#but it's not like.....strictly relevant here? so I'm not going to

[fantastic-nonsense]

going to be quietly controversial on main and say that I don't think Kaz and Inej would live in and/or retire to Kaz's childhood farmhouse outside of Lij

Besides it being an incredibly impractical decision from a travel/communications standpoint and frankly a probably traumatizing experience for Kaz to live in a house where there's nothing for him but the ghosts of people he watched die, I just don't see either of them wanting to live there even semi-permanently. Give them a cute townhouse or apartment in a nicer district of Ketterdam, or have them renovate the Slat and make it super nice, or have them retire to the Suli caravans in Ravka, even, but a country farmhouse life just doesn't seem like a future either of them would want.

Kaz spends a significant portion of Crooked Kingdom refusing to abandon "his" city even though he'll be arrested and killed if he's caught. By the time of the duology he's spent nearly half his life in the city and will certainly be spending many more years there as leader of the Dregs. Ketterdam is his home; he's recreated himself as a Barrel Boy and even after stripping away his armor for Inej and his friends I don't think he'll ever want to go back to being the farmboy he once was. Do I think he probably needs to acknowledge his past and stop mentally separating "Rietveld" from "Brekker" at some point? Yeah. But you can't recreate the past after growing up and experiencing trauma. There is no back; there is only forward.

Meanwhile, Inej isn't "fit for a normal life" any more than Kaz is (which is something I think a lot of people forget), and we get at least two instances rejecting the idea of Inej "settling down" somewhere:

Inej noted that Matthias’ mug sat untouched before him, slowly cooling as he stared out the window. “This must be hard for you,” she said quietly. “To be here but not really be home.” He looked down at his cup. “You have no idea.” “I think I do. I haven’t seen my home in a long time.” Kaz turned away and began chatting with Jesper. He seemed to do that whenever she mentioned going back to Ravka. Of course, Inej couldn’t be certain she’d find her parents there. Suli were travellers. For them, ‘home’ really just meant family. -Ch. 21, Six of Crows

So he wasn’t fit for a normal life. Was she meant to find a kindhearted husband, have his children, then sharpen her knives after they’d gone to sleep? How would she explain the nightmares she still had from the Menagerie? Or the blood on her hands? -Ch. 27, Crooked Kingdom

Granted, Inej is 16 here and your perspective on what you want your life to look like can and will change a LOT as you grow older, but I think it's worth noting that the narrative supports the idea that Inej isn't built for a "white picket fence life" and doesn't want one anyway. She also refers to Ketterdam as "home," for all that she resents the circumstances that brought her there in the first place:

She’d called the ivory-and-amber girl her shadow, but maybe she was a sign as well, a reminder that Inej hadn’t been made for this life. And yet, it was hard not to feel that this city was her home, that Dunyasha was the intruder here. -Ch. 32, CK

Inej’s foot caught the edge of one of the metal scrolls, and then she understood. She didn’t have her opponent’s training or education or fine white clothes. She would never be as ruthless and she could not wish to be. But she knew this city inside out. It was the source of her suffering and the proving ground for her strength. Like it or not, Ketterdam—brutal, dirty, hopeless Ketterdam—had become her home. And she would defend it. She knew its rooftops the way she knew the squeaky stairs of the Slat, the way she knew the cobblestones and alleys of the Stave. She knew every inch of this city like a map of her heart. -Ch. 35, CK

Inej is Suli and an acrobat and a spider and a pirate. She's built for high places and close quarters and close-knit familial ties and freedom of movement...none of which are things that are easily accessible on a pre-industrial farm in the middle of nowhere countryside of a country not her own, far from the rest of her family and friends.

And this is all without factoring in Kaz's disability, which realistically would make him incapable of doing most of the work required of a small, family-owned farm owner. He could certainly do some of it without many problems, but the chronic pain and somewhat limited movement he experiences because of his leg would necessitate hiring farmhands to do the vast majority of the hard labor a working pre-industrial farm requires of its inhabitants. Which, granted, he certainly would have the money to do, but it does kind of defeat the practical purpose of moving Kaz and Inej out to a farm in the first place.

I get it. Cottagecore!Kanej is adorable, and so is Farmboy Kaz; there's a lot of really lovely stories that have been told using those tropes and I'm not trying to pick on them at all. But I do think that the fandom largely wants these things for them without understanding the lack of desire Kaz expresses for it within the books and the practical implications of what that would look like, especially given that neither of them are portrayed as being particularly suited for a quiet farming life, even in retirement.

[kierongillen]

i have to know - as a disco elysium fan who didnt do disco, what would you say is essential disco listening for me?

I'm hugely behind on the asks, but I have to answer this one, because I'm going to answer a connected but completely different question, and then maybe then loop back to you. I'm just looking for an excuse to ramble, and do the writer equivalent of a warm-up sketch (i.e. waste time).

My apologies.

If you wake up and decide that you want to get into a whole genre of music, there's basically two tactics.

(There's also the "Why would anyone care to get into something they don't care about", which is one of the few things I have a "There's two sorts of people..." response to - those who when presented by something unknown either think "why should I know about that?" or "why don't I know about that?" I'm the latter, and it's served me well.)

The first tactic is simple.

Jump on a genre with Best Of in the title and follow your pleasure response. Here's a Spotify one. What interests you? What excited you? What makes you laugh? Probably explore more of that. If not, indulge widely, and see what sticks. At a glance, Disco playlists seem to have the problem of most playlists, in that strictly not everything on it is disco per se. For example, Dancing Queen strictly speaking isn't a disco song - but it's a song about disco, in every way. But if anything has found its way on a playlist, it's found its way on for a reason.

In your case, you're interested in what Disco resonates with Disco Elysium. Which I've bought for C, but not played, but I'm aware of in a "if I was still a games journalist, this is clearly one I would write a lot about." I spent years writing about Planescape Torment, and I know a spiritual successor when I see one.

This makes me think the area you want is basically the classier end - the big bleak emotions, the chilliness, the control, lonely on a dancefloor, lonely everywhere, oh-so-much cocaine, and - to steal Paul Lester's line - glass mountains on fire.

Which leads back to the second way of getting into a genre of music - which is to hit a major artist, and hit them hard.

When asked about "how shall I get into a band" my advice is actually the opposite of what I'm about to give. If you just want to get into a band, get Best Of, see what tracks you like, then go to the albums they're from. But if you're trying to get into a whole genre of music, that's a more serious endeavour, and may reward the opposite approach.

Basically pick a key album from a key band, and get into it, and grow from there. Read about the band - you don't need much, but a little helps. Learn how to listen to what their tracks do. And then you use that band as the single point of knowledge you have to orientate yourself to everything else you listen afterwarads.

There's a huge danger to this - basically, no-one is more ignorant than someone with a little knowledge. You have to be aware that you are the person who knows a bit about Boss Baby, and using that to get into things other than Boss Baby.

The strength is that it's a more holistic, lived in knowledge than just skimming the surface. You understand the music better as an artifact of their times, made by people, responding to their specific situation - which adds different flavours to your appreciation of it. Sure, your own response and how it finds a place in your life is always the thing which over-rules anything else - but the more you can listen for, the more you can hear, the more you can get from a work of art.

Anyway - I'm telling you to go and listen to Risque by Chic.

Chic are basically fucking awesome. If you don't know Disco at all, the opening Good Times chilly ironic take on American late-seventies culture is a great and (I suspect) Disco Elysium relevant intro. You'll know it as a sample, if nothing else, and the eight minutes version that opens Risque is a great way to think about it as both music for dancing (it is endless) and music for listening (it is boundless).

I got Risque as Paul Lester went to bat for it so hard in the Unknown Pleasures book the Maker stuck on the cover in 1995 (it was covering 20 albums that had fell out of the critical conversation, and it absolutely changed the dirction of my listening in the period). Here's Lester writing about Risque more recently for a taste, as the original piece doesn't appear to be online. I just read it in my copy, and it's a burst of love, describing it Disco as music about love - never sex, only love, and mainly love that is denied. That seems solid, at least for the best of chic.

Risque is the Chic album that Lloyd from Phonogram would have been listening to, certainly. I know I did.

(Plus At Last I Am Free from C'est Chic, obv)

There's a lot of Chic to listen to - their own work, especially in the period, and all their productions. Their work with Sister Sledge is of particular import - Lost In Music was one of the working title for Phonogram, and you can see and hear why. They're also the Disco band whose influence is perhaps most obvious in other bands. Everyone liked Chic. No Chic, no Orange Juice, no Orange Juice, no Smiths, etc.

Sister Sledge was the first live band I was at. My mum went to see them when she was eight and a half months pregnant. The temptration to say I'd have heard Lost in Music then and sold is tempting, but ahistorical - it's well before their work with Chic.

Anyway - get into Chic. It'll make your life better - and when your life isn't better, it's a superior context to lose yourself.

However, to go back to your question, as a Disco Elysium fan, I'm not sure it's actually THIS Disco you're looking for.

How about Disco Inferno?

Not Disco at all, but most like itself than anything else, which sounds like what I understand about Disco Elysium. right?

(DI Goes Pop is the starting place)

[delusinaldreamer19]

Sebaciel vs. Dadbastian, an analytical essay (not really)

Oh boy am I excited and terrified to start this discussion.

I’m just going to say right off the bat that I am absolutely biased towards one interpretation of Sebastian and Ciel’s relationship over the other, that being Dadbastian. However, my goal is not to criticize, but to analyze and point out the differences and, yes, correlations between the two versions of their relationship.

I’m going to start off by making a disgustingly blatant assumption about the reason why I believe both of these pairings exist in the form of a theory...Both the idea of Sebaciel and Dadbastian are coping mechanisms taken on by fans of the series to grapple with how dark the character’s canonical relationship truly is.

Now, I can’t speak for how much this really applies to Sebaciel shippers, as I am not one. But it certainly applies to me as someone who enjoys the idea of Dadbastian.

Let's start with the correlations that support this theory. Both of these concepts are versions of Sebastian and Ciel’s relationship that is more positive than it actually is. The plot of black Butler revolves around the fact that Ciel sold his soul to the demon he named Sebastian, and that upon their contract's completion Sebastian will kill Ciel and consume his soul as compensation. It’s a relationship that is predatory, manipulative, and just simply toxic for a plethora of reasons. While the manga is still ongoing so we have no definitive way of knowing exactly how their story will end, I don’t think it's controversial to say that it's very unlikely to have a happy ending.

Even so, black butler is a comfort series for many, including myself. But how is that possible?

By looking at the series as a whole and the characters through different lenses. A pro and con of black butler is that it’s very easy to interpret in many different ways, and the same applies to the relationship between Sebastian and Ciel.

I’d say there's 2 to 3 main ways that people have interpreted their relationship. In no particular order… - As it is in the series, where it’s strictly based on business and mutual benefit. They work together so that Ciel can get his revenge and Sebastian gets his soul. - Them being friends / frenemies - A ship, where they have romantic feelings for each other. (I’m not going to be discussing how people ship them for sexual reasons, as that's a topic for a different day.) - And Parental, where Sebastian serves as a father/mother (no I'm not specifying which) figure towards Ciel. I'm focusing on the latter two, obviously.

There’s one commonality between these two interpretations; Sebastian caring about Ciel (and vice-versa, but you'll see in a moment why that's not as relevant). There is loving nature to both, but romantic and parental love are not the same thing. So why, baseline, do both these versions exist?

My thought is that they both remove the main cause of distress in their canon relationship. Which is, you guessed it, Sebastian. More specifically his feelings/intentions towards Ciel. By creating scenarios where something changes his intentions of ultimately killing Ciel, it creates the illusion that there's a possibility that the series could have a happier outcome in the end, and a happy ending for Ciel.

Which brings in a new idea. Ciel, being the main character that we follow, despite having his own complex character, serves as the…how should I put this…automatic ‘self-insert’ for people. He goes through/has gone through trauma & struggles that people can relate to and see themselves in. That's why there is a strong desire to see him have a positive outcome through these two different relationships with Sebastian, because as a reader/viewer it will feel like we ourselves are experiencing that positive outcome.

See? Coping mechanism : )

Now here's where things get tricky…Discussing the differences between these two types of relationships. Ok, I could probably find a way to say this that's long and fancy, but I’m just going to be super straight forward. This is as an absolute read, I apologize :’) People ship Sebaciel because they want someone to love them, where they picture themselves as Ciel with Sebastian as the one loving him romantically. People like the idea of Dadbastian because they long for a parent's affection, where they picture themselves as Ciel being cared for by Sebastian.

Now, this is definitely just a theory, and absolutely not the only reasons why people come up with and enjoy each of these interpretations. But the Dadbastian one most definitely applies to me.

Here’s where my own opinion comes into play. Only one of these relationships is really ‘positive’ in nature. Both of these relationships when applied to the canon would be problematic in their own ways, but when looking at it outside of the context of the series and its plot, a parental relationship between Sebastian and Ciel, a thirteen year old boy and an adult figure, is more healthy than a romantic relationship between a thirteen year old boy and an adult figure. Please don’t make me explain why :’)

I’m really hoping this reaches the right audience. I’m not trying to start a war or offend anyone, just share my thoughts and an outlook that I haven’t really seen from the black butler fanbase before.

[dharmafox]

Just had a Karakasa thought that made my hair stand on end irl. It could turn out to be hella spoilery, and it involves spoilers from the manga and from a Nakamura interview that was only released to backers, so I'm going to spoiler tag it and put it under a cut.

So we've been talking about Kitagawa being a ghost and about her being connected to the Karakasa's origins. Up to now I've been assuming that the Karakasa is an amalgamation of everyone and everything that's ended up at the bottom of the well, but maybe that's not strictly true. I don't doubt those things are involved in its creation, but the Karakasa itself could be just one thing, and/or one person: Kitagawa.

There's a definite precedent in the series for a single person or even thing to be the mononoke, and in fact that's usually the case. They're also usually dead: Tamaki, the Zashiki Warashi, Ochou (probably), the dead wood in "Nue," Setsuko. In fact, Genkei in "Umi Bozu" is the only (apparent) exception.

The facts as we know them so far are these:

(1) There's a high probability that Kitagawa is a ghost. Here's @purplealmonds's post going over a ton of clues that this is the case.

(2) Kitagawa is connected to the creepy doll. Based on:

a. The fact that she gets swapped out with the doll in the scene @purplealmonds pointed out:

b. The fact that she pops up pretty much instantly in the manga when Asa discovers the doll in a cupboard. She might even say here that the doll belongs to her, but I can't read Japanese, so... (This is actually the first thing that made me think she's a ghost—there's just something very ghostly about the way she pops up on cue like that and about her whole vibe in that scene. Unfortunately I can't find the relevant pages anymore—I think the chapter must be behind a paywall again.)

(3) The doll is connected very closely to the Karakasa. In fact, the umbrella that's almost certainly at the root of the Karakasa belongs to the doll. Nakamura revealed this in the backers-only interview and all but explicitly stated that the umbrella is behind the Karakasa (I mean, of course it is—it's a spooky umbrella).

(4) Kitagawa is especially closely linked with umbrellas. She appears with one in this scene that echoes the beginning of "Zashiki Warashi" and she appears ominously indoors with one (again, as @purplealmonds noted):

Without knowing more, I can only speculate about the exact connections among Kitagawa, the doll, and the umbrella, but they're clearly all intertwined. Objects as manifestations of people's souls seems to be a big theme in this story, so the doll could be a manifestation of Kitagawa's soul, or the umbrella could be, or both. Perhaps they were all separated by the Ooku and have been clinging onto the physical world trying to reconnect—with their grudges being fed by the additional objects and souls being discarded into the well.

At the very least, Kitagawa's doll's umbrella must be the origin of the Karakasa. But the real mononoke may not be the possessed umbrella. In "Umi Bozu," the real mononoke is Genkei. In "Nopperabou," it's Ochou. In the end, the real mononoke isn't a youkai or monster—it's the human who's been in plain sight the whole time.

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

What do you think gay men are attracted to in men that they can’t be attracted to in women?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives men-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait men have that women can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

- [ ]

I've let this ask sit in my inbox for a while, but I think it's time I answered it, though the answer will most certainly not be to your satisfaction, anon, I'm afraid.

First off, I'm a bisexual man, and so I definitely don't have any first hand experience of experiencing attraction to only one gender. And in these things, first hand experience is all that matters.

Secondly, as for other species, I have insufficient information about zoological studies in this field, but I don't think it's as simple as you make it sound (this isn't intended to be hostile, I'm just wondering)?

As for the last part, I certainly don't presume to define sexualities as fitting strictly into one of the boxes of culture, identity or inborn orientation. I'm sure that there are more perspectives on this than I can imagine, and I'm equally sure that the experiences of these queer people are valid.

Mainly, the reason I decided to answer this despite it being a non-answer, as you said, is because I do have something to say.

I'm not in the habit of forming opinions of subjects that I have insufficient information about. I know that being seen as neutral is often vilified. I've been in that position, being angry about people's neutrality regarding topics that to me seem obvious. I no longer agree with past-me on that stance.

I would rather not, in my ignorance, cause damage. I think that people with very strong uneducated opinions cause a good deal more harm than those who stay silent in a conflict they know nothing about. Of course this won't be true in all cases.

But personally, I prefer handing the mic over, as it were, to people with more experience, knowledge, sensitivity and perspective about the issue than I.

So, yes, I'll have to go with a very unambiguous lack of an answer here. I simply do not know enough about this, anon. Non-answers, I'm afraid, are going to be inevitable in deeply personal discussions such as these. These non-answers are invariably better than the divisive discourse, invalidation and gatekeeping that occurs a lot.

Let's all be a bit more okay with saying I don't know. I'm trying to be more okay with it every day. I cannot educate myself perfectly about every single relevant topic. I think that's alright. I hope it is.

[prettyboykatsuki]

extended authors note for another name for homesick

hey...lmao

first of all. i want to give a shoutout again to @ficsforgaza for hosting this event and giving me and my followers a nice way to fundraiser through our community. i just wanted a place to promote them and encourage people to donate and participate in the event. thank you for your hard work!

second, i'm writing this preemptively. i.e. before the fic is even finished. the way things are going right now, i have no doubt that i'm going to need some kind of authors note

this fic got more serious than i thought it would. which yeah, makes sense. i initially just planned on making this a horny fic with a little hint of bi4bi undertones but somewhere along the lines it started being about queerness and growing up on the whole.

there is definitely some sexism and homphobia relevant to omegaverse lore in here. there is also a lot of references to puberty.

specifically, though - there's a scene where reading experiences sexual harassment while very underage. and i felt that needed more context.

the scene itself is reader being on the train home while experiencing their first heat and their feelings of disgust in relation to their body's instinctual response to touch / sexual harassment by an older alpha.

i wondered if i should include this scene a lot before writing it but ultimately, it felt like betrayal to this readers struggles and characterization to not as it shapes their life and worldview.

the scene itself is not strictly necessary for you to read. it's intended to be more true to life in a way i know might be triggering so i will include an indicator for the scenes stop and start. but i wanted to give some explanation before that.

in general, i hope this fic doesn't upset anyone. i write a lot of incredibly dark content but it's very different imo to be writing something that handles such serious real life subject matter and i wanted to at least try to handle it with some level of delicacy.

it's really not my strong suit, nor is world building. im actually so dogshit at both its hilarious so imagine my horror and dismay when this fic won the poll. fdkjfskjd.

either way, i wanted to at least try to handle these themes with some care and i hope at the very least you can give me benefit of the doubt when it comes to how i've written.

this fic isn't meant to dismiss labels, but rather to emphasize that labels come secondary to acceptance and that love takes a lot of different forms. and i hope to any young queer people who don't full know which way they land that you're not obligated to put yourself in a box.

anyways. thank you for letting me yap and i hope you enjoy the fic. if nothing else, i hope the porn is hot.

love,

fang.

[mamamittens]

Oh, Sweet Child of Mine (pt. 7)

Platonic Yandere Whitebeard & Reader-Insert

Main|First|Previous

Featuring: Thatch nearly not being yandere before sliding right into it. And Reader showing that they've got both layers and a fair bit of madness. I kept the implied backstory vague as shit, so feel free to project or assume things, I'm kind of curious what you guys will come up with, ngl.

Warnings: platonic yandere behavior and manipulation. If yandere content or anything of that vein makes you uncomfortable, please do block "oh sweet child of mine" as well as any relevant tags for "one piece yandere". Do not tolerate coercion or this manipulative behavior in real like.

Have fun and stay safe!

Word Count: 2,119

There was something to be said about how vast the ocean was. Sometimes, you’d just… look out at the waves and get lost in the ebb and flow of the tides. It was difficult and chaotic at times, sure, but never not beautiful. On the Grand Line, the weather was notably more erratic than anywhere else. You considered yourself lucky that there had only been a small storm while you’d been on board the Moby Dick so far. And due to the vast size of the vessel, even large storms were unlikely to dump you onto the floor.

It had been almost two months since you’d been taken by Marco. By now, the crew was relatively certain you wouldn’t try and make a run for it on your own so you were mostly allowed to run around at your leisure. Meal times were still strictly enforced, as was bed time funnily enough, but outside of that they seemed to want you to integrate at your own pace. You supposed that even your great reluctance was preferred to swinging an ax at Whitebeard’s head—what the actual fuck Ace?!

You sat on the railing, looking out at the ocean.

You felt… not quite homesick but something close. You missed doing drills with the other ensigns. Running gopher for your commanding officer. You even missed Williams, for all that he was an ass. He was somehow the most tolerable one of the many partners you’d had. You spun the fabric around your wrist, thinking about how hard you worked to better your skills as a marine.

It wasn’t all about fighting after all. Procedure and bureaucratic red tape was a massive part of the job. Unless you had a very high rank, you couldn’t just go wherever you wanted and do whatever. You had to transfer home bases, file paperwork, ensure arrangements for payment were made, and a whole host of other things. And though everyone expected to move around a fair bit, there was a sense of comradery in the marines. You all had to suffer the same dorky uniform and insufferable training.

Everyone was working towards the same thing. More or less. And there was an expectation that you would be doing your best to help others.

But here you were. On a pirate ship seemingly fighting as a one-man-army to not be officially recruited as one of them. To stay a marine. Even if you didn’t feel like one very much these days…

“You look like you’re having a lot of deep thoughts there.” You jerked, head swiveling around to find Twin-Blade clambering up the railing to sit next to you. He left a decent amount of space, thankfully. He settled down and looked at you, grimacing a little with a soft laugh. “Look… I know we got off on the wrong foot—hey! Hear me out now! I just… I just wanted to officially apologize for the tea. Most of the time, new recruits are so wound up they don’t sleep the first night and it’s a rough start for everyone. Considering what I’d heard, I thought you’d need a good nights sleep more than most. I should have asked you though. So… I’m sorry.”

You stared at Twin-Blade for a long moment.

“…Bit more than just a night of sleep.” You commented dryly, causing Twin-Blade to wince.

“Y-Yeah… the tea really shouldn’t have worked that much though. You probably did need the extra hours but that doesn’t make it right.” Twin-Blade apologized again. You gave a soft smile before looking back out at the sea.

“Thanks, Twin-Blade.” You sighed, resolving to not tease him so much from now on.

“Is it me?” You paused, looking back at him as he spoke, his eyes serious. “Have you not joined because of me?”

“No. It’s not because of you. Or at least not all because of you.” You explained stretching until your back popped satisfyingly. “I’m still a marine you know. You can’t be a marine and a pirate. Kinda conflicting job titles there.” You gave him a side glance.

“Why do you still want to be a marine? We’re not exactly like other pirate crews out there. We’re a bit rough around the edges, sure, but we don’t do the whole ‘pillaging’ thing. And we have a lot of power and status. What are you losing by joining?” He asked like he couldn’t imagine a world where his crew wasn’t the best option.

Part of this you excused as all of them being just a little bit batshit crazy. And weird. That too.

“I didn’t ask to be here. I didn’t ask to be rescued or recruited. What other reason do I need?” You pushed back and he pouted.

“But we’d love to have you here with us. We have such a big family that anything you wanted to learn or do would be feasible. You’d never be alone. C’mon, isn’t there anything tempting with us?” He pleaded, unable to wrap his head around your persistent but quiet refusal.

You supposed that for most people, the reasons to not join would be few. Most pirates don’t have a lot of options. Unless you’re clever or strong or lucky it’s a tough way to make a living. Ruthless and cruel at times without even the thin veneer of bureaucracy to hide behind.

A fat raindrop fell onto your nose, breaking you from your thoughts.

You sighed wistfully.

“…I think you forget what it’s like to be small. If you ever knew to begin with.” You watched the sky darken to a soft gray as rain began to fall, your eyes fixed on the dwindling blue horizon. “Nothing to hold onto but a choice—shit as it is—to do something. To one day not be so small after all. All I’ve got are my choices, Twin-Blade. There’s nothing left to go back to. And I know I’m not the only one. Maybe as a marine I could keep someone else from having to make a shit choice too. That’s not something anyone on this ship can give me, though. Might not even be something I can give myself. But what else can I do but try?” You lifted up your legs and turned around, hopping off the railing.

Leaving Twin-Blade behind.

--*--

Thatch thought about your words for several minutes as the rain poured, showing no signs of stopping or getting worse.

He… actually did know what it was like to be small. He didn’t like to think about it often—if at all. But he remembered. It made him desperate. Cling to every bright spot in his life like it would leave him if he looked away. The idea that you felt small even now made his chest ache.

He wanted you here because Marco wanted you here and because Oyaji accepted your presence. That was all he needed really. Hell, Oyaji’s word was all he needed for Ace, and Ace was a feral little bastard man trying to commit murder daily.

Joining Oyaji’s side made him grow in a lot of ways from that small boy he used to be.

Thatch grinned, resolutely setting his shoulders as he hopped off the railing and headed back inside.

You didn’t feel like you had any real choices in your life. Any connections or anchors aside from your ‘shit choice’. So Thatch would just have to show you how free life is on board the Moby Dick.

Thatch slammed open Marco’s office door.

“We need to throw a party!” Marco gave him a dry look as he picked his pen back up to finish paperwork. “We need to show them how to live a little!”

Marco perked up the moment you were mentioned, naturally.

“Did someone say ‘party’?” Ace ducked his head under Thatch’s arm with a wide grin.

“Yes!”

“No, yoi.” Marco grumbled, cutting out the fun Thatch and Ace were starting to have. “You’ve got a mission the day after tomorrow and you can’t go with a hangover.”

Thatch frowned.

“I have a mission?” This was the first he’d heard of it.

“A small supply run for medical. Oyaji’s meds are almost out. The island we stopped at didn’t have any. I’d go but someone needs to bully him into taking what’s left.” Thatch grimaced but didn’t protest any further. “We can throw a party when you get back.”

Thatch grinned, brightening up instantly.

“Yes!”

--*--

You made goofy kissy noises at Stefan as you played with his ears. The dog amicably withstanding your teasing as he laid over your lap on the main deck. Whitebeard watched on with an amused stare as you ignored his existence. The Yonko pirate would, occasionally, try and talk to you or draw you into a conversation, but you’d been dodging him fairly well so far.

“…My child—”

“Sea king starboard!” Your head whipped up as you gently shoved Stefan off your lap. Instantly, looking towards the area that had been called out.

Whitebeard glared at the sea, his weapon at the ready.

“Go below deck—” Your eyes widened as the sea king raised it’s head over the railing. It resembled an eel in form with large black eyes. Baby blue scales with vivid pink frills running down it’s spine.

“Baby! Look at you~!” You cried out, darting to the railing to hold out your hand. “What are you doing all the way out here~?” You cooed, rubbing your hand on the shocked creature’s chin. The scales were hard as a rock but undeniably warm and softer than an adult’s scales.

You heard several very startled calls of your name but ignored them.

The sea king opened it’s mouth just barely, a low buzzing sound emitting from it as it lowered it’s head to look at you. You were smiling so wide it almost hurt, admiring it’s beautiful scales.

“D-Do you know them?!”

You laughed loudly.

“Ahah~! Not at all, but who wouldn’t want to know a precious baby like you~?” you rubbed your nail under the ridge of it’s jaw, the buzzing sound intensifying as you laughed, absolutely delighted. “You’re so pretty, baby! Look at this cute baby blue! And the pink ruffles! Ah! You look fancy~!” you praised it gleefully.

The buzzing warbled in shared delight.

“Aren’t you just the sweetest thing~? But where is your pod, baby? It’s not safe to swim alone like this!” You cried out, standing on the railing to cradle the massive sea king’s chin. The sound it made vibrated your bones, a deep rumbling call.

“Not safe for who?!”

“Holy shit is that more?!”

You leaned your head back to see several more sea kings just barely poking their head out of the water. You waved excitedly with one arm.

“Hiiii~! Are you cuties going to come up too?”

“Please don’t!”

“Oyaji, stop them!”

You pouted, glaring over your shoulder.

“You’re being rude!” The pirate gaped at you.

“I-I’m being rude?! Those are sea kings!”

“Duh? And I want to pet them and give them love, damnit! Stop! Being! Rude!” You enunciated firmly, ignoring Whitebeard as he laughed. You turned to the shy sea kings, “Ignore them! I’d love to see you~!”

The sea king in your arms buzzed again, withdrawing to sink into the water until it was eye level with you. Pretty black eyes blinking slowly as the pink frills fluttered, lights like an aurora going down it’s spine. You gasped in delight as it opened it’s maw wide. Rows and rows of needle like teeth on full display. It was big enough to probably eat Whitebeard whole, but the only thing you could think of was how impressive the baby sea king was.

“Mmmaaooo~! Mmmmmaaaaooo~!” You stared in awe as it closed it’s mouth and brushed it’s nose against your front, buzzing long and low one last time for good measure before sinking beneath the waves for good.

“Mao? What a cute name, ahah~!” You laughed, spinning on your heel with a skip in your step. “Mao’s so cute~! I can’t wait to see him again!”

Whitebeard fell back into his seat with a laugh.

“Gurarararara! I’m glad you had fun, my child! We don’t run into sea king’s often, but I’m sure you’ll see plenty more soon enough.”

“Ack! O-Oyaji! No!”

You huffed.

“Don’t get it twisted, Whitebeard! I’m still not joining just because that’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to a sea king!”

Whitebeard just laughed again as his children despaired the prospect of encountering more sea kings willingly.

You didn’t get the drama. Sea kings were just darling, in your eyes. More darling than any of the pirates on this ship at least!

[sydmarch]

for a couple days i've been wanting to post about the coin operated viewers & my thoughts there but kept getting distracted by other writing until earlier today @frogean asked me about my thoughts on the fishing village wrt; why would evrart gentrify a village full of people who can't afford to live elsewhere when he seems to genuinely care about martinaise, is the thing with the signatures just a ploy to see if harry's trustworthy, etc. & since thoughts on the fishing village tie back into my thoughts on the coin operated viewer i'm just gonna make one big post on both topics.

quick note before i start rambling here: the point of this post is NOT to come to a "evrart's actions w the fishing village good" or "evrart's actions with the fishing village bad" conclusion or to justify said actions. i'm strictly interested in digging into evrart's motivations behind it all & what i imagine was going on in his head while making these decisions.

first - to discuss why evrart involves harry in this whole thing. yeah i do think it's pretty likely that it IS primarily a test of his trustworthiness. I get the feeling that if the signatures were really as central to evrart's plans as he makes them out to be he would NOT leave it to harry to take care of it (even if we assume the most cooperative w evrart version of harry) just wouldn't see him him truly trusting a cop with a task like that ESPECIALLY not when kim's involved and evrart is very obviously aware that kim does not trust him. & harry is very well aware of the possibility that evrart is playing him:

as for why evrart chose this errand specifically as a test for harry, i can't say definitively. maybe this task was chosen because in addition to being a good general test of harry's trustworthiness, evrart wanted to get a real idea of what harry's opinions on this plan are? maybe the signatures really aren't actually important in the grand scheme of things like logic suggests? maybe the signatures are only unimportant because evrart has the letter intercepted? he does explicitly state he's friends with the mail man

so it could very well be the case that if you forge the letter he DOES know about it but doesn't let on that he knows (i feel like it's very likely he knows about the forgery especially, if doom spiral signs it out in the open rather than harry passing the forgery check & doing it in private??). also worth considering where you're mailing it to:

like it's going to evrart's account, not some neutral third party. so any of those things could factor into why he sends harry on this errand. I think it's more likely that if he REALLY just needed the signatures that evrart would've had some of his union guys get on it - although there's also the possibility evrart decided having rcm officer ask for the signatures on his behalf could be advantageous to getting the documents signed. another possibility is that evrart picked up on harry's can opening abilities & thought that having not just an rcm officer but HARRY specifically on the task might be advantageous, in addition to being a good test of his loyalty with those failsafes in place for if harry betrayed him on this one. so yeah i do suspect it WAS at least partly/primarily a test but don't feel like i can say FOR SURE if that's all there is to it & would be interested to hear anyone else's thoughts on this topic.

second - to get into the village situation itself & the coin operated viewer. throwing this screenshot up for some context:

I think it's really interesting how kim disapproves of evrart interfering with this "revitalization project" while also disapproving of evrart's actions with the village (again it all comes back to kim just implicitly distrusting evrart but i find the above especially interesting):

not going to rehash my thoughts on evrart's feelings about/intents for martinaise as a whole here even tho it's relevant to bear in mind but one aspect of that topic i DO think is worth mentioning specifically when it comes to discussing evrart's plans for the fishing village is that (if we take him at face value with the following, & for the purposes of this analysis i'm going to go with that interpretation) yes, evrart IS planning to use the construction noise to push the residents out of the village, but he isn't doing so thoughtlessly or without a plan on where they will end up:

& i DO believe this is his genuine intent because it's in line with his characterization when you consider how he keeps rene, gaston, & leo on the payroll. especially rene where he doesn't just keep him on the payroll where so that he can get by without his pride being wounded too much - he had the guard booth built specifically for rene. it wouldn't make sense for someone who DOES look out for members of his community to this extent to not extend similar consideration to the villagers.

i don't think evrart views his actions with the youth center as gentrification (again i will not be discussing if it actually IS or not - all of this is just my speculation on evrart's own interpretation of things) at least not in the same way that i imagine he viewed the revitalization project in '49. from evrart's perspective he grew up in martinaise, knows everything about the district, has the best interest of the people at heart etc, so why WOULD he allow some design studio to come in and start putting up tourist attractions?

i mean, they're putting up coin operated viewers & that horse statue meanwhile people are living in buildings on the verge of collapse? that kind of revitalization in all likelihood WOULD lead to gentrification and displacement. evrart doesn't want the people living in the village displaced - he wants them properly housed, to have prospects, to live in a district that's more than just a post war ruin. now whether he's actually going about achieving that the right way or not & if the villagers would agree with him here is a whole different topic but yeah.

[fondofcowboys]

here's my very all over the place feelings on certain aspects of baldur's gate 3 as a romani immigrant. warnings for spoilers of course. mind you i have not finished the game yet!

1. i really can't believe there aren't more people talking about the very blatant racism in astarion's questline. im quite sure it's because the game already touches on it, even giving you the choice to call astarion a racist, and also because everytime we roma talk about anything that makes us uncomfortable we're immediately shunned and "well actually!"'d.

the problem is that it feels Extra icky because the man who was the inspiration for the original dracula, Vlad the Impaler, kept romani slaves. this is the ONLY part of vampire history that, no matter how different the media, will always stay relevant for some reason.

castlevania has the seekers, a nomadic group of magic users who pass their history down orally. while they are *mostly* treated well, the first arc of the show literally shows them being hunted out of town for the simple act of existing.

vampire the masquerade... well.. that's an entire other can of racism worms.

curse of strahd has the "vistani", a nomadic group of people who are treated like third class citizens everywhere they go, and are of course, most known for being tarot readers and drunkards.

the vampire diaries have the "travellers", who get called "gypsies" explicitly as a derogatory word by other vampires.

i want you to take any vampire media you enjoy and ask yourself, "is there anti-roma racism in this?". i guarantee you, if you look for it, you're going to find it. for SOME reason, the only thing that stays consistent with all these different vampire IPs, is that romani people are hated and scrutinized at every moment of their lives.

i MORE than understand that astarion's racial insensitivity is part of him. it's part of what makes him malleable by the player. you can help him understand why he's wrong, or you can lead him down a worse path.

i still reserve the right to feel some sort of way about astarion sacrificing fantasy-romani children for power, willingly. don't get me wrong, he's my favourite character, right up there with halsin. which is why i obviously have so many feelings about this.

(yes, the Gur were written inspired by romani people, if you were not aware)

2. the anti-immigrant sentiment is such an inherent part of the story that i did not think was going to stick around for SO long. i dont really have much to say about this, i think i should've expected it. as a fan of dragon age (i know, tragic) i'm quite used to unnecessary fantasy racism everywhere i go, i just hoped it wouldn't be part of the main crucial story.

3. larian studios i am so so so thankful for the halsin romance. eternally. forever and ever. he's my pookie bear and i'm so grateful some extra time was made to create a romance for him.

can i ask you why the hell does halsin want to LEAVE. At The End. i've noticed how much he contradicts himself throughout his questline and i just... I don't know. i've seen some other people complaining about how non-chalantly he talks about being a sex slave and i understand too, but i think it's part of his character to not take the horrible things that happened to him seriously like he does with others. that, or someone at larian took an unknown substance that led them to make halsin Very inconsistent.

with the poly situation, some people are strictly polyamorous! some people are strictly non-monogamous and do not feel comfortable being in a monogamous relationship. i understand the frustration everyone, but that's how halsin is. i dont know if that was the writers' intention, but that's certainly what he comes across as to me; strictly non-monogamous.

what i DONT understand is why he says he only wants you, calls you "my heart", is so fondly and lovingly attached to you, and then he just.... Dips? Whatever. I'm ignoring that part forever. it's not canon to ME!

anyways. yeah. feel free to Engage in some Friendly conversation. emphasis on friendly, for the love of g-d

[osunism]

𑁍 O S U N I S M 𑁍

Hello y'all, welcome to my little corner of Tumblr! I'm Muse, the writer and fangirl running this blog. This is strictly fandom-related, mostly to house my 呪術廻戦 brainrot.

A rebloggable version of this.

I reserve the right to set and maintain boundaries with my blog and my writing. As a rule, I block ageless/blank/minor-run blogs. This blog is run by a real adult and so I only want to interact with other actual adults because my content lends itself to being adult-oriented.

Every original female protagonist I write unless otherwise stated is a dark-skinned Black woman. Sometimes I will include art or a model for closest approximation, but for the most part I make this explicitly clear in the narratives.

I usually only write OC/Canon ships. That is central to all of my writing. I know a lot of people are weirdly hostile about OCs being shipped with their favorite characters but I promise you it’s not and never will it ever be that serious. If you’re a dick to me about what I choose to write, at best the only attention you’ll get is a block.

That being said let’s just get this out of the way: I write characters who like to fuck. Sex is going to happen in my work so if that gives you the ick well…you’ve been warned.

I do not take requests. Writing is already very taxing for me given my health issues and schedule, and I want to focus on writing things that I personally enjoy, this includes prompts I choose to participate in.

Do not ask me about BioWare [Dragon Age and Mass Effect] content. Yes, my work is still available to read. But I no longer have any interest in creating content for that fandom, so don’t ask me about it.

My purpose and goal in my fanfiction is not to strictly be canon-compliant, and my interpretation of canon events and characters may [and likely will] differ from yours. Canon is not sacrosanct to me. If you find my work disagreeable because of this, feel free to go read the canon material!

If you like my work, pleasepleaseplease reblog it. Liking my posts or giving kudos on AO3 doesn’t do much if you don’t share it for others to read. Comments are encouraged and appreciated as well.

Due to the frequent racist hostility and unpleasantness in other fandoms I inhabit, my comments on AO3 are moderated as a rule. Be courteous.

Below is a list of all my current works. Since I’m currently only active in the JJK fandom, those are the works that’ll be listed!

⛩️ AO3 || FFN || OC Masterlist || Headcanons & Meta ⛩️

Fic Status Key

[♡] - AO3 version of the fic.

[⭑] - Tumblr version of the fic.

[♤] - Fanfiction.net version of the fic.

[🚩] - Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

[∞] - In Progress

[☥] - Rewriting

[☯] - Complete

Relationship Key

🧿👹 - Satoru/Sundari

⛩️⚔️ - Sukuna/Nadja

🧿🧜🏾‍♀️ - Satoru/Asabé

⛓️👸🏾 - Toji/Akasha

⛓️👩🏿‍🦱 - Toji/blackfem!Reader

Relevant Tags

#muse writes

#fic rec

#jjk x oc

#jjk x black oc

#jjk fanfic

#jjk fanart

#fic: [ficname]

#series: [seriesname]

#ch: [charname]

#oc: [ocname]

#otp: [shipname]

If [♡] [⭑] [♤] – One night, Satoru meets a woman who sears a place on his memory and in his dreams. Who was she? [☯] 🧿👹

We Might Even Be Fallin’ in Love [♡] [⭑] [♤] – The miracle of existence bridges the infinity between them. [☯] 🧿👹

Before It’s Gone [♡] [⭑] –Toji’s been darkening your doorway for a while and is only now realizing what you already knew. [☯] ⛓️👩🏿‍🦱

S O N D E R

This series, unlike Parallax, consists of stand-alone AUs with loosely-connecting narratives that share the universe. Some characters may reappear in these works from others, perhaps even in different roles, as different genders, with different origins. I’m playing with a multiverse thing here.

The Unforgiving Roads That Lead to You [♡] [♤] – Roxanne Abaza, the only foreign-born special grade sorcerer in existence, is called to assist with the wrangling and exorcism of Ryōmen Sukuna. What ensues is more than she bargained for. [☥]

Halfsleeper [♡] [⭑] [♤] – A young widowed sorceress seeks protection under the aegis of the Honored One, but he has a better idea for keeping her out of the clutches of her dangerous clan. [∞] 🧿🧜🏾‍♀️

Unsanctioned [♡] [⭑] [♤] – Bodyguard/Yakuza AU. Toji Fushiguro, who is in disgrace after having an affair with his boss’ now ex-wife, is now tasked with protecting her as the mercurial grounds of Tokyo’s Underworld begin to shift into uncertainty, putting the entire syndicate and anyone associated with them in peril. [∞] ⛓️👸🏾

P A R A L L A X

Beast of No Nation [♡] [⭑] [♤] – One night, the King of Curses took an over-curious fugitive of heaven to task. Over the course that night, and the many that followed, she found herself continuously drawn to the jujutsu world. [☯] ⛩️⚔️ || 🧿👹

Daughter of Disgrace [♡] [⭑] [♤] – In the aftermath of Satoru Gojo’s sealing, Sundari must choose rebellion in order to free him. Lucky for them both, rebellion has always been her preferred modus operandi. [∞] ⛩️⚔️ || 🧿👹

© 2024 Hajara Asiri. Do NOT copy, translate, plagiarize, repost anywhere without permission [reblogging posts is okay]. This includes my masterlist format. I only upload on Tumblr, AO3, and FFN. All general banners and dividers by @cafekitsune. Title banners by me.

[onecornerface]

Drug use & drug harms - long version

I'm interested in feedback or sources from anyone who knows relevant stuff in economics, policy analysis, or whatever.

X = drug use (e.g. total volume of substances consumed) Y = drug-related harms (e.g. physical & mental harms to the user + harmful acts & omissions by users against nonusers) There is a phenomenon in drug policy where policymakers see “X causes Y”, then they aim to reduce X (in order to instrumentally reduce Y, in direct proportion); but the result is “the remaining X causes *more* Y (per average token instance of X)”-- to such a severe degree that the total Y increases (despite the reduction in X). Is there a name for this? This seems similar to Goodhart’s Law? I'm not sure if it is strictly an instance of it? I could also subdivide it into a few parts, like (1) "use-reduction sometimes increases average harm-per-use" and (2) "sometimes #1 happens to such a degree that it increases total harm (not only average harm)." I claim that #1 is clearly true, and that #2 is often true as well (at least in countries where many people use drugs). However, here I'm not so much concerned to defend these claims, but mainly to better *specify* them. I'm just mainly looking for terminology, theoretical frameworks, and conceptual tools to clarify the basic ideas. Pls halp. To illustrate the idea more: In theory, it makes sense to try to reduce (the total amount of) drug harms *by* reducing (the total amount of) drug use. Ceteris paribus, "less drug use" DOES mean "less drug harms." Obviously. Halving the drug use should halve the drug harms. If legalization would increase drug use, then legalization should increase the drug harms. Hence why so much of the debate is over what does or doesn't increase drug use, without even bothering to carve "use" from "harm." (Not to mention non-drug harms, and deontic considerations like rights & autonomy, which complicate the picture further. I will set these aside here.) Hence why drug prohibitionists (like the ONDCP, led by the "drug czar") often cite use-reduction as their main proxy target for success in drug policy. (Some people also consider use-reduction an *intrinsic* value. I think this view is morally indefensible, for reasons I won't go into here. I'll be treating use-reduction as only *instrumentally* valuable. Also, some people slide between treating "use-reduction" as intrinsically valuable vs. treating it as instrumentally valuable-- I think this may involve a motte-and-bailey, or pandering to multiple audiences at once {e.g. keeping both moralists and pragmatists on board with prohibition] or suchlike.) However, there is a big problem: The "ceteris paribus" clause does NOT obtain-- and this is precisely because the *methods* of drug-use-reduction *increase* the harm-per-use. Prohibition may reduce total drug use, but prohibition *also* ensures that the average token instance of drug use is more harmful (compared to the average token instance of drug use under legalization). (For simplicity, I'm focused mainly on simple prohibition and simple legalization-- leaving out the many variants of each, and the many in-between positions.) Sometimes this harm-increase is a *byproduct* of the methods of use-reduction (e.g. cutting down the drug sales, leading to more dangerous volatility in the remaining drug market). And sometimes this harm-increase is an *intended* method of use-reduction (e.g. via direct and indirect punishments of users, like arrests and housing-evictions). In any case, this entails that use-reduction is a very flawed metric of drug policy success-- because the methods of prohibition will complicate the relationship between drug use and drug harm. (For "Goodhart’s Law"-esque reasons?) This is a problem worth analyzing even if one disagrees with my claim that prohibition increases total harm.

[cutebutalsostabby]

Follow-up question(s): How are Legend and Hyrule related? What exactly is Hyrule's backstory? I've heard he's not from Hyrule and that he's from Calatia instead, but if he's related to Legend, then how did that happen?

PS: Thanks for answering all my lore questions. You're always very helpful and I appreciate it.

Hyrule doesn't really HAVE much of a backstory. Officially, at least.

Zelda I and Zelda II were both built on fairly limited hardware, so the vast majority of the lore comes from the game booklets, which are fairly short and focus far more on the scenario than on the main character - meaning that our classic Link is described simply as a "young traveller". A very young traveller, in fact, since Zelda II takes place 6 years after Zelda II, and by that point, our protagonist has just turned 16. If he HAS parents or any other family or friends, they're never mentioned :(

"Calatia" doesn't exist within the official Zelda canon. It's from the Valiant comic books. I'm not a fan of Link's characterisation in those, but hey, if you're going to give him a homeland, "Calatia" works as well as any. And FWIW, Hyrule in Hyrule(Link)'s era is a tiny shadow of its former self - so I tend to hc "Calatia" as being part of the old Hyrule, which splintered into smaller nations over time. But that isn't strictly canon either.

The blood relation with Legend comes from Hyrule Historia, so is at least semi-canon. Here's the relevant section:

And here's the last we know of Legend (*which doesn't take A Link Between Worlds into account, since that was released later and is canonically a separate Link):

So basically: there's very little formal canon here, so you can fill the gaps with whatever you like.

Hope that helps! And yeah feel free to keep sending lore questions; they're fun!

[deerabigailhobbs]

Ok hear me out:

Adamgail siblings x inbred by Ethel Cain. Thoughts?

Oh, how I love analysing song lyrics :D

So I had listened to Inbred before this ask, and I'd actually say it's one of my favourite Ethel Cain songs, but I had sorta taken it at face value. "Oh, this is a song about an inc*stous relationship between siblings" and honestly, that's not something I'm comfortable talking about, especially with characters I see a lot of myself in. But after looking the song up online, seeing others interpretations and analysing the song myself, I think I've found an angle I'm comfortable enough discussing.

So, let me reiterate, because I think it's important. This song analysis is not about that kind of brother-sister relationship. I do not fuck with that type of shit. This is merely my interpretation of the song through the lense of the characters. Any references to love here, while dark and twisted, is strictly platonic.

Anyway, apparently in an interview, Hayden (the person behind Ethel Cain, for those unfamiliar) said that- quoting a Reddit comment here- "when she's using the word inbred, she's reffering to generational trauma. Trauma being inbred throughout the family." And I'd never seen this take before! Really opened my eyes and made me listen to the song in a completely different light.

The song is about a younger sister being dependant on her older brother. He's the only one she can fully trust. The father isn't mentioned in the song, but the mother is said to be "comatosed." I won't go through every single line of the song, but I'll do my best for parts I think are relevant to their characters. :]

Longgggg intro out of the way, now time to break down these lyrics.

"Watching him through holes in his door"

Now, I said that the father isn't explicitly mentioned on the track, but I do think this could be applied to Garrett Jacobs. Here, Abigail is watching him butcher the girls, perhaps he wants Abigail to retain some innocence, to him she's still his little girl. So he takes the victim(s) at night to his Cabin and carves them up. But Abigail is there, witnessing it all. Sort of a punishment she inflicts upon herself. She led the girls to their deaths, now she much watch the aftermath.

"Sucking on the back of his leg to stay warm"

The "him" now is referring to Adam. She's always by his side, so close that she could be "sucking on his leg" like some sort of leech, tight and unable to let go. He's the rock in her life. The only person she can feel safe around. There's also her "staying warm" and I like to think it of her as staying alive. The girls she sacrifices are simply one layer of protection, her brother being another. Perhaps she thought (especially in her younger years) that if anything were to go bad, if her father finally pointed the blade her way, Adam would come and save her. Keep her blood from spilling out and going cold.

"Older brother made a name for himself with the cops

Scumbag fuck, but I swear that he's not"

Due to their father's attention being solely on Abigail, their mother's presence all but absent, Adam would resort to other methods of getting it. That being: lashing out. Getting in trouble with the police, with school, with his parents, because even when they yell and hit him (more specifically his father), they're acknowledging his existence.

I think Abigail wouldn't understand at first. Just see her brother as a troublemaker. But as the years go by, all she sees is a boy in desperate need of love. And she can try her best, to give him that, to be there for him, but a sister's love cannot replace a parent's.

"He's so good to me and to nobody else

So you should watch yourself"

Pretty self explanatory. Adam may be a nuisance to almost everyone in his life, but he has a tremendous amount of love for his little sister. Although she can't replace a parent's loving touch, he still appreciates her for the love she can provide.

And to Abigail, Adam is like her knight in shining armour. He's there to protect her. If she were ever in immediate danger, she's sure he would be there for her, ready to defend. However, I can see her believing this less and less as she grew up, knowing her brother is just as helpless as she is.

"Mama's comatose, she can't leave the bed"

Their mother isn't literally comatosed, but with how absent she is in their lives, it's like she is. A person, alive, but not fully there. Unaware of what the rest of the family knows. (PSA: I do think Louise was actually a wonderful mother in canon, this is merely for the analysis)

"Something smells rotten and it's starting to spread"

A literal approach to this would be the smell of blood and decay from the victims. Another, the spread of crazy. Like Abigail said, "can you catch crazy?" Will her and Adam turn out like their father? Is it already spreading to them? Like a parasite, slowly infecting and taking over their bodies, until one day all they can see is their father staring back at them in the mirror.

"I'm bad, he's worse, we're already dead

We're already dead"

Abigail is bad for luring the girls to her father. "He's worse" isn't Abigail's thoughts on Adam, if anything she'd think he's better than her in a lot of ways, but what others (their town, peers etc) perceive him as. Abigail is the sweet, quiet girl who is "close" to her father. Meanwhile, Adam is a troublemaker who's the black sheep of the family. Due to the other themes of the song, I can see them living in a very religious area that isn't tolerable of what they consider "abnormal." So their hatred of Adam could also be due to other things, such as homophobia or transphobia (as I know trans Adam is a popular headcanon).

"You can't win em all

Who knows how much longer

I'll lay on the floor

Touch me till I vomit"

I interpret this as Abigail finally meeting her father's blade, bleeding out on the kitchen floor. And all she wants is for Adam to be by her side. To hold her until she vomits up all her blood, slowly dying on the cold tiles.

"I'm not scared of God

I'm scared he was gone all along"

Another self explanatory lyric. Abigail's life has been nothing but misery, and she starts to question the validity of God herself. Or maybe wonders if he turns a blind eye to her pain and suffering.

"Who will take the fall

Who of us is stronger

You'll just want it more

If you could, you'd have fought it

But you know you're not

From the start, they knew you were wrong"

This part stumped for a bit (and still does, I'll be honest) but I thinkkkk I've got something. Who will be more like their father? Who will follow in his footsteps? Going back to what Hayden said about generational trauma, which of them has an inbred desire to kill? Who has bloodlust flowing through their veins? Both? And of so, who's strong enough to fight it off?

I think if we're going off of the lyrics, it's Adam. I mentioned this in a previous ask, but the thought of Abigail escaping her dad, going to her brother, only to find out he's helping murderers really sticks with me. He took the fall. He tried to escape, to fight off murder, and came right back to it. And now he knows he can't fight it. That he's just like their father, handy with a knife. Knowledgeable in opening people up and seeing their organs on display. The people back at home were right, he's wrong. He's worse.

Skipping the second verse because it already goes over some of what I've discussed and well... That part, but I do want to discuss one lyric.

"If he wakes up, he'll show you what I'm talking about."

I have an image in my head of Abigail, the events of Hannibal playing out after her father cut her throat, and all she can think about is her brother. He'll see her on the news, he'll be here any moment now. To protect, like he had in the past. Unbeknownst to her, Adam is currently rotting away in some bathroom, his skeleton finally starting to show underneath decaying skin.

[antianakin]

@theneutralmime

Based on your example I'm going to assume you mean "fix it" as in a happy fix-it AU and not "fix it" as in how I would make the movie better.

Doing a fix-it where the actual fix has to happen within the plot of AOTC is harder than it seems. TPM and ROTS are a lot easier because they're the beginning and end of the story so one small change can make a really large difference, but AOTC is the middle of the story so it's a little harder to make changes that really make a difference.

I dunno, I mean, they could've sent more Jedi off to fight Dooku when he tries to run from Geonosis which could've overwhelmed him enough to be defeated which would have garnered them an early prisoner of war AND kept the Death Star plans from Palpatine. Obi-Wan and Anakin also could've just brought in more of those clones who were on the transport with them which might've helped to distract Dooku long enough for him to be defeated. They mention that capturing/killing Dooku might even stop the entire war from happening because it removes the guy who's primarily going to be RUNNING IT from the Separatist side. Dooku's already revealed a small piece of information to Obi-Wan that they could attempt to pressure Dooku into revealing more about, potentially. The main problem with capturing Dooku here is that it's pretty easy for Palpatine to find a way to free him, he's clearly got plenty of resources he can try to reach out to on the Separatist side, he can just hire Cad Bane if he needs to or something like that.

Maybe Obi-Wan doesn't lose the fight against Jango on Kamino and captures Jango so they can interrogate him about everything HE knows which could potentially lead to not just the revelation of Dooku and the droid army and the planned war, but also maybe the trap that is the clones. It's possible that Dooku and Palpatine do what they can to remove Jango from play either by finding a way to assassinate him before he can reveal what he knows or freeing him (personally I feel like they'd just try to kill him, he's not useful enough to expend the effort to free him when it's easier to kill him). I imagine Jango would be willing to exchange information for protection from Dooku at the very least. Maybe. He's ruthless and entirely without morals if we go strictly by the movie version of him, but he doesn't seem like a complete idiot either and can probably recognize that Dooku isn't going to save him and is very likely to try to kill him now that he's been captured.

It's possible that you could try to go for an AU where, instead of following Jango, Obi-Wan stays on Kamino to investigate that, but then he's kind-of making the same mistake Anakin does in this film by abandoning the mission he's SUPPOSED to be on in favor of something he decides is more important. Obi-Wan's mission is to find and apprehend Padme's assassin and while it's pretty clear Jango was INVOLVED in the assassination attempt on Coruscant, it's also pretty clear that it goes deeper than that and THAT'S what Obi-Wan chooses to pursue. He makes his report about the clones to the Council and then leaves uncovering that particular mystery to them rather than continuing to investigate himself and letting Padme's killer go free. As far as Obi-Wan is aware in that moment, they can always come back to Kamino to investigate the situation with the clones, but they may never get another chance to figure out who is behind these attempts on Padme's life and who hired Jango in the first place. And by the time they DO figure that out, it's too late and the war has basically started and the Jedi no longer really have much time to investigate anything.

By AOTC, the "fix it" relies less on someone making a different choice and more on who the good guys can capture who will provide the most relevant information to prevent a war from starting and expose the true perpetrators. Dooku can reveal Palpatine in a way Jango cannot, but Jango is more likely to make a deal and reveal what he DOES know and he seems to know enough that it could really make a difference. At the very least I think Jango would be able to reveal that this war is a sham, that the same people are running both sides of the war, and that the clones are a trap, all of which should be able to do enough damage to the Sith plot to keep something like Order 66 from happening and ultimately still lead to Palpatine's exposure and defeat.

[transmechanicus]

Hi! I'm honestly excited that tumblr recommended me a good blog for once. It's nice to see other trans ppl living their best life out here.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind a question, but I'm currently an undergrad and really interested in grad school. idk how applicable your experience would be since im a comp sci student, but what's it like in grad school? how accepting has it been of trans people for you? do you have any recommendations on what to do to increase the chance of getting in?

p.s. idk a ton about biochemistry or genetics, but i have a friend who's super into it (he's also planning on going to grad school for it lol), and I love hearing him talk about it. so I'm also curious as to what you're doing :o

Grad school is broken up into phases in my experience, which is dependent on institution and major. For me, year one is classes and rotations, the latter of which is 7 week trials in a lab of interest to get a feel for their work and the lab social and mentor environ. Classes generally compose discussing research techniques and recent publications, and test you on your ability to read research literature and understand it as well as propose follow up investigations. Year two is finishing classes and starting work on your thesis projects, as well as completing preliminary exams, which for biochem are written (grant proposal) and oral (ppt presentation of grant proposal). Year two has less classes than year one and your actual lab work dominates most of your time. Year 3, 4, and 5 are basically spent having a full time job as a senior lab researcher where you are expected to learn your local field well enough to come up with an idea and pursue it to discover or demonstrate something novel in the form of your thesis, as well as publish at least one paper on your work in the meantime.

My institution has not had any issues with trans ppl in my experience. I came out to my lab in Oct of 2023, and gradually to my classmates and the wider program over the following months. Administrative staff and professors have been very on the ball with my pronouns and chosen name, and our program recently got a new professor who is also a trans woman. I won't say which institution to reduce the amount i dox myself, but safe to say I'm content in regards to my treatment as a transgender person.

Getting into grad school usually requires demonstrated undergraduate research or a gap period of research employment after undergrad. I did some undergraduate work (though not strictly in my field) and a year of relevant employment after undergrad. 3 months into said employment I applied for grad school lol which was a little earlier than usually advised bc i hadn't been there long. (My post-bac PI was very demanding and restrictive so I wanted out ASAP). The main things grad schools are looking for is are you able to talk about research you're doing now, what research you want to do, and why you've chosen their institution. They want you to demonstrate you have an interest in researching topics they have professors willing to support, and also that you have the problem solving and data analysis skills to adequately perform research work and operate semi-independently. Having undergraduate or post-bac research that you can explain in detail why you did certain things, what the motivation is, what the goal is, etc is how you prove your worth to grad recruiters (who are usually professors looking for students).

My work is specifically focused on the use of short synthetic peptides to sense the activity of kinases, which regulate pathways in the human body related to growth, division, and apoptosis. When kinases are disregulated it causes various diseases, but it's hard to test drugs for many of these kinases bc there aren't effective monitors for their activity that don't get a lot of false positives due to overlapping signal pathways. The use of synthetic peptides with certain sequences gets around that issue of false positives, and they can be modified to provide information about how effectively a kinase is binding and interacting with the peptide, which would change under exposure to effective inhibitor drugs for those kinases. TL;DR I make little bits of protein to bind other broken proteins and tell me when they're turned on so other ppl can design drugs to turn them off.

Pls let me know if you have any further questions, I apologize that I don't know any comp-sci majors so this might be wildly inaccurate in some regards. XD

[ndrayton]

Ghost Stories Postmortem!!!

It’s me, FieryGaze!!! Now that Chapter 13 is out and posted and my brain has freed up about 75% of its RAM, I wanted to make a post just to reflect on the journey, drop some fun facts, & explain the intent behind some of my choices. Here they are in no particular order.

Spoilers beware, obviously. I'm going to be talking about the whole fic here.

Episode Titles

Each episode title refers to two things at once – the monster or challenge the group is facing, plus one other important thematic element. “The Demon King” is the simplest one, referring both to the actual Demon King and then to Kim Dokja gaining that power for himself. The others are a little more open to interpretation, but were chosen with the intention of referring to 2 specific things.

Constant reappearance of the number “Thirteen”?

I’d like to say there was a lot of thought behind this, but there wasn’t. I just went “ooo, unlucky number” and ended up repeating it as often as possible. 13 years since KDJ and HSY met; 13 years spent in the spirit world chasing the Endless Cycle; 13 loops before KDJ met YJH. It was a lucky coincidence that the chapter count also happened to be 13 (I’d initially planned for twelve, and everything that happened in Unseen World was supposed to be squished into the end of Infinite Loop Part II. When I realized that was absolutely NOT going to give me enough space to resolve everything, I was delighted to realize that I could make the chapter count 13 and have it be thematically relevant and Not just a case of poor planning).

Lee Seolhwa also states that the number 7 is significant for certain spirits. I just think it’s fun that the total chapter count ended up as 13 and the total Episode count as 7.

Perspective and Tense Changes

From the beginning, the use of first person was actually a bit of a false flag—it’s meant to represent the ghost of Kim Dokja, trapped in the loop, imagining himself as the living version of himself going on these adventures. Kim Dokja as the narrator states this outright.

It was about time I stopped pretending that “I” was really this person called Kim Dokja. (Ch. 11)

Maybe I pretended for a while, for a long while, that it was really “me” who was fighting at your side. (Ch. 13)

The first person narration also tends to flip between present and past tense, especially in later chapters when Ghost!KDJ begins using second person to refer to Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk, but also when he’s making general observations about the world. It’s not technically grammatically correct, but I was trying to grant a small step of separation between him and the other characters, whose perspectives are written more strictly in third person past tense.

The final monologue is also in present tense, unmooring it from the sequence of events of the story, hopefully making it feel a little more dreamlike/internal. I feel like I’m allowed to mess with tenses this much only because it’s an orv fic and I’m not afraid to get meta.

I also used present tense during almost all of chapter 10. I wanted it to feel like a whole separate fic-within-a-fic, and a lot of fanfic is written in present tense, so I was deliberately evoking that (including See You Yesterday, undeniably a MAJOR inspiration for this chapter). I also wanted to provide a sense of immediacy—Yoo Joonghyuk truly believes that what he’s experiencing in the dream is really happening to him, right now—that I could pull back on once he realized he was dreaming, returning to past tense and the main flow of the larger story.

As a side note, by the time I finally finished chipping away at chapter 10 I thought it was awful, so I was surprised and delighted when it became everyone’s favourite chapter, lmao. This is probably why people have beta readers, to get a little bit out of their own heads. Anyway, the positive response to that chapter really brightened my week.

… My favourite scenes 😊

The first scene I really had a blast with was probably the possession scene—what can I say, you don’t make a “Paranormal investigation AU” without wanting to play with a few of its standard tropes. That’s when I realized I could happily keep writing this fic for as long as it took to finish it (I initially planned for 2 months. It became 4.)

I also had such a fun time writing all of “Blank Message”, from the kids bullying poor Dokja to what amounts to me basically just drawing hearts around Yoo Joonghyuk’s name as he fails to use technology but also gets to be the most specialest boy in the world. That episode practically wrote itself, honestly. I accidentally wrote like 12,000 words of it in my phone notes app because I kept having ideas at work and had little else to do during our slow season.

My actual favourite scene, though, might be Yoo Joonghyuk cooking in Han Sooyoung’s kitchen in Ch. 12? I just thought it was sweet. Maneuvering those two into a position where they could be emotionally vulnerable with each other was a challenge. My notes for that section are funny to me, I’m just struggling to get to the heart of the scene and yelling at them to please be emotionally vulnerable.

... There was like 500 more words of this.

I can’t help but feel the yoohan corner of yoohankim got a little neglected in this fic, but it’s because they had so many unresolved issues that I couldn’t just leap ahead to the romance angle without first addressing them… and by then the fic was kinda over. Please understand, however, that they love and understand each other deeply despite (because of??) being the way they are. Maybe I’ll explore that more in future stories. Who could say.

Most challenging part to write?

Wrong Room Part II, Forgotten Boy Part II, and the first bit of Devourer of Dreams Part II before Kim Dokja showed up (it was way easier to write once he was there because the joongdok dynamic really pulled the plot along).

All three of these had significant rewrites and Forgotten Boy Part II took me like… an entire week to figure out. The Part II’s tended to be tricky because that’s when I was making all the setup from Part I pay off, but I wanted it to be engaging and exciting and not feel too paint-by-numbers. I learned a lot writing these!

What was Yoo Joonghyuk saying at the end of Blank Message that got censored?

“▪▪ ▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪”

“Do you really not remember…”

Well, maybe you can intuit the rest from context clues (what Mia was saying just beforehand).

There was a bunch of other censoring when Kim Dokja was trying to explain to Yoo Joonghyuk where all his special knowledge of the time loop came from, but I didn’t actually note it down as it was all pretty much able to be inferred, like “the loop is actually based on a book series”.

There’s certainly more to find, but that’s all I have to say for now!

I fun with foreshadowing, but I’m not going to call out anything specific, because I think it adds to reread value. There’s an especially mean bit of “foreshadowing” in one part that had me absolutely cackling. Let me know if you find it.

Anyway!

I had no plans to put so much time and effort into writing fanfic this year, and yet here I am with 120,000 words in four months, which is… FAR AND ABOVE my normal writing pace, especially lately. What can I say? Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint is a really special story and I don’t have any friends who have read it, which put my brain into an absolute pressure-cooker for which the only release could be writing orv a novel-length love letter.

I’m seriously thankful for everyone who read the story and left so many emphatic, excited, and kind comments. The readers absolutely transformed this experience from something I was plodding away at by myself just to see if I could do it into something I was really excited to share with others, and as a result I put a lot more effort and care into the story.

I do have a few other ideas for this AU—for which the seeds are actually already planted in the story—but, as I mentioned in my author’s note, I desperately need to take a fanfic break for a while. I can’t promise if/when I’ll get back to it, but I would definitely like to at some point.

IN ANY CASE, FOR THE LAST TIME ON THIS ADVENTURE….

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!!!!!!!!!!!!!