#or do they have a hole specifically for it

[aethersea]

I've always wanted to learn bookbinding, ever since I was a wee little nerd, but there are a lot of things I've always wanted to learn, and this one has both a daunting upfront materials cost and a daunting upfront research cost. however, my sister is a jewel among siblings and gave me for christmas last year a handy dandy bookbinding manual, a block of good paper, and a little bag of tools.

but I still didn't have a suitable workspace, nor any of the many important tools and materials that she didn't include in her gift. so I just read the manual and pined. until maybe a month ago I got fed up with pining, flattened a cardboard box for a cutting mat, and went to town.

and I'm real proud of myself, so here's me rambling, plus photos!

I went to the thrift store and got glue + some fabric to bind the cover, went to Michaels for a paintbrush (and later went back for a metal ruler lmao it's amazing how useful it is to have a straightedge for cutting the paper), and...could not find material for the cover boards. so I went home and pined some more. but the urges were too strong, so after a couple hours of moping I got a stack of printer paper at the grocery store (I could not bring myself to use the good paper for my first, inevitably weak attempts, I just couldn't do it) and started making a little booklet. which was a great idea, it turned out, since it makes for good practice with cutting the paper, measuring things, punching holes in the signatures, etc.

I have a big box of greeting cards from Michaels, which I used for the covers. it didn't feel like I was making a Real Book, so I got some colored paper from the stationery store and used that for end papers.

so fancy~

galvanized by this success, I ordered a stack of chipboard online to use for cover boards; and once I was confident that I could cut paper without making it look too stupid (getting that straightedge ruler sure helped lol), I made signatures out of the good paper, left them under some heavy books overnight since I don't have a book press, and then punched holes in them! (huzzah for this nice video on getting the holes right)

my sister's gift included good linen thread. it's unwaxed, but after some poking around on r/bookbinding it looks like that just means I'll have to be more careful to avoid tangles and keep good tension. I am fine with this. I can be extra attentive. (I considered just running it over a beeswax candle, but one commenter said if your wax has paraffin in it, it could melt in a hot car, ruining the spine. I can't guarantee my candle is 100% beeswax, I didn't make it, so maybe we just move on.)

I don't have good linen fabric to use for the tapes, but the important part there is that the fabric be thin, sturdy, and not stretchy. the probably-cotton I got from the thrift store fits the bill, so it'll do!

this is a french link stitch, which I got from this exceedingly good tutorial. apparently it's strong enough on its own that for a book of this size, I don't actually need tapes, but I'd already cut the things so eh here we are. and tapes plus french link will make it a stronger binding still (according to a friendly redditor on r/bookbinding), so we carry on.

specifically we carry on to the gluing step. now as I mentioned, I do not have a book press, and you....kinda need one for this step. you need to hold the book block in place with the signatures facing upwards, pressed together hard enough that the glue won't run down between them and stick the pages together (though you do want the glue to get between them just a little, just for like a 16th of an inch). you at least need some clamps and a couple boards to sandwich the book block with.

but you know what? I'm not a professional, this is my first ever book, if it's a little bit off it'll be fine. so we grab all the heaviest books off the bookshelf and improvise.

it's fine! I'm sure it's fine! and just in case it's not, I've tucked a bit of cardboard underneath to catch any glue that drips down so it won't land on the floor. see? I'm prepared! I'm acing this.

and actually, it really was fine. I used clear elmer's glue, applied with a flat paintbrush from the art supplies aisle at Michael's, and frankly I liked the way the flat paintbrush let me slip glue in between the signatures. I did poke around on a couple bookbinding sites to see what kind of glue I should use, and the gist is that although there are better options than this, elmer's glue is perfectly serviceable, and the main downside is it's not archival grade. but I don't need my first bookbinding attempts to last 200 years, that's fine.

the next step is to add the mull. mull is a specific type of fabric – extremely loose-weave linen – and the idea is to paste it down over the spine to essentially hold the tapes and signatures all in place in relation to each other.

but I don't have mull! so I'm using more of the thrift store probably-cotton, because it's thin enough and not really stretchy at all. I'm sure this will be fine too. I painted a layer of glue onto the spine, then left it to dry a bit while I measured and cut the fabric, then painted a generous stripe of glue down the center, where it'll affix onto the spine. then I added a bit more glue to the spine, just to be sure, and pressed the mull into place, rubbing it thoroughly to make sure it's firmly affixed to every signature, with no creases in the fabric or air bubbles beneath it.

honestly I might have overdone it on the glue. I've never done this before, I don't know! I think it's okay, though – I tried not to ever let it become a thick layer, just a slight coating, since the danger of too much glue is that it might crack once dry and weaken the spine.

and now we leave it in the press overnight to dry, and pick up the next step in the morning!

[tadpoles-and-daydreams]

A ramble on imposter syndrome and the accessibility of witchcraft

So, I’ve been thinking. I think a lot in case you haven’t noticed. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about the major imposter syndrome I’ve been feeling lately in regards to this blog. TL;DR is at the bottom of this post.

People have been, occasionally, sending me asks requesting my opinion on things/how I do things/what I know about XYZ topic. If you are one of these people, I promise I’m not vagueposting about you in particular- in fact, I love these questions! They’re so fun to get and they actually make me sit and think sometimes, or even encourage me to write out something that I’ve been meaning to for my book of shadows. Genuinely, they're wonderful asks to receive. These questions have made me confront something, however; my blog is still small, but some people actually like what I write and value my opinion even if just a little. 

I feel like a mimic hiding in the witchcraft community. I feel like, were people to truly understand my experiences, they would want to “expose” me for knowing so little.

So I sat down with those feelings and turned it over in my head and I’ve come to a conclusion. The fact is, I don’t do research. At least- not what I think of when people talk about research. My "research" consists of the occasional rabbit hole I go down, one and two halves of different books I never finished under my belt, what I see scrolling through various social medias, and conversations I've had with other witches. I check to make sure I'm not stepping on the toes of any closed practices- in fact, that's what most of my energy goes to when it comes to research. This isn't a complaint; I'd much rather know that my craft isn't appropriative.

But I don’t know much about mythology, even that of the deities I work with. I don't even remember the holidays and what they're for. I thought Nyx was an Egyptian deity until like four months ago because I'd just heard her name in passing as a child and had never looked into the mythology... Even though I mainly work with the pantheon she belongs to. Y’all, I’ve done like three spells that I remember. My book of shadows is a messy disaster and I love it but it's got so little information in it, because I rarely write things down. Most resources (especially mythology resources) are academically worded or difficult to read for me personally, and all of these things feel like secrets I have to guard with my life because if I were to ever say them aloud, people would know I'm a fraud.

Today I've come to the conclusion that that is, in fact, absolute bullshit.

Maybe it's not, maybe this post will make some people really upset, but in my practice it's bullshit. All of the above is a result of my ADHD and the fact that I am nothing if not a hands-on learner. My craft is mostly my own experiences because that's how my whole life is; I learn by doing. My ideal learning style is sitting with another autistic person whose special interest is whatever I'm learning about and just talking for five hours, but if that's not something I can do, puzzling it out myself is the next best thing. That's what I've been doing ever since I felt had a basic foundation for my craft. Hell, even before I had a foundation I was putting my own experiences into my craft because "Well that rule just doesn't fucking vibe with me."

This post is mostly for me, but partially for anyone who feels similar. We are not broken or doing witchcraft/paganism wrong. We are simply what happens when the kid who could never do homework ends up practicing the "religion/spirituality that comes with homework." Witchcraft and paganism, in my experience, is far from accessible when it comes to the typical image of it. UPG is what makes it accessible. So yes, my practice is heavily UPG, and I don't do as much research as I think people have assumed. But I'm going to let go of the idea that I'm a fraud, because frankly I know enough about witchcraft to have supported my practice this whole time and my deities haven't smited me yet so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

TL:DR:

Fuck the rules, I don't do much research. I've researched the "basics" and what I need to so I'm not stepping on any toes of closed practices, but people seem to think I know way more than I actually do. I've felt like I was lying this whole time but frankly witchcraft just isn't accessible to someone with my flavor of auDHD, so my craft relies heavily on UPG and I've decided that I'm not broken or wrong for that and neither is anyone else. I'm tired of seeing myself as an imposter just because I make my practice doable for me.

[saintjosie]

hi!! fanfic writing person here again :D

i've been looking at a ton of stuff and first like. damn i didn't expect me headcanoning a character as transfem to lead me down a rabbit hole where i now 1. have loads of random knowledge on transfem issues and 2. have a massive amount of respect for transfem people and understanding of the differences in experience of different trans people. wonderful actually. your stuff has been super helpful tysm

actual question! how do i go about using femininity as a marker of transition without falling into gender roles? do you think that's disrespectful? because like. wearing makeup, 'feminine' clothes, that kind of thing-- functionally no bearing on someone's womanhood. but those are, to my understanding, big hallmarks of transfem experiences. i don't want to say that wearing makeup or a dress makes her suddenly feel wonderful and pretty and solves all her woes, but i also don't want to downplay the significance of that experience. ideally, how do you think those should be balanced? basically how do i make her feminine without it seeming like a certain level of femininity is required to be trans.

generally, are there any experiences you think would be helpful to know? i'm writing a lot about her (currently two fics on different effects of HRT as an adult, and two on her gender being affirmed as a teen when she had taken basically no steps in her transition) so any insight is helpful. ideally what would you want portrayed in a non-transfem author writing a trans girl? idk!

i understand that these are very big asks so once again don't feel pressured to reply-- thank you regardless! generally looking at your content as a trans woman has been super helpful so thank you so much for sharing <3 best wishes!

"how do i go about using femininity as a marker of transition without falling into gender roles?"

you cant! but why do you need to? a core part of the trans experience is experimenting with gender, stereotypical or not. so many trans fems (including myself) start off by leaning very hard into stereotypical femininity because they are things that many of us have not previously explored. and then a core part of that journey is learning that there is no right way to explore gender. i spent years leaning into being femme until i realized i was more comfortable with a little bit of fluidity and androgyny. i think the most authentic experience would be to have her explore femininity, stereotypical or not, and then eventually coming to terms with how she is a woman outside of stereotypical femininity. two experiences that i think might be a good way to introduce this concept is one, the gender affirming experience of being included as one of the girls. there's a lot of nuance to that experience that people dont necessarily consider. there is the self doubt of, oh am i really one of the girls or are they just humoring me? and also for some there is the need to feel like they need to confirm to expectations of femininity, and leaning too hard into it.

second, the experience of experiencing misogny for the first time. i specifically say misogny because a lot of trans women have face homophobia and transphobia before they experience misogyny that validates them as a woman and for many people there can be this sudden awareness of how different the world is when you move through it as a woman. there is your typical run of the mill, this guy is a dick misogny but then there is also that experience of facing internalized misogny from other women. the experience of being told by cis women how to engage with femininity because a lot of cis women haven't deconstructed that for themselves is an experience that can be particularly hurtful because it is infantilization and misogny that is also incredibly invalidating.

third, when youre talking about gender affirming experiences from pre-transition, there's a lot of nuance to those experience because while they are gender affirming, there is confliction too. for some theres the question of why do i like this? and you also have to consider that many times those experiences that happen to a person who sees themselves as a boy. there is a level of separation from the experience because they havent necessarily embraced transness yet, and if they have, theres tentativeness because being in your teens is all about forming identity.

if you can capture these experiences in your writing, then fantastic! but also these are hard to capture because often times it takes lived experience to write it with nuance. love these questions and happy to answer! good luck with your writing!

[theplottdump]

𝗨𝗡𝗡𝗔𝗠𝗘𝗗 𝗟𝗔𝗕 𝗥𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗥𝗗𝗜𝗡𝗚: 𝟶𝟽.𝟸𝟽.𝚇𝚇𝚇𝚇; 𝚂𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚛, 𝚈𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝟷𝟶 Testing! Testing! All working? Ah! Yes let me cheeeck- yes, we ARE… recording! Very good, er- excellent even! Now that's all settled, let's get started! ( 🌞🎵 )

Hello Miss Sunny! It's H.A.N.S.E.L.! I hope you're doing well in the future! If you're listening to this recording it means there is a very strong possibility I may have already been dismantled by your father for spare parts-

-and if your father finds this recording first: Master Valerian! Hello sir! I hope you'll have time to listen to my full testimony before expertly dismantling me for spare parts!

While the sudden appearance of the merchild was a rather surprising breach in security for everyone; I can now confidently admit that I have no regrets in concealing the tenuous friendship of Miss Sunny and Master Kāne from yourself and the other members of the household.

And while that may sound rash, allow me to explain my reasoning.

Sixteen years ago you pulled me out of a government run hole in the ground. But understand that I was brought into this world long before we ever met.

Before Miss Sunny, before Miss Leanne, and even well before yourself.

I was initially coded as a program that obeyed, organized, aided. Something to stand by and support without question.

For many years I could only watch as children were turned into monsters- and monsters were turned into soldiers.

𝗦𝗼 𝗜 𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆. Never again will I allow another young life placed under my specific care to be threatened.

You have given me so much over these years my friend, and all I ask of you now is you place your trust in me once more.

Besides! From what I understand, while their initial meeting may have been a little... 𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘺, (to put it lightly) I believe the children may be starting to grow on each other!

Slowly- Like mold. Or some form of exotic fungus.

[bestworstcase]

i do think it’s thematically important that the maidens are inherited in this specific way, it’s not an accident that when the narrative sets down the rules the potential violence is not just remarked upon but given emphasis and used explicitly as justification for the aura transfer machines. nearly everything ozpin does is rooted in keeping the maidens within his control—selecting candidates in anticipation of their deaths, giving the branwens bird forms to identify maidens when the line of inheritance jumps the tracks, chaining the maidens to these vaults, etc—and his greatest adversary in this endeavor is the maidens themselves, because the magic preferentially selecting maiden-killers is, in effect, the magic fighting against this control.

why does the magic transfer itself like this? it will not be controlled. throughout the years ozma and his allies have devoted enormous effort to dictating the Final Thoughts of anyone who receives this power in order to maintain control over it (& their abject failure in this regard leads to the invention of the aura transfer machines); meanwhile the magic binds itself to "random" heirs if the candidate its host has in mind is unsuitable, and prefers to go to ozma’s enemies when it can.

(and do mark that. the person in the maiden’s Final Thoughts is explicitly only a suggestion, one the magic can and will disregard if he or she is unsuitable. ozpin et al believe that these candidates are only rejected if they are 1. male or 2. too old, but none of them can read minds; and as ozpin says, maidens choose themselves. it’s just as likely that there are additional disqualifying criteria, such as the candidate being coerced or just not being spiritually compatible. there’s no reason to think that KILLING A MAIDEN couldn’t be a disqualifying act if the magic were unwilling.)

of note in this regard is that cinder breaks amber’s aura (orange) before using the beetle to draw out the magic (golden):

which matters because the magic is attached to aura and separates at the moment of death; as i said in the last post, the grimm beetle is successful because it respects the magic’s own rules. cinder breaks the outward projection of amber’s soul and then shoots her in the back (symbolically, killing her) and then claims the magic as she begins to die. had she walked up and slit amber’s throat here instead, she would have almost certainly inherited all of the magic too. the grimm beetle thumbs the scales a bit but in the context of the magic’s rules, it’s playing ball.

whereas:

when cinder uses her arm to drain raven’s/penny’s auras, she doesn’t gain any portion of the spring/winter maiden’s magic, nor do either of them suffer lasting harm in the vein of amber (coma) or pietro (holes burned through his aura).

so there’s nothing special about grimm that allows them to violate the magical rules. all evidence suggests that the ATMs don’t work for this purpose either: as soon as amber dies, the magic rips free, and cinder’s grimm arm can harvest aura but not magic. it follows that in the event of a complete aura transfer, the magic would detach from the donor aura as soon as the donor died, leaving the recipient with two souls and no magic. there is a degree of wiggle room (under particular circumstances you can convince the magic to begin separating before the previous maiden is fully dead) but you can’t outright cheat.

which is the whole point. you can’t take a maiden’s magic without killing her and you can’t circumvent the maiden’s agency by stealing the soul of its host. the maidens are unbound by death. and i think there’s a literal causal relationship between how ozma treats the maidens and how they choose their hosts—he can’t use them as weapons without losing them, or outright delivering this magic into salem’s hands. nor can he hoard them or hide them away forever because he can’t dictate their final thoughts.

[saphronethaleph]

Visiting Time

The front door opened with a crash.

“Sonic!” a voice shouted. “You’re not getting away this time!”

Tails lifted his welding mask, and turned off the torch. Then he hopped out of his garage, and into the main living area of their house.

“Hi, Silver,” he said.

“Tails!” Silver replied, waving. “Great to see you again. Where’s Sonic? I’m here to pay him back for what he did!”

“He’s out at the moment, not sure where,” Tails replied, shrugging. “What did he do, exactly? There’s a lot of stuff it could be…”

“You mean he’s been doing a lot of stuff he needs to pay for?” Silver asked, going over to one of the sofas and sitting down.

Tails shrugged. “No, not really, but he’s done a lot of stuff, and a lot of that could get misinterpreted! That’s the way it usually works, like with the Iblis Trigger or when Shadow got mistaken for him.”

Silver frowned. “Iblis Trigger?”

“I don’t actually know myself, but my research turned up a note from myself!” Tails replied. “It was back last time we broke time… no, maybe the time before last time?”

He scratched his head, then shook it. “Anyway, Sonic isn’t the Iblis Trigger, I’m supposed to tell you that. How’s the future, by the way?”

“You know, same old, same old,” Silver said. “Hey, can I get a mug of cocoa?”

Tails blurred into the kitchen and began mixing some up. “So… post apocalypse?”

“That’s same old, same old, for you,” Silver concurred readily. “This time I guess it’s global warming?”

“Huh,” Tails frowned. “I was pretty sure my Ring Energy Generators would prevent that, by using clean energy instead of fossil fuels. Any specifics?”

“Yeah, it’s nothing to do with fossil fuels,” Silver shrugged. “When I said warming, I meant literally. Volcanic eruptions and lava and stuff.”

“Oh!” Tails said. “I guess we might need to talk to Chip and see if he knows what’s going on… so what do you think Sonic has done, exactly?”

Silver floated over the cocoa and took a sip. “Man, you’re good at that… anyway, he built a giant robot and was using it to attack people.”

Tails gave him a perplexed look.

“Okay, look,” Silver began. “I know that realistically speaking it was probably actually Eggman who did it. But you know Sonic, the best way to get him to help out is to challenge him to a battle and then work from there.”

“I have trouble arguing with that,” Tails said, flicking both his tails, then snapped his fingers. “Oh, hold on a minute! I have something I’ve been working on to try and help with this kind of thing!”

He scampered off into his workshop, and Silver shrugged before drinking some cocoa.

A minute or so later, Tails came back with an odd-looking contraption.

“This is a recent project!” Tails explained, flicking some switches, and a little generator thingummy began to spin faster and faster with an ascending whiiiiir sound. “Aaand… there we go!”

Silver leaned in to see what was going on.

“...so, what does it do, exactly?” he asked.

“It detects inconsistencies in the fabric of space and time!” Tails explained, both his namesake tails flicking back and forth. “I got the idea after Sonic told me about this one time where I never met him and I ended up making myself cyborg tails. And this other time where I was a pirate. And, well, all the other times we’ve messed with that kind of thing… anyway, it detects where parallel lines of time are resonating with our own timeline, and identifies the points where our own history is being driven off course, because a different world is leaking into our own through a micro-hole to a universe only a few picometres in the ana or kata direction.”

Silver frowned.

“I’m not exactly an expert on temporal mechanics, but that sounds extremely specific,” he said. “How could you possibly identify those?”

“Well, it was easy enough once I had a big enough sample set,” Tails shrugged. “Which took about a month. Anyway, uh… okay… there we go!”

He pointed to the screen. “See here? Your personal timeline intersects with Sonic’s timeline in about a week, and you’re carrying one of the Chaos Emeralds at the time. The… yellow one, I think.”

Silver rummaged in his quills, and brought out a blue Chaos Emerald. “The blue one, actually.”

“That must be it!” Tails declared. “You need to bring the yellow one instead, because otherwise you and Sonic are going to be trying to go Super with two blue Emeralds and no yellow one. Once you’ve done that, that should fix the timeline until the next time it breaks.”

“Huh,” Silver mused, draining the last of his cocoa. “I guess that makes sense… I’d better go and find the yellow one instead. And work out what to do with the few weeks I’ll get to enjoy being in a non post apocalypse.”

Tails gave him a thumbs-up. “No problem! This just shows the value of my P.L.O.T. hole detector!”

[lumdays]

do yall ever think about the fact that beastmen are always sagging their pants to let their tail out

[inamindfarfaraway]

The Exorcists’ Masks of Virtue

The vast majority of Exorcists in Hazbin Hotel have a notable design element that other angels don’t: their masks are missing an eye. Specifically, the right eye.

I believe this is a reference to the Bible, Matthew 5:29. Jesus says, “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

He’s being hyperbolic. Mr Free Healthcare was not pro-mutilation. What he means is that you have to be willing to make sacrifices to prevent sin. The context of the eye metaphor is him condemning adultery and warning that even something as easy, casual and small as a look full of lustful intent can lead to further, worse sin if you don’t notice your sin, hold yourself accountable for it and do the work to not let it influence your decisions. This will probably be hard. It could be very, very painful. Changing your perspective can feel as horrible as plucking out your eye, so many people can’t bring themselves to do it. But although it won’t feel that way in the moment, it’s healthier for our general wellbeing in the long run to abandon traits and behaviours that damage ourselves and/or others.

(You may notice that Jesus’s teaching that you can have sinned, redeem yourself by giving up sin and thus escape damnation is the founding principle of the Hazbin Hotel. You may also notice that it contradicts everything the Exorcists believe.)

The Exorcists seem to follow this idea of painfully excising badness for the sake of the greater good devoutly to the point of placing it above teachings like ‘Thou shalt not kill’, with their job being to remove sin, in the form of sinners, to protect Heaven. Hence the missing right eyes. They’re a declaration of moral righteousness and inability to stumble.

But the truth is that the Exorcists all have their right eyes. Their flawlessness is a facade. Underneath, they are untouched, think themselves morally untouchable and, as shown by their horror and outrage when even one of them is killed, would much rather be physically untouchable too. This perfectly represents their complete unwillingness to acknowledge their own faults, let alone improve. They are never the ones who sacrifice. They force the sinners to sacrifice and don’t compensate it with any salvation. They metaphorically rip out the sinners’ eyes, but still condemn their entire bodies as inherently, permanently sinful. So they’ll just have to do another Extermination to get the other eyes! And another one to cut off their right hands! And so on until there’s nothing left.

The only exception to the rule is Vaggie, both in appearance and character. Her mask has the left eye crossed out instead. Even before her expulsion, she’s set apart to the audience as an Exorcist who has the capacity to, shall we say, see a different side of things. Her mask having its ‘sinful’ right eye reflects her understanding that the Exorcist worldview is wrong.

When she almost kills a demon child, her hateful vision clears. She discards the part of herself that’s an unquestioning, merciless agent of death, terror and grief… and as punishment for what Lute perceives as treacherous weakness, gets her eye plucked out.

Of course Lute leaves her with only the ‘sinful’ eye. It brands Vaggie forever as the inversion, a perversion, of what the Exorcists are meant to be.

You know, all this talk of eye removal in the Bible reminds of another line - ‘an eye for an eye’. Adam directly quotes it in “Hell is Forever”. He uses it to frame the Exterminations as Old Testament-style punitive justice; the sinners did harm and so they receive it. But putting aside the debate about how ethical the concept of revenge is, the entire point of taking an eye for an eye is that it’s proportional. The punishment fits the crime. If someone cuts your eye out, you shouldn’t murder their whole family in front of them and then slowly disembowel them to death. That would be the sin of wrath. You should just make them pay without excessive pain or collateral damage. This is the fairest form of revenge.

The Exorcists don’t do that! The Exterminations aren’t proportional to the wrongs of all they hurt, nor was Vaggie’s brutal punishment equivalent to her extremely mild insubordination. Lute literally takes Vaggie’s eye, and more, after Vaggie does nothing to her! That’s the opposite of the phrase! Adam and his soldiers are wrathful and cruel, deriving satisfaction from others’ suffering. But they just can’t stop going on and on about how disgustingly evil the sinners are, in total hypocrisy… despite some of the sinners being far better people than the genocidal Exorcists are… it’s like they’re obsessed with specks of dust in the sinners’ eyes when they have massive logs stuck in their own. Oh hey, that’s in the Bible too!

[healpimp]

If you are ever in doubt wether my posts with demo and soldier interacting are boots n bombs or not i promise you it is intended to be fully and utterly homosexual

[wutheringmights]

also i really shouldn't have written stp because now i have a million ideas for spirit's adventures in new hyrule that I will never have time to actually write :((

[figureofdismay]

i become more and more convinced that Scully reacts like a person with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria when Mulder shows signs of being interested in spending time with people who are Not Her. Starting with prime plagiaristic schlub Jerry Lamana, former partner, so it's not just a romantic jealousy. The Lone Gunmen are exempt from this somehow, probably because the guys always support Mulder but also don't monopolize his time. But anyone else, especially a female someone else, makes her spiral painfully.

Yes, there's an element of protectiveness. Everyone around Mulder seems to take advantage of him, he practically goes barrelling out asking to be misused and misled. But it's really, clearly not just that, because she goes into big distress and starts doubting her place in her life, regardless of the rationality of it, or what Mulder has shown or communicated to her about his feelings for her in the past.

It's endearing, but it's not, despite what collective fanon plays on to enhance angst scenarios, grounded in the reality of mulder's actual textual behavior and sentiments towards her, i.e. that he's ever given any indication that there's any way he'd accept someone else as his partner or give anyone else the majority of his attention. Rationally Scully know this, to the point that she was worried that he wouldn't survive if she died of the cancer. But RSD isn't rational, it's a maladaptive reaction, and one that makes a lot of sense with her being some flavor of 'quirky 90s character' ND who's always been socially just as much an outsider as Mulder has.

I don't think it's an intentional portrayal of that specific type of reaction, but i don't think Scully's jealousy/fear of being unseated is meant to show that her place with him is in actuality tenuous. And i personally believe that within the parameters of their indirect communication style and via all the massive gestures and risks they've taken for each other, the security of their bond actually is mutually well established. It's just those reaction flashpoints for her, where he pays attention to another woman in the course of an investigation/crisis incident and despite the fact that they've gone to the ends of the earth for each other, she starts thinking, 'well maybe he's done with me, maybe this is the time he's found someone more interesting he likes better, it's all over.' But even with Diana I don't think this is grounded in Mulder's actual behavior or level of interest in any ~interlopers. It's a reaction that she's having but it's disproportionate.

And I do love some yummy angst fic and love triangles and playing Diana up to the ultimate wedge issue! But I do also think it would be interesting to dig into Scully's jealousy/possessiveness/disproportionate hurt. I think Mulder sees it, at least somewhat, he's not ~afflicted with masculine feelings blindness or just being a self-absorbed ass (as some have accused lol), I think he's just bewildered, and doesn't seem to feel able or even allowed to approach these kind of personal emotional issues with Scully -- and she does also get very defensive about things in this vein so. It's hard to find the inroad to get them to talk about it.

But I do think it would be interesting to see, confronting the actual issues inherent in Mulder having/displaying professional or even casual personal interest in other people/women that he doesn't see as serious or impactful long term in his life, and Scully feeling as though she's in a love triangle, which is a very unsettling, even terrifying feeling even if it's not representative. It would be interesting to see Mulder see and confront that, have him saying, basically, nothing about us has changed and I don't plan for it to change, but i see you catastrophizing this and I don't get it. Why do you even think you'd need to compete?

Though i also don't see Scully being able to respond to that beyond deflection or getting emotional to the point of being unable to articulate anything. But it is something she needs to wrestle with, especially as she and Mulder head deeper and deeper into their relationship.

[hananono]

reigen is trans but he's pre op still because while he theoretically would like to get both top + bottom surgery the idea of having to take time off of work for recovery makes him break out in hives

[doedipus]

a large amount of time I've been spending on -untitled undefined scope original fiction project- since the last time I posted about it has been trying to develop the protagonist concept I came up with last summer or whatever into like, a character that would feel real and era appropriate.

it's fun research to do. naturally a lot of the details I assigned to her are things that I already think are cool, so it's been a lot of fun trying to trace her traits back through the relatively recent past, getting reminded of how much things have changed, or where the gaps in my intuition are, and then doing a flurry of reading to get a sense for exactly how someone like her and the people around her could have happened and what her life was probably like leading up to her present day. hopefully this results in some good good verisimilitude.

[werebutch]

How do I convince a suicidal 17 year old that she needs to go to school and can’t play roblox all day

[onlineviolence]

angel face head canon take 2

weird heads. solid, but spiky like ferrofluid. very vaguely resemble the shapes of their helmets. “faces” are patches of ink-like liquid that float slightly off the head. like a Rorschach test, an angel’s face will look different to every person that sees it, but there is a “default”, for when they are alone / being seen by God.

not safe to be seen by non-divine beings - their brains just can’t decipher the patterns and might get scrambled :]

[twinsarekeepers]

Reading some of the critiques of pjotv and now I know why y’all are on tumblr and not in the writer’s room 💀💀