#but all the adaptations have been horrible or very inaccurate

[gemsofgreece]

Screw Netflix's Cleopatra,can you post actual good documentaries or movies that actually are faithful to Cleopatra's story?

… I don’t think so

[cursedcola]

Synopsis: After attending NRC, our beloved characters suddenly find themselves transported to your world! The thing is, they have no idea where you are and have to make a life for themselves in the meantime. How would they adapt to life on earth? Characters: Everyone. Mix of Sentient AU! and Modern AU! Warnings: None lol. This is for my own enjoyment! Part(s): Heartslabyul, Savanaclaw, Octavinelle, Scarabia, Pomefiore, Ignihyde, and Diasmonia You are here!: Scarabia! Disclaimer: I did a bit of research on brazilin culture, geography, etc. for this! I have not been to Brazil, and did my best to read up in order to develop a basic level of understanding for my writing. If anything is wrong or inaccurate, please let me know! I will likely be doing research for the rest of these posts as well.

Nothing could have prepared the students of NRC for what lied beyond the mirror. A world unlike any of them ever known with magic being virtually non-existent ( or so it appears to the general public). With nothing but the clothes on their backs, falsified basic identification, personal items, and the small bits of knowledge gathered from your vessel Yuu; these young adults have one mission-find the player and stay out of prison. It was time to split up, cover as much ground as possible, and make a life in this unknown world.

Let us see how these fresh minds conform to life on earth, yes?

Scarabia Residence: Brazil

Kalim Al-Asim

Location: Brasilia, Brasil.

Kalim is living in the lap of luxury. He owns a four-bedroom condo in the heart of Brazil's capital and it is nothing to turn a blind eye towards. Each room is decorated to the nines with each statement piece picked out by Kalim himself on whim. Some are specially imported (he has a tiny online shopping addiction) and others are items he instantly took to when shopping the street markets.

The place is decorated like an everlasting sunset. Jewel-encrusted tapestries hang from every wall, and the windows are stained-glass which carry a beautiful glow into the open-layout of the condo. It is most definetly a pent-house so the view is spectacular. He has anything one could ever want, from a velvet couch, marble fireplace, all the way to a refrigerator with more functions than you can think of. Not to mention the golden chandelier hanging in the dining area, yeesh

Now one has to wonder, where does Kalim get the money for all of this?

Occupation: Stock Trade and Entrepreneur

Kalim has succeeded in what every freshmen studying buisness has dreamed of at least once. The man has money, and he makes it in his sleep. Literally.

When Kalim arrived on earth he did so with a large sum of money in his bag. Enough to sustain himself and Jamil for three lifetimes. He wanted enough money to travel everywhere, and spoil you rotten. He was going to buy anything you could ever want, and then buy more. All to bring it back home so you will not have any reason to come back. (and if you had family? Friends? He was going to show them that you were in good care, and leave them with enough money that you won't worry about their well-being after leaving. Everything was going to be taken care of.)

But then he got word of the stock market. If there is one thing Kalim knows it is money and he easily climbed that corporate chain. At first it was for fun, but as time went on he somehow became one of the most respected people in the world. Since he started off with so much, it only grew and he began putting the assets into funding charities, research, and other causes that he believed in. Not only was he respected, but his goodhearted nature earned him many friends. Especially since he has a knack Jamil to tell if someone has good intentions or not.

Kalim took to brazilin culture very quickly. He himself is a very lively and passionate person so it was not difficult to adjust to that type of life. He often goes "under-cover," in horribly obvious disguises when there are festivals or celebrations that he wants to attend.

This sunshine can dance, let me tell ya. He can shake it 'till the crack of dawn and still keep going. Like a kid, he'll stop quickly to shovel some food down his throat (that Jamil packed for him because Kalim is Kalim) and then he'll be right back at it.

Obviously, everyone knows that it's him. A few glasses of wine and he's stripping off his disguise to have more freedom. Honestly? It gives Jamil a headache because someone out there could kidnap him and then Kalim would be screwed. Even in this life Jamil has to act as his babysitter.

Though...is it too optimistic to say that this would never happen? At least in the homely local areas that Kalim frequents? I am dead serious when I say that he'll go to the market and buy out a few stalls of their supplies that day. Or at least half of it. Just so he can contribute to the community's economy. If he doesn't need what he bought (say he purchased a ton of food) then he donates it to the homeless, etc.

He is safer in those areas than his own home and knows it. Which is probably why he's so willing to let loose.

Moving on, Kalim dresses just as extravagantly as he lives. Silk is his best friend, and he loves jewelry. Loves, loves, loves it. If it glitters, it is Kalim's.

He owns a bedazzle gun. Enough said.

He loves the sports on earth as well. Especially (soccer/football). He loves how passionate people can get over their teams, and gets absolutely hyped when throwing a viewing party. He'll invite anyone willing to come watch the game with him (and gets Jamil's seal of approval to be in their home)

The people would expect a man of this caliber to be taken, yet the media can't catch wind of a single partner. Not even a one-night stand. He never has arm-candy when attending events, and every attempt at flirting with him is a surefire failure

Why is this? Because he is looking for someone very special. He says this to the press every. single. time. and they have no choice but to believe him because there is no hidden agenda to be found

All he has is a name, and a description of emotions and memories that are too vague to put to a face. Any normal person would think him delusional-

Except for anyone that catches him off the camera. Those days when he's danced his feet into the ground, drank enough to fog his brain, and is pouring his heart out to whatever band is unfortunate enough to have been playing that night. Eventually Jamil will drag him home, and he'll go to bed crying over the mysterious person no one seems to know

Jamil Viper

Location: Brasilia, Brazil

And they were roommates

Jamil lives in Kalim's extravagant condo. Why would he go waste money renting somewhere else when he has babysitting duty 24/7? If he didn't live with Kalim, then who knows what state the place would be in. Jamil cooks, cleans, and essentially does everything for the house. He's the one stuck answering the buzzer for all of Kalim's late-night spending spree deliveries. Not only that, but he is on bouncer duty and performing background checks on everyone going in and out.

Kalim sweetie please cut this man some slack. He needs a bReAk

In all honesty, he dislikes the way Kalim has decorated the place. It is all very pretty but extremely unnecessary. He does not trust hiring a maid simply from how fragile everything is. Kalim tries often to buy Jamil decorations for his bedroom, and Jamil declines every time.

His bedroom is spacious enough to double as a living area. He also has his own personal washroom. The space is full of cool tones. Black, grey, golden yellow, and touches of burgundy. A complete contrast to the rest of the condo. He has multiple bookshelves aligning the walls, a corner dedicated to exercise equipment, a queen-sized bed with many quilts and decorative pillows, and a loveseat. There is always incense burning in his room and he has a large, "No Kalim Allowed," sign hanging outside of his door

Why? Because Jamil has taken to collecting weapons :)

He has many defense weapons hidden throughout his room. From needles, to daggers, to poisons, etc. His room is the storehouse for all of the condo's defense mechanisms. Jamil has also placed extra security cameras in the public living spaces and outside the door. Just to be safe.

Occupation: Administrative Assistant

Jamil is Kalim's assistant. He handles most of the paperwork, scheduling, etc. when it comes to their little buisness. He has no reason to find work elsewhere, right?

No. Jamil actually runs a traveling food stall. Depending on where the duo is, he'll manage to obtain permission to open up a stall in the local area for the duration of their visit. He'll serve renditions of food from his homeland, as well as spins on the local cuisine. One thing Jamil loves about earth is the new flavors and spices that he gets to work with when cooking!

The stall gives him the opportunity to talk with locals, and keep an eye on Kalim while doing so. How else is he supposed to make sure Kalim makes it home while still staying productive?

He also gets to ask questions. Like a random survey, as people wait for their food to cook he'll make idle chatter about recent gossip. He'll always slip in questions that may lead to your whereabouts, asking if there are any (Y/N)'s in the area etc.

In truth, he hopes one day you'll miraculously turn up. Either recognizing him or being drawn in by the scent of his cooking.

Another thing Jamil loves is the music. If Kalim can shake his fanny, then Jamil can pick up routines as easy as breathing! He likes to get a feel for the culture, and lives a small 'double life' where he gets to have fun.

Man can Samba. His hips do not lie. Shakira, Shakira

Something screams at this man when it comes to fashion. Like Kalim, he likes to go a bit extra. He simply goes in the opposite direction of Kalim and takes to street-fashion. He picks up pieces as he sees them, and files through local businesses like it's no one's buisness.

He is also one of those people who collects sneakers. He has some for fashion, but mainly likes to have many pairs for dancing and travel. He likes to hike, and the hot weather does not bother him one bit.

When traveling, Jamil picks up two mementos from each place he visits. One is for his sister, and the other is for you. This is another reason why Kalim is not allowed in his room. He has them tucked away somewhere safe, but since he constantly lectures his friend on being more frugal it would not be good if he saw the growing stash. It started off with small trinkets here and there, but now the pile is massive.

Jamil is excited to show it to you. He wants to demonstrate just how far his search has taken him, and how much of a pain in the ass it was to find you.

Yet, his chest grows cold every time he tosses a new item in with the collection. It's a reminder of his failure, and how another day has passed without you by his side.

[the-monkey-ruler]

starting to think novel fans should chill out about inaccuracies in lmk like it’s doing its own thing like china, japan, and others have. it gets weirder when they use a shield like ‘protecting chinese culture’ like i understand with smth like the disney adaption, but not with a show that’s popular with chinese kids.

I mean… I think it is less with how inaccurate it is and more than it kinda getting the message of the novel is being spread as something that it is not. There are a lot of Westerners for whom this is their first introduction to Xiyouji and, yes, there is a lot of misinformation going around because of the creative liberties but I don't think it's coming from a place of "Oh it's different and it's bad," but more "People that are watching this cartoon should understand that this is a reimagining of the world and shouldn't take it so seriously when they try to critic Xiyouji despite never reading it."

Let me start that taking a new twist on Xiyouji media is nothing new. Like I get doing new things is fun and interesting and draws in a new audience and Xiyouji fans are NOT unused to having different Xiyouji re-tellings that range from horribly inaccurate but something being the most beloved things to be very accurate and being mid.

But that is because of how the characters are driven and what I think is the biggest issue that LMK has had with its storytelling. They have been making a lot of character choices that I think really undermine what Xiyouji is about and how it kinda is disrespectful to use something so deeply ingrained with Chinese culture and almost sweep away any reference it has to Daoism or Buddism and make it very… one-sided in that regard.

Like for what LMK is… it's fine. REALLY. It's a cute cartoon. A lot of Chinese people enjoy it and no one is trying to say that isn't true.

But what is true is that a lot of Westerns are being introduced into Chinese culture and folklore and there have been many cases of… insensitivity to say the least to blatant racism to say the most.

But I think a lot of fans of Xiyouji understand that there have been centuries of misrepresentation of Chinese, and other Eastern cultures, in Western societies and the response to wanting to correct inaccuracies comes from simply wanting to be represented in a good light. I would think that if Flying Bark was to take a new spin on other media without so much cultural significance they can do amazing but I can see where a lot of misinterpretation of the source material in Western fans is leading to high tensions.

The issue I've seen is how Western fans have really taken things like LMK or Overly Sarcastic Production, both Western adaptions of the novel, and taken that as pure fact. Again I'm not trying to say they are bad, I am saying they are interpretations all on their own and shouldn't be considered 'canon.'

I think fans trying to correct these inaccuracies in the fandoms as a way to try to say "Hey this culturally important piece of literature actually has a lot more meaning and ingrained messages that cannot be separated from the source material and shouldn't be interpreted as such by Western standards." and most cases being blown off for trying to correct these takes in Western fan bases.

Personally, I think that there has been lack of Wukong or his journeymates' perspectives has caused more confusion than anything else. Also with the depictions of heaven as well. And trust me this would not be the first time that Heaven was seen as 'the bad guy' in Xiyouji media but…. they just make it so clear that Wukong in this series has nothing working for him and it's because this creates a lot of discourse.

I do genuinely do enjoy LMK Sun Wukong, he isn't a fav but he is a delight, but I think the narrative that he is incompetent, incapable, illiterate, and a one-noted character has been taken too far at this point. I know this is not his story but, it's Xiaotian's, but it really feels like the studio is so insecure that Xiaotian can be a good hero on his own that they need to make Wukong seem more incompetent to make Xiaotian the one to fix his mistakes.

It is a very unbalanced dichotomy that I feel Flying Bark is not handling well personally, always pushing aside Wukong's point of view in favor of villains for the sake of "drama" and suspense and while that can be interesting… the balance just makes it feel too one-sided.

I also feel the crew of LMK has gotten too involved with Fandom culture. Reminds me a bit too much of Legends of Voltron fandom and how that kind of fan to Creator communication can be… dangerous to say the least.

I can't say I can agree with you anon with the amount of disrespect I've seen from some fans in the LMK fandom with its treatment of Eastern regions, customs, and even the language itself. I think that LMK fans trying to dissuade these attitudes are trying to stop the wave of disrespect by using the book but really reducing such a culturally important piece of media to just 'silly little legos' does reflect in reducing Chinese culture that is ingrained and cannot be separated from the original source material into something like an aesthetic really does damage.

Chinese films that play around with the idea of Sun Wukong can do so successfully because the established idles of Xiyouji are never changed while I feel that so many LMK fans taking the show too seriously in their interpretation of the novel and even Buddism, Daoist, and Chinese folks lore can be damaging.

Lego Monkie Kid as a show is fine. It's not the most groundbreaking or even the biggest Xiyouji media I've seen here but it's a fine show.

But I think some fans are trying to dissuade Western fans from reducing Chinese culture to something 'otherly worldly’ just being of the colonialism connections that the West has had with taking Eastern media and reducing it to products.

[scripttorture]

You mention in posts how torture doesn’t make people obedient and usually makes them spiteful (which obviously makes sense), but isn’t it realistic for someone to comply out of fear rather than loyalty? Whether that was giving up information or obeying orders or something else entirely. I imagine it depends on the person, and they would probably still be willing to turn on their torturers if given the chance, but would it be possible for them to obey orders in hopes of avoiding more pain?

This is a much more nuanced and complicated topic then we’re taught to assume.

 When it comes to giving up information it’s pretty clear cut. No, torture can’t lead to accurate information for a lot of interconnected reasons. I have about six separate masterposts covering the reasons for this.

 One of those is the antagonism torture produces. Another is the memory problems torture causes. Another is the effect that the use of torture has on organisations and the chain of command. Another is the effect torture has on torturers.

 Torture drastically increases the chances of memory loss and it also increases the chances of inaccurate memories. So not only is a torture victim less likely to talk, they’re more likely to be wrong if they do talk.

 But the effects on victims aren’t the main reason torture doesn’t work as a way of getting information. You’re assuming that torturers have access to people who have information.

 The reality is that torture destroys an organisation’s ability to gather accurate information. Most information comes from volunteers: when torture comes into play less people volunteer information. This means that an organisation which tortures is more likely to be questioning someone who knows nothing. That person is then abused until they start making things up.

 Because there’s less access to volunteered information and because humans are very bad at telling when someone is lying, a lot of these made up stories are believed. And this then effects who else the organisation arrests and tortures. This creates a sort of spiral, with lies leading to more lies.

 Additionally the torturers themselves make things worse. There’s less quality research on them, but the research and anecdotal accounts create a pretty clear picture of their behaviour. They undermine the chain of command, they lose the skills the originally had as they turn to torture, they’re aggressive, incredibly competitive and they have a… fracturing effect on their organisation.

 Basically they’re incredibly difficult to work with and totally convinced of their own importance. And this effects their colleagues. It totally divides organisations. The worst case I’ve read about involved members of the same organisation killing each other over access to prisoners.

 That’s a short run through of the main factors. Torture, in the legally defined sense, means all of these factors are in play. Plus a few more I’ve omitted to keep this shorter.

 With all of that together you just can’t get accurate information.

 If you want longer posts I’ve made on the subject I suggest looking for the ‘torture doesn’t work’ tag and the ‘torture as interrogation’ tag. You can also read the masterposts. If you want a much more in depth look at why torture consistently fails as a way of getting information I recommend O’Mara’s Why Torture Doesn’t Work and Rejali’s Torture and Democracy.

 O’Mara is a neuroscientist and goes through the effects torture has on the brain in a way that’s accessible, explaining the damage torture causes and how that destroys the evidence torturers claim to be seeking. Rejali’s book is a breeze block but it’s really a must, it is the textbook on torture in a broad sense. He ties together information from across the globe creating a broader picture of what torture does, not just to victims but to societies.

 The question of compliance under threat and pain… is more complicated.

 People can be forced to do some things. That much is obvious from a brief glance at human history and things like slavery. But it’s important to listen to what people in these scenarios say.

 And my opinion, based on what I’ve read, is that what these people say doesn’t support the idea that humans will easily obey instructions when they’re hurt or threatened. I think instead these people are making hard headed, rational choices in absolutely awful situations. I think when we don’t have these experiences of torture or slavery, it’s easy to look at the surface of the situation and assume that pain alone assures obedience. I think that happens because it’s hard for use to understand the rationale when we don’t have that lived experience.

 Let me give some examples. So it probably goes without saying that slavery goes hand in hand with physical abuse. One of the major researchers on slavery, whose data I quote pretty regularly, assumes throughout his writings that pain is the deciding factor which ‘makes’ people obey.

 But he also describes a couple of very obvious consistent patterns in the ways slavers behave. Slavers almost universally do the following things as well as using physical abuse:

Separate enslaved people from their community

Bar enslaved people from other forms of support

Make enslaved people financially/materially reliant on the slavers

Tell enslaved people that going to the police/authorities will lead to the enslaved person being arrested

Try to convince enslaved people that they will be better off if they comply, usually by framing it as a debt to be worked off with promises of riches after a period of time

 Now here’s the thing: we know from studies on cults and studies on ICURE techniques that a lot of these strategies will result in obedience when there is no violence or physical abuse.

 Given that I don’t think we can assume that violence is the deciding factor. In fact I think the evidence we have from forced confessions under torture suggests the violence may lead to less obedience and a lower ‘success’ rate then a set up that used emotional abuse or other exploitative techniques without violence.

 We have two sources of historical data that are used for statistical studies on forced confessions. One is from historical France. We think that this data set only involved torture to force a confession; no other method of coercion just violence. The rate of forced confessions varied a little in different areas but over all it’s about 10%. The second data set is from the ‘London Cage’ a British prison during the second world war. Here we know that torture was combined with blackmail, bribery and other kinds of coercion. The rate of forced confessions there was about 30%.

 And while this is just two studies, while the data is lacking… That is one hell of a jump.

 Let’s circle back to ICURE. ICURE stands for Isolation, Control information, create Uncertainty, Repetition and Emotive responses. It’s a set of techniques which can, sometimes, change someone’s beliefs when it’s applied consistently over a long time.

 Notice the effort slavers put in to isolating their victims. Notice that the behaviour pattern I’m describing means the slavers are creating uncertainty over seeking help and repeating those messages as well as messages that the victims will be better off if they just go along with it.

 Slavers will generally also try to control the information their victims have access to, taking phones and blocking access to news sources and other resources. Now a lot of slavers will transport their victims to other states or countries putting a language barrier in place. They sometimes also use emotive responses in attempts to persuade victims to comply.

 I’ve read multiple accounts where survivors of modern slavery described slavers telling them that the money they were making was being sent to the victim’s family and without it the family would not survive. (Sometimes the slavers do send small amounts to the families of their victims, sometimes they pocket everything.) I’ve also read accounts where gangs of slavers used religion and oaths taken in a religious setting to persuade their victims they’d be punished by God for not complying.

 Even with all of this, all these techniques we know can sometimes ‘work’- lots of people refuse. Lots of people disobey. Lots of people escape. Lots of people actively sabotage the operations the slavers put together.

 And if you look at that same history of slavery, that shows us people can sometimes be forced to work, you’ll see that this has always been true.

 We have records of historic enslaved people attacking slavers, forming organised militias, forming parallel societies, sacking towns, taking over an entire Caribbean island and beating off four European armies in the process. We also have records of smaller acts. Sabotage, worship of banned deities, speaking banned languages, destruction of property, aiding in the escape of others.

 What I’m saying is: this isn’t black and white. The evidence, modern and historical does not paint a clear picture of violence leading to obedience.

 Instead I believe that it shows humans are resilient, stubborn, adaptable creatures. People can survive all kinds of horrible situations. It is more accurate, more human, to assume that people make rational choices.

 Sometimes those choices involve short term compliance while looking for a better option or a way out. But we tend to hear less stories about the people who completely refuse to comply. We tend to treat that as an impossible fiction when it is a recorded historical and modern reality.

 Bringing this back to writing as a general rule the more complicated the act the less likely you can force someone to do it. Because the more complicated it is the more opportunities they’ll have to sabotage it or use it against their abuser.

 I recommend reading up on the history of Haiti pet. Then Brazil via Palmares.

 I’ll end this by bringing it back to those statistics on forced confessions in historical France. Imagine the conditions with me for a moment. Unsanitary, cramped cells. Dehydration, starvation and disease. Plus the kinds of scarring torture that are conjured up in the minds of most Western people when the word ‘torture’ comes up; thumb screws, leg irons that tighten until the bone snaps, whips.

 Picture it. Try to imagine the pain those people went through.

 And remember that 90% of them did not comply long enough to sign their name.

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Faded

Averykedavra prompt: okay, first of all, can I be added to your taglist? I love your fics! secondly, if you're open to prompts (apologies if you're not) could you write some logan-centric hurt/comfort? with roman and maybe Virgil comforting him? no pressure, but thanks!! and again your fics are absolutely incredible

Thanks for the prompt babe you’re an icon ^_^

Read on Ao3

Warnings: Logan’s not feeling so great, so self-doubt, self-esteem issues, all that jazz

Pairings: depending on how you want to read it, logince, analogical, possible prinxiety, analogince, or just hella platonic. My aro ass doesn’t know anymore you choose

Word Count: 4237

When a Side's role is disregarded, their door fades from the hallway.

Logan...do the others really need Logan?

Or just Logic?

 “Neato! So you're making your little factoids optional this time around.”

 Thank Archimedes the little pixelated boxes didn’t allow for much dynamic character interaction.

 Logan swallows and tries to keep going, growing more concerned that the lump in his throat would make it impossible to speak. But he can do this. For Thomas, he can do this. He has to.

 “Oh, I’ve got this one, guys!”

 ‘IGNORANT’ flashes up in front of him in big, red letters. Almost immediately he can hear the scoldings of Thomas and Patton followed by Roman’s mumbled apology but it’s too late. The word sears itself into his brain and he can’t see anything other than the choice that they’ve made.

 He swallows again. Alright. He’ll speak directly to the audience. Thomas has to listen to them eventually, doesn’t he?

 …well, maybe, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting every time he pops up with something and it’s completely ignored. He tries to appeal to Patton’s sense of humor. He tries to give Roman something when he can’t find the right words. He tries to give Thomas something, anything.

 Then he gets overexcited and pushes Patton into the blinds.

 The second Roman’s sword flashes out and slices him neatly in two a searing bolt of pain spreads to his arms, to his chest, to his throat. He knows logically—he knows everything logically—he can’t be hurt by that. It isn’t him. He is not connected in any way physically to these lowdowns.

 So why are his hands shaking?

 This is so ridiculous. He is Logic. He should not be working like this, he should not be reacting like this. This is logically the next step, he must simply not be out of the adjustment process yet. Which is ridiculous in and of itself, has he not mentioned several times over that the presence of the others imbeds Thomas’s ability to think rationally and calmly about the issues they have to face? Has he not himself wondered that if he were not so…undone by being in the same room that he finds it difficult to keep going when he needs to? Shouldn’t this be better?

 “You know I'm- I'm not doing a really great job explaining this philosophy. Um, Logan?”

 Patton? Logan pops up.

 Patton smiles—smiles?—at him as the box appears at the bottom of the screen. From this angle, he can’t see Roman or Thomas. What’s happening? Why hasn’t he been paying better attention?

 Why can’t he focus?

 “What would a real philosopher think about what I'm saying here?”

 Oh. Oh, no. This isn’t going to be good, is it?

 “Well, Frederich Nietzsche really wouldn't have been thrilled with anything you've had to say, primarily because pity seems to be at the center of your idea of ‘putting good into the world.’”

 “Th-that's not what—“

 “Nietzsche famously rejected the notion that pity was a virtue.”

 “Okay,” comes the quiet mumble that, really, should’ve told him to stop talking now, he wasn’t being useful anymore.

 But no. Logan was never very good at being quiet, now was he?

 “He once claimed that pity ‘runs counter to the instincts that preserve and enhance the value of life…’”

 Last chance, Logan, something in his head whispers as something else flashes in the corner of his vision.

  ‘Skip all.’

 But they would never do that, right? They knew, somewhere, because Thomas knew, that you had to listen to Logic. You had to listen, at some point, because if you didn’t, what did you have? They would shake their heads or grumble in annoyance, or cut him off when he’d been talking for too long or ask him to be quiet, but they’d never skip him entirely, cut him out of the conversation, would they?

 Patton’s finger presses the button and something of unyielding cold wraps around Logan’s neck.

 He flails as it yanks, jerking back awake with his eyes open, out of the boxes, out of the video, at his desk, staring at the screen as his lowdown program blocks him out.

 No.

 No!

 What happened? Why did they—is he—can he—

 Why didn’t they want to listen?

 Logan’s fingers fly over the keyboard in front of him, searching desperately for an answer. Maybe he programmed this wrong. Admittedly he’s a little new at programming so he could’ve messed something up that disconnected him. Maybe Patton clicked it by mistake. Why was there even a ‘skip all’ button to begin with? He doesn’t remember programming that. And what was it that wrapped around his throat?

 His hand goes to his neck at the mere memory of the horrible thing that yanked him out. He winces when his fingers slide of patches of warm, inflamed skin. It…it actually hurt. It left a mark.

 What—

 The instant his lowdown pops up with his face, he knows.

 It shouldn’t hurt. Really. This shouldn’t hurt.

 Now perhaps Deceit could see what it was like to be Logic. Or at least to try and be Logic.

 Now perhaps…perhaps he may have someone to talk to.

 No.

 Deceit was, in fact, far better at being Logic. Within an instant, he’d gotten the conversation to his side, gotten the others to listen, to think about what they were saying instead of just following on blind faith.

 Of course.

 Because it wasn’t Logic they didn’t want to listen to, was it?

 It was Logan.

 Logan closes his eyes. Alright. He can adapt to this. He can…he can work with this. He just has to figure out how.

 He turns away from the computer, stands, and carefully makes his way across his room to the nightstand, where the emergency first-aid kit sits tucked in the drawer. He will patch himself up, best he can, and then figure out what to do.

 He’s too distracted to hear Roman’s terrified shout.

  “What have you done with Logan?”

———————————————————

A few hours after filming stops, there’s a very soft knock on Logan’s door. He doesn’t move from his desk, nor does he pause in his typing. False sympathies and empty comforts have never been very appealing.

 …and he is just the slightest bit worried that he won’t be able to resist the urge to slam the door in Patton’s face.

 Footsteps moving away sound from outside. Good. It’s better this way, isn’t it?

 The lowdowns didn’t work. Well, they did…but they worked a little too well, didn’t they? Instead of being less invasive, they just…cut Logan’s contributions out entirely. They let Logan be taken. They were good for Logic, not Logan.

 Logan’s head turns to the wall where he has two lists tacked up. Standing, the desk chair scraping behind him, he picks up the marker.

 His job is to be Logic. Therefore, if he is failing at that job, he must find a way to be better.

 The list on the left has ‘LOGIC’ written in large, block letters. On the right, ‘LOGAN.’ Isolating the key characteristics of each concept will help to shift himself properly into the role he must play. Logan’s eyes scan down the ‘LOGIC’ list.

 LOGIC:

Emotionless

Useful

Rational

Necessary

Welcome

 The end of the word ‘welcome’ is smeared. Logan looks down at the marker. His hands had shaken so much as he added that last word…why? It was true; logic should be welcome in any conversation, that’s why is it so useful, that’s why it has so many of the other characteristics that it has. Logic should be wanted, regardless of the subject matter, because of what it could do. It had felt so small of Logan to add the word, even when it was the correct course of action. Was it not implied by the others that it should be wanted?

 That…that he should be wanted?

 Unconsciously, Logan twists the cap of the marker back and forth as his eyes dart over to the ‘LOGAN’ list.

 LOGAN:

Irritating

Invasive

Emotional

Easily dismissed

Unwanted

 If he had any doubts about whether or not these qualifications were inaccurate, each had cemented their place on this list after today.

 Logan’s hand flies to his neck again, grazing over the bandages he’d wrapped around himself, only to stutter to a halt when his fingers met the fabric of his tie.

 His tie.

 Hadn’t—he’d—he’d been so sure he’d been doing this right. He dressed well, he spoke carefully, he did his research, why—why was it so easy for them to say he was—to think of him as—

 …why didn’t they want to listen to him?

 He tried. He tried so hard to be what they wanted, what they would listen to, to appeal to each and every one of them to make sure he was still fitting in enough to be heard. Logic had to be heard, that’s one of its most important qualifications.

 As his fingers fumble and catch around the knot, it pulls taut and for a moment he’s thrown back into the feeling of Deceit’s crook around his neck.

 Oh.

 Oh, that’s right…he…Deceit—or, well, Janus, now—didn’t he...he was…Logic isn’t the problem.

 Janus’s Logic made them listen. Janus’s logic made them pay attention. Janus’s Logic was wanted.

 Logan’s fingers slide off his tie in a numb haze.

 His hand falls limply to his side.

 He stares at the lists.

  Irritating.

  Invasive.

  Emotional.

  Easily dismissed.

 There is a reason none of these qualifications have come up when he considers pure Logic.

 A wave of cold rushes over Logan. His knees wobble. His hand staggers out for something, anything to grab onto, to hold, to stop himself from collapsing under the weight of what he just realized, to stop it, to stop it, to stop—

 He hits the ground with a thud.

 The words beat into his head over and over as he lies there, frozen, cold, so cold, curled up by his bed with something wrapped tightly around his throat and his glasses staying stubbornly on his face so the words remain in perfect focus.

 It is not Logic that is the problem.

 The others can use Logic.

 The others can listen to Logic.

 The others can want Logic.

 They just don’t want Logan.

 Logan curls closer around himself as it starts to become very, very cold. That…this can’t be right, he must be missing something. He’s emotionally compromised right now, he’s not any good at being Logic, maybe—maybe that means he’s doing it wrong, he has to be doing this wrong, there’s no way they could—they need him, don’t they? They need Logan, they have to listen to him, they—they—

 Unbidden, a whine escapes Logan’s throat. It burns as it rings around his empty, cold room. He covers his face with his hands.

 Even his cheeks feel icy cold.

 Someone will notice, he tries frantically, someone will notice if I never show up again, someone will notice if I—if—if—

 But they didn’t notice. Not today.

 Not until it was too late.

 Outside, in the corridor, a dark blue door begins to fade into the wall.

———————————————————

“Logan? Logan!”

  Bam, bam, bam.

  “Logan!”

 Frantic hammering against the door jolts him awake. Immediately he winces as something in his neck catches. How—how long has he been like this?

 “Logan, please, open the door, we—we can’t open it!”

 Oh…the others have noticed…should go open the door.

 Wincing again, Logan rights himself, sitting up with his back leaning against the bed, blinking through his fuzzy glasses. Why are they so filthy?

 …oh, he must’ve been crying.

 How emotional.

 “Logan? Logan can you at least say something?”

 “I’m gonna break this door down.”

 “No!”

 Well, yes, Logan does not want his door broken down. Groaning, he stands, making his way over to the door that—wait.

 Why…why is his door so…pale?

 The knob looks almost translucent as he reaches for it, his pulse hammering as his fingers close gently around where it should be. He takes a deep breath and carefully, carefully, turns it.

 “Logan, thank god, I—“ Virgil cuts himself off with a choked gasp as he stares at Logan. “…L? What…what happened to you?”

 “What do you mean?” The instant it comes out of his mouth he knows what Virgil means. He sounds like his throat is actively attempting to cut itself off with every breath.

 A choked whine comes from behind Virgil. Logan’s eyes dart over to see Roman a sickly pale, staring at Logan, horrified.

 “…S-specs? Specs, I—Logan, oh, no, can I—can we—“ Roman reaches for him, only to freeze and quickly pull back his hand.

 Another wave of cold settles over Logan and his hand falls through the doorknob.

 “Logan,” Virgil murmurs, “can we come in, please? I, uh, we wanna talk to you for a moment.”

  Why would you want to talk to me?

 “…of course.” Logan steps aside and lets them pass, looking down at his hand.

 It’s still a hand, but it looks…thinner. He can tell where it isn’t, if that makes sense.

  When has Logan ever made sense?

 Virgil sits down on the floor, next to his bed. Roman hovers near the door, wringing his hands together as Logan carefully pushes the door closed.

 “I’m sorry, Logan.”

 Logan’s eyes widen as his head jerks around to face Roman. Roman gives him what may be the smallest smile he’s ever seen before taking a deep breath.

 “I’m sorry,” he says again, the sincerity making the cold burn in Logan’s chest, “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It—it was stupid of me to press the ‘ignorant’ button and it was not my intention to hurt you. And I...slashing your box was wrong too. I just saw Patton get hurt and I—”

 He cuts himself off and takes a deep breath. 

 "I'm sorry, Logan," he repeats, softer this time, "for all that I have done to hurt you. I want to be better about it."

 Oh. “…thank you, Roman,” Logan says carefully, “I appreciate your apology.”

 Roman gives him a nod. Logan looks at Virgil, whose head still rests against the bed, staring at the two of them.

 “Is this what you wanted to discuss?”

 “Sort of, but…uh, Logan, you…you’re not looking so great, bud.” Virgil shifts, looking to Roman, who nods and takes a seat on the floor too, leaving a space between them. “Will you come sit with us?”

 “…of course.”

 Logan sits gingerly between the two of them, his gaze fixed on the outlet in the wall opposite them. He hears the rustling of fabric as Virgil shifts, and sees a little white in the corner of his eye as Roman scoots a tad closer.

 “So,” Virgil murmurs after a second, “I guess this video was…hard.”

 Roman huffs quietly. Logan nods. “Yes.”

 “Can you tell me what happened?”

 “Have the others not already told you?”

 “I’d like to hear it from you too.”

 Logan takes a deep breath, ignoring the way the cold burns the inside of his lungs. “I attempted to implement a new strategy for how I interact with you and the viewers. Instead of appearing in person, I chose to use a series of lowdowns so the information would appear in a non-invasive way.”

 There’s a moment of silence.

 “…keep going, L.”

 “They were…not as well-received as I had anticipated.”

 A flash of movement and a stifled noise make him look over. Roman fiddles with the hem of his sleeve right in front of his mouth, obviously having cut himself off. He glances over.

 “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, “I didn’t want to interrupt. Please, continue.”

 “I, er…” Logan swallows, something about the movement of Roman’s fingers holding his focus captive. “I hurt Patton.”

 From his other side comes a sharp intake of breath. Logan looks away.

 “I hurt Patton. I could not do my job properly. I had compromised the conversation. A ‘skip all’ button appeared and…”

 “Patton pressed it,” Virgil finishes when Logan doesn’t speak, “he told me.”

 Logan doesn’t say anything. The crook manifests around his throat again and he shudders.

 “…Logan,” Roman’s worried voice says, even as it sounds like it’s coming from underwater, “Logan, did…what did that do to you?”

 “Janus,” Logan croaks, “he—his staff, it—I—“

 “Hey, hey,” Virgil croons, reaching for the hands that tug persistently at his collar, at his bandages, when did they get there?— “don’t do that, L, you’re gonna hurt yourself, stop that…”

 “Logan, can I hold your hand, please?”

 Logan lets Virgil tug his hands away from his neck. It—why—what’s happening?

 Why are Virgil’s hands so warm?

 Judging by Virgil’s expression, he’s as concerned about the stark difference in temperature as Logan is. Several emotions flit across his face before Logan can name them until they both register Roman’s question. Roman holds his hand out, all but pleading for Logan to let him.

 “Please,” he whispers, his hand starting to tremble, “please, Logan, may I…can I just hold your hand?”

 “Why are you so worried,” Logan wants to ask, “what is it that makes you so insistent about holding my hand?”

 Instead, when his voice is barely about a strangled whisper and his first attempt makes his hand phase completely through Roman’s, the question emerges as a stifled scream.

 “Shh, shh,” Roman whispers, moving in as close as he can, trying to curl his hands around where Logan’s should be, “it’s okay, it’s okay, we’ll—we’ll figure it out, Logan, we’ve got you, it’s okay—“

 Roman burns.

 “R-ro—“

 “Easy, Roman,” Virgil mutters from behind him, “take it easy, you’re gonna freak us all out.”

 “I know, I know.” Roman clutches the air of Logan’s hand tightly. “Okay…okay, Specs, we gotta…we’re gonna take some deep breaths, okay?”

 No, no, it hurts when Logan does that, what’s…

 He does as bid. The air whines in protest as he slowly breathes in and out, in and out, focusing on Roman’s thumb rubbing small circles into his hand. Roman seems to calm a little as he watches, bringing Logan’s hand close enough to cradle it in his lap as they breathe.

 “Good,” Virgil manages, still clutching Logan’s other hand tightly, his own voice shaking slightly, “okay, now we’re all just gonna calm down, yeah? Just…nice and calm…”

 Logan has no idea how long they sit there, on the floor, only that after a few more deep breaths, it no longer hurts. Roman’s hand no longer burns, it’s just warm. Virgil no longer trembles, he’s just there.

 “My apologies,” he manages, “I did not mean to be so…inconvenient.”

 Roman’s cry of protest is quickly accompanied by: “hey, no, none of that, Logan, you’re not being inconvenient. It’s been a hard day for all of us.”

 “But was I not—“

 “No,” Roman interrupts gently, “I’m sorry for interrupting, but…no, Logan. Nothing that happened today was your fault. Absolutely nothing.”

 “…I’m the one who hurt Patton.”

 “That was an accident and you didn’t know it was going to do that,” Roman says firmly, “and it was our fault we didn’t listen to you. So much that you felt that was your only option.”

 Logan swallows. “…what about Janus?”

 “What about him,” Virgil prompts, “the fact that he…came into the video?”

 “It was my lowdowns that enabled him to do so.”

 “And we pressed the ‘skip all’ button,” Roman says. “And I’m the one who gave him tips on how to impersonate the rest of us better.”

 Roman is right, even as Logan begins to feel cold again. Still, he opens his mouth.

 “I…I’m not…I can’t…it…”

 “Logan,” Roman says quietly when Logan can’t seem to find the words, “none of us are angry with you. I’m certainly not angry with you, and I’m…I’m sorry about everything that I may have done and have done to give you the impression that I do not hold you in the highest esteem possible.”

 Logan’s mouth drops open in shock.

 “I think you overdid it a little there, Princey,” Virgil chuckles.

 “But it’s true,” Roman insists, still cradling Logan’s hand in his lap, “Logan, you’re…you’re so important. And if I have done anything that makes you think I don’t care so much about you, then I…I will do everything I can to fix this.”

 What?

  What?

 “You…but we..we fight,” Logan manages weakly, “all the time, you…you disagree with me every chance you get, how—“

 “I told you on movie night,” Roman says, the corner of his mouth tugging up, “I poke fun at the things I love.”

  Love.

 Logan’s brain stutters to a pause.

 “You’re my family, Logan,” Roman continues, oblivious to the fact that Logan.exe has stopped functioning, please try again later, “and I…you are so clever, so sharp, so good that of course I want to talk to you about things. I respect your opinion so much and I want to hear everything.”

 “Yeah, if you ever stop teaching us stuff I might actually start crying and never stop.”

 “Virgil!”

 “What, like you’re any better?”

 “Of course not! I would be devastated!”

 “Wait, wait,” Logan mumbles, “you—you what?”

 “L,” Virgil calls softly, still chuckling a little as Logan turns to look at him, “L, we care about you so much. We wanted to give you space, especially after today, but…dude, you know we need you, don’t you?”

 “You need Logic,” Logan mumbles, “you…of course you need Logic.”

 “We do,” Roman confirms as the cold threatens to open up in Logan’s chest again, “but we also love Logan.”

 “You have got to stop throwing that word around,” Virgil murmurs, “you’re gonna send him into a full-blown freak-out.”

 “But we do, Virgil. We do love him, so much, and if he doesn’t know that…”

 Roman squeezes a surprisingly solid hand in his lap.

 “…then we have to remind him.”

 Virgil huffs, scooting closer. “Yeah, well, that’s easy enough.”

 No, no, it very much is not.

 Logan’s brain is still struggling to come to grips with the first thing Roman said, about poking fun at the things he loves. He hasn’t come close to tackling the fact that Roman just said they loved him.

 And Virgil agreed.

 “This…this doesn’t make sense,” Logan says weakly, “this doesn’t make sense.”

 “What doesn’t make sense?” Virgil’s hand is a warm weight against his side. “That we love you?”

 “…y-yes?”

 “Oh, sweetheart,” Virgil murmurs, “what makes you so convinced that you’re unlovable?”

 “I…I can’t…I am emotionally compromised. I cannot do my job properly. I will not be as useful as you—“

 “Do you need to be useful to be lovable?”

 “Don’t you?”

 “No,” he says firmly, pressing Logan between the two of them, “no, you don’t, Logan. We love you for you, not for what you can do.”

 “Don’t leave us, Logan.” The sheer amount of pain in Roman’s voice aches. “Not because you think we won’t want you.”

 A horrible laugh bubbles up in his throat. “And here I thought you were going to leave me.”

 “Never,” Roman promises, “never.”

 “We did threaten to break down your door because it was starting to fade from the hallway.”

 “…I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

 “You don’t need to know right now, we’ll help you.”

 “I don’t know how good I’m going to be at this.”

 “We’re all working on things, it’s okay.”

 “But I—“ Logan swallows heavily— “I don’t know if I can stop believing that I…that it is just Logic you want and not Logan.”

 “If it makes you feel any better,” Roman calls, squeezing his hand, “I still struggle with that too.”

 Logan’s eyes widen. “You what?”

 “Believe that you only keep me around as long as I make things that you think are useful?” Roman smiles sadly. “Yeah.”

 “But you’re—you—Thomas would not be able to exist without you!”

 “Wouldn’t he?”

 “No! It’s not just—Roman, you’re so much more than Creativity, if you weren’t here, we…” Logan takes a deep breath and swallows. “Something would truly be lost if you weren’t here.”

 He stops.

 “…oh.”

 “Yeah, Specs,” Roman whispers, “‘oh.’”

 “…oh.”

 “Come here, sweetheart,” he murmurs, opening his arms and letting Logan fall into his embrace, “don’t you leave us, okay?”

 Virgil drapes himself over them, wrapping his arms tightly around Logan’s waist. “We’ll figure it out, L, but you gotta stick around, okay? Don’t—well, try not to worry about whether or not you’re being the perfect Logic. We want you.”

 “…promise?”

 “I promise.”

 “I promise too,” Roman murmurs, letting Logan rest against his chest, “now why don’t we all get into something more comfortable and we can have another look at your neck?”

 “Yes. That sounds…good.”

 “And Logan?” Logan cranes his head up to look. “If you ever stop teaching us things and telling me about stuff I will start crying.”

 Despite everything, Logan smiles.

 “Don’t worry,” he says quietly, the chill finally beginning to thaw, “I’m not going anywhere.”

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If you want to be added/taken off the taglist let me know!

[t4t-lumpygrab]

Fanfic Request!

Request: Lemongrab 3 dealing with phantom pains from Lemongrab 2′s wounds and being helped by the lemon subjects. Word count: 1K yeah I did it again... sorry everyone I just have a lot to say. 

Cws: Physical and mental pain, olfactory/smell hallucination of blood, bleeding, trauma related nightmares, cannibalism references, and potentially parental neglect? Also BIG cw for injections/needles

So full disclosure I don’t have phantom pain or chronic pain, but I read through several symptom pages and forum threads by people with those conditions sharing advice with each other on how to deal with pain flare ups. I based Lemongrab’s experiences on phantom pain related to PTSD with a pain flare up triggered by PTSD symptoms (nightmares in this case), as well as phantom pain in amputees (the reason his feet hurt rather than his hip where the bite happened is because phantom pain often occurs in the further part of the remaining limb e.g. the tip of stub, so while Lemongrab isn’t an amputee his brain positions the pain as if he is, because it has the memory of him being an amputee, if that makes sense?) I tried to adapt some of the advice people gave each other for Lemongrab’s lemon physiology, but obviously it’s not the same as having personal experience with a condition, so if it’s an inaccurate portrayal I’m very sorry! Let me know if there is anything I should remove or rework :) (also thank you @mikelokison for coming up with the name Zitronenfried love it. They are the little German (nonbinary) boy from the memes) 

The yellow blanket in Lemongrab’s room had fallen to the floor, revealing the creature that had been twitching and tossing underneath it. Lemongrab’s grey pajamas were stained with sweat and his teeth were tightly clenched together, the occasional pained whine still escaping his twisted mouth. 

In his nightmare he was dragging himself along a cold, black surface like a mirror. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw a trail of lemonade blood seeping from where his legs were missing. He panicked at the sight of it. He was making such a mess!

“Lemongrab!” A voice came from in front of him and he looked up to see the second earl standing over him. They had a shock collar on and still had their legs, though their left eye had been bitten off, and the bitemark was bleeding. “You’re so dirty! Dirty dirty and filthy!”

“I-I’m sorry.”

“And who is going to clean all this up?”

“I-I can do it!” Lemongrab dragged his body round in a circle and tried to wipe at the trail with his sleeve, spilling more blood behind him. “See I can clean it! I’m-I’m a good boy! There’s no need tooooo punish meee!”

“No Lemongrab,” they said, “You are UNACCEPTABLEEE-” Their screech went higher and higher until the dream melted and he was left with just the ringing in his ears. He was disorientated, then realised where he was, and that the ringing was the blood rush around his ears. 

The area around his left eye felt like it was on fire. He sniffed and gagged at the smell of blood, terrified, he touched the side of his face but it was dry, and it was still there - his eye was fine, it was just that he was not. There was a horrible sensation in his feet of itchiness and burning, like they were cramping. 

He whimpered and made guttural groans to release some of the stress as he flailed in the dark for the painkillers on his bedside table, and knocked them to the floor. He heard the syringes clattering on the stone and screamed in frustration. Of course. He always made a mess of things. He was dirty, filthy, and he was in pain. 

He swung his legs to the floor and yelled “Ow ow ow ow!” as he tried to shift his weight onto them. He looked helplessness down at the pills, breathing heavily through his mouth to avoid smelling more blood. 

The door clicked open and one of the lemon people poked their head around it. “Escuse mee… how dare you?”

“Nnngh.” His mouth felt numb from the pain in his head, so shaping any words would be hard. 

The lemon handed him one of the syringes, and he injected the painkiller into his arm. The stab of the needle was good, it provided a sharp distraction from the rest of his body, and once the painkiller was in his bloodstream he felt a little better, though the relief was more mental than physical. Sadly, most candy people medicines didn’t work for his unique physiology, and due to how thick his skin was salves were out of the question. As were pills, because it took him days to digest anything that wasn’t made of lemon candy. So injections it was. 

“May Iii fetch you anything?”

He closed his eyes, his left eye throbbing. The pain in his feet was beginning to fade, turning into more of an itchiness and hot sensation - like he was being dangled over coals. He moved his tongue in his mouth, trying to get some feeling back so he could speak. “Hot pack… in theee drawer. Also… jons.” 

They placed the hotpack over his eye, and the burning sensation on his skin made the burning inside a little less noticeable, but not by much. And the painkiller didn’t seem to be doing much for him. He was handed a lemonjon and put it to his nose. He smelled it - the earthy, sour smell replaced the blood and that at least calmed him down a little. 

The lemon person turned to leave and he panicked. “WAIT!”

They flinched when he raised his voice. Lemongrab noticed that their skin was darker than that of the other lemon people, which meant they were older, as lemon rind skin darkened over time like real lemons did. That meant they had been alive during the dark time.

Lemongrab went quiet. “Sorry.” 

“There is no need toooo apologise.” They said stiffly. 

“What is yoouur name?”

“Zitronenfried.”

Lemongrab snickered and tried to hide it as a cough. “W-Who named you that?” It was a pompous, silly name for a tiny lemon. 

“Lemongrab did.”

“O-oh.” They meant his older brother, “Yes. Hm. I see.”

They stared at him blankly. Lemongrab didn’t know how to say that he didn’t want to be alone with nothing but the pain and memories to keep him company. He wanted some comfort, and he wanted to be distracted. To be- oh dear. Did he want his subject to entertain him like a floorshow? Was he just as bad as his predecessor? Perhaps he was. 

“Maybe I am being punished by Glob…” he mumbled to himself. 

“Grob Gob Glob Grod?”

“No. Myyyy Glob… she made me and she remade me to be like this. Tooo suffer… nngh.. To beeee punished…” The princess had sewn him together with red stitches that were now permanently sealed into his skin. He often looked at them and wondered why she hadn’t used a yellow thread, to make it less noticeable. Or did she want everyone to know he was bad, the same way Lemongrab 1 had bitten off the most noticeable parts, to mark him as the dirty one. “Perhaps this is what I deserve?”

“You do not deserve punishment.” Zitronenfried sat on the bed and pulled up their sleeve to reveal a bitemark on their forearm. It seemed like the limb had been severed with teeth at one point, and glued back together. “When iiiit hurts I wear an arm brace. I do stretches also. It helps the muscle, I believe. I am also in pain but have done nothing wrong. It is not a punishment, it is simplyyyy lemon body ways…”

The smell finally seemed to have faded, and while the pain was still there and would probably throb for hours, Zitronfried was a much appreciated distraction. “Thank you Zitro… It means a lot, coming from you.”

[supercasey]

TMA Child Avatars AU

Alright, so ever since I listened to the episode about Agnes’s origins, I keep thinking about an AU where a bunch of the other Entities, after realizing that it’s at least possible to create an avatar from birth, perform their own rituals and make a bunch of the future Archives gang. This AU has a lot of potential for angst, but since TMA is sad enough, I’ll probably mostly focus on the world building and fluffy/funny stuff (‘cus god knows I’m a slut for that shit).

To all my followers, I’m sorry I keep making kid AUs; I got told in like 2015 or so that I sucked at writing kids and it’s Never Left My Mind, so now I always wanna make stupid AUs in order to practice writing kids better (I also have an original story I wanna write soon with a ten year old as the main character, so yeah, I need all the practice I can get).

Anyways, here’s all I’ve got on the AU this far (explanation under the cut; a very long post is up ahead):

Character Backstories

Jonathan “Jon” Sims - Apprentice Archivist of the Eye

Jon is a very complicated story, at least from everyone outside of the Eye’s gaze. It was Elias’s idea to create him, and were it not for Gertrude getting lucky, no one but Elias, Peter Lukas, and Simon Fairchild would have ever known that Jon existed until he was ready to become the next archivist. Gertrude found out by pure chance when she accepted a live statement from one very frightened Delores Sims, who told the archivist about how a strange man had been stalking her ever since she found out she was pregnant. Out of completely nowhere, her husband died a month after she conceived, and even though it looked like an accident, Delores swore that she saw an arm surrounded by fog push him down the stairs. Things only grew worse for her over the next few weeks, as in the midst of her grieving her dead husband, Delores began seeing green, glowing irises out of the corners of her eyes, watching her every move as she lived her life, which was followed by the stalker in question appearing constantly in her dreams, always watching her from afar, an unpleasant and frankly unnerving grin on his face the entire time.

Suspicious, and finding the description of the stalker all too familiar by the end of the statement, Gertrude investigated Delores’s claims on her own time, going so far as to break into Elias’s office in order to dig up more information on whatever he was up to. No matter what her theories may have been, none of them were anything like what she found in his letters to his associates. Somehow, Elias had conspired alongside the Lukas and Fairchild families to find their heirs/avatars together, and Elias was the last person to acquire one of his own. Gertrude was unsure of the details at the time (and she still unfortunately is), but from what she could gather, the child growing in Delores Sims’ body was somehow touched by the Eye because of something Elias had done, and they would be born with the perfect framework to have the powers that an archivist learns over several years of training at birth! With no time to lose, Gertrude got back into contact with Delores, and after much discussion between the two women, she convinced Delores to come to her apartment when she eventually went into labor, and to give Gertrude the baby after they were born so that she could keep them safe from Elias.

The birth was meant to be done in secret, but the second the first contraction occurred, there was a knock on Gertrude’s door, Elias waiting for her on the other side with an unhappy grimace on his face. He came armed with a gun, and threatened to murder Gertrude if she didn’t allow him to claim the child as his own. Aware she still had many rituals to stop in the near future, and that none of her assistants were experienced enough to stop them by themselves, Gertrude reluctantly agreed to let him inside, but on one condition; the child had to be shared between them. Elias was abrasive to the idea of course, but he eventually complied with his archivist’s demands, not wanting to replace her so early on in her career. The sight of her stalker coming into the bedroom to watch her give birth unfortunately sent Delores into a panic attack while she was still very much in labor, making the rest of the birth a rather dangerous thing, but the child survived, leaving his mother terrified and shaking. Gertrude had planned on letting her go on her merry way after the baby was born, but Elias wasn’t taking any chances, and he shot her as soon as he deemed it safe to.

Since then, Gertrude and Elias have had dual custody of Jonathan- the name was Gertrude’s idea, on the grounds that it was a nice, proper name for a young man- trading him back and forth every other week. It’s been hard, especially with the adults he calls his parents wanting to kill each other, but Jon’s oblivious to most of the fighting right now, assuming his folks are just going through a messy divorce.

Martin Blackwood-Lukas - Adoptive Son of Peter Lukas

Peter ended up running very behind in the whole child avatar thing (a first for his family, something Simon reminds him of on a daily basis), and he really struggled with creating a baby avatar that would actually be able to “keep up” with the other young messiahs that were coming to be. Eventually he realized that his family’s usual method would take too long, so out of desperation he went to Elias and Simon for help. It was Simon’s idea that worked; he suggested that since the normal methods weren’t working, and kids usually don’t become lonely until they’re older, that Peter should try his own summoning ritual like the Lightless Flame did with Agnes. Peter was hesitant at first, but he gave in quickly, sacrificing a number of lonely souls to his entity in a well-timed manner, until finally, he found a small, swaddled baby in the midst of the fog; a supposed gift from the Lonely for his loyalty.

Peter was delighted by this discovery, and so were his colleagues, the men relieved that their hard work had actually paid off for once. After naming the little boy Martin- it was Elias’s idea, though he didn’t have much of an exact reason for the name, simply claiming that it “suited” the child- and before long, Peter began raising his newfound son much the same as he was; in almost total isolation, save for a variety of rotating nannies and caregivers. Unfortunately for Peter, this went horribly wrong almost as soon as he got started, as by the time that Martin was six months old he had accidentally forced five different nannies into the fog out of fear of them leaving like the ones before them had. With no other options available, and being able to actually leave the fog if Martin threw anymore fits, Peter was forced to raise his son by hand, which again went wrong, but for very different reasons, as to his shock, he became quite attached to his adopted child.

This evolved into Peter having doubt of the Lonely for the first time in his life, but he refused to acknowledge it for as long as he could. But he was finally forced to when, after Martin turned five years old, the rest of the Lukas family insisted on performing a test on the child to see how well Martin could handle the fog without any guidance. He had been inside the fog before of course, with Peter holding his hand or carrying him through the dense chill, but the family wanted to isolate Martin inside for a full month. This secretly scared Peter like nothing else ever had, but out of fear of what his family might think, he didn’t say anything at the time, simply watching from afar as his son was dragged into the fog and left to fend for himself. The ritual went wrong within the first week, Martin having a full-scale breakdown and nearly hyperventilating to death, and yet the family kept him in there for another week before the intervention.

The results of the test of course disappointed the other members of the Lukas family, who suggested that they simply leave Martin to disappear into the fog and look for a new, more sufficient messiah to serve their god. The news hit Peter incredibly hard, and despite his previous inhibitions and fear, he knew he couldn’t let the Lonely consume his one and only son. So, without telling anyone of what he was up to, he ventured into the fog, rescued Martin, and fled to live with his estranged ex-husband the Magnus Institute. Since then he’s been living with Elias at his house and avoiding his family at all costs, all while young Martin has grown up alongside the other entity kids and has struggled to figure out his role in everything, but at least he has his dad on his side through all of this.

Sasha James - Chosen Daughter of the Mother of Puppets

(Note: I headcanon the Mother of Puppets as a giant spider, so that’s how I’m writing her… sorry if this is inaccurate, but I’m only on MAG 152, y’all. Besides, I think this is cool af.)

Sasha was very much planned, even more so than Agnes was so many years beforehand. The Mother of Puppets had her minions gather hundreds upon hundreds of orphaned infants and bring them to her nest. She swaddled each every one in her webbing and kept them like this for several weeks, allowing them time to adjust to the webbing and adapt. Unfortunately, most of these children weren’t cut out for the Web’s influence, and while a few indeed held their adoptive mother’s mark, almost none of them were marked deep enough to become a fully realized avatar. The unsuccessful batches were subsequently sent off to orphanages across the world and replaced with new babies, this process repeating for years and years, until finally, Sasha was born. There was nothing special about her parents, yet she not only bore The Web’s mark, she seemed to have it embedded into her very soul. This, of course, was met with celebration from the Web, and plans were quickly made as to how to raise her moving forward, as no one wanted Sasha to end up like Agnes did.

Annabelle Cane ended up being the one chosen to home Sasha for the first few years of her childhood, and she was dutiful in her new, rather honorable role, as she not only cared for the child well, but she treated Sasha as her own, though she was careful to be seen more as an older sister than a mother to the girl; that role was, of course, reserved for Sasha’s real mother. When Sasha finally turned five, the Mother of Puppets announced further plans for the young avatar, calling on Annabelle to take Sasha to the Magnus Institute and give her to one of their hidden agents there so that she could learn more about how the Web uses it’s influence over other entities. This worried Annabelle, who wanted to keep the child near her and prove that she was the most loyal of the mother’s children, but she would never disobey a direct order from the being that had given her life such meaning. So, rather reluctantly, Annabelle gave Sasha to another member of the Web, watching from the shadows as this unworthy follower took the blessed daughter into the institute for further training.

This went wrong within only a few months. Gertrude ended up finding out who the Web’s spy in the institute was, as she had suspected that another entity was trying to control her from the shadows, and after disposing of the threat and searching their home for anything useful that she could use against the Web, she found Sasha. The archivist was tempted to kill the supernatural child on sight, but while she can murder her assistants and enemies without much remorse, on the grounds that it’s always for the greater good, killing a child is a very different story. So she took Sasha in, raising the Web’s child as her own alongside the Eye’s own prodigy Jon, all while trying to help Sasha control her slowly budding powers. The Mother of Puppets has been trying to get Sasha back ever since, enraged that the child is so close to her yet just out of reach, but with no luck, though there’s no telling how long that will last.

Timothy & Daniel Stoker - Dancer and Future Ringmaster of the Stranger

Both Tim and Danny are chosen ones of the Stranger, created as soon as their god had gained enough spare power to create them. Tim was born first, being the Stranger’s first attempt at birthing an avatar that might be powerful enough to help lead the Unknowing, but Gertrude interrupted midway through the ritual. By some miracle, Tim survived the ordeal, but he was left “incomplete” to some degree, leaving him simply marked and not fully connected to the Stranger. The entity’s followers ended up keeping him around though, both because Nikola Orsinov was too fascinated by the newborn baby to give him up, and because his parents wanted him to survive, but it was agreed that another attempt would be made, this time with more planning involved. Four years later, Danny was born, and with Gertrude too preoccupied to intervene this time around (and because she didn’t realize they’d try again so soon), the ritual went much better and created a far more suitable vessel for the Stranger’s powers.

After that, Tim and Danny’s parents died, fully succumbing to the Stranger’s transformation and leaving them orphaned. Not that their presence was strictly necessary after the kids were born, as Nikola Orsinov was more than happy to take over in most of the child rearing, genuinely growing quite fond of the two boys, particularly Tim, as despite his lack of supernatural abilities, she found him to be rather endearing, which is probably the closest she can get to genuinely caring about someone. Both brothers were raised more or less the same way, save for Danny being showered with more praise and being trained as a future ringmaster while Tim was mostly ignored and trained to be a dancer. Some followers of the Stranger feared that Tim might harbor resentment towards his little brother and try to kill him someday, but to their surprise, Tim only grew more protective of him over the years, swearing to keep Danny safe as he grew up to fulfill his destiny and help their family mold the world in their image.

Eventually though, when Tim was eleven and Danny was seven, Tim realized what was actually happening behind the scenes, and not wanting his brother to risk being sacrificed for the world’s destruction, he told Danny everything, leading to the young messiah to run away with him to London (they were raised primarily in Russia, but moved with the circus a lot, and were in France at the time that they finally ran away). There, Tim found the infamous Gertrude Robinson, who he knew had the power to stop the Unknowing, as she had once saved him from becoming the Stranger’s avatar, and inadvertently led him to having a little brother. Tim and Danny have since moved in with Michael, and they visit the Magnus Institute whenever they get the chance, as both boys have grown to become friends with the other avatar kids. You’d think that the Stranger’s followers would be furious about all of this- don’t worry, many of their acolytes are- but Nikola has laughed it off entirely and keeps insisting that the boys are just having a “sleepover” or are away at “summer camp” (in fucking January, apparently).

Melanie King - Cadet of the Slaughter

Honestly, the Slaughter wasn’t as into the whole “let’s make an avatar from scratch!” thing that the other entities’ followers were doing, but hey, sometimes child avatars just kinda wind up on your doorstep, ya know? Melanie ended up being found at about four years old, sobbing on her hands and knees outside of a burning hospital and calling for her mommy and daddy to come back to her, but no one answered her cries, and she was left to weep for quite some time before someone found her. The hospital, you see, had been overrun by the Corruption and promptly burned to the ground by the Desolation, neither of which bothered to stick around for some worthless child. Melanie’s parents were both inside when the entities clashed, leaving her orphaned and scared, and while Alfred Grifter, who had been on his way to a show with his bandmates at the time that he found her, had intended on just leaving her be, he saw the overwhelming rage and blood-lust in her crying eyes, and realized in that moment that she was touched by the urge to kill, just like he was.

Melanie was promptly taken in by Alfred Grifter and the band, who honestly had no idea what the hell they were doing. On one hand, Alfred knew that keeping a kid around was unbelievably dangerous for all parties involved, but on the other, he really didn’t want to leave Melanie all by herself, for fear of what she might do if left without any guidance from “people” who knew what she was going through, at least to some degree. That isn’t to say Alfred and his bandmates were all that great at raising her- they mostly just brought her to gigs and let her play on her Gameboy backstage while they started massacres- but they did at least try to give her somewhat of a home. It wasn’t until five years into this that some other Slaughter followers found out about Melanie’s existence, to which they told Alfred to give her to them for proper training. Knowing her life would be horrible with them, Alfred gave his ward a backpack full of everything she ever owned, a kid sized guitar, her Gameboy, and sent her on the run.

Melanie was scared out of her mind at first, having grown to see Alfred and his bandmates as her new family; she had already lost her parents, so why did she have to lose the band, too!? But there were no other options, she had to run, so she did just that, attacking any adult who tried to stop her along the way. She didn’t actually know about the Magnus Institute when she made her way to London, and Alfred didn’t tell her to go there or anything, but she ended up being spotted by Adelard Dekker while she was looking for a place to stay in the area. Seeing that Melanie was an avatar of some kind, Adelard managed to convince her that he was safe, and to let him take her to someone that could help her. He brought Melanie straight to Gertrude Robinson, who agreed to house the child since Adelard couldn’t, though she ended up letting one of her unofficial assistants (*cough* Gerry *cough*) take her to live in his flat so she wouldn’t be as easy for Elias to monitor/get ahold of.

Julia Montauk & Alice “Daisy” Tonner - Children of the Hunt

(Watch as I fuck with timelines so badly that the people who keep track of this shit will order a hit on me) The Hunt found both of their avatars in strikingly similar yet different ways; Julia was first, born from the womb of another entity’s follower, but bound for so much more than anything the Dark could give her. Years after her destined birth, Julia’s mother was viciously murdered by the People’s Church when she was just five years old, her father Robert Montauk going down the path of becoming a fully-fledged Hunter, and in the process he unknowingly marked Julia with his newfound entity, which in turn unlocked an unprecedented potential inside of her, not that it was fully realized until another tragedy struck her. This next tragedy, unfortunately, claimed Julia’s father. Mr. Pitch was mistakenly summoned, and in it’s rage, it destroyed Robert while he was in the midst of a sacrifice. The monster would’ve gotten Julia next, had it not been for the intervention of a nearby Hunter.

Trevor Herbert honestly didn’t mean to get involved, but when he witnessed a little girl screaming as she ran out of a house, a giant mass of darkness chasing after her, and no one willing to so much as call the damn cops, he knew he had to rescue the poor kid. In a flash he ran over, picked Julia up, and ran away with her to safety, managing to get her in his car (which he stole, but that’s not important) and drive as far away from her old home as possible. In the aftermath, Trevor had no idea what to do with Julia, since he had never actually wanted any kids of his own, but… well, he ain’t heartless, and that monster was still out there somewhere, just waiting to sink it’s cursed teeth into this young child’s flesh. Trevor ended up keeping her after that, becoming her adoptive father as he traveled with her around the UK, slowly but surely training her to hunt the same monsters that claimed her beloved parents.

You’d think that would be the end of Trevor Herbert adopting little girls marked by the Hunt, but nope, he just can’t catch a fucking break! He found Daisy about a year later, when Julia was eight and becoming more adjusted to her new lifestyle. Again, Trevor wasn’t really planning on going on any hunts at the time that this happened, he was just traveling through the area, but upon finding a bloodied up, terrified little girl being chased by a boy who looked possessed… well, it wasn’t like Julia wasn’t lonely, and again, Trevor isn’t heartless, and he sure as hell can’t let things go. So yeah, he kidnapped another child touched by the Hunt, even though this one actually had a living parent, and once again he took to traveling the UK with his adoptive daughters, secretly reveling in his new role as a father. Daisy, while scared at first, quickly grew fond of her new family, and even fonder of her new nickname after Trevor patched up her wounds, and noticed a flower-shaped scar on her back, prompting him to start affectionately calling her Daisy.

Yep, things were going pretty good for the family of three, but of course, shit eventually caught up with Trevor, not that he thought he could avoid it forever.

The police eventually caught wind of “Trevor the Tramp” traveling with two little girls who looked an awful lot like the missing thirteen and ten year olds Julia Montauk and Alice Tonner, and in his desperation to keep from getting arrested and having his children taken away, Trevor fled to downtown London in order to lie low for awhile and raise his daughters in relative peace, only ever going out for food runs and the occasional hunt. It was through one of these hunts that he ended up meeting Gerard Keay, the two of them chasing after the same book that had been summoning shadow people to wreck havoc on the city, and after a bit of back and forth banter over the campfire that was once a Leitner, Gerry convinced Trevor to move in with him so that the girls and him would be safer and actually have a home. Although he was hesitant to accept an offer he thought was too good to be true (also, he’s not gonna lie, he thought Gerry was a vampire when they met), Trevor agreed and moved into Gerry’s flat with his daughters, and has since helped Gertrude and her assistants with monster hunts.

Oliver Banks & Georgie Barker - Fetchlings of The End

Georgie and Oliver are an odd story, with the latter of the two having gained his powers as a mere toddler, being plagued with horrible, ghastly dreams that would keep him awake through the night, leaving him absolutely haggard by morning. His father tried everything to help Oliver through this torment- counseling, medication, bedtime rituals- but nothing worked, and before long, Oliver’s beloved father was claimed by his nightmares, dying of a heart attack that he couldn’t stop. Alone and misunderstood by everyone who tried to raise him, Oliver ran away countless times, coming across Georgie during his last attempt. He found the little girl to also be on the run for similar reasons, but unlike him, she wasn’t the least bit afraid. She wasn’t exactly happy, but she wasn’t a bawling mess like he was. Together, the two of them struggled to survive, relying on kindhearted drifters for support while they avoided the police until, at long last, something took pity on them, that something being a large, fat tabby cat.

As it were, the tabby cat- dubbed The Admiral by Georgie- wasn’t a normal cat in the slightest, and although it couldn’t speak, it’s intentions were clear; it was there to help these lost, orphaned children. Oliver was skeptical of course, but Georgie wasn’t about to look a gift cat in the mouth, so Oliver reluctantly followed the cat and his little sister to an apartment building, and from there, into an unoccupied flat. Since then, the two children have been living with Admiral in that very same flat, the cat providing them with a fully stocked fridge, warm beds, and running water. It’s still unclear what the Admiral is, but he seems kind enough, and is obviously quite protective of his newfound children, accompanying them on their outings and occasional visits to the institute.

Michael Crew - Prodigy of The Vast

Out of all avatars to be raising children for their entity, Simon Fairchild absolutely has had the most fun with it all, treating it almost like a fun game or pastime. He was the first (save for the Lightless Flame having Agnes, of course) to “create” an avatar child, and from minute one he was overjoyed with the results. A few years after news broke of Agnes’ origins, and the followers of other entities were all arguing over whether or not to follow suit, Simon didn’t bother waiting for anyone’s input or permission, simply throwing himself into the deep end and praying he could make his plan work. Seemingly overnight, Simon somehow acquired a baby later identified as the missing and presumably dead infant Michael Crew, who he referred to as Mike when he finally introduced him to his friends/associates. He still hasn’t told anyone how he even got the kid- not even Peter or Elias know what he did!- but by some means, he illegally adopted Mike and took to raising the kid like a duck takes to water; a bit unsure at first, but growing to love it fast!

When Mike was introduced to the rest of the entity followers community, many were shocked (excuse the pun) to see that the infant had a long, frightening Lichtenberg scar running down his right arm, his back, and his right leg, the scars glowing a bright blue whenever he took to the sky or, as Elias learned the hard way after accidentally annoying Mike by bouncing him on his knee for too long when he was a toddler, used his powers to electrocute people. Even with his child being such an oddity, even among other avatars, Simon took it all in stride, proudly bragging about Mike to anyone who would listen, most of these people being victims of the Vast, who were hardly able to hear Simon’s excited rambling over their own shrieks of terror. He usually also insisted on bringing Mike with him, even when he was a mere infant, though he at least kept the kid in a tight harness on his chest. In all honesty, Simon being such an excited parent was what kick-started a lot of other avatars to start acquiring their own child avatars, as he made it look so easy!

However, things weren’t always perfect, especially on Mike’s end as he grew older. Being the eldest and more or less “firstborn” of this new generation of entity-made avatars put a lot of pressure on him at a very early age, pressure which Simon tried to help him deal with by not acknowledging it, which unfortunately didn’t help in the slightest. Thankfully Mike started to feel less unsure of his place in the world as he reached his teen years, seeing as the younger kids were now getting all the attention and giving him a chance to breathe. Even now that he’s an angsty teenager, Mike loves Simon like a father, referring to him as such without hesitation. This, of course, delights Simon to no end, and makes all his peers low-key high-key jealous of the awesome relationship he has with his son.

Helen Richardson - Droplet of The Spiral

Not much was known about Helen when Michael first found her. After being sent into The Spiral by Gertrude on what he thought to be a suicide mission for the greater good, Michael was half certain he wouldn’t find anything but his end in that place. Instead he found a small, strange toddler where he was meant to find… well, he didn’t actually know what, but certainly not a baby, that’s for sure! With no one watching baby Helen, and therefore making him believe that she had been abandoned by The Spiral’s other creations, Michael had no reservations against scooping her up and taking her back to the physical world with him, where he was met be a very confused Gertrude Robinson. Michael wasn’t exactly keen on killing/abandoning a baby after he got out, so he and Gertrude brought her back to London with them in hopes of finding out more about the odd child. Along the way, it became clear that the baby was gifted with The Spiral’s powers, the giggly toddler continually screwing with reality, though she wasn’t aware she was doing so.

Back home in London, it took another three weeks of research, but Gerry eventually found out more about the child Michael had more or less adopted. Her name was originally Helen Richardson, and her father, a rookie paranormal investigator who had once been marked by The Spiral, was obsessed with the distortion, and was willing to do anything to become more than simply marked by it. He ended up finding a map similar to Gertrude’s, and a few years before she even knew it was possible, the father went into The Spiral and used his own daughter as a vessel for the entity, hoping she would be a good enough sacrifice to earn it’s favor. This of course ended in disaster, with the father “disappearing” while Helen absorbed The Spiral’s power, but seeing as she was so young, it couldn’t manifest properly, even after two and a half years spent trying to “raise her” within the deepest depths of it’s domain.

With research still being done on what to do about the child, and whether or not the team can remove her powers without killing or permanently injuring her in the process, Michael has agreed to take Helen in, secretly delighted to be raising a baby. With the Stoker Brothers already under his roof, Michael has his hands rather full with them and baby Helen, but the boys take her antics in stride, having learned quickly how to deal with the apartment they live in occasionally “growing” some new doors and changing color at random. Luckily for Michael, he has back-up in the forms of Gerry and Gertrude, who occasionally take Helen and the brothers off his hands for him so he can take a break/fix whatever Helen may’ve accidentally broken with her powers.

Character Roles in this AU

(Feel free to add your own OCs/other characters if you wanna do stuff with this AU, I’m just naming characters I know about/remember!)

Avatar Kids: Jonathan “Jon” Sims, Martin Blackwood, Sasha James, Timothy “Tim” Stoker, Daniel “Danny” Stoker, Melanie King, Julia Montauk, Alice “Daisy” Tonner, Oliver Banks, Georgie Barker, Michael “Mike” Crew, and Helen Richardson.

Avatar Kids Semi-Reluctant PTA Group: Elias Bouchard, Gertrude Robinson, Peter Lukas, Gerard “Gerry” Keay, Trevor Herbert, Michael Shelley, and Simon Fairchild.

PTA Allies: Basira Hussain (Daisy’s best friend and the local Normal Child™), Agnes Montague (Everyone’s emergency number for avatar child advice), Alfred Grifter (Just shows up to hang out with Melanie and cause problems on purpose), The Admiral (Guardian to Georgie and Oliver and occasionally the other kids; best babysitter), Adelard Dekker (Comes around the archives sometimes and always brings presents for the kids + assistants), and Rosie (Elias’s assistant and the only sane and sensible adult in this Chili’s tonight).

PTA Enemies: Nikola Orsinov (Tim and Danny’s “Mom” who keeps kidnapping Jon on accident), Annabelle Cane (Hates the institute and wants Sasha back), Jude Perry (Hates the kids but loves Agnes; worst babysitter),  and Jared Hopworth (Nightmare flesh man that needs to fuck off; mediocre but funny babysitter).

Character Descriptions

(Feel free to tweak the physical designs if you want; I’m just going off my own headcanons, and seeing as my drawing skills are pretty shit, it’s not like I’m gonna be doing much art for this outside of writing. So yeah, go off with your own headcanons if you want to!)

Full Name: Jonathan “Jon” Sims-Bouchard-Robinson Age: 7 Birthday: October 26th (Scorpio) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Eye, Marked by Literally Fucking Everything Guardian(s): Alexander Sims (Biological Father - Deceased), Delores Sims (Biological Mother - Deceased), Gertrude Robinson (Adoptive Mother - Current), Elias Bouchard (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: African heritage with dark brown skin, worryingly short for his age, dark brown eyes that glow bright green when he’s using his powers, long black hair with a few green and grey hairbands tied in, constantly “borrows” Martin’s sweaters to wear, occasionally wears skirts but most of the time he wears slacks, constantly looks sleep deprived, has a very intense stare, and occasionally he can be seen carrying his stuffed moth around. Personality: You’d think he’d be a quiet kid, considering his entity, but no, he has Questions and he wants them Answered, goddammit! He wasn’t raised around many kids his age, being home-schooled by Elias and Gertrude all his life, so he struggles to connect with the other avatar kids. Is only close to the S1 gang at first, but he gets closer to everyone else over time. Idolizes Gerry and thinks he’s the coolest guy ever. Appears rather cowardly at a glance, but he’s braver than most people give him credit for. Would die for his friends/family.

Full Name: Martin Blackwood-Lukas Age: 8 Birthday: February 29th (Pisces) ((This one’s for you, Dane)) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Lonely, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): William Blackwood (Biological Father - Uninvolved), Edna Blackwood (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Peter Lukas (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Polish heritage and pale as a fucking ghost, average height for his age but growing fast, pretty chubby, covered head to toe in little red freckles, short and curly red hair, bright brown eyes, wears big round glasses, wears sweaters and comfy trousers almost 24/7, carries a backpack full of “emergency tools” wherever he goes, usually has a cup of tea in-hand, and sometimes wears a small sailor hat that Peter gave him. Personality: Incredibly reserved, much like Mike, but he’s been trying to come out of his shell more. He’s “Best Friends Forever” with Jon, and gets along well with Tim and Sasha as well. Fears Melanie and Daisy. He likes hanging out with the other kids, but he often gets talked over, leading him to withdraw for awhile if it’s bad enough. Adores his dad, and is so much braver than anyone knows. Incredibly snarky when he feels like it.

Full Name: Sasha James Age: 10 Birthday: November 18th (Scorpio) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Web, Marked by The Eye, Marked by The Stranger Guardian(s): Francis James (Biological Father - Deceased), Patrick James (Biological Father - Deceased), Annabelle Cane (Adoptive Mother - Uninvolved), Gertrude Robinson (Adoptive Mother - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of African and Caucasian with dark brown skin, slightly taller than average for her age, long dark brown hair, wears big round glasses, sometimes wears a little make-up if she can get away with it, wears a lot of turtleneck sweaters and long skirts, always has at least one cobweb on her, carries around a stuffed spider that she brings with her to the archives every day, and she wears a headband most of the time. Personality: Easily the most level-headed of the kids, as she’s been raised around paranormal stuff the longest and is rarely bothered by the stranger things that happen. She hates Artifact Storage with a passion, but other than that, she loves exploring the institute and occasionally stealing Gertrude’s laptop to mess with it. Very tech savvy, and even more curious! Incredibly smart, to the point that she can even outclass Gertrude and Gerry with her quick-wittiness.

Full Name: Timothy “Tim” Stoker Age: 12 Birthday: August 3rd (Leo) Entity/Mark(s): Marked by The Stranger, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Markus Stoker (Biological Father - Deceased), Olivia Stoker (Biological Mother - Deceased), Nikola Orsinov (Adoptive Mother - Uninvolved), Gerard “Gerry” Keay (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of Latino and Korean with dark tanned skin, slightly on the taller side for his age, messy/spiky black hair that looks impossible to comb, dark brown eyes, is described as a “handsome young man” by strangers, has a very charming smile, wears a lot of Hawaiian shirts and shorts (even during the winter), needs to wear glasses but he refuses to wear them in the archives out of self-consciousness. Personality: Probably one of the brightest personalities of the avatar kids, Tim comes off as very cool and funny, but underneath all of that he’s rather paranoid, afraid that the circus will come and force his baby brother into becoming a monster. Protective of his little bro and the archive kids, but he still teases them to no end. Smarter than he looks, and isn’t afraid to break his cool guy persona to tell someone off.

Full Name: Daniel “Danny” Stoker Age: 8 Birthday: August 1st (Leo) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Stranger, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Markus Stoker (Biological Father - Deceased), Olivia Stoker (Biological Mother - Deceased), Nikola Orsinov (Adoptive Guardian - Uninvolved), Gerard “Gerry” Keay (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of Latino and Korean with dark tanned skin, about a head shorter than Tim, somewhat neat black hair that sticks up in odd places, eyes are impressively dark and glassy looking, slight gap between his front teeth, is described as being a “handsome young man” by strangers, wears a lot of tank tops and shorts as well as the occasional hoodie if it’s cold, and loves running around barefoot. Personality: A lot of people describe Danny as being a “smaller and cuter Tim”, but that’s just not true. Danny is a lot like his older brother in many ways, but he has a much more refined taste for adventure, constantly getting himself into trouble with Jon on the grounds of “exploring” or what have you. He idolizes his big bro to the moon and back, and loves hanging out with him alongside the other kids. More of a follower than a leader, but he doesn’t mind. Secretly fears the day that the circus will come back to make him into their future ringmaster.

Full Name: Melanie King Age: 9 Birthday: June 7th (Gemini) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Slaughter, Marked by The Corruption, Marked by The Desolation, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Boris King (Biological Father - Deceased), Carrie King (Biological Mother - Deceased), Alfred Grifter (Guardian - Uninvolved), Gerard Keay (Guardian - Current) Appearance: Irish heritage but not terribly pale, rather short for her age, incredibly thin from malnutrition, short brown hair with the ends dyed bright blue, bright brown eyes, brings her leather jacket and her guitar with her everywhere she goes, wears a lot of pink/blue skirts and band t-shirts, wears black leather boots, has a lot of bandages on her knees and knuckles, and always has a camera ready to record things. Personality: Melanie is probably the most disconnected of the avatar kids (save for Helen), seeing as she only just recently joined the group, but already she’s beginning to befriend Sasha and Basira. She’s very protective of the other girls, and she keeps challenging the boys to fight her (only Danny ever agrees; he always loses). Secretly idolizes Julia and Daisy, but will never admit it. She sees Gerry as her big bro and Alfred Grifter as her adoptive dad; she misses Alfred more than she let’s on. Would stab as a warning.

Full Name: Julia Montauk Age: 13 Birthday: April 19th (Aries) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Hunt, Marked by The Dark, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Robert Montauk (Biological Father - Deceased), Linette Montauk (Biological Mother - Deceased), Trevor Herbert (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Indigenous heritage with dark tan skin, tall for her age, skinny enough to look malnourished, close-cropped red hair that gets her mistaken for a boy a lot, metal grey eyes, a scar runs diagonally across her right eye, often wears medium length skirts and oversized t-shirts, always wears athletic shoes, has a lot of scrapes and bandages on her knees most of the time, and has abnormally sharp canines. Personality: Before the deaths of both of her parents, Julia was considered rather normal for her age, being interested in horses, dolls, and dress-up games. After her mother died, she became more tomboyish, which only became more extreme after her father’s death. Since being taken in by Trevor, Julia’s been trying to act more like an adult in an attempt to seem less vulnerable, to varying degrees of success. She adores Trevor to the moon and back, and sees Daisy as her little sister. A bit standoffish around other children, but she’s got a good heart.

Full Name: Alice “Daisy” Tonner Age: 10 Birthday: March 15th (Pisces) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Hunter, Marked by The Slaughter, Marked by The Eye Guardian(s): Greyson Tonner (Biological Father - Deceased), Antoinette Tonner (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Trevor Herbert (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Welsh heritage with cream colored skin and a light tan, average height for her age, short and shaggy blond hair, has a number of tiny scars all over her face and hands, has a huge scar on her back that Trevor has told her looks like a daisy, striking green eyes, wears a lot of sleeveless shirts and shorts, refuses to wear dresses or skirts, prefers to be barefoot, and has abnormally sharp canines. Personality: Is already rather hot-headed at her age, especially after her encounter with Calvin while he was being possessed by a spirit of the Slaughter. Even so, she’s protective of her newfound family of Trevor and Julia, and while she misses her mother, she believes it’s best if she stays where she is. She loves playing outside whenever she can, and will spend hours chasing after squirrels and rabbits if left alone for too long. A bit argumentative, but she gets along really well with Julia and Basira.

Full Name: Oliver Banks Age: 10 Birthday: June 14th (Gemini) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The End, Marked by The Hunt Guardian(s): June Banks (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Isaac Banks (Biological Father - Deceased), The Admiral (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: African heritage with dark skin, has an array of pitch black freckles on his face, short and neat black hair that reaches just below his ears, ghastly grey eyes that look almost clear and turn black when he’s using his powers; used to be dark brown, worryingly thin from years of malnutrition, wears a lot of baggy and long-sleeved shirts, wears sweatpants, has boots on everywhere he goes, and he’s almost always shivering. Personality: The more distrustful of the “End Siblings”, the only person Oliver even sort of likes is Jon, and even then he’s still scared of him. Constantly fidgeting and yawning from both his paranoia and fatigue. Is protective of Georgie, but more out of obligation than friendship. Prefers to be alone, and rarely visits the archives. He knows something bad is coming, but he’s too scared to do much about it. In the end, he knows he’ll do the right thing, but for now he’s hiding until the bombs finally fall.

Full Name: Georgie Barker Age: 7 Birthday: December 9th (Sagittarius) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The End, Marked by The Hunt Guardian(s): Georgie Grounding Sr. (Biological Mother - Deceased), Sarah Grounding (Biological Mother - Deceased), Jason Barker (Adoptive Father - Deceased), The Admiral (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: Mixed race heritage of African and Indian with dark brown skin, fairly chubby, has an array of light brown freckles all over her arms, back, and face, has long and curly black hair done up in poofy buns using colorful hair bands, paints her nails all the time with different colors every week, cutest little smile you ever did see, wears a lot of ghost-related clothing (mainly t-shirts and jeans), and she brings her ghost backpack with her everywhere she goes (it has her stuffed leopard inside). Personality: Despite being an avatar of the End, Georgie has a very upbeat personality, having no time for her adoptive brother’s endless worrying and fearfulness. In fact, all her fear has been gone since she was little, so she’s never scared to explore something new and parade into danger! She’s very close friends with Jon (even if he’s distant sometimes) and best friends with Melanie, though she gets along with most everyone else as well. She may be a chipper person, but look out, she’s carrying more baggage than she let’s on. Loves The Admiral more than life.

Full Name: Michael “Mike” Crew Age: 14 Birthday: May 13th (Taurus) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Vast Guardian(s): Ramsey Crew (Biological Father - Uninvolved), Whitney Crew (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Simon Fairchild (Adoptive Father - Current) Appearance: Caucasian and pale as a ghost, shaggy white hair that’s almost always wind-swept, strikingly pale blue eyes, smells of ozone and burnt hair, incredibly short for his age, very bony and thin, tends to wear a lot of oversized hoodies on the grounds that they make flying more fun, clothes are almost always pristine and clean, his back, right arm, and right leg are covered in a Lichtenberg scar that glows bright blue when he’s using his powers, permanent bags under his eyes. Personality: A very, very quiet kid, at least around strangers. He’s much bubblier around Simon, but otherwise he’s viewed as an “old soul” by most adults. He does have a sense of humor though, taking a bit too much pleasure out of sending people soaring into the air against their will, especially if they insulted or annoyed him beforehand. Secretly a bit protective of the other avatar kids, and has been known to take them flying if they promise not to let go of him when they do so. Nice kid, but don’t make fun of his height or he might just electrocute you out of spite.

Full Name: Helen Richardson Age: 3 Birthday: February 23rd (Gemini) Entity/Mark(s): Avatar of The Spiral Guardian(s): Tiara Richardson (Biological Mother - Uninvolved), Dexter Richardson (Biological Father - Deceased), Michael Shelley (Adoptive Guardian - Current) Appearance: African heritage with dark brown skin (has the beginning patches of vitiligo on her face and hands), fairly chubby but Michael swears it’s just baby fat, has bright purple eyes with swirling yellow irises, has short but frizzy black hair that cannot be tamed, is often dressed in very colorful onesies and footie pajamas alongside the rare dress, and occasionally she’ll have a child leash vest on (though it often disappears because of The Spiral). Personality: She honestly doesn’t have much of a personality yet, being a toddler and all, but she’s a very giggly child, and loves nothing more than making Michael “be silly” with the use of her powers. Speaking of which, she has very little control of her abilities, and although she’s too young to understand their impact on the world, she still feels bad when she accidentally goes too far and gets Michael hurt. She adores Michael and Jon, and loves it when Michael brings her to the institute with him. Very playful and mischievous.

And that’s all I’ve got for now! I wanna write some fics for this at some point (particularly I wanna write a fic that has all of the kids’ origin stories in better/more detail), but for now anyone is free to fuck around with this AU, so long as you’re not doing too much shipping between the kids (hints at ships are fine, but they’re still kids, y’all) and ESPECIALLY not any shipping of the kids with the adults/guardians. Feel free to PM me or scream about this AU in the notes/tags; I’d love to hear people’s thoughts!

[gayregis]

Do you have any thoughts on TWN using non polish actors to portray characters from polish fantasy book with dense polish culture and roots? And on how most of the cast apperereance are drastically different than in the books? Like Foltest, Renfri, Fringilla or Calanthe? (Sorry this is the correct one, i forgot to add Fringilla on my previous question.)

i feel like the witcher should not be handled by a large american company like netflix. it is clear that a lot of decisions were made to “dumb the series down” in a manner that would make it more of a pop culture phenomenon that could be used to profit off of from viewership, subscriptions, social buzz, and merchandise, instead of an opportunity to demonstrate actual artistry, storytelling, character depth, and poignant messages. the company that handles it CAN be american or another nationality besides polish, but it shouldn’t be a huge one focused on making as much money and social sharability as possible, that will ruin things. (i also feel like the witcher should not be a live-action adaptation, but this is kind of besides the point... to better gauge how i think the feel of a visual-audial witcher adaptation should look, my dream adaptation would be that of a more “adult version” (”adult” meaning in themes like war and despair) studio ghibli or laika).

in regards to casting, i feel like it’s fine to not use an all polish cast as long as they fit the character description in a way that is actually relevant to the plot. so many people in response to people of color being cast in the witcher were volalitely racist and demanded a “polish cast” - as if polish MUST = white. even though poland is not as ethically diverse as some other european countries, people of color do exist in poland, as they/we exist everywhere. if you want an “all-polish cast and production,” that’s fine to me, i don’t think it’s inherently necessary, but i think if one is doing so, that doesn’t mean that it would be wrong to cast actors of color in roles. 

i think the issue lies more with storytellng, for two reasons. one is that eastern european people involved on set seem to actually understand the witcher and what it’s about way better than any of the british cast, and by that i mean sakharov and baginski, who have demonstrated more understanding of like, the style of storytelling (not every scene needs to be jammed with action, drama, sex, gore), what the characters actually mean to each other, and the lore in general. this makes sense because i have read some articles and such before about how the witcher was and is important to its fans in poland and eastern europe because very little “slavic fantasy” ever gets exported and represented internationally, and of course sapkowski involved many cultural references in the series, so it’s recognizable to people from those regions (or are diaspora from those regions) who grew up hearing these fairytales, etc. it’s more of a meaningful callback and less of a “foreign curiosity,” if that makes sense. so for those reasons, i think it’s important to have a majority polish and/or slavic writing room/directors/etc, people behind the story and how the story is told - but that doesn’t mean the writer’s room should be all white men, though. diversity in gender, race, etc should be considered.

the other reason is that the casting for the netflix is inaccurate, but not for reasons of race. the issue with anya chalotra as yennefer isn’t that she is indian, it’s that her hair is incredibly straight and flat and not like yennefer’s curly stormy hair at all, and that her face is so soft and childlike, she doesn’t look stern and cold like yennefer at all. there are many casting issues amongst the white members of cast, such as henry cavill, who doesn’t fit the description of geralt at all because geralt looks like he’s starved constantly, and joey batey, who ... well, dandelion is supposed to be blonde and curly long-haired... but of course, these are the appearances which don’t really “matter” in regards to the story. except i think geralt’s build, as well as yennefer and ciri’s proximity in age, which makes me nauseous to think about how they only have a 6 year age difference

one physical description which does actually matter to the plot/lore is that of calanthe, pavetta, and ciri, as they are a matrelineal line, but in netflix, they don’t look related at all. i saw so many people complaining that they should have chosen a white actress for calanthe, but why is she the problem? why not cast people of color for calanthe, pavetta, and ciri altogether? they should look related and have the ashen grey hair/green eyes, but that doesn’t mean they have to be white. it’s a similar issue with yennefer and fringilla. they are supposed to look similar, and i saw many people complaining that they chose mimi who is black to be fringilla, they are just using “they need to look similar” as an excuse to hide their racism and anti-blackness, because anya is more white-passing than mimi is. from my perspective, why not then cast a black actress who looks similar to mimi as yennefer, then? “they need to look similar” again does not mean “they need to all be white or white-passing.”

we should have cast actors that both fit the descriptions of the characters in the books AND are diverse, without it being “random diversity to appeal to a diverse audience.” lauren thought she was so clever by throwing the actors of color in the roles of background characters, stereotypes, forgettable and disposable aides to the white leads, or super evil villains... i see what you did... why not center actors of color in an actually proud and leading light, with lead roles, where the casting makes sense and isn’t there for tokenization that does nothing to empower people of color? actually incorporate people of color into your artistic projects in a way that respects them and makes sense and not just so you can get more views to make more money

other divergences from canon like foltest were just piss-poor and demonstrated the lack of understanding about the messages of the story. foltest was supposed to be handsome, elegant, and as a refined a king as any, to show how those in power are actually corrupt and as prone to disgusting acts as any other human being, that foltest is not a better man than geralt because he is beautiful and sits on a throne. by making him disgusting on the outside, they totally missed the point that he is supposed to mask his disgustingness on the inside with beauty on the outside. also i feel like (maybe related) twn really made a whole joke out of foltest and his relationship to his sister because in one of the flashbacks (in the sorcerer? gala? party?) foltest is shown as a kid with his sister and his mom grabs his arm or whatever and is like “foltest stop bothering your sister” as like some kind of fucking joke... literally they made a “funny ahaha incest joke” like seriously wtf. the story of the striga in particular should be taken seriously imo because of how rawly the tragedy is depicted... this is probably why it’s one of my least favorite short stories... its so sad and also incest disgusts me horribly

for renfri i feel like she was just sooooo ... more “likable” as a character, a lot like how yennefer’s character was changed. you feel feelings of pity and curiosity towards her rather than actually being intimidated by her. renfri in the books actually made me so mad because i think she represents something like what ciri goes through across the saga, just how when you have the choice on how to respond to your abuse, you can easily become consumed with revenge, and i think renfri made me think of myself in that way so i really disliked it when they changed this terrifying raw aspect of her anguish and hunger for retrubution that made her lose her humanity into like, more of a palatable manner of killing... it really was just “girl with sword” and it was so boring. the lesser evil literally makes my stomach turn and that’s why i only read the story like once as well...

also to return to fringilla, i liked mimi and i thought she should have been cast for yennefer instead maybe.... i just was really upset at how much they changed fringilla’s character in the writing to be a “generic evil villain” when in the series she actually is kind of unique in my opinion. she is like, not allied at all with the main characters, but ends up saving both yennefer and geralt’s lives. she’s not good or bad, she’s not super loyal to the empire but she is still nilfgaardian/beauclairoise, and she just exists as a character and that’s why i actually like her in the books (asides from all of the unnecessary library nonsense). i thought mimi could have handled that complex role really well but they totally took that away from her and just made her a flat boring forgettable “evil” character that does “forbidden black magic” and is super loyal to an empire that brought her purpose because yennefer was mean to her once or smth ig... yeah ok. also i fucking hate how they had cahir of all fucking people order her around. idk how old cahir is supposed to be in netflix because he’s obviously not like 16-20 as he would be in canon during this time period, but to have him be the boss of fringilla... that is dumb as hell. i just try and think about that ever occuring with books verse cahir and fringilla and i think she would smack him off of his horse and into the mud. she’d tell assire and assire would get mawr to drag him off by his ear as he tries not to cry.  also of course i hate cahir’s casting and the fact that they showed his face. why. it ruins like every message that his character had...

oh also because i HAVE to talk about it. i hate how they tried to make jaskier more masculine/boyish with not giving joey a wig or flamboyant setting-appropriate garb, i think they are allergic to men with long hair that’s not a grime, dirt-covered mess... literally just give half of the production wigs or better wigs i swear to god ... also like this is totally for another post but i don’t think making jaskier a flirt is inherently misogynistic like he acts in the books at times. like just write the misogynistic bits out and it’s fine... flirtatiousness is not evil when it’s consensual and appreciated ... i think they just really wanted geralt to be the one that gets large amounts of p*ssy because he’s muscular or w/e and jaskier became this sort of helpless annoying barnacle on his side instead of a real character and friend to him. and to bring this point back to the main point , i think character appearance really affects their characterization: jaskier in twn has short, boyish hair with no facial hair, which makes him look kind of juvenile, jaskier in the books has curly long hair with some light facial hair, which kind of brings up ehhh what would you call it... 70s casanova energies maybe, a man that puts oils in his hair and such, male thottery...

[uraharabyakuya]

After some time, I’m still sour about the Untamed.

This is a post to rant and convey my feelings as a firm believer of the novel, the source material. And I am also a huge fan of the audio drama and the donghua. I absolutely detest the Untamed live series. So if you’re one of the many fans of the live action, please don’t bother responding or reading this. I really do not want to argue with any of you. I just want to convey the deep sorrow and incensed indignation I feel about people putting the Untamed ahead of any of the other adaptations, especially the novel which is the source material.

After more than a year since the Untamed’s release, hordes of the drama’s fans are still hijacking comments sections of the other adaptations, even other BL franchise’s or other dramas of the actors, just to preach about the drama’s greatness.

Aside from the fact that the act of injecting and imposing praise from a series that has nothing to do with a lot of the other franchises posts these comments appear on is just plain rude; it is also highly unacceptable by right because the drama was shambolic both as a stand-alone drama and as an adaptation.

I find it really difficult to accept and concile the fact that a large scale of gaslighting seem to happen where the Untamed fans are going out in numbers to preach about how excellent that production was, even as far as to shamelessly and illogically denounce the novel itself which is the source material. How can they denounce the source material without which Untamed cannot even exist?!

I have difficulty allowing for the fact that Untamed being an adaptation and utilising the same characters and story arcs from the source material should disrespect and deface the very characters’ essence and fundamentals of the storyline. I do not want to rehash about how the Untamed WWX was better or how the Untamed Wen Qing was better or how the added fabled characters and changed plot points eg the Yin Hu Iron just existing and Lan Yi is still alive and is friends with WWX’s mother etc - are considered some upgrade. Because they all deface and destroy core essence of characters personalities and their arcs, then they are not an upgrade; even if they were executed well which in Untamed’s case, were not.

I get that the actors XZ and WYB are attractive to a lot of fans, and that whole physical attraction to things and people that are pleasing to the eye, adds a lot of brownie points and the feel good factor. But please do not confuse that superficial attraction and chemical reaction with whether the story, the production, the acting etc were actually of good quality and substance-which they were not.

If I had watched the Untamed with no prior knowledge of the novel or story, I would go in as if it were any brand new story or drama. And the Untamed would still not be able to stand up to the test. From the first 10 episodes, the production quality was a really huge distraction because of how poor quality it is. The natural sceneries may be beautiful but the make up, props, styling, costumes and special effects were all of really poor quality- Ghost General and WRH to name a few, Lan Sect forehead plastic strap that looks so out of place and random. One cannot seriously go in and seeing the horrible production quality and continue to think this is a great production and sit through 50 episodes of that. Then the characters and acting- if you didn’t know the original characters , you’d still find it really jarring and in fact really more annoying to see a WWX who is really acting like a girl to a LWJ who has the expression of either being sleepy or as if he’s dead. There’s no microexpressions in the eyes or face, there’s no person present nor personality in that character. I made a straight male friend watch the Untamed with no prior knowledge of what it’s about and he had no expectations of knowing the original characters, and he could not get past 10 episodes.

Now, if I watch it as a fan of the original story and characters: I would take huge issues with how they’ve defaced the essence of these beloved characters. There is no doubt that the Untamed was laden with so much shameless fan service and BL-fan-baiting. The novel, the audio drama, the donghua still carried through the essence and core personalities and characteristics of each of the characters. They were of certain constituencies and should not be watered down, dumbed down, hero-washed because they’re using the same characters’ names and story backgrounds and from the same universe as the novel. It’s incredibly disrespectful to make WWX not the grandmaster of demonic cultivation, not the person who had as much manly badassery and flirtatious teasing, and the sensitivity of feeling inferior in the family but possessed of great talents and his unwavering stance to defend the righteous regardless of consequences. Not to mention, his mistakes and arrogance with the demonic cultivation and the horrible consequences he then had to bear- which were all removed. LWJ as well was a layered character with self discipline and a penchant for suppressing emotions due to his childhood and the situation with his mother, and how he buries them deep which is how the novel and other adaptations showed his growth and layers when he’d silently been doing things either directly or indirectly that were a show of his emotions but just through actions. His turmoil and confusion when he fell in love, especially in the context of homosexuality in that time and universe setting, and his cultural identity from his sect and the expectations, but yet when it really counted, he was willing to sacrifice the veneer of reputation and standing and defend his love; and he was willing to mourn the loss and carry that burden of preserving WWX’s good when he took LSZ in and passed on some of WWX’s knowledge or how he still believed in WWX’s good and continued to Inquire after his soul, and want to investigate after his death. So many other characters’ stories and their personalities are changed from the original which makes it unacceptable. That’s like saying we should insist on changing people’s fundamental personalities because of some perceived opinion of what version is better, and that is even IF the subsequent proposed version is in fact better. But which like I say in Untamed’s case, is not. The WWX in Untamed was a Gary Sue who never did anything wrong, who never even did the remarkable feat of discovering demonic cultivation, and was acting like a teenage girl who was infatuated with the LWJ from high school as opposed to that cheeky, confident, borderline annoying extroverted young cultivator who had enjoyed that deference in the Jiang Clan even though he’s supposed to be the son of a servant in the novel canon. In fact in the Untamed, WWX was already practising what would be considered demonic cultivation tricks with the paper people and freezing techniques at Cloud Recesses which then just shatters any form of constructs or rules in the setting of that universe.

Basically, I am really tired of seeing Untamed fans stalking all forms of other media and leaving trails of forcing down people’s throats about how great this drama and acting is, even in places where they are not welcomed and has nothing to do with them. And when it is so excruciatingly inaccurate. It pains me to see people who may not be familiar with BL novels and franchises; MDZS canon, or other adaptations then think the Untamed is some game changer that paved the way- when it’s just a really horrible fanfic-like AU akin to 50 shades and twilight, that really butchers and takes away the epic storytelling and compelling characters and relationships a lot of BL franchises and especially the original MDZS canon bring.

[pomrania]

A more eldritch madness

I don’t like it how D&D -- or really any game, but I’m most familiar with D&D -- has “madness” as a consequence of certain spells or encounters, but all the options it gives are either inaccurate stereotypes or insensitive depictions of IRL conditions. Therefore, I took it upon myself to come up with some better alternatives, ones that hopefully don’t have unfortunate implications. I want these to feel like a response to arcane or unnatural stimuli; what you get from experiencing something not just horrible, but that Should Not Be. Failing that, I want it to be very obviously not a thing that is likely without magic.

Feel free to add more if you think of anything, or suggest changes if something is too mild/overpowering.

The mechanics are described as for D&D 5E, but the descriptions should make the intended effect clear enough that it can be adapted for other systems.

1. You hear the voices of the dead; too faint to make anything out, but distracting nonetheless. If you are near a humanoid corpse, whether you're aware of that fact or not, you suffer disadvantage on all Perception checks related to hearing.

2. Magical healing is painful to you. Whenever you attempt to magically heal yourself (such as by spell or drinking a potion), or are targeted by a healing spell with a range of touch, make a Wisdom save. On a success, you are able to move past the anticipated pain and receive healing as intended. On a failure, you are unwilling; you cannot voluntarily heal yourself (but your spell or item is not consumed), and the spellcaster would need to make a successful melee spell attack to touch you for healing.

3. Sometimes you forget that you can't just float above the ground. You have disadvantage on saving throws required by unstable or hazardous terrain, such as slipping on ice or falling into a pit trap. This does not apply to creatures who do not walk.

4. Sometimes you forget that you still need to breathe. Immediately before entering any situation where you would need to hold your breath, such as going underwater, make an Intelligence save. On a failure, you did not remember to take a deep breath, and you begin choking as soon as air is no longer available. This does not apply to creatures who do not need to breathe.

5. Your mind yearns for the pretence of security. You have disadvantage on saves against illusion or mind-altering effects that portray your situation as being more favorable to you than it actually is.

6. You are convinced that things are always worse than they seem. You have disadvantage on saves against illusion or mind-altering effects that portray your situation as being more hostile to you than it actually is.

7. The sun feels harsher to you than it used to. Whenever you finish a long rest, make a Constitution save. On a failure, you gain the effects of the sunlight sensitivity trait -- while within direct sunlight, disadvantage on attack rolls and Perception checks related to sight -- until your next long rest. This does not apply to creatures who already have the Sunlight Sensitivity trait.

8. You experience paradoxical bravery. Whenever you suffer from the Frightened condition, you instead feel compelled to recklessly attack the source of your fear. (If the source is not an obvious creature, you instead attack whatever you think it might be.) Until the effect ends, you cannot willingly move away from the source; any attack which does not include the source is rolled at disadvantage; and whenever you attack the source, you leave yourself wide open, giving advantage to attacks against you until the start of your next turn. You make saves against the Frightened condition as normal, and this effect ends when being Frightened would end. This does not apply to creatures immune to the Frightened condition.

9. Part of your essence has been torn out and replaced with something foreign. You lose one randomly selected tool or skill proficiency, and gain a different randomly selected tool or skill proficiency.

10. You become obsessed with the idea that shapeshifters could be anywhere. You have disadvantage on social interaction checks with anybody that hasn't constantly been in your presence for at least the last hour (because they might have been replaced), but you have advantage on any checks to detect a shapeshifter's true nature, or to see through illusions that portray a false identity.

11. You feel the pain of others as if it were your own. Whenever a nearby creature takes damage, and you are aware of it, make a Charisma saving throw or suffer one point of psychic damage.

12. Your hands feel like they're missing a couple of fingers, or that they really ought to have a few extra joints. It takes you twice as long to complete a task requiring fine motor control with your hands.

13. Your emotions are unnaturally calm. You have advantage on saves against the Frightened condition, but you have disadvantage on all Charisma checks (spellcasting ability checks are not affected).

[acrispyapple]

An Open Letter to Unreasonable Cybird Haters

I’m sorry for submitting something like this to multiple blogs but it had to be said.

You seem to hate Cybird for not delivering the type of translation you want and judging by your posts you want them to google-translate everything? If that’s the translation you want then just keep google-translating all you want off public view and leave them alone, your condescending attitude is not gonna make them happily comply with your selfish and tyrannical threats.

Every sane person knows google translations are crap galore, you claiming otherwise only proves that you’re poorly educated.

Google translate was created by ppl whose main language was English, it never worked well with Asian languages bc of how fundamentally different these languages are - the concept of time, place, environment… Google translate will not tell you nuances or double meanings of words - it will pick the first option available bc it’s just a machine. (btw this is why most ppl don’t know that daku means both ‘to hug’ and ‘to sleep with’)

Your hate is not based on facts - it‘s a product of your delusions which are a result of fundamentally wrong machine translations.

By posting an opinion that goes against what most people think (yes, most ppl don’t hate Cybird! otherwise Cybird would be out of business?) you naturally invite people to disagree with you and hiding behind a “loose-translation” and “imma block u” shield is just a silly attempt to make yourself look important and at the same time not take any responsibility for your own words.

The Cybird team knows the language. They can translate without the use of machines. They definitely understand that most references elude the Western fandom. How many people did not even know that “nin nin” was a Japanese reference? You had to make a post saying “nin nin” was also mentioned in the Japanese version. That obviously means you didn’t even know what the reference is from. Isn’t it ridiculous that you complain the game doesn’t make use of all its Japanese references, and instead adapts it to Western ones but you don’t even know a Japanese reference when you see one? This is why some parts are changed to make sure everyone understands and enjoys a scene.

Please be a little more respectful to people who know their work. Unless you have the capacity to translate and understand the language at their level, please sit down and keep your accusations of accuracy to yourself.

—

— not a part of the submission —

people are always free to rant / ramble on / vent their frustration– they have a right to do so. i only ask that when people do voice out their opinions, they stay civil and never attack anyone. i also ask people who don’t agree with some opinions, not to retaliate. just live and let live. so far i don’t think anyone’s been harassed so i’m happy that this fandom is quite patient and nice! ♡

as for cybird’s translations / localization, it goes through hiroto because he’s the localization manager (as mentioned in his interview), so any hurtful words directed at his team would also go to him. the en team members are given the direction they’re supposed to take when doing the localization, so blaming just one or two people from the team is a bit off. the manager always has the final say, right?

i’ve posted translations for ikesen, midcin, and even ikerev. sometimes they’re the same, sometimes they’re not. i’ve seen the differences and it’s not really that big of a deal for me. sometimes it adds more flavor to a less exciting scene. i’ve posted the ikesen jp prologue and tbh, the en version is a lot more exciting when it came to how it was worded. i don’t agree with every change in the routes but i do believe it’s not something horrible– plus other people enjoy it, so i shouldn’t ruin it for them.

it’s not just definitions we need to know when translating, there’s sentence structure, word order, tone, etc. if you really didn’t study the language or learn the basics, you’re bound to make very inaccurate guesslations. as the anon said, people who rely on machine translations instead of using actual dictionaries and learning to read it on their own might interpret things incorrectly so it’s not wise to get too riled up.

anyway, let’s not tell people off, call them out, cuss at them, or say they’re doing a bad job unless we qualify to do the job ourselves / pass the needed proficiency tests to get the job. there’s always a nicer way to provide feedback! (^ ^*)✩

i hope we won’t need open letters anymore! i just want to post game content and help people out with stuff about the games! ♫

[comingupforblair]

There’s something I see a lot in relation to DC films and their critical opinions and it annoys me so I wanted to comment on it

I should preface this by saying that, while I understand the strong feelings people have on the subject, I am completely and unambiguously opposed to actions such as harassing people off social media, sending death threats or generally acting in a repulsive manner towards critics or fans in any given situation and that includes these films. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s begin...

The history of critics’ opinions (for the purposes of this post, I’ll be using this to refer to professionals, amateurs, bloggers, people with YT channels, etc) on the franchise are well documented so I don’t feel a need to go back over them here but, suffice it to say, it hasn’t been a positive one and fans such as myself have been vocal about calling out what we see as unfair or overly negative reviews, critical opinions and expectations for how the films are expected to improve in the eyes of detractors.

This has been seen as a misplaced move in the eyes of detractors who will say that we should be grateful for the presence of critical opinions in order to encourage the film makers to do better and that any and all blame should be put on the creators themselves.

It’s clear that people critical of these films have a lofty view of their behavior and goals, seeing themselves as compassionate critics who are only acting in the best interest of the films and who would love nothing more than to enjoy the franchise but are unable to and are bravely fighting the good fight for better cinema, however much it hurts them to act as they do.

It’s a nice story.

The problem is that it isn’t true.

Or, at least, it’s not as true as they keep insisting.

If you’ve spent any amount of time among people critical of these films, you have likely noticed that a lot of them are extremely abrasive about it. Personal insults towards the creators and fans, hyperbolic statements about the franchise’s future and the future of DC adaptations in general, unflattering comparisons to Marvel and a tendency to treat the films as something closer to a personal affront than they should are all common and certainly don’t play into the image of reluctant negativity they are so keen to cite when called out.

This isn’t even limited to online trolls or bloggers (more on them later). Respectable publications have joined in. There are articles written on the Guardian, a news site I genuinely respect and frequent, that wouldn’t be out of place on an independent site run by the stereotypical angry nerds we have been seeing too much of recently where Zack Snyder is characterized not as a filmmaker whose work they dislike but as an active detriment to DC who needs to be stopped and others where the films are treated with the usual nonsense.

The common response that people generally have when DCEU fans push back against criticism is to assume that we want a world where no one says anything negative about anything ever and the films are never called out when they make a mistake but that’s not it.

Criticism is necessary. It’s how people are given feedback to improve and I’m not going to say these films don’t have flaws to be called out or that Warner Bros haven’t made mistakes. But there’s a responsibility on the people delivering their criticism to do respectfully and fairly and without indulging in disproportionate harshness and unnecessary cruelty and to do so without being personal and realizing when you overstep as well as acknowledging progress and a lot of people criticizing these films haven’t been doing that over the years. 

They still hold those earlier films over the newer ones more to their liking in a manner that suggests they have little, if any, intention of allowing the studio to move on or regarding any genuine improvement with little more than a dismissive, backhanded acknowledgement.

Even people who dislike the films have said they’re put off by just how vicious some of the negativity towards them and Zack Snyder personally has been.

Your criticism may be intended to encourage improvement but that doesn’t spare you from being called out on your execution or behavior in doing so, any more than a film makers’ sincere desire to make a good film means they can’t be criticized if they don’t live up to that goal in your eyes.

There’s also the issue of intent. 

I have no doubt that people saying they’re critical because they want the films to improve are sincere about it. But it’s their definition of what would qualify as an improvement that needs to be question and scrutinized far more than it has been.

Many people’s definition of an improvement would involve completely annexing the films entirely and starting over from scratch. Others would be content with them merely getting rid of the ones they personally didn’t like or abandoning the idea entirely and just focusing on films and animation. Others would rather see Disney acquire the characters in the belief that any films they make would be worth the trade off (it wouldn’t be).

Others want the films to completely remove any trace of Zack Snyder’s vision, down to recasting actors still loyal to him as well as seeing the films adopt a tone virtually identical to that of the MCU. Others want to see Bruce Timm or Greg Berlanti put in charge while others are wondering why they didn’t bring Christian Bale or Michael Keaton back.

You can see the issue at hand. Every person saying this is doing so out of a sincere desire to see the films improve and that’s the problem. It’s their definition of what would qualify as an improvement that DCEU fans are so adamantly against.

You can’t just attribute good intentions to your actions and expect to be free from criticism from there on out.

That’s not even getting into how a lot of the criticism doesn’t serve a purpose other than to kick a franchise while it’s already down, to say nothing of how often it’s just blatantly inaccurate, and how many are the usual toxic fans who are just venting their anger at these films being made in a manner that differs from what they would have liked and whose manner of criticizing them is skewed more towards negativity.

I almost forgot about them. For every respectable critic out there, there are a dozen or so who take pleasure in going after these films and have no interest in seeing them improve. They just enjoy giving them shit and doing so in a very cruel and needlessly personal manner. Anyone can be a critic now and a lot of the ones doing so are, to put it bluntly, horrible people.

There’s also the fact that critics, fans and bloggers who have been doing this are being championed, being seen and seeing themselves as the victors in this conflict.

Their words and actions are certainly having an effect and not necessarily a positive one. Films have been drastically altered to better suit the expectations of such critics, directors have left due to the changes, arcs have been abandoned and some actors have left and others may follow due to how the franchise has changed.

Needless to say, fans have not been happy about this and are open about saying as much and have been vocal about blaming those with such intensely negative views for what they see as the loss of the franchise we could have had.

You can counter that they wouldn’t have faced that issue if they had done what was expected of them from the start but that’s besides the point.

If you’re a critic with an audience, wheter it’s writing or running a Youtube channel or whatever, you have power. People listen to you, even if it’s only a few dozen people, and that includes the creators. So it’s on you to use that power responsibly and that’s what a lot of people haven’t been doing in relation to these films so it falls to people like me and other fans to call them out when we see them as not living up to the lofty image and ideals they have outlined and assigned to themselves.

In short, fans are treating critics the same way critics have been treating these films and the fact that they are so against being held to such a standard only proves that they need it.

Those with negative views of the films have seen this and similar claims as fans putting the blame for the state of the franchise on someone other than the creators but really it’s the logical conclusion of the justification so quickly and frequently used of their behavior.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t position yourself as someone whose actions are designed to incur change on a major level with these films and then distance yourself from the negative consequences that arise from your words or the actions you have been calling for, even if you didn’t intend it. 

On a side note, one of the themes of BvS, the film that started all this, was how sincerely good intentions can have unintended negative consequences. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.

I wasn’t bullshitting when I said that criticism is necessary and I have no desire to see a world without film critics or where they are only seen as valid if they write what I agree with. I have read and encountered people who didn’t like these films but were still respectful, fair and even-minded about it as well as people who saw potential but felt it wasn’t being lived up to. It is possible to be critical of this franchise without engaging in the behavior I’ve mentioned so many times so I know it’s possible to achieve that which is why I’m annoyed at the behavior I outlined being so commonplace and being dismissed as an unavoidable side effect.

As with fandom, I want film criticism to improve and that will never happen if the people doing all of the stuff I mentioned are just invoking their good intentions as a way to beat away any kind of criticism of their behavior or refusing to ever reflect in a way that is absolutely necessary for improvement.

[profewriting]

Found this when scrolling then decided to give it a try <3

How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 88 works in AO3 ;) also have some fics in write(.)as and FFn tho, but I think I won’t publish it in AO3 lol

What’s your total AO3 fanfic words count?

318.730 ! Omg I’ve never thought I’ve written that much lololol XD

More under the cut!

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Those would be: 1. D-Kindergarten [Joker Game]. It’s actually a multichap I’ve written when I’ve just got into college. Just a cute fic where all the D-Agency’s agents become kindergarten children and Yuuki becomes their teacher. It actually was inspired by rio-san’s Joker Game fanart lol XD 2. Belanja? D-Online Aja! [Joker Game]. A parody fic that is set in the modern world. It has many pairings, but I remember I also include my Amari x OC ship here lol. I’ve never imagined people really like this? I’ve forgotten the ending thus it’s incomplete *sweating* 3. Auf Wiedersehen [Joker Game]. Sakuma/Miyoshi. Oh yeah, I’ll never forget this. This fanfiction became the second first Indonesian fic that had been posted in fandom Joker Game in AO3 lol XD I’ve made this right after eps 11 aired and got the feelings for angst then, bam! It’s here XD 4. Cerita (Sial) di Elevator (Sialan) [Joker Game]. Sakuma/Miyoshi. I got the idea from my own experience in my university. At that time, I was taking the elevator to reach my class, and these two guys came in AND ONE OF THEM SUDDENLY CORNERED HIS FRIEND AND MADE A SMUG SMILE. I was standing beside them and couldn’t process what the fck is happening LOLOLOLOL XD 5. Pernah Denger Nggak? - [Joker Game] OH YES!!!! MY HUMOR/PARODY FIC THAT GOT AWARD FOR BEST HUMOR/PARODY IN IFA 2019 <3 <3 actually it’s a flash fic I’ve made because I thought, wow it’s gonna be funny if D-Kikan’s agents adapted Indonesian spying method then, here it is XD

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes!! I like to talk with my readers, especially with someone who left a comment in my fic. It makes my will stronger wwwwww XD

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

... actually I’ve forgotten which fic has the angst ending lol. I’m more into angst with happy ending since I mostly only write about my OTP ((c’mon my otp already suffering in canon, they deserve a happy ending in my fics /stop)).

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Hmmmmm since I adore angst with happy ending and most of them haven’t completed yet, I think the happiest ending gonna be “there’s gold inside a pile of old dust” :>

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve ever written?

I’ve only written one this far. It’s about my three otps (I called it my crossover otps) from different series: Banana Fish, Joker Game, and D.Gray-man. So, the semes actually were voiced by Morikawa Toshiyuki and yes, I made three of them meet in some room (idk too why lol, I just wanna see them together and talk about themselves and realize how similar they are XD). But I’ve been thinking about another crossover au for these crossover otps in a more serious fanfic. I can’t wait to write them XD

Have you ever recieved hate on a fic?

I.... don’t have any memory about this. But, I think I received a very confusing review back then in FFn.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Hmmmmmm I write two kinds of smut: the pwp and the one with a complex plot HAHAHAHAHA XD it’s actually because I was pissed off since many people was “oh, you write smut? eeww. that must be horrible like w*ttp*d piece”. then I was just, “oh yeah? watch me.” then proceed to write 15k words smut with complex and detail plot lol XD But I also write short one like pwp. The last pwp I’ve written didn’t even reach 1k words. It’s Tyki and Lavi having sex in the corner of their classroom (yes, it’s based on Vocaloid song titled “Butterfly on Your Right Shoulder” lol).

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes, I have. But it’s quite a long ago when I’m still active in FFn. The worst part? The one who stole my fic is actually someone I’ve recognized who’s often giving my fic fav + follow. They literally stole my 5k words fic, split it into some chapters, and published in different fandom lol :“)) I still save the screenshot of it. They deleted the fic tho, after my friend left their fic pretending she’s been in the fandom and left a review in the plagiarized fic. I bet they deleted it because they thought nobody knew it was a plagiarized fic, but after they received my friend’s review, they suddenly deleted it.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I almost said no, but then I remembered about my Lucky pairing fic about Valentine’s Day that I’ve translated from Indonesian to English akdhaidhaidhaidhai lord I’m still shaking whenever I remember that fic. I still want to delete it but still haven’t get a heart to click delete button orzzzzz

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I’ve tried collaborating with some of my friends in the past. But the piece that ended up successfully was the Katekyou Hitman Reborn! fic about cloning :D ((lol I really like to make a complex fic haha XD))

What’s your all-time favourite ship?

You don’t want to ask me that, I’m serious. I will give you a long answer like De Grote Postweg. Just, don’t. When I ship something, I ship hard. I’ll post about that ship for 24/7 and will last for years. Just that. But recently I’ve been shipping Lucky Pairing (Tyki x Lavi) from D.Gray-man and still attached to my Amari x OC ship (I call it AmaOC lol)

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

DON’T MAKE ME WRITE MORE AFTER YOU ASKED MY FAVOURITE SHIP AKHDAIDHIADHIAA- But, there’s two fic ideas for Lucky pairing that I’ve been dying to write about. One is about historical fanfic and will take time during Portuguese-Japanese trade. The last one is about smut fic lol.

What are your writing strengths?

Hmmmmm. I’m quite good at making dialogues. Many of my friends and readers mention it a lot. And, I think I’m quite good at describing/making allegory (something about abstract things).

What are your writing weaknesses?

Latar tempat, demi Gusti nu Agung gua tolol bat di latar aaaaaaaaakkkkkkk kok orang bisa sih bikin latar tempat rinci gua jeles aaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkkkkkkk orzzzzz

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

THE MOST ENJOYABLE PART!!!!!!!!!! <3 <3

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

*sigh* lord, it’s from 07-Ghost, reincarnation!AU, and the pairing is Frau x Teito x Ayanami HAHA XD

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

OKAY THIS IS GONNA BE MY LAST CONFESSION I SWEAR ADHAIDHIAIDA. I have plenty of satisfying fics actually. 1) there’s gold inside a pile of old dust [D.Gray-man]. Tyki x Lavi. Historian!Lavi, Noble!Tyki, a bit heavy theme since it’s about the history of Portuguese nobles but also inaccurate. I could say it's my proudest work today. I’ve collected general information about Portugal’s history, and changed many aspects before posting it in AO3 :’DD it took me a year to finish that. No wonder it also became my longest oneshot work with 29k words. 2) agathokakological [Joker Game]. Many pairings. Psyco-Pass!AU. Like I’ve said, I like to make complex plot story lol, so this fic was complex and need a lot of brainstorming sessions XD

If someone wants to give it a try, please don’t hesitate/ask me. Just do it~! ;)

[notcrypticbutcoy]

Hi, not sure if you are aware of this, but the Timothy post - the one with Jesus vs Satan - is offensive because it is an inaccurate (and false!) representation of Jesus. I know that conservative 'Christians' in America are horrible people, but that post is very... if you want to diss Christianity at least do it right, like "Abraham and Sarah were half siblings" or something like that. This isn't personal, mainly just... annoying

Previous Jesus anon; my point is, canon Jesus is awesome, but conservative Jesus is horrible. Also, there’s the whole literal theme cycle of sin and redemption, and sin is the conscious choice to send your faithful servant away with their death message because you - whoops! - slept with their wife and now she’s pregnant but the servant was too loyal to sleep with his wife whilst everyone else was fighting - I’m looking at you, David. Anyway. Catholic who despises “the religious belt” of U.S.A.

Listen to the Pope, not conservatives who don’t know nothing. Just… the mispresentation of my religion across mass media because of idiots is very annoying. Sorry for the rant. I like my religion, but not all of the ‘followers’ a.k.a the idolators.

Alright, I’m going to attempt to make this reply as non-salty as I can, but I should prelude with the fact that I heavily dislike and criticise religion. In general. Not just Christianity - all religions. I don’t really talk about my views on religion much, because I know it can be a very sore point, so perhaps reblogging that post was poor judgement on my part, but  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

I’m afraid I’m not going to apologise for reblogging that post, because it’s obviously very tongue in cheek and not meant to be taken too seriously (and…doesn’t the Bible think humans are superior to animals? Doesn’t the Bible consider human souls above animal souls, or something?) (Quick edit because I didn’t make this clear, I am aware that that whole post is pretty inaccurate to what the Bible actually says, but again...tongue in cheek!) But I am sorry you didn’t like it - if you want me to tag those sorts of things so you can blacklist it, I’m sure I can do that. Not that I plan on making those sorts of posts a habit. “Satan wants equality” or whatever someone had said just made me snort.

But, look, I get where you’re coming from. I do understand that Christianity gets a lot of flack, and if you’re a well-meaning person just trying to do your thing, it must be disheartening. So I do sympathise with you in that respect. There are bad parts of all social groups - sadly, they’re usually the ones who get the most attention. It is what it is. Christianity is not at all unique in that respect.

I’m going to rid you of the misconception that I think what I do because of religious nuts in America. I’m not American, so to be perfectly honest, while I am aware of and despise the sorts of people you are referring to, they were a creed I discovered after the founding of my original point of contention with religion when I was about six years old, came home from school one day, and apparently announced to my mother, who’d never expressed any opinion on religion at all, that I thought religion was stupid. I’ve been through phases and thought about it critically since then, obviously, but…you get my point.

Jesus is probably one of the things about Christianity I dislike the least, because I do think Christianity expresses some good messages, and he gets the majority of them, but I just disagree with most of it, as a general concept. I haven’t decided I don’t like Christianity because of a few Evangelical Christians, or because of the “misrepresentation”, as you call it, of Christianity in the media. (Which…I could make a whole other post discussing that point).

A religion can’t exist outside of its following. You can’t say that a section of Christians that large are just “idolators”, because in America, they have rather a lot of power, and however much they may be warping the Bible for their own political agendas, what they’re quoting is, nevertheless, there. The Bible does condemn all sorts of ridiculous things. That said, I have the utmost respect for people like yourself that have clearly decided to update and modernise and adapt, while still believing in your god and your religion.

But, America aside, I have obviously met many perfectly nice Christians in my life. Some have been genuinely lovely people. I still don’t believe in what they believe. I still disagree with the way that in my experience Christians, particularly, have habit of trying to convert you. I recently worked with a group of Christian women in a kids’ after school club, and the level of indoctrination made me very uncomfortable. There was no balance. They weren’t Arsehole Christians, by any means - all were perfectly accepting of same-sex marriage, of divorce, of interracial marriage, they were all very nice and friendly and did good things in the community - but they did very loudly want everyone to believe what they did. And despite my repeated insistence that while I respected their right to practise their own religion I was an atheist, they made countless attempts to convince me to go to Church with them, even after many very polite refusals and explanations. 

The day I listen to the Pope is the day I’ve been possessed by an alien, I’m afraid. I understand what you’re trying to say, but again, please don’t think I dislike your religion because I’ve heard too many “The Westbro Baptist Church Shits On Gay People” stories. It’s far more nuanced than that. I am very aware of what Christianity is really about, and I am very aware that there are perfectly lovely Christians in the world. I can like Christians - some of them, as with any section of society!

I still don’t have to agree with them.

(Anon, I feel a teensy bit mean replying to you with all this, but…there it is. I hope you have a lovely day

[sicklylittlesnowflake]

Hi! Could u write a fic where Lance is asthmatic and catches a cold that's been passed through the team? They got over it quickly, but it hits Lance really hard. Everyone thinks he's exaggerating for sympathy so they ignore him. Lance tries to take care of himself but it turns into a bad chest infection. When he shows up to a meeting all feverish and wheezy and coughing nonstop, the team finally realize something's wrong

(wOW I love this prompt?? Like this was lower down on my to do list but I brought it up because of s3 and the hype and also I couldn’t wait to write it..this is so good thanks anon!! sorry if this is medically inaccurate!!)

Lance’s space adventures taught him many things, but one of the many things he had definitely learnt was that he didn’t know a lot of things. The universe was far more vast, diverse and complicated than he could ever had fathomed, and at times Lance questioned everything he once knew.

One thing he still knew for sure, is that he was extremely adaptable.

If Lance was part of the X Men (which in his opinion, was just as cool as flying a robotic lion), he was definitely Darwin. He adjusted pretty well to the Garrison, despite being many miles away from the family he loved very deeply. Things were constantly tossed and yanked away from him, and he bounced back pretty quick.

It wasn’t easy, definitely, but Lance worked hard and put a 100% in everything he did. Of course he still felt he wasn’t good enough, and that he could work into being more, but he could be slightly assured that what he had done was all he could have in that moment in time. It was one of the only things he prided himself in and held dear to his identity.

Lance constantly had a flaming passion, this fiery desire burning in his heart to be a hero and to do good for others. He wanted to look out for the little guy, inspired by his young nephews and nieces to be the guy that people wanted to look up to. Hope that people would turn to in the darkest of times. He had promised his family he would always be protecting them from harm, and he vowed to himself to do all in his power to do so.

But of course, he had to work through trials and tribulations. Life was not easy, and not everything he wanted could necessarily be what he got, but he’d try.

One of the obstacles he faced in his journey was asthma.

He’d had it for as long as he could remember, and it was a irritating when it interrupted his daily life, but since he’d always had it it was pretty normal for him. Sure, it weakened his immune system, made illnesses hit him a little harder than the average, make him carry around inhalers everywhere and be a little more careful and cautious than everyone else, but Lance would not let it get in the way of his dreams and not let it hold him back from doing what he wanted.

His family knew what triggered it the most, kept the house clean constantly, carried around inhalers themselves just in case Lance forgot, and always remembered to replace inhalers. When he moved to the Garrison, Hunk became like his family and was the only one who knew about it, but he was more than enough. Hunk helped him when he had attacks, taking it upon himself to educate himself more so he could give Lance a hand. With someone as lovely as Hunk by his side, it was a minor inconvenience, at most.

It was indeed proven as a minor inconvenience when a small cold spread across the five Paladins.

It had started with Pidge, who had passed it onto Hunk, who had passed it to Shiro, who passed it to Keith.

At most it was only a very slight fever topped with a few coughing and sneezing fits, increased drowsiness and fatigue, scratchy throats. The Paladins were grumpy and exhausted, but it wasn’t anything to be worried about. It was such a minor inconvenience to the team that Hunk was sent on a solo mission by the time Keith received the cold.

Despite the fact that the cold was so minor and something that could have been cured with a day to twos rest and some soup, Lance took it upon himself to take care of Keith. He checked up on him every hour, forgetting that he had a weaker immune system. Of course, Lance was last to receive the virus. On the day Hunk left for the solo mission, no less.

Lance woke up feeling extremely groggy and weak to the bone, intense heat radiating off his body, but yet trembling with the cold. He barely managed to open his eyes, which were heavy and burning slightly, but his vision managed to focus enough for him to check his clock. He had five minutes before his alarm would go off.

Lance let out a delighted, but tired noise and shut his eyes, pulling the blankets tight against his skin so he could insulate his body heat. He snuggled against one of his pillows and was lulled back to sleep in record breaking time.

However his five minute sleep had lasted far longer than he had expected.

When Lance finally woke up again, he woke to an obviously loud ringing of his alarm. He hissed at the irritating, headache inducing sound and sat up groggily, rubbing at his aching temple. His eyes scanned over to his alarm clock and froze as he realised it was a whole 25 minutes after his regular waking time.

Lance gasped softly, about to throw himself off bed when he began to cough violently. The sound that released from his lungs awfully congested and phlegmy, causing a light wheeze to sound out from his chest. He gasped for air, managing to cough enough so he wouldn’t choke.

Lance breathed in heavily, getting out of bed and quickly changing into his clothes before running out of his bedroom, despite his lungs begging and pleading for him to stop. They were still recovering from his past fit, and needed a bit of time to recover from it and certainly did not appreciate Lance’s sprinting.

Lance tried to ignore the thought in his head that was telling him none of the other Paladins cough’s sounded that horrible.

“Nice of you to join us,” Keith commented, not looking up as he heard the door sliding open.

Lance opened his mouth, probably about to shoot back a snide remark but instead, took a sharp inhale and sneezed ticklishly twice.

Shiro frowned, giving Lance a sympathetic smile, “I guess you weren’t immune to this after all.”

Lance rubbed his nose on his sleeve weakly, shaking his head, “Im fine, just a morning snee–”

He cut himself off with two more forceful, congested sneezes.

Keith looked over at Lance, a look of guilt momentarily washing over his features. He looked away defensively, curling up within himself in what seemed to be shame, “C-cover your mouth when you sneeze, Lance.”

Lance rolled his eyes, too tired to respond to Keith so sat down on one of the couches. He looked glum and exhausted, curling up, shivering ever so slightly.

“Oh c'mon Keith, cut him some slack, he’s sneezing because he looked after you,” Pidge insisted, focused on something on her computer.

Keith flushed, crossing his arms and refusing to meet Lance’s eyes, defensive and guilty, “I didn’t ask for him to look after me!”

When Lance didn’t respond, only coughing harshly into his sleeve, the sound awfully chesty and wet, Keith felt even worse.

“L-look, Lance, it was nice and stuff, but it was stupid. I didn’t need the help,” Keith said, completely flustered.

Shiro sighed, “What’s done is done. Lance is sick now. Nothing we can do about that.”

“You’ll get over it in like a day, Lance, you’ll be fine. Honestly, it’s not anything worth fussing over. You don’t even have to stay in bed or anything, so I wouldn’t worry or anything,” Pidge reassured, looking up at Lance kindly.

Lance offered a small, weak smile back at her. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was wrong. As the seconds went by he became even more convinced that Pidge was in fact very wrong, and that this wasn’t something that would fly by easily.

His chest felt extremely heavy, and there was a blockage in his airways that made it hard to breathe. He could practically feel some congestion and mucus building up inside him, a light wheeze every time he exhaled.

Lance coughed harshly again, his chest burning with a fiery blaze every time he did. His entire body was racked by his coughing, tears streaming down his eyes as he continued to mercilessly hack. He let out one final, strangled cough and slumped back against the couch, head spinning in circles as the world rotated violently. He breathed in heavily, basically gasping for air as his body desperately replenished itself with much needed oxygen.

Pidge was undeniably one of the most intelligent people Lance knew, but in this moment he was certain she was wrong. This was not going to be a good day.

Everyone was pretty easy on Lance that day, assigning him simple jobs while the rest of them continued to navigate and intensely plan away. It was a pretty easy-going, laid back da for him, but even the simplest, most easy jobs took a toll on Lance.

In fact Lance was extremely frustrated, because most of the Paladins had been able to do simple jobs easily while they were ill. Why couldn’t he?

He knew it was because of the asthma messing up his lungs, but he was frustrated nonetheless.

His chest felt extremely heavy, his wheezing even more noticeable as the day went on. He started to feel stifled and restrained, as if someone was squeezing at his chest and preventing him from breathing. It was so difficult to breathe at a steady pace and his body was not receiving the amount of oxygen that it needed. He felt completely drained and void of energy, head furiously pounding. He felt extremely faint, nauseous and weak. Not to mention warm yet freezing with a fever that had began to worsen.

Allura was explaining a mission that they were expecting to take on soon to Lance a rather simple one, but Lance could not hear her at all. He felt too sapped and drained that his body simply was no longer functioning.

“Lance, do you hear me?” She asked, very convinced that he hadn’t.

Lance sniffled softly, trying to keep his drooping lids open as he let out yet another cough, and croaked, “Sorry, princess, I didn’t.”

Allura sighed in exasperation, clearly exhausted by today, having exerted herself because they were short one and a half Paladins, “I have to explain again.”

Lance looked genuinely guilty, his voice raspy and sounding like his vocal chords had just been viciously burned and strangled, speaking straining his throat greatly, like a dagger slicing his throat as he spoke, “Im sorry. I just feel really sick.”

Shiro sighed softly, “We know Lance.”

Lance frowned, feeling a little off and extra sensitive from his fever, curling up in his seat pathetically as he shivered violently, “I  feel so awful..this really sucks you guys..”

Pidge spared him a glance, genuinely feeling really sorry for him but feeling a little cranky from the intensity of today, “Yeah Lance, it really does, we all know. We had it. It really isn’t so bad, i promise.”

Keith nodded, "We are sorry Lance, but we do need to continue on and work. We don’t have time for this at the moment. We really need to focus on this right now.”

Lance felt a pang in his heart, his entire demeanour declining. He nodded guiltily, his fever heightening his sensitivity. Realistically, the Paladins and he were just seriously misunderstanding and didn’t mean to be dismissive. Hell, if they knew Lance had asthma and felt this sick none of them would ever act like this, but Lance’s fever made him extra sensitive so he withdrew and hid away.

Lance overexerted himself the next few days, trying to work to an efficient standard to the best of his ability. He tried to push past his illness and elect to ignore it, ignoring the inclining fever and how the wheezing had intensified every time he breathed. He tried to ignore the violent coughing fits that completely took over him, the congested hacking that had him buckling at the knees and shaking violently, and the phlegm he had to spit out and the strange colour, and the odd discolouration.

His friends had helped, bringing him blankets when he worked and making him herbal tea, sending him off to bed earlier than the rest of them, excusing him from training and the like. But Lance downgraded the true extent of his illness, but the Paladins were a little wary of the fact Lance was sick longer than they had. For the most part he took care of himself, discreetly taking his inhaler when no one was looking and taking medicine to himself, making himself soup and drinking lots of water.

Lance kept his symptoms bottled up, ignoring how his chest felt like it was on fire and how his entire body became ablaze with pain every time he coughed. His chest felt tight and restricted his breathing, leaving him in a constant faint state, leaving him detached and derealised from his reality and friends. He didn’t even feel like a real person.

All this kept building up, until his bottle couldn’t handle anymore material and it eventually burst.

Everything came crashing down on the day Hunk returned. Everyone had come to greet him as the yellow lion mounted back onto the Castle, save for Lance.

He hadn’t even heard Coran announcing Hunk’s return, simply engulfed by his blazing fever as he struggled to get out of bed, fiercely sweating into his sheets and trying to find the willpower to get out of bed. His head hurt with such an enormous intensity that he wanted to cry out with how much it hurt. He’d clenched his teeth so tightly to try and subside the pain, desperately clawing at his head to try and stop the gnawing hurt in his head.

He then heard speaking over the intercom calling him for a meeting, and somehow Lance mustered the last slivers of his strength to get out of his bed. As he did the world spun violently, like he was on an intense amusement park ride. He groaned as he tried to keep himself from falling, as every time he walked he was shaking, knees threatening to buckle and give out on him. Lance pulled his jacket on and zipped it up, pulling his sleeves over his hands to mask as gloves.

As he staggered over to the bridge, his chest felt incredibly tight and constricted, feeling suffocated and smothered. He could barely breathe, his breathing so short and shallow only a minuscule amount of oxygen could enter his body at a time, leaving him feel very faint and weak. He could hear a loud wheezing from his chest as sweat dripped down his face.

Lance didn’t know how he made it to the Bridge, but he did. The doors slid open and Hunk beamed.

“Lance! I–” Hunk’s face dropped, his face growing into extreme worry in a millisecond as he gasped.

“Oh my god Lance!” He yelped, rushing towards his side.

Everyone else aboard whipped their heads around to see the commotion, all their mouths dropping open as they took in Lance’s ghastly appearance. He was horribly pale, dark circles underneath his eyes and he shivered intensely, looking like a zombie from those films that Lance very much loved. But as much as Lance enjoyed good zombie media, they all knew Lance didn’t want to become one.

“Oh my god!” Pidge exclaimed in shock, completely frozen in place, genuinely scared that her dear friend was dying.

“Lance!” Shiro yelled, angry that all this had happened under his nose.

Hunk pressed the back of his hand against Lance’s cheek, eyes widening at the intense heat coming off it. His concern was only further worsened as he began to hear wheezing coming from Lance.

Lance began to cough violently, entire frame taken over and racked with the congested, strangled explosions. His vocal chords strained each time he coughed, muscles being pulled fiercely and mercilessly. The extravaganza of the whole ordeal had Lance’s legs giving out on him, leeching him off the tiniest sliver of energy remained in him. He could no longer support himself, knees buckling and soon enough he was on the floor, continuing to hack his lungs out.

Everyone was frozen, completely stunned and at shock.

Suddenly, a strangled yell sounded out.

“Well don’t just stand there!” Keith yelled, running towards Lance and hitting his back, while Hunk sprinted for an inhaler, Shiro running for a glass of water and the remaining three running to prepare medicine and the medbay.

Keith kneeled down to Lance and rubbed his back as he continued to cough, whispering reassuring, soft words into his ear. His freehand stroked through Lance’s brown hair soothingly and reassuringly.

Lance spit out some phlegm, slightly tinged with a bit of blood.

“Oh Lance..” Keith muttered worriedly, letting Lance exhaustedly rest his head on his shoulder, breathing heavily and gasping for air.

“You’re going to be okay, buddy, I promise you, just hang on a little bit,” Keith whispered soothingly, continuing to twiddle with his hair.

Hunk burst back into the room and pressed the inhaler to Lance’s lips, watching as the boy visibly relaxed as the medicine entered his system.

“I didn’t know he was..” Keith said guilty.

Hunk smiled at him kindly and placed a hand on his shoulder, “Well know you know.”

Shiro returned with a glass of water, which Lance gulped down gratefully.

Soon enough, Pidge had returned.

“The medbay is ready for him now, do you guys know what’s wrong?” She said worriedly.

“I think it’s a chest infection,” Hunk said worriedly.

Shiro gave them all a reassuring look, “He will be just fine, Lance is tough.”

Keith didn’t look too convinced, still clearly shaken, but managed to stand up and pick Lance up into his arms, cradling him gently, beginning to walk towards Medbay.

“Keith?” Lance slurred feverishly.

“Yes?” Keith said shakily.

“I feel a little sick.”

Keith couldn’t help the shaky smile creeping onto his lips, “Solid observation, there, buddy.”

Lance woke up a few hours later, feeling a lot better but still a little out of it and generally unwell.

His eyes focused enough so that he could see Keith sitting down on a chair next to him, lightly nodding off.

“Keith?” Lance croaked out.

Keith woke instantaneously, unable to hide how his face lit up when he saw Lance awake. He couldn’t help the soft smile spreading across his lips.

“Oh god, Lance, you’re okay,” Keith breathed out.

Lance managed a husky chuckle, “Yeah, I guess dude.”

Keith’s face darkened slightly, “I’m so sorry.”

Lance’s face scrunched in confusion, “Huh?”

“..This is all my fault.”

“What are you talking about?”

Keith looked away guiltily, biting at his lip, “..You got sick because of me. You’re here because of me, and I didn’t even notice you became so bad.”

There was a long silence, and tears began to prick at Keith’s eyes.

“Hey man,” Lance pressed, “Stop this emo crap. I wanted to take care of you. I care about you, in case you didn’t know. I knew there were consequences, but I made a choice and I still stand by it.”

Keith chuckled shakily, looking up at Lance and unable to stop himself from grinning ear to ear. It was a good look on him.

Suddenly Keith leaned in and pressed a kiss against Lance’s lips, a spark of passion igniting in his body. He felt a mix of the cozy warmth of a fire on a cold winter’s night, and the cool summer breeze against his hair on a hot summer’s day. Keith felt firm, but yet sweet and soft, loving. The perfect combination of fire and ice.

Keith pulled away, despite Lance wishing against everything he never would, blushing hard, “I’m sorry.”

Lance smirked, “For what?”

“I don’t really know,” Keith giggled.

Keith tried to suppress the dorky grin spreading across his features, rubbing his neck, “Uh, I should tell the others you’re awake..um..let’s not tell anyone about this..for now, okay?”

Lance giggled, “Okay.”

They would all find out eventually.

[beatrice-otter]

Slavery, Racism, The Civil War, and America: Or, Why Does Anybody Care About Those Whiny Idiots?!?

Lo these many years ago, American History was one of my special interests.  My undergrad degree was in it (well, not technically, but like 90% of my classes--including Historical Methods and stuff like that--focused on US history).  I still love it, but I'm not focused enough on it to call it a special interest any more. But you guys, there is SO MUCH interesting stuff about early American history that, if it were taught properly, would REALLY change peoples' perspectives on the "brave, gallant, noble" men of the Confederacy.  And I'm not talking just the racism stuff, like 90% of them were whiny pissbabies and THAT is why the Civil War even existed in the first place.  I shit you not.  The modern Conservative Christian persecution complex has NOTHING on the antebellum Southern elite.  Sure, a lot of those guys were personally brave in battle.  But on a political or moral level, they were ... most five-year-olds are more mature.  (I'm simplifying things a lot here and painting with a really broad brush, but it's not inaccurate.)

There are five parts:

How Black And White People Came To Be

Economic Differences and Political Boondoggles, or, How the South Learns That Temper Tantrums Are A Viable Political Tool

The South’s Persecution Complex vs. The North’s Manifest Destiny

Taking Our Marbles And Going Home, Then They’ll Be Sorry: Civil War Edition

More Delusions Of Grandeur: The Whole Lost Cause Romantic Bullshit This meta is going to take as read that slavery=EVIL and that there is no such thing as a "good" slaveowner and that racism is horribly, horribly evil and nothing good can ever come of it and white supremacy twists and mutilates everything good it comes in contact with.  You all know that, or you should, and you can find lots of places talking about that with a quick google search.  Also, Blacks and poor Whites had vibrant cultures during this time period that I'm going to largely ignore because while all that is awesome, I want you to truly understand ALL the reasons why it's stupid and pathetic to glamorize the Southern elite, which means focusing on them.  The South was (and is!) REALLY AWFUL AND SCREWED UP and racism is part of that but not the only part.  But we will start a bit by talking about racism, because it's the root of so much other evil. I'm sure you've heard that "race is a social construct!"  Let's look at how that construct got constructed, shall we?

How Black And White People Came To Be To start with, it is very important that you understand that Africans arrived in North America before White people did.  No, I'm not talking about some African empire that sailed across the Atlantic before Columbus.  (African empires focused on sailing to India and China, which was closer and much more profitable.) I'm talking about the fact that "white" and "black" didn't exist as conceptual categories when the first American colonies were founded.   There were lots of ethnic rivalries and hatreds!  It wasn't a paradise! (See the Kingston Trio song "They're Rioting in Africa," particularly the bit starting at :30)  But there wasn't really a category for race, it wasn't part of how people thought.

How did that change, you may ask?  Well, it all comes down to the English Civil War.  (No, seriously, it does!)  The English Civil War was a series of conflicts in the mid 1600s (so about the time that the first colonies in what is now the US were getting settled) where the middle class and the nobles fought bitterly about what sort of government England was going to have and what sort of religion.  The middle class were in favor of Parliament controlling things, and in favor of sober, stripped-down, moralistic religion (i.e. Puritanism) and the nobles were in favor of the King controlling everything and lots of bells and smells and no strict moral guidance to trouble them.  And at various times, England wasn't really safe for one group or the other depending on who was winning right then, so people left in droves.  The middle-class Puritans settled in the north, and the aristocratic Cavaliers settled in the South. Now, other groups came later but those first settlers were really, really important because they were the ones who established governments and cultural systems that later groups then had to adapt to.  And each group took the bit of 17th Century English society they liked and tried to recreate JUST THAT SEGMENT of it, with all the rest gone.   Middle-class Puritans wanted everything to be middle class farmers and businessmen.  They purposefully excluded both rich and poor alike from entering their colonies, and set up laws and such that benefited the middle class above all.

The Cavaliers were just the opposite.   They came from the aristocracy and the wealthy, and they wholeheartedly believed in its values--many of them had been forced to flee from their homes because of their commitment to the "ideals" that certain people are just better than others, with an inherent right to rule and control society.  Or they were younger sons who wouldn't inherit the family estate and, for the first time, had some options besides "become a priest/lawyer/soldier."  They could come to America and have an estate here!  THEY wanted to be the lords of Great Estates like their older brothers back in England had, with lots of servants and other peons to work the house and the fields, while they sat in their drawing rooms and played cards and threw parties.  (Nice work if you can get it.)  And they really DID NOT WANT the sort of influential merchant/middle class that had been so troublesome back in England.  So they set things up to benefit the super-rich elite at the expense of, well, everyone else, and started shipping over slaves and indentured servants in job lots.

If your high school US History class mentioned indentured servants, it probably lied to you by trying to tell you something along the lines of indentured servitude being really different from slavery.  But the truth is, they were really, really similar.  Indentured servants were poor Englishman working for years to pay off the cost of their passage to America, and would be free after a period of some years.  Slaves were Africans or Native Americans (to start with, at least, although it quickly shifted to only Africans) who had been captured in Africa and sold to Americans.  And they had no such time limit.  But it wasn't unusual for African slaves to get freed eventually as a "reward" for service, and as for how they were treated, well, the elite who owned both groups didn't really make much distinction between them.  And life for them (for anyone in the Southern colonies who wasn't part of the elite) sucked so bad, you guys.  SO, SO BAD.  Even once the slaves and indentured servants got freed, life really sucked, because the whole point of the society was to separate the elite from the peons and make sure everyone stayed in their place.

And then, in 1676, exactly one century before the Revolutionary War, it happened.  Bacon's Revolt.

You've probably never heard of it, and truthfully you don't need to know much about it.  There was a lot of complicated stuff about hating Native Americans and internal English politics, but that's not important for our purposes.  What IS important about it is this: it scared the southern elite out of their ever-loving minds.  See, while Bacon was off doing HIS part of it, the slaves and indentured servants (and all the poor people who had been freed but used to be slaves or indentured servants) got together and decided, oh, hai, we have a common enemy, those aristocratic dudes who are oppressing us, let's get together and BURN THEIR HOMES AND CITIES.  And then, after the revolt in Virginia was put down IT SPREAD TO MARYLAND.  And abruptly those Cavaliers realized OH CRAP, THERE'S A LOT MORE OF THEM THEN US, and if we don't DO SOMETHING they will kill us all and destroy our aristocrat's utopia!

What they did about it was create the slave codes and the whole idea of "white" and "black" in an attempt to play poor whites and blacks off against each other so that the two groups would be so busy fighting each other they wouldn't have time to go after the elite.  Which, sadly, has worked.  They eliminated indentured servitude and hardened the rules for slavery, so that they could go to the poor "white" people and say "look, our skin color is the same, our cultural heritage is the same, you are JUST LIKE US, and not like those horrible "black" people, and your life is so much better than theirs is* and let's all be WHITE together and if you help us oppress and control those slaves we'll only oppress you a little."  And instead of saying "Screw you, we're going to join with the slaves and send you all packing back to England so there's NOBODY oppressing ANY of us," they said "sure, okay."

*not THAT much better.

This was a really bad deal for the newly christened poor "white" people, on a multitude of levels.  And a large part of it has to do with slavery, and where the burdens fell.  Nobody is going to stay in slavery voluntarily unless you force them, particularly when it's as brutal and hopeless and universal a form of slavery as the South was busily developing.  So you have to have social controls, and those things cost time, effort, and money.  And guess where the burden of that fell?  Not on the elite who were the ones PROFITING from slavery, no.  On the poor whites.  For example!  In order to prevent slaves from running away in the night you have to have white people out patrolling every night.   This was not, by and large, a paid position.  Every able-bodied white man in the area would take a turn at it, usually one night a month on a rotation.  And you'd have one really rich guy with LOTS of slaves, he's getting BY FAR the most value out of this, right?  But he only spends one night a month doing this, and the next day he can sleep in because he doesn't have to work, his slaves do it for him.  Then there would be a couple of what middle class whites the south had, and they'd have a couple of slaves, so they were at least benefiting some, and they could MAYBE sleep in but unlike the rich dude, they would have to work the next day.  But most of the guys on the slave patrol were poor guys who owned no slaves and would NEVER be able to afford any.  They are getting no benefit out of this whatsoever.  And they don't get to sleep in the next morning, they are going to have to work sun up to sun down just to feed themselves and their family.  They are, as a class, putting in like 95% of the work needed to maintain the slave system, and getting 0% of the wealth out of it.  It's a great scam.

So while all that's going on, the North has slaves but not huge numbers of them, and instead of worrying about "how to control the lower class" they're worrying about "how to expand the middle class."  And this has huge economic consequences.  Not only are their economies totally different, the North's economy is A LOT healthier.  Like, orders of magnitude healthier.  But in the Colonial period, at least, this is not apparent on the surface.  Nobody's really figured out much about GDPs and the like, and so the South looks awesome on the surface.  They produce expensive raw materials like indigo, rice, and cotton, which they then sell at a hefty profit.  They've got a lot of REALLY RICH FAMILIES.   They glitter.  The northerners ... just don't glitter.  Even if it weren't against their whole Puritan schtick, at this point they don't have anybody as fabulously wealthy as the southern elite.  But they also don't have the sort of desperate poverty that is normal in the south for much of the population, and what they DO have is a vibrant and growing middle class.  So even if they aren't as impressive on the surface, their society as a whole has a larger GDP than the south, and unlike the South's economy which is largely stagnant, the North is growing great guns.

Before we go any further, I don't want you to take away from this that the Northerners were saints or anything.  They were complicit in their Southern bretheren's work, as "Molasses to Rum to Slaves" from 1776 points out so powerfully.

Economic Differences and Political Boondoggles, or, How the South Learns That Temper Tantrums Are A Viable Political Tool

So the Revolutionary War happens, and during that generation a lot of the Southern elite were really uneasy about the contradiction between fighting for their own political freedom while keeping others in literal bondage.  But not uneasy enough to really change things, right?  They still believe that they are better than everyone else and deserve to rule everything, that's what they've believed all along, and they don't want to risk creating a situation where they might lose control and not be fabulously wealthy any more.   Where's the fun in that?  And they want to dominate national politics, it's REALLY IMPORTANT to them.  If they can't, they are going to take their marbles and go home.  Since the North is attached to this ideal of a United States more than the South is, the South can get a lot of concessions by threatening to take their marbles and go home.  (They haven't quite devolved into toddlers yet, but they're getting there.)   And this is where a whole bunch of the political boondoggles of the US Constitution come in.  Such as the 3/5 Compromise, which I always find hard to believe the North actually AGREED to.

For those of you who are not American, the national government is based on each state working together, not the general population.  Political districts are state-based, Electoral College votes are state-based, everything is state-based.  And some of these things (like the Senate) are based on geography (two senators for each state, regardless of how big or small it is) and some of these things (like the House of Representatives and number of votes each state gets in the Electoral College) are based on how much population each state has.  And therein lies the rub for slave societies.

You can't give slaves the vote, obviously, because they would vote to free themselves.  But if you don't count them at ALL for the purposes of votes, if you apportion House seats and Electoral College votes just on the basis of the white population ... some parts of the south are going to have very few of either.  And then the South won't be able to dominate national politics, and that wouldn't be any fun at all.  On the other hand, the North wasn't that thrilled about the idea of "oh, they're not citizens and they can't vote or do anything else citizens do, but WE get to vote FOR them."  So they compromised and said that for the purposes of apportioning votes in the House and Electoral College, slaves counted as 3/5 of a person.  Which gives the South a big boost both in Presidential elections and in the day-to-day negotiations in the House.  I mean, regardless of the ethics of it, this and other "compromises" pretty much screwed over northern political interests until the Civil War, because it gave the South the votes needed to keep control through a combination of actual votes and temper tantrums.

Anyway, now we're in the first half of the 19th Century, and the North is growing great guns.  The economy is taking off like a rocket, and the South's economy ... is inching along like a snail.  Because the North wants to grow, they want the middle class to prosper, and so they are doing things that will help it grow.  One of the things they're doing is building lots of infrastructure.  Roads are a necessary precondition for economic growth because without them you can't get goods to market.  Schools, too--as the Industrial Revolution gets into full swing, you need more and more people with at least some education.  Hospitals, etc.  The South isn't.  Because they don't want poor people (and especially not slaves!) to travel, or get too prosperous, or too educated, because then they'll be harder to control. The Southern elite has decided that they would rather have all of a small pie than a large chunk of a big pie, so as long as they, personally, stay wealthy the don't want the pie as a whole to grow.   (The pie being the economy.)

I don't remember all the details now, a decade and a half later, but I do remember sitting in class while the professor outlined all the ways in which slavery hamstrung the Southern economy, and how we all sat there flabbergasted that anyone would think it was a good idea.  Now, at the time they didn't have all the tools of economic analysis we have today to see all the fine details of why stuff was happening the way it did, but they could (and often did) see the bigger ones, and they could sure as hell see the difference in large-scale RESULTS between them and the North, and they still chose to double down on slavery whenever the opportunity presented itself.   To give you an example of how different things were, say you were a Southerner who got rich and wanted to invest.  You bought some land and slaves and you got rich and built yourself a plantation house.  You got rich, but society as a whole is not benefiting.  There is no more infrastructure than there was, and there is very little more money in the local economy than there was, because mostly you're saving it or sending it off to the North or England where they're building a lot more luxurious things than down in the South, and there's no secondary industry being spawned.  Good for you!  You're now richer.  The economy as a whole benefits very little.

Now, say you had the same amount of money to invest, but you were a Northerner.  Instead of slaves you invest in, say, a railroad.  And it is profitable.  Your personal return on investment is about the same as that Southerner with his slaves, but the railroad doesn't just benefit YOU, it economically benefits the whole REGION.  Ordinary farmers can send their vegetables to market in the city and make more money on them.  Small businessmen can sell their products outside their own town, or get raw materials shipped in much cheaper.  People who have no opportunity in their own hamlet can go easily to find work elsewhere.  Railway employees are learning valuable mechanical and business skills that a lot of them will take to other jobs and some of them will use to start businesses of their own.  Plus, the northern states have higher local taxes which they then use to build infrastructure.  You are still rich, but the local--and regional!--economy benefits from your success.

So why didn't the South invest in things like railroads, too?  Why keep doubling down on slavery?  Well, remember, their whole culture was shaped by people who wanted to be aristocratic noblemen.  That's still their ideal.  If you invest in a railroad you are just a dirty businessman.  If you invest in slaves and the closest thing America has to an English estate, you are a gentleman.  So who cares if the railroad would be better for society?  You don't, you have a good carriage and the wealth to go anywhere you want.  And besides, railroads are only really profitable if ordinary joes have enough money to use them for transport and business purposes, too, and remember the whole "aristocracy" shtick goes hand-in-hand with "making sure nobody but us has the money for anything fun, so they know their place."  For railroads in the south to be as profitable and prevalent as railroads in the north, you would have to change that whole mindset.  And they didn't want to.  This example focuses on the railroads because it's what I remember, but it is largely illustrative of the larger picture and the differences in how things worked in the two regions.

Back to national politics, and how all these economic differences affected things.  Remember that the southern elite honestly believed it was their God-given right to rule, that they should guide America because obviously they were the best men to do so.  But as time went on, two things happened: one, the generation of Revolutionaries who had moral qualms about slavery died off, and their sons not only decided that there was no problem with slavery, but that it was a moral good.  (Southerners, as part of their tendency towards heroic delusions in which they are noble knights as in the days of old, are also prone to taking any bad decision and doubling down on it rather than admitting any fault or error.)  And second, the differences between the two economies started growing by leaps and bounds and it was pretty obvious to anybody that the northern economy was LIGHT YEARS BETTER.

Like, there are all these diary entries and news articles from European tourists who come to America and visit the North and are Really Impressed because they've got rich people who are as wealthy as anybody else in the world but they also have all this BUSINESS going on at all levels, and things are HAPPENING, and lots of people are improving their lot in life, and while there are slums they're a lot smaller than in most other places of the time.  (It's not perfect.  There's tons of racism and sexism and classism causing inequities everywhere, but all the things that are being built are impressive enough to impress even people determined to be snobbish about provincial yokels.)  Then they go to the South and go, wow, these people are all slooooooooow and provincial with a few rich jackasses at the top.  So the southern elite develop one hell of an inferiority complex.  Because they are SUPPOSED TO BE THE BEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.  But whenever they push their nose outside their own region ... nobody else agrees with them.

The South’s Persecution Complex vs. The North’s Manifest Destiny

By all rights, the North should have dominated the country politically by, say, 1810.  They had far more money and far more people.  (Both because they had a higher rate of children surviving due to better medical care and less poverty, but also because no sane immigrant would ever go to the South unless he already had the money to buy a plantation and join the local aristocracy ... and most people with that kind of cash don't immigrate to another country.)  But the South had all those boondoggles favoring them in the Constitution, and they also had a willingness to throw great big whiny pissbaby tantrums to get their way.  And round about this time they also develop a MASSIVE persecution complex.  Like you know how modern Conservative Christians tend to think that if they don't get their way, if they can't dictate political policy, they are being persecuted?  The southern elite of the early 19th Century makes them look like pikers.   Because the southern elite DID control the country, AND THEY STILL BELIEVED THEY WERE BEING PERSECUTED.

You think I'm joking?  Of the first fifteen presidents of the United States, every pre-Civil War president from Washington on down, only 6 were Northerners.  Literally 2/3 of the time, the South controlled the Presidency.  As for major political decisions, again, you put up a list of major laws and political compromises on a national level from this period, and about 2/3 of them were decided in favor of the South, which was (let me say it again louder for the folks in the back) a lot poorer and less populous than the North.

This is a summary of pretty much every major national debate in the first half of the 19th Century: The South and the North want different things.  The North looks like it is going to get its way because it is more powerful economically and more populous.  The South screams about how the North always gets its way, it's not fair, the South is being persecuted, they should just take their marbles and go home.  (Seriously, they sound like spoiled five year olds.)  About 2/3 of the time the Northern elite roll their eyes but cave.  Meanwhile, the average joe on the street up North fumes because those fucking inbred Southern aristocratic cretins just screwed him over AGAIN.  (The average joe on the street down South mostly either is too busy just trying to keep from starving to pay attention, or if they are, well, the elite control the papers and society so he only sees a very slanted view of things and isn't allowed much political participation anyway.  But contrary to what the Confederate patriots would have you believe, quite a lot of white Southerners loathed their "leaders" for good reason.)

Things get more ridiculous as the decades pass.  Because at first the average Joe on the street up North could tell himself that obviously the Southern economy sucked, eventually it would collapse, and it certainly wouldn't spread, and so let those fucking inbred Southern aristocratic cretins keep Virginia, obviously as the country expands west they will be less and less relevant, and the Northern system will finally prevail.  Like, there was realistic hope for a long-term solution where okay the South can just be its own little region built on slaves and sabotaging its own growth to prop up the elite, and everywhere else can just have a sane (and free) economic system.  But the problem is, the South can see the writing on the wall, too, and part of what they spend their political capital on is enlarging the region of their control.  Like, they don't let free states get admitted to the Union unless there is a new slave state to be added at the same time, which means the slave states always control 50% of the Senate.  And it starts to dawn on people up north that unless something DRASTIC changes, the South will ALWAYS have just enough votes to force the North to dance to its tune, and the South is only getting louder and more vehement about how THEY ARE BEING PERSECUTED!  And northern resentment against the South and the whole institution of slavery starts building.

Now, I want to make it quite clear that the whole nation, North and South, had bought into White Supremacy as an ideology for decades by this point.  Even most White abolitionists are racists.  Some of them are the "nice" condescending type who sort of think black people are about the equivalent of dogs, but you wouldn't treat a dog the way the Southerners treat their slaves.  They envision an abolitionist movement in which nice White people like them free the slaves, and educate them (at least as much as you CAN educate them, which they debated) and give them jobs and the former slaves are eternally grateful and deferential.  Some of the White abolitionists are more open in their racism.  They hate slavery because it means that black slaves take jobs away from free white men, and so they want to get rid of the problem all together by shipping the slaves back to Africa.  Abolitionism started the 19th Century as the pipe dream of lunatic fringe whackos, and what gave it steam to grow great guns as the century wore on was not, by and large, a principled moral stand against racism, but rather an objection that it limited most of the benefits of White Manhood to a small group of white men (i.e. the Southern elite), instead of ALL white men.  Most of America--especially in the North--believed in Manifest Destiny, that it was their God-given right to expand westward and take this "empty" land and subdue it and make it their own.  In the North, the focus was on it being settled by middle-class and working-class farmers and businessmen.  In the South, the focus was on second sons of gentlemen getting their own plantation and thus extending the system of the "deserving few" and the peons.  And mostly even then, the whole point was to preserve their cultural and political hegemony, whereas in the North the focus was more on expansion for its own sake.

But these two economic systems can't coexist in the same territory, you understand?  A system built on slavery will inevitably devalue free labor.  A system built on free labor will inevitably undermine slavery, and make it less profitable (if it's even viable) because society as a whole is not going to provide the social controls necessary to keep slaves in their place, the slaveowner is going to have to do it him or herself.  So while the South is trying desperately to preserve its power, the North (whose population is growing by leaps and bounds) needs more space for free white men to build new communities.  And it can't do that if the slave system gets expanded.  By expanding enough to keep their political hegemony strong, the South is sequestering more and more of the country's national resources and potential space for the exclusive use of their elite.  They are forming a drag on the national economy.  They are selfishly monopolizing resources that millions of White northern men want for themselves.  Pressure starts to build, and in newly settled territories pro-slave and anti-slave people start murdering one another.

Taking Our Marbles And Going Home, Then They’ll Be Sorry: Civil War Edition

About this time the Whig party starts to fall apart.  For reasons that don't need explaining at this juncture, the structure of US elections kind of inevitably forces us into a two-party system, that's just the way the math works.  So a new party can't be born until a previous party self-destructs.  Well, at least a new party can't be a true national player until a previous party self-destructs.  At this point the two parties are the Whigs and the Democrats, and then the Whigs self-destruct, and the Democrats split in half (North vs. South) and the Republican party comes roaring into existence.

The Republican Party is made up, at this point, of a whole bunch of disparate groups: former Whigs, modernizers, abolitionists, but the most influential group is the Free Soilers.   Their slogan: "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men!"  Their whole goal, their only single issue, is to prevent the spread of slavery.  If slavery is contained, the South's power will fade as more and more free states are admitted to the Union, and EVERYTHING ELSE THE NORTH WANTS then becomes possible.  If the Southern system is allowed to spread, they will continue to dominate.  The economy will be slowed, free white men will not have the opportunities they deserve, and America will not live up to its full potential.  This cannot be allowed to happen.

Meanwhile, the South has been slipping ever further into la-la land.  We have already mentioned their persecution complex, which is only getting stronger as time goes on.  Anything other than complete victory is persecution.  No compromise is possible.  They have believed all along that they are the best, smartest, most noble men in America and thus it is their Right and Duty to guide the nation.  To this they have added a heavy helping of aristocratic delusions.  Sir Walter Scott is by far the most popular author in the South, and every gentleman thinks himself Ivanhoe, a knight, a Great Hero.  They are Noble Men in every sense of the word, they are Great and True and Morally Superior to all other men--they are heroes, courageous, dashing, etc., etc., etc.,  If anyone doesn't like them or stand in awe of them, it's because they simply don't understand the Greatness Of The South.  This is what the elite and what little middle class the South has thinks.  Poor whites, on the other hand, are about evenly split between buying into the whole thing and being disgusted by it.  And the rest of the country thinks they're a bunch of whiny immature pissbabies trying to control everything.

Which is why they elect Lincoln.  He didn't even appear on the ballot in most of the South, and he won any way.  Like I said.  The Southerners had been falling behind the North, demographically and economically, for DECADES at this point.  It was ludicrous of the South to believe they could maintain their national political hegemony indefinitely, but like I said, by this point they're pretty delusional.  Their control has, for decades, depended on the North sighing and giving in whenever they throw a temper tantrum.  As soon as the North gets fed up with that ... well.  The North wins.  Lincoln was, until this point, a non-entity who was only the Republican candidate because the Republican Party is, at this point, a loosely-aligned amalgamation of splinter groups whose main line of agreement is that We Aren't Going To Let The South Push Us Around Any More.  Anybody with any prominence in any of those splinter groups would have too many enemies from previous political parties to rally the party support.  So a guy nobody cares about, but who is firmly Free Soil, sounds really good.  As it happens, it sounds really good to the rest of the North, too.

Now, Lincoln's pledge isn't to get rid of slavery.  His personal beliefs are in favor of abolition, and he is genuinely one of the least-racist White politicians of the era, but he doesn't think abolition is realistic and he is a realist before all else.  His main goal is to prevent slavery from spreading.  That's it.   He's not trying to destroy the South, he just wants to curtail its power.

The South goes nuts.  Here is proof, PROOF that they are being persecuted!  They are the brave knights, they are the guardians of American culture, they are the Great Men, they are the noble heroes, the martyrs in the cause of Protecting White People!  They will show those jumped-up dirty peasants from up north!  They are going to take all their toys and go home AND THEN THOSE BULLIES WILL BE SORRY!  They will secede and form their own country that really APPRECIATES their greatness, and all the world will see that THEY are far better and richer and smarter and more necessary than their northern cousins!  All of Europe will support them, because they can't POSSIBLY live without Southern cotton!  Everything will be perfect and nobody will ever persecute them again!

Spoiler alert: it doesn't work out quite like that.

I mean, don't get me wrong.  They did have at least a little crumb of truth to it; they were much better fighters than the Northerners.  (All that knighthood delusion, expressed through all those military academies, paid off.)  Personal valor and gallantry on the battlefield?  No question.  The South was superior.  Military tactics and strategy?  Yup.  Superior there, too.  But that was it.  They sucked at everything else.

Politically they were a mess and showed nothing but how terrible they were at political leadership.  I mean, the whole Southern system is built on selfishness.  "I want to be wealthy and make everybody else wait on me hand and foot."  That's it, that's the bedrock.  I mean, it's a communal selfishness, that focuses a lot in preservation of the class, but as it turns out that doesn't really translate well to preservation of the nation. I mean, a lot of the fights between North and South had been over funding infrastructure and the like.  The North would say, "oh, hey, we really need this, it will benefit the economy as a whole and the country as a whole," and the Southern elite would respond "but it doesn't benefit ME PERSONALLY all that much, so why should I help pay for it?"   Or even things that didn't require funding, the Southern elite didn't care if it would benefit the country as a whole if it would discomfort them in any way.  And it turns out that if nobody is willing to pay for anything and nobody is willing to allow themselves to be inconvenienced or discomforted, and everyone believes that when you don't get your way you take your marbles and go home, you ... can't really run a government.  (This is why Jefferson Davis tried to turn down the Presidency of the Confederacy.  He knew exactly what was coming.)  It was one show of incompetence after another.  Nothing worked, nothing got accomplished, when you read stories and records of all the shenanigans and incompetencies you are left with the realization that your average middle school class council would have done a FAR better job.  Heck, our current Republican congresspeople are more competent than they were.

The military leadership of the Confederacy was superior to the military leadership of the Union, but the disparity in numbers and materiel was overwhelming.  The only reason it lasted as long as it did was the Union general with the longest tenure was McClellan, who hated advancing unless he was sure of victory and had a positive genius for winning a battle and then RETREATING.  Once they finally had someone who was both competent and willing to press forward (Grant), it was all over but the shouting.

As for the support of Europe ... dude, nobody liked the South.  To the actual aristocracies of Europe, the Southern elite were commoners with delusions of grandeur.  They sneered at both North and South equally.  And Southern cotton was very useful to them, but they had other sources of cotton and other industries.  The South ... their entire economy was based on exporting raw goods that they grew to other places to be processed, either to factories in the North or to factories in Europe.  Their economy simply couldn't survive without markets.  But all of their markets could survive without them.  It was a rude awakening.

More Delusions of Grandeur: The Whole Lost Cause Romantic Bullshit

They lost.  They lost HUGELY.  Their economy was trashed and, for a time, the elites' stranglehold on power was curbed by the occupying Union army and Reconstruction.  But the South has always been good at delusions of grandeur.  As soon as the boot was off their necks, they set busily about constructing an alternate history in which they weren't whiny immature pissbabies but noble, principled men defending Right and Good and Just Society.   Instead of sighing for the Golden Noble Age of Heroic Knights, now they will sigh for the Golden Noble Age of Heroic Confederate Soldiers.   Their leaders weren't feckless and selfish and incompetent, they were Noble Leaders Heroically Trying To Build A Great Society, Heartlessly Prevented By The Grinding Northern Industry.  They will convince the world of how ABSOLUTELY AWESOME THEY WERE.

And this time they succeed.  They didn't just convince themselves of their delusions, they convinced most everyone else, too!  Places that hated them or resented them or rolled their eyes at them now accept that they were these noble heroes!  See, the thing is, the South was not all united in support of the Confederacy.  The elite, sure, they were all for secession.  Blacks were obviously NOT, but nobody asked them.  Middle class whites and poor whites ... it really varied from region to region and from individual to individual.  West Virginia was the only region where poor and middle class whites who wanted to stay in the Union had enough sway to make it happen (and the geography to keep themselves from being conquered by the Confederate states surrounding them) but there were actually quite a lot of places in and around the South that wished they could have done the same.  But by now they believe that their ancestors were wholeheartedly Confederate and that it is a matter of heritage and pride that they be the same.

Do you know why most historians--especially most WHITE historians--who focus on the Civil War focus on military history?  Both professionals and amateurs both?   Because it's the one thing the South actually did WELL.  If you look at the politics, you have to deal with the fact that they were a bunch of whiny, immature brats with less maturity than most five-year-olds who threw temper tantrums whenever they didn't get their way and couldn't govern or lead themselves out of a wet paper bag, and who would have collapsed under their own weight even if they'd managed to win. If they had won, and managed to put together some sort of ramshackle government, I guarantee you that a) it would have been very unstable and b) it would have been passed around like a prize between a few of the elite families as their own personal playground and c) their economy would be pretty poor.  (Also, good chance that somewhere along the line there would have been a slave revolt that actually worked long-term.)  Because as much as the Southern Elite managed to get themselves back in control after Reconstruction, and as much as they managed to put a lot of the old structures that benefit them at everybody else's expense back in place on a state level, they STILL have much more of a functioning economy post-slavery than they did at any time during it.  The South's economy has always been slower than the North's because they keep hobbling it so the elite keep in control, but they weren't able to do that quite as badly and so in the 20th Century the gap between them and the North has closed a bit.  The South wins the Civil War?  The South would look like a third-world country today, and not one of the ones that is pulling itself up by its bootstraps, either.  And the thing is, where most third-world countries are the way they are because a colonial power came in and smashed everything nice, the South would be that way because they did it to themselves in an effort to keep the poor poor and the rich rich.

And I look at this and shake my head at the triumph of propaganda over reality, and also at the fact that ANYBODY, even a racist, could POSSIBLY think that those idiotic inbred delusional cretinous whiny pissbabies were cool or worthy of adoration.

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