#there's so many facets to how fucked the processes can be that just the aspect of How To Move On with a record

[wreckedhoney]

ough

[lemonhemlock]

so i have some more thoughts about the barbie movie that i wanted to put in writing so it can serve as a sort of diary of my ramblings

as i've already germinated in some tags, i think that the most interesting facet of the movie was the conversation between the three realms: barbieland, the "real world" in the barbie movie and our actual real world that we inhabit.

so barbieland is pretty obviously depicted as an ideatic world, NOT an IDEAL world, but a world fueled by IDEAS, where they very much take their most exaggerated form. barbieworld is a cartoonish and hyperbolized version of the real world, but inversed. i think this is the starting point where some viewers get lost. barbieland is not the auctorial voice telling us this is how things should be, this is the right way of organizing society, this is what we should be striving for. it's satire. barbieland is a matriarchy in which all the barbies run everything & make all the decisions, while the kens are just.... there, simping for the barbies, not even having houses. it's satire because it highlights IN AN EXAGGERATED WAY the ridiculousness of marginalizing people by their gender.

the "real world" in the barbie movie is also NOT our own real world, it is STILL an exaggerated version of it, albeit a way less stylized and distorted version of it. it's a lot more realistic, but it's still a heightened simulation of reality, not the true thing. barbie gets sexually assaulted within minutes when arriving - that's obviously not going to happen (so quickly) on this actual planet. but the movie is NOT trying to suggest that it would, the movie is not saying barbie-real-world is a 1:1 correspondent, naturalistic depiction of THEE real world. again, it's satire. the mattel male board are obviously cartoonish versions of misogynistic executives, although they are unaware of it and think themselves progressives. it's literally a comic strip.

another aspect i think people get muddled is the difference between satire v jokes v aspirational messages, on the one hand, and the prescriptive v descriptive debate, on the other. both barbieland and the kendom are caricatures of the matriarchy and patriarchy. neither is "correct" or presented as a valid political or social aim. why? bc the kens are shown to have actual valid complaints that are acknowledged in the conclusion by margot robbie apologizing to ryan gosling and the kens gaining a higher status and participation in society.

now, the movie reinstates the matriarchy in barbieland because 1. this is a movie about barbie, the doll with 2493 careers who can do anything and 2. it's meant to mirror (both) the real worlds and parody them in the process. they explicitly make this point twice (to my memory) - first, when that man in the "real world" tells ryan gosling that affirmative action for women is just for show and the second time with the line in barbieland that maybe someday the kens will manage to achieve the same level of influence women have in the real world. we're really not supposed to be like "oh that's super fair of the barbies" - it's not. THAT'S THE POINT (conveyed via comedy).

the message of the movie is that it's still ridiculous and unfair. if it's unfair for the kens - an element that many people seem to grasp - it means that it's unfair for the actual women in the actual real world who actually have to experience this systemically. in the conflict resolution stage, the marginalised group still gets fucked over somehow.

now, there are other moments in the movie that were just jokes. the most debated is ofc the very last one. barbie going to the gynecologist is just meant to be one last gag, it's not supposed to be some grand statement reducing women to sex objects or whatever the fuck. barbie has spent the whole movie in a sexless state, explicitly informing us none of the dolls have sex organs. now we see her in one last scene, spirited by her new family, and we're encouraged to think she may be going to a job interview in order to integrate in society. but she's actually integrating in a different way - now that she's fully human, she has gained a vagina, where she previously did not, so now she has to learn to manage that. that's it, that's the joke. you were expecting one thing and you got an unexpected resolution - the basic definition of humour. ofc you can find it funny or not, that's up to you (i, myself found it mildly entertaining - not the best, but not the worst), but it's a v uncharitable interpretation to conclude it's objectifying her or defining womanhood via genitals, especially when doctor barbie is played by an actual trans actress

anyway!!! the barbie movie is pretty meta pls think about it more

[glassmarcus]

Bigger Dark Souls

*Played in February 2022, Written in October 2022 (before Armored Core 6 got a trailer)

Look, I wanted to write a 20 page analysis on why Elden Ring is a lightly flawed masterpiece and how it evolved from the other Souls Games in a logical way, similar to what I did for Pokémon Legends: Arceus. But there's 3 problems with that:

1. I'm writing this ~7 months after beating it so my memory isn't up to the task.

2. Even if I decided to write this in March, I don't think I could do that because there's just so much of it I haven't played.

3. I still haven’t beaten Sekiro, and I’d feel like too much of a poser speaking about the whole franchise/genre without doing that.

So instead, I figured I’d do my sleep schedule a favor and hone in on a single aspect of From Software’s latest work. Just get to the core of what it brings to the table and talk about the adjacent details as they become relevant. I want to take the most important change brought to the established formula and put it under a microscope. And that thing is its size. Elden Ring is big. Elden Ring is really big. I’d go so far as to say that Elden Ring is too fucking big. I mean this in basically every possible facet. Too many weapons. Too many areas. Too many bosses. Too many items. Too many side quest. In blatant summary, It’s just Bigger Dark Souls. Elden Ring’s world, The Lands Between, is the land of too much. It lathers and bathes itself in content, and then exits the tub without drying off, leaving itself dripping with excess. This is a wonderful thing for the most part. It's so big that it's impossible to fully experience without shifting into no life mode for weeks. And I think there are games that benefit from being this size. Scale is a big draw and can be a huge boon to the few that can pull it off. Elden Ring is one of these games....until it isn't.

Why an Open World Souls Game owns

The first Dark Souls seemed gigantic the first time I played it. I'd regularly spend whole afternoons learning and moving through a single area only to be greeted with a seemingly bigger area. I perceived it as this massive interconnected world. Then I got better at the game. I engaged encounters with far more temerity and started rolling through areas way faster. I stopped having to experience every aspect of the world geometry ad nauseam. The secret to the massiveness of Dark Souls is that it's only big if you are bad at playing it. My first playthrough of Dark Souls was 80 hours. Because I had no skill. Every run afterwards has been between 15 and 30 hours because I don't suck anymore. When I started Elden Ring I had enough experience to be decent from the jump. I was getting through dungeons with haste. I was taking out bosses in less than 3 tries. I could run through areas, ignore enemies, while only getting punished for it some of the time. And even with all my tempered puissance expediting the process, this game still feels enormous to me.

With only dying a few times per area, Elden Ring took me 115 hours to complete and I still missed so much. Every time in the future when I play this, I will be in awe of its stature because it's truly big relative to anything. And I think that's pretty cool. It’s easy to go, “whatever, quantity isn’t important, quality is” and brush off Elden Ring’s feat. In some cases I would agree with that sentiment. But while quality is ultimately sacrificed to an extent, I can’t ignore the phantasm of adventure crying out within my soul every time I complete a mile stone and then realize there’s still so much more to do. Elden Ring aspires to be a grand exploit, and it succeeds by constantly delivering the feeling that there’s more on the horizon and it keeps giving you that feeling for an absurdly long time. And even with some sacrifice in potential quality, this is still a polished and thought out game. It is a bountiful high caliber product. If quantity was all it had going for it, it would just be Dark Souls 2 (Yes I am one of THOSE guys).

It's more than just the spectacle of the size. A bigger world with more items, more enemies, and more mechanics leads to a vast array of unique experiences a player can have. As someone who has played through these games a lot and has viewed an irresponsible amount of Let's Plays on them, it's always a joy to see how you and others handled certain situations based on their build and play style and what area they wandered into when they weren't supposed. Elden Ring ends up being the perfect playground for these moments, simply by being a larger one. There is a boundless matrix of ways people will distinctly approach all the content this game has to offer and I am here for it. No two playthroughs are going to be similar. There are too many ways for the player to stray from what might be the intended path.

I had a discussion with some co-workers about a boss I had to fight and how brutal it was. And they were confused, as they got to that area way later in their adventures and that boss wasn’t even there. I was stupefied by this knowledge, and wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or laugh, but I was definitely impressed regardless. Elden Ring incites the urge within me to listen to other people’s experiences with the Lands Between. Wanting to be immersed into not just your experience, but other people’s is the mark of a truly special game. I loved playing Kirby and the Forgotten Land earlier this year. It’s pretty much perfect and I will write a review on it soon. But I do not care about other people’s Kirby playthroughs. The intrigue just isn’t there. When you play a game, you are crafting your own narrative and Elden Ring gives you a surplus of ink to write to your hearts content. And these stories have a tendency to be very interesting.

Elden Ring gives you an abundance of options. Not every reward you are given in the Lands Between will be of clear value to you, but it will be of value to someone. An important aspect of an open world game like this is having loot that's worth seeking out. This is what I would call the fatal flaw of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Well not actually fatal because it’s still a pretty solid title. But if being a strong 8/10 instead of a 10/10 is tantamount to death, this issue would show up in the autopsy. That game has 3 weapons and they all function as soft consumables. You only get that new toy feeling 3 times and then you're done. That fire sword you just picked up is the same as the sword you are already using. That giant hammer you’re swinging could be a giant sword and the enemies wouldn’t know the difference because they react to it the same way. It has a weak Loot Illusion. And once you shake the genjustu you’ve been put under for the first handful of hours, you start to get...very comfortable. Nothing surprises you anymore and once you reach a plateau of difficulty, there’s no reason to fight or search for treasure outside the fact that you ran out of weapons.

Elden Ring doesn't have this issue. Everything you get has some functional purpose even if that purpose doesn't fit your current build. Instead of getting the same present over and over again, you are gifted a veritable grab bag of trinkets and doodads. Where it be weapons, spells, crafting materials, currency, or fashion, it can aid you theoretically so it always feels like you should be exploring. Elden Ring’s obsession with giving the widest breadth of options it can generate, makes it so that you can never ever assume that the treasure chest in front of you isn’t worth it. A world that is too big requires you to navigate it with less confidence. It requires you to accept that you don’t know everything, even if you think you do. Previous Souls games operated this way in the past and it’s even more effective now. The Loot Illusion is strong in this one and that's because it’s basically the same technique used in Dark Souls...only bigger.

Clearly A lot of mechanics of Dark Souls suit itself to an open world setting just due to having strong RPG aspects incorporated into them. But even outside of that, I have to give this game a ton of credit. The world design in this kicks ass. There are interesting landmarks and varied biomes littered through out the world. Every corner has a secret dungeons or cave to explore. The joy felt from getting a map of the area and seeing all the points of interest you want to go to is truly remarkable. The map is filled with a bevy of enemies ripe for running through or running away from. The horse makes traversal a breeze by being instantly summonable and having a double jump. The horse has a double jump folks. Based on that alone, this is Game of the Year material. And the jump is not just a fun thing you can do. It is vital for vertical exploration and allows for the world design to be much more interesting than if it wasn’t there. Even without using Dark Souls as a skeleton, Elden Ring is a profusely competent open world game. But it does have that skeleton, and does have the same general gameplay loop. So summing it up as just a shit load of Dark Souls is valid. And really, you can't have too much Dark Souls right?

Why an Open World Souls Game kinda blows

Elden Ring's ass is simply too big. In proportion to the rest of its body it doesn't look too bad. From the right angle it elicits "Gyatt Dayum, that's a big ole ass" reactions. But from less flattering perspectives you start to see the grotesque consequences of such a grand posterior. You perceive the rolls of fat teeming out of the top of the pants, the lumpy bumpy denimscape failing to keep everything together, and fissures of thread revealing the mantle of unwashed underwear between the seams. We may all say we love ass; We may all claim ‘the bigger the better’. But without proper form or support, it can potentially look like an abomination. I wouldn't go so far to say the backside of Elden Ring is as bad as it could be, but I would certainly say it lacks form and support. There's just not enough denim and skin to keep that shit tight.

OK I'm losing faith in my analogy, so I'll just say it. The last 3rd of Elden Ring kinda sucks. At least in comparison to the rest of it.

The first third is a splendid feast of content where you are spoiled with a buffet of fanciful cuisine. It seems like each area has it own topology and citizens. The enemies you fight feel unique, the bosses you fight feel one of a kind, every dungeon is it's own adventure where you don't know what is in store. You can't even comprehend the structure of this game. But around the 30% mark, you can. You start seeing the same enemies you are familiar with, but a tad stronger, you know what to expect simply based on area names, bosses you've seen before are remixed. It's no longer fresh, but that's to be expected. You are still getting new content and being introduced to new concepts so it never feels stale. And from what I can tell it all makes sense lore wise. The repeated assets are understandable and even welcome. A lot of the content is things I've seen before in other Souls games, just reskinned and remixed to seem a bit different. This really is just Dark Souls 3 at it's core. I see animations from characters and enemies and can identify the exact origin of them, yet that doesn't make it feel rehashed. Context is important. Elden Ring is packaged like a new game and carries itself like a new game and thus feels like a new game.

But then you get to the final act. And it's basically just more of the same. I struggle to think of an entirely unique enemy in the last stretch of Elden Ring. Even the geography starts to feel unremarkable. I don't want to say it's mailed in, but it certain has Mario Maker vibes. It's not something I'd want to cap off my epic journey with. The whole game, it feels you are given bread crumbs. Hints of what the climax of the adventure will be. But it's not just bread crumbs. It's actual slices of bread. And when you get to the half eaten loaf at the end, it feels as if you've already eaten this before. You've already fought the Farum Azula foot soldiers. You've already slain scores of Trolls and Hand Spiders. You've already fought the Ulcerated Tree Spirit. You've already tracked down all the Death Root in the area. You've already fought the Ulcerated Tree Spirit. You've already snuck past this Rune Bear with fear deep in your heart. You've already fought the Ulcerated Tree Spirit. You've already fought the Ulcerated Tree Spirit. You've already fought the Ulcerated Tree Spirit. In its attempts to make a magnificently fresh first act while putting hints of the end game in the second, the third ends up having little to bring to the table, copy and pasting the things you’re already intimately familiar with. Calling this “Bigger Dark Souls” becomes even more apt now. It has a sizable drop in quality near the end, just like the first Dark Souls has, only it last much longer.

The distribution of resources is not the only thing that suffers from the inflated size of this game. A work of this stature is impossible to balance. Dark Souls has always had an abstract difficulty curve. The rigor of each area increases steadily, but because you have so many options as a player it is very easy to trivialize challenges or get completely walled by them based on what you choose to do with your build. But even if you fuck that up it’s still very doable. You can not level up a single time and get through just fine (speaking from personal experience here. Yea I'm ALSO one of THOSE guys). Elden Ring follows the same philosophy and applies it to a much larger world. This game gives you so many resources that you can use to break it wide open. There are builds which can trivialize everything in front of you. It can be kind of a joke if you use everything at your disposal. But if you don't then the joke is on you.

If you don't level up HP, late game enemies will one shot you without a moment's notice. If you don't use summons, then later down the line you will be ganked and shanked by an assemble of group bosses. If you don't use the bloodhound step art, then you cannot dodge this 1 health melting attack Melania does sometimes. Balance here feels kind of impossible given how open and free the exploration is. Managing general player progression and estimating what they might have at what point is a task I couldn't even comprehend how to execute. With how much game there is and how many options there are, decent balance can only last so long and I'd say that also falls apart around the 3rd act. Not just because the stats of enemies and their amount is cranked up to an annoying, yet uninteresting degree. But also because the behavior of the bosses start assuming you are playing optimally. And by optimally I mean using spirit summons.

I like the idea of spirit summons. I think it's cool to have adventuring companions in these games at no cost. However, it feels the game is often designed around them. Particularly the bosses. In past games it felt like bosses had decently sized windows to get some hits in after dodging an onslaught of attacks. It was a dance and you were rewarded handsomely for knowing your partner's moves. The reward in Elden Ring is a single hit usually, maybe two. It leads to fights taking way longer than they need to. The best way to speed it up is to have spirit summons draw aggro so you can get some damage in. I enjoy using spirit summons for fights that aren’t duels because aggro is being distributed as it's intended. For 1 on 1 fights it appears they are designed to be broken rather than conquered. And this isn't actually that big of an issue. I hesitate to call it an objective issue at all. It's more personal. I would have been more satisfied if I didn't use summons and just downloaded them after dozens and dozens of attempts. So why didn't I? Because I don't have that kind of time and the allure of this unique brand of “easy mode” is too enticing.

Every day I anguish at all the potentially amazing art that I might love but will never have time to consume. Now more than ever, I stress over what art is worth my attention, despite knowing how ghoulish of a mindset this is. I want to spend my brief lifespan playing games that aren't just Elden Ring. As much breadth as it offers, I can only play so much of it before reaching diminishing returns and thinking “I should be doing something else right now”. The consequence of this game being so big is that I can't feel the satisfaction of mastery after downloading it into my brain's non volatile memory. Every corner of Dark Souls is etched into my cranium. Every hallway in Dark Souls 3 I can recall fond or not so fond memories about. I will never be able to say the same about Elden Ring because I don't have the time to have one all encompassing playthrough and I can't knockout a short playthrough whenever I feel like it. I'm in the middle of an Elden Ring replay right now and it still took pretty long to get to the 3rd act and I skipped a ton of stuff this time around. And then I stopped because I’m not a big fan of the rest of the game. There's still so much I don't know about the mechanics and geography. This isn't bad at all, but it does brush against my preferences a bit. I’d like to play Elden Ring, play it again, play another game or two, then play Elden Ring a few more times without that process taking an entire year.

People were very quick to call this a Breath of The Wild like Souls game. I certainly did. I wasn’t the first person to call it ‘Death of the Wild’, but I sure wish I was and will continue to use that term when it’s relevant. Despite it being another reductive video game comparison, they do actually have a ton in common. There’s a reason I brought it up earlier. They’re both vastly larger than any game before them in their respective series. They both foster creating a completely unique experience for play, Elden Ring with it’s build variety, Zelda with it’s world interactivity, and both with their lack of limits on where you can go and how you can get there. Both even have an underwhelming phase 2 for their final boss. They are similar games, not just in design, but in their place in their franchises. Breath of the Wild came out during a time when people were getting fatigued with Zelda games. I will go on record and say that those people are morons and that the formula was fine and that if they just gave Skyward Sword another year in the oven and made it a cross generation title like Twilight Princess, no one would have been bitching. Despite it being what I would call an unnecessary switch up for the franchise, it was exactly that and it turned out really well. Elden Ring is in that same spot now. Souls games have come out, Mediocre Souls-likes have followed, and before the lead up to Elden Ring, people were getting kind of sick of them. Much like Zelda, I didn’t understand the burnout and would have been perfectly fine with just a Dark Souls 4 equivalent. But Elden Ring switched things up and now I’m left with a certain fear.

We haven’t had a new traditional Zelda Game in what will be 10 years pretty soon. The last one was A Link Between Worlds and it’s my favorite one. I was very excited about the future of the franchise after playing it, because if they could make more titles as clever as that, then the franchise was in good hands. But then they made Breath of the Wild, and it was great. I was a fan of it (I sunk far too many hours into it), but I preferred the former structure instead. After that game ended up selling more than any Zelda ever by a wide margin, I knew there was no chance of them going back. The sequel announcement basically solidified my fear of what the franchise’s trajectory was going to be. Just more big open Zeldas while remakes and spinoffs are made on the side. It’s fine, but it’s not what I’d prefer. I want both of these approaches to making a Zelda game to coexist. But it doesn’t seem like they can.

That's the risk when it comes to substantial change ups in a franchise. You make big strides, but not everyone can keep up. Elden Ring sold so many goddamned copies. Deservedly so. But that makes me worried that they're just gonna do this again right away. I felt similarly about Sekiro when it came out. Sekiro is a Souls game that has basically none of the things I enjoy about Souls games. I knew Elden Ring was in development when it came out, so I wasn’t afraid of it becoming the new standard for every future From Soft product. But if Sekiro became more than just a fling, I would have turned into pillar salt, as I cannot resist the urge to look back and pine for the good old days. I’m glad that the most successful game is one that leaned into the RPG aspects rather than shyed away from them. Yet, that fear still remains.

I adore Elden Ring, but I still want regular sized Dark Souls games to be made. I’ve had my fill and the inevitable DLC isn’t even out yet. Now that I know they can craft an adventure of this size and of this grade, I want to see them return to sculpting a more concise adventure with all that quality packed into a 30 hour game. I truly think both styles can coexist, but I'm afraid they won't and one will overtake the other. As fair as it may be, do not want traditional Dark Souls fans to become the new Armored Core fans. I've come to the conclusion that I don't want to see anything like this til 2033 at least. It’s something I’m gonna have to play 2 more times before I think I've truly experienced it. And I’m excited for that. So please From Software, make a shorter masterpiece in between your next giant one.

[bigskydreaming]

I know some people just aren’t comfortable engaging with parts of canon where Bruce is abusive, because that’s just not the version of the character they’re here for, and I get that.

But the second a fic shows a willingness to address or even center itself around something like RHATO #25 or the Batman issue from King’s run where Bruce hits Tim......but DOESN’T acknowledge any of the many, MANY times that Bruce has been abusive to Dick on both sides of the Reboot, from post-Forever Evil to after Jason’s death post-Crisis and times in between?

Yeah, that’s when I see red.

Cuz that’s when it starts to look an awful lot like people are viewing abuse as some kind of narrative spice that they can selectively dole out only to those characters they like, while ignoring the times its applied to characters they don’t like because it might make them too sympathetic or interesting or what the fuck ever.

And I know people aren’t viewing abuse that way, right? Like surely there’s got to be some other explanation for why fics that heavily reference every single time Bruce has done something bad to Jason or Tim seem to act like Dick was just passively at Bruce’s side through all this, backing him up or else just being too naive to think Bruce could ever be like that, instead of like....actively a victim of their father’s abuse as well.

Look, its one thing for a certain character to not be your focal point or someone you’re particularly interested in, but you GOTTA look at the way this looks when you treat a character who has had instances of being a victim of Bruce’s abuse going back over thirty years, as like, being enabling, uncaring of or even party to Bruce’s abuse to the others in more recent years. Like, I focus a lot on the times he’s done it with Dick like in NW #30 or NTT #55 and just talk about Bruce and Dick in reference to those, because I’m trying to keep the focus limited to just Bruce and Dick for the purposes of whatever point I’m making, but the thing about that is.....I’m not CLAIMING that Bruce has never been abusive with any of the others, they’re just literally not even coming into the post because it isn’t about them. 

But the second you open things up to a full fic where things from all points of canon are being referenced in characters’ issues with Bruce, and you have a full cast list assembled.....it doesn’t work the same way because now you’re not just not talking about Dick’s experiences there because he’s not the focal point, now you’re actively writing over his experiences with a veneer of oh Dick and Bruce are fine, nothing like this has ever or would ever happen with them. That’s when you’re making for whatever reason a conscious CHOICE to depict certain kids of Bruce’s as victims at his hands, but NOT depicting the one who inarguably has been written that way the LONGEST and going back the furthest....because you simply don’t WANT him to be as sympathetic or the others or someone who can relate to them on this front, you want him to be an OBSTACLE to all that.

That’s shitty. I don’t know how else to tell you that that’s shitty. Please stop reserving abuse as some kind of ‘prize’ that’s only awarded to your personal faves’ backstories, because oh my god is that an offensive fucking take both coming and going. Not only are you unintentionally framing abuse as something ‘that can be quite good, actually, cuz it makes characters (people) interesting,’ you’re also again, as I said, seeing absolutely zero problem with taking a canon abuse survivor and making him part of the issue instead of someone similarly affected by it, simply because you don’t like him or find him interesting and you don’t want him to be the same as Jason or the others in this regard.

Frankly, this applies to the way this fandom treats a LOT of specific kinds of traumas. Like catch me side-eyeing the massive trend of Jason-as-Robin era fics that have Jason view Dick as spoiled, pampered, and harder to relate to or understand even than Bruce because god forbid one of those fics go with the juvie origin for Dick. I’ve more than once heard people say “I just don’t like that origin for Dick because I find it too angsty” and I gotta say, its a good thing that Cass and Damian’s origins aren’t too angsty to avoid and that nobody has ever extrapolated from what we do know about Jason and Tim’s childhoods to go into extremely elaborate and angsty detail about every possible facet of abuse or neglect they might have endured. 

I mean nah, this isn’t yet another way in which people deliberately depict Dick as just ‘not getting it’ because he hasn’t been through the kinds of stuff the others have, and its like. Okay but see thing is, he actually HAS, and you not acknowledging any of those instances is a CHOICE that you’re making as a writer, and as readers, we’re allowed to question those choices. We can look at what you’re presenting in the way that you’re presenting it, and think okay, but one of these things is not like the others, and the way you treat various characters as extremely sympathetic because of various aspects of their canon stories or their backstories while acting like the same could never ever be true of a character it absolutely has been true of on many different occasions....its super uncomfortable. And it kinda casts a shadow over everything you write into your story about abuse or specific other traumas because now there’s actually this implicit undertone where its like, okay but we actually only care about these things when they’re affecting someone or some character we LIKE, and that’s.....yeah. Not awesome.

I’ve ranted many a time before about the abuse apologism that runs rampant in this fandom, particularly in the vein of people refusing to acknowledge Bruce’s abusive actions (which again, I understand and am fine with up UNTIL...) but being perfectly comfortable sticking with any and all of Dick’s REACTIONS to literal abuse, but now deliberately separated from the inciting actions which makes it look like he’s just instigating shit or upset for no reason whatsoever. That’s literal abuse apologism, no matter what your intentions are, because hate to break it to people, but “Avoid Acknowledging An Abuser’s Actions And Flip The Focus To What The Abuse Victim Is Doing Wrong Instead” is literally chapter one of Abuse Apologism 101. But this shit? Abuse only happens to people I care about or find sympathetic already, because weirdly I seem to be able to make excuses for or overlook any instances of abuse that happen to someone I DON’T like?

That’s literally chapter two of the same damn book.

And good god but am I tired of people harping endlessly on about how much they care about these topics while blithely doing nothing BUT reinforce abuse apologism tropes and narratives in the process of shining a spotlight on the abuse that happens to personal faves and personal faves only.

And this definitely falls into the same pattern of people who happily talk about taking a match to canon and watching it burn at the exact same time they make the deliberate choices to depict Dick as the one Batkid who just doesn’t truly get the others and never will, or is unrelatable or all these other things.....

And its like hey guys? 90% of the stuff you hold against Dick Grayson or cite as your reasons for not liking him? When we say those aren’t canon its not because we’re trying to be the canon police always showing up to bust up your fun and be like no no no you naughty people, that never happened so you’re not allowed to write that. No. That’s not a thing. That’s not what that is. What it ACTUALLY is, is us pointing out all the times and ways where when Dick comes across as a giant asshole in fics, and we’re like why tho, we’re just literally trying to understand where your interpretation of his character is coming from, and you guys are like bitch its canon, and we’re like okay no but thing is, its really actually not. Its us just being like hey, the vast majority of the stuff you say you dont like about the guy or the times you leave out all the stuff that you cite as what you DO like about other characters, its like....

But anyway....

[mariaiscrafting]

ahhhh ty ty ty <3

ok, so I think that what makes Dream act this way (iykyk) is how dreamwastaken became so big so quickly. and by quick I mean fucking lightning speed.

he didn't have enough time to learn enough about cc etiquette, especially in these three aspects: influence, boundaries and fanbase/stans/whatever you call it. I'll try to explain it:

• Influence: Does he know the influence he has? Like, when he hears that he is the myct with the largest fanbase, does he really process that? I remember he talked about not being able to control all of his fanbase and there's bad apples everywhere -- which is true, and that only like 1% of his fanbase breaks his boundaries (that include sending hate for him, harassing, doxing, etc. yk, basic twitter culture lol) but, honey, with your big ass fanbase, 1% is still a lot of people. As a content creator you *have* to be aware of that.

let's take the hbomb situation. First off, as a streamer, it's you that set the mood of the stream. Even if he was only messing around with his pals, even if they did say to do not send hate to hbomb, dt dunking on him created a toxic environment, which caused his fans being toxic towards hbomb and you know what happens next. Hell, when this happened, I was watching Tapl and he was watching them and he was crying laughing over them screaming bc they were just. so loud and so aggressive that it was kinda ??? Sirs, this is literally a Minecraft Stream lmaooo

my point is, that was not the road that dreamwastaken, 21M fans, should've taken. he don't condone his fans actions but he knows his fans are diehard and will always be on his side, he should be more careful before stating negative opinions, especially if its towards another person.

• Boundaries and Fanbase: He posted a list of his boundaries a while ago, idk if you know or seen it (btw please george copy your bestie for the love of god <3) but I'm not talking about those boundaries, I'm talking about the basic boundaries between cc and viewer. boundaries that, in my opinion, should exist between cc and viewer. I get that Dream is an open person, an oversharing type of open person if I may add, but I think he should take a step back regardless. When I heard that he was taking a time from twitter, I genuinely got so glad, not because he couldn't start any drama then, but because it would do so so good for his mental health. I'm not even that fond of him, it's just that for me, any cc taking a break or outright leaving twitter is a win for me. I know how RSD is hard to deal and honestly letting shit out it's better but dream you have dt you have bbh so please don't make things worse online 😭 I know how good can be to feel validation from millions of people but. it's not a good idea, especially in the state that his fanbase is on rn (this topic is kinda sensitive to talk abt for me bc people be outright ableist and hide it as criticism like. say that shit's not helping his reputation and whatever without acting like he's fucking. manipulating his fanbase for being affected by his rsd💀 or, on the other hand, don't say that hes just being adhd🤪 when he's just being an asshole like damn that's a Him thing bro lol)

(omg it's so big I'm so sorry and theres a part two I'm so sorry tumblr user messed-up-gal ToT) - morango 1/2

pt. 2:

Dream is the proof that the people who loves you can be your downfall. istg. Have you noticed that every drama that Dream enters, people usually get more mad abt how his fanbase reacts (85% they'll react in a bad way) than Dream himself? it's not always, but its definitely more likely. I'm not saying Dream is saint, he Is petty and his ego does him dirty and made him choke multiple times before,, But! i dont think hes a bad guy. he's literally just a dude. ok, he's a 21yr old white gamer man that has a trumpie past (maybe?? idk. I think hes cured now ig lol) so he's bound to do some shitty things but he still tries to get better and hopefully he'll mature. 21 is old enough but it's still so young, yk? I kind of lost my mind during the end and my eyes are literally begging to be closed so tl;dr: Its gonna be hard for him to become a better cc bc his fans don't let him be criticized (by infantilizing his adhd symptoms or the mob mentality as soon as someone says anything abt him), the honest criticism get lost between lies from antis that don't know shit, he still has a lot of growing up to do and overall he became famous too fast and he needs to learn things even faster bc as soon as there's not a single one dream hater on sight they'll turn their back and attack him instead lmao I hate twitter i definitely have more to say but I'm tired and my memory is shit. just-- hate dream if you want, love dream if you want, nobody is obligated to have an opinion but I wanted to express mine. have a lovely day! -morango 2/2

Aight, there's a lot to unpack here, so Imma try to only go into the points I have something to add to (here's what I talk about in each paragraph, if you want to jump to a specific point):

Speed of Dream's rise to fame

The "bad apples" in the Dream fanbase

Post-MCC HBomb stream

Not condoning versus actually condemning his fans

Manipulation & RSD

Criticism of Dream, his fanbase, and his brand

The “just a dude” argument, flipped

First, I agree that one of the many factors that has resulted in the current image Dream has set up for himself, the way his fanbase functions, the ways people hate on him, and the way the Dream brand functions, is the speed of his rise to fame. It's unique, and there are probably a hundred social/psychological angles that could be used to examine the exact effects of that speed upon all of these facets of the Dream Name; did rapid fame beget the rapid rise of unrighteous hatred, did those waves of hatred then instigate the rise of a surprisingly overdefensive fanbase, did that rapid fame get to his head and/or result in an inability to appropriately handle all the after-effects of rapid fame, etc.? That point you bring up, about how the speed of his rise to fame requires him to learn even more quickly, is so interesting to me. I think that maybe Dream expected to get pretty famous pretty quickly, hence the preparedness in regards to some mechanics of influencer fame- merchandise, business-building, networking, knowing how to manage his fanbase to best benefit him. But I don't think he expected to get this famous this quickly. This is all speculation of course, as are this entire post and your ask, but I think that he just couldn't anticipate having to learn how to handle enmasse controversy, waves of antis, or every Youtuber speculating/knowing about him; and yeah, that results in him having to learn all of these things very quickly, lest he allow his whole brand and fandom to fall apart.

Second, I disagree with the frequent argument that Dream's fanbase is only marginally toxic. Personally, I think that the circumstances of Dream's fame, his personality and management of his fanbase, and his brand of content have resulted in the very specific kind of stan that Dream stans are. I don't think this is simply a case of "all fandoms have a small percentage of assholes who take it too far;" rather, the nature of the community itself breeds the kind of mentality of "an asshole who takes it too far." I only even know this because I was a Dream fan (kinda a stan, I'm ngl). At one time, I watched every single Dreamwastaken & Dream Team video multiple times; I listened to the Manhunts on repeat, as though they were podcasts; I followed mostly smiletwt and dttwt accounts on mcyttwt; I had upwards of 10 tabs for AO3 DNF fics open on my phone at a time; I watched DNF and Dream Team Being A Family-esque compilations on repeat; I watched every George and Sapnap alt stream I possibly could; I went out of my way to defend Dream against Redditors and Twitter antis regarding the cheating scandal. For the latter half of 2020, and a couple months of 2021, I lived and breathed this part of the fandom; so when I say that Dream stans are a whole other breed than any other kind of mcyttwt stan, I say that because I used to be like that, too. I usually use parasocial very loosely or ironically, but Dream stans are genuinely one of the most parasocial fanbases I have ever seen or been a part of. The level of investment Dream stans have in this man's life, the lengths they will go to to defend him, the amount of psychonalysis and digging they do on his life and character, the amount of emotion he can evoke in them- it's taken to another level, man. This isn't just characteristic of a fraction of his fanbase; this is what the fanbase is like as a whole.

Third, I partially disagree with your take on the HBomb thing, but not in the way one might think? I actually empathize with the way they reacted much more than I thought I would, simply because I suspect I have RSD (also suspect I have ADHD, have for several months now) and I can see myself getting insanely frustrated because of something like that. Like yeah, it was "just a MC stream" or "just an MC game," but that's kinda disregarding the fact that something that might seem like "just a [insert inconsequential thing]" to a rational mind might have a major emotional consequence/take a major emotional toll on someone with RSD, or really anyone who gets easily impatient/angry about video games (Sapnap reminds me of many of my friends, in that way). The issues I, personally, had with the way they handled the HBomb situation is that these are simply explanations and reasons for my empathy; they are not excuses. I have no excuse when I get irrationally angry about something inconsequential in my own life, for a couple of reasons. One, because I am an adult and I need to learn how to handle my reactions and manage my own anger. Two, because as someone with many mental problems, it is my responsibility to learn coping mechanisms to ensure my own emotional stability and livelihood; this includes learning whatever I need to handle RSD- whether that be isolating myself from others when I know I will become violently/passionately angry about something, creating and sustaining a support system that can get me through bouts of extreme emotion, finding healthy emotional outlets for my negative emotions that won't harm myself or others, or a combination thereof. I don't think what they said about HBomb post-MCC was an irreversibly horrible thing, or anything. I think there were errors committed by two men who should be fully capable of foreseeing and preventing those errors, but I don't unconditionally hate Dream or Sapnap for the post-MCC stream or comments. I just wish they had made amends quickly, publicly, and sufficiently, because the greatest consequences from the whole thing weren't even from those two criticizing HBomb themselves; they were from the waves of backlash because of their immense influence on the MCYT fandom, which could've been prevented, if they had acted maturedly and responsibly after the stream.

Fourth, you’re right, that he doesn’t seem to condone his fans’ behavior. I detest the frequent anti argument that one of the reasons Dream should be criticized is because he explicitly uses his fanbase to attack others, or something of the sort. Personally, I think he created his fanbase in a very specific way and interacts with them in such a way so as to benefit him as much as possible, yes, but he never actually tells his fanbase to go and yell at or harrass anyone. Still, there is a significant difference between not condoning something and condemning something. It might seem unfair, and it might be annoying of me to say this, but I truly think that someone with this large a fanbase, especially one as overzealous as Dream’s, needs to be condemned every single time it goes on some kind of rampage/harrassment campaign. Either that, or Dream needs to make a definitive, permanent statement against any kind of harrassment of others on his behalf. I know he’ll occassionally make the odd tweet or serious stream addressing something his fanbase did, but one of the many reasons his fanbase keeps doing the same damn thing is because he’s so lukewarm and spotty about this condemnation. A fanbase like his needs to be given explicit guidance and boundaries for the numerous things they do in his defense- harrassing/doxing antis, harrassing people who criticize him who aren’t antis (respectful criticism, other CCs, other MCYT stans, etc.), harrassing the people he critcizes (i.e., HBomb), speculating about his personal life (his relationship with his gf, his mental health/ADHD, his romantic life, his childhood, etc.), and speculating about his relationships with his friends and colleagues.  My personal ideology is that, if you have significant influence over someone or a group of people, you are at least somewhat responsible for the things those people do or don’t do, if it at all relates back to you. I’m so fucking tired of the argument that CCs aren’t responsible for what their fans do. Obviously they aren’t responsible for every single one of their fans, and obviously they can’t fully control their fans at the end of the day. But I think there are certain things that reach such a level of extremity that does make those CCs responsible. This can be measured by either scale or intensity; that is to say, if a CC’s fanbase does things on an extremely large scale, or one person from/a fraction of the fanbase does something really extreme, then the CC is made all the more responsible. Another CC I’ve always had trouble discussing with other people on this subject is Pewdiepie, in particular, about the extremists in his fanbase. Because the things a small handful of his fans have done in reference to him and/or in his name were so fucking extreme, I thought Pewdiepie had to take at least some responsibilty. Along a similar vein, because the things Dream’s general fanbase does are so widespread and on such a massive scale, Dream has to take at least some responsibility.

Fifth, okay. Hmmm. I want to tackle this point you made about the ableism he faces in some criticism of him carefully and with empathy, but not coddling. One, I do think a lot of the criticism he receives for the ways he handles criticism (post-cheating Tweets, reactions to John Swan, post-MCC HBomb stream, etc.), disregard his RSD and can be oftentimes ableist. I’ve actually encountered people irl who criticize this aspect of Dream’s character, and have had to explain to them their disregard for how ADHD/RSD affect neurodivergent people’s reactions to criticism. But - and this is a big, and very controversial but - I think mentally ill/disordered people can 100% leverage their mental illness/disorders for the sake of manipulation. This is actually something I’ve learned from a psychiatrist, regarding the ways people I know and I handle our anxiety and depression. This manipulation can be unwitting or intentional, but it is entirely possible, and the possibility shouldn’t be entirely dismissed as ableist. Living with a mental illness or disorder that others know about/that you are very public about puts you in an interesting position to receive frequent sympathy, empathy, and/or pity. I’m not saying that empathy for Dream having ADHD/RSD is entirely unjustified; on the contrary, I have frequently expressed how I can relate to his ADHD symptoms and have defended him for expressing those symptoms, both on mcytblr and in real life. I am saying that Dream fans tend to use his ADHD as a kind of shield for a lot of criticism levied against him, including the supposition that he could be manipulating his fanbase to defend him because of his public expressions of RSD. So yes, my theory is that Dream knows how to levy every aspect of his life for his personal gain and for the growth of his brand, and that includes his ADHD. I think he has courage for his openess about his ADHD, I think his openness has contributed to the rise in awareness of mental health and empathy for neurodivergent people within Gen Z, and I think at least some of his expressions of RSD publicly/online weren’t intentionally made public. All that being said, I also think he has to know just how much his fanbase cares about defending him for his ADHD, and I think he has to know that some of the things he does related to his neurodivergence endear him to his audience, in a coddling, baby-ing, mildly ableist sorta way.  Maybe this is all incredibly presumptuous of me. Of course, I can never know the real intentions behind any Dream video, Tweet, or stream. Maybe I’m just projecting, because I can see myself doing just this, if I had the maturity I had circa 2018-2019. Idfk know, man.

Sixth, I actually agree with you here, people probably do get more mad at his fanbase than him. Dream puts out content pretty seldomly, considering the frequency of content output for other Youtubers/streamers in his field/at his brand size. And yet, he has received masses of criticism. Considering that the things Dream himself does/says do not entirely correlate with the amount of criticism he receives, I think it’s a logical assumption that a lot of that criticism actually goes back to the size of his presence online, rather than the man himself. That is to say, because of the massive community he’s amassed, the exponential growth of his fanbase, their presence on every single social media site and in virtually every single Internet space/fandom, and the size of his metaphysical presence in his fields, Dream is much bigger than the man himself, so the criticism he receives will, at least in part, be a direct or indirect result of all these other aspects of the Dream brand.  Something I don’t think many Dream fans/stans, or even most MCYT fans in general, understand, is that Dream isn’t just “one guy” in the eyes of the Internet- at least, not anymore. He hasn’t been for nearly a year. Like Pewdiepie, Mr. Beast, and other CCs who have amassed similar levels of fame and wealth via Internet content creation, Dream is a brand now, and most people will treat him as such. He isn’t just some uwu soft boy playing Minecraft anymore. He is on a whole other level from any other MCYT in his friend circle or colleague interaction bubble. His words will never again live in a vaccum or private bubble, his friend circle will never again be under anything less than intense scrutiny, his past actions will never again be simple mistakes or silly errors, his words will never again be casual tweets or streams for laughs among a couple thousand followers. Dream’s name represents something much bigger than just the one man. As such, all aspects of his brand, including his fanbase, will tie back to him and, ultimately, to any general criticism of him.

I’m not saying I like any of this, and I actually think the evolution of influencers from people to a marketable brand with similar mechanisms, responsibilities, and liabilities as a corporation is some kind of late capitalism nightmare fuel; I’m just stating my own observations and theories as to why so much anti-Dream criticism seems to be directed at his fanbase, rather than him.

Seventh, he’s just a guy, you’re right, but I think a lot of the antis on Tumblr understand this more than you know. As I’ve seen it, the sentiment among much of the “DSMP stans DNI” crowd seems to be that of “Dream/other MCYTs are such ‘bad’ people, so why do their fans stick to these mediocre, racist men, when there are so many better people to watch/better content to consume?” We know this argument is flawed for many of the obvious reasons - the conflation of all MCYTs’ actions regardless of individual identity, the equating of a CC’s fanbase’s morality to that of the CC they enjoy watching, the exxageration of any error MCYT CCs have committed as bigotry/racism, the fundamental misunderstanding and misinformation that led antis to believe this exxageration of the facts, etc. But I want to focus on the general, underlying sentiment of, “why not watch someone better, when your creator is problematic?” Sometimes, I ask this of Dream stans. Yes, being mildly ignorant, getting involved in the scandals Dream has, and being a right-leaning/libertarian centrist in the recent past all seem like harmless things, all things considered. One could say Dream isn’t nearly as bad as many antis who are misinformed seem to believe, and that there are much worse CCs Dream stans could be watching and creating fan content for. But I think what Tumblr antis wonder is, aren’t there also much better MCYTs/CCs people could be watching and stanning? Because he’s just some guy, right? Is his content truly so exceptional or is he really so exceptional a person, that people have to stick by him, despite the things that spike up regarding his current or past actions? I think that’s what made me finally decide to stop watching Dream. I realized he was just Some Guy. The Dream Team was a comforting dynamic to indulge in, DNF was a cute ship to read and speculate about, and Manhunts were fun videos to watch; however, once the Reddit posts came out and I read them in-depth, the cost-benefit analysis tipped over to the “not worth it” side for me. I realized Dream’s content, while fun and comforting, was not entirely unique, and wasn’t worth sticking around for, given what I then knew about his past political leanings. If he is just Some Guy, then there are a hundred more like him out there. There a hundred more ships, a hundred more found family dynamics, a hundred more entertaining and skilled Minecraft players. So while I agree with you on the point of people being allowed to love him regardless because he is just a guy, at the end of the day, I think that, if we are to believe that sentiment or use that argument in such a manner, we should also understand the flip side- that, if he is just some guy, why is it worth sticking around? To that I say, maybe because people just enjoy the simple things they enjoy.

Anyways, I wholly agree with your tl;dr. Thanks for that insanely long ask, this was a fun thing to keep me occupied while I’ve been at work, facilitating Zoom sessions this whole morning.

[burningthemidnightcityoil]

AVATARS OF THE LASTING ASPECTS

Let’s talk about Players and Aspects.

There are Two to Three Avatars of an Aspect, and then the Aspect itself. The two are the Player, and whatever Familiar / Sidekick / Fence / Companion they may have.

The Aspect itself is The Thing and the Whole of the Thing. For example-- you can picture Time without a Player. Its the measurement of events as they proceed; but its also the Begining and the End, the Pace-- Its Art is Music and its Artifact is Clockwork.

Think of all Aspects as like that.

The Avatar of the Aspect, or the Player, is capable of both introducing and controlling how the Aspect will function. If the player chooses bad choices, the Aspect will turn to those bad choices. The Aspect as the Thing and the Whole of the Thing is a neutral force of nature, only following its function, and its Avatar can dictate how that function is carried out. The Avatar and Aspect, however, are separate in this-- the aspect can still carry out its function without an avatar, just look at the Troll-Godless Earth.

The Player’s Class often tells you how the Player will dish out their Aspect.

So.

Why is this important?

Consider what we see in Homestuck.

In the Troll Sessions, the Aspects are balanced. There is an avatar for each aspect, and they carry out as players can and will and won’t to do.

But its the Human sessions where all this gets interesting.

Because the Human sessions aren’t balanced. They don’t have an avatar for each Aspect, and worse still, you can see that a powerful entity-avatar has corrupted the human sessions and one troll session (LE)-- The humans sessions is where it becomes blatant how the Aspects function without someone to direct or with someone with malicious intent.

Let’s start with Beta Session.

Here, we are introduced to Avatars of Breath, Light, Space and Time. Spacetime, its a given we need, because for anything to happen you need Space to fill and Time to pace.

But Light and Breath?

Breath is motion, progression, plot. Everything about the Beta Session is fast moving and constant action, and in fact, is too fast. Everything has to be done quickly, established quicker, and it jumps around.

This is a session without any sort of grounding-- There are no Real Aspects to tie everything down, so everything is all over the place.

Light is Relevance, Meaning and Symbols; Eyes and Color, Consciousness (lights on and everybody is home). There is next to nothing dark about what we’re seeing-- intention is often made plainly clear, most of the characters are in their right minds, and the Beta Session is chocked full of Symbols and Meaning and the promise that things will be made Clear if we can only Look.

But the problem here-- is that its too much all at once. Like above, there are no Real Aspects to ground the Ideals we have. We are given all this information, but have no fucking idea how to process it or where to put it, or what’s relevant to what.

Without Avatars of the Real Aspects (Void, Doom, Blood, Rage, Heart), there is no SENSE. And the Guardians that are there, are just that-- Guardians. They hold an Aspect, but don’t do much with it.

The Aspects that are the Thing and the Whole of the Thing are there, but they merely Are, and do not bend to or over the whims of anyone.

--- Until the Trolls come in, do things start making Sense.

Let’s talk the Alpha Session.

So we have Avatars of Life, Void, Hope, and Heart.

Life is Health, Experience, the Breaking of Impossibility and Normalcy. The Players are Alive, and surprisingly Well, in spite of their awful circumstances. Roxy and Dirk should’ve Died (Dirk fell in the middle of the Ocean as a Baby, how did he survive? Roxy fell in the midst of Carapacians, how was she not Eaten?). And yet, they’re just ordinary teenagers.

But now, the Avatars are forced to live through horrible circumstances. There is no Time or Space-- No way to move forward, and no Space to grow. Just Surviving through all Impossibility-- And its fucking awful.

Hope is Coherence, Belief, Fantasy and Divinity. The fact that the players are experiencing something wholly fantastical-- a literal Alien Empress has come to take over Earth, there are Alien Monsters outside of Jake’s door, their best friends are 500 years into the Future or are in another universe entirely, Apocraplyse and Metaphysical-- That’s a helluva a thing to have.

But now all they have is Hope. Hope that there’s gonna be something better. Hope that something is gonna come down-- and ye gods, that’s awful. They’re living 2020 without it ever being 2020.

And their hope player is a self-serving jackass.

Heart is the Inner Self and Character, the Ego and Persona, the Facet and Aesthetic, Love and Soul and Self. Each character is appropriately theme’d-- Jane is the Heiress to a Cooking Empire and literally acts like the Betty Crocker character we see on the logo (not the Batter Witch). Roxy is a Scientist, and has a Science Lab, and she loves cats and wizards. Jake is a movie enthusiast with a love of adventure, and literally has a Tomb Raider Island just outside his door. And Dirk is surrounded by Robots and Brobots, and quite literal (and distorted) reflections of himself.

And did we mention the Romance Problems.

So many Romance Problems.

Heart here is one of our First Real Aspects. And lot of Dirk’s stress comes from being one of the only Real Aspect Avatars, and trying to temper nearly everyone. Remember that music can be played to the beat of one’s heart-- Heart here is trying to play Time, and uh-- well--

I mean, you tried but...

Void is Irrelevance, the meaningless Physical, the Dark and the Deep, the Incomprehensible. The world is real damn it, and suddenly it doesn’t matter as much anymore. The Session is Void, void of life, void of hope, void of heart, until something comes along and fixes it.

One of the Real Aspects, and it more or less just sits there like a Generic Object. Literally only Roxy is thrilled about this session and for good reason-- she’s the only one in her element. Void fills in what Space doesn’t-- and it doesn’t do that good of a job because NOTHING IS HERE.

... So how many of you called Act 6 meaningless? How many of you had quit ship come Act 6? Feel bored or disappointed? Void did its job, didn’t it.

So.

What about the Aspects that Aren’t here?

Easy, the Trolls fill in what Classes and Aspects are missing. Kanaya brings in Sylph, Karkat Blood, Gamzee Rage and Bard, Sollux Mage and Doom, Terezi Mind, and Vriska brings in Thief (Though it can be argued that Jack Noir originally brought in Thief and Rage).

As  an Avatar of Rage, Gamzee is mean to bring Contrivance, Madness and Passion, the Self Evident Truth. The Problem here, is that he only brings in Madness. Take the Juju Episode. He isn’t the Avatar of Rage itself, he’s the Avatar of the Lord of Time’s Rage-- He comes in to do the work of LE, not the work of the real Rage Aspect.

A real avatar of Rage would’ve shown our Alpha Players that they can change the system to favor them-- because this is bullshit.

As Avatar of Mind, Terezi brings in the Outer Self, the Choice, Cause and Effect, Superego and Karma. The Multiverse at your disposal. When she is down because of Gamzee, suddenly you lost all your Choices and there is no Karma (Pre-retcon Meteor).

Mind is also Memory and the Saved Game. If it wasn’t for Terezi, John would not have been able to go back and fix things. For a Narrative, Saved Games aren’t particularly Clean-- But SBURB is also a Game and a Story. We’ve seen what happens when the Player dies and lives are lost-- but imagine if you can just go back to a Saved Game and redo an action without having died in the first place.

That’s Mind.

As Avatar of Blood, Karkat provides not Character-- but You. Your Place, Yourself, Your Choice. Blood is the most Grounded and the Most Real of the Aspects. Everything might be Fake, but You, the Reader, are here and making it real. Blood falls under being Self-Driven, Promises and Friendship, Collective and Shared. Only as strong as your greatest weakness.

When he is down, you’ve lost Everything. When the Avatar of Blood flees, all those bonds and promises go out the window (Murderstuck). When he dies, there is nobody left but despair (Bad End).

As Avatar of Doom, Sollux provides Destruction, The Limit and the Crossed Line, Inevitability and the Impossible-- Death at the End. No matter how bad that seems, Doom isn’t a Bad Aspect. Its the Cleaner. Something has gone wrong, and there’s no way to fix it, you can take solace in the fact that it’ll be over soon. Doom is a very sorrowful aspect, with a thankless but needed job.

He tends to avoid the Human’s (and yet looks up human culture) cos he’s not that interested (Doom avoids the Players). When he’s defeated by the Avatar of Hope, Murderstuck seemingly has no End (and yet, he isn’t dead, just changed). When he leaves to go hang out with Friends once the Humans arrive, Doom has left them (Their journey is guaranteed to succeed).

Sollux has a frightful job, being an Avatar of Doom.

And what of the Muse and the Lord.

Muses are Inspirational. You have something that inspires you to create. Calliope is that inspiration. The Avatar of Space inspires its creation.

And the Lord? Well, he’s the Creator and the Director of the Piece. The Avatar of Time ensures Creation.

Worse though, is when Caliborn proves to be a malicious creator and director, and he literally takes Avatars as his own.

Gamzee, an Avatar of Rage, is now an Avatar of Caliborn’s Rage. His Madness. Spread either via Murderous Intent or Juju.

Equius, an Avatar of Void, is now an Avatar of Caliborn’s Void. His Physical Reality.

Dirk, an Avatar of Heart, fights so hard not to be Caliborn’s Heart. And plenty of Dirk’s other selves Fail this Fight. Bro is merely a distilled version, and that’s horrible enough. Hal fails outright, and his nature tends toward maliciousness toward all other players.

And Homestuck. The Alpha Timeline? -- Its Caliborn’s Time.

And you Will Follow it. You have no other Choice.

[cipheramnesia]

i see a lot of trans-med, whatever were calling it, nonsense. i personally believe you need dysphoria to be trans, but i dont care what other people under the trans umbrella do, just dont hurt people, yanno? but i do think de-medicalizing it would be a bad idea. for some people if gender dysphoria was declassified it would be harder to get hrt, etc. does that make me a bigot?

Let me start by putting the headline up front: yes it makes you a bigot, but it's not intentional, so you can work on it.

Okay, we'll come back to that in a minute. The first thing I need to do is a little bit of narrative housekeeping, because you've attached two ideas together which don't belong together and create an incorrect framework to address your question.

I'm going to take some scissors and "i do think de-medicalizing [...] would be a bad idea." [snip]

Cut this off from "for some people if gender dysphoria was declassified it would be harder to get hrt, etc."  

Right, now we are only addressing "de-medicalizing is a bad idea" in the context of your question about being a bigot. Put treatment access out of your mind, that's completely separate.

There is a great range of different trans people and not all of them go through a medical route. There are non-binary people who may not feel a need to pursue any medical route. They are trans, but not in any particular way that is medical per se. Or there's people who for health reasons can't go a medical route. Or there's whole cultures which don't operate on the Western idea of gender, or which don't have exclusively binary genders, or so on. Right away, “medicalization” excludes a bunch of people who are trans or who aren't cis or who aren't white/et al or so on. Like it or not, you’re expressing a preference to exclude people. So there's that.

And you don't wanna be a bigot, that's clear. Few people actively want to, but nearly everyone is or has been or will be and we often don't even know. I like to say "the future will make bigots of us all" because what we recognize as prejudice is always changing. For an example, I'm trying to cut out using prejudiced language about neurodiverse people. Sound easy? Well, how often do you describe something as "insane" or "crazy" as a form of hyperbole? Yeah. It's work, and I fuck up, and I've been fucked up in history, and I will continue to fuck up. But I'm gonna try and work on it.

You want to live and let live with trans people who don't agree with you about medicalization. That's good! That's a great place to start. But a good next step is recognizing that a medical model, a medical narrative if you will, does not included many other trans people - and that is a form of bigotry. Getting out from under that means accepting there is more than one pathway, which leads us toooooo

The idea that "if gender dysphoria was declassified it would be harder to get hrt, etc."

Now, I'm not sure anyone other than transmeds actually see the narrative as "medicalization" or "de-medicalization." Because for those of us who are inclusive, the medical process is one facet of different ways of being trans. Frankly, the world at large supports this. The legal status of your gender isn't a medical condition. Your birth certificate or driver's license or whatever aren't medical. People using your pronouns aren't medical. These are all social facets of being trans, or bureaucratic ones. Someone calling you the wrong name isn't controlled in any way shape or form by medicine.

Meaning, before we talk about anything else, being trans is already inherently, objectively, and incontestably beyond the purview of medicine. There's no way around this, there's no amount of medical diagnoses or symptoms which change the social aspect. I could stop right there.

But I won't because there's the question of difficulty of taking the medical path - it's already really difficult! And it's difficult for social reasons. Prejudice and gate-keeping happens because of people, and those people aren't going to change, merely change their justifications for oppression. So second, relying on a medical model might also make transition more difficult. We don't actually know... or do we?

Because we can look at how the model for trans people has changed over time. The general trend, in countries that recognizes trans people's right to exist, is a decreasing reliance on a medical model. Changes we can track are reduced therapy requirements, bureaucratic barriers generally are getting lower, the need to "prove your gender" is starting to go away. HRT can be obtained by informed consent. The barrier for GCS is lower. These are not universal, but this prevailing trend is a marked decrease in holding trans people to medical standards of transition.

Since we happen to know exactly the results of decreasing reliance on the medical model, it means we also can at least correlate it with trans people's lives in general. And the correlation is that trans people have become far more socially accepted. Social barriers have decreased. It's considered rude or illegal to mistreat someone over their being trans. It has become easier for us to transition, however we see fit, and to live our lives. More of us can be out, there are more of us, and our lives are demonstrably better.

In other words, the preponderance of evidence supports decreasing the importance of the medical model for trans people, increasing more open social support and medical access where desired. If you support a medical model, you also have to find a way to demonstrate some greater overall benefit to the lives of trans people. Right now, all available evidence suggests a medical model, or medicalization, or a transmed position, or so on is more harmful to the trans community in general.

And on another personal note, if I can toot my own horn, look at me. I didn't have therapy, I didn't have much in the way of dysphoria, I didn't even think I was trans for like... literally decades. Then I walked in and got informed consent HRT without any stress or waiting or fearing that maybe my identity was wrong or a mistake. I'm happy, I'm healthy, and I haven't felt a minute of doubt about my gender since then.

I hope this helps, because whoever you are, I genuinely believe you’re putting in the effort to be a good person. I think you want to be kind and work towards it, and you have the capacity to grow and continue to be a better, kinder, and more inclusive person.

[fourangers]

Fate and Choices (ch.07)

Summary: When Naruto discovered who was going to be his soulmate, he jumped straight at this opportunity, looking forward to spending the rest of his life with his better half. Sasuke well…he was less eager in this regard though. NaruSasu. Soulmates tattoos. Explicit.

Warning: NaruSasu anal sex, blow job.

Chapter 06

AO3 link | ffnet link

--.--

He was definitely receiving some glowering in the train because of his constant leg shaking. Sighing, he adjusted on his seat, settling his leg down. Minutes later, his leg restarted shaking, and there were newer sets of eyes throwing silent judgements towards him, so he stood up, scratching his blond head.

He dearly hoped that what he had planned for this date would go well. He didn’t fill much in the itinerary, just enough so Sasuke wouldn’t get bored. While he was taking big breaths to calm his beating heart, he strode to the shopping mall’s entrance, 10 minutes earlier than appointed. Blinking, he recognized Sasuke’s back from afar, so he poked his shoulder. “Hey, you’re here already.”

Craning his head closer, Naruto noticed a moleskine on Sasuke’s lap, some random sketch of a crowd drawn on it. Sasuke shut it, putting on his pocket as he turned around with a nod of acknowledgement. “Just arrived too. Where are we going?”

“Watch a Kurosawa movie, Dreams. The coolest part of it is that a real orchestra will play the instrumental parts! When I read the news I thought you might like it.” He added, rubbing the back of his neck.

“This definitely sounds very interesting, but it’s not going to bore you though?”

“Which is why we’re going to an arcade after that.” Naruto grinned when Sasuke rolled his eyes with a half smile. “Hey, by the way, I saw some drawings in your notebook. Looks pretty cool. Can I see?”

Sighing, Sasuke placed the moleskine on his hand. “It’s nothing really.”

“Nothing…no way.” Naruto flipped through pages, with varied sketches of people, some plants, a cat and even a detailed face from an old man, shades portraying his weary expression with wrinkles. “Man, you’re always such a genius it’s infuriating. They look really good! You learned in college?”

“Hn, took some art classes. It’s a nice hobby now, to pass my time.” Sasuke put his moleskine back when Naruto returned to him.

“Hmmmmm, I can imagine you going to draw some nude models, and even some girls would offer private classes like ‘draw me like one of your french girls’. I should have taken some art classes too!” 

“Moron. What about you? Any interesting extracurricular class you did while in college?”

Naruto thought for a while and replied. “Soccer, I played defense. We even organized going to college tournaments sometimes, brought some cheerleading and all that. Mostly for fun, and I still meet my old team from time to time to play.”

“In Tokyo?” Sasuke muttered incredulous. "Good luck finding a place like that."

Naruto laughed, conceding the point. "We found some indoor futsal courts, it's better than nothing."

“True. Figured you’d be the typical jock once you’re in college. At least you put your endless stamina to good use.” Sasuke smirked.

Naruto showed his tongue in response, though before Sasuke could come up with a sarcastic assessment, the movie theater’s lights dimmed and they focused on the movie. The movie was more boring than he expected, but Sasuke was enthused towards it so Naruto let it slide. Nevertheless, he made sure he’d win the competition in the basketball throwing arcade, because the bastard called him a jock so he better play this part after all. The date finished on a high note with a pleasant dinner and kisses as a side dish, Naruto was practically floating on the way home.

The following dates were equally as nice. This budding relationship with Sasuke was…an interesting process. It was like merging new facets of Sasuke since they didn’t maintain contact in crucial years, but in many other aspects, he was still the same Sasuke he knew since he was a kid. Naruto was also sure that Sasuke was going through this same process with him, which kept their dates engaging and comforting at the same time. 

The only annoying part was the lack of physical contact. They would only kiss when there was a dark alley at some corner of the street, or when they booked an individual room at the restaurant, but it was short and mostly chaste so frankly it was getting frustrating for Naruto.

Things were so much easier when they were young and stupid, skipping some classes so they could go to the school’s rooftop, or go to Sasuke’s bedroom whenever his parents weren’t home to do what their impulses dictated. He even offered Sasuke to go to his apartment but the latter just dismissed him, citing he was tired or whatever. Bah.

Sasuke could feel Naruto’s impatience emanating whenever they were alone on their dates. Even when he kissed his dumbass, whenever he pulled back Naruto would grunt or whine how short it was, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to increase the duration of these kisses, getting lost in their passion, letting his hands caress Naruto’s back.

Then Naruto had the brilliant idea of going to some western style bar, claiming that it had the best handmade sake of all Japan and Sasuke had to try it. The moment they entered the establishment, he took a long look in the environment.

“Small tables for couples, dim lit room…you just dragged me here so we can make out, didn’t you?”

He smirked when the tanned face went engine red and Naruto sputtered. “W-what, no. C’mon you asshole, I’m really serious about the sake I was talking about, I thought you might like it.”

Sasuke hummed, the sardonic smile still in place. They sat at the appointed table, a fixed gaze thrown towards his dumbass boyfriend while Naruto mumbled their order. He glowered at the amused face Sasuke showed, kicking him on the knee and had the sadist joy of seeing the haughty look dissolving to a glare.

The silky sound of cello caught their attention, with the soft follow of piano and drums as the band played a jazz improv. With their faces closer, Naruto took all his time to observe Sasuke focused on listening to the music. His fingers wound up to part the dark fringes and put it behind the ear so he could see Sasuke’s sharp eyes, then he cupped the pale cheek. 

Sasuke fixed his gaze back at him, letting the thumb caress his skin, both unaware that the waitress smoothly put their drinks on the table, bowing out in a second. He muttered, lips curling upwards. “So you did drag me just so you can kiss me all night long.”

Naruto rolled his eyes, smiling. “Part of the reason, maybe.”

He gradually approached, holding his face in place until they closed the gap, softly at first, but increased in intensity each time their mouths glided and parted. One of Sasuke’s hand gripped his hip, pulling him closer so Naruto could taste him better, their own drinks forgotten.

Naruto jumped when he felt something vibrating, Sasuke detached his lips with a wet smack, picking his smartphone with a short glance and ignored the call, sliding their mouths once again with a ragged moan. The smartphone was vibrating once again quite insistently so Sasuke released with one last lick, clearing his throat. “Sorry, must be pretty urgent.”

“Yeah, it’s okay.” Naruto placed his hand over Sasuke’s, brushing over it while he took the call.

He couldn’t really understand the whole conversation, with the piano increasing its tempo and some cheers from the audience, but he could see Sasuke’s previous annoyed expression turning into a concerned one. Sasuke disentangled his fingers and patted Naruto’s head, muttering close to his ear that he needed to go to the toilet so he could have a quieter conversation. The blond man drank his mojito mildly peeved, the kisses were going so fine before this interruption. Sasuke soon returned, picking up his things. 

“Sorry, I think I can’t stay very long.” He picked the sake cup, gulping half of it. “You’re right, it is quite tasty. But after I finish this, we gotta go.”

“Well, that’s…that’s too bad, what happened?”

“One of my college friends, I need to help her relocate to another town because her soulmate found her.”

“Whoa⏤! Seriously? That sounds pretty dangerous. Oh hey, I can call my aunt, she can pull some strings to help your friend if you want.” Naruto interjected, also grabbing his wallet, ready to go.

Sasuke blinked, then nodded. “I’d appreciate that, thanks.”

“Yeah, it’s no trouble.” Naruto called the waitress to pay their bill. “What happened to the poor girl, is her soulmate some yakuza or something like that?”

“No, but he has a history of abusing her. Actually…she was the first one really blatant case about how the Soulmate system failed her, because she’s transgender and she’s paired with a an idiotic transphobe.”

Naruto grimaced, scratching his head. “Wow…I don’t even know what I should say in this case. What about police and lawyers, they didn’t help?”

Sasuke scoffed, souring his expression. “The society in general is biased with the soulmate system, and you know that. Everywhere we went, the moment they knew she was fleeing from her soulmate they thought she was just prolonging the inevitable, that one day he’d see her ways and accept her for who she truly is.”

“And…did he?”

“No, he’s a son of bitch who believes that God above gave him this mission to teach her what is truly correct, so she should go back to her original gender. Fucking bullshit, and everyone that it’s not part of our circle of friends told that it’s her fate to show him otherwise, to help him grow and whatever more excuses that makes me want to vomit.”

“Well…but you know, I don’t know her very well, but maybe fate does⏤” Naruto clamped his mouth shut when he met furious dark grey eyes, his rage was so palpable that he could see even in the dark room.

“See?! That’s what I meant that this system sucks! Instead of doing any rational deliberation to reach a fair conclusion, people prefer doing this victim blaming. If she wants to open his eyes or change his mind should be her decision, and her decision only. No one should force her to do some bullshit epic quest just because they have matching tattoos.”

Huffing, he waited for the usual onslaught of excuses and half-assed explanations but Naruto just stared back with wide eyes. He then crossed his arms in contemplation.

Feeling a little unsettled from this lack of response, Sasuke lashed out. “What?”

Naruto did a double take from his hostility, but muttered. “No, I just thought⏤you’re right. I was being insensitive. I’m just trying to remember about it, like all the times in the past I may have done or said something insensitive like that. I’ll try to be more careful in the future.” 

Oh. Sagging his shoulders, Sasuke said in a more neutral tone. “Sure. Thanks for listening to me.”

“Uh no. Thanks for showing me that I was wrong. Give me her name though, so I can ask around a way to help her out.” Naruto grinned and Sasuke could feel a load coming out from his back.

“Thank you.” The bill arrived so Sasuke picked up with a smirk. “I’ll pay this time.”

As they were going back to the subway, after much pestering and cajoling, Naruto managed to convince Sasuke to introduce him to his college friends one day. Sasuke accepted, as long as he could trade with seeing Naruto in the shortest shorts while playing soccer. The rest of their conversation was filled with teasing quips and the usual bantering.

⏤.⏤  

How odd. For the past month since his older brother went to the Netherlands, he’d call almost every day to help him out managing their company, and to update all the latest news. However, as time passed on, there were some days he didn’t chime in, claiming he was busy, and the gaps between each call would get wider till Itachi didn’t talk to him for a week. There were some occasional convos through messages but his brother was becoming as cryptic as ever.

Frowning, Sasuke figured it was time to call him instead. The first call was ignored. So was the second. He waited an hour and called again. After the 5th time, Itachi decided to answer him, his voice airy and dazed.

“Ah, if it isn’t my wayward otouto-kun⏤”

Sasuke had to point out the obvious. “Wait, you’re the one who vanished for a week⏤”

“Anyways. How are you going with your dates with Naruto-kun?”

“Nii-san, I actually wanted to talk about something relevant…”

“Right, which are probably regarding some tedious subjects.” Itachi responded. “So at least humor me a bit before we go to that part.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes, sighing. “It’s been running very smoothly.”

“Why are you talking as if Naruto-kun is some sort of car?”

“Nii-san…” Sasuke warned.

“Right right. Go on.”

“So…it’s been nice, I’m enjoying his company.” It was almost like they went back to their teenage days, but with many added bonuses. 

His older brother noticed his contemplative tone, and muttered. “You don’t sound so sure though.” 

Sasuke sighed again. It’s just that, the fact that he was having so much fun going on those dates with Naruto was sometimes…unsettling. That maybe the soulmate system was right after all, finding his perfect lifetime partner that fit him perfectly. 

He said, staring at the ceiling. “Sometimes I’m just surprised how accepting Naruto can be. You know my stance about the soulmate system, and you know how I’m against it right?”

“Sure, and then?”

“I guess in all the latest years, whenever I engage in any debate with anyone, I’d meet a lot of resistance. Sometimes people would just shut me down, wanting me to stop the conversation. But I kept forgetting that Naruto really listens to people and is willing to change if he’s persuaded enough.”

“That’s great, isn’t it?” 

“Yes…it’s just…what if all of these is all fabrication from the Soulmate system, that makes Naruto more accommodating to me? What if⏤”

“You’re not seriously believing such a ludicrous idea?” Itachi exhaled loudly, shaking his head.

“I don’t know how much it manipulates both of us, how genuine it is.”

“This tattoo on your hand makes you paranoid and overthink like ‘oh, but maybe…’ and it’d be kind of amusing seeing your skirting around like some lost lamb, if only it wasn’t as tragic too. Have you ever considered that if it weren’t the fact that Naruto-kun is your soulmate, you’d just be thankful that you’re dating a thoughtful, open-minded man who is willing to change his opinion no matter how many curved balls you throw in his direction?”

Sasuke relaxed the grip on his cellphone, turbulent heartbeats calming down due to his older brother’s reassuring voice. “...well.”

“Then make your life simpler otouto-kun.” Itachi insisted. “Just be thankful and happy that you’re dating someone like that and you’re looking forward to seeing how your relationship with him will unfold.”

“…hn.”  

“Let’s all agree with one thing, you’re not exactly an easy person to deal with and you should be thankful that Naruto-kun is the chosen victim of your choice.”

Sasuke scowled, then grumbled. “Naruto is not that perfect either.”

“Oh, pray tell me, why?”

“He got all sulky and refused to talk with me for more than a week just because I told him and I slept with some guys while I was in college.”

Itachi scoffed. “Otouto-kun, I am definitely not going to take your side.”

“You guys are all traitors. You, Neji, Naruto…”

“You made the bed, now you have to lay on it. Hm. Maybe literally.”

“We were supposed to talk about serious issues right.” Sasuke growled.

“Hm. And what would that be?”

Sasuke took a deep breath, dropping all the light mood aside. “Have you talked to our father lately?”

He heard some shuffling coming from the receiver, a small groan as Itachi answered. “No, I haven’t been talking with him since our last meeting. Why?”

“It’s nothing. It’s just that…he used to ask for a weekly financial report but he hadn’t done that lately.”

“Because the company is longer his.” Itachi interjected.

“Yes, true.” Sasuke thinned his lips. “It’s just that he’s been very quiet, I guess I’m worried now. Aside from work, he doesn’t have many friends and kept contact mostly with us, his family. And considering mom divorced him…”

“I guess you’re right. Have you sent him a message?”

Sasuke gave out an awkward grunt. “It’s weird sending him a message without a specific topic.”

“True.” Itachi agreed with a short chuckle. “Alright, I’ll try to contact him and you’ll talk with mom, ok?”

“Deal.” Sasuke conceded, relaxing his shoulders. “Talking about finance reports, you haven’t sent me this week yet and I really need it to show to one of our sponsors.”

There was a silence. 

“Nii-san? You hearing me?” Sasuke frowned, putting his voice closer to the speaker.

“Hmm. Oh, I see. Today is Wednesday, I should have sent the report yesterday right.”

“…right…” Sasuke muttered back, his confusion increasing when Itachi returned to the dreamy airy tone from the beginning.

“It’s incredible how time flies when you find happiness otouto-kun. I cannot believe that it’s Wednesday already. How marvellous is this, having no such thing as time constraining us.”

“Uh…Nii-san, the report…?” Sasuke was getting ready to call 911 because his older brother was acting very out of character.

“I forgot.”   

This time the silence came from Sasuke’s side out of sheer shock. “You forgot.”

“Yes.” Itachi confirmed in earnest. “Shisui-san and I went to Switzerland and all these gorgeous alpine mountains, that beautiful atmosphere that…”

“You forgot.” Sasuke muttered, realization dawning on his head. “Wait, did you talk with Takashi-sama and Nakamura-sama this Monday?”

“I rescheduled their meeting.”

“Ok, rescheduled to when?”

Itachi cleared his throat.

Sasuke felt a migraine coming up. He sighed. “Nii-san. Nii-san. Uchiha Itachi, you have a company to take care of. You have to work. Daily, might I add, in case you have forgotten.”

“Meyer.”

“What?”

“Itachi Meyer, will be my full name. Or maybe Itachi Meyer Uchiha, it does ring really nicely, don’t you think?”

Sasuke rubbed his eyebrows together, groaning. “Okay, your head is clearly all over the clouds, so I beg of you, at least, do some basic things like…talk to some of our sponsors. Show that you’re sound and alive.” 

“Oh, I’m definitely alive.”

Sasuke cringed, shaking his head from the incoming images. “I’m surrounded by fools, that’s what I am.”

“I really can’t wrap up my mind how on Earth I delayed this for so long. The act of consummating our love Sasuke, just the act⏤” 

“I don’t want to know.” He seriously don't want to hear his sibling's sex exploits, he wanted to die.

Itachi ignored him. “Just the act…was almost like some sort of religious experience.”

“I seriously don’t want to know and I don’t know why you’re still talking.”

“Ah otouto-kun, when I⏤” Sasuke hung up. Not one second later, Itachi called again. “As I was saying, when I⏤” Sasuke hung up again and ignored the following calls, putting on silence.

Unfortunately Itachi barreled him with thousands of messages, from all sorts of social media, complaints about how unjust he was, how he should let Itachi freely express how much he loved his soulmate, even baited Sasuke asking about numbers in their stock market.

He then saw that Naruto was calling him, and listened to a very confused tone coming from the blond man. “Ooookay, your brother called me. Something like he’s really sorry that I’m your soulmate and how heartless you are and he asked for you to call him or else. Whatever that means.”

“Nii-san found his soulmate, spent some weeks with him and apparently this is more than enough to lose every brain cell he has available. Does falling in love have such catastrophic results? He used to be the smartest man on Earth. Now I don’t even recognize this idiot that has the voice and the same name as my supposed older brother that I used to admire.”

Naruto laughed. “Oh, c’mon, he’s in a honeymoon phase, just let him. Unfortunately we didn’t have that right? We jumped straight to angry sex.”

“Hn. Ah yes, the fated day about our first time, that it ended up with me topping you.”

“What? No, the fuck. I topped you.”

"You have a terrible memory, usuratonkachi, obviously I topped you first."

“You’re such a liar. Fine, back when your family went on a long vacation and there were only me and you in the house, I topped you mostly.”

“Sure, mostly. Not the first.”

“Because you were all nervous and I didn’t want to hurt you! So I have to show you how to take a dick like a champ.”

“In other words, I. Did. First.” Sasuke smirked.

“‘Cuz I was considerate, you asshole! It doesn’t count! I was almost there!” 

“You can twist how much you want about the tale of events, but you can’t change history.” 

Sasuke heard a string of mumbles and cursing from Naruto until he huffed loudly. “Alright, I don’t know why am I even wasting my time talking to you when I gotta work.”

“Oh, fleeing, the cowardice ch⏤”

“BYE.”

Sasuke chuckled when the call was cut off, his mood improving exponentially. His older brother’s words resonated in his mind; Naruto was an attentive man. He really needed to start letting his walls down.

⏤.⏤  

“Hey Sasuke. I’ve been thinking.”

They were getting back from a L’arc en Ciel show they both enjoyed, the energy settling down after such intense music. Sasuke just grunted back, a cue for Naruto to continue his line of thought.

“So you have good reasons to be against the Soulmate system right? Why did you help your older brother create a system that helps someone to find his soulmate then?”

Sasuke took a moment in contemplation and replied. “Well, first of all, Nii-san is the idealistic one, he wanted to use our clan’s powers to reach everyone in hopes it’d alleviate their suffering. I’m in this because even if I disagree with this system, I can’t stop people from searching for it. The least I could do is ensure that they wouldn’t fall in a trap.”

“Oh yeah, the fact that you guys would research if they have any criminal record and mental health history.”

“Yes, and if we found anything like it, we would warn our client beforehand.” He exhaled a tired breath. “Unfortunately most people would still go through this ordeal nevertheless.”

“Well, curiosity always gets the best of everyone. But it’s not like they all end up meeting their soulmate.” Naruto shrugged untroubled.

Sasuke nodded, studying him minutely and revealed. “To be honest, it’s giving me good money too. And I wanted to invest some of it to build a NGO to help people who have trouble with their soulmate and let their voices be heard for once.”

Naruto absorbed this explanation and brightened up, patting his shoulder. “That’s an awesome idea! I really hope you’ll be able to fulfill it.”

Sasuke felt his lips tugging upwards, crinkling his eyes. “Actually, I already founded with my mother, we planned that she’ll get in touch with the victims while I handle the rest. I just have to put everything in motion.”

“Well, if you need someone to promote your idea and spread the word I can help you out.” Naruto supplied, pointing to himself.

Sasuke snorted in disbelief. “Neji told me your salary, my organization can’t afford someone this expensive off the bat.”

“I’ll do it for free till you get enough sponsors.” 

That made Sasuke stop on his track, eyes narrowing. “You’re not doing this just to appease me, are you?”

Naruto rolled his eyes. “Seriously? I’d never do this just to kiss some ass, I thought you knew me better. I really think it’s a good idea and I’m aboard.”

Sasuke was understandably bewildered, no one aside his college friends wanted to help him out in this cause and Naruto just accepted this easily. “Why?”

Naruto glanced back, furrowing his eyebrows and formulated his thoughts better. “Like I’ve said, you really showed a different point of view, something I never noticed before. And I think since I have this ability to promote a good idea, so people like your trans friend would finally have some help, I should do it then. Change the society for the better.”

“I guess I’m just impressed, most people are much more resistant to seeing the soulmate’s system flaws than you.”

“I was resistant at first, for sure. I thought that back then, you ignored me only because of how your parents’ relationship was handled. However, you did give me valid explanations, valid examples to show that it’s not a perfect system. I do believe our relationship is going pretty good so far, Sasuke.” Naruto smiled and Sasuke felt his heartbeat increasing. “But now I’m not going to generalize and believe that everyone with their soulmates has something similar to this. And to those who unfortunately fell into a toxic situation, I want to help them out.”

While there was no word exchanged except the calm steps echoing in the deserted street, Sasuke gazed at Naruto in awe, almost as if he was looking at his childhood friend for the first time in his life. Reflecting and relieved that for once, after many years, he was glad that Naruto was his chosen one. He stopped when they arrived in his building, mumbling his voice raspy. “Well, I live here.”

“Oh!” Naruto exclaimed. “Aw, that’s too bad, I wanted to talk with you more.”

Swallowing, Sasuke said. “You can go with me, to my apartment.”

Naruto.exe stopped working.

“It’s just an invitation, nothing more.” Sasuke grumbled, practically seeing all the dirty thoughts emerging from Naruto’s head.

“…sure, yeah. Uh-huh.” Naruto rubbed the back of his neck, grinning widely. Sasuke grabbed his hand with a sigh, as he unlocked the security system. Naruto just let Sasuke drag him with a permanent beam, squeezing his hand as emphasis while blue eyes glowed in glee.

Sasuke’s apartment was roughly the same size as Naruto’s, with minimalistic design and some traditional Japanese decoration sprinkled here and there. Before Sasuke could go to his kitchen to get some water, his cellphone chimed.

“It’s my friend, the trans one. She promised she would call me once she finished moving to another town. I’ll take the call really fast. Feel free to look around, but don’t break anything, you hear me?” Sasuke warned.

“Yeah yeah. So much faith on me.” Naruto shooed him, so with a last glare, Sasuke went to his bedroom.

Naruto noticed that instead of a bigger bedroom like his, there was an extra space for an office. He turned on the lights, impressed by the array of books, mostly classical literature, some about marketing, others regarding the Soulmate system. He let his fingers slide through each spine, picking one title or another, but putting back just as quickly. One tall book caught his attention, placed in a corner. It was larger in size but thinner in number of pages, black leathered cover. Curious, Naruto opened the book.

It was a drawing of him.

His heart jumped to his throat, so Naruto carefully turned another page, revealing another sketch of him, but in another angle, this time looking thoughtful. Another page, another drawing depicting him. The lines were rough and unsure, but he could definitely recognize himself in those pictures. As he was leafing through those drawings, details were added, with more depth and added expression confirming that all of these sketches were of himself looking in teenage years. He halted, staring at his grinning face doodled on the creamy paper.

“Good news, she’s safe and sound in anoth⏤” Sasuke widened his eyes, yanking his sketchbook out of Naruto’s hands and slammed shut. 

Naruto’s jaw was still agape, managing to form a sentence. “Uh. Your drawings?”

Sasuke tamped the urge to throw it through the window, absolutely denying its existence.

The blond man continued in an attempt to ease the situation, mumbling. “They look…really good.” 

Sasuke tightened his fingers on the edges, eyes straying to the ground.

Biting his lower lip, Naruto scratched his head. “Are they…”

“Yes.”

“…oh.”

Sasuke appeared very reluctant to say any other word, torn in between ripping those pages apart or just putting it back on the shelf. Naruto couldn’t also meet his eyes, and after many uncomfortable minutes, he decided it’d be better if he left the room.

“I couldn’t get you out of my head.”

At this sudden revelation, Naruto swiveled his head around, peering towards his soulmate.

“At first I thought; it couldn’t be helped, we were practically attached to the hip since we were kids. Then it just kept getting worse. And worse. So much worse.” Sasuke croaked out, voice tired and heavy. “There wasn’t a day I wouldn’t picture you in my head and wonder how you were doing and there wasn’t one night where I would sleep before remembering your face.”

Naruto’s hands soon reached to touch his face, brushing the alabaster skin lovingly. “Sasuke…”

However, he picked those hands and stirred away. “This obsession wasn’t getting any healthier, so one of my friends suggested that I could practice sketching to release some stress, that’s all. I just…some days, when it was really unbearable, I guess I just drew you so I can expunge your image out of my mind.” 

Naruto cupped his cheeks once again, soulful blue eyes raw and vulnerable that made his own heart ache in response.

When he opened his mouth, Sasuke hissed. “Don’t. Say. Anything.”

Naruto rested his forehead onto his, whispering. “Why can’t I? I missed you too, just so fucking much. Every single day, just wishing that⏤” He sighed, connecting the last dots at last. “That’s why you never contacted me, even blocked me out. You kept reading about bad cases about soulmates and you were afraid you were going to be next. That the fact that you missed me is caused by some power coming from the soulmate system.”

“What if it is?”

“Why are you so sure it’d be?”

“Why not?” Sasuke growled, blinking away incoming of tears. “All these years, every day before you reappeared in my life I kept thinking about you. It’s unnatural and the only reason it’d happen it’s because of this system.”

Naruto shook his head, voice pleading. “What about our feelings Sasuke? They don’t count?”

“I don’t⏤” Sasuke swallowed the bile on his throat, grumbling. “Just our emotions, it wouldn’t make sense.”

“Feelings don’t make sense Sasuke. Love…” Naruto saw a small flinch at the corner of his eye but pressed on. “Doesn’t make sense. You’re trying to rationalize, quantify it, because by using logic it gives the security you need, and I get it. I really do. But there’s no way this⏤” His mouth reached the trembled lips into a loving kiss and he muttered. “Is just caused because we’re soulmates. You know I’m right.”

Sasuke couldn’t utter any response back, feeling cornered, the book cabinet digging painfully on his back while Naruto’s warm body radiated close to his own. When those tempting lips grazed on his own, he insisted.

“No, stop.” He needed to organize his muddled mind, and he didn’t want distraction, especially since Naruto’s kisses always felt like home.

Naruto paused, his hands still holding his face though his lips so close to Sasuke that he could almost lick it.

When his sketchbook fell to the ground with a dull thud, Sasuke could feel his last resolve crumbling away, fingers tangling on the golden hair.  “You know that’s not fair.” 

And just like that, this simple contact gave clarity to all the chaos brewing in his core that it almost made him light-headed. Their mouths interlocked perfectly, giving a surge of exhilaration when Naruto moaned low on his throat, tilting his head for another long kiss that even swayed his body backwards.

Sasuke sat precariously in one of the shelves, his legs widening to accommodate Naruto’s body, while his lips just hungered to taste more. Naruto detached for a second with Sasuke’s mouth following after, groaning in displeasure. Half-lidded blue eyes gazed onto his, wordless communication exchanged in an infinite second, before Naruto dove in once again, capturing his thin lips for another heart-stopping kiss.

He felt hands caressing his chest, gliding down to his stomach. Naruto’s fingers ghosted over his crotch, almost as if he was unsure whether he should do this. Sasuke buckled forward, fully touching his hand over his hardening dick. Through this confirmation, Naruto continued to kiss him, hand rubbing on the clothed cock over and over, scratching and feeling the long rod on his palm. 

Sasuke released his lips, yanking out the orange shirt as his lover returned in kind. Breathing heavily, he let Naruto unzip his jeans, hands fondling his ass while Naruto let his nose nuzzle on the silk boxers, darkened eyes staring towards him as the devilish tongue licked the base. Oh God, he missed this so much…his senses were overloading, hypersensitive to his lover’s touch.

When Naruto pushed his jeans and boxers down, lips encasing on the head of his cock, Sasuke keened, body curling around the blond head. Naruto didn’t waste one second teasing him, mouth bobbing up and down, tightening in the exact spots that flooded this pleasure into him. Skilled hands rolled his balls, throat vibrating from Naruto’s moan, eyes locked while he continued to swallow his cock. 

Sasuke stared wide-eyed, fingers gripping on the golden strands of hair. There was always something erotically mesmerizing seeing Naruto’s head between his legs, full lips wrapping around his cock. His tongue traced over the vein and ridges, pressing on the foreskin and sucking the pre-cum gathered on the slit. He picked up speed while he tightened around his hard-on, Sasuke’s senses were going haywire being engulfed inside that hot and wet mouth.

Out of nowhere, Naruto stepped back.

Sasuke screamed, feeling murderous. “You dumbass⏤!”

“I gotta find any kind of lube or something like that. I’ll be right back.” Naruto dropped a swift kiss, exiting the room. Sasuke could not believe that this moron actually left him hanging like that. He followed behind, eyes fixed on that round ass (that for some infuriating reason was still clothed). He was still hard and Naruto was scrambling through all the kitchen cabinet and top shelves, so Sasuke slapped his ass. 

“Ow!” Naruto turned around with a scowl, and felt a cold sensation on his hand. He noticed he had a small bottle of olive oil, Sasuke pulled him closer to ignite another urgent kiss, sitting on the counter.

With one hand holding his creamy thighs, Naruto then gripped his hard-on, sliding through the shaft, a warm breath teasing over his sensitive head. He felt long fingers clutching his golden hair, tilting upwards to see fiery dark eyes. Without breaking their stares for a second, Naruto licked the slit, tapping around the edges before taking his cock, taking a dark perversion how Sasuke face contorted in hazy pleasure, engulfing more of the whole length with each push and pull. 

Naruto somehow managed to cover his fingers with olive oil, placing it back on the table. He pulled Sasuke downwards to expose better the entrance, one digit entering and meeting resistance. He let his thumb rub the perineum, massaging gently till Sasuke was getting used to his touch. It’s been so long he had done this, letting these fingers invade in him and inciting him to let out a long moan. The first knuckle moved past the tight ring, he clenched around it in reflex before wielding his body to relax.

Naruto continued to tap inside, curling and twisting patiently, his mouth occasionally playing with his cock, slurping around the reddened head as the finger breached inside completely. He began brushing on the prostate, eliciting goosebumps all over Sasuke’s skin, making him gasp in surprise. His moans were growing in volume and length while his lover continued to stimulate his prostate and perineum, finger thrusting in an increasing pace, another one joining in.

Sasuke screamed once Naruto’s mouth engulfed his cock, fingers still spearing in his entrance at a blurry speed. At some point he realized that Naruto wanted to drive him to completion with just anal stimulation, however Sasuke craved for so much more. 

He gasped, heels digging on the shoulders. “Naruto⏤!”

Blue eyes blinked from wanton fire, dick dislodging from his mouth. He glanced back at Sasuke, before straying his gaze to the ground, clearing his throat. “Um…but I gotta go buy some condoms.”

Sasuke stared back bewildered, before knitting his eyebrows in indignant fury. “What the fuck Naruto, I’m fucking clean.”

The blond man groaned, knowing that this wasn’t going to be an easy conversation. “I’m just going through safety methods to avoid diseases, you were the one who slept with other guys.”

Sasuke curled his hands into a fist, resisting the urge to knock his teeth out. He didn’t curb the bitter tone in his voice though. “I only did it in my first year, in the first months, all with protection because I’m not fucking dumb. And even after that I did a very thorough medical exam so sorry if I have to dig through mountains of dusty files to show you whatever the fuck you want to satisfy your stupid jealousy.”

Somehow this confession felt very off-place that Naruto even forgot that they were in the middle of foreplay. He tilted his head to one side mumbling. "Why did you have sex with some guys only in your first months?”

“Does that matter?” Sasuke growled.

“You could definitely have a harem in your disposal, seeing that you're well…you could have one different guy every night, so why?"

Sasuke grumbled very loudly, staring at his wilting erection and really wishing Naruto could go back to what really interested him. "It's nothing, and thanks for painting me as some sort of man-whore who wants to sleep around given any chance."

"I was just saying as an example.” Naruto insisted, curiosity piqued. “You're hot Sasuke, and I know I'm lucky that you chose me to date you. So why?" 

"I was picky, let's move on." Sasuke captured Naruto’s lips with his teeth, indulging in another deep kiss where he hoped it’d occupy his dumbass’ mind.

Naruto didn’t take the bait, muttering between smacks of lips. "To the point that you'd only⏤"

"I thought we were having sex, dumbass." His dick deserved a medal now, how the fuck did it manage not to go soft after all these intermissions?

Naruto blinked. "Right, but I'm curious." 

Huffing, Sasuke raised his eyes heavenward, feeling a sudden chill on his nubile body, all the previous erotic estimulation gone now. Naruto kissed him softly, almost as an apology before he asked again.

“I’m curious.”

“I told you it’s nothing.” Sasuke growled, his hands itching to just grab the blond head and make Naruto deep-throat his cock.

“If it’s nothing, where’s the issue about you telling me?”

“I swear to God you absolute moron, my dick is right here, waiting for you⏤”

Naruto shook his head, exhaling tiredly. He admitted in a quiet voice. “I just⏤are those guys that special that you’d restrict yourself with only them or⏤”

Sasuke was almost at his wit's end, exclaiming. “Naruto, are you really going with the jealous boyfriend bullshit, I swear to God…”

“I’m sorry, I⏤” Naruto shuffled uncomfortably, looking guilty. “I’m not that mature knowing that you had other guys in the past. I don’t think I want to hear how you were romantically involved with someone el⏤”  

“I wasn’t involved with anyone, it was just one-night stands. I swear.” Sasuke assured, adding with a hard kiss on his lips.

Gradually, fingers reached to cup his face, Naruto murmured unsure. “Well, then…why⏤”  

Sasuke gazed upon his lover’s azure eyes, a shade of hesitancy and distress. Confessing his last secret would crumble the last barrier he had built all over the years against his soulmate but…Naruto deserved this. Inhaling, Sasuke shut his eyes, declaring.

“I missed you. Okay?”

Naruto focused his vision on Sasuke, his emotions being mixed between confusion and elation.

Sasuke pressed on. “I missed you, and I needed to forget you badly. No matter what. I thought that it would work but…” He heaved loudly, glaring to the ground and grumbled. “Well, that’s why I settled by drawing your fucking dumbass face.”

Naruto just gawked back, his brain taking time to compute and absorb all this new information. As the silence kept stretching Sasuke snapped. “What?”

But those stupid wide blue eyes only stared back at him before, much to his indignation, Naruto let out a bark of laughter. That moronic dumbass, he expected that Naruto would at least look relieved.

“What?!” Sasuke snarled.

“No it’s just that…” Naruto chuckled again, grinning. “I keep forgetting your very weird and twisted ways to show affection.”

That’s it, he should have settled jerking himself off instead of getting involved with this moron. Sasuke clobbered over the blond head. “You dumbass, I don’t even understand why I’m attracted to you stupid aaaaah⏤!!!” He screamed when a thick cock impaled him out of nowhere, buried to the hilt.

Naruto started thrusting in that tight hole, a feral smirk adorning his face. Lips reached to a fleeting connection, breaths accelerating as Sasuke clutched their bodies closer with his arms, growling. “A little warning usuratonkachi.”

Naruto chuckled, whispering wicked words. “But you like some burn, don’t you?”

Frowning, Sasuke silenced him with another kiss, letting this ecstasy pile up as Naruto continued to thrust inside him. He enjoyed reigniting these lost sensations, the hot member stretching him wide, but still snuggled tight that he could feel the bumps and ridges every time this cock plunged in.

Naruto was taking his time in getting reacquainted to his body, like a musician tuning his instrument he hadn’t used in a while. He replayed all the familiar spots, exploring them once again and heightening in this sinful composition that made Sasuke writhe and moan helplessly. 

There was absolutely no comparison to all previous sex trysts he had done with other men. All the uninterested touches, mechanical movements were just some bleak, monocolor passage of time that put him off in an instant. 

Sex with Naruto was always an extraordinary, almost time-bending event that consumed his soul completely. Seconds flew by but also stretched indeterminate when he drowned in this ecstasy, myriad of colors flashing through his eyes while their bodies were locked together.

Naruto pulled away only till the tip was in, before thrusting deep inside Sasuke with a groan, savoring how his lover shivered in response. Mouths meshed together, fervent, passionate and greedy, tasting the unique flavor of his lover.

Sasuke managed to wheeze out. “Bedroom…” He let out an uncharacteristic yelp, his arms clutching on the broad back when Naruto held him by his buttocks, cock burying even deeper in his hole. He moaned when hips thrust several times, but Naruto shuffled in the general direction of his bed, bodies linked yet.

Two more stumbles here and there, Naruto managed to throw him to bed, laughing. “Oh, thank God your bedroom is nearby, I’m actually not that strong ya know.” Sasuke just kissed him, too used to his shenanigans.

In a wild second, Sasuke wished he’d kiss those smiling lips for the rest of his life. His brain panicked though, reminding him how a flawed system linked them together. Fortunately this negative thought didn’t linger, with their mouths matching, overlapping and gliding together in a swimming giddiness. 

Sasuke turned around with the intention to be taken behind but a hand halted him, making his eyes focused back on Naruto’s smile.

“Hey…I wanted to see you.” He muttered, giving another kiss in reassurance. 

Sasuke’s upper body faced forward, his legs settling to one side though. While he was holding his cock with one hand, Naruto aimed and began penetrating him once again. There wasn’t one moment their mutual gazes would waver, blue eyes stared affectionately towards dark grey ones, as Naruto picked up speed while Sasuke rolled his hips to match this rhythm.

He was tilting closer, almost as if he craved to be completely merged into Sasuke’s that, at some point, he laid down next to Sasuke, one tanned hand cradled his head, another one caressed his face. Sasuke’s right leg was wrapped around Naruto’s hip, tanned left leg thrown over his body, Sasuke’s fingers clenching tightly to bring impossibly close to him, limbs tangled till he could not see where was the end or beginning of their bodies. Once Naruto tilted his hips to restart his thrusts, Sasuke’s whole vision was fixated in this exquisite face, full of intense hunger and warm tenderness. Every inch of his skin was covered by his lover’s body, cock pulsating inside him repeatedly. 

He felt so full.

Those overwhelming emotions settled in his heart, igniting bright embers that threatened to throw him over the edge. Naruto then curled his hand around his cock, pumping it while his lips tried for another kiss, though it just bumped while they were both breathing faster, thrusts increasing till it lost all pacing as they both reached their orgasm.

Sasuke cried out, shuddering while his cum drizzled on Naruto’s hand, soiling the sheets. Two more plunges Naruto locked in, hugging Sasuke tightly while he released inside him. They heaved for long minutes from aftershocks, their eyes focused on each other nonetheless.

Once he settled enough, Naruto was first to kiss Sasuke’s forehead, yawning and shutting his eyes, arms enveloped around his body.

And in this miraculous second, instead of being bombarded by second thoughts or reluctance, Sasuke succumbed to his desires, cheek nuzzling the blond hair as he also called the night.

Chapter 08

⏤.⏤

AN: Hooray for butt-sex! I gotta be honest, I just created this whole fic to write this sex scene. I hope you guys will like it lmao. (and please review)

[skeletorific]

DUUUUUUUDE I'd love to see your classpects for the boys, n compare them to my own personal hc!! I love godtier stuff, and imagining them in bright silly outfits is just👌

This was so fucking PEACEFUL to work on it was a delight to do so let’s do this. I’m doing extended zodiac signs too because i CAN. Also, putting this under a cut cause it got LONG

CLASSPECTING THE SKELEBROS

UT!Sans: True sign is Scormino, Sign of the Fatalist

So, a point by point breakdown

-Cerulean: something that immediately woke me up to Sans as a Cerulean was the idea of a “mask for every occasion”. Sans is not one thing to all people. He flips between personas, adjusting it a little for each encounter. This isn’t because he’s manipulative per se, but because he genuinely thinks it’ll just make things easier for everyone

-Prospit: Prospit repression yo. Not to mention he’s more go with the flow than he is “fuck the system”.

-Doom: Rather than explain this connection, I’m just gonna paste the description for Doombound, since its practically a textbook description of Sans himself

Those bound to the aspect of Doom are fate’s chosen sufferers. It may not sound like an overly pleasant aspect to be aligned with, but it does come along with great wisdom and empathy. The Doom-bound understand that misery loves company, and they are ready and willing to provide said company. The Doom-bound won’t fix you; they aren’t healers. They are commiserators, aware that sometimes the only thing you can do for a person is let them know that they are not alone in their suffering. They are not the advice friend-they’re the friend you go to when you need to vent about a rough day at work. They are not necessarily noble martyrs, either-the Doom-bound can become quite irate about their lot. At their best they are wise, kind, and non-judgemental. At their worst, bitter, resentful, and fatalistic.

This is a summary of Genocide route Sans so succinct it could’ve been written about him intentionally. I did consider time for him, but ultimately Time is an aspect defined by a struggle. Sans does not struggle against the oncoming fate. He buys it a drink and hopes it leaves as little damage as possible in its wake.

As far as class goes, I classpect him as a Mage of Doom. One who understands or understands through their aspect, and no one understands the coming storm quite like Sans does. Mages are also traditionally understood as suffering as a result of their knowledge of their aspect whether too much or too little. In a sense, Sans’ relationship with the Anomaly encompasses both.

UT!Papyrus: True sign is Aquius, sign of the Whimsical

-Violet: Violet signs are noted for their eccentricity and individuality. I have a harder time coming up with two adjectives more fitting than that for Papyrus. Additionally, they have a reputation for craving social interaction to the point of being clingy, which is also extremely fitting

-Prospit. Not much to add to this one beyond going with the flow and an aversion to going off the beaten path.

-Breath:The aspect of freedom, confidence, imagination, and fun. Something notable about Breath players is that they’re at their best when they let loose and be themselves. Papyrus can’t really be who he wants to be when he’s trying to play a role, of guard captain or human hunter. When he’s being authentic Papyrus though, he’s capable of inspiring hearts and minds.

I classpect Papyrus as a Sylph of Breath. Papyrus does both literal and metaphorical healing. If you get knocked out during your fight with him, he carries you back to his shed and nurses you back to health. Additionally, Papyrus reminds people that they are free to chase their dreams and their own potential. He tries to make the Player recall their better intentions. He pumps up Alphys, restoring her confidence that she’s lost over the years. He heals the relationship between the player and Undyne in order to liberate Undyne to be her more authentic self: a woman who just wants to help her people. Additionally, he is a key facet in liberating the Underground, restoring the sky to people who have been denied it for so long. 

UF!Sans: True sign is Tauriborn, sign of the Covetous

-Bronze: Bronze just has that earthy quality I eat with a SPOON for Red. Additionally, they navigate that space between a genuine desire for stability and a tendency to stubbornly commit even when it hurts you. Additionally, there’s a hedonism associated with Bronze signs that feels very fitting.

-Derse: restless skepticism, a tendency to mistrust, and rebellion in the blood? Sounds like a skeleton who’s been living rent free in my head for long enough.

-Rage: There’s of course a very literal level to this. Red’s one of the angrier of the skelebros. Additionally, though, there’s a resentment of lies and false civilities. Red hates liars, hates convenient likes. He tends to play his own cards close to the chest, but resents it in other people. Additionally, there’s a burn it all down impulse that’s very present in him that resonates with this aspect.

I classpect Red as an Heir of Rage. I tend to understand Heir as one who is surrounded by their aspect, or surrounds other with their aspect. Red surrounds himself in a field of rage, and those who are the target of his wrath are too. Additionally, though, he inherits the positive aspects of wrath, the bullshit detector and the impulse towards seeking out the truth. Additionally heirs tend not to take a very intellectual approach to their aspect, because they don’t have to. They embody it unconsciously. 

UF!Papyrus: I kind of went over this but for the sake of coherency: True sign is Saginius

-Indigos: in addition to having a rep for being the bastions of order, indigos tend to devote themselves entirely to their interest. They can be sociable, but have a tendency to not really consider other people’s emotions, leading to a lot of unintentional hurts. Edge has a cold abrasive personality at many points, but it’s rare that he intends to hurt the people closest to him. It just sort of happens to him.

-Prospit: Again, Edge doesn’t rebel. He works with the society cards he’s been dealt. His prospit associations are where he’s closest to his Tale self.

-Hope: Hope is the aspect, not just of optimism, but of order. Hope players have a very black and white approach to the world, and dedication to ideals that they see as higher than themselves. Both of these are to me very Edge qualities, even if he’s not the most sunshiney person. He has things he believes in strongly, and he doesn’t wave.

I classpect Edge as a Knight of Hope. He defends his aspect, defending his ideals and the things he chooses to dedicate himself, and defends with his aspect, using his internal compass as a bastion against doubt and misgivings. Additionally, Edge has an inherent lean towards protecting and working for others, even if at his most unhealthy point his ego can make him bossy.

US!Sans: Blue’s true sign is Arcer, sign of the Officer

-Burgundy: Rust signs tend to be characterized by an unbending determination. Its not that they’re immune to the bad things in the world, its simply that they tend to roll with the punches and try to make things work regardless. Blue is quick to trust and overly excitable, but a loyal friend and an imaginative companion. All of these are Rust characteristics.

-Prospit: Again, unwavering optimism and a loyal temperament.

-Blood: Blood is the aspect of relationships and mutual support. Blue is an extremely social creature, prone to doing his best work via inspiration. He invests strongly in the people around him, and has a hard time giving up on others. Blood can also be the aspect of sinking ships. They tend to latch on to things and people other’s might consider to be “lost causes” and stubbornly refuse to leave them behind. I tend to characterize Blue with a low level of anxiety, constantly afraid that the people around him are going to leave him behind if he’s not good enough. Peak Blood player. 

I classpect Blue as a Page of Blood. Like I said, Blue’s “Sans” tendencies come out in his interactions with others. Like most pages, he has a very shakey grasp of his aspect. He genuinely has the ability to make people feel cared for and comfortable. He even has great potential to inspire others to do better. However, he’s still in the process of learning how to command his aspect effectively, sometimes vacillating between overloading people with interaction and at other times barely confiding his emotions in even the people he should be close with. As this potential unlocks, though, there’s no ceiling to all he might achieve.

US!Papyrus: Stretch’s true sign is Gemza, sign of the Shrewd

-Gold: Gold signs command intellectual prowess, quick wit, and reserved tendencies in a way Stretch has done his entire life. Something notable about goldbloods is they have a tendency to refuse to live up to their full potential. They find their niche and carve out their mark within it while letting the rest of their life functionally fade to the background as “unimportant”. Stretch is adept and knowledgeable in his areas of interest and finds it hard to give a shit about the rest. Despite this, he still hangs on to the goldblood’s usually innate likeability, albeit without much emotional vulnerability. 

-Derse: While Stretch isn’t exactly a rebel, Derse has an association with skepticism and a desire for rationality that inherently resonates with him. One thing that also stood out to me is a tendency to develop a very self-effacing sense of humor as a cover, which is a VERY Stretch quality. He doesn’t quite have the repression for Prospit, nor will he let himself be put into boxes that don’t suit him.

-Mind: Mind players (and Stretch) are defined by a certain sense of fluidity. They don’t really feel compelled to develop a strong sense of self, preferring instead to react organically to how they think is best and most logical to the moment. Stretch is a creative and quick thinker, which combines with a very nasty FOMO and an aversion to simplicity. Absolute Mind Player Core.

His classpect is tricky, but I feel Witch of Mind is the most fitting for him. Witches are often characterized by having a more lackadaisical relationship with their aspect. They understand it intimately enough to know how to break it when it suits them. In addition to reason and choice, Mind is also the aspect of systems and rules (think Terezi’s justice core). Stretch is a quick study about systems, but doesn’t necessarily adhere himself to them. Whether its a game he’s playing, a puzzle he’s solving, or a person he’s interacting with, sometimes the best thing in the world is to dig in and study until you find the point that breaks the whole thing open.

SF!Sans: Black’s true sign is Cancen, sign of the Translucent

-Lime: Lime signs tends to be characterized by forceful and intense personalities, with intense emotions and a tendency to fixate on improvement. They can often be effective at inspiring people to follow their lead, but have difficult personalities to work with. All of this is extremely Black, with the proviso that I tend to characterize him as often needing to repress those intense emotions. He leans hard into his own anger, but often covers up his other extremes for the sake of their own safety. 

-Derse: while Black has learned to cooperate with the world around him, he’s never not going to be looking for ways to get around it. He’s often sardonic, and is usually extremely slow to trust those around him. He may put on a front of being the Queen’s man through and through, but there’s a lot of Irons in the fire that he doesn’t feel the need to make public.

-Heart: As I said, I tend to characterize Black as struggling against strong emotions that even he barely understands. He has a very distinct and strong personality, as well as intensive emotions. In moments of stress, he’s prone to intense self-reflection. Where did he go wrong, where can he improve. Additionally Heart players have an association with identity constructing, frequently diffusing their personality into a variety of splinter selves in a form of elaborate “roleplaying”, which to me clicks nicely with Black’s bossy and aggro Royal Guard posturing. 

Its because of this struggle against his own aspect that I classpect Black as a Rogue of Heart. Rogues often struggle to cope with their aspect, and may even begin to crave the opposite. Black at his core craves the rational thought and pure justice of the Mind aspect. However, the more they embrace their aspect, especially in service to others (being a passive class), the healthier they often end up being. If you’ve read my “Tyrant” fic, Black steals his and Rus’s performance of self to allow them the freedom to act and pass unnoticed by the guard. He represses his own emotions to give space to other people’s, and at his best can redistribute his own assurance with his purposes to the people around him, making him potentially an inspiring presence.

SF!Papyrus: Rus’ true sign is Capries, sign of the Bold

-Purple: purples have a tendency to dedicate themselves to causes or people they care about and work until they are either stopped or made incapable or working more, much as Rus works for his brother’s well-being. Additional points of resonance were a macabre sense of humor, a tendency to withdraw when upset, a sense of fatalism, and a tendency to dig in his heels even if its against his own best interest. Plus….Clown Rus sexy what can I say.

-Derse: like his brother, Rus is inherently skeptical of easy outs. Like many Derse dreamers, he’s a problem solver, even if it comes at great personal cost. Rus’s Derseness is also exemplified in his tendency to develop strong bonds of loyalty to other people….without ever really allowing himself to be vulnerable with those people. He has the perspective that his emotions don’t truly matter.

-Time: Honestly kind of surprised it took me this long to make one of the Lazybones a time player, but I think making Rus it was the right choice. Time players are often defined by a sense of struggle. Time players are seemingly incapable of taking things lying down. Even if they won’t fight for themselves (and Rus rarely ever will) they often have an internal moral code that makes them unable to be a bystander. Rus is lazy, he’s a fatalist, he has a hard time taking care of himself. But he’s unable to stop himself from acting, especially when it involves someone he cares about. Additionally, Rus has associations with death in his judge role, which he takes extremely seriously.

I debated making Rus another knight, but ultimately I feel Seer of Time fits him better. All the Sans derivatives are prone to a sort of restless curiosity about the world around them, and in Homestuck terms I see that as a desire to in some way sync up with their aspects. A Seer is one who invites understanding. Rus seeks to reckon with both the cycle of life and death and the wide variety of timestreams that are causing havoc in his world. Unlike the mage, he has a hard time accepting what he understands: Seers are in many cases notorious for resenting the idea of someone else controlling them. Still, he’s practically unable to stop himself from exploring further, continuing to pick and pick at the scab of his reality no matter how much it hurts.

[sworn-unbeliever]

30 - Splinter

(or: The Unchosen One) (or: The Completely Canon Story of How Teremy Arrived at Norvrandt)

((The last entry! I wanted to go out with a bang. Or a diatribe since this entry is really long. First of all, a huge thanks to @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast, an amazing person who tirelessly(?) organizes this event and with such passion and love. You’ve inspired so many to write or post, including me. Thank you so-so much. Also thank you to @abeat once again. I had asked her to have the Exarch describe Jeremy and she ran with it. She is amazing and hilarious and I can’t thank her enough for that and everything she’s done.

I debated whether or not to break up the story of how Teremy came to Norvrandt into a 3-part story for free Sunday. Then I opted to take Sundays off. But because of that, I decided to do this story as the last entry, and all in one go. Thus this entry is probably more digested than what it could have been. Either way, I had this silly idea stuck in my head for awhile about the sword in the stone and I finally got to write it. A huge thank you to anyone and everyone who has stuck around with me, my obsessive, self-indulgent stories, and this sarcastic musician-poet-dancer-thug up until now. You can also find me at @adeat, @quasionion, and @aspected-benefic. Until next time!))

Wc: 5,250

“Apologies for taking you out like this, but the citizens are as baffled as the local doctors. Perhaps you are able to shine light on this precarious situation.” said Lyna.

The two arrived side by side at the Rotunda. Upon Lyna and the Exarch’s arrival, commonfolk and guards alike parted, allowing them to pass. The Exarch didn’t have to go far to see what Lyna had been talking about. There in the center of the crowd laid an object that had not been there previously—a sword with a third of its black blade lodged in an oddly specifically-shaped stone. In fact, said object seemed so foreign that it looked as though someone had played a practical joke. Yet, as the Exarch held a hand towards the blade, he sensed great powers within.

“Whomever or whatever had brought this object here is no ordinary being.” said the Exarch. “The question is… what is this sword’s intended purpose?”

“This is why we’ve called you, my lord,” said Lyna, “in which you may hopefully shed light on this puzzling matter.

The Exarch held a hand to his chin and tilted his head. “Hm. ‘Tis most puzzling indeed. Perhaps I may attempt to divine an answer.”

Lyna bowed. “Please do, my lord.”

Closing his eyes, even though no one could see as such, the Exarch called upon the powers bestowed upon him by the Crystal Tower. He looked into the divide between worlds to see who the foretold hero would be. Using his phenomenal magical powers, he created a portal to show an image of the foretold hero. The crowds gasped in awe and wonder at the vision shown to them—a handsome, brown-haired miqo’te with a smile that radiated like the ever-present sun.

“Yes, I see it now. He is someone who is brave, kind and true. He is always kind to all creatures except his enemies. His enemies are creatures who are the bane of all that is good within our world. He feeds hungry orphans and houses needy animals. He is wise, benevolent and handsome—”

“What does being handsome have to do with being a legendary hero—” Lyna mused quietly under her breath. “Wait, is he feeding those orphans bacon bread?”

“—courageous and more powerful than anything across the land and sea—”

Lyna had never before doubted the wisdom of her grandfather, but she felt that was about to come to an end if this sweeping description continued for much longer.

“—he will come to us and slay all of the Light Wardens, Vauthry, and every last Eulmorean—”

“I doubt that’s necessary. Since when is mass murder heroic—” Lyna started to say.

“He is also chiseled like a god of war and has a magnificently long—”

“My lord, perhaps you should to try to summon the hero now?” Lyna interjected to prevent the description of the foretold from quickly going from a PG-13 rating to an 18+ one.

The Exarch coughed. “Yes! He is indeed the destined hero—the one foretold in the records.”

In the background, Moren, holding a tome, nodded vigorously.

“I see…” The Exarch held a hand to his hood, “... I see his name! His name is… Jeremy! Jeremy Itsubishi!”

Lyna quietly sighed, relieved that at least the remainder of the lengthy description had remained decent. “Where is this one, this Jeremy Itsubishi?”

“Alas, it may seem that he is… in a realm far beyond us. Much like the ones that have been drawn before.” The Exarch said tactfully. “But fret not. Mayhap with my magics I may be able to summon him here. Please stand back. I can guarantee neither the accuracy nor the drawbacks of this spell.” He held his staff in front of him.

The crowd, including Lyna, took large steps backwards to give the Exarch all the space he needed.

Closing his eyes again, the Exarch once again drew upon the powers bestowed to him by the Crystal Tower. He channeled his energies to cast a spell—one of which he had much practice. A giant, flat circle appeared in thin air. The Exarch reached inside, his hand vanishing into the hole. Bystanders peered to the sides and out the other end of the portal, yet saw nothing. A few moments later, the Exarch grinned like a cat that had just pounced on its prey.

“I have you now. Throw wide the gates!” the Exarch bellowed.

Everyone in the vicinity raised their arms as powerful gusts of wind billowed violently, yet somehow everyone’s feet remained firmly in place. The Exarch pulled his hand out of the portal. When the the portal vanished, all that remained were the Exarch himself and what he had pulled out.

Or, rather, who—a miqo’te, or mystel as they were known in these parts.

Blinking a few times, said miqo’te-mystel rubbed his eyes, one foot forward in a natural fighting stance, and looked around. “What the fuck is this place…? Can a guy ever get two winks of a rest? God fucking dammit! Agh. Next time, send me a warning ahead of time before you drag me through time and space?”

Lyna gestured to the brown-haired miqo’te-mystel that had just arrived. “Benevolence personified, my lord.”

Not one to be deterred that easily, the Exarch cleared his throat and spread his arms wide. “Welcome, destined hero, to the Crystarium in Norvrandt. I am the Crystal Exarch and I am the one who have summoned you here. You are the one fated for a destiny greater than you could ever imagine, Jeremy Itsubishi!”

“Jeremy…?” the brown-haired miqo’te-mystel asked. Rather than the higher pitch than the Exarch had imagined, this seeker spoke in a lower pitch with a natural velvety growl, even discernable from one word alone. “You mean my brother?”

Silence.

“... brother?” the Exarch asked.

“Jeremy’s my younger brother. I’m his elder twin brother. Teremy.”

The Exarch said nothing.

The crowd said nothing.

Lyna gestured to the brown-haired miqo’te-mystel again. “Once again, your aim is impeccable, my lord.”

* * *

“Teremy…?” the Exarch repeated slowly. “In what realm does one name their child ‘Teremy’?”

“I ask myself that every single day of my life,” said the aforementioned Teremy.

“Hmm.”

Placing a hand to his chin, the Exarch circled around Teremy, looking at the seeker up and down in a similar manner as one would appraise a fine piece of art. All the while, Teremy stood ramrod still, arms firmly at his side, his ears shooting straight up to the sky. Teremy sensed no malicious intent from this very familiar-sounding miqo’te, but at the same time, the longer the Exarch stared at him, the higher Teremy’s fight or flight thermometer rose. Any second longer and Teremy’s instincts will bolt him out of the room, whatever intention they had with him or no! Thankfully for Teremy, the appraisal process ended sooner, rather than later. The Exarch returned to his original position of in front of Teremy, his hand still on his chin.

“Well, he seems to appear the part on first blush,” said the Exarch. “He is quite handsome and his face, height and frame match the appearance of the one seen in the vision. Yet, there’s something different about him. I’m afraid I can’t quite place a finger on it.”

“Is it his hair, m’lord?” Lyna asked.

“Come to think of it, his hairstyle is different,” said the Exarch. “Rather than a lampshade, his hairstyle appears to be rather… messy? Side swept? But no, ‘tis another facet, one I’m failing to discern.”

Right then and there, Teremy wished his hairstyle looked like his brother’s. Then his mind could click on a light bulb as to what the fuck was going on.

“Then perhaps his build, m’lord?” Lyna asked.

The Exarch gave Teremy an appraising look up and down. “Yes, well, while the frame fits, his muscles are certainly much… larger. More pronounced. His shirt may as well be a second skin. A venerable god of war indeed. Perhaps he does even have a magnificently long—”

Teremy flattened his ears and pulled his hood over his head. “Out of sight, out of mind. Out of sight, out of mind. Out of sight, out of mind—”

Lyna cleared her throat. “My lord. Although the spell may have been deceived by facial likeness, perhaps we can still take this situation to our advantage and have him try to pull out the sword from the stone anyway.”

Teremy pulled his hood back down. “Sword in the stone…?”

The Exarch gestured to something behind him. “Yes, well, we had attempted to call the hero seen within a vision to pull this sword out from the stone. Perhaps you can feel the blade’s energies from here? I can sense it. And it has been and shall be foretold—”

Moren, tome in hand, nodded vigorously again.

“—that a hero will pull this sword from the stone and use it to save our world.”

“That’s one hell of a story for you to drag someone all the way through time and space,” said Teremy.

The seeker paused to regain his mental state. He had taken on an empire. Primals. Violent illegal cartels and their lords. Getting dragged through time and space seemed like a logical next step. He pinched himself to see if he was dreaming. Pain. Bad idea. Yet he still stood amid a crowd and in front of a hooded miqo’te no less. Pulled through time and space all because his brother was needed to fulfill some kind of prophecy. And it wasn’t like Teremy could nope out of there. He had no idea where he was in the first place.

Might as well see this great big fuss first.

Teremy turned around to see exactly the description—a sword in a stone. Nothing more, nothing less, except for the sword itself. Teremy recognised the type of blade right away.

A gunblade.

The chamber was the largest thing Teremy had ever seen. The blade itself thick with a black coating except for its sharp edges. What was a gunblade doing here? What was it doing in a stone? Waiting to be picked up like a hero of legend.

Indeed, a legend: Teremy’s own brother.

The seeker’s mind jumped back to a point in time when Jeremy pulled out that own gunblade. Wherever he had found it mattered not. The thing got destroyed in a later ensuing fight anyway, but the point of the matter was that Jeremy had kept it. Prior to then, the younger Itsubishi brother had never shown any particular interest in the gunblade. But then again, things changed. Did Jeremy’s sudden affinity for the gunblade show some kind of destiny at work? Fate’s guiding hand that gestured the way?

And then fate in the form of this Exarch guy nabbed the wrong brother.

Teremy approached the sword in the stone. The crowd and the Exarch took a step back to give him some space.

‘Well, what the hell. Might as well give this a shot. Nothing left to lose.’ Teremy thought.

He gripped the gunblade’s handle. Immediately he felt the smooth coolness as though forged to fit his hand perfectly. He and Jeremy had the same size and shape of hands, but different dexterity, with Teremy being common and right-handed. Then why did this grip feel so natural? Why upon its touch did he feel like his very arm had been stuck in the rock and not this sword’s blade? Did Teremy imagine things? Fully expecting the blade to take his arm off the moment he pulled, Teremy yanked the handle with all his might.

His arm swung straight up with so much force, Teremy fell backwards. He shoved one foot behind him, quickly regaining his footing. The crowd gasped and murmured, but not the kind of gasp that he had expected. Not disappointed but not awed.

Confused?

Flecks of rock and debris trickled down on Teremy’s head and face. After shaking his head, he lowered his arm to see that he had indeed pulled the sword out.

With the sword still lodged in the stone.

In fact, Teremy not only pulled the sword out, he pulled the stone out as well.

Holding the blade sideways, his left hand cupping the flat end of the blade—or, rather, the stone—he turned back to the Exarch. “Does this count...?”

The Exarch’s pursed lips told the whole story. “Hm. Perhaps I truly need to perfect my aim after all.”

“There is always next time, my lord,” said Lyna.

Teremy’s ears darted around to the front and the side to catch the audio filtering in.

Disappointment.

Chatter.

Norvrandt will forever lord under the curse of an ever-present sun. Sin eaters will reign until the end of days. Teremy frowned and stared at the sword-still-in-the-stone again. His mind flashed him images of a time when he still lived under his father’s roof. A time when Teremy had been nothing but a disappointment to his father. A time when he protected no one but himself. His fight or flight radar soared near the top, only to be stopped by a roadblock called his ire. In just a few short moments, Teremy had been dragged around just to let others down by virtue of not being special, and that was that?

The Exarch placed a hand on his hood. “My apologies. I must return to my quarters. Also, I apologise again for inconveniencing you. You are free to stay here at the Crystarium as long as you’d like. We shall summon your brother in due time.”

He leaned on his staff. Teremy held a hand forward to brace him, even if he didn’t feel like he had a right to be in the Exarch’s presence. The Exarch turned his head towards Teremy and smiled.

“Thank you, but I shall be all right. This is nothing new. Believe me.”

Lyna sighed. “Yes, he is correct. This is nothing new. Teremy, if you don’t mind, I shall take the Exarch to his chambers.”

Without knowing what else to say, Teremy held onto the Exarch until Lyna got her hold on the cloaked figure. Once the two headed back, the crowd dispersed as quickly as Teremy had arrived. Teremy looked at the sword-still-in-the-stone.

“What should I do with this thing?”

No answer. Everyone had gone their separate ways. And now Teremy had no other choice but to do the same. Exhaling loudly, he placed the sword-still-in-the-stone on his back where he usually strapped his gunblade. May as well make use of it. Thanks to years of extensive training, he felt very little difference in weight. Had to be good for something.

Teremy wandered south. Some things remained the same as he knew them to be, yet different. Same gardens, though in circular plots with lampshades hanging overhead. Trees yielded leaves of not only green, but lovely shades of lavender and blue as well. Long lamps and domed areas that shone an unearthly shade of blue. He definitely wasn’t in Eorzea anymore.

But the question was… now what?

“Um! Are you Teremy?” asked a vaguely familiar voice that sounded like that of a small boy.

Teremy whirled around to see a dunesfolk lalafell looking back up at him. Blond hair parted in the middle, crimson eyes that matched his bandana and jacket, and an aura of magic surrounding him. But moreso than the lalafell’s presence or his appearance, his voice caught Teremy’s memory cue. Where had he heard that voice before?

Just in case Teremy’s mind played tricks on him again, he spoke cautiously. “Now all of Norvrandt knows my name. No thanks to that spectacle earlier.”

“Spectacle? Ah… I must have missed it.” the lalafell asked. “I just got here myself. Thought to take a walk and get a good idea of this place. Understand your surroundings and all that.”

“Fair. Then how do you know me?”

“I was part of the group that catered to that dance auditions. You know, the one you took part in. When that plant monster attacked, I was your co-tank. The, uh, paladin, if you can call it that,” said the dunesfolk.

The lalafell’s words acted as a cue that triggered Teremy’s memory. The dance auditions in Costa Del Sol. A disgruntled auditionee summoned a giant plant monster in retribution. What Teremy had once believed to be just the catering crew turned out to be an astrologian, a white mage, and a paladin—although more like a hybrid spellcaster who shielded his entire body with big guard and flung magical swords like a red mage—who helped the dance crew fight off the sudden foe. Teremy distinctly recalled the voice of said paladin who warned the party of dangers. A young boy’s voice.

A voice exactly the same as this lalafell’s own.

The lalafell nodded and smiled. “You remember! So you are Teremy Itsubishi?”

Teremy nodded. “If you’re looking for Jeremy, he’s… not here. Unfortunately for the prophecy.”

Joey put his stubby finger to his mouth and tilted his head, looking down, as though weighing options of how to answer as such. When he craned his neck to look up again, he finally spoke. “I just happened to see you and you looked lost and confused. That’s all.”

The seeker rubbed his face. All those years of trying to look indifferent… thwarted by his bewilderment. What a day. “Right. You said you missed the spectacle. Thankfully for my pride. At any rate, what’s your name again?”

“Joey. Joey Madison.” The lalafell gestured to himself with his thumb. “So, um, what brings you all the way to Norvrandt?”

“I—” Teremy started, but stopped. What was he supposed to say? One moment he was in Costa Del Sol chilling with his brother on the beach, and then the next moment he found himself sucked into a portal with only time to grab his clothes. Not even his trusty gunblade.

Joey tilted his head. “Here, come with me. My mistress, Reonora, also got summoned through the portal and I followed her here. She’s going to ask the Exarch some questions. He might have some answers for you too.”

‘Sure didn’t have any answers earlier.’ Teremy thought, but followed Joey anyway. Couldn’t hurt.

* * *

As it turned out, Teremy hadn’t been the only one who got dragged through a portal against his will—the entire Fortunes & Fancies crew—of which Teremy had correctly remembered as the catering crew at the dance audition—had been dragged here as well. The Crystal Exarch’s original aim was to find the fabled Warrior of Light, the one who had saved Eorzea time and time again alongside the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. Somehow, this extended to a humble shopkeeper trying to make a living, and both her retainers. Well, Rosemary, anyway. Joey had followed Reonora here by reopening the portal, but only due to traces of energies. He couldn’t open the portal back. In other words, in an attempt to find the Warrior of Light, the Exarch had pulled in nearly every single Scion of the Seventh Dawn, and them too.

For Teremy, because the Exarch had a vision of some legendary hero that could pull a sword from the stone. Now all Teremy had was the sword… and the stone.

Teremy folded his arms and said nothing as he listened to everyone else talk. To his limited thug mental capabilities, he gathered that the Scions had scattered at various parts around this world, and the Leveilleur twins happened to be the easiest ones to reach. At least from the Crystarium. Speaking of twins. Teremy bitterly wondered how one of them thought if they learned the other had been hailed some chosen hero, yet they weren’t the one and now they’re stuck here. No, no point to think about that. Things happened for a reason. Even though Teremy wasn’t exactly sure as to what yet.

“We should split up.” Reonora concluded. “I can go to Eulmore to find Alphinaud.”

Teremy unfolded his arms and stepped forward. “Then I’ll go to Ahm Araeng to find Alisaie.”

Everyone, including the Exarch, looked at Teremy in surprise.

“Are you certain?” The Exarch asked. “‘Tis true you have been pulled from your homeworld against your will—and for that, I deeply apologise. But you’re welcome to stay in the Crystarium as long as you like. There’s no need for you to go out of your way for this trouble, especially after the trouble I have caused you.”

Teremy cracked his knuckles. “Sitting still makes me antsy. Destined hero or not, I might as well make myself useful.”

Reonora held Rosemary’s hand. The keeper had clearly chosen who she wanted to take with her. Though she looked at Teremy as she spoke. “Then please take Joey with you. He may not look like it, but he is a versatile all-rounder. He should be able to help you in any capacity you need.”

Joey performed an eastern bow. “I’ll do my best!”

Teremy placed his right fist in his left palm and bowed.

“Then it’s decided,” said the Exarch. “Please speak to the Amaro Keepers once you have fully prepared.”

The girls headed out first, followed by Teremy and Joey. As the seeker and his newfound companion headed to the Amarokeep, Teremy wondered what he was going to do with this sword and the stone combination. He quickly concluded that he’d just carry the thing around. If nothing else, having the feel of a gunblade made him feel better, even if half of its blade was rendered useless. All else fails, he had an interesting sword-mace and story to tell Jeremy when he got home.

If he got home.

* * *

The last time anyone saw any trace of Alisaie, she was last seen at the Inn at Journey’s Head. From Mord Souq, Teremy and Joey traveled south—Joey on a flying chair, Teremy on foot. He needed some time to work off his nervous energy.

The blazing hot sun beat down upon them. Occasionally Teremy felt breaths of cold coming from Joey’s own aura. At one glance, he saw a few ice cubes hovering around the lalafell. Magic really could do anything. Although Teremy felt the effects of extra heat from his black clothes, he welcomed that feeling right now. He needed that reminder that he was still alive.

Expected of a place that bared an eternal sun, the Fields of Amber gave home to some of the largest sabotenders Teremy had ever seen. Gigatenders, as the natives called them. The two also passed by varieties of turtles and moles, but none of them gave the two any extra trouble. As they continued south down a rocky ledge, Teremy placed his hands in his pockets. His fingers grazed upon aether-charged bullets. To think, he had the bullets but not an actual gunblade to fire them. His gunblade had been left behind at Costa Del Sol. All Teremy had left was this part blade mostly rock thing. Maybe he could fire off a round or two and a Burst Strike would blast the rock off. He pulled the gunblade from his back and slammed the rock into a nearby larger rock. All Teremy felt was the other rock shatter upon impact. That rock. Not the stone, that looked not even a grain out of place.

Joey jumped and squeaked. Had Teremy not been in such a sour mood, he would have thought the lalafell’s noise to be cute. “Everything okay?”

“Too much sun.” Teremy strapped the gunblade to his back.

“Here, have some cold.”

Teremy never asked for anything, but he felt a cold breeze slowly billow around him. The miqo’te smiled a little. “Hypothermia.”

“S-sorry!”

“I’m kidding.”

“Oh!” Joey placed a hand to his mouth. “A sarcastic type. I see.”

“Glad we understand each other. Thanks for the cold, though. Feels nice.”

Teremy held one hand over the horizon. How much farther was this inn anyway? What kind of inn could even survive in the middle of a desert?

Just when Teremy thought he saw a trickle of blue like an aetheryte crystal coming from between two large rock formations, he also saw a flash of white streak across the sky. Pure killing instinct. And from Joey hopping off of his chair, Teremy knew that the lalafell sensed it too.

What they saw was a sight they had never seen before—beings of pure white with angelic wings but forms of monsters screeching from the sky and diving down towards what looked like hyurs in rags.

“Those are Sin Eaters! We have to be care—”

Joey didn’t have time to finish his sentence, for Teremy already ran ahead at full speed. Imbuing his body with the power of wind, he ran faster than Joey’s lalafell legs could keep up. The miqo’te thought he heard things from the lalafell like “—ful.” “This guy…!” and “Wait!” but too late. Teremy had already committed the moment he saw someone in trouble. And soon, one of the sin eaters keeled back in the air from Teremy’s shoulder tackle. A reverse roundhouse kick to send the next one flying. And a quick burst of qi energy launched like a projectile to push away the last.

“You all right?” Teremy asked what appeared to be hyurs.

And indeed they were. Or whatever they were called in this world—Teremy forgot the explanation nor did he have time to care. His strikes had only served as a distraction. The sin eaters regained their senses quickly and dove again.

“Go, quickly! I’ll hold them off!” Teremy whirled around and grabbed the gunblade strapped to his back. Footsteps pattered behind him. Good.

One of the sin eaters took a large dive at him. Teremy swung his gunblade, except that the weight at the tip felt much heavier than usual—not enough to knock Teremy off balance, but enough to feel the weight of that attack. Rather than slash and slice, the stone still attached to the gunblade bludgeoned the sin eater. Good show but not exactly what he was looking for. Taking a chance, Teremy filled the revolver with one aether bullet, snapped the gunblade back into place, and fired.

Ka-thunk.

The recoil of a burst strike sent Teremy flying back. He skidded on the ground to prevent himself from falling. And yes, to answer his question, the stone remained perfectly intact. Putting the useless gunblade away, he resorted back to martial arts again. A shoulder tackle. A series of hand strikes to points usually vital to humans, but the sin eater didn’t seem to recoil in the same manner. Now what?

A flechette of magical swords impaling the sin eaters answered Teremy’s question. Immediately following the hailstorm came bolts of fire. A sudden bolt of lightning that shocked the sin eater to its core. A bolt of unaspected energy flecked them, followed by a large gust of wind to blow them off target. Teremy watched as a red blur collided onto the sin eater in front of him, but it was the sin eater that inevitably went flying from a impact spell with Joey’s open palm as a catalyst.

“Careful. These sin eaters can sire you into one of them if they feel like it,” said Joey.

“Thanks for the heads up.” Teremy called back. ‘Huh. Magic and martial arts together. Don’t see that every day. Cool.’

Teremy turned around, raising his fists in a fighting stance. Now he and Joey stood back to back.

Turned out that these three sin eaters weren’t alone. Another screech and more arrived. Joey flung spell after spell. Lightning to unaspected kinetic magic. Wind to unaspected kinetic magic that sent sin eaters flying away towards Teremy, causing the miqo’te’s strikes to collide even harder. But the more sin eaters they felled, the more came. The more strikes the duo dished out, the more sin eaters clawed their way. Teremy felt more irritated than winded—the miqo’te was just getting warmed up. But Joey, as befitting of a typical spellcaster, felt his stamina ebb away from him. It wasn’t long before the lalafell fell on his knees, panting, using vercure to heal his and Teremy’s wounds, but the same spell couldn’t cure for Joey’s exhaustion.

Although Teremy could rely on his martial arts to attack, his very instincts reached to his gunblade. He had to be there. He had to be the one in front, to protect the party. To protect the people behind him. To protect his companions.

To protect…

Teremy clenched his teeth. He had known the answer all along. He just didn’t want to see it. He pulled the gunblade from his back. “You know what? Fuck this. I made a vow upon my honor to protect others. Destiny can go to hell!”

With the hardest swing he could muster, Teremy smashed the blade’s stone prison against the rock wall.

CRACK.

The stone shattered. The sword’s blade gleamed in the light, shining brightly like a smile from its first taste of freedom. His grip on the handle never felt any better. As he swung, he felt like this blade was not a weapon, but an extension of his own arm. Moreso than any blade he had ever possessed.

“C’mon!” Teremy beckoned to the sin eaters as his battle aura flared twice as brightly.

He vaulted into the air and spun around, sword outstretched. The blade cut cleanly into the sin eaters’ flesh. Another spin cut even deeper. Sensing the danger that shifted from Teremy’s battle aura alone, the sin eaters now flew away from Joey and towards Teremy instead.

Joey struggled to stay on his feet just enough to see Teremy call all the sin eaters in the vicinity to himself. Even in his tired state, Joey noted just how much the miqo’te’s fighting style had changed. Although powerful and graceful before, Teremy’s moves flowed much more naturally. Much more gracefully. Like he now had the means to complete his purpose. Still, there had to be something Joey could do. He watched Teremy spin around to attack all the sin eaters at once. But that alone, was that enough?

“Teremy. I got an idea. I’m going to imbue your blade.”

Whether or not Teremy had heard Joey, the lalafell proceeded anyway. Using Teremy’s blade as a catalyst, the lalafell summoned magical fire onto the blade. When Teremy spun, a trail of fire followed, cutting and burning into the sin eaters’ flesh. With their combined attacks and another flechette hailstorm, the sin eaters collapsed to the ground. Their bodies dispersed into the air, never to be seen again.

Joey flopped to the ground and sat down, exhaling. Teremy, too, panted slightly and leaned on the wall. The miqo’te laughed. Then Joey. And soon, the tension from the battle subsided from laughter of genuine relief.

“That was a good idea with the fire thing.” Teremy pointed the blade of his sword upwards and turned it with a flick of his wrists, reflecting light from the sun. “I’ll have to remember that technique for myself.”

“And you… you freed the sword from the stone,” said Joey.

Teremy stared at the black side of his blade. “I did, didn’t I? Heh… rather than be chosen, I forced my way, you could say.”

“Sometimes destiny is what we choose for ourselves,” said Joey. “Maybe the stone knew that.”

“Or I hit the damn thing too hard for its liking. Yeah. I’ll go with that story. Fate splintering off into the great unknown thanks to me.” Teremy strapped the gunblade to his back. “C’mon. Let’s go find Alisaie.”

As the two headed into the Inn at Journey’s Head, Teremy felt a wave of relief tide over him. Now he understood why he had been called to Norvrandt. There were people who needed saving and people he had to protect. He didn’t need to be chosen to protect others. He had already decided long ago what he wanted to do.

[hecates-favorite-child]

Not gonna lie, this era is kinda ~meh~.

When you think of the “modern era”, what do you picture?

I always find myself thinking of cold, featureless, concrete buildings with nothing on them that tells me they have character. Mind you, architecture is obviously not the only facet of an era; we as a society have come leaps and bounds in the worlds of the sciences, be it new plans for renewable energy or literally anything in terms of medicine. And it is very easily arguable that there have been vast improvements to every aspect of life - that is why things are the way they are today. If there was no need to make them better, the metamorphosis our society has experienced across a myriad of fields would not have been nearly as fast as it was.

But I can never help but wish that we could have all of the scientific and social advances of our era blended with the aesthetics, in general design, of the Regency through the Edwardian period. When I think of what these periods looked like, pictures come into my mind of people dressed in the clothing of the time, walking through a park, with all of the plants surrounding them.

And what clothing it is!

It is truly astounding to me that the dress norm for men could go from gloriously poofy cotton and linen shirts to okay-but-bland T-shirts made of those natural fibers mixed with plastic. Sure, it’s modern, but is it really better? It feels like getting rid of a very well-made piece of wooden furniture in favor of a cheap new version that will break sooner, solely for the aesthetic of the latter. 

This isn’t really as cohesive as I would like it to be, but very few people are probably going to read it, and I want to save my friends the strife of hearing this rant from me for a seventh time, so onwards and upwards, I suppose.

A world with the advancements of today meshed with the design and aesthetics of the past feels like my ideal world. I just do not understand how someone can see two clocks, one magnificently carved and with obvious thought put into its design, and another made of metal with barely enough care put into it to put marks for the hours, and think the latter looks better. I’m BORED.

For reference, let’s look at this image from one of the scenes from the movie “Emma.”, which came out earlier this year:

You look at this and tell me it is less interesting than a modern room. I dare you. I fucking dare you.

I can understand how some people could say the room is too crowded, but that argument feels the same as the one for the abomination that is bagel thins; if you’re so concerned about the calories and carbs from regular bagels (and you have no medical condition that actually keeps you from safely consuming full bagels), just eat fewer bagels. If this room is too crowded for your tastes, just imagine it with fewer pieces of furniture in it.

Now, also for reference, let’s look at what the internet calls a luxury modern room:

Can you show me where the personality in this room is? Because I can’t for the life of me find it.

Design has become so muted and dominantly neutral that I could take a children’s building block, slap a coat of gray paint on it, call it a prototype for a loveseat, and sell my “design” for thousands of dollars. It would probably be seen as a new luxury piece of furniture.

In the name of “progress”, we have lost all semblance of color, shape, texture, and, in my opinion, beauty.

I understand that this is just my opinion, and that many people do feel that modern aesthetics are more beautiful than those of earlier periods, but I don’t think I will ever be able to see what they see in these modern rooms. They feel like purgatory to me.

And don’t even get me started on modern “art”.

The talent has gone so far out of the artistic process that there have been jokes for decades of people not understanding modern art (mind you, this “modern art” is the stuff where it’s just a few brush strokes on a canvas and yet it sells for millions). If a modern artist brought one of their pieces to a Romantic artist, the Romantic would spit in their face and accuse them of slighting the names of artists everywhere.

Oh, boy! Another reference picture! This one is Alnwick Castle, by J. M. W. Turner:

This painting shows me that Turner is a fantastic artist, who takes pride in and has care for the works he creates. Now, let’s contrast this with a modern piece, Cy Twombly’s “Untitled”:

Ah, yes. Expression. Elegance. It really spells out what it is trying to say.

Bitch WHAT?!

That piece would take me ten minutes to recreate while blindfolded. Hell, I might accidentally dip into a different color, and then I could call it my own and also sell it for millions!

I mean no offense to Twombly; I am sure they are a great person, but the difference between these two pieces is laughable. The idea that this piece sold for $46.4 million, on the other hand, is frightening (The Crusade). People really will buy just anything these days. It feels like the higher the price tag is, the less it matters whether the piece is actually well constructed.

In essence, I want design principles to go back to the way they were before mass production and modern popular culture ruined all of it.

End essay.

[restekova]

i keep watching bnha and being like “i enjoy this, it’s just not that good” and then i keep watching it. what i mean by this is that, assuming this anime is a fairly faithful adaptation, then horikoshi clearly has a good understanding of a lot of the technical aspects of writing. he’s able to juggle a lot of characters fairly well, which is a skill i wish i had.

it just feels like he’s not trying to say anything, and it really really shows. i think i’ve been paying attention pretty well, and i honestly couldn’t tell you, as of episode 22 (which is a long fucking time to be in a series and not know this, even a long-running one) what the major themes of the work are? midoriya’s quirkless → quirk story kind of reads like a disability → accommodations metaphor sometimes, but if you assume that reading then the rest of the writing immediately becomes too ableist for that to have been the writer’s intention. it’s... inspirational? about not giving up? i guess? otaku are cool and if you’re obsessed with stuff it’ll pay off? but it’s not committing to that. the line “I have to work a lot harder than other people” stuck out to me a lot and seemed important, but when there are so many things confounding the disability reading i’m really not sure what that’s even supposed to mean outside of midoriya’s situation specifically

the one thing that it’s doing that i would say is interesting, even if i don’t agree with it, is (i know how this is gonna sound, hear me out here) the way bakugo is portrayed. by that i mean this: he is a deeply problematic character, but he’s also complex, and the writing portrays him in a way where it genuinely feels like it’s not trying to get the viewer to pick a side. in a way, i think this is more indicative of horikoshi’s moral apathy when it comes to this work than anything; in hxh, you had characters— hisoka, illumi, the phantom troupe— who had committed awful crimes, but were complex and in some ways charming and likable, and the writing portrayed those facets of their characters— but if at any point you start to like these characters, you’ve fucked up. you’ve failed the text. because people who commit genocide can still tell funny jokes, and people who hurt children can still be very charming, but they’re still people who commit genocide and hurt children, and eventually we’re going to see them do something terrible again. the narrative lets us forget for a while, but not forever.

bakugo’s case is entirely different from those characters, of course, in that he’s a child and his relatively less heinous crimes are severe bullying (which in this case especially is, essentially, abuse, even if he’s not old enough to fully understand the consequences of his actions) and having a terrible personality. but even midoriya, at times, seems almost ready to forgive him, not as part of a textually elucidated healing process but just in the sense of not seeming super bothered by him anymore, despite the implications near the beginning of the series that bakugo bullied midoriya so much and so severely that midoriya developed chronic anxiety as a result, which makes me wonder if horikoshi himself cares that much.

whoop that’s more thoughts than i thought i had. anyway todoroki is the best character

[naniahi]

Please read this. The article brings up some... less savory counterpoints, but I want you to take a couple things from this.

--"Mayor Durkan issued an executive order that went out at 4:58 a.m. declaring “gathering in this area an unlawful assembly requiring immediate action from city agencies, including the Police Department.”"

4:58. The police were there by 5AM. They were still in the process of arresting people as I woke up. For what?

--"The jail roster indicated most of them were booked on suspicion of obstruction, assault or — most commonly — failure to disperse."

... so just really no such thing as a right to assembly? I mean, if this is the case then it obviously has to be because you gave them a chance to be peaceful once they wrested control from a violent police force backed by a corporate funded mayor... right?

--"- it attracted white supremacists and loud Christian evangelists who “were disruptive and competitive. That was one of problems with CHOP: It became a target.”"

Oh! So you mean to tell me that these people were still feeling threatened CONSTANTLY.

- "A homeless man named Jay..., ...said he was sorry to leave. “Other places are sketchy, but I felt safe here,” he said. “This place was based on respect. I don’t know where I’m going to go.”"

It seems like they were protecting each other for the most part. Then when you brought in your military gear under the guise of Justice, they decided to console each other. Specifically a man named Hearns.

The image alone is powerful:

-"Harry “Rick” Hearns "don’t mess this up for Black Lives Matter! We’ve made history here! You’re doing great! Everybody out. We’ll get another place. Don’t taunt the officers. Show them that the Black race is peaceful. The whole world can see us!"

What an incredible pressure has been put on these people, only for them to also have the be the bigger person. And honestly.. all this would be enough. But I want you to remember Kshama Sawant

Kshama Sawant is a Seattle City Councilmember who has been active in the Black Lives Matter protests and movement. She opened the doors to City Hall to protestors on June 9th.

I'm going to switch gears here a bit because while the police brutality aspect of racism is THE BIGGEST PROBLEM, it includes many facets. One of the easiest ways that people in power get away with racism (other than just murdering people on camera and saying it was self defense) is by controlling economics. So, with that in mind

She tweeted this shortly after the arrests began this morning:

Sawant understood that part of the disparity the residents of CHOP were feeling is largely due to the city's treatment of Amazon (and other large corporations) since Bezos went ahead and dumped $1.5M into the last City Council election. Now, Sawant was seen as a victory for the more socialist political values of Seattle and many articles were written about how "Amazon failed" in their buyout attempt.

Since then, the Mayor of Seattle Miss D*rk!n here decided that she wanted Sawant investigated for "disorderly or otherwise contemptuous behavior."

She's also being blamed for "leading" the marches.

Anyone who has been paying attention knows that the power of this movement lies in the fact that there is no central leader that can be removed to destabilize the movement itself.

Who says Amazon hasn't won when the mayor says it's okay to steal wealth and then tear gas the people it's been stolen from??

And I know. I know there isn't really an actionable solution to this... but just please pay attention. Please look at what happened in CHOP. I know they're gaslighting us into thinking events didn't happen, but they cannot take our memory or the scars they've inflicted. Please pay attention. And remember that so many of these tactics are evidence of fascism. We're in the last steps. Please. Please

And for fuck's sake, please be safe during COVID

[secretkingdomjellyfish]

Another day, another penny...

Here we are again. Life has become even harder with COVID doing the rounds and offing every poor sod and his granny. I actually thought I had already witnessed or experienced the worst of what humanity had to offer but no, life and society continued to surprise me. From the hypocritical ‘clap for our carers’ movement (The same people who clapped where the same people in the supermarket the next day sneezing on your eyeballs - two meter rule, people!!) to our world leaders and celebrities telling the world ‘we are all in it together’ whilst they lounged in their 20 room mansions. It was all a bit...shallow. Every month is like opening the world’s shittiest advent calender only rather than getting a nice little piece of chocolate behind each window, we get some new unseen horror unleashed on us.

Then came the BLM riots. Another black man was killed by corrupt cops who gave absolutely zero fucks about him or anyone else. People were, entirely and justifiably, angry and the protests began but then something else happened. I had already seen this phenomenon slowly creeping it’s way in with COVID making the rounds but I just put it down to me being bitter and angry at life, therefore my perception of people (I had already set the bar WAAAAAY low) was skewed.

I saw people take advantage of an entire society’s grief. I saw the vultures circle to loot and hate or to share their idiologies of hate and pain and recruit more angry, tired teenagers to do their twisted bidding.

I saw both extremes of the coin take advantage of the situation to spread that same hate and lash out at the other side. ‘Don’t look at us, look at what the other side are doing!’ I heard them cry. ‘The people protesting are just violent thugs, look at them causing all this damage, how else are the police meant to act?!’. ‘It’s not us, we are just so tired of the police taking advantage of us and I REALLY need these new Nikes’.

But then there were the people in the middle. The people who just wanted real change. The people who just wanted the hate, the pain and the injustice to stop. Those people marched and protested and wanted their voices heard. Who were seeing what I and many others were seeing and wanted to restore the balance. Unfortunately they were quickly drowned out by the screeching of the two extremes and it became a game of ‘who could sling the most mud to deflect from their own actions’.

To say I’m sickened is an understatement. I’m embarrassed and I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed to even call myself a human being. My heart is utterly breaking at how broken we really are, how much trauma has been ignored and how easily we are influenced by shiny, new things. How the media continually drives us, like the herd animals we are, to consume, to buy, to hate others that are different to us. To make us think that our little tribe, family, race are the best and everyone else is wrong.

Do me a favour. Find a story. Any major story and then go read/watch/listen to several different news outlets (on both sides of the coin - you know who they are) and see how they report it. I can assure you, it will be like watching a different story altogether. Don’t get me wrong, they all have the very basic facts but they simply cater to their audience. No wonder people think they are right, they are surrounded by others who think the same way. They feel a kinship in a really scary world. The leaders (not the real movements, not the real game changers) take with one had and point with the other.

Plato had it right with his cave anology. Those shadows that the people can see are just that. Shadows. Boogymen. Nothing more than smoke and mirrors. I get that the world is scary, I get that we don’t understand even a fraction of how the world works and I understand so SO well that it feels good to find others who think the same way as you and even if you ‘see the light’ and see the world for what it really is, there are few who will listen to you. Most of us took the blue pill because the truth is just too painful to bear.

However, a new pattern has emerged here. A much more dangerous way of thinking. We just don’t allow ourselves to be wrong, it physically hurts! Everything we do is so emotional today. Everyone just wants to think emotionally rather than taking all of three seconds to think about something logically and rationally.

Society is full of adult toddlers who have a tantrum when they are challenged. Rather than giving them our time, we should be giving them a sippy cup with chocolate milk and a nap. I get it, it feels bloody good to scream and be angry. To blame someone other than yourself or your leaders for the life you have lived. All those missed chances? Not your fault, not your parents or your leaders fault. It was those pesky (insert blameless minority here)

Now I can already hear many of you shouting ‘I hear you lamenting but I don’t hear you coming up with any answers’ but the solution is simple. The implementation is incredibly complex and difficult and (unfortunately I believe it is also impossible but I’m praying I’m wrong) will require everyone to do their part but the answer is so SO simple. Equality.

I don’t mean the bullshit ‘everyone should be treated the same’ that’s not equality. I’m saying EVERYONE should be given the same chances regardless of their race, gender, sexuality, sex, wealth. Instead, the world is incredibly unbalanced and unequal and I have strong feeling that mother nature is about to shift it back into balance because she is a bad bitch who is fed up with us just taking but not giving back.

In my teens I went through a phase (I can hear the sniggering in the back). I found wicca (I can now hear louder sniggering). Now this phase lasted about 6 months and generally involved me wearing a lot of black, buying some coloured candles and generally trying out some cool spells because I could now do motherfucking magic biatches! But, soon enough, it fissled out and I got bored and moved onto something else (mainly the grunge scene - they, just, like...got me, you know?). But, I took one of my very core beliefs away from it. As at the heart of this beautiful religion it was all about balance. Whatever you took, you had to give back and EVERYTHING came back threefold - you had pay the dammed ferryman (you always have to pay eventually and not always in the ways you expect) . So, you sent out good vibes? You got those good vibes magnified right back atcha! Kind of a witchy butterfly effect.

Furthermore (check me out with the academic phrasing..eh? eh?!) many of followers of Wicca believed that their main deity was simply like a multi faceted diamond with many faces and each aspect simply reflected a different religion, deity or belief system and that she was always with them no matter what deity they believed in. (disclaimer - It’s been a long time since I was involved in this so if I’m wrong, please accept my deepest and most sincere apologies) but, again, it kinda made sense to me at the time (and still does). When I first started, it was new, it was different and it gave me purpose but then the glamor kinda got scraped off and I actually had to do some hard work and, being a teenager, I was just not into that.

Now I know many of you are asking ‘what the hell has this got to do with the price of cheese’ but bear with me because the answer is, again, relatively simple.

It’s all about balance. We have taken but not given back for so long. As a society we think that being successful is hoarding as much wealth as possible, drinking champagne and eating caviar whenever we feel like it, occasionally giving a few quid to charity to show that ‘we’re in this together’ because that is what the media have us believe. That it’s the ULTIMATE goal to have your own private jet and generally just whittle your life away doing nothing but pamper yourself.

We think the only way to achieve this is to take it by force. To be ruthless and cutthroat and step on as many heads as we can to get to the top, right?! That’s always been the way it was done!

However, that might have worked for a while but, as a society we have kinda went full circle and are right back at the start - openly rejecting facts and evidence for emotion (well it feels better to believe in x therefore it must be x) and anecdotal evidence (if you crack an egg at the fulll moon whilst hopping on one foot, you will totally get rid of that cancer - it totally worked for a friend of a friend so it must be true).

Right now the world is a giant carnival game and we all know those carnival games are rigged as shit. Step right up, Steeeep right up! Come along, try your luck! Why you look like an amazingly (add appropriate adjective here) individual, I bet YOU could win - not like any of these other chumps. The whole thing is rigged in favour of the wealthy and powerful and, in all honesty, I completely understand. It’s in our very nature.

It’s been so insidiuous and we have been bombarded so much with this message that we now have an entire generation of very broken and exhausted individuals who think that surviving and living are the same thing. News flash. They’re not.

This is why we are in the situation we are in. We have simply been sleep walking and ignoring what is right in front of us. In order to move on, we need to accept some really hard truth and take a long, good look at who we are as both individuals and as a society. Honestly? I don’t think we are ready for that yet the other two options are to continue the way we are going and let mother nature do her thing or simply destroy ourselves in the process. We are quickly running out of options and I REALLY don’t want to be the guy who said ‘I told you so’.

Now before anyone starts with the whole ‘you’re so wrong because (insert appropriate defense here) just stop and think for three seconds. Let that knee jerk reaction go and give it time to sink in. Even read it again if you have the attention span to do so and then think. Is he really wrong? Maybe the truth just hurts.

TL;DR - society is really broken and there’s no easy fix.

#wtf #covid #blm #hardchoice #depression #anxiety #currentaffairs

[acehotel]

The Bushwick Review: Interview with Elle Nash

There’s a particularly delicate yet redolent allure to the “and” found between some of fiction’s greatest love stories. Jules and Jim. Henry and June. In the case of writer Elle Nash’s novel Animals Eat Each Other, it’s Matt and Frankie. Tales of love and loss, instability and stasis, all told through the lens of a 19-year-old narrator adrift in Colorado Springs are what line the pages of Nash’s brutal and endearing debut. 

In partnership with The Bushwick Review, an independent literary and art magazine, Nash chats with editor-in-chief Kristen Felicetti about her editorial origin story, the importance of bisexual representation in fiction and how to ignore people who talk about her baby’s socks. 

Animals Eat Each Other was published by Dzanc Books last year. The UK edition will be published by 404 Ink in May.

Kristen Felicetti: I’d love to hear how Animals Eat Each Other came together. From the initial idea, to its development, to its publication with Dzanc Books.

Elle Nash: It started off as a short story in one of Rae Gouriand’s six-month writing workshops online. At first, I thought it was a story that could be told in just a few pages, but then I began working one-on-one with Tom Spanbauer as a mentor, and he kept saying, “What about this?” which made me realize how much I was glossing over, and kept prompting me to expand on so much of the story. I think that lasted about two years. The process really taught me how to slow things down. At some point, Michael Seidlinger, who was working with Dzanc at the time, asked if I was working on anything and so I sent him this manuscript, which he loved and which then-editor-in-chief of Dzanc, Guy Intoci, also enjoyed. After a while, they offered to publish it. Feel like I got really lucky with that, as Dzanc has been a great publisher. Michelle Dotter, the current editor-in-chief, is a wonder to work with.

KF: I really like how spare, direct and visceral your prose is in this book. Did that style come pretty immediately to you for this novel, or is this something you refined in its editing?  

EN: I think it was definitely refined in editing. Although I worked a lot with Spanbauer as a mentor while I was writing this book, and his style is also minimal in that way (he was a student of Gordon Lish, along with Amy Hempel, etc), towards the end I found myself rewriting entire chapters. I find myself using things like metaphors as almost a shortcut to what I really want to say in a story, and so I tried to find those and expand on them as much as I could.

KF: You recently tweeted “what are your fave books that feature bisexual people” and I saw that in another interview for this book you mentioned wanting to create a book with a bisexual character, because you don’t see bisexual characters that often in fiction or media. I hadn’t really thought about that much, but it’s true. While in real life I know people across the queer spectrum, I can’t think of a lot of bisexual characters in fiction. The other thing I liked about the narrator’s sexuality in the book was that she doesn’t seem to be concerned with attaching any labels to her identity. She’s just driven by her own desires and behavior. She has sex with men (Sam, Matt), she has sex with women (Jenny, Frances), but I don’t think she even once uses words like “bisexual,” “queer,” or “gay.” I’m not sure what my question is here [laughs], I’m just saying you gave me interesting things to think about. Do you want to talk more about any aspect of this?

EN: Yes! And people had a lot of great suggestions — Mean by Myriam Gurba; anything by Kathy Acker; Henry and June by Anais Nin; Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai; The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson — I need to read all of these, obviously! 

I really just love to see and want to read books about and by people who are outside of this realm of what a traditional relationship looks like, even if there is not a particular label on the character’s sexual identity — and I think the reason for that is because growing up, perhaps, I felt I was exposed to a lot of books that dealt with young adult issues but the particular issues became the entire character’s identity. For example, The Best Little Girl in the World, (or Wasted, even though I love that book), or Cut by Patricia McCormick, Crank by Ellen Hopkins, Smack by Melvin Burgess. These books were all great, but in them, the characters’ lives are consumed by their troubles, it becomes their entire identity, and I really favor work that illustrates the life of a character that, for example, is affected by these kinds of important issues, but also shows how there are other facets to their identity. Being bisexual is not the only thing that I am, there are many facets to a person, and so that seemed important to express in a book, to show a character’s life like that.

KF: In addition to Animals Eat Each Other’s recent release, the magazine you edit, Witch Craft Magazine, also just released its most recent issue. Can you talk a little about the process of putting that issue together? What’s the process of working with your co-founding editor Catch Business, your team of assistant editors and the writers you publish?

EN: Yes! That was a tough issue, mostly because the original release date was on the heels of me giving birth, and so we had to push it back. I had also just moved out of the city that Catch and I lived in together, and so we’ve been doing everything via email, text and Skype. Catch really has kept the sails up while I’ve been less involved because of the baby, and the assistant editors I worked with for issue four (Asha Dore and Gwen Werner) made some excellent selections for non-fiction and fiction this go around. The hardest part is staying on top of email. I just spend less time on the computer these days, and it can be hard to respond to things. I always feel like I should be doing more. In the past, I’ve made the trailers for the issues as well but our art editor Carabella Sands took the lead on that front for issue four and it was great. I’d really love for us to expand and do more but right now it’s just something we have to do slowly.

KF: You recently became a parent. We’re around the same age, and I haven’t decided whether I’ll have a child yet, but I’m pretty nervous over whether I’d have any time left for writing/being creative or even how I’d grapple with the identity of being a mother or being seen as a mother. Obviously I’m not the first female writer to ever have these fears. Did you have any of those same anxieties about being a parent or not? And do you still or is that just not as big of a deal once the moment actually arrives?

EN: I did and do have anxieties over time, but to be honest I have always had anxieties over time — when I had a full time job, I felt the same way, that I wasn’t getting the time I needed to write and that I might die before the work I need to do gets done (I always feel this way!). When I had a part-time job, I was spending a lot of time doing freelance transcription work to make up for my loss in income and so I worried about wasting my time there as well. And with a kid, it is harder because I am currently on her schedule, but I still do find the time to write while I can. She naps, for example, and so I make the best of it. Also knowing that she slowly gets more independent and that the process of her being a baby is a temporary one helps, and that a writing career is a long-term goal, that expands over multiple decades (as long as the existence of a life allows). But I mean, yeah. It is always hard. I like to be alone a lot, at least when I write. I don’t get the uninterrupted five to eight hour stretches of time inside my head anymore, like I could with a day off work, but since her birth, there’s been somewhat of a schedule (which does change a lot), and I’ve been able to polish 20 pages on a new book, write some essays, do interviews, polish a short story… and waste a lot of time on Twitter. I started dictating some of my essays/stories for example when my hands were busy and she just wanted me to hold her or while I was breastfeeding (though I haven’t done that for a while). I think for anyone who does have anxiety about time but WANTS a kid, the best advice I have is to just not stress yourself about it or push yourself to do it if you really can’t. Some days I wake up and I just think, “I can’t do this today” (“this” being all of the responsibilities of being a parent and also the pressures I put on myself to write, etc), and so I won’t write that day. It’s both hard and not hard. Time just keeps moving and the child keeps growing, and I have to be willing to go with the flow of that. If I fight it, it’s too hard.

On the identity of being seen as a mom — sometimes I think, “I’m too butch/dress too XYZ/am too sad/insert identity label to be a mom!” like when I think of how my mom was/dressed/etc, and because I got really hung up on my assumptions of how a mother should be. But, I am also surrounded by a lot of great mothers who are themselves/their identities intact/are full, sexual, beautiful, creative, independent people, and that helps me not be hard on myself. I wondered if my identity would change, and I don’t think it has, really, I just have become less patient for other people’s bullshit and am very strong about enforcing my boundaries now, in a way that I wasn’t before. People in public make comments a lot (like, for example, if the baby is not wearing socks outside, I know someone will say something), and you really have to ignore it. You just have to become really all about yourself and the kid and fuck what other people say about how you should parent. It’s just not their life. That’s become extremely apparent.

KF: What are some things that inspired Animals Eat Each Other or other recent work of yours? It can be other books, but also films, music, people, things in nature, anything.

EN: So many things! I think the biggest inspiration I drew from was Tom Spanbauer’s book I Loved You More, which is a masterpiece about three people who love each other and how hurt/heartbreak rippled through them. It’s an important book about relationships. I listened to a ton of The Weeknd while writing the first draft of the book, I think because it is easy to listen to his music on repeat a lot and is very melodic, and also listened to a lot of Lund. The film Manchester by the Sea inspired me, as well, because in the Amazon reviews so many people hated the movie because it felt unresolved and depressing to them, and I love that kind of work. I read a lot of things that inspired me also — Mila Jaroniec’s Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover; Elizabeth Ellen’s Person/a; Juliet Escoria’s Witch Hunt; Something To Do With Self-Hate by Brian Alan Ellis; and Waves by Lucy K Shaw. 

[kosmicdream]

Hi I’m Kosmic. I draw webcomics and my webcomics are really long sprawling huge cast ones that will go on for years and they’re non linear and all this stuff that makes ppls heads spin when they try to explain wtf they’re about. I ask myself this question a lot: How the fuck do I maintain this motivation for continuing projects that are honestly, probably bigger than i can possibly feasibly create??? How do i avoid swallowed up by anxiety of my own creations???? is that energy going to run out at any time? should i be worried?? Well! For some reason I... don’t? like i get winded sometimes but in the end, I actually quite like what i do and I don’t care that it takes literally years to make my stories. but when I step back and look at it objectively it does make me scratch my head and wonder how i came to be in this situation. So, sometimes i  try and write a few things that help me with understanding my own process, for whatever reason. Or at least I’ll TRY to articulate some of the things i seem to tell myself again and again that help me feel very comfortable with my writing/creating process. So if you want an insight into tips that i give myself.. this is that! 

TIP #1 - Everything you Plan will take longer than you planned, but you can make it easier by unexpectedly including information you might have otherwise withheld.

Secrets are cool in your stories. I have so many of them, but I also understand that they’re much more fun to share than to always keep locked up and out of knowledge. I often overshare to the point where ‘info dumping’ happens which is often considered an unattractive quality in comics. But IDM it so much because my comics just need to be drawn and you can’t glorify and hold every flaw over your shoulders when in the end its not going to be that big of a deal. I think its better to give out more information than finding reasons to bend around a story to avoid revealing things. I feel it might even be more obvious if you attempt to do that.

Also, I feel that everything planned in a story can happen quite quickly, and feel much shorter than actually drawing it. Even with the experience ive gained, i still am surprised just by how much i must throw out to make my long scenes shorter and snappier. even then, they are still really long scenes. I don’t mind doing this, I like to make my stories this way- but ive also designed my comic to serve this pace by making my pages less intensive physically to make. I’m not going to go in depth about this as ive already discussed this many times before, but I do think its important to understand that generally, a commitment to a comic is going to be bigger and longer than it appears in your mind or even on paper as a script or thumbnails.

(my comic eggshells, for example, was originally going to be 340ish pages long. but back then, my pacing was much different-- and my pages were generally twice as wide with around 15 panels per page..sometimes more. but i would over-render and make them hard to read, and now i draw very few panels per page and my comics are much ‘longer’ in page count.)

TIP #2

-Accept that your ideas are bigger than what you can draw and enjoy the private context and history of your work without feeling like its less accomplished for not being all out there. Validate yourself but also understand that your readers are not going to understand the depth from your perspective and they will be engaging with the view they’ve been exposed to.

This is kind of a complicated one but I think that its both humbling to accept your work as this multi layered experiences of contradicting perspectives.. theres the planning and your engagement with the goals, the work of translating your creation to others and the vulnerable exposure of these ideas to the audience. As the creator, you get to see things in a very unique way that no one else can but... the one feeling you will never get to see is the audience who has no idea what will happen next. You can anticipate it, but in the end its so vast and unpredictable that it will be impossible to judge what they ALL will FEEL and sometimes? their perceptions can alter your own enjoyment of your work. I guarantee it will change it in SOME way.. that’s part of the sacrifice.

TIP #3

-Allowing change, flexibility and growth into your series- and letting go of control over all facets of it.

As time goes on things just change. Its hard to accommodate or prepare for that kind of investment in your work when you feel like you havent even gotten through the starting gates of your story. Comics are particularly difficult for that because once you draw a thing, it takes time to edit and you cant really undo and go back. Each panel informs and builds on the next. You have to use what’s there and figure out how it can be a structure for the future.

Accepting the past that has helped create the situation and platform of your comic in the present, which will lead into the future. Personally, i’m not a fan of retconing* certain decisions that have been already made into the canon-- however, i think if a new conclusion or idea is discovered in the process of writing and it works to include because it creates a new and alive energy in the work that will help push it to the next stage.. i think that’s very helpful and useful for sustaining the growth and motivation in a story. Making choices like this can be tricky, however, but even small ones can give a lot of natural growth and flexibility in the comic. The problem can often come with letting go of that unseen, unrealized version we had intended. I know for myself, i can get very nostalgically attached to old ideas but-- if i think of something better that works or makes more sense, I’m always thankful to let go and let my stories grow into a better thing. I try to remember where it came from, however. Because that helps inform me where to go.

(*generally my definition for this is altering events of the past, certain core plans of the comic, character motivations, or facts that are connected to the worldbuilding. im kind of a hoarder so once its in the story aka on a specific page-- its not going anywhere. until then things can be up in the air. for example, the characters knife and spoon were not originally intended to be mutually in love and it was more of a one sided idol worship, but as i fleshed their characters out i realized that it was mutual and it changed and altered the story because of that. now it cannot/will not be “undone” for whatever reason bc this is.. an established fact in the story. but at one point, it was not! i hope that makes sense.)

SO TO SUMMARIZE... plans will always be “”bigger”” in the ever expansive space of your mind so also dont be afraid to get to the point sometimes even if it feels a little, like. less exciting than you thought? accept your story is going to be different for YOU vrs your audience and make peace with that disconnect even tho its disorienting + upsetting sometimes & accommodate the ~natural personal and artistic growth~ you will experience and let go of things that might be holding you or your work back from improving with you. but also dont try to cut out too much of the past because.. it is what helped you get to where you are right now? focus on the present & allow growth for the future, dont try to alter the past and pretend it didnt happen. bc that will be confusing as fuck for everyone involved and also probably hurt the story more than help it. esp if its a long one. ur building a tower dont pull out too many foundational blocks and try to make it too much of something else unless its growing there on its own.. u kno? 

When I try to write these tips these are just things I find myself doing in a cycle as i create that seem to keep re igniting my passion for my story again and again. It makes me curious because it also is a very instinctual thing so I thought I might try and write it out!!!!!!!!!! ENJOY.

ALSO some bonus thoughts!!!!!!!!!! I will say that I’ve never completed a long format comic series, so take it w/ a grain of salt imo. HOWEVER...I probably will, eventually. Even if I don’t, I do enjoy writing really big ones and I feel very happy with the work i do on them! and still feel no inclination to move onto other things. Or even when I work on other things, I don’t have a feeling of dropping a story entirely. (for example, i still intend to work on my older series eggshells and don’t really feel a desire to ‘quit’ that story even when i have matured as an author/artist since starting it.)

When I read really long comic series I wonder a lot of internal decisions that happen out of sight, since the timeline of a comic that you read is so much different than the timeline it takes actually creating the thing. its so easy to write/plan/form ideas for lifetimes of work that will never be realized, so what is it that we actually get in the pages? What aspects of this author are we actually seeing? how much have they grown since beginning and what about the story we will never know? I know I’ll never know, because, I am only the reader! And as the creator, I will never know what the feeling of my work as the reader. or the cool and interesting things they predict will happen based on their perseptions, which are so different from mine. Yet!! we are all engaged in the same story unfolding, never fully discovering what its like on the other side but only getting little glimpses and thats fascinating how a story is almost this vast illusion of experiences maintained by so many different minds. 

Long format comics captivate me because they are just, really time consuming to make and the pacing of them are so different and less consumable than other stories. They like become.. this place you live in! Why are they my favorite to enjoy even when its natural that, when a story becomes longer, its going to end up attracting more & more issues? Why do i Not care about resolutions to long stories sometimes bc my expectations for them are different?? (also lets face it, experience writing long stories is going to be different than writing short ones because it takes time to write longer things & we are not going to have as much experienc having more than one completed super long multi-act-multi-characterplot story vrs a bunch of smaller ones. it doesnt mean its EASIER to write shorter ones, if anything id argue its probably much harder to write good short things + isolate a story down to that focused vision than making tons of long ones that avoid endings) but..yet!! here i am...

why am i constantly drawn to trying to understand long format stories when I probably could improve faster by writing shorter things??! i dont really know! but i follow my heart and my heart likes to do things this way......

anyway, this entire post is mostly inspired by the fact that many of my favorite stories started before i was even born or have been going on for decades and i wonder if we’ll ever read the endings to many of them.... would it.. matter? they’ve already inspired me so much even without a resolution because i can imagine my own endings to things.. but in the end that is not what happened in the actual story. it was only in my mind.. and yet it never happened, and was an illusion unknown to anyone but myself.....and sometimes my favorite stories are my favorites because of the things i imagined them to be, rather than what they actually were or how they actually turned out.. i dont know how this happens..... but i wonder about what this means with my OWN comics, and how my perceptions of what they could be vrs what they are is like, this weird illusion that also exists only in my mind and no one else can see it. yet we are both looking at the same thing. and i want to know what others see and i never will get to??? ....stories are......... so fucking spooky!!!!!!!!!! AHHH!! ok thats all. thx for reading