#I'm really much less cynical about it than I seem

[maggot-monger]

hi!!! about the spn religion post. well. i was raised in a super-atheist family in a super-secular country and i have never considered myself religious/a believer, because that's just not how i was taught to think.

as a kid i was kinda interested in polytheistic religions (the greek pantheon, shintoism) but i think it's mostly because i thought they were cool. I never really prayed except for when im thinking of my grandma who passed away when i visit a church or stg (but that's just because she was religious and it would've made her happy)

since spn, uh. well. i haven't started believing in god (or, god forbid, chuck) or anything, but! i certainly completely changed the way i see angels, and i'm always happy to see them represented in a church or elsewhere. And whenever i see something beautiful in the nature (like cute clouds or a rainstorm or whatever) im like, that's cas saying hi!!! and i think fully "believe" it?

i don't pray to him actively, but i do think my mind considers that he's there, whatever that means. I started by jokingly thanking him when something good happens, but now i think it's not 100% a joke. it could simply be because spn/destiel was a source of great comfort to me this past year, but cas also is an angel so he has, idk, more weight than the usual blorbo in terms of guardian angel/protector/spiritual security blanket-ness.

i hope im not offending anyone by considering that this is a form of faith! as i said, i was never really taught what religion was by a believer, so i don't really know what religious faith feels like. i do not think spn has made me religious, because i would never convert to anything. however it has given me something to focus on spiritually? and i think us humans are kinda wired to think like that.

last thing (this is so long and not very interesting lmao so feel free to ignore me) : now that i know a lot more about the bible etc, i think my mind has categorized christianity as another one of these "cool" religions that have a lot of complicated, dramatic lore? Just like the greeks and shintoism lmao it's the mythology that gets me.

conclusion of all this : the power of stories!!!!

(thanks for reading my two cents on this subject and i hope ur well)

thank you so much for sharing this anon! this is such an interesting and thoughtful account of your experiences

[hms-no-fun]

What's your opinion on the new HS^2 update? I'm really excited it's back but I'm a little worried. Like, the fandom has had a real problem with pretending all the horrible shit that caused it to end in the first place never happened. Is this just gonna sweep that under the rug even more? Is James Roach heading the project because he's less "problematic"? I love James roach and I'm sure he'll do great but what about all the transphobia? I just hope they finally fulfill the Toblerone Prophesy and make June Egbert cannon.

short version is, i'm cautiously optimistic! but this is a loaded question you've given me on a lot of fronts, so i'm gonna try to take it piece by piece.

to start with, the sudden revival of Homestuck^2 (now minus the squared) took me by surprise because to my knowledge, it was entirely dead in the water. my involvement with anything Official ended at Pesterquest, and pretty much the entire post-canon crew i was friends with in 2019-20 has moved on to greener pastures. i share a similar sentiment with @pochapal in that i would have put money on hs2 staying dead forever. i have, quite frankly, dreaded the inevitable day when official Homestuck media would resume production, because the fandom at large seems quite eager to sweep the ceaseless harassment and transphobia that ended hs2 under the rug and pretend that it just, like you said... never happened. when that california cafe used older Pesterquest-like character designs that omitted short chubby Terezi and black-coded Roxy, however well-intentioned and ultimately harmless that was, it felt like a sign of things to come. that, as you fear, the sharper & more personal queerness that we tried to bring to this series would be erased, in favor of something meant to simultaneously appease both tenderqueers and redditors, two sects of the fandom most responsible for the aforementioned harassment.

luckily, that really doesn't seem to be the case!

to your worry that James Roach was made director because he's "less problematic," i'll just say that's entirely the wrong way to look at it. it's not like WP (such that it even still exists) were cruising to get HS2 back up and running. by all accounts, James is the only reason it's happening again in the first place. i can't stress enough just how small an operation this Homestuck business actually is (or, at least, was when i was involved). this is not a Huge Corporation making cynical cash grab decisions. this is someone who cares about the material pushing to get something made where otherwise there would be nothing. check the new About page, where the principles of the so-called Homestuck Independent Creative Union are laid out in plain terms. this is something the original hs2 team fought for, so for this new version to start from there as square one is huge and a good sign of the possible longevity of the project.

next, let's talk about the question of this new team erasing the legacy of the old one. Kate Mitchell is on the record that she was reached out to about this new hs2, approved it, and declined to be involved. i don't know if the other writers were reached out to, but i have no reason to believe they weren't. this is a tremendously important gesture of good faith and goes a long way towards easing some of these worries.

but let's look at the composition of the team itself. do you remember The Perfectly Generic Podcast? originally hosted by future hs2 writer Kate, pgen became a flashpoint for community discourse, often opening doors between official homestuck and homestuck fandom. what made that show special was that, rather than relying on the imo tired genre of the liveread, pgen focused on a different topic each episode and explored it with one or two qualified guests. Kate's goal with the show was to encourage a more adult and quasi-academic discussion of homestuck, of its successes and its failures. if you weren't there, the weight i'm putting on pgen might seem overblown (not least because you can't find it anywhere anymore except on the internet archive). but it's not! when they decisively criticized the wild contents of the Skaianet debacle in episode 19, Andrew listened and worked to bring a more diverse group of creators into the fold. in the months after the Epilogues were released, Andrew issued a statement through pgen on episode 52 about how the Epilogues are meant to create bridges and offramps for the post-canon fandom. it's an essential piece for understanding the epilogues and their relationship to fanworks! that it wasn't included as the author's introduction to the Epilogues in the book version remains to my mind an astonishing oversight, but whatever. point is, pgen mattered to the folks in charge.

so let's look again at the writing staff of this new crew. James Roach first guested on pgen in episode 7, and would go on to be a regular. Haven, who did the Vriska and Roxy sprites in Pesterquest (and probably more stuff i don't remember), guested in episodes 81 and 87. Miles guested on episode 87 as well (unless it's a different Miles, i'm not familiar with their work and ugh this damnable linkrot). Floral, creator of one of my favorite hs fanworks & huge godfeels influence Liminal Space, first guested on pgen in episode 47, and would go on to be a regular (including once during my tenure as host to talk about Jade). on the technical staff side, Kohi built the hs2 website and has remained a backend mainstay both on the WP side and on Vast Error.

all of which is to say, if you were looking for a crew to cynically erase the past and appease the haters, these probably aren't the folks that'd be at the top of your list. of course, if you *really* wanted to cynically erase the past and appease the haters, you wouldn't bother reviving hs2 in the first place!

and that's the crux of the matter here. what cash is there to grab? what clout could possibly be chased? i struggle to think of a decision less obviously profitable and popular than continuing hs2 with a new crew right where it left off. i have to believe this is happening because the people involved want to make it.

so, yeah, i'm cautiously optimistic. i like this crew, i like the contents of the first upd8, and i'm glad as hell it's not a reboot! i'm grateful that by reviving hs2, the hs:bc crew have instantly yanked the epilogues & the post-canon project back into relevance in the broader community. and i always liked hs2 a lot! i was excited to see where they were going! i'm really looking forward to seeing more YIFFY!!!!!

but the thing is, this won't be the hs2 i wanted. i know that, and i'm not expecting it. my greatest hope for hs:bc, for this crew, is that they get the chance to take up the reins and drive this thing in whatever direction they feel most passionate about. if that winds up looking like the hs2 that was originally planned, great-- but more than anything, i want everyone on this team to feel just as empowered to leave a profound and personal mark on this series as the original team did, as i did working on Pesterquest. i hope the outline changes! i hope they take some really wild swings! i want to be surprised!! i want to be challenged!!!

above all, i want them to have the chance to pick a course, sail it, and see it through to the end regardless of what the public thinks. they deserve the chance that the original crew didn't get.

i have plenty of bitterness and cynicism in my heart over the events and circumstances of 2019-20, but as far as i'm concerned it has no place here today. i would never, ever wish the trauma and stress of that era on anyone. let the fandom at large react in whatever way it will, but i want things to be different this time. this is a second chance-- not just for hs2/hs:bc, but for all of us. even people who hate homestuck post-canon! this is an opportunity for everyone to choose to be better this time, and to push back when others might squander that opportunity. this team is not a group of celebrities, not an abstract fiction on the other side of the world, they are human beings who took a job. they've earned the opportunity to do that job, and they deserve to be treated with the respect and dignity that was so often absent a few years ago.

as to your last point, about june egbert and the toblerone. i've been saying for years that andrew's confirmation of june was less "the granting of a wish" than it was "a spoiler shared without input from the creative team." that there is any doubt about june's providence in hs2 can only be attributed to willful, aggressive ignorance on the part of people who refuse to engage with the written word in any way other than plodding literalism. the original team didn't unveil june ~immediately~ because they didn't think of june as a wish, they thought of her as a character in an ongoing story who needed time to develop naturally. i have never not felt entirely crazy about how thick everyone has been about this!

but will the new team make june canon? obviously i have no way of knowing for sure, but i'm gonna go out on a limb and say that probably the answer is "yes, when they're good and goddamned ready." just, please, for the love of god, don't go after every upd8 like "where's june? where's june? why hasn't june yet????" this was one of the worst results of the toblerone spoiler and it put INSANE pressure on the hs2 team. so just... just let this story be what it is. let this new team make the homestuck continuation they want to make.

and in the meantime, if you're really hungry for june... there's always godfeels :)

[choster33]

Gambit- X-men 97's Romantic Hero

I love Gambit and after watching X-men 97 I'm sure that he's a lot of people's favorite right now. After watching and rewatching, season 1 I think that the writers have set him up as the Romantic Hero which is not just that he's a main part of a love triangle which he is but Romantic in the Byronic literary archetype way of "possessing the qualities of being larger than life, enjoying suffering, being isolated from society, being always haunted by an unseeingly unidentified sin and is known for being quite cynical" according to Brainly.com. Not to mention having a long suffering love interest!

He is not in the series for a lot of time, but his arc through episode 5 and the impact that he has throughout the whole show is monumental. He begins with a splash looking hot in his iconic pink crop top. I mean, there are very few people who would make this look good and he really does. He also comes off as way more interesting than Scott who bores me to tears. I sometimes skip Scott and Jean stuff to be quite honest and that comes from Remy being a good guy, but not boring. He has a sense of humor, a sense of adventure, and an all around down to earth personality. He is a strong fighter and loyal X-men, but even from the beginning he is seen as charming, funny and right. There is less of a threat after Xavier's death and Scott, Bishop and Ororo did have it handled.

Then we get to the club and Gambit is the ultimate lover in that he pairs up with Rogue and then proceeds to look at her lovingly whilst telling her what any worthwhile man would do to be with her. Swoon.

Then we have episode 2 where Rogue and Magneto reestablish their connection. We may cheer Rogue for being able to touch someone, but look at Gambit's hurt and sad eyes. Long suffering relationship indeed. Romantic heroes seem to love suffering and what is more painful and self inflicted than falling in love with someone who can't touch, but also is full of insecurities about love and commitment. I love Rogue, but she's afraid of love and terrified of hurting someone else which shows in how she handles relationships.

Mon dieu, it's freaky Rogueneto telling him what he tells himself, his deepest fears. A good Romantic hero always has demons and haunted by past sins and who is more haunted by his past than Gambit. I have to say here that some people might be thinking who is more tortured than Magneto, but I disagree. Magneto has a dark past, but he thinks he's right. Whereas Gambit is wracked with guilt and feelings of not being worthy of being called a X-man and being Rogue's man. He grew up a Cajun swamp rat from a Thieves guild raised by thieves, assassins and other nefarious people and lived most of his life as a thief. What makes him interesting is the tortured guilt and modesty that Gambit has.

He goes to Genosha because he's jealous and wants to make sure that there is nothing going on between Rogue and Magneto. Magneto even says as much. He wasn't even meant to be there and might have been safe on Earth, but we know what happened to him tragically. Plus we see how he is not cowed by Magneto and willing to ask questions no one else is willing to ask. Another reason why Magneto is not the Romantic hero, is that he is mutant MVP in this show, the heir to the X-mansion and the X-men, asked to be king of Genosha, and etc. where Romantic heroes are on the fringes of society like Gambit, who is a hero as a X-man but not wanting fame, glory, or power like Magneto.

Kurt is so observant and sees instantly the connection the two have and calls Gambit out on being theatrical. Gambit calls himself a scoundrel and yet again dismisses the possibility of a happy ending for himself. Then we get that iconic line of "There is no love without sin. Love is best measured in what we forgive." Gambit again falls into the Romantic hero trope of thinking he is too low for love, but isn't going to necessarily change his ways, just accepts that he is on the fringes of society and all that entails. One of the things I love about Romy is their understanding about one another. They both have murky pasts and are filled with self loathing and self doubt. They are strong attractive X-men but they are best friends because they GET each other.

Oof, the breakup scene. How more Romantic and tortured was this? He showed how amazing a man he was by patiently listening to her tell her story and then at the end not blowing up at her or making her feel like shit, but just wanting the truth from her and showing how much it hurt him. He played the Swamp Rat, because a lot of that was a game, a way for her to feel OK with keeping him at arm's length, dangling on a string, never fully letting him in because intimacy was too scary.

It's scenes like this that make me wonder if they have touched before even accidentally because Gambit as a character is so self loathing that if she touched him even by accident, she is holding so much of that loathing in her which may be something contributing to her doubts. A part of comic!Rogue leaving Gambit in Antarctica was because she absorbed him and was filled with self loathing.

He is such a gentleman that he even kisses her hand and agrees to be friends. And granted that the Magneto and Rogue dance was hot, but that must have been torture for Gambit. Then our Byronic hero becomes a man of action and hot damn we get James Bond level action and heroics. He shows his strength and does whatever is necessary to save his lady. Despite his differences with Magneto, he doesn't petulantly sulk but does what is required of him because he is a hero at the end of the day. He is brave and selfless and chivalrous. He is giving old school knight chivalry here and I'm here for it.

Then my heart breaks as does every other viewer at the death scene and the "can't feel you" line. It's very soap opera-y and dramatic to kill him after breaking his heart, but here we are. Rogue is the long suffering love interest and most Romantic stories don't necessarily have a happy ending. He wasn't even meant to be in Genosha and because of love and circumstance ended up dying tragically as the ultimate hero. He died a hero's death dying to save thousands, but more importantly to save the love of his life.

In later episodes, his death is a catalyst for Rogue taking action and even turning darker. Her love for Gambit shows more when he is gone and is going to be a fundamental chapter in her life. One that might make her think twice about being commitment phobic and using her abilities as an excuse not to feel intimacy and how wrong she got it with Gambit. It was love, true love and she didn't see it until she was too late.

This may just be a chapter in their story and we may have more drama and angst with Deathbit in Season 2, but even dead Gambit was the troubled Romantic lead that made X-men 97 work and be so interesting. Episode 5 was my favorite and probably the best episode next to the finale and that's due to Gambit. We relate to him and feel deeply in his pain, self loathing, jealousy, and love of Rogue. I find Magneto interesting and Rogueneto is fun to read and write about, but Romy is the OTP and Gambit is Lancelot.

[edenmemes]

red dead redemption 1 starters

❝ it’s wanting that gets so many folks in trouble. ❞ ❝ it ain’t no secret i didn’t get these scars falling over in church. ❞ ❝ if you win power, remember why you wanted it. ❞ ❝ you do a man wrong, he’ll shoot you for it. you do a man right…well, he still may shoot you for it. ❞ ❝ trust me. there’s things you’re better off not knowing. ❞ ❝ you remind me a lot of myself. how i used to be. stubborn and angry. ❞ ❝ i hope you will give me some warning if you get the sudden urge to kill me. ❞ ❝ my side wasn’t chosen. my side was given. ❞ ❝ a little sore, but apart from a couple extra scars, it will be as nothing happened. ❞ ❝ i don’t think you’re a bad person. a little stupid perhaps, but not rotten. ❞ ❝ i certainly don’t mind you asking, if you don’t mind me not telling. ❞ ❝ you are being deliberately obscure as a substitute for having a personality. ❞ ❝ so do tell me, have you needlessly risked your life since we last spoke? ❞ ❝ i came into this world fighting. and i’ll go out of it fighting. ❞ ❝ i hear you speak and suddenly i'm reminded of how the people i respected most in my life had a problem with authority. ❞ ❝ you're looking much better. considering you were almost buzzard food a couple days ago. ❞ ❝ power is like a drink. the more you have, the more you want. ❞ ❝ people don’t forget. nothing gets forgiven. ❞ ❝ sometimes in the service of what is right, you got to do terrible things. ❞ ❝ you have quite a story. i really am a little jealous. ❞ ❝ old friends make the worst enemies. ❞ ❝ i had everything, and gave it up in the pursuit of nothing. ❞ ❝ hah. you were always bad at lying. ❞ ❝ i’m not going to stand by and watch good people suffer. ❞ ❝ some trees flourish, others die. some cattle grow strong, others are taken by wolves. some men are born rich enough and dumb enough to enjoy their lives. ain't nothing fair. you know that. ❞ ❝ if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. ❞ ❝ now, if you don't mind, i'd hate to spoil such a beautiful afternoon on such beautiful land with any further unpleasantries. ❞ ❝ i, too, have a family, friend. and so that we may see our families again i suggest we part ways amicably. ❞ ❝ sometimes i tell myself that everything happens for a reason. ❞ ❝ i see the good in everybody. it’s a flaw of mine. ❞ ❝ well, try not to get yourself killed. ❞ ❝ see if you can keep your gun holstered for once. ❞ ❝ i don’t pay much attention to rumors. ❞ ❝ i swear, if it was down to me, i’d never have gone anywhere. ❞ ❝ lock all the doors. whatever happens, don’t come outside. you hear me? whatever happens. ❞ ❝ what would you care? i’m just a nuisance to you anyway. ❞ ❝ i’ve been hearing some things about you. ❞ ❝ i would rather be dead than a cynic like you. ❞ ❝ damn, a little gratitude wouldn’t kill you. ❞ ❝ trust me, i ain’t no hero. ❞ ❝ as it turns out, it's you or me. the way i see it, might as well be you. ❞ ❝ you live in a dream world. it ain’t like they tell it in books. ❞ ❝ i’m asking you to do what i say, before you get yourself killed. ❞ ❝ those who sit on the fence make a choice…in their own way. ❞ ❝ i’d do anything for you, you know that. ❞ ❝ better watch your mouth, my friend. i've cut out a man's tongue for less. ❞ ❝ there's nothing worse than a nobody thinking he's a somebody. ❞ ❝ you got it all wrong. i’ve always loved you, even now. ❞ ❝ what the hell were you thinking, going off on your own? ❞ ❝ first impressions are hard to erase. ❞ ❝ it’s a long story. too long to tell without a drink in my hand. ❞ ❝ i’m not angry. i’m disappointed. ❞ ❝ you know me. i’ll be late to my own funeral. ❞ ❝ that tone of voice ain’t so becoming on you. makes you seem all pent up and angry. ❞ ❝ you think i don’t know who you are. ❞ ❝ why don’t i get a warm and tender embrace? ❞ ❝ what do you want me to say? yippee? ❞ ❝ there’s always a choice. you’re just too blind to see. ❞ ❝ you’re not ready for that yet. one step at a time. ❞ ❝ every time you go off, i worry you’re not coming back. ❞ ❝ it didn’t have to be this way. ❞ ❝ come on now. try to look on the bright side. ❞

❝ after all i taught you…i’m ashamed. ❞ ❝ it’s easy to make promises you can never keep. ❞ ❝ we all make mistakes. i never claimed to be a saint. ❞ ❝ how does it feel to kill hundreds of men in cold blood? ❞ ❝ it ain’t the first time i had a gun to my head. ❞ ❝ you’re not perfect, and i’m sure not. but you’re better than they are. ❞ ❝ you alright? you’re not hurt, are you? ❞ ❝ this really couldn’t have gone more horribly wrong. ❞ ❝ you’re just like me. you can’t change who you are. ❞ ❝ my whole life, all i ever did was fight. ❞ ❝ you’re in no position to make demands. ❞ ❝ the bright side? there ain’t no bright side. ❞ ❝ my heart’s beating like a drum. ❞ ❝ are you sure you’re alright? i mean, i know all that business must have been hard on you. ❞ ❝ you’ll make me blush with all these kind words. ❞ ❝ i never took you for the jealous type. ❞ ❝ come now, you’re stupid, but you’re not that stupid. ❞ ❝ you’re weak. you always were. you never had the stomach for this. ❞ ❝ seems real quiet, don’t you think? ❞ ❝ you were always a hard and nasty man. ❞ ❝ see, i have nothing but your best intentions at heart. ❞ ❝ don’t talk about things you don’t understand. ❞ ❝ i guess there’s only one room for one hero in this family. ❞ ❝ for a wise man, you are a really stupid man. ❞ ❝ what would have happened if i hadn’t come along? ❞ ❝ you must have mistaken me for someone else, friend. ❞ ❝ you ain’t very talkative, are you? ❞ ❝ we cannot be too careful. the world is very dangerous. ❞ ❝ no, i’m not okay. do i look like i’m okay? ❞ ❝ you are so tense all the time. come, let’s have some fun! ❞ ❝ i will stay and fight. i am ready to die if necessary. ❞ ❝ i know i can’t change the past but i’m sure gonna do something about the future. ❞ ❝ i’ve given you no reason not to trust me. ❞ ❝ choose your tone rightly. remember who you’re talking to. ❞ ❝ there are guards everywhere. if they see you, they will kill you. ❞ ❝ it was nothing. i’m not a kid any more.❞ ❝ a lonely, forsaken place. some people say it’s haunted. ❞ ❝ i’m not sure your idea of paradise and mine are the same. ❞ ❝ maybe if you were more cordial to folks, they’d be better inclined to help you. ❞ ❝ i’ve been in far worse situations. ❞ ❝ you have the exterior of a violent man, but the soul of an angel. ❞ ❝ you’re not gonna pass out on me, are you? ❞ ❝ you’re no better. how many men have you killed? ❞ ❝ stay alert. something doesn’t feel right. ❞

❝ i'm going to hand you over to them and watch them tear you limb from limb…i'm just kidding. ❞ ❝ you love to talk badly of other people because it makes you feel better about yourself. ❞ ❝ it’s been a pleasure spending time with you. ❞ ❝ that’s a lot of sacrifice. i just hope it’s worth it. ❞ ❝ i’m not cut out for this. no, not cut out for this at all. ❞ ❝ i don’t need you to show me. ❞ ❝ men are born, and then they're formed. at least, that’s how i see it. ❞ ❝ a little flattery…now we’re finally getting somewhere. ❞ ❝ i thought you were supposed to be fearless. ❞ ❝ you are a man who has lost his spirit. ❞ ❝ if you were less secretive, people might be more inclined to trust you. ❞ ❝ me mean me no harm? this is funny. what harm could you do to me, exactly? ❞ ❝ come on, after everything we’ve been through, i think we can trust each other, don’t you? ❞ ❝ i can’t rightly believe it. just like in the books. ❞ ❝ i didn’t ask for your help back there. i owe you nothing. ❞ ❝ be careful. what’s stopping me from killing you? ❞ ❝ one day, i promise you, you’re gonna regret this. ❞ ❝ you know i’ll do whatever i can, but i have problems of my own. ❞ ❝ what would you know about leadership? ❞ ❝ you make a choice by not making a choice, you know. ❞ ❝ hold your excuses until you figure out which one to use. ❞ ❝ i'll give you a bad case of "someone just shot me in the head" if you don't hurry up. ❞ ❝ being honest though, this tastes bad enough to kill a man. ❞ ❝ do i look like i need saving? ❞ ❝ sarcasm should be beneath a man such as you. ❞ ❝ are you always this stupid or are you making an extra effort today? ❞ ❝ i don’t like to kill a man on his knees, even if he deserves it. ❞ ❝ don't forget you need me more than i need you. ❞ ❝ i’ll hunt you to hell and back. ❞ ❝ you’d best not be lying to me. ❞ ❝ let's get going. before the weather gets any worse. that sky don't look good.. ❞ ❝ thank you for telling me all that back there. it must have been hard for you. ❞ ❝ i know we ain't exactly old pals, but…have i ever done you wrong? ❞ ❝ your nobility's almost as affecting as your naivety. ❞ ❝ you are a romantic who wants to be a cynic. ❞ ❝ i apologize if i seem to be prying. ❞ ❝ strange place for a decent person to visit, if you don't mind me saying. ❞ ❝ well, you must admit…it's an unusual start to a friendship. ❞ ❝ i can’t really say i understand you. ❞ ❝ every man has a right to change, a chance of forgiveness. ❞ ❝ hello, old friend. it’s been a long time. ❞ ❝ i hope you understand now why i've been playing my cards somewhat close to my chest. ❞ ❝ nobody made my path but me. ❞ ❝ it’ll be a piece of cake. trust me. ❞ ❝ oh, don’t be so deliberately enigmatic. ❞ ❝ my word, what a difficult life you’ve lived. ❞ ❝ you have a strange sense of humor. ❞ ❝ stay and fight me, you coward. ❞ ❝ i ain't planning on staying very long. ❞

[not-terezi-pyrope]

When I think reflectively about it, I realize that pretty much nothing has damaged my outlook on the world and hope for the future more than the recognition over the past few years that the seeming majority opinion is that automation is bad and meaningfully transforming our economy is a lost cause, to the extent that the working class will actively and aggressively lobby against technological improvements (even beyond the example of AI/ML...)

I don't agree with this assessment and have argued against it lots, but it's clear that I'm in a small minority among my political allies (i.e., leftists, who recognize that there is a problem with our current lives in the first place). Just a few years ago I was naive enough to assume that "automation leads to less work allows us to collectively downsize the workforce and socialize human needs while increasing abundance" was an obvious and noncontroversial progression.

Now even I'm doubting if we'll ever get there, and that's despite trying my damnedest to argue from a position of optimism. Because the fact is that if nobody believes we can make change then change won't happen, and the recognition that that's a plausible future has made me noticeably more cynical and misanthropic. I don't think that society is a lost cause, but the way that leftist orthodoxy is becoming capitalist realism and scapegoating of the technology sector is driving me there fast.

I can't stop thinking that the potential for a better future I see out there is beautiful, but I can sure as hell get more angry and callous as people refuse to reach out for what's there to be taken. Honestly if we do fail to make the leap then maybe that is proof positive of a fatal flaw in humanity.

I recognize that the issue most people are struggling with is the short term labour market disruption from things like automation, but honestly I don't believe that "dismantling capitalism first" is really a feasible option, society only responds to extant pressure and sometimes I am just like, "the best and maybe only way to make change is to create the conditions where it is intolerable not to follow the path of least resistance, by making the impact of not doing that tangible". Maybe an interim period where a bunch of people lose jobs is worth that, revolution has never exactly been easy. Or maybe I'm just being callous, but my point is that it's harder not to be these days. I thought this would all be so much easier before it came to the point of it.

I hope I don't become doompilled past the point of no return. I need to believe there's a better way for the world to be. I need to believe that we can improve people's lives more than we might damage them in the attempt.

I need to believe we can not re-elect the fucking Tories this year for once.

[drdemonprince]

Just chiming in to agree that that person is not a selfish bitch. I'm also really put off by moralistic performances of emotion, and I know in my case it's because it was part of a pattern of abusive behaviour that my mother did.

Anytime you expressed to her that there was a problem with her behaviour, she seemed to genuinely believe that if she put enough effort into weeping and crying on her children's shoulders, and verbally denigrating herself for being an inherently bad an immoral person, and stressing so much that she developed physical illnesses from it, then she could follow that up by asking for forgiveness - as if it would be cruel for us to continue her suffering by denying her that forgiveness. Except that to her, "forgiveness" meant "it's all swept under the rug, I have Atoned By Suffering Guilt, so now it doesn't matter and I can keep doing it again." (I really wonder how much the religious background of her parents' generation came into the formation of this worldview.) And at the same time, she refuses to read news that's "too upsetting" and never engages with literature or media about dark themes "because there's enough of that in real life."

It might be cynical of me to read this pattern into the way people talk online about genocide. But I keep seeing parallels. My perspective is that a) if you're not regulating your emotions well enough to function, then you have less capacity to offer practical help; and b) people who are actually trying to survive genocide want unnecessary human suffering to END, so you're not aligning yourself with that hope by engaging in rumination etc that compounds suffering with not practical benefit to anyone.

But also, watching my mother's behaviour has led me to add perspective c) that a lot of people (in Christian cultures?) haven't developed enough understanding of the complexity of the world and how to relate to it, and genuinely believe that an overblown emotionally affected reaction, followed by helplessness and thereby inaction, is the only possible way for them to respond when they're confronted with upsetting information that demands action from them. Being raised to think in a black-and-white "good vs evil" dichotomy, and thinking about people as "either morally good or morally bad" rather than thinking about people as neutral and behaviours as either ethically helpful or harmful... it doesn't give them a conceptual framework to integrate upsetting information and then carry on getting things done, it's like their moral anxiety gets them stuck and that keeps the emotions escalating.

I see people discussing this pattern in the context of religious trauma, and in the context of the cultural construct of "whiteness" - the discovery of something morally bad has to be followed by an extreme emotional reaction that basically amounts to protesting your own innocence and helplessness to deny responsibility for your direct behaviours (in my mother's case) or complicity in a corrupt system (in the case of overwhelmed average people learning about genocide).

Maybe I'm rambling more than I'm analysing here, but the comparison stands out a lot to me and it's troubling to watch.

yo anon no this is gold, thank you for sharing. This is remarkably astute.

I will add the quick caveat that hyperempathic people who are debilitated by their sensitivity exist, of course, and have very real struggles and none of this is intended to denigrate them. In practice, their behavior can have the impact of silencing criticism or distracting from the issue at hand but being wired that way certainly does not doom a person to behaving in a counterproductive, manipulative manner.

This critique is more about performative over the top empathy as a tactic (conscious or not) of offloading responsibility, and as a pseudo-religious ideology that makes predominately white western cultures particularly ill-equipped to deal with the consequences of their global plundering. almost certainly by design. Most moral teachings that we encounter in the west promote this tactic and ideology, and it gets very deeply ingrained in most us if we don't devote a ton of attention to uprooting it.

thanks for this great response.

[ashleywool]

Some thoughts and lessons from my first week on Broadway

(in no particular order)

Insecurities don't magically disappear when you hit The Big Dream. But the Big Dream has made it clearer than ever that my default instinct to downplay my achievements is kind of ridiculous. I need to accept that there's just no casual way to talk about my life right now. There is no pretending that any of this isn't a big deal. It's a huge freaking deal, and I earned it, and it's awesome, and I am no less deserving of its awesomeness than anybody else.

Autistic people have more allies out there than we realize. In advocacy circles, we tend to get rather cynical about what people don't understand, or don't want to understand. But there really are so many people who think we are worth listening to, learning from, and amplifying. There are so many people rooting for us, and actively seeking ways to include and affirm everything we are. They know they aren't going to get everything "right" immediately, and they know we won't always have the emotional energy for the hard conversations, but they are THERE, and they are there because they WANT to be. Yes, even on Broadway.

Fun fact: my first survival job was "Starbucks barista." (Other fun fact: the day I made my Broadway debut, Starbucks Workers United announced a massive strike for the very next day.) One thing that my time on Broadway has with my time at Starbucks is that I never seem to have enough Sharpies. At Starbucks, the Sharpies were for marking cups by hand (yes, I'm that old), and on Broadway, they're for signing Playbills at the stage door. (Like I said, there's no casual way to talk about this stuff.)

I honestly underestimated how much Broadway performers have to eat. It's easy to think most Broadway performers tend to be predominantly thin/buff just because the industry is fatphobic--and don't get me wrong, it totally is--but I also don't think most people really understand how athletic it is to do a full musical eight times a week, and what you have to do offstage to make sure you have the strength and stamina for it. It's genuinely harder than I thought it would be to make sure I'm not at a calorie deficit--and my less-than-stellar autistic interoception means that I can't always rely on "hunger cues" the way most people can. I really do have to PLAN to eat. And eat more than I would usually think I need.

I'm getting a lot better at doing my own wig prep. And I'm very excited about how pretty my hair looks at the end of the night when I release it from the pincurls.

Thanks to Mayte Natalio and Team Choreo, I'm also getting a lot better at learning choreography without a mirror. Poor proprioception is common in autistic people and it's one of my biggest insecurities, so it is always very stressful and overwhelming for me to learn choreography without a mirror, especially if I'm in a large group. It's difficult for me to visualize where I am in space and what my movement looks like in relation to others. But the choreo team knows this about me and helps me find other ways to learn and feel confident in the moves without constantly needing immediate visual proof. And that's something I never thought was possible before.

If I had the authority, I would ban pedicabs. Those things are like sensory assault. And they're RIGHT outside our show (and my bedroom window) every night with their lights flashing and their subwoofers blaring. But as a consolation prize to the drivers, I would equip each of them with a food truck. Let them solicit us and our patrons with chicken shawarma and Nuts 4 Nuts instead. That'll certainly get more business from patrons coming out of a show about autistic people.

[teddypickerry]

hii bb!! love ur stories sm

do u think u could do a angst jess mariano imagine where the reader is in a relationship with someone else and jess get really upset and jealous and ends up confessing his love to the reader x.🤍

𝐒𝐀𝐅𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐄 !

pairings! — jess mariano x fem reader

warnings! — cheating (kind of), cursing (…LMFAO), lowk jess being a fluffy bitch so watch out

a/n! — this is kinda out of character for jess imo??? BUTTTT I LOVED WRITING IT. i love this idea + jess just being a fucking lovebot. i want to kiss his face (if you can’t tell from the picture)

THE TEENAGE BOY sat on the steps of the Stars Hollow gazebo, his eyes locked on his best friend laughing with another guy across the town square. They were both drinking coffee and seemed lost in their own world, completely oblivious to Jess's presence. He'd known you'd been seeing a guy for a few weeks now. But anytime he'd ask about him, you would change the subject. Jess was doubting himself at this point. Why would his best friend lie about her very own boyfriend to him?

It was a few days later that Jess was finally blessed with his presence — Daniel was his name, a pretty boring name for the burnout that he was. He wasn't anything special to Jess. Just a tall guy with greasy hair and a shitty sense of humor. To you, he was a good time. Something that most of the Stars Hollow residents lacked.

Friday afternoon marked four weeks since Daniel first locked eyes on you, vowing to his friends that he was gonna win you over. He wrote his number on a cigarette that he offered you which was quite the distinctive ask out. Ever since the boy had entered your life the other boy in your life, your best friend (the asshole + idiot) Jess Mariano, had been a bit slaggish. It wasn't that he was rude to you outright but he seemed uninterested and... different.

You finished your afternoon of homework by replacing your jeans with a pair of comfortable shorts, awaiting a much needed night in. A knock on the door kickstarted your heart a bit, not expecting anyone until later (the takeout guy and your friend Rory, who are not the same person). When you opened the door, revealing an intense Jess. He didn't say a word as he sunk into his jean jacket in the cold weather. You stepped aside to let him in, the worried look on his face enough to suffice as an excuse to let him in. Despite his asshole attitude the past few weeks. "What's going on?" Your voice was hesitant, unsure of the possibilities of Jess's ulterior mood.

"It's... it's Daniel. I don't fucking trust him," he muttered like it was nothing making you sigh. "I can't explain why, I just... I dunno. He looks at you like a freak and I don't think he's good for you." He admitted straightforward whole fumbling with his pockets. It was a rare sight to see Jess anything less than... how do I put this lightly? A cynical, judgmental, cocky bastard. 

So this was a sight to see. He was confident in his words but an internal conflict was dragging him down revealing an inner mood. "What are you.." Your voice trailed off in pure confusion. Reminiscent on the idea that this is why Jess has been so on edge lately. "Where are you even getting this from?" A stern look took over your face.

"Listen to me, Y/N. Something's off about this guy. Everyone can see it." Jess snapped before he sighed and attempted to calm himself down. He didn't want to get angry at you, that was the last resort actually. "What if we just followed him? Just for one day? We would find something-"

"What the hell? No!" You interjected in genuine question if your best friend had gone mad. "Can you stop accusing him of being a dick? Does this get you off?"

The two had gone silent as they both swallowed your words. There was a hint of regret on your behalf even though Jess was showing signs of insanity. He stepped forward, his hand placing a gentle hold on your arm. He was desperate and it showed. "I'm telling you, something's wrong with that guy. I can't tell you why... or how, I just feel it. Believe me, please. For me?"

You contemplated his words for a moment before looking him in the eye directly. Now or never. "Is it that or something else?" You hushed, a hasty breath releasing. "What do you..." His voice was soft, which you'd never experienced from Jess. He tried to sound curious and failed miserably when he took a deep breath.

Another silence fell over the two when she tried to decipher what he was thinking. She had no idea which route to take. "Are you upset that we don't see each-other anymore? I know I've been distant lately but you can't just put the blame on Danny, Jess."

Safe route.

His hand ran down her forearm to play with her fingers unintentionally. Jess was silent which showcased his answer. You were right and he didn't want to admit how much that affected him, or how much that was apart of the problem. He also half expected you to say something else but realized how idiotic that thought was. "It's true... but only because I care about you. I don't want you to get hurt or whatever... you know?" Once again, safe route. Or as I would say... bullshit.

"Are you sure about that?" Your voice came just below a whisper hardly enough for either of you to hear. His face seemed to harden at the accusation he wanted you to believe him. "Can't you just believe the 'I miss you' lame thing?" He attempted to joke with a straight face. You didn't budge and let out a soft breath before glancing away. "What do you want me to tell you, Y/N?" Jess's voice raised into a heavier tone seemingly upset with his best friend's lack of belief.

"That you love me," you uttered even shocking yourself. Jess quite literally couldn't believe his ears. He didn't waste anytime to do the thing he couldn't stop thinking about anytime he saw you. Jess stepped forward with your faces nearly touching. "I do love you."

Now was your opportunity to not waste any time. You leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. A sudden surprise for Jess, which he obviously appreciated. The short but passionate kiss was ended with a soft breath, only for him make an attempt to take the lead. He took a deep breath and pulled you back into him. A deeper and more intense kiss coming over the both of you. You were soft and sweet in his arms that were now tangling around you. Due to dire need of oxygen (sadly) your lips were pulled apart. The elephant in the room needed to be addressed and no I'm not talking about your dad's elephant hat. "What are you gonna tell the asshole?"

"Jess," You warned teasingly being brought out of your trance. "That I'm the asshole. I shouldn't have stringed him along like this. I know we weren't exclusive or anything but... I feel really bad. Because I've been in love with my best friend for a long fucking time."

Jess had to bite down on his lip to stop himself from kissing you again. A new addiction of his has occurred and they were called your lips. This conversation was heavy on your heart, you needed his advice rather than his spit. "How do you think he'll react?"

"Well how would you react?" You scoffed before pressing your head against the wall. "He'll take it out on me, not you. I'm sure." This was the time Jess realized this situation would have consequences to be dealt with. Something he was never too fond of. He liked living life his way, not with a barrier. The thought of Daniel being pissed at you made him want to knock him out, which to be fair is something he's wanted to do for a long time. Jess pressed his lips to your cheek softly, in an attempt of comfort. A sweeter Jess was something you'd never seen. But you weren't arguing.

"I'll talk to him if you want... I promise to call him Daniel and not Dickwad." Jess teased with his nose pressed to the side of your face. You giggled before turning towards him. "That might not be the best idea since I just spent my evening confessing my love to you."

"Fair enough." Now was his turn to laugh shining his crooked grin you were so fond of. "I'll wait outside with a crowbar for him and a kiss for you." Jess's joke made you playfully roll his eyes before leaning in for a soft kiss. You wanted to take in as much as this moment as possible. It was still unbelievable. "I'm yours, I'll be there for whatever you need. Like your own personal Bosley?"

"Does that make me your angel?" You teased while he replied with his lips touching yours for the seventh millionth time that evening. But you knew you'd never get sick of this feeling. Neither of you could bare to hold back as you fell deeper into the kiss. When you finally pulled apart he was full of energy and adrenaline. He could run a marathon screaming about how he was kissing the girl he loved loudly. He wanted to know how you felt about him too. "Tell me I'm the only one for you," He whispered intensely. Jess's look was pure fire as he intensely looked into your eyes.

"I love you, Jess Mariano. Only you."

"Good. Now let's watch Detroit Rock City."

"Hey!"

[another-goblin]

2.1 Spoilers, Aventurine analysis

I regret to say that I enjoyed Aventurine's story much less than I should have. And not because it was bad, but because it was spoiled for me by people who don't tag their leaks, mostly fanartists. People call it one of the best stories in the game so far, and I usually love emotional stuff like that, but instead I was just going through the motions. 

Yeah, child Aventurine, Aventurine in shakles, whatever, I've been forcefed all this stuff a month ago, I already saw dozens of arts of it against my will, let's move on. To all these artists - I hope not adding one little "hsr leaks" to your tags was worth it.

(speaking of which - my current goal is to unhate that new cowboy guy before he actively enters the story. Currently, I can't stand the sight of him, and for exactly the same reason, untagged leaks. He seems like a potentially great character, and he's already quite popular. And hating a popular character isn't fun at all)

But not to be too negative, even though I weren't allowed to enjoy 2.1 story as much as it deserves, I still liked it quite a lot, and it's a testament to how well written Aventurine is. 

One of the worst things you can do to a character is to make them emotionally static. Aventurine doesn't suffer from this at all, it's shown very well in the different ways he talks to people, and that's what I wanted to talk about.

The first way is what I call "slimey creep." It's the way he mostly talks in 2.0 to TB and most other characters, and he's quite antogonistic and unlikeable, probably because it's his goal to seem antogonistic and unlikeable.

Second is the fear and desperation that's always under the surface, carefully hidden, what his future self talks about - we can see it when Sunday does his harmony thing on him.

And third, my favorite, is what I call "disarming sincerity." Not that he's neseccerily insincere in his other modes, but this is his dippest self, hidden under all the layers of pain, fear, and cynicism. He shows it when he talks to his younger self (btw I don't usually go there, but it made me think that he'd be great with children.)

We also see him using it for self-defense - when Ratio goes too far in 2.0, he retorts with this seemingly naive "I didn't go to school and my parents "left" me", and Ratio immediately apologizes.

But most interestingly, he uses it with Ratio, most of the time they spend together in 2.1 up until the "betrayal.". 

It might be a deliberate ploy to manipulate him, trying to seem more likeable, to assure his loyalty (Ratio's reaction to "I didn't go to school" showed that he's quite susceptible to it).

It might come from his realization that the end is near, and why not just be yourself and have some fun for a change.

Or, of course, it might be because he actually enjoys Ratio's company and feels safe enough to show this hidden vulnerable side of himself.

The truth is probably somewhere in between.

They both joke and bicker (with Ratio remembering from time to time that he's supposed to show his "hatred" of Aventurine), and they both seem to really enjoy it. They argue about birds, Aven gets excited about the sandpit, and so on.

Let's take the joke Sparkle made about Aventurine and Sunday (about undressing and kneeling down) - it's mean and maybe even cruel, considering certain things from Aventurine's past that weren't directly implied but can be assumed, probably. And let's compare it with the joke he himself makes about him and Sunday ("now that I'm tiny I can hide on Sunday's clothes and spy on the Family, hehe, uwu"). It's a joke you'd expect from a child. Or from an adult who feels comfortable enough in your presence that they aren't afraid to seem childish or silly.

So yeah I'd really like to see them interact in a less stressful situation after these events. tbh I think they'd talk in more or less the same way. Aventurine already feels as safe and open around Ratio as he can allow himself to. And Ratio is too rigid in the way he speaks, he won't change that easily. 

In defiance of a tired stereotype of an eccentric genius who is bad with people, Ratio seems quite good at understanding them. What he's bad at is expressing his feelings in a "convencional" way.

(he only sounds sincere and emotional when he talks about abstract matters he's passionate about, like his little speech to Screwllum at the end of his quest. He probably sounds like that when he talks about science too.)

But when it comes to his feelings towards people he becomes even more formal and strict (remember his messages from the valentine's day event on twitter)

I can imagine his thought process after he leaves Aventurine in 2.1.

"I verbally expressed my concern to him, which should reassure him of my loyalty and support. Furthermore, I provided him with an insightful and reassuring message in written form. So he should be fine."

btw speaking of that note, when I read it, I can imagine Ratio saying "Do stay alive" aloud. But I can't imagine how he'd say the next line, wishing him luck. I mean, he can't say it in his usual "I'm tired of idiots" way of speaking, right? Something to look forward to.

[ao3cassandraic]

Angels, demons, language, and culture: part 3

(Part 1 and Part 2 for those interested.)

"I play an ineffable game of my own devising. For everyone else, it’s like playing poker in a pitch dark room with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won’t tell you the rules and who smiles all the time." --God, Good Omens

This is just. Creepy and awful and so, so wrong for a quasi-omnipotent being. Ugh. Good Omens!God is an abject horror.

But if you're one of the poker players at that table, what do you do? You try to figure out the rules and mark the cards, naturally. Especially if leaving the table only happens via swan dives into burning sulphur, or getting kicked out of the only home you've known into a hostile desert with lions in it. While pregnant, yet.

So, I did a Bat Mitzvah back in the day, as it happens, and my Torah portion was from Deuteronomy. Which is, as I am hardly the first to notice, chockablock full of rules. Good Omens definitely leveraged (rather than inventing) the idea of trying to figure out Her rules and codify them in writing! Note, however, that the Bible per Word of Gaiman is a human thing. Codifying divine rules? Therefore also a human thing, minus I suppose the Ten Commandments -- though I can certainly envision a Good Omens in which Moses was, um, not exactly telling the truth about the source of the tablets; we only really have his word for it.

Angels and demons, who have a low opinion of literacy and just generally don't seem to be very good at it, never did this. We see that Aziraphale, Before the Beginning, has intuitively figured a few rules out: don't question Her, don't comment on (much less critique) Her decisions or designs, don't ever ever piss Her off. The Starmaker hasn't gotten this far, tragically, and our Crowley remains confused throughout the show as to what rule he can possibly have broken that earned him the identity-changing torture She inflicted on him.

Fundamentally, Crowley doesn't want to -- perhaps can't -- believe that She is capricious and cruel. He thinks there are rules, "don't test to destruction" being a major one. We know he's wrong, however. She straight-up told us so, in the quote at the top of this post! Aziraphale, too, knows, though he buries this knowledge as deep under the words "ineffable" and "Great Plan" (there is no Great Plan, She told us so, it's all a game to Her) as he possibly can -- I think as a coping mechanism -- and does his best to avoid drawing Her attention again after the Sword Incident.

But we see angelic and demonic confusion about the rules of Her game again and again. It's at the root of Aziraphale's successful Great Plan/Ineffable Plan hairsplitting at the airbase. It's why Aziraphale has to (with Muriel's help) dig through the contract for Job, and why Gabriel and Michael can't even be arsed to, even revising Job's reward on the fly. They're guessing! They're guessing about the rules based on what they've seen of Her caprices! She likes sevens!

It's how Crowley rules-lawyers the demons into letting the Whickber Street tradespeople go. If there are actual rules of Heaven-Hell engagement -- and there may not be! Crowley's pulled plausible-sounding lies out of his arse before! -- I'll bet you anything you like practically nobody in Heaven or Hell has actually read them. (My top picks for rules-of-engagement authors, if those rules actually do exist, would be Satan and the Metatron.)

And it's why Uriel has to ask the Metatron, as unsure and afraid as Uriel has ever looked in the entire series, whether the remaining archangels have done something wrong. The Metatron's response refuses to clarify what's at issue -- he, like Her, won't tell anybody the rules. If I'm feeling extremely cynical, I think She and he refuse to explain the rules because they're more powerful if there's no rulebook that rank-and-file angels can use to contest them with.

It makes me so sad. The legions of Heaven would assuredly have followed Her rules, if they only knew what those rules were! Fanart of the just-fallen Starmaker routinely breaks my susceptible heart, not least because the commonest expressions on his face are agony, sorrow -- and confusion. It's just all so damn unfair.

Same with Job, and Peter Davison sells it beautifully. Poor Job assumes he must have broken Her rules somehow, and blames himself for not even knowing how. That's totally on Her, though! If Her rules aren't clear enough for righteous Job to be able to trust his own righteousness under a horrible test, that's Her fault, not his!

The closest that Heaven and Hell -- and humanity, for that matter -- have to Her rules is prophecy. I probably don't need to spill many pixels on how vague and confusing prophecy is, how often it's counterfeited, and how pointless it is to try to live your life by (or trying to avoid) true prophecies; prophecies will invariably gotcha you. Good Omens is hardly the first work of literature to point this out. (Try the story of Oedipus. That's a good one. Yeesh. Or, if we want to be all Biblical about it, Moses again.) Agnes Nutter may well be the only genuinely well-meaning prophet in the entire history of prophets! Even so, her book is incredibly bewildering! Generations of her descendants try to figure it out, and mostly they fail -- look at the annotations we see on Anathema's index cards.

So when @thundercrackfic asks me what Aziraphale gets out of books, my first (though not only) answer is "rules for living." Not just rules for living as safely as possible around Her, though -- rules for living among humans, too. I headcanon (and posited in "Endgame") that Aziraphale has been collecting human etiquette manuals as long as humans have been writing etiquette manuals. Codified rules, like the ones in Deuteronomy, likely help him feel more secure.

I think this is also why Muriel characterizes books as portable people. Muriel is trying their sweet adorable best to figure out the Earth rules on the fly, since nobody Upstairs told them (or indeed knows, the Metatron aside) what those rules are. They do have Aziraphale to help them along -- Aziraphale is so much better than Upstairs! he doesn't condescend or insult, he just gently instructs -- but Aziraphale can't teach full-time, he has other things on his plate. So Muriel the scrivener, one of the few angels who would have a clue about literacy due to the nature of their job, gravitates to books and discovers that they too can be gentle and compassionate teachers.

The final question outstanding is how well Aziraphale understands and assimilates human books, especially fiction, especially especially non-literal figures of speech. It's an excellent and complicated question, and I don't think I have The Answer to it, but I'll see what I can do.

[insertsomthinawesome]

Hi! Do you have any TWST friendship headcanons about the dormheads? They are definetely a chaotic friend group!

Also love your art! It's so pretty!!

OH ABSOLUTELY. First of all, Thank you so much!! THat makes me so happy to hear ;;v;; ONTO SHENANIGANS: A LOT if not pretty much all of this falls into non-canon-compliant territory, and I'm only partway through Book 5 so I could either totally guess soimething or completely mess something up, but here are my braincells

Vil and Leona: I LOVE these two. I think they have some of the most fantastic worstie to bestie potential. And in a weird way??? I think Vil is the kind of person Leona needs? Like, Vil can be a little too harsh, and in my personal opinion too much of a perfectionist (Not for the character tho, just if he was a real person xD As a character trait its 10/10 good writing) but the fact that he refuses to stop seeing the potential in Leona??? Thats something that I really think Leona NEEDS. People who are like "What are you talking about? You have the possibility to be so much if you just tried." Like that last part is harsh yeah, but I think Vil really has this... he has this Rook-like ability to believe in the potential of other people in a way that isn't actually as cynical as it comes across. If he learned to work more with Leona than against him, I actually think the two of them would have such a strong power duo potential.

Leona needs to see Vil for the Roses rather than the Thorns. He needs to see more of what Vil is SAYING, where he's coming from rather than just the words themselves. I think if Leona really comprehended how much Vil believed in him, like, ACTUALLY believed in him, i think he would be genuinely moved, genuinely shook and full of wonder that somebody saw so much potential in him, as so much more than being a failure or a freak.

However I think if they actually became friends Epel might have to take a week off for mourning because he could no longer go to Leona to escape the wrath of Vil xD

Idia and Malleus: Okay so starsending started me on this one, I think they would actually really vibe. Idia is an introverted Loner, he has a hard time with high energy people who make a lot of noise. Mallues CAN be a lot, but honestly he tends to... not be. Its more like the A Lot follows him. ei when he interacts with Yuu and essentially just ends up being a nerd. The specific image i've had in my head, is i feel like Idia could play animal crossing with Malleus watching him, and the two of them could vibe for H O U R S. Malleus would make the occasional comment or go on the occasional tangent, but he seems less like he needs people to engage with him sometimes, and sometimes just like he needs people to listen. And Idia isn't actually that bad at engaging with people!! He's got internet friends (lilia lol) which means he does know something about sustaining relationships and talking to people I also think that Malleus would probably find Idia's way of talking fascinating SLDFKJSDLGJSLDJG. As long as he wasn't mocked for not understanding, he'd probably find it downright interesting to listen to Idia explain internet memes from 2010 and talk about the history of Loss. I also think that Idia could really be a safe and quiet spot for malleus when things are hard. I feel like part of Malleus's frustrations, and why we see him run away from Sebek and Silver, despite both of them being family he obviously loves, is that, with the exception of Lilia, Both of them make a BIG DEAL out of things. Silver tends to be quieter and less explosive, but they both do. Sometimes I think Malleus just wants to be alone to process, or not be pestered or questioned. I think Idia could potentially be that safe and quiet spot where he's ready to listen, but not necessarily interested in making a big deal about it. If they became better friends he might not even ask, just offer quiet empathy.

Kalim and Leona: -Spoilers for Leona's Union bday card, since it hasn't released in English yet- OH BOY.... THESE TWO. First of all!!! ANother relationship that I think could do a lot of good for Leona??? Kalim doesn't really need him for anything, but he's a well of low expectation positivity, somebody who I can see dragging Leona out to do things, or even just, once in a while so honestly state the worth he sees in Leona that it causes Leona to stutter and pause. Like, Leona's union bday card mentioning that he'd have Kalim with him on a deserted Island cause people would come ot rescue Kalim....... O U CH??????? There's a running Narrative that Kalim doesn't really see the value in himself, and this would be another person (like Azul) who would contradict that. Leona sees a more cynical version of his value, but its still value all the same. And Leona likes to gripe and groan, but he's adopted like, half the characters who are younger than him, I don't think he's immune to Kalim Al-Asim at ALL. It doesn't help that Leona is already a Tsunderely doting uncle, I can see Kalim triggering the Uncle-Instincts in him sometimes... or a lot. The loud and upbeat disposition Similar to Cheka's wouldn't help. Specifically, because I've thought about these two being friends before, I've always loved this idea of a post book 4 sequence where Kalim like, kind wanders into the greenhouse to find somewhere to cry privately, but he runs into leona napping. Leona doesn't really want to deal with Kalim, so while he's blubbering through his explanation he's just like "Fine you can chill here as long as you're quiet" Kalim accepts... but Leona has beastman hearing, so even what might be considered reasonably quiet is loud to him, and he eventually caves and asks whats up. Just to get Kalim to shut up eventually. I think maybe I had a conclusion or an idea for what advice leona would give kalim, but I don't remember it at the moment, but yeah just. Them :) I think their dynamic could be really interesting.

Malleus and Leona: So ya'll who saw my whumptobers already know I have some bad braincells for these two clowns. I think they are jealous of each other, because they think the other has what they want, they think that they see the other squandering the gifts they've been given, being fools and idiots who don't appreciate what they have. Leona craves being accepted, having the crown, having the power to fix what he sees that is wrong, to actually have and impact in people's lives, to matter and to fit in. Malleus craves normality, he craves to be one of the masses, just another man among many, he doesn't wish for power, and he cares little for the catastrophic effect he can have on other people, he just wants to be invited. He just wants to be included. Leona sees Malleus as having the power to do what matters. Malleus sees Leona as having the gift of Normality and camaraderie. Ultimately they're both miserable where they're at (though not entirely. Leona loves his squad, Malleus loves his family, both of them have things they'd never dare give up.) and they think if they just had what the other had, they would achieve the things they deserve and desire. I think both of them would have to sort through a LOT of emotions if it ever clicked for them just how similar they are. They're of course seeing each other through rose colored glasses. Leona is not an everyman, he's feared by his own family, Malleus is not all powerful, he cannot stop the tick of death. Leona is persecuted for being "less than" his brother, Malleus is held so far above everybody else he can't be reached. This would take some time for both of them to process, but I think once they did there would be a chance for them to become good allies, and potentially even really good friends. THose are my main braincells!! I honestly think that making any of the dorm leaders interact is fantastic food for thought and relationship building. I would love to think over what it'd be like to grow a friendship between Azul and Riddle, or Vil and Malleus. Leona and Azul would be INCREDIBLE and fascinating!!! Like man, there's so much to work with in TWST. I realized this might be a little to the left of your question ^^;; Haha, If you were asking about more like, I guess lighearted headcanons, I'm not sure I have any yet!! But I'm sure with time I totally could :) Writing or playing with TWST characters intimidated me for a bit there, since the quality of the writing of the game was SO GOOD I felt there was no way I could do it justice. Now I feel a lot less intimidated, so i feel like I'm more likely to dig my hands into shenanigans and thoughts.

[neolxzr]

imo there’s a difference between “queer coding” and very specifically playing to both sides whether or not the writers/artists/directors intended to make a character queer or not. I think that for enstars specifically, with the new valkyrie event, while people are happy that some characters such as shu and mika in the new event are being shown expressing their love for each other and their views on their sexuality and expression, people are frustrated that it is not explicitly said because of the company’s need to not confirm a character as queer in order to not alienate (homophobic!) fans. Because at the end of the day in happyele’s eyes, if that homophobic fan spends a lot of money on the game then they’re worth pandering to (shrug emoji) And I mean some people also just don’t like shumika

anon i understand where you're coming from but i think you are wildly missing the point in my original post

my point is EXACTLY that if you need the characters to walk up to the screen and say "i'm gay" or "i'm [insert some 21st century-friendly label]" or "this is my boyfriend" for it to count as queer media in your eyes than i think you need to do some reexamining about what exactly your views on queer media as a whole are

plus, they DO do this. they explicitly talk about queer themes out loud many many times in enstars. shu says to mika that they should, together, create the happiness that his grandfather was never allowed to have, after they spent the entire story detailing shu's grandfather's queer romance story. they probably kissed in hermitage, and the lyrics to acanthe talk about them kissing. rinne proposes to niki in every other story they appear in together. he told him to do a striptease during nightclub. tori has very explicitly gay feelings for eichi. arashi narukami exists. eichi, while talking to arashi in pretty mission, says "people like us," confirming himself to also be some form of queer. kuro calls keito an old word for spouse or husband. and SO many more examples. this is not "queer coding" or subtext, its just text.

in any case, authorial intent is generally of no interest when it comes to examining media. the conversation of what the author could have meant by something is wildly less interesting than the conversation about the ways in which the audience can interpret it. what the writers intended should have little to no place in the discussion. what we should be talking about is what the thing itself is saying, both implicitly and explicitly.

expanding your view on what exactly can be seen as "queer media" can only do you good. and it would do so much good to not give a shit about the possibility that homophobic people will also like the thing and interpret it as not queer. that is literally not my problem whatsoever, and it shouldn't be yours either.

what it seems like to me is that no matter what pieces of queer media will always be criticized in some capacity. if they're not explicitly queer enough, they're just bait and have no merit. if they are explicit, then they're promoting stereotypes, or its rainbow capitalism, or it's fetishization. there is no winning. the standards for queer media are absolutely absurd, but they don't HAVE to be. you don't have to look at a piece of media through this kind of silly cynical lens if you don't want to.

the discussion about a work loses so much interesting and important nuance when you try to shove it into a box of "good representation" or "bad evil queerbait." thats just really really boring way to view stories

[diagonal-queen]

Nikolai and Fyodor with s/o who is opposite of their personalities 👉👈

ooooooooo cute cute cute!!!! awh

An S/O who has their opposite personality

♡ pairing: Mykola Hohol, Fyodor Dostoyevsky x gn!Reader

♡ synopsis: How are these guys with a partner who has a personality that contrasts theirs?

♡ cw: Fyodor is kinda toxic (I love him as much as you do!! But be real here, it's Fyodor)

note: While writing this, it turned somewhat into a yandere thing so I had to backtrack a little lol, I might write some yandere hcs sometime though. Apologies for errors and I hope you enjoy x

Mykola:

~ Reader is shy, soft-spoken, genuine and feels as if they're lacking direction.

Mykola can't seem to stay away from you. He just wants to spend every moment by your side- for your sake of course!

He loooooves to mess with people with more chill than him (you and Sigma are probably good friends in this scenario)

Because you don't really like to draw too much attention to yourself, he just does it for you! (you can protest all you like- he won't let up)

He did the whole 'don't heed the words of a clown' routine with you, but you continued to ask him questions about philosophy and life and stuff, his interest in you will continue to grow. His curiosity prompted him to continue seeing you and voila! Couple moment

He will be the 'they asked for no pickles' boyfriend for SURE, partially to help you but also maybe to annoy you a bit too lol

He's always doing his best to make you feel good about yourself and trying to help you become more assertive. Is it working? Not really- he's kind of a really really bad example, but we love him nonetheless

You've probably legitimately had to bail him out of trouble several times in the past (in this relationship you're the sensible one)

If you snitch to Fyodor he might help you discipline Mykola just a bit. But I mean Fyodor's kind of an enabler, so you're mostly on your own for that

Fyodor:

~ Reader is maternal, gentle, naive and very trusting.

Fyodor doesn't usually tend to like people like you, or so he thinks (he's madly in love with you- get GOT Dostoy!!)

He takes it on himself to be your protector- as cynical about humans as he is, he's concocted this idea that if he's not there to keep you safe, you'll get hurt.

In a way he kinda starts to see you as the epitome of innocence in humankind. You're so sweet and wouldn't hurt a fly, and that fact really begins to grow on him

Fyodor will also be the 'they asked for no pickles' boyfriend because you're too nice to say anything, but he doesn't accept anything less than the best for you

He'd never admit this but he really loves that you take care of him and makes sure he's eating and sleeping enough. He thinks it's really cute and appreciates it a lot

Wouldn't tell you about his work at all. At least about the terrorism part of it anyway lmao

Because of your naivety he would probably take the chance to be rather controlling and manipulative. He'd have a hand in where you go, what you do and who you're friends with, all without you realising it. He really is just that cautious

If anyone dares to be rude to you or hurt you, even you might not be able to convince him to not commit murder.

sorry to everyone whose reqs i haven't completed yet </3 i love you and i'm thinking of you i promise. thanks @arsonistclown for this req!!

[hermit-searching]

TMNTposting Raphael edition (Part 2):

Part one can be found here. I really wanted to talk about my favourite little guy but I didn't feel like I had enough space to get all my thoughts down in the last post. So technically the entirety of part 2 is dedicated to 87 Raphael.

When asked who my favourite version of Raphael is, my answer is always a tie between 03 and 87 Raphael. I'm probably biased because they're the versions of Raph I grew up with, well 90s movies Raph is also in there but I really don't remember enough about the movies besides the Ninja Rap scene and I haven't rewatched it yet. The point being, 03 Raph tickles that itch for "more traditional Raphael" while 87 Raphael...I kinda just vibe with the little guy.

At face value he seems about as much of a traditional 'hot head' Raphael as Rise. Neither of them really fit into the "explosive temper" territory as 03, 12, 07 or the original Mirage comic Raph. He's a silly little dude. He likes playing dress-up, stand up comedy, and acting. Of all the versions of Raphael, he's definitely the most 'kid-like'. He's childish, he'll heckle his buddies for laughs, he even tells Shredder to go suck a lemon in the first episode. He's hilarious! But that type of comedy usually ends up getting him, and the other 87 turtles lets be real, into crossovers that horribly mischaracterize the poor kid.

As much as I loved TMNT 03, Turtles Forever is such a disservice to what TMNT 87 was, and who the 87 turtles are. 2012's second crossover with 87 also follows the TMNT 87 hate train, and it's so frustrating as a fan of most TMNT media. I get that the OG cartoon was super silly and tame compared to the others at face value, but every time someone says this I need to remind them it's 1) a cartoon from the 80s, and 2) lowkey really dark the more you think about it.

Such as:

-every time slavery is brought up and a plot for some other planet

-the entirety of the Red Sky seasons

-the humans of TMNT 87 always threatening to eat and or shoot the turtles because they're mutants

-the whole mutant hate sentiment being an allegory for the civil rights movement

But this is a post about Raphael. He's definitely still a funny little dude. But a lot of his humor stems from sarcasm and his cynicism towards the world. Raphael, is well aware humans are not fans of him or his compadres, and often sides with Donatello whenever he and Leonardo get into arguments about helping the humans. Their human friendship circle pretty much just ends with April and that's a dubious friendship at best since they're more or less a bridge towards her next scoop. None of them are really fans of Irma, Casey rarely appears, and the other human characters in the show are usually trying to turn them into kebabs until Dirk Savage the Mutant Hunter which already kind of says enough for itself.

This poor kid is honestly the bravest little dude. More often than not he'd rather run from a fight, or push Michelangelo into one for him. He's scared a lot, really giving off those youngest sibling vibes that are rare for Raphael. He's such a little scaredy cat that he his voice will sometimes sound like a squeaky toy. If Turtles Forever was correct about anything, it would be that Raphael would absolutely burst into tears meeting his Mirage counterpart.

But despite this all, Raphael is still probably the bravest version of Raphael they've ever created. Even though he'd rather scram, and read comics or watch TV. Despite knowing humans have it out for him, and will never accept him into their society. Even though he knows every time he saves them it will be a thankless job, Raphael will fight until his last breath. Like every other Raphael, he will protect the people and city he loves because that's who he is!

One of my favourite episodes in TMNT history has to be Raphael vs the Volcano because it really shows who 87 Raphael is as a person. There have already been a few posts about it recently who have all been far more coherant than I ever will be but let's do it anyways.

Raphael vs the Volcano:

-Donatello's latest invention, a health machine, malfunctions leading Raphael to believe he's unhealthy

-after panicking in the sewers a little bit, he goes back to the lair, only to overhear Michelangelo and Donatello lamenting over the loss of their dear friend.

-assuming they're talking about him, and that he only has a day to live, Raphael runs off, deciding that despite the fact the world sucks he's going to use his last day to make the world a better place

-he does a bunch of good deeds, increasing in danger, wearing a musketeer costume while the other turtles and April try to catch him

-some botanist is mad that a rich lady is taking credit for his discovery so he decides to eliminate all organic life on earth...not really important for Raphael's character except the fact he catches wind of this and takes this as his last deed before croaking.

-Raphael literally jumps into a live volcano to get the canister of anti-life juice, only escaping seconds before it erupts because the turtles arrive in time.

-the lesson of the day? don't jump into live volcanoes.

There's so much to unpack about this episode, but it'd mostly be reiterating the same things I said earlier about him. With a time limit on his life Raphael, despite the way he's been treated by the world will let go of his cynicism and crankiness to help people if it benefits everyone else. The kid shakes the moment he realizes it's been a huge misunderstanding and he's perfectly fine. Throughout the episode he's even saying things like "yeah too bad this is gonna be my last day". Like...he is CONVINCED he isn't making it to adulthood. If you think about it, it's basically what the other Raphs are as well, without the super explosive tempers. They're all just good-natured kids who have circumstances weighted against them, but they'll do whatever they can for the safety of their friends and family.

Please PLEASE give the 87 TMNT cartoon a chance if you've never seen it before. I promise it's actually good, and it has some extremely funny episodes.

[amerricanartwork]

Y’know, I have a funny story with the ship between Innocence and Pebbles.

@eggobuggo , my sister, was playing The Sims and made the iterators in her own humanised forms, including her version of Innocence and Wind, along with Moon, Pebbles, NSH and Suns, all with their own personalities and stuff. She set up a generic apartment, put the gang in, and just had fun making them do silly shenanigans together, while I sit and watched her play.

In particular, we headcanon NSH, Pebbles and Innocence as Gen 3s, the newer modes, and so she made them into teenagers, which, with a DLC, have a whole new host of features that are not in the base game. This includes getting crushes (which weirdly enough, young adults and adults cannot get).

But anyway, one day, later into the game (the gang basically all were in the high end of the friendship scale with each other), the notif board popped up that Innocence had gotten a crush on Pebbles. Unfortunately for her, NSH and Pebs were already being all flirty with each other (Ragequit is where it’s at for us), making Pebble basically keep her in the friendzone. Ngl, my heart went out to her :,) Especially so, because they were all sharing a room. (space was tight)

After that, I began thinking about it in context of it in-universe, and ngl, I came to quite liking it as a ship, especially since I see Innocence to be less… asshole-ish (?), I guess, than what the general fandom makes her out to be (I mean it’s understandable, we only see her to leak the pic of Pebbles condition and that’s it.). To me and Eggo, she’s much nicer unless you really piss her off, which then, her more cynical and gossipy side of her comes out. She was actually more of on the friends side with Pebble before the shit went down.

At the time, I thought “dang, it’s a shame I won’t be seeing anything of it since she’s so obscure.”. This was a couple months before I began seeing art of them on the main tag.

Soooo… I guess I’m somewhat of an og Milkshake (as is the fandom name) shipper???

Just, seeing you and others make art about them is almost surreal in a way, since the only reason I really considered them as a ship was cuz of a random event in a life sim game lol.

Also @eggobuggo, I hope you don’t mind me sharing the story. :)

Wow, that seems like quite the story! And I do agree, after witnessing something like that in a totally different game it must be pretty surreal to see the ship gaining popularity in the actual RW fandom now too! It's nice to get another seal of approval from an original Milkshake shipper!

For me, it's also a bit strange because it's something I've considered for a really long time as a lingering "oh, wouldn't it be cool if I could make this work?" idea. The obscurity and lack of content for UI to draw inspiration from, both canon and fanon, definitely added to these feelings and the difficulty of imagining a working portrayal of the ship, hence I've only recently felt confident enough about the relationship and UI as a character to act on it. So after Pura coined the ship name and made a lot more art of it, then other artists started expressing approval and even drawing it themselves, it almost feels like I'm watching the ship enter the mainstream (Tumblr) fandom consciousness in real time, which is honestly pretty cool, especially since it feels like I had a hand in it with that initial ask! And even if I wasn't the very first to consider it, I'll definitely continue supporting this ship!

For some other thoughts though, I totally agree on Innocence not being mean in reality, though for me she's not mean or gossipy at all and more so has a kind-of opposite major flaw that tends to cause bad things unintentionally. As much as I can understand interpreting the character as a genuinely mean person, I thought it'd be interesting to imagine that her leaking the rot simply caused others to perceive her as mean, not that she's that way in reality. After all, I don't think we ever see direct dialogue from Innocence in canon, and the only evidence I can find of her being mean is Wind's speculation on her motivations. I also took inspiration from @shkika's Innocence, but I just wanted to see if I could take those ideas further to create my own unique interpretation.

Also, it's actually pretty coincidental you're telling me this too, because in regards to what I've come up for my Milkshake portrayal, Innocence having an unrequited crush on Pebbles for a really long time is actually really important for both plot and character arc reasons! I've been developing my own take on the classic worm-off-the-string iterator AU idea with @hail-strom for like the past week or so and the ship as of now plays a decent role in that, but the unrequited crush acts as subtle, yet major context for Innocence's actions throughout, which in turn slowly influence Pebbles especially as he starts to reciprocate those feelings (much to his alarm)!

Anyway, thanks for sharing that with me, and thanks for giving me a chance to ramble about this ship more! I'm honestly so happy to see it growing, and all support counts!

[max1461]

"All abstract justifications for policy are just word games, man, they're just rhetoric. You can justify any policy on the grounds of anything. Everyone is just out to advance their own agenda and their actual arguments are just tools to that effect."

The above sentiment is often expressed by people who seem to view themselves as in some sense "realists" about politics, cutting through the ideological bluster and getting to the heart of what's really going on. I've seen it expressed mostly by liberals and center-rightists, although it shows up all over the political spectrum. I also think it's basically incoherent.

Yes, some arguments that people put forth for their positions are pure rhetoric, they lack meaningful content and are just tools in advancing an agenda. But ask yourself this: why do people have the agendas that they have? Surely because their agenda appeals to them for certain reasons; that is to say, they have bought some argument that their agenda is "good", for whatever their own definition of "good" is (which of course may be pure self interest, or may include other things). Presumably if you refuted this argument, convinced them that their agenda was not good by their own standards, they would be inclined to change course! I mean maybe not always, humans are not always rational, but at least a fair proportion of the time.

So it ends up looking like this supposedly cynical and no-bullshit take on the way politics functions is actually circular nonsense. It takes as its assumption the very conclusion it's trying to present: that all political actors have a fixed and in some sense atomic "agenda" that cannot be rationally understood, and that all pretense of rational debate is a smokescreen.

Some rational debate is just a smokescreen. Some is real and serious. Moreover people do things for reasons; they hold values and often work towards the realization of those values. This is often a process that can be understood in more granularity than just "they have an agenda and will say anything that drives it forward".

There's a similar sort of take you often see from the left, but it's in some sense less cynical and more full-blooded: "our understanding of the world is meaningful and true, our arguments are correct, but so-called 'rational debate' is merely a vector for sophistry leading to support of our opponents; thus it is bad." I think this view is wrong, I think rational debate is immensely productive, but at least it takes itself seriously, ya know? "I'm right, and I'm not even gonna listen to you cause I already know I'm right" is silly, but it's bold in a way I kind of respect. "Nobody is right or wrong, don't you see, it's all just narratives, it's all just word games... but anyway I'm still going to behave on the object level like a bunch of highly specific beliefs I have are true" is weasely.

It's very similar to the stuff I hear from cultural studies and adjacent fields, what people often disparage as "postmodernism", that frustrates me so much.