#but it’s rather how it’s so non linear and while that makes it’s identity it really hurts a lot of story potential

[no1ryomafan]

I said I was gonna talk more about MM on this blog again and I will probably eventually do analysis stuff I just need to prep this shit cause those post take time for the ones that are more coherent and not just my usual word vomits, BUT I do need to word vomit for a second about one thing that plagued my mind again today.

One of my biggest peeves with the series lore is how reploids and humans hardly have interactions, more so in the X series as Zero makes a bit more effort in this regard, given it’s a huge deal how reploids are seen lower then humans for the longest time- but what has dawned on me more of another factor that really sucks about this is how reploid society itself is ALSO unexplored.

We hardly have any idea of what makes them different from humans, we can only grasp basic details from what the games provide us but it’s unclear if there society is either “very much identical to humans but still has changes to make it different given their machines” or “completely different down to how they live and are treated”. I can’t speak for every robot media ever as I haven’t consumed them all-that’s a impossible task as some are bound to not interest me lol-but I feel like ones that are primarily having sentient robots and multiple of them rather then stuff like mechas where they don’t have much of a personality (usually) or the cases like Aigis in P3 where she is a robot in a mostly human society and therefore learns to become more human, they usually try to give the robots some kind of established society but MM only gives us breadcrumbs.

Like I know transformers is a bigger series so it got more chances to be incredibly fleshed out but I think about how my friends had told me about it and it’s society from just the comics is incredibly detailed that you even know they have religions n shit. And I’m not saying MM has to go to that extent even if it’s had metaphors of that in the later series, but more context to what reploid society has and doesn’t would be nice.

If they actually do need to eat and we aren’t supposed to guess that the energy tanks n stuff are there equivalent, if they ever got to have hobbies or jobs besides serving under humans especially when they have free will, etc. More of how they operate would be really nice to know but alas much like many things in this series lore it’s never going to be deeply elaborated on so I have to throw darts at a board.

[syllvarin]

Non-traumagenic plurality: How could it be possible?

First off, let's start with what some anti-endo folk mean versus what they don't mean with traumagenic plurality

They mean systems caused by/as a response to trauma and traumatic events, and those who are still affetced by them, aka systems who are disordered, DID/OSDD/UDD.

What they don't mean is systems who have trauma in their origin along with other causes. They do not believe a system can very well be traumagenic but function smoothlessly due to recovering, or have multiple origins.

Note: We are a diagnosed DID system with mixed (trauma/ramcoa/neuro/para) origins. Yes, we know what we are talking about. No, that doesn't mean we can't do mistakes, but we will try our best to be as accurate as possible. We will include scientific articles, DSM-5 DID checklist, and many more in this post.

How can that be possible?

1st: Brains are quite complicated. Research on brain functions is far from being complete, it is a long road that we are still at the very beginning of. We still don't know how brain exactly works let alone how it can form seperate conscious identities and work them together. We do know headmates exist based on brain MRI's ( link here ) That proves us that systems indeed, exist.

2nd point i want to make is that science is not done in a linear fashion. We are studying to be neuroscientists ourselves and the very core of what makes science doable is MONEY. Yes, in this capitalist system even the most seemingly basic research requires funding, money, and a goal that can be monetized to get done. Reseaches on female autonomy, rare disorders and "demonized" disorders such as DID is therefore not often as it is not easily capitalized and funded.

Therefore we do not have enough research to prove or disprove that the only way of becoming a system is through childhood.

And that brings me to my 3rd point, where we will take a look at what DSM-5 (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) says about diagnostic crietria of DID. We will see how it is a dissocative disorder, not a trauma disorder.

Found under dissociative disorders (not trauma disorders!), checklist for DID is as follows:

See how none of those checklist include trauma as checklist? Yes DID is commonly caused by trauma but not always. Yes it commonly is created during childhood but not always. Those arent in diagnostic criteria.

Definitive feature is not trauma, it is distinct personality states or experience of possession.

DID is associated with traumatic events, does not mean it requires it.

DID can manifest at almost any age (DSM-5 is saying that, folks)

What's more is OSDD doesnt even have a definitive checklist like DID. it is found under differential diagnosis, with other disorders. PDID (partial DID where one part is frontstuck a majority of the time) is also up to psychiatrist's evaluation rather than a concrete checklist.

4th point is : What about Structural Dissociaton Theory?

This theory is as it goes: The theory of Structural Dissociation works off of the assumption that everyone is born with different ego states that later merge in life. Those different ego states operate for different actions in life, that later integrate into one person during ages of 4-6. Trauma disrupts that integration and causes ANP (apparently normal parts) and EP (Emotional parts). EP's are stuck in the trauma while ANP's are not.

source: The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization" by Onno van der Hart, Ellert Nijenhuis, and Kathy Steele. 

Yes, theory. Theories are not concrete. They can be disapproved, they can change, they may not fit every experience. Structural dissociation only explains how DID can manifest at childhood, but we already know by now that DID can manifest at almost any age.

So I personally think basing everything on a theory about how DID might've been caused (which doesn't even perfectly explain every possible way) is not as fault-proof as one might think it is.

Point 5: experiences of "multiple identities" exist for so long into history (people who are possessed, talk to themselves, act weird at times, are very different at times, etc), way before any DID/OSDD terms were created. And actually, how can we know how many people in history have had this experience when the very society we are in is very scared of them? It is fair to say only the disruptive cases must've been noticed, and majority of them probably were either deemed as crazy or exorcised as they believed those people were possessed by spirits. Just because your experience does not fit with others and just because science hasnt done anything to back them up, doesn't mean people's lived experiences are false. Why would so many people tell that they are a system when they are not? We are not living in a place where being a system is happy or fun, we are not in a society where its profitable or anything. It literally gives a person zero + points for being plural if they arent. It would be a nonstop roleplay they have to keep up throughout every aspect of their life; and at that point, it must be either impossible or that person is already plural and not roleplaying when no one is looking at them.

Creating headmates is on the same basket. A person with DID can create headmates in blink of an eye (we know from oursleves) sometimes splitting threshold is so low you may split off multiple people at once. You cannot know what is going in a person's mind, and what mechanisms work for creating a headmate. If they claim they did, it is very much no chance they are faking being different people 24/7. It *is* a real chance that they actually did develop a headmate. If you do not believe them; ask them about their experiences. I am %100 positive that if you actually listen to them, you will see those people are only trying to live their life.

Also, if you think healthy systems cannot exist and only way to be a system is through dissociation and dysfunction; then why would DID systems try to heal anyway? Wouldn't that just be sanist and ableist to expect all of them to turn into singlets because healthy multiplicity isnt a thing?But no, it is a thing, and healthy multiplicity and recovery is possible for systems. DID and other disordered forms of plurality do indeed exist, and they are indeed, treatabe in multiple ways according to what a person feels comfortable with. That is also a system's right to heal however they please. They don't owe anyone their right to stay as plural or become a singlet.

6th point I want to make is about: Why do we even care?

If a person says they have multiple people in their head, why do we care and tell them they are faking? They are not claiming to have a diagnosis, even if they did; if their situation is causing a distress to them, then they ARE diagnosable and that therefore is none of our business, again.

Last point I want to make is how endogenic DID is possible. yes, possible. remember how trauma is not in diagnostic criteria and DID can happen at any age? If endogenic plurals can happen, they can also form DID at later in life. They can also become disordered due to an event in their life. They can lose harmony and become so dysfunctional they need professional help. That doesn't mean they are no longer endogenic or some other origin, that simply means their state is different than what it was and they need help.

End of our post. Thank you for reading.

[mothlau]

Hello ! I hope you're having a good day! I was wondering, what's your favourite leztappen dynamique?

hi anon!! hope youre having a good day too:] so im not really sure if you mean the butch/femme, dom/sub, dumbass/more dumbass in terms of dynamic so i shall rant ig

so, as youve probably seen i am quite fond of butch!max/femme!charles. for "canon compliant", personally, i see max as a butch but i think it did take her a while to accept that part of her identity. she's always been a tomboy which resulted in her feeling rather isolated (something charles also had to deal with, but were gonna talk about that in a sec). she was too boy-ish to play with the girls, too much of a girl for the boys to respect her, so this basically resulted in her fully rejecting her femininity growing up, instead preferring to be as masculine as possible (horrible haircut, baggy clothes, unsafe binding later on). buuuut, that doesn't mean she was ok with being a butch lesbian, ohhh, nono, she rejected the thought of liking girls for as long as possible (her sex drive is already small, too uncomfortable with her own body, so its not like she had much to lose by not acting on the little crushes she had growing up). besides!! she liked some guys! sure, she was never into the idea of kissing them or being with them, but she tolerated their presence! so like, that totallllly means shes straight; shes just a tomboy. masc girls can still like guys... right? wrong!

in comes the girliest girl to ever girl, charles ofc, who rocks her world. they hate each other, as it is normal for lestappen, and max cant understand why charles chooses to act like a girl when no one will respect her in the sport, when they'll always make fun of her and call her weak. charles helps her understand her complicated feelings towards her femininity (but no homo yet) (she is also dealing internalised homophobia and has an even worse case of comphet). id like to think they still manage to fall in the butch/femme dynamic rather quickly, even when theyre both unaware thats a thing.

one thing leads to another, max realises she likes women first, she realises shes in love w charles (oh, /oh/) and charles follows soon enough.

i realised that this doesnt really answer your question anon:/ but the thoughts have already been thought out loud so you get the mess either way.

also, i honestly dont care in the end which one of them is a butch, which one is a femme, if theyre both one or the other, if theyre gnc or just lesbians who dont want to define themselves with any sort of identity but the fact that they are attracted to women. ill consume (and write) whichever because any lesbian rep is good, especially when we know how limited femslash tends to be in fandom spaces.

so yeah, i probably have more non linear thoughts in my smooth brain so if you have anything else you want to know shoot:]

[decepti-thots]

I’m genuinely interested in what the difference between a visual novel let’s play and actually playing the game. I’m guessing it’s something about making your own choice in the moment rather than watching someone else make *their* choice, but I’d like to hear your thoughts if you’d be willing to share.

For those wondering, this is in relation to my tags on this post!

So the thing I'm discussing in the tags of that post is specifically games criticism and theory, which needs to be understood in the way you might understand "film criticism" or "literary theory", to be clear. We're discussing the kinds of analysis of games-as-texts, games-as-art, which you might see in academia and critical circles around literature or film.

So one of the things that comes up when starting to talk about games this way is: what's a video game 'text'? Think about it. Any game that allows any amount of choice, any, however small or inconsequential, is a game that you can start arguing about what its 'real text' is, if nothing else. Does a video game text constitute all possible permutations taken as a collective whole, all considered with equal weight? (If so, is any analysis of really complex games 'complete' if it does not take every possible tiny permutation into consideration? Do glitches count?) Does the text comprise one specific playthrough? If so, is every critic or analyst technically approaching different, if interrelated, 'texts'? Does it just comprise the stuff in the game program in the abstract, and if so what does the player have to do with it in that case? All sorts of weird shit comes to the forefront when you bring the whole idea of 'a text' into games, basically, because it's harder to intuitively understand the boundaries of most games compared to, say, a film.

This has been a thing folks argue about for as long as serious discussion of games has been a thing, which is to say, decades. Personally, I favour an approach put forward and codified by academic Brendan Keogh, who focuses on looking at games as primarily understood through a phenomenological framework. In his book A Play of Bodies, he describes his understanding of the video game 'text' as being located not in a single static 'place', so to speak, but the 'circuit' that is created by the interplay between the person physically playing the game and the game program itself, and how each responds to the other. The game isn't what's on the cartridge or what the player does, it's the way those two things combine to create meaning. A game's text is the way that players interact with what a game 'is', and so the text inherently includes the act of playing it.

This is true even in experiences with low or functionally no interactivity, I will add, because the experience of not 'acting' in a situation where interactivity could be present but isn't is fundamentally different to not interacting because the medium does not allow you to, even if it seems at first glance the same. You expect most games to be highly interactive, so sitting and not being able to interact with them produces a specific experience that is not necessarily present in mediums where non-interactivity is taken for granted.

Which brings us to Let's Plays; even a non-commentary uncut LP video of a completely linear game/VN is a meaningfully different text to watch someone else play as opposed to playing it yourself, because the text of a video game involves what you are doing with it as part of that imagined 'circuit', even if what you are doing is very little to nothing. A video you cannot interact much with and a video game you cannot interact much with are different experiences even where all other information is functionally identical; thus, an LP of a linear visual novel and the visual novel as played are two interconnected but distinct texts, and while the former is both interesting and a valid text in itself, they are not the same thing.

Most critics probably won't take this exact view, to be clear- as I said, arguments about what's a video game text anyway are extensive and different approaches favour different ideas! But basically all of them will have some element of this in it, that even 'low interactivity' games are fundamentally imparting some kind of artistic experience to a player by the fact that you are playing them in a medium that takes interactivity to be the default. The infamous game Mountain lets you "do" almost nothing, but that carries different meaning when playing a game than when watching a video, because you know that the reason you can't is not the medium, but the choice made by the dev(s). In this way, anyone insisting that watching a video of a game gives you the same story information as playing it and so can be used to identically analyse a game's text is... it's like saying I can do film analysis because I read a novelization. I can do an analysis of the novelization, and that's a worthwhile thing to do, probably. But it's not exactly the same as the film, because some amount of information is lost and/or changed in the transmission between mediums. Different folks may take stronger or weaker stances on how important this difference is and what a game's text is best defined as, but you won't find many who argue even very very linear games lose no information in the swap from game to video format, and the ones who do I think are. Wrong. LMAO.

[freddieloundsgf]

my five star books so far this year!

twitching and shaking right now trying not to become a book blog but i have no one else to talk to so you will all be subjected to my ramblings! >:)

i am not a professional reader or reliable critic. what i give five stars is usually totally dependent on vibes and how i feel while reading and is not at all indicative of extreme technical skill or otherwise life altering capabilities. i just work here.

1. Inferno by Dante Alighieri

- to no one’s surprise, the exvangelical, religious iconography and hell-obsessed girl* gave 5 stars to the famous book about hell. this is my favorite book and i have read it many times. i have two inferno tattoos and i collect copies of this book. i prefer the Longfellow translation simply because it is the one i am comfortable with and have tabbed to hell (wink emoji) and back.

2. This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

- i love when women love each other. BUT WAIT. disclaimer alert: if you can listen to this book rather than read it, please please please do yourself the favor of listening. this book is non-linear, convoluted, and chock-full of flowery and even complicated prose that will make you kill yourself if you have to comprehend the text as it is inked upon a page. the audiobook is only 4 hours long and can be listened to in a day. it would not have been five stars if i hadn’t listened to it.

3. Know My Name by Chanel Miller

- an absolutely gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, and important memoir from the “Emily Doe” involved in the Brock Turner case. a powerful depiction of reclaiming your identity and navigating the husk of your own life after being rendered a “victim.” i don’t have much i can say about this, the book says it all. Chanel Miller puts words to feelings that have rotted me from the inside out my entire life.

4. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

- most people would probably not rate this so high, but i had a really good time reading this book. the world was strange and Piranesi was just such a great perspective to live within. i will admit this did get tedious at times but it did not affect my overall enjoyment.

5. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

- listen. i know, okay? i know. my intention was to hate-read this book so i could make fun of the men who love it. and look where that landed me. i read this in basically one sitting and really really enjoyed it. i tabbed and highlighted it to pieces and, unfortunately, found myself thinking “he’s just like me fr” throughout the entirety of the book. sue me.

6. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

- this book had me on suicide watch. just kidding. but really i loved this book and it ripped my heart out and i think about it on and off. i just love James Baldwin’s writing and really respect him as a person and activist, which made it easy to lean into reading this and absorbing it the way i did. i heart gay tragedy.

7. We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman

- this book was so funny. it is about two best friends in their 40s (?) and one of them is dying. it goes through bits of their lives, families, and how love finds a way to flourish despite it all. i really loved this book and read it so quickly. it was just a fun, sad, and charming little read.

8. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

- i was unable to put this book down while i was reading it. and nothing even really happens, so that’s saying something. i was so busy with college and work but i was using every spare moment of free time—forfeiting my lunch breaks, extending my bed time—to read this lol. it is just so brilliantly written. i also wrote fanfic for it. i need Mrs Danvers so bad it makes me look stupid.

9. Pew by Catherine Lacey

- this was such a strange but deeply human story. i don’t even know how to describe it. it is such a quick read though and i definitely recommend that you check it out if you have time or feel so inclined.

10. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

- i am so late to this. read this for the first time earlier this month. yes i cried. leave me alone. this story is just so good and sweet and it gave me something akin to a warm hug or a kiss on the cheek.

11. Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

- The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment are still sitting menacingly on my shelf, but i felt comfortable tackling this ≈130 page work of Dostoevsky’s as a means of dipping a noncommittal toe in lol. i really liked this book and, again, like with Catcher in the Rye, found myself relating to the narrator in an almost worrying capacity. the first 40 or so pages of this book that you have to get through before reaching the actual story can be a little grueling but i still had a good time and consider this to be a very good book.

12. Foster by Claire Keegan

- short and sweet at ≈90 pages. i supplemented my read by listening along to the audiobook at the same time. this is just such a meaningful and sad but strong story about a young Irish girl who is brought to live with some distant relatives for a summer. well worth the read if you have a moment to spare.

13. My Husband by Maud Ventura

- i loved this book. another worrying instance of relatability. reading this went by really quickly for me and i had a good time. i will say, i wish there were no epilogue. many such cases.

14. The Employees by Olga Ravn

- another short and sweet read at 125 pages, written as a compilation of “witness statements” that are either just a sentence long or spanning two pages. very interesting and strange, if a little confusing at first. but i loved it and knocked it out in a couple of hours during a lazy afternoon.

currently reading: i am listening to Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, which i am willing to predict right now that it is going to be a five star read.

i am also reading Harrow by Joy Williams. this book is indescribable. i am over halfway done and i couldn’t tell you a single thing about it. but it is incredibly written and somehow still engaging through the veil of confusion. i think this one may be a five star read for me as well, though i don’t know if others would say the same.

[queer-rhetorics]

The Lesbian Fantastic, pt. 2

The second half of The Lesbian Fantastic has a chapter dedicated to each genre the book studies, giving various examples of lesbian fiction within those genres and explaining how they subvert the typical genre moves. See under the cut for a summary.

Here Be Monsters: Lesbian Gothic

The first half of this chapter focuses largely on the lesbian vampire story. In this books, the gothic attraction to the monstrous and the attraction to lesbianism are often intertwined. Both are often on the outskirts of society. However, while the typical gothic narrative displays the dangers of giving in to the desires for the monstrous, lesbian vampire fiction often subverts this expectation.

Jewelle Gomez's The Gilda Stories presents the transition to vampirism as something to be consented on between both people, and places the dangers of vampirism in characters who do not respect the necessity of this consent. Additionally, vampires in this novel are part of a loose-knit community, who have varying intimacies with one another while ultimately recognizing their sameness (sound vaguely familiar to anyone...?). Gilda, the main character of this novel, passes for a human in various settings for survival, and yet does not deny herself her identity as a vampire.

In Bloodsong, by Karen Minns, typical gothic tropes are subverted in the fact that there is no clean-cut ending to the novel. Ginny, who is slowly being transformed into a vampire by the villain of the novel, Darsen, must destroy Darsen. But doing so would not reverse her vampiric changes - she must learn to live with her differences. As Betz phrases it, "She is no longer a clearly defined aberration, something that can be identified by her differences from humans and finally remoed from such contact; [...] the vampire infiltrates the everyday, blurring the lines between the normal and the deviant" (80). This loss of Ginny's humanity is part of what allows her to fully explore her identities. Additionally, it is Ginny's relationship with her lover, Manilla, that allows her to face the difficulties of the plot.

Other books, like K. Simpson's Several Devils subvert the loss of innocence trope. The main character, Monica, has had sex before, but has been celibate for the last six years. She gains a personal demon who encourages her to embrace her sexual desires. Rathre than losing her innocence, she loses her unawareness of her lesbian identity.

In a Kingdom Far Away: Lesbian Fantasy

"A lesbian too often must content witha world that seeks to deny her very existance, through ative and passive means. In the pages of lesbian fantasy, she finds heroes, larger than life as well as ordinary, who confront challenges that transform them. She is show that self-awareness and acceptance are the foundation for acctions that will restore harmony to a world on the edge of collapse" (131).

Fantasy can fulfill a longing for what cannot be had in the everyday. As such, it is no wonder that lesbian writers have utilized fantasy. Interestingly, most fantasy depictions of homosexuality have depicted two men, whether or not the author was straight or gay. However, this chapter focused mostly on lesbian works written by lesbians.

Female-written fantasy often has more female characters, and will take a circular rather than linear narrative. Some make settings centered around "feminine sensibilities" - i.e., a greater focus on white magic and non-physical power. Others put their heroines in typically masculine quest lines, or give their heroine a blend of "masculine" and "feminine" characteristics.

Lesbian fantasy has used many of these tropes. There is also often an even greater emphasis on being othered, or feeling different than one's community. There is also an emphasis in recognizing that lesbians have existed across time. In Ellen Galford's Queendom Come, a hero of old, Albanna, returns from the past to save Britain from a Margaret Thatcher-stand-in and the illegalization of homosexuality. She expressed extreme disgust at heterosexaulity in general, implying a forgotten time of same-sex coupling being the norm.

Other fantasy ignores the existance of homophobia in the real world altogether, or emphasises finding community. In The Road to Glory by Blayne Cooper and T. Novan, it is not homophobia that stands in the way of the main characters romance, but the gap between aliveness and deadness.

Beyond the Known Galaxy: Lesbian Science-Fiction

This chapter was a little more sparse, perhaps because, as the chapter explains, women have historically been excluded from sci-fi. It is often the stereotype that women are intellectually inferior to men, and thus women have often been pushed out of these circles.

Despite this, sci-fi has been characterized as a progressive genre, since it necesserily looks forward to the future. It is perhaps because of this that homosexuality is a semi-frequent topic even in heterosexual sci-fi, to further themes of coming to terms with Otherness, sources of difference, and implication of those differences. However, these characters are not necesarilly written with a gay audience in mind.

Lesbian sci-fi often turns the classic trope of evil matriarchal aliens on its head. In Daughters of a Coral Dawn by Katherine Forrest, a group of women (who I believe are alien hybrids? Unsure, since I haven't read the novel, just the summary in this book) leave Earth and form a matriarchal society on another planet. While this society isn't utopian, since they run into their fair share of problems, they are democratic, non-violent, and generally cooperate with each other. They also form romantic and sexual bonds with one another and have children - sometimes in pairs, sometimes in something more polyamorous.

Others, like Lauren Douglas' In the Blood take a slightly darker approach. This novel focuses on goverment response to a disease that is clearly meant to remind to reader of AIDS, only heterosexual sex is considered to be higher risk. In the novel, there is a talked about, though never revealed, colony of all-women who went to live together to avoid the disease. While the main character of the novel gets there, it does remain a symbol of hope.

My Ponderings

Okay, so that was a lot. My ever-expanding TBR just got like 20 books longer. I'm still left wondering about the communities of these genres, and their response to books like the ones Betz sites here - are they generally enjoyed? A source of outrage? Unknown except to a small few? I can imagine a scenario where all of these are true for various novels. I'm also curious as to whether these tropes exist in fantasy written by lesbians that doesn't actually focus on lesbian characters - or if that is common enough to even do research on. I think this book could be a jumping off point for further research in queer fiction, if I decide to go that route, although to be honest I think my interests my lie elsewhere (for now).

[afatlotofchance]

Here is a sighting I discovered at random - or rather "sightings" in plural.

These screenshots are taken from an episode of an American adult cartoon known as "Ugly Americans" that aired on Comedy Central between 2010 and 2012. Given there are several instances and episodes I want to cover, I'll make a brief intro about what this show is like and about.

What is this show like? Well, I saw some people describe it as "A work com in the style of Futurama, taking inspiration and paying homage to EC Comics, and with the visual style of Superjail". And I have to say it is kind of correct.

"Ugly Americans" is a cartoon taking place in an alternate version of New-York where humanity coexists with all sorts of supernatural entities that are part of everyday modern life. You have werewolves, zombies, demons, vampires, weird floating brains, trolls, wizards, sentient robots, bizarre two-headed mutants, giant babies, whales walking on feet, and all sorts of other bizarre creatures and entities.

The cartoon is a dark humor series centered around the life of Mark Lilly, an everyday, ordinary, perfectly normal human being (except for a deranged obsession with eggs) who is trying his best to do his work as a member of the Social Services Division of the Department of Integration - a government organization centered around validating, or refusing, the US citizenship of non-humans. Unfortunately for him, he discovers that the world is a dreadfully cynical and harsh place to live and work in. The head of the Department is a literal demon with no pity, heart or mercy for anybody, and the Social Service division rivals with a Law Enforcement division who is extremely xenophobic and monsterphobic and only wants to kick all non-humans outside of New-York. Mark's coworker is a failed, alcoholic wizard who hesitates between a pure weirdo and a full pervert, while his girlfriend is a succubus who is the literal daughter of Satan, for whom the most attractive thing about Mark is how he is constantly scared of her, and who gently works with other demons to usher in the end of humanity. And the only one Mark can rely on in hard times is his roomate, who happens to be a lazy, lustful, hedonistic, bro/jock zombie who sometimes wants to eat him during "full moon cravings"...

It does share the idea of "a regular guy thrown into an alternate American society, with a satire of America and modern days done through fantastical beings and settings" - except the tone is more crass and cynical, and it is a urban fantasy/comedy horror type of show, not about future or sci-fi. It shares with Superjail a strong visual weirdness and an abundance of visual details everywhere coupled with some strange animation - though it is definitively not surreal and has much more coherent and linear plotlines than Superjail. I have only watched three episodes of it this far, but I have to say I kind of like it.

I say it is "crass", but it is definitively not as crass as many more modern "adult cartoons" we have today. As a horror and fantasy fan, the parodies aren't truly groundbreaking or inventive, but it does stay entertaining. The plots are simple, the visual abundance is pleasing and catching the eye. I quite like it - it knows how to stay simple, while also developing its own identity and style (for example there are some "comic book style" moments imitating the drawngs and framing of old horror comics, hence the "EC inspiration mentionned above").

But you aren't here to read a cartoon review - you're here for fatness and stuff. So now that the intro is out of the way, let's get into the meat of the subject.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

How would you explain crt and its impact to someone in five minutes or less? I want to explain it to my family, but don't have the time to make a full presentation.

If you want to explain Critical Race Theory to them in about 5 seconds, just show them this picture.

--

Need more? Let's do a 30-second elevator pitch.

At its most simplistic, Critical Race Theory can be quickly - but incompletely and inadequately - understood as Marxism (inheriting its conflict theory and superstructure concepts) but with class replaced by race, and white supremacy acting as the superstructure. White people are the oppressors, black people the proletariat, there's sometimes room for a bourgeois middle-class for brown, Asian, other non-white people, but the fundamental principle is "anti-blackness." Everyone is socialized to just accept this, and undoing all this oppression will require a full-blown revolution, since it's rotten to the core. "Woke" is the critical consciousness that "sees" this hidden "code of the Matrix."

--

Let's see if we can smash out a 5 minute version. I'm going to cite sources, but they're footnotes or external links.

Deep breath...

Critical Race Theory is the notion that liberal, secular democracies, but the USA in particular, have been founded and built for the benefit of white people, and to the exclusion and detriment of non-white people, but particularly black people (see: DiAngelo, below on "anti-blackness"). Racism, they say, is the underlying basis for American society and on which America was founded (see: 1619 Project). All white people benefit from this system (see: DiAngelo, below) All white people are racist. (see: above)

It posits that even the purportedly and scrupulously neutral language of the US Constitution is set up to uphold this system, as it acts as a form of plausible deniability when brown and black (& etc) people are prevented from succeeding. (see: Delgado/Stefancic, below)

It is postmodern in nature, which is, by design, hard to explain or define, but you need to know only two basic principles: that knowledge is socially constructed and related to identity groups - that is, it has the values of the identity groups of the people creating it (white knowledge, black knowledge, male knowledge, female knowledge, etc), thus objectivity (e.g. science) is a myth (see: Sensoy/DiAngelo, below); and that claims to knowledge are an expression of power rather than an expression of truth.

Theorists are less interested in what's true and more interested in who benefits from that truth claim - white, male knowledge has been privileged, hence why we have been socialized to trust white, male, rational, evidence-based science (see: Bryn Mawr) to further white interests, while the "knowledges" of other categories (black, indigenous, women's) such as feelings, traditions, storytelling, have been ignored or denied. (see: Science Must Fall?, Venezuelan embryology)

Certain qualities and values (see: the NMAAHC infographic) of modern, liberal society, such as individualism, being on time, science, objective, rational, linear thinking, the written word, delaying gratification, hard work, merit and the notion that "intent matters" are cast as aspects of "white cuiture" or "whiteness." It further posits that these values are forced upon racial minorities for whom these qualities are alien and unnatural, and the process of doing so is "white supremacy." (DiAngelo). That is, these values are bad, or at least, oppressive.

It denies the individual and the universal human experience explicitly (see; Crenshaw, Sensoy/DiAngelo), and is collectivist in nature. Everything is attributed to categories, and individuals experience everything about their lives through those categories. (see: Crenshaw, DiAngelo, and Sensoy/DiAngelo) It has concocted language to deal with those who reject its claims: white people are "fragile," (DiAngelo) black people have "internalized oppression" and "false consciousness" (see: Marxism) and aren't "authentically black." (see: Nikole Hannah-Jones, compare: Erec Smith)

Honorary membership in the "whiteness" club is granted to groups who embrace and further this "white supremacy", such as Jews, Italians and sometimes Asian people. They work to uphold this "white supremacy" to keep black and brown people in their place, as well (see: Delgado/Stefancic, below).

Racism is the "normal science" of American society and everywhere, at all times. (Delgado/Stefancic) Every interaction between all humans involves exertion of power - men onto women, white onto non-white, etc, etc. "The question is not ”did racism take place”? but rather “how did racism manifest in that situation?” (see: DiAngelo, "Basic Tenets, below) This is what they mean by "oppression." Because society is designed to grant white people power, only they can be racist. Black people are oppressed and without power, therefore they can't be. ("Basic Tenets").

Because everyone is socialized into this system, everybody just treats it as "the way things are" and the way everybody acts is to unconsciously uphold this oppressive dynamic. We are all merely puppets, keeping each other in our respective places. ("Basic Tenets", also Delgado/Stefancic)

Racism is the sole and only (and only acceptable) explanation for all racial disparities in US society (see: Kendi, below. also: Washington STEM Summit. compare: Lyell Asher, John McWhorter and Roland Fryer for multivariate analysis with respect to education outcomes). This is what "systemic racism" means.

Perhaps the most important thing anyone needs to know about CRT is that to address America's problems, it rejects and opposes the "content of their character rather than the color of their skin" (liberal, universal humanist, definition below) approach of reducing the social significance of skin color (often termed "color-blind"), and demands the opposite: "sse color" increasing the signficance of skin color, aka "color-conscious." (Delgado/Stefancic, DiAngelo "Dangerous", below)

It is the job of the Critical Race Theorist to look for these hidden, unconscious power dynamics, which are simply assumed to be there, identify them, call them out and "disrupt" them. ("Basic Tenets") Being "woke" means developing this "critical conscious" (in the Marxian sense), scrutinising and close-reading the minutiae of everyday life to find what it presupposes (see: Microaggressions). Intentions don’t matter (”Basic Tenets”).

There is no "not racist" (DiAngelo, Kendi); you can be actively "antiracist" ("Basic Tenets", Kendi) which is not merely being against racism, but rather committing "lifelong" to their particular program of activism which amounts to religious proselytism ("Basic Tenets", also John McWhorter); if you're white you're simultaneously still also racist. Saying you're "not racist" is admitting you're "racist' because you're not actively antiracist (Kendi).

It is paranoid, anti-science, shallow and juvenile, divisive, deliberately and explicitly illiberal and antiliberal (definition below) (Delgado/Stefancic) and sits atop mountains of "scholarship" (see: Grievance Studies probe) which is circular, presuppositional, presents no evidence, no statistics, is untestable, unfalsifiable, and asserts that even suggesting it should be is itself white supremacist.

It is also extremely relevant that it is most certainly not "just about teaching about slavery and racism" (Delgado/Stefancic). And particularly that this "movement" is opposed by very many black and other minority status people (see: Free Black Thought, FAIR).

Time?

==

Quotes

May be useful to show the scripture in the authors' own words to prove this is not a misrepresentation or strawman.

Some of these use what "The Woke Temple" calls the "Kleenex" definition of CRT: it might be arguable about whether it's technically a Kleenex, but it's from the tissue family.

As even the quote from "Critical Race Theory: An Introduction" reveals, even "crits" themselves don't agree. It's sort of like Xianity in that way, and denial likewise usually takes the same form of a No True Scotsman fallacy. "tHaT's nOt tRuE cRt!!"

-

Let's start with a definition of Liberalism, since it's important.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, private property and a market economy.

i.e. the basis for the Constitutions of liberal, secular countries, including the USA.

---

From: Delgado/Stefancic, "Critical Race Theory: An Introduction"

"The critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power. The movement considers many of the same issues that conventional civil rights and ethnic studies discourses take up, but places them in a broader perspective that includes economics, history, context, group- and self-interest, and even feelings and the unconscious.

Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law."

-

"What do critical race theorists believe? Probably not every member would subscribe to every tenet set out in this book, but many would agree on the following propositions. First, that racism is ordinary, not aberrational—“normal science,” the usual way society does business, the common, everyday experience of most people of color in this country. Second, most would agree that our system of white-over-color ascendancy serves important purposes, both psychic and material. The first feature, ordinariness, means that racism is difficult to cure or address. Color-blind, or “formal,” conceptions of equality, expressed in rules that insist only on treatment that is the same across the board, can thus remedy only the most blatant forms of discrimination … The second feature, sometimes called “interest convergence” or material determinism, adds a further dimension. Because racism advances the interests of both white elites (materially) and working-class people (psychically), large segments of society have little incentive to eradicate it.”

-

"As mentioned in chapter 1, critical race scholars are discontent with liberalism as a framework for addressing America’s racial problems. Many liberals believe in color blindness and neutral principles of constitutional law."

-

"Critical race theorists (or “crits,” as they are sometimes called) hold that color blindness will allow us to redress only extremely egregious racial harms, ones that everyone would notice and condemn. But if racism is em- bedded in our thought processes and social structures as deeply as many crits believe, then the “ordinary business” of society—the routines, practices, and institutions that we rely on to effect the world’s work—will keep minorities in subordinate positions. Only aggressive, color-conscious efforts to change the way things are will do much to ameliorate misery."

-

"Crits are also highly suspicious of another liberal mainstay, namely, rights. Particularly some of the older, more radical CRT scholars with roots in racial realism and an economic view of history believe that moral and legal rights are apt to do the right holder much less good than many would like to think. Rights are almost always procedural (for example, to a fair process) rather than substantive (for example, to food, housing, or education). Think how our system applauds affording everyone equality of opportunity, but resists programs that assure equality of results."

-

"Many critical race theorists and social scientists alike hold that racism is pervasive, systemic, and deeply in- grained. If we take this perspective, then no white member of society seems quite so innocent."

-

“Another aspect of the construction of whiteness is the way certain groups have moved into or out of that race. For example, early in our history Irish, Jews, and Italians were considered nonwhite—that is, on a par with African Americans. Over time, they earned the prerogatives and social standing of whites by a process that included joining labor unions, swearing fealty to the Democratic Party, and acquiring wealth, sometimes by illegal or underground means. Whiteness, it turns out, is not only valuable; it is shifting and malleable.”

---

“I am Black” takes the socially imposed identity and empowers it as an anchor of subjectivity. “I am Black” becomes not simply a statement of resistance but also a positive discourse of self-identification, intimately linked to celebratory statements like the Black nationalist “Black is beautiful.” “I am a person who happens to be Black,” on the other hand, achieves self-identification by straining for a certain universality (in effect, “I am first a person”) and for a concommitant dismissal of the imposed category (“Black”) as contingent, circumstantial, nondeterminant. There is truth in both characterizations, of course, but they function quite differently depending on the political context. At this point in history, a strong case can be made that the most critical resistance strategy for disempowered groups is to occupy and defend a politics of social location rather than to vacate and destroy it.”

-- Kimberle Crenshaw, "Mapping the Margins"

---

https://robindiangelo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Anti-racism-handout-1-page-2016.pdf

Racism is a system that encompasses economic, political, social, and cultural structures, actions, and beliefs that institutionalize and perpetuate an unequal distribution of privileges, resources and power between White people and people of Color. This system is historic, normalized, taken for granted, deeply embedded, and works to the benefit of whites and to the disadvantage of people of color (Hilliard, 1992).

Basic Tenets of Anti-racist Education

• Racism exists today, in both traditional and modern forms • All members of this society have been socialized to participate in it • All white people benefit from racism, regardless of intentions; intentions are irrelevant. • No one here chose to be socialized into racism (so no one is “bad’). But no one is neutral – to not act against racism is to support racism. • Racism must be continually identified, analyzed and challenged; no one is ever done • The question is not ”did racism take place”? but rather “how did racism manifest in that situation?” • The racial status quo is comfortable for most whites. Therefore, anything that maintains white comfort is suspect. If you are white, practice sitting with and building your stamina for racial discomfort.

---

From: Robin DiAngelo, "White Fragility"

“Most white people do not identify with these images of white supremacists and so take great umbrage to the term being used more broadly. For sociologists and those involved in current racial justice movements, however, white supremacy is a descriptive and useful term to capture the all-encompassing centrality and assumed superiority of people defined and perceived as white and the practices based on this assumption. White supremacy in this context does not refer to individual white people and their individual intentions or actions but to an overarching political, economic, and social system of domination. ”

-

“In this chapter, I will address the uniquely anti-black sentiment integral to white identity. In doing so, I do not wish to minimize the racism that other groups of color experience. However, I believe that in the white mind, black people are the ultimate racial “other,” and we must grapple with this relationship, for it is a foundational aspect of the racial socialization underlying white fragility.”

-

“I believe that white progressives cause the most daily damage to people of color. I define a white progressive as any white person who thinks he or she is not racist, or is less racist, or in the “choir,” or already “gets it. ... “White progressives do indeed uphold and perpetrate racism, but our defensiveness and certitude make it virtually impossible to explain to us how we do so.”

-

“I am often amazed at what I can say to groups of primarily white people. I can describe our culture as white supremacist and say things like “All white people are invested in and collude with racism” without my fellow white people running from the room or reeling from trauma.”

-

“To put it bluntly, I believe that the white collective fundamentally hates blackness for what it reminds us of: that we are capable and guilty of perpetrating immeasurable harm and that our gains come through the subjugation of others. We have a particular hatred for “uppity” blacks, those who dare to step out of their place and look us in the eye as equals.”

-

“The smallest amount of “racial stress is intolerable—the mere suggestion that being white has meaning often triggers a range of defensive responses. These include emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and withdrawal from the stress-inducing situation. These responses work to reinstate white equilibrium as they repel the challenge, return our racial comfort, and maintain our dominance within the racial hierarchy. I conceptualize this process as white fragility. Though white fragility is triggered by discomfort and anxiety, it is born of superiority and entitlement.”

-

“However, a positive white identity is an impossible goal. White identity is inherently racist; white people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy. This does not mean that we should stop identifying as white and start claiming only to be Italian or Irish. To do so is to deny the reality of racism in the here and now, and this denial would simply be color-blind racism. Rather, I strive to be “less white.” To be less white is to be less racially oppressive. ... I can build a wide range of authentic and sustained relationships across race and accept that I have racist patterns.”

-

“There is a curious satisfaction in the punishment of black people: the smiling faces of the white crowd picnicking at lynchings in the past, and the satisfied approval of white people observing mass incarceration and execution in the present. White righteousness, when inflicting pain on African Americans, is evident in the glee the white collective derives from blackface and depictions of blacks as apes and gorillas.”

-

“For example, I was invited to the retirement party of a white friend. The party was a pot-luck picnic held in a public park. As I walked down the slope toward the picnic shelters, I noticed two parties going on side by side. One gathering was primarily composed of white people, and the other appeared to be all black people. I experienced a sense of disequilibrium as I approached and had to choose which party was my friend’s. I felt a mild sense of anxiety as I considered that I might have to enter the all-black group, then mild relief as I realized that my friend was in the other group. This relief was amplified as I thought that I might have mistakenly walked over to the black party! All these thoughts and feelings happened in just a few seconds, but they were a rare moment of racial self-awareness. The mere possibility that I might have to experience not belonging racially was enough to raise racial discomfort.”

-

Chapter 11: White Women's Tears

“Many of us see emotions as naturally occurring. But emotions are political in two key ways.”

-

“White women’s tears in cross-racial interactions are problematic for several reasons connected to how they impact others. For example, there is a long historical backdrop of black men being tortured and murdered because of a white woman’s distress, and we white women bring these histories with us. Our tears trigger the terrorism of this history, particularly for African Americans. A cogent and devastating example is Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old boy who reportedly flirted with a white woman—Carolyn Bryant—in a grocery store in Mississippi in 1955. She reported this alleged flirtation to her husband, Roy Bryant, and a few days later, Roy and his half-brother, J. W. Milam, lynched Till, abducting him from his great-uncle’s home. They beat him to death, mutilated his body, and sank him in the Tallahatchie River. An all-white jury acquitted the men, who later admitted to the murder. On her deathbed, in 2017, Carolyn Bryant recanted this story and admitted that she had lied. The murder of Emmett Till is just one example of the history that informs an oft-repeated warning from my African American colleagues: “When a white woman cries, a black man gets hurt.” Not knowing or being sensitive to this history is another example of white centrality, individualism, and lack of racial humility.”

(TBH, this entire chapter is sociopathic.)

---

https://archive.ph/2orfM

‘Whiteness Studies’ Professor Says White People Who Treat All Races Equally Are ‘Dangerous’

A  guest lecturer at Boston University said last month that white people who judge others as individuals instead of by their skin color are “dangerous,” according to a report in the College Fix.

...

DiAngelo said that when she hears people say they are colorblind, they are revealing their own ignorance. “This person doesn’t understand basic socialization,” she said. “This person doesn’t understand culture. This person is not self-aware.”

“And I need to give a heads up to the white people in the room,” DiAngelo said. “When people of color hear us say this, they’re generally not thinking, ‘Alright, I’m talking to a woke white person right now.’ Usually some version of eye-rolling is going on, and a wall is going up.”

“My friend Erin Trent Johnson — she says, ‘When I hear a white person say this, what I am thinking is: ‘This is a dangerous white person. This is a white person who is going to need to deny my reality,’” DiAngelo continued.

---

From: Ibram X. Kendi, "How to Be An Antiracist"

“So let’s set some definitions. What is racism? Racism is a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequities. ”

-

“The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.” It is “antiracist.” ... “There is no in-between safe space of “not racist.” The claim of “not racist” neutrality is a mask for racism.”

-

“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

---

https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/how-to-fix-politics-in-america/inequality/pass-an-anti-racist-constitutional-amendment/

"To fix the original sin of racism, Americans should pass an anti-racist amendment to the U.S. Constitution that enshrines two guiding anti-racist principals: Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy and the different racial groups are equals. The amendment would make unconstitutional racial inequity over a certain threshold, as well as racist ideas by public officials (with “racist ideas” and “public official” clearly defined). It would establish and permanently fund the Department of Anti-racism (DOA) comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity, monitor those policies, investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces, and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas. The DOA would be empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas."

-- Ibram X. Kendi (2019)

---

From: Ozlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo, "Is Everyone Really Equal?"

“Many of these movements initially advocated for a type of liberal humanism (individualism, freedom, and peace) but quickly turned to a rejection of liberal humanism. The logic of individual autonomy that underlies liberal humanism (the idea that people are free to make independent rational decisions that determine their own fate) was viewed as a mechanism for keeping the marginalized in their place by obscuring larger structural systems of inequality. In other words, it fooled people into believing that they had more freedom and choice than societal structures actually allow.”

-

“All the dominant ideologies in society support willful ignorance. The ideologies of meritocracy, equal opportunity, individualism, and human nature we described above play a powerful role in denying the current of privilege and insisting that society is just.”

-

“All Whites who swim in the cultural water of Canada and the United States are socialized into psychological, institutional, and economic investments in upholding the racial system that privileges them. This socialization is not something we had a choice about nor is it something we can avoid. At the same time, this does not mean that we can’t challenge our socialization and work to overcome it, although this takes a lifetime of commitment.”

-

“A third related ideology supporting the dominant group’s right to its position is individualism—the belief that we are each unique and outside the forces of socialization. Under individualism, group memberships are irrelevant and the social groups to which we belong don’t provide us with any more or fewer benefits. The ideology of individualism explains gaps between dominant and minoritized groups (in education, health, income, and net worth) as the result of individual strength or weakness. Therefore, those at the top are there because they are the best, brightest, and hardest working”

-

“Developing critical social justice literacy requires a lifelong commitment to an ongoing process.”

-

“One of the key contributions of critical theorists concerns the production of knowledge. Given that the transmission of knowledge is an integral activity in schools, critical scholars in the field of education have been especially concerned with how knowledge is produced. These scholars argue that a key element of social injustice involves the claim that particular knowledge is objective, neutral, and universal. An approach based on critical theory calls into question the idea that objectivity is desirable or even possible. The term used to describe this way of thinking about knowledge is that knowledge is socially constructed. When we refer to knowledge as socially constructed we mean that knowledge is reflective of the values and interests of those who produce it.”

-

“[The] scientific method (sometimes referred to as “positivism”—the idea that everything can be rationally observed without bias) was the dominant contribution of the 18th-century Enlightenment period in Europe. Positivism itself was a response and challenge to religious or theological explanations for “reality.” It rested on the importance of reason, principles of rational thought, the infallibility of close observation, and the discovery of natural laws and principles governing life and society. Critical Theory developed in part as a response to this presumed infallibility of scientific method, and raised questions about whose rationality and whose presumed objectivity underlies scientific methods.”

[ravenvsfox]

I simply have to write down my thoughts for anything to have meaning, so here are my awtwb opinions in no particular order (spoilers ahead!!!):

- the break up absolutely needed to happen, and also frankly it was very tasty

- "you're crying from simon/baz?" "the 'we’re not made of pieces that come apart' got to me"

- the last ditch effort sentimentality on baz’s part and ill-conceived sacrifice on simon’s........ such a lovely lil piece of angst. hurt stokes honesty and vice versa

- why did they get back together literally the next day though. it was like watching someone tear down an old condemned building and then OVERNIGHT an identical building has been rebuilt in its place. the dust hadn’t even settled yet. can we sit in it for like a minute.

- it definitely IS in character for simon to look at the emotional mess he just made and be like wait. I hate this actually. I’m immediately going to fix it despite the fact that I haven’t thought it through and have no plan :)

- this sure is a horny book huh

- actually very tonally appropriate that simon sees intimacy as too much to possibly grapple with. sex is easy when it's prescribed, and he's not really invested in it, but when he wants things very very badly he knows he can never truly have them. he can only host power or love or acceptance for a while before it's taken away.

- (something something orphan something something instability/insatiability)

- he always used to have one clear path, and now he can’t tease apart all his options. he wants everything or nothing. no embarrassing in-betweens, no gentle half-touches, no one foot in and one foot out of the magickal world

- also he wants to be manhandled and told what to do and bitten and consumed. sub behaviour

- every minor character in this book rules. ent bartender, butch legend niamh, cake-maker ruth, tracksuit fox. demon bear lady please wife me.

- sapphics kissing over the birthing juices of a fresh goat? come ON

- I think it’s fitting that goatherder agatha found her own productive, unconventional niche just outside of the place where she felt so constricted and misunderstood. like she wandered out of her ivory tower and found all of these sprawling open pastures

- shepard is so supremely & unbelievably likeable. so delighted and delightful. a mover and a shaker and a monsterfucker. spin-off when

- penny & shepard were also such pleasing complementary colours, and I like that they were both highly self-assured (in contrast w baz/simon's insecurity) and highly impressed with one another

- there’s a lot of awkward pacing in this book, which does feel (possibly by accident) like a testament to the non-linear, unexpected way that people deal with trauma. like it’s realistic that emotional pitfalls and relationship turmoil will always clumsily insert themselves into your “narrative,” you know?

- the demon bride storyline felt like a (super fun) short story nested within the book rather than an important element of the overarching plot itself

- some of the interpersonal groundwork laid in wayward son definitely paid off, but there were also a lot of superfluous plot points, and not a lot of fall-out/consequences? no real stakes (pun intended)

- so much good relationship stuff though! the communication is bantery and productive and tender and sometimes uncomfortable. it all feels like growing pains

- it’s so clear that simon’s innate sense of self is completely hollow; he’s petrified of self-identifying (and thus committing to a label which might turn out to be false again), and he’s afraid of smothering people with how much he wants and relies on them so he ghosts them instead

- the way he self-sabotages just for the rush of fixing things afterwards…. baby let me study you

- he constantly kind of has to reassure himself that he’s normal and also that he’s a Normal (this is what regular people do. this is what healthy affection looks like. And also—I have to remember that I don’t have or deserve magic. I’m not the person I thought I was.)

- he was the chosen one, and it turned out to be fake. and now he’s another kind of chosen one—chosen by Baz, by his friends, and later by the Salisburys, but he doesn’t really trust the sensation of being important to people anymore. he thinks that everything good he has or will ever have has been stolen or coerced somehow, and too much feeling is always inevitably going to be followed by total devastation. doesn’t that make you insane

- the excalibur thing was such a neat little piece of world-building (ancestral magic swords? yes ma’am) although I definitely expected agatha to have a hand in that reveal

- wings y/n?????

- no real resolution for the magic immunity. okie dokie

- I wanted to linger with that mage paternity reveal a bit longer. the upgrade simon’s daddy issues just received…… astronomical

- I liked that penny and simon had a little bit of independence from one another actually, because simon had to think through his problems like a Normal, and penny had to fact check herself when no one was nodding benignly along with all of her ideas. growth!

- a society of chosen ones? cult-leader villain obsessed with empty symbolism? mages seduced not by the promise of power but of acceptance and healing? delicioso

- the climax of this book lasted about twelve seconds, but I enjoyed the continued chapel motif, and the fact that every villain ends up being a shade of simon snow

- the conclusion for daphne, prof. bunce, etc, wasn’t super fulfilling, I was half-expecting a reveal that they were all under some kind of thrall, but since they were just like.. insecure and ostracized by their community, I wanted a denouement where their respective spouses meet them where they’re at, and the world of mages pledges some kind of fundamental change in attitudes/policies towards differing magickal proficiency. maybe! idk!

- so much pop culture in this book. (the yeets…… the vibe checks…..) this one’s going to age like milk, ladies

- it’s cute though! I like a book that is a little parcel of the time that it was made, and I like how un-embarrassed it is of itself

- I love the way all three couples had a really clear, “oh this is what it’s supposed to feel like” moment—the transformative potential of being loved the way you want and deserve to be loved

- so many fab individual moments that I'll think about for the rest of my life, and overall so indulgent and fun to read, but a little messy and out of balance for the final book of a trilogy. the end ✌️

[inamindfarfaraway]

@nerdasaurus1200 Actual plot ideas for my Dog Owner Cass AU:

They still get the ‘one of Rapunzel’s party will turn against her’ message, but it really is just Eugene. Also, they don’t ever seriously suspect Cass because yes, she hasn’t forgiven Raps for the hand thing and the constant-oblivious-devaluing-of-her-wants-and-needs thing and is actually able to say that here, but she keeps doting on her puppies and it’s impossible to think that way of her watching that. Since the puppies have catalyzed the group’s emotional communication, Raps actively takes steps to reaffirm their friendship, like fully, sincerely apologizing for the many ways she’s hurt her. You know, the both logical and nice thing to do if at all worried your friend will betray you over a grudge?

I know it’s been theorized that Rapunzel would have been killed by the cosmic power overload if she as the Sundrop had touched the Moonstone, and in a more angsty AU I would subscribe to that theory because the show doesn’t really give any alternative and instead supports it with Zhan Tiri’s demise. But this isn’t an angsty AU. This is the ‘puppies make everything better’ AU. So while the successful moment of contact in “Destinies Collide” is very dramatic, Raps survives. She rises into the air, the two powers’ magic crackling around her, her floating, glowing hair streaked with bright yellow and blue, one eye a solid luminous blue and the other similarly burning yellow - that kind of dramatic. The black rocks all grow toward her. Eugene and Cass look on in awe and fear. Then the blue and yellow light concentrates into twin beams that shine from her eyes and combine. Twisting together, they blast straight through the roof and up into the stars. Raps drops to the ground, hair brown. Every black rock disintegrates. Eugene has just enough time to carry his girlfriend’s unconscious body back across the black rock bridge before it too is gone. Raps is now entirely devoid of magic.

Raps may have survived, but that doesn’t mean she’s okay. The experience - channeling two opposite, primordial cosmic powers at once and then having them ripped out of her - was extremely painful and terrifying. It helps her empathize much better with how Cass felt when her arm decayed. Another major source of pain is that she’s no longer the Sundrop. She’s always been the Sundrop. Even once Eugene cut her hair, its magic remained passively within her. Now she has permanently been stripped of a previously fundamental part of herself, that’s defined her whole life and caused her immense happiness and suffering alike. And now that it’s just gone and her “destiny” is completed, she isn’t sure who she is or what to do. Overall she’s left shaken, afraid and lost. This turmoil is her emotional drive in “Rapunzel’s Return”. She first tries to bury it and act chipper; then she runs off attempting to retake the kingdom alone to prove she’s still just as capable and useful (keeping her hair long consciously so she can fight and stuff with it, subconsciously because she can’t accept the change). Rather than grieve Cass’s betrayal, she must confront her trauma of fearing and resenting her own destiny. The final scene of the episode is her cutting her hair to reach her ankles in acceptance that she can’t hold onto a version of herself she’s moved beyond, even kinda forcibly.

These identity/change acceptance issues continue throughout Season Three, dealt with in a gradual, non-linear process. This arc parallels Eugene’s similar issues about being the prince of the Dark Kingdom, and later Cass’s about discovering she’s Gothel’s daughter. It’s like, the big external adventure is mostly done, on the ‘destiny’ front. Now the heroes have to face… the psychological fallout! Dun dun dun! A much more character and relationship-based story than canon. Not that there won’t be proper villains, like the Separatists, the Stabbingtons, the Baron, Hector (who gets a proper resolution and reconciliation with Adira and Edmund), but no huge Zhan Tiri-scale ones.

The presences of Cass and the dogs allow Raps to defeat the Separatists in spite of her lack of magic. How? I don’t yet, some cunning plan. Cass helps get through to Varian. She understands and validates his grudge against Raps and desire to erase everything and move on, but teaches him the importance of seeing from different perspectives, and that internalizing all his guilt and shame forever is… not good. Do you want to stroke the puppies, Varian? Why don’t you stroke the puppies for a bit and then you’ll calm down. (For comedy points, the Separatists, being the weird combination of terrorists and flower children they are, drop everything to gush over the dogs in the middle of a battle. Then instantly go back to trying to kill the protagonists - possibly even cheerfully assuring Cass they’ll look after the dogs once they kill her.)

Wait! If there’s no Moonstone magic, so no Decay Incantation, Quirin can’t be freed! No! Why is the PUPPY AU turning out so angsty? Hmm… this is also the Magic Out, Therapy In AU, all about learning to live with pain and change and things you at first think you could never accept. Varian and his friends continually working on freeing Quirin and in the meantime getting/giving him the support he needs might work, thematically? They do free him eventually! I promise! But how? Varian stays at the castle until then, by the way.

At the end of “Rapunzel’s Return” Cass is promoted to be Rapunzel’s official bodyguard due to her service on the road. She naturally receives a new uniform: with the main colour a brighter red and Coronan sun embroidery, similar to Eugene’s captain uniform, but still incorporating some of the old armour (unhealthy emotional coping mechanisms symbolism) and the red offset by a substantial amount of black. It also has a special brace and compression glove for her bad arm. She trains the dogs to be police assistant dogs throughout the season, their progress or struggles frequently symbolic of her own competence at dealing with her trauma and dismantling her toxic coping mechanisms that day.

Snarl, Scratch and Bite complete their training after six months, halfway through the season, and Cass joins the royal guard, promoting them to Captain Snarl, Colonel Scratch and CO Bite. “Why do they have different titles if they’re doing the same job?” Eugene asks. “Not now! Let them have this!” says Lance, tearful with pride. She wears an individualized guard uniform with golden armour (mature, healthy emotional coping mechanisms symbolism). And a new and improved glove and brace system.

As mentioned above, Cass does find out about her biological mother. She’s looking through her really old childhood things to see if she can regift any toys to the puppies. Among the miscellaneous keepsakes she finds the green dress the Captain found her in, kept to remind him of how small she used to be. The dogs are eagerly sniffing everything, but that dress makes them extra excited. Cass doesn’t understand why. Cap realizes they’ve got the lingering unfamiliar scent off it, but before he can stop them or explain to Cass the trio are racing after the scent’s source and Cass is chasing them. Raps and Eugene join him chasing Cass. Hijinks ensue. Raps has a subplot so the primary plot doesn’t get boring, somehow connected to the themes of family, dishonesty and trust. Maybe Frederic’s returning memories of the bad things he did is reopening those wounds and she’s revising her quick forgiveness of him in “The Secret of the Sundrop”, but also doesn’t want to add to a recovering amnesiac’s pain and thus won’t communicate that? And Frederic knows she’s upset and wants to fix it, but her avoidance isn’t letting them get anywhere. The hijinks end up getting Cass very suspicious about her origins and angry at her dad for keeping that she was adopted secret and his hasty half-explanations (Raps’s presence makes it doubly awkward) without letting him tell the whole truth. Right when she’s losing her temper at him, they see dogs lead them to the cottage. Cass trails off and stares at it. Her eyes shift from mystified to haunted. Everyone else, who had been in the middle of an argument over the morality of family secrets, stops dead to watch her in concern. She wades through the stream and wanders inside in a trance of awakened memory. Examining the dusty remains of the music box triggers a full flashback, with “Waiting in the Wings (Reprise)” and everything. She’s left sobbing on her knees. While the others and dogs all comfort her, Cap explains everything and profoundly apologises for hurting her in his attempt to protect her. Coincidentally, the exact type of apology Raps wants from her father. Cass needs time to process and hides deeper in the cottage. She begins to recall details of her mother’s abuse and, finding her, Raps shares some details of her abusive childhood with Gothel. She confirms it wasn’t that Gothel didn’t love Cass because she was unlovable and Raps was. Rather, Gothel was always incapable of love, and both her daughters worthy of it. She assures Cass that this doesn’t make her a different or bad person. If Raps knows one thing for certain, it’s that how Gothel makes you feel about yourself is not true. Family is more than blood, it’s choosing to love and listen to and understand and help someone over and over again, even when it’s uncomfortable and messy… [internally] ohhh shit, she needs to talk to her dad. Cass is heartened and admits she already thought of Raps as her sister. The episode ends with Cass embracing her real family, knowing she deserves them.

This episode makes Cap realize how badly his focus on his career and emotional distance has damaged his and his daughter’s mental health. He retires to engage in self-care and be more involved in Cass’s inner life. Eugene takes the mantle, and though Cass mocks him to no end and may hold a more serious jealousy, she recognizes his worth when they work together on a case and ultimately agrees he’s the best choice her dad could have made and congratulates him. She still mocks him, however. He’s relieved - he didn’t want this to mess up their dynamic.

I’ve got it! Gothel’s alchemical and magical resources are what finally melt the amber. She had that corrosive chemicals in her catacombs and we know she could do magic because she enchanted her mirrors. Varian gets his dad back, and Raps and Cass get some closure about Gothel by making something good come out of her selfish pursuits! And not just anything, but specifically the restoration of a loving parent and child relationship, the exact opposite of everything she represented! Friendship, love, healing, altruism, a dash of spite at Hell’s Mother of the Year, and the symbolism that what Gothel left behind (which includes Raps and Cass themselves) can overcome her dark influence and do good.

In the finale Raps cuts her hair to its neck length after she concludes her character development. Cass’s happy ending in “Happily Ever After, After All (Reprise)” is opening a police dog training academy.

[thedaytheworldburned]

TXT Key Considerations/Introduction

Before we begin the deep and dark rabbit-hole of TXT theories, there are a few things which would be good to know/note but which don’t necessarily fit nicely into other posts.

First. 

What is TXT’s concept?

This is a hard question. TXT’s concept is made up of many different elements and things, and all of it is connected in some odd way which MOA are almost entirely unable to understand. Although we are aware of the general concept of ‘Magic’ and ‘superpowers’, as well as ‘friendship’ and ‘youth’, and, of course, know TXT very well as have some similar ide4a, names and aesthetics to Harry Potter, they are a very versatile group, as well as very experimental, and sometimes it is hard to see how some things, especially their later releases, fit into the wider story. It is also harder to judge them than groups such as Dreamcatcher, ATEEZ, or even ENHYPEN and LOONA, because their concept and story is so tightly tied to BTS, and by extension, the BU and Gfriend (and also ENHYPEN, however, at this point, ENHYPEN are mostly isolated in the story, and are more connected to the Bighit Japanese group than with TXT and BTS). Especially recently, the BU has been beginning to converge, and this means that it is harder and harder to understand TXT’s story in isolation.

The first section of TXT’s story, The Dream Chapter, is very cohesive and relatively isolated. Other than some nods to BTS and Gfriend, as well as core ideas in the story such as Magic Island, and despite MVs being non-linear narratives within non-linear narratives within non-linear narratives, it is relatively easy to follow and get a feel for, and it seems to set up the first arc of their story well, while also being isolated/contained from the other stories. 

This all started to go a bit wonky with Minisode 1 and Blue Hour.

Although the MV and album still contributed to the story, it was a complete tonal shift, and contributed in a more subtle way. This was also a little frustrating as we didn’t see the resolution of the Eternally MV. 

Minisode 1 marks a shift towards TXT as a group centred around the experiences of youth in today’s society, rather than on the storyline. This has continued in The Chaos Chapter, which is much more grounded in ‘reality’ than The Dream Chapter, and also much more connected to the BTS storyline, as well as being heavily focused on the idea of the problems today’s youth faces, such as isolation, conflicting identities, and the need for adventure and freedom. 

It seems that the concept photos have done the majority of storytelling in this era, although elements of TXT’s storyline are still VERY present and VERY obvious. We will have to wait to see a bit more of the Chaos Chapter. And a bit more of BTS’ storyline as well. 

As it stands;

TXT are magic. They have powers, they are friends. There is a bit of drama in the friend group. They also mirror the experiences/storyline of BTS. Other than that, there is a lot up to interpretation, especially after the release of FREEZE. 

Although I don’t find TXT’s concept as cohesive as groups like ATEEZ, it is one of the most unique. varied and exciting concepts. It allows TXT to explore different themes and genres, and allows them to be extremely versatile. There is also something for everyone, and people can enjoy the video and the group without needing to know or think about the story. This is how I myself got into TXT.

I really appreciate TXT’s versatility and creativity, as individuals, a group, and as a wider network including staff, BTS, Bang PD and Bighit themselves. Although I am one of the people who hopes that the storyline from TDC is further explored, and hope that TXT doesn’t move too far away from this idea, I will support them wherever they go and will be very interested to see whatever they do. 

I should probably note that I am INCREDIBLY biased towards the Dream Chapter trilogy, especially MAGIC and ETERNITY, so those will probably make up the majority of my analysis. However, as I said, I love everything TXT does.

The sheer cinematic and storytelling masterpieces that are their MVs are, as I’m sure we all know, amazing, and I excitedly await each and every release.

[celiabowens]

25 books recs from my 2020 reads

I’ve been wanting to make this post for a while, but I wanted to wait and see how my last reads of the year would go. Also, narrowing them down to 20 was a nope, so I just made a bigger list instead lol. I’ve tried to include a vague description of each book and the main trigger warnings and rep. I apologise in advance if I forgot anything (for trigger warnings, I suggest double checking on the site booktriggerwarnings).

Adult SFF

A Memory Called Empire: it feels like I’ve raved about this one enough but just in case: A Memory Called Empire is a space opera following an ambassador who suddenly finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery and a political conspiracy. It’s got brilliant world building and a nuanced and intricate reflection about culture, language and colonialism. Subtle slow burn f/f romance on the side (+ a poly relationship shown in flashbacks). TW: suicide.

Black Sun: first book in an epic fantasy series inspired by pre-columbian Americas. Great cast of characters and very interesting use of mythology + the main plot is focused on political and religious conflict and the author handles both sides of it quite well. The book has bisexual and non-binary rep, one of the main characters is blind. TW: suicide, abuse, self harm. There’s some gore, although it’s not extremely graphic.

The Sword of Kaigen: a Japanese inspired stand alone epic fantasy. The book is not focused on battle or war, although they play an important role in the plot itself, but on family dynamics and personal growth. It’s a very character driven novel, with some rather conventional elements (elemental magic) and some more original reuses of traditional fantasy tropes. TW: abuse.

Empire of Sand: first book in a duology of companion novels inspired by Mughal India. Mostly focused on religious and political conflict, although romance is heavily featured in both books. Pretty good slow burn romance in both cases. TW: abuse, slavery, torture, sexual assault, self-harm.

The Light Brigade: a rather unconventional space opera with a complex non linear narration. This is not an easy read in every possible way, but the pay off is worth it. Also it’s one of those cases in which I think it’s best to go in knowing nothing or almost nothing. TW: torture, murder, ptsd, war, gore, infectious diseases (yeah you need a strong stomach for this........).

Gods of Jade and Shadow: a coming of age story set in Mexico during the Jazz age. A bit of a lighter read, a journey-adventure featuring a god slowly becoming human, tasks to complete etc. TW: bullying.

River of Stars: more of an alternate history than pure fantasy, as most of GGK’s novels are. This one in particular was inspired by Chinese history and it’s ideally a companion to Under Heaven. Both can be read as standalones but I find their parallels and differences very interesting. I’d also recommend The Lions of Al-Rassan and A Brightness Long Ago, by the same author. All of them revisit historical events from the point of view of rather ordinary people who find themselves in the middle of events they can’t control. 

Empire of Gold: the last book in a trilogy, starting with City of Brass. The first novel is more trope-y and naive in places, but I found both the second book and the conclusion of the trilogy more nuanced and satisfying. There’s a m/m relationship on the side. TW: mass murder, torture, enslavement, abuse.

Adult SFF novella edition

The Deep: novella set in an underwater society built by the descendants of African slave women that were tossed overboard. The novella deals with trauma, both personal and generational one.

This Is How You Lose The Time War: epistolary set during a time-travel war. Enemies to lovers f/f romance. Very character driven, don’t expect a lot of world building.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune: an Asian-inspired novella that gives a voice to people usually silenced by history. It follows a cleric as they chronicle the story of the late empress, retold through objects that she used in her life. 

YA SFF

Return of the Thief/The Queen’s Thief series in general: the last book in the queen’s thief series! Honestly just read this series it’s literally too good? It is carefully planned from start to finish and it has politics, adventures, characters with extremely questionable morals and good banter? TW: loss of a limb, torture (not extremely graphic), ptsd.

The Kingdom of Back: probably Marie Lu’s best book yet? think of the concept of “shakespeare’s sister” as explained by Woolf in A Room of One’s Own, but with the Mozart siblings. I actually had no idea Mozart had a sister prior to reading this. It’s a quite emotional read, as it shows how little opportunities women had to be recognised for their talent.

Adult Literary Fiction

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: a beautiful exploration of language, family history, trauma, sexuality and gender. TW: war, ptsd, death.

Augustus: an epistolary historical fiction novel narrating some of the main events of Augustus’ reign through letters from/by his closest friends and enemies. Not even remotely historically accurate, but a lot of fun to read if you’re familiar with historical accounts of that period.

A Gentleman in Moscow: following Count Alexander Rostov, who, in 1922, is sentenced to a lifetime of house arrest in the Metropol, a luxurious hotel in the center of Moscow. A peculiar novel, funny and heartbreaking at once, following a vibrant cast of characters as they come and go from Rostov’s secluded life.

How Much of These Hills Is Gold: following two recently orphaned children through the gold rush era, the book is an adventurous historical fiction piece that focuses on themes like gender, identity and immigration. TW: abuse, sexual assault, racism.

The Memory Police: published in Japan in the mid 90s, but translated recently, it’s an orwellian dystopian novel set on an unnamed Island where memories of certain objects and feelings slowly disappear.

The Nickel Boys: the book follows the lives of two boys sentenced to a reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. A bleak, but important book, with a shocking final twist. TW: abuse, racism, death.

Manga/Graphic Novels

The Girl from the Other Side

Opus: very meta, much like most of Satoshi Kon’s movies. Kon actually never finished this (the magazine he was publishing it on was cancelled) and a last chapter was published after his death after his family found the sketches for it.

Oriental Piano: based on the story of the author’s grandfather, who invented a musical instrument in Beirut in the 1960s, combining Arabic music and a western musical instrument. Sort of reminiscent of Satrapi’s style. 

Webtoons

Lore of Olympus (TW: sexual assault)

Clara and The Devil

Non Fiction

The Professor and the Madman: the peculiar and extraordinary tale behind the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary. TW: self-harm, ptsd, war.

Honourable mentions: The Binding (TW: abuse, sexual assault, suicide. Gay rep.), The Silence of the Girls (TW: sexual assault, death, war), To Be Taught, If Fortunate (bi, ace, poly rep), The Kyoshi Novels (bi rep, f/f relationship).

[self-loving-vampire]

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985)

Ultima 4 is a very historically-significant game, as well as being where the Ultima series cemented itself as something truly unique. Where the previous games in the series (as well as the RPG genre in general) often dealt with defeating some kind of evil overlord, Ultima 4 has no antagonist and instead calls on you to perfect yourself and embody a set of eight moral virtues.

Summary

You start the game by answering several moral dilemmas to determine your class and starting location. You are then transported to the fantasy land of Britannia to embark on a spiritual quest to become the Avatar of virtue and read the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom in the Abyss.

To do this, you must master eight virtues and understand the three principles involved in them.

The game has been widely ported but I will be reviewing the free version available from GOG.

Freedom

Ultima 4 is an extremely open game in many ways. There are eight possible classes and each is rather different, with a unique starting location. Most importantly, all of the many tasks the game asks you to complete prior to the final descent into the Abyss can be done in any order you desire.

You can maximize your virtues in any order, explore dungeons in any order, travel the world as you wish, find the runes in any order, and etc.

So all in all, this game is very non-linear when it comes to exploration and objective order.

Note, however, that due to the way this game is designed it is not actually very replayable. Even if the initial experience is different for each class and you can complete the game’s many objectives in any order, those objectives are still the same and they all do need to be completed by the end. There are no alternate ways to complete any objectives.

By the end of the game, you will be playing largely the same way regardless of what your initial class was or what order you did things in.

This is made worse by the fact that ranged weapons completely dominate the game. There is little reason to use melee if you have the option to use ranged weapons.

Character Creation/Customization

Besides your name, gender, and choice of class, you cannot really decide anything about your character. Once in-game, you also don’t have that many options for upgrading your party besides obtaining better equipment and finding magical orbs in dungeons.

That said, the game does get some points for the variety of classes and for how radically some of them can affect your experience, particularly in the early game. 

The most striking example is the Shepherd class, which you get for having humility as your favored virtue during the character creation questions. Shepherds are terrible at everything. They can’t use magic at all (most other classes can to varying degrees) and are awful at combat, having a very limited selection of weapons and armor available. They also start in a ruined island populated by monsters. It is basically the game’s “hard mode.”

You can answer these same questions and find your class here (the link says Ultima VI but it’s really the same ones as far as I can tell, or at least close).

Story/Setting

The game world is reasonably large and memorable, but to be honest the setting of the Ultima games has always been on the more generic side, even if some of the games in the series are pretty immersive. The virtues introduced in this game are really the primary spice on the game world.

It is a medieval fantasy setting with all the staples: Fireballs, orcs, dragons, liches, skeletons, and so on. It does have a few less common creatures as well (like balrons and zorns).

A generic fantasy setting is not necessarily bad, but it is not particularly good either. It is just the baseline as far as I am concerned, and can be boring on its own if you are not drawn in by anything else a game offers.

In this case, the setting is not really the game’s selling point so much as its unique objective. It is also still a massive improvement over some of the earlier games in the series, which feature things like space travel and time travel.

Another point in favor is that the towns scattered throughout the land are not just generic fantasy towns, they are dedicated to specific virtues. Those virtues seem to be particularly alive in the minds of their inhabitants in this game as well. The virtues are so embedded in the setting for the rest of the series that it does give it more of an identity.

The story itself is, as previously mentioned, unique among all RPGs I know of. While there is a lot of combat and dungeons to explore, there is no big antagonist for you to defeat.

Your behavior is tracked from beginning to end. You will need to do things like donating money to the needy, donating blood at the healer, and letting non-evil creatures (generally animals) flee in order to become the avatar. I also do not recommend “grinding” out these virtues unless you really need to, as I found that as long as you know how to raise them you can easily achieve avatarhood in several of them just by playing the game normally, talking to everyone and visiting Hawkwind every time you’re in the castle.

In addition to maximizing your virtues and then meditating at the proper shrines, your quest will see you travel throughout the entire world to collect the artifacts you will need for your descent into the abyss. 

You will need the eight stones of virtue (most of which are within dungeons), the Key of Three Parts, the three artifacts of the principles, the word of power, and more. You will also need to recruit seven party members to aid you in your quest, each representing one of the virtues (you are the representative of the eighth).

Immersion

I know it’s probably not that bad by the standards of its time, but I can’t say the game’s immersion is all that good. It does gain some points in some areas such as the way the manuals work and how you need to actually do things like keep track of the phases of the world’s two moons (clearly not something you’d see in our world!) to make proper use of moongates, but overall it is definitely not on the same level as other RPGs I have played. As was sadly the case for the technically-limited time period the game was made in, the world does not really react very much to your actions even though your virtues are tracked.

I do like the initial character creation questions, however. Trying to answer them honestly based on your own moral principles can be a good way to get started. It is also good that the whole virtue angle requires you to actually roleplay the quest of the avatar in order to win.

Gameplay

Playing the game is extremely simple as long as you reference your keys as needed and read the manuals (perhaps it is even too simple, with only one type of non-spell attack action and relatively few and uninteresting equipment options). Talking to every NPC you meet is also recommended, as they not only have a lot of advice but also several vital clues that you will need if you plan to complete the game without a walkthrough, as the whole thing is rather obscure about certain aspects of your quest.

The magic system is a mixed bag. You have to gather and mix reagents to cast spells. The reagents must be mixed ahead of time and are consumed. You must also know which reagents to mix. The spell manual that comes with the game explains most of the combinations, but there are some that you must discover on your own within the game, and they are for some of the most potent spells too (such as Resurrect).

On one hand, I like how the game invites you to actually learn its magic system in order to make use of it, with many reagents having consistent qualities that can let you guess what kinds of spells they may be used for. On the other, it can be a bit time-consuming to manually mix these reagents every single time you want to prepare a spell.

However, the thing that really kills the second half of the game is the combat.

The combat is initially a bit simple but functional. You can press one of the arrow keys to move in one of four directions, you can press A followed by a direction to attack in that direction, or you can press C to cast one of your prepared spells.

With such simplicity, combat in the early game doesn’t take very long, especially since as far as I can tell there are less/weaker enemies early on (though there’s enough encounters to make it a bit of a pain still). However, as you gather more companions (and you must have a party of 8 before venturing into the final dungeon and completing the game) combat starts to drag on as you have to manually command each of your eight party members.

It’s especially bad in that one party member in particular (Katrina the Shepherd) is, to put it bluntly, a complete burden on the party as you might expect from a shepherd. She will be missing every single attack against the stronger enemies that populate the late game, and not hitting very hard when she does hit due to the awful weapon selection shepherds get. I wish you did not need to recruit everyone.

This would have been a bit of a pain on its own, but not that bad. No, the real problem is one single spell: Sleep.

A handful of late game enemies (such as gazers, but especially reapers, and balrons) will spam this one spell without mercy, even if your entire party is already sleeping.

This is a spell that can incapacitate multiple characters, potentially half your party or more, for several turns. The Awaken spell is pointless as a counter to it, as it affects a single target and the enemy can spam Sleep every round while you will quickly run out of Awaken even if your spellcasters somehow manage to avoid the sleep themselves.

Your characters do not wake up if they take damage, and there seems to be no limit to how often the enemy can use Sleep.

This is still manageable when fighting only one or two of these enemies in reasonably open ground, but in tight spaces where sleeping characters can block the way for the rest of the party or in dungeons where you face half a dozen or more of these enemies in a single room it can make for an experience that is just painful.

It is not even that this makes the game difficult either, the enemies do very little damage even when they are not spending all their turns casting Sleep over and over again, but it does make some dungeon rooms feel like they exist merely to waste your time.

The single worst offender was this room at the bottom of the Abyss.

10 Balrons that you can’t even reach due to a wall of force (central blue square) in the way. They can Sleep half your party despite this, regardless of where anyone is in the room. I timed it and it literally took me about 20 minutes just to walk everyone east at this one turn. There are other rooms that have this same issue as well.

While there’s annoying things like that, the game is actually extremely easy in terms of combat, at least once you get over the initial hump.

Aesthetics

As noted in the setting section, the game is on the more generic side aesthetically. That said, the simple graphics are at least readable for the most part (magical fields and the like aside) and the unique main quest gives the game a very distinct feel.

Accessibility

Surprisingly high due to its simplicity. Combat is about as mindless as you could ask for in an RPG other than making it completely automatic like Ultima 7 did, and there are not actually that many keys to remember.

However, there are still a couple of things that modern players will have to adapt to. Chief among them are consulting the manuals throughout the game and taking notes.

The game has no quest log to record all the clues the game’s many, many NPCs provide you with. You have to actually write those things down together with things like the mantras for meditating at the shrines, the visions you get as you achieve partial avatarhoods, and etc.

Your knowledge of the virtues will be tested at the very end.

Conclusion

I would not blame anyone for jumping ship once the late game begins, as things become slow and repetitive at that point. However, I believe that this game is worth trying regardless (especially now that it is given out for free).

This is an RPG unlike any other I have seen, demanding its players to not only live up to heroic (and largely secular) moral principles but also encouraging them bring them out of the game and applying them to their lives and become better people.

While its combat can become a bit of a pain later on, the game’s ideas remain interesting at the very least. It is also possible to import one’s Ultima 4 save into Ultima 5, and then from that game to Ultima 6. Both of those games also have rather interesting premises that I will talk about in time.

In the end, I think you should at least try it if you are interested in the history of RPGs. This is the point where Ultima really “gets good” and ditches the nonsense that plagued the early games, though Ultima 7 is still likely a much better starting point for modern players.

The game ends with a call to action. The Quest of the Avatar is a lifelong journey that does not end with the game. You are told to return to your own world and put the virtues you have learned into practice and live as an example to your people, to truly be the avatar.

In the future, other games in the series will challenge and twist these ideals in various ways, but I like the heroic idealism on display here.

[tren-fraszka]

Fic in a Box 2021 Exchange Letter

Dear creator,

Thank you for taking your time to check my requests. I know my requests can sound a bit tricky, but please don’t be discouraged. I wish you will have good time writing first and foremost!

My AO3 is Tren, if you wish to check it out.

Likes: comedy, casefics, canon compliants, AUs, time loops, bodyswaps, roleswaps, “being hoisted by your own petard” plotlines, snark, pettiness, rivals, enemies to friends to lovers, violence, friendships, and character bonding,

DNW: explicit sex (makeouts and fade to black is okay), A/B/O, mpreg, rape depicted as positive (so no “it’s okay, because the other person enjoyed it/it was what they truly wanted”), trans headcanons, soulmate AUs, stories ending with surrender to fate/destiny, fourth wall breaking in canons where that doesn’t occur, character has cancer or other real-life terminal disease AU, word “queerplatonic”.

Also, I included what ships I’m okay with in each fandom. Please do not include any ships that aren’t canon and I have not allowed in those sections (if you feel really strongly about a ship I haven’t mentioned, you can always ask through mods just in case).

On a separate, but similar note, I’m okay with OCs as long as they don’t overshadow the characters I requested.

Additionally, while I almost never request fanart as possible medium, because I prefer my main gift to be fic, I would be very okay with receiving fanart treats. Also, feel free to peruse my old letters if you get your hands on them. I never stop being interested in fandoms, and if I requested something once I will still want it in the future.

                                           REQUESTS

Medium opt-ins (they are the same for all the fandoms):

Length Opt-In: Drabble Length Opt-In: Drabble Series Medium Opt In: Any - Any In-Universe Documents Medium Opt In: Art - Drawn - Comics Medium Opt In: Art - Drawn - Fanart Medium Opt In: Art - Excerpts from a Character's Sketchbook Medium Opt In: Art - Tarot Card Medium Opt In: Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Bureaucratic Paperwork Medium Opt In: Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Excerpts from a Journal/Notebook/Sketchbook Medium Opt In: Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Field Report Medium Opt In: Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Mission Report Medium Opt In: Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - In-Universe Scientific Documents Medium Opt In: Writing - Unreliable Narrator Medium Opt In: Writing - Non-Linear Narrative

MARIMASHITA! IRUMA-KUN

I read new manga chapters as they get translated so feel free to incorporate anything from the manga that’s available in English.

Kirio Amy/Suzuki Iruma

There are many good ships with Iruma, but this one just has a lot things I like. I love enemy ships with both sides being way too emotionally invested into each other so this was inevitable. I love how this relationship starts as this really wholesome friendship and school festival preparation, except Kirio turns out to be a bit messed up and wants to blow up everyone. But then they both accept the outcome and go on with their lives still thinking about each other. Iruma goes through a lot of trouble to keep the club operating even though Kirio has been pretty much expelled. And then Kirio is now obsessed with Iruma as his anthitesis and perfect enemy.

I’m okay with the potential story happening at any point in the canon. I would love both a story set before the festival while Kirio is still hiding his true colors or a story set after it. Maybe Iruma runs into Kirio somewhere after he escapes prison and instead of calling an adult, he tries to stop Kirio from causing trouble on his own. As for pre-festival story. Maybe some upperclassmen steal important parts from the club and Iruma and Kirio set out to get them back.

Naberius Callego & Suzuki Iruma

I love Callego for being a much better take on Snape than original Snape ever was. The second the series made Callego Iruma’s familiar I knew this was about to get good. And it was. I love how Callego slowly warms up to Iruma, even if he is still allergic to his and Sullivan’s antics. I love that Callego is actually a competent teacher who cares about his students, but at the same time he would rather eat a whole lemon than admit it out loud.

For prompts, maybe Sullivan ends up having an important business and Opera isn’t available so he dumps looking after Iruma on Callego for a few days. Or Iruma is struggling with studying since so many things are new for him, so Callego ends up forced to help him catch up with the material (if you are following manga inclusion of Balam is always welcome). Or maybe Iruma gets into usual trouble ends up stranded somewhere and the only one he can call for help is his familiar.

Crocell Kerori | Kuromu/Gyari

One of the last thing I expected to get this year was a canonical yuri romance in this manga, but here it is and it’s perfect. I love how it is pretty much built on mutual pining. I love how Kuromu loves Gyari, but refuses to reciprocate her feelings, because she knows that she needs to remain unattainable to keep their relationship alive, and I love how Gyari is never ever going to give up.

I would love to see more of the time when they worked together. We know it was love at the first sight for Gyari, but I would love to see how Kuromu’s feelings grew. Those hours they spent together practicing, maybe a not-date where they sneak together to scout a venue where they will be having their first big concert, or maybe a small contest that would sow the seeds for their future rivalry. I would love any and all of it. Also, Gyari doesn’t seem to be aware of Kuromu’s civilian identity, so I would love a story where Gyari meets Crocell Kerori rather than Kuromu. Does she recognize her? Or does Kerori manage to successfully trick her? Maybe Gyari makes a full investigation after hearing rumors that Kuromu is attending Babylys. I would also love any sort of future fic for those two.

AUs and ships

I love the worldbuilding around the demon world, so I would ask that if you decided to write an AU that it still incorporates demons. I would definitely love an AU where rather than getting summoned to demon world, Iruma accidentally summons either Kirio or Callego into the human world. Maybe Iruma’s parents try to use him as an offering, but instead he ends up bound to a demon. I would love to see Kirio excited to unleash suffering (even if his weak powers severely limit him in that regard) onto human world just to discover that he made contract with the biggest pacifist possible. Or Callego being torn between wanting to return home as soon as possible (he has classes to teach!) and wanting to somehow help the weird human child that just keeps getting into trouble. Any other demon-focused AU is also welcome. For Gyari and Kurmou, maybe one of them is a human who ends up summoning the other as a demon. How different would their relationship be then? I’m also fine with any sort of AU divergences scenario. Maybe Iruma keeps accidentally sabbotaging Kirio’s terrorist plans without realizing it. Or Iruma ends up summoning Callego more often as his familiar when he gets into trouble. What if Gyari also attended Babylys.

As for ships, I’d rather avoid any love triangle scenarios for this canon, so please focus on just one pairing per character (competing for Iruma’s attention is normal for this canon, I’d just rather not see outright romantic competition). It’s self-explainatory for Kirio request, but if you want to include some shipping elements into the other requests I also ship Iruma/Amelie and Callego/Balam.

VIVY: FLUORITE EYE’S SONG

Solo: Vivy

WB: Any

I would love a look into some alternate timelines or missing scenes. Feel free to go as tragic as you like for alternate timelines, or make a happy end, or anything in between. I just think the core concept of the show has a lot of potential in that regard. For a more specific prompts I would love an AU where Diva doesn't disappear, but maybe she and Vivy end up spliting in some way (I'm sure Matsumoto could find a spare body or something). Or maybe a story where one of the Sisters ends up dragged into Singularity project (I really loved what they did with Elizabeth in the show).

For more worldbuilding prompts I would love a more in-depth look of how Matsumoto as more advanced AI differs from the past eye and how that gap is slowly being closed with each case he and Vivy resolves. Or outsider POV on how Vivy’s and Matsumoto’s actions shape the world. Them turning off the plant producing new androids and the subsequent suicide would definitely get coverage. I would love to know how the whole thing was officially explained. Are there conspiracy theories on the Internet? Sisters are involved in every major incident, would people suspect something?

AUs and ships

I would prefer no setting changes for this story. Any other AUs are fine. As mentioned I would love any look for alternate timeline. I would also love an AU where Diva doesn’t recover her memories and keeps helping Matsumoto while trying to regain them.

Any canon pairings are fine.

SOUSOU NO FRIEREN

I read new manga chapters as they get translated so feel free to incorporate anything from the manga that’s available in English.

Frieren

Frieren/Himmel

I love how this manga is a slow-paced fantasy dealing with loss and inevitable passage of time. And I love Frieren for being one of the best depictions of an elf whose long life actually affects their outlook on life and actions.

I would equally love the insight into Frieren’s present with her charges and the past with hero party. What other shenanigans they get into on their journey? What kind of weird magic Frieren pursued? I would love to see more of her mentoring Fern and Stark. I also love to see her interactions with the hero party. Maybe some more insight into how they fought with demons, since Frieren seemed to have picked up a number of enemies during that time. For some more specific prompts: maybe Frieren accidentally stumbles ona cursed item that erases her memories (or just her memories of Himmel). How would it affect her? What would the party do to help her? Or maybe a demon kidnaps someone from Frieren’s party?

Feel free to include any other characters, they are a colorful bunch.

AUs and ships

I’m fine with AUs as long as Frieren’s long lifespan is preserved. Her perspective is very much shaped by how long she has lived, so I wouldn’t want that aspect to change. One exception would be, a roleswap where Himmel is an elf, while Frieren is a human, and exploration of how both of them would be affected by having a different lifespan. An AU with mythological creatures or similar could be interesting.

I would very much love Himmel/Frieren, though I also enjoy how the manga softly builds on their connection. I also enjoy the budding romance between Fern and Stark.

ONMYOJI

I like all the characters so feel free to include any of them in the story. Bonus points for Ennmusubi doing some subtle matchmaking.

Hakuro/Kusa

I love both of them and how much Kusa looks up to Hakuro. I would love to see them have some adventures together. Maybe they help some other youkai? Or one of the onmyoji? I would also love a deeper insight into how Kusa became stronger after getting inspired by Hakuro. How did she try to improve herself? There definitely was some trial and error and I would love to see that.  

Shiranui/Kinnara

That pairing came out of the left field for me, but I absolutely love the interactions the two of them had so far. I would love to see them meeting more, their feelings growing each time they see each other. I also feel like a story where they keep meeting each other in a dream would really fit them, as they would long to finally meet each other in reality.

AUs and ships

I’m fine with any AU. A modern AU with archer Hakuro and gardener Kusa would be cute. Or a dancer Shiranui and a musican Kinnara. Alternatively an AU where one of the two is onmyoji could be very interesting.

I’m fine with Hakuro’s admiration for Hiromasa being present as long as it doesn’t overshadow her relationship with Kusa. 

DRESDEN FILES

Harry Dresden/Lara Raith

I was sceptical of this pairing all the way through Peace Talks, but then Harry and Lara had this intense falling out, Murphy had died, and suddenly this is a supernatural arranged political marriage and I love everything about this situation. I mean everything. Harry still being in mourning and absolutely not wanting to be forced into this arrangement, Lara still being distrustful of Harry, suspecting that Dresden is using their brother as a bargaining chip, Mab expecting both of them to present themselve as a couple for political reasons. It’s just terrible time for both of them, but so much fun for me.

I would love to see them forced to attend various supernatural events to present themselves per Mab’s wishes. How badly would Dresden handle it? Also it was confirmed that he was marked with true love which means he and Lara probably can’t even touch directly. How well do they hide that fact from everyone? How much guilt would Harry have once he realized that the mark has weakened or disappeared now that he started to develop feelings for Lara? How much chaos will ensue when the wedding does happen?

AUs and ships

I don’t want any setting AU for this fandom, because the existing setup is just too perfect. I’m fine with a divergence AU as long as Lara and Harry are still forced into arranged marriage.

I would want for Harry’s past relationships be acknowledged mostly because him being in mourning is part of what I find appealing about his situation. I don’t expect any scenes actually showing him with his past lovers, but I would be very okay with them appearing.

TALES OF CRESTORIA

Feel free to include other Tales characters. My faves are the cast of Xillia, Symphonia and Graces, but I’m also fine with including other characters (I would appreciate proper introductions in that case, I still haven’t played some of the games, so I might not recognize everyone just by their name).

Solo: Lloyd Irving

I would love more insight into small, but murdeous Lloyd. Seriously I loved the idea of Lloyd originally being manipulated into killing Colette and would love to see Lloyd remembering his lost memories at some point (bonus points for also exploring the idea of Colette as an artificial construct). Also I'm always a sucker for Kratos and Lloyd awkwardly trying to rebuild their familial bonds. What if Lloyd went with Kratos after all? What would happen if they ran into each other again. 

Stahn Aileron & Leon Magnus

I would love more of Leon's utter suffering as he searches for a way to turn his best friend back into human, so people stop thinking he's crazy whenever he tells his sword to shut up. I would love to see him reunite with Crestoria’s main cast and getting annoyed at how chaotic they are. Or running into Sorey again. Honestly, I would love seeing him interact with pretty much anyone, and grumpily helping them kill monsters/do charity/etc. Or exploring Stahn’s and Leon’s past. I would love to see their childhood and how they grew to be such a good friends.

I haven’t played Destiny, so please give me context if you want to include any elements that aren’t in Crestoria.

Velvet Crowe/Milla Maxwell

I thrive on the twisted codependency those two have in Crestoria. I will take both good, tragic and/or ambiguous ends for this relationship. Whether Velvet decides to forgive Milla or kill her it will be great. Give me all those twisted emotions, the hesitation, and pain both of them are carrying.

For straightforward approach, maybe the two of them stop in a town while chasing the last Incarnation and Milla decides to throw a party (because it’s some sort of festival, or maybe she found out it’s Velvet’s or Laphicet’s birthday and wants to make some amends however small). Or maybe one of them gets hurt during the fight with an Incarnation and the other ends up nursing them to health.

For some more levity, maybe Velvet and Milla ran out of money and pick up some side-job to have enough money for an inn. Maybe they work as waitresses and are both great and terrible at it at the same time. Or they have to take care of kids. Any other amusing job is also good.

AUs and ships

I’m fine with any AUs, though for Stahn&Leon request I still want Stahn to be the sword. I’m okay with Stahn turning human (or from human to sword) in the course of the story or being human when showing his past with Leon.

I don’t want Velvet or Milla paired with anyone else or Asbel/Cheria. Other than that there’s too much ships. Please inquire through the mods about specific ones.

FATE/GRAND ORDER

WB: Any

Please only include NA content, I want to avoid JP spoilers

I would love to explore any part of the setting really. I especially love the various interesting connections Servant have with each other that might not be obvious at first glance (like the fact that Iskander is also a pharaoh). I’m just fascinated by all the intricate historical connections. I would also love to see how some Servants would react if they were taken to Singularity/Lostbelt/Event they weren’t a part of. 

Alternatively I would love to see exploration on how different the protagonists upbringing is from other mages especially given how bad they are at magic. We get some of it with Crypters (I loved how frustrated Kadoc was at the fact that the protagonist is even worse at magic than him), but I would love to see more of it. Maybe some Servants try to teach protagonist magic or prepare them for interactions with Clock Tower mages.

I'm fine with both male and female protagonist. Feel free to do anything from a serious character exploration to zany antics. I love both moods FGO jumps between, you can't go wrong with that. Historical context always welcome. I'm fine for any usual suspects when it comes to plot ideas: be it training simulator shenanigans, "oh no we lost comms and are stuck in Singularity", Moriarty scheming, to someone wanting to make Master happy in their own special, dysfunstional and/or possibly destructive ways

Some of the characters I enjoy: Gilgamesh (any), Mordred, Karna, Medea, Saint Martha, Ereshikigal, Danzo, Jeanne D'Arc Alter, Mysterious Heroine XX, Sitonai, Moriarty, Goredolf, any character from pairings section solo. Though honestly I love pretty much everyone in Chaldea except Columbus.

AUs and ships

Obviously, no setting changes AUs, but feel free to Canon Divergence

Pairings: Amakusa/Semiramis, Izou/Ryouma, Kintoki/Fuuma, Romani/Merlin, Romani/protagonist. Also feel free to assume protagonist/everyone (except the "child" Servants). Feel free to ask about other pairings through mods, I’m definitely missing some

[mermaidsirennikita]

The most common criticisms I see are jumping around in the timeline and it doesn't feel true/it isn't accurate to the book. I think this book has been done so much that you have to do something different with it to "justify" another adaptation. Also how successful the structure of the movie is down to a matter of taste? It's pretty subjective honestly. As for the book, again it's already been done a bunch of times and the purists will never be happy (very simmilar disscusion around this and P&P 2005 actually) but nobody feels super out of character (except for Bhaer maybe) plus they do cover a lot of the books so.

I personally found the jumping around in the timeline very emotionally impactful, and I think that was kind of what Greta was going for. Less of a straightforward adaptation (which would have been hard to justify) and more of a character piece about this family. The contrast between Jo coming downstairs after seeing Beth's bed empty to find her well, against Jo coming downstairs after seeing Beth's bed empty to find her mother sobbing... oof.

I also think LW is a book that is HIGHLY dependent on your interpretation. You could see Meg as getting an HEA with her family, or you could see Meg as settling. You could see Amy as a bitch, or you could see Amy as a girl trying to find her identity through more traditional means, while dealing with the pressures that come with being a "traditional" woman in an era full of upheaval. You could see Jo and Laurie as "twin flames"~ and the ones who got away from each other, or you could see them as two incompatible people who were better as friends. (I.... never saw Jo as being truly romantically interested in Laurie, and I think the 2019 version nailed her complex feelings for him and how much of it was based in confusion. I ship Jo and Bhaer, but I think a strong argument could be made for Jo being gay and not quite realizing it, and if an adaptation wanted to do its own thing and go with that I'd support it.).

I guess what I'm trying to say is, the beats of the book were largely hit pretty accurately, but I think that a lot of people got distracted by like... The dressing of it. The visuals weren't married to the time period, the structure was non-linear, and a lot of the beats people had come to expect from LW were subverted in some ways--even in giving the other sisters more time to shine, rather than making it a Jo Fest, which the other adaptations tend to do imo.

I have a lot of complicated feelings about Jo. I think she's a well-written character and I can see why she has captured the imagination of many. I really don't have any issues with Jo as a character. I think fan interpretations of her are where we run into issues, and she's one of those characters where a lot of fanon has gotten confused for canon. Like, if you listened to a significant amount of LW readers, you'd think Jo was pining for Laurie and then he chose her sister and she settled for a marriage of convenience. Which.... isn't what happens with the plot lol. Jo's a lot less tragic! I think a lot of people overidentify with her and project on to her, and I think that's also part of what makes the 2019 version controversial. I think it kind of nails some of the aspects of Jo that don't line up to fan interpretation, and it lets the other girls shine a bit more--especially Amy, who is hated by a lot of Jo stans to this day and carries a lot of the the things that fans often associate with Jo. Pining for Laurie, having him snapped up by her sister (or so she thinks)... that's Amy. And there was really no fucking around in the 2019 version--Amy and Laurie's story was positioned as one of the main romantic arcs in the movie, not Jo and Laurie. That's one of the main controversies surrounding the book, and the fact that 2019 took a pretty strong stance on it made a lot of people upset, at least from what I saw at the time.

[the-real-slim-shady]

Transgender and Non-Binary People: The Facts and Science Behind Them

I wrote this essay a while ago, after I had an argument with my mom about transgender people, and I figured I'd share it, it’s really long, so feel free to just skim it and find the important parts lol.

    In recent years, gender issues have become much more prevalent in our society. People who are transgender and non-binary finally feel comfortable being who they are, but there are still people who think transgender and non-binary people don’t exist. Some believe that they’re just seeking attention, or that all of their problems could be solved with therapy. This is a tricky topic because it is hard to scientifically prove how a person feels in their body.

    People usually think of the words “sex” and “gender” as interchangable, but this is in fact incorrect. In general terms, the word “sex” refers to the biological differences between men and women, such as the genitalia and genetic differences. “Gender” is more ambiguous, and harder to define. Gender usually refers to the role of a man and woman in society or an individual’s concept of themselves. To put it simply, sex is in the body, gender is in the mind. Sometimes a person’s genetically assigned sex does not line up with their gender. These individuals usually refer to themselves as transgender, non-binary, or genderfluid.

    We all learn in middle school that the last pair of chromosomes we have determines our sex. XX for a woman and XY for a man. Sex, however, is not that simple. The male/female split is often seen as a man-or-woman binary, but this is not entirely true. Some men are born with two or three X chromosomes as well as a Y, and some women are born with a Y chromosome. In some cases, a child is born with a mix between male and female genitalia. This is sometimes deemed intersex, and parents can decide which gender to assign to the child, but sometimes the child feels neither male nor female or disagrees with their parents’ decision. A person can be female if they have an X and Y chromosome but they are insensitive to androgens, so they have a female body. A person can have an X and Y chromosome and have a female body because their Y is missing the SRY gene. A person can have two X chromosomes and have a male body because one of their X’s has a SRY gene. A person can be female because they only have one X chromosome. A person can be male because they have two X chromosomes and one Y. A person can be male because you have two X chromosomes but your heart and brain are male and a person can be female with an X and a Y because their heart and mind feel stuck inside the wrong body.

    Most people’s sex and gender line up. The expectation that if you’re assigned a male at birth, you’re a man, and you’re assigned female at birth you’re a woman, lines up for people who are cisgender. But for people who are transgender or non-binary, the sex they’re assigned at birth may not align with the gender they know themselves to be. The concepts of gender and sex are socially constructed. We as a society assign gender and sex based on socially agreed upon characteristics. Dresses, the color pink, makeup, long hair, painted nails, and high heels belong to women, but we have seen in the past that this wasn’t always true, and as time goes on, the gendering of the aforementioned products is fading. This doesn’t mean that body parts and functions are “made up”, it just means that we categorize and define things in ways that could actually be different.

    The transgender and non-binary identity has long been associated with poor mental health and trauma that can be “cured” by therapy. Science however, says otherwise. Transgender women tend to have brain structures that resemble cisgender women rather than cisgender men. The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc) in transgender women is more similar to cisgender women than cisgender men, and the BSTc in transgender men more closely resembles that of a cisgender man. Science tells us that gender is not binary, it may even be a linear spectrum. Like other facets of identity, it can operate on a large range of levels and operate outside of many definitions. Transgender and non binary individuals are not suffering from a mental illness or carefully “choosing” a different identity. The transgender and non-binary identity is multi dimensional, but it deserves no less respect or recognition than any other facet of humankind.

    It is essential to understand the difference between transgender people and non binary people. Transgender people feel like their assigned sex is wrong, and therefore change their gender and sometimes undergo surgery. Non-binary and genderqueer people identify themselves with neither an exclusively male or female gender, their gender identity is beyond the gender binary, sometimes fluctuates between genders, or rejects the gender binary. People who are genderqueer or genderfluid alternate between genders. Kind of like a craving for food, one day they will feel like one gender and wish to be addressed as such, and maybe in a day or a week they’ll feel like another gender and some days they will feel like no gender at all. This may seem to some people like they should just make up their minds, but trust me, if they could they would. Non binary people, however, feel like no gender, and will always feel like they belong outside the gender binary. Science has yet to provide an insight into the non-binary identity and whether there’s any scientific basis to them.

    Some people say that transgender and non binary individuals are just feeling gender dysphoria, and they can overcome it. Gender dysphoria is actually just a name for how transgender and onbinary people feel before they come out: feeling that your emotional or psychological identiy as male or female to be opposite to your biological sex. Gender dysphoria is a strong desire to be rid of your sex characteristics because you feel like they don’t belong to you. It is a strong desire for the sex characteristics of the other gender, or no sex charecteristics at all. It is a strong desire to be treated as another gender. It is a strong conviction that you are not the gender you were born as.

    Some people believe that gender dysphoria for transgender and non-binary people can be solved by therapy. However, researchers analyzed survey responses from more than 27,000 transgender adults accross the US with a roughly even mix of transgender women and transgender men. People who had undergone conversion therapy at some point in their lives were twice as likely to have attempted suicide than someone who had not. About 70% said they had talked to a professional at some point about their gender identity and of those 70%, 20% had undergone conversion therapy. All of the aforementioned people are still transgender.

    In addition, many medical associations and academies have spoken out against conversion therapy. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry “finds no evidence to support the application of any “therapeutic intervention” operating under the premise that a specific sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression is pathological. Furthermore, based on the scientific evidence, the AACAP asserts that such ‘conversion therapies’ lack scientific credibility and clinical utility. Additionally, there is evidence that such interventions are harmful. As a result, ‘conversion therapies’ should not be part of any behavioral health treatment of children and adolescents."

    The American Academy of Pediatrics says “"Confusion about sexual orientation is not unusual during adolescence. Counseling may be helpful for young people who are uncertain about their sexual orientation or for those who are uncertain about how to express their sexuality and might profit from an attempt at clarification through a counseling or psychotherapeutic initiative. Therapy directed specifically at changing sexual orientation is contraindicated, since it can provoke guilt and anxiety while having little or no potential for achieving changes in orientation."

    Since the beginnning of the non-binary movement, it has gathered skepticism, critisism, derision, and even violence. Many non-binary people (and transgender people too) are accused of being “special snowflakes” or “drama queens” and “attention whores”. However, this criticism ignores the fact that gender identity is largely personal. In addition, something as simple as the way you wish to be identified tends to cause hatred to be sent your way. There is little critisim towards non-binary people that can be directed towards them in a constructive matter. If a non-binary person is in fact “just doing it for attention” the name calling and hatred would just be feeding into their desire for attention and giving them exactly what they want!

    Finally, if exploring your gender identity is a “trend” as some have called it, then isn’t it better than the previous trend of feeling isolated and alone and having absolutely no way to be who you are and say what you feel? In light of the current lack of any scientific evidence as to the biological nature of non-binary transsexuality, it is best to act in the same way as any situation where there is a phenomenon yet to be proven by science: doubt, skepticism, and open-mindedness, which accepts the potential for truth, but does not assume it.

    Some people are against the idea of calling a transgender or non-binary person their chosen pronouns because they disagree with the way that said person identifies themselves, and they reserve the right to their freedom of speech. Dr. Jordan Peterson is one of these people.

    Dr. Peterson is a psychology professor at the University of Toronto. He released a video lecture series taking aim at political correctness. He was frustrated with being asked to use alternative pronouns requested by trans and non-binary students and staff. “I’ve studied authoritarianism for a very long time, for forty years,” Dr Peterson told the BBC. “It starts by people’s attempts to control the ideological and linguistic territory. There’s no chance I’m going to use words made up by people who are doing that, not a chance.” Dr Peterson is concerned proposed federal human rights legislation will elevate his refusal to use alternative pronouns into hate speech. There is currently a bill in Canada that prohibits discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act on the basis of gender identity and expression. Under this bill, Dr. Peterson is not guilty of hate speech, but he could face sanction under Ontario’s human rights code which extended protection to trans people in 2012.

    Conservatives like Dr. Peterson have conjured up images of good people being dragged off to jail for not calling a person by their chosen pronouns. To the contrary, as legal scholars like Brenda Cossman and Kyle Kirkup have patiently explained, the bill in Canada cannot lead to anything remotely like this. But the milk has been spilled, and rants have been recorded, and the subtext is that there is a segment of society accustomed to others accommodating their freedom but not the other way around.

    Some people are confused as to why calling someone by their chosen pronouns constitutes as human rights, but I am confused about something else: In what kind of society does the question of whether we should respect people provoke a major debate? In what kind of society does the sentiment “you can’t make me” constitute a compelling argument?

    In conclusion, there’s no reason to discriminate against non-binary people or transgender people because contrary to the popular belief, you’re not being morally or intellectually superior, you’re just being rude. Use their prefered name and pronouns. I promise it won’t kill you.