#contributing towards a concept

[leohtttbriar]

i know that uhura’s role in tos was written to be like a radioman (the guy in wwii movies who carries the phone on his back sometimes) meaning that the “communications officer” role evolved from radioman to linguist in the time since tos aired. but that makes uhura in tos really interesting with a retrospective read of her character, applying things novels and later iterations of her have fleshed out, because she doesn’t do any visible linguistic work in any tos episode. she does security and navigation and piloting and engineering which sort of makes her seem like a valuably flexible sort of many-skilled officer.

it was probably both enterprise with hoshi and the 2009 movie that really cemented the idea of “communications officer means linguist or at the very least polyglot” instead of it just being an uhura-quirk. uhura in the 2009 movie does a lot of engineering/operating work of comm equipment and is implied to speak a lot of languages on top of be able to interpret subspace “noise,” so to speak (like, there’s no way it’s radio. it can’t be radio. star trek takes place across distances of lightyears—when they say “signal,” i’m assuming it’s not radio). and of course strange new worlds has run with the linguistics angle and made it even more explicit that yes she studies linguistics, linguistics is a core part of starfleet academic infrastructure, to the point where whole episode plots are written around the act of translation.

the retrospective addition of this expertise to uhura makes what she is in tos a character even more focused on leadership and, idk, becoming something like a captain, because she doesn’t seem all that specialized. she’s more of a kirk-like character, or janeway or sisko, characters that have a specialized skill but have set it aside mostly to pursue some sort of command. obviously this wasn’t the intention of her character. writers of uhura have mostly just stumbled on the idea of her as a polyglot (according to wikipedia, first introduced in the novel uhura’s song, so) and been like “neat idea! makes sense! explorers need to learn languages!” and kept doubling down on that idea until we get to an origin-story uhura in snw that (wildly) speaks 37 languages, for whatever definition of speak or language, i guess.

what all this overthinking on my part has generated is this idea of uhura very much like a futuristic-captain aubrey or a captain sisko not nailed down to one station, hanging off the shrouds of a solar-sail ship’s rigging, looking beyond, in the most romantic and idealized version of an explorer. i think a lot of people read/write female characters as being more down-to-earth than the whimsical leader-on-the-sea or more nurturing than than the hardened captain-of-a-ship, partly why janeway and burnham are so wonderful to me. but it’s fun to imagine tos uhura being the exploring-captain archetype, amongst the political structures of the 60s. like the additions to her character over the years have solidified that romantic adventurer portrait of her in tos, when the idea of her in command would be the least welcome.

and the fact that she was shown to be excited about a solar sailing ship in snw, like sisko was in ds9 for that one episode, i think emphasizes this read of her—and that her character-journey in snw is going to be how she goes from bookish linguist to “hanging-on-a-shroud-on-a-sunsail-ship” looking out to “sea”.

[whalesfall]

generally I think the last thing anyone needs is more discourse on the barbie film. is it feminist to like girly things? is it more or less anti-capitalist to not watch it? is it--

[catboybiologist]

A rant to the void. I'm transgender. I've been doing molecular biology and genetics research for over 8 years. Those are not in conflict with each other.

(this is a copy/paste of a post I made to r/labrats last night, a subreddit for lab scientists. Its directed towards scientists. I'll link it at the end if you want to see the positive reception from other scientists, but I thought it would be worth posting here, to my predominantly transgender userbase.)

I'm exhausted.

I'm laughing and memeing about the transgender mice as much as the next person, but there's genuine pain and grief here. I'm in grad school right now, and I've been doing research since my freshman year of undergrad. I started estrogen hormone replacement therapy in 2023, and I've been living openly as a transgender woman since summer last year.

I attribute my studies in biology, and my ability to read primary sources about the biology of sex determination, hormonal physiology, and my background with fundamental concepts like gene expression as key reasons why I was able to finally feel comfortable enough to transition, both medically and socially.

I've received nothing but love and support from other biologists. Mostly a few fun nerdy rambles while catching up with old colleagues about the precise biology of what I'm doing to myself right now, and over sharing about my own changing gene expression and physiology.

The growing hate coming from outside the field, from nonscientists, from stupid fucks who've never picked up a pipette in their fucking life, who've never seen a fasta file, who would struggle to pronounce two words in a paper... I can't even begin to articulate how simultaneously stupid and heartbreaking it is.

My career, my passion, my contributions to the world, are being gutted, censored, and used against me. I'm trying to be as grounded and practical as possible, but sometimes I break and feel like I need space for the genuine grief I'm feeling, for lack of a better word.

I feel like I'm in a unique position to do something, say something, but I'm in such a whirlwhind myself and trying to figure out what to do with my own life and survive through these years, that I really don't know what I can or should do.

So I guess I'll scream into the void with this post, attend a march on Friday, survive, and see what I can do later. Fuck.

[bajablastwrites]

Random ENA Headcannons I Thought About

ENA x Reader

Summary: a few headcannons mainly focused on human biology and anatomy, but there’s other topics sprinkled in as well

Author’s Note: I like the idea that ENA would be fascinated with how humans work since, you know. She’s not human, and probably thinks you’re the weird one in her world.

Honestly, she probably thinks you’re really really weird appearance wise. You quickly form an attachment to her since she’s pretty much your guide when it comes to navigating her world. She’d definitely be fascinated with your hair, since it’s not a single solid piece resting on top of your head. Whether you let her mess around with your hair is up to you.

Your body is a constant topic of interest to her, in comparison to her solid polygon body, yours is soft, smooth and squishy. So she’s constantly squishing and poking at your body. Though, you have to establish what is and isn’t appropriate for her to touch— without your permission at least.

You quickly learned that chocolat (chocolate) was actually a form of currency when ENA lost her mind watching you pretty much eat her money. After Meanie finished screaming at you for eating her hard earned money, while trying to force your mouth open in an attempt to get her money back— you immediately apologized and explained to her that chocolate is simply a tasty sweet to munch on where you come from. It’s the first recognizable food you saw in her world and assumed it was made with the intend to be eaten. She seemed to calm down a bit once she processed that you didn’t eat her coins out of malice, she actually found your form of currency to be the weird. Paper and metal? As currency to pay for goods and services? How odd. After clearing the misunderstanding up, she put you to work because she still wants her money back. Which is fair enough.

She doesn’t understand the concept of eating since we never see any entities actually eat, except when they’re transporting ENA to a new environment. She doesn’t seem to need to eat either, so the idea of putting something in your mouth and swallowing it being a very essential part of your survival was a concept she was very unfamiliar with. But if it means her new coworker gets to stay by her side and not eat her money, she’ll find something that can be deemed as edible based on your description on what you consider to be food.

ENA loves to watch you eat. That’s it, she just likes to watch you eat. It’s very fascinating to her, watching you chew and swallow something she brought you makes her happy. To her It feels like she’s contributing to your survival (which she is), so she’ll just stare at you the entire time you’re eating. Will it make you nervous? Yes. Will she stop if you ask her to? No. She can’t eat (as far as we know) so she can’t experience that for herself, so she watches you eat instead.

“Can you stop staring at me?” You awkwardly asked. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline your request, my dearest work partner. I’m currently witnessing two business assets merging together, it’s a momentous occasion that I have to witness for myself!” She leaned forward eagerly, invading your personal space and coaxing the odd looking sandwich you were holding towards your mouth. Her meanie side quickly growing impatient at your hesitance to eat under her gaze and shoving the meal into your mouth. “HURRY UP AND CHEW THE STUPID SANDWICH ALREADY!!”

Sleep is also a strange concept to her, but it’s at least something you can try and teach her to do. Though, you’ll probably have to pitch it to her like paid business expense, a promotional reward or as a business tax write off if you want her to take a nap with you. She’s seen other entities and creatures nap and sleep, so it’s not something new to her. It’s just that ENA doesn’t need sleep so she doesn’t do it, but you do so it’s not uncommon for you to wake up, only to see her inches away from your face. She tries not to disturb you while you’re asleep, but you waking up because you can feel her staring at you is both alarming to her as it is interesting.

If by chance ENA manages to read up on humans to learn more about you and how your body works, she’s going to be asking you a lot of questions or observe you more to see if what she read was true. Not only does she want to learn about you as a species, but it’s also her way of showing that she cares about you as well. It’s basically the “trying to bond with my male cat, but idk what men like so I took him to Home Depot.” Meme.

She didn’t know what you liked to do for fun so she took you to “hunt and gather” with her💀

ENA later learned what you actually like to do for fun and you guys do that instead during the rare occasions she has free time.

Your biology fascinates her, she wants to know everything about it. If you let her, she’ll run her hands over your body in order to feel your bones and joints— basically giving you a physical exam out of curiosity. When she learns about human reproductive organs she’s practically fixated on you. The concept that you can create a new life form with your body is truly fascinating to her.

“You mean to say that you have an organ with the ability to create new life inside your body is verifiably true?” ENA asked with curiosity, anticipating conformation of this new information she learned about. “Uh, yeah, why do you ask?” Mildly confused at her sudden question. “Amazing! Truly splendid, a self sufficient entrepreneur with an amazing asset full of endless potential and possibilities!” Her salesman side praised.

It doesn’t matter to her if other humans are also capable of doing the same thing, what matters to her is that you have the capacity to do so. She’s fascinated with you and you only, you’re the only human here after all. Humans are interesting to her because you’re interesting to her.

[communistkenobi]

I was looking for a book recently on an online storefront and was recommended a book written by a physicist about the history of humanity. this was a popular press book that was not intended to be read by other academics, but it reminded me of this niche genre of books, with experts from the physical sciences writing about human behaviour or history or what have you. Could you imagine coming across the inverse? A popular press book that purported to explain physics written by a historian?

There is some deep imbalance in how public perceptions of “general intelligence” seem to work - those in STEM are generally recognised for their competence, expertise, and intellectual acumen, and this recognition can be generalised, that at some level a demonstration of your expertise of eg astrophysics is a demonstration of your abilities of investigation writ large, that you have figured out some central underlying element of science that allows for basically limitless intellectual extension to any field or subject. A physicist can write a book about human history and be taken seriously by the general public on the assumption that physics is more difficult to understand than history, so any lower domain of investigation is open to them. The reverse is often not extended to a lot of the social sciences, particularly the theoretically-heavy social sciences; theory is just making bullshit up at the end of the day, it has no real practical application because any questions about the philosophy of thought or knowledge - how did we come to know what we know and under what conditions do we know these things - is just the indulgent wankery of people who can’t find a real job.

And of course it would be silly to insist that because you have read Hegel, an infamously difficult thinker, you know how to interpret the lab print-outs of electrochemists - I don’t want this goofy concept of general intelligence to be applied everywhere, I want it to go away entirely, but its current uneven applications across scientific fields indicates a broader problem with public conceptions of expertise and knowledge.

This probably has something to do with anti-communism on some level - social science is not generally regarded as “real science” (in no small part because social science is often the field of bureaucrats, and while animosity towards bureaucrats is deeply sympathetic, I suspect the reasons for this animosity are not themselves scientifically grounded), that while there is a public understanding of “objective facts” that exist prior and external to human interpretation, the politics of knowledge are hegemonically oriented around liberalism, to such an extent that any critique of the assumptions of knowledge are viewed as a dogmatic denial of reality done for the purposes of political infiltration and brainwashing. And I don’t feel totally unqualified to say this, given that this is basically the de facto response from students encountering Marxism for the first time in university. “Marx is too dogmatic” may as well be inscribed above the doors to lecture halls. Hell, Jordan Peterson made a nice little public career for himself railing against “post-modern neo-Marxism,” a phrase so nonsensical that the fact he was not immediately and permanently laughed out of the public arena for saying it is an indictment of how politically illiterate we are as a society!

And the infuriating thing is that a lot of social science scholarship (not just from the US but especially from the US) is complete horseshit, just pure evil garbage motivated solely by a desire to justify the fact that we do really need to keep killing tens of thousands of people a year to keep this whole party going. Every sociologist who calls themselves a “methodological individualist” is contributing to the long-standing tradition of eugenics scholarship but is too craven and vain to admit to this. If you had to describe the sum-total of the social scientific scholarly output of the west in a word, it would be ‘mysticism.’ Because it is the case that anti-colonial, anti-imperial, and anti-capitalist investigations of the political-economic conditions of the world have produced social scientific knowledge on par with the discovery of the atom, but it is not treated as such. “It is right to rebel” is not just a moral claim about violence but a scientific summary of human history.

But I think it is precisely this reactionary state of affairs that makes people devalue the social sciences as an actual site of legitimate investigation, that understanding the historical trajectory of ideas or the political conditions of life are valuable pursuits for any just society. Because social science deals with the social world, the political conditions under which the social world is investigated and understood are themselves bound up in questions of political and economic power. But this equally extends to the physical sciences - I know at least in environmental sciences, there is an ever-growing reckoning with climate change as an imminent threat to all life on earth, and environmental scientists cannot avoid talking about the political conditions of our planet even if all they want to do is study a river. Genocide is measurable in soil samples taken in the American continent. The separation of the environmental from the social is itself a historically contingent arrangement of knowledge.

But this is infuriating to even complain about because I don’t want to sound like an entitled academic or ego-bruised professional. I have no desire to start a faculty war with the STEM fields. I feel secure in my own expertise. I do not want anyone to “recognise my greatness” I am just profoundly lonely in this whole affair. and it just so happens that we exist in terribly anti-intellectual conditions for the most cruel and ugly reasons possible, and so we (me, I) have to suffer seeing books on sale claiming to give a general account of human history written by a physicist

[congenitaleunuch]

1. Recognize that you are not the experts about intersex people, intersexuality, or what it means to be intersexed; intersex people are. When writing a paper about intersexuality, make sure to center voices of intersex people. 2. Critically approach writings by non-intersex "experts" such as doctors, scientists, and academics about intersexuality or intersex people if you decide to quote or cite them. That is, consider what the author's perspective and agenda are, and where his or her knowledge comes from. 3. Do not write about intersex existence or the concept of intersexuality without talking about the lives and experiences of intersex people as well as issues they face. Do not use intersex people merely to illustrate the social construction of binary sexes. 4. Do not judge the politics and narratives of intersex people or movement based on how useful they are to your political agenda (or agendas). Intersex people are no more responsible for dismantling gender roles or compulsory heterosexuality than anyone else is. 5. Be aware that writings by intersex people are often part of conversations within the intersex movement and/or with other communities, including the medical community. Realize that intersex people's words may be addressing certain constituencies or political agendas for which you do not have access to the full context. 6. Do not conflate intersex experiences with lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans (LGBT) experiences. You may understand what it might feel to grow up "different" if you are part of the LGBT community, but that really does not mean you understand what it means to grow up intersexed. 7. Do not reduce intersex people to their physical conditions. Depict intersex people as multidimensional human beings with interests and concerns beyond intersex issues. 8. Focus on what looking at intersexuality or intersex people tells you about yourself and the society, rather than what it tells you about intersex people. Turn analytical gaze away from intersex bodies or genders and toward doctors, scientists, and academics who theorize about intersexuality. 9. Do not represent intersex people as all the same. How people experience being born intersex is at least as diverse as how people experience being born non-intersex, and is impacted by various social factors such as race, class, ability, and sexual orientation, as well as actual medical conditions and personal factors. Do not assume that one intersex person you happen to meet represents all or even most intersex people. 10. Assume that some of your readers will themselves be intersex, and expect that you may be criticized by some of them. Listen to intersex people when they criticize your work, and consider it a gift and a compliment. If they thought that you had nothing to contribute, they would not bother to engage with you in the first place. 11. Remember: five children are being mutilated every day in the United States alone. Think about what you can do to help stop that.

Suggested Guidelines for Non-Intersex Individuals Writing about Intersexuality and Intersex People by Emi Koyama, Intersex Initiative

[yallthemwitches]

Like a lot of other authors/content creators in the HP fandom, I am feeling a sense of heaviness over the rulings that happened in the UK and feel the need to speak on my (albeit very complicated) feelings.

What JKR is doing is terrible. It will ruin lives. It will end lives.

If you feel like that is being hyperbolic, please go look up the suicide rates for the trans community. It's a staggering number and it only grows as people seeking information, comfort, and support are locked out of proper resources due to heinous legislations like the one passed yesterday.

It saddens me too because I know that so many in the LGBTIQA+ have found characters/stories in the HP universe that have spoken to them and helped to understand their personal journeys---only to have that comfort ripped away by the very person who created them.

If you can permit me to be personal for a second: My brother is trans and before/during his transition (this was early 2010s) he always cited Remus Lupin as one of the foundations for coming to terms with his trans identity because he saw some of his own internal struggle in Lupin's character. He even went so far as to write a letter to JKR (which, thank GOD he never sent...) thanking her for creating a character that aided him with the complicated feelings he had when there were no other resources for him.

My brother is now a psychologist specializing in the young trans community and speaking to him recently, he has said that he comes across this same story constantly and each one ends in tragedy because that little piece of solace and comfort was not just taken from them, but told them that no, actually. You thought wrong to see yourself in this character. You don't matter.

Watching what happened yesterday and knowing the long history of bigotry JKR has spouted for years now weighs heavy on my heart every time I step into this fandom and often I question if I should still contribute to it. I know it's not much, but I would like to share some of the things that keep me going--even when it all looks really fucking bleak:

Fanfiction and fanart are, at their foundation, anticapitalist works--and can be used to fight JKR's agenda. By consuming fanfic/fanart zero money goes towards JKR. None. And further, JKR has no say in how you use her characters in these spaces. So, if you want to use these creative outlets to uplift trans voices, please do! Support trans writers/artists and urge them to PERSIST--because I promise you nothing is going to tick off the ole' bitch more than trans bodies/ trans supporters writing her characters.

Just because the writer is the devil, doesn't mean the art has to be. I won't go into the concept of "death of the author" because I think it can be pockmarked to hell with various examples, but what I DO subscribe to is that once the art is out in the world, it is now owned by the person who consumes it. To put it simply: when I read HP I am POSITIVE I imagine characters/settings differently than the person next to me. It's the beauty of the imagination: the creator can give us the blocks but how it is built is contingent on how WE perceive it.

Did I mention money? DON'T GIVE IT TO HER. Buy the books/movies second hand. Pirate the media you wish to consume around the fandom. Don't give her any reason to give any more hate funding and instead send that money to trans communities and groups who need it (they REALLY need it.)

Maybe I'm naive to say this, but I don't think interacting with the story as an art form is bad. She invented it, sure, but she isn't in charge of what goes on in my brain. If anything, this fandom NEEDS the trans community and supporters within it because not only can they push back, but they can educate those who otherwise are listening to the author. Don't let her win the space even though she's the author. It's no longer hers to have.

If you are someone who wants to leave the fandom because you can't bear to watch her continue to destroy it--I completely understand. But, as someone who has been in this fandom for over 20 years, the one thing I've learned is: besides monetarily she doesn't own shit. Don't let her take what you love from you and don't let her get away with scaring people out of their community spaces. Support and love our trans brothers and sisters and enjoy your HP despite it all. The things you love are worth fighting for.

[psychhound]

announcing spiritkeep: a therapeutic ttrpg

howdy all! some big announcements!!!

first, im nearing the end of my master's program, studying rhetoric and writing, games, and educational psychology. im about halfway done with my thesis, and figured it was time to make an announcement …

my thesis, entitled "designing ​spiritkeep​: therapeutically applied RPGs as a discourse community" is … about what it says on the tin :) in it, I look at the practice of TA-RPGs, which are TTRPGs run for the express purpose of inducing therapeutic growth. TA-RPGs are usually run by a clinician, like a therapist or counselor, or a certified therapeutic game master. my thesis is looking at the needs of therapeutic game masters as a community and asking … what do they need from TTRPGs that isn't currently available?

the thesis takes concepts from rhetoric, linguistics, game studies, literature studies, psychology, and more to ask the question … what would a TTRPG specifically designed for therapeutic use look like? i examine concepts like bleed, close to home characters, dramatic rehearsal, performative speech acts, fixed vs growth mindsets, information processing theory, and more. i also look at criteria set forth by current TA-RPG practitioners for what makes a good TA-RPG, and examine five current games against those criteria. then, i put together the research into a foundation for spiritkeep, a dedicated TA-RPG

spiritkeep is designed around the goal of helping teens and adults heal from complex trauma

that said, its perfectly suitable for a homegame as well, as long as everyone is on the same page and approaches it with the mindset of collaborative growth. all in all, it's still going to be a fun game and a good TTRPG!!

in spiritkeep, you play as a smalltown taskforce with the shared goal of restoring your currently struggling community to a thriving state. you go out on missions like finding resources, diplomacy with neighboring cities, researching ecological problems, and more, while you slowly make your town a better place to live. spiritkeep includes collaborative worldbuilding, a large assortment of playbook options like the Wayfarer, the Knight, the Ghost, or the Shepherd (all designed to hit where it hurts, at least a little!), and a brand new system inspired by PBtA, FitD, BOB, WoD, and more. while the game is designed around grappling with identity and learning how to grow, it can also get a bit tactical and crunchy!! the new dice mechanic makes you think on your feet with every roll

this announcement is also to say that i am beginning the initial crowdfunding of the game through itch. right now, im trying to raise funds to pay the fee to my school to make my thesis open access, meaning anyone can read it. then, remaining funds will go towards things like resources, consultants, art for the kickstarter, and everything else i need to get this project off the ground. ideally, ill be able to team with a publisher to cover the logistics of business while i can focus on the game itself. once the game is finished, there will still be plenty of playtesting, consulting, and other work to do. but!!! this post marks my first steps towards what has been my dream for years now

this sale is how im starting the funding process. it includes the zine preview of my thesis, covering my chapter outline and big concepts, and also my first TA-RPG: with breath & sword, a solo game to help players calm down from anxiety. both items have community copies available: please feel free to grab one if you can't contribute !!

questions, comments, or partnership offers can be sent to psychhoundgames @ gmail(.)com

thanks y'all!!! wish me luck!!!! 🥰🥰🥰

[shelandsorcery]

Announcing Disney Villains Cursed Café!

After nearly three years of work, I’m really proud to announce the release of Bloom Digital (@bloomdigital )‘s newest game, Disney Villains Cursed Café. I art directed this game, and I’m so excited to get to share the results of all our hard work!

You’ve probably heard me talk about Bloom before – we’re an indie game company, known for our beloved visual novels LongStory and Later Daters. We are a team of people who love telling stories! Getting to put all that energy towards the Disney Villains was a real privilege.

Working with Disney helped all of us hold our work to an even higher standard, and push ourselves as game makers. There’s a real responsibility attached when you get the chance to work with these characters, and it would have been impossible to navigate that nearly as well without the constant guidance and feedback of the team we worked with at Disney. Thanks to everyone there for helping make this game happen!

I have to brag about my coworkers – I don’t think I can imagine a better team than the lineup we have at Bloom. When you have a team that becomes more than the sum of its parts, you get to make games that are also more than the sum of their parts! Huge thanks from me and the artists to Miriam Verburg for steering the ship the whole time, Heather Jackson for making it effortless to bring the narrative into the art every step of the way, Keana Almario for keeping us all accountable to the players experience, JP Stringham for tackling the game design inside and out, and Danielle Russell for facilitating all the communication and oversight necessary to make something like this happen.

It’s important that I tell you how wonderful the art team in particular was! It might be counter-intuitive, but, you’re not going to see a single pixel of my own drawing in this game. As an art director, it was my job to find the best artists possible and then direct them towards bringing this game to life. I had the privilege and responsibility to lead a team of incredible artists towards making this game, and whatever you see in there, I want you to know one of these people made it happen.

Yi Pan was our senior game artist, which means he and I worked together on concepts from the beginning; you can see his brilliant painting and immensely appealing design work up front and center in all our potions, gifts, and in so much of the overall color design of the game. Jey Pawlik (@jeypawlik ) was our character artist and I think it’s impossible to understate how charming they managed to make our modernized villains, no matter their moods! Janiel Lo worked with us across many disciplines, laying out and painting our complex, amazing environments, as well as helping us make sure our beautiful UI felt both integrated into the world and also comfortable and easy to use. Ally Rom Colthoff (@varethane ) made it possible for us to have the environment art of my dreams by coming in and painting the heck out of that cafe! And the game wouldn’t be what it is without Sara Mena‘s concept work, and the contributions of many artists on the Disney side who contributed not only character art, UI, and identity designs, but helped us fine-tune everything that went into the game.

It’s the biggest team I’ve ever had the chance to work with as an art director, and I’m not kidding when I say that these professionals made it easy and fun to come in every day and see what brilliant new artwork awaited me.

Something extra special about this team was how excited the artists were to work with, brainstorm with, and sing the praises of each other. I’m so grateful for this team not just for their ability to make beautiful art but their ability to collaborate with each other, myself, and with the team at Disney. Everybody should be proud of themselves, not only as artists but as game makers.

I want to shout out the narrative team, who made time to be in the art meetings with me and the artists, making it so easy to keep everything absolutely on point narratively throughout the whole development. Heather and Mike took the time to get to know the art team, and made themselves available for quick questions, brainstorming sessions, and pep talks. I think what this did for the game was make it possible for every visual joke and narrative joke to play off each other in ways that could not have possibly happened without that kind of open communication.

To talk a little bit more about the UI process, one of the things that we decided to do early on was make this game’s UI very diegetic, to keep the buttons feeling as magical as everything else that you see and do in the game, and that would not have been possible without Keana’s expertise and dedication to solving complicated UX flow challenges. Her hard work let us get away with so much more by way of magical props, framing devices, and sparkles.

For me, as the art director, I don’t always get the chance to put my own handiwork into a game, and as I mentioned, all of the amazing drawing and painting that you see on screen is thanks to our art team. But what I did get to do, very much thanks to the support of JP, was tackle the majority of the VFX. Getting to be a VFX artist for a chunk of this project was a dream come true, because if there’s one thing this game is full of, it’s magic! Figuring out how to bring life and mystery and humour to all of the magic in this game was an amazing challenge that I am so glad I got to tackle.

As a game dev, launches are always special, but this launch has been outright overwhelming in such a good way. Thank you to everybody who is streaming the game, sharing lets plays, drawing fan art, and just generally yelling about getting to hang out with their faves in our magical Cursed Café! I hope as you play this game it feels like you’ve gotten to visit somewhere magical alongside the villains.

Thanks again to everybody involved for this opportunity. Drop your fav villian in the comments, and stay in touch with me and with Bloom to find out more about what else @bloomdigital has lined up!

[slugtranslation-hypmic]

Reflection on Fanservice and the Hypmic Movie A.K.A. I Can't Stop Thinking About That IchiKuu Bait (But, Like, In An Intellectual Way)

Watching the Hypmic movie pushed a concept I'd been thinking about to the forefront of my brain: how to write cohesive fanservice.

Fanservice occupies an interesting place within a work by being both a departure from the main plot or setting while simultaneously furthering the works' overarching goals. Fanservice has to be Part of the whole but also recognizably Not--to acknowledge that something is fanservice is to set it apart from the rest of the work with a knowing wink, to say that this aspect of the work is in someway closer to the fourth wall than the rest. If we imagine elements of a fictional work to be two-dimensional panels, inserting fanservice is suddenly turning this two-dimensional stage on its side and revealing that the fanservice panel is closer to the audience than all the rest. It's adding a literal new dimension to the work.

Because fanservice is meant to provide some desirable Thing that cannot be satisfied within the constraints of the main work, fanservice often exists in a quasi-universe of its own. It's like we've jumped onto a new plane--one closer to the audience--when we shifted from the previous two-dimensional panel to the fanservice panel. This plane plays by different rules. Fictional characters can seduce the audience. Men can kiss men; women, women in otherwise heterosexual universes. Then the fanservice ends, the perspective snaps back to the previous plane, and the rules of the universe resume. Fictional characters can't flaunt sexual behavior to an audience whose existence they have no awareness of; homoeroticism can't be anything more than a joke when male/female is the only flavor romance comes in. Whatever happened in the previous panel breaks the rules of the universe--so what happens to it? In most cases, the events of the fanservice panel simply never happened in the main storytelling plane. They're never acknowledged again or contribute to plot, characterization, or themes. Fanservice simply floats on its own plane, disconnected, and can only ever be evaluated in respect to other events in that same plane.

And while that makes the fanservice no less compelling (this isn't a rant against fanservice), doesn't that feel like a waste? Why include a story element if it doesn't work toward some common goal?

Well, it does! Fanservice explicitly performs a feature the rest of the work handles implicitly: defining a target audience. Other story elements (plot, genre, characterization, etc.) create a synergistic effect that suggests certain things about the author's intended reader. People who enjoy misogynistic, medieval fantasy powertrips might also enjoy big titty anime men; handsome, spindly men who solve murders and get covered in blood might also appeal to those who want to see blood-covered men making out. Fanservice rewards those audience members for finding the work and, perhaps unintentionally, can drive away audience members outside of the intended audience. Apart from sheer joy on the author's part to include it, fanservice creates messaging about in-groups and out-groups. Don't like elf titties breasting boobily at the slightest provocation? Stop watching isekai. Don't want to see bloody dudes sucking face? Get out of the ikemen aisle. And so on.

This can cause difficulties, then, when a translator falls outside the target audience. While most established translators have an (often broad) focus, there is generally an aspect of "I sure do like having money for goods and services" that informs a translator accepting a particular assignment. One of the most common complaints I see about otherwise sound translations is a translator failing to recognize fanservice cues or play up fanservice to the degree expected by the target audience. On one hand, this can be really frustrating for the audience! It's understandable to feel slighted or robbed of part of the fun. On the other hand, it can require a lot of extra, unpaid work for a translator to familiarize themself with niche tropes/kinks/etc. It can also be profoundly uncomfortable to write--and attempt to write well!--something you find morally repugnant.

I think matching the author's energies is one of the few things I'm genuinely very good at, so I put a lot of thought into fan service. What does the target audience for this particular type of fan service like, and why do they like it? How should the why factor shape the English text? (This can be fun! Weird kinks? Well, I'm not in the having sex fandom, so off to Ao3 I go. Huh! Here's a byline running through most of these fics--this must be one of the central draws of the kink. I see that same byline in the work, and now I understand the author's intent better. Let's make sure to include that in the translation. This can also be...less fun. My job is to make sexual assault and incest look hot! I'm...not a fan of either of these! I don't really like looking at them, even in fiction! But hey, let's go figure out what the appeal is and see if it can't be reproduced here! Do I feel gross writing it? Yeah, I do. Does that make it any less of my responsibility to do a good job? Personally, I don't think so.) At the same time, it's important that the fanservice doesn't become so off the walls that it fails to integrate into the rest of the translation

This ties back into the question I asked earlier: Isn't it a waste for a story element to be so divorced from the rest of the text? Wouldn't it be nice if fanservice offered something more?

Enter what I call "cohesive fanservice." (I flirted with the term "effective fanservice" but I think that's disingenuous, because fanservice usually serves a different purpose than the rest of the text.) Cohesive fanservice is fanservice that contributes to the rest of the story--be it plot, characterization, themes, whatever.

But wait! Fanservice operates on a different set of rules from the main universe. How are those different rules reconciled? This is usually handled in one of three ways:

The rules aren't reconciled, and the audience is asked to consider the implications of this discrepancy. Here's a fourteen-year-old shaking her butt for the camera in a universe where fourteen-year-olds are sexy. Now we return to the regular universe where that's not true. What does your reaction say about yourself? What does this say about how we as a society sexualize young teens? And so on. It should go without saying that this is not the same thing as pushing the idea that fourteen-year-olds are sexy throughout the entire work. There must be a deliberate attempt to challenge the audience and/or discuss the topic.

The rules aren't reconciled, and this discrepancy has consequences in the plot or characterization. In one of the jobs I alluded to above, a fanservice scene sells a "hot" portrayal of sexual assault. In the rules of the fan service plane, sexual assault is acceptable. But upon returning to the rules of the normal plane, sexual assault is no longer acceptable. Sexual assault is scary and very serious! The assaulter and her victim have a falling out, and we're forced to examine what made the assaulter ever think it was acceptable to force herself upon the victim to begin with. How the assault changes the victim and assaulter and how, if ever, the assaulter can regain the victim's trust are then discussed through the remainder of the series. The discrepancy and its consequences furthers the plot and the characterization thus contributing to the story. While I didn't like translating this scene (it was emotionally draining for maaaaany reasons), I liked what it did for the story and respected the author's choice to include it. I think it's well-written even if not personally enjoyable.

The rules are reconciled because the fan service, outside of its main premise, obeys all the rules of the main plane. Not the same thing as "there's a heterosexual explanation for this." If a character bares their boobies to the camera, then we should expect them to be interested in showing off their body outside of fanservice. If one handsome man waxes poetic about another, he should be the type to deliver heartfelt monologues in general. In a work I have truly egregious creative freedom on (and thus the equally daunting obligation to produce good fiction no matter what), I frequently run up against fanservice walls of this nature. If the author wants character X to do Y--something they never, ever do--it's my job to figure out what would compel X to do Y, how this unknown third thing interacts with the world of the story, and how doing Y affects X. This is Really Damn Hard.

And here I turn to Hypmic for inspiration, because Hypmic is often superb at this third type of cohesive fanservice.

Hypmic is so fanservice heavy it affects the series' ability to cohere--just look at any time the worldbuilding is examined with any degree of seriousness. Between the contradictory and constant needs for the characters to look Hot, act Gay, and be Goofy Goobers (humor can 100% be fanservice), it's kind of a miracle there's any consistency anywhere. Except it's not a miracle--it's really, really good character writing.

Things like ARB that are almost pure fanservice don't need to cohere; there, it's fine if the story jumps back and forth between fifteen hundred different planes because the primary purpose is to entertain. Why not have pterodactyls and also body swapping? You want hot boys too? Sure! Have little a Gentarou bare arms. As a treat. Doppo and Hifumi are confessing their undying love in the corner? Sounds good! Why the hell not! Whee!

But because none of the stakes matter (if ARB!Dice got mauled by a bear, Gentarou and Ramuda would laugh, and then he would show up in the next card alive, shirtless, and pitifully covered in glue), it's hard for audience members to feel emotions outside of levity. Now it's more important for fanservice to follow the rules of the main story plane--because if those rules break in fanservice, why should the audience ever expect them to hold at other times?

Hypmic doesn't always succeed at this, but when it does, it does it very, very well.

The Hypmic movie has lots of good examples of this, but I want to narrow in on the three First Stage leader kiss tease scenes, especially now that the official account gives us references I can legally screenshot and share. There's one that I think is very, very cohesive (IchiKuu), one that I think is not at all (SasaSama), and one that is cohesive on a technicality so bizarre it deserves to be looked at too (JakuRamu).

As a side note, this has nothing to do with my personal enjoyment of the ships--I like SasaSama and IchiKuu pretty much equally. I'm coming at this with my translator hat on, which isn't necessarily objective but is informed on "what do the authors want to convey" and not "what do I, personally, want to focus on."

Let's start with IchiKuu!

Kuukou marches right into Ichirou's personal space and forces Ichirou to lean very far back for the duration of his verse. Then, in Ichirou's verse, Ichirou reverses the position.

Kuukou is shown grinning, and his eyes flare in interest.

(Please ignore the...I can only hope accidental...innuendo in Ichirou telling Kuukou to "take his overwhelming vibes" lol)

I don't think the overall premise of any of these scenes is especially coherent (can you imagine being Juushi in this moment and sweating in nervous horror as Kuukou holds world's most wicked lean, hips fully under Ichirou's, for a solid ten seconds? The way this would blow up on the internet... The questions you, as Juushi, would not be prepared to answer... The pointed silence from Hitoya in the car on the way home... Like come on lol), but each individual action feels true to the character. Both Ichirou and Kuukou would do those things unprompted.

Kuukou is physically comfortable with Ichirou, breaks social conventions, and otherwise gets in people's personal space all the time. Here are two quick examples from DoD chapter 3, which occurs before Ichirou knows Kuukou well.

We've seen Kuukou be aggressive (often and always) and invade Ichirou's personal space in somewhat odd ways, so it makes sense that he'd do so here.

We also know that Ichirou matches Kuukou tit for tat, even when he probably really shouldn't (see Ichirou watch Kuukou break his own arm, call him an idiot, and start fighting him in DH/BAT chapter 9), so it's reasonable to assume Ichirou will ignore common sense and do the exact same thing to Kuukou.

Then, and this is the part that THRILLED me because it showed such deep understanding of the character, Kuukou grins and eats up every bit of Ichirou flexing on him.

A recurring theme in Ichirou and Kuukou's relationship is the idea of Kuukou admiring Ichirou for being "strong." From that same chapter, here's Kuukou admiring Ichirou for beating him up (and being stupid enough to try and beat him up) while expressing anger that someone so cool (again, I must stress, "cool" to Kuukou means physically ripped and dumb as a stump) would be engaged in a morally rotten pursuit like shaking people down for money.

Kuukou doesn't just want to beat Ichirou. Kuukou wants just as badly to see Ichirou beat him and delights in evidence of Ichirou's strength. That's why we see his eyes light up, and that's what cements this scene to me as an amazing piece of fanservice. It reinforces everything we know about these characters and their dynamic and would be feasible, if not a bit exaggerated in this intensity, in a non-fanservice scenario.

Unfortunately, the SasaSama scene falls flat to me for these same reasons, which is an issue a lot of Samatoki and MTC fanservice shares.

Sasara leans in close to Samatoki's mic. Samatoki backs away slightly, surprised, then leans back in with an aggressive look. The camera lingers here for a while as the same "indirect mic kiss" is repeated with the second and third liners. It's reminiscent of MTC's and SasaSama's cigarette kisses.

While I agree with the framing--Sasara doing something to surprise/annoy Samatoki is in character--I think this scene is limited by its position in the song (a chorus where everyone does the same thing; if I recall correctly there's another moment like this further in which isn't much different and similarly failed to impress me) and the need to sell the image of sexy MTC.

It's not that I think MTC is unsexy. It's that I have no reason to believe Samatoki has any desire to make himself look sexy to us.

Compare this image of suave Hifumi (FP/M+ chapter 3) to one of Samatoki breasting boobily (BB/MTC+ chapter 22).

Hifumi is an entertainer by trade. Even not in front of a in-universe audience, as is in this scene when it's just him and the BBs, it makes sense that he would swivel his hips and push his hair back for the IRL audience because he plays up to audiences.

But Samatoki doesn't work in entertainment. He wants to appear tough, not sexy, so it makes no sense for him to turn to the audience and flaunt his body. For this to look natural, the manga often showcases his physical form as incidentally attractive while intentionally threatening.

It feels believable that Samatoki would lunge at the audience and if his shirt just happens to press itself against his massive pecs... oh no... woe is us who have to see that...

This is what makes the cigarette kisses as a whole feel weak to me on a characterization level.

Take the famous SasaSama cigarette kiss in TDD chapter 5 (a chapter so old I don't have it in Japanese...). What reason does Samatoki have to look attractive for the audience? What would compel him to light his cigarette from Sasara's instead of using a lighter, either his or Sasara's?

In general, I think many Hypmic writers struggle to write in-character MTC fanservice because MTC has far fewer reasons to pander themselves. Not only do Samatoki and Juuto have a vested interest in making themselves appear unapproachable, all three have difficulty (at first) trusting one another and (later) showing affection for one another. It's one of the group's core conflicts. While some groups can fall back on shenaniganry (Ramuda tackles Dice! Kuukou whacks Hitoya on the back! Ichirou bearhugs his little bros! and so on), MTC can only do so sparingly to avoid either a) being out-of-character or b) tarnishing the group's tough guy image, which is a major part of MTC's IRL sell. As a result, MTC (and Samatoki in particular) can often feel stiff or muted in group shots, which I felt hard in this movie and in certain segments of the stage plays.

How can this be mitigated? Apart from incidental fanservice (here's a good one from DH/BAT chapter 11--Samatoki lost his lighter in a fight, so he's forced to ask--and therefore trust--Sasara and just so happens to be a pretty boy in the process) and the odd MTC goofball moment, I'd love to see more authors lean into MTC's desire to have connections.

Here's an example from the BB/MTC+ epilogue that handles a group shot with stupendous ease. In it, Samatoki is watching the Buster Bros and Fling Posse after Fling Posse wins the 2nd DRB, swears, is prompted by his teammates, and leaves with a promise that MTC will win the next DRB. This is nothing exceptional--virtually every MTC loss in every medium ever goes exactly like this--but the presentation changes everything.

The deliberate pacing, the focus on Samatoki's attention, the refusal to show Samatoki's eyes/facial expression after the close-ups on the teams hugging, the stark shot of the palpable distance between the MTC members, the hunch in Samatoki's shoulders, and the close-up on Juuto's left-behind cigarette tell a completely different story than "Grr, I'm so tough I'll swear and say 'we'll get 'em next time.'" Suddenly, MTC isn't reticent because it's cool. It's that they're so stuck being cool it forces them to be reticent, but that's a heavy burden and not one MTC bears lightly. That's completely in-line with their characterization and a fantastic take on them! I want to see more like this!

As for what to do about the SasaSama kiss tease... I'd love for them to have justifiable, in-character actions that in turn support their dynamic. Sasara getting in Samatoki's face is fine; he can easily do so if his purpose is to annoy or as part of a physical gag. Samatoki can then fall for the bait and lean further in or grab Sasara by the collar and tug him forward intimidatingly--here's that happening in canon in DoD chapter 4--whereupon we can have another, less surface-level interaction.

Sasara and Samatoki's theme is partnership, so a good piece of fanservice should lean into that. Either Samatoki could suddenly finish the joke (as part of a verse, perhaps?) Sasara started (causing Sasara to be surprised, then elated) because Samatoki's a dork and a softie at heart--source: literally all of canon--or something happens to Samatoki's mic, necessitating Sasara to offer his and letting Samatoki finish the verse from Sasara's mic. (Sasara can still remain in kissing distance to chaperone it as need be.) Inherent trust, leaning on one another, etc. etc. I get that it's difficult to stress partnership in an adversarial scenario, but there's really so much room for creativity here. It's a shame we didn't get more.

Maybe the writers were saving all their creativity for whatever the fuck Jakurai and Ramuda were up to.

In this scene, Jakurai advances at Ramuda during a verse. Ramuda backs up, loses his balance, and falls on his backside. Jakurai, in a certified Jakurai moment, kneels down until he's straddling Ramuda and delivers the rest of the verse a few centimeters from Ramuda's lips. Ramuda blushes. (His model blushes often and freely in the film, including several other times Jakurai's around.)

In some versions of the film, there's a shot of this from the back where you can't see what's going on. This is a common visual shorthand for kissing or sex in JPN media.

Ramuda eventually has enough, flips Jakurai over, climbs on him, and repeats the same procedure. Jakurai looks vaguely unamused like he wasn't the one who started it.

I can't begin to pretend this is a sensible thing to do, so I won't. I cannot formulate a single good reason for Jakurai to have done this. (Ramuda has a weak case for payback, and I'd even understand it if Ramuda started it, since he gets in Jakurai's face to a) be obnoxious and b) bring Jakurai "down to his level" all the time--but Jakurai???) There's an element of entertainment in the DRB which allows us to suspend our disbelief for choreo and other flashy movements, but this isn't choreo and Jakurai is not a flashy character.

However, I can't knock it as hard as I knocked the SasaSama bait because, in ass-backward fashion, Jakurai has canonically exhibited so much inexplicable behavior toward Ramuda in the name of fan service that it's in-character for him to act bizarrely around Ramuda.

This psuedo-canonization of Jakurai's freakshit rests on three things:

Jakurai's universal character trait of socially atypical behavior and difficulty understanding social dynamics. Because Ramuda also behaves atypically and is inappropriately touchy-feely/affectionate in general, this gives all their TDD shenaniganry credibility. It's not. Hmm. It's not not distracting and obvious fanservice whenever Jakurai stares at Ramuda for five panels and the mangaka busts out the lens flares, but there's a whole canon's worth of characterization that the assertion "Jakurai is oddly hung up on Ramuda" can comfortably rest on. We see Jakurai nursing a similarly long-lived (if less in our faces every second of the day) hang-up on Hitoya.

Good lord, the sheer quantity of it. Like DoHifu or GenDice, there are so many examples of fanservicey behavior to point to that they can't all be written off as flukes. That is, we can accept to some degree that Samatoki and Sasara didn't really rap a chorus in kissing distance according to the rules of Hypmic's main story plane--romantic relations between the characters don't canonically exist and, uh, it'd be awkward to be that close. We can't write off every single instance of Jakurai being weird at Ramuda without it breaking the story. To some extent, lack of romantic relations be damned, Jakurai and Ramuda are getting handsy and being obsessed with each other.

Some JakuRamu fanservice is coherent fanservice type 2--it breaks the rules of the main story plane (no gay time for rappers) and this has consequences. Characters will remark that Jakurai and Ramuda are atypically close or even that they obviously want to be closer, two such conversations of which take place in this movie. Here's a more obvious example in the TDD vol 4 bonus. Samatoki and Ichirou find Jakurai's Ramuda-braided hair weird (there's flag 1, socially atypical behavior) and comment on the two of them being especially close (flag 2).

Here's Samatoki being annoyed at their bullshit as a freebie. (I just love the way the mangaka draws him here haha. "What the hell does that [made-up word Ramuda pulled out of his ass to describe him and Jakurai] mean?" He's so long-suffering.)

These three factors essentially instate a rule in the story plane such that, left to their own devices, Jakurai and Ramuda will engage in largely inexplicable shipbait behavior. Which is outrageously funny.

GenDice and HifuDo fall in the same camp, with the latter having somewhat stauncher reasoning (lifelong best friends) than the former (Gentarou, uh...gets a kick out of fucking with Dice). The thing is, whereas this was undeniably intentional with HifuDo--we see this degree of shipbait laid out for them in the earliest pieces of Hypmic media--and arguably so with GenDice, I genuinely don't know if the Hypmic writers intended for JakuRamu (especially Jakurai) to progress in quite this fashion.

While it's clear from creator comments that there is a central writing team and that creators are expected to follow certain mandates from this team, creators are also given a surprising degree of creative freedom. When one creator--a voice actor in a live, a stage actor in a show, a manga artist in a chapter--does something the central writing team/other creators think is clever, this will be picked up and added to the character. One example of this phenomenon is Kuukou backflipping, something first introduced in the stageplay and now ported to the movie. So while early drama track Jakurai is not unreasonably hung up on his old friend and betrayer Ramuda, the manga artists came out the gate swinging with their own agendas. As other manga original content was added to Jakurai's character (much of his body language in the stage play is from the manga; the hand motif is largely from the manga), I can't help but wonder if this came along for the ride. Sure, JakuRamu was always meant to be a marketable ship, but did the writers intend Jakurai to be the driving force of so much of it?

In conclusion: Did these three kiss teases feel "earned" to me?

IchiKuu? Yes.

SasaSama? No.

JakuRamu? By virtue of a loophole...I guess so?

[thequeer07puss]

The cosmological functions of Hera

I’ve been thinking a lot about Hera these past few weeks, and while reading “The Hera of Zeus: Intimate Enemy, Ultimate Spouse”, a new thought and association emerged about the goddess, leading me to analyse and interpret her role in the cosmos, both as a standalone goddess, and as the wife of Zeus.

[This analysis might contain UPG]

The gods as personifications: Zeus’s family as an extension of his power

Many of the gods we know and love have specific functions when they are in relation to Zeus. Hermes delivers his messages to gods and heroes, Apollo is his voice in the mortal world, and Athena is the personification of Zeus’s racing mind. Let me explain my thoughts

Athena is born from the head of Zeus himself, from Metis (which we translate as “wisdom” or “craft”) that he has in himself. As such, she would be one of the few beings in the universe to know and understand Zeus’s grand plans. For example, in the Iliad, Zeus’s grand plan is the destruction of Troy, which Athena was in firm favour of, despite the apparent opposition from her father, who had to restrain her from enacting his plan too soon.

“How is it relevant?” One may ask. “And how does that relate to Hera?” Put a pin in that thought dear reader.

Zeus did not create the universe: the cosmological role of Zeus and his marriages

Based on the interpretation above, many of Zeus’s family members are extensions of the reach he has over the universe, but only some of them could claim to be or have been his wife. Hesiod cites 7 goddesses as having been his wives, namely Metis, Themis, Eurynome, Demeter, Mnemosyne, Leto, and finally Hera. Since we have established the notion that Zeus’s family mean something in relation to him, my theory is that older goddesses, such as the Titans and early Olympians Zeus takes as wives are personifications of abstract concepts and concrete principles from which Zeus orders the universe.

[I would like to preface this next part by explaining a bit about the Ancient Greek view of marriage and sexuality. Marriage’s main function was the accomplishment of one’s personhood as well as creating new life who would contribute positively towards society. Additionally, sex was all about power dynamics, making the dominant partner (the man) the one in control of the submissive partner (the woman), making sex a sort of “subduing” of the other person.]

Zeus did not create the universe at all. He merely inherited it. It was established in Hesiod’s Theogony that all elements in the cosmos existed prior to his existence, albeit in a state of disarray and chaos. Zeus, as a god of structure, therefore inherited this disorderly world and created order from its constituents. In order to do so, he would need to be wise or crafty, which is the reason for his marriage to (and subsequent absorption of) Metis. After doing so he would need to determine the functionings and happening of the world, hence why he marries the Titan (natural force) responsible for establishing universal laws, Themis, from whom he creates goddesses who regulate the happenings of nature and human life, the Horae (Seasons or Hours). After establishing the functionings of the world and determining the best course of action for its happenings, Zeus had to think of what the world would look like, hence he took Eurynome, and from her made the Charites to make the world beautiful and full of delight. But the world was rough and unforgiving, yielding nothing of substance to that which Zeus would make, hence he married Demeter for her treasure of bounty and vegetation, and made Persephone. Then, after the world was beatiful, fruitful and plenty, there had to be intelligent creatures to inhabit it, so Zeus married Mnemosyne to create intelligence, learning, art and the delight of music, in the form of the Muses. Next, when intelligence had been created, it was time for the beings to proliferate in colonies, which is why Zeus married the fertile Leto, who produced Apollo and Artemis, representing the divide between civilisation and the savage wilderness. Lastly, when all had been made in good order, Zeus, whose hymn calls the most Excellent and Great, took in a wife, a final wife, the most beautiful goddess in existence, most excellent of birth, power and status: his sister-wife Hera, an equal to He who is Excellent.

The marriages of Zeus therefore represent a sequence of events that allow Zeus to structure the universe according to his will as the Divine Craftsman or Demiurge. His marriage to Hera therefore represents the completion of this ordering, the state of perfection in which all things exist under the order established by Zeus.

Hera the goddess of perfection

In “The Hera of Zeus”, Pirenne-Delforge and Pironti analyse the role of Hera as a goddess who pushes beings to their fullest potential. This is why, she is the mother of Hebe, which is the goddess of youth, a state where one reaches the full potential and power they will ever be capable of in life. This is also why in the story of the daughters of Pandareus, Hera gives the young women beauty and intellect above all other women. Therefore, it might come as no surprise that the goddess who grants perfection and loves excellence would be seen and worshipped as the goddess in charge of determining which deities are suitable to enter Olympus (see here), of initiating young people into greater society, and finding the most excellent match befitting of one’s status in marriage. However, as many of us know, perfection can not be achieved without a certain level of conflict, whether internal (like an artist willing to improve their craft) or external (a teacher giving students tough exercises to test their knowledge), and Hera being a lover of perfect things, thrives in this state of conflict or discomfort, which is exemplified in her relationship with her husband Zeus, with whom she argues quite a bit, with the goal to spur him on to consider and reconsider the way he rules the cosmos, and reestablish his supremacy among the gods. In the Iliad, Zeus seems to be used, or even expect to conflict and opposition from Hera, and even goes to her for advice on whether he should save Sarpedon from the war or not. In another story, Hera creates Typhon as the biggest challenge to Zeus’s reign, a challenge Zeus wins, reinforcing his superiority. Hera, in her role as wife of Zeus, is both a representation of the completion of Zeus’s reshaping of the universe, the goddess that reinforces her husband’s supremacy, as well as the goddess that forces Zeus to stay perfect to keep ruling and ordering the universe by constantly opposing and arguing with him to make him consider and reconsider courses of action to accomplish his plans.

Analysis of the Orphic hymn to Hera: the goddess of essences

Now that it was established that Hera is the goddess of excellence, and that she represents the state of completion that the universe exists in, a little question remains: why is the world so imperfect then?

Well, my friend, let me introduce you to the Platonic concept of “essences”. Plato saw essences as the universal, most basic, most condensed, most recognisable form of a thing or concept. They are essentially the “soul” of things or concepts. What is a cat? What makes a cat a cat? If you have a basic idea of what a cat is, it is because you are using the essence of “Cat” to produce a mental image of “cat”. Plato then proceeds to explain that we can not know these essences or experience them because we live in the material world, which is imperfect, which then alters the perfection of essences to make them appear to us in diverse forms.

“Then where are the essences?” One may ask. I answer: in Hera

The Orphic hymn to Hera calls her ψυχοτρόφους (psūchotróphous), which is translated as mother or nurse of souls, then proceeds to call her παντογένεθλε (pantogénthle), the source of everything, and say that she is in everything. Such a description is befitting of the goddess of essences.

[Here is part of a prayer I have written to Hera after a meditation on that aspect:

“Your hymn calls you the mother of souls, the Ψυχοτρόφος, the nurse of clouds, the source of all, my lady, wife and bedmate of Zeus, whose hymn calls him ἀρχὴ πάντων and πάντων τε τελευτή, the beginning and end of all things. In yourself you have held and mixed all things, and have mingled your essence in them. All things are from you, all things are in you, you are in all things, and in the act of breathing we inhale your essence. You are queen, you are παμβασίλεια, for you are the blessed creator of the universe, who makes all things alongside Zeus, whose head contains the knowledge of all things.”]

Conclusion: tl;dr

In summary, Hera, the final wife of Zeus, does not only represent a simple marriage if you think about it on a cosmological scale. She represents the state of completion our universe exists in after a series of restructuring by Zeus, she is the goddess that makes both people and gods suitable and perfect, and she contains in her the essences of everything in the universe. She is a complex goddess whose interactions with other beings in myth and cult are often brushed off as being “simplistic” or “dramatic”, but reveal a very interesting story once they are given more thought.

Thank you for reading <3

[P.S: please feel free to add any thoughts or opinions to this discussion. It will fuel the voices]

[youremyheaven]

A Basic Guide to Vedic Astrology

I think many of you are new to Vedic astrology, so I thought I'd give a little intro to some of the concepts, terminology etc

First and foremost, Vedic astrology dates back to 5000 BC - 10,000BC, which means it only takes into account Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the 2 nodes of the Moon, Rahu & Ketu along with your Ascendant. Outer planets like Uranus, Neptune, Pluto along with asteroids are NOT calculated as most of them were discovered only in the last 2-3 centuries.

A conjunction takes place when two planets are placed in the same nakshatra within 5 degrees of each other. Even if they are placed more than 5 degrees apart, so long as they are in the same nakshatra, they can to some extent be considered as conjunct (the effect will be less potent than an exact conjunction basically) BUT if you have Sun in Ashwini and Venus in Bharani, you DO NOT have Sun conjunct Venus in Aries, that is NOT how it works. Those two nakshatras have entirely different themes, mythologies, purposes, deities, planetary influences and lessons, how on earth can they be considered "conjunct"???

That said, wherever you have a conjunction in your chart will have a major influence on you. It is a very potent energy. Dont ask me if having Saturn conjunct Ketu in Ashwini makes you a Saturnian or a Ketuvian because that's not the point, its that those two planets have a specific relationship with each other in your context and to understand the functioning of one, you must look at the other (along with its placement, aspects etc etc)

There are 12 rashis, corresponding to zodiac signs and each rashi is divided into 2 or more lunar mansions called "nakshatras". If you've wondered why say Arieses all act so different, its because they're either UBPs or Revatis in their Vedic chart, contributing to vastly different personalities.

In Vedic astrology, we have the concept of 7 charakarakas all of which indicate a different purpose:

Atmakaraka aka the soul indicator. it is the planet at the highest degree and represents your soul/being. its your compass and points towards the calling of your soul

2. Amatyakaraka, it typically points to your career/profession and works alongside your atmakaraka. it is the planet at the second highest degree

3. Bhratrukaraka (planet at 3rd highest degree) points to relationships with siblings

4. Matrukaraka ( planet at fourth-highest degree in your chart) signifies your relationship with your mother or maternal figures. It represents the nurturing qualities within you and helps illuminate your connection to your mother or motherly figures in your life.

5. Putrakaraka (planet with the fifth-highest degree in your chart) reveals your approach to parenting and your potential for creativity. It provides insights into your connection with your children and your capacity for artistic expression.

6. Gnatikaraka (the planet with the sixth-highest degree in your chart) indicates obstacles and adversaries in your life. It reflects your ability to overcome challenges and confrontations, making it a valuable guide for navigating life’s hurdles.

7. Darakaraka (the planet at the lowest degree) it is associated with your spouse and romantic relationships. It uncovers the qualities you seek in a partner and offers insights into how you relate to your significant other. Understanding the Darakaraka can provide clarity on your love life and partnerships.

HOW TO STUDY NAKSHATRAS:

Read about the mythology behind your nakshatras. This helps shed light on its nature.

Look at your nakshatra's yoni consort. Read about what the yoni animal symbolically represents

Similarly, read about your nakshatra's deity, ruling planet, other naks under the same planetary influence etc

There are 4 purusharthas (aka motivations) in vedic astrology according to which nakshatras are classified. understanding the different classifications behind each nak helps us understand its nature better

similarly naks can also be classified by their ganas which describe the nature of these naks:

Deva = godly, Manushya = humane, Rakshasa = demonic

if you have a rakshasa gana nak, it does not mean you're a demon. it just points towards traits like selfishness, lack of generosity etc AND the person you are is sum of your whole chart, not just the gana of one nak, so don't beat yourself up

Naks are also classified on the basis of their qualities of which there are 7

they can also be classified on the basis of caste:

(all tables, pyramid etc by me so any mistake is mine oopsies)

4. Chart Ruler

The ruling planet of your ascendant sign is your lagna lord. If you're Mrigashira Rising, then your lagna lord is Mercury/Venus (based on whether your nak falls into the Taurus portion or the Gemini portion).

5. Navamsa or D9 chart

Look at your D9 after you've studied your D1 otherwise it'll feel like too much info you don't fully understand. Navamsa is consulted along with your D1/Birth chart. you can think of it as D1 promises certain things and D9 is if/how those things materialise. its like part 1 and part 2 of a story

I can't think of anything else that should be covered🤡but if you have doubts you can ask!!

I hope this was helpful!!

[unstable-samurai]

Breathing This Calm Night - smut

Yunjin x Male Reader

ONE-SHOT

Tags: fluff, oral sex, one-shot, tightjob, penetration, k-idol, famous girl, secret relationship

A/n: This is my first request. Thanks @dav1233555 for the plot suggestion 🫡

The two of you were anxiously dragging yourself towards the end of the day. Slowly the hours passed, seeming to last longer than they should, while a hurried and hard routine was followed, with no time to even exchange a few messages.

But you were finally free, at least for now, from the mess that is a magazine of international relevance.

I'm arriving

You read the message and smiled at the phone screen. It wasn't crowded at the restaurant you chose to have dinner at. You reflected for a moment, and thought there was a bit of madness in what you two were doing, but it was indisputable that it was genuine and pure.

Truth be told, this whole thing was real. And thinking that this could be a bit crazy (in other people's eyes, to be more precise) only made your panoramic view of society more bitter.

After all, what was so great about being a foreigner and dating a K-idol? Well, you weren't the guy who was going to change the view of an entire society, so worrying about it was useless.

At least there was some security that this relationship would not be leaked to the media. Well, you were in fact part of the fucking media. There was support from the magazine you worked for (not that you were the owner or anything), and at least no one on your team would poke your eye out. Some other editors you trust already knew about your relationship. It was one of the countless advantages of being in a high position in the company and having a strong influence on what happened inside. I mean, someone from the magazine could try to fuck with you, snakes exist everywhere, doing this in an attempt to self-promote or even abandon ship, handing over the leak of your relationship to another magazine or tabloid (in the headline the motherfuckers would find a way to use the word "affair", just because your previous relationship ended a month before you met Yunjin). But you would discover the funny guy so easily that there wouldn't even be any fun in solving the mystery. All it took was a single call to your father, simply the greatest editor-in-chief who worked at the magazine's headquarters. Already retired, but still exercising great decision-making power thanks to his long years of contributions to the magazine. Your old man was seen almost as a royal advisor or a wise monk where directors, managers and editors from various sectors of the magazine went to ask for advice and help. You were relatively shielded from leaks.

You noticed her approaching. Well disguised, with glasses, hair tied back and comfortable clothes. She looked like just another ordinary girl. You couldn't help but notice the NY Knicks sweatshirt you had given her as a gift, it was both of your favorite team.

She greeted you with a discreet hug. You still hadn't gotten used to the fact that you couldn't give a peck in public que in South Korea. In your perception, it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Hi, baby! How are you?" she asked you as she sat down at the table.

"Better now, honey. What about you?"

"The same!"

"Was the day as hard as always?" you asked.

"Yeah, definitely!" she replied. Yunjin seemed eager for this question. She continued: “In the morning I had rap class. By the way, I think I'm getting better. Oh, and in the afternoon I recorded my lines, like, over and over again. The music producer has a very specific vision of what he wants for this track. He apologized and admitted that it might take some time to achieve the desired result.”

"Well, I trust your talent. Remember that you and your group are dealing with a delicate concept. I have seen up close the production of albums that address intimate themes, it is always a challenge, but also a true work and certainly a amazing gift for the fans. You girls are going to do great."

Yunjin laughed, a little shyly.

"It feels like I'm talking to a music critic instead of my boyfriend."

"Well, you're actually talking to a music critic. Oh, by the way, I remembered that I won't be writing the article about Le Sserafim's new album like I said before."

Her expression was one of surprise. Yunjin asked:

"Is it because of me?”

"Yes." you answered honestly. “Well, look, love, I'm prioritizing our relationship and thinking about the future. If this is for real, eventually the press will hear about us together, and a review from me about my girlfriend's music group obviously it would make my opinion seem partial and biased. It's just to avoid future problems."

"Okay" She looked upset. "But I'll still want to know your opinion when you hear the album."

"I'm really looking forward to hearing it." You smiled, making her feel better. "I left the review about the new album for a good friend of mine to write. I really respect her opinion."

"Well, i think we're in good hands. But let's stop talking about work for a bit!"

The waiter seemed to have heard Yunjin's speech as he appeared to save them right after she finished saying that. Yunjin had great taste in food, that's why she always chose the order for the two of you, you weren't the "culinary trailblazer" type; a few months in South Korea and you only knew five typical dishes (always returning to the arms of the big fast-food chains).

"Oh, I almost forgot to give you this!" You handed her a gift. "It had been on my lap for so long that I had forgotten I had brought it with me."

"Oh, baby! You didn't have to do that!"

She started to unwrap it.

"Hope you like."

You waited for her reaction. Yunjin smiled and made a cute little noise when she saw that it was a book (although she already knew from the shape of the gift wrap).

"You know I love reading! Thank you so much."

"It's The Alchemist. I know you love fantasy and this silly self-help thing. This book is a mix of both."

You saw her eyes light up.

"You're perfect. I love how well you know me. And self-help isn't silly, it's very good for evolving as a human being." she scolded you.

You shrugged.

"It's not the kind of thing I'd like to put on my bookshelf. But to each their own.”

She laughed.

"I'm still going to make you read one of these."

"Well, I've already read The Alchemist. If for me it's average, for you it will be a masterpiece."

★

It was around 10pm when the two of you finally arrived at your apartment. Dinner was very good, especially dessert (that bingsu thing was really delicious), and by that night there was no more energy for more fun, it was preferable to have a good night's sleep so that the next day you could do something together. Even so, Yunjin hummed excitedly in the car on the way home. You appreciated all that joy.

You took off your shoes while Yunjin took off her NY Knicks sweatshirt, leaving only a tight tank top on her body. You noticed that she wasn't wearing a bra by the way her breasts showed through the fabric of her tank top. You slowly approached her and grabbed her from behind, kissing her repeatedly. Yunjin wrapped her hands around your neck as she giggled at the series of kisses.

“Will you be my teddy bear tonight?” she asked sweetly. “I need your affection so much, baby.”

“Whatever you need, sweetie.” You said as you kissed her on the neck.

Things were heating up. Your hands slid down Yunjin's soft belly, heavy sighs escaped her mouth unconsciously.

“Look, we still need to shower.” she said.

"No problem." you answered.

“You're putting me in the mood. I'm warning you that if you keep touching me like this, you're going to have to go all the way to finish what you started.”

“And since when has this been a problem for me?” you asked as you led her to the couch.

You took off your shirt and belt from your pants. Yunjin took off her jeans, leaving only her tank top and adorable pink panties. Your hand slid down Yunjin's left thigh while you kissed her right thigh. That was more than enough to give her goosebumps. She had her legs wide open, waiting, almost begging, for you to touch that place. Instead of doing it right away, you decided to play with her a little, kissing and biting her inner thigh while using one of your hands to lightly massage her pussy through her panties. Your lips slid to Yunjin's crotch, where you licked the entire area, she reveled in the act, trying hard not to close her legs with the spasms she was having. It didn't take long for a wet stain to darken the pink of the panties. When you finally removed Yunjin's panties, you saw how wet she was. So horny that she couldn't wait for you, fingering her pussy slowly, opening it with her fingers so you could see how drooling she was; a successful action of provoking you. Then you realized how hard your cock was, pulsing in your pants, painfully tight, which made you hornier.

Without wasting any more time, you dived between Yunjin's legs, eager to taste her (that flavor that was becoming increasingly familiar and addictive… Part of your life. Yeah, we could put it that way), your tongue delighting in the taste and the cozy warmth of the inside of her pussy, while Yunjin moaned softly, digging her nails into the sofa cushions.

“I love it when you suck me like that, baby. You make me feel so good!” she moaned.

At one point she asked to stop because her lust was unbearable and that way he would have an orgasm in a short time.

“I want to feel your cock inside me now.” she said. You had just taken off your underwear when she added, “Wait, what if we fuck in the bathroom. Let’s save time, what do you think?”

Your response was to lift her off the couch and take her to the bathroom. You turned on the light with your elbow and, before you could think of anything, she said:

“Fuck me like this! Your cock goes deep into my pussy when you fuck me in the air.”

You kissed her intensely while you tried to fit your dick into her pussy. The feeling of your cock sliding inside Yunjin was wonderful. Upon realizing that your cock was well placed inside her, you grabbed Yunjin's thighs tightly and began to thrust into her energetically while she held onto you, moaning compulsively.

And Yunjin was right, your dick went deep in that position. You could feel her deep inside, the entire length of your cock was being used, and she loved it. When she announced her orgasm, you wanted to make sure it was intense and pleasurable, the way it made her roll her eyes, so you lifted her a little higher, grabbing her ass, while Yunjin wrapped her legs inside your arms, making her practically hang from you and her pussy is completely inside your dick.

“Oh God, Baby! I’m cumming!”

She trembled holding onto you, while you practically rubbed her pussy on your dick, always rotating it close to your body. It was just a shame that you couldn't enjoy her eyes rolling back at the moment of orgasm, you simply loved seeing her go crazy with pleasure, but there was also a certain contentment in just knowing that it happened.

You sat Yunjin down on the sink and there you started fucking her again, looking deeply into her eyes. At one point she looked at you with so much passion, so much desire that there was a sudden growing desire to fill her pussy with your load of cum.

“Hang me, love.” she asked affectionately.

Her hand wrapped around just over half of her neck, serving as support to fuck her even harder. Sweat running down both bodies, your gaze was lost between the mirror's reflection, her eyes, her tits and her expressions of pleasure. With the sensations highlighted, you realized how much you loved Yunjin and how much this feeling contributed to eminent pleasure during sex.

Holy shit! You were almost there.

You thought about how much you wanted to go deep into this, literally to the end, but you were without a condom and suddenly stopping the act to go get a condom at the end of the championship was a bit... discouraging.

But you have an idea.

“Stand up, sweetie” you said. “Let’s try something new.”

Yunjin got out of the sink, looking at you excitedly.

“Get in the shower stall with me.” you asked, opening the door.

"What do you want to do?"

“It’s nothing out of this world, but it occurred to me that you’ve never given me a tightjob, I think it’s time we tried it.”

She had some assumptions about what this position was, but you helped her anyway. Yunjin was a rather tall girl, so there were no problems for your dick to fit between her thighs, the result was perfect, nothing uncomfortable. You thought about turning on the shower to lube up a little, but her pussy was so wet and the continuous sweat running down between her thighs was already more than great. You grabbed Yunjin's waist tightly and she crossed her legs a little, squeezing your dick.

You began to thrust into her, your cock sliding back and forth as you dragged Yunjin's labia. So you discovered in the best way that this was very pleasurable for both of you. The internal heat started inside you again and gradually you lost yourself in that exciting sensation. As you approached the final explosion, you bestially grabbed Yunjin in every way possible, sliding your sweat-damp hands down her belly, squeezing her breasts and slapping her ass. You lost yourself in the voluptuousness that was Yunjin's body and- Fuck! She loved it. She loved being your instrument of pleasure, knowing that the person she loved so much reached maddening peaks of passion, desire and lust for her. A juice of feelings for an insatiable thirst.

“Oh baby! I’m gonna cum! I’m gonna-”

Without any warning, Yunjin began to move her hips in a rhythm that immediately took you to the precipice of pleasure. The soft, hot, wet, suffocating skin of her thighs dancing over your cock. This was too much for you. When you came, you hugged Yunjin tightly, holding her as if your life depended on it, giving in to inconstant and uncontrollable moans close to her ear. The frantic thrusts lost their rhythm, going deeper and slower through Yunjin's thighs. She held your arms affectionately, waiting for your breathing to become less labored before kissing you.

"I love you." You said to her.

The phrase was so loaded with something that covered your feelings at that moment, and you wished she was the woman of your life and would never leave your side.

"I love you too!" said Yunjin when she found a way out of your tongue. “Baby, you don’t know how much.”

“This took longer than expected. Let’s take our shower.”

“Yep! Let's go."

You turned on the shower. The hot running water was invigorating, even more so being next to Yunjin, you didn't know that sharing certain intimacies was so special until you finally did it with her. you soaped Yunjin's entire body, she helped you wash your back and you shampooed her hair, gently massaging her scalp; it was cute how it relaxed her, she seemed so surrendered to you in that moment, and just a few months ago you were sitting across from her and the other Le Sserafim girls, asking incisive questions about the creative process of their latest album. That's where it all started, after all. And who could say where it would end?

“Hey, baby, let me shampoo your hair now.” Yunjin said with a cutie smile.

Nobody, you thought. Nobody could say.

A/n: sorry for any grammatical errors 😅

[14dayswithyou]

I literally have the most amazing and wonderful community in the entire world???? T_T In this essay, I will—

This is going to be raw and unedited because I want to get my initial thoughts out there before I forget n go back to crying /pos, but?? Yawl.... I can't even begin to find the words to express how appreciative and grateful I am for each and every one of you!! ;v;

I've spent the past few hours reading through everyone's personally written messages, then rereading them all again to let it all fully sink in. I'm being genuine when I say that I've never felt this loved or appreciated in any community before in my life.

Those in the Discord server might know about this already, but since the start of this year, I haven't really been enjoying myself (nor have I been as active) in the yandere VN community. There was far too much infighting between devs, parasocial communities, and toxic anons that ruined so much for me — so I withdrew from it all and remained in my own small bubble. Even then, I still got belittled, harassed, doxxed, and even became the target of Tall Poppy Syndrome by others; most of which nearly made me want to leave altogether, but the overflowing amount of support from everyone in the 14DWY community made me want to stay.

And even now, after reading all those heartfelt messages... I think it's permanently solidified the little space I occupy here on the internet :3

So... Yeah, long story short (and a story that will likely end up as its own separate Tumblr post gjskskjd), I wasn't enjoying myself at all in the yandere VN community... but I did have the time of my life in the 14DWY community. And it's all thanks to you guys.

I'm genuinely sooooo proud to have such an endlessly kind, social, and talented community; and I'm glad to have brought such an interactive and friendly group of people together over our shared interest in such a nice concept. 14DWY is essentially a labour of my love — and although I'm ultimately creating it for me and my silly interests — it's still something that I want to make worthy of you guys as well. All the love and support you've shown me and 14DWY motivates me to do my very best, and y'all deserve nothing less. So...

Thank you all for finding a comfort character in my Totally Normal Guy and his Totally Not Eccentric quirks. Thank you for all the insanely talented creations y'all make and share with me. Thank you for sending in your silly (/pos) questions and turning them into inside jokes and AUs for the rest of the community to enjoy. Thank you for talking with me and making this space a genuinely fun place for me to be in again.

From the bottom of my heart; thank you all so much. I really hope everyone has had an amazing year so far, and I hope 2025 will be as kind to you as you all were towards me.

I also want to give a big fat massive huuuuuuuge shout-out to Ashe / @flaneur001 my love (/p) for organising the 14DWY letter event on Discord, and for contributing so much of their time and dedication to the 14DWY community. You say you've only been part of the community for a year, but to me, that was a year well cherished and appreciated. The 14DWY community (and me especially) have all been so lucky to spend this past year with you, and I sincerely hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have. You've done so much for me, the community, and the 14DWY Discord server, so it's only fair that you get the recognition you deserve. So thank you, Ashe!! And a big thank you to everyone in the 14DWY Discord who participated in this event as well!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some cryin and sobbin to do <3 /silly /pos

[dreamingkitsunewrites]

Unintended (pt1)

A/N: HELPPP guys I feel terrible after writing this😭 this was the hardest, most heartbreaking angst I've ever written.

Syn:unplanned pregnancy with Choso as your boyfriend but the trauma of his origins speaks for him...

TW: HEAVY ANGST!!, traumatized Choso, unplanned pregnancy, panic attacks, suggestiveness, mentions of abortion,dark topics and possible spoilers (about Choso's origins)

1.5k words | PT 2 COMING SOON

Your period was late. You had first noticed it two weeks ago on a seemingly ordinary morning, but today felt different. Today, you decided it was finally time to take the pregnancy test you had been anxiously holding onto. Choso had been away, along with Yuji, on a mission for a few days, and he was due to return today. As you stood by the bathroom sink, a single tear of joy slipped down your cheek, the test trembling slightly in your hands. The reality of it washed over you: you and Choso were going to be parents. Sweet images of the two of you raising a child together danced in your mind, filling your heart with warmth and anticipation as you gazed at the two small parallel lines that had appeared on the test.

A couple of hours later, you sat in your living room, wearing your favorite dress, counting the seconds until Choso walked through the door. The anticipation filled you with a mix of excitement and nerves; you could hardly wait to share the news. For Choso, the last two days had felt like an eternity. The longing to touch you, to kiss you, and to hold you close had been a kind of torture. Yet, as he opened the door to your shared apartment, he was met with an unexpected heaviness in the air. The familiar scent of home was tinged with something so foreign yet somehow familiar, a strange vibration that has been sending shivers down his spine whenever he approached you during the previous weeks. That same protective instinct he classified as the special way you always made him feel. Just now he understood how much of a fool he had been for underestimating it.

His sharp senses were now on high alert. Choso noticed immediately that you weren’t rushing towards him with your usual enthusiasm. Instead, you sat on the couch, a uniquely beautiful, radiant smile illuminating your features, but there was something in your eyes that made his heart skip a beat. He approached you cautiously, his brow furrowing in confusion as he took in the scene before him. 

Your gaze locked with his for a brief moment before you lowered your eyes to the small blue box that lay on the table in front of you. Choso’s heart raced as he approached the box, reading the unfamiliar brand name—Clearblue—etched on its surface. The moment he recognized the potential significance of the object wrapped in a delicate white bow, a wave of unadulterated panic flooded his mind. “What does this mean?” he asked, his voice flat, devoid of emotion.

“It means I’m pregnant, Cho!” you exclaimed fiercely, your eyes sparkling with the joy of the moment. “You’re going to be a father!”

The word “father” echoed in his mind, a jarring sound that sent his thoughts spiraling into chaos. What did it even mean to be a father? Choso had no idea about what that word ultimately meant. Was a father merely the individual who biologically contributed to the creation of a child, or was he the one who bore the weight of responsibility for that child’s life? In any case, he never knew what that meant. The foreign concept of parenthood unsettled him to the core, stirring an urge to flee from the situation entirely. He wasn’t ready for this, and the thought of becoming a father and possibly continuing the path of despair created by his own ‘creator’ filled him with dread.

Your face fell at the sight of his serious, unwavering expression. “Oh my god… this cannot be true…You—you don’t want this, right?” The realization that everything you had hoped for could crumble before your eyes shattered your heart. You had believed, with every fiber of your being, that your relationship was stronger than any obstacle, but now, standing before him, you felt the ground beneath you give way.

“H-How could this happen?” Choso’s voice was barely above a whisper, laden with confusion and disbelief. He couldn’t meet your gaze, unable to bear the sight of the pain etched across your features. His mind raced, grappling with the bizarre reality that his half-cursed cells could actually have made someone pregnant. The thought was as surreal as it was terrifying. 

You scoffed bitterly, your voice laced with sarcasm. “How could this happen? For real, Choso? I’ll tell you how it did happen: you must have gotten me pregnant on one of those early mornings when you woke up and held me tightly against your chest in bed  making love to me for hours, because ‘I was too soft to resist’; or maybe it was that night we went stargazing on the rooftop. Do you remember how you pushed me back down on you and finished deep inside me because you ‘needed to feel me for a little longer’? About how we slept -totally unbothered- the whole night still tangled up like that?” Your words dripped with disdain, each one a reminder of the intimacy you had shared. “You didn’t think about the consequences back then, did you? You know what hurts the most now: you did all of this while claiming you loved me all along…but how can you love someone and dread the idea of creating a future with them at the same time? You said you wanted to be with me forever...”

Choso collapsed on the sofa, frozen, his mind scrambling to process your words. “But you said… you said you were taking precautions…and…” His voice was weak, barely a whisper. The weight of the situation pressed down on him, causing his lungs to burn with anxiety.

Your humorless laugh filled the space between you, thick with despair. “Well, breaking news, Choso: precautions aren’t infallible… especially when you spend half the day nutting inside your girlfriend…”you yell to his face “Did you ever even consider that something like this could happen Choso?” You began to pace the room, your heart racing as tears of frustration threatened to spill. This definitely wasn’t how you had envisioned sharing the news of your pregnancy. You had known Choso lacked any form of experience when it came to relationships, but his shock over something so obvious still drove you mad. 

Choso was lost in a fog of disbelief, unable to comprehend the gravity of the situation. He remained seated, wiping his sweaty palms nervously against his thighs, eyes fixed on a distant point as a whirlwind of thoughts spun through his mind. The most terrifying of scenarios played out before him: the pictures of your smiling face and his mother's ones blurred in his brain and he imagined your fragile human body, corrupted by a life that should not exist, a parasite slowly draining you of your vitality. A parasite like the one he once was. No. He couldn’t lose you like that; he couldn’t bear the thought of you suffering as his mother had. Panic crept in, grasping at his throat and squeezing tighter.

“Okay…” he whispered roughly in between short, ragged breaths “we’ll get rid of ...it… and start again… just you and me…” The words desperately slipped from his lips before he could even figure them out, sharper than any blade. 

Silence hung heavy in the air as your heart shattered at his implied suggestion. Something undeniably broke the moment those cursed words cut through the air around you. Tears started to copiously stream down your face, and you could hardly believe what you had just heard. Deep down, you knew that Choso’s trauma was speaking for him, but the pain of his words cut deeper than anything else. 

“Y-You didn’t say that… You couldn't…I refuse to believe it, Choso…” you tried to deny it, your feet unconsciously stumbled back, your whole body recoiling as horror washed over you. Your shoulders slumped in defeat, hands raised defensively, trembling lips and puffy eyes betraying the turmoil within. Choso realized he had crossed a line just by taking a look at your shocked appearance, that he had just dug a deeper wound. What the fuck did he just say? He had fucked up and he didn't even know how to take it back.

“I didn’t mean… I—” He longed to reach out, to pull you into his arms and assure you that he hadn’t meant a word of what he said, but the words were stuck in his throat, the weight of his own thoughts holding him captive. “I cannot do this right now… I am sorry.” his child, his offspring…how could he have thought such a terrible thing?

With his hands tangled in his hair, Choso stood up abruptly and stormed out the door before you could stop him, leaving you in a whirlpool of confusion and heartbreak. He needed to run, faster than his fears, faster than the image of the disgust on your face, faster than the horrible scenario his mind conjured up.

You fell to your knees on the cold floor, sobbing as despair enveloped you. Your arms wrapped protectively around your stomach, you whispered promises to the life growing inside you. “I’ll protect you forever, even if it will be just the two of us.” Tears soaked your dress as you vowed eternal love to the child that had formed from the tender moments you had shared with Choso, while also grappling with the painful realization that this might be the last stop for your relationship….

Thanks for reading this far! Reblogs, comments and interactions are appreciated 💞

© Dreamingkitsunewrites. Don't copy or translate or my works without permission.

[redrook]

Hey, i just read your "i was caged for donations and really fucking good at it" post and I wanted to pop by and thank you as a childhood cancer survivor. Every drop in the bucket towards the eradication of cancer counts. Thank you.

This is so absolutely lovely to hear.

I did this from around 2013-2014 with Kroger in Texas, and I'm pretty sure they mostly donated to the Texas Children's Hospital

Literally thousands of people have commented on how they thought the jail thing was horrible, or kinky, or stupid, or hilarious. I never actually thought about this helping anyone, and it was more of an "time to get inside this cage and hustle for the abstract concept of charity"

It really puts things in a different perspective for me, and it's really lovely. Sometimes you can do something stupid or funny or horrible or something seemingly small and good can still come out of it.

Don't know how much of an impact I actually made, but I really and truly appreciate you reaching out. Hope you're doing well✌️