things you can tell people if they ask you about the scars on your face:
- "large scale worm attack"
- "clowns tried to steal my skin but I got away"
- "nearly got overtaken by the evil fog"
- "cursed door incident"
- "the angles cut me when I try to think"
- "a cop bit me"
- "gym membership went horribly wrong"
- "rock concert went horribly wrong"
- "got stuck underground for eight months"
- "the last girl I kissed was reallyyyy hot. literally"
- "stared at the void (it stared back)"
- "got rid of the death vines but at what cost"
- "ask me again and I'll give you fucking vertigo"
- "I saw too much and now I bear the marks of my hubris"
- "the spiders. they want out ::::)"
ultimately when it comes to shipping and fandom space treatment of aspec characters i just don't accept "aro/ace people can still date/have sex" as an answer from nonaspecs. like yeah. mhm. okay. now i think we both know that you're not saying that out of real interest in the diversity of aspec experiences. so you can turn in your seventeen-page essay on why and how you plan to examine this character's aspec identity within the context of a romantic or sexual relationship complete with evidence from canon and peer reviews from multiple aspec people within the next week or i'm putting you in the pit from the edgar allen poe story
Just wanted to say I'm really happy that you have shared so much about your characters! I've been following you for a long while now, and I think I remember your post expressing worry about talking about your characters. After seeing all the love shown to them, it makes me happy that you decided to!
If somebody in your life offers to knit or crochet or, really, create anything for you, please be an active participant in the creation of the piece they are making. I adore making and gifting things, but nothing bums me out quicker than a person who passively just goes "okay," to my ideas about what I'm making them - it can send the message that they won't like it, or that they don't care, even if they're happy about my offering. The back-and-forth feedback is a great way to make sure that you are being gifted something that was truly worth the time, effort, expertise, and money that will inevitably go into the gift!
I know it's really hard to be an active participant, believe me, I'm an anxious ball of horror, but it will only do good for both parties to interact in this situation. It is a big deal to be offered a hand-crafted gift, but it's also something we want you to love and use, and that can only happen if you tell us what would make you fall in love with what we create.
right now i'm very torn between "taking critique is important as an artist and it's not an attack on me personally" and "people commenting about my same face syndrome under my posts upsets me an unreasonable amount and i wish they would stop doing it"
Sjm: Okaaaaay so I need to end this ship. What better way to make Elain feel small and shy around him instead of making Elain make the first move to kiss like the rest of my fmcs, he's going to be the one, and then to make it even worse he's going to call it a mistake!! And then when Rhysand asks him "what of Mor?" it would show that Elain, just like Mor is a distraction to him. Oh and make him to think of no future with her... yeah these are all very clear red flags!!!
*some* fandoms: Omg Azriel wants to eat Elain's 😻 so romantic!!! He thinks of her while he jerks off. He's so in love with her and sjm is going to give us forbidden love romance🥰💕
Sjm: I mean I also wrote that his shadows dance with Gwyn's breath and dance with a silent music that *nervous laugh* can only be concluded as mate signs, that's how I wrote other mated couples... oh and he thought of her smile!! Isn't that lovely...
*some* fandom: Gwyn is a siren and lightsinger who lured Azriel to make him stay away from Elain and made him to gift that necklace to her!!!😠
Sjm: *weirded out*
*writing hofas bonus chapter*
Sjm: Well... that sorta back fired??? So now I'm gonna write Azriel saying he has no partner, lover or any mate that he knows of. That will be enough to show how he's single asf. AND on top of that his shadows danced again while he hummed a music and who else sings? Yes, Gwyn. Who's the only one Azriel was comfortable enough to say something personal about himself and no one else!!
*some* fandoms: OMG Azriel doesn't want to tell anyone that he's secretly seeing Elain, he wants to protect her. Ah we're getting our forbbien romance!!
As someone who is genderfae (microlabel under genderfluid), I have a lot of different experiences with gender.
I just wish someone told me sooner that it won't go like "today I'm a girl" "today I'm an enby" but more like ,,, "today I am a swamp witch" "today I am a feminine victorian vampire boy" "today I am a forest goblin collecting people's stares about my gender expression like shiny rocks on the ground" "today I'm an androgynous pirate lady"
Like,,, sure, are those real genders? I don't fucking now. If a cisgender person asked me what I identify as that day, would I answer like that? No, definitely not.
But to my genderqueer, trans and genderfluid friends; do you get me? I can't be alone with this, right?
in regards to the constant dismissal of his aroace identity, i hate it when alastor 'fans' say and use the excuse: "he's fictional, he won't get offended."
like, you're right, but it can and will offend us.
when you see yourself being represented on screen, of course you'd feel enthusiastic about it — representation allows individuals to see themselves reflected in the media they consume, validating their identities and experiences. but when so many people take that representation and decide to disregard and discard it, it is so fucking frustrating. we finally have another character to be part of the tiny amount of representation we have, but then people don't even care about how much it means to us? like yeah, alastor won't get offended because he's not real, but it frustrates and annoys us. do you realize that it's also technically invalidating the aroace community? that you're invalidating our feelings? imagine feeling like you're finally being seen because your orientation is finally being represented in media, and people just decide to blatantly ignore, discard, and invalidate it.
media has such a powerful influence on real life, representation being a prevalent factor of it. there are numerous posts that dictate how people went to watch a movie/show or read a book just because a character depicts their identity in it — obviously, being represented is an incredibly uplifting and validating experience.
which is why seeing an aroace character in a popular show is so meaningful to us because we live in a world where romance and sex are literally everywhere and prioritized above all else. (and it's pretty obvious that alastor's on the repulsed end of the spectrum, but even if he wasn't, at least make an effort to acknowledge his sexuality instead of continuing to portray him as allo; aroace folks can be in relationships but it's not going to be the same thing with allos' experiences.)
any and every representation matters, but why does that seem to stop at people under the aroace spectrum? like y'all can't even let us appreciate the scraps of representation we have. we barely have any, so are we really that dramatic for being upset at how people easily disregard and dismiss our identities that are being depicted on screen just like that? is it truly wrong of us to want to defend and maintain the little representation we have?
can you explain why knives needed vash for his plan? is vash's power giving plants life?
So from what I gather, Vash is unique in his ability to both give and take from the higher dimension, which is the place where all plants get their energy from, and that's what humans use them for. (This is also where Conrad says their souls are instead of their bodies (possible bullshit, given the unreliable narrators we have), and also given Vash's conversation with Rem in episode 12 it's possibly connected to the afterlife???) Or, at the very least, Vash is different from most other plants, as they can only take. His power has been compared to something black hole-like, but I won't bore you with quantum physics since we don't know exactly what they mean by that yet, exactly.
In order to access and enter the higher dimension to rip souls free and shove them into the plants' bodies to birth independent plants, Knives needed to use Vash as a gate, as a tool, to open Vash up and let himself in so he could funnel that power out through Vash.
At least, that's just what I've gathered from watching Tristamp... way too many times and reading meta as I go. I'm probably a bit off in this explanation, so anyone feel free to add on anything I missed! I think we're going to get way more in-depth in the following season/s with the plot threads left hanging after episode twelve. Hopefully this makes sense! :'D
Got an ask about my feelings on Cass being Bruce's favourite that I accidentally deleted so I'm gonna answer here.
Firstly I'm in the 'Dick is canonically Bruce's fav' camp (see fantastic-nonsense's post here), but I do believe Bruce has a special bond with Cass. So I don't think 'Cass being Bruce's fav' comes out of nowhere, especially since she is the closest to having his moral code, and he is definitely not normal about her.
However, this is the kind of statement where who is saying it matters. Comic fans can say Cass is Bruce's favourite because it's grounded in a genuine understanding of their dynamic. But when people who haven't engaged with comics say it, particularly as a rebuttal to one of the Batboys being Bruce's fav, it comes off like Cass is some 'other' option. She's allowed to be the fav because they don't see her as a real character, or because they view her as some paragon of perfection. This is where I really dislike the headcanon.
Because Cass being Bruce's favourite should be a bad thing. Bruce doesn't adopt her until 2008, and for me it's largely because it takes him that long to see her as a person. Early Bruce-Cass, where most of the 'Cass being Bruce's fav' moments come from, is marked by Bruce seeing Cass as an extension of himself. She is his model minority and there are racist undertones in him calling her perfect. His love gets less toxic over time, but this corresponds with his disillusionment over her (see him firing her in Batgirl #48; Cass, in the same issue, is becoming disillusioned with him).
The arc in Bruce and Cass' relationship is them recognising and deconstructing the pedestals they've put each other on. So when people say Cass is Bruce's favourite without context, it misses all the complexity in that dynamic. Personally I prefer what should be their endpoint: where Cass knows she doesn't need to be his favourite to be loved.