#what do you mean I have to do more than identify the first letter

[megamindsecretlair]

WIP Tuesday

Buckle up babes, it's going to be a long post!

I come before you humble, hat in hand. I know I been wilding ya'll. I know there's a lot of fics I need to update and get back to. I haven't forgotten! And since there are...so many new people thanks to my Terry fics, what a great time to call myself out chuz ya'll too nice to do so! I saw @nerdieforpedro do this a few weeks ago? Forgive me for not tagging the person you got it from, but I am tiredt, chilleee.

Current focus: Terry got my whole heart, ya'll. Every fic I read of him, I just want to go hop in the booth myself and get to writing. Ya'll inspire me every damn day, it's magical. There is a filthy, disgusting, mean, despicable fic I wanna write with him. But alas, he is not the only one I write for.

Girl, there's how many series????? Listen, the muse wants what it wants. 11 series in total. Chillee, why I do dissssss. Some are closer to finishing than others. So let's count them out (click the links to learn more):

Be My Little Darling - Loki series | It Started With a Whisper - Sam Wilson series | Midnight Sin - Vampire Tyrone series | Blackbird - Mob Boss Fontaine | Camp Wanderlust - Franklin Saint series | What You Deserve - Homewrecker Stunna | Runaway Lover - Professor Stunna | If I Took You Home - Kevin Atwater | Kill Her Softly - Zyair Malloy | A Taste of the Divine - Yakuza Sukuna | We Are the Night - Qimir

Frenn, that's a lot, do you sleep? Are you okay? Blink twice if you need help. I'm promise I'm good ya'll, I just love writing and I love interacting with ya'll. You have NO idea how much each and every single one of ya'll mean to me. I love the support, I love the comments, I love the reblogs. I'm trying not to disappoint folks, I was on a schedule and well, life happened. I can course correct, I promise. Just gon' take me a little minute. Let me close the smaller series first!

Okay, surely that's it right, frenn? Ahh no, because there's also the asks that have been piling up. Per my pinned post, you know that I have a scatterbrain. Some asks I deleted because they're too similar to what I've done before. Some I'm still trying to picture before I start writing. But the ones I've kept? At last tally it is...33. Some are similar and I'm going to combine them, but yeahhhhh. This isn't a callout post, keep sending those requests in! Just know it's gonna take me a smoooooooth minute. Also, welcome new people, welcome! But not everything needs a part two, I promise. If I write "The End" at the bottom, that truly means the end. No part 2 planned, ain't trynna write a part two. I want to move on sometimes. I love you, but I'll be writing until I'm gray if everything got a part 2. And I wanna get paid for my writing. Which brings me tooo...

Umm, umm, what's this I hear about a book??? Yes! I am actually writing a book based on an ask I received. It was a sweet ask about what kind of story would go with "Handwritten Letter". I said it gave friends to lovers, she fell first, he fell harder type of vibes. It has morphed into dark academia about a shy girl just trying to come into her own. It's a combo of and a love letter about girls like me, girls like you, each and every person who identifies as a Soft Black Girl. And I already have *so* many ideas about other books I want to do. There will be one based on the Mr. Black series I wrote. There will also be a vampire one! I just can't decide yet which will be the second book I put out. I'm leaning towards vampire because Terry is HEAVY on the brain ya'll. And he'd make a sexy vamp. But anywhooo...

I say all this to say that I'm not a machine. I'm not that quick despite appearances. I may not seem like I have any chill, but I've been fantasizing and turning over these fics in my head for days or weeks before I sit down to write. And I'm not saying to stop. Your support is exactly why I feel good enough about my writing to sit and write an entire book! I want to be a full time author. I want to share my ideas with the world. I'm just slow lmfaoooooo.

In the mean time, I hope you're hitting up all these amazing writers on here. I hope you're commenting and reblogging and showing love on here. I will keep saying it. This site will DIE and these BLACK writers will LEAVE if people keep stealing, not commenting, not reblogging, asking for part 2s and never showing love. Fandom is a community, not a pillar. No one know it's you behind that avatar, go crazy! Go nuts. Show nuts. whatever.

Love, love, love you all. If you read this far, drop something funny in the comments. Or go unhinged in my asks about Terry. Don't get me started about that man, but go awff about him because that's my baby favaaa.

no pressure tags: @chaos-4baby @j0kers-light @umber-cinders @harmshake @planetblaque @babybratzmaraj @soft-persephone

[v-rg1l]

you’d think working at a library means you’d have the alphabet memorized and know where things go but no it means you get really good at quietly kneeling on aching limbs as you mutter the abcs in whispers like a prayer

[loquora]

I'd like to take a couple of minutes to talk about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers Month) and their terrible, very bad, no good stance on genAI (generative artificial intelligence) and why I won't be writing anything for this challenge again.

I'm very aware that I am an active and vocal genAI hater. But I am willing and open to hear about positive and useful things LLMs (large language models) can do. There are valid scientific uses for the technology and some really fascinating medical and academic breakthroughs that come from LLMs. But the use of genAI in creative writing context is complete bullshit.

Come with me for the breakdown.

The first part of their statement:

NaNoWriMo has made it clear they are not just tolerating genAI in their month long writing challenge, but that those of us who don't are 'classist' and 'ableist' because we don't.

The post was later amended with a list of reasons why they make each of those claims. We'll start from the top.

GenAI uses the technology in a way that is morally, ethically and environmentally bankrupt. See, all LLMs have to train on something. When you're using it to, say, detect cancers you can feed it images of cancer scans so that it builds up a dataset of what those look like to predict future scans. But when you want to generate text, images and video you have to feed it text, images and video. Those things came from people, actual people and actual artists who overwhelmingly did not agree to train anything with their work and can no longer wrest their work from the machine now that it's been stolen from them.

It also isn't 'intelligent' at all, considering it has that word in the name. Think of genAI like an alien learning our language with absolutely no frame of reference for what it's learning. It can predict that the letters "w-e" and "c-a-n" often come after the letters "y-e-s" because the phrase "yes we can" will come up often in training data, it's a common phrase. But it doesn't actually understand what any of those words MEAN. Just that they often follow one another so that when prompted it will, statistically, try put those letters and words together again.

So when it comes to actually writing or responding to prompts what you're getting is the most likely outcome based on a massive amount of data input. It is not actually giving you feedback on what your writing looks like, it's giving you the most statistically possible response based on input. It's fake feedback, a thousand other feedbacks crammed together and extruded into a goo that looks and sounds like feedback but is actually meaningless. ChatGPT doesn't understand your writing sample anymore than a phone tree understands your anger and desperation when you continue to say "OPERATOR" as clearly as you can to try to get through to a real human. Both understand you input a word and will output based on that, but context, emotions, cultural mores etc. are all beyond it.

This is why AI is so absurdly shitty at things like math, counting letters in words and identifying words that start with the same letter. It's mashing together a million math problem answers betting on the likelihood that statistically someone has already answered that question enough times in the training data that it can spit the correct answer out at you.

TLDR: If you're using genAI to get feedback on your writing you're not actually getting feedback on your writing at all, but the most statistically probable set of words that relate to feedback. So right off the bat the idea that genAI is going to help you be a better writer is just flat wrong. It doesn't know how to write, it doesn't even know how many Rs are in the word 'strawberry'.

Second point has the same issues as the first:

I actually agree with them on the point that if your brain doesn't handle certain writer activities well it's perfectly okay to use an outside source for help with it. GenAI isn't actually helping you be a better writer, though; it can't. It doesn't understand anything you write nor can it provide meaningful feedback when it's just spitting out statistically probably words to you based on your input. So while the point here is actually good on the surface, the solution of using genAI to help people who have trouble with certain aspects of writing is still not correct.

The final point:

Again, this is a very good point... if it wasn't being made in conjunction with a defense of generative AI WHICH DOES NOT HELP OR SOLVE THIS ISSUE. In fact, because of the known issues of bias in how genAI LLMs are built they can make issues for marginalized writers worse.

I genuinely have no idea how this very true paragraph about people who are routinely pushed out of traditional writing spaces is helped by genAI. Their entire point thus far seems to be that genAI is a 'cheap' alternative to some traditional writing aids but considering genAI doesn't work like that it's all dead in the water as far as I'm concerned.

If NaNoWriMo was actually concerned with solving these access issues to things they consider critical to writing in general, why not offer a place for real people to read and critique one another on their platform? There are myriad other technological solutions that don't cost huge amounts of water AND actually help aspiring writers!

All of this to say that you should write for yourself, write what you enjoy and get better the same way generations of people before you have: by reading other people's work, talking to and exchanging time with other authors and writing and rewriting in your own words until you're satisfied.

Wasting water asking genAI to do things for you that would make you a better writer to do yourself or with trusted allies is just that, a waste.

[lendmyboyfriendahand]

Crack fic where Maedhros and Maglor have no concept of half elven ages

__

"We can't take them back with us," Maedhros said.

"They're just children though, they won't survive on their own!"

"That's exactly the point!"

"What do you mean? I know children won't be much use in the fortress, but we can feed two spare mouths."

"They're far too young for us to be able to care for them."

"Come on, they look like they're at least twenty. I'm sure they know calculus and how to spin by now, even if they're not yet tall and strong enough for more."

"You haven't been keeping track of diplomatic news, or indeed of time at all. We sacked Doriath not three decades ago, and Elwing their mother was an infant then."

"Humans grow fast." Maglor shrugged. "She obviously grew enough to have children, and within a year or two."

"Gil-Galad mentioned that Elwing gave birth to twin boys in a letter only six years ago. And before you ask, I'm sure she didn't also have older children, these were very clearly the first heirs for the Iathrim."

"What? But - they're so tall!"

"Like you say, men grow fast. They grow unevenly though, without enough time to learn everything properly. Those boys may not even know their letters, or how to identify pewter from lead."

"At six years old, what do they even eat? Celebrimbor nursed until he was nearly eight!"

"They might be old enough to survive weaning, but I'm not sure, and we have no one breastfeeding in our camp at the moment, without anyone born since the Nirnaeth."

"I've heard of using cow's milk or sheep's milk to feed babies, rather than just making cheese. Do you think they'd tolerate it?"

"Maybe, but we can't be sure. It's better to leave them here with all the other people who's homes we destroyed; there were enough babies wailing during the battle someone can surely take in the princes."

"Perhaps, if anyone finds them in the next day. Most people fled the city, and I doubt they'll return before the fires die down."

"I'm not going to take in infants just to let them starve."

"Me neither! But I can ask them if they're weaned. They understand Sindarin, and talk, at least enough to call for their mother."

"A child that young will just say they eat nothing but honey and cake, if you let them choose their diet."

"If they know they like cake, that means they can eat solids, and I'll give them normal food."

"Fine. You can ask them, and if they're weaned they'll survive as well with us as any where else."

"And if they're not?"

"I send a couple scouts to follow the sounds of screaming children and deliver two more."

"Maedhros!"

"What? I can't bring their mother back, nor can my most imperious command make someone lactate."

"So you're giving up?"

"No, I already told you my plan." Maedhros sighed. "And I will send a few people to look for goats or ewes we can take with us. We already sacked the city; might as well loot it."

"You're convinced to make everything the most horrible possible."

"Excuse me for being pessimistic when our brothers just died for nothing."

"Fine, I'm going."

"Good."

[leebrontide]

A legit way to fight the climate crisis from where you're sitting right now

As promised, in honor of Earth Day, I've written some suggestions for how you can write a letter to the editor for your local paper, and reach some people who otherwise might get a more...shall we say restricted view of climate news. Letters to the Editor remain a surprisingly important political vehicle. People see letters to the editor and they feel like they're hearing from their neighbors- real people with authentic, down-to-earth agendas. They're the second most read part of the paper, after the front page. Take that stage!

Step 1- Pick an article in your local paper to respond to. Today is Earth day, and lots of papers will have at least something about climate crisis or environmental protection on it's pages. Local papers are better, because, as you can imagine, papers like The New Yorker get a lot more submissions to compete against, and anyways they don't have the same sense of local opinion.

Don't fret if your local paper leans conservative! That means it has readers we REALLY need to reach! And they may be more open to reading about these issues in a paper than online, which particularly a lot of older, don't feel like "the real world".

Step 2- Figure out what you're going to say! Maybe there's a glaring error in the article you want to address. BUT, if you're not sure, you can look up your local organization that's fighting for these goals. For example, I could look up and find MN350, because I'm in Minnesota. Going to their social media and their webpage/newsletter archive gives me an inside look at what people who are really immersed in these subjects have to say about what's going on.

So, for example, I see that my local group applauds Minneapolis's efforts at going to all clean energy, and has a timeline, but that people on the inside are saying that without a dedicated funding stream, people implementing these changes will have to either hope federal funding stays stable or fight for funding in the city council every year. Ok, now when there's an article about Minneapolis's plans, I have something to say.

Step 3- Draft it up.

The goal here is to be short and to the point.

Opening line: Identify which article you're responding to, and maybe your feeling about it.

First paragraph: What is the specific issue? What is a relevant fact and why does it  warrant public concern?

Second paragraph: What would you say that we do in response, or what would you ask your neighbors to do?  Why?

Third paragraph: What is currently being done to address the issue and how could people who have been persuaded act?

This should be no more than 150 to 250 words TOTAL.

While you're wording it, some things to keep in mind- stats and facts are good, but don't use a lot of acronyms or jargon. Expect your readers to be coming at this with about an 8th grade education.

If you have a sense of what the people you're talking to find persuasive, lean into that. For example, for my letter to the editor, I emphasized that chaotic funding leads to lack of ability to plan ahead or bulk-buy. I know the people I'm talking to like things to be common-sense and detest governmental waste, so that's an easy one.

If you want extra help, I have a list of best practices for communicating about the climate crisis right here.

Step 4- Proofread, then submit it via whatever process your local paper has. The goal, if you can manage is, is to submit something within 48 hours of the original article's publication. That's the sweet spot for most papers.

BONUS ROUND!

You did that, and still have a little energy for the environment left? There's one more thing you can do to super-charge your effort!

Guess what, you can stack the deck in favor of your specific letter being published.

But it will involve using a phone.

That's right, if you REALLY wanna turbo boost this thing, you're gonna call the paper (or have your non-phone-adverse-friend or family member pretend to be you and call the paper).

Call as soon as possible after the editor would have received the material.

Use pleasant persistence to speak with the right person. Don’t stop at a receptionist or secretary. Create enough POLITE urgency about your letter that you get through to the specific reporter or editor who will decide whether or not to print your piece.

Provide the editor with specific local info and urgency. Focus your conversation on why this issue is relevant to their readers.

Get specific feedback and/or a specific commitment from the reporter. If they don’t want to print the letter, find out why and what adjustments you can make to get it printed.

If they agree to print it, find out when you can expect to see it in the paper. The you can tell other people. Even if memaw isn't a big climate activist, she might show your letter to everybody she knows if she knows you wrote it.

And that's the process! I know that's a lot of information to throw at you, but ultimately, it can be pretty quick to crank these things out. And, again, these have been proven to be powerful persuaders. We need as many people as we can to be in this fight, so go and get them!

And always remember, you're not just combating ignorance, you're combating hopelessness, helplessness, and burnout! You can inspire people to think about what's possible.

PS if any of you actually do this, please let me know. It'd make me so happy.

@onbearfeet @basil-gardens @punkypine @rederiswrites @veritatemquarens @radioraja

[vesora]

“The Law and the Promise” (1961) excerpts - n.g.

To attempt to change circumstances before you change your imaginal activity, is to struggle against the very nature of things. There can be no outer change until there is first an imaginal change. Everything you do, unaccompanied by an imaginal change, is but futile readjustment of surfaces.

Do not bow before the dictate of facts and accept life on the basis of the world without.

Assert the supremacy of your Imaginal acts over facts and put all things in subjection to them. Hold fast to your ideal in your imagination. Nothing can take it from you but your failure to persist in imagining the ideal realized. Imagine only such states that are of value or promise well.

What makes a present sense impression so objectively real is the individual’s imagination functioning in it and thinking from it; whereas, in a memory image or a wish, the individual’s imagination is not functioning in it and thinking from it, but is functioning out of it and thinking of it.

Enter the image of the wish fulfilled, then give it sensory vividness and tones of reality by mentally acting as you would act were it a physical fact.

Man must go back in memory, seek for and destroy the causes of evil, however far back they lie. This going into the past and replaying a scene of the past in imagination as it ought to have been played the first time, I call revision — and revision results in repeal.

I wish it were true of man’s noble dreams, but unfortunately — perpetual construction, deferred occupancy — is the common fault of man. 

When man finally identifies himself with his Imagination rather than his senses, he has at long last discovered the core of reality.

Man should daily relive the day as he wished he had lived it, revising the scenes to make them conform to his ideals.

Then, in imagination, read the revised letter over and over again and this will arouse the feeling of naturalness; and imaginal acts become facts as soon as we feel natural in the act.

If man does not always create in the full sense of the word, it is because he is not faithful to his vision, or else he thinks of what he wants rather than from his wish fulfilled.

If we had this wider view of causation — that causation is mental, not physical — that our mental states are causative of physical effects, then we would realize our responsibility as a creator and imagine only the best imaginable.

But causation does not lie in the external world of facts. The drama of life originates in the imagination of man. The real act of becoming takes place within man’s imagination and not without.

“The Gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” 

The images of our imagination are the realities of which any physical manifestation is only the shadow.

Enter into the feeling of your wish fulfilled. Through spiritual sensation — through your use of imaginal sight, sound, scent, taste and touch — you will give to your image the sensory vividness necessary to produce that image in your outer or shadow world.

Change the image, and thereby change the fact.

We say that we are happy because we have achieved our goal.

It is possible to pass from thinking of to thinking from; but the crucial matter is thinking from, i.e., experiencing the state, for that experience means unification; whereas in thinking of there is always subject and object — the thinking individual and the thing thought of.

It is this “Eye of Imagination” and only this that can free us from the sense fixation of outer things which completely dominates our ordinary existence and keeps us looking on the reflective glass of facts.

We have to abandon ourselves to the state, in our love for the state, and in so doing live the life of the state and no more our present state. Imagination seizes upon the life of the state and gives itself to the expression of the life of that state.

In the world of sense we see what we have to see; in the world of Imagination we see what we want to see; And seeing it, we create it for the world of sense to see.

We see the outer world automatically. Seeing what we want to see demands voluntary and conscious imaginative effort. Our future is our own imaginal activity in its creative march.

Common sense assures us that we are living in a solid and sensible world but this so seemingly solid world is — in reality — imaginal through and through.

Man is All Imagination. 

Therefore, a man must be where he is in imagination, for his Imagination is himself. Imagination is active at and through any state that it is aware of. If we take shifting of awareness seriously, there are possibilities beyond belief.

We need not feed on sense-data.

Man is manifesting the power of Imagination whose limits he cannot define.

To realize that the Real Self — Imagination — is not something enclosed within the spatial boundary of the body is most important.

Mental traveling has been practiced by awakened men and women since the earliest days.

Paul states: “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven — whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows.” 2Cor.12

Paul is telling us that he is that man and that he travelled by the power of imagination or Christ.

In his next letter to the Corinthians, he writes: “Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” [2Corinthians 13:5]. We need not be ‘dead’ in order to enjoy spiritual privileges. “Man is All Imagination and God is Man.” [William Blake, from “Annotations to Berkeley”]. 

[thekillingvote]

Tʜᴇ Kɪʟʟɪɴɢ Vᴏᴛᴇ

Thirty-five years ago, DC Comics opened a phone poll to kill Batman's child sidekick, Robin.

The poll was open to paying callers in the U.S. and Canada for a window of 35 hours, starting on 15 September 1988 at 9AM EST. There were two premium-rate phone numbers—one for Robin's survival, and one for Robin's death. Each paying caller could call multiple times. The results were decided by a margin of 72 votes out of a total 10,614 votes—the difference was just under 0.68%.

Now you decide.

KILL ROBIN

Jerry Smith of Covington, Kentucky claims to have sold his Mercedes-Benz to pay for votes to kill Robin

"Who Killed Cock(y) Robin? I Killed Cock(y) Robin" article by Glen Weldon (2008)

"1-800-DEAD-ROBIN" autobiographical comic by Tony Wolf (2015)

"We killed Jason Todd" feature by Matt Markman (2021)

SAVE ROBIN

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), a noted Bat-fan and scholar, denounced the episode as a "Roman gladiator-like readers vote."

"I loved him [...] I personally voted for him to live 100 times, and my mom flipped when she saw the phone bill," says magazine writer Savas Abadsidis.

MJG6 said: I was dead broke, working my way through college, but I voted. My first job was at a comic book store, making me an OG fan girl, I guess, and I encouraged people to vote to save him. [...] Because killing a teen, in a role kids are supposed to identify with, that was just sick.

Further Reading

"A Death in the Family, or: How DC Comics Let a Phone Vote Kill Robin" via r/HobbyDrama

"Living Dead Boy: Jason Todd vs. The Culture That Killed (and Resurrected) Him" on Women Write About Comics

"The Vote to Kill Robin" - trivia, misconceptions, opinions by comic-commentary

Some fan letter columns from Jason's later times as Robin

No Birds Allowed: Batman without Robin

"A lot like Robin if you close your eyes": Displacement of meaning in the Post-Modern Age by Mary Borsellino, an essay on dead Robins, sexism, and classism

🦞 The Tale of Larry the Lobster 🦞

Submitted arguments below:

Kill Robin

Anonymous propaganda IN FAVOR of killing the lobster the Robin!

I love Jason Todd. I love his post-crisis Robin days, I love his sense of justice and his adorable love of learning and his silly curly bangs! I say this to emphasize that I don't want him killed out of any dislike of the character.

I want him dead out of a love for storytelling that gets to stick to its guns and doesn't pull its punches. In context of the poll we readers have just seen Dick Grayson get kicked out of the role due to Bruce's fear of him getting hurt, then he turns around and gets a new Robin anyways because he misses him! I really like that Bruce is being messy and hypocritical! Let that have some real consequences please!

If there were no real consequences then Dick got shoved out of being Robin for what? Hairbrained overprotective worry? Why even change the way he graduated into being Nightwing so much then or heck why even kick him out in the first place?

One might argue that we haven't even given this Robin proper time to develop, that instead he might be taken in new and interesting directions as his own unique Robin shaping the mantle into a legacy rather than just something that was Dick's. I admit this is a very good point, and we are cutting off some possible interesting avenues. As I mentioned, I do like this character! But are we really going to get that?

If DC is already prepared to toss him out of this mortal coil and through the pearly gates after such a short while, do we really think we're going to get much more love and care applied to him?

I say let's roll the dice for something new! May the comics world and all these characters have to deal with the ramifications for many years to come!

Save Robin

robin’s death (and subsequent resurrection) is, frankly, an insult to robin fans of that era. to want to see this child get killed in a brutal manner for no apparent reason, to see jason essentially removed from the narrative so batman could go back to being gritty and depressed—this is awful to me. he hadn’t even been robin for very long!

but that’s not why he should’ve lived.

the resurrection of jason todd as the red hood was narratively interesting enough that it kept most fans of the original jason hooked, and it still does! he has become a prime example of a trauma survivor: his death changed him, and those who loved him have difficulty accepting that.

but there is no resolution to that story, nor was there a resolution to jason’s tenure as robin. dick chose to leave robin behind and take on a new mantle. tim, steph, both had robin taken away from them (and let’s forget about how tim is still robin, because that doesn’t matter right now). damian’s role as robin conflicts with his misconception of his role in the family. everyone else has had an ending, and jason’s death…well. after his resurrection, he has somehow remained stagnant and wildly inconsistent at the same time. this applies to under the red hood too.

at its core, utrh is a deeply classist retelling of jason’s life pre-death in the family. winick makes him a villain—albeit a sympathetic one—who fucks over or kills people that he would’ve thrown himself in front of to save as robin. in utrh, the implication is that jason had always been violent and angry (and morally compromised), and that he was destined to become worse.

it sometimes feels that jason’s transition into being the red hood (and all the characterization that comes with that) was a decision dc made for shock value. just from jason’s robin run, it’s difficult to imagine jason becoming the red hood. it doesn’t feel inevitable. it’s tragic.

ultimately, i believe that jason never should have died, and that his death was a stunt by dc for its shock value. jim starlin wanted jason dead because to him a child sidekick, in a medium that was originally made for children, was “sheer insanity”. he was fridged, plain and simple.

[strawberrygiorno]

I've seen people talk about Kim's daily cigarette and the connection to the lungs and how if he's left in Martinaise he smokes a second cigarette and how that links to his feelings for Harry.

What I haven't seen is people talking about the cigarette also involving fire. Fire, which the game repeatedly uses to represent hope, change, and revolution.

Let's take a look at the lines after his one-a-day habit is introduced:

[Text ID: KIM KITSURAGI - "You mean this?" The light of his cigarette illuminates a fleeting smile. "This isn't cool - it's an unnecessary trial of will. And unhealthy." He flicks the ash.

VOLITION - Keeping the habit within the parameters he's given himself takes a lot of focus. It would be easier to simply quit.

COMPOSURE - Yet were he to quit, he would lose the cool factor. This man relishes his cool quite a bit -- below it all. End ID]

This is clearly an allegory for the way he tries to keep his emotions under tight control, and this includes his desire for something better for Revachol. Volition states that it would be easier to quit than to do what Kim does. Giving up hope, resigning himself to the world he's in, would mean less disappointment, more distance, less pain, but it would mean removing a significant part of himself. That spark is too important to him to extinguish fully. Being in the RCM, though, means he needs to keep that spark as dim as possible. Otherwise, he might draw attention himself or actually process his role in suppressing the change he can't help but want.

This is interesting when coupled with some statements he makes later if you ask him his position on the Moralintern and Dolorianism.

[Text ID: KIM KITSURAGI - "The Moralintern are a fact. I try not to have opinions on facts -- until they change. And," he looks at the city below, "It doesn't look like that's about to happen." End ID]

[Text ID: YOU - "Kim, are you a follower of Dolorianism?"

KIM KITSURAGI - "Yes. We all are. Her name, body, and rule are synonymous with humanism. The laws we enforce are Dolorian in origin."

YOU - "I didn't think you were spiritual."

KIM KITSURAGI - "It's not spiritual. It's constitutional. The Dolorian system does not demand faith -- only accordance." End ID]

These answers are both so... empty. There's no belief in either of these systems, just that resignation to the fact of their existence. He is, on some level, aware of what he is supporting. That tiny revolutionary desire of his keeps him from identifying with it, though his refusal to stoke that flame simultaneously keeps him from rejecting it to pursue something he *can* believe in.

So, Kim takes refuge in something he knows is true: facts. He knows how the world works, and he knows that there aren't mysterious things like giant bug cryptids or 2-millimeter holes in the world involved in Martinaise.

Except, there are those things, as well as other things that challenge what Kim holds to be facts, and he is forced to accept that the world is much stranger and much more beautiful than he dared to believe.

Over the course of one week, facts change.

The first cigarette we see Kim smoke that final day comes out almost immediately after Harry wakes up after the tribunal, which is completely understandable. After experiencing the tribunal and seeing Harry in so much pain and abandoned by his precinct, of course Kim is experiencing affection for Harry and anger at the system that created this situation.

Later, looking at the message painted on the ground in oil, Harry sets it on fire. What does he use to do this?

[Text ID: YOU - "Step back, lieutenant." (Set the graffito on fire with a lit cigarette.)

ONE DAY I WILL RETURN TO YOUR SIDE - The fuel oil catches fire immediately with an ominous hiss -- a bright orange flash across the surface of the letters. Black smoke rises from the burning message. End ID]

A cigarette. One spark to set off the massive fire. A fire that warms both of them.

That brings us to Kim's second cigarette he smokes when left in Martinaise. It's a representation of how irrevocably changed Kim is by his experience on this case. Even if he and Harry don't go on to continue working together, this one week has stirred something in Kim that causes that hopeful, revolutionary fire in his lungs to burn a little brighter, and for once he decides to fan the flame.

[adachimoe]

Adachi and the Midnight Channel

Previously, I went into long ramblings about Adachi being the person in the fog and how that means he didn't actually know what was going on, and also how he was showing up in the fog expecting Namatame to kill someone because he hates that guy.

Something I did not bring up in the fog person post was the Midnight Channel. The premise of "Adachi being the fog guy" is that if he is the fog guy, then it just means he had no idea who Namatame put into the TV. But if Adachi say... watched the Midnight Channel, wouldn't he have an idea about who Namatame was throwing in?

So this is an unhinged attempt to deduce if Adachi watched the Midnight Channel, and if so, how much did he watch it? I argue that if he did watch it, it was 3 times at most. Furthermore, this idea is based on... stereotypes about Japanese work culture.

The player's introduction to the Midnight Channel

After Chie tells the group the rumor on the 12th, the three of them go home and watch the Midnight Channel on April 13th, then talk about what they saw at school the next day.

Seemingly, all 3 of them saw Saki, but to varying levels of clarity. Chie and Yosuke aren't able to identify her as being "Saki" even though they both know her from school, and Chie is able to make out her physical details more clearly than Yosuke.

When they question Namatame later, he says Saki's image became sharper as he watched, and he even recognized her.

As the game goes on, there's always that initial "fuzzy", less focused Midnight Channel image. And then, there's the more clearer image when someone is actually thrown into the TV, at which point their identity should be obvious. Whether the person can be identified or not from the blurrier image varies early on (e.g. Chie/Yosuke can't, Namatame could, the protagonist can't make out Yukiko's image). But as the Investigation Team talk to one another and share info, they all quickly begin to identify who the mystery figures are.

Adachi's introduction to the Midnight Channel

When Adachi puts Mayumi into the TV, he isn't portrayed as freaking out because he can touch the TV. He says he wants to scare her, then he backs her into the TV and grabs her, and he's surprised that her whole body can go in. The implication here seems to be that he knew he could touch the TV, but he didn't know he'd be able to fit her whole body inside.

After this flashback, he has some lines where he talks about the Midnight Channel.

Some people seem to think these lines are talking about the flashback with Mayumi, but, I disagree. In the Mayumi flashback, Adachi isn't freaking out about being able to touch the TV for the first time. Again, his shock is that a person can go in.

He does say this on December 7th where everything else he says seems really over exaggerated, made up, or just straight up lying, but I don't think this part is 100% bullshit because it comes up again later on during the true ending.

First off, when Adachi sends you the letter at the end, I don't think he's lying about anything he says here purely because of the context of which he sends you it. His game is over and there is no need to act like a Tough Guy anymore. In his letter, he again mentions "rumors at the station", and also that he heard about it before he heard about it at the station.

And next, "reaching out and touching the screen" is something that seems to be a common thing between the ones who Izanami gave power. I think Adachi had an offscreen scene where he touched the screen, similar to the protagonist and Namatame. Perhaps the three of them were drawn to do so after receiving power from Izanami?

We know from elsewhere in the game that the Midnight Channel is supposed to show you your soulmate. In actuality, it shows you a person who is on everyone's mind after they appeared their recent media appearances or media mentions. Furthermore, we know from Namatame's flashback that Mayumi appeared on the Midnight Channel, more than likely due to their scandal.

So presumably, Adachi heard about the Midnight Channel (maybe from Izanami?) both shortly after arriving in town and again at the police station. He watches it, sees Mayumi, reaches out and touches the TV, and discovers his hand can go inside. He thinks Mayumi is his soulmate, and goes to the Amagi Ryokan to ask her about the affair. She doesn't give him a good answer, and he decides to use the TV to scare her in someway. Instead, he discovers that her whole body can go in.

Overall, I feel it's pretty safe to assume that Adachi watched the Midnight Channel and saw Mayumi on there. This is the really simple part.

But did he watch it again?

The idea that "Adachi didn't watch the Midnight Channel" feels so "off" because it's part of the player's routine - you go home on a rainy night, you can't even go anywhere else, you watch the TV, and see your friend's Shadow making an ass of themselves. It's so baked into your brain that the idea that Adachi, the guy who claims to have been masterminding everything along!!!!, possibly not watching it just seems wrong.

And yet, because of Adachi's appearance as the fog figure dude in the shopping district, you know he doesn't have all the info. If Adachi showed up on Yukiko, Kanji, and Naoto's dungeon deadlines expecting a dead body despite knowing they were all home safe, then does that not suggest he had no idea who Namatame put in the TV? And furthermore -- does it not also suggest that he did not see them appear on the Midnight Channel...?

I believe that, at best, after Mayumi's appearances, Adachi saw the Midnight Channel a total of 3 times during the plot and this pattern is based entirely on when Dojima is home at night.

My basis for this is that Adachi is Dojima's assistant, and it's noted repeatedly that the police as a whole are very busy now because of the recent murder cases. I think it's pretty fair to assume that if Dojima is not home, he's at the station. And if Dojima is there, then Adachi is also there. This might sound fucking stupid, but the stereotype that, "You can't leave until the boss leaves" is a stereotype for a reason.

In fact, we can actually prove this for two nights. Namatame calls in to the Inaba PD on the very first night that Yukiko appears on the Midnight Channel, which is April 15th, and he gets Adachi on the phone. Dojima is not home at night on April 15th, and the Midnight Channel airs at, well, "midnight". Adachi was stuck at work at 12am on April 15th. You can also assume that despite perhaps having access to a TV at the station, he did not see Yukiko on the Midnight Channel, else why would he show up looking for her dead body while knowing she's home on April 29th?

Furthermore, Dojima and Adachi are also shown to be out working at night time on April 16th, which is another Midnight Channel night:

...aaand then there's no other nights we can actually prove this for cause we're never shown the story from Dojima or Adachi's PoV.

But Dojima and Adachi being stuck at work or out in the field investigating feels significant as I believe it would limit Adachi's ability to watch the Midnight Channel. As the 16th shows, they aren't always actually at the station (access to a TV). And even though December 3rd proves that the conditions for the Midnight Channel are misleading, I don't think there would be an event early on that causes Adachi to rethink this and try watching it without the exact conditions being fulfilled.

Dojima's availability on nights when the Midnight Channel airs

Here is, with screenshots, every night the Midnight Channel airs, where you are either shown a story scene or have free roaming around the house to see if Dojima is there or not. I did not count April 11th even though it's raining that night cause the protagonist doesn't try to watch it. (Also: Maybe the Midnight Channel only appears for people who hear the rumor...?)

And here is what airs on these dates:

April 13: Saki appears; the protagonist, Yosuke and Chie all see her; Namatame later says that he saw her and the image became sharper; Dojima is home

April 14: Unknown, the protagonist doesn't watch it this night; according to Namatame, he saw Saki being attacked by something; Dojima is home

April 15: Saki found dead, Yukiko's outline, Namatame calls

April 16: Yukiko's Midnight Channel program, Dojima and Adachi are shown to be working at night in a cutscene

May 14: Kanji's outline

May 15: Kanji's outline

May 17: Kanji's Midnight Channel program

June 21: Rise's outline; the protag goes straight into his room, there's no free roaming around the house so it's unknown if Dojima was home or not

June 22: Rise's outline; Dojima is home

June 23: Rise's Midnight Channel program

July 26: Mitsuo's Midnight Channel program

September 14: Naoto's outline

September 15: Naoto's Midnight Channel program

So if we follow the "Dojima's nights at home" logic as an indicator to when Adachi could have actually watched the Midnight Channel, then that means he, at best, saw it April 13th, April 14th, and June 22nd. (Plus whenever he saw Mayumi appear which I guess happened off screen / before the story began.)

I'm not sure if he actually watched it on all of those dates, but I believe that Dojima's availability works as an outline for all of the possible nights when Adachi saw it.

And notably, none of these dates conflict with Adachi being the figure in the fog: He shows up in the fog on Yukiko/Kanji/Naoto deadlines, and Dojima is not home when any of those 3 people appear on the Midnight Channel. Oh shit... Maybe I am not going insane... Maybe these things genuinely are related...

Considerations

So what might we be able to learn from the dates when Dojima is home? I think this is where you have to get into weird theoretical wild guesses because the story is not shown from Adachi's PoV. But hey, maybe he did? Here are some possible things to think about:

April 13th...

April 13th is the probably the most straightforward. If Adachi saw the Midnight Channel on April 13th, then he would have seen Saki. So would he have assumed she was his soulmate? Perhaps this is why he happened to catch her at the flood plain with Namatame the next day - he was trying to stalk her around Inaba?

Though while you get the feeling he saw Mayumi and thought she was his soulmate because of how hyper fixated he is on her, he doesn't seem to talk about Saki the same way. But it certainly seems possible and might explain why he was keeping tabs on her to begin with.

April 14th...

This would have been the day that Adachi saw Namatame and Saki together, then Adachi called Saki into the PD, then threw her into the TV. The protag doesn't watch the Midnight Channel on this day, but Namatame and the students at Yasogami High say they saw Saki struggling. This sounds different than the other days when people are first put in the TV (e.g. Yukiko's Shadow advertising her hunt for a hot guy). But it was also a fog / deadline night, so I think something different being shown makes sense. (After all, part of the protagonist's routine later is watching the TV on the fog / deadline nights to make sure no one is still inside.)

Did Adachi watch it on the 14th? He was actually at the station on the night of the 14th despite Dojima being home. Altho, nothing exactly stopped him from taking her into a room and pushing her into a TV to begin with; who's to say he didn't go off into a room at midnight and watch?

On the other hand, tbh, I think Adachi's appearance as the dude in the fog on the later nights suggests he did not learn that you can see who is currently inside the TV. He knows dead bodies get spit out on fog nights. If he knew there was a way to check if someone was inside the TV on a fog night, why not try checking a fucking TV on the fog nights before walking to the central shopping district and checking manually??? Lmao. I guess there is the possibility of "Adachi saw but did not understand". Tho, I do believe he would have understood that "I am seeing the person currently in the TV" if he had seen Saki on there on the night of the 14th simply cause he is the one who put Saki in.

June 22nd...

This is the weirdest one to verbalize anything about because it doesn't feel like it affects the plot even if he did check the Midnight Channel.

The only other night when Dojima is home is the 2nd time Rise's outline / shadow-y figure appears on the Midnight Channel after she comes to Inaba. And incidentally, Rise's deadline is also one where Adachi does not show up in the fog. The way I see the Rise's deadline incident is that Adachi doesn't show up in the fog because of Morooka's body being found somewhere other than the Central Shopping District.

Let's assume he did see her. I think the simplest read here is that he saw her and might have assumed Namatame would try to "save" her. Thus, knowing this, he did not appear on the fog night because Rise turned up safely already before the fog date, and the police presumably know because Rise says she speaks to Naoto - who is working with the police - after she comes back. (This is more or less my argument on the fog guy post - Adachi shows up on nights where he does not know someone is out of the TV, and he does not show up when he does know someone is out of the TV.)

This might seem weird because of June 23rd, but there is a whole friggin' tangent about that after the tl;dr.

tl;dr

I am being either a dumbass or a genius by using the stereotype about not being able to leave work before your boss, combined with Dojima not being home on certain nights, to try and determine when / if Adachi watched the Midnight Channel.

Using this pattern, there are possibly 3 nights during the game narrative that Adachi saw it - April 13/14 (Saki) and June 22 (Rise).

Curiously, none of these dates conflict with Adachi being the figure who shows up in the fog on dungeon deadlines.

And now, a huge bonus tangent about June 23rd that feels unrelated and related at the same time

Adachi seeing Rise on the 22nd might get a little messy when you consider the player's perception of what happens on June 23rd. It's presented as Dojima getting suspicious of the protagonist on June 22nd after hearing he went to warn Rise, Nanako interrupting their convo at dinner, and then he sends Adachi to follow the IT around on June 23rd.

Then June 23rd happens and Rise gets kidnapped. A lot of people seem to read this scene as Adachi facilitating Namatame kidnapping Rise. So the idea that Adachi saw Rise on the Midnight Channel the night beforehand would conform with this idea as it would mean he knew Namatame was going to kidnap her, and his presence on June 23rd was to help Namatame.

IMO, there are multiple issues with this:

The IT were going to go to Marukyu to stakeout and try to catch the killer no matter what. Their run-in with Adachi at Shiroku didn't encourage them to go or try to bait them into going. Like, they went to Shiroku because they wanted to buy snacks before camping out in front of Marukyu.

The way June 23rd goes down, it is written in such a way that you could remove Adachi from the abduction scene entirely and it would still play out the same way with Rise still getting kidnapped. Yukiko points out the photographer on the pole, Chie points out that he's running away, Kanji leads the charge to capture him, and then everyone follows Kanji. And this happens without any nudging or dialogue from Adachi. The IT are dumb teenagers - they think they got The Guy, and they get ahead of themselves and chase after him.

The idea that Adachi was helping Namatame that day would require Adachi to understand that he sees the same person on TV that Namatame does -- does he know that? Honestly, something about his fixation on Mayumi is actually telling me "no". Although, if he did see Saki on April 13th/14th, then perhaps he did figure that out.

Namatame and Adachi were not shown to be in contact beyond Namatame's phone call to the police. Meaning if Adachi did do this all based on Rise being on the Midnight Channel on June 22nd, then he somehow had to stage the photographer being found at that exact time (remember that Adachi does not point out the photographer) and also stage Namatame driving by (Adachi had a package sent to Marukyu with that delivery time...? Maybe...? Idk how else this would work) to both happen around the same time. And he would have had to do all of these arrangements within [x] amount of time after seeing Rise on the TV on the night of the 22nd... Hmm. Seeing as how Adachi is characterized as being a low effort piece of shit, I find all of these hypotheticals really, really, really hard to believe.

Okay tangent over.

[astronomodome]

Tumblr Poll Tournaments & MCYT

So a while ago I made a post expressing my frustration with the way a lot of tumblr poll tournaments seem to exclude mcyt characters- or if they are included, people in the notes are rude about it. The first situation of these- the poll organizer including rules against submitting characters from mcyt- is something I can easily quantify. I've crunched some numbers in order to find out two things:

How common is this phenomenon, really?

Why does this happen in the first place?

A note before I start: I'm not blaming the poll organizers for this, and I don't want anyone to get angry at them for excluding mcyt. At the end of the day, it's up to them to curate what they want their poll to be, and if they don't want to deal with the toxicity that often comes with letting mcyt characters run (or if they just don't like it for whatever reason), that's their decision. Trust me- poll organizers have to put up with a lot of shit already, and I don't want to add to it, regardless of their opinions on mcyt. If any poll organizers recognize their own words in the later part of this overview, they can contact me and I'll remove it. This is also why I have chosen not to identify the blogs from which I took the examples- I mean no harm to any poll organizer. They are a symptom of a much larger problem and they haven't done anything wrong except be a little misinformed at worst.

Excluding mcyt characters from poll tournaments really isn't that big of a deal on its own- though it is frustrating- but it does speak to the larger attitude of the general tumblr population towards mcyt. While not without its flaws, this can be used as a metric to measure the extent of this attitude and maybe get a hint of why it exists.

...Please note, also, that most of these polls date back to around March-June 2023, when poll tournaments were a big thing on Tumblr. Not super outdated, but I still should note that opinions might have changed since then.

Also also, be warned that there are examples below of some organizers being pretty toxic! It's not a whole lot, but if you don't want to expose yourself to that, maybe pass on this post!

With that out of the way, let's get started.

Part One: The Numbers

The first thing I decided to do was figure out a rough percentage of how many poll tournaments have a rule that excludes mcyt characters from being submitted. To get a sample batch of poll blogs, I used one of the blogs that pits the winners of tournaments against each other and checked each blog included in that. This ended up being a more tedious process than I had thought, since there's a lot of variation in the way poll organizers, well, organize. I ended up with 123 blogs sorted into three categories.

The first category included tournaments where a rule for or against mcyt characters wouldn't really make sense, for a variety of reasons. Most commonly, the tournament was between letters of the alphabet or animo acids or government agencies, not fictional characters, so I counted them out. There were also a handful of blogs where the contestants were determined by the organizer, not by nomination at all. Combined, blogs that did not fit my criteria made up 60/123 of my samples.

The second and third categories were the blogs that either had a rule against mcyt characters, or didn't. Most of the blogs I looked through had rules I could find, and some were more thorough about it than others. For my purposes, I counted the blog as a no only if they explicitly had a rule against mcyt characters, or clarified later that they weren't allowed. Most poll blogs didn't mention mcyt at all. (This will become relevant later.)

Of the 63 blogs that fit my criteria, 11 (17.5%) of them had a rule against mcyt characters, while the remaining 52 (82.5%) did not.

To me, this seems like pretty good news! I had honestly expected the percentage of blogs that excluded mcyt to be much higher. This is definitely a good sign! But I wouldn't really jump to assuming that mcyt characters would actually be accepted in all of these blogs. I will explain this in the next part of my research.

Part Two: The Examples

The second thing I wanted to find out with this research was why organizers end up having rules against mcyt in the first place. Is it just the bad reputation the mcyt space has (largely a result of one green man in particular)? Let's look at a few examples of poll rules against mcyt characters. Some of them are from my sample blogs and some of them aren't.

Type 1: Not understanding the difference between real people and characters in mcyt

The majority of the rules against mcyt I saw were of this type, and honestly, it's pretty reasonable. It's a pretty major debate in the mcyt community over whether mcyts' characters are separate enough from their content creators to count as fictional. However, there are a considerable number of mcyt characters who are explicitly stated to be different from their cc in the same way as a character in a movie played by an actor is different from the actor playing them. Excluding all mcyt characters for being 'real people' is just incorrect, though I can kinda understand where the organizers were coming from with this one.

It should also be noted that the vast majority of poll blogs had a rule against submitting real people. There's a possibility that some poll organizers might have lumped mcyt characters as real people even if they didn't specify it explicitly. Therefore, an attempt to actually submit an mcyt character into one of these tournaments might be against the rules based on what the organizer thinks. I have no way to quantify this, which is why I said earlier that the results of my initial test might not be accurate.

Type 2: 'Problematic fandom' (toxicity warning for some of these)

This type of rule is usually broader than just mcyt, but lumps it in with other fandoms known for being associated with bigotry (often hp, which is... yeah i'm definitely not going to argue in favor of harry potter but yikes. really? we're as bad as terfy potter? really.) At least one of them let dsmp characters in with the exception of dream, which is a lot fairer than... some of the others.

If we want to give the organizers benefit of the doubt here, we can say that these rules are made to keep the poll less toxic than it would be otherwise... but to be perfectly honest, some of these might be more about that phenomenon of purity culture that has had a habit of popping up in fandom spaces since forever. That's a whole other conversation I'm not ready to have now, but it comes as no surprise to me that mcyt has become a little taboo in some places (likely to a large extent because of dream and all the drama he's generated). There's also no telling whether the poll organizers in these cases even know that there are other smps besides dsmp... but that's besides the point, since there are other dsmp characters that aren't associated with dream at all. Excluding them reveals a misconception about the mcyt genre anyway. And of course, I think we can all agree that some of these are just pretty rude.

Which brings us to our conclusion.

I feel like a lot of the toxicity towards mcyt as a genre and mcyt characters boils down to people either not really understanding what mcyt is (i.e. mcyt -> minecraft youtubers -> real people) or hearing stuff about dream and assuming the entire mcyt space is reflective of that. Of course, it's a frustrating issue that some people think this way. I think it's nice to be reminded, though, that this sort of thing isn't very widespread. Alongside the bad examples, I saw a lot of organizers confronting their preconceived notions: one organizer let in an mcyt character after admitting their 'unfamiliarity with the source material', another allowed mcyt characters 'on the condition that you can explain how they are a separate character' and a few others fiercely defended mcyt characters against toxicity in their polls. Every day we grow as a community and we can't let a few people with misguided notions of what we are keep us down. Keep watching, keep creating, and as Zedaph once said, It's okay to be silly!

[thenightfolknetwork]

Hi there. I’m not really sure what to write here. I’m a long time listener but a first time writer I guess? I’m sapio as far as I’m aware, but recently I’ve been wondering about that. I’ve always felt different to everyone else, and recently that feeling of being different has become feeling Different with a capital D if that makes sense? I hope I’m not overstepping any boundaries by asking this- and please feel free to not reply if so or if you’ve already answered a very similar question- is there any way I can look into whether I am a member of the Creature Community? Thank you for reading my letter and any advice you can give:)

[also OOC MA and this blog have really helped me get through some tough times so thank you so much <3]

My dear reader, I assure you, it isn't overstepping boundaries to explore your own identity! How could it be? It isn't as if identifying as a member of the community is a finite resource. You aren't taking anything away from others by exploring the matter for yourself.

Is anything in particular that makes you think your difference from those around you is specifically liminal in nature. Have you noticed any particular differences in your physicality, or your abilities? Are you sensitive to salt, perhaps, or other thaumaturgically reactive materials? Is there some question about your biological parentage, is there a family history of liminality?

Here at the Nightfolk Network, we have always been fervent supporters of self-identity, and reject all notions of gatekeeping around the community. That being said, the fact is that being a member of the community does actually mean you experience some kind of difference from the sapio norm.

It might be an inherited difference, or an acquired difference; it might be a difference of physiognomy or perspective; some people may even consider themselves members of the community simply on the grounds of their work, their hobbies or their social milieu. I am reminded of a listener who wrote in once after spending some hundred years working as a psychopomp, only to wonder if they still had a place in the community once they retired.

In short, there are about as many ways to be liminal as there are members of the creature community. A general check-up with your GP might be able to shed some light on biological differences. Alternatively, you could go private, and contract a magical practitioner to assess your presence on various planes of being.

If you wish to join our community, you are very welcome to do so. You might explore your own biology and discover some liminality in your DNA, or you might take up a magical practice, look into being turned, or any number of other paths.

A quick word of warning, though: joining the creature community is not a panacea for emotional distress. You say you want to explore your liminality to explain why you feel so “different” to the people around you. But difference is not a problem to be solved. You are not a problem to be solved. And belonging to a community – any community – is so much more than meeting some arbitrary set of demographic requirements.

By all means, explore your liminality. I only hope you can put the same energy and enthusiasm into connecting with the communities to which you already belong.

[For more creaturely advice, check out Monstrous Agonies on your podcast platform of choice, or visit monstrousproductions.org for more info]

[wen-kexing-apologist]

The Moonlight Chicken Sign Language Index (aka signs that are the same or similar between Thai Sign Language and American Sign Language)

I asked, literally one person answered, and I kind of already had this assembled because of a conversation with @respectthepetty but that's enough for me at this point so...I'm basically just gonna copy and paste what I already had from that one reply in to it's own post.

DISCLAIMER: I am a hearing person with a minuscule (self-taught) knowledge of ASL and no knowledge of MTSL. My intention in making this post is not to teach anyone ASL, that is not my job and I should not be doing it because I am not Deaf. I am simply identifying signs I recognize. ASL is a beautiful language that I do hope to one day be able to learn properly because it is, personally, a very important language to me. I invite any Deaf or CODA people who may be reading this post to give me any critiques, or if anyone with actual knowledge of ASL, not my self-taught knowledge, identifies any more signs from the MTSL in Moonlight Chicken to ASL I would be incredibly interested to see them!

I am making this index partially because I really enjoy seeing where and how MTSL and ASL are identical or at least similar. Sorry they are not in alphabetical order.

The first couple are from @respectthepetty who also did a write up in the original post of this about finger spelling MTSL versus ASL.

So without further ado and in whatever order I feel like...The Signs:

TODAY/NOW

NOW

Tell me why when I google TODAY sign asl gif I get signs for literally every holiday "st patricks day, labor day" but not DAY on it's own. It's essentially the same in ASL although in ASL instead of a flat palm moving down it's can also be the letter D in sign language

DAY

SAY/NAME

NAME

Side note, this is the sign for HEARING in ASL but in Moonlight Chicken the same/similar sign seems to mean SAY:

DEAF

DEAF

(i don't) UNDERSTAND

UNDERSTAND is the first part of this gif where he sticks his finger up next to his ear, it's essentially the same in ASL.

UNDERSTAND

To say I DON'T UNDERSTAND in ASL you would use the same finger motion but also shake your head no.

Double side note, sorry all of these ASL gifs are of white men, the Google Images market is absolutely overflowing with gifs of these two in particular.

DIFFICULT

DIFFICULT

WORK

WORK

HOME

HOME

If memory serves, Heart does not slide his hand from his lip to his cheek, just taps his cheek.

BEFORE:

BEFORE:

STUDY:

LEARN:

YEAR

YEAR

Clapping in MTSL:

Clapping in ASL:

And that is all I have so far. I linked it above, but please click through to the finger spelling write up that respectthepetty did because it also discusses Gloss and comments on Black Sign Language which is it's own sign language form in the US and is not ASL. I will update this post again if I find other signs that seem to correlate. There are a couple of more signs I discuss in the previous post about this, but I didn't include those in this index because they are far more speculative sign comparisons than these ones are and I don't want this index to have potentially incorrect information on it

Edit: Okay I know I literally just said above that I didn't want the index to have potentially incorrect information on it, and this bit of signing is not translated through caption or through Li Ming saying the words so I cannot be 100% certain that this is correct. However, I am posting this one because given the context of the scene (this is when Li Ming goes to Heart's house after his big fight with Uncle Jim and Heart sprays Li Ming with the hose) and how similar the sign is, I think it means the same thing. I will only put the word down for the ASL just in case I am wrong, I don't want to attribute the wrong word to the MTSL sign but...

PLAY in ASL

[sideprince]

Speaking of James, what do you think of him in the prequel + Lily’s letter? She mentioned him not having the chance to go on excursions without the cloak, despite them being in hiding.

I've been thinking about this question and funnily enough it came up in another post where I had a fun back and forth with @seriousbrat! I should probably preface my answer by saying that I haven't put that much thought into James or Lily in general, and I don't really spend time in the parts of the fandom that discuss them at length, so my thoughts are based on a cursory revisiting of the text. Some of what I say may be basic stuff for the Jily/Marauders/¯\_(ツ)_/¯ parts of the fandom, some of it may be stuff that has already been counter argued with points I haven't thought of, etc. This isn't my area of interest, but your question is interesting! Tl;dr proceed with caution I guess lol.

The first thing that comes to mind about the letter from Lily to Sirius is why she wrote it in the first place. My own reading of it is that it's meant to be exposition more than something that has to do with a thought out relationship between these characters. Like many others, I'm frustrated with the minimal and flat way Lily is written. We get very few insights into who she was, most of them through descriptions from other characters like Slughorn. To me it's clear that Rowling held back on her for the sake of the big reveal at the end of DH, and I think a lot of Lily's character development got thrown under the bus as a result. But it could also just be that Lily is writing a thank you to Sirius for Harry's birthday present and it was the only time she ever sent him anything, but in the process she's giving him an update since they know each other as well as anyone knows their spouse's best friend.

In her letter she writes:

James is getting a bit frustrated shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell - also, Dumbledore’s still got his Invisibility Cloak, so no chance of little excursions. If you could visit, it would cheer him up so much.

Deathly Hallows Ch. 10

Lily is showing a lot of sympathy for James here, while also acknowledging that if he had his Invisibility Cloak he would probably be sneaking out under it. I know that this implication is contentious across fandoms, and my own thoughts on it are: it falls within James' character to do something like that and be reckless, but while I think it's irresponsible and shitty, I also don't think he's satan incarnate for it, by any means. To me it - and how young James tends to be written - shows that he's an immature guy in a war where he spends most of his time shut up in a comfortable house instead of fighting (ie. his ideals aren't tested or challenged by trauma), and the first chance he gets to do something brave he forgets his wand on the couch and is immediately killed. I think James had very good intentions but kind of bad follow through.

In her letter, Lily is also asking Sirius to come visit to cheer James up, which I find strange, given the two men are such close friends. Why should Lily have to ask Sirius to visit? Are he and James not in touch? Or is Lily being thoughtful and identifying James needs and trying to meet them when he hasn't done so himself? Again, I think this letter is more about exposition, so I don't think there's any significant meaning here, just that the author was a bit careless. Lily then goes on to say:

Wormy was here last weekend, I thought he seemed down, but that was probably the news about the McKinnons; I cried all evening when I heard.

For me there's a conspicuous absence of any note referring to what a comfort James was. I talked about this in my other ask, but I think a lot of James, and as an extension his relationship with Lily, is the author's projection of her own experience in an abusive relationship and what she wishes it had been. That isn't to say I think James abused Lily, but rather that Rowling transferred some of her abusive husband's qualities onto James, while also projecting a fantasy of what she wished he had been onto the character too, ie. a devoted, loving father onto him who would - and did - die for his family. A lot of James' actions, mannerisms, and words - his arrogance, dismissiveness, and enjoyment of cruelty towards select people he has dehumanized - raises my own red flags as an abuse survivor. While I think he was a bully at school - and bullying is a form of abuse - I don't think he was abusive to his wife or child. I could draw a parallel with the phenomenon of the prison guard who enacts cruelty on his charges freely and then goes home and is a loving, doting husband and father who wouldn't hurt a fly, because he only abuses those he dehumanizes. Instead, though, what I think is going on is that Rowling is projecting a lot of her first husband onto James, and unconsciously and unintentionally leaving a trail of abuser red flags written into his character.

It hits hard for me that Lily is concerned enough about James, and empathetic enough of him, that she shares her worry about his frustration and cabin fever with his best friend, and asks him to come visit, because she wants to cheer James up - yet she makes no mention of James being a comfort to her when she spends all night crying about her friend being murdered. In short, Lily is identifying and attending to James' needs but we see no indication that this is reciprocated. It doesn't feel out of line for an abuse victim to describe a relationship like this, especially since it would be so simple to have added something like, "as difficult as it is being shut up in this cottage, it was a great comfort to have James that night."

It's odd to me that someone thoughtful enough to attend to their spouse's emotional needs would forgo expression appreciation for them doing the same, so my reading of this is that James doesn't provide Lily with the same kind of comfort. More importantly, it doesn't seem to be on Rowling's radar to mention how James reacted to his wife outright crying for a whole evening, which tracks with how a lot of abuse victims understand relationships, ie. it often doesn't occur to them that they should be reciprocal. And so, Rowling forgets to add in the bit where James offers Lily comfort, perhaps because it was something she lacked experience of and therefore didn't think to write. And while I feel the need to include the requisite statement of "fuck JKR and her transphobic, bigoted views" I also feel that despite that, I won't sink to her level and dehumanize others, and therefore feel it's still important to balance that view with sympathy for her experiences as an abuse victim.

As for the prequel, the implication seems to be that two muggle cops got in the middle of James and Sirius escaping from some Death Eaters. It's a fun little piece but also reveals that Rowling really benefits from having an editor, because the prose is overwrought and a bit clumsy. In terms of what it says about James' and Sirius' character, they don't seem at all concerned with violating the Statute of Secrecy in front of muggles, or with protecting those muggles from the three wizards who are presumably Death Eaters. James and Sirius were described by Rowling as "bad boys" and she talked about how this was something sexy that all women loved in men (which I find problematic for a number of reasons), however she doesn't seem to differentiate between youthful rebelliousness and selfish destructiveness. It's something Lupin talks about in PoA when he reflects on their youthful adventures. In any case, James and Sirius weren't rebellious - not in their bullying at school, not in their animagi nights, and not in the prequel. They weren't challenging an unfair authority or status quo, but instead were pursuing their own fun for fun's sake, and other people often get hurt, or come dangerously close to it.

In the prequel they leave the cops vulnerable and without defense with the three DEs who are knocked out and might be back on their feet any minute. Given that Death Eaters torture muggles for sport in canon, this seems like a careless and callous move. I also feel like the Phoenix shirts are a bit cheesy... Dumbledore would never? Is the idea that James and Sirius made the shirts themselves? Or is this just another clumsy literary device that exists for the sake of exposition but doesn't fit the characters all that well? I feel like if the Order did have some kind of gear with their emblem on it, it would be more subtle and also a bit more refined than a t-shirt. The idea of these besties wearing matching shirts is cute, it just feels out of character.

I'm not sure if this was the parallel you meant to draw or were asking about, but as to whether the prequel story takes place while James and Lily are in hiding, I don't think it does. James and Sirius are described as looking like they're in their "late teens" and this seems to be a pretty clear indication from the author that this is the age they're at. James and Lily are killed when they're 21, and they'd been in hiding for about a year according to @said-snape-softly's calcutations in this amazing post (though I need to adjust the timeline a bit because @saintsenara had some great thoughts too in this other post). So even if it was just a year or six months in between, I think the prequel story is set before James and Lily go into hiding.

[msfantasy]

Betrothed to a Gaunt

Summary: Betrothed to a Gaunt. Rumours spread about MC, risking the betrothal.

Warning: Angst

A/n: Girllllll I don't know how I feel about this.

Part 4

“Did you hear that M/c is a half blood?”

“Don’t be daft, she comes from a pure blood line.”

“Apparently her mother had an affair with a muggle - everyone knows that.”

“That makes sense - why else would she arrive in her 5th year? Probably staying at her muggle family home.”

Whispers bounce through the hallway, burning one ear to the next.

Everyone knows about the betrothal to the Gaunt family line, nothing can be more tea sipping worthy than a Gaunt finally breaking their purity status.

Storming feet pass through the student body as M/C moves through the crowd towards the Slytherin Common room.

A fidgety Ominis Gaunt is seen sitting on the couch clutching in a tight grip a freshly written letter. Sebastian leans against the arching pillar, looking ever so disinterestedly outside the window.

“It’s not true what their all saying.” She announces abruptly. Sebastian glances towards the girl before returning his gaze to the passing fish, seeming more interested in counting their scales.

“My mother is well aware of the false accusations-“ M/c clutches her chests in relief. “Regardless, she demands the rumours to be put out at once or else she will find me a more ‘suitable fiancé’, one who will not tarnish the ‘Gaunt’ name with doubt.” Instant relief fleeting as quickly as it came.

“Seriously? Is it not enough that it’s not true?” She questions in furry, beginning to pace back and fourth.

“Apparently.” Ominis answers bluntly. “Let’s try back trace and identify the source of the drama. We can stamp it out at the root.” Ominis and M/c turn their attention to Sebastian, waiting in silence for their devious master to announce his simply brilliant plan.

However, Sebastian seems to remain completely oblivious to the silent pleas of his two friends as he continues to look through the large windows.

“Sebastian- if it is not completely inconvenient for you. It would be most helpful if you can help us.“ Ominis growls, hating to beg for help.

“What do you want me to do about it? You two didn’t even want to get married in the first place. It’s a win-win.” He announces with a big smile on his face. M/c remains quite looking at Ominis curiously. Had he not told his best friend?

“About that … Sebastian…” Ominis announces causing Sebastian to snap his neck looking towards the nervous blonde. “Things have changed…” Brows furrow in confusion.

“How has things changed? Did you want to force M/c into a loveless marriage? Did you want her to suffer if it means your happiness?” He asks in a cold and accusatory tone. Ominis looks taken aback by Sebastian’s cruel words, there was a truthful tone in it. M/c never would’ve married him without being forced into it. Was Ominis not being considerate enough of M/c position? Perhaps he should let nature take its course. “Be careful Ominis, your selfish Gaunt nature is showing.” Sebastian spits, his words punching Ominis in the gut.

“That’s enough Sebastian, do not talk to Ominis in such a way. Ominis, and I have decided to married and I’m doing it willingly.” Sebastian stepped back looking between the two. The air felt tense, looking into his eyes, M/c saw a look of betrayal and heartbreak swelling rapidly in Sebastian’s eyes.

“Do you love him?” He asks with a shaky voice. The girl stood before Sebastian, suddenly too aware of what’s happening.

M/c is not a stupid girl. She is cunning and quite capable of observing her surroundings.

The truth stood as clear as day.

Sebastian had romantic feelings for her, and she shattered any hope of their union with her declaration to marry Ominis.

M/c walks with conviction grabbing Sebastian and forcing him to sit with her. She places a tight grip on his hand and place a sturdy yet comforting hand along Sebastian’s jaw, guiding his gaze to her own.

“Please Sebastian, listen to me carefully. If I don’t marry Ominis, his family will force him to marry another. Not only is she cruel- but she’s the same age as Solomon.” Sebastian scrunches his face. “That is why, I promised Ominis to marry him. Its not a traditional marriage - but by marrying me, Ominis will be free from his family obligations…. What else am I to do?” She asks gently stroking her thumb along his cheek.

Sebastian leans softly into her hand with sorrow filling his features. He places a gentle hand on top of her own.“It’s just… I - well I love you… I even thought you may have returned my affections? Perhaps I was mistaken.” He whispered the last part attempting to break from the mesmerising hold M/c locked him into. M/c gripped tightly on Sebastian, pulling his weight back down and grabbing his face.

"Your feelings weren't one-sided Sebastian." M/c announced softly. Ominis bowed his head in shame, feeling as though he was invading a moment that he wasn't part of. "Just because I'm marrying Ominis doesn't mean I have to be with him in every sense right?" M/c waits for Ominis to validate her position. The lurking gentleman pauses for a moment, in hesitation before he speaks.

"Of course. M/c and I will still have our freedom in a sense." A disagreeable frown covers Sebastian as he shakes his head.

"No. This isn't right. I'm sorry mate, but your family drama is not M/c's burden to carry. I do not believe either of you have truely thought through your half baked idea." Sebastian stands, anger clenching through his jaw. "Consider if you marry Ominis, and take me as your lover, then what? You get to have me in secret? Did either of you think about the prospects of having children? Will I get to watch my children call Ominis their father? How about when we're old, do I get to sit on my porch alone because my girlfriend is probably too busy helping her husband?" Silence fills the room, it's true, neither of them had the foresight to consider such circumstances. Anxiety creeps up M/c shoulders, feeling torn between her options.

"I hear what you're saying Sebastian, but I don't know what else to do." She says, hunching her shoulders the way she does when she feels pressured.

"It's simple, you just marry me instead. I can make you happy." She shakes her head.

"And what about Ominis?" Huffing with struggle to produce words.

"Ominis problems aren't your own, if you love me then you'll be with me!" Sebastian yells angrily, not understanding your hesitation.

"I do want to be with you Sebastian - it's just not that simple. Don't forget I was betrothed to you first until you murde-" Ominis covered her mouth, muffling the sounds as they come out. Angry tears pour from her eyes, frustrated with her self for not explaining her self better.

"Please you two, let's not say anything we may regret later. I think you are right Sebastian. My problems are for me to carry alone." An angry growl groans from Sebastians throat.

"No - being with someone you love shouldn't be this hard." Sebastian pulls M/c away from Ominis, forcing her eyes to levels with his own. "Will you be with me?" He asked pointedly, his stares unblinkingly.

Her eyes flash around his face. The hesitation and slight pause was enough of an answer.

"You shouldn't have to think so hard on such a simple question."

And just like that he was gone.

Tags: @abbiesxox

[sageandred]

The "Real" Message of The Show

No matter what, people will be determined to classify someone as "bad" when a new series drops. like people can't be viewed through the lens of being "neutral" or "good people who make bad decisions"...despite that typically being how people are???

When I watched season one, I only really paid attention to Wille and Simon, but when I did a rewatch, I really saw all the moving parts and how much YR was a super cohesive story with intertwining of all of the character's experiences. At the center this show deals with different societal classes, upbringings, etc and we do actually see how that affects who these people are and what they do as the show goes on, and it's not meaningless/out of the blue.

Because no matter how much people want to act like it's not as impacting as it is: People are a product of their experiences.

Wille- If we're being real we saw him for a very small portion at the beginning of the show before everything blew up-him being super adorable, sweet, and awkward. Since being under his strict lifestyle and pressure, he's been going on this downward spiral-he has literally been becoming more and more in the image of his royal family since season 1 (and season 2 he was a lot of the same as 3, it just gets glossed over by his thoughtful decision at the end).

Since I first watched the show, it was clear to me how all of the backstory with August's character was not throwaway information. Tbh, what we know of him in season 1 was never enough to make sense of where his bad decision came from (I guess his insecurity..). But this season, they just gave so much more. And it's strange to me how strongly people react for either argument- of August being actually evil, or having to identify him as a good person [tbf I never thought he was a "bad" person per say, which is my whole point of writing this because for every character of a series (look at the reaction to Wilhelm this szn) people immediately have to sort them into good and bad columns on the judgement of morality and not just take story for what it is: story]. Again, with August his backstory has always added reason to why he is the way he is, but now knowing what we know with Erik, and being 1? 2? years older than Wille, his experience does make sense of what he did (when it's almost exactly the same thing with Wilmon). Because hurt people hurt people.

And with Sara, it's never been warranted the amount of hate she gets that insinuate she is evil. The show tells you very early on what her arc is gonna be: she places value on external things-she wants expensive clothes and to live in the fancy school and will try to impress to fit in with her new group of girl friends. And the irony is she lost it all after everything came out at the shooting range. She wanted what she never had and made decisions, because she thought that was what was important. She's a product of her experiences and it's also her experience-because she was bullied-that August's letter means even more to her and results in her kissing him.

Simon- has literally done nothing wrong (we're not talking about his decision to sell, because that's not really a choice that badly affects ppl other than mostly only himself).

Felice- has literally done nothing wrong; had the biggest positive transformation between seasons 1 and 2, because she stopped caring about external accolades (and that is also a representation of her being a product of her environment because of her mother).

And, to be clear I'm not saying people can't change how they are. Because, yeah Felice is a good example. August has surprised many people this season. Maybe August continues to change; maybe he doesn't. Wille has surprised people in his own way. Maybe we'll get more shocks in the final act. This show has always dealt with the subtext of personal experiences that lead to how people react.

[redux-iterum]

Actually the other two have cats in their courts as well too right? Do they get any special appearance like the Hunters of Horoa? Or do they remain relatively normal looking?

Also i had an idea about a prefix I wanna share. Bustard, they’re a terrestrial bird and brown and white in UK areas.

I did absolutely find it cause it’s just one letter change away from Bastard and it made me giggle, but it could theoretically work. But also understand 100% why it wouldn’t be used either.

Also last thing, I hope the puppy sitting is going ok. Also valid for being exhausted cause woof puppies are a handful at times.

Hey man, if we can have Tit-, we can have Bustard-. It's been added to the list under brown and brown-and-white.

(Special note: the bird in question went extinct in the wild but has been recently reintroduced to certain areas of the UK. For the sake of the name, we've decided that they were reintroduced nearby and have been spotted visiting the territories.)

As for the first question: Suriin's hall's members are not specifically much larger than normal like Horoa's hunters, but they are changed. Their fur is so glossy and sleek that it reflects even the dimmest of stars, and their eyes, no matter their original color, are pale as an ice-white moon, giving off a colder light and feeling. They tend to be a little taller and longer-bodied than they were in life, thought the change isn't so significant they aren't recognizable.

As for Rokhar's seers...there is a difference, but it's hard to name or identify. When you look at them, maybe their very being feels dimmer than it did when you knew them in the living world, like they're a shadow reflected in a pool of water. But, no, then they seem to be normally-lit, while their voice...was it always so quiet, yet ringing so loudly in your head? They haven't changed in size, have they? Well, even if they didn't, maybe they feel a little "more" than the other halls' cats. What's "more" about them, you can't describe, but everyone knows what you mean when you say it. But there's that feeling of their gaze, something so piercing and yet softly observant...