#whos ''to'' . are those initials ? is it ''to...'' something?? is that a source? what?

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Well, I was tagged in this reblog (linked for context because that post is wayyyy too long already and I’m prone to run on sentences) so I am going to respond to the part of this that @doublel27 quoted me on. 

I want to make some things clear before I start: 

Critiquing shows does not mean I always hate those shows, few shows are perfect, and for me it is worth discussing what a show did and did not do well. 

I do not care if people like the shows I do not like, and I do not care if people do not like the shows I like. It is extremely rare that people agree on everything in the same piece of media. Everyone is entitled to their own enjoyment of their preferred media and I guarantee you that Shan, Turtles, Ben, Twig, etc. etc. will say the same. Also, since you mentioned Twig’s post about We Are, please let me direct you to the episode of The Conversation where Twig, Ben, and NiNi talk together about their differing opinions on that very show. And in case you were genuinely concerned about Ben and Twig’s feelings on the quality of Thai BLs this year, you can stick around for the second half where they talk about Knock, Knock Boys! Hopefully that will assuage your fears.

Some of the issues I have with vague posting are (a) it can lead to confusion, especially in a case like this where, according to you, maybe boys do love posted a response to eight different people’s commentary simultaneously without attributing which op’s thoughts he was responding to at any point. (b) By bundling eight responses in to one post without @ ing people, it makes it seem like he has misinterpreted other people’s commentary or taken something in intentionally bad faith (c) other tumblr users in a fandom will let people know when an “unrelated post” makes commentary specific enough to be recognized as a response to someone else’s statements thus drawing them in to the conversation. It’s why I prefer to be tagged in responses to the thoughts I share. This is a public forum, whatever I post in here is able to be reblogged, tagged, or commented on. If I didn’t want people to interact with my posts…I wouldn’t post them. If you don’t feel comfortable tagging people who you are responding to, then at least acknowledge them in your writing. We love a cited source.

I don’t love policing language, but since you were more than happy doing it in your post, then I’ll say one thing here: the tone of maybe boys do love’s post does not read, to me, like it is intended to welcome people who appreciate that there is “not a single stance about what qualifies BL as good work.” It reads like it is “reminding” the supposedly eight people he is vague-posting about that they are being unreasonable in their expressed opinions. It especially does not read with the primary intention of welcoming others when Maybe Boys Do Love’s response to Turtle’s initial reblog was to comment on her “respectfulness” and Shan and Ben’s lack thereof simply because they blocked him on Tumblr. A thing which people do every day for any number of reasons. But I digress.

As for my part in your response, you referenced a statement from my tumblr post A Pause for Reflection: Part 2- Only Friends, Racism, and the Commodification of Queer Asians: 

“We all need to, but white Westerners especially, be extremely careful and introspective with the ways we are engaging with queer Asian media”

On the seriousness of this statement, doublel27, you and I are agreed. I think it is valid to state that this should apply to the decisions of writers, directors, etc. of BLs. And I also agree that preventing infantilization and removal of agency from writers, directors, actors, and audiences is a good addition. That said, I do not think critiquing media is in any way shape or form an infantilizing or agency-removing act. 

I do, however, think you are falling victim to the western paternalism/white saviorism you are so upset about by going on to a South East Asian woman’s post and chastising her about not speaking for a South East Asian audience when you are a white westerner?

Also, I think there I might be missing a step in your logical progression when you say “I’m of the opinion that what’s good for queer Thai television is not for foreign audiences to decide, ultimately. That’s for queer Thai people to decide.” It would amaze me greatly if this hypothetical monolith of queer people in Thailand were to be 100% in agreement about what constitutes good queer television. Personally I see your belief that no one outside of queer Thai people is allowed to critique queer Thai shows as actually undermining the legitimacy of this genre as a source of entertainment for audiences outside of just queer (in this case) Thai people. Media is frequently made with an intended audience in mind, but that does not mean people outside that target audience are barred from engaging with it. No one is saying “this is a bad queer Thai show and I am deciding that for all queer people” they are saying “here is what or why I did not like the decision they made about x,y,z."

If you are going to quote me, then I hope you also read the first half of my Pause for Reflection posts Taking Pause for Reflection- Part 1: Respectable Promiscuity and Only Friends where I talk about respectable promiscuity and discuss the ways in which respectability politics have resulted in “current LGBTQ+ political movements shifting away from highlighting sexual liberation as an aspect of queer culture, in order to make queer people more palatable to the overarching heterosexual society. And how that bleeds through in to the kinds of media that exist, the types of queer people portrayed within that media, as well as how often gay sex is shown, the type of gay sex shown, and the number of gay sex partners depicted. (Read: generally infrequently, generally vanilla, generally one).” Just so you are aware of where I stand in all of this and what people like Shan and myself are talking about when we critique the decision to remove sexual content from queer stories for the sake of storytelling or viewership.  

I haven’t mentioned this one in awhile but I used to talk a lot about my perception of queer content being able to be categorized in By, For, and About Queers formatting. For example, a film like Pariah (2011) is a story about a queer person created by a queer person with a narrative that feels like it is made for the enjoyment of queer people above all others (but of course anyone can watch).

^I think this was made by abl, who I am not tagging because I do not want to drag them in to this conversation, but whose image I still want to cite.

This is obviously subjective, and I’m not saying it should always be used, but I know some people can find it nice to organize things by categories. 

Again, this is subjective but I’ll give a short list of a couple of BLs that I personally would categorize as being For queer people- by which I mean it feels like a love letter to queer people, I can see something of myself and my experiences in it, and I would not be surprised if the primary intended audience was queer people:

I Told Sunset About You

The Miracle of Teddy Bear

What Did You Eat Yesterday

Koisenu Futari

Here is a short list of some BLs I would personally categorize under About queer people- that is, queer people are the main characters but the piece feels like the primary intended audience is not queer people:

Kiseki: Dear to Me

KinnPorsche

My School President

Spare Me Your Mercy

That does not mean the shows about queer people aren’t queer stories, but it does mean the intention behind the work is different. Which brings me all the way back to Spare Me Your Mercy since that’s what started all of this in the first place: 

Lux Sirilux in an interview before the show came out stated:

“Having NC would steal the attention of the story because what we were going to talk about was dark drama and euthanasia.”

She also says: 

“The characters are gay, but we don’t offer [fan]service in every episode or include NC (explicit) scenes."

(I got these statements above from this post by clariredaring who I am not tagging in this because I do not want to pull them in to this whole ordeal any more than they already have been).

Lux is absolutely allowed to make the decision to remove NC scenes from SMYM if she believes that it will detract from the vibe and the overarching theme. Sammon is absolutely allowed to approve and accept the removal of NC content from the Spare Me Your Mercy television show. No one is arguing that. (And I feel comfortable speaking for Shan here at the very least because we talk about shows a lot and I know what her post was actually saying as it relates to viewership). I already wrote a post about my feelings on this matter where I discussed why I feel that choice went wrong in this case. That does not mean anyone else has to feel that way, and I’m not forcing anyone to agree with me. And if people disagree with me, fine, they are welcome to discuss with me why they feel like the story worked as is if they want to and ignore me if they don't. (And literally as I was writing this a great example of someone disagreeing with me came through in this post by elimstillnotgarak who I will not be tagging in this simply because I don't want to drag someone who is not involved in this in to a very different discussion). But there is a level of disingenuousness that comes with the statement 'you should not say anything negative ever about the stories you have watched from cultures outside of your own.' I'm not saying this is the belief you hold, but I am saying that is how I interpret your statements about not speaking for a queer Thai audience.

And, as someone who has written multiple essays breaking down sex scenes in BLs, let me just say that I believe there is a fundamental difference between NC scenes and fanservice. I think there are instances where fanservice can result in positive changes (The Magnus Archives, for example, updated their ending after seeing how much fans were shipping Jon and Martin together and I think the ending was better for it) but I think there are a lot of times when fanservice actually does undermine the narrative. As for NC scenes, there are definitely ones that detract from the story at hand, and there are ones that I think people throw in as a bandaid in the hopes that they can get higher viewership (Playboyy and Battle of the Writers are examples of that imo) but I think there are a lot of times when NC scenes actually improve the narratives they are a part of expressly because they can tell you a whole hell of a lot about a character’s relationship and feelings to another person in a very short period of time. 

For me, I think Sammon and Lux here engaged in respectability politics operating under a belief that NC scenes between these queer characters would take away from the larger story they were trying to tell. And I think that the believability of the romantic relationship between Kan and Tew suffered for it. This is a show that already was written for a larger general audience because most of Sammon’s work places some medical mystery narrative at the front and center (which makes sense because she’s a doctor). 

And personally doublel27 I feel you are drawing a false equivalency between critique and infantilization and I would appreciate it if next time you quote me, you make sure you read the entirety of the post so that you can better understand that I will continue to be critical of people who submit to respectable promiscuity and make the choice to tone down the queerness in their story because they are worried it will distract the audience at large.

[tronlightcyclerun]

the problem with having had the same simply plural account since i was 13 is that i do not fucking remember who half these people are . no past me i dont know what you meant when you gave me one initial and a colour and no further details ???

[yanderenightmare]

♡ TW: NSFW, dubcon, bathroom sex, bullying, overall just really filthy smut, virgin insert, virginity loss, somewhat dom reader, somewhat bully reader, somewhat yandere reader

♡ FEM reader

You look like one of those girls that never smiles. Like, if he were to take that empty seat next to you in the lecture hall, you’d scowl with stink eyes and then proceed to fully ignore him. Yeah, a real bitch. That's what you look like—scary. He bets all your socials are filled with the same picture—the same deadpanned pouty face over and over, every single one with hundreds of likes and comments saying “Wow, babe!” followed by a dozen emojis from besties and horny admirers. Selfies in the mirror, showing off skin in your tight tops and short skirts—similar to the outfit you’re wearing now. Captions saying, “You can look, but you could never touch.” Yeah, he bets you’re a real attention whore. And the worst part is that you’re not even overselling, either. You’re gorgeous—even with that sour look on your face, he’d pay cold, hard-earned cash in exchange for a pair of your worn panties.

Yeah, there’s no way he’d dare sit next to you. He’s already sweating bullets just thinking about it. Even though you’re one in a million similar girls who wouldn’t give him the time of day, he's still one in a million loser incels who would do anything for it. And that’s the cold reality.

Even if he’d like to get just a whiff of your sweet perfume, he can’t. The status quo forbids it. He’s afraid the jocks will smell fresh blood in the water the moment he does, then swarm him in a matter of seconds, circling before tearing him to shreds. They’d beat him to a pulp in the bathroom, smash his head in over the sink—piss in the toilet, then flush it down with his bloodied face—and he’d have to walk reeking of it all the way home.

So, no—he really can’t sit next to you. 

But no other seats are available, and the lecture is starting soon… 

Why did absolutely everyone decide to show up today?

Oh fuck it, this isn’t high school. College bullies surely don’t bother with petty cases like this, right? They’re all about their frat initiations and rivalries to have enough spare time to beat him up over improper seating. Oh, but what if you’re one of their girlfriends—you’ll tell on him, and then he’ll definitely be beaten up, maybe even killed.

No. He’s overthinking—like always. No one is that mean. If you don’t like him sitting there, you’ll just tell him. And he’ll move. No harm done. Right? He’s not sitting in the stairwell when there’s a perfectly good and empty seat right there, right? Is he?

Yes. Yes, he is. 

“Hey, if you’re looking for a seat, this one’s empty,” a sweet voice calls out over his inner monologue, making him clutch the strap of his bookbag tighter with a flinch of his entire rigid body—his eyes peeled as he looked around to try and find the source of the sound even though he knew where it had come from. It’s as if the possibility of your voice sounding like anything aside from a she-demon was out of the question. But no, it is you. 

But there’s no way you’re talking to him, so he looks around again—there must be someone else in need of the seat aside from him. But then, why are you looking right at him? Are you pulling some type of prank? Are you really that cruel? You’re probably filming him or something—live-streaming—the chat’s blaring with ew, what a creep and omg, uggo alert right about now. He should just go home before the jocks, along with the rest of the internet, can get him.

“Are you okay?” you ask—but no, he must be hearing you wrong—there’s just no way, even though you’re looking right at him. “I think it’s starting soon—you should probably sit.”

It’s as if his fight or flight response is broken because he does the exact opposite of either—as if on autopilot, sitting down in a rush against his better judgment.

The lecture starts shortly, solidifying his choice, but he can’t pay attention. No, he needs to keep his guard up. Any second now, someone’s going to do a drive-by and throw a milkshake at him or something vile of the like, and you’ll have filmed it all even though he can’t spot you holding a phone—and then the entire hall would burst into laughter at his expense.

“Pst—” A soft whisper comes from next to him, from between the gloss of your pretty lips. You smell like candy and fruit, and it makes his gut tighten—both from anxiety and something more shameful. “I’m sorry to bother you, but do you have a pen I could borrow? Mine’s all out’a ink.”

You give him an awkward smile, and he very nearly runs away. But no, he’s glued to the seat—with nervously wrecked hands shaking as he bends for his bag and unzips it, reaching for his pencil case painfully slow as if disarming some type of bomb. Redoing the same when he opens the case and rummages for a viable pen he could offer.

When he hands it to you, he’s almost sure you plan to stab him with it. But you do no such thing.

“Thanks, you’re a lifesaver!” You cheer instead, beaming with a much brighter smile than before. “I owe you!”

His ears ring with your praise. Blushing beat red as he rips away from your gaze—still unable to focus on what the professor is preaching—not when from out of the corner of his eye, he can see you sucking on his pen like a lollypop—or something else not so innocent.

Oh, he’d been so wrong.

So, so, so very wrong.

You do smile. You smile a lot, actually. You just have one of those faces that rests bitchy. But still, bubbly airhead or not, a girl like you still shouldn't be seen with a loser like him. It’s social suicide. And still, you’re on your knees before him in a dirty little bathroom stall—the same dirty bathroom stall he feared getting a swirlie, scraping the walls with his nails to try and thwart his assailants—only, now clutching the walls for a much different reason, holding on for his mortal soul as you seek to suck it out of his fat throbbing cock.

You want to repay him—you’d said—for the pencil. He hadn't understood why you’d winked at him before you’d all but dragged him off and flung him inside the men’s bathroom, having his very life flash before his eyes.

You both make the sloppiest sounds as you make an utter mess on and of him, making him cry on all fronts—cock weeping with thick pearly beads of pre while his eyes well up with tears down his flushed face, all sweaty with panic and bliss. 

The moans springing from his chest are virginal and raw and sweet music to your ears, panting for you like a puppy—you’re sure they can hear him out in the hallway when passing by. One of his hands clasps itself on top of his mouth, holding tightly to keep it all within—eyes shut and brows cinched. And yet, he makes no effort to shove you off—hips left jerking and jittering in response to your refined technique where you take him deeply, all the way down to the base, hallowing your cheeks, throttling him with your throat as your tongue wipes his creamy slit clean.

It’s painfully clear he’s never experienced anything like it, but that’s what turns you on the most. Sick as you are, you could suck him dry and savor every drop of him, knowing you’re the first ever to get a taste. But no, by now, your pussy’s so soaked you feel yourself dripping past the soggy lace of your panties, running down your soft thighs in waste.

He’s misty-eyed when you pull off with an ever-cruel pop—a sick mix of relief and sorrow warping his chest, feeling conflicted by the pulse making him think he’s on the verge of a heart attack if you continue—and another strumming his cock, making him think he’s going to keel over and die if you leave him unfinished.

Even so, he’s in a state of complete shell shock as you mount him on top of the toilet seat he’s melting against. Chest heaving, watching you as you lift your skirt up and peal your slick underwear to the side for him to lay his bleary swiveled eyes on your bared and dripping pussy.

“I love nice guys like you—” you moan, pouring the honeyed words down his throat as you ghost his parted lips with your spit-slicked ones, straddling his lap and shimmying ever closer until your tits squish against his chest. “They make me so wet, I lose all self-control.” 

He gulps in your shadow, looking up at you for mercy—cock twitching painfully between your thighs as your wrap your hand around his base real snug, giving him a nice tug as you line him up with your needy heat—making him all but squeal beneath you.

Your other hand makes its way into his hair, braiding your fingers within the locks to hold him steady—gently pulling his head back while leering down at him like caught prey. Playing with him just so, teasing him with your words, all in your sultry voice, making his head spin hot with a fever, “You’ll be a good boy and fuck me, won’t you? Pretty please?”

His breaths are heavy and wet, coming out shaky with his instant answer, “Y-yes—” all weak in a pathetic whimper that almost has you cum too soon.

“You’re so nice~ thank you,” you croon against his lips, kissing him sloppily with your tongue in his mouth as you shift your hips and start lowering your sopping cunt down upon his seeking length, taking him in with greedy ease, eagerly gripping his soft cockhead like a toy in a claw machine.

“Fhu—fuck—” he stutters under his breath, whinging before planting his teeth into his lip to keep it at bay—feeling like putty beneath you, sweaty and heavy and dumb, eagerly wanting all which you sought to give him—only more flushed at your mean undertones as you play with him like food on a silver platter.

You sling your arms around his neck and push your chest harder against him, moaning all too brazenly, “Oh! Fuck yes—that’s so good,” you sing while slowly taking him in further. “A nice guy with a big bad bully’s dick is the best!” 

He whines in return as his inches get eaten—each devoured one by one until his tip kneads into the mouth of your womb.

Sighing happily, you kiss his cheek and put your lips right at his ear with another wanton whimper, “You fill me up so so good.” Roosting on the size, thighs resting flush against his, feeling all giddy as it stretches you out oh-so-nicely. “Such a good toy-cock for me,” keening at the way it twitches inside you, pulsing in response to your tight walls, clenching it in ways it’s never before felt.

His eyes are already rolling back into his skull once you start lolling your hips—riding him, but keeping him deep at all times—lifting just enough for it to pull out only a little before sinking back down, making it settle into that perfect needy little spot inside you that makes your whole body shiver in delight.

“Mmh,” You suck his ear lobe, releasing it with a soft bite, before smiling down at him and his sweat-pilled expression. Cooing at him, “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?”

He can’t even answer with words anymore, only giving a dumb mewl as he nods his head. But, of course, you’re already well aware.

“Mmh—” your eyes gleam with delight, giving his lap a mean ride, leaving him all but breathless, before asking, “D’you like it, virgin boy? ‘You like my pussy? Like the way it milks your chubby cock for your cum?”

He nods again, even more eagerly this time—looking downright pathetic in every sense of the word.

“Do you want to?” you offer to his desperation, feeling as though he’s falling apart at your fingertips, needing you to hold him together. “I’ll let you since you’re such a sweet guy—” you tease while clenching his cock, making it impossible to want anything else no matter the consequence. “In exchange for a favor, of course.”

He couldn’t care less what the favor was—way beyond willing to pay any price you ask of him as he finally makes a move and grabs your hips with a strength you hadn’t thought he had the balls to perform, planting you down firmly and holding you with such need as his hips jitter and stutter—resting his cheek on your shoulder in drool and tears with a lovesick groan leaving him as he fills your pussy up with his creamy spend.

His whole body shakes—spasming in cute little aftershocks as he clutches onto your body, hugging you tightly.

You respond in kind, cuddling him and kissing the top of his head. “That was so warm and filling—what a good boy—you did so well,” you murmur ever-sweetly while petting his head, combing through his sweaty locks with your long glitter-pink nails—keeping your voice saccharine. “Did you enjoy yourself, hm? Your first time cumming in pussy instead of your dirty ol’ sock?”

You pick his face up—cupping his sloppy jaw in both palms—his eyes half-mast and glazed as you nose-kiss him with a smile on your face.

“You loved it, didn’t you? Silly virgin boy…”

Your cunt tingles at the sight of him—wrecked beauty, sweaty and undone. You feel his cock unswell inside you and decide to lift off and release him—letting it flop out and splat on his tummy in a puddle of slick.

“Look,” you fuss, holding his face in direction of it. “You made such a pretty mess—isn’t it lovely?”

Your pussy is left glistening and puffy, still wanting and waiting for its final hurrah. Your breath turns headier and so does your voice, now with a new darkness to it as  you whisper, “Time for that favor, sweet boy.” 

He blinks dumbly, impossibly hopeless, wrapped so tightly around your pinky it’s pitiful. Of course, you take advantage—guiding his head to level with your cunt. 

“Open wide, tongue out flat.”

He obeys wordlessly. And oh god it makes your gut stir viscously—watching his tongue loll free between parted lips.

Your voice flares with bliss at the sight, shy of unhinged, as you giggle breathily, “That’s right—taste the pretty mess you made.”

He’s pushed face-first, trapped between your thighs with his jaw like an open cup beneath you, tonguing the mixed slick from your slit and slurping it all up without shame.

And fuck—it feels so good, you lose even more of your mind while tugging him even closer—all but pulling him off the toilet seat, making him kneel down on the floor instead. And still, he makes no effort to escape, but the opposite—seeking to go deeper into your cunt, crying into you as he laps up every last drop of yours and his arousal—making your thighs quake around him, grinding down against his mouth, onto his eager tongue, having it pet your clit over and over until you also come to the same sudden stumbling halt.

“Yes—yes! Oh, fuck! I’m gonna—it’s coming—”

And there it goes, ripping along your loins, surging from your lower belly. With both your hands tangled harshly in his hair, he’s not going anywhere, lips locked with yours as it starts pouring.

You’re squirting on him—hot and hard—on his tongue, inside his mouth, down his throat, in his belly. You’re squirting on him and he’s drinking it, he realizes—but even so, he isn’t able to stop. Instead, he unwinds his jaw even wider, digs his tongue deeper, and accepts every drop of the warm stream as it drenches his face and splashes down his collar and shoulders, utterly soaking his shirt, making in see-through as it clings to his chest like a second skin.

You’ve closed your eyes and thrown your head back, basking in every last little twitch of your body as you relieve yourself all over his face.

Finally, after a moment, you let go of his hair and step back—feeling refreshed and happy with your work—seeing the poor loser sit before the toilet, all drenched and exhausted with his limp cock spent and messy, looking like a beautiful wreck.

You smile, pulling your panties back in place, and you skirt down again before unlocking the stall and opening the door, only looking back at him for a moment, tapping your nail at a few matching pink scribbles written on the wall. “Here’s my number and address if you wanna have more fun." And then you leave, just like that. "Bye-bye~”

♡ BNHA – Amajiki, Deku, Shigaraki, Shinso ♡ JJK – Yuuta, Choso, Nanami ♡ HQ – Kageyama, Kenma ♡ CSM – Denji ♡ BLLK – Isagi ♡ DS – Zenitsu ♡ WB – Sakura, Nirei

♡ FEM x M INSERT masterlist ♡ GN x M INSERT masterlist

[makingqueerhistory]

":')))))))) you realise that gen AI is available to everyone though right??? Queer creators can use it just as much as anyone else??? I just don't understand this post... It really feels like a cheap way to get on the 'AI Bad's bandwagon, and coming from such a thoughtful and insightful creator that's incredibly disappointing... It's okay to not comment on subjects you're not an expert in y'know...?"

Y'all know the drill, I am replying to this publicly but that is not an invitation to send any negative messages to the person I am replying to.

Anyways, let me start by saying that the original context of the post you're replying to is discussing an event where a queer org used generative AI to steal an interview with Keri Hulme. So let's start there. To be clear I don't even know if the original interviewer was queer so let's put the identities of stealer and stolen from to the side. I want to explain the harm done in this example specifically and I hope this is illustrative of what harm generative AI can (and does) do.

The original place I saw generative AI was a queer org that explicitly says they are using generative AI "for good", and as a way to bring more queer history to light. So let's take them at their word, and assume they are not out to cause harm. This is the best example of generative AI that I can imagine, so I hope that makes it clear that I am not coming at this issue from bad faith in any way.

Here is the harm they are causing:

Decontextualizing and rephrasing an interview: I am not going to pretend that I am an expert in academic best practices, but I do believe one thing, if a person is speaking on their own identity and lived experience, it is always much better to directly quote than it is to rephrase. As I read this source, I initially didn't know that it was AI, and I was already upset. An interview that is widely available on the internet with no pay wall, was poorly sourced and made more vague than it was in the initial text. By creating one degree of seperation between the original words of A WRITER (whose literal job was largely based in choosing the right words to describe experiences they had) harm is already done. It makes vague what was once clear, and removes Keri Hulme's voice from her own narrative.

The original interviewer is not paid, or given proper recognition: I get it, sometimes just copy pasting an interview doesn't feel transformative enough, but something that one would learn if they worked in the queer history field and weren't a literal robot rehashing what has already been said, is that not everything needs to be transformed. In those cases, we give credit to the person who said the original words (in this case Keri Hulme), and the interviewer who facillitated the conversation (in this case Shelley Bridgeman). This case (again a best case scenario), takes the attention and byline away from the original interviewer and gives it to an AI.

The original publisher of this story is deinsentivised from paying interviewers in the future: The original publisher of this interview has ads on their website. As a person who also has ads on their website, taking an article like this and rephrasing it for no good reason (the orginal word count was not prohibitive and the rephrasing did not make it more readable), takes money from the publisher. It's pennies, but it's also removing numbers could have been used to justify further interviews with asexual people and archiving of asexual stories. The org that stole from this publication does not interview people themselves so the money and numbers that could have gone to continue to preserve asexual stories goes to stealing them instead.

These are just the active harms that I saw in this specific case. As you said, I am not an expert in generative AI, and will not be speaking as if I am. But I will say that asking me not to speak out on active harm that is being caused in queer history spaces, is disrespectful to my many years in this field.

To illustrate this even clearer: if you were a patron, you would know I recently took down an old article. I have been rereading and editing our backlist of articles, and I found one that no longer fit my standards of sourcing. My standards had recently raised due to a video made by HBomberguy about someone in the queer history space who was stealing from other creators. I watched this video not as a work project, but because I watch most of HBomberguys videos, and this one made me think more critically about sourcing. An AI can't do that. All an AI has is what has been inputted, and it is right now impossible to input every available peice of information about ethics into an AI and get a coherent ethical basis on which it will function.

It is a distinctly human trait to absorb information and change in that way. AI can rephrase information that already exists, steal it, recontextualize it even, but it cannot create something altogether new.

Do I believe that there one day might be an ethical use for Generative AI? Maybe. Do I believe that coming into a queer history space, stealing the words of a Maori asexual author, rephrasing them, and giving the original interviewer and publication no form of compensation for their work, is accomplishing that? No.

On a more personal note: I am coming at this issue with a bias. As a queer history creator, I do not want AI in my space, because it is literally damaging to my financial prospects. It has been like pulling teeth to try and get patrons in the current state of the global economy. I don't blame anyone from that, but I feel very disrespected that I am being asked to compete with a machine now. Not only that, but I am being asked to shut up and be fine with it? No, absolutely not. I cannot and will not stay quiet as space that I have fought tooth and nail to create in mainstream discussions is taken and given to AI.

AI was not supporting me when I was sent gore to try and scare me off of discussing queer history. A person did that. AI was not there to tell me I had written too many sad stories, and I needed some happy endings to remind myself of the good in the world. A person did that. AI was not there when I was being harrassed for supporting and including asexual stories on my website. A person did that.

And after all that, I am being asked to lie down and take it when my ability to pay the people who supported me in those ways, is being threatened. Nope. Not going to happen.

An AI doesn't have to make rent. An AI doesn't understand what it feels like to have to stop holding their wife's hand in public. An AI didn't get calls from people needing comfort in reaction to the election. Pay me for my work, and get this AI nonsense out of my face.

[xiatarot]

pick a pile: your next relationship

< choose an image >

take what resonates, leave what doesn’t.

for entertainment purposes only.

♡

I.

significant signs: big trees, snoopy, rabbits, spider webs, pictures of your grandparents, angel wings, 777, 8, 16, 1717.

zodiac signs: sagittarius, libra, virgo, cancer, aquarius, leo, gemini.

dear pile 1, it seems like the universe here has a different message for you but it's definitely one that you'll need to hear. your next relationship is essentially with yourself. spirit is urging you to look within, and find the love you seek in yourself. love and affection don't necessarily always have to come from a romantic partner; look around you and you'll find many different sources. you have a strong support system, wether in the 3D or spiritually, or both. there's a need for you to retreat and keep yourself in that hermit energy. there's some things you'll need to let go of in order to close a particularly difficult chapter of your life, and as the end of the year approaches, now it's the perfect time to let go of all those negative energies pulling you back from being who you dream of being, so that 2025 can feel like a fresh new beginning. some of you might struggle with addictions or, generically speaking, things that distract you on a daily basis and take you away from spending time doing other more fulfilling things that could benefit you long-term. now it's the time to reconsider your priorities and make amends with the past. what's behind you shouldn't keep you from moving forward. it would be beneficial to open up to one of multiple friends, don't be afraid to ask for help. to-do lists and physical self-care could also help a lot. remember that whatever you're going through it's temporary and it will pass. don't go back to unhealthy situations and toxic behaviors for temporary comfort, act out of love for your future self. take care.

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channeled song:

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II.

significant signs: singing, white candles, rainstorms, black guitar picks, silver scissors, anxiety meds, journaling, 12, 444, 1010, 6,333.

zodiac signs: leo, aquarius, capricorn, gemini, libra, virgo, aries.

you will meet your next partner at work or this person will offer you a job opportunity. i'm seeing someone receiving bouquets of flowers at their office. this person could be very conventionally attractive, so much that you wouldn't believe they'd be into you, but they will. this will boost your confidence on the long run. you will meet this person at a time in your life where you feel lost or trapped in some kind of situation that might have to do with finances or unemployment. this person will take it in their interests to do the best they can to help you and take you out of your misery. i think they'll be very financially abundant. beware of jealousy that could arise around you, they could have many eyes on them, for some of you they could even be a public figure or someone that's just relatively known on social media. your person will spend a lot of time observing you and trying to read you from afar, they could've been hurt in the past so they'll take a slow and careful approach for fear that you might turn out to be another lesson for them. this relationship will force you to face insecurities and you might have a hard time in terms of self-esteem and confidence initially. communication and honesty are essential here, as lots of misunderstandments could arise out of it. they will definitely be the one to make the first move. this relationship will be filled with passion and could even lead to marriage if that's something you both want. finances won't be a problem for either of you. brace yourself cause it seems like your person is right around the corner! very happy for you :)

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III.

significant signs: the beatles, monkeys, palm trees, fur boots, cocktails, germany, hummingbirds, golden necklace, december, 1212, 222, 888, 555.

zodiac signs: leo, libra, cancer, sagittarius, capricorn, taurus.

your next relationship will be all about healing. whoever this person is, they will almost surprise you with how much love they'll hold for you. it's like finally feeling warmth after spending a whole life out in the cold. i'm seeing someone deeply stuck in their insecurities and self sabotaging tendencies, your mind might tell you you're not deserving of love and this person will take it as their mission to make you believe you are. it's a gentle and caring type of love, one that speaks through actions rather than words. this person will be your anchor and just overall someone you can count on at all times. they're very caring and sweet, they'll treat you as if you were glass. there'll be a lot of deep conversations and opening up to each other. this relationship will be based on trust. it could be someone you already know or already know of. you might have mutual friends and meet at a party or a special occasion that will require you to dress a bit fancier than usual. this person will immediately want to strike a conversation with you and they'll be endeared by your shyness and modesty. it's a relationship that will heal your relationship with yourself and help you see you're much more deserving and worthy than you were raised to believe. you'll definitely have a family together in the future :).

find out more here: ♡

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[nhlclover]

𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐖𝐒 | 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐍𝐍 𝐇𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐄𝐒

summary: you and quinn finally break the news of your relationship to your families, bracing for their reactions while hoping for acceptance.

warnings: mostly fluff, jack luke and trevor being weird and trevor being overprotective, technically an age gap but not really (2 years), happy ending !

word count: 2.12k

Your stomach twisted with nerves as Quinn drove down the winding road to the lake house. Normally the trip to the lake house would bring waves of excitement, but the only thing you were feeling right now was anxious.

You met Quinn when you were sixteen, back when your family moved to Plymouth for Trevor’s hockey. It was through Trevor that you met the Hughes. During your time in Michigan, the Hughes’ became like a second family. Countless hours were spent at their house, watching games together, and sharing meals. It was during those years that your and Quinn’s friendship deepened. However, it wasn’t until a couple of years later when you reconnected in Vancouver that your friendship evolved into something more.

When you moved to Vancouver for work, you reconnected with Quinn and it felt like no time had passed. Initial coffee meet-ups turned into dinners then into dates. The transition from friends to more-than was natural and almost seamless as if you had always been meant to be together. Your friends in Vancouver remarked how perfect you seemed for each other; Quinn’s reserved and gentle nature balanced your outgoing and energetic personality.

Despite this, you couldn’t seem to shake the nerves that seemed to fill every inch of your body. This was because your brother and Quinn’s brothers didn’t know about the two of you yet.

It wasn’t that you didn’t want to tell them, in fact, you couldn’t wait for them to know and to witness their reactions when you told them. But with those thoughts came a rush of anxiety. You knew how protective Trevor could be over you, being wary of anyone who got close to you. The Hughes brothers, on the other hand, had known you for so long that it felt strange to think of them seeing you in a different light. The idea of their possible disapproval, or worse, pulling apart your chosen family, made your stomach churn.

“Hey,” Quinn said, his soft voice pulling you out of your daydream. You glanced over at Quinn, whose eyes were flicking back and forth between you and the road. “Everything will be fine.”

You let out a breath of air you weren’t aware you were holding. “I just… what if they aren’t okay with it?”

“Y/n… they’ll be happy for us. Stop worrying.” Quinn said, his eyes settling on the road. His calm demeanour was usually a source of comfort, but today it made you feel even more on edge. He reached over and squeezed your hand, a small gesture that sent a wave of warmth through you.

You nodded, silently wishing you could share his confidence. The lake house held so many memories, but this trip felt different. Maybe it was the significance of the moment—returning to a place where so many of your memories with the Hughes were made, but now as Quinn’s partner. The weight of it all felt overwhelming.

As the lake house came into view, your heart raced. The picturesque setting was just as you remembered, the sun glistening off the water, the house nestled in between the pines. Quinn parked the car between Jack and Trevors and you both stepped out, the fresh air coming off the lake instantly enveloping your lungs.

You grabbed your bags from the trunk, heading up towards the house where you spotted your twin brother and the rest of the Hughes family lounging on the front porch. They all greeted you with enthusiastic smiles and waves, unaware of the bombshell you were about to drop.

“Hey, you guys!” Trevor grinned, bounding off the porch towards the two of you. “How was the drive?”

“Not bad,” you replied, giving Trevor a hug. “Traffic wasn’t too bad.”

Quinn greeted his brothers before passing them off to you. Luke and Jack pulled you into a group hug, the older of the two giving you a small noogie. “It’s about time you two got here, we were beginning to think you got lost.” Luke joked.

“Thanks again for travelling with her man,” Trevor said, clapping a hand on Quinn’s shoulder. “I hope she wasn’t a bother or anything.”

You glanced at Quinn, suppressing a smile towards the irony of Trevor’s comment. Little did your brother know that Quinn had been the biggest source of comfort throughout the trip, helping to ease the anxiety brought on by the prospect of telling everyone about you and Quinn.

“No, not at all,” Quinn replied. “She was good company.”

“Come on, let’s get inside,” Jack said, grabbing one of your bags and leading the way to the house. “Mom and Dad are in the kitchen, they’ve been waiting for the two of you.”

As you walked through the front door, the comforting aroma of the lake house hit you, and you couldn’t help but smile. It was these small, comforting details that made the lake house feel like home. Ellen and Jim greeted you warmly, pulling you both into hugs and insisting you sit down and relax.

“So, how’s Vancouver treating you?” Ellen asked.

“Really well,” you replied, glancing at Quinn. “Work is great, and the city is beautiful. I’ve been lucky to have Quinn show me around a lot.”

“Oh, I’m sure he has,” Jim said with a knowing smile. “You know, I’m glad the two of you are still so close.”

You felt your cheeks flush as you caught Quinn’s eye, his expression reassuring yet slightly amused. You knew in your chest that it was now or never. It was only going to get worse the longer you put it off. You took a deep breath, feeling Quinn’s hand gently rest on the small of your back as he stepped up beside you.

“Actually,” you began, your voice wavering just a bit, “there’s something we wanted to tell you all.”

The room fell silent, all eyes landing on you and Quinn. You saw Trevor’s eyes glance down to Quinn’s hand and then back to your face, a confused expression on his. You glanced at him, and he gave you a small nod, encouraging you to continue.

“Quinn and I are…we’re together,” you said, the words tumbling out faster than you intended. “As in, we’re dating.”

For a moment, there was complete silence. You could see the wheels turning in Trevor’s head, his expression shifting from surprise to something unreadable. Luke and Jack exchanged glances, and Ellen’s face broke into a warm smile.

“Well, it’s about time,” she said, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “I always thought you two would make a great couple.”

Jim nodded, a small smile appearing on his lips. “Congratulations you two, we’re happy for you.”

You felt a small weight lift off your shoulders at the positive reaction from two people who were practically your parents but felt it fall right back down when you glanced over at the boys, all three of them looking shell-shocked.

“Wait, what?” Jack finally said, looking between you and Quinn. “You’re serious?”

Quinn nodded, his hand now tracing comforting circles on your back. “Yeah, we are.”

Trevor remained silent, his gaze fixed on Quinn. You could see the struggle in his eyes as he processed the information. The room felt heavy with the weight of unspoken thoughts and emotions.

“Well, this is… unexpected,” Luke said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean, I’m happy for you guys, just… wow.”

Jack nodded in agreement. “Yeah, same here. Just caught us off guard.”

The rest of the evening was filled with awkward conversations and forced smiles. Jim and Ellen did their best to keep the atmosphere light, but the tension was palpable. Every time Quinn held your hand in his or sidled yourself under Quinn’s arm, you could feel the tense glances from them. Discomfort radiated from every one of them.

As night fell and everyone started heading to bed, you couldn’t shake the unease. You lay awake, replaying the day’s events in your mind. Quinn had repeatedly given you reminders that everything would turn out okay and that they would come around eventually. But even as Quinn lay quietly beside you, his steady breathing reflecting his attitude from throughout the day, the attempts at comfort couldn’t fully erase the lingering anxiety.

The next morning, you awoke after little sleep, your racing mind keeping you awake throughout the night. You knew you couldn’t go on with feeling this way around the others. You descended the stairs, following the soft hum of conversation out to the porch where you found Trevor, Jack, and Luke sipping from steaming mugs. Taking a deep breath, you walked over and sat down, the cool morning air helping to steady your nerves.

“‘Morning,” you said softly, pulling the sleeves of Quinn’s hoodie down over your hands.

The three boys mumbled ‘good mornings’, not one of them bothering to look up from their mugs. You huffed, now feeling more annoyed than anxious that this had continued into the morning. “Can we talk?”

Trevor glanced at you, his expression unreadable. “Sure.”

You took a moment to gather your thoughts before continuing. “I know yesterday was a lot to take in, and I just wanted to apologize if it felt sudden. But I need you all to understand how important this is to me. Quinn and I, we really care about each other.”

Luke sighed, setting his mug down on the side table. “We’re not upset, Y/N. It’s just… surprising. We’ve known you for so long… it’s just weird to think of you two as more than friends.”

Jack leaned forward in his chair, his expression soft. “And-and it’s not that we don’t support you… it’s just unexpected. But if you’re happy, then we’re happy.”

You smiled, feeling a bit of relief wash over you. However, you still felt a force pushing back in the form of your twin sitting in the chair across from you. You turned to Trevor, leaning forward to try and capture his gaze, which remained locked on the water. You could see conflict in his eyes, the protective older brother wrestling with the reality of the situation.

“Trevor?” you prompted gently.

He finally looked at you, his eyes searching yours for a moment before he sighed. “It’s not that I don’t want you to be happy, Y/N. I do. It’s just… Quinn’s my boy. If something goes wrong, it’s going to mess things up for all of us.”

You chuckled softly, reaching out and gently placing a hand on Trevor’s knee. “I get that you’re worried, Trev. But Quinn and I have thought about this. We know the risks, and we’re committed to making this work. He makes me happy, and I want you to see that.”

Trevor opened his mouth to speak but shut it and sighed instead. “I just… I don’t want to see you get hurt. And I don’t want to lose one of my best friends.”

“You won’t lose him,” you reassured him. “If anything, this will bring us all closer. But I need you to trust me. Trust us.”

Trevor studied your face for a long moment before finally nodding. “Okay. I trust you. But if he ever does anything to hurt you…” “I won’t, I promise.” You all turned to the doorway where a sleepy-looking Quinn stood. He came over to you, placing a gentle hand on your shoulder.

Trevor sighed, rubbing his face with his hands. “Alright, alright. I get it. I’m just being the overprotective brother, I guess. It’s going to take some time to get used to this.”

“Well, now that we’ve gotten the serious stuff out of the way,” Jack said, breaking the tension with a grin, “who’s ready for some breakfast? I’m pretty sure Mom made pancakes.”

As you all made your way inside, the atmosphere felt lighter. Breakfast was a blend of easy conversation and laughter, the expected teasing coming in steady doses. The rest of the day felt like life was back to normal, the initial shock seemed to wear off, replaced by the warmth and support of both your real and chosen family.

As the sun began to set, painting the sky with hues of pink and orange, you found yourself sitting on the dock with Quinn, your feet dangling in the water. The events of the day played in your mind, the change in events now bringing you comfort.

“I told you it would be okay,” Quinn said softly, his hand intertwining with yours.

You leaned your head on his shoulder, a content sigh escaping your lips. “You were right. I just needed to get out of my own head.”

Quinn pressed a kiss to your temple, his voice filled with affection. “That’s what I’m here for.”

[fucktoyfelix]

This is actually a useful thing to understand how to spell out. What exactly is wrong with puritanical attitudes towards sexuality? TW: Discusses body image issues, suicide, STIs, sexual assault etc

1. It fosters fear, disgust and loathing of our bodies. By hiding the human body as soon as we are born, and treating it as an object of inherent shame: THAT creates trauma. Shame is one of the primary sources of trauma, its the fuel and lets trauma burn. Those raised in nudist societies, and children raised in households where nudity is treated in a neutral and non-sexual tend to have a much more positive relationship with their bodies as adults. This makes complete sense when you think about it. Going through puberty not knowing if your body is "normal" terrifies children in ways that stick with them for life. In fact, most cultures outside of the Unites States aren't as strange about non-sexual nudity actually...and are healthier for it. We can't have body positivity as long as we are literally criminalized for having an uncovered body. 2. It creates fear, shame and disgust about sex. Most people have sex at some point in their lives. No one would be here at all without it. Most people have sexual desires which lie outside their control. When people are ashamed of those desires, it leads to self hatred, and depression and anxiety. This shame is just as traumatic as bodily shame. When sex is normalized, and treated with the same candor as any other hobby: it becomes less apt to traumatize people.

3. Puritanical attitudes towards sex limit sex education. When people are too ashamed to talk about sex, people don't learn about pregnancy, stis, or consent. All of these things can and do kill people when they aren't addressed with an open dialogue.

Sexual shame leads to people too ashamed to buy condoms, to talk to their doctor about birth control, to ask their partner to use protection, to get tested...the negative health impacts of sexual puritanism have a massive negative effect on society.

4. Sexual shame leads to poorer communication in relationships. Ohh if I had a dime for every person i knew who ruined their relationship because they felt too guilty to talk to their partner about their sexual feelings...Not just that, but the general body shame that comes with puritanism blocks people from connecting to one another too. Have you ever avoided getting close to someone because you were ashamed of your body? If not, I guarantee you know someone who has.

5. Misogyny! Puritanical sexual believes hold that women are not capable of sexual agency. That only men should initiate sex. That women should only ever want babies and not pleasure from sex. All of this rolls right into the next one:

6. Victim blaming in sexual assault. When women are the gatekeepers of sex, its easy to blame them when they 'fail' to protect their chastity when someone violates their trust. This isn't something that just effects women: as the same attitudes hold that men are not capable of experiencing sexual assault. The lack of education and discussion about sex in a sex-negative world inherently prevent the open dialogues necessary for creating and maintaining consent culture.

7. Suppression and marginalization of the queer community. If we're too ashamed to talk about sex, we'll be too ashamed to talk about sexuality. Puritans can't accept any deviation from gender norms either. Anything other than sex between a cis man and a cis woman for the purpose of making a baby is a deviant kink, a mental illness, and needs to be wiped out. Its important to point out that many queer people hold puritanical values about sex: believing that they can achieve sex negativity and queer liberation at the same time. However, sex negative movements always rise with censorship and discrimination of queer people...because queer people are inherently considered deviant by the vast majority of sex negative "allies". It's very dangerous to forget this.

8. Censorship of art. Who decides what is sexual and what is not? Its easy to agree that sex needs to be hidden...but it never takes long before the definition of what is "sexual" expands. Even women's breasts are considered sexual in the United States. Its so normal for Americans to think of them that way that women can't feed their children in public. Drag queens face violence for reading at libraries. Books get taken off the shelves. Artists are bullied offline.

9. Censorship of scientific exploration. Scientific research into reproductive health, sexual behavior, gender identity and more are often hindered due to the "moral objections" of puritans, delaying progress and understanding. That's just off the top of my head. I think its time for people to take how problematic 'puritanism' is more seriously. As we see fascism rear its ugly head all over the world, we're going to see a lot more talk about 'degenerates'...and we know where that kind of talk leads.

[mortalityplays]

Forgive me if I'm mistaking you for another person, but I remember you speaking at multiple points on the unsustainability of free social media services (I think especially in response to the cohost collapse?), and I'm curious on what your thoughts on bluesky are so far. I'm not an expert on the subject, but from what I've read previously it seemed like they were on track to be financially sustainable, but I don't know if the recent floods of users has thrown those projections off. Sorry if I'm mixing you up with someone else on my timeline, in that case just ignore me.

bluesky will almost certainly follow the same trajectory of monetisation => bloat => enshittification => decline as every other major platform built on venture capital and user hoarding. it's a terrible model that only works in the short term as a mirage for attracting funding and making founders look good for a year or two before they sell.

you can see the same effect in the decline of all the subscription box services that came into vogue just before covid: they feel great to use for as long as the initial injection of venture funding lasts, because the purpose of that funding at that stage is to attract users and impress the next round of funders with how pleasant/intuitive/efficient/ethical/good value the service is. that's the stage where they're handing out freebies and bowling over influencers, and every ingredient in the box is fresh and high quality and locally sourced. wow what a good deal, what a great system!!! why hasn't anyone done this before? the answer is because it's unsustainable by design. they rack up good reviews, sign on a billion new users, attract new funding from a bunch of much more credulous investors, and then gut all of the expensive parts. portions get smaller, ingredients get worse, packaging gets flimsier, prices go up, freebies turn into "5% off your first 9 boxes when you invite 3 friends", and customer service vanishes.

with social media (and platforms like discord) the logic is the same, it's just a little less glaringly obvious to the end user because they're not coming home to leaking packages of rancid chicken on the doorstep. bluesky has an advantage over tiny operations like cohost because it was founded by a billionaire making a point for the sake of his own image. it got a really significant chunk of startup funding, and the owner had existing connections and rep in the space to attract more. That's why it has survived the goldrush period, why it still feels good to use, and why users who have been burned so many times before are finally accepting it as a stable, reliable option. It's still in its venture capital honeymoon phase where the only thing worth spending money on is making the service attractive to users.

What I expect we will see next, with another mass influx of users from twitter and new funding from a rogue's gallery of tech venture sickos led by Blockchain Capital is a strong ramp up into monetising that userbase. They've already been pretty forthright about how they plan to do this, and I think it's a solid roadmap of how Bluesky will bloat and decay over the next few years:

this is a huge lol. don't worry, we're not going to hyperfinancialize the social experience through NFTs. the thing even crypto freaks started feigning amnesia about a year ago. real "our health conscious sodas are 100% arsenic free" messaging here. They know perfectly well that rubes users are suspicious of their typical 5 dimensional tech finance chess games and are patting our hands about last week's bogeymen so nobody worries too hard about whatever 'decentralised developer ecosystem' just happens to be helmed by a bunch of crypto guys. this definitely means something good and based and not a google-like single sign on user data harvesting operation.

This is the same shit that's currently rotting the floorboards of discord. Bluntly, there is no way to run a platform on this scale without gating functionality behind paid services. Discord has been squeezing free-tier file uploads and call quality etc. down steadily and cranking up subscription costs over the last year or two, throwing in chaff like animated avatar frames to try and justify the user cost. They're also doing the same misdirection thing again here, pointing to Thing We All Hate to deflect from thing we might not like very much when they do it. Booo elon booo we all hate elon!!! wait how do we feel about subscription models again,

watch out for this to kill porn on bsky like it has killed porn on every other social platform 👍 boooo we hate elon boooo stupid idiot and his 'everything app' booooo wait why do you need my tax information, what's that about mastercard,

Look, we are all aware social media is a money pit. Let's not forget dorsey was looking to sell twitter in the first place, long before elon's very public plunge into total online derangement. Subscription services are not going to plug the hole, so we are gradually going to see more and more spaghetti thrown at the wall while early funders shuffle cards and do their pyramid scheme bit bringing in stupider and stupider investments. this is the window in which bluesky will be temporarily worth using for us, for the idiot public, the poorly rendered crowd jpegs in the background of their venture capital MOBA. it's in their interests to slow and pad the decline as much as possible, because that is how they get maximally paid.

Given the scale of the money involved, and dorsey's weird ego investment, I think bluesky will probably manage a controlled drift for a good few years before it gets really bloated and painful. and by then we will all be so used to the *checks notes* decentralised developer ecosystem that we'll just be posting through it, watching another generation of columnists call another collapsing platform 'their beloved hellsite' and passing around that meme about not getting out of our chairs no sir until idk we all get on a fediverse neurolink alternative to stick it to the elongated muskrat and our brains pop peacefully in our sleep. which I guess is the closest thing to viability any social media platform can achieve.

anyway diogenes the cynic is also on bluesky

[alex51324]

Now, more than ever, we need to be careful about spreading misinformation and rumors

I can guarantee that over the next few months, we'll be hearing about a lot of alarming things going on here in the US. Some of those things will be true, and some won't. (And some will have both true and false or exaggerated elements.)

It's going to be absolutely vital that important information is not drowned out by misinformation, rumors, and ragebait.

That means, when you see something that would be important if true, before sharing, you check whether it's actually true.

In library world, we use the acronym SIFT:

STOP: Don't spread the information, or get caught up in your emotional reaction to it, before you've checked it out. INVESTIGATE: Who is saying it? How do they know? If there are links or sources in the post, do they actually say what the person is saying they do? FIND other coverage: Do an internet search for key details: quotes, people's names, specific locations. If something major is happening, there will normally be a lot of coverage. TRACE claims, quotes, and media back to their original context.

Usually you don't need to do all four things: just STOP and then pick what makes sense from the other three. If you decide to share the information, you can also say what you did--"This is a firsthand account from XYZ protest; it lines up with what the local TV station is saying, but has a lot more details about what the cops did," or whatever.

The more urgent the information seems, the more important it is to make sure it's reliable.

If we're hearing every other day that this or that vulnerable group is in immediate, life-threatening danger--but 49 times out of 50 it turns out to mean Trump rambled somewhere about something which, if actually implemented, could end up having the described consequences at some point down the line--then people aren't going to know the difference the one time in 50 when the danger really is immediate.

Think, here, things like immigration crackdowns, CPS investigations into parents who affirm a trans child's gender, or demands that health care providers report miscarriages to law enforcement. We all know that these are things Trump World talks about a lot and would like to be able to do, in some form. For the sake of the people affected by these topics, we need different ways of talking about, "Here they are, back on their bullshit," versus, "This is a policy proposal for a real thing that could happen," versus, "Holy shit, grab the kids and run."

We cannot go to "Holy shit, grab the kids and run" every time Trump, or someone in his inner circle, decides to bloviate about something that could disastrously affect people lives. The people who are most in danger can't stay at DefCon 5 every day of their lives, and when they do really have to grab the kids and run, we need that alarm to be heard over the constant background hum of dread.

The same goes for action items--whether protests, ways to help, or little things people can do to stay safe/sane. There's going to be plenty going on, and nobody is going to be able to do everything, so do your part by passing along those things that you can vouch are true and important, and skipping the things you aren't sure about.

I'll leave you with an example. Remember how a few years ago, we were all-in about hand hygiene and disinfecting surfaces? And then it turned out that those were not actually very important in terms of preventing the transmission of COVID-19, and what we really need is better air filtration in public spaces--but, at my work at least, we still have canisters of surface-disinfecting wipes sitting around, and tattered old signs up about hand hygiene, and no air filters.

At the time, early in the pandemic, we were sharing the best information we knew about how to stay safe, but people got a little too fixated on that initial advice--remember how people would wipe down their groceries? And those little sticks for pressing elevator buttons?--and then when the advice changed, they didn't want to hear about it.

Distrust, fatigue, superstitious attachment to the old grocery-wiping ways--there were a lot of reasons, but the key thing to take away is that attention, energy, and goodwill are all finite resources. Try to avoid wasting it with grocery-wiping--or worse, shilling for the guy selling little sticks to press elevator buttons with.

[k0yaz]

tides.

Pairings: navia x fem!reader

CW: nsfw, female reader, siren au, pirate/sailor reader (whatever u want it to be lol), wlw, girls kissing obv, sesbian lex muahahaha, men can interact but uhm it might be awkward bc navia talks about how much she hates men (sorry :( ), officer the sex comes outta nowhere, who is this diva, no seriously I made navia extra sassy here, virgin reader, underwater sex idfk?, fingering, kinda vanilla, marking, breast play ig, written when I am VERY sleepy, not proofread.

A/N: I would no joke let navia- I mean who said that. this is part of @edgeray ‘s halloween event :3 🕯️

Splashes of ocean water ripped through the wavering currents in the cold dead of night, patterns of stars decorating the sky alongside the moon as the only faint light source in the clearing as she ship rocked from side to side. You stared down the ledge of the large ship, sail standing proud directly behind you as you inched closer to the edge to drown out the obnoxious hollers of your crewmates. The relentless voyage stretched out for an agonizingly extended period of time—months possibly. Before you, the endless stretch of the ocean consumed your sights altogether, becoming the only thing filling your sights as the consuming waves engulfed the previous body of water trailing behind you.

Your crewmates had never failed to remain a pain in the ass as well, constantly taunting you and disrupting your peace with an insolent remark hurled at you as their irritating laughter erupted throughout the ship. On top of the sloppy lifestyle the men on the ship had shared, it didn’t exactly help that you were one of the few women present on the ship. Or maybe you were the only one? You had lost track at this point.

Regardless, you always scoffed at the unkempt behaviors of your crewmates advancing toward you or spitting useless nonsense toward you in an attempt to mansplain something, disgust boiling up inside you. You merely attempted to drown out their presence as nothing more than white noise circling the clearing, cutting through the initially peaceful silence of the quiet waves and gentle air. Yet, it was still as if you had been cursed with remaining in a trashed wooden sail afloat in the middle of nowhere surrounded by people who would probably murder you if they had the chance to. That’s what they’d do to any crewmate who was the least bit civilized atleast.

Sighing, your eyes lowered shut, lashes briefly brushing onto your skin. You savored the cool air grazing your face, which out outstretched to gaze upward as if you had offered yourself to the unending void of a sky to come take you away. Sometimes, you pondered if it would be better for you to just escape your responsibility as a pirate. Leaving behind the life of plundering and theiving to carve a new path of what you wanted. Maybe then you atleast wouldn’t be awoken by the stinging smell of booze engulfing your room in the middle of your rest as some drunken crewmate would rummage through your belongings unprompted.

“(Name)! The hell you staring out for- for that long? You’re not tryna avoid us, yeah?”

You pursed your lips quietly, shoulders hunching up as you gripped the edge of the boat tightly, fingers dragging along the raw wood. His voice was nothing but a pestering vibration that rang in the air, only serving to gauge your annoyance further.

“Maybe I am? Leave me alone. I don’t want to join your cheap ship tavern with rum and puke.”

He rolled his eyes in response, clearing his throat as he brought a hand to his chest to surpress his own gulp of drinks bubbling up in his throat.

“Ugh. You’re no fun. But for once nah, we want everyone to come around since we saw something poking out of the water. Seemed like a huge catch for a fish maybe.”

Upon hearing his words, you couldn’t help but cock an eyebrow in mild skepticism. Perhaps those were the rushes of water thumping against the fervent currents, splashing a few pools of salty ocean water onto the edge of the ship occasionally. Curious, you made your way over to the large array of crewmates pinned up to the ledge, peering down at the ripples of water followed by strong currents grazing along the base of the ship.

A…fish? Had everyone drank too much? There weren’t much fish around this part of the sea visible to a sailor’s naked eye. They typically presided in the deep pressure of the ocean around here.

Maybe your crewmates never left behind their idiotic sense of fascination. That would be the most plausible answer as to why their eyes seemed to be tracing nothing. A disappointed groan left the crew members one by one as they detached themselves from the ledge, disappointed as they trudged back into their respective cabins at the lack of anything particularly eye catching. Morons.

“(Name)! Keep watch again for us, will you?”

You couldn’t do much to be fair, besides heave a disappointed groan and shoot your drunken crewmate a disdainful glare as he flashed you that shit eating grin, stumbling over to his room before slamming the door behind him. And so there you stood. Still in the middle of the rocking ship like an unmovable stone, weighing down on the creaking floorboards wavering beneath you as the violent thrusts of the ocean continued to slice through your ears.

It felt quite unnatural, as if something presiding in the growingly murky waters of the sea torrented the initially neutral water gently splashing along the sea. The moonlit sky reflected in the still clear ripples of the ocean, your eyes squinting as you caught the pale light shining along the edge of a curved obstacle protruding to the surface from below the naked eye. Furrowing your brows, you shielded the top of your eyes, focusing your vision on the intrusion abnormally poking out of the currents.

Mind clouded with confusion, the fog around the area only grew thicker as the clouds occasionally masked the darkened sky. Suddenly, your swirling thoughts began to subside as your tense muscles relaxed, grip on the wood ledge loosening as a serene melody hummed through the air, the effects it brought upon clearing your mind almost intoxicating. You breathed out calmly, hearing the beautiful voice of a woman float alongside the swishes of water as you felt yourself slowly leaning further and further along the ledge.

Her sweet voice only entranced you further and further, drawing you in as it grew more prominent. Longing to push past the ledge to take in her velvety voice closer to you. However you couldn’t help but feel the unnerving sting faltering your longing thoughts, trying to fight back with a drop of rationality while you pushed against the edge closer, face nearly coming into contact with the circling waves. Who could possibly singing this late? And who would there even be to sing in the middle of nowhere?

You saw the object curve out of the surface of the ocean past the clearing, now nearing your line of sight and making itself more clear in the dim moonlight rolling along the waters to illuminate the bare minimum in a close proximity. Now getting a clearer look, the object nearly resembled that of a fish’s tail, a pretty shade of light blue spanning along each subtle scale along it. What an odd color for a fish, perhaps that’s what your crewmates saw earlier, as it was the only fish that could see so far. In fact— it happened to be as big as you recalled from what the others pointed out.

Your tongue flattened against the roof of your mouth in anticipation, feeling an uneasiness churning in your stomach as the scaled ridge rippled closer and closer to the side of the boat. However instead of backing away, you found yourself peering over the ledge, hands tightened at the rim of the ship as the splintering wood grazed your calloused hands. Leaping over, you thudded down onto the boat with a soft ‘oof,’ your thoughts screaming at you internally to question if you were insane. You knew your curiosity outmatched your rationality, yet you couldn’t help but be drawn to the sea blue tail peeking out from the waves, and complimented by the moonlight.

What met your eyes next was quite a sight to behold, your jaw nearly dropping from the radiance that blinded your eye. A stunning woman arched above the surface of the water in one swift motion, head tilted back as her near cinematic entrance sent droplets of water seeming to float in the air around her in slow motion. Her starry blue eyes locked onto your form, bottom lip glistening a gorgeous tint of pink to compliment her honey blonde hair spilling down her shoulders.

Her gaze snapped up to you in less than a single second, heavy eyes opening up a bit as she raised her eyebrows in slight surprise to take in your seated form on the dock. You didn’t expect The gorgeous lady to hoist herself up from the sea, hands planted at either side of your waist as she rose herself to the edge of the ship where you sat, face dangerously close. Instinctively, you hunched your shoulders back, leaning your head back to harbor more space between your faces—yet, the woman closed the gap each time, the tip of her nose brushing against yours as you felt her soaked skin graze against yours.

Raising an eyebrow, she kept that unmoving indifferent expression, sinking herself down into the sea once more as she rested her arms along the wood. The end of her tail briefly peeked out of the ocean’s bristling surface, her cheek pressed against her resting hands as her head tilted to the side, gaze immediately snapping back to you as you swore that the corner of her lip slightly curved up in a smile.

“Huh. I expected something I could drag down again.” She finally spoke, her expression growing more and more amused upon observing your confusion. She leaned back with a sigh, pink tinted lips gleaming under the light as the reflections of the water silhouetted her form. “I surely didn’t think to encounter someone so…gorgeous. Fully expected some middle aged drunkard.”

Your eyes remained fixed on the oddly shaped fin structures in place of her ears, not even registering her words completely out of the initial shock that stung you just now. Had you just encountered a live mermaid? You thought they were just tales employed by a bunch of sailors for their own laughs.

Now looking at her upfront���the draconic fins, frail body, those deadpan eyes tracing you, all the characteristics fit that of a siren instead.

Noticing your blank gaze staring at possibly nothing, she rose her hand to hover over your cheek carefully, puffing out a quick sigh at your absentmindedness. Quickly, you rushed back to your senses, blinking to ground yourself back into reality for a moment.

“Don’t be like that, dear sailor. A pretty girl like you isn’t nameless, correct?” She hummed, a subtle smirk crossing her features as she tilted her head to come face to face with you. The way her head had angled as if it were to intersect your lips, sky blue eyes flickering to your quivering lower lip being nothing short of gesturing a kiss, her stance as her arms elevated her up to level with you being oddly…intimate.

“Are you..a siren?”

Her eye twitched, brows knitted together in mild frustration in less than the blink of an eye as her fingers dug into the wood to maintain her composure. You clasped a hand over your mouth defensively, seeming to realize far too late that perhaps you shouldn’t have asked such a question so- upfront when she was the one who inquired your name in a playful manner first.

She reached up her hand to her forehead, bridge of her nose situated between her thumb and forefinger in annoyance as she pushed out a breath to calm herself. God, the one sailor she took interest in, she wanted to fucking murder in this moment.

“Are you serious? I asked you a question, clearly interested, and that’s what you ask me?”

“Sorry..”

“Fuck it. It’s fine. Not like you’re someone trying to hunt me down only to be killed.”

She paused, eyes narrowing as she took note of the expectant look remaining on your face, clearly still wanting the answer to your abruptly dumb question earlier. Scoffing, she rolled her eyes, unamused by your clueless antics.

“Yes. I am. Happy? Name’s Navia, now if it isn’t so hard to tell me your name like I did to you?”

You flinched at her sudden aggression, tilting your head bashfully. Guess she really didn’t like the moment getting ruined.

“..(Name).”

Navia hummed softly in approval, velvety voice spurring against her throat in a gentle exhale of breath. Her hand dragged along yours, a spark flying through you upon feeling her soaked skin stick to yours so closely. Evidently so, you had piqued the sea creature’s interest quite a bit, your breathing shallowing out upon feeling a chill envelope your whole body, goosebumps blooming against your exposed skin along with the chilling winds.

“Gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful. It suits someone as beautiful as you.”

You couldn’t help but allow the burning heat to creep up to your cheeks, blood rushing to your head as you felt your face grow hot from the faint red tint.

“So why aren’t you killing me, Navia?”

Tapping her chin thoughtfully for a moment, Navia flashed you a smile, pressing her chest to the edge of the dock to speak with you a bit closer.

“I dunno. Saw a sailor that wasn’t a drunk moron eating at anything that’s money, sailor happened to be a pretty girl, and everything happened from there I guess.” She answered in a lighthearted tone, nails digging into the wood of the ship to ground herself. Just so happened the sweet siren here had pretty sharp nails, pointed at the tips just at the right amount to cut open human flesh to the bone.

“So…I say..if you wanna live unlike what I think I wanna do to your crewmates..”

Her hands suddenly shifted over to your thighs draped over the edge, planting them down for support against you. By now, you had to choke back the rapid breaths catching in your throat, heart feeling it was going to beat right out of your chest as it thudded against your insides violently. Of course you couldn’t help it, you felt somewhat aroused by the sight of a gorgeous woman, who so happened to be an exotic sea creature looming over you with her palms planted onto your clothed thighs. You’d never let her outright know that though.

Navia’s cool breath suddenly fanned against your cheek, pretty pink lips alarmingly close as she grazed them along the shell of your ear. Still held up impressively by her mere arm strength pushing her up to come face to face with you. Her bare body brushed against the loose fabric of your shirt puffed out, draped over you as the neckline formed a V shape over the opening of your chest.

Her sharp fragrance of saltwater clawed at the back of your throat as you took in her scent as she leaned against you chest to chest now, the strong tonicity being substituted with a much more pleasantly mellow aroma presenting itself for you to breathe in. Your head spun as your pupils flickered in Navia’s wake, her nails still dug into your thighs temptingly as she had probably torn parts of the cloth and poked holes into your pants. Clicking her tongue, her breath hitting your ear only served to further heighten your lust blinded haze, flinching as her pointed teeth grazed along your ear as she spoke once more to complete her dangling thought.

“Come underwater with me. I promise I won’t kill you or anything. It’ll feel…nice.”

“How am I supposed to do that? I’m human, I can’t just dunk myself underwater and be expected to breathe the whole time.”

Navia merely grumbled at your naive response, biting the inside of her cheek. You only cocked your head to the side, puzzled by her random changes in demeanor in this moment.

“(Name). I get that you live with your braindead crewmates, but surely acting like some virgin will get you nowhere around me.”

“Ah..”

You pursed your lips at her remark, dozing your gaze off to the side in embarrassment. Sweat patterned along your back as the tides began to assault your ankles now, the water refreshingly warm in contrast to Navia’s hypothermic body temperature adhering droplets of water along every inch of your own. She feigned an expression of shock at your bashful hesitation, bringing her hand to her lips in a gesture that made you huddle in a bit from embarrassment.

“Don’t tell me…you haven’t-?”

You shook your head, clearing your throat to distract yourself—and her—from the fact that your face was a scorching scarlet hue from the fairly lewd topic at hand.

“Well then…if you come with me I can fix that..? What do you say, (Name)?”

Her teasing voice only spurred you further to dart your sights down to her hands now subtly parting your thighs, the beautiful gradient of her nails sharpened along her skin quickening your breathing as you choked back a whine from her evidently seductive motions. A single nod was all that was needed as her hands shot up from between your legs to snake around your neck, grasping on as she clawed at your nape all of a sudden. An involuntary gasp left you upon feeling the sting of her nails along the back of your neck, breath held between your cheeks the moment she fell back into the sea, dragging you along with her.

Sinking deeper into the rushing blue waters circling you, Navia’s arms remained locked around your neck, tail shielding your leg for additional support as you descended down into the depths of the ocean. The minute you hit a strange sort of dome in which you could breathe underwater, you in fact—couldn’t exactly breathe properly. Your legs pressed together as jolts of pleasure enveloped your body, a high rush overtaking you as you noticed Navia wasting absolutely no time as she held you down into the sand.

Rasped out mewls began to endlessly spill from your lips as your hips mindlessly bucked forward into Navia’s touch, her middle and ring finger knuckles deep in your cunt as she parted your walls to accommodate her fingers splitting you open. Ecstasy clouded your mind at her intoxicating touch, nails brushing up against that one spot within you as her freehand was clasped around your wrists to hold you down.

Every worry you had embedded in your mind, every issue that had haunted you on your journey had faded away under her touch, your lips parted as a string of noises followed through with each relentless thrust of her fingers curling your warm, velvety walls. Her movements remained somewhat gentle, yet fervent as heat clouded the two of you in the intense moment, teeth pressed against the exposed skin of your throat to muffle a moan fighting against her lips.

Perhaps her mind had also been relieved in this moment while she fucked you underwater. The constant unprovoked attacks from wandering sailors, sudden encounters with people who had never caught her eye in the moment, Navia just needed to get away from it all. And you were perfect for her. It’s as if the gods had bestowed upon her a sailor with lips as sweet as saccharine. And the minute she raised her head from your throat to glance over at your face twisted in lust, her lips found their way to crash against yours, tongue brushing along your bottom lip any chance she got in that hungry kiss she captured you with.

Sure enough, you tasted sweet just like she theorized.

Your intoxicating scent, the sweetness of your lips, your moans vibrating against her mouth while her fingers drove in and out at a steady, yet roughened pace to slam against your cunt…

It was all so fucking perfect.

Bright red hickeys bloomed in a trail of fire against your exposed skin, your gasps increasing in pitch and frequency as her thumb brushed along your exposed nipple. A near scream boiled in your throat as Navia’s own noises reverberated against your lips, your breaths growing quicker as a third finger entered the heavenly mix. You frantically reached a hand up to grip onto her bare back tightly, nails raking down her pale skin as she threw her head back to choke out a little whimper.

“N-Navi- please…m’gonna-“

—

Breathing heavily, you lay fully clothed. Back flush against the edge of the ship once more, staring at the sky aimlessly as your now soaked clothing pooled out drains of seawater onto the dock. You craned your neck over, glancing at the siren who hoisted you back up as you seemed to be completely out of breath. A smile stretched her lips at your exhausted form, innocently waving as she fluttered her fingers. Huh. Acting like she didn’t just fuck the life out of you with those.

Navia’s chin rested along the edge of the boat once more, leaning over to plant a sweet kiss against your cheek. You were too spent to move at all, yet you still smiled weakly as you lay like starfish outstretched in water on the boat. She chuckled, eyes briefly flickering to the visible marks on your neck not covered by your clothes.

“Will I be seeing you again in this part of the sea, (Name)?”

“Without a doubt. Just make sure I can move next time.”

“Not my fault you have no experience.”

“Oh come on..I promise I’ll be the one on top next time, ‘kay?”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

You rasped out a strained laugh, smiling at Navia as she lowered herself back into the water before flashing you a quick wink.

“I’ll see you around, my sweet sailor.”

And just like that, she disappeared into the depths of the water. Leaving you on your back, all soaked and marked up as your clothes stuck to you body in a transparent fashion.

Hell, maybe you’ll bring her something next time.

A/N: PLEASE DONF HAVE HIGH EXPECTATIONS THIS CAME OUT SO BAD IM SO SLEEPI LEAB ME ALONEEEE WAAAAAA

okay jk yall are awesome but IM SLEEPY. GOODNIGHT.

[oc-ology]

How to get past the fear of OC posting

People should create for the sake of creating but people post to engage with the community. However, posting can be intimidating and anxiety-inducing for a lot of people. It’s easy to say “do it scared” but much harder to put into practice. So, I’ve put together a few steps that lead up to doing it scared. These won’t work for everyone and this is meant more as general advice.

Step One: Why are you scared?

The first step is to figure out what about posting is scary for you. Oftentimes, it’s not as simple as “what if my post flops” or “what if people think I’m cringe”. Once you’ve figured out the surface-level reason, dig a little deeper. If your post flops, does that lead to you doubting the worth of what you’re creating? If you’re worried about what people think, is that because you’ve experienced judgement before or are worried your inbox will be flooded with criticism?

Identifying why you’re scared will not only help you understand yourself better (yippee!) but you can also then work on the source of your fears and anxieties at your own pace.

Step Two: Find ways to lessen your fears

One way of working through anxiety online is to find ways to mitigate the specific source of your fear.

Some fears have easier solutions than others. If you’re worried about people criticising your work, you can turn off anonymous asks (as most people are less likely to be haters when there’s a name attached to it) or turn asks off entirely, as well as limiting replies to those who have been following for a week. This way, if someone does want to be an unpleasant individual, it’s a little harder for them to do so.

A lack of engagement is a little harder to remedy. Here, the only real solution is to try and divorce the idea that engagement = worth. Remember why you’re creating an OC. Because it’s fun! It’s an act of creation! Because you want to find a community…? A community or OC friends will never just drop into your lap. You need to seek them out yourself. Look into discord servers, forums, tumblr networks (are they still a thing?), fandom events and exchanges, and most importantly: go out of your way to send asks/questions to others and build friendships with them! If you’ve got social anxiety like me, this is going to be a big challenge. Which leads to the next step…

Step Three: Start small

It doesn’t matter how small your first step is - so long as that step is forwards! If you’re nervous about OC posting, find the smallest thing about them and post it with the expectation of getting no notes. That’s right, I want you to go in and expect it to flop. Anything over one note is an automatic win. This first post isn’t about engagement - it’s about getting over the initial fear of posting. 

It can be tempting to just go right out the gate with elaborate explanations of backstory, lore implications, power levels, everything. But the trick really is to start small. Most people scrolling tumblr aren’t going to read a few thousand words on something they’re not invested in yet. TL;DR is a curse that I’m sure we’ve all fallen victim to. 

Instead, break up information about your OC into small pieces that can be posted one by one and have some kind of visual piece with it. People are usually more drawn to images than text. For example, which of these two things are more visually interesting?

What Perseus keeps in his bag:

Amulet

Tinderbox

A broken blade

50ft of hempen rope

25gp of silver powder

Waterskin

Rations (cheese, bread, sausage)

OR

Obviously this comes down to personal preference but a lot of people would find the illustrated version to be more interesting. You don’t need to be an artist to do this either! You could make a version of that example in photoshop or a similar program. Picrews, moodboards, edits, game screenshots and photography can all be used to add a visual element to your posts.

Step Four: Why am I still scared?

Fear is not easily stamped out. Anxiety is definitely the kind of thing that lingers. These steps aren’t meant to immediately make OC posting not-scary. That’s something that will only come with time as you get used to it. Again: Do it. Do it scared. Gradually, it’ll be less terrifying and in the meantime, you might be able to make a few friends who also want to talk about your blorbo.

[catcake24]

Universal Misunderstandings

Summary: Based on @keferon's Mech Pilot Jazz AU. Jazz is a Mech Pilot who gets lost in space.

I wrote this in like... an hour, so I'm sorry if it isn't very good. I just needed to get it out, even if it's a little clunky. (Also I don't write Jazz and Prowl often, so they might be a bit ooc)

If you had asked Jazz what was the craziest thing he ever saw, he would say the moment the giant ships entered earth’s atmosphere for the first alien invasion. Or maybe when he joined the mecha program to fight those aliens, and saw the mecha suits they would be piloting for the first time.

He wasn’t sure if meeting a race of giant robots was any crazier than that, but it was at least top three now.

Being a mecha pilot was surprisingly routine in some ways, similar to the times he was a NASCAR driver in some strange ways. How he would check his machine before every mission, how he piloted it like it was an extension of him, and how painfully aware he was of the danger all around him.

Only now, instead of being at risk of crashing into another driver or spinning off the track, he was at risk of being killed by giant aliens with five faces and so many tentacles.

No one was even sure why the aliens attacked in the first place, only that they desired some sort of potent energy source that was only discovered after they drove the aliens from one of their mines on Earth - and what was found in them revolutionized their technology forever.

They called them Lightning Crystals, based on the blue glow and the little shocks they delivered. The crystals were rare, but extremely potent in energy unparalleled by anything on earth.

Exactly what they needed. Oh, sure for solving global warming and creating efficient technology of course. But they also were the missing element in the new M.E.C.H. program – giant robots which could be controlled by a single person, able to pack as much punch as the aliens. With the Lightning Crystals, they could power these giant machines and finally drive them from their planet.

Jazz was one of the top pilots, though his Mech Suit was focused on rescuing people from peril and buying time as they evacuated a city that would be attacked. It was almost once a month, or several times if they were unlucky – the aliens would land, attempt to get a foothold on their planet, but were driven off by the Mecha. Only to appear again the next time.

And so, the routine was set. Go out, punch some aliens, retreat and recover, and start all over again later. It wasn’t glamourous, but Jazz knew he was doing his part in protecting the planet.

That changed when the Space Program was initialized.

The director of MECH realized they needed some sort of foothold in space, to fight back before they landed on the planet and destroy the ships they had just out of striking range out in the void.

Jazz was selected as one of the first, as his smaller robot would be more ideal for space travel – or so they told him, he wasn’t totally sure if that was bullshit or not anymore.

And so, Jazz found himself being launched into space to fight Aliens. He wasn’t sure when exactly his life turned into an anime, but it definitely felt like one.

During the fight though, something went wrong.

Jazz had been thrown into one of their ships, there was frantic beeping and flashing, and suddenly he felt his whole body feel every sensation at once – and when he got his bearings and noticed the ship was in motion again, he realized, with a sinking terror, that he couldn’t see earth in any direction around him.

His worst fears were only confirmed when he was thrown off the small space shuttle, and couldn’t contact ground support after he crashed onto an unknown planet.

He had to take a few hours to himself, and screamed inside his mech suit’s protective armour. Jazz didn’t know when he passed out from crying, but he felt somewhat refreshed. Not any better, but… not exhausted.

All things considered… he would be alright for a little while. He found more lightning crystals on the planet, and had some rations he could stretch out for awhile. But he wasn’t sure what to do, without any idea where he was or how to contact home.

He set up his homing beacon, and just hoped again all odds that maybe it would be picked up by someone.

-

Prowl wasn’t a very social cybertronian, everyone knew that about him. He wasn’t anti-social, but he didn’t have an easy time communicating with others.

He would be too blunt, or maybe just not react the right way, and suddenly they were upset for reasons he didn’t immediately recognize. He got better at learning what was and wasn’t acceptable in the broad terms, but he struggled with specifics sometimes.

But Prowl was also brilliant – that wasn’t ego, it was repeated often enough that even he had to accept it. The Tac-Net within his processor was faster than any standard internal strategy computer, but that was only a tool. His processor was able to churn through all the data it gave him, and utilize it to its fullest extent with his own creativity and intelligence.

It made him one of the vital assets to the Autobots, and later to the combined cybertronian armies which fought the Quintessons – a walking battle computer, able to analyze a battle field and begin a counter strategy before the opponent even realized it.

So, his communication issue was merely a minor inconvenience in comparison.

Even still, he didn’t have many friends, and he was used to his own company. Prowl didn’t think on it often, just focusing on his task.

Prowl was alone while crossing a large stretch of uninhabited space, a spiral galaxy system which consisted of planets either barren or void of sentient life, when he received the ping on his console.

Unknown Energy Signature, Distress Beacon Detected. Prowl frowned as he read across his screen, because it didn’t make sense at first. He pulled the ship around for a second look before he lost the signal, and saw it was located on a nearby planet.

His Tac Net spat back possibilities when probed, ranging from “Quintesson Trap” to “New Emerging Sentient Life”, and he deemed the risk low enough to check at least.

Prowl wasn’t a social mech, but he wasn’t as heartless as some soldiers said he was.

-

Jazz didn’t notice the ship until it was almost right above him, but he was still in his Mech Suit luckily enough. Using the larger bulk of this robotic body, he tried to wave the ship down using his long arms with a burst of frantic energy.

The Mech robot was psychically linked to himself, and so it was easy enough to arrange the machine’s body to look like a crazy person looking to hitchhike on the highway. He didn’t care though, only happy that someone, anyone, had found him.

It definitely wasn’t human, there were basically no ships of this design and even if there were none had launched yet. Another alien race didn’t seem too far off either, whoever they were. But really, they could be made of goo and Jazz would probably hug them in thanks.

He only really started to realize that this might be a bad thing when the ship landed, because that thing had some pretty big guns. Or maybe those weird energy blasters he saw before, and this was one of the aliens trying to colonize his planet.

Still though, he swallowed his fears and put on a brave face – even if no one else saw. He strutted up to the large ship like he owned it, and… waited.

The ship door opened soon enough, lowering down into a ramp, and out stepped… another robot?

Jazz blinked, suddenly very aware of his body inside of the mech suit, when he saw it… or them?

He didn’t know what to think, seeing the human-like face and odd proportions of their body. Was this another mech suit of some sort? Why did it have wheels?

Jazz had to snap out of it, because the robot started talking to him.

“Dobbqfkdp,” they said with a stoic demeanour, “xj F ql xpprjb vlr ibcq qeb afpqobpp pfdkxi? F txpk’q xtxob qebob txp olylqfz ifcb qefp cxo lrq fkql qeb dxixuv.”

Unfortunately, Jazz didn’t understand a word of it. The robot was holding the blaster on their hip, obviously ready to attack if Jazz proved hostile.

Hesitantly, he turned on his communications radio and spoke.

“Umm, sorry my guy, but I don’t know what you’re saying? I’m a bit new around here is all,” he said with a somewhat nervous laugh. He almost wished his own mech had a face, so he could express how he wasn’t hostile.

There was silence for a moment, the wind blowing by around them and picking up a barrage of maroon plantlife that looked like flowerpetals. It was serene to see, but Jazz kept his focus on the robot whose eyes were widening in surprise.

They then cleared their throat, deliberately taking their hand off the gun and offered something. Jazz stepped forwards hesitantly, seeing it was a small chip.

The robot gave a forced smile, obviously trying to not appear threatening but looking awkward instead. “Jv xmlildfbp. Bah-weep-Graaaghnah, weep ni ni bong.”

Somehow, against what was rational, the phrase they said made Jazz relax a little. It was a ridiculous nonsense in English, but somehow it made the offer seem less unknown.

Hesitantly, Jazz accepted the chip and plugged it into his mech. His eyes nearly bugged out when it started interfacing with his systems, almost pulling it out, before seeing what it was doing – it was scanning the coding and language of his mech’s sytems, pulling them out into a strange dictionary. Soon, it was done with a PING, and the chip ejected itself.

Holy shit, he thought, they have a fucking universal translator, like Star Trek!

The robot’s hand was extended again, obviously asking for the chip, and Jazz gingerly placed it back in the robot’s open palm – somehow having five fingers, which somehow was one of the first things Jazz noticed right now.

He was really overwhelmed, okay?!

The robot inserted the chip into the back of their head, and Jazz had a sinking realization.

Maybe he was jumping the gun, but the way the robot’s eyes went dim briefly as it processed the chip, made Jazz think is this an actual sentient robot?!

“Thank you, I suppose this must be very confusing for you,” the robot then said, in perfect English.

“Ugh… kind of?” He said, shrugging slightly which translated to his robot around him. It was a reflex hard to break, even if it was unnecessary for his mech to emote.

“We’ve known about aliens, but this is the first time I’m meeting one that doesn’t want to kill me,” he said, with a slight laugh at himself. “Sorry, this is really weird.”

“Well,” the mech said, giving a soft smile which looked much more genuine, “I’m sure my kind will be eager to welcome another robotic race to the galaxy.”

Jazz’s mind went blank, as he had two sudden realizations.

Holy shit, I was right, this is an actual sentient robot who is actually talking to me, quickly followed by, they think I’m also a robot.

This… might be messy.

Despite this, Jazz just gave a nod, “Well, I’m sure the feeling is mutual!” He said awkwardly.

“Now… can you help me off this planet?”

The robot gave a brisk nod. “Of course, it’s not uncommon for new space faring species to have transwarping incidents like these. Come with me, my people will help you get home.”

Without any better options, Jazz hopped onto the ship. As he went inside, he realized the whole thing was scaled to the giant robot he was with. Scaled to his mech as well, conveniently enough.

“So, could I get your name?” Jazz said, as he finally was getting ahold of his anxiety. At least he wasn’t dead, and he was going home, so suddenly this was feeling a lot less intimidating.

“Of course, I’m Prowl of Praxus. You?”

“Ummm, Jazz. Jazz Wilson,” he said.

“Very well, it’s nice to meet you Jazz Jazz Wilson,” Prowl said, and somehow that phrase, which wasn’t nearly the craziest part of this situation, got a bark of laughter from Jazz.

“Just Jazz is fine. It’s nice to meet you too Prowl.”

He got a nod of acknowledgement, as the ship flared to life and prepared for takeoff.

Jazz might need to sleep for a decade when he gets home.

(Translation for Prowl Earlier: Greetings, am I to assume you left the distress signal? I wasn’t aware there was robotic life this far out into the galaxy.)

I also won't apologize for using the transformers universal greeting :P, I love that thing. Canonically, it's a phrase so ridiculous that anyone who says it must mean no harm - which is why Jazz somewhat relaxes when he hears it despite not knowing what it means.

I hope you liked this short little story (≧∇≦)ﾉ it's more just exploring the concept than anything.

Also sorry for using the term mech or mecha wrong, I don't watch enough anime ( ´･･)ﾉ(._.`)

[ghosts-and-glory]

Just curious!

In your AU, does Narinder have to openly come out as trans, or is it just generally understood even early on that he was trans?

If he does have a coming out, who do you think he told first? What were his siblings initial reactions?

How old do you think Narinder would have been when he realized?

When did the lamb learn? Was it common knowledge by then? Did they effectively look up at their God and go "ayo, nice battle scars, sick as fuck, anyway" and move on?

Also are we gonna see more little Narinder, and what got him all fucked up?

I am so invested in your story, but this aspect in specific I am latched onto like a tick. You cannot get rid of me. I am THIRSTY for knowledge.

Additionally, if in some hypothetical, little child Narinder met a young Lamb, do you think they would have been friends?

Totally not based on the time my brother came out to me and because I have the emotional bandwidth of a sea cucumber was just like “okay, cool.”

I’d say he’s around 12-14. In my heart Nari was one of those trans kids who the second he had the slightest understanding of gender was like “something ain’t right here chief.”

Fighting for my life trying to find a way to colour doodles in a way that doesn’t take ten years or look like shit.

More ramblings under the cut.

My Lamb is also non-binary so it’s not much of a deal to them. Dying on my casual trans rep hill. I don’t care if it’s not period accurate, I simply choose not to recognize transphobia.

Narinder gets slowly poisoned through his life. For the other Bishops, chaos, famine, disease and war will all eventually end in death, and dead men can’t worship. As a god of death he is to preach the glory and beauty of dying but, ironically, can’t die himself. He feels at odds with his family and trapped by life and this mentality slowly warps his view of the world and destroys him over hundreds of years.

Simply put he allows toxicity to pour and warp over toxicity. He lets it twist and compound his mind and it happens so slowly no one notices.

For the Lamb and Narinder theoretically meeting as children I honestly haven’t through much on how I’d characterize The Lamb as a child. My heart wants to say yes they would get along. My source is I made it the fuck up.

[kithtaehyung]

minted: part two (snippet) (m) | myg

snippet: minted: part two (m) pairing: street king!yoongi x street vendor!reader rating/genre: m (18+) ; angst , action ; haegeum au , gang au series: masterlist | part one summary: after a whirlwind of a detour, you have second and third thoughts about the guy you saved. who even is this man? and what the hell is in that bag? note: holy shit, y’all. thank you so much for the love on this series already! it’s been a minute since we started a new series here, so nerves were firing on all cylinders. but you all showed out and gave me enormous relief and motivation to keep going, so thank you! enjoy this snippet since i missed the initial part two drop! note 2: this series is for @sailoryooons, @joonary, and @minttangerines! love you all! warnings: language, violence, weapons (guns/knives/chopsticks/etc.), blood/wounds mentions, drugs, alcohol, trauma, poor reader :(((, mint!yoongi, haegeum!yoongi, tatted!yoongi, his eyebrow is pierced, yoongi visuals in this one areeee…, tension, tense situations, crass af yoongi lol, reader is also a baddie but who is shocked, slow burnnnn est. drop date: september 16th, 2024 snippet word count: 1.5k est. total word count: 9k >:))

—

—

There’s something to be said about the human gut. 

Not because it’s the source of multiple health aspects, or the way it’s connected to the brain. 

But, other than when violence tears it to shreds, it can be quite the defense mechanism. Just like yours churns and churns with each mechanical click of the elevator shaft.

Who is this person next to you? 

Who exactly did you decide to follow upstairs hours ago, killing your daily life to save and join on the run? 

You don’t know if you released your hand or if Yoongi let it fall, but you take this unlinking to create space. As you slide your gaze toward your companion, he merely shifts his weight and finds interest in increasing, beeping numbers.

How can someone’s profile be so troublingly handsome? You’d be able to think more clearly if he wasn’t both attractive and dangerous. Or if you simply weren’t on the verge of collapse.

Frankly, if you didn’t just murder a man you’d pass out as soon as you took too long to blink. 

To keep yourself alert—and to hopefully gather some much needed intel—you suddenly question aloud, “Where are we?”

No answer.

Alright.

“That driver called you Agust,” you recap on a second go. “What was that about?”

All Yoongi does is stare at his reflection in opulent, dim mirrored walls. Or whatever else he’s doing besides talking. 

Okay. Well.

You can face forward, too. 

“Those guys after us,” you try a third time, because who are you to give up now even if he radiates annoyance. “They didn’t look like Crane.”

“Doesn’t mean they weren’t.”

Your neck almost snaps when you turn. “Are you kidding me?”

As you watch Yoongi scorn the ceiling again, you can’t believe he doesn’t agree. 

Mm. Does he?

From the flex of his jaw, you have to assume you’re right to some degree. Because it looks like he’s very, very bothered by the people that chased you down. 

If those weren’t any of the high-powers but had equal resources and numbers…

What the hell were they? Where did they even come from?

Geez, it’s freezing. Is a drop in temperature the best barrier to you making sense of things? You can’t even appreciate the way Yoongi’s veins protrude with every adjustment he makes to that mysterious duffle bag.

Lies. You absolutely can. But there’s no way in hell you’re ever complimenting that. Or anything about him anymore because he clearly doesn’t want anything to do with you! 

Why did he even hold your hand? Was that just a ploy, too? 

But that taxi drive…

Yoongi looks down before lightly scuffing his shoe, and both of you fall silent as you finally give up with a huff. 

Massively dehydrated. Sore. Still covered in a myriad of unmentionables and now being ignored by the guy you saved. 

All you wanna do is go home, and you don’t even know where that is. 

How far did you travel? What district is this? You’ve never heard of a grey zone, but they seem fairly peaceful even at night. Neutral enough for you to consider relocating even if it meant sleeping on the street.

That brings up another question. “If we’re in a grey zone, how did you know—”

A ding interrupts your last thought, and you look to see where you ended up.

But the elevator doesn’t say a number. Only letters? What kinda floor did you stop on? 

One thing’s for sure, though. Whatever room you end up getting, if there’s only one bed you’re hogging it or taking the…

Floor…

There are many things that have shocked you in your lifetime. Many things just from today that had your head positively and forever reeling. 

But when the elevator doors slide open, you can’t even fathom what the fuck you’re dealing with. 

And in this second, more than ever, you understand how ludicrously out of your element you really are. 

“Holy shit,” you blurt, barely hearing the huff at your side.

Don’t elevators usually open up to hallways? Why are you walking into an entire living space? Is this a real place people choose to sleep in for a night? A whole floor?

Forget a whole floor, it’s a whole other place.

You slowly survey everything, wondering how much this has to be because you have never seen a living space so big. Or pretty. Or anything like this.

The ceilings vault and the furniture looks nothing like you’ve ever seen. Everything looks pristine. Clean. Is that a whole kitchen?

How are there living arrangements this big? This one place is bigger than your entire apartment level back home. 

And here you are: speechless, virtually homeless, and dragging your filth onto white marble floors. 

Perfect.

“What.” 

You turn at the scrape of Yoongi’s voice, wondering why now is when he finally chooses to acknowledge you. Head pounding, you ask outright, “Who… Who even are you? What is this place?”

He levels your stare before walking towards a long couch, dumping the duffle and raking his hair back in minted waves. “There’s a shower in every bedroom. Take your pick.” 

…Is that really his only response?

“That’s not what I asked,” you fire back, wondering what the hell his problem is so you can add more out of spite.

“But it’s what you need.”

“Say what now?” 

The fucking nerve? Even though you obviously, desperately need one, hearing him mention it makes you wanna re-use the chopsticks in your pocket. 

But Yoongi simply waves you off, grabbing a remote and flicking on a television so wide you would struggle to reach both ends. 

This is all too much. 

“You know what I need? To go home,” you huff out, leaving fire in your determined trek to the elevator. “Have a nice life, Yoongi. Or Agust. Whoever the fuck you are.” 

You get to the door and run into a dirt-slicked forearm, and the voice you hear courses through your ears, “The fuck are you doing?”

“Shouldn’t be that hard to figure out.”

“You serious?”

“Yes, I am. So move.”

Yoongi pauses, jaw working overtime before he steps aside wait he’s gonna let you go that easily? 

…Oh.

That was certainly not what you expected, but what else would you even think? This isn’t one of those stories that ends perfectly after trials and tribulations. Yoongi has proven more than once—in mere hours—that he’s no regular civilian. Nor man, for that matter.

But despite that, you blink before freezing at a terrible realization. 

No matter how you slice it, you’re much better off with him than you are by yourself right now. Even if he is a secretive criminal with a smoking gun. 

He did keep you alive that whole chase.

But there’s the smallest, tiniest chance that you aren’t quite safe with Yoongi, either. You don’t even know who he is anymore—maybe you never did.

So in a quick decision, you skim his side to slap the elevator button, chucking daggers at his brows until he leaves you to wait alone.

Good. You don’t need this. You can find your way back to your city block somehow and live the life you’ve chosen to lead again. 

Yes. You can do all of that by yourself. The chase is done. 

And so is your story with the man that will never buy your tangerines again. 

Grabbing your sleeve, a second fact stings your fingers. A jacket woven in Dragon teal. 

Shit. You need to ditch this, too. Either right now, or before you get the hell out of this grey zone because if you don’t, this is the biggest target you could ever have on your back. 

No good. No good no good you didn’t plan any of this well at all. Fucking pride blinding you to everything else logical. Is this how your story ends? Because of regret and resistance? 

You wait for the sliding doors, about to leave the biggest room you’ll ever see to occupy a box. How poetic. 

Your heart pounds as you close your eyes. Yoongi just cut you loose; it’s obvious he doesn’t care so why should you? No going back now. You’ll figure it out. The doors are finally opening. 

And someone’s inside?

Wait.

Your brain both whirrs and skids to a halt at the sight of the staff member occupying the elevator. When they give you a look, you find your hand drifting towards your back pocket.

Fucking hell, relax. You should be safe with a hotel employee, right? They wouldn’t be out to kill you. This is just your adrenaline on its haunches. 

However, one foot in the elevator and your senses go haywire. 

Because you can’t do this alone. You aren’t nearly as prepared to brave this foreign space as you need to be. With red in your hands and Dragon on your back? Absolutely not. 

You bow to the hotel staff before you face forward into the expanse. 

And as the doors start to close, you see Yoongi’s stare over his shoulder, storming with emotions and words you can’t name.

Yeah.

You fucked up.

Fuck.

-

-

tbc. :))

-

are we ready for the drop?! | join the taglist!

a/n: this is just the beginning!! who knowwwws what's gonna happen during the rest of the 9k+ lsdkfjdskl thank you all so much for hanging in there for me as i navigate multiple hobbies and endeavors. it means a lot to see your words of encouragement! always appreciated, and i hope you look forward to the real drop hehehe. more links: masterlist

[lecsainz]

main thing

request: charles + a famous actress who is about 2 years older than charles and has a daughter from another relationship, but the biological father is not in the picture (or he is an idiot)

pairings: charles leclerc x actress!reader

authors note: man, it took me almost two days to write this, ugh! hate getting that writer's block in the middle of something I start. I was like, "come on brain, why you gotta do me like that?" but nah, it wouldn't cooperate. so frustrating!

✩. . . masterlist !

PART TWO

Age Gap Romance Takes a Dark Turn, Leaving Y/N Struggling with Broken Heart and Baby Daughter

By TMZ Entertainment News

Hollywood's buzzing with the latest shocking breakup, and this time it involves rising starlet Y/N Y/L/N and her much older ex-boyfriend, a prominent music mogul. As the dust settles, insiders reveal that the split was anything but amicable, leaving the 28-year-old actress devastated and facing heartache alone with their baby daughter, Sophie.

Sources close to the couple paint a picture of a once fairy-tale romance that crumbled under the weight of immense pressures and a significant age gap. Y/N and her ex, whose name we won't disclose for legal reasons, initially captured the public's attention with their whirlwind love affair.

Despite the initial bliss, the relationship quickly took a tumultuous turn, with the insider sharing, "It was a rollercoaster from the beginning. The age difference played a big role in their clashes, but Y/N was deeply in love and believed they could make it work."

However, cracks in their love story started to show, and rumors of disagreements and heated arguments circulated throughout Tinseltown. Our sources indicate that the final straw came when the music mogul reportedly abandoned Y/N and their infant daughter, Sophie, leaving her shattered and blindsided.

"It was like he flipped a switch," another insider revealed. "He just walked away, leaving Y/N and Sophie to pick up the pieces. It was a shock to everyone, even those closest to them."

The breakup was described as "dramatic and emotional," with Y/N left grappling with the aftermath of his sudden departure while caring for her baby daughter. Friends of the actress confirm that she's going through an incredibly tough time, trying to navigate single motherhood while nursing a broken heart.

"It's heartbreaking to see Y/N going through this," said one close friend. "She's a strong woman, but this has taken a toll on her. Sophie is her world, and she's solely focused on being the best mom she can be for her daughter."

As for the music mogul's actions, sources claim that he has shown little remorse for the way things ended. "He's been dismissive and unapologetic," one industry insider revealed. "It's like he's moved on without a second thought, leaving Y/N to pick up the pieces."

For now, Y/N is surrounding herself with a support system of friends and family, relying on their love and encouragement during this challenging time. Hollywood is buzzing with the news of the breakup, and fans around the world are sending messages of love and strength to the young actress.

As this Hollywood drama unfolds, the world will be watching to see how Y/N navigates her way through heartbreak and single motherhood. We'll continue to bring you the latest updates on this gripping story, so stay tuned for more.

ynupdates

liked by charlesleclerc , selenagomez , and 28.879 others

ynupdates sun, sand, and summer vibes with yourinstagram and the girls! beach day in monaco is lit! no room for negativity here – just good times, laughter, and making memories with our faves y/n and selenagomez! and of course, little sophie is the cutest beach babe ever!

view all 9.497 comments

selenagomez ❤️❤️❤️

f1addiction CHARLES WHAT YOU DOING HERE??

ynmoves my girl looks so happy 😁

ylngomez i LOVE this friendship

lecslerccc charles that’s is a move?

saaaainz he just liked is nothing to worry 😭

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[the-irreverend]

The Inferno Theory: The Chara Theory to End All Chara Theories

Here we are! Nine years of Undertale. And seeing how Chara is heavily associated with the number 9 (AND THAT TOBY FOX FINALLY TALKED ABOUT THEM), I can't think of a better way to celebrate the occasion than by dedicating this 5000-word-long theory about them? Y'all remember when people used to make long-ass theories about Chara? Yeah, they're coming back with a vengeance! To say I have a colossal hyperfixation is a massive understatement. No character in all of fiction has had a bigger impact on my life than this little rose-cheeked, cocoa-addicted freak. I’ve been a Chara fan for as long as I’ve been an Undertale fan, and you can bet that my understanding of them has changed a lot since. And now I have the pleasure of sharing said understandings with y’all!

Once upon a time, there was an aroace autistic who, like most of y’all, had a very unhealthy obsession with Undertale. And unlike most of you, he thought the Genocide Route was really fun. Most fans talk about how unhappy they felt killing everyone, but for me, I felt like a polar bear at a baby harp seal convention. I got a disturbing level of happiness out of turning everyone to dust. Hell, the only unhappiness I felt was when I couldn’t turn Monster Kid to dust.

Oh well, at least I got a good consolation prize!

I was one sadistic son of a gun, and so I was even more delighted to find out I had a secret admirer/partner-in-crime and that they joined in on the fun because I was such a goshdarn inspiration to them. Not wishing to disappoint my self-appointed partner, I erased the world without a second thought, eagerly awaiting what we might get to do together.

So you can guess I was pretty taken aback when, instead of a warm welcome, they started lecturing me about how I couldn’t accept the world’s destruction and that I was the one fully responsible for it (even though they were eager to take credit for it earlier). I didn’t think much of it at first. Initially, I just thought that they were just irritated that I was undoing what we had worked so hard to accomplish.

But as this game taught me time after time, you should never trust your first impressions. Those first impressions would crumble to dust when they said this.

To say I was completely baffled is an understatement. Why the hell would this prepubescent genocidal maniac be so obsessed over whether or not I think I’m above consequences? So obsessed to the point they would tell me to go to hell if I told them no? It was at that moment I realized there was something more to this character than meets the eye. But for a long time, I couldn’t seem to figure out what that something was. And it didn’t seem like anyone could figure that out either.

I’m very much a veteran of the fan wars that have emerged surrounding Chara. In fact, one might even say I am a deserter of sorts, as I am a former member of the Chara Defence Squad, Offense Squad, and Neutralist Squad. But I’m not gonna be a stuck-up and say everyone’s a canon-ignoring idiot except for me and that I’m the only one who knows what Toby Fox intended Chara to be. Even though I ended up with a very different take than yours (and will certainly argue why it’s the best), I owe you all your discussions a huge debt, and I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t gotten invested in your interpretations, to begin with. Not to mention that, contrary to what some may argue, you’ve made some valid points to complement them.

And while the debate that resulted from Chara’s ambiguous morality has led to a lot of controversy and even toxicity, it has also been a source of some FANTASTIC CONTENT. Like seriously, would we have gotten those badass renditions of Stronger Than You if no one thought Chara was an awful person? Would we have gotten Man on the Internet’s beautiful rendition of Star if no one thought Chara was a good person (turned awful)?

It would be utter hypocrisy for me to ask of you to approach me and my arguments (or anyone who accepts them) with understanding and good faith only to then not do the same to anyone who doesn’t agree with me. In this theory, I will definitely argue why some points made about Chara are flawed; points that you might hold yourself. But that doesn’t automatically mean that you (or your takes) are intellectually or morally inferior to mine. And besides, I’m not Toby Fox.

So with that said, why did I eventually came to disagree with pretty much everyone about Chara? Because, one way or another, I couldn’t find a take that clicked with me personally as I felt there were various inconsistencies and issues holding them back. I looked at YouTube videos, subreddits, Tumblr essays, Twitter threads, and even forums on the Steam Community. But I couldn’t really find what I thought were satisfactory answers to the questions I had about Chara’s motivations, role in the game, and relationship with the player.

And then, one day, I found those answers. It all happened when I asked myself: “What if Chara didn’t turn against me… because they were always against me from the start?!”

I don’t mean that Chara only saw you as a means to an end. I mean that YOU were the end. What if Chara didn’t use you so they could screw over the monsters but they used the monsters so they could screw over YOU.

You probably think I’m insane, don’t you? And you’re right! I AM INSANE! AND SO IS THIS WHOLE DAMN THEORY!!! But somehow, someway, it just works!! And I’ll show you why and how!!!

What you are about to read is the culmination of six years of reading and critiquing Chara takes and theories of every kind and quality, whether it be Judgement Boy’s Who is the Real Villain of Undertale to Wandydoodles’ Oblivion Theory. Six years of examining the arguments and counterarguments of Chara defenders, offenders, and neutralists alike. Six years of looking in every corner of the UTDR fandom. From the tranquil lands of Quora. To the dark recesses of Reddit. To the intellectual wastelands of Twitter. To the fiery hellsite of Tumblr. So, without further ado, get ready for some of the most pure, unadulterated, high-octane, universe-collapsing neurodivergence you’ve ever seen in your life!!!!!

Part 1: The demonic heritage of the "demon who comes when people call its name".

Have you ever had one of those moments where you’ve asked yourself, “What the actual hell is this guy talking about?” I bet you’re having that moment right now. Everything about their character post-death, including their motives, their methods, and their relationship with you, is perfectly reflected in one of their most famous (or rather infamous) lines:

When most people hear the word demon, the first thing that comes to mind is a being made of pure evil whose only purpose in life is to destroy all things good in the world. Right?

Well, yes, but actually, no. It’s a little more complicated than that. To argue that Chara is a demon because they’re simply “an evil little twerp that enjoys being evil” doesn’t do them or their role in Undertale justice (although that hasn’t stopped people from trying to argue that). To understand why calling themselves a demon is EXTREMELY important, we need to dive into the wonderful (and totally not controversial) world of religious beliefs!

In ancient and modern religions, demons are a little more complex than just ethereal jackasses with a vendetta against virtue and righteousness. Though they vary from faith to faith, most demons have a specific set of qualities and tropes that make them integral to whatever faith they’re in. You also see these demonic qualities in fiction that’s derived or inspired by religions, and since Undertale’s lore and worldbuilding have a heavy emphasis on the spiritual and divine, you can see them in Chara. Since Undertale is a game of “Western” origin, you can definitely see they share qualities that are all too familiar with devils of “Western” religions. In classic devil fashion, they target those with weak integrities or suspect morals; they tempt you with the promise of fulfilling your desires at your and everyone else’s expense; they’re able to control your body as you grow their power through your sins, and hell, they even do the thing where they make a deal for your soul. Also...

But though it's evident that Chara encourages you to do “evil,” THEY THEMSELVES are not responsible for it. Yes, Chara encouraged you to kill, but YOU are the one who acted on those encouragements. In fact, YOU are the one who encouraged THEM to help you out! They walked down the dark path with you, but you didn’t really give them anywhere else they could walk. You had all the power and every chance to turn back and no reason to keep walking. And yet you persisted.

But that does beg the question, why did you walk it at all? What could possibly inspire you to give all of these characters happiness, satisfaction, and peace and then rip it all away? Because you decided that giving everyone the most satisfying ending was not satisfying enough for you. Because there was more that you could experience for yourself, even if it meant making everyone else experience something absolutely horrific. It wasn’t enough for you to fill the glass only halfway. You needed to fill it to the brim. You wanted to reach the absolute. Even if doing the Genocide Run was a bad experience for you, you CANNOT deny it was a fulfilling one. And Chara knows it, too. It ain’t exactly a coincidence that fulfillment and fullness are recurring motifs in Chara’s character.

Like all demons, Chara is able to tempt the wicked and sinful by targeting our greatest weaknesses and deficiencies. It’s no different from how Succubi and Incubi target those who succumb to the sin of lust. That’s why you won’t go after my aroace ass anytime soon. But I digress.

But Chara doesn't just tempt us by exploiting our need to fill the glass to the brim but also because of how they exploit the satisfaction we get from watching it fill up, that is to say, the satisfaction that comes from trying to achieve fulfillment.

We humans are addicted to progression as much as we are to completion, and in an RPG like Undertale, the satisfaction of progression comes in the form of NUMBERS. Not just the numbers that flash on the screen when you battle enemies but also the ones that go up when you finish said enemies off, whether it be your hit points, experience points, and so on. And Undertale isn’t any ordinary RPG; it’s one where its RPG elements are interwoven into the fabric of the game’s universe. Because of that, Chara is able to use these elements in their world to influence those outside of it.

But Chara does not just influence us through the numbers that increase but also the ones that decrease. That’s why the first thing they do when we reach Snowdin is give us a tally. 

It’s not just there to measure progress. It’s also there to incentivize us to keep progressing. It gives us a small dose of satisfaction that’s enough to distract us from the mundanity and misery of the murder run, like a loading bar on a loading screen. And just like with loading screens, the farther it progresses, the harder it gets to turn away. Why would you want all the lives you’ve taken and the stats you’ve gained to amount to nothing? Why would you want to hit reset and go through those brutal fights with Sans and Undyne again? You can’t empty out the glass, not when you’re that much closer to filling it to the brim. Speaking of Sans and Undyne, it’s quite interesting that even though they barely know you, they know exactly why you won’t take your foot off the pedal, so to speak.

But that’s not the only thing driving you, isn’t it? Chara knows that there was something else that was spurning you along. Something more powerful and more dangerous than your addiction to progression and completion: PRIDE. 

Perhaps the real reason you kept giving in to sin until it was far too late was because you didn’t think it would be too late. You didn’t hold back because you thought you would be able to go back. You thought you could just absolve your sins with the press of a button like you did in countless worlds before. You thought you could dive in, touch the bottom, and come back out of the water. But what were you getting into? How deep would you have gone? And would you have gone in if you knew you couldn’t possibly return? You know you wouldn’t. And Chara knows it, too. That brings us back to the dialogue I showed you at the beginning of this theory. The one said changed everything I knew about this character, and I firmly believe that this is the MOST important line of dialogue in the entire franchise.

PART 2: THE PART WHERE I (PRETEND TO) DESTROY 9 YEARS OF ESTABLISHED FANON!

When I say that that little blurb about being above consequences is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL, I do not say that lightly. It isn’t just important to Chara's character, but the game of Undertale as a whole! Anyone who’s serious about Chara’s character should never take this for granted because Chara sure as hell does not.

It’s not just our refusal to accept the world’s destruction that’s a huge-ass deal to Chara; it’s the arrogance and complacency that accompanies it, rooted in the position and privileges we have as the player. It matters to them so much that they’re willing to completely forgo bartering for our soul (which they say they want) if we don’t admit that we have that belief!

And yet, despite Chara taking this subject so seriously, the people who are analyzing their character ironically don’t. Generally speaking, most people simply brush this line off as nothing more than something they do to help them on their quest to achieve their goals. So, with that said, let’s talk about what those supposed goals actually are.

In all my years of reading and assessing countless Chara theories and interpretations, I’ve discovered that everyone actually agrees on what Chara's goals are. They just can’t agree on why they want them. Said goals are A) reach the absolute, B) max out their numbers/power, C) erase the world, and/or D) eradicate all monsters. But what if it’s actually the other way around? What if those things were the means to an end rather than the ends themselves?

What if the true goal of the “demon who comes when people call its name” was just like that of the demons of old: not to be your partner in crime, but to torment and punish you for your crimes? To make you face CONSEQUENCES!

I’m not making this argument simply because it makes Chara look more badass (though I think it totally does, lol). I firmly believe that Undertale’s post-Genocide content is written so that Chara’s character can only make sense if that was Chara’s goal from start to finish. Because if Chara’s endgame was any of those four I mentioned earlier, their character kinda falls apart because they're awfully inconsistent about fulfilling them. And those inconsistencies are evident in the Second Geno Ending.

Discrepancy 1) They say they will “appear time and time again” to help us “eradicate the enemy and become strong,” and yet they call us perverted for eradicating everyone time and time again.

You can argue that they didn’t want us to recreate the world in the first place and just move on to another world, but if so, why let us come back at all? And if it’s to get our soul, why do they keep around this world after we have it? This leads us to...

Discrepancy 2) They tell us to ERASE the world and move on to the next, and yet they allow us to restore it without a hitch after we give them our SOUL, seeing how there’s no black void when we start the game again.

If Chara was powerless to stop us from coming back, this wouldn’t be such a big deal. But they CLEARLY DEMONSTRATE that they’re able to stop the player from restoring the world, as seen in the first post-genocide ending. And yet they don’t use this power after the first time the world is erased (WHICH YOU WOULD THINK THEY WOULD WANT TO USE SINCE THEY WANT TO ERASE THE WORLD AND MOVE ON TO ANOTHER)! Seeing how the world is back again without us doing anything makes the restoration of the world like something that Chara CHOSE ON THEIR OWN VOLITION. And what makes this all the more damning is...

Discrepancy 3) They tell us they’re down bad for increasing our ATK, DEF, EXP, and LV to the max and erasing the world and everyone in it, and yet they TELL US TO DEVIATE FROM THE ONLY ROUTE THAT ACCOMPLISHES THAT (which, as stated before, they call us perverse for doing it again).

So, let me get something straight. You tell us you want to ”eradicate the enemy” and “ erase this pointless world,” and yet not only are you allowing us to undo all of that, you want us to do something INSTEAD OF THAT??? It’s funny how you lecture us about how we cannot accept the world’s destruction BECAUSE, APPARENTLY, YOU WON’T EITHER!!!!! Also, before I forget...

Discrepancy 4)

WHAT KIND OF MISANTHROPE DEDICATES THEIR WHOLE LIFE TO WIPING OUT HUMANITY, GETS GIFT-WRAPPED A CHANCE TO DO THAT, AND THEN JUST PASSES IT UP?!?!?!

On behalf of misanthropes everywhere, I am DEEPLY disappointed in you!

So it doesn’t matter if you believe Chara is always evil, good, or detached from morality entirely. Because Chara has the same goal across all versions, they all succumb to the same inconsistencies!

Funny how most people see them as this embodiment of the addictive nature of levelling up and consuming everything in a piece of media and all that jazz WHEN THEY SEEM TO CASUALLY GIVE UP ON IT!!!!!!

And if you argue they want a Soulless Pacifist Run when they suggest “another path,” then ask yourself, what does that give them that a Genocide Run doesn’t? Keep in mind, aside from a scribbled-out photograph, we don’t see how many monsters or humans they killed besides the main characters or how much power and stats they gained from it. And it’s not like we see them erase the world afterward since only the genocide run has that infamous wall of red 9s. Not to mention, the genocide run is the most secure way of accomplishing their goals since they have the backing of the player. Not only that, but it’s also the safest and most efficient way to erase everyone and increase stats to the fullest, and we all know how Chara feels about efficiency.

So Chara has no reason to pick the Soulless pacifist ending over the Genocide Run if they want to achieve their end of increasing numbers and consuming the world… unless those things were a means to an end rather than ends themselves.

Indeed it is coming together! That’s the other reason their statement, “You think you’re above consequences,” is so damn important! They’re not telling us why we sinned, but it reveals they intend to make us suffer for those sins, and how.

That’s why Chara is seemingly so inconsistent about erasing the world. Because it was never about the world. It was all about YOU.

[SIDE NOTE: I’m sure many of you will point out that if Chara wanted us to get a Soulless ending in this world, then why would they encourage us to “move on to the next?” I don’t think this is too big an issue for two reasons. First, this line is meant to emphasize that, like all demons, Chara is inescapable and that no matter what world you go to (within their own universe), Chara will always follow you now that you’ve unleashed them. Second, because their goal concerns us and not the world they’re a part of, their character avoids the aforementioned inconsistencies that hamper the other Chara theories much more severely, in my opinion.]

Part 3: Contrapasso

Now I’m sure some of y’all might think that Chara doesn’t need to yearn for our torment to achieve the impact of the Soulless ending and that just because Chara is a demon doesn’t automatically mean they need to screw us over. You are right in that not everyone who makes a Faustian Bargain needs to have malicious intentions toward the people they’re taking advantage of (Kuybey from Madoka Magica is a great example of that). But Chara does need it! Not only does it make their character more narratively cohesive, but also makes their character more thematically impactful. And it’s more in tune with their demonic nature for them to want to torment us.

Because demons represent something more terrifying than evil itself. They represent the terrible price of embracing it, a price that all evildoers fear more than anything, and that all demons want seek to inflict upon us. Like most demons, Chara isn’t encouraging us to sin to fill the emptiness in our soul (or even their own). They did it to perpetuate that torturously empty and unfulfilled state for all eternity, a state which even themselves now endure.

Now, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve talked a lot about the themes of fulfillment and emptiness, and it’s for a good reason since those themes are heavily featured in Undertale. I mean, how could it not? Because concepts of demons, hell, and sins (which are explicitly mentioned in the game) are deeply intertwined with the concept of emptiness. The theologian Thomas Aquinas once defined evil as not a presence but as an absence (of that which is good). Darkness is the absence of light; war is the absence of peace; bigotry is the absence of tolerance; pride is the absence of humility, etc. You see this reflected in not just Christian theology but also fiction as a whole, as a lot of villains are motivated by a desire to obtain something that they believe can’t be without. Whether it be wealth, status, recognition, power, the death of an individual, or even just sadistic pleasure.

Since demons are beings that are inseparable from evil itself, the life of a demon is forever cursed by unceasing and unbearable emptiness. Hell, the word damnation originated from the Latin word damnum, which literally means loss! They’re not exactly partying in hell while your immortal soul is being slow-roasted for eternity. They’re burning in that lake of fire and brimstone along with you! They can’t end their damnation, not because they don’t want to but because they simply can’t. They’re fated to be bereft of the satisfaction or fulfillment found in Heaven or Earth, a fate that is worse than death in every sense of the word, especially since they can’t experience death anymore. Because of that, a demon embodies what is perhaps the most terrifying form of evil of all: not one rooted in a desire to rid the emptiness and unfulfillment within themselves, but a desire to inflict them upon others. Because as a wise philosopher once said:

We see this horrific state of mutually assured suffering everywhere across fiction. From goofy, lighthearted tokusatsu's...

...to nightmarish sci-fi dystopias...

...to a little indie game made 9 years ago.

Oh yeah. Don’t think I was gonna talk about emptiness without mentioning everyone’s favourite homicidal fauna-turned-flora, especially not with lines like this.

Take one to know one! And it can’t be a coincidence that the game emphasizes the theme of emptiness when giving the spotlight to the three characters that have committed the most “evil”: Flowey/Asriel, Chara, and YOU.

Quite the unholy trinity going on here, eh? It truly is fascinating how the emptiness led us to work with each other to exterminate all monsters. And it’s also interesting how the unique kind of emptiness we have eventually led us to work against each other. Whether it be Flowey wishing to preserve his sentimentality for his long-gone sibling, us players wanting to maintain our (perverted) sentimentality for the world of Undertale, or Chara weaponizing these sentimentalities to exact their misanthropic hatred.

Remember how I said that Chara was a lousy misanthrope because they keep letting us bring back the humans they wanted annihilated when they were alive? That does make them a lousy misanthrope… unless their misanthropy found a higher priority target: YOU!!!!! Chara’s desire to torment us didn’t come out of thin air. The same hatred that drove them to wipe out the humans of their world years ago is the same hatred that’s driving them to get at the humans of our world, even if it means destroying those who once embraced them. And now, that hatred is more potent and destructive than ever before, so much so that it’s no wonder Toriel was able to feel it when she endured that fatal blow after the Geno Run began.

Do you think witnessing what soullessness did to sweet little Asriel wasn’t already terrifying and tragic enough? Just try to imagine what it could‘ve done to a vengeful, traumatized, chocolate-addicted problem child so consumed by hatred that they poisoned themselves just for a chance to wipe out their own kind. All of that hatred of humanity is still alive and well, and now it has no humanity to hold it back. 

And what could be a more fitting target for a MISANTHROPE that calls themselves a DEMON… than a HUMAN that wants to play GOD?

After all, the only thing demons love more than tormenting mortals is warring with Gods.

Why else do you think that Chara winks right at you if we make Frisk stay with Toriel? Because that’s who the Soulless Ending was meant for. It’s when they’re finally able to unleash all that animosity and hatred that’s been lurking behind that smile ever since we killed everyone in the Ruins. It’s the moment that they’ve been patiently waiting for because they knew that’s when it would hit you the hardest.

And what makes the Soulless Pacifist Ending very special compared to other “bad endings” isn’t simply because they destroy those we pretend to care about (may I remind you that you did do the genocide run, after all). But they destroy something much more valuable to us as the players: OUR OMNIPOTENCE. Chara doesn’t destroy people for the sake of destroying them. But because in doing so they destroy our arrogant belief that nothing could possibly challenge the invisibility and invulnerability we players take for granted.

It's all too human that those with the most power are the least willing to lose it (or even take responsibility for it). And in a world where we should have absolute power, we thought there would be no consequences for abusing it. So what could be a more fitting and frightful punishment than having to actually face them? Missing out on the best ending in a video game is one thing. But to forever lose the power to achieve it ever again?! Now that’s terrifying!

Throughout myth, legend, and religion, sinners are often punished in a way befitting of the sin they’ve committed. In Greek Mythology, Tantalus was damned for trying to feed the Gods the flesh of his murdered son with eternal hunger and thirst despite being within arm’s reach of water and food. In Dante’s Inferno, those who succumb to wrath are forever doomed to fight each other in a river of mud. And since Undertale is no stranger to concepts such as hell, sins, and demons, you can damn well be sure that there’s going to be damnation fitting for the sins that drove you to complete the genocide run.

You completed the Genocide Run because you believed ending their lives would be fulfilling. Now, you can no longer get any fulfillment out of saving their lives.

I mean, where else can you get your precious fulfillment? Those paltry neutral endings? They only offer a fraction of what the pacifist ending offered. And the genocide ending has been drained of its satisfaction like the pacifist! Would you do all that tedious grinding and brutal boss fights just to hear your so-called “partner” lecture you again on perverted sentimentality and say you should choose another path, even though there’s nothing that they could offer? Of course not. In the end, you’re just like poor Tantalus agonizing in the pits of Tartarus, feeling the water vanish from his hands just before it touches his lips.

The ultimate triumph of Chara isn’t making you suffer a total defeat, but perhaps something much worse to you as a gamer: a pyrrhic victory. It’s like having a Twinkie that's been drained of the creamy center. Everything is still there except the thing you treasure most. You’re damned to play a challenge forever deprived of any and all fulfillment you once got from it, a satisfying journey that will always be doomed to reach a dissatisfying destination.

In the end, Chara leaves you with the world exactly as they described it the first time they met you face-to-face: POINTLESS.

You can have the world exactly as it was before (and the people within it). But in the end, Chara will always have the last laugh.

Figuratively and literally.

Welcome to hell!

Part 4: Why Consequences Matter

Woooooo!!! Man, that was quite the read, wasn’t it? And yeah, I wasn't kidding when I said this is going to be autistic as all hell! I don’t doubt you have a lot of thoughts in your mind, and then you’re gonna share them by the time you’re finished reading this post. Some of you might think this is the Chara theory to end Chara theories. Some of you believe that this is the worst thing that has happened to this fandom since Sebastian Wolff. Some of y’all, I’m whitewashing them because I argue they’re driven by a desire to punish the wicked by any means necessary. Some will think I’m demonizing them because I say that they’re, well, a demon. 

[SIDE NOTE: Just so I don’t miscommunicate what I believe about Chara’s morality, here are some key points to take away from this theory. A) Chara sought to make you pay for the evil you committed. In fact, the idea that the Soulless Ending is Chara punishing our sins has been around for a while, especially by those who think Chara was “corrupted. B) However, in this theory, Chara's actions are all done with the intent of accomplishing that goal. This means that Chara was aware of what they were doing, they wanted to do it, and that THEY KNEW IT WAS EVIL. C) But you still have to remember that Chara is also A LITERAL CHILD. And D) They’re a child who endured a great deal of hardship (and possibly trauma), which made them so embittered and vengeful. Also, E) Remember that they’re also soulless, just like Asriel when he was Flowey.]

But I think most of you were gonna look at this interpretation of Chara and feel the same thing that I have about most of yours: a take that’s not without issues, but not without a fair bit of interesting points.

But regardless of what you think of this theory overall, there’s one thing I won’t leave up for debate: I deeply treasure Chara’s character. Not just because I think they’re fun, cool, or interesting but also because I firmly believe they’re invaluable Undertale. And yet, at the same time, I think they’re severely undervalued by the fandom. And who can blame them?

The characters of Undertale speak very little of Chara, and Chara speaks for themselves even less. But just like Johan Liebert from the anime Monster, even though they’re not seen too often, they still manage to exert a massive presence and impact within Undertale’s narrative. And that presence is made all the more impactful because they perfectly represent the themes of the narrative: and that theme is CONSEQUENCES, or more accurately, the CONSEQUENCES OF VIOLENCE.

From the violence that drove Chara to climb Mt Ebott to the violence their brother Asriel inflicted in hopes of being with them forever. From something as grand as a war between two civilizations to something as small as dismembering a snowman. Everywhere you look, you will see that violence (and its repercussions) haunts the story and characters of Undertale. But what makes Undertale stand out from other media that tackles this subject is that it’s not just an integral part of its narrative but also its metanarrative. The most ingenious way it does this is by giving meaning to the actions/mechanics that we take for granted, specifically monster encounters.

Our Lord and Saviour Toby Fox said it best:

Because the monsters of Undetale are treated as something more than just enemies to be killed, there are going to be consequences for choosing to kill them away. Some argue that it goes too far in how it admonishes you for killing even a single monster, even to the point of being preachy (I’m looking at you, ScottFalco, but that’s a response for another day).

That argument is deeply flawed because it fails to account for the fact that without these ramifications, the game’s themes would be rendered null and void. The last thing that a game with a narrative centred around the consequences of violence can afford to do is afford you the luxury of avoiding them. And that principle especially applies if you dare to choose nothing BUT violence. //////If you were to bring them all back as if nothing happened, then your decision to commit genocide would be completely meaningless, which would totally disservice Undertale themes regarding violence. There needs to be consequences. LASTING CONSEQUENCES. Undertale can’t drive home its messages and them without lasting consequences. Undertale can’t deliver those consequences without Chara in the driver’s seat. And Chara’s character can only be at their most narratively cohesive and thematically impactful if seeking to make us suffer consequences was their intended destination.

Regardless of whatever detail about Chara you’re discussing or what side of the discussion you’re on, one thing is very clear: they’re absolutely essential to Undertale in the same way that Mephistopheles is essential to Faust, the Cenobites are essential to Hellraiser, and Kuybey is essential to Madoka Magica. And they’re the only ones with the means, motives, and deep-seated misanthropy to hold this whole damn game together.

Sans is right. We deserve to be burning in hell for what we did to those poor monsters. And I can't think of anyone more qualified to have us humans “burning in hell” than a self-proclaimed demon with a seething hatred of humanity.

And how fitting is it that the skeleton who judges our sins is followed by a human child who punishes us for them?

BUT HEY, THAT'S JUST A THEORY!

A CHARA THEORY!

THANKS FOR READING!