#but my standards for media are apparently not that high

[poorslaindoll]

I’m gonna be so fucking real with y’all rn.

So I’ve more or less been casually keeping up with Hazbin Hotel since the pilot days. I did some fanart at some point and did a cosplay once, but I currently do not consider myself part of the fandom (certainly not the hatedom bc y’all are kinda ridiculous). But anyway I’ve seen a lot of the criticisms for the show and have seen the episodes (I’ve also seen all the Helluva Boss episodes and this all applies to that show as well). And while I have a handful of criticisms of my own, none of them involve the amount of cursing in it???

Because like…

I do NOT understand why everyone gets so pissy about the cursing. Like maybe it’s because I’m a homestuck fan and that comic curses more than both Hazbin and Helluva probably ever will combined and I see nothing wrong with it? Like cursing isn’t the punchline like some of y’all seem to think it is. That’s just how some people talk and for the LIFE of me I do not see why people are clutching their pearls about it. Like is there some social standard about swearing that I missed? I know some people prefer to not curse and that’s fine and up to personal preference. But like… Growing up on the internet in the 2010’s alone got me so desensitized to profanity that I literally could not care less when someone drops the fuck word.

I curse like a sailor, most of my friends curse like sailors, and even my super religious mom curses like a sailor sometimes. So every time I hear someone complain about it I’m just like… okay??? Get over it??? I understand that there’s a time and a place for the use of certain kinds of language, but you’d think that an adult show targeted for adults about a place where everyone’s an asshole is an appropriate instance for swearing to be allowed.

Sorry if that comes off as harsh or insensitive for some reason. It just really baffles me and I am so genuinely confused about it all. This isn’t even an "oH tHeY’Re iN heLL" thing either. I just don’t understand and low key feel like I’m either going crazy or just really missing something here.

[blood-choke]

literally I need a slice of life segment scene of Clear catching MC up on lesbian pop culture???? Like making them watch a Shane McCutcheon edit on repeat or throwing carol on the tv

all of them crowding on the couch to watch the L word together would be kind of iconic ngl. Clear definitely has the full series dvd box set (she collects lesbian lit and media). i do have a hard time imagining Valentina watching anything really, she's more of a book kind of gal, but she could definitely be convinced... then she'd probably get really into it, 8pm sharp once a week for the L word episode. or else.

[wosoamazing]

Newest Signing

Part 1 - Fire on Fire Series A/N: This is the first part of my new Leah Series, I have already started writing and planing parts of it but if you have any ideas let me know and I will try and include them.

Leah sat on her phone scrolling through various social media platforms, it hurt to see so many other people happy, with their partners when she wasn't, she had never had a successful relationship, to her no one was right, no one was the right match, she didn't feel like they clicked. So many of her exes told her that she had 'too high standards' or that 'soulmates don't exist' or something along the lines of 'you aren't perfect so why do you expect someone else to be perfect'. However she wasn't looking for a soulmate, she wasn't looking for someone perfect, she was just looking for the someone who was perfect for her.

She had started to think that maybe she was just asking for too much, and that her standards were too high, but that was until the day Jonas introduced the team to Arsenal's newest signing.

"Girls this is Y/N Y/L/N, she is our newest signing, and yes she did sign outside of the transfer window as approved by the FA due to issues at her old club, but no further questions on that please. She isn't going to be fully joining training until our Portugal training camp, just so she has some time to settle in but also a well deserved break, but you will see her in the gym and around the place, so please make her feel welcome. I think she is going to be really great for the team."

Her eye's immediately connected with the brunettes, she was tall and muscular, her face held the dreamiest blue eyes, and her smile was perfect, she continued watching the girl as she hugged Stina, the way her hair flowed, her body flowed, it was safe to say Leah was mesmerised.

"Stop staring, you creep" McCabe whispered in Leah's ear, causing her to break from her trance, giving the Irish women a playful smack on the shoulder. "I'm going to the gym," she said as she stood up and headed out, everyone around her making eyes at each other.

_____

You walked into the locker room behind Jonas and as he introduced you to the team, a certain blonde's eyes connected with yours, you couldn't help but notice the small smile her lips created when she saw you, but you quickly diverted your gaze to your best friend. Walking up to her and hugging her.

"I'm glad they let you sign out of the transfer window," Stina said, sounding relieved as she released the hug, "yeah I was worried they wouldn't but once I explained to the FA what was happening they were horrified and told me they would reach out to whatever club I wanted to, within reason, and see if they would sign me. Apparently there are going to be investigations."

"Good, they shouldn't be doing that. But where are you staying? You can crash at mine until you find a place if you need."

"Thank you, but I'm all good, Moster and Tante said I could stay with them, as they are in Paris for the next however long, however it was more a non-negotiable, I think they also meant I was going to be staying when they came back, again non-negotiable, but I'll see."

You and Stina continued talking until it was time for the girls to go to their meeting. You had an appointment with one of the physios just so they could check your range of motion and get some base lines in case you were to injure yourself before your first fitness testing session. As you walked into the gym, you saw a certain blonde in the corner, working away at some exercises which must've been set for her. As you worked with the physio completing the activities and exercises he wanted you to do you couldn't help but notice the way the blonde kept glancing over to you, almost as if she wanted to talk to you.

_____

You sat down at a table with Stina and Frida, Caitlin joined you and wanted to catch up with you and also trying to help you integrate with the team more easily, Caitlin's presence meant that Katie and then consequently Beth sat with you too. You knew the Aussies already due to having spent most of your childhood and your very early twenties in Australia, due to your Tante's work.

"Steph," you called out as you saw the very flustered Aussie walk into the dinning hall, she turned her head around to you, just about every emotion passing through her face.

"Y/N?" she questioned as she walked towards you, "what are you doing here?"

"Well if you weren't late you would've been here when Jonas said I was transferring here," you weren't normally one to say anything about your teammates being late, especially new teammates, however you are Steph had been teammates a long time ago, making your senior team debut for Melbourne Victory exactly a year after she made hers, and she also had a mark on her neck, so you were waiting to see how bad her excuse was.

"Sorry yeah I slept in, Calvin was up barking most of the night. It's so nice to see you again though," she explained as she pulled you in for a hug.

"That mark of your neck would indicate otherwise," you whispered in her ear, she just groaned knowing everyone would've already seen it.

You spend the rest of the lunch talking to mainly Steph or Stina and Frida but occasionally others would make some small talk with you.

After lunch you said your goodbyes to the team, and started to make your way out, when you heard someone call out your name, you turned around to see Leah moving towards you. "Would you like to join me and some of the team for dinner tonight? We are just going to a local pub," she questioned.

"Umm," you filled the air as you hesitated not sure what the goal of her invitation was, "if you don't want to, that's totally okay, I mean you're probably busy anyway," she quickly spat out trying to backtrack.

"Oh no, I would love to, it's just that I don't currently have a car," you told her as you fiddled with the ring on your finger.

"Oh, I can drive you if you want, you can just message me your address later," you nodded and mumbled a quiet thanks before you both went your separate ways.

____

You were just about to put your shoes one when you received a message.

From Leah: I'm just out the front in the car, no rush though. I know I'm early.

To Leah: Hey, all good, I'm actually just putting my shoes on now, I'll be out in a second.

You're pretty sure Leah's eyes widened as you walked out of the house and to her car. You opened the door of her car and saw her eyes run over your body before she said "You look nice," "Oh, thank you, it's nothing," you blushed slightly climbing into the passenger seat, but in truth it was nothing. You had a pair of light blue skinny jeans on, with a cropped country road rugby jumper on. You also have a black puffer vest in case you needed it but you placed that on the floor as you got in.

"You look nice too," you said as an afterthought, almost regretting it instantly, it probably wouldn't been better to say nothing at all than say that.

"Thanks," she smiled at you softly before she began to drive.

---

It was safe to say by the end of the night you hadn't once regretted your decision to come, all the girls there were super nice and it was a really great way to get to know them all, outside of soccer.

"Um, we're about to head home and we just thought to offer to take you home, since, um," Beth gestured over to where Leah was a the bar, you couldn't help but feel a small wave of warmth travel through your body at the fact that the team already seemed to care about you.

"Oh um, yes please that would be great," you followed Beth and Viv to their car, making small talk with them on the way home, when the car pulled up outside your home you didn't miss the look the couple sent each other, you quickly hopped out and thanked the two women profusely, before walking up the stairs of your home and collapsing onto your couch, noticing a message from Stina.

From Stina: Hey, I hope the night out with the girls went well. What would you say to a movie night at yours tomorrow night? In the theatre?

To Stina: Hey yeah it went well, Beth and Viv took me home, will explain why tomorrow night at movie night in the lounge room, you can invite Frida if you want too.

From Stina: Okay. I'll be over around 5. From Stina: Wait, why the lounge room?

To Stina: See you then, I'll make pasta.

[mooncurses]

To add to the current trend of calling out the bullshit that Zionists spout, here's a collection of not so fun facts for my friends outside of Italy.

Some of you may have heard of how Ghali, one of the most famous singers in Italy who is of Tunisian descent, has been criticized by Israel's Ambassador to Italy Alon Bar, who accused him of spreading hate just because he called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Then to remind us all of how much of a grip on the balls of our entire nation Isr*el has, a letter recounting the October 7 happenings was read on air to "balance" things out politically speaking (as our useless Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister stated, whatever the fuck that means). On his part Ghali responded with confusion and honesty, simply saying that as an artist he's always going to use his platform to talk about what he thinks is important, besides the fact that he's always been supportive of the Palestinian people since he was a kid (thus reiterating how their struggle has NOT started on October 7). In no part he ever invoked anything but peace, and yet he sparked controversy.

Of course what this episode merely sheds light on is the shameful and blatant climate of selfcensorship that has taken over the Italian mainstream media. It's not even an isolated accident: just days prior another contestant of the Sanremo festival, Dargen D'Amico, was attacked by the mainstream press after he dared take a minute after his exhibition to remind everyone that with our silence we are all complicit in the deaths of countless children right now. Sure enough he was forced to apologize "for getting political" the very day after.

To protest this cowardly and disgusting attitude that has become the standard in Italy, a peaceful sit-in was organized today in Naples in front of RAI (the public TV network that broadcast the Sanremo festival and that is funded with tax payers' money). After the protestants tried to hang a pro-Palestine banner on the fence of the building, police brutality quickly ensued and several people got hurt after being hit in the head with batons (you can find a video of the whole scene unfolding here).

So the thing here is that you can see how the top brass of our government desperately wants us all to just be complacent in the killing of Palestinians at hands of Isr*el. Much like what happened with the bombing of Rafah carefully made to overlap with the Super Bowl, the pro Isr*el Western governements very much hope that our silence can be bought with as little as good old panem et circaenses. And I've gotta say, at least in the case of Italy, it's almost like in doing so they forget how we young people were taught about genocide in the first place.

They drilled an acute awareness of what genocide looks like into each of our heads throughout our whole grade school life. We would hold our yearly minute of silence for the victims of the Holocaust on Remembrance Day without fail, we would read "Se Questo È Un Uomo" by Primo Levi as early as eight grade and analyze it thoroughly. We would study Hannah Arendt's philosophy while focusing especially on her ideas about the banality of evil that she witnessed during the Nuremberg Trials. Most high schools organized mandatory conferences with Holocaust survivors as speakers and visits at the local synagogue, as well as extra curricular activities (I'm talking weeks long train trips to Dachau and other concentration camps while accompanied by members of survivors associations and historians) to further spread awareness about the horror of the Holocaust and make sure that we would never let it happen again, that we would take a strong stance against it if the situation ever called for it.

And now we are living through the first genocide that's being documented live for the whole world to see and yet apparently nobody can say nothing about it. The countries that so far have taken a strong stance against Isr*el are so few it's absurd considering the enormous amount of damning evidence of war crimes, human trafficking, and ultimately ethnic cleansing that Isr*el is carrying out. It's even more absurd if you think of how casual the Isr*elis are about all of this, perfectly knowing that as long as they are backed by the world's largest powers they are basically untouchable. The banality of evil for real.

But here's the thing. Isr*el is just a country run by the military and made up of brainwashed ultranationalist colonialists, who think it is their birth right to kill every last Palestinian and mock their suffering because that's what they've been told confidently their whole lives. They think that the suffering their people lived in the past made them beyond moral reproach today, that their right to self-defense can spill over to offense and nobody will ever blame them, and they are so convinced of this that they will respond to actual accusations of genocide and war crimes simply by saying "that's antisemitic" and moving on.

Even just recalling the words of Holocaust survivors who spoke up about genocide has stopped clicking in the heads of many people because they see everything pertaining to the Jews as exceptional in its political, social, and historical dimensions, even when it's not. To better explain what I mean let me summarize another fun fact from very recent happenings in Italy. This last January 27, on Remembrance Day, several protests by young people of Palestinian descent and other supporters were held in various cities to condemn Isr*el's actions in Palestine, despite having been forbidden for "security reasons" after some complaints of the Jewish community called for the protest to be rescheduled. Some of the words that were written on the banners that the protestors held are quotes of Primo Levi, a writer and Holocaust survivor who passed in 1987. The aftermath of the protests was basically centered around Noemi Di Segni, the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), who said that the remembrance of Levi's words should be left to Jews, and then called for an end to the "verbal violence" against Jews that pro Palestine stances imply.

"Cease the fire of words against us is what we say to those who continue to accuse Israel of war crimes and genocide, with slogans based on nationality and faith, giving credence only to Hamas propaganda and giving new life to prejudices that we had hoped were extinct," Di Segni said. She also said that this kind of "Islamic suprematism" should look for quotes elsewhere, basically.

The funny thing here, however, is that the words that Levi originally spoke and that Di Segni and many other Zionists say have been "appropriated" by Palestinians were words that were never meant to be exclusively related to the Holocaust and the persecution of Jews specifically. All the contrary, they invite caution especially by reiterating that everyone needs to retain awareness of the horrors of genocide, because anyone (even Jews themselves in theory) could let such unspeakable things happen again if they let themselves forget. These are the words:

"Se comprendere è impossibile conoscere è necessario, perché ciò che è accaduto può ritornare, le coscienze possono nuovamente essere sedotte ed oscurate: anche le nostre". (trans: "If understanding is impossible then knowing is necessary, because what happened can come back, the consciences can again be seduced and obscured: even ours.")

This is important because to imply as Di Segni did that the Holocaust is a self contained episode in history, that words of warning against genocide in general can only be used in the context of a particular genocide that happened over 75 years ago, is the exact opposite of what survivors like Levi wanted the world to think.

The title Levi gave to what his English-language publishers called “Survival in Auschwitz” was “Se Questo È un Uomo” (“If This Is a Man”). The Nazis’ crime, he believed, was to treat the Jews as if they weren’t men—human beings. But the Jews’ suffering, he said, did not make them better people, or give them special rights. They had to observe the same moral standards as anyone else. Levi abhorred what we now call “exceptionalism.” This affected his views on Israel. He repeatedly condemned the Israelis’ treatment of the Palestinians. When, in 1982, the Israelis stood by as the Christian Phalangists massacred the Palestinians at Sabra and Shatila, he called for the resignation of Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin. “Everybody is somebody’s Jew,” he told a reporter, Filippo Gentiloni, from the Italian newspaper Il Manifesto, and he cited the abuse of Poland by the Russians and the Germans. At that point in the interview, printed on June 29, 1982, Gentiloni closed the Levi quote and added a sentence of his own: “And today Palestinians are the Jews of the Israelis.”

Anyways, keep calling things as you see them. It may piss off some people, but it's the only way things can actually start to change in such a mud pool of empty politics and performative activism such as what we're witnessing in most Western countries.

[dragoneyes618]

"Perhaps presenting all these facts has the opposite effect from what we think. Perhaps we are giving people ideas.

I don't mean giving people ideas about how to murder Jews. There is no shortage of ideas like that, going back to Pharaoh's decree in the Book of Exodus about drowning Hebrew baby boys in the Nile. I mean, rather, that perhaps we are giving people ideas about our standards. Yes, everyone must learn about the Holocaust aso as not to repeat it. But this has come to mean that anything short of the Holocaust is, well, not the Holocaust. The bar is rather high.

Shooting people in a synagogue in San Diego or Pittsburgh isn't "systemic"; it's an act of a "lone wolf." And it's not the Holocaust. The same is true for arson attacks against two different Boston-area synagogues, followed by similar simultaneous attacks on Jewish institutions in Chicago a few days later, along with physical assaults on religious Jews on the streets of New York - all of which happened within a week of my visit to the Auschwitz show.

Lobbing missiles at sleeping children in Israel's Kiryat Gat, where my husband's cousins spent the week of my museum visit dragging their kids to bomb shelters, isn't an attempt to bring "Death to the Jews," no matter how frequently the people lobbing the missiles broadcast those very words; the wily Jews there figured out how to prevent their children form dying in large piles, so it is clearly no big deal.

Doxxing Jewish journalists is definitely not the Holocaust. Harassing Jewish college students is also not the Holocaust. Trolling Jews on social media is not the Holocaust either, even when it involves photoshopping them into gas chambers. (Give the trolls credit: They have definitely heard of Auschwitz.) Even hounding ancient Jewish communities out of entire countries and seizing all their assets - which happened in a dozen Muslim nations whose Jewish communities predated the Islamic conquest, countries that are now all almost entirely Judenrein - is emphatically not the Holocaust. It is quite amazing how many things are not the Holocaust.

The day of my visit to the museum, the rabbi of my synagogue attended a meeting arranged by police for local clergy, including him and seven Christian ministers and priests. The topic of the meeting was security. Even before the Pittsburgh massacre, membership dues at my synagogue included security fees. But apparently these local churches do not charge their congregants security fees, or avail themselves of government funds for this purpose.. The rabbi later told me how he sat in stunned silence as church officials discussed whether to put a lock on a church door. "A lock on the door," the rabbi said to me afterward, stupefied.

He didn't have to say what I already knew from the emails the synagogue routinely sends: that they've increased the rent-a-cops' hours, that they've done active-shooter training with the nursery school staff, that further initiatives are in place that "cannot be made public." A lock on the door," re repeated, astounded. "They just have no idea."

He is young, this rabbi - younger than me. He was realizing the same thing I realized at the Auschwitz exhibition, about the specificity of our experience. I feel the need to apologize here, to acknowledge that yes, this rabbi and I both know that many non-Jewish houses of worship in other places also require rent-a-cops, to announce that yes, we both know that other groups have been persecuted too - and this degrading need to recite these middle-school-obvious facts is itself an illustration of the problem, which is that dead Jews are only worth discussing if they are part of something bigger, something more. Some other people might go to Holocaust museums to feel sad, and then to feel proud of themselves for feeling sad. They will have learned something officially important, discovered a fancy metaphor for the limits of Western civilization. The problem is that for us, dead Jews aren't a metaphor, but rather actual people that we do not want our children to become." 

- Dara Horn, People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present

[holdharmonysacred]

So, you wanna prep for Lostbelt 6 by reading a bunch of fairy lore for background information. Luckily for you, I’m a turbo nerd when it comes to this particular brand of folklore. In this post I’ll be compiling links to assorted text and audio sources of information and entertainment related to all the real-world fairy lore that pops up throughout the chapter. I’m gonna try to avoid just wikipedia links as much as possible, so some of the text sources are gonna be a little dense, but that’s ye olde texts for you. This will be semi-ongoing as things pop up, so you can keep an eye out if you want!

Note: I’ll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, but there will be possible spoilers as to what’s in the chapter ahead, so watch out!

Without further ado, here’s the list under the cut:

HUGE MASSIVE CONTENT WARNING: Many of these texts are going to have adult themes and triggering content, particularly sexual assault, rape, and general non-consent in romantic or sexual relationships. I’m going to start including individual warnings for texts where I know it comes up, but even if I don’t note it, please proceed with caution and take care!

A Dictionary of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures by Katharine Mary Briggs - Exactly what it sounds like on the tin. Here’s where you can read about all the different fairies and creatures that tend to be more in short folktales, from baobhan sith to barghests to Ainsel and beyond, all in alphabetical order. If you find a fairy name you want to look up, it’s probably going to be in here somewhere.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare - I mean c’mon man. C’mon. There could always be a first for someone though, so if you are that someone - this is the most famous work featuring Oberon the fairy king, and the big one that F/GO and basically all other post-Billy Shakes media works pulls from. If you’d rather watch a staging of the play instead of read a script, here are some performances by Rice University and the Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival, and if those two in particular aren’t your jam I guarantee you there’s going to be a staging somewhere you can watch. As a bonus, here’s an absolutely lovely musical arrangement of “Philomel, With Melody” (AKA the lullaby Titania’s fairy servants sing to her) by the band Caprice. It’s not the most relevant, I just want to share it because it’s nice. WARNING: The crux of the play revolves around a love potion plot, so there will be themes of manipulation, non-consent, and potential sexual assault played for laughs and romance. It’s arguably mild compared to some of the other texts on here, but I would still be careful!

Translations of Melusina (Melusine) stories by D. L. Ashliman - D. L. Ashliman’s got a massive online treasure trove of folktales and folktexts, it’s always a fun time to go on a rabbit hole through his(their?) site. If you want stuff specifically relevant to Melusine though, here’s the page for her.

Versions of the Tam Lin ballad compiled at Tam Lin Balladry - this one’s going to be relevant because of the extremely high likelihood that NA will follow the JP merch labels and localize the “Fairy Knight” title as Tam Lin. Because it’s a ballad, there’s plenty of audio versions put to song, the most textually accurate one I can currently find being by Bob Hay & The Jolly Beggars. Besides that however, there are also versions by Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Tricky Pixie, and my personal favorite, the one by Anaïs Mitchell of Hadestown fame and Jefferson Hamer. If you want a more standard audio adaptation, the Tales of Britain and Ireland podcast will have you covered. WARNING: The start of the ballad is explicitly about sexual assault, with Tam Lin having been a rapist prior to meeting Janet. Janet’s own encounter is usually portrayed as consensual, she’s apparently a weirdo who heard the warnings and went “So that means FREE SEX?”, but some later versions do change her encounter into rape as a bizarre way of censoring her having sex out of wedlock. In addition, the ballad deals with themes of abortion. Basically, if any of this stuff is a trigger for you, I would proceed with extreme caution if you choose to listen or read.

Habetrot and Scantlie Mab - an archived version of a fairy tale about Habetrot. For similar stories, search for stuff under the Aarne-Thompson-Uther index type 501, “The Three Spinning Old Women”.

Historia Regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of Britain) by Geoffrey of Monmouth - Now this one may not seem immediately obvious in its relevance outside of “hey look, Arthuriana!”, but trust me, This Is A Surprise Tool That Will Help Us Later. The relevant parts are going to start at Book 6, with Vortigern’s shenanigans. There’s also a podcast audio adaptation by Myths & Legends, split into part A, part B, and part C, if you would prefer that.

Official website for Knocknarea, or Cnoc na Riabh - Knocknarea is a big ol’ hill in Ireland with a bunch of Neolithic cairns on it, the most famous of which is claimed to be Queen Medb’s tomb. For anything else related to Medb, go read the Tain.

The Wikipedia page for Cernunnos - this is the point where I have to give up on not linking wikipedia, alas, as the sources here are little too tiny and scattered. Cernunnos is a Celtic god from Gaul, he’s got horns, we’ve got his name and some archaeological depictions of him, and that’s basically it, because unfortunately no stories about him survived. If I can find a better source about him to link, I’ll drop it here.

Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory, Volume I and Volume II - Not including this initially was a huge oversight on my part, but this is pretty much The text for general Arthuriana and one of the really big ones that Fate takes influence from. You can read this for stuff about Morgause and Morgan, but it’s also just good to have on hand for anything with the Round Table in general.

I’ve also got a bunch of podcast episodes that don’t really fit in with any of the above that I’ll list here if anyone wants more dank audio content:

Robin Goodfellow: His Mad Pranks and Merry Jests by Tales of Britain and Ireland - Relevant if you want some alternative tales of Puck and Oberon. WARNING: The episode itself covers its warnings pretty good, but before you click - there’s a lot of adult content in this one, including the thumbnail image. Most of the stories adapted are going to get pretty bawdy even at best, and there’s one that explicitly involves an attempted rape that the titular character thwarts. Proceed with caution, and also maybe don’t listen in public.

Black Dogs and Englishmen: Black Shuck in English Folklore and The Barguest: Demon Dog, Silly Sprite or Spectral Hound?, both by Fabulous Folklore with Icy - Listen to these two if you want more info on barghests.

Scottish Halloween & Vampire Fairy Witches by Stories of Scotland - Listen to this if you want a retelling of a story involving the baobhan sith along with other Scottish traditions!

And that’s all I’ve got for right now! If I find any more relevant sources, or if someone directs me to said sources, I’ll be sure to add links to this post. Until then, happy reading and listening, and I hope everyone has fun with LB6!

[dark-nimbus]

My Opinions on Anime and Manga in Western Countries

CW: fetishization, oversexualization, racial stereotyping, as always lmk if I’m missing anything

Everytime I tell someone I'm not an avid fan of anime or manga, the usual response is shock and confusion, paired with "how?? But you're Asian!"

What hasn't occurred to them, I assume, is that those kinds of stereotypes are part of why I'm not a huge fan

Do I hate all anime and manga? No, not at all. In fact I do have a few books and shows that I enjoy, my favorite manga of all time being Arslan Senki (go check it out, the series is criminally underrated). However, I'm very picky about which ones I read and watch, and for very good reason. To be more specific, I'm not a fan of anime and manga as it's been generally received by Western countries

For the record: if you're from the Americas and like manga and anime, this is not me dogging on you. Everyone has the right to enjoy what they do, as long as they aren't harming anyone or their integrity

Now unfortunately, in my experience I've had to deal with the not harmless enjoyers more often than not

Take the first sentence of this post as an example. People always expect me to be largely enthusiastic about East Asian-originating media, despite knowing I've spent the vast majority of my life living in the middle of the US and was raised by people who are the furthest thing from Asian. I know next to nothing about my heritage or my culture and have grown up completely in American society, but even with this knowledge I'll still be met with shocked expressions when I say I've never watched whatever show or how anime isn't my favorite thing in the world. All because I look a certain way

That stereotyping attachment of race to media is just one of the many reasons I don't like anime or manga, and it unfortunately goes deeper than that

Japan already has an issue of oversexualizing women in their media, and you can see it in the skimpy outfits, big boobs, giant eyes, petite forms, and overall simping mannerisms they have towards male characters. This is by no means found in every show or book, but it's present in most. Even Arslan Senki, my favorite manga, favors putting Farangis, a priestess, in a sexualizing outfit over living up to the rest of the story's historical authenticity. With anime and manga growing more popular in the West, the impact of how women are portrayed is reflected in how people interact more and more

I can't tell you how many times I've had to hear about how people, from first dates to classmates to random strangers have fetishized Asian women because they wanted someone to live out their weird anime fantasies with. Hell, I have some stories of my own too. I've known Asian content creators who've been left creepy comments from viewers, some of which asking for them to talk in a high-pitched whiney "anime girl" voice and say a sexualized line using Japanese honorifics in a fetishizing manner. Asian cosplayers will constantly get demands to dress up in a maid outfit or cosplay certain anime characters for them to "simp" over

Even other cosplayers aren't safe from fetishizers. Other PoC cosplayers, black cosplayers especially, are consistently put on blast for cosplaying anime characters because those characters "aren't black." If it's not an Asian cosplayer, the creeps' fetishizing fantasies can't be lived up to, so they give black cosplayers shit instead. But gods forbid they do the same to white cosplayers, since being white is always the default to them apparently. How dare anyone try to give a white cosplayer shit for cosplaying a Japanese character when all anime characters are Japanese, that's unfair to them, right? But it's okay to have a double standard because the characters look white enough, right?

There was even a Japanese boxer from a few months ago that people latched onto, because apparently any East Asian guy with messy blond hair looks like Bakugo. MHA fangirls, many of which being minors, went crazy on him, making comments that are far from appropriate for that kind of interaction and fully reimagining this completely real human being as a fictional character for their own fetishizing purposes

If we're not stereotyped, we're being sexualized. The spreading influence of fetishizing Asian people only grows with the popularity of anime and manga in countries further west. It's been used to thirst, hit on, even threaten East Asian people, women especially. Our safety and comfort has been royally screwed by anime "simps" and it only continues to worsen, even more so for Asian Americans and content creators

One of the worst things about being Asian and growing up in America is how anime was the closest thing to connecting to my culture, and what did anime tell little me about being Asian? That my skin had to be pale, my eyes wide, I had to be short and curvy, and I had to sound ultra-feminine. Those were the values that the world expected out of me. Cassandra Cain was there to be my saving grace, thankfully, but the impression anime girls have on others will never be a positive or realistic one unless Japan re-evaluates its media as a whole and non-Asian viewers can find the maturity to not implement the same things on other people

[xxlovelynovaxx]

The person in the tags really said "I see kindness and emotional availability as inherently feminine traits" like congrats! That's the radf/em brainrot!

Idk, why might people pick emotionally open men who aren't steeped in toxic masculinity to headcanon as trans? Is it maybe because of the intense pressure on the transmasc community to not "give in to our inherent toxicity" or "defy the evil nature of our manhood"? Is it maybe simply because people pick characters they like and relate to, to headcanon as sharing their identity? Should people be picking unkind and emotionally unavailable characters to personally headcanon because you don't like that the characters they feel connected to are niceys?

Also, wow, that's some transmisogyny in "the characters headcanoned as trans women are usually mean and aggressive". Are they? Are they really? Or are they unafraid to stand up for themselves in a way that transfems find empowering? Is there a transmisogynist expectation put on us to just take abuse and that we're dangerous and mean and aggressive if we refuse to? Also, I'm just curious, how many of these "mean and aggressive" characters aren't white? Is this an endemic problem of "mean, aggressive" characters, or is it simply a character type that's commonly found to be empowering?

Also just. "It's wrong that an alleged majority of headcanoned trans men are about nice people and an alleged majority of headcanoned trans women are not". So its wrong for people headcanoned as trans to be nice... but also to be mean? Like sure, don't get me wrong, there's a point to be made about variety in representation but these are headcanons. This is personal fandom. This isn't corporate media, it isn't even really media a lot of the time, not even fanworks! Headcanon≠rep in any way, shape or form.

But I do find it curious that whether characters should be treated as more nice or more mean is gendered, especially when I've seen other transfems make the exact OPPOSITE complaint about transfem headcanons - that they rely on misogynistic standards of femininity, especially in terms of "acceptable behavior" and that they in fact wished people would examine that and consider headcanoning women who were messy and imperfect as transfem. But, y'know.

(Also, this is focusing on a specific type of headcanon, almost to the point of tunnel vision. Because I guaran-fucking-tee there are plenty of transmasc headcanons that aren't "emotionally available sensitive man". Like, really showing that anecdotal bias. I've seen fucking Dean Winchester headcanoned as transmasc. Just about every TF2 character. Kim Kitsuragi, who I don't know much about but even if he is kind and emotionally available I do know he's supremely fucking dysfunctional. Harry Dubois as well, who I KNOW is not emotionally fucking available. Apparently from my trans partner, Sans fucking Undertale. Certain interpretations of botw/totk Link. Fucking interpretations of Miku Hatsune. Jade Hunter from Rainbow High.

But really, I keep going back to "people see feminine traits and say trans man because they see trans men as women" when the only traits named were LITERALLY "kindness" and "emotional availability". Fucking. If you think only women are kind and emotionally available you're reinforcing toxic masculinity and are in for a rude fucking awakening at toxic femininity and women who are bullies in general, and how these attitudes allow them to face less or even no consequences.

My fucking gods. Kindness and emotional availability. Feminine traits. Fuck.

[centrally-unplanned]

"Fear and the World and People and Me: What was the Phenomenon of 'Evangelion'?" Text & Translation of CB 1997 Essay by Junichi Tomonari

My first entry into the Comic Box End of Eva Translation Project!

The Comic Box Magazine opens with an introductory essay by Junichi Tomonari, a japanese literary critic and novelist who specialized in horror works (and is big into scuba diving and lives in Bali these days, apparently). His work focuses on bringing an outsider, sociological lens to Eva as a work of media and cultural phenomenon. I will list a few of my ‘interesting takeaways’ from the essay first for those who just want a glimpse, then I will post a link to the full translation on my blog

Tomonari’s interview is a time capsule of the 90’s zeitgeist of treating anime as sociological diagnostic for the times. He, hilariously, repeatedly, states how much he hates Shinji, and yet ‘sees in Shinji the youth of Japan’, a youth passive & hopeless, unable to act for themselves and withdrawing from society. This passivity is seen as dangerous, particularly in men, “...they will not be able to avoid looking at themselves objectively in relation to others. When this happens, they suddenly display a violent temperament.” He is not alone in thinking this - the 1989 “Otaku Killer” Tsutomu Miyazaki, the rise of the hikikomori as a sociological phenomenon, and other stories launched an entire wave of writings concerning the fate & struggles of Japan’s youth in the 90’s, often with the anime subculture as a focal point.

Tomonari sees himself as having moved past anime, loathing Shinji for his weakness, and judgemental of an audience obsessed with Eva. “If I were a junior or senior high school student and there was such a jerk in my class, I would definitely torment him to death.” But he grows to appreciate Shinji - and Eva - as a way to see the struggles of a new generation in a more empathic light than the contemproary wave of hand-wringing normally permits (and of course, the sentiments he expresses are likely literary exagerations to communicate his ideas). This interview adds to the stack of evidence we have of Evangelion being a focal point for this sort of discourse, expanding the parameters of the “otaku as sociological phenomenon” discussion for the wider public.

Something I do find quite revealing is how much Tomonari in 1997 is repeating what western anime fans would themselves embrace in the 2000’s - Shinji as pathetic, as someone who should “grow up and be a real man”. Its a pretty alien perspective today! Hating a protagonist for being anxious and having struggles, that is half of all protagonists, who doesn’t have those traits? The machismo of the male media culture of the 2000’s is pretty dead and buried, or at least morphed, protagonists with anxiety and trauma are relatable and revered. In our modern era we perhaps forget how new it is for traits like these to be so standard, for characters to be so ‘relatable’ in this way. This interview really sells you on how controversial a character Shinji-as-protagonist was in 1995 (and in Japan), something that is much harder to glimpse now.

Other interesting notes:

At one point during the discussion of modern youth’s latent violence, Tomonari comments “Across the world, there are probably very few cases of children committing such murders [and yet we see them in Japan]. Perhaps this will become a unique phenomenon in Japan”. Alas for all of us, this prediction did not age well.

He compares Evangelion to horror manga author Hideshi Hino’s “splatter horror” works and stylistic designs, which is right on the money as his manga “Dokumushi Kozou/Bug Boy” is actually cited in the production documents for Evangelion, such as this End of Evangelion storyboard:

He does take time to eviscerate Shinji for being a self-insert surrounded by beautiful women who all dote on him in one way or another and it is extremely funny, that trait is both one of Eva’s best parts and also totally true.

The interview is quite long, a bit too much for tumblr but has a lot of interesting facts - I have put my translation & even the OCR'd Japanese text up for anyone to read here on my blog, which I really do need to do a better job of cross-posting things. Hopefully it is of interest to some, and I aspire to continue translating the documents as much as I am able.

[pervysenpaix]

Journalist!y/n has standards. MIDoriya doesn’t meet those standards. Though I kinda want to read her finding out Dynamight started dating Red Riot and she starts simping both of them and ends up getting both

I like the way you think nonnie. You deserve an emoji [🧨] you're my first btw 🤞🏾. let's discuss some real men shall we ?

pairing; k. bakugo + e. kirishima + you

Part 1

PS: this is super inconsistent because i got carried away with the plot in the beginning but then I remembered that this is supposed to be a quick thirst response so 🤡

TW! Prohero AU, non con/ dub con ( reader is intoxicated), semi-sleazy KRBK, obsessed reader, stalker KRBK but Y/N started it!, reader is recorded without consent, reader is drugged, anal fingering, anal seggs, double pen, borderline mysogynistic <- sounds worse than it actually is in my opinion but I'm FUCKING SICK.

After your initial encounter with Dynamight was rudely interrupted by MIDoriya, you scurried from the office with your remaining shreds of dignity. Did you regret it? Hell, no. Your wildest fantasies couldn't have prepared you for what it would actually feel like to be fucked by the explosion hero. But, you couldn't help the anxiety that settled in the pit of your stomach once the implications of your actions started crowd your mind.

This man caught you masturbating in his office, then fucked you after acknowledging that you'd been stalking him for the past few months. It was horrifying to say the least. Yes, you were still obsessed but you were also extremely embarrassed and could not shake the ever present feeling of awkwardness that came whenever you imagined the way his scarlet visionaries burned your skin.

So you figured that it'd probably be best to lay off the extracurriculars for a while.

The article was great and earned you tons of notoriety. People were surprised with how candid the hero was with you especially since he usually turned down interviews. The public assumed that you were some investigative genius when in reality you were some crazy stalker that he wanted to make an example of.

Alls fair in love and journalism, you suppose; but, it kind of sucked to get used and discarded like that. From your favorite hero no less !

Anywho!

A few months past and you'd done several high profile interviews since the incident. You tried to keep yourself occupied with work to avoid thinking of your muse but that proved difficult when he had been plastered across various media platforms due to an apparent change in his relationship status.

Have Red Riot and Dynamight finally made it official?

The alleged couple had been spotted out on several “romantic outings” but nothing had been confirmed by either parties PR teams. Various publications turned to you as if you’d have some insider info but alas you were just as in the dark as everyone else.

You’d sworn to yourself that you wouldn’t go back to your old antics but god did they make it tempting. Dynamight alone was always amazing but paired with Red Riot ? The thought of it had you foaming at the mouth. Eijiro Kirishima, the Sturdy Hero, who was named Japan’s most eligible bachelor three years in a row was now romantically attached to the object of your desires. What more could a girl ask for ?

Dignity, but I digress.

Everyone wanted the scoop on the couple and your publisher decided that you were the girl for the job. You tried to weasel your way out of it to no avail. Taking a shot in the dark you called over to Dynamight's agency with every intention of being rejected but to your surprise you were patched through and met with a particularly gruff voice.

The hero had agreed to do the interview on the condition that it be done in his own home over dinner. Stating that he wasn't up to having "the talk" with "that damn Deku" again then asking if you still remembered how to get there. Your cheeks burned at the insinuation, so you nodded dumbly while blurting an overly cheerful, "Yeah! See you soon!" before assaulting the "end call" button.

So now you stood on the familiar yet foreign front porch of the Bakugo estate ringing the doorbell. The door swung open revealing Dynamight in all his scowling glory wearing his signature black tank and cargo pants with a Alien Queen Pinky! ™️ apron wrapped around his slim waist.

"I know you like goin' through the backdoor but this seems more appropriate." He smirks, canines flashing and silver chain swaying as he leans down to guide you inside with a heavy hand splayed on your lower back. “You look good, it’s been a while”.

"Y-yeah, like a couple months if I'm not mistaken. It's good to see you as well". He huffs in response, handing you a pair of fluffy slippers before leading you further into the home. He brings you to a sleek industrialized kitchen and pulls out a barstool to which you offer a polite thanks, making him scoff. Katsuki turns towards the stove and begins interacting with the various pots in pans. It smells divine. You watch curiously from your place at the island. Wanting to cut through the smothering silence but not sure what to say.

"No point in actin' all meek, Princess. We're not exactly strangers". His back is to you, but you can imagine the scowl on his face.

He had a point. A few months ago he had your fluffy bits on display and now you could barely muster a sideways glance.

"Sorry" you breathe, "I guess I'm a bit nervous".

"Because of the stalking or the sex ?" He asks bluntly, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the counter. "Cause m'pretty used to both when it comes to fans. Just not in that order, I guess".

If you could sink into the floor you would but Dynamight's harsh stare told you that you wouldn't be let off the hook that easily. Luckily for you a door slammed followed by the soft padding of feet revealing a very handsome and very shirtless, red-haired hero.

"Oh, hey there! You must be , Y/N. Wow, you're even prettier in person!" You stare dumbly at the tall man. His long hair is damp and light sheen covers his tattooed skin. He wears red sweatpants that hang dangerously low on his waist and a slender gold chain similar to the one worn by the blonde hero.

"Oh! T-thanks, Red Riot. You're pretty too". As soon as the words leave your mouth you cringe but taller man laughs boisterously while casting a knowing grin. “Yeah yeah—you’re both gorgeous, now can we eat?”

Dinner was delicious—as expected. Katsuki (which he insisted you call him) mentioned that cooking was one of his hobbies with Eijiro adding that Katsuki’s cooking was one of his hobbies as well. The two played off each other well, effortlessly switching between best bros and star crossed lovers in an instant. It was enough to make you swoon.

They’d all but explicitly stated the nature of their relationship and when you asked them if the rumors where true Katsuki gripped the back of Eijiro’s neck and pulled him into a steamy kiss that left a string of saliva connecting them. He then looked directly at your camera and said “you tell me” with a shit eating grin.

Dinner was over and you felt yourself growing restless from the casual PDA being displayed between the two heroes. You had more than enough footage for your interview so you decided to call it a night. However, the two men had other plans.

Eiji insisted that you stay for a glass of wine. Then two. Then three. And before you knew it you were a giggly mess sandwiched between the contrastly sober heroes on their huge Cal king bed. Katsuki had convinced you to spend the night because it’d be irresponsible to let toy drive and Eijiro offered one of his large shirts so that you’d be comfy. And he was such a gentle that he didn’t let you lift a finger. Using his quirk, he slice down your clothing until you were bare trembling. He then slipped the shirt over your head, not bothering with underwear and slotted you against his chest with Katsuki sliding in behind.

"God, you're soft." Eijiro sighed, palming and spreading your ass cheeks with his huge hands. " You didn't tell me she was this soft, bro" he whined, pouting his lips at the blonde who was groping your breasts in a similar fashion.

"Tch, and risk you blowing the plan to shit ? it was hard enough to stop you from breaking in her house after I showed you the video" Katsuki scoffed, still focused on tweaking your puffy nipples.

Eijiro groaned at the memory. Katsuki had already planned on fucking you that day in his office, so he installed cameras to capture the moment. They never expected you to be so slutty and willing and right before he could fully exploit you that damned Deku barged in. The redhead remembers how quickly his cock went flaccid when he saw the frantic greenette mumbling apologies. If that was HIM that walked in on a scene like that he would've fucked you both two ways to Sunday.

After watching the video he just had to see more of you. So the two of them spent days strolling through your social media profiles and jacking off to your pictures. Eijiro couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if you were smiling directly at him instead of the camera. He couldn't help it, he just had to see you in person. Luckily for him, Bakugo knew where you lived. You see, the blonde watched you just as much as you watched him prior to your encounter--he was just better at it. He knew your daily route and all of your favorite spots. The two heroes would go out in hopes of "bumping into you" but it never happened organically. They then settled on stalking your residence and peering at you through the windows. On one particular you were bouncing on a red riot themed dildo while deepthroating a dynamight one and Katsuki had to literally blast his ass out of there so that he wouldn't break the window.

"Please", he rolled his eyes, "a slutty bitch like her would probably get off on it. Wouldn't you, babe?" For the first time in what felt like forever they were actually talking to you instead of over you, but as luck would have it you were too out of it to respond.

Your skin burned and a hazy cloud settled on your mind. It felt like you were drowning but not necessarily in the bad way. Your body was submerged in an ocean of pleasure and every time you thought that you may break the surface, the men changed course making you spin endlessly. Eiji's thick digits speared and spread your asshole while the heated pads of Katsu's fingers ran over your nipples. It felt like you were on fire and the only thing that could douse you was the two men staring down at you. Their voices were distorted but you could just make out Eiji's voice saying, "did we give her too much, seems pretty out of it ?" at least that's what it sounded like but its hard to be sure with the way his fingers were rubbing against your walls. "nah, kinky bitch is probably floatin' in subspace or some shit. she wants this, look at the mess her pussy's makin' on the sheets".

Did you want this ? No doubt about it and the way they just manhandled your body between them had you gushing an obscene amount of slick down your thighs.

"not a thought in that pretty little head. god- you're fuckin' perfect for us" Katsuki groaned, pulling your head back by your hair to spit in your mouth then turning you back to Eijiro who followed suit. Even under the influence, you swallowed immediately earning raspy praise from the men.

"fuck baby I wish you could see yourself " Kirishima whined, slotting your lips together and bullying his tongue in your mouth. Bakugo kissed up your neck and chuckled.

"That can be arranged".

You woke up bundled in unfamiliar satin sheets that smelled cinnamon and caramel. The room was dark save for the sliver of light pouring the floor to ceiling bedroom window. A glass of juice sat next to a bottle of painkillers on the bedside table with a note that read “drink me”. Now that you thought about it you did feel pretty sore. Being the good girl that you are— you take the pills and head out to find your hosts.

Bakugo and Kirishima were no where to be found but you did a beautifully plated breakfast with a note that read : Goodmorning, gorgeous! We went to run a few errands but we should be back soon. You should go hang in the den until we return.

The friendly tone of the note led you to believe that Kirishima wrote it but it was very friendly considering the two of you just met last night. Speaking of which , you couldn’t remember anything from the night prior.

You settled on the couch trying to rack but it was pointless. You shrugged it off, deciding to dig in and watch tv as the note suggested, but much to your surprise a video was already queued.

The video started with a close up of Bakugo running his tongue across his teeth. He set the camera down and you and kirishima came into view. You were bare—laying across the bed with your head hanging off the edge and your legs spread wide to accommodate the large man between them. Kirishima was nude as well , signature smile adorning his face as he bottomed out in your asshole. Katsuki joined the two of you, lightly tapping your jaw with his cock and pressing it against your tongue. You swallowed around him and clenched down on Eijiro making the men groan in unison. There was no sounds except wet squelching and moans.

You didn’t even realize that you’d started touching yourself until your eyes rolled back in ecstasy and you came with a shout.

A sudden this brought you out of your post orgasmic haze; you whipped your head around seeing the two males surrounded by what seems to be your luggage from home.

“Mind if we cut in ?”

[redstripstrawberry]

Routine | Vyn Richter x Reader

Summary: What goes on in a Saturday with your husband? Apparently, it’s only giggles, kisses, and cuddles. That sweet, domestic life is really the best.

You were the first to wake, of course. Your eyes open to a familiar scene: golden hues lighting up the room and everything is comfortably still. You shuffle around in the bed, and a tired groan fills the room. A hand around your waist tightens ever so slightly. You chuckle, feeling your back pressed further to Vyn’s chest as he loosely holds your waist. You feel him pulling you in closer, his head dipping into the back of your neck. It feels wonderful. 

You turn over to face him and he doesn’t move. You know Vyn feels you staring, but you know how he greets you in the morning: a hefty, cute sigh comes from his mouth, and you smile widely. His breath makes his messy bangs fall down his face. The most serene you've seen him. It's the best view in the morning, you think. 

You reach over and kiss him and he stirs. You roll out of the bed and you hear Vyn groan once more. 

“Sleep tight, love, I’ll make breakfast,” You say, knowing he doesn’t hear you. 

You freshen up and walk downstairs to the kitchen, and whip out some scrambled eggs. You hear the sink running upstairs as you serve the crumbly mess next to slices of toasted and buttered bread. 

“Smells wonderful, my dear,” Vyn expresses as he walks down and sits next to you. 

“So what do you want to do today?” You ask with a mouthful of eggs and toast. 

“Whatever that allows me to cuddle you, honestly. I was rudely interrupted moments ago, and my love, you have to pay damages.”

“Hmm, you’ll have to speak to my lawyer.”

“How cold.” 

“It’s a high price that you’re asking. That’s why, dear.”

“I believe your standards are too high.”

“And I believe your accusation is terribly unreasonable,” you laugh.

“And I think your eggs are too watery.” 

You gasp, dramatically put a hand over your heart. Your face exaggeratingly scrunches up in faked hurt and Vyn chuckles. 

“I love how you are.”

You rest your face out of bewilderment. How out of the blue-

“I love you, too,” is all you could say. 

Vyn takes the two plates. You’re stuck in your seat, still mulling over his words. It makes you feel warm, and a much delayed blush spreads over your cheeks. Even after all these years, you still get so flustered when he does things like this. 

As he sets down the plates, Vyn suggests that the two of you go to the new bakery that just opened near Stellis University. Deserts after breakfast are always welcomed whatever the occasion, he says, smiling softly as he sees your red glow. 

You quickly say yes, and the both of you went on you way. 

• ° • ° • ° •

The bakery was very stylish with its interior decoration. It seems like a new “hip” place for the students to get their breakfast. All goods were very social media worthy. 

You got a cute cupcake decorated with frosting in the shape of a sunflower. The bright, yellow sugary petals remind you of the golden roses Vyn helped you plant a while back. The garden back at home has grown to be similar to a large botanical garden, but one that only specializes in flowers. Vyn’s hobby of gardening has grown on you ever since you two first dated. Vyn looks at your smiling face and can’t help but smile as well. 

“I’m glad you like this place, love. I’ll buy some of their cupcakes for you when I come home from teaching, if you’d like,” Vyn offers as you keep staring at the floral cupcake. 

“No, it’s fine,” you respond, “The sunflower just reminded me of our garden, that’s all.”

You remain quiet for a while, thinking about it even more. 

“Speaking of our garden, how about we go to the plant nursery? There should be more variety than roses in the new flower bed you’ve been planning, Vyn,” you suggest, knowing what to do for the day. 

“As you wish, darling. I think our garden will be the next Blossoms Garden with your touch.”

You feel the heat rising to your face once again. 

• ° • ° • ° •

The two of you spent the day gardening, which was not an unusual activity the two of you would do together. Rather, you think the garden is now a personal project that the two of you worked together on. It is really amazing how much of an influence Vyn had on you to encourage you to be messy with the Earth as you are prone to be called a “Neat Freak.”

At long last, the both of you head inside when the golden glow of the sunset signifies the end of the day.

Vyn takes you by the hand and leads you upstairs to clean up. As soon as the both of you two are done changing into your pajamas, he takes you by the hand and leads you downstairs to the living room. For what, you don’t know, but as soon as he walks to the gramophone, you light up. He places your song on the record player, and the sweet waltz plays immediately. 

He offers his hand as he curtseys to you. 

“For old time’s sake, my love, will you dance with me?”

The now pink and blue colors mixed with orange light shine through the windows as you accept Vyn’s hand. It reminds you of the first dance at your wedding, seeing how the colors of the sky are exactly the same as the sky on your wedding day. Vyn twirls you around and you feel the piano notes swelling. You giggle, and his smile widens. It’s so wonderful. 

The two of you waltz together, still remembering the moves you practiced 7 years ago. You both are silent, but the gaze between the two of you is so loud that the music fades out into the background. Vyn looks at you with so much warmth as you do to him. 

Your days together are so lovingly peaceful; it’s like a wonderful dream. 

[algaepotassium]

Monotone Blue is one of the few pieces of furry media I’ve encountered where the traits of the animal have a significant effect on the characters, where they aren’t just people seen as cute animals but actually are those animals. That’s not to criticize stories where the characters are animal in appearance only, of course I love those too, but when the animal characteristics play a bigger role like they do in Monotone Blue it can lead to some really nifty things (for lack of a better term). My favorite example can be seen in this panel on the first page of Chapter 2: [continued below cut]

[Image ID: a panel from the manga Monotone Blue depicting a close-up of the face of the protagonist Hachi, an anthropomorphic black-and-white domestic shorthair cat. Text in two speech bubbles read “That is why learning is a prime example of the proof of the evolution of animals.” /.End ID]

Throughout Monotone Blue, Hachi is shown time and time again to pay no attention to class. He sleeps through some lessons and skips the rest, remarking to Aoi that whether he skips a class or not is dependent entirely upon if the teacher will let him nap or not. The test he turns in some time prior to the events of Chapter 1 has no answers on it, which his teacher complains is a common occurrence with Hachi. In Chapter 3, when Hachi finds out that Aoi’s scales are cool to the touch, Aoi has to describe poikilothermia (perhaps more commonly known as ‘cold-blooded animal’) to him. This all casts Hachi as someone who has spent a great deal of their time in school not learning. Consider again the text in the above image -- “learning is a prime example of the proof of the evolution of animals.” If learning is so integral to the difference between a feral animal and the anthropomorphic creatures of civilization, we should hold this standard up beside Hachi, the cat who never learns. Hachi sleeps apparently excessively, napping on-and-off throughout the entire school day, but he does not show signs that he is sleep-deprived and not sleeping at night. Hachi is territorial, being incredibly defensive of his spot in the stairwell. Hachi becomes obsessed with getting the scent of others off of his Aoi, marking him by rubbing his face against him. Hachi even goes so far as to bite Aoi when he becomes frustrated. Cats are well known for all of these traits -- they sleep significantly more than humans do, they can be territorial (be that their section of the forest or their spot on the cat tower), they are obsessive about having their things marked with their scent, and (as most cat owners will know) tend to bite when frustrated. That’s not even to mention the inherently beastly connotation that comes with biting. Biting is not, generally, how humans engage in conflict -- punch, kick, shout, but they don’t tend to go for a bite. Biting is something animals do, ferocious and wild animals. Hachi displays these traits of animals, of a quadrupedal non-anthropomorphized cat, in part because he does not learn. He does not engage in the process of learning which is so important for separating the feral from the civilized, and as such he displays by far more traits of animals than any other character in the manga. That is why I think this text is important. During the duration of Monotone Blue, we do not see much of the lessons the students of Furry High are learning. In fact, at no other point is there really a ‘lecture’ given by a teacher, and if only one school lesson made it into the narrative it can be assumed the author felt it was important that we see it. That one lesson is this one -- education is what makes them evolved, or at least is a significant byproduct of their evolution. The text is not all, however. The drawing accompanying the text is more important than the mere fact that it depicts Hachi, the character I argue the text is specifically referencing. This particular panel shows Hachi in a style which is not seen anywhere else throughout the manga. Take the image below as a reference and reminder as to how Hachi is depicted in the rest of Monotone Blue:

[Image ID: a panel from the manga Monotone Blue depicting a shoulders-up shot of the protagonist Hachi, an anthropomorphic black-and-white domestic shorthair cat. This image is subtly more stylized than the previous one /.End ID]

It is not as though he is drawn by another hand, it is still clearly within the general overarching style of the manga, however I find that there is a key difference in this one example -- Hachi, in the first image, looks exactly like a cat. I mean to say an actual, real-world, quadrupedal domestic cat. It would probably look strange if he looked exactly like a real-world cat all of the time, and it would draw excess attention to him, but in this one close-up drawing it is possible to draw his face in such detail that it is indistinguishable from a drawing of a real-world cat of the same markings. I believe that this is an intentional design decision by the author, Nagabe. I believe that he specifically paired that text with that drawing to convey the idea that Hachi is more animal-like than any of the other characters. He does not bother to learn, which is written in that very panel as a key proof of evolution. The art of the panel also conveys his animal-ness by depicting him without stylistic embellishment, instead showing him as the animal cats we know in the real world. This shows incredible attention to detail and narrative consideration on Nagabe’s part, and I felt it warranted note. That said, I will use one last paragraph to disparage my nonsense; this probably means nothing. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Even if I’m not, I certainly don’t know what greater meaning there could be to this. As I said in the opening paragraph, I just think it’s nifty.

[noa-ciharu]

Whenever I see aro/ace discourses and whether they belong in LGBTQ+ spaces, my initial thought is always the same:

Who are you to decide?

What none tells you about being on aromantic and/or asexual spectrum is how isolating it is. You feel lonely. And it's constant. Lonliness because of identity isn't always overwhelming, but it's present somewhere deep down. You feel lonely not because of lack of sexual/romantic attraction but because of society and amatonormativity.

When I was in elementary school, all my friends had crushes. I never understood that because even if I liked someone, it was always in platonic way. They insisted I couldn't possibly not like anyone and I felt forced to fake a crush. In middle school people started dating each other and I comforted myself with "I'm too young for that, time will come". By the high school I already knew something was "wrong" with me, I wasn't like the others. People began having sex not because they were expected to do that but because they actually wanted to. That was such shock to me, I thought media was exaggerating with passion and attraction but apparently all those things happen irl too. Hence I realized I was "the weird one". I forced myself to have same experiences but it felt more like obligation to me than something I trully wanted. I felt dirty after being touched, it repulsed me. I felt like something is broken within me for not enjoying sex. I could never fall in love. People called me coldhearted, they thought something was wrong with me. Few therapist tried to "fix" me, even set me up on dates. I internalized all of that and began seeing myself as "not normal".

Now that I'm older and know there's nothing wrong with me or being aroace, I still can't shake years and years of "I'm not normal" I experienced. It still haunts me. I hear someone talking about their sexual experiences and part of me still feels "not normal" when seeing how "normal" people live. I feel lonely. Parents insist I must find a partner one day. They don't believe i don't experience romantic attraction towards other people. Outside of aspec communities online, I don't experience any support. When I step outside, I still feel like something is wrong with me. Intentionally or not, society still makes me feel like an outsider. It's because of amatonormativity that roots too deep.

There's nothing wrong with people being romantic or sexual, far from that - but vast majority of cishet folks out there expect me to act same as them. Mere thought of someone looking at me as sexual being makes me cringe. I never felt romantic attraction towards anyone. I don't want to be in a relationship - I'm different from the "rest". It's lonely. Felling of isolation became association to me as part of identity. I don't even form closer platonic bonds because inevitable question of my romantic/sex life would inevitably come. For the longest time I felt like I needed to censor that part of myself. I assimilate with surroundings and hope noone finds out my "little secret".

If we as society educated kids more about LGBTQ+ stuff, then maybe this chronic feeling of isolation in aspec communities would diminish in few generations. However what I can say is that from very early age I experienced romantic/sexual attraction very different from what is considered "standard" - and that is why I relate to LGBT experiences innumerous times more than I will to "standard' heterosexual heteroromantic ones.

So stranger on the internet, who are you to swept all my complicated feelings and experiences regarding sexuality under rug because they can't fit in your narrow definition of how romantic and sexual attraction should be.

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

I’m always sensitive to the ways internet culture pressures people to adopt certain performances of how to be a person. And it feels like the most aggressive of these pressures are about how to be a modern woman.

For example, there’s a well-meaning but casually destructive trend that’s prevalent on Instagram. These memes idealize a state of impossible self-regard in women, an unachievable narcissism that’s justified through a garbled kind of feminist empowerment. You are not merely to be a healthy and functional adult who rises above the depredations of everyday sexism. You have to be some sort of Amazon warrior queen mystic who “manifests” what she wants through sheer force of will. It’s not hard to see where such impulses might come from. Women are systematically robbed of confidence in essentially every human culture, unless it’s in the specific arena of physical attractiveness or motherhood. I don’t know how you’d go about denying that. [...]

Unfortunately, the way that meme culture has responded has been to produce images like the one at the top.

There’s an endorsement of absolutely deranged self-confidence, an impossible level of self-belief that I imagine is actually only achievable while high on PCP. The meme I’ve included is in fact a pretty tame example of the genre. The idea seems to be that because women often lack confidence for bullshit reasons, we should convince women to try and pump themselves up with confidence like a child overfilling a balloon. Ideas common to these memes include that you don’t care about what anyone thinks (you do and should care), and that normal emotions are beneath you (they’re not). The problems in your life, no matter how mundane, are all the product of sexism or haters or sexist haters, and there is no such thing as a legitimate conflict between two sincere people who both have defensible desires. Anything that obstructs your goals, including people with their own autonomy, is merely an obstacle to be stepped over without a second thought. The standards of self-love here are so lofty that they seem just as unreachable as all of the other social standards that woman can’t possibly meet.

I find the attempts to embody this trend pretty sad. You may get a pretty standard picture on a woman’s Instagram, completely innocuous, and the caption will be like “watch out bitches, I’m finally ascending to my final form.” It’s all a little… strange.

Sadder still, this stuff comingles with the batshit generalist mysticism that is so common on social media today. Horoscope stuff, obviously, but also Tarot and numerology and (let me calculate the necessary number of quotation marks) “““““““energy”””””””. The previously-mentioned notion of “manifestation” has endured as a zombie grift 15 years after the publication of the book that popularized it, The Secret. Manifestation or “the Law of Attraction” tells people that everything they get or don’t is the product of their desires and intentions, so stop complaining about your leukemia, thanks. How this fits alongside the Zodiac stuff, which asserts the exact opposite of you being solely in charge of the events of your life, is unclear. One way or another you end up with an incomprehensible set of beliefs about the world that are both exacting (if you don’t tend to your energy you deserve what you get) and opaque (who could actually follow all this shit?). As an atheist this concerns me. As a feminist it offends me: apparently now women need literal magic to escape oppression. For whatever reason, the popular conception of the paths to women’s liberation just gets more convoluted and inscrutable over time.

I don’t know, to me being a badass bitch doesn’t seem fun. It seems alienating and tiresome. Also I’m so sick of the constant modern insistence that we love ourselves. Stop telling me to love myself all the time. Mind your business.

Here’s what I suspect: mentally healthy people, if they still exist, aren’t healthy because of the constant presence of positive feelings of self. They are healthy because of the habitual absence of any feelings of self at all. (I guarantee you this is already a thing in psychology or some 19th century German philosophy but it’s proving stubbornly resistant to my Googling.) Where we’ve gone wrong as a civilization in terms of understanding confidence is in thinking of it as a presence, as an emotion. But I think what we perceive as confidence is simply not constantly thinking about yourself and your value. That’s more real and sustainable to me than thinking about yourself all the time and consistently feeling good about what you find. Unfortunately it seems like not thinking about yourself is what many modern people find hardest of all.

Bad folk wisdom about confidence is all over our culture. [...] Whatever the case…. I am not a woman and I have no idea what it’s like to experience the endless swings in society’s perception of not just What Women Need to Be Now but also Why Women Need to Reject What Society Thinks Women Need to Be Now. I don’t want to condescend, nor do I want to do the Good Male Ally routine. I just want to say as a typical dude that it’s not that men don’t feel much pressure to conform to gender stereotypes. We do. It’s that we don’t have to deal with the meta layers women seem to have to navigate, the sense that you can’t just resist societal pressures to act according to gender expectations but rather have to swing wildly between one conception of femininity to another, endlessly made to worry that you’re doing it wrong as you try to shake off one bogus caricature of your gender while leaping to another. [...]

There was a version of this post that included a bunch of the weird empowerment/yoga/girlboss/mysticism/juice cleanse memes I’m talking about and made fun of them. But I realized pretty quickly that it would be a shitty thing to publish. The women who are making and sharing those memes are just trying to navigate a bewildering array of choices about how to exist in a sexist world, and if they’ve arrived at a cartoonish version it’s only because all the more mundane approaches seem to have failed. It’s certainly possible that I overemphasize meme culture and that it’s all ephemera that nobody takes that seriously. But I suspect not. Memes are a language of the youth, and it appears that the youth are facing the same old challenge of forces that pressure women to be everything and nothing all at once.

[doorbloggr]

Getting lost in fictional worlds

Wednesday 1/3/23

Media Recommendations #46

Content:

Dungeon Meshi

Disco Elysium

Dungeon Meshi/Delicious in Dungeon

Ryoko Kui

Dungeon Meshi is a fantasy action/comedy manga that has been running since 2014. At the time of writing, the manga has not reached its conclusion, but I feel its getting close. Its funny, heartwarming, has an interesting world and an endearing art style.

Pitch

The story is set in a classic high fantasy world, where underground structures called Dungeons litter the landscape. Dungeons are a complex set of biomes in their own right with advanced magic systems, including the unique quirk that adventurers who die in a dungeon can be revived fairly reliably. It is fairly standard D&D in its initial presentation, but the world has a uniquely real spin on the standard fantasy format.

We follow the party of Laios Touden, a human fighter, who's sister, Falin, a human cleric, was killed by a dragon and eaten deep in the dungeon. Due to the laws of the dungeon, if they find her remains soon enough, they will be able to revive her, but before her end, Falin teleported the party to the surface. A few members of their party quit on the spot. They do not have the funds or resources to do that trip again, and without a healer, their party would be in even more danger. Laios, not wanting to waste any time, decides the best course of action is to head back in immediately, and use the resources of the dungeon for food on the way. He is accompanied by Marcille, an elf mage, and Chilchuck, a half-foot trap-finder.

Soon into their journey, they run into Senshi, a dwarf who has lived in this dungeon as long as adventurers have known about it. Senshi is very knowledgeable about how to prepare and cook monsters of the dungeon, and intrigued by Laios and his journey, accompanies the party. Laios grew up obsessed with monsters and knows the ins and outs of their biology, ecology, how to kill them, and what parts are inedible. Combined with Senshi's knowledge on how to cook them, the party (Marcille and Chilchuk begrudgingly) are well equipped to delve deep into the dungeon surviving on nothing but the wildlife of the dungeon.

My Thoughts

Delicious in Dungeon is such an easily likeable story. The artstyle is cute and unique, but at the same time, portrays such intense action and interesting monster designs. The story starts out as a quirky little romp, but very soon it becomes apparent that every detail about the world is meticulously crafted to make it feel real and lived in. Monster Biology is based in real anatomical rules, but Magic is still part of the world too. For example, spirits are a real type of magical creature, and some monsters are adapted to filter feed on them.

The party all have very one-note personalities at the beginning. Senshi is obsessed with healthy habits, Laios is a bit of a dunderhead, Marcille is squeamish, and Chilchuck is selfish. But as the story progresses, you get to know each better and their personalities and ideals evolve as they encounter new challenges.

As I touched on above, the art style is gorgeous. The food looks delicious, the monsters are fun to look at in action, and the character design of each of the main and supporting cast of characters is varied and fun. Without spoiling anything, the story goes in a direction deeper and is more engaging than I thought possible from as simple a pitch as "adventurers eat the monsters in a dungeon", and although at the time of writing the manga is not finished, I am very happy with where the story has gone and am very keen to see where the ending takes us.

If my description has piqued your interest at all, I highly recommend seeking out Delicious in Dungeon. It's a fantastic read. And I just found out while writing this that an anime is being produced by Studio Trigger. So keep an eye out for that too.

Disco Elysium

ZA/UM

Disco Elysium is a role playing game released for PC and all main consoles, I personally played the Final Cut version on Nintendo Switch. Now when someone says Role Playing Game, the first thought is usually a random-encounter, turn-based combat system with parties, health and magic meters. But Disco Elysium is more like the classic table top RPG type, a point and click narrative adventure with dice rolls and branching narratives depending on the player's actions. It was a very engaging experience that I will probably go back and play again for a whole new experience.

The Pitch

Disco Elysium is based in a fictional post-war European-type city called Revachol. You play the role of a very broken man who wakes up after a few days of binge drinking, having forgotten literally everything about who you are and why you are here. A bit of briefing with the hotel staff and discussion with a police officer named Kim Kitsuragi, you find that you are a police officer too, and your precinct sent you to help Lieutenant Kitsuragi solve a murder case.

You interact with the world through walking up to objects, people, and landmarks, and making observations, growing your knowledge base of the world and who you once were. The player character's progression is through assigning points to various skills to build the type of cop you want to be in this story. Split into 4 main categories of skills; Intellect, Psyche, Physique, and Motorics; you start the game by assigning base points to a few different areas that will make it easier to be better at certain skills.

A character with good base Intellect will be better at general knowledge, conceptualisation, and talking smart, while a character with good base Motorics will have good hand-eye coordination, composure, and reaction time. You have the option to start from a few base pre-builds, or customise your stats to your preference. But you can't be good at everything. Are you the type of cop that talks down people in your way or the type to punch them in the jaw? That's up to you. Anytime you attempt a challenging task, be that persuasion, violence, or anything in between, you can attempt a dice roll. And depending on what skills you have points in, you will have better odds in different challenges.

Getting more skill points requires experience, which can be gained by pursuing the main objective, and by solving side-story mysteries. And the world is full of mysteries! There are cults, supernatural hauntings, post-war trauma, Eurobeat ravers, and much more to interact with. You are a broken man in a broken world, and there's nothing stopping you from being the worst kind of human being to get your way. Unless you don't want to upset Kim Kitsuragi.

And Kim is the one light in this dark, sad world.

My Thoughts

Disco Elysium is an experience like no other. The absolute depth of the world is just immense, you could get lost in centuries of in-game lore for hours. Even though the entire game takes place in part of one city, you have the opportunity to familiarise yourself with the entire world, decades of conflict, and the political matrix of powers that has led to such a desolate world.

Just as deep as the world are the characters, particularly the player character, Harry Dubois. You can play the entire game multiple times and not find everything wrong with this poor little meow meow. I neglected to mention this above, but each Skill talks, offering input from their area of specialty. Most dialogue in the game is from the inner thoughts of our cop, and what he can make of the situation. Putting more points into different skills will mean you hear the perspective of that skill more often. In my playthrough, I heard a lot from Encyclopedia, Drama, and Perception, but in a future playthrough, maybe Savor Flaire, Inland Empire, and Electrochemistry might have more to say.

Although the game is full of choice, there is ultimately one ending. I initially thought this as a bad thing, but it makes sense on further thought. This city was boiling towards an explosive conclusion no matter what two policemen do. What we can change however, is if we can save anyone on the way there, and what sort of person you make yourself into by the end. What kind of cop do you want to be?

Thanks for Reading

This recommendation has been a long time coming, as I've had these two series in in the back of my mind for ages. If you have engaged with either, please spread this post and tell me what you've enjoyed from them.

If you enjoy my style of writing, I have made 45 other posts just like this recommending all sorts of media. Check the pinned post on my blog.

[adelle-ein]

rambling about the ocd

so yeah yesterday not only did my ocd therapist tell me i have the highest ocd score she's ever seen (and like, she is not a new or inexperienced practitioner by any means) she told me that apparently a lot of my thought and behavior patterns are obsessive-compulsive. and a lot of them tie back to really extreme morality ocd, which actually explains a lot about the ways i've acted my entire life that were just brushed off as weird/quirky/generically anxious. even my other ocd "types" (contamination, etc) are all manifestations of severe morality ocd (i fear various forms of contamination because it makes me immoral, essentially) (that's fun).

i really didn't think it was that bad. i didn't think it was especially bad at all, truth be told, just one of the many diagnoses that make up my weirdness. but actually it's probably been the root cause for everything all along, including stuff i dismissed as just my own weirdness, like the extreme sensory processing stuff that's developed lately (fwiw i bought some new water bottles and significantly improved my hydration so working towards recovery on that). but since i don't have any compulsions that cause myself visible physical harm i didn't think it could be Real ocd. like i don't handwash to a dangerous level or self harm or starve myself, so i thought it was okay (nvm that i have caused myself extreme and permanent-feeling mental damage lol)

i've been perpetually exhausted, 24/7, since i was fourteen. because my brain's been at constant war with itself and still is and inhibits everything i do. because every single action i take is like moving through a molasses of obsessive thoughts and finishing compulsive rituals. my self esteem is somewhere in the marianas trench bc i feel like i'm constantly violating moral norms 24/7. the drugs that allow me even basic function worsen the fatigue and the brain fog and the weakness, but i need them or i literally can't stop doing compulsions. like if they stop making it or something i would need 24/7 care from my parents again bc i wouldn't be able to feed myself or shower or sleep.

i had been wondering a lot the last couple of years if i was autistic, especially with the sensory stuff, but it's now dawning on me that i just have the absolute worst fucking ocd that manifests itself in literally every aspect of my behavior and thought patterns. it looks very autistic on a surface level and gets me a high raads-r score, but probably isn't. like i could still be autistic, sure, but it's most likely that i just have incredibly severe ocd with every "less common" side effect known to man - sensory issues, routine and planning, social anxiety, stimming, etc etc. i did know that ocd/autism/adhd symptom overlap is huge but not that it was this huge.

none of this really changes anything, like i still need treatment, she's still gonna see me, but like, fucking hell. even i had been downplaying how sick i was, and probably still am, like even now i'm like well it can't be THAT bad i'm not dead :) but it is that bad. it's insanely bad. it's far worse than the "well everyone's kinda anxious and depressed right?" standard i keep tricking myself into believing i am. even now i'm STILL fucking questioning it bc i see people with ocd who seem so much worse than me but really i think that's more about what people are willing to put on the internet....i do not share my worst obsessions and compulsions generally and even when speaking privately to people i still downplay things heavily, i just can't do it. i'm extremely good at masking and hiding and downplaying because i've been doing it my whole life and a lot of my compulsive behaviors look pretty normal from the outside...but they're still very bad and the obsession levels are out of control high. and i've been doing so badly lately that i've had to step back from social media a lot because literally everything is a severe trigger at this point, from fandom drama to serious political stuff, because i get caught in a severe mental morality feedback loop every time i see something that can trigger it which is now a lot of things. but the stepping back also triggers a morality loop wheeeeeee (i see a ukraine flag emoji and have to sit there processing extremely distressing Moral Thoughts about ukraine and the war, for like...a while. to give you an idea of how severe it's gotten and why i've absolutely had to go quiet and careful with how i interact with pretty much everything, esp online where extreme positions are really common. i'm also really prone to picking up other people's anxieties and compulsions rn so again have to be SUPER careful what i look at - a tumblr poll about cleaning habits or similar can trigger compulsive behavior...)

it would be super cool if the ssa had cared about any of this but that ship's long sailed and they don't believe in or speak with therapists anyway (at least not in my state, they refused to even contact my therapist for the review they kicked me out over. even MD mental health practitioners aren't really exempt, they treated my psychiatrist incredibly rudely...)

but yeah no wonder i'm so dysfunctional and struggling so badly if i'm this abnormally ill ig