 

She re-folds the uniform, then sets it back in its place, note tucked slightly under the fold of the collar. 

There. Not much of a good soldier. But for now, it’ll do. 

[seventeenlovesthree]

Digi Dynamic Shipping Game

Send me two names among the following 12 and I’ll write a short analysis post about them:

Taichi Yagami | Yamato Ishida | Sora Takenouchi | Koushirou Izumi | Mimi Tachikawa | Jyou Kidou | Takeru Takaishi | Hikari Yagami | Daisuke Motomiya | Miyako Inoue | Iori Hida | Ken Ichijouji

Whether canon provides input on them or not.

Unfortunately I didn't make it before the end of Pride Month, but - while there are a lot of potentially queer ships in the subtext of the Digimon universe that fit the tone, there aren't as many of them that came this close to technically being confirmed as having a valid (canon) baseline as this one.

To ask if canon provides input on Daisuke and Ken - or Daiken, Kensuke, Daisuken, however you want to call them -, is, once again, like asking if water is wet; they're the most elaborated relationship in the entirety of Digimon Adventure 02, the majority of Ken's development is tied to his bond to Daisuke... If you want to read more about why I value their relationship so much, I definitely recommend this post here, because they're just... Endlessly fascinating to me.

The good-hearted goofball with self-esteem issues that lead him to play a role to impress others initially - meets a corrupted genius and literally slaps the darkness out of his system. They turn from fated rivals to fated partners, facing the powers of darkness together and eventually, they become better people in the process thanks to one another. Daisuke's entire priority system changes upon wanting to give Ken a chance, he not only becomes more honest and less defensive, but also lets his personal sense of courage and friendship shine through; Ken, who's initially reluctant to take the hand Daisuke is offering him due to all the guilt he feels, slowly but steadily becomes the kind and gentle soul that was always within him, because there is someone by his side who has his back. Always.

It's a beautiful story of two complementing souls, whose bond enables the first real Jogress evolution, despite the fact - or even because - they couldn't be any more different. It's a story of repentance, forgiveness, learning to befriend others despite your own trauma and differences - and the story of a romantic subtext that almost hits you in the face if you're not careful enough. There is a reason why the screenshot above exists - the most recent movie literally acknowledged that, even after all these years, the bond between Daiken has not vanished and has, instead, gained a somewhat (actively) flirtatious nuance. While it used to be Ken who blushed due to Daisuke's (oftentimes oblivious) bluntness, the same Ken is now forward enough to openly praise Daisuke in ways that make it impossible to overlook the potential implications here - well, for anybody who isn't Daisuke himself at least...

Whether I think why and how they’d work.

Given the circumstances that we're, unfortunately, not talking about a canonically confirmed ship, we just gotta pretend that there will be a day when Ken's attempts of asking Daisuke out will be answered in two potential ways: 1.) "Huh? YOU WERE FLIRTING WITH ME THE ENTIRE TIME????" or 2.) "Huh? I thought we were together this entire time anyway???" Because both of these would be somewhat plausible "Daisuk-esque" reactions in my opinion.

I thoroughly believe that these two would work out romantically in fantastic ways - even though it'd take a lot of work, but which relationship that intends to last doesn't? They both chose careers that require enormous amounts of time and energy - and very irregular working hours. Granted, the latter applies to the majority of the Chosen Children, but an aspiring chef of his own Ramen cart may only be able to see an aspiring police officer if the latter's break time allows him to grab a meal at a Ramen facility that is coincidentally very close by... Gate hopping may have made that a lot easier, but at this point, we don't even know if that is still a thing anymore.

I still maintain that, as much as they'd be married to their jobs, they both still have quite a romantic side to themselves once the curse is broken - so they would make time, just like they did throughout all these years. While their interests in general might also be quite different, they would always find a way to bond over their mutual love for sports, football in particular. Ken needs someone who pulls him out of his head - and Daisuke needs someone who grounds him, which, as The Beginning suggested, is (basically) exactly their dynamic. They always enjoy group gatherings with their friend groups, food tastings are always a reason for Daisuke to invite everybody over - especially to lure Ken away from work. And let's be real, I can also see them go on cheesy dates - that mostly consist of them doing sporting activities (any kind of ball sport, rollerskating, hiking) where Daisuke can (pretend to) be competitive and Ken knowingly plays along with the teasing, just so they have an excuse to be close. Because they'd be cheesy like that, oh Lord, they'd be so cheesy in the most wanna-be-bro way possible.

Whether I’d prefer them as platonic or romantic ship.

In a universe in which Miyaken doesn't become canon, there is literally no reason for Daiken not to be endgame - unless the writers actually had some guts and turned them into an official OT3 in The Beginning. Of course I can always enjoys them as just platonic life partners, bros 4 life, you don't even have to give it a label, as long as they remain as close as they are. Because they simply belong together, one way or another.

[quetzalpapalotl]

do you have any transformers fic recs? i started looking for fic recently but found it hard to find stuff i liked, and you seem to know your stuff, so... any faves you wanna shout out..?

Hi! If by knowing my stuff you mean being extremely pedantic and having strong opinions on lore and contiuity mixing and characterization (especially regarding Optimus) the yeah.

Always love to shout out my faves. Since you didn't specify anything you want, I'll just try to give you a wide range in hopes you like something. But let me know if there's something in particular you're looking for. I haven't been reading TF fic lately, too focused on TGCF fic, so maybe I also need recs, but here are some from the top of my head!

Remember to check tags and warnings before reading.

the land of the living series by @megatron-fucks was a vague G1-ish continuity that got soft retconned into being strictly IDW1 that only diverges in how the Cybertronia presence on Earth went. Anyway, the first fic Lesser Evil is about the Matrix forcing a sparkbond between Megatron and Optimus and them dealing with the aftermath of this horrible violation and figuirng what it means for the war. Not usually a fan of sparkbonds, but I really love how it's used here to create conflic and even in its sequel Peace is a Dead Rat, it's not used as a get out of jail card to solve conflict. Ruin's prose is great and she has a way of portraying Megatron that's hard to describe, simultaneously pathetic and irrational but also a force of nature so sure of himself that seems to make perfect sense. And her Optimus!!! I love him so much, she really manages to capture all aspects of him, the good and the. Series also includes a really good Pharma fic.

Read everything by Ruin, really, but I also want to mention a new and dreadful form, which is about the megops eating Primu's spark to adquire the power to defeat Unicron, they bleed, suffer, are transformed and have pnp sex while they're at it. Again, the prose is amazing and the fic hits all of the right spots for me.

The Art of Kneeling (and Stabbing Yourself in the Back) by @soundwavereporting a fic about how IDW1 soundop are tragically suited to enable each other's worse traits. There isn't much stuff out there with them, but this fic makes up for it by sheer quality and Getting It.

Escape Velocity byt trajectory. A fic that explores the IDW1 Combaticons dealing with their shadowplay and Blast Off's betrayal post-canon. Really thoughtful characterization, the sort of very questionable relationships where it's like, this is the best we can expect from this people. Oddly heartwarming and a great way to fill fulfilled after that storyline got cut short.

leave my lips charred by oriflamme. The IDW1!Arcee fic. Ok it's more like IDW1 to the left, but still, it explores Arcee's past and I have added so much of this fic into my personal headcanons. Especially love the portrayal of her relationships with Galvatron, how despite him being... Galavtron, he was there and it contextualizes Arcee's canon complicated mourning.

Keep It Secret, Keep Him Safe by not_whelmed_yet. Backstory Chromedome fic that seeks to answer what was Prowl trying to blackmail him with that. It's satisfactory without completely recontextualizing the CDRW relationship the way the scrapped plot of CD knowing about Dominus and needling Rewind would have. Also featuring Chromedome's previous conjuxes and it makes sure you really feel for them before their deaths.

To anyone stupid enough to actually think the war is over by @polyhexian. Absolutely fascinating interaction between Prowl and Brainstorm. Two guys that hate each other, but have surprisingly many things in common and Chromedome to link them. Also Nate has written a lot so really check out their stuff, especially if you want more CDRW, they've done like, 1/4 of all of it. And omg, their Whirl fics.

Half a Same Mind by @honestlyvan When I say no one gets TFP Bulkjack and Wheeljack like Van, I mean it. Read all of their stuff while you're at it, but the tension and reward of this fic is aaaaaaaaaaaaaggggh. It's so carefully constructed, the soft melancholy, the they both know that they know where they stand but still remain mmmmmm, just read it!

Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me? by @sroloc--elbisivni. I'm always reccomending this fic as my absolute favorite portrayal of TFP!Orion. Just how Megatron realizes that there is more to him than he previously gave him credit for while you the reader can actually see how this is a person that will one day become Optimus Prime, the soft doomed megop and that end that shows Megatron does get Optimus better than anyone.

A Miracle Opened Wide by neveralarch. Vague G1-ish continuity where Ratchet offers to spot Jazz so he doesn't hurt himself while trying kink. Jazz fails at communication and it's really cute, I love him, his overcompetence backfiring and making him too paranoid. Also I just love everything it does with not-sticky truly robot sex, always good to read. Also, it's hot.

Right now I'm following Rhinestones in lieu of Diamonds by fowo which I'm really loving!! Vague continuity where Megatron having lost his sense of meaning now that the war is over end up in a support groups. Then Optimus shows up and naturally, he can't be chill about it. Optimus tries to be the bigger person ofc but he is also weird about Megatron. Absolutely adore the characterization and there's hardly anything I love more than taking the war away from these two and having them deal with the subsequent crisis.

You should also read Come here, baby, tell me that I'm wrong by me!!! A fic about IDW1 Optimus and Whirl having a... complicated relationship. I think it fucks hard. Also completely canon compliant bc it's me we're talking about. Also also, you can look at my tf bookmarks from my Ao3 and see if there's anything there not mentioned here that interests you (tho I always forget to bookmark alas OTZ)

Have fun and let me know if this was helpful, if you want!

[alexanderwales]

Disclaimer: this is a very long ask. Please feel free to ignore it if you're busy, or for any other reason - 'I love your work!' is a decent summary. Hello Mr. Wales! And belated welcome to tumblr from someone else who also spent years seeing tumblr screenshots on reddit and twitter before joining.

I read Significant Digits a while back (immediately after reading HPMoR) and enjoyed it a lot, so thank you for that! More recently, I've tried doing some writing myself, with middling success (a HPMoR, Delve, Mother of Learning and Mage Errant crossover).

One of my readers left a long and fascinating comment on my fic, in which they quoted your review of HPMoR at length: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/a-call-to-the-dark-city-delve-mother-of-learning-hpmor-mage-errant-multicross.127432/post-30801851

I found that I disagreed with your thoughts quite a bit, which surprised me! My response is in the next post in that chain, but the gist (ignoring context specific to my fic) is this exchange:

Harry does not win the climax of the fic by having overcome his flaws, he wins it through brutal murder. The biggest organic change he undergoes is from believing in the value of truth to advocating for multiple conspiracies against both the wizarding and muggle worlds, and if that's character growth, I find it ugly.

My (shortened) response:

As Alexander Wales notes, Harry *does* change in HPMOR: he becomes less open, less willing to share information widely, and shifts focus from local issues (people and ethics near him) to what he considers global risks and outcomes. As a reader, I'm not too interested in whether or not the change in Harry's character is in a 'good' direction, or whether or not he becomes a better person, or whether or not his views over time gradually approach my own. For me, the most important thing in a story is that it is *interesting* - and I find Harry's arc in HPMOR very interesting.

I'm curious about if you have thoughts on the general debate there - to what extent do you think writers should prioritise faithful simulation of characters and setting vs. giving the characters an arc with an emotionally satisfying conclusion? Or is deciding initial conditions such that accurate simulation leads to a satisfying character arc and emotional conclusion *the real puzzle*?

Thanks again - I've enjoyed your writing a lot over the years, and expect to enjoy it more soon! (About 10 of my readers have independently recommended that I read Worth the Candle based on the stories I've included in my fic, so it's pretty close to the top of my reading list :p )

(I am obligated to point out that Significant Digits was not mine. I wrote a very short epilogue here, but nothing of the length or complexity of any of the notable fan sequels.)

I've been thinking about how to answer this for a bit, but I think what it comes down to for me is that I want a story to have a clear thematic, emotional, or intellectual through line. I want a story to be about some specific thing, and then take that thing through its paces, and to have us come out the other end having explored that thing in its fullness.

To some extent, I like stories best when they're driving at some singular vision, which I know as a sprawling webfic author probably seems insane. So if the ultimate conclusion is "yes, we should commit conspiracies against people for their own good" then I would like for the early parts of the story to show us why that's the case, ideally by having some truth be put out into the world that causes damage, or by showing how a lesser conspiracy worked to protect something, or whatever else. Or contrarily, if it's the work's position that conspiracies are bad things, then it should show us how and why they're bad, and why this character is making that decision anyway. Or if the work isn't sure how it feels about this thing, I still want them to explore it, to see the different scenarios and thoughts.

I'm an avowed fan of HPMOR, and I am unfortunately the sort of fan that has a lot of critical takes about the things that I enjoy. My biggest problem with HPMOR is that it's not thematically "whole": the individual parts don't feel like they mesh that well together (in my opinion). With that said, I haven't reread HPMOR in a very long time, and my arguments are rusty, so I don't want to give them here.

I think my desire for thematic cohesion is probably work-dependent, but even so, is also probably at the far end of reader preferences. Some people are perfectly happy to read things that are more simulationist in nature: a character does things because that's what they would do, and if this doesn't build up to some grand theme or climactic showdown, so be it. I do think a lot of the trick of writing is making character stuff work in harmony with plot stuff, because you don't want people to feel like "oh, he just did that because the plot demanded it" (though they will say that about almost anything, in my experience).

I don't think that HPMOR is fatally flawed for its thematic wanderings, and I do think there's some sense in which it's best read as a you'd read a TV show with multiple "seasons" which are individually about something but don't necessarily have as solid of a through line. It's just a personal preference thing, I guess.

[cabezadeperro]

Hello. (!!!!!!!) I am marathoning your Jango-long-works because I keep on turning the (stunning) way you write this man in my mind like a rotisserie chicken strapped to a wind turbine. I’m just, like. what is this guy’s deal?? Because I adore (adoreeeeeee), the way you write him as he’s like. Inescapable. (In the sense that im reading ‘ships in the night’ and I love how we’re getting a glimpse into his days pre-bounty hunter, pre-new-lungs, pre-‘my rage has simmered down’). Like, his line about: “Jango finished the job because that's why he’s being paid to do—and he has very little now, but his honor is one of those things.” I want to put it under a microscope because, why is he clinging to this job when surely he could have looked for allies? I feel like he feels such an overwhelming sense of. Guilt? Grief? Responsibility? For how Galidraan went, and he does use ‘selfish’ to refer to himself, could that mean he can’t relate or engage with that Mandalorian, even if their goals partially align, because that will be further defeat and he can’t take it. In short, (and thank you for your patience with my rambling! Feel free to reply or not, public or private is fine) the way he Will fulfill a contract but No he is not your mandalor (or he doesn’t even feel particularly patriotic) is such an odd thing that is deeply compelling and I admire (and it’s maddening) how the narrative (your writing style) is not out to Deus Ex Machina him to get himself fixed. I really love how you show the broken/competent/grim parts of him while also keeping him unapologetically himself (but maybe I am still firmly stuck in that harrowing scene he has with the Goran about Arla, that I’m realising now I’m unconsciously putting next to ‘ships in the night’ even if their timelines differ).

Anyway!! I realise I should close an ask with an actual ‘?’, so: did you have any goals when you set out to write ‘ships in the night’ and ‘Arla and Jango revenge road trip’, and if yes, is there any ‘director’s cut comment’ that you’d like to share?? 🤩🤩🤩

HIIII

i was going to answer privately, but when you do that the ask disappears into the ether forever, and i wanted to have some way to save this skdghkgh

thank you so much for reading and for reaching out!! it makes me very happy that you want to talk about those two fics specifically--i'm pretty proud about them and not that many people have read them dfdsfkj (understandable! they're very niche and no one owns me anything lol).

under the cut because this got Long lol

wecome to the "rotating jango fett like a rotisserie chicken" club. it's hard work but someone has to do it. he's my little meow meow and lives rent free in my brain etc etc. i think he's such an interesting character and has so much potential in the little we see him both in the movies and in other materials (like the comics or the videogame), and i don't want to judge other people's versions of the character but i feel like sometimes the fandom doesn't do him justice. he's just so Interesting, i want to study him like the bug. he's key for The Star War but at the same time he's kind of like illegible--kind of like a blank space but not. we know what he did, we know what happened to him, but we don't actually know any of his whys, and i find that fascinating.

his character as it first appears in the prequels is also very interesting. i love how still and quiet and bland and polite he is! he's just some guy (tm), nothing to see here.

iirc ships in the night was actually written as part of an event. it was a gift for a friend, and that meant that i knew i could get more personal with where i took the story. i thought that it would be interesting to explore his character when he was no longer jango fett, mand'alor, but he also wasn't jango fett, bounty hunter yet. your 20s are a Weird time, and i think that in his case they had to be even weirder. it may be because i personally just got "finished" with mine (i wrote those fics right before turning 30 lol), but i find that decade very interesting. there's a lot of change, a lot of shedding layers of dead skin and old personalities and trying out things and messing up and becoming one thing or another, and in jango's case (someone who's severely traumatised, who's lost and lost and lost, who hasn't actually had the time or the space to grieve properly) those years would be even more key for who he became afterwards. he's very raw. he's very scared and still grieving. but there's also this--coldness about him, this ability to intellectualise and dissect and actively ignore his sense of right and wrong until it scabs over and he can forget he ever had one. he's very young and very clever and completely ruthless, and he has nothing to lose anymore.

also, we don't actually know that much about what happened to him between escaping the spice freighter and doing that job for dooku. a decade goes by, and he becomes the Best Bounty Hunter In The Galaxy TM, and we just have no idea of what actually happens to him, or what he does.

that was also my thought process behind monsterkilling i believe? (sorry, it's been a while lol). i just wanted to write something about jango and arla, about arla finding out what happened to him and just deciding to find jango. i think i didn't quite do her justice, but i wanted to explore what would happen if the fact that she needs to take care of her little brother would make it through the trauma and the programming. they're both incredibly messed up and they don't really know each other anymore, and at the same time they're the only ones left. (also: arla's song in that fic is apple tree by marika hackman, and the last scene with the quince tree and the tombs is directly inspired by the song.)

so yeah. with both fics i think i wanted to explore ideas of growing up, change, vulnerability, grief and trauma. i wanted to write about connecting to people despite yourself, about hurting them and getting hurt in turn, and about taking in both the hurt you give and the hurt you receive and deciding what to do with all of it.

anyway! this is a lot! thank you for everything, for your comments as well ❤️❤️❤️ they made me very happy!!!!

[scarlet--wiccan]

Hello! I wanted to ask a potentially hardish question. How do you feel about non-Romani engaging with Tarot, doing paid reads, and such? Do you think it's okay for everyone to partake in it? Would you at least want people to be more informed of its origins?

My general attitude, when it comes to anything related to magic, fortunetelling, etc, is that we should be focusing more on cultural restitution and historical authenticity than trying to make a list of who can do what. When it comes to tarot, there's a lot to learn, and a lot to unpack in both of those areas. The short answer is that I don't believe that tarot is, or should be, a closed practice. There is, however, is a deep legacy of racism in the evolution of tarot as a fixture of mainstream culture, and the fortunetelling industry is rife with Romani exploitation. I believe that understanding this, and integrating it into your actions and conduct, is key to developing an ethically and spiritually holistic practice. And I think that applies to all forms of magic and spirituality-- racism and colonialism are very common in magical spaces where historical understanding is not encouraged.

If this is something you'd like to learn more about, I would highly encourage you to pre-order Secrets of Romani Fortuntelling, which is an upcoming book written by my friend Jezmina von Thiele and their Romanistan cohost, Paulina Stevens. Preorders make a huge difference for small publishers and new authors.This book is an authentic new look at fortunetelling practices in Romani culture and I, personally, think everybody who reads tarot needs to buy a copy.

If you'd like to receive a reading from a Romani practictioner, I am running a donation drive for Palestinian families and offering online tarot readings with personalized writeups and graphics as rewards.

My understanding is that tarot, and cartomancy in general, are closely tied to Romani culture and history because they were trades that Romani families developed and practiced as a form of survival work*. The same is true for several other types of fortunetelling and folk magic practices. There is an element of cultural preservation and ancestral custom in a lot of these skills, but ultimately, this is something that was meant to be shared with non-Roma, so it's not a closed practice, in that regard. And it's worth mentioning, of course, that many of these skills and devices were adapted from existing aspects of Western culture. The original tarot deck was, after all, just a set of European playing cards.

Over the centuries, tarot has really taken on a life of its own outside of Romani society, as both a popular practice and object of cultural fascination. There are other cultures who practice divination and fortunetelling for very similar reasons, and because tarot is so universally known, it's become a tool that is shared by many, and I think it informs the way folks approach cartomancy even when they're using other devices. And I think that's really beautiful! Unfortunately, there is also a more painful part of this history that also needs to be acknowledged.

Most modern tarot decks, and much of the basis for how we read them, are the products of 19th & 20th century occult and esoteric movements in the West, which often held an Orientalist fixation on Romani, Jewish, Middle Eastern and East Asian cultures. When you look at the works of Levi, Crowley, Waite, and so forth, you'll find a lot of fabricated histories and colonial fantasies about these cultures, and that informed the symbology with which they designed the formative modern decks we know today as the Thoth and Waite-Smith tarot. In my opinion, Jewish and Romani peoples were the most heavily exploited by this movement. It just goes to show how deeply our histories a diasporic people are connected.

Here in America, many states have legislation intended to police or even outlaw the fortunetelling trade, and you will often find that these laws are based in anti-Romani racism. Furthermore police are known to profile Romani citizens and families as scammers, and a lot of the language used to describe these "scams" in both police documents and the media employs racist language and stereotypes. Despite this, non-Roma, particularly white people, are often able to turn fortunetelling into a lucrative business by using their privilege to safely navigate the legal system's impositions-- and many of these white people love nothing more than to dress up in an approximation of Romani costume in order to give themselves an exotic, mystical air-- just like Levi and Crowley before them.

So, it's my opinion that the modern fortunetelling industry and the last several generations of tarot knowledge were built, both directly and indirectly on Romani oppression. People need to understand this history, and their place in it, in order to understand how they, personally, have arrived at their own relationship with tarot. Once you do understand that, you can begin to incorporate anti-racist intention and action into your practice. If you want suggestions, providing historical acknowledgement and Romani resources to your clients is a great place to start. Being an ally and being in community with us in our fight for human rights is even better. If you own a business or a shop, you can divest yourself from problematic suppliers, or learn how to identify racist books and decks, and stop selling them. Make sure you're not exploiting or perpetuating Romani stereotypes and call other people out on it, too. And if it's possible, really reevaluate the way you have arrived at your understanding of the cards, and how you communicate with them. Look past information that has been sold to you and seek personal authenticity. You'll be a better reader for it.

*What I am describing here is not a universal experience. Some people and some families practice these trades, not all. Romani people are not a monolith, and this is not a defining aspect or Romani culture.

[riding-the-sunset-bird]

hi!! i know this depends a lot on personal taste but i thought i'd ask you because you know the game so well, which dlc do you think is the most worth it?

(note: this anon clarified in another ask that they meant all DLCs but were most interested in the Cove Step DLCs; thank you!)

Hi!

First off, gonna give you massive credit here because I think this is a super fascinating ask, so much so that I want to do a bit of a deep dive!

(skip to the end for the summarized/basic stuff)

Personal Preference

I'll begin by saying that if you just ask me this question outright and it comes down wholly to my opinion and my opinion only, then I'd say that Baxter's DLC was the most worth it to me. The actual reasons for it are a bit too extensive - I'll leave it at me simply adoring Baxter and what his DLC contributes to the story's narrative - but that would be my answer.

However, I'd really like to go into something that I find more objective. We'll do this by splitting that idea of "worth it" into different categories and going from there, because it could mean so many different things depending on player preference.

Story Relevance

This just boils down to what DLC adds the most to Our Life's story, which I'm defining as "moments/scenes that would feel natural in the base game" as opposed to a DLC that comes off like extra content but not necessary content.

For this one, I'm going to award the points to the Step 3 DLC, mostly for Reflection, Late Shift, and Serendipity. All three of these moments provide something for what already existed in the base game, to the point where I almost think it's odd for them to be DLC content.

Reflection gives both backstory to Cove's scar (something that had been talked about before but not fully explained) and closure on Cove's conflict with his parents over their divorce. It also shows character development for Cove as he moves past all of that.

Serendipity follows up on Liz meeting Shiloh in the Step 3 intro. Even if the player doesn't care about Shiloh, I think it makes sense for Liz to go searching for him even if you didn't have the DLC, and then the DLC just lets you actually see what comes from it (that's not how it works in-game but I'm just making a point).

Late Shift follows up on what the MC's job is if they chose to have one, as well as showing Cove at his job. It expands the initial choice of "job"/"no job" during the intro into an actual moment, which gives it more meaning. I'd consider it an equivalent to Charity in that way (which is impacted by whether or not the MC volunteers at ORCA).

So yeah, Step 3's DLC, no contest.

Consistency

This is what I'd imagine to be the DLC that is the most "all-around" of the DLCs; maybe not too high of highs, but not too low of lows either, just an all-around solid product.

I'm giving this one to the Step 1 DLC. While it's the shortest of the DLCs, I think the content is consistency good throughout all moments. All feature the MC just doing assorted kid things and satisfy MCs who might be Indifferent to Cove early on (all except two allow the MC to mostly ignore Cove if they'd prefer to spend time with others), whereas the Step 2 and 3 DLC can be more mixed.

For example, Reflection - while solid and emotional if you're invested in Cove's backstory - is a lot of talking and not a lot of doing, Happiness is hilariously short if you're Indifferent to Cove, and Serendipity is probably a total skip for players who aren't interested in Shiloh. For the Step 2 DLC, Soiree tends to be a standout moment that overshadows the rest and other moments are largely out of the MC's control (Escapade if the MC isn't having fun, which has little impact, and Summerwork if the MC isn't the type that would lead to the drama in said moment).

But the Step 1 DLC is the one I feel would be most consistently enjoyable throughout the whole thing, at least when keeping in mind the limitations that would naturally be placed on the MC given that they're a child. I always enjoy playing each fairly equally.

Fun Factor

This just comes down to the highest highs - the DLC that provides the most fun - and I'd say that the Step 2 DLC does that.

Mall allows you to spend roughly equal amounts of time with Derek, Lee, and Cove (both a different experience from the base game and gives the MC a new location to mess around in).

Birthday lets you engage in various games and meet with Miranda (which could be something fun for the player, either meeting Miranda early if they haven't played the full game yet or seeing younger Miranda if they have). Plus, that this is the moment where the MC can retaliate against Jeremy (dooting Jeremy into silence is one of my personal biggest non-Cove non-Baxter highlights of the game) which gives the moment worth all on its own.

Soiree being a big win whether you want to bring Cove or not and giving the MC multiple different ways to experience it (including having a dance with Baxter, regardless of whether they go down his route or not). This allows MCs who might not be Indifferent to Cove but still don't want to bring him for whatever reason the full freedom to do so (unlike Happiness), which allows for more replayability.

I've expressed points about Summerwork and Escapade already, but even disregarding the potential fun of those, I think the highs of the others outweigh the lows, which I don't think the Step 3 DLC would do with the ones I've gone on about. The Step 1 DLC is overall more consistently good and I think a player is more likely to enjoy all of the steps, but I think the Step 2 DLC is more fun.

Other Matters

These are a few details I don't want to get too much into but still wished to address. The Step 3 DLC, content-wise, is unquestionably the largest out of all of the Step DLCs (provided that you play all of the moments in each), even though all Step DLCs are the same price. Likewise, the Step 2 DLC is larger than the Step 1 DLC.

Goes without saying that quantity does not equal quality and, while not pointing to any specific target, I want to add that I don't think it's acceptable for things like CGs to not be up to par with the ones in the base game when you're paying for the DLC while not paying for the base game.

Additionally, I think it's strange for the moments that feature the alternative guys to be locked away (Mall and Summerwork for Derek, then Late Shift and Boating for Baxter; Derek won't even join the player at their house if the MC is Indifferent to Cove and Terry/Liz will jump into Cove's place in Late Shift/Boating respectively rather than the MC potentially getting Baxter). This can make Derek's proposal in particular at the end of Step 2 confusing to base game players because they will have only seen Derek in the intro and ending, thus making his crush come out of nowhere.

It doesn't change the quality of the DLCs themselves, but I just wanted to point out that both Derek and Baxter kind of have an extra price tacked onto their DLCs because most players would probably want to see more of them before buying those.

And yes, it does indeed give the Step 2 DLC a few points towards the story relevance category because Derek's proposal is there no matter what, but I thought the Step 3 DLC still outweighed it.

Just wanted to get all that out of the way.

Addressing the Cove Wedding DLC

I sometimes call this the "Wedding Planning DLC" because that's what you'll spend a large chunk of time doing. That's not a criticism if you like that, just stating an observation.

Unlike most DLCs where I can weigh the various moments' pros and cons, the Wedding DLC is just one long "moment" where you plan your wedding with Cove, have the wedding with Cove, and then have the reception.

Also, Baxter is the wedding planner, so if you hate him then prepare to hold your breath before diving into it.

I think it does well for what it's trying to do (it's a little sad that there's no CG but there are so many mini-CGs that I get it), so it really is just a matter of whether you want it or not.

The Step DLCs are $4 each and the Wedding DLC is $3, so do I think that the Wedding DLC is worth 75% of any of the Step DLCs?

Not really (I eventually got tired of the planning part to the point where Baxter giving dance lessons became the most exciting thing that happened, as it felt like there was some development going on, lol), but I can see why it'd be worth it for other people. I recommend it if people are just very dedicated to planning a wedding in addition to seeing the wedding and reception.

Derek's Story DLC and Baxter's Story DLC

These two are another case where it very heavily leans on personal preference. I've already said that I like Baxter's DLC the best, but I might as well talk about Derek's too.

My feelings on his DLC are... complicated. Basically, it's the Derek and His Family DLC and I think that's great, but when it comes to plots centered around families, my attention tends to drift (this includes the moment titled Family in Step 2, by the way). Found family holds my interest a bit more though, one example being a potential plotpoint you can go down in Derek's DLC where you consider Mr. Holden a father to you.

While I do enjoy the personalities amongst Derek's family (barring Nicolas until Step 4), I think it might end up being a problem for some because the story stops being about you and starts being about Derek due to the amount of characters exclusive to his DLC all connecting back to him and not you. You take a backseat to the plot and Derek's issues in Step 4 actually end up being resolved without you during an argument/conversation with his brothers.

Which is good if you just want to kick back, watch the plot unfold, and listen to Derek talk about his problems, especially as his major issue takes place between Step 3 and 4 so the player doesn't witness it. Me personally, I had a lot of my agency taken away during key moments, such as Siblings where I didn't think going to see Elizabeth was a good idea, nor Boardwalk where I missed out on seeing Jorge (who is my favorite Suarez) and Elizabeth's relationship develop because the game has you go with Derek, nor the ending of Step 4 where I wouldn't have just run off with Derek due to wanting to spend more time with the family.

Another awkward little detail is that Derek will crush on the player and try to get them into a marriage proposal regardless of the player's own feelings, which can lead to some awkward moments (like Nicolas wanting to see the player in a swimsuit "because that's what Derek wants").

Baxter's DLC is the opposite because his family is only mentioned occasionally and not even seen on-screen. You largely spend one-on-one time with him and characters tend to focus on the player rather than Baxter (and when they do focus on Baxter, it's often as an extension of the player's connection with him).

It's very high drama/angst for a typical Our Life story, which can naturally turn people away who prefer the slice of life nature of most moments. It's a very different feel from the rest of the game and not just because the player is spending time with someone who isn't Cove. Cove is set up as the character that the player is with for all steps and in-betweens, inevitably meaning that Derek and Baxter won't stick around after their step until their Step 4; it's just that one of them makes far bigger drama about it than the other.

The DLC also lets you meet Miranda's brother and you get a psuedo Wedding DLC mashed into Baxter's Step 4 where you're part of the wedding planning process without being one of the people the wedding is for. Miranda gets a mini-plot for herself involving her relationship with Terry in addition to already getting one of Baxter's moments centered around giving her a birthday party.

On the downside, the interest system in Our Life does not function towards going down in interest (doesn't function well in general with how Baxter's DLC works, really), so going into Baxter's Step 4 with the idea of never forgiving him or not at least becoming friends again won't work. The game assumes by the act of choosing Baxter's Step 4 that the player wants to eventually hear Baxter out and becomes friends/lovers again, otherwise they'd be doing Cove's Step 4 instead; it's just something to keep in mind.

Speaking of Cove, while Baxter's DLC gives a little more focus towards Miranda and Terry, Derek's DLC has a moment where Cove shares equal screen time with him, so you could consider both DLCs to give extra focus to separate groups of people (Cove+Mr. Holden or Miranda+Terry).

Basically, both DLCs are entirely different and I can't really give them a category because they're so different compared to the base game, so I'll give some bullet points later of who I think would enjoy the DLC rather that putting them in a box.

The only other thing left to say is that, while Derek's DLC pairs with the Step 2 DLC and Baxter's DLC pairs with the Step 3 DLC for getting that little bit of extra time with the respective character, story-wise I think the Step 2 DLC is also good for Baxter's DLC because of Birthday and Soiree.

Recap

Overall, I do believe that every DLC has its own value and anyone could think differently on which is the best to them. I felt like it'd be too cheap to just claim which one is the best, especially since I like the more controversial Baxter DLC (the Step 2 DLC is my favorite Step DLC, for the record).

So to summarize:

Step 1 DLC (for Consistency)

most consistently likable and good all around

if one moment stands out from the others, it's not by much

the "safest" choice of the DLCs, which could be seen as either a good or bad thing

Step 2 DLC (for Fun Factor)

highest highs of the Step DLCs

allows for multiple assorted character interactions

Soiree being a strong moment to lean into the MC's independence

meeting younger Miranda in Birthday and finally retaliating against Jeremy

solid addition in combination with owning the Derek DLC or Baxter DLC as an extra bit of fun

but can have a feeling of the MC being "taken along for the ride" in some moments or doing things that might not seem like something that'd happen to them

Step 3 DLC (for Story Relevance)

includes the most content that adds to the MC's/Cove's story in a meaningful way

serves as an extension of a few happenings in the Step 3 intro

heavy on emotion

works in combination with the Baxter DLC to give the player extra time with him

feels the most natural amongst the base game moments

but can be a mixed bag depending on the MC's feelings on Cove and other characters like Shiloh, potentially leaving at least one moment as a total skip

The Cove Wedding DLC is good for people who:

like the idea of planning their wedding the way people spend hours doing character customization in games

can enjoy or tolerate/put up with Baxter as the wedding planner

are cool with a low conflict/casual plot (as nothing goes wrong during the process)

are fine with having no Cove CGs, only mini CGs

The Derek's Story DLC is good for people who:

like plots centering heavily around family

enjoy young children acting like young children

want extra time with Cove and/or Mr. Holden, as well as Elizabeth (who features in two separate moments and also Step 4)

prefer sitting back on some level and watching the plot happen around them instead of directly from them

don't mind being reminded every now and then that Derek is crushing on the MC if playing a friendship-only route

And the Baxter's Story DLC is good for those who:

prefer one-on-one time with characters

want a change of scenery from the usual Our Life plotlines and a heavier dose of drama than the usual

are seeking more time/development for Miranda and Terry, as well as their relationship

like the potential option of having a fling with Baxter in their story (whether that ends with the MC romancing Baxter in the end, someone else, or no one at all)

wish to be involved in a wedding with a conflict attached, as well as the MC not being part of the couple having the wedding

Hope this answers your question!

[edwin-paynes-bowtie]

what are your long term illness related headcanons for thomas?

I'm sorry this took me a million years to answer! I see it every couple of days, go "I'll answer after work," and promptly forget about it as soon as work ends.

Yes, let's GO! Thomas' "chronic illness" is in an odd category of canon when he was younger but also totally unexplored. I find this a fascinating space for it to occupy, because of course I wish it were more fleshed out but I also like getting to play with it in my own mind a lot.

When Thomas was little, he spent most of his time bedridden. Eugenia and Barbara canonically fussed over him, but I also think Sophie and Gideon made a lot of accommodations/concessions for him. Like, if he couldn't get to the dining table, they'd all bring portable tables into Thomas's room and eat around the bed. Thomas always felt a little guilty, but he appreciated it.

"Felt a little guilty but appreciated it" is generally what I think his overall reaction to people's treatment of him was. He's a really nice kid, and shy - he doesn't want to be a bother, and he feels like he's inconveniencing people. But subconsciously he's chuffed that others do consider him worth the inconvenience.

While it was nice that others cared for him, it also could get really stifling sometimes. He would constantly wish that he could get out of the house (because imo Sophie and Gideon probably made him stay inside sometimes because he was getting over something or worried about him catching something else.) And he'd dream of being able to just... be like James or Matthew. Hop in a carriage, head to a market, play in parks and gardens. But he understands why it's not possible, it just hurts.

He starts sneaking out into the woods from his yard-hole (canon) when he's around 10. He has a special favorite tree in Brocelind that he likes to climb up, and it's there that he spins tales and writes poetry. His favorite stories and poems to write involve a mix of adventure and romance.

Thomas probably was allergic to lots of things, pollen and stuff.

Sophie and Gideon were 100% convinced that Thomas was dying as a baby (canon in The Penultimate Hours). But he was small - under six - and they didn't want to scare him, so they attempted to hide it. It was confined to whispers in the hallway and periodic discussions when he was feverish and asleep. Unfortunately, Thomas was a smart kid. He knew he was dying, and it was a question of when and not if in his mind. He mourned the life he would never have, and was horribly sad that he would never have a beautiful love like his parents do.

By the time he was 14, Thomas was pretty much completely well, just short. It's how he convinced his parents to let him go to school. He tried when he was 13 but they were still scared that his illness would come back, but it didn't, so they let him go.

After that, for the rest of his very long and happy life, Thomas still has a pretty weak immune system compared to his peers. It's NBD - he just gets colds and such more easily than people, and has stronger seasonal allergies than others.

As an adult, Thomas still has lingering trauma from his bedridden, fussed-over days. No one ever treated him like a grown-up, and now he feels the need to be Completely Self Sufficient so the cycle doesn't repeat itself. If he gets a cold, no he didn't. If he's feeling feverish, no he's not. He tells no one when he's sick, just shuts himself away and cares for himself until he's better.

This all changes when he moves in with Alastair. Since they're the Soulmatest Soulmates to Ever Soulmateify, Alastair is really in tune with Thomas's moods and health. He tells Thomas that he should let him care for him when he's sick, and finally Thomas grudgingly agrees that Alastair can make him soup "BUT NOT SPOON FEED IT TO HIM." Alastair, who wasn't going to do that anyway, scratches his head like. Hmm, okay.

Alastair is the only person allowed to take care of him, and it's to combat the notion that he has to be 100% self-sufficient. It's kind of empowering to be cared for in a way that he consented to, on his own terms, rather than on everyone else's.