#Ultimately nobody is responsible for caring about me but my self

[yourbleedingh3art]

Emailed my former philosophy/logician professor and was like I’m working on a personal project I want urbacademicninput LITERALLY sent that email in a half delusional state where I thought I was doing gods work But I’m like ok what I’m doing is important but I’m like what if my “project” is just Mania induced scribbles and I’m bout to show up tmrw like So here’s my theorem on the innate goodness of humanity ISNT it awesome and he’s gonna look at me like oh Please seek mental help . Like I feel liek im either absolutelt fucking off my rocker or I’m on to something but now I don’t know anymore cuz I let that self doubt creep in and now my feelings are unclear even to myself.. either way I am just gonna stick to the plan my crazy self had when I sent that email and I might just level w my teacher like. Honestly im in a ptsd related spiral right now and it’s hard for me to tell if my actions are logical whatsoever but also im scared because if you don’t know what you are and you admit that to somebody they’re gonna tell u what u are. I just don’t like how people hear “mental health issues” and run with it and this type of attitude leads me to tjink professionalism equals Lying about the truth of the emotional state ur experiencing . Belief leads to me pushing a lot of stuff down and when I begin to doubt myself all those feelings I’ve pushed down start to bubble up too. That made me scared as well , I’ll be too emotional to properly explain myself when he has questions for me, even though some ambitious part of me believes in the work I’m doing , believes in it enough to answer any questions about it, to author that answer with confidence and belief in myself. I just don’t want him to be like you’re absolutely crazy I can’t possibly help you prove your theorem on a philosophical or logical level you have shown me the ramblings of a psychotic hermit please leave. I guess that would be the worst case scenario. Or if he somehow gets me to admit I have homicidal thoughts snd then theh send for the stretchers and the loony bin

[beescake]

PLEASE PLEASE MEGADUMP THE ARASOL!!! PLEAAASEE MR BEESCAKE I AM ON MY KNEES BEGGING YOU

HFHGHD GLADLY aaa i’ve been adding notes to it here and there for months but just hesitant to post it bcs im 🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂

also this is just my own takeaway of the events, it doesn’t necessarily comply to the Ultimate Truth of Canon-Alignment or represent the actual facts of what hussie intended! v sentimental smh but hopefully its still interesting to read

i love when characters inform each other by proximity, it's one of my fave things to see in media :') it feels even more significant when two characters deliberately choose to stick together, so that when one operates, you can tell the other is similarly aligned in associative solidarity.

sollux is a keystone of this trope — whoever he aligns with is a wordless statement, a nod of approval. this stood out to me bcs the main four humans were alr friends by default, but once you reach hivebent you realize the trolls can actively choose who they want to hang out with.

and as we all know, after assessing every troll's biases/loyalties, sollux is the only one who maintains his selective preference for innately Good 👍 people.

aradia is such a beautiful character honestly, she evokes such incredible feelings in me. she might not have been consistently written with care but the best parts of her character are truly stunning. i think it's easy to remember sollux as the self-sacrificing one bc he's so open about it (and his friends frequently react to his Moments) but when you compare him to aradia, it's always struck me

how much more. raw it is

to be so alone as an agent of time, having to orchestrate immeasurably harrowing events nobody understands or gives a fuck about

with your role painted in the story as one who must tend to the needs of the narrative, responsible to match every next note

because when you're given the capabilities, it becomes your duty to carry it out.

it becomes expected of you to keep experimenting and arranging the machinations to work for everyone, dusting off hundreds of necessary failures to keep going

and having to be so unwavering in your drive knowing miserably that there's no one who can help you but yourself.

or alternatively: to make things fun! so other people won't think twice about letting you go off on your own.

sure she's had some very good buds, notably thanks to Team Charge v Team Scourge antics.

and yet, at the end of the day, the one friend that kept choosing her time and time again was the friend with the highest standards.

i can see why people like to define arasol as moirails/matesprits but surprisingly i find the nondescript, unlabeled aspect of their relationship more straightforward to understand.

there's no shortage of people who would accommodate sollux. most of the surviving trolls are his oldest friends bcs he’d chosen them well. his transparency with his feelings had built him strong friendships that won’t falter or break, regardless of how much of a dick he can be. they’ve already seen and accepted him at his worst, and they still like him for who he is.

contrast that with aradia, who'd been so approachable, friendly and reliable in her exchanges it was super fun to talk to her. but the moment she became depressed, all her connections broke down.

her friends became hesitant to interact with her (until she became god tier, “happy” and amicable again) because her gloom and resignation didn’t serve them. she dealt with it alone.

there’s def something of note here abt the disparity between the way male & female characters are written+perceived in homestuck (esp parallel arasol with davejade) but i won’t go into that lmaoo

with this in mind i like to think of sollux as a gift to her, a loyal companion given to complement and commend her resolve. she's capable of doing so much alone but hussie took the time to build her and sollux's relationship as one of a unit; a set.

the ambiguity of their status does complicate things, but i do believe it makes sense with their characters. aradia's relationship with romance is a rocky one, the dubious stringalong equius had with her is a pointed reminder that her feelings of attraction are ultimately controlled by the author writing her.

unlike the other trolls who can openly address and own up to their crushes, aradia had romantic emotions forced upon her (especially when hussie implies 'she kissed equius back on her own volition'). and it seems like her character is so intrinsically neutral abt attraction that even when forced by the almighty powers above, she's unable to retain it wholly.

however, looking back to pre-game when she could actually "choose" her own feelings, she did have a crush on sollux.

their soft spots for each other were so obvious to the point where other people could see it.

taunting aside, when vriska comments on their unit as bf/gf it actually informs the audience that arasol's relationship is romantic in nature despite not aligning with the quadrant system.

even while dead, aradia could still describe her care for sollux, expressing that she would like to see him happy. if they had more time to explore their relationship on alternia, it's possible they could've settled in a quadrant once they grew older.

but going back to the lack of labels, their dynamic was affected once more when aradia became god tier.

to me, her ascension was both the perfect culmination and possible closure of her character. it's the light at the end of her journey toiling through countless of timelines where she had to actively assess and participate. that's why it's cool to see her being silly and having fun giving guidance, passively exploring and watching other people do their parts.

and yet the joy of her freedom makes it hard to explore further introspection. if we take her by her word, she'd already come to terms with the hurt she's been through and forgiven those involved.

i can't help feeling attuned to how impersonal and detached it can be, to devote and meld your identity so completely with your designated position as Maid of Time until you've become hard for your old friends (and even some readers!) to personally connect to.

idk post-canon but i assume there’s some degree of similarity to be bridged here with aradia's god tier and how the hs2 humans' Ultimate forms was described as a consolidation of all their possibilities. since aradia's classpect is inherently of service to Time, going god-tier may have elevated her beyond personhood with the "game construct" possessing her entirely. sollux doesn't realize the extent of it bcs he's still mortal, but a part of him may have subconsciously understood this.

i think there is a core aspect to aradia that was lost to the dehumanizing glory of god tier — a core aspect that may have contained an element of why sollux enjoyed talking to her in the first place.

to him, aradia hadn't just been a nice girl, she was a cool girl. despite not having much in common, he's still willing to chill next to her so she's not alone while she does what needs to get done.

back on alternia, they held a mutual and equal-level regard for each other that could've definitely settled into something permanent. but now, he's placed himself in a position where he can be kept around or left behind at will. the parameters of the relationship are largely in aradia's court, so any label she suggests to identify their relationship with he's likely to accept.

but that's why it's so difficult to label it. because god tier aradia may not necessarily Want quadrants or relationship labels. rather than the initial romantic attachment, their commitment to each other had evolved into one fundamentally of companionship.

no label? ok fine. no matter what, he still thinks she's a good soul worth latching on to. the best, actually. aradia > everyone else.

even if it gets stilted at times. there's an unexpected struggle to connect when sollux's go-to default for talking points is his feelings about things, and aradia may not want to talk about emotions all the time.

not to mention god tier aradia became an observer, especially of chaos. but sollux's avoidance of involvement comes partially from his innate pressure to get involved if something goes wrong. and he can't always tell when something goes wrong, because aradia doesn't mind if things go wrong anymore.

it's a non-negotiable preference that causes them to take the occasional time apart, a new boundary that wouldn't have existed before the game and aradia's god tier.

but just like how his friends tolerated his moods, sollux accepts aradia as she is. with no quadrants, their connection doesn't break down because there's no implicit romantic expectations to be disappointed by or resentful over.

sometimes when i see hs content that deliberately distances sollux from aradia, i assume this is the dissonance people might have felt. people might find it "easier" to be cynical about them bcs of this strange tension.

but idc lmao. grab that shit by the neck

lack of easy resolutions and cleanly tied ribbons is pretty standard of homestuck and imo it doesn't make arasol's dynamic any less incredible. with the right affection and consideration, there's still so much potential to develop the nuance of their relationship outside of the popular quadrant-based depictions.

hs has a lot of really great character compatibilities but the way aradia and sollux are in their own special orbit is why i can write this much about them in the first place. it's that frail innocence between first loves that makes it so sweet to me, two kids who grew up too fast playing guesswork without being clear where they're going.

ultimately i do think you're meant to feel a little tragedy for just how much they care for each other, even if they can't quite establish it in simple terms.

maybe they keep taking breaks to progress their own paths. maybe they remain as anchor partners while seeing other people. but even if you decide to separate them, they're still (awkwardly) texting each other updates all the while. and when they reunite it feels like coming home.

and well. more than anything, i like to believe that they do want to be exclusive.

they're just afraid. after all, they're still learning how to love, beyond the projections of the foursquare quadrant system they had inadvertently distanced themselves from since young.

they might not have everything figured out, but they'll get there eventually if you just hold them together and write them there.

optional post-canon segment:

one of the limitations of main hs is that (monogamous) relationships are often written as the go-to solution to wrap up character growth; it's an easy "patch" to imagine characters getting their happy ending because they have a partner, and those who don't end up with someone don't get that closure (most notably jade).

hs2 reaffirms this by suggesting that aradia's character cannot progress without letting sollux go, because happily settling in a relationship automatically locks your potential.

that pathetic panel of sollux staring emptily into the sky is still my fave hs2 spoiler ngl i find the impact of their parting so emotionally provoking precisely bcs they were written in original hs to be each other's forever, coming back together again and again

but now, they're subject to the decisions of the post-canon authors who might choose to deviate from that.

it's not new for them to part, but now there's an underlying worry that her dropping him off this time might be the last time. while i think the prospect of shattering their stability to make them grow separately sounds fun on paper, no amount of me desperately hoping for a good execution is gonna guarantee it

idk. i guess prediction-wise im expecting sollux in classic dramatic-hs2 fashion to tell dave to back off aradia LMAO. otherwise it's just gon be sollux and karkat pathetically watching aradia and dave from a distance swimming in their unresolved feelings for narratively-powerful time players smh obvs it sounds corny as hell but who knows its still plausible

srsly tho i hope they take the opportunity to develop arasol's relationship in a fresh direction that doesn't hurt me too badly...... and i hope they force sollux out of his comfort zone. i like watching him struggle :-)

[i-can-kazoo]

Considering Max Jägerman vs Grace Chasity, specifically Nerdy Prudes Must Die vs Dirty Dudes Must Die, and I realized why Grace's "who will pray for you" was so much more sinister (to me) than Max's "who will pray for me."

When Max sings it is ultimately a moment of vulnerability; he is projecting his own insecurity onto Richie and asking who cares about him now that he's dead. This is a pretty easy, surface-level take to have, and I've seen it plenty of times in various places throughout the fandom. The part that I chapped at, though, was that in asking who would pray for Richie, he was reinforcing his own position as self-styled god of Hatchetfield High. Nobody is coming to help Richie, to pray that Jägerman the god turns aside his wrath.

Chasity never does this, though. She views herself as above everyone else, yes, but specifically because of her devotion to another, higher being. She says as much in Dirty Dudes, framing her actions as a "holy mission" and therefore justifiable. When she asks, "who will pray for you?" She isn't pointing out that nobody will come to help Jason; as a matter of fact, he's fairly well-liked! People would definitely come to help him! Grace is insinuating that she, and she alone, is capable of praying for the salvation of others. And clearly, she isn't willing to pray for anyone here. Dirty dudes must die, after all. That's what makes her scarier, to me. In the end, Max is admitting that he has power over others, and therefore could stop if he needs to (or is sufficiently worshipped). Grace rejoices in lack of choice, framing her actions as an act of God that cannot be stopped.

As an addendum: I only thought of this as I was posting this, but that bit at the end of Dirty Dudes? Where the chorus sings that "darkness will spare my soul"? That's the nail in the coffin. Grace is letting you know that no matter what darkness she wades through, her soul is safe. It's the ultimate deflection of responsibility. Where Max knew that he was a bully, Grace is too far gone; she thinks that she's doing the right thing. It's terrifying.

[only-by-the-stars]

Fic Promo: Song of a Champion

Now that @spacelemon has put up that amazing promo vid of the Mipha's Grace mod, it feels like a good time to do a little self-promo of my own, for something that I promise is related (otherwise I wouldn't be mentioning the vid; I am doing so in hopes of helping to get more eyeballs on it): a fic I've been writing since 2022, that is both inspired by and based on the mod. I've been lucky enough to have been allowed to play early versions of it, and was inspired to write a fic that retells BOTW with Mipha as the lead, taking cues from many plot points and armor redesigns present in the mod. If that's not enough to entice you, then please read on for my list of things that you might enjoy about this fic!

It's about Mipha Judging by the results of my poll, a lot of you like reading about Mipha! I've written a LOT about her over the past few years, but this is my most in-depth exploration of her yet. It's entirely centered on her, delving deep into her thoughts and feelings and exploring the myriad aspects of her personality as we follow her journey. Instead of Link waking up on the Great Plateau without his memories and being handed the responsibility of saving Hyrule, it's Mipha who must walk this path; unlike in the base game, she's not a fridged love interest for Link to be sad about, she's an active heroine in her own right with a monumental task ahead of her from the moment she wakes up, not to mention a lot of questions. How did she get there? Can she do this? What--and who--has she forgotten in her century-long slumber? How will she find her way in this strange new world she awakens to? What kind of bonds will she forge with the people she meets along her way? All these and more are tackled in great depth as she goes on her adventure, setting out with, initially, little more than her own courage, determination, and compassion. I've been told by many people that I write their favorite Mipha, and though this isn't my first time giving her a starring role, I fully believe this is my best character work for her so far. I've given her so much to do and act on and react to, exploring her rich inner life and personality and character FAR beyond just shipping stuff, and developed a lot of really fun friendships for her and gone heavy on her familial relationships as well. There is miphlink, but it's only one aspect, and Mipha herself is the shining star at the heart of everything.

2. It takes inspiration from Wind Waker Mainly, the concept of a character who is not the chosen one stepping up and proving themselves worthy and going on to save Hyrule. If you, like me, enjoyed that aspect of Wind Waker, then you'll like this story!

3. It plays with the lore in fun ways Do you like the older bits of lore from pre-Skyward Sword games? Like the Golden Goddesses and other deities? Then you'll like the bits of it I've weaved in!

4. It treats the NPCs with care, love, and nuance One of the things I'm proudest of about this story, that I've gotten praise from others for, is how the various NPCs are written. I've treated them all like people in their own right, who all have their own rich inner lives, schedules, interests, priorities, and feelings that don't revolve around the protagonist. Mipha befriends most of them, yes, but that's because she treats them with compassion and kindness too. Nobody is shallow here, I've gone to great pains to illustrate a world filled with people all living their own lives that intersect with Mipha's journey in various ways, and allowed people to just be human and make mistakes and have doubts but ultimately just be people. There's a lot of emphasis on Mipha's relationships with her family, and I've certainly won praise for my depiction of these dynamics, but also a ton of friendships being formed and explored, and people have told me that I made certain characters interesting and likable to them where the game failed to do so.

5. It has awesome fight scenes BOTW is a game with a lot of combat, so anyone novelizing it better be good at writing that kind of scene. Fortunately, I am! This is an action-packed story, not just for its own sake, but to show the dangerous world Mipha is traveling through and the challenges she has to face as she ventures into each Divine Beast and cleanses them of their respective Blights. I write really fast-paced action that also shows the characters' mindsets while fighting, and strikes a balance between showing off their strengths and that they're up to the challenge, while also respecting their opponents and demonstrating why the Champions of a hundred years ago fell to these things, why NPCs fear certain monsters. And speaking of respecting opponents, I've taken stuff from Age of Calamity as well as some of my own inventions, to beef up the boss fights, a certain area, and make every Divine Beast threatening (we all know how scary Medoh wasn't in-game).

6. It has beautiful prose/descriptions But you don't have to just take my word for it! Here's a sample from the rough draft of chapter 42!

Shards of light drifted across her floor, leaves caught in the current of clouds flowing over the moon. Mipha took a moment to watch them before closing the door behind herself. The water in her sleeping pool murmured a melody of rest and relaxation after a long day, calling her to it, but she ignored it for now. She’d done all her preparations for tomorrow, downed a warm elixir crafted from a few hearty lizards, and now only one thing remained to do before going to bed. It wasn’t a need, as the other tasks had been, but a want. Nothing wrong with that. She crossed the room to the old chest that lay tucked beneath her window, opening the lid with a whining creak from the aged hinges. A folded length of fabric the color of spilt starlight lay atop the item she sought; Mipha moved it aside. Her breath catching, she withdrew the armor beneath and held it up to the softly swaying illumination of the moon outside and the luminous stone lamps within.

All in all, I think this fic is some of my best work, and shouldn't be missed if you're a Mipha fan like I am (she is my favorite Zora, so if it's okay I'd like to use this as a belated submission for that Zora May prompt). She truly is the star of the show, with so much to offer as a lead character, moving through a world treated with depth and care. If you're in the market for a BOTW retelling that does something different, something no other retelling has done, and does it really well, then give it a chance! You can read it here on AO3. :3

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Austen asks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 29.

Favorite Austen Heroine

Emma! I love specifically how Austen crafts so well the balance between the ways in which she is self aware (her assessment of her own accomplishments) and the ways in which she is completely clueless (her powers of matchmaking), between her devotion to her father and her impatience at other people, between her mean comments, and her generous assessment of other people's character, abilities, and potential (she does think better of Frank and Mr Elton than they actually deserved).

2. Favorite Austen Man

For someone who isn't a super Emma fan, I do be loving many things from it XD It's Mr Knightley. King of saying the truth, sometimes bluntly, but never meanly, and of always taking care of doing as he preaches.

4. Favorite Austen book

It's always difficult to pick, but let me cheat this way: I feel like P&P is the most satisfying all around, Persuasion the one I enjoy the most these days, and Sense and Sensibility the one I think about the most lately.

7. Favorite Austen couple

I'm obsessed, thematically, with Marianne and Brandon, for years. It's about the joy of a second chance when you thought everything was lost, it's about the gentle affection shown in actions, it's about healing, and hope.

8. Least favorite couple

Trite, I know, but it is Edmund and Fanny. I'm not necessarily on camp "he doesn't deserve her" (because I don't think romance stories are about rights), but I do feel circumstances have kept them both smaller than they could be, and their union feels less of a triumph of human flourishing than other couples.

29. Character you most relate to

I have become less like Emma with age, though I still feel I struggle with most of her faults and circumstances (I'm prone to speak before I can think things through, the small annoyances of life affect me a lot and I'm prone to complain bitterly about them, I struggle to stick to habits, and in some ways my responsibilities of care towards my parents have limited certain life options for me, and have giving me some mediation abilities too, and I love them lots). But in different ways I have felt like I am Miss Bates, over chatty and annoying and pitied at best. In another way I have felt a lot like Brandon in the whole someone "whom every body speaks well of, and nobody cares about; whom all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers to talk to.” way. I have had my moments of feeling like Anne Elliot, that my prime is past and I'm stuck in life, and I have had my moments where I've felt like Mrs Jennings, vulgar and meddlesome but ultimately well meaning and loyal... I contain multitudes XD

From this ask game.

[darkshrimpemotions]

The thing about conservatives and their conspiracy theory that "the libs" are trying to brainwash their children is that a) it's entirely 100% projection and assuming everyone operates the way they do, and b) what is actually happening is more akin to deprogramming than brainwashing.

Speaking from experience, growing up in a conservative family and community was a continuous, painful process of having my natural compassionate and empathetic responses stamped out of me.

I was constantly discouraged from seeing the humanity in others who didn't share my race, class, religion, or my parents' political beliefs. I was shamed and punished for every thought and action that didn't align perfectly with said beliefs. I was taught to avoid any information that contradicted those beliefs, and to fear and mistrust it if I couldn't avoid it completely.

And this wasn't done by providing all the teachings and then holding me to them, mind. I never recall having anything truly explained to me. No, the method of instruction was to wait for me to do something that fell outside of the narrow guardrails no one had ever shown me, then yell and pearl clutch and bombard me with horror and disappointment that I had said/done/thought such an "awful thing." Again, without ever explaining why it was awful.

This process gradually taught me to view the world primarily in terms of my own emotions, and to view those emotions as the voice of God--as long as they aligned with conservative values. And since I was being trained like a dog to experience discomfort, shame, fear, and distress whenever I encountered anything or anyone that didn't align with those values, I was basically innoculated against critical thinking and basic facts.

The result of all this was twofold. Firstly, though I didn't stop having questions or doubts about the ideas I was being taught, I felt intense guilt and shame whenever I had them. Secondly, I began to perceive anyone else questioning my beliefs as an attack on everything I was.

The last thing that was done to me--by parents, teachers, preachers, and eventually friends, because we all learned to do it to each other--was to make me acutely aware and terrified of how my community would see and treat me if I ever strayed from the beliefs we now shared. After a lifetime of being trained to hang my entire self-worth and moral compass on how conservative authority figures reacted to me, I was presented with an image of lifelong shame and disappointment. Utter loneliness. A chasm between myself and everyone I knew that would never be bridged. And of course, eternal suffering and separation from them after death.

Yeah, the death-cult of Christianity was a whole other can of worms on its own, but its lessons and methods ultimately reinforced the conservative brainwashing, and vice versa.

In contrast, becoming a "liberal" (read: someone whose beliefs are rooted in facts and who cares about people more than ideology) was a very internal, very self-guided process. Nobody was actually pushing me to believe one thing over another. What actually happened was: I got distance from that community and their constant reinforcement; I got access to the information that I was kept away from as a child; I encountered people with different views and backgrounds and saw that they weren't evil monsters; I was encouraged to decide for myself what I thought, and learn to defend that thought with information.

And yes...that did lead me away from the conservative beliefs of my family and childhood community. Because those beliefs could not stand up to the smallest amount of critical thinking or actual facts.

It still took me over a decade of being separated from that community to unlearn all of those trained responses. Hell, I'm still unlearning some of them. I still struggle with the loss of that community. I still have an intense emotional reaction I have to work through before my thinking kicks in, whenever I am presented with information that contradicts what I thought I knew. I still come across thoughts or negative associations I have with various people, ideas, etc. only to realize those are unexamined holdovers from my upbringing. Like moving a piece of furniture and finding all the crumbs and other nastiness your vacuum's been missing.

But the key thing here is, the process of becoming who I am today wasn't brainwashing. It wasn't even, now that I lay it out, true deprogramming. It was more like recovery. A long and arduous process for which I often needed support, but which was ultimately completely led by and up to me. I had to want to get better. And I did. So I did.

Which is why I can say for certain that what conservatives are doing now is absolutely 100% about removing as many avenues as possible for doubts and questions to lead to critical thinking. That's why they're hamstringing teachers, banning books, pushing revisionism in the teaching of U.S. history, attacking queer children, doubling down on anti-intellectualism, deregulating child labor. They know that exposure to diversity and access to real information and education is a tried and true path out of their cult mentality. And they can't allow that path to exist.

[heartorbit]

!!! You saw my ask! I’m v glad you liked the question and since you asked for ppl to share their takes on the charas I’ll give mine:

Rui as the fox was what started it all for me. Like “great shows can’t be made alone” and the fox talking about all the wonderful things that would happen if he were to be tamed… Rui’s craving for connection just fit the fox so well.

The other three I mostly chose for like, scenes/dynamics I wanted to see with them. So Tsukasa and Emu are the little prince and the rose respectively bc of their back-and-forth of *wild statement* *exaggerated frustration* but ultimately Tsukasa does want to take care of her (thinking of him calling her “our stubborn little princess” in his Smile of a Dreamer card story). And like the prince’s arc from running away from the rose because he can’t keep up with her requests before he realizes he needs to go back to her and Tsukasa’s begrudging assistance in the main story to swearing to help Emu save the stage.

And Nene’s the aviator for largely the same reasons: her and Tsukasa’s bickering just makes me think Nene would absolutely get fed up with Tsukasa insulting her sheep and just draw him a box instead. And her role as the “normal” one in the group also lends to it (emphasis on the quotes). She calls everyone in the troupe crazy for accepting a robot while she’s the one piloting the robot. She’s grown up, let go of being childish, but she’s still listening intently to the little prince’s story.

But like your casting is so so good! The longer I think abt it the more I love it. Like little prince Emu’s asteroid hopping is so perfect; she’s meeting all these grownups who care only about sums and wealth and other pointless things and it’s all just very odd to her. And Rui drawing the boa constrictor is heartbreaking. He’s trying to convey something through his art that nobody around him can understand… And Emunene being the little prince and the fox. They’re absolutely this quote from the fox: “Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow.” And the slow, deliberate process it takes to tame a fox, and how long it took to get Nene to come out of her shell while Emu constantly reached out to her; they’re adorable. And Tsukasa will cry and throw up if he isn’t special ur so right. Tysm for responding to my ask!

OOOOOOOOH MYJTJ IT'S SO CUTE I CRIED FOREVER I LOVE THESE SOMUCH THANK YOU FOR SENDING YOUR DRAWINGS I T____T emu rose is the cutest ever ever ever. i love YOUR CASTING SO MUCH. here i throw this before i go under a readmore to scream

YOURS FIT SO DAMN WELL. SO WELL

THE STUBBORN LITTLE PRINCESS LINE KILLLLLS ME IT KILLS ME YOURE SO RIGHT OAKYT AUUUUUUUWUUWU i take 800 years to respond to this both because i absolutely had to draw again for your cast and also i look at your beautiful drawings and i scream and kick my feet and grip my phone so hard it breaks into a million pieces

i;m so normal Your drawings are so lovely they feel right from a storybook ooouh nene as the aviator is really getting me. with how nene had to look back at her child self to rediscover what was so important to her passion for singing and it fits so well. waugh. """normal""" one for sure. but her loyalty is really fitting of both the aviator and the fox.. her and rui really are alike in the most dastardly heart crushing ways

rui as the fox. AH. I SHALL CRY. brother does he ever run the risk of weeping.. and just the abject boredom of the fox in its loneliness fits rui really well. after their fight in the main story how they approach rui more and more.. but you will sit a little closer to me every day..

your emu rose is so cute i can't get over it but i love this casting so much. i love how you connected the princes responsibility to the rose with the main story and their promise to save the wonderstage. Oh my god their stubborn little princess. THEIR STUBBORN LITTLE PRINCESS

i acknowledged that i just have emu favoritism severely when i gave them a casting but when i thought of her as the prince beyond whimsy i was thinking a lot of the ending, how the prince doesn't want the aviator to see him look to be in suffering and when says he can't return home and his body is too heavy.. the wonderstage being emus home where she wants everyone to always smile but also the place she's convinced she can't leave .. something something im not good at this. but with tsukasa i think that works equally as well because of how he shunned and ran away from it at first but at the end the wonderstage is where his heart really was and how he lets go of his old self. auuugh.

and for tsukasa as the rose and how emu finds his shows so dazzling even though he sees himself as one of hundreds of thousands of actors that he's not yet on the level of. but to emu he IS one of a kind. also because it is for her that i have killed the caterpillars (except she grabbed a caterpillar and shoved it into his face that one time but) sniffle. SNIFFLE. because it is she that i have listened to when she grumbled or boasted...

ok your little prince tsukasa is starting to kill me i AHGBHH you're singlehandedly making me want and need to reread the little prince again but ooh my god. my star will be just be one of the stars for you and so you will love to watch all the stars in the heavens (falls over) i shall look as if i were suffering i shall look a little as if i were dying do not come to see that (FALLS OVER)

[mxanigel]

Things I'd like to know about my fellow writers

Tagged by @marythegizka and @illusivesoul, thank you~

No-pressure tagging @druckkugelschreiber @captastra @dr-paine @poetikat @ruthvelyan

and @arendaes @anderstrevelyan @milesmentis @korblez @saraptor (prompts for copy/pasting below the cut)

Last book I read: Aside from textbooks or science papers, uhhh… a volume in the 86 series. I think. I can't wait for work to calm down in a month so I can read for fun again~

Greatest literary inspiration: Most recently, NK Jemisin's worldbuilding and ability to weave rich tales within those worlds and complex rules. The Broken Earth trilogy really, really appeals to the scientist in me.

Things in my current fandom(s) I want to read but I don't want to write: In Attack on Titan, anything Historia/Ymir but particularly stories where Ymir lives. For Dragon Age, I want happy and cute f/f fluff. (I want to get back to my Anora/f!Cousland pairing, but I just can't seem to keep it fluffy, lol.)

Things in my current fandom(s) I want to write but I think nobody would be interested in them but me: ahahaha other than the Levi/Hange/Shion (OC) longfic that's devoured my creative output? Historia/Sasha which still could happen and some of the awkwardness between Neri and Alistair after they reject his advances during Origins.

You can recognize my writing by: Queer characters with self-confidence issues who still strive to handle the responsibilities thrust upon them. Also lots of dialogue.

My most controversial take (current fandom[s]): Hmmmm. AoT-wise, maybe that I headcanon Hange as aceflux? (They're obsessed with Titans and monstrous things in general, but that doesn't have to imply that they're wildly horny for monsters. Or in general.) With respect to Dragon Age, it's not exactly controversial, but I genuinely adore DA2 and all of the companions in it. Yes, all of them.

Top three favourite tropes: These are the three that first came to mind rather than my ultimate favorites, but: 1) kabedon~ (I will include one whenever I possibly can); 2) a character caring for their beloved who's been injured or fallen ill or being the one cared for (bonus points if a love confession hasn't happened yet); 3) grump + sunshine pairings.

What’s your current writing mood? (10 – super motivated and churning out words like crazy, 0 – in a complete rut): Probably a 3. I had a months-long super productive phase, and then Day Job took over my life. Now I'm lucky to write more than a hundred words a week; this next chapter does not want to cooperate with me.

Share a random frustration: That I get hung up on kudos and comments. Brain, please please please just let me write for the sake of writing.

-----

Last book I read:

Greatest literary inspiration: 

Things in my current fandom(s) I want to read but I don't want to write:

Things in my current fandom(s) I want to write but I think nobody would be interested in them but me: 

You can recognize my writing by: 

My most controversial take (current fandom[s]):

Top three favourite tropes: 

What’s your current writing mood? (10 – super motivated and churning out words like crazy, 0 – in a complete rut) 

Share a random frustration:

[brambletakato]

Des(cole And/Or mond)

uhh,, ruh oh (prequel spoilers)

To be honest like 50% of my brainrot comes from both my campaign Des and the backstory for such which is VERY far removed from canon, but that doesn't mean I'm NOT insane about this man looking at him from the canon PL angle. Like I don't really know where to start?? Uhh

I think he's literally the perfect guy to analyze psychologically. Leon is a fucking nightmare to try and figure out, meanwhile Des has so many interesting twists and turns and themes to interpret (even if his character slightly gets a bit off-balanced in Eternal Diva)

Descole presents himself as calculative, cunning, smug, mysterious, and strong-willed. Within a presence, he keeps up his persona with an honestly charming dramatic flair that nobody asked for, which is already on the chart for what makes a character a viable blorbo for me

But when you take a look of who he was, who wanted to be, and who he could be, he quickly becomes such a morally complicated character.

Like really quickly I'm going to get this out of the way; I have a MASSIVE pet peeve to those that say Descole did nothing wrong. He did do a lot of fucked up shit, and I'm not excusing any of that. Removing the responsibility of his consequences would make his character bland imo. He's not morally purely black or white, but he's in a dark gray zone where, while he had a strict no-kill rule, he still inflicted harm on the people in his way and the homes they resided in. He isn't afraid to dabble into even human experimentation if it means to get to his goals, even if he has the greater good in interest.

So about the lighter morals of him, he still has a string of humanity in him. He isn't completely lost to corruption unlike Leon, but he isn't completely recovered like Layton. He still sets off on a self-destructive path to revenge, but he only allows himself to get set ablaze (in his pov, not in the outsider's perspective).

A friend said that he's still the little boy that ultimately wants his family back, whether that's his parents or his wife and daughter, and that AAAUGHHRHRA OUUUUGH :((( RGRR :CCCCCC

Speaking of, Desmond. Desmond was never meant to exist.

In his eyes, it would only be Hershel Bronev that died, and whatever comes later would be the host of his vengeance. But Desmond was soon given a meaning, a light elsewhere, tender hands and a fond gaze that said that they loved him. Suddenly he was somebody else. He was somebody else that started putting down books, that started to wish for something other than revenge.

And the fact that, even if once, he was a man that has felt what hope is like fucking KILLS ME... Sometimes I wonder if he even felt fearful of the thought when he realized he was starting to focus less on revenge. Suddenly, there was somebody that he was starting to care about, somebody that was there for him emotionally and physically, somebody that he so dearly wanted to lean on their shoulder and ask if everything will be okay. And the only time he felt that was with his previous family. The ones that were taken away.

He's almost shy to feel that sense of longing again, like a neglected dog feeling a gentle hand brush their head for the first time. It's intoxicating. It's fearful. It's so, so comforting. He wants more. But he is scared of being hurt again. Scared of losing somebody again. He's scared. Scared, fearful. It's all that controlled him. Fear and hate.

But he still tries, despite everything he sees, there's a part of him that still wanted to live, to experience, to love. There's a part of him that wants to break out of such a wretched life and to start anew, to finally lay rest of his woes. And he does, for a little while.

And the worst part was that he was right in the end. They too would be ripped away. And there was no more hope, no more Sycamore.

I'm an extreme advocate that Descole has existed for longer, not right after the death of his wife and daughter. He existed ever since his parents were kidnapped, ever since he lost Theodore. Descole never had a name, but he was there in concept. He was only put at the full front in full blast when he had truly lost everything.

This also means he can never be fully Desmond again by the end of Azran Legacy, if at all. He can never fully be Descole either, because there's nothing he can fuel on. He's just nothing. He's an empty husk. He says that a new adventure awaits, but what is there really? There is no point, no promise. He is aimless from then on. Perhaps his adventure is to find a purpose once more.

This is also why I REALLY want him to return in NWOS one day. Maybe his search for a purpose leads him right back to the person that was there when his life crumbled for the first time; Layton. Maybe despite his fear of loss, he still internally wants something to cling onto, because an aimless life would probably drive him to insanity or extreme biting mental torment. Or maybe he feels indebted to Layton in some way? Perhaps for his betrayal, perhaps for hiding their relation, perhaps for everything he has done.

He still did terrible things. Would Layton even accept him back into his life, especially after all of that? He is deserving to nobody. Eventually the consequences of what he has done will catch up in a terrible mental form. I really think that his self-esteem has been low, but it would ESPECIALLY plummet after everything.

(ahem uhh. side note if flora comes back in nwos, the two should come as a package deal and des should be the cool uncle that unofficially adopted her from layton, i think these two would benefit each-other in both a character and a psychological way COUGH COUGH also we need flora fencing COUGH COUGH)

I can ramble so much about the other little things like his thoughts about his parents (especially his mother), raymond, the brief and scary visit of familiar warmth when he was getting comfortable with the bostonius gang, etc etc but this post would be so god damn long

anyway so he's more-so a special interest than a hyperfixa--//dragged away

[nerfedbytheuniverse]

Had a friend ask me the other day if I “notice that people seem to be very protective” of me.

And I said, “no, usually I’m the protective one.”

And I have receipts to back that up but I was not about to start trauma-dumping over it.

And he says “I guess since I feel somewhat protective of you, others might too.”

And like. Here’s the series of issues I have with that:

1) he’s the same age as my immediate-younger brother,

2) Which means I’m older than him by 4 years, and

3) Literally what kind of protectiveness do people think I need?

Like sure, I’m cool with people being protective of me, and I kind of have to be okay with that considering that I AM so protective of others. I don’t let people talk shit about others or themselves, I’m constantly trying to lift people up, and when people vent to me about issues they’re having with others, I’m waiting for an excuse to squeeze myself into the drama and tell people off. Nobody is allowed to hurt my friends.

But I also make the point of reminding myself that my friends are capable people. I remind and sometimes encourage people to eat or sleep or do other self-care tasks, but not because I think they can’t do it alone; I wait until there’s at least an inkling that the need isn’t being met, like if someone messages me at 3AM, or when someone brings up that they’re hungry af.

So I’m careful about how I remind people to take care of themselves. Or at least, I try to be.

But also, there’s this bitter voice inside that’s just like “oh how great, people are protective of me NOW. Where was that energy when I was being abused or bullied or talked down to?”

They didn’t know me yet. And it’s not their job. I want to believe that if shit got bad I’d have help but. I don’t. I want to.

But my closest connections outside of my household live over a thousand miles away. My friends in state? I haven’t known them long enough to expect anything from them. Not even advice.

I just. It’s been bugging me since it was said. And I guess it was a lie, since people are generally trying to help me with things and offer advice. I just didn’t really think of that. Because I know I’m smart, capable, and can handle myself for the most part.

And I have two school friends who really seem to get that balance. The balance of “I know you’re smart and capable, BUT you don’t have to do shit alone.”

They’re the two that I’m closest to, shocker. There’s no feeling that I’m being infantilized. Any defensiveness that relates to me is from a place that I’m comfortable with.

Because ultimately, I’m fine with people feeling protective of me but I’m still a whole entire adult and I can manage my own triggers and most of my own responsibilities. And if I need help I’ll probably ask.

But this kid saying he felt protective of me kind of felt weird, because what could he really do?

[walder-138]

Imagine: Vasili having a private conversation with Abbey about his messed up life

Be careful it's filled with ANGST.

"Sometimes.. love knows how it'll make you fall for it, and also, give you that everlasting pain that'll remain in your soul as a scar. It can cut you so deeply.. sharply, than a knife. That if you sew to suture the wound.. it'll never seem to remove from the image. It will keep on reminding you.. that you would have never been this miserable and unfortunate.. if you had never met them. Never.. just never.."

"I loved Helen.. I did.. very much." Vasili tried not to break in front of Abbey. "But I was a fool. A scoundrel. That I fell for her and did what was necessary to win her heart. Now you don't say I was brainwashed that's why I couldn't remember anything but the point is.." He looks at Abbey with a hopeless and shattered look. "Why did I let this all happen to me? What was inside of me that truly SAID you need to choose this very path? What made me choose Perseus? How did I get to Adler? Why? Because I did it myself, Abbey.. I.. I chose this. I subconsciously decided to make myself suffer for the wrong I did. I chose the wrong side.. and.. here I am. Look at me." He smiled half-heartedly, with his arms half raised.

"I was naive. Even after being this intelligent? This witty? I.. I can't seem to.. to.." His voice shivered. "Break through this very situation? Only if.. I could have used my brain, I would have never—" Vasili tried not to sob and covered his eyes with his arm, sniffing a bit. "But I deserve it, Abbey. Because I truly deserve it. I was away killing off people without realising I was now stuck with a bunch of manic criminals who wanted to destroy the world. But me? I couldn't even raise my voice.. that it also made me stop using my mind! For what it had been finally used for without my true consciousness!" He clenched his hair and sat down, in a defeated state.

"I'm tired, Abbey.. I'm so tired.." He sobbed as he rubbed his whole face to wipe off the tears. "The KGB thinks I murdered our own General.. I lost Dimitri.. Adler wished if I was dead anyway.. and sure I gave him a lesson back there and showed him my new form.. but.. even after all that.. I still feel.. lost. Like all my roads ahead of me have been blocked. And I see nothing but.. darkness.. and the light faded before I could ever reach myself through it.." He smiles sadly. "Tells a lot.. maybe if.. Adler shot me back at the cliff.. all this suffering would have ended. And I would be at ultimate peace.. a-am I right, Abbey?"

STOP IT KHUSHI. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. STOP IT. YOU BETTER BE PAYING FOR MY THERAPY AFTER THIS CAUSE GIRL IM SOBBING. IM IN YOUR WALLS NOW 😭😭😭 I WILL GET BACK AT YOU FOR THIS! JUST YOU EFFING SEE. I CANT FUCKING STAND THESE TWO

SORRY FOR THE LATE RESPONSE!

Abbey reached out, almost about to put her hand on Vasili’s shoulder, but pulled away before it could make contact. Instead, Abbey took a deep breath. She was at a loss of words, tears welling up in her eyes. After a moment of silence, she swallowed and spoke.

“Don’t say that, Vin—Vasili.” She mentally cursed herself for that mistake.

“I know you’re tired, and you’re angry, and you’re hopeless, and you feel like everyone in the world hates you and is out to get you, but wallowing in your own self loathing… you’re gonna end up wasting your life away. The paths aren’t blocked by some other entity, Vasili, you’re blocking them.”

“Wasting away means they won. That they got rid of you without even trying. Adler and Park, the rest of them responsible for what happened to you, That’s what they want- it’s what our governments do. They lie, manipulate, screw your brain up beyond recognition, then make you blame yourself for cracking under circumstances nobody could withstand.” Abbey’s voice was quiet, but there was a sharp edge to her words. Her anger, though subtle, was still evident behind the words, albeit not towards Vasili.

Noticing that she was tense, her fist were clenched, and was ranting, Abbey stopped to take a breath. Abbey’s demeanor softened as she took a seat next to Vasili, taking in his defeated expression. She gently removed his hands from his face and held onto them as she continued to speak.

“Vasili, I lo- I care about you. It’s hard for you to believe, I know, but I’m not asking you to. You’ve had every opportunity to kill me, you didn’t. You could’ve sent us all to Duga, you didn’t.”

“What I’m saying is, you’re not a bad person. You’ve done unforgivable things in the past, I refuse to put you on a pedestal, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of doing good.”

Abbey sighed, and held onto his hands tighter.

“If you ever feel like you’re alone or don’t have a place to go, you can always stay here. I don’t need a warning, and you don’t need to talk to me if you don’t want. I can sleep on the cot and you can take the air mattress; the cats might jump on you in the night so I’d keep that in mind. Jazzy and Blue expect you to feed them at dawn.” She chuckled, before letting go of Vasili’s hands.

“They love you, the cats. They really do.” Something we have in common.

Abbey fades out of existence. Bro’s hallucinating 😭😭😭

[onewomancitadel]

It is incredibly damaging that the predominant mode of communication online is now having to write with the worst, most wilfully ignorant member of your audience as the one you must cater to, be it blogpost or creative writing or whatever. This even applies to meta analysis in fandom, where when we analyse stories we're forced to think about the lowest common denominator - so often reminded to account for the most out of touch viewer/reader, to lessen and weaken analysis on account of the fact that it simply isn't that deep.

To me it is a profound abnegation of creative, personal, moral responsibility. How stifled does that leave you, but how stifled does the rest of the audience feel? Constantly pulled aside by overexplanation, quibble, caveat, simplification; in a stroke of irony, it ultimately becomes a form of condescension to everybody else, and compromises whatever it is that you're writing - story, Tweet, video script, text, Tumblr post - because you now have an intrusive presence forcing you to swerve around what you're really trying to say.

Inevitably they will misunderstand you anyway, be it on purpose or because they literally didn't read what you wrote properly.

So who actually wins? Nobody. You're not insulated from somebody trying to call you out - this veers into outright lampshading - you're not insulated from wilful ignorance, you're not, indeed, even insulated from the very points you might actually fucking make because people can't read, you're not insulated from criticism, ever, because some tumblrina like me might actually have issue with that obvious lampshading, that detour, that clear attempt at self-defense. If you constantly live with the feeling that what you put out must be defended before it can even be appreciated, then you're living in a paranoid hellscape which will always stifle your best creative intuition. And you will lose the people who will actually meaningfully interact with that.

I tell myself this because I suffer from it and it is a lesson I have had to learn the hard way. Especially for my creative writing, I had to remind myself to write for my ideal audience, the people who actually care and will try to meet me halfway, because I had lost that. It's so much more valuable because rather than already trying to anticipate what it is that you're going to lose, what it is that people will misinterpret, elide, detract from, you are instead thinking about what could be gained.

It is pretty depressing to think that so many people have had this sort of creative limb numbed, prepared for assault before it comes.

[sorcerobe]

Post Mortem

I really do not like to talk about my relationship with my ex, my accuser, because I refuse to let what I went through define me, but the truth is that it was an abusive relationship and I was the victim. My ex was demanding and controlling and repeatedly berated, humiliated, and isolated me. She broke down my psyche over years until I was unable to make any decisions or take any actions without her explicit direction. I was completely reliant on her to tell me what to do and completely unable to think for myself. It got to the point that shortly before she left me, I couldn’t even select a youtube video to watch together without bursting into tears from the stress of having to make a decision and the worry that she would judge me for it. I would spend hours in the bathroom just crying and trying to put myself together to face her in a positive way. she repeatedly manipulated and controlled my behavior with threats of breaking up, self harm or even suicide if I didn’t conform to what she demanded of me. 

I moved to a country where I knew nobody and didn’t speak the language just to be with her and keep her safe. She wounded her hand and went to work without stopping the bleeding, got so drunk that she vomited and collapsed in a public bathroom and very nearly jumped in front of a train if not for my begging her to reconsider over the phone. This was when I promised to live with her. I took care of her cats for two years. I spent hours thoroughly cleaning our apartment every day at her request. I cooked meals for us almost every day. I did all of this gladly, I was genuinely glad that I was with her and could do these things for her. But my efforts were never enough and lead to constant berating by my ex. 

I have a skin condition that makes me break out in hives in response to humidity and she was convinced that I was actually covered in an invisible fungus and was spreading it over the apartment despite a total lack of evidence of this, and to combat this for months alongside cleaning she required me to take multiple daily showers and spray myself all over with hydrogen peroxide, which is a mild bleaching agent. I think the period where I was doing this has caused permanent damage to my skin, but I went along with it because I wanted her to feel safe.

She was convinced that everyone in our friend circle was one step away from “betraying” her at every turn. Even the most innocuous actions would be interpreted as proof of this and nothing I could say or show would convince her otherwise, and she did her best to preemptively destroy any friendship I had because of this. This is not even to get into the way she tried to take over my career. I could fill pages and pages with anecdotes but it’s pointless. At this point people will believe what they believe.

When her career in Japan didn’t pan out because she was too sick to work, we moved back in with my family in Toronto. My parents were growing concerned with the relationship as they could see what it was doing to me, but they made every attempt to accomodate her needs and were nothing but helpful. I loved her and tried to do everything I could to be what she wanted but I just wasn’t able to do it. I wasn’t able to quit my career as a game developer as she demanded. I wasn’t able to abandon all of my friends & family as she demanded. These were all things that she saw as a requirement for us to continue our relationship, and ultimately they were why she left me. And, as best I can discern, because I have still not abandoned these aspects of myself, they are why she continued to try to quite literally ruin my life. She wanted to ensure that fight knight never came out, she wanted all of my years of work to amount to nothing to prove to me that I was nothing without her.

It’s been over two years since we separated, and almost a year now since she made her accusations in an attempt to ruin the launch of my game. unfortunately  her actions opened a lot of old wounds that had only just begun to heal. I know her to be someone who never lets go of a grudge to anyone who she believes wronged her, and in her mind, truth doesn’t seem to matter, as long as people “get what they deserve”. And she’s surrounded herself with people who enable that behaviour and never push back on it in any way. I can identify this easily because I used to be one of the people in her circle doing just that. I don’t hate those people. I understand the situation they’re in. They want to believe that she is a good person, that she’s just had three decades of incredible bad luck and all she needs are some real friends to turn her life around. I wanted to believe that too, more than anything. I put my life on hold for almost three years and gave her everything I had to try to prove that to the world.

I genuinely don’t want anything bad to come her way. I hope she gets the help and support she truly needs to move on from this and I hope she finds happiness. But this is not that. This is pure vindictive malice. It’s completely unjust and wrong. I am a flawed human being like anyone else on the planet but I did not do the things she accused me of, and she knows this. I have proven that she’s lied repeatedly about everything she claims about me. She repeatedly opportunistically changes her story in ways that contradict herself and the evidence to try to keep up this charade, and she knows she’s lying, but she doesn’t care, she thinks I deserve this anyways. 

Well, I don’t deserve it. I refuse to bend even a single degree to the pressure of people with nothing better to do with their lives than to try to ruin mine. I am innocent.

Thank you for reading.

[mausarchive]

I thought you were somewhat a feminist and now i see you are anti abortion? Fucking really?

i am pro-responsibility, when talking about having sex recreationally; i don't think the first resort of anyone in that context should be abortion, i think it should be being intelligent enough to use common sense, whether that be through your male partner getting a vasectomy or whatever form of contraceptive you are comfortable getting (you're not a child im assuming so i feel no need to list them here). celibacy and abstinence are two things i will never not promote, they are what is ultimately the most effective form of birth control. i am anti hookup culture, i think it is the death of love and commitment and i think one of the wisest things you can do as a woman is be abstinent and keep yourself safe from men interested in nothing more than what you can offer them for 30 seconds. on that same token i think men that are pro-abortion are misogynists; of course they're pro-abortion. they don't value women or the gift of children so they want to have sex without consequence, as much as they want, with as many women as they can. note i said pro-abortion, not pro-choice.

as someone who is heavily involved in the lives of multiple children that i have helped raise from birth, i will never regard a pregnancy as a disease or a child as a "tumor". nobody asks to be born, or conceived. you are responsible for your body, your sex life, your womb. it is wrong to punish a life that never asked to be born. and that is my ultimate opinion. i see them as human beings, not burdens.

when it comes to pregnancy as a result of rape, i obviously would not ever vouch to force a woman to carry a baby that is a product of rape. i think that is the choice of the individual and not one i feel i could ever speak or decide on unless it was in my own case, my own experience. but i do think forcing that is wrong.

in short i promote healthy mindfulness when it comes to sex and reproduction. i wouldn't say im ardently anti-abortion. i think it is important to take things on a case by case basis. but if you are a casual sex having person who gets abortions as freely as someone might pop breath mints, i think you are a misled woman who needs to do some serious self-reflection and thinking on why, exactly, men would promote abortion so strongly, why anyone would, and why they want you to see children as abominable little burdens, and why you also having that point of view directly benefits them.

does this make me anti-feminist? i don't know. do i care? no. i don't identify with that label, i am not your friend, i do not care about you. i am my own person with my own experiences and opinions. if you don't like them, or they even deeply offend you, that's fantastic. do us both a favor and block me if you feel the need to do so.

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2022: #25 - #21

25. ARMENIA

Rosa Linn - “Snap”

20th place

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Overall placement: 50/79

[Above The Black Mamba, below James Newman]

Ugh, Fine. 

Time to finish this ranking turbo style! So yeah, I’m not impressed with The Biggest Eurovision Hit, which I suppose is a controversial opinion? Then again, if Rosa was so good, then why did she only make it 20th place, hmmm? 🤔🤔

When Rosa’s song leaked it sounded exactly like the type of song you’d expect  DMGP to commit murder for: a frivolous, cheery pop welterweight (which somehow has the same cadence as I’m Alive by Elhaida Dani) thats easy to listen to and doesn’t get in the way of stanning better things. 

At Eurovision, this was Rosa’s exact journey. She was a cute presence that was vaguely liked, and her staging supported this. (despite the staging mishaps, still pretty neat!) Don’t know what all the references in the lyrics are about, but we can pretend it added some depth and meaning, Into 20th place she went, which was a fair result for what her lovable random self brought to the table. 

Then, she went viral on TikTok, which honestly is more of an  “eww” than a “good on her” i m o. Okay, look, it defo does not surprise me that out of the entire 2022 catalogue this song became the viral one. TikTok viralness is a horrible metric for musical quality though. “Snap” works as a TikTok song specifcally because it doesn’t syphon attention away from whatever brainfart nonsense TikTokkers force on their feeds for a living. If you want a backing track to your “Make mac ‘n’ cheese by dumping the ingredients on a marble countertop” silliness or your indie song-singing 101 Tutorial, might as well pick something like a Snap as the accompanying backing track.

Also, I always felt the record label behind Rosa Linn was a bit too eager to get A Big Kicker on their conto. Remember when Rosa -likely on urging from her mentor Tamar Karpelian- attempted to start a respectful discussion on Twitter (oh dear) about how wonderful NFTs were (oh dear) because they helped establish a base income for fledgling artists,like herself (oh dearrrr) without having to rely on her songs getting streams? (oh dearrrrrrrrr)Twitter gave their usual gaslighting-disguised-as-concern response which in turn forced Rosa issue a semi-confused, half-arsed apology for attempting to profit from her work. Okay that was kinda funny, but by Monika Liu’s  grown-out bob, Zoomer drama is the nuttiest drama, I swear.

Anyway, the aforementioned NFT shizzle, the association with Tamar’s Slytherin Evil, the TikTok viralness and the radio people’s sudden insistence that “Snap” was A Hidden Underrated Gem despite it being an inconspicuous 20th placer at Eurivision THAT NOBODY CARED ABOUT, and also the fact that Snap has five different versions (HER?!) all kinda hints at a certain ambition that just... taints it a bit for me. It just feels like Snap’s popularity didn’t develop itself naturally and but came about due to largely commercial and monetary reasons, after which the sheeple convinced themselves retroactively that it was secretly great and very underrated, since you know, influencers would never twist the truth to us for their own profit. 

Overall the song’s fine in a vaccuum. Underneath its base sheer lie values that my crusty millennial monroe ass doesn’t share. FARE THEE WELL, MISS LINN, YOU GO BYE NOW!!!

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24. CROATIA

Mia Dimsic - “Guilty pleasure”

26th place

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 Decade placement: 47/79

[above The Roop, below Tusse]

Oh look, another vaguely pleasant, mildly likabable, and ultimately not very exciting middle-of-the-road pop melody. The cynic in you might think I’m ranking Mia ahead of Rosa because Mia didn’t go viral, and like always the cynic in you is correct! Hooray! 😁 Yeah sorry, in the ongoing battle of overrated vs underrated, it’s the correctly rated that always win :-) 

Still, like Rosa, Mia had the potential to be green on my ranking if she had cultivated a status as a fun random. TSwift IS a guilty pleasure of mine (except for her Midnights Era self which is unironically great) and while “Willow” is a part of the least exciting wing in Taylor’s musical library (ie: the part that isn’t crazed out through copium and/or severe neurosis), this bootlegged version was just cute enough to charm me.

Now of course, if your song is all about maintaining a certain level of delicate joie-de-vivre, it’s really important to not overdo the act and let the singer’s personal charisma carry it. Cue to the staging which looked like this:

What.

The.

Everlovin’.

Fuck?

There’s good staging and there is whatever the flyin’ fuck that was. Goodbye cutesie lounge vibe, goodbye charming performer, you’re completely overtaken by this overly choreographed, overtly dramatic and abrasive act that your song didn’t need. ONE dancer, NO acrobatics, how difficult is that to grasp, HRT? I’d be tempted to say the act was a cursed decision, but then realize Croatia’s frantic dance gremlins were probably the tipping point that allowed ~Systur~ into the finals, and any Eurovision final graced by those three earth angels has to count as a blessing. So thank you Mia for blessing us. ^_^ 

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23. GERMANY

Malik Harris - “Rockstars”

25th place

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Decade ranking: 45/79

[Above Tusse, below Undisclosed]

It is very common knowledge that nobody likes Rockstars, and fine, I don’t! As insipid as “Rockstars” was though, I don’t think it was completely without redeeming qualities.Malik had a baseline charm and really went for it, I guess. 

The German Selection, which had adopted the very... um... optimistic name “Germany, 12 points” for the occasion, (optimistic even if we believe the conspiracy theory the “12 points” alluded to the total numerical amount ARD were aiming for in Turin <3) was one of the worst in a horrible NF season. I was fucking relieved it produced a winner I could (sadly no more than) vaguely enjoy. Not everyone has the panache of getting distracted by their own soap bubble bonanza. 

Also, the SPOKEN WORD RAP BREAK was exactly what my brain and soul -both high on copium after the Alina Pash withdrawal- needed at the time. It didn’t blow me away or anything, but it at least gave me something tangible to cling onto besides “well this is nice, i guess”. 

For the rest though, ::tumbleweeds::. I think people might have been a bit too bandwagon-y in their Malik Mockery cus like, yeah he’s clearly getting last, don’t make it worse? But then again... he brought very little to the table. Besides the spoken word it’s like... cursive singing (petition to rename this to “Cursed Singing”) and instruments displayed on moth-eaten rugs to get points, you know? It’s like Germany were deliberately telegraphing us to NOT vote for them, again. But that’s less on Malik and more on ARD’s incompetence, which is a discussion for another time. 

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22. NORTH MACEDONIA

Andrea - “Circles”

27th place

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Decade ranking: 44/79

[Above Malik, below Hurricane]

WE FINALLY MADE IT TO GREEN!!! Sadly we’re still in the No Man’s Land of VagueOpinionstan. 😣 

There is *something* about Andrea and “Circles” that resonates well with me? Is it the perfectly mimed frustration with a poorly communicating love interest? Is it the palpable resignation on her face as she helplessly bleats “u don’t wanna test my limits -_-”.

Maybe! What I do know is that I stan the critical amount of pure Sadsack Energy Andrea exhudes from every pore. 😍😍 I think she’s a contender for the most morose, Eeyore-ish person to ever set a foot on a Eurovision stage? Reminder that this person won a selection  <33333 Andrea posseses a sort of theoretical anti-charisma that should render her unvoteable, and yet in practice just has me cling to every word crossing her lips. ALL SHE WANTS IS A HEALTHY CONVERSATION SO SHE CAN GET IT RIGHT AND FIX THE SITUATION, YOU GHOULS!!!

(and yes, the other Bubble favourite of floordrop sorcery making an appearance <3)

But then on top of that, Andrea also became A Highly Controversial Pick for NoMac!!!! Strangely not because she was an out-and-proud lesbian (although, an out-and-proud lesbian representing a toxic homophobe country from the Balkans <3333333) but because..... she dropped a wee plastic flag during the turquoise carpet. 

The toxic nationalists took it as HER DELIBERATELY TRAMPLING OUR MACEDONIAN PRIDE AFTER YEARS OF GREEK BULLYING. MRT even issued an official statement that they were CONSIDERING A WITHDRAWAL (with zero intention to actually quit of course) to appease the smooth-brained cunts until the quiet and expected NQ arrived. <3333333333

(knowing her misery was finally over, Andrea cracked a smile for the first time in her life <3)

This only enhanced Andrea’s Charlie Brown”-esque journey even more!! Just when Andrea looked like the token hapless last placer nobody loved, the results came in, and showed she *almost* made the final.  😍😍😍😍😍😍. If there’s one thing that horrible second semifinal should have done right and didn’t, is causing a NoMac qualification by means of fixed jury voting algorithms. Simply imagine the meltdowns over Andrea slaying Andromache AND Nadir. 😍 If only the EBU had the balls to NQ Azer on the spot, huh? Oh well, there’s always 2023 for that. 😈

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21. UKRAINE

Kalush Orchestra - “Stefania”

1st place

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Decade ranking: 41/79

[Above Fyr og Flamme, below Eden Alene]

ugh i forgot he yelled Mariupol and Azofstal at the end of that and wasn’t DQ’d on the spot! Instantly regretting I didn’t rank Ukraine even LOWER. 😫😫😫 (no, don’t think about how much better Stefania would be without him, don’t do it Bobo, consider your mental health -- inner monologue while writing the rest of this post.)

So yeah, after all this inconspicuous also-ran filler (i’m definitely including Snap in that group), I’m eliminating the winner, the biggest televote winner Eurovision have ever had. “Have you no respect, Boris?”, you might ask and well... would I be me, if I had any, lol? I came into the 2022 season with hot takes and mental fortitude and thanks to Shitvidi I’m all out of fortitude, so~

Cynicism and self-awareness aside, let’s get the big elephant out of the room: The war had virtually no impact on my ranking here. I despise politics at Eurovision, (mostly because politics always affect it, but Eurovision NEVER affects the politics back), so there are two options here: Either downvote Ukraine for bringing politics into the contest, or make an exception and turn a blind eye. I chose option two. Nobody can begrudge Ukraine for attempting to pretend that the worst armed conflict to have hit them since WW2 hadn’t broken them, so I won’t. No points added or deducted.  . 

I do have good reasons to not rank Stefania higher though. I think you already know where this is headed - Sorry (for YOU) if you’re a fan of his, but Oleh suuuuuucks. It started at Vidbir when he led a small mob against that poor envelope lady and it was all sorts of messed up? Entitlement and bullying tinged with toxic nationalism, there ain’t no better first impression to make, am i right?

And very unfortunately my distaste towards Oleh also extends to his on-stage presence which I find really fucking obnoxious. The concept of a “Charismatic Black Hole” was one I didn’t fully understand until I first saw Oleh Psiuk set a foot on stage. Does anyone TRULY like  his presence here? All his verses do is distract from the chorus and instrumental, which is awful because those bits fucking slap! Airlift him and his ugly-ass hat the fuck outta here. 

Okay, so the winning song is actually... pretty good. It is NOT great though. Stefania is a weaker, safer and more cis-het version of “Shum”, which is suboptimal. Counterpoint is that “Shum” was Peak Ukraine (Which is also Peak Eurovision), and remains one of the best entries ever, so a lesser replication of that is still enjoyable overall. It made Ihor Didenchuk (who is also in Go_A) a Eurovision laureate! It kinda sucks the fandom didn’t come through at a time when Ukraine had, you know, an actually charismatic lead, but I suppose the power of love Damiano-induced boners does conquer all.

On the flip side, Ihor’s and Tymofii’s contributions are so good that they almost fully balance Oleh’s deteriorative and hammy rapping. Tymofii carries Stefania with his spot-on chanting and preposterous flute playback shenanigans. 

Ihor meanwhile just has a good time on the stage, disguised as one of the two Cousin It-like entities <3 Add in some tasteful staging and hell, even the fact that this song is in essence an ode to someone’s (You Know Who’s) actual mom, (and not  the forced, cringe, jingoistic metaphor it later became) and you have an entry that definitely makes sense as a jury fourth placer and top fiver overall.

Now obviously, I would have preferred for Ukraine to not win because they were not the best option (not by a mile!), and ofc also because I hate their lead, but I’m not fully broken up that they beat my faves. Sometimes there are powers at work beyond our control and that’s fine. Not everything in life must be catered to our tastes. Ukraine are the best Eurovision country, and it doesn’t matter how or when they catch up to (and pass) Ireland and Sweden, as long as it happens during my lifespan. 🤷‍♀️

Still think Pinkbucket’s a thuggish little punk though. Prayer circle that the next time Ukraine win, it’s with someone actually worth stanning. 🙂

CONGRATULATIONS TOP 20!!!

ALBANIA - AUSTRIA - CZECH REP - ESTONIA - FRANCE -

GEORGIA - ICELAND - IRELAND - LITHUANIA - MALTA -

MOLDOVA - THE NETHERLANDS - PORTUGAL - ROMANIA - SAN MARINO -

SERBIA - SLOVENIA - SPAIN  - SWEDEN - UK

THE RANKING 

21. UKRAINE - Kalush Orchestra - “Stefania”

22. NORTH MACEDONIA - Andrea - “Circles”

23. GERMANY - Malik Harris - “Rockstars”

24. CROATIA - Mia Dimšić - “Guilty pleasure”

25. ARMENIA - Rosa Linn - “Snap”

26. CYPRUS - Andromache - “Ela”

27. LATVIA - Citi Zeni - “Eat your salad”

28. DENMARK - ReDDI - “The show”

29. BULGARIA - Intelligent Music Project - “Intention”

30. GREECE - Amanda Tenjford - “Die together”

31. POLAND - Ochman - “River”

32. MONTENEGRO - Vladana - “Breathe”

33. FINLAND - The Rasmus - "Jezebel"

34. BELGIUM - Jérémie Makiese - “Miss you”

35. NORWAY - Subwoolfer - “Give that wolf a banana”

36. AUSTRALIA - Sheldon Riley - “Not the same”

37. SWITZERLAND - Marius Bear - “Boys do cry”

38. AZERBAIJAN - Nadir Rustamli - “Fade to black”

39. ITALY - Mahmood & Blanco - “Brividi”

40. ISRAEL - Michael Ben David - “I.M”

[kohakhearts]

💎🦋 (why can't I find the white heart emoji)

thanks leo!

💎 why is writing important to you?

well...it's complicated. LMAO. but i've been doing it forever and ever, and i've had my ups and downs with it. for a long time it was how i got validation from people. almost exclusively. and then that stopped being enough and lo and behold i...stopped writing. but i missed it a lot and i've come to realize that it's because, to me, writing is like...the best form of communication i have. and that's not just the actual written work itself. it's also a way i've connected with so many people whether that be through fanfiction communities or poetry workshops or my students - especially my students lbr. and i think it's a really neat way of knowing and understanding people, and yourself. and for me, it forces me to be honest about who i am and what i value, which i struggle with sometimes otherwise on account of the Disorders et al. so yeah, short answer is communication!

🦋 what are you most insecure about when you post a fic?

at this point, i think there's not much? the biggest thing is like...that it won't be received, at all. but i've had that happen with enough of my fics that it kind of just...is a Thing That Happens, and it's not a big deal. but there's always that feeling from the get-go of, like - what's the point, what if nobody even reads it? or, worse - they DO read it but don't say anything about it? don't even leave kudos or a heart or anything? but fic writing for me is really not a big deal so if it happens, it happens, and i move on. it doesn't bother me as much as it used to (which even when i said didn't bother me at all, was actually a lot. this time i mean it tho lmao).

🤍 what’s one fic of yours you think people didn’t “get”?

the fic i wrote about molly weasley. i will say, ultimately, this comes down to how i wrote it. but the intention behind this fic was not to frame molly as a loving mother. it was more or less to put her on blast for not being what she says she is, and certainly not what jkr tried to make her. in the end i guess i gave her too much grace and too much motion as a character. but the whole point is that she says and believes so much of herself and puts all her worth into who she is as a mother that being faced with the fact that she has let something so major slip from her sights, well - she kind of more or less doubles down and has to make it known that, like, she did the bare minimum but she's going to do more, except the point is like. she didn't EVEN do the bare minimum, and it's difficult to get that across when the main characters here are molly herself, as the pov character no less, whose entire sense of self would crumble if she let herself believe she Isn't mom of the year, and harry, who faced so much abuse he can't distinguish between someone who cares about him for his own sake and someone who cares for him in the most superficial way possible, for her own sake. but a lot of people responded to the fic to say that like they love molly and harry's relationship, or like bless molly for being there for him, but that wasn't the point, really. so yeah. that one. not to say i don't value and appreciate those responses, because i do! but like...definitely not what i was going for with the fic haha.

fic writer asks!