#I did some peer review for this subject matter

[raddishwrites]

Chapter Seventeen!

One chapter remains…

(Until hiatus)

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: Good Omens

Author: Neil Gaiman

Rating: 1/5 stars

I picked this book up at the library because I remembered seeing a few positive reviews, but then I saw a bunch of negative reviews, and the implication that these books are somehow the shibboleth by which one may judge one's literary taste (or, indeed, that all right-thinking people must like these books) set me against them. (When I was in high school in the early '00s, for instance, I was harassed and threatened because my taste in books and music didn't conform to my peers' ideas of what people like me are supposed to like. I'm still quite sensitive about it.)

After a bit of procrastination I picked up Good Omens, having heard that it was odd in a good way. As it turned out, it was both good and odd, but it wasn't the kind of odd that I like.

What is it like? Well, it reminded me a bit of Turtle Diary -- that is, it has a great deal of odd detail, all used with an eye towards creating a vivid image. But where Turtle Diary managed this with a deft, artful touch, Good Omens is obsessive. In Turtle Diary you get "Four different forms of religious sign and symbol": the cross, the Star of David, a crescent moon, and a life raft. In Good Omens you get plant symbols and animal symbols and religious symbolism and religious symbolism based on every ancient and forgotten pantheon there ever was, and the name of every seraph and cherub and angel and demon to ever be mentioned in the Bible, and everything else. You get a whole list of band names that look like gibberish, because if there's one thing a demon ought to be named after, it's a band. Needless to say, this casts a long shadow, and every single line, and even every single sentence, is supposed to be not only vivid but also full of meaning and with some sort of cultural reference, even if the reference itself is nonsensical. And often, as in this example, it means that the line will be awfully goofy, no matter what the ostensible subject matter is.

I don't mind when the vivid detail is organized and aiming toward a particular effect, but there are a lot of minor quirks in the book's prose, without any discernible pattern. Sometimes it seems to be going for a style of Victorian dialogue, and then it'll go off on some digression about something that's supposed to be modern or some-or-other, or it'll switch to the conventions of head-hopping in modern fiction (the book's two protagonists, angel and demon, each get "perspective chapters" not just about their own thoughts but their own bodies and feelings), and then it'll jump back to a dialogue with no word-order changes and different sentence structure from the rest of the book, or to a form of prose that is clearly supposed to be a pastiche of classic literature, and then back to modern head-hopping, to make sure that you keep track of who's doing what to whom and what they're saying.

I kept waiting for the effect to reveal itself, and it never did. On the one hand, I can see that Gaiman was trying to do something like Anna Karenina, in which a cast of vivid and realistic characters is put through a sort of symbolic dance in a circus ring of the author's devising. A lot of people like Anna Karenina, and I think this is because Tolstoy gives his characters a lot of interiority and their relationships a lot of psychological weight. Gaiman also does this in one regard, but . . . well, what's the opposite of "psychological weight"? I think it would be "unreliable narrator," and Gaiman doesn't quite give that, but a lot of his characters seem unreliable, both in terms of their self-deception and in terms of his self-deception in painting a picture of them and their interactions. Gaiman has some skills as a writer (for instance, creating a sense of humor without playing for laughs), but those skills simply aren't enough to make him a good writer of the kinds of things that people like about his books.

More vexing, in a sense, than Gaiman's creative approach is his creative attitude. He seems to have no interest in coming up with original ideas about anything, except in the most superficial sense -- as a result, the book feels like a literary junkyard, filled with patches from books and myths and musicals and films and whatever else, unconnected to one another except by the fact that all of them come from the same junkyard.

This might be a lot more acceptable if it didn't run into the problem that one of the book's main characters is a woman who runs a bookshop, and this woman -- the owner of the world's single most well-stocked used bookstore, it seems -- talks in a weirdly specialized way about books that she read and enjoyed when she was 11, but, on the off-chance that her audience includes someone in her same age bracket, has to talk in the sort of generic awe- and wonder-pilled, "cool literature" style you might expect from the social media of a 13 year old who has never encountered anyone who doesn't appreciate literature.

There are two things about this that bothered me, one more than the other. The first is obviously an unnatural over-familiarity with these authors and their works, just as would be the case with the 13 year old in the example I gave. The other is the way Gaiman presents a woman as having read in depth and gotten something from a book in her past, even though she only actually mentions a couple of chapters, the plot of the book in question, and a general atmosphere -- which is more or less how I would talk about those books, if I had to talk about them at all. Oh, and I mentioned earlier the way Gaiman uses pop culture terms to refer to things from the past and the present. The strange thing is that he doesn't show any interest in the actual thing -- like, it's hard to imagine that anyone who actually knew anything about them would have said "Oh, you mean she's reading Colette and Poirot! How very stereotypical and appropriate of a woman!" -- which, I can't stress enough, is how Gaiman mentions these books.

I have no idea why this bothers me as much as it does, or why Gaiman seems to be inviting this kind of questioning in the first place.

[vveakfish]

thinking abt this post (not adding a screenshot bc op [@mrpsychokiller] turned off reblogs and i wanna respect that) but like, idk it just got my brain moving.

i did my undergrad thesis on how sex and community in queer spaces can often go hand in hand & how kink can act as a vehicle for finding community within a subculture can in some (but not all) cases be Very sex centric.

And it was such a fucking trip to work on this project within the confines of Art School™ & realize that nearly every one of my professors wrote off the deeper meaning of my work because the images i was making were a lil kinky.

It created this really strange dichotomy within the feedback i got that semester.

My peers (namely the ones who were also queer freaks themselves) fucking Got It. we had in depth conversations about what it was that i was trying to say, and it was so great to have them around me while i worked myself to the bone on these prints.

but when i got critiques from my thesis advisor –and all the other professors in my program – it was like all they could see was the fact that i was depicting men who also happened to be sexy.

I remember about half way through the semester, when we did our like midterm review or whatever, there was very little talk about my technique, or if the images were effectively conveyed, or any of the other things my peers who were tackling less ‘risqué’ subject matter got feedback on. It was all about how the work was horny & bc of that they weren’t sure if it was ‘impactful enough’ to be thesis material.

“Okay, so u think they’re hot. Now what?”

And the thing that i found So interesting about this whole thing is that these prints weren’t even the most erotic work i’d done that year.

the last project i’d worked on the semester prior to thesis was a series of four paintings of porn stills. Dick, Balls, AND Hole all lovingly rendered in oils.

So when it came time to figure out what i wanted to do for thesis, i considered going in that same direction. But in the end, i decided the point of the project wasn’t the Raunch factor. So, i chose to pare back the sex so that my message wouldn’t get lost in it.

And Yet, there i was, standing in front of a room full of str8 ppl who couldn’t look past the suggestiveness of a twunk bound in shabari, or a big chested bear in a leather jacket, or a drag queen dancing in sexy lace up heels for long enough to even consider that maybe the work Wasn’t just about that.

The thing i realized (only at the end of the semester in trying to work through my feelings on all of this as i wrote out my thesis paper) was that outside of my peers, none of the people who had a chance to view my work and engage with it before it was complete did so in good faith. They decided that my work was intellectually worth less because it could be read as horny.

And like, ignoring the fact that i wasn’t making these images for sexual gratification, it shouldnt have MATTERED if i were !!!

These professors spent four years talking about how our work should evoke feeling in people, and that we should keep that in mind while composing our images etc. etc. etc.

but as soon as they thought the reaction the work might have been evoking was Horny™ it wasn’t deep enough.

I don’t really have a conclusion to this post, other than to say i fucking agree with the sentiment of the one i linked at the top. Fetish, kink, or sex should not detract from a work of art. And the fact that it does is a disservice not just to the artists who enjoy working on that kind of subject matter, but also the audience.

If your first response when seeing a work of art and learning that it Might have some element of sex involved in it is to deem it wrong, or shallow, or gross, you’re robbing yourself of the opportunity to engage with the work in a meaningful way.

and this is not to say “everyone should look at fetish art, idc if it icks you, get over it!!”

all i ask is that you investigate why it evokes such a strong reaction in you. Is your discomfort actually about the image itself? or is there something else going on. Sit with it for a second.

and since i wrote all this out and talked about my thesis, i might as well link the essay here. I’m still really proud of this project, and i have the prints embedded within the essay, so check it out if you have the chance!

[spontaneousglitterbees]

It's been mentioned that Kokichi has some phantom pains and he has clear mobility issues (love that btw as someone who uses a cane), so I was curious how the rest of the class is doing in that regard. Does Kaito ever struggle to breathe or have coughing fits? Do Rantaro and Angie get migraines?

[Talent Acquisition Pilot Program AU Masterpost]

This one. This one got away from me.

tl;dr: Absolutely, Anon, we are on very similar pages! This ask really got me thinking about how the whole TAPP!cast is doing fresh out of the Killing Game. Every student in Class 79 is going through something, about now, be it physical or mental; in fact, it’s usually both.

Also: for sure, I want to try and be relatively true-to-life with their struggles, especially Kokichi’s. I write from personal experience living with chronic pain, but haven’t used a cane before. Apologies if I miss the mark at any point.

Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a healthcare professional of any kind and the AU’s premise is largely sci-fi, so there may be inaccuracies. That said, I am fascinated with biomechanics and always looking to learn, so I’m trying to keep things at least semi-plausible.

Full spoilers for Danganronpa V3 (and some for the end of SDR2) ahead!

Very Long Loredump (~6.2k words) under the cut:

HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?

Everyone is traumatized. That much is obvious, sure, but the Talent Acquisition Pilot Program (TAPP) is a virtual reality simulator based on the bones of the Neo World Program (NWP). In much the way SDR2’s NWP is purported to replicate death in the simulation in the players’ real bodies, the TAPP simulation is built to alter the brain chemistry of its participants. TAPP builds muscle memory and ‘burns’ new neural pathways to a participant’s Default Mode Network (DMN), a collective term for parts of the brain responsible for letting us “autopilot” common tasks like riding a bike or typing on a keyboard. The V3 cast’s experiences in the simulation impact their real bodies in a very literal sense to ‘speedrun’ them through orientation at Hope’s Peak and mainstream them in the curriculum as quickly as possible so its researchers can start collecting useful data on the merits of HPA for investors.

The problem is, nobody programming TAPP anticipated they would start killing each other.

Class 79 were the first human test subjects for the program with zero peer review or board approval, of course, because HPA is morally dubious and can pass off “dude, trust me” as genuine credentials to several world governments. Even if this massive oversight was not noticed until after the fact, V1 of TAPP did at least include one quasi-safety feature: if any player became “significantly injured”, that player would be ejected from the simulation. Everyone else would be locked in the simulation (in case one of them was involved and tried to evade consequences) until an administrator could come and manually assess the situation. In theory, the physically-unharmed student could rejoin the simulation once the conflict was resolved.

But TAPP was built to write data to the brain. It was not built to identify what data it’s actually writing, and cannot differentiate between playing the piano and getting smashed in a hydraulic press. Data is data.

It does not help that Team Danganronpa (the group of Reserve Course kids, including Tsumugi) are foolish teenagers entirely unaware of this, assuming that “none of it is real, so none of it will actually matter! we’re just scaring them!” While skimming through the code and thoroughly Knowing Not What They Do, they manage to remove any defined cap for what constitutes ‘significant injury’ before player ejection. The only flag that can set it off is a lack of any other player flags. Virtual death.

This is where Rantaro earns the title of “Ultimate Survivor”. The shotput ball put him down too quickly for the damage to be fully reflected in his physical body, so he managed to get ejected with post-concussive symptoms, short-term memory issues, and persistent migraines instead of fully dying. Were his method of death much slower, he’d likely have been screwed (and wouldn’t have Komaeda’s luck cycle to save him).

Time scales differently in TAPP than in the physical world; while Rantaro’s been at the virtual Academy for several days, the students have been strapped in their pods for a few hours at most. Between the Responsible Older Sibling Energy seared over the person he may have been before and an extant knack for escape room puzzles, Amami is The Man with the skills and motivation to call in backup.

It’s a good thing he did, too! Their “observer”, having tired of watching a bunch of students play the piano and run around outside, only figures out something has gone horribly wrong the moment Rantaro practically busts down the door. The next tense hour-plus is spent doing damage control and imposing limits on the code of the simulation to prevent TAPP from letting the students actually die. Unfortunately, the TDR kids and their takeover took a sizeable chunk out of the spaghetti code holding the whole thing together in their haste. TDR, with proposed talents like Ultimate Cosplayer on their side, are primarily concerned with artistry and are only competent-enough programmers. As a result, there is no obvious way to manually override the lock completely and just let the students out without significant defragging, even as TDR members are still actively messing with the code, and who knows how long that will take. (About 6-ish chapters)

Instead, for now, they’ll have to settle for putting as many programming-adjacent talents as possible on the case and exploit a loophole that panicking overseer managed to write: if the remaining students are systematically ejected, the program will bypass the lock and let them out. During the rescue operation, the main objective is first to minimize the physical damage TAPP can inflict by lowering the tolerance required to eject the students (which is easier said than done) and by dampening its neural-carving functions, then to get everyone left out of there.

It is a very good thing they sprung into action as quickly as they did, as it doesn’t take long for Kaede to arrive.

KAEDE

The first thing Kaede notices coming out of the simulation is that she can’t hum the notes to get back on-pitch after the worst rendition of Der Flohwalzer she has ever heard. The second thing she notices, because it is far easier to be angry about something trivial than face the slow-dawning realization you are having, is that she can only barely speak. It hurts.

I think Kaede learns to sign early on, but still finds herself trying to speak aloud anyway since she’s so used to having her hands busy already playing piano. Shuichi often reminds her to take it easy, treat it like a vocal rest, and steadily she begins to improve. She is as exuberant as ever, with determination fitting of our protagonist. Kaede is the Class 79 representative, though with his renewed confidence Shuichi often accompanies her. Not only are they best friends (though it is strange, at first, to see her alive after spending so long grieving. Kaede last saw him, like, yesterday.) and Kaede will inevitably tell Shuichi all about the meeting anyway so why not cut out the middle man,  but Shuichi initially came specifically to speak at meetings so Kaede wouldn’t strain her voice. She is immensely proud.

RANTARO (PT. 2)

Rantaro doesn’t hold the shotput ball against her; desperate times, and all. It made sense her proactive attitude would make her first to act for the ‘greater good’. She aimed to end the whole thing, not just comply. Even if she swung and missed, he (an older brother with faint recollections of failing to protect the people depending on him and guilt knowing he doesn’t have the stomach to take a victim and thus will be failing people in need of protection again) can’t fault her for swinging. She is confused when he asks her how she launched the ball that hard, though. Odd.

TENKO

Tenko has neck pain issues like Kaede, but hers are more acute. The seesaw effect was heinous but relatively precise; as the magnum opus of TDR’s homebrewed serial killer, they un/fortunately made him pretty good at it when he has a plan. Tenko has some of the least devastating lingering physical injuries of the class. Given the severity of her classmates’ injuries, though, that still leaves her with minor vocal strain, susceptibility to sore throats, and severe neck pain, among other things.

A lot of Tenko’s lingering trauma is mental: she isn’t quite as willing to immediately throw herself into the fray to help her friends, and certainly doesn’t want to leave her back exposed (a tendency she shares with Kokichi, of all people). While it did numbers on her perception of men again for a while, hearing about the trial left her with a lot to reconcile. In a ‘cool-motive-still-murder’ way, she does not forgive Kiyo (nor is she obligated to) but doesn’t hate him as much as she expected, either. Processing the idea that a girl could be horribly abusive, especially to a guy, and catalyze a cycle of violence… gets to her. She’s more wrapped up in the tragedy of the entire situation than the righteous indignation that’d fueled her for so long. Everybody lost that day.

She’s pleasantly surprised to see Himiko trying to lift her spirits now. Those two have a lot to talk about and boundaries to set, yes, but Tenko is still touched Himiko took her words to heart and seems to be benefiting from it.

ANGIE

Angie had bit more complicated situation than Tenko, getting KO’d before the fatal blow. Her migraines come on more often than Rantaro’s with high light, which is a special kind of awful for the SHSL Artist, but they’re generally closer to a dull ache. Once she gets going on a project she sets out to grin and bear it; Tenko and Himiko often check up on her. She does her best to stay just as upbeat as in the simulation, and if anything it seems more genuine now. She can actually relax, rather than mind-game her way to relative (unsteady) peace under duress.

(Angie is really interesting to me for many adjacent reasons to Kokichi, since they’re both willing to get morally gray and manipulative if it’ll keep everyone from killing each other. Angie-Kokichi compare contrast essay when?)

She hasn’t “forgiven” Kiyo either, but isn’t hostile while she evaluates whether or not his conviction in getting help and being better is genuine. She was pretty heavily affected by TDR’s “character rewrites” as well, after all, and empathizes with the feeling you’ve been used as a glorified dress-up doll. To some unknowable extent, she is a different person now, and it is frightening.

She’s trying to step back and re-analyze her sense of spirituality, particularly how it relates to her art. It’s existentially harrowing, having been made to toe the line between faith and fronting to either get people to either listen to her or not see her as a threat. She’s not even positive “Kami-sama” (not going with the localization here, my understanding is the Japanese version was deliberately more generic and at least a bit less disrespectful towards real people and their beliefs) is the same deity she’d believed in before TAPP, but it’s difficult to try and reconnect with your roots when none of you have any information on your previous lives.

They do, at least, have a resident anthropologist that might have a clue how to even start looking.

Hah. They sure do, huh.

I think Angie is the type to nominally forgive and never, ever forget. She holds the kind of grudge that lives beyond logic as all the compartmentalized emotions you don’t want to admit you have. A grudge that co-exists with an active desire to move on and seeps into her art.

KOREKIYO

Kiyo got burned.

Alive.

Also dead, somehow, an extension of the Ultimate Placebo Effect we have going on in the simulation; Kiyo was so certain ghosts were real and he’d be one that, through earnest conviction, the simulation made it so. I think this is how Komaeda’s luck works in SDR2 as well; the original Neo World Program was developed for therapy, and in doing so assesses whether or not it would be completely devastating (do more harm than good) to actively disprove something about the patient’s worldview at that time and adapts the environment accordingly. Hence you get a reality-warping luck cycle and ghosts are Definitely Real. Is either true in the outside world? No idea! Komaru talks to a ghost in UDG, once, but considering it’s unclear if Kiyo’s sister was ever a living person to begin with there are bigger fish to fry.

Or not. He’s pretty damn-well aware much that hurts. Or at least being boiled and seasoned does. Going by that kind of simulator-logic, I think in a technical sense it was the salt that killed him, not the torture. There’s probably something to unpack there I haven’t fully explored yet.

Rumors start going around campus that Kiyo is a vampire. It makes enough sense for watercooler gossip, the mask covering up fangs and an aversion to lingering out in the sun; Class 79 knows it’s actually because sunburn, for him, is a new brand of Unfun. He prefers to hole up in the library or his lab anyway, so it could be worse. He’s honestly kind of into becoming a school cryptid. It helps transition him from “avoiding my classmates and other people because they hate me, i also hate me, and we are all correct to do so. i am an extension of her so it does not matter what i want” towards “i am not my past, i cannot make up for what ive done but i can move forward and be better, i am forging a new self and it is mine this time and it always should have been”.

(Kokichi is particularly proud of having kickstarted the cryptid thing. Of course Shinguji would love to watch the evolution of new local lore in real time! Now he doesn’t mope in the corner half as much. He’s still in the corner, granted, but its probably reading while Rantaro sits next to him on his phone instead of moping!)

Kiyo’s also in therapy now. They all have therapy scheduled into their school weeks, but Kiyo has a session besides. Fabrication or not, everyone’s backstories are functionally now ‘real’ and need to be dealt with. Kiyo, Maki, and Kokichi got hit particularly hard on that front. Those scars run deep, but are starting to heal.

Of the students with whole-body injuries, Kiyo probably has the most manageable physical symptoms at this stage. He has to have long sleeves and generally keep as covered as he can so that he can subdue the part of his mind that expects the skin is still raw and flaking (it isn’t, but phantom sensations suck). Overheating pushes him toward a panic state like the end of his trial, which doesn’t exactly gel with the first point, but he’s working on it. Rantaro and Kokichi, occasionally Shuichi, tend to notice and start to defuse the situation. Part of me wonders if he’d have a black lace parasol on sunny days to lean in to the ‘mystery’ around him, plus for the sheer Aesthetic of it.

KIRUMI

Speaking of full-body injuries: Kirumi. She has similar ‘got-to-keep-covered’ issues to Kiyo, particularly wearing heavier work gloves now just to minimize any potential for cuts (and, in the back of her mind, ropeburn). Breaking several bones on impact was rough, though fast enough that she’s had remarkable improvement in a relatively short period of time. She started out on crutches, which made it difficult for her to keep up with her workaholic inclinations, but unlike some of the other students she has at least an idea of “when to quit” as not to make things worse. She’s still genuinely lost some bone density resulting from her treatment and coping methods, finding that she really does need to lean on her friends on occasion, but she is still resolute she is a care-giver, damn it. On both physical and mental fronts she’s dealing with reclaiming her agency and independence.

Kirumi is one of the few, with Maki, whose talent courses actively discourage the kinds of behavior they need for personal growth and mental health maintenance. Kirumi is still reconciling her “rewrite”, the encoded passivity in her and clash of her “selfless devotion” against her own will to live and thrive, a nightmarish reminder that You Are Not Your Own. The “Ultimate” maid needs to be agreeable, to follow orders, and hasn’t the tampering just improved her proficiency at her craft? Why be so upset? Never mind having to reconstruct her proper ability to tell people “no”, having to re-learn it’s okay to do things for yourself; according to her programmed instinct, her classes, those very things are antithetical to her talent. And everything relies on that talent, doesn’t it?

Kirumi and Kokichi are the two in Class 79 who were discharged with mobility devices that got students in the other classes… more than mildly concerned about what the hell happened to all of these freshmen (well, first year at HPA anyway), but luckily for HPA administration they’re also probably the two people least likely to offer details.

THE RIBS

There are enough students who have chest pain and associated issues that they made a club about it. It started out as Miu, Ryoma, and Kaito all independently concluding there was no way in hell they were making it through a mile run and sitting on the bleachers. Once they’d had an opportunity to gather themselves again, they do as teens are wont to do and started talking to each other. Hypoxia is an oddly effective experience to bond over. They call themselves the RIBs, standing for “Respiratory-Issue Beleaguered” (students), mostly because it made Miu laugh and for as irritating as the sound could be they’d missed it.

Kaede, Tenko, Gonta, and Kokichi also stop by from time-to-time, meaning precisely half of the 14 active Class 79 students revolving-door through this unofficial student group. HPA took notice. Class 79 has its own gym class, now, taking into account the state of everyone. One could argue that should have been the case from the onset. They would be correct.

RYOMA

Ryoma is fairly elusive. He generally keeps to himself and remains a Fairly Chill Guy with a cool temperament everyone wants to emulate (he doesn’t see what they see in him) and some Complicated Feelings now knowing he hasn’t killed anyone in the certified Real World and, by logic, should not have to have the memories of a hardened prisoner. He still does.  The persistent rasp in his voice now surprises nobody, but it took a few days for everyone in the class to stop flinching a little hearing it. He frequently hangs out in the animal shed with Gonta, Gundham, and Peko to take care of the cats.

MIU

We’ve seen quite a bit of Miu in the AU so far, but to recap a lot of her deal:

She loathes having to “take it easy” but will do so reluctantly

She tries to talk less to stretch out her working time as much as she can (even if she can’t resist just a little banter when Kokichi swings by)

She’s trying to approach her death with a sense of humor. A choker with a huge heart-shaped buckle replaces her usual necklaces with full awareness of the irony. Ha-ha, a choker. It’s a dare for anybody to bring it up, ‘I’ve said it before anyone else could’. The first thing she did waking up was try and make an autoerotic asphyxiation joke. It did not make her feel better like she thought it would.

Miu spends most of her time in her lab, now. Granted, she did that already, but she’s particularly fixated on re-creating a certain Ultimate Robot, ground-up if she has to. Fortunately, she has a team assembled (re: two upperclassmen and the Ultimate Supreme Shit-for-brains). We’ll see how this pans out soon enough.

When not re-building Kiibo outright, she ““takes a break”” innovating in other areas (re: prototyping potential features for kIIbo, usually testing them on a bored Kokichi. He usually complies because Miu is one of the few who doesn’t look at him with a patronizing amount of pity she’s Not boring. Mm-hmm. All there is to it.)

Miu does not resent Gonta (or Kokichi, for that matter) for killing her. There's a small extent to which she's a little relieved she was stopped from going through with her plan to kill Kokichi, and a much bigger disconnect between her idea of reality and her memory of Chapter 4. Miu died in a VR game within another VR game. Having messed around with the programming and guts of the nested simulation personally, it still seems fake. She didn't really die, no matter how real it felt; they were in a simulation. Logically, she's well aware of how it works and the consequences, but it doesn't feel like it was more than a glorified fever dream on an emotional level. Both Gonta and Kokichi are more outwardly traumatized by her death than Miu as a byproduct of how she's processing it. She's not "better off" or "less impacted" so much as "disassociated from the whole thing and very much wanting to put it behind them before it catches up with her", thus burying herself in work and trying as hard as she can to bring back the one person she wants to comfort her.

Kiibo's absence is not great for her abandonment issues. It is hard to blame him when he never had a physical body to begin with, though. 

GONTA

Gonta is also with the RIBs, and reeling from it the most visibly of everyone on account of just how. Much, his death was. An allergic reaction blocking off the air, puncturing at least one lung for certain, and living long enough to feel the shrapnel of the laptop lodge into the wound alongside the scythe, the fire quickly eating away any oxygen, any hope of gasping another breath… yeah no he acts as much the gentleman as ever but he is not okay. As Resident Buff Nature Boy Gonta tanked it better than anyone else in the class could have, but the sheer excess of the thing gets to him. Fond memories of setting a campfire in the woods with his adoptive family are overwritten, vespidae in general… hitting differently. But Gonta is kind, to a fault. More resolute than ever to make himself into a kind of person not perceived as ‘too intimidating’ to be friends with, acknowledging the capacity he has for violence is difficult. Somewhere deep down he knows that everybody does, especially in their circumstances, but still acts as though his case is exceptionally bad (nobody else does. This does not deter him, becoming a little less gullible when its least helpful).

He is also not as disconcerted by the occasional spontaneous sensation that your insides are going to lose structural integrity, even with no stitches to pop, that with only the damaged wake and no piercing sharp pain to focus on and blame for the mess could potentially be perceived as a bizarre, abstracted kind of crawling feeling from the inside-out. Things in motion, displaced from where they are meant to be. He knows it isn’t bugs, isn’t glass and metal and plastic, that it isn’t anything but himself. A teeny-tiny part of him wishes it were. At least being shelter for a hive of some sort would be helpful. Aren’t gentlemen helpful, they improve life for people, make things better and how could anyone even look at you again knowing what you’re capable of, who in their right mind would talk to you, you’re going to end up alone again talking to stray cats in the alley since not even the wolves would stay—

Gonta also has extra therapy. He already had to work out self-worth issues, but the game pushed them to interfere too much in daily life not to actively work on.

KAITO

Kaito has made several background and supporting appearances without much central attention just yet. It's not that I don't like him or anything (I do!) but I guess because it seems like well-worn territory in V3 fic to me? Kaito is endlessly proud of Maki and Shuichi (Himiko too, less personally) for "winning" in the face of the killing game, and the training trio of them meet back up again regularly. Only.

It's different, now. 

He's no longer sick and dying, but his lungs 'top out' at a certain level of activity and refuse to take in more air, this burning sensation that leaves him only able to huff and wheeze and brings his training regiment to a dead stop. He treasures those last moments in his failed execution where he got to see the stars, because a lingering anxiety in the back of his mind won't let him forget that he never will again. Not the way he'd dreamed of, the way he'd planned to, the way he'd centered his identity around. There is no way, as things are, that he will pass all the physical exams to become a proper astronaut. 

The drawn-out deterioration of his health during the simulation chipped away at his physical lungs at a rate too gradual for the countermeasures the rescue team implemented; TAPP did more overt physical damage to Kaito than anyone else. It could certainly be worse and he is gradually improving, but some degree of it is permanent. It haunts him. He's trying not to think about it.

It does, though, drive a wedge between him and his sidekicks; the survivors are planning their futures, and Kaito is not too far from a slight tailspin without any idea what his might look like for the first time he can recall. Space has been the dream since he was a kid (as has getting there in this specific role) and it almost feels like a rejection. Like he got too cocky, and the cosmos decided it didn't want him. 

It starts to make a little more sense, then, that he starts willingly hanging out with Kokichi. They went through the hangar together, of course, but even besides the traumabond (and a need to, after he woke from his coma, make sure the little brat is still alive, damn it, you can't run away anymore it counts now) but. If anyone else gets having such drastically shifted circumstances that life as you'd imagined it no longer makes logistical sense, it's probably the leader without an organization. There's no need to explain the feelings of inadequacy, or the aimlessness, going through the motions of classes and formal education because what the hell else am I going to do, right now? It's familiar. 

Kokichi needs someone willing to chase him, no matter how circuitous the route becomes. Kaito needs someone willing to shake him by the shoulders and snap him out of his own head, so sure it's all-or-nothing and that if he can't be the Luminary as he'd dreamed of it whatever happens next is immaterial in comparison. Kaito needs to adapt and roll with the punches, Kokichi needs to double back from his logical leaps from point A to point Q and articulate his thoughts clearly to other people (at least some of the time.) The two of them concoct little daily and weekly rituals, like Kokichi stealing Kaito's notebook and drawing in it, just because the consistency of company reminds them both that they aren't the only one going through this. 

None of the other students quite get it, but have come to accept it.

KOKICHI

Then there’s Kokichi.

Ah, Kokichi, whose whole deal in this scenario inspired me to write about this AU at all (and who manages to weasel his way into every comic and a other entries in these notes) . I’m biased, I know, but there are also a few reasons he’s singled out in-universe as well:

A) So a hydraulic press does not slam down quickly. The pause-and-play of the video deliberately makes it look much faster than it was; watching enough of the hydraulic press channel makes it abundantly clear that it was not instant. Kokichi was impaled with two crossbow bolts (the one in the back being bad enough already), poisoned by those bolts, and then pressed. He had to have felt non-zero of the Pressing, which, considering it already had to be agony before bones started breaking… the rest of the class might not have been fond of him, sure, but he’s right there with Gonta on “sheer level of excess.” Not even Maki is at a point of wishing that on him. Not after finding out how drawn out and excruciating it was. Veering into headcanon, I’m going to add “sleep deprivation” on the pile as exacerbating the whole thing, given his conspiracy whiteboard and everything after the concussion, honestly.

Combined with the World’s Worst Placebo Effect, King Horse takes the crown for top “my entire body hurts most of the time” severity. It’s not a desirable one, but when your previous life is all but erased there is exactly one choice available between Big and Home. Let it be said Kokichi Ouma has never half-assed anything he’s set his mind to, ever.

B) Ouma is paranoid and distrusting, which adds the psychological angle of “you literally shot me in the back” to a poison-laced crossbow bolt in his mind. TAPP will very literally never let him forget the bolt burying itself in the muscle of his back, barely kept from severing his spinal cord; he won’t forget the shivering and shaking from the poison, or the bile rising in the back of his throat handing Kaito the antidote. (He still wanted to live. He forfeit the right, he thought, after getting Gonta and Miu killed, but he still wanted to. That was all the more reason to quadruple-down on the press idea and making their three deaths mean something, damn it. Three, because Kaito could live. If the killing game ends there is no execution. It’ll be over. Can’t take back the past, but at least one of the pair of you has to walk out of this forsaken place!)

(… Can you really believe that? Or is it just another lie.

A lie you want, with all the heart they’re so sure you do not have, to blithely believe. There has to be a cure for whatever the hell has gotten into Kaito once the game ends and they can look for it, it might even stop cold the moment the game ends. That dumbass space cadet can go back to his sidekicks and he better appreciate it, the comradery you’ll never have, because he is the designated Hero and Heroes get happy endings. You want-want-want-want to trust in that lie, to trust him with the collected thoughts and notes and pieces of you spilled across reams of paper that have been so pointlessly important for you to keep secret this whole time. For once in your life, you want to believe you will not be betrayed. You want to believe in the closest thing you have left to a friend.

It will, in fact, be the last thing you do.)

C) Ouma is paranoid and distrusting. Again. Only this flavor has more to do with his persistent denial anything is wrong, in turn making things a lot worse for himself. Mental trauma and impressions of physical sensations can have physical effects. Clinging to his persona and trying to keep bouncing around like nothing ever happened turned a very difficult but potentially manageable condition into small amounts of permanent nerve damage within the first day of waking up. It screws with his coordination; just what he needed at a school that prizes talent above all else, when he is a leader with no organization and proficiencies in sleight of hand, forgery, lockpicking, and generally evading anything that might threaten him because he can’t take very many hits.

Whoops.

D) Kokichi was last of the class to wake up from the simulation, even after the survivors. They thought he was actually dead for a bit. Just when they were thinking of  giving up on him Kokichi Ouma, SHSL Stubborn Son of a Bitch, refuses to stay down for the count.

HPA already knew Class 79 would need accommodations on account of their negligence, but it became much harder to sweep things under the rug when they thought they’d actually killed a student. Even worse, thirteen witnesses have been actively fraternizing and scaled the flashback-gaslighting required to cover it up to easily exceed what their current technology is capable of.

Half the class was positive Ouma was playing dead specifically to fuck with them and light the fire under them to act. He and Kaito are the only ones to know without a shred of doubt that he was not. He still gladly takes the credit, though.

E) Class 79 as a whole already adapted to Ouma Being Ouma, so when the definition of ‘Being Ouma’ expanded he’s still pretty distinct. He hangs out around the people closest to him often, particularly Miu, Kaito, and Rantaro, but the entire class knows now that he’s pretty much beyond the point of perfidy. Even if he were to lie about being in more pain than he is at a given moment, there’s constantly enough underlying truth in how vulnerable he is that it’s not strategically worth trying to use as a manipulative tactic. It’s too real. Plus, he knows better than to boy-that-cried-wolf his way out of help from his classmates after getting lost on campus once and fainting before he found his way back.

K1-B0

K1-B0, as far as has been established, is being re/built. Miu is spearheading the project. Presumably, he is currently hanging out on at least one computer in the school, somewhere. Per the AU, though, Chapter 6 did go a bit differently than canon, so we’ll catch up with him soon.

TSUMUGI

Nobody is exactly certain what happened to Shirogane. Or, at the very least, nobody in the class knows. Admin is certainly not about to tell them. Wouldn’t it be just like the Ultimate Cosplayer to Theseus her way back into their lives following a single loose thread…

THE SURVIVORS

Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko each emerged from the simulation minimally physically harmed in a lasting sense beyond initial fatigue from being hooked up for so long. Each is still moving forward on their established character arc: Himiko is finding her motivation, Maki is learning to open up, and Shuichi is becoming more sure of himself and his detective abilities.

I think Himiko begins embracing the 'stage' side of her magic, considering that TAPP was blocking my mana, and you know what? I survived a killing game, and I didn't even need it. What else can I do without my mana? As time goes on, she'll likely value her own practical skills more rather than relying on her want of more fantastical powers. Not to say she'd disown them, but more that she could admit to herself it's more for fun than a need to affix something exceptional to her identity. She is enough as she is.

Maki enters HPA and immediately requests transfer out of 'Ultimate Assassin' classes. She hates fighting, per canon, and after going through the simulation she is no longer afraid of any authority figure that may deny her because she has certifiably seen worse. She initially tries to pivot and become the Ultimate Child Caregiver, for Real This Time; she is genuinely pretty good with kids. After a little incident nearly choking Kokichi, though? It confirms what she'd been afraid of all along: her patience is too thin, her instinct to defend too heavy on the trigger. She talks to Peko about it, among other people, Mukuro and Sakura chief among the other classes. She'd made their acquaintances during combat training in the first few days at HPA. She especially confides in Kaede, who carries a more-domestic-less-battlescorn perspective on it she can't help but appreciate. Kaede takes her to not-Claire's, playing with accessories and make-up and generally reclaiming some of the girlhood Maki has effectively never been allowed to have. In the whole process, Maki realizes she wants more than anything to protect the ability to have that kind of frivolity, that freedom: she changes tracks again, to become a SHSL Bodyguard.

Shuichi is a difficult one to place for me, exactly. He's in a state of becoming significantly more confident in the wake of the simulation, but the deviation from canon has turned the main conflict away from ending a destructive cycle and towards fighting the idea of predetermination by an external force. Shirogane was predetermined to stay in the Reserve Course despite her skills and aspirations, and railed against it; Kiibo was predetermined to be an AI helper and not a person, but embraced the role so hard he developed a soul of his own; Maki denies her talent and changes her destiny, Himiko embraces hers.

I suppose Saihara must fall somewhere in the middle, then. An observer steadfastly declaring that yes, there were aspects of life shaped for them beyond their control (entry into the simulation if they wanted a taste of success, the killing game, the "character rewrites" overriding the people they were before...) and yes they cannot control everything. What happened has happened. There are always going to be things you can't control (like how severely you burn in the sun, or whether you get headaches with the lights up too high, or even if your dream life rockets away too fast for you to catch unless you want to lose what you still have) but you can adapt to it. It's tempting to give in, to consider it all a lost cause, to submit to the forces you feel are puppeting you, but see. You keep living anyway, because you have to. The only way forward is through. Even if you were a puppet, you're still an independent you, and that means something. Maybe you can't snap your strings, but you can sure as hell stretch them out and bend them in a way you like better than this one.

Not having total control doesn't mean the control you do have doesn't matter.

So Shuichi is taking up cases as a detective, now. Seeing how he likes it. If not? Well. Skills are transferable. 

He'll be okay.

They all will.

----

(The first screenshot I took of this ask to begin drafting vs. the last one:

I'm sorry I am bad at timely responses but I hope they are Good.)

[jackdaw-sprite]

There's a conversation around source checking that's been on my dash today, and it's reminding me of my favorite academic paper I ever read. I'm not going to go into detail on why I was reading these things because it's both ultimately irrelevant and probably somewhat identifying, but I spent about a year and a half reading research papers and then implementing them.

Most research papers I read on the subject were pretty standard 'we've found a possible improvement to this algorithm, here's what we did, here's the reasoning, here's the modified algorithm and here are the gains'

And then one day I found a 160 (if I'm remembering correctly) page blistering takedown of most of the suggestions for a particular problem. You could tell the author hated everything to do with all these incremental improvements with a passion and he argued pretty effectively as to why:

The improvements made in executing the algorithm frequently came at the cost of additional computation beforehand for minimal reduction in processing time. Frequently the ones that simplified the problem resulted in accuracy rates that could be matched by the simplest possible solution to the problem in question, and for vastly more computation time and implementation effort to add to the insult.

I actually don't remember if I confirmed what the author was saying. I hope I did, but ultimately nothing came of that project for entirely different reasons, so I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

The lessons I did learn from that paper?

Academia is not actually a place of high logic and cool heads. It is a place where some people are trying to get tenure and where some people care deeply enough about the subject matter to possibly get into a fistfight over it.

These are not necessarily different people.

Papers can be entertaining, if in a watching someone go apeshit way

Papers can be wrong or misleading. This is why reproducibility and peer review are critically important parts of the process.

While it wouldn't be correct to say you should seek out the paper equivalent of a fistfight, they can be illuminating and entertaining as they turn into a (contentious) conversation where each party points out the other's weak points and defends their own.

To follow on from the previous point, it can help when looking at a paper to look for papers which cite it. This is a function a lot of journals provide, and if the paper made someone angry enough to write a rebuttal, that's where you'll probably find it.

[sophieinwonderland]

Reiterating what I've said before, if someone can't provide sources to back up their claims about science or psychology, it's usually because they don't exist.

Basic psychology... 🙄

Okay, here's some basic psychology from the ICD-11 regarding non-disordered plurality:

Here is an article by top DID specialists describing voices in psychotic disorders as dissociated parts of a system:

Here is a quote from the creators of the Theory of Structural Dissociation acknowledging the possibility that mediumship and hypnosis may be able to cause experiences of self-conscious dissociative agents.

(Source)

I'm not going to direct this post at @eratas-syscourse.

They proved in their response to @kipandkandicore sharing the Endogenic Research Carrd that they have zero interest in what actual psychologists and psychiatrists have to say on the subject.

There's a saying that you can't reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into in the first place. And that's unfortunately true here as well

If your opinions are based in hate, then often, no amount of evidence is going to change that.

It won't matter that multiple DID specialists, the ICD, the DSM, the founders of the Theory of Structural Dissociation, and basically every peer-reviewed academic paper you can find disagrees with their position.

They will still plug their ears and pretend the science is on their side even when absolutely none of it is.

If I thought debating them might change their position, I would do that. But I think it would be a waste of all of our times.

Instead, I just want to let this be a reminder for everyone not to trust people claiming scientific knowledge without being able to cite sources. Because very often, those people don't know the subject of which they speak nearly as much as they pretend to.

[destinyc1020]

confession time - i think that if any OTHER actor (particularly film twitters faves) had given the caliber of performance that tom gave during the crowded room, then critics and film twitter would be going wild for it. the fact that most of the critics reviews mentioned the mcu when it was unrelated to the subject matter tells me that they are not seeing tom in an unbiased light. honestly, i've kept up with young actors from tim to austin to kelvin to jharrel to paul (and my ranking of them would be very controversial but i would stand by it) and tom's performance in tcr is in my top 3 of actors under 30. it's right up there with jharrel in when they see us for me. tom delivers in a way that few of his peers do and i look forward to him getting his flowers because absolutely that is inevitable if he keeps delivering performances like this

confession time - i think that if any OTHER actor (particularly film twitters faves) had given the caliber of performance that tom gave during the crowded room, then critics and film twitter would be going wild for it. the fact that most of the critics reviews mentioned the mcu when it was unrelated to the subject matter tells me that they are not seeing tom in an unbiased light.

Thnx for your confession Anon😊

RE: The Red... I definitely think that there could be some of that going on. I feel like Hollywood (and even the GP!) at times tries to pigeon-hole actors into a specific role or type. Sometimes it's just because it's easier to compartmentalize ("It's just easier for me to only view this actor as a fill in the blank type of actor"), and other times it's because of money ("This actor is making us waaay too much money in this franchise...we can't have him venturing out and doing too many other things...."). I've seen that happen before, so I def wouldn't be surprised if there were a little bit of that going on in Tom's case.

Which actors, in your opinion, would get praised if they had done the exact same job in TCR? Just curious...

Honestly, i've kept up with young actors from tim to austin to kelvin to jharrel to paul (and my ranking of them would be very controversial but i would stand by it)

Uh oh...now, you got me wondering what your ranking of these actors would be lol 🤭

I feel like while Kelvin has done some lead roles over the years, I'm not sure how much I can really compare him to others who have had more lead projects.....like Tim and Tom for example. But everything I've seen Kelvin in so far, I've been very impressed w/his acting.

Austin as well is still very green imo. He did one lead role with "Elvis" that did well, but I feel like in this era that he's in now, I think we need to wait until his other filming projects come out before making more of an assessment on his acting in this more adult era of his. But if THEE Denzel Washington was impressed by him, then I think that's definitely a promising step in the right direction. Honestly though? Austin might come to fall in the same predicament that Tom is in since the role he did was so iconic. While some still call Tom "Spiderman", Austin might still be only seen as "Elvis" by critics in his future roles if he's not careful. Jmho. I guess we shall see. I think every actor can fall into that trap if they're not careful when one of their films is super successful...especially if that was the film that most people came to know and associate you with. I think that's probably one reason why some actors are a little hesitant in doing a superhero role. While it's great, I can see how some can get typecast into that role if they play it for too long.

tom's performance in tcr is in my top 3 of actors under 30. it's right up there with jharrel in when they see us for me. tom delivers in a way that few of his peers do and i look forward to him getting his flowers because absolutely that is inevitable if he keeps delivering performances like this

Oh wow Anon! Better than Jharrel Jerome in "When They See Us"?? Okay...wow!

Well, I definitely think that Tom is one of the best actors under 30 out here in the business today😊, and I'm VERY sure that TCR will get some award buzz come award's season. I'll be shocked if it doesn't get any nods. I definitely think the series (as well as Tom's acting) will get some nods. I can't wait to see those mean and biased critics eating crow when that happens lol ...

[emblazonet]

So, the Black Jewels Trilogy

Saw these books recommended in a thread about adult sexy fantasy books, and my brain went ??? Wait. They weren’t that adult???? They had dark themes, but they were fluff.

I’d almost forgotten about them. I read them about 15 years age (wat!) in high school. My friends at the time peer pressured me into it. They would tell me about all their favourite scenes and squee about them as we whiled away lunches in the stairwell, which both spoiled a lot of the fun of reading them the first time and I still remember which scenes were spoiled as I did my reread.

I enjoyed them well enough at the time, because they were dark and a bit gory and a bit sexy and I was ravenous as a teen for anything with sex, violence, and especially BDSM. I grew out of them by uni.

So the thread was specifically recommending them as an adult alternative to the trendy ACoTaR books by Sarah J Maas that I have never read and don’t intend to. I have since learned that some hold the opinion that SJM plagiarized or otherwise cribbed heavily from Black Jewels. (The other alternative offered in that thread were the Kushiel books, which I would agree are more adult, both in subject matter and style.)

On a reread, I think my initial impression that these books are more for teens—or people who specifically want and need an id-based power fantasy—holds up. Content warnings for literally all the standard bogeyman: rape, pedophilia, implied cannibalism, torture, etc etc. It dives shallowly into all the dark stuff in order to get to the revenge fantasy at the heart of the series.

Extensive spoilers under the cut. There’s a few things I liked, but there’s a lot more I didn’t enjoy about it too. (And it’s not because of any of the content warning stuff above.)

I wrote my review of the first three books before reading any of the sequels. Sequel reviews will be forthcoming.

The Setting

The worldbuilding is a mess. I have no idea how the economy works or why there are even nonBlood ‘landens’ (basically magicless folk) at all when they Literally. Never. Show. Up.

Yet! For all that! It is so rare to see a matriarchy in a fantasy setting that I will forgive the cardboard worldbuilding and pretend like economics doesn’t matter it’s just fantasy. I love that the greatest power is downwards, the Darkness rather than the heavens. Dark stuff more powerful. It’s neat! Like even today the books feel different, even when they’re extremely 2000s aesthetically. Goth vibes ftw. Less good is the gender essentialism and the caste system, which feels like a forerunner to A/B/O in some ways.

Basically, like in A/B/O, everyone has like a secondary biological gender that determines their rank in the hierarchy. So women who are born Queens are biologically meant to rule, and men are drawn to serve them. (It’s stupid, but I respect the inherent service kink aspect.) Some males are Warlords, who are more aggressive, and some men are even higher caste as Warlord Princes, who are ‘predators’ who want to murder ppl all the time, but they’re supposed to be controlled by the women I guess. They're emotionally immature alpha males. Yuck.

I still have no real idea how the fuck Terreille and Kaeleer are different tbh, one just has sentient animals? Are they different dimensions?? The physicality of the environment in this book is like wisps of smoke. Stuff just appears, usually when it needs to, and then goes away again, much like how the magical protagonists are always calling and vanishing objects.

Daughter of the Blood

For a trilogy with a deeply repetitive, emphatic style that over-relies on (dorky) catchphrases (‘and the Blood will sing to Blood,’ ‘everything has a price,’ ‘Mother Night’) each book does have a unique flavour and its own problems.

Weirdly, the thing I hated the most about the first book was the random fatphobia. I never even noticed it as a kid, but almost every time a fat character is introduced they’re a gross dude and likely a pedophile. Don’t like it, tired of seeing it, stop. I’m not even going to forgive the series for being from the early 2000s. I don’t care. Cut it out. At least it only happens in the first book.

The Mary-Sue (she really is! I mean that with affection!) Jaenelle is a child in this book, and her main problems in life are getting sent to a mental institution called Briarwood that is run by pedophiles. We also—at no point ever in the books—get her POV, so a lot of the horror is mitigated by how much the details are glossed over. I think that was meant to be more horrifying but the author isn’t good enough at building atmosphere to make that work. The book chooses a couple specifically horrible situations and then hammers into them in a way that feels both schlocky but also makes the world and the situation feel smaller. I don’t like the way repetition is used in these books. It’s certainly a choice but it’s one that drives the nuance out of book. Almost every villain in this book is a rapist, which makes the rape feel cheap by the end—and I don’t think cheapening it was the intention.

Yet, to be honest, I think this is the strongest book of the three. I actually really like the beginning, with Tersa being crazy and giving prophecies. I don’t know, the writing just draws me in somehow. It’s not great writing, I want to be clear. It’s got nothing on, idk, Tanith Lee. But it is extremely readable and compelling. I was having a good time.

Also, Lucivar and Daemon, like, kiss? And that is just about the only gay thing that you will see in the books until Daemon fakes raping his father in the third book. It is unrelentingly heterosexual otherwise. But I think I was hooked early on as a teen hoping for some gay action. I was disappointed at the time and I’m disappointed now.

This is also the book with probably the most sex and violence. Men are castrated on screen a couple times, there’s explicit cannibalism of one of the other children at Briarwood, one of our viewpoint characters is an assassin, etc etc. Much bad sex happening. Daemon and Lucivar, the hot dudes who are brothers, have been sex slaves for like 1700 years which is objectively hilarious that is SUCH an absurd amount of time to just... be more powerful (aka have darker Jewels) than any of your slavers and just not gotten free? Even with magical cock rings that control them, it's still so stupid.

Also, our main character is actually their dad, Saetan (I WILL NEVER BE OVER THESE NAMES) who is like 50k years old? That makes me giggle so much. That’s so old. Why. Honestly props to Anne Bishop, she really just went for it. I have so much respect for how batshit absurd everything is.

Honestly I just kinda like the first book? It’s paced a lot better than the other ones, it’s dark and ridiculous and full of bad things happening. Jaenelle reminds me of a friend of mine, oddly enough. She’s probably tolerable because we never get her POV.

I also liked Daemon and Jaenelle’s relationship in this one. Under the worldbuilding power fantasy terms of this setting, Jaenelle is literally made up of the dreams of people in the world, and Daemon’s dream was to be the lover of the Most Powerful Matriarch Ever, who in the book is called ‘Witch.’ So meeting her as a kid he’s constantly bombarded by his attraction to her spirit/power/Witch-self, whatever. But she’s a kid and he’s Very Not Into That. He and Saetan are constantly respecting her consent at every opportunity, so it doesn’t squick me out in the slightest.

Because you know, at that age (12-14), I would have killed for an ancient powerful lover who is The Hottest Guy In All The Realms to be all but overcome with lust for me and yet completely absolutely in service to my every need and desire.

It’s a power fantasy, yo.

Anyway the next two books will completely kill any interest I have in their relationship so really, Daughter of the Blood could have ended here and I would have been satisfied.

Heir to the Shadows

Wow, does this one have middle book syndrome. It’s a slog. Someone out there probably likes it. One of the scenes my high school friends liked is the introduction of the Arcerian cat Kaelas where he squashes the Sceltie puppy Ladvarian. I remember them telling me about it with glee. It’s cute, but not enough to save this book.

Everytime a conflict happens it’s almost instantly resolved. Jaenelle grows up, Saetan spoils her, she has friends. All the characters feel really one note. There is almost no sex in this book, but there is some gore. The extremely boring villains, Dorothea and Hekatah, who are basically the same person except one of them is undead (‘demon-dead’), do some violence. Our protagonists do more violence. There’s a unicorn genocide. I can’t keep any of the characters that are in Jaenelle’s court straight (except for Karla and the aforementioned cat and puppy).

Oh, Daemon’s just insane for the whole book, and I ended up skimming all his sections because nothing happened in them.

That sure was a book. Took me longer to read than the other two combined.

Queen of the Darkness

Back to a compelling read, somehow. I blasted through it.

A major issue I have with this series is about how power is framed. Might makes right. The good guys happen to be more powerful, so they can unleash their often bloody revenge, which is always framed as a good thing, a triumph. And also, no one just talks to each other, because bad guys are bad and good guys are good. There is no real compromise, and no nuance.

Like, Bishop is writing a matriarchy, but instead of, idk, expanding on that idea, she just kinda writes the same power imbalances that exist in our world except more villains are women, which instead of feeling empowering or whatever reeks of internalized misogyny. Yeah, I get it, women are bitches and oppressing the mens, so then the sad menz all rape vulnerable women. So it’s a patriarchy, actually, with the Queen-caste women as figureheads. WHY YOU DO THIS.

Honestly I find the ‘might makes right’ part much more problematic than any inclusion of sex slavery, unicorn genocide, or pedophilia. All the latter are perpetrated by villains; what's the excuse for the good guys?

Like this book is more about being righteous and also horny than it is trying to say stuff about politics or whatever, but it’s saying stuff about politics anyway, and what it’s saying is that the most powerful people make the rules. And being an emotionally unregulated nuclear bomb person is perfectly fine so long as you’re the good guy. And frankly, I hate that, and I disagree with it.

And ok, sure, so the Queens are supposed to emotionally regulate their Warlord Princes except that’s mostly just by hoping they hold onto their tempers until they can unleash them in a better direction which doesn’t strike me as real emotional regulation. And who’s supposed to regulate Jaenelle? Just... Jaenelle? Like theoretically the males who serve her, but the way they treat her seems more likely to cause nuclear explosions. She is herself a walking bomb.

Honestly the way males treat females in this book is gross. Men just like overprotect and patronize to the point of infantilizing a woman. And Big Yikes if she so much as gets a period—which is apparently The Worst and makes them unable to use power which THANKS I HATE IT—and it’s just awful, the men treat them like INVALIDS. Not romantic. Didn’t like it as a teen, don’t like it now.

Additionally, I don’t like how emotions and trauma are handled in this. I love a good broken traumatic character, and it's even better if they're powerful and need to navigate not causing harm whilst healing. I lap that shit up. Black Jewels fails me here. All the characters are so fucking one note and so the trauma/healing stuff feels shallow and uninspired.

Additionally, Jaenelle and Daemon are so boring and they’re ‘courting’ each other like high schoolers with zero personality and I hate it. They had better sexual chemistry when she was 12, which is probably just because Daughter of the Blood was the better written book.

Also, they got like a romancey fade to black sex scene? Yeesh.

I DO appreciate that Daemon has no magic healing dick: Jaenelle is still pretty traumatized about stuff after they bone. She’s better about sex, sure, but she’s still upset about being a Queen, etc etc. You know, this series has ooooodles of problems, but I really don’t think Jaenelle is one of them. She works for me. (Although Daemon being a virgin after 1700 years as a pleasure slave? I HATE THAT, that’s stupid. Miss me with that bullshit. At least Jaenelle is never punished by the text for not being a virgin.)

I don’t have much to say about the end. Because we go in knowing Daemon's got back up plans it takes all the tension out of the climax. The story ends with an expected triumph. The book doesn’t set up the idea that Jaenelle will die well enough either, like it’s telegraphed from the first that the Kindred will save her, and then they do. Ok then. Wow, so tense. Much thrill.

So like, I raced through reading this, sure, but it still wasn’t a satisfying read. But it wasn’t a slog. And there were some fun interactions—I enjoyed Surreal and her wolf Graysfang. There were moments.

Honestly this series is so unhinged that despite all the ridiculosity of it, I think I’m coming away feeling weirdly affectionate towards it? It’s bad, the alpha male tropes are nauseating, the matriarchy failed hard, and it’s repetitive as fuck. I’ve been thinking about this series for weeks now, and I have no idea why I find it compelling! It’s infuriating! Maybe it’s compelling because it’s infuriating.

In conclusion: I guess I’m going to read all of this garbage and yell about it. Stay tuned for the sequels.

[that-gay-jedi]

Ok I'm gonna tell you all a story of my early fanfiction days.

Kiddie me was like, religious, and first discovered fanfiction at like age 10 or 11, and one result of this was that I would read fics in which characters swore but I wouldn't bookmark them.

And like, if I enjoyed the fic I would go back and reread it whenever, give kudos or whatever the site equivalent was, I would give it a review/comment and never once mention the inclusion of profanity, in all other ways treat it like any other piece of fanfiction but somehow I thought that if I bookmarked any fic, no matter how good, with a single f-bomb or even the word "damn" or "shit" then God would disapprove and I'd go to Hell.

Hilarious, right? No logic whatsoever. Just beliefs from my upbringing I was either not neurologically developed enough or not exposed to the world outside our hyperreligious bubble enough to question yet mixing with a world my parents, pastors, and peers didn't know existed with results that could only make sense to a child.

But. Here's a weird one.

Around 18/19/20 I'd long since shed so much of that, swore normally myself, and figured if any god worth worshipping existed it had much more important things to intervene in on earth than whether people said "fuck" but I did think a/b/o fiction was inherently anti-feminist and promoted homophobic stereotypes etc. And I knew the difference between fiction that portrayed a society that was unfair to omegas and one that actually vilified the associated traits but I thought being willing to engage with the concept of any biochemical basis for sexual or social roles at all was still patriarchal and therefore harmful.

So what did I do whenever I encountered a fic I liked that used a/b/o worldbuilding? Well, read and kudos as normal but never ever bookmark it, of course. And let me be clear that I'm not only referring to like ao3 bookmarks, I wouldn't even bookmark the page in my browser or download the fic or subscribe by email or anything. I'd even keep coming back for regular updates to see how plots I was engaged in ended as long as I didn't do anything to make it more convenient for myself!

I didn't think I'd go to hell if I broke this rule, because I no longer believed in the Christian cosmology, but I did think I'd somehow cause myself to relearn some level of the societal shit I'd had very good reason to unlearn and possibly even risk being brainwashed back to the religion I'd worked so hard to extricate myself from. Or at the very least that I was somehow encouraging other people to be misogynistic and homophobic by... requiring fewer clicks from myself to read their work?

And that is a story of how similar uncritical (or insufficiently critical) self-monitoring for the sake of not being problematic is to an overly religious preteen thinking God gives a shit about swearing.

Coincidentally (read: not at all coincidentally) that 18-20ish phase was right around where I'd definitely realized I was not content simply living as a tomboy or a butch woman, but wouldn't dare think of being trans because at the time I saw trans manhood as somehow betraying everyone else who was subjected to misogyny and furthering traditional gender roles and so on. You know, TERF logic. In case you ever thought it was primarily trans and nob-binary people or third wave feminists etc behind this progressive puritan shit, let me assure you there were (and still are) plenty of second wavers, LGB cis women and trans-exclusive feminists of all sorts involved.

[lonesomedotmp3]

this is so embarrassing <3 but would you happen to maybe possibly have a merlin (2008) fic rec list beloved mutual..... not nearly enough fic writers get it like my beloved mutuals do

i can assure you that is absolutely not even close to as embarrassing as it is to have devoured any and everything the merlin fanfiction world has to offer. i have read aus that you would not believe. i have been subjected to characterisations and headcanons that would make anyone else instantly close the tab. i have read authors with such a poor clumsy grasp of british slang i could weep from embarrassment. yet i persevered. for MONTHS. and here is what me (and beth <3) have managed to scrounge up after all of that. please use everything i've just said as context that we were NOT in our right minds reading these. proceed with caution

tributes - the! hunger! games! fic!!!! iconic legendary spectacular THEE revolutionary turnaround for the merlin fanfiction game and for the horrors generally. do NOT go in overhyped tho me and beth went in like haha what a cool weird au and then it caught us off-guard that it wasn't written terribly. also good for something longer and about much more than just merlin and arthur. it's fr like watching the show again for better and for worse. it's got camp whimsy it's got our main duo acting like complete freaks it's got this constant suffocating sense of inevitable tragedy... slayed!

history books forgot about us and in dreams - by the hunger games writer so u know it's actually written well!! don't read their other stuff tho just trust me. my memory of the first one isn't great but i remember feeling with both that finally FINALLY someone Got the finale like me + beth did. short but just rlly solid satisfying follow-ups to the show.

the court of avalon - freya + arthur best friendism in avalon realest shit ever said!!! makes me go fucking crazy fr. YES this has way too much magic lore bullshit to it and i don't careeee they're my friends.... and FINALLY a proper post-finale fic where they don't just freeze arthur in time for 1500 years...

to the point of fear - slay little mordred character study!!!!

the world i built for you - the disir fix-it!! smth i have always wanted due to being sooooo Normal about that episode (arthur's matrix. if u even care). not perfect but worth a read for sure!!

long title and also long title - i rlly like established relationship fics. sorry for being cringe and boring some crimes can never b forgiven etc.

like clouds in starlight widely spread - ok the rest of these i'm going to copy/paste from my list for beth sorry <3 but if i've already written a little deseription for each one why give myself more work yk. anyway: sad and wistful and A Lot as someone who was about to move out of my hometown when i read this. if i said it chapter two vibes. actually that doesn't mean anything ignore that. at one point arthur goes "are you trying to tell me something?" and merlin responds with, "i'm always trying to tell you something." which uh. he really is huh. it's whatever though.

fundamental imperfection - merlin and arthur as writers, gets their first meeting right (arguing and being dicks, then immediately becoming obsessed with each other). don't remember much else except the sequel is unfinished heavy angst and i cried like three times. don't read that (+ HIGHLY positively peer reviewed by beth. tell us a story about love!!!)

as long as we have we - i know you've read that fake marriage christmas fic which i love a lot (maybe it has problems but it's just so endearing...) and this is the same vibe. or well it's christmas and it's sweet so

(and said xmas fic: no matter how far away you roam <3)

tintagel - i don't know how i feel abt merlin and arthur in this but the parallels made to ygraine and nimueh are just too insanity inducing to ignore. my price is my life yours is to bear witness.... they wrote that in 2009!!!! insane

ok that's a lot + it's the best merlin ff has to offer. which is still not that great but. enjoy!! + b thankful you do not have to go into the hellscape that is the merlin ao3 tag...

kingdoms - i have no memory of this tbh but i wrote 'yeah.' underneath the bookmark so it's gotta have something

sorry edit one more I forgot - merlin and arthur are exes and arthur is just soooo weird and sad and repressed about it. also peer reviewed 🫶 (X) and also check out beth's merlin fanfiction recs tag if for some insane reason u want more. ok bye 🫂

[winterlovesong1]

Is there any subject you hope they tackle (related to season 3 or not)?

Let’s start with topics related to season three…

I think what season three (from what I recall) does well is it diverges from the typical “this is the topic for today” kind of feel to the episodes (I feel like there were a couple of those instances these past two seasons) – and leans more into the nuanced lessons being taught. I think that’s why the show as a whole really strived, in my opinion, the next three seasons, is because of that crucial decision.

The show travels down the “here’s this story and interpret how you will our characters reactions to situations they are moving through…” route rather than the more traditional sitcom “here’s a weighty episode this week, kids and we will flash the message in neon lights for you” approach.

The show decided and decided well they did.

In reviewing the episode titles in particular, there’s three in a row that I’m interested to hear their take on…

3x16 Stormy Weather

3x17 The Pink Flamingo Kid

3x18 Life Lessons

All three I remember as more life situational lessons (as I’ve stated above) and not a specific fable or moral compass episode centering on a topic up for discussion. They were life circumstances that we, the audience, could relate to on some level back then, but also, can relate to still now looking back in perhaps a different way. Whether it was the feeling of being right as a kid so much so that you end up pushing too hard forward, leaving the good natured support of your parents behind, or feeling protective of your past, not ready to reveal your deepest fears to even the best of your friends until you come to terms with those fears yourself, or realizing that despite peer opinion, the ideals of the crowd don’t have to be your beliefs - you can stand in your own opinion and safeguard your morals in the process.

Non-related…

Gosh, what topic have they not addressed on the pod? This might be a non answer, but outside the general realm of episodic topics and the actual television storytelling within the show, the subject matters most important and valuable to them as humans and as people who have lived experiences in this world, that’s what I want to hear. The subjects that they want to discuss I will be more than happy, more than privileged, to hear as they speak openly and vulnerably to whatever they decide.

send in an ask for questions pertaining to what I’ve enjoyed about Pod Meets World, the last two seasons of the show, and/or what I’m looking forward to in season three.

[kimyoonmiauthor]

“Monkeypox comes from gay sex”--an examination of the original paper.

So some background, because clicking sometimes is too hard and reading a profile takes time: I have a background in Anthropology. I also tend to data mine for origins of things out of habit--maybe because of Anthropology and because of my childhood of being lied to about Korea. “The US ‘rescued’ Korea” being a huge lie that the US likes to float around while say, ignoring the treaty of 1882, etc.

Other data mining projects have included, but are not limited to: 

Trying to find the origin of the Asian eye pull and why it’s in Kindergartens.

Trying to find Social justice actions between People of color where it had a positive effect.

Looking at the original paper about “Author’s Block”

The retconning of 3/5 act into place as the “best” one as well as where did the conflict narrative come from? (Ans. 1921 Percy Lubbock, who was then retconned froma  ton of credit, including, but not limited to, Death of the Author.).

Looking at the origin of “Character-driven” v. Plot driven.

Trying to data mine the origin of the East Asian 4-act, etc.

You might also be thinking: “Anthropologists don’t read scientific papers.” Oh, yes we do. We read scientific papers all the time on things like human biology. ‘cause what? Anthropology is the study of humans, so we need to know wider things like genetics. Besides, I actually paid attention in science classes on what a Scientific study entails. So... when I saw, “Monkeypox is spread through gay sex” Ohhh... as a Queer person, I wanted to see the origin of that and see what I could do to read it through and datamine on how accurate this could be.

So come with me as I explore and read through the paper, ‘cause apparently people don’t know how to read through scientific papers and this one has a lot of errors that could be present and I’ll illustrate why along the way.

Let’s get a few things out of the way first: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2207323

This is the link to the original study.

Is the New England Journey of Medicine peer reviewed and usually reliable? Yes. Is the scientific studies going down the drain because of the pressure for money and sensationalism over rigor? This is also true. There’s a Ted talk, but kinda difficult to dig for... Anyway, back on subject. Let’s go over this and go over what we should expect in a scientific paper. So the thing that people are reading is the abstract and nothing else. This is problematic. But let’s go over the abstract:

People are like Oh No, Gay disease. --;; OK, but did you read the data collection part?

Collected from where? SHARE. OK, then a reasonable person would ask: Who is SHARE and why isn’t this outlined in the paper? https://www.qmul.ac.uk/share/

Oh, SHARE is what?

“SHARE has been established in the heart of east London where many minoritised communities have been disproportionately affected by HIV and poor sexual health. “

Two huge clues for you right there. Why isn’t this outlined in the paper as part of the possible data skew? Did you notice this part in the abstract: “41% had human immunodeficiency virus infection” You think an HIV org might have a skew like that? 41% had HIV. So what population are we looking at? Think through this: East London’s demographics: https://www.plumplot.co.uk/East-London-population.html

The average age is 34, which is also the age of the mean in East London, and *gasp* what is found in the study.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_London

The majority are white... and East London is famous for being a poor area, unless you forgot East Enders. So a huge skew in the data. But let’s continue.

So they are required to list the questions used and how the data was collected.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/suppl/10.1056/NEJMoa2207323/suppl_file/nejmoa2207323_appendix.pdf They said two key things: It was voluntary. And if you look at the PDF, it’s specifically goes over HIV positive info.

You might be going: Why does this matter? HIV had a huge scare and was traced mainly to white gay communities, so white gay communities tend to be more aware of it. (Was it true, no, not really. But is it more of a concern in those populations, thus they are more likely to be tested? Yes.)

The study should have noted who was filling out the surveys and the control population.

So who goes to SHARE? What is their base population?

Oh look, no control group. Hmmm... How can you do data collection without a control group and why pair with an HIV organization rather than wide clinical practices? This isn’t outlined well in the paper. So what is the base population of SHARE? No idea. Maybe they also concentrate more on white gay men. We have no idea.

Thus the skew here:

We have no idea who is visiting SHARE and neither does the paper’s authors because they have no access to that data. There should also be a section for “Ethical Concerns” on data collection, etc, but it’s missing. Why? Why is it missing?

Science Class 101 goes over: You need a control group in order to make conclusions. But if your control group has a skew, say, towards white gay men, like this one does, your results will be skewed. But if you’re given no control group, as here, how can you trust the results? Especially with an org that’s skewed towrds HIV positive cases, which isn’t really outlined in the study well. There isn’t a base population to work on and there are no outlined ethical concerns. Further, the questions have a huge, huge skew towards HIV collection and nothing on general monkeypox.

But did people read the paper and look for basics like skew and controls and ethical concerns? No.

Do we need more than East London statistics? Absolut-fucking-lutly.

Conclusion:

So stop spreading around oh, Monkeypox is a gay disease and read that paper I linked. And then groan at the lack of control info. Who is exactly visiting SHARE anyway and does this info apply to the entire world when they are in East London? Think hard on that. I linked up Skews of East London alone.

Also to the lazy ass medical community quoting this verbatim from only the abstract: !@#$ing seriously? Did you read the effing paper? Why aren’t you screaming, where is the control group?

[sallysavestheday]

🎈🕯️ for the asks please! :)

Thanks for the ask, @theghostinthemargins!

🎈describe your style as a writer; is it fixed, does it change? I write only Tolkien, and only canon-adjacent (no off-timeline AUs or other really huge departures from canon, although I very much enjoy reading other people's detours). It's all short (I haven't yet cracked 2,000 words, although I'm getting veeeery close), but it's pretty variable in tone.

I do like to write angst and heartbreak (Borne Away Like Smoke, for instance, or This Rough Friendship, or A Lightning Kindled), but I also have fun with humor (as in All the Way Home We'll Be Warm) and have written some absolute crack (Avant Garde, for example, or my Unethical Anthropologist Finrod series The Importance of Peer Review).

I focus on the spaces that aren't filled out in the text, looking at small moments that say a lot about a particular character or that offer insights into why something else happened that Tolkien hasn't explained. I'm interested in illustrating the complexities of relationships in very few words. The House of Finwë offers such rich relationship fodder! And I love playing with language, so I do pay a lot of attention to the words I use, the music they make, and the emotions they evoke in a reader. That's true no matter the tone or subject matter of the piece.

🕯️was there a fic that was really hard on you to write, or that took you to a place you didn't think it would take you?

I had an anonymous request a while ago for something about Pengolodh and falsified or altered history in Gondolin, which took me into a very dark place for Turgon and Aredhel (History Will Be Kind to Me, For I Intend to Write It). That was a surprise, and not a pleasant one. I did balance it out with the pure silliness of From That Fair City, but it left my skin crawling for a while. Sometimes characters just want to go places you are not entirely prepared for them to go. I'm happy with that piece, ultimately, but/and it's very dark.

I'm glad you asked!

[standardquip]

AMVs as Art Therapy

I've been in active therapy since 2012. I've had an array of therapists and a rollercoaster of progress while dealing with some issues I had since I was 11 years old. Coincidentally, I have been editing Anime Music Videos (AMVs) for nearly just as long, so hobbyist editing and the AMV community have shaped much of my life and progression to adulthood.

I had several hobbies, but AMVs was one of the only ones that remained consistent over the years. Even when I was physically unable to edit, I still thought about editing. I had notebooks full of AMV ideas, some I even storyboarded....

These are things that actually exist

The first AMV I ever made was in 2002, putting together 30 second video clips our digital still photo camera could take of my DVDs playing on the TV. Subbed anime was still being released on VHS back then. The SD card the camera took was only 5MB.

Unfortunately this didn't springboard a camrip career

Before I had the ability to make real videos, I was making slideshows with a program called RealSlideShow that produced .rm files which could only be played in a now-defunct player called RealPlayer. The first digital thing I created that remotely resembled a "music video" was done in early 2001.

I mostly used AMVs as a way to escape. Anime was "better than cartoons" and editing was a way to make something when I was unable to make something physically. My schools didn't have home ec or wood working class, so editing became the "make something with your hands" stand-in. It made me happy. It felt good.

So it's pretty surprising that it literally never came up in therapy, and I never considered it possible to use as therapy, until 2020.

The exact moment little SQ learned AMVs were a thing, thanks to MeriC's Temple O' Trunks website

I grew up in Georgia, where an anime convention called Anime Weekend Atlanta (AWA) takes place. 2001 was my first time attending, and they had an amazing AMV room with wonderful panels. AWA quickly soared in popularity as the convention to go to if you were an AMV editor, so I began attending as much as possible and socializing with the other editors that would regularly attend.

AWA introduced a "Professional" AMV contest, which was perceived as extremely exclusive. In tandem, there was a "Masters" contest, which, at the time, required you to have won an award from the pro contest* in order to participate. Teenage me didn't have many goals, but you bet that one of those goals was to be "good enough" to at least submit something to Masters. I never thought I'd win, but I wanted to be able to submit.

. . .

2019 was the first year I ever submitted to AWA PRO. By then, the contest had dramatically changed and was no longer exclusive. Masters too had changed its rules so anyone could enter. To this day (2022) I still have yet to enter anything into the Masters. My 2019 video to PRO (the contest was renamed to "Peer Review Online") was largely forgettable and only submitted at the behest of ZephyStar convincing me I was indeed "good enough."

I had some other issues going on at that time, and 2019 also marked a year I was getting back into editing after a long hiatus. So the mum response to my video and critical discussions about AMVs in the contest in general bore a hole in me and I resolved to do better.

I won PRO's "Best Technical" and was a finalist in "Artistic" with 2 videos in 2020.

And finally the huge history lesson and preamble has passed and the actual subject matter at hand - AMVs as Art Therapy - can be discussed.

Growing up editing AMVs, I was only concerned with making them. I didn't really care about "the art" of AMVs or what other people's opinions were, outside token acknowledgement of my existence and acceptance in the social group. 2019 was an awakening that made me think about the bigger picture. How did other people see and interact with AMVs? Learning people legitimately attached emotions to these things was absolutely surprising to me. Competitive rivalry and the need to be valued by my peer group had been my primary drivers before then. I liked telling stories in my AMVs, sure, but I was also doing it because I wanted to be better at doing it than the other guys (or at least seen).

Some of my best AMVs had been me going "Yeah I like that person's AMV. But it sucks, I can do it better." This is a largely negative mindset and I'm still working on shedding it.

In 2020, I read Subculture Diaries for the first time. In his 2019 honorable mentions, he states:

Anime: Neon Genesis Evangelion Song: “The Great Curve” by Talking Heads

The Great Curve is ugly. It’s a visually overloaded video; most of it consists of overlays upon overlays, to the point where it’s nearly impossible to tell what’s going on onscreen. It’s jumbled and messy, with sync that barely lines up with the music half the time. In every way, this feels like some sort of aborted attempt at depth where the editor didn’t know where to stop and just piled on everything that came into his head in the moment. But then you get to the first guitar solo, and the video completely destructs, as compression artifacts fill the screen in loose timing with the music. It’s a stunning use of an effect I’ve never once before seen applied intentionally, and it’s at that moment that it hits you that everything here, from the disheveled sync to the visual orgy of layered scenes, is on purpose, assaulting your senses in a way that leaves you unable to interpret any kind of message or meaning. I still don’t know if ProstrateConstantly is trying to say something with this, but I walk away from it feeling completely deluged with information and a desire to get to the bottom of it, even if it means watching this imploding mess a hundred more times.

This video and CrackTheSky's description of it somehow single-handedly dismantled my negative views around AMVs. AMVs could be art. AMVs could be emotional. AMVs could be something not designed to win a contest.

My 2020 PRO videos were heavily influenced by The Great Curve / D E S T R U C T. I used it and the things I learned about flow to create Esoterra, which took nearly 100 hours to edit. A number I had never gotten close to touching before.

While I was editing Esoterra, I befriended a person named Ash on Discord (Rena Cava on Youtube). We were beta testing each other's work for AWA PRO, and they were making a combination anime & live action video about sexual assault. It's not uploaded to youtube and I'm not sure if he'd like it to be uploaded anywhere else. It was an extremely triggering piece that erupted a ton of discussion about users experience with those issues. As someone said in a voice chat during PRO "The video just shows pain."

Ash put themselves into that video (literally, in the live action part) and was using it to show what they had been through. The idea behind the video, its beta, and Ash and my private discussions up to PRO 2020 influenced my decision to change my Dysphoria video from its original "creepy glitch vid" premise to one denoting some of my own feelings and experiences…

And it was cathartic. It was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I was telling my story, I was doing it in my way, in my comfortable format, and it was as chaotic or as blunt as it needed to be. It was my first time really pouring myself into an AMV, so it's about half-half emotional discharge and competitive flashiness.

That being said, the REAL catharsis didn't start happening until after the video was done and I had time to decompress from it all. I didn't realize how much good the AMV was for me until I wrote the part where I over-explain everything in the video's description. I cried. Like, actual sobbing. I later went back and edited the description so it was less personal, and reading it still makes me a bit teary-eyed.

Obviously the events the AMV is focused on are things I've not fully come to terms with. A 32 year old man doesn't cry writing some words over nothing.

In September 2020, I created the AMV Sashimi Discord Server. Later that year, I made its annual contest called RICE - Rewards Imagined by Editors - to debut in February of 2021.

Keiichiface had befriended me during an AWA PRO contest and became the co-owner of Sashimi. Keiichi was going through some unfortunate events in her personal life, and she was editing to destress. Two videos she made were for her to explore her emotions during those times - Everything Sucks and Two Sides, same coin.

As stated previously, I've been in active therapy since 2012. But around 2019 I had reached a sort of plateau with my therapist and wasn't going anywhere. Keiichi became my go-to to talk about my feelings, because she also was attending therapy and we had some similar issues. Her therapist actually talks to her about AMVs, and so Keiichi is much more in tune with her emotions while making them - at least in my opinion.

Keiichi being so forthright about how she made these AMVs to explore her issues just hammered home that, hey, maybe I should do this too? I asked her if it helped her, and she said she thought so. I felt like Dysphoria helped me, so ever since 2020 I've become passively interested in AMVs as Art Therapy, and have mostly focused on self-indulgent AMVs which fell into two categories:

just doing it to do it (to try to stop being a perfectionist about everything) and

a drastic turn into the black depths of my depressed soul

Indeed, almost all of the videos I edited in 2021 have something to do with Depression (my main issue):

Even most of my comedy videos were about something related to Depression.

As an aside, Ash's 2021 AWA PRO video was an art piece called Transience, where he states in the description, "i wanted to see how simple i could make the video, while still effectively communicating a solid feeling."

Ash literally makes you feel sad while looking at some geometric shapes. I think Ash is on another level of AMVs as Art Therapy.

But, to turn this all around, the people and videos mentioned in this entry aren't the first, nor will they be the last, people to explore AMVs as art therapy. Countless others have done it, whether they recognize it or not. And if you, who are reading this, also have some issues you would like to work out, perhaps it's time to create a video about them?

But remember, what makes art therapy art therapy is not that you make the art. Art therapy is exploring your emotions in why you made the art. What story are you trying to tell? Why did you choose this video source? Why did you choose that song? What made you select this scene over that one? Is there a reason you used these effects versus those? Does the video diverge from your usual style? Why? And how does that make you feel?

I'll end with a funny meme from AMV Sashimi that Ash made about me. It pokes fun at how ignorant I am over my own emotions. Maybe one day I'll understand them. Maybe I'll understand them through an AMV other people like too.

* It was actually any contest, but I misunderstood the prerequisite rules.

This entry first appeared on dreamwidth.

[axolotlclown]

Would you happen to have some studies to back up the "more than one coffee means you're addicted" thing, please? Pretty sure I've seen that disproven as a lens to understand addiction through at all

~ 🪴

Hey! So sorry I never saw this anon. It never appeared in my notifs and I'm really bad about checking my askbox.

You have asked a question that falls in line with a field I am very passionate about! I found some interesting articles in my school library. I'm going to go ahead and write this response, but I'm still waiting on access to a few journals. I'll have to convert those ones to PDFs as they are likely behind paywalls.

Anyway, here's my long post where I intend to rant about a lot of different barely related topics. Caffeine addiction is one of those really controversial but historically significant subjects in psychology!

So let me start off with how to read and break down a journal. It's one of those things where if you don't go to college and specifically major in a research related field, no one ever teaches you how to do it. That sucks.

So when you're looking at a journal, the first thing you want to do is background check the author. What school did they go to? What degrees do they have? (For research, they should have a Ph.D. no matter what.) What is their current place of employment?

Often companies, or other private businesses, will commission someone to do some research and fudge the results to make that company look better. We saw this recently in regards to gender affirming care. The United States House of Representatives had proposed legislation to restrict gender affirming care for transgender youth. The Republican sponsor of the bill had presented a single piece of research that he claimed was significant. The research found that transition regret rates were somewhere in the 30% range. (I don't remember exactly and I know that I could quickly look it up, but I just spent the past two hours reading addiction research. I'll find it tomorrow.) Upon looking into the author and the sponsors of this research, psychologists found that the journal the congressman presented was commissioned by a conversation therapy center in Florida. The research held obvious bias, poor peer review, and inconclusive results. The bill didn't pass. I'm not sure they even voted on it, actually.

Anyway, this is why we need to be critical of the research we read. Chocolate, wine, caffeine, gender dysphoria, and autism are notorious subjects that require more scrutiny before reading.

So, caffeine addiction. This is a subject that more than one field is interested in. Before you read an article, you need to be sure what question you are asking. Psychologists are concerned with a more scientific or factual approach. In this context, a psychologist would be researching the concrete effects of caffeine on mood, sleep, and other psychological disorders. Sociologists are more concerned with the overall social consequences of caffeine addiction. They would be asking how mood and sleep affected family, work, and personal welfare. For your question, we're going to look into the psychological aspect. Also, I'm studying psychology, not sociology, so I would feel like an idiot answering those types of questions.

This distinction matters. When I opened my school's EBSCOHost database, I simply typed in "caffeine addiction" to start. I was bombarded with sociological articles and journals about the affects of caffeine addiction on productivity at work and on mood. Strange overlap with psychology. Two problems: some of the top articles had researchers with ties to coffee companies, and all "caffeine addicts" were self-reported. For the latter, this meant that there was no standard for how much caffeine was consumed. Rather than being a concrete article about caffeine consumption, it was more of a survey of public opinion. You want to avoid those unless you specifically want to know about the public opinion. Even psychologists run surveys all the time (they're cheap and easy), but people often lie on surveys, even if they're anonymous.

So I typed in more specific key words and came up with these articles. I'll talk about some without leaving a link, but that's because I had to request the PDFs for sharing. I'll come back to this post and link them. (Let me know if the ones I do link are broken.)

Okay, so I'm going to start off with a journal that interested me, personally. This study actually observed the effects of caffeine on psychiatric patients. This is an important reminder that different drugs influence different brains. Someone with ADHD experiences caffeine differently for a neurotypical person. Caffeine is a stimulant, and ADHD medications are stimulants. Cool. What about other disorders?

Here's the Sparknotes of the study, "Caffeine intoxication was more prevalent in psychiatric patients than in healthy subjects. The amount of caffeine intake was shown to be associated positively with the severity of pathology and inversely with sleep quality."

The study goes more into depth about the different psychological disorders that different patients had. There were 401 patients participating in this study (150 healthy individuals). Overall, continuous caffeine intake showed a decline in sleep quality and a general increase in severity of other mental illnesses.

So what causes that? What is caffeine? Here's an article that looks into studies about caffeine consumption and performance, as well as what the causes of an addiction could be and what constitutes an addiction. This is one I recommend giving a read, as it helps to illuminate a common problem with researching intoxicants.

Here's the big take away: "Although caffeine is widely perceived to have beneficial psychostimulant effects, appropriately controlled studies show that its apparent beneficial effects on performance and mood are almost wholly attributed to reversal of the withdrawal effects that occur after fairly short periods of abstinence (e.g. overnight)."

In habitual coffee users, the increase of mood and performance after consumption of caffeine is caused by the removal of withdrawal symptoms. Grouchy mood and lack of coordination are symptoms of caffeine withdrawal. Where one may perceive positive reinforcement for initial consumption, for habitual consumers, withdrawal symptoms become a negative reinforcement.

So, for people that drink coffee everyday, it's less about getting the positive effects of caffeine, but rather avoiding the negative effects of withdrawal. This can be classified as an addiction. There is now a reliance on this substance.

Something this article also points out is that caffeine is not just found in coffee. It's found in chocolate and most medications these days as well. Therefore, complete stone cold abstinence from caffeine can be next to impossible, making control groups difficult to find. This leads to the varying research and controversy between psychologists.

Okay, but coffee can't be as bad as alcohol or anything right? Caffeine is practically harmless! Let's take a look into an article discussing the health impacts of caffeine. (I'll provide the full text to this one tomorrow.)

In Dr. Saimaiti's article titled, "Dietary Sources, Health Benefits, and Risks of Caffeine," she explores the benefits of occasional consumption of caffeine and weighs them against habitual overconsumption of caffeine.

While occasional consumption can actually improve mood and cognitive ability, these benefits are lost with daily consumption.

Few people drink their coffee black. For those that put creamer, milk (especially oat), or straight sugar or syrups in their coffees daily, they may be overconsuming sugar. This is especially hard on an empty stomach. This is part of the reason you "crash" later in the day. The sugar raises your blood sugar. For most healthy people, this may not be the biggest deal in the world. For others, it could be a key factor in developing diabetes later in life. In general, don't drink coffee on an empty stomach. Have it with a meal. It's also easier on your liver.

Speaking of liver, what does your body do with the caffeine after you drink it? Caffeine follows the same principle as alcohol. Occasional consumption of red wine can help thin your blood and lower your hemoglobin (something that women may be more concerned about as they get older). However, daily consumption of wine can cause stress on the liver and potentially lead to dementia later in life (I say potentially because there has been a correlation, but no solid research as to why. While correlation does not always mean causation, it's important to acknowledge them in the meantime.)

Caffeine behaves in the same way. Continuous consumption of caffeine can put some real stress on your liver over time.

Caffeine is dangerous for those with cardiovascular problems. While this seems like a "duh!" point, many people don't know that they may be prone to cardiovascular issues until an event happens. This sounds like fear mongering, but it's something to take into account.

The article discusses pregnant women as well, but I would hope that's intuitive? Maybe not? If you're pregnant you should avoid intoxication in all forms.

I'll drop this quote from the conclusion of the article for now (I felt weird quoting text that you can't access yet, so I'll come back with more quotes when I can give you the PDF): "the long-term or over-consumption of caffeine can lead to addiction, insomnia, migraine, and other side effects."

The point is, caffeine consumption can be more dangerous to some than others in general, but excessive consumption with lack of knowledge can lead to long-term damage to one's health.

Okay, that study talks about a relatively small niche. Let's get broad. Let's talk about sleep and cognitive performance. (Another study I'll have the PDF for tomorrow.)

In Dr. Gottselig's article titled, "Random Number Generation During Sleep Deprivation: Effects of Caffeine on Response Maintenance and Stereotypy," she looks at the effects caffeine has on cognitive performance during sleep deprivation.

The conclusions of this research makes a very important point: "caffeine preserves simple aspects of cognitive performance during sleep deprivation, whereas caffeine may not prevent detrimental effects of sleep deprivation on some complex cognitive functions."

This article particularly found that while small cognitive functions such as motor ability improved with caffeine, complex cognitive functions such as problem solving and memory declined.

While a college student could read this and understand that pulling an all nighter and drinking 10 Red Bulls probably won't help them pass their test, there's something much more to be said about these findings.

One sleep deprived night won't kill you, and certainly drinking a cup of coffee to get you through the day won't either. But caffeine cannot prevent the damage that regular sleep deprivation does. Sleep deprivation leads to memory loss, worsening symptoms of depression/anxiety/ADHD, increased chances of developing dementia early (this one is real), and a decline in overall cognitive ability.

Rough. But it is a trap. If you have insomnia, caffeine may feel like your only choice to be somewhat functioning throughout the day. Caffeine promotes symptoms of insomnia. It's a vicious cycle if you can't afford proper treatment, and one, that I hope, that will be addressed with time.

So if you have the ability, it's better to prioritize a good night's sleep. I'll come back to this.

For now, why is caffeine addiction so controversial then? Well, it may not be for long. While there was a push to add "caffeine" to the list of diagnosable addiction in the DSM since the 1980's, the inconsistent and inconclusive research has led to a standstill. As we say with Dr. Jame's article, it is difficult to get a control group for caffeine. However, as research for alcohol and marijuana progresses, our knowledge of how to properly study intoxicants does as well.

The long-term health side effects of caffeine are still being studied as well. While this aspect isn't unique to caffeine at all (marijuana, for example, is just now getting approved for research, where before it was illegal), it's still worth acknowledging what we do know, for now at least.

So, coming back to the DSM. There's a new one coming out pretty soon. It's the talk of the town among psychologists right now. Everyone is arguing about what should be in the DSM-6. It'll be crazy when it does come out. Autism, OCD, Gender Dysphoria, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Facial Dysmorphia are just a few examples of disorders that will likely be completely recategorized.

(Unrelated, but Autism Spectrum Disorder is a big one because a lot of psychologists are arguing that it shouldn't be classified as a disorder at all. The reason being is that Autism is so common, that psychologists are theorizing that the majority of the population falls on the spectrum somewhere. Either way, the diagnosis is about to completely change because of this fact.) (Well, all of them are big ones. I could make a whole separate post about it.)

Anyway, the push to make caffeine diagnosable is becoming a promising endeavor as research continues to come out.

One psychiatrist pushing for this is Ronald Griffiths. In his opinion piece, Griffiths recalls his patients experiencing caffeine withdrawal symptoms that led to a decline in the quality of life. One of his patients was diagnosed with breast cancer and needed to stop drinking coffee immediately. This patient struggled with severe withdrawal symptoms that were difficult to manage while on cancer treatment.

Griffiths explains how difficult it was to treat this patient because it wasn't something he could easily diagnose with the DSM-5, something insurance companies use to decide whether they're going to pay for care or not. Add on the bills for cancer treatment, and you rapidly have a distressing situation on your hands.

Joseph DeRupo, spokesman for the National Coffee Association in the U.S. as quoted in this article states, "What we have here is really the opinion of one scientist who is a lone voice against the accepted view of the scientific community."

Lone voice? In barely an hour I was able to find 5 credible articles, all backed by credible researchers, supporting the understanding that American society consumes too much caffeine. You can take a General Psych class in college and the textbook would spend half a chapter going over caffeine addiction and the controversial research around it. Coffee companies piss me off. And most companies use slave labor to harvest their beans and lobby to prevent legislation to prevent it. Guillotine.

Griffiths also claims that "[e]ven people who consume as little as 100 milligrams of caffeine a day—the equivalent of one small cup of coffee—can become physically dependent."

So this ask is pretty old, but I'm guessing it was in response to me saying that you should only drink one cup of a random beverage a day and the rest be water. This keeps you hydrated and helps cut out where the majority of your sugar intake is. I called it the "desert beverage" and that "coffee counts."

It really does. In the morning, one feels tired, foggy, and grouchy. "Don't talk to me until I've had my morning coffee." They would make their coffee out of habit, barely minding the taste of it—drinking to medicate the headache they've already caused.

Life is worth celebrating, and if we can find little things in our day to celebrate, we should! When coffee becomes a habit, it's just a habit. That's sad.

I worked as a barista for a while at a coffee shop that hired people with intellectual disabilities. That experience is what made me switch my major to psychology in the first place. But I saw the joys coffee could bring, and the damage it can do, too. I had a coworker who would come in and throw a tantrum if we didn't immediately stop what we were doing and make him a coffee—and again in two hours before the end of his shift. It's upsetting.

I do remember the joys, too. Our manager would show us a new niche coffee drink from a random country. We would make cubanos like they would in Haiti and talk about the different names they had in different countries around the world. It ruled.

I don't drink coffee every day anymore. But it's always a wonderful thing when I do. You don't need to have an "excuse" to drink a cup of coffee—you don't need to celebrate anything at all. Coffee, tea, wine, soda, and juice should be celebrated as they are. Drinking them out of habit destroys joy. Intentional habits create stable foundations in life. Unintentional habits create monotony and boredom.

Anyway, the sleep thing I said I'd come back to. So if you're having trouble sleeping, here's the hot tip: avoid screens 30 minutes before going to bed. That sounds easy, but how many of us scroll our phones, watch TV, or play a video game right before bed? It's not worth it.

Instead, do something away from your phone that you enjoy. I like to read, but you can draw, journal, listen to some music, practice an instrument, or write something. Doesn't matter, just don't use your phone or laptop. Set a 30 minute timer for time.

If you're still struggling to sleep, you may find meditation useful. Meditation uses techniques that make your brain send beta waves which relaxes you and is the first step to falling asleep. But! If you try to learn some meditation, you'll have to commit to practicing it every night for it to be useful. It's a skill that requires practice.

Anyway, I could make a whole separate post about evening/morning/afternoon routines as that is another one of my passions, but yeah.

TLDR; An occasional cup of coffee is actually great and wonderful, but you really shouldn't drink it every day, especially more than once a day.

PS. I love Red Bull cream sodas more than the God that created them, I swear, but I only drink maybe one or two energy drinks a year. Energy drinks will dissolve your liver faster than hydrochloric acid can. An alcoholic drinking 5 packs of beers a day will look at your liver and be impressed. Also the Panera lemonade should be illegal. That shit is CRAZY. That bitch had more caffeine than a Bang energy drink. It literally killed a man. Wild.

[tcroce93]

Process Note

Ideation and Initiation

The guiding question for my project (why do we romanticize sadness?) arose almost as soon as we had begun work on the Sad G*rl unit. Once I felt I had a solid understanding of what the “sad girl” figure was meant to represent, I immediately drew a connection to an example that I was familiar with; Pinkpantheress. I had been listening to her music for years, and the melancholic atmosphere that her music creates coupled with the Internet-inspired aesthetic she cultivates suggested to me that she was a useful example to use when analyzing the “sad girl” phenomenon.

While I did my research into her music and videos, I felt something begin to impress itself on me. It did not take long for me to realize that it was the familiar gut impulse that we feel when we are emotionally affected by a piece of media. I could tell that there was intentionality to the music, and that it was causing the specific reaction I was experiencing. The feeling was familiar; I knew it well from countless books, movies, games, and songs. I realized that it was this exact feeling that has caused Pinkpantheress to jump to mind in the first place.

The cause of this feeling was not merely that the songs were sad, or that they were composed in a minor key, or that the music videos were filmed in black and white. It arose from a combination of these and other elements that lend themselves not only to a tragic story, but to the mind’s interpretation of tragedy. I could see that the music was causing me to reflect on sad moments in my own life, and connect these experiences to the ones PinkPantheress was writing about in her songs. While this did lead to some uncomfortable moments, for the most part, this sadness was a welcome one. This was the feeling that led me to my guiding question.

Stagnation and Revision

As we began the work of curating materials for our project, I tried to find archival pieces that related strongly to the subject matter at hand. However, I found this difficult, and it created some cognitive dissonance for me as I worked. I had an image in my head that I felt sure was the answer to my question, and it was tied very directly to the work of PinkPantheress, Lana Del Rey, and others that pioneered the internet sad girl phenomenon. The pieces of art and literature I researched during the material-gathering process left me disillusioned, as I felt they had very little, if anything, to offer to the conversation I was trying to have with my question. This, coupled with multiple sick days in which I was unable to gather materials on campus, left me lagging behind and without a clear sense of direction.

It was during our peer review class that I was able to find my stride with the project again. In the draft for my statement of purpose, I had offhandedly mentioned Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Picasso’s famous Blue Period as examples of the creative romanticization of sadness in history. These were both examples that I was familiar with, and I had thrown them  into the statement of purpose merely as a way to make a secondary point about the timelessness of sadness in art and culture. However, my groupmate suggested that I expound on these examples as I went forward in the drafting process, and this idea sparked a reassessment of my guiding question.

I found my passion renewed as I immersed myself in the works that I had already pinpointed as prime examples of glamorized sadness. Instead of concentrating my definition of the “sad girl” on a specific timeframe with limited source material, I was able to analyze sadness as a universal concept that transcends technology, culture, and time itself. While this does undoubtedly result in some “broad-strokes” oversimplification of certain trends and ideas over time, I found that I was able to reduce this simplicity by focusing on specific examples, and breaking down why these examples stand out as historically relevant to this day. As I collected resources, I also found myself creating my own work, which took inspiration from both the classic examples I was analyzing as well as the work of PinkPantheress and other contemporary artists.

Conclusions

As my work collecting and curating came to a close, I felt as though I was reaching an answer to my question. Through the process of immersing myself in both classic and contemporary examples of sadness in art and literature, I had found a “common thread” that seemed to tie everything I had collected and created into one. In addition, the Tumblr blog itself seemed to have found a “vibe” that I was happy with. 

One aspect of the project that I had not initially considered was that it gave me an opportunity to work within Photoshop to create unique artistic elements of the blog page, such as the banner. As a graphic designer, any opportunity to express myself and my interests creatively is much appreciated, especially in an academic context.

The answer that I settled on for my guiding question was that humans are innately empathetic, and the expression of sadness gives us solace. Through sharing, receiving, and reacting to works derived from sadness, we find that we are not alone in our emotional experiences. I experienced this on both ends as I worked on the project; revisiting Hamlet and the work of Picasso renewed my appreciation for these timeless examples of tragedy and melancholy, but I also found myself experiencing some catharsis and healing as I created music and artwork for the project. In this way, I have gained a new perspective on the works that informed my project from start to finish. By simply realizing the effects that creative expression was having on me, I was able to understand the communities that have formed online that celebrate that very form of creation.