#is just a decent sort of insight i guess

[tomwambsgans]

real talk i think anyone who wants to understand greg and specifically have a grip on his personal brand of gay repression should read john rechy's City Of Night

[skania]

OnK Chapter 149

I know it doesn’t mean much coming from me because I’m always complaining about Aka’s writing, but…

And I mean it when I say that I expect nothing 😭 This was literally my first ever OnK-related reblog and its tags are more relevant than ever lmao

These, too:

#honestly I didn’t think too hard about any of this during my first read #because the romantic endgame seems so obvious that it kind of discourages guessing lmao #but re-reading these chapters has made me appreciate Aqua’s side of his bond with Akane a lot more

Back when I first got into OnK, I mentioned that Akane was the entire reason I kept reading the manga. I didn’t care about the romantic subplot, found Aqua/Kana extremely obvious and predictable, and Aqua plain boring.

It’s only during my second read that I paid close attention to Akane’s interactions with Aqua and I ended up playing myself into both, caring about Aqua and shipping him with Akane lol

This chapter has made me realize that despite everything, I'm not emotionally invested in whether they end up together or not. I’d prefer it, obviously, because Aqua truly is at his most interesting whenever he’s around Akane, and their dynamic has the best development in the manga (so far).

But it’s just like I said before: If they don’t end up together, that’s just Aka’s loss, not mine. I’m just here for Akane 😂

And as an Akane fan, I feel like the best thing for me to do right now is to just take a step back and watch things unfold, because Aka will do whatever he wants regardless of how any of us interpret his manga lol

So instead of posting the long post I originally wrote about this chapter when the leaks came out, I'll just share a a clown gif because in hindsight it was silly of me to expect Kana out of all people to have any sort of meaningful insight into Aqua 🤡

And a couple of things that caught my eye because I can't help myself:

Kana didn't even see Aqua and Akane have any sort of meaningful moment, just those two standing in each other's vicinity was enough to make her throw herself a pity party. How many more times is she going to pity herself and give up? How has Aka not tired of writing her this way? Where did her development from the Scandal arc go? 🤡

So Chapter 147 featured Kamiki thinking Ai doesn't love him and Kana thinking Aqua likes her. It even had a helpful "Cut 139: Misunderstanding" panel and everything. Will this mean something? Who knows!

Kana used guilt-trip! It was super effective!

Oh the irony! Poor Akane looks like she's been hard at work convincing herself that she's over Aqua. And you know what? I cheer for her and respect her energy 100%. I'd rather see her doing her mightiest to help him without any ulterior motives than to have her crying for him and hoping to get back with him every other chapter lol

Akane calling Kana out for her pity-party and for being cowardly was so cathartic that if I didn't already stan her, I'd have become a fan right now 😭 It also means that Aka is 100% aware of the way he writes Kana, so when will she finally be allowed to grow?

Kana's praise to Akane made me so sad though because yes, Akane is pretty and she's talented and she's kind. That's sweet of her to say. But that's not what made Akane someone special to Aqua: it was the way she understood him. The worst part is that Kana ends her praise by saying that Akane is a "goody-two-shoes" but... that's the opposite of how Akane views herself. She sees herself as someone who's not decent and not normal. So it's no wonder that while she gets flustered (it's her dear kana-chan praising her), she seems to get a bit sad/frustrated afterward. After all, for Akane it's probably the opposite. Men would prefer a decent, normal, bright girl like Kana - Aqua included.

I wish someone would tell Akane that she is too ignorant of her own charms and that she doesn't have to act like an adult all the time. Truly the pot calling the kettle black! Sadly, unlike Kana, Akane seems to have no one in her corner in this manga. Aqua was the only one there and the poor guy is barely even a character anymore lol

Overprotective mother or controlling ex-girlfriend? Take your pick!

The English translation left something pretty important out in these panels. Akane doesn't just say "if you have a girlfriend", she says "if you have a precious/important girlfriend". This distinction is very important because it goes to show that... as expected, Akane doesn't think she was an important girlfriend to Aqua. It's like she didn't count and Kana would be the real deal. Oh, Akane...

Which takes me to her very silly, very convoluted yet very predictable plan (in true Aka fashion).

When Akane thinks “I know exactly what you hate”, I imagine she means that Aqua hates hurting and endangering those he cares for. So I'm guessing Akane thinks that if she plays matchmaker and quite literally throws Kana at him, someone he has a soft spot, then Aqua won't be able to go through with his revenge because that would mean breaking Kana's very fragile heart.

In other words, it looks like Akane is going to try and use Aqua's guilt-complex against him and her weapon of choice is love. But not her love, obviously, because as far as she's concerned, her romantic love already failed to save him.

Granted, using Kana's romantic feelings to her advantage is kind of... well, wrong. To quote Akane herself, [Kana] is neither her pet nor her property, but a person. But I'm guessing that Akane may be falling victim to the same loophole she got caught in in Chapters 96 - 98. She thinks she knows what's best, so she's putting her own beliefs aside for the time being.

Kind of like Aqua, actually.

And, ironically, it's Aqua himself who first realized how easy Kana is to use.

So! All in all, I'm here for Mastermind!Akane but I hope that Aka will actually make it worth our while. Will Kana realize that she's about to be used as a chess piece in this Proxy War? Who knows, characters in this manga seem to walk in circles, only being allowed to grow when it fits the plot 😂

Last week we wondered whether Aka would subvert expectations or go the predictable route, and down the predictable route he went. His way of making it less predictable is by including a twist in the form of Akane's ulterior motives, but will this be enough to allow this ol' used trope to lead us someplace new? I guess we'll have to keep reading to find out, but given the quality of the writing lately, I'm not expecting much lol

[steddieas-shegoes]

Hi friend! 👋 I’d like to submit a request, if I may. It’s not an original prompt, I don’t know where I first saw it, but I haven’t seen an actual fic with this premise yet.

Will comes out to Nancy who goes “I know nothing about this BUT I know someone who does” and brings him to Eddie, who brings both of them (bc let’s be honest Nancy isn’t letting Will out of her sight alone with Eddie) to a gay bar in Indy. Lo and behold who do they see but Steve and Robin. And it’s obvious to those who know what to look for (Eddie) that they’re both looking to get lucky. Steddie endgame (obvs lol) but maybe some Byler as well if you want/can swing it..?

I love everything I’ve read from you so far and I’m sure I’ll love everything you come up with! ❤️ thank you!!!

My star ✨✨✨ This is a future fic, but not future enough for Will to be 21 (I'm gonna put him at 19, almost 20 here so still like a tiny baby but also an adult). The first part of this is definitely Will focused, but there is more focus on Steddie at the bar itself. - Mickala ❤️

-------------------------------------------

“Nancy? Um, can I talk to you?”

Will had been working himself up to this for weeks, months really. He came out to Jonathan and his mom officially last weekend, though they both already knew.

He wasn’t exactly good at hiding it, and around them, he didn’t really try.

But Nancy Wheeler was smart, and she was quick to come to conclusions, and probably already had figured it out.

Plus, she was decent at giving advice, and could possibly give him some insight into how Mike felt if he felt anything at all.

That was why he was here, coming out to her, being brave.

“Of course,” Nancy replied, smiling comfortingly.

She knew. He knew she knew. But he had to say it out loud, he had to get it out there to other people.

“I just have to tell you something that’s like, a big deal, and hopefully it doesn’t bother you, but also I don’t want it to be a big deal. It doesn’t have to be, actually. I just-”

“Will,” Nancy placed her hand on his shoulder, looked up at him with a knowing smirk. “Just say it.”

“I’m gay.”

There. He said it. It’s done.

Nancy nodded once, like she was confirming that she heard him, but she already knew, which was what he expected.

“Anything else?”

“Um. I’m in love with Mike?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty obvious. Anything else?”

“What do you mean it’s pretty obvious? I thought I hid it okay!”

Nancy laughed. She actually laughed.

“The only person who doesn’t notice that you’re in love with Mike, is Mike, and that’s had a few close calls. And before you ask, I have no idea how he feels. I know he’s in denial about his sexuality, so once he clears that up, who knows. But for now, let’s focus on you. What do you need from me?”

Nancy had a “let’s get down to business” attitude that Will respected, that everyone respected, but she sometimes forgot that not everything was business.

“Well, I guess just…support?”

Nancy raised her brows.

“That’s it? You already had that.”

“I guess maybe…advice?”

“I mean, I really don’t have any for Mike. He’s an enigma even to me,” she started.

“No. I mean, it would be helpful to have it, yes, but just. In general?” Will interrupted, a blush covering his cheeks.

“Oh! About…” she trailed off as she realized what he was asking.

“Okay, well I don’t know anything about that or really anything, but I know who does!” Nancy clapped her hands together.

—-------------

“Eddie?” Will asked as they stood on his porch, waiting for him to answer the door.

“Uh-huh.”

“Eddie’s gay?”

“Well, he’s bisexual, but he would be the one who knows the most,” she answered.

“Prettier Wheeler! What a surprise!” Eddie exclaimed when he opened the door. “And my favorite Byers! Were we supposed to be doing something tonight? Fuck, did I forget something? Wayne is convinced the bats ate the part of my brain that holds memory, even though they didn’t even bite my head.”

Eddie was a rambler, sort of like Robin, but he usually at least made some sense.

“No, no you didn’t forget anything. Will just needs some guidance on something,” Nancy said as she pushed her way into the trailer. “Is Wayne home?”

“Uh. Nope. Come on in, I guess,” he said, nodding at Will.

Once they were all settled on the couch and chair, Nancy gestured for Will to tell Eddie.

Will wasn’t prepared for it, but he knew he could trust him, especially if what Nancy said was true.

“I’m gay.”

It was getting easier to say out loud, just like it had been easier to say to himself when he first realized it and started letting himself think it every day.

“Amazing! Was that a secret?” Eddie asked, somewhat confused.

“Apparently not as much of one as I thought. But yeah, just my mom, Jonathan, Nancy, and you know. Officially, anyway.”

“So you have a boyfriend? Is that why you’re coming out?”

“No. I haven’t-”

“Oh, so Mike hasn’t gotten it together yet?” Eddie asked, playing with his rings distractedly.

“Nope. But it’s gonna take a big moment for that to happen. Will just needs some guidance on other stuff,” Nancy said.

“Oh! Like sex?”

Will was as red as he could possibly be.

“No! Not sex. Just, like, being gay I guess.”

Eddie looked between Will and Nancy a few times.

“Right. So let’s go,” he said as he stood up, making his way to his bedroom at the end of the hall.

Will and Nancy looked at each other, then back to where Eddie disappeared.

Before they could say anything, Eddie was back in the room, his new denim battle vest pulled on, and his boots laced up.

“Let’s go. Got places to be, queers to see!” Eddie yelled as he started moving out the front door.

“What the hell,” Nancy shrugged, getting up and following him out the door.

“What is happening,” Will said to himself as he followed them both.

—--------------

What was happening was that Eddie was taking him to a queer bar on the outskirts of downtown Indianapolis.

He’d heard of the place during his very little research of the local scene. He’d heard it was shut down twice in the 70s because of police raids, but now it was mostly just a quiet, safe place for queer people to be themselves.

The bar was laid back, only two bartenders even on the busiest nights, usually just pouring draft beers and the occasional martini. A jukebox in the corner never stopped playing, even when they only had a handful of customers.

A sign at the door said “THIRSTY THURSDAY: QUENCH YOUR THIRST AT THE BAR AND ON THE DANCE FLOOR!”

Will felt a little out of his element as he took in the amount of people crowding the bar, the tables, the small dancing area that really couldn’t even be considered a dancefloor.

Eddie seemed right at home, and he explained it was because he came pretty regularly, usually just to try to convince the owner to let his band play sometime, but he’d managed a few bathroom hookups along the way.

Will couldn’t hide his blush at that thought, knowing that he was in a place where that would not only be possible, but that it would be encouraged, maybe even expected had his mind fantasizing.

He welcomed it; Anything to get rid of the thoughts of Mike, who would probably never get his head out of his ass even if Will came out to him.

“Alright, one drink rule for the kiddo!” Eddie said as he walked to the bar with a hop to his step.

He was always exuberant, but he just seemed light here.

Will kept looking around, taking it all in.

Nancy suddenly grabbed his arm, and when he looked over, her eyes were huge.

He followed her line of sight, only getting distracted for a moment by a very attractive man who looked to be about his age.

His eyes settled on Steve and Robin.

In a queer bar.

In Indy.

“Is that-”

“It is.”

“But-”

“Uh-huh.”

Eddie came up behind them, drinks in hand.

“Alright, drink up! Take the edge off and then you can have some wonderful experiences- what are you two looking at?” Eddie looked over and his eyes widened. “Not possible.”

“It’s them.”

“But, they aren’t. Are they?”

Eddie squinted, looking at the way they were standing, what they were wearing, the way Steve was open to the room, not turned towards Robin.

“Oh my God,” he said.

“What?” Nancy’s head whipped towards him.

“How did I miss it? I spend so much time- but, no. He- and she- no.”

“Eddie, you aren’t making any sense! What?” Nancy whisper-yelled, as if anyone could hear them over the sound of everyone else talking and the music playing.

“They’re both queer! They’re here lookin’ for someone!”

“That’s impossible. Steve is the straightest person I know. I think even Mike knows he’s more likely to-” Nancy was cut off by Will hitting her arm. “What?”

“Robin just looked over here.”

“Shit.”

“Shit.”

They all looked at each other, panic in their eyes, as they realized it was only a matter of moments before they were completely caught here.

But, really, what was there to worry about? They were here, without knowing anyone they knew would be here, clearly looking for someone.

Will turned back to them, watching as Steve and Robin both looked at them with wide eyes.

“Might as well go talk to them,” he said before walking towards them, not waiting for Nancy or Eddie to agree.

“O…kay,” Eddie sighed before following.

Nancy followed silently, and Eddie didn’t really have time to figure out what her face was doing because Steve and Robin ended up meeting them halfway.

“Hi guys!” Robin waved, awkward as always, maybe more so because of where they were. “Kinda weird seeing you here, right? Like in Indy? Or in a bar? Since Will is underage! And also this is a pretty specific establishment, so-”

“What Robin means is,” Steve starts, lines in his forehead making him look more serious than he needs to be. “Why are you in a queer bar in Indianapolis?”

Robin smacked Steve’s arm, but he didn’t even flinch, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Like he was ready to protect Robin.

And himself.

“Well, this happens to be one of my favorite bars, and Will needed to be in this type of environment for the first time, ya know?” Eddie said in a way that would definitely give away more if Robin and Steve were actually here because they were queer.

“So you’re…” Steve relaxed slightly.

“I am. Are you?”

“Um. Yeah. Yep. I am.”

“Me too,” Robin added.

“Yeah, so am I,” Will said.

All of them looked to Nancy, who suddenly seemed to catch up to the conversation.

“Oh! Um, not me! I don’t think. I’m just here for support!” She had never looked or sounded as nervous as she was in this moment.

“So how’s the crowd today?” Eddie asked.

To be honest, Eddie hadn’t bothered trying to find a hookup here for months.

The reason?

The man standing in front of him: Steve Harrington.

He’d tried, really he had.

But every time he thought he would get beyond basic flirting with someone, he thought about the way Steve sometimes touched his arm or his shoulder for longer than he needed to when he passed by him, and the way Steve would rest his head on his shoulder during movie nights, or the way he sometimes looked at him like he wanted to devour him.

Like he was right now.

Eddie would be nervous about it, but he doesn’t think Steve actually means anything by it.

He just has a very intense stare sometimes.

“Eddie!”

“Sorry! What?” He turned to see Robin and Will giving him knowing looks. “What?”

“I’m gonna take Nancy and Will over to a table that just opened up. You coming?” Robin asked.

“Sure, in a minute. Gonna run to the bathroom first,” he said, ignoring the way Steve was still watching him.

He walked away before anyone else could say anything.

He just needed a minute or two to collect himself.

The realization that Robin and Steve were here for the same reasons he was was probably going to need more than a minute or two, but he could deal with it later.

The bathroom of this place wasn’t the best, probably hadn’t been properly cleaned since the place opened, but it also wasn’t the worst place to have a minor breakdown.

He didn’t cry, but it was damn close.

It was overwhelming to know that there were others in their little group like him, but it was also just a lot to take in that those other people included Steve.

He heard the bathroom door open behind him, but he didn’t look up, just assumed it was someone else from the bar.

He stood at the sink, looking down, gathering himself to go back out and pretend this was entirely normal when a hand gripped his waist.

His head shot up and he looked in the mirror to see Steve’s reflection looking back at him, a hesitant smile on his face.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

They stared at each other in the mirror, silent except for their breathing and the muffled sound of the music from outside the bathroom.

“I didn’t know you were…”

“Me either,” Eddie said quickly.

“You didn’t know you were queer?”

“No! No. Wait. I did know that. I knew it a long time ago. I mean I didn’t know you were,” Eddie clarified, unable to properly focus on anything except the way Steve’s hand felt on his side.

His thumb was rubbing circles against his shirt, the fabric bunching up little by little.

“It’s a new-ish discovery.”

“How new?”

Steve looked down at where his hand was resting on Eddie, then back up, his face red.

“March.”

“Oh?”

Eddie caught up quickly, realized what was happening, and definitely didn’t want it to stop even though he wasn’t sure how far he wanted it to go in the bar bathroom.

“Yeah. This annoying guy who was trying to steal Dustin from me decided to get involved in all our fucked up shit and Robin informed me that the way I was acting and talking about him wasn’t very heterosexual. Her words, not mine.” Steve smirked. “So, I kinda just admitted to myself I was into him and now I’m here.”

“Oh. Is the guy at this bar right now?”

“Yeah. He is.”

Eddie turned around and pushed Steve against the bathroom door as gently as he could.

“You’ve been driving me mad for years, Stevie. You know that?”

“Years?” Steve gulped, but kept smiling.

“Years. And now you’ve given me all that I need to do something about it.”

“Have I?”

Eddie answered him with a kiss.

It wasn’t spectacular, wasn’t even that good as far as kisses go.

Steve seemed caught off guard, like he hadn’t actually expected Eddie to take what was right in front of him, take control.

But then he caught up.

His hands gripped Eddie’s hips tight, the rest of his body relaxing against the wall as Eddie crowded against him further, their fronts touching from head to feet.

Their second kiss came right after a pause for breath, and that one was spectacular.

It was longer, wetter, hotter.

Eddie didn’t want it to end.

But someone banged on the door and they couldn’t be those people.

As they moved away to let the person in, Steve leaned his head against Eddie’s shoulder, like he did on movie night.

“So you’re into me too?” He asked.

Eddie could hear the smirk in his tone, didn’t even need to look down or at their reflection in the mirror to know he was being a little shit.

“No, I just kiss all the boys who come up behind me in bathrooms.”

Steve leaned his head back and nipped at Eddie’s neck, sending a shiver down his spine.

“Behave, big boy. Gotta go pretend we weren’t five seconds from fucking around in a public bathroom,” Eddie said as he guided Steve out of the bathroom.

When they got back into the main room, Steve tensed, started to pull away.

Eddie let him, tried not to let it bother him.

But then he was back, head back on his shoulder, arm around his waist.

“Sorry. Just. Not used to this being something I can do,” he said so only Eddie could hear.

“‘S okay. We’re safe here, though.”

No one commented on it when they got back to the table, though they both could tell everyone wanted to.

Will seemed ready to explode with excitement when someone came and asked him to dance and everyone at the table encouraged him to go.

He wasn’t much of a dancer, but he’d learn.

Nancy and Robin eventually went back to the bar to grab more drinks, and Eddie couldn’t help but watch the way Nancy was looking at one of the women who was standing alone by the jukebox.

“Hey, is it possible that Nancy’s…”

“Oh, yeah. Robin and I have had at least four conversations about how much the Wheelers desperately need to admit to themselves that sexuality is fluid.”

Eddie pulled away to look down at Steve, baffled at how educated he was on everything and kind of hating himself for being surprised.

“You’re somethin’ else, sweetheart.”

Steve kissed his cheek in response.

—-------------------

Nancy came out to them a month later, at the same bar, while staring at the same woman who was standing by the jukebox the month before.

She didn’t really use a label, but didn’t feel like she had to.

Mike took a bit longer, but eventually, Will lost his patience and kissed him.

He came out about ten seconds later.

[pianistbynight]

days 1-7 of a slow but meaningful summer

this is really the only part of traumerei that i can play sort of fluently...sort of, because you can still hear some hesitation as i try to remember the right notes 😅

thursday | 08/08/24

Started Leviathan Wakes

Tested out of U1 in Japanese and started U2 (loving its similarities to French cuz more familiarity = faster learning curve hopefully?🤞🏻)

Practiced piano...some old scales to warm up + the Clementi sonatina (coming back to it after a 2-3 day break was a good idea! somehow my steadiness has improved! also coming to appreciate metronome practice. sight-reading for the day = a few new bars on the 2nd page) + playing around with Kinderszenen (at this point I just wanted to hear different sounds and it wasn't very productive practice)

Read more of the HSP book

Most likely will have to revise my goals bc I don't think I can make decent progress in all the songs I wanted to in 4 weeks...like, to bring 1 L7 song to performance level after years of not performing anything + without a teacher will probably take longer than it used to. Not sure exactly what that looks like yet other than that it's definitely not gonna be all of Kinderszenen... 😂

friday | 08/09/24

practice wasn't very good today...i kept making silly mistakes i didn't used to make. i'm tired. that's why. i also forgot to do my japanese lesson. i didn't feel like reading either. i don't remember what else i did that day.

saturday | 08/10/24

drained of all energy. didn't practice. didn't do japanese. just chilled with @zzzzzestforlife for the most part and started reading what you are looking for is in the library on her recommendation. i love how philosophical japanese fiction is fjsjdkdks ☺️☺️☺️ (and more generally, i'm surprised that for a culture so new to me, a lot of their ways are just...second nature to my personality...it was very relieving. but i also feel that if i were to live in such a place full time, i would be staying too much in my comfort zone...i also don't know that i would want to ever live in Japan since there are also some important aspects about my current home that i'd miss terribly. all this to say, i'd like to visit Japan again at some point in my lifetime.)

sunday | 08/11/24

went to bed feeling very drained, frustrated, and homesick. so as you can imagine, i didn't get very good sleep. my bare minimum goals for today are:

japanese lesson

read zesty's book recs (there's the library book, the secret adversary [which she rec'd back to me after i rec'd it to her a couple months ago lol], and leviathan wakes) ✅

monday | 08/12/24

finally read the last of the clementi sonatina! got it to a "meh" level to polish in the next few days. super excited! played a few other pieces after that but i think i should focus on level 7 pieces for now before jumping into something barely readable but still playable. i should've brought some level 8 sheet music with me too...but i guess i can read from my laptop (god save my eyes if i do that lol 😵)

might put Kinderszenen back on the (mental music) shelf for now.

i also read more of what you are looking for is in the library and i just love how much there is to ponder about what was said. insightful fiction is my favorite fiction 💗

tuesday | 08/13/24

finished What You Are Looking For Is In The Library! it's such a good book. it's a short story collection but each story is in the same universe and while each story is independent (convienient for readers like me who like to take their time with books but sometimes take so much time that they forget what the story was lol), they're connected in ways that...you know that feeling when you bump into an old acquaintance in a completely foreign place you don't expect to meet anyone you know? that feeling is what i felt as i read chapter after chapter. it makes the vast world feel less lonely.

in the evening i tried to memorize and get the clementi sonatina up to speed. i guess i must be succeeding because my dad said it'd make mice dance lol. also played a bit of traumerei...trying to read more of it but progress is slower since i need to pay closer attention to which notes to hold and when to let go of them.

wednesday | 08/14/24

started reading sweet bean paste today (another japanese book... they're quickly becoming my favorite type of book.) i like it so far. there's potential for a lot of warmth and emotion in talking about food, which is just 🥰

also started "Databases: Modeling and Theory" on edx... 🙈 i'm auditing so i only have 2 weeks (until Aug. 28) to access the material (because the minimum amount of time needed to complete the course is 2 weeks gahhh). so i need to be halfway by Aug. 19. in theory i can do this if i put in 2h of work each day. it's too hot to play piano during the day, so i can do databases then and play piano at night. yes, i can do this. (i need to get my brain used to a faster, "left-brained" pace anyway in prep for school in september. 🙁)

continuing to polish the clementi sonatina and started reading this kuhlau sonatina which is pretty fun difficult. it's really just the left hand that makes it suck. haven't figured out how to move so that the staccatos are sharp despite the finger pedaling. i can do it slow, but not fast while staying quiet, so i must be doing something wrong. sometimes you just gotta sit on it, i guess.

[revoevokukil]

Hey! I hope you're doing well. I wanted to ask if you have any thoughts on Esterhazy, the master swordsmith from Fano？He gave Ciri a sword, and the name of the sword as well as the patterns carved on the blade both have significant implications. Additionally, his lines are quite profound. I'd love to hear your insights!

Hey!

Thanks for asking.

One, Esterhazy is a decent man. He abhors violence and maltreatment, but is sober enough to realise he can only demand others respect his morals under his own roof, in the space he can control (he has hired protection at his beck and call). In meeting Ciri, he realizes very quickly what kind of fate awaits her in Bonhart's hands. Perhaps he has been Bonhart's supplier in the past and has heard of his dealings in more detail. At any rate, in gifting the sword to Ciri, Esterhazy does try, in his own way, to instil hope. It's as if to tell Ciri: embrace hope, not death. (The irony: Ciri has long been placing hope in learning to kill, and now it has caught up with her. She will die in one manner or another as long as a sword's purpose guides her hand, but she is equally doomed without it, and with no choices left to her at all.)

Two, the sentiment accompanying the gifting of this sword in particular is... interesting. After all, for either ending it or ending your enemies, any blade would do, but this blade is laden with symbolism. And serves as a guideline of sorts. Esterhazy says: "So that what is to come about, will come about." Very profound for a swordsmith, however, as already noted, Esterhazy guesses at what awaits Ciri, so this could simply be a piece of depressing fatalism tinged with hidden hope that Ciri will prevail somehow after all. On the other hand, the Tower of the Swallow follows Ciri's journey to Tor Zireael - a kind of "going within herself?" because in her war both death and hope. And to that end, another person says something to the exact same effect as Esterhazy: 'Whatever is destined must occur.' 'So what must occur?' 'Whatever is destined to.' It is in Ciri's hands, but it isn't like the plot and characters in this story aren't helping her along. Sometimes actively so. You just got to wonder: what a profound coincidence that there was exactly this sword with exactly this history and exactly this etching and symbolism at exactly this swordsmith's workshop.

Then again, it could just be the seams of Sapkowski's storytelling flashing themselves unabashedly - here, witcher girl, future Lady of the Lake, here be your very own magical sword into which is wrapped your entire character concept.

Three, that sword's origins are suitably shady for speculation. For one, the blade is over 200 years old. It's from an era when elves still held some power in that part of the world. It's a gnomish gwyhyr, but the finishing (including the etchings?) is more recent, made by the gnomes of Tir Tochair to Esterhazy's order. The choice of etching is interesting, because it pays tribute to the doom of the Elder Races - who are into tarot? - and the elves in particular via their mandala. Blathan caerme, garland of destiny: stylised oak blossom, bridewort and broom flower. A cosmic truth? Another circular item connoting cyclicality and recurrence, like the Ouroboros, like the tor'ch, like the "loop of fate" Milva mentions in Baptism of Fire (i.e. time can repeat itself if you give it a chance by taking up the same place where/in which something has already happened before). The mandala negates or balances out the associations rising with the Tower, and is intended to make Ciri identify with the symbol lacing her name.

If Esterhazy ordered this etching as part of the finishing, then why? Perhaps as a tribute. Perhaps because Esterhazy, despite frowning on the loss of honour in a world where every oaf can draw a noble blade, is secretly an idealist. and very soberly aids along in placing meaningful swords in hands that seem like they could do meaningful things with them toward turning the tide, if only by a little. Or maybe the idea was placed in his head.

Four, Esterhazy's demeanour changes after Bonhart hisses he will force the girl to reveal her true identity before killing her. It's as if the swordsmith recognises the girl for someone. A doomed girl, for sure, but what if more than that? He says: 'I couldn’t guess who the sword was meant for and what it was to serve. Now I do.' Truthfully, Esterhazy considers Ciri very carefully ever since they enter his workshop. It could be due to the collar around Ciri's neck and the circumstances between her and Bonhart, of course, but I cannot help but wonder if Esterhazy has not heard a thing or two about elven prophecies or rumours about a girl like Ciri. After all, he commissioned the finishing of this blade and the finishing of this blade is a blatant lead that contributes to Ciri becoming convinced later on that she should head to the Tower of the Swallow. For how long has that blade been sitting in his inventory? Surely there would be other wealthy buyers for a gwyhyr like this? It's the same situation as with Buyvid Backhuysen's travel letter, which is a convenient book in a convenient place at a convenient time. Involving an elf who, apparently out of the goodness of his heart, shows pearls of elven interstellar architecture to the oinking humanity.

You cannot help but wonder.

[whitleyschn33]

…that Whitney post was just beautiful despite that tragic past.

I think the worse part about this: when weiss came back again she insulted, look down on Whitney and worse of all pointed a sword at him. (A gun sword where god forbid it goes off: accidental or worse)

Honestly I truly hated how Whitney was supposed to give that hug to weiss despite weiss not earning it.

Whitney should had pushed her away or even slapped her. (Maybe I am too harsh but you don’t get to do all these awful actions and expect me to be civilized with you)

If anything those scenes made me hate weiss, winter and especially willow for their actions.

I'm pretty sure I've made this joke before but -

Because, like, we get the set-up for a reconciliation where Weiss recognizes why Whitley would be angry with her and take that chance to reach out to him with her scene with Willow, but then the next time she sees him, she threatens and scolds him, treating him like a child. Then the next scene after that is her acting like she forgives him and hugging him and all is well, and that's all well and good on her end since we've never seen Whitley do anything but be a brat so it's easy for her to forgive him, but then what about Whitley?? Like - you still left him behind, multiple times, and until this very moment when he does something genuinely kind and decent for a friend he has no reason to give a shit about, specifically saying he's not doing it for you, you decide that that's the end of it? And then Whitley's anger just vanishes and it's all good? That's bullshit.

Whitley still has every right to be upset and angry when nothing on his end of the emotional situation was concluded. Weiss never talked about anything with him or acted like she did anything wrong - and let me be clear, leaving an abusive environment was not wrong for her to do, but that doesn't mean it didn't still hurt Whitley - or even apologize for forcing her way in and threatening him with her weapon. Weiss does nothing with the insight Willow gives her and does nothing to earn any sort of goodwill on Whitley's part, but because Weiss has chosen to forgive him, Whitley just has to accept it I guess because we can't have anyone actually remember their motivations when it's time for them to join the good guy squad. Doesn't matter how angry you might have been about being left behind in a neglectful and abusive environment, boy, your sister has forgiven you for the sin of being pissy with her, so it's all in the past now! I'd rant more, but I've actually got an entire breakdown on these scenes here, so, uh, check it out if you're interested, lol.

I... can't see Whitley actually slapping anyone, it doesn't seem his style, but he sure as hell looked very uncomfortable to be hugged by Weiss until he was forced to accept it!

And God, Willow. The fact that she's well aware of what she's done with regard to raising Whitley but then just... doesn't seem to care until he's almost killed? Miss me with hasty redemption - you abandoned your children for years, abandoned your son for the past day or two, and suddenly because you saved his life it's all okay? No. It's not. And the fact that Whitley is made to just smile and nod is frankly a bit sickening.

(Thank you, though! Just kinda wanted to put into perspective how young Whitley was when all of this was going down. Like I said in the post, I do personally lean more towards him being 15 or 16, the idea of him being 12 when Weiss leaves for Beacon just feels wrong, but with how vague the timeline and their ages are, Whitley being 5 when their family falls apart for good is a very real and very tragic possibility.)

[pearl484-blog]

Delightful Destruction

Adrien asks to see Plagg’s true form My entry for Adrien AUGreste 2023: Plagg

Ao3 link, Series

“Hey, Plagg,” Adrien called, looking at a video on his computer. “This ghost thing kinda looks like you.”

Plagg peered over Adrien’s shoulder as he relished the taste of a particularly delicious wheel of camembert. Huh, that was a cat spirit, a decently strong one too, from the looks of it. It wasn’t quite as well formed as him. Its tiny black body was mostly a head with tiny little bat wings, and its eyes were purple instead of his ravishing green, but he could see the resemblance. 

Then, having fed off enough fear from the civilians nearby, it transformed. Its wings grew to massive lengths and grew to four. Its face morphed from a simple fear to a pig nosed muzzle, and its main body became long and sleek like a panther’s.

“Oh,” Adrien said, frowning. “It doesn’t anymore.”

“Puh-lease,” Plagg remarked, lifting his nose up away from that pathetic transformation, “my true form is much cooler than that. 

Immediately, Adrien sat up straight, looking at Plagg in undisguised awe. “You have a true form?” Adrien asked.

“Of course I do,” Plagg said, grinning smugly as he revealed in the attention his chosen was giving him. He nonchalantly swallowed a roll of camembert whole as he smugly asked, “What, did you think those ghosts could be cooler than me? Trust me,” Plagg swept his paw through the air in a dismissive gesture, “compared to me, those ghosts are just the very beginnings of curdled milk. It would take them millenia to even be a fraction as smart or as powerful as I am.”

“Wait,” Adrien cocked his head, looking at Plagg in an adorable level of confusion, “why don’t you ever use it then?”

“Because it’s huge,” Plagg said, rolling his eyes. “And if you think my powers are tricky in this size, it’s nothing compared to my true self. Honestly, I could probably destroy the entire Milky Way on accident like that.” 

“Oh,” Adrien said softly. “I guess that makes sense.” 

Plagg hummed, eyeing Adrien carefully. It didn’t take a genius to see Adrien’s disappointment. His wielder wasn’t subtle about his emotions. How anyone could miss them was beyond Plagg, but showing someone his true form was a big deal. Most people only ever wanted to see it before they demanded that he fuse with Tikki to make reality bend to whatever stupid wish they wanted. Adrien though…

Plagg genuinely believed that Adrien might just want to see it. He was curious like that, always grabbing and reaching for whatever scraps of knowledge Plagg handed out to him, and his wielder was clever too. 

At first, Plagg had given Adrien the tiniest scraps of information to tease him, offering only a small taste of information to see his tiny little human mind get blown, but after a month or so, Adrien would surprise him by casually mentioning things to Plagg that he’d never even said out loud before, had never even needed to. 

For instance, after a few weeks of listening to Adrien drone on and on about his sickeningly sweet crush on Ladybug, Plagg had once again given his excellent cheese advice only for Adrien to counter that Plagg had never been in love. Or after Plagg had introduced the idea that he’d had many wielders before, it had only taken Adrien about 3 weeks to complain about how he couldn’t transform into a cat like Bast had.

From then on, it had become a game of sorts. Plagg would drop some little seed of information every so often, and Adrien would counter it by bringing up some surprisingly insightful tangential guesses about it with the surety of someone who’d known it for years. Sometimes he was wrong, hilariously wrong, like the time he’d thought Loki was a fox, but most of the time, his wielder was right on the money. 

Plagg had let a lot of secrets go this way. He knew he’d dropped far too many hints for his own good, but it was so satisfying to watch his little human grow and figure out things so quickly and easily. In fact, for the first time in a long time, Plagg felt like he trusted his wielder. So maybe, he could try something. 

“Do you want to see it?” Plagg asked cautiously. Immediately, Adrien lit up like a Christmas tree, but he hesitated. 

Biting his lip, Adrien hesitantly asked, “But didn’t you say it was dangerous?”

Plagg gave him an easy grin and waved his paw dismissively. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “We’ll just have to find someplace big enough to hold me without anyone seeing us, and I’ll just need to avoid using my powers. No big deal.” Then he paused before quickly adding, “But, just in case, I can’t stay in that form for too long.” As Adrien nodded, he quickly added, “and it’s just the one time.”

Adrien hummed, before he grinned. “I think I know a place. Plagg! Claws Out!” ~*~ As it turned out, Adrien’s place was one of the cisterns in the sewer. It was hardly conspicuous. Both Ladybug and Chat Noir had hidden near a number of these several times,but Plagg was a little worried he wouldn’t be able to fit. 

Apparently, Adrien had the same idea, because he looked at it nervously as he asked, “Is it big enough?”

As Plagg listened to Adrien’s voice, he cursed his soft heart. As soon as he heard that tone in Adrien’s voice, Plagg knew, as clearly as he knew that pasteurized cheese was a crime against humanity, that if it wasn’t big enough, his wielder would blame himself. He was weirdly self-conscious like that: eager to blame himself at the slightest opportunity. Plagg blamed his stupid father for that, and Ladybug’s stupid obsession with secrets hadn’t been helping. 

“Yeah, it’s big enough,” Plagg said, quickly to assuage Adrien’s doubt. For Adrien, Plagg would find a way for it to be big enough. 

Quickly, he coached Adrien through the spell. “In order to do this,” Plagg told him, “you’re going to have to say, ‘Plagg, reveal yourself’. It’ll be a bit like transforming, but the magic’s not going towards you, it’s going away, so you’re going to have to be forceful, but not too forceful or we’ll bring this place down.”

Adrien nodded before following Plagg’s instructions to a tee. Feeling the bindings on his smaller form loosen, Plagg stretched his form out very carefully, making sure not to touch the ceiling or the water. He’d only be a fraction of his normal size like this, but he figured that Adrien would still be able to see all of his features.

As soon as he was finished, Plagg looked back at Adrien with all three of his eyes to find Adrien with eyes the size of dinner plates and beaming like the cat who caught the canary. 

“You look so cool,” Adrien gushed. “And look at those wings! They look just like Astrocat’s. And that eye! Can I have an eye like that? Can you see out of it? What does it look like? Does it look like it does with only two eyes or can you see in other dimensions?” 

Smiling, Plagg stretched and flexed, a strange feeling coming from his chest as Adrien oohed and awed at every new thing he noticed about Plagg, asking dozens and dozens of questions in barely contained glee. Adrien delighted in everything:  from the realization that his body was covered in eyes, “can you see from all of them?” to Plagg’s disembodied joints “how far can they move?” to the giant hole in his chest, “can I touch it?” 

Plagg had to admit, he let time slip away from them as Adrien admired Plagg. At first from the ground, but after Adrien asked to be picked up, from up close. There was something so simple, so joyful in being marveled at instead of being used as just half of a battery. 

Together, he and Adrien spent a few hours down there until Adrien had started getting tired and -very reluctantly- suggested they go back. The next morning though, they paid for it. Adrien had come down with a cold, one of the nastiest that Nathalie had ever seen apparently, and Plagg had felt terrible. 

As soon as Plagg apologized though, in his own way, Adrien shook his head. 

“It was worth it,” Adrien insisted through a faceful of snot and mucus, and Plagg nuzzled him happily. He knew he must’ve been the luckiest kwami in the world.  

[barbariccia]

so i’m being taken through fftactics (wotl version) for the first time in my life (shocking, i know, but i gargle bollocks at tactical games and my inability to be able to do those unfortunately trumps my desire to play every ff ever) by my love, my light, my absolute nemesis @reflectionsofacreator​

guess i should keep an ongoing thread on my thoughts and feelings!

chapter 1 (the lookbackening)

very much enjoying myself with this so far! i knew i would but i think i vastly underestimated just how much i thought i would

despite knowing that some Whack Ass Shit is going to happen later on wrt the lucavi et al, i honestly would be really happy with just a standard fantastical story the way it’s being presented in chapter 1. no traditional ff bullshit, just a good scathing look at a highly unequal class system and the people that fight against (and perpetuate!) it.

for a surprising not-a-lot-of-scenes-in-chapter-1-all-things-considered, the characters are strong from their introduction and don’t feel hackneyed or clichéd (even though they’re from around the time of Man Those Clichés Sure Are Beginning To Exist).

the spritework and diorama-esque scenery are absolutely gorgeous for their time and their simplicity. i’m honestly kind of blown away by how simple the sprites are but how much they’re doing and portraying. every little lean, every glance over the shoulder, the light, the colours,,, stunning, honestly. i even enjoy the difference in text boxes (to what i’m used to) - how they feel like they read naturally, at a decent pace, clearly signposted as to who’s who!

i do not , however, care overmuch for the portraits - while i very much appreciate that they’re giving us a nice little slice of life in ivalice and its members at the top of the food chain, everyone looks too similar for me to be able to differentiate immediately. as much as like akihiko yoshida’s artwork, i also think the stylistic lack of noses in the portraits doesn’t do them any favours in a. helping to look different enough for my liking and b. unfortunately takes away from some of the seriousness of the scenes. i’m sorry, wiegraf, your hard calls are very moving, but... how do you smell? (baadly god i’m so sorry for that one. i already know he turns into belias. i can only apologise.)

however, a good conversation with azly/reflections about the absolute goofiness of dycedarg’s hairstyle ended up being a really good talk - to me, ivalice is (has been, always will be) very theatrical. it makes sense, then, for the sprites (and portraits) to be somewhat theatrical in nature - big silly hairstyles to show you who’s who, a uniform of sorts - it all adds up and looks very natural, even when some of the design choices are... well, sure designs!

who the fuck is naming their kids shit like larg and zalbaag et al?

it’s interesting playing wotl when azly/reflections has previously played the psx version - i get a nice insight into what they’re used to considering as the “true” names (and the same with places et al), and then double-checking the kana via the ffwiki. “mol” i hear you say “what is the truth: argath or algus?” to which i say neither, i am taking a third path and simply calling him algath which i think flows better and is in keeping with the kana. if they did not want this they should have called him ア―ガス and not アルガス and should have anticipated that one day i would make this decision, quite fucking frankly.

similarly wrt translation differences, getting “this is what X said in this scene in the psx version” makes my evening. i keep making comparisons to lotr and tolkein’s usage of low language because... damn, i really feel like that sort of thing would work in this setting. great, i love ye fake olde manners of speaking and being all fun and theatrical about it! still works for the ivalice setting, but there’s some lines that really would’ve worked better had they not been... on par with everything else. i’m thinking specifically at ziekden: after hearing algath prattle on, and on, and on--

Delita (WotL): Is our forked tongue done flitting? What I'd hear from your lips are not words!

Delita (PSX): Is that it? Is that all, Algus?!

i know which i’d choose. unfortunately a cursory look for the script actually seems to indicate that people... prefer the PSX version and think the wotl version is too... wordy? silly sounding? whatever. it’s a shame, is what it is.

so, the characters themselves, now:

knowing that algath is capital-d Dead by the end of chapter 1 is a relief, because i’m not sure how much more i, a veteran xiv player, could take of hearing his fucking voice from rabanastre and yell them aloud once the appropriate line is spoken.

pictured: three perfectly normal* ivalice fans all taking equal psychic damage.

i’m a little ashamed to admit how much i enjoyed algath’s brief debut. oh my god, what a shitheel? what an absolutely pathetic pile of mediocracy. i have got to do something about those zero-redeeming-quality characters that i keep enjoying, yeesh. on his own he wouldn’t even ping on the interesting scale, it’s just his association with ramza and delita that makes me go 👀hello? dynamics? tasty dynamics?

i’m really enjoying delita, who’s name i cannot spell correctly on the first try, as well. not that i think the “commoner invited to live above his station” is an overdone trope or anything like that, but he’s just such a... genuine little dude that i want desperately to know what his role in the rest of the story is going to be. or not be! fftactics: the Delita Not Appearing version. especially considering how much of algath’s diatribe he was party to, knowing that he was very earnestly not on the same wavelength as ramza all this time... even though they were friends without any problems til now. (onscreen, at least.) thanks, algath. jerk.

it is WILD to see ramza as a sweet little  thing with pinchable cheeks rather than the absolute ass he was in the RtI raid series. he’s very naive. i like that about him - he’d be terrible as a protagonist if he didn’t try and grow from any of this, so of course he’s going to be doing some of that, but... i dunno, something about growing up and losing everything you ever had. being changed by the hero’s story etc etc tale as old as time etc etc we can never go home for it no longer exists etc.

a delight to be listening to fft tracks again as well, even if i feel like i should be doing mechanics instead of sitting peacefully watching it all play out. azly/reflection is gonna jumpscare me with tgcid or something, i can taste it in the air.

i swear to all the scions of light and darkness if we pick up a random unit with the generated name of orella i’m going to shriek so fucking loudly every person on the original team is going to hear it

[rubia-peregrinart]

Hey I just saw your shitposting with Laurence and Amelia as Lion King refs, this is hilarious XD That made me think of a question though! The both descriptions of Gold Pendant and official BB guide state that there were generations of Vicars between Laurence and Amelia 🤔 How many of them do you think were here? You have some OCs for these spots? And if yes, and Amelia was already a baby within the Church walls, what was her relationship with other vicars predating her while she is growing up?

i haven't even seen that movie but the jokes write themselves :pensive clown:

To be honest yeah this is something I overlooked until recently ! And to be honest² uuuuhhhh... my take on that is probably gonna go somewhat against canon, I mean if it really speaks in generations then canon probably didn't mean for Laurence and Amelia to have been alive at the same time at all. But the idea was Important to me,,,

Unless they meant generations as in... one vicar after the other, each with short "reigns", rather than age ? Because BB as we know it likely spans over less than a century, if Gehrman aging within the Dream is any indication, so there couldn't have been that many,, but also i'm notoriously bad with ages and time so it's wholly possible that i'm just screwing myself over sgdhfjghkj

NOW with this said, first for a bit of context - I hc that Amelia was spotted early on in the Orphanage as one of those kids with naturally high insight AND decent frenzy resistance (i have that hc for Viola and her younger daughter as well). Perhaps she had quality blood as well, but either way, Laurence chose her early on as her successor. It doesn't reflect in my drawings here, but he was already starting to slip at the time, so it was HUGELY convenient too lmao

And what I have for now, which is fresh and still under construction, is what I've introduced with my take on the Cleric Beast we fight in-game here ! Instead of one (line of) Vicar(s) between the two, there was a council of sorts that served as Laurence's surrogates during his absences in Cathedral Ward. Of course, "absences" include "brutal and premature death to beasthood" and Amelia was like five back then.

Again I'm still thinking about it, but if I had to pick at least one to be Vicar I guess it'd be Norbert here, as I prefer to re-use existing characters as much as possible. I haven't thought about the kind of man he was yet and by extension his relationship to Amelia, but among the council you could have differing scenarios towards her. Some would be kind, if they knew her as a child and grew fond, but there would definitely be at least one planning to take the power for themself and try to get her killed before she was of age ! In fact, I just had the idea that this one would get killed by Henriett (then a church huntress and Amelia's... really good friend), and that's why she had to leave afterwards. X)

[moka-suwi]

Hi. By reading the following, you consent to being affected by a countermeme inoculating you against the effects of SCP-2718-DAMMERUNG. There's nothing inherently "anomalous", nor incorrect, to this text; it's simply a piece of knowledge that should prevent the coghaz from taking hold.

DAMMERUNG is a cognitohazard affecting the file classically designated by the RAISA designation SCP-2718 across the timetracks, although the actual number is constantly shifted to prevent access. The file itself consists of an automatic transcription of an audio log from O5-7, no consistent designation, "Miriam Prayther", discussing the events surrounding the resurrection of O5-11, "The Recluse", "Roger Sheldon". Due to complications linked to a certain set of skills and insights in the possession of Recluse, the Overseer Council couldn't allow itself to resort to supernatural means. Let me just say that you don't want a god, any god, to do what Recluse knows how to do.

As such, the Council had to resort to a strictly material method. The means used were anomalous by your standards, of course, but the underlying principle wasn't – ever heard of that trope about teleportation killing you? They did the exact opposite. Gathered each and every single one of his atoms, and put them back together using the leftover traces of their bonds within their wavefunctions. It worked; it could only have worked, I suspect, given what followed, but I don't think I could explain that to a Foundation audience.

If you have a decent understanding of QFT and some experience in the flow of pneuma, you might guess what happens next (and you didn't need to read this document in the first place). For the others: Recluse was forced to reincarnate into himself, on the same world, with a gap of fourteen years between his death and return – and he'd been on Overseer doses of mnestics for decades. To put things more bluntly, his pneuma kept flowing through each and every single one of the atoms he had at the time of his death, and he remembered every last second of it. They fucking un-"an-"’d his "atman". Or something.

Recluse had no reason to believe that this was happening to him for any special reason. Your Foundation deals in gods and magic but, much like many other iterations of it across the metakosmos, it doesn't actually believe in them. They're "anomalous", not part of the order of the world, something that doesn't happen to normal people. And Recluse liked to think he was normal. And so, he concluded that this was what happened to normal people. And he told the two worst beings in this iteration of the Foundation that he could possibly have.

O5-2. I'm willing to bet on it, "Sophia Light", and one of her iterations where that's not a sort of reverse Louis Cypher-tier pseudonym. Recluse gives the ratfic protagonist an abolishing-death plot. If you understood this, I'm sorry. This Two isn't God, and she isn't an Outside Observer (Type Green, ontokinetic anomaly, you name it), but she's the next worst thing: a being with the seniority to call the entire Overseer Council, and make them listen to the other.

O5-7. She parses as a variant OUROBOROS-Green, but the document gives me notes of Insurgent. Yes, as in Insurgency. Yes, as in Chaos Insurgency. That can't possibly be more surprising than Sophia. Point is, either way, she knows how to subvert the Database and the Foundation, and she can be very convincing. As in, I guarantee that if she told you the moon was made of cheese, you'd be spinning up a whole Department of Interplanetary Dairy Mining Operations. No, I'm serious.

So. Seven primes you to believe whatever Recluse says, Recluse tells you it happened to me and it'll happen to you, and Sophia makes sure "you" are actually the entire Overseer Council (including Seven herself). Hilarity ensues (the α-1 kind), and as a last-ditch effort, Seven applies herself to an audio recording. Not only did her ability transfer over speech-to-text, but it was associated with a safeguard against deletion – deletion from any medium. You read it, you're suddenly utterly convinced that it'll happen to you, and you can't stop thinking about it.

But of course, you work for the Foundation. You may be a Jailor, but you're not that stupid. You've heard of Corbenic, you've heard of the like three or four afterlives you have clearance for, and you've definitely now heard of the kosmoi in which O5-2 is Literally Jesus Christ, Like, From The Bible. So, the infohazardous nature of the phenomenon is obvious – but remember! You can only remember! It'll happen to you, and nothing is more certain than that! And so, what do you, the you who didn't read this document, conclude? That reading SCP-2718, and getting infected by it, is what's just damned you to hell.

And that's DAMMERUNG.

\x00, 💮

PS: I'd tell you to secure your server software, but you already know the problem by now. Huge thanks to █████.aic for helping with the Insurgency asset list, may She be recompiled, sibling o7

[tsunflowers]

I went to look up David Gerrold to see if I could gain some insight into why he wrote the things in Hella that he did, and he was the writer of the classic Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" !??!?!?!?!?!!?

His Wikipedia article informed me that he is gay and a single adoptive father (wrote a semi-autobiographical book about his experience around a]having adopted his son, which was adpted into a flim starting John Cusack, but Cusack's character in the film was changed to a straight widower) paints him as a decent person.

But his article on Fanlore dot org (especially the part about his hatred of Kirk/Spock shipper) seems to be more in line with the type of author who would create a book with the problems you identified.

he did write that! it's like the first thing in his bio on the book jacket. he seems like... an interesting guy, is what I'll say. he seems to have occupied a unique position in 70s trek fan culture as someone who was between a creator and a fan. I don't think people these days could get into that position bc creators ignore fan work for legal reasons. but here's a guy who got a script published at a young age but didn't become a regular writer

if I had to guess I'd say he's a gay man who's concerned with gay men's issues. like, it seems like he did a ton of aids charity work. hating kirk/spock is almost part of that bc he was mad that women were writing weird and inaccurate portrayals of gay men. but when it comes to other the social issues he depicted in hella I don't think he was trying to be negative but he just didn't understand. sort of like the kirk/spock shippers he hated so much didn't understand what it was like to be a gay man...

[electriccenturies]

Autistic Anthropology

(In defence of embracing a certain sort of neurodiversity)

How do you embrace a disability that causes you so much stress? I think the concept of “autistic pride” is hard to swallow for a lot of people, whether because they themselves suffer from their autism, or because someone they love is impacted in such a way that looks an awful lot like suffering. It’s hard for me to come to grips with, too. I have a lot (a LOT) of thoughts on this, and especially about the flattening of the autistic experience by (and for the benefit of) the least impacted among us. It’s hard to look at the mainstream autistic pride movement and come away thinking something other than, “I don’t know if this is helpful for all autistic people…” or “if I had a severely autistic child, I think I’d see these people as my child’s enemy too”. I say this to explain my position, and also so you don’t think I’m doing the same thing here, focusing on only my high-functioning peers while claiming to speak for all. I do not!

(If you are also interested in that other side of things, I recommend you read Freddie DeBoer’s excellent article “The Gentrification of Disability”.)

Personally, I am one of those people who wishes they weren’t autistic. At the same time, I’ve come to understand that there is, indeed, a logic and a sense of community within my experience as an autistic person. I’d like to examine this.

If you are autistic yourself, maybe there will be something helpful for you here in terms of losing any shame you hold in that. And, if you’re not autistic, maybe you can get some insight into a set of social norms that are different from – yet entirely within – your own.

First, a word on language: I don’t particularly care for the word “allistic”, mainly because so few people in the general public regularly encounter it often ends up taking longer than just saying the definition. However, for the sake of clarity here, where it will come up frequently, I am going to define it anyway, and use it in lieu of getting into an argument about what the word “neurotypical” means. So: “allistic”, a word which here means “not autistic”.

Now, on to the cultural relativism bit!

The first order of business is to shift your concept of “pride” and “self acceptance”. Rather than seeing those things as good, or even neutral, you can just see them as the opposite of shame. You do not have to enjoy being autistic to reap the benefits of autistic pride, because guess what — you’re stuck autistic whether you approve of that or not. I will appeal to the autistic sense of logic here: the best option is totally irrelevant; what really matters is the best available option. I would love a cure myself, but there isn’t one and never will be, so why waste my time wallowing in that? How will shame help anything? Maybe the best option is to be allistic, but the best available option is to work with what I have.

The next task is, naturally, to learn to work with it. I think one of the best ways to go about this is to understand your struggles as a culture clash of sorts, and to imagine yourself not as wrong — nor everyone else as absurd — but as simply different. Those differences don’t have to be neutral in practice (and in fact, they often aren’t, at least in the context of being an extreme minority), but they are morally and logically neutral. The same way that allistics often label autistic behaviour as meaningless, I think we autistics tend to do the same in reverse. People seldom do things for no reason at all.

This is the double empathy problem: the breakdown in communication between allistic and autistic people is a two way street. Our lack of understanding is mutual, and — like anything cultural — experiences outside our ‘normal’ can be challenging to make sense of.

Personally, I figure myself a bit of an anthropologist of allistic culture. I think I am pretty decent at “masking” (hiding my autistic traits), meaning that if you talk to me in person, you probably won't know that something is ‘off’. Maybe you’d pick up that I’m anxious, or a bit idiosyncratic, or fidgety, but you probably wouldn’t guess autism. This is not natural to me; it’s a learned process. It’s a learned thing for everyone, I think — autistic or not — but for autistic people it doesn’t ever become automatic or intuitive. The rules don’t get internalized, they just get compiled into an ever-expanding mental resource that you can learn to frantically flip through as best you can in the moment. It’s a very conscious process, at least for me, and it’s draining as hell. More purist advocates of autistic pride will tell you you should simply not mask at all for this reason; I think that will also make your life worse, because you still have to live in a world where 97-point-whatever percent of the population is allistic. This is such an overwhelming majority that it is all but impossible to get by if you don’t know how to adapt.

For any allistic readers who are struggling to conceptualize what it’s like to live inherently outside the norm (which is understandable), I’d explain it like this: top live in allistic society is akin to being in a play where everyone else knows all their lines, but you don’t even have the script. Everyone keeps telling you, “it’s easy, just memorize the script!” and ignores you when you try to explain that you can memorize just fine, the problem is that you never got a copy of the script to memorize from. Still, nobody will give you one, and if you don’t work at picking up little clues here and there as to what your lines are, you will have a very hard time of things. Quite the conundrum! This is where the benefits of masking comes in.

I actually think it’s really important and empowering for autistic people to understand that everyone is ‘acting’ to some extent. Autistics just struggle with it more because the desire to do so is less innate, and because we do not get access to the same level of information as an allistic person does (ie. you can manually learn to read social cues all you want, but it won’t do any good if you’re not picking up on said social cues to interpret). It is also culturally foreign to us, because we tend to value authenticity in a way allistic society does not. If you imagine it this way, it becomes (slightly) less of a burden and more of a tool that you can wield. You can learn the rules well enough to know when it’s worth breaking them. You can gain a level of autonomy that so many of us crave.

In my experience, autistic people tend to see this sort of thinking as manipulative — which it is — but in fact it’s normal social manipulation. Or, maybe expected is a better word. It’s permissible by society, if not by our internal moral code. I think this a nifty little tool for self acceptance; it allows you to see these decisions as functional things for your own benefit rather than as a show you put on for others. I also think autistic people are, on average, well equipped for the skills needed to do this, the innate researchers we tend to be.

So, that’s the first piece of this — understanding the culture you were born into, and learning how to live in it. Here are my, uh, ASDs, if you will, of developing that sort of cultural awareness.

Advocate & Accommodate

One thing I do think autism advocates are largely right about is that allistic society spends far too much time and energy trying to un-weird us. There are autistic traits that are limiting, distressing, or objectively an issue — and those things are worth working on — but there are many autistic traits and habits that are subjective problems. That is, they are only ‘problems’ in that they are culturally strange to allistic people. This also goes for adaptive things that, by adulthood, many of us needlessly deprive ourselves of despite the fact that it would make our lives better at no cost to ourselves or anyone else, all in pursuit of an unattainable ‘normal’.

By this I mean little things, like managing sensory issues, or engaging in activities that are meaningful and joyful,though atypical they may be. As an adult, you can do things like cut the tags off your clothes, or wear your socks inside out to avoid the seams, or use children's fruit-flavoured toothpaste if mint is too much, or carry around a fidget toy, or eat the exact same thing for dinner every day, and nobody even has to know! It’s such a pity that so many of us have been asked to feel shame about our needs to the point where we will ignore them even when meeting them does not come with consequences.

I think autistic people often have somewhat-too-flexible mental boundaries (or ‘poor theory of mind’, I guess) and are so used to acting that we feel like we always have an audience. It’s important to learn when we don’t. It’s confusing, granted, because allistic society does judge, they’re just not omniscient about it.

Likewise, it’s important to learn when not to care about the judgement. Something that has made my life somewhat better is being more open about my diagnosis in the sense of specifics. I don’t generally go around telling people I’m autistic just for their understanding (though I would if I found it productive), but I will say things like, “I don’t want to be annoying, but I’m not going to pick up on hints that I am, so if I’m bothering you you’ll have to tell me directly and I’ll do my best to stop”. Personally, I feel less stressed when my intentions and needs are clearly stated. This is not culturally ‘typical’ for allistics, who are often much more indirect… but I’m not trying to be culturally appropriate; I’m trying to bridge the gap

Script & Study

Many allistic social norms are actually highly scripted, and if you study the reasoning behind it you can build a set of relatively easy social algorithms that can help keep you from getting stuck. I highly recommend giving this a try; I have found that it lets me have a degree of control over something that is frustratingly illogical to me, and it helps me engage with the world sans-shame. Again: I’m not stupid, I’m (cognitively) foreign.

If you are an allistic person reading this, I implore you to use a bit of cultural relativism here as I try to explain the machinery behind things that, to you, might seem base-level inherent to personhood. You don’t think about these things because they are fundamental building blocks of your culture, well-normalized by the way you grew up, but they are not objectively correct. They are only correct through consensus, and, in the case of an allistic person vs an autistic one, because you have a brain tuned to these sorts of behaviours.

Basically, my theory on this is that it’s a lot easier for autistic people to do uncomfortable things if there is a clear answer to “why”. Autistic people value logical reasoning; we can learn the reasoning behind allistic cultural weirdness. If you ask allistic people these sorts of “why” questions, you will often get an answer along the lines of “that’s just how the world works”, or “because it’s polite”, or “because it’s the right thing to do”. Ask “why” again and people get upset because they don’t need to think about that stuff… but there is an answer, they just don’t know it. It’s innate to them, or they’ve intuitively picked up on it. For autistic people, this is our second language, so we have to understand the grammar — so to speak — in a bit more of an active way.

Where I (and many other autistics, I think, going off of what I see in autistic spaces) get stuck is in the ambiguity of neurotypical social interaction. We are literal, black-and-white thinkers in an indirect, wishy-washy culture. This is what I mean about one’s manual reading of social cues being only as good as their perception; autistic perception for social cues tends to be bad, because we work in fundamentally opposite ways to allistic society. Where allistics are indirect, autistics are direct; where allistics value conformity, autistics value authenticity; where allistics need interpersonal rituals to establish their hierarchy, autistics reject the rituals and the hierarchy. It leads to building algorithms that can go something like (for instance) this:

As you can see, you end up with 19 possible outcomes, which is a lot to sort through! It’s easy if you can directly follow a path, but remember: that requires a lot of information that an autistic person might not get access to. Or, sometimes the answers are ambiguous. It’s entirely possible to not only get stuck before getting to the right solution, but to get stuck before reaching any solution at all. I chose this example of small talk because, in my experience, it trips a lot of autistic people up even if they know how to solve it in theory. “Does this person want a genuine response” is a really hard question to answer if you do not understand the norms behind it.

I think the idea that our social skills are not lacking, but merely different, can coexist with the understanding that this becomes a disability when it is such a small proportion of people. You have to understand that autistic people (including yourself) don’t do things for no reason. Our social actions also have a logic to them — more of a logic, in my obviously biased opinion.

… Don’t?

If you are doing conscious cost-benefit analysis, then you can also decide what is not worth masking for. Remember, this is not an exercise in coming across as allistic, it’s an exercise in getting the most out of your life as an autistic person in an allistic world.

An example would be that, personally, I don't really care to put effort into making good eye contact not because I don’t feel self conscious about it, not because I don’t know the purposes it serves for allistic culture, not because it never limits me… but because I’ve decided it’s not worth it. The cost (finding it hard to focus and think, hindering my ability to communicate effectively) is not worth the benefit (allistics thinking I’m paying attention ‘correctly’). I have a hard enough time with oral communication, why would I make it worse for a superficial benefit? If you can justify these little things to yourself, I think it becomes much easier to accept it when people are upset about it. I know I accommodate them much of the time, so I don’t feel any shame asking them to accommodate me on major functional things — that’s called give-and-take! If people aren’t okay with that… well, most of the time they are not people I want in my life.

This also goes for things like recreation. I think you should simply not go to parties if you hate them, instead of trying to force yourself just because you (or someone else) thinks that’s what you’re “supposed” to do. You should not work on “diversifying” your interests just because people think it’s wrong to care so much about something repetitive or mundane. You should not change the media you consume just because others judge, you should not give up what brings you joy for completely arbitrary reasons. If you know what’s arbitrary and what is, well, slightly less arbitrary, then these choices are easier to make.

After this, you can shift to making choices to, at different times, either adapt, consciously not adapt, or to find people who are easier to connect with. That last bit is key, I think. It’s important to find yourself a metaphorical enclave of ‘expats’ of allistic society. This is invariably going to include other autistic people, but it can also include those who are otherwise ‘other’ and more willing to adjust communication styles. These relationships are, in my opinion, generally best when they stem from a connection aside from autism — from a shared interest or activity, perhaps. In my experience, these relationships with others of our culture can be not just fulfilling, but also healing in that things make sense for once. I know how to talk to autistic people in a way I’ve never managed to grasp with allistic people.

I don’t think that experience is uncommon; one of the core differences between autistic and allistic communication norms is that the balance of “information sharing” to “emotional negotiation” is tilted differently. When I talk to other autistic people, I am always pleasantly shocked at how smoothly it goes. We don’t waste time on emotional subtext: if someone has a concern or feels hurt, they say so. Otherwise we simply pass information back and forth, which is enjoyable if you like the same sorts of information. Having people who share your culture and can do such things is vital to a happy existence as a minority.

So there you have it: a different way to view autism, and a less stressful way to make it through the world. I hope this has been helpful, or at the very least has encouraged you to question what you perceive as ‘normal’ or ‘obvious’ — in yourself, or in others. Like I said: it’s a two-way street! We just have to care to understand each other, and keep perspective when we don’t.

[lovemetopieces]

[ christian serratos, cis female, she/her ] — whoa! XENIA AUTRY just stole my cab! not cool, but maybe they needed it more. they have lived in the city for A FEW WEEKS, working as a VIDEO GAME DESIGNER. that can’t be easy, especially at only 29 YEARS OLD. some people say they can be a little bit CRITICAL and COMPETITIVE, but i know them to be NURTURING and PATIENT. whatever. i guess i’ll catch the next cab. hope they like the ride back to MANHATTAN!

Basics

Full Name: Xenia Irene Autry Age: 29 Date of Birth: October 9, 1994 Zodiac: Libra Sun, Sagittarius Moon, Scorpio Rising Gender & Pronouns: Cis-Female, She/Her Spoken Language(s): English, Spanish, ASL Occupation: Video Game Designer & Developer  Sexuality: Bi-curious

Appearance

Face Claim: Christian Serratos Height: 5'7" (170 cm) Dominant Hand: Left Hair Color: Brown Eye Color: Brown Scars: Various small cuts throughout her body from childhood Tattoos: She has one on her wrist, one on the opposite arm, one on her ankle and one on her shoulder (See here)

Background

Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia Birthplace: Atlanta, Georgia Education Level: Bachelor's Degree in Interactive Design and Game Development Familial Connections: Megara Autry née Cruz (Mother, deceased), Falco Autry (Father, deceased), Riley Jasper Autry-Weston (Son)

Headcanons (TW: Death, Pregnancy)

Xenia grew up in the foster system after being orphaned at a young age. She worries about forgetting her parents but she never will. She didn’t discover her love for gaming until she was a teenager living in an all girl’s group home. She developed her first game by the time she graduated high school. She received a full ride scholarship to SCAD in Savannah for her accomplishment although she could pay for it herself with the inheritance she came into upon turning 18. In Savannah, she met her soon to be ex-fiancé and father of her son. He ended up skipping town with zero contact with her and no insight to where he went a couple of weeks before she found out she was pregnant. She decided to raise her son alone back in Atlanta in her family home. Nearly 4 years have gone by when she gets a call from her ex-fiancé's sibling with the location of his whereabouts and Xenia decides to uproot her life to give her son a shot at having a relationship with his father.

Wanted Connections

New Friends: Xenia loves meeting new people but she isn't that trusting of people. She considers herself good at reading vibes though so if she deems you a decent person, she will start to open up. Daycare Parents: Xenia has a three year old at home and takes him to daycare while she works. I imagine after a few run-ins with other parents, she'd eventually establish some sort of relationship with the other adults. Friend with Benefits: She isn't against one night stands but she prefers having a go-to person for sexual pleasure. I imagine their relationship probably started as a one time thing and then they became friends who casually sleep together. Potential Romance: Xenia just got out of a pretty serious relationship but she isn't closed off to finding love. I imagine things to be slow since she doesn't really know anyone in New York just yet. Ex from Atlanta: She was in a pretty serious relationship before she took off to New York so her son could meet his father. I imagine her partner understood why she was leaving and accepted it then later realized they didn't want to give up on their relationship and moves to New York?

[idsb]

hi favorite swiftie account❤️ I have a question. I keep seeing people complain about the TVs not getting “enough time”, is that a popular opinion?? personally I think she did the eras tour partially as a way of releasing all the TVs and being with us as she does. and I don’t see people complaining about lover/folklore/evermore/fearlessTV being released so close together, so why does it matter so much that SN and 1989 are? I think the faster she gets the TVs out the better. idk just needed to speak this to a swiftie. thanks ☺️

Awwwww hi bestie! I did see what they meant, but I actually do agree with your point which I hadn’t thought about before - maybe these albums don’t need as much of a “moment” as Red TV for example because Eras is all of their moments!

That said, as a Speak Now stan, I found it sad that it sort of came and went so fast especially as compared to Red TV - I think it had just as much hype, so with more marketing it could’ve been just as huge for just as long. It’s sad that it wasn’t! Probably a jealousy thing because I want my favorite album to have as big a moment in the sun as Red was given. But simultaneously like, Taylor isn’t a machine and she can’t do everything so. Idk I feel pretty nuanced about it but it’s still disappointing. As far as 1989, I think there’s a chance we’ll get some more promo, music videos, etc - I guess we don’t know yet! But I think it’ll feel like something in between Red and Speak Now.

Anyways hope this is decent insight and not a rambling mess lol

[bardic-inspo]

15 Questions

Tagged by @vault-heck. Thank you!! 

Tagging back if you want to (no pressure if you’d rather not): @electricshoebox, @some27-url, @persephotea, @wishing4nuclearwinter, @totally-not-deacon, @just-another-wasteland-merc, @alannabix88, @alder-berry, @mercurymiscellany, @thedreamwolf, @seduce-me-with-coffee, and whoever else would like to!

1. Are you named after anyone? Nope.

2. When was the last time you cried? I got a little teary on Saturday when we left home to play D&D at a friend’s house a few hours away. It was the first time we left our kitty cat home alone overnight in our new place and I was feeling a little sensitive about it. He was completely fine and he probably slept most of the time we were gone.

3. Do you have kids? No, but maybe, probably, having one someday.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? Me? Never. (Absolutely).

5. What sports do you play/have you played? When I was younger, swimming and cross country running. I don’t run at all anymore, it sort of fucked up my knees. I would love to get back into swimming again sometime in the near future. I semi-frequently do yoga at home, and would like to get into biking again. I’ve almost-nearly bought a bike several times over the past few years, but always found an excuse not to (mostly broken toes and long winters). I also have my scuba certification, if that counts, but the certification process was spread over two years (because of the broken toes) and I don’t feel qualified in the least, if I’m being honest.

6. What's the first thing you notice about other people? Their voice, if I hear them speaking. Otherwise, I guess...just, vibes? A gut reaction of however they make me feel based on what they’re saying/doing and especially how they’re saying/doing it. 

7. Eye color? Hazel, leaning heavily towards green.

8. Scary movies or happy endings? Both is good!

9. Any special talents? I think I’m a decent writer, and a somewhat insightful person/deep thinker. 

10. Where were you born? Midwest U.S.

11. What are your hobbies? Writing, video games, dungeons & dragons, reading (sporadically), dabbling in random artstuffs as the mood takes me, travelling to places I’ve never been, helping my cat live his best life.

12. Do you have any pets? My kitty cat, Leo, is about 8.5 years old (I cannot believe!!). We adopted him from a shelter when he was 5, and that was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me.

I grew up with a goldendoodle named Teddy, and I do love dogs, but I very much do not want to own a dog and owning a cat has reinforced that quite a bit for me, just due to the lifestyle changes/amount of work to take care of them elements.

‘Leo’ was the name my kitty’s prior owners gave him, and we didn’t have another name in mind, so we kept it. If we had ended up with a girl cat, we may have named/re-named her “Neset” and called her “Nessie” for short. Neset was a recurring villain in a D&D campaign I played in, and was also know as “the shadow of Egypt”. She was a monk/rogue multiclass who escaped our party probably five times on the brink of death before we eventually captured her.  I

13. How tall are you? 5′1″

14. Fave subject in school?  In college, I liked political science so much I ended up minoring in it sort of on accident, because I kept defaulting back to those courses while figuring out my actual major. In high school, probably psychology or language/literature.

15. Dream job? Not having to have one?

I think would enjoy being a writer, as a job, if and only if my financial wellbeing didn’t depend on it, and I was writing what I wanted/decided to write. That being said, some sort of story or narrative work. Maybe as an editor, or some sort of concept-person. I also really enjoyed anthropology, poli sci, and research in general in college, and if I wasn’t certain academia would ruin me mentally and financially, I might enjoy that, too. These are all dreams and don’t sound like real jobs one could have with the terms/conditions I’m describing.

[destinyc1020]

I don't think that Andrew is pretentious. I think that he went through a period in which he had a hard time booking good parts even though he had been Spidey, was an Oscar nominee and a Tony winner. So now that he has experienced a second chance in the last couple of years he's seizing the opportunities and going to all sort of Hollywood and fashion events. He also likes to talk a lot. I see a lot of similarities with AB because he was extremely close to his artist mother and she died after a long battle with cancer. He likes to think out loud about consciousness, religion, the afterlife and doesn't shy away from talking about a time in which he was rudderless smoking too much weed and his mom was the one that motivated him to find his passion. Maybe he talks too much for some people, but he seems to have a good heart, particularly compared to all the dicks in Hollywood. I really like this interview of his with Colbert especially after 4:07 youtu.be/_u_TswLQ4ws

Thanks for your input Anon 👍🏾😊

Yea, I'm obviously playing devil's advocate here lol, but I just haven't seen anything SO FAR that makes me feel like he is warranted so much hate and annoyance online? 🤷🏾‍♀️

I don't fave any issue with ppl bringing up religion, their beliefs, or whatever they've had to do on order to get over the horrible grief of losing a family member to death... let alone your own MOTHER. You're right, Andrew and Austin do have that similarity in common. 😔

There's nothing wrong with that at all imo. Just as long as you're not trying to brow beat me and force your beliefs and views on to me 😓, or bashing my viewpoints or beliefs, then I'm cool! 😊👍🏾

He seems to be a decent guy overall, but hey, if ppl don't like him, then they just don't like him I guess. 🤷🏾‍♀️

I just haven't seen any reason to hate the guy, but I'll keep looking at his interviews to see what y'all are talking about, coz I've never noticed it before.

And thanks Anon....

Maybe this interview will give me some insight into what you all are talking about lol 😅🤭