#idea-expression dichotomy

[michellesanches]

Can Software be Protected by Intellectual Property Law?

The rapid advancement of technology and the digital age has given rise to the creation of innovative and valuable software products. Software is a form of intellectual creation and developers invest significant time, effort and resources to develop unique programs and applications. As software becomes a vital component of modern businesses and daily life, the need to protect these creations from…

[frozenzephyrskies]

So this is admittedly coming from me using my engineering paper to do art studies (which actually has been very helpful for proportion consistency and understanding why something looks off to me)

But I agree that Gideon is actually a fairly decent artist who has whatever the equivalent of an engineering notebook in Avantris is, full of drawings, blueprints, and schematics.

While most of these are of equipment, rides, and gadgets he's either seen or been wanting to make if he ever had the resources for them there are some of people and creatures that catch his eye.

Now, these drawings tend to be very technical just basically replicating exactly what he sees down to fine details. They're not gonna be hung up in museums or aiming to express some deep, symbolic meaning.

They're are as direct and to the point as the man holding the pen drafting them. More akin to biological illustrations or engineering drawings. Little distinction between drawing a person to drawing a machine.

It can come off quite cold, actually. Maybe even unnerving to see yourself dissected and pulled apart into components.

It's why Gideon doesn't consider himself much of an artist. To him, this isn't art. If anything, it's closer to copying or tracing in his mind.

Initially, when Kremy finally got to see these drawings, he was a little disappointed with how stiff and clinical they all looked. He particularly didn't know how to feel about all the ones of him from angles he personally found unflattering or the ones that were side by side comparisons to wild alligators.

And maybe perhaps previous romantic notions of a hidden page of him rendered with soft strokes and reverent shades of charcoal were quickly erased, but at least Gid got his snout shape correct.

It does ease his mind at least that the rest of the crew gets the same treatment. Sure, there are still more pages of him than anyone else, but Kremy boils it down as a product of near constant proximity than one of muse. Otherwise, his interest in the notebook fades. The illustrations are still impressive within their own right, and he makes sure to tell Gid that whenever he finds him angrily ripping out a page that he's spent almost an hour over correcting dimensions on.

It really isn't until he finds a page on Torbek that wasn't there before that Kremy starts to pay it any mind. There's nothing particularly special about Torbek's page. It's the same clinical breakdown of his physiology and of his attire.

But it's there now when it wasn't there before in all the time they've known Torbek prior to the Faewild. Then, another page appears with Twig and all her little details pinned to the paper.

That's when it finally occurs to Kremy. Gideon, a man who prides himself in living to the fullest. Never slowing down as he races from one moment to the next. Is taking the time to notice and jot them down to memory.

These are not quick, sweeping scratches of lead. But meticulously measured lines calculated to take on the form of their visage. Every flaw, every nick, every piece that comes together to make them a whole, living mechanism perfectly replicated and accounted for.

There are no vibrant hues or eye-catching gestures that make one feel like they were sculpted from silk, but there is beauty in the exact distance between your eyes.

And if Kremy instinctively begins to still at the sight of a ruler taking his measurements from a distance, to afford time to a man who's only ever had it taken from him well that's between him and the good Baron.

[aliusfrater]

for the life of me i cannot figure out why people are so desperate to apply a version of dean's facade to sam

[lorelune]

being comparatively offline for the last couple weeks has lead to some intense clarity

[gu6chan]

ping ponging between subjects rapidfire here but one last thought I certainly like the way they pulled off the whole "Good guy is actually bad and bad guy is actually good!!!" thing and i like what they did with Nemu and her role (Also the meaning of her name, which finally makes sense!!!), but im ngl i think i honestly just really do prefer when she was an evil bitch whose sole goal, joy and purpose literally just seemed to be to ruin keisuke's whole life 😭 she was such a BITCH i adored her lmaoooo it's like, i LIKE end-game Nemu, she's cool and fun and interesting??? she hits the checkboxes, but on the other hand i ADORE her for the first 3/4ths of the game and ngl (while again, i AM happy with how it ended up) i honestly wouldn't have minded if it really was just played straight with her as an antagonist figure :') they didn't do anything wrong persay, but she was just a LOT more lovable as an antagonist figure than woobified powerless girl saved by protagonist kun #567 😔i wanna say it would have been original for an eroge, but im ngl it cant even be given that lol

[acid-ixx]

seasons in the sun: goodbye, my love, please pray for me...

reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.

— masterlist ! ; related post !

you guys i'm sorry for literally dying from the feed all of a sudden but i need y'all to be as feral as i am for the idea of a romantic! yandere jason with his childhood sweetheart reader.

y'know, the dichotomy of what used to be softness in the past in your relationship with jason. you know him as the sweet, malnourished boy who trespassed in your house to raid your fridge, the kind protector of your apartment after you'd offer your leftovers when he'd invaded your house and you're the only one left, advising him to run off to the balcony to hide once your parents come back from their trip; the silly guy who laughs shyly at your jokes, who'd coincidentally became your classmate after he'd been taken in by his rich father, who recalled the story to you when you'd both sneak by the backyard of your school with no qualms for privacy because it's you who he first learned to trust when he's thrust into the cruel lifestyle of the streets, knowing only how to bare his teeth but never how to retract it at the hands of its owner.

he's your closest confidant, the smart, nerdy boy who reciprocated your blooming romance, read classics to you with his squeaky voice, who offers to share with you his lollipops to "make up for all the times i ate your dinner at home," who secretly shoves his assignment answers under your desk when you'd forgotten to do yours and whispers the answers to the questions you're forced to recite when he notices your tensed jaws and quivering lips, shy and unaware of what to tell the teacher. only he knows it when your confidence is at an all-time low, and he helps guide through your problems like how you've been the only light in his life.

jason is the sweetest boy, he has no idea how to hold your hands, whose face flushes when your lips kiss his cheeks and when you cheekily grin at him after. sweaty fingers interlace with yours while you both lay on the grass of the gardens, listening to him rambling about the stars, and magic, and fantasy worlds, after bruce had finally permitted you to enter the manor because even his father could see how lovely you've impacted his adopted son; both of you keeping secret of your first meeting, similar to how you bask under the moonlight, alone, as if your presence yearns to be worshipped, he thinks.

he's your childhood sweetheart, and nothing can ever shatter the reality that he's the only right one for you.

your first love, sure, and your first heartbreak too.

taken away from the world at the cruel hands of death, at the ripe age of 17. the details his father retold you, with his equally somber, mourning expression do no justice to what felt like sledgehammers breaking a dam in your heart, your entire world breaking, even bruce's hands weighing at you shoulders during the entire funeral process don't ground you at all, you've no thought other than just how truly lonely you are to the world without him by your side—

the burden only becomes heavier, the tears refusing to drip from your eyes, staring at the picture frame of your happy, chipped-tooth lover now in a casket, surrounded by mourning flowers, sun dipping below the horizon which only darkens your vision.he unmoving now, dead, actually, and your mind couldn't comprehend how you'll never hear the chirp of his voice on one side of his ears and feel the scabs on his skin slowly fading away each day under your care.

even if your chest beats too loudly in your ears, your sweetheart, for the first time in your life, wouldn't be able to grasp at your shivering hands and assure you that he's alright.

he's gone. your sweet, loving, jason is gone.

you wish he'd die in your arms instead, rather than left you aching, worried and senseless from the days he'd suddenly disappear, then suddenly dead from a bombing, as what his father had told you. and you're not there to witness the scene, you couldn't even fathom just how much your body — still locked in place watching the funeral proceedings from afar, you don't feel quite yourself anymore — wishes to run to his open casket just to take his cold, laying body in your arms to feel your warmth.

at such an early moment, from what had felt like an eternity spent with the young boy, yet such a short span of being together with him at the same time— your grief has you yearning for the past image of your sweetheart. you want him back, you want your jason back. the years you've wasted, trying so hard to repair, to fill the broken gaps in your heart, to overcorrect, finding and chasing the comfort from other people, yet reeling away when every other person felt so foreign in your arms instead. nothing could ever replace the sweet ache in your tooth back when you're with him, nobody could amount to the tears you've wasted over jason because nobody is jason.

not even him, not when he came back a hardened soul, with a different body now bigger and stronger than you, who'd visit you during the night, intruding in on your apartment which oh-so prompts you to recall the very first day you'd met him. you don't know of his hardships, you're given a different story and the entire situation perplexes you, but you couldn't deny the ache in your chest when faced with this burly man, standing in front of you, breathing heavily and gazing at you with the same, starstruck stare that pins you on the spot of your bed.

he doesn't look like the jason who died, but he feels so much like him that your tender tears finally dripped down your quivering cheeks after what felt like eons of grief.

when he was resurrected from the dead after two years, he's not quite the same jason that you'd known and loved. he's broken, crawling out of that disgusting pit with only rage in his heart and the inclination to plot vengeance on those who've wronged him. there shouldn't've been an ounce of softness left, no love nor desire, no fantasy of his ex-lover when it should only be violence that he'd have known. but even so, beneath every vile emotion he felt, was the drive, the passion to come back to you first after he'd come to his senses. he'd remember screaming in agony, at feeling the rickety bones grinding against one another, at feeling for the sinewy muscles now aching and bulging in its restraints.

he's in a body taller than when he'd pass away from, and he wishes, after gaining enough consciousness— he fucking wishes you're there with him during the recovery phase, from when he's left to the cavern of his thoughts, braindead and unable to comprehend ra's al ghul's words, not when he's busy drowning in the depths of his clawing memories of you. nothing, not even the silken sheets he lays on, compares to you kissing his wounds like you always do and comforting him with your hushed words. beyond the exterior of his violence, of his boiling rage, was the hope that you'd still think of him in every waking moment the same way his first thought directs at how your fingers would tenderly graze at his skin.

i'm just saying, the angst/comfort potential of having the only person closest to you stripped away from your grasps, now in a different image. he's the same man you've prayed every single day to come back, but being faced to face with him that moonlit night, while your eyes still take in the unfamiliar form of jason's body towering over you, when his hands couldn't keep itself plastered to its side that it just, reaches out to grab you so he could bury his head on your clavicle and take a whiff of your body— you couldn't ignore the sheer differences.

how he scrunched his body to meet your height unlike the past where it's you adjusting to him, how his hands take precaution to ensure you're not crushed by his deadly strength, palms bigger than your head, how he takes utmost consideration peppering kisses on your shoulders, mumbling his apologies, his "i miss you, baby,"'s and "i love you s'much, i'm sorry for being gone for too long, sweetheart"'s, his refusal to release you; all while your heart raises a mile a minute because this is the red hood in front of you, clad in heavy metal armoury and mercenary weapons; a danger to gotham's criminal kind. yet it's him who speaks to you like your beloved jason with his heavy accent and rushed words, now a deep tremor compared to the young boy who chirps your name.

the only thing closest to you which reminds you of your past moments with jason, was that ever-so dedicated look of love. his hazy gaze, disguised under marred skin and sunken piercing eyes, yet so delicately filled with love that fills your chest with nostalgia long gone: of nights spent together at your apartment when he'd read you your favorite fairytales, of days having picnics together, baskets filled with handpicked fruits and alfred's sandwich, of moments coddling each other, feeding off the warm buzz off both bodies, legs entangled, sharing innocent kisses behind the trees.

of heartfelt promises, long forgotten yet still protected within jason's heart now guarded under lock and key, with only you having access if you just allow him to be loved by you once more. the man before you is a man who's changed, filled with contempt, jealousy, scorn for a mankind that scorches at every criminal, emotions so utterly complex compared to the boy you used to look at with ease, whose emotions used to be so easily distinguished from anger and adoration, who never beared hatred unlike now.

and you, who's just so conflicted, equally broken and unable to understand the entire situation. why, just why does the world want to torment you so much that it brings your old lover back— but different, hands now scarred, pinning you down with unfamiliar muscles bigger than your body, burying himself on your shoulders, mumbling and sobbing about his woes while your mind still reels itself back in to comfort him as you always do. this is the man you still love. his touch is all-knowing, he knows you loved it when his kisses reach the back of your ears, when his fingers fondle your waist.

he's different, yet the same. if it's not your dear jason coming back, if it was red hood, then why do you still recognize his presence so easily?

his aggressiveness to others you couldn't approve — the news labels him a brutal anti-hero, batman's new criminal enemy, he's a weapon of fear you should've resented — but why is it that it's his gentleness towards you that makes your heart ache at the memories of when he'd defend you from intruders, using his wits instead of his lacking strength? why do you feel like a completed puzzle piece in his arms?

he's here now. the red hood is here, but so is jason todd.

you could've called the gcpd, report them of his intrusion inside your house, forget all of this ever happened. but you should've also never brought your hands up to tangle itself upon the messy tresses of his black hair now streaked with white at the front, you shouldn't've hushed him and his cracking voice, taking his cheeks in your palms and having him look you straight in the eyes, drowning at dulled, blue eyes. once it reminds you of the blazing sky, now it's like the raging storms of the sea at night. without his red, gleaming helmet, he's reduced to your sweetheart; you cradle his head and stay silent.

still conflicted over brewing emotions, over the resurfacing love that you've forced yourself to bury the same time his casket was buried under the manor's soil.

in truth, you're tired of yearning, or constantly seeking a cheap, temporary replacement for jason. you've come to the stage of anger and withdrawal too, and your friends have told you that you should learn to rebound. but you're oh-so parched from love that no other could've given you, that you just couldn't fully relinquish your feelings, you can't.

in truth, you almost learnt to let go. almost.

but there's always the greatest fact: it's that as long as he's alive, even if resurrected and never the same, you'll still learn to love him over and over again, no matter if it takes years, he's yours and you're his. despite the cruelty he bears to others, he's your sweet boy, you miss him far too long, far too deeply. all is fair in love and war, they say, and all you wanted to do was to replicate those moments where it's just the two of you; even if his body is now bigger than you, you can still hold him, no? even if he knows how to wield guns better than how he held you shyly back then, he can learn—

thing is, you just wish things were simpler, you wish he'd have no other priorities, you wish the world didn't strip him away from his innocence. jason didn't deserve it, his death, and when he'd confess the truth: of his identity, of how he truly passed away, of his trials and tribulations to earn the path back to your place; you're left stinging with ache more than nostalgia, wishing you'd notice sooner.

so even if the man who lays in bed with you now is different, he's still the same man who held you tight in his arms, who remembers how to tuck you in the way you like it, who gazes at you filled with adoration, lips still quirking up hesitantly at your expectant stare. maybe it hurts, still, that he's not entirely the same jason who's smiles without bounds, who doesn't sport the same crinkle of mirthful eyes and jumpy actions, but he still retains the same love he'd carry for you all those years, even in death—

he's back, and that's all that matters.

a/n: yes do leave comments 🤩 idk what i just wrote honestly, srs about that. and i wrote it so that you do kind of have more... obsessive traits towards jason hehe. he's my favorite other than tim drake (well almost every character in dc is my fave, but i have my top spots), and tbh the reason i disappeared was because i was getting too invested in canon dc content that i forgot to write for it ngl.

[apple-onigiri]

oo what were those thoughts on isabeau's change? sounds spicy

ahhh thank you so much for asking!! i'm excited to talk about this :D (hopefully in A Few Hundred Less Words than the siffrin/loop self-love and self-hatred dichotomy ask hjdsjh)

i feel like i need to preface this by saying i mean more the Change in personality isabeau went through here rather than any physical changes that would amount to transition in our terms! so any changes that were more physical will be discussed as something that was meant to drive home the change in his personality more than anything. okay? okay!

we get a lot of details about how some part of Change is destruction - in the kitchen on the first floor when getting the egg key and both during isa's regular friendquest and its mangled version from act 5.

this is what we learn when we ask about the egg key in the kitchen. while some of mirabelle's seeming uncertainty here might be stemming from her own hang-ups about changing (since she likes who she is and doesn't want to change anything about herself), she acknowledges that an important part of the Change belief is leaving things behind and breaking something to create something new. as fitting of a housemaiden! she explains thought and caution is needed, that you have to consider all the consequences of such an act first.

however, isa seems even more enthusiastic about the idea of leaving things behind and destroying what's left, no matter the cost. there's some pride in his own Change, yes, but it almost veers into the area of overcompensation.

later on, during his friendquest, he talks about his Change, and how he did an almost complete 180 in personality because he was tired of being shy and afraid.

which, on one hand, seems to be something he sorely needed! a boost of confidence, becoming someone he thought would help his younger self come out of their shell. he put a lot of effort into becoming someone else. and he was ready to commit to that capital-C Change. he trained a lot to play the part (put a pin in that turn of phrase) of a strong, buff guy that he wanted to be and everything! but the way he talked about it... seemed a bit disquieting to me from the very beginning.

isa seems to talk about his old self that way not because he wants to cement he's a new person but to seemingly almost express some contempt to them with it. he never truly learned how to appreciate that version of himself and just discarded it whole cloth, to the point of pretending he's not smart at all and way stupider than he actually is, because it's easier to distance yourself from everything that used to make you you. at multiple points of the story, we see the party being taken back by the fact that isa is knowledgeable on something. siffrin only notices after being told this and then looking out for it.

(cut here because, despite my best efforts, this got long)

there's something siffrin thinks in act 4 during isa's quest when isa talks about changing again because who he is now also doesn't seem quite right that's pretty poignant to this whole thing.

despite the drastic Change isabeau went through, he still thinks of himself as someone you'd be ashamed of knowing. he still doesn't like himself! he still feels unhappy with who he is! and that's sad!

the issue here is that isa's Change was motivated externally; he seems to have focused on how people would react to him rather than how he himself would feel in his own skin. him and siffrin aren't dissimilar - both of them pretend to act in ways that keep others content because that specific behavior is expected from them and the persona they take up. there's a heartbreaking fragment of the quest in act 4 that i myself missed in my playthrough because the bad touch event overrides it that tells us how siffrin took up most of his personality as a "funnyjokespun person" only after meeting the party and couldn't really describe it beforehand.

war and hatred on planet earth! this is very much a takes one to know one situation which is why when siffrin attacks isa in act 5, it cuts so deep.

okay. the worst part of that exchange in act 5 is,,, that siffrin hits where it hurts because they don't make anything up. they aim to be hurtful and insulting, yes, and they project the hell onto isa but only with the aspects that have some overlay between them. they're both scared of being rejected if they're not acting a certain way, being a certain type of person, embodying an archetype.

isabeau, instead of doing the honestly genuinely hard and heavy work of learning to appreciate yourself and all your parts, goes all in on a new persona, even if it means suppressing parts of yourself and going against what you might want. he's unable, or just simply afraid, of not thinking in a binary when it comes to changing and growing as a person. he thinks it's much more comfortable staying in your lane as a strong buff guy that reassures people and not have to deal with the fact that being smart would Obviously Clash With That. well, it wouldn't, but he's scared! and doesn't even want to risk it!

this fear of upsetting the status quo can also be a p big motivator in Not Confessing Ever At All. this guy is so scared of being ever so slightly different than expected that he's immediately hit with the flight response the moment he tries.

tl;dr isabeau used Changing his personality as an escapism mechanism and discarding the entirety of who he used to be instead of dealing with the mortifying ordeal of learning to love yourself, and is too afraid of upsetting the status quo to mix and match personality traits, only operating in strict archetypes when shaping his character. boy why are you so identity crisis. i love you

[comicaurora]

I'm sorry that the terfs made their way onto your blog but it does feel good to see you support trans people. Thank you for that

Always.

I think, charitably, that the discourse going down on that post is an extrapolation and over-focus on one element of the point I was making: that for me, determining with certainty that I was cis was a rather fraught process. I was presented with many alternatives, but underlying their imposition on me was the oddly regressive idea that the things I liked, the principles I valued, the parts of myself I was proud of were not permitted of women. My whole life I got smacked with the background radiation that I couldn't like being strong because women aren't allowed to be stronger than men. I couldn't like being loud and boistrous because women aren't allowed to take up space. I couldn't be a math geek because women aren't smart. It was all deeply regressive misogyny from day one, but I started getting hit with it slathered in a fresh coat of paint - all those assumptions still held to be true, but now there was the out that I could do all those things if I just wasn't a woman.

Concluding that the underlying bioessentialist premise was wrong was very important. Absolutely none of those statements were true, and were only ever maintained by cultural saturation, goalpost-readjustment when they were actively disproven, and the occasional bout of lying with statistics to pretend they weren't just Shit All The Way Down. The core premise that certain things were only permitted of or possible for men was bullshit, and I didn't need to surrender the gender I liked best in order to play in the spaces I wanted to. I could simply exist the way I was already existing. I didn't need anything else.

The misinterpretation is the assumption that this being true of me means this is everybody's relationship with gender. I turned out to be cis, so for me, feeling that holding onto my assigned gender wasn't allowed was distressing - just another invocation of the same bioessentialist bullshit I'd been dealing with since the preschool playground. This is because misgendering is fundamentally denying that a person has the right to express themself the way they want. When aimed at me, it says I'm not performing traditional femininity well enough to deserve my pronouns. The same disrespect is the root of misgendering when aimed at trans people. "Perform your gender to my satisfaction or I will confiscate it."

The problem is, bioessentialism is 100% ingrained into the terf playbook, which is why, for instance, all their shitty talking points about trans athletes eventually boil down to "no woman can ever defeat a man in any contest because we are simply naturally weak and stupid and there is nothing we can do about it" and quite frankly nothing disgusts me more than the defeatist acceptance of the very lie that feminism is dedicated to overcoming. Instead of accepting that the paradigm of bioessentialism is a false dichotomy right from the jump, they embrace and weaponize it against the people whose existence proves the dichotomy is a lie. If gender essentialism is fundamentally false, then it is nobody's fucking business what anybody does with their gender. If the lines don't exist, nobody needs to enforce them. And yet there the terfs go, hunting down people whose lives are none of their business and trying to argue that they represent some great and terrible evil, some downfall of society made flesh, something that makes it totally correct and normal for them to spend so much time thinking about strangers' genitalia. They want this to be a noble crusade so badly they won't even examine what flag they're flying.

I love and support the trans people in my life and will always, always stand on the side of your right to exist, but alongside that, terf rhetoric especially disgusts and infuriates me because it is, at its heart, utter cowardice. The world told them they were weak and stupid and inferior and they fucking believed it. And now they think Fighting The Good Fight For Women means turning around and using the same paradigmatic weapon that hurt them to hurt the people whose existence outside the binary proves the weapon is a lie. They're the same shithead schoolyard bullies who made me believe my entire existence was foundationally wrong for years of my life and I will never, ever side with them or the shitty, cowardly rhetoric that contributed to the loneliest years of my life.

Figure out who you are and do it on purpose. Find the real source of the misery in your life and try fighting that instead of the other crabs in the bucket. Trans rights.

[sabertoothwalrus]

heyy i adore your art! do you have any advce for a small artist trying to get out there?

I guess it depends what you mean by “get out there”!

I’d say number one is to ignore the numbers. Unless you’re intentionally trying to sell yourself to some app’s algorithm, obsessing over the numbers will not help you.

The thing is, it is ok to care about other feedback you get on your art. I often hear social media treated like a dichotomy, to either “ignore it completely and draw for yourself” or to “strive to be a famous viral artist”. And I’m saying it’s not that simple.

It all boils down to why you’re making art. For some people, art is a much more personal expression, and it’s not meant to be seen by others. It’s more about the process and the catharsis than the outcome. This kind of art doesn’t need to be shared with other people.

For others, it’s a living. These people don’t mind that their art becomes “marketable”, if it becomes generic with a mass-appeal. This kind of art isn’t here to send a message, it’s here to look pretty. And that’s ok.

For me, art is communication. I’m telling stories. This is why I’m most drawn to comics and animation. I don’t pay attention to numbers, but I pay a lot of attention to comments because they help me gauge how successful I was at communicating an idea, an action, a joke, etc. It’s still important you develop thick skin. You have to detach yourself emotionally from them, and use them as a tool to help you learn.

This is why clarity is one of my biggest priorities in art. Clarity has less to do with skill and more to with “can you understand what this is you’re looking at”. There are some artists out there who are very good at what they do, but they still struggle with clarity. And the inverse is true; even beginner artists can have clear, easy to follow art.

Some things I actively try to do in my art to improve clarity:

Is the pose clear? Is the figure overlapping themself too much, or is the action still readable from the silhouette?

If there’s text, is it clear? Is the direction of speech bubbles confusing? Is my handwriting/font easy to read?

Would a background or prop help clarify the setting better? (What’s the least amount of effort I can put into this that will give the necessary information?)

Are my lines too loose? Sometimes it’s fine, but if they’re too unconnected, the form gets lost. Should I close my lines better, or maybe add a tone to separate the positive and negative space?

Does the “punchline” make sense? What AM I saying? What could communicate it stronger?

If your art is clear, people will find it and share it! Just keep telling the stories you wanna tell, make the art YOU want to see, and your audience will build around you!

[keicrocker]

absolutely loving your twisted pitch pals idea!!! the dichotomy between Phantom and Fenton is very terrifying but also interesting; and the art along with it is beautiful and very expressive! :)

is Phantom planning to enrich Fenton's life in any way or is his plan to just keep his basic needs met, and nothing more? Fenton doesn't seem to be very happy, being alive, right now. ^^

Thanks for your comment!! <<3 That means a lot to me🥹🥹🥹 I love this twisted relationship between the two of them 😚 wanna draw more stories of them later....

Phantom basically wants his human half to be happy, but he is not human anymore, so he has no idea how to make him happy. He would try many ways to soothe the feelings of his other half, yet he never knew that the real thing Fenton needed was a relationship with others that Phantom prohibited him from doing. The prime purpose to him is Fenton's safety, and Phantom thinks other people only make him dangerous(which is absolutely not). Tragically, his very effort to make Fenton safe only makes his other half withered🥺

[weirdsht]

Dissect to Reflect - Yan!Cale/Reader

a/n: i didn't mean to go overboard, but the bad end night series suddenly started playing...

tags: no specific gender mentioned for reader, death, war, vague novel spoilers, author's horrible attempt to write horror, yandere cale, manipulation and gaslighting if you squint, everyone is unhinge if you squint

Pls don't repost my work anywhere without my permission

Requests are open and welcome

Navigation Masterlist

@xjdjfbcuf said: My other request, if you have any free time: The reader was accidentally transported to a timeline where he had died. The reader doesn't know he's in a completely different world and thinks he's still in his own world. He walks back to the territory, getting a little uncomfortable with the looks he's receiving from the citizens. When he arrives at the mansion, he's greeted by a yandere Cale. I don't know if I explained my idea well, but if you have any questions about that request, ask me.

Everything happened so fast that you could barely comprehend the timeline of things.

The sword piercing you.

The searing pain.

The blood gushing.

Your body falling.

Cale catching you.

Dying feels so weird. You feel as though you're numb, yet overstimulated at the same time. Everything hurts, yet you can't feel anything. You feel the hotness of your blood, but also feel the coldness spreading through your veins.

You would think the dichotomy is weird if it wasn't for the fact that— well you're dying so you don't have time to think about anything else. 

That's why, instead of focusing on your pain you focus on Cale's face. Cale's poor, pained face. He screamed something you couldn't understand. You think he’s issuing a command but your brain is too hazy to understand. 

You know to yourself that death is sudden.

You know to yourself that death isn't something you can't control.

You know to yourself that it's bound to happen.

You know to yourself that there's nothing you can do.

But still...

You hoped that you would be given time.

Time to say goodbye.

Time to give woes.

Time to reassure.

Time to profess your love.

You've read countless books, watched countless plays where when a character dies they have time to say their last words. Say their goodbyes.

No such thing happened to you.

"What a subpar way to die..."

You thought to yourself as your eyes fluttered open.

Wait... open ??

Didn't you die?

Why would they open?

Still disoriented, you stood up from the ground and patted all around your body. True enough, you didn’t have any stabbed wounds or anything. You looked around, taking in the nature that surrounded your mortal body. The trees swaying, the wind singing, everything seems good. Nothing seemed amiss.

“Maybe it was just a horrible nightmare? I really should stop falling asleep outside, Cale would kill me if he found out.”

Finally, you left the secluded area nature has provided for you and started your journey back home.

However…

On your way back home, everyone looked at you funnily. They didn’t look at you with disdain or anything. Rain City could never look at their very own darling knight that way. No, no, they were looking at you in the same way they would look at Cale while chanting “Young Master Silver Shield”— except it was somewhat worse?

Just what did you do to warrant such stares?

“Hey Cale, why is everyone staring at me weirdly?”

You asked your redhead lover, trying to ignore the gloomy atmosphere of the villa. You think a look of surprise passed through Cale, but it was gone as fast as it came and was schooled by his usual nonchalant expression.

“They were probably just surprised to see you. Now tell me my love, where did you run off to?”

Intertwining his hands with yours, Cale leads you inside the villa. You have an inkling feeling that his holding onto you tighter than usual, but it’s not hard enough to be painful or uncomfortable. 

You decided to push aside your doubts. Chalking them up as paranoia from the bad nightmare you had.

The villa was empty, what an unusual occurrence…

“Where’s everyone?”

“They said they’re going to hang out in Raon’s castle”

“Ah… Is that so?”

Cale merely hummed questionably in response. As if asking you if you didn’t like his presence. As an answer, you kissed his intertwined hand with yours before leaning onto him as the two of you continued walking.

While walking towards your shared room you couldn’t help but notice that the atmosphere around the manor seemed to have shifted. But you couldn’t put your finger on what it feels now.

Melancholy

Sombre

Dreary

Bleak

Gloomy

Desolate

…or are you simply overthinking it?

“My love, can I confide to you about something?”

You asked your beloved later that evening after the kids had gone back to the villa and fallen asleep in your shared bed.

“Of course.”

Cale placed a bookmark in the novel he was reading before stashing it away in order to listen to you. You smiled, grateful for his undivided attention before inhaling deeply as you started your story.

“I… I think I had a dream, but it felt so real…”

You shudder at just the thought of what you supposedly dreamt of. Cale notices your discomfort and laces his hands with yours to offer you comfort. Intertwining your fingers and squeezing your hands as if to say that you don’t need to continue if you’re uncomfortable.

“When I woke up I was still disoriented… it felt so real you know? It was as if I really experienced it. To the point that I think I could still feel the pain…”

You delved into details. Explaining your woes, sharing your fears. Cale listened with open ears. He doesn’t say anything. Not because he doesn’t have anything to say, but because he doesn’t need to. Your beloved’s actions are enough for you to know that he wholeheartedly takes your concerns in mind no matter how silly you think they are.

Feeling less tense, you shifted the conversation into something more lighthearted. Cale follows your whims willingly as he always does. The two of you talked about various mundane things— from what Raon found in the forest this morning to what would be a good snack to have tomorrow. Before you know it your eyes feel heavy and you’re slurring your words as the night takes over your consciousness and lulls you into a much-needed sleep.

Cale Henituse kisses your forehead once he is sure you are asleep. A possessive glint lights his eyes as he takes in your figure. It took everything in him to not just lock you up right then and there. To not let his true feelings show and scare you away.

It took an even longer time to get his people under control. Cale was glad he managed to send them away before you arrived. He loves them, he really does, but some of them cannot act to save their lives. And he can’t have that. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, something that cannot be ruined. One wrong move and the illusion Cale has carefully crafted will be shattered.

Cale Henituse can’t have that.

For Cale Henituse can’t afford to lose you a second time.

That’s why he smiles as you play in the garden every morning. Gives into your every demand with little questions asked. Makes life with him paradise so you can’t even think of leaving his side. Suppress every urge of his that tells him to tie you by his side.

And you, poor and naive you, have an inkling feeling that something is amiss. That there’s something wrong, but life is so good, so happy.

If life with Cale seems like a dream why would you doubt him right?

Sure he seems paranoid at times. Always want to have you within sight, but that’s normal. He has lost so much, he can’t afford to lose anymore. Plus he has a lot of enemies so it’s only normal that he worries.

Your instinct tells you that it’s more than that but you ignore it.

You ignore it despite the doubt eating you inside out.

You ignore it until you finally find a reason to face what you’ve been dreading.

Every doubt you’ve been ignoring for the past months poured over a singular door.

A. Singular. Hidden. Door.

A hidden door you were sure you’d never seen before. Leading to an underground— as if the villa isn’t placed underground— you were sure wasn’t there before. 

You hadn’t meant to discover it. Accidentally stumbled upon it on the rare day that the villa was empty. On the one day that everyone had to go out for a mission issued by Cale. 

Is it fate? Is it a curse?

Should you open it? Are you ready to see the truth?

Or should you keep living in bliss?

Keep living in the carefully woven lies your beloved crafted just for you?

Despite your hesitation, you opened the door and went down the stairs. The way down was unnerving. Anxiety gnaws at your every nerve despite the staircase being well-lit. Unlike in horror novels, this hidden staircase doesn’t seem creepy. It looks constantly maintained and bright. 

But still, there’s this feeling of unease as you go head down.

Once you finally reach the end of the staircase, another door greets you just a few steps away. You held your breath as you opened the majestic, wooden door. Heart thumping in your ears as your unease heightens.

Like the staircase, the room is clean and well-lit. It’s empty, there were shelves but the items are scarce. As if someone had taken out some of the decorations. Aside from the shelves and scarce decoration there’s nothing inside.

Well except for the big, fancy, porcelain and glass box in the middle of the room.

Your breath quickened as you stared at it. Feet almost glued to the ground even if you have no idea what it is yet. There’s a feeling of knowing as your gaze lands on it. Knowing of what? You don’t know.

You’re not sure if you want to know.

But you’re already here. Already in too deep. There’s no turning back now, no erasing of memories and pretending nothing happened.

So you enter the room. Gasping as you finally figured out what that box is.

A Coffin

It was a goddamn coffin.

Your breath hitches as you slowly approach it. 

Your hands shake as you caress the sides.

Your knees feel like jello as you finally open it.

Your eyes shed tears as you stare at yourself sleeping inside the coffin.

Backing away with your trembling hand in your mouth, you didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know what to make of this whole situation. Fear rushes through your body. It tells you to run. Tells you to hide.

Tells you that it’s too late.

You keep backing away in that faux sense that you’re running away. That you can run away. Deep inside, you know that you can’t. That there’s no place in the world where you can hide from his eyes. 

Backing away is the only thing that you can do.

Even if that means you will eventually end up back in his arms.

With a thud, you collide with someone’s back. You didn’t need to turn around to know who it was for you knew this body heat well. One of his arms circles around your waist. Usually, it would bring you comfort, but this time it brings you dread. Makes you feel trapped. Slaps you in the face that the illusion has finally shattered. 

Cale’s free hand wipes away your tears as he kisses your forehead. You can feel his eyes staring at your figure before glancing at the opened coffin. His eyes feel sharper than normal. Regret laces his voice as he spoke, yet nonchalance is evident as if this is just your typical Tuesday and not a day of big revelations. 

“I was hoping it’d take you years, but my beloved has always been too smart.”

[wispythreads]

It's interesting seeing the dichotomy between Mordin and Garrus while trying to recover Jack. Garrus immediately clocks that this is an extortion rig and that the warden's motives aren't as pure-of-heart, good-for-the-galaxy oriented as he claims, but still believes that these people deserve what they get for being scum of the earth. Even with no proof that everyone here has done something worth their imprisonment. Even after the warden's heel-turn attempt to imprison Shepard.

Mordin meanwhile is just absolutely horrified at the level of cruelty surrounding him and believes in the possibility that anything disturbed these prisoners may express while we're here could've been a direct result of their treatment at this facility.

I just find it interesting since Mordin has been so-far described as cold, calculating, and ruthless. He (seemingly, at this point, it's very clear later that this is not really the case no matter how much he wants it to be) has no regrets in his part of continuing a horrible genetic disease that is slowly but surely dooming a species to extinction. But he clearly does have a lot of empathy, wants actual good done rather than theoretical good.

Meanwhile Garrus has always been a hot-headed renegade that has been very loud about how he wants good done in the world, even if it isn't done the right way. But at the same time, he very quietly follows the structure and abides by the rules. He follows the idea that the ones in charge are doing the right thing. It takes his own background knowledge of a situation and being physically or metaphorically blocked by the authority from doing what he believes is right in order for him to not just instinctively believe in it. Idk I'm just rambling again.

[thydungeongal]

I think people who play D&D despite its combat focus is, and correct me if I heard this wrong from them, but like... the idea is that they don't like combat, so having a big, chunky combat engine is good somehow??? because the rules don't interfere??? with The Roleplay TM.

Or as my GM said it: "I prefer D&D because I don't have to worry about rules when we're Roleplaying TM and it gets combat out of the way"

I don't get it. I don't. I tried asking why the hell you'd play a game with this much Combat Time and I can't get a straight answer. Like, not having combats is somehow impossible. It's required. But also bad, annoying, and must be codified so the GM can turn brain off BUT ALSO have so many rules you are Brain On, wait 15 minutes i gotta check the book heavy.

I think it's legitimately a toxic meme (in the academic sense of the word) being spread to make people think D&D is not about dungeons but "Whatever You Want uwu" or something.

Maybe you can help because I am on the verge of having an aneurysm here.

There's a lot of stuff that plays into this all too common sentiment.

First of all, there's this idea going around in D&D circles that Combat and Roleplay are two things that are not to touch. You see this expressed quite a lot by fans of D&D, the notion that once combat begins roleplaying stops. This is of course a silly notion, because combat is also roleplay, and it's even more silly coming from the players of the game whose rules are 80% combat.

But once you've established in your mind that roleplaying and combat are two, fundamentally incompatible modes of play and the game you're playing mostly has rules for combat and very little rules for stuff outside of combat (and the rules for combat aren't, at the end of the day, all that interesting) it's easy to draw the conclusion that roleplaying and rules are themselves at odds. @prokopetz has articulated this much better than me, and to paraphrase him: in the dichotomy of combat vs. role-playing, combat actually acts as a metonym for rules-mediated play as a whole. So it's your classic role-playing vs. roll-playing dichotomy, which not only smacks of elitism but is also, frankly, idiotic.

Anyway, once a person has drawn the conclusion that rules-mediated play and roleplaying are fundamentally at odds with each other it's easy to see where a person might draw the conclusion that having any rules that touch upon the "roleplaying" side of play would either needlessly restrict the roleplaying or somehow infringe upon the purity of roleplay. Within the dichotomy of role-playing vs. roll-playing role-playing is ultimately seen as basically free play where there are no rules and procedures in play, only to be broken off by the necessary evil of procedural scenes.

Where has this toxic meme come from? Well, sadly it's as old as the hobby itself. A lot of people who are fans of D&D still think they need to inject "real roleplaying" into the dungeon game to grant it legitimacy as a roleplaying game. This is, of course, bull-honkey. D&D, even played as purely a dungeon crawling challenge game with no pretensions of trying to tell a greater story beyond "the story of what happened during the events of the game" is still roleplaying, and ultimately it owes to a lot of D&D players themselves having bought into elitist notions about roleplaying games and not actually even liking the main supported mode of play of D&D.

Because if you take a look at what D&D as a game mostly supports, it's ultimately a challenge-based dungeon game, which is great and cool actually. But if one has a reductive notion of what counts as "real roleplaying," then, well, there's gotta be something wrong with this game. So actually the roleplaying isn't what the rules say and are actually a secret third thing and also it doesn't even matter what the rules say about the game, because system doesn't matter whatsoever.

You might see why, as a person who is passionate about game design and who loves the dungeon crawling challenge game playstyle, I might find this attitude grating.

And I definitely agree that it's a toxic meme, but D&D 5e play culture at this point is mostly a circlejerk about how the game actually is fine and how game design doesn't actually matter and how in those other games the rules actually get in the way of roleplay instead of doing what they actually do: act as a participant in the game on equal footing with the players and with an actual voice as to how the narrative should look like. Even D&D's rules are loudly opinionated about what the act of gameplay should look like, but these people have convinced themselves that the style of play D&D's rules are opinionated about is bad, actually, so in fact any type of rules that are opinionated about play are actually bad rules that get in the way of roleplaying.

Anyway, as a final note, while these ideas have been around for a very long time, there has been something of a resurgence of this idea, and Brennan Lee Mulligan is partly to blame. Brennan is a wonderful comedian and clearly a great entertainer, but he has also espoused the idea that D&D is good because it gets out of the way in the scenes which he is actually interested in (social, interactive scenes) and takes the reins in scenes which he's not interested in (combat scenes, procedural action scenes). I can sort of understand where he is coming from, and in fact the game taking the weight off the pedal during social scenes is great if your players are all extremely funny comedians like you. But it's also basically a playstyle where there are procedural, rules-mediated action scenes followed by essentially improvised, free play cutscenes where the rules themselves don't have anything to say. It doesn't play into the strengths of the medium, which is that the rules of the game are an active participant with an actual voice in the fiction and not just something to be sidelined. So like with all due respect to Brennan Lee Mulligan, but this is something where he simply is incurious and frankly fundamentally disconnected from what the purpose of rules in a tabletop roleplaying game is. The rules aren't there just to handle the boring stuff for you, because in a game you actually enjoy playing there shouldn't be any boring stuff! In a good game engaging with the rules shouldn't be boring! I play older editions of D&D because I like how the rules shape the act of dungeon-crawling and wilderness exploration! I play Monsterhearts because the rules are opinionated about the teen monster melodrama and they produce extremely cool and wildly volatile drama!

All of which is to say: the idea that the rules of a game are somehow diametrically opposed to the act of roleplay is a silly, toxic meme, and one that is often espoused by D&D players who have latched onto D&D because it was the first game they became aware of and who clearly want something more out of games but they have also convinced themselves that D&D is what all RPGs are and the idea that other RPGs might actually differ from D&D in terms of rules quality, how the act of play looks, and the type of play the rules actually incentivize is completely alien to them. A lot of D&D players have nothing but sneering contempt for the playstyle incentivized by D&D because they have convinced themselves that that playstyle is beneath them and not "real roleplaying," and I think those players should stop playing D&D and instead play games that actually support the playstyles they think are befitting real role-players. Also they should shut up and give me like a hundred dollars for being forced to read their posts.

[transmutationisms]

this is probably shaped by my limited frame of reference, but im really fascinated by witnessing the real-time development of adhd as a diagnosis. people attribute so many symptoms to it now or maybe they always did? i was wondering if you have any thoughts on what is the use of adhd specifically as a category within psychiatry. I'm esl so sorry for any confusing wording

no you're right imo; diagnostic categories are always somewhat in flux ofc but ADHD is one that has seen a particularly pronounced shift in the last couple decades. obviously this is multifactorial but my observation goes something along these lines:

'hyperactivity' has been dx'd in children since about the 1950s (also when Ritalin hit the market) but the ADHD dx doesn't really take off until the 90s (also when Adderall, a 2nd-gen reformulation of the 'obesity' drug Obetrol, hit the market). so, it's not all that surprising that 20 years later you see increased patient awareness of the diagnosis, increased popular interest in it, and shifting / expanding ideas of what it means and what ADHD 'is'. it's a relatively young dx.

part of the reason it's young is because it's basically a 'biopsychiatric' dx, meaning it diagnoses certain behaviours as being a 'brain problem' rather than having social causes or context. in practice this is complicated because psychs do use pharmacological approaches in conjunction with psychodynamic ones all the time; nevertheless, the central promise of DSM ADHD and its pharmaceutical treatments has consistently been that the ADHD subject has a physiological, neurological disorder / dysfunction / aberration, and that the drug treatments on the market fix it. that none of this is actually empirically supported is conceptually inconvenient and entrenched by the research process.

the biopsychiatric narrative is worth paying attention to because the context here is one in which it has become commonly accepted that behavioural 'disorders' and affective distress of various kinds can be, basically, either of pure biological origin, or else Your Fault. in the case of childhood hyperactivity, Your Fault historically also included Your Mother's Fault; part of the reason many mothers embraced Ritalin in the 50s and 60s was because the proffered pharmaceutical narrative explicitly challenged the idea that these mothers had done something 'wrong' to result in their (mostly) sons exhibiting disruptive and hyperactive behaviour.

this dichotomy of biology vs personal failing is very overtly present in quite a bit of discourse around ADHD today. if it's my brain being 'wrong' or different, then it's not something I've done wrong but a disease with a simple chemical fix. in this context I don't think it's surprising at all that a lot of popular and patient conceptions of ADHD have seen a considerable widening over the past few decades. often people like to blame this on pharmaceutical companies, and it's true that industry benefits from these discourses and frequently invests in them (eg, via instruments like ADDitude mag). however, that's a pretty simplistic explanation on its own and doesn't really account for the ways in which patients and potential patients also find this diagnostic category personally useful, for reasons ranging from identity-formation to the desire to access prescription amphetamines. ADHD increasingly shows up as a biologised explanation for behaviours ranging from 'eating too many sweets' to 'postural sway' and so on. you can see in such examples how invoking the idea of an aberrant ADHD brain is both reassuring to people who have been made to feel ashamed of certain behaviours, and provides a sense of shared identity and community with others.

all of this is to say: I don't find it surprising at all when I see a relative broadening of notions of ADHD, almost always expressed in biological terms (the 'ADHD brain' operates differently, 'seeks dopamine', causes this or that). ADHD is in some ways a particularly blatant distillation of this general trend in popular psychiatric discourses, for reasons relating to expectations about childhood and child behaviour, and the historical and present relationship between the ADHD label and the regulation of amphetamines. but much of what's happening with ADHD in terms of popular discourses about it can also be seen with many, many other psychiatric diagnoses, to varying extents and in various ways.

my experience writing about ADHD on this website leads me to close by explicitly stating the following: I do not think any ADHD behaviours / symptoms are people's 'fault' or an individual failing; I do not think using drugs for any reason is morally bad or needs to be justified; the fact that I do not think ADHD is a 'brain disease' does not mean I think people are 'making it up' or exaggerating wrt any difficulties they experience personally, professionally, emotionally, &c.

[imagineastrology]

astrology observations #partidon'tknow

💜 Neptune in in the 9th House suggests someone who is a spiritual person. They may not believe in organised religion, but they feel there is a higher power, or a divine god that oversees. This is quite a powerful psychic placement. You may often ‘know’ things before they present themselves in the physical form. You know the importance of quieting the logical, right side of the brain, and ‘listening’ or ‘tuning’ into a source, or your intuition. You could be an inspiring spiritual teacher as you have the knowledge about creative plans, and the sociability, altruism and kindness that is needed to meet and work with people who are confused or lost in this lifetime.

🌙 If you have a Mars square Pluto aspect in your chart, you are motivated when you feel disempowered. Your feelings of disempowerment and depression can actually help you to fight (with time) your demons, and your tenacity is unmatched. When focused on something, you are determined, ruthless, impatient and brave.

🌑 Gemini Ascendants are quite flexible and can easily adapt to a variety of circumstances and individuals. They may find themselves continuously looking for new experiences or altering their environment to keep life exciting since they thrive on variety. On the downside, this placement may lead to a tendency to be overly scattered or easily distracted, as their minds are always racing with new ideas and possibilities.

🎂 Venus in the sixth house natives love to spoil and look after their partner. They need someone to ‘work on’ in a sense, as they need to feel helpful in order to feel fulfilled and satisfied in a relationship.  The ideal partner would be someone as cerebral and communicative as you, as you want to learn and adapt with them throughout the trials and tribulations of life.

⚡The placement of Mars in the 4th house is quite interesting as there is a masculine planet (Mars) in the feminine, nurturing and sensitive fourth house. Often, there is a dichotomy between peace and ambition here. There is a clash between the individual (freedom of the individual) and the group (the culture of said group). This clash contributes to them feeling that they're ‘in the right place at the wrong time’. They may feel like a tomboy.

🔭 If you have a Sun in Libra, to achieve equilibrium, there must be an ability to put your foot down and set boundaries, meaning saying yes or no only when you feel it is right for you to do so. Asking yourself what would fulfil you. Sun in Libra natives strive to be balanced, informed, and patient. 

💚 If you have a Sun trine Neptune aspect, there is a great potential for creative expression here, but it is to be said that with a trine, as it is a harmonious (yet, can take its talents for granted) aspect, it can result in laziness or unrealistic ideas. You have a strong imagination that you can use to your advantage, and have many creative outlets that give you vitality and inspiration (and motivation to keep going in life).

🌌 Venus in soft aspect to Mars in the natal chart signifies an individual who needs passion, excitement and spontaneity in their relationships. They find motivation, zest and dynamism exciting and alluring, and are attracted to people who harness these traits. They are a generous, exciting, fun and gregarious person who wishes to share the beautiful moments of life with others, hence why they are popular, and have mostly fulfilling relationships. The mundane and routine do not attract them, and if these come up, they natives have a tendency to run, or to simply fight their way through these, but sometimes you need stability and routine in order to appreciate life's more exciting moments.

Thank you for reading! - Imogen x

If you would love to support or tip me, or just want to learn more about your natal chart? Purchase a reading from me, or buy me a lil coffee... click here!

[gayofthefae]

Coming back to "everyone wants me to be pining for my *straight* best friend" and how

"everyone wants us to be in love but we're not"

and

"everyone wants me to be in love with him unreciprocated"

are VERY different denials with very different motivations, despite only a one word change in the actual text.

Everyone wants ME to be in love with my STRAIGHT best friend. He emphasizes the fact that in her alleged fantasy, Eddie still does not reciprocate.

He is against loving Eddie unreciprocated. He has still not expressed any resistance to being with Eddie. Every version of this he's considered, Eddie straight. His options are be friends with Eddie as they are or be friends with Eddie and secretly wish they were something else. He has not once considered a third option. With that, I understand a clear preference between the two. "I'd rather be happy than sad" is a clear choice, but also a dichotomy that is entirely dependent on the idea that his situation is set in stone. That whatever he feels, Eddie and he will only ever be friends.

At first, Buck does not deny his feelings - even accidentally admitting them. Only later does he manage to deny, but really express not wanting to, have unreciprocated feelings.

He has never expressed an opinion on the idea of reciprocated feelings. We have no data on the idea of "if Eddie had feelings for me, I would not reciprocate". It all still hinges around that original defense: "he's straight".

He actually refuses to look at the idea and therefore still has no idea whether he would reciprocate conditional to if Eddie did.

We do NOT know that Buck doesn't have feelings for Eddie. Due to clever wording in that scene with Maddie, all we actually know is the idea that 'if he's not in love with me, I'm not in love with him either'.

And that's not a solid argument. We still have nothing, is what I'm saying. His every denial has been written to hinge on, and therefore possibly change because of, Eddie's feelings for him.

His denials have consistently been "I feel for Eddie whatever Eddie feels for me". He thinks that's friendship, so he says friendship.