#im having vague nebulous thoughts

[raynavan]

has this been done yet?

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Giratina is often said to be Arceus' last child. By extension, this must make Palkia and Dialga the first and second.

Herein arises a problem, a longstanding debate, and its eventual resolution. Neither time nor space can be said to be greater or more important than the other; therefore, the two are held to be twins.

---

Volo's plan is quite simple. The meddling of Sinnoh's lesser servants cannot be tolerated. They must be dealt with somehow. And he knows of no limiter more effective—no chains more tightly binding, no prison more perfectly restrictive—than a human body.

The Pearl Clan's newest visitor—Ingo, if that is his name, though there's always that lingering uncertainty about it—he isn't sure how to answer any other questions about himself, either. His knowledge of Hisui is too strangely absolute for a newcomer. It suggests long familiarity with the territory—but if that's the case, why does nobody else in the region recognize him?

Irida presents the Lustrous to him, once, as is tradition.

It is agony.

Just standing in its presence is a pressure like the bottom of the deepest ocean, like a singular force bearing down on him without mercy. To touch it is—he suddenly feels as though his body cannot possibly contain him, like something is pulling him to pieces—the light of the pearl is blinding—

To provoke a reaction from Sinnoh's treasure is a sign of divine recognition. It usually isn't... like... that. But still, if you ignore that discrepancy—and the Pearl Clan is nothing if not good at ignoring discrepancies—it can only mean good things for a warden. Right?

---

Deities move on a glacial scale, or so it seems at times to humans. Nevertheless, imprisoning a god—binding it to a human form to prevent its intervention—cannot be without consequence. Nor will it go unnoticed by its fellows.

It takes Hisui a long time to notice, but reality has... gone strange. Eroded. The seas stretch on endlessly. Mount Coronet is a spear against a yawning void. The winter has become eternal; days are short and nights are long, and the more time passes—though perhaps that phrase is not so apt—the less rhyme or reason there is to the changing of the celestial bodies.

And far beyond, in a realm above both time and space, a once-dual, now-singular god rages...

[loving-n0t-heyting]

Against my better judgement, a not-very-original contribution to rattumb feminism discourse

Theres a common retort to complaints about feminism from rat-adjs, which when phrased politely reads like "You have the excuse of yr main exposure to feminism being 2010s era jezebel bullshit" and when phrased impolitely reads like "yr main exposure to feminism being 2010s era jezebel bullshit is not an excuse", which takes it for granted that the dumb shit that occupied seemingly 90% of the internets collective attention in 2011-2015 was some inane culture war drivel significant basically only insofar as it sucked up ppls attention or contributed nebulously to the "wider conversation" with distant and vaguely delineated consequences in the objective world

This is kinda funny, bc what i remember from the feminist resurgence of that time period was the massive, largely successful campaign perversely combining a bold expansion of the boundaries of "rape" and an intensified brand of punitive vitriol for alleged rapists. Criminal and quasicriminal consequences for rapists were ramped up, concerns about "due process" were dismissed (with institutional effect!) as antiquated patriarchal relics, judges bemoaning the eighth amendment were touted as heroes, protesters with ak 47s showed up outside the houses of convicts they thought got off too easy. Ppl would extol distant bands of vigilantes in public, and domestic lone assassins in private. Ppl lost their freedom. Ppl lost their lives. And all of this nancy grace nonsense in the most pristine of bleeding heart blue enclaves, under banners of deepest pink!

I could provide citations, but i wont, partly bc i am tired, partly bc all of these are things ive given concrete evidence about on this blog previously, partly bc we all know this to be true anyway

And what grates on me about that patronising reply to those of with the gall to carry trauma from this orgy of bloodlust is that these noose-tying fanatics and the avant garde against the gamergator menace were the same fucking ppl. Saying it all for the same fucking reasons. Again, no citations bc ive said this all before, but search yr feelings. Im not complaining about some more serious problem that gets mixed up with the way the internet collectively decided zoe quinn deserved to be pre-canonised by the magisterium of public opinion as a martyr for the true faith, im complaining about the same problem, of which the lynching enthusiasm was the worst expression. In the annals of the horrors of war, small losses in public life are placed alongside the lists of honoured dead, bc they are alike symptoms of the same overarching social disease

And if you hear more about the milder instances of this mass insanity of last decade, consider this might be bc famous "cancelled" performers and academics have access to more bandwidth than randos stuck rotting inside state prisons

[schizosupport]

this is going to be very long and rambly, i apologize. you can answer any, all, or no parts of it, i guess i just really need to blurt it all out to *someone*

for the past 3 or 4 years, ive been having mild (?) transient stress related psychotic symptoms. i suspect i have a cluster b pd which could possibly cover that

at first it was mostly paranoia i think ? usually the standard "theyre out to get me" type thoughts, both with people i knew and nebulous entities i couldnt define. it doesnt happen too frequently, but it seems to have gotten worse with time. this past fall / winter was especially bad bc i was already doing poorly mental health wise and was very isolated. a lot of the thoughts are still paranoia based, but some lean more towards delusions now (e.g. being afraid of the music i left to play from my phone speakers bc i felt it was hunting me down) as well as some that are fully bizarre (e.g. believing that ive been an angel stuck inside a human body my whole life, thinking theres a force field around my apartment thats keeping me stuck inside). for a while there was also this... pervasive sense of unreality almost ? like i would get frustrated that things werent operating on dream logic, or have difficulty differentiating dreams and reality in general. for the past couple months since then, ive had pretty much no issues

i always retain Some grasp on reality, whether its full on double booking or a vague sense of "something is wrong with me right now", which is enough for me to hide away from people and try to calm myself down and ground myself back to reality (... can you even do that with "real" delusions ? talk yourself out of them ?). the symptoms only last a few hours "at their peak", though the unsteady / unreality feeling may stick around for days or weeks surrounding that. im still able to be mostly functional for that part though. as such, nobody knows about any of this.

i just. i dont know. i dont have a therapist (i need one). im too afraid telling my friends will change their views on me irreparably even though they too struggle with (other) deeply stigmatized mental health issues. ive spent a lot of my childhood being called insane and incapable and i dont want it to happen again after ive finally found people that respect me. im worried ill have a full on psychotic break at some point (what the hell counts as "a break" ? can i call what ive been through "episodes" ?), or lose my ability to double book, or display symptoms in front of people i know. i just dont know what to do so im. spilling it out all here. so someone at all besides me knows

-- elias

Hey there,

Sorry it took me a while to get back to you.

It definitely sounds to me like you are experiencing some level of psychotic symtoms, and it sounds like it's causing you significant distress. You asked whether you can "talk yourself out of" a "real delusion" - and well, not as such, until the delusion passes, but they can be more or less long-lived and come with more or less insight.

The types of episode that only last a couple hours at full intensity are sometimes referred to as micropsychoses. When people talk about "a psychotic episode" it usually refers to a prolonged loss of reality that may last days, weeks or even months. But plenty of people on the schizo- and psychosis spectrum don't experience full-blown psychotic episodes. That doesn't make their psychosis un-serious, and it also isn't a given that these people will go on to develop worse psychotic symptoms.

I think one of the reasons the diagnosis of schizotypal exists, is because we needed to acknowledge that not every person's endpoint on the schizo-spectrum is schizophrenia, but that doesn't mean that their experience doesn't come with distress or disability.

I think you could try to do a vibe check with your friends to see how they react to the concept of psychosis and psychotic disorders. If they seem cool, then you could try to bring up your own experiences. It might be nice to be able to talk about those things, and get to experience that it doesn't have to be the end of the world, and not everyone will judge you for it.

I hope you all the best, anon!!

[drbased]

i’m kind of a baby radfem and im learning about being gender critical and i definitely agree with most of it, the only part that i have thoughts about is the nonbinary identity. i believe that a gender non conforming woman and a nonbinary woman can mean the same thing. in that, i believe that you can be a nonbinary *insert sex here* and it basically just means you’re gender nonconforming. and then it’s like well why do we need two different terms to mean the same thing and we definitely don’t, but i think it’s dangerous to conflate being nonbinary with being agender bc it’s not the same thing and it just makes gender rhetoric even more stupid & ridiculous lol. i’ve seen plenty of people identify as nonbinary and still identify with their sex-based gender. i also believe you can be female and see yourself as a woman and still use they/them or even he/him pronouns. what do u think??

(Bear with me on this, this is a long response but I hope you find it illuminating)

People regularly accuse radfems of being nazis/right wingers and I take those accusations incredibly seriously, and as I result I regularly take time to doubt my position. But the thing I keep coming back to is that:

There is no proof, and perhaps there cannot be proof, that gender exists: it is fundamentally metaphysical, spiritual, soul-like, a product of mind-body dualism, the belief that there is some nebulous internal sense of self that happens to share some labels with sex classification but also happens to completely subsume it in modern leftist discourse, despite that

Regardless of whether or not 'gender' is real, it does not form the basis of the male class oppression of women as a class, and the moment you engage with any feminist theory this fact becomes impossible to ignore. There is no true biological backing behind race and yet we are (in theory, anyway) comfortable with being able to identify and codify the oppressor and oppresses classes in that scenario; however, arguments from the mainstream left will vaguely gesture towards sex being 'fluid' as justification for the dissolution of classic feminist arguments. It's important to be suspicious of why this is and who might benefit from it;

To build on point one, due to the fact that gender has no material basis in the real world, the only 'signifiers' for it are ones that already exist as cultural schemas - and these are, naturally, taken from existing sex roles designed to uphold misogyny and, more broadly, patriachy itself. 'Gender fluid' people are at this point infamous for their tik toks of when they're male or female, and the way they demonstrate this is through short hair and comfortable clothes vs long hair and feminine styling.

Occam's razor + feminist analysis will inevitably point towards women 'identifying' with nonbinary, agender etc. simply being women who are uncomfortable with the misogynistic connotations of femaleness, and who naturally wish to disassociate from them. When you see things under that lens, you can immediately notice patterns of behaviour and language that signal the belief system they hold. To 'identify' as anything is fundamentally meaningless, and signals nothing to both yourself and others except perhaps language. As a person recovering from depression, I have been detaching myself from all rigid concepts of classifying myself and instead focussing much more on being who I am in the moment. It it much healthier to be this way (and a lot less stressful, too)

When we call ourselves 'women', this is nothing more a neutral description of our biology. And due to our status as an oppressed class, especially one based on our biology, it is of paramount importance that we retain language that succinctly names us as such. Dworkin states in Pornography that one of the powers that men have is the power of naming. We still live under patriarchy, and the language we use cannot be separated from male ideas and male thought. Men had, and have, no problem naming us as the oppressor class when it benefits them (especially in the case of prostitution and pornography), but as it has become less, let's say' popular to be seen as a man in recent years, we have seen an explosion of transgender rhetoric enter the popular consciousness. Without the ability to recognise ourselves as women, we lose statistics, we lose safe spaces away from the oppressor class, and we lose class consciousness.

As for using 'they/them' and 'he/they' pronouns - well, I'm a straight woman, but I'm aware that there is a certain lesbian tradition of using masculine pronouns. But that's in a very different context to what's being described here. I've already addressed language but let's put a laser-sighted focus on pronouns for a second:

As a culture, we default to 'he' pronouns for a reason. For a long time, we were 'mankind' and everything akin to humanity is given masculine pronouns. Cute little critters are assumed to be male, probably all your soft toys are male, the most basic of doodles are assumed to be male and only allowed to be female once they are given a dress. It should be no surprise that women who want to escape the shackles of femininity want to be called he/him - they want access to the percieved full humanity of men. Meanwhile, the only times we attribute she/her to things other than people are to things like cars, ships, and natural disasters (with the exception of mother nature, of course) - tools of warfare, accessories of masculinity, and symbols of 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'.

There is a study somewhere that shows that when you use 'they/them' as a neutral pronoun, people assume male - especially if you're referencing a prestige profession. If I were to say, I went to the doctor yesterday, they were great - you would automatically assume a male doctor. This is no accident - as already stated, maleness is the default. Women who want to use they/them are dissociating themselves from femaleness but in doing so they are accidentally using language that signifies maleness. This is why feminist analysis is so important, and why 'identifying' as something holds little water in the real world. In an ideal world, perhaps they/them could be genuinely seen as neutral - but we don't live in an ideal world; we live in a world where women are oppressed.

So to answer part of your question, no, I do not believe that 'nonbinary' and 'gender non-conforming' are the same thing; nonbinary is an attempt at classifying someone according to some nebulous, unprovable sense of internal identity that has no real material impact - and any attempt to 'express' this gender are simply taking existing sex roles and mashing them together. Gender nonconforming has a different meaning in radfem circles as it does in transgender ones - TRAs take it to mean that someone is indentifying with a different gender than they were 'assigned' at birth, but radfems simply use it to describe the physical act of being a woman (or man) who doesn't conform to expected sex roles. I am 'gnc' but that's just a neutral descriptor of my dress-sense - and it's a loose descriptor because in many ways I'm definitely not gnc in my behaviour, although I am working on my self-confidence, especially in contexts such as physical fitness and DIY. Gnc is useful shorthand for 'not conforming to sex roles in some major capacity enough to be noticeable by others' - and the only reason it's important, especially for women, is because femininity (our expected behaviour) is designed by the patriarchy to dissociate us from our bodies and keep us decorative, fragile, weak and sexually vulnerable to men.

[phoenixfangs]

OMG PHOENIX OC PHOENIX OC?!?! SIGN ME UP I want to learn everything omggg For now tho, for the ask mmm lets go with ❗️, 🚨 and 🧣 if its not too much!!

WEEEEEEEEE THANK U THANK U im really happy with the positive reception feigas been receiving, it makes me feel like im Not an insane selfish weirdo for wanting to talk about her and like im Allowed to share my thoughts in a public forum without being beaten to death FDJSKLGHLSKJFDS my brain is broken ❤️

❗️what was the scariest moment of ur characters life? does it still affect them? | HHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMM well i look at her as having two distinct lives with distinct hardships: her childhood and her adulthood. so from her childhood, its definitely nebulous in my mind but its probably something to do with one of her siblings deaths, perhaps it was a very bad accident she was also involved in that she almost died from, but she happened to survive while her sibling didnt. probably a very violent, bloody accident with a lot of pain and suffering and being convinced that she will die without a miracle, only to be met with some cruel neutrality from her parents when that 'miracle' does occur and she survives/recovers. 'oh ur lucky to be alive, suppose it wasnt ur time', no celebration or care. probably put the fear of death in her that she ended up carrying with her into adulthood, one of the few things that Didnt get blocked out. as an adult, its probably her confrontation with riza and being told 'im not going to kill u' after shes been disarmed/beaten in the brawl because, if riza was refusing to kill her, it meant the drachman military would. i think i stole/modified the concept from the venture bros of an elite group of assassins/soldiers called 'the cleaners' whose responsibility it is to 'clean up' botch jobs, like feigas botch job trying to take out riza and roy, and they are much more cruel and sadistic than even feiga was to riza. she knows that if the cleaners get their hands on her, shes not just going to die, its going to be slow, painful, and miserable, and that fear of death, and of suffering, freezes her blood and makes her frantic and hysterical until rizas able to calm her down and agree to help her escape

🚨 whats ur characters relationship with the law? have they ever been arrested? what for? what are their opinions on law enforcement? | she lives outside of it and as an extension of it!! shes a political assassin, her vague 'assassin training' i keep alluding to is vague in my mind because i dont have it Fully fleshed out but to me its affiliated with the drachman military, perhaps a covert branch of some kind thats not officially sanctioned but the people in power dont care because its useful to have unsanctioned power. she has never been arrested in a typical sense, as a citizen who has broken a law, and as far as the upper brass is concerned, she either doesnt exist (to those not in the know about the situation) or, up until her defection, is a model soldier (unofficial, ofc, she has no real rank or place in the military but she is still one of Their dogs), an ideal enforcer of drachmas power. she initially has a lot of pride in her position as the best and most valuable, and is disdainful of any government/military besides her own, and doesnt view herself as the abused attack dog shes been beaten into. so much so that she derogatorily refers to roy and riza as filthy amestrian dogs, mutts, etc., simply for being soldiers, and also she hates them. seeing herself as the best, or being told shes the best, is a delusion/lie that she refuses to let go despite the Material Reality that there are assassins (the cleaners) who are Always going to be in a different league than her because she, unlike the cleaners, is still seen as capable of fucking up and becoming worthless. it isnt until her confrontation with riza and rizas influence telling her 'arent u mad at what theyve done to u?! they broke u until u were their best, and now theyre going to throw u away like ur nothing! the military is ur enemy! dont give them any more of urself, whether its ur body, ur pride, ur loyalty, or ur life! hit da bricks!!' that she decides YKNOW WHAT YEAH FUCK THIS and is able to finally redirect so much of her perceived hatred of riza more appropriately onto systems that lied to her and failed her and actively wanted to hurt her

BUT more broadly. jfdklsjfklsa. yeah shes never been a normal citizen so shes never had real experience with citizen-level crime or police

🧣 answered !

[a-e-redacted]

Yello, idk if you are gonna see this but, OMG I AM SO GLAD THIS STORY EXISTS... but if you don't mind ima say some stuff to you because I have no one else oki :)

So basically we still don't know anything about the collector from basically before belos, and I think the collector was not only metally abused but also physicaly abused because of the freezing, flinching, and just freaking out, which belos couldn't not have done if they were in the mirror. Then collector also still is fine with titans I mean they are fascinated by them, so I don't think kings dad did it. So their is only one option left the "archives" I hate those guys. I mean it's a theroy but it would make sense because the collector hasn't even brought them up yet and freaks out when asked about it. I just want to know more yipeeeee

Also but idk would the collector have scars or something like eda on her hand. I mean it's probably just that they feel bad about it, orrrrrrrrr it could have been sometime that happened to them and they don't want to be like "someone else" that "lied or betrayed" they haven't talked about. I would imagine that those scars would be on the upper are or sometime hidden by their sleeves.

IDK I THINK IM JUST TRIPPING, HELP I WANT TO KNOW I AM SO OBSESSED WITH THISSS OMG AHHHHH. thanks for listening if you see this byeeeeee.

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts! It makes me really happy that people are excited and enthusiastic about MoonShadow.

When I was drafting out the first couple of arcs, it was in the months following King’s Tide and we had very little canonical information on The Collector’s history to draw from. I purposefully left their backstory vague when I started writing the fic in case I decided to incorporate more of canon into the story.

I had a few rather nebulous ideas about The Collector’s past, which did end up being similar to some of what we learned in canon. However there were enough different things that I continued with my original ideas and settled comfortably into MoonShadow being an AU. So the Archivists, while they or beings somewhat like them may exist in this AU in some capacity, they don’t play the same role in The Collector’s story.

While Philip may not have been able to physically touch The Collector, he still instilled a lot of behaviors and responses in them with the mental and emotional tools he had at his disposal. So The Collector may not have physical scars, but their experiences with Philip cut deep, and Philip knows better than anyone how to manipulate them.

The worst part is The Collector really had difficulty telling when someone is lying to them. Hence their extreme switch to just believing EVERYONE across the board is lying, because it’s the “safer” assumption.

Thanks again for reading! I really hope to get Chapter 40 up next weekend.

[drivestraight]

Principle of list interest it’s another banger oohh my god, I love your narration because for me it always feels like being so close to understanding something but being unable to get the full picture of it, and I mean it in the best way

The last paragraph caused me so many emotions once I got the parallels between mclaren vs alpine and lando vs mark (at least I hope you meant it that way lol)

thank you so much! and ahh that’s a really cool way of putting it! for fics that arent super plot focused like these i end up thinking a lot about like. how much info is given/shared with the reader and the sort of mechanism in which its conveyed, and what choices in narration can achieve that the most. kind of a vague and nebulous way of putting it but there’s a lot of thought put into making you feel close but not too close. at the moment i dont really like writing things where it’s like - everything is out on the surface. the narration overexplains it. this isnt to say this is bad or like less skilled - im just having fun experimenting with less heavy handed styles. anyway.

and yes i did mean it that way! there was also a little bit comparing mark to oscar’s dad 💀 that i cut b/c it felt a little bit out of place HAHA

ty for reading :)

[waywardsalt]

ship thoughts bc im trying to untangle what i want to do with this (not limited to tags this time yippee)

ok so like. bellum x linebeck is a weird ship and the only ship i have in my small little collection thats Like That

i mean. the other ones are like…

damibeck is soft oc x canon its my canon linebeck ship theyre boyfriends theyre husbands damien is his childhood friend and they are very close from the get go for various reasons its like. generally normal romance its a comfort thing at times but also something i can make interesting or at the center of a conflict

ganonbeck is a fun crackship sort thing that started as a joke but turns out to have genuinely interesting ideas you can use with it so its probably the most versatile in how i use it

bellum x linebeck is the only one where they canonically meet and good lord idk how to convert my weird abstracts ideas and thoughts (and joke ideas) into coherent ship ideas but ill try here

like. bellum isnt much of a character while linebeck is a great character so off the bat i kinda have to figure out. what bellum is like. but i think he generally finds linebeck interesting and is civil in a post game setting for a handful of reasons, including that curiosity abt linebeck and a vague respect for him. i think linebeck has a shaky understanding of bellum as well as a similarly weird respect, but would need a little more time to really trust him, but they both start off with some weird comfort bc like. they probably know each other p intimately already

like with bellumbeck stuff bellum likely learns a lot abt linebeck through that, and going with the ideas i have abt what goes on during that, linebeck learns a lot abt bellum, too, so they have a baseline understanding of each other. i want to keep empathy out of it generally, esp on bellum’s side of things (i hc linebeck as being low empathy but with bellum specifically its either low emparhy too or no empathy at all, problem being i have a hard time like. recognizing empathy vs no empathy like idk what the difference is if that makes sense. i want bellum to actively choose to be nice or w/e instead of just like. feeling bad or w/e, idk what part empathy might play in recognizing that you have similarities with something)

like i dont want to spill the beans on a lot of linebeck and bellum backstory stuff bc id rather do that through fic stuff, but they have a general understanding of each other through like. vague. situation comparison (with linebeck its like. minor dot connecting and some stretches of imagination but that doesnt do it all for him while for bellum its a kinda oh shit moment), and bellum just finds linebeck interesting in the unconventional (and frustrating) way he had to deal with him and how and why he failed to 1) fully control and convince him of certain things and 2) linebecks survival is something he did not anticipate at all so for bellum theres this fascination in linebeck as hes a guy who broke every rule bellum thought was in place with this thing he’d done before and is just like. hey man what the fuck. in that curiosity. in a strange sense linebeck is untouchable to bellum bc of this (not literally but. yknow)

like i dont think id want to write this as some kind of explicit or conventional romance, just some weird relationship thing that slips into romantic, into sexual, into intimate, and then back out into that weird nebulous area

damien is there. this is in post ph context. damien is very much there and interested in bellum as well but its very different i just wanted to bring it up bc it does slip into polycule territory in post ph

theres probably walls and walls of text i could write abt this while untangling what i might want to do with bellum x linebeck but uuuuugh im tired

like on the physical side of things tho its. really weird like linebeck has strict boundaries and in a sense bellum has broken them before and so they have a bit of a tricky physical relationship bc linebeck has a hard time sorting his feelings towards bellum out and bellum can be kinda touchy feely with him at times, and the strangeness that comes with sorting things out with his lil demon form and with his humanoid form

also the tentacle stuff

im very much thinking abt the tentacle stuff

i dont. im not familiar with that kind of stuff

its been the biggest barrier for me in thinking abt this ship and generally its just bellum using em as arms and to grab and hold stuff and different ways they can apply when he interacts with linebeck like hes got a bunch of different clingy stuff idk. he can do weird hugs. while experimenting with damien linebeck figures out he kinda has a thing for being tied up and then (both he and bellum) have to face the fact that they likely know either when that might have started or that it complicates things a little further

[shmothman]

i feel like maybe this is obvious in my fics but i can’t stop thinking about it and i wanna talk about it anyway so im just gonna spew some thoughts re: the way i characterize vash…

like ok… obviously when im writing him im usually writing in the context of an established relationship, which is sort of skipping over all the emotional stuff he’d have to go through in order to even Be in any sort of relationship. im writing him happy, which is… something we just plain don’t see much in canon. whether im setting it somewhere nebulously in canon or post canon (which, tbh, i leave it vague but im usually picturing post canon, because i honestly don’t see him as able to be in any sort of relationship amidst everything that happens in canon—having feelings for someone, yes, but acting on them, not so much) im attempting to show a side of him that is… capable of accepting love. i mean, take this all with the grain of salt that im primarily working off of 98 canon, and im not very far into the manga so everything i know is basically spoilers, but this is a character who is Defined by loss. in his eyes, the best thing he can do for someone he loves is to leave them—at least they’ll be in less danger without him around. because the few people he loves that he doesn’t leave (returning to the ship throughout his life) end up murdered in front of his eyes. so in my fics, im trying to look at what it would take for him to give in to having an emotional or physical relationship. the answer i keep coming to is a) he’s not going to be the one to say it first, ever; and b) he’s going to feel a tremendous guilt for it. so… my Established Relationship fics time-skip over a LOT of emotional shit, and even then, they’re usually set on a Good day. A day when the guilt is just a dull ache at the back of his head, rather than a clawing thing at his heart. Days when he’s happier. Days when he can be goofy and loving and not have it be an act—because i do see a lot of people who say that writing him genuinely goofy is misunderstanding his character, and while that’s as valid an interpretation of his character as any, it’s not my interpretation.

As an aside on Vash’s goofiness: again I reiterate that we don’t really see vash happy in canon. maybe at the very end, when it’s all over, and in moments where he sees the best in humanity, but it’s not often. So when we see him goofy and smiling, yes, it’s mostly an act. He’s hurting so much, all the time, but he’s smiling and playing with the kids (and teaching them about love and peace) because he still wants to see the best in humanity, wants these kids to grow up and fight for what’s right, wants to be like Rem. But, as that one post said: we are the mask and the wearer. The person he is trying to be, the goofy mask he puts on, is still him, as much as the serious, sometimes broody way he tends to see himself (in his dream, when Rem says he’s so serious, that’s the way he feels about himself) is. So in a context where he’s able to heal, even a little bit, where he’s allowed to be happy, I think he’s still goofy! Maybe not quite as often, and maybe not quite in the same way, and there would certainly be a lot more moments where his smile is gentler, his demeanor more restrained… but that part of him is still there. He sees it as an act, but like… the way people see you is still a way that you are, if that makes any sense (projection alert!). His identity is complicated.

Idk idk idk i just can’t stop thinking about Who He Is and the amount of his personality that’s just… his reactions to suffering that’s basically beyond human comprehension. Who he might be able to be when it’s all over. Its not like i think that he’d be able to just… move past all of it. for the rest of his life he’s going to be carrying this burden of pain, of losing basically everyone he’s ever loved. he’s always going to be bracing for the worst—i don’t think that sort of thing will ever leave him. somewhere in his mind, he’ll always assume something awful is going to happen. but there will be good days. days when he’s looking forward to the future—though he’ll always be treasuring every moment of the present, never taking the love and happiness he feels for granted, both because he’s felt the alternative and because a part of him assumes it’ll end before he’s ready for it to. But that’s also why I refuse to let him remain immortal. I’ve never touched on it in any of my fics but for me, his happy ending involves growing old. im taking the trimax idea of him having used up all his power and extending that to mean he’s no longer going to stay young forever. he gets to live the rest of his life knowing he’s not going to outlive everyone he loves, because i think that would give him some peace. he has to live with so much loss, im not giving him any more of it. (is this self indulgent? absolutely. but every single thing ive ever written is pure self indulgence lol.)

As for the nsfw stuff… i mean let’s be real it’s mostly a matter of taste 🤣 yes i take his flirtation in 98 as a sort of like… way for him to feel some semblance of connection without there being any risk—only hitting on people he is sure won’t reciprocate so he can feel like it’s out of his hands,, but i also see him as just being absolutely goddamn touchstarved. His self-imposed isolation means that finally accepting physical affection would overload him—but he’s wanted it for so long that he’s okay with that. Especially in the context of someone he loves, and has loved for a long time while feeling absolutely guilty about it and not letting himself act on it. And yeah I do see there being a psychological component to him being so willing to give up control to his partner: finally, someone who he can trust entirely and let go with, a time where he can finally be brought to a place where the worry fades—too overwhelmed by physical sensation to fear and grieve, even for just a moment. (Not to say he doesn’t have times where sex is something fueled by fear and grief: he doesn’t want to lose you, he needs to hold you close, to prove to himself that you’re here, but, again, I’ve mostly been writing the Good Days.) he’s so used to intense bad feelings. i just want to give him intense good feelings.

Idk. There’s not a point to me writing this. I’m just stream-of-consciousness-ing. I just love him so much. I need to write him happy.

[ausigm]

ive seen a fair few sig-amitie swap aus but i wanted to take my own spin on it. instead of giving amitie the demon, why not have the sun goddess be split instead?

amitie is Going Through It.

incoherent ramblings below the cut

she has a single wing on her right side and purple eyes. yes, multiple eyes on one side bc im a sucker for Eyes. she usually hides them with a glamour spell. no puyo hat but the hood of her shirt covers her head (and possibly a halo?). her spells are likely based on shades of red with Rose as her final spell, shared with Strange Raffina.

raffina is the one with the book in this au bc. i wanted her to be a Protagonist. the angel in the book is going stir crazy and shes like Im So Normal And Can Be Trusted With A Host ::) (shes the little spirit thing in the middle of the page). she likely inherits amities canon spells (cyclone, acceleration, fairy fire) and shares Rose with amitie. red roses, white roses

bottom left is a sigs secret equivalent scenario. across most of my aus if amities green eyes turn purple Divinity Is Afoot. bottom right is something more akin to quests black sig where he still has the blue eye. red amitie -> light/white amitie, dark/black sig -> blue sig

sig is the reincarnation of some nebulous night god (i havent quite hammered out what i think the demons domain is but its definitely something to do with the night/moon/dreams. sun and moon duality yknow?). hes still kinda absentminded but more energetic. he still adores bugs. either he gets strange klugs canon spellset or a new one with Bugs.

other miscellaneous thoughts:

lemres and accord kinda swap as in accord Knows Whats Up with amitie but is infuriatingly vague about it

im not sure what klug is up to now that raffinas the one with the book. sad! theres other beings to get possessed by i guess

swap!au amitie and ocean prince interactions tickle me. shes innately tied to Fire and Light and the ocean is very much the opposite of those things! plus wet feathers are unpleasant.

swap!swap!au where sigs the one with the angel shenanigans?

[wraith-caller]

WIP whatever day it is today

tagged by @tallmatcha

tagging @no-braincells-inc @rococospade-main @fenharael @terendelev and any others who may like to participate.

im so close to finishing this one....

“Dear Rogier,” Fia said, touching his cheek gently. “Come.”

He rose and let her slip her arm in his. She did not walk so much as she floated, as if she herself were a ghost. The knights threw open the door for her without a word. Once upon a time, he’d thought it would be magnificent to walk these halls, to step where the gods themselves had lived such dramatic and storied lives. Now, he only despised it. The grandeur loomed instead of impressed, a gaping maw threatening to devour.

Fia led him past Godwyn, who sat on the floor of the Erdtree Sanctuary. His gaze was, as ever, turned outward to the grey, dying tree, and he didn't look up as his mother entered. Or was his mother still Marika? Somehow both? Rogier couldn’t rightly say. This creature was not anything he would call golden or divine, but neither was he Tarnished like Fia.

The child’s blackened eyes gazed up at him. His skin was grey and pallid and always damp, and the vines which wrapped around his small body creaked when he moved. His hair was pallid gold shot through with black, and when he spoke, it was in a voice that whispered and trembled like dead tree branches in a winter wind. “Fear,” Godwyn said. “Shame. Grief. You make me sick when I eat you.”

Fia left Rogier to sit beside Godwyn. She ran her fingers through his hair, affectionate and matronly. She had never despised her purpose as one who would bear a noble into a new life. She had only ever despised being unable to choose who it was she'd be bound to the rest of her life, who it was she'd surrender herself to so wholly and completely. Her yearning to be a mother was at long last fulfilled, and her eyes always shone with adoration when she looked upon the blight she'd given new life to, an adoration she showed no others. “My love. That is not a kind thing to say to one of our champions and dear friends."

"I wanted to make him black inside." Godwyn reached up to wrap his arms around Fia's slender neck but his horrible eyes were on Rogier and they were full of resentment. "When I got out of the dark and smelled the air. I saw him, and I wanted to make him black."

A few years ago, Rogier may have made a joke to diffuse the tension welling up in him. It threatened to strangle and suffocate him and he wanted nothing more than to disappear. If it wasn't so insane and pathetic, he would have thrown himself at the little monster's mercy and let him have his twisted wish. Instead he averted his eyes and said nothing.

"And I thank you for choosing otherwise. Rogier has helped us achieve everything we've wanted. What should you say in return?” Fia dropped a kiss to the crown of Godwyn's head.

"If he wants to be dead, I can help."

"Oh dearest," Fia said on an affectionate sigh. She cupped Godwyn's cheeks in her hands gently. Rogier wasn't sure how she could bear to look that thing in the eye and hold him so lovingly. "I will return to you soon. And then perhaps a nap. To help improve your mood."

Godwyn didn't argue. He never did. Rogier thought he knew what this was whenever it happened. Where the withered and diminished pieces of his life were harvested from, what he fed on. Fia had first created Godwyn with the things she took from her champions and the many others she'd held. But something was so terribly wrong with this child. He grew far faster than even a demigod ought to. Any solid food given to him was choked back up with screams and agony. He could only feed on them. Rogier knew Godwyn somehow absorbed something of their very essence, not just some nebulous or vague energy. He knew things about him that no one else knew, and it was horrific hearing his deepest fears and regrets spouted back at him through that creature's terrible mouth.

Fia led him onward to the room which was maybe a parlor or sitting room once upon a time but now served a very different purpose. He wished he could say he felt relief in Godwyn's absence, but the dread only wound tighter when he was alone with Fia now. Many foolish people had lain with her, not understanding what it was she did because there were no Deathbed Companions in their lands. There had been none in his, either, but he’d read of her kind. Even knowing it all, he’d still given her what she wanted because he thought he’d been cleverer, thought he'd be one step ahead in getting what he was after in return.

He was an idiot.

[spicybylerpolls]

Dear Spicy Byler Polls,

i love your in-depth response to the anon about rooting for finn to be queer and the difference between accusations of queer-baiting and excited speculation.

the main difference does seem to be entitlement, and public forums. for example, commenting on someone's literal social media post? rude. are they going to reply personally to you? no! but i think people honestly forget or dont care that the celeb can see that. they have something to say, and they think they have the right to say it. so they do.

so my main issue is being told i can't speculate amongst friends (which is what this blog often feels like) when we are pretty hidden over here. i certainly would never want to interact with finn or even comment on his posts, as i dont feel i have anything to contribute to his life. but i love to observe and wonder in my own space on the internet, because it does serve me to do that, and i am not hurting finn, which is what matters.

but lastly i will just say that the ambiguity of how we interpret things is maybe what freaks people out about speculation. for example, i had a hunch that noah was queer way before this debate and s4, but it didnt matter in my life so i wasnt boasting to anyone about being right when he came out. it wasnt about me! who cares what i thought? my hunch was also based on nebulous things that arent quantifiable and definitely would not hold up in a court of law (lol), so it also seemed trite to describe them.

whereas sadie simply saying she likes an artist who is queer, for me is very silly evidence because that essentially makes everything into a message, and if a large majority of the straight community realised that queer folk think them liking queer art made them queer, it would stop them liking that art (or rather, being open about how much they liked it), in case people started saying ooooh you must be queer! not that being queer is bad, but that the jump in logic is pretty large. its like saying oooh you've got a friend who is queer, you must be queer too! it was a wonder it didnt happen as much as it could have with queen in the 80s - the music was so good, people didnt care. same for elton john. but im sure plenty refused to listen based on the rep alone.

I personally am not queer, and if i had a platform of fans, and i said oooh i love boygenius, and some of those fans started thinking i was queer because of that, i would feel like they were reading too deeply. because my queerness would not be expressed through enjoying music, which is a universal thing. if they started to notice actual queer behaviours in me that i also acknowledged were queer, and i was questioning, i would be like ok, they've seen through me.

so as a straight person who is fascinated by modern (and older) queer culture, its kind of funny to me to see the ways modern queer folk interact with people who are unlabelled.

it seems to have gone from the old ways of safely finding others queers, like asking if theyre part of the family (which would have been an assumption based on instinct and vibes, and which was relatively easy to dismiss if they were in fact straight), to either demanding someone comes out, or relying on vague indicators of sexual identity, like someone's taste in music or even whether they wear rainbows.

these things might be big for the queer community, but they already have meanings in the straight ones, too. liking rainbows does not make you queer or even indicate you are queer.

of course, the queer community have used these ambiguous ways to find each other, but the whole point is that they remain double meanings in order to protect the secret language of queerness. 'are you family' means one thing to straights and another to queer folk, but now, in modern culture, lots of queer people seem to be insisiting that it MUST mean only one thing: gayness. for example, someone wearing rainbows? they must be gay. they must be flagging. despite the millenia-long history of the existence of rainbows and their popularity in pop culture.

in modern gay culture, many people seem to think they are entitled the queerness of others because they sense it. whereas back in the day, you get the sense that if someone did not respond positively to 'are you part of the family?' then you would leave them alone, not demand that they come out because they would be happier if they did so and lived their truth.

do you think this speaks more about the internet age than it does about queer culture itself? and can queer culture every be extricated from the internet age? can any modern culture, now? i love that young queer folk are living more freely, but it seems to have swung a horrible way, towards entitlement for a lot of people online. and all that does is make them unhappy when their faves dont come out. i understand that queer people are oppressed and need idols and role models more than straight folk. but you can still enjoy an artist's work even if they dont share your sexual identity, cant you? it might help to make your experience more universal if you can acknowledge that not everything is about sexual identity. we want gay love stories like stranger things to bring straight folk and queer closer, not divide them by making sure gay communities remain separate, surely?

i hope i'm not being unfair.

Thank you for your thoughts! I hadn't really considered the straight perspective in all of this. You bring up a lot of interesting points, and I don't agree with all of it, but I don't necessarily disagree either.

You're right that sometimes rainbows are just rainbows and that, "These things might be big for the queer community, but they already have meanings in the straight ones, too. liking rainbows does not make you queer or even indicate you are queer."

I just had a vision of someone who is really into rainbows, putting them on literally everything, placing them in all their captions, placing them on all their bags, and everyone assumes they're flagging their sexuality. But then it turns out they're actually just a devout Southern Baptist, and they're really into the Noah's Ark story lol.

That being said, rainbows might be pretty universal, but I'd say there are symbols and clues that one might flag with that are very queer. And probably one or two of these things can be a coincidence. But just like with Mike's sexuality, it's not just one thing that clues us in but several subtle things piled on top of each other. And while of course "you can still enjoy an artist's work even if they don't share your sexual identity," there's a subtle magic when they do share it that I'd say can't be fully replicated by anything else.

The thing I find the most interesting about your message is your question, "Do you think this speaks more about the internet age than it does about queer culture itself? and can queer culture ever be extricated from the internet age? can any modern culture, now?" And I do think a lot of what you're critiquing is absolutely a part of the internet age in general. And it's not going away anytime soon.

The one thing I will clarify tho is that the Sadie Sink/girl in red thing is not a matter of her liking a queer artist but the context. At some point in like 2020 or 2021, "do you like girl in red?" actually became a very specific coded conversation/semi-meme for queer girls on TikTok.

So Sadie commenting I like girl in red btw on a girl's Instagram, followed by a winky face, is absolutely within that context. It's not about liking a queer artist, cause "I like Reneé Rapp" doesn't hold the same meaning even though they are both lesbians. And it's not even about liking girl in red as anyone can like her music (I love her music and I'm a guy), but about subtly communicating queerness in a specific way.

That being said, music/media in general ARE cultural signifiers that someone may be "safe," especially if there's a pattern. Like if someone's Spotify exclusively consists of boygenius and other similar artists, if they follow the Heartstopper cast on IG, and if their favorite films on Letterboxd are But I'm a Cheerleader, Bottoms, Carol, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, that might be a sign lol.

I'm interested in my anons thoughts on this.

[gayspock]

guys im peckish

something that always kinda.... i dont wanna say it frustrates me, bc i understand WHY its the case & i know its the better choice for most works... but i suppose, kind of? itches at me??? is the way AI in sooo much fiction is solely ever used with regards to comparing it to Humanness. and tht makes total sense- its not always abt exploring AI conceptually in of itself, but moreso using that as a means to explore deeper Human themes and again sometimes thats just better to leave it as that

but nonetheless it itchessss sometimes, yknow, from like a worldbuilding perspective to me. & also just... i dont know. when i hear ppls conception of what AI is in general- and in all fairness, AI in of itself is such a nebulous term - i get well. frowny. bc again its always such a ... human lense.... and idk maybe im being #autistic #compsci girlie but it sometimes just feels so... LIMITING and detrimental, and kind of misunderstanding like- when it comes down to it, ai? its math... ITS MATH. you know that right? all the way top to bottom its just freaking mathematics, its algorithms...

but anyway it just feels like. its HOLES in the fictional world sometimes. like- the actual sophistication behind developing something that's intelligent enough, and ON PAR with a thinking, feeling, freaking person... and for that to become, like, a widespread THING... like it sooo rarely ever lines up with the rest of the technology within the world they set it in?? bc theyy clearly on ever thought- mmhm mhmm (nods) thinking machines. they just programmed people immediately. went from A to B. and sometimes there's like in-universe reasons for things but like other times its crazzzyy like...

bc before we'd ever get to THAT point so many other, complex things would already have commonplace AI applications does that make sense. one billion specialised problems that could have been solved ten times over. or well maybe solved is the wrong word but it would have changed the face of technology soooo much... and i guess sometimes there IS in-universe reasoning for it- it could be a limitation of resources, it could be an issue of knowledge and understanding, it could be other societal influences that stop it, things such as policies that prevent it from being totally pervasive- but thats literally kind of what i mean, like... bc those are GOOD points but not always present . and they could be rlly interesting points of discussion and contention just there that kinda gets neglected

like im watching BSG and i keep thinking abt the only reason the galactica survived is because its more "out of date". and its like if eel like theyre always so vague about what technology theyre actually compromising on, here. or like... hell what technology did all of humanity compromise on after thefirst war... wheres the lines? is it JUST cylons? or were there compromises on everything? and how did they reel shit back?

like im thinking even just roslin and her cancer. already, like... in real life... ai has a LOT of medical applications. idk-i still kinda want to do a PHD in some sort of bioinformatics one day, LOL, if i'd ever get there but like... whilst i guess its mostly diagnosis and screening rn, my point is, i cant imagine how much more medicine could have advanced??? surely ir'd be unrecognisable. even just in terms of developing drugs, and medicine- genomics being sooooooo data dense, there's leaps and bounds that can be done with AI, or even research facilitated by ai. like if you have the capabilities of programming something as sophisticated as human consciousness, with that level of logic and reasoning....

LIKE ... its like again sth very human. this human idea of intelligence and what that means, and thinking of ai in a totally human capacity when its like. idk how to describe ittttt. i guess its like- there are so many tasks that a human cannot do that a machine could do, BUT it would be easier to have a machine implement those tasks, THAN achieving sentience with a machine??? like... no. a person could not piece together a human genome from data BUT a machine could quite easily.

and even just that like- squitns. i think im talking in circles my WHOLEEEE point is just... AGAIN. worldbuilding wise i feel like sooo much drops the ball there like bc writers dont rlly understand the full applications of artifical intelligence and what it can do and wahgh... im sniff... im just rambling arent i [goes into a corner embarassedddd]

[angstics]

i couldn't agree more with the heart of your post earlier about being "gross" and struggling with mental illness (obviously i would never argue with the more personal aspect of it, that's not the focus of this message) and i deal with the same stuff all the time lol.

however, i would say fully attributing gerard smelling bad to his nebulous Mental Illness in a way gerard himself has never actually ascribed to it is a little questionable, you know? (even saying he "wasn't taking care of himself" is more perspective than a random fan can really have, though i'm not sure what specific time they're referring to so maybe it is more substantial than the fact that there were no showers on warped tour and i'm just rambling for no reason haha) there's SO much of what i can only think to call editorializing. but that is probably not the right word? of mcr history in the fandom, and making connections like that where it's maybe unwarranted and assumptive to make them. not that that's what you did, and honestly you're one of the best mcr fans i know wrt to NOT doing that lol. it's very easy to get caught up in it though; you start seeing it everywhere when you realize you have to look for it.

this is not at all malicious, and i know that wasn't the point of your post anyway! i would genuinely love to hear your thoughts on this one and i'm just sharing my perspective :)

first off, this is a nice message and im glad you brought it up. it’s good to be challenged.

i was being vague because it was more of a personal observation than it was about gerard. to be clear, i was talking about 02-04 when gerard was often described as a permanently rancid leather jacket by himself and interviewers (ie. tom bryant, andy greenwald, LOTMS).

maybe im victim of both fandom and media attributing Single Characteristics to people (“ha ha bullets shows would stink!”). for unknowable reasons, this prevalent description disappears after 04. maybe his hygiene got better. maybe it stayed the same. maybe “gross” was swapped out for “emo”. he’s sexy now, sexy cant be gross. it all is just a portrayal.

i also dont like how narratives are constructed from disconnected pieces of information, especially when the narrative becomes "fact". but i doooo think it's a part of being invested in any public figure. you dont know them but you like them a lot, so you create a person in your head from whatever you scavenge. whatever you NEED. i wouldnt care about this self-care/mental health connection if i didnt need it.

i never want it to seem like im psychoanalyzing this guy because it is rarely About him. when im talking about other people, im really talking about myself. it’s all projection. i should be more careful about that.

[jzixuans]

Your honest thoughts on Lonnie +family?(i.e her parents and older brother)

OOPS HELLO. SORRY IM LATE

1) i loooooooooooove lonnie she's my girl and everyone's favourite scene the Kitchen Scene TM is such a good place to show her kindness and her compassion

2) i wish we could've seen her with her family rather than have mulan's name tossed around for her reputation

also li'l shang is the stupidest name i have ever heard and any cool bi reawakenings he might've given jay in that r.o.a.r. practice moment were completely drowned out by de la cruz's bad shitty naming. i hate it and lonnie's cool older brother deserves better

3) that said i do like how lonnie followed in her mother's footsteps to join r.o.a.r.!! it shows us her own character agency and how much she looks up to her mother (and in the greater worldbuilding scheme shows us how much auradon really . hasn't improved since the storybook generation's troubles)

4) god i love her friendship with jay. i wish they showed us more tourney because that would have been a Real teamwork moment for the two of them that they could have given us

gonna divert from numbered points because the rest of the thoughts that i have on her are very jumbled :")

her wardrobe in d1 is very in the vein of . it looks vaguely east asian to hammer home that she's Mulan's Daughter and im not any expert in huafu but it feels like one of those things that's just made to Look oriental without much actual thought or research put into it

so that's part of what lands her in the token asian girl category because she's represented as Nebulously East Asian rather than Chinese as she should be, which shows their lack of care for genuine representation and more just to say "hey look the cast isn't entirely white" (further compounded by the fact iirc her actress isn't ethnically chinese? might be wrong don't quote me on that but like booboo isn't swana and they still cast him for the son of jafar so u know. :') not a great track record)

(also these are more personal bitter thoughts from a 3rd gen chinese person who's been into descendants since it came out but when she wanted Cool Hair and they made her hair lighter, longer, and wavy it made 13 y/o me really sad and then further ostracized when she said that mulan would make chocolate chip cookies w her rather than any typical chinese dessert)

and idk how far you guys have read into the books but that one where she dragged ben away to settle a dispute between china and agrabah that was 1) ridiculous 2) petty 3) had both sides be incredibly hostile and obstinate which required the white boy king to step in and hash it out 4) gave ben. bubble tea and a steak as part of Chinese Cuisine. 5) resulted in them DESTROYING PART OF THE GREAT WALL TO PUT A DOOR IN??? . very uncomfortable did not enjoy. the sole redeeming part of this miserable side plot was that it told us that lonnie and ben were childhood friends and i think that's really cute