#and ALSO biases in how this kind of stuff is enforced

[clonerightsagenda]

An instructor accused students of using chatGPT to write their papers after 'detecting' this by.... pasting their papers into chatGPT and asking it if it wrote them. So that's going great.

[little-skunk]

Your art and headcannons are so silly and cool, if I was an out little id so follow and like the heck out of you but im too shy... I visit ur profile a lot and your dandys world little headcannons are so silly and real <3 you don't have too but it would be really interesting to see ur take on who shrimpos cg would be and how their dynamic would work like!! Personally I think Goob would be a sweet one but thats a little biased... anyways im rambling ur awesome and keep being awesome!1! ⭐

Thank you so much! I'm always glad to hear others get comfort out of the stuff I make, it means a lot!

Before Glisten was officially in the game, he was the ONE toon I thought Shrimpo would genuinely like as a caregiver. Considering Glisten looked like he could be fairly rude and sassy when he wanted to be, I imagined them as a pair of mean girls.

It ended up really long so the headcanons (and a little doodle page) are below the cut!

Glisten ⊙°

More than any other toon, Shrimpo actually looks up to Glisten quite a bit. Shrimpo really likes him as a caregiver too, but sometimes he can't help but think he's wasting Glisten's time.

- Glisten is rather firm with rules when Shrimpo is little because he knows the consistency and expectations of them keep Shrimpo calm and in-check. Shrimpo respects Glisten and knows better than to try and pull anything with him. He also really likes how theatrical Glisten can get when they play pretend together, it makes things a lot more fun. Overall, Glisten is surprisingly good with kids, even with ones that have a temperament like Shrimpo.

- Shrimpo has a really difficult time reaching out, even when he knows he needs help. He almost see Glisten as 'above him' so he feels like he's wasting the other toon's time when he wants or needs to be babysat. Glisten also isn't the best at helping when Shrimpo is crying or sad, which doesn't help either.

- Glisten is best at taking care of him while he's around toddler headspace, but Shrimpo is comfortable enough to stick around when he's regressed to early teen years as well (usually when he's older he prefers to be alone, Glisten is the biggest exception to this).

- Around toddler age, Glisten like to play with Shrimpo by doing things like read alouds, coloring activities, finger paint (with heavy supervision), and playing pretend with action figures and toys. When Shrimpo's older, they play video games but Glisten always lets Shrimpo win if he can. And also when he's older Glisten tends to not hover as often because he knows Shrimpo would want more space and less doting. He generally trusts Shrimpo to not do something stupid when he's around 13+

- Glisten has the hardest time getting a toddler Shrimpo to bed, he is a very firm fighter when it comes to sleep. The one thing that gets him out like a light is hot chocolate, Glisten discovered. But of course, Glisten doesn't want to give in and let him have all that sugar every night, so instead he lays with Shrimpo and quietly reads (even if he reads through the whole book, he'll just start over) until he is sure Shrimpo is asleep.

- If Shrimpo is feeling fussy and says something mean to Glisten, without fail, Glisten will feign feeling offended/hurt and a majority of the time Shrimpo will end up scrambling to apologize and make him feel better moments after because he didn't mean it.

Goob ☆°

I do get the appeal of Goob and Shrimpo being a pair because Shrimpo could have a soft spot just for Goob, however I don't really think Goob is someone Shrimpo prefers as a caregiver unless he is in babyspace.

- In his normal toddler headspace Shrimpo absolutely loathes being coddled and babied, but Goob's love language is cuddles and doting on little ones. This leads to Shrimpo being very combative while Goob tends to be more sensitive for lack of a better word, and doesn't really know how to handle an angry little. Another problem is, Shrimpo knows Goob is too kind to properly enforce punishment, so he will often act out and do things against the rules on purpose with him, because he knows Goob won't make him face any consequences that matter to him.

- When in babyspace, Shrimpo tends to be more quiet and calm and is much more receptive to Goob's cuddles and caring style. He's probably too ashamed to admit it, but Goob is always his favorite when he's feeling particularly small. Goob just knows how to make him feel better after a meltdown.

- Both Shrimpo and Goob prefer to be little playmates rather than little/cg. This is pretty much the best middle ground for both of them. Shrimpo doesn't feel like he's being babied and feels less need to act out and rebel, and Goob doesn't have to feel as responsible or stressed out.

- Shrimpo doesn't like keeping many toys of his own, so Goob often brings some of his own toys along to play with in Shrimpo's room, like a dollhouse with a bunch of different toys, or fidget toys, or puzzles when he's an older toddler age. Goob likes playing with Shrimpo a lot, but he also usually gets too into it and regresses by accident.

- Goob actually prefers to be a big brother to Shrimpo since usually Goob is the little sibling. When Shrimpo's in babyspace he treasures the moments he gets with the bubbly little shrimp cradled in his arms. Goob gets why Scraps is so protective over him when he sees Shrimpo so small and vulnerable like that.

Teagan ♤°

A somewhat unexpected but very comforting caregiver to Shrimpo. She is a naturally motherly toon, but she also is particularly good with Shrimpo because she knows how to work with him through tough emotions or tantrums. She is very calm and patient despite how combative Shrimpo can be sometimes.

- Sometimes just the tone in Teagan's voice gets Shrimpo feeling small. She'll gently scold him for doing something he knows he shouldn't be doing, and he just melts.

- Shrimpo really appreciates how patient Teagan can be, even when he's being difficult on purpose. With her, he almost feels bad for misbehaving because of how she motivates him with praises (that he absolutely isn't used to hearing).

- Teagan really does care about Shrimpo and hates to see him beat himself up or try to deal with his issues alone. Her favorite moments with him are when he's small and sleepy, which makes him very cuddly and affectionate.

- Teagan found out that tea helps Shrimpo fall asleep without a fight (given to him in a sippy cup of course, wouldn't want any spills).

- Teagan takes care of a few other littles, so unfortunately she's not available as often as Shrimpo's other caregivers. Shrimpo isn't really comfortable with being taken care of with other littles around either (except Goob).

- Similarly to Goob, Teagan is very good at helping Shrimpo calm down during a tantrum/meltdown. She never raises her voice even when she's frustrated, and she tries to get Shrimpo to talk about his issues with an indoor voice. She always tries to give him options to try and help him with whatever's bothering him.

- Shrimpo really likes to hear Teagan sing for bedtime. Teagan doesn't really think she's that good at it, but she knows Shrimpo loves it so she does it for him.

- Teagan is the only caregiver that Shrimpo uses a parental nickname with, he likes to call her mama when he's small enough. Teagan thinks it's really sweet but doesn't comment on it to save him the embarrassment.

----------

Originally there was a section with Dandy instead of Teagan, but most of the headcanons were rather negative so I scrapped it. Instead, here are some little blurbs left over.

- Dandy is better at being a babysitter than anything else (to Shrimpo at least).

- Shrimpo likes to hang out with Dandy when he's in a teen headspace because he likes to rant and Dandy is good at listening without adding any unsolicited advice.

- Dandy has noticed subtle tells Shrimpo has when he is feeling small but not quite regressed, and he often teases Shrimpo when he notices him doing them to get him regressed.

Also. Here's the reason why the request took so long (procrastination)

[victoriansecret]

Vails

I haven't actually talked about it here a lot, partly because I try not to do heavy history stuff here - this blog is meant to be a hobby, after all - and it's something I'm frankly too passionate (obsessed) about, but my main area of historic interest and focus, especially when it comes to my own personal research, is the history of domestic service. It is not an exaggeration to say it is my life's work. Another reason I don't write about it often is I don't really know where to start. My breadth of knowledge on the subject is quite broad, so there's a lot I could say, but I think I'll try to write some small things about specific aspects of it. Vails were, in the 18th (and I believe also 19th) century, basically what we could today call tips, often paid to servants. And when you read things written by the 'master class' of people being served, while they're obviously biased and exaggerating, it does become clear that servants rather enforced them. There wasn't a guild system for servants like there were for trades, but there were informal clubs and groups, and this is one of the ways they seem to have acted together, almost as a form of unionization. There's a letter to a British newspaper where the write says that he estimates many servants are doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling their annual salaries through vails. I could write more but I'll just transcribe some of my favourite passages on this subject from the book Life in the Country House in Georgian Ireland by Patricia McCarthy: I will add too, while this is specifically talking about paid servants in Britain, you do see vails paid to enslaved people in America as well. Probably not as often, but Philip Vickers Fithian, who wrote a diary about his experiences in Virginia in the 1770s, writes about similar things of the enslaved people at the plantation he's staying at expecting their "Christmas boxes" of vails, although they weren't quite as beholden to the actual date of Boxing Day.

... The customary scene in the hall, as their guests waited for their carriages or horses to be brought to the door, embarrassed many. [Marshall, Domestic Servants] Hosts feigned ignorance of their guests' fumbling in their pockets to find shillings and half-crowns to distribute to the servants, who had lined themselves up expectantly. Whether the motive for allowing the practice was to salve the collective conscience of the employers at paying such low wages is not clear. [Bridget Hill, Servants: English Domestics in the 18thc.] It was not confined to great houses, but was also expected in more modest establishments, although the amounts given were less. It was also not only expected on departure from the house of a friend: vails were disbursed by 'house tourists' to whichever servant showed them around - in most cases an upper servant.

...

An army officer described how much his visit to the house of a friend would cost him: 'The moment your departure is known, all the domestics are on the qui vive; the house-maid hopes you have forgotten nothing in packing up, if so, she will take care of it till you come again; this piece of civility costs you three ten-pennies; the footman carries your portmanteau .. to the hall, three more; the butler wishes you a pleasant journey - his greate kindness in so doing of course extracts a crown-piece; the groom brings your horse, assuring you 'tis an ilegant baste, and has fed well' - three more ten-pennies go; the helper runs after you with the curb-chain, which he has 'till this moment carefull secreted - two more; making a total of seventeen, or, in English money, upwards of fourteen shillings. A heavy tax for visiting a friend!' [Benson Earle Hill, Recollections of an Artillery Officervol. 1]

...

Richard Griffith from Bennetsbridge, Co. Kilkenny, complained in c.1760 in a letter to hise wife that 'an heavy and unprofitable Tax still subsists upon the Hospitality of this Neighbourhood .. in short while this Perquisite continues, a Country Gentleman may be considered but as a generous Kind of Inn-holder, who keeps open House, at his own Expence, for the sole Emolument of his Servants .. this Extravagance is not confined, at present, solely to the Country .. ; for a Dinner in Dublin, and all the Towns in Ireland, is even in a Morning, with a Person who keeps his Port, you may levee him fifty Times, without being admitted by his Swiss Porter. So... I shall consider a great Man as a Monster, who may not be seen, 'till you have fee'd his Keppers.' [R. and E. Griffith, A Series of Genuine Letters Between Henry and Frances, vol. 4]

...

Swift gives similar suggestions in Directions to Servants: 'By these, and like Expedients, you may probably be a better Man by Half a Crown before he leaves the House.' He further urges those servants who expect vails 'always to stand Rank and File when a Stranger is taking his Leave; so that he must of Necessity pass between you; and he must have more Confidence or less Money than usual, if any of you let him escape, and according as he behaves himself, remember to treat him the next Time he comes.'

...

Card money was particularly lucrative for butlers and footmen - so much so that, in London at least, such menservants refused service in houses where gaming parties were not held. [Marshall, Domestic Servants - Two footmen at the court of Queen Anne, Fortnum and Mason, used this perquisite as capital to begin their grocery business in London. Country House Lighting 1660-1890, Temple Newsam Country House Series No. 4] But it was vails that finally undermined the authority of the employers, who virtually allowed servants to dictate whom should be received, and then pretended not to notice when the servants extracted money from the departing guests.

...

In the London Chronicle a correspondent wrote in 1762 that 'Masters in England seldom pay their servants but in lieu of wages suffer them prey upon their guests'. George Mathew of Thomastown, Co. Tipperary, a man famous for his hospitality, was one of the first employers to ban the 'inhospitable custom' of giving vails to servants, and to compensate them by increasing their wages. This was apparently as early as the 1730s. His servants were warned that, if they disobeyed, they would be discharged. He also informed his guests that he would 'consider it as the highest affront if any offer of that sort were made'. [Anthologia Hibernica, I - No date given for this account, by 'Grand George' Mathew, who died in 1737, was the man described, who was host to Jonathan Swift at Thomastown in the 1720s, a visit described by Thomas Sheridan in A Life of the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift] A crusade against the giving of vails began in 1760 in Scotland, where seventeen counties issued appeals to abolish them. Four years later the movement had spread to London, resulting in riots there by footmen, the servants who stood to lose the most. [Marshall, Domestic Servants] It was probably at about the same time that employers from a number of counties in Ireland agreed among themselves to abolish vails. [Griffith, Series of Letters..., IV, 'An Agreement entered into among the Gentlemen of several Counties in Ireland, not to give Vails to Servants'] Like George Mathew before them, they decided to increase staff wages in an effort to compensate them for loss of earnings. One of them was Lord Kildare: in March 1765 he issued a directive from Carton to members of his household, stating that 'In Consideration of Vails &c, which I will not permit for the future to be received in any of my Houses upon any Account whatsoever from Company lying there or otherwise I shall give in lieu thereof... five pounds per annum each to the housekeeper, Maitre D'Hotel, cook and confectioner; three pounds per annum each to the steward at Carton, the butler, valet de chambre and groom of the chambers, and two pounds to the Gentleman of Horse. ...

And I will conclude with this funny account, about the penalty for being known amongst the staff to be a spendthrift, from the same book: ...

An unfortunate guest in England in 1754 found his punishment [for not giving vails] truly humiliating. 'I am a marked man,' he wrote, 'if I ask for beer I am presented with a piece of bread. If I am bold enough to call for wine, after a delay which would take its relish away were it good, I receive a mixture of the whole sideboard in a greasy glass. If I hold up my plate nobody sees me; so that I am forced to eat mutton with fish sauce, and pickles with my apple pie.' [Quoted in Marshall, Domestic Servants]

feel free to tip here (and yes the irony of this is not lost on me, although it did not occur to me until about halfway through writing this)

[ncisfranchise-source]

With Part 1 of its freshman finale, NCIS: Sydney uncorked quite the callback, by revealing that the “pregnant” woman who nearly got Mackey, Evie, Blue and dozens of others suffocated to death in an old bunker was in fact the blonde spy who eluded capture at the end of the series’ pilot.

Yet while it might seem as if Special Agent Mackey (Olivia Swann), Sergeant Jim “JD” Dempsey (Todd Lasance) et al now have the upper hand, the abduction of JD’s son Jack, in Part 2 of the finale (airing Tuesday at 8/7c on CBS), will thoroughly and harrowingly complicate matters. TVLine spoke with Lasance about JD’s imminent dilemma, Season 2’s “big finish” and his hopes for any possible Season 2.

TVLINE | I have been enjoying the show, and the first part of the finale was gangbusters. TODD LASANCE | Oh, thanks, brother. Honestly, and I don’t want to be biased, but I think [the finale] is going to be my favorite episode. And here’s a bit of an interesting note: one of my audition scenes was from the final episode. We had a couple of scenes from the first episode, but then some of the big, heavy, emotional stuff was in my audition scene before I even got the role. It was interesting to see how they had plotted that and where that scene ended up fitting in.

TVLINE | Looking ahead to Part 2 of the finale, what kind of a prisoner is Georgina’s “Ana Niemus” going to be? Oh, she’s not going to be a very compliant prisoner — that’s for sure. What I love about what Georgina did is there’s something under the surface that you know is unsettling. In the final shot of Episode 7 and the opening elements of Episode 8, you’re like, “Something’s not quite right here.” The team can sense it, as well. And when I played it as the actor, there’s an unsettling element for JD. When he’s watching her, you can see behind his eyes that he’s like, “Something’s not adding up.”

The payoff is huge in this episode. Even if, say, you haven’t watched NCIS ever in your life or never seen any of this season, this episode is such an amazing piece of what we did and what the showrunner and the writers and the directors did, as well. The tone of this show within NCIS is usually a lot more lighthearted and fun, so to delve into this kind of emotional realm was super exciting.

TVLINE | Talk about the personal element for JD that’s teased in the promos, involving Jack’s abduction. Being a father myself — I have a daughter who’s 7, and we had our son while I was shooting [Season 1] — there was a lot going on for me, personally. What I love is where JD crosses the line between the badge and what’s right as far as law enforcement, and what it is to be a father and family man. It makes the audience question themselves: “What would you do? What would you sacrifice for the ones you love, whether it’s a brother, sister, son, daughter, best friend…? What would the lengths be that you’d go to, to protect them, to save them?” All while knowing you took that oath as a law enforcement member, and the obligations that go with that. But every decision that JD makes — and a lot of things do cross the line — I personally would also have done, too.

TVLINE | Without spoiling anything, what kind of a cliffhanger will this finale leave us with? Are lives in jeopardy, or is going to be like, “I can’t believe what I just saw/heard”? It’s everything. Lives are in jeopardy. “I can’t believe what I’ve just seen.” The enemy is revealed on such a larger scale than what I think people realize.

TVLINE | Morgan O’Neill, the showrunner, is from Sydney, but I’m wondering if for you as a fellow Australian, did the dialogue and slang always pass muster? Were you ever like, “I wouldn’t quite say this”? Or did you ever add in a little Australian flavor? Adding is the biggest thing. Morgan’s writing has been phenomenal, and we also have separate writers who write each episode or a block of episodes. What’s been exciting for me, as an actor, is allowing to trust myself, but also Morgan trusting me with the improvisation that I add to a lot of the scenes, particularly with comedy. I like to see what I can get away with on-camera, and they tend to keep most of it in.

To add to the question that you’ve asked, the writers and Morgan actually start writing for you. They see the dynamic that you’re starting to bring, the little nuances, the comedy. Same with with Sean [Sagar as DeShawn]. He is funny, man, and we’ve got a great brotherhood in real life. Because of the improvisation that we bring as actors, they’re starting to write a bit more toward that. If we have series (seasons) onward from this, it’ll get even more nuanced, and that chemistry and characters will build even more.

TVLINE | Do you have anything on your wish list for any possible Season 2? Like, do you want to know the results of the ladies’ Kiss-Marry-Kill game? [Laughs] That’d be great. I’d love to know that one.

Obviously, I want [the finale’s big reveal] to come to fruition and we work all that stuff out, but I also want to get into action sequences again. I want to get into some shootouts, car chases, some big-scale action things, because that’s what NCIS is known for.

I also want to explore the family dynamic side of things. This is a dream series for me because I get to play with the comedy, with that cheeky “ribbing each other” element, and also be the straight cop/leader, and then I get to go with the emotional element of the relationship with the son and my ex-wife and the breakdown of that relationship. The sky’s the limit for us.

TVLINE | As we speak, we’re still waiting on any Season 2 news. What’s the best time of year to be shooting in Sydney? Isn’t it, like, 108 degrees for you all right now? Look, I’m not going to lie. Where we are — I live in the Gold Coast — it is hot today, but it’s always hot and humid up here. I love it because it’s so tropical. I think mid-year is usually fairly controlled because it’s sort of winter, but our winter isn’t like Georgia’s or anything. It’s not, like, snowing in Sydney, so we can still get the beautiful days!

[cosmicjoke]

Hi! I hope your doing great.🧡

It is sad to see yet another anon trying to force thier opinion and trying to get you to change mind about your truthful and honest analysis and opinion.

These kind of people are so toxic and the fact they are clearly masking thier efforts to get you to agree eruri is canon as friendly and respectful. I don't get why people are so obsessed with shipping and stuff, and why would they want to enforce Erwin and Levi to have a romantic kind of relationship. As if they can't be anything else.

It doesn't matter how many times we speak out on toxic shipping culture, these kind of people will believe what they do, try to bend facts and misuse and mis translate Isayama's interviews and stuff.

Alas, even I am getting tired with all these toxic and annoying shippers bullsh!t.

Thanks for always calling them out and writing out the truth.

Anyways, I hope you have a great and happy Christmas and winters, don't let these people ruin the happy vibes ❤💚😊

Haha, thank you. Yeah, they're absolutely insane. They just sent me the same, endlessly long ask using three separate accounts after I blocked them the first time. As if I needed any kind of proof that they're just trying to force me to accept their stupid ass, deluded view, well, they handed it to me on a silver platter.

It's exhausting. It honestly is. These people target me because they think I have some sort of agenda against shippers, particularly Eruri shippers, when I have no such thing. I'm simply interested in being able to have an objective and canonically based discussion about Levi, and about Attack on Titan in general, without the idiocy of the speculation and assumption that the shipping communities are drowning in.

Eh, whatever. They always do this. I give them my answers. They don't like my answers, so they keep pushing, trying to find new ways to trip me up and force me to accept their views, and when I don't, they get all butthurt about it and accuse me of being biased myself. Biased toward what? Canon?

Anyway, thank you as always for your kind words and support, and I hope you also have a great Christmas and New Years!

[drunkonimagination]

Maybe it's because the TID/TLH lightwoods have a chokehold on me, but I wish we'd been given more scenes of them before and after Barbara died :( I know that TLH has a much larger main cast than the other TSC series, but they each have so much going on (James' heritage, Math's alcoholism, Kit's inventions, Tom breaking out of the 'kind one' box, Cordelia's desire to save her family, the parentification of Alastair, Lucie's necromantic adventures) not to mention their romantic entanglements (1/?)

anon.

from a lightwood family enthusiast to another all i can tell you is: you are right.

i would have loved to have more moments revolving around thomas's family, but, as you said, there's so much going on, so many important stuff that absolutely need to get sorted out/developed more and we have just one book left. and despite its quite huge it still remains one book. so, to be fair, i don't think we'll get too much focus on the minor characters (tid cast, eugenia, etc.) but still there's a tiny part of me that really hopes we'll get at least glimpses of tom and eugenia's dynamic and their relationships with their parents....also another thing im hoping for is a scene in which tom comes out to his family i know i know im delusional i just want so much to read about gideon, sophie and eugenia's reaction like....they already know? if not, are they surprised about thomas's revelation? what do they say to him? and what about alastair? what are their thoughts about him? of course they will adore the boy and instantly forgive him for the rumor issue, but i would love to actually read all of this jwksj

about tom and barbara, anon you said you're not a writer but that scene you just delivered is so good 😭 pls it was so tender, i loved it.

and yes. i would have very much liked more focus on the lightwoods tbh and i know, im biased, but i just love them so much, i can't help it!?! like, as you pointed out, learning more about barbara and her relationship with oliver, tom's opinion on him, the way he interacted with both of them.....and i can just imagine how difficult must be to handle so many characters at once for an author, but honestly i would have probably emphasized more on tom and barbara's relationship? and not just bc im a sucker for the lightwood-collins family, but also bc it would have given us definitely more context to understand better thomas's behaviour in choi and how much his sister's death affected him.

overlooking thomas and barbara's relationship, such as tom's suffering after her death, just enforce the idea that what he's going through is not that serious, it kinda minimizes the gravity of what he's living and makes the reader less sympathetic toward him and also contributes to reduce thomas's character to the other half of thomastair

and i don't care if he's a shadowhunter and got used to the idea of death, he's still a 18-year-old traumatized boy constantly terrorised to lose the ones he loves.

and this fear is so tangible if you linger on some aspects of his story. like his tendency to put his needs/desires aside and keep everything inside for the fear of losing more people (because saying he was in love with alastair at the time of the academy would have made his friends uncomfortable and pushed them away or simply going to james and cordelia's house because he couldn't face the possibility of eugenia's death all alone.)

all these things....they give immediately the idea of how much scared and broken thomas actually is.

and (imo) the fact that we haven't gotten the chance to properly grow fond of barbara and her relationship with tom, makes it difficult for us to understand the extent of the actual nightmare thomas is living.

oh

you asked me about the lightwood family and i ended up talking about thomas. what a clown. im so sorry i got carried away, but i hope i properly answered what you asked me in the first place help

[fictionyoubelieve]

The AI lawsuit stuff has made me think a bit more about copyright. The socialist, anarchist, and libertarian positions seem to be that copyright (and IP generally) should not exist at all, and that makes sense if you already have the other features of each of those ideologies. If we were living under a decent implementation of any of those systems, then I agree copyright should not exist--so if one of those is your ideal society, it's reasonable for you to assert that ideally, copyright would not exist at all.

However, that's not the situation in the US (and most other places) today. We live in a capitalist system where "property" (capital) helps you get by, and it's generally easier to accumulate "intellectual property" than the more tangible kinds. If copyright ended tomorrow, with no other changes, that seems like it would allow far more exploitation by the people holding all the other kinds of capital, and greatly increase inequality on net. So even if you want to take an incrementalist approach towards your ideal society, removing copyright protections entirely seems like the wrong step to take first, before other protections are in place.

(You might argue that the legal system already enforces copyright only for the "haves" and never the "have nots"; while there is some truth to this, I don't think there's enough to negate the above. For all the legal system's flaws--for all the ways it's biased in favor of the party with the biggest money stack--it does offer some protection for the "little guys" in the copyright game. The megacorps would love to never pay royalties again, but even they cannot completely flout the law without consequences, and there are plenty of realistic reforms that could level the playing field further.)

Of course, we still must weigh this benefit against the cost of letting megacorps utilize the same protections, to much greater effect. What do we lose, individually and as a society, by letting them hoard IP?

Current US copyright law certainly has a lot to improve when we consider this tradeoff. A term of 95 years (or life plus 70!) is obscene. Purely intuitively, somewhere in the ballpark of 10 years seems fine to me, so 95 takes some explaining! Fair use should also be shored up and expanded. I think we should care less about people accessing or reproducing copyrighted works in most cases where they're not making money from it, perhaps by shifting the legal standard to focus more on how much the perpetrator benefited (which is related to parts 1 and 4 of the doctrine, but not directly covered) than how much theoretical economic harm was done to the copyright holder (part 4). Of course big companies have more to "lose" from violations!

And finally, most pertinent to the topic of AI art: what counts as transformative? "Transformative" is a relatively recent consideration added to part 1 of the doctrine, and has been inconsistently applied in court. It's basically, and perhaps inescapably, "you know it when you see it." But I think I can still make a claim here: for judging whether an AI model is sufficiently transformative, the process matters, because no one can assess all the possible outputs.

You shouldn't have to sue to find out how likely it is for a company's AI to produce close-enough or verbatim excerpts of your work. There needs to be some level of transparency to provide a check on misbehavior. And AI providers shouldn't need to excessively guard against producing copyrighted material purely by happenstance; they can demonstrate some level of due diligence to reduce their culpability when the wildly rare edge cases eventually crop up ("gosh, this essay I asked for looks a lot like the Bee Movie script!"). I don't know enough about it to suggest a specific solution, only that it seems like there should be one.

Anyway, this is all to say that while I still think the median tumblr take on AI art is fundamentally misguided, some of the discourse has gotten a bit overzealous in the opposite direction. It's completely reasonable for creators to expect some kind of formalization of what their rights are when it comes to AI, so we need to hash that out one way or another.

-

Thanks for reading all that. Since it's obnoxiously long, I'm making another post that links to this one to use for reblogs, which you can find here.

[seeminglyseph]

I think like, “true crime girlie” or “murdino” or whatever is like. An evolutionary stage in becoming aware of the world around you, and it’s like absolutely 100% cringe and like. People’s real life tragedies aren’t a fandom, you don’t need to be involved. But. I think. The Netflix-ification of it is like when businesses realize what people are into and try to capitalize on it but it’s like “you can’t capitalize on murder.”

And Netflix documentaries are kind of questionable to begin with because they’re biased as shit and have like the most lacking information ever. They are popcorn entertainment documentaries. It’s very frustrating to be a documentary enjoyer and have like “oh good seven hours bullshit about nothing”

HBO used to make very good documentaries, now they are hit or miss. I mean I guess they’re always hit or miss, but I feel like the concept of a documentary has changed? Is that a phrase that makes sense? I feel foolish for having said that? But I also feel like sometimes the amount of information a person is intended to gain from a documentary is flexible, they aren’t supposed to be your primary source of information. They’re supposed to like. Let you know something exists, give you some important information, craft a thesis basically, make an argument and present the information and give you a way to form an opinion and seek out information yourself if you are so driven to do so.

But. Like. Sometimes it feels like “seek out more information yourself” has become. Uh. Not. A thing.

Maybe I just. Had a lot of bad experiences with people who got that like. Um. “If you go into the dark place your poor mind will be tainted, you must trust in me to protect you from that twisted evil information and give you only what you can handle to keep you from becoming like the Bad People.”

Which was kind of that SJW 2014 movement which matched my Catholic Trauma so well that I slid into the brainwashing like a good little puppet…

But I do live in a crime ravaged city in a neighbourhood in that city reputed to be deeply unsafe. Even if a lot of people getting into to true crime with my complexion are being extremely weird about it, it’s kind of reasonable to be aware of crime. Especially if you’re also aware of the part of true crime where you don’t sit there making excuses for police incompetence. Like.

I grew up in a household where I *did* get a Talk about how like. “We need the police, but if you don’t cooperate they can and will kill or severely hurt you because they have a lot of power over people like us” though in this situation “like us” was “poor” and “not a cop.” Similarly border agents and the TSA. My dad grew up even more poor than me, and was very sure I knew people in law enforcement could just like. Fuck my life up if they wanted.

He still had an absolutely unearned respect for the RCMP though, he really cared about those guys and like my research into true crime in Canada has unearthed a lot of “not my problem if I don’t look into it” and that’s pretty fucking infuriating? But there’s stuff that’s like. Maybe his position as a straight white man made him biased because the Salvation Army helped him as a kid and he has warm memories about them and then I’m like “they would absolutely leave me to die in the cold.” And it’s complex.

I dunno I don’t think I personally have had cause to interact with Mounties but I care about MMIW and related issues as a Western Canadian and like… Person With Morals I guess? And like. Boy howdy that’s a lot of. Uh. The history of the Canadian Police’s failure to protect and serve the Indigenous population of Canada is long and complicated and under told but at this time I am not equipped to tell it in a way that would be appropriate to the people who deserve their stories told with dignity and respect and outrage. But know in your hearts that if there’s a job that can be avoided the Mounties will avoid doing it and that is the mildest form of violence I can list here.

I suppose ultimately my point is that some people do it wrong, but. The only way for people to become aware of things is to learn and to research and to have sources. And sometimes it *starts* with My Favorite Murder and Dahlmer and bad Netflix documentaries. But it’s supposed to evolve into your own research and awareness of the world around you and an understanding of reality and pattern recognition of like. “Funny how so many people actually get away with these crimes because police don’t really put a lot of effort into investigating the deaths of certain people, and those murderers are aware of that.”

Who counts as the Less Dead? Who benefits from pretending crime happens differently than it really does? How many of these mysteries were open secrets long before they were solved?

But at the same time, we need something. Some system. ‘Cause people in general as a group are crazy. I live with people. We suck. We need rules and people to enforce them. It just would be nice if they didn’t also suck. Like damn.

[alicentflorent]

I think my problem with Penelope this season is that the show doesn’t seem to be heading in the direction of holding her accountable for her actions or showing the extent of how damaging writing stuff, read by all of high society and the queen, like “this unmarried woman is pregnant and trying to manipulate a bridgerton” or “this woman is associating with political radicals”

They don’t really show any devastating consequences to her actions, Marina is saved at the last minute by her lovers brother who seems like a genuinely good man marinas age. Although we do see that she is deeply unhappy, and of course there are a lot of factors that contribute to her depression but we don’t see Penelope showing any remorse over this and the show doesn’t really enforce the idea that whistledown had a part in marina’s declining mental state. We get one line from Colin about how maybe things could have been different for marina if they had been kinder to her but we don’t see Penelope showing remorse or trying to contact marina and repair their friendship.

She writes that her best friend Eloise is associating with political radicals which could have dire consequences, if not for highly privileged Eloise, then certainly for the working class “radicals” that she has been associated with? They could have been arrested and faced severe or even capital punishment. But the most consequences we see is Eloise being embarrassed, and another scandal for her family who had already caused a huge scandal and pissed off the queen anyway. I suppose you could say Eloise cutting ties with Theo was a consequence, but we have already been told for most of the season that Eloise sneaking off to spend time with a boy below her station was going to blow up in her face even if whistledown didn’t print it. Also even if you consider how awful it is that Eloise was hurt this way by her bestie the show does justify it but implying, if not outright telling us, that Penelope had to do this to “save” Eloise from the queen when she could have come clean to either to Eloise or the queen herself and taken the queens deal.

Basically, There are no lasting consequences for Penelopes victims therefore, there are none for Penelope.

The show also gives us a “good reason” for penelopes actions to make out that would Penelope did was somewhat justified. Marina was “scamming” Colin, Eloise was in trouble with the queen and also she was a selfish friend who only cares about her own problems and not penelopes, then at the end we are meant to sympathise with Penelope, who lost her best friend, got humiliated by the boy she likes, then went back to writing as whistledown to cope.

Penelope as whistledown could have been a great story and could have made her such an intriguing morally grey character who is the quiet sweet wallflower, who is overlooked and shit on by most of the people in her life and feels powerless but there’s another, darker side to her, that has the cutthroat scheming abilities of her mother and holds these rich hypocrites accountable but sometimes takes things too far because of personal biases and the the power thrill she gets from being lady whitledown, which is an identity she doesn’t want to let go of because that’s who she wants to be without getting the backlash from the ton. Unfortunately instead the writers are going down this route of instead of having her be complex, they’re like “buut she had a good reason..” and “this character did this bad thing which is the same/worse” aka making excuses for her actions. Which makes it hard for me to root for her or even enjoy her as a messy, immoral, scheming character (and I love that kind of character) - because the show can’t pick a lane with her. They want her to do messed up stuff but be seen as ultimately good and not in need of consequences. In the end she will likely be rewarded without need for redemption by getting the guy she was willing to ruin her friend and confidants life for.

[dirk-has-rabies]

Gender variance and it's link with neurodivergency

Okay so this is it going to be another long one

All quotes will be sourced with a link to the scientific journal I took it from

Okay Tumblr, let's talk gender (I know, your favorite topic) my preface on why this topic matters to me is: I'm autistic ( diagnosed moderate to severe autism) I'm nonbinary trans ( in a way that most non-autistic people don't understand and actually look down on)  and I went to college for gender study ( Mostly for intersex studies but a lot of my research was around non-binary and trans identities) I will be using the term autism as pants when I have experience with however when ADHD is part of the study I will use ND which stands for neurodivergent and yes this is going to be about xenogenders and neopronouns.

autism can affect gender the same way autism can affect literally every part of an identity. a big thing about having autism is the fact that it completely can change how you view personhood and time and object permanence and gender and literally all types of socially constructed ideas. let me also say hear that just because Society creates and enforces an idea does it mean that it doesn't exist to all people it just me that there is no nature law saying that it's real and the “rules” for these ideas can change and delete and create as time and Society evolves and changes.  gender is one of those constructs.

Now I'll take it by you reading this you know what transgender people are  (if you don't understand what a trans person is send me an ask and I'll type you up a pretty little essay lmao,  or Google it but that's a scary thought sense literally any Source or website can come up on Google including biased websites so be careful I guess LOL) anyway to be super basic trans people are anyone who doesn't identify as the gender they were assigned at Birth (yes that includes non-binary people I could do a whole nother essay about that shit how y'all keep spreading trying to separate non-binary people from the trans umbrella)  some people don't like to use the label and that is totally fine by the way.

now autistic people to view the world in a way differently than allistic (neurotypical) ppl do.  we don't take everything people teach us at 100% fact and we tend to question everything and demand proof and evidence for things before we can set it as a fact in our brains. This leads to why a lot of autistic people are atheist (although a lot of religions and this is not bashing on religious people at all I am actually a Jewish convert)  this questioning leads to a lot of social constructs being ignored or not understood At All by a lot of autistic people and personally I think that's a good thing.  allistics take everything their parents and teachers and schools teach them as fact until someone else says something and then they pick which ones to believe. autistic people study and research and learn about a topic before forming an opinion and while this may lead to them studying and believing very biased material and spitting it out as fact it can also lead them to try and Discover it is real by themselves.

because of this autistic people are more question their gender or not fall in a binary way at all as the concept of gender makes no sense to a lot of us. “ if gender is a construct then autistic people who are less aware of social norms are less likely to develop a typical gender identity”

no really look: “ children and teens with autism spectrum disorder ASD or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder ADHD  are much more likely to express a wish to be the opposite sex compared with their typical developing peers” That was posted in 2014. we have been saying this stuff forever but no one wants to listen. the thing is gender variance (being not cisgender or at least questioning it)  has always been closely hand-in-hand with autistic and ADHD people I'm even the doctor who did that study understood right away that it all made sense the whole time: “ Dr. Strang said they were initially surprised to find an overrepresentation of gender variance among children with ADHD. However, they later realized that prior studies have shown increased levels of disruptive behavior and other behavioral problems among young people with gender variance”  SEE YOURE NOT WEIRD YOURE JUST YOU AND YOURE NOT ALONE IN THIS!!

5% autistic people who did the study were trans or questioning. it was also equal between the Sexes fun fact. that may not seem like a lot till you realize that the national average is only .7% that's literally over 700% higher than the national average. That's so many! and that's just in America.

 in Holland there was a study in 2010 “ nearly 8% of the more than 200 Children and adolescents referred to a clinic for gender dysphoria also came up positive on a assessment for ASD” they weren't even testing for ADHD so the numbers could be even higher!

now I want to talk about a  certain section of the trans umbrella that a lot of autistic people fall under called the non-binary umbrella. non-binary means anything that isn't just male or just female. it is not one third gender and non-binary doesn't mean that you don't have a gender. just clearing that up since cis people keep spreading that. non-binary is an umbrella term for any of the infinite genders you could use or create. now this is where I'm going to lose a bunch of you and that's okay because you don't have to understand our brains or emotions To respect us as real people. not many allistics can understand how we see and think and relate to things and that's okay you don't have to understand everything but just reading about this could be so much closer to respecting us for Who We Are from you've ever been and that's better than being against us just for existing.

now you might have heard of my Mutual Lars who was harassed  by transmeds for using the term Autigender (I was going to link them but if it gets traction I don't want them to get any hate)  since a lot of people roll their eyes at that  and treated them disgustingly for using a term that 100% applied correctly.  Autigender  is described as " a neurogender which can only be understood in the context of being autistic or when one's autism greatly affects one's gender or how one experiences gender. Autigender is not autism as a gender, but rather is a gender that is so heavily influenced by autism that one's autism and one's experience of gender cannot be unlinked.” Now tell me that doesn't sound a lot like this entire essay I've been working on with full sources…..

xenogenders and neopronouns are a big argument point on whether or not people “believe” in non binary genders but a big part of those genders is that they originated from ND communities and are ways that we can try to describe what gender means us in a way that cis or even allistic trans people just can't comprehend or ever understand. Same with MOGAI genders or sexualities. A lot of these are created as a way to somehow describe an indescribable relationship with gender that is so personal you really cant explain it to anyone who isnt literally the same as you.

Even in studies done with trans autistic people a large amount of them dont even fall on a yes or no of having a gender at all and fall in some weird inbetween where you KINDA have a gender but its not a gender in the sense that others say it is but its also too much of a gender so say youre agender. And this is the kind of stuff that confuses allistic trans people and makes them think nonbinary genders are making stuff up for attention, which isnt true at all we just cant explain what it feels like to BE a trans autistic person to anyone who doesnt ALREADY know how it feels.

In this study out of the ppl questioned almost HALF of the autistic trans individuals had a “Sense of identity revolving around interests” meaning their gender and identity was more based off what they liked rather than boy or girl. That makes ppl with stuff like vampgender or pupgender make a lot more sense now doesnt it? We see that even in the study: “My sense of identity is fluid, just as my sense of gender is fluid […] The only constant identity that runs through my life as a thread is ‘dancer.’ This is more important to me than gender, name or any other identifying features… even more important than mother. I wouldn't admit that in the NT world as when I have, I have been corrected (after all Mother is supposed to be my primary identification, right?!) but I feel that I can admit that here. (Taylor)” and an agreement from another saying “Mine is Artist. Thank you, Taylor. (Jessie)” now dont you think if they grew up with terms like artistgender or dancergender they would just YOINK those up right away????

In fact “An absence of a sense of gender or being unsure of how their gender should “feel” was another common report” because as ive said before in this post AUTISTIC PEOPLE DONT SEE GENDER THE WAY ALLISTIC PEOPLE SEE IT. therefore we wont use the same terms or have the same identities nor could we explain it to anyone who doesnt already understand or question the same way! Participants even offered up quotes such as “As a child and even now, I don't ‘feel’ like a gender, I feel like myself and for the most part I am constantly trying to figure out what that means for me (Betty)” and also “I don't feel like a particular gender I'm not even sure what a gender should feel like (Helen)”

Now i know this isnt going to change everyones minds on this stuff but i can only hope that it at least helped people feel like theyre not broken and not alone in their feelings about this. You dont have to follow allistic rules. You dont have to stop searching inside for who you really wanna be. And you dont have to pick or choose terms forever because just as you grow and evolve so may your terms. Its okay to not know what or who you are and its okay to identify as nonhuman things or as your interests because what you love and what you do is a big part of who you are and shapes you everyday. Its not a bad thing! Just please everyone, treat ppl with respect and if you dont understand something that doesnt make it bad or wrong it just means its not for you. And thats okay.

[rivalsforlife]

The Miles Dadworth Fic Rec List

List last updated: May 14 2021

Hopefully comprehensive list of fics of Miles Edgeworth Being A Father. This can be heavily implied or him outright adopting a kid. Not filtered through for quality, I just picked all the ones I could find easily.

Here’s how it works: I went through the 29 fics in the platonic Miles&Kay tag on ao3 that weren’t also tagged with the ship (gross), and skimmed through the fics that listed them both in the character tags. I also went through the platonic Sebastian&Miles tag. (Pretty much all the Sebastian fics are under the aai2 spoilers category regardless of how much spoilers are actually in there, just to be on the safe side!) I picked out ones that were either Miles Is A Dad or at least had heavy Dad vibes, and in which that relationship played a major if not were the sole focus of the story.

I didn’t go through Trucy’s tag yet because it’s the largest and also overlaps heavily with narumitsu - and while I love the ship, I wanted to focus on platonic relationships here, and didn’t really want to break down if each fic is more Miles&Trucy focused or narumitsu focused. Maybe later! I also didn’t go through the fics with original child characters for Miles -- though if you have any, lmk and I’ll add in a category for them, it counts as Dadworth too.

In the interest of being transparent as possible, these options are probably going to be biased. I read over or at least skimmed all of the fics submitted here before I put together this list, and therefore, I probably missed some that are tagged under ships that I personally dislike. As long as the ship isn’t something egregious, feel free to recommend it preferably with the Dadworth parts you like pointed out to me, and I’ll add it!

Now that those disclaimers are done… each of the fics below is sorted into one of three categories based on spoilers. There’s the link, followed by the title, author, rating, word count, and completion status (most are complete) along with any notes I thought might be helpful, such as which Dadworth relationship it focuses on but also any content warnings. Check them out and send the authors your love!

If you have any recommendations for the list, whether that’s because it’s on a non-ao3 site, under a ship I avoided, under a Dadworth relationship I didn’t search for, or I just plain missed something… send me a message either here or on twitter @rivalsforlife with a link to the fic! 

Similarly, if one of your fics on this list and you don’t want it to be, let me know and I’ll remove you from it, no hard feelings!

Full list under the “keep reading”.

Relatively Spoiler-Free Recs

… like it’s not going to be totally spoiler-free, but no major spoilers for anything released post-AJ unless stated otherwise.

Surprise Visit, by tellezara. T, 1385 words, complete. Not explicitly Dadworth, but Kay breaks into Miles’s house and meets Phoenix. Background narumitsu.

Means to an End by xtwilightzx. T, 24653 words, complete. Miles + Kay and a little bit of Miles + Trucy, again there’s narumitsu haha oops there’s gonna be a lot of those. It’s a spy+secret agent AU, I kind of just went through the Kay parts when adding it so I didn’t read over a lot of it and it’s been a while since I read it the first time. Not a fluffy piece, so tread carefully!

startling conclusions., by snowweiss. G, 3589 words, complete. Mainly Miles + Trucy and also Kay is there, and again, background narumitsu. 

The Little Things, by TelepathJeneral. G, 1838 words, complete. Miles+Kay, literally tagged “the ‘dad who isn’t a dad’” so. Yeah.

By the Skies, by potatomin. G, 1893 words, complete. Miles + Kay, not outright dad-stuff and can be read as friendship-only but here I am anyways claiming it

Turnabout Road Trip, by AutisticWriter. G, 1032 words, complete. Miles + Kay, not outright dad stuff but there’s a line implying it. Miles and Kay go to the Stonewall Inn, and there’s implied narumitsu.

Dear Kay, by chariset. T, 3790 words, complete. As the name would suggest it’s Miles + Kay. Contains spoilers for Dual Destinies, largely narumitsu focused, and a few lines that are nsfw-ish (for the narumitsu) but nothing graphic.

Jingleheimer Schmidt, by Meowzee. T, 2702 words, complete. It’s an AU where Miles has adopted (younger) Kay, Sebastian, and Ema, running into Phoenix who has adopted Trucy and (younger) Apollo and (human?) Charley. There’s a bit of implied narumitsu in there I think.

The Track Meet, by Auste. G, 2053 words, complete. Kay invites Miles and Gumshoe to her track meet. It’s not outright Dadworth, can be read as friendship only, but it’s implied in a few places.

An Unexpected Embrace, by PaleSkiessss. G, 2493 words, complete. Miles+Kay, there’s a spoiler for the victim of AAI case 4 in there but since I don’t think it’s an outright spoiler it’s here. Warning for kidnapping and hopsitals.

A Real Hero, by agoldengalaxy. G, 1609 words, complete. Miles+Kay, it takes place after aai2 but there aren’t any spoilers for it in here. 

The Single-Dads-In-Law-Enforcement Club, by milesedgeworthy (glassandroses). T, 1063 words at the time of writing this, incomplete. AU where Miles adopts Kay (who is aged down in this). Narumitsu seems to be a future focus, there’s also Gumshoe/Maggey and Mia/Diego. 

Long Known Facts, by Laquilasse. G, 3010 words, complete. Miles+Kay and Miles+Trucy, along with Miles+Gregory (various Dadworth flavours!). Miles turns 36 and reflects on the loss of his father; it’s a little heavy, naturally, but has a hopeful ending. Narumitsu is there as a pairing. Warning for past suicidal thinking.

Looking Past the Blindside, by AuthorForHire. G, 2808 words, complete. Miles+Kay, watching the beginning of Turnabout Succession (hence, AA4 spoilers).

From Borginia, with Love, by Inkblot0Blue. G, 678 words, complete (but reportedly part of an earlier abandoned(?) work). Miles+Kay and Miles+Sebastian, but no spoilers pop up regarding Sebastian.

Found, by BexDaBex. G, 318 words, complete. Miles+Kay, Miles finds Kay crying in the prosecutor’s office.

To the victor goes the spoils, by Verse. G, 499 words, complete. Miles+Kay, Miles spends a ridiculous amount of money on Kay. Warning that, while the fic itself is fine and absolutely dadworth, it is based on a prompt and the prompter mentions it as a ship in the prompt. (Again, the fic itself is fine, just brace yourself for that if needed.)

Making the Most, by digitaldreams. G, 2000 words, complete. Miles+Kay, Miles introduces Kay to Phoenix. narumitsu is in this one.

AAI Spoilers

For fics that contain spoilers for the first investigations game, but not the second.

Room 1202, by AquilaMage, G, 2950 words, complete. A bit of Miles + Kay stuff, but mostly Kay and Trucy sister-like bonding fluff!

Late Night, by agoldengalaxy. G, 1270 words, complete. Miles + Kay, post-AAI.

Turnabout Smokescreen, by chariset. T, 61036 words, complete. This is a multi-chapter casefic, it’s not super Dadworth focused but believe me it is in there, Miles + Kay. Some SOJ spoilers, not very fluffy, and I didn’t read over it before adding it to the list since it’s so long, so there may be some warnings or spoilers that I missed!

Promises, by an orphaned account :(. G, 1390 words, complete. Miles + Kay, Miles signs her promise notebook.

Two in the Bush, by Rosage. G, 4568 words, complete. Miles has adopted Kay in this, and some Kay+Trucy interactions plus Protective Dad Phoenix -- it’s not a fluffy fic, though, deals with moral ambiguity + Actual Yatagarasu Kay.

Spreading Her Wings, by Auste. G, 1542 words, complete. Less Dadworth and more Miles as a mentor to Kay, on her first day as a prosecutor, but I’m counting it in this anyways.

Father and daughter, by thewritingchip. G, 370 words, complete. Miles + Kay. Kay misses her father.

Coming out, by Verse. G, 977 words, complete. Miles+Kay, Kay comes out as trans to Miles. Content warning for an instance of unintentional deadnaming in the fic.

Never Lose You, by Leave_the_cravat. T, 13800 words, incomplete as of the time I’m writing this. Miles+Kay, Miles get shot and his friends/found family wait for him to recover. Evidently, content warning for gun violence and hospitals; more detailed warnings in the chapters.

Here, by lesbiantoddhoward.  G, 1194 words, complete. Miles+Kay, Kay works through some of her trauma post-AAI with the help of Miles. Not outright dadworth, but can be read as such.

AAI2 Spoilers

For fics that contain any amount of spoilers for the second investigations game.

Childswap, by theacegrace, aka me… sorry for the self-promotion haha but it fits. G, 11781 words, complete, has Miles’ relationships with Trucy + Kay + Sebastian (and also background, heavily implied narumitsu)

“family.”, by snowweiss. G, 2403 words, complete, features Miles’ relationships with Kay and Trucy and also narumitsu. No major plot spoilers but some implied ones through aai2 case 3 and 4.

These Children Are Not Objections, But I Will Raise Them!, by organicgold. G, 12368 words, complete. Has a whole bunch of platonic relationships you can see in the tags and also narumitsu. Some plot spoilers re: Sebastian

Edgeworth Gets Glasses, by Pinkstar14, G, 1516 words, complete. There aren’t any aai2 plot spoilers but Ray and Sebastian do show up in this. A bit of Miles and Sebastian, and Miles and Kay. Also Gregory’s Ever-Looming Presence, because technically he’s a dadworth too.

a great thief has to eat too, by polly_perks. G, 1357 words, complete. Some spoilers for cases 4 and 5 in here, focused on Miles and Kay. Miles gives Kay college advice.

Family Found, by MortisBane. G, 2422 words, complete. Spoilers are just General Sebastian things, but it’s outright dadworth with Kay and Sebastian.

Marked, by AquilaMage. T, 2112 words, complete. Kind of like one of those “soulmate AUs” except skin-to-skin contact with someone who truly loves you, whether that’s platonic, familial, or romantic, results in marks. Has some Miles + Sebastian dad stuff, but Miles also has Sebastian and Kay living with him. There’s also the Klavier/Sebastian ship. Warnings for implied child abuse.

That Warm Familiar Feeling, by ShyAura. G, 3091 words, complete. It’s an AU where Kay and Seb are aged down and Miles adopts them. Again warnings for implied child abuse in this re: Blaise.

Sleeping on Talent, by StrawhatsAndDeliberds. G, 10258 words, complete. Mostly Miles + Sebastian focused, but Miles adopts both him and Kay after the events of aai2 (or at least lets them live in his house.)

With a Chip in his Shoulder, by StrawhatsAndDeliberds. G, 80179 words at the time of writing this, incomplete. Much like the one above, Miles+Sebastian focused but Kay is there too. (I’m not sure if this is supposed to be part of a series or not, but it’s similar with Sebastian working through his issues!)

Surprises and Pride, by agoldengalaxy. G, 2848 words, complete. Miles+Kay but Sebastian is there too, I don’t think there are any aai2 spoilers but since it takes place post-aai2 and Sebastian is there, I put it here just to be safe!

Awfully Quiet, by rainingbluegold. G, 1079 words, complete. Miles+Kay and Miles+Sebastian, Miles cheers them up after the events of aai2.

Home Is Where The Heart Is, by JJsADragon. G, 5887 words, complete. Miles+Kay - Miles tries to figure out Kay’s secret about where she’s been staying throughout the course of the investigations games. 

Birds of a Feather, by theacegrace (oh look it’s me again). G, 8738 words, complete. Miles+Kay (with a little bit of Miles+Gregory). Five times Miles reminds Kay of her father, and one time Miles reminds himself of his own.

Warm Welcome, by debestefarewell. G, 551 words, complete. Miles+Sebastian - Sebastian gets a REAL dad.

Of Revelations and Wedding Bells, by Hotel_Japanifornia. G, 1330 words, complete. Miles+Kay, Kay is getting married (to an ambiguous/unknown partner) and Miles walks her down the aisle.

schön rosmarin, by KiwiKat_Writes. T, 13885 words at the time of writing this, incomplete. Miles+Sebastian and some Miles+Kay. Sebastian gets a dog! Warnings for some child abuse (Blaise being horrible), mentioned animal death at the beginning. (I haven’t had the time to read this one in detail yet, so let me know if I missed something.)

Smile Through the Memories, by VonKarmasWhip. T, 2490 words, complete. Miles+Kay, where Miles adopts Kay and deals with memories and doubts about being a father. There’s Gregbadd in the beginning of this and mentions of narumitsu and faraskye.

A Different Kind of Lullaby, by JJsADragon. T, 4101 words, complete. Miles+Sebastian, Sebastian calls Miles in the middle of the night wondering what happened to his mother. Content warning for Blaise being terrible, so implied/referenced child abuse and neglect.

Photosynthesize, by UtterPandamonium. T, 2140 words, incomplete at the time of writing this. Miles+Kay, with Miles and Phoenix and their accidental child acquisitions. No spoilers yet, but I’m putting it here just in case there is. narumitsu and franmaya are tagged as relationships in here.

[wisteria-lodge]

lion primary + badger secondary (bird model)

ie A HOUSE MATCH !!

Hellooo, I’m sorry for bothering you but I’ve found this blog and I absolutely love your character analysis and overall thought about the SHC system, and I could use some help?

I’ve known the system for a while now, since the old SHC tumblr times, and while understanding my current primary situation has been quite easy, I’m having A LOT of trouble with my secondary and it’s becoming a bit of a issue for me because the more I think about it, the more confused I become, to the point where it’s upsetting me a bit.

First thing first, my Primary is a very “standard” Lion, the whole “you feel if something is right or not and if you do something that’s not right to you you feel bad/ill/it’s wrong” is extremely me. I had some doubts about a Badger model, but I think it’s just that my personal ideals and values align a lot with a Badger worldview, since I grew in a very Badger society and family (very leftist, a lot of emphasis on equality and valuing and creating communities). Reading various description/interpretations of primary Lion always feels right, while reading primary Badger always makes me think “yeah, this is all good and nice, BUT…” so this was quite easy to sort out (no pun intended).

Are you me? So far... I could have written this. It’s possible I *might* be biased going forward. 

When it comes to secondaries, I see a lot of myself in Bird descriptions: I make spreadsheets for everything.

 Pretty Bird.

I am a crafter with an apparently endless supply of books and tutorials and supplies ready, and the enthusiasm to share them. 

That sounds more Badger. 

I am the mom friend 

Badger.

who always has what’s needed in their bag. 

Bird.

I am that one person you can count on knowing a funny or interesting anecdote about almost any topic, from the mundane to the truly obscure. Learning new things, about any topic, is literally one of my biggest pleasures in life. 

Bird [model?] Whichever one isn’t your secondary is a model you clearly love.

I take pride in all these things, but I honestly have trouble understanding if I like using them as tools because they help me with my ADHD and so I received a very strong positive enforcement using them and I kept the ones I like, or if I started doing them because they are what I like doing and coincidentally they help me managing my symptoms or better navigate the world in my day to day life.

Could be either, but modeling Bird because you’re neurodivergent is very much a thing.

Also, while I love planning, when it comes to making decisions I tend to gather all information and summarize it in a way that makes sense to me so I can visualize the issue in my mind as complete and detailed as possible, but the final decision tends to feel a bit… impulsive, to me?, there’s always A LOT of gut feeling involved, and when I don’t follow it usually it ends up being a wrong or subpar decision. I do need to gather all the available information about the issue/situation/item/people, but rather than making my decision by comparison, I use the information to make sure that I’m “seeing” the truth (or as close to it as it is possible) and then once I feel safe that I’m not overlooking anything important I just KNOW what is the correct decision.

That’s a Lion primary making a call. 

Could this simply be a very strong primary interfering with the decision-making, even when it’s not about ideals but more mundane things?

Decision making is always a primary thing. Mundane stuff included. Mundane stuff is important. 

On the other hand, I am an extremely hard working person (I am changing jobs right now because I feel like my old bosses are making more and more difficult for me to just do my job properly and without needing to cut corners, and it just feels wrong to me). 

Oh good lord. I am ready to sort you as a Badger secondary solely on the basis of THAT. 

People tell me I’m a very good listener and that I am especially good at helping others unravel their thoughts when they’re all confused and tangled because I ask the right questions. I seem to gain other people’s trust easily and often I get told gossip or secrets before others. 

Badger. Also DAMN but that’s relatable. I think you might house-match me. 

I got told several times by previous bosses that I should look into becoming a team leader because people like me and I make them get along better. 

Sounds like a Lion/Badger combo. 

People get attached to me very quickly and when I have problems the stream of folks asking if they can help or just checking in is always way more than I expect.

Isn’t it weird how that happens? 

This all sounds like Badger stuff, from the descriptions I read, but many of them are not things I actively enjoy doing, I just.. do them because it would be weird to do otherwise? Or it feels like they happen to me with no effort on my part.

Because they’re just you. It’s just who you are. 

I think they might be simply a result of me growing up in a society that values hard work and being kind to others, or just me being a likeable person

Not everyone finds this easy. Not even close. I have read so many testimonials written by people in Badger secondary households killing themselves trying to fit into this model. Wanting isn’t enough. Having examples around you isn’t enough. 

or maybe coping mechanisms I had to learn in order to “pass” as neurotypical but as I wrote the more think and read about Birds and Badgers and their differences, the more I get confused and frustrated.

Now I know I’m projecting, but all my neurotypical coping mechanisms come out of the Bird secondary toolbox. 

But it would make sense since I burned out badly in my teens from trying to always try to be perfect for my family, my friends, my teachers, society 

That sounds like a young Badger secondary, more than a young Bird secondary.

and when I finally found who I really wanted to be I resolved to never let anyone define what or how I should be ever again (hello there, Lion primary!)

I hear that. 

After a lifetime of beating myself up for not living up to the absurdly high expectations I set up for myself, I have decided that the only way to stay sane for me is to do the groundwork, be as prepared as I can

Bird

 put in the work I should

Badger

 but once I’m in the thick of it just… ride the wave. And now I got to the point where I have the confidence that I am smart enough to learn the basics of a new skill on the fly, if needed.

To me, this is so fundamentally, so spiritually Badger secondary. You don’t have tools. You are a tool. You made yourself into one. And that moment where you can just trust yourself to catch the world, absorb it into yourself, and become whatever it needs you to be... it’s ecstasy. 

I’d say that lack of time is my worst enemy, but due/thanks to the ADHD that’s not true most of the time, since lack of time is what enables me to get past the executive dysfunction in the first place, so I’ll say I have a love-hate relationship with it. Doing things just before a deadline is it’s own kind of high, after all (I’m not saying it’s healthy).

At the base of your soul, you’re not really a Bird prepper/planner. 

A practical example: I usually don’t like platforming games much, but I am LOVING Immortals: Fenyx Rising because in most situations, there is a “best” way to do things but you can also get creative by using different skills, using specific items, finding loopholes, or a combination of all of them.

Sounds like a Bird secondary having fun. [a fun model?]

When I fail a level/combat I don’t get frustrated because I know that I just have to try a few more times until I find the solution that feels right FOR ME, even if it’s not the most efficient ones. And when I do it feels great, even if I look a at guide afterwards and there’s a waaay easier solution! I usually feel a bit silly for not “seeing it” but also think something like “well, I think MY way is more fun!”

Oh yeah, a Bird secondary would not have that reaction. That is the sacred Badger consistency of method. How you do something matters equally as much as the final product. 

When I cook, I usually find a recipe I like and try it as written, then I make small adjustments to improve it, see how it turns out, and so on until I have a recipe that is MY recipe, one I really like and that I know well enough to use as a basis to be changed if needed, knowing exactly how the change will affect the end result. I think this is why I prefer baking to other kinds of cooking, since it’s much more akin to chemistry I feel like I have more control over what a change will do. 

On it’s own this could be a description of rapid-fire Bird. And you clearly have Bird, you have a lot of it. You love it. 

So I guess that what really matters to me is being able to do things my way so that I can enjoy the process and live up to my standards instead of external ones? 

But then you say something like this... it’s about the process... it’s about the method... it’s about something coming up to your own personal standards. And that’s so Badger. 

This ended up being very lengthy… I’ve tried shortening it but English isn’t my first language and I was afraid I might come across not clearly. 

Your English is perfect, and insanely clear. You’re clearer than I am. 

Thank you again for the blog, I especially like your DS9 characters’ analysis and I am low-key hoping for more :)

I’m particularly proud of those ones. I’d love to do more, but before that I would have to go back and re-watch the show, or at least key character episodes. I’m not going to sort from memory. That would be doing a show I love, and a number of extremely complex characters a disservice. And it wouldn’t be nearly as fun. 

(it’s that whole Badger integrity-of-method thing, you know how it goes.) 

[caecilius-est-pater]

Really now, anti's? Did the meaning change or something because I'm very sure anti means anti-pedo shipping, anti-incest shipping.

To quote that one meme: well yes, but actually no. Antis are to “let’s stop pedophilia in fandom!” as TERFs are to “let’s support women’s rights!” - sounds good in theory, but in practice ineffectual and mostly just an excuse to bully people. I’m going to choose to be optimistic and take this as a good faith question from someone who genuinely doesn’t know, so I’m going to explain why.

The ideology sounds great at the surface level, like hell yeah, let’s get rid of pedo shit! Who wouldn’t agree with that? But once you go past the absolute shallowest surface level and say, OK, now what steps do we take to accomplish that? then you start to hit snags. Legally, the only stuff that’s banned is images/videos/etc of real life children being abused. Things like ship art or explicit fics of underage fictional characters are perfectly fine. Therefore, legally, anyone making that content is not breaking any rules.

If you say, well, I don’t agree with that, I want more things to be banned, then you have to come up with new rules of what should and shouldn’t be allowed. Who gets to decide that? Is there a committee? How are committee members chosen? How do you account for biases in the committee, such as race or age or gender? Once the committee has come to a decision about the new rules, how do you enforce them? What do you do about people or groups who refuse to follow the new rules? How do you spread the news to all of fandom that there are new rules in the first place?

And what about the rules themselves? How do you define “pedo content” beyond the legal definition of featuring real children? Maybe you say, that’s easy, let’s just go with all sexual content featuring people under 18. OK, cool, you’ve now made it illegal for minors to talk about their own experiences. Minors have sex, minors fantasize about sex, minors masturbate, minors experience rape and abuse, and now you’ve just put a gag order on all those millions of people. I don’t know about you, but I think letting people draw/write fictional characters having sex (even gross, weird sex) is the lesser of two evils compared to hurting millions of real, living children.

And anyway, how do you define “sexual content” in the first place? Is it OK if there’s no graphic detail? Is masturbation OK? What about sexual fantasies? How about making out? At which base do you draw the line between “acceptable expression of sexuality” and “pedophilia”? Or is any expression of sexuality not OK? Kissing? Holding hands?

At this point you’re probably saying, gee tumblr user caecilius-est-pater, that sounds both untenable (how are we going to get all of the internet to agree to unite under One Committee To Determine the Rules?) and like an insane unending rabbit hole! Nobody could ever do that! Yep. For better or for worse, we as a bunch of randos on the internet just do not have the power to change the broad planet-wide rules of what does and does not count as pedophilia.

You can probably see how this is a problem for the anti movement, which is all about enforcing those new, stricter rules. The ones that don’t exist and realistically can’t exist. How do you enforce nonexistent rules? The answer antis have landed on is to just make them up, every man for themselves. As you can probably imagine, this... doesn’t work too well, to put it lightly.

Some people think it’s OK to write about CSA as long as the author actually experienced it, other people think it’s never OK and even real life CSA survivors are pedophiles if they write about it. Some people think aging up teenage characters is OK, other people think if they’re underage in canon then depicting them in sexual situations at any age counts as pedophilia. Some people think sexual depictions of characters who look young (art styles with big eyes, short characters, characters with high voices, etc) is pedophilia, even if the characters are canonically adults. Etc ad infinitum.

Which brings us to the two things I said antis are: ineffectual and and a front for bullying. It should be obvious how the movement is ineffectual - you’re never going to get anywhere with removing bad people from your community if nobody can agree what a bad person actually is.

The bullying comes in because it’s very hard to get people to bully someone, but very easy to get people to join a witch hunt. “Let’s all harass and doxx this person because they’re a jerk” isn’t gonna get me very far, but “Let’s all harass and doxx this person because they’re a pedophile” is going to bring out a mob with torches and pitchforks if I can convince everyone I’m telling the truth. And by the antis’ mutable definition of pedophilia that can include anything from teenagers kissing to consenting adults who knew each other as kids, I’ve got a lot of tools in my arsenal to convince people.

And the insidious part is that nobody can defend you without immediately opening themselves up to the same accusations, because if you're being called out as a pedophile for supporting a ship with a height difference, anyone who says, “hey, I don’t think that’s pedophilia” is now also supporting ships with a height difference, ergo supporting pedophilia. (And if anyone is thinking “you’re making all these strawman examples up, nobody actually believes that”, I envy your blissful ignorance but let me assure you, I am not.)

And that kind of situation leads to an atmosphere where everyone is terrified of doing anything wrong or they’ll be the next one viciously attacked, and the only way to keep good social standing is by continously attacking other people whether you agree with the extreme ideology or not, and that’s how you get bullying, harassment campaigns, and anti groups that have become genuine, legitimate cults. I’ve lost the links but there are some truly chilling twitter threads about that if you’re interested.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, whether it was a case of the proverbial road to hell being paved with good intentions or whether the movement was co-opted by people who didn’t actually care about stopping pedophilia and really just wanted an excuse to cyberbully people, the movement has evolved to a point where it’s mainly a harassment campaign with only the thinnest veneer of actually trying to prevent pedophilia. Nobody is out here running charity drives to donate to help abused children or making their own safe spaces where people can view art and fic without worrying about encountering triggering content - in fact, antis have been offered multiple sites to use as replacements for AO3 where they can set whatever TOS they want and have always refused. The only thing most antis do to combat pedophilia in fandom is callouts and harassment.

Not to mention the irony in the fact that so many of the people targeted are, in fact, minors. In their quest to avoid people potentially getting hurt by fictional content, they’re doing real, tangible hurt to actual, living people, including kids.

So that’s how we got here. Being anti-pedo and being an anti are not the same thing, and if you see a reference to the latter, it means a member of a specific pro-censorship movement focused on hurting (mainly young, marginalized) people as “activism”.

[crossdressingdeath]

I know you'll probably disagree with me, but i rlly hate the Cloud recessess ending. It's just....

Those elders killed wwx. The Lans were 100% ready to murder both at Qiongqi path but also at the siege. They see him as the guy who corrupted their precious jade. They all preach righteousness, but the whole madam Lan thing is iffy at best and i do not believe that everyone there fully believes the rules. Hell, i have a special bone to pick with the " do not gossip" rule, seeing as gossip had been the main info route for women in patriarchal societies.

I just don't think that after wwx killed Lans in the siege they'd be all that willing to forgive him and take him in w open arms. The juniors and kids love him, yes, but people who saw the war....

Not to mention the whole " do not speak to WWX " rule. I've seen ppl say it's a joke but it's On The Wall. It's supposed to be followed. Even if it was intended as a joke - which i don't believe - it's very cruel for someone w rejection and trust issues.

I also hate it from a very personal perspective. I see Wwx as ND, and, as an ND myself, all those rules terrify me. From the no running and the proper posture ones, i can pretty well imagine they forbid stimming. The Lan curfew would fuck anyone with insomnia and there's smth deeply ucked up abt the " do not grieve in excess". I get that they're supossed to be a paragon of the best things at all time, and that LJY is very UnLan like, but for someone w anxiety who CAN'T follow those rules, it would be a nightmare.

...Some points:

First, the Lan elders did not kill WWX, nor did they attack him unfairly. They weren’t looking at him as the man who corrupted LWJ, either, or at least that wasn’t their primary concern (I will never forgive CQL for suggesting they were or it was); they were looking at him as a traitor to the sects who was raising an army to destroy them. Remember, that is the information the Lans had. Every source they had except for LWJ (who the people he would have gone to would have known was biased and who presumably everyone knew had recently been in close contact with WWX where he could have been manipulated or enchanted in some way), sources which included multiple sect leaders (one of whom was WWX’s brother) and LXC’s dear friend, swore up and down that WWX was a major threat, and let’s face it, WWX didn’t do much to dissuade people from thinking that! Acting like the Lans were maliciously targeting WWX is doing them something of a disservice, I’d say. They acted based on the knowledge they had available; note how the Lans are the first to offer WWX their help once they’re given reason to believe he may not be a villain! And even aside from that, saying they killed WWX (and not JGS and JGY’s manipulation or JC’s army) feels a bit like scapegoating, honestly. Of the four sects, the Lans are quite possibly the least responsible for WWX’s death. If it would hurt him to live with or around anyone who held any responsibility for his death his only option would be to live as a hermit, which would be far worse for him. And yeah, the Lans aren’t perfectly righteous all the time and some morally dubious things have been done by Lan sect members; they’re human, after all! Some of them will only be as moral as their sect leader demands they be! That doesn’t mean the sect as a whole is bad, especially with LXC, LQR and LWJ in charge. Certainly I’d say they’re still better than the other sects, all things considered. One ambiguous situation that may or may not have involved some members of the previous generation doing some fucked up shit doesn’t mean WWX would for sure be mistreated! 

As for gossip... there’s a difference between sharing information and gossiping. There’s no evidence that the Lan women are blocked from... y’know, freely communicating and sharing information between themselves. We have no reason to believe they are reliant on gossip. Also they presumably go out night hunting just like the men? Men and women are kept separate in the Cloud Recesses, but I get the sense that that’s more like... school stuff than anything else. The women aren’t exactly locked up, they can be cultivators! The society is still sexist, but that doesn’t mean they’re kept from going out and doing things. And I need to make this clear: there is a fair chance that the rule against gossip saved LWJ’s life, because it kept word of him defending WWX from the sects from spreading to people who would not be willing to let bygones be bygones. Gossip sucks! It hurts people! A lot of this story (and more to the point the suffering of the characters within the story) happens because of gossip! The Lans banning gossip is pretty clearly supposed to be a good thing, I’d say.

And yeah, maybe after WWX killed a bunch of their sect the Lans wouldn’t accept him with open arms as if nothing ever happened! And that’s fair! I can’t imagine where WWX could go where that wouldn’t be the case, unless he and LWJ chose to abandon the cultivation world forever. But you know what else the Lans won’t do? Try to execute him. Or from what we see in the extras even dwell on the past that much. No, the Lans aren’t going to immediately forgive WWX and bring him into the fold without a moment’s hesitation, but you know what? They accept his marriage to LWJ! They let him supervise the juniors on night hunts! They consider him part of their sect! Honestly, that is all WWX can really ask and far more than he’d get from any other sect. There are consequences for what WWX did, even though he wasn’t the villain or necessarily trying to hurt anyone, and frankly people not being entirely comfortable with his presence is very much reasonable.

The “do not speak to WWX” rule may not be a joke, but it’s also pretty clearly not a serious rule. No one takes it seriously. The juniors (the only people WWX really talks to anyway aside from LXC and LWJ) only pay it the minimum lip service of talking to him off the path. WWX himself sure as hell doesn’t care! He clearly finds it pretty damn funny. And I don’t think a guy who has never liked him once again proving he does not like him (in a way that is clearly temporary given how later LQR invites WWX to the Lan family banquet with... reasonable amounts of grace, thereby implicitly accepting him as LWJ’s husband and therefore his own family by marriage) counts as a rejection or a breach of WWX’s trust? Like, LQR has literally always hated WWX. He isn’t preventing WWX and LWJ from spending time together or shutting WWX out of the Cloud Recesses or even making a concentrated effort to keep people from talking to him; he’s venting his frustrations, but if he really intended to block WWX from taking part in life in the Cloud Recesses he would’ve done a hell of a lot more than just make a rule who no one WWX likes follows anyway. It’s a temper tantrum, that’s all, and clearly that’s what WWX takes it as. I mean, if nothing else you can’t ban people from talking to the sect heir’s spouse indefinitely. That’s just not sustainable.

As for the rules... banning people from running in the Cloud Recesses and demanding proper posture during lessons doesn’t suggest to me that they wouldn’t allow stimming? ‘No running’ at least is a common rule... most places. It’s distracting, and can be dangerous. And the rule about sitting properly doesn’t mean “Don’t move at all ever”; it means... well, “sit properly”. Don’t slouch or sprawl across the floor. I see no reason why that wouldn’t preclude means of stimming that wouldn’t be disruptive (and given this is in a classroom environment “not disruptive” is kind of important). I mean, those rules certainly don’t suggest that they’re any worse than other sects, and given this is the sect that has magic music for calming people’s minds if any sect would give allowances for neurodivergence it would be this one. Also I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a song to put people to sleep, or medication that can help; this is a world with magic, after all, and if there’s a song that can put spirits to rest there are probably songs for human medicine and care. And of course there’s an element of conflicting needs; maybe the rules would screw you over, but frankly firmly enforced rules keeping people from running around or sprawling out of their seats would’ve been a godsend for me in school, given how much trouble I had focusing with people making noise around me. At the end of the day, is it guaranteed that the Lans would make allowances for people with needs that conflict with the Lan rules? No. But I’d argue it’s more likely that they would than any other sect. This is ahistorical fantasy ancient China, too; you can only expect so much in the mental health department. Still, a sect that literally invented magic music for calming the mind actually seems like the best choice for people with anxiety and such. There’s a reason why there are multiple fics that essentially set the Lans up as mental health experts in the setting!

Basically, a lot of your arguments seem to be issues that WWX would have in any sect. Unless he wanted to give up on the support of a sect altogether, they’re all things that he would have to work through or come to terms with. And of course... the most important point is that WWX is happy in the Lan sect. The extras make that clear. He has a home, duties that he enjoys performing, the love of his family and the support of his sect. He’s happy. I just... I do not understand why people keep feeling the need to try to make it angsty when the novel makes it clear that he genuinely enjoys his life in Gusu, and more than that that if he ever decided he didn’t enjoy it he could leave at any time. You have to remember that: if WWX wanted to leave... he would. He and LWJ would just go, and only come back occasionally so that LWJ could visit his home. Hell, LWJ would insist on leaving for WWX’s sake. So like... the Lan sect wouldn’t suit everyone, but WWX is quite content there and doesn’t want to leave. He’s happy and free to come and go as he wishes; there really isn’t anything to be concerned about there.

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression, radio version - Ep.34, May 2016 - Death-row art, Bear cub mistaken for puppy, Japan's place in the World Press Freedom Index.

Kaoru starts by saying its the end of May, so  the weather is getting a lot hotter, and the air-con in the studio is extremely patchy. It gets very hot randomly, and a few episodes ago, he felt so hot recording the show when the air-con was playing up.

Kaoru's first news is that an art exhibition showcasing artwork produced by death row inmates will be given a second run, after making headlines the first time in 2013. Kaoru picks up on one piece from the exhibition, drawn by Hayashi Masumi, a woman facing the death sentence for putting poison in a pot of curry at a festival in 1998, killing four people and injuring many more. Her artwork consists of orange and black colours, and resembles 4 figures standing in the hanging chamber, with the ropes positioned above thier heads. Joe says Hayashi actually pleaded not guilty to the crime she was charged with. He explains that according to Hayashi's lawyer Yasuda Yoshihiro (a prominent anti-death penalty activist), Hayashi is on a mental decline due to her continued isolation from the outside world. This makes Joe think that this artwork differs from regular art, as it comes with quite a deep message from the inside. He comments that the artisic skill in the pictures is actually quite high. If you were unaware of the exhibition's theme, you would never guess the art was all made by death row inmates. It creates a brief sense that these people who have comitted such terrible crimes aren't really all that different from the rest of us. Kaoru agrees with Joe, and says that within that isolation the prisoners must have been able to concentrate quite closely on the art, it is quite detailed. He feels curious about how it feels to communicate with the outside world in this way. Joe says the exhibition will be held in Hiroshima, which is difficult to get to from Tokyo, but he wants to go in person and see the artwork with his own eyes, instead of just seeing it online. Going back to Hayashi's picture, Kaoru wonders why there are 4 figures in it, as 4 people would never be executed in a row like this in reality. He also says that these pieces of art have all passed checks in order to be released for public viewing, but there must have been more pieces that did not pass the checks. He wants to see those ones too.

Next, they welcome Dobashi for the Tokyo Sports corner. Dobashi is tired after being assigned to help out with covering the Rio de Janeiro Olympics by Hiranabe. Joe says Hiranabe is always too consumed by his own scandals to help out with stuff like this.

Dobashi's first story is about a man in China's Yunnan province who raised an Asian Black bear cub, believing it to a dog. He found it in the mountains and felt sorry for it so brought it home as his pet. When it suddenly started to grow massive he informed the authorities, and discovered it was a bear. The bear was returned to the forest after this. Kaoru says its a good thing the man realised before the bear got any bigger. He says he saw a video of the bear (still in the man's home) eating, and it really was eating a huge amount. Joe says this is way above the level that any dog would eat. Kaoru thinks the bear did look very cute when it was little though. He then says that he recently saw some news from Japan about a bear coming down from the mountains and entering the house of a celebrity. Dobashi, slightly flustered, says he hasn't heard that news, he has been too busy with the Olympics. Kaoru says he also heard something about someone in China mistaking a big dog for a lion. He's not sure whether this is true though. Dobashi then brings up the zoologist Hata Masanori, also know as Mutsugorō, who had raised some lion cubs, and then nearly got eaten by one of them after it grew. Joe says there is tonnes of crazy legends surrounding Mutsugorō, he is a super interesting/eccentric guy.

Dobashi gets serious for his next story, which is that Japan has fallen 11 places to #72 out of 180 countries in the 2016 World Press Freedom Index, compiled by the NPO Reporters Without Borders. Dobashi says this is probably due to the enforcement of the State Secrecy Law, after which the media has lost a lot of its independence and autonomy. #1 in the ranking was Finland, and #180 was Eritrea. #179 was North Korea. Joe says that just before the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Japan was ranking at about #10. Japan actually uses a Press club system, which to non-Japanese, appears quite restrictive anyway. But since the nuclear accident in 2011 and the way in which it was reported, Japan's ranking has plummeted. Along with the recent State Secrecy Law, and the comments from Minister Takaichi about shutting down politically biased content, the ranking has fallen further. Joe said he once interviewed the Tokyo bureau chief of the New York Times, Martin Fackler about this topic. Fackler said that although the American press is not very free itself, the main difference from the Japanese press is that in Japan, journalists tend to work for one newspaper for thier whole career, whereas in America journalists are overwhelming freelance. Japanese journalists are almost like 'salarymen', competing for promotion within thier own organization. The top level positions in Japanese media organizations come with huge salaries compared to overseas. For this reason, journalists in Japan strive never to write an unpopular article. Fackler thinks the ability to stand up to this kind of system is fading in Japan. Joe wonders what the purpose of media reporting is in light of this reality (i.e. desire to spread news honestly, or just a means of getting closer to a high income).

Kami then intervenes and asks if Hiranabe's salary is high. Dobashi says his is low. Kami reminds them that Hiranabe spent ¥150000 on champagne, and Kaoru then says that despite this, Hiranabe hasn't yet paid his taxi fee to get to the InterFM studio, he asks Dobashi to pay it. Joe thinks its strange that Hiranabe can pay that much for champagne, and at the same time not be able to afford his taxi fee. Kami reminds them of the teeth straightening treatment Hiranaba was apparently also paying for a few weeks ago. He thinks Dobashi must also be getting a high salary. Joe asks Kami what he did in Golden Week, and Kami says he had to work his night shifts because his salary is low.

Getting back on topic, Kaoru questions whether the government is trying to make fools of the people, something about the situation doesn't feel right. It looks like they are taking a too conservative stance, and banning things just to avoid dealing with problems. Joe comments that Tokyo Sports does a good job in the face of this. Dobashi says thats because no topic is off limits for Tokyo Sports. He also says its good to be aware of holding power in this sphere, as too much of it can become a hotbed for corruption. Kami joins them again and says the World Press Freedom Index probably didn't take Tokyo Sports into account. Dobashi replies that Tokyo Sports has no tabboos.

To finish, Kaoru reminds listeners of the new jingle campaign, and plugs the new single and the DVD/Bluray. He then says he is about to start rehersals for Mode of Vulgar, which is sold out. Lastly, he says he will give Dobashi a sticker in exchange for more juicy news in future episodes. Dobashi says he will look for the most tabboo stories he can find.

Songs - Dir en grey/'Yokusou ni dreambox' aruiwa seijuku no rinen to tsumetai ame.

[oofchris]

⌠ MADISON BAILEY, 19, CISFEMALE, SHE/HER ⌡ welcome back to gallagher academy, CHRISTINA ' CHRIS ' ANDERSON! according to their records, they’re a FIRST year, specializing in MACGYVER SURVIVAL SKILLS & NAVIGATION + PROTECTION & ENFORCEMENT; and they DID NOT go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of ( speckles of dried paint on fingers, cruising round on a longboard, joints tucked behind ears wrapped in colourful papers ). when it’s the ( sagittarius )’s birthday on 12/27/2001, they always request their PHO from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation. ⌿ mochi, 24, she/her, gmt ⍀

@gallagherintro​

hi uwu, here is a new baby who is not very baby but still a lil baby

 . . . it got quite long so tldr; she’s a stubborn art hoe from california who’s dad died so she’s come to gallagher bc her mom is a professor in the p+e major <3 

parallels

wyldstyle  — the lego movie: 85%

mulan — mulan: 84%

nymphadora tonks — harry potter: 83%

princess fiona — shrek: 83%

robin buckley — stranger things: 82%

here is a full list

HISTORY

potential triggers — car accident, parental death, divorce

so she’s grown up on on the west coast p much ??? her whole life. her mom worked as a bodyguard for sum famous peeps, dad was doctor but occasionally also a medic in the field — they didn’t always see eye to eye and divorced when chris was around nine. it was mostly to do with chris’ future like whether she’d go to spy prep school and follow in their footsteps and her dad didn’t want that for her so they disagreed, and she lived with him instead, living a more or less normal life. her mom then moved away when the opportunity to become a professor at gallagher presented itself, so they’ve really not been close at all since then

lived fairly comfortably, either way her dad had money and her mom sent support too. her father definitely earns less from no longer being in the spy world but he vowed to leave that behind when he divorced his wife and other than a few people from his past popping up unannounced, he kept that vow. they moved around a couple times in order to keep chris safe, and especially when someone did find them ( even if it was friendly ) but mostly grew up in california, and a lot of it is to do with the fact chris loves it there so much

but chris knows about the spy world, what her mom does and the type of school she works at, but it never interested her enough to try and reach out or fight her dad on it as she enjoyed her life 

she remembers her mom as someone stubborn, argumentative, volatile which is the opposite of her dad who was patient, loving and endearing — so it’s a no brainer for her, she loves her dad a lot and he gave up a lot for her while her mom gave chris up for that world, her job, etc aka nada

BUT her dad died in a car accident recently that she was also in but was only a bit beaten up at most ( has some cuts / new scars, learn more below ) leaving her mother to swiftly pick her up and enrol her into gallagher, more to keep an eye on her than anything. 

her mom chose her majors and some of her classes for her, which chris is mad about, but mainly bc looking at what ones were offered she’d def pick macgyver anyway, and her mom argued p+e was a step into the physical and combat side of thing without being too heavy on it ( tho it’s the major she teaches so she’s biased and chris just thinks she wants to be closer ) but tbh ? chris just doesn’t want her mom to be right whatsoever or have the satisfaction of thinking she knows her daughter in anyway at all but she knows if she went undecided she’d probably pick those up again in her second year so she’s just ‘ going with it ‘ begrudgingly as if she has no choice

PERSONALITY

extremely stubborn, which she gets from her mom, would rather ruin her life than go back on something or admit she was wrong, if she apologises for something she'll find a way to do it where she's not actually ever saying the words ' im sorry ' or ' i was wrong ' and would rather start another argument than do that — but obviously she loves other people apologising to her

she is generally nice ??? i just think she can be irritated easy ?????? like a bit of a hot head tho she'd argue she's chill, she is mostly chill but likes to debate, be right, and can be very my way or the high way at times — i’ll figure her out more as i play her bc i can’t tell if she’s mean or not but i don’t think so, just a bit tougher than she needs to be 

in my head she’s like a seb/luc hybrid so . . . take that as you will 

doesn’t dislike gallagher ( mostly ) but thinks all the legacies — even tho she technically is one, she doesn’t identify as one — are entitled spoiled brats and should get their heads out of their ass, doesn't like that being a legacy is even a thing though a lot of it definitely comes from her bitter resentment towards her mom and how she'd have rather leave her and her dad than leave the spy life hbsjhbsjhb also i think bc of her mom she has level 5 clearance which . . . she’s not complaining about but definitely complaining that clearance levels are even a thing, she’s gonna contradict herself a lot, i feel it

MISC

i THINK she’s only arrived, like, at the start of spring semester tbh, she wasn’t here for fall so she is new new

halfway through her first year at stanford studying art alongside film and media as a minor before her mom brought her to gallagher — which she's kind of not happy about like she understands her dad didn't want it for her, she also wanted to just stay in california but the only family she has now is on her mom's side.

she's still enrolled at stanford, though dropped her minor, and is studying online for her major as she's made it clear to her mom she doesn't want to be a spy so she pulled a few strings with the stanford admission board to allow her studying to continue ( idek if this is allowed i'm just pretending her mom is powerful enough to do it ) — it was a big reason chris agreed to come to gallagher, not that she had much of a choice, bc she wants her ‘ normal ‘ life and her ‘ normal ‘ degree regardless of being at a spy school

only her mom calls her christina and she actually hates it so pls dont unless you are trying to get on her bad side — also she probs avoids her mom like the plague so don’t bring that up either

often covered in little cuts and bruises from her skating but she’s got two fresh / soon to be scars on the left side of her face on the top of her cheek bone and on her jaw from a shards of glass when she was in the car accident — she is the type to pick her scabs until they bleed again, too, so i picture her with loads of little scars especially on her hands, elbows and knees

she did learn self defense from her dad growing up and she has studied jiujitsu and akido since she was around thirteen, she also boxes but it's more casual like for stress and stuff rather than something she takes overly seriously

she likes surfing, diving, enjoys the kind of world that exists underwater where it's just peaceful and calm so she will be around the lake a lot / at the pool if you need to find her

she’s 5’3 and never wears heels

pansexual and while it might change i wanna say she's not overly sexual, like wouldn't have hookups for no reason ?? but potentially some one night stands or drunken mistakes or whatever. doesn't look down on sluts but i think she doesn't have the most confidence in that area, or in self esteem in general, so she'll ??? only really have a frequent thing if she feels Hella comfortable

the type to have crushes tho, but not act on them at all bc again self esteem issues 

bit of a tomboy, skater, stoner — though she wouldn't identify as one — really loves movies and can be a proper filmophile, probably has more film soundtracks on her spotify unwrapped than she does actual artists and don't get her started on Women— in film bc she won't stop 

very active, sporty, probs trying to parkour around campus

enjoys painting, sketching, simply creating things — often is filming, riding a longboard, working on some kind of little project she'll take too seriously but won't show people until it's perfect

is a little pretentious at times ??? doesn't necessarily mean to be but if it's a debate on a topic she's passionate about ( such as art, film, etc ) then she will try to ensure you know just how knowledgeable she is on it, she's not afraid to flex but she wouldn't outwardly flex for no reason if that makes sense 

she also . . . feels p dumb at gallagher tbh, a lot of her strengths lie in her creativity and art and now she’s very ??? wtf am i doing ?? but she will continue to act like she knows !

can speak english, french, german and spanish all pretty fluently, italian well enough to get by, knows a bit of japanese bc she’s . . . a weeb sometimes but also bc of her martial arts

CONNECTIONS

FAMILY / CHILDHOOD FRIENDS ( SPY ) — so this would more than likely be before her parents divorce, but she’s not against keeping in contact a little if she liked you, it could have also been a family who reached out to her dad afterwards because while he’d move away / hide his location promptly after, he would still help them if they needed it ( 1 / ? )

FAMILY / CHILDHOOD FRIENDS ( NON SPY ) — same thing, but would have probably been after the divorce, just normal families that her and her dad knew, neighbours, work colleagues, school friends, would more than likely have also needed to be west coast sorta area but if your muse was there briefly, they could have kept in contact once they’d left ( 0 / ? )

LEGACIES — she potentially . . . won’t like you if you’re a legacy and you are egotistical / assholey even a tiny bit, bc that basically proves her argument that they’re ALL like that jshbjsbjs but i wud like her to have legacies that she . . . hates that she likes as well, i think she’ll realise p quickly most are fine lmao

ART HOES — whether they’re into painting as well and they do it together or they let her paint them !

SMOKE / SKATE BUDS — one or the other, both, whatever !! 

A HOOK UP THAT’S EITHER ALREADY HAPPENED OR GOING TO — in my head she’s a bit ??? w sex tbh so maybe plot this out a bit more but can be a ?? positive relationship or a negative one idm

CRUSHES !!!!!!!!! — she’s not even been at the school long but im certain she probs has some already

i’m not good w wanted connections so pls just hmu if u have ideas and as usual like dis for plots / jus message me, i’ll be on discord !! if you don’t have/use discord just message me first on tumblr bc otherwise i wont realise jhbsjhbjhbsj