#while the Other half are people Actually affected negatively by other people being assholes and treating them weirdly

[mx-paint]

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[eyoricka]

Fight - Pete Davidson

Requested: yes

Words: 2300

Trigger warnings: some curse words

Pete was not his regular self this past few days. The BPD was hitting hard probably because of stress. He was under pressure for his new special and his whole mental state was affected. You did everything you could to make him feel better, but it was tough. He booked more therapy sessions but on a short run it was not enough. You encouraged him to watch some movies he likes to relax, to express himself creatively and to do some exercises with you however it created more tension than everything. Small things were triggering some Pete’s negative reactions, it was very hard to keep up. You wanted to be there for him, showed that you cared. Sometimes it was just nearly impossible and that worried you. You were kind of used to those situations but this time it was a longer, rougher episode and it began to play with your own mental state.

You were in the kitchen baking some peanut butter brownie for the dessert when Pete entered in the room. He seemed tensed but smiled at you lazily. He approached you and kissed your temple while looking at what you were cooking. He frowned a bit but said nothing. You were surprised by this reaction, he usually loved this treat.

“You don’t like it anymore?”, you asked still taken aback. He rolled his eyes but remained silence which upset you. “You can use your words to answer, you know.”

“I am just wondering if you really know me and want the best for me” he replied growing annoyed.

“You what??!! Where does that come from?!!”

“You know I have Crohn and you know it can be worsened by nuts” he placed a huge emphasis on the you know. “But still you are baking this” he glanced at the brownie meanly, rose his hand towards it and for a second you thought he might throw it in the trash or on the floor. Instead, he put his hand on his face and sighed: “I really wondered why I still get home to be welcomed like that.”

Those words stung you, hard. You had taken of your time to bake this, it was just a small attention and you didn’t expect this reaction. You bit your lips refraining yourself to reply harshly, deep down believing that he didn’t think that, didn’t actually mean that.

“Well, I think you are stressed and angry and maybe you should go relax and we can discuss that later.” You kindly reply, putting a smile on your face.

“Now actually we should discuss that now, you are the one who says that when there is a problem, we have to discuss it, let’s do that.”

“Yeah, but when you are calm, ready to talk without your feelings interfering and risking saying things you don’t mean.”

“I am calm and ready to talk” he insisted visibly growing upset. You nodded and sighed frustratedly. There was no point arguing and you didn’t want to deal with him being angry for such a flutily, so you let him speak. You weren’t really listening carefully to what he was saying considering that he just needed to let some stuffs out because he was stressed. You were sure that he would apologize as soon as his crisis would be over so there was no point in taking to heartedly what he was saying. You didn’t want to ignore him, but it was easier that way, else you would probably be hurt by some words he pronounced without thinking. “Are you even listening to me?!!” he snapped at you while you were lost in your own thoughts. You winced trying to find a way to explain why you were not very into what he was saying without upsetting him even more.

“I…No I don’t really listen. But look Pete you are annoyed and half of the things you are saying, you will regret them later so…”

“You must be fucking kidding me!!! How can you know that I will regret them if you don’t even listen to them! You know what it proves, it proves that you don’t care about how I feel or why, that you don’t give a fuck about me!!”

“No, it is not like that!” you exclaimed trying to make your point.

“Stop trying to make yourself look like the nice guy while I am the bad one!!! Fuck… I can believe you, from all the people I thought I could trust you!”

“But you can” you pleaded.

“No!! Visibly I can’t but I should not be surprise you can’t even seem to remember or care about what I can eat or no so I guess listening to my feelings is too much to ask!!” You opened your mouth to reply to that but he continued: “Maybe if it is too much you should leave, you would probably be happier without me, without pretending you love me, care about me. And I would also be happier, I would finally find someone for me!!” he yelled certainly not even knowing what he was saying, the stress, the anger he was feeling for days were taking the best of him.

Even if you knew that, you still never expected such words. You were astonished to say the least. You couldn’t even answer to that, you were still processing those hurtful words. After few seconds at looking silently at each other, it hit you, what he just said, what he meant. It took every ounce of courage you had to not cry in front of him and simply nod, leave the room silently. You went to your share bedroom and grabbed a bag, put some clothes in it with your toiletry bag. You sent a quick text to a friend of yours asking her to sleep at her place for the night and she accepted without questioning you further. When you crossed the living room to leave the place, you saw that Pete was still standing there, looking at the window. He was back at you. “I will come back in few days to get back the rest of my stuff” you stated, and he didn’t turn around. You put everything in the car and drove to your friend’s place.

When Pete heard the sound of your car driving way, he realized. He realized what he had just say, what it implied, how badly he had screwed up. He wanted to run to you but it was too late, you were gone and he didn’t even know where, he haven’t even seen your face one last time. This broke him and tears streamed down his face. What an idiot. You were right. Of course it wasn’t the moment to talk, of course the anxiety he was feeling was taking the best of him, of course you had nothing to do with all of this. He had been so unfair to you, during all your relationship you had cared, you had listened to him, you had made your best to make him feel better, good, you always had been careful about his feeling, you had been supportive of his decisions and involved in everything he had tried to do. He never thanked you, not really and the only time you were not listening because you were sure that he was not thinking straight, he had been an asshole. He wanted to make it up, he needed to apologize, he wanted to fix things, but he ignored where to start. He was crushed by the idea that it was definitely over, that he would never see you smile at him, wear his shirt, cook for him, play video games with him, falling asleep in his arms while watching movies… All those precious, treasured moments you shared would vanish and he would never be able to relive them.

He tried to recompose himself and called you, but he never reached anything else than your voicemail. The sole sound of your voice humming asking to leave a message was enough to make him sob again. He fell asleep that night crying while you did the same some miles away. Those few miles felt like the abyss between you, an abyss that none of you would be able to cross that night to join the other.

When you woke up the following morning, you had a lump in your throat, you felt sick. Your friends had made you a delicious breakfast to cheer you up and you smiled kindly at her. She didn’t pry in your intimacy last night, she did what she could to make you happier, gave you space and let you sleep while insisting that she was there in case you needed. You were so grateful to have her. As you were eating, you received a text from Pete, you were not sure if you wanted to open it or not, if you were brave enough to read it but you couldn’t avoid it. You would have to read it at some point so there was no need to put it to another moment. You were a bit shook by his words, expecting a breakup text, a date to pick up your remaining stuff. You couldn’t help but smile a bit at your screen: “I am so dumb, I am surely the dumbest dude in all New York, and I am sorry, I can’t apologize enough for my behavior. But please give me one last chance to talk to you, if you don’t want to see me after that I can understand but I want to apologize to you in person, you deserve it, you are amazing and that is the least I could do after all the hurt I caused.” You texted back a brief ok, thanked again your friend and drove back to your place. Your fingers were drumming nervously against the steering wheel.

To your surprise the front door wasn’t locked and then you remembered that you had left in such a rush that you hadn’t even taken the keys. As you took off your shoes, you heard Pete made his way to the entrance and you took a seconds or two to look at him. Judging by the enormous bag under in eyes you guessed he hadn’t had much sleep last night, his eyes were glossy giving you a clue on how he spent the night crying. He looked miserable and you presume that you looked the same. He approached you slowly like he was scared that you would reject him. When he realized that you were not angry at him but rather hurt, he internally felt like dying. He had always sworn to make you happy, laugh, to protect you and in the end, he was the precise reason you were pained. He rose his hand to help you to take your coat off and you noticed that his hand was shaking.

“I am that intimidating?” you humored him, and he smiled sadly at you. You then proceed to follow him in the living room, as you sat on the couch, he paced around the room. Your eyes followed him closely as he was moving, chewing on his lips, and playing with his sweatshirt. He eventually locked his eyes with yours and decided to sit down in the armchair in front of you.

“I am sorry, I fucked up immensely, I don’t even have words to tell you how sorry I am. What I did, what I told you, it was unspeakable, ignominious, and if you can’t forgive now or never, I would get it but sincerely I am sorry. I can even begin describe how much I feel like the worse for making you feel like this, to have accused you of things you never did. You always had been there for me, always, even in the harder moments, you had always tried to make me feel better when I am low, you spent hours listening to me and my struggles and the only thing I do is to tell you that you don’t do enough. Fuck, I am so stupid. I should have listened to you. I know apologize are not enough, I realize how badly I hurt you, how from the start I was an ass. You baked me something I like and because I am feeling bad, I take all my anger at you, this is fucked up I am sorry. My mental health is not an excuse for what I did to you, to treat you like this it was awful of me. I felt anxious and attacked at work, so I attack you and this behavior, my behavior it can not lead us anywhere except to our downfall. You don’t have to forgive, you don’t have to say anything, I would get it you know, I am just sorry.”

You brushed away a tear on your cheek, you felt like crying and you couldn’t pinpoint why. Maybe because you were really hurt, or because this apology seemed so sincere or simply because you couldn’t stand to see him like this considering that he had realized how cruel he had been. You stood up and took his hands in yours, enjoying their warmth. You let him engulf you in his arms, intoxicated by his scent while he buried his head in the crook of your neck.

“What you said yesterday, it stung me hard, but I am willing to forgive you, Pete. But I don’t want to relive that again, not in few days, not in months, not in years. I want this to make us stronger, we can use this to advance, to be better, okay?” you whispered as you pressed your head against his chest. You felt him tighten his grip on you as he murmured back “okay”.

[wisteria-lodge]

bird primary (system in progress) + burnt badger secondary (really loud bird model)

Howdy! I’m still trying to figure out my own houses and was wondering if you could provide some insight. I haven’t exactly mastered the system so I don’t know how accurate/inaccurate my claims are, so bear with me.

The “why”/Primary: I am extremely motivated by knowledge. I want to know things, not just out of intrinsic curiosity (though that does play a role), but because knowing why things work helps me protect myself more effectively.

One of the trickiest things about this system is separating motivation from method. Because yeah, they are related, but they're also really different. Like this example: "I protect myself by learning things." That's a how, that's secondary stuff. (Bird secondary of course.)

A recent example is this— a group of my former friends all ditched me because I discussed a heavily stigmatized mental disorder that I show symptoms of. And my first response (other than bawling) was to ask them why. And when I got the answer, I was hurt, but I understood. I don’t say this for you to show me pity, but rather because it illustrates this model in action.

This is a really interesting example. Your friends acted in a way that emotionally hurt you. First you processed your feelings (which you talk about in a dismissive, lighthearted, jokey way) then you asked them for more information... which hurt you, but also made you more secure. This is very Bird primary. You feel feelings, but they're whatever. What actually bothers you is not having the data.

(I suspect you're going to end up being a Double Bird. And Double Birds are unique in that their morality and problem-solving are SO interconnected, that they think I'm crazy for saying that for most people, they are in fact two very different things.)

When I got the why and processed my emotions, I cut off ties and realized that their severe judgy-ness had hindered my life for 2 years. And now that I know the “why”, I won’t bring up said disorder again until I know it’s safe. It might never be, but I still have hope.

You updated your system, and you cut away the parts that aren't serving you anymore. Bird primary.

Morally-speaking, I am very sensitive to the views of others around me.

External primary.

I’m not proud of this. In fact, it’s a detriment.

A lot of Birds feel this way. It's a big part of why they tend to like Lion primaries. Lions are much more able to dismiss things with "sounds like that's a them problem."

I won’t go into details, but my parents are… bad. Not wholly, but they are bad. I’ve tried for years, and still do, to escape their opinions because I know it’ll influence mine.

Parents are sticky. They do that. I've been a happily UnBurnt Lion primary for a while now... but I still sometimes hear that voice in my head that sounds like my mother.

And, much like them, I tend to get over-passionate in what I stand for. Unlike them, I’m willing to change if evidence supports this change. I always, however, carry the burden of my former hatred. I always feel guilt over my old beliefs. Even if I’ve changed, the pain I’ve done can never be reversed. And this guilt eats me alive, this shame of being fundamentally wrong.

Okay. You got really emotional on me really quickly here. This could mean a couple things. Your parents sound like fairly toxic Idealists, either Exploded Lions or Exploded Birds (I'm sort of leaning Lion due to the more emotion-heavy words like "passion" and "hatred.") Birds can feel bad, feel guilt, feel shame when looking back at an older version of themselves that they now consider morally repugnant. (Birds are human.) Idealists struggle with the angst of worrying that they are fundamentally wrong about the world. So you could be a guilty Bird, especially if your emotions feel wrong or unhelpful somehow. But you could also be a very Burnt Lion modeling Bird - because Bird seems safer, and you don't want to be a Lion the way your parents are.

When the friend-event happened, I thought that I was in the wrong, and that I had once again fucked myself over because of my passion and sureness in what I have.

"I thought I was wrong because I was acting like an Exploded Lion primary." Yeah, I'm thinking there's some sort of outside influence here that needs to be unpacked.

It took a lot of convincing and evidence for me to see that they were the assholes (albeit I wasn’t pure either— I was their friend, after all).

I'm definitely leaning Bird for you. A bird surrounded by Lions maybe, who sometimes uses Lion terminology. But Bird.

I am a planner and system-lover at heart. I’m not proud of it, but it’s just part of me.

What's with all this negative language? Being a planner and a system-lover is a wonderful thing to be. There's some Burning here.

The caveat— I have autism, so I’m not sure if it’s due to that or not. Hence the shortness of this section. Take it as you will, regardless of if it’s evidence or not.

I have autism and I'm a Lion Badger. People are different. The only real pattern I've observed is the way nerodivergent people disproportionately build Bird secondaries as coping strategies.

Honesty is maybe not the best policy, it’s still an admirable one. I wish, frankly, that my moral system was more honest. I feel like I have no set morals. That it all comes from elsewhere. Lion primaries have this set, intrinsic morality that I envy. My friend is a lion primary, and while my views have radically changed, hers haven’t inched. She’s always been honest about herself and what she holds true.

I'm doubling down on Bird primary for you. This is the perspective of a Bird looking in on a Lion. Lion morality isn't set or intrinsic - it's built, and it changes, but it builds and changes differently than a Bird's does (more slowly, usually). But there really is a pattern of Birds seeing it as more moral/easier/better.

And I’m still trying to figure out what “truth” means to me. I mean, yes, I’m a dry and blunt asshole, but that’s not really the same as gut morality. Internal honesty is what I want, and external honesty is what I have to some extent.

It sounds that you are going though a lot of very intense shifts in your life right now. You've got a diagnosis that has you questioning your place in the world. You've followed your parent's system all you life, and are now deciding that you don't want that. But now comes deciding what you do want, and that's a lot harder (especially for a Bird, who has to build it from the ground up.) You like the way Lions do things, but Lion primaries do not feel accessible.

I’m very clear with who I like. I can admit their faults, and even get annoyed or angry at them, but not even betrayal can stop me from loving them. I’d compare myself to the Twelfth Doctor from “Doctor Who” and Ponyboy Curtis from The Outsiders in that regard.

So maybe you are building a system with very Snake values.

Loyalty is one of my weaknesses. I get overly-attached to people, and so if/when they leave me, it shatters my world. But my brand of loyalty is mostly to people, not philosophical ideas.

... but you're not *really* comfortable with Snake either, if you consider it to be a "weakness."

I would consider myself somewhat philosophical (well, as much as a fucking teenager can be)

Teenagers are *extremely* philosophical, stop being so down on yourself.

but I can be somewhat vague in my beliefs.

Because you're still building them, give yourself a *second.*

If I were to rate the likelihood of what primary I think I am, it’s something like this:

Bird: 9/10 probability (maybe burned)

Snake: 7/10 probability

Badger: 6/10 probability (maybe burned)

Lion: 2/10 probability

What is it with Birds and numbered lists?

The “how”: I feel like I change in order to fit in. I mean, to some extent, we all do, but it’s far more drastic for me. With the lion primary friend, I act as a “Jason Todd” to their Batman. I challenge them, egg them on, crack jokes and become violently passionate and act like a nerd, and she simply watches, usually adding her own comments but mostly sitting on the sidelines by choice. We also joke that I’m the Ferris Bueller to their Cameron Frye. But, with another friend, I’m a parent figure. I listen most of the time, and sometimes jump in with creative ideas and we talk for hours about it.

I'm guessing Actor Bird, both because you can specifically list out the qualities that you "act" out. And because you're invoking and basing your performance off specific [fictional] characters. Which is a HUGE Actor Bird thing.

I go with the flow of a given situation as best as I can (with the added caveat of being autistic, because that does affect how well I can read a room). However, that’s where the adaptation ends.

Huh. I'm hearing Burnt secondary language here. "I'd like to go with the flow and read the room - but I can't, because I'm autistic." You can definitely *learn* how to read a room. Why do you think I'm so interested in (and good at :) personality systems? This is how I learned to use my Courtier Badger. I used to model Bird secondary like crazy, and I kind of don't bother anymore. I don't need the training wheels.

Planning: like I stated before, I’m a planner. I try to learn the most about a situation before jumping in. Sometimes, however, I stall the inevitable and miss my chance, so I jump in and wind up nearly drowning. And this dichotomy repeats. I overcompensate for a lack of knowledge in a situation by micromanaging, or I wind up sitting bored when I’ve already done everything I need to do. And yes, stress and boredom are equally as destructive for me. I try so hard to plan to avoid both of these outcomes, but it only works half the time. So, I guess I’m a bit of a “planster” overall.

I want to learn about a situation... but sometimes I "stall" or "drown" (Burnt language.) But planning also leads to "micromanaging" and "getting bored" (model language.) I think you've got a really loud Bird secondary model... but there might be something else underneath.

Collecting things is fun. Postcards, candles, lighters, crystals, rocks, 1940s hats, knowledge, stories, music, (original) characters, the list goes on. I’m a collector of whatever I can get my hands on. Hell, by this point, I can’t tell what’s my special interest and what I just enjoy (again, autism).

Oh my goodness gracious 'my special interest' and 'what I enjoy' are not two different categories!

But my systems and collections are my coping.

Figured.

I can’t say, though, that they hold any weight outside of emotional release. There’s nothing practical about knowing how they shot The Outsiders movie, or how crows have a flat tail and ravens have two main sections on theirs. All of this knowledge almost feels useless to me. I mean, sure, I’m great at school, but what else? Nothing, it seems like. And being good at school and nothing else makes a person go crazy when they can’t achieve their academic goals. But that’s a bit besides the point— I’m a collector, but I’m unsure how well this really fits into a secondary beyond a model.

Bird secondary model.

I invest in others more than I care to admit.

Oh man, are you a Badger secondary like me?

I genuinely believe in the goodness in humans, no matter how impossible it becomes. Even those who I don’t see any good in aren’t wholly evil. My perception isn’t law.

^ That's primary stuff. Maybe a more Badger-flavored system is going to work better for you than a Snake-flavored one.

But some people trust me: with their secrets, with homework, with relationship issues, with their religious struggles. And I try to help. I might not be good with it, but I do try to help as best I can.

Kinda sounds like a Badger secondary.

I use my planning and my categorizing skills and my knowledge to benefit others. I show up, I do what I need to do, and I don’t usually expect much to come of it. It’s nice when something does, but it’s not expected. And sometimes, these investments into others' lives and grades and relationships do pay off. I make friends. Those friends stick by me, and I trust them. I continue to invest in others, because I am a lover even though I’m cynical.

I think you're a Badger secondary.

And when that trust is broken, like the example in the beginning, I go to people who won’t abandon me to get a second opinion. When I say that I love someone, I mean it. So it hurts when they leave. It always does.

Oh that's your friends leaving hit you so hard. It's not an abstract morality thing at all, it's practical. You're a Badger secondary, and they were your base of support.

I’ll be frank on this— I’m almost entirely sure that I’m not a lion secondary. I’m fiercely efficient and some people see me as a good leader, but that’s it.

Lion and Badger are the two Inspirational secondaries. They're the one who sort of manage to collect armies or families as a side effect of existing.

Even with the leader example, I prefer interpersonal relations or to be alone. I’m not a big fan of group settings.

That's fair. I am also a Badger who really, really likes my own company. Or small groups of interesting people.

If I were to rate the likelihood of what secondary I am, it’s like this:

Bird: 7/10 probability

Badger: 6/10 probability

Snake: 5/10 probability

Lion: 0/10 probability

Other systems for comparison: I’m aware that MBTI and enneagram are, at worst, pseudo-science, but I still enjoy them regardless. At best, they’re fun self-help tools, and that’s how I try to use them.

MBTI: INTJ (Ni-Te-Fi-Se)

Enneagram: 5w4, tritype 514

Sagittarius sun libra moon cancer rising in astrology

FLEV or LFEV in attitudinal psyche

sx/sp (sexual and self-preservation) in instinctual variants

MBTI, Enneagram, and astrology are all fun in their own ways. (I don't actually know the last two!) And I can talk about them on their own terms. But this system was the best, and the most useful, when I went looking for words to describe myself.

I hope this is enough information, and thank you again if you do happen to do this! If you don’t, that’s totally okay. Have a good day!

Thank you for writing in. That was a journey! Thanks @thesketchykid for the submission.

[tigerdrop]

Cringe is dead, talk to me about the funny half-life men and their relationship

okay here is my essay. it is titled These Guys Actually Like Each Other, and Gordon Freeman Is Just Kind Of A Dick*

(disclaimer: these are just my 2 cents. dont take me too seriously! im just some guy online who has watched this shit too many times.)

first things first. these guys actually like each other. this is a key aspect of their relationship. benrey, obviously and textually, digs gordon freeman - you dont flirt that heavily with guys you arent into, and so much of what he says and does is geared around making gordon crack up. thats pretty gay.

but the counterpart to this is that gordon freemans pretty fucking gay for benrey, too. you may say, “oh, but word of god says its not requited!” and to you i will say: bull shit. gordon is uniquely obsessed with benrey compared to all the other characters. if gordon didnt like the fucking guy, he wouldnt giggle with him and share in-jokes with him and bring him up every 5 seconds when benreys not around. thats concern, bro. thats worry. thats real shit

but i cant blame people for thinking that gordon freeman genuinely doesnt like benrey. benreys partially responsible for some of the worst things that have happened to him, the Arm Thing among them. and gordons very insistent afterward that he doesnt like benrey. he even goes so far as to try to kill benrey a couple times. to this, i must argue that gordon freeman is just kind of a dick.

lets talk facts here. canon. Lore. from the moment we hop into gordons shoes, we can see that he is a jerk to every npc on his way into black mesa. this is his default: a dude who just runs his mouth and says rude shit. he calls tommy a freak within 5 minutes of meeting him. he infantilizes the guy and barely considers him a real scientist. he doubts that bubby is a real name for like no fuckin reason. in “real life”, this is because its funny, and wayne is trying to make a funny half-life stream. in a textual sense, this is because gordon “hlvrai” freeman is a dick. this is the way he acts, consistently, throughout the series.

(brief aside: this is why the whole “gordon is a nice guy and a great dad” characterization baffles me. the way he actually acts in canon is, in short, bitchy and lacking in self-awareness. and i love that for him, i really do. it makes the moments where he just tries to be a nice guy stand out. but thats the thing: his intermittent moments of decency and kindness are not the whole of his personality! this dude kind of sucks most of the time!)

the way that gordons general asshole attitude extends to benrey is complicated. in fairness, benrey makes it his job to annoy the shit out of gordon as much as possible, and that warrants a negative attitude, but gordons pretty paranoid and ends up blaming benrey for nearly everything that happens to him, regardless of if its warranted. this is a pattern he exhibits both before and after the Arm Thing. its a little bit of a dick move! especially considering that, prior to the whole “betrayal” subplot (which was not exactly planned very far in advance), benrey is no more malicious or annoying than anybody else gordons having to travel with.

(okay, this is kind of a subjective evaluation, but still. my point stands that benrey is not any more of a hindrance to his progress than anybody else in the science crew, and neither is he particularly more violent or murderous. hell, gordon freeman has probably killed more guys than benrey. benrey just tends to get.......special treatment.)

all that said, i am still convinced that gordon really fucking likes benrey. please consider with me the following: it would be remarkably easy for gordon to just ignore him and do what he has to do, but he doesnt. he could stop engaging. he could stop thinking about benrey. he could stop bringing benrey up to the rest of the crew every time benrey leaves to do his own thing for awhile. but he doesnt. and, again, yeah, the extra-textual reason for this is “two guys are doing an improv comedy thing and bouncing off of scorpy is kind of the point”, but within the text it reads to me as gordon not being about to get the dude off his mind.

and this is in addition to all the times we see gordon being genuinely nice and receptive toward benrey! its in the little things: laughing the hardest and longest at benreys jokes. only ever reciprocating that stupid underwater “BBBBB” thing with benrey. trying to catch benrey when he falls, despite his insistence moments earlier that benrey should hop in the wack ass crystal generator and get hypermurdered. fondly remarking that benreys sweet voice sounds beautiful. his sort of flustered responses to most of benreys overt flirting. none of this is the way normal people react to a guy they hate. this is all fuckin gay to me, man.

its this combination of the outward insistence that gordon hates benrey with his inner eagerness to be around him and think about him and engage with him that gives off strong “repression” vibes, to me. for whatever reason - pride, embarrassment, resentment - gordon maintains a front of hating the guy and wanting to kill him for a lot of the series, but it doesnt gel with the way he fucking giggles and plays along half the time that benrey starts fucking with him. its a game, and that game is one of the only ways gordon knows to manifest affection for him.

(remember “oh my god, hes got a knife!”? that was the gayest shit i ever seen in my life. tittering like a schoolgirl while benrey chases him around like “im gonna get you haha”. insanity.)

the cool thing about repression is that you can have it manifest in a lot of ways! and this is where things like “headcanons” and “my own personal affection for repressed bisexual men” come in. a lot of how i characterize their relationship is an extrapolation of a lot of things like gordons canonical insecurity issues/anxiety, gordons whole anti-bootboy thing screaming “internet wokeboy who means well but probably has a lot of repressed baggage” to me, etc.

how do you get massive amounts of sexual repression out of what you see in canon, you might ask? well. if wayne would stop having gordon talking about being jerked off by the suit, or talking about chugging a 40-gal drum of potion and having to hold his piss, or worrying about being eaten by benrey the moment he sees benrey at setscale 10, maybe i would have a higher opinion of gordon “hlvrai” freeman and whatever latent psychosexual issues hes got going on. but here we are

i havent even touched yet upon how benrey feels about gordon. this one is helpfully made a little more plain by the fact that benrey very much wants to suck his dick in canon. (i dont even have to go into details. we all know.) but IMO the best part about this ship isnt just that they dig each other, but how. benrey gets overtly flirtatious in the second half of the series, but IMO his preferred method of flirting is just fucking with gordon: chasing him with knives, shoving him around in a bathroom, trying to get scans of his feet. but all in like a slapstick, giggly, fun-and-games sense, you know? at least when it works.

a lot of the time, though, it doesnt work out that way. he clearly just likes doing it whether or not gordon responds positively. which is, you know, Weird. not very nice. but also in line with the way everybody else treats gordon freeman. gordons kind of the universes chew toy in any given universe, and the same holds true here. hes kind of helpless......subjected to 4 demons attempting to make his life as difficult as possible. in a way its cathartic.

sorry. i got sidetracked. anyway, benrey very much likes to mess with him and unnerve him and demean him and i will be perfectly frank with you: that is hot. i have problems and illnesses and one of them is that i am a masochist who goes crazy for that kind of thing. calling gordon a “dirty lil boy” and telling him to “look at the mess [he] made” is some straight up kink scene shit.

i like to imagine that a lot of this behavior isnt caused just by the guy who played him wanting to be funny and antagonistic, but by benrey as a character not really understanding what constitutes “pushing a joke too far”. hes not human, and whatever he is doesnt have a very normative way of understanding the world around him, full of people who actually get hurt for real and die for real. benrey expresses what seems to be genuine surprise and distress after the Arm Thing, as if he didnt know that his actions would have serious consequences. and it doesnt seem to fully sink in afterward, either.

it reads a lot to me like hes used to video game rules and treating people around him like NPCs. if they get hurt, its no big deal, because its not real. he likes jamming random buttons on gordons interface and seeing what comes out. its probably a lot of fun for him, the same way that seeing a streamer or a youtuber suffer for our amusement is fun. its like, you know, in my opinion, gordons very cute when hes frazzled. hes also cute when hes laughing. pushing gordons buttons has a 50/50 chance of either of these things. and this is how he ultimately flirts with gordon: by pulling his pigtails.

but at the same time, benrey does legit care about gordon and knows some boundaries. benreys the one most often shooting at enemies to protect gordon, and he spent most of the last act trying to convince gordon to turn around and not fight him because they were friends (best friends, to be specific). he just lacks a lot of the emotional intelligence it would take to express the feeling of “he digs gordon and likes seeing his face get all red and sweaty regardless of the cause”. and gordon lacks the emotional intelligence it would take to express the fact that he doesnt know if he likes or hates benrey and hes scared as hell that its the former

because, lets be real. unironic benrey-liking is a sign of problems disorder. just look at all these words ive written about it.

can you imagine? this bizarrely powerful, non-human entity that can shrug off gunfire and grow to the size of a building has decided that youre his new plaything. benreys the bored guy booting up skyrim and fucking around in the console, and gordons the hapless favorite follower that hes taken a liking to. its a really fun dynamic IMO

after all this, its safe to say my title is a little misleading. the asterisk stands for * and So Is Benrey, Actually. they are both kind of awful dudes who thrive off of teasing each other and they deserve each other. and i am crazy about it. thank u for coming to my TED talk

[anxiousstark]

S2 05 | Venomous

BIG MASTERLIST | TW REWRITE

Stiles Stilinski x Reader! Half-sibling!Mccall

Word count: 2305

Warnings: Mentions of injuries, murder, swearing (always).

↪ PLEASE RESPECT MY WORK. DON’T COPY, TRANSLATE OR CLAIM THEM AS YOURS. NOT ON THIS WEBSITE OR ANOTHER. ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED.

"All right, I only found one thing online called a kanima. It's a werejaguar from South America that goes after murderers." Stiles grabbed his backpack with one hand while the three of us left class.

"That thing was not a jaguar."

"Yeah, and I'm not exactly a murderer." I chuckled as Stiles threw his hands in the air.

"Yeah, but you did see it kill somebody, which is probably why it tried to kill you. And it's still trying to kill you, and it probably won't stop until you're dead." Scott gazed at me. "Especially, not until she is dead." Thank you for the reminder, dear Scotty.

"You know, sometimes I really begin to question this 'friendship."

"Hey guys," I stopped walking, both of them doing the same thing, peering at me. "I will catch you in the next class. I need to talk to someone." I glanced at Jackson who was resting his side against the lockers, talking to Danny.

"Are you sure?" The Hazel-eyed boy questioned after he followed my gaze. "Do you want me to go with you? Because last time he-"

"It's okay," My hand rested on his right arm, rubbing my finger through his shirt. "Jackson is acting suspicious, more than normal. He has been talking to this guy from class." Both boys waited for me to continue talking. "He asked that boy for his camera, to record himself at night."

"How did you get that information?"

"At the lacrosse game the other night, he started talking and didn't shut up." I chuckled while rolling my eyes to add a little more of dramatism. "He told me that Jackson gave him back the camera, but it was broken. He didn't give any explanation of what had happened. Just told him to send him the bill, rich boy things I suppose."

"Okay," Scott nodded. "We will head to class, then." His hand grabbed my wrist delicately. "If you need help, let me know." I nodded at him, smiling. Then, I grinned at Stiles, knowing that he didn't feel comfortable with the situation. I didn't either, Jackson was hiding something. Something bigger than me.

I walked to Jackson and Danny, putting a sweet smile on my face. "Hi boys!" Danny winked at me. "Uhm, Jackson I need to talk to you about," I bit my lower lip. "About the swimming class!"

Danny nodded at us, saying he was going back to class. Then, I was left alone with the smirking boy.

"You aren't good at lying." He smirked while crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Neither are you, Jackson." The smile disappeared from my face. "What is going on with you? You can't tell me you don't have a little idea of what you are." I mumbled, getting closer to him.

"Do you have any idea of what you are?" He got me there. "There's your answer. I don't either. But I know one thing for sure, Y/N McCall." I hated that last name, it came from someone who probably wouldn't even recognize me if he saw me. "Whatever I am, you are too." I shivered.

"I don't think so." I swallowed. "We might have been scratched by the same thing. But you," I pointed my finger to his chest. "You got scratched by a wolf, and you aren't one." Of course, I did have my suspicions. They only thing we knew for sure was that we weren't werewolves.

"I told you," He glared at me. "Shit going on in your life can affect the bite or scratch. Anxiety and depression can affect the outcome of being scratched by a wolf. You aren't one neither. It means you were also affected by those side effects."

"Flash me," I said. Jackson smirked, getting closer to me. "Your eyes, stupid asshole." I slapped the side of his head.

"I don't know how to do that, but they are yellow." He grabbed his backpack.

"Slit and yellow?" I asked curiously.

"Yes," He started walking away. "Now, if you excuse me I'm going to be a responsible student and go to my class."

I did the same as Jackson, walking to my next class. When I entered, both of my boys were sitting next to Lydia. I was surprised by that as normally Scott would sit with Allison or Stiles, and Stiles would sit with Scott or me. The male McCall made a gesture with his head, Erica and Isaac were sitting behind them. Nice. Derek thought that Lydia was the kanima, but she wasn't. I needed more proof, but I was convinced that the strawberry blonde girl wasn't that beast.

Mr. Harris looked at me. "Grab a seat, McCall." I apologized, doing what he had ordered. "Einstein once said, 'Two things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.' I myself have encountered infinite stupidity." He put his hand on Stiles's shoulder. The poor boy looked up, pouting. "So to combat the plague of ignorance in my class, you're going to combine efforts through a round of group experiments. Let's see if two heads are indeed better than one. Or in Mr. Stilinski's case, less than one. Erica, you take the first station. You'll start with - I didn't ask for volunteers." Most of the boys in the class had their hands up, wishing to be put next to Erica. Horny teenagers. "Put your hormonal little hands down. Start with Mr. McCall. All right, next two."

Allison ended up sitting next to Lydia, Scott next to Erica, Stiles got a random person from class while I got to see next to Isaac Lahey. "If you touch Lydia, I will kill you." I hissed.

"Let me tell you," Isaac looked me up and down while I tried to follow the instructions. He completely ignored my previous words. "You look so beautiful. I can't believe you and Scott share the same daddy." He bit his lower lip. "I could be yours tho." His hand stretched out to touch my hair.

"CHANGE!" We all turned around to stare at Stiles, who had screamed that. He was looking directly at me. "I-I mean, Mr. Harris is time to c-change, right?"

"That's my job, Stilisnki." He glared at him. "Switch."

Now I was sitting next to Allison. "You okay?" I ask while helping her mix whatever we were mixing.

"Are you asking because that bitch put her hand on Scott's thigh." She smiled while gritting her teeth.

"Scott doesn't feel anything for her," I affirmed. "He is a puppy in love with you, Al." She smiled while I used her new nickname. We both continued following Mr. Harris's instructions. Then, I heard Stiles's voice who was sitting in front of me.

"If you harm one perfect (h/c) hair on her head, I'm gonna turn your little werewolf ass into a fur coat and give it to her as a birthday present." His hands moved rapidly, trying to match the instructions given by Mr. Harris. "Actually no, I wouldn't because she doesn't wear clothes that make use of animals to sell more, but that doesn't matter, I will still kill you."

"Mmmh seems like she could kill me with her hands." He was trying to get Stiles even madder. "She told me she would kill me if I touched Lydia." He smirked. "You have a crush on Lydia, right?"

Stiles shook his head, looking up, meeting Isaac's gaze. "Don't touch any of those girls."

"Listen, Stiles," He touched his nose, sniffing. "I could help you get Lydia, and then Y/N will be fully available for me. I told her she was beautiful, and she ignored me." Stiles smiled proudly. "I told her I couldn't believe that Scott and she shared the same fucking dad." He got closer to his ear. "I told her I could be her daddy."

The Hazel eyed boy bit his lower lip, trying to control his rage. "Mm, unrequited love's a bitch. Maybe you should write about it in English class, you know? Channel all that negative energy."

"Nah, I was thinking I'd channel it into killing her. I'm not very good at writing."

Mr. Harris touched the bell. "And switch!" I moved, sitting next to Erica now. Fuck my life. Stiles didn't move from his seat, which made Mr. Harris hit him with a ruler.

"Aw, that must hurt," Erica smirked while resting her head on her hand. "You seem mad, babygirl." She peered at me, still smiling. "I didn't touch your boy this time. I touched Allison's."

I smiled at her. "True, you didn't touch my boy, so I'm going to let this pass. Next time you touch anyone close to me, you are a dead werewolf, Erica. And tell Derek that if he dares touch, Lydia, I will kill him myself. I won't hesitate." I continued grinning. "I won't hesitate to discover what the fuck I am while I kill the three of you slowly, Erica."

"Seems like you are quite similar to your mom." She grinned. "Must feel like shit when your mom was a murderer."

"You and my mother have something in common then," I replied while swallowing, a knot had formed in my throat. "You both murder innocent people."

"Time. If you've catalyzed the reaction correctly, you should now be looking at a crystal. Now for the part of that last experiment, I'm sure you'll all enjoy - You can eat it." My eyes went to Scott to see that he was deeply studying Lydia and Isaac. Lahey has offered the crystal to Lydia, a thick liquid falling from it.

I rubbed my eyes, feeling frustrated. I couldn't help them. I couldn't entirely help them without knowing what creature was I. I yelled inside my head due to the frustration I felt. Next thing I know, the window next to Lydia shattered, the crystal fell to the floor due to the shock. The pieces of the window didn't hurt Lydia at all, but they hurt Isaac.

Scott looked back at me, mouth wide open. I did that?

After class, we parted ways. Scott went to 'talk' to Boyd and Derek to the lacrosse field, Allison went to talk to Lydia's psychiatric after she found out that she could be able to read whatever language the bestiary was in. Meanwhile, Stiles and I accompanied Lydia to the library, scared to leave her alone.

After that, we all reunited except Scott.

"If we're doing a study group, why didn't we just stay in the library?"

"Because we're meeting up with somebody else." His hand sometimes touched Lydia's arm, which made my heart ache for some unknown reason. He was just protecting her.

"Hmm, well, why don't they just meet us in the library?"

"Oh, that would've been a great idea. Too late."

"Okay, hold on-"

"Lydia, shut up and walk." I didn't like the idea of Jackson coming. Nobody was listening to me, Lydia wasn't the kanima. They wanted to protect her in case Derek would get a hold of her, but we needed to do other things, like discover who the fuck was the kanima. Even though, I had some ideas.

We got into Stiles's jeep, and when we arrived at his house, he closed the door, locking it and lying to Lydia, letting her know that there were some robberies on the neighborhood and a fricking murder. Great idea, Stiles.

When Jackson told Lydia that he wanted to talk to her, just the two of them, I didn't like that. But it was the perfect moment to tell Allison and Stiles about Jackson. "Guys listen," I started. "I think I know who the ka-"

I was interrupted when Allison noticed that Derek and the other were outside the house, ready to attack. She called Scott with Stiles's phone. "It's me." She was neurotic, like all of us. But they had to listen to me. "You need to get here now. Right now." When she hanged up, I tried to talk again.

"What are you doing?" I was interrupted by Stiles, who looked at Allison.

"I think...I think I have to call my dad."

"No, but if he finds you here - you and Scott -"

"I know. But what are we supposed to do? They're not here to scare us, okay? They're here to kill Lydia."

"Guys, there's no need in calling your dad, Allison." I raised my voice. "I know who-" I was interrupted, again. Allison was thrown to one side of the room, while Stiles to the other.

I hissed at the person, he turned around, flashing his eyes. Isaac Lahey. "Allison!" I yelled while keeping my eyes on Lahey. "Take care of Stiles!"

"Where are you going?!"

"I'm going to get the Kanima."

I went into some rooms, trying to find anything that would help me find the kanima. One of the windows inside a room had some sticky fluid, which meant the kanima was there. I went out of the window, thankful that Coach had made us climb rock walls.

"Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" I heard Lydia's voice, which meant that they were outside the house.

The kanima looked at me, trying to get away. "Jackson!" It turned around to look at me, he hissed. I groaned. Then, he jumped, pushing me down. I closed my eyes tightly, knowing that my body would hit the ground. Thankfully, I was caught my Stiles, more or less. I ended up on top of him, both of us on the ground. I panted looking around.

"Are you okay?" Scott ignored Derek while coming closer.

"I've been trying to say it all day." I gasped. Stiles sat down, I was still sitting on his lap. "It's Jackson. The Kanima it's Jackson."

What does that make me?

.

.

TAGLIST: @og-baby-ob14 - @savemypostcards - @cas-loves-pizza - @used-avocado - @mvrylee - @bilesxbilinskixlahey - @honeydoll-stark - @arieltheworldisamess - @softpeteparker - @kit-kat-katie99 - @thatsuperherosidekick - @bexbetterxthanxwords - @big-galaxy-chaos - @littlemiss-forgotten - @enchantedcruelsummer - @coldfreakeggsexpert - @merla123 - @sammypotato67 - @weirdowithnobeardo - @maggiesblogsblog - @itskindyl - @bobo-bush - @moongoddesskiana - @multifandxm353 - @irwxnhugsx - @xoprincessmel - @iclosetgeek - @andreagf956 - @niawoods - @anerroroccurrrrred - @perrytheplatypus11 - @trustfundparker - @nmriia - @steve-harringtonnn - @trustfundparker -

People in bold means it doesn’t let me tag them.

[evakuality]

Druck, s5 episode 10 - belated thoughts and overall season impressions

I really like that Nora is still being shown with her symptoms here.  She’s reconnecting with people, and letting people know things about what’s happening, but that doesn’t magically fix everything.  And it’s good that she takes the chance to talk to them a little bit about everything.  It does feel a bit sudden in a lot of ways - she was just anxious about telling the therapist all this stuff and being labeled crazy (I assume - that’s certainly the vibe she gave off) and now she’s super happy to tell the girls all this stuff.  I’m happy that she wants to and feels like she can, but it also feels quite quick.  But that’s the nature of something like this, I guess.  Everything needs to be resolved now.  The whole business with the merch is weird too, with the way she just goes ‘yeah sure, I’m emotionally numb so I’ll draw lots and lots of pictures on lots of things.’  Again, the girls are nice about it, but I guess she feels a bit guilty because it was her who stuffed it up so it feels like there’s some pressure there, even if they don’t mean it.  And ugh, poor Ava when Kieu My turned up - I mean I get that most of this group don’t necessarily know how bad the whole thing was for her but it feels really weird that the focus is on Fatou’s nerves here rather than actually dealing with some of the bigger and more serious stuff that’s floating around with this.  I know it was more the others, but we know from later that this was pretty shitty for Ava.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - I really hope the bullying gets addressed properly and not swept under the table.  The fact that Nora is still happy to be around these people after her experiences with Constantin and Ismail makes me wary.  But I do still have hope that all this will be worked through.  If they are combining the squads (and it looks like they are), then they can’t have this unresolved, not when it’s such a big thing for Ava (and should have affected Nora more if she hadn’t been so numb to everything).

I understand why they have this scene with Kiki about being allowed to stay in the flat by themselves, and I think it’s goods that they deal with all of that (the way Kiki came running as soon as she felt she was needed - it’s not good for her, as they all seem to realise and I’m glad everyone is getting to do what’s working best for them), but it felt very rushed (I suspect I may say that a lot about this episode - it’s all stuff that needs to happen and it’s already quite long, but it feels too fast for me).  And the same with Nora’s comments about therapy.  She says she quite likes it and wants to continue and yet we didn’t see that.  What we saw was a very closed off and belligerent Nora who was only just starting to thaw in that session.  And yes she has a reason to make it all seem more cheerful than she really feels, but it’s still very abrupt as a change.  This is probably the only time I haven’t found a scene with this family compelling and that’s a bit of a shame.

And another rushed moment.  There was a lot shoved into this one clip (Josh, merch, a bullying session, a concert we never heard of til now, a random half-baked apology from Constantin) - for some reason, the show thinks Ismail and Constantin still need to be assholes for no reason.  I mean, clearly it’s designed to show that Kieu My is ‘better’ than they are because she engages and is willing to do ‘12 year old stuff’, but again, if we’re connecting these two squads then this sort of stuff has to stop.  I know I get worked up about this, but it really bugs me.  This behaviour is childish and I’m finding it boring to watch.  Even the apology from Constantin (which does seem sincere) isn’t enough to balance how stupid this ongoing behaviour is.  Hopefully they deal more with that later too and don’t just drop it.  My other take away from this: Nora has to draw 76 things already????  This is going to take forever and I have no idea how she’s going to manage that alongside her classwork.

Oh, I love this little mis-matched table and chair thing they have going on.  It’s so cute and I feel like it really perfectly fits them and their vibes, you know?  This whole friendsgiving idea is so cute and I love that they took what Ava was saying and tried to do something nice for her.  They really are a sweet group of kids.  And her face when she saw it is just ... perfect.  Ugh, when am I getting my Ava season?????  This little conversation between Nora and Josh is very good, too.  You can feel him trying and how hard it is for them both.  I do wish they had dragged this part out a bit longer, either pushing the original break up to earlier in the season or by spreading this into another one, but I like that they’re showing this part.  It IS awkward and difficult to be friends with someone you have feelings for and good on Josh for saying that he just can’t do it.  It hurts and it’s hard, but honesty really is key.  And that, for me, is the biggest thing Nora has had to learn this season.  You can’t hide behind a face and expect things to be okay.  So all these moments of honesty that she’s facing and dealing with, those are so important to her growth.  And then we end with the girls supporting each other which I also really love.  They are all super adorable!

This last clip is also nice.  I still think this sudden ‘live concert’ coming out of nowhere in this last episode is a bit rushed, but the execution is cool.  Ava and Fatou are adorable together and I need a lot more of them singing.  I’m not 100% feeling the thing with Josh and Nora, which is kind of ironic, but it is cute.  I just wish this had all been given more time.  In fact these are the things I wish had more space: the Cash Queens reunion/reconciliation (it needed more conversation/discussion), the Constantin/Ismail/Kieu My stuff being dealt with in more depth (though hopefully this is coming), the Machwitz siblings deciding to live together and Kiki being okay with it (that one needed another clip or two, I think), and the Josh/Nora reconciliation.  Some things have been done really well.  I do think Nora’s mental health was done well, and I liked that it makes clear in this episode that she isn’t totally well and doesn’t expect to be in the near future.  Having said that, I’m not a huge fan of the ‘minute by minute’ idea being moved here.  In some ways it works (this is about a mental illness, after all, and so it fits in that way), but in others ... that’s so iconic for a specific situation and this doesn’t fit in with that one.  Even needed it in a very specific way, and Nora needs something, sure, but I don’t think quite nails her specific needs and I wish they had thought it through for her a little more thoroughly.

Overall, I like the episode.  My biggest issue with this episode is that it’s trying to do so much in such a short time.  Every clip has so much packed into it that nothing really feels like it has time to breathe.  I assume there’s a reason why they’re sticking to 10 episodes, but I wish that either they didn’t have to or that they had paced things more evenly through the season.  The great strength of Skam and Druck is, I feel, that everything is allowed to be paced as it needs to be.  That things happen in a way that gives weight and meaning to lives in a way that isn’t dramatic and isn’t overwrought, but which shows truths about people and their lives.  That this episode hasn’t been able to do that in the same way is a shame.  It’s the ending; it should be the strongest one.  Having said that, I think the friendsgiving clip manages to do exactly that and I love it for it.  It is my favourite clip of this episode and one of my favourites of the season.  This probably feels negative and like all I’m doing is criticising the episode and the season, but that’s not true at all.  

Overall I really enjoyed this season, particularly the sibling dynamics and getting to know the new girls.  It has its flaws, but so do my absolute favourite seasons, and I think it’s a really nice entry into a new gen and some new characters.  The mental illness plot was good to see and I really liked some of the decisions they made around showing its build up and how it affected Nora.  The lighting chosen, the framing, some of the shots they chose - it all built that part up very well.  And while the resolution to it did feel a bit rushed, I do like the acknowledgement that it’s still part of Nora and she’s going to be dealing with it into the future.  And while I’m not on board with Kieu My being the love interest until and unless they address the bullying properly, I do like that we have plots already brewing for next season.  Ava is clearly not cool with it (that whole ‘you deserve better than her’ thing she said to Fatou), and Fatou was clearly thinking she had a chance until the Freindsgiving business and so things are set up for the new season.  It’s a really decent intro to the new era, and solidly sets up characters while telling a story that is good and even compelling in places.

[live-long-and-time-warp]

It’s hard to leave your toxic friends... but it’s so worth it

I don’t normally do this, but as I sat in a Saturday morning meeting thinking about all of the things I felt this past Friday, I felt compelled to share my story.

A brief background: throughout college and for several years afterward, I considered my tight-knit group of college friends as some of my closest. In addition to my best friend of 20 years, some friends from high school, my work team, and some other dear friends scattered across the globe and throughout the U.S., this group of college friends was who I considered to be my foundation. This group of friends was extremely important to me, but it was not without its bumps in the road.

In my senior year of college, I had a falling out with one of these friends, the ringleader I’ll call her. I say this because she is quite honestly the source of 95% of my problems with this group. She is a master manipulator, and an expert gaslighter. There were a few others that contributed to this too, but she was by far the worst.

I can’t elaborate on every single thing that this person said and did over our 7 year “friendship” but a brief summary would be: asking me point blank if I thought I might be a lesbian after coming out as bi (to this friend group and in her presence, I might add) only several months prior; asking me how much money I spend on books about “Chernobyl” every month with the implication that she’s concerned about my finances; telling me that my resume may not be as impressive as I think it is (I’m the deputy director of a nonprofit with both state-based and national projects and had been for close to a year prior to this conversation); would clean up the crumbs from in front of me while I was still eating and comment on my messiness; told me that one of our mutual friends doesn’t like discussing politics with me because I get too fired up (again, I work for a nonprofit that deals with social justice); telling me that crying while comforting my friend who had just lost a loved one to suicide after they began crying was weird and that I “stole her thunder” (we were slightly drunk, I’m an empath, and she was talking about some deeply personal things that moved me and crying was my natural response... and oddly, she was appreciative of my tears because I was “the only person that actually stayed with her”); and so much more that I know I’m forgetting.

There were many other things more insidious, including gaslighting me about my inclusion in several group activities and why it should have been obvious why one friend disliked me enough to not invite me to her wedding after years of claiming cluelessness.

In our senior year, I left that friend for the first time after she humiliated me at a party by commenting loudly and with condescension on my weight. When I cut ties with her, I felt as if I had just left an abusive relationship, and for a while I didn’t want to seek a friendship with her again.

But the other friends in our group still hung out with both of us, so eventually I allowed myself to be sucked back in. 

In the years after we graduated, I thought that this person had actually changed- I worked abroad for a year after college, and after returning I saw a marked difference in her demeanor and how she interacted with us. She seemed more self-aware of how her words and actions adversely affected other people, and I thought that maybe the ugliness of that horrible portion of my senior year was now just a faded scar.

But then things escalated very quickly. Over the course of several weeks at the beginning of this year, I started to feel myself questioning whether I had made the right choice in rejoining the group: I was so sure of how I felt after I left it the first time, I felt so empowered and free. So why did I allow myself to rejoin them? Was it really the right choice?

I got my answer a week after the insurrection at the Capitol. One friend who already had a history of saying hateful things about women (which I tried to put a stop to to no avail) finally went full white supremacist asshole, and instead of joining me in calling his comments unacceptable and defending me as he mansplained my job to me, the ringleader criticized me and told me that “I can work in activism and politics and be wrong”.

That’s the moment I finally woke up.

I left the chat that very moment. Every time they added me back without my consent, I left again.

Every time I got message from the ringleader that was full of gaslighting comments and false apologies, I didn’t say a word. Just deleted the message. Finally, I was able to gather the strength needed to block those toxic friends from all social media and my phone. One of these friends was someone I tried to make like me for years after I was told that she hated me for no reason, by her own admission.

Some may not agree with this approach, but I made the choice to cut contact and go radio silent on my own after consulting my friends, specifically my best friend who had been there for me during the incident my senior year.

As weeks went by, some of the true friends from that group reached out, and then immediately backed off after my polite request for space, indicating that I was welcome back at any time and they were always here for me.

The ringleader chose the opposite approach. She continued to gaslight me, made a group chat with myself, the white supremacist, and herself. She sent me messages from her second account, one that I remembered to unfriend but forgot to block. She told me that if I don’t “course correct” by a certain date she would block me on my account (too late, bro) and that “we wish you all the best”. This implies that it was on behalf of the entire group, something I know three of them would never do. However, at this point, I have had to distance myself from all of those friends so as not to give the ringleader the attention she wants from me.

I lost over half of my closest friends over night. It felt like my skeleton had been torn from my body. I considered giving in several times and reaching out to them. But now, over a month later, I understand how necessary it was to excise what was essentially a malignant tumor. The Chernobyl researcher in me wants to compare it to Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS): an unseen poison that slowly infiltrates every part of your mind and body and rots them from the inside out.

2020 was an extremely hard year for me, as it was for so many. I am so lucky and privileged to have been in the financial situation that I was and had the support of my genuine friends and family.

But it was still the worst year of my life. I have suffered from pretty bad OCD for most of my life, and while I usually keep it under control, last year it became nearly impossible to do so. I also fell very deeply into clinical depression, and worked to the point of burn out and exhaustion. The primary thoughts I had during this depression were: 

“Why aren’t you working? You’re lazy.”

“You’re a failure, you’re 26 and haven’t applied to grad school yet.”

“You piece of shit, still living with your parents? What a disappointment.”

“What is wrong with you?”

It was unbearable. I’m honestly not entirely sure how I survived it, but I think a certain 3-year-old goddaughter of mine and a few close, real friends had something to do with it.

I worked very hard with my friends, a therapist, and a psychiatrist to overcome this depression and get my OCD back under control. Now, I feel like such a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I still have depression, and the OCD will always be with me (like a bad habit... literally?); but I am so much more happy with myself and my life, as I should be.

And I am very, very, very well aware that therapy was not the only reason I have recently begun feeling this way. It’s very hard to see that you’re being manipulated while it’s happening. Because of my trusting nature, sometimes manipulative comments would be interpreted as heartfelt guidance.

It wasn’t until I started the journey away from them that I saw just how much this group and their negativity (because even the best of them weren’t always the kindest) impacted my mental health.

The event that made me want to share this story is this: yesterday was a rough work day. As a full-time community organizer, I am pretty much burnt out all of the time. Breaks are taken, but with projects addressing issues from COVID relief to systemic racism and police brutality, it never feels like enough. 

I had to officially take a step back as a sole lead on an annual event that I organized for two years, and it was gut-wrenching.

Now, I cry often, but I don’t usually get to have therapeutic cries. You know what I mean? Like, as you cry, all of the tension that built up in your body by negative feelings is finally being released with every breath and sob?

Well, the dam finally broke in a team meeting on Friday. I started sobbing and couldn’t stop. And my colleagues were so, so kind. They let me vent, they let me cry, they would not accept my apologies for crying. They told me that I was strong for setting up boundaries, and that they were here for me.

We spent a lot of time at the end of the meeting each talking about our self-care routines. And as I sit here typing this, I am actively trying not to cry at the purity of their support.

This experience has taught me what real friends are. Real friends do not put limitations on your emotions and fears.

Real friends do not give you deadlines for processing your feelings.

Real friends do not criticize you for things that, while they may not agree with, do not affect anyone’s health or marginalize anyone.

Real friends don’t marginalize vulnerable communities.

Real friends help and support you with constructive criticism (when it’s asked for) and love, not patronization and manipulation.

I thought I knew all of these things before, but I know now that I am still learning... and that that is perfectly okay. I don’t regret most of the times we shared together. I am appreciative of the positive memories that their friendships gave me.

Three of the friends in this group are actually good people, and maybe one day when the dust is settled I’ll reach out to them and establish one-on-one friendships with them (if they want to). 

And I have to thank my real friends, including @tryingtobealwaystrying, for all saying the exact same thing: you deserve so much happiness and fuck all of those guys.

So, the point of this post is to tell everyone this: you can leave your toxic friends. It’s incredibly difficult, stressful, and honestly traumatizing. And there’s no shame in needing time or feeling unable to leave those friends now. There’s also no shame in returning to those friends.

But please know, from this nerd to the reader: anyone that makes you feel any less than the beautiful, amazing human being you are and doesn’t want to help you become an even better human on your own terms is not a true friend. They don’t deserve you or the light you can bring into their lives.

And every agonizing step away from those friends is a step closer to a happier, healthier life.

[retphienix]

Ah. What a game this has been so far.

Now I had a million thoughts I wanted to share as this played out, lord knows I’ll forget a good portion of them but that’s the nature of my own ineptitude- plenty of things I’ll remember MILES after this post or only if prompted in a specific way and that’s just how it is.

To start- this isn’t the end of DQ11 for the blog just yet. I usually don’t dive into post game unless it feels right or people ask and I’m convinced- and more or less both happened this time. It does feel right- I have definite goals I want to tackle before saying I’m happy with what I did here- and more than one person has mentioned that the post game is worth touching so I’ll be doing that.

Also, for those unfamiliar with my long winded utter mess of a finale post style I go for- this is a lot of rambling as I try my best to touch on my thoughts on the game overall because I like to share. Feel free to just press “J” on your keyboard and skip right passed this- I know **I** struggle to focus my eyes to read long winded posts so I won’t blame you.

Also also, in order to try and spark some of those thoughts I had during this recording the first bit is gonna be me re-watching it as I wait on the video to finish processing and saying what comes up.

To start- really wish there was a save point there lol. I get that it’s a painfully easy backtrack to the save point at the start of the castle- but still, I like convenience.

The Dark Lord’s first form is a huge step up from his form before absorbing Yggdrasil and this first form fight was fun and had me itching to say some good things about it but honestly? I want to save praise for the fight that deserves it- phase 2.

PHASE TWO THOUGH!? GOD TIER RPG FIGHT.

I’ve seen better, sure, but come on, we’ve ALL seen better at all times on all things especially considering preferences coming into it- this was a 10/10 boss fight, top to bottom.

Design? Beautiful. Even continued the DQ obsession with puns with his tail being Mordragon, that is so PERFECT so ‘chef kiss’ flawless and it’s just a name. I LOVE how he looks. I LOVE how he moves around the arena changing which head you’re facing.

I love how each had different strengths to contend with (which I abruptly fucked up, don’t call me out, I’ll prove I know what was going on right here and right now-). The dragon had strong melee and breath attacks while the dark lord himself had magic aplenty.

I even utilized swapping out for the first time ever not because I hadn’t seen the value beforehand (I’ve spoken on how interesting a strategic option it was seeing as every unit has unique moves to bring to the table and it costs nothing but ATB for that unit to do).

Now, I fucked that up, but I did it purely because this is the first fight up to this point that felt right to do so. It’s the first time the tactical value of switching out to buff defenses with Hendrik outvalued ignoring that option and maintaining my ATB on whomever I would switch out. THAT FELT SO GOOD! And then I let my braindead fingers buff defense on a magic phase and you see the point. It was brilliant but I was not!

I did end up ignoring the option after a few turns not because the value wasn’t there, but because he ALSO spams stat neutralizing moves which made me reconsider focusing so heavily on buffs and instead focusing on maintaining steady heals (mostly with Hustle dance).

This fight? Beautiful. I loved every second of it. I loved adjusting my playstyle on the fly, I loved finding my footing. I just loved it.

Beyond that- the ending. I got a chuckle out of how abrupt the credits come in. It seems to wind up for an end sequence only for Erik to say “Well, let’s go home” and it cuts to the credits- but THEN the credits ARE the end sequence so it wasn’t ACTUALLY as abrupt as it seemed, but it got a laugh out of me.

Now those credit scenes? I’m a sucker for games that make you fall in love with the characters and this was an ending catering to those characters. Not too much to say outside of “I was smiling the entire time” which is true.

There were a couple moments in that sequence that I said aloud “JUST HUG HIM YOU COWARD” to various characters, like Hero and Rab, or the two dorks (hero and Gemma), etc.

And they played on the mystique of the post game’s content well enough to pull people in I’d say- certainly more than what I recall DQ8 doing with the dragon trials.

I am probably wrong, but I recall the game drawing next to no attention to that post game content aside from a few moments in the game dragging you to the location only to not let you access it (hinting at more being there).

Anyway.

Honestly, after rambling about the video itself I feel a lot of what I wanted to say about DQ11 was said during the playthrough just fine. I rarely feel that way.

DQ11 was fun.

As a DQ fan, you can best believe I had fun.

As a stick in the mud who is disillusioned toward the game industry and doesn’t like a lot of the filth that accumulates within it- I obviously have a few negative thoughts on the game, but there really aren’t perfect games so much as perfect experiences based on how it affected you.

And I’ve voiced those annoyances plenty I think. For completion sake there are cut corners on animations that seem off when other places have a ton of attention to detail, that’s like bottom rung “I don’t actually give a shit” stuff though.

The bigger problems were Sugiyama is a horrible piece of human garbage and the game is lesser because of his influence on it. There are plenty of reasons behind that both big and small. Big- it feels gross having a human shitsack touching this game after having been so vocal for years- there are replacements at the ready and we still have his LGBT hating, war crime denying fingers handling the music? Shameful.

Small (but man did it fucking suck) being that every five minutes I was annoyed at the music in this game. It sounds Bad. And I mean both orchestral and midi, it’s not great compared to anything he made before for DQ, but the fact that it’s midi in this is EAR BLISTERING.

I’m not one to listen close to most music while playing for whatever reason- and I admit that knowing who’s responsible is half of why my ears tuned it in instead of tuning it out, but man I couldn’t help it and it sucks.

The same 3 second ear rattling loops are ALL OVER THE PLACE. Grandiose moments are cut short by bland midi tunes. MAIN STORY MOMENTS ARE LACKING MUSIC ALTOGETHER FOR SOME REASON? When the hero gets the flute and plays it for the first time it just DIDN’T MAKE A NOISE? Subsequent uses of the flute made a noise, but not the main first cutscene?

It’s a whole thing.

And don’t make me get that dirty capitalist pain in my chest over the fact the S version was released 2 months after this and includes so much content that SCREAMS “This already existed and we diced and quartered it specifically to create the illusion of ‘value’ for this release”. Disgusting, man. :/

Gameplay wise, the biggest complaint I have is so loaded and half hearted but I have to say it anyway.

DQ is good because it’s simple.

DQ can also be a little lacking because it’s simple.

This was the second most fun I’ve had playing a main series DQ game (DQIII just hits right), and it definitely has better gameplay (so my opinion is subjective) than the one I prefer to this. But it was also a bit too simple... But you can’t change that and be DQ, it’s complicated.

To just say it- other than the final boss every encounter was a bit too easy. And I know I overlevel, I know that’s the point, I know there’s a hard mode modifier- I KNOW, but the final boss was REALLY GOOD AND still not too hard, so the fact that most every other encounter did the minimum or the minimum +1 is a little tiny (just a bit) disappointing because the gameplay could have been that much better.

But. That could just be my head spinning tales and being a biased asshole especially since I’m not offering any solution here and I’m admitting it’s both “better than my favorite gameplay in the main series” and “probably can’t be made more involved without losing DQ simplicity”.

But I’d kill for some different or new systems on top of this- dual and triple techs from Chrono instead of RNG pep, bosses with more varied strategies instead of “stun 2-3 and do raid wide attack”.

A reason to care about elemental damage (both incoming and outgoing), plenty of little things that would just make the already solid as hell combat more interesting to participate in.

Story was honestly fantastic. I didn’t know how I was going to end that until I just let it come. It was. This is the best DQ story thus far, and not to limit it to that scope- this was a GOOD DAMNED STORY overall and I’ve played a fuckload of games with good stories.

Before this I was a sucker for the original trilogy’s overarching story, which is unfair because that’s 3 games and that’s an old story and it’s only “good” because it’s unprecedented. But this is just plain great.

It writes such beautiful characters- it tackles a variety of conflicts both big and small- you have Sylv and his dad, you have a possessed king declaring his daughter Jade dead and Jade knowingly betraying him without knowing he’s possessed, you have Erik giving up on life and only putting himself so deeply into this adventure as a means of escape, you have Hendrik’s loyalty being- I can’t pretend Hendrik fits in he’s fucking stupid and needs to ask questions because loyalty for the sake of loyalty isn’t interesting at all lol.

You have Rab believing the world is doomed and doing all he can with Jade up until they find you are alive. You have the INCREDIBLE story of Veronica and Serena- you have all these intensely lovable and understandable characters (and Hendrik) and the story is so much more about them than just about the dark lord and the hero.

It’s so much more about each of their conflicts and growth because all of that is HOW the hero will defeat the dark lord.

It’s just so much more... investing than any of the stories I’ve had in DQ before and strong as hell amongst stories beyond just DQ.

I loved this. It was emotional at times, it was downright depressing at times which I wouldn’t expect DQ to successfully hit, it was downright rewarding getting to know these characters and I feel fantastic having beaten this.

This game is fucking good. I finally understand why some people have told me this is their favorite DQ now. It... yeah I think it might be mine too.

I’d be much more likely to revisit DQ3 than this because it’s shorter and has a specific kind of RPG (class based with freely recruited partners instead of named party members) I find more fun to revisit, but yeah, I think I agree.

I think for main-series DQs this is it, this is my favorite. It has to be, right? It’s got so many INCREDIBLE story moments and it’s pretty and it plays great- yeah. Hell, Sylvando as a character and Serena and Veronica’s arc BY THEMSELVES convince me of that.

Still got nothing on DWM and DWM 2 on the GBC, WOOOOT! Didn’t expect this post to divert from a serious closing thoughts (despite there being a few more posts to come) topic to posting this did you?

Behold the true faces of DQ perfection.

[arsonforcharlie]

God the concept of introducing and fleshing out a character and then just sending them on their way is so funny, though. Like, indeed not something that sounds like I want to watch it, but thank you for the description. It was a gift

it was so jarring! like, this character was given a surprising amount of setup for someone that didn’t affect anything at all. she literally shows up, gets more character development at dinner than anyone else (granted that’s not saying much since the other characters boil down to “bimbo,” “man who Fucks,” “glasses,” “boomer meme wife,” “anger issues,” and “naked?” but still) and then just says “sorry i can’t go to the actual plot of the movie with you, it’s okay, though, i’m going to a sexy party!” and then has a little back and forth about how she’s getting there and then is gone. and i was like “oho, she’s gonna show up at the end as a final victim, or she’s the mastermind or something!” but no, she’s just gone forever. at the end of the movie the evil mastermind dude is talking to the last survivor and goes “aha, you’re traumatized....... so the question is............ did you escape................. or did your friends” and the real answer is that Sexy Party escaped having to be friends with these petty assholes. good for her.

here’s some more notes i am still thinking about this next morning because they’re dumb, under a cut for length and horror content and also i guess if anyone didn’t want Escape Room (2017) spoiled?

i haven’t seen many modern horror movies with just such open, aggressive contempt for women. the majority of the named characters in this movie are female (Bimbo, Boomer Wife, Naked?, and the aforementioned Sexy Party) and in the movie’s runtime they contribute 3 things to the plot- one is booking the escape room and the other two are getting betrayed by Anger Issues. the rest of the time they’re either just scared or horny and that’s all that keeps them going. usually there’s at least a Powerful Sexy Scared Lady Moment. women in this movie are on par with, like, early bond movies when it comes to agency

relevant, boy HOWDY is Boomer Wife just, like, comically awful. i know i mentioned her earlier but it’s just pointless antagonism with no payoff. pretty much every line her husband, Glasses, has, she responds to negatively. like, literally “there must be a way out of here” “THEN WHY DON’T YOU FUCKING FIND IT” until he dies. meanwhile, every time Anger Issues says or does anything she just coos and rubs herself all over him and, like, we get it

i feel uncomfortable with a woman who is not intelligent enough to figure out on her own that e is the fifth letter of the alphabet spending half her time onscreen doing sex stuff. real sexy baby woman territory hours

this is a really poorly designed escape room AND deathtrap? like, the end puzzle requires that four of the five players get incapacitated and that Anger Issues makes it through, but at least 2 of those deaths were completely unnecessary. (one was the input to a puzzle needing to be put in by someone in a locked room that would then be filled with acid gas, but both Man Who Fucks and Bimbo were in there to do the input for no reason except so they could make out, even though Anger Issues was the one who actually solved the puzzle. the other was a dude getting cut in half because somehow he got his foot stuck on something in a four foot square completely straight air vent with nothing on the inside to get caught on but WHATEVER.) the prop that unlocks the exit door is very obvious and visible from the very start- a taxidermy bear head with an opening about the size of someone’s arm to reach into. if i’m in an escape room you KNOW i am reaching into that first thing, and then i’d have the whole hour to rig up something with the other props in the room so that someone could open the door without someone’s hand being in the crushing trap inside the bear head. (there were at least four things i saw they could have used) what happens if Bimbo had decided to stare at the ceiling outside the acid gas room or they didn’t just crawl into the vents so glasses man dies of magnetic foot i guess? does everyone who survived just sit on each other’s lap in the last room in the obvious murder chair? the point is to get Anger Issues and Anger Issues alone to the last room, but there’s so many variables that could have made either him not be able to make it there or let other people through. as a dungeon master smh

if you’re gonna spend a thousand dollars a head to do an escape room that you don’t know anything about, you deserve to die. like if an invitation shows up on your doorstep asking you to go to an escape room and you say “sure, take my money, let’s all get in an unmarked party bus with no windows and give you our phones and blindfold each other” yeah, okay, you don’t know you’re getting murdered but like you gotta kinda know

so the deaths. Bimbo and Man Who Fucks get dissolved by acid. yeah, okay, all their skin stuck to each other’s skin while they were making out and fell off, they’re skellingtons now, obviously dead. Glasses gets neatly bisected because his foot got caught on nothing. okay, clearly obviously dead. Anger Issues gets impaled through the chest in the obvious murder chair that he didn’t have to sit on but chose to. absolutely dead. Boomer Wife, however, just gets her arm either crushed or cut off and that’s treated as “welp, she’s gone forever” like WHAT? people live every day with just one arm, she will be FINE. i can almost see her banging on the door like “i’m not dead yet! i’m getting better! i feel happy!”

less of a big thing but there is a point where Anger Issues growls out of nowhere “Teddy Bear Picnic.......... only Naked would know i HATE this song” and it’s just completely apropos of nothing because it’s not related to what he hates or likes, it’s a hint to look in the bear head, and it doesn’t come up before or after, and he’s a grown man complaining about a children’s song as though he’s a seven-year-old making up anti-Barney poetry and not a full adult who just watched his sister’s flesh get melted off while she dry-humped her boyfriend

there’s a lot okay

[maxknightley]

"Re: The third point, I could go on about the specific example of Dragon Quest and how I think Undertale works best when read as a response to that franchise + similar series in particular" do you think you could find the time to elaborate?

Fair warning. This one is a bit long.

Let’s talk about Dragon Quest.

Overview

The Dragon Quest series of games (originally localized as Dragon Warrior in the U.S. due to a copyright/trademark issue) is pretty much one of the “Big Two” JRPG franchises alongside Final Fantasy. It’s extremely big in Japan, while enjoying more moderate success in the United States. 

I’m not going to go into too much detail comparing the two or talking about their history, but I think it’s relevant to note that Dragon Quest games tend to be straightforward, high-fantasy stories in a way that a lot of beloved JRPGs (Final Fantasy included) aren’t. You’ll fight a robot from time to time, but sci-fi elements beyond that are rare; explicit social commentary/allegory is extremely rare; the plot rarely becomes especially bizarre or complex, with the narratives tending to rely a lot on characterization to make an impact; and so on.

(I should note that none of this is a bad thing, per se - I love Dragon Quest games. DQ8 and DQ11 are some of my favorite RPGs of all time, in large part because of their gorgeous settings and excellent character work, and I’ve played a fair few!)

Monsters

With that being said, if you know anything about JRPGs, you probably know how the player spends most of their time in a Dragon Quest game - going from town to town and dungeon to dungeon, fighting a wide array of whimsical monsters. (big ups to Akira Toriyama for his excellent character designs, with the exception of the Cyclowns, which I hate a lot.) There’s sidequests and minigames and such, but by and large, this is how the player interacts with the world - find monsters, fight monsters, get strong enough to fight the Big Boy monsters, maybe halfway through you start fighting the occasional anime boy or possessed dog.

The role that monsters play in the narrative is also, for the most part, very simple: they’re almost exclusively the minions of either the local boss/miniboss, or of the big mean demon lord you fight at the end of the game, and pretty much all they do is terrorize villagers, cause mayhem, and so on.

Note that I said almost exclusively...

“Don’t worry, I’m a nice monster!”

...because in basically every Dragon Quest game, some monsters are chill and friendly. Most commonly, this will be a slime, the franchise mascot:

Sometimes they’ll show up at the bottom of a well and give you a trinket for talking to them, other times they’ll hang out in a dungeon and give you some lore or a hint about a nearby puzzle. They say a lot of things like “goo-ness gracious” and it’s very cute and charming, and, uh, hang on, these guys talk, and make puns, and aren’t just bags of XP and herbs? Okay. Sure.

Depending on the game, you can often encounter other monster friends as well. Sometimes there’ll be a town with friendly monster NPCs to talk to; other times, beating monsters allows you to recruit them to your party or your Monster Arena team. It’s neat.

But what never changes is that it’s some monsters that are nice. A tiny minority. And they’re only ever a curiosity, a side note. They’re the exception that proves the rule, and the rule wants to kill you.

Which brings me to:

The One Guy Who Isn’t Evil

There’s a thing that a lot of speculative fiction does where cultures are set up as broad and all-encompassing. These are the Primitive But Kind Bear Goblins, and over here are the Mafia Slugs. These are the Prissy Forest Guys, and they hate the Gruff Cave Guys.

This isn’t necessarily bad writing, but it can be a bit repetitive and one-note after a while, so a lot of speculative fiction also has The One Guy Who Isn’t Like That. The illogical robot, the pacifistic/intellectual barbarian, the pragmatic and materialistic guy who bailed on the monastery.

And, of course, The One Guy Who Isn’t Evil. The vampire who doesn’t drink human blood. The dark elf paladin. That one dragon from Skyrim with the cool speech. They’re very useful characters, in that they soften the Troubling Implications of an entire species or ethnicity of bastards, and there’s a lot of cool stories you can tell about their conflict with family and former friends, and perhaps even... with themselves... with the beast within.

At the core of these stories is the assumption that a creature capable of thinking independently and acting on their own free will can always choose to be good, regardless of their “nature.”

But this goes both ways. If something is capable of choosing to be “good,” or even “nice,” they have to be able to conceive of these concepts. To make that choice. They can’t truly be Made Of Pure Evil, or be beasts acting on instinct, or be slaves to the will of a much more powerful entity.

Are Slimes People?

So, in the example of Dragon Quest, we’ve reached a conundrum. Some monsters - very few, but some - are nice, or at least open to conversation. Most are only there to, pardon the phrasing, kill or be killed.

Which means there’s basically two main possibilities:

Some slimes are nice and they’re always already nice. They attacked you first so it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.

Slimes are definitely all thinking, feeling beings, and it’s probably a little fucked up to kill a bunch of them because you’re saving up money for the casino, even if they “attacked you first” after you spent a half hour running in circles, Erdrick.

The first one works fine for the context of a story like Dragon Quest, because we can employ suspension of disbelief. But it kind of unravels if you look at it for too long. In some installments, there are evil but non-hostile monsters who won’t attack you, but will deliver a whole little monologue about how cool Lord Merdur of Fort Finalboss is. And, hey, what causes a monster to decide to be nice instead of evil? 

For the most part, we never learn, because it doesn’t matter. The Nice Monster is a throwaway character, usually a bit of a joke. They’re there for flavor, not because of what their existence implies.

And that’s kind of weird, right?

Undertale As Response

It’s obvious how Undertale works as a critique on level grinding and the like, but this alone would be kind of facile, imo. People will say, “well, that monster was trying to kill me, so I acted in self-defense. It’s only fair.” And it can be difficult to argue against this without getting into weird arguments about monsters’ Actual Motivations or the relative negative utility of thousands being imprisoned beneath a mountain vs. seven children being killed.

Here’s the thing that I think a lot of people ignore, though. Undertale is also a critique of the idea that Some Monsters Are Nice, as seen in Dragon Quest and similar games. And part of why that critique works is because it does not allow you to set up a dividing line. All those monsters have a place in Underground society - you can’t simply write some off as Fights while viewing others as worthy of kindness or redemption.

If you spare Toriel and Papyrus, because they’re nice and well-meaning... then how can you justify killing Undyne and Mettaton, who are kind of assholes, but have good intentions, and are pillars of the community?

If you spare Undyne and Mettaton, how could you justify killing Whimsun, who’s terrified of you? Or Temmie, who’s just kind of scatterbrained and weird? Or Snowdrake, who constantly tells bad jokes, just like your friend Sans would if you had to fight him?

So how could you justify killing Tsundereplane and Vulkin, so desperate for affection?

So how could you justify killing Muffet, so desperate to save her family and friends?

And so on, and so on, until we reach Moldsmal.

Oh! That One’s A Slime! Is Maxie Tying It All Together?

Trying to, anyway.

This is Moldsmal and Moldbygg. They’re called that because they’re Jell-O Mould monsters.

Moldsmal just kind of sits there, lazily firing bullets. Its description says it has “no brains.” If any monster is okay to kill, it’s this one, right?

Moldbygg pretends to be a Moldsmal, but is actually big. It also has explicit boundaries and preferences: It does not want to be hugged. You spare it by Not Hugging it. It’s goofy, but still: Moldbygg, explicitly, has thoughts and emotions.

And if it’s not okay to kill Moldbygg, how the hell are you going to justify killing Moldsmal? They’re both slimes! They’re practically identical! Maybe they have family reunions where instead of eating the Jell-O one of them just sits on the dining table! You don’t know!!

So Here’s My Thesis On The Morality of Undertale Or Whatever

Fundamentally, the commentary Undertale is making on the idea of the “nice monster,” the “recruitable monster,” the “monster town,” is this:

If one monster can be your friend, is there actually a reason all of them can’t be?

And it says “no, what, that’s dumb,” and I don’t think it’s wrong to do so. Viewing Undertale specifically with this additional context, of the weird push-and-pull certain RPGs have between “that’s a monster! kill it for loot!” and “okay well not that monster,” shores up the related critique of XP grinding by rooting it in a more specific moral core.

Anyway I hope that all made sense, I’m gonna go eat exactly one maraschino cherry and have a glass of water

[brittle-bone-gabe]

Bitter Cold

Summary: Richie just wants to cuddle; Eddie is feeling especially playful.   Pairings: Adult Reddie (Richie x Eddie) Read on Ao3: Here 

Chicago wasn’t a stranger to heavy snow falls, in fact, it normally started snowing in the middle of November. Richie Tozier has spent many winters alone in Chicago in his apartment, but now it was his first winter with his boyfriend Eddie in their small house. Since Eddie moved in, there were blankets. Every. Fuckin’. Where. At least three blankets scattered around the living room, and a mountain of blankets in their bedroom. His excuse was that he got way too cold in the winter and the blankets were a necessity, also that apparently Chicago was a lot colder during the winter months than New York. Richie couldn’t help but roll his eyes whenever his boyfriend went on a rant about how the cold affects the human body negatively. Something something... weaker immune systems... something something... reduced blood flow. Who knows, Richie stopped listening when he couldn’t catch up with his fast speech patterns, especially since he had just woken up when he started his ramblings. 

Richie came home from the store, he had to shovel his driveway first before he was able to get out. It was almost 20 degrees outside, but Richie was only wearing his leather jacket, no gloves, no boots, but a thin hat that Eddie insisted he’d wear before leaving. Well, he would prefer if Richie actually dressed appropriately for the weather, but Richie claimed that: “it didn’t look cool,” which made Eddie want to smack him. “I mean, you can’t catch a cold from simply not bundling up, but when you get cold, your sinuses get dry and that makes bacteria hang on, making it easier for you to get sick,” Eddie had explained to his boyfriend as he was following him around the house as he was preparing to go to the store. In the end, Richie went out and Eddie stayed home since he didn’t want to get too cold, even though Richie offered to warm the car up for him. 

Without thinking, Richie entered the house without taking off his shoes, so he wandered into the kitchen with handfuls of plastic bags while tracking in a bunch of snow with him. To be fair, he was exhausted, not sleeping too well anymore and wasn’t thinking when he plopped the bags on the counter. He had no idea what was going on with him, but he was always exhausted during the day, like he could pass out wherever he was, but the moment he goes to bed with Eddie he was wide awake. When confiding in Eddie about this, he had suggested that it was just seasonal depression, it was normal and a lot of people had it this time of year when the weather was starting to change. No... no, no. He was Richie Trashmouth, he doesn’t get seasonal depression. It felt silly, but when Eddie mentioned that he also had seasonal depression it did make Richie feel a little better about it.

“You’re home!” Eddie said happily, walking into the kitchen. 

Richie gave him a small smile with a nod, suddenly feeling exhausted again. “I’m home,” he said. 

Eddie wrapped his arms around Richie’s neck, bringing him in for a hug. Richie hugged him tight, bringing him in close, closing his eyes as he could feel himself melting into Eddie. The small wave of sadness he had entering the house vanished once he heard Eddie. The hug? Completely turned his mood around. 

“You feelin’ okay?” Eddie asked once they pulled away from the hug, still holding on as they looked into each others eyes. 

“Sleepy,” Richie admitted. He smiled when Eddie reached up, pressing a slightly cold hand to his face. 

“This’ll pass, I promise.” He pecked his lips before moving around him He stopped dead in his tracks, a twisted look on his face. He let out a loud yelp, confusing the hell out of Richie. 

“What’s the mat-”

Eddie looked down at the floor then to Richie’s feet, seeing he was still wearing his snow covered shoes. “You fucker!” He shouted, “my socks are wet!” 

Richie was confused still for a moment, but then a huge smile was plastered on his face before letting out a laugh. Eddie had stepped in melted snow. That. Was. Priceless. He pressed two fingers to his lips, watching and listening Eddie rant about how he fuckin’ hated having wet socks, that it was worse than death, in fact, he would rather fuckin’ die than have wet goddamn socks. 

“Babe, you good?” Richie couldn’t help but ask, laughing even harder when Eddie threw him a death glare. 

Eddie flipped him off with both hands. “I hate you. I hate you so fuckin’ much, you absolute douche bag.”

“Oh, I think you just gave me some new material,” Richie said half-jokingly as he pulled out his phone, writing something down in the Notes App.  

“I will fucking blast you on Twitter if you use this in your stupid shows, I swear to god!” 

“Oooh noooo,” Richie started sarcastically, holding either side of his face, “blast me on Twiiiiter? Where eeeeverybody knooows you’re my boyfriend?! Pleaaase, don’t do thaaat.” Eddie reached down, pulling off his socks before throwing them at his boyfriend, who yelped loudly, moving back so the dirty, wet socks wouldn’t touch him. “Why are you like this?!” 

“Why am I like this?! Why did you track snow through the house!” 

Richie slumped where he was standing, trying to get back on Eddie’s good side. “Because I’m tiiiiiired,” he said dramatically, “we should cuddle on the couch with your overbearing amount of blankets.” 

“Hey... they’re not overbearing. They’re needed.” Richie rolled his eyes. “They are! I have poor circulation!”

“Because you’re old?” 

“You’re older than me!”

“By a year! ...Are you joining me or not?” Richie asked, standing in the doorway to the living room, looking back at Eddie who had his arms folded across his chest. “C’mon, Edward.” 

Eddie tilted his head to the side, glaring at Richie, who had another smile on his face. He hated it whenever someone called him Edward. It reminded him of when his mom would call him that when she was especially angry with him. It was rare when she would call him that, but once, when he was 14 he sneaked out of the house in the middle of the night to meet up with the Losers, where they drank all night, the majority of them got drunk for the first time that night. When he loudly tried sneaking back into the house he got caught by his mother, being called Edward when his mother smelled the cheap alcohol on him that Beverly Marsh had managed to sneak out of her dad’s dresser drawer. He was grounded for almost a month with little contact with the outside world besides going to school. However, when Richie called him that in a playful way he didn’t mind too much, in fact, he thought it was kinda funny. 

“What did you call me?” 

“Ed...” he trailed off, trying to read his boyfriends face, “...Edward.” As soon as the word left his mouth, he had to sprint out of the kitchen as Eddie began to chase after him. 

Richie plopped on the couch, laying across it as he grabbed one of the blankets, covering himself with it. Eddie moved on the other side of the couch, laying down so his legs were laying across Richie. This reminded them of the time when they fought over the hammock. The time. They always fought over that damn hammock, and every time one or the other would climb in it, trying to force the other out of it. Eddie always would lightly kick Richie in the face when it was his turn to try to knock him out of it, making sure that his glasses fell off each time. 

“Why don’t you just say you want to cuddle me, Eds,” 13-year-old Richie had mocked Eddie when the smaller boy was trying to force himself in the hammock while Richie was trying to read a comic book. 

Eddie’s face had turned red, backing off quickly. “I don’t want that, dipshit,” he defended himself, folding his arms across his chest, “just move. It’s my turn.” 

“I just got here!”

Eddie rolled his eyes, looking at the watch on his wrist. “You’ve been using it for almost twenty minutes!” 

“Boo-hoo! Nobody else is here to back you up! Time is fake.” He straightened out his comic book dramatically, readjusting his glasses, preparing to pretend to ignore Eddie who looked grumpy. 

Eddie grabbed Richie’s comic, throwing it over his shoulder as he tried grabbing his arms so he could pull him off. They started slapping each others hands away. In the scuffle, they ended up accidentally holding hands. They looked away, faces red, but not letting go of their hands. Eddie had backed off first, grabbing the comic that he threw, holding it out to Richie who took it. 

“Just...” Richie started, his face still red, “I’ll... read it to you if you want... We can share the hammock.” 

Eddie’s head jerked up, looking at Richie trying to see if there was any indication that he was messing with him. “Really?” Richie nodded, scooting over a little so Eddie could squeeze in next to him. 

He was hesitant, but climbed in next to the taller boy, scooting in next to him so he could see the comic that he was holding up. Long story short; Eddie ended up falling asleep while Richie was reading to him, not long after that did he manage to fall asleep too. 

“Stop kicking me!” Richie yelled from under the blanket that was still covering his face.

“Don’t call me Edward!” 

“I’m sorry, Eduardo. ...OW!” Richie yelped when Eddie managed to kick his glasses off his face, getting lost in the blanket. 

“Fuck off!” Eddie grabbed the other end of the blanket, pulling it up over his chest. “This is as close to cuddling as you’re gonna get, asshole.” He had folded his arms underneath the blanket. 

Richie raised his eyebrows, tilting his head to the side with a shrug. “I’m still under a blanket with you, so... win-win?” Eddie’s face turned a bright shade of red. “Have I mentioned how-” Richie stopped mid-sentence when Eddie stuck his feet underneath his shirt, his cold feet pressing on his chest. “STOP! STOP! YOUR FEET ARE COLD!” Richie shouted, squirming where he was laying. 

“Oh... I wonder why, Richard.” 

“Stop, stop, stop!” Eddie moved his feet, “I get the point!” They looked at each other for a moment, staring each other down, waiting for someone to do something fucking stupid. “Just a fair warning, Kaspbrak, if you do that again I will fuckin’ tickle your feet.” 

“I will leave your unfunny ass.” 

“Yeah, I’m so unfunny, right? That’s the reason you ask me to make you laugh to cheer you up? Because I’m... so unfunny?” Eddie dove for under his shirt again, pressing his freezing cold feet on his stomach. “Quit touching me! Your feet are cold!” He grabbed Eddie’s ankles, reaching under the blanket having no mercy when tickling him. 

“St-stop!” Eddie said in between laughs, squirming and kicking to get free. “I’m sorry! I’ll stop! I’ll stop!” 

“No you won’t! You say that just to get my guard down!” 

“Richie! Richie! I’m gonna have an asthma attack! Stop!” 

He let go of Eddie, going underneath the blanket, crawling up until he was in between Eddie’s legs. Both of their faces turned extremely red as Richie was holding himself up by his palms that were placed on either side of Eddie’s head. They stared into each others eyes for a moment, until Eddie wrapped his arms around Richie’s neck, bringing him down until their lips met. In the heat of the moment both men took the time to help each other take their shirts off, throwing it across the room as they continued to make out on the couch. Richie had his hands on Eddie’s shoulders, holding him tight against him the best he could. The cold air that managed to slip its way into the house made both men shiver, but their body heat was keeping them from freezing. 

Richie had pulled away, leaning down, nipping Eddie’s neck and shoulder, smiling as the man underneath him started squirming. He absolutely loved when Richie did that. It was rare when he did, but by god he felt like he was over the moon.

Richie pulled away, looking into Eddie’s brown eyes, seeing how needy he was getting. 

“Okay, I’m gonna take a nap,” Richie said suddenly, confusing Eddie. 

“You- wh-... what?” Eddie stammered as Richie let out a yawn, obviously trying to hide a smile. “You are such a fuckin’ prick!” 

“Night night, Eds.” Richie plopped down on Eddie, who let out an oof at the sudden weight on him. “I did tell you to get your cold feet off me,” he pointed out, eyes closed but that same goofy smile on his face as his ear was pressed against Eddie’s chest. He reached up, tracing the stupid tattoo he had gotten when they were drunk one night in Vegas that was plaster on the center of his chest. 

Eddie readjusted so he was more comfortable laying on the couch, one hand on Richie’s bare back, his other hand stroking his hair. “I hate you,” he said lovingly. 

“I hate you too, Eds.” 

Since they were both suffering from seasonal depression, cuddling like this was nice. They both needed it. Another thing; normally Eddie was the little spoon, having it switched up actually felt great. He wanted to make Richie feel good, especially since he hasn’t been feeling his best lately and wanted to help. He kept planting small kisses across Richie’s forehead until he knew he finally fell asleep. Eddie grabbed another blanket that was on the floor in front of the couch, wrapping it around them before falling asleep himself. 

[newcaptainofsquad9]

Notice Me!~Kim Junmyeon/Suho x Black! R&B Star! Fem! Reader {2}

Previous Parts: 1  2 3

Pairing: Suho x reader

Summary: With your support sent out to EXO as a fan and a potential collaborator, you awaken to a massive wave of support from your fans, along with fellow EXOls. However, a vocal majority of them aren’t too keen about you working with their bias band. All of this anxiety comes to a head as your supports push you towards the idea of a collaboration, including Suho himself.  

Warnings: Toxic fans, racist comments and negative thoughts. 

Writer’s Note: Here’s chapter 2, I hope you guys enjoy and let me know if you want any more EXO fics/series, requests are open! I also want to add that this is purely fictional, I don’t know Halsey (Ashley) personally, so if she acts a little odd I’m sorry. And another thing about this fic and others I write, the Kpop idols speak English, since I don’t want to butcher any translations or Korean words, since I do not speak the language. Maybe in the future, but not now! Thanks!  

Word Count: 1, 583

I could hardly sleep at the sound of my phone buzzing like a madman. Of course the sun peaking through my blinds didn’t help, along with Ashley’s bed hogging ass. Next time I’m taking the couch instead of sharing my bed, jeez. 

I shift over on my back to reach for my phone, it comes to life at my slight touch and overwhelms me with so many notifications I almost tumble from the bed. 

“Mmh,” Ashley groans, “quit moving.” 

She kicks my foot softly, but I don’t react at all, most of my attention is on my phone. 

My Twitter bell icon stays red with a swarm of notifications, messages, likes and retweets. I’m trending, right underneath with EXO and of course BTS. 

“Uh, Ash, look! Look!”

I nudge her a few times before she rolls over with hair stuck to her cheek and a scowl. 

“Y/N, I-I need at least one more hou—”

“Look!” I scold.

We both stay captivated by the tiny screen as Ashley’s finger scrolls down some of the comments. 

They read:

Um, SM we need a Empress Dee Dee/ EXO collab, stat!

Aw, Junmyeon was soo cute, I lowkey ship it!

Finally a Kpop band reaching out for a black artist, I wish someone would follow through too *cough, cough BTS

“Holy shit,” Ashley says, “they really love this idea, did your publicist call you about it yet? Y/N?”

Her voice is drowned out as more of the comments turn sour. 

A lot of them read:

Western Artist X Kpop Artist= trash

Black people should stay with their own music, it wouldn’t mix with EXO’s sound

Gross, please don’t tell me Junmyeon has a thing for that black girl, why not a Korean woman?

They continue to flood my feed, most of them turning more daunting than the rest. 

“Ok, enough Twitter for one morning,” Ashley says as she takes the phone. 

“You’re right,” I say, “I need some more sleep.”

Ashley frowns as I lay back against my pillow and yank the covers up and over my face. 

“Y/N, come on,” Ashley groans, “you seriously gonna let these assholes get under your skin?”

I nod against the sheets. 

“Half of them are right Ash,” I say, “why would any of EXO collab with me? There are many other Kpop artists who are better anyway.”

“Um, but none of them are Empress Dee Dee, are they?” Ashley asks.

I shrug. 

“They aren’t black though, Ash,” I note. 

Ashley gives me an incredulous look. 

“That’s got nothing to do with it,” Ashley growls. 

Her words strike an unexpected nerve within me as I push the covers away and sit back up.

“Nothing?! “ I snap, “Ash, it’s everything to do with it! Racism still exists, even more prevalent now, especially with colorism still at an all time high!”  

Ashley frowns. 

“But I-”

I put a hand on Ashley’s own, the stark contrast of my brown skin and her pale one. 

“I know, I know who are Ashley, but it’s different for women like me, and darker skinned black women,” I say, “I just need you to understand that, please.”

Ashley nods. 

“I do,” she says, “but I need you to understand that it shouldn’t stop you! Don’t listen to what those assholes are saying!”

“Ash—”

“You love music, don’t you?” she asks. 

Her question throws me off, yet I nod anyway. 

“Of course I do,” I say. 

“Then focus on making music, talk to your publicist and agent about that EXO collab!” she declares.

I watch Ashley in half awe, half amusement as she tosses the sheets onto the floor like the drama queen she’s being. Maybe she should shoot for the Academy Awards rather than Grammys next year. 

“You know you gotta pick that up right,” I deadpan while gesturing to the splayed mess of covers below us on the floor. 

Ashley turns her nose up, but softens as she comes around to my side of the bed, sitting next to me and taking my hand.

“Don’t worry about the fucking bed spread and listen to me,” she says. 

I stare at her eyes, there’s this hint of desperation in them, as if I was the one who insulted her. Maybe I was a bit too much in my feelings. She cares about my wellbeing so much that I forget this affects her as well. 

“Promise me that you’ll stay all right through all of this,” she says, gripping my hand skin tight. 

I think of another comeback but save it for later.

“I promise Ash,” I vow, “now can you pick up the damn covers?”

Ashley frowns but rises to gather up the covers anyway.

“There. I’m doing it, now could you please call your publicist?”

A heavy sigh escapes my lips as I reach for my phone on the nightstand. More notifications flood, a few missed calls from Daphne, my publicist and Todd, my agent. Great, now I have to deal with them. 

“I’m calling them back now, Ash,” I announce.

“Awesome,” she calls from the bathroom. 

I decide to go with Todd first, since he left the most missed calls. My heart beats heart against the insistent ring of the phone, it drawing out a bit longer than it usually should. 

“Hello, Y/N!” Todd calls. 

I gulp before speaking.

“Hi Todd, look I-I know I should have contacted Daph first about posting that tweet.”

Todd chuckles through the phone. 

“Y/N, that was a genius move! It seemed really genuine!” he exclaims.

I frown.

“Uh, I was completely genuine Todd, my heart was one hundred percent into it,” I say. 

“Oh, well that makes it even better, because I’ve already got in contact with the producers on the Ellen Show, and since EXO will be there promoting Obsession, we can finally have you both in talks for a collaboration!”

My stomach nearly drops. It’s exciting news, right? Getting to meet my bias band in front of me instead of a tiny computer screen, yet the circumstances got me worried. In front of all those people. Some of them could be any of those people spouting out hateful comments. 

“Er, Y/N,” Todd says, “you heard me, right?”

“I-I u-uh yeah!” I say, “j-just uh, fan girl nerves is all.”

Todd chuckles, but gets back to business as usual.

“No need to worry, it’s all scripted and Ellen has a way of making people calm, especially new guests,” he explains, “but this will really put you on the map! Considering you haven’t made a public appearance since your grammy snub and you’re gonna do it with one of the biggest kpop groups, ever! Don’t let those fangirl nerves get to you too much!”

I manage to cough up a tiny giggle. 

“Of course Todd, thank you.”

“Already have a flight set up for you in the morning, I told you that you’d skyrocket soon, didn’t I?” he asks. 

I roll my eyes but agree anyway.

“I know Todd, bye.”

“Get plenty of sleep, call me when you get there!” he urges before hanging up.

WIth him off the phone I can finally freak out in peace. Well until Ashley returns with her toothbrush a nosy look on her face. 

“Shit, by that face I’m assuming it didn’t go well, did it?” she asks. 

I shake my head and collapse backwards against the sheets. 

“I-It went unexpectedly well,” I admit, “EXO’s gonna be on Ellen for the first time, and I got a spot on there with them.” 

Ashley nearly jumps into the ceiling. 

“Are you fucking serious?!” she exclaims, “it hasn’t even been 24 hours yet!”

I nod against my pillow. 

“Right! God, I-I’m not ready for this,” I groan. 

Ashley shifts closer to wrap an arm around my shoulder.

“You got this sweetie,” she whispers, “I’m gonna take the shower first, that cool with you?”

I nod as she rises. 

“Oh and stay off Twitter,” she says as she goes back to the bathroom. 

Of course I don’t listen as I unlock my phone yet again. My eyes scan through all of the comments: good, bad, ugly and downright unnecessary. My finger stops at a previous V Live EXO recently did, or a clip at least. 

The caption of the video read:

Ya’ll Junmyeon is really out here caring about DeeDee, like a lot! When he gonna pull up 😂😂

I click it and there’s Suho, Baekhyun and Chen with soft looks, unlike the way they looked during their X-EXO concept stage. Beakhyun leans closer to the camera, scanning the comments I assume as Suho frowns. 

“Of course not!” Suho growls, “why would anyone say that?”

“What is it hyung?” Chen asks. 

Suho points at the screen. 

“Someone said that we thought DeeDee was ugly, why would you insult a beautiful woman like that?” he asks in disgust.

My breath gets hitched in my throat at his words. 

Baekhyun frowns this time.

“Aw, why are people making fun of DeeDee?” he groans, “don’t listen to them DeeDee! Stay strong! Keep smiling!!”

Chen nods sharply as Baekhyun continues to yell it obnoxiously.

Suho pushes him until he ceases and looks into the camera intensely. 

“The people who are saying this aren’t our fans, DeeDee,” he explains, “you’re amazing, stay all right, ok? Ok!”

Suho grins as he puts up his finger hearts as his smile widens.

The video ends, yet it doesn’t within my head. EXO actually stood up for me. This has got to be a dream. 

[x0401x]

hiii so i was going through the VE tag and saw your posts about how much you dislike anime gilbert compared to novel gilbert; im so confused though about how you said he was shallow and a dick because i didn't get that vibe when i was watching? i liked the anime gilbert, and then when i read the novel, i just liked him even more. but it didnt make me hate the anime version. so i just wanted a breakdown of what anime gilbert did so wrong, thank you!

Okay, this sure took up a lot of time to reply to, so I’m sorry for answering so late! I tried to keep it simple, so keep in mind that there’s a lot more to unpack from anime-novel comparissons when it comes to VE. I just didn’t want to turn this into an essay, because that’s what it would’ve become otherwise.

I’ve broken down five main reasons why anime!Gilbert is an asshole if you put him side-by-side with novel!Gilbert. And I want first to stress out that I know the intention of the adaptation wasn’t to make him an asshole at all. The studio really seemed to believe they were doing it right, but it turned out as the same old “so close yet so far” thing. The director did say before that he had made changes to the original because the source material was “too righteous and orthodox”, so I guess novel!Gilbert was one of the “too righteous and orthodox” things that he deemed in need of alterations. Apparently, loving someone way above yourself is just not realistic if you’re a man and the other person is a woman (totally okay if it’s the other way around, though).

Anyway, here are the main negative points about anime!Gilbert (long post in-coming):

He only ever did the bare minimum for Violet.

KyoAni is hellbent on insisting, not just in the anime but also in episode summaries, the starter book and the official fanbook, as well as other medias, that Violet loved Gilbert because he was the “first person to be nice to her”. It makes me want to rip my hair off, because this means it could’ve been anyone. The novel states time and time again that it was fate, because Gilbert was the only character in the VE universe who would watch this monster-child brutally murder five men and still take her blood-covered hand and try to protect her. She was a kid being led to commit crimes by fucked-up adults, and even though there was a chance she might kill him too, he still wanted her to live, because she was ultimately innocent. He also wasn’t just “nice” to her. He tried to defend her from his brother for real. The hotel scene is actually very important and not having it takes away a lot of Gilbert’s weight in Violet’s life.

Other than that, he wasn’t shown doing even half the stuff he did for her in the novels. He constantly protected her from harassment, threw shade at any lesser officer who badmouthed her, tried to make it so that she wouldn’t have to risk herself too much during battle, often attempted to convince her into less reckless stunts, and was always the first and only one to rush to her aid. He personally took her meals to her bedroom and ate with her, arranged for her to have a room for herself, took her shopping for civilian clothes so that she could wear them after the war, and requested that her personal needs were seen by officers from the female division. He quit smoking because it made her cough, gave her his old clothes to wear when she grew out of her pajamas, took care of her whenever she fell ill from overworking, and the list goes on.

All of this aside, I think the most important was that he was always trying to bring out the human side of her. He was always testing out her interests in mundane things, and always wishing that she would show signs of having a personality. It didn’t have to be girly stuff; anything that didn’t have to do with him was fine. He often tried to instigate the humanity in her, because she was unquestionably human to him despite not knowing what being human even meant, and this is the most essential part of Gilbert in the Great War arc.

He didn’t care about her that much.

I know this might seem like a drastic claim. I mean, he did show that he cared for her, just not nearly enough, and quite certainly not as much as he cared about himself.

It starts with the fact that he let her into the military simply because his brother had already told everyone about her. Anime!Gil didn’t see her kill five people in that hotel. All that happened was Dietfried throwing at him the vaguest-ever argument that “this isn’t a child; it’s a weapon”. Like... that was literally all it took for him to send a ten-year-old amnesic, orphan girl who couldn’t understand the local language to a war that had been dragging itself on for several decades. In the men’s troops, no freaking less.

The eptome of anime!Gil’s fake selflessness is when he gets shot at the end of the war. When Violet takes him by the arm, he just... lets her carry him. She gets shot and shit, and she could very well have died (anyone explain to me how they managed to hit him in the head but not her even though they were walking so slowly), but he still clung onto her. He literally put his own life above hers.

A++++ parenting.

He was dry with her most of the time.

In the novel, Violet and Gilbert have a bond of respect and trust. In the anime, this bond is wholly one-sided. We don’t see this respect or trust from Gil’s perspective, and neither do we see any bigger signs of affection other than occasional guilty faces that show him regretting something, but don’t exactly make clear what it is. Does he feel guilty that he took her to war? If so, then he contradicts himself during certain moments. He literally thanks her for “always fighting so well” at one point and only refrains from finishing the sentence because he sees the bruises on her neck. Meanwhile, while novel!Gil asserts that she should have former recognition for her deeds (like ranks, medals and people’s well-earned respect), she should also not be in the battlefield at all because she’s just a child and constantly berates himself for keeping her there.

The dedication and devotion to her is also basically all gone. We don’t see him vowing to raise her as someone worthy of a flower goddess’s name, we don’t see him doing his best to make this happen, and we don’t see it happening until Violet is out of the hospital. Novel!Violet had a fame of grim reaper, witch and god of war because she was an extremely fierce and skilled killer. Anime!Violet is all over the place when she fights, slamming rifles into people’s faces and choosing hand-to-hand combat instead of having the common sense to fire the weapon she’s holding. There’s no such rumors about her other than that she’s “dangerous”, and she’s always injured, with her hair perpetually disheveled. She’s an absolute mess, making it impossible to forget for a single minute that she’s just a little girl being made to serve in the frontlines, and yet anime!Gil still pulls bullshit like “you fought good”.

He abandoned her to sheer luck.

As if the fake grave weren’t bad enough, he apparently offed to the woods without giving much of a fuck about her. In the novel, we see that Gil keeps aiming for higher positions in the military and to have as much power as he can so that he’ll have all the means possible to protect her. He might have been contacting Hodgins in the meantime, but this isn’t nearly enough to ensure her safety.

There’s a lot he had to do when it comes to Violet. Covering up her identity and making sure nobody tried to use her for killing ever again are examples. He also needed to be ready for whenever he had to go for her rescue, like in the case of the hijackin, so staying in the army was of utter importance. It was also important to show that this was a sacrifice he did for her, because all his responsibilities were pushed onto him due to Dietfried running away from them.

He is portrayed as being the complete opposite of her.

You might be wondering what this has to do with anything. It’s very obvious in the novel that Violet and Gilbert are mirrors in the novel. This also has to do with the fate thing: they’re basically one soul dwelling in two bodies. The two had keenly similar life stories where they went through different situations that were actually alike in essence and brought out the same results. This is basically the reason why Gil empathizes so hard with Violet and why he’s so insistent in allowing her to experience what he didn’t get to have. It’s not because he’s “righteous and orthodox”. It’s because he sees himself in her. She’s him, and he’s her. They’re one and the same at the core. But apparently a guy relating so much with a girl isn’t realistic either.

This is it (or more like a condensed version of it)! I hope it cleared things up.

[dirkwriteshomestuck]

biggest cartman mistakes

okay so normally i don’t make big serious posts like this but since it's his birthday i think i deserve to go off about this

generally this is in fics, art, roleplaying, whatever you do that requires interpreting cartman in some way that’s not going off of canon

1: giving him empathy and/or sympathy

hey... guess what. cartmans a psychopath. like, he’s clinically a psychopath. and i don’t even think i have to go into that because it’s practically canon, just unspoken

he doesn’t care about other people and he doesn’t feel bad about them. ever. he can pretend and lie about it, and he might be upset if something happened to someone and it negatively affected him directly, but he literally does not care about other people

if i see 1 more post of cartman crying at _’s bedside while they’re in the hospital with no ulterior motives i’m going to kill myself

2: stop focusing on season 1, there’s been 21 more goddamn seasons

so i hate seeing people bring up season 1 cartman. he’s completely different character in season 1 then he is now, and honestly it’s annoying seeing everyone ignore *every other goddamn season* because they want him to still be a soft brat whose problems can all be chocked up to abuse

like at least if you’re only going to go off of season 1 can you say that? instead of pretending that he’s the same

i also hate when people take season 1 cartman and then cherrypick scenes to apply from the later seasons to keep him soft and cute but you know.... also still have later season content because he’s only like thAT FOR ONE FUCKING SEASON

like stop you can’t have the best of both worlds. you can’t only take cartmans cuter or manipulative moments and then say they’re genuine and he still acts like he did in the first season

3: stereotyping and cherry picking

okay so obviously i already said some stuff about cherry picking but there’s still more to be said on that past just the season 1 stuff

so cartmans a really complicated, nuanced, well-written character with SO so many layers? and obviously that’s hard to do. that’s hard to copy. but the solution to that is NOT ignoring half of his character or only picking certain traits that you like more/can do and saying that’s his whole character

and normally this is always made worse because nobody has his fundamentals right

4: he’s a sadist, boys

so like not only is he a psychopath with no empathy that’s completely self-motivated, he’s also literally canonly a sadist

i know so many ppl that shit on and make fun of “big mean asshole over the top sadist cartman” and act like it’s the opposite of soft uwu cartman and that you need something inbetween (and that is true, because you know. he’s not just a basic caricature with 3 character traits) but it’s honestly WAY more ic then the other thing

i think most of the issue with both of those caricatures and how they both mess up is that they’re both strictly like either romance or sexually intended so he’s not a sadist because that’s how he is ic! he’s a sadist because he’s a nazi or bc he’s a top in a ship. which obviously is also shit

5: “he’s older now! he’s better! he’s healed and went to therapy!”

therapy isn’t a cure all of all problems and i’ve literally never seen a good “improved” or “healthier” cartman

ever

literally ever

and again i’d say a lot of this is because no one knows his fundamentals? i think anyone that doesn’t write cartman as a sociopath at least is doing something wrong. or is setting themselves up for failure

cartmans insane. i think that’s the best way to put it and i think that anyone that just like, puts him in therapy and acts like he was just a meanie >:( neurotypical kid with no mental issues or lasting problems (besides the stuff that you like and want him to still have of course! lol!) is just like

idk. i think it’s shitty and obviously erasing or whatever people call it

i guess they’re headcanons technically but they just have so much place in canon that i rarely consider them that

i’d personally diagnose cartman with being a psychopath (obviously) and also some form of psychosis (it’s obviously attached to something bc you can’t just Have psychosis, but i don’t know what it’d be attached to)

i don’t think the psychopathy is talked about pretty much at all but i do know that saying cartman hallucinates has always been pretty controversial

however, most people don’t actually KNOW that much about hallucinations. do you remember the fishsticks episode? or the episode where cartman is deadset on kyle having the picture of him and butters?

those are delusions! and guess what? delusions are fucking hallucinations. and those are just clearcut examples, he’s delusional in pretty much every episode. i think the fishsticks one is the most clear that it’s genuine because he literally stuck with that to his near demise

end

anyways that’s it, thanks for listening to my ted talk. happy birthday eric cartman, maybe next year there’ll be more then like 5 people that can interpret you decently

this is so goddamn messy but yeah share this with anyone whose heard of the name eric cartman before

[deafaq]

Are you sure sign isn't for everyone? Half the people I know in my Deaf community plus connections weren't born deaf and 90% of these all know sign/learning way better than me. The 10% are ones who barely tried. I'm the only one who just sucks at it even while trying so hard. If they all can, I can too and something must be wrong. Seriously, I'm still accepting help from learners who haven't taken more than 20 hours of class and they think it's my first class too. omg.

Hello,

yes, I am sure. 

For perspective, I have statistics from the USA - around 28 millions of people have certain degree of hearing loss. About 500 000 use ASL as their main way of communication. So its actually more likely to have hearing loss and not know ASL than other way around. (the numbers are estimate, but to give you perspective)

Deaf community with capital D isn’t really a good way of gauging the situation since its a community of signers. Most deaf people who don’t know ASL don’t interact with Deaf community at all. 

As for sign language itself:

-  just like there are learning disorders for spoken languages and writing (think dyslexia), there are ones for sign languages as well. Dyspraxia comes to mind as a disorder which affects the motor control, so you have trouble producing signs. Memory issues, depth perception, other disabilities, it can all affect ability to learn sign language

- just like learning any second language, you need to have at least some talent for learning languages. Sign language is very different from spoken, so its even harder sometimes to learn compared to learning another spoken language

- age is a big factor, the older you are, the less likely you will be able to learn it properly

- your mental state is factor as well. some people struggle learning sign language not bcs of their physical ability, but because they have something negative connected to it in their brain (for example, its a symbol of their lack of hearing and they havent accepted it yet or their past teachers were assholes or their parents kept telling them sign language is inferior, etc)

- its additional expense, if you are to learn it - you need to pay lessons, spend time with it, etc.

I have met at least one person who has hoh and wanted desperately to learn sign language, but she was incredibly bad at it. She tried very hard, but her hands were just slow, her movements jerky, despite the years she spent at it. I don’t think I ever talked to her about it specifically, but I am pretty sure she had additional disability which affected the movement of her hands - they were basically always shaking. 

Funnily enough, if we are talking about sign language being second language (eg non-native language) - from my experience, hearing people learn it much quicker than hoh/deafened people. 

Anyway... I am not saying you have to stop studying sign language, more like think about it. Does it give you joy? Do you enjoy talking it in and thinking about it? If all you feel is dread and being uncomfortable and upset, then yes, I don’t think you should force yourself to study it, no matter how many people you know who do.

Mod T

[mophobia]

So I finally did decide to watch The Woman Who Fell to Earth and... wow. I know I’m way late on the train but I just wanted to share some of my thoughts just from this first episode because why the heck not

First of all, just all the clear fuck you’s to Moffat (intentional or not). The fact that this single episode already has better representation than Moffats entire run, each of those characters have more development already in just their pinky fingers than pretty much is seen in Moffats entire run, the simple plot, the deep care and not asshole-ness of the Doctor. Just like top notch stuff

Still missing that extra mmmph of just pure weirdness I loved from RTD, but also new showrunner new rules and I can live with that

I felt like there were a lot of parallels to RTD era stuff, maybe just in my head maybe meant to be. But none of it copying yay! idk I just got the vibes of something I haven’t seen or felt in a while. Also got some 10 vibes from 13 which I love

I sooo want to believe that 13s appearance is a tribute to Rose, although maybe that’s just my Doctorxrose shipper coming out. But also... come on... that blonde with brown roots thing 13 has got going... when was the last time we saw that? I’m not asking for it to be addressed or talked about or acknowledged in any way (don’t get me wrong I’m always a slut for rose references but this is 13s time to shine) but I just hope it’s even a little true

I do still really miss the soundtrack from RTDs and even some of Moffats run. Just those dramatic moments with that wonderful score still gives me chills. And I’m always a slut for a good theme. Don’t know if that‘ll change as the series goes on cuz I was starting to get that music towards the end of the episode but we’ll see (I hope Murray gold is still composing... I should look that up.

“I matter, I am valuable...” just a bit of a clue I loved showing us were back in for that theme in Doctor Who that you don’t have to be “special” to matter (which I think the character the alien is hunting and just this story itself encapsulates very well just in general)

I honestly almost cried after the security guard got killed after that call with his granddaughter... I honestly don’t think I cried at anything in Moffats run so to come back to Doctor Who and feel actual emotion is just... I have no words I’m so happy

Wilfred and Graham would be bickering BFFs you can fight me on that

Another thing I do still miss is the noise from from RTDs era. I can’t think of exactly how to put it but there’s just that hustle and bustle of the world you feel in those first few seasons and it stil feels very secluded and... idk quiet here? Again though it’s only the first episode and the setting didn’t really call for large crowds so we’ll see how that transforms over time

Also on the subject of things I miss... just that slightly softer, warmer, lighter feel of the world you see in RTDs era. But also I don’t know how much of that has changed just due to technology evolving and getting better? Maybe that’s just more of a nostalgia thing.

13S LITTLE SPEECH BEFORE JUMPING! AND THE JUMP ITSELF! FUCK YES!

Love love love the fact that 13 is treated the same as any other Doctor in this episode. She doesn’t need to prove herself to any of her team at any point (other than she is in fact an alien which is just a Doctor thing in general), she lifts herself onto the platform after hanging on (can you imagine the upper body strength? 11 could never), and the fact that she never comments on how her abilities are different because she’s a woman now. I almost thought there was gonna be a boob joke when she couldn’t run after the alien after first finding it, but then it was just a comment on how her regeneration was affecting her!! The Doctor knows how strong women are, after all ze’s seen their strength first hand on MANY occasions traveling with them so why would she think negatively on being a woman. Although I do hope we get to maybe acknowledge new struggles she might feel from society looking at her as a woman and working to prove them wrong at some point. Thank you Chibnall for giving us something Moffat never would (and never could!)

I loved 13s reaction after the guy who was being hunted pushed the alien off the bridge. “You didn’t have to do that” and so disappointed. All I could think was the Doctor’s finally back.

I really did cry by the ending when the Doctor was facing the alien. At first it was just because I was feeling like Doctor Who back which made me so happy I couldn’t help but crying. But then Grace died and it really made me sad. But then the thought that something in DW actually gave me enough of an emotional reaction to cry again just made me start to cry for happiness all over again.

Also people are dying again! There’s seriousness and consequences again!! Not that I want people to die and suffer in every episode, but again that return to the core of Doctor Who is making me happy.

13 talking about how she keeps her family with her in her heart and as reminders of who to be. So beautiful (and just fuels my belief that her look is a reminder/whisper of Rose). I really hope this new era might be able to include an old companion or two from RTD era even (I know Jack is back? Kinda? And maybe he’s coming back again? But can you imagine the powerhouse of Mickey and Martha returning and working with 13??? I would DIE)

That outfit? ICONIC!!!

I think I still need to get used to the Doctor traveling with a pack. I’m happy for all the real characters were getting considering it’s pretty much just been the Doctor/half-baked Companion show since Moffat took over. But also it’s a different group feel than from RTD just cuz even then there was the Companion and their family that were more supporting characters. And even with Jack, he only popped up after we already knew the Doctors/Rose relationship. But I’m excited to see how this team of companions works!

All in all... still don’t know if I’m quite ready to believe 13 will top 9/10 for me, but as far as I’m concerned it’s already better than 11/12. And at the end of the day, I’m just happy to feel like I can love Doctor Who again.

So... after watching into skyfall not sure my original predictions on how this series/era went have stayed true. While I still love the 13th Doctor and Jodie.... I am already feeling let down by what’s to come. And it’s weird cuz there are certain parts I love, but the ones I hate are just far outweighing the positives. Why does every writer now need to alter the entire doctors life in a way that ruins RTD and, hell, even Moffat’s plots. I hated Moffat but Jesus. Even I’m beginning to think I’d rather watch 11-12 over this.