#i did some research as well and there are definite parallels.

[jounosparticles]

so. fyodor sees himself as a servant of god, as if he is a jesus like-figure. and nikolai was teamed up with fyodor but eventually chose to betray and try to kill him, much like judas.

and jesus knew he was going to be betrayed by judas, as fyodor accepted and challenged nikolai’s betrayal.

judas also felt great remorse and sadness as well as guilt for his betrayal after jesus’s death; similar to nikolai’s conflicted sadness towards fyodor dying.

this implies that fyodor and nikolai is a strange, fucked up version of jesus and judas. in this essay i will-

[lycheeloving]

Another multiverse yandere!Bruce fic, with special guest the Flash! It kind of got away from me and Bruce isn't even in this a lot... but I still love it tbh

again, i imagine this being at a time where you've been with Bruce for some time and have mostly accepted that you won't be getting away from him

Once again warning for typical yandere stuff, kidnapping, implied past noncon, minors dni. Oh and gn reader!

You're in the Batcave, sitting on Bruce's lap while he's typing away on his Batcomputer, researching something. He's in full Batman costume, which is hard and uncomfortable to sit on, but at least you're only sitting there and "warming him up" (as he puts it), instead of cockwarming him. Gotta be grateful for the little things. Actually, it's more like he's warming you up, because the suit must be warmer than what you're wearing (which isn't a lot), but, whatever, same difference.

At some point he pushes you off, stands up, growls out a "Don't touch anything, I'll be back soon," and proceeds to rush out of the cave in the Batmobile. Did he just leave you alone in the cave? Right next to all of his gadgets and the supercomputer?? You consider trying to contact the outside world for a second before coming to the conclusion that this must be a test, no way is he leaving you here alone if there's actually a way for you to get help! Probably.

Right as you've decided not to touch anything, the screen starts flashing with: "Incoming Video Call: Batman". What? Is he seriously calling you now? He's definitely trying to trick you into touching something, just so he'll have an excuse to punish you. No way are you falling for that! You're absolutely not going to push the button that would accept the call, even though it's glowing so enticingly... Also, what if he really needs your help (even though you have no clue what you could do to help Batman) and will punish you for not answering? Or better yet, he's seriously injured and you'll get to watch him die. That thought gets you to accept the video call.

...That's not Batman.

You stare at the guy who called you, and he's staring right back at you, seemingly just as confused as you are. Is that the Flash?? Isn't he supposed to be dead?

"...You're not Batman," he mumbles mostly to himself, then starts talking a bit louder. "I mean, I guess you could be Batman? I just was expecting you to look like more like my Batman. Not that he's my Batman, just, the Batman from my universe, I mean. Sorry. Are you Batman? You could totally be Batman, and just not be wearing the suit at the moment!"

"...I'm not ...Batman, he's... out, right now. You're the Flash, right? How are you- Why did it say Batman was calling? Wait, what do you mean by your universe??" This is too much information for you to process at the same time.

"Oh! Um, I'm from a parallel universe! Bruce somehow got his computer to be able to contact people in other universes and I'm pretty sure he built a portal thing, too... Anyways, I'm in the Batcave right now because Bruce is still on his way back and sent me ahead to call you, or, well, your Batman, to 'save some time', but I guess that was useless because Batman isn't here..." He stops rambling for a second, before adding: "Also I'm beginning to think Bruce just wanted to get rid of me, nothing we're doing currently is that time sensitive, and-"

"Wait, back up, did you say portal?" You cut him off before he can start monologuing again, sniffing an opportunity for escape. "Hypothetically, if someone were to go through that portal, could they stay in the other universe indefinitely, or would the universe or the person that went through the portal start falling apart or something...?"

"I don't think there's any issues with staying in a parallel universe! It's pretty cool, actually, the-" He stops himself from saying anything else. "Wait, who are you? I probably shouldn't be telling you all this. Are you, like, in a relationship with Bats? I mean, who else could get into the cave. And you're not wearing villain-who-broke-into-Batmans-lair clothes... or sidekick clothes..." He mumbles the last part to himself.

You can't stop staring at him. Just who is this guy? In spite of the weirdness of the situation it's actually really refreshing to be able to talk to someone who isn't completely stoic all the time (and hasn't kidnapped you). "I guess relationship is the most accurate? I mean, being kidnapped, locked up and kept as a fucktoy is a type of relationship, right?"

You say it as nonchalantly as possible, watching for his reaction to see if he thinks kidnapping people is normal, but it's looking good for you, because he's gaping like a fish out of water. "Y- Youre- by Batman? Bruce? That's- I don't-" He stutters, before awkwardly chuckling. "Ohhh, you're joking, right? You got me good, I almost believed you... Ha ha..." He doesn't seem entirely convinced.

You stare at him unblinkingly. What must his Batman be like for him not to believe you? Certainly nicer than yours. "Look, believe whatever you want, but could you do me a favor and open that portal? Bruce said he'd be back soon and I'd rather not be here when that happens, because he told me not to touch anything and instead of listening to him I answered your video call. He'll be super mad at me. Oh and this is the only real chance of escape I've ever gotten so I'd like to take it, please."

Something about the way you said it must have convinced him to believe you, as he mutters a quiet "...Alright," and before you can blink, he skids to a halt behind you through the already opened portal. Well, at least there's no doubt about him being the Flash, that was fast!

"Whew, that portal thing was harder to activate than I thought!" Thank god for super speed, you didn't even realize he was struggling with it. "So, um, what now? Do you just... come with me to the other Batcave?"

You look at him with stars in your eyes. Is this what it's like to be rescued by a superhero? You could cry, are you actually going to escape? No, not yet, you might trust him, but what about the other Batman in his universe?

"Sorry, just, are you sure your Batman isn't, like, secretly evil? Not keeping anyone locked up in his stupid manor?" He shakes his head vigorously. "I'm sure! He wouldn't- I know him, he would never even think about kidnapping anyone! And I definitely would know if there was someone locked in his manor, I've run through every room in his place way too often as to not have noticed someone trapped in there. He's a good guy, just, kind of stoic. And he hates fun. But he wouldn't hurt a fly! You know, unless it's an evil fly that needs to be stopped..."

Hm. Yeah, your Batman definitely hurts you sometimes and you're 99% sure you're not a supervillain or otherwise evil. "That sounds... convincing enough." You remember your shock bracelet and gesture towards it. "Um, could you please take this off of me first, before we go? It shocks me as soon as it detects that I've left the manor, and I don't want to find out if a parallel universe manor counts..."

He tries his best not to look as shocked as he feels while he inspects it carefully, then goes: "Um, wait a second, let me just-". He disappears and reappears in a flash. "So, I checked to see if maybe there's a manual for this thing somewhere, but I couldn't find anything. So I went through the entire manor, and guess what else I didn't find... Alfred!!" You furrow your eyebrows in confusion. "I guess that's what made your Batman so unhinged, sometimes I think Alfred is the only thing left standing between Batman and utter darkness..." This Alfred guy must be a total ray of sunshine then, you can't wait to meet him.

"So, what are we going to do about the shock bracelet, then? I'd rather not be in pain the entire time, but if you can't get it off that's still fine, as long as I can come with you..." "Oh, um, let me just-" Again, faster than you can blink he does something and the bracelet falls away from your wrist. Unfortunately, right as it hits the floor, an alarm goes off in the cave. Shit. You both grimace at each other, you should have know that the bracelet would send some kind of signal to Bruce as soon as it's no longer connected to you.

"Can you somehow disable his portal-making machine so he can't immediately follow us? Because I think we should leave right now, he's probably on his way back already!" You immediately go through the portal, not wanting to wait any longer. Even if Bruce can follow you, you'll have people protecting you on the other side. You think you can hear the Batmobile returning. Shit.

"Yeah, I should be able to-" You close your eyes and when you open them again, the portal to your universe is gone. A weight falls off your shoulders. "I messed with some wires on the other side, which closed the portal, but I was able to get back here just in time before it fully closed. He shouldn't be able to follow us. At least not immediately, he probably knows how to fix it, but this should buy us some time."

"Thank you so much. And I'm glad you made it back, I wouldn't want you to end up like the other Flash..." You sigh in relief. "The- What? What happened to the other Flash??" "Oh! Um, he's dead." You grimace sheepishly. "Sorry, that must be weird to hear."

His face goes pale. "You know what? I'm not even gonna ask what happened to him. I don't want to know. No, wait, I do want to know, how did he- No, don't tell me, whatever I say, do not tell me what happened to him."

You go to respond, but are interrupted by a sudden, loud: "Flash! Who is that?"

You flinch at the sound of his voice and turn around to face him. The Batman. Bruce Wayne. He only sounds like that when he's really angry. Your entire body screams at you to run and hide, or better yet, to apologize and beg. You've learned that hiding from him is pointless. He always finds you, and it only makes things worse. You freeze and stare at him with wide eyes, while he eyes you suspiciously. It's not him, you remind yourself. It's not him. He just looks the same.

He stops looking at you and turns to Flash instead. "You were supposed to contact the other Batman, not kidnap some terrified civilian." The Flash looks insulted for a second, before responding with an indignant: "Actually, I'm not the one who kidnapped them!". Batman narrows his eyes, then sighs. "Just explain why you thought it was a good idea to let a stranger into the Batcave."

You take half a step behind Flash before he begins explaining. "Turns out your other Batman kept them locked up! Your source for information and help is a kidnapper! Why are you even working with that guy? Did you know?" To his credit, Batman actually looks guilty after hearing that. "I didn't know, but I have to admit, I didn't look into him as much as I could have. Should have. Usually I look into every single detail of someone's life before working with them, but him looking and acting exactly like me must have made me lower my guard. It won't happen again, I assure you." He looks at you apologetically. Well, as apologetic as the Batman can look, which isn't very much, mostly he just looks stoic. But still, not an expression you've ever seen on your Batman, nor something he would ever say. You calm down a bit. This guy won't hurt you.

"So, um, is there anything we can do to stop him from following us?" You speak up quietly. "I mean, Flash messed with his portal machine or whatever it's called, but that won't stop him forever! He's obsessed with me, he won't just give up!" You start panicking again, maybe you were wrong to think you could ever be free.

"We'll think of something, I promise. We'll keep you safe. You have the whole Justice League on your side." The Flash nods in agreement to Batmans statement. You tentatively start feeling hopeful again, even if this doesn't work out, you'll at least have gotten a taste of freedom.

[ape-apocalypse]

Road To The Kingdom - Firestorm Tie-In Novel

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm is a prequel novel written by Greg Keyes for the second movie in the reboot trilogy. It takes place soon after the end of the first film, about a week after the apes escaped into the redwood forest beyond San Francisco and the Simian Flu began to cut through the human race. This novel is a fantastic bridge between Rise and Dawn, giving us more insight into characters we met in the first movie who will feature in the next, as well as fleshing out the fall of society. 

The book does very well juggling between the two massive plots of Caesar's apes avoiding their human hunters and the Simian Flu tearing through the city. Though we don't see Will or any other humans we met in Rise, they give us many new human characters: a reporter trying to make the connection between the escaped apes and the new virus, an emergency room doctor dealing hands on with outbreak casualties, and an ape researcher and a former hunter who have been brought in by Gen-Sys to capture Caesar's group. While I thought I wouldn't care about the humans because the apes are always my favorite characters, all these humans in different locations and with different stories keep the story from dragging; I ended up enjoying the final days of humanity almost as much as Caesar's story. The book also gives us the first introduction to a human character who will become important in Dawn: Dreyfus, the leader of the human colony played by Gary Oldman. Going into the movie, his backstory isn't very clear other than he was in some position of power before the end and he lost his wife and children. But the book goes really deep into his story of a former police chief running for mayor and wanting to protect humans. Rereading the book in 2024, the parallels of the Simian Flu with the Covid outbreak definitely rings true (much like the YouTube shorts).

But no matter how good the human characters are, what I enjoyed most about this book was seeing Caesar and his escaped apes start to adapt to life in the wild. Even while they're being hounded by the humans chasing them, they have to figure out how to care for sick/injured apes and where to get food without humans to feed them. A great moment for Caesar is when he thinks to himself that he never thought beyond escaping from the human city; his realization that there is more to figure out than just dodging humans shows how he goes from accidental ringleader from the sanctuary to the wise authoritative leader of the apes of the next two films.

Though surprisingly, the true star of this book isn't Caesar; it's Koba. We get numerous detailed flashbacks of Koba's life before ending up in the Gen-Sys lab and receiving the brain enhancing drugs. From the death of his mother to being an abused TV star to arriving at the labs as a test ape. In the films, Koba's hatred of humans shines through and is unquestionable; you don't need the backstory to understand why he carries a grudge against all humanity. But reading the details really did break my heart. And getting his backstory revealed as he learns to work with other apes, as he proves his loyalty to Caesar by rescuing injured apes rather than wrecking vengeance on humans, you actually have hope that he could be happy now that he was free with other apes. 

Another great part of the book is getting to see the very beginning of Caesar and Cornelia's courtship. Since one of my disappointments with the films are the forgotten female characters, I was glad to see Cornelia here, challenging Caesar's orders when it came to taking care of injured apes. Though her role is still small, I liked seeing her get a little time to flesh out her character.

Firestorm is officially labeled as a prequel (which is why I have it listed first as I'm trying to go in chronological storyline order), but I actually enjoyed reading it after seeing Dawn. While I think it can still be appreciated in any order, I liked getting to meet Koba in the movie and seeing him as a great complicated villain, before then learning his backstory and growing your sympathy for him, while also thinking about how tragic it is that he couldn't let go of his hate. Whatever order you decide to read them in, Firestorm by Greg Keyes is a wonderful expansion on the movies that I would label as required reading for fans for the expansive and enjoyable story it shares.

Intro / Previous / Next

[littjara-mirrorlake]

You (and your friend) pointed out that Vannifar's weird mechanics for her new card might be intended to have Vannifar consistently parallel mechanics associated with Phyrexia -- in this case, using cloak to mimic incubate. And I just realized: it really is the heroic counterpart to incubate. With cloak, where the face-down card can flip into the face-up creature card, Vannifar creates a creature similar to Phyrexians created with incubate, but she still grants it individuality and lets it be itself.

As a side note, the whole exchange in Murders at Karlov Manor between Trostani and Vannifar hit very hard for me; Oba's accusations read very similarly to some of the anti-science backlash that I saw during the COVID-19 pandemic. I'm a biomedical engineer and I did my master's thesis on a potential method of COVID-19 prevention, and if I didn't already want to be Vannifar before, I sure do now.

--

That's definitely interesting!

Honestly, given what I know about both Vannifar and Zegana, I was surprised they chose to characterize Zegana as the one fascinated by Phyrexian oil and willing to use it in her science when Vannifar is the one with quotes like "life must be improved... at any cost." (MTG Arena) I was so sure that Vannifar would be prime glistener bait given every piece of her characterization so far, as well as the card design pattern you pointed out.

But Zegana's actions really make sense from the angle of a biomedical researcher who loves her guild so fiercely and absolutely that she's willing to do the unthinkable for a chance to protect them. In the end, it's only natural.

[gyudons]

i’m sorry but this is the FUNNIEST THING i’ve ever read… a bunch of academics peering at this wooden dildo and having Intense Discussions about it

GUARDIAN - Archaeologists believe they may have found the only known lifesize Roman dildo, discovered in a ditch in what were the farthest northern fringes of the empire.

If it was not used as a sexual implement then the 2,000-year-old object may have been an erect penis-shaped pestle, or it could have been a feature from a statue that people touched for good luck.

What it definitely is not is what it was catalogued as after its discovery at the Roman fort of Vindolanda in Northumberland in 1992: a darning tool.

“I have to confess,” said Newcastle University archaeology senior lecturer Rob Collins, “part of me thinks it’s kind of self-evident that it is a penis. I don’t know who entered it into the catalogue. Maybe it was somebody uncomfortable with it or didn’t think the Romans would do such silly things.”

If they did think that, they could not be more wrong given that two- and three-dimensional representations of phalli were ubiquitous in the Roman world, whether in mosaics, frescoes, pot decoration or pendants worn around the neck.

The Vindolanda phallus is 16cm long but, researchers say, was probably larger because archaeological wood is prone to shrinkage and warping.

It has been examined by researchers at Newcastle University and University College Dublin. The analysis has revealed it to be, at the very least, the first known example of a disembodied phallus made of wood recovered anywhere in the Roman world.

The phallus was found in a ditch along with dozens of shoes and dress accessories as well as craft waste products such as leather off-cuts and worked antler – perhaps one reason for it being seen as a darning tool.

“What makes this a first is that it is not a small, miniature phallus,” said Collins. “It’s lifesize. It’s also important because wood just doesn’t normally survive … we couldn’t find any parallels.”

The size and uncertainty of function was fascinating, he said. “Often in archaeology when we find an object we can tell what it was used for or deduce what it was used for. That wasn’t the case for this object. We have had to cast our nets wide in thinking what would a six-and-a-half-inch wooden carving of a phallus be used for.

“We had some very interesting discussions.”

Ancient phallic objects were often used for warding off evil. The analysis showed the Vindolanda phallus had notably smoother ends, indicating it was used for something over a period of time.

The team has alighted on three possible theories, all of which are outlined in a detailed discussion paper published in the journal Antiquity.

One theory is that it was used for sexual reasons. That could mean it was a sex toy although some caution is needed, said Collins.

“Sometimes they [dildos] weren’t always used for pleasure … they can be implements of torture so I’m very conscious of using the term sex toy. Hopefully that is what it was used for. That is the most exciting and intriguing possibility.

“If that is the case it would be, to our knowledge, the first Roman dildo that’s been encountered from archaeology. We know from Greek and Roman poetry and Greek and Roman art that they used dildos. But we haven’t had any archaeological examples found which is intriguing in itself.

“If it is that and it is found up here on the northern fringe of the empire and not down in the rich heartland of Roman Italy … it is kind of astounding.”

Theory two is that the object was used as a pestle, either for culinary purposes or to grind cosmetic or medicinal ingredients. Its size would have made it easy to use and the shape would have imbued the food or ingredients with perceived magical properties.

The third option is that it was meant to slot into a statue which passersby would touch for good luck or to absorb or activate protection from misfortune – which was common throughout the Roman empire.

If that was the case, the statue would probably have been located near the entrance to an important building but the evidence indicates that the phallus was either indoors or at least not in an exposed position outside for any length of time.

Researchers hope the Vindolanda phallus will prompt a search for similar objects in other collections. In the meantime it has gone on display at the Vindolanda museum.

[the-blorbo-project]

Blorbos at Conference!

Long time, no update, but this project is moving forward! This weekend, we're at a conference hosted by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, or SCMS, presenting as part of a panel devoted to fan studies.

Why do panels matter?

First and foremost, it's a way to get research before a bunch of other researchers while it's still in progress. This helps catch poorly formed ideas, surface new good ideas, and share what's coming up with the fan studies research communities. It's also good for our humble PhD student CVs!

The Findings

Of course, the most interesting part is what, actually, we're presenting, AKA the findings! They're a work in progress, and the hardest part is the coding (talked about here). Therefore, I'm focusing on what I could do deep analysis on relatively quickly. (note: these images don't have image IDs because I summarize them below, but they're graphic representations of what I talk about in the text).

The majority of survey respondents were young: about 39% were 18-22 and 32% were 23-27. A further 17% were 28-32, about 8% were 33-37, and then it got progressively smaller from there. Shoutout to all 3 respondents who were 63 and over! So glad you're here.

In terms of social media usage, most people used tumblr - unsurprising, since that's where we got our most traction for the survey. Discord was the second most likely. Part of a later analysis will be seeing if these terms are more likely to be used by different age groups or on different platforms, which is cool.

Almost everyone surveyed had heard of these terms. Blorbo was the most-used and meow meow was least used, but very, very few respondents had not heard of these terms at all. This may be in part due to how we used them in our survey recruitment, since we did want to find people who knew what these terms were so that they could define them for us.

These numbers slope slightly down because something broke when we imported them into NVivo (a coding software) and frankly I don't understand it well even when it actually works, let alone when it breaks.

Here's a little visual of the terms you suggested for characters. Unfortunately, NVivo crashes every time I try to exclude words from this word bubble (like "term"), so it's not as clear as I'd like it to be, but there are some interesting ones. Particularly interesting are the cluster of gendered terms; husbando and waifu, malewife, sexyman, boy, girl, etc. I want to do some analysis of this because it parallels some preliminary coding results. Y'all also really find your blorbos scrunkly/skrunkly/scrungly, huh?

I also want to figure out how to tell the visualizer that "glup" and "shitto" go together, because "shitto" all by its lonesome over there is cracking me up.

Qualitative Findings

Like I said, the coding is...so far from done. That's mostly due to some Ao3-author levels of life disruption from both of us. BUT! I can tentatively say a couple of things:

There are notably clear definitions about these terms. We weren't sure if there even really was a definition of "blorbo", but it clearly refers to a very specific kind of one-true-character. By contrast, comfort characters are associated with experiencing positive emotions, and meow meows are more likely to be evil or morally grey (but you love them though).

Unsurprisingly, your characters make you happy. We're distinguishing between general positive emotions, attachment, relatability, and one-true-character belovedness. Also sexiness, but that (surprisingly) hasn't come up that much.

There are a couple of ways in which darker themes come up. Villains remain beloved, but a recurring theme is also using tragedy or trauma in fiction as catharsis.

Finally, there's a lot of playful and tactile language. "Rotating him in my mind" really is that common.

Additionally, I'm really interested in the role of gender. Many of you referred to your blorbos/meow meows as your guys, with some of you clarifying that it was "my little guy (gender neutral)". Others noted that most characters you'd seen people describe as blorbos or meow meows were men/masc. This did not come up for comfort characters. Analysis of the characters you consider exemplars of each definition will help flesh out this analysis.

Still to Come

SO much. Who are these characters? Is a specific character exclusively a meow meow, or are they also a common comfort character? What types of positive emotion are associated with each type? Are these character types or do they speak to a fan's individual (or a fandom's communal) relationship with a character?

Additionally - we didn't ask about neurodivergence, but many of y'all referenced it. I'm looking forward to exploring that as well.

That's all for now! I present this live in about two hours. If you're somehow following this account AND at SCMS, please come by!

[donnerpartyofone]

tagged by @moviesludge so this totally gratuitous info dump is his fault! Har har.

Do you make your bed? Sometimes! We usually just smooth out the covers, just so it's easy to get in at night and not all tangled up. I have a lot of just, executive and mechanical problems with maintenance and cleaning. I actually like having things neat and I like the monotony of cleaning, I have a fantasy life in which I'm just straight up a housewife, but I'm really bad at it. It causes me a lot of grief.

Fave number? 2! From when I was really little I had this sense that two was coming up all the time; obviously this must have been some sort of projection, but it stuck with me. I perceived some sort of subtext about being number two in life somehow, like being good but not meaningfully great at anything, which is fairly neurotic but typical of me as a kid. Anyway I was very disappointed when I learned by accident that Adam Levine has "222" tattooed on his arm, so I guess I won't be doing anything like that!

What’s your job? I guess I have to say I'm a writer, which feels embarrassing. If you say something like that, it sounds like you are succeeding at it, or that you at least make a living that way! Which is not, and may never be true. But it's the only thing anyone will pay me for right now. I have to admit that I feel pretty bad about this, I think I made a huge mistake by trying to see what I could do with my life, and not devoting absolutely all of my energy to finding and keeping a job in a cubicle or behind a cash register. Everyone automatically tells you it's best to "follow your dreams" or whatever but it's not very romantic to have no idea what's going to happen to you, and to be in danger because you're a fucking infant who doesn't know how life works.

Go back to school? Probably not. I was a good student up until I got into college, then I completely fell apart. Part of it was what I now understand are neurological issues, part of it was that I was so depressed I couldn't even get up and go to exams at times, and part of it was that I just had absolutely no idea what to do with my life or even HOW people do things with their lives (I still don't). Like I almost should have just done another four years in high school, or until I had some mental grasp of what college is even for, as a tool for transitioning into real life. The irony is that now I do college-level (possibly even grad level, sometimes) research and writing all the time, under my own power, just because I'm interested and I have a few outlets for it. My professors who struggled to get me to do anything would kill me if they could see what I'm doing now, haha. But if I were to go back to school, I would have to have an absolutely definite plan of why and what to do with it, that would make the debt and the time sink worth it. I admire people who do this, though, I do know adults who totally turned their lives around that way. I just don't have the brains for that.

Can you parallel park? I don't have a driver's license! I learned to drive, and I seem to recall being good at this during lessons. But I failed my one test, I genuinely think the conductor was being really confusing and getting angry with me--like, I was waiting at a light and when it turned green I started to go, and she goes, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!" and I said "I stopped at the red light and when it turned green I drove in the direction you told me to" and she goes "...WELL DID YOU *NOTICE* THAT IT TURNED GREEN???" which was a totally mindblowing question. And then I just felt so demoralized that I never tested again. But I also really think that if I got my license I would be dead by now, or someone else would be. I'm just so extremely nervous and absent-minded, and I also have pretty bad spacial understanding.

Job you had that would surprise people? My first job was working in a perfume factory! Or really it was like a plant that packaged these extremely toxic dollar store perfumes. It was run by a Russian family who were totally fucking insane and the machines were all janky, it was just a handful of us girls from high school working there and it's amazing none of us ever got maimed. The glue for the labels was really shitty, so they would set pallets of bottles out in the sun until they were blazing hot and then we were supposed to roll them between our palms to stick the labels back on. It was extremely painful and I remember thinking, they probably shouldn't be allowed to make us do this lol. The building was tucked back off the road across this wasteland, and there was a giant pile of broken toilets out front. I'll never forget that, I wish I had a photo.

Aliens real? You know what, I'm going to completely plagiarize moviesludge's answer because I find it so satisfying: "I feel like the scope of the universe makes this a certainty and it amazes me how many people think it’s a ridiculous idea. Talk about main character syndrome!" And I will just add that I read Whitley Strieber's Communion for the first time last year and it totally stunned me. I thought I knew what it was going to be like, because to some degree it established all of our cliches about alien abduction, but there's way more to it than that. He has this existential concept about what aliens even are, and what rules they obey, that is not at all restricted to the idea of animals that drive machines around. It's totally worth reading.

Can you drive stick? That's how I learned actually! And I have this concept that if I did have to drive I would be decent at it because I was fairly comfortable during lessons, and for years I have been riding my bike in really tricky situations all over the city. I know and obey the rules and I have a pretty good awareness of myself on the road. And also I always seem to be paired with a best friend or partner who LOVES to drive and I have spent huge amounts of time in cars, paying close attention and helping navigate. But as I said above, my brain is also garbage and I think if I drove a LOT and gave myself regular opportunities to get in trouble, I would inevitably have a nervous breakdown and/or fuck up way worse than a normal person.

Guilty pleasure? I'm with @thechurchofsplatterdaysaintssplatterdaysaints in that I sort of object to this concept. But I also spend a lot of time watching absolute shit movies and television, and some of the time I have an excuse--it's fun, it's anthropologically interesting, whatever--but a lot of the time I'm literally just deadening my senses because I'm so overloaded with depression and anxiety, and I'm not even paying attention, the TV is just ON. I don't think that's great. I don't know if I would call this "pleasure" but it is some form of indulgence.

Tattoos? A bunch! It's hard to explain but I kind of used them as a form of exposure therapy. I have struggled with some kind of phobia of doing anything that you can never change or take back, and getting tattoos helped. And I like them, I like most of mine. There's only two I'm really not crazy about, but they don't upset me that much, they have their good points too.

Fave color? Mainly red. Also orange and yellow and black. I kind of hate blue, my enjoyment of blue is highly conditional.

Fave type of music? In this phase of my life I generically prefer experimental or ambient music with no lyrics or vocals. This can span a lot of eras and genres.

Do you like puzzles? Maybe I would if I did them and I might find it therapeutic. Generally speaking I feel too stupid for them; like one thing I like about the original Resident Evil 4 is that the puzzle aspect of it is so primitive, it's almost in there just to check a box in between button-mashing violence. That's more my speed of game entertainment.

Phobias? Hm I'm afraid of lots of things, but as far as a proper phobia that's irrational: I have these fantasies of things exploding, like just shattering for no reason and being incredibly destructive. Like common household objects or whatever. And I have a lot of intrusive thoughts about people around me suddenly turning into psychotic monsters (monster can be literal or figurative) and I just can't find a rational defense reaction. But these are not true phobias in the sense of being a real, controlling force in my decision-making, I don't think they're really going to affect me. I really enjoy that thing about how trypohobia is not a real phobia because no one has to be treated for it in order to effectively navigate their life. It's just a dislike, and a pretty normal and understandable one. People on the internet have a lot of trouble telling the difference between things like phobias, moral objections, and just stuff that they don't like!

Favorite childhood sport? I was and am a total loser who can't do sports, but I guess the answer is karate. I took a year or two of that at a really great place sometime when I was 10-12, I really enjoyed the repetitive discipline of it and I was good at that kind of slow and steady, strength-based thing. I could say that I stopped because my mom was dying and that sapped my motivation, but I actually think the truth is that I was getting to the point where sparring was more a part of it, and I'm not fast or spontaneous and I don't like when people touch me, so I knew I was never going to test out of my last belt and I might not enjoy it as much as I advanced. I still think about doing another martial art, though. I think it might help me pay attention to my physical health, and get out of my head and into my body, and maybe it would also help me learn not to be so afraid of human contact. I need to pick something that's decent for people who are short and squat, though. Everyone always tells you there's no rule that says certain forms are suited to certain body types, it's all about integrity and commitment and building ability, but I really don't think that's true! (Let me know if you have opinions on this)

Talk to yourself? Yeah. Living in the city for a long time bred the habit of talking to myself like an absolute crazy person right out on the street when I'm not doing well; it's like, everyone else is acting crazy, who fucking cares! But I'll also talk to myself when I'm alone in the house just because I like words and making sounds and telling jokes. I have no problem with the stigma of talking to oneself.

Movies you adore? So many. Movies are my whole life. How do I pick, I don't know! Some recent ones I had to write about are UZUMAKI, DELICATESSEN, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, and DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE which might literally be my favorite movie of all time, although I have a problem with that concept.

Coffee or Tea? Mostly coffee, there's less action/decision-making involved. But I like tea also. Some of my favorites are licorice, anything with cinnamon, and also savory toasted grain teas.

1st thing you wanted to be when grew up? I wanted to be a screenwriter. I liked movies and my dad is a writer, and it just seemed obvious. But I never learned anything about the discipline of it or the professional trajectory. And I was really poisoned by the whole "you can be anything you want!" idea, I feel terrible for saying that when so many people get zero support or faith from adults in childhood, but it's true. I heard and believed that blanket statement, but I didn't have the clarity or mental toughness to specialize and understand the meaning and implications of having a goal. It was just like, oh I could be a writer, or I could be an artist, or I could be in the movies, or blah blah blah I guess one of these things will just land on my head some day. I had no fucking clue, I still don't. It's hopeless! But you wanna know what's really weird, when I was little I also had this strange fixation on being in the army--but I had zero fantasies about combat or anything exciting, it was entirely this idea about being really good at boot camp, being able to endure any form of punishment. And I had a similar concept about JAIL, I remember reading this children's photo book that explained all about prison, and I think it was just this whole fantasy about having intensely disciplined obedience and being able to endure anything! I still think I'm going to jail some day but it's just because I feel so guilty about everything. Obviously the main conclusion to be drawn from this is that I am a natural born pervert.

tagging @hechiceria @sleepsafe @columbosunday @clarabeau @barnsburntdownnow @punisheddonjuan

[enlitment]

Books tag game time! Thanks @marcusagrippa for the tag ✨

Last book I read: Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions

Confessions... not going to go into it in this post. It's a wild ride for sure. But if you're interested in mental health (issues) in the 1700s, it's a fairly interesting source material.

Book I recommend:

I've recently finished Carlo Ginzuburg's Cheese and Worms. It's an absolute classic! It's also a fairly quick read. I'd recommend it to anyone who's curious to see how modern historical research doesn't have to just be about famous kings or medieval battles (or if you want to read about an unhinged oddly progressive 16th century Italian miller. Menocchio is the best and I adore him!)

Book I couldn't put down:

That usually happens with murder mysteries, since I want to keep reading until I find out what happened. One of them is Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose (also a classic, and definitely an interesting spin on the genre),

the other is Stuart Turton's The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Nothing to do with history but it's so unique and so good! The best way I can describe it is that reading it feels like playing a video game, in the best way possible. It also opens up some interesting philosophical questions at the end. I've been (unsuccessfully) trying to convince my friends to read it for a year now 🙃

Book I've read twice:

I've read a lot of books multiple times for my final high school exams, but the two I know I've read twice for reasons unrelated are Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange (I rant about it any time I get a book ask, so I'll refrain from it here) and George Orwell's 1984 (I was obsessed with it in my early teens for some reason).

There are a lot of books I loved in my teens that I would be curious to read once again, to see if my perception has changed. It did happen for 1984 and Hamlet, so it would be interesting to see if it's the same case for other works as well!

A book on my TBR:

Gosh, so many. But one is Plutarch's Parallel Lives! I'm so curious about it but still haven't gotten around to actually reading it. I've only read short passages so far and I want to fix that! (Though good news is my grandparents actually have a copy in their library so I'll just snatch... um, borrow it at some point)

A book I've put down:

It used to happen quite a lot, but ever since I've started basing my reading on Tumblr... no okay, in all honesty, I've put down C. S. Forester's Hornblower and didn't get back to it for years. Although I love the tv series, I just couldn't get into the book. But I still kind of want to give it a go at some point in the future.

A book on my wishlist:

I've been obsessed with the Introducing Graphic Guides recently and I just want to collect them like Pokemon cards!!

They are very digestible and so, so good! I read one on Rousseau and Machiavelli, I bought one on the Enlightenment which I'm saving as a treat, but I need Žižek as well... and Foucault... and Romanticism...

A favourite book from childhood:

I know there recently was a movie that was... not good, but I loved Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines. It was this sort of steampunk-esque fantasy book which had a really interesting female protagonist. I mean I'm only just now realising how subversive it was that the main heroine was fairly unlikeable and very flawed but still someone you were meant to ultimately root for?

There was also a parallel about social darwinism – the world of the book had cities flying in the skies that were devouring smaller cities, robbing them blind and enslaving their populations. The governments had a flimsy quasi-philosophical justification for all this, but the heroes of the books were fighting against the status quo. Looking back, I still think the series was pretty cool!

A book you would give to a friend:

Recently borrowed Émilie du Châtelet's Discourse on Happiness to my friend after she went through a break-up. I'm hoping É's words of wisdom might help her!

A book of poetry/lyrics you own:

Catullus (a Czech and an English translation) of course!

I've also recently bought Ovid's Letters of Heroines in a second-hand bookshop and I'm looking forward to getting into it.

A non-fiction book you own:

A fair amount of biographies of old white dudes, to the surprise of noone...

but to give a little more interesting answer, I do own all the books by Jon Ronson. He's a British journalist writing about current issues and I find him to be both really funny and really insightful!

His books about the psychiatric industry (The Psychopath Test) and modern-day ostracism (So You've Been Publically Shamed) are especially good and I'd recommend them to everyone!

Currently reading:

Voltaire's biography - Roger Pearon's Voltaire Almighty. It may not be a prefect academic source, but his writing style is great and I'm really enjoying it so far!

I'm also on-and-off with Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety. I think I'll save it for once I start uni again.

Planning on reading next:

Denis Diderot's The Nun! I'm super curious because it sounds like a really interesting book for understanding sexuality and gender in the enlightenment era.

tagging @chaotic-history @my-deer-friend @theghostofbean and @iron--and--blood ! No pressure of course ✨

[your--isgayrights]

Hi idk if anyone has asked this before but do you think there are thematic implications to Sangah liking works from Murakami Haruki, Raymond Carver, Han Kang.

Yeah, I'm not super familiar with all of the authors myself but I did some basic research while writing Wall fic so I have an opinion about this. First of all, the internationality of these picks shows YSA is well read, but this different kind of well read than KDJ. Her interest in international literature is somewhat connected to her backstory of being from a richer family that wanted to marry her off in my mind bc international language education is somewhat status/wealth associated in modern South Korea. Second of all the kinds of authors she picks out are the type who write singular, artistic works that tend to start from a point of realism and make a comment about the characters' navigation of Society. So the type of reading she's doing isn't sitting down and obsessively following a 3000 chapter webnovel that can only exist through the conglomeration of niche trope after niche trope to be completely understood. I see her as a girlie who like. Will check the new York times best seller list and just buy or check out a new book to read if she hears good things. So this authors of singular works and short stories being her favorite shows she doesn't really follow extensive Series, she's not the type who needs constant updates to keep on living lol. She's the type who occasionally read novels for literature classes which graduated to occasionally reading novels in her free time. Not saying that she reads popular novels just to seem cultured like mister 'art of war on my desk' but I think she is someone who can see opening a book like stumbling upon a television program that just happens to be on you know it's not a major time commitment or something that will rewire her brain and then she'll have thoughts about language use and literary opinions you know.

Then the one author I'm more familiar with is Han Kang and I actually didn't remember her being listed by YSA but you're probably right and I just forgot bc I know Han Kang from reading the Vegetarian more than I know her from being referenced in ORV I guess lol. Han Kang is a popular modern author in South Korea who has both been somewhat of an icon for feminism (I think?) And is definitely a representative of the Trauma literature movement. She grew up in Gwangju and lived through the aftermath of the Gwangju uprising (the people suffered violent oppression and censorship under leadership at the time) and in an interview she once described herself as someone who writes to ask questions instead of answer them. The Vegetarian is an example of a work of hers that starts off very ingrained in reality and slowly becomes surreal in a way that could still exist in the real world but could be interpreted as containing fantasy elements. I think it's interesting to me to draw parallels to YSA here bc the vegetarian is a story about a traumatized woman being controlled and used by other people. Spoilers for the vegetarian I guess but the main character decides to be vegetarian one day without a 'societally acceptable' reason and this 'embarrasses' the people around her so much that they try to force her to change. After she is abused by her husband, father, and brother in law, this experience is held parallel to something she experienced as a child, when she was friends with a small dog and then the dog bit her. Local folk medicine said killing and eating the dog was the only way to cure sickness from a dog bite and she felt no remorse as everyone agreed the dog must be eaten. Forgetting 'the natural order' revokes the rights of personhood or humanity, when the main character of the Vegetarian descends into a psychosis trying to escape participating in the violence of the world around her by 'becoming a plant,' it's shown at the end how even her own sister struggles to see her as a person who can still be spoken with or make her own decisions. So yeah it's pretty fucked up and I have some more specific opinions on it ( like I've written essays about it) but as it relates to YSA the Vegetarian is very much about the POV of outsiders following another person's struggles which I find a very interesting in parallel to YSA leafing through KDJ's memories as his wall librarian. I also think her familiarity with trauma literature as a genre may be off-putting to KDJ specifically because these realistic type stories with a bit of fiction are quite similar in genre to the book his own mother wrote, in fact I find it extremely likely that in the world of ORV YSA read LSK's book somewhere before. I think they're also not the kind of books that get overly silly/ have a 'happy ending' by convention, which is interesting to me bc I see passivity vs agency as an important theme concerning YSA's arc throughout the story and whether or not she has an ability to create a happy ending or not is interesting. Like the little 'you knew??' moment in the epilogues is very important bc YSA and KDJ come from this same 'real world' and because of that neither of them really expected a Happy Ending you know. I like that YSA goes through the journey of beginning to Believe in it before KDJ comes back bc you know it shows that perspective can be changed before we even get to him it's really good.

[bylerspookie]

I noticed something in season 1 when El steals eggos, whatever we call that scene lol

hello???

blue and yellow?

cat chow??? (the silver cat feeds)

10lb bag? (here's a post about how Mike and Will are both 10, 10 + 10 = 20 which is the number Mike rolled in dnd when he won, where as when he rolled the number 11 he lost)

(also, fun fact, concerning the post that I linked, 8 + 1 + 5 = 14 (a pair of 7's, like the post I linked underneath this one) and El's roller skate is a size 6, 20 - 6 = 14)

("the roll, it was a 7")

and then idk what 289 means, but 2 + 8 + 9 = 19, and in this post, we see the significance of the number 7 in stranger things, and how 7 + 7 = 14, and they triumph in the dnd opening scene in season 1 with the number 14, but they only needed a 13 (or more) to win, and we know 14 - 001 = 13, so it makes sense for this number to be 19 if we parallel it to that scene, because 20 (or 10 + 10) - 001 = 19

idk if I'm like way off track but idk, I think the numbers definitely mean something, especially the way the camera switches from us seeing El to us seeing this poster

but it's kinda coincidental how I made the post about the significance of the number 10 on a reblog of @aemiron-main 's post about the weirdness of this series and the number 10 (here) and now I see this lol

and if you think the numbers I added up were a little bit of a stretch, then maybe it means season 2, episode 8, 9 minutes

and OH MY GOD

BINGO

I just checked

Max: Well when's he gonna molt again? (talking about Dart)

Dustin: It's gotta be soon

(this is when it reaches 9 minutes, I'm pretty sure, but idk my phone is messed up but it's around here)

Dustin: when he does, he'll be fully grown or close to it.

Dustin: and so will his friends.

Steve: Yeah and he's gonna eat a lot more than just cats.

Lucas: Wait, a cat?!

Dustin: ...

Lucas: Dart ate a cat?!??

HELLOOO OH MY GOD???

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS UP PEOPLE

SURELY THIS CAN'T BE A COINCIDENCE

(Edit: This might seem like a stretch, but listen,

the cat is in the top left corner, and the word "Save!" is in the top right corner

the word "purina" is the name of the brand, but I did some research, and apparently the word comes from the word "pure" or "purity"

idk if this means anything, but, maybe someone can try and figure out what this means idk, and I did say it was a stretch, but I just found it interesting that the word purina means purity, like a nod to how heterosexual relationships are perceived as "pure")

[zimthandmade]

Hi Zimt!

So. You know how Near went to public school for a bit?

Do you have any headcanons on that?

I often imagined him in that scenario and the result honestly is pure chaos.

First of all, I think he kept tabs on everyone on a notebook, from the teachers to his classmates, and at some point someone finds his notes and he gets in real trouble because he was really straightforward about it. When asked why he was doing it he answered that it was a writing exercise, but actually he was just practicing reading people. Which lead to him writing down lots of awkward hypothesis on people’s behaviour that ended up offending them. Also he guessed a lot of the most embarrassing stuff about the school staff, like secret shenanigans and who hid a secret stash of cigarettes where and things like that.

He definitely had a fight with a teacher because he would be doing complicated stuff without following the instructions, like:

N: But Miss, the answer to 47x8 really is 376

Teacher: Nate, there is no way you could guess that out of thin air, please (very frustrated) just do the operation like I explained you.

(No idea if in your AU he did enough elementary school for his class to do multiplications, but still)

You could draw a parallel with Mello on that one, or with Light even.

In a normal classroom they probably would have been able to respectively show up the teacher about the stupidity of the question and show off to the teacher about how easily he handles it. Near however would not even be able at that time to understand why it is being asked in the first place, because he struggles to fully grasp the fact that the other children are not at his level. It all seems so easy to him.

Which lead young Nate to pick the lock of his teacher’s desk drawer to read his classmates’s child-level answers to tests and understand what they were doing right that he was apparently doing wrong.

He got in trouble for that too.

He said that he was doing research.

His teachers were very frustrated with his attitude. It’s the nineties, so they don’t really know or care on how to deal with his autism.

Also, do you think he got bullied?

Since children can really be jerks probably yes, and with that sassy attitude he probably spent his share of hours inside a locker.

He definitely corrected all the insults directed to him, (often mistaking insults for simple errors) like:

“No Jason, I am not retarded, I am autistic, asperger autistic, which means that it’s not that evident, but it doesn’t affect my cognitive abilities in any way-“

“Don’t be ridiculous Charles, of course I am not a girl, why would you make such an assumption? We go to the same bathroom.”

Etc.

Also, this one might be a bit exaggerated, but I imagine him being so bored of his own homework that he corrupted one of the older kids to let him do theirs, and when people started to get suspicious and they wanted to back out Nate threatened to let everyone know their secret plus other stuff he found out about his accomplice to use as blackmail for this specific scenario.

The kid reached out to an adult as he was very scared of Near.

Near didn’t mean to scare them, he was just testing if something he saw on TV actually worked in real people.

Poor kid probably had to change a lot of schools.

What do you think?

I can't muster up the energy to draw something for this but I don't want this to be rotting in my ask box any longer cause I think it's absolutely lovely <3 It's so well thought through and lively, I can see all of that happening!

Must be so frustrating for a nighly gifted kid to be constantly corrected and critisised despite knowing they're in the right. I wonder if it made Near feel like he's dumb at some point.

[thecheshireninja]

um, so what is up with the temple of silence?

After just finishing Cyno's second story quest, I have mixed feelings. And because he's my favorite and I'd been waiting for that story quest for ages, I might as well rant a bit... (Warning: disorganized thoughts to follow.)

The whole "reawakening Hermanubis" thing did not quite sit right with me. I understand their motives for doing so, but the story at no point tries to justify how they did it. They themselves called it an experiment. On human children. *scratches head* I dunno, it all just seems lowkey unethical to me. Especially since they admitted adults could not withstand the power, which means... people might have died? (They didn't find it necessary to clarify.)

Even though they did succeed, the ends definitely don't justify the means because Cyrus then ran off, ruining everything. Which, can I just say, GOOD ON YOU, Cyrus, taking a child away from a human experiment where he could grow up with at least a semblance of normal life. But why did the man feel so guilty about it?? The emotional betrayal I understand, but he--and everyone else in this quest--made it sound as if he was fully in the moral wrong.

Perhaps we can give the Temple the benefit of the doubt and say the adults who could not withstand the Ba fragments willingly gave themselves up to the experiment. But Sethos and Cyno were children. I don't think they had much choice. I especially don't think Cyno had much choice given that he was sold by his own parents for this purpose.

Yet upon learning this no one so much as batted an eye. Cyno, the General Mahamatra, who goes on long and heavy about the principles of justice he dedicates his life to upholding... Genshin, what are these inconsistencies?? Drawn all the sharper when you think about the next major story quest they released after this one--Arlecchino's, which also features the subject of human experimentation on children? Now obviously Dottore is on another level because the mental and physical trauma his research inflicted are undeniable where Cyno and Sethos turned out all right, but you know. I'm just seeing some uncomfortable parallels here, is all.

In the end, I think it's because the writers chose not to address any possible consequences for Bamoun's work. Maybe something like "he didn't end up harming anyone in the long run anyway so he can get a pass, unlike Dottore." Cyno survived the discomforts he endured after absorbing the fragment, after all, and now he's doing just fine. Sethos finally gets the freedom to find meaning for his life outside the burden that was pushed upon him as a child (and yes. Yes, I know this is meant to be an allegory, or at least can be construed as such, but I dearly wish they had used a different method to convey it). And let's assume the people who couldn't withstand the Ba fragments either survived or, if they did die, sacrificed themselves willingly. Either Bamoun was making a lot of optimistic predictions that paid off in the end, as was alluded to in the story, or the writers just couldn't be bothered to dive into the potential side-effects of these major revelations.

Cyno is written as a strong-willed, confident, and mature character. It's fair that the writers wouldn't want to give him an existential crisis at his age (he's clearly older than the type who usually do--barring the immortal not-quite-humans who never age out of existential crises). It's not that we don't get to talk about trauma that I mind, so much as we don't get to see him express his moral opinion on things. Almost every time we've come close, he only talks about the rules of the Akademiya. It would have been nice if he could say more in this quest, but oh well. Honestly, I was happy enough to see more dimension to Cyno's character and of COURSE, his relationships. I'm SURE people have discussed all this before and I'm just late to the party. And I could have missed something, but I figure if it was small enough to be missed it probably wouldn't have changed my opinion.

I suppose a Cyno story quest part three would be too much to wish for, anyway...

[critco3cxt]

do u have any ideas on how to convince an anti proship (& assumedly antirq) to become rq/proship? i rlly like the person and i honestly dont want them to worry about antis when shipping or doing fiction or to end up being horrible to others because of it. details for more info: -their fine with gore and abuse and horror being shown but VERY anti proship, equates proshippers with pedophiles (not saying their bad of course but still) -bitey as hell, has "PROSHIPPERS FUCK OFF" all over their blog, has them on a dni, etc etc. probably wouldnt listen if its brought up directly -unsure of their reasoning for being anti proship, they may not be aware that some proshippers are venting trauma just like they are when they make art or writtings about abuse, but even if told that i doubt theyd listen (bitey, again.) theres some more details i could give but i dont wanna give out everything abt them, this should be enough details for now though? if u cant help thats fine, i jusg thought youd be one of the best to bring it to!

well, you can start telling them how you did some research and that "fun fact", the word proship comes from shipping wars in the early 2010s and means pro fiction/shipping and that it doesnt mean "problematic ship". also you could use their own gore shipping to compare to then how "you like death and gore but you would never kill someone in real life right?" and tell them for a start that people shipping paraphilic ships *do* acknowledge that they are problematic and ship them for fun, not because they condone them. and that the fun comes from how fucked up they are, just like gore or other edgy fiction. (of course this is not the case of every shipper but you can start slow with them)

clear up the definition of proshipper for them, that it means ship and let ship and anti censorship, compare to them how censorship at its core can always be abused and blown out of proportions, like how there is a book burning queer panic in the us right now/in the recent years. and that everything that is fiction stays in fiction, and that everyone should have freedom of expression.

if they argue that fiction affects reality, it is true *but* it only matters for big corporations and influencers, not individual creators. and most fiction is catered to 18+ individuals *specifically* for them to be mature enough to keep it to fiction.

there is nuance everywhere, and in the end, harassing and attacking *anyone* regardless if theyre a "bad person" or not is cruel.

now as for radqueers, you could link said proship talk with paraphilias, and explain that as people have the maturity to not replicate things in fiction, they will not do so if they have attractions to something either. just how a gay person is not victim of their attraction and wont rape every man they see (it WAS a misconception that existed back in the day), a paraphile will not do so with children or animals. people are people and many do have morals, it's not some "other" that is dangerous. this mentality has been used against queer trans and gay people for centuries and dehumanizing a group of people is just wrong and inaccurate to reality.

then after that, you could slowly introduce them to transids, using parallels with transgender individuals, maybe use plural systems as an example as to how someone can exist in dissonance to their body in more aspects than gender, start with more "tame" identities before talking to them about transharm/ful/ed identities. and when talking about the later, you could kink as an example on how dom/sub relationships can exist in the context of transharm, and how being transharm sorta extends this simply beyond kink.

finally, explain to them that radqueer simply means accepting all these different types of queerness. that queerness means and meant "odd" and weird and different, not lgbtq, hence technically including kink, transids, paraphilias, and any sort of nonconformity ever.

go slow with them, introduce them to concepts one by one! it's a lot of work to undo all the anti propaganda, and we're saying this as ex antis ourselves! be patient, kind, and be ready to protect yourself if they turn against you. but we know it's possible to convince people, even the most aggressive ones! good luck!! hope we helped a little, even if we didnt cover everything 🫶✨ if you have any questions or want us to elaborate on something let us know! ^-^

[shallowseeker]

I don't really agree with your demon dean takes but i find them interesting

K. Much of this is just my lens and experience, you know? My beloved brain-addled Gramps grabbed my ass one day from his hospital bed. Was that his "true self?"

Basically, I don't buy into the whole, "release your inhibitions" wholesale. Inhibitions taken to extremes can be bad, sure, like how they are rigidly enforced with angels. On the flipside, I don't think disinhibition is automatically "good" or "your super-duper secret true self." Inhibitions are actually a key component of decision-making and free will.

I don't actually disagree with other takes on Demon Dean. I let most of them co-exist in my head. They're fun. A) I just see this particular take less often, and I like it. B) It gives me a shit-ton of mileage in filtering the side stories of the season:

DEAN HATED BEING A DEMON

Dean talks about how he hated becoming a demon, and he asks Cas to kill him if he goes darkside again.

As a demon, Dean doesn't actually act like himself; he mistreats the girl he sleeps with, which is not his MO at all.

He sings badly, and the Dean we know is into music even since Robin and sings quite well.

He's not his full integrated self, he's often disinhibited, bitter, and numb.

It's a callback to his original trauma in Hell, "being carved into a new animal." Hell, it's an odious nod to Alastair.

There are glimmers of his soul fighting to get out. Moments of lucidity, you might say.

He thanks Cas for, "stepping in when you did." Another callback to Dean's original Hell rescue.

via @silver-stake-through-the-heart - he didn’t care about Baby! “She was just a car.” Dean didn’t care about Baby or himself. He became an animal with no interiority that requires no tenderness, like “just a dumb car.”

LOSS OF CONTROL; DISORGANIZED PSYCHOLOGY

During season 10, Dean has recurring nightmares about the loss of control.

...because he hated being a demon beholden to instinct, sundered from his own emotions. (It's a parallel to Naomi's super-soldier-Cas.)

That's what killing the human traffickers was really about; if Dean had lined them up and executed them under his own free will with full faculties, it wouldn't have bothered anyone.

Like when Mary views Jack's torture-kill in season 14, it's about the "kill signature." And well, the loss of control does have some research to back it up when it comes to assessing a worsening disorganized psychology. Mary is a lifelong hunter and would be hip to recognizing the signs of a hunter losing himself/losing touch with reality.

As much as I love to joke about Dean trying to crack Sam's skull open with a hammer, that's not what Dean really wants. In this scene, he becomes a specter of Lucifer/Nick Vaught (a former mark bearer; known for his volatility and impulse issues).

PIMPS & PROSTITUTES & ROOFIES

Randy/Claire/Salinger-the-human-trafficker is parallel to Crowley/Dean/Cain-the-father-of-murder.

Claire loves Randy as Dean loves Crowley: he seemed kind and like he was giving Dean new purpose & support...at first. Randy showed remorse after he threw Claire to the wolves. He still "loved" Claire, probably. Same with Crowley. (Horribly, I'm 99% sure Claire would have forgiven Randy, too, eventually.)

Like how Claire forgave Cas, ofc. Claire will take any scrap of affection. Literally, the way past her defenses is just to give a damn, no matter what else has happened.

Raoul-the-pimp-soul-collector-that-Rowena-kills & Shaylene-the-prostitute is definitely a parallel to Crowley & Dean, right down to the brutal capitalism of Hell's soul deals.

Dean's story about John "saving" him from what is surely a close encounter with being roofied is a nod to Dean's sexual abuse as a minor, even though Dean plays it off as sexy, fun, and cool. Part of me thinks John actually walked in on a drugged-up-teen-Dean being statutory-raped by a bunch of adults. Or at the very least, sexually assaulted.

He feels like John set him up to be vulnerable and then turned around and shamed him harshly for becoming damaged goods.

SHAME & SUICIDE

This is why there's this constant swirl of SHAME and SUICIDE with regard to Dean's time as Demon Dean and becoming a knight of Hell through the Mark of Cain.

Dean even emphasizes some of the friendly, cute moments. It's the same way he retells the bar story as being Super Cool. Even Sam thinks his retelling of CBGB is a heartwarming tale. A lighthearted “summer of love,” if you will. Sam doesn’t get it. He never will.

DEAN: Somehow, we convince him to let us go. So, we all go. We all, you know, see all the sights, and uh, ride the subway, eat too much pizza. The whole nine. Well, by about midnight, Sam and Dad are zonked, and I figure… Screw it. I’m going to CBGB. All right, so I get there. I sneak in, and it is nuts. I mean, people are drinking and they’re smoking and they’re—they’re snorting whatever. There’s a five-hundred pound guy on stage with a Mohawk just screaming. And, uh, my mind is blown. I don’t even know what to do. Then this girls walks up and she says “Hey, why don’t you come over and sit down with me and my friends at our table?” All right! SAM: Yeah, and they get him drunk. First time. DEAN: But not fun drunk. I’m not quite sure what was in that stuff, but the room starts to spin, and I feel like I’m going to puke … forever. And right about that time, I hear him. “Dean Winchester!” ...My old man. I don’t know how, but he found me. And now I’m really freaking out, because he’s just standing there, not saying anything. I look around, and everybody else is freaking out, too. In fact, nobody’s even looking him in the eye. And finally, this one guy with, like, a safety pin through his nose and a—a “Kill Everything” tattoo looks up and he says, “Sorry, sir.”

So yeah, Demon Dean wasn't a positive experience on the whole, even though he, parallel to Claire, pretty much forgives everyone about it. She, too, is a heart character.

He only reveals how much he hated it...to Cas, really.

DISINHIBITION (REDUX)

This disinhibition of the mark rears its head again when Dean visits the college campus and makes comments about the girls there. That's not an accident of writing; it's a neon sign for how demon Dean and MoC!Dean acts, and why.

That's not in line with the Dean we've known in seasons prior OR after. It's simply...inappropriate disinhibition. Like a frontotemporal injury. Not the true self.

Dean beats on people as revenge for how he was wronged, too. If you look closely, he beats on Cas in a very similar way to how Cas beat on him in seasons 5 & 8.

Much of his behavior is an outpouring of those times Dean felt powerless in his life.

SLUTS, VALIDATION & VICTIMIZATION

Then, we have Mr. McKinley and the "slut daughter," Rose.

Dean says, "And you know what? I don't blame Rose anymore. No wonder she put on that skank outfit and went out there looking for validation, right into the arms of the monster that killed her."

Dean is finally unleashing his anger about what happened to him re: Cain and re: the CBGB incident.

For all his talk of "making Claire tougher," he's looking at how vulnerable he was, and he's finally starting to process the magnitude of that.

This is probably why he's not acting as outlandishly sexual in the later seasons, as much as I'd like to put it down to Cas's presence (Cas's presence is certainly meaningful).

But actually, it's that Dean processed why he acted in a certain way, and he's reflected on how it actually made him feel. (His protective locker room talk, of course, remains.)

CAS AS WHAT DEAN WISHED FOR FROM JOHN

That Cas gives Claire up to a healthier, safer life is what Dean wishes John would've done for him...left him with Sunny, perhaps.

Cas wants to keep Claire, because he loves her, but he can't repair the damage he did to her life.

Giving her up to Jody was the best thing. He's not equipped to care for Claire, like how John wasn't equipped to care for Sam or Dean.

Dean wishes John had been like Cas, and apologized, even though the situation was damn-near unfixable. He wishes John had tried to make amends anyway.

So when I say I get a lot of mileage, it's simply this. I get a lot of mileage. It's a fun lens for me, personally. And before you bring it up, yes, I do see the drug addiction parallels; I see addiction as quite complicated stuff.

I also think that Crowley is legitimately integrating his own humanity and catching feelings, but it doesn't erase the core of the whole situation. Crowley is also dealing with the events that led him to become a demon in the first place. He was abandoned, he drank too much in order to cope with an "unsuccessful" life, and he was tricked by a demon in a back alley who played on his dick insecurities.

He is like Metatron was to Cas. He saw that Dean was vulnerable, and he orchestrated a situation as a means to gain power in Hell. Ruby did this, too, with Sam. She had an agenda to get him corrupted and served on a silver platter to Lucifer. Demons do what demons do. It's not a judgment on my part so much as an observation.

I do think that, over time, it's shown that regular demons do have the capacity to get a better hold on their instincts, make connections, and can even remember how to love (SEE: Meg). The Mark was just...a much harder situation. Makes you reconsider Cain and Lucifer's plight a little bit, mmm?

[imaginebetterfutures]

I am officially a cited expert on the history of vaginal anatomy studies! Look mom! I did it!

Okay so here's the story. Way back in ye olde 2014 I was commissioned by The Sweethome (now Wirecutter) to review tampons. As part of my research for that review, I stumbled across some really fascinating old research on vaginal shapes. I wrote about that research for a group blog I used to be a part of, and about the weird little obsession I developed with some long lost research.

All I could really dig up was a set of studies done in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s by a woman named Paula Pendergrass. Pendergrass published a handful of studies about the shape of the vagina, which she measured by doing plaster casts of willing women. And what she described in her work was actually a set of different vagina shapes: the conical, the parallel sides, the heart, the pumpkin seed, and the least fortunately named slug.

But the thing that surprised me most was that after this one small set of studies by Pendergrass, that's it. There was nothing more. And it's not like Pendergrass had answered the question definitively, her work is full of ideas for how to better measure these shapes, and suggestions to collect more data. Why wasn't there anything else here? Why hadn't she continued this work? Why hadn't anybody asked more questions? I needed to know! So I managed to track her down and cold call her house in Arkansas (because journalists like me have no shame) to ask her why she stopped measuring vagina shapes.

Here's what I learned:

There’s no market for this data. Companies that manufacture vaginal products are looking only to confirm that things like tampons fit inside. They don’t care much about the specifics beyond that. But the big reason she highlighted was the one that made me both sad and angry. When she was doing the work, people were grossed out by it. “It’s off-putting to a lot of people, and I’ve had trouble with it since I started,” she said. “People who were embarrassed I was doing this, They said I was a a dirty old woman doing this.” A dirty old woman. For wanting to know the shape and size of the human vagina.

I wanted to chase this story further, but I could never sell it. In part because it's unclear if it matters clinically what the shape of someone's vaginal canal is. And yet... it's just so... INTERESTING!

But I let it go, after that blog post. (Well, that's not entirely true, I actually ordered a dental casting kit and had plans to cast my own vaginal canal using her study's instructions. But I never got around to it.)

FLASH FORWARD TO TODAY. And I get an email from a friend named Perrin Ireland who is apparently helping someone with a book about vaginas. Did I know that my blog was cited in a scientific journal, she asked? No! I DID NOT!!!

But here it is! Gender Bias in the Study of Genital Evolution: Females Continue to Receive Less Attention than Males, Integrative and Comparative Biology, Volume 62, Issue 3, September 2022, Pages 533–541. The author, Dara Orbach, writes:

When Pendergrass et al. (1996) demonstrated that human females have differently shaped vaginas, their findings were “offputting”, Pendergrass reported being called “a dirty old woman”, and gynecologists did not recognize the value of the research (Evelith, 2016). While a national research center exists in theUnited States ofAmerica for most major organ systems (e.g., National Eye Institute), female reproductive anatomy is categorized under the umbrella of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The research environment and social taboos have historically and still continue to hinder scientific inquiry in the field of female genital evolution.

Is my name spelled incorrectly? Yes! Do I care? No!

But truly it's nice to know that even though I couldn't chase this story and really report it out fully, it seems to have made some dent on at least one person who is asking questions about why we don't know more about the internal anatomy of people with vaginas.

If you like this, you'll also enjoy reading the one about how I spent weeks trying to build a replica vaginal canal in my kitchen to test menstrual cups on.

[noxstrages]

If it's not too much to ask, could we know a little more about your bug guy? Their design is sooooooo cool, I absolutely adore it! :D

auUaHGhHGhGh MAN I DID NOT EXPECT SOMEONE TO ASK ABOUT HIM SO SOON GHGHHG THANK YOU AHHH I DONT KNOW WHERE TO START

He's from a collaborative RP group I'm in! He's based off a coconut rhinocerous beetle and his outfit is based off WWI/II Pilot Uniforms. His ethnicity is filipino/malay, even though the world he's from isn't really parallel to ours exactly (Whole different continents, mythos, history).

If you ask him what his name is, he'd reply with "Knocks" or "The Wanderer", but this is because he doesn't know his real name. He was Vincent Marcus Catacutan, so you'll see me tag pieces with him as Vincent or Knocks, but they're the same character in two very different stages of his life.

Vincent is pre-[REDACTED] and is a bit of a bitch, but really smart, head of weapons research and development for his country. I typically draw him with long hair, but you can easily tell it's him by his horns/antennae/eyes, which are all brown/black, or a usually dour or maniacal expression.

Knocks doesn't know anything about all that though. He just knows he has an affinity for building machines and making potions, and that he was in a war. He's very jovial and friendly, making silly jokes and naming things weird things, but there's definitely a mean streak to him and he doesn't take social cues very well. That being said, he's undyingly (or, dyingly) loyal, which he shares with Vincent, and he has a big heart and boobs (also like Vincent, but he'd never admit it). Even though they're the same character, they're so different from each other in a lot of ways that he occupies two different spots in my mind. Maybe I can explore this some more if y'all/you're interested :>

Here's a portion of the page I posted earlier with colors, as thanks for reading all that if you did! I'm sorry for rambling, it's hard for me to summarize things, though I'm always eager to answer questions!