#its like the social version of being clumsy

[bookwyrminspiration]

youre intimidating because you, personally, are not insane most of the time but insanity always follows in your footsteps

something about the way this ask is worded is incredible. it follows in my footsteps. feels arcane, otherworldly, ethereal almost, and I love it.

but at the same time you're 100% correct I'm almost never trying to cause chaos and yet it. keeps. happening. i'm just enjoying myself on the internet trying to be nice to people and have fun with this book series I picked up eight years ago and yet. and yet

there's no point trying to resist. the fact of the matter is there will be chaos on this blog and it will infect the fandom and it will. be entirely by accident. hope you all enjoy the ride <3

[littlebabytimmybird]

gonna be an unpopular opinion but the way fans treat tim is really indicative of how society views autistic people. tim is HIGHLY autistic coded, from his extreme interests to his social awkwardness.

in early comics with him in them, tim is actually a pretty good representation of autism. he is shown to have a strong interest in batman and robin/nightwing, he doesn't realize when he's upsetting people, and he often goes about things in a blunt, clumsy way. even the way he speaks fluctuates between being incredibly articulate to incredibly childlike. he seems simultaneously innocent and all-knowing, childish and an old soul. all of this is common in level 1 autism spectrum disorder. tim is clearly gifted but he isn't a super-genius, he's just a talented and dedicated kid. although he didn't have to work the hardest of all the robins in general by any means, he did have to work the hardest to become a robin, as he lacked any training before that and came from a privileged background where he had been somewhat coddled by his families wealth. even jason had fighting experience, tim did not.

another aspect of tim's character that is a good representation is his empathy. there is a theory of empathy that says there are 3 types, emotional empathy, "I feel as you feel", cognitive empathy, "I understand how you feel", and compassion, "i want you to feel better" like many autistic people, tim is somewhat lacking in the second category but has an abundance in the third. he talks openly about the death of jason in front of bruce dick and alfred without realizing it could upset them and is shocked when they react with anger. he often gets himself in trouble by saying things that come across as rude or blunt without meaning to. however, he is incredibly compassionate and deeply cares for the people around him, showing that he is very capable of empathy.

a major autistic trait tim embodies is what psychiatry calls an "uneven profile". uneven profiles are when someone is very skilled in some areas but behind in others. tim is a clear example of an uneven profile because he is highly intelligent and learns practical skills like fighting quickly, but he is lacking in non-practical skills. he has a black-and-white way of thinking about good and evil that is more commonly seen in young children than in teenagers. he idolizes batman and nightwing and it takes him years to learn that they have flaws like any human. a large part of tim's journey is learning to overcome this style of thinking but it is still a clear developmental delay in the beginning.

overall, tim is a compassionate, warm, and intelligent, yet flawed character. he is a sweet and clever kid with a big heart (sometimes too big).

so why is it that in fanon, tim is portrayed as a cold, calculating, all-intelligent super genius with no autonomy? disregarding the fact that it is an insult to his character, it is also an insult to autistic people in general, especially when people claim they headcanon him as autistic but use the fanon version of him.

there are 3 main ways that autistic people are viewed in fandoms:

The Artificial Intelligence. the artificial intelligence autistic stereotype pins us as robots, capable of great feats of intelligence but incapable of emotion. this is the most neutral of the stereotypes, as we are not seen as human and therefore not stigmatized as humans.

The Man Child. despite its name, the man-child autistic stereotype can apply to any age or gender. the man-child autistic's primary trait is being annoying. they are likely savants, but they use their skills to be obnoxiously pedantic. they are unreasonable and demand everything be to their specifications at all times. sheldon cooper from the big bang theory fits into this category.

The Woobie. these woobified autistic characters will always be found wearing oversized clothes and having shutdowns but NEVER meltdowns. they cry often and need to be held and comforted by friends and family who serve as caretakers to the 'helpless baby autistic.'

and when the people who claim to like him write about him, tim is never held responsible for his actions, he never takes others into account, he is a tech genius and he has questionable morals, or doesn't seem to have a moral code at all. he has a troubling coffee addiction and lacks sleep at all times but, like any good supercomputer, he can go out and patrol just fine despite it. he is a machine, running on air and spite.

it is mostly tim's haters who portray him in the second way. that's when you get a tim who is selfish and snobbish, mostly towards poor innocent damian wayne who has never done anything wrong in his life.

sometimes, tim is written so he can't take care of himself. when he does have emotions, they're all sad ones. he cries himself to sleep, and dick or bruce or even jason for some reason have to come and comfort him. they force him to stop drinking so much coffee and to go to bed at a reasonable hour even as an adult.

now, don't get me wrong. there are some autistic people, quite a few actually, who do need to be taken care of as adults. hell, I'll probably be one of them to some degree. but even with someone who will never be able to live alone, autonomy is the most important thing to remember. people should always be allowed to make their own decisions as much as they are capable of. and tim in fanon has almost no autonomy. it is, plainly speaking, a huge fucking insult to the disabled community.

When the first and third stereotypes are mixed, you get a cruel mockery of an uneven profile. similar to the manchild trope, this is a tim who needs everything his way, but this time it's all given in to by those around him.

so, in conclusion: in early comics tim was an excellent accidental portrayal of low support needs ASD, but fanon took away all his positive autistic traits and turned him into a shallow stereotype of an autistic person and a mockery of all his actual autistic traits. even the seemingly harmless coffee-lover headcanon feeds into the horrific stereotypical treatment of his character.

[malachitebeck]

SPOILERS FOR DOCTOR WHO: THE GIGGLE (Also, Spoilers, I get a little serious and introspective under here. Shit's a bit of an essay.)

I will be the first to admit I have not engaged with Doctor Who as a franchise in a good few years. I stopped watching the series regularly around the end of Matt Smith's run, and while I tried to engage with Jodie Whittaker's season, the confusing release schedule meant that I lost that motivation and quickly let go.

But when I saw the initial trailers for these three anniversary specials, I will admit they likely had the exact effect on me they were probably meant to; drawing me, a wandering former fan, like a moth back towards the flame of the series as it was entering a new era of streaming partnerships and a boosted budget.

And while I enjoyed the first two specials and actually found them to be rather nostalgic in their own way, the ending of the third special has left an admittedly poor taste in my mouth that I can't sit with quietly. I usually don't make posts like this, but there's a first time for everything right?

I will admit, first and foremost, that The Giggle was not the story I had expected going in. I didn't know a lot about the Classic Episodes (or, well, episode) the Toymaker was coming from, and as a result was swept up in an intriguing fan fervor that posited the episode was going to take on a kind of meta-textual horror; addressing the fires that destroyed the film reels of the majority of the episodes in an in-universe fashion, depicting the Toymaker as this haunting entity the Doctor was struggling to remember.

Suffice to say the episode was not that. But I am not sitting down to write all of this simply because the episode took on a more... stale commentative approach to the internet and social media that didn't live up to the version I had constructed in my head. The creative team was never under any obligation to do so, obviously.

I'm writing this because of Ncuti Gatwa.

For a brief moment, when the characters were out on the helipad(?) of the UNIT building, I had what I thought was an epiphany. "This has been about Ncuti all along," I thought, "this approach to talking about internet discourse is a bit stale, sure, but allegorically it's trying to critically talk about the response to Ncuti's casting. Surely that's why they took this angle, it just didn't stick the landing."

I thought this because the regeneration was happening right at the climax of the Toymaker's speech about why he loved humanity and our worst "21st century" aspects, and because Mel, in the moment the Doctor was regenerating, took the time to hold his hand, smile, and remark that "all of your faces are fantastic."

In that moment, I tried to give the series the benefit of the doubt. I tried to believe that, while clumsy, they were teeing up the start of Gatwa's era by holding up a mirror to their own fanbase, trying to coax them into reflecting on the vitriol that they put him through, especially in the British Press and on social media.

But then the Doctor didn't regenerate. He Bi-Generated.

Immediately the common trope of the regeneration is tossed on its head. Gatwa and Tennant were on screen, together- defeating the Toymaker as a triumphant pair. Rather than going through the motions I was accustomed to in every regeneration I had seen previously, where the new Doctor is alone, adjusting sharply to their circumstances and needing to struggle for a moment to get their feet back under them before ultimately still winning the day and establishing themselves as as capable as they ever were; Gatwa was not only not alone, but was immediately being depicted as if he had simply always been there, not questioning the position he was in, not needing time to recover, just. Moving. Going.

But I thought perhaps this was just going to be fleeting. The concept of Bi-Generation being a myth of the Gallifreyan people and thus fair game to be invoked by the energy the Toymaker exuded was hastily explained, and since it had apparently never happened I thought there would be drawbacks, side effects. I was quickly constructing a reasonable way the show could still give Gatwa his space, his moment.

Then the fight ended. Tennant was still standing, triumphant and fine, and looked to be utterly unchanged. Still the Doctor in every physical aspect. He's being comforted, even, by Gatwa- the newly formed Doctor, usually the one reeling, is painted as being so utterly fine that he's able to be the shoulder 14 can use to lean on.

I continue to try to make excuses. As the scene in the TARDIS begins, sure I find it jarring that the 15th Doctor is comforting the 14th on mental health struggles he should reasonably also have, but they are trying to construct an out for Tennant. They've never done this before, but it's clearly setting up a kind of retirement- they want to give Tennant a unique sendoff, want to give the character a permanent resting place in the form of one final "adventure", the adventure of a normal human life with Donna.

But then Ncuti grabbed the fucking hammer. And it all started to sink in for me.

Not only was the 14th Doctor not gone, but he was still in a relatively vague position in the story. The final scene of him in the garden is nice, in theory, but the TARDIS, his own copy of the TARDIS that he magically had made for him, is quite literally looming in the background- reminding the audience that this is all potentially fleeting. Rose and Mel joke about 14 breaking his promises to slow down by sneaking away to take them on small adventures, and it just utterly hit me in that moment, that someone at the BBC, someone responsible for writing or maintaining Doctor Who as a titan of British Popular Culture, did not trust Ncuti Gatwa.

Because even if the fan response to this decision that I have seen thus far online has been positive, it's positive for a reason, and I am being kind when I say this, that I find disheartening. There are excited thoughts about what Tennant might get to do in the near future; thoughts of a potential UNIT series where he gets to star, appearances in the main series, his own spin-off as The Doctor.

But that's just it, isn't it? He's still the Doctor. In every way he is still there, in the universe. For now we are shown the character is at rest, has found peace, but even he admits that he doesn't think it will last, and neither does Donna, the other person supposedly trying to convince him to slow down and heal.

In the long tradition of the role of the Doctor, a tradition being commemorated through this very string of episodes, the role has been treated in a way like principal characters in a Broadway show. Each actor gets a special night to enter into the spotlight, the chance to make it their own for as long as they wish, and a fond sendoff the moment they decide they're ready for something else. The actors are not crossing paths, not really- not unless it is in a format meant to highlight their times in the role, something predicated on the idea that each of them, as independent beings who occupied it for a certain unique amount of time, are worthy of their proverbial flowers in their own right. They each make up the long canon of the role, but were each, individually, allowed to play it all on their own.

In this metaphor, Ncuti Gatwa has been double billed. In a history of this role being occupied by one actor, one at a time, he is the only one who is entering it with the previous actor still lingering- waiting in the wings, ready to be summoned on stage at any moment should the producers decide it would make things more interesting. He is not being trusted to carry the role on his own merits, intentionally or not. He, the first black man to ever occupy this role, is having the rules changed on him- and is acting out a story wherein his character is happy to accept that fact, is the one to grab the cartoon mallet from the floorboards and break the TARDIS in two, literally severing every iconic aspect of the character he should be allowed to embody all on his own into another person, who is literally handed a tool by the narrative to crop back up whenever he'd like.

In the scene on the helipad of the UNIT building, I thought I had had an epiphany. I thought what I was watching was an allegorical condemnation of an aspect of the fanbase that had refused to accept any actor who wasn't white occupying such a famous role in British Television history. I thought what I was watching was setting up something for Gatwa, was rolling out this metaphorical carpet for him to enter his first season on, bolstered by the fact he was being allegorically supported by former companions and a Doctor so adored they brought him back twice.

But what I was actually seeing, whether or not Davies or anyone else thought this aspect of it through, was that very thought process, that very hatred, being softly placated. That those vocal members of the British public and the audience at large were being told, "Not to worry! He's not the only Doctor," Wittingly or unwittingly utterly undermining Gatwa's run from the very start.

Simply put, the Doctor is a communal role, but not a role that has ever been shared. And this Special choosing now as a time to start? Left a deeply sour taste in my mouth. For now I will attempt to be hopeful, will tune in for Gatwa's Christmas Special and hope to all hopes he is given the moment in the spotlight he deserves... but if they lead Tennant out of the wings to thunderous applause? I only hope that my thoughts on the matter will make you all second guess clapping along.

[myjustice]

genshin impact's way of telling its story isn't precisely my favorite one, it's very ' tell but not show ' & leaving a lot of gaps & between the lines to leave up to interpretation. leaving things up to interpretation in essence is not inherently bad, but a little bit more substance doesn't hurt anybody.

i want to touch on furina's relationship with her fellow archons these last 500 years.

neuvillette's & furina's roles were hinted heavily & told to us. neuvillette was most comfortable only dealing with things within the court & all of what the court entails, whilst matters of mingling with the people & diplomacy was furina's role as the most socially capable of the two to handle such a thing given neuvillette's social & emotional ineptitude & clumsiness. which makes sense, he wasn't comfortable with dealing things outside of what he felt confident in.

furina had means of receiving wealth of knowledge via her agents. as focalors, being seen as an archon by them, to keep the masquerade intact was also important even if the contact was minimal. she just needed them to know she was the archon.

venti - she's never seen him, she doesn't know who he is or how he looks like. she's never once made contact with him, but she's aware that his nation is to be ran by the freedom of his people so she made well by reaching out to varka & then eventually jean as they were the grand & acting grand masters.

zhongli - she knew that the tradition liyue held was that he would come down once a year, but that was until he ' died '. the fact that he died caused her great anxiety because she knew he was the oldest out of the current seven. if someone like him perished then she, who's divinity was split apart from her, was but a trinket. she has never properly made contact with him, but she has had a communication or two with the liyue qixing.

nahida - furina has also always failed to make contact with nahida because of the corrupt sages. every time she would send some sort of communication her way it would get intercepted by them & they would respond to her instead which rubbed furina the wrong way, but as long as she was acknowledged as focalors she couldn't really dig deeper than just wonder on her own. when the truth came to light furina was devastated about what had been done to her & did try to reach out to her again, sending her a present along with her attempt at communication.

ei / raiden shogun - the connection between fontaine & inazuma is probably one of the most intimate ones between the seven nations thus far. that with fontaine having their engineers over there & introducing film making to the inazumen people. like with nahida, furina also tried to make contact with the shogun via long distance communications, but i'm of the belief that since ei's version of eternity did not include fontaine or any other of the seven nations then she wasn't very receptive of furina's communications.

[eternalfarnham]

So what do you think would happen if some weird timeloop intersection happened and TimeTraveler!Madoka and Canon!Homura ended up in the same timeline?

Time Traveler!Madoka is what it looks like when Canon!Homura fails utterly.

Not only has TT!Madoka been denied an ordinary life, she's shed even its trappings – her relationships with her family and mundane friends are defined by doubt, stress and manipulation over all else. She's excluded herself from the good parts – the care and love – in favor of the wearisome, stressful parts of lying and managing and manipulating, with Witches on top of it all. TT!Madoka's subjected herself, willingly, to all the same stresses that broke down Homura from a frail, shy girl into a value function whose input is information and whose output is munitions – and all in service of Homura herself, a perfectly useless girl (Homura can barely conceptualize a version of herself who became strong without breaking – that first loop where she cheerfully fought with Madoka has basically written itself out of her memories). She made herself a magical girl for nothing! And thanks to their divergent abilities and starting points, there isn't even much they can do to share strategies – honestly, Homura spends a lot of time not talking to lacquered, guarded TT!Madoka because she can't do it without risking soul gem corruption.

Thankfully, TT!Madoka doesn't overwrite her original-timeline self, and she's at least compassionate enough to help Homura protect the real Madoka. And this timeline is a perfect opportunity, considering Original!Madoka's potential has guttered as TT!Madoka cannibalizes her karmic destiny. Just gotta deal with Walpurgisnacht and the X-factor of this extremely upsetting weird magical girl. (The fact that Homura conceptualizes the frail, less-confident girl as the real one isn't at all good for TT!Madoka – as it turns out, even to Homura, the transfer student who was supposed to have no preconceptions whatsoever, the weak Madoka is the real one!)

This spoils TT!'s attempts to make peace with Mami – Homura kills Kyubey by instinct before she realizes that Madoka has nothing to fear on that front, and Mami winds up reading them as a team of evil magical girl anomalies. She's desperately jealous of the relationship she imagines they have, given how clearly TT! looks up to Canon!Homura at first, but contents herself with shooting the unholy bejesus out of them when she can and scooping their witch kills. Original!Madoka finds herself being stalked by a weird upperclassman who keeps saying cryptic things to her about alliances and Kyubey and your dark-haired friend. What a chuunibyou!

Contrariwise, Canon!Homura seems to TT!Madoka, at first, like the exact person she's been waiting for. First-timeline Homura is Madoka's idol, who started out as a clumsy, lonely space-case and became the incredibly powerful heart of a wonderful magical girl team. She was so cool and so kind and on some level Madoka's been waiting for clumsy, lonely Homura to decide to become her again and finally, finally save everyone. She's trying – she just needs the proper emotional support to do it correctly, and TT!Madoka is exactly the correct person to do it! After all, she knows her Homura-chan so well...

Then, well, the cracks begin to show. Canon!Homura has no social skills. Instead of Homura's magic-sharing magic and ball-headed staff (see the Clara dolls' hairpins for details), she has guns and time stop. She kind of hates all her friends, with the weary resignation of someone herding lemmings if lemmings tore out each others' throats. Canon!Homura isn't happy. She became a magical girl and it just ground her down to a nubbin of personality. Worse, she seems to think it's mandatory for her to remain this way! And TT!Madoka is useless to her as an emotional support because, well, she's Canon!Homura's worst nightmare, a contracted Madoka who can't be rolled back, a symbol of all her regrets – basically walking despair, unless Homura treats her like a separate person entirely. Which, well, Madoka made her contract to help Homura. Being useless to her is failing her wish.

Madoka wanted her back, her savior, but she expected it to be a joyous thing instead of this nightmare. And she doesn't even think of TT!Madoka as real. Homura is protecting someone else. She made her wish for someone else and it's brought her no end of grief, and she refuses to think of any timeline's magical girls as anything but lost causes to be ignored and put out of their misery, and she only cares about the last one, the final timeline, one that won't have TT!Madoka in it because there can only be one real Madoka...

I think one of them takes the other on a café date and it's atrocious. Neither of them has any idea how to do that any more. Homura drinks coffee silently and thinks about being at home reloading guns because she feels incapable of contributing anything to this. Madoka can't remember how to have a conversation where she isn't lying about anything. Sayaka shows up and they have to explain themselves and it goes awfully. They kiss afterwards but mostly because they both promised themselves they would someday and it's the worst for everyone involved, including Sayaka, who thinks Original!Madoka is lying to her about her new girlfriend and gets really upset about it because I'm not the homophobe, Hitomi is!

It doesn't go great, is what I'm saying.

(They have exactly one nice night. Madoka slips tranquilizers into Homura's tea, then puts her to bed and gets in next to her. Homura wakes up the next day warm and rested in a way she hasn't been in a few subjective years, with the girl she loves by her side, and for an instant she considers running away together and living until they become witches, and finding happiness in someone who really understands what it's like, this central and defining nightmare of Homura Akemi's life.

But this isn't the Madoka who counts. This isn't the Madoka who can stay with her family and friends and never become a witch, who can have the ordinary life that Homura desperately wanted for herself and could never get. They are, the both of them, doomed.)

[ellieellieoxenfree]

52 weeks, 52 movies: april

yeah whatever i finally got around to it rewatches denoted with *; bold denotes favorites watched.

straight-jacket (usa) — after a gay scandal potentially threatens to end movie star guy stone’s (matt letscher) career, he’s forced to marry an unaware secretary (carrie preston) to keep up appearances, which becomes considerably more difficult after he falls in love for real.

it PAINS me to give this movie a bad review. it really, really does. it has all the ingredients i should like — matt letscher, carrie preston, homosexuality, mid-century american satire — and yet it has all the life and wit of a damp paper towel. letscher appears pained to be in the thing, not so much sleepwalking through the role but actively grimacing through it. carrie preston is usually reliable, but you can see too much of the glue holding her performance together and what should be frothy and campy just comes off as almost embarrassingly try-hard. the chemistry between letscher and adam greer, who plays his communist boyfriend, rick stone, is…well, nonexistent. greer is trying, again, but one person cannot carry a two-person relationship, and stone really isn’t so much of a character as he is a stereotypical hodgepodge of liberal talking points.

straight-jacket was a play first, which shows up in glaringly obvious and detrimental ways — it’s blocked like a play, with stagey sets and shoddy CGI standing in for actual era-appropriate sets. the whole thing feels claustrophobic and limited, and there’s no immersion into the 1950s because the set design only takes us about a quarter of the way there. combining the clumsy, amateurish visuals with characters who spout viewpoints decades ahead of what they should be makes for a jarring experience. (rick, again, is the poster child for this, and i doubt anyone could have salvaged the character.)

it also just doesn’t know what it wants to be tonally. it starts out as fluffy camp, then takes a hard left (ha!) turn into serious social commentary and a shoehorned plea for tolerance and acceptance. rest assured, it does none of these things well, and its preachiness manages to drown out whatever scraps of fun could have potentially been gleaned from the comedy. the dialogue aims for pointed zingers and is instead defanged and limp; the pathos just is creaky and gloopily sentimental. i struggled mightily to figure out who this movie could have been for, and what kind of story it was trying to tell, because i don’t think at any point anyone involved in the production knew, either. it kept trying to take flight, but it’s hard to do that when every level of your story is dead on arrival.

pygmalion (1981) (uk) — linguistics professor henry higgins (robert powell) makes a bet that in six weeks, he can pass eliza doolittle (twiggy), a cockney flower girl, off as a duchess in high society.

the 1938 pygmalion is one of my favorite movies of all time — hiller and howard are lightning in a bottle, and the movie sparkles and crackles and shimmers. this was poised to do the same, because robert powell and twiggy are near and dear to my heart and i would watch both of them read the phone book. (yes, i stand by this. have you seen twiggy in the boy friend? delightful. i adore her.) and i did enjoy it, truly! but not quite as much as i thought i would, which was no fault of either lead. instead, it’s damned slightly by being a faithful adaptation of the stage play, and thus it robs us of some of the more emotionally satisfying scenes contained in other versions. twiggy suffers the short end of the stick here most; she’s a fantastic eliza, but we just don’t see enough of her. when she does get to shine, she utterly nails the role. she starts as a live wire of a girl, chaos and noise, but she transforms into composed steel and ice as she undergoes higgins’ tutelage and begins to realize the magnitude of how he’s used her and how disposable he sees her. i was particularly disappointed that her trumph at the society ball is entirely erased from this version, because it robs us of the power of seeing how effective her transformation has been, but she still takes the limited material she’s given — her confrontation with higgins, which is one of the finest moments in any adaptation — and renders it with quiet, chilling devastation. this eliza is not the hysterical woman-child higgins drags off the streets; this is a woman fully in control of her power and destiny and wise enough to know to keep her anger on a controlled simmer. i loved her restraint here. she doesn’t raise her voice or lash out in anger, but delivers her lines with precise, pointed viciousness.

likewise, when she’s fled the higgins household to stay with his much more agreeable, pleasant mother (helen shingler), she knocks it out of the park. this, unlike straight-jacket, understood the importance of adhering to social norms. eliza here feels like a proper edwardian lady, who understands the roles and limitations placed on her, and she carries herself with a quiet grace and dignity that fully centered the production in its historical context in a way i hadn’t seen to such effect before (even in 1938!).

powell, of course, is magnificent, and he relishes the chance to play higgins. higgins is one of the great roles to me, conniving, brilliant, thoughtless, condescending, full of swagger and bravado. he is an awful man but a great character, and powell inhabits him fully. when he and twiggy spark off one another, they’re delightful together. unfortunately, we just don’t get the chance to see them do it often enough. many of the major bones of the story are intact — the ‘gin was like mother’s milk to her’ line is as screechingly funny as always; the aforementioned post-society ball confrontation twists the knife. but we don’t see much of the actual training and eliza’s struggles to learn; we see higgins and his colleague, pickering (ronald fraser) celebrate their success at the ball, but eliza’s actual achievements remain frustratingly off-screen. it feels very appropriate to shaw to give us an adaptation about a woman coming into her full power and still sideline her in favor of giving us more from the men.

still, frustrating flaws aside, this is a real treat to watch for me — two of my favorite stars in one of my favorite plays. it won’t dethrone the 1938 masterpiece, but still glad i was able to get my hands on it. thanks, random amazon seller in the UK. you’re a real one. cadejo blanco (guatemala) — after her sister goes missing, working-class sarita (karen martínez) infiltrates a gang to figure out what happened to her.

there is a scene late in this movie where a young gangster — much like other members of the gang, most likely in his mid-20s at best — tells the protagonist about a criminal he knew growing up. the man stole vehicles, caused chaos, and terrorized the neighborhood, until the day he was found shot in the middle of the street. his death was unmourned; the cops did nothing to apprehend the shooter. the neighborhood, instead, greeted the news with a profound sense of relief.

that, the gangster tells her, is the fate that he knows waits for him. there is no one who will grieve his own early demise. he has no purpose in life other than to fight for an uncaring boss who will just find another warm body to replace him if and when he’s killed. it is an utterly crushing, tremendously powerful scene. he’s a gangster but he’s also just a boy. he’s too young and gangly to be considered a man yet. he’s still figuring himself and his life out, and he’s horribly aware of his own fragile mortality and the limited amount of time he has left.

and the rest of the movie is a miserable, dragging, tonally inconsistent slog around it. it is over two hours long, for some godforsaken reason, anchored by — i’m sorry, but it’s true — a flat, emotionless lead performance from karen martínez. martínez is admittedly a non-professional actor, so asking her to shoulder basically the entire movie is a tall ask, but she’s not up to the challenge. she has some great moments, such as when she corners the rich boy who keeps her around as a side piece and tells him that he’s going to cover for her while she heads off on her quest to find her sister, or she’ll spill all of his dirty sex secrets to his upper-class friends, but she doesn’t convey the emotional range needed for someone who’s heading into almost-certain death. and sarita faces some truly horrific stuff as her gang infiltration progresses, none of which ever quite lands. not all of this is martínez’ fault, because much of it does lie with the writing/direction/editing/cinematography. there’s not really a sense of urgency or dread that ever comes through. things happen, but that’s…it. i say this with the same tone i would use to say that breakfast happened for me this morning. it was a thing that occurred, without emotion or energy. the plot unfolds, but i never quite felt anything about it. sarita’s sister going missing should fill me with something. the violence (of many stripes) she faces should rouse horror or pity or anger in me. it doesn’t. it’s there. it exists. it just sort of…is.

it’s just boring, is the cardinal sin, which is insane considering the subject matter of the movie. but i kept hovering my mouse over the progress bar and asking how in god’s name i still had another 45 minutes to go. remember when you were in elementary school and each minute felt like it lasted twelve days? that was me with this movie. utter drudgery.

but hey, guatemalan spanish is beautiful, so that’s balm in gilead.

the lady assassin (vietnam) — a kidnapped upper-class girl joins forces with a trio of female assassins masquerading as tavern owners to take revenge on visitors.

this movie might be the dictionary definition of ‘i didn’t say it was good, i said i liked it.’ i cannot in any way defend it as a good production — the plot is nonsensical, with more than a few heavy dollops of fanservice; the fight choreography should credit the wires used as an extra cast member; the characters aren’t exactly rife with personality or understandable motivations beyond ‘kill everyone.’ and yet i fucking loved this movie. fucking adored it. it’s ridiculous, it’s idiotic, and it is a fucking blast. it has no pretensions about what it is, which is 75 minutes of beautiful girls in color-coded fancy dresses killing people, having vaguely homoerotic encounters, and playing hands-free beach volleyball (because why not). it has a melodramatic subplot that is best left discovered by the viewer, but it, like everything else in the movie, is dialed up past 11. it’s deliciously campy, but also, if you let yourself get swept away by the nonsense, it’s also oddly sweet and affecting.

information on the movie is limited. it plays like a wuxia satire, really leaning into the overeating and the extremely dramatic moments, but i don’t know if that was the intention behind it. i know it was a box office smash in vietnam, but is almost unheard of in the west (i ordered my copy from a specialty distributor in the UK for a song), and the few people who have seen it seem more critical than anything else.

these people are stupid and wrong and have no joy in their hearts. i’m an expert and i can thus tell you that this movie, if you open your heart to it and let it take up idiotic residence, will change your life for the better. i’m not really sure what to tell people to sell them on it. either you like hot girls with swords or you don’t. either you like fun or you don’t. either you understand that a movie does not have have legitimate artistic quality to be good, or you’re a buffoon. watch the lady assassin. it’s a good time.

other viewing

stomp! shout! scream! (usa)

mean mums s2 (new zealand)

song of summer (uk)

working girls (usa)

the thirty-nine steps (uk)

the prince and the pauper (1937) (usa)

yes, madam! (hong kong)

tattoo (iran)

who framed roger rabbit (usa)

beverly of graustark (usa)

pride (2014) (uk)

quiet on set: breaking the silence (usa)

super mario bros: the search for princess peach! (japan)

rikky and pete (australia)

naz & maalik (usa)

in person (1935) (usa)

spirit of wonder: miss china’s ring (japan)

weird: the al yankovic story (usa)

lights in the dusk (finland)

sordid lives (usa)

adorables (belgium)

the wind phone (japan)

cartoon all-stars to the rescue (usa)

evil bong (usa)

super troopers* (usa)

utama (bolivia)

dredd (usa)

wings (1966) (russia)

while the city sleeps (usa)

h is for happiness (australia)

dillinger (usa)

dune (1984) (usa)

trópico (guatemala)

breath (2018) (australia)

the divine order (switzerland)

[burningexeter]

Here's an entire pitch that I came up with for a spin-off video game called "A Tale Of Darkness" that brings together Tangled and Frozen in an unconventional way.

It's a dark fantasy action adventure video game that is a Tangled/Frozen female-led crossover in a different continuity, has Devil May Cry-influenced gameplay and has a mixture of high-quality computer animated cutscenes that advance the story in their own different and unique ways.

Premise:

"A Tale Of Darkness" tells the story of Anna, the sweet and kind-hearted but klutzy and socially awkward young peasant woman who is too clumsy for her own good, always leaving a mess of a trail behind much to her frustration and is seen as an outcast. It's then on one night after humiliating herself at the "Fall Harvest" due to an incident with a pig that her life is turned completely upside-down when living shadows abduct her mother and 10-year-old sister and take them into the deepest and darkest part of the forest.

There, Anna finds herself in a hidden but deadly magical world right under our noses in an attempt to rescue them against all the odds as she now has a hardened armor attached to her body that gives her pale white skin and incredible fighting skills which she now has to use in order to survive and save her mother and sister.

Along the way not only must Anna overcome the highest stakes possible ranging from the numerous macabre creatures to this hidden world's leader whose responsible for everything occurring to said leader's female soldiers with the same armor, pale skin and skills but also find it in herself the courage, maturity and strength she never knew she had.

However in doing so, Anna ends up unintentionally attracting the attention of a certain soldier by the name of Elsa who later towards the final act offers to team up with Anna after not only being impressed with her skills especially in their previous encounters but also finding out her leader's true intentions.

Notes/Trivia/Details:

• The gameplay will be heavily influenced by a lot of the free-world and combat of the first Devil May Cry game and even The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge while at the same time taking what made those gameplays distinctive and making it all its own.... and also fixing all of the problems RebelTaxi had with Oogie's Revenge in his review.

• As for the aesthetic, like I said it will have the same quality of animation that the films, short and special all have with the cutscenes and aforementioned gameplay being done by WDAS. But at the same time, it will also have a gothic and macabre style to it that is almost Tim Burton-reminiscant especially with the backgrounds.

• Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Mandy Moore and Eden Espinosa will all reprise their roles of Anna, Elsa, Rapunzel and Cassandra. The latter three characters are now in this version or continuity part of the army of soldiers with Cass being a maniacal and manipulative one who later uses it for good, Rapunzel being the good-natured one who always gets pushed around quite literally but finally has enough and finds her own inner strength and Elsa being at first the loyal mook who follows any order that she's told and only breaks them when she feels or thinks it's for the better but then teams up with Anna when she finds out her leader's real plans.

• Three new characters are three grey-skinned female vampires with their own bombastic and enjoyably twisted personalities - Cherry, Elise and Athena - that just like Elsa, Rapunzel and Cass will turn around to the good side through their own means. Influenced by the Brides from Van Helsing in their winged bat forms minus the wings and less over-the-top as they were.

• Anna, Elsa, Rapunzel and Cass will have the same type of armor that Cass had in Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure S3 when she fused with the Moonstone, pale skin and all while at the same time keeping the colors of their hair so said color pops - Anna's hair is brown, Elsa's hair is white, Rapunzel's hair is golden blonde and Cassandra's hair is black. Meanwhile with their armor - Anna's armor is brown, Elsa's armor is white, Rapunzel's armor is purple and Cassandra's armor is black.

• The game will have a dark and intense, scary edge to it that shows us the dangers and stakes that all of the characters, especially Anna, are in and to balance out the lighter aspects. For example, when Anna accidentally ends up falling on Elsa.... Elsa devours her whole. Only for Anna to blast her way out of Elsa's stomach using something she ate way earlier and for later, Elsa puts herself back together in one.

• As for the villain of the video game, the leader that I've mentioned is named Eris and is a cunning, cold-hearted and ferocious master who is later on revealed to have a code she goes by when push comes to shove while at the same time never losing her menace.

• SPOILERS: How it ends is that after going through hell and back and a larger climax than you think, Anna is reunited with her mother and sister only to find out when they're asleep that she still has her armor and that Elsa, Rapunzel, Cassandra, Cherry, Elise and Athena all followed her into her world with Elsa proposing that they use their skills for good and that her and Anna become a couple. Without any other choice, Anna's forced to agree with Elsa embracing her.

Remember, different continuity. They are not related here as they honestly should've been from the getco.

One final thing that should be interesting is without it being obvious is that every now and then there are a few easter eggs that heavily imply a retroactive shared universe and it could be in a shared universe. It's through objects that Eris collects.

[dojae-huh]

hi! briize here to answer ur riize qns :D

riize gained attention initially due to 1) sungchan & shotaro & their new grp 2) a bit bc of anton being yoon sang's son and 3) siren mv because of their difficult choreo!

personally, their success in enlargening their fanbase probably came from tiktok as well? i saw them getting viral in tiktok due to the get a guitar challenge, sohee's talk saxy bridge & anton being 'riize's tiktok social manager' since he (and the members) were rly active in liking and commenting briize's tiktoks + creating rly gen z tiktoks w themselves too

their mainstream success probably came from 1) their performances (they debuted nearing towards award season, so they did a lot of performances i.e. rising sun by tvxq which highlighted their proficiency a lot) & 2) the members' visuals going viral (i.e. wonbin & sungchan who are constantly getting mentioned by hong seokcheon)

riize has rly become monster rookies since they debuted, earning rookie of the year titles less than 6 months of their debut. sohee is being lauded by his seniors for his vocals, wonbin is constantly on the spotlight for being a 'once in a generation' visual who's likened to jaejoong (and jaejoong knows this as well).

and although most news do center on seunghan's situation, that still pushes riize's name to the forefront, esp when it comes to briize's relentless support (rii7e forever 🥹)

and yes, there's no leader! they don't exactly have set titles aside from the basic dancer, vocal, rapper (sohee's the only one labeled as 'main' as the main vocal!)

riize's name was formed by sungchan, and riize as a group was set to debut due to a choreo by shotaro & wonbin which the 7 of them did together. they still don't have a full album yet, and is going to comeback in april iirc?

hope i was coherent and it's helpful 😭

Hi, thank you for the detailed overview!

So several factors contributed: virality of challenges and choreo, timing of the debut, members' visuals. It's interesting that Anton supervises tiktok, heh. SM's early attempts at using the platform for promotion were very clumsy, the staff didn't know what to do, while few neos, aside from Tae, are interested in tt. Younger people are needed, who grew up with the platform and know it and its algorythms well.

I'm somewhat baffled about Seunghan's situation. I'd think he is on hiatus to let the group go through the debut stage more smoothly, have time to gain strength and a dedicated core fanbase, however, other members also get accused of things. And the fandom seems to stand with him, asking for OT7. Taeyong was also hated by knets during the debut, SM didn't remove him. Demands to get rid of Irene, Chen also were ignored. Which makes me think that either Seunghan's mental state plummeted and he asked for a leave himself. Or there are more idols and companies involved, I heard a rumour that one of the winners of Girls planet was taken out from the final debutet line-up (Illit) due to her connection to Seunghan's group of friends.

How dooes Riize function without a leader? Fans invented positions in the first place, and, as far as I know, NCT got theirs with a delay. It seems that it's a 5gen trend for groups to not have fixed positions.

A full album is too early. It takes a couple of years for a group to make one. Some groups never release a full album. But, perhaps, you meant an EP? I see only singles in their discography. 4 songs with language versions + 1 special project.

Wish also started with singles. So did aespa, actually. Seems like a new strategy in SM. 127's first EPs are poorely know. People buy/download single songs, and often don't look into the whole discography.

[stardust-in-my-mind-blog]

singing part 2

I had a good time last night, and surprise myself with what inspires me. So much inspires me and suddenly I am filled with the golden warmth of beauty and creativity and wanting to express it. Going back to singing was hard for me, even though I knew I had nothing to fear, I still had to convince my body. I spent a lot of time self-soothing and validating all the feelings running through my body. Mostly anxiety. Am I somehow afraid of the intensity of my emotions? Is my fear myself? Becoming this version? The power of it? Shit I don't know. I went first to visit the swans and koi pond in Rockford. The closest "city" to me is known as the scruffier and far worse Chicago. I like to think of it like the River Styx being a river of underworld stones. I also feel like fording rocks is a far different game than fording water. I've played Oregon Trail. I know things.

I love the way the swan moves. The gentleness in his eyes and how his body operates in bird time. They move differently than chickens, but that makes sense. They are a water bird. There is something different about the energy of water birds. I also went to the blooming rose gardens and got lost in the hyperfocus of documenting the colors and names of each. The sun was perfect. Golden hour. I'm excited to look over the photos and maybe post some here. There's one particular rose called 'Love's Promise' that I found interesting. It's a white rose that literally looks blood splattered. Poetically accurate for sure. It was so nice to just focus on nothing but the present moment. If I have the freedom and time, my first instinct is always to delight in the world and my first desire is to find a way to express the joy I find in its beauty. I saw some of the people from the last time I went. I saw foot massage guy and I didn't feel weird about it, even gave him a friendly nod. I didn't mind being seen and I made a few friends to sit with at the bar. It feels like high school in some ways. I like the character I rolled this time. I'm going to be able to socialize and do what I need to. My confidence does sometimes get elusive, but I do well in most social situations and am able to stay regulated.

My first song was 'Don't Blame Me'. It was the best one. In my second song I was able to actually feel the music move through my body. Usually it just kind of bounces up and down my chakra systems. It's like I was able to step into it and become one with it this time. I still feel so awkward dancing and singing at the same time. The most fun was just singing along with everyone else. Someone sang, "I Will Go The Distance" by Hercules and for awhile it was euphoric when "Piano Man" came on. They might be looking for a bartender. Maybe I'd be a good bartender. I've never been one of those. Waitressing always made me nervous because I'm sometimes graceful but mostly clumsy. I also forget things so much. Object permanence is a thing. Bar tending doesn't have so many moving parts. Or at least it didn't seem to based on my observation last night. I feel safe there. I feel safe to sing there. I felt safe when I absolutely and utterly crashed and bombed my last song. But I didn't feel like... I failed. It just felt like a song that didn't work for me. Shrug. Move on. I think that' the goal. I'm not taking things as personal failure. Just experience building. Afterwards I went to the river and watched the lights and how they played with the surface and the current beneath it. It looked like Van Gogh's lines of energy in Starry Starry Night. Gorgeous. I felt like I was in a different city, a magical place where everything made sense. Safe. Peaceful. Secure. And it was and it's a mindset I'll keep visiting. In between breaths you notice there is nothing missing in the present moment. In the beauty of spirit. I also got way too overstimulated and couldn't drive home. Night driving is harder for me than daylight driving. Need to figure out how to get my car. I only had a glass of wine in the early evening so I know it wasn't that, but I still didn't want to take any chances. I forget that all the socializing and fun and energy work is wonderful but it also takes a big toll on my energy and ability to focus. It'll balance out. I'm transitioning. Evolving. Unfolding? Losing my mind. Something is happening and it is different. It's beautiful. It's confusing. It's hard to... understand all of it. Likely not meant to. I went. I did stuff. More practice at things I'm not confident in. Feeling safe in environments I didn't used to feel safe in. Embracing the embodiment of what my energy is that day. Goals being met. Responsibility being taken. Progress. Beauty. Being part of the world again as myself.

[monstermaster13]

Corey and Oats Adventure Bios.

Main cast:

Corey: A red covid-19 microbe with yellow eyes and matching spikes, he is also sometimes called King Corey and he is a former villain/alien invader who is now a reformed character and one of the titular protagonists.

Aiyido: A beholder who is pink with one big purple eye and 10 eye-stalks, unlike how most of his species is portrayed, he is a kind beholder who wants to teach others. He loves reading and playing Dungeons and Dragons, he is a skilled dungeon master and he is also caring towards others. He has his own unusual language but also speaks English as well, and he always guards the house when Mel is away, he is extremely intelligent and loves learning about different topics including how to help people with eye-sight problems.

Oats: An anthropomorphic horse who has brown fur and a white muzzle and a black mane, he is male but is very much in touch with his feminine side, he loves all things pink and he loves hugs and cuddles and he loves to model in his pink dresses. His dream is to be a princess.

Melanie ‘Mel’ Sanders: An anthropomorphic female koala with brown hair who lives at Nile Road, she wears a dark blue top and jeans and is very much into horror movies and monsters, she is very protective of her friends and her family.

Matthias/Werebelushi: A recurring additional crew-member, he is part of a species which is a supernatural version of John Belushi, he is a reviewer/ranter who is known for his own special method of dealing with nonsense and bad media.

Eucalyptus: Mel’s best friend who is also a koala-girl, she has dark green hair and she wears dark green clothing and glasses, she is a socially awkward but adorable koala-girl who loves aquatic creatures especially fish, 80s horror and sci fi, Frank Herbert’s Dune (and its adaptations), the works of David Lynch, classic 80’s comedies, dark-synth/horror synth, horror magazines, plants, musical theater and a ton of other things. She has a tendency to be more than a little bit crazy and she has a lot of different hyperfixations and crushes, including characters played by Christopher Walken and Dan Aykroyd, and also Simon Cowell.

Corey’s Microbial Gang:

Corey Covid.

Syd Celiac.

Brian Back Pain.

Harry Heart.

Henry Heart Cell.

Sam Sars.

Samuel T. Scab.

Alcina the Love Covid.

Peter Poop.

Keith Tardigrade.

Speckly Jim the Measels microbe.

Baldrick the Gonorrhea microbe.

Edmund the HIV Microbe.

Marv Mosquito.

Barry Booger.

Victor Vaccine.

Christov the Cold Sore.

Harrion Herpes.

Z’Dar the Zombie Virus.

Eggna the Egg-Cell.

Palm Pals:

Majinko: A Palm Palms unicorn who very much idolizes Oatsie and wishes to be a model and drag artist just like him, he is very expressive and elegant when he trots on stage.

Neiya: A teal Palm Palm unicorn who is best friends with Majinko, they like exactly the same things and Neiya encourages him to seek out his dream of being a model.

Haiden: A brown and white palm pal pony who is shy but passionate and caring.

Prince Ramon: A Palm Pals pony who is a prince, he has some powers but isn’t a unicorn.

Airon: A Palm Pal avocado who is adventurous and sweet.

Marisa: A cheerful and creative apple.

Marisha: A tomboyish cupcake.

Raina: A rainbow who teaches all about positivity.

Dan: A Palm Pal donut who gets his name from Dan Aykroyd, he always brightens up people’s days with his cheerful persona.

Kami: A precocious little female koala.

Heeya: A clumsy but well-meaning donkey who dreams of being the star of his own adventure.

Sylva: A surfboard palm pal.

Sweetette: The smartest cookie you’ll ever meet.

Aivyan: A monster with one eye and two blue horns on his head who lurks in closets and under the bed but he is a kind monster who wants to help others rather than scare them.

Jareth: A goblin palm pal who is named after David Bowie’s character from Labyrinth, he is skittish but loves to play games and puzzles.

Peicha: A timid but rather creative peach.

Beldar: An alien visitor who gets his name from the character ‘Beldar Conehead’.

Frankie: A palm pal who is a pack of french fries.

Greta: A graceful flamingo palm pal who loves dancing.

Tamaro: An avocado toast palm pal.

Pat Star: A starfish palm pal.

Snackles:

Sylvia Mo: A pink female Sloth snackle whose favorite snack is a Push Pop, she is shy but also quite playful and kind.

Coco: A teddy bear snackle who just loves Hershey’s chocolate bars and is very passionate if not a little bit timid and shy at times.

Axcel: An adventurous axolotl snackle who adores Reese’s cups.

Hayden: A socially awkward but caring female hippo snackle who loves Mintos and uses it to make her breath cool and minty fresh, she also loves the taste of it.

Louie: A goofy and fun-loving unicorn snackle who loves Fruit Loops, he is always very festive and upbeat even when something sad happens and he looks up to Oats like he is Oats’ very own child, he is the most beloved of all snackles.

Loli: A female elephant snackle who is very intelligent and sweet-natured, her favorite snack is Chupa Chups.

Pyranno: An orange dragon snackle, he is adventurous and feisty and also fiery, he loves Tobassco sauce and uses it to make his breath hotter and more effective.

The Deadie Bears:

Romero: A zombie deady bear who luckily doesn’t eat brains, actually he just stands around and looks funny most of the time but is actually quite nice and caring.

Lugosi: The leader of the deady bears, he is a debonair and regal vampire deady bear who is always getting lots of attention due to his charm and his irresistibly adorable appearance.

Lon: A Werebear deady bear who tends to act a bit crazier than normal at night but usually during the nights of the full moon or nights in general, he is considered dangerous but isn’t dangerous in actuality and is just playful and mischievous.

Boobert: A ghost deady bear who loves playing pranks and haunting people for fun, he doesn’t really scare them so hard unless they harm him or his friends.

Squishmallows:

Gabriel: A disabled horse squishmallow who always teaches others to follow their dreams.

Squivarius: A colossal squid squishmallow who is a gifted writer.

Lala-lotta: A glamorous stingray squishmallow who is a tan pink color with a white belly.

Herbert: A Cthulhu squishmallow who despite being an elder god, albeit a squishy version of an elder god, isn’t dangerous or evil or destructive, also he doesn’t drive anyone to insanity if they look at him, he is an avid reader and gets his name from the character Herbert West from the novel ‘Reanimator’. His favorite authors are Stephen King and HP Lovecraft. It is shown that when he talks, he speaks in a warm and caring manner.

Sheamus: A prankster squirrel squishmallow who is brown with a nut symbol on their body which is a tattoo.

Laluna: A female unicorn squishmallow who loves singing and loves music, she is often found singing along to her favorite songs and making music based magic spells.

[abigailshorel6]

The line of truth in the media

‘post-truth era’

The line between truth and false hood has become more and more blurred, everyone has there own version of what is true and not.

Everyone has there own version of the truth e.g 9/11, global warming, moon landing, politics etc

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth puts on its boots.”

Fake news has increasing effects on politics, economics and social life

The number of fact-checking outlets has risen to 188 in more than 60 countries, according to a recent survey by the Duke Reporters’ Lab.

Facebook, as one of the platforms where misinformation and false claims circulate the most

A study has shown false news reaches more people that the truth (the top 1% of false news cascades diffused to between 1000 and 100,000 people, whereas the truth rarely diffused to more than 1000 people.)

“False news reach more people than the truth whilst fake news stories are 70% more likely to be retweeted than the true ones.”

 A recent Ipsos survey presents fake news as ‘a global epidemic with a widespread impact’. 

The survey shows that the vast majority of internet users (86%) in 25 countries, say that they have been exposed to fake news, among them nearly nine in ten admit to having fallen victim to fake news and believed it was real, at least once. 

Social media is the most significant source of misinformation, whilst Facebook takes the first place, whereas many as two-thirds (67%) report encountering fake news. And as a part of conventional media, television is also reported as another common source of fake news (51%).

We live in a unique era with clumsy politicians which confuse us on what really happened which makes us more vulnerable against spotting fake news

e.g  the letter written by U.S. President Donald Trump to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan - when released to the media the White House couldn't believe it was real.

“the heart wants what it wants.” and the audience believes what it wants to believe -  the only aim to consuming news for many people to search for verification for their beliefs and the political camps they support

Despite making 13,435 false or misleading claims in 993 days of his presidency, Trump’s approval raiting seems like not that much affected from these claims.

Emotions can be much stronger than the facts; this can be called as ‘fact-resistance’

Another research suggests that misinformed people rarely change their minds when presented with the facts, in opposite they often become even more attached to their beliefs. his explains why some hardliner Trump supporters, climate change deniers and flat-earth believers can get defensive and in rejection, while being encountered the facts, which are opposite to their beliefs.

False stories inspired fear, disgust, and surprise and seen more novel than accurate news. This makes humans more likely to spread fake news than bots.

‘more positive or more negative content tends to be more viral than a piece of content which doesn’t evoke any emotion’ 

In order to access the audiences’ heart, show the ‘human side’ of each story and target the audiences’ emotions, with pointing out the effect of this information in peoples’ daily lives.

People also pay more attention to the content which they can understand, which brings us to our second point: while presenting facts, no matter how complex your data or finding is, make it understandable and also catchy for everyone, write for the general audience

But unless we write for area-specific experts, we should take a ‘audience-centric’ approach and think why this information is important for our audience and how it can be explained by the easiest way possible.

Visualization of the information by infographics, charts, maps, or diagrams can also serve the aim of creating impactful, comprehensible and concise content while presenting facts. 

After my tutorial I decided to focus my project on the line of truth in the media. Although I have already looked at this subject through looking at fake news in general I wanted to look at the line of truth in more detail. Having a full understanding of my topic will help me tell my story in a more convincing way and know better how to address my audience.

[earnestlyegos]

Ack! I had a bunch written out for engineer, but I lost the doc ;-; here's a few from the top of my head

-he's a reincarnation/alternate reality version of Damien (same with Celine and cerci)

-He has social anxiety and is very clumsy when people are around, but by himself, he's very organised and accurate with what he's doing

-he's not aware of being a markiplier ego since he doesn't mention any of the other egos

-(or alternatively) iswm as a whole is actor marks production for the viewer

Plus one I found another one for yancy:) (I'm really sorry Eric but I google does not like me right now lol)

-He didn't actually go to prison for the murder but rather something small( the most common one I've seen is pickpocketing/stealing) post murder

-🗡

for engie:

the first one isnt true, but the rest for him are! he wasnt aware when he first arrived, which really made it hard for everyone cause he’s was a bit delusional— he is also very shy of other people, and tends to stick by captains side, cause its the only person he feels safe enough to trust!

uhh for me, i’s turned myself in after killin my Ma ‘n Pa, i was never no good at pick pocketin, i’s kinda hard t’ miss, ha!!

but uh, do feel free to keep these comin!! sorry if i’s answering rudely or anythin, i’s just like how others portray us, its always fun t’ hear :]

[richardsphere]

Lets Watch IceQueendom because Crunchy Sank My cost for the month-blog S1E2.

Why does Lisa Lavender sound like a robot? Lichtenberg-free Nora. Look how cute and innocent you still are. The implication that Weiss actually knows Pyrrha from the cornflakes instead of “knowing her as a champion, but vaguely aware she happens to be on cornflakes” is funny. Can you imagine S1 I am elite of the elite, Weiss eating childrens breakfast cereal? The implication that Jaune has healthier eating habbits then Weiss is also odd. Moving the Blakeversation to before the Weissplosion makes blake seem a bit more ass-ish, and Ruby now recognises the SDC by name on the news and is suddenly a lot more politically aware because the show wants Weiss to be more likeable (by removing the weiss-splosion.) This results in us missing the “ruby makes her first friend” scene. Emerald forest is moved up, no introduction speech from Oz, but he does provide a map of the forest this time around. There are lockers on the plane now. and it seems we’re going to lose the “ruby makes her first friend Jaune” scene entirely. timing accindally implies that this version of jaune has enough social awareness to notice Pyrrha was uncomfortable with Weiss’ attention and is just doing it to distract Weiss. (probably not intentional on the writers part but funny nonetheless) I dont know if the planes ability to turn its feet into legs is cannon or not, as a result of us getting to see both ends of the line-up on the launchpads at the same time, there are so much fewer students in this version. Which makes the inclusion of faceless NPC’s in the lineup particularly weird. Blue-and-lavender wizard is the spin-offs prerequisite “OC Please dont sue” character, I have decided that whenever I want to draw a distinction between Ice Queendom versions and Regular i will refer to them as IQ!x and ML!x (ML for MainLine) IQ! Yang has a directly oppositelanding strategy, shooting her blasters forward to slow herself down. In the process she loses some of the “devil-may-care” attitude presented by ML!Yang’s shooting them backwards to get more mileage out of that initial launch. (I also remember ML!Yang had sunglasses to emphasize the devil-may care). IQ! Yang is being portrayed as relatively more sensible as a result. IQ!Ruby shoots her sniper once by accident, to hearken to her early series and lands by using Crescent Rose as a sort of Pogostick type thing instead of ML!Ruby bleeding out energy through rotation around a treetrunk. This is probably to emphasize her relative early-series clumsiness. Jaune’s Landing Strategy is the only one shown so far not to change at all. IQ!Pyrrha’s interaction with Jaune is played for intimidation, rather then charm. I honestly dont know why, IQ!Grimm are a lot more, uncanny and less animalistic in apearance. This makes them scarier but less charming. Somehow IQ!Ruby cant hit the broad side of a barn. the first IQ!Whiterose fightscene is much more “weiss did everything for Ruby” then its ML! equivalent. IQ!nora’s “its broken” line refers to a pillar she knocks the ursa into. Instead of the ursa she rodeo’d to death. I assume this is because the rodeo would’ve cost too much to animate. As a result IQ!Ren’s “could you try to fight a little more normally” makes no sense. All she did was use her hammer, as a hammer. No IQ!Blake, she was not riding an ursa. She hit it from behind, dont keep lines of dialogue referencing events you didnt animate. IQ!Whiterose arrive running from the nevermore instead of using Nora-ing as a method of transportation. I presume this is to sell the credibility of Grimm as a threat more. Operation Run&Live is seemingly IQ!Blake’s idea instead of ML!Jaune. (removing the early indication of Jaune’s strategic mind behind the early cowardice in the process) Operation Hammer&Nail remains, but the irony of the Deathstalkers fate is removed. IQ!Weiss is nicer during Operation Scythe-a-Pult then i remember her being (but that might just be my memory) Did the launch-glyph turn red in ML! as well? I dont know, but then again i’ve always struggled to tell Weiss’ glyphs apart. They almost all are either “white sigil” “black Sigil” and “light blue sigil bordering on white” so i never know what the ever-loving frickfrack Weiss is using her powers for this time. Wait... thoughts coming to my mind now. 1-the Schnee Semblance is unique in that it is inheritable, 2-The schnee semblance can summon grimm 3-Cannon shows that Salem and Oz’s children inherited magic. I hope the logical conclusion of those facts doesnt end up being cannon cause that would be so dissapointing as a narative twist. But I only noticed it now mid-rant on how annoyingly weird the schnee glyps are. (last time i thought about the Schnee’s breaking all the established semblance rules was before The Lost Fairy Tale episode of Mainline) Getting back Off-tangent and on-episode though: Lavender Wizard has found their grimm’s hiding spot.  Teams are ceremonied IQ! Weiss is frustrated and has a scar on her neck she didnt have in ML! (probably relates to Wizards Grimm somehow) ---- All in all, this episode is semi-decent at combining the Shining Beacon and Initiation episodes, though it loses the Pyrha&Jaune Aura Exposition scene. And Pyrrha lost like, most of her pleasant demeanor as well. Which probably doesnt matter that much if this season focusses on Weiss and R_BY but is still a sad loss to witness.

[demonic--scare]

Deaftale’s info!!

this post contains some stuff, such as murder, death, swear words, etc. this AU is also LGBTQIA, so i beg of you, PLEASE LEAVE IF YOU DONT SUPPORT <3 i dont allow non-supporters of the LGBTQIA. This post is extremely long, and it’s not rlly that organized tbh…plz forgive me…also, please do not gatekeep. this is an Alternate Universe, a different version of undertale. Do not accuse me of stealing, please. more info can be found here

↓

This is what you’ve been waiting for!! I’ll post the designs later hahahah

LETS GET INTO IT!!!

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Sans - he’s much more energetic than og!sans, which caused a increase in his HP, which is now 680 HP. Sans is Deaf, and he always has been, but he never got the cochlear implants because he doesn’t want them. Sans does know American Sign Language, and so does a few other monsters, but he only uses ASL to communicate with Papyrus. Sans gets frustrated easily, and sometimes expresses it in unhealthy ways, like hitting his head(or skull)- Sans is demisexual and uses he/they pronouns, but mainly he/him. Sans is..kinda cold towards Frisk when they first meet, but he opens up later on!

Papyrus - Papyrus’ food is actually edible- He is learning ASL, and its going well! Papyrus doesn’t want to join the royal guard, EVER. He’s always around Sans for communication purposes. Papyrus is aroace and uses he/them. He is still friends with Undyne, and Undyne was actually the reason why Papyrus wants to become a chef when he gets on the surface!

Toriel - Toriel doesn’t fight Frisk when they wanted to leave the ruins, Toriel understands why. Toriel still loves Asgore, thats why she and Asgore decided that they needed a break until things work out. Toriel is straight and uses she/her.

Alphys - Alphys is really clumsy and very nervous, but she always tries her best! Alphys doesn’t beat herself up abt messing up anymore. Alphys is still a anime nerd and will always be hahahdmsks- Alphys is bisexual and uses she/her-

Undyne - Undyne knows that anime isnt real. Undyne uses she/they pronouns and is a lesbian <3 Undyne is..tough, but Undyne can get rlly nervous, like when you ask her how babies r made. Undyne was the one who got Papyrus interested into culinary arts b/c Papyrus didnt rlly do anything except clean when Sans didnt need communication and take care of the humans that fell, so yeah-

Mettaton - Mettaton wont ask you if you would smooch a ghost b/c thats super weird- Mettaton is transgender(he/him) and he is demiromantic <3 Mettaton doesn’t like to talk only abt themselves. Mettaton’s show is all about quizzes with less severe consequences, the quizzes cover a lot of topics too!

Napsblook - he’s pretty social, but not too social b/c introvert vibes- Napsblook is aromatic, and he uses he/they pronouns(mainly he/him)- Napsblook doesn’t mind being called Blooky by anyone. Napsblook isn’t on Mettaton’s show b/c of the noises and lights, so he helps Alphys in the lab instead b/c he doesn’t mind watching the show on TV since the lights are less bright and the sounds are less loud- Napsblook does have a vessel but its a lot smaller than Mettaton due to lack of resources </3

Frisk - Frisk is one of the few humans who tried to communicate with Sans. Frisk isn’t used to people being nice to them b/c of his home life. Frisk is genderqueer and uses any pronouns, including neopronouns, and ze is demisexual. Frisk had a crush on a cute Deaf girl but she was murdered.

Chara - Chara is blind, and they were lead to the mountain by their so called friends. Chara is nonbinary, and they are questioning their sexuality- Chara was born on October 31st, 1992 & the year is 2003, so Chara is 11 years old. Chara fell at 8 years old. Chara uses Asriel as their seeing-person. Chara got cancer and they weren’t able to beat cancer due to lack of medical stuff required to help fight cancer.

Asriel - Asriel is really shy and timid at first, but he opens up if you’re deemed not a threat! Asriel is sensitive to sound, and how Asriel copes with really loud noises can vary, but the common reaction for Asriel is hitting someone that is the closest to Asriel. Asriel(and Flowey) is 11, like Chara. Asriel uses he/them, and Azzy is bisexual. Azzy is Asriel’s nickname

Flowey - he’s a lil shit, but they do get nervous when Chara is mentioned, b/c he and Azzy are the same person.

Asgore - Asgore doesn’t want to hurt anyone anymore, but he has no idea how to tell Toriel that he doesn’t want war anymore.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

i spent too much time on this 💀💀

srry if its cringe, idk how to not make things cringe brrr

[absolutebl]

BLs with the most interesting & unique premises

I like me some pretty standard romance trope foundations. We Best Love is one of my favorite BLs, and there is absolutely nothing unique about the story. But there are a few BLs out there that really do have something DIFFERENT going on with their narrative. Not just different as BLs but also different as romances. So much so that I would pull them out of the BL universe, and put them up against the best romance dramas and romcoms on the basis of concept. And I don’t say that about BL often. 

Color Rush

For a reader of genre fiction the premise of this world is a very in your face allegory, but in BL we NEVER get this kind of thing. Magical realism isn’t completely absent from the BL cannon, but this type, were it’s a blatant representation of the homophobia experienced in a hostile society is really fascinating and rare. Especially as we get to watch Korea dance around its own social norms so dexterously. I’m reminded of Star Trek’s “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” (1969). Like that episode, from an outsider/future perspective, Color Rush probubly could be regarded as clumsy, but also like that episode it’s important in context: for what is says about the time it was made and the culture it’s sitting inside. Both shows got to be brave BECAUSE of their SFF elements. As a long time geek about high concept genre narratives tackling subversive materials in interesting ways, I am HERE for Color Rush and will never not support it.

Also from Korea?

First Love Again - I just love the gay twist on the tired reincarnation trope, it’s a clever new way to get at bisexual awakening and identity crisis, it was just that the shortness of this series didn’t allow for it to be adequately developed and Korean social norms didn’t allow it to to be full explored and focused on. Review here. 

Love Class - a university class focused on relationships is an interesting twist on fake dating and forced proximity tropes, but ultimately I found that aspect the least successful thing about this show (it probubly would have been better as a longer treatment with more time spent in the classroom and on the assignments). Review here. 

Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding - Korea is famously fond of a crossdressing historical, this was our first man crossdresses as a woman version and one of the first blatantly BL historicals. I really enjoyed its almost fairy tale execution. More are coming, so it’s about to be rendered mundane in retrospect, but at the time it came out it was revolutionary. Review here. 

In general, Korea really enjoys high concept romance with a strong POV that’s sometimes considered a bit in your face (on messaging) by mainstream western audiences (but which is very successful when applied to genre, see Squid Games or Uncanny Counter). So I expect to see more and more from them in their BL too. Fingers crossed. 

Until We Meet Again 

Fated mates (or soulmates) and reincarnation aren’t unusual. in fact they’re particularly popular as they activate both long term pining and reunion romance narrative foundations. (Not to mention being the ultimate version of “the only one for me.”) However, the way UWMA handles the red thread trope, and the cleverness of its interweaving past/present story structure is entirely unique and vitally gay, not just in BL but in fiction. I’ve never read anything as tidy and well executed. It’s a genuinely awe inspiring narrative structure. 

Also from Thailand?

Cutie Pie - this one is noted for taking the SUPER classic romance trope, arranged marriage, and doing a BL based on it. Is that absurd? Yes. Also turning ARRANGED marriage (by its nature disallowing choice) into a propaganda piece for marriage equality (all about choice) was very much an “oh, Thailand” moment. But hey, it’s utterly unique as a BL, and likely to remain so. Review here. 

Ingredients - look it’s a weird long form advertisement Gold Blend couple style only gay, in lockdown, and hella domestic. Yet we loved it. But as a premise, pretty fucking unique. As a narrative? No there isn’t one really, but do we care? Nope. Review here. 

Love Sick - it is unique for its time and IMHO the world’s first gay YA soap opera. Sure we got gay soaps (Queer As Folk, L Word) but not set in high school. Certainly more are happening now with Heartstopper etc.. but Love Sick happened in 2014. Never forget, never surrender. Everyone should watch this show. It’s messy as all get up, but it holds up, and it’s a great example of emotional chemistry. We unquestionably watch these two boys fall deeply in love and then have to deal with the fallout. 

Lovely Writer - the first BL that stuck to its guns as a BL and still decided to take the BL industry and fandom to task, there were others coming out around the same time (Call it What You Want) and since then a few have been doing this in more subversive ways (Not Me, Bad Buddy, Secret Crush On You) but Lovely Writer was the first super successful attempt. Review here. 

Like with Cutie Pie, Thailand has done a lot of classic romance tropes first in BL: the reaper lover (Dear Doctor), lots of body swap (Great Men), kink (DSN), time loop (Triage), it’s just these tropes are ubiquitous to romance in general and I’ve kind of always expected them to transition to BL. You see, they often work better with a bit of queer coloring them up for range. Arranged marriage, on the other hand (outside of a historical cross dressing sitch, which probubly wouldn’t work for Thailand given their period clothing options), none of us really expected this one. Honestly it’s why many of us are patently waiting for Thailand to give us the gay Boys Over Flowers. Making popular Asian romance tropes gay is what they do best. 

Seven Days

Speaking of clever. The premise on this (what amounts to a very simple) contemporary YA romance, is so perfectly tight and unusual that there’s an “idea theft” scandal around it. (An author wrote an English language book that is clearly derivative. Before we get into it, you can’t copyright ideas, and if you see the tropes tracked in this blog I hope you can see why. There are no new ideas, there are only twists on old ones.) Review here. 

Also from Japan?

Cherry Magic AKA 30-sai made Dotei Da to Mahotsukai ni Nareru rashii - another magical realism take, like Color Rush, but without the allegory. Still it’s utterly charming and unusual, although of a style we see in manga and het Japanese romcoms a lot. 

Silhouette of Your Voice AKA Hidamari ga Kikoeru - probubly one of the first BLs to tackle disability, ultimately (I feel like) the source material (manga series starting with I Hear the Sunspot) is successful but this adaptation is not. It’s sad because the cast is great and the premise solid, it just didn’t push itself enough. 

Japan doesn’t really like high concept so much as they love exploring the boundaries of romantic subversion, kink (particularly fetishes), and just plain weirdness. Trying to describe Japan’s relationship to the romance genre (especially romcoms) to someone unfamiliar with their oeuvre is exhausting. I usually point people at the popularity of Kimi Wa Petto and back away slowly. I recently watched Ase to Sekken and the degree to which I enjoyed it I think says more about my willingness to swim through the mires of Japan’s quirks than it did about the success of the show. Which is a long way of me saying, I’m not sure how good I am at judging Japanese stuff anymore, since I seem to be firmly stuck in the weeds. But I can confidently say that even with BL, Japan is more likely than not going to push your expectations and limits of what romance actually even means. The best example of this in BL form is Utsukushii Kare. If you watch that, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. 

DNA Says Love You

This is a BL that tackles subject matter that usually makes said BL fall out of BL-dom by becoming too queer and realistic (and often depressing). The fact that DNA brought it around and made it end happily (and made it very BL) is part of it’s uniqueness. Because it’s a twist, I can’t really talk directly about it but trust me, it’s pretty darn unique in the arena of BL. And you’re safe, it is a BL with a very happy ending. 

Now, there are a few queer dramas out of Japan and the west that tackle this particular subject matter more directly. But I don’t want to spoil anyone by naming them, because they are all known for what they rep. If you want recs I can put some in the comments. 

Also from Taiwan?

Innocent - short but VERY unusual take on romance in, around, and (in certain ways) WITH an extreme neurological disorder, and yes it’s happy in its way (and more honest about mental health than usual for Taiwanese or Chinese romances) - or romance in general, for that matter (and yes I am looking at you, The Tuxedo) 

Papa & Daddy - less a BL than a slice of gay life, I’m mentioning it because it’s so different and so very queer - the narrative, however, is still pretty pat 

Taiwan actually has the social capacity to push this more than any other country, but they don’t have the funds or the industry. I’d LOVE to see them put a love rivals to lovers tope on screen, for example. Speaking of which... 

Hay Rival, I LOVE YOU! 

Two boys (jock & nerd) learn that they are both dating the same girl. At first they hate each other, but then they decide to get together and take revenge. In the process they fall in love with each other instead. This is a classic love rivals to lovers story, which by its nature MUST be queer. It’s my favorite trope of all time and it’s so rare to find in use. (Waves and Jack & Koh in Gen Y 2). To my knowledge this short is the first time it’s been put on screen ever, maybe. 

Also from Vietnam?

My Lascivious Boss - it’s fake identity, but the queerest take ever. Look we have gotten some falling in love with a cross dressing “boy,” but I wouldn’t call it ubiquitous. And mostly they deal with a trans identity. This one is about drag, and falling in love with a drag persona. In that regard, i think this is a first, certainly the first pure romance based on this premise, and unquestionable the first BL. Review here. 

Honestly, Vietnamese BL has a lot of unique qualities married to premise, it’s one of its charms (in addition to their ultra high domesticity). It’s just that there is so little VBL, it’s hard to make firm judgement calls on taste and trends.  

Gameboys 

This is notable for being not just the first lockdown romance we got in BL but one of the first lockdown romances the world got at all (on screen). Certainly plenty were written. But a combination of speedy production and engaging cast made this (originally intended as a fun webs series) get picked up for wide distribution pretty much instantly. Not everyone wanted to experience love in lockdown, many viewers who might have watched didn’t because they wanted escape from reality. But plenty of others wanted to watch the possibility of love in lockdown. They wanted the see two adorable boys find love virtually in our times, and then end happily, so they had hope for themselves. And this show did THAT perfectly and with such an honest queerness it found a home in people’s hearts all over the world, well beyond BL fandom. 

Also from the Philippines?

Rainbow Prince - the first high production Disney-style BL. There have certainly been gay musicals before (see Were the World Mine) but this one set out to be very BL about it. Was it successful? That depends on your tolerance for such cartoony things. Mine is low, and i don’t love musical theater or singing feelings, so for me they didn’t manage to limbo under it. 

Like Taiwan, the Philippines has the capacity for greatness in regards to unique premise and story but not the capital. I’m hoping Rainbow Prince was successful enough to give us more, but I’m afraid it was not and might be taken as a bellwether for them to retreat to less experimental safer (cheaper) arenas of BL. 

Sirs Not Appearing on The Above List

I just know someone is gonna jump into my comment thread and mention some of these. Now, I don’t entirely consider many of these BLs but as there is a case to be made. And as they are on my spreadsheet of doom and certainly tangential to the genre, they get shout outs. 

Manner of Death

Gay romantic suspense is common in the romance world, basically it’s own sub genre. But this is the first time I’ve seen it coupled to the BL market. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s successful as a show in balancing the two, neither the suspense/mystery element nor the romance elements were particularly well done by modern standards, but it’s still a REALLY fun show. The action sequences are decent, and the chemistry cannot be faulted, even though the show depends on MaxTul’s established chemistry rather than bothering to establish it itself. You read me going though the rollercoaster of figuring out this show here. 

Not Me 

I talk a lot about why I don’t really think this is BL but, like it’s forerunner (3 Will Be Free), it is a very special and unique take on... everything. The romance is underdeveloped and secondary to the plot, but that plot is not quite strong enough to carry a show. Still, what it’s trying to do is very interesting and what it accomplishes as a queer narrative is kinda remarkable. Like Manner of Death, though, it’s lazy about establishing the romance arc, relying on OffGun’s established chemistry to make the couple pop off the screen. And they do pop. Review here. 

I feel bound to mention the excellent 3 Will Be Free, which is so unique and different I really don’t think it qualifies as BL at all. It is excellent though, I highly recommend it. 

Guardian

Parallel fantasy world, or what amounts to urban fantasy with superhero elements and a police procedural foundation is actually not uncommon in gay romance (we’ve even got police procedural before from China as a censored bromance see S.C.I Mysteries), but I’ve never seen it on screen before in this guise. Of course it’s China so its censored. Still it’s a very interesting series. I don’t love it the way some do and, as with everything not-het out of China, be wary of the ending. 

Untamed and Word of Honor probubly also should go here. I just don’t personally consider either of them that interesting or unique since I’ve seen both the setting and the romance pairing archetypes quite a few times before. Also, since they were so censored and caused such scandal within China, I don’t see them impacting the BL genre going forward, and I don’t think we’ll get more like them for a long while, if ever. They are unique because of oppression, and that makes me sad to think about. 

(source)

[after-witch]

A Simple Cup of Tea [Yandere Scaramouche x Reader]

Title: A Simple Cup of Tea [Yandere Scaramouche x Reader]

Synopsis: You have to be prepared and poised and perfect. But it’s hard to be all those things, even with the looming threat of your husband sitting next to you, when you’ve got a secret hidden underneath your clothes...

Word Count: 1875

Notes: yandere, forced marriage, abuse, bondage, NSFW 

Poised.

You must be poised. Every movement, every gesture, must embody a quiet grace. Your face must be pleasant, without seeming garishly joyous. Your voice must be soft, melodic, clear; yet loud enough to be heard without being required to repeat yourself. 

You must know how to keep a conversation going smoothly, like water in a stream, yet understand when to keep silent. You must know all of these things and so much more, and act on them at all times in the proper degree; all in order to avoid embarrass yourself and more importantly, embarrassing your husband.

In other words, you must be perfect.

And you try--you have to try, because what other choice does Scaramouche leave you?--but it’s difficult. You were never born for this stifled life he’s pushed you into, for a life spent mostly within the walls of his home or at most, behind the high, impenetrable walls of the courtyard.

A life draped in rich clothing, overseeing fine details of the estate that make your head spin. How many bags of this or that must be ordered per week? When should the bedding in that room be washed? What is the appropriate amount of money to put in a servant’s purse when sending them to the market? Questions you never imagined yourself asking yourself, which now fill your day with a gilded tedium.

There’s a deceptive leisure lurking underneath everything here. True, you no longer have to travel far and wide, selling your family’s wares from heavy baskets carried on your back; you no longer have to search the edges of the forest for edible plants to toss into boiling broth on days when you could not afford meat. You never want for food (unless he takes your dinner away as punishment) and any comfort you could need is within reach, so long as you’re behaving.

But you are on edge, always. Preparing yourself for another pitfall that might open up beneath your feet, and always looking for ways to improve yourself. Or at least ways to avoid earning your husband’s sharp disapproval. Regardless of your efforts, you have been on the wrong end of a harsh insult, a slap, a pinch, a cane, more times than you care to count.

Be prepared, be poised, be perfect. It’s the mantra you repeat to yourself every morning.

The mantra you repeated to yourself this particular morning, in preparation for a meeting he insisted you attend. A meeting which apparently required your finely-tuned skills in pleasing conversation and your much-practiced ability to “pour a passable cup of tea.”

Anyone else might assume it was meant to be an insult, but your time with Scaramouche has led to you to understand that the slightest praise towards you, while minuscule to others, was something you were meant to fall on your knees and thank him for. Sometimes literally, depending on his mood.

Why he wanted you to pour tea for some delegates from Fontaine, and what their increasing presence in the area really meant, you didn’t know. But it wasn’t your place to ask him, and the memory of recent stinging pain on your backside keeps you from feeling even remotely tempted to broach the subject.

So here you are. Dressed elegantly, but not garishly, as is proper for his wife. With a tea pot in your hand and perfectly arranged cups and the ghost of a pleasing smile on your face. Charming words drip from your lips, pleasantries, pleasantries, pleasantries--the type of words Scaramouche loathes yet drums into you all the same.

Prepared, poised, perfect.

Except for the slight tremble of your hands.

Except for the uncomfortable hitch in your breath as you speak.

Except for the fact that there are ropes tied snugly around your breasts, wrapping around your chest and criss-crossing between your breasts with an uncomfortable pressure, all hidden underneath the outfit he’d chosen for you that afternoon.

You’d balked, first--then begged. Begged not to be humiliated like this. What if someone sees? What will people say? You’d even tried to appeal to his pride, suggesting that if you couldn’t fully concentrate on your duties, well, how would that reflect on him?

All that earned you was a glint of a smirk and a tug as he knotted the rope encircling your breasts, making it even tighter than before. His final threat at your continued pleading--”I can always make you go out in nothing but the ropes”--finally shut you up.

And so, here you are. Face hot with shame and something more, silently pleading that your clothing won’t somehow shift and reveal the secret underneath. Despite the layers covering you, you still feel naked, exposed. As if the people indulging in polite conversation can see right through you, see the way your breasts are framed by the itchy ropes. See the way your body is responding to such a total humiliation. 

It’s not just the chafing rope that bothers you. It’s the pressure itself. It feels… no, you don’t want to think about how it feels.

Instead, you hone your focus in on the task at hand. Pouring the tea, a nice subtle blend made with Violetgrass flowers. A previous round of guests from Fontaine had enjoyed it so well that Scaramouche had you tell the teashop to start stocking up for future visits.

You wish you could hide the way your hand trembles ever so slightly as you pour the last cup of tea for a woman whose name you regrettably can’t remember. You normally repeat their names over and over in your head, lest you forget and endure Scaramouche’s sharp tongue (if not his cane) later on; but your predicament made it impossible to keep track of new information.

You might be able to enjoy the tea, enjoy the facsimile of polite conversation weaving its way around the table, if only you weren’t so distracted by the tightness, the chafing, the undeniable fact that--oh Archons above, that all of this was making your nipples humiliatingly hard underneath your clothing.

“Do you agree, wife?”

All eyes glance at you. Whatever Scaramouche just said had clearly be addressed to you, only you were too distracted to notice.

In the moments that you’re left half-gaping, mentally groping to somehow pull his previous words out from the ether, his hand snakes around your waist. You feel his fingers on the outside of the soft fabric, searching until they find their intended target--the knot--and tugging hard to tighten it further.

You gasp, your body lurching upward and forward at the sudden sensation of your breasts being squeezed, and the tea pot you’re still holding drops to the table. Time seems to slow to a thick crawl, and you can see the pot is not cracked, but tipped over, hot tea spilling onto the table underneath with abandon.

The sight of the dark brown stain spreading, trickling underneath saucers and cups, leaves you helpless until you force your shaking hands to grab the pot and set it back up on the table.

“I, I--” you start to stutter something. An apology? An explanation? But the constricting ropes and the dawning realization that you have just committed an extensive social faux pas--in front of guests, no less--leaves you helplessly unable to speak.

The guests, for their part, look suitably uncomfortable. The woman whose name you can’t remember is holding onto her cup, saving it from being intercepted by the trickling tea. You don’t know whether their looks are because of your embarrassing display or because they know your husband’s reputation, and feel pity for you. Perhaps a bit of both.

Scaramouche’s voice cuts through the tension, though it does nothing to lessen it.

“I apologize for my wife’s clumsiness,” he says. “I should have realized that she wasn’t up to the apparently complex task of serving tea.” His voice is dripping with condescension, making more heat rise to your cheeks.

Humiliation does not begin to describe what you feel as he gently--public appearances, you think--takes your arm and stands, bringing you with him.

“Perhaps you are ill.” He looks you up and down, faux-concern written all over his face. But you know what he’s really thinking about, as his eyes linger on your chest for a fraction longer than they should.

You swallow hard, and do your best to nod. It doesn’t take any effort to look ashamed at what’s transpired.

“I--I have been feeling unwell,” you say, making sure to project loud enough for the audience he’s curated for you. “I may be too tired.”

He shakes his head, as if he can’t believe your silliness. A silly, silly wife--that’s what you are. Never mind that it’s all his fault. Never mind that he chose to do this to you, and chose to do it in front of guests. 

A small, bitter part of you resents the guests for being there at all, resents the fact that they probably know you’re an unwilling ornament to the Harbringer’s obsession but do nothing about it.

But what good does resenting them do, when it won’t change your fate?

He takes your hand and gives it a pat, each touch patronizing to the core.

“Apologize to our guests and go rest. And send someone more capable to clean up your mess.”

You have to apologize for the fact that you spilled tea due to his decision to engage in some perverse bondage in a public fashion. You have to apologize for the fact that he deliberately made you do it, too, knowing how you might react when he pulled the rope.

It’s horrible and humiliating and unfair. 

But you do it anyway.

Turning towards the guests, gaze downcast with shame, you force out an apology; keeping your voice soft and melodic and clear, as expected.

Then you retreat as calmly as possible, feeling everyone’s gaze--but especially his--on your back as you leave. You catch the eye of the nearest servant as you make your way back to the bedroom, laying out the quickest version of events and not relishing the look of anxiety that crosses their features at the thought of dealing with Scaramouche after such an apparent social travesty.

But you only have enough energy to consider your own anxieties, so you continue on without thinking more about them.

Walking only seems to make the feeling of constriction worse, and you bite down on your lip as your sensitive nipples begin rubbing against the fabric with every step. It feels good, it feels bad--whatever it is, it’s all too much, and you want nothing more to cut off the ropes and hide until the morning.

Not that you have the courage to risk such an endeavor.

You don’t feel any calmer by the time you reach your shared bedroom, but at least your humiliation is a private one, now. And you can rest, at least until he’s finished for the evening. For a moment, you simply stand still, bringing your arm across your chest and pressing to provide some pressure, some relief, to your sensitive breasts. 

There’s an undeniable twist in your stomach when your arms brush against your nipples, and you hate it, and you love it, and you feel just as sick and perverse as he is when you slide a hand inside your clothing and give one aching nipple a pinch. You rub your legs together and ah, there it is--the pleasurable tingling and beginnings of wetness, and well, why not give yourself some pleasure, you think; why not give yourself something good and pleasant before he comes in and ruins everything with whatever sick punishment he’s concocting? 

It’s not until you make to curl up on the large bed, eager to relive the tension building inside you, that you see the scroll wrapped up on the pillow. With a sense of justifiable dread building in your stomach, you sit, and unfurl it. 

The words are written in Scaramouche’s familiar handwriting:

“Take off your clothes. Lay down and spread your legs on the bed until I return. Don’t touch yourself. I will know if you haven’t followed my instructions.”

Bastard, you think. As if your humiliation today wasn’t strong enough. Your hands go to undue the fastenings keeping your clothes together, and the first hints of bare skin leave you with anticipatory goosebumps. How long would you be expected to be on the bed, presenting yourself for his apparent pleasure? 

Bastard, bastard, bastard.

But--well. At least he didn’t tell you to bend over the caning stool again.